um um megumi and meet ugly/enemies tew lovers beloved cal?
AAALLLIIIII yessss ofc!!!! megumi is built for a meet ugly bc i think he's really like... weird and odd and awkward. idk like he's super pretty but i think he falls into the weirdo genre the same way todoroki does.
thank you for playing beloved <33333
cw: coworker!megumi, sfw, meet ugly, "enemies" to lovers, this is like... largely comedic, i don't write megumi often so i hope i did him some justice, also there are no real triggers for this enjoy <;3
megumi is pretty... but not pretty enough to get away with whatever the fuck it is he has going on.
the first time you met him failed to live up to any expectations his looks might give you. megumi, on the outside, looks like a prince. his long eyelashes, his delicate but defined hands, the way he carries himself, the plush quality of his lips, all make him a notoriously handsome presence in the office. the women often find time to notice him and his habits, even going so far as to presume his personality.
you'll admit... you fell victim to this too. you, like all the other people who had never met him before, assumed that he was as nice as he was pretty, with an agreeable personality to match the agreeableness of his cool features. you were wrong. megumi, as a rule, is generally cold and off-putting.
you'll start at the beginning.
your first less-than-pleasant interaction with him took place working overtime. you'd been in the office since its doors opened at 8 in the morning and your work had bled well into 10 at night. the office was near silent, save the clicking of your fingers across the keyboard as you copied numbers from a document into a spreadsheet. basic stuff, but tedious and time-consuming.
"_____," megumi called your name. "this needs to be done too."
he tossed a folder of papers on your desk and you briefly gawked at it.
"by wh-" but megumi had already begun to step away, heading down the hallway and into the elevator.
you spent the rest of the evening finishing the paperwork and megumi had the nerve to look surprised when you told him the next morning that you'd completed the work that he set on your desk.
then, a week later, he'd passed on a stack of papers to you without saying anything but a brief here as he handed them to you. by the time you'd finished them, you'd fallen behind with your work for the day and had to work overtime once again.
this continued for approximately a month, that is, until you complained to your coworker maki, a tall woman with a brash personality, about your workload.
"what?" she said, furrowing her brows. "we have interns for that kinda thing, you know? they literally get paid to do it."
she laughed and you shook your head. "megumi's been giving me the paperwork for weeks now though."
"yeah, to read over and double-check. putting it in the system is the interns' job," she laughed. "he didn't tell you?"
now, after checking that maki was right, you're certain that megumi has it out for you and he is not nearly pretty enough for you to let him get away with it. this has been your life for the past month, stuck doing overtime on things he never bothered to clarify. he'd basically humiliated you for sport (false) and made a laughing stock of your budding career (also false).
still, you're holding your tongue. the next time he drops the papers on your desk, you check them over and then hand them off to the interns who take them as if they know exactly what to do. you're astonished, turning to megumi to see if he's noticed that you've caught onto his little ruse. if he did, you can't tell. his face remains irritatingly neutral.
it seems that, despite having never had a real conversation with him outside of awkward small talk in the break room or work related things, you have a nemesis in the office. you compete ruthlessly. he's your senior on the team and you are constantly trying to out perform him. megumi, irritatingly enough, takes it all in stride. you wish he would quit.
maki becomes your sole confidant, but she usually just stands by the water cooler and nods with along with you. she never has much to add, simply shrugging her shoulders whenever you ask her a question. you find this irritating because it seems that she knows your shared teammate, megumi, pretty well. after all, she's worked with him longer, though she's expressed no desire to conversate with him the way she does you.
whenever you pass by megumi in the halls, you give him a dirty look, furrowing your eyebrows and casting your lips down slightly. you let your irritation show plain on your face. soon enough, megumi is confronting you.
"hey," he calls, running to catch up with you as you leave the building.
you turn, startling and holding your purse close to your side. your lips pull down and you feel heat crowd your face as nerves for the impending confrontation grow.
"yes?" you ask, mustering up every ounce of your courage to sound strong.
megumi casts his eyes to the floor, long eyelashes hitting lightly under his eyebrow as he looks to his shoes and then up at you. his expression seems lightly irritated, like he's struggling to find the proper working for something, and the tips of his ears are pink with frustration.
"so," he starts, swallowing thick.
"what is it?" you play dumb. moves and counter-moves.
"do you want to go out for drinks?" he asks, tapping his foot against the floor. his face reads as irritated, but what he's just said shocks you so deeply that you feel like you can hear a record scratch.
"what?'
"i was just wondering if maybe you want to go get drinks... as a date?" he clarifies.
"like a... date date?" you ask, leaning forward a little. "as in a.. you like me... date?"
megumi gives a nervous laugh, his eyes crinkling a little. you realize that it is the first time you've seen him smile.
"yes," then, it falls and he clears his throat. "if you're not interested though, don't worry."
"i thought you hated me," you furrow your eyebrows.
megumi's gaze snaps up to yours. "what? no, i- it's the opposite."
"but the... the paperwork..." you say, losing steam as the mortification of your one-sided rivalry sets in.
"you mean the ones for the interns?"
"you never told me that it was for the interns!" you exclaim. "i was doing it myself for a month! i thought you did it on purpose."
he blinks at you. "that's insane," he says. "why would i do that? i always just thought you were a really meticulous worker."
"because you hate me," you say, covering your face with your hand. "and i'm definitely not meticulous. i like going home too."
megumi has remained sufficiently awkward through the conversation, his shoulders almost wound up to his ears with tension.
"i'm sorry," he says genuinely. "did i... misread this?" he asks. "i thought you liked me and i thought i uh... i thought i made it clear enough that i liked you."
"you never even spoke to me," you say, laughing a little. megumi's shoulders wind tighter.
"yes, i did," he points out. "i always say good morning."
"uh huh," you drone, rubbing your fingers against your temple.
you had been getting worked up on your own this entire time. all of the glances and the greetings and the trips past your desk had not been to taunt you, but rather because megumi wants to take you out. looking back on it, it was psychotic to have thought anything else.
"i take it you're not... uh... interested?" he asks softly.
"no," you say. "i am."
it sounds like you're conceding and megumi furrows his eyebrows.
"uh," he swallows and tilts his head, tufts of dark hair falling to one side of his face, "are you sure?"
"yeah, i'm definitely interested."
megumi stands for a second, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"should we go then?" he points behind him in the direction of a row of izakayas.
you nod, swallowing down embarrassment and thinking about how on earth you're going to explain this to maki in the morning.
ৎ୭ synopsis. a girls day out with nobara has you blowing up megumi’s phone with pictures of you in the cutest, tightest, shortest dress he’s ever seen—and after a few more sinful messages, your dress makes its debut in your boyfriend’s private show.
ৎ୭ wc. 6304.
ৎ୭ genre. mdni, 18+, smut, college!au.
ৎ୭ cw. please read ! heavy smut, characters aged up to twenties, fem + bimbo!reader, praise!kink, slight!iexhibitionism, sexting, orgasm control, body-worship, fingering, bondage, cum-play, cum-eating, mirror sex, clothed sex, unprotected sex. not proof read, beware of errors.
ৎ୭ author’s note. ree it’s friday again! today i bring you a fic featuring my sweetest boy, i hope you all enjoy! apologies for my absence this week, i hope you’re all safe and well <3
ৎ୭ now playing. cyber sex - doja cat.
the night started, with a text.
megumi’s barely paying attention when a text under your contact of ‘sweet girl’ rolls through. it’s all in lowercase and there’s one of those heart shaped emoticons stuck right next to your name— one that he knows you’d put down yourself because he’d never do that on his own and he’d never have the heart to change it, even though your contact sticks out like a sore thumb in his recent calls and texts, against the sea of capital letters and full names.
megumi barely looks as he opens your chat, phone in one hand while he quickly jots down notes with the pen you’d gifted him in his other hand. it’s kinda funny how much of you resides with him even while you’re apart— nobara having stolen you away today for a girls trip to the mall, giving the dark haired male time to study something else aside from your eyes, your lips, the curve of your waist…
he had time to focus.
except for now when his gaze slips to your text, lighting up his screen, reading the words without a second thought, a smile playing at his shiny lips just thinking about you.
sweet girl ♡ at 5:59PM - i thought of you when i bought this, do you like it gumi? the colour reminded me of you!
hellooo this is me reminding u to write about sleepy bkg leaving ur apartment at night and begging for more kisses 🫡🫡
GO HOME! (2.5k)
— bakugou katsuki x reader
your boyfriend doesn’t want to go home.
cw: suggestive, swearing, pretty tame
“i can hear you not putting your shoes on!” you shout from your kitchen, refilling up your water bottle by your sink.
it’s nearing eleven pm on a weekday and you’re nearing the end of your bedtime routine. after finishing your final session of tussling in bed with your boyfriend, you sleepily got to showering and doing your skincare while bakugou was tasked to go back home.
you’re screwing your lid back onto your bottle, bag of popcorn under one arm as you step into your foyer. you find your boyfriend slumped in your chair for putting shoes on, doing exactly not that.
bakugou katsuki is in his thick grey socks, a random pair of black joggers he left at your flat and his oversized khaki hoodie. he looks handsome, always does, but this time he’s appearing a little disheveled. a flower wilting as the clouds begin hiding the sun.
you’re his precious sun with the energy to keep him happy and at peace, till he’s forcefully pulled from your grip.
his hoodie is unzipped, the right side awkwardly longer than the left from being dragged on in a tantrum. his white tee underneath is creased from yanking it over his head with a guttural sigh. he’s even got a water stain on it from hovering over you when you washed your face in the bathroom.
he’s got his head in his hands, legs spread with his travel duffle by his feet. he hasn’t even managed to grab his shoes off your neatly organised rack by your door.
you potter over to him, shaking your head softly with a sweet coo.
bakugou does not want to go home.
“baby. go,” you hum, dragging your slippered feet across your floor.
you tuck your body between his open legs, putting down your bottle and snacks to lightly tickle under his chin. you receive the harshest glare you’ve ever experienced from him, though it’s still miles below the ones he gives at work.
calloused hands find the bare backs of your soft thighs and lightly, he squeezes.
“you fuckin’ hate me,” he huffs, but his pout comes through. all his features softening under your attention, minus the twist in his brows. “gettin’ rid of me like this.”
you don’t miss the hickies on his neck, two maroon bruises because all you’ve done together these past few days is kiss, cuddle, eat and have sex. since bakugou became your boyfriend, he often forgets about his own apartment. his home is much larger, much more luxurious with built in speakers in the ceilings and a double headed shower. but he always lingers in yours, though he never outstays his welcome. even now.
“i don’t want you to leave but you need to pack for your mission tomorrow,” you smile, taller than him as he sits.
he feels delirious when he stuffs his face in your cotton soft stomach. you smell freshly showered, clean, cosy and like home. bakugou feels like his heart has been stabbed with a fork. he already misses you and you’re right in front of him.
it’s like he’s fighting the devil on his shoulder, to just stay over again tonight and get up early tomorrow. he can grab his shit from home and go straight there. he knows that plan will throw his whole day off tomorrow. also you hate waking up early.
he blinks at you slowly, like a cat that loves what he sees.
for you, it’s easy to get hot from his touch alone and that stare makes you nudge in closer to him. you want to sit on his lap, kiss down his neck again, despite being all over him an hour ago.
“you want me to piss off so you can watch love island,” he breathes, looking up at you with the sweetest ruby puppy dog eyes. there’s a scratchy tone to his voice, sleepiness clearly taking over though he fights it to spend a second longer with you.
you know for a fact you’re the only person in this universe that has seen katsuki like this. that thought alone makes you want to call up his job and say he can’t come in tomorrow. say he’s sick so you can cuddle his big head in your lap. who would you even call? the hero commission? his sidekicks? he is his own boss.
“i do have a load of episodes to catch up on since you’ve been here,” you say sweetly and he eyes your snacks, then your water bottle placed on the shelf beside him.
he’s a grumpy baby in a twenty seven year old, muscled man’s body. he scrunches his nose at the mention of that show. he hates all reality tv, so he says, even though he ends up asking you for details throughout every episode.
“just say you hate me,” he grunts, tilting his head up for a kiss.
you don’t give in just yet.
“i love you but you’ve gotta go. you’ll be even grumpier without sleep in the morning,” you smile.
he rolls his eyes. ever the dramatic one. “yeah, yeah. i get it. love you too.”
you stand there for a few moments. his grip on your thighs getting tighter, his chin in your stomach. he rubs his cheek against your palm, his stubble prickling against you with every move.
“you need to put your shoes on—,”
“you look so pretty like this,” he murmurs, even biting down on his bottom lip.
you narrow your eyes at him. you know exactly what he’s doing and it usually has a hundred percent success ratio.
he pulls off you, keeping his hands on your thighs to look down your body. stupidly, it causes you to look down at yourself too.
your soft pastel pink boy shorts because you get hot at night. your comfy low cut navy strappy top, that has seen better days but you have no need to replace yet. your nipples poke through the fabric and you don’t miss bakugou’s gaze wafting over them with his tongue poking his cheek.
he looks as if he’s about to moan or take a bite out of you. you can’t tell yet. you don’t mind either.
“katsuki, stop it. you were supposed to leave an hour ago,” you look to your clock beside your front door. “an hour and a half ago.”
bakugou grits his teeth then relaxes by kissing the strip of your stomach between your vest and shorts. he releases the quietest whine.
“i wanna stay here with you.”
even though he’s being dramatic, you’ll see him in less than a week, every word releases tingles down your spine.
you press a kiss to his lips, to which he eagerly pushes back. his hands sneak up to your waist holding you with purpose. it’s only a peck but everything he’s feeling is translated through.
“you’re killin’ me,” he says onto your lips.
“it’s not me, baby. you have the world to save tomorrow. you can make love to your girlfriend when you get back,” you say tenderly, brushing your thumb over his cheek.
“i’m givin’ you a good fuckin’ when i see you again.”
“you always do,” you shrug playfully and bakugou chuckles, shaking his head in resignation.
“fuck. fuck my life,” he grunts to himself, pulling his slides off your shoe rack and shoving them onto his feet.
“it feels like you’re obsessed with me, kats,” you giggle to yourself, stepping back so he has space to stand up and sling his duffle over his shoulder.
he raises one eyebrow, a huffy laugh releasing from his throat.
“hm? you think?” he takes his hand through his hair, a light pink blush on his cheeks from your attention. “‘course i fuckin’ am. i’m comin’ right back to get you when i’m done.”
you lift up on your tiptoes, hands on his pectorals, “if you say so.”
“i do say so. i am sayin’ that,” he mumbles, hands finding your ass to lift you with ease.
you wrap your legs around his waist so he doesn’t have to bend to kiss you.
“next thursday, okay?” he kisses the corner of your lips, feeling your cheeks rise. “and still text me. i’ll have my phone on me in the evenings.”
you smooth down his eyebrows with your thumbs.
“yes, dynamight sir,” you drawl, but you lean in to peck him, a noisy kiss that has him chasing after you. he moans softly.
“another.” he whispers.
with your arms wrapped around his neck, you give his bottom lip a nibble, one that causes an exasperated groan. then you slot your lips over his, pushing your tongue into his mouth to tangle against his. it’s long, wet and pulses throughout your body.
you push your chest against his as if you’re trying to merge into one, bakugou’s fingertips sinking into your ass cheeks.
it’s you that pulls away, landing two kisses on his lips for good measure.
“baby, no.” he complains.
since you’re the only one with self control here, you tap his shoulder.
“put me down now. you’ve got to go.” you say controlled and bakugou throws his head back in annoyance, “need you wide awake on the field so you don’t get hurt. i don’t wanna see a scratch on your pretty face when you come back.”
that gets him putting you down, your feet finding the floor. since getting with you, he’s much more mindful of his recklessness and getting hurt. bakugou doesn’t want to scare or upset you. you’ve become his beacon of light, his conscience and answer.
“my pretty face?” he grips the handle to his bag, a smirk rising. he’s still taking in his last few seconds.
you nod, “yes. come home safe to me.”
“i always do. don’t have to doubt me, princess.”
the pet name gets you rolling your eyes to hide how it makes your stomach do flips. he undoes both your door locks and slowly opens it with his shoulder like it weighs a tonne.
as if it’s becoming real all of a sudden, you throw yourself into his chest, wrapping your arms around him in a cuddle under his hoodie. you feel complete once you stuff your cheek between his pectorals and you squeeze him tight as thick arms cradle you in. katsuki’s always warm and toasty, a tall standing mattress for you to fall asleep on.
despite you urging him to leave, it doesn’t mean your heart doesn’t ache.
“i’ll miss you,” you say, eyes squeezed shut.
you’re just as dramatic as him, you just hide it better. you’ll see him next week.
“i’ll miss you. gonna think about you when i’m on the camp site shittin’ in the woods.”
your laugh makes bakugou’s chest swell.
“you’re so annoying.”
he shrugs.
with all the power he’s ever possessed in one single time, bakugou lets you untangle from him.
“i’m gonna go now.” he looks down your empty corridor, “i could stay over tonight and leave in the mornin’—.”
“you’re not waking me up at three.”
he turns to you with a frown.
“fine. another kiss, to wish me well,” he demands.
that you can do.
a smush of your lips, you gripping his tee as his hand cups your chin.
“another. for good luck.”
you huff playfully but still you give him another kiss. one that has you opening your mouth and letting him slot his tongue in between. it goes on longer than you mean, with you dragging him closer and his hands land back on your hips.
it’s when he groans without realising, a hardening bump in his waistband pressing against your stomach.
“go now!” you say, pushing him off you and bakugou drags a palm down his face.
“fuck,” he breathes, shaking the horny off his body. not the time. “i’ll see you next week. lock the door behind me. all of them.”
“i always do!”
he flickers down your body, one step into the corridor.
bakugou bites down on his bottom lip, “i love you. can’t wait to see you again.”
you awe, gripping the door and peeking out, “i love you too. i’ll keep you updated. even send you some selfies.”
bakugou nods rapidly, “please. i won’t be able to reply quickly but i will.”
“okay, i’ll see you later.”
he’s about to step away, he swears he is though he looks back at you peeping at him.
“one last kiss then i’m outta your sight,” he promises.
you eagerly pull out from behind the door, “last one! then you have to go!”
“yeah, yeah, yeah—,” he’s rough in the way you love, placing a palm flat on your back to pull you into him. you practically fall into his arms but quickly you’re up on your tiptoes.
it’s a kiss with the energy that it could be the last one you ever have. a hero going off on a mission and leaving his beautiful girl back home. though this isn’t one of his high risk ones, heck he’s going on his own because he’s so capable. yet still the day he returns feels like forever away.
you practically eat each other's faces, unable to stay appropriate down to your last moments together. you twist to the left as he goes right, holding the back of his head so he stays close. he’s not shy to push his cock into you, letting you know all the ways he will miss you.
it’s loud and messy. it’s trying to remember every inch of him so you can recall it in your nights alone. it’s bakugou groping every part of you he can get his hands on so he can mark you as his.
your blonde sucks on your tongue and you don’t mean to palm him but he ruts into you at the contact. you moan as pleasure sparks beneath your skin, the length of him growing cupped in your palm. you’re wondering if there’s time for another session even though he was meant to leave two hours ago.
the kiss only ends because you’re both breathless, using your last breaths to connect with the other. there’s giggles from you and three extra pecks before you force yourself to step away, using your front door as a shield from your riled up boyfriend.
you watch as he adjusts himself, rolls back his shoulders in a stretch and tries to screw his head on straight.
“goodbye now. for real, kats.”
he nods sharply, stretching his jaw side to side. “bye baby. i’m hard now.”
“that’s your own fault for begging for more kisses,” you grin.
he pouts, “how couldn’t i when you look like—,”
“bye katsuki. my tv is calling me!”
“fuck,” he groans, holding onto his bag strap and throwing his head back, “bye princess.”
comments n reblogs are appreciated. part 2 comments are deleted.
Dead wife montage but it's all slow motion shots of your dead wife throwing grenades and doing backflips and oneshotting the enemy with their long range weapons
making a marriage pact with your best friend that you’ll marry each other if you’re both still single by 30. finding out years later that he’s subverted every attempt another man has made to date you in the interim…
[ SYNOPSIS ] — After a brutal mission, Megumi Fushiguro says something that confirms your deepest fear that your voice is a burden. You shrink yourself into silence for weeks until a chance encounter with Yuuta Okkotsu finally lets you spill everything you've been holding in. When Megumi sees you having fun with Yuuta, his own insecurities convince him he was losing you. w.c: 6.7k
[ PAIRING ] — megumi fushiguro x talkative!reader
[ TAGS ] — THIS FIC IS A REQUEST!! fem!reader, hurt/comfort, established relationship, internalized self-doubt, self-esteem issues, jealousy issues, YUUTA MENTION!!!, platonic friendships, insecure megumi. art by: @/11101AM
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The silence in Megumi Fushiguro’s apartment had never felt like a weapon before. It had always been a soft, comfortable thing. The quiet of shared space, the peace of two people who didn’t need to fill every moment with noise. But tonight, the silence it felt different.
Megumi had come home late, later than usual, his shoulders hunched and his jaw tight. You’d watched him shrug off his jacket, his movements jerky and exhausted, and your heart had clenched with sympathy. You knew he’d had a brutal week. A mission had gone sideways, leaving him with a concussion and a civilian casualty that wasn’t his fault but weighed on him anyway. Then there had been the endless debriefings, the paperwork, the sidelong glances from the higher-ups who always seemed to be waiting for him to fail. You’d seen the dark circles under his eyes deepen with each passing day, watched him pick at his food without eating, and felt him toss and turn beside you in bed long after the lights went out.
So you’d done what you always did. You’d tried to help. You’d made his favorite tea, the ginger one that stung the nose and warmed the throat. You’d set out his comfortable clothes, the soft sweater with the frayed cuffs he loved. And when he’d sunk onto the couch with a bone-deep sigh, you’d settled beside him and started talking, hoping to pull him out of his head, to distract him from the darkness you could see swirling behind his eyes.
“I was thinking about time today,” you’d begun, your voice soft and meandering, the way it always was when you were trying to soothe him. “Not like, clock time, but geological time. Did you know that if you compressed the entire history of the Earth into a single year, humans wouldn’t show up until like, eleven-forty PM on December thirty-first? And the entire recorded history of human civilization would be the last few seconds before midnight? It’s wild, right? All of our wars and art and love and everything, just this tiny little blip. And it made me think about how when you’re in the middle of a bad week, it feels like it’s going to last forever, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not even a fraction of a fraction of a—”
“Can you just be quiet?”
The words weren’t loud. They weren’t even particularly harsh. But they stopped you cold, your mouth still half-open around the next syllable, your hands frozen mid-gesture. You stared at him, waiting for the punchline, the softening of his eyes, the small quirk of his lips that meant he was teasing.
It didn’t come.
He wasn’t looking at you. His head was tilted back against the couch, his eyes closed, and there was a furrow between his brows so deep it looked carved there. The words hung in the air between you, ugly and final, and for one bizarre, disorienting moment, a single thought cut through your shock: This isn’t Megumi.
The thought was so strong, so visceral, that your eyes darted around the room, half-expecting to see the shimmer of a veil, the telltale distortion of a curse’s technique. Because this couldn’t be real. Your Megumi—your sweet, quiet, secretly tender Megumi who let you put face masks on him and once sat through a three-hour documentary about nudibranchs because you’d said they looked like tiny sea dragons and you loved them—your Megumi would never, ever say that to you. This had to be a curse. Some vile, parasitic thing wearing his skin, twisting his voice, using his exhaustion as a doorway in.
You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until your lungs started to burn. Your hands were trembling in your lap, but you kept them still, kept your face as neutral as you could manage, while your mind spiraled through every exorcism you’d ever studied, every curse you’d ever encountered. You searched his face for some sign of the supernatural, some glint of something that wasn’t him.
Megumi’s eyes opened, and you searched them desperately. But all you saw was exhaustion. Bone-deep, soul-crushing exhaustion, and underneath it, a flicker of irritation that made your stomach drop.
He must have seen something in your expression—the wide-eyed horror, the desperate scanning—because his brow furrowed further. "Nothing is wrong, I just… I can’t right now. I need quiet. Please.”
Please. He’d said please, like it was a reasonable request, like he hadn’t just taken the thing you were most vulnerable about—the thing you’d been terrified of your entire life—and confirmed it was true. You talked too much, you shared too much, you were too much, and the one person you’d trusted with all of it had finally gotten sick of pretending otherwise.
You didn’t remember standing up. You didn’t remember walking to the bedroom. All you remembered was the click of the door closing behind you, the sound of your own heartbeat thundering in your ears, and the slow, creeping horror of a new thought slithering into your mind.
What if he’s been holding this back for our entire relationship, and tonight he just… slipped?
You pressed your back against the bedroom door and slid down until you were sitting on the floor, your knees drawn up to your chest. The tears came hot and silent, and with them, the spiral.
Because the thing was, it made sense. It made terrible, perfect sense.
You’d always known you talked a lot. You’d been told so your whole life—by teachers who moved your desk to the back of the classroom, by friends who slowly stopped returning your texts, by family members who smiled tight smiles and said, “Don’t you ever run out of things to say?” You talked when you were happy, when you were nervous, when you were sad, and when you were excited. Talking was how you processed the world. It was how you connected, how you loved, how you breathed.
And Megumi… Megumi was so quiet. He spoke in glances and small gestures, in the brush of his fingers against yours, in the way he’d make you tea without being asked. You’d always thought—hoped—that your talking was the yang to his yin, that you filled the silences he didn’t want to fill himself, that he liked it, that he liked you.
But what if he didn’t? What if every story you’d ever told him, every random observation, every excited ramble about sea slugs or cloud formations or the socioeconomic implications of ancient Roman plumbing—what if every single word had been sandpaper against his nerves? What if all those little hums and nods, the ones you’d interpreted as listening, had actually been him just… enduring?
You thought back through your entire relationship, and the memories shifted and warped before your eyes, taking on a sinister new shape. The time you’d spent forty-five minutes explaining the plot of a book he’d never read, and he’d just sat there, silent. You’d thought he was being a good listener. What if he’d been wishing you would stop? The time you’d made him watch a video essay about the history of buttons, and he’d fallen asleep halfway through. You’d teased him about it, thinking it was cute. What if he’d been so bored, so exhausted by your endless stream of words, that his body had just given up?
Every memory became evidence. Every silence became a verdict. And you, who loved him so much, realized with a sickening lurch that your love might have been a burden. That the very thing you’d been offering him—yourself, unfiltered and enthusiastic and overflowing—might have been the thing he’d secretly wished he could escape.
You didn’t sleep that night. You lay in bed, still and silent as a stone, listening to Megumi’s breathing on the other side of the mattress. He didn’t reach for you. He didn’t say anything. And that, too, felt like confirmation.
───
The next morning, you woke up with a new resolve. If Megumi needed quiet, you would give him quiet. If your talking was a burden, you would set it down. You would become smaller, neater, easier. You would be the girlfriend he deserved, not the one he’d been saddled with.
It was the hardest thing you’d ever done.
The first day, you caught yourself a dozen times. You’d open your mouth to tell him about the weird bird you’d seen outside the window, and you’d snap it shut again. You’d pick up your phone to text him a thought that had just occurred to you, and you’d set it back down. Every suppressed word felt like a small death, a little piece of yourself that you were burying alive.
But you did it. For him, you did it.
“Morning,” you said when he stumbled into the kitchen. One word. Neat. Contained. You placed his coffee in front of him—black, no sugar, the way he liked it—and turned back to the sink.
Megumi grunted in response, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t seem to notice anything different. Why would he? This was probably what he’d always wanted. A quiet morning. A peaceful coffee. A girlfriend who didn’t assault him with trivia before he’d fully woken up.
The second day was harder. You saw a dog on your walk home that looked exactly like his Divine Dog, a big black shaggy thing with soulful eyes, and your first instinct was to take a picture, to send it to him, to say, “Look! It’s your son! He’s working at a café now apparently, very distinguished!” You had your phone out, the camera app open, before you remembered. You put the phone away. You walked home in silence. And when Megumi asked, “How was your day?” you said, “Fine,” and nothing else.
The third day, the fourth day, the fifth day—they all blurred together into a haze. You’d never realized how much of your life was made of words until you had to swallow every single one. You’d never realized how lonely silence could be until you were drowning in it.
You didn’t have a lot of close friends. It wasn’t that people didn’t like you—they did, or at least, they seemed to. But friendships required maintenance, and you’d always poured so much of yourself into your relationship with Megumi that there hadn’t been much left over. He’d been your person. The one you texted at 2 AM when you had a thought that couldn’t wait. The one whose shoulder you shook when you saw something beautiful or weird or funny, because sharing it with him was what made it real.
Now you had no one. The thoughts piled up inside you, a tower of unsaid words growing taller every day. You started a journal, but it wasn’t the same. The journal didn’t hum in the right places. The journal didn’t roll its eyes fondly or call you an idiot with that particular soft inflection that meant I love you. The journal was just paper, and you were so, so lonely.
Megumi didn’t notice.
Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. He noticed something. He noticed that you were quieter, but he chalked it up to mood swings. You’d always been emotional, up and down, sunshine and rain. He figured you were going through something personal—maybe family stuff, maybe hormones, maybe just the general weight of being a sorcerer in a world that never stopped needing saving. He’d ask, “You okay?” and you’d say, “I’m fine,” and he’d accept it, because Megumi was not, by nature, a person who pushed.
A small, petty part of you wanted him to push. You wanted him to grab you by the shoulders and say, “You’re not fine. You haven’t told me a single fact about marine biology in five days. What’s wrong?” But he didn’t. He just drifted through the apartment like a ghost, and you drifted with him, two silent ships passing in a fog of your own making.
Weeks passed. You got very good at being quiet. You learned the precise number of words required to get through a day without arousing suspicion: “Good morning.” “Do you want dinner?” “I’m going to bed.”
And through it all, the thoughts kept coming. They never stopped. Every moment of every day, your brain was churning out observations, questions, connections, jokes, stories. Did you know that octopuses have three hearts? Did you know that the moon is slowly moving away from the Earth? Did you know that I love you so much it’s killing me not to tell you? The words pressed against the inside of your skull and you had nowhere to put them.
Until Yuuta.
───
You’d gone to the sorcerer headquarters to drop off some paperwork for Gojo—a favor you’d agreed to in the morning. You were walking across the training grounds, head down, already composing the text you wouldn’t send Megumi about the interesting moss pattern on the path, when you literally ran into someone.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I wasn’t—” You looked up into a pair of kind, worried eyes, and your brain short-circuited. “Yuuta?”
Yuuta Okkotsu smiled at you, that gentle, slightly awkward smile that made him look like a startled puppy. “Hey! It’s good to see you. I feel like it’s been forever. How are you? How’s Megumi?”
And something in you, something that had been wound tight for weeks, just… snapped.
“Did you know,” you said, the words tumbling out before you could stop them, “that there’s a species of jellyfish that’s biologically immortal? It’s called the Turritopsis dohrnii, and when it gets injured or stressed or just old, it can revert back to its polyp stage and start its whole life cycle over. It’s like hitting the reset button on your own existence. Scientists are studying it to see if there are applications for human aging, but honestly, I think the jellyfish is onto something. Imagine if every time you made a horrible mistake, you could just turn back into a baby and try again. Megumi would probably appreciate that, right? A do-over button for relationships? ‘Oh no, I’ve been a terrible boyfriend, time to become a polyp!’ Though I guess that’s not really fair. He’s not terrible. I’m the terrible one. I’m the one who talks too much. That’s literally what he said. Well, not literally, but implied. He said, ‘Can you just be quiet?’ and I’ve been trying, I really have, but it’s so hard because I have all these thoughts and nowhere to put them and I can’t tell him because he doesn’t want to hear it and I don’t have anyone else because he was my person and now I’m just—I’m just full. Do you ever feel full? Like you’re going to burst if you don’t say something, but if you say something, the person you love most in the world is going to look at you with that exhausted, annoyed expression, and you’ll die a little inside? No? Just me? Okay. Okay, I’m sorry. I’m doing it again. I’m talking too much. I should stop. I’m going to stop now.”
You stopped. You were breathing hard, your heart pounding, and you realized with a distant sort of horror that you’d just verbally vomited all over Yuuta Okkotsu, a man you barely knew, a man who was probably just trying to be polite and was now trapped in a conversation with a lunatic.
But Yuuta didn’t look trapped. He looked… concerned. And interested. And maybe a little bit sad.
“The jellyfish thing is really cool,” he said quietly. “Tell me more about that.”
You stared at him. “What?”
“The immortal jellyfish. How does it work, exactly? Does it remember its previous life, or is it a blank slate every time?”
It was like someone had opened a floodgate. You couldn’t stop yourself. You didn’t want to stop yourself. You told him about the cellular transdifferentiation process, about the way the jellyfish’s cells could change from one type to another, about the implications for regenerative medicine and the philosophical questions it raised about identity and consciousness and what it meant to truly die. And then, because he was still listening, still nodding, still asking questions with genuine curiosity in his dark eyes, you told him about octopuses and moon phases and the time you’d gotten lost in a museum and accidentally attended a lecture on medieval grain storage, and it had been the most fascinating hour of your life.
You talked for two hours. Two solid hours of uninterrupted, uncensored, gloriously rambling. You told Yuuta things you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding in. You told him about the specific shade of gray the sky turned before a storm, and the way Megumi’s hair fell over his eyes when he was concentrating, and the dream you’d had about flying whales, and the theory you’d developed about pigeons being government drones, and—
And through it all, Yuuta listened. He didn’t endure. He listened. He laughed at your jokes. He gasped at your revelations. He leaned in when you got to the good parts, and he shook his head in wonder when you finished a particularly convoluted tangent. He was, you realized with a pang, everything you’d been missing. Not a romantic prospect—you were too in love with Megumi for that, even now, even after everything—but a friend. A real, true friend who didn’t seem to mind that you talked too much. Who maybe even liked it.
“That was incredible,” Yuuta said when you finally wound down, your throat hoarse and your heart lighter than it had been in weeks. “You’re like a living Wikipedia, except way more entertaining. Megumi’s a lucky guy.”
The mention of Megumi’s name was like a splash of cold water. “I should… I should probably go. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“You didn’t take anything,” Yuuta said firmly. “I offered. And honestly?” He ducked his head, a little shy. “It was nice. I enjoyed learning so much, and if it made you feel better, then I am even more glad. So thank you. For talking to me.”
Something in your chest cracked open. “You’re welcome, thank you too for hearing me.” you whispered. And you meant it.
───
The afternoon sun was slanting through the trees of the training grounds, casting long, golden shadows across the grass, and Megumi Fushiguro was worried.
Something was wrong with you. He’d noticed it in the small things—the way you’d stopped texting him random facts in the middle of the day, the way the apartment had become so painfully quiet, the way you’d answer his questions with one-word responses and tight, brittle smiles that never reached your eyes. He’d told himself it was a mood swing, or stress, or something personal that you’d share when you were ready. He’d told himself to be patient, to give you space, to be the steady, silent presence you needed.
But today, the worry had sharpened into something sharper. You hadn’t answered your phone. Three calls, straight to voicemail. You were supposed to drop off paperwork for Gojo, a simple errand that should have taken an hour at most, but three hours had passed and you still weren’t home. Megumi had tried to ignore the cold knot forming in his stomach. He’d tried to reason with himself—maybe your phone died, maybe you got caught up talking to someone, maybe you just needed time alone. But the image of your face that morning, pale and drawn and so terribly quiet, had pushed him out the door.
He found you on a bench near the old training fields, a secluded spot dappled with light and shadow, the kind of place you used to drag him to for “cloud-watching dates” where you’d spend an hour narrating the lives of the cumulus sheep and their stratus shepherds. The memory hit him like a punch to the chest, a reminder of everything that had been missing, everything he’d somehow let slip away.
But you weren’t alone.
Yuuta Okkotsu was sitting beside you on the bench, his body angled toward you in a posture of complete, undivided attention. And you were talking. You were talking the way you used to talk to Megumi, your hands flying through the air, your face alight with an animation he hadn’t seen in weeks, your voice carrying across the grass in a bright, effervescent stream that made his heart seize in his chest.
"—And that’s why I’m convinced pigeons are actually government surveillance drones,” you were saying, your voice breathless with laughter. “I mean, think about it, Yuuta. They’re everywhere. They never migrate. They have that weird red eye thing that looks exactly like a camera lens. And have you ever seen a baby pigeon? No. You haven’t. Because they’re not born. They’re manufactured.”
Yuuta laughed—a real, genuine laugh, warm and surprised—and Megumi watched him shake his head in wonder. “That’s the most unhinged wild I’ve ever heard,” Yuuta said, but his voice was fond, almost admiring. “I love it. What else do you have? What’s your take on squirrels?”
“Oh, squirrels are just tree spies,” you said immediately, and you launched into another tangent without missing a beat, your whole body leaning toward Yuuta like he was the sun and you were a flower desperate for light.
Megumi stood frozen at the edge of the treeline, hidden in the shadows of a large oak, and watched.
He should have walked away. He should have announced himself, or texted you that he was there, or done anything other than stand there like a ghost, eavesdropping on a conversation that was never meant for his ears. But he couldn’t move. His feet were rooted to the ground, and his eyes were fixed on you, on the way you sparkled, on the way you came alive in a way you hadn’t around him in weeks.
Look at her, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, cold and insidious. Look at how happy she is. Look at how she’s glowing. You haven’t made her look like that in weeks. Maybe ever.
He tried to push the thought away, but it clung to him like a curse, sinking its claws into the softest, most vulnerable parts of his heart. He watched Yuuta lean in slightly, his dark eyes soft with genuine interest, and something bitter and acidic rose in Megumi’s throat.
Of course. Of course it’s Yuuta.
Yuuta Okkotsu, the prodigy. The special grade sorcerer who had overcome a curse born of love itself. The one everyone admired, the one everyone trusted, the one who was unfailingly kind and gentle and everything Megumi knew, deep in his bones, he could never be.
He’s perfect for her.
The thought was a knife twisting in his gut. Yuuta was everything you deserved. He was affectionate. He was emotionally available. He probably knew how to say “I love you” without choking on the words, without hoping his actions could speak loudly enough to drown out his silence. He would never snap at you after a hard week. He would never make you feel like your voice was a burden. He would listen—really listen, with his whole heart, the way he was listening now—and he would make you feel seen, cherished, adored.
And what did Megumi do? He grunted. He nodded. He made tea and hoped you understood that the steam rising from the cup meant you are my whole world. He was a coward, a man made of silences and shadows, and he’d always known, somewhere deep down, that it was only a matter of time before you realized you deserved more.
This is it, he thought, and the cold certainty of it settled over him like a shroud. She’s found someone who can give her what I can’t. Someone who can listen. She’s going to leave me.
He watched you laugh again, your hand reaching out to touch Yuuta’s arm in a gesture of easy familiarity, and something inside him cracked. You used to touch him like that. You used to look at him like that, like he was the only person in the world who mattered. And he’d thrown it away. He’d thrown it away with two stupid, careless sentences, spoken in a moment of exhausted weakness.
“Can you just be quiet?”
The memory of that night crashed over him like a wave of ice. He remembered the way your face had crumpled, the way you’d frozen, silent and terrified, before retreating to the bedroom without a word. How you’d looked at him like he was a stranger wearing a familiar face. And he’d been too tired, too wrapped up in his own misery, to follow you. He’d let you go. He’d let you think, for weeks, that your voice was a burden, that your beautiful, bright, overflowing self was something to be endured rather than cherished.
And now here you were, blooming under someone else’s attention, because he had starved you of his own.
She deserves this, he thought, and the resignation was so heavy it made his knees weak. She deserves someone who doesn’t make her feel like she has to be small. Someone who doesn’t need weeks to notice she’s dying inside. Someone like Yuuta.
Yuuta said something that made you laugh again—a full, unrestrained, head-tilted-back laugh that Megumi hadn’t heard in so long he’d almost forgotten the sound of it. The joy in it was a blade, and it cut him to the bone. He wanted to be the one making you laugh like that. He wanted to be the one you leaned toward, the one you touched, the one you trusted with your wild theories and endless curiosities. But he’d forfeited that right, hadn’t he? He’d pushed you away, and you’d found someone else to fill the space he’d left.
If you love her, you’ll let her go. The thought was noble, self-sacrificing, the kind of thought the heroes in your stories would have. But Megumi wasn’t a hero. He was a jealous, terrified, broken man who couldn’t stand the idea of losing you, even if it was exactly what he deserved.
He watched Yuuta stand up from the bench, saying something that made you smile and nod. You stood too, and for one horrible, heart-stopping moment, Megumi thought you might hug him, might press yourself against Yuuta the way you used to press against him. But you didn’t. You just waved, a cheerful, grateful wave, and Yuuta walked away, leaving you alone on the path.
Megumi should have waited. He should have let you walk home, should have given himself time to compose his thoughts, to find the right words, to be calm and rational and mature about this. But he’d spent his whole life being calm and rational and mature, and look where it had gotten him. Standing in the shadows, watching the love of his life light up for someone else because he’d been too stupid, too silent, too scared to tell her how much she meant to him.
He stepped out from behind the tree.
You saw him immediately. Your head turned at the sound of his footsteps, and the smile—the beautiful, radiant smile you’d been wearing for Yuuta—froze on your face and then slowly, painfully, died. It was like watching a door slam shut, and Megumi felt the impact in his soul.
“Megumi,” you said, and your voice was flat. Neutral. Nothing like the bright, bubbling stream he’d just been eavesdropping on. “What are you doing here?”
He opened his mouth to say something reasonable—“I was worried about you,” or “Your phone was off,” or “Let’s go home and talk about this calmly”—but what came out instead was: “So that’s it, then. You’re going to leave me for him.”
Your eyes widened. “What?”
“Yuuta.” Megumi’s voice was shaking, and he hated it. He hated the way he couldn’t control it, the way all the fear and jealousy and self-loathing he’d been swallowing for weeks was spilling out of him like poison. “I saw you. Just now. You were so happy, talking to him. You were so… you were yourself again. And you haven’t been yourself with me in weeks. So I get it, okay? I get it. He’s better than me. He’s everything I’m not. And you deserve someone like him.”
The words hung in the air between you, ugly and raw and desperate. Megumi watched your face cycle through shock, confusion, and then—slowly, devastatingly—understanding.
“You were watching us,” you said quietly.
“I came looking for you.” He couldn’t meet your eyes anymore. He stared at the ground, at the grass, at the ants marching in a neat line across the path. “You weren’t answering your phone. I was worried. And then I saw you with him, and you were talking the way you used to talk to me, and I just… I knew. I knew you’d finally realized I’m not enough.”
“Megumi—”
“Do you know what I was thinking the whole time I watched you two?” The words kept coming. His hands were shaking at his sides. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe. “I was thinking, ‘Of course. Of course it’s Yuuta.’ Yuuta is kind and gentle and he probably never forgets to tell you how much he loves you. He probably listens to every word you say and tells you you’re brilliant and doesn’t just grunt and hope you understand. He’s affectionate and he’s sweet and he’s exactly what you need, and I’m just… I’m just me. I’m dark and quiet and broken, and I’ve always known, deep down, that someday you’d wake up and realize you could do better.”
He finally looked up at you, and the expression on your face made his heart shatter into a thousand pieces. You were crying. Silent tears were streaming down your cheeks, and you were looking at him with something that wasn’t anger or confirmation—it was heartbreak. Pure, aching heartbreak.
“Oh, Megumi,” you whispered.
He couldn’t stop. Everything he’d been holding in for years was pouring out in an uncontrollable torrent. “He’s better for you. Everyone knows it. Gojo, Nobara, probably even you. Yuuta is the kind of person who deserves someone like you—someone bright and warm and full of life. I’m just the guy who told you to shut up when you were trying to help me. I’m the guy who didn’t notice you were dying inside for three whole weeks because I was too wrapped up in my own head. I’m the guy who can’t even say ‘I love you’ without feeling like I’m going to choke on it. So go ahead.” His voice cracked, and he felt the hot sting of tears in his own eyes, tears he’d been fighting for weeks, for years, for a lifetime. “If you’re going to leave me for him, just do it. I won’t stop you. I won’t fight. I just… I need to know.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Megumi stood there, trembling, his heart laid bare in the ugliest possible way, waiting for the axe to fall. He’d said it. He’d said all of it—every fear, every insecurity, every dark thought that had ever whispered in the back of his mind. And now you knew. Now you knew exactly how fucked up he was, exactly how little he thought of himself, exactly how terrified he’d been from the very beginning that you would leave.
You took a step toward him. Then another. And then you were right in front of him, your hands reaching up to cup his face, your thumbs brushing away the tears he hadn’t even realized had fallen.
“You absolute walnut,” you said, your voice thick with tears. “I’m not leaving you for Yuuta.”
Megumi blinked. “You’re… you’re not?”
“I’m not.” You tightened your grip on his face, forcing him to meet your eyes. “I’m not in love with Yuuta. I don’t want Yuuta. I want you, you emotionally constipated disaster of a man. I have always wanted you.”
“But you were so happy with him,” Megumi whispered, and the words came out small and broken. “You were laughing. You were talking. You were… you were yourself. And you haven’t been yourself with me in weeks. I thought… I thought you’d finally found someone who could make you happy.”
Your face crumpled. “I haven’t been myself with you because you told me to be quiet,” you said, and the words were gentle but they hit him even harder. “You told me to be quiet, and I thought… I thought you’d been holding that in our whole relationship. I thought every story I’d ever told you, every random fact, every ramble about clouds or sea slugs or whatever—I thought you’d just been enduring it. I thought my voice was a burden to you, the person I loved most in the world. So I tried to be less. I tried to be what I thought you wanted. And it was killing me, Megumi. It was killing me because I have all these things I want to tell you, all these thoughts and ideas and questions, and I couldn’t, because I was so terrified you’d look at me the way you did that night. Like I was exhausting. Like I was too much.”
Megumi felt the ground tilt beneath him. Everything you were saying—it was so much worse than he’d imagined. He’d thought you were pulling away because you’d outgrown him. He’d thought you were preparing to leave because you’d found someone better. But the truth was so much more devastating: you’d been trying to stay. You’d been contorting yourself into someone smaller, someone quieter, someone you thought he wanted, and it had been destroying you. And he’d been so blind, so self-absorbed, that he hadn’t even noticed.
“I talked to Yuuta today because I was desperate,” you continued, your voice breaking. “I’ve been drowning in silence for weeks, and he was there, and he listened. That’s it. That’s all it was. He was a life raft in the middle of an ocean I’ve been trying not to drown in. He’s not you. He’ll never be you. I don’t want a life raft. I want my person back. I want the man who makes me tea without being asked and lets me put face masks on him and sits through documentaries about nudibranchs even though he’s probably bored out of his mind. I want you, Megumi. Just you. But I need you to talk to me. Actually talk to me. With words. Out loud. So I don’t have to guess what’s going on in that beautiful, overthinking brain of yours.”
Megumi stared at you, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. “You want… me? Still? Even after everything?”
“Even after everything.” You smiled, a watery, trembling smile that was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I’m still mad at you, by the way. Very mad. ‘Can you just be quiet?’ What kind of thing is that to say to the love of your life?”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rush, desperate and sincere. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I was exhausted and I was taking it out on you, and that’s not an excuse, it’s just… it’s the truth. I was drowning in my own head, and you were trying to help, and I pushed you away because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to accept love. I should have apologized the next morning. I should have apologized every single day for the past three weeks. I should have noticed. I should have seen that you were hurting and asked you what was wrong instead of just… assuming.”
You shook your head, still holding his face in your hands. “Don’t blame yourself. I know you love me, Megumi. But sometimes I need the words too. Sometimes I need you to tell me, out loud, that I’m not too much. That my voice isn’t a burden. That you like listening to me.”
“You’re not too much.” The words came out fierce, almost angry in their intensity. “You’ve never been too much. You’re exactly enough. You’re more than enough. Your voice is—it’s the best part of my day. Every day. When you talk to me about clouds or jellyfish or the socioeconomic implications of Roman plumbing, it’s like you’re chasing all the shadows out of my head. I’m not bored. I’m never bored. I’m just… quiet. I’ve always been quiet. But that doesn’t mean I’m not listening. That doesn’t mean I don’t love every single word.”
You were crying again, but you were smiling too, and Megumi realized with a jolt that these were good tears. Relief tears. The tears of someone who had been holding their breath for weeks and was finally, finally allowed to exhale.
“I’m sorry I compared myself to Yuuta,” he said quietly. “I just… I saw you with him, and you looked so happy, and I thought… I thought maybe he could give you something I can’t.”
“He’s not you,” you said simply. “And I don’t want someone who isn’t you. Yuuta is sweet. He’s kind. He’ll probably make some other rambling disaster of a person very happy someday. But he’s not my person. You are. You’ve always been my person.” You paused, and a mischievous glint flickered in your tear-bright eyes. “Now, I have approximately four hundred more facts to tell you, and I’ve been holding them in for three weeks, and I’m pretty sure my brain is going to explode.”
Megumi let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, and he didn’t kiss you—not yet. Instead, he pulled you into his arms and held you as tight as he could without breaking you, burying his face in your hair and breathing you in like you were oxygen and he’d been drowning for weeks.
“Tell me,” he whispered against your temple. “Tell me everything. I’m listening. I swear I’m listening.”
“Did you know that wombats have cube-shaped poop?”
He laughed, a real laugh, startled out of him by the sheer absurdity of it. “…What?”
“It’s true! It’s so they can stack it to mark their territory without it rolling away. Nature is amazing and also deeply weird, and I have so many more where that came from. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” he said, and he meant it. He was ready to listen. He was ready to learn. He was ready to spend the rest of his life proving to you that your voice was the most precious thing in his world, that your words were never a burden, that he would never, ever make you feel small again.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, to take in the way the setting sun caught the tears still drying on your cheeks and turned them to gold. “I love you,” he said, and the words didn’t choke him the way they usually did. They felt right. They felt necessary. “I should have said it more. I love you and I love your voice and I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to be quiet.”
Your smile, when it came, was the sun breaking through the clouds after a storm. “I love you too, you walnut.”
And then you kissed him, and he kissed you back, and the silence between you wasn’t a weapon anymore. It was a soft thing. A comfortable thing. A thing you could share together, without fear.
Later, you would walk home together, your hand in his, and you would tell him everything—the immortal jellyfish, the medieval grain storage, the flying whales, the specific shade of gray the sky turned before a storm. He would listen to every word, and he would ask questions, and he would make the right hums in the right places, and he would silently vow to spend the rest of his life being the kind of partner who deserved the gift of your voice.
But for now, there was just this: the two of you standing in the golden afternoon light, holding each other like you’d found your way home after a long and lonely journey. The sky overhead was doing that thing you loved—turning that specific shade of gray before a storm—and you’d tell him about it later. You had time. You had all the time in the world.
turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
areudirty
blakekathryn
stormborns
