Women have many belongings. It used to vex Nanami. But it doesn’t anymore.
The first thing to migrate to his home, was your face lotion. He has a face lotion, a perfectly serviceable one, but you insisted on bringing your own. Your routine was important to you, you had told him, and Nanami understood. Routines, rules, structure – these are all things he has always respected, found meaning in. And so, in his bathroom, his drugstore razor, toothbrush, and facewash sat together, lined up like toy soldiers, right next to a luxurious indigo jar face cream.
The rest of your routine follows shortly: the lilac bottle of mist that smells like aloe, the golden serum that smells like summertime, and the periwinkle tube of your green tea face wash. Your bergamot and sandalwood soap linger on his pillow, and when he can’t smell you on his sheets anymore, longing sits heavy and sticky in his throat.
Your clothes are next. Amidst his practical navy, gray, and blacks, appear pops of warm lilac, royal blue, and torched orange. He doesn’t mind it in the least – it would be entirely unreasonable for him to demand that you stop bringing such colorful clothes in his home, especially when he never really wants you to leave.
When the two of you finally just bite the bullet and put your name on the lease, Nanami imagines that his life will certainly become more colorful. But he doesn’t have the first idea of how many more things will be in his house.
All his life, Nanami has lived quietly, abstemiously. He is a jujutsu sorcerer – while his non-sorcerer peers were learning trigonometry, he was learning how to kill curses and how to die as a soldier dies: with resolve and bravery, to the bitterest end. His life has been fat trimmed from steak, practical solid color towels, plastic storage bins with plenty of clearing near the edge, never packed to capacity. A man who walks on the very edge of life and death doesn’t require more than the necessities. The very few things he indulges in are sensible: good whiskey, grade A rice, custom leather shoes (no broguing) built to take a beating.
You bring in your life to his, and it is completely different. You’re striped linens, fresh flowers, scented candles on every corner. Baby blue drinking glasses shaped like beer cans, artisanal ceramicware made by friends locally. Your life is marked by comfort, simple pleasure, and (dare he say it) the sweetest, most innocent frivolity. He supposes it’s really what he loves most about you, honestly. He’s always tended drawn closer to brighter, bolder personalities: earnest and warm, like Haibara and Itadori, not bombastic and irreverent, like Gojo or Tsukumo. You belong in the same shades of sunlight as Haibara and Itadori, but…tender. Like the dream-like throw of warm, rose tipped dawn that thaws the chill of his lonely apartment.
Now, in the mornings, he doesn’t wake to the desolate silence of a man alone. He wakes to the sound of your fluffy slippers in the kitchen, the smell of dark roast coffee, the sight of your toiletries sitting side by side in the bathroom, cozy and couple-like.
Somewhere between your checker print tea kettle, and the warmth of your body on the sheets, Nanami falls so in love with you that he looks back on his life and wonders how he ever lived, starved of the sun that is you, for so long.
ᰔ summary. you're sitting on a bench in coney island, the place you and nanami met all those years ago, to talk about where your relationship went wrong. heavily inspired by the song "coney island" by taylor swift from her album 'evermore'
ᰔ warnings/tags. some pretty heavy angst. mention of blood/wounds.
ᰔ word count. 1.3k
a/n. hellooo i just had an itching to write something angsty, and i came up with something while listening to music. hope you enjoy :')
you're sitting on a bench in coney island, wondering why nanami hasn't arrived by your side yet.
pulling back the sleeve of your blouse, you glance at your watch. the evening has settled in, and it was well past the time the two of you had agreed to meet. here, where everything began all those years ago. this place, where your soul has been left to bleed dry.
it was nanami who told you not to feed the ducks any bread. before you knew him, that was all you would do. white milk bread, torn apart into pieces, tossed into the pond in front of this bench for the quacking ducks to feed on with delight. but nanami told you that's not right. he told you that the ducks cannot digest the bread the same way that you and him do. you can relate to the ducks today, unable to absorb and understand the pain within you, and in a blink of an eye, that pain takes a seat next to you.
"hello, sweetheart," nanami says, voice soft as it always is. his familiar stature is beside you in your periphery.
your eyes flicker to your watch once more. "you're late, ken."
"i know," is all he says. "forgive me?"
you do.
"i thought you were lost somewhere," you tell him, the thought sending a shiver through you. or perhaps it was the cold.
"i wasn't lost. i could never be lost, coming to this place," he assures. you glance at the skin on his hands. he looks pale, like he hasn't seen the sun in days.
you still wonder if he's lost. you wonder if that man you loved was still out there somewhere, simply wandering, trying to find his way back to you. but the disappointment is palpable, and when you close your eyes tight, the chill of the air once again bites through your bones to silence all your hope.
"i looked for you everywhere. do you know that?" you say to him. "at the park entry, across the field. by the church. i even walked by the merry-go. and i cried when i couldn't see you standing there to watch me on the blue pegasus."
from the corner of your eye, you see him turn his head to glance at you. you can see he's wearing a grey suit, the same one he wore exactly one year ago today. the one you said goodbye to him in. "it's been a long time, love. i'd wish you would let those memories go."
"we were supposed to be married forever," you barely whisper, glancing down at your ring still adorning your left hand. your eyes flicker to his hand, and the absence of the silver promise on his finger makes your soul sulk. "you've moved on from me, haven't you?"
nanami rubs his left finger with his thumb, like the sensation of the ring was a phantom limb. "i have. and i want you to move on from me as well. one day, you'll be too old to care. so don't spend another moment of your youth thinking about me."
your youth was him, from the day you met him on this bench. sprawled across it on a warm summer tuesday, reading your paperback of les misérables that had a worn out spine, gust of wind peeling a sticky note away from the page and delivering it to the front of this tall, handsome man that was walking by. he had bent down to pick it up for you, and curiously chose to read it first before handing it back. 'to love or have loved, that is enough' it said, one of your favorite quotes from the book. you didn't know what it meant at the time, but you knew what it meant now.
"were we just fools, ken?" you ask him out of nowhere. "if i had tried harder, could we have still been together? if i had let you know what it takes to be by my side, would you have still chosen to fall in love with me in the first place? how can i shake the thought that this was all a mistake?"
he shifts in his seat beside you. you still can't brave yourself to look at him. you haven't looked him in the eyes once this entire time. and you register that there's no heat from his body, leaving you feeling barren and cold.
"i would've loved you in any lifetime. there is nothing you could have done that would've kept me away," he tells you.
"so then you'll haunt me in every lifetime, too?" you ask. "a universe away from here, i'll still see your face everywhere i go?"
"no. i agreed to meet you here today to tell you that it's finally time for you to forget. those dreams of ours, of suburban holidays and tiny fingers, they can belong to someone else," he says to you, "they should belong to someone else."
you shake your head, feeling tears prickle in your eyes. christmas, winter snow, the oaky warmth of the fireplace. fresh spring air, wildflower blossoms, trees turned lush and new. salty air, summer breeze, mist of sprinklers over brown grass and skin. but by the time autumn came, there was nothing left but heartache.
"what if i asked for your forgiveness?" you say. your hands play with the bag of white bread in your lap. you thought he would scold you for it, for not remembering the wellbeing of the ducks, but truthfully you had simply forgotten. because it was like you were the version of yourself before meeting him, and you needed him to save you again.
"there's nothing to forgive," he replies. his voice is hoarse, like he's running out of air to breathe as the sun begins to set over the horizon. like this time spent together was something bought, not gifted.
"i'm sorry," you say, because you felt like you needed to say those words. "i'm sorry for how mean i was to you the last time we spoke. i don't know what got over me, but i really wish you had just stayed." your eyes prick with tears as you stare down at your lap. "i wish you weren't so quick to leave my side, even though i told you to go."
nanami places a hand over yours. you finally notice the scars and open cuts, fresh with blood. "i know, darling. as much as it troubled me to leave, i didn't want to stay and hurt you anymore."
you felt suffocated. "if i could turn back time, i would. i would go back to that moment, last week. and i would tell you to stay, so that i could've had you for the rest of a lifetime."
his thumb runs circles over the skin of your hand, but the movement is rigid and stiff. "was it last week?"
"it was." you're not mistaken, but he will try to convince you otherwise.
"i don't think so, darling."
"it was last week."
"it's been much longer than that. fifty-two fold longer."
yes. today was the anniversary. of when you buried him in the grey suit that he wears right now.
"you see my face wherever you go, hm?" nanami says to you as the tears begin to freely flow down your face. "well, when i got into the accident, the last sight that flashed before me was your face. i'm happy. i'm so happy that the last person i thought of was you."
blinking, wet drops falling onto his pale hand in your lap. "you should've stayed," you whisper. "that night, you should've just stayed with me. i would've said sorry, and i would've loved you forever."
you're sitting on a bench in coney island, wondering where your lover went. because when the sun dips underneath the horizon, his hand disappears from your lap, and you finally turn your head to look at him. but he's gone.
and when you blink the blur of salty tears from your eyes, you realize you were never sitting on that bench, waiting for him. you were standing in front of his gravestone, hoping that he'll talk to you again someday.
It’s not that Nanami expected fanfare when he returned to the realm of curses and sorcerers; they hardly have time to mourn their dead, let alone celebrate the living. It’s only…
There should be more to it than this. More than Gojo-senpai’s crooned, ‘Nanami-kun’ crackling over the speaker of his phone, rousing him before even the sun's bothered to heave itself over the horizon. More than the mission brief being a location and time couched in a stream of that idiot's nonsense, more than showing up at to the rendezvous as the sole adult not wearing his high school uniform--
More than the situation going pear-shaped at the moment of contact. At least, that's what he'd thought there'd be when he still trained under these people. Last minute texts seemed normal when he was just some shitty teenager; when he was just some student called in as an afterthought once instructors had deemed the situation safe enough to stand in for a lesson. He'd assumed that when he was an adult, when he finally became a peer rather than a pupil, he'd finally be privy to all the secret strategies the other sorcerers seemed to know down to their bones
Now he'd just settle for a plan before they turned a children’s park into a battleground.
Cursed energy drips off his knuckles, liquid in a way real fire never could be. It flickers with the same frantic rhythm as his breath, a flare of flame before it extinguishes itself on the concrete. That had been the reason he’d left, wasn’t it? That there never had been a plan. That their only way of fighting the creeping tide of humanity’s apathy was to throw more bodies at the problem until it was solved.
Even if those bodies were children.
“Threat neutralized,” he pants, quenching the cursed energy licking over his shoulders. They tense in its wake, braced for a fight long over. “…Gojo-san.”
“As expected from my reliable kouhai!” A lanky arms slings itself over his shoulders, drawing him far too close to that smug smile. “Tell me, was it fun? Is it just like old times?”
“I’ve been doing this for a year.” And Gojo-senpai— intolerable, as always— never changes his script. Unbelievable that they gave this man dominion over children. “It’s shit.”
He nods, sagely. “Just like old times.”
Isn’t that the truth. Nanami plucks his blazer off the carousel's rail, slinging it over his shoulders. “If there’s nothing else…?”
“What? You’re not going to stick around? Reminisce about old times?” Gojo’s lip juts out, wounded. “Come on, Nanami-kun—”
“I told you not to call me that.” They’re work colleagues, not classmates.
“You were a salaryman, weren’t you? You know about post-work drinks. Happy Hour?”
He hadn’t gone to those either, not once it was clear he would make more money on overtime than schmoozing for a promotion. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
“Lunch, then,” Gojo-senpai decides far too quickly. As if he’d already planned— “I made bento!”
Ah, there it is. The metal teeth snapping shut on this trap. “All right,” he sighs, slumping under his senpai’s weight. “Show me this…bento.”
*
The paper bag should have been his warning. It’s rumpled, like it’d been pulled out of the bin, the top not even neatly rolled down but merely clenched shut in Gojo-senpai’s fist, like a cartoon bank robber making his getaway.
“I made your favorite,” he says, so saccharine Nanami’s teeth ache. “What is it you always get now? The casse-croute.”
The casse-croûte is a light meal— a snack, really, though a substantial one— an idea that includes but is not exclusive to sandwiches. What he prefers is the jambon-buerre, the parisien, a baguette slathered in butter and layered with Paris ham— or more often, prosciutto— lettuce and brie. But the konbini around here don’t make a distinction between the two, and by the terrible mockery Gojo-senpai’s mouth makes of a French accent, neither will he.
He takes the bag anyway, top pinched between two of his fingers. Between the grit of his teeth, Nanami manages, “Thank you for the meal.”
What he finds inside is…unspeakable.
“Is this…?” His mouth works, at a loss. “Mozzarella?”
“Nice, isn’t it?” Gojo-senpai’s nose wrinkles above his own egg salad, pressed sloppily between two slices of white bread. “Better than that stinky stuff they usually put on. You know it has a rind?”
The bread squishes beneath his fingers— not a baguette at all, not even a French loaf, but some sort of mass-produced bread-like product. A...sandwich roll, shoved into a plastic bag with a half dozen other of its ilk, sold for cheap and then bought by this absolute fool to be split in twain and abet this blasphemy trying to pass as a sandwich. The lettuce is soggy and— he’s pretty sure— shredded. Maybe even iceburg.
Even still, his mouth salivates. Not for this abomination, but the superior sandwich it apes; the same way cursed spirits shuffle, mere shadows of the human fears that birth them. One sitting behind a glass case, wrapped in crinkling film, crusty bread glimmering enticingly beneath the bakery’s lights. He can taste it, the funk of the cheese and the crispness of the lettuce, the baguette shedding sesame as it yielded to his teeth. And the girl behind the counter—
It’s much better than the konbini’s, isn’t it? The curse coiled on her shoulder cocked its fly-head to match hers, as if it had a share in her pride. As if it were anything more than a leech, sucking the life out of her sip by sip, until only a hollowed-out shell remained. He’d gotten rid of it; his last gift to the world he’d left behind. To the girl who made the perfect jambon-buerre.
A year ago now. His mouth twists. A lot can happen in a year. Do her shoulders still sit so proud? So easy? If he went back, would he find her still smiling, or would there be another one of those worms wrapped around her neck, squeezing tighter every night. Killing her day by day, unchecked, no sorcerer to—
Nanami balls up the bag, sandwich and all, and throws it into the nearest bin. That has nothing to do with him now.
“What’s the matter, Nanami-kun?” Gojo sing-songs, impossibly long limbs sprawled over the bench, taking up as much space as his smile. “Don’t like the sandwich? What’s wrong, too much mayo?”
Mayo. He pinches his nose, adjusting the way his glasses straddle it. “I don’t like anything about this.”
The sandwich, the job. The growing amount of cursed spirits spawning around the city. The strange way Gojo-senpai smiles when he asks about it. Gojo-senpai in general.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. Gojo's must as well; he slips his out from his trousers, brows knitted as his eyes scan over the message.
“Lucky us,” he drawls, smirk stiff as a carcass across the spread of his lips. “Another cursed spirit, and only a few streets over.”
Nanami frowns as the man unfurls from the bench, casual as a cat on its way to batter yet another mouse. “There’s more now, aren’t there? That’s why you were all so happy to have me back.”
“Whatever do you mean, my dear kouhai?” Gojo swings close— too close, his mouth all teeth. “Clearly we missed your scintillating personality.”
“It’s gotten worse.” He doesn’t need to see the man’s eyes to know how tightly he’s holding them, not when the rest of him is strung as taut as piano wire. “You think they’re going to overrun us, the way they did when Geto-san—”
“See? There he is.” One of those long hands reach out, patting him on the cheek. Slapping, really. “That’s the kouhai I missed so much. Nanami-kun, always so positive.”
“Don’t call me that,” he grunts, shrugging him off. A tug fixes the sit of his blazer of his shoulders. “Come on, let’s get going. I’m not about to put in overtime for you.”
Gojo rocks back on his heels as he walks away, taking in a deep breath. Despite the clear skies, a thunder rumbles through the city.
“It’s a lovely day for walk, isn’t it?” he hums, the words dogging Nanami’s heels. “How lucky for us.”
*
The cursed spirit might only have been lingering only a few streets away, but it’s a slippery one, leading them on what Gojo calls a ‘merry chase’ to the other side of town. By the time they corner it, writhing and helpless now that senpai's patience has run out, his stomach is empty enough that even that war crime of a sandwich seems appetizing.
A good thing that he’d put it in the garbage, then. Nanami would never be able to live with himself if he ate mayonnaise with brie. He had never been to France, but he would one day— if only for the food— and they certainly wouldn’t let him in after that.
Gojo-senpai doesn’t stick around to offer another; he’s got to go back to his class, to the children he’s teaching to sacrifice themselves before they even know who they might be. That’s what they’d wanted him to do when he’d first come back. Even had a promising crop of scouted talent, still wide-eyed from having the veil thrown back, the way he had been when he’d first enrolled, but—
But he’d just laughed. Told them to leave all that to Gojo, a man who tasted death and liked the flavor. They had his number; he’d come when they called.
So there’s no reason for him to be here. No reason for him to be idling next to this awning as rain pours down, pelting umbrella he’d bought from the konbini a street over. His old one; the shortest jaunt from his last apartment, closer still to the building where he used to work. One that still didn’t have casse-croute in the case.
But she would.
It’s busy now— the dinner rush, now that the salarymen have been turned out from their offices, ravenous and eager to avoid their empty apartments. Or worse yet, the filled ones— the kind with the children their parents wanted and the wife that begrudges their existence just as much as they begrudge hers.
A red beret blazes behind the counter, but even through the plate glass, it’s outshone by the smile beneath it. She’s been doing well, it seems— it had only even been her at the till before, but there’s two other employees working behind her now. They’re laughing as she tallies up an order, one of them wiping tears from his eyes.
It’s…nice. Good even. More camaraderie than he’d ever seen on the front lines of the stock market. More than he sees now, despite how close these missions fly to death. And that should be enough for him, to see proof of her success, but—
But that fly-head cocks its head, its unblinking stare settling on him through the glass. A larger one than the last. Makes sense; it’s had a whole year to siphon off its sustenance.
Nanami heaves a sigh, and with a nudge of his shoulders, opens the door.
The bell rings, the same bright chime he remembers, but the shop is so full, so lively, that no one bothers to look at the man stepping off to the side, letting another glut of customers through. He collapses his umbrella, careful to keep the extra water from dripping all over her floor. Even from here, he can hear that damn thing chittering on her shoulder, teeth clicking at every twitch of his fingers.
There’s nothing to be done about the thing from back here— he’s not Gojo-senpai, he can’t simply exorcise a spirit from annoyance alone— but he can’t bring himself to join the crowd. To hop in line and simply be yet another customer, not when she could look up and know—
But she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He’d been a regular for only a few months more than a year ago. There’s no reason for her to remember his face, at least not enough to see past the new set of glasses on his face.
It’s better that way.
One of her employees passes behind her, leaning down to murmur in her ear, and her eyes jerk up, scanning the back of the shop. Not casual, no— that gaze is sharp, focused. Searching. It skims over him— once, twice— then catches, the tense lines collected at the corners of her eyes easing.
Oh.
She does remember him.
Her mouth opens, a hand lifting to a wave— only to flounder in empty air as the next customer shoulders his way to the counter, spitting out his order. She blinks, attention dragged back to the mundane, to the only reality she knows, and—
He should have never come. What difference did it make if he rid her of that curse? Oh, he can pretend it’s altruism, that all he cares about is gaining one small foothold in this war of attrition, but this isn’t about her. No, all this— it’s about him. About his pride. About proving to himself that these small victories meant something-- that even if he fell protecting this world from the horrors they’d never see, he’d leave a mark. That he'd have done something to make is better.
And now Nanami has his answer: he can push these boulders up this hill all he wants, but they’ll always fall back down. It’s only a matter of time.
He should leave.
The rain is still coming down outside, hard enough it bounces off the awning, splattering his already half-soaked blazer. A cluck catches between his teeth, trapped tight as he wrangles his umbrella open. An unremarkable black, one that will disappear into the sea of identical canopies; one more body in the surging tide, and—
And the bell rings. “Wait!”
He’s too close to feign ignorance, to pretend that he can’t hear her as easily as the heart pounding in his chest. That he can’t see her panting where she leans against the glass, rain dripping onto her chef whites. “This is for you!”
It’s the second time today that a paper bag has been foisted on him, but unlike the last, this one is crisp, a clean white with a neat fold at the top. And when he unfurls it, glancing into its pristine depths—
It’s his usual. The jambon-buerre. It’s a miracle his stomach doesn’t growl. “I didn’t…”
Order anything. He shouldn’t even be here.
“I know!” If he’d thought her smile was bright behind the counter, it is blinding this close. He squints into it, half-surprised it hasn’t burned the clouds away. “I keep one in stock, just in case you stop by. As a thank you!”
He blinks down at the bag. It’s been a year, he doesn’t say.
“Your neck,” he manages instead. “Does it still bother you?”
“Ah…!” Her eyes pulse wide. “Yes! How did you know?”
The fly-head chitters on her shoulder, and if it were possible for it to know what danger it was in, Nanami might have called that beady gaze a glare.
“Could you step closer?” His request isn’t breathless, but it is soft; softer than he’s ever spoken. She follows before he’s even finished, quick enough to leave his mouth strangely dry.
His movements are not practiced like he’d thought they’d be. Before he’d been relying on memory, on the feel of how cursed energy collected in his palms, but now he’s used to the way it sits there, to the way it tingles against his skin. He brings up his hand too fast, expecting the weight of the cleaver, but it doesn’t matter— the cut is same with an edge or without, his fingers honed just as sharp when it comes to little pissant curses like this one. It explodes over her shoulder, like a fly beneath a swatter.
When she breathes in, it’s with noticeably more ease, the tense line of her shoulders softened to a more natural curve. Funny how such a little thing could carry so much weight.
“Ohhh,” she sighs, eyes fluttering shut. Her hand raises, rubbing at where it sat, and he— he has to look away. “That’s so much better.”
“Thank you.” The words are foreign on his lips. “For the sandwich.”
For remembering. He turns, umbrella resting on his shoulder. It’s time.
“Wait!”
Fingers tangle in the sleeve of his blazer. Small, insignificant things, grip so weak a hard breath might break it. But it’s enough. This time, he turns back.
“How…?” Her face scrunches, head shaking. “No, wait. I asked last time, but I don’t think you heard me.”
She plucks her phone from an apron pocket, waving it with a smile. Not a shy one, but hopeful. “Can we exchange contacts?”
He stares. Not…forbidding. Simply…blindsided.
“No pressure,” she tells him brightly, despite the pink flush across her cheeks. “If you drop me a line the next time you’re around, I’ll make your sandwich fresh. No charge.”
That, if anything, tempts him. But still— he should go. It’s not good to make connections among the mundane. It only hurts them when they get caught up in his world.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He smiles to ease the sting. “Thank you, though.”
This time when he leaves, she doesn’t call after him.
*
Nanami waits to eat until he’s home, setting the bag on the counter, right beside his keys. There’s a part of him that’s reluctant to eat it, to take advantage of her kindness when the best he can do is walk away. But the famished part wins out, salivating at the very memory of its taste, of how the butter and brie meld into the most decadent expression of flavor, and—
And he might get a plate, at least. A luxury; he’d always eaten it on the run, trying to finish before he went back to the office, putting more hours in on the clock. Watching his life tick away through rows of a spreadsheet.
He sits down too— ah, what a dream this would have been back then, to sit and savor each bite. To not just cram as much into his mouth as he could before the elevator finish twenty-four flight climb, spitting him out into yet another soulless lobby. He unfurls the bag, extracting the sandwich with exquisite care. There’s a napkin wrapped around it; it flutters to the plate first, and he nearly leaves it there, but—
Sayo, it reads, followed by a string of numbers. Ten of them, to be exact, grouped two, four and four.
Ah. Heat flares where his collar rests at his neck. A phone number. That’s…persistent.
He stands up, skin tingling the same way it does in battle, but there's no curse energy to blame. Only the strange beat of his heart, and the even more foreign sensation of heat beneath his collar. He paces the kitchen, once, twice, trying to expend the tremble in his muscles, to still the half-formed thoughts racing in her head, and--
And with a delicate swipe of his hand, he guide the paper into the bin. Sayo, it still reads, and a number after it. Right there, on top of all his rubbish.
Nanami turns away, taking the plate with him. He’ll eat on the couch tonight.
When Gojo assumes Nanami Kento's lack of PDA for the reader shows a lack of desire for her, a tipsy Kento is quick to correct him.
Warnings: 18+ drabble, Kento goes on a smutty rant
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'A quick drink' after work had soon turned into two, three, four. Shoko took full advantage of the rooftop bar's balcony, smoking and idly chatting; Higuruma and Atsuya gossipped and quipped, snorting into their drinks; Satoru observed Kento and you keenly behind his dark lens; you stood, excusing yourself to the bathroom as Kento gave you a gentle smile.
"I'm sorry," Satoru interrupted loudly when you were gone, his pot boiling over, "I just-- I just don't get it, Nanami." All eyes were on Satoru and Kento now-- Kento, with one thin eyebrow raised in quiet disdain at Satoru, and Satoru, with his elbows planted forward on his knees in challenge.
A few moments of silence. Kento huffed, "Should I be apologising for someth--"
"--you've been together for years," Satoru interrupted, "and I'm just not convinced. She could be-- she could be a coat rack for all the affection you show her, you're supposed to not be able to keep your hands off her--"
"--you want me to grope my fiancée in public, am I correct--"
"--well maybe, anything to show that you love her--"
Kento laughed out loud, deep and humourless, continuing to chuckle into his glass, scoffing to himself; "Love her," he rumbled, swirling his whiskey, amber eyes flickering and carnal in the firelight.
Shoko had turned, smirking, to watch the scene. Atsuya leaned back, scowling, chewing on a toothpick with crossed arms. Hiromi leaned, glimmer-eyed, into the drama, one hand cupping his jaw and the other clasping his wineglass. He picked up the bottle, slowly beginning to pour another glass.
"I don't love her," Kento spat, downing his glass of whiskey in one smooth swallow, hissing and slamming the glass down on the table, "I worship her. I'm obsessed with her."
Satoru was silent, mulish, as Kento continued.
"I would walk through rains of bullets for her," he mused aloud, "I would cut off fingers with blunt knives--"
"Nanami, alright, I'm sorry--"
"Any second I'm not with her," Kento continued, his voice quieter, darker, the group leaning into him, "is a second wasted. I don't know what point there was in the years I spent without her-- probably just there to build me into even a semblance of the man she deserves--"
"--why are we doing this--"
"-- and when I'm not thinking about talking to her, watching her, being near her, holding her, or-- fuck, just having her look at me goes bone-deep...I spend at least eighty-percent of my time thinking about different ways to make her cum--"
Satoru was blushing now, his face in his hands, while the others leaned into Kento's mild breakdown with awe, "--fucking hell Nanami, I didn't mean--"
"I almost died last week, at work," Kento mused, as a laughing Hiromi slid the glass of wine down the table to Kento, which he caught seamlessly, "because I was too busy thinking about how her mouth had felt around my cock the night before, because I was pondering the many applications for my tie, because I was thinking about how incredible she felt underneath me--"
Atsuya and Shoko whispered together, Hiromi now giggling to himself unashamedly; "Oh he's really going for it--" "I know I know, shhh, let him finish--"
"--and I've been sat here with her all evening, resisting the urge to strip her, tie her wrists together and have her ride me until I go fucking blind, all because of social-fucking-propriety, just for some long streak of jizz like you to say I clearly don't love her--"
Satoru had shrunk in on himself now, his soul quietly leaving his body, mortified and put to rights as Kento tsked, swirling his wine before downing that, too. He accepted the bottle Hiromi slid towards him in approval.
"...it really just is rather rude and presumptuous of you, isn't it, Gojo?"
The group sat in stunned silence as you returned, sitting beside Kento and laying a hand on his crossed knees. You felt the bizarre tension; Hiromi unable to conceal a blush as he looked at you, Shoko giving you a knowing smile around her cigarette, Atsuya unable to make eye contact. You smiled uncertainly.
When it comes to trying for a baby, Nanami Kento always works overtime. And the reader had better be ready.
Part 1 LINK HERE: Operation Babymaker- A Trip to the Tailors
Part 2 LINK HERE: Operation Babymaker-- Benchpress
It's a beautiful day for a party, and Kento is a naughty, naughty goose drunk 🪿
And...LINK HERE to the original Ditch the Party
Warnings: 18+ throughout, breeding kink
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"Kento! Are you nearly done? We've got to go!" You leaned out of the bathroom, smirking at Kento and the scrutinising eyes he ran over your niece's expertly wrapped birthday present.
Kento grumbled, mildly offended; "'Nearly done'," he scoffed, "as if I'd leave it to the last minute. It's been wrapped for a week." You padded over to him, pleased with your gift choices; a knight's costume (complete with sword and shield) and a glittery nail polish set.
"I can't believe she's five already," you crooned, fingers grazing over her gift, wistful. Leaning down, pressing a kiss to your forehead, Kento smiled into your hair.
"I can't wait," he hummed, the prospect of parenthood filling him with fizzy excitement.
You looked up at him with sternly pinched lips, and an unwavering memory of your last badly-behaved-Kento party attendance; "Well, you'll have to wait. It's child-friendly today. The strongest thing going past your lips is pink lemonade."
You headed towards the door. Kento had the absolute audacity to look at you with total innocence.
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"Happy birthda-- oh, she's gone."
Leaning down to hug the birthday girl, your niece, was futile-- she darted away laughing, slippery as an eel, into the maelstrom of other children, several dozen boys and girls her own age who had taken over the garden.
The obnoxiously loud party music, screeching kids on the bouncy castle, bustling parents making awkward small-talk, and flamboyant party entertainers turned the scene into a sensory nightmare. You felt Kento lean close, his smooth voice grazing your ear.
"I'll get us a drink, shall I?"
Before you could turn and beg to go with him, he was gone, weaving back to the kitchen with a sly look in his eye. Other parents stepped back from you, the currently child-free sacrifice, and you were as a gazelle on the Sahara.
"Tag, YOU'RE IT--"
You squeaked as a child slapped your thigh, promptly sprinting away. You smirked, tying back your hair, ready to be the cool auntie.
Ready to be IT.
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Kento strolled through your sister's kitchen, nodding politely to the horde of strangers, catching your sister's eye and being beckoned over. She looked sweaty, and harangued, but happy.
"Kento! Drink?" Without waiting for an answer, she bustled around behind her, scooping a ladle into an enormous crystal dish of juice, "Here, you'll need this, I promise. It's not that strong--"
Kento wasn't listening as two big red cups were pushed into his hands, and stared instead out of the window into the garden, his gaze meltingly soft and adoring.
He watched you, hair up, dewy in the Spring sun, laughing as you darted after squealing children. His chest burst, his head a montage of you and him and a fantasy child. Kento sighed, and took a generous swig of juice, thirsty after your long drive. He raised his fine eyebrows, glancing down into the cup.
"I don't normally like juice," he said aloud to your sister, who offered him a guilty little smile, "but this has something about it."
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Panting, and being congratulated by your watch for completing a good workout, you lolloped away from the crowd of children, who had now mercifully abandoned you for a live magician.
"Where is that man," you pondered aloud to yourself, as you poured yourself a glass of lemonade in the kitchen, "who promised me a dri-- oh!"
You slopped lemonade down your arm with a squeak of surprise, as strong arms wrapped around your waist, a wet kiss being pressed behind your ear.
"Kento! There you are. I was beginning to think you'd left me," you teased, wriggling away to wash your arms at the sink. Kento hovered behind you, predatory in his affections.
"Leave you?" He began, low and sultry, "How could I possibly, when you taste so--"
Kento was interrupted, your mother leaning past him to give you a kiss. As you spoke with her, you reapplied your lipstick, and Kento felt a wicked lick of heat in his belly, all inhibitions thrown out of the window after three large cups of 'juice'.
Your mother left, and you turned to drape your arms around Kento's neck, ready to be held at arm's length in accordance with his strict ick towards public affection. With a jolt of surprise, you felt his arms lock behind your waist instead, holding you flush against his body, his light slacks and summer shirt (why was his tie loose? how were the top three buttons suddenly undone?) leaving little to the imagination.
"That colour suits you," Kento whispered, husky as his eyes flicked down to your lips, one thumb coming up to slowly brush your bottom lip down, shuddering at the lipstick coming off onto his skin, "but it would suit my cock much better, don't you think?"
You blushed furiously, trying to battle your way out of his arms as he chuckled against your decollete. Your frantic eyes spotted the punch bowl, your sister-- from whom drinks should never be accepted-- and a series of empty cups.
You stuttered up at Kento, feeling yourself throb against your will as his tongue darted across his lips, smearing the lipstick residue on his thumb onto his neck instead. You began to hiss at him, berating, squirming against him to release yourself from his arms.
Kento groaned into you, and you clapped your hands over your face to hide your blush; "Keep that up," he threatened, low and laughing, "and I might just have to tie you up before I cum in my--"
You dropped out of his arms, wiggling under them and whipping your head round to check for other people, before pointing a finger at him. You mimed zipping your lips, eyes glistening, cheeks pink, and Kento felt his cock twitch at you telling him off. You had backed away, but Kento smirked, lopsided, and slowly loped towards you, eyes hungry, backing you into a corner.
"Tag, you're it!" A little hand batted at Kento's leg, and he flipped smoothly, spinning and jogging off into the garden after your niece. You stood, red faced, feeling your heartbeat between your legs, and wondering where to hide to cover your sha--
"You alright? Looking a bit..." Your brother-in-law walked into the kitchen, and finished weakly, unsure if he was about to inadvertently insult you. You smiled, flapping your hand at him.
"Hot," you gasped, "running round after this lot!" He smiled appreciatively, offering you a cup of your sister's deadly punch. You took a swig before holding it away from your lips, coughing.
"What the hell did she put in this?" You sputtered. Your brother-in-law looked sheepish, at least, on his wife's behalf.
"Everything, I think," he apologised, "Kento likes it, anyway--"
"Oh, he would," you snipped, before excusing yourself to the garden. Unable to spot Kento amongst the knights and princesses, your neck prickled, feeling distinctly hunted.
Staring from treehouse, to bouncy castle, to little wooden playhouse, to game of tag, you raised your cup to your mouth, ready to chug a mouthful of Dutch courage-- and you felt a long-fingered, enormous hand pluck the cup out of your grasp from behind, hearing Kento release a hum of satisfaction as he drained your punch in one gulp.
"Gorgeous punch," Kento drawled, slipping one foot between yours and one arm round your waist, "let's dip your tits in it and I can suck it right off."
Without warning, Kento hooked one of your legs from under you as you squeaked at him, and he took the opportunity to heroically catch you before you fell to the ground.
A small cluster of parents looked over to you both. Kento dusted you off, smiling at you, and gently chastising; "you shouldn't drink so much at a children's party, darling."
Your jaw dropped. Wordlessly, Kento abandoned you and hopped onto the bouncy castle with your niece; you sputtered at the faintly judgemental looks from the mothers beside you. Mortified, you moved to the party food table, pretending to organise plates to hide how flushed your face was, and how you had to clamp your legs together to stop the throbbing.
Turning round once you had calmed down, you felt Kento's arms cage you in against the table, just like the last party, and you gaped up at him in mute horror. Kento maintained eye contact, brown eyes twinkling as he reached round you, picking up an eclair from a plate of party cakes.
"Cream-filled," whispered Kento, taking a languid bite, whipped cream pouring from the end facing you. Kento chewed, leaning close to you as he swallowed, tongue darting out to lick cream off his lips, "my favourite."
You could have exploded, your whole body on fire with embarrassment and want. Nearby, your elderly great-aunt cooed as Kento appeared to lovingly offer you a bite of his pastry. You were silent, stunned; she reassured you.
"Don't mind me, dear, take a bite!"
"I'm-- I mean, uh--" you stuttered, and Kento smiled at your aunt, pulling you in sweetly by the hip.
"I think she's full, actually," Kento laughed with your aunt, smiling again as she walked off. Spinning back to face you, Kento's smile was gone and replaced by wolfish hunger again, "but not as full as you could be, all fucked-out on my cock, hmm?"
"Oh my god, Kento," you whimpered, face in your hands, now surrounded by children being invited to the table for lunch. Kento smiled, bending down to pass plates out, before pulling you aside again.
"Say it again," he growled, low and desperate, tucking your hair behind your ear, fingers lingering for a fraction too long, "but next time, I want it because I'm pulling your hair."
You ran, positively melting, in dire need of a hiding spot. Zipping through the kitchen, past the living room, you rounded the corner into the hallway, finding the nearest cupboard, and darting in.
No sooner had you reached up, pulling a little string to switch the light on...than a hand, strong and determined, closed around the doorframe, pulling Kento into view. You felt faint, both hands pressed over your mouth to stop yourself from audibly gasping.
Kento never once took his eyes off you, stepping into the narrow shelved cupboard, and reaching up for the light pull. The last thing you saw before being plunged into darkness, was Kento removing his tie.
Your senses heightened, you smelled Kento's cologne before feeling his lips on your neck, shamelessly sucking you, tasting you. Kento groaned, loud and shuddering, and he laughed as you slapped him on the chest. You felt him thrust loosely against your belly.
"I love parties," Kento lied, and you scoffed.
"You hate parties, Kento, you just love--"
"Fucking you with words before squirrelling you away somewhere?" His mouth moved lower, shifting your shirt and bra aside to pull your nipple into his mouth, hot and wet and sucking you just a little too hard, "Foreplay, darling."
You gasped, your fingers tangling in Kento's hair, his other hand making quick work of undoing your shorts. Idly slipping his hand inside and underneath your underwear, you bucked against his hand, Kento shivering with glee at your delicious wetness.
"Fuck yourself on my hand," he whispered, husky with restraint, "and we'll see who cums first, hmm? A little competition." You clapped a hand over your mouth as he curled two thick fingers inside you, so long that the edges tickled your cervix and you felt him in your belly.
The heel of Kento's hand pressed flush to your clit, and your hips stuttered as you rolled them against him, seeing stars with the friction, rutting down onto his fingers, holding him by the wrist.
Kento had already undone his trousers in the dark, and palmed his aching cock desperately inside his boxers. Whispering filth to you, sucking and releasing your breast into his mouth again and again with wet pops as he pinched your nipple between his lips, Kento wished he had more hands.
"Keep going-- fuck, good girl-- such a good girl--" he whispered, unable to stroke his cock for fear of cumming down your thigh, his head swimming with your velvety wet walls clenching around his fingers, using his hand as a toy to pleasure yourself.
Kento felt his high begin to creep down his spine, his balls clenching, biting lightly against your nipple and trying not to rip into you like a wild animal. As you felt your own orgasm creep closer, humping the heel of his hand, fucking his fingers as deep as they could reach for relief...Kento removed his hand with urgency.
"--can't-- can't hold back--" he shuddered, shunting down your underwear for better access, "--can't waste it--" Kento grabbed your hand, wrapping it round his twitching cock, and settled his weeping cockhead against your clit, keeping his other hand close.
Wrapping his fingers round yours, keeping himself pressed against your clit, Kento stroked himself fast, his groans building, until they tapered off into stuttering moans. You felt short, hot bursts of Kento's seed hit your clit, and fall into his other, waiting hand.
Kento shivered and swore to feel you rub his cockhead on your clit, using his cum as lube. He had gathered the rest of his cum, thick and white, on his fingers, and thrust them back inside you, not stopping until they grazed your cervix again. Positioning the heel of his palm against your clit again, Kento squeezed your thigh, pulling it forwards to encourage you to fuck his hand again.
You complied, Kento's seed giving you the lubrication you needed, pressing your aching pussy down around his fingers until you felt him deep in your belly again. Kento's mouth and other hand were full, busy with your breasts, kneading and massaging and pinching as he whispered encouragement to you.
"--got to cum-- suck it all up into you-- then I'll fuck it in even deeper--" Kento's drunk filth rolled off his tongue without a filter, going straight to your core, and your orgasm burned through you like wildfire.
Kento kissed you deeply, drinking your cries and whimpers down like liquor. Kento's strong hand thrust you through your ecstasy, feeling your pussy clench and suck against his fingers, leaving barely a trace of his cum behind.
Pulling his fingers out, Kento replaced his hand with his knee to keep you upright against the wall. In the dark, you blushed to hear the wet sucks of Kento licking his fingers clean.
"Ready?" He toned, low and devious.
"For wha--" With little warning, Kento lifted you against the wall, wrapping your legs around his waist, and pressing his half-hard cock into your pussy, still twitching from your recent orgasm.
Kento groaned into your neck, hot and squirming with overstimulation, letting your incoordinate shocked little thrusts suck his cock deeper, bringing it back to life. He felt himself twitch inside you, growing longer and harder as the blood rushed back.
Drunk on Kento's insistent need to fill you with his cum, you had tuned out the sounds of the party, letting Kento hold your weight and shuddering in delight as you felt his cock warm and swelling inside you. A change in the tone of voices beyond the cupboard snapped you to attention.
"Hide and seek!" cried a little voice in the garden, "You hide, and I'll count...one, two--" A flurry of little screams and footsteps came closer, into the house.
"Kento," you hissed panicking. Kento chuckled against your neck, rutting lazily into you, trembling with the bittersweet tang of overstimulation. Encouraging you to lock your hips round him, Kento looped his tie through the door handle, wrapping the tails around his hand and bringing it back to your arse you hold you up again.
"One more time," he moaned, suckling little red hearts into your skin, "I won't-- won't be long--"
Hearing Kento's wavering voice, so intoxicated by his need to fill you, you slipped two fingers down, shivering as you used the remnants of his cum to rub circles on your clit, deliberately squeezing your walls around Kento until he whimpered against you. Feeling you pleasure yourself around him had Kento reeling.
Kento began to lift you by the thighs, ramming you down onto his cock, now rock solid, and you muffled your squeals into his chest. You heard him growl, shuddering as you bit into his pecs, and it spurred him on to fuck you harder. Clinging on around his neck, Kento felt a rush of satisfaction as to your pussy quivered in response to his brutal pace.
"--so close--" he whined, his breaths hot and panting, fruity with the deadly punch that brought him to this, "--got to-- you first...fuck, so deep--" Kento's arms faltered, and you dropped deeper around his cock with a squeak, the jolt making you convulse with pleasure.
Kento came with a muted growl, biting into you, unable to press himself any deeper than he already was. Overtaken by the euphoria of feeling himself twitch and spurt inside you, hearing you trying to suppress your gasps, Kento thrust lazily into you, finally satisfied, panting as he came down from his high; you flopped against him, lost in delirious pleasure.
Your stomach dropped as you heard little voices outside the door. Kento held his tie taut as hands pulled at the handle, before declaring "it's locked!", the footsteps scurrying away. Kento chuckled into your neck, devious as you slapped at his chest again.
"You need to lie down," he whispered into you, helping you to dress yourself again, filled with anguish as he thought of his cum dripping out of you.
"I do need a lie down," you agreed, still giggling and love-drunk. Releasing the tie and taking you by the hand, Kento peered surreptitiously out of the doorway before spiriting you away to the living room. A set of little boys and girls, dressed incoordinately as princess-knights, sat playing with nail polish and make-up.
They looked up at you both as you approached, taking your rumpled appearances in as evidence of a really fun playtime.
Kento filled once more with wicked intent.
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Lying back on the sofa with cucumber over your eyes, your lips were pursed as your niece plastered them with sparkly lipstick.
Kento sat cross-legged on the floor beside you, fingers splayed, nails now covered with nail polish of pink and red and gold and--
"Where did they get this cucumber?" You asked, sniffing, frowning. Kento's jaw twitched, answering after thanking a blushing little girl for her wonderful manicure.