⤷ SPARE A TEXT , NAGUMO YOICHI .
summary 𓂃 after a long night of waiting, you confront Nagumo when he returns home from an assassination job. He'd left your texts on read for hours, and the fear of not knowing whether he was alive or dead finally boils over into a heated argument. Nagumo tries to downplay the danger with his usual smiles and jokes, but you refuse to let him deflect. As you press on, the real issue comes to light. Not his job, not the secrecy—but the silence.
tags 𓂃 nagumo yoichi x fem!reader , angst , established relationship , secret relationship , argument and reconciliation , assassin x reader, lightweight angst with a soft ending , canon , post-mission , communication Issues .
⤷ THE APARTMENT was dark when he slipped through the door.
Not that you'd expected him to use the front entrance like a normal person. Nagumo never did. He moved through shadows like they were built for him, quiet as a held breath, and by the time you heard the soft click of the lock, he was already leaning against the hallway wall, shoes off, coat draped over his arm like nothing had happened.
"Did I wake you?" His voice was light. Easy. That ever-present smile already tugging at his lips.
You were sitting on the couch. Still fully dressed. The news had been on, muted, for the last four hours. Your phone was in your lap, screen dark, the last text you'd sent him still hanging there like an accusation.
Let me know you're okay.
Sent at 11:42 PM. Read receipt at 11:43 PM.
No response.
"No," you said flatly. "You didn't wake me."
He tilted his head, dark eyes sweeping over you. Reading you the way he read everyone—quickly, efficiently, like you were a puzzle with an answer he already knew. "You waited up."
It wasn't a question.
You stood. Your legs felt stiff from sitting so long, your neck sore from the way you'd been holding tension for hours. The clock on the wall read 3:17 AM. You'd been sitting in the dark since midnight, phone in hand, watching the minutes crawl past.
"You said it would be simple," you said.
"It was." He hung his coat on the hook by the door—cream-colored, pristine, not a single stain on it. You wondered if he'd changed somewhere between the kill and coming home. You wondered if you wanted to know the answer. "In and out. Barely broke a sweat."
"Then why didn't you answer me?"
The question hung between you. Nagumo's smile didn't waver, but something in his posture shifted—a micro-adjustment, the kind he probably didn't even realize he made. His shoulders squared. His weight settled back onto his heels.
"I was busy," he said.
"Busy." You held up your phone. The screen lit up, showing the thread. Four messages from you. One read receipt. No replies. "You read it. You read it at 11:43 and then nothing. For over three hours, Nagumo."
"Yoichi," he corrected gently, crossing the room toward you. "We talked about this. When we're here, it's Yoichi."
Right. Here—his penthouse, the top floor of a building you still weren't sure he actually owned—was supposed to be safe. A bubble where he wasn't an ex-Order assassin. Where he wasn't a killer. Where he was just… yours.
Except he wasn't. Not really. Not when he left at midnight without a word and came back with the smell of rain and something else clinging to his collar. Something metallic. Something that made your stomach turn even though you'd never admit it.
"Yoichi," you said, and his name tasted bitter on your tongue, "why didn't you answer me?"
He stopped a few feet away. Close enough to touch. Far enough to run.
"There wasn't a good time," he said. "I wasn't going to text you in the middle of a fight. That seemed rude."
"Don't." Your voice cracked. You hated that it cracked. "Don't make jokes right now."
The smile softened. Just slightly. "I'm not joking. I'm defusing."
"It's not working."
"No," he agreed. "I can see that."
He took another step forward. You took one back. His eyebrows rose—genuine surprise, there and gone in a flash. Nagumo wasn't used to people stepping away from him. You knew that. He was handsome and charming and disarmingly easy to like, and he knew exactly how to use all of it.
But you were tired. You were so tired.
"I was up all night," you said. "Again. Do you know what that's like? Sitting here, in the dark, staring at your ceiling, wondering if this is the night someone finally gets you?"
"I told you—"
"You told me it would be simple. You told me it was just one target. You told me you'd be back by one, maybe two." You laughed, and it came out wrong—sharp and hollow. "It's almost three-thirty, Yoichi. And I didn't know if you were dead or alive or bleeding out in some alley somewhere because you couldn't be bothered to type two letters."
"Two letters?"
"O-K. That's it. Two letters. One second of your time."
He was quiet for a moment. The smile had faded into something unreadable. His dark eyes stayed fixed on your face, cataloging every micro-expression the way he probably cataloged an opponent's tells before a kill.
"You're angry," he said.
"Yes. Thank you for noticing."
"I always notice." He tilted his head again, that familiar, infuriating gesture. "You're not just angry about the text."
"Don't psychoanalyze me."
"I'm not. I'm just saying—"
"I know what you're doing." You crossed your arms over your chest, partly for defense, partly because your hands were shaking and you didn't want him to see. "You're going to stand there with that calm expression and that reasonable tone and you're going to make me feel like I'm overreacting. Like I'm being dramatic. Like this is normal and I should just accept it."
"I never said that."
"You don't have to say it. It's written all over your face."
Nagumo reached up and touched his own cheek, mock-thoughtful. "Is it? I usually have a better poker face than that."
"Stop."
"Stop what?"
"Stop smiling."
The smile disappeared. Just like that. Gone, like it had never been there at all. And underneath it was something you rarely saw—not anger, not coldness, but something worse. Exhaustion. Deep and bone-tired, the kind that didn't go away with sleep.
"This is who I am," he said quietly. "You knew that when you started this."
"Did I?" You shook your head. "You told me you were retired. You told me the Order thing was in the past. You said—"
"I said I'd left. I didn't say I'd stopped."
"Same difference."
"It's really not."
He moved then—not fast, but deliberate. He crossed the remaining distance between you, and this time you didn't step back. His hand found your wrist, thumb pressing against your pulse. It was racing. He could probably feel it.
"You knew I was an assassin," he said. "You knew I was in the Order. You knew Sakamoto. You knew all of it, and you stayed anyway."
"Because you said you'd be careful."
"I am careful."
"You're not." Your voice broke again. You hated him for that. Hated yourself more. "You're reckless. You smile and you joke and you pretend nothing's wrong and then you disappear for hours and come back like nothing happened. Do you even realize how terrifying that is? Do you even care?"
His grip on your wrist tightened. Not enough to hurt. Enough to ground you both.
"I care," he said. "That's the problem."
"Then act like it.”
"I am acting like it." His voice dropped, low and serious in a way you almost never heard. "You want to know why I didn't answer your text? Because if I'd looked at my phone for even one second, that guy would've put a knife in my ribs. And then I wouldn't have come back at all. Is that what you want? A last text? A goodbye message you can read at my funeral?"
The words hit like a slap.
"No," you whispered. "Of course not."
"Then stop asking me to be someone I'm not." He released your wrist. Stepped back. Ran a hand through his black hair, messing it up in a way that made him look younger. More vulnerable. "I'm not good at this. The talking. The feelings. The checking in. I'm better at dice tricks and killing people. That's my skillset."
"Romantic."
"It's honest." He sighed, dropping onto the couch. For a moment, he looked like nothing more than a tired man in an expensive apartment. Not an assassin. Not a killer. Just someone who'd had a long night and wanted to sleep. "I like you. More than I've liked anyone in a long time. That's why I'm keeping you here. In this apartment. Away from all of it."
"That's not living."
"No," he agreed, looking up at you. "But it's living longer."
You wanted to stay angry. You wanted to keep yelling, keep fighting, keep demanding answers he didn't know how to give. But the fight was draining out of you, replaced by something heavier. Something that felt a lot like grief.
You sat down next to him. Not touching. Close enough.
"I'm not asking you to change," you said quietly. "I'm just asking you to try. A little. Send me a stupid emoji. A single letter. Anything that tells me you're still breathing."
He turned his head to look at you. His dark eyes were unreadable again, but his hand found yours on the cushion between you. His fingers laced through yours. Warm. Solid. Alive.
"I can try," he said.
"That's all I want."
"I'm not promising I'll always remember. In the middle of a fight, my phone isn't exactly my priority."
"I know."
"But I'll try." He lifted your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles. His lips were cold. He must have been outside longer than he'd let on. "For you. I'll try."
You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder. His arm came around you automatically, pulling you closer. His heartbeat was steady under your ear. Slow. Calm. Like he hadn't just spent the night ending someone's life.
"Who was it?" you asked. "Really?"
"Someone after Sakamoto. That's all you need to know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have." He pressed his cheek against the top of your head. "He won't bother anyone anymore. That's what matters."
You closed your eyes. The darkness behind your lids was the same as the darkness in the apartment. Quiet. Heavy. But his arm was around you, and his chest rose and fell with each breath, and for now—for this moment—he was here.
"I hate this," you said.
"I know."
"But I can't hate you."
His laugh was soft. Almost sad. "That's probably for the best. I'm very hard to hate."
"You're really not."
"Liar."
You smiled despite yourself. Despite everything. He felt it against his shoulder—he always noticed everything—and his arm tightened around you.
"Next time," you said, "text me. I don't care if it's in the middle of a fight. Type it with one hand. Send it blind. Just do it."
"I'll put a reminder in my phone."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." He pulled back just enough to look at you. That smile was back, smaller than before but real. Genuine in a way his public smile never was. "I don't want you sitting in the dark worrying about me. That's not why I keep you here."
"Then why do you keep me here?"
He considered the question. Turned it over in his mind like one of his dice, looking for the right answer.
"Because when I come back," he said finally, "I want somewhere to come back to."
You didn't have a response to that. So you just leaned into him again, let him hold you, let the silence stretch out between you until it stopped feeling like a wound and started feeling like a bandage.
Outside, the sky was starting to lighten. You'd be tired tomorrow. So would he. But for now, in the dark of his penthouse, with his arms around you and his heartbeat under your ear, you let yourself believe that this could work.
That he could try.
That maybe, just maybe, two letters wasn't too much to ask.
A/N : probably gonna do Gaku next … I love him. Sakadays brainrot all day everyday I love these losers . Ugh.
