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Title: Meridian Pairing: Fushiguro Toji x handler fem!reader Summary: It is during the quiet lull that fills the gaps between jobs and in the absence of distractions to evade facing the jagged pieces you've each been desperately trying to hold together that a series of subtle intimacies form the unspoken bond that emerges between you and Toji, poised to indelibly blur the line delineating professional from personal. Content warnings: mature themes (mdni), canon-typical violence, language. Content tags: canon-divergence AU, slow burn romance, hurt/comfort. WC: 20.9k A/N: This is my (tardy) entry for the subtle intimacies collab hosted by @seiwas! Happy one (and now two!) year anniversary, sel! Thank you so much for allowing me to partake in your lovely event! Also on AO3

Although Toji isn’t physically at your side by the time you stir awake, his presence very much remains.

It lies on the rumpled, soft cotton bedsheets that still bear the deep imprint of his body’s form.

It’s carried in the clean scent that lingers in your bedroom—vanilla sweetness from your lotion intertwining with the robust woody notes of his aftershave—one that you’ve come to associate uniquely with him.

It floats as a placid weight in the morning air, palpable, like the lingering warm shower steam that still mists the bathroom mirror with a soft haze.

It had taken very little to convince Toji, a few weeks ago, to stay overnight for the first time, after you’d spent the evening lazily cuddled on your living room couch, chatting away—you’d lamented the late hour before reminding him that Megumi was away on a school field trip and those were more than enough reasons to keep him from returning to his empty home.

The spare toothbrush you’d handed him on that night now sits next to yours, and although its bright red handle sets a vibrant visual clash against the muted brown finish of your own brush and holder, something about the way they are stored together like this makes them fit just right.

An amalgamation of emotions swirls through your mind, a common occurrence during quiet, reflective showers on the mornings after Toji spends the night.

You’re still discovering things about him, still reconciling certain parts of the fierce assassin you’ve worked with for the better part of a decade with the softer man beneath the surface, the one that you’ve grown intimately close with.

Some of his penchants don’t surprise you. He’s always exhibited some foodie tendencies, always tried to get into some form of eatery after carrying out a job, regardless of its severity.

Others emerge as subtleties that gradually reveal themselves, like his tendency to wake up extra early, and his deep inability to sleep in past a certain time, no matter how late a night he’s had, an echo from a time that precedes when he’d abandoned his former name.

And then, there are your shared routines—unspoken, newly established, borne out of a trust that doesn’t require a promise.

And so, when you set a kettle to boil after your invigorating shower, it is two cups that you retrieve from the cabinet.

You carefully select and pluck some fresh mint leaves from the bundle you picked up from the market the day before, their peppery, sweet scent filling the air as you place them into the first cup. A sachet of cinnamon tea is what you place in the other, and it’s the one you slowly bring to your lips a few short minutes later, just as you hear the anticipated knocks reverberate through your door.

Ten years prior

Four evenly spaced raps echoed loudly at your door, jolting you out of your reverie.

With the consequences of a nearly sleepless night still weighing heavily on your eyelids, you vigorously shook your head to bring yourself back to your usual state of alertness.

You were on day three of an insomniac episode that felt somewhat more acute than the ones that usually usurped your mind on the eve of a new assignment. The resulting fatigue was usually short-lived, easily masked by the jittery buzz of energy drinks and strong coffee you’d consume in quantities that pushed past any reasonable daily allowance.

But with a particularly odd, anxious stirring tugging at your senses, today felt somewhat different.

It was rare to have what you’d dubbed as the ‘trinity of unknowns’, wherein the client, the target, and the contractor were all divulged to you at the last possible moment, and all turned out to be people you had never engaged with.

It was the outcome of accepting to cover a job for an old friend who’d cited an emergency back home—in a convincing display of impeccable persuasion that had come to typify him, Shiu Kong had pitched the job along with its alluring reward in a way he knew you would not refuse.

But as someone who thrived within strict, well-defined boundaries, what had felt like a no-brainer at the time now spelled multidimensional threats to your structured work style as a handler.

Four more knocks, each one louder than the last, resounded through the door once more.

Striding with an assurance you were still mustering, you approached the door and peered through the peephole, only to be met with the silent and looming form of a silhouette that was too large to fully perceive through the narrow, gloomy lens.

Intuition led your left hand to your waist, and you ensured that your handgun was holstered as you brought your right hand to the door’s lock before opening it in one swift movement.

The first thing you noticed was just how built he was—a tank of a man, one who could likely overtake you in an instant with his bulging muscles threatening to burst out of his tight black t-shirt. His piercing green eyes were next—dark locks fell over them as they transitioned from neutral to surprised to apprehensive before trailing down to where your fingers still gripped your weapon. And when his gaze met yours again, you averted it only for the brief moment it took to take in the jagged scar that sliced over his lip and the way that it curled, drawing attention to each word he spoke.

“Where’s Kong?” he asked, his voice coming out gruff, his tone even deeper than you’d imagined it to be.

“Unavailable,” you replied cautiously as you held the door wider and stepped aside in your wordless invitation for the towering man to come inside.

It didn’t take too long to realize that he didn’t seem to have any intention of budging.

“He’s out of the country,” you added, “tending to a last-minute emergency.”

At this, the man’s eyes immediately narrowed.

“I don’t like surprises,” he said pointedly, his tone calm, barring the tinge of distrust it bore, effectively deploying a wall of tension in the dimly lit space between you.

“Well, neither do I,” you retorted as you held the door open with one foot, moving the hand that held it to your hip, “but unfortunately for both of us, I am in fact the one running point on this.”

You paused for his response, one you realized would not go beyond the light scoff that escaped his lips while he remained otherwise still, though expecting a more persuasive argument from you.

This is exactly what annoyed you with unknowns—it’s a good thing you’d anticipated something like this, a good thing that you had a backup plan.

“That said,” you continued, “since you seem to be unwilling to cover this, I’ll just find someone else. I’ll be damned if I lose out on my cut of ten and a half million yen.”

You’d already turned around after letting go of the heavy door when he lodged his foot in the threshold, catching it right before it shut. Your heart skipped a beat as you pulled the door back once more, not expecting the full-on smirk you were met with, one accompanied by an eager twinkle lighting up his eyes.

“Ten five, huh?” he mused. “How is that a much higher figure than the one Kong gave me?”

“I renegotiated with the client. A careful review of the scope warranted some changes in the fee,” you stated, and now it was your turn to narrow your eyes at him. “Like I said, I’m the one running this now. But if you’re not interested, then—”

Your attempt to shut the door was met with gentle but firm resistance.

“Maybe we started on the wrong foot,” he said as he stepped one foot over the threshold, and you somehow intuitively found yourself shifting aside to let him in. “Maybe we’ll pretend we’re not strangers, at least for this one job.”

The irony of his proposal did not occur to you until much later—the fact that he’d never formally introduced himself to you.

But then again, Zen’in Toji never truly needed to.

“Just about four more minutes now,” you said into your wired earpiece after a quick glance at your watch.

You were standing by a window in a hotel room whose panoramic views and lavish furnishings whispered of indulgences you couldn’t imagine justifying for yourself. It was a cold, early January morning, the kind that had each of your exhales clouding the glass before you in a mildly irritating obstruction as you trained your binoculars on the intersection where your target was expected to appear, based on his routine.

“I’ll let you know as soon as he rounds the corner,” you continued. “I can’t stress it enough, Zen’in, no funny, flashy business. This needs to be clean and inconspicuous—the client specifically requested covert protocols for this.”

“Well, they should have paid for that bit,” came Toji’s retort, crackling with static through your earpiece.

Even from several stories above, you could practically hear his teeth gritting together, not unlike the way they did whenever he was upset about having lost a horse bet, and you were unable to refrain from rolling your eyes at the visual.

“They literally paid for it,” you replied. “It’s part of the agreement we signed and—”

“That you signed, maybe. I didn’t sign a damn thing,” he cut in. “And to me, for the peanuts they’re shelling out? This sounds more like an addendum to a contract. To me, it sounds like they should be charged extra if they’re gonna dictate how I’m going to do my job.”

You let out an exasperated sigh, one that came out as a puff of irritation, misting the glass once more as you tried your best to ignore him and to keep your focus on the intersection.

“To me,” he paused for emphasis, “it sounds like you failed to negotiate on this one, Miss handler.”

While eighteen months into this work partnership with Toji had more or less accustomed you to his temper and to this kind of bickering that was characteristic of him, it still bordered on the unusual to witness him act out like this in the middle of a job. For someone you’d only known to bear a cool focus on the few rare occasions you’d been out on a job with him, Toji’s insistence on instigation was not lost on you.

And yet somehow, you couldn’t resist feeding into it.

“Oh, so now you’re the one telling me how to do my job?” you questioned.

A brief, derisive scoff buzzed through your earpiece, but he said nothing. Just as you were beginning to enjoy the short silence that had settled between you, Toji spoke again.

“What’s the story with this client, anyway? This reeks of something familiar.”

“I told you already—they remained anonymous and went through a third-party intermediary.”

“Yeah, I got that part, but what did you know about them?”

The last threads of focus you’d desperately tried to hold on to had now all but slipped out of your grasp. You shifted your binoculars down the couple of hundred meters that separated the street corner from the park bench where Toji was seated.

You took in his outfit—black parka, gray scarf strategically wrapped tight to conceal his wire, and a matching winter hat that sat snug over his head, allowing only for a few midnight strands to dance in the icy wind that slightly reddened his cheeks. By all appearances, he looked like a typical park dweller enjoying a crisp morning.

Suddenly, as though he could sense you watching, Toji slightly lifted his head, his eyes traveling all the way up to the twelfth floor from which you were peering down at him, and held your gaze. You were thankful for the distance between you and for the fact that he couldn’t perceive your slight jump as you met his impassive stare, thankful that he wouldn’t notice the way your breath hitched slightly as he caught you off guard.

“I’ve briefed you on everything I know,” you finally mumbled.

“Not everything,” he said matter-of-factly before he returned his attention to the street before him.

His sharp quip hit you like a splash of frigid water, the stinging implication of his words snapping you back to reality.

“And what the hell do you mean by that, Toji?” You watched as a satisfied smirk tugged at his lips, at your slip, at your usage of his first name, which had seen an increasingly frequent occurrence these days. “Are you insinuating that I’m somehow hiding something—”

“Not what I’m saying,” he cut in, his tone gentler this time around. “Just think it through…”

Now you recognized this for what it was—one of the little impromptu challenges he loved to throw at you whenever he wanted to test a strategy or prove a point. This instance felt like the latter, and as much as he was getting under your skin, especially at a time that called for utmost concentration, you still found yourself, as you often did with Toji, compelled to bite.

You returned your gaze to the intersection, carefully scanning each figure lest you miss your target.

“Well, on paper, the target is listed as a mercenary curse user, but mainly he’s a two-bit crook. Many parties seem to have it out for him, largely people he’s double-crossed, and they range from local crime rings to members of the big sorcerer clans.”

Toji let out a low hum without elaborating beyond that. You inhaled deeply before resuming.

“The client paid top dollar to go through a third-party and went to great lengths to insist this be done as covertly as possible and without any traces, which isn’t particularly unusual or remarkable, but it also likely means that this isn’t really about sending a message.”

Still no response from Toji. The silence stretched into a moment, and in the absence of any feedback, you repositioned your binoculars towards him. You were immediately drawn to a sharp glare that twinkled at regular intervals, and it took you a moment to identify it as the sunlight repeatedly catching one of his shiny silver jacket buttons. It took you just as long to realize the surprising cause of the flickering—the restless bouncing of Toji’s leg.

A year and a half of close association, and you’d never seen him fidget like this.

Or at all.

And then, it clicked.

“Jujutsu Society…” you breathed out. “Someone among the higher-ups wanting a problem to go away. Desperate enough to resort to employing the Sorcerer Killer. Perhaps even backed by one of the big three clans?”

“Who knows, really...” Toji’s first reply in a while came in a rather indifferent tone, but his body language appeared anything but, with tension coiling down his arms and into his clenched fist as his indirect confirmation faded into the cold air.

Silence settled between you once more.

The button started twinkling repeatedly in the light again.

“This is new…” you whispered, your voice barely a breath as you inadvertently vocalized your partial thought.

As faint as your volume was, Toji’s movements appeared to halt at the sound of your voice.

“What was that?” he inquired.

“Since when do you care about the specific motivations behind these jobs, anyway?”

“Oh, trust me, I don’t give a rat’s ass—”

“But you do feel some kind of way, don’t you?” you interjected, cornering him before he could evade the crux of the issue, as he often did whenever a conversation started hitting too close to home. “Fulfilling a contract that could potentially benefit them?” you added, with emphasis on that last word.

He scoffed again, his mouth curling in contempt. “Nah, I’m just wondering just how aware you are of what you’re getting mixed up with.”

By now, you’d gotten accustomed to this dance, to the fact that despite your trusted alliance, he still remained so adamantly guarded about so many aspects of himself, particularly those that pertained to anything related to his ties to the Jujutsu world, and to the Zen’in.

By now, his prevarications did not escape you, even as he attempted to mask them under a half-hearted, insincere casting of aspersions on your capabilities.

“Right. Sure,” you replied. “It totally has nothing to do with…”

You trailed off as your attention was captured by the subtle tap of Toji’s boot heel against the icy ground, to the way it had resumed just before you spoke, only to stop as soon as you did.

Uncanny, you thought.

In the newfound silence, he tapped his foot for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Your mic cut out or something?” he asked, almost expectantly.

Almost as if he wanted to hear you.

“You know something, Zen’in? You’re awfully chatty today,” you said in a lower, almost teasing tone. “If you wanted to make conversation with me, there are many more direct ways to go about it.”

Toji halted his fidgeting.

This time, when he tilted his head up towards your window, it was slowly.

And this time, you didn’t flinch.

Even through your binoculars’ enhanced zoom, it was something indecipherable that you detected in Toji’s eyes, an elusive quality that ignited a longing to draw nearer and to perhaps get a better read on this proverbial book that very rarely opened up.

Just as he opened his mouth to voice what you could only imagine would be a biting retort, a movement caught the corner of your eye. You quickly jerked your binoculars towards the intersection as you watched the unsuspecting target you’d been anticipating for the better part of your morning already rounding the street corner.

“Shit. Okay, there he is, headed your way,” you blurted.

You returned your gaze to where you’d last seen Toji, only to find the bench vacant. You quickly scanned the area, finding him already up, already on the move, stalking towards the alleyway he was set to guide his target into.

“Keep it clean, Zen’in,” you warned, speaking quickly in an attempt to get your full instruction out, anticipating what you knew would be his next move. “None of that bullshit you pulled in Fukuoka—”

You watched helplessly as he tore out his earpiece and shoved it into his pocket, without breaking the meticulously calculated pace of his stride as he crossed the park.

And there he was in action: Zen’in Toji, doing what he did best.

Before your eyes was the version of Toji you were the most versed with, one who appeared far from nervous and who projected an aura of aplomb carried by a deep resentment and animosity towards a system that had failed him repeatedly.

It was the man who possessed the unique ability to convert such sentiments into a relentless, singular focus on getting the job done and securing his payment.

This version of Toji didn’t need to hear a damn word you had to say.

And yet, even in this moment, you couldn’t help but hang on to the slip you’d witnessed just a moment prior, to these waters of vulnerability that had only been partially tested, to this tiny but noticeable deviation that proved the rule.

“Not only did that idiot screw this up, but he also left a trail as obvious as daylight and one hell of a mess for me to clean,” you lamented one day, some months later, as you absently stirred the straw in your cup, fighting against the bubbly pressure in your mocktail. “If I break even on this one, it’ll be a damn miracle.”

With the initial intention of decompressing alone, you’d wandered into your favorite izakaya as you often did on the heels of a tough job like today’s. By the time you’d unexpectedly spotted Toji sitting near your usual spot at the far end of the bar, you were mentally situated somewhere between being too exhausted to muster up the energy it would take to avoid him and longing to vent off the incidents of the day to what you knew would be a listening ear. Ultimately, you’d succumbed to the latter shortly after yielding to the force of habit of taking the empty seat next to him.

After a short silence, Toji let out a low, unresolved hum, betraying his keenness to comment even as he remained absorbed on the phone he was typing away on.

“What is it?” you asked, giving him a sidelong glance.

“Oh, nothing… It’s just that I’ve always known you to be more pragmatic than this,” he said with a hint of derision in his tone.

“You’ve barely known me for two years, but okay. What’s your point?”

“My point is that this is what… The third big job like this that you’ve pawned off to someone else? Sorcerer targets, no less.” His piercing green eyes finally met yours as he concluded his reflection. “Nothing pragmatic about that.”

His words hung in the air as he broke your gaze for the brief moment it took for him to wave the bartender over. You averted your gaze just before he could meet your eyes, feigning profound interest in your drink, as if it contained the answers to everything.

“So, why didn’t you put me on it?” he asked.

“Put you on what?”

“That little project of yours wouldn’t have gone south if I’d been handling it,” Toji said matter-of-factly. “I know this. You know this. Why didn’t you assign it to me?”

You let out a sigh as the thought settled in your mind that he was intent on not letting this go tonight.

“This might be so hard for you to believe, but my jobs don’t all go to you, Zen’in.”

“Sure, but these always have. Until recently, that is. Until you started avoiding me.”

The bar suddenly felt too quiet, Toji’s voice too loud as he put words to a truth you couldn’t directly deny.

You let out a scoff, pretending to sip from the drink you already knew to be empty by now. “Like I said, I work with other people too,” before imitating his tone, “I know this, you know this.”

“Okay, and how’s that been going for you?” he retorted.

Not fucking great, is what you wanted but couldn’t bring yourself to say, lest you validated his point and be pushed to divulge the real reason why you’d been dodging him.

As you risked another glance at him, he looked up from his phone, his eyes locking with yours, his face an inscrutable mask, and you felt increasingly exposed as the seconds trickled by.

“So… What is this, Toji?” you said in a mocking tone as you poked at his arm, your attempt at easing whatever this tension was. “You gonna ask me to be exclusive with you now?”

To this, he simply scoffed and turned away, offering no verbal response.

For the first time this evening, you actually took in his demeanor, shoulders loose, dark tousled strands spilling back onto the edge of the hood of his light jacket, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips as he typed a response to whoever he was conversing with over text. He seemed to carry a casual confidence, a particularly cavalier allure, only compounding the precarious tone this conversation had taken.

Perhaps it was time to go.

Just as the bartender made her way over, you thought this would be a good opportunity to settle your bill. Before you could even formulate your sentence, Toji spoke first.

“She’ll have an order of the karaage,” he said, cool as ever.

You stared at Toji in disbelief, frozen by the complete unexpectedness of his act, and by the time you turned back towards the bartender to rebut, she had already swiftly scurried away.

“What the hell are you doing?” you asked, turning back to Toji.

“It doesn’t take two years to pick up on your tendency to forget to eat on a day like this,” he said pointedly before returning his attention to his phone.

Something about this ticked you off.

“I’m just about ready to leave,” you said.

You slid one leg off the stool as you prepared to get up, but Toji grabbed at your wrist, gently pulling it up to your eye level. Your hand was trembling at this point, your agitation mixing with the symptoms of what was increasingly feeling like low blood sugar. To make matters worse, as if on cue, your stomach emitted a low growl, singing the song of what was nearing a day and a half of neglect.

“Not before you eat something,” Toji said, his voice low but his eyes narrowed in a mixture of concern and something else.

It was with an inadvertent ease that you followed his guidance and sat back in your seat, and only when he was certain that you’d relented did Toji return his attention to his phone.

Tears borne of an unidentified frustration quietly began mounting, threatening to prickle at the corners of your eyes. The past few weeks had been a storm of growing pains as you sought to establish yourself more independently in this nebulous underground world.

As a non-sorcerer who could see curses and the carnage they sowed, you weren’t unused to the harsher lessons of life. But eventually some of the lessons, like today’s, chipped at your patience a little harder, some of the stress that had gradually built up now sought an outlet, and some part deep inside you wrestled with the reality that in this chaotic world of yours, the only steady anchor that had kept you grounded throughout these recent tribulations was sitting right next to you.

“We hang out too much, you know.” The words abruptly escaped your mouth before you could measure them.

“We hang out too much?” Toji slowly repeated, staring at you with an incredulous look.

“I see you outside of business more than I do any of my other associates.”

“You see your other associates outside of business?”

“What? No, I don’t. And that’s my point.”

“Well, then I’m glad I get to be your special person,” Toji returned with a smirk.

“I’m serious, Zen’in. The fact that you’re privy to my eating habits proves my point. And that’s exactly why I diversify my sourcing.”

Toji’s eyes slightly narrowed at this, and his voice dropped when he responded.

“You do realize that the one who followed me here tonight, right? I was sitting here minding my own business and…”

“I did not follow you! I obviously didn’t think you’d be here!” you snipped, immediately earning you a snicker from Toji. “Besides, I’m the one who introduced you to this place. It’s been my go-to spot long before I ever met you.” You emphasized the last word, poking his arm with your finger as you did.

“You’re gonna try to call dibs on a fucking bar, Miss handler?” he said with a cocked eyebrow and the shadow of a teasing smile.

The eye roll you gave him reflected the playful spirit that seemed to be slowly returning between you.

You had half a mind to finally ask him what it was that had him unusually engrossed as he tapped away at the keys of his phone, but you were instead preoccupied by this subtle tightening of your chest.

It irked you a bit, this uncanny ability Toji seemed to have when it came to reading you, the way he often indirectly shirked your unspoken rules of engagement, and, perhaps even more so, the way you’d allowed him to. Perhaps it was all this, combined with your particularly sensitive disposition, that caused you to have this unguarded moment.

“What do you want, Toji?” you asked, surprising even yourself with the directness of your question.

“What’s that?” he said distractedly, his eyes never leaving his tiny screen as he appeared far more interested in whoever he was chatting with on his phone.

“What is it you want from me?”

At this, he lifted his head, and a silence stretched as you watched him stare with an inscrutable expression in his piercing eyes, and you felt like you had the time to die from regret at your impulsive words three times over before he responded.

“What I want from you…” He pondered. “So you mean aside from a steady flow of lucrative contracts, like old times? Or is that too much to ask?”

“Classic Zen’in. So I really am yet another woman you’re using for money.” You dared to hope that the tension had eased, a feeling that proved to be fleeting when Toji scoffed and quietly responded.

“You know damn well it’s not like that with you,” he said simply.

“No? Tell me what it’s like then,” you pressed defiantly, yielding to the sudden surge of incitement coursing through you.

He took a sip of his drink, and as his gaze held yours over the rim of his glass, a silent calculation seemed to be running through his mind. All you could do was watch, trying to drive down the loud thumping of your heart hammering in your chest.

“You handle the jobs, and I fulfil them. Successfully. We make a good team. That simple,” he finally said, after having visibly weighed his words.

“And here he is, Zen’in Toji, evasive as ever, jumping ship.”

Your accusation was met with yet another scoff.

“Am I jumping, or am I just avoiding getting pushed?” Toji mumbled as he returned his attention to his phone, as if to minimize this subtle concession.

You observed him, pointedly so, and you could tell that he knew you were. Still, he kept his eyes on his screen.

The bartender reappeared with your appetizer, and your stomach growled at the delectable sight, and at the delightfully aromatic notes of garlic and ginger from the marinade wafting toward you.

“You can add those to my tab, and I’ll settle my bill now,” Toji told her as he finally snapped his phone shut.

You stared at him, unable to articulate, for the second time that evening, the full thought of your surprise at his gesture.

Toji must have noticed this because he smirked at you and held up his hand.

“Oh, and please don’t read into this, Miss handler,” he said, poking at your arm not unlike you did a few moments ago, and it was his turn to take on a mocking tone. “After this, I expect all of our food outings to be all business… And your treat.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his wallet to pluck out a few crumpled notes, which he placed on the counter with a finality that signalled he was about to leave.

“Listen, you really don’t need to test me. You’ve drawn the line, and I won’t try to cross it,” he said in a slightly dismal tone, and his eyes momentarily appeared to carry an air of something wistful.

But by the time he’d glanced down at you, he’d all but recovered what resembled his usual demeanor.

Just as you were going to respond, you watched him glance toward the door and stand up, noticing the way his lips curled upwards into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Following his gaze, your eyes landed on a young woman who stood by the entrance donning a fur coat and an oversized bag whose iconic, undoubtedly pricey logo evaded you in this whirlwind of a moment, one that swung as she enthusiastically waved at Toji.

You returned your gaze to him.

“Supplemental income,” he said as if to answer your unspoken question. “You know, since I’ve fallen on hard times. Maybe you know someone who’s hiring?” he added with a smirk as he stood up. “Call me when you want to get serious about business again. It’s really simple—get me those jobs, and I’ll get you your money. Every time.”

“Right… Like old times,” you said. You were trying to keep up in this repartee, but hearing the slight tremble in your own voice caught you off guard.

He observed you through narrowed eyes, with something of an intense, unreadable gaze as he downed the rest of his drink before slamming the cup on the bar, a little louder than you’d expected.

“Like the old days,” he mirrored as he leaned down slightly to speak his next words, eyes fixed straight ahead, “As long as you don’t ask me what I really want from you again.”

The quickness with which the goosebumps rose so easily on your skin at his statement bothered you.

It bothered you, almost as much as the pit in your stomach at the sight of Toji placing his arm around his companion for the night did, almost as much as the illicit directions in which your treacherous mind wandered off to later that night, as you tried to forget the sensation of Toji’s calloused fingers closing around your wrist in an act betrayed the genuine concern that lie beneath the veneer of callousness that typified him.

You knew it then and there, that for the sake of your wellbeing, you would have to learn how to quash that quiet, nefarious voice in the far back of the mind, the one that whispered the two words that came to completely upend the premise that Toji Zen’in was an associate, a colleague, maybe even somewhat of a friend, but that neither of you had any business in wanting anything more out of this purely professional arrangement.

And yet…

When you met up with him a few days later to discuss the details of the next job you have for him, you’d braced yourself for any kind of weirdness that might arise from Toji. If he felt affected at all, he certainly didn’t show it; not then, as he displayed far more interest for the images flashing at the top of the screen tracking the coverage on his favorite racehorse, the one who had just incurred a career-ending injury before his very eyes, and not at anytime during the months that followed as you found a work pace that resembled more like the “old days”.

A few months after the incident at the izakaya, things between you had seemed to regain a certain normalcy.

Until they weren’t.

At some point, you’d found yourself managing more jobs than you could supply for, and this just as Toji almost abruptly became less and less available.

This seemingly sudden shift compelled you to call up Shiu one midday in spring, during your daily walk.

“Hey, have you managed to get a hold of Zen’in lately?” You asked as soon as he picked up.

“He’s not working with you?” came Shiu’s voice, heavy with sleep and a subtle hoarseness that hinted at a hangover.

“I haven’t spoken to him in weeks. He’s a tough guy to reach these days, and I could really use his manpower right now.”

“Well, get in line. To be honest, I’d assumed that he was busy taking jobs from his favored one when he rebuffed my job offer a couple of days ago. That bastard also left me sitting on the gig of a lifetime with no one to execute it.”

“Favored no more,” you said with a sardonic laugh escaping your lips. “Maybe this is the end of the line, Kong. Maybe we’ve both been outclassed. Someone else might be out there sourcing better opportunities for our friend.”

“Well, I suppose his hands are somewhat full with his wife assigning him the task of a lifetime,” he said.

You stopped in your tracks.

“Wait, his wife?” you asked.

“Aw, shit. He didn’t tell you yet? You did not hear it from me, okay? You’d better act surprised when he tells you the news about the little blessing they’re expecting together, otherwise he may never return either of our calls.”

For a moment, your world felt weightless and still, before a raspy rattling cough eventually emanated from the other side of the line, breaking the silence.

“Although at this point,” he continued, “that son of a bitch might truly be out of the game for good…”

There was no telling how many minutes ticked by after you’d hung up the call, leaning on the cold metal railing of the bridge you’d been crossing, lost in watching the current carry half-melted patches of ice down the river’s stream.

A tangle of emotions jostled for dominance within you as you processed what you’d just learned.

First came surprise at the double revelation of Zen’in Toji being both a married man and an expecting father.

Then, genuine excitement and joy at its significance, at the prospect of him making something good for himself.

What followed was a subtle pang of betrayal at the conclusion of him keeping a major life update from you, one that quickly transfigured into a shameful acknowledgement of your fleeting sense of entitlement—the deeper, less reactive, more honest part of you knew better than to take offence at any of this, especially after years of trying to enforce a professional boundary between you two.

Ultimately, it was an odd, quiet stillness that settled in your chest: a certain comforting clarity, an odd mental weight lifting from you as you accepted that perhaps this was exactly what you needed to hear right now, as the sun steadily crossed its meridian on this quiet spring day.

Because now it was easier than ever to turn the page and to finally entirely quash any lingering thoughts that something could ever happen between you and Zen’in Toji.

Three years later

“Yeah, something unexpected at work… No, just the night will be fine… I’ll be back before he wakes… Thank you, I truly appreciate it.”

Toji snapped his phone shut and sighed, wincing as he fully exhaled, the sharp pain in the side of his rib a vestige from the physical altercation he’d been in moments ago against the four goons who had tried to stiff him on a job he’d successfully delivered.

Something had to change.

These small-time jobs were not yielding nearly the results that he’d wanted. In light of his new, single-parent situation, Toji had tried his best to stick to lower-risk activities, but in a way, doing so had proven to be more of a pain in the ass—the pay was meager, not at all commensurate with the bullshit he had to deal with on the side. These were a far cry from the high-stakes assassination jobs he’d engaged in, once upon a time—the juice was simply not worth the squeeze.

He tilted his head upwards, leaning back against the wall of the dimly lit alleyway he’d slid into, just a few streets away from where he’d successfully knocked out his assailants. His eyes strained as they searched the inky sky for any distraction from the discomfort.

Toji’s thoughts wandered to three-year-old Megumi, to the reaction his son might have this time, when the kind oba-san he’d often entrust his son with would tell the young boy that his father would once again be unable to pick him up tonight as originally planned. While Megumi had had a more tearful reaction in the first few occurrences, it had only taken so many instances before he’d adapted, gradually reacting less, at least outwardly.

“He was less surprised than slightly disappointed,” had said the oba-san of Megumi, one morning as Toji showed up on his neighbor’s doorstep to pick up his boy. She had become the de facto babysitter Toji would turn to whenever he was in a pinch, and that Shiu was also out of town. The sentiment of pity she seemed to harbor for the child was not lost on him, even as she tried to disguise it behind her warm smile.

It frustrated Toji to no end, but he really couldn’t complain much. He’d only detected authentic kindness from his neighbor, even when he burdened her with last-minute requests as he’d just done tonight.

Something had to change.

Another pang of pain emanated from his ribs. He instinctively reached for the area, fingertips brushing against the familiar outline of the leather edges of his wallet, which happened to be at the perfect angle to soften the blow of one of the hits he’d tanked. In it, he currently carried only one thing—a picture of the woman who’d somehow maintained indirect but tangible links in her eternal watch over him and their son.

Toji completely took the blame for allowing this to happen. Somewhere along the way, he’d deluded himself into believing that he could enjoy good things. And for some time, he did.

Until life caught up with him.

His eyes adjusted to a shape in the dark sky, one of a small, faint crescent barely holding the shape of a new moon rising.

It was never a new beginning for Toji, only a new cycle.

He pushed off the edge of the wall and began making his way down towards the city centre, armed with only a couple of thousand yen and the determination to earn the month’s expenses back.

On his way there, he walked past the izakaya you’d often frequented, the one he’d managed to drag you to on quite a few occasions after a mission.

Something had to…

He’d tried everything else. He’d taken jobs from small-time monkeys who were playing mafia without having nearly as much influence as they needed to. He’d picked up the occasional bounty he’d come across if it advertised a payment worth his time, which was becoming increasingly rare. Hell, he’d even swallowed his pride and damn near begged Shiu for jobs but the man had been decidedly long out of the game as far as the Japanese territory was concerned, after an endeavor involving some Grade 1 sorcerers had gone direly south and forced him into keeping a low profile for the foreseeable future.

“Have you even tried calling her yet?” Shiu had said on the phone one day, in one such case, when Toji had called inquiring about jobs.

“Called who?” Toji had absently replied, feigning ignorance despite knowing exactly who Shiu was referring to.

“Oh, alright, so you’re not really trying to help yourself, are you?” his friend said with a sigh. “I gave you her number and informed you that if there’s anyone worth a damn remaining in that sad state of the game, it’s her. I don’t know why you hesitate so much to reach out to your old handler. ”

“I have my reasons,” Toji replied.

“Well, that has nothing to do with me, then. I can’t help you beyond this, Zen’in. Say hi to the little one for me.”

“I told you it’s Fushiguro, you useless idiot. And I already told Megumi that his uncle abandoned him, just like he abandoned his father,” he said, quickly shutting his phone closed before he could get a response.

It was the same phone that was now growing hot, feeling as if it could burn a hole in his pocket, just like it always did whenever he walked past this establishment he’d long associated with you.

As his feet took him back to the city center and towards the gambling parlors that felt like home, Toji tried to make the mental migration to which overseas races were running so late and which bets to make that night.

It was the best thing he could do to help himself pretend that you weren’t filling his head, invading his every thought, and that he wasn’t the very person getting in the way of the change that needed to happen.

An abrasive cloud of tobacco smoke wafted through the premises, testing what was your already weak tolerance to its absolute limit.

Here lay bare an abundance of misplaced machismo, coming in the form of overpriced alcohol, of comically large imported cigars, and of men engaging in unspoken dick-measuring contests as they passed by each other’s tables.

You hated most things about this place, but it was the only one that fit within your stringent parameters of a central vicinity, along with an enforced prohibition of weapons checked at the door.

It was the kind of establishment that strayed remarkably from your usual meeting spots—a dimly lit room in the retrofitted back of house of a restaurant that was seemingly upscale in appearance but not so much in substance. Unfortunately, it had also, for years, doubled as a meeting spot for the who’s who of the underground curse user world.

You watched as one of the said curse users sat across from you, unceremoniously chugging down the remainder of his beer as you stared at the drink you’d barely touched—a club soda with lime that carried far too conspicuous a carbonation to pass off as a gin and tonic as you’d hoped. In hindsight, its bland taste was truly emblematic of the way this negotiation had gone thus far.

“I’ll say this. I do think they should send out girls like you here more often,” the man said. He was a curse user, visibly one of the smarmy, presumptuous ones who came from backgrounds that did not quite reach the prestige of the Big Three sorcerer families.

“No one sent me here. I’m here representing mine and my clients’ interests,” you replied, trying your best to ignore his condescending tone, his lecherous gaze, and the urge to punch the smirk clean off of his face. People like this were even more bothersome than the Fly Heads you would spot on occasion—at least those curses could be exorcised.

“A twenty percent fee is highway robbery, bordering on levels of disrespect I can’t imagine is of your making. And I don’t take well to being disrespected.” He paused for a moment, making a show of reaching for a second cigar before he’d even finished through the first once he’d walked in with, before continuing, “Not even by pretty little things like you. I’ll do it for eight.”

The sexism was par for the course from someone like this and left you largely unfazed. It was everything else that was off-script—you typically refrained from any kind of in-person discussions until you had some form of bargaining chip or a guaranteed vested interest from the contractor or a common third-party partner. Instead, you’d taken a gamble on a sketchy referral, telling yourself you’d wing it and work out a deal anyway. The combination of these factors, along with a lingering uneasy feeling, threw you off your game.

“Well, I don’t take well to having my time wasted,” you said, hoping that what was still only a feigned assurance would quickly transfigure into something real.

“And yet here you’ve been sitting for the past twenty minutes. You could’ve walked at any time, but something tells me that you want this as much as I do," he said, leaning in close enough that you could smell the stench of alcohol on his breath, "I’d even venture to say you need this even more."

There was a certain degree of veracity to his words, you thought as your mind wandered off to the true motivation behind this endeavor, to how the incidence and reward of this job could help you cement yourself as a key player for the sector once and for all, a stability you’d vied for if only help alleviate the pressures weighing on you and your family since your father passed in the spring.

But you were also playing the long game, and your reputation always took precedence over the outcome of any deal. You weren’t so desperate yet as to allow yourself to be played like this.

And so you held his gaze, intent on maintaining an air of resistance for as long as you physically could. Only once a feminine voice emanating from the nearby entrance of the bar caught his attention did he break eye contact, suddenly much more interested in ogling the woman who had just entered.

Your eyes scanned past the newcomer, glancing over the tables and the makeshift bar before landing on a familiar face sitting in the darker corner of the bar.

Your breath hitched at the sight.

The years had visibly weathered Toji, yet he seemed to carry them rather well. His shoulders were broader than you’d remembered, bearing a solidity that spoke of a grounded and practical strength, untouched by vanity. Even from your distance, you could spot the little nuances on the face you’d committed to memory—like the etched lines that lent him a compellingly mature allure, and the deep-set eyes that hinted at the melancholic story of his absence.

Whatever drink Toji had ordered remained intact, and he sat with one elbow casually set on the counter, simply observing you.

Your mind raced as you tried to piece things together.

What the hell was he doing here? Despite your clear view of the entrance, you hadn’t noticed him entering the bar.

Had he arrived before you did? You were always amazed at the way Toji could dextrously flip between being stealthy and noticeable at his convenience.

Was he here on a job of his own? Perhaps one that could jeopardize yours?

These questions that jostled through your mind would undoubtedly go unanswered for the moment. All you knew for sure was that Toji was very much present, and as you locked eyes with him, you could discern that familiar little twinkle in his eyes, the one you’d seen countless times before that only spelled one thing: that man was up to no good.

You tried your best to maintain a poker face and to avoid alerting the curse user to the message you were silently telegraphing to Toji.

Stay out of this.

Toji remained still but didn’t stop watching, his eyes shifting over to the man before you and then back to you, and you could already tell just by the calculating expression he wore that he was plotting something.

Alarm bells went off in your mind. The signals he appeared to be giving you about the man who sat before you were nebulous but clearly present. This was reminiscent of some of the jobs you’d worked together years prior, the ones that had you on the field alongside Toji, and wherein you would have to resort to body language to communicate quickly through a rapidly escalating situation. You increased your vigilance, trying to remain calm even as you tensed with an anxiety that was now somewhat anchored by Toji’s presence.

You threw one final glance at Toji, who had his eyebrow cocked up seemingly in a question that you found yourself unable to decipher in time.

Once the curse user was done leering at the newly arrived female patron who had just walked past your table and out of his sight, he finally returned his attention to you.

“How about this, then?” you started, flashing a deceptive smile and feeling a newfound confidence building within you. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the absolute joke of an offer you just made, and I’ll give you one last chance. My fee is twenty percent. Take it or leave it.”

At this, the curse user chuckled, his turn to attempt to muster up a phony cordiality that didn’t quite reach the derisive look in his eyes, before he countered.

“We’re visibly getting nowhere fast. I guess this one isn’t in the cards,” he said as he pulled away and began to gather his cigar apparatus from the table.

It was almost comical to watch this absolute swindler try to flip the negotiation script on you. Little did he know that you, too, were more than prepared to walk away, and that though it would be a pain to find a match for this specific skill set, passing up this opportunity would ultimately be his loss.

“It appears so,” you responded in kind, as you pushed against the table, sending your chair back with a grating scrape on the uneven flooring.

You inconspicuously glanced towards the bar area with half a mind to prepare to leave the table, only now discerning Toji’s notable absence from the seat you’d last spotted him in.

Your mind barely had a chance to register this before chaos ensued.

It all occurred so quickly—someone suddenly bumped into the left-hand corner of the table as they walked by, causing it to jostle and sending your cup to rumble before it toppled over, its contents spilling uncontrollably over and onto your interlocutor. The sudden movement caused him to flinch instinctively, cursing out loud as he raised his arms off the table and into the air, revealing a familiar steel glint that emanated from the inner lining of his jacket, the nature of the object immediately apparent to you.

A firearm.

And thanks to the commotion that had drawn newfound attention to your table, you clearly weren’t the only one to notice the weapon’s glaring presence.

“Hey! So why was I cavity searched at the door if this guy can just bring a fucking piece in here?” called out a voice from the booth adjacent to yours. If everyone’s scrutiny wasn’t already set on your table, it sure was now.

“What? No, I… Look, this isn’t—”

All you could do was watch in awe as this supposedly menacing curse user was reduced to a stammering mess, trying and failing to grasp at excuses he clearly did not have.

Mere seconds later, a security guard was over him, confiscating the violating object, now visibly revealed to be a small handgun, out of his jacket. A second tall tank of a man joined shortly after, and the two guards lifted the curse user on each side before practically dragging him through a back room.

And yet the pandemonium was only starting to unfold.

“That scan you people force us to go through must be like Swiss cheese. How the hell did a gun get past this?” exclaimed a man from somewhere behind you, directing his ire at one of the guards.

“This place has certainly lost its prestige,” came another voice, belonging to an elderly man from somewhere by the bar. “What good is it to come here with this serious laxity in security? Where are our exorbitant entry fees being allocated?”

Tumult broke out as a palpable wave of consternation rippled through the room, taking hold of nearly the entire patronage. You watched as the sole bartender, who was visibly about to be overrun by the increasingly rowdy crowd, desperately called upon additional security. A bit overwhelmed, you seized the distraction as your chance to get the hell out of there.

As you stepped out into the crisp autumnal evening, your mind sought to process the whirlwind of what had just happened. You’d only taken a few steps before you found him there, leaning against the brick wall of a neighbouring building, his casual disposition a stark contrast to the events that had unfolded.

You stopped only briefly enough to take note of the self-satisfied smirk on Toji’s face, trying to decide whether you should confront or ignore him before you opted for something in the middle, and resumed your walk.

“Are you keeping tabs on me? I was handling it, Zen—,” you cut yourself short, remembering everything you’d heard about him, from his new name, to the tragedy that befell him, to the fact that he was, in fact, back in the market for jobs. “Well, I guess it’s Fushiguro, now,” you added through teeth that weren’t nearly as gritted as you’d wanted them to be.

You didn’t need to turn around to know that he would be right on your heels.

“Almost like you’ve been keeping tabs on me as well,” he said with a small smile, a confession concealed in a callout. “And by all appearances, you did handle it.”

By all appearances. You hung onto his words and onto their implications. One of the few things that could damage your reputation more than settling for ridiculously low fees was being known to hide behind a prominent figure like Toji to enforce your deals for you, especially as a female handler. It’s something you’d expressed to him occasionally in the past, when the frustrations of the day had compelled you to rant about the additional bullshit you constantly had to deal with as a result of your gender.

And you supposed he did listen to said rants because the way that Toji deliberately managed to intervene and help you out tonight without implicating himself was definitely not lost on you, nor was it unappreciated.

“Did a damn good job too,” he continued after a brief moment. “I don’t think that scummy bastard will be in any shape to try to extort you or anyone else anytime soon once they’re done with his ass.”

With a few strides, Toji had effortlessly caught up to you, squeezing himself between you and where the sidewalk met the road. One glance up at his face and his expression made it clear that he wouldn’t cop to any involvement unless you pressed him, if at all.

“I didn’t need your intervention,” you said, pointedly.

“Really? You had that pouty half-glare thing written all over your face, the one you make whenever you have a bad set of cards during poker.”

“I haven’t played poker in years,” you retorted.

“Point still stands. I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you’.”

“How did you spot the gun? How did you even know I was here?” you asked, too fatigued to withhold your defeated sigh.

“I didn’t. I just happened to be there to enjoy a drink.”

“Oh, bullshit, Toji.”

You glared at him, and he chuckled. Silence settled between you, leaving you with only the sound of leaves crinkling beneath your steps. It took you a minute to regain your composure and to root yourself out of your state of fight or flight in the best way you knew—by retracing the steps that led you to this moment.

“These damn curse users,” you said, voicing your reflection out loud. “I swear, they are getting bolder with each passing day, walking around with such arrogance, like they’re the grand prize now. I don’t know what triggered this seller’s market, but there must be some broker out there undercutting everyone, someone willing to lose out big time as long as it means killing the competition.”

Your words brought you back to the vivid imagery of the firearm carried by the man at the table earlier. Until this moment, you’d thought nothing more of it other than yet another arrogant curse user thinking himself above the rules. But now you thought of his reticence, of his confidence that almost exuded an eagerness to have you leave the table. And this is where the real questions formed.

Was that curse user’s intention to have you leave, maybe follow you out and threaten you, or worse? You thought of the unorthodox manner in which this meeting even came to be. In hindsight, it was almost too good of an opportunity, one that appeared to have dropped in your lap from seemingly nowhere.

You thought of all this, and of Toji’s presence there, still unexplained.

You glanced up and to your side to take a good look at him, his eyes trained forward, his demeanor pensive, his silence causing you to almost forget that he was still currently walking alongside you. A hot flush of irritation suddenly crept up your neck.

“Where are you going?” you blurted out.

“Huh?” Toji uttered, glancing down at you with his brow furrowed in confusion as if he was grappling with a perplexing riddle.

“I’m going home,” you snapped. “Where are you going? Are you planning on stalking me all night?”

“Are you really?”

“Am I really what?”

“Going home? Doesn’t seem like you will.”

“And why would you assume that?”

“For starters, you never go straight home when you’re this bothered. You hungry?”

An unusual wave of warmth washed over you as you took in his all-too-accurate reading of this small habit of yours he’d retained over the years for God-only knows what reason.

Like he could see right through you.

“I’m not doing this tonight, Toji,” you warned as you pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Come on, it’ll be your treat.”

You froze in your steps at the phrasing you hadn’t heard in years, betraying not only the sincerity but the significance of his invitation. You’d let him rope you into treating him to food after a job ran long quite a few times in the past. It had almost become routine, one that you’d made peace with leaving behind after he’d unofficially exited this way of life.

“Post-job meals are only suited post-job. As in after a job,” you said, expecting to shake him off with this caveat.

“Call it a pre-job meal then, and don’t tell me you don’t do those because we’ve had quite a few of those in our day.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t do anymore, Fushiguro Toji,” you said, enunciating his new name with emphasis. “This world is very different from the way you left it.”

“You’re telling me,” he retorted with an acerbic scoff. “Listen, I’ll give it to you straight—I need work, Miss handler.”

“I know you fucking do. You’ve been harassing poor Shiu, who has his own slew of problems to deal with now.”

“Wow. So you already knew this? You knew I was available, and still you went dumpster diving for contractors? With friends like these…”

“You disappeared into the wind three years ago and never reached out since. So yeah, ‘friends like these’.”

You felt a tightness gathering at your throat as soon as you uttered your rebuttal. This was decidedly not off to a good start, and not remotely close to how you’d envisioned a potential reunion with Toji would occur.

“Oh, so hangry is what you are,” he said, his voice booming with a hearty chuckle. “Can’t even blame you—for being in the back of a restaurant, the food they were serving there was pretty shitty.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, appalled at the egregiousness with which he was dodging the topic.

“So why don’t we fix that first? And,” he quickly added, holding up his hand as he sensed your inevitable words of disapproval. “And once we have some real food in front of us, we can catch up… on these last few years,” he concluded, his statement sounding like a question.

Your world wasn’t as Toji had left it—you’d meant every bit of this sentiment you’d expressed to him moments ago. The three years of his absence had also spanned numerous life-altering events for you, indelibly changing you forever—heartbreak after a long-term relationship, the passing of your father, and even a few close calls with death yourself.

And yet now, as you stood here, contemplating crossing that professional line as you had countless times before, and considering making an exception to break your rule once more, you couldn’t help but feel as you did in the old times.

It’s hard to place until this day, whether it was the frustration brimming beneath your surface after a difficult week, or the vulnerability you were suddenly feeling at the prospect of having potentially been targeted by some rascal tonight, or the odd feeling tugging at the edge of your mind, a silent voice that in some weird twist of fate, the only person that seems to have come even close to seeing you for the person you were beyond the mask you’ve successfully maintained until now had just genuinely offered his company as a much-needed distraction.

When you finally delivered your reply, it was more to the sidewalk than to Toji.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated in a softer tone, and you could feel the slight hint of surprise in his tone. “Alright, Miss handler, let’s just cross right here—the next crosswalk’s way too far.”

He gently placed his hand on your lower back, guiding you to the edge of the road, and you let him. As you inconspicuously glanced up at his face, watching as he quickly scouted for cops and cars, you thought about how this risky jaywalk maneuver didn’t even crack the top twenty-five personal rules you were breaking right now.

Toji hated to ask for any kind of assistance.

He’d sooner watch an endeavor fail than resort to asking for any help, a frustrating stubbornness you’d sampled early in your dealings with him, and several times since.

But as you got reacquainted with Fushiguro Toji, you quickly learned that this did not apply when it came to anything impacting his son, Megumi.

He’d never asked you directly—it was inadvertently and through Shiu that you’d learned about Toji’s elderly neighbor being exceptionally indisposed to babysit, as she had to care for her husband after his surgery.

So when you felt compelled to offer to cover for his absent babysitter, you knew to present it in a language he favored and under the guise of operational efficiency, given the unexpectedly short window he was given to take a job, and the large payout he was risking to leave on the table, to which he had no choice but to agree to, albeit reluctantly.

Despite your best efforts to repeatedly reassure him that he was in no way imposing, and that you were happy to help, a lingering awkwardness hung in the air as he'd unlocked the door to have you watch Megumi for the third time this month.

The initial impression you’d had upon first meeting the four-year-old child was of his striking resemblance to his father.

The impression you were having now, after helping Megumi through his nighttime routine and as you sat in the rocking chair next to the small bed where he’d finally fallen asleep after you’d read him just a few more pages from Journey at the Center of the Earth was that how appreciated just how much liveliness the young boy carried, and how integral it was to this unnamed comfort you’d grown to find here.

You carefully tiptoed your way out of the room to make your way back to the living area. Although you’d only been here a handful of times, Toji’s apartment now felt oddly familiar.

It was a sentiment that extended beyond the fact that the cozy, modestly furnished, standard 1LDK apartment was not dissimilar to your home, one of an intimacy and comfort that you’d rarely experienced outside of your own, subtle in its manifestation yet loud in the newfound silence of the night.

The living space was sparsely furnished—a bookshelf, a sofa, one coffee table before it, and another identical one that doubled as a TV stand. Everything came in a muted gray color that spoke to a pragmatism signed Toji, and that served as the plain backdrop that contrasted Megumi’s vibrantly colourful toys.

You place the book back into the bookshelf where you’d found it, and much like it had the previous week and the one before, the framed picture on the shelf just above your eyeline caught your eye—the only one on display in the entire house.

A beautiful, cheery woman carried baby Megumi, and Toji had one arm slung around her shoulders and a finger poking at his son’s cheek. They had the allure of a happy family. For as long as you’d known Toji, you felt like you had yet to meet the man in the photo.

Oblivious to the passing of time, you were jolted back to reality by the distinctive click of the front door.

Anticipating that Megumi would likely already be sleeping, Toji went to great lengths to gently unlock the door. What he didn’t anticipate was finding you in his field of view as soon as he entered.

He was still unused to seeing you dressed this casually—wearing a cardigan instead of the blazers that would comprise your outfits, a simple t-shirt instead of a blouse, in house slippers, as if it was the most usual thing for you to be standing like this in his living room.

Objectively, you appeared out of place.

And yet…

After a short, heavy silence during which you locked eyes, you were finally the first to break the silence, your voice uncharacteristically quieter than he’d expected.

“Welcome back,” you said softly, minding your volume.

Toji quietly returned your greeting as he kicked off his shoes in the genkan. He took notice of the way you averted your gaze, and of the subtle shifting of your weight from one leg to the other, betraying a nervousness of some kind.

“Troublemaker fall asleep yet?” Toji asked suddenly, almost just remembering what had brought you here in the first place.

“Megumi’s tucked in; he went out like a light a short while ago.” You paused before continuing. “But he wasn’t a troublemaker at all. In fact, I’m beginning to doubt this negative propaganda you’ve been spreading about the boy,” you said, narrowing your eyes in mock suspicion.

“Alright, alright, none of that. He doesn’t need more advocates. You’re not the one who lives with him most of the time.”

Your playful eye roll elicited a smile that Toji couldn’t hide. He padded across the hall towards the bedroom, only a little less quietly than you had just minutes ago, and stopped just before his son’s bed.

It always was quite the whiplash, to come back from a job which sometimes involved violence, often involved some level of danger, and always engendered a type of guilt that he’d numbed, after years of practice, down to a slight pit in his stomach, one that was only nullified by this view upon his return, of his son still sleeping, eyes still closed to the ugly realities of his world.

For now.

From where you stood at the genkan to wear your shoes as you prepared to leave, you thought you’d heard Toji say something light, his voice too low for you to make out—you didn’t have the chance to confirm this before he emerged from the bedroom again, with an unreadable look on his face, as thought he was lost in thought.

“You’re leaving,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

“I am… Assuming I’m relieved from my duties,” you replied, a question more than a statement.

“Yeah, you’re relieved…” You sensed the hesitation in his words even as you tried to focus your attention on fastening the button of your coat before you reached for your handbag. “But I am about to have a quick drink if you want to join?”

You froze in your movements and met his gaze, half anticipating a witty follow-up that would neutralize his unprompted invitation. It was your turn to hesitate, and Toji must have noticed this because he added, “You won’t let me pay you. The least you could do is accept this.”

You weren’t impervious to the way his features relaxed when you slid back out of the shoe you’d just worn and began taking off your jacket, wordlessly indicating that you’d relented, nor were you immune to the self-satisfied smile that breached his tired eyes.

“What’s your poison of choice?” he spoke out quietly over his shoulder as you followed him to the kitchen.

“I’ll take whatever you’re having,” you responded, feeling a little rattled at how both foreign yet familiar this all felt.

“Fair warning, I’m only having mint tea…”

“Really? You?” “I try to avoid any stimulants at this time of night,” he replied.

“Wow. This just might be the single most suspiciously responsible thing I’ve ever heard from you. Where’s the real Toji?” you playfully quipped.

“Don’t give me that. I drink it first thing in the morning and last thing before bed.” You watched as he pulled a box of tea from a discarded shopping bag, with its pristine, crinkling plastic wrapping.“I have some of that Earl Grey you love to drink so much.

Surely he hadn’t bought this just for you, right?

A sudden rush of heat flushed through your body at the thought, then another one at the thought that you were even having these thoughts that felt like they rang loud in the silence that had slipped between you, one you realized must have stretched a smidge too long once he turned to you, with his suspended question still spelled on his face before speaking once more.

“Unless it’s something less responsible you’re trying to get into,” he added with emphasis on the word he’d reprised.

“No…Yeah. Earl Grey sounds good, thank you,” you finally replied, hoping you didn’t sound as awkward as you felt now, oddly aware that you were standing just a few feet from Fushiguro Toji, in his kitchen, as he set a kettle for the two of you.

It had been a while since you’d been in his proximity like this, a while since you’d spoken. The nature of your lines of work had pulled you apart for the last few weeks, as Toji took on jobs that fell outside your purview, like the one that had kept him out tonight.

The silence was almost deafening.

“How was the job?” You asked, finding yourself getting closer to him, leaning against the counter opposite where he stood, to be heard over the rumble of the boiling kettle.

Toji turned around to glance at you, slightly raising an eyebrow at the breach of your unspoken rule whereby you’d never asked him about jobs you didn’t handle for him.

“The job was… successful,” he said, almost tentatively.

You now each stood directly across from one another, each leaning your back against the counters behind you, staring at one another, leaving just enough space for this unnamed tension that settled between you.

“The neighbor will be returning next week,” Toji said, a non sequitur he let hang in the air for a brief moment before continuing, “so you won’t have to drag yourself out here anymore.”

“That’s good, Toji. But again, I already told you that I am always happy to watch Megumi if I’m free and it’s needed.”

Toji scoffed. “Maybe too happy. He’s starting to ask after you.”

“Oh, really?” you asked, your voice bursting out candidly loud, untempered, at a volume that surprised you seemingly as it did him.

“Yeah, I was shocked too,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m not shocked, I’m thrilled,” you said quickly, fumbling to find your stride in this repartee. “Megumi and I get along quite well, thank you very much, so don’t you be a hater. Even more reason for me to see him more,” you added, crossing your arms defiantly.

“Uh huh…” Toji’s lips appeared to part on the verge of the rest of his retort, hovering there for the few seconds that preceded the click from the kettle’s switch as it snapped off, the sound of its bubbling slowly subsiding back into silence.

You watched as he turned his back to you to open the fridge, pulling a handful of mint leaves that he tossed into his cup. He poured the water into your cup first before placing it on a saucer and handing it to you.

“Thank you,” you said as you took his offering, your voice finding its low volume once more.

He nodded before returning to pour water into his cup. You began to tug at the tea bag’s string, lifting and lowering it in a slow, repetitive movement, but instead of your eyes being on the water, which tinted with each dip, they wandered over to Toji, observing as he engaged in the exercise of preparing his own drink.

You took the opportunity to take a good look at him, at what you could glean from the limited view of his side profile.

He looked tired, his eyes seemingly more sullen, their contours darker than you last remembered. Toji carried a slight stiffness in his left shoulder, the vestiges of an injury you’d known him to have had for a couple of weeks now, one that seemed to have been exacerbated, perhaps during tonight’s events. You noticed the side of his black collar, where a patch remained darkened and damp with sweat.

Nearly a decade of experience should have you knowing better. And yet, here you were, for the second time tonight, and for the umpteenth time lately, contemplating the duality of Fushiguro Toji.

His eyes flicked sideways abruptly, catching you completely off guard, his gaze meeting yours just before you had the time to avert it.

Your gaze quickly wandered over to the fridge, adorned with vibrant drawings and sketches secured by tiny, old magnets, like the ones that came with promotional flyers.

Your eyes traced over the larger drawing, the one that was in the middle, and immediately you recognized the similarity in its composition to the one in the framed picture you were looking at earlier—a stick figure rendition of baby Megumi, carried by his mother, with his father’s finger almost comically extending over to poke at his son’s face.

“I see he’s a young artist already,” you remarked, the words sounding more like polite chatter than you intended.

You didn’t yet dare turn back to look towards Toji as he fully turned his body around to face you once more. Only when his silence stretched on did you finally throw him a furtive glance, noticing him looking at you with a strange, unreadable expression.

“Megumi drew these… right?” you finally ventured, only realizing the silliness of your question as the words left your mouth.

“No, I did,” he retorted, his voice dripping with such obvious sarcasm that you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. “Of course, the brat drew these. But he rarely draws nowadays… He seems to prefer hiding behind his little books.”

Finally, you took a sip of your tea, and its warmth spread to your chest, bringing you a nice, relaxing comfort, as if it were melting a certain part of your reserve away.

“You say this like it’s a bad thing. Reading is amazing, especially at his relatively young age. Just another sign that you’re doing well with him.

To this, Toji only let out a light scoff in response. It prompted you to push him a bit more.

“You can’t fool me, Fushiguro. I know you don’t deny how smart he is.”

“I can’t take credit for any of that. All he got from me is…” he trailed off, his jaw clenching something somber, lowering his gaze to pick up his tea, eyes lost in the fragrant vapor that curled upwards, forming a thin veil to the sad contemplation in his eyes. “His mother’s the one who instilled good things in him, just as she did for me. ”

His words carried a crushing weight that went far beyond mere self-deprecation, and his tone was resigned, with a certain finality. A widower’s grief wasn’t something you could pretend to fully understand, nor were a father’s worries for his unwitting son—you’d heard about the rumors in the underground, about a Zen’in heir inheriting an all too coveted cursed technique, context cues had done the rest of the work for you.

Drawing from your own recent loss of your father, and the anxieties it brought on for your many, much younger siblings, you tried to articulate your sentiments for the man’s pain.

“You’re still here, Toji,” your voice coming out as a murmur. “Still transferring some goodness into him. Here you are, standing, fresh out of a job, worried sick about your son’s future as he sleeps comfortably and obliviously in the next room, all thanks to you. Having spent a few weeks’ worth of evenings with him, I’ve come to discover the smart, kind, and wonderful child that he is.”

Toji glanced up at you and slightly straightened his back.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Toji,” you added, speaking to the depth of his gaze. “You’re doing more than okay.”

You could almost see the tide of vulnerability gradually recede from his eyes, his expression schooled back to a more lucid neutrality.

“All these compliments, Miss handler. You almost sound like you mean them,” he said, his snarky tone not quite matching the softer demeanor of his eyes.

And just like that, the moment was over.

You could only roll your eyes at him, and with not much else in your field of view, you found yourself drawn to the doodles on the fridge once more. Your eyes hovered over one particular drawing—it was the only one that had a fourth figure, one who stuck out and who didn’t look like anyone from the trio of recurring characters formed by Megumi and his parents—it was a woman who appeared to be sitting down on a chair, with a book open on her lap.

Not unlike you were less than half an hour ago, sitting in the bedroom after reading out of that Jules Verne novel.

You approached the fridge to take a closer look at the details on this drawing, at the striped cardigan that had become a favorite lately, at the small yellow hoops on the ears that resembled your signature gold ones, and at the physical features that were undeniably drawn from your appearance.

“He rarely draws,” came Toji’s voice, suddenly startling you out of your concentration. “But he drew you.”

For the second time that evening, you were caught off guard by something Toji had expressed and by its substance. You tried to latch onto the playful intonation of mock annoyance that punctuated his statement.

“Again, you say that like it’s a problem, and yet, something tells me that whoever hung it up all the way up here probably doesn’t think so,” you said as you threw him a sidelong glance.

You were anticipating some form of witty retort, but instead, Toji only grinned, and his reply came so simply, so naturally.

“Yeah, maybe whoever did happens not to hate it.”

Heavy, dark gray clouds had long since cloaked the late summer afternoon sky in a sure sign of an imminent thunderstorm.

You shut off your car’s engine after having just parked as close as physically possible without your door hitting the edge of the short staircase that led up to the entrance of the warehouse unit that would serve as your rendezvous point with Toji later this evening.

Based on a well-informed estimate of the time it would take for him to carry out the job you’d assigned him, you’d made it here with at least an hour and a half to kill.

You were early. Perhaps too early. But given your unfamiliarity with this part of town and knowing how chaotic the bridges could get during inclement weather, you were unwilling to take any unnecessary risks.

The building consisted of an old nondescript warehouse repurposed into offices, which effectively served as units that were being rented out “under the table” for cash and through a trusted word-of-mouth system that bypassed any sort of background checks—perfect for secure and clandestine off the books meetings and very convenient for the purposes of lying low after the kind of job Toji would be undertaking today.

You punched in the code for the entrance to your unit and found the security alarm to be already deactivated.

In hindsight, that should have served as your first warning.

Just as you moved towards the opposite wall, you heard a resounding slamming sound emanate from within the room.

A cold dread coiled in your stomach.

You found yourself reaching for the reassuring weight of your sidearm, but found it to be absent, only recalling now your decision to leave it behind to avoid any possible issues at the multiple checkpoints you’d hit on your long drive here.

With a fleeting glance, you turned back towards the door through which you’d just entered. Whoever was in here would inevitably have been alerted to your presence thanks to the sound of the door closing. You thought of the logistics, of your slim chances of making it back out to the hall, of reaching the elevators or staircase before the intruder caught up with you.

Your heart sank to your stomach as you heard footsteps approach you in the dimly lit space before you. You reached into your pocket to produce your small Swiss knife, ready to face whoever had made their way in there.

A soft hum preceded the sudden moment when a light flicked on.

You gasped, and it took you a few seconds to realize that it was Toji standing there.

“What the fuck, Fushiguro? You scared the shit out of me!” you exclaimed over the loud whirring sound in your ears. Leaning onto a cold counter, you buried your face in your hands, trying to regain your composure.

“Wait… Why are you here already?” You said, rubbing your temples as you felt the beginnings of a stress-induced migraine form. “Was the meeting delayed or canceled or something?”

His response came only in a low grunt.

“Nothing? The least you could tell me is—”

Your words faded as you looked at him, taking in the sight of the open first aid kit and the stained gauze encircling his wounded arm.

“You’re injured? What the hell happened?”

Rushing to his side, you found him in the process of an awkward attempt at bandaging over a large cut on his right arm.

“I’m fine… It’s not deep, just a cut,” he mumbled, sounding unconvincing as he tried to turn away from you.

“If it’s just a cut, then let me see it!” you replied, pulling at his other arm.

“It’s not a big deal. If you really want to help, just hold the other end of the—”

“Show me, Toji,” you insisted, your voice tight with anticipation.

He hesitantly held out his arm, showing a clean cut that spanned nearly the entirety of his forearm, along with some smaller cuts and bruises.

“Did you get into a bar fight or something?”

“I did actually.”

“What? I’m confused. Were you not supposed to be at a damn country club?”

“This happened in the bar area, so technically it’s a bar fight. Someone came at me with a bottle. He regretted it immediately,” he said with a smirk.

You shot him a sharp glare for the short moment it took for worry to wash away your displeasure. “This needs to be cleaned.”

“Already cleaned it,” he replied.

“Well, you did a half-assed job at it, Toji.”

“Well,” he said, mimicking you, “having to use your non-dominant hand will do that.”

With a frustrated sigh, you picked up the first aid kit and dragged him by the wrist into the tiny washroom, and he obliged.

You instructed him to stand by the counter as you rummaged through the remainder of the measly first aid kit. You reached for the rubbing alcohol and poured it, without warning, straight out of the bottle down the diagonal cut on his arm. Toji barely contained his hiss, but his entire body contracted at the contact. You couldn’t help wincing at the prospect of causing him pain.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “It’s best to do it quickly.”

To this, Toji didn’t answer. By now, it was only the buzzing of the overhead light that could be heard in the room, but you could feel his eyes on yours as you gently padded a cotton ball over his wound.

“You’re not gonna ask for a debrief?” he said after a while, breaking the silence.

“We can debrief once you’re patched up,” you replied.

“That target’s out of the picture, in case you’re wondering.”

“You say that as if I should be impressed that you’ve successfully completed your task. Do you want a medal, Fushiguro?”

He scoffed, seemingly satisfied with the response he’d managed to pull from you. “No, I suppose not.”

Silence settled once more as you finished wrapping the dressing around his arm.

Once you did, you peered up at his face, and before you knew it, your hand moved on its own accord, brushing over his temple and just over the edge of his forehead.

Toji seemed to tense at the contact, which in turn made you quickly pull your finger back after lightly grazing him, along with a sudden flutter that erupted in your chest.

“You um… You have a cut up here.” You only pointed towards it this time, avoiding direct physical contact. “I suggest you put a small bandage on it so that your hair doesn’t irritate it further.”

Meeting his gaze, you found an inscrutable expression in his eyes, and an unusual warmth spread across your face as you became aware of the details in his green pupils, his distinct lip scar, and the warmth of his breath against your skin. You cleared your throat, taking a half-step backwards before speaking again.

“I don’t think you need my help for that,” you added, turning away for the brief moment it took to fish out a small adhesive bandage from the kit and handing it to him quickly, as if it were a hot potato. “Once you’re done with that, we debrief.”

You exited the small bathroom without a word, praying that your calm facade sufficed to conceal the frantic drumming of your heart.

About an hour later, Toji watched out of the corner of his eye as you stood before the counter, cellphone held to your ear by the shoulder as you typed away at your portable computer.

Usually, he wouldn’t have met up with you before he was fully sure that he was in the clear. But in the absence of anywhere else to physically recover from the unexpected scuffle he’d found himself in, the safe house had been his only viable option.

He didn’t expect that you would get there far earlier than your agreed-upon rendezvous time, didn’t expect to have you see him in this injured, somewhat vulnerable state, nor to have you tend to him in the way that you have. And now he was left with these feelings he’d thought to have successfully buried years ago, re-surging in full force.

Some things had changed about you over the years—your hair was longer, your voice carried a richer, steadier tone, each of your movements more deliberate.

Others had remained just as he’d remembered. Like the little bite of your lip as you made whenever discussing something urgent, or the pacing you did when you were trying to focus on the details of an important call, just as you were doing now.

The sound of your phone snapping shut jarred Toji from his reverie.

“Okay…” you said as you approached him. “Okay, Flashy Fushiguro. Your stunt at the country club now has this prefecture crawling with cops. We are lucky that I have an in with the local police department, even luckier that my friend is supervising tonight, and that he owes me a fat favour. The best he can do is have his people do a superficial sweep of our sector and buy us about twelve unsupervised minutes during the nightly shift change for us to cross the bridge out of this jurisdiction. Things should be a bit safer beyond that.”

Toji nodded as he watched the lines crease your forehead, and as you very poorly stifled a yawn.

“The shift change occurs in the morning hours at exactly 2:10 AM… We’ll have to stay put until then,” you said, lifting your eyes to his to gauge his reaction.

“No problem,” he said quietly, and it was your turn to nod this time.

“Alright. I’ll sanitize the area. And then… Then, we wait,” you said and headed towards the washroom.

Toji glanced down at his watch: 7:46 PM.

It was going to be a long night.

It was a few minutes past 10 PM that same evening when the sudden, violent sound of thunder crackled, finding you on the losing end of a valiant battle against your somnolence at the seat you’d taken at the conference table where your head had slipped down from where you last remembered it leaning against your hand—the startling sound had you shooting straight upright into your seat.

“God, that was so loud,” you said as you put a hand to your chest where your heart was still thumping loudly, turning towards the end of the table where you’d last registered Toji to be, only to find his seat empty.

Your head swivelled as you scanned the large open room to search for him. You were halfway rushed out of your seat when your eyes finally landed on him, sitting on the floor just by the radiator, on the far side of the room, right by the exit.

“Thought I’d ditched you?” he said, without looking up at you. You watched as both his hands appeared to be fidgeting with something—it only took you a few seconds to recognize a sound you’d been accustomed to years ago, the one belonging to the parts of Toji’s handgun clicking into place and disassembling once more.

You sat back down and took a deep, calming breath to ground yourself before you replied.

“I thought maybe you got bored and went out to start another bar fight again.”

Your eyes were still accustoming to his movements when his response came, only in the form of a light scoff.

“What are you doing sitting on the ground, anyway? I go out of my way to rent out a decent studio with real furniture, and you settle for the floor? In the dark, no less?”

“I felt like it,” Toji stated, his tone a bit shorter than you’d expected.

His movements resumed, a restless precision as the clip of his pistol slotted into place, with a series of successive clicks.

For a moment, the light flickered, plunging the room into a brief darkness.

“Oh, not this,” you groaned. “We’d better not lose power in this mess. I’d better charge my phone just in case.”

You rose from your seat and began walking towards the wall outlet that was beside the radiator, just on the side opposite where Toji sat when the light flickered again, this time turning off for good.

“Shit,” you lightly cursed under your breath. “Look at the predicament your antics put us in, Fushiguro. I fully blame you for this, I hope you know,” you said, only half jokingly, as you turned towards his direction in the dark.

He said nothing in response.

“Did you fall asleep already? You’d better stay alert. We can’t both be knocking out like this.”

To this, Toji still did not audibly react.

Just as you turned over in his general direction, with your eyes still adapting to the dark, a cold lightning lit up the entire room, shining over his face and displaying, for the briefest of moments, Toji’s widened eyes, something of distraught over his face.

“Toji?” you called out, only detecting the worry in your voice as the words escaped your lips.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be fine,” he added, as if working to convince himself.

Before you could formulate your response, another crackle of thunder ripped into the sky, this one much louder, much closer than the previous one. It startled you, causing you to emit a small yelp and to instinctively shuffle away from the window, and towards the exit.

In your clumsy shuffle, you ended up tripping over something you’d only later realize to be Toji’s extended leg, sending you into a tumble towards the ground. It happened so quickly, that you didn’t register your fall until after it had happened, nor did you notice the two strong hands that were holding you by the elbows after having diverted you from a trajectory that would have otherwise sent you nose-first into the wall-mounted radiator.

“I’m… I’m sorry…” You mumbled in the dark, disoriented and not really knowing where his face was.

“You’re good…” his voice low and gruff, tumbling into your right ear. Only when you felt the sharp twitch of his breath against the side of your cheek, followed by the sharp intake of breath through his teeth, did you realize Toji’s cause for wincing—you had landed straight onto his injured arm, which had helped break your fall.

“Sorry,” you mumbled again, as you pulled yourself off of him and settled on the ground next to him.

Lightning flashed again, and you realized how close your faces still were.

You heard the soft padding of what sounded like Toji’s hand on the floor, as he appeared to be searching for something.

Before you had the chance to ask, he spoke first.

“I lost my fucking clip here somewhere,” he grumbled, his tone holding a tinge of something almost akin to an unusual distress.

You moved back and sensed something solid just under your thigh, and you reached under to pull out Toji’s clip.

“Here it is. I was sitting on it. Handing it over,” you announced, as you blindly thrust it out in the darkness, in his general direction, immediately finding his cold open palm.

A testament to the storm’s rapid approach, another loud sound of thunder exploded above, the closest and the loudest it had been so far tonight. Just as it did, Toji’s larger hand closed on the entirety of yours, squeezing tight.

He held it still, even as the tail end of the thunder rolled on as a rumble in the distance, and as you heard him let out the breath he’d likely been holding, it occurred to you that he probably didn’t even realize it.

You didn’t dare move, didn’t dare budge a single inch lest you disrupt whatever was going on. The thunder had been so loud and startling that your heart was pounding a bit harder than usual.

But Toji? He was visibly going through something more extreme.

You couldn’t tell how many seconds or minutes passed there, as the silence that had settled between you stretched on. After a while, just as you had half a mind to say something, Toji let out a wry, acerbic laugh.

“The air was so unstable that day. I felt the pressure pressing against my skin even as I was getting dragged there,” he said, speaking at an unusual cadence, one that was at least half a beat slower than his usual.

You could now discern just enough in the dark room to see and feel him lean his head back against the wall. Throughout all this, his hand still hadn’t loosened its grip on yours.

“Memories are so strangely selective. I remember resisting whoever dragged me to that damn pit, but I don’t remember fighting the curses. I remember the burning sensation in my lungs, but I don’t remember the words I was screaming. I remember the blood and tear-stricken fabric of my stupid, shredded haori and thinking that I would surely get in trouble for having ruined my new ceremonial clothing, but I don’t remember how they’d gotten that stained and fucked up to begin with.”

Toji shifted a bit, his grip on you finally loosening, and reflexively, you slid your fingers across the clip you were still holding, sweaty fingers easily gliding over the metal until they met the edge of his hand and gave it a light squeeze.

Lightning flashed again, bright enough for you to catch Toji’s second hand hovering just over the right side of his mouth where you knew his scar to be, just quick enough to register his knitted eyebrows, his head slightly tilted forward.

“The air had been unstable. It was a weird buzzing feeling that I felt throughout the entire episode, steady in the background of the cacophony. I could feel the thunderstorm before it formed, and that’s what I still remember the most. The lightning. The thunder. The shortening gap between the two as the storm got closer and closer. It was only then that I felt the magnitude of my surroundings. The fear, the loneliness, the self-pity. Every flash of light announcing an imminent thunder. Every thunder strike hitting at shortening intervals, taunting me, intent on making me jump each time, reminding me how much of a weak failure I was.”

Thunder crackled loudly, as if on cue, as though just above your head. It made you jump, and you instinctively inched closer to Toji, who didn’t budge but didn’t pull away either.

The loud lashing sound of the rain against the windowpane started as a heavy downpour began.

“When the rain finally started, it was a welcome relief,” Toji spoke slightly louder now, just enough to remain audible over the loud sound of rain. “It was cold and wet and uncomfortable, but at least it was something I could properly feel and touch, not some imminent threat hanging over my head. It came down as a deluge, its sound eventually drowning out the distancing thunder. And when I looked down, it had washed off all the blood I had on my hands…” he trailed off.

For a moment, it was just you, Toji and the sound of rain.

“You dislike thunder,” you whispered the words that came to your mind so easily, like the final piece of a convoluted puzzle, “but you don’t mind the rain.”

It was the first time you’d spoken in a while, and it must have brought Toji back to the moment—after letting out a low hum, he straightened up slightly and closed his hand over the clip you were still holding.

Reluctantly, you let go.

He took his clip and slotted it back into his weapon.

The next white flash of lightning revealed that he’d already reassembled the gun in record time. Much like you’d seen him do on countless prior occasions.

He drew a sharp breath, and you now understood that he was bracing himself, that he was waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop, for thunder to strike. You sensed, even as you were both very much plunged in the dark, the tension that he carried in his body. Fushiguro Toji, years away from the moment that he had first found the younger, Zen’in iteration of himself, scared and alone at the bottom of that horrible pit, was somehow reliving his nightmare with each strike of lightning.

Your hands moved before any conscious thought, reaching into the dark and landing on his arm, flexed and tense. They glided down his forearm, over his secured bandage, and the pulse of his wrist until they reached his hand again. You carefully closed one of them around the handgun, gently prying it out of his fingers, which he didn’t resist, much to your relief. You set the weapon down on the ground by his leg before returning to his hand again and holding it, this time with both hands.

Thunder struck once more.

You couldn’t tell whether you squeezed first, or he did, couldn’t tell whether you scooted first, or whether he was the one to pull your head closer to his with his free hand.

You couldn’t travel back and be with his younger version then and there, so you’d have to settle for being with him here and now, as lightning crackled in the sky, as the storm gradually eased, as the thunder began to fade, chased by the furious deluge of rain.

This time, it would not be one but two lonely souls that would face the storm—this time armed with each other’s company.

You stirred awake to a bright overhead light, and to a squeezing sensation over your shoulder.

“Wake up, Miss handler,” came a voice, strikingly altered in the softness of its tone but unmistakably familiar.

It all came back to you at once—the job, finding Toji here, his injured arm, having to hide out from the patrolling authorities, the storm, the power outage.

His hand in yours, your head on his shoulder.

“I fell asleep,” you mumbled, still dazed, your question sounding more like a declaration.

“You did,” Toji replied, his voice coming from just above your ear, a sensation that jolted you back to reality. You shot up upright and away from him as if he were a flame too hot to touch. The restored light’s luminosity brought you into the open, making you feel suddenly exposed.

“Shit… Uh, what time is it?” you asked the ground, not daring to face Toji directly.

“1:51 AM,” he replied immediately.

“1:51…” You repeated, pinching the bridge of your nose in disbelief. “Fushiguro, you should have woken me sooner!”

“You seemed exhausted. Besides, I was keeping watch,” his tone tinged with a hint of amusement.

Only now did it occur to you that you’d been up for over twenty-four hours. And while this wasn’t the first time you’d pulled off a herculean day like this, particularly while coordinating a big job, it certainly was the first time that you’d allowed yourself to succumb to sleep while working. Least of all in the presence of someone else’s. Of Toji’s.

This exceptional lack of vigilance on your part would have been alarming had it not felt so natural.

“Okay,” you said, finding your bearings, situating yourself in the moment and schooling yourself back into work mode. You rose to your feet and looked down at Toji for the first time, finding him peering up at you with an unreadable expression. “Let’s get going then.”

A short moment of silent contemplation passed before he simply nodded.

2:08 AM found you both packed up and outside the warehouse. A distinct smell of petrichor invaded your senses as soon as you walked out, clinging to the night air. You were on autopilot, feet carrying you to your parked car as Toji followed you closely.

You fumbled with your key once, pushing it toward the driver’s side door and narrowly missing the lock. When you tried again, you felt the solid, unyielding metal of the lock resist your key, once, then twice—you lifted it to your eye level, finding that you were using the wrong key from your set.

“Hold up,” came Toji’s voice as he crossed over from the passenger side, where he’d stood, carefully observing your struggle, unbeknownst to you.

Just as you pulled the door open, he placed his hand on the top of the window, preventing it from opening further.

“Hey, stop. You’re exhausted. Let me drive,” he said, the gentleness of his voice taking you by surprise.

“I’m okay. I can do this,” you said, a slight tremor in your voice giving away your uncertainty.

“You could barely open the door. I’m not letting you drive me in that state. Move over, Miss handler, we’re on the clock.”

Instead of nabbing the keys from you, he held his hand out, patiently waiting for you to place them into his palm. You could’ve categorically refused, could’ve told him to shut up and to get his ass in the passenger seat.

But you didn’t.

Instead, you found yourself relenting and meandering around to the passenger side.

As soon as you took your seat, your phone pinged with the signal from your associate at the local PD—a short message confirming that the coast would be clear for exactly twelve minutes starting now.

After coming across the second red light in less than three minutes, the irony of obeying traffic laws as you were evading police after a hit gone sideways was not lost on you, but you figured it was better than risking drawing attention to yourselves with reckless driving. The stops made for some quiet, almost cozy moments, and without the distraction of the drive, you found yourself captured by a nervous energy as you took in the exceptional circumstances you were under.

You stole a glance at Toji, taking in the way he was awkwardly sitting with his knees practically jammed into your dashboard due to just how long they were in your comparatively small seat. His eyes, a visible piercing emerald even in the darkness, remained fixed on the road, deviating every few minutes to peek at the tiny green LED numbers displayed in your center dash, carefully keeping an eye on the time, speaking to a focused mode you’ve watched him adopt countless times over the years on a job.

He suddenly turned his head, his eyes meeting yours unexpectedly, causing you to startle slightly.

“Hey,” he simply said with a friendly smile playing on his lips.

“Hey...” was all you could find to offer in response, realizing that he’d definitely caught you staring.

Toji chuckled lightly before continuing. “So, I’m gonna take an alternate route. I can’t stand these lights—they’ll only slow us down.”

“Which route?” you asked just as the light switched to green.

Toji made a sharp turn from the far lane, engaging in his proposed detour before you could protest further.

“This side street up to the bridge,” he uttered, gradually hitting the accelerator.

“This is a long-ass detour, Fushiguro. Way longer than the previous route. I’ve checked the timing on the maps countless times, trust me—”

“Maybe during the day it is. It’s a lot easier to run a stop sign on a side street than a red light on the main boulevard.”

He slowly increased his speed, only slowing down at the stop signs to check for oncoming cross traffic.

“Toji. We need to have crossed the bridge by the time the—”

“I’ll get you to your bridge on time,” he said as he glanced at you. “Just relax and trust me.”

You were feeling entirely tested, in more ways than one, but without any stamina left to argue with him, you only sank back into your seat and resigned yourself to your fate.

As you made it across the bridge with a little under two minutes to spare, you could feel Toji’s eyes on you, and you pretended not to notice him even as you detected him making an absolute show of leaning over and trying to catch your gaze through your peripheral vision.

“You love defying orders, don’t you? Just can’t help yourself….” you huffed, keeping your eyes on the road ahead. “You always were and still are absolutely impossible, Toji.”

“But I never let you down, now do I?”

To this, you had no response, none that would vindicate you at least, so you opted to remain quiet, still avoiding his gaze.

He drove in silence for a few minutes.

“How long was the power out at the warehouse?” you finally ventured after a while.

You felt Toji shift in his seat before replying.

“Hmm. About forty, maybe fifty minutes total?”

“I see…”

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, I’m just curious.”

The small car was plunged into silence as you hit another light.

You noticed the bandage peeking out from his jacket’s sleeve.

“How’s your arm feeling?” you asked.

Toji glanced at you first, then down at his arm, as if he was just now remembering his injury.

“Oh, the little cut? It’s fine… Why? You suddenly worrying about me, Miss handler?”

You could only roll your eyes at him, finding yourself once more unable to come up with an immediate retort.

The light went green, and you realized now, as you turned the next intersection, just how close you already were to your neighborhood. The plan was to have Toji drive you home and then part ways with you to walk the rest of the short distance to his house.

Suddenly, the wait at the remaining red lights now felt too brief.

Your body relaxed at the sight of your street, at the thought of a warm shower, and of finally crashing into your bed. For the first time in over a day, you felt like you could breathe.

Toji made quick work of backing into your outdoor parking spot and cut the engine. Just as you exited the car, he pretended to throw your keys at you, causing you to recoil in surprise.

“Ha. Just kidding, I won’t risk injuring you in your drowsy state. At least not before my check clears.”

As soon as he was within reach, you snatched the keys from his hands, feeling their warmth against yours for a fleeting yet notable moment.

“The payment should clear by the time I’m awake, you ass,” you said as you walked towards your complex’s gate. “I’ll call you if anything comes up. Try to stay low for a—”

As you looked over your shoulder, you caught Toji’s silhouette in your peripheral, only now realizing that he was still following you.

“Where do you think—”

“It’s late. I’m just walking you to your door,” he said as he closed the gap between you and found his stride next to yours, with an ease that felt strangely natural.

You punched in the code that unlocked the outdoor gate and turned to face Toji, expecting him to part with you here.

Your eyes met, and you saw something unreadable in their warmth, in the way his scar curled into a smile that was too soft to be a smirk under the glow of the streetlights, giving his strong features a softened demeanor.

“You suddenly worrying about me, Fushiguro Toji?” you asked, reprising his own words from minutes prior.

“Not suddenly,” he said as he placed his hands on either side of the gate, effectively caging you in and urging you inside.

The sudden proximity forced you to oblige, and you backed yourself inside and towards the outdoor flight of stairs that led to your second-floor LDK apartment.

You couldn’t pretend, as you slowly climbed up the steps with Toji in tow, that the odd weightless flutter that swept through your stomach wasn’t real.

You couldn’t pretend that the very act of Fushiguro Toji walking you to your door after you’d spent such an intimate moment at the warehouse didn’t feel as imprudent as it felt welcomed, to pretend that he didn’t evoke the most conflicting feelings towards this line in the sand of professionalism that was increasingly being washed away by the reoccurring wave of familiarity that had inched in between you even after years of separation, and of starting down your separate paths.

You couldn’t pretend that you weren’t panicking at all of this.

You walked down the row of apartments until you reached yours in the far corner. You swivelled on your feet to face Toji, who was stopped just a few steps behind.

“Surely this is good enough for you, Fushiguro?” you said.

“Soon as you go inside, Miss handler,” he replied.

You inserted your key into your lock, the correct one this time, and opened your door.

“Goodnight, Toji,” you said with your voice betraying your nerves as you kept your gaze forward.

“Goodnight,” he replied, almost unusually softly.

You were half a step inside when you heard him speak again.

“And… thank you.”

Your heart fluttered at his words, at Toji’s first attempt to acknowledge that intimate moment you shared under the chaos of the storm. And there it was again, that earthy scent of rain rising from the soil, a fragrance that whispered of blooming possibilities after arduous turmoil.

You leaned backward to finally take a good look at Toji, only to find him already turned around and having begun retracing his steps away from you.

Once again, your body moved as if controlled by an unseen force.

You reached forward, tugging at his jacket sleeve, stopping him in his tracks. When he turned back to face you, it was with a curious expression on his face.

With your eyes still on his, you reached down, holding his hand in both of yours, not unlike the way you did in the warehouse a few hours ago, but this time you yielded to the force that compelled you to pull it towards you, guiding it to the side of your waist.

Your gesture met no resistance.

You took his other hand and did the same thing, and Toji followed your lead, closing a light grip on you. You tilted your head up as he got closer, still keeping your eyes on his, searching for the slightest flicker that would liberate you from this trance, that would stop you in your tracks, that would return things to normal.

It never came.

Even in the darkness of the night, it was an unwavering fervor that you found in his green eyes, an electrifying expression that drew you in closer and closer.

When you felt his fingers tighten their hold on you, pressing into the soft flesh of your waist, your lips parted on a slight gasp, and swiftly, Toji closed the distance before they could close once more, before languidly moving his own lips against yours, like he had all the time in the world.

It would be a boldfaced lie to say that you hadn’t imagined what this could feel like. That you hadn’t spent late nights in bed, staring at your ceiling, and playing out the different what-if scenarios after an adventure with then Zen’in Toji, with now Fushiguro Toji.

Your hands glided from where they still held on to his and slid up each of his arms, up to his shoulders, to the back of his neck, and you pulled him down against you. Toji responded by dragging his hands up from your waist up to your shoulders, giving them a light squeeze before settling on either side of your face. He tipped your head back a little, altering the angle, and further tangling his tongue with yours.

Years of self-imposed restraint on both your parts evaporated into the night air as you felt this moment become the center of your universe.

Until this day, you were unable to tell whether it was seconds or minutes that passed between you.

All you heard was a police siren suddenly ringing in the far distance, bringing you back down to earth, alerting you to your whereabouts.

You both broke the kiss at the same time, each lightly gasping for air as you faced one another.

“Toji… I—”

“I should go now, while it’s still dark.” He said this, but didn’t loosen his grip, and neither did you.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Finding yourself lacking the words to further vocalize your full thought.

“If you still want to see me by then,” he said with a wry smile.

The tone of Toji’s words only amplified their implication, their allusion to a distance you never wanted to feel from him ever again. Your worries coalesced into a pit in your stomach, tossing oil onto the fire of uncertainty that was forming in your heart.

“That sounds like you’re the one who doesn’t want to see me,” you said in a tone that you barely recognized, light and long since thinned out, like a thread about to snap.

Toji scoffed, shaking his head and pulling yours into his chest into a tight hug.

“You will see me tomorrow, Miss handler,” he mumbled against your temple. “And then I’ll show you exactly how untrue that assumption is.”

He punctuated his statement with a light brush of his lips on your temple.

“Get some rest, sleeping beauty,” he whispered, gently nudging you backwards into your door.

It was a sleep unlike any other that blanketed you that night, a tranquility you hadn’t realized you'd missed in several years.

Present day

The four knocks at your door come just after 8:30 AM, as they often do.

The distinct mix of sweet and spicy cinnamon taste tingles gently on your tongue as you make your way towards your apartment door. With a light kick of your foot, you push the hastily discarded size thirteen slippers out of the way and to the side to allow for the door to open unhindered.

And as you often do, you look through the peephole before opening the door.

“I like how I went through the pain of getting you a copy of my key, only for you to never use it.”

“Well, good morning to you too,” Toji says, contemplating you for a moment. “A man can’t enjoy the view? Can’t allow me these few seconds of reminiscing about the first time we met?”

He took your chin between his thumb and index finger, briefly brushing his lips against yours as he nudged you inside.

“Or do you not remember that day?” he mumbled, his voice a low rumble.

“Of course I remember,” you murmured, feeling a sudden heat rise up to your face as you shut the door behind him, taking a beat longer to close the second lock if only to buy you some time to process his remark.

You turn around to find him waiting for you, with one arm clutching the grocery bag you recognize to be from the organic supermarket down the street, and the other one reaching towards you, palm outstretched. You grab and hold two of his fingers, as you like to do, and Toji lets out a chuckle, light but perceptible as he heads towards your kitchen, tugging you along.

Perhaps one day you’ll get used to all this, you think to yourself. Today is visibly not it.

“Alright, Miss handler,” he says as he begins to unload the bag, lining up his fresh ingredients on the counter. “Omelette or frittata?”

“Damn, is the A/C even running in here? I feel like I’m cooking here already.”

You grab the A/C remote from the counter and turn it down a few more degrees as you speak.

“I’ve already cranked it down before you walked in, but it might take a little while for the temperature to adjust. I didn’t think it would still be this hot in late Sept—”

You turn back to Toji to find him pulling his shirt up over his head, before balling it up and smirking at you.

“Hold on to this for me?” he says as he tosses it your way.

Your face does more of the catching than your hands do, and your senses are immediately flooded with the same scent you’ve spent your morning enjoying in your apartment, now along with Toji’s unique smell.

“Best believe you won’t be seeing this one either.” You punctuate your promise by pulling the shirt over your head to wear it.

Toji chuckled. “Oh no, that’s so terrible,” he says, fake mockingly. “Why don’t you come here so I can enjoy the view while I fix us breakfast?”

You shuffle your way to the counter opposite Toji. You reach for the cup of freshly brewed mint tea you’ve just made for him.

“Here’s your AM fix, big guy,” you say to call him to your attention.

Toji turns around, and at the view he’s presented with, his world stops for a while.

He gently takes your offering, slowly bringing his cup to his lips.

“I picked up the mint at the market yesterday. The leaves looked fresh, but I don’t know if you have a specific way of preparing this. I’m basically just mimicking what I saw you do that one time…”

You trail off as you meet his gaze. From your point of view, all you see is Toji looking down at the cup, then at you, with a demeanor that begins as soft and innocuous, but quickly becomes charged as his eyes darken, and as his mouth twists into one of his signature smirks, not unlike the ones that always seem to precede a mischievous act of his.

Without breaking his gaze, he reaches out behind him and switches the stove off.

“What are you—”

You don’t get the words out.

Not now, as you cut yourself off with a yelp after Toji suddenly snatches the cup out of your hands, sets it onto the counter beside you, and picks you up by the waist, lifting you onto the surface.

Not when he takes each of your hands into his, bringing them up to his shoulders as he chuckles a “hold on” into your ear, eliciting a wave of heat that follows the line that Toji traces with his breath from your ear down to the side of your neck and to your collarbone as he glances down for the brief second it takes to undo the strings of your lounging shorts and to pull them down your leg. “Right now, “Toj—” Your voice barely a whisper, as your hand traces the hard plane of his chest in a gesture that betrays your lament. It is now a familiar, anticipatory heat that ignites in your belly, and you feel your heartbeat pick up at this newfound proximity.

“We’re doing a frittata,” he cuts in before you complete your thought, “because I have a feeling you won’t have the energy to stand at the stove too long after I’m done with you.” Toji punctuates his declaration by pulling your face towards his, where his mouth hungrily finds yours, as it often does, whenever gratitude and desire tangle together into a sentiment too strong for his words.

It is much later that you finally get your answer from your grateful man himself, as you brew a second mint tea to replace the one that’s long since gone cold, that your preparation method is ‘pretty good for a novice’.

A/N: Thanks for reading! It was quite interesting to write about Toji for the first time. I do have a few more ideas I look forward to exploring, both for this duo and for some other universes!

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