Feeling sentimental so take this.
That’s what he told himself.
Hell, that’s what everyone told him.
From the moment he’d been born into the Zenin clan, he’d been looked down on.
His mother took the brunt of the humiliation. Talked down upon and mentally tortured until she finally took her own life.
And who did they send to retrieve her?
The young boy watched his mother’s body hang. Lifeless to the beautiful tree inside the zenin yard.
he was numb to it all, calmly untying the rope and watching her body fall.
Days stretched on and blend together.
From being thrown into a room full of curses, forced to fight forces he couldn’t see, unable to utilize cursed energy and only surviving by his fist.
To blatant disrespect from family members. They smiled and looked down on him, practically spat at the man the moment they saw him.
To hardly being given any food.
It’s a wonder he didn’t snap and kill everyone in the estate.
And the day he left? They all but cheered.
He made a name for himself outside of the clan of course.
The years of fighting curses gave him advantages that only sharpened during his years of assassinations.
He made money. Lots of money. But his impulsiveness and bad habits results in a lack of saving, investing.
He blew it all away each time he made any. Keeping him working, much to the delight of his clients.
Toji used women when particularly low as well. Giving up his body for some food and a couch to sleep on briefly.
He didn’t think about it too much. After all he was living the dream right?
Away from the zenins. Able to make his own decisions without people chanting his demise.
And yet even if he hated to think about it, he knew he wasn’t happy.
He wanted control. But it seems no matter where he ends up he lacks it.
The thrill of battle switches up the slow days blurring together. Gives him a way to release all the trauma.
He harbors. The adrenaline and relief he feels after is always so short lived.
Short periods of happiness drowned out by an overbearing emptiness.
And worst of all? He doesn’t know how to fill it.
That is…was. Until you came around.
In a small store in the middle of the night at that. He had no clue what you were doing out so late.
He didn’t live in the safest area. But it also wasn’t the unsafest…
You were just another unrecognizable face. Blurred in with the rest. Until, he didn’t have enough more for a lottery ticket.
Thinking nothing of it he left. Only to be stopped a few feet from the store.
A soft hand tugging at his black sleeve. His blue eyes, sharp yet empty as ever dart towards the intruder.
Before he could speak up you’d all but shoved the lottery ticket into his hand.
Eyes widening slightly as he looked down at it, only to blink when you were gone moments later.
For a split second is mine tried to rationalize this…to appreciate it. Only to scowl.
He hated being on the other end of pity. To be seen a weak and need of help.
And after that, every time he saw you he remembered that look you gave him. Toji took it personally too, and held a one sided grudge.
Every time you did something nice for him, or ran into him he felt somethin gnawing at his chest and he hated it.
And a lesser part of him acknowledged he feared it.
A softness freely given to him that only his mother attempted to give all those years ago.
Kindness without fear was foreign to toji. Unreal even.
So imagine how he felt now, things had moved so fast he couldn’t help but feel like he was dreaming.
But being with you now, a few years later. Doing something as painfully dull as shopping as you pushed the cart with a ring.
On your finger left his mind reeling. The matching bands you two wore, the new name he embraced…
