SMAU: in which the men talk to their friends after an argument with you
Warnings: a little angst but mostly fluff/crack, a little suggestive language, established relationship, intended to see how they talk about you to others, not proofread
Featuring: Gojo, Geto, Choso, Toji, Nanami, Sukuna
[ SUM ] — choso works at the dying seaside movie theater, permanently high and painfully untouched. you’re the new regular that gives him mean glares, then cute smiles? he tries to blame the summer heat… but really? he’s just one shift away from snapping—and you’re the only one he’s got his eye on.
[ A/N ] — i actually don’t read a lot of choso fics, but this idea was not leaving my head, so enjoy!!!
choso was many things. but caring about his job was not one of them.
and that’s how you find the movie theater worker. sitting behind the counter scrolling mindlessly on his phone, loose baggy jeans and an oversized band tee, hitting his vape. and with just as much boredom, if not more, you step up to the counter and with the least amount of enthusiasm in your voice, and ask.
“can I get one blue raspberry slushy.”
choso practically jumps ten feet in the air. dropping his vape and phone the second he sees you standing there. the theater was completely empty, considering it was a monday afternoon, but it looked like you appeared out of thin air—
“jesus christ,” he heaves, catching his breath. “yeah sure.”
he shoots you one glance, eyeing your casual outfit, before moving to grab you a cup in their only available size. you stand quietly, hand briefly coming up to suppress a yawn. it’s silent. just the quiet actions of the worker.
he places the drink in front of you, turning the small screen for you to pay. but you just pull out a twenty, before pointing to one of the posters they’re showing in their three theaters. “and one ticket.”
choso hums, rubbing his eye as he includes that in the total, printing out your ticket.
“anything else?”
you shake your head for half a second, grabbing your drink and ticket, then heading to theater two.
he muttered a good night once the film ended and you were leaving. you barely offered him a polite wave in return.
that was the first time you met choso, but you didn’t know that was his name until the third week you came. you point to your chest.
“shouldn’t you guys have name tags?” you ask as he fills your cup with your usual blue raspberry slushy.
“lost mine,” he mutters, placing the drink on the counter, eyes clearly bloodshot and lidded. “my name’s choso if ya need anything,” he rings your drink and ticket up, turning the screen.
then his brows crease briefly, eyes snapping up to you, almost like he finally processed your question again before he starts sputtering, “don’t report me though, if that’s why you wanted to know my name. I don’t even smoke in the theater, it’s just a vape.”
and that was the first time he saw you smile.
your eyes gleam with a little mischief and amusement, taking your drink and ticket without uttering a single word.
choso worked at the small local movie theater every summer and winter break. primarily to get away from his nagging dad asking him about his future, as if he’s convinced choso actually attends all his classes and isn’t moving around pot for extra cash. and also to get away from his uncle who’s doing god knows what with megumi’s dad.
either way, the theater job was chill. the owner was his gramps and he let’s choso handle practically everything, and lately choso’s found himself looking forward to seeing you come in multiple times a week so he’s taken up more shifts.
sometimes he would casually stand at the front of the theater when it was empty, which it usually was, and smoke a joint. his dark bloodshot eyes shining when he’d see you cross the street.
the hot summer sun was beating down on you, your cropped top was stuck to your body like a second skin, hips swaying in your jeans.
“fuck,” he exhales lowly. your chest gleaming from the sweat.
you wipe your forehead, slightly out of breath as you shoot him one single glance, smiling to yourself once he follows you inside like a lost puppy.
“were you running?” choso coughs, putting out his joint, and picking up his pace as you reach the counter.
you nod, “yeah, was at the old diner a few blocks away with my friends,” your shirt was pretty low cut, desperately controlling his eyes from wandering as he grabbed a cup and went to the slushy machine.
“friends?”
“yeah from high school and stuff. we usually jus’ hangout in the summer since we all go to different schools now,” your tone is so easy and light, choso always feels like he’s floating when you speak. or it could be because of the weed he just smoked. either way, every time you come in now, he feels it’s less and less awkward talking to you.
“so why’d you rush here?” he casually asks, placing the slushy in front of you, hands leaning over the counter. you were shorter than him, but you still carried yourself high which had lately started to make him fantasize about things.
you glance between his sunken eyes, chest still coming down from the light jog you had. “I always come around this time,” was the explanation you’d give him. but deep down, choso was praying you’d say it was because of him. still, you point to another old movie that’s playing and finally disappear into the theater.
it wasn’t until a few weeks later, and the fourth of july rolled around.
surprisingly, the owner kept the theater open, and choso would rather smoke on the job, than get caught by his dad or uncle back home so he took the shift. however, the last thing choso was expecting when he was walking absentmindedly in the theater as fireworks went off outside, was for someone to walk in.
and that someone being you.
“you guys really stay open,” you smile, something you’ve started doing more with him. choso’s red eyes widen, heart palpating at the sight.
you were fucking breathtaking.
his mind was so high in the clouds he couldn’t control it anymore, his eyes immediately wandering down. his ears burn red, eyeing the short short skirt you’re wearing, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. even the half-zipped sweater you’re wearing barely covered your top which was a red bikini top that hugged your breasts as they bounced lightly. “choso?”
his eyes quickly snap to your face, cheeks aflame as he stutters out a reply, “yeah, uh—you wanna watch something?”
choso swallows thickly glancing down at your chest again as you walk up to him, fingers at the hem of your sweater, fixing up the zipper before slowly pulling it up. “someone told me,” you stop in front of him, big seductive eyes batting up at the stoner, “that there’s a better view of the fireworks, from this roof.” your finger points up.
it takes a moment for choso to register your words, his eyes now glancing at your glossy lips, beyond tempted to brush his thumb across it. “someone told you?” he repeats, brain still processing as you hum. suddenly his eyes snap to yours, wide and alert, “wait I said that!”
your lip tugs up, laughing softly, and it feels like a shot of dopamine was just injected into his veins. “you said I should come see the fireworks from here. did you forget?”
choso gulps, remembering now, how could he forget. maybe because he thought there was no way you’d ever come. which is ridiculous considering you’ve been coming every week since the start of summer. but it was the fourth of july you had to have been doing something before this to be dressed like that.
“choso?”
the stoner blinks, electing a light giggle from you which sends him into orbit, but he manages to push his hair back, biceps flexing in his old tee shirt, catching you by surprise.
“shit, yeah—here follow me.”
choso felt like he was floating the second his hand wrapped around your wrist, guiding you further into the theater all the way into the back. the marijuana in his system easing his nerves as he led you up to the second floor. completely unaware how flustered you’d suddenly gotten.
your heart was racing at the sudden contact, his hand warm, cheeks hot as you glanced at it wrapped around your smaller wrist. your chest heats up as you notice the veins that run up his forearm. the tee he was wearing was much more firm fitted than his usual oversized ones, which extenuated his broad back.
“woah,” you exhale.
“huh?” choso glances over his shoulder, catching you by surprise. “did ya say something?”
you swallow thickly, shaking your head. his lips part before closing into a tight lipped awkward smile, turning. you’re so hot. you watch him reach the ladder in the back room on the second floor.
“lemme just unlock the hatch first,” he says, letting go of your hand to climb the ladder. your fingers loosely wrap around one of the bottom steps as he reaches the top. he digs his hand in his pocket grabbing the set of keys.
maybe this wasn’t the best spot to stand because now your entire body feels like it’s on fire as you watch the, once, chill slightly dorky movie theater worker reach both arms over his head, his shirt riding up and exposing a sliver of skin, along with the few hairs that peak out of his black Calvin Klein boxers and loose jeans. oh fuck, you can see his defined v-line—
“there we go!” choso smiles, pushing the hatch up hearing it bang and the lights shine in the night sky in the distance. choso hooks the keys back on his belt loop as he climbs to the top, hand stretched out for you.
damn, your heart is thudding against your chest as you reach the top. his shockingly muscular arm flexes once your small one falls in his palm feeling a second wave of heat flood your body. you were so consumed by how flustered you’re suddenly getting that you miss a ladder step and slip—
“woah! careful,” his arm catches the edge of the latch, holding your bicep with his other hand. “grab the ladder,” but before you could even find your footing again, he’s lifting you higher. your body weight seemed like nothing to him. you’re halfway out of the hatch when you’re finally able to stand on the final step. “you okay?” he’s heaving lightly, hand falling from your bicep to your waist, brows creased and eyes still bloodshot.
this is bad.
your name leaves his soft voice again, a tinge of concern in his eyes when he notices you staring off. “a-are you high too?” he cuts again, finally able to shake you back to reality.
“no, I’m fine. thanks,” you gently pat his shoulder as a thank you, the action filled with timid awkwardness, nothing like how you usually were.
his brow raises, glancing at your sudden attitude change. are you acting differently?
you wet your lips, crossing your arms feeling slightly more self conscious as you walk further away from the hatch you came out of. choso is not far behind, dusting his jeans and stepping up beside you, hand digging in his pockets for another joint.
“wait,” he puts the joint in his mouth, then stands behind you. both his hands come up to your arms as he walks backwards. completely unaware of the shock his touch sends throughout your body, even over the sweater! your heart hammers louder, mouth dry as you try to look over your shoulder. “yeah, here. now look up.” he unconsciously squeezes your arms, nodding his chin up, hands sliding off you to grab his lighter.
your face burns, mouth going dry as you watch the theater worker casually light his joint, jaw flexing at the action as he inhales.
his dark black lashes flutter as the smoke fills his lungs and dulls his senses. he looks so effortlessly pretty….it felt like this is the first time you were seeing him. like you hadn’t realized the first fifty times you came to the theater that he was actually pretty attractive. or that his lips were a pretty pink as he exhaled the smoke. or that he was taller than you, of course you knew that, but your body didn’t fully sink that fact in until now.
“you sure you’re not high?” choso cuts, glancing down at you seeing you still staring at him.
your eyes widen, glancing away. “no, not high.” choso’s hums, shoving one hand in his pocket as he stands beside you, both of you silently waiting. as for choso, the joint from earlier had loosely dulled his anxious heart, but he could still feel the heat creeping up his neck. your body heat so close to his arm, occasionally glancing down at you. eyes flicking over your breasts, then face, then back down.
“where were you before this?” choso breaks the silence.
you glance down at yourself then up at him. “there was a fourth of july party at my friends beach house.”
choso hums, “sounds fun.”
you nod, “yeah. it was fun.”
another sound leaves the man’s lips, rocking on his heels, keeping the conversation going as best as he can. “how come you never bring one of your friends to the movies with you?”
a silent beat passes.
choso looks back at you, your smile no longer playing on your glossy kissable lips. the joint slowly burns between his fingers, heart picking up at your silence.
“was that tmi?” he quickly cuts, salvaging the moment, no filter whatsoever.
your fingers lazily play with the zipper on your sweater, shaking your head. “no…I just like watching movies alone,” you shrug, “all my friends talk through the whole thing anyways.”
“ahhh yeah, that’s like super annoying,” choso nods in agreement, earning a soft giggle from you. “watching movies alone is such a vibe.” you hum again, smiling.
another beat of silence follows, but luckily the second round of fireworks begin. you and choso simultaneously tilt your heads up, faces illuminated by the lights.
“woah,” you both exhale. choso snorts, taking another hit before passing it over to you. you glance at the joint, leaning forward. “oh,” choso blushes, bringing the joint up to your pretty lips, watching you closely as you wrap your lips where his once were, and inhaling.
you can still hear your heart racing behind your ears.
your fingers lightly brush his wrist, before pulling back. you do your best to hold in the smoke, then exhaling, onto for a throaty cough to come out.
“shit,” choso bursts out laughing, softly patting your back. you flush deeply, still coughing as you hear the man laugh a little louder at how flustered you are.
to think you were this nonchalant regular that would give him attitude, and finding out you’re just as awkward as him. well maybe he’s still the weird one, but it was cute seeing you struggle to take another hit to prove some stupid thing to him. so he holds the joint for you again, letting you hit and you do better this time. eyeing him down as if you really showed him.
“cute,” he mutters.
flustered by his comment, you distract yourself, and move a step forward before squatting carefully to sit on the roof. however, when you start to lean backwards—
“what’re you doing!” choso suddenly lurches forward, stopping you from laying down with a hand on your head.
your brows fly up, “I’m just laying down??”
“this roof is dirty as shit!” choso scrambles, looking around for god knows what. you’re still looking at him, even more confused. why is he suddenly freaking out? “here!” he resolves the problem the only way he knows how.
his arm comes over his head, grabbing the collar of his shirt and yanking the material off.
“what the—“ your cheeks sting, eyes bulging wide at the sight of choso completely shirtless. what the fuck! your brain short circuits. he was built! his abs were defined, and his arms are huge. he’s literally the definition of sleeper build. and is that a “tattoo?”
choso was bent down, laying his shirt behind you, catching a glimpse at the large tattoo on his back. “huh—“ he glances up catching your eye as he looks over his shoulder, almost like he forgot he had a giant tattoo on his sculpted back. “oh yeah, cool right?” he smiles widely.
how can he be so hot and dorky at the same time?! you internally scream, because now you’re just nodding, too flustered to respond.
“my dad fucking killed me when he found out. here lay down,” he pats his shirt, then crawls beside you and lays down.
now the two of you, side by side, stare up the flashing lights, and distant laughs and cheers from the town, everyone’s eyes were up. and then you realize…
“I was gonna put my hood on, you know…so like…you didn’t have to take your shirt off, dude.”
a beat.
choso’s ears are a bright red, then you feel him turn his head to you.
you do the same.
and the deadpan look on the man’s face had you sucking in your lips, holding back a horrible laugh.
“well…” was all he could respond with.
your lips curve into a smile as the sound of your laugh bursts out and fills his ears. your eyes close laughing harder when he tries to keep that deadpan look, especially with how bloodshot his eyes were, he was not fully present.
but eventually, he gives in. laughing with a touch of embarrassment, grumbling under his breath, before nudging you with his muscular arm. “it’s summer so it’s not that crazy,” he huffs.
you laugh again, but make him feel better with an encouraging nod. “for sure. I’m wearing a bikini under here so I can’t really say anything,” but you still laugh at him.
“yeah whatever,” choso sarcastically snorts, but then his eyes fall to your bent knees, your beach skirt exposing more flesh as it rests on your waist. you couldn’t stop laughing, hand on your stomach as you lean towards him, leg touching his waist.
“sorry sorry,” you wave, “just the face you pulled was crazy.” you slowly come down, stomach hurting from how much you’d been laughing. unaware of the warm palm resting on your thigh now, until you feel the light caresses of a foreign touch.
“my bad for tryna be a gentleman,” he mutters, tone laced with amusement, but his eyes were slightly lidded. gaze locked on your face, brushing his calloused palm over the surface of your thigh.
your heart skips a beat. skin breaking out into goosebumps. how did we get here?
the bursts of fireworks fall quiet, senses focused on him and his heavy breathing. his dark orbs glance over your lips. face inching closer. you couldn’t stop your heart from beating louder, not when you feel his warm breath fanning across your face now. is going to kiss you? please please let him kiss you.
similar to you, choso couldn’t not keep his heart from pounding in his ears. palms turning clammy, the sudden confidence, slowly sinking now that he’s so close. fuck—
“is it—“
his words are cut by your lips. his gasp eaten by your hungry mouth as you swallow another whimper from him. your hand gently cups his jaw, lips molding against his, parting them to swipe your tongue across his.
“open,” your soft command, had a pathetic groan escaping the man’s throat.
your confidence was souring at his response. his hand squeezes your thigh, letting you hook your leg across his lap. sliding closer to him as the kiss deepens. neither of you could focus on anything else other than the touch and taste of each other.
you pull away, catching your breath as he pants, hand squeezing your waist under your sweater. “you’re so pretty,” he husks, cupping your head and pulling you back to his lips, taking control. the shift in dominance has a wave of heat pooling between your legs. pressing yourself against him, just to feel a hard tent.
choso swears under his breath as your leg shifts on his bulge. your name leaves his lips, jaw straining. “I needa sec…”
his breath is hot, swallowing another moan when you purposely shift again. blushing at the moan like whimper that leaves his mouth. your nails slide across his pecs, sending shivers down his spine, and blood to his crotch.
“seriously,” he squeezes your waist, groaning as you press your thigh firmly on the bulge, smiling at the twist in his expression.
your lips brush his lightly, smirk tugging at the corners, “is it okay if we keep going?”
choso freezes. his eyes are wide, completely out of his element, unable to react as he watches you climb on top of him. cheeks flushed as you settle back on the large bulge that tent his jeans up. your pretty hands fall on his warm chest, lashes fluttering down at him.
he must be dreaming right now.
the fireworks go off above you. the lights beaming in the night sky and illuminating your seductive silhouette. now this was the same girl that gave him teasing banter for the last month.
“choso?” you softly coo, hips slowly grinding down on his bulge, the friction of his jeans against your thin swim suit bottom had your stomach twisting in pleasure. “you still with me?”
an embarrassing noise leaves the stoner’s lips. his face turns a darker shade of red.
your lips part again, a gentle sigh of pleasure escaping. “do you like me, choso?”
the man finally is able to nod, followed by his hands on your thighs and waist again. you smile, leaning forward, lips hovering over his as you whisper softly, “I think I’m starting to like you too.”
all sanity flys out the window. his lips crash into yours, swallowing a gasp as your bodies mold perfectly. it was amusing to anyone else, the way two young adults, both playing at the timid confidence and flirting, making out heavily on the roof of a struggling movie theaters. desperately dry humping like your life depends on it.
“ngh fuck,” choso grunts, hips bucking as he pulls the zipper of your sweater off. his hand easily falls on your breast, groping the flesh. “this okay?” he asks, nibbling on your bottom lip. however, he doesn’t wait for a response before pulling your bikini top down exposing your tits to the warm summer air.
“choso,” you whine, jaw slacking as he wraps his lips around your nipple, sucking like he’s been deprived of water. he moans around the bud, hand falling to grab your ass, rocking you more.
the air grew thicker around you. his bare chest was burning under your palm, his heart racing as you continued grinding your clothed pussy on his jeans, unaware that the material has been sliding to the side, allowing your arousal to stain his pants. the two of you were possessed. his teeth tugged on your nipple, eyes flicking up to catch your pretty face twist in pleasure, jaw going slack as you began shivering.
“y’ look like you’re gonna cum?” he mutters, tongue swirling around your nipple like a lollipop.
an incoherent whine leaves your lips, unable to speak when you’re so close.
“fuck, you’re gonna cum now. yeah—haah gonna cum just from humping me?” he’s both amused and so unbelievably turned on. his cock was leaking desperately in his boxers, jaw clenched when your humping grew sloppier, pretty lashes fluttering. “shit…” choso groans as he watches you come undone. your luminous eyes are glossed over, jaw slack with a silent oh escaping your lips.
your thighs tremble around his waist, back curving forward, cumming from just a measly dry hump session.
you bury your face in the man’s neck, completely embarrassed. did you seriously just cum? the heat spreads up your neck, to the tips of your ears. however, a deep voice suddenly breaks your anxious heart.
“that was really fucking…hot.”
your heart clenches.
“you feel good?” choso is completely unaware of your reserved reaction to what had just happened. his words just spew from his lips without a second thought. it was usually how he spoke to you before, but in this setting, it brought you more comfort than you were willing to admit you needed.
your lips turn to the shell of his ear, arms wrapped around his neck, and lowly replying, “yeah.”
the slight rasp in your tone sent shivers down the man’s spine, his cock twitching in its confines, hips pushing up. his hand slides to your ass, biting his lip as he grabs a handful of your cheek. the other brushed along your spine under your sweater.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” he starts, face turning to nudge you up, a lopsided grin plays on his lips as you hover close to him. “but I’m really fuckin’ hard.”
you swallow thickly, cheeks burning hot, his lips brush yours again, kissing your bottom lip. his sudden switch between submission and soft dominance left you spinning. now you’re wondering how big he is. especially when you start to sit up, shuffling further down his lap so you’re straddling his thighs.
“I’m gonna….” you trail off, wetting your lips as you start to unbuckle his belt, heart racing as you eye the light hairs that grow darker the lower you go.
choso is in a similar position, possibly worse since he’s rethinking you taking his cock out. his heart is racing, praying the moment you wrap your hand around him he doesn’t cum.
choso doesn’t sleep around — he has slept with the occasional clients back in university, but he definitely doesn’t compare to the fuck boys in the frats. but to say, even with those experiences, watching you unzip his jeans, still two layers over his bare cock, was the most exhilarating feeling ever.
you flush as you thumb his boxers, hooking your fingers around them before—
“what the fuck are you doing on the roof!”
a loud yelp escapes your mouth as you duck to the side of choso, covering yourself from the stranger’s head popping out of the hatch.
choso immediately sits up, turning around in fury, hands coming to his pants.
the low whistle sends even more heat bursting through you and choso, followed by the stranger’s boisterous laugh. “ah ya took her to the spot. told ya this always gets em in.”
your heart stops.
“shut up,” choso snaps. fully sat and reaching to help you fix yourself. however, you immediately brush his hands off, zipping your sweater on your own.
what did that guy mean by this always gets them?
“can you give us a sec?” choso huffs, the stranger was now standing on the roof beside the hatch, hands in his pockets and lit cigarette in his mouth.
“ya left the theater unlocked, you’re lucky it was me and not the old man that came around,” the man tilts his chin to the fireworks still in the sky. “plus i wanted to see the view,” he smirks, sharp crimson eyes skimming your figure.
you brush your skirt off, skeptically glancing at the man as you and choso stand.
“yeah whatever,” choso huffs, cheeks burning red as he faces you, away from the man as he tries to hide his obvious boner.
“who is that?” you glance over choso’s shoulder, the man was still smiling wickedly.
choso tsks at the question. he does his best with his bulge before turning around.
“that’s my uncle ryo.”
uncle? your heart speeds up, so it definitely wasn’t some joke then. why would he say this always gets them?? your mind starts spiraling, hands getting clammy as you glance at his uncle again, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes as you follow choso to the hatch.
“sorry to breakup the lovemaking,” his uncle adds.
you reach the latch when choso is suddenly stopped by the older man, his hand catching his shoulder, turning choso to face him.
“dude,” choso tilts his face away, knowing exactly what’s about to happen, but his uncle holds him still either way.
“how fucked up are you?”
choso’s tsks, jaw clenching, “jus’ smoked like two joints, I’m fine.”
sukuna eye’s narrow at his nephew, letting go. “I won’t tell ye’r dad—“
“yeah, I know. you owe me—“
“cut the shit,” his uncle snaps, pointing at him, “walk home. leave the car.”
choso waves him off in disinterest, turning back towards the hatch when—you’re gone.
his sweat turns cold, quickly racing down the ladder, sharp eyes catching a familiar raven haired man at the bottom. of course his uncle and toji are about to do some shady ass shit now. choso brushes it off and quickly jogs down to the lobby catching your pretty skirt exiting the front doors.
“wait!—“ choso calls your name, sprinting out and catching your wrist with a firm, gentle grasp.
your heart lurches in your throat, stomach twisting into an uncomfortable knot. he’s panting beside you, dirty t-shirt thrown over his shoulder. the fireworks were still going off, and the streets were filled with teenagers and young adults running around with sparklers and making bad decisions.
“I’m really sorry about my uncle. i didn’t know he’d come by—“
“s’ fine,” you cut in, unable to stomach a second thought about what his uncle had hinted at. “I’m gonna head home.”
choso can’t help the sudden jump in anxiety he’s feeling. did his uncle really mess things up with you for good? he treated you nicely though, does that not mean anything. choso swallows the lump in his throat, nodding his head, but instead of letting go of your wrist, you’re suddenly being pulled to his broad chest.
his muscular arms carefully wrap around your smaller form, hugging you close, eyes shut tight. “I’ll see you later…?”
choso’s question hangs in the humid summer air. his heart thumps louder the longer you’re silent, biceps twitching with nerves.
it was an unfamiliar experience. your skin was sticky with sweat, insides hollow and unsure, but your body moved before you can think too much. “yeah,” you quietly mutter, giving him a gentle hug back, allowing him to finally pull away from you.
the booms and cracks of the fireworks echoed through the alleys and streets, quietly rattling store windows as choso watched you disappear into the crowd. and the moment you left his sight, he definitely knew something was wrong.
his anxiety was only proven correct once the following week came around…
choso was sat at the counter, heart thumping loudly as he waited for your usual intimidating aroma to walk through the doors, monday afternoon. you’d be stoic, but the moment you asked for your blue raspberry slushy and he’d make some lazy comment, you’d grace him with your smile.
but you never came.
not monday, or tuesday, or wednesday, or that entire week. and with every passing day, choso grew more and more heartbroken and bitter. was it really because he tried to fuck you on the first night? you kissed him first!
“nah man, girls are just weird,” his close friend ino drags, the usual beanie still covering his light brown hair even in the summer heat. his arms were covered in grease stains, gloves resting on his lap.
choso frowns, joint still between his fingers as the two sit outside toji’s beachside car shop. “that’s not an explanation,” he huffs.
“well,” ino thinks some more, “did you say something wrong?”
“no,” choso’s leaning on his knees, fingers scratching his sharp jaw. “i said sorry because my uncle interrupted.”
“so she’s mad at sukuna?”
choso’s shakes his head, “but that doesn’t make any sense? why would she ignore me?”
suddenly a deep voice cuts behind them, “she looked heartbroken when i saw her running out.”
the two young adults turn their heads, toji was standing a few feet away clearly eavesdropping on the conversation. his white wife beater was covered in grease stains and sweat that trickles down his back and chest. the older man swiped his forehead with his arm.
“what’re you talking about?” choso’s brows pinch.
toji shrugs, wiping his hands with a rag, “the cutie on the roof with you last week. saw her climb down the ladder lookin’ devastated as shit.”
choso’s jaw clenches, “how do you know she was upset?”
the older man scoffs, wicked smirk on his lips, “i know when a woman is heartbroken.”
ino holds stifles a laugh, glancing at choso who doesn’t bother to question toji, he’s known him long enough to trust his instincts with women. however, this leave choso even more confused.
“so was she upset at uncle? or maybe that i made her vulnerable and he saw?”
“vuLnErable,” ino chuckles, just for choso to kick his friend.
toji shrugs, walking over, “could be.”
“or she’s a virgin!” ino shouts, solving mystery.
choso’s eyes widen, “a virgin?!!”
toji deadpans at the young men, “don’t listen to him,” he tosses his dirty rag at ino. “from what y’ said, i fuckin’ doubt she’s a virgin—“
“she’s not a slut!” choso defensively cuts.
toji rolls his eyes,” I didn’t say she was slut.” choso’s eyes are still aflame, standing his ground. toji sighs, “ino’s right.”
“for real?” the twenty-two year old smiles.
“women are confusin’, ya gotta talk to her and ask,” toji shrugs, like it’s that simple.
choso’s head falls forward, “she hasn’t been around the last week. that’s the whole point man!” he groans into his hands. “I thought you know women.”
toji snorts, leaning down to snatch the joint from choso, taking a drag. “I do if I’m with ‘em. I read body language, kid,” he winks.
ino laughs, while choso frowns, “her body language was that she came from dry humping me.”
toji exhales from his nose, laughing, “not just sex. general body language, facial expression, eye contact.”
“oh…”
toji takes one last drag before dropping the joint on the ground and putting it out.
“dude!”
“y’er dad’s comin’ to pick up his car,” toji nods towards ino, the kid sighs dabbing up choso before jogging back to the shop. “she’ll come.”
the week following your absence was worse than the one before. all choso could do was wait. wait until you finally come to theater so he can clear whatever miscommunication managed to happen without him even realizing. all of it was infuriating, especially because he didn’t have your number or any of your socials so it was impossible to contact you—
“one blue raspberry slushy.”
choso jumps so violently and inhaling like someone just unplugged him from the universe and plugged him back in at full voltage.
the vape he was twirling between his fingers clatters onto the counter. he hadn’t even seen you walk up, he was too busy having an out-of-body experience staring at the theater’s carpet pattern, convinced the swirls were breathing back at him.
but then you speak. and suddenly you’re there. right in front of him.
his soul launches into the astral plane for the second time tonight. “oh—” he chokes, jerking back so hard his elbows smack the slushy machine. his eyes shoot to you, wide and slightly bloodshot, like a startled cat who just saw god.
and god, apparently, looks like you.
after ten dry, agonizing, notification-less days, there you stand glowing in the neon reflection of the concessions menu like an angel descending from the heavens with a halo.
you’re an angel. a terrifying, sudden, beautiful angel who kissed and dry humped him days ago then vanished like a fucking heart stabbing tragedy. and then you just fucking walked in holding exact change.
“you scared the shit outta me,” he whispers, voice shaking, but there’s no real accusation in it, just awe. the kind that sounds a little like heartbreak and a lot like love.
you don’t grace him with a smile. your eyes don’t even meet his fully, only flick over his face briefly, then glancing at the three films playing, pointing to one.
choso’s heart beats erratically. palms clammy as he grabs your drink. you were wearing the same sweater you wore that night, but this time it was a cute spaghetti strap sundress that reached mid thigh underneath….are you gonna say anything? maybe something happened to you that’s why you didn’t show up…fuck no, toji already confirmed you were upset with him, or uncle ryo. fuck!
“can we talk about—“
you turn on your heel once he placed your drink and ticket down. disappearing into the theater.
“what the fuck?” choso’s insides twist into a fighting pit of anger and confusion. so you’re not even going to talk to him now? acting the same fucking way you did the first time you met??
his heart hammers against his chest with every passing minute. knee bouncing on the floor glancing at the theater door.
“fuck me—“
the stool slams back into the counter as choso rises. the adrenaline quietly pumps through his veins as he enters the theater, eyes scanning the room, before landing on your form two rows from the back.
it was the first time he left his position to see you. not counting the fourth of july.
“if you tell me what’s wrong or whatever, I’ll leave you alone,” choso whispers, not caring one bit that you’re trying to watch chungking express.
his jaw clenches at your silence, your legs crossed and hands holding your blue raspberry slushy, sucking the straw with a frown tugging at your brows. you’re definitely upset.
“is it about my uncle? I’m really sorry he walked in. for real, I had no idea he was coming,” choso whispers, heart beating quickly, desperately trying to remember the other things he wanted to say. “and I should’ve taken you on a date first, o-or just asked you out first. so I’m sorry for being douche and tryna fuck you—“
your head suddenly snaps to him, your lips blue. his breath catches, and his heart immediately sinks to his stomach at the sight of your glassy eyes glaring at him.
“I’m not mad that you wanted to fuck me, choso,” you whisper, chest rising in anger. “I’m mad that this how you fuck me.”
huh? choso shakes his head. “what’re you talking about??”
your jaw clenches, eyes narrowing at him, “how many times have you done this with other girls? it’s—“ your face contorts, “it’s disgusting.“
choso is even more lost than he was before.
your heart beats erratically in your chest, eyes wavering as you glance between his. the large theater screen the only source of light, as choso shifts closer to see your face.
“honestly, I’m sorry, but i have zero clue what the hell you’re talking about right now. what trick? I didn’t trick you?? and other girls. I’ve been bumming my whole summer in this theater??”
you frown, “I don’t need an explanation seriously,” you mutter turning back to the screen. “we’re not even a thing.”
“I want an explanation because I’m really lost here,” choso’s agitated voice irks you, throat drying as your eyes flick to him.
“your uncle said some bs about, this always gets them in, how else am I supposed to interpret that?”
your words suddenly clear the fog in chose’s mind. breaking the surface as he blinks with absolute annoyance.
“are you kidding me?” he whispers, voice low sending chills down your spine. you frown. “so you assumed he meant me?”
your eyes flick between his, “well…yeah.”
choso’s face is suddenly inches from you, his hot breath fanning over yours. “my uncle used to work here when he was in school. i’d mentioned you once to him and he told me about how he brought girls up here to watch the fireworks,” choso’s lips brush your ear, deep husky voice laced with inconvenience. “there were no list of girls. I already knew the view was good from there and invited you just for that.” your heart suddenly starts beating with anxiety, throat growing dry as he continues. “there was no master plan…my uncle’s jus’ a narcissistic dick and thinks he deserves credit for everything.”
choso’s lips brush the shell of your ear, his hand hesitantly touching your wrist. “I never took any girls up there. and you would’ve known all that if you just asked me to clarify.”
with a blink of an eye, you’re pushing his chest back, pretty eyes glowing up at him.
“really?”
choso immediately flushes, heart pounding out of his chest as his ears turn pink.
how are you able to go from zero to a hundred in seconds?
he’s left speechless by you’re shining orbs, nodding wordlessly.
then, straight out of his prayers, you finally grace his humble self with your warm, infectious smile.
“i—“ your words don’t come fast enough as you embrace the stoner. arms wrapped around his shoulder hugging him close. “I’m sorry.” your apology doesn’t even attempt to ease his racing heart. “I don’t know. I was being dramatic, but like we also don’t know each other that well anyways, so you can’t blame me for just yeah—“
“I wanna know you,” choso suddenly cuts, his arms wrapped around your waist.
“me too,” you smile bashfully, relieved he can’t see your face. “but you know what I mean…right, choso?”
his hands squeeze your torso, humming against your shoulder as he inhales your ocean-coconut scent. “so were you mad about what happened on the roof?” he can’t help but question, especially when your lips are ghosting over his ear now, sighing softly with a slight shake of your head.
“I wasn’t mad about that. it was all perfect until your uncle came,” you exhale, sending shivers down his spine.
the creaking and hushed whispers in the back barely concealed the truth behind what was unfolding.
his body is unable to stop himself from guiding you to his lap, lips ghosting over one another.
“so you wanted to have sex with me?” choso whispers, smile playing on your glossy lips.
“mmm…felt bad about leaving you unsatisfied like that,” your lips part along with his, your tongues connecting, just as his hand squeeze your waist with a pathetic whimper. he’s so quick to whine, it sends a flood of heat between your legs.
“you’re hard now,” you mutter, settling on his bulge for the second time.
choso swallows a moan, “can’t be surprised. got an angel devil on top of me.”
you’re heart skips a beat, lips crashing onto his. neither of you care that you’re in an empty theater, and the risk of anyone walking in was still high. your actions remained hushed, intimate.
choso was melting the second he had his hands on you. tongue tasting you the blue raspberry slushy on your tongue, unashamed by your smirk. “cho?” your fingers move between you, unbuckling his belt.
heat breaks out across his face, heart speeding. “you wanna?”
you nod, mischief gleaming under your lashes.
choso silently swears under his breath, biting his lip as he quietly helps you shimmy his jeans down, breath catching once you place your palm on his bulge. “feels big,” you mutter against his lips. his cheeks sting, cock twitching in his boxers. you continue groping and feeling him, smile playing on your lips as he whimpers.
“s-stop teasing,” his grip tightens on your waist, your sweater slipped off your shoulder.
“jus’ wanted to feel,” you coo lowly, licking his bottom lip like a seductress. you then gingerly thumb his waistband, slowly pulling it back and slipping your small cold hand inside. his entire body locks up once you grip his base, pulling him out. “oh.” you’re pleasantly surprised by the size in your hand. “it’s big.”
choso let’s out a shaky exhale, hips rising briefly once his cock touches the cool air. his pretty eyes flick up to you watching you spit in your hand, and slowly start working his cock.
“you’re not gonna cum in my hand, right?” you coo against his lips, back arches over him as you press your pretty breasts agaisnt his chest.
choso swallows a whine, shaking his head. “n-not even you don’t want me too.”
you smile adorably, like you didn’t have this man in the palm of your hand, “good boy.”
fuck.
choso’s head falls back, jaw slack with quiet moans as you jerk his thick cock. his abs clench every time your thumb swipes his tip. tapping the crown like a devil. “d-don’t,” he whimpers.
“but it looks so pretty, cho,” you whisper, kissing his lips. he only whines in reply, kissing you back with more fever. jaw slacking and tongue pushing into your mouth desperate for the taste of the blue raspberry that’s stained your tongue.
it was easy for choso to get drunk of you, and he realizes that when he’s feeling his tip brush a wet soft flesh.
“oh fuck—“ he chokes, he pulls away briefly, gaze dropping to his lap to see his flushed cock rubbing your bare pussy. “wait,” his head snaps up to you, brows furrowed in worry. “is it not to big, I can stretch you out first?”
your fingers brush his jaw, tilting his head up as you kiss the corner of his mouth. your voices hushed, “s’ fine, I can take it.”
choso swallows thickly, hand finding purchase under your dress to grip your waist, and the other holding your ass as you slowly nudge his tip against your entrance.
“okay,” you exhale coolly, slowly sinking down.
“shit,” choso swears between clenched teeth. grip unforgiving as you gasp against him. your cute whimpers were the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. it felt like honey being dripped into his ear as you did your best to swallow his thick pulsing inches. “y’er squeezin me, r-relax baby.”
you whine quietly, gently moving up, just to push down again and take a few more inches. “bigger than I thought cho,” you pant.
his head tilts, capturing your lips, “sorry,” he apologizes, and it actually sounds like he’s sorry for how big he is, especially when you let out another adorable whimper.
but still, he kisses you like it’s the first time he’s ever been intimate with someone. and after a few more shallow bounces, you finally settle every big chubby inch of him inside your gummy walls.
“fuh—you feel so good,” he mutters, “feel so good wrapped around my cock,” your tongues collide as you start grinding against him. hips rocking slowly, as you adjust to his impressive size.
your hearts beat together. breaths colliding as the world slowly disappears, likes it just you two quietly moaning and whining on a theater seat. the creaking and quiet squelches that left your pussy with every bounce didn’t register in your ears. instead your focus remained on one another.
on his voice. your gasps. his curses. your coos.
“I feel so full, choso haah,” you babble, lips glossy from his spit. “d-do you feel me to anh too?”
choso whimpers as you clamp around him as you sink down again. his fingers dig into your ass the other fully wrapped around your waist, biceps flexing around your back. “course I do,” he grunts, bitting your bottom lip. moaning once you drool into his mouth.
nothing else mattered now.
his thick thighs part. his hips angle up, and his firmly plant themselves on the ground. “c’mon, keep riding my cock princess,” choso moans agaisnt your lips. his hips snap up getting you to pick up the speed.
you gasp in surprise, cheeks flushed, sweater falling at your elbows, and the straps of your dress starting to slip of your shoulders as you fix your feet to rest over his knees for better balance. “o-okay choso,” you hold his shoulders as you start picking up the speed.
neither of you could think about the sounds of your ass clapping against his thighs, or the whines that left both your pathetic mouths.
choso kept your pace, helping you bounce your pretty ass up n down his cock like one of his toys. and with every bounce, your pretty breasts followed, until one strap fell low enough for it to expose you to him.
“haah fuck,” choso groans, lips wrapping around your nipple sucking immediately.
“ahh,” you clamp around him, whining. he only moans around you, humming as your nails comb through his hair.
you were lucky you were the only one in the theater, because now it was obvious what was happening. the creaking, the clapping, the moans. it was beyond lewd, and obscene.
“m gonna cum cho,” you whine, bouncing quicker as you chase that coil twisting in your tummy. his flushed tip continues hitting your sweet spot, dragging against your gummy walls with each bounce.
“fuhck—fuck I’m close, keep movin’” he huffs, drooling against your chest as he kisses up your sternum to your neck, panting harshly as he bucks his hips as you start to grow sloppy. “don’t sto—ah-p—“
“I can’t—angh—“ your vision turns white, drool escaping your lips as you fall apart, creaming around the stoner.
choso swears, arms holding you desperately to his chest as he starts pumping his messy cock into your weeping hole. “fuck—tight pussy, melting inside ya—haah—“ his thighs start trembling, muscles flexing underneath you as his head falls on your shoulder.
“so good baaby…ngh haah god—“ his own climax hits him like a truck. the words fall off his tongue and pull out flashes in his mind, but the searing white that blinds him leaves him frozen inside your deep warmth.
“chosoo,” you whine into his neck as the thick ropes of white cum fill your insides.
the stoner pathetically whimpers, hips still bucking as he milks every last drop, emptying his balls, hand wrapped around your nape as the other squeezes around your waist under your dress.
“fhuck,” choso pants, chest heaving as he slowly comes down, lips parting as he leaves open mouthed kisses along your exposed shoulder. trailing them up your neck. “beautiful,” kiss, “so sweet.” his hums and sighs left shivers down your spine as you stroke his long hair. scratching his nape as your lashes flutter.
that’s when a loud whistle cuts the air.
you freeze hugging the man desperately as he lifts your strap up. neither of you realizing the movie had ended.
“y’er shameless, kid. your daddy would be disappointed ya turned out like me.”
a vein pops from choso’s neck.
“dude, what the fuck?” choso groans, hand coming up to fix your sweater on your shoulders again at sukuna laughs beside the door.
“I’m not the one fucking in a public space—“
“fuck off,” choso swears under his breath, choking quietly as he pulls out, electing the softest whimper from your lips. “sorry,” he mutters.
“why is he still here?” you whisper, fixing your dress as you stand up, glancing at his uncle still beside the door, choso quickly tucks himself ignoring the stickiness of your mixed juices.
“because he’s a dick,” choso tsks, leading the way out.
sukuna smirks, eyeing his nephew, “all good?”
“you need the space again” choso holds your hand this time, glaring at his uncle,
sukuna exits first, revealing another man standing beside the door. “something like that. don’t tell your gramps.”
choso hums digging for the theaters keys in his pocket, “don’t tell him about today then,” he tosses the set,
“I don’t talk to that old man anyways,” sukuna catches them. “take the girl out for dinner, can’t just keep fucking her here.”
“dude!”
you glare at the uncle making him smirk wider, shooting you a wink.
choso leads you to the exit as you hold his arm, “your uncle is weird,” you grumble.
“yeah, sorry ‘bout him,” choso catches toji, accepting the wink he gives the kid before exiting the theater. “but uh—you down for dinner—on me?”
you smile, lips still stained blue, “yup. and we needa get plan-b.”
“oh shit!”
a/n: sorry if the ending felt rushed! but I hope u guys enjoyed the fic, i just couldn’t get movie theater worker choso out of my head!! (divider by @/strangergraphics)
࣪₊˚☆ synopsis: you spent your life missing a man up in the stars. a shame he only came back down when you weren't there anymore. but as gojo picks up the pieces of you he left behind, he finds moving on is a lot harder when it appears you might not have either.
⊹ pairing: teacher!choso x f!reader x astronaut!gojo
࣪₊˚☆ wc: 19.0k
⊹ content: mdni, HEAVY ANGST + SMUT, make sure to read part one first! gojo is once again suffering with no relief, heavy tension, intense jealousy and insecurity all around, mentions of character death, mourning, anxious avoidant attachment, reader is an emotionally constipated mess beware, a lot of choso pov, conflicting feelings, kissing, piv sex, oral sex (f! receiving), aftercare, choso whimpering, choso LOVES his girl more than anything okay, parenting, proposals, breakups and makeups, some domestic fluff, uncomfortable conversations and confrontations, marriage, bittersweet endings, if you want comfort, not much to be found here once again i'm afraid
࣪₊˚☆ art cr: @yotume div cr: @/decomposedmaw
The ghost waiting at your grave wasn’t yours.
Not much older than he looked in that photo still tucked in the top drawer of your dresser, but rather than the brilliant smile plastered on his face back then, your former fiancé was grimacing. Leaning against the closest tree, head leaning back against the bark as he stared up at the sky accusingly.
As if he had anyone other than himself to blame for choosing anything over you.
Choso bit his tongue, reminding himself that in the end, he was the one who won, the one who got to spend his life with you – and if it hadn’t been for Gojo being an idiot who left you behind, he wouldn’t have gotten his wife. His kids – whether by blood or bonds. His grandchildren.
Gojo had given it all to him.
One foot dragged a little slower than the other, but he made his way to the grave, bending down on aching knees to place a bundle of lilac by your gravestone. Apollo came by once a week to clean it, the one next to it left dingy in comparison.
It had always been you who insisted on upkeeping it – but well, your son didn’t exactly share the same sentiment for his biological father.
Especially now that he was here.
“Lilacs?” Gojo grumbled behind him. The morning sun wasn’t very warm, the breeze in the air making him shiver as he reflexively fiddled with his wedding band.
“Her favorite,” Choso shrugged, glancing back at his…well, not competition anymore. It was irritating how attractive he was. Made it obvious why you’d fallen so hard – and never seemed to fully snap back out of his spell. That icy intelligent stare refocusing onto where he was still kneeling by your plot, making it clear he didn’t think he deserved that position.
Gojo was holding onto his own flowers, long fingers clasped tight around thin stems. Forget-me-nots. He felt a sick shift in his stomach, a familiar ache returning to the forefront of his mind at the reminder that the two of you still had something he’d never been able to touch. The peace he thought he’d finally managed rippled by his reappearance.
Choso didn’t want to let it get ruined though.
Clearing his throat as he gestured to the flowers, “She never forgot about you.”
Even though part of him had always hoped you would.
“Her favorite color was blue,” Gojo blurted out, and Choso felt his eye twitch. Mouth barely able to hold onto thin neutrality as he resisted reacting.
“When I was with her, it was purple,” he evenly replied, pushing off the ground to stand up straight. You wouldn’t even let him paint the kids bathroom blue. Skipped every shade of it to pluck out a soft lavender, smiling as you offered it to him.
“Well, I guess you just know her so much better than I do,” Gojo scoffed, white brows pinching together tightly as he walked over to place his flowers by Choso’s.
It was hard not to cringe.
Jealousy used to burn him up inside, gnaw at him endlessly at night no matter what you whispered or how tightly he held you in his arms. But now, seeing the man who was responsible for it teetering on a knife’s edge, miserably mourning your memory the same way he was, just sorta made all those harsh edges of his own hurt soften with unexpected sympathy.
“She wouldn’t want you to waste the rest of your life waiting by-”
“You don’t know that,” Gojo snapped at him, before immediately wincing, probably realizing how he sounded. “That was childish, I’m-”
“Don’t worry about it,” Choso waved it off.
Truthfully, he didn’t know what he’d do if he was in his shoes.
Except for maybe not leaving to start with.
“I used to be terrified I’d wake up one day and you’d be waiting at the front door,” he added, not sure if being candid would help him any, or if it just felt good to get it off his chest.
“I wish I was,” Gojo openly admitted, defined jaw clenched tight.
Up close, Choso could make out the curve of his cheekbones, a little too hollow to be healthy. A haunted quality etched into every line, every feature of his face. Not getting enough to eat. Probably not getting enough sleep either.
Struggling to cope with his new circumstances.
Displaced in time and space.
And still there was one thing they both had in common.
“I miss her,” Choso softly spoke, throat constricting as a lump started to take shape, blocking his breathing as he steeled himself. He wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him.
“Yeah,” Gojo awkwardly agreed. “Me too.”
“Do you want to go out for lunch later? Talk about her?” He offered, shoving down his own discomfort to extend an olive branch.
Hope blooming when Gojo hesitantly accepted it, nodding with just a short bob of his head.
“Can you bring some photos of her?”
And a couple hours later, they were sitting across from each other in a corner booth of a restaurant he used to take the twins and Yuji to with you, plates pushed to the side as they poured over photo albums, fingers tracing over the glossy plastic protecting your pictures.
Choso paused over an old one, back when the two of you first started dating, where you were sandwiched between Apollo and Artemis, smiling at him from behind a snowcone in a roller skating rink. It was supposed to be a playdate for the kids, but it kinda felt like one for him too. Holding your hand skating, making conversation over the loud bass of the obnoxious music blaring, and blushing when you nearly fell and sent him tumbling down on top of you. He could still remember that flutter in his chest when he helped you up, your fingers gripping onto his forearm and his own splayed across your side, lovestruck at the way you looked up at him with those pretty eyes, a temporary tattoo of a butterfly stuck to the bottom half of your cheek courtesy of Artemis and crinkled when you laughed.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so gorgeous.
Snapping photos of your side profile and the kids racing around the arcade section, glued to your side and feeling like a dumb dog lapping up every little sliver of affection you tossed down to him.
Devouring every ounce of it, feeling like he’d been stuck in a drought, wandering in a desert without you as he watched you help Yuji calculate how many tickets he’d need to get a ridiculous stuffed animal from behind the prize counter, Apollo tugging at your pants and pleading for you to play air hockey with him after Artemis went back to skating.
It had been a good day.
A great one.
The five of you together had felt like a family far before you actually became one.
“They look like they’re having fun,” Gojo muttered, tapping the picture of the little boy who looked so much like him.
It was strange, honestly, a little uncomfortable how much Apollo had grown up to resemble him.
And now Apollo was older than him, his dad damn near the spitting image as him at that age.
Not that he’d admit it.
No, his stepson had done everything he could to diminish the similarities, running as far from his dad’s shadow as he could while his sister found the light in it.
“We had just started dating back then,” Choso wistfully exhaled, reminiscing about how naive he’d been back then.
How easy things had been.
Artemis had filled your former fiancé on the basics. A rough history lesson on the years he’d spent in space. A vague outline of your life since he left.
But he didn’t know how much Gojo really knew.
“You seem pretty close,” Gojo commented, his mouth pressed in a thin line as he flipped the page to a photo Mrs. Geto had snapped of the five of you at a soccer game, Apollo still in his uniform and beaming at the camera while you leaned into his side for the shot.
“It, uh, was a little rocky,” he admitted. “Mostly because she was still in love with you.”
And you had been terrified of falling out of it.
“I think she was scared of falling for me too,” Choso added, leaning back against the leather seat, still able to shut his eyes and bring himself back to the first night he confronted you about it.
Standing in your kitchen, putting plates in the dishwasher as you wiped the crumbs off the table, all three kids watching a movie in the living room, throwing popcorn at each other and giggling while you cleaned up after dinner.
Another night where everything had revolved entirely around the kids, picking up after them and playing, breaking up their bickering or dragging them around from place to place.
He had felt like a fucking asshole for having any kind of complaints, but when the most the two of you managed was a handful of makeout sessions you had to sneak in, a brief foray to second base that ended in less than a minute when Artemis burst into the bedroom crying about a skinned knee, frustration had begun to build.
Choso didn’t mind waiting, if that was what you wanted.
Taking however much time you needed if the idea of being intimate was still too much.
But you weren’t saying anything. Avoiding the conversation every time he tried to bring it up, switching subjects or shifting back to the kids like you were searching for an excuse not to be close with him.
To not move to the next step together.
He wanted to take you on real dates. To spend time with you one-on-one. Be a couple instead of just coparents.
“Can we talk?” Choso cleared his throat, shutting the dishwasher and fixing the settings without looking over at you.
“Yeah?” He could tell you were nervous already, voice cracking on just a single word.
“I, uh, just was thinking that we haven’t gone on a real date, y’know?” He started, peeking back at you just to see how stiff you were suddenly standing, shoulders squared as your mouth parted in surprise.
“I mean, I guess,” you awkwardly replied, biting your bottom lip as you avoided his stare, turning your attention away, and he could already anticipate how many seconds he had left before you’d offer to check on the children or change the topic.
“Are you avoiding being alone with me?” He bluntly asked, a tiny bit stunned himself at the way the words just fell out of him.
“No, no,” you stammered it out, repeating yourself as you shook your head. “It’s just, it’s hard to find time with the kids, it’s not you-”
It was the fact he wasn’t actually their father.
But he didn’t say that. Didn’t bring him up.
“I don’t want to rush you,” he tried to clarify, stepping closer and reaching out. Desperate to feel some kind of connection even when he suspected he might only end up freaking you out. “If you’re not-”
“What if I, um, ask Suguru’s mom to watch all of them next weekend?” You offered before he could explain his concerns, cutting him off with the words he wanted to hear.
“You’d do that?” Choso asked, heart thumping against his rib cage as he contained the hope he’d been clinging onto since the first day he met you.
“Yeah,” you nodded, smiling at him softly as he ran his hand over your arm, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead.
He hadn’t looked then.
But part of him wondered now, what he would’ve seen if he had. Would the smile reach your eyes?
Still, you kept your word.
Dropped all three of them off to be babysat for the night a week later, got all dressed up in a little purple dress that left him swallowing his drool throughout the entire dinner, clumsily opening doors for you and paying the check despite his dismal teaching salary.
You laughed at his jokes, leaned across the table and let him trace circles over your knuckles with his thumb over white wine.
Choso didn’t go on dates often.
But he hadn’t met anyone who made him feel like you did. Warm and fuzzy and frustrated and so entirely wrapped up in every word that left your lips that it was driving him mad.
Practically vibrating just from your touch, the way your fingers delicately intertwined with his when you led him back up to your front door, electricity he might just be imagining buzzing between your body as his as you leaned back against the the frame, giggling when you accidentally bumped into the bell.
He could see that nervous glimmer in your eyes.
Shared his own sea of anxiety over how tonight would end when everything inside him was aching for it not to.
“So,” you started, sucking in your bottom lip for a second as your unsure stare met his.“Are you gonna come in?”
Choso felt like he was going to black out.
Sure that he was going to blink and wake back up in his bed. Alone. Exhausted. Craving you so goddamn much he could hardly contain it.
And before he could hold himself back, he was cupping your pretty face and kissing those lips that constantly lingered in the back of his brain.
The rest was a blur. You kissing him back and looping your wrists around his neck. Shutting the door behind both of you and stumbling back to your bedroom, clothes hitting the floor while his chest strained to catch his breath.
And when your back hit the bed, he was sure this had to be heaven.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous, god, I can’t fucking believe you’re mine-”
He didn’t even realize he was rambling until your mouth collided with his again, your soft thighs wrapping around his waist as his cock pressed up against your entrance.
You were already wet, which felt like far more of an accomplishment than it should.
Pride sparking in his chest as his pre-cum unhelpfully leaked out onto your skin.
“Condoms are, um, in my drawer,” you blinked when you broke the kiss, swallowing hard as you tilted your head towards your nightstand.
“Okay,” he nodded, a little too eagerly as he climbed off to grab it, yanking open the drawer to find a sealed box.
Brand new.
Did you actually buy it for him?
Or was he being delusional?
He ripped open the top flap, but before he put one on, he looked back at you, feeling a little bit like an idiot for thinking with his dick instead of his brain.
How could he forget about foreplay?
Choso tossed a condom on the bed, walking back around to the edge of it before getting on his knees and yanking you down by your thighs until that pretty pussy of yours was right there in front of him.
Ready to be prepared.
“Can I taste you first?” He asked, not entirely selfless in his request.
He wanted to bury his tongue inside you. Get the whole experience rather than rush into it and risk cumming in just a couple clumsy minutes.
You nodded, maybe a little unsure yourself.
As rusty at this as he was.
You had confided in him before you hadn’t dated anyone since him. But Choso had no clue whether or not you’d actually been with someone else – even if it was just a hookup.
His fingers trembled as they slid over your pliable thighs, pulling them closer as he shyly leaned in to tentatively take his first lick.
But all it took was a taste.
And a handful of minutes later, he was nuzzling his nose as he sucked and lapped like a man starved, cock throbbing and twitching as he resisted the urge to cum every time you moaned and whined for him.
Pausing to ask if you were okay a couple times before he got too tangled up in balancing your pleasure and his.
Your fingers laced through his hair, tugging at his roots to keep him going, thighs clamping down on his head as he swirled his tongue around hungrily.
It honestly felt like a crime you’d kept it from him for so long.
He could spend the entire night like this.
Solely devoted to you.
Trying out every little thing, pushing and pressing and prodding at every spot inside you until he made a map of your likes and dislikes.
But you were prying him off, ignoring his deep whine as his glossy lips froze in a panicked pant, ready to plead his case to convince you to let him have a teesny more time.
“Are you alright?” He asked, swallowing hard as his own saliva and your slick dripping down his throat. Pretending he didn’t notice the rings gleaming around your neck, the diamond one you’d switched from your fourth finger to a dainty chain. Daring him to remember that you weren’t supposed to be his.
“I-I’m fine,” you murmured, chest heaving with every breath, making the necklace bounce with it. “Good.”
“Please,” he began to beg, brows knitted together tight. Desperate to make you his. For tonight, at least. “I just want-”
“I want all of you,” you half-whispered, like you could hardly believe it.
He couldn’t either.
Brain still lagging by the time he was sheathing his cock inside the condom, squirting lube on his hand and stroking his shaft before slowly starting to slip his way in you.
No resistance. No more holding back. No more hoping for something he didn’t know would ever happen.
Just you and him here together.
It was perfect.
You were perfect.
Your warmth, your touch, your scent, god, every last detail was far better than he ever dreamed it.
His thrusts were precise, dragging in and out all slow and deliberate so he could study the way your face scrunched up in pleasure, watch your lips part and purr his name like a prayer.
“C-Cho,” you groaned, raking your nails down his shoulder blades, not enough to sink into his skin, but more like a soft graze.
“Y-you like that?” He stuttered over his own words, not coming off nearly as confident as he liked.
You were nodding, your head on a bobble as your mascara-laden lashes fluttered.
He was shuddering, whimpering right as his cock pressed all the way in, bumping into the back as your walls squeezed down on him.
Nothing had ever felt so good.
He wasn’t sure anything ever would again.
Fucking you all soft, hips sliding smoothly against you, grabbing your hands and pinning them over your head so he could kiss you as much as he liked. Tongue slipping into your mouth, tracing your teeth, exchanging whines just for the other to swallow.
Pressure building and twisting in his core, terrible tension he couldn’t resist, trying to break him before he could make you finish.
Rushing to rub your clit, murmuring into your mouth and practically begging you to cum for him.
You were hurting.
He still thought he could heal you.
Intoxicated by your face when you unravelled for him, cumming into the condom twice as hard as usual hearing your breathy moan, half-collapsing on you as his knees went weak.
Choso might’ve been more embarrassed if he wasn’t so enticed by every little shiver and shake of your body, absolutely enveloped while he left kiss after kiss across your soft skin.
Talking to you in a soft voice, pulling your body back up the bed and flipping over so you could be on his chest.
It didn’t take long for you to drift off like that.
He didn’t blame you.
Between work and the twins, you barely had time to take care of yourself. You rarely got restful sleep.
He was feeling it call to him too.
Peace. Contentment.
Heat lingering underneath his cheek as he held you close, brushing your hair back from your face as you dreamed. Your mouth curled up, a pretty smile reflexively forming as your fingers tightened around his side.
Some sliver of him sort of wanted to wake you, to ask what occupied your mind when you slept so soundly. But he just craned his neck down to nuzzle his nose in your hair, pulling you up another inch or two closer to cradle your body against his.
And then you said it and shattered the illusion completely.
“Satoru.”
One sleepy word. Three soft syllables.
And you broke him in a way he wasn’t sure he could repair.
He stilled beneath you, heart lodged in his throat as he resisted the urge to throw it up. Flush it down the fucking toilet as he tried to lie to himself.
Swear that you didn’t mean it – even if your subconscious did.
That he wasn’t even here.
But fuck, that look on your face, so relaxed, so raw, it made something inside him snap.
What the hell was he thinking?
He couldn’t do this.
Slowly, he slipped out from underneath you, making sure to tuck the pillow under your head and cover your bare body back up with the blanket before he padded silently over to his discarded clothes.
Choso couldn’t take just being your consolation prize.
But the idea of going home and never coming back to you felt pretty fucking unbearable too.
He didn’t want you to know he felt like this either.
Hated the idea of you seeing him spiral into doubt.
His feelings were his responsibility. He couldn’t put anything else on you – be another burden on your shoulders. He just needed time.
Yeah, that was it. To think this through.
Figure out if you were really ready for this. If he was ready to be what you needed while knowing he wasn’t who you needed.
Choso had only managed to get his socks and boxers back on when he heard rustling behind him.
You were sitting up and staring, eyes wide and worried as you watched him wordlessly.
“I need to get Yuji,” he lied, sweat sticking to his forehead and plastering his bangs down as you blinked at him.
“Why?”
One word, and he nearly cracked. Changed his mind and caved in.
“I forgot that we’re supposed to go see Sukuna in the morning,” he excused, shrugging his shoulders. “I should probably pick him up and head home.”
“You’re going home?” Your voice was wound tight, but you didn’t call his bluff.
“I should, yeah,” he muttered.
You didn’t fight him on it.
Just covered yourself with the blanket as you got up to grab some clean clothes from the closet. Not looking directly at him when you got dressed, mumbling under your breath that you’d let Suguru’s mother know you were picking the kids up as you sent her a text message.
She answered the door with a soft smile for both of you, murmuring that the kids were still asleep as she let both of you in.
“I’ll go get them,” you yawned, walking past her – and all the framed photos of men who weren’t around anymore.
“Would you like some tea while she wakes them up?”
Choso always had trouble saying no.
Ending up in the kitchen, a deep line imprinting on his palms from the bite of the sharp counter’s edge as she poured him some fresh tea.
She glanced up at him with tired eyes, holding out a steaming cup he timidly took. She wasn’t a fool. Probably figured it out from your text alone that something was up.
“Can I ask you something?” He started, readjusting to lean against the kitchen cabinets as he looked at the ticking clock on the wall.
“Of course,” she nodded, a fondness in her gaze that he knew wasn’t reserved for him either.
You had told him about her son. Your fiancé’s friend.
Commenting quietly a month after he had met her that you thought he reminded her of him.
“Do you think I’m wasting my time?” He asked, keeping his voice down as he felt all the muscles in his face involuntarily clench. Mouth twitching in a tight line as he voiced the thought haunting his mind.
Was he just a moron for standing here wishing for someone who didn’t want him back?
He didn’t want to be a placeholder.
“Wasting your time doing what? Waiting for her to stop loving Satoru? Or for her to start loving you?” She asked, tilting her head to the side knowingly.
His mouth opened, but no sounds came out.
Unsure what question he really was trying to ask once she said the silent parts out loud.
“She’s never going to stop loving Satoru,” Mrs. Geto calmly said, no malice or condescension, just stating a fact Choso already knew. “But you’d have to be blind to not see how far she’s fallen for you.”
He hoped she was right.
Would rip his heart out of his chest and hand it to you if it made it true.
Artemis stumbled in first, sleepily rubbing her eyes and clutching a stuffed animal to her chest as the boys trailed in after her. You were behind them, but you weren’t looking at him.
“What’s happening?” Apollo grumbled, leaning all his weight against your leg as Yuji scampered over to his big brother.
“We’re going home,” you answered, your voice coming out all breathy, familiar heat still curling hot in his stomach just at your pitch . “And Yuji’s going home with Choso.”
“But I thought we were-”
“No buts,” you huffed, wrangling your kids towards the door without looking at him once.
He knew that he might’ve screwed things up.
Still, he didn’t think it would still be so tense a full week later.
That when he didn’t text you good morning, you wouldn’t either. No more dinners for five. Or carpooling to school. No more cozying up on your couch while the kids fell asleep halfway through a bad movie.
The distance didn’t make him feel any better.
It only made him miss you more.
Staring at the stars outside his window and wishing that he was home with you. Even if there would always be a ghost haunting its halls. Looming over the two of you no matter how much love he had to offer you.
Was the man you loved before him still out there somewhere?
Craving you the way he was now?
Sympathy he hadn’t anticipated surged inside him, daring him to fully empathize with someone he wanted to hate.
But he couldn’t hate him.
And he couldn’t stop himself from loving you.
So he sent you a text Saturday morning, typing and deleting a variation of the same ten words before finally hitting send.
He wasn’t lying when he said that Yuji missed the twins. Choso just didn’t know how to tell you how much he missed you too.
But you replied back that he could bring him over if he wanted, and he refused to miss the chance to reconcile. To fix things before they ended up broken.
Choso thought you might be a little upset. Confused by the sudden space between you.
But you barely even glance at him when you opened the door, speaking only to Yuji as you directed him to the backyard, nodding along to his endless chirping about what he learned in school yesterday before he ran out to join the twins.
The morning sun wasn’t too harsh yet, your side profile illuminated in the soft rays as you stepped out with them, wearing one of your favorite faded shirts he suspected belonged to him, the chain of your necklace peeking out underneath the color.
“Are you going to say it?” You broke the silence, your stare focused solely on Yuji and Apollo chasing each other and laughing.
“Say what?” He repeated, running his fingers through his hair, attempting to not sound as nervous as he felt.
You scoffed, low and soft, your mouth curling down as you looked down at the grass around your bare feet.
“I guess this is it then?” You asked, refusing to so much as glance his way. Leaning against the wall with your arms tightly folded across your chest like you were trying to protect your heart. “We’re over?”
His own practically fell through the fucking floor as he processed what you just said.
“What?” The question came out wounded. His throat drying out as he forced himself to exhale, “Why-”
“I don’t want to waste your time,” you coldly replied, but he could hear how much you were struggling too.
Oh god.
You must have overheard the first part of his conversation with Mrs. Geto.
“That’s not what I meant,” he defensively started, panic pulsing through him as he reached out to touch your arm. But you recoiled, flinching fast like his fingers would burn you.
“I thought things were okay,” you murmured, shaking your head like the very notion was stupid now. “Was it the sex? Was I not good enough for you?”
“No, no, I swear-”
“Then what?” You snapped, finally looking back at him, your beautiful face scrunched together in pain. Big tears welling up in your pretty eyes that you were trying to blink away.
For a second, Choso froze, stunned that he could be the reason for that. That you cared enough about this, about him to cry.
His mouth stuck open in a moronic ‘o’ as he stumbled for the right thing to say to stop your relationship from unraveling.
“You had your fun and fucked me. I’m just not what you wanted, right?” You were half-whispering, keeping your voice down to not alert the kids. Bottom lip quivering as you continued, “I don’t know why I thought you’d stay.”
Fuck.
This was not how this was supposed to go.
He was supposed to be smoothing things over, not losing you over nothing.
“No, baby, no,” he insisted, grabbing your hand before you could retreat even further away. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted.”
You tried to pull your hand out of his, but he wasn’t the kind of fool who would let you walk away.
“The sex was amazing, god, you’re amazing,” Choso rambled, rushing through his words as he felt a frightening surge of anxiety at the idea of you thinking he was just using you like some scumbag. “I just, I thought everything was perfect, and after you dozed off, you said his name and I-”
“What?” You faltered.
“You were in my arms, and you called out for him,” he murmured, attempting to suck air in his lungs as he inhaled sharply.
A tear slipped down your cheek, and before you could burst into sobs, he was pulling you back against his chest. Enveloping you in his embrace, arms wrapped around you as your body wracked with the weight of your sorrow.
“M’sorry,” you cried, your voice muffled as your tears left damp spots in his shirt. “I-I-”
He was stroking your hair, swallowing the lump in his throat at the sound of your broken voice.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, pressing your head against him to make sure the kids wouldn’t have to see you crying.
Not when you tried so hard to be strong for them.
Built a life around being there when their father hadn’t been.
“I didn’t mean-” You started again, and he only pulled back to wipe the tears away beneath your eyes, thumb slowly dragging over your cheekbones. “I just haven’t had sex with anyone since-”
“You don’t have to apologize when you didn’t do it on purpose,” he reassured you, feeling that hole in his own heart chisel just a tad wider at your acknowledgement he’d been the first man to fuck you since him. “I just needed some time to sort out my own feelings.”
“You’re still going to leave,” you mumbled, wiping your nose on your forearm as you tried to step back and recoil back.
“I’m not,” he promised, cupping your cheek. “I’m just scared of being his stand-in. A shitty replacement for the real thing.”
You stared back at him, taken a little aback before you shook your head, leaning into his palm. “You know you’re not.”
He didn’t though.
How was he supposed to believe he wasn’t second place when you wore the proof of who was first around your neck every day?
But he couldn’t point that out.
Not when he knew that he wasn’t being fair.
Your former fiancé had been gone for years. It wasn’t a bad breakup, or like you lost him in some tangible way.
You had no closure. No answers.
Just an empty hole in your heart that Choso was doing his damndest to fill.
He glanced back at the children, clueless as they played in the sandbox, Artemis threatening to dump a bucket on her brother while Yuji dared her to do it.
And his chest fucking spasmed at the idea that there might be another life where they weren’t his family.
Where you weren’t his.
“I’ll always love Satoru. I wouldn’t have the twins without him,” you admitted, sniffling a little as you pulled yourself back together. “I wouldn’t have you either.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
Aware that you were right, but having a hard time finding it in himself to be grateful.
You were a gift.
Choso just couldn’t decide how to feel about the sender.
“I love you,” you spoke so softly to him though, so tenderly despite how scared he could sense you were just saying the words out loud. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”
“I love you too,” he promised, leaning down to press a soft kiss against your lips.
To seal it.
“I think we just have to work on talking to each other,” Choso added after you started to pull away, slipping a hand around your back to keep you close. “Communicate better before it turns into this.”
He didn’t want to be the reason you cried. Be the one who broke you.
“Yeah,” you mumbled an agreement, relaxing into him before looking back over to the twins and Yuji. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“And then what?” Gojo interrupted his story, shoving a fry in his mouth with an annoyed frown. “You guys lived happily ever after?”
Wouldn’t that be sweet? If it had been so simple?
If you’d both stuck to what you swore?
“Uh, not exactly,” he muttered. “I mean, most of it was great. But we did have a pretty bad patch.”
Gojo freely glared at him, like he was offended at the concept of him having anything to complain about.
“Why are you looking at me like it’s my fault?” Gojo huffed.
Some childish part of him wanted to retort that it was.
That he spent his life fixing the damage he’d done to you by getting on the damn spaceship.
But Choso had made his peace with that long before you were his wife.
“You’re the one she married,” he bitterly added, jaw locked with barely concealed contempt he wasn’t bothering to hide without Artemis around.
Apollo didn’t even want to entertain him at all, only tolerated seeing him when his sister dragged him around to family gatherings and brunches, excited to have someone to chatter about science stuff the rest of them couldn’t comprehend.
Choso didn’t blame either of them.
“You know, she didn’t say yes the first time I asked her to marry me,” Choso confessed, twisting his own wedding band around a wrinkled finger.
You broke up with him, actually.
He had tried to dull the memory over the years. Make the edges of it less sharp, enough that it didn’t taint you in his mind.
But it still stung.
No matter how much time had passed. No matter what he knew now that he hadn’t then.
Choso had spent weeks planning it.
Debating on all the different ways to do it before finally deciding that he should do something as a family. Show you how much he loved you and the twins.
He didn’t want to just be your live-in boyfriend.
He wanted to be the step-dad to your kids. Your husband. To slip a ring on your finger and swear to love you for the rest of his life.
To never leave.
He settled on making the kind of meals usually reserved for holidays, buying candles and balloons, buying a pack of rose petals to scatter on the bed. Picking out a ring he hoped you’d like and saving enough money to afford a second if you didn’t.
Waiting for the perfect opportunity to get you out of the house long enough to set everything up only for you to hand it to him on a silver platter.
You were distracted when he got home from work, chewing on your lip as you dropped your phone in your purse and murmured that you needed to go run a couple errands while he tried to hide his excitement.
Maybe, if the kids hadn’t rushed over and started tugging on his jeans, distracting him with what they’d done at school, he might’ve seen your face before you walked out the door.
Maybe it would have all played out differently.
But he didn’t, and he’d never get to know what could’ve happened instead.
Roping the kids into the plan was perhaps a mistake.
But he wanted the twins' permission before he proposed.
“I need to ask you two something,” he hummed, ruffling Apollo’s hair as Artemis squinted suspiciously at him.
“What?” She murmured, glancing between him and Yuji, who was practically bouncing up-and-down with excitement he couldn’t contain.
“I would like to ask your mom to marry me,” he admitted, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he measured their reactions.
Apollo threw his arms around his leg, looking up at him with those bright blue eyes, absolutely elated. “So you’re gonna be our dad?”
“It would make me your step-dad,” he replied as calmly as he could, still trying to respect the man who made them – even if he’d never gotten to watch them grow. “And that’s up to your mom.”
You lived together. You told him you loved him.
He never thought no was really an option.
“If it makes mom happy,” Artemis murmured, a little more reluctant as she nodded.
“That’s all I want,” Choso softly replied, smiling at her.
She looked like a little version of you. Acted like one too sometimes. Slower to trust. Sweet underneath it all. She wanted to seem strong, but she was still soft underneath it all.
Choso had overheard her on the playground telling her one of the other kids swinging that her daddy was up in space, swearing that he’d come back after the child called her a liar.
He felt pretty fucking shitty for his silent hopes that her father would stay up there.
Did it make him an awful person? To want a place in your life that badly? Unsure if you would really pick him if your first choice became an option once more?
He did what he did best though.
Push down his anxieties and pray he never had to find out.
“Who wants to help set everything up for her?” He asked, forcing his brightest smile as his ring sat impossibly heavy in his pocket. Weighing his heart down like a lead balloon, threatening to bury it as he tried to swallow the fear that he might fuck this up.
But the chorus of ‘me’s and the bright faces of the kids that had all started to feel like his own was enough for him to forget about it and focus on you instead.
Getting all the details right as he devoted himself to the dinner, letting the kids lay out the tablecloth and set the plates up – although he had to stop Yuji from accidentally setting his hair on fire when he snuck the lighter out of the drawer to light the candles Choso had set out.
But eventually, everything was in its place, the lights adjusted and the food set out, the children all changed into nicer clothes as the twins talked about how they’d all be siblings soon.
“What do you guys think?” Choso grinned, wiping his palms off on the apron before taking it off.
“She’ll love it,” Apollo optimistically smiled, one of his front teeth missing from where it’d fallen out the week before and traded in for five dollars from the tooth fairy.
Choso really hoped you would.
It was too late to change anything, because they all heard the familiar sound of your key turning in the lock, the creak of it swinging open. The front door thudded shut, and he was pretty sure his heart was going to explode if it started pounding any harder.
“Are you guys hungry?” You called out, your voice wavering, bordering on exhausted, pride flaring in Choso’s chest at how happy you’d be to see the spread on the table, to see the way the kids were all eagerly holding their breath, glancing between each other and nearly bouncing out of their seats. “We could order pizza or-”
You stopped speaking the second you saw it.
Froze in the open doorframe, your eyes going wide as you scanned over the scene. All the food and the fancy tablespread and the flickering candles, the way the kids were holding in giggles as he stepped forward to bridge the distance between you.
“What is-”
Choso got down on his knees mid-question slipping a hand in his jeans to clumsily grab the crushed velvet box, blinking a little too fast, mouth opening too soon as he struggled to remember the speech he rehearsed a thousand times in the mirror over the last month.
“Um, I, uh,” he paused, spit thick in his throat that he had to swallow before continuing, “I love you, and I love our family, and I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you or the twins in it. Will you make me the happiest-”
“I cannot believe you,” you interrupted him, shaking your head as you stepped back, your face blank, mouth hanging open as you sucked in a shallow breath.
“What?” He blanched, barely even processing the words that had just left your lips as your expression shifted to anger, of all things.
Brows scrunching together as you scoffed, fingers trembling as you pointed down the hall. “My room. Now.”
The kids looked at each other, awkwardly slipping into dining chairs as if they were the ones in trouble, but Choso didn’t know what to say to soothe them when it felt like his heart was shattering too.
Humiliation burning his cheeks as he put the ring box back, getting up off the ground and following you like some dejected puppy, hoping for his owner’s love. But the moment you were alone, the second you shut the door behind him, the way you were staring at him was closer to a stranger.
“What the hell did you think doing that in front of my kids?” You asked, and he couldn’t comprehend what the fuck he’d done that was so bad in your book.
“We’ve been talking about marriage for like, a year,” he argued, indignation he didn’t know how to handle boiling up inside his chest at your attitude. Glaring like he had done something so absurd to deserve it, your rejection leaving a sour taste in his mouth he didn’t think would be going away any time soon.
“We?” You hissed, hurt written all over your face before you wiped it and replaced it with thinly-veiled resentment. “You were the one who kept bringing it up.”
His jaw dropped.
“Are you kidding me?” Choso deadpanned, disbelief wracking through his body as he felt a shot of adrenaline begin to course through his veins, fingers flexing into a fist before he forced them to relax.
“I was just trying to keep you happy, I didn’t think that you were serious about it,” you said, turning away from him as you buried your face in your hands for a second, breathing hard like you might be on the verge of a panic attack.
Instinctively, he wanted to reach out. Hold you close and let you crumble while he whispered soft words to coax you through it. But he stayed still, nails digging into his palm as he found himself fuming at you for the first time ever.
“What the fuck?” He spat, his voice starting to raise as you recoiled back even further. “Why wouldn’t you say something? Why the hell would you just let me think you wanted it too?”
That you wanted him?
“Don’t shout at me,” you huffed, mouth still quivering as you folded your arms tight across your chest.
“What happened to communication?” He demanded, thinking about the fight the two of you had.
How you’d sworn that you loved him and didn’t want to lose him.
And now here you were, refusing to meet his eyes, mouth pressed in a thin line as you held your tongue.
Something he didn’t know he’d been holding back snapped when he realized you weren’t going to reply.
“Oh, I get it,” he grimaced, brows knitting together in frustration as his disappointment bubbled into disgust with himself for not seeing it sooner. “You don’t want to marry me because I’m not him.”
He knew the second he said it that he couldn’t take it back.
“That’s not fucking fair and you know it,” you snapped at him, and a bitter voice in the back of his head pointed out that you were only speaking up now that he brought up your real fiancé.
“You’ll wear his ring every day and not mine,” he retorted, doubling down rather than backing out of his accusation.
He thought you’d yell back.
That you would fight him on it. He wanted you to fight him on it. To finally let every thought you kept from out so the two of you could get out of this frustrating limbo. He didn’t care if it dropped him in hell.
He just wanted to get somewhere with you.
But you shut down.
Silently staring at the floor, chest heaving as you dug your own fingers into your side.
“I really am just a fill in for you,” Choso continued, trying to get any kind of reply out of you.
And still, you somehow found the only one he didn’t want.
“Get out,” you whispered.
“What?”
“Get out.”
Everything that had been boiling seconds before abruptly stopped, the pot ripped off the burner and left him stranded in hot water as his senses finally snapped back into place.
You had never kicked him out before.
What the hell had he done?
“I’m not trying to hurt you, I just, I want to understand,” he tried to backpedal, holding his hands out and stepping forward just for you to not even glance up at him.
“I need a break,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, sounding like you were a world away.
“From this conversation? Or us?” He blanched. You were supposed to be throwing your arms around him right now. Telling him you loved him and discussing what season your wedding should be in. Not fucking dumping him.
“This is just too much,” you muttered.
What the fuck was that meant to mean?
He felt helpless as he stared at you, the way your head was hanging down, shoulders slumped as you shut him out.
“I’ll take the twins somewhere and you can get your stuff,” you added, getting up and walking around him, making up your mind without even giving him a chance to talk this out.
Watching you walk away, dumbfounded as you slipped out the door, the conversation over before it had even properly begun.
“Are we going to be a family now?” Apollo’s hopeful voice carried through the door down the hall, and Choso rested his head against the door, wishing the conversation had gone another way and still too upset to think of a reasonable way to reach you.
To break through the barriers you were haphazardly throwing back up.
“Yuji and Choso aren’t going to live with us anymore, baby,” you softly said back.
Fuck.
You were supposed to be his wife.
Not his ex-girlfriend.
“You’re a fucking moron.”
Said the jerk that left a pregnant you to go to fucking space.
“You’re one to talk,” Choso commented, mouth curling down as he grabbed his glass to take a sip, the sight of his own aged hand reminding him that he was definitely too old for starting fights like this.
“So she really dumped you?” Gojo grinned, irritatingly white teeth on display as he leaned forward, looking directly at him instead of the photo albums.
“Not for that long.”
“You should’ve fought for her more,” Gojo pointed out, before almost immediately stopping himself, brows scrunching together like he realized what he was saying and who he was saying it to.
“I thought she didn’t want a future with me,” he shrugged. “Not when she was still thinking about what one would’ve looked like with you.”
Always stuck in the same position.
Torn between wanting your heart and wishing that he wasn’t second-place in it.
“If I could’ve been there,” Gojo started, genuine remorse bleeding through, and Choso remembered once again why he’d never been able to bring himself to loathe the man you loved.
Because they both loved you.
“I know,” Choso murmured. “I sorta wished sometimes that you would just show up if it meant she would be happy.”
𖥔 ݁ ˖
You weren’t sure you had ever been so fucking miserable.
Breaking up with Choso had nearly broken you.
You hadn’t seen him since you came back home to find every trace of him and Yuji gone. Hadn’t said his name since you had to explain to Apollo that you were going to switch him over to a new soccer team for the summer. Artemis had asked if you were happy, giving you that look like she could see through the stories you tried to keep up for them. All you could do was twist the necklace and tell her that her and her brother were all you ever needed.
But she had wanted to go to a sleepaway space camp for the summer, and you couldn’t bring yourself to say no when everything you would have planned with Choso had fallen through. So she was hours away, gone for weeks while Apollo was busy with his own soccer camp and sleepovers with friends from school.
When he was home, he was just complaining about how much he hated the older kids in the 9-12 group he’d gotten stuck in, muttering under his breath that his old team was better.
You sort of thought if you stayed busy with him, you could forget about all the other stuff.
Shut out the awful spiralling that started in your head every time you laid down in your cold, empty bed and rolled onto your side to see the unwrinkled spot next to you.
Picturing your pretty dark-haired man there, his eyes lazily opening and noticing you staring before pulling you into a warm embrace. Waking up in a daze from a dream where your blue-eyed boy was still holding onto you, murmuring that it was all just a nightmare and to go back to sleep.
Now you didn’t have either of them.
God, you couldn’t even pull yourself together enough to send a video message to Satoru like you used to, staring at the unused webcam when you got ready every day and lacking the strength to even sit in front of it and say something. Couldn’t bring yourself to call your therapist either, cancelling appointments over text and shrugging your shoulders to swear that you were fine.
You wanted to believe that you could heal from this. That there was still real happiness to be found somewhere between the lines of hurt and heartache.
But it didn’t feel like it when you pulled into the parking lot for one of Apollo’s exhibition tournaments and he started bouncing around in the backseat swearing he was sure you passed by Yuji.
Shit.
God, you were sure that he wouldn’t be here.
Yuji was in so many sports, and Choso usually coached younger kids anyway, so what the hell-
“Can I please go say hi, mom?” Apollo begged as you stopped the car.
“Of course, sweetheart,” you nodded, going ahead and practicing your smile when the muscles to make it were a little rusty.
The second you had slung your chair over your shoulder and opened the door for Apollo, he was sprinting over to the grassy area, Yuji’s voice calling out his name as a boy you didn’t recognize protectively puffing up his chest as he stepped between the two of them.
“Who’s this, brother?” The boy asked, looking back to Yuji as he stepped out from around him.
“Apollo, are you playing?” He chirped, his loose soccer jersey swaying as he rushed over.
“Yeah,” he nodded, deflating the moment he noticed how close Yuji was with his new friend. “My team kinda sucks though.”
There really weren’t many feelings worse than watching your kid go through something you didn’t know how to help them with.
Seeing the shock scrawled all over their face the second they thought they were replaceable.
“You think we’ll play against each other then?” Yuji asked, grinning with a gap in his teeth, one that must have fallen out this month.
“We’ll definitely beat you,” the other boy boasted, and you knew you shouldn’t hate a kid, but you sorta did.
And then you looked up, glancing around just to see Choso approaching – but he was too busy talking to a blonde to notice you with his brother. Her hand on his forearm, leaning forward as he spoke all seriously about something, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she listened intently to every word.
You hated her.
Almost as much as you missed him.
But you couldn’t deal with either emotion. Had no way to defend or deflect it, just putting your hand on Apollo’s shoulder and nudging him away, “Sorry, but, uh, I should get him to start his drills. It was good to see you, Yuji.”
You didn’t stay long enough to see what kind of accusatory stare he’d give you for breaking his brother’s heart. Or run the risk of Choso coming over and catching you clinging to the remnants of your relationship by letting Apollo hang around Yuji. Rushing off to find the right field, a sick feeling spreading across your stomach, filling your lungs and choking up your throat as you set up your chair and tried to tell yourself that the chance of Yuji playing against Apollo was slim considering how many teams there were here today.
But luck hadn’t decided to grace you today.
Because standing across the field twenty minutes later, in his stupidly attractive jersey and shorts, Choso was tying half his hair up off his face, bending over to listen to Yuji before looking over to see where Apollo was sitting on a bench, a cap hiding the steaks of white from the sun as he kicked his feet and waited for the game to start.
You saw the way his mouth pulled tight. How his jaw clenched before he looked over to the sidelines, starting to scan it before you looked back down in your lap, pretending to be interested in something on your phone instead of staring at him.
Just one game.
That was all, you told yourself.
You could make it through that.
But fuck, it would have been so much more bearable if she wasn’t a few seats away once it started.
Loathing didn’t quite cover the jealousy simmering inside you at the way her pretty blonde hair cascaded down her back and gleamed in the sun, how freely she bounced and cheered, clapping her hands together and calling out Yuji’s name in a chipper voice along with her own kid.
The one who called Yuji brother.
That was how it was now.
Choso wanted a happy family. So he started one with some other soccer mom, huh?
It had only been two fucking months.
How the hell could he just move on like that?
Maybe you broke it off, but he could have at least pretended to be bent out of shape about it when he had said he wanted to marry you.
Were you just not that serious? Had the past few years really meant that little to him?
Every time she cheered for Yuji felt like a fresh stab.
It was hard to hold back your annoyance when Apollo was struggling on the field too, all his older teammates refusing to pass the ball to him on the rare chance that he got to play.
And then came the moment that her kid knocked Apollo down, big tears welling up in his blue eyes as the ref called it and his coach had to pull him off the field for good. He tried not to cry. To hold it in and not seem like a baby in front of the big kids.
But rage was boiling inside you, injustice at how fucking unfair everything always for you.
You were trying to fight for your kids.
It wasn’t like you had someone other than Suguru’s mother to rely on. Not really.
No one else understood.
Knew what it was like to lose your whole world and then have to hold it together anyway. To never get closure and still be expected to just move on like nothing happened. Like you weren’t reminded of what you were missing every moment of every day.
Apollo’s team lost. And you were still trying to be the mature adult you knew he needed you to be as you folded your chair back up and slung it over your shoulder, hurrying over as he nursed his scraped knee, still trying not to sob as he bottled it all in.
But Choso beat you there.
Kneeling down on the ground and putting a bandaid over it as he smiled at your son softly. You used to love the way he cared for your children like they were his own. But now you were second-guessing if maybe that was just who he was, that it never had anything to do with you.
“-did great out there, okay? You should be proud of yourself,” he spoke gently, using all the right words as you tried not to wince. But Apollo smiled, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand, ignoring the dirt and grass sticking to it before throwing himself at Choso in a big hug.
Arms wrapped around his neck before you could move forward fast enough to pry him off. Choso patted his back, but you were already trying to pick him off yourself, swallowing the pain threatening to close your throat.
You couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think straight.
Clouded with so much distress it felt like someone had embedded sharp shards of glass in every fiber and muscle of your body, limbs robotically moving as you mentally replayed what your last conversation had been.
“Can we go out for ice cream? Please? Like we used to?” Apollo blurted out, and you hated that you knew he would hold the refusal that was about to leave your lips against you.
Choso opened his mouth to reply, hesitating as your eyes actually met his for the first time, and you wondered if he could see the hurt in yours as the lump in his throat bobbed.
“Choso!” The blonde called out, her tits bouncing in her shirt as she waved to him. “Time to pass out snacks!”
“Choso’s busy, sweetheart,” you said, picking Apollo up, his long legs dangling as he kicked, trying to get put back down. Trying to save yourself from the scene of him begging for attention from a guy who wasn’t his father.
Even if you both wanted him to be.
He watched you leave.
Didn’t try to make you stay.
That wasn’t who he was, you guessed.
No, he just wanted to throw a ring at you on the second worst day of your life and toss the fact that you’d lost the father of your children back in your face when you were on the verge of a breakdown.
Apollo pouted the entire way back to the car, his little nose scrunched up as you pulled out of the parking lot, muttering that he didn’t want to play soccer anymore.
You tried to talk him out of it, saying that the next game would be better.
But you didn’t know if he believed you.
Not with the way he was dramatically staring out the window the rest of the ride home, switching between having arms folded across his chest and fidgeting with the seatbelt.
“I know you’re upset, but-”
“I’m fine,” he stubbornly insisted, shaking his head. He had his cap back on, unable to make out any of his white hair underneath it as his blue eyes looked up at you through the mirror. “Are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” You asked, even though you knew he wasn’t stupid.
He wasn’t as scientifically minded as Satoru, or Artemis, but he read you like a book. Saw in between the lines without you having to say anything.
“I want to sleepover at grandma’s house,” Apollo murmured, diverting his stare as you swallowed your pride and shrugged.
“Okay,” you muttered. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
Suguru’s mom had never said no to either of the twins.
And when you brought him over in the evening, watching him run straight back to the spare room she made for them, hearing faint rummaging and rustling noises as he pulled out toys to play on his own.
“I take it the game didn’t go so well?” She asked, fine lines and wrinkles really starting to show on her soft, tanned skin. Wisdom you wished you had even a small sliver of in her kind smile as you flopped down on her couch.
“Choso was there,” you muttered, your stupid heart stuttering just saying his name.
“Oh?” That piqued her interest.
She always liked him. Told him that he was good for you. Good for the kids.
But you could see how much he reminded her of Suguru. Always chalked it up to her seeing some of her son in him.
“He already moved on,” you bitterly huffed.. “Some other soccer mom was practically all over him. God, her kid even called Yuji brother.”
“Honey, are you sure? Did you speak to him?” She started, trying to be careful with her words as you scoffed louder.
“No, but-”
“Have you spoken to him at all since you broke up?” She pressed, and you could only shake your head.
What the hell were you supposed to say? You were broken up.
It wasn’t like you had his number blocked.
But he hadn’t reached out either.
“That boy loves you,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t just-”
“He left me,” you muttered.
Well, you left him.
But if he loved you, he wouldn’t have let you leave. Just stood there when you walked away.
You had made that mistake before. You let Satoru go. Trusted him to come back.
He didn’t.
And you were the one who had been stitching yourself back up every time his memory tore your heart back open.
But how were you supposed to marry a man who couldn’t tell when you had come undone? That you were falling apart in front of him?
“Did you want him to stay?” She asked, and you knew the answer instantly, no matter how hard it was to actually say it.
Of course you wanted him to stay anyway.
Even though knowing that felt like betraying Satoru.
“I should go home,” you murmured, picking yourself back up off the couch and snagging your purse from the floor as you threw a long look down the hall to where Apollo was, debating on peeking in to tell him good night before deciding against interrupting him. “Just, uh, call me when I should come get him.”
Or just walk next door.
The house was horribly quiet.
Your footsteps echoing as you returned to your room, the silence following wherever you went as you stripped and showered, scrubbing your skin raw with soap and sighing at your blurred reflection in the fogged-up mirror after you got out feeling no fucking cleaner than you had when you stepped in.
Truthfully, you didn’t really want to look at yourself anyway.
Clinging to the towel you wrapped yourself in, staring at the clothes in your closet as you searched for something to hide yourself in, settling on an oversized hoodie you’d bought before either man you were wrecked over.
Throwing on pajama shorts too, wondering whether or not it was worth wasting an hour scrolling through shows and movies searching for stuff to watch or giving up and crawling into bed when you heard a knock on your front door.
A flicker of relief slipped in, thinking that Suguru’s mom must be bringing Apollo back, that maybe he changed his mind and you could offer to let him stay up late watching whatever movie he wanted together as you scurried back towards it.
You didn’t even ask before pulling it open, but you stopped in your tracks the second you saw who was on the other side.
“Hey,” Choso greeted, the single word shoved out unceremoniously as you just stood there and stared.
“What are you-”
“She, uh, called me,” he muttered, jutting his thumb over to the house next door. He had changed into an outfit you missed seeing him in. A sweater you used to steal of his, thick and cozy, in your favorite shade of purple. Jeans that were well worn. His hair was a little damp too, bangs framing his handsome face as the dim lighting made his dark eyes hard to read. “If you want me to go-”
“You didn’t speak to me today,” you pointed out, not that you made the effort to talk to him either. Picking a fight in the first five seconds.
“I didn’t think it was a good idea,” Choso sheepishly answered, and before you realized it, you were stepping aside, letting him back in. Although, you guessed it was better than letting half the neighborhood hear you bicker.
“Yeah, I’m sure your new girlfriend wouldn't be happy with you talking to your ex,” you defensively said, gritting your teeth as he shut the door behind him. Throwing you a confused glance before he fully turned to you with his thick brows all pinched together.
“What are you talking about?” He shook his head dismissively.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see the new soccer mom all over you?” You snapped at him. Your jealousy was plain to see, painfully obvious as the words came out all wounded and weak.
“Are you talking about Yuki?” He asked, his lips parting as you imagined her mouth meeting them.
“Oh, is that her name?” You spat it out, backing away as you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. “She’s pretty, huh?”
Did he think she was prettier than you? That he upgraded?
The worst part was you could barely recognize yourself right now.
You didn’t want this to be you. Petty and pathetic and pining over something you were trying to damndest not to want.
Since when were you so insecure? So jealous that you were starting an argument with Choso because you couldn’t get a fucking grip on yourself?
“She is,” Choso agreed, and you wanted to throw up.
Ruin his sweater like he ruined your day.
You didn’t know what face you made, but whatever it was, however wrecked you must have seen before you could recover, he softened. Unlocking his jaw as his eyes crinkled, exhaling slowly.
“I’m not into her like that,” he added. Treacherous respite rippled through your body, but you held onto your anger, resisting everything you instinctually wanted to do around him. “But, we’re not together anymore. We can see other people without-”
“You proposed to me two months ago,” you pointed out, but the accusatory tone didn’t really do much when it came out half an octave too high. A horribly familiar lump was growing in your throat, heat crawling up your cheeks dangerously close to your eyes. “If you actually loved me, you wouldn’t just move on like we were nothing.”
“I’m not just moving on, it’s just,” he paused, budding frustration threatening to boil over as he took a small step closer. Standing in front of you as if he was the victim, like everything was all your fault for being the fucked up one in your relationship. “I should be allowed to heal however I need to heal.”
For a second, you couldn’t stand him. His maturity. His rationality. The way he was still collected when it felt like someone had plucked out all your seams and left you to crumble.
Tears you couldn’t stop welling up, a choked sound coming out before your broken words, “I’m sorry I was such a horrible girlfriend you have to do so much healing.”
“I’m healing from your rejection,” he clarified, but you couldn’t stop yourself from crying, rubbing underneath your eyes as you tried to stop yourself, scoffing a little as you tried to reel yourself back in.
“You had an out from the beginning,” you sniffled, although it sounded more like a huff. “I told you I didn’t want to waste your time.”
He recoiled at the reminder, and panic sprung back up, hot and bright, burning your throat. You wanted to take what you said back.
But you were too stubborn to say that.
“Our relationship wasn’t wasted time,” he muttered, and there was a hint of remorse in his tone. Disappointment that things didn’t work out the way either of you wanted. “But this argument is.”
You were about to throw out a retort, ask him what that was supposed to mean, but then he was walking away, sweater stretched across his broad back as he started towards the door, and you were bridging the gap between you, snagging his sleeve to stop him.
“You’re just going to leave again? Like that?” You asked, voice quivering as you forced your stare to harden. He looked down at you like it was taking everything inside him not to give in too.
“You wanted to break up,” he murmured, and you bit down on the raw spot you chewed in your cheek, ignoring the taste of blood on your tongue as the temptation to take it all back grew harder and harder to resist. “I was stupid to think that maybe we could talk things through tonight.”
He began to slip away again, and impulsively, you were pulling him down by his sweater, your mouth crashing into his to reclaim him in a manic kiss.
You sort of thought he would push you away.
Tell you that he was really done this time. Through with you and all the baggage he’d have to bear being yours.
But then his calloused palm was cupping your cheek and he was kissing you back twice as hard, returning the fever with his own heat. It seared through you, fried your nerves as his tongue slipped past your lips, his nose nudging against yours while his body pressed up against yours. Clumsily forced back a few steps until you were both falling on the couch, sandwiched between his heavy chest and the stained cushions.
Having sex with your ex was almost always a mistake.
But you couldn’t bring yourself to let Choso go.
“I hate how much I love you,” he muttered when the kiss broke, and your pulse picked up, self-loathing sinking into you as it struck you how much your fuck-ups were fucking him up too.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, weak and almost whimpering as your apology came out sincere this time.
You weren’t even sure which crime of yours you were apologizing for.
Breaking up with him to begin with. Forcing him to bear the weight of your burdens. Being too emotionally constipated to communicate what was haunting you without turning it into a fight.
“Show me then,” Choso dared, his usually low voice dropping down to damn near dangerous while his intense stare narrowed, studying your face for some sign that you meant it.
And then you were tethering your fingers through his hair, pulling him back down for another rushed kiss, shutting out all the thoughts of how many sins you were trying to atone for.
You spent so long trying to be strong for the twins. For Choso. For yourself.
But you were so tired. So exhausted from expending all your energy putting on a show pretending to be fine when you just kept failing.
Couldn’t you just let it go for a little bit? Let yourself love Choso without holding back?
His hands were slipping underneath the soft fabric of your hoodie, phantom shivers racing down your spine as he nudged your thighs further apart with his knee. You could feel each finger, how they tentatively ghosted across your side up to your chest, greedily grabbing a handful of one of your breasts, nothing shy or reserved about it.
No soft questions of if it was okay, or if you wanted more, just taking what he wanted.
And you were willing to give it.
To let him have all of your body when you struggled to hand over your heart.
Kissing him came easy. His palms pressed so firmly against your skin, pulling at the soft muscle and tender flesh, his lips fitting so nicely between your own as his nose nuzzled against you. The connection you had been fighting was too intense for you to resist his pull, the intimacy that used to terrify you slipping its tendrils around you and wrapping around you so tight you didn’t think you’d ever be able to escape the hold he had on you.
He pulled away, and you were left chasing the kiss, craning your neck up, whining and missing him the moment his mouth wasn’t on yours.
That was the truth, wasn’t it?
You had missed him the moment he stopped being yours. You were used to loneliness. To being lost in your head and longing for someone.
So why the hell did it feel so different with him? So visceral and raw to accept that he might move on if you couldn’t give him what he wanted? What he deserved?
“You don’t want me but you don’t want me to go,” he accused, and you were shaking your head, pulling him back down by his hair as you locked your thighs around his waist.
“I do want you,” you admitted, brows knitting together tightly as you practically begged him to believe you.
Your heart and your head might both be a mess.
But you could pick out that brutal fact between the wreckage any day. If you didn’t want him, it wouldn’t hurt half as bad as it did right now to see him hurt.
Like he was concerned you could change your mind (or maybe before he changed his), his grip slid back down to your hips, pulling you up some so he could get your clothes off. Adjusting down so he could shimmy your shorts and panties down your thighs in one go,
You awkwardly lifted your arms, and he was half-ripping the hoodie off of you, but the moment it was off, he was flipping you over in one rough move, one hand on the back of your neck to press your face into your throw pillow.
He left his clothes on.
All his shields still up when it came to you.
Your body trembled, cool air hitting your ass as you heard the rustle of him pulling down his pants behind you.
Usually the sex was slow with him. An hour long affair of foreplay and making out, rolling around the sheets before taking turns giving each other head, drawing out an orgasm or two before he actually fucked you, or you even rode him.
You were in uncharted territory.
On the outskirts of his heart instead of taking up space inside of it.
He ran his other palm over your ass, slowly trekking over your spine and letting out a low exhale you couldn’t decipher. You tried to look back at him, but the fingers on the back of your neck kept you firmly in place, sinking in a little deeper to get you to stay.
You shouldn’t be soaked. But you could feel the dampness leaking down your thighs, your hips aching to wiggle a little and entice him into just fucking you into feeling something other than sorry for yourself.
There was no prep.
Just him tentatively testing how wet you were with his swollen tip before smoothly sliding in, a drawn-out hiss leaving his throat at the way your warmth wrapped around him the same way it had a thousand times before.
You wanted him to kiss you again. Would even settle for a handful of pecks pressed to your shoulder blade or a few tracing up your throat.
But you didn’t feel like you had the right to make any kind of requests from him right now.
“C-Choso,” you whispered, your voice muffled into the pillow as your walls clamped down around him mid-thrust, squeezing as he shoved his way past the first ring of resistance.
“Don’t,” he murmured, and if he didn’t already feel so good inside you, you might’ve broken down from that single word.
Don’t what?
Call out for him?
“Not unless you’re mine.”
You knew what he was asking of you. To give him the pieces of you that you were still desperately clinging onto. To let go of the ones that were someone else’s.
His mouth hovered over your shoulder, so close to touching and still so far away, a little squeak escaping as his cock rubbed right into a spot he knew was sensitive.
“When you close your eyes, are you picturing me? Or him?”
The raw sound of his voice ripped through you, painfully piercing your heart as his hips pinned you to the cushions. Bottomed out and buried inside like he was aching to claim you completely and utterly as his own, his teeth finally skimming over your throat as a moan involuntarily slipped out.
“You,” you half-whispered, and you could see his face in your head now, dark and dreamy and dragging you over the coals of a fading fire. The fight you used to have in you, the one that kept you dreaming for the life you lost, dying out.
Choso had fire of his own. It was tamed, controlled, where the flames wouldn’t hurt if they licked your skin. A warm hearth you could curl up by without fear of being burned.
“Promise me,” he grunted, the springs beneath you creaking as he thrusted right where he knew you’d crumble and crack, your pleasure memorized like it was his favorite book.
“It’s you,” you echoed, a whimper echoing in your living room as his back pressed flat against your own, his hand moving your hair off the nape of your neck so he could kiss you again. Mouth leaving a messy trail of kisses, each consecutive one making the invisible thread in your stomach tense and tighten, pulled taut as he pounded you into the couch with no mercy.
“I said promise,” he groaned just before biting down, your wrecked whine just making his cock twitch as his free hand slipped around your side, roughly beginning to rub your clit like you weren’t already on the brink of breaking.
“I p-promise,” you stammered, clawing at the cheap pillow for grip, each of his thrusts threatening to make you jolt. But he didn’t stop fucking into you faster, no matter how hard you were clamping down around him, thighs trembling and toes curling at the force of his rough strokes.
So stuffed you thought you were going to snap, strangled noises buried into the pillow as his thick fingers worked your sensitive bud, his mouth littering your neck with what you hoped were love bites.
Even if he wasn’t fucking you the way he usually did, Choso was still Choso.
Still made sure you came first, waiting until your breathy gasps turned into a broken moan, shuddering as he painted white splotches across your vision, cumming and crying his name, ruined and half-limp underneath his body.
Hiding your face in the pillow as hot tears welled up in your eyes, knowing it would probably leave damp spots after this was over.
Were the two of you still over?
Now probably wasn’t the time to ask.
He pulled out at the last second, hand furiously pumping his cock, cum spurting out to spill all across your bare back as you started to come back down to earth from your climax.
Waiting for him to say something first, shutting your eyes as you struggled to catch your breath, the metal of your necklace pressing hard into your chest as his weight shifted. Carefully moving off of you instead of collapsing like he used to. Sometimes you could spend half an hour afterwards just with his body melting onto yours, playing with each other’s hair or listening to him murmur about whatever was on his mind. Letting him trace pretty shapes over your skin while he swore he adored you.
“I got some in your hair,” he mumbled instead.
Oh.
Right.
“We can shower,” you offered quietly, turning your head to the side, but still barely able to make out any of him in your peripheral vision.
You thought he’d turn you down.
Leave anyway now that he fucked you.
“Okay,” he agreed.
There was no big conversation. No emotional breakthrough under the hot water.
Choso cleaned you with the same attention he always had. Scrubbing your skin with the loofah, massaging your scalp when he washed your hair.
Taking care of you like a lover.
Even if you didn’t deserve it.
You knew you should have a proper conversation. Address what had landed you here, adjusting the water and pretending not to notice the ghost in the room.
But then the shower was over, and he was stepping out first, tying a towel loosely around his defined hips, water droplets still clinging to his happy trail as he handed you your own towel wordlessly.
Was this just how things were going to be from now on?
You watched him in the steamy mirror as you dried yourself off, searched him for remorse before he bent over to pick up his phone from the pocket of his discarded jeans.
“Yuji wants me to pick him up from Todo’s,” he muttered, looking back at you with an uncertain expression.
“Oh,” you muttered, stomach twisting with discomfort you once again didn’t want to vocalize. Todo. Wasn’t he the one that belonged to the blonde? “So Yuki’s place?”
And despite what he said earlier, a poisonous part of you whispered that he might be going over to just repeat what he’d done with her instead.
That perhaps he had just picked up those moves from being in her bed.
“Yeah,” he casually confirmed with a small nod.
You didn’t know what to say.
How to bring up your insecurity when you couldn’t even commit to him how he wanted in the first place.
So instead you deflected, biting down on your bottom lip before tilting your head to the side, “Do, um, you wanna come back over tomorrow?”
Surprise registered on his face, and he slowly nodded.
“What time?”
He was at your door the next afternoon while the kids were off at camp.
And the one after that.
Keeping your bed warm for an entire week, fucking you into your mattress like he was hoping to leave an imprint by the time he finished. To permanently press the shape of your bodies into the sheets, mold it around both of you while he molded you around him in everything from mating presses to reverse cowgirl. Any position where he could make a point in seeing how hard you would cum for him. Even in the shower afterwards when he was supposed to be cleaning you up.
Kissing you from the moment he crossed the threshold to the time he left. Desperate ones that gave away the craving you both shared, the hunger that seemed to spread and sink you further into starvation.
You didn’t know what this was.
What your relationship with him would be once the summer camps were over and you wouldn’t have the time to spare for having steamy sex with your sorta-ex.
“Shit,” he groaned, throwing his head back, the outline of his Adam's apple bobbing hard in his throat as you stole a glance over your shoulder at him. On your hands and knees, cum sticking to your ass and connecting your skin to his cock as he came a few seconds after you. His muscled abs glistened in the fading daylight, toned ridges and divots on display as he finished fucking his frustrations out on you doggy-style.
Pulling out instead of using condoms, the risk of it making your stomach flutter all funny even if you had a hard time imagining yourself ever having another kid.
You knew he wanted one though.
Another conversation you’d been avoiding.
But before you could even consider broaching it, your phone started to buzz beside the bed, and he was leaning over to pick it up for you, face softening as he held it out.
“It’s Artemis,” he muttered.
“Shit, okay,” you blinked, climbing off the bed in a hurry to grab your robe off the back of your desk chair, hastily throwing it on and tying it around your waist before rushing back to take it.
You barely got to speak to her since she’d been so busy with her space camp.
Answering before it could end, biting your lip as the facetime automatically connected, the image of her all fuzzy and blurred for a few seconds before becoming clear.
“Hi, sweetheart,” you greeted, heart rapidly thumping in your chest as you made sure she wouldn’t be able to see the rest of your room.
“I missed you, mom,” she grinned.
Artemis had a light in her eyes that you missed. That spark, that gleam of excitement that was infectious, smiling easily back at her as she pushed a planetary model in front of the camera to show off.
“Check it out. Do you like it?” She beamed, proud of her work as you instinctively thought of what Satoru would make of it. How he’d probably grin and goad her into going over every detail. How happy he’d be that she was into the same stuff as him.
“I love it,” you promised, nodding along as she started rambling about how they were learning about worm holes earlier, bouncing up and down as you tried to not let the sinking pit in your stomach swallow you up with how much she reminded you of her father.
But if he was really still here, would he be here to see this? Or would he still be choosing work over the three of you?
You were so distracted, you didn’t hear Choso creeping back up until you felt the weight of him against your back, bending over to rest his chin on your collarbone as he saw Artemis’ project on your phone.
“You made that all by yourself?” He asked, and you could see his soft smile on your screen, admiring her work like she was his. The pretty picture of a perfect father.
“Choso?” Artemis blinked, mouth falling open and nose scrunching up in surprise as she looked back at you with sheer confusion.
You stammered something out, a weak excuse about her brother calling, ending the call before you had to actually answer her reasonable questions about what you were doing with him. Turning back the second you were sure she wouldn’t overhear, scoffing as you shook your head at him.
“Why did you do that?” You asked, blowing a short puff of air out of your nose as his palms settled on your hips.
“Do what? Talk to Artemis? We’re back together,” He said it as if it was obvious, and you reflexively wanted to refuse. To sabotage the slice of heaven you were living in for the past week.
“I never said that.”
The moment those four words left your lips, you wanted to put them back.
Freezing as his hands fell away from you, loathing yourself for letting this happen, seeing how hard and fast he recoiled from you.
“I’m such a fucking moron,” he muttered, turning around and grabbing his sweater from the bed, pulling it over his head as your body seized with dread. “You’re just using me. You never wanted a life with me.”
“No,” you breathed the word, but you were already sure it was too late. You screwed it up again. “I didn’t-”
“Stop with the stupid lies,” he shook his head, not believing you.
“Stay, please,” you half-whispered, the slowly-growing guilt gripping your heart encasing it completely. “I wasn’t trying to-”
“To what?” He interrupted.
“I panicked,” you weakly explained, an excuse forming on your tongue about not wanting to confuse the kids anymore, but he wasn’t about to let it go this time.
“Why don’t you want to marry me?” He bluntly asked.
No room for wiggling out of the conversation or wishing it away when it meant watching him walk out your door again.
You had to be honest.
No matter how much your brain was trying to convince you that you were just jinxing it. Cursing him to follow the same fate as your former fiancé by saying the words out loud. Condemning yourself by tying yourself down to someone you were scared would slip away too.
“The day you proposed,” you hesitated, holding your breath as you swallowed hard. “While you weren’t here, someone from NASA stopped by that afternoon to tell me Satoru had officially been declared dead.”
You didn’t know why it had even surprised you.
All the years he’d been gone, the excuses his old coworkers had offered started to dry up, the same old stories they sold you not holding the same hope.
And now they were admitting there wasn’t any.
Satoru was dead to them.
And you didn’t even really get to be a widow.
“I went to his grave after you got home, but I just, I don’t know how to say goodbye to him,” you muttered, thinking about how it felt to sit there knowing his body would never be buried by his headstone. About the life he deserved and never got. Where he got to be a father and a husband and be a family. “And then you came home and pulled out the ring, and it was like everything was happening all over again.”
The memory of it was a blur, your head a complete mess as an awful as intrusive thoughts threw everything you were terrified of straight in your face.
Telling you that you were just replacing Satoru. That he would hate you if he knew you had moved on. Insisted that if you said yes, Choso wouldn’t stick around either.
So scared that he’d leave you too, that you nearly lost him anyway.
“Baby, if you had told me-”
“I know,” your voice broke, body trembling as he wrapped a warm arm around your shoulders to tug you into a tender embrace. “I should’ve said something. But I didn’t know how to bring it up and I just shut down, and-”
“If I had waited, would you have said yes?” He asked, and you couldn’t answer straight away.
Was it a betrayal to Satoru to say yes?
Or were you losing the best thing in your life by clinging onto the ghost of a man who hadn’t loved you enough to listen and stay in the first place?
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I don’t want another proposal if it ends in losing the person I love.”
Looking up at him anxiously, waiting for the foundation you were standing on to crack and crumble – for him to prove you right. For the world to rip him away now that you admitted that you loved him enough to fear living without him too.
“The only way you’ll lose me is if you keep pushing me away,” he comforted you, and you wanted to cry.
“I don’t want to push you away,” you mumbled.
“Then let me in,” he whispered, pulling you onto the bed and placing you on his lap. Letting you curl up on him, holding you tight like he was trying to make it clear he wasn’t going to let you go.
Your sniffles turned into soft sobs, all the tears you’d been holding in, all the mourning you’d been rejecting released the moment you had someone to lean on.
“Are you still seeing your therapist?” He pressed, and you hung your head lower.
“No,” you confessed through the tears. “I haven’t been since we broke up.”
“You need to go back,” he softly goaded, and you knew he was right. That you were only hurting yourself the more you held it all in.
“Could, um, you go with me?” You muttered, unsure and anxious as you searched his face for some sign that you weren’t making a mistake, rubbing the damp streaks off of your cheeks as he nodded.
“If you want me there,” he muttered.
And you could finally admit to yourself that you did.
That you wanted there when you went to sleep, and when you woke up, and for everything in between.
“I want you here for everything,” you whispered.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t see what you were going through-”
𖥔 ݁ ˖
“So what? The second she thinks I’m dead she decides to marry you?” Gojo interrupted his retelling of it, Choso’s mouth finding it hard not to frown at how much he sort of reminded him of you. Seeing the bits of his personality that had melted into yours, picturing how the two of you might have worked together if the positions were reversed.
“It wasn’t like that,” Choso muttered.
“That’s what it sounds like,” he retorted.
His phone vibrated on the table, Artemis' name flashing on the screen before Gojo snatched it off and shoved it in his pocket.
“You can answer that,” Choso muttered, shrugging his shoulders. It was a little uncomfortable sharing a daughter, but she was too grown for him to say anything about it. And between the twins, she was the one who always had a soft spot for the father she lost to the very thing she was studying.
Of course she was going to be excited that he was home.
Even if some things were better left in her imagination than in real life.
Choso had never planned on meeting him. Never considered what he might actually be like.
Although he did find it a little annoying that he was somehow even more obsessed and in love with you than he ever conceived.
“I’ll call her back later,” Gojo answered, but there was a nervous glint to his eyes as he cleared his throat before picking up his fork to shove some food in his mouth, still talking mid-chew. “How long, exactly, did it take for you to marry my-”
He nearly said fiancée.
But Gojo corrected himself, clearing his throat, “Her.”
“Your friend’s mother, she, uh, got cancer a year later,” Choso muttered, still a little haunted by the look on your face when she announced it. At the hard memories always attached to the good ones. “The doctors thought she only had six months to live.”
“Oh,” Gojo muttered, a crease forming between his brows on his pretty, wrinkle-free face.
“It changed things.”
If it hadn’t been for her, he wasn’t sure if the two of you would’ve found your way back together at all.
It had been her birthday. All of you over at her house, the kids playing in the living room while you helped her clean up. Choso was supposed to be keeping an eye on the twins and Yuji, but he was within earshot of your conversation, beating a level that was too hard for them on the game console she’d bought them last Christmas.
He nearly died the second he heard the words terminally ill leave her mouth, using every ounce of his self-composure not to snap his head around and ask all the questions he was itching to know. But then the kids would notice, and the idea of the twins realizing that they were about to lose the closest thing they had to a grandparent was enough to make him hold onto his cool. Force his face into a neutral expression as he clicked buttons haphazardly.
“You can get a second opinion, or, or-” You were stumbling over your words, in denial as Mrs. Geto tutted at you.
“Sometimes, it’s just a person’s time,” she softly said. “I’ve lived a long life. A happy one.”
Choso glanced back right as your entire face fell, devastation obvious in every line etched into your skin, shaking your head hard as you rejected it.
You tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“I want to be with my husband and son,” she said, and you were trying so hard not to cry. Eyes watering with tears you were quick to blink away. “I’ve made my peace with it.”
Choso knew you. Could see how hard you were resisting the urge to say that you wanted her here too.
“Don’t give me that look, dear,” she lightly said, reading you like an open book too. “All I want now is to know that you’ll be okay when I’m gone. All three of you.”
You might not be her daughter. But you were damn near close to it after nearly a decade of leaning on each other for support.
“You know Choso takes good care of us,” you softly replied, your voice barely audible as you sniffled. Rubbing your face from the spot you’d frozen in, lip still quivering.
“He does, doesn’t he?” She knowingly said, and you were nodding.
“He’s great,” you reiterated, and even when the timing was terrible, he couldn’t help but feel a small flicker of gratitude at hearing you speak about him like that. On you counting on him.
“Not great enough to marry?”
He almost flinched.
A game over screen flashing across the TV as the kids groaned in unison, little fingers poking and pushing and telling him to try again.
“I don’t need his last name to know I love him,” you muttered.
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t marry him,” she argued, and Choso felt his chest constrict, wondering whether or not he should even be listening when she started talking about Suguru, so fondly, recounting a memory of his father, her husband, the weight of her missing them present in every syllable. “Even if it hurts sometimes, I wouldn’t take any of it back.”
You knew what that felt like.
Choso could see the contemplation scrawled across your face, struggling to keep his focus on the game as Mrs. Geto continued.
“You’ve known him longer than Satoru, sweetheart,” she guided, touching your shoulder tenderly as he caught a glimpse of you chewing on your lip. “He loves you just as much.”
It wasn’t a competition.
Even if sometimes did feel like he was fighting a phantom for your love.
“He would understand if you went all in with him,” she spoke gently. “All any of us have ever wanted is for you to be happy.”
You were about to start bawling, but you held it in, nodding along like you knew she was right. And Choso was already planning on sending her a gift basket the next day with all her favorite foods and snacks, including a note promising to make time to take her to any appointments she needed.
“I loved Satoru like he was my own too, but even if they came back tomorrow, I don’t know if he’d be the one that’s right for you now, dear,” she gently goaded, guiding you as you sucked in a sharp breath.
Choso waited for you to shake your head, to tell her that she was wrong.
But you didn’t.
And he was still thinking about what you were thinking that night. You told him about her illness after the kids had fallen asleep in their beds, sitting up with a pillow pressed against your chest as you gave him that look you always did when you were deep in thought.
He pretended not to know, just wrapping his arms around you to offer whatever comfort you needed. He wasn’t going to push. Press about marriage just because you had spoken with Mrs. Geto about it.
Truthfully, he didn’t expect anything to actually come of it.
He understood your reservations. Those fears you were still working through with your therapist.
So you caught him off guard when you looked up at him with wide eyes and nervously asked, “Do you still think about marrying me?”
“Of course I do,” he answered a little too fast. “But I understand why you don’t want to.”
He would take a forever of being your boyfriend than a future where you weren’t anything to him.
“Why do you want to?” You asked, the question coming out slightly stilted, a hint of something he had a hard time placing. It wasn’t dismissive. Not completely curious, more like, searching for confirmation from him.
“You already know I’m in love with you,” he murmured, reaching over to brush his fingers across your cheek. “And how much I love our family.”
You and the twins. The way you readily accepted Yuji as their sibling. Loved his little brother without hesitation.
“I want to grow old with you. Spend as many moments of our lives together as we can. Watch the kids graduate and get families of their own,” he mumbled, finding more confidence with each sentence as you leaned into his hand. “I want to write cheesy vows and say them in front of all our friends. I want Yuji to be my best man and Apollo to carry the rings while Artemis tosses flower petals down the aisle.”
And fuck, when you were looking at him like that, like you wanted all of it and more too, he nearly melted on the spot.
“I want to see you in a white dress, walking towards me while I cry at how beautiful you are,” Choso whispered, his gravelly voice standing out in the soft silence, the sound of crickets chirping through the cracked window as a breeze filtered in. “But really, I just want you to choose me. Forever.”
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life waiting and wondering if he was the one you wanted.
You swallowed hard, your hand reaching over to graze against his fingers affectionately.
“Ask me again,” you breathed.
He stared for a moment, barely believing what had just left your lips. But the moment it sunk in, he was rushing off the bed, nearly stumbling towards his nightstand, pulling it open and rummaging through everything to find the ring box he tucked in the back when he moved in with you again.
You sat on the edge of the bed, a ghost of a smile curling up on your lips as you watched him hurry to get down on one knee and pop open the box, revealing the ring you didn’t get to see last time.
“Will you marry me?”
Gojo looked like he was about to puke over the photo album in front of him.
There you were, standing in your wedding dress, Choso’s hand slung on your waist as you leaned into him. Mrs. Geto was by your side, using a walker as her illness left her struggling to get around the way she used to. Yuji clinging onto the leg of his tux, grinning and sticking his tongue out at the photographer by his new step-siblings. Artemis and Apollo were in front of you, your bouquet in her hands while Apollo beamed at the camera, proud of himself for doing a good job not tripping or falling with the rings.
“She’s glowing,” Gojo murmured, tracing over your face down to the wedding dress, face twisting up in pained tension. Maybe thinking of what his photos might have looked like with you.
All his plans wrecked by his own confidence that the world would bend to what he wanted.
And before Choso could really react, tears welled up in his blue eyes, his jaw clenched tight as he tried to hide the fact he was crying at the photo.
“She was pregnant,” Choso explained, feeling himself getting choked up too thinking about that year. “It wasn’t planned.”
Honestly, when you told him, stepping out of the bathroom with a positive test, that nervous glint of pure fear in your eyes as you held it out, he was sure you were going to tell him you didn’t want it.
That you could marry him, but you would draw the line at having his kid. Sure that you wouldn’t want to put your body through it again, especially ten years after having twins.
But you just anxiously asked if he wanted it, if he thought the two of you could really handle it.
“How was it?” Gojo asked, a surprising sincerity to the question. Genuinely wanting to know, maybe because he missed his chance to go through it with you. Only got a handful of videos you sent when you were pregnant. Didn’t get to be there for the sonograms, or the appointments, or the birth.
Missed buying baby clothes and painting a nursery. Picking out names together.
Although, it had been you who suggested naming her Keso, after one of his brothers who passed when he was younger.
“It was hard, sometimes,” he admitted. The later months especially. Your anxiety picking up the closer your due date came, convinced that something would go wrong, going to see your therapist every other week until your delivery date. “But our daughter was healthy, and I was there to help her recover.”
Choso never left you once.
Was there for every diaper change and late night feed. Comforted every time he picked up his little girl relief he hadn’t expected blooming in his chest at having one that looked like him. He had told himself it wouldn’t matter. That he would’ve loved a little girl that looked like you too. Especially since he already adored Artemis.
But it was nice to know that strangers would see his girl and know she was absolutely his.
Gojo had only met her once since she came back at a big family dinner, and she was too preoccupied with her own husband and kids now to care about the man her mother once loved, just offering him an awkward smile before going back to talking to Artemis.
He was wiping his face, pretending like he hadn’t been crying as he flipped the pages back in the photo album, finding one where you were sprawled out in the backyard on a towel and smiling at the camera, shielding your face from the sun. Artemis was laying next to you, her head buried in a book.
“Can I have this one?” He asked, and Choso wanted to say no.
Not let him have any more pieces of you than he’d already stolen.
But it was hard to actually say no when he knew there was a second copy of the photo underneath, reluctantly nodding. “I suppose.”
“I’m glad she got to move on,” he mumbled, not that it sounded even remotely truthful. The only thing there was regret. “That she could forget about me.”
“I meant what I said,” Choso sighed, turning more serious as he looked into those frustratingly familiar eyes. He loved you too much to hate him. Loved Apollo and Artemis too much to loathe the man he had to thank for them. “She never forgot you.”
Gojo was the one who was struggling to swallow the fact he had to share your heart with someone else now.
“Yeah,” he dismissively muttered, lips pressing together.
“When she got sick a few years ago, her memory started to go too,” Choso reluctantly broached his least favorite subject, recalling the long months of watching you waste away. “Eventually, she forgot almost everything. Except you.”
Gojo didn’t know what to say.
Sitting there stunned as he stared at Choso, finding it too hard to meet his eyes and turning his attention to the wedding band still on his fourth finger.
“She couldn’t remember the twins or our grandkids. But she still talked about you. Called me your name a couple times when I helped her get out of bed. Looked up at the sky and told everyone who visited that you were up there,” Choso admitted, his voice wavering as he tried his damndest not to hold it against you. To remember all the decades that had come before that when you were more than happy to be his. “Swore that her husband was just with the stars for a little bit before he’d come back for her.”
He wasn’t quite as emotional as he had once been. But it was hard to not break down at the fact that he’d lost you long before you passed away.
That in the end, he hadn’t carved himself deep enough into you to be the one you recalled.
Sure, you still had moments of clarity. Rare days where you were almost like your old self, where you’d kiss him and hold him and swear you loved him more than anything.
And those were enough. You were enough. Even when there was barely anything left.
“We both loved her,” Choso murmured, although love didn’t seem like a big enough word for it. He had a feeling that Gojo would understand anyway. Know what he was trying to get at here. That they’d both felt the full spectrum of emotions, the highest highs and the lowest lows that came with worshipping you. “And lost her too.”
“Yeah,” Gojo whispered. “I guess we did.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” Choso exhaled, taking one last sip of his drink. “Losing her all at once like you or seeing her disappear piece by piece.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and Choso looked up to see the way his face had scrunched up, his brows furrowed as he twisted around the wedding band he started wearing too. The one you bought for him once upon a time.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Choso shook his head.
If anyone understood what it was like to miss you, it was him. Even if he spent most of his adult life despising him to some degree.
But Gojo was still staring at him with guilt he hadn’t anticipated. Like he knew everything was his fault and he didn’t know how to fix it.
Choso contemplated telling him that there wasn’t anything left to fix.
It wasn’t like he could go back in time to change anything. And even if he could, Choso wouldn’t change a single moment. Not when he’d gotten you. Gotten his daughter – and two bonus kids.
His life had been filled with your warmth and laughter and a million smiles he wouldn’t trade for anything.
Even if the ending had been a bit lackluster. Even if he had to spend the next ten years on his own wishing you were still around.
“I’m going to Apollo’s place,” he announced. “His daughter brought her baby over.”
Awkwardly extending an invitation even if his son wouldn’t exactly be thrilled at having the father that was now younger than him around.
“Oh,” Gojo said, his mouth curling down like he knew it too.
Recognized where he wasn’t wanted.
It might be too late for Apollo. But he still had time to get to know the rest of his family if he stopped focusing on the past and learned to live in the present.
“Don’t you want to come spend some time with your great grandson?” Choso asked, his voice coming out gravelly as his knee ached with the effort of standing. Gojo’s stare flicked down at his lap, towards the pocket he shoved his phone in.
And even though Artemis didn’t share his physical features, he recognized that distracted look of hers in Gojo now, like he was working out a problem too complex for anyone else to solve.
“I’ll, uh, catch you guys there later,” he excused, running his thumb over the edge of the photo.
He didn’t have the energy left in him to convince him to come.
Gojo would just have to learn for himself how little time there was left with the people he loved in this life.
Choso supposed he should consider himself lucky. At least he got to spend most of his by your side.
It wasn’t jealousy that plagued him as he collected his photo albums, the proof of every year you’d given him while Gojo was gone, but pure pity.
If only he had the foresight to realize how misplaced his empathy was.
But even if he had, he wasn’t the one who could turn back time.
a/n: this was also a commission by the super creative and inspiring @dayanim !! i love her and her big brain sm :3
kind stranger!choso comes to your ꒰rescue꒱ on a night out
꒰cw꒱ hurt/comfort; angst to fluff; inappropriate touching (back/waist) but choso has something to say about it art creds to @/MOHIMOHINOSIRI 1.3k
You probably should have left when your so called friends did.
But the music was loud, the cocktails were sweet, and you were not ready to end your first night out in forever just because they decided to ditch you. What else were you supposed to do? Go home and cry about it?
Fuck that.
Just one more song couldn't hurt, right?
"Do you come here often?" the guy that had been trying to talk to you all night finally took a seat next to you on the bar, just as you were catching your breath after enjoying the dance floor solo. It was an art, really – evading suitors while twirling around the space, sporting your best don't even try it look anytime someone got too close.
But this one didn't seem to get the hint.
You were getting ready to smile politely, tell him you're taken even though you're not, and watch his face twist in disappointment before he finally left you alone.
But…no – before you could even say anything, you felt a hand slide down your back, and your entire spine tense like it had been electrocuted. Surely he wasn't just sliding his filthy, uninvited hand on you before you had even exchanged a hello?!
You snapped your head to the stranger fast, feeling your stomach drop with anger and disgust, but as you opened your voice to protest – someone else cut in.
"Is he bothering you?"
The voice came from another tall stranger, whose shadow towered above the two of you in a way that was as menacing as it was reassuring. You blinked your eyes to adjust to the light, taking a better look at the only person who bothered to step in.
Dark hair pulled into two twintails above his head. Strands falling loose around his temples, framing a dark tattoo just over his nose. You would have thought he was handsome – had you not been filled with nothing but nausea right now.
"Yes" you replied instantly, a little taken aback by all this. Was it the alcohol that had your stomach suddenly fluttering? Or the way this stranger looked at you – like he was ready to tear the other man's arm clean off?
He nodded, face immediately stiffening as he addressed the man for the first time. "Get your fucking hands off her" he said, matter of fact.
It wasn't dramatic, he didn't even need to raise his voice. And somehow, that was even more effective.
Who the hell was this guy?
"We were having a conversation" the idiot replied, doubling down like he couldn't feel the whole room get colder by the second. You rolled your eyes, moving to snap his hand from your waist yourself, but as soon as you tried he only doubled down – pulling you towards him so harshly you almost fell off the stool.
Wrong move.
One second that disgusting man was next to you, the next, it was like he was floating in the air. The kind stranger had moved quick, too quick, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt and lifting him up off his seat with an ease that was terrifying.
Well, that was one way of getting him to take his hands off you.
His feet were kicking inches above the floor now, hands flailing as he tried to get away from that iron grip. "Apologise" your tattooed rescuer growled, so condescending it was like he was talking to a younger sibling – but with none of the warmth you'd expect from it.
"Fuck–I'm sorry" he flailed around, spitting the words out before he got unceremoniously thrown on the ground.
You were watching the whole thing with an open mouth, shocked. You were used to being hit on, and having to get out of these situations alone – you were not used to anyone else intervening.
Especially so… effectively.
"Are you ok?" your knight-in-emo-clothes turned to you, tone much softer than it had been just seconds ago.
It was like a switch had flipped as soon as the other man had crawled away. When this kind stranger looked at you now it was almost gentle – but you could see the way his hands were balled into fists, betraying how he really felt.
You were glad to not be alone in your anger.
"Y-yeah" you replied, swallowing thickly. Was it what had just happened, or…. did he make you a little nervous too?
You couldn't help noticing the light trickle of sweat around his temple, and how his chest went up and down in that tight black top. Or the way his eyes were carefully assessing your state himself, just in case you weren't really ok. When was the last time someone had even cared about you that much?
"Where are your friends?" he asked, looking around. Only then did you notice the crowd staring at the two of you, moving away with scrunched eyebrows as if they were scared.
Funny, that. No one seemed to look sideways when that man decided to put his hands on you. No one but this guy – but he didn't seem to notice the crowds reaction.
No, this stranger had eyes only for you.
"They left me" you replied, noting how pitiful it sounded.
"They left you?" he squinted, offended by the statement. He looked at the bartender then, leaning forwards to get his attention. "Can I get some water?" he asked him.
When he slid the glass over the bar, your new friend put it in front of you instead. "Thanks" you blinked, closing your hand around the cold glass. It was like a shock to the system – maybe you had been more anxious than you realised. "What's your name?"
"Choso" he introduced himself, offering you the first smile you had seen from him. Fuck, he was gorgeous.
You offered him your name too, smiling back at him. He looked down for a little second, maybe… shy, all of a sudden? Well, surely not. "Are you sure you're ok?" he asked again.
"I think so" you replied, feeling more than ok in his presence. But your pulse was still raised, and you noticed your hands were restless. "I think I just want to go home now" you sighed. You hated how things like this took a while to settle in sometimes – even though something about this Choso did make you feel nothing but safe.
"You're not driving, are you?" he looked you up and down, that responsible older sibling tone coming back again. It almost made you laugh.
"Think I'll call a taxi, or something" you shrugged. "I don't live far"
He didn't seem too happy about that, either. Choso took a moment, thinking, and then his dark eyes looked at you again. "I can drive you home, if you want" he suggested.
Your immediate answer would have been yes, but you were far too smart to accept rides from men you just met in bars just like that. Even though you wanted nothing more than to be in his presence a little longer.
"You haven't been drinking?" you asked, not meaning to sound so accusatory.
"No, I'm the designated driver" he explained with a slight smile. "I'm taking care of my brother and his friends"
You looked over his shoulders, finally noticing the table full of young adults staring at the two of you with far too gleeful smiles. "That's cute" you laughed.
Choso swallowed thickly, noticing the encouraging group behind him. Suddenly, he seemed to come up with an idea he was pleased about. "Do you want to meet them?" he asked. "Since your friends left"
You looked up at him, surprised. You knew he probably could tell what was going through your mind with the whole car ride thing, which only made his offer even more… kind.
Too kind for someone who almost got in a bar fight because of you just minutes ago.
But Choso looked at you patiently, everything about his tense posture suggesting he really wanted you to say yes. "Sure" you smiled, enjoying his relieved exhale.
You were looking forward to not being strangers anymore.
another one for the making myself feel better through fanfiction collection (also might turn this into a full oneshot soon?? idk we shall see)
Warnings: Insecure reader, hurt/no comfort, they’re being like really mean and they will hurt your feelings so yeah.. not proofread.. Geto will be added later on…
Wc: around 650 for each character (4.3k in total)
Part 2
Satoru Gojo
You’ve always been kind of loud around the ones you held close to your heart. Even more with Gojo who’d always match your energy tenfold, it filled you with so much joy to be around someone who enjoyed your company as much as you did his.
Gojo’s sitting next to you, arm slung around your shoulders loosely as he nodded at whatever you were talking about. Your voice had become slightly higher in pitch, excitement evident with every word you let out, after all it was Gojo, he’d always be listening to you,
“So then the male lead said-”
Gojo sighed and you paused in between your rambling, tugging at his sleeve softly, like you were the little girl whose father never looked at her till she was begging him for his attention. Your Gojo pulled himself away, flipping out his phone and scrolling with a bored expression,
“You can be so loud sometimes, you know? It’s just crazy how much you can just keep talking”
Oh
You felt a stutter in your chest, your voice quietening down to nothing as you sat stiff next to him. You didn’t know what to do, let alone think. A million thoughts ran around in your head. Gojo thought you were loud, all this time when you thought that he genuinely enjoyed your company and wanted to listen to you. God you felt stupid, after all you’d never really changed from that loud, annoying kid from the fifth grade had you? Always too much, too loud, too talkative, never able to sit a moment still and that’s all you’ll amount to even if decades pass and you're older.
You wondered how long he had kept this information to himself, how many times he must’ve clenched his fist as he let you ramble on like some stupid school girl while internally he hated every word that came out of your mouth. He must’ve spent a thousand tired nights letting you talk about some irrelevant show just so you would be happy. Oh god, you felt like fucking shit, the self depricating thoughts multiplied one after another as you sat next to your boyfriend, feeling more like a burden he was putting up with than his lover with every passing second.
“Uh ‘toru?, I’m gonna go to bed, night baby,”
Your voice was quiet, so very quiet that Gojo barely made out the words that came out of your mouth. He nodded in response, untangling himself from you and letting you pull away from him.
The bed felt cold and you didn’t know if it was the bed or the hollowness of your own chest that made you feel so empty. The tears came shortly after and you felt like your heart was being squeezed, heavy weight on your rib cage as you tried to be as qiuet as humanely possible. The tears that fell on the silk lined pillows grew cold as you tossed and turned in the bed, trying everything the soften the growing pit of unease in your stomach.
By the time Gojo returned to the bed you had pulled the covers over your face, feeling the bed dip with his added weight. You had stopped crying an hour ago, though the pain settled deep in your bones and you felt like a five year old, tearing up by his mere presence. He pulled you onto his side, arm curled around your waist as you felt him snuggle affectionately into your hair. You let him, you dont know why, maybe the pathetic part of you still craved for him when things got too hard for you too handle. After you were sure his breathing had even out you slipped out of bed, entering the guest room without a word.
Suguru Geto
Mornings are always lazy with Suguru, he’ll whine into your neck about how he doesn’t want to leave and wrap his arms around you, jostling you around just for the fun of it. The twins will pad into your room not soon after, jumping onto the bed and annoying you both, till you wake up and made breakfast for them.
The routine is simple, it’s easy and it’s comforting. Suguru cooks breakfast while you slowly make the girls go through their morning routine. He takes a shower and you plate the food and prepare the lunch bentos while the twins sit politely at the dinner table. Finally, the entire family sits together and eats breakfast as Suguru hears about the twins' progress and all the pretend play they did the day before.
An hour later and everyone’s out of the house, bentos placed securely into their bags and chaste kisses placed onto the twins’ cheeks as Suguru pulls you in for a secret one behind their backs. You’ll smile into the kiss and he’ll murmur about how much he’s gonna miss you, acting like pulling away from the kiss was causing him third degree burns.
Today was like every other day, you shut the door behind you with a soft click. The house was enveloped in silence and you smiled to yourself, after the chaos of the morning faded away the house was all yours and it came with the sudden hit of drowsiness. You barely pushed yourself to the couch before promptly passing out, only awakening when the clock hit eleven.
By this time you’d start cleaning up a bit, the empty dishes on the tables, the clothes strewn across the bedroom of the twins and then a few minutes of gardening. You stopped when a flash of black caught your eye, it was Suguru’s lunchbox, something he should have taken with him to the office. He must’ve forgotten it when the twins tackled him to the ground earlier this morning.
You decided you’d bring it to him, he’d be so grateful if you did. So you got ready, a simple outfit and just the basic amount of makeup, you didn’t want his coworkers to think you were a slob.
His office had twenty floors and he was at the very top, a company he ran alongside Gojo. You hummed a tune in the elevator as you slowly ascended up, the receptionist was already aware of who you were, courtesy of Geto never shutting up about you apparently, it brought an embarrassed but giddy smile to your face.
The heavy metal doors finally opened and you were greeted by Geto’s and Gojo’s secretary, Ichiji who Gojo recruited at college, a man you quite honestly felt bad for with how much they were working him to the bone. He waved at you when he saw you, a tired smile on his face as he told you leave the box on his desk because Geto was on a call.
You wanted to peek at your boyfriend while he was working so you hid a giggle as you stood outside his door, stiffening when you heard your name through the small creak of the door,
“She’s not the twins’ mom, she’s doing too much,”
You don’t know how you made it back to the elevator in one peace, your feet carrying you all the way back home as your thoughts swallowed your time. Did Geto not want you to look after them? They’d even called you mom accidentally a few times and you felt like you had developed at the very least some kind of motherly affection for them.
You spent hours with them daily and they adored you, it was evident in the way they called out for you during their nightmares and clutched at your hand when they fell asleep in your arms. You felt oddly cold, like a wave had washed over you and you were still standing in the middle of the ocean waiting for something that was never going to be yours.
How could he think you were doing too much? You made sure to run every decision you made regarding the twins through him and he’d never showcased his displeasure. He probably didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but to know that he was going behind your back and telling others that you weren’t suited made you feel like shit.
You knew that you’ll never be the twins’s mother, you never expected to fill that role, just hoped that maybe Geto would appreciate the work and love you put into raising them. But it was clear to you that he’d never see you as any sort of mother figure to the twins and it hurt you, the twisted feeling in your heart caused you to start crying on the couch, rubbing at your blurry eyes as you tried to calm down.
Kento Nanami
You’ve always sort of been kind of clumsy, constantly bumping into the corners of tables, stubbing your toe, spilling water, burning yourself while trying to cook something. Nanami’s known about this and as a precaution for you (and himself if he’s being completely honest) he’s always taken care of the tasks that leave you a bit more injured than before.
Cooking for the both of you is a task he takes great pride in doing, but Nanami’s been coming home late from work. Exhaustion weighing heavy on his shoulders and even you can see it with the way his smile barely reaches his eyes. So you decided, for a change you’d cook and this time there wouldn’t be any unfortunate surprises.
The meal was simple, a favourite of Kento’s to welcome him home. A dish his mother used to make that he always held in high regard, singing praises about it to the point that even you would start drooling whenever he would talk about it. But the main thing is not only was it absolutely divine, it’s also his comfort food, one he made for himself and never asked for your help, always brushing you off with a gentle smile, telling you that he’d rather you not hurt yourself for him.
You’re almost half way done with, when you hear the familiar jingle of keys and in the process of rushing to greet your husband, you accidentally stub your toe against the door of the kitchen and in an attempt to keep yourself from falling you grab the marble counter, pushing a glassed dessert off and watching it shatter onto the floor and break into a million pieces.
You heard Kento’s voice before seeing him, he called out your name, immediately concerned for your safety as you sheepishly smiled at him. He stood on the threshold of the kitchen door, still dressed in his formal wear with one shoe haphazardly pulled off in his rush to get to you.
He sighed, dropping the suit blazer from the crook of his elbow as an almost stern expression came across his face,
“You don’t have to- I’ve told you multiple times that I’ll take care of the cooking right sweetheart? Why must you be so stubborn and do this when I’ve never-,”
He rubbed his palms over his face, breathing in deeply as you stood frozen in place, apologies spilling from your mouth as you tried to pick up the broken pieces of glasses,
“No stop! I’ll take care of it. Just please, go inside,”
He pulled you away from the kitchen, hand curled around your upper arm as he shut the kitchen door behind you. You felt like a five year old kid again, standing as still as physically possible so your parents wouldn’t get mad at you for messing something up.
You carefully sat down on the worn down cushions, playing with the ends of your fingernails as a million thought ran its course through your head. You knew it wasn’t his fault, Kento’s just been tired and on edge lately but it still hurt nonetheless, to be treated like you were a child incapable of any basic tasks. You knew Kento didn’t think of you like that but it doesn’t help when you’ve been treated like an overgrown child your entire life by the people around you just because you’re a little bit more clumsy than others.
Kento just wants you to be safe, you know that and yet it hurts, it hurts so much to not be able to do anything for the person you love so much because at the end of the day you’ll just be as incompetent as a child. You didn’t want the day to go like this, you wanted him to be surprised, to appreciate the fact that you could do something for him, take care of him like he did for you but in the end you’ve just burdened him more.
Wet, hot tears make it down the apples of your cheeks and you aggressively wipe them away, feeling like you didn’t deserve to cry, not with the way you’d fucked up everything tonight.
Choso
Choso’s sweet, he’s nice and kind and everything that you should want in a man. He holds doors open for you, pulls your chair back whenever you go to a restaurant, always lets you walk on the inner side of the sidewalk and he’s a gentleman overall. It’s just sometimes he can be really really obtuse.
He says things that can hurt though they only wound someone if they’re also insecure. You let the tiny comments slip by, always making sure to educate him whenever you can because he does mean his best. He's just unaware of how certain phrases can have different connotations or how they can mean something other than the literal meaning that the phrase is intended for.
You’re at a party with your boyfriend, recently you both had decided you wanted to go to gym, partly because you’re scared you’ll be sixty years old with chronic back pain and partly because you’ve been putting off getting into shape for a long time. So you both had been rigorously following a diet, making sure to count your macros and micros and following the diet plans you found online.
This party was the first one in a few months you’d felt free enough to let loose, you’d lost some weight gained some muscle and you felt confident enough to splurge a bit more on food, after all what’s the point of life if you’re just constantly restricting.
Choso came behind you as you scooped up another ladle of pasta, the rest of your mutual friends sat in the living room, lounging around as easy conversion filled up the space.
“Are you sure you really wanna get another serving?”
You stopped dead in your tracks, turning around to make eye contact with a confused Choso. A pit had already started to form in your stomach, the all too familiar feeling of insecurity and shame. Choso smiled at you when you put the pasta back in its bowl, suddenly hyper aware of the Aircon that left goosebumps on your skin, the party music that thrummed through the house, the feeling of fabric sticking to your skin and the humid air that wafted in through the open windows.
Choso said something else and pulled you with him towards the living room where a dance circle had formed, other couples swaying to the music as singles sat on the couch loudly booing. Choso had his hand on your waist and suddenly you felt sick to your stomach, like everything you had eaten was going to come back up and claw its way out your stomach.
You felt too full, like everyone’s eyes were on you and mocking, making fun of you like they did in high school, pointing out every insecurity for shits and giggles. You shook your head as Choso looked down at you, he didn’t mean it like that he just doesn’t know, but what if he did. What if he meant it with his entire heart.
Choso’s the perfect boyfriend and if you were going to lose him because you lacked some self control, you bit your lip, resting your head on Choso’s head and trying to ground yourself by listening to his heartbeat.
He didn’t mean it like that but the old anxiety started to itch at the seams, begging to be let out, to make you drown in self hatred and misery as it took control of your entire life. To poke and prod at your own skin and point it all out in front of a mirror to make you feel like a stupid teenager.
You pushed away from your boyfriend, disgust pooling in your stomach as you made up some stupid excuse and got into the car, looking out the window as Choso drove you home, worry evident in his face as he tried to figure out what was wrong. Once you reached, you said you wanted some alone time and slept in the guest room, tears falling down and staining the cotton pillowcase as you hugged the comforter around yourself, too far in hatred to want your boyfriends comfort anymore.
Toji Fushiguro
Toji’s quiet when he finally comes home, he’s texted you earlier, unusally curt and just slightly cold. He’d be coming home late, actually he’d been coming home late for the past few days, always stressed and pushing off your worries without a second word. Today, you’d decided that it would change, he’d have to talk to you, it’s been ages since you both had a proper conversation.
“Hi baby, how was work?”
You trailed behind him, watching him shrug off his blood stained jacket and plop it into your arms without a second thought. He merely grunted in response and you furrowed your eyebrows, usually you’d take this as a sign that he didn’t want to talk and back off but you really needed your husband back, you were itching at the seams for some cuddles and at the very least a bit of quality time spent together,
“Are you hungry? I made dinner, or do you wanna rest up first? I switched on the heater if you wanna take a bath,”
He walked into the living room now, ignoring your questions as he sunk down into the couch with a disgruntled sigh, turning his face away from you and burying it into the soft cushions on the couch as you stared at him from above, heart thumping irregularly as anxiety clawed at your skin,
“Toji? Baby-”
Toji’s green eyes snapped open and he shot up from the couch, his face twisting in anger and exhaustion as he cut off your words,
“What is it with you woman! It’s either one thing or the other! Can’t you take a fucking hint!? Always fucking yapping off in my ear like some incessant parrot!”
You don’t really remember when you stopped registering the man’s words, taking a step back as he inched closer and closer into your space until your back hit the wall with a soft thud. The weight of his coat felt heavy in your arms and you swallowed the saliva that pooled in your mouth out of fear.
You could almost feel your face twitching in fear, every minuscule movement that Toji made was being hyperanalyzed by your brain and at the same time you barely had any control over your emotions, let alone your feelings.
Everything felt methodical, at one point the man brushed past you and slammed the bedroom door shut. The anxiety and fear that was running hot in your veins felt cold, far too sudden and you felt sick, like you were going to throw up. Your mind was chanting at you, trying to bring you back to ground as the tears streamed down your face, crouched down next to the wall as you bit your lip harshly.
Toji had never yelled at you, and the apparent effect he had on you was obvious as you tried not to scratch at your own skin. Your heartbeat was the only thing you could hear, your mind was conjuring up images of the man you love, standing above you with a face you didn’t quite recognize. You shut your eyes close trying not to succumb to your own head.
It felt like hours had passed when you finally laid down in the couch, throw blanket pulled haphazardly over you as you rested your head on the old couch pillows, were you really that needy? That loud? had Toji finally gotten tired of you. As much as you tried to shut the self deprecating thoughts out, they only grew in number.
Sleep had found you well past midnight with red rimmed eyes and a stuffy nose. You shivered in the cold night and hugged your own body asleep in an effort to comfort yourself.
If Toji wanted space, then space you’d give him.
Ryoumen Sukuna
Sukuna has always been rough around the edges, formed by years of neglect by his own parents and then fighting for his rights at a place supposed to be his home. He had it all from the outside but if anyone cared to get to know him then they’d know that deep inside lies a little kid who just needs love. And so he tried to fill the hole in his heart with multiple women, girls who fell for his bad boy look, the ones who wanted a piece of him and lingered afterwards like an old coffee stain.
Then came you, too sweet for his own good. You first met him while working on a project together and Sukuna couldn’t help but be captivated by your charm, your kindness that was even able to break his stone cold heart, and somehow he grew on you.
Soon after you both started dating, your lease came to an end and he proposed you try living together. After all, it had been a year and half since you both started dating and it only seemed normal to move in with each other at this point, you agreed without much resistance and soon you both had moved in together.
The little cracks in your relationship had unknowingly started to show, to put it in the least offensive words, you were kind of a slob. It’s not like you didn’t clean up or look after yourself, it’s just that it took you some time to get it done. Dishes would be in the sink to be done at night and by then the entire kitchen would be spotless. You cleaned your room maybe once a week, considering half of the time you were lounging around in the living room with Sukuna.
The problems started to arise when Sukuna was forced to work from home after a nasty fall and a fracture. That’s when he started to notice your habits, he’s start tch-ing at you whenever you left something dirty lying around, cursing loudly when he’d try to get a cup of coffee just to find all the dirty cups in the sink. You’d offer to clean a cup up for him but he’d just push you away and do it himself.
It was day ten on his house arrest that the words slipped out as you were picking up a few clothes when Sukuna unfortunately tripped on them, catching himself on a table,
“She never fucking did this shit…”
It was a mumble, barely meant to be heard by you. Unfortunately for him you did, and unfortunately for yourself, once you started spiraling there really was no end to it. Later that day, after making the house was as clean as it could physically be, you were left alone with yours thoughts.
Usually for you, doing something productive and listening to music would be enough of a distraction to keep the voice in your head quiet, but there was literally nothing you could do and Sukuna was too busy with his back to back meetings for you to annoy him. You’re not sure how you’d even face him after the comment he made earlier.
A second later and you were scrolling through his instagram page, the women he dated in the past always tagged him, making it a point to show him off like some hard earned trophy they won. The last woman who’d tagged him was his ex, the longest one of six months and they had even moved in together.
You mindlessly scrolled through her page, she was pretty- like instagram model pretty. She had an immense amount of following and when you scrolled down enough you could see posts where she plastered all over Sukuna and suddenly all you could feel was the tightness of your chest that shook your entire body.
One rabbit hole led to another and suddenly you were scrolling through all of Sukuna’s exes, the tears fell with every swipe, your vision was blotchy and nose red. Your throat felt uncomfortable but you really couldn’t help but compare yourself, and with every passing minute you started to loathe yourself a bit more.
How could Sukuna not get tired staying with you, a disgusting mess at home who didn’t even try to impress him a bit. You felt like a failure, wondering why Sukuna would even choose you over the girls that he usually went for, chewing your lip and picking at the skin of your fingernails as you shut your eyes and tried to focus on anything else.
You stirred awake when you felt warm air tickle your ear, Sukuna had joined you in bed, tucking his head in between your shoulder and head as he drifted of to sleep. You could feel all your imperfections hit you like a train, could your boyfriend really even stand to be in the same bed as you? Were you even worthy of him considering he had girls lined up to date him after you were gone. You couldn’t do anything but stay stiffened up on the bed as he slept peacefully, unaware of your inner turmoil as you tried calm yourself.
A/n: Ignore Sukuna’s being like 200 words longer than everyone else’s I have a huge soft spot for him sorry for all the mistakes if yall could point it out I’d appreciate it thanks good night
