To Be With You, Forever ᥫ᭡. Gojo Satoru x Reader
wc :: 5.7k
NOTES: Semi-proofread, Based off of a song, let me know your thoughts!
MUSIC REC: (HIGHLY recommended) "Forever" By Barbara Mason.
Put that shi on repeat too.
♡ ₊˚‧ WARNINGS :: angst :: argument:: mentions of domestic abuse (NOT Satoru):: husband!toru :: traumatized!reader:: mentions of PTSD, anxiety :: sad :: fluff :: Satoru gets emotional :: happy ending :: soft Satoru :: kissing :: SFW
The apartment felt too small for the amount of anger suffocating it.
You paced the length of the living room, bare feet stomping over hardwood floors, hands tangled in your hair. The city lights of Tokyo blinked through the windows behind you, indifferent witnesses to the storm brewing inside your home.
“Do you think I’m stupid or something?!” you snapped, spinning around to face him. “Satoru, there are things I tell you for your own benefit! But your pride is too damn big!”
Across from you stood Satoru Gojo– impossibly tall, broad shouldered, and composed in that infuriating way of his. His blindfold was gone, white hair falling messily over the piercing blue eyes you’d known for five years. Since before you knew that they would become your forever. He stared at you like you were gravity itself.
“You think this is about pride?” His voice dropped, much quieter than your shout– which somehow made it worse. “You think I never listen to you?”
“You don't!" you shot back immediately. “You nod, you smile, you kiss my forehead and say, ‘Don’t worry about it sweetheart, I’ve got it handled,’ and then you go and do whatever the hell you want anyway!”
His jaw flexed. “I handle things because that’s my job. I’m your husband–”
“And what am I?” you demanded. “A decoration? A pet you come home to when it’s convenient?” The words hung between you like a blade.
Two years married. Nearly six years together. And somehow you were still having the same argument you used to have back then, just with higher stakes. Back then it was about your law school exams and him picking fights with guys who hit on you. Now it was about him taking responsibility for curses that could level cities and missions he refused to tell you about until they were over, overworking himself to the bone for people who would treat him like a scrap if it wasn’t for his cursed power.
You still remember when he revealed his real job to you. The shock you had felt, as a non-jujutsu sorcerer, it was humongous. You had no idea curses had existed until two years into you and Satoru’s relationship, and he had only told you because he had accidentally fallen for you too hard to walk away. So to digest not only that there were rampant invisible monsters trekking the world, but that your boyfriend, the love of your life, was the one most capable of killing them, was not the best news you could’ve heard.
He took a step toward you. “You’re not just convenient, how could you say that?” he said, his voice sharpening. “You’re the most important person in my life.”
“Then act like it!” you shouted, closing the distance between you without even realizing it. “Stop deciding what I can and can’t handle! Stop shutting me out!”
His hands flexed at his side like he wanted to grab you but was holding himself back. “I’m not shutting you out, I just–”
“You are! You think I don’t notice when you dodge my questions? When you come home bleeding and brush it off like it’s nothing?” Your chest heaved. “You don’t get to protect me from the truth, Satoru. I didn’t marry you to be kept in the dark for my whole life.”
Something flickered in his eyes and he took a step toward you. “You married me knowing exactly who I am. What I do. What I need to do.”
“And you married me knowing I wouldn’t just sit quietly while you run yourself into the ground!”
Silence crackled between you, thick and electric. He stepped closer again and you didn’t step back.
“You think I don’t listen?” he repeated, voice dangerously soft now. “I remember every word you say.”
You let out a humorless laugh. “Oh yeah? Then what did I tell you last week?”
“That you’re tired of me not telling you about the ugly parts,” he answered instantly, voice unwavering. “That you hate when I smile through everything like it doesn’t affect me. That you’d rather fight beside me than wait at home wondering if I’m alive.”
Your breath caught despite yourself. He moved closer still, until you could feel the heat radiating from his skin. You tilted your head up to meet his gaze.
“And you ignored it anyway,” you whispered.
His hands came up then– not touching you but hovering over your waist, afraid to cross a line.
“I didn’t ignore it. I hear you,” he said, frustration breaking through. “But I’m trying to keep you safe.”
You swatted his hands away from you then. “I don’t need you to keep me safe!” you fired back. “I need you to trust me!”
“I trust you with my life. You think I enjoy carrying this alone? You think I don’t want to come home and drop it at your feet and ask you to comfort me?”
“Then why won’t you let me help?!!” you replied, exasperated. “Why keep deciding for both of us what I am capable of holding?”
Your words hit him harder than any curse ever could. You saw it in the way his shoulders stiffened, how his fingers reached out to you and curled into the fabric of your shirt like he couldn’t stop himself anymore.
“Because I’ve seen what this world does to people!” he shot back. “I’ve buried countless friends, watched sorcerers with just as much potential as me get ripped apart because they underestimated something for one second. And you want me to– what? Hand you the absolute worst parts of my life like they’re nothing?!”
“I want you to treat me like your wife!” you cried. “Not a fragile little porcelain doll you keep on a shelf!”
The words collided, louder and louder, neither of you giving in an inch. Years of love, of partnership, of late night confessions and shared dreams, twisted into something sharp and jagged.
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” he said, voice shaking now, desperation bleeding into anger. “Being the strongest means I’m the last line. If something slips past me–”
“ I don’t care about your title!” You interrupted harshly. “I care about you. The man who won’t sleep because he’s always planning ahead. The man who smiles so wide it looks fake because he refuses to let anyone see him crack.”
His expression hardened. “Now you think I’m fake too?”
His jaw clenched so tight you thought it might shatter.
“You don’t get to psychoanalyze me like I’m one of your case studies,” he bit out. “You don’t know what it’s like to carry the weight I do.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to feel useless!” You screamed back, shoving at his chest. He didn’t budge. “To feel like the person you love most in this world doesn’t trust you enough to let you in! You trust me more than anyone? Then prove it!”
Silence detonated between you. His hands fell from your waist only to rise again, this time in frustration, fingers raking through his hair. He paced once before turning back to you, eyes blazing. “You want the truth?” he demanded.
“I am scared, terrified that one day I’ll come home and find you hurt because I let you stand too close to my world.”
“And I’m terrified every time you walk out that door that you won’t come back!” you shouted, your voice breaking. “But I don’t try to cage you because of it!”
“I’m not trying to cage you–”
“But you are.” You stepped closer again, so close your chest almost collided with his. “You decide what I get to know, what I can take. You pick what risks are worth telling me about and refuse to be more careful when I tell you to. That’s not protection, Satoru, that’s control.”
His nostrils flared, something blood-hot and wounded flickering across his face. “You think I would ever control you?” he asked, too quiet.
“When you shut me out from yourself like this? Yes!”
His hand came up suddenly– not toward you, not intentionally– just an explosive, frustrated motion as he turned back toward you, palm raised as if to emphasize his next point.
But from where you stood, the angle you were stationed, from the heat of the moment–
It looked like he was going to hit you.
And your body reacted before your mind could catch up. You flinched, not subtly, you recoiled like a struck animal, shoulders curling inwards, eyes widening, breath sucking in sharply as your forearms came up defensively near your face.
For a split second, the living room wasn’t your living room.
It was a different apartment. Different man. A different night. Pressed against a kitchen counter in a dim condo that smelled like stale beer and something sour. The sound of a fist hitting a wall inches from your head. The crack of drywall, and the way you’d learned to read the shift in tone, the tightening of a jaw, the lift of a hand. You’d learned to make yourself smaller, quieter. Safer.
“You’re making me do this,” he had said back then, and you had believed that you’d deserved it.
The memory flashed through you in brutal clarity.
Back in the present, your eyes were blown, terrified, instinctive, betrayed.
His raised hand hovered in the air for half a second before he understood what he was seeing. You weren’t bracing for his next argument, you were bracing for impact. His face twisted in shock.
His hand dropped instantly, like he’d touched fire. “Hey–” His voice broke. “No. No, no, no–”
He stepped back from you so fast he nearly stumbled over the coffee table, horror draining the color from his face.
“I would never–” he shook his head violently, as if trying to physically erase what had just occurred. “I would never lay a finger on you.”
Your breathing was shallow. Your arms were still half raised before you realized what you’d done. Slowly, painfully, you lowered them, shame and old fear crawling up your spine.
“I know,” you whispered, hands shaking. But it sounded distant. Uncertain. And that shattered him more than anything. Those eyes, those brilliant, unstoppable eyes, looked dark and devastated.
“You flinched,” he whispered, shattered.
“I-Instinct.” You replied, taking a breath.
His face dropped. “From him.”
But you weren’t hearing him. Your pulse thundered in your ears. The room tilted viciously. Air wouldn’t go in properly; your lungs felt too tight, something invisible clenching around your ribs. You took a breath and it stopped halfway. Your fingers began to tingle.
“S-Satoru–” You tried, but it came out strangled and thin.
He scrambled forward toward you instinctively, hands shaking violently as he reached for you. You flinched again. That’s what broke him. A wounded noise tore from his throat “Baby.. baby–”
He stopped immediately, eyes wide in panic and heartbreak. “I’m not going to touch you,” he said quickly, voice trembling now. “I won’t. I swear. I swear, I’m not.”
Your back hit the wall behind you. You hadn’t even realized you were retreating. “D-don’t hurt–” you choked out. He recoiled like you’d slapped him, a gutted sound ripping from his chest as he violently shoved himself backwards until his own back hit the opposite wall. He rested the back of his head against it, tears falling down his cheeks as he looked at you. “I would die first.”
Your hands were still raised, still bracing. “Baby, I didn’t mean–” he started, then swallowed hard, forcing his voice softer. “I wasn’t going to hit you. I would never– never do that.”
But the past was louder than his reassurance. Your vision blurred at the edges, black spots flickering in and out. Your chest tightened again and again and again, breaths coming in sharp, shallow bursts that never felt sufficient. Not enough air, not enough space. The room was too small. The walls were too close.
“I can’t–” you gasped, sliding down the wall as your knees gave out beneath you. “I can’t breathe.” Panic clawed up your throat, your heart pounded painfully.
He moved again, slower this time, dropping down immediately when you did. He went to his knees in front of you, still refusing to move toward you. “I’m right here,” he said, voice trembling despite how hard he tried to steady it. “It’s me, baby. It’s Satoru.”
Your head shook weakly. Your body didn’t care who he was, it remembered someone else. Someone else who had promised to never hurt you. Someone who had apologized afterward. Every time. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to ground yourself, but the memories bled through anyway. The feeling of a fist cracking into your cheek and the shatter of a vase being thrown at your head. The way your ex’s shadow loomed over you like a bad omen. Always there, relentless.
You wrapped your arms around yourself tightly. “Satoru,” you choked out, tears spilling over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry–”
He looked like you’d ripped his heart out. “Sorry for what darling?” He said, desperate. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
He stayed exactly where he was, a careful distance away. Close enough so you could see him but far enough that you didn’t feel caged.
“Look at me,” he whispered. You couldn’t.
“I’m not him.” he said softer. “I will never be him.”
Your breathing hitched again, frantic and uneven. But he knew what to do.
“In for four,” he said gently. “Just like we practiced. I’ll count. You don’t have to do it alone, okay?”
His hands were visible, palms open against his thighs.
“One,” he counted quietly. “Two. Three. Four.”
You dragged in air through your nose. It burned.
“Out for four,” he murmured. “One. Two. Three. Four.”
It came out thin and shaky. He kept counting.
Each time his voice wavered, but he didn’t stop. Your fingers slowly uncurled from where they’d been digging into your arms. The tingling started to fade. The black spots receded. But you were still shaking.
He curled into himself, making himself as small as possible. He buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he held back sobs. “I scared you,” he said finally, voice so raw it barely sounded like him.
You swallowed hard. “I know you wouldn’t,” you whispered weakly. “I know that.”
“But for a second you thought I might,” he said, and it physically hurt him to utter it.
Your silence answered for you.
He closed his eyes a brief second, pain flashing across his face, devastation.
“I didn’t even realize my hand was up,” he admitted hoarsely. “I just– I got frustrated.”
You nodded faintly, eyes on the floor, still trying to regulate your breathing.
“I would rather cut my arm off,” he said quietly, “Than ever lay a hand on you.”
The intensity of it made your throat tighten again. He shifted slightly, careful, slow. When you tensed, he froze.
“I’m staying right here,” he assured. “I won’t move closer unless you tell me to.”
Your breathing steadied by degrees. The world felt more stable. Less distorted. But your body still felt fragile and exposed. “I hate that that’s still in me,” you whispered in a shaky voice.
“It’s not something to hate,” he said immediately. “It’s something you survived, baby.” A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. “I should have been more careful,” he whispered. “I should’ve remembered.”
“You can’t read my mind,” you said faintly.
He let out a small sob. “I don’t need to read your mind to know I never want to be the reason you look at me like that ever again.”
You finally looked at him fully. He was still sat, keeping his distance. Watching you like you were something precious he had dared to break. Not weak, but sacred.
The silence after your breathing steadied might have been worse than the panic itself. Anxiety had ebbed into exhaustion now. Your limbs felt heavy, your chest sore from the strain of it. The space between you felt fragile and thin.
You swallowed. “I think…” Your voice was hoarse. “I think I’m going to leave for a little while.”
The words landed soft but hit him like a blow. He didn’t react immediately, or interrupt or even plead. He just went very very still. He nodded stiffly. “...Okay.”
“A few days,” you said. “I just– I need space. To clear my head.”
He nodded again, a shuddering breath. “Take my car. I won’t follow you.”
It hurt how easily he said it. But when you looked at him, you realized it wasn’t easy at all. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle fluttered beneath his skin. His hands had curled into fists without him even noticing.
“You’re not–” he started, then stopped, choosing his words with excruciating precision. “You’re not leaving because you’re afraid of me, right?”
You hesitated. And that hesitation broke something in him.
“I don’t think you’d ever hurt me,” you whispered quickly. “I don’t.” Your silence after was gentler. But still honest.
He nodded again, slower. “If I ever make you feel scared like that again,” he said, voice barely audible. “Don’t come back.”
Your head snapped up. “Satoru–”
“I mean it.” His eyes finally lifted to yours, glossy but unwavering. “You don’t stay somewhere you’re afraid. Not even if it’s me.”
The weight of that, the sincerity, it pressed into your ribs.
“I love you,” you whispered.
His lips twitched like he wanted to smile. He couldn’t quite manage one.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why you should go. Love shouldn’t feel like that.”
You stood slowly, and he stayed kneeling. He didn’t reach for you, didn’t try to hug you goodbye. When you passed him to grab your overnight bag, his fingers twitched toward you, then stopped halfway.
And the apartment exhaled into emptiness.
The first night was the worst.
Satoru Gojo stood in the living room long after you had left, staring at the spot on the wall where you had slid down before your panic attack.
He replayed it frame by frame, his hand rising, your flinch, the look in your eyes. He dropped his own hand reflexively, like he was reliving it in real time. He didn’t sleep. He sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the front door.
Even though he wanted nothing more than for you to come back to him, part of him hoped you never would, the part that believed you deserved someone so much better, someone who could give you all of them, and someone you would be guaranteed to come back home to alive. Someone who wasn’t strong enough to make you fear them.
At work the next morning, something was off, and his student noticed immediately. Gojo didn’t greet them with his usual loud entrance, no exaggerated grin or playful teasing.
When Megumi asked if he was feeling okay, he waved it off without looking at him.
His technique was as flawless as always– precise, perfect, devastating. Curses still disintegrated under his power in seconds. But that power felt like a burden sometimes, the reason he had pushed you away, maybe even the reason he had scared you.
No. He knew it was because of your ex. The one who had beat you, hit you, hurt you emotionally. You had told Satoru everything within your first few dates together, and he had held you when you had cried, brushing back your hair, kissing the tears off your cheeks, whispering to you that he would never let anything hurt you ever again. He’d known since then that he was completely gone for you, would do everything to ensure your safety. And now what had he done?
Nanami approached him in the hallway.
“Well you look like hell.”
Gojo didn’t respond. Just kept walking.
By the third day, exhaustion carved shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t gone home early once in the five years you’d known him, but now he caught himself constantly making excuses to leave the school and return to your apartment, the only place that felt like you, smelled like you. He didn’t turn the lights on most nights. He sat on the balcony, basking in the dim glow of the city outside, staring in at the couch where you curled up against him. At the kitchen where you’d danced while cooking. At the hallway where you’d once tackled him in laughter.
He never texted you. Never called, no matter how much he wanted to. He knew you needed space, time to think and breathe, to heal. He had to give you that.
He stopped gesturing when he talked, arms stuck to his sides, even alone. Every time he felt his frustration spike, his arms stayed glued down. He would not let that happen again.
He slept maybe two hours a night. When he did, he dreamt of you looking at him with fear in your eyes. He woke up sweating.
On the fifth day, he found one of your hair ties on the bathroom counter. He picked it up, twirling it in between his long fingers. He held it for a long time.
The apartment felt colder than it should have. He didn’t cook, didn’t clean. He just waited for you, phone face up on the coffee table.
Every notification made his heart jump.
At work, he became even sharper, more distant. Even Yuji stopped trying to joke with him. They’d never seen him like this– quiet to the point it was unsettling. He stared through conversations, missed cues.
He moved like a man carrying something heavy inside his chest, like if he exhaled too hard it might crack open. He kept thinking about what he’d said– “If I ever make you feel scared like that again, don’t come back.”
The thought hollowed him out. Because he meant it.
But also because the idea of you not coming back at all was unbearable.
By the seventh night, he was back on the couch, same position, elbows on his knees, head bowed down. The apartment was silent except for the hum of traffic bleeding in from outside. He hadn’t turned on the TV since you’d left. He didn’t deserve the distraction, he deserved the waiting. His eyes drifted to the door again, every creak in the building making his pulse spike.
The lock clicks. It’s quiet. Almost too quiet.
Satoru doesn’t move at first. He’s been sitting in the dark for so long that the sound feels like part of another dream– another cruel trick his exhausted mind is playing on him.
The door opens. Soft footsteps follow, real. Not imagined.
Slowly, he lifts his head, afraid that the movement alone might shatter the fragility of his mind.
You’re standing in the doorway. The hallway light spills in behind you, framing your silhouette. You look thinner, more tired, shadows under your eyes mirror his own. Your shoulders are tensed, bracing for something, not sure what you’re walking back into. For a second, neither of you speak.
He stands carefully, slowly, like even rising to his feet requires permission.
His voice comes out hoarse from days of near silence. He doesn’t dare move closer. His face is filled with awe and disbelief. “You came back..”
You swallow. “Satoru.. of course I did.”
He sucked in a breath at the sound of his name, both salvation and torture. He studies you, afraid you’ll vanish if he blinks. He squeezes his hands at his sides, the ones he hasn’t raised in days.
“Do you…” he exhales shakily, forcing himself to ask, “Do you want to be here? Or did I just scare you enough that leaving feels worse?” The honesty in it is brutal, all of his defensiveness, the pride he held in your last conversation completely gone. Replaced by fear.
You take one slow step into the apartment. The door closes behind you with a soft click.
“You scared me,” you admit, your voice just as worn as his. “But I know that wasn’t your intention.”
His jaw tightens in self reproach. “That doesn’t change what I did.”
“I made you think I would. I hurt you. I don’t deserve for you to be here.”
SIlence settles again, but it isn’t explosive like before. Its peaceful, careful. You take another step toward him, then another. He doesn’t move, doesn’t reach for you.
“I needed time,” you say softly. “To separate the memory from you.”
His eyes flicker with pain. “And?” he asks.
“And it’s not you. Of course it isn’t. I know you didn’t mean it, Toru. I trust you.”
He closes his eyes for a second, steadying himself.
His shoulders sag and a ragged exhale escapes him as he speaks brokenly. “I’m not worth it.”
His fingers curl in and out of fists. “I hurt you. You flinched from me, baby– you ran from me.”
You nod. “Yes. You scared me. I ran. It’s all true.” You look at him. “But I’m willing to put my faith in you because I know it was a mistake, Toru. I know you would never try to harm me. Just please..” you breathed out. “..don’t break my trust.”
His eyes snap back open immediately. A shudder wracks through his body, arms shaking as you pleaded so earnestly. His breathing hitches, a wave of emotion rolling through him. “I won’t,” he chokes off, gritting his teeth so hard they audibly creak. “I would rather lose everything else in the world than lose that.”
You step closer until there's only a foot between you. He still doesn’t touch you. You can see it in him– the restraint. The fear that moving too fast might send you retreating backwards again.
“I’ve been terrified,” he admits in a whisper. “Not just that you wouldn’t come back.. But that even if you did, you wouldn’t feel safe with me.”
Your throat tightens. “I do,” you say and you mean it. “I just needed to remember why.”
His eyes shine, but he still doesn’t close the gap.
You step into his space and lift your arms, encircling his torso and pulling him to you as you press your head to his strong chest. The feeling so familiar, warm, so safe. So right. “Thank you for letting me leave, and letting me think.” you murmur. “I love you, Toru. I’m not scared. I’m right here.”
He freezes for a second, and then the moment your hands touch his back, he crumbles. His big arms come around you hard. He buries his face into your shoulder, a soft sob escaping his mouth in a way you’ve never heard before. Raw, unguarded, and truly shattered.
“I don’t know how to deserve this,” he breathes against your skin. You tighten your hold on him, pressing a kiss to the apple of his throat. “You don’t earn love, Toru,” you whisper. “You choose it.”
You’ve seen him cry exactly four times before in five years. But this is different. This isn’t quiet tears, this is relief and guilt, love so overwhelming it’s pouring out because it has nowhere else to go.
He presses his forehead against yours to anchor himself in something solid.
“I thought I ruined us,” he admits brokenly.
Your heart breaks and you go up to cup his face in your hands, softly wiping his molten tears with your roughened thumbpads. “You didn’t.”
“I saw your face every time I closed my eyes.” His long white lashes are damp and weighed down, expression stripped bare.
You smooth a hand up his back now, looking at him shakily as tears still trickle down your cheeks. You lean up on your feet, parting your mouth as you close the distance and gently place your lips on his.
He lets out a wounded whimper, cupping your face and kissing you back desperately, fingers trembling against your skin, devotion pouring through his mouth. When he pulls away, he leans his forehead back against yours, just breathing you in. You look up into his crystalline eyes.
He exhales, a sad smile spreading across his face as he kisses over your eyes, your nose, cheeks, chin, Everywhere he can reach. Soft, beautiful pecks that leave you breathless and happy. The living room feels the same– couch slightly crooked, lamp lit up in the corner. And something in you softens.
Without overthinking it, you hum. It’s quiet and shaky at first, but he recognizes it instantly. His breath catches. You let the words follow softly, your voice fragile but steady.
“You can break my heart, forever if you want to.”
The song that had followed both of you through your lives together. “Forever,” by Barbara Mason.
The first time it mattered, it was raining.
You’d just had your first real fight as a couple. The first time it wasn’t just playful banter, but something sharp. Something that left you both stubborn and rotten for hours. He showed up at your apartment unannounced, completely soaked. White hair plastered to his forehead, no blindfold, no smirk.
“Can I come in?” he asked. You let him, no strength left to argue anymore.
He had walked to your small, rusty kitchen, turned on your old speaker, and this was the song that had been chosen to bless your ears. It started soft, filling the quiet space as he stepped toward you slowly.
“I don’t know how to do… this relationship stuff perfectly,” he admitted. “But I know that I hate fighting with you and I’ll do anything to prevent it, if it stops you from crying.”
Your anger melted into pieces.
He reached for you gently, giving you time to pull away. You didn’t.
He gently held your hand, pulling your body toward his as he wrapped an arm around your waist, hand splayed across the small of your back securely. He threaded your fingers together, holding them up as you swayed in the middle of the kitchen, rain tapping against the windows, your cheek against his chest.
He pressed a kiss to your hair.
“Forever,” he whispered before the lyric did.
The next time, you were wearing white. It wasn’t a grand wedding. No massive crowd, just close friends and acquaintances, soft lights and a kind of quiet joy that felt sacred. When the reception wound down and the formal music faded, someone– you never found out who– changed the song.
That familiar intro played and you looked up at him instantly. His eyes crinkled as he cheesed back down at you, something softer. The expression that only belonged to you. He held out his hand again. Three years later and the gesture hadn’t changed. You stepped into his arms as the guests cheered quietly around you. But the world faded again, just like it had in that low rent kitchen.
Your long veil brushed his sleeve and his thumb traced slow circles at your waist. “Just to be with you…”
You laughed softly through happy tears and he smiled, leaning down to capture your giggle into his own lips before pulling away. “Foreeever.”
He leaned close to your ear. “I meant it then,” he murmured. “And I mean it now.”
You didn’t sing it loudly, breathing it into his skin like an additional vow.
There were smaller moments too. Late nights when you couldn’t sleep and he’d hum it absentmindedly while tracing swirls along your spine, your head tucked under his chin.
The time the power went out and you lit candles, slow dancing barefoot on the freezing tile.
The night he came home injured, trying to brush it off, and you turned on the speaker without a word, climbing into his lap and brushing your fingers through his hair until he melted against you.
Every version of it meant something different. Youthful crush, first apology, wedding vow, silent comfort.
Now, standing in your living room after a week apart, exhausted and fragile, voice shaking as you hum the first few notes.
He lets out a broken, breathless laugh that melts into another sob.
“You remember,” he murmurs.
You sway gently, guiding him with you, small movements in the middle of the living room. No music playing this time, just your voice filling the quiet. The city hums outside. Inside, it’s just the two of you. Like it’s always been.
He presses a kiss to your temple– soft, reverent, lingering. “I’ll play the part of my fool..” he sings. His voice is wrecked but warm, soaked in devotion. The words settle like a promise renewed. You rest your forehead against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It’s calm now, slow and steady.
“I was so scared,” he confesses into your hair. “of becoming something you’d need to escape from.”
“You’re not him,” you say firmly.
“I know. But I hate that I even touched anywhere near that shadow.”
You pull back just enough to glance at him. “You didn’t. My memory did.”
He exhales slowly, absorbing that. His hands shift slightly on your waist, tentative and asking. You don’t flinch, you lean closer. That’s when he truly relaxes. The tension that’s been coiled in him for a week finally unwinds. His forehead rests against yours yet again, eyes closed.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you never look at me like that again,” he whispers.
“You don’t have to earn me back, Toru,” you reply softly. “Just keep choosing me.”
“I will always choose you,” he says immediately.
“Even when I’m angry and nagging?”
You smile faintly. “Even if I leave for a week?”
“That nearly killed me,” he admits.
You sway again, slow and small, your voice returning to the melody under your breath.
He joins you, quieter, rougher.
His lips settle between your eyebrows once more.
“Darling,” he murmurs, holding you like something sacred, “forever.”
