drabble for @nanamiweek ! im a little late, but whatever <3 (day 2) ⟢﹒ masterlist
Nanami will never admit it. He can't, because he's ashamed. Ashamed, because he loves seeing you filled with his seed.
He thinks about it often, far too often for his own good, but the mere thought of you holding your cum inside you all night makes him instantly hard; he can't help it.
What drives him crazy about all this is possessing you inside, filling you with him, with his hot, thick, sticky seed, until it overflows from your mouth, your pussy, your thighs, your hands.
It's dirty. It's almost indecent for a man like him, always serious, always cold on the outside, but every time he sees your stomach contract as he empties himself inside you, every time he feels your body tremble as he fills you, he feels his heart race.
He loves it when you hold what he gives you in your little mouth to swallow it, or when your walls squeeze him to hold back his sperm production inside you. But the worst part for him is when you can't.
When his sperm escapes you, slowly, lazily, a white liquid drips from your abused lips... it's as if he's marking his territory.
The worst part is, you know him. You've learned to recognize that look. The one that becomes darker, more fixed, more animal. You know when he wants you to stay full.
You're on your knees before him, panting, your lips reddened by the brutal thrusts of his hips. He's already emptied himself in your mouth once, abruptly, almost choking you on his cock. You spit a little, surprised by the heat and his strength.
Nanami stares at you with his darkened gaze. He watches what slowly trickles from your lips to your neck. The dirty white trickle that runs down your throbbing throat.
He's already hard again.
"Don't move," he growls, his voice raspy, damaged by desire.
You obey as always. You look at him with that smile you know is irresistible. You run your tongue over your lips to lick the rest of what he's given you. He kneels in front of you, his strong hand cupping your face, his thumb rubbing the semen he left behind.
He spreads it gently on your chin, your cheek, your lips, then kisses you passionately. He tastes his own taste. "You're going to kill me," he breathes. He grabs you and lifts you abruptly. You slide into his arms and he presses you against the cold wall.
Instinctively, you wrap your legs around his waist. You feel his hard cock pressing against yours, already hard and ready to fuck you like his girl deserves.
"You have no idea how I feel. I need you so much. I want to fuck you until you're full of me."
He thrusts into you suddenly, without warning. You let out a cry of surprise, your back lightly hitting the wall. You cling to his broad shoulders and claw at him. He doesn't speak anymore. Just grunts, gasps, the slapping of flesh against flesh.
The wet sound of his cock pushing deep into your vagina. It throbs inside you. It hammers your poor cervix. You feel so full, so satisfied, like you're going to explode at any moment.
"You're going to keep it all inside you this time, right?" he breathes against your ear. "You're going to keep my cum inside you and feel it flow inside you all night. You're going to do it like the good slut you are?"
You nod. You can't speak anymore. You just want to feel him. You just want him to mark you from the inside, to fill you until there's no part of your body that hasn't tasted him.
He takes you harder. Until he comes inside you. His hot, thick cum spurts inside you, filling you completely. He's so full it's ridiculously indecent. A moan rips through his throat. And that heat. That familiar heat flooding your stomach.
Nanami stays there for a moment, motionless against you. His sex is sticky with your mixed fluids. He pulls back slightly and looks at you. He smiles softly, that little smile that makes you wet. He watches you tremble. He pulls out slowly, and seeing a few drops of his cum dripping from you makes him even harder.
He carries you to your room and gently places you on the bed you share. His thick fingers run over your skin and slip between your wet lips, pushing his seed deep inside you so it doesn't spill.
"Lie down," he murmurs, withdrawing his fingers. "I'm not done with you yet."
↳ Summary: When a mission shared between you and Nanami goes (un)expectedly awry, you're forced to help him overcome a strange illness... and confront feelings you've both kept buried.
↳ CW: smut, vaginal sex, creampie, sex pollen, mutual pining, coworkers to lovers, botany as body horror, semi-public sex, phone sex, improper handling of a cursed object
↳ WC: 17.2k
↳ AN: Well... this has been a dusty WIP for the last eon or so! Thank you again @nanamiweek, for giving me the little nudge I needed to crack at it and finally get it done. And... there will be more of these. Reader, you silly thing...
“Today’s forecast: blue skies, light spring breezes, and temperatures hovering in that sweet spot between sixty-eight and seventy-two—“
You turned the volume down on the news station.
You were in too good a mood to be narrated at, and you didn’t need some cheery man in a pastel tie to tell you it was a beautiful day.
You flung open your curtains like stage drapes, chest ballooning with your first real breath of the day and a grin to rival the sun.
It was your day off. Your first in what felt like a decade. You were alive, everything in your apartment was exactly where it belonged, and — miraculously, you scrambled to knock on your wood window-trim — there wasn’t a single cursed thing on the horizon. No wriggling shadows. No haunted hostels. Not even the devastatingly passive-aggressive ping from Yaga calling you in because “you’re the only one available… unfortunately.”
For the first time in weeks, the sun was shining, your joints weren’t screaming, and your only obligation was to enjoy yourself.
You floated from room to room in your ugliest slippers and an aggressively soft hoodie, misting every leafy child like a benevolent goddess with a spray bottle. The snake plant by the window got three full compliments. The ficus got a pat. The ivy got a warning — nothing personal, it was just time to reestablish dominance before it swallowed the bookshelf whole.
Outside, the breeze was tender, like the world had finally decided to be kind again. Inside, you were weighing the merits of ordering takeout versus venturing into civilization to seize the day.
Maybe Ginza. You could treat yourself to something unnecessarily soft, floral, and overpriced. You needed new shoes anyways, and you had a very specific dorayaki craving that the plasticky pre-packed itch-scratchers from the conbini just couldn’t satisfy anymore.
You spun toward the bookshelf. The only thing missing from your perfect day was a new read — something indulgent and a little unhinged, with a cover so tacky you’d be embarrassed to crack it open in public. Maybe you’d even remember to pick up a new umbrella while you were out, since yours had apparently grown legs and buzzed off after the last rain—
Or maybe it was just your phone buzzing.
One long, vibrating circle across your coffee table. Then another.
You watched it, and rather than dread you felt a delightful nothingness. Nothing could bother you or dampen your spirits today, because you were going to Ginza and you would get your dorayaki.
“Heeellooo!” you sing-songed, wedging your phone between your shoulder and cheek as you carefully resumed tending your ivy.
“Good morning.”
You nearly dropped your watering can.
You did have to scramble to keep your phone from tumbling into your pothos.
“Nanami!” you chirped way too quickly. “To what do I owe the great honor of your call?”
You couldn’t see his face of course, but you didn’t need to. You had the whole thing memorized. The precise way he pressed his thumb into the corner of his brow when he was tired. The slight downward curve of his mouth when something was about to annoy him — usually Gojo. Occasionally you. The smile he gave you once in Kyoto when you brought him the last sandwich from the market and pretended you weren’t watching him eat it on the train ride back.
The point was: he’d called you. On your day off. And now your face hurt with the untempered brilliance of your cheek-paining smile.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten the day off too. Maybe he was calling because he was in Ginza already and thought of you, and maybe he was going to suggest lunch, and you’d say yes, and that wouldn’t technically be a date, but it also wouldn’t not be a date, and you’d have to find your cute pumps instead of your usual ratty work boots and—
“Not much of an honor,” he crackle-popped the receiver with the drag of his sigh, “In fact, I apologize in advance.”
Your watering can tipped slightly to the left, and a chilly autumnal breeze ruffled through your ribcage.
You continued your rounds, but you were no longer skipping. A shadow loomed over the horizon, you tasted the blood in the water, and you felt the air pressure shift and pop your ears. The world had just tilted one fraction off center.
You didn’t speak right away. If you didn’t ask, maybe he wouldn’t tell. You were deluding yourself, lingering in that limbo for as long as your slowly jangling and tangling nerves could take it.
As always, Nanami waited for you; and you, despite the intuitive wariness that urged you to bury the phone in a pot of soil, were tragically brave.
“Alright… I’ll bite,” you said. “What’re you apologizing for? Did you use one of my espresso cups in the staff room again? Because I already told you I don’t mind, they’re there to share—“
“No.” There was a rattle on Nanami’s end, clinking iron buckles and pulled vinyl — a seatbelt. “Though I did have one this morning, thank you. The hazelnut was good.”
Your stomach flipped. You beamed. Your plants turned toward an unsolicited sunny grin they did not earn. “Right?! I knew you’d like it.”
“… I need you today,” he said abruptly.
For the second time you almost dropped your phone.
Water kept pouring from your bottle, soaking the same poor plant beyond reason before you remembered what your hands were doing.
“I’m sorry?” You squeaked and tried not to breathe too heavily into your phone. How long have you longed to hear him say that?
“My original work partner today is… unavailable,” he said calmly. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but I’ve been left with little choice on the matter.”
Oh.
You narrowed your eyes at your reflection in the glass.
To his credit, he did sound genuinely apologetic. You knew how fiercely territorial he was of his own time off — he treated it like scripture. Six o’clock sharp and he wouldn’t be caught dead on a weekend, and you respected that about him. Mostly because you wanted the same, and partially because the idea of him, hair down, reading on a balcony somewhere with a glass of scotch and a focused frown was unfairly attractive.
You knew he wouldn’t impose if the circumstances left him any other option.
Suddenly, the sky didn’t look quite so blue, and the pep in your step felt somehow embarrassing even in the solitude of your home. To save your own face, you suavely cocked your hip against the nearby bookshelf and you planted your alibi.
“Oh, Nanami,” you said mournfully, already layering on the rasp, “I’d love to help, I would, but — ACK—“ you let loose the world's most theatrical cough, thrown in with a nasally sniff for good measure. “I’ve got this terrible cold. Just awful. I’d be a liability… and I’d hate for you to catch what I’ve got.”
You coughed again, calmly striding to your thirsty monstera. “Been coughing up a lung all night.”
Nanami was silent.
Then: “Tsk.”
You could picture the look of pity in the sound of him kissing his teeth, anticipated the mini lecture about keeping warm and drinking plenty of fluids, and maybe he would deliver you some tea after he wrapped up with work. You hadn’t quite given up hope on there being an ulterior motive for this call.
“That’s a shame,” he said.
You nodded pitifully with nobody around to see it. “I know…”
“… How many plants do you have?” he asked abruptly.
“Twenty three,” you answered on instinct. Then you blinked. “Wait. Why?”
The stretch of silence over the phone had you checking to see if he’d hung up.
The call timer kept ticking… he hadn’t hung up, and that worried you, because somehow within that silence, you could feel the slow indulgent tilt of his lip in that smile he hardly ever gave away, and never for free.
“We’ve been parked outside and I can see you through your window.”
You froze.
A single bird chirped outside. You think your ivy might’ve laughed the last laugh.
You turned your head slowly, dread creeping up your spine as you stared past your breezy blinds. And sure enough — on the curb just off the street, gleaming black in the sunlight like a hearse sent to collect the corpse of your contentment, was a very familiar Tokyo Jujutsu High SUV.
You stared at it. You knew Nanami inside stared back.
You whispered, “Oh.”
“Mhm,” came the reply, with the exact cadence of someone very pleased with himself. “We watched you dance around your living room for a while. Good rhythm.”
You whimpered, shrank, and briefly considered hurling yourself through the floorboards and slipping like mortified goo into the heating grate at your feet.
“I brought coffee,” he bribed, magnanimous and evil.
“… From the staff room?” You asked, suspicious.
“Of course not. I bought it. Detoured specifically.”
Curse him and his foresight and kind gestures, you grieved, he wields them like a fucking weapon.
“Two pumps of mocha—“ Nanami said.
“—one cream,” you continued.
“—and a sugar packet on the side, yes. I remember,” Nanami finished for you. The heat in your cheeks could’ve powered Tokyo. You loathed the oven coil warmth that sweltered beneath your skin at how his memory pacified you.
You squinted at your monstera like it might give you strength. It did not oblige.
You yanked your curtains closed and stomped off toward your bedroom to the sound of Nanami’s indulgent chuckle humming through the receiver, a raging storm tearing through the path that had once been paved by spring daisies and lackadaisical joy. You pouted into your work shirt in thirty seconds. The socks were a war crime. You nearly cried as you hopped on one leg into your pants.
You were out the door in five minutes.
You took the coffee, and you didn’t say thank you. But you did sip it, and you did let it be known — via a very specific sigh — that it was excellent and correct.
Nanami said nothing, but the amused sparkle in his eye was enough for you to curl up and sulk anyway.
Misfortune comes in threes.
You’d counted two already before noon, and if that old superstition held any weight at all — and in this line of work, everything did — then number three was sitting beside you in the back of a government issued sedan, silent as sin and radiating quiet doom like Tom Ford cologne.
Thunder cracked above the car like bone, startling the world into stuttering stillness. It rumbled through your sternum, down your spine, and rattled the fillings in your molars. Lightning came in hot pursuit, blinding and brilliant, superimposing Nanami’s serene profile into your retinas.
So much for spring breezes.
The weatherman was a liar. The skies opened like something divine had been betrayed, and now rain poured in torrents, loud enough to deafen even the airiest thought in your head about how you really wished you had that umbrella right about now. It lashed the windshield with such force the wipers might as well have been twigs for all they could keep up.
Ijichi drove like he’d already made peace with death, his knuckles blanched white on the steering wheel as the car sloshed its way down what had once been a road but now resembled a minor tributary.
You sat back and let the car pitch you with each wave of water, lips pursed, foam coffee cup cooling in your hands and rapidly losing the power to soothe. You wanted to blame Nanami. Really, really wanted to. He made such a good scapegoat with his suit and his moral compass and the way he’d shown up at your apartment unannounced with machinations to ruin a perfectly promising and well-earned day off.
But he just had to bring you coffee and remember your order and say he needed you like it was the most natural thing in the world. You wondered if Nanami was secretly a master manipulator, or if he just knew how to read and play you most expertly.
Now you’re prickly, bristling and jumping like a wet cat whenever a tree off the road nearly explodes as you pass it.
“We won’t be able to see a foot in front of our faces,” you snapped, gesturing uselessly at the cascading wall of rain beyond the windshield. “And they expect us to exorcise a curse at the same time? And not die?”
“It’ll be indoors,” Nanami said.
“And it’s only a Third-Grade curse!” Ijichi interjected.
You and Nanami both turned to look at him in the rearview mirror. He faltered instantly, cowed. As he should.
Because the last time you heard that phrase, a Second-Grade sorcerer had lost a leg, a young boy his life, and the building lost a roof. You both knew intimately how easily and often the supposedly simple jobs still go sideways.
The car eventually slogged to a sluggish halt, tires skidding and hydroplaning as you rolled up beside what was presumably a botanical garden. It was hard to tell. The rain sluiced so fast down the window that the outside world blurred into impressionist chaos: glass and steel and spiny outlines of trees, all bent and warping under the weight of the storm.
A lightning flash revealed it in full for a second in the gasps between atmospheric calamity — a vast glass dome rising like a lung from the landscape, sparkling before darkness swallowed it again.
Then thunder came — long, close — and the whole vehicle shook down to its suspensions.
“Are you ready?”
You jumped.
Nanami had unbuckled, shifted across the middle seat, and was now looming over your shoulder — there, solid and warm and sudden. His voice landed against your neck. You didn’t breathe, and you hoped he didn’t notice how your eyes turned traitor before your brain could intervene, flicking downward, just once. The line of his jaw. His mouth. His breath still smelled like coffee, and his collar like rain fog and expensive laundry detergent.
You turned sharply back to the window, nodding like your skull was on a hinge.
You stared through the water-streaked glass. You did not acknowledge the ghost of his reflection there — his mouth level with your ear, eyes meeting the mirror image of your own.
He reached past you, so close you felt his watch brush your arm, and grabbed the door handle.
He stayed like that for an eternity (four seconds). Neither of you moved, and you barely found the lung function to breathe, boxed in as you were.
“Three,” he counted quietly beside your ear.
“Two—“
“Wait—!”
The door flung open with the howl of a banshee, and Nanami’s hand pressed flat to the small of your back and pushed, giving you no choice but to go.
You hit the rain like a bullet hits water — immediately slowed, immediately soaked, your shoes slipping in the muck as you half-tripped, half-scrambled toward the blurry suggestion of a building.
You collided with the glass doors so hard your teeth clicked. Then you were inside, the sound of rain barely muting inside the curved, dripping walls of the greenhouse.
You turned just in time to see Nanami march in behind you, less a man and more a very annoyed and waterlogged gargoyle. His hair was flattened to his scalp, water trailing down his jawline. His glasses had fogged, completely useless. And yet, somehow, he looked considerably less miserable than you did.
Which was frankly rather offensive and unfair.
Your shirt clung to your torso like saran wrap. Your socks squelched. Rainwater streamed down your face and collected on your chin like you were trying to nourish the tile.
“Yeah,” you panted, wringing out your shirt from the hem with a bitter scrunch of your nose at the deluge pouring between your feet, “no, this is great. Really. This is exactly how I wanted to spend my day, I really don’t know how you guessed.”
“I preemptively apologized if you recall,” he said, removing his glasses to wipe them with a handkerchief from his inner coat pocket. How annoyingly convenient and sensible.
“Well I didn’t accept it, did I?”
“If you focus on the job, we’ll complete it faster.”
You made an offended noise that might’ve been vaguely humanoid as Nanami moved to walk ahead, shoes squeaking with embarrassing frequency. You glared daggers into the back of his stupid, perfectly-sculpted head. The nerve of him. The gall.
Then, without a word, he shrugged out of his jacket.
And, looking somewhere above your head, draped it over your shoulders.
It was still warm. Dry on the inside. Smelled like sandalwood, bergamot, and the inside of a linen closet.
“I’m sorry again,” he said.
Your mouth opened. Then closed again.
Your entire planned tirade rolled over in your throat like a defeated dog and died on your tongue, buried tight behind the ivory coffin of your incisors.
He kept walking.
You stood, dripping and quiet, while a single drop of rain raced from your lashes down your nose, collected into the bow of your lips and plinked down onto the lapel. You stared at the jacket like it was sacred. A token. A peace offering, at least. A precious cargo you were now obligated to carry to the ends of the earth.
… Maybe there was some good to be found in the situation after all.
Above you, the storm continued its tantrum as you skittered after Nanami. Thunder cracked and tumbled like boulders in the sky, lightning stabbed quicksilver flashes across the glass dome high above. It was like being inside a snow globe turned jungle— sealed off from the world, but not safe. You weren’t so naive to believe you ever really were.
But when the path curved and the microcosm rainforest opened before you, awe eclipsed discomfort in the time it took for your eyes to widen.
You weren’t sure what to expect of a cursed garden. Maybe ruin. Maybe dead and withered roses and blackened moss, brackish ponds and algae-choked fountains, topiaries withering into gnarled skeletal hands. A cursed garden should look cursed.
But the garden was alive. Not just planted and maintained, but thriving — a riot of color and shape, texture and scent, all packed close in curated chaos and overgrown without intention. Every inhale was wet bark, loam, and crushed green stems, the sweet ozone of water clinging to petals like perfume gone all nectar-sweet and dizzy.
And the flowers.
They spilled from hanging baskets in jeweled clusters — garnet reds, deep plums, electric sapphire blues. White blooms like starlight clustered in the shadows, flickering as you move past. The lilies by the pond gleamed like melted glass, their petals curling arrogantly as only things that knew they were beautiful could. You passed a sprawl of carnivorous pitcher plants, their throats slick and glistening, and they watched you with the patient air of things used to waiting.
Leaves brushed your cheeks like the lightest of kid gloves, velvet and silk and gloss, trailing after you as if reluctant to let you go.
You shrugged Nanami’s jacket higher on your shoulders and breathed it all in.
Even the air moved differently here. Steam curled in low twining currents around your ankles, ghosting up in gentle spirals. Mist clung to the slats of the narrow wooden bridge you crossed, only to scatter at the touch of your footsteps.
You slowed at the trellis lining the bridge, fingers reaching out to instinctively trace the gloriosa lilies curling up the ironwork — flame-shaped petals twisting with crimson drama, greedy for the warmth the greenhouse backup generator lights provided.
This place was beautiful. Unnerving. Exactly the sort of chaos you loved in a garden — the blur between wild and cultivated, nature just barely playing along with human expectations.
Vines crept into the cracks of the cobblestone path like they belonged there and like they’d always been, pumping green veins through the stone. Your heart swelled with a quiet giddiness you tried to smother beneath even an iota of Nanami’s unmoved professionalism.
You’d come back here. You had to. Preferably when nothing was trying to kill you.
You crouched briefly beside a low-hanging plant, one you didn’t recognize immediately — its thick stem bowed under the weight of hanging blossoms shaped like chandelier glass. The petals were curled like calligraphy, a deep azure edged in violet, each bulb pointed like a teardrop seconds from falling.
You reached out. Brushed your fingertip along the edge of one petal. It was cool and slick, soft as satin, smooth as glass.
You smiled.
“We’re not here to sightsee.”
You jolted — hand still outstretched, fingers skimming the bloom that maybe, just maybe leaned subtly into your touch. Nanami stood just ahead, half-turned. His expression wasn’t harsh, but somehow he still managed to look like a sigh made flesh.
“I’m not sightseeing,” you protested. “I’m observing. For clues.”
“You’re reading a plaque on Strongylodon macrobotrys,” he said dryly.
You blinked down.
Oh. So you were.
You abandoned the jade vine with a flourish of wounded dignity, catching back up with him at the curve in the path.
“How’d you know that?” you asked, eying him suspiciously. “You got a pocket guide on rare tropical flora on you?”
He didn’t look at you while he walked.
“I briefly looked into the logistics of the average person keeping some of these at home.”
He said it so simply that it took a second for the words to permeate your brain membrane, like pollen drifting down on still water.
You blinked. Thought about it a little longer. Then filed the statement under unexpected things said by Nanami Kento, ranked by baffling specificity. There was a sizeable list. That one had cracked the top ten between surprisingly detailed knowledge of traditional Danish breadmaking techniques and casual explanation of how to launder money through a kombucha business.
“Didn’t know you liked plants too,” you said, a little surprised and with a toothy grin that clearly fished for more.
Nanami turned his shoulder, glanced at you over the rim of his fogged lenses, and his thin eyebrows crested in a way that could only be described as accusing. Like you had somehow missed something obvious.
Then he looked away again.
Up — toward the glass dome with its streaming veins of rain, as though the heavens might open and answer on his behalf or put him out of his misery.
“Never mind that.”
And that was the end of it.
You didn’t think much of it. That’s just how Nanami was — deliberate, reserved, frustratingly unreadable, and you had to pry out the seemingly irrelevant details of him until they were left gouged with the bite of his nails. A man built of reticence and regulation, who folded affection into dry commentary and precision coffee orders. You’d gotten used to it. You were fond of it. It hasn't turned you off yet.
What you didn’t know — what you couldn’t have guessed — was that he’d read through six niche horticulture blogs and one lightly paywalled academic archive trying to figure out which flowering vine could survive an east-facing window with inconsistent sunlight and a tendency to be overwatered when you were stressed.
He’d narrowed it down to three. One of them had been that one.
And then there you were, glowing under its shade like fate and smiling at it like it already sat in your home and had a name.
Nanami said nothing, but he liked the way you’d looked at it. Maybe he would read another blog… buy the plant as a gift after all.
*
Outside, the storm continued its tempestuous tirade. Water beat furiously against the glass like it wanted to be let in. Thunder roared and lightning crawled like a living thing through the pitch black clouds above.
And inside, the plants grew quiet and strange.
Or maybe they’d always been strange, and now chastened by Nanami’s voice and steered back toward focus, you were simply starting to notice.
Your tendency to anthropomorphize flora had never felt especially peculiar — what plant keeper didn’t talk to their orchid like a beloved, temperamental cat? But this, you understood implicitly, wasn’t projection nor was it mere sentiment. It was acknowledgment.
These plants were watching you.
Regarding you regarding them with the quiet intelligence of things that had been growing long before you arrived, and intended to continue long after you left.
Long after you died, you figured. After the worms bleached your bones powder white, and your ribs made footholds for new roots to grow.
Some recoiled when you passed — deliberately slow, curling inward like sleepers disturbed and monks drawing their robes tight in silent judgment. Leaves turned their pale underbellies to the path, folding with the weary grace of old ballet dancers. Others, emboldened by your energetic attention, bloomed in time with your glance — petals peeling open like theatrically flattered yawns.
Every step forward whispered behind you in the soft glide of something unseen through muffling moss. Bulbs twitched and blinked in the dark. Nettle-tipped vines bowed from the canopy like chaperones leaning in close, brushing against your hair like blind butterflies antennae. With every breath you took you expected one to reciprocate on your neck — wet and green and ancient as the earth, billowing peat and mire over your nape.
Orange pulled you off track.
Just ahead a blossom snagged your eye. The color of sweet peach flesh bloomed, hovering in a shaft of pale light along the path. It glistened too vividly for the lowlight above.
It was far from the biggest or brightest thing here, but it was the most obvious.
You watched it warily the closer you came, sidestepped to give it a wide berth. But it didn’t move, didn’t twitch, just hovered.
Your blade moved first, silver-edged and cautious, compelled by curiosity you reached to poke one of the petals—
The bloom snapped shut with a belt-cracking switch. Sudden and whip-quick it reeled into the darkness so violently the air buzzed.
You yelped and stumbled back straight into something solid.
Nanami grunted and caught you reflexively.
One arm banded around your ribs, the other steady at your elbow. Warm palms, big hands, you flustered and reddened at the all-encompassing broadness of his chest against your spine.
You waited for the sigh. The clipped reprimand. Some variation of: “Don’t touch things like some feral, unsocialized child.”
Hell, you kind of wanted him to scold you… only Nanami could make you feel shame and shamefully aroused in the same breath.
No rebuke came.
But he didn’t let go, either.
His hands stayed exactly where they were, even after you found your footing and stopped shaking. One palm spread across the damp fabric at your side while the other eased you forward, guiding you like a mockery of a man leading his lover through a garden where the only dangers were bees or an overpriced tour fee.
When he finally released you, it felt slow, like his hands were the last to realize you were no longer in danger. His fingers stayed briefly in the creases of your borrowed jacket, and you thought you sensed reluctance in how they lingered before letting go. But the warmth of his hands was still seared onto your skin.
You didn’t thank him. The moment itself and the frenetic energy of this biosphere felt tenuous enough that words would only rupture it.
So you glanced at him instead, surreptitiously through pressed lips and out of the corner of your eye, conveying without words how wrong things had begun to feel here. Not dangerous, exactly, but too aware; and therein lurked the hidden danger.
It hadn’t declared itself. You hadn’t been jumped, no planty-beast exploded from the undergrowth nor barbed cursed appendage had shot out from a fern to wrap around your ankle and drag you into the dark — the absence of those things was exactly what troubled you.
Curses didn’t lie in wait. Not like spiders spinning delicate webs and waiting for a footstep. They reacted. They struck. Their danger lived in immediacy — distilled, blunt instinct without forethought or fear. Evolutionary stupidity made them lethal.
But this didn’t feel stupid.
You recall going fishing once with your classmates, many summers ago, on a day so bright and careless it hardly seemed to belong to the same world as this one. The lake had been glassy and wide, ringed with reeds and dragonflies. The sun set itself firmly between your shoulder blades and burned there without malice, only a stinging reminder that the season was real and that you, for once, had nothing better to do.
Some of your friends from that day are dead now.
You stood on the dock, casting your line again and again as far out into the glittering water as you could throw it, your skin tight and clumsy with sunscreen applied too late. Nanami sat at the edge of the dock with his sleeves rolled and dropped his line straight down into the shadowy water.
“How lazy, Nanami!” you’d teased him.
He’d only arched a brow, flashing a smirk he’d given away much more
willingly back then. “Just smart. You only have to surprise the fish to get them to bite.”
And by the time you understood what he meant, he’d already caught three fish and released them again, while your line stayed frustratingly unbitten.
You eventually realized curses were the same.
And this curse could not be surprised, because it had eyes on you from every angle. Slithering surveillance in its vines, tracking your movements, subtly shepherding you along to whatever ends it desired. It was aware in a way that made you increasingly uncomfortable in your dripping clothes…
It was no small fish.
Your wet clothes felt complicit now — clammy and heavy, making it harder to turn quickly and run. If it wanted to make a move, you weren’t confident you could stop it. Not fast enough.
A glade of white jasmine grew off the path. The blossoms glowed in the artificial blue light like spilled milk, eerie in their uniformity, heads turning in synchronicity like dusty attic dolls trained to track movement. You stared at them, a strange nausea bubbling in your belly—
Then Nanami’s hand gripped your chin.
You startled — but he turned your face firmly forward and leaned close, voice low, breath brushing the shell of your ear.
“Don’t look.”
So you didn’t. You kept walking, becauses curses didn’t like to be looked at, and the jasmine had started to stand a little taller and rattle their petals like a viper's tail. You didn’t think this garden full of breathing things should be provoked. It wasn’t ready to strike… and neither were either of you.
So you walked with your eyes forward…
And you pretended not to notice the thing slithering just in your periphery that was making your head swim. The not-snake. A vine in a vivid, unnamable color — green but not green, blue but not sky. An alien shade that lived between wavelengths, the afterimage burned into the world by staring too long at something you shouldn’t have seen, the theory of a color more than color itself. It trailed in the gutter, tendrils keeping pace with your steps.
It had no reason to rush. It already knew where you were going.
You tried not to shudder as ferns brushed your calves and split before you like frigid ocean waters. The garden pressed in with growing boldness, no longer content to merely observe. Leaves densely draped across the stone path, and thorned branches creaked across the flagstones to form heavy barricades.
And ahead — lit soft and strange as a circus stage — was the new path they made for you.
A trail bloomed out of the undergrowth, flowers glowing with bioluminescent suggestion. Petals opened to greet you, phosphorescent, beckoning. The air pulsed with perfume.
It was too obvious.
You scoffed and stopped short, planting your heels firmly into the damp stone, your breath bursting in billowing fog obstinate as any mule. The beauty of the path, of this whole place, made it worse — something this lovely had to be cruel.
No forest offered up its heart so readily unless it had already decided what to do with you once you arrived at the final rib. To step forward would be to surrender the narrative, walking willingly into the jaw lined with hidden teeth that had unhinged itself just for you.
“We shouldn’t follow that,” you said stubbornly.
“Until we find the main body, we have no choice.”
Nanami stopped long enough to look at you.
He was backlit by a pulse of seductive blue, the color of an electric bruise, and then deep rolling violet. A spasm of light rippled over his shoulders, catching the edges of his shirt in a brief shimmer and for a second he looked more nightclub than battlefield. Like a man who might stand untouched at a bar with a fuck-off aura, collar unbothered by curious fingers, catching your eye over the rim of a glass just to look away before you could decide whether to be annoyed or interested.
You could almost pretend, maybe, that this was a garden rave. Jungle-themed. Exclusive entry. Population: two… or maybe three, curse considered.
His head dipped, slow and deliberate, just enough for your eyes to meet over the seaglass tint of his green glasses. Light fractured emerald and viridian across the lenses. “You’ll guard my back, won’t you?”
It wasn’t a challenge but an invocation of faith. Ritual born between companions who bled back-to-back often enough, and who walked into the dark together and hoped not to walk out alone.
Still, the question stung a little.
You tilted your head, your expression bland but pointed. “Did you hit your head?”
Nanami raised a brow. “Just covering our bases.”
“I’ve guarded your back through curses, cults, and one very agitated goose.”
“That goose was broody.”
“And I still didn’t let it kill you.”
Nanami scowled at you and you scowled back. He seemed to weigh your conviction silently… then he snorted and shook his head. He might’ve laughed outright if not for where you were, and that was as good as it got.
You could rely on each other — always.
He nodded once, satisfied. “Good.”
You stepped into the monsters maw with your jaw grimly grit and your sword slick in your grip — whether from sweat or the plaster weight of the air, you weren’t sure it mattered… only hoping that you don’t lose your grip when the time comes for you to swing. Nanami’s fingers flexed around his blade, closing with creaking slowness like he already envisioned a throat in his palm.
Humming surrounded you both, but maybe it was always there. It buzzed, not unseen insects or sixth-sense prickling on your neck, but a very real pulse in the air that only got louder. Beneath your feet the stones and sprouts lit and dimmed, lit and dimmed, lit and dimmed, the circadian rhythm of sleeping titans guiding your feet deeper. Closer, and closer, and closer until the hedges parted like curtains drawn back to reveal an altar.
And there it lay.
A wild shrine to a primordial god, tended by hands as gnarled and ancient as its patron saint. It stretched across the clearing like a ritual remembered too late, forgotten and unfinished: a tangle of bloom and body, thick-stalked and high-spined, a reliquary left to rot in the gloom. The earth cracked to cradle it — roots bulged up through black soil, thick as limbs, ivory-veined and burrowing deeper into the earth's viscera. It breathed. Breathed. The mass at its center rose and fell with the stubborn appropriation of something that had not died properly, and perhaps never would.
It pulsed like a heart, not clean; practiced, studied, a mimicry of learned behavior watched from buried coffins and observed from decaying chest cavities. You saw the thick cords cinching and flexing, a translucent sheath over them pulling taut with each contraction, then slackening with a faux exhale. The ground beneath you moved in time like a belly breathing under the skin — you planted your feet, pitched gently to and fro by the cardiac thumping.
Petals curled like lips parting to speak — red as garnets and gore, slick as tongues. The color bleeds darker at the edges, dried-blood and rust, and gleamed wet at their coquettish blushing centers. The flesh of it — god, was it skin or was it plant? — was diaphanous and veined, each bloom appearing skinned from some creature still clinging to the memory of its name.
A sheen stuck to its surface, beaded into drops that hissed when they fell, eating tiny holes into the grass.
It shimmered, but only the way something poisonous can shimmer; the way oil gleams on water, or an adders back in the sun.
It was beautiful in its macabre way, the sort that haunted ancient cathedrals long abandoned, where the only footsteps were malnutritioned rats and the air smells of old prayers. The splendor that belongs to bone — clean, white bone — picked dry by wind and time and calls to mind ribs as spires, skulls that smile even as they forget what they once were.
You stepped forward. Once. Twice. You might’ve taken a third—
—but Nanami’s hand clamped around your shoulder and held.
Then came the smell.
You sniffed the air again. You expected rot and decay, melting flesh, the sick-sweet stink of fermentation and apples rotted to their cores and riddled with worms. Some cloying perfume that would cling to your soft palate for days like mold in the lungs.
But it smelled like laundry. Freshly pressed shirts and the hum of a dryer in the room over. Fabric softener layered over sandalwood and thyme, bergamot peel crushed between fingers, and the suggestion of citrus pith. It smelled clean, expensive, intimate in a covert way that didn’t boldly invite but felt tailored to entice you.
You breathed in again, greedy.
Maybe it was just the collar of Nanami’s jacket you were huffing — it smelled like his cologne.
You went soft and sweet and fuzzy.
Nanami’s chest expanded at your shoulder, you peeled your eyes away from the curse only to find his already on you.
He smelled something else entirely.
Shea butter and lavender — the scent that trailed you through hallways, folded in your wake like petals whirled in a coy breeze. Patchouli, orchid. Notes of that one perfume he remembered from the Kyoto train, and that he’d found stained into the lining of his coat when he returned home, and always made his ears a little pink when he walked behind you—
It wasn’t like you to get distracted.
That curious thought slammed through your skull half a second after your spine slammed the ground, your breath punched out in a startled, wet gasp when your wing bones hit the earth.
The curse struck where you’d stood faster than the lightning that streaked above. Vines reared like vipers and slammed down into the dirt with the sound of snapping femurs, earth exploding in shrapnel of clay and debris. You choked, recovering in heaving gasps from Nanami’s arm flinging you clear of the impact.
Before you could blink the painful watering from your eyes, Nanami was already swinging.
Wet, ropey vines fell in thirds, twitching and spraying fluid that stank like sap and rot. It shrieked — a high, metallic wail that shook the canopy and rattled the glass over-dome like exploded cable, splitting the air with a clap of thunder that filled your ears with tin.
You tried to scramble upright. Grass slid under your palms, resisting your handhold with roots bucking and convulsing beneath the surface. Your blade was gone, skittering across the stones and flung god knows where.
All you could do was watch with dawning horror.
Nanami threw himself between you and the curse, an aegis of fury and resolve. The petals unfurled syrupy slow, revealing a luminous center — a dandelion bloom made of citrine, gleaming wet like gemstone and runny yolk and radiant as a newborn sun.
Your lungs seized. Your mouth shaped his name.
He was going to die. You were so certain Nanami was going to die and be reduced to a fine red mist, cudgeled beneath vast spiny trunks or torn asunder by ripping roots and there was nothing you could do to stop it all because you couldn’t fucking stand.
Nanami had already moved, read the ratios, and already pivoted his stance from defense to offense.
It was reactionary in a way you’d never seen him before, all reckless compulsion and knee-jerk muscle memory. Not a sorcerer seeing a threat — but a fish, baited and hooked on the threat of harm to you, and Nanami struck not because of the danger — but because killing it had become inevitable the moment it lunged.
He leapt past the thorns, past the writhing limbs that seemed to just miss with every lash. Geometry and purpose and spurred by determination, his breath didn’t so much as stutter when he drove his blade in deep, cleaving the glittering heart in two.
And like that—
It died.
No final shriek, no retaliatory flail, no explosion. Just stillness.
Vines sagged like marionettes with cut strings, limp and lifeless. One by one the scaffolding stalks collapsed, slamming to the ground with bone-juddering thuds that shook the earth beneath your muddied knees then dissipated into grey ash.
The petals blackened, curling in on themselves like burned parchment. Roots split and hissed and guttered out in ribbons of steam, but the heart remained.
Split in two, broken and spilling its golden ichor into the shredded grass, it bled and bled and bled, and wetly thumped and thumped and thumped. Two hearts now in tandem, not one, doubling and deforming. And from that fractured core, the curse would sing its swan song.
Nanami turned back toward you, chest heaving, steps sluggish and bogged down with relief. He’d barely taken a step when it rose — a second bulb birthed from the broken heart, a sickly green shoot straining upward on a thin, trembling stem.
Not a heart at all. A womb.
“Nanami—!” you shrieked, but it was already too late.
He spun, half a step from safety — then vanished into a choking mushroom cloud of yellow.
You moved without thinking, panic clawing up your throat, feet slipping on shredded turf and torn roots as you lunged toward the spreading vapor. Panic propelled you forward, blood whistled in your ears — Nanami, Nanami, Nanami, you couldn’t lose him, not him too — you were only half a second from flinging yourself into the mist—
And then he stumbled out.
You skidded to a halt, nearly dropping to your knees. He was alive. Staggering, coughing into his elbow, but alive.
His legs buckled beneath him and he crumpled into the grass. Nanami ground his forehead hard into the dew-damp ground. His shoulders heaving with ragged, wet breaths, choking on the remnants of the yellow powder that stained his lips marigold.
You fell to his side, hands trembling, skimming over him, brushing debris and seeds and grass from his back — a nursing hummingbird in your palms and in your chest as you searched for wounds.
No blood. No gashes. No visible injuries—
—the yellow that coated him like chalk faded as it leached into his skin, absorbing into his bloodstream.
You barely caught his hand snapping up between you, pushing you away with a trembling shove. He sat back on his haunches, eyes closed and teeth gritted in agony. Your stomach dropped in time with the beads of sweat suddenly streaking down his temples.
“I’m fine,” he rasped.
You watched, worry planting itself deep between your ribs, as he struggled to stagger upright. It took him far more effort just to stand than it had to even exorcise the curse. Nanami braced his hands on his knees, back to you, the muscles between his shoulders twitching, locking, visible beneath the sweat-soaked starch of his shirt.
He took one step away from you. Then another. Then he pressed his forehead hard against the bark of a tree and clenched his fists until the tendons in his wrists popped.
“Nanami, please, just… let me see, I need to make sure—“
He swatted blindly at your hands as they ran him over, skimming over his arms, his shoulders, checking for pain or breaks — but it was hard to tell when every little touch caused him to convulse like the bone beneath your fingertips had already been shattered. Everything hurt.
“Shit you’re burning up—“ you whispered when Nanami groaned, uprooted from deep in his aching throat when your palm cupped the back of his neck. You were already patting your pockets, frantic for your phone. “We need to go. I’ll call a ride—no, no, I’ll call Shoko, she’ll come to us—“
“No.”
Nanami kept his forehead pressed to the tree and grunted his monosyllabic objection.
He tried not to look at you. He didn’t think he could handle the visual, not when all he could smell was you stuck in his nose, embossed into his lungs like a monogram, and that alone was making the edges of his vision fuzzy. But despite his better judgment he risked a glance — only to feel his insides split around the ache planted beneath his diaphragm.
Because there stood you — wide-eyed, wet, and worried — and that alone would’ve been enough to ruin him on any good day.
But you stood there, draped in his jacket, the too-heavy waterlogged thing slipping dangerously off your shoulder and your hair plastered in wisps to your throat. And when his gaze dropped — fuck — your pants were soaked through and clung to you like they’d been painted on by da Vinci himself, translucent with rain and sap, outlining every devilishly divine line and curve. Your hips. Your thighs. The sweet, scandalous dip between your legs.
He stared, shame coiling hot and feral in his gut.
He hated himself for it, hated how nakedly he ogled you — but he couldn’t look away, his vision tunneled and hunger gnashed through his ribs like a wild dog. He wanted you. Wanted you in a way that should’ve made him blush and did make him ashamed. He could bend you over a tree branch, hang you up like laundry on a line and devour you. Tear the flimsy fabric under his fingers and bury himself inside you until you were more him than you—
He ground his knuckles into the bark beneath him, welcoming the sting and the wet warmth when his skin split open and bled. Anchor yourself. Anchor yourself.
You sidled closer, oblivious — one hand outstretched again and heartbreakingly innocent the way you might endear yourself to a scarred and scruffy alley cat… it was devastating. He nearly seized your wrist, almost dragged you down to him, could’ve buried his face between your thighs and drowned himself there, desperate for any relief from the heatwave boiling his brain.
A low, wounded sound cracked from his throat when you grabbed his waist to feel up his ribs.
“Go,” he croaked. “I’ll… catch up.”
“Nanami, no, just let me help you—“
“Now,” he barked and grimaced like the word had peeled the lining of his throat.
“No!” you snapped back.
You knew this man — knew his maddening stubbornness and how he’d refuse doctors so as not to be an inconvenience, refuse the last seat on the train just to stand over you while you sat, refuse any kindness unless you forced it into his hands and bent his fingers around it. You weren’t about to let him kill himself here out of some sense of machismo masochism.
“No.” You repeated. “You dragged me out here with you on my day off, fuck if I’m not dragging you back out with me, too.”
You charged into his space and felt the way he tensed, rigid like you’d struck him and you prickled. “Oh, please,” you scoffed, “I’m not gonna hurt you. Just… relax. Let me help—“
You nudged his shoulder firmer this time, and were surprised when he gave, letting you ease him back against the tree. He sagged, wilted like a sad houseplant, his face flushing deeper even in the dim light and you heard the calloused scratch of his hand dragging up his jaw to cover his mouth with his chin tucked into his chest in shame.
He wouldn’t look at you despite how close you stood. He wouldn’t meet your eyes even when you tried to duck and catch them. He prayed you wouldn’t look down below the belt.
You brushed his forehead and winced at the scalding heat beneath your touch. Unnatural. He’s boiling. You knew that something was seriously wrong, that time was likely of the essence, and that you couldn’t just stand there and watch Nanami succumb to some fast-acting poison, or wait until something cracked his ribs open and burst from his chest.
You flattened your palm over his brow, brushing back his damp hair. But what were you supposed to do? Drag him kicking and screaming through the muck? Tackle him to the ground and find something to fix? Your rudimentary medical knowledge didn’t extend past basic tourniquets and Neosporin, and your growing panic would make even that difficult.
A crack of lightning seared the sky—
—you squeaked and leapt out of your skin when his hand clamped around your wrist like an iron manacle.
Nanami shuddered, breath ragged, his lips parted as he pulled your hand to his face and turned into it, fevered skin branding your palm like it was salvation. His eyes fluttered shut, a broken groan tumbling loose from deep in his chest like an old house settling into its foundations.
He felt your pulse race through your wrist, wild and unsteady. Fear? Concern? For him… or of him? He couldn’t tell, couldn’t parse the emotion flickering behind the wide mirror-balls in your skull, shock or scare or something else, it hardly mattered — how loathsomely selfish — when the beat of your heart seemed to stall his free-fall into the abyss.
“Nanami?” You whimpered.
… So he chased it.
His mouth dragged lower, lips tracing the paper-thin skin of your inner wrist where your heart materialized and leapt beneath his breath. His own stuttered and stumbled to match your hummingbird-beat rhythm.
You trembled and your lower lip wobbled — he felt the crimson string between you draw tighter, both noose and leash around his neck. Nanami rose to meet it. His lips and teeth grazed your skin as he hunted that delicate blue vein up your arm. Closer, higher. His grip on your wrist tugged you up until your forearm was pressed high near his ear, his head bent low over your elbow where he finally stopped.
He didn’t bite. He didn’t kiss. His breath billowed through flared nostrils, each exhale scorching hot where it blew across your skin.
And when you trembled he trembled too — both poised on the same razor's edge; Occam’s, Hume’s, Grice’s, whomever the blade belonged to it was sharp and you both teetered in the stillness before blood-letting.
What the hell is happening? you both thought in synchronicity, silent save for the sound of crashing breath and your own heart. Your face burned with a confusing mix of terror and untimely arousal. No, now’s not a good time to want to jump his bones, even if he’s looking at you like he wants to eat you alive—
“Nanami.”
You tugged gently at your wrist — and your stomach lurched when his fingers tightened, squeezing the fine bones in your hand… and he growled at you.
You froze. Unnerved now you gave a harder yank until he finally let go. You stumbled back, nearly falling, but his reflexes snapped quickly — he caught your sleeve, snared you like a hook.
For a moment you dangled between escape and entrapment, his fist clenched in your borrowed jacket — but then his face twisted. Pain, conflict, a rawness ripped through him with a violence even you could feel in the winded gust of his breath. His brows knitted like cables and he let you go again.
You staggered back.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” you pressed, but your confidence was shaken. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
But you didn’t step forward again — you edged sideways, testing a new angle around him.
He was watching you too closely, and definitely too intently. His eyes pinned you like a needle through soft flesh, locked down like a taxidermied beetle in a frame, tracking every shift and minor twitch of your fingers. Every time lightning shattered the sky you flinched… and so did he; like he was waiting, and ready, to chase you.
Nanami was on fire. He could see the delicate throb in your throat, that tremble of your pulse hammering under your skin, the steady badump, badump, badump escalating into a frantic thud, thud, thud!
Animalistically attuned to the vitality in your veins — god, he swore he could feel your heartbeat in the roots of his teeth.
When he touched you — he hadn’t thought you hated it.
You’d gone still and your breath caught but not in fear. Not only in fear.
He tasted the sweetness and wanting on your skin too. The same that fuzzied his tongue at night when his toes curled in his sheets and he muffled the shout of your name with his teeth buried in his knuckles while the other hand pulled him to ruinous orgasm.
You wanted him too. He knew it. Had always known it; subtlety didn’t agree with you when you’d blush so sweetly just from looking at him too long, or the cute way you’d sometimes twine your hair around your finger and sway back and forth when you needed help.
And that was the worst part, that you wanted him — trusted him. Because you weren’t scared. But he was.
He didn’t want your help. Couldn’t want it. He could feel it in his gut, in his bones, in the blood that pumped too fast and hot through his veins. It wasn’t a thing he could squash so easily as lust. It was need, feral and all consuming, and it burned through him like kerosene:
Take her.
Pin her.
Have her until it stops.
If he let you stay — or so much as breathed too deep in your direction — he would burn you alive. He’d grab you and drag you under and fuck the apology right out of his own mouth. He’d worship you like a man possessed and reduce himself to ash in the process like a sage wick.
But if he told you to run—
If you did—
Could he let you go?
When his skin barely felt like his own anymore and every nerve was wired to you and every breath he took made him hungrier—
If you ran…
Could he stop himself from chasing you?
He turned away from you like a mirror gone rotten, hoping to outrun the shape of the monster reflected there if only he moved fast enough.
He would rather die than lay a finger on you.
He pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw whole galaxies. Tried to remember his name. Yours. Anything good.
He tried to hold onto dignity… what little he had left — and so sought to preserve yours.
His hand slipped down, quick and furtive, tugging at the front of his pants in a futile effort to adjust the shameful bulge printed in the soaked fabric.
The outline of him pressed even harder against the inseam, snaking down his thigh and tented with humiliating urgency. As if he could just adjust this away.
The fabric sucked tight to every inch of him, mortifying in its clarity, and all he could do was stand there, jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut like willpower alone might magic it gone. It didn’t.
So he shoved through the foliage back towards the path without a word, stiff in every way.
“Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” you yelped, immediately trotting after him.
“Anywhere but here.”
“Nanami, we’re rained in in a giant fucking bowl, there’s nowhere to go—”
“Wherever you aren’t, then.”
You scowled, glaring daggers into the tense set of his shoulders, but you still nipped at his heels. “Oh, so you’re fine enough to be rude now.“
He didn’t answer you. Didn’t look at you. Each step he took was more of a lurch, his gait impeded and uncomfortable, but he still tried to outpace what was clawing its way up — or down — his bloodstream.
If being rude convinced you to leave him alone, to protect yourself from the hungry thing incubating inside him, then it was a small price to pay… and he would make it up to you when he could think straight.
Because the thing inside him — the grotesque force twining around his nerves, weaving into his blood, and implanting such indecent thoughts as bending you over the nearest stump and fucking you through the earths mantel — was gnashing its chains, and no amount of clenched fists or gritted teeth or good intentions was going to keep it polite.
You grabbed his elbow, yanking hard. “Stop. Hey—stop. What’s your problem?”
“Let. Go.” He warned.
“No,” you stood your ground. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.“
“Goddamn it—“ He jerked his arm from your grip with such force that it pitched you both off balance. A graceless flail — him stumbling back, you colliding into his chest with a thud that echoed between your ribs and his sternum.
It was like before but more. The sickness in him hadn’t yet clawed its way fully into his brainstem, muscle memory prevailed. His arm cinched around you hard, a taut coil of muscle and bone crushing you against him. Reflexive at first — just like the first time, except he didn’t let go.
His hand fisted your jacket, pulling the fabric into trembling knots between his fingers and his head dropped low, nose buried in your hair like a drowning man clawing for driftwood, and— he moaned.
Your palms splayed flat, rigid and useless against his chest. Some dim intention to extricate yourself flickered up, only to short out before it even began. You froze there, blinking up into the wet hollow of his throat, your mind flashbanged a bright white blank and your ears filled with static.
“Mmph—Nanami, you’re crushing me—“ you choked, laughing reflexively even though your ribs were being crushed in the iron maiden of his embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, the words slurred and sloshing over his tongue. But he didn’t let go. You felt the silent quake of him trying to will his muscles to obey. They did — only partially. His grip faltered just enough to slide, the clench around your waist easing downward, fingers seeking lower, dragging across the damp fabric over your spine, cradling your sacrum with a possessive tremor. His hands flexed once, twice, nails scraping at the thin barrier of his jacket bunched between you.
“I just…” His voice cracked — cracked, and the sound of it made him flinch. His jaw locked tight and he scowled like he could crush the shame between his molars, but it didn’t help. He was flushed and hot and miserable in a way that reminded him, with sick clarity, of being seventeen — exhausted and aching, hard at the worst possible time, praying for class to end so he could run to his dorm and jerk off in the shower with the water scalding.
But this was worse. He’s older now, a man now, and he was wound tighter, needier, more pathetic and vulgar in a way he’d never allowed himself to be even back then. He swallowed, thick and despairing.
“I’m sorry, but—I need…“
The words were drowned out in a crash of thunder so loud it left your ears ringing.
You hardly minded the situation, circumstances aside. His arms somehow felt like the safest place in the world to fall into, and you let yourself imagine, just for a moment, this at any other time.
Nanami folding you close outside your apartment door. Nanami brushing a chaste farewell kiss to your temple after a lunch snuck between work hours. Not like this — with humid mist numbing your scalp and adrenaline screaming through your veins that he’s dying and your heart drumming a tattoo of oh god, oh god, what do I do between your lungs—
—and not with the undeniable press of that against the curve of your hip.
Your breath hitched and you bit down hard on your bottom lip to stop the sound that wanted to claw free. You shifted instinctively, a minuscule movement — and there it was again. The friction, hot and undeniable, catching where his hips canted toward yours.
You tried to convince yourself it was his phone, his keys, any mundane excuse. But you knew, and he knew you knew. His breath stuttered, caught raw and ragged at the top of his chest, and you swore you could feel the molten napalm of his mortification bleeding through the sodden fabric of his shirt and beating down on you — you had to wonder how he even had the blood to spare for his face. Still his hands clung tighter and wrapped in your jacket like he couldn’t bear to let you slip from him.
“Nanami…” Your voice was thin, pitched an octave high, you tried for casual but it cracked in the middle. “Are you—“
He cut you off. “Don’t.”
You peeled yourself back enough to look up at him and your heart thudded up into your mouth, twitching like a bloodied thing caught in your teeth. Every cell of you was aware, over-aware, of the warmth and want of him. A million blind butterflies tickled your belly with their antennae and you didn’t trust them not to swarm out of your mouth. You stared up, and he stared down. You saw the pollen stained on his lips.
His jaw flexed; his eyelids slammed shut like it pained him to keep you in his sights.
Because you were too much. Too bright. Like a match held too long, burning down to blistered fingertips. A sun clutched selfishly in the crook of his arms that would not warm him — only crater through and leave him hollowed and smoking; but to be ruined by you would be a mercy.
He was unraveling in strands of ash and soot, swimming in greyscale, like a monster that circled just outside the campfire’s reach, silent on its belly, jaws slack — waiting for the singing to stop, for the light to fail, before it would eat its way in.
His vision tunneled, pulsed, pounded against the backs of his eyes and beat the color from his nerves. Even the flowers — those garish, cloying witnesses to the depravity that incubated inside him had stripped back to black blurs. But you held him sweetly… like a fist gripping the back of his neck and shoving him down into a forge.
You weren’t touched by the haze, you glowed through it. A wound of color in a world rubbed raw with skin that dared to flush, and lips that dared to part, and eyes that looked at him not with fear but recognition. You stood against him like fire pressed to wax paper and didn’t shrink. You curled.
He wanted to bite.
He wanted to drag his teeth down your throat and see if you still glowed on the inside. He wanted to pull you to the ground and pant against your skin until the scent of you blotted out the rest of the world.
He wanted to snarl at you for it. Or sob. Or grind against you until your marrows mixed.
Because what else did monsters do when given a saint?
Every throb in his pocket, the feverish, shameful weight of his cock pinched between his thigh and yours, dampened his briefs and felt like humiliation made liquid. It made him want to press his hips forward and rut himself into the first warm thing that yielded.
Just need to come, he spiraled. Then it’ll be gone. Sweat it out, vomit it up like a bug. I’ll be better after that.
He knew his binds wouldn’t hold. No ribbon woven from nonsense and nothing and impossible things: the breath of a fish, the sound of cats feet, the roots of a mountain, would withstand the sordid blaze in his body.
He would break it. He would tear it with his teeth.
He would eat the sun.
She’ll help me, he thought. She always helps. Too fucking kind. She’d let me. She’d take it, anything I have to give her, all of it—
He bit down on the impulse. He needed and hated and feared, all at once, and he would let you go, he must let you go—
“I’m trying—“ he muttered, half to you, half bargaining with himself. “But I can’t—can’t think when you’re this close.”
Your stomach flipped, a wild, traitorous lurch of something hot and heavy settling low in your belly that had been tucked deep beneath propriety and boundary and respect. But it had always been there, this want for Nanami.
Buried under mission reports and busy nights — always so goddamn controlled, so infuriatingly put-together, even when the world around you both splintered at the seams and you were the half-cracked half-filthy reflection of it. How many times have you caught yourself staring, long after the danger passed, admiring Nanami — a statue, perfect in form, but carved from hollow geode? Not-cracked, but half-empty. Only just surviving.
And you’d think: I wouldn’t mind helping him live.
There’d be those times — an empty train tunnel, a mold-eaten library, derelict classrooms turned graffiti gallery with peeling walls — and you’d think: why not? Why not, in the dead spaces between dead things and curses and close calls, make something good out of the ruin? A quick fuck against crumbling plaster, indulge the hedonism that the mice and small creatures that live in those spaces adhere to, a desperate press of bodies just to live — to want something and take it, because tomorrow wasn’t promised. It never was.
But you buried it deep, because you didn’t mind recklessly burning the candle at both ends, and he was Nanami.
But with him curled around your body like he’d graft you to his liver given the chance, his arms pinning you to his chest but could so easily pin you to the grass instead… how do you smother that ember now?
Your stomach swooped, peregrine-pitched in a wild nosedive straight to hell. You clutched hard at his chest, fingernails hooking into his leather harness. It was needy, but you couldn’t help it. You wanted this.
“You should’ve said something sooner.”
His laugh was sharp and bitter, a throaty bark that gusted against your temple. “Oh? And what, exactly, would you have had me say?”
He scoffed, pitched his voice low. It didn’t sound much like him at all. “Should I have said: ‘Excuse me, I’ve got a raging hard-on, please stay back?’ or ‘I want to fuck you blind, kindly allow me a moment to compose myself?’”
A laugh broke out of you despite everything, startled like pigeons into graceless flight and just on the edge of hysterical. “Jesus, Nanami—“
But his head dropped lower, nosing along your hairline to skate your earlobe. You shuddered, goosebumps erupting across your flesh as you wondered what other madness-induced depravities he might spill into your ear. He settled instead into the crook of your neck and groaned, long and low — you couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment, dismay, lust, or the warning creak of rusty hull hinges before giving way under tremendous force.
Oh. You wanted it.
“Would that help?” You asked coyly.
He muttered your name in warning. Shook you once like he could rattle sense into you both… and held you tighter “Don’t. Don’t say that.”
“I’m asking,” you pressed, turning your head enough that your nose brushed against his hair. He convulsed. “Genuinely.”
“Would it help, Naaa-naaa-miiii?”
You curled your voice around his name, more flirtatious than you’d ever dare normally. But it had the intended effect when his head reared back from your throat to stare at you. Lightning flashed, and in the brightness you saw the sweat beading down his forehead, the red flush bleeding up his neck that stained his ears and cheeks.
Then he was kissing you. Greedy-mouthed, forcing the lip-lock before you could gather the breath to sustain it.
Your hands sunk into his hair, scrabbling up his neck to scrape through that prickling blonde undercut and into the damp roots, tugging at his hair with his tongue inside your mouth.
It was messy — boyishly desperate like backseat-quickies at a mall, or those clandestine capers in the wee hours before the teenage curfew neither of you ever had. His canines sunk into your plump lower lip, and Nanami tasted the bloom of copper on his tongue. He groaned and took your resulting gasp to pour more of himself into your mouth like it was the only vessel that could hold him.
You couldn’t breathe. You weren’t sure if you wanted to, when this seemed a much sweeter death than whatever may take you tomorrow or next year. But you yanked on Nanami’s hair, then parted down the middle and heaved a damp inhale of breath. You didn’t want to die yet.
Nanami took the moment to look at you. His throat was tight and he drank in how desperate you looked. It wasn’t you who’d been afflicted, and yet you harbored something so much more potent than any pollen... and so did he. Desire, real and authentic. Affection, softer than he could offer you now. The belated realization clicked into place.
He layered litanies of apologies between clicks of your teeth, with every twine of his tongue and dig of his fingers into the soft flesh of your body he imparted another. Blooming blue tulips planted beneath the nails carving cruel crescents into your flesh — he loathed how he damaged you.
It should never have been this way, he thought as he ducked lower, circling his arms around your thighs, one hand shamelessly under your ass, and lifted you like you weighed two pounds.
It should’ve been different, he thought as he stumbled forward. He mauled hot and heavy along your jaw and throat, anywhere his mouth could reach. Your head fell back and you whimpered, eyes cast skyward to watch the rain pound on the dome overhead. This was your world now, your jungle, and you were the animals in it.
He fumbled you forward until his thighs hit the edge of something hard and wooden behind you. A gardener’s workbench — splintered, paint-stained, and the perfect height. His palms flattened on the table, caging you in with his body.
Your fingers flew to his shirt and yanked at his tie and collar, popping buttons and pulling threads in your haste to have him bare. Nanami’s teeth dragged along the shell of your ear, humid breath panting over your helix, only feeding the conflagrating inferno he’d kindled within you. And the sweetness on your tongue…
You disconnected just long enough to shuck his shirt from his body, it fluttered down to the mud and you looked up at Nanami, dazed, light rippling strange.
There was yellow on him.
Smeared along his lower lip and brushed across one cheekbone. It passed from his mouth to yours when he kissed you again, a shimmer of gold imparted on your tongue that you accepted gleefully, like LSD swapped from one mouth to another in seedy nightclubs. You would not let him burn alone. You moaned into it, half-laughed against his lips when he nipped at the corner — you understood now.
Heat flared and blossomed low in your belly, slow and syrup-sweet. Your skin tingled at every point of contact and you squirmed, needing more of it.
“Mmmn—anami! ‘S’th’pollen—” you gasped.
He grumbled something vaguely like: “Mmhm—“ into your mouth. Of course he already knew.
He grabbed your thighs and shoved them apart, but you splayed open with ease, heels hiked up onto the table. Your pants were gone — ripped open, the wet fabric sheared from your body. You felt sweet pleasure throb between your legs, to not only be wanted but so utterly needed by him that all decency had fled and covered its eyes and ears.
You were fuzzy and warm, your skin prickled and Nanami dropped to his knees — only briefly — tongue dragging a wet and hungry stripe up the seam of your soaked panties and let out a sandy growl. He traced the shape of your pussy once, twice, he sucked hard on the fabric and made you cry out, your fingers twisting in his hair when he abruptly stood.
“Later,” he promised.
He yanked your panties aside and gripped his cock — when had he even gotten it out? your head swam, you didn’t care — slick with precum and pulsing a furious purple, already lining up against you. His other hand cupped the back of your neck, tilting your head and guiding your gaze downward like he wanted you to see it.
“Talk to me,” he rasped, forehead pressing hard against your crown. “Don’t let me be selfish.”
“I want you,” you pleaded.
His hips snapped forward, spearing you open on his cock without fanfare or preamble, none of the pristine bedroom fantasy or lit candles. You howled, scrabbling at the rolling muscles of his back and he shushed you softly, the hand on your neck directed you into the crook of his to muffle your hiccup when he thrust again.
You thought it should’ve hurt, but it didn’t. You felt stretched to the edge of your life and still you begged for more.
Nanami’s jaw slackened, eyes glossy and unfocused, the scalding heat of you nearly buckling his knees. His nails bit into the table and he moaned into your ear in a way he distantly knew was undignified, but you only tightened around him and rolled your hips forward while he froze and recalibrated.
“You—fuuu-aaa—“ he groaned and aborted the curse before it could form on his tongue, his body rewired. Then he moved, setting a brutal, unrelenting pace that jarred both of your bones.
Your blood sang, sonnets sizzled in your veins as he dragged against you again and again, like Nanami had lit the match to the kindling the curse snuck into your blood. Every push of his hips jolted the table beneath you, rattling the rusted tools with every slam of his thighs against the edge. The pollen purred within you, satisfied and sated well before it could drive you to madness. The same could not be said for Nanami.
Every movement felt at odds with the next. He fucked you with an aggression that felt wholly departed from who you assumed Nanami to be, he pounded into you like he may die without it… you hadn’t ruled out that he still could.
Wood splintered and cracked under his fingers, brutally destructive just so the hand that held you could stay tender. It coiled in your hair, stroked you softly and smoothed circles behind your ear, and supported you when your spine arched so beautifully you would’ve toppled over without him.
A particularly hard thrust jolted the table and your heel slipped. You whined, but Nanami’s hand caught your thigh mid-slide. He adjusted you without breaking pace, hoisting your knee over his hip in one smooth motion and opening you deeper to his plunging cock. You keened and curled your other leg around his waist, digging your heel into the taut, dimpling muscle of his ass to spur him even deeper.
You clenched around him instinctively, massaging him with the slick gushing of your cunt, and the way his cock jerked and the way the hiss punched out of his chest in a sputtering gale against your forehead felt like a reward.
“Harder, Nanami—!” you sobbed, breathless and starving, tugging at his hair just to feel more of him when you dragged your lips over the thundering carotid in his throat. You nipped at his collarbone, his ear, lapped at the sensitive shell until he shuddered and bore down on you.
He made a sound. You couldn’t tell if it was a choke or a laugh but, ever your servant, he obeyed. He snapped his hips into yours, sharp enough to drive you up the table with a startled, delighted cry. The next was rougher, meaner, like he sought to fuck you through the planks completely. You muffled your ecstatic hiccups and moans by biting his shoulder, grounding and soothing the itch in your games sated only by the firmness of his flesh.
“Harder?” He breathed into your hair.
He laid you back, one hand cushioning your head, the other bruising into your hip as he yanked you to the edge of the table and drove in deeper. He slipped down, buried his nose in your cheek and murmured. “Harder… okay. Harder? Is this harder?”
You answered in the scrabble of your damp fingers in the gutters of his back, the flexing muscles carved up by your nails. You babbled curses that evaporated into pleas for more, every stroke of Nanami inside you devastated and shorted every neuron in your system. They snapped and sizzled and lit sporadically, galaxies swam behind your eyes.
Nanami’s precision was not confined only to his blade.
Every slam into you drove home the weeping head of his cock straight into the spot that reduced your brain to soup and static, knocking thoughts
clean out of your skull to the applause of his soaked thighs smacking against your ass. You nodded, frantic as the nails that carved welts into his skin.
“Wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he gasped into your temple. “Supposed to take you somewhere nice. Feed you… hold your hand. Tell you I—fuck—“
He should’ve taken you out first. Wined you, dined you, talked with you more, kissed you like a gentleman at your doorstep. Should’ve told you he fucking liked you. But he hadn’t, and now he was buried inside you, soaked in sweat and sin and rain and pollen, pounding into you like he’d perish if he stopped.
But you were still smiling up at him, up at the quicksilver-lit canopy above whenever you flung your head back, your teeth bared to the heavens like you dared something to take this from you too. And you laughed between the cries that chipped from your chest, delighted in the ruining of you both. You welcomed the purple fingerprints tattooed on your hips. You relished the mercilessness Nanami took you with that you’d only ever seen from the sidelines with weapon in hand and with your lip secretly bitten between your teeth.
Because you’d always known sorcerers don’t get forever. They barely got now. So you took what you could while you could, unlike he who rejected all those ephemeral indulgences as they came. But not this time.
Because he wanted this. Nanami’s consciousness flickered, reeling deeper inward to the parts of himself the curse couldn’t steal. He’d always liked you, always been fond, he’d always privately held a candle for you and waited for you to notice. He called it respect. Retrospect called it cowardice.
If he were better he would’ve founded a future on subtler hungers. The desire to see you smile over a note snuck into your purse, to be the one to light your face every day when he remembered your coffee order, to peel mandarins with his thumbs and offer you the slices, he’d hold your bag while you tried on coats you didn’t need because you’d just steal his anyway, and tell you you were beautiful without urgency gnashing at his throat compelling him to do so like an apology.
You were supposed to have said yes to dinner first before he had you. He was supposed to have asked.
And the worst part was that it was perfect, even like this. Even compelled by a curse, when his skin was so sensitive that he shook with agony with every buffet of your breath, he wanted you.
And now that he had you, not gently or sweetly or after flowers or quiet dinners far away from the life you both lead, it felt like a theft committed by his own hands, and Nanami didn’t know how to reconcile how good it still felt.
“Say it again,” he begged.
“I wa-aaa-ant you!” You barely whimpered the words while he fucked the air from your lungs.
You turned your head and he met your mouth like he needed to swallow the declaration, his tongue twined with yours and devoured every humid pant of breath puffed between you.
You allowed him to use you. You thrilled with the knowledge that he did and you were helping. All the while Nanami kept trying to slow down, to hold back — to touch you gently and kiss you soft — but it always turned into grabbing and teeth. He cursed himself every time he thrust too hard or made you scream out too loud.
He wanted to be better, and you never asked him to be.
“Should’ve—hah!—taken you home. Would’ve made you breakfast. Let you sleep in my bed—I’d’ve stayed on the couch—“
His hand slammed onto the table beside your head and he bore down on you harder, his cock plowed into you frantically and with a tempo that had already begun to soak his thighs and turn the curled hair at the base of his cock dark.
You mewled and writhed and begged, you looked at him with your heart in your eyes, and Nanami whimpered. He would’ve been embarrassed under any other circumstance, but under any normal circumstance he wouldn’t be here, and any regret that reality might inspire washed away with each moan he pulled from your throat. It couldn’t compare to the exquisite silk of your pussy, or the way you held onto him like you needed him, or how his balls drew up so tightly to his body that they’d begun to ache.
The confessions cracked out of him in time with his hands skating down your calves. He gripped them and bent you in half, pressed your knees nearly to your ears so that your ankles rested on his broad, claw-scratched shoulders.
“…Was going to kiss you on the train platform,” he panted, driving into you again. The angle made you feel him in your ribs and sprung shameless saliva to the corner of your mouth. “Was going to… gonna ask you to dinner next week—”
Nanami didn’t know if either of those were true, but god, he wanted them to be. He thought that they could’ve been, that good intentions could make up for this utter collapse of everything he thought you deserved.
Your mouth dropped open in a raw, drawn-out moan. Your head tipped back away from him. He couldn’t bear it.
His hand came to cradle your skull again, drawing your face back toward his; like holding you close might tether him back to time and sense. His forehead pressed hard against yours, eyes wide, glassy. Feverish. He saw it in your gaze, too — the same edge-of-the-cliff wildness. He wanted to exorcise this feralness from you both, he would set it right—
Sweat rolled off his nose and landed on your cheek. You licked the next drop from his lip.
He faltered. His brutal pace broke apart — sharp, erratic strokes as his hips stuttered against yours. His forehead fell to your shoulder and he growled your name into your skin, the syllables wrecked nearly beyond recognition. He wouldn’t last.
The thing inside Nanami snapped taut — a final, fraying thread that gave way all at once, crashing with a violence that stole what little breath he still had. The thought of pulling out surged up like a scream, the responsible thing whispered the tiny kernel of coherence left to him, but it was inconceivable. Every instinct inside him recoiled from it. Unthinkable. He couldn’t leave your body. Couldn’t stop or finish anywhere else.
He had to stay in. Had to finish inside you, or else it wouldn’t count. That was the shape of the madness now. The curse demanded its payment in gold and filthy glory.
All he could do when his throat constricted and his spine bowed was stare at you, wrecked beyond reason, desperate — begging without words for understanding and permission you’d already given.
Your nails dug deep into his hips, pulling him deeper and dragging him home.
“Pleasepleasepleasestay,” you whimpered, hot and humid against his cheek, your lashes suspended with tears. The sight of you like that, desperate with him, for him, unmade him.
Nanami’s brow pulled tight with concentration, chasing the molten knot unraveling in his belly. It twisted and twisted tighter with every increasingly frantic thrust—
And then he came. He choked on his own tongue and sank his teeth into your shoulder to keep from sobbing your name; like it were some private, holy thing he didn’t deserve to taste.
His arms crushed you to his chest and he rutted through each pulsing wave of his release, gasping helplessly against your spit-slick and heaving throat. You felt every hot rope of him spill, hips jerking with each contraction.
He stayed buried until his whole body trembled with it and there was nothing left to give — and you followed him over. You tightened, sucking him and his spend deeper where it was meant to be, your functions hijacked to ensure optimal pollination. Your jaw hung loose and you panted, gasping and shuddering as you came in Nanami’s arms, every limb winding tight around him in a full-body embrace he was quick to return.
Nanami’s voice broke apart in your throat — apologies, thanks, worship murmured and shaken into your skin between the flimsiest kisses to your cheeks and eyelids. You gentled him through it, fingers stroking through sweat-damp hair, whispering soft lines of praise and nothing-words down the length of his spine.
You didn’t try to move. You wouldn’t have, even if you could.
Pinned beneath him, sticky, raw and trembling, you felt a greater peace than you’d ever known. He was warm. He was alive. He was breathing steadier.
Your fingers swept through his hair again, scratching gentle circles at the nape of his neck. You held him, because he let himself be held, too drained to resist your kindness. You would be selfish and clutch this moment jealously to your chest and hold it tight, because it may never come again.
You were quiet when you finally whispered: “You okay?”
He murmured in reply, the words muddled by the press of his lips against your throat. You think he nodded too.
You could’ve stayed like that, snug and corseted to the table and still joined.
Would’ve, if the shiver in his spine hadn’t given him away. It wasn’t pleasant, not the tremble of a final aftershock or an unwitting quiver from your soothing touch — it was a full-body quake that rolled through him like the thunder crashing outside, dragging a groan from the root of his chest.
Nanami shifted and promptly froze. His breath caught and held, and you felt him bob and jerk between your thighs where his seed hadn’t even had the chance to cool. You shivered and felt that same warmth spread in your belly — roaring you straight back into reciprocity despite the overstimulated tremors that still quaked in your thighs.
One time would not be enough. You pulled Nanami in to kiss you — content and resigned to your fate, happy to slake the thirst of the curse that compelled you both as many times as you needed to.
You made it back to the path sometime before evening.
Your palms were braced against the decorative iron fence that lined the water garden, slick with condensation and trembling under your grip with every sharp push of his hips. Nanami had you bent forward, forehead pressed to the crook of your elbow, trying to keep your voice even as you answered Ijichi’s twelfth panicked call.
No, you weren’t hurt.
Yes, the curse had been exorcised (mostly).
Yes, you were alive, and would likely remain that way until the roads cleared.
You could barely hear a word of his flustered assurances and apologies over the wet, relentless slap of Nanami’s hips against your ass and the low, rusty growls somewhat muffled between your shoulder blades.
You thought maybe you told Ijichi to wait until morning… it would be safer for all three of you. You definitely remembered the moment Nanami nailed something so deep and perfect inside you that your vision went white around the edges and your half-formed sentences dissolved into a moan.
The phone hit the ground when you tried to cover your orgasmic cry with your hand. Neither of you reached for it again.
You returned to the floor eventually, back to the bench you’d first ruined which barely still held upright. Nanami curled around you there for a while, forehead pressed to your nape, kissing your shoulders.
Sometimes he shuddered and hoisted your thigh up over his hip and nudged the angry red head of his cock in again. Sometimes it was you who pulled him in, still greedy for the way he fit and begged for more.
By the second hour he could kiss you without shaking. By the third, he asked “May I?” before entering you again. By the sixth, you were both soft with it, unguarded in the tender repetitions of how your bodies locked like freshly formed muscle memory. The gaps grew longer like the pauses between lightning and thunder, the storm — internal and external — grew distant.
You’d slipped down onto the mossy bank beside the koi pond, Nanami half-draped over you and his brutally thick and red-scratched arm tucked protectively around your waist, his nose buried in your hair. He hadn’t moved in forty minutes. Neither had you.
His heart beat slowed, no longer galloping in his chest.
You traced lazy circles over the back of his hand, eyes half-closed. His other hand was still between your thighs, not moving, cupping your mound to keep what remained of him inside.
Eventually you would have to get up. You’d both rinse yourselves with a hose, pluck twigs and moss from your hair, collect what remained of your scattered clothing and your dignity; you’d find your phone and pray it still worked and call it a successful mission.
But for now, you just let Nanami hold you and sleep. You didn’t rush morning, because with it would come reality, and you weren’t ready to return to it now that you’ve had this.
There were far worse ways to die than in the mouth of something that worshiped you while it devoured.
You finally felt like you’d lived.
The curse was declared Special Grade. Not Third, as the initial report had rather optimistically suggested.
That was the conclusion both you and Nanami landed on — unanimously, unceremoniously, and with the unblinking eye contact that told Yaga not to press for elaboration. He didn’t. You were both unsettlingly united in your silence, offering only the vaguest consensus: it had incited erratic, potentially dangerous behavior in anyone it touched, and any future encounter with it should be treated with the same level of caution one might reserve for radioactive waste or a ticking bomb.
And that it would be encountered again was the worst and most curious part. Because it refused to die.
You’d both woken that morning to find the ground littered with soft pink bulbs scattered in the grass around your naked bodies like obscene confetti. It had propagated. Not vanished like a curse should — burned away by the exorcism and dissolved into ash — but spread.
Spore-puffed and swaying gently in the breeze, those fuzzy seeds had taken root along the destruction wrought in yours and Nanami’s wake. Torn grass, split loam, splintered wood, the obscene clawed path your bodies had carved into the garden blossomed with pink witnesses while you slept.
It was concerning enough to require a cleanup team which, naturally, turned out to be you and Nanami again; the only two people with any experience with the thing, as if that were a badge and not a fucking warning label.
Nanami looked stone-carved through the whole meeting, posture rigid, jaw set. You still hadn’t even slept properly and it showed in the dark circles that bruised your eyes. Nanami only blinked back into motion when you offered, unequivocally, to go.
Yaga nodded, satisfied. You’d return to work in a week. Enough time for your supposed ‘sprained ankle’ to heal. Nanami walked behind you out of the room, far enough to appear casual, but close enough to your back to subtly shield the tender limp that still hobbled your gait.
“You got it worse than me,” you explained in the hall, already predicting and getting ahead of his dissatisfaction before he could voice it. “It makes sense. I’ll be careful.”
Nanami grunted. Not disagreement, but far from enthusiastic. You slowed your stride just enough to let him fall beside you instead of behind.
“I know you’re careful,” he said after a pause. And then after a longer one he continued, quieter. “I need you to come back.”
You blinked and glanced aside with a smile. “That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?”
“It’s not,” he insisted. “Not after that.”
The hall felt narrower somehow, or maybe you just walked closer together than before. Your shoulder brushed his, and neither of you shifted to make space.
“I’m fine,” you said. “We’re fine. We’ve been through worse, and I have a whole week off first—“
“That’s not the point.”
He stopped walking and gently touched your elbow, halting you beside him. His face was as stern as you’ve ever known it, but the concern was new. He was stern for you. You were a priority of his now.
“I know,” you smiled, soft and sweet. “But I think you know why it should be me.”
His tie was crooked. You reached out to fix it without thinking, fingers brushing the sliver of his throat and he didn’t flinch.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he said quietly.
“You’re right, you don’t have to like it,” you agreed. You dropped your hand and let your fingers graze his knuckles as you turned.
“But I’ll call you,” you grinned. “Even if I just stub my toe.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t stub anything.”
You snorted and kept walking ahead. “Then I’ll call when I’m done,” you said over your shoulder, “so you can pick me up yourself. Make sure I’m still in one piece.”
You heard him sigh and hearth-fire warmth fluttered in your belly at the sound. It was fond, you could tell the difference now. “Thank you,” he murmured when he caught up to you. “I’d appreciate that.”
He was like that now — trying not to hover or smother, even when everything in him clearly ached to. You figured he wasn’t above begging for it either if you denied him. You could see it in the way his muscles melted when you let him walk you home, how he lingered by your door like he was debating whether it would still be inappropriate to ask to come inside.
He still believed he had something to make up for, despite your insistence that he didn’t — none of it was his fault, he wasn’t himself. But you let him carry things for you so he wouldn’t combust with the instinct to provide, walk behind you on stairs, keep pace even when you were limping from the soreness between your thighs — no matter how pleasant you insisted you found it.
You let him show his affection by fireproofing your life. You didn’t think it was penance really, it was just Kento finally letting himself have something he wanted.
That thought was what warmed you now, even more than the midday sun hammering relentlessly through the greenhouse panels above and bleaching the once dark world in gold and glare. You could barely see — every exhale fogged your hazmat visor from the inside out with humid claustrophobic air.
You knelt anyway, slow and aching, fingers clumsy in your inch-thick gloves as you reached into the grass, plucking another bulb loose. It made no protest as you dropped it into the biohazard bin tucked under your arm where it joined twenty seven others.
You snapped the lid of the bin shut with a clean, hollow click. Twenty eight collected, and one cursed seed line severed. Satisfaction unspooled through your limbs, rivaling the unpleasant wet cling of your suit suctioned to every drenched inch of your skin like a second rubbery epidermis.
You peeled it down to your waist as you walked and tied the sleeves around your hips. The first lungful of real air hit like cold water, miles better than what you’d been cycling through for hours.
You’d combed every inch of the place as thoroughly as you could from top to bottom. You peered into every branch, nook, and under rocks, you crawled through shrubs and slogged through the pond, startling the fish inside.
It was done. Cleaned up, secured, and like nothing had even happened here.
Halfway down the main path, right where the pond reeds ended and parted into a low dip in the earth, you found the straggler.
Nestled in a shallow rut in the mulch, half curled beneath a dead leaf, was one last seed pod, the pink fuzz catching the sun like a guilty blush. Small, soft, stupidly innocent looking. A liar.
You plucked it gently like it might bruise and cradled it in your gloved palm. It didn’t pulse, didn’t glow or hum or do anything ominous. It just sat there, quiet and perfect and deceptively innocuous if not for the faintest crackle of cursed energy flickering in its core.
Of course, you knew better.
You’d spent the entire day retracing the path Nanami had taken you down while under the control of the seeds predecessor. The exact path in fact where he’d torn your pants and bent you over a lichen-covered bench. Where he’d fucked you against the side of a smooth gum tree that splintered under your palms. Where he’d dropped to his knees in the dirt and pulled you against his mouth and begged you to sit and almost wept when you did.
Every scuff in the dirt and broken branch and shred of cloth you found in your hunt made you blush.
It should’ve been a disaster. You were prepared to be mortified. Instead… You actually had fun.
The messy, reckless, potentially career-ending — kind of fun. The mud under your nails, bruises gone yellow in the shape of his hands, and a soreness you hadn’t walked off for three full days — kind of fun.
Laughter was plentiful in between — giddy and incredulous and feral from the high of it all, and when it was over, both of you returned to your rattled senses, stunned, and he’d pulled you close and told you the truth and you’d done the same. The flower had stripped you both naked and away from the boundaries you’d both clung to like cliff edges, but you came out better for it.
Someday it might grow into something monstrous, a supernatural biohazard just waiting to erupt and wreak havoc over whatever place it took root in.
But today, it was just a seed.
And you couldn’t resent the seed for making your life a little better.
You looked over your shoulder. The path behind you was empty, no Nanami, no higher-ups scanning you for signs of moral degradation.
You peeled open the seal on your suit pocket and slipped the pod inside.
You already had orchids, foxglove, ivy, a whole collection of unlikely survivors you’ve lovingly coaxed into life.
One more wouldn’t hurt.
Not if you were careful and kept it contained, and not if, someday, maybe you wanted to feel that way again.
The forecast was probably beautiful again.
You wouldn’t know for sure. You stopped checking.
The curtains were already open anyways, not by you, letting summer pour into the room like honey from a warm spoon. Light slid across the hardwood, touched the rug and kissed the walls. Your hoodie had more holes now, sleeves frayed to thready fringe, but was still soft and comforting even after too many washes. Your slippers had made it too — barely, and one had a flap that liked to catch on rug corners.
You misted your snake plant with one hand and stretched until you popped with the other. The ficus got its usual pat. The ivy, still greedy, still trying to colonize the bookshelf and currently strangling a decorative candle holder, got another threat. But you’re more bark than bite these days.
The deja vu hit you halfway through rotating your pothos.
Your eyes darted sideways to where your phone lay on the coffee table, face-down and silent. For a moment you expected it to vibrate that familiar circle across the woodgrain and jolt your heart like a defibrillator, forcing you to leap half-dressed into whatever fresh hell to which you’ve been
summoned.
But it didn’t, and you smiled.
The world would keep spinning — or not — with or without your permission. And you’d decided quite firmly that neither outcome was your responsibility today.
The front door clicked open behind you, keys jangling a second before quiet footsteps padded inside — their cadence as familiar as the thump of the leather shoes being toed off in the entryway.
“I thought we were out of coffee,” Nanami said by way of hello. “We were. And they just restocked the one you like.”
You didn’t turn, still misting but now with a wider smile. “You didn’t have to go all that way on my behalf.”
“I was awake.”
You heard the rustle of a bag, the clink of two cups and the familiar glide of his jacket being hung neatly on his hook.
Nanami passed behind you and pressed a kiss against your cheek. It still sent a spark down your spine like it was new.
“There’s dorayaki in the bag,” he said near your ear, enticing and flirtatious. “Don’t touch the one in foil. It’s mine.”
“Noted—”
“—and don’t lie about it this time—”
“I make no promises.”
He hummed and settled off to your left on the couch while you reached for the last pot.
It was cleaner than the others, the terracotta was still vivid, its surface clean and unmarred by scuffs or mineral streaks. The leaves were shy things, curled at the tips like closed hands, still young enough to be cautious.
But they were changing. When you touched them they shivered, unfurling just for you. The red had started softening already, bleeding out to
a more agreeable pink at the edges.
It took root faster than you expected. Stronger, too. You already had to re-pot it three times. It refused to be small.
But it would not outgrow this pot. You’d make sure of it.
Still, as you glanced up at Nanami, his legs crossed, glasses low on his nose, his attention half on the book in his hand and half on you, always, you smiled.
"my eyes are up here" prompt for nanami week day 1
w/c: 1.8k
content: no actual smut but I'm still gonna tag this as nsfw due to suggestive themes and crass language, therefore mdni; crack; tiddies™; reader wears a bra; reader is in a male dominated field with the objectification of our favorite corporate dropout's boobies;
nanami art: @/xiaoshy_otp on x; divider: @strangergraphics
You'd never jeopardize your professional relationship by displaying obvious signs of attraction, but, objectively speaking, Nanami Kento was a very handsome man. Even Ino could corroborate your thesis. In fact, Nanami's apprentice is always more than happy to express his admiration for said man in any and all departments.
That being said, nobody could blame you if your eyes kept wandering down throughout his speech every time he so much as breathed in. It's not your fault that his shirt stretched obscenely over his chest, revealing glimpses of deliciously tan skin through buttons that seemed to be fighting for their lives under the strain.
You licked your dry lips, fire burning in the pit of your stomach, your brain conjuring the wildest scenarios, some of which the blue shirt would simply burst open, buttons flying everywhere... Your fingers twitched aimlessly at your side with the strong pull of just reaching out and squeezing his pecs - you had a feeling the sensation would be heavenly, brain chemistry altering, a life-changing experience.
"... have you been listening to a single word of what I just said?" his stern tone brought you out of your daydream, eyes flying up to meet his golden eyes already set on you in a reproving glare worthy of a disappointed parent. You automatically shrank on your seat, shoulders hunching in to appear smaller.
"Hmm?" you went for the innocent look, wide eyes glancing at him from underneath your lashes.
Nanami clenched his jaw before sighing dejectedly, fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose to fight off the incoming migraine of dealing with another undisciplined sorcerer.
"I understand this is a very tedious subject to you, but I need your attention right now. Let's not make this longer than it needs to be, so we can both move on with our lives."
Logically, he stood absolutely correct: it was crucial to absorb all the information Nanami had been spewing at you if you hoped to survive. You truly wanted to be dutiful and actually listen to his debrief… but then he crossed his arms and you were doomed.
Those things were contradicting every single law of physics. How was it even possible for those knockers to stay confined within the fabric when he squeezed them together like that? It shouldn't be possible for a man to have such a large chest.
"Hmhmm," you nodded, completely incapable of listening to a single word but still pretending to the best of your ability.
Not even ten seconds had passed, and the words died on his throat at the realization that he had, once again, lost you. Nanami called your name, exasperation pouring from his every pore. His tone only added fuel to your unholy thoughts. The fact that Nanami not only owned a huge pair of bazookas, but also a deep raspy voice that was the perfect mix of alluring and commanding was unfair for the remainder of the male specimens.
"Yes?" Your response came out mindlessly, gaze still lost in the expanse of his chest.
"My eyes are up here."
That's what it took to get you out of your own head, his words finally seeming to reach some point of your consciousness. Your entire body went rigid, a shiver running down your spine upon the sheer humiliation of being caught ogling your colleague, with whom you were supposed to maintain a respectful relationship.
Your lips parted, but no words came out. For all of the excuses you had conjured in your head before now, all of them seemed to have vanished. Finally, some resemblance of rationality reached your spaced-out brain as you floundered an explanation:
"I k-know! Lovely eyes, by the way. I just- I couldn't really help myself," you bit your lip, trying your best to not let your eyes roam, "it's- the shirt!" You blurted eventually.
Kento glanced down at his own shirt, brows furrowing in confusion, "what about the shirt? Is it dirty? buttoned up wrong, perhaps?"
"No! It's perfect, pristine even, as usual. Lovely shade of blue, brings out your eyes and hair really," you rambled on, hoping to escape the awkwardness that would certainly follow if you revealed your actual reasoning.
"And that warranted your gawking...?"
You averted your gaze to the floor, fixating on a suspicious-looking stain on the wooden boards.
"Not... exactly. It's not really the shirt, more so your chest?"
"My chest?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Nanami! Do I have to spell it? Yes, your goddamn titties have been staring me in the face for the past twenty minutes and you expect me not to gawk?"
"I don't have-"
"Yes, you do! You have huge bazookas, weapons of mass destruction, if you will. So buff, your shirt is nearly bursting at the seams, and the buttons are holding on by a flat-out miracle. Those huge fucking melons and I'm the one who has to wear a bra!"
The redness in Nanami's face spread more and more with each word coming out of your mouth, reaching the tips of his ears and rushing down to his chest.
"I apologize for causing such a distraction, I think."
"Are you kidding me?! I've literally been peeping at you when you're just trying to do your job! I'm the one who owes you an apology! It's not your fault your work at the gym has been paying off... or maybe you've just lucked out on the genetics lottery and bought a shirt one size too small and my tiny, stupid bird brain cannot handle the sight," you babbled until you saw Nanami's shoes step into your vision field. You hadn't even realized he had gotten up and around his desk so he could approach.
Your eyes flew up to meet his, avoiding stopping anywhere near his chest.
"I have been working out more often lately," he mentioned casually.
"See!" You waved one hand widely, gesturing to his large pectoral muscles, "and it shows! Beautifully, may I add."
"Thank you. I guess."
"You're welcome! Maybe consider investing in some new shirts in a bigger size," you suggested, immediately wincing at your own boldness.
"I will." Kento declared to appease your nerves and then paused, eyes searching your face, "while on the subject, let me tell you that you do not have a 'stupid bird brain'."
"Only tiny?" You questioned teasingly, glad to see how easily he seemed to be taking your lack of professionalism and using his breech to make the atmosphere lighter.
"No. Not that, either," he smiled and you could've sworn there was a playful glint to his honey colored eyes, "easily distracted, but not tiny. You tend to be very intelligent when it matters."
"That's a really big compliment coming from Mister 7:3 sorcerer."
Nanami chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "It's the truth."
There was a halt in the conversation, which you should have used to steer away from the gauche topic, yet you just had to further embarrass yourself:
"Since we're being honest and putting our cards on the table, can I make a teensy tiny request?" You rushed to give him an out, "feel free to deny it, by the way!"
"Go ahead," Nanami nodded once, curious.
"May I touch them?" Your voice came out meek, almost a whisper, but still loud enough for the blond man to hear.
"You want to... touch-"
"You're right. I'm sorry. That was too much." You cut him off, desperate to save what little dignity you still had (if you even had any).
"I'll admit, your request took me by surprise. Will-" he cleared his throat, "will touching them help you regain your focus?"
"Absolutely!" You nodded vigorously, perking up at the notion that your dream might come true after all.
You jumped up from your seat, restraining yourself from actively bouncing from joy so as to not spook Nanami with your eagerness lest he change his mind.
"So, how do we-"
He had barely started when your hands had already reached for his pecs, one around each mound.
"Holy- How are they soft but firm at the same time?! This is incredible," you giggled before squeezing them twice for good measure.
"Muscle can appear supple unless flexed," Nanami explained matter-of-factly. His pragmatic response was misleading, though. If it wasn't for the deep flush permeating his skin and his sharp intake of air, you would have guessed he was wholly unbothered by the situation.
"Can you-"
You squealed in delight when he flexed before you even finished asking. You took a deep breath, letting your hands fall to your sides and throwing a bright smile his way.
"Did you get your fill?"
"I did," you stepped back, hands tightly clasped together behind you. "Thank you."
"Alright. Now that we've got that out of the way," Kento stopped on his tracks, noting just where your gaze zoned right back in to. "You said you would focus."
"Yeah. That was a complete lie. I don't think my brain will ever function properly again after this experience. It's all I can think about."
You knew Nanami was tired of your antics by then, but you still had quite a bit to say:
"You know what's incredible? That not only do you have these massive jugs, a tiny waist, and a perfectly round and perky tush, but you're also respectable, kind, and generous enough to let a mere peasant such as myself hold them." You paused briefly, shrugging before adding, "I just wanna bury my face in your chest. I feel like that would fix all of my problems."
You did it. Nanami was permanently scarred. That's the only plausible explanation for the face you were seeing. His parted lips, impossibly pink ears, and wide eyes were a novelty to you when compared to his usual stoic and unmoving facade.
"Now it was too much," you concluded.
Kento shook his head, "we have work to do right now, but if you manage to refocus on our business so we can finish this debrief, I promise you can touch to your heart's content."
"For real?"
"Very much so. You can even 'bury your face in my chest' if you want." Nanami's eyes followed the curves of your body down to your feet and back up to your own, his gaze darkening, "as long as I get to touch back, that is."
"Excuse me?" Your jaw dropped, molten heat rushing through your veins.
"Forgive me if I'm being too forward, but you have been showering me with compliments all evening. What if I wanted to return the favor? It's only fair."
Maybe there are some perks to letting go of your filter every once in while...
a/n: look who's back after literal months of unannounced hiatus? Not really, though. I don't know if I'll even submit anything for the other days of Nanami week, but the prompt for day one did give me a burst of inspiration I haven't felt in a long time, so you have this short piece.
🌺 synopsis: while in kuantan for your husband's birthday, you two escape and share a passionate rendezvous behind a waterfall, and realize you're ready to create a family while you're there. 💕
🌺words: 3.7k
🌺cw: MINORS DNI, long hair implied on reader, smut(p in v), missionary, lotus, creampie, breeding, family planning, talk of birth control, oral f receiving, fingering, little rough at the end, light angst, cheesy fluff
🌺a/n: day 2 of my Nanami week, my NSFW entry for the prompt creampie. 🙂↕️💕 thank you so much again for having me. @/nanamiweek . More Kento goodness on the way as the celebration goes on all week. 😏😏💕💕 sparkle dividers: @/anitalenia . seashells: @/saradika-graphics
🌺 my nanami week masterlist
The glow of paradise stares back at your reflection in the full length mirror as you get ready.
Kuantan is peaceful this afternoon. Distant cries of seagulls can barely be heard over the rush of pale blue waves kissed by seafoam as it caresses nature's shoreline with scarce a soul in sight.
The villa is quiet, save for the gentle whirring from the ceiling fan that accompanies the mild breeze that flutters the cream curtains blaring with sunlight, the wafting of driftwood coconut, warmed sand, jasmine and sex from the bed that had been messy just hours before.
Kento watches you, lust at bay but desire ever present as you dress your naked body in your bikini, mesmerized as the soft straps of blue cloth carefully cover all the areas he strategically marked with his mouth over the course of your stay.
The muted blue against your complexion seriously contends with the sea outside, he thinks.
You clip your hair up, and a scarred finger with a white gold ring adorning the hand attached catches a loose strand, letting it fall as the tips of his fingers barely brush your cheek.
"You're a vision, my love." He utters the title like it's holy, yet it barely encapsulates the justice it owes you as his hands come to replace your own at the straps of your bikini.
His greed barely keeps him from unraveling the progress of your handiwork, and the bed that was just made, but his hands remain reverent as they secure the strings in a knot, soaking up as much softness that your barely concealed skin offers as they linger at your back.
"Ready?" He murmurs. His chestnut eye, roaming over you until he lingers on the colorful scarf draped across your hip as it wraps you like a gift.
"Ready, sweetheart."
----
The spot he had in mind is completely empty, much to both your delight. You smile each at each other as you sneak away like teenagers in love.
You might as well be young in this place that bottled you in a capsule where time has no bearing, full of nothing but each other, the infinite rays of glimmering sun, and the boundless waves of the eternal sea.
The rainforest is lush and alive with the heart of birdsong and chattering wildlife hidden away in palm leaves. The humidity blesses your skin and allows your hair to fall like a halo, more wisps framing your face like an angel.
The smell of petrichor here is unique from the kind back home and mixes with the orchids that sprinkle the ground in colorful bursts of white and pink, a stray hibiscus he picks up and weaves into your hair.
"Why thank you, sweetheart."
"Of course. They suit you."
He tugs you deeper into the trees, one where the dark canopy of leaves shields prying eyes from view, almost completely tucked out of sight in an unmarked path.
The overgrown vines suggest that this path hasn't been navigated for some time, the rocks lining it covered in a healthy coat of green moss, flowers budding as nature ran rampant between any spare cracks.
Finally you see it, a small falls within distance, two streams of dribbling water running in a cascade between two large rocks.
In front of you is a crystal clear pool, a few koi fish you can pick out in their hues of tangerine and white, the surface scattered in lily pads with blossoms that would promise to open when the crescent moon rose higher in the sky to replace the sun from behind the fluffy clouds.
"This is absolutely stunning." You marvel and look at Kento. "How've we never been here before?"
"Wanted to save it for a special occasion." Kento replies modestly.
His birthday was two days ago, but today does seem to hold a weight more special than the others, although you can't exactly place what it is.
Still, you smiled and shedded your flip flops, leaving them near the rocks.
Kento enters the water first, shirt and eyepatch discarded by his sandals on the rocks next to yours, the ripples flowing away from his body, the scarred muscles easing of all tension with every step he takes, a beautiful sight blessing you as he leans his head back for a moment, releasing a sigh.
He turns around, offering you a smile first, and then his hand.
"It's the perfect temperature."
His thumb swipes across your knuckles and his lips open slightly with a shuddered breath as the green sarong slinks away from your body like a leaf being peeled back from a budding flower, leaving your lower half bare except the small pair of swim bottoms which he indulgently recalled left much to be admired in the back with your beautiful ass.
He guides you in front of him, stealing a look at it and you're reminded of his presence on all accounts as he keeps his hands in their frequented spot on the small of your back, your bare skin a privilege to feel he never takes for granted.
The water is warm, just like he promised, but he feels even warmer. The front of his chest tickles the delicate planes of your back where goosebumps start to appear, the faint trickle of water dissolving into a chill up your spine, but in the very best way as Kento's fingers dance up and down your arms.
You close your eyes, listening to the symphony of cicadas, the calling of birds in the veils of leaves overhead, the impatient rustle of palms in the wind, and cacophony of rushing water.
You're the only two people breathing in this moment.
He's the only one you want to feel for the rest of your life, he's a vow you will never grow tired of making, a soul inside a body you'll never lose fire for making love to.
You exhale as you feel the warmth of the wetness of his palms all over your breasts.
"Oh, Kento..."
The tranquility of the water is enough to distract you from the dull soreness of the blooming hickeys he left on your nipples as he rubs and strokes your pussy through your bikini.
"You're so beautiful." He whispers as he nips your ear, tongue flicking past the small diamond stud as he massages your right tit with his free hand.
"I love what the water does to your skin."
He gently swirls his thumb around your nipple through the soaked fabric, loving how pointy it gets underneath his touch.
"Makes you so soft and responsive when I touch you."
He grips your pussy in his palm as your eyes roll back.
"Ken, will someone-"
"Nobody will see." He whispers. "We're quite safe here."
His hand moves from your pussy, skimming the soft skin of your belly to play with your left breast, joining the right in a slow, sensual massage.
"Relax. And let yourself focus on the pleasure." His breathing slows as he lets your head rest against his chest, softly twisting and rubbing your breasts while the water trickles down the rocks.
"Mmpphh, Kento. So good..."
"Mm...And you were so good to me this morning, I had to repay the favor."
He holds back a groan as his fingers on your nipples knead in such a way that makes you arch your back.
"You sounded so angelic. Just like you are right now." He murmurs.
Your hand wanders back, feeling up the large bulge between his legs and he shudders as he impossibly hardens under the soaking fabric, feeling it hotly pulse and move underneath your hand.
He spins you around and captures you in a kiss that starts out rushed, but quickly slows. You ground one another in this natural spring, the dance of the water, the breeze between the trees, the beauty of the mangroves.
His mouth is so soft and pliant. You lick greedily into it while his hands resume their chasteful spot for now on your back.
You pause, and pull away, holding the moment in a playful tease over his head with that gorgeous smile on your face, leading him to the small waterfall.
"Wanna keep exploring."
He smiles, left a little breathless with his cheeks blooming a heavenly pink as he nods at you in return.
"Lead the way."
You bob in the water until your feet can't touch, dog paddling and giggling as the waterfall douses both of your hair as you pass underneath.
Behind the waterfall is a small alcove, with more budding bushes of tropical flowers. It's quiet except for the rushing water, shielded by the rocks, the curtain of the waterfall affording you more privacy in the secluded space.
You turn to him and his lips are immediately on you again, an ember of craving noticeably more desperate than before. Your body is slippery against his as he gently reclines you back, catching your head without departing your lips as he kisses you ardently in the small waterfall cave.
Your bodies are so slippery, but softened by the water, the tensions heightened from being locked inside the seclusion of nature that skyrocketed your hunger for one another into something deeply primal and passionate.
He moans into your mouth and you moan back, half a prayer and half a plea of his name, which he answers swiftly with a wandering hand to your soaking bottoms.
You follow him, sitting up as you allow the bikini strings at your back to unravel in tandem, freeing your breasts completely, beaded in droplets like kisses from the water, nipples bumpy and hard as they greet the cool air of the cave.
You look up at him with water-sprinkled eyelashes. His hair is dripping and hanging in that endearing mop of blond bangs by his eye, lean muscles tensioning and relaxing with his mosaic of scars he wore without shame under the soothing reassurance of your love, thin lips parted, cheeks brought out with a pink fluster only you could ignite.
He's absolutely divine like this, although he treats you like you were the celestial one.
His hand roams down your belly, pausing as he gently pulled away your swim bottoms. The fact that you were completely naked in this cave makes you feel so open. You become a pornographic vision to bless his memory with unceasing repetition later on as your wet hair falls back.
He keeps his gaze on you, his face leaning down, jaw coaxing the plush meat of your thigh before his lips kiss it, the left, followed by the right.
"Ken..."
"Let me take my time." He inhales close to your sex, the coat of wetness mixed with the earth warms him all over and his knuckles turn white as he grips your hips.
"God, you're so..." He mumbles, words failing him as soon he takes in all of you underneath him.
Sometimes you wonder why he was the one that was so whipped with worship, when every moment for you was spent in the complete opposite.
You've done this so many times but he treats every one like it's the first. He licks slow, the smooth ridges of your folds bending over his warm tongue and he laps until he settles on that gentle rhythm that makes you cant your hips.
"Kento..."
The sounds he can derive out of your pretty lips every time he slides between your legs drives him insane. He can't describe your taste that always has him throbbing for seconds. It's warm and earthy, and it runs like buttery silk.
"You always taste so perfect." He coos, raising your soaking offering even closer to his face.
He loves giving, but he loves watching you receive even more.
"I adore seeing you like this..." He murmurs. "Is it too possessive of me to say that it feels like you're mine when you moan that way?"
"N-no..." You manage to shudder out. "I'm yours, Kento."
"God, say it again? Please?" He whispers, his voice tinged with hope.
Your heart breaks a little knowing the implications behind it, that whisper of doubt etched in his physical and emotional imperfections that he long believed made him unworthy.
"I am yours. I love you so much, Kento Nanami." You whisper with the absolution of lust, chiseled with the resolution of unshakeable truth that's immortalized in the quiet bubble surrounding you.
It's one that you couldn't change, even if you wanted to that surpassed every wordly connection that could be forged in this lifetime. Rather, it was one that resembled something ancient, out of reach, older than stars and it was only in intimate dealings like this that cemented just how clear it was;
"You're scored on my soul." You murmur, whining as he breaks away but not pausing your pleasure as he rubs your clit with his fingers, pressing his forehead against your own.
"I'll spend every lifetime reminding you if I need to. I don't mind, and it's an honor to." Your vow is whispered that tapers into a moan as he curls his fingers against that magical spot.
"You're so beautiful to me, fuck, ohhh my God, you're everything to me...." You continue with difficulty under the strain of your orgasm that was bearing down on you like a shadow.
Every word sinks into bone, into flesh. It's sacred simply because you said it and it's something he'll carry with him long after he departs this earth and use it to find and recognize you in the next.
"And you're mine..." He whispers back. "More than I can give words to. Every moment I spent on regret over the life I gave up before you entered it, I'll pay back loving you."
"Oh, Kento...think I'm going to cum..."
"Are you, sweet thing?" He purrs. "Let me help you even more."
He returns to drinking you like a fountain, his lips slurping up your pearly essence, working and laving his tongue in torturous strokes, dipping into the flowing oasis of honey from your pussy like an ink pen to write a love letter with his tongue, the salt and heat from your natural musk causing all rational thoughts to vacate even before their conception.
"Give me your cock, Kento." You moan. "Fuck, please. Don't wanna cum unless you're inside me."
Kento sighs as his balls wind in a vice. "You told me you didn't take your birth control earlier, love."
"I know but fuck, oh my God... I changed my mind."
Something between a growl and a groan rumbles in his throat. Your words alone weren't helping, and if you're implying what he thinks you are...
"Are you saying that to tease me, or do you really mean it?"
"I mean it, Kento. I don't want to try to prevent anything anymore..."
"You..."
"I'm ready, darling." You pant. "I'm ready if you are. Fuck fuck...I, mmmm....I'm not necessarily expecting it to work but I want to see how things go..."
Kento cups your face in his hands. He looks at you. Tears were all but rare for him, and you're amazed as you look back at him to discover wetness building around the rims that was separate from the waterfall.
"Ken?"
"You don't understand what that does to me. I'm excited, happy, emotional...a lot of things at once." He utters.
You understand. You understand what a road it has been for him. A lifetime ago, the things he had endured were so severe he shouldn't have walked away from them, but now...
Now he's free to a lifetime of you. An existence of affirming that fate wasn't done with him despite what little belief he had in it. That rain could be a beautiful thing. An unexpected thing, that delivered him to you.
"We'll try." He whispers. "We'll try. Nothing changes in spite of what might happen. But you tell me at any time if you feel differently?"
"I'm ready." You breathe and the words hit him like deliverance, and he enters heaven as he slowly enters you.
Your bottoms are now completely discarded, both of you completely naked behind the sanctuary of the falls. You hold onto his shoulders and he cradles you before he's sheathed inside with care. There's slight resistance due to his size, and he brings his thumb to your clit, rubbing you and taking another nipple in his mouth to soothe the stretch.
The feeling is warm where you're connected and so utterly full. The chill of the cave prompts him to slowly roll his hips inside you to keep you both moving. The slick builds with every thrust, both of your mouths fall open, wider and wider.
You've had some incredible moments during intimacy with Kento, but none quite like this.
None in a beautiful place tucked inside a corner of nature that should have stayed an apparation behind your eyelids, the deeper meaning extended way beyond lovemaking and translated with the intention of creating a life.
It's like he's pouring into you as his gaze doesn't depart you the entire time. Like he needs to impart every moment of this possible conception to his memory because it was one he wasn't sure the stars would ever permit him to see, reaffirming that he is indeed here. With you. Inside you. Passionately loving you in his idea of a dream vacation.
His strokes build in intensity the longer he stays inside you. It's smooth, and deliberate. The ease of how he slides out and the fullness of him pushing back in is almost too good. He's holding back his noises and using all his focus to look at you, the water droplets that are still clinging to your breasts, the diamond necklace in the center that sways so satisfyingly with every passionate jut of his hips.
You get him to give in just a little as you clench him just before he tries to withdraw his cock. His eye rolls back and you chuckle, biting your lip as you do it again, clenching him even harder the next time, then pulsing your pussy in a dizzying rhythm against his shaft, again, and again.
"Darling..." Kento exhales as he thrusts back, trying to keep his control.
"At least let me enjoy you for a moment." He groans.
"I'm just helping."
"You're...fuck. You're exacerbating. Not helping." He murmurs, kissing your jaw to speak directly in your ear, punishing you with a harsh thrust after every sentence.
"You know exactly—thrust—where to squeeze around me —thrust— and I don't intend on this fuck, this moment to be over so quickly."—thrust, thrust, thrust"
"Kento! Mnhhhh...."
"Please." He murmurs with a sigh, before slowing down slightly, pausing with himself still completely inside as he fills the silence with a deep, passionate kiss, the slick noise of your lips parting softly as he keeps his forehead pressed to yours, his thumb barely brushing the underside of your cheek.
"If you must take everything from me. Then at least let me have this first. Just for a moment."
"...Okay." You whisper and he hums before he kisses you again without letting you speak another word.
You stay like that for a long time in your passionate exchange of intense tongue kissing, knotted and tangled up on the floor of the cave, his fingers thumbing your nipples, cock occasionally twitching inside you against the deep warmth of your walls that held him tight whenever you moaned prettily into his mouth.
By now, though, you're dying for friction, and it seems like he's in no rush. You're not sure which is making you feel more aroused, feeling his soft mouth and lips moving against yours, the wet roll of his tongue and nips of his teeth, or the fact that he wanted to prolong this more than you did, merely staying with you, the simple act of being inside you that felt much more intimate than it should.
The thought of it only begs for him to fuck and breed you that much harder.
You're not sure how it resumed, whether he had enough of you squeezing around him or whether it was despite the fact his tongue was down your throat you managed to prioritize uttering his name, but now he's pounding into you, hard.
His pretty face shifts from pink to red, almost as deep a color as the scarred half of him, holding your hips tightly as he essentially fucked you in his lap to spare you from the rocky floor of the cave.
You're sweating too. You stabilize yourself on his shoulders, gazing in his eyes, not holding back the mantra of his name that was begging to be released from your mouth and you let him have all of it.
He yanks you into him and you hold him like a lifeline, a warm flood of cum dribbles out of his tip.
You seize and clench around him to keep all of it in, his lips against your pulse, sweat glistening in the afterglow as the waterfall trickled in front of you without pause.
He slowly lays you down, keeping himself inside, kissing you as your back meets the ground, keeping his hand behind your head as a pillow.
He groans, and lets his exhaustion allow his head to flop forward, finding sanctuary in your neck as you stayed connected.
The silence hangs as the song of the rainforest continues. You might have conceived your first child and you're not sure that fact sank in completely.
Whatever transpires from this, you don't regret the moments you shared that led to it.
Kento slowly pulls out and he sinks his ring finger in, all the way to the band, a bead of cum trickles around the diamond as he can only pray his seed will take, giving you a smile and a sweet little kiss as he begins to slowly pump against your g spot to make sure you get your happy ending too before you leave the cave.
The packet of your birth control that stayed on the dresser back at the villa would go to waste.
But, worst case, you still had more than a week of vacation left to get creative.
s/o to kento's mother who was probably eating dates and pineapple and walking on curbs this day 35 years ago. 🫶🏽💕 she did that. 🙂↕️💕
Written for the prompt 'Tie' for Nanami Week 2025!
Synopsis: [Nanami x Assistant Manager Reader] Simple gestures of kindness, a can of coffee, an undone shoelace and a broken air-conditioning unit on a sweltering day ... such are the many threads that enmesh your life with Nanami's.
Contents: Romance, humour, fluff, explicit sexual content.
WC: 7817
Dividers by: @hyuneskkami
Waterfall
Don't ever change your ways
Fall with me for a million days
~ 'May this be Love' - Jimi Hendrix
Spring was, supposedly, a season of blossoming change.
All across the grounds of Jujutsu Tech, along the weathered walls that transitioned to clean, modern lines, among the flower beds that burst into a full-throated roar of colour, change was imminent.
Gojo took to wearing light shirts that showed off his enviable physique, vivid hues sometimes evident in the frames of his sunglasses. Shoko started to buy new potted plants which never survived beyond the first three weeks in the morgue.
Ijichi downloaded dating apps which he surreptitiously flicked through on his lunch break, deleting them almost by reflex if anyone called him out.
The students were often sighted out and about in town, trying out new cafes and shopping spots.
You developed hay fever.
Your role as an assistant manager for the last four years had prepared you well enough for the onslaught that came with the change of season. Your desk, your vehicle, the lunch area where you preferred to take your breaks, were all supplied with a discreetly placed box of tissues. Your allergy medication was never far away, either in your bag or in the desk drawer.
On that particular morning, you’d settled into place at your workstation, ready to handle the month’s caseload in a series of spreadsheets that would give anyone a headache, hay fever or not.
Since you’d arrived early, you were able to work in relative peace for an hour. The buzz of conversation began to sound from the canteen nearby, the smell of coffee filtering through to your office, as breakfast was served to hungry, waiting students.
At nine o’ clock, precisely, there was a firm knock at the office door.
A tall man in a tan business suit strode in, stopping before your desk.
You scrambled to your feet. You hadn’t heard anything about a new assistant manager –
“Nanami Kento. Reporting for duty. I was told that you would be able to guide me on the paperwork I’d need to complete to take on missions in the field.”
A sorcerer?
Returning his stiff bow, you cleared your throat and made your introduction. You now had a sudden recollection of Gojo re-recruiting someone who’d cut ties with Jujutsu Tech a while back.
You hadn’t thought he’d actually show up.
“Of course, Mister Nanami. Give me a moment?”
He nodded gravely, seating himself on the chair opposite your desk.
As you printed the necessary documents, you were able to shoot a glance or two his way.
The suit was tailored to perfection, sitting with regal elegance over broad shoulders and tapered waist. His brown leather brogues were polished to high shine, a handkerchief folded with origami-like perfection in his breast pocket and a Tag Heuer watch, that probably cost more than a couple months’ worth of your salary, encircling one sinewy wrist. His collar was pinned down, barely a crease visible anywhere, a unique pair of shades perched on the bridge of his nose.
He was very handsome; that was undeniable, but not in an approachable fashion. Everything about Mister Nanami spoke of brisk, detached professionalism.
You shuffled the forms together in the correct order, placing them before him.
“Take your time. These will have to be approved by the committee, so you won’t be able to take on missions immediately. Would you like a pen? I have one here, somewhere - ”
“No need. I’ve brought my own.”
Of course he had.
You set your black biro down with a soft clack while he fished an expensive fountain pen out of a small case and tapped the stack of forms once more, straightening them further.
He made no intermittent conversation, the eyes concealed behind those shades bent towards the paperwork with unflagging focus. If the silence that followed was awkward, you were sure that you were the only one who thought so.
You turned back to your spreadsheets, starting to type before you realised how loud the pressing of the keys sounded in the silence. Nanami made no comment, but your fingers eventually stilled, leaving you to stare at your screen in silence.
In the quiet of the office, you felt your nose begin to itch.
No, no, no, no. Not now.
With supreme effort, you suppressed the urge. A sudden thought striking you, you stood, murmuring a faint apology to Nanami. He gave a small nod, barely glancing in your direction.
All the better.
You accelerated once you were out in the hallway, making your way to the break room not far away. Thighs colliding with the table in your haste, you snatched up some tissues before sneezing with force into them.
The relief knocked the wind from your sails.
Sighing, you wiped thoroughly before discarding the tissues in a nearby waste basket.
The vending machine caught your eye, along with a memory of your first nerve-wracking day at the tech. Ijichi had been a lifesaver, helping you organise the overwhelming set of tasks, buying you a coffee to give you that energy boost to get through the day.
Without much thought, you fished some change out of your pocket and purchased a black coffee, carrying it back to the office with you.
Nanami looked up when you entered, and you offered him the can.
“Here. A little something to make your first day more bearable.”
He took the can from you slowly, as if he weren’t accustomed to such gestures, and set it down on the table beside the now-complete paperwork.
“I’m done here.”
“Ah! Already? Wow, and it’s done perfectly too. Mister Gojo really could take a leaf out of your book.”
Nanami shifted slightly on his chair, propping up his glasses.
“You mean his paperwork is not up to standard?”
“Not at all. Often incomplete. Sometimes with suspicious and sticky stains.”
“I’ll have a chat with him about this.”
You’d never heard anyone sound more like a Responsible Adult. Gojo had better watch himself.
Grinning, you checked Nanami’s forms to ensure that everything was in order. His handwriting was impeccable, which didn’t surprise you in the slightest. Sealing it away in a manila envelope, you placed your palms flat on the surface of the table.
“Well, that’s it. I’ll hand these over for approval and you should receive your official permit tomorrow.”
He rose swiftly, heading for the door before pausing.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
“No problem!”
Your chest deflated as he passed into the corridor outside.
If you’d sneezed all over him, you’d never have forgiven yourself.
Over the next month, you spotted Nanami frequently on campus.
His appearance on that first day set the tone for all subsequent encounters.
Always perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place, his greetings polite and cordial. He was the model employee in every sense and seemed to expect the same from his colleagues.
Jujutsu sorcerers, as you well knew, were a chaotic lot, with a number of unresolved issues and unhealthy coping mechanisms. If Nanami possessed the same, he kept it well-hidden, a thought that made you even more curious about him.
You, however, had many pressing responsibilities (and allergies) to attend to, and reassured yourself with the thought that someone as level-headed as Nanami probably had his affairs in much better order than you did.
So, it came as something of a surprise when you entered your office one Tuesday evening to see an exceptionally tired and bedraggled Nanami waiting for you there.
His appearance was such a surprise that you hesitated for a moment before coming forward.
“Mister Nanami?”
“Ah. You’re here.”
As much as he attempted to maintain the polite and neutral tone, his voice was hoarse with exhaustion, his suit worse for wear with numerous tears and smudges, dirt-streaked blonde hair slowly falling away from its distinctive style.
You hurried forward and grabbed a small package of wet wipes from your desk drawer, handing them over to him.
“Rough day?”
Nanami didn’t answer immediately, instead opting to tug a wipe from the packet. He unclipped the shades from the bridge of his nose, leaving a rather sore-looking red ridge where something had evidently struck the frames into the tender skin there.
You waited as he took a moment to clean his face before he regarded you across the table, gaze steady and compelling, despite the bruising the removal of grime had revealed.
Oh.
What pretty eyes he had.
Banish the traitorous thought as you might, there was no denying that this revelation was a significant one.
Long-lashed, clear and sharp-cornered, flecked with refractive sage in the soft light of your desk lamp, his eyes presented a whole new facet to his face, transforming the harshly impersonal to something chiselled and enigmatic, melancholy even.
Nanami was speaking into the anticipatory silence.
“You could say that. Yes, it was rough. I came to file a damaged property report. A vehicle belonging to the Tech has been destroyed.”
There was no need to ask for the grim details. His mission record would reach someone’s desk, perhaps yours, and the entire sequence of events in clinical, precise re-telling, would be laid out there.
No, what he needed now was –
Pulling a blank paper pad towards you, you clicked your ballpoint.
“Give me the registration number.”
“Wouldn’t I have to fill that out myself?”
“No need. These property damage forms are old news around here. I can fill them for you. Just drop by tomorrow morning. You can check that everything is in order and sign off.”
To your surprise, some unknown emotion briefly contorted his features before he pinched at the skin between his brows.
“Hmm. That’s … rather irregular, but – “
Averting your glance, you allowed him to sit with whatever it was he was processing, with some measure of privacy.
Your voice was gentle when you spoke next, surprising even you.
“Go home and get some rest, Nanami. You’ve done more than enough for today.”
The sound of chair legs scraping across the tiled floor reached your ears before you heard slow, steady footsteps make their way to the door.
He paused in the entryway again, arousing a sense of déjà vu.
“Thank you.”
The same words as those he’d spoken on your first meeting, but with an entirely different intonation.
When he left, you found that you were smiling.
It could have been your imagination, but something changed in Nanami’s interactions with you after the incident in your office.
You’d half expected him to withdraw, as that seemed to be part and parcel of his practical, professional nature. Maybe he’d be embarrassed by that show of vulnerability, the fact that he’d accepted an offer of kindness.
Instead, Nanami greeted you with a little more warmth, so subtle as to be unnoticeable to anyone who wasn’t watching for it. Sometimes, you would find items on your table that had not been there before; a can of coffee, a new pen (of a better brand than the one you used) and once, a keychain in the shape of a small penguin with a green bowtie.
You couldn’t be certain that Nanami was responsible for any of these gifts, but the can of coffee was a dead giveaway. He’d also looked rather pleased when he’d spotted the penguin attached to the strap of your bag.
If anything, this new side to Nanami instilled an even greater desire to know more about him.
An opportunity presented itself not long after.
You’d been on an intel run that morning, monitoring curse activity in an old warehouse. There was now enough data to compile the parameters of a mission to be forwarded to Ijichi for a final check.
Pulling up into the Tech carpark, you noted Nanami exiting another vehicle, a frown etched deep on his brow. There was a rather rumpled package tucked under one of his arms.
You climbed out, locked your vehicle and hailed him. His brow cleared, if only momentarily, and he approached.
“Good afternoon.”
Formal as ever.
“Hello, Mister Nanami. Just got back from some recon and I’m starving. Think the café has a special on for egg salad sandwiches.” You rubbed your hands together in cheerful anticipation. “You fancy one too?”
He nodded before hesitating.
“I was … actually, could you assist me with something?”
“Sure.”
You sobered immediately. If Nanami was asking for help again, it must be serious business.
He produced the package from under his arm, the paper rustling slightly.
“It’s the birthday of one of my students today. Itadori Yuuji.”
You nodded. Most of the staff were familiar with the friendly teenager, his boisterous voice echoing across to your office from the canteen, more often than not.
“Is that his gift you’ve got there?”
“Yes. But there’s been an accident. I picked it up between missions and … the packaging was damaged.”
“Ah, so that’s why it looks like that. I just thought your wrapping skills needed some work.”
Nanami mouth twitched in irritation, and you bit back a smile.
“I’m not that bad at presenting gifts. I wondered if you might have something I could use to fix this?”
“I’ve got just the thing. Let’s swing by my office.”
Once you reached there, you rummaged about in a cabinet, digging out some wrapping paper and ribbons you had stored somewhere at the back, a remnant from some other time. The paper would still be fine, as it was sealed in a cellophane roll.
Nanami removed the damaged wrapping, placing the gift carefully on the tabletop. You noted that he’d purchased a pair of tinted glasses for Yuuji in a more youthful style, frameless, with a reddish hue that would complement his customised uniform.
“Nice gift. He’ll love it.”
“Do you think so?”
He sounded uncertain.
“He will, for sure. Place it here.”
You cut a section of paper, and with his help, soon had the box neatly covered.
Next came the ribbons, which you crossed securely before tying them in place. Nanami assisted you in silence, fingers brushing yours as he held corners in place, helped you with the tape, breath mingling with yours as he leaned further across the table, head bowed in concentration.
He smelled nice, a scent that reminded you of a coastal forest, clean and subtle.
You wondered how soft his hair would feel if you touched it.
When you were done, you lifted your hands free and glanced up, blinking once when you realised that he hadn’t moved away.
As unwavering as his gaze always was, even now, you found that proximity to Nanami, where it would have felt awkward with anyone else, came as naturally as a mountain breeze at the start of spring.
He seemed to be examining you as closely as you did him. In that hushed moment, you noted the faint indentations left by his shades, the slightly roughened skin of his cheeks, the barely visible blonde hairs that feathered down along his temple.
The spell was broken by the rustle of paper under the air conditioning.
Inhaling deeply, you backed away and held up the gift.
“Let me know how Yuuji reacts.”
He took it from you, nodding slowly.
“Thanks, again.”
Your replenished box of tissues seemed to have caught his attention.
“Do you have allergies?”
“Ah, yes. Hay fever. Hits me with the change of season.”
“Yes. Your nose looks a little inflamed. And your eyes seem … slightly puffy.”
That’s what he’d been looking at?
You sniffed and folded your arms.
“Well, there was a large tree near me when I did recon earlier. A plum, I think. Don’t think I was very discreet while blowing my nose every five minutes, but there you go.”
Nanami opened his mouth to say something else, then stopped, posture a little stiff before resuming.
“I’ll be on my way then. Have to find Itadori.”
You waved him off, a trifle miffed.
And here you’d been, imagining what it would feel like to trace the line of his cheek with your finger.
Nanami’s caseload increases over the next few weeks.
You’re aware due to the series of missives that pass through your office, to be authorised by Ijichi.
It is therefore a surprise when you see him heading for the administrative block through your window.
With the amount of work he had, you’d assumed that he’d want to leave straight from home and return there, sending reports by means of other managers.
Half an hour later, you heard the thump of an object being dropped in the hallway outside and a muffled curse.
Curious, you peered out the door. Nanami was standing a few feet away, only recognisable from the tan trousers and leather shoes. He was carrying a towering stack of boxes, some charts rolled up under one arm.
Immediately, you spotted the source of his consternation.
His shoelace had come untied and, probably in an attempt to bend over to rectify the issue, he’d dropped some of the boxes.
Fighting back a smile, you approached him.
“Nanami?”
“What – oh, it’s you.”
He was not wearing his shades today, sleeves rolled up to expose strong, sinewy forearms, the suit jacket absent.
Eyes darting between you and the boxes, he seemed hesitant to ask for help once again, and so you saved him the trouble.
“Here you go. Hold onto those. Wait, wait, I’m not done.”
Before he had a chance to thank you, you dropped to one knee right before him.
Nanami’s eyes widened slightly, and you patted yourself on the back for drawing such a reaction from him.
“Ah, there’s no need for – “
“It’ll only take me a minute – “
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, approaching from the staff lounge.
“Na na mi. Well now. Didn’t take you for one to fraternise with the staff.”
The pile of boxes teetered precariously as Nanami shifted, face instantly drawing into tight lines of aggravation.
“That is not what’s occurring here, I assure you.”
Gojo sauntered closer, catching your placidly uninterrupted fastening of Nanami’s shoelace.
“Wow, you’re so nice. Who would have thought?”
You glanced up at him with a wide smile.
“Well, if you wrote better reports, I might consider being nice to you too.”
“Why don’t you propose to him while you’re down there? Think about it. A lifetime of beautiful reports.”
“Why, I just might. A lifetime of getting him to lecture you on proper sorcerer conduct.”
Gojo backed away, hands coming up in a defensive stance.
“Now, now, let’s not get too serious. Sheesh.”
He nudged Nanami’s arm as he passed and received a scowl in return.
“What are these?”
“Teaching aids.”
You rose, eyeing the boxes and charts with interest.
“Oh, so that’s what it is. You’ve decided to take your role as sensei more seriously?”
“Hardly. I am simply choosing the means of instruction that are most efficient. Field experience is the best in some instances, but not all. Itadori needs to have groundwork laid down, the basics of identifying curses, some instruction on how to fulfil his administrative duties, and of course, there’s mission protocol which he seems to have adopted a rather lackadaisical approach toward – “
Nanami stopped abruptly as he caught the stares being levelled his way. A faint flush tinged the tips of his ears, never given away in his manner.
He cleared his throat and Gojo whistled.
“Damn. Guess I’ve got to step up my own sensei game.”
You nodded sagely.
“Watch out, Mister Gojo. Some of those boxes contain baseball equipment.”
“Huh?”
Nanami swung around to face you.
“It’s not what it looks like. Baseball is a good means to develop reflexes, spatial awareness, core and upper arm strength, as well as co-ordination between team members.”
Gojo flapped his hands.
“So you’re gonna become the fun sensei?”
You examined your fingernails.
“Seems likely.”
Nanami gave a put-upon sigh.
“I’m going to leave these boxes where they belong, in my new cupboard.”
Gojo waved as he started off for the grounds.
“And I’m going to find my cute students, especially Yuuji, and bribe – I mean, reward him with some ice-cream.”
“Gojo, this isn’t some silly competition – “
His words fell on deaf ears as Gojo made his exit, looking rather pouty, a sign that didn’t bode well for anyone.
Nanami glanced across at you, eyes narrowing.
“Quite the instigator today, aren’t you?”
You adopted an attitude of supreme innocence.
“Whatever do you mean?”
He seemed to be examining you again, even with the mountain of supplies still weighing down his arms.
“Have your allergies cleared up?”
“They have. Now to prepare myself for the next round.”
“Your eyes look … clear. And bright.”
Was he … offering a compliment?
“You mean, they don’t look puffy anymore?”
You couldn’t help yourself, but regretted it a moment later when he didn’t look amused. Instead, his gaze dropped to the floor, voice low and contrite.
“I apologise for my comment last time. It was a tactless observation. I only made mention of it because I was concerned for your health.”
Now you were the one at a loss for words.
“I … oh, don’t worry, Mister Nanami. I’m only – “
“Nanami. Just Nanami is fine.”
“Ah. Well then, Nanami, why don’t I help you with some of those boxes? I’m sure Yuuji will be excited to see the new supplies.”
“There’s no need.”
“You can barely see over that pile.”
“Then … perhaps the ones at the top. Those smaller ones. Yes.”
“Ready to be the ‘fun’ sensei?”
The corner of his mouth lifted ever-so-slightly, a glimmer of elusive humour.
“He can buy them all the ice-cream he wants, but nothing beats baseball.”
Swearing slightly, you flailed to regain your balance as the chair you were standing on tilted precariously.
Summer was drawing in, and with it, a sudden spike in temperature. Up here in the mountains, you weren’t often hit with the worst of it, but there were days when you felt like you’d exit your car and melt into the tarmac.
Today was just such a day, and, with the eternal luck of the damned that you seemed to possess, your office air conditioning unit had decided to emit a disconcerting death rattle and give up the ghost.
The age of some parts of the Tech meant that central temperature control wasn’t really an option, so here you were, on a chair you’d pulled up for the purpose, feeling around inside the unit to determine the issue.
To worsen matters, you’d forgotten the simple bandeau or grip you’d normally use to hold back your hair, and it was falling across your ears, clinging to the back of your neck, in a manner you hated considering the current heat.
Wiping off your brow, you didn’t hear Nanami enter the office until he spoke.
“Would you like some help?”
Dropping your heels, the chair nearly tipped over and it was his hand grasping the back of it that protected you from certain disaster.
“Oh! I – I’m sorry, didn’t see you there.”
Did it have to be today that he came by? You were an absolute mess, your office a veritable sauna and his cool, collected appearance in a short-sleeved linen shirt that showed off the highly distracting curve of his bicep certainly wasn’t helping matters.
Yes, you could admit it.
Nanami was the sole source of your embarrassment. It had become evident to you that you’d developed some burgeoning feelings that you were not quite sure what to make of.
Whether he felt anything in return was something you didn’t even bother thinking about. As far as you were concerned, the status quo was fine, and you’d leave things as they were.
Fiddling with the neckline of your shirt, you leaned an elbow on the wall.
“Aircon’s packed up.”
“I can see that. Why don’t you let me have a look?”
You waved him off, nonchalant.
“I’ve got this. It’s the filter. Needs a good clean and a knock or two, and it’s back to normal.”
Bracing yourself, you plunged your arm back in.
God, this thing was dusty.
At the edge of your vision, you registered movement.
You didn’t think much of it, until another chair was placed firmly alongside yours and Nanami stepped up onto it, having removed his shoes.
“What are you – “
“This looks rather uncomfortable. You can handle the aircon, if you want, but I can help with this.”
Suddenly, he was on level with you, restoring the equilibrium of height difference.
He was in your space again, and even with your newfound realisation of your attraction to him, it still felt natural.
“Allow me.”
This close, each word spoken seemed to roll through the vibration generated from his sternum, an intimate strumming of the air between his mouth and the fine strands curling around your ear.
Then, he was reaching out, careful and meticulous as in everything he did, gathering the hair away from the nape of your neck, holding it in place further up. There was a slight tug before his grasp settled, firm and steady.
His arm was now bracketing your shoulder, the gentle warmth of his body comforting even as gooseflesh erupted over all the places where his proximity was so utterly tangible.
“Is this … too much of a liberty?”
Throat tight, you made sure that your answer was firm, no delay to it. Any hesitation, and you knew he would withdraw immediately.
“No, it isn’t. And … thank you.”
He didn’t reply to that, but you were hyperaware of his scrutiny on the side of your face as you went back to work, removing the filter and emptying it into the waste basket you’d placed beside you for this purpose.
Each movement swung and released like a well-oiled hinge, drawing you back to your original position, his grip on your hair never loosening.
A serpent writhed in the pit of your stomach, borne of the effortless way he held you, kept the disarray from impeding your task with such focused control. It didn’t help that you suddenly remembered the many cans of coffee, with which he’d repaid you in number a hundred times over.
Somewhere, behind you, was the new box of super-soft tissue he’d gifted you, his concern for your allergies clear. Beyond that sat your bag, still with the small penguin attached. Each morning, the green bowtie was visible on the chair across from your bed when you rose to greet the day.
He aroused something in you that went well beyond the desire of one person for another, a strange crushing tenderness that plagued you each time you considered who he was and what he did and how he’d established this connection with you in spite of it all.
The thought injects purpose and speed into your actions, and you close up the unit, one palm placed flat against it.
“I’m done.”
“Hm. Care to test it?”
His hand falls away from your hair, fingers tangling slightly as they descend. Unable to stop yourself, you turn your head, the line of his jaw on level with your eyes.
“I’ll have to – “
“Let me get down – “
You both start to speak at the same time, and you bite your lip in amusement, chancing a glance up at him.
He really did have pretty eyes.
Your head tilts, as if to take them in better, but you’re aware that each of your actions is now compelled by a force stronger than you, and perhaps him too.
You wonder what he dreams of, what causes him pain, about the colour of his cabinets and whether he owns any potted plants.
Does he wear an apron when he cooks?
Perhaps he likes the kind of music you can fall asleep to, or possibly the kind you could dance to, slow with soft, heady laughter, an exchange of undying romance, his arm bracketing a waist that, in the mind’s eye, looks increasingly like your own.
Like a satellite, drawn in by your own gravitational pull, his head seems to be angling in turn, his nose brushing gently against yours.
The spectacle of those beautiful irises will have to wait, because your eyelids are fluttering shut, the brush of his lips against yours as much of a shock to your system as it is expected.
Now, his arm really does slide around your waist, anchoring you as he presses closer. He isn’t chaste, neither is he forceful, a simple, solid expression of passion, a clear statement of his intent towards you.
He is overwhelming, and yet familiar, as if the shape of him fits perfectly within the receptacle of your being. Under your exploring fingers, his shoulders are just as powerful as you’d imagined, the ripple of concealed strength giving way to the soft, shorn bristle of his undercut.
The moment his lips separate from yours he is back, tasting once again, almost as if he is unable to help himself. You place your hand on his chest, uttering a small sound of pleasure that has him tug you even closer.
He’s driven you to such distraction that the slow loss of balance goes almost unnoticed at first, until you feel the rocking movement of the chair you stood on. Nanami’s foot comes down on it hard, once again saving you from tipping over.
Your laughter washes hot against his lips, which are now curving in amusement, and something else, irrepressible, a rare moment of joy, uncontained.
Whispering seems appropriate for this stolen moment, in the hush of your office. He speaks against your throat, right beneath the lobe of your ear.
“Was that acceptable?”
“Yes.”
The seasons have changed, once again, and Kento's presence in your life is a constant, never ostentatious.
He believes in taking things at the proper pace, courting you with the dogged devotion that defines the way he considers everything of significance in his life.
Routine has never been easier to fall into with him, always a source of comfort. You're aware that you are his shelter, his refuge from the world of curses that awaits each time he sets out on a mission.
When he returns to you, it's always with a smile, in varying degrees of weariness, the tender press of his mouth to yours, an enfolding within strong arms that both receive and offer everything you both feel for each other.
To be with Kento is to experience true equality in a relationship, to understand how you balance each other out through the many facets of each other's lives.
Your sweet tooth to his preference for savoury, your well-thumbed mysteries to his meticulously kept bookshelf, your windows boxes of herbs to his baking paraphernalia, each occupying their small, deserved niche.
These were the hundred ways that your lives slowly coiled together, two tendrils of smoke from the burning of the same blaze, never running short of the persistent fuel that drove the engines of both your hearts.
This is what it means to care for Kento, and when you greet him with a soft kiss to the brow on some mornings, when you trace the curve of his spine as he sleeps, when you prepare him a bento while muttering to yourself about the best combination of ingredients, you can hardly call him anything less than the man you love.
The first time you'd slept together wasn't, by any means, a magical tangling of breath and limb.
You'd recently recovered from a bout of flu, and he'd been fussing a little more than he usually did, dropping by religiously every evening, bringing either food offerings he'd prepared himself, or purchased from a restaurant you both liked.
It was the sight of him in your kitchen, sleeves rolled up, wiping down the counters with precise strokes, shoulders rolling beneath the dark material of his shirt like the restless swell of the ocean, that had done the trick.
He'd looked up, towards the living room to see you watching him with a dreamy smile, the steaming cup of tea he'd prepared forgotten at your elbow.
"Drink your tea while it's hot."
"Yes, sir."
Your coy tone had him raising an amused eyebrow.
"What's gotten into you?"
"Nothing."
"Hmm."
He turned back to his activity, now cleaning the stove top. This provided you with a sterling view of his backside, perfectly shaped beneath the tan slacks that drew taut around delectable, firm flesh as he moved.
Damn, you were lucky.
Almost as if your stray thought had pinged some instinct in his mind, he swung around, catching you red-handed, the microfiber cloth swinging towards you in reprimand.
"Aha."
"Is that really what you say when you catch someone checking you out?"
"It seems appropriate."
You held up your hands in surrender.
"All right, you've got me. You have a nice bum. I was showing some appreciation."
Kento stroked his chin. There was a gleam in his eye that spoke of well-concealed mischief.
"How nice?"
"What?"
He folded the cloth and placed it neatly beside him.
"I haven't received many compliments like that."
"Probably because people are scared of you."
"So, humour me. On a scale of one to ten - "
"You're not serious."
"I'm always serious."
You leaned back in your seat.
"Fine. Twenty."
"The scale was one to ten."
"And I said twenty."
Now he looked a little disconcerted.
"It's ... that nice?"
Your lower lip wobbled traitorously.
"It really is."
Holding out your arms, you beckoned him closer, letting out a pathetic, dry cough.
"Kind sir, would you care to bestow your blessed cheeks upon your ailing sweet one?"
"Please never refer to them as 'blessed cheeks' again."
He approached, nonetheless.
You placed your hands on the backs of his thighs, smiling as you stroked upward, noting the tensing of his muscles in response.
His exhale blew warm through your hair as you gently cupped and squeezed each buttock.
"Has your rating changed?"
"Yes."
"Oh?"
"Now it's one hundred and twenty out of ten."
He huffed out an incredulous laugh.
"Am I allowed to return the favour?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I think we both know that mine doesn't compare."
"I beg to differ."
He caught hold of your wrist, tugging lightly. When you were on your feet, he stepped into your space, chest to chest.
Over time, you'd learned to distinguish the scent of him, against the backdrop of understated cologne, the detergent he used to launder his clothes, and the faint whiff of the hair wax he employed to hold his signature style in place. Underneath it all, something warm, vital, carried by the heat of him.
Pressing your face into the crook of his neck, you took a moment to bask in that scent, each breath shorter than the last as his hands descended along the dip and flare of your waist and hips, sliding down behind you to return the gesture you'd bestowed on him.
The approving rumble in his chest put paid to any doubts you felt.
"Marvelous."
Closing your eyes, your mouth drifted across his jaw.
"Is it?"
In answer, he stepped back. There was a question in his eyes, an uncertainty that you couldn't bear seeing there.
He wanted you, and he clearly thought he was asking too much.
How could he possibly have such a thought?
Wordlessly, you started to move towards the bedroom, now leading him by the tenuous grip he maintained on you.
Of course, you received a protest.
"Aren't you still recovering? I don't want to - "
"I'm fine."
Once within, you stood with him at the foot of your bed, fingers dragging down the knot of his tie.
He breathed soft reverence into you, and you knew that you'd never grow tired of those firm, intentional kisses, steady and immovable, just like he was.
He accepted it all, the way you tugged his buttons open, your fingers gently shaking his hair down from its usual style, the graze of your teeth over his throat.
Then he moved you towards the bed, as if restoring order to the way this game was proceeding.
You could sense it, in the control he exerted over your movements, the large hand that spread over your hip, the effortlessly roll of his bicep as he tipped you back to lie flat, the incredible strength that infused his entire form, reined in by his will alone.
He watched your skin reveal itself under his touch with tight-lipped intensity, undressing you like you'd seen him file an incident report, each garment lifted from your body and placed aside with care, the twitch of muscle in his jaw when he reached around you to unfasten your bra.
You pulled him down with you, unravelling him further, tracing lightly across his back as he finally let out a low groan.
Instead of re-directed him to your own underwear, you stroked up his thigh, cupping where you felt a hardness that surprised you for all the ways he was taking his time with you.
Kento closed his eyes, tensing as you cradled his erection. Even here, in the sanctity of your bedroom, he wouldn't fully let himself go. It was almost as if he was hesitant to let you see that part of himself.
"Look at me."
He complied, molten honey in his gaze as you brushed hair back from his brow. You squeezed him lightly through his trousers, tracing the shape of him, pressing your nose to his as he uttered a short, deep exclamation of surprised pleasure.
He sat up abruptly, unfastening his belt. He wasn't attempting to be seductive, more a functional and quick means of baring himself, but was all the more alluring for it.
The drop of his pants revealed muscular legs, his calves beyond the point of envy. You knew the work he must put in to maintain peak performance as a sorcerer, and the rest of his body was proportioned in ways that made you bite your lip.
Kento stood motionless for a minute, and you frowned, sitting up.
"What's wrong? We don't have to - "
"No, that's not it. I'm just letting you look. You seemed like you were enjoying the view."
He said it with a perfectly straight face, and you gaped slightly at him, before noting that spark of mischief igniting just behind the eye.
Pinching between your brows, you sighed.
"Are you going to hold it against me?"
"Depends. I might hold you against me."
"I'm worried about the fact that your jokes don't make me dry right up."
"Maybe I'm rubbing off on you. Or against you. Either is possible right now."
"Please, spare me."
Your choked response ended with you trying to crawl away from him, but his hand came down around your ankle.
"Where do you think you're going?"
It seemed that your little exchange had eased some of the tension he carried. You tried to tug your foot from his grasp.
"Escaping your bone-dry humour."
He scratched at his chin thoughtfully, before surging onto the bed above you, lips curving as you let out a breathless laugh.
"You know ... "
His voice dropped a few octaves, sending an involuntary shudder through you.
"What?" you prompted, softly.
"You keep up all this talk of 'dry', and yet ... "
Eyes widening, breath snatched away, you stiffened as his fingers slid beneath the sheer material of your underwear, stroking methodically against you.
"And yet, you're like this down here? "
Nothing had altered in his tone, but there was a subtle purr that had infiltrated where you'd never have expected to hear it.
Struggling to keep your voice steady, your hand snaked down over his, taking in the way his wrist moved as he worked you.
"I'm always ... like this ... around you."
"Is that so?"
It seemed that the last thread holding his tightly leashed desire had come undone.
Your underwear was tugged right off, and he was on top of you now, lips colliding with yours as he settled between your thighs. It was obvious that he was trying not to allow his full weight to fall on you.
Hands placed firmly on the small of his back, you pulled him down towards you. He resisted before giving in to your determination to have more of him, to feel the heaviness of muscle, the gentle scrape of the hair across his pectorals on your nipples.
Hot breath misted against your ear as he ground his hips in a small circle, rousing small, barely stifled gasps as the hardness of him caught at you, pushed against you.
You loved how solid, how present he felt in your arms, a direct counterpoint to the distance he often maintained with his polished and proper exterior.
This was your Kento, the man who spoke of his dreams with shy hesitance, who admired the evening sky at your side, who'd kept the silly novelty coffee mug Gojo had gifted him, and complained about it every time he opened his cabinet.
This was Kento, who entered you with painstaking patience, arms bracketing your upper body, whispering soft, soothing words as you stretched around him, head thrown back in pain and pleasure.
This was the man you'd come to care for so deeply, with his strange habits and affinity for sandwiches, easing you further back onto the pillows as he set up a steady pace, rocking into you.
You learned his body, as he learned yours, slowly, awkwardly, finding the rhythm that worked for you both.
He shivered when you grazed your nails across his scalp, or the bottom of his spine, and you found that when you arched your back in a specific way, he hit a place that you really, really liked.
Your soft moans of encouragement soon mounted to cries as he ground deeper, harder into you. His pace slowed slightly, letting you take the full impact of each thrust.
The way he undid you, drove you to the edge was achingly intimate. He was exploring the boundary between tenderness and passion, taking and taking with thorough, straight-edged zeal, but something was wavering, visible in the earnest appeal he held in his eyes as his movements grew more erratic and desperate.
When you could tell he was close, he pushed a hand beneath your head, lifting slightly. You didn't know what he was after, up until you felt his grip tangling in your hair.
You let out a breathless whimper as the familiar tug recalled the first time he'd kissed you, throat extending as you gave in to the slight pressure he exerted.
Kento had more than enough strength to hold himself above you with one hand, groaning loudly as you succumbed to him, eyes glistening with unshed tears as he held you in place.
Seeing you like this, enjoying his tentative exploration of what he preferred, was enough to quicken the coil and plunge of his hips against yours.
Your climax didn't hit you all at once, no screaming, clawing display of ecstasy. He hammered it slowly out of you, an artisan at an anvil of his own making, watching with misted hunger as your mouth fell open, head tilting even further back as you answered each undeviating thrust with a squeeze of your calves against his sides.
Sometime during the exquisite clamp of your flesh around his, he joined you, releasing your hair immediately for fear of hurting you as the intensity of his own orgasm hit, casting a thunderous groan into the pillow beside you.
Your body rested limp against his, sobbing breaths exiting you in raspy, uneven metre.
The rise and fall of his own chest was rapid, sweat collecting on his brow, drawn out along both your bodies from the damp, delicious friction.
You held him tight until the thrumming heat receded, until he shifted from above you to roll to the side, arm draped across your middle.
Turning your head until your forehead rested against his, the magnitude of what you'd both experienced, how far you'd gone, so much more than an expression of need for each other in a physical sense, dawned with sobering effect.
You knew, now, why he'd been so tense at the outset.
Kento was incapable of engaging in this kind of intimacy without revealing all of himself, as was his nature.
In every touch, in the snap of his hips, in the way he'd held you down to receive him, there was a confession of sorts, an indelible message inscribed on your skin that he couldn't give voice to, not just yet.
It was a promise, sealed in sweetness so sharp it could slice through bone, down to the very core of you.
He was staring at you now, as if measuring your own realisation against his. His voice was slightly hoarse when he spoke.
"You all right?"
Nudging him, you smiled, wide, beatific, weary.
"Better than that."
His amusement washed warm across your lips.
"Still recovering, though."
"Eh?"
He reached behind him, to where the tissue box stood on your bedside table, tugging one out and placing it carefully against your nose while wiping thoroughly.
Your eyes widened in horror.
"Wait ... was my nose running the whole time?"
He brushed your hair away from your face.
"No. Only just now."
"Is that a turn-off?"
Of all your questions thus far, this was the one that made his shoulders shudder with silent laughter.
"You've had allergies since the moment we met."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Fine. Then ... "
He reached down along the side of the bed, to where his pants lay, drawing his phone from the pocket. Curiously, you propped your head against his shoulder as he opened up the (admittedly sparse) gallery of photos.
The first, most recent picture was one taken in what looked like a supermarket, a stack of ultra-soft tissues sealed together in clear plastic. Across the front, a large sign for a special half-price deal was emblazoned in red lettering.
"I took advantage of this deal and bought you a three-month supply."
He glanced across at you, subtly proud and a touch smug, and you found that all your adoration for this man could be channelled into this one moment.
You peppered his face with kisses, ignoring his half-hearted protest.
For all the darkness that awaited him beyond your door, for all that you couldn't be the one to protect him, he'd always have a place, here in your arms, whether he accepted it fully or not.
He was your springtime, contrary to what most thought of his nature, unfastening the ties of winter with steadfast warmth. He'd stolen into the hidden spaces of your life, taking root, blossoming into an endless reveal of many-hued splendour.
You supposed, in the grander scheme of things, that you didn't resent the change of season quite so much any longer.
Until July 31st, we will be accepting and actively sharing late submissions!
If you have a series you'd like to continue, a prompt you never got to submit for or a late entry for the free day, now is your time!
As usual, please do identify the prompt you are creating for and ensure to use the appropriate hashtag: #nnweek25sfw (SFW) or #nnweek25nsfw (NSFW). Check out our pinned post for more details!
A massive thank you to all organizers, contributors and supporters for making this event the amazing success it is! 🩵
