synopsis: You and Higuruma are simply friends with benefits. Simply being the operational word.
Or it was supposed to be.
wc: 6k
tags: Romance | Humour | Smut (under the cut)
a/n: I cannot in good conscience claim my brain was wholly involved in the creative process. Juices were certainly flowing, nonetheless.
We Have Not Long to Love
Tennessee Williams
We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day...
~~~
Higuruma Hiromi has a whole host of habits and ingrained tendencies that you find perplexing.
Traits which could have been easily dismissed as the eccentricities of a perennial bachelor, if you hadn't stuck around long enough for the composite of his “logic” to sharpen into view, specific and singular unto him.
It’s a question you’ve pondered, not infrequently, over the course of the past few months of your casual (mostly casual) arrangement with him; Why did you agree to this?
Especially when initially so much of that aggregate had been aggravating.
Sure, the sex was good and fine, better than good often enough. Not that you'd ever tell him. Or more accurately, not that you ever needed to. The evidence spoke or moaned for itself.
But delightful as the dalliances were, they didn't fully account for why you finally agreed to the dinners with him. Or why you continued to.
You haven't decided if it's masochism or some kind of sick fascination, because what else could it be? Higuruma's quirks irk you, bemuse you, befuddle you.
Really, what you haven't decided is if he's too attractive to be this weird, or too weird to be his exact brand of attractive. As often as Higuruma's clever fingers found purchase in a slippery crevice, you’d find one of his off-handed retorts or snide barbs similarly snaking itself into the crevasses of your cranium, snug and burrowing deep into your subconscious, your pleasure at his witticisms inextricable as it was inexplicable.
You don't suspect this is something he's worked on, consciously anyway, either to hone or to hide. Where there were affectations, they were apparent to the both of you; he rarely kept them up outside your bedrooms. Other than to irritate you back into them of course.
His peculiar charisma is a conundrum that's teetered into fixation, which flummoxes and frustrates you further. If you didn't pay very careful attention, the things that infuriated you about Higuruma could just as easily infatuate you. You're not sure which prospect is more vexing.
He was annoying. He was alluring.
Which was it? A thorough independent investigation had to be conducted, for the sake of your sanity.
Which led, for example, to tonight's squabble.
"What do you mean you don't believe in owning multiple spoons?"
“A ladle's practically a spoon," he had shrugged, konbu snaking from his bowl, flopping comically from the oversized utensil he's brooked his mouth against. With an insufficiently surreptitious sidle, he mops up the splash on the table with the edge of his sleeve.
You snorted. "Sure, and use scissors as chopsticks while you're at it."
"I prefer chopsticks actually, they're more versatile."
You stare at Higuruma, fascinated and unflinching, for a full 40 seconds straight as he strives to split an ajitama. You almost anticipate the sticks snapping with how much pressure he exerts over the soy-slick ovoid, but he applies the pressure carefully, exactingly as his fine-boned hands steadily cleave past the parboiled whites, wobbling with obstinate tumescence.
It splits eventually, though not quite evenly, flecks of eggy debris clinging to the wood grain, gold and gooey, as he settles the larger half of the ajitama into your spoon.
"See? Just have to adapt."
"Or you could just get the right tool for the job. Save yourself some struggle."
He pops another piece of tempura into his mouth and smiles at you, disarming as ever in his absolute confidence he's right, even in the most minor of quibbles. You gaze at his mouth for a moment, observant of any unfurling smugness. It curls into something else, despite your watchfulness. Or perhaps, because of it.
"You're staring."
You gesture with your chopsticks dismissively. "Panko."
"Oh." His thumb brushes up in the wrong direction.
You shake your head as you reach out with your chopsticks, grazing the corner of his lips before bringing it to yours, a slip of pink darting out to lick the crumb off the tapered tip.
"Hm, I suppose they are versatile," you say with a smile that's the width of a snare. Something sparks in Higuruma's narrowed gaze; now you could level his allegation back at him. He’s the one staring.
"Tongue could've done the job too," he remarks, fairly laissez-faire but not quite convincingly. He tries to drown the smoulder in his hooded eyes beneath the rim of his bowl.
"Perhaps," you concede, watching Higuruma take a sip of miso soup with that ridiculous ladle. "But it'll be occupied by a bigger job tonight."
There's no sweeter sound than the spluttered gurgle in the back of his throat. You savour it, knowing Higuruma's loss for words have a short shelf life.
You’ve yet to determine if his fondness for verbal sparring was occupational hazard or crippling addiction (or a convenient symbiosis of both), but Higuruma was starting to get you hooked on it.
A penchant now verging on predicament - more fool you for not realising the risk, sleeping with an attorney too brilliant for your own good. Abundantly obvious now of course, but you thought it’d be too much of a cliché back then.
Although maybe foresight wasn’t your strong suit. After all, you hadn’t expected to incur a tolerance for the myriad of Higuruma’s idiosyncrasies over all these months.
Or maybe, something more than tolerance.
It’s a bad habit he’s cultivating in you, you muse, offering zero assistance as you coolly observe the lawyer doing his best to dab the faint blush off his face with a napkin twisted in his hands.
Hubris accrues interest too, but you find you don’t mind paying the price. And some evenings, the banter is more akin to barter trade, because you know how this goes.
His lapses in eloquence, those slip ups in the seduction of his convictions, will simmer in the back of Higuruma’s mind, broiling with his predilection for pettiness, frothing with the urge to cram the final word in edgewise; which would only drive him to leave you incoherent in other delightful ways, both sagacious and salacious.
Before the night is over you'll have to face that age old question, that familiar taunt in your side, if the cost of this comeuppance was worth it…
It always is.
It is, to feel Higuruma's gaze burn through your clothes, seconds before his hands raze through them, pinning you by the hips against the sink, nipping your protest in half about the dishes with his incisors scraping against your neck. Your pulse thrums as Higuruma growls Later, in the way you know he means Tomorrow morning...
Clearly Higuruma has never heard the idiom "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", or he relishes the opportunity for heresy. He teases out and teaches you his own homespun wisdoms, namely that the path to heaven is paved with filth instead. Forget streets of gold, you learn piety with crosses pressed into your palms and knees, in the grooves of his kitchen tile grout. That much closer to the earth, and that much more sensitive to the brimstone of his hands and breath racing across your body, ripping each stitch of fabric, nipping at each inch of skin, mouth chasing and chaffing against yours so you can barely make out his grunt -
"Bed. Now."
It's almost embarrassingly predictable; how those coal irises of his feed the furnace in your belly, the way he whispers your name against your nape are bellows coaxing fierce fluorescence while his teeth and thumbprints are swift to singe against your throat, the soot soothed into burgundy smudges by his tongue, before it's sliding south to suckle ever more taut the tungsten coil between your thighs, the gushing slick that does nothing to slake the inferno in Higuruma's eyes.
It's both the leisurely gyrations of his cock and that lazy, cocksure smile, searing themselves upon your gyrus, cerebellum kerosene doused, the ridge of his head sawing agonizingly slow through your sodden furrows, rivulets running through the pinch of your brows, his smirk branding your skin, as you in turn gnaw thin crimson crescents in the hot crook of his throat.
Higuruma kisses and licks the salt of you from all your creases, coaxing your sweetest moans. You feel the syllables of his name lodge in your lungs, thick as molten molasses, and you should be used to this by now, how he drags them from you amidst a spray of expletives and precipitations of pleas, whilst plugging you full with sloppy ruts.
You can barely whimper a warning, clenching around his now relentless thrusts, when you hear the hiss that escapes his teeth, lust pistoning swifter, familiar as your name, fusing into your begging for him to go faster, harder, meaner, merciless as he wants, as you need.
"Wicked, wicked angel," Higuruma groans into your mouth but you taste him everywhere, all your senses invaded; he's in the ozone crackling electric, in the friction of the cotton fibers raw against your bottom, in the wail of your vastus lateralis as he shoves your thighs higher and further apart to wedge himself impossibly deeper, fuller inside you.
"-be the death of me, every fuck- f-fucking day-please-"
He's babbling now, begging and imploring snarled harsh and illogical and erratic and eclipsed by the slap of his flesh against your flesh, by your peals pitching high and broken "Hiro, I- I wanna c-cum with you..."
And you never have before, not together, he's always been too obstinate, too disciplined, too damn insistent about bringing you to your peak first several times over, satiating himself off your pleasure but now you're practically sobbing, shaking with staving off the inevitable, clawing for control, just a few more precious seconds, raking red welts down his drenched back to match the scarlet shell of his ears as you pant against them, "Cum for me too."
And he can't keep up his pretense of generosity, where greed blurs into need, just as desperate and depraved and deprived as you, lost in the silken kilns of your cunt, plunging mindlessly in and out of your lusciously snug seam, governed solely by a primal thirst to pull the wet gasps from your slack mouth, but he feels something in his chest tug terribly tight as he feels your breath chugged hot across his cheeks, feels every fiber and sinew of him contract, feels time lurch into stillness as you use the last of your strength to surge up and crush your lips against his, devouring his pride and drinking his defeat and draining all the oxygen from both your bodies.
He feels gravity grab back at you, how your limbs uncoil from his neck, feels your pussy flutter with its final gripping dregs of control around his stiff throbbing cock, but all that barely registers against the way your head sways backward even as your gaze locks onto his, bright and sharp as your grin tipping into a breathy fond feral laugh of his name, a quivering exhalation of pure affection and Higuruma's climax slams into him.
His vision bleaches out, but he hears you gasp as your next orgasm is simultaneously triggered, velvet heat clamping down on him tighter than ever before, there's nowhere to go and nothing he can do but cling to you and be buffeted by the riptide of pleasure raiding all his muscles and ravaging his every last synapse. He cries out, rope after rope of his release burying deep within your warm walls, twitching and trembling and certain that he's being flayed alive, that his bones are disintegrating, that here is where he's meant to lay the rubble of his spine and words and soul before you, here where you'll take these shreds of him and pull him back together, with your arms sinuous, kisses languorous, expression utterly glorious as you gently thread your hands through his soaked strands, peppering smooches and licking salt from the column of his parched throat.
Your ragged breaths fall into sync with Higuruma's, as he nuzzles his hooked nose against another bruise on your nape, just beginning to blossom as your shared stupor and his milky spend seeps from your tangled bodies.
"L-let's-" A weak giggle rasps through you at just how utterly hoarse Higuruma's voice sounds. He tries again, a wheezy chuckle ghosting over his words.
"Just do take-out next time. I don't want to deal with dishes after."
"You're such a slob."
"You can't tell by now I like a little mess?"
You roll your eyes but the juddering snap of his hips and the snark of his wit notch hot into your spine, lesions of magma bubbling beneath epidermis, the aftershocks and his tired smile warming your belly once more. He presses another kiss to your forehead, eyes gleaming with a promise yet flickering with the barest trace of sheepish fatigue. You don't know why, but it sends a fresh pang of terrible roiling want through your loins, synapses and ribs.
You hum, and Higuruma feels it in his chest flush to yours, relishes the way it reverberates through his skin; he knows all the sounds he pulls from you so well - This one is too conciliatory, too soon.
"Perhaps..." He anticipated your purr, but underestimated the petulant pretense dripping from it, how it sends a shiver up his spine. Nor is he prepared for the way you roll back on top of him, barely fazed by a distinct squelch as your hips settle in his lap.
"You could convince me to tolerate a little more mess?"
Your nails scratch lightly across his chest and he groans, "You know what you've just done to me. I'm drained."
You shrug, sliding your index between the both of you, then bring it up to your mouth, sucking it clean and savouring the flavour with your eyes closed. When you next open them, Higuruma's gaze is pure black, but even amidst this darkness you glimpse the undercurrent of friction, his breath tensed between anxiousness and arousal.
You lean towards him languidly, smile sanguine and slow with a familiarity bred between old rivals, between long-time conspirators, between tango dancers who have their tempos tattooed upon each other's hearts, faintly amused at these tired patterns of his feigned demurring.
And then Higuruma sees the tender and saccharine dissolve, into a sneer glistening with the substance he now suspects he probably does have quite a large reservoir of after all, entirely at your mercy to plumb into your being.
"It's such a turn on when you lie about that, Hiromi."
And just like that, with your devastating smirk snaking past the dense thicket of his happy trail, Higuruma's convinced the risk of getting hospitalised due to severe dehydration is one he must take.
It's the one argument you win every time, but it's not like either of you are keeping track, in any way that mattered.
You lose yourself in each other, as you always intended, in these sultry nights meant to settle the score and the scorch of more surreptitious desires, cinders kindling for the next time Higuruma gets under your skin, and in the unconscious creep of embers hoarded in his heart as you slip from his bed afterwards at daybreak, those slivers of dawn scattering like silvery epaulettes across your shoulders’ silhouette.
In the morning Higuruma lies still, desperate to regain command over his heaving chest, even as he knows his heartbeat has long since sworn fealty to your touch, its every lull and leap in the palm of your hand. A wish, as futile as it is immodest, for his mutinous breaths to tame your restlessness, to have you linger by his side just for a few moments more, to be pulled back into your gravity.
It’s always too soon when he feels the dip in the bed as you rise, anchor gracefully tearing through the hull of his chest. He tells himself he’s gotten used to far worse predicaments than the predictability of this tide creeping up in his lungs, studiously devoted to swallowing back the brackish burn of yearning, to build hearths out of driftwood. Innocently you maroon him each morning, leaving him to parse through another mirage alone.
His mind shutters as you drape your mouth over his flesh in parting caresses, rendering his senses unreliable, even as his pulse keeps pounding on dregs of the gasoline fumes heavy in his lungs, writhing around the buzzing nettle rattle in his larynx, throat too raw to murmur your name again; At least not at this hour, not the way he wants to. To risk speaking your syllables heavy with dew and nectar as if to seal away the tender fissure of dawn, to steal you away for just one more minute, in a timbre cloying with too much warmth for the afterglow you've conjured together. Spellbound, the consequence and gratification of fantasy tying his tongue.
Instead Higuruma guards the pantomime with his muteness, those vestiges and scenes from a life beyond his imagination, still bordering reality as he tracks the curve of your chin, your spine, splinters of the sun cascading like feathers across your shoulder blades. Phoenix making her ascent from his ashes.
As if sensing the shift in his silence from breathless to wordless, you turn your cheek ever so slightly towards him, a profile in godrays, Aprhodite in effigy, and the celestial glimmer across your lips crushes the last molecule of air from his lungs, eviscerates his final grasp on thought and doubt.
For a moment, Higuruma believes he isn’t merely another of your conquests.
For a moment, the arrowhead you’ve left between his ribs dissolves into carmine ions, into dust motes, dancing in the shaft of light you blur into.
In this moment, he locks away his vision of a Valkyrie lazily draped in his bed sheets, battle fresh and already disappearing into his bathroom.
"I can't believe I got suckered into a paid subscription for this unreliable weather app," you mutter, your glare snapping between your phone screen and the thick clouds scudding across the slate gray horizon looming beyond the window. As if Monday mornings weren’t awful enough, now the skies were plotting to match your dour mood, or worsen them.
"Got an umbrella to spare?"
"No, but I do have 20 minutes. I'll walk you to the station," Higuruma offers, taking your scarf off the coat rack.
"I can buy one from the store downstairs," you respond, moving over to the doorway.
"Again? That's a surplus of what, three umbrellas you've got at home now?"
Maybe a bit too early for the jibes. Definitely too early for flirting, Higuruma thinks, watching the line of your mouth thin.
He observes the deepening furrow of your brow as you flick through your phone, hunting down the offending app. Without a word he watches you decisively click the little cross on the top right corner of the wiggling square.
You have no room in your life for regular disappointments.
"Yeah I'm rolling in it, soon I'll be a real umbrella tycoon," you retort, finally pocketing your phone and glancing up.
Maybe not too early then. Maybe the hour’s always right, with you.
There’s an unusual hint of a smile on Higuruma’s face, which you don’t quite take stock of as he starts winding the scarf around you.
"I'll put in a word with the shopkeepers about their poncho inventory too." Higuruma loops the last of the fabric snugly around you, tugging you a little closer to him.
"How romantic," you drawl but Higuruma huffs, dismissive of your exaggeration as he reaches for the single curved black handle protruding from his umbrella stand.
"Aren’t you headed to Okubo though? That's the opposite direction from my station. And actually, weren’t you supposed to take this morning off from working the last two weekends?"
Higuruma shrugs, tucking the umbrella under his arm as he unbolts his front gate.
"They got a new coffee machine in, down the road," he mentions casually, as if his logic should be self-evident.
"You mean the vending machine? The ones available at any Lawson’s?"
"Well, somebody's got to stall you from becoming an umbrella magnate. You know my opinions on monopolies."
"Right, and this has all been part of my convoluted plan for some massive corporate takeover. One umbrella at a time."
"Foolproof," Higuruma replies stoically, turning his key in the lock behind him while you press the elevator button.
The pair of you emerge from the lift lobby onto rain stained streets, asphalt pooling miniature mirrors and trampolines as thick drops spring back up from the puddles, nipping at the heels of rushing passerbys.
There’s a rustle and soft whoosh as his umbrella opens above you, and you glance up at the silver spokes branching over your crown. A distant rumble of thunder has you tightening your coat around you, pursing your lips as you peer out at the winter-lit rivulets streaming off the polyester arch enclosing the both of you. A shrill whistle accompanies the deluge's slant, as the precipitation pelts against Higuruma’s uncovered hands.
Your toes curl in your boots, and you turn towards him with a slight frown.
“Are you sur-”
“I’m getting an espresso,” Higuruma states, interrupting you.
“Oh ok, good for you.”
“You’re buying.”
For a moment, there’s only the susurrus of the downpour. Higuruma was usually direct, but not demanding.
“All right,” you reply, keeping the curiosity at bay in your voice, if nothing else.
The umbrella casts a shadow over Higuruma’s eyes, so you can’t quite see them. And now you’re trying not to squint - or at least not make it obvious to him that you are - so you don’t notice till it’s too late how his hand has slunk up in your periphery, to swipe his thumb over your rain freckled cheek, tucking a dampened lock of hair behind your ear.
“Since you delayed us this morning.”
Oh. He’s incorrigible.
“For someone sharing at least half the blame, you might want to check that reproachfulness in your tone.” Your voice remains matter of fact, but it’s an effort. One Higuruma notices, surely.
“You know, I don’t think I will,” he responds calmly, with the subtlest tilt to his lips. You take a beat to dismiss it, alongside the intrusive thought of dragging this man back upstairs and cancelling the rest of your work appointments for the day. Or week.
Instead you sigh as you start to stride down the pavement, “That’s unsurprising of you.”
The umbrella continues to hover above you, keeping pace. “Not fond of surprises?”
“Fond of assumptions?”
“It was an observation, actually.”
“How observant of you.”
“Only of the observable.”
“Which is?”
“We’re having a most pleasant morning.”
“That’s really more an opinion than observation.”
“Are we arguing that it isn’t?”
“You’re not even in the office yet, Mr Lawyer. Give it a rest. Or I’m ratting to your HR.”
“I can’t afford to be lax on objectivity. Also, you wouldn’t, I got them to quit.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
“They booked a one way plane ticket to Havana.”
“Right. You should have paid for it.”
“With what air miles?”
“That’s exactly my point, Higuruma.”
The two of you round a corner where a mom & pop shop sits, nondescript, if a little weathered. You walk under the sun-bleached, rain battered awning, its flaps the shade of faded moss.
“Oda-san, you around?” Higuruma calls out.
An elderly, bespectacled man shuffles out of a backroom with a congenial smile, his back slightly stooped.
“Ahh, Higuruma-san, good to see you again! You too, miss!”
“Hello Oda-san,” you greet him, “Can we get some coffee to go?”
“Sure, sure. I hope you’re not in a rush though. These joints don’t like the drizzle much.”
Higuruma hums, “Take your time. It’s a bit more than a drizzle, but I’m enjoying my morning.”
“Ah, is that so?” A suggestion of a chuckle colours the old man’s reedy voice. You’re too busy examining the laminated one-page beverage menu to notice it, much less the way the shopkeeper’s gaze alights on you briefly, albeit shrewdly.
“Well, keep enjoying your morning, Higuruma-san. So what will you two be having?”
“I’ll just get a standard cappuccino. And an espresso with creamer plus three sugars.”
“Oh, please leave out the sugar, Oda-san.”
You toss Higuruma an inquiring glance. He shrugs, sauntering past a shelf packed with stationery items. “I finally got around to reading that research paper on diabetes you sent me.”
You linger by a rack of magazines, idly scanning the titles. “You know, I recently also came across this fascinating article about the daily recommended sodium intake.”
Coming from somewhere in the back aisles, Higuruma’s voice is muffled yet his tone is clearly aggrieved.
“Haven’t I sacrificed enough?”
“Fine, I’m mistaken to be invested in your longevity.”
“Well, you at least seem to be invested in my stamina.”
“I haven’t the faintest clue as to what you’re talking about-”
There’s a bone-dry cough from the counter and your head whips towards Oda-san, fastening a lid over the steaming cups.
“Your drinks are ready?”
“Oh, right. Thank you Oda-san. That was er, quick of you.” You stash the magazine back in its rack, making your way over to the register. You fumble about in your bag for your wallet but Oda-san waves a hand in your general direction.
“Don’t worry about it, miss. It’s on me.”
“Huh?”
Oda-san settles upon a stool, and you’re not sure if the ensuing creaking noise comes from the chair or its occupant.
“Just a token of gratitude. Higuruma-san helped me look over these new lease agreements for the shop, you know.”
“Oh dear, did the rent go up again?”
“Not with his intervention,” Oda-san chuckles, sliding the cups into cardboard sleeves. “Took him the better part of a few Sundays. The Merchants’ Association is full of stubborn pigs. He did it all for free too.”
Wrinkled hands press the coffees into your palms, the robust aroma of arabica wafting warmly around your wrists.
“29 years I’ve been in this neighbourhood. Never met nobody who went out of their way like that, all for a tiny shop.”
Your gaze sweeps over from one corner of the store to the other, except it doesn’t really have to, its five narrow aisles fitting compactly within your field of vision. Higuruma must be crouched over in one of them, as you distantly hear ceramic tinkling as he rummages for something.
“Unusual lad. Exceptional, but peculiar.”
“You think so too?” you comment, returning your attention to Oda-san, who is meticulously polishing a tinted photo frame with a corner of his apron.
“Yeah, but a good sort. Minus the caffeine addiction.”
“Oda-san, you’re the one who fuels it,” you sigh.
“Gotta turn a profit,” he replies cheerily, lifting his wire-rimmed frames to scrutinise the photo. “But no charge for the triple shot this Monday.”
“Did you say triple? That’s his secret to surviving them?”
The shopkeeper nods, setting the frame down, finally satisfied with his efforts. You glance at it; it’s a picture of Oda-san and his family gathered at the storefront, decades ago, beaming next to his wife and their…One, two, three, four, five, six…You blink, counting again.
“And we didn’t know it then, but she’s pregnant with the twins in that, so plus two,” Oda-san supplies, chuckling at your raised brows.
“So this place is a family business?”
“We roped the kids in sometimes, but I don’t expect any of them will want to take over this shack when I retire.”
“For Higuruma’s sake, I hope that’s pretty far off,” you smile, taking a small sip of your cappuccino.
“He’ll be fine. Just force the fellow to have one of those spinach smoothies every now and again, will you? From one of those upcoming fancy shops we can’t keep off this block.”
“I think you’re overestimating my influence on him.”
The elderly shopkeeper smiles. You weren’t aware of this, but Higuruma’s been his regular customer for the past six years. In all that time, he’s never once changed his daily coffee order. Until this morning, of course.
“Allow an old man some optimism,” he chuckles, and you have a feeling whatever he’s humoured by is better left to his discretion.
“Well, thanks again for your generosity, Oda-san. Three shots should keep him going throughout the day, if his heart doesn’t give out first.”
“And perhaps throughout the evening,” the shopkeeper grins, and that joke is a little too transparent to you.
“Well, um. I’ve gotta catch the 915. Goodbye.” You croak, hurriedly picking up the coffees off the counter and giving him a slight bow as you hasten out the door.
Smack dab back into the ongoing deluge, unfortunately.
A poncho, right. Drat.
You sigh and turn around, bracing yourself for another interaction with Oda-san, just in time to bump into Higuruma making his exit.
“Sorry- oh, good catch,” he says as you clutch at the bag you’ve accidentally knocked from his hand just before he drops it.
“You can wear it now if you want,” he adds, gesturing towards it as he retrieves his umbrella.
You glance into the bag, discovering blue polyethylene neatly wrapped in a rectangular package.
You smile at him, taking the poncho out together with a receipt, but Higuruma plucks the paper from your hand and stashes it into his pocket before you can take a proper glimpse at it.
“You didn’t have to,” you sigh.
Higuruma shrugs. “I wanted to.”
Hearing clinking, you peer into the still weighted bag. A pair of unassuming soup spoons in white enamel gleam up at you. Higuruma pulls the bag from you and briskly stuffs that into his jacket pocket, clearing his throat.
“I managed to find some space in the back of that kitchen drawer,” he announces, holding the umbrella above you.
You huff, lip curling at the recollection of his posturing the previous night. On another evening, you'd been subjected to a monologue about the virtues of minimalism, but glancing up at Higuruma's almost expectant face, you decide you'll let it be a vague memory, for now.
“You managed huh? All without Marie Kondo?”
“Life is full of little miracles,” Higuruma responds, his face and tone perfectly straight, as the two of you set off down the street once more.
“Hard to believe,” you reply, amicably enough as you loop your arm through his.
“It is,” Higuruma says, glancing at you.
If you register his uncharacteristic diplomacy, you don’t look the gift horse in its mouth; one which is distinctly upturned, unbeknownst to you, obscured behind the hood of the poncho.
Higuruma and you stroll on in silence, taking sips from your cups, savouring caffeine vapours vanquishing the groggy stupor of sleep, familiar warmth leaching into his hands, and at his side.
“Thanks for the detour,” you tell him as you finally arrive at the steps of the train station.
He nods, watching you stash the poncho away, crumpling it in your hands.
“By the way, what are your Friday night plans?”
More commuters bustle past, escalating the electronic staccato of the gantry gates.
“What?”
He tugs you towards him gently by your elbow, repeating his question. “Did you have plans for Friday night?”
“Friday night? Yea, a dinner.”
“With?”
“With someone.”
“Your mom?”
“Not my mom.”
You think you’ve done a fairly good job keeping your expression neutral, but Higuruma’s leagues beyond you. Still, there’s just enough deliberation going on behind his eyes that keeps him from fully penetrating yours.
He’s quiet for a minute, which for Higuruma, is an eternity.
What on earth could give a man like Higuruma pause, you wonder. The next two words that fall from his mouth make everything click into place, but you don’t believe you’re hearing them.
“Excuse me?”
“Cancel it.”
The first time hadn’t been a suggestion either.
“Like postpone it?” you echo, already internally cringing at the incredulity in your tone.
“I mean cancel it, the dinner with your not-mom.”
And now you’re frantically searching Higuruma’s face, for a crook in the corner of his mouth, a crevice of mischief, any fissure in his obsidian gaze. For any explanation at all.
“On such short notice? That’s kinda rude isn’t it?”
“You’re letting them know four days in advance.”
“I meant rude of you, Higuruma.”
“Is that what you meant?” His hand is still on your arm, but his grip hasn't tightened at all. Merely holding it there.
You feel the furthest edge your mouth twitch before you can inhibit it with sheer will. “It’s at least impertinent.”
“Impertinence, sure. Trademark behaviour, but you put up with it.”
And then there’s the glimmer in Hiromi’s dark eyes, all at once grounding and giving you vertigo. He still hasn’t let go of you. You know it would all dissolve, his rare impertinence too, if you took a single step back, or brushed him off.
You don’t.
“Is that really the trait you want to brag about?”
“I suppose I have too many to recommend me. Experiencing a little option paralysis?” He grins, and there’s another glint on the horizon again, flint and firelight and gunpowder and mercury flooding your veins. It’s not as foreign a sensation as it should be. Nor as fleeting.
Your lips purse around the smile you’re trying to restrain, with considerable difficulty.
“You’re not joking are you. About Friday.”
Higuruma waits, letting your rhetorical statement loop back into its answer, pulling at the thread of another question you’re unprepared for.
“No. Not unless…you’ve been planning it for a while.” His voice drops low, as does his hand, brushing over yours.
A while. A definition, on your terms. An offer of an exit, on his.
“Just a little while,” Higuruma mutters, his gaze skittering away from you for a fraction of a second, going to the floor. But it’s enough to make you realise you have to do your best not to melt past the mantle of the earth, your resolve all the more tested when Higuruma’s eyes sink back into you.
More or less successfully, you banish the quiver from your knees, although it finds refuge in your voice.
“And how would I find myself occupied on Friday night instead?”
“I happen to have a few ideas there.”
“I bet you do.”
“For starters, you could give me a crash course on this novel technology,” Higuruma states, fishing one of the soup spoons out of his pocket and holding it out to you.
“Heard it’s all the rage amongst society’s sophisticates.”
You can’t help but laugh out loud, as the fully grown attorney squints quizzically at the utensil in the middle of the metro.
“You know, that’s kinda a deal breaker when it comes to who I have dinners with. Not-Mom at least has those basics down I’m sure.”
“Should I feel threatened?”
“Perhaps,” you snicker as Higuruma frowns, tucking the spoon away. A moment of silence passes between the two of you.
“I’ll think about Friday,” you say softly, taking a step towards Higuruma and placing your palm against his cheek.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” he murmurs, his eyes slipping shut temporarily against your touch. His lips graze over your pulse, and you think you have your answer. You suspect Higuruma knows it too.
You wonder if he was always sure of it. Or, if he wasn’t.
But the question evaporates into irrelevance like so much morning mist as Higuruma curls a hand around your waist.
“Anyway,” Higuruma adds, eyes opening to reveal them twinkling, “you should at least see me with a knife and fork.”
“Wow. Going for broke on your bid for redemption?”
“Not quite,” he smirks, and it’s familiarly dizzying, this sensation of the incomplete quip behind the tease of Higuruma’s lips swiftly pressed to yours, yet thrumming for the first time with a different urgency, one you already know will be equally infectious.
But eventually (and a little too soon for your liking) Higuruma pulls away to add, “I was actually thinking, I might have to save up for more utensils. Maybe silverware.”
“That would be quite the investment,” you remark.
“They’d be worth it.” Higuruma states, and you can’t detect a hint of irony to save your life. Your cheeks heat, even as a November gust shrills by to fill the sliver of silence.
Fortunately the chilly reprieve is just long enough for you to remember something, and be rescued by your wits.
“If you’re that serious, I should start by clearing out your jumbo supersaver packs of cup noodles. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the so called emergency stash behind the shoe rack.”
With significant satisfaction, you note a pink tint to Higuruma’s face.
“The ramen are innocent. Leave Nissin out of this.”
“I’m still sending you that article about high salt consumption.”
Higuruma groans, “Fine, I’ll read that too.”
“Only read it?”
“Let’s have a decent first date, then we can debate the medical literature all you want.”
“There’s pretty solid scientific consensus about the odds of surviving off Kitkats and kaki-no-tane, Higuruma.”
“I have them with plenty of chilli sauce. Those contain vegetables. It’s a perfectly balanced diet.”
“I can’t wait to teach you how to read a nutrition label.”
“I’m starting to recall I might have made dinner plans with my not-dad on Friday.”
“Oh, would a picture of a capsicum help jog your memory a little quicker?”
Higuruma snorts, touching his forehead to yours, his voice dropping a few octaves to gruffly mutter against your mouth, “You’re assuming I know what a capsicum is…”
~ ~ ~
Eventually, Higuruma Hiromi does in fact, get acquainted with a capsicum. It only takes you three months to make the introduction.
You figure you’ll have to save arugula for the 2 year anniversary.
But at least the shoe rack now only stores footwear.
FIN.
this was awfully gratuitous for me but i sorely missed this man and writing for him, so that's my paltry excuse. Please pardon me.
A Reflection on How Trauma, Rage & Grief shaped Higuruma & Nanami (Differently)
Nah, Don't be fooled - Higuruma is not Nanami 2.0, or just a rebrand of noble, stoic workaholic. I explore some of these psychological nuances below in depth.
Frequent Comparisons
People draw parallels between Nanami and Higuruma mostly commonly through their Frustrations towards the System. For Nanami, that's been both Capitalism and the Jujutsu world, and for Higuruma it's the Justice system. This results in an aura or impression of emotional detachment, but it's certainly not to be mistaken for apathy. Quite the opposite in fact! It's because both men are so propelled by their principles that they don't permit themselves the "luxury" of (excessive) emotional fervour - but there may be some distinctions with how they go about that too!
Both have been worn down throughout the years, but both also have an Inciting Incident of a significant traumatic episode. I'll explore how both the long-term slog and traumas have affected them, but first let's make a distinction about each of their inciting incidents.
Duelling Dualities
Both Nanami and Higuruma's major turning points are based around how they couldn't protect someone they cared about, namely Yuu Haibara and Keita Oe respectively. These two also represent a loss of innocence for them.
On the surface, the loss and demise of a friend during formative years (Nanami was still in his teens!) would seem to have a much more significant impact than "losing" a client or case as a working adult, plus the degrees of emotional intimacy and investment are vastly different.
Nanami has also suffered this kind of emotional gradual decay but his experiences were less high stakes, less intense and less drawn out. As a salaryman he was only enduring it for himself, and didn't have the added burden of inadequate efforts jeopardizing someone else's life or liberation.
However, his loss is more literal than the lawyer's - as far as we know Keita isn't dead, but I can't imagine his fate to be very favourable given the circumstances around his..."mistrial". (I don't know what the legal ramifications of your attorney going berserk and offing the prosecution is, but I doubt those are good odds. I wonder if Keita's fate weighs on Higuruma too, after the canon events in the manga.)
Speaking of which, having someone die in front of you for the first time is monumental, and here's where we have another distinction; the kind of Guilt Nanami and Higuruma suffer. *Survivor's versus Perpertrator's.
[*As a a caveat, I'm no expert in clinical psychology so I want to add it might not be wholly accurate to characterise Nanami's guilt as classic Survivor's Guilt, and it's hard to say to what degree he experienced this specific sort, or for how long, but I'm sure he felt a significant sense of failure at being unable to protect his friend, which later expands into frustration into being put into such a situation in the first place.]
When I said "these two also represent a loss of innocence" earlier, I wasn't referring to Keita's, but Higuruma's corruption when he kills the prosecutor and judge. We are led to believe that Keita is plausibly innocent and didn't commit the crime, and is thus morally whole - whereas there's absolutely none of that ambiguity on Higuruma's part
Higuruma's is a moral failing, compared to young Nanami's one of ability and insufficient experience, exacerbated by the jujutsu system's flaws. We don't have the details about how Nanami's ill-fated mission with Haibara unfolded, only that they expected a second grade curse but were faced with a higher level opponent, which they weren't skilled enough to take on.
Nanami might be able to "offset" some of his guilt at being unable to save Haibara by blaming broader forces beyond him, or his circumstances of being too young and not being better prepared - although I don't think this is his nature to rely on that sort of naiveté reasoning and he carries that grief with him anyway (any iteration of survivor's guilt can be quite immune to logic.)
But for Higuruma, that burden of his ethical lapse rests entirely on his shoulders.
Higuruma fails in a way that feels or can be deemed to be much more personal; even as his actions are also similarly compounded by an unfair system but at the end of the day, he still killed with his own two hands.
There's no rationalising around such a crime of passion. There's no abstracting it out to the tolls and pressures the system takes, even if they are critical factors. The system is broken, and breaks him, and for a while Higuruma would rather blame and contend with its flaws rather than his own.
A man strung up by his own high ethical standards, what is he to do?
Conceits Revealed Through Self-Deceit
In times of severe emotional crisis, it's common for people to avoid the truth of what they really feel and/or want, because it's saddled with a lot of pain. As mentioned above, there's a specific kind of grief that festers with Higuruma's guilt which isn't present with Nanami's.
Higuruma snaps and he has to pick up the shards of his world view, we actually get a pretty coherent albeit funhouse mirror version of his moral reasonings but to be clear, this is less confrontation and more qualifiers to deal with the fact that he's now a murderer.
It manifests as a cynicism-fueled delusion where he attempts to argue, or rather persuade himself the killings were just or justified, not only that but that Culling Game killings could be an equally valid if alternative recourse for justice - his own Domain is a reflection of a courtroom turned theater, satirizing the legal process. A show trial in other words. 1ichtbringer has an excellent analysis that further unpacks how his Deadly Sentencing technique falsely stages a trial so that it appears to be impartial, and points out how Higuruma tampers with the process too. Highly recommend reading it to understand how beautifully deranged Higu's processing is, despite dressing it up in the rhetoric of logic (omg he's a delulu is the solulu girlie just like us!1!!)
Higuruma attempts to assuage his guilt by disregarding the justice system (and to an extent, the moral parameters) he has worked within his entire life, by harping on its limitations and flaws which are all fairly valid, but doesn't negate the fact that he's a criminal now
Furthermore, he is confronted by the contradiction between his and Yuji's killings, and the way each contextualizes their culpability couldn't be more stark. Yuji immediately confesses and doesn't try to rationalise or make any excuses. Higuruma on the other hand contorts his heart and head through several hoops so he doesn't have to feel such guilt - until he does.
From Higuruma's perspective, Yuji wasn't culpable for the Shibuya slaughter. Even as Yuji feels responsible, he is still innocent because he was acting under the influence of someone else's will - unlike Higuruma who carried out his executions with his own volition and more self-awareness. Quite simply, being blinded by rage doesn't hold up in court as a reason. Emotional states and pressures can be considered during sentencing but I doubt they would be much of a mitigating factor. Unfortunately for Higuruma it's difficult or impossible to defend his violent outburst of emotion since his framework of ethics and justice is premised so much on logic, which makes the nature of his moral lapse even more tragic and a particularly effective example of Gege writing dramatic irony.
And now, let's discuss the fiction Nanami Kento sells himself on.
When we get Nanami's flashback in Ch30, we're lead to believe he's the kind of guy who has never worried about "the meaning of life or his purpose on earth". Oddly enough, I think there is an element of truth to this for Nanami - Having faced an existential threat at such a tender age probably puts one off contending with such existential conundrums.
But then shortly after we get these panels:
This echoes one of Marx's central critiques of Capitalism, where workers are separated from both meaning and the means of production. Technically, Nanami's job scope - presumably as some type of wealth/hedgefund manager (or heaven forbid a stockbroker) - doesn't even have a traditionally tangible means of production, which only further reinforces the lack of importance of who he is as an individual and the sense of alienation, a pretty common phenomenon under Capitalism where workers feel psychologically and probably emotionally estranged from their work. Oh, the routine malaise!
[I fall back in love with him again each time i see the tear wiping part]
I don't think people have such profound insights or realisations if they haven't considered at length these broader philosophical questions regarding their priorities in life - but what I've always found pretty sexy was the simplicity of the scenario that gave Nanami this insight; an epiphany under ordinary, understated circumstances that he set his mind to without further equivocation. (And yes, I said it, it's sexy)
Who knows to what extent Nanami believed in his obsession about money for those four years; was his sole goal really just to retire young and migrate somewhere cheap? We know he still harboured dreams of moving to Malaysia; perhaps he could have afforded to by the time he was in his 30s, but there is also something within him that compels him to earn that retirement, not in an economic sense but rather in a way that addresses the question of what makes him feel like he'd deserved it. In short, how he earns a living in a way that aligns with and finances living a good life, does matter to Nanami. And by good we reference not just quality but morality too of course. The way things are done, the minutiae and attitude towards process matters very much to Nanami, not just the end goal.
I think that might be another way he differs a little from Higuruma, who could be a tad more impatient and results-oriented or focused, hence he'd be willing to take more risks (personal), bend rules and take advantage of loopholes - these tendencies all dovetail with his background navigating an already unfair legal system.
So, now that I've laid out the "lies" Nanami and Higuruma temporarily let themselves buy into, let's unpack what it indicates about their personalities. Gege often puts his (ill-fated?) idealists through their paces and what these pretences or obfuscations suggest about each man is fascinating and endearing to me in different ways!
The justification of his murder of two civilians is the central fib Higuruma tries to believe, but it's a delusion underpinned by disillusionment and years of constantly engaging with the incontrovertible ugliness and darkness of human nature encountered in his profession. That's how he spends his early adulthood.
Nanami, almost on the opposite end, doesn't want to acknowledge, let alone face such suffering and darkness for years - we might call it wilful or deliberate ignorance, or it may even have been a more subconscious choice. Either way, the avoidance stems from the tragedy of his personal history.
One man believes in his self-deception because he has faced the truth for too long, the other pursued a false priority because he has been attempting to avoid the agony and brutal realities of his calling.
When I think about the nature of their jobs, there also seems to be differences in the emotional and psychological tolls they're dealt. Being a sorceror has less overlap with social work and to my mind, has more parallels with law enforcement with missions revolving around investigation, surveillance, nullification of threats and broadly, maintaining a status quo and security for civilians. Most curses are abstract entities birthed from an amorphous mass of negative energy, there is an erasure of sentience, or at least a greatly reduced need to account for it, since they're already monsters meant to be eliminated in the most straightforward sense. A more sensitive take would be that these mutated souls must be put out of their misery.
As for most curse users, fortunately or unfortunately, there's little opportunity, let alone necessity to understand their humanity (apart from Geto, more on him later.)
Compared to a criminal lawyer who has to deal with and get to know (probably not the nicest) individuals over several months, handling their suspicions and doubts, cultivating the trust and human relationships; that takes a lot! No wonder Higuruma gets worn out.
"I have never been and never will be frustrated by my own uselessness." -Nanami Kento
Our bodies have something called a Sympathetic Nervous System and biology predicates its sensitivities and capacities for emotional duress; this also influences how much of others' sorrows we can take on before we become fatigued. Every individual is born with a different endurance. Higuruma and Nanami likely have very high tolerances, but everyone has their limits.
This part is pretty speculative but I think how these two men empathise is different as well; Higuruma definitely uses intellectual empathy primarily, while Nanami experiences emotional empathy slightly more often. He has genuine care and concern for his colleagues, and relationships with them - they may not appear to be exceptionally close ones but they are important to him. Just remember what happened to ponytail guy after he injured Ijichi.
Higuruma on the other hand may not have had the opportunity to cultivate such personal connections with those he works with, either by circumstance, choice or a hybrid of the two. I think he cares about people in a more abstract sense, as representations of his duties, rather than actual individuals whose emotional interiority he must grasp. Perhaps it's out of necessity or an instinct for self-preservation that he maintains this sort of distance. This isn't to say he's callous, just that the way he relates with those in his occupation is more analytical.
Where they are alike is that both probably know it's unsustainable to operate from a baseline of righteous fury or indignation in their jobs. Going off his occasional outbursts, Nanami does seem to have more of that undercurrent but I don't think he's suppressing his anger daily or at least, he has some way of coping with it long term so it doesn't reach a critical mass, whereas Higuruma, if he had any awareness of his encroaching cynicism, probably couldn't afford the time and headspace to process his emotions properly.
Corroding Cynicism, Corroborating Hope
Initially, I had a difficult time understanding a particular line in Higuruma's monologue in Ch166, the version I read translated it as:
"I thought I should value that very depravity, which other animals don't have!"
I realised this line has a resonance with another ardent idealist, Geto, who observes this hideousness in "monkeys" as a trait he abhors, unlike Higuruma who cherishes it and believes it's the thing that sets us apart from other beasts.
It was only after contrasting this pair of idealists' motivations that I could comprehend Higuruma's breakdown.
Unlike Geto, Higuruma's raison d'être (before he gets a taste for homicide) isn't in achieving grand ambitions, he's not trying to permanently overturn a system but would rather manoeuvre within one. It's not so much revolution as it is mitigation (via litigation, hah). He is determined and convinced he can do this despite the odds he's given.
The issue with this granular type of change of course is that it's just as likely to erode their agents, through "the accumulation of little despairs". Not so little in Higuruma's case of course, since even his hard won interventions are significant as they determine the fate of people's freedoms.
What initially confounded me about Higuruma's breaking point and his tirade about how "the darkness before your eyes is just darkness" is that it didn't seem to challenge or contradict the reality he knew about before he snapped, that people can be awful.
Weakness and ugliness will always exist in humans, but I don't think Higuruma anticipated or believed such weakness was embedded in the legal system to such an extent. He's finally made aware of it with Keita's case, and I think that's when he decides the system isn't simply flawed but fundamentally corrupt and that he can no longer make any further progress within it, that his struggle isn't worth it.
The inherent fallibility of humans remain a fact. However, there's a distinction between universal and personal truths; the former often informs the latter, but what really matters for how we act are those individual, internalised truths. Higuruma's most fundamental truth is:
He's someone who operates from his principles, regardless of results or odds - it's why he fights losing battles, it's why he goes up against Sukuna. But for a moment, he's blinded by disappointment and anger and forgets that this is his ultimate north star.
Nanami goes through a lot less to remember his conscience, and I partially attribute that to surviving something as terrible as he does at an early age. Closure might be a bit ambitious, but I'd like to believe how he handled and addressed the loss of Haibara was to honour him by returning to the jujutsu world and looking out for other young sorcerors in his own way, guiding those like Ino and Yuji.
The sense of accountability and empathy he indirectly instills in Yuji is something Higuruma picks up on later, and it gives him some semblance of hope that there are other people like Yuji trying to do the right thing, those worth protecting and supporting, and keeping his eyes open for.
Conclusions
One last thing I want to compare between Nanami and Higuruma is how they approached the talents they were born with. Nanami has his Ratio technique, and Higuruma is intellectually gifted though later we understand his true inherent genius lies in his jujutsu abilities.
In a way it's inevitable for our destinies to be shaped by our capabilities, but I think it's interesting that Nanami tried to deny this innate rare skill as a sorceror and find something else he could do.
If he wanted to lead a fulfilling life helping others, say as an educator or firefighter or paramedic (swoon) I don't doubt he could have, but he chose the path not many people are cut out for, returning to it not because it was pre-determined or cause he'd excel in the area, but because he knew he could guarantee doing it well in the moral sense.
Higuruma strikes me as another individual who'd be impressively competent at almost anything he sets his mind to. But the thing he's best at, given the circumstances he discovered them in, are skills he's now obligated to use in service of jujutsu HQ's higher ups. Higuruma wouldn't go so far as to reject using his natural powers and skills as a sorceror because of the unpleasant association of their origins, but he might struggle with how best to use these new tools, instead of being used. There may be another period of apparent futility he'll have to contend with.
I don't think Higuruma's faith is restored in the justice system by the time the manga concludes, and he'll have a hell of a time navigating the jujutsu one too, however he's more suited to being a sorceror as it would let him act more freely, in accordance with his own assessments, in ways that strike a better balance between his own moral code and jujutsu society's law,; something that he might even be able to shape in the wake of the Culling Games and a paradigm shift for Japan, now it's been forced to reckon with this whole other world.
You've been friends with Higuruma Hiromi for six years, his colleague for two months and now he's asked you to be his girlfriend...for just one weekend. What could go wrong?
a/n: AKA I give our favourite exhausted attorney a spin around the FakeDating!Trope. (Yes, we get to meet his family). Planning for this to be a multi-chapter fic, I was feeling goofy when I wrote this...
Normally, he'd be able to fend the hoard off on his own, more than comfortable being the resigned if badgered bachelor, however beleaguered he is by aunts pestering him with arrangements to meet with their "tennis club president's daughters".
Eagle-eyed and adeptly Higuruma weaves through the room so the mob of matchmakers can't converge on him all at once, adroitly avoiding engaging in any conversation which extends beyond a couple of minutes. His ears are alert to their wheedling praise, gauzy as their wolfish grins; No, he hadn't gotten a "super chic, new" haircut recently, it's in fact the exact same style he's been wearing for the past five annual family reunions.
Really, it's only troublesome when they make the concerted effort to attack in packs, deflecting and diminishing his deadpan defenses with their tittering. Inevitably one of them will comment on how this oh so brilliant demonstration of comedic wit makes him even more of a catch, and the others will pile on, sadistic in their ignorance as he writhes and wilts under a barrage of trite pleasantries, hardly informed by reality.
Has he- has he been working out???
He's almost too shocked by the insidious insipidness of the compliment to be annoyed, but Higuruma curses his lack of foresight anyway; Why hadn't he printed out that medical report with its urgent warnings about his cholesterol levels? He could've shoved it and all this facetiousness in their faces, triumphing in their stunned silence.
Instead he swiftly chugs down a half-full bottle of beer (hoping against hope one of them observes the velocity of the disappearing act as a penchant for alcoholism, or any other vice) then mumbles something about getting a refill, would they want one?
Higuruma kicks himself as the question slips from him and his aunts lunge, gushing about what a "considerate, fine young man" he is, surely deserving of a fine, young lady and oh, they just so happen to know where he might meet one, she does yoga, or fencing or makes her own hand-poured soy wax candles, see, they have a clip of her conducting a craft workshop at the village fair, demonstrating for all the little kiddies, gosh she's so good with them isn't she, Higuruma should save her contact, here they'll just take his phone so her name's spelled right-
Higuruma is contemplating how he can make stomping on his mobile with both feet look like an accident when he spots a miracle - a life raft lashed together with chicken carcasses and vegetable scraps. He grabs the dinghy of dirty dishes, excusing himself and does his best to conceal his cringe as one of his aunts remarks on how rare it is for a man to take the initiative on domestic duties to a chorus of approvals.
Wielding the plates as a shield Higuruma races from the dining area, tactically retreating across the drawbridge into kitchen as he scurries towards the sink with its reassuring moat of suds.
Of course it's not an entirely foolproof strategy, he could be cornered in the kitchen too; castle turned Alcatraz with a volley of pointed comments about his complexion whizzing over the turrets of the trays, those dark circles shadowing his face identical to bullseyes for how targeted his uncles' brusque inquiries are. Fortunately, all he has to do is suggest the wok needs a more thorough rinse, would they like to assist him? And then blessedly, they beat a hasty retreat and Higuruma gets to enjoy some solitude...for all of ten seconds before his gambit comes to bite him in the ass.
Some cousin pops in with their latest toddler in tow, cheerfully offering unsolicited advice, fussing about the stove top in a scheme to offload the infant clawing at his hips onto Higuruma, holding out the crimson faced cryptid doing its best impression of a banshee.
It's the cousin closest to his age whom, up until a few years ago, had faced these very same ritualistic trials engineered by their relatives. Higuruma can't help feeling betrayed; so much for surviving the prisoners' dilemma together, or their fraternal bonds forged in the fires of their aunts' chirpy interrogations. Brothers in arms no longer.
Hastily Higuruma starts stacking and drying pans, occupying his hands and furiously buffing utensils till the spoons are concave mirrors catching the rich marinade of his misery, knowing he's running out of tines to shine while the shrieks and whines of the nominally humanoid spawn continue to climb and climb, his father fumbling awkwardly, haphazardly trying to hiccup his miniature replica with an odd jostling rhythm.
An unexpected saviour appears at the 11th hour, the aunt who owns the house sweeps into her kitchen, drawn to what is an apparently angelic cacophony. The heavenly host relieves the parent of the screaming cherubim, cooing some excuse for the colic baby (and an erroneous assessment that they aren't from the tenth circle of hell).
Too late however, Higuruma realises this is less divine intervention and more Grecian pantheon machinations as the aunt drops her guise of allyship, the formidable adversary commanding her emissary with a breezy, "Oh, Oetsu, don't forget to tell Hiromi about your charming co-worker! You were telling me she has a really pretty voice, when your company did a karaoke night right?"
Cousin Oetsu clears his throat and Higuruma shoots him a wounded glare. Et tu, brute?
"Yeah! She did quite a charismatic rendition of Livin' on a Prayer."
It takes every fiber of Higuruma's already strained optic nerves for his eyeballs not to roll to the ceiling. Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, he grits his teeth and spits a Hail Mary.
"I heard your 8-month-old son learned to sit up this spring?"
Cousin Oetsu and his aunt bare their teeth, with the kind of vicious incandescence that makes it into history books, accompanied by ominous pictures of looming mushroom clouds. It makes his bones brittle, but Higuruma knows he's bereft of any other choices.
Croaking his defeat, he mutters the nuclear question, "Did you record it?"
Higuruma doesn't know how many eons have elapsed when he finally stumbles out of the kitchen, having survived 27 folders of videos and photos (and what? TikToks as well now? what are those?) of babies doing incredible variations of very little to nothing at all - in most of the footage, the tiny creatures at least seemed as equally perplexed as him as to why their mere existence warranted this much wonder and fascination. He scarcely gets a moment to brace himself with a burning swig of amber liquid before having to deal with his immediate family.
Fortunately Higuruma has had years to practice, to perfect subtlety with those nips of whiskey vaccinating him against his mother's withering sighs, his father's jabs about his job prospects, his elder brother's boasts about the latest island resort he's invested in, and so on. But riding back to his apartment on the last train in an empty cabin, Higuruma has to admit to himself that what he can't outmaneuver is Time and the fact that yes, (he hears this in his mother's beseeching drone) Grandma's 95th birthday is coming up and a 96th doesn't seem an exceptionally realistic prospect; the dowager deserves to at least feel like all her descendants are on the track to her antiquated concepts of success and happiness, right?
So he enlists you, or not so much enlists as bribes you; A bargain, a steal really, doing just three weeks of your paperwork but you have his parking lot for the rest of the year - and you get to relish the normally poised, polished as silverware, eloquent Higuruma Hiromi out of his element; a rare chance to see this forthright, courtroom commanding orator with razor sharp intellect become an evasive, even sheepish, blushing boy outwitted by a nonagenarian in her tea parlour? You almost bruise yourself with the pinch when he implores you to pretend to be his partner, mumbling it around his mouthful of bourbon during a post-work week drink/drowning session. The request is garbled through the alcohol, but it doesn't do enough to disguise his desperation.
Higuruma Hiromi, at your mercy, in your debt - the rarest of opportunities. In all honesty he could have offered a measly three days of paperwork for this golden chance; but lucky for you your morose faux Romeo is none the wiser.
It's going to be a summer potluck type of thing, out in the country for a few days. You send him photos of sundresses listed on several boutiques' sites, to assess what would be, in your words "an appropriate amount of ankle to reveal in front of his relatives?" and you're sure you'd have heard his eyeballs rollicking to the back of his sockets if you weren't too busy inelegantly snorting out an espresso through your nose at his reminder that any sackcloth cowls or ermine fur-trimmed chemises will be at your own expense. How does he of all people know what a chemise is anyway?
But after that, you don't ambush, much less consult him in the cafeteria again about your fashion choices.
However, when the day comes, you wonder if your attire is sufficiently modest or if he's found something to nitpick about your chiffon midi dress with its square neckline. Met with his prolonged silence, you mentally race through the reflection you'd checked before opening your door to him; The silhouette isn't too snug, flattering without being figure-hugging, it traces rather than accentuates your waist and while there's a leg split along the long cream skirt embroidered with sunflowers, it ends a mere couple inches above your thigh. All things considered, very demure and unlikely to be the cause of hushed whispers or cardiac arrests from any female relatives aged 40 and up. So, you have half a mind to reach for Higuruma's pulse as he stands stock still on your front step without a single word, with saucer plate eyes. Scrutinizing as usual, you're sure.
Perhaps you had some strands out of place? You tuck a lock behind your ears and press your cherry tinted lips together.
"I have a band tee and an ancient pair of bermudas I could change into instead," you offer drolly, notching a fist at your hips.
Higuruma blinks, as if ridding himself of pirouetting black spots, a penalty for staring at the sun.
"Uh no no, it's fine. We should get going, it'll be a long drive."
You nod once, adjusting a strap along your otherwise bare shoulders, and Higuruma considers accounting for his abrupt onset of muteness. He registers your faintly concerned expression and racks his brain for an explanation; Maybe he could say it was something to do with how he's only ever seen you in a rotation of black or dark blue pantsuits and corporate attire - yes, that reason could hold water - until a memory of you in a particular navy pencil skirt trickles unbidden into Higuruma's mind and he blanches, just as he did back then when he'd bumped into you during that morning commute...
"Higuruma?"
"Sorry, what?"
"I asked if the car you rented was an automatic. My license does apply to manuals, but it's been a while since I've driven one."
"Oh yea. Yes, it's an automatic." Higuruma pats his left pocket, then his right, then checks the inner lining of his jacket, before finally pulling it out of his left pants pocket.
You keep the snigger off your face though you suspect it's sidled into your tone; luckily, for whatever reason, Higuruma's focus doesn't seem to be as laser pointed as it usually is.
"Okay, just let me get the Yakitake from the fridge," you hum.
"Yaki..take?"
"Yep, the place has really taken off. They recently opened a fifth outlet at Akasaka. I got it since your grandma enjoys cheesecake."
"She does..." Higuruma diverts the quizzical drawl in his voice to his gaze as it trails instead toward the large, glossy paper bag you pass him while you lock the door behind you.
"You mentioned it a few months ago, when we had that 71 year old accused of a string of B&Es into that bakery chain."
"Oh, right. Still don't understand why someone would try to steal sourdough starter. Or how it'd be kept in a safe."
"That place is popular for a reason, but too crowded! I get my sourdough from this reliable place, it's not far from Ichigaya Station. Shame they don't sell them in quarter loaves though, but at least they make for good croutons. I'll let you sample it next time."
"Croutons?"
"No," you say, unable to keep the giggle at bay this time, "a sandwich."
"I think I'm more of a vending machine shokupan kinda guy," he comments, unlocking the door on the passenger's seat side for you.
"Just by necessity, and you don't even like the tuna mayo!"
You continue to chide as you slide into the vehicle, "Nobody does - it's always the last flavour. Even those vacuum packed fish bars get sold out first."
You hear Higuruma's restrained sigh ghost over his words even above the sibilant hiss of seat belts being pulled into place.
"They're not so bad once you've had them three or four days in a row," Higuruma mutters, starting up the engine.
"A BLT," you declare, as the straps snap into their slots with a definitive click,"When we get back I'm introducing you to BLTs."
"I'm acquainted. That's how I discovered I dislike lettuce, especially raw."
"You know, I don't think I've ever recalled you being in the vicinity of a vegetable."
"Actually I had three of those martinis last Friday, so three very briny vegetables."
You stare at one of the most inarguably brilliant attorneys you've ever met in the span of your entire career, banking on silence to prompt an elaboration of his bizarre statement. When it doesn't come, you say slowly, "You know olives are a fruit right."
Higuruma fixes his gaze dead ahead through the windshield. You wonder if he'll put a crack through it.
"I knew that."
There's a two second gap, before he adds, "They were vodka martinis. I was referring to the potatoes it's distilled from."
You clap a palm over your mouth just in time, but the snicker that gets repressed reroutes to your shoulders instead, and you're certain the quiver will carry to your voice, so you simply say, "Sure, Higuruma. Sure."
The ripple of your mirth over his syllables is too enticing not to confirm what's in his periphery. Higuruma's gaze flickers to his left then snaps straight back onto the road; he's not about to risk a demerit point for being distracted by an unexpectedly blinding beam.
Perhaps he should get his shades out from the glove compartment; he can't let you see his focus waver.
This was supposed to be a simple, smooth drive after all, except now he can't help but wonder if this peculiar, unfamiliar tautness in his chest bodes ill for the ruse ahead of both of you...
summary. Perhaps Nanami's approach to...rousing you in the mornings has changed over the years.
tags. Established relationship, Domestic bliss | Romance | Smut | Body (& Soul)Worship | Mentions of Nanami wanting to be a father
a/n: Super soft, super indulgent piece. Have your cake and eat it nanami girlies. Sometimes i just need to write him a love letter ok
Prologue
Back when you'd just begun to be intimate with each other, Nanami tended to be a little embarrassed about his subconscious (but hardly subtle) desires for you. He would rather suffer his internal, infernal dilemma than disrupt your rest. But he couldn't quite control his urges, squirming between decency and depravity, not when you'd rub up against him, so innocuous and merciless.
It was a hard habit to shake; how Nanami felt he ought to earn your every quiver against him, every whimper, however much he yearned to feel you tremble at his moans at any given moment. It was codified in him, there was a time and a place and patterns to follow, before he could permit himself the pursuit of your shared pleasures.
Of course, you'd unveil him in the evenings, the privilege of your touch stripping bare the prerogatives of his flesh. You unraveled him, his reticence, his reasoning, his very capacity for speech, by braiding your breath and fingers with his, in the friction-begetting-friction tangle of your lips and limbs together.
Yet he still thinks of these mornings, that find the two of you entwined, as an undeserved luxury. So Nanami would do his best instead to focus on your face, how sweet your peaceful expression was. It would be wicked of him not to cherish this, he'd chastise himself for wanting more, for wanting to drown in your adoring gaze, for wanting to return it with his own hungry one, body and spirit beggared by the night, by the hours not spent beheld by you.
Nanami assumed the beauty and tenderness of your countenance would quell, or could sate his appetites, would tame the primal stirrings in his belly. But nothing could be further from the truth, in fact they had the opposite, compounding effect; a lump in his throat would rise, and his desperation would thicken till he could only helplessly rut his hips against you.
And then your eyelids would flutter open, and in the crease of your knowing smile, all his definitions, his distinctions, all that distance between need and greed would collapse with a single kiss.
Years later, and your husband is so absolutely shameless about his...early head starts to the day. He pulls you into him, snug against the cleft of your ass cheeks, content to let your scent and radiance seep through the thin fabric and warm him in a way the sun, in its reluctance behind the clouds and curtains, can never hope to.
He stares at the petulance drooping off the petals of your lips, rose bud coiled tight before daybreak can coax it to unfurl for strobes of gold. Nanami is a patient man, too patient you've often thought, yet you feel his phantom touch, a tender sweep of your mouth, a zephyr whispering in the wings, billowing brocade and swelling muslin, ghost pulling you through the gauze of sleep.
You shift against Nanami to hear him sigh your name, soft and distant, thick with slumber and affection and it's this which rouses you more, not merely his growing rigidity pressed to the curves of you. Although, it helps, feeling every inch of his hunger like this, in a slow swirl and pinch at your waist, the gentlest rocking as your breasts are cradled in his palms, familiar persuasion pebbling your areola. You know he dreams of them swollen with milk, that all your memories of his teeth are girded by the desire for them to be suckled by the most innocent of mouths, baring only gums and tiny wails. Your nubs stiffen and a small smile stretches across your face at the thought that with his wish to grow a family fulfilled, he might find also a small regret, of his monopoly of your mounds contested by another, to whom he owes the genesis of your body's generosity, that sweet fullness dribbling, stolen, into your husband's mouth, enticing in its envy.
This prospect of hypocrisy is to be savoured for another day, far down the road. This morning brings neither hesitation nor urgency, all syrupy light and his maple gaze, the languor of his limbs splayed around you to be treasured just as much as the gradual grind of his cock. There's a certain smugness in its slowness, as with the self-assuredness of his thumb circling a bare sliver of your skin.
A familiar motion that stirs a memory, fuchsia-tinted for the both of you. You remember your then boyfriend stammering and scarlet-tipped, matched to the rosy tips of his ears, excuses lost in the shuffle of sheets and stutter of hips.
"I-it's just-just the t-temp-ah-temperatuur," he'd slurred, the excuse as thin and transparent as the sticky film he laved across your throat, dangerously growing gossamer and feebler with every twitch and each strong buck against your body.
"Mmhmm," you'd hum, carnal ache turning you conciliatory. Such complacency. You had been the one to smirk back then, canines gleaming coy, as you offered ruin in the guise of reprieve.
"Want me to warm you up, darling?" Hands already reaching for him, mind already marveling before your fingers could be reacquainted with their hubris, his girth.
"P-please, anythin-nghing" he'd panted, all wide-eyed desperation to be devoured, sweet thing.
You'd been such a fool.
To not know not greed was a two-way street, this ravenous osmosis, this vicious ouroborous.
You think perhaps, in fact, you got the worse end of the deal, trembling against your spouse now, thighs clamped together.
"My dear," Nanami hums, a teasing timbre dripping honey as he sinks his fingers in, "always so ready for me."
You squirm, eyes screwed shut and fisting the sheets, trying to grasp the pale image of the boy who'd once writhed and blushed beneath you, a spectre all but vanquished. You miss him, sometimes.
You arch your back into Nanami, the way you know he's addicted to, just to hear him groan your name, ragged with the dregs of self-restraint or slumber, you're not sure which, but it's a close enough echo to send pleasure juddering through you, the recollection churning hot in your gut, of when he was wrapped around your finger, instead of your cunt around his.
"Sweetheart."
The tenderness of his tone pries your lids open. He doesn't have to ask, doesn't have to say anything but he does, because he knows you are too stubborn to ask for what you need to hear.
"My love."
He claims your gasp, in the crush and curl of his mouth, in the crook of his fingers.
"My girl."
Another smattering of kisses, chasing the flutters of your belly down, down, down to your creases weeping nectar. He licks a whine from you, pitching high into the air, his husky moan vibrating within you.
"My wife."
You feel the hot gust of Nanami's breath over your clit, as he pauses.
"My wife."
There's a reverence as he repeats himself, pathetic attempts to vanquish his disbelief, wonder glistening in his gold-flecked irises, staring at you in awe, searching for proof this isn't some frenzied fever dream of his.Of course, he finds it in your own unwavering eyes.
You've been such a fool.
There, in the locked gaze your shared history glimmers, that shy boy paralyzed by his worship of you, prostrate as the man before your parted legs now, offering his soul, his past, his future.
You reach for him, and he surges upwards. The collision is wave returning and rising from oceans, over and over, is starburst, is incandescence, is the fission of atoms never, ever meant to be split.
It burns away all notions of him as your acolyte or priest, any concept of deity and devotee.
"My life," he breathes into you, and you feel the throb in your ribs, the furnace of his lungs.
"My life," you repeat to your husband.
Adam. Prometheus. Kento.
This morning and many after, he lavishes you with irreverence, a ravishing of irrelevance; his goddess, his woman, his joy -all that matters is that you are his and he is yours; Together, you forge a paradise that exists for as long as the melding of your souls persist, boundless as horizons and sure as sunrises.
synopsis: Higuruma makes *you* breakfast in bed for the first time
wc: 1.7k
tags: fluffy! (unlike his eggs) . established relationship. romance.
a/n: inspired by @breekento's absolutely lovely photoset. a lil idyll, a smidge of indulgence. i couldn't help myself when he's so boyfriend-shaped [to the best of his abilities because...it's higuruma after all]
You were both supposed to be paying off some fairly massive sleep debts;and you hadn't even been incurring them in the usual fun ways.
The tradeoff of being slumber deprived to be a little depraved - ok, maybe more than a little - was hardly a dilemma for you and Higuruma; something you had figured out together early on in your relationship. Just one more way the two of you complemented each other, a pair of stubborn night owls turned lovebirds.
But work has been brutal; you're up to your neck in revisions to proposals for the sustainability bureau, and Higuruma's latest case had him building his defense strategy from scratch twice over now.
You can't remember the last time you shared a dinner that wasn't microwaveable. And pretty soon even the heaps of instant ramen packets were replaced by looming piles of onigiri wrappers, threatening to spill out of the bins - because fiddling with tiny sachets of powdered soup and rinsing out pots became too much of a luxury. So it was lots of take out, and very little making out.
You came to cherish the front doorstep to your apartments, a sacred altar where your bodies crossed each other in the morning bustle, swift as pedestrians, surrendering to serendipity; yet Cupid's best efforts could only conspire to the briefest, briskest brushes of your mouths before you hurried off towards your hectic jobs.
Evenings fared little better. Slouching past where he'd be collapsed on the couch at 2am, you'd drop a peck on his forehead when you could, if you had the strength to peel back the post-its with comments on penal code sections and the stacks of annotated alibis, gentle in your excavation of the mountainous documents, even as you know there's never any erosion of Higuruma's workaholism.
So you got good at deciphering the same crabbed handwriting on the fridge's notepad, mostly apologies and promises, before they dwindled down to hasty scratches of frowny emojis, blotting out dates on the calendar. All of it sincere, and all of it thwarted.
Weeks grated by like that, with their numbing addendums of cancelled grocery lists and rainchecks, strings of his snarky texts and your grumpy selfies becoming the lifeline of your relationship.
A month or maybe two, passed and finally, finally the pitches were accepted, as were the plea deals. Surely things could go back to normal now?
So, when you rolled over this morning anticipating a long overdue snuggle against Higuruma's chest, to instead find only a cold spot on his side of bed, the chagrin prickles through you so sharply it pierces through the groggy fog of sleep you still very much need.
"Hiro..." The pillows, absent of even his scent have the further audacity to muffle your grumble. But then you feel a slightly self-conscious chuckle roll honeywarm over your spine, and the dip of the bed as it welcomes the return of a weight that never should have left it at this hour.
"Sorry darling, I got hungry. Figured you might be too."
Your head creaks to the side, a warm scent wafting through the final defenses of your pillow fort. It's one you haven't smelled in a very, very long time.
"Masako's?"
Higuruma chuckles at the disbelief in your voice, still slumber-hoarse.
"That's right, made the pilgrimage all the way to Yoyogi. Just for you."
You hear the scrape of a knife and a rich, buttery aroma mingles with the morning air. Then you hear Higuruma's voice, dredged in huskiness from his drowsiness, drawling close to your ear. "So, forgive me yet?"
Your huff is already half buried in the pillow as you turn away from him and Higuruma sighs, wishing you'd at least treat him to your scowl. But he'll play along, after all it's been a while since the both of you could squander a morning on feigned pettiness.
"It's cute when you pretend to hold out on me," he muses, teasing his fingers through your locks before a heated palm comes to cup your cheek. "But the bagels are getting cold."
You can't help leaning into Higuruma's touch, purely instinctive, a vine supine toward its sun. But still you manage to mutter, "W'er s'posed to cuddle this mrngh."
You feel the grin in his voice long before it sneaks up to the corner of your lips. "We'll have the whole day to cuddle..."
Higuruma's aquiline nose dips down your neck, stopping just short of the spot he knows elicits a hitch in your breath. "Or not cuddle."
Drat him, and those nimble fingertips, just starting to skim beneath the hem of your shirt, summoning butterflies so swiftly you're uncertain if the swoop in your belly is from their innocently tickling antennae, or his digits' dexterous pretense of roaming your skin idly.
"For now, I'd like you to acknowledge the attempt I'm calling an omelette."
Now that has your eyes snapping open and jolting upright, shuffling around to stare at your partner who, for all his towering intellect, has never been able to distinguish a whisk from a sieve.
"You cooked? I didn't hear anything. What happened, were the batteries dead in the smoke alarm?"
"I'll have you know I actually replaced them recently."
Your skepticism retreats as you register Higuruma's mildly wounded expression. He turns to the side table, retrieving a breakfast tray and setting it before you. True, the yellow oblong by the perfectly browned discs is a little squat and misshapen, but it's distinctly missing the burnt, greasy odour you've come to reflexively associate with even his best attempts.
But this morning, you aren't even seeing any flecks of black. In fact, you start to notice the specks of green.
"Scallions?"
You raise the dish, squinting at the garnish, before lowering it to stare at Higuruma.
"Who are you and what have you done with my lover?"
"I guess I'm just some other man who's fallen for the charms of your terribly exacting egg standards," he deadpans, ruffling your hair and pressing a fork into your hand. "Now dear, if you'd be so kind as to make your judgment."
You take a sip of tea, made exactly how you like it (black, half a teaspoon of sugar, sans milk or creamer - maybe this man seated across from you isn't an impostor after all) and once you've washed down your bewilderment, set to properly tackling breakfast.
You take a breath, and let your fork cleave through the omelette. It cuts through cleanly, and doesn't wobble once on its way to your mouth.
It's...edible, you decide. Serviceable even, provided you were getting served at a road side gas station. But then you remember who cooked it, which practically makes it a 3 Michelin Star meal.
"It's good. Properly seasoned and everything." You smile, taking another bite.
"So how many dozens of eggs did you go through before you achieved this masterpiece?"
Higuruma shakes his head and huffs, casting his eyes heavenward. "Oh ye of little faith."
"In my defense, this is a novelty, Hiro. You've never spoiled me this way before."
You chuckle, tweaking his cheek, and his put-upon morose expression falters, as affection glimmers in his eyes instead.
"Three-quarters are still intact," he informs you, watching you sip your tea.
"Three quarters of the carton?" Your lip curls knowingly around the edge of your mug, and something stirs within Higuruma.
"Of the tray," he confesses, pulling your hand into his, starting to rub soft circles against your wrist.
"Couldn't be too cautious, hm?"
"I had Wikihow's assistance. And it's not my first time cooking eggs, you know."
You chew on the bagel for a quiet, contemplative moment.
"But the first time serving them?"
Your partner shrugs, but the way he averts his gaze for a moment tells you what you need to know. You squeeze his hand, and he looks back up at you.
"Thanks, Hiro. For making the morning special." You brush your forehead against his, savouring his happy hum reverberating against your cheeks as you put the tray off to the side.
"With this display of confidence, maybe you could even try tamagoyaki some time."
"Well, now that seems a tad ambitious-" Higuruma begins to equivocate but you shut him up with a kiss, tossing off the quilts and clambering into his lap, your appetite truly having been awakened at last.
He lets your hunger rush over him, falling backwards as his tongue greedily clambers towards yours, feeling a burden lift as your weight presses him back into bed, as your hips settle into their slow, needy grind against his. He kisses you, drinks you in more deeply, tasting the tannins of the tea he'd over-brewed while fussing with that dang omelette, but mingling with your scent and sweetness, it's nothing short of the most potent ambrosia. Higuruma groans, he's been parched of your taste and starved of your touch for weeks and weeks and he wants - needs you to drain him of these reservoirs of ache and desperation that have been suffocating him for so long.
Delirium and his desire floods through you, Higuruma's hands skittering everywhere, almost antsy enough to shred the fabric off of you. Higuruma nips urgently at your lips and you let his tongue, his limbs, his scent coil around you, entwined in his essence and embrace. His name spills from you in shallow gasps, pleading for a minor reprieve from the pleasure, but he persists, busying himself at your nape, suckling eagerly, flint-edged nose and canines planting tender bruises. It's only when you flinch slightly from the overstimulation of his roving mouth that he relents, reluctantly, tipping your head back to assess his efforts.
He likes what he sees; Your skin glowing in roses, dewy with his sweat and spit. Your famished gaze, devouring him as he devours you
"Maybe you should spend more time in the kitchen after all," you giggle, running your hands through his scalp, and you feel that burst of familiar wet heat as Higuruma quivers underneath you, a sodden spot growing and twitching against your core.
He presses his lips to you once more, his smirk both scalding and saccharine as he murmurs, "Never mind my rudimentary culinary skills darling, I'm going to spoil you in all the ways you already know, and then some."
tags: Established Relationship | (pretty indulgent) Fluff | Humour |
synopsis: You sleep with Hiromi ;)
a/n: Yaaay HiguWeek is here! I'm anxious and excited but this is the one I'm starting with! Thank you once again to the extraordinarily talented @wibben for beta-ing this story!
You’re stacking the last of the crockery into the dishwasher and humming along to ODIE’S Phenomenon, your movements leisurely as you enjoy the mellow melody. The kettle whistles just as the final chorus tapers off and you finish setting a pan on the drying rack.
You let the next track play automatically in the background while you reach for the tin containing the sachets of Earl Grey, but pout slightly upon discovering there’s only one left. Oh well, it’ll be Darjeeling for you then.
You roll up the sleeves of your cardigan, putting together the necessary concoctions of creamer, sugar and milk before carrying the two cups out of the kitchen.
“We’ll need to pop by the store on our way back later, darling.”
Your remark is met with uncharacteristic silence, and you have to peer past the spiraling tendrils of steam to glean why this is.
It’s a rather endearing, and rare, reason.
In the middle of this drizzly autumn afternoon, Higuruma is sprawled out on the sofa, legs snug in grey sweatpants slung over the armrests, one arm drooping off the upholstery, the other flopped across his belly, just haphazard enough for the hem of his black sweatshirt to have ridden up, revealing the dark trail of fine hairs tapering beneath the waistband of his briefs.
Normally, you would have been rather distracted by that. But there’s a rather heavy looking tome spread-eagled across Higuruma’s face, its pages rustling with his snoring as the susurrus of the rain is eclipsed by the staggered rhythms of his breath, grating through his chest. It’s not such an unpleasant sound, you’ve become rather fond of it.
You sneak a sip of Earl Grey then silently as possible, you set the mugs down on their coasters and carefully pull your phone out, making sure you turn off the chimes and buzzes of the haptic feedback before you click the record button.
“snnhhnrgrrRRRrrglrtsnrhhh…”
You bite your lip, willing the giggle bubbling up in your throat to pop into a ridiculous grin instead - and even then you hope you’re not grinning too loud.
“SSSssSSsnrhhhGRRRGRLTshhiusiushhhiuuuu…”
A particularly prolonged, sharp whistle shrills through his nostrils, causing the dust jacket to flap up and your heart to flutter. You hurriedly snap another photo, censuring your snigger by clapping a palm over your mouth. You indulge yourself for a few more moments before slipping your phone back in your pocket to better savour the scene before your eyes, the amusement and affection effervescent and lingering within you easily exceeding the posterity of what cameras could barely capture.
You would have wondered how Higuruma wasn’t asphyxiated by the thick book, if it wasn’t for how intimately acquainted you were with the strong nose propping it up. Just as familiar are the scrunch of those dark brows, those creases to his countenance that even slumber couldn’t smooth out.
But as you carefully lift the book off your boyfriend’s face, the sight that greets you causes a hitch in your breath. For once, Higuruma looks perfectly placid, the very portrait of serenity with a slack jaw and unlined forehead, a single silver thread of spittle adhering to a dog eared page as you peel it back from his cheek. You stifle another giggle, just barely, quietly placing the book on the coffee table behind you when a slip of paper flutters to the floor.
You retrieve it and give it a quick scan, immediately recognising it as a handwritten grocery list accompanied by some annotations.
Eggs. 6? 12?
Negi
Shimeji mushrooms
Nasu x2
Ponzu
Coffee. Guatemala, medium-roast
Fabric softener. Lavender
Shoe polish
Floss
Pocky (Cookies & Creme)
Oreos
Apples. (Gala or Fuji’s okay but NOT Envy. Too mushy for her)
Pasta sheets for Friday
Tinned tomatoes. 18oz
Garlic *Granules not cloves
Cumin seeds (powder is fine too, but less fresh)
It’s all been written in Higuruma’s brisk, slanted squiggles: Staples, snacks and several ingredients for recipes you intended to experiment with in the following week. You can’t help but feel a swell of affection rising in your chest too, as you recognise the notes Higuruma’s made of your preferences in parentheses, based on off-handed comments or complaints you’re sure you’ve only ever mentioned in passing.
Your gaze drifts from the list to your partner splayed out on the couch, conducting the magnum opus of his sonorous snoring symphony, the most at peace you’ve seen him in a while. You fight a losing battle, resisting the urge for as long as you can - Higuruma tended to be a light sleeper after all. But you can’t help it.
In the next moment you’re tiptoeing over to your partner, gingerly leaning forward to brush your lips across his jawline as delicately as possible.
You think you’ve gotten away with it too as Higuruma gives no indication of stirring when you straighten back up, but then you feel his fingertips skimming above your knees and hear his soft sigh of your name.
“Sorry, love. Was hoping I wouldn’t wake you,” you murmur, brushing a thumb along his cheek. He leans into your touch, nuzzling a dopey smile into your palm.
“C’mere,” he slurs, baritone still claggy with slumber, eyelids drooping even as he cranes his head up toward you.
You start to settle against the sofa but an undignified squeak suddenly escapes you when your whole world tilts horizontally. Higuruma hoists your legs up off the floor, slinging one of them across his hips and pulling you down so your chest is pressed to his, and you feel his words rumble through you.
“I said C’mere,” he wriggles you around some more until one of his limbs is looped under yours and your pelvis is flush to his, shushing your protests about how cramped the couch is.
When Higuruma’s finally settled, he dampens your skin with a rather dramatic sigh (the kind you’ve heard after he’s gulped down a couple of aspirin) as he eases at last into your embrace.
“S’much better,” he mumbles against your nape, inhaling your scent and tucking his nose along your collarbone.
“So this is the plan for the rest of the afternoon?”
“This is the plan.” Higuruma hums, his hands trailing idly over your waist; his thumb takes a lackadaisical detour, roving over a bare sliver of your skin and continues circling beneath your shirt.
It’s not such a bad plan, you think.
You indicate your acquiescence with a kiss, which goes on a little longer and deeper than you expect, not that you mind.
“You taste like bergamot,” Higuruma says eventually, just a hint of suspicion colouring his tone. He cracks one eye open and it slides over your shoulder to the pair of steaming mugs on the table.
“Mine?”
“Yeah, yours.” You shrug slightly, pressing the apology to the corner of his mouth.
Higuruma shakes his head, drawing one of your hands up to cup his face, folding the other in his fist as he moves it across his chest, to where you feel a steady rhythm seeping into your skin and bloodstream, the familiarity syrupy in your veins as your body relaxes and your breaths sync, relinquishing your wakefulness to the sweet flood of melatonin and Higuruma’s presence.
You drift off, barely catching your lover’s whisper over the hypnotic heartbeat your fingers are curled around.
“Yours.”
I hope everyone who reads this finds a love like this!
tags: Higuruma Hiromi x Reader | Humour | Character Study
synopsis: What that mouth do?
Higuruma Hiromi’s mouth is magic.
No, not for its purposes in his legal profession nor even in the leisure of his licentious pursuits, but it’s impressive for a far more fundamental reason - the act of eating, and more aptly, it’s an act which really warrants the description of a Performance.
You’re convinced meals with Higuruma Hiromi have both enough drama and tragicomedy to rival vaudevillian theatrics or Cirque du Soleil spectacles.
With him, menus transformed into playbills and lunches became matinées.
Currently, you’re savouring your front row seat as he launches into a Shakespearan treatise on a hamburger and some crinkle-cut fries. He is in fact delivering some diatribe about his latest case, but you find your attention rather riveted by the single tomato slice half hovering between the buns, waiting in the wings of the thoroughly wrinkled wrapper clutched in Higuruma’s hand.
All of his neatly pressed suit is a stage and these formerly sturdily assembled ingredients, merely players.
“And now I’m going to have to file an extradition request to the headquarters in Setagaya which will take weeks…” he scowls, practically glowering at his food as he takes a large chomp of it.
You’ve perfected a perfunctory yet sympathetic hum, which you deploy now, patting Higuruma’s free hand so it doesn’t come up to restore order to his rapidly dilapidating burger. It’s not so much eating as it is an exercise in embracing entropy; with his Jenga tower of trembly lettuce leaves, melty cheese, slabs of streaky bacon, a double patty and the obnoxiously outsized hula hoops of grilled onions. And naturally, Higuruma had the hubris to include pickles.
You keenly watch the egg wash bronzed dome and fluffy foundations of the brioche buns slipping and squeezing through the crevices of Higuruma’s fingers, somehow disappearing faster and shrinking back to further destabilize the stack as the layers jostle and jut ahead of each other at higgly-piggly angles. With each increasingly aggressive bite, Higuruma liberates rich rivulets of meat juices to dribble all over his knuckles, until inevitably, a dollop of sriracha mayo prematurely splodges a thick wad over his tendons.
Oh, this was going to be good.
Without skipping a beat in the monologue bemoaning his chosen vocation, you watch Higuruma start to crane his head forward to lick his wrist but then he stops himself and you’re disappointed, resigned to the assumption that this fully grown man will resort to the much more sensible option of the serviettes, which have after all, been sitting on the tray by his elbows, untouched since the start of the meal.
But Higuruma doesn’t go for the tissues - and what happens next is so much better than you could have anticipated.
Realising his cuffs are in the way, Higuruma in a singular motion instead raises both his arm and the dishevelled burger ascending aloft his head, and then proceeds to lave his tongue across his wrist. He’s quite successfully, if unconventionally, mopped away most of the offending sauce when the magic happens.
Sschhhloorpplbt.
With slow-mo melodrama and grace, the tomato slops out of the burger, landing with a watery splat! on Higuruma’s face, before skidding across the starched collars of his shirt, then careens into its final resting place - his lap.
“Drat. Knew I should have gotten the wrap,” Higuruma mutters.
You attempt to drown your snort in the last shallow dregs of your strawberry milkshake but Higuruma looks up sharply at you, as he pinches the offending vegetable off his pants and tosses it onto the plate.
Your eyes are glimmering as he futilely crumples a tissue against his shirt, sweeping over the stretched cotton canvas where he’s also made a tribute to Jackson Pollock in mustard and ketchup blots.
“You’re such an artist, Higuruma.”
“What?”
You only grin at him, licking your thumb and swabbing it along the tomatoey streak on his handsome cheek, leaving a different reddish tint in your wake.
You didn’t always think his mouth was magic — frankly it had given you the ick in the initial stages of this courtship.
Or perhaps, grotesque fascination was the correct terminology. It was perplexing, how his clothes sustained that much collateral damage during meals.
You had to see it to believe it, otherwise it was simply too baffling, just how much debris accompanied his approach to dining; although ‘approach’ implied that Higuruma had some sort of strategy or logic in manufacturing these messes, and it just wasn’t conceivable that anyone could structure this level of disaster.
But even if you didn’t witness the havoc of Higuruma’s eating habits in real time, the aftermath sometimes stuck around, goading you to reverse-engineer the chaos. There was a litany of clues you got skilled at deciphering, piecing together the (quite often literal) trail of breadcrumbs to figure out what he’d eaten that day, and with what degree of ravenous recklessness, from shoyu speckled sleeves to smears of mayonnaise on his collar — courtesy of the cup ramen he’d scalded his tongue on, or his even more hastily consumed ‘lunch’ of two takoyaki sticks.
Of course, there was still an unanswered question at the crux of these guessing games, a mystery underpinning the habitual volatility of appeasing his hunger. Because despite all of these tendencies towards frenetic feasting, there was still a certain aura of poise to Higuruma Hiromi.
Admittedly, it’s an assessment compromised by your aesthetic attraction to him; you could readily confess there was a certain case to be made for your bias, perhaps a subconscious conflation of the merits of his wit and style, both imbued with an effortless sharpness, each enhancing the overall effect; the innate elevating the deliberate.
He dressed smart, in well fitting suits that were rarely rumpled, as unruffled and unflappable as his own presence. For a man for whom an adherence to dining etiquette seemed strictly conceptual, practically he still presented himself well, keeping his attire if not pristine, then still remarkably sleek and clean, considering the tribulations he subjected it to at least three times daily.
How this was possible perpetually intrigued and mystified you, until the day you learned Higuruma’s secret.
It had been an accidental discovery, on an afternoon when you’d made a lunch hour visit.
The occasion was already nominally noteworthy, as you’d finally persuaded him to try a salad, after months of gentle chastisements about his diet.
Your triumph however, left a scattering of sunflower seeds along his chin and when he was done stabbing through the arugula, his countenance more closely resembled a truculent teen who had raced face first through a hedge maze.
“Do I really have to finish these lawn clippings?” Higuruma whined, prodding at the greenery with his prongs.
“I don’t remember signing up to date a man-child,” you tut, even as you swipe a napkin along his cheeks, while Higuruma tucks his grin against your wrist. Before those lips can detect and further elicit the pitter-patter of your pulse, you move to scrunch the serviette against his tie where quite unfortunately yet predictably, there are several sizable splatters of balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
“The smell is probably going to seep through this silk,” you say with a slight frown.
“It’s not a problem,” Higuruma shrugs, starting to loosen his tie, sliding two digits into the triangular knot and tugging it open. The fabric seemed to practically melt around his fingers, parting without resistance till it slipped down his chest. You try not to track the motion too overtly, but there’s little else qualifying as worthy contenders for your attention.
So you watch as Higuruma smoothly, almost automatically, pulls open a drawer to reveal row after row of neatly rolled black ties, as well as a stack of white Oxford shirts. He picks out the corner-most tie, and feels your gaze shift as he uncoils it around his palms and starts to loop it around his neck.
Mistaking your quizzical, fascinated focus for judgment, he states, “They’re for emergencies.”
“A dozen tie-related emergencies?” you clarify, with that tilt to your tone which Higuruma finds himself wanting, increasingly often, to see mirrored in your lips - even if it’s at his expense.
“Yes, but would you believe it’s got space for 14.”
“I do believe that, Higuruma. I’m surprised you haven’t fit a tuxedo in there.”
Higuruma shuts the drawer before you can scythe your eye over their contents again, hoping the sound of its rolling snap eclipses the death throes of the mollified whimper tickling the back of his throat. (It doesn’t.)
“The drawer does leave me with one question though.”
Higuruma glances up from making the final adjustments on his Windsor knot. The serenity in your expression belies the innocence of your inquiry.
“What if you have pants-related emergencies?”
Higuruma suddenly finds his tie too tight around his throat, scarcely providing a barrier to the sickle of your mouth which he thinks must be pressed to his jugular, that arresting curve he traces up to your eyes with their wicked gleam, the one he’s only seen so far in his dreams.
Be careful what you wish for...
He responds, rather raspily, “Well, I had to be economical with the space. Could hardly turn this cube into a walk-in closet.”
“No I suppose not,” you say, brushing your fingers against his discarded vinaigrette stained tie. “So you chose to prioritise the shirts and ties, which are likelier to be scrutinised.”
“Yes,” Higuruma says, grateful for the familiarity of your shrewd common sense, “Not many people pay attention to the lower half of my suit.”
Too late he catches the glimmer in your gaze flickering downwards, and he’s incapacitated by the mere dip in your voice when you reply, ever so off-handedly, “Well, perhaps such neglect ought to be rectified.”
And Higuruma realises, right then and there with a mild throb of panic, maybe he really ought to invest in a separate drawer for briefs (of the non-legal kind.)
It might be magic, or it might merely be beyond the scope of scientific explanation.
The way Higuruma’s mouth operates is a phenomenon to be studied, a riddle of the universe, its mystique obdurate against your observations.
It didn’t matter what the texture of the food was - boiled, baked, fried, sautéed or steamed. Carnage reigned. It was the second law of thermodynamics, mandated by Higuruma’s mouth; Entropy will always increase over time.
Or over the course of dinner and dessert.
Soba noodles dangled and tangled off his chopsticks like the most amateurish marionette attempts, sorbets slunk off of cones at strange angles despite his best efforts to corral them with his otherwise reflexively dexterous tongue (lightning quick with quips but not licks, in this situation) and at the movies, the first thing to emerge from the gloom of the cinemas were usually the puffy white popcorn kernels adorned to his collar. By the time you’d brushed them off Higuruma, on average you’d refilled nearly a third of the bucket.
Once, at a carnival, you found corndog crumbs clinging to his cheeks even after taking the roller coaster (which had two loop de loops) and wisps of cotton candy in his hair, their pink tufts tangling with his ink-jet fringe. And later, in the shrieking whirlwind glee of the teacups, he’d swept right into you, chuckling and clutching your hips in a spun-sugar collision of your mouths and you’d tasted the sweet detritus of his off-kilter caramel-apple kisses, crackling saccharine on your tongue.
You ride the pleasant ebb and surge of this new romance over the next months, Higuruma’s presence both thrilling and soothing, intoxicating and relaxing. You cannot help but succumb to the allure of his juxtapositions, all that remains unsolved about him - typified by that first mystery around his table manners (or lack thereof); How could a man so put together, so composed in his speech and thoughts still leave such a trail of devastation in his wake? On occasion, you are tempted to wonder if it portends some secret character defect.
Yet you dismiss this as paranoia, even knowing paradise won’t last.
After all, you and Higuruma were trying to keep things casual. You were both savouring that phase where ambiguity embellishes and relishes an amorous atmosphere, in all its tremulous, temerarious pacing. Dancing around definitions, sidestepping expectations; simply discovering a routine tenderness, and exploring the natural rhythm of fitting into each other’s lives.
That was easier said than done, however.
That first infraction comes when Higuruma has to cancel your weekend date, after two weeks of absence and only intermittent text exchanges.
The call comes just as you’re donning your platform sandals and heading out the door.
“I am so so sorry I am so so swamped-” There’s the Shinkansen swoosh of his apologies over the speakers, far more profuse than the excuses, sounding more wretched than frantic. For a few minutes, you let Higuruma rattle on with that barely sheathed saber-edged vexation to his tone, venting about some idiot who’d “only gone and committed perjury”, resulting in the decimation of an alibi and the implosion of a plea deal, while you glance at your wristwatch, letting the second hand slip past the 12 for a third time before you firmly interrupt.
“And then the other intern quit because they wanted to summer in the bloody Bahamas while I’m in the office on a Sunday...”
“Higu-”
“...trying to stop this damn injunction which makes zero sense-”
“Higuruma.”
“Huh?”
“I said, it’s 2pm. Did you remember to have lunch?”
“Oh.” Higuruma responds, as if the concept of midday meals was a novelty - telling you everything you needed to know.
“I’ll bring you something.”
“You don’t have to bother yourself, I’ll grab a bite from the vending machine.”
“Except I already have gone to the trouble. I’m all dressed up, you see I was supposed to catch up with some cute guy this afternoon.”
You can practically hear his blush through the phone, and even though you aren’t face to face, Higuruma’s voice still turns gruff as if to disguise the rush of blood to his cheeks.
“Some cute guy?”
“Yeah, he operates a kushikatsu yatai in my neighbourhood. Always gives me a couple extra sticks for free.”
“Oh, that place has been around for what, three decades now? And you’re referring to Kazuya-dono who refuses to retire, aren’t you? The balding guy in his 60s.”
“The tycoon in his 60s, yep. And he’s considering investing in a toupee I hear.”
Higuruma feels the fuchsia spreading to the shell of his ears, your smirk pressing close against them, even through the phone. Higuruma clears his throat.
“I see. Well, if those exciting prospects as a golddigger don’t pan out for you, could you include some shishito peppers?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll see you soon? In half an hour?” You can’t help but smile at the tender inflection of optimism in his clarification.
“Of course. The queue shouldn’t be too long at this time of day.”
“Thanks for your generosity, Mrs Kazuya-dono.”
“Goodbye, Mr Higuruma.”
In the privacy of his office, Higuruma grins, lingering with his ear pressed to the screen even as the call tapers to its end, reluctant to hang up without hearing your chuckle fully reverberate over his name.
At this hour, when the final stretch of a weekend is lurching towards another interminable five day cycle of labour, the office is cloaked in a kind of velvet darkness, draping heavily over the afternoon. There’s a stifling stillness even as you stride past the empty cubicles, which makes the stubborn fluorescent buzzing coming from Higuruma’s office sound even louder in this oppressive atmosphere.
His door is ajar so you walk right in to see him barricaded behind towers of folders, the tousled strands of his crow’s nest upsweep barely jutting above the turrets of the piled high case files, as he fastidiously scribbles something in a leather-bound notebook, not noticing your entrance.
“Delivery for Mr Higuruma,” you announce, closing the distance between you and his desk.
Higuruma’s head jerks up as if he’s startled, blinking owlishly as he registers your presence.
“You’re here,” he says, gaze softening and his shoulders sagging back into some semblance of relief, the pen drooping from his hand. He reaches towards you, then notices his biro-blue polka dotted palms and sheepishly starts to retract them, but you catch his fingers in time, scattering a kiss across his knuckles.
“Yes, in the flesh. Shishito peppers and all,” you say with a smile, setting the take-away bag on the side of his table.
“Well. Damn,” he exhales, reclining against his chair for a fuller angle, all the better to drink in the sight of you. You had assembled a cute, casual outfit; light-washed denim pants paired with a cream ribbed knit top, layered over with a V-neckline sage sweater vest and accessorised with a delicate, silver flat chain. But the way Higuruma is staring at you makes you feel like you’ve just sauntered fresh off a runway.
“Need me to do a spin?” you tease, subconsciously taking a half-step back as he stands, gaze hungrily tracking over your figure and slowly approaching as if concerned the vision before him was delicate as a dandelion in its second, spectral bloom.
“Only a fool would object,” he responds and you laugh, obliging him with a quick twirl, but before you can even fully turn back around, Higuruma has pulled you into his arms, locking them around your hips and lodging his nose in the crook of your neck.
“This is getting ridiculous,” he mouths along your nape, fingers twitching at the small of your back.
“Hm?”
“You, coming here looking like this and I- I just tumbled out of the house,” Higuruma mutters, hands notching warmly at your waist to prevent you from moving away. But you push at his chest and his hold slackens, ever so slightly, so you can tip your head back to scan over him.
Well, it was true, Higuruma did not look dressed for a date, let alone the office. His attire looked more appropriate as the prized exhibit at a museum dedicated to the ancient history of textiles; a tatty maroon sweater, the brand logo emblazoned across the chest now faded and indecipherable as stone tablet etchings from an archaeological dig site, paired with crooked half-frame glasses. Plus, the piece de resistance, a pair of charcoal grey joggers with their drawstrings missing, patchy at the knees from only god knows how many spin cycles and planetary revolutions around the sun.
And were those, were those crocs? You make a mental note to give Higuruma an evangelical spiel about Birkenstocks at least.
“Well, you certainly look…comfy.”
A small groan escapes Higuruma, as he tucks his warm face against your neck, all the better to hear and feel your laughter ripple over him.
“I swear I only meant to pick up some documents this morning but then…”
“But then,” you echo mockingly, gently tweaking Higuruma’s face.
“Time just…keeps getting away.” He gazes up at you with those pits for eyes, shadowed by despair. You know he isn’t just talking about this date, or this case.
“There’ll be other flea markets,” you shrug, “But there’s only one workaholic I’m willing to put up with.”
You card your fingers through his raven-dark plumage, feeling Higuruma’s sigh settle over your shoulders as he leans into your touch.
“You’re an angel,” he whispers, pulling you into him and starting to graze his lips along your nape. “You’re all I need-”
It’s at this point his stomach chooses to interject with a loud, rumbly burble of bLRRRggccLHHhh.
Snickering at his belly’s betrayal, you peel yourself away from Higuruma’s peach-tinted cheeks and fuss at him to sit back down, opening the take-away bag for him.
“I forgot how good these smell,” Higuruma remarks, eyes lighting up as he tackles the plastic lid on the sauce, its tangy-sweet and savory aroma wafting into the air.
He wolfs through five, six, seven sticks of shisamo and tsukune and so on, it’s not long before flecks of the rich, glossy dipping sauce paint his lips and chin, whilst a spray of panko scatters like shrapnel over his shirt, landing on the drawer where you knew Higuruma kept extra sets of his corporate attire.
You had contended with what that easily accessible work-wardrobe implied, what his so-called closet of contingencies represented. All those spare shirts and jackets and even boxers were really evidence of someone who rarely returned to his own lodgings, who regularly spent the nights at the office, slogging on till dawn.
He was a man who was married to his job, to Lady Justice. You had no illusions or qualms about being the paramour in that equation. But these were early days, and while you aren’t entirely certain how permanent this addition to your life called Higuruma Hiromi would be, what’s indisputable is the undivided attention he gives you, when he is with you.
He brings that intense devotion, that focus to everything he does, mind and mouth in perfect exacting synchronicity, across all his feats of adoration, articulation and now of course, mastication.
You settle back into your chair nibbling on some suginamo, prepared to enjoy the show Higuruma always unwittingly put on.
What you’re not expecting is your epiphany, the stunning scientific breakthrough at last.
Sitting across from Higuruma, you study the way he hoovers through a dozen (and counting) kushikatsu skewers, and abruptly, you realise he must have his own gravitational field, one that flouted all principles of physics, of astrophysics.
You lean forward, eagerly examining the evidence before you: the glistening contrails of oil, the constellation of crumbs, all being yanked towards that relentless black hole which is his mouth, hinting at the white dwarf core in his belly, depleted of its own nuclear energy, all-consuming to avoid its own collapse.
You couldn’t help it, being dragged into his orbit, being drawn to this voraciousness you’d witnessed in other aspects of his life, singular unto the entity that was Higuruma Hiromi: A homunculus in fractious fraternity with his humanity - Someone who couldn’t stomach unfairness, which made him a glutton for punishment. His dedication was a whetstone whittling its own blade away.
Just one of Higuruma’s many alluring contradictions.
There are others you’ve discovered, chipping and chiselling the hours out of one another’s calendars till the days gave way to a more natural erosion of the edges around your selves, marble ceding to limestone: His words are deliberate, his quietness intuitive. Quick-witted, yet with long simmering ire. A sort of brazen self-deprecation. Brilliant arguments, stupid punchlines. An empiricist’s approach to empathy, a heart siphoning off its own sentimentality.
You behold your lover shoveling in skewer after skewer, operating on some internal combustion engine, mere mortal with a mechanic’s approach to morality, an automaton chugging on and on as if he were indefatigable.
(He wasn’t, he’d told you one evening, half an hour late to the fifth date. Too exhausted even for guilt it seemed, the confession was almost in confidence. But maybe you can do better than a Mr Perfect, he’d snarked with his trademark wry smile which, to an untrained eye, could just about pass for invulnerability. You had stared him down, your silence dredging the apology out of him with a sincerity you could tell surprised the both of you.
You didn’t expect to hear something like that from the mouth of your Tin Man, whose shine was so often eclipsed by that mind like a steel trap, in lieu of a heart of gold - so he professed to everyone else.
But that inadvertently coerced admission of his burnished cavity stirred a flutter in your heart. You’d always known Higuruma was made of rarer stuff than gold, even if he didn’t.)
“You want the last of the okra? It’s your favourite.”
You blink, dispersing the reverie you’d been indulging in, to focus instead on Higuruma holding out the tray to you. You shake your head with a smile, noticing his spectacles already spectacularly smudged with a slick of grease.
He happily polishes off the remaining skewers while he works, baggy sweater incrementally hoarding more and more morsels of food. He rolls his sleeves up, utterly oblivious to the avalanche of cumulative detritus, disappearing down the canyon of his lap.
And as you observe Higuruma, sat in his plush leather office seat, practically dressed in pajamas but somehow hardly out of place, intermittently cramming a kushikatsu stick in his mouth, and another annotation into the margins of a file, you feel that same tug towards him again.
And you suspect you will, over and over, regardless of how frayed or unraveled Higuruma’s threads become.
a/n: Vignettes of a life with Nanami Kento as a lover.
i.
The details of your lover's work have always been a mystery to you. Something to do with shoveling appalling quantities of money around. Something that painted his face with dark circles and glaring rectangles, shadows hollowing his alabaster cheeks, making him look more gaunt than he really was, as if all appetites had abandoned him.
You knew, firsthand, this wasn’t the case.
But the work, whatever it is, steals the light from his irises, the definition from his shoulders. A silhouette losing shape in the cobalt smudges of dawn. You had learned to keep your eyes and fists closed, around cold sheets and the digits glowing red hot behind your lids, those numbers which never made it past 6:59AM.
You’ve stopped trying to curl your fingers around his wrist to find his warm pulse, met instead only by the chilling titanium cuff of his watch. The sting of his aftershave and the rasp of a kiss rushed against your forehead is the only proof of his presence before it can even fade from your view properly - so you've learned not to look for that outline disappearing beyond the door frame.
You both know if you open your eyes, however slightly, however full of sleep, he will be late. Often, you feel him stare, subtly willing you to test his resolve. And him, well, he has his own little rituals of temptations. It’s the tiniest things; his hint of mint in the crisp air, or the bustle of bristles hissing over enamel, sibilant as the sea.
Your lashes would flutter, slumber receding like the waves; in these twilight moments your gaze is searching, still empty of reproach - but as he senses you stirring, already the guilt piles high in his own, exposed as the shore.
He stands there in the dark, dripping with a mouth full of foam, watching your wakefulness moult into realisation, before the mutual regret retreats, mollusc-soft into the brittle shell of your smile:
“I hope you have a good day, Nanami.”
The bathroom light isn't switched on, but he watches your eyes shut in pincer-tight seams all the same, stifling the clawing in your chest and his with your cheek pressed against satin pillows. Watermarks would show up too clearly against such delicate material, so you make certain they don't.
Nanami knows this certainty too, feels it in your stare perched upon his back as he lathers his face. Several times he's made the mistake of stopping to look over his shoulder. Several times you've made the mistake of not dropping your gaze soon enough, or at all.
Neither of you can bring yourselves to call it a mistake however, when the bed sinks again with his weight, when the airy chastisement bubbles up from your throat against his stubble and soap, as he presses open-mouthed excuses along your jaw, "Just one kiss, darling, a few more minutes won't matter..."
But they do, of course, to the train conductors and his greedy boss and the gluttonous stock market brokers. And so Nanami finds himself forced to switch out the grind and whir of his electric razor to the barely audible scrape, scrape, scrape of a safety razor.
All risk of morning distractions shredded thin as you dream of them and him, dreams uninterrupted, reservoirs of desire dammed behind slumber, never to trickle into reality.
A morning comes when Nanami opens the bathroom cabinet that you keep dutifully stocked with both your necessities. There's ten boxes of disposable blades in the place where you'd normally store his batteries. He stares at it for a long time. For longer than he’d stared at that flyhead in that bakery weeks ago, when he’d first seen and left it.
Long enough to miss the 7am ride, and the 7:15am. Long past the peak-hour surge of last resort private hire cabs as well.
All those minutes did matter. And all the hours to come. And he knows how to spend them, who he really wants to invest them in. Whatever the risks.
Because Nanami's always wanted to see you like this, face glowing with surprise and a smile to rival the sunrise. He gets half of what he asks for, first the surprise, when you stir with the warm brush of his calloused thumbs and starched cuffs, the icy band of his costly wrist watch conspicuously absent. He smiles at the way you squint, perplexed and gripping his tie, anchoring yourself to the waking world, to him.
"Whyre…still here?Ydun have...time…"
"I do." Nanami promises, and he gets more than he asks for, than he dares for - as he always does with you. You press your mouth to him, he tastes your huff as he exorcises your disbelief, your breath an incandescent affirmation in his chest. It takes the midday sun at its highest point in the sky to remotely broach any comparison to your radiance, summoning his scorching touch.
ii.
The details of your partner's work remain a mystery to you. There is still something sharp and severe in his gaze when he stares at his phone, but the disgust dilutes into distaste, his frustrations ceding to a more manageable irritability, usually accompanied by some muttering about a “blindfolded man-child”.
Shadows still rim Nanami’s eyes but he stands a little taller these days. Sometimes stiffer too, when you ask if all of it is worth it. You get the answer just from how rigidly he sets his jaw, an unassailable answer behind the vault of his lips, sealed to yours.
Of course it is, to protect the most precious treasure in his life.
His old job was technically complex - this one isn’t, not really. But it’s still too difficult to explain, too risky to understand.
All he says is, he’s trying to make the world a safer place, and that’s dangerous sometimes.
Nanami doesn’t tell you more than that but you can extrapolate, or speculate rather. There are unfinished paragraphs in splotches of carmine, his bandages the only layer you’re allowed to peel back. So you grow grateful for the nights where the crimson merely speckles his shirt like commas or periods, even when you know they're just ellipses…and there’s no true addendum to the violence. Only epilogues.
The slivers of mornings have been exchanged for eternal twilights. Yes, you wake with Nanami by your side but the nights where you go to bed together are rarer. You hadn’t agreed to this trade-off. You hadn’t agreed to the hurried breakfasts and dinners dragged out over terse, tired, interminable silences - if he came back for them at all.
You hadn’t agreed to becoming far more familiar with the toaster rather than the stove-top. Or to the microwave becoming your most trustworthy, best friend over the expensive custom-built oven he’d purchased. There’s a constant tension in the inventory of your shared kitchen; fresh carrots, courgettes and alliums are reduced to stock cubes, while the jumbo bags of flour dwindle away to make space for value-packs of instant ramen instead. There are weeks when the war spills from your cabinets; you throw out wilted basil, whole cardamom pods, even the garam marsala powder has to go - turned into a solid block from being in the damp and dark too long. You’d almost wept when you had to toss the fenugreek seeds. Too many herbs and spices expired with barely a teaspoon’s dent made in their jars. You don’t even know what some of them are when you send them to their grave, the scuffed, faded labels as decipherable as hieroglyphs.
There was a time you would have asked Nanami but he barely remembers buying them.
The dry cupboards are crypts, the fridge a cryogenic cry for help - if it wasn’t already a morgue, or a self-sustaining mausoleum.
But you persist: Putting on his favourite skirt and that flattering apron, even while Nanami’s is hung in a corner fraying, accumulating dust, you make the decision to don your best smile and daub your wrists with the perfume he gifted you, the one which reeks of his regret, with its base notes of a promise still lingering on your skin; and you wait.
And you’ll wait. And wait.
You wait at the table, the steam growing cold long before the frost turns its keys in the lock and sweeps across your doorway. You rise to welcome him home to the honey glow, to the tungsten-warmth and spring in your step, to a plaiting of fingers and the coil of tongues, to feel the granite cliffs of his lips thaw against the meadows of your thighs.
You rise and you glimpse it, his smile flickering, the familiarity sprouting in your chest, sun-summoned, dandelion-effervescent, fern tangle-firm in solid boughs spreading lush as vast cypress roots below.
You reach towards him, the smile flickers again, his eyes scanning over the feast you prepared for him; the salad of pea tendrils and cauliflower florets, twinkling with the rubies of pomegranate pips. Filets of silver-skinned seabass, grill marks glistening gold with the tender white underbelly of its flesh. A caramel sheen, glass-thin over apple wafer-slices, delicately fanned in a glossy tarte tatin.
“My love, what is this?”
He turns to you, and the lump in his throat is more unbearable than the gnawing in your belly.
“It’s dinner, Kento. Remember those?” you laugh, hating how hollowly it rings through you.
Nanami has not taken more than two steps from the front step.
“Have I forgotten an anniversary?” he asks, tone already dubious, leaden with a quiet dread. “What’s the occasion?”
You approach him hesitantly. “There’s no occasion,” you say softly, “Do we need one?”
You never did, before. This used to be the norm you shared.
But you already know his answer as your question hangs in the air, feeling the despair condense in the room as Nanami’s guilty gaze darts to his phone.
“I’m so sorry, there’s another stake out. It’s an emergency, they want us out on the 10pm train tonight to Iwate. You know I wish I could-”
“For how long?”
“If there was any other way, I’d stay, but my colleague di-”
“How long, Kento?”
“Three days,” he whispers, clutching your hands. “Just three days.”
“Just three days. Right.”
He lets the wintry bite of your response clamp around his heart, spreading fractal through it.
“When I’m back, I prom-”
“Don’t.”
He’ll take your glare, at least you’re still looking at him, even eviscerating him.
“Darling…” The wretchedness of his tone at least indicates how much he’s missed the wondrousness of all he’s sacrificing, that he’s aware apologies aren’t enough. You sigh, freeing your hands to cup Nanami’s face and he leans fully into your touch, soaking in the warmth of your palms.
“I’ll get you a box. Go pack.”
Later, storing the leftovers, you’ll wonder if there’s enough cling film to wrap over your own eyes, nose and mouth. To bind yourself in a chrysalis, so you’d be blind to the clock till Nanami returned and made it home, made this place home again. You just had to wait.
iii.
He has the weekends at least. They’re no longer mere consolations, they are consecrations of the love you give each other. The bed becomes a confession booth, the place where he seeks penance and offers psalms in your name, for his mortal transgressions of being unable to be in two places at once, of letting you slip into this very same bed alone on too many nights.
Nanami isn’t a religious man, has little concept of a Sabbath - but if he did, he’d think it a sin that the grace he finds in you can’t be stretched into Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, would believe it blasphemy that he doesn’t get to worship you throughout the week.
He wonders how you can look both so conniving and innocent in slumber, nestled against his side now. He recalls the all nighters he used to pull at his office, because he didn't know what else to squander sleepless empty hours on; how his colleagues would mock and jeer that he was spoiling the market, gunning so hard for a promotion but nothing could be further from the truth. He had no intentions of winning the rat race. In fact he wanted out of it.
He’d thought maybe he could escape a little earlier if he ran further, ran faster but he didn't get out of the cage, he just stepped into a bigger and bigger maze, not even 25 and already hurtling towards a cul-de-sac, frequently fantasizing about how he might take that shiny new convertible the last pay bump afforded him and accelerate it into a nice solid alley.
But then he’d met you; you, who broke the gridlock in his life, who inspired him to go down his own road. Even if they seemed to lead back to hauntingly familiar paths.
No, he has a reason to look ahead now. He isn’t just trudging on day by day, even as he takes the present in his stride. His future is here.
Nanami is gazing at his future, smooshed into his neck and smearing sticky gossamer threads against his cheek, tiny wheezy noises whistling through their nostrils when his phone begins to buzz. He sighs, reluctantly picking it up.
“Good morning, Nanami-san! Just calling to confirm we’ll be meeting at the warehouse at 11.”
“I’m sorry Takuma-san. I won’t be able to be there after all. Something else requires my attention.”
“Oh, I see.” Ino doesn’t try to veil the abject disappointment.
“But I trust you’ll be able to handle the investigation independently, Takuma-san.”
“Gosh, really? All right, I won’t let you down Nanami-san!”
Nanami clears his throat, adjusting to the ebullient whiplash coming from the other end of the line. Well, he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. He knew his assessments were accurate. He just also knew the junior sorcerer held a particularly high regard for him.
“By the way Nanami-san, not to be rude or anything but your voice sounds a little rough. You’re not under the weather are you?”
“Well…” Nanami looks at you snuggling into a more comfortable position, with his bicep as your pillow, pinning his shoulders to the sheets.
“I suppose my arm is feeling slightly numb.”
“Oh, you should get to the root of that.”
Nanami glances down, containing the snicker in his chest as he hears you mumble something in your sleep. He skims a thumb over the apple of your cheek.
“I believe I will. Take care, Takuma-san,” Nanami says, concluding the call.
The warmth of his future seeps into his bones and Nanami thinks, after all these years, perhaps he can afford himself, and you, more than a little indulgence. He owes you that much. Or maybe he doesn’t have to hoard up all his leave days just to have this as a temporary respite; maybe he can make it permanent, for the rest of his life.
You thought your fiancè would leave most of the details to you but no, Nanami gets super involved with his rather strong opinions about the cake.
“The Sicilian Lemon & Poppy Seed has a moister crumb,” he insists.
You don’t say anything, only throwing a longing glance at the slice of pistachio cake between the two of you, a pout precariously balanced on the tines of the dessert fork pricking against your lips.
Nanami huffs through his nose, “I suppose we can do a fourth tier.”
Your face splits into a grin, and Nanami’s isn’t far behind as he presses bright citrus kisses to your mouth, savouring the light spilling into each other during this lull, quietly thrumming with all the energy of the day ahead of you both.
It’s moments like these that affirm your joint decision to independently organise the wedding was the best one you’d ever made - second only of course, to agreeing to have Nanami in your life forever. The treasure trove of tender interludes made these past few weekends, bustling with errands, all worth it despite their hectic schedule.
Even though the two of you were planning for a modest reception, there was still so much to cross off the list. Handwritten invitations, trips to the florist, checking in with caterers on the menu development. You glance at your phone, there’s still about a dozen vendors to see to. But with your fastidious, generous sweetheart by your side, you’re sure the two of you will be able to settle everything before the big day, and enjoy all this extra time you were spending together.
“We’ll get those pain au chocolats to go, thank you.”
Nanami loops an arm around you, rubbing your shoulders as you adjust your scarf more snugly around your neck against the brisk autumn breeze.
“We’ll need to pick out fabrics for the iro-uchikake next.”
“No wonder you wanted to hit up the patisserie first,” Nanami chuckles, braiding his fingers through yours as the two of you stroll down the street, a swirl of maple leaves crunching underfoot.
“I’m hoping it won’t take all afternoon, but I wanted to make sure we both got a bite first.”
“Good thing we got these emergency croissants then.”
“I thought we’re saving them for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Or I could make you your favourite loaded pancakes.”
You give Nanami’s hand a tight squeeze even as you sigh, “See this is why I couldn’t do the whole white wedding dress diet thing.”
“You hardly need to,” your beloved hums, fingers curling around the plush of those hips he adores so much, flush to his side, in step with you.
“You spoil me terribly, Kento.”
“Well, you’ll have to get used to that quickly, Mrs Nanami.”
An almost unbearable joy surges through your soul when you hear him address you this way. And soon (yet not soon enough) everyone else will call you that too. For forever more, you’d be Mrs Nanami.
After November 3rd, 2018.
iv.
November never arrives.
The end of October brings the end of the world, and the cracking open of one you wish you knew nothing about. One you still can’t comprehend, despite the deluge of information, despite your flood of rage and agony.
There’s only a single, salient fact through all of this - He’s gone.
He’s gone, and there’s nothing to cling to.
No broken mast to splinter through your ribcage, no driftwood that could salvage you as you’re ravaged by the waves. You want to drown, you want to drown, but every day you are spit back up on the shore so the salt can rend through your lungs once more, every day the sun still rips its way through your blackout curtains, a cruel gash of light exposing the stark reality of the empty spot in your bed. Right next to your fingers, curling your fist over the chasm, the space all the more frozen for the dust motes dancing over it.
The chill of the band on your fourth finger sinks into your palm, till you taste metal on your tongue, a mercurial poison in your bloodstream. It burns through you, numbs you. You shiver and you sweat. You close windows, you open them; caterwauls and gasoline fumes and the shrieks of ambulance sirens all bleeding through the panes - You can’t hear any of it over the hollow pounding in the cavity of your chest.
Something clawing at your esophagus, scrabbling to get out. Not a sob. You cannot swallow, throat too parched from not having eaten or drunk in days. You know what it is, it is screaming in your mind - but you will not let the world wrest this away from you too.
You cannot even utter his name, not even murmured into the dark. You refuse to let the shadows steal his syllables, you want them, their rubble, the full weight of them trapping your tongue and his breath, the memory of his breath, its devotion to you, his oaths in your mouth, a vow half-blossomed, a full burden, caught between your lungs for eternity.
The details of your beloved’s work are no longer a mystery to you.
A pink-haired boy with scarlet eyes shows up at your doorstep one day, trying to spare you the worst of it. He tries to tell you who he is, who the love of your life was to him.
He can’t be more than 16, but it’s clear his youth has become just one more casualty from that savage night. In the slump of his shoulders, you recognise Kento’s back, stiff under the weight of all he’d never said, but told you you dissolved, just by being there. You don’t know if knowing would have made a difference. It didn’t matter, Kento had decided, simultaneously selfless and selfish: It was only through your ignorance he’d been able to preserve a semblance of bliss.
But that had been his hubris.
Had he expected you to pick up the debris in his wake, in this eternal nightmare? Did he think his worst fears would never come to pass? That you were worth the risk? You would never get those answers.
If only, if only there’d been ashes. You would have swallowed them whole.
“We…we made rings, out of platinum…” You falter, your desperation rising thick in the air.
Itadori shakes his head, scarred hands knotting around his steaming mug.
“I couldn’t find anything like that…I’m-I’m sorry,” he whispers.
In that wobbling apology, in the tremor of his lower lip which he tries to curl behind his teeth, you see it, on the edge of vanishing, his violent attempt to vanquish the final vestiges of childhood innocence, what Kento had fought and sacrificed to protect.
You don’t have the strength, everything has been drained and sapped from you, the weeks have stretched and stretched you thin, but you gather Yuji in your arms, and this time he doesn’t stop the streaks cascading from those cavernous eyes, pouring into the ravine of your soul.
You hold him, you don’t know for how many hours, wracked and trembling and falling apart, and you clutch at the familiar and the imagined, you hold him, just to feel Kento’s frame shudder and shake against you once more, before it slips from your grasp and memory forever.
