toji can’t find anyone but you attractive anymore.
in which toji realizes you've ruined him for anyone else.
toji realizes he’s no longer attracted to other women and thinks there must be something wrong with him and his dick. because surely it’s not normal for him to have such a visceral reaction to your presence yet not feel even a twinge of lust towards the woman sidling up beside him at the bar—the third one to approach him in the past hour. hell, it took him three minutes to even notice the woman was there—he’d been so preoccupied smiling at your texts before shiu nudged him.
he glances at the woman. she’s objectively beautiful and seems bold and flirtatious, clearly interested in him as she flashes a wide smile and scoots closer to him. she’s the kind he’d have gone for without hesitation before he met you, the kind who knows what she wants and would give him a good no-strings-attached one night stand. he doesn’t even entertain that idea now, though—he finds the mere thought repulsive.
before he met you, toji thought he had a type, but then why is it that he hasn't found himself attracted to anyone who fits that type as of late?
he never used to understand how people could be in exclusive relationships and never have wandering eyes. he thought they were surely deluding themselves or lying just to appease their partners. while toji himself never cheated in past relationships, not out of morality but just because he couldn't be bothered, he never expected himself to be unable to find others attractive. the prospect was so absurd that it'd never crossed his mind, not even when he started to fall for you. and he never believed you when you claimed that there was no one else you’d want to be with. in fact, he’d laughed, mostly because he had internalized all the hatred projected onto him as a child about being an unlovable abomination, and he convinced himself that you'd grow to feel the same towards him after a while.
even though he thought you were beyond perfect and far too good for him, he still didn’t see how one could just turn off their attraction to others like a fucking light switch. what red-blooded man wouldn't get excited or aroused at the sight of a beautiful woman?
but it’s evident that he’s wrong, because he barely noticed the woman beside him pressing her tits to his arm because he was so preoccupied staring at the picture you texted him. it’s just a selfie of you, at your friend’s apartment for a girls’ night; the lighting is dim and the photo is a bit blurry as if you took it with a shaky hand—you’re probably tipsy already, you were always a lightweight—but you’re smiling and so damn beautiful as always. in contrast, when he finally acknowledges the woman flirting with him and brushes her off callously, he feels nothing.
“damn, fushiguro,” one of his friends remarks. “didn’t even give her a chance. you never do to anyone who tries to hit on you these days. she was real pretty and way into you.”
“fuck off,” toji retorts, suddenly feeling bitter as he realizes he’d much rather be home with you right now than in this crowded, dingy bar. god, what have you done to him? “i have a girl now, remember? i’m not gonna go around leading on other women.”
“shit, you’re still with her? like, exclusively?”
“fuck else would it be? we’ve always been exclusive,” toji grumbles, annoyed that anyone would imply that you were just a casual fuckbuddy to him.
“you’re really settling down?” his friend laughs, looking around to make sure the rest of the group heard him right. “i get busy and don’t see you for a few months, and you completely change. never thought i’d see the day where fushiguro could stick to one girl for longer than a month. what’s her secret, huh?”
“i don’t fucking know,” toji growls. “it’s just the way shit is now, okay?”
“this really the same guy who said ‘over my dead body’ when i told him how one day he’d feel the same way for a woman as i feel about my wife? the same guy who told us he wasn’t cut out for dating and that girlfriends were too much of a burden?”
reminded that he did in fact utter those reprehensible words, toji becomes filled with worry as he realizes just how much he’s changed since dating you. changed for the better, undoubtedly, but it scares him nonetheless. “am i fucking broken? did she break me?” he mutters to himself, sounding genuinely nervous.
shiu bursts out laughing. “tamed you for sure.”
toji scowls at them. his mind is reeling as he tries, for a second, to imagine if he hadn’t met you and just kept living the way he previously did—recklessly and selfishly, as if the world owed him something for the pain it’d caused him. as if he was justified in being a douchebag to everyone, be it his targets or friends or women he hooked up with. he can hardly reconcile that he was that type of person not even a year ago.
he thinks about how he is around you, how gentle and patient he is—and how naturally it feels to act that way around you. and he realizes that that mellowness has seeped into his interactions with everyone else, too. he makes small talk with local business owners when running errands. he says “thank you” to customer service workers and even tips somewhat generously. he makes an effort to force a smile at people he passes in the street ever since that one time you told him that everyone is probably scared shitless of him because of that grumpy expression he always wears.
what the hell have you done to fushiguro toji?
if you were to ever leave him, how would he cope? he can’t imagine going back to his old self—that version of toji is essentially dead now. but he can’t imagine staying the way he is without you. you’ve changed him so much that his current identity might as well be tied to yours.
it’s a terrifying thought to think of the only source of happiness and love he’s ever felt in his life disappearing at any given time. it’s scary that his well-being is so dependent on another person. he wouldn’t be able to move on from you, he just knows he couldn’t.
he must be voicing fragments of these thoughts aloud because shiu nudges him and says, “that's the whole fucking point, idiot. you're not supposed to let her get away.”
he’s just stating the obvious, really, but toji sits up and stares in awe at shiu as if he’s had an epiphany. the other man just scoffs and exchanges a knowing look with the others.
toji’s still thinking about this whole situation when he holds you in his arms later that night. he sleeps on his side, spooning you, crushing your body against his and reveling in the way you fit against him so perfectly. he thinks he only likes his body when it's closely intertwined with yours. he wants to tell you all the things he's thinking, about how he realized he could never get over you and that he might not ever be attracted to anyone else ever again. but he knows you might overthink it and interpret it as him implying that this indifference to other women is a new development and that he's been lusting over others for the entirety of your relationship thus far. and that couldn’t be further from the truth—he truly hasn't and can't imagine he ever will.
the more toji dwells on this, he realizes that getting hit on isn't entertaining or an ego boost anymore–it's just a burden, especially when he imagines you seeing it happen and feeling hurt. he’d never want his sweet girl to feel insecure about your relationship because you have nothing to worry about. why would he look for shallow attention somewhere else when you're the only person who has ever cared to see him, understand him, and love him anyway? how could his eyes wander to other women when he’s blessed enough to have the most beautiful one in the whole world in his arms every single night?
maybe it's time to finally buy that ring that’s been at the back of his mind. because toji knows that there’s no one else out there who’s worth giving up what he’s built with you—and he wants you to know it.
i feel like this could be a great prequel to an angsty toji fic i plan to write sometime...
