─── ❨ adj. ❩ unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet marvelous.
summary 𓂃 yomi’s had a long day of running his weird little blood-family of Maga and strays. You're his wife, just as calm and composed as he is, and you don't say much—but somehow you're the only one who can get him to actually relax.
cast 𓂃 yomi and mentions of side characters.
tags 𓂃 husband!yomi x fem!reader , domestic fluff , canon-compliant , established relationship , soft!yomi , cuddling , domesticity , slice of life , daily life .
⤷ DINNER is a quiet affair.
Not silent—there's too many of them for that, too many young voices and older ones, too many half-formed thoughts spilling out between bites of food. But quiet in the way that matters. In the sense that nothing wrong’s happening.
You sit at his right hand, as you always do.
The others fill the long table in descending order, not by rank—he's never been interested in such hierarchies—but by some invisible principle that you seem to understand instinctively. The ones who need proximity sit closer. The ones who need space sit farther. No one questions it. No one even seems to notice.
Yoru sits across from you, watchful as always, his dark eyes moving between Yomi and the younger members with that focus he can't quite hide. When he catches Yomi looking, he doesn't look away. He simply inclines his head, a small acknowledgment, and returns to his meal.
He worries about you most, you'd said.
Yomi files this information away for later consideration.
The conversation flows around him—someone's training progress, someone's minor injury, someone's discovery in the city that might be worth investigating. He listens without seeming to listen, his red-ringed eyes half-lidded, his chopsticks moving with a sort of mechanical precision.
You, beside him, say almost nothing.
But when one of the younger ones—a girl with nervous hands and a tendency to speak too quickly—stumbles over her words, you reach out and touch her wrist. Just once. Just briefly.
The girl exhales. Slows down. Finishes her thought.
Yomi watches this exchange from the corner of his eye, and something in his chest does that thing again. That warmth. That impossible, inexplicable warmth.
After dinner, the household scatters to their various duties and distractions. Dishes are washed. Hallways are patrolled. The young ones are herded toward sleep by older siblings who remember being herded themselves, not so long ago.
You and Yomi retire to your quarters.
The room is dark when he enters—you prefer it that way, and he's never disagreed—but he can see you perfectly, his blood-red eyes adjusting to the dimness with inhuman ease. You're sitting on the edge of the bed, unlacing your shoes with unhurried movements.
He stands in the doorway and watches.
"What?" you ask without looking up.
Your hands pause on the laces. You lift your head, and in the darkness, your eyes meet his.
He doesn't sit beside you. Instead, he kneels in front of you, his pale hands reaching for yours, gently pushing your fingers aside so he can finish unlacing your shoes himself. The gesture is intimate in a way that would feel excessive if anyone else attempted it. From him, it just feels... right.
When both shoes are removed and set aside, Yomi looks up at you. His white fringe falls across his forehead, his heavy lashes casting shadows over his red-ringed eyes. In this light, he looks almost human.
He tilts his head. "What did I do today?"
"Nothing," you say, and there's that almost-smile again, that small private thing that belongs only to him. "That's the point."
Yomi considers this. Considers the shape of the day behind him—the morning tea, the garden, the dinner, the quiet spaces in between. Considers how much of it was spent simply being, rather than doing.
"I'm not accustomed to doing nothing," he admits.
He pauses. "No. Not inefficient. Just... unfamiliar."
You reach down and touch his face—your palm cool against his cheek, your thumb brushing a fallen white lash off the corner of his eye. The gesture is casual, almost absentminded, but Yomi feels it.
"You'll get used to it," you say.
And there's no hesitation in your voice. No doubt. Just that calm, composed certainty that drew him to you in the first place, that keeps him tethered to this life instead of drifting back into the shadows where he belongs.
Yomi turns his head and presses his lips to your palm.
"When did you become necessary?" he asks, and the question is not rhetorical. He genuinely wants to know. He genuinely cannot remember a time when your presence in his life was optional.
You pull your hand back, but gently. "I've always been necessary," you say. "You just didn't know it yet."
Then you stand, cross to the other side of the bed, and lie down without waiting for him to respond.
Yomi remains kneeling for a long moment.
Then he stands, extinguishes the lamp you didn't bother to light, and lies down beside you in the darkness.
You're already facing him again, just as you were this morning. Your hand rests on the space between you, palm-up, as if waiting.
His pale fingers lace through yours in the darkness and he feels your thumb move against his knuckles in a slow, soothing rhythm.
He almost laughs. Almost. "You can't possibly know that I'm thinking."
"I can feel it. You're tense."
"No." Your hand squeezes his. "You're always composed. There's a difference. Right now, you're tense. Which means you're thinking about something you don't want to think about."
He is thinking. About the compound. About the future. About the Maga he's created and the ones he's lost and the ones who might still be saved. About Yoru's watchful eyes and the boy's nervous hands and the girl who talks too quickly. About all the threads of blood and duty and obligation that bind him to this strange, violent, beautiful family.
But most of all, he's thinking about you.
About how you fit into all of this. About how you've made yourself essential without ever demanding to be. About how the compound would keep functioning if you left—but it would be different in a way that makes it Colder. Less stable.
"You're doing it again," you murmur.
"Perhaps," Yomi says, and his voice is soft in the darkness, softer than anyone else ever hears, "I'm allowed to think."
"You're very bossy for someone who claims not to manage me."
"I don't claim anything. I simply am."
And that's true. That's the heart of it, isn't it? You don't try to be anything. You simply exist and the world adjusts around you.
Yomi pulls your hand to his chest and holds it there, against his heartbeat.
It’s steady, but it beats faster when you're near.
You must feel it—you must—but you don't mention it. You simply shift closer, close enough that your breath ghosts across his throat, close enough that he can feel the warmth of you through the layers of fabric between you.
"Goodnight, Yomi," you say.
He does not respond immediately.
Instead, he considers you in the darkness—the shape of your shoulders, the fall of your hair against the pillow, the quiet rise and fall of your chest. He considers the day behind you both, the small intimacies, the way you had touched the girl's wrist and calmed her without a single word.
He considers, too, the thing he has never quite learned to name. The thing that lives in his chest when you are near. The thing that makes the blood in his veins feel less like a weapon and more like a promise.
His arm slides over your waist, gentle but certain, and he pulls you against him—not roughly, never roughly, but with the quiet authority of someone who has decided that this is where you belong. Your chest meets his chest. His chin rests above your head, his breath stirring your hair. His arm around your waist is loose enough to allow movement, but firm enough to make his intention clear.
You are not going anywhere.
Not ever, if he has any say in it.
"Oh," you say, and there is something in your voice that might be surprise, if surprise looked that restrained on you. "Yomi."
"I am observing," he murmurs against your hair, "that you are warm."
You paused. "Is that so,” it was so quiet he could’ve missed it.
Another pause. Longer this time. Yomi feels your hand find his where it rests on your stomach, feels your fingers interlace with his, feels the slow exhale that leaves your body as you relax into him.
"You could have just said you wanted to cuddle," you tell him.
"You are currently cuddling."
"In a room that isn't cold."
Yomi's lips brush the back of your head—whether by accident or design, even he is not certain. "You argue too much."
"Someone has to," you say, echoing your own words from the garden, and he can hear the almost-smile in your voice.
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to.
Instead, he closes his eyes and lets himself feel you—the weight of you against his chest, the warmth of your hand in his, the steady rhythm of your breathing slowly aligning with his own. The compound hums around him, distant and familiar, all those threads of his blood tucked into their beds.
And for the first time all day, Yomi's shoulders truly relax.
"Goodnight," you whisper, and your thumb traces small circles on the back of his hand.
And in the darkness, with you pulled close against his chest and your presence filling all the empty spaces in his heart, Yomi closes his eyes and does what you asked.
A/N: I hope you like it and I hope this is what you were looking for !! <3
