My requests are tentatively open! If an idea doesn't strike me I may skip over it, but there's no harm meant -- I'll give anything a fair shake. Just send me an ask! Talk to me about writing, my cats, what I did today, I'll talk your ear off. Be prepared. My inbox will always be open.
I primarily write (and prefer to write) canon x reader. Anything that is not that will be categorized accordingly, do not fear! I'll probably only write these for special occasions. I am mighty picky about which ships I do and don't enjoy.
Jujutsu Kaisen Masterlists
Mainly one-shots at the moment, but will include completed and ongoing series!
hello, i've read your twitter post regarding your deceiving commission, and it is so upsetting! there's nothing to be embarrassed about, because at the enf of the day you got tricked, you did not know that this person may be using ai 💔
Hey there!
It's crazy getting this message here when I've been fielding the situation for days over there haha. A bit of a breath of fresh air though, not having a character limit! Phew!
Thank you for the condolences. It's horrific that someone has been taking such advantage of people for so long, and that they've been able to get away with it. To be clear, I don't blame the other victims whatsoever (of which there are significantly more than I ever anticipated) it was not an easy thing to speak on it myself, either, and without the internal support system of my friends I might not have had the courage to do it at all. It was incredibly out of character for me to be so vocal, but I'm so proud of everybody who took the opportunity to take that stage and share their experiences off of mine. I'm disgusted by how they've all been treated and brushed under the rug until now.
Most of all, I've been thoroughly moved over the last few days by the amount of support I've been shown. Condolences, people insisting I be shown justice and fighting that I receive it, kindly gifting their own time and talent and art to make up for the egregious experience I had, and the memes. Oh my god I've been in hysterics over some of them. I've got a whole collection now.
It's been a beautiful display of community and humanity in the face of AI. I'm still a bit embarrassed, but hey. You've got to learn to laugh at yourself every now and then. It's been a lot easier to do so with all of these people around to laugh with me.
Thank you for checking in on me. I'm doing just fine, lovely. 💛
hello miss wibs i hope you are doing wonderful, u r now the mayor of higunana nation in my head now, so i bring u a little tidbit to share: higuruma who is too used to putting in too much effort for too little reward, and work bleeding into his personal hours. nanami who does what is needed and nothing more, and has strict boundaries for a healthy work life balance. higunana where nanami has rules for higuruma (d/s dynamic) because being relaxed is something foreign t o him, and nanami doesn't hesitate to punish if the other steps out of line. that includes reading documents after hours, cumming before he's allowed, etc etc.
i hope u can indulge with me in thinking about this because my god.. i think dom nanami with bottom higuruma is a national treasure
Oh wow I've never been a mayor before! Can we build some affordable Higunana nation housing and cut a ribbon with a giant pair of scissors? I've always wanted to do that.
But OKAY I am absolutely walking with you. I always imagined that if they were going to have one repeat argument/pressure point in their relationship, it would be around work and relaxation. Nanami, who is violently territorial of his free time, versus Higuruma who is all too used to giving it away and having none and seemingly being fine with that (couldn't be me, I get bitey when my relaxing time is interrupted).
And if Higuruma's self-sacrificing starts impeding on Nanami's free time as well (they were supposed to stay in and watch a movie, but off Hiromi goes to the office, goodbye! Now Kento's day is ruined) then I bet he'd establish a tight ship.
When you get home, mute your phone. Want to check just one last thing? It can wait until Monday, because we have a spread of breads and cheeses and wine that needs eating and obviously that's more important. No, you aren't allowed to come yet, you need discipline, you will wait.
I think Higuruma would be resistant to that sort of structure at first, he is a grown man, very principled and dedicated and would bristle at the prospect of being ordered about, because he is not a boy and Nanami is not his mother. But he can hardly argue with results when he finds he's sleeping better, the constant dread when his phone vibrates has faded, and he doesn't succumb to self-loathing at his lack of productivity from just sitting on the couch to breathe.
He would acclimate, and he would flourish beside someone who can screw (heh) his head on straight.
I mean, just look at him. Hopeless. He clearly needs a team to get that sorted out. I think we've got what it takes.
I've been feeling the Higunana symbiote taking over again, so maybe I'll write a little something of this sometime soon. Please...keep the yummy thoughts coming. My two favorite men are even better when they're in the same room.
You never meant to fall for your neighbor across the hall.
↳ pairing: hiromi higuruma x fem. reader
↳ wc: 5.4k
↳ notes: i've been wanting to write for my favorite defense attorney for a long time. i'm really excited to have finally gotten around to it! i hope you enjoy!
The day you moved in, you met Hiromi Higuruma on the fourth trip up the elevator with an armful of boxes and the vague promise of a herniated disk.
He was on his way out, manilla folders tucked under one arm, tie just slightly askew – like he’d started the day neat and polished but had since been worn down by whatever mountain of legalese he’d been tackling. There was a quiet, practiced politeness about him as he reached past you to hold the elevator doors, murmuring an apology as if the arm braced overhead were some grand imposition and not, in fact, the only reason you weren’t pancaked between steel.
“You’re new,” he said, glancing from the leaning tower of tape-bound boxes you carried to you teetering behind it. His voice was smooth, deliberate – measured in a way that suggested he was used to choosing his words carefully. “Welcome to the building.”
It wasn’t much, but it was the first kind thing anyone had said to you all week. You clung to it tighter than the packing tape holding your precariously stacked belongings together – a bond that gave out the moment the elevator doors dinged closed behind him, spilling the contents of your life onto the scuffed tile floor.
In the months that followed, you pieced together fragments of his life like a puzzle. Accidentally, you never sought the pieces out so much as found them in your pockets. Hiromi, across the hall, worked too much, slept too little, and lived almost entirely off a diet of conbini meals. He smoked late at night by the building’s front steps – just long enough for you to catch the faint trace of tobacco lingering in the stairwell the next morning – and returned emails from his phone with the grim efficiency of someone accruing more inescapable sleep debt rather than paying it off.
You were an insomniac, with a habit of ordering takeout at hours best described as ungodly. The overlap in your schedules was impossible to ignore – him arriving home as you ventured out to retrieve a bag of comfort food from the lobby. At first, you nodded in passing. Then the perfunctory nods turned into murmured “evenings,” which turned into chats on the way back to your respective doors.
One night, you lingered in the entryway longer than usual, your coat doing little to ward off the cold. He stood nearby, a cigarette between his fingers, the ember’s orange glow painting flickering shadows across his face. You hadn’t meant to stay – it was cold, and you were already exhausted – but he looked over and asked, “Rough night?”
You nodded. “Always.”
His laugh was quiet, dry, and just a little self-deprecating. “Yeah,” he said, eyes fixed on the empty street ahead. “I get that.”
The next time, you started the conversation. “Long day?” you asked as he fished a lighter from his pocket.
“Mm.” He flicked his gaze toward you, his lips quirking into something that wasn’t quite a smile but close enough to send your stomach into a curious tailspin. “They’re all long.”
And so it went – short, fleeting exchanges that somehow turned ritual, little moments you found yourself looking forward to in the long evenings when the hot languor of your eyelids paved way for dark orbital bruises.
“Do you work nights?” he asked one evening, nodding toward the takeout bag in your hand.
“No,” you replied, shrugging. “I just don’t sleep much.”
His brows lifted faintly, a silent acknowledgment of shared affliction. “Ah.”
The silences between you weren’t uncomfortable, and you found you didn’t mind sitting beside him on the building’s concrete steps, a cigarette in his hand and a carton of fries in yours with not a word spoken between you.
Other times though, the quiet felt cradled in something else. A brush of his fingers against yours when you handed him a takeout menu you didn’t need anymore, the drawling rasp of his voice murmuring an apology so quiet it made your nervous laugh feel like a hyena's scream in comparison. Once, you caught him glancing back at you just as the elevator doors slid shut, and you couldn’t decide if the flutter in your chest was ridiculous or warranted.
There were the little gestures: a cup of coffee left outside your door, still warm. A text after the building’s hot water went out, letting you know it was fixed. The day he offered his umbrella because yours disappeared somewhere between your door and the front steps – you missed the endearing way he rubbed the back of his neck when you turned your back to unfurl it, pleased you’d accepted it at all.
You told yourself it was nothing. Just coincidence and neighborly kindness, just the nature of living in close quarters with someone whose schedule aligned so improbably with your own.
Somehow, those small moments stacked up – shared smiles in the hallway, quiet exchanges about the weather or the truly horrible plumbing in the building – and one day, you realized you had a problem.
You had a spectacularly inconvenient crush on a man who looked like he hadn’t rested properly in years, and wouldn’t know romance if it flashed a neon sign.
It started small. But then the little things began to stand out. The faint scrunch of his nose when he read a text he didn’t like, which was completely different from the wrinkle that formed at the curve of his bridge when he smiled. The way he always looked up – no matter how dead on his feet he seemed – just to meet your eyes when he said hello. And the way his profile seemed to cut through the gritty, timeworn backdrop of the building’s facade, stark and clean against the crumbling edges. His face would flash crimson as he cupped the end of his cigarette to shield the ember from the wind, flicking the lighter, the filter pinned between his teeth in a way that shouldn’t have been nearly as fascinating as you found it.
By then it wasn’t just noticing, but appreciating. And by the time February rolled around you were hopelessly smitten, your goggles turned the world pastel pink, and you were fully in over your head.
Which was why, on Valentine’s Day, you found yourself carefully wrapping a box of homemade chocolates. They weren’t over the top – no heart-shaped nonsense, nothing pink or frilly – but each piece was infused with flavors he’d mentioned in passing: mocha, coffee, matcha, dark chocolate. Things you’d quietly noted, stored away for no reason other than that you’d wanted to.
You left a note tucked under the ribbon. Simple, casual.
“Hope you like them. Let me know what you think.”
The elevator doors were crawling shut when you heard the brisk thud of shoes on old beaten carpet, followed by the slap of a hurried hand against metal. Long fingers curled through the narrowing gap, prying the steel doors open with a strained push.
Hiromi slipped into the elevator, slightly disheveled and a little breathless, murmuring a bitten curse under his breath as he bent to retrieve the keys he’d dropped. Folders were precariously shoved under one arm, a pen just barely hanging on to the collar of his shirt.
“Morning,” you offered, your smile kind but tinged with the quiet amusement his harried state often inspired.
“Morning,” he replied, straightening and glancing over, his tie already starting its daily rebellion against proper alignment. His sunken but shrewd gaze flickered briefly to the box in your hands, but if he thought anything of it, he didn’t say. “Sorry – didn’t mean to hold you up.”
“You didn’t,” you assured him, shifting your weight as the elevator shuddered back into motion. The box felt heavier than it had five minutes ago. “Busy day?”
Hiromi laughed but it was throaty enough to be a scoff, clearly bracing himself for the expected impact of another brutally long day. “Aren’t they all?”
You smiled faintly. The silence that followed felt charged, and nerves jangled in your chest. Your heart was hammering, loud enough that you were sure he could hear it, but you hoped it might be mistaken for the grinding clunk of the old elevator gears.
It’s not a big deal, you reminded yourself again. Just a gift. Just a thoughtful gesture. Just a little too forward for two neighbors hovering in that nebulous space between circumstantial friends and something more, but one that might nudge things in a direction you were too cautious to name outright.
When the elevator gave its telltale groan as it neared the ground floor, you cleared your throat and stepped forward.
“Um, hey—” You held the box out to him, hands steadier than you’d feared but not quite steady enough for your liking. “I… made these. Thought you might like them.”
Hiromi blinked, his gaze snapping to the box with faint surprise. For a moment, his expression teetered between caught-off-guard and something softer, before smoothing into that burnt-out neutrality you’d seen him wear so many times. “Oh.” He juggled his folders into one hand, careful despite his hurry, and accepted the box with a quick bow. “That’s kind of you. Thank you.”
When he straightened, he offered you a small, fleeting smile – it made your stomach twist in on itself and spawn butterflies, no matter how many times you’d seen it.
The elevator dinged as it reached the lobby, and he stepped out with an apologetic glance at his watch. “I’ll see you around, won’t I?”
“Yeah,” you barely managed to eek.
And then he was gone, disappearing into the morning rush with your chocolates in one hand and his folders in the other with pages fluttering like paper wings.
You lingered in the elevator after the doors slid shut again, staring at the empty space he’d left behind.
It hadn’t gone how you’d expected – not your pre-planned worst-case scenario of a mortifying rejection of your feelings, and yet, somehow so much worse, because it wasn’t the rose-tinted reciprocation you’d naively dared to daydream about, either. The thanks and hurried acknowledgment barely registered against the clear distraction in his eyes. You’d poured so much into those chocolates, and you were left clutching distracted politeness like a consolation prize.
By the time you made it back to your floor – after a mortifying number of circuits up and down – you’d collapsed into the corner, head buried between your knees. Embarrassment wasn’t just a flush in your cheeks; it was a whole-body takeover, wrapping you in shame as thick as the tiles were cold. When the next passengers shuffled in, you peeled yourself off the floor, dodging their alarmed glances like a guilty specter as you slunk back to your apartment to lick your wounds.
Hiromi never mentioned the chocolates. Not once.
So, you did the only reasonable thing: you avoided him. It wasn’t like you’d outright confessed, but the thought of that little box sitting in his hands – or worse, the top of his trash bin – had you cringing so hard your spine might’ve snapped. Passing his door became a tactical mission: footsteps muted, breath held. The faintest whiff of tobacco from your window had you retreating like a skittish alley cat.
But while you ducked and dodged, Hiromi… didn’t. Every afternoon, he plucked another piece from that box, letting them melt on his tongue during rare, stolen breaks at his desk. Mocha when the morning slog threatened to drown him. Matcha when coffee breaks needed a little extra something. Dark chocolate after a colleague dumped another stack of case files onto his desk with an apologetic shrug.
Every evening, Hiromi waited beneath the weather-beaten veranda, the spot you both claimed without ever speaking something so official. His coat collar turned up against the cold, cigarette glowing like a signal flare, he’d scan the dim hallways for your familiar shuffle. He wanted to thank you. Tell you how your chocolates made the grind a little sweeter, made him feel a little lighter, and he was grateful for the little things.
But you never came. Not for long enough to speak, at least. Instead, you became a blur – an apparitional gremlin of mismatched pajamas, half-smushed pillow hair, and hurried footsteps. The only sign of you was the tributes he’d leave on your doorstep, his offerings of coffee and muffins, gone by the next time he passed.
Through the curling smoke of his cigarette, he wondered if you were sleeping better. Maybe that’s why you don’t join him as often anymore, why your late night rendezvous suddenly returned to being a solo affair. He hoped so.
The day had been a marathon of mediocrity, the kind of relentless tedium that blurred its edges into monotony. Paperwork bred more paperwork, meetings inexplicably managed to feel both crucial and utterly pointless, and the office coffee – gritty with a scorched aftertaste – served only as a cruel reminder of how far his standards had fallen.
Hiromi moved through it all like a ghost of himself, his body operating two steps behind his thoughts, trailing in that sluggish haze unique to too-little sleep. Four hours wasn’t the worst he’d had this week, but it came with its usual cargo: dreams that clung like cobwebs, fragile but persistent. Unfiled briefs, missed deadlines, the kind of nonsense that soaked through his undershirt and had him gasping awake at three in the morning.
By early evening, when a colleague materialized in the doorway, Hiromi had surrendered himself to the day’s slow crawl. His office, lit in jagged strips of orange from the low-hanging sun slicing through the blinds, had taken on a tomb-like quality – stifling, quiet, and inescapable.
“You’re still here?” The man lounged against the doorframe like a picture of eight hours' sleep and a decent breakfast, a stark contrast to Hiromi’s wilting state. He wore the smug energy of someone whose day had gone entirely to plan. Must be nice.
Hiromi didn’t lift his gaze from the monitor. “Where else would I be?”
“Home. Out. Making the most of the day,” came the reply, too chipper for this hour.
There was something in his tone that prickled, a faint suggestion that today should be different, though Hiromi could only just summon the curiosity to ask why. “What makes this Friday any different from last?”
His colleague shrugged, the movement loose and nonchalant. “Oh, nothing. Just, you know, White Day and all.”
Hiromi blinked, his expression an unbroken mask of indifference, save for the flicker of his eyes, which shifted upward with the kind of mechanical courtesy reserved for the truly drained. “Hm?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Should I?”
“It’s March fourteenth,” his colleague drawled, the words slow and deliberate. “White Day. The day you’re supposed to return the favor for Valentine’s Day.”
Hiromi’s brain sputtered, then juddered to life with all the elegance of an old engine coughing through winter. “Oh,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his hand dragging through his hair as if trying to pull clarity from his skull. “That’s today?”
“Brutal.” His colleague sucked air through his teeth, his expression a caricature of pity, though his eyes gleamed with the mischief of someone who’d spotted an opening. “Didn’t get a gift for anyone?”
Hiromi snorted with arms stretched above his head, his exhaustion thinning his filter. “No one got me anything, so there’s no one to return the favor to.”
“Huh. Rough.” The younger man pushed off the doorframe with a shrug, his jacket slung over his shoulder in a gesture that felt entirely too self-assured. “Well, I’m heading out early. Got a dinner reservation. Gotta make sure I’m on her good side before I make it official.” He grinned, throwing a thumbs-up so cheerfully condescending it bordered on insult. “Good luck with… whatever’s keeping you here.”
“Good luck,” Hiromi replied flatly, already turning his focus back to his monitor.
But the thought lingered, catching like a burr in his mind, tugging at him with small, relentless hooks. No one had given him anything for Valentine’s Day – no soft-spoken confessions, no blushing declarations with trembling hands and gift-wrapped tokens. There had been no shyly offered gestures for him to downplay, no dramatic moments requiring his polite reassurance: “No, no, please, there’s really no need for all of that.” Nothing.
Except… there had been.
The memory surfaced slowly, a faint glimmer in the fog of his overworked mind, before it crashed into him with the force of a truck on the freeway. One moment he was scrolling through a deposition; the next, his pulse skipped, his hands frozen over the keyboard as the realization unraveled in merciless detail.
The elevator.
You’d both been in it that morning – was it really a month ago, now? – him juggling loose files and mentally compiling an impossible to-do list. You’d handed him a small box, your voice soft but steady, and said, in a way he thought was oddly shy for you, “Thought you might like these.”
He’d thanked you automatically, his tone clipped with the reflex to bury the ridiculous warmth that kindled in his chest, before all but sprinting through the entryway doors. He hadn’t even realized it was Valentine’s Day then, hadn’t stopped to consider the gift as anything more than one of your many small kindnesses that were always his undoing.
You were thoughtful like that. Always had been. The spare umbrella you’d pressed into his hands during last year’s rainy season. The mugs of instant coffee you’d offered during late-night power outages when the dim hallway emergency lights turned the corridor into an impromptu meeting ground.
You, who never made him feel like his exhaustion was something to apologize for, even when he collapsed into your shared conversations like a marionette with its strings cut.
You, who had been the quiet balm to so many of his sorriest days.
And somehow, he’d forgotten.
The box had ended up buried under a week’s worth of neglected paperwork by mid-morning that day, forgotten until a rare, unhurried moment between consults. When he finally opened it, he’d been greeted by chocolates arranged with precision that could only come from care. Not the haphazard, store-bought variety, but something deliberate – each flavor attuned to his preferences, each one a quiet nod to things he’d mentioned in passing, likely without even realizing you’d been listening.
He’d eaten them over the following days, savoring the indulgence but not the intention. The empty box, now stripped of its original purpose, sat on his desk, crammed with paperclips, pens, and a single stray thumbtack.
Hiromi leaned forward, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as if he could blot out the creeping tide of guilt threatening to swallow him whole. The past month replayed in his mind, vivid in a way they never were before – a montage of your silences, the way your smiles had grown quieter, your usual warmth edged with something more cautious. He’d chalked it up to stress, bad timing, anything but what it really was: his own staggering obtuseness.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he muttered suddenly, his head falling back against the chair as he twisted sideways, fixing his beleaguered coworker with a look that bordered on desperation.
The younger man froze mid-step, clearly debating the safest answer. “Uh…”
“I like my job a lot, sir,” he hedged, after a moment too long.
Hiromi let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Forget it. Go enjoy your dinner.”
The man didn’t wait to be told twice. The door clicked shut, and Hiromi was left alone in the oppressive quiet of his office, slumped in his chair, staring at a crack in the ceiling like it held answers.
God, he was an idiot.
Because the truth was, he noticed things about you, and he wasn’t used to being so perceptive about anything but work. The way your apartment light stayed on well past midnight, the faint glow visible from the sliver beneath your door. The way you hummed to yourself in the hallway, just barely audible, your voice low and private – except he was always listening for it, attuned to it, lingering by his own door in case he might "happen" to step out at the same time as you.
He’d been so careful not to overstep, so committed to keeping his distance, convinced that somehow, you’d notice him the way he noticed you. Maybe he’d been too subtle. Standing in the same spot every night, cigarette after cigarette, the nicotine rush indistinguishable from the pleasure gleaned from moments he stole with you. And now?
Now he owed you.
Big time.
Hiromi shoved back from his desk, grabbing his coat and his phone in one motion. His fingers fumbled over the search bar as he walked, half-blindly typing: “last-minute White Day gifts.”
Jewelry? Too much. Flowers? Too predictable. He swore under his breath, shoving the phone back into his pocket. He’d figure it out when he got there. Something would speak to him. He didn’t have time to second-guess himself anymore.
Not about you.
Hiromi sprinted through the office, his coat slipping from one shoulder, tie askew as he lunged for the elevator button. When the doors stalled, he snarled a sharp curse, bouncing on his heels, as though sheer impatience could force them to hurry.
The moment he hit the street, the cold air stung his face, jarring him into focus. His breath fogged in frantic bursts as he dodged through the evening crowd, weaving between briefcases and backpacks with a single refrain pounding in his skull: Weeks, Hiromi. You’ve had weeks.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this – racing to fix what he’d fumbled, clutching at something he should’ve noticed was already slipping away.
You’re a grown man, not some clueless teenager.
But that was exactly what he felt like as he stumbled into the nearest store, his heart sinking the moment he stepped inside.
It was carnage.
The shelves had been picked clean by people far more organized, thoughtful, and prepared than he’d ever managed to be. Half-empty displays of gaudy packaging mocked him from every aisle. Cheap chocolates in crushed boxes. Plush bears with matted fur that looked like they’d been stepped on. The sad, plastic sheen of leftover trinkets that no one with an ounce of dignity would ever gift to someone they actually cared about.
Hiromi ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots in frustration as he paced the aisles like a trapped animal. His brain, which had spent the day sluggishly dragging its feet, was now overcompensating – overthinking everything in the worst possible way.
What if she hates this? What if she thinks it’s insulting? What if this just makes everything worse?
He could picture it now: your face falling in polite disappointment, your soft, "Oh, you didn’t have to," laced with the kind of subtext that screamed you really shouldn’t have.
No. That wasn’t an option.
Hiromi doubled back for the third time, his footsteps echoing in the near-empty store. His phone buzzed with an email reminder of the job he’d abandoned, and he resisted the urge to hurl it into the nearest display of cheap candles. He grabbed at something – not because it felt right, but because he was out of time and out of options.
It wasn’t great. Hell, it wasn’t even good. But it was something.
And the rest? The rest would just have to be a groveling apology. A way to explain himself without coming off like a total asshole, to let you know he wasn’t the man you probably thought he was after weeks of appearing apathetic.
It would have to be enough.
He clutched the bag to his chest as he jogged out of the store, and started making his dash for home.
Maybe, if he was lucky, the gesture would mean more than the thing itself. Maybe.
The evening air burned in his lungs as Hiromi sprinted down the sidewalk, the soles of his dress shoes slapping against the pavement with a rhythm as erratic as his breathing. A suit, he learned – rather painfully – was not designed for anything more strenuous than a brisk walk.
His tie had long since loosened lest it choke his already struggling airway, and his coat flapped behind him like a cape, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when lady serendipity smiled upon him with pity when he saw you just ahead, reaching for the brassy bar of the building's entry door.
“Wait! Wait!”
You froze mid-step at the sound of your name, sharp and startling, ricocheting off the concrete walls. Turning quickly, you caught sight of Hiromi – half-bent over, hands braced against his knees as he dragged in air a few short steps below you.
“Are you okay?” The question slipped from your tongue before it even rooted in your brain, concern knotting your brows as you took in the disheveled sight of him.
Hiromi straightened, not quite gracefully, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. “I realized—” he began, words forced out between gulps of air, one hand lifting to clutch a small plastic bag that swayed pitifully against his trembling fingers. “I realized – hah I’m out of shape – I never properly thanked you for your Valentine’s gift.”
The admission caught you entirely off guard.
“Oh.” Your voice came out faint, startled, and entirely inadequate to convey your sudden tangle of emotions. Relief mixed with confusion, unraveling the anxious knots you’d carried for weeks.
“I’m a complete and utter ass,” Hiromi barreled on, his words tumbling over each other in his haste. “Truly, an irredeemable ass. The chocolates? Fucking stellar.” He swallowed, wetting his throat that stuck itself closed from the cold air sucked down his windpipe. “But I hope you can forgive me for my… my ass-ery.”
Despite yourself, a laugh escaped, and the tension in your shoulders eased. Your hand dropped from the door to more casually clasp your wrist in front of you. “Your… ass-ery?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s a clinical diagnosis, I’m afraid.”
You shook your head, smiling now as it was always so easy to do as he thrust the bag toward you. “Here. I—well, it’s not much, and honestly, it’s terrible, but…” He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes locked on the bag rather than you. “I thought you deserved something. And an apology.”
Your heart warmed, then grew hotter still, a supernova blooming in your chest until you were certain you must be a brilliant viewing hazard. Oh my god, this is happening, this is really happening—
Curious, you peeked into the bag…
To find a small potted cactus, squat and prickly, nestled beside a tin of mints.
You stared at the contents, your brain valiantly attempting to connect dots that refused to align. Then, slowly, you looked back up at Hiromi, blinking as the sheer absurdity of it all began to take shape. “Hiromi…” you started, your voice dragging slightly, in perfect sync with the slow crawl of your eyebrows knitting together. “What am I looking at right now?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, his discomfort manifesting in the faint flush creeping up from the open collar of his shirt. “They were out of flowers,” he said, a little too quickly, his tone and expression both pleaded for understanding. “Cacti are… supposed to be hardy. Low maintenance. Practical.”
Your lips parted, but no sound came out, your gaze drifting helplessly back to the cactus like it might somehow offer an explanation. Finally, your eyes narrowed on the tin of mints, holding it up as if demanding it speak for itself. “And these? Am I being politely told I have bad breath? Should I…?” You gestured vaguely toward your mouth, your deadpan delivery sharpened by the incredulous lift of your brow.
“What? No! Of course not!” Hiromi’s wide-eyed horror was immediate, followed by a sigh that bordered on despair. “They were out of decent chocolates too, if you can believe that. All the ones left looked like they’d been stepped on or…” His nose scrunched slightly. “...or licked, probably.”
It all hit you square in the chest then, and you couldn’t hold back the laugh that burst out. It rang across the sidewalk, echoing against the walls, and for a fleeting moment, Hiromi looked almost dazed, like the sound itself had knocked him off balance.
“Hiromi…” You shook your head, trying to catch your breath as you gestured vaguely at the gifts still cradled in your hands. “A cactus and breath mints. I don’t even know where to start with that—”
His lips twitched, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corners, and he ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, ruffling the stubborn strands to fall in hooks over his forehead with a self-deprecating snort. “You’re not supposed to start. You’re supposed to forgive me for being an idiot, and let me take you out for dinner.”
You looked up from the strange gifts cradled in your palms, meeting his gaze. His face was still flushed, his tie hanging on for dear life over his shoulder, and his chest rose and fell unevenly, but there was something so earnest in the way he looked at you – like he would and did run all the way across the city just to say this.
“I’m going to put these… thoughtful gifts inside,” you said, the sickle curve of your smile applying a damning edge to the teasing lilt in your voice.
You turned to head upstairs, but hesitated, the words catching on the tip of your tongue. Your pulse thrummed, and for a moment, you felt suspended – caught between the weight of your nerves and the feather-light hope fluttering just beneath them. Before you could second-guess yourself, the question tumbled out. “Do you… want to go to the izakaya a few blocks over?”
For a moment, Hiromi simply stared, wide-eyed and stunned like you’d offered him the key to salvation. His stillness stretched the seconds thin, and then – bit by bit as he finally seemed to believe you – the rigidity in his frame unraveled, replaced by something altogether softer and breathtaking in its sincerity.
“Oh thank god,” he said, frayed at the edges and incredulous. He cleared his throat straightening with a sheepish cant of his head. “Yes, I’d like that. A lot.”
The way he looked at you then – with such gratitude and appreciation – sent your heart into a clumsy somersault. It wasn’t all that different from how he’d looked at you all along during those late night smoke breaks or slow traipses down the hall. Maybe you were a fool too for not noticing sooner.
“Okay,” you replied, your smile curling so wide onto your face in a way that made it impossible to even try to play coy. “Yeah! Yeah—okay… give me a few minutes!”
Hiromi stepped aside to let you pass. He watched until you disappeared into the building, his calm, composed exterior holding steady until the door clicked shut behind you. Only then did the cracks appear – his breath shuddered out in a rush, and he broke into a tight, eager circle of pacing on the sidewalk. His hands flexed at his sides, barely containing the bubbling energy before one shot up in a victorious fist pump. Yes. Yes! The word pulsed in his chest, each repeat hitting harder than the last. His grin stretched wide, a little lopsided, and he dragged his hand down his face to rein it in – unsuccessfully.
Inside your apartment, your composure unraveled just as spectacularly. The door slammed behind you as you collapsed against it, pressing your back to the wood, chest heaving as the realization hit in waves.
You were going on a date with Hiromi.
Your breath caught, your hands flying up to cover your face as a giddy squeal escaped – a sound you didn’t even try to stifle. You slid down the door to sit on the floor, every inch of you vibrating with pure, unfiltered excitement.
You quickly peeled yourself off the ground, your grin so wide it ached as you darted through your apartment. The little cactus found a place on the bedroom windowsill, perfectly positioned for sunlight, but your thoughts had already wandered far beyond it.
You regarded the mints, staring at them clutched in your palm, your thoughts spinning out in a thousand directions. Dates. Late nights. The shape of his smile. His mouth. His mouth alone was an entirely separate line of thought that sent your stomach into freefall.
Your fingers lingered on the tin before you flipped it open, popping a mint in your mouth with a little hum of delight at the cool burst of peppermint. You tucked the rest into your bag with a flicker of a grin that might’ve been a little too self-satisfied, but who could blame you?
Just in case you needed them.
Hi, I’m a recent follower and I became one after reading Sigil, with Nanami Kento.
I realised that there have not been more parts to it, and just out of curiosity, will you be completing it?
Hey!
Yes, I will absolutely be completing it, and I'm really very touched that you want me to. Truthfully, I'm a bit of a slow writer, as I'm sure you'll pick up the longer you follow me. But I like to think that my work is usually worth the wait! Usually! I hope!
But I can confidently say that Sigil is shaping up to be some of my best work, and I am furiously determined to do it justice. It's the story I've wanted to tell since I started writing, and I'm very grateful to admit that I've had some insanely talented eyes on it and gotten great advice. I've got the series planned out, all that's left is to sit down and make it real in a way I'm happy with.
I hope you'll stick around while I do that.
Part two, Autopsy Report, has been my current focus and will be coming soon <3!
hello!! your twitter showed up on my personal and i just had to read subliminal and i just read that amazing pollen higunana fic.. you r absurdly talented at setting up a scenario for storytelling. thank u for putting the effort into your writing and allowing us to read it 💓💓💓
Oooh thank you, you're too sweet!! First off, I'm sorry you found me through Twitter of all places, but I'm glad you waded through all of that nonsense to get here!
With all of my writing I try very hard to come up with a story worth telling, or to do something different and subvert expectations, so I'm thrilled that I've managed to do so in a compelling way with both Sublimation and Occupational Hazards 💖 also what is going on with this Higunana renaissance? I'm not complaining, but I would've worn a nicer outfit if I'd known!
Thank YOU for reading my writing. Having lovely readers like you truly puts a smile on my face every day, and are what it's all about at the end of the day. Have a lovely day/afternoon/evening, you! 💛
Friends Nanami and Higuruma go on a duo mission together... and fall victim to some unexpected effects.
↳ pairing: hiromi higuruma x kento nanami
↳ warnings: 18+, nsfw, smut, bottom!higuruma, top!nanami, sexual tension, sex pollen, forced proximity, friends to enemies to lovers, rough anal sex, fighting, cum is lube, both a bit OOC but we can blame the pollen, generally feral behavior
↳ wc: 13,675
↳ notes: nanami art by @ hikonom on twitter, higuruma art by @ saksak_kazz on twitter. i hope you enjoy <3
“Ah, good, you’re here too!” Higuruma greeted amiably, sauntering into the meeting room with steaming coffee in hand, the kind of shitty, bitter stuff the staff room machine spit out. But at least it woke him up, so maybe that was by design. Sleepy sorcerers were more often than not dead ones. Sinking into the cushioned couch with an early morning groan, arm draped lazily across the backrest, he sighed into the steam.
He tapped, tapped, tapped his paper cup with dancing fingers. “Actually… any idea why we’re here?”
Smack!
Nanami dropped a manila folder onto the table between them with a sharp flick, his expression tight with irritation. “This.” He muttered, the frustration clear in his voice, offering no further explanation.
Higuruma raised a sloping brow and lifted his coffee to his lips, peering pityingly over the warped plastic lid. He is not as bothered by this intrusion to the beginning of his weekend, years spent tethered to work had numbed him to the inconvenience.
Unlike Nanami, who needed it pried away and leaves it with claw marks, spitting smoke like a raging dragon, he is not as jealously possessive of his freetime. Higuruma had long since learned to surrender it with little more than a resigned sigh and a wave in the rearview mirror.
Higuruma bent forward, placing his coffee on the table and knuckled it slowly across to Nanami, the way one might endear oneself to a stray animal. He needed it more, Higuruma thought.
The silence in the room turned meditative, broken by a deep grounding breath from the other man as he watched his plans of baking, and reading, and relaxing and no responsibility turn to dust. Deep breath in… he could bake next weekend and perhaps treat himself to a new book, luck permitting maybe he would even start it… and breathe out. It gave Nanami a moment to cool, to steady himself before—
Gojo burst into the room, all gale-force energy and unfiltered exuberance, with a complete disregard for any semblance of professionalism and ignorant of the air of resentment stewing from the rigid blonde-turned-gargoyle sitting in the chair across from him.
“Great, you’re both here!” Gojo’s voice was far too chipper for the hour. “Perfect timing. I’ve got a fun little job for you two.”
Nanami looked up, unimpressed, maybe a little murderous. “Are you well aware that it’s a Friday afternoon? Which means that tomorrow is Saturday, which is the weekend and I absolutely will not—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Gojo flapped a dismissive hand as he flopped into the chair opposite them, leaning back with an air of nonchalance that had a vein pulsing in Nanami’s temple. Higuruma watched on with warring amusement and pity, both hidden surreptitiously behind steepled fingers where he kissed his teeth, resisting the overtaking urge to laugh.
“Anyway, there’s this small issue out in the middle of nowhere. Some cursed incidents, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Strange happenings, couples murdering each other nearby— you get the picture, right? Easy peasy. Easy enough to send one of the students really, they could do it in their sleep! I really can’t stress enough how easy it’s gonna be.”
Higuruma raised an eyebrow, finally speaking. “You were supposed to handle this one, weren’t you?”
“Yes, technically,” Gojo grinned, not at all sheepish and wholly unapologetic. “But there’s this festival I’ve been dying to check out. They’ve got all sorts of sweets—mochi, taiyaki, ice cream, you name it! I mean, why waste my time on some low-grade curse when my time is better spent there?”
Nanami’s frown deepened, if that were possible. “This is below our paygrade, then.”
“Exactly! Very astute, Nanamin!” Gojo cheered, completely missing—or more likely ignoring —Nanami’s tone. “Which is why you two are perfect for the job. You can handle it in no time and be back before the weekend’s over. Unless you’d rather join me at the festival? But fair warning, you’ll have to keep up with me while I sample everything.”
He leaned forward, blinding smile growing wider as if offering the deal of a lifetime complete with spread open palms. But to both Nanami and Higuruma who glanced at each other, reading, it looked much closer to a threat. “So, what do you say? Curse or confections?”
Nanami didn’t even hesitate. “Tell Ijichi to prepare the car.”
Gojo sighed dramatically, as if truly disappointed they weren’t taking him up on his generous offer. “You two are no fun. But alright! You’ll be staying up there, got a place all set up for you. Should be a walk in the park—” he clapped his hands, standing and swaying forward—then back—on mile-long legs.
“Anything else we should know?” Higuruma asked, leaning back in his seat with clinical consideration. Details, details, details—
Gojo shrugged, already halfway out the door with a flippant wave over his shoulder. “Nothing you can’t handle. Just try not to kill each other before the curse does, yeah? Oh, and if you change your mind—”
“We won’t,” Nanami cut him off, already gathering his things.
Higuruma blinked, leaning forward now. Where were the details?
Gojo’s laugh echoed down the hallway as he disappeared, leaving the two men to contemplate the unfortunate turn their day had taken. Higuruma sighed. “He really has a way with words, doesn’t he?”
Nanami simply scowled. “Inconsiderate… incorrigible… no work ethic— ” he muttered, brushing his hands over a wrinkleless suit as he stood. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sleek black wheels hummed along winding woodland backroads, the thick forest outside morphed into a smudgy, dark green blur. Ijichi was laser-focused on the drive, his hands gripping the wheel with his usual sweaty-palmed intensity.
Higuruma gazed out the window and traced the endless stretch of trees with his eyes until they swam with dizzy shapes. He watched until his head felt uncomfortably light, swooping his attention down to his stationary lap for a reprieve. This place was really out there… strange location for a curse.
“You know,” Higuruma's voice slipped through the quiet, “it could be worse.” He leaned back, letting the car seat handle him as he let out a slow breath. “At least this should be simple. We like simple.”
Beside him, Nanami was the picture of calm, a book delicately cradled in one long-fingered hand. He’d had enough time to calm down, to temper his frustration with resignation; it couldn’t be helped… and this was somehow still better than the alternative of a day stuck with Gojo.
He gave a small, noncommittal hum, flipping a page. He’d long ago trained himself out of car sickness, these drives now offering a rare slice of interim peace—a chance to slowly make dents in his ever-growing reading list.
“True,” he murmured, eyes never leaving the lines of text. “And I suppose the company could be worse, hm?”
Higuruma turned his head and the beginning of a smile swept over his mouth. “Oh, so much worse,” he agreed, letting his temple knock against the cool glass of the window. “We’ve been through enough to appreciate these quiet ones. In and out.”
Nanami’s eyes remained trained on his book, but there was the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“In and out,” he repeated.
“Maybe we can unwind after this. Grab a drink, like last time.” Nanami's offer slipped out off-hand as he flipped the page, more a passing thought than a concrete plan. If his weekend was going to be hijacked, he might as well make the most of it. And really, drinking with the person he'd be spending it with anyway didn’t seem like the worst idea. Higuruma was good company, always had been.
Higuruma’s grin was immediate, approval reflected briefly in the window’s glass. “I like the way you think!”
As the forest thickened and the road ahead narrowed, their destination creeping closer, there was no tension, no unease. Nanami was not so foolish to ever feel safe on the job, but with Higuruma, he felt something suspiciously close to it.
It was just a simple in-and-out mission—nothing they hadn’t dealt with before.
The sun dipped low on the horizon by the time they arrived, splashing the sky with dramatic strokes of orange and pink that belonged more in an ornately framed and hung painting rather than on the front lines of the job.
As Ijichi brought the car to a crunchy halt on the gravel drive, the sound felt louder than it should have—like the world itself held its breath the same as the three men wrapped in the security of their vehicle. Three heads cranked towards windows and their cheeks squished against fogged glass as they took in their lodgings with the sort of veneration of stumbling upon the carcass of a dead god.
This place felt lost.
Old and rotted wood, planks speared from the sides like splintering teeth, green with creeping lichen and constricting vines that curled around every corner and nook and cranny like veins; pumping life into that which is lifeless, keeping alive that which should’ve long been dead.
Nanami was the first out after a brief moment's hesitation, smoothing his hands down his front and looking prepared to walk into a boardroom rather than the mouth of potential doom. It served to swipe away the sudden sweat on his palms.
The cabin that stood before them looked deceptively quaint, even in its disrepair, like something he’d find on a postcard if he ignored the way it crouched amidst the trees like it was prepared to pounce on them. He also ignored the way it made him want to twist his neck in submission, the instinct to drop to his knees in dogeza and scrape his forehead against the gravel before the steps.
Silence blanketed thick, the kind that makes you strain your ears for something—anything—to break it. But there was nothing. No birdsong, no chirping crickets, no croaking frogs or snapping branches of unseen wildlife. Too quiet, even for somewhere this remote. Like this space existed in its own bubble.
His face remained neutral as he swept the area, taking in the unsettling stillness with a mild frown. He couldn’t sense anything—no curse, no cursed energy, none of the obvious residuals Gojo mentioned.
Quirky little cabin, quirky little mission—Nanami would’ve preferred to be at home with a quirky glass of whiskey instead… not here swallowing nerves like a knock-kneed boy.
Higuruma stepped up beside Nanami, tracing the lines of the cabin’s exterior. It was a shithole. He didn’t see the dissonant charm in it that Nanami did, however faint. It was falling apart, the roof looked a good wind away from caving, and somehow it looked designed that way, because surely it would’ve fallen by now if it was ruined by time.
Something about it felt too perfect, too staged, like it was posing for a picture it knew would be taken—just waiting for someone to notice the way the door seemed to yawn like a hungry mouth, welcoming them to step inside its belly.
He allowed himself a moment of frankly healthy mortal terror before he shook it off.
They were professionals, after all. There was no room for jitters before they’d even crossed the threshold. Especially not because of a house.
Ijichi, meanwhile, looked like he might bolt if given half a chance. His hand shook a little as he passed over their overnight carry ons, eyes darting around like he expected the trees to start whispering or something equally unnerving. Not somewhere he wanted to be at night.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to pick you up. Call if you need anything sooner,” he said, trying to sound official, though there was an unmistakable thread of relief that unraveled his voice that he at least gets to leave. He was already halfway back into the car as the last words left his mouth, and Higuruma had to check an eyeroll.
They all felt it, which made him feel marginally better… but that couldn’t be a good sign.
With a final nod, Ijichi took off, the crunch of gravel beneath his tires fading into the distance all too quickly as the sun dipped behind the trees.
Nanami took point after a few seconds more of silent calculation, leading the way up the short, gravelly path toward the door. The wooden door creaked as he nudged it open, a slow, ominous drone that echoed the wrapped hilt of his blade in his closing palm, the sound hung in the air as a sword of damocles—the whole scene balanced on the edge of a razor, expectant and waiting for something to tip it over.
The floors beneath their feet groaned, clearly unimpressed with the sudden intrusion. Nanami was certain the whole place would feel just as unsettling as the outside had, but when they stepped fully into the cabin, they both paused. It was… beautiful.
The room basked in golden light, courtesy of old-fashioned lamps that dotted the space with a gentle, inviting glow. Each piece of furniture advertised rustic charm, worn edges and sturdy frames that practically begged to be sat on. The walls, too, adorned with an array of knickknacks and decorations—each item meticulously arranged.
It was the kind of obviously lived-in space that could lull you into a sense of comfort if you weren’t careful, the kind of place where you could almost forget about the string of suspicious mariticides that had brought them here in the first place.
It was strange, but it was also nice. And in their line of work, nice was a luxury.
Higuruma twisted around Nanami’s back, breathing out a small surprised huh! as he took in the unexpectedly charming interior.
“Not bad,” he remarked, the tension in his shoulders finally easing as he set his bag down on the worn wooden floor. His fingers slowly uncurled from his gavel, knuckles no longer white. “Looks like someone put some thought into the inside, at least.”
“Seems that way,” Nanami agreed, and he was already moving toward the heavy wooden table at the center of the room. He rummaged through his bag—though there wasn’t much to unpack, given the brevity of their planned stay.
Meanwhile, Higuruma allowed himself a moment to wander, not quite settled and seeking to stake out each and every corner of their accommodations, taking in the small details that made the place feel oddly inviting, idly picking up decorations from shelves with an appraising eye—
—and behind them, the door slowly hushed shut, the lock slipping into place with a soft click. Neither man noticed.
Higuruma plucked a ceramic owl from the mantle, his nose wrinkling; not at the decor, which really he found rather charming, but at the streaky, off-yellow trail of dust left in the wake of its removal. He huffed, mentally filing the complaint away.
It wouldn’t do to bring it up to Nanami, not when he was already less than thrilled about being out here at all.
He swiped a finger through the dust, rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, eyes narrowing in distaste. Filthy.
His nose twitched, and before he could stop it, a great inhale heralded the inevitable. Higuruma sneezed, the force of it sending up a poof of air that stirred the greater nest of dust bunnies, erupting the mantle into a cloud of yellow powder.
Coughing and cursing, Higuruma hastily set the owl back down and waved a hand in front of his face, stumbling back in a desperate attempt to escape the dusty assault.
Nanami only snorted, amused, offering a polite albeit unconcerned “bless you” over his shoulder. He only looked up when Higuruma continued to cough, bent at the waist and hands planted firmly on cocked knees.
“Are you alright?” He asked, already side-stepping the table to get to him.
“No,” Higuruma spat, straightening with watery eyes and a yellow dusted face. Nanami tried not to laugh at his misfortune.
“Gojo is a filthy, good for nothing liar,” he continued, and at that Nanami could only hum in sympathetic agreement.
“Got a place set up for us my ass, it’s not even clean—what if I had a dust allergy, huh? I could’ve died, right then and there!”
Nanami turned to the sink, wetting a sheet of paper towel and returning to Higuruma with a frown, handing it over. “Well it’s a good thing you don’t, then.”
“But if I did—”
“You don’t.”
Higuruma growled, mulish, but accepted the towel and scrubbed it over his face. Nanami, in an effort to be helpful, patted down Higuruma’s shoulders. But the dust was stubborn, it clung to his hands like childrens chalk, and it was already coating his own suit from how the dust was roused into the air, catching sunbeams as it swirled and resettled.
Beige was a forgiving color, and he found himself grateful for his preference of the shade over Higuruma’s black suits. Too easy to ruin. Impractical, really.
The more he cleaned, the more Higuruma’s initial anger waned, though a faint prickle remained—a persistent itch beneath his skin, in his nose, his hair, and even his mouth. It made him feel twitchy, uncomfortable, but nothing a hot shower couldn’t fix. He sighed, shaking off the lingering disgust with a few quick flaps of his hands.
“What do you think the odds are that we could get takeout delivered all the way out here? I’m starving.”
Nanami paused in his idle, and admittedly futile, attempts to brush the dust from Higuruma’s suit and sighed. “I wouldn’t count on it. No delivery driver would venture this deep into the woods for us. And if they did, by the time the food arrived, it would be cold and hardly worth the effort.”
“Hm.” Higuruma’s responding grunt was vaguely agreeable. Eyes slipped a longing look at the cabin’s surprisingly well-equipped kitchen. “Guess we’re on our own. I can whip up something decent.”
Nanami raised an eyebrow. “... Since when do you cook?”
“Hey,” Higuruma retorted, hands on his hips with offense and leaving yellow smudgy prints in the fabric. “I’m more than capable in the kitchen, thank you.”
Nanami couldn’t suppress a small smile at that. “I enjoy cooking, but if you insist.”
“Oh, I do,” Higuruma declared with exaggerated seriousness, though the competitively playful glint in his eyes betrayed him. “Just sit back and relax. Or sweep up some dust if you really need to be helpful. Now, shoo—out of my kitchen—”
Nanami laughed, allowing himself to be fluttered and pushed out of the room, shuffling along and casting a quietly fond look over his shoulder.
“Please refrain from setting off smoke alarms.”
Higuruma rolled his eyes, already moving back towards the kitchen. “Just watch. You’ll be begging me to cook more often after this.”
Higuruma started by rifling through the fridge, the pantry, and the cabinets above the sink; rattling glass jars and shuffling cardboard boxes. Gojo wasn't lying about this part at least: the kitchen was set up for them. Fully stocked, and Higuruma reckoned he might actually be able to make something of it. He grinned, feeling pretty confident about his odds. “Beef curry?”
The cabin was all warm, sappy hues as the sun sank fully behind the trees, painting shadows that reminded Nanami of hot cocoa and knitted blankets, the kind of coziness that comes with soft lamps and fairy lights strung along high beamed ceilings. Outside, the dark now released from the creeping treeline pressed inky hands against the windows.
Nanami leaned back in his chair, eyeing the remnants of his meal on the plate with a neutral stare.
There was something off about it.
His desire not to discourage Hiromi’s good intentions naively outweighed his logic though, because he still ate it all, and maybe he would regret that decision later. It wasn’t bad, not even close—there was no taste of rot or spoil, but something that made his mouth tingle and heart thud unlike any curry seasoning he’d ever had.
“Not bad,” he said, setting his fork down with a measured nod. “Your choice in spices was a bit odd… but not bad at all.”
Higuruma felt awful.
He’d stomached it well, with pinched temples he quietly nursed the headache that crept up during the meal like a bad aftertaste, but stiffened ramrod straight at Nanami’s comment.
His brain thudded, thudded, thudded, each beat a jagged staccato as the words sank in, scraping like sandpaper against his nerves. “Not bad?” he echoed, biting through the cozy atmosphere with a bare-tooth grimace. “What do you mean not bad? It was delicious.”
Nanami blinked, surprised by the sudden sharpness and delicately ran a napkin over his mouth. He coughed awkwardly. “I was just offering feedback. It really wasn’t bad.”
The room suddenly felt warmer—too warm. Nanami dismissed it as the lingering heat from the stove, or maybe the spices from the curry, now irritatingly intense as he felt sweat gathering under his collar like humid, panting breaths against his nape.
Higuruma dug his fingers into his temples again, trying to rub away the tension that settled there like a thick fog. It made him woozy, he felt off balance. “Well, I didn’t ask for feedback,” he snapped, the words tumbling out with more venom than he’d intended. He wasn’t usually one to snap so quickly, but something about Nanami’s mild criticism was needling him tonight like a splinter under his skin.
Nanami’s frown deepened. “There’s no need to get so worked up; I apologize for my comment—”
“Worked up?” Higuruma’s dark eyes sparked like lit kindling with a sudden flash of anger. He shoved his chair back, the legs scraping loudly against the wooden floor. “You’re the one who started nitpicking. If your standards are so damn high, maybe you should’ve cooked!”
The air between them was heavy with ozone, tension slithered in, curling around the edges of their fraying tempers like blotting vines feasting on their discomfort. The silence that followed was heavy, anticipatory, and those vines grew roots and then fingers, curling into Nanami’s limbs and tightening the muscles on his face into a silent glare.
Nanami gathered up the dishes with a little too much force, the plates clattering together in a way that made the small space shrink smaller, the echoes bouncing off the walls and settling in the corners like something dark and brooding. The darkness that licked at the windows oozed its way inside.
Higuruma crossed his arms, feeling his irritation spike when Nanami turned his shoulder, hot and irrational, a screeching tea kettle in very real danger of boiling over completely. Don’t you dare ignore me.
“Honestly, if your standards are so high, I’m surprised you tolerated it at all. My apologies for displeasing your precious palate.”
Nanami’s hands tightened around the sink basin, his knuckles paling as the metal dug into his skin. Slowly—deliberately—he turned to face Higuruma, meeting his glare head-on. Their eyes snapped together like flint striking steel, cold, unyielding, sparks flying. “Fine. Next time, I’ll cook. That way, we won’t have to worry about your thin skin getting in the way.”
Higuruma’s lips pressed into a thin line, but he didn’t answer. His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms as he held his ground, the air between them thickening, charged, shimmering with a tension that hovered like static in the room.
If either of them had been of their right mind, they might have noticed the air almost gleaming—an iridescent shimmer, like the heat rising off the hood of a car on a scorching day, or the sheer coat of yellow that coated nearly every surface, the cutlery, the plates.
Every small movement—an impatient twitch of Nanami’s finger, the brief flare of Higuruma’s nostrils—crackled with a heat that wasn’t entirely their own. Something crept between them, feeding off their frustration, stoking and bolstering the growing fire with every passing second.
Nanami’s glare shifted to the dishes in the sink, smeared plates and bits of rice clinging to the edges. The food had been good—damn good, really—and he hadn’t planned on nitpicking. He’d all but decided not to, but the words grew legs and clawed out of his mouth of their own volition.
Cleaning the dishes was out of the question—his mood was too foul to even consider it.
Higuruma scoffed and turned on his heel, retreating to the living room, his footsteps heavy and banging against the old wooden floorboards. Each footfall landed like the gavel he wields and felt every bit as damning.
As the night dragged on, the cabin’s cozy charm unraveled at its rotted edges. The soft lights, once warm and inviting, were both too dim to read by and too bright to relax under, casting shadows that twisted nauseatingly on the walls. The couch, which looked so inviting before, might as well have been carved from stone for all the comfort it offered.
And though the house was deceptively spacious, the walls inched closer, closer, closer; tightening the noose around Nanami and Higuruma and forcing them into needless confrontations—over the lights, over which room to claim, over the correct way to handle the fire poker by the chimney.
Higuruma, by this point, had a few creative ideas for its use that had nothing to do with stoking a fire.
Nanami needed distance. A breath. Something to stop the heat crawling up his spine like a fever. He planted himself back at the sink, hands plunging into the soapy water with the kind of force that turned a gentle rinse into an act of war. The clatter of utensils against the porcelain screeched through the small kitchen, each metallic scrape a little too loud, a little too sharp. Water splashed up and soaked into his rolled-up sleeves, each drop that seeped into the fabric felt like a personal insult. He felt positively unmoored.
Every squeak of wet porcelain seemed to mock him, irritation climbing with each stubborn stain he scrubbed that just wouldn’t come out—his sanity hung by gossamer threads.
From the living room, Higuruma’s voice cut through the noise, sharp and loaded with an eye-roll Nanami could picture without even turning. “You don’t have to murder the plates, you know,” Higuruma jeered. “I can hear you all the way in here—that’s how you ruin them.”
Nanami’s grip tightened on the dish, his knuckles blanching white. It was stupid—petty. They never bickered like this, never fell into the brand of mundane sniping reserved for divorcing couples or other miserable types.
He prided himself on keeping calm. Unshakeable. Especially around Higuruma, whose dry wit and effortless ability to slip under his skin kept things lively and interesting. Fun, even.
But tonight? Tonight, everything grated on him. Every word, every sound—the scratch of ceramic, the way Higuruma's voice seemed to curl around the walls and echo back, each bounce sharper than the last. It shredded through the quiet, gnawing at his nerves, leaving them raw and exposed to the stifling air that compressed from every direction like a vacuum.
Nanami thinks he must be sick and Higuruma must be too, because he has just enough clarity to recognize that he doesn’t recognize them at all.
Nanami’s fingers skimmed beneath the sudsy water, brushing against something solid. The unexpected chill of metal met his skin, and his hand stilled as he recognized the shape of the knife buried there. For a moment, it grounded him—quenched the fire licking at his palms, made him feel in control again. He let his fingers curl around the handle, the coolness radiating through his hand and sending a shiver up his spine that felt blessedly soothing.
The blade could make it all stop. Take it. Walk into the living room where Higuruma stands and—
Nanami blinked. The thought dissolved, evaporating as fast as it came back to the void it came from and leaving a sick churn in its wake. He gritted his teeth and dropped the knife back into the sink with a harsh clatter, the sound sharp and final. He wanted to throw it out the window.
Absurd. He was absurd. He’s sick. Surely he must be sick, because he would never think that. Not over something so… nothing.
His thoughts felt foreign, like they belonged to someone else. He wasn’t a beast. He wasn’t a murderer. He’d seen enough bloodshed to know better—he knew better.
The fact that it entered his mind at all almost made him retch.
He wiped his hands on the hanging towel, the rough fabric scraping against his skin and pulling him back from the irrecoverable edge he’d almost stumbled over. Without a word, he turned on his heel, leaving the dishes half-done and the knife abandoned in the sink, as if he could walk away from the sick impulse the kitchen inspired.
The hallway felt longer than it should’ve as he stalked back into the living room, each step heavy, ball-and-chained to his fracturing mind. And there was Higuruma—standing in the small living area, arms crossed, his expression unreadable, half-lit by both lamp and fire and waiting for him.
The shadows carved deep lines into his face, the hooked curve of his nose sharpened by the light, casting him as something almost predatory.
When Nanami stepped into the room, the tension between them snapped taut, a thread wound too tight and ready to break, pulling them closer, reeling them into each other's orbit. It was like standing on the edge of a flame, the heat unbearable and the burn inevitable. They were drawn to each other’s fury, like moths with no choice but to dance in the fire until they turned to ash.
“So rather than be gentler with the dishes, you’re just going to leave them? I suppose you expect me to clean as well as cook?” Higuruma’s voice carved through the room like shattered glass skittering across stone. He didn’t move, didn’t uncross his arms, but his entire stance was a challenge, daring Nanami to step closer, to meet his gaze head-on.
The way his eyes narrowed, locking onto Nanami with stripping intensity sent a fresh wave of anger surging through him, hotter, more vicious.
Nanami froze.
Just keep walking. Ignore him. Keep moving. Bathe and go to bed.
“I’m taking a break,” he said instead, each low word a bullet added to the smoking gun, the calm before a storm that could level mountains. It was a voice that should’ve sent alarms blaring in Higuruma’s mind and made his instincts urge him to back off. It promised reckoning.
If Higuruma weren’t so festered in the pit of his own irrational anger, he might’ve retreated—might’ve backed away from the brewing tempest in Nanami’s eyes.
If he knew that moments ago, Nanami had gripped a knife and entertained thoughts of plunging it deep between his ribs, he might’ve put distance between them.
But if Nanami was sick, Higuruma was sicker. His skin twitched beneath the tight fabric of his dress shirt, shoulders rolling and shuddering in a futile bid to relieve the tension that knotted between them. Sweat slicked his body, glistening in the firelight that painted him in violent hues of orange and red, setting him ablaze from the outside in. He was burning.
His vision dimmed, draining of color until the world was a muted blur—all except for Nanami. Nanami snapped into focus, vivid and pulsing with life, a beacon through the haze of Higuruma’s dilated eyes. He panted, breaths heavy and ragged like a slathering dog, muscles twitching with the need to lunge, to close the distance between them. Restraint frayed at the edges, but all he could think about, all that consumed him, was Nanami. Going to him. Tearing into him.
"Can’t ever—" Higuruma’s voice cracked, struggling to force the words out between teeth clenched so tight he felt a pop in his jaw. "Ask for help, can you?"
A bitter scoff slipped, choked off as his throat seized, the dry walls of his airway sticking together and making his vision swim that much more as he missed another heaving breath. "Always have to be—"
He turned away sharply, a shudder running through him, the effort to keep speaking almost painful; and with it, he hoped to hide his shame at the grossly obvious erection snaking down the seam of his thigh, just as it had been for the past fifteen minutes. "—the lone wolf, thinking you’re so… so independent and fucking cool—"
His breath hissed, a harsh sound that scraped the back of his throat raw down to the bitter copper tang beneath. "So fucking cool—"
Nanami resisted with everything he had, every muscle tensed against the invisible binds that drew him in, demanding he act on impulses that should never see light; should never have been conceived at all.
His fingers twitched at his sides with the urge to act. To do something he’d regret. Wrap them around Higuruma’s throat, maybe, and squeeze until the hate drained out of them both.
He watched as Higuruma began to unravel, each tremor, recognizing the succumbing happening before his eyes as what he felt incubating within himself. It was like staring into a mirror, seeing his own fate playing out in front of him, knowing that it was only a matter of minutes—if he was lucky—before he would break too.
His pulse pounded in his temples, each beat syncing with that silent, relentless pull, dragging him recklessly toward oblivion.
Nanami stalked forward.
Higuruma whirled back around, a sharp animal snap of his neck with teeth bared like a cornered beast. His body jolted upright, spine straightening and meeting Nanami’s advance with a challenge that was all raw instinct—no hesitation, no retreat, only the need to assert dominance.
“What the hell are we really fighting about here? Dishes? Dinner?” Higuruma’s laugh was cold, a bitter thing that didn’t suit him at all. “Or are we dodging the real issue, Nanami? Because I’m begging for an excuse. Give me one, and I swear—” he leaned in as close as he dared, eyelids fluttering at the smell of him even at this distance. “I’ll fight you.”
Nanami didn’t know why they were fighting. Only that they were. And that the scorching compulsion inside him demanded it, devoured him and any dissent whole, certain he would be reduced to ash and hollowed to a bitter husk if he so much as raised a finger against it.
He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t. The need to push this until something snapped was compulsive. The only end was cremation in this hellfire, one or both, and his desperation for it ripped him apart from the inside out.
“This isn’t about dinner,” Nanami growled, his voice thick with hot coals. His chest felt tight, air scorched by the words he could barely spit out. “Or losing my weekend to be here.” His fists clenched, nails biting so deeply into his palms that blood welled in the half moons, but the sting was nothing compared to the flames ravaging his veins. He’s in hell—he must be.
“This is about you.” Nanami spat the fever in his mouth, callous and cruel. His shoulders quivered and betrayed him, frenetic pulse having him swooping down towards Higuruma’s face a little too fast, a little too close, nearly eye to eye now before he could reel himself back upright; drunk on the heat of it all.
“About how you are a burden. A constant, incessant, mind-numbing waste that I’d be better off without.” He wanted this. The confrontation and the catharsis that vitriol promised, even if it meant sinking deeper into the hell he was creating.
The space between them nearly evaporated, the air growing so thick they were both choking on it. Nanami could feel Higuruma’s breath ghosting over his skin, gulping for air, his throat bobbing, warm, uneven, alive—a siren call, seductive and dangerous and ruinous.
Break him. Rip, tear, flay—spill blood into the floorboards, let the cellar drink from him.
The thought scorched through Nanami's mind, twisted and raw, and for a moment, neither dared moved, both possessing an instinctive knowing it might provoke the other to pounce. The only sound was their breath, ragged, and the ratcheting pound of the other's heart, both animalistically attuned and tracing bulging arteries up their throats.
Hurt him. The insidious whispers slithered through Higuruma’s mind like smoke, curling around his thoughts, sick with rabid infection. Hit him. You’ve done it before. He despises you. Use the gavel. End it.
Sweat gleamed on Higuruma’s forehead, mirroring the dampness on Nanami’s neck. The air was suffocating, clinging like napalm, thick and oppressive. It was rage—pure, unadulterated rage—but something else too. Something that begged for pain, for release, for an end.
And then Nanami hit the wall.
The impact was savage, brutal. No time to brace. Higuruma slammed him back, the force sending picture frames clattering to the floor. The walls groaned, the very bones of the cabin trembling under the weight of their collision.
Higuruma didn’t hesitate. He was on Nanami in an instant, hands lashing out, cold fingers like steel vices around Nanami’s throat. The pressure was immediate and crushing—but Nanami didn’t flinch. His eyes gored Higuruma with deadly resolve, steel against steel, waiting for the other to break.
Nanami’s eyes narrowed, excitement seeping through his gaze as heat furnaced low in his belly, his breath coming out ragged. Higuruma’s fingers were still wrapped tight around his neck, but Nanami could feel something else—a thrum, a pulse. His cock strained painfully against his slacks, pre-cum already staining the fabric; the matting feel of his hair both enraged and delighted him.
He wasn’t sure when that happened.
He wasn’t sure he cared.
His hand slid up to Higuruma’s wrist, and with the deliberate force of bending iron, began to pry those vice-like fingers from his throat. Higuruma clawed for him, fist shaking with resistance, and every inch of fight only fueled the arousal that snapped sudden through them both like rubber bands.
A cold, metallic chuckle thundered in Nanami’s red throat, mocking with threat. "... Idiot."
He didn't waste another breath—there was no time. With a sharp twist and a powerful surge of his shoulder, Nanami shoved Higuruma back with enough force to send them both crashing into the floorboards.
They thrashed, clawing and bodying into furniture and light fixtures. Higuruma’s knee shot up, slamming into Nanami’s stomach, sending a shockwave of force that knocked the air from his lungs and his cock twitched, pre-cum seeping in thick rivulets down his thigh. Nanami grunted, but the ache only sharpened the edge of his need. Higuruma, too, felt the burn.
In one fluid, desperate motion, Higuruma rolled them over, breaking free from the hold, chest heaving with exertion, straining and throbbing in his pants with every ragged breath. His eyes blazed with fury, but beneath the rage there was something raw and ruinous. His gaze raked over Nanami, lips curled into a snarl, and all he could think about was how much he wanted to rip him apart—and fuck him into the floor. How much he needed to do one or the other or both.
Yellow clouds shaken from surfaces whirlpooled in the humid air. With each breath, Higuruma felt it more acutely—his clothes clung to his skin, and heat laid siege to his body, unbearable, searing. The pollen, the fucking pollen—he could feel it now, twisting his thoughts, his body, and all he wanted was Nanami beneath him, writhing and begging.
Nanami roared and lunged at Higuruma again, throwing him back into the wall with enough force to crack the old oak paneling. The cabin rumbled, books toppled from shelves, and somewhere in another room something glass shattered.
But all Nanami could see was the way Higuruma’s body shuddered at the impact, the way his pupils dilated, his lips parting in a wet gasp—so fucking pretty.
Higuruma choked, the breath knocked from his lungs, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. His vision blurred, but the moment it cleared, he saw Nanami standing over him—panting, chest heaving, cock straining visibly against his pants, fabric stained dark and dripping. The visual sent a shiver through him, his stomach clenching hungrily and own body desperately reciprocating.
Each thrash and bit of fight only compelled the other to fight back harder. A cyclical prey-drive, hammering and hammering in the forge until someone broke into the coals.
In the charged, suffocating space between them, the air thickened, pulsing with a desperate craving that bordered on madness. Nanami’s grip tightened, punishing hands clasped around Higuruma’s shoulder and the fine bones of his neck. His fingers curled with creaking slowness against the soft skin and fabric, teasing the promise of bruises and ripped clothes.
Higuruma scrabbled for purchase against Nanami’s arm, spitting and clawing, nails raking down skin and leaving red lines that did nothing to deter the iron-grip on his neck; like the bite of a flea for all the attention Nanami paid it.
Their faces were inches apart, close enough that Nanami could see the fine particles of dust chalking Higuruma’s flushed skin, could feel the heat radiating off him in molten waves. Everywhere they touched the yellow mist was spread to him too, and where it was spread Nanami burned.
His breath juddered in his throat, billowing against Higuruma’s cheek his nostrils flared bullishly. Cologne, sweat, and dust that smelt oddly floral… pollen. Not dust at all.
It was the pollen. It had to be. But there was no time to think about that, not when every nerve in his body was on fire, every muscle twitching with the need to lay claim and consume, because Nanami is certain, so certain, of only one thing: the hellfire raging in his bones was going to kill him if he doesn’t whet it.
The muscles in Nanami’s back convulsed, rippling beneath his shirt as he bent lower, his breath ghosting over Higuruma’s throat. “You smell so good,” he groaned, voice rough and fractured and barely coherent. Had Higuruma always smelled like this? It was intoxicating and overwhelming and Nanami needed him.
He smelled too good. Too irresistible. Too much.
Nanami groaned and pushed Higuruma harder against the wall, the force of it rattling the entire cabin as if trying to shake loose whatever wild thing had taken hold of them both. But it was lodged too deep, its hooks set and curved too permanently.
His knee shoved between Higuruma’s legs, pressing up—hard—right against the throbbing bulge in Higuruma’s pants. Nanami felt the way it pulsed, wet and leaking, pre-cum staining the crotch of Higuruma’s pants so thickly that he felt it through the layers on his knee. And with the way his hips jerked forward, rutting against Nanami’s leg—he liked it.
Higuruma writhed, his body twisting and turning, but it wasn’t rage anymore. The way Nanami’s breath hitched, the way his muscles tensed and twitched—Higuruma felt it all, and it was driving him insane, breaking him down until all he could think about was the way Nanami had him pinned to the wall, how Nanami’s knee ground into his weeping cock, Nanami, Nanami, Nanami.
The clawing desperation to peel himself away was tossed in favor of frantic tugging, nails catching on rolled sleeves to yank Nanami closer.
Nanami’s world narrowed, everything outside the two of them fading into a tunnel of pulsing, seething hunger. Irreversibly dialed to the slick heat of Higuruma’s body pressed against his, the frantic beat of his pulse beneath Nanami’s hand, the sweat that trickled down Higuruma’s temple. He wanted to taste it, drag his tongue across that feverish skin, feel Higuruma’s pulse in his mouth and swallow it down gluttonously.
He leaned in closer, breath scalding against Higuruma’s ear as he gritted out the words, each one clawing its way from the depths of his chest and leaving the cavity bloody. He was gone—too far gone to reel himself back, yet somehow, impossibly, not quite lost. There was just enough of him left, clinging by a thread, enough to ask—beg, really—and pray that if the answer was no, he could resist just long enough for Higuruma to hit him and knock him blissfully unconscious.
Even if it killed him. Even if he were to self-immolate. It would be better.
“Tell me you feel it too… shit, I—” His voice broke, shivering, “I need you—”
The words barely left his mouth before Higuruma lunged, crashing his mouth against Nanami’s in a collision of lips and teeth. It wasn’t a kiss—it was raw, violent, a clash of urgency and rage. Their teeth clacked, tongues desperate and frantic, and Nanami groaned, low and deep, as he shoved Higuruma harder against the wall, hips grinding forward in a furious effort to fuse them together.
There was no room for dignity or restraint—just the unbearable need to fuck, to tear each other apart until they were satisfied.
Nanami’s breath hitched, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he gripped Higuruma tighter, fingers digging into the muscle beneath his shirt. The fabric tore beneath his grasp, threads snapping, and Nanami relished in the sound of buttons skittering somewhere across the room and lost to corners, the sensation of skin bared to him.
Higuruma’s hands clawed at Nanami’s back, fingers digging into tense and quivering muscles. Every nerve in his body was on fire, skin too sensitive, cock hardened to the point of pain with every desperate twitch of his hips. “Nanami—” The sound that came from his throat was jagged, agonized and barely comprehensible.
“I know—fuck—I know,” Nanami rasped, shushing and pacifying in a way suddenly tender in his understanding, each word dragging as if ground over sandpaper. He leaned closer, lips brushing Higuruma’s ear, his breath billowing and hot.
“You’re going to take it. Every inch, every bit of me until you can’t think straight—” nevermind that they already can’t think at all. Nanami hardly recognized himself. “—can you do that for me?”
Higuruma’s nails raked down Nanami’s back, whining and blinkered by lust to the point of muteness. Nanami could’ve asked him to peel his nails off and he would’ve if he thought it would feel good.
It spurred Nanami on, feeling his heart drop to his diaphragm to instead beat between his thighs. He didn’t waste another second, his hand shooting down between them, fingers trembling as he fumbled with the waistband of Higuruma’s pants. The button snapped free with a sharp pop, and Nanami tore the fabric apart, shoving his hand into Higuruma’s boxers without finesse.
His hand wrapped around the base of Higuruma’s cock, and the slick, hot pulse of it was almost enough to send Nanami over the edge right there. It was drenched, pre-cum spilling in obscene amounts, leaking down his hand, coating his palm in slippery warmth that dripped between his fingers. Fuck, he’s soaked. Higuruma was trembling, hips jerking into Nanami’s grip, chasing the friction with desperate, needy little thrusts.
“Fuck—Nanami, it hurts—” Higuruma gasped, voice cracking and jumping in Nanami’s fist, dripping onto the floor in the beginnings of a milky puddle.
“I know, I know,” Nanami groaned, voice low and wrecked, half-mad. He released Higuruma’s cock only long enough to yank his own pants down, fingers catching on the waistband in his rush to bare himself. He sprang free, and the sight of himself—hard as steel, already oozing to mat the honey blonde curls of hair on his belly—made him groan, muscles twitching with the need to bury himself inside Higuruma now. “I’ve… I’ve got you. Gonna help—”
There was no time for slow, no time for careful. None of the things he would’ve liked to do. No courtship, no gentle touches, no wining and dining, no chance to savor the feeling of peeling Higuruma away from the realm of friendship.
Nanami’s thoughts scattered like fractals, catching briefly on things like sunflowers—would Higuruma like if he bought them?—but the descending fog swallowed them whole.
Nanami groaned, he spun Higuruma around, slamming him chest-first into the wall with a force that rattled the entire cabin. The sharp sound of breath leaving Higuruma’s lungs was like gasoline on an open flame, and Nanami felt his erection twitch painfully, expanding more, oozing in a steady drip from the swollen tip. So much it felt like he might’ve cum already, but the ache in his balls told him otherwise—he hadn’t even begun.
Higuruma braced his hands against the wall, panting, his whole body trembling under Nanami’s weight. “Do it,” Higuruma snarled, thick with desperation and edged with defiance… or maybe just bravery in the face of what he knew was coming; both were equally admirable. “Please fuck me—I need it… it hurts—”
Nanami whimpered low in his throat, his hands gripping Higuruma’s hips, yanking him back roughly, aligning his pelvis with Higuruma’s ass. The head of his cock was so swollen it raged purple, slit weeping a thick coat that dripped down his length, soaking the base of Higuruma’s spine. It wasn’t normal—none of this was normal—but Nanami couldn’t bring himself to care.
He pressed the tip of his cock against Higuruma’s rim, smearing pre-cum over the tight ring of muscle and creating a slick runway as he dragged the head up and down, coating Higuruma in it. A small mercy, all things considered.
Higuruma’s body tensed, muscles bunching up beneath his skin as Nanami pushed against him, testing the resistance and hissed at the stars that blew across his eyes. The pressure built, intense, unrelenting, until Nanami thrust forward in one hard, savage motion, burying himself to the hilt in a single stroke.
Higuruma howled, fingers gouging into the wall, tearing the lacquer as his body arched violently, breath coming in jagged, broken rasps. It was too much—too intense, too fast—but exactly what he needed and Nanami knew it.
Pain blurred into pleasure, the overwhelming fullness inside him, the brutal stretch—until there was no distinction left between agony and ecstasy. It all melted, streaming him into a state beyond either. He was euphoric, and the way he immediately shoved back into Nanami made it abundantly obvious.
Nanami froze, eyes rolling to their whites in a way that obliterated any semblance of dignity, the scalding heat inside Hiromi nearly buckling his legs. The way Hiromi squeezed, quivered, and trembled around him had Nanami teetering, hand lashing out to the wall for support and crushing over Higuruma’s knuckles instead.
“Fuu-haah—” The curse fizzled and died on his tongue, useless and defunct. And then Nanami moved, a brutal, unrelenting force, each thrust shaking them both to their very foundations. Flesh pounded against sticky flesh, echoing in the space in a way so pornographic that it might’ve made Nanami blush under regular circumstances.
But this wasn’t regular. His fingers slipped between Higuruma’s pinning them both to the wall.
Dinner and sunflowers.
Nanami’s mind flickered with a different fantasy altogether—far sweeter than the damnable pollen on his tongue, the softness he had wanted to offer Hiromi. That calm domesticity, the gentleness Nanami thought he should’ve given. But here they were, drowning and clawing at each other to stay afloat.
Higuruma’s body rocked with every thrust, his own cock dripping against the wall, smearing in gooey, messy trails. He was completely lost, undone by the feeling of Nanami inside him—stretching him, molding him. Every stroke sent a wave of pleasure-pain through his body, chipping moans from his throat, making him claw at the wall, desperate for more, desperate for anything and everything, and he took it greedily.
Nanami’s free hand slid around, wrapping firmly around Higuruma’s length. He squeezed, stroking in time with the thrusts that had Higuruma corseted to the wall. “You’re mine,” Nanami murmured, voice thick and tongue useless in his mouth, far better suited for lapping at Higuruma’s neck than talking, and so he does.
If Higuruma was his, Nanami would spend the rest of his life making it up to him. He’d worship him. Take him out for dinners, make sure he laughed, filled his life with comfort, and this—this would be a secret they’d share. A private thing to laugh about and remember rather than the source of shame Nanami feared. He’d—fuck, he’d get him sunflowers everyday. During the winter he’d grow them himself if he had to—
“Please say it,” he crackled, desperate, impeaching. Suddenly this mattered to him.
Higuruma’s breath caught, quivering with each brutal batter into his body, already cracking like pressured glass. “Yours,” he gasped, his voice staticky with gravel, shredded from the moans that never once stopped dripping helplessly from spit-slick lips.
“Fuck, Nanami, I’m yours—”
That was all Nanami needed.
Higuruma’s submission wasn’t just some indulgence of lust. It was deeper than that, something in his very bones. Nanami saw it clearly now—the dormant part of Higuruma that craved being tethered, the wolf who wanted to be collared, domesticated into a dog. And Nanami was more than willing to bear the leash, to hold it firm and tender in his grip, to guide Higuruma through his surrender.
Nanami possessed Higuruma so beautifully, so thoroughly responsible for him, that it inspired nothing but heart-stopping adoration in the delirious mess of a man beneath him.
The thought shot through Nanami like a bullet, inspiring furious determination to do away with the awful edges where Higuruma ended and he began. His hips snapped forward, thrusting with brutal purpose, hammering into Higuruma with a force that sought to unmake them both, return them to stardust or whatever primordial pool they crawled out of. And Higuruma, with every ragged moan, took it. No, more than that, he welcomed it.
Drool slid unashamedly down Higuruma’s chin, cheek squished to the wall, his throat convulsing with every slam of Nanami’s cock inside him so deep he swears he feels him in his ribs. His voice was nothing but a mess of broken syllables now— “Na-na-mi—!”—barely managing his lover’s name in the mess of spit and pathetic mewling.
“Harder,” Higuruma gasped, voice shredded beyond recognition, hips rutting desperately into Nanami’s hand, chasing that final bit of friction, that last agonizing piece just at the tip of his tongue. “Fu–uu–uu-ck, please—m’gonna—”
Ever his servant Nanami’s fist tightened around Higuruma’s cock, knuckles white with the force of his grip as he stroked him, rougher than he liked it himself, but exactly how he thought Higuruma needed it because he thought he might appreciate a firm hand. So salaciously determined is he to milk every drop of pleasure from him, to exorcize this feralness from their bodies.
That’s all it took. Higuruma’s entire body went rigid before shattering gloriously—
He convulsed, spine arching violently off the wall as his orgasm tore through him, ripping a raw, choked cry from his throat. Hot, thick ropes spilled over Nanami’s fingers, and the rest splattered messily against the wall. His breath hitched, caught somewhere between a sob and a gasp as the overwhelming mix of pain and relief threatened to drown him. His legs buckled, but Nanami held him upright, speared by Nanami’s cock and the firm grip that kept him from crumbling entirely.
Nanami slowed just for a moment, enraptured by the ruin beneath him, feeling the others' orgasm with ferocious synchronicity like a punch to the gut.
Higuruma was still trembling, breath uneven, each gasp shaky and erratic. “Please, just—” Nanami gripped his hips, dragging him back into place, and with a breathless choke, “—please don’t stop me—I can’t… I still need—”
Nanami bent him, his forearms flexing in a restraining pin around his chest and waist; Higuruma curled and arched back, and back, and back into him like some lewd figurehead of a ship.
“Fuck, Nanami… please—more.” Higuruma’s voice was impoverished, hands clawing at the walls until wood splintered beneath the blunt bite of his nails, desperate to hold onto something, anything, as Nanami drove into him, the force of it pushing him further up the wall with each sloppy thrust as his cock continued to sputter against frayed and scratched wood—impossibly unspent.
The tension in Nanami’s gut coiled tighter and tighter, a spring wound to its breaking point before finally—
It snapped with a final, brutal thrust, and he met his first orgasm with an embarrassing cry—raw, desperate, echoing through each fierce contraction that tore through him. His grip on Higuruma’s hand tightened as he whined against the damp skin of his neck, shuddering with every hot, thick pulse that spilled deep inside his lover. He gasped raggedly, gulping for air over flushed, bitten skin as he rode out the last shivers of release, clinging to Higuruma as if the world would fall away without him.
Their bodies slumped together, breaths mingling. Higuruma’s forehead pressed against the wall, and for a moment, everything was still except for the lingering tremors that juddered them both. Nanami’s breath was hot against his neck; his lips dragged over the skin, pressing kisses of apology, gratitude, pleading.
But it wasn’t enough. The insistent burn beneath their skin, the gnawing ache, still simmered. They could both feel it—this madness that refused to release its grip, no matter how hard they tried to bury it.
“Nanami,” Higuruma panted. His hands, now trembling, scraped roughly against the splintered wood. He forced himself to turn, just enough to catch a glimpse of Nanami’s face—flushed, tense, eyes squeezed shut in agony. “Are you… are you okay?”
Nanami’s answer was a slow shake of his head, breath bitten between clenched teeth.
“I… still feel it,” he confessed, voice rough, strained, composure stripped and leaving him shamelessly wanton. He swallowed, trying to regain some control of only his voice, but it was useless. A frustrated groan slipped out, his hips twitching forward unconsciously, still buried deep inside Higuruma, hard as iron and showing no sign of letting up. “It’s not enough… fuck, it’s not enough.”
Higuruma’s heart pounded, the reality of their situation sinking in. He should be sated, exhausted even, but his body was already responding to Nanami’s words, the fire rekindling with a vengeance—the refractory period of some debauched god, not the exhausted thirty six year old man he knows himself to be. He’s never been so hard in his life.
Without another word, Nanami tightened his hold on Higuruma, stumbling back on shaky legs until they sank to the floor. There was a brief, fleeting moment of tenderness as Nanami held Higuruma close, twisting him around so they could face each other.
Higuruma was ruined. Spit wet his chin and cheek, his hair spiked in all directions beyond repair, and eyes dilated so eclipsing of their pupils that Nanami can barely see the whites either.
Supple, pliant, and so beautiful.
“Higuruma…” Nanami’s voice was breathless and heavy, but there was a new softness to it—a plea woven through the desperation like wicker baskets, only hoping they’d hold the weight of emotions he was too addled to carry.
His hands found Higuruma’s, guiding them to his broad shoulders with a gentle insistence. He yearned for him with a presence of mind he lacked before. He’d needed a body, that was all, and that hadn’t changed… but Nanami wanted him.
“Please—”
The word broke from him, cracked and vulnerable, as his fingers tightened around Higuruma’s hip, trembling with the effort to stay anchored. He slid his hand down, cupping the curve of Higuruma’s ass and giving a firm, urging push, his wide, desperate eyes locking onto Higuruma’s, beseeching and pained.
Higuruma cupped Nanami’s face in his hands, the same hands that ruined a wooden wall possessed with something more gentle now, he cradled him like something fragile.
He looked at Nanami like he’d never seen him before, and in a way, he hadn’t. Not like this—not so ruined.
He leaned in, capturing Nanami’s lips in a slow, deliberate kiss, pouring every ounce of weight and nebulous bit of emotion into it. His thighs tightened around Nanami’s hips as he lifted himself up and then dropped back down onto Nanami’s cock. Fire met with the gasoline in his blood, reigniting anew.
He was always meant to be burned by Nanami.
He would give and take until there was nothing left.
Like it too was afraid of what it might find inside the unassuming little cottage. Its eye rose hesitant over the trees, golden spears shot through windows and sheer curtains, illuminating the carnage strewn about the floors.
Anything not nailed down was toppled, the knick-knacks so meticulously arranged knocked to the floor or shattered, books indecently fluttered their pages in dead air, and the floors, the walls, and the upholstered leather of the couch were thoroughly destroyed.
Claw marks and stuffing, the odd bite taken out of the arm of a chair and left punctured with teeth—but no blood, no murder, no bodies—except for two, very much alive and tangled in a mess of limbs and sticky flesh on what remained of the couch.
Nanami’s leg dangled off the edge, one arm limp against the floor, while the other curled a cradle around Higuruma’s back where he slumped on his shoulder—drooling, snoring, and finally sated.
The man was peaceful—vulnerable in a way that tugged something deep in Nanami’s chest.
Nanami didn’t sleep.
Not much, at least.
He stayed vigilant, his thoughts churning like a storm at sea. Once they were both… “well” … he’d agonized, he’d thought, he’d theorized. He’d seethed and spat in his head like a rabid animal, every part of him on edge, because he knew this wasn’t right. This wasn’t simply an explosive culmination of little repressed desires—though he did take some time to consider the implications of what this would mean for his relationship with Higuruma tomorrow. No, this was something done to them.
He remembered reading the report about a curse Gojo exorcized once—one that could induce euphoria, passivity, bending the mind to its will through flower fields. If a curse could do that, then why not something more sinister? Something that could twist emotions, heighten them to the point of madness. Rage, hate, lust… such a curse wouldn’t need to act violently itself; it could simply turn its victims into weapons, feeding off the very emotions it created. The implications set a chill in his gut, heavy and unsettling.
Couple murders. One survivor. Confusion. The details were sparse in the file, but Nanami recalled those morbid little highlights, and with a new day dawning he knew he had to settle the theory that stewed in his head all night.
With a careful touch Nanami’s arm tightened around Higuruma’s shoulders, supporting his back as he rolled them over as gently as he could manage.
Higuruma grumbled inarticulately, Nanami inhaled and froze, hovering… the snoring resumed, and so too did Nanami exhale. He arranged Higuruma’s limbs so he’d be more comfortable, making sure long legs and bruised arms were tucked properly onto the fluff-bleeding cushions. His hand lingered a moment longer as he lifted Higuruma’s head to place on a pillow, fingers dipped in inky hair with soft consideration.
His palm brushed once, easing the tufted cowlicks on his head before he withdrew.
Nanami stood, his chiseled jaw clenched, determination hardening his features as he turned away from the couch. Without a backward glance, he marched to the front door, each step measured and purposeful.
Nanami didn’t bother with clothes as his feet pounded the floor, the cool wood unforgiving against his bare skin. He gripped the door knob like it was the throat of an enemy, twisting and flinging it with a force that should’ve sent the door flying—yet it didn’t budge. “Hah…” he chuckled, darkly amused. He tried again, muscles flexing, veins bulging with effort— how embarrassing, he mused, only if he hadn’t expected exactly this.
He moved to the kitchen. The window above the sink brightly lit with cheerful morning gold, dripping jewels from dewy grass on the gravel drive. He reached for the small metal latch, hope flickering in his chest like a dying ember—sealed.
“I fucking knew it,” he laughed despite himself, near hysterical at his idiocy. His hand found its way to his hip, the other raking through irreversibly tousled wheat hair.
“Knew what?”
Nanami’s flinched to hear Higuruma speak. He whirled around, finding him propped up on the couch, one arm slung over the torn and fuzzy backrest, his expression groggy but attentive.
“The door won’t open,” Nanami said with a derisive snort.
“—and you wanted to go outside naked because—?”
“The windows too. I can’t open them.”
Higuruma’s brow furrowed, sleep slowly ebbing away as he propped one knee up, hooking an elbow around it while resting his head atop the makeshift pillow. “And…?”
“They’re not real, Higuruma.”
Oh, so he’s lost it, Higuruma thought.
Higuruma blinked, a moment of confusion flashing in his eyes before he smothered it beneath a well-practiced mask of calm. His lips curled into a placating smile, the kind one gives to a person on the verge of breaking. “I see…” he didn’t.
“... are you feeling alright?” His voice was steady, honed by decades of smothering nerves beneath layers of practiced indifference. But he could feel the exhaustion pulling at his edges, the dregs of whatever had been in his system finally clearing. If Nanami wasn’t good, if he had truly lost it, then…
Nanami groaned, shaking his head as he strode back to the couch. “We’re in a domain, Higuruma. We probably have been since we walked through the door.”
That pulled Higuruma out of his spiraling thoughts. He scoffed, disbelieving that that was the conclusion Nanami arrived at. “No—no, we would’ve noticed.”
Nanami grunted in response, his focus on the rubble scattered across the floor. He crouched down, rifling through the mess with a single-minded determination until he found his boxers. He stepped into them with the kind of force that spoke volumes about the rage simmering beneath his skin. “Mess with my fucking head—my fucking body …I don’t fucking think so.”
“Wouldn’t we have noticed?” Higuruma insisted. He scrambled off the couch, the cool air biting at his skin as he tried the door, then the windows—no dice. He blinked owlishly. How hadn’t they noticed?
“Wait, where are you going?”
Higuruma watched, a mix of awe and concern tightening his chest, as Nanami, clad only in his boxers and wielding his signature black-and-white blade, stormed across the living room. The destruction underfoot crunched with each step, like the ground itself was trembling beneath his ire. He moved with the purpose of an angry deity, his eyes narrowed in determination. “I’m going to find it, of course.” The rest of his ensemble seemed irrelevant, the sheer force of his anger making everything else redundant. At the very least, Nanami refused to face his quarry with his dick out.
Higuruma scrambled for his clothes, now little more than torn scraps, but managed to yank on a pair of boxers, matching Nanami’s hurried attire. “Try going up,” he suggested, breathless, hopping in place to work an uncooperative leg through the leg hole.
“Is there an attic?” Nanami’s voice was sharp, all business as they moved in unison down the hallway, weapons gripped with white-knuckled determination, intent on receiving their pound of flesh in return for their dignity.
Higuruma nodded, still catching his breath. “I believe so. The house looked taller from the outside.”
Heat rises. The thought flashed between them, unspoken yet understood. The sweltering flames that burned them from the night before would have naturally ascended, carrying with it the intoxicating miasma that fueled whatever twisted curse that ensnared them, up to the highest point. Simple physics.
Nanami for all of his composure (last night notwithstanding) was always careful on the job. You would not know this by how he kicked down the door at the top of the stairs, blowing it clear of its hinges and obliterating it with a violent explosion of splintered wood.
“Where are you…”
The thing skittered down from the rafters, a grotesque, spider-like abomination with far too many limbs that clicked and chittered as it descended. Its body was an obscene, fleshy mass, swollen and pulsing as if ready to burst, its skin stretched thin over the bloated form beneath. It laughed in that eerie, tinny way curses do, mandibles clicking and many eyes rolling to devour the two men in the doorway.
It was slow, fat and sluggish, engorged on the feast they’d unwittingly provided, dragging itself across the floor with an unnatural, bone-crunching crawl. Its limbs twitched sporadically, like it couldn’t quite control them, its movements erratic and nauseating to watch.
Nanami liked to take his time, usually. Liked to assess his enemy and make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting for him once he engaged. Because Nanami was a careful man, even moreso when he isn’t alone. But not this time. There was no patience left in him.
Nanami’s eyes blazed with the cold, righteous fury of a vengeful god. Ratios lined his vision, spinning and locking into place with terrifying clarity. He swung his blade in a wide, brutal arc.
The strike was perfect.
Wooden boards shattered beneath the force of his blade as it sliced through bloated curse flesh, spewing rotten blood across Nanami’s bare skin. The creature shrieked and twitched violently, its many legs flailing in a grotesque, desperate dance before it seized up and fell still. The curse evaporated into dust… but not the usual gray ash he’d come to expect.
Yellow spores billowed into the air, and Nanami immediately hurled himself backward, instinctively bodying Higuruma aside and away from the cloud. The panic was swift and visceral, propelling him out of harm’s way as he crowded Higuruma into a safer corner.
Higuruma staggered slightly from the force but quickly steadied himself, feeling the air around them clear, becoming lighter, easier to breathe. The light filtering through the dusty old window seemed a little brighter now, cutting through the gloom with a newfound sharpness.
Nanami’s shoulders were tense, muscles flexing as he adjusted his grip on the blade’s fabric-bound handle. Higuruma couldn’t see Nanami’s ratio lines, but he could see the red welts and scratches marring his back, the way the skin stretched taut over them and surely must sting—but Nanami didn’t flinch.
Higuruma is silent for a moment, neither of them speak, letting the feeling of closure dawn well and truly over them before finally Higuruma sighed and relaxed his grip on his own weapon, raking a hand through his disheveled hair. “Well… I suppose that’s taken care of.”
Nanami straightened, his exhale feeling every bit the exorcism he’d just performed. His hand reflexively reached for his throat, adjusting a tie that wasn’t there, on a suit he wasn’t wearing. He grimaced, prickling.
Scalding shower water and floral-scented soap that made Nanami’s stomach churn and skin shiver with thoughts of flowers, and petals, and pollen, and Higuruma—they took turns cleaning themselves one after the other. Nanami first, scrubbing his skin with a fervor that bordered on obsession, as if the force of his hands could erase not just the icy streaks of purple curse blood, but the memory of how it got there and every other substance that clung to his weary body.
After him, Higuruma took his place in the steamy room, letting water pound against his bruised and aching back, head bowed under the spray and washing away far more than dust and grime. It was a baptism, a cleansing, until the water that swirled down the drain ran clear and took with it the last bit of curse-induced grit and fucked dumb-ness from his brain.
The house invented its own gravity well, warping all sounds and emotions, all feelings except for what it wanted them to feel. But now that pull was gone. Their feet were no longer nailed down by that otherworldly weight; they were grounded once again by the earth's natural pull, back in the same plane as everyone else, free from the almost-world of the domain.
Nanami had already called Ijichi, arranging their extraction with the kind of professional detachment that belied everything that transpired within these walls. “We’re both fine,” and “it’s been dealt with,” and “yes, at your earliest convenience, thank you.”
Now, with nothing left to do but wait, Higuruma and Nanami moved around each other with dancing steps, choreographed avoidance and refusal to so much as bump into each other—because what if one thing led to another, and what if they weren’t quite right yet and it started again, and what if they said something stupid—
Higuruma ran a hand through his still damp hair, grimacing at his inability to bridge the gap. There was no precedent for what they’d done, no documentation for him to point at and say “hey, here’s what we do now”.
Things had never been tense with Nanami. Their connection had always been easy, natural—colleagues by circumstance, friends by choice. They shared the same burden, the same grim determination to do what needed to be done and the understanding that someone had to do it. Misery loves company, and theirs had always been more than just a shared duty.
But that was before they’d fucked like their lives depended on it.
Funny how that changes things.
There was a carefulness in the way they moved now, an awareness that hadn’t been there before. Nanami was stiff and brittle, seeming almost afraid to get too close, like he couldn’t quite reconcile what he’d done with who he thought he was.
Higuruma, perceptive as always, kept his distance; not wanting to push too hard and break whatever fragile equilibrium they’d managed to find; because this wretched silence was still preferable to the breakup of their friendship.
It was almost comical, really, how they could teeter so close to the precipice of something meaningful and yet Higuruma found himself holding back. Like a cat eyeing a fishbowl, the temptation there, the desire to reach out and take the leap, but deciding against the jump because he was afraid he wouldn’t stick the landing.
But Higuruma had never been one to shy away from the truth. He’d made a career out of cutting through bullshit, and he wasn’t about to stop now even with potentially catastrophic consequences. So, with a resolve that brooked no argument, he weed-wacked the silence and leveled Nanami’s turned back with a look that would’ve dismantled a lesser man.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” He began abruptly. “But you’re a good friend of mine, Nanami—and if it’s up to me, that won’t change. So if we’re going to forget that this happened, just tell me so I can do the same. We need to be on the same page at the very least.”
Nanami surveyed the world outside the wide open living room window as if it were his kingdom. Quietly and greedily inhaling the fresh air that swept in, and with it went out the sordid smog that clung like film wrap to his brain. He’d been eager to confirm the windows would indeed open now with the curse exorcized—they did. He also wanted an excuse to silently gather himself—the window provided.
Nanami didn’t turn to face him, but the way his head lifted just so made it clear he was listening intently.
His gaze stayed riveted on the horizon outside, where the morning sun bled gold into the sky. Wishing that same light would illuminate the jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings he’d agonized over while Higuruma slept and highlight the way forward.
He thought he could handle it—both the mission and the man with him—but the pollen stripped him raw, naked to the soul. It was ugly and far from what Higuruma deserved; both physically and the cold words traded before it.
If Higuruma was his…
The thought alone made his stomach knot, a quiet yearning twisting inside him like hemlock. Nanami wanted so much more than what they’d been forced into—wanted to take his time, to show Higuruma the care and consideration he was worth. There should have been dinners, quiet conversations over wine, the slow unfolding of something deeper than friendship. It should’ve been a courtship, not a violent collision of hunger and curse-driven madness.
But what was done was done. No amount of wishing could undo it, and now, standing on the other side of the night, Nanami knew he had to make it right. He wanted to with a sincerity that bordered on desperation.
Because if Higuruma was his…
Nanami felt the longing bloom again, a poison that seeps closer and closer to his heart. He would give him everything. Anything he wanted—days filled with small comforts and nights spent wrapped in the quiet intimacy of just being together. He would repair Higuruma’s suit, take him out for the best meals, buy him flowers, and pour his drinks. He would worship him in every way a man could be worshiped, not just in moments of passion but in all the mundane, unspoken ways that truly mattered.
He indulged those thoughts while Higuruma slept, when the yearning of the body surrendered to the yearning of the heart. Nanami allowed his brutally thick arms to hold him just a little tighter, relishing those small hours of peace before he knew everything would change. It was as inevitable as watching the sun slowly rise through the windows, shedding light on the destruction they’d wrought; change would come, and he didn’t know from which direction he should protect himself when the path diverged.
But those hours of clandestine coveting seemed a lifetime ago, more a fantasy than a possibility. Higuruma’s voice was firm, almost clinical, as he tried to set the parameters of their future interactions. We need to be on the same page, he said, and Nanami felt a stab of regret that they weren’t already.
We don’t have to talk about it.
Nanami knew that was true, but it was the very thing that gnawed at him. They could sweep it under the rug, pretend it hadn’t happened, and go back to the way things were—but Nanami wasn’t sure he could. Not when he thought he felt something, saw something, in Higuruma. The path split before him now—safety and risk, retreating back or shouldering forward. Maybe he’d lost his mind a mile or so back.
Nanami finally turned to face him, the morning light catching whiskey eyes and flambéing them with ardent certainty. He didn’t know how to say it. He’d always been good with words but never this kind, but words didn’t know that when they tumbled out anyway.
“I don’t want to forget,” he confessed.
It was a start.
“I will not just brush this aside, Higuruma. You… mean a great deal to me.” What a pisspoor excuse of a confession, he thought bitterly.
He cleared his throat, met Higuruma’s shrewd eyes and fought against every impulse to look away. He forged ahead.
“Last night… wasn’t us. And I know that that is not how I would’ve wanted things to go if ever we were to…” he trailed off, waving his hand vaguely. But Higuruma nodded, understanding the words in the silence and encouraged him on.
“But it felt like—to me, at least, like maybe there was something there. Something worth doing differently, if you feel the same way.”
“I want to make it right. In fact, I insist on making it right, if you’ll let me.”
The silence that followed was thick with unspoken truths, the kind that couldn’t be easily unpacked in the span of a few seconds or weakly uttered confessions and pleas. Nanami’s heart pounded in his chest, each beat a tolling bell with the hope that maybe, just maybe, Higuruma would understand—that he’d see through the mess of it all to the sincerity underneath.
Because for all his equanimity, Nanami couldn’t shake the truth he’d arrived at while Higuruma slept that seeded itself in his chest: If Higuruma was his, he’d never stop trying to make him happy. He’d never stop wanting this.
“And I’d like to start with that drink… if you’re still amenable to that.”
The first tentative days turned to months, and then years.
Work-related dinners with the occasional bar visit to unwind effortlessly transitioned into intimate date nights. A strange bond formed in the crucible of something neither of them could ever explain, tempered with time and the endless patience of two men lucky enough to know what they have. Higuruma and Nanami repaired their relationship with gold, filigree filling the cracks and turning it far more beautiful than it began.
Now, when the two found themselves on the sun-drowned beaches of Malaysia, toes buried in hot sand with matching skin-warmed gold bands clasped in woven hands, they might mention that one time and laugh.
A humorous anecdote from a lifetime ago where Higuruma insists that that one time is the cause of his persisting back pains, and Nanami asserts that the scars that litter his back and arms are not from a curse at all but from that one time.
And when Nanami glanced at Higuruma, face turned toward the sun with a blissful smile on his face, Nanami allowed himself to smile too. He’d made up for it in every way that mattered so long as he could see Higuruma smile like that, and he would keep doing so for the rest of their lives.
This has been getting some attention again (hello, Higunana renaissance! How I've longed for you...) thank you for all the new eyes on it, I hope you enjoy! 🫶
stumbled upon gloaming from ao3 and realized you also had tumblr and felt the need to let you know how much i loved the fic in both platforms 🥹
i cant even start how WELL this is written, i could go through hours into explaining how well this fic captured nanami kento, the good, the bad, and the ugly. from the source material left for us to interpret, especially on how life would be if he was marries and survived shibuya, this is BEYOND majestic. that even the dreamiest of men has his flaws— or have grown them overtime. you made him feel FEELINGS, like one does. the bitterness of his resentments, no matter how deep, balanced enough with how well you wrote his character. you made him feel REAL !! and that's what i like about him the most. sure, i like to think he is perfect, no flaws left to scrutinize nor judge, there's no harm in portraying him like that too. but a character feeling raw emotions, struggle in a relationship, and experiencing hardships especially due to the big changes that happened into his life, made him feel like he's real, that he too has his shortcomings and flaws. and DONT even get me started with the writing— BEYOND DIVINEEEEE, i cant even start with how raw and real i felt each emotion spill each word, it even felt like *I* was there (which is the point of every x reader fic i guess but thats besides the point!) i have shed real tears, as embarrasing as this information is, but i had so much fun readimg through it. I love everything and the way it was written as well as the smut part dear god. i have found and read your works while i was looking for higuruma fics to indulge myself in, and i have, and it was just as divine, went through your profile and in the midst of looking for higuruma content to quench my thirst, ive found your nanami ones and didnt take too long to realize that you and i both love musing over these two overworked, white-collared, turned jujutsu sorcerer men LOL and i couldnt be anymore happier to have stumbled upon your account and your work(s). my apologies for rambling BUTTTTT point is, i really really REALLY love this and the way you write and i hope to see more of your writing for nanami and higuruma in the future 🥺✨
Aaaaah, it's you!! Hello!
I woke up this morning to read your delightful comment on AO3, imagine my surprise to see you in my inbox here too! You truly are amazing, and the kind of reader every writer dreams of. 🥹💛
And never apologize for rambling. I'm a big rambler. I live in tangents. Let's go!
Gloaming is a personal favorite of mine, and I feel like a broken record saying this haha. Post-Shibuya Nanami is such a fascinating creature to me. He's a fiercely independent man, who values his solitude and his ability to live independently, and I fully believe that he would be the type to someday bounce back from catastrophic, life changing injuries...after some growing pains.
I was in the same boat as you, where I looked at Nanami and said: "This man is perfect. Flawless. The Ideal Specimen of what a man should be." (I still feel like that last part is true) But I wanted to challenge myself to break my biases! Because what happens when an independent person is stripped of their independence? They can be angry. They can lash out at the people closest to them simply for being in biting range. They can hurt the people they love, and slip deeper into self loathing for having done so, because clarity of your flaws doesn't mean you're able to avoid those flaws.
If I were to write Gloaming now, I probably would've lingered in the after more. I think things tied up a little too neatly for such a messy, human situation, but I also think I told the story I wanted to tell at the best of my ability at the time. And I love it, you love it, this is what matters most. 💖
Let us gather, you and I, and ramble and tangent about these overworked and underslept white collar turned jujutsu sorcerer men. This is what we're made for.
is the twitter link you put in the masterlist, is that the correct @? im surprised by the jojo content but most on the fact that its entirely japanese..?
Eek, thank you for the shout! I changed my @ ages ago, and it seems like someone new has taken on the old one since then and I forgot to update the link hahaha.
I do like jojo though, but I don't know a lick of Japanese. Should be all fixed now! I mostly do a lot of nonsensical yelling there to get my sillies out, and post a bunch of the art I like to commission. The link is here too for your convenience!
Hi!! I don't wanna sound weird or sum but I genuinely think you are my favourite writer EVER. You have such a beautiful style and you write characters so well I always wait for you to post because you are so good. SUBLIMATION is literally art I can't
Sorry if i made you uncomfortable 😓
Hello, you! Please don't ever be sorry or think your presence here could make me uncomfortable!
I'm so fortunate to have such beautiful readers like you who share the same love of these characters as I do, and gushing over that is never something to apologize for 💛 I'm thrilled to have you! Please, inbox me as much as you like! (Sweetly sending you a kiss, only if you want).
I was incredibly proud of Sublimation for many reasons. It's some of my strongest work, and I'm 100x more pleased that it's had such a positive impact on those who've read it. Whether they liked Higuruma before or grew to like him as a result, I consider it one of the greatest honors of my life to be perceived through my writing on this little stage.
I'm currently spinning away at Sigil chapter 2 (and have roughly planned up through 8!) and have some Gojo writing simmering on the back burner. I hope you'll love those just as much.
In the fractured mind of Higuruma Hiromi, you're a cold-blooded killer. You deserve to be tried for your crimes and executed in the Culling Games. But what if the judge, jury and executioner is hunting you down himself? And what if he's entirely wrong?
When you're hunted by a spectre in black, and he finally catches up to you, things go horribly wrong when an unusual Curse imbues you both with an itch that must be scratched; but you were supposed to kill monsters, not make love to them in the dark.
Warnings: Sex Pollen and Dark!Higuruma (fresh breakdown state, start of Culling Games), predator/prey, hints of dubcon (not fulfilled) in nightmare sequence, happy ending.
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You were going to die.
Red stained the edges of your vision. You could not hear past your own screaming breaths and the blood roaring in your ears. Your fear tasted metallic; lactic copperpots along the sides of your tongue, and you flipped onto your belly, gravelscrabbling on cold wet tarmac, ripping, tearing at your stinging palms, and knees, and belly, and--
You screamed and sobbed as a strong hand grasped your ankle, and dragged you back with a roar. Terror was a cold blanket. His body crushed you down, lean and long and deceptively heavy, a black shroud, a stitched canvas in which to be sewn before you sank--
"Have you noticed--" the Spectre spat, flipping you back over, chest to chest, so the rain could drown you from above, "have you noticed-- snakes crawl away on their bellies too, and that's all you are; a snake, just as guilty--"
"Please-- please-- I keep telling you, I haven't killed anyone--"
"--just as guilty as the rest of the scum in this place!"
He roared. He drew back his weapon-- a rainslick, glossy gavel-- with an executioner's gait, and you screamed--
You evaded it. You did not know how, but the Spectre cursed, his gavel slamming down into the space where your body once was. It was an otherworldly thing, the gavel. Whether it hit stone, or glass, or flesh, it always made the same sound; wood on wood, a piercing TOK! like the final tick of one's earthly clock.
It made your blood run cold. His gaze tracked up, and up, until it was fixed upon you; crouched, with his lips peeled back over his teeth and his face twisted with rage, like a gargoyle above a cathedral. You paled. You skittered back on your haunches.
You knew nothing of the strange powers you held, now, but when all they seemed fit for was evasion, you understood that you'd be running from death forever, for you were certainly unable to defeat him. He undertook with malicious certainty of right and of purpose.
You scrabbled again. He roared again. His hand closed around your ankle again.
You were going to die.
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When Hiromi first saw you, days before, he had blood on his face, and soil on his shoes, and the leafcrush gore of a pot plant beneath his feet.
He stepped towards you, over a body. His feet crunched on glass. His hair was wild, and his dark eyes, too, and his tie was loose, and his shirt-tails, too, and you had no right to look as frightened as you did, backing up like a newborn foal; not when you were in the right place at the right time.
“You’re next in the queue, I assume?” he sighed, flat upon the surface but roaring beneath.
You did not answer him, at first; the pretence of grasping for words but failing, he was sure. An act. A ploy. He had seen it all before. He did not falter in his approach. Wind blew in through the shattered windows; so high up, so far to fall. For him, at least.
Hiromi stepped ever closer; each step slow and deliberate. "Come along, then. I haven't got all day.”
“N-no– no–”
“Don’t stutter.”
“Ple– p-pleas– I haven't done anythi--”
“Don’t– STUTTER!” he bellowed, swinging at you with such ferocity that he heard the air crack in his gavel’s wake. It did not meet its mark. You disappeared with a squeal…and reappeared twenty feet away, with your hands over your eyes and your breath coming in gasps.
Hiromi looked baffled, then insulted; then, disgusted. He straightened up. His steps quickened. When he came for you again, it was at a run.
You ran, too. Hiromi snarled. His hands snatched, and caught you by the hair, then the waist, then grappling; anything to hold you still as you flickered in and out of his grasp by some curious means that you pretended to not understand.
Eventually, he caught you, and threw you down onto your belly with little ceremony and even less kindness. Your face ground into the rough office carpet; your arms wrenched behind your back, pinned in his grasp, and he grunted as he straddled you from above, his thighs clamped on either side of your waist. He panted. You felt a bead of his sweat drop to the back of your neck, and you shuddered, your body alight with chilly heat.
Hiromi broke your cry of terror in half, when his other hand tangled into your hair, and arched you back so he could hiss in your ear.
"You're the sort that gets away with it; plays the fool, while someone else pays the price. You make me sick. This game is your comeuppance. I am your comeuppance. So if you can't have shame in life, have some dignity in death. It's the least you could do for yourself."
He smelled so faintly of cologne; of tangy blood and unwashed man. His nose and breath grazed your neck, and the way it peaked your breasts and clamped your thighs was far beyond your control. He was mad. Entirely mad; but the surety of his conviction had you doubting even yourself.
He took a deep breath above you, before growling into your hair.
"Domain expans--"
CRACK!
Hiromi froze with disbelief. Panting, and seething, he looked at the spot beneath him. The spot where you once were. He had you; he just had you. And like a worm, you had wriggled out of his grasp again.
You heard his bellow of outrage, and the TOK! of his gavel from your place halfway down the stairwell, where you had reappeared without your conscious choice. The sound rattled down and down, growing closer and closer, getting louder and louder, cracking the steps even as you stumbled down them, chased to earth by hairline cracks--
Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-TOK-TOK-TOK--
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Days passed after the first encounter, and the many that followed, and still, you heard it in your dreams. Tok. It haunted you. You woke every night with one hand held out towards death, who held his carriage door open for you, and the other hand muffling your screams at the source.
You had asked for none of this, you thought, toying tok! toying with the slim-pickings you had scavenged from an overturned vending machine. The crisps turned to ashes in your mouth. You ate for functionality; the urge to survive, at least, TOK! at least, still strong.
The street was quiet, and narrow, with little tall walls and abandoned partitioned bins and family homes; now, all either empty, or coffins for single-point prizes. You sat behind TOK! behind a street lamp and outside of its light-- outside of any light at all-- and drew sweet patterns in the dust.
You thought of him; the Spectre. The man in black with the sunflower pin. A lawyer, you surmised; and a vindictive one, it seemed, with a chip upon his shoulder deep enough to notch his oversized TOK! oversized gavel into. It was difficult to ponder upon his vendetta against you, when the terror clouded your judgement.
You pictured him above you, just a few days before; a few near TOK! near misses ago. Though he had looked at you with venom then just as he had every time since, there was something else behind his eyes, too. Disgust, yes; but not for you. The crinkled nose bridge of one who felt the TOK! the knifeblade himself. Something unwelcome TOK! unwelcome rushed through you; heat at the memory of his body, such intimacy in danger. The rush of nausea TOK! nausea that came straight after did not escape you.
TOK!
Washed from your reverie with a bucket of ice water, you stilled at the sound of rustling nearby. It was happening again, you were sure. He'd found you again, with his keen eyes and grim purpose, and you could not keep running, your chest tight already and your legs shaking already and--
A tanuki, small and scrappy, rustled out from behind the bins. It padded forwards on its little clawed paws, led first by its nose to your overturned bag of crisps, before its eyes caught up and it skittered back from the crisps' owner. You stayed still, holding your breath. It's beady little eyes shone in the dark. You knelt, slowly, slowly, keeping your eyes on the tanuki...and tossed it a crisp.
The tanuki froze, then considered, then snatched the crisp in its little paws. It ate as though it was starving. You felt a pang of pity, and pushed the whole bag towards the tanuki with a whisper.
"Here you go," you said, looking down the dim street before walking away. "I don't like them anyway."
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By the time Hiromi stepped into the shadow of the streetlight, you were gone. He'd had a chance, and scuppered it by watching you, instead. He did not know why he wasn't standing over your body, instead.
Perhaps it was the crisp crumbs, left by grateful little claws; or the packet placed so conscientiously in the bin after, even amongst the rubble and ruin. He toed at the dust with the top of his scuffed shoe, and something unwelcome rose fast, too fast, towards the numb surface, trapped behind glass but threatening to break through; perhaps it was the hearts and swirls you had drawn in the dust. Perhaps you weren't scum after all, perhaps you were--
--a con artist.
Hiromi scowled. Harsh, and unforgiving, he scuffed out the drawings in the dust with his shoe. He looked down the street. He could no longer see you in the distance. Something twisted in his belly.
The others had died because they sought him out. He hunted you because you deserved it; no more, no less. You were guilty. You would not be here if you weren't.
He did not hunt you down because you pounded at the glass, cracking it. He did not. Could not. Could not--
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You could not stop watching; for horror was little more than dreadful fascination.
You had not witnessed any of your Spectre's murders, before; but when you finally did, you froze in state, grimly enraptured by the intimacy of such an act. You had hidden within the tall, many-seated hall of an old cinema, and chanced upon him before he could chance upon you.
From the blood on the seats and the way pictureless light still shone down from the hidden projector onto the screen, you surmised that whoever your Spectre was beating to death was no innocent man, himself.
You saw only shadows, for the Spectre had chased the man behind the screen. The man had not stood a chance, and you watched as the Spectre ensnared him in Court; a puppet theatre of justice, performed in real-time.
The man begged, and cried, and cursed. He had neither the capacity nor the mind to defend himself. You did not know how the Spectre did it, but mere moments after the charges were read, and the sentence was served, his terrible hammer fell down in its first skullcave TOK!
The cries silenced immediately. You heard the Spectre roar into the second swing, dropping to one knee before the corpse, panting. You could see no gore, but for that in the theatre of your mind's eye.
You watched the Spectre with an uncanny desire to know; to understand. He did not kill indiscriminately. You had seen him direct the innocent-- unlucky civilians, or hungry abandoned dogs-- to safety and shelter. He was flat, and cold, yes; but not indiscriminately cruel. So why you? Why did he hunt you?
The projector began to whirrrrr far above you, its focus shifting as it ran out of power. The Spectre still panted. Terror coiled in your gut. You had to get out, you were running out of time, he'd find you, he'd--
Then, the Spectre's head bowed forwards, and a single deep, rusty sob left him; the hook of his nose and his bonesharp profile projected upon the screen in stark shadow. His shoulders heaved, and he wept great, wracking sobs, and your shoulders slumped, and your heart broke. For a monster. Why?
"I can't...can't keep doing this," he despaired, begging to nobody at all. "I can't...I can't...please--"
His head remained bowed over the corpse, and he snapped, tossing his gavel away with a cry of anguish-- only for it to reappear in his hand, a moment later. He threw it again, and again, and again-- it came back, and back, and back. Eventually, burying his face in his hands, he buckled over, weeping like a child, like a boy--
You moved towards him without conscious thought. Your foot slipped upon the steps, and a clank! set your teeth on edge. A rancid can of beer clattered down them, spilling its contents along the way.
The Spectre stopped weeping immediately. He sniffed, and stood up, his voice thick and gravelly as he snarled.
"Who's there?"
You did not answer. You clapped your hand over your mouth. Your heart squeezed. Your lungs tightened. Your vision went black at the edges. The Spectre spoke again, creeping ever closer to the edge of the screen.
"Ah," he whispered, low and slow. "Ahhh...it's you, isn't it?" Your face crumpled. A sob left you, outside of your control. His voice softened again; almost kind. "Don't you want to just...stay? Don't you want to stop running? Don't you want this to be over?"
You began to back up the cinema's stairs. Your legs could barely hold you. Your blood was cold, viscous, but heat pooled in your belly and thighs with the intimacy of his grim invitation; a gross contradiction.
"I could make this be over for you," the Spectre whispered, finally appearing around the edge of the screen, with wet red hands, and cold tired eyes, and tears still fresh upon his cheeks. "I could make it quick. Painless, if you wanted. Stay."
Another sob left you, tears pouring down your cheeks, shaking your head and beseeching him with your eyes. He stiffened. His face twisted, too; all storm and fury and despair.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he growled. "Stop it, you deser-- why are you looking at me like that?"
You gasped. You snapped to action. You ran, slamming through the double doors, and the Spectre sprinted, hot on your tail.
"Don't you dare-- hey!"
Hiromi slammed through the doors after you, and you were...gone. Vanished. Like a ghost. Just like before.
The cinema plaza was empty. Popcorn staled in its glass cabinets. A ticket machine churned, vomiting blank tickets out to coil upon the floor. Lakes of spilled soda formed strange neon rainbows. Fluorescent lights blinked overhead. Wet footprints disappeared mid-step, halfway along the carpet.
And Hiromi buried his hands in his hair, and doubled over, and howled.
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Hiromi's dreams were not dreams; but nightmares.
Vivid flashes of red. Hot rage. Terrible grief. The screams of injustice, pounding on glass. Your body writhing beneath his, ripe for the kill, and how he would take you, first, with your thighs forced open and your eyes wet and wide and beautiful and your sobs in his ears and your sweet cries into his mouth as he drank you down and his pleasure dragged within you and your warmth enveloping him just as the cold did--
Hiromi woke up with a harsh, ratchet gasp. Disgust rose from his belly to his chest, hot and thick like bile, vomiting out of him. His horror clung to his skin, and he cried out, skittering to his feet in the alleyway, ripping off his suit jacket, and his tie too tight and his shirt, if only he could rip off his flesh, too, monster, monster--
He spun. He staggered. He buried his hands in his hair, and slammed into the brick, and broke.
"Get out of my HEAD!" he roared into the wall, his palms and his forehead forced flat against them.
His bellow echoed out through the night. Everything seemed to fall silent. The stars watched on. Even low-grade Curses, skittering and warbling, peeked their heads over window boxes and wooden stalls; an uncanny audience. Unwelcome. Like you. Hiromi breathed hard, panting, shaking, sweating cold sweat and cold and shirtless and begging. "Get out...get out..."
Hiromi stood like this, grazing his palms and forehead upon the wall, for countless minutes; maybe hours. Why did you plague him, so? Why did you press against the glass, when none of the others did before you?
Finally, the bilious rage faded and the curtain fell again. Ice frosted the glass. Numbness was a cold blanket.
Flat-faced and staring into nothingness, Hiromi picked up his shirt, and buttoned it up, and picked up his tie, and tied it on, and picked up his suit jacket, and shrugged it on, as robotic as if he was getting ready for work, and by the time he was fully dressed again, he had made up his mind.
He did not know why you haunted him so, but you did. You were the problem. Your constant evasion of what was right and just was the problem.
And you had to be exorcised. Like the curse you were.
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Your name is Higuruma Hiromi. You are a criminal defence lawyer. You are thirty-six years old. Your name is Higuruma Hiromi. You are a criminal defence lawyer. You are thirty-six years old. Your name is Higuruma Hiromi SCUM. You are a criminal defence lawyer MURDERER. You are
You turned over the scrap of paper in your hand. It had fluttered on the wind from his pocket, one day; when you had been hidden in plain sight, as though it had intended to find you. It was scrawled so hard, in places, that the pen had ripped through the paper, and with the bloody finger smudges that accompanied the grim affirmations, the paper had been reduced to a fragile, raggedy mess.
The Spectre-- the man, Hiromi-- could be reasoned with, you told yourself; even as the madness on the paper threatened to seep through your fingers. The mercurial instability that this dropped artefact evidenced, however, made such thoughts of diplomacy a wretched prospect indeed.
It would be no quest for the faint of heart; nor for the impoverished of character.
Thankfully, that was not you.
You brushed off your thighs, and were about to stand to step towards the gallows, when you heard him. A roar into the night; a roar of the most ghastly, agonised, and soul-splitting fury that you had ever heard.
You felt vomit rising in your throat again. All your surefootedness left you at once. You clapped your hand over your mouth, stumbling back over gravel, the remains of people and buildings. He was close. You could tell; he was close. You stared down the long, higgledy-piggledy remains of the city street, with its buckled buildings and overturned cars and bent street lamps.
And at the end of the street, the street lamps began to flicker. They flickered, and flashed, and cracked, and exploded in a shower of sparks, and died; one by one, from the end of the street, towards you, one, by one, by one--
You were left in near darkness. Bells tolled in your mind. You couldn't think; couldn't move.
The streetlight that had died first, at the far end, flickered on just once more (without a bulb, impossible, unreal)--
Just long enough to illuminate a familiar silhouette; a tall, black spectre with a gavel and a slouch.
The light went out.
The light came back on.
The figure was gone.
Then that distant light, and those above you, all flickered out at once.
The carriage stopped. Death had kindly waited. The door swung open, and a bloodless white hand reached out towards you through the dark.
He did not give you a chance to run, this time. The Spectre-- Hiromi Hiromi Hiromi-- appeared before you with impossible speed. As his face appeared above you, and the other, black-cloud, many-toothed, white-faced spectre appeared above him, your breath caught in your throat.
You could barely recall the struggle and scrap; he had called you a snake, and oh, how you had crawled away on your belly. But it was never enough. His hands always found you again. You kicked, bit, scratched, fought, and he took every hit with grunts and curses, so much stronger than you.
By the time his hand had bruised your ankle for a second time, and you had been dragged back to be declared guilty, you knew for sure.
You were going to die.
You were going to die. You were going to die, going to die as he loomed above you, going to die as he raised his gavel, going to die as you saw the last flicker of hesitation fade behind his eyes--
"Hiromi! Stop!" you cried, leaning back on one bleeding elbow, and raising the other hand in surrender. The Spectre, now named, froze. His eyes flickered over your face in confusion, mistrust, guilt, rage, fear, rage, rage--
"You know my name," he croaked, his arm not lowering. "How do you know my name?"
Your breath hitched again. Your chance glimmered gold. You had never established a dialogue with him before. Your hands shook, but you managed to fumble the raggedy scrawled note out of your pocket. Hiromi went rigid, and the air thickened around you, and your voice wavered as you spoke.
"I--I understand-- you're not like this--"
"So you're a common pickpocket as well, are you?" he spat, turning his head aside with...shame? Disgust? Regardless, what burned within him was no controlled fire; its flames spread and belched in terrible and unpredictable ways. You walked on eggshells. You felt the tightrope wobble. You kept your voice measured.
"You dropped this--"
"How many times will you blame someone else, instead of yourself?" he snapped, dragging one hand down his face. The flames spread. The rain poured. Lightning flashed. His fury only built.
Sparks and shards of glass sprayed from the street lamp above you as it exploded again, and you felt the blood drain out of you. "How many times will you pretend you're not just like them?"
"Hiromi, plea--"
"Don't say my name!" he roared, and swung his gavel up with foul purpose again. And as he raised his gavel, and you began to close your eyes, unable to control your one pitiful cursed ability even if you wanted to, something appeared behind Hiromi in the dark.
A vast stop-motion creature, with a stop-motion warbling groan, all grey matter puce and putrid flora and--
"NO!"
"Get your filthy hands off me--"
A cloud of orange gas. A grapple-- a CRACK!
A brittle, rattling roar. The Curse, a behemoth gristle-worm, all viscera and vines, gawped its great mouth through the space where Hiromi once stood, and gulped down, down, down through the rubble. Its filthy tail flipped above ground once, twice, thrice-- before it disappeared entirely. It seemed to care very little about its missing meal. It left nothing behind but a cavernous hole, sprays of rotting foliage, greyrot slough, and the hanging orange mist.
Some thirty feet away, you coughed, and coughed. Sprawled on the street, with Hiromi braced against a wall and coughing beside you, you blinked owlishly down at your arm, and the strange orange pollenspray that covered it. You shook your arm. Some of the pollen fell off...no. No? Absorbing into the air. Dissipating into your skin? No...what is it? Hot. Clothes, itchy, hot.
“Good,” Hiromi spat, staggering against the wall with shaking orange-hued hands, and venom on his tongue. “Good– don't think that absolves you, though; I wanted you all to myself too, a death like that is too…too…”
“You're delusional,” you gasped. “You’re…you’re mad.”
“It’s because of you,” he spat again, fixing you with a look of such accusation, such disgust, that the heat and shame and guilt threatened to tear you in two. “It’s you, your– your lies, your little act– well I don't believe it for a second–”
You staggered to your feet, and your mind ran blank. Your mouth watered. A moan, low and filthy, broke free of you in a way that made Hiromi twitch; his eyes fixing wide upon you, his nostrils flaring. You felt a wave of heat hit you, as though you'd walked into a burning building; and by the way Hiromi breathed heavily behind you, you knew he felt the same.
When your belly began to ache, and you felt your pulse at the crest of your thighs, and your nipples grazing dimples against your shirt, and the undeniable urge to crawl back to Hiromi and taste the sweat off his skin, you knew you had to run. Trembling, and feeling terrible arousal dampening your underwear, you hazarded a single glance over your shoulder.
Higuruma Hiromi had gone completely still. Crouched over, with one spidery hand braced against the wall, he stared at you like a jaguar in the reeds. The rage that burned through him had met another fire; but they did not temper each other. Quite the opposite. His eyes flicked over you, charting your weak spots; eyes, face, breasts, belly, thighs, breasts, lips, thighs–
Your clit twitched. You staggered. And you stumbled. And you fled.
A growl of fury and the sound of thundering footsteps followed in your wake. The hunt began; unlike any predation he had subjected you to before.
You had never run so hard in your life. The alleyways were narrow, dirty and crumbled; with bins overturned and walls half-collapsed and rats and Curses that squeaked and skittered, furtive in the dark. Still, the rain fell. Still, it did not wash the rancid desire off of you; the impossible drive to stop running, and to let Hiromi consume you, mind, body and soul.
You throbbed at the promise of it; throbbed with the promise of how he would rip your clothes aside and wrench your thighs apart and press himself into your cunt, and soothe this dreadful ache with warm, salty balm.
“Please–” you begged, squealing as you narrowly dodged a snatching hand, millimetres from dragging you back by the ponytail. “I've never– I haven't– please–”
“Why are you– stand still– why are you–”
You turned a corner…and hit a dead end. The dead end. The end.
You had scarcely a second to process your impending death; but the force overtaking you that had been compelling you to stop, purred.
And Hiromi caught you, and grabbed you, and spun you back to slam against the brick wall. Your head hit the back of his hand. You saw stars. He towered over you, and glowered down at you, and when he trapped you with his knee between your thighs, your legs gave way, sitting you limp and supple and pinned between his arms.
With a final, hot flash of fight, you slapped him across the cheek. Hard.
Time stood still. Liquid fire pumped through your heart. The side of Hiromi’s face, sweaty and stubble-rasped, pressed against yours. You felt him tongue the inside of his stinging cheek, that squirming bulge pressing against your own cheek. It branded you. You shuddered. He panted in your ear; great, hungry, shaking breaths.
"Feel better?" he rumbled. "Does that feel good?" Warning bells sounded through the fog. Your heart had surely stopped beating.
"I-- I--"
"Do it again," he hissed, his voice so low that you could barely hear it. You sobbed, and cocked your hand back again, and slapped him again, and again, and again, each slap making him grunt, and groan, and press you against the wall harder.
Each slap was a log to the fire. You felt the twitch and strain of his cock against your belly. You knew that the haze, the need to fill and be filled to survive, had consumed him, too. It was a horrific playing field on which to be level.
Eventually you tired, panting, desperate; eventually, he spoke, low and breathless and agonised.
“Why are you haunting me like this?” he demanded of you, his nose and lips grazing embers over your throat even through his outrage. “Why can't I stop…why can't you stop…why won't you leave me alone?”
“You won't listen to me,” you sobbed, your hand finding his tie; betrayed by your own body which urged him ever closer until you could not tell where he ended and you began. “Won’t believe me. I keep…I keep telling you–”
“Lies,” he spat again, and your face crumpled as he swore and bit softly into your collarbone. “Lies, all of them, why would you be any different…why are you…you different, god, you taste…taste…”
His mouth found the sensitive junction of your neck and shoulders, tasting you against his better judgement, with a shiver and a moan. He could not think; overwhelmed by the wrongness, the rightness, how he could not think, could no longer see clearly–
“You want this, too– I– I think,” Hiromi groaned, reaching down to palm his rigid cock beneath his zipper, aching for any relief, anything. “Shouldn’t…should want you, but– but that thing, that– that thing– shit, need to get this poison out–”
He wasn't wrong; not that you were conscious of when you had made that decision, or whether or not you had even made it at all. But when you rocked your core against his knee, and the burst of pleasure that shuddered through you provided such blissful relief, you knew he was not wrong.
You did not even know when your hands had found his buttons, but the sinful rusty moan that spilled from his lips when your fingernails scraped over his chest was the final straw.
“Do you want this?” he demanded; such a curious question from a monster. His hand shook at the button of your jeans. His other snaked up, binding your wrists together and dragging them away from his body. You whimpered; denied, and he spat out curses again, slapping your hands to the wall above you in a swift small justice. “Do you want this?”
“I…I…unghhhhh, it hurts– Hiro–”
“Don't say my name like that.”
“Please–” you begged, your eyes tearing up and your core grinding mercilessly against his thigh. “P-please–”
“Don't look at me like that.”
A heavy pause; heavier breaths. Hiromi’s eyes, now dark and foggy and heavy lidded, hyperfocused on where your core had seeped, damp, straight through to his trousers. He ground his thigh up, his teeth burying into his lip as you moaned. When his eyes found yours again, they were flat, and cold, and his final words wracked one great sob from your body.
“This doesn't change anything.”
When his lips crashed to yours, and his hand ripped your jeans open to delve into your slick heat, you saw stars. The mewl that left you was unholy. Angels would have blushed. Hiromi growled at the feel of you; hypersensitive, hyperalert, able to smell everything, taste everything, twitching and spurting with the thought of a wet velvet glove around his cock.
When he found your clit and began to pinch and squeeze and massage around it in rough, desperate circles, you mewled again; but this time, in shock. You had not expected–
“What?” Hiromi spat, chuckling without mirth. “I’m a killer, sure– but I draw the line at fucking you with no regard to your pleasure– drag it out of you, if I have to– consider it a trial–”
You whimpered, squirming around such dreadful, overwhelming pleasure. You squirmed and clawed at his chest until he hissed, even as your body begged for release.
"Stop it-- hands off-- you need this--"
"Please-- please--" A squeak, high and godless, piercing the night. He clapped a hand over your mouth, gasping, panting, black-eyed with desire.
"Fuck, any other...any other day...sound so sweet-- hands off--"
You had to be manhandled towards an orgasm for your own good. Hiromi, at least, seemed to understand this; he hit and batted your clamping thighs apart to bully himself between them, and spat feathers the whole time.
“Come on,” he growled, mocking, nipping at your lower lip and dragging it between your teeth. “Too much? Not enough?” A pause; a sobbing whimper for an answer. “Fuck– not enough, fine then–”
Hiromi released your bound hands, and tore your jeans and underwear aside between the seams, and plunged two fingers inside you without ceremony. His other hand did the same to your shirt, releasing a breast for him to latch onto with a low moan.
The fire burned hot. You buried your hands into his hair, drunk off the smell and feel of him, bucking your hips forwards to take his fingers deeper. Pleasure built fast. You vaguely heard the clinking of a belt; the shuffle, tug and groan of a hand jacking a man off while you twitched and clamped around his other fingers.
“F-fuck– yes– come on– come on– unnnhhhfffuck–”
Hiromi came first, and he did so with his head tipped pain, and the rain tumbling onto his face and chest and cock, and euphoric twitches of bliss. You felt thick spurts of his cum splattering to your pussy and his hand, and being fingered inside you as he hooked and fucked and ground you away towards the edge. You were right, you thought– your last conscious thought before agonised oblivion; his spend was a balm.
Hiromi kept stroking himself through your orgasm, hazy-eyed and endearingly dopey and staring between your face (tearful with honeyed pain) and your cunt (twitching and milking around his cum-soaked fingers). He pulled his fingers out slowly, gazing at the glaze upon them, and wiping them on his lips and collar, to save the smell and taste of you for later.
The relief, while immediate, was horribly short-lasting. You felt that brittle, prickling need rising in you again, spreading from pussy to toes in single flat seconds. Hiromi leaned his head over your shoulder, breathing hard, and grinding one fist against the wall even as his other continued to stroke his still-rigid cock.
“No,” he growled, grinding his forehead against yours now, bitter displeasure crinkling the bridge of his nose. “No…fuck, no–”
“Hiromi, you've got to–”
“I'm not fucking you like an animal!” he raged, thudding his forehead against the wall over your shoulder in overwhelming, absolute madness. You flung your hand up on instinct, cushioning his forehead before the next blow. At first, he leaned into your touch with a whimper that nearly made you weep; before recoiling, disgusted, raging.
“I'm not fucking you like an animal,” he repeated, with rapidly dwindling conviction upon each repetition. “I'm not…I'm not fucking you like an animal…I'm not…”
Even as he spoke, he had lifted you against the wall. He had lifted you against the wall, with two wiry arms encircling your thighs, and the cumslick head of his cock nudging against your exposed core, and his nose swiping from left-to-right across yours.
“I'm not…I'm not fucking you like an animal,” he whispered against your lips, canting his hips forwards until just the tip of his cock sucked between your inner walls. He groaned, such a pitiful little whimper, into your open mouth.
He tried to stop his hips from bucking, instinctively chasing his pleasure. He couldn't. Not when you had fallen so pliant and submissive in his arms. “I'm not…not fucking…like an animal…leave– get out of my head–”
He couldn't hold back any longer. He plunged inside you with one rough groan, and a stretch that made lights pop behind your eyes.
Pleasure hit him like a hammer. He came again before the tip of his cock even kissed against your cervix. You felt the twitching shudder and flood; his ratchet, rasping orgasm, that filled you so deeply that your belly ached.
Whatever this Curse had done to you was so grotesque; so unearthly. You could have sworn you had dilated enough within, that had Hiromi pressed any harder, the tip of his cock would have popped through and continued its ejaculation right into your womb itself. But the thought didn't alarm you; it ignited you. Your legs tied behind Hiromi’s back and forced him deeper. The groan that left him was filthy. You kept him there, locked and spilling, mating like– like–
“Won't fuck you like an animal,” Hiromi begged, still exhaustedly rolling his hips, for his cock refused to soften. “I'm better than this…I used to be better–”
Hiromi thrust again; harder this time. The pleasure consumed you both, breathing each others’ breath, tasting each others’ blood, sweat and tears, inextricably tied by something that Hiromi had blinded himself to. You did not know if he was punishing you, or himself.
And his thrusts were punishing; hard, fast and slick, squelching between your walls and ramming into your deepest spots without slowing even once. Whatever terrible poison the Curse had imbued you both with was using Hiromi like a vessel; puppeteering his nerves and neurons until he was forced wildly past his limit. Until he was diminished completely. He spoke to himself, or you; begging, growling, raging.
“Fucking…monster– come again– not over, yet– again for me-- again–”
He reached down after bracing one of your thighs on his own, and pinched your clit until you howled, blinded by delicious pleasure.
Hiromi came again, and again, and again. You did not know where one peak ended and the other began, and simply clutched his lapels and let the fight and fog take you. Not once did you unlock your legs from behind his back.
It wasn't like you to let a man fuck you through his own catastrophic mental breakdown; but it was barely within your control, and your belly felt hungry for the stretch, and so there you kept Hiromi locked; trapped in a constant blurring cycle of lazy, exhausted ruts, and spine-tingling orgasms, until you both hung against each others’ bodies, limp and used for some foul purpose. Ruined. Sweaty. Aching. Wrecked.
The poison was fading. Your eyes were closed. The rain pattered a steady stream onto your face, washing the pleasure away. Your head leaned back against the wall, and his forehead leaned upon your decollete, and you felt his breaths slowing against the curve of your breasts.
Eventually, Hiromi shifted, grunting. You felt cold, empty, as he slid out of you with a shudder, leaving a steady drip of cum oozing from your pussy.
You felt colder still when he pressed his forehead against the brick wall beside your head, and spoke, his voice rough.
“Domain expansion: Deadly Sentencing.”
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Your body went numb. Your mind, still addled by drunken, stolen pleasure, went numb too.
When you sank to the floor, you did so with your eyes fixed upon the Spectre, who swayed on his own perch some metres away from you. He pushed his scattered, inky hair back with one shaking hand, and zipped his softening cock back inside its confines, and could not meet your eye.
And for the first time in this whole wretched hunt, this monstrous, unjust predation, you felt not terror; but incandescent rage. You burned with it; fuelled by it, and you dragged yourself up, and gripped the wooden stand before you, and opened your mouth to spit venom.
“I told you that wouldn't change anything,” the Spectre interrupted quickly, straightening his tie and fumbling around for something on his stand. His expression was unstable; mercurial, flicking between boyish confusion, guilt and shame, and the same coldflame fury you had come to know best from him. His companion, an enormous, whitemasked black cloud who was just as blinded as the Spectre, hovered impassively behind him.
The Spectre spoke again, his voice growing louder, growing in confidence. “You are charged with–”
“What?” you spat, shuddering to feel the cramps in your full, aching belly. “Charged with what, exactly?”
A pause, mulish. “If you would allow me to finish–”
“Fuck you.”
“--or you will be held in contempt of court.”
“Fuck your court! And fuck your justice, you pig–”
“You are charged with–with...”
A pause. Something shifted in the courtroom. The Spectre paled, and spun towards his creature, his face twisted in denial. Though eyeless, the whitemask face seemed to turn its eyes towards the Spectre, too. As if hearing something that you could not, the Spectre shook his head, backing off and stumbling.
“No…no–”
Finally, he understood. Understanding was a terrible thing. The glass smashed. Hell broke through.
“You've got nothing, have you?” you sniped. The Spectre’s eyes widened. His hands still fumbled over his empty stand. Your hand slid across your own; and across a brown manila, that had appeared upon it, neatly tied with fine red string. The gift of vindication. Just for you.
"Shall we look at you, instead?"
“No…” the Spectre bargained, his hands raking down his face as his eyes widened in horror. The courtroom began to crumble around him; great chunks of painted image cracking away in a dome, and falling down to the floor around you;
Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-TOK-TOK-TOK–
“No!” he snarled as you raised the file before you, and the creature that hovered behind him turned its gaze completely, and moved, slowly, to hover behind you instead. “No! You’re just like them! Just like all the others! Just like–”
“Just like you?” you offered, flat and cold. The Spectre froze…and then, crumbled like the room crumbled around him.
The mask of the hunter fell away. The man- Hiromi- was left behind, and he stared back at you; at the brutal reflection of the ideals he had abandoned in his quest for righteousness. The savage reminder of the blind cynicism that he had embraced in the quest for justice, and fairness.
And you pitied him. As his frightening companion abandoned him, you pitied him. As he dropped his gavel to the alleyway floor, staring at the ghosts of blood on his hands, you pitied him. And as the last vestiges of his domain tok-tok-tok’d away, you pitied him.
The rain had slowed. When you looked at him again, from his spot kneeling in repentance before you, your face crumpled. You could not stop the tears from falling. You were tired of this. Tired of being hunted. Tired of empathy for the ugly and the weak.
“I'm…I'm so sorry,” Hiromi croaked, staring into the empty void as if hoping it would swallow him whole. “I never…I didn't…I would never…”
“Just leave me alone,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “Or get it over with.”
He looked up at you, at that; exhausted, drawn, still rumpled by the terrible pleasure that now haunted him. “'Get it over…'--I'm not going to kill you!” he cried, horrified.
You raised one cynical eyebrow at him. It only deepened his horror. He rose on unsteady legs, and scooped up his gavel, and turned his back on you. He hesitated, whispering just once more before he walked away.
“I really am. I’m so sorry.”
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
You festered alone in the dark. Nobody hunted you. Nobody tried to find you. You hid; for it was all you could do in this nasty game. Your grace period was almost up. You accepted that a death in insignificance was better than a life won by blood.
Such was your loneliness, that you almost began to miss your Spectre; the ghost upon your shoulder. You were no longer haunted by his loathing. But you were haunted by his horror; by his apology, so devastatingly given and so harshly rebuffed, that you wondered, with no small degree of fear, if he had even survived the revelation of the depths of his own depravity at all. You pictured him, with a noose or a knife and it filled your belly with stones. It was a thought you could not entertain.
If the only one who noticed your existence was the monster who hunted you, even that small dignity was better than a death in insignificance. Surely. And if he could walk towards even a chance of forgiveness, perhaps you could both be saved.
You rose, shaky with hunger and exhaustion. You only had a few days left. You would find him, you told yourself as you limped off into the night; dead or alive.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
You had a guardian angel. You did not know why it had taken you so long to notice it.
Bodies laid in your wake like grisly breadcrumbs, but you had not been the one to kill them. You felt a ghost over their bodies; a familiar wooden TOK! somewhere in the vestiges of your mind.
It filled you with anxiety. It filled you with hope. It filled you with dread. It filled you with the memory of a desperate embrace; of a Spectre buried inside you and begging for release.
Hiromi found you before you found him.
You had retraced your footsteps without conscious thought, to the narrow residential street where you had shared your crisps with a hungry raccoon dog. The evening was setting in, and it smelled of the sweet mid-autumn.
The street lamps were just blinking to life when you spotted him; even more ragged and rumpled than when you'd last seen him, crouching on his haunches with his back pressed to the streetlight and a packet of crisps hanging from his dangling hand. He wiggled his fingers at the nearby tanuki, his hooked nose crinkled with his smile.
Something had changed in him.
You froze. He looked up. His eyes widened as he saw you, and he stood up fast; but then stalled, holding his palms up in surrender as you flinched.
“Whoah!” he said, his face softer now, without the harsh lines of loathing. “Whoah, hey hey hey…I just want to talk to you.”
Your eyes narrowed. Any determination that you had had to find him, had quickly been replaced by the flesh-memory of fear. Hiromi breathed fast, his eyes still wide. Without breaking his gaze, he opened the packet of crisps, and crouched down, and held them out. He gave them a shake.
“Come on, now,” he cooed. “Come on…pspspspsps— hahaha– OH! NO! No wait–” A half hysterical laugh, a scuffle to catch up to you as you turned on your heel and stomped away. “--no no no– please, I'm sorry– I'm sorry, that was rude–”
“You should watch yourself!” you sniped weakly, your cheeks hot with anger, relief, ridiculously misplaced fondness. “I know things about you– horrible things– I know that you whimper!”
Hiromi’s awkward laughter died, and he cleared his throat, and rubbed the back of his neck. The guilt, the shame, the self-loathing: all were there, still present in those dark, hangdog eyes. But so was hope. So was humanity.
He stepped ever closer, sensitive to your rightful hesitation, until the backs of his fingers ghosted against yours.
“We…we have some things to talk about, I think,” he whispered, the sun setting past the houses behind him, igniting the back of his head in orange and gold. “You still have more to say.”
“About what?” you asked, your throat thickening and your arms closing around yourself. His head dipped, looking at you from beneath his brow.
“Anything. Everything. Anything you'll give me. I need to...to remind myself who I was-- am. And I owe you and– and myself, the dignity of hearing you. Seeing you. With both eyes open.”
"Are you going to pin me against the wall and whimper again?"
I've been saving this for my bedtime story since you posted it, and been eagerly waiting to read the full thing since you teased it a few short days ago.
I would gladly have waited much longer than this.
Spectacular work as always. Your characterization of Hiromi is always top notch and you wield him like a scalpel. And in such a fragile moment in his life where he's so consumed by rage and guilt and more rage atop that guilt to bury it deep, I'm just...amazed. Always.
Higuruma, sex pollen, fuck or die, grappling of all sorts...you've ticked all of my boxes, miss ma'am, thank you very much. I'll be back again and again and again.
(The Executioner is going straight in The Bank...)
i alao almost passed tf out hearing his voice..l his laugh!?!?.? does he not know im crazy as hell. now i feel ten times worse reading about him cos i imagine his voice and i cant pull his ass through my screeeeennnnn
THAT LAUGH. I KNOW IT.
God, I was talking with a friend about this, and I just...mnnmmmnpnhngn. In the manga it looked distinctly more playful and silly, but actually hearing and seeing it? I'm nervous and a little bit scared and a lot bit turned on.
Definitely not what I was expecting, but I couldn't have been more happy to be wrong. He's clearly in VERY loving hands over at MAPPA right now. But I would very much like a turn with him in my hands at your earliest convenience please and thank please and please and please and please--
hello! new follower here :) just wanted to say i appreciate your work and your very evident skill when it comes to the craft of writing <3 sorry if i've spammed likes and randomly lurked... sometimes my 3am brain just demands I revisit certain stories
Hello there! Welcome to the family 🍲!
I do tend to notice when someone's lurking through my posts, and you should never be sorry for it! It genuinely does make my day to see someone so engrossed in my work that they just keep going and going and going; and if I happen to be with someone when my phone buzzes, I'll turn the screen to them and go: "Lookie! Soupydumplings is still at it!"
It's really beautiful and nothing makes me happier than pleasing folks with my writing ❤️ nothing hits like those specific 3am fic cravings though, and I'm glad to scratch the itch.
↳ Summary: Desire, when denied, does not disappear. A chance meeting with a stranger becomes an unscratched itch, and Higuruma is nothing if not a man who will torture himself about it.
↳ CW: canon-adjacent implications (no CG), slow-ish burn, Higuruma focused (amateur character study with porn), alcohol, smoking, mentions of addiction, oral sex(female receiving), piv sex, the real one night stand was the friends we made along the way
↳ WC: 14.7k
↳ AN: Happy Higuruma Day to all who celebrate! I've had this written for a while, because I knew after his debut I would be utterly mad and useless. So I prepared a little treat ahead of time before I go into hibernation with my vibrator. Let me know what you thought of his episode, I need hands to hold...it was fucking stellar and I don't think I'll ever recover.
The air hit him first—sweet and chemical, thick enough to choke on. Artificial watermelon, guava, blueberry, or some unholy combination of all three, fogging the taproom like cheap incense.
Higuruma realized the graveness of his error the moment he entered.
Humid with the sweat of too many bodies packed too close like sardines, stinking of cheap beer and syrupy cocktails, and that sticky undercurrent of desperation and carelessness he does not—did not—subscribe to. The music was too loud, some bass-heavy monstrosity rattling the floorboards, vibrating his teeth with a mindless thrum that dictated the movement of the room. The entire place reeked of youth and body spray, both were equally suffocating.
All he’d known was the place was popular, busy, and reviews were overwhelmingly positive… he failed to account for its prime location, situated between three large universities, and that those reviews were due to the tendency of the staff not to card its patrons.
What he’d thought was just a bar was in fact a shitty college bar.
He hadn’t set foot in a place like this in over a decade, repelled from entryways like uncrossable salt barriers. Even back then, it had been out of necessity rather than preference—somewhere to get drunk as quickly as possible for as cheap as possible, to sit shoulder to shoulder with classmates he hardly knew, and drink until the edges of his brain blurred enough to stomach whatever stressed or sorry state his life was in.
He dodged swaying girls with glossy lips and half-lidded eyes, shuffled past boys (and really, that’s what they were to him: boys) in letterman jackets sloshing their drinks down their wrists as they postured and peacocked in front of any half engaged girl.
They were all so fucking young. Their skin still tight with optimism, their lives still brimming with possibility. They looked barely old enough to drink, much less exist in his vicinity.
He slid into a stool, exhaled and raked a hand through his hair, disheveling the strands to fall mussed and curled over his forehead. The exhaustion of the week settled heavier now that he had nowhere productive to direct it.
Another long day in a long week in a long year atop the mountain of many. A never-ending cycle of cases and clients, of carefully crafted words and methodical dismantling, and fighting battles that rarely ever felt like victories.
The ice in his glass clicked as he tilted it, staring down into the shallow topaz pool of scotch. No doubt watered down and thin, both the drink and any sort of epiphany it may provide.
He was tired. Of work, of routine, of coming home to a quiet apartment where the silence stewed and only made him feel the weight of it that much more until his spine buckled him to his lumpy old couch.
He needed something different. A deviation.
A warm body, a willing mouth, a night spent drowning in something other than a bottle and depositions. A quick fuck, messy and anonymous, just enough to set him back to an uncomfortable but manageable baseline.
He’d thought, naively, this might be the place to find it.
But looking at the crowd now, the reality was jarring. The whole thing reeked of dissonance and miscalculation.
He wasn’t stupid. He was an aging man in a bar full of college students and he felt it.
The worst part was that they noticed it too.
The first had been easy enough to ignore—a girl barely past twenty, teetering in heels too tall for her as she draped herself across the bar beside him, giggling at something said by a friend before turning those narrow, glassy eyes on him. “You’re too handsome to be drinking alone,” she’d slurred, voice syrupy, fingers dragging over the counter and inching toward his arm.
He ignored her outright.
The second was harder to stomach—another girl, more forward, wrapped in something tight and sequined, barely passable for a dress that looked one sudden move away from fleeing her body.
“You look like trouble,” she’d purred, hanging herself off his arm, squeezing his bicep between her overflowing breasts that he thought surely should’ve stirred something in his loins but only stirred the nausea in his stomach. “Like you could teach me a thing or two.”
No, he thought miserably. I look tired and like I could be your father.
He spent his time buried in the bottom of a glass, head down, the original purpose of this foray all but abandoned to the wind he wished to be three sheets to. That glass made for his weapon and shield as he fended off comments about his hands, and his nose, and always liking older men.
He hated it. Hated the way it made his skin crawl and run hot then cold, his presence here felt even more wrong the more notice he attracted.
He could see it in their faces, the way they looked at him—not like a man, but an idea. Some sleazy fantasy conjured from parental issues and too many cheap romance novels.
It disgusted him.
What was he doing? Was this really what he’d been reduced to?
A pathetic old man wolfing at the edges of youth, hoping to lap up whatever scraps were left for him? He felt gross just being here and breathing the same air as these kids.
Does it make him lesser, that these advances don’t ignite hunger and flattery but revulsion? That the heat curling in his belly isn’t desire but disgust? Or does it make him greater, that he does not stoop, does not prowl, does not take, like a less scrupulous man might?
But what does it matter—lesser, greater—when the result is the same? When he is still here, nursing a drink in the dim fugue of a bar too loud, too young, too dizzying with its perfume of cheap liquor and cheaper thrills. When he is still a man past his prime, not the wolf but in fact seated among them, and though he does not salivate, does not sink his teeth into the softness offered up to him, the very fact of his presence damns him all the same.
Because what else could a man like him be doing here, if not waiting to be fed?
He should leave. Should have left the moment the first giggling thing slithered too close, before this whole endeavor soured into something even more pitiful; and that base, ill-advised need that had driven him here rotted into septic self-loathing. He resolved that he would leave. Would finish his drink, cut his losses, and slouch back to his apartment where his loneliness at least had the decency to be private.
And then the bartender set another drink before him.
Higuruma blinked. “I didn’t order this.”
The guy didn’t bother looking up as he wiped down the counter. “From her.”
A sigh curled from Higuruma’s lips, bone-deep, scraping at his ribs. No doubt this would be another girl, one with at least the restraint not to immediately drape herself over him and start peeling off his clothes or hers. He turned, already preparing a polite but firm rejection—
But then he saw you.
Already looking at him.
Higuruma tried to categorize you, and couldn’t do it fast enough.
You weren’t one of them; not young and reckless or drunk on the novelty of being seen or heedless in your indulgences. You held yourself with enviable serenity, chin propped in your palm, eyes bright with rationed amusement, like you’d already taken measure of the room and found it wanting.
Older than the crowd. Polished in a way that made you an island amid the tumult, unmoved and untouched by it. And when your gaze lifted and caught his, something in his chest went taut, sharp and immediate, as if he’d just stepped into the path of something he should’ve seen coming.
And for reasons he couldn’t immediately articulate, you were acutely aware of him.
And you’d sent him a drink.
Higuruma frowned, fingers curling around the glass, rolling the cool condensation between his palms as he considered it. Considered you.
The tilt of your head, the way your eyes held steady when most would already have turned away. You weren’t a child playing at adulthood, emboldened by too many vodka sodas and the illusion of invincibility. You weren’t swaying on unsteady heels, lips self-bitten and red with grenadine, or scanning the room for the next best thing.
You had chosen him.
And then you waved.
And god help him—he was already planning on choosing you back.
It had been a long time since he’d played this game, and longer still since he’d played it well. The motions felt rusty, the confidence (even if staggish and unearned) once honed to a razor's edge was now dulled from disuse. But you had played the first hand, and it would be remiss of him not to answer in kind.
He smiled—grimaced, more like—slow through his teeth, then lifted your gifted glass in acknowledgment. He flagged the bartender and sent one right back.
You smiled, pleased. And then, without ceremony, you stood.
He knew as surely as he felt the first bead of sweat travel down his nape that you weren’t the type to wait or play games.
“This seat isn’t taken, is it?”
Your voice was smooth, carrying easily between the electronic thumping that blew out crackling speakers, slipping to his ear as easily as you did into the stool beside him—close but not intrusive, poised but not distant. Everything about you screamed open and available and interested.
Higuruma’s gaze slid sidelong to meet yours. “I suppose it is now.”
“Mm.” You lifted the drink he’d sent back to you, studying the pink liquor like you might divine something from its depths, delphic in the way you regarded it, and then him, like you had gathered something after all.
“You look like you’d rather be anywhere but here.”
He leaned forward against the bartop, brows lifting as he rubbed his fingers against his jaw—relieved if only slightly by the cold suffusion of his drink to his sweaty skin. “That obvious?”
“Painfully.”
“So.” You took your time with your drink, rolling the stem of your glass between two fingers, your gaze still pinned lazily on him, expectant. “Are you going to tell me what brought you here, or do I get to keep coming up with my own ideas?”
His fingers tensed minutely where they rested, jumping around the sweat of his scotch. Then he grinned, slow and sloping. “I’m worthy of conspiracy?”
“Curiosity, at least,” you countered.
Higuruma was not accustomed to being an object of curio.
Befuddled humor lit his eyes, the strike of flint in a dark room that eased the severity of his brooding into something dangerously approachable. He grunted and leaned back slightly, like he needed space to take you in more fully.
“Well…” His perusal was indulgent as he looked you up and down, but you didn’t seem the type to be unsettled by it. “What have you got so far?”
“Oh, a few.” You leaned in, eliminating the small space he’d just made between you, elbows resting on your knees, voice dipping lower into conspiratorial invitation. “One: you’re engaging in some self-imposed punishment. A martyrdom of misery, if you will.”
He hummed, lips twitching. “That would be dramatic.”
You lifted two fingers. “Two: you lost a bet. Maybe with a colleague. Had to endure an hour of this as penance?”
He shook his head and the wry curve of his lips grew, sipping his whiskey. “That would require me to have friends who make bets.”
A beat of silence.
The nonchalance and ease with which he wielded self-deprecation came far too easily, and with a sudden prickle of ‘oh shit’ sluicing down his spine, the coy aversion of his gaze from yours snapped back with a quickness to read you.
He’s too jaded, too cynical, too friendless and uninteresting really, and now surely, you’d see it too, and this beacon of hope and charity you’d graced him with would be snuffed by his own droll and heavy hand.
But looking at you had been a mistake, because when you lowered your glass, your expression had changed—not pity, but something worse and far more thrilling. Interest.
Then: “Oof,” you muttered, and he watched with awe as your jaw quivered, valiantly warding off a grin that showed instead in the feline glimmer of your eye. You weren’t thrown by his fumbling or self-effacing honesty or the awkward shuffle of his own apparent attraction. You were entertained.
“Alright, then. Number three—” A casual swirl of your drink, the slow drag of your fingertip around the rim. “You’re just trying to get laid.”
Higuruma blinked and wrinkled his nose, left feeling again like he’d committed some kind of faux pas. Of course that’s why he was here, and he’d changed his mind about it almost as soon as he walked through the door. His intentions were as transparent as the shitty, waterlogged napkins used for coasters on the bartop, but he still blanched under your scrutiny.
The laughter that spilled from you was entirely unrepentant. “Oh, there it is.” You giggled. The truth was glaring—that he was a lonely man, just trying to get his dick wet.
“Was,” he corrected before he could stop the defense, his expression souring. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”
“This place isn't your speed? I never would've guessed.”
“Not at all,” he grumbled.
“That’s a real shame for your suitors,” you said lightly. “Hopefully they’ll recover in time for their eight a.m. lectures. Or midterms. Or whatever it is they’re stressed about this week—you’ve ruined their plans.”
He ducked his head, exhaling sharply through his nose as he tried—failed—not to snicker, caught by how cleanly you’d skewered them. And him, just a little.
He found himself liking that far more than expected.
“And here I thought you were trying to charm me.” His voice was rougher now, the low scrape of it accusingly sheepish as he held you in his periphery, like the distance afforded away from direct eye-contact might actually save him.
“Oh, I am.”
You lifted your glass in a slow, deliberate toast. “I’m also trying to decide whether I should be flattered or offended that you haven’t tried to charm me back yet.”
He stared at you outright. That alone should have clued him in. The evening had been an awkward dance of jerky avoidance, avoiding grabby hands, twisting away in ways that were probably (definitely) rude, stiffening under unwelcome touches and words and looks but you made him look.
You were different, in ways he could only begin to guess at. Your interest was overt, to call it coy would be an outright lie, and in that way you weren’t much different from his ‘suitors’. But your approach, your appearance, that little kernel of something catty—there was a certain je ne sais quoi about you that stirred something in him that nobody else had managed.
Excitement. Curiosity. A conquest of interest and intellect—the unnerving sort that slipped past his defenses before he’d realized he was being studied—and he’d swallowed your lure down to the sinker with the first sip of your offered drink.
He let out a disbelieving breath, amazed by his own blindness at having stepped straight into a bear trap. His tongue clucked against the inside of his cheek, his smile was tight-lipped. “I’m out of practice,” he warned, apologized.
Your smile deepened. “I can tell.”
He took his time to let the weight of that realization settle—to go through all stages of embarrassment, frustration, acceptance, and finally determination, before he finally turned his full attention to you. If you were not one to play with pretense, then neither would he.
He shifted, letting his forearm rest on the bar, his knee cocked outward to just barely brush yours beneath the counter. Accidental, if anyone asked. “Would you like me to?”
Your brows slid upward. “Like you to…?”
“Charm you.”
There was a flicker in your eyes, the slip of a match before the ember caught, and when it did your lips pulled back from your teeth with a pyres heat. He’d managed to surprise you, and the thrill of that made him want to keep doing it.
“I would.”
Higuruma might be out of practice and out of his league—he’s quite sure he’s not even playing the same sport as you. But he finds himself most desperately wanting to play anyway.
The bartender called last rounds, but Higuruma hardly registered it. He’d long since stopped keeping track of time, lost in grains of sand and the ebb and flow of conversation, the cadence of your voice, the pace of the evening dictated by the curve of your smile and the way your lips curled around your words, shaping them with a self-assurance he was only playing at… at least initially.
He was used to talking to people who either wanted something from him or wanted something of him.
His clients, his colleagues, the prosecution’s sneering cross-examinations, all of it a game of words measured to the ounce of controlled perceptions. Clients want outcomes, colleagues want leverage, and strangers, apparently, want a fantasy.
But this was different. There was no angle to you, no agenda, you approached with your palms open and out, your honesty was an easy pill to swallow with a throat so lubricated by drink.
You’d asked him what he did for a living. He’d told you—defense attorney—and braced himself for the inevitable.
Most people fell into one of two categories: the ones who saw him as a parasite, a man who twisted the law in favor of money and monsters; and the ones who saw him as some noble crusader, the last line of defense against a system that devoured the weak and helpless. Neither view sat comfortably with him.
But you only hummed, lips pursed in a way he came to recognize as thoughtful, considering it like a fact rather than a moral dilemma.
“Someone has to do it,” you’d said, before taking a sip of your rosé—the second glass he’d bought you. “Might as well be someone good at it.”
It knocked something loose in him he hadn’t realized wasn’t nailed down. No scorn, no admiration, just the bare truth of it. He wasn’t sure why that made his skin prickle and cheeks warm, why his eyes averted down to the melted ice thinning his drink when he smiled. Was the bar truly so low that a little compassion—no, not even compassion, it was damn near apathy—could undo him?
You’d asked him if he liked it.
And he’d told you the truth: “No, but I’m good at it.”
You snickered, and he smiled fuller. He’d never quite admitted that out loud before, but he didn’t think you’d pity him. All of the school, the sleepless nights, the blood and sweat poured over cases that barely graced the judges bench—not a waste.
You talked about books, the ones you pretended to have read to come off higher brow and the ones that lived permanently on your nightstand, dogeared and underlined. He hoped tomorrow he would remember some of their names. He wondered what annotations you’d have made in the margins and what lines spoke to you enough to bring pen to paper.
You asked him what he did with his time outside of work, and he scoffed at the notion—what time? But you just gave him that look again, like you’d already learned to read through his bullshit as easily as you could tear through wet paper, and so he told you.
He used to like going to the theater but hadn’t in years. He used to play the piano but couldn’t remember the last time he touched the keys. That he had an extensive collection of old vinyl records kept in cardboard boxes in his closet that he never had the time or energy to unpack. That, frankly, he didn’t know what he did outside of work anymore.
And you listened. Not just heard, but listened and smiled and laughed and somehow, that made it worse.
Because he’d come here looking for an escape. Take someone home for the cost of a drink and maybe a joke or two. And instead, he’d found this.
What could be, might be, a connection.
Something he hadn’t expected or accounted for.
And that was precisely why he couldn’t take you home.
The thought calcified in his head as he set his empty glass down, as he glanced at the bartender closing out tabs, as he felt the toe of your shoe brush his ankle beneath the bar the way you had for the last hour and a half when you dangled your heel just so. You were waiting for him to make the final move and say “I have another bottle back at my place, care to join me?” or “Why don’t I show you some of those records?” and turn this night into what it was supposed to be.
He could take you home.
He could press you up against his front door and taste the night on your tongue, trace it past your lips as he tilted your head back with his hands. He could let you whisper something ticklish against his mouth, something about impatience and the audacity of restraint, and answer with his teeth at your throat, his fingers already working at the zipper of your dress. He could lay you out beneath him, drink in every slow arch of your back, the pull of your fingers in his hair, the way his name might break apart in your mouth when he finally—
He could have you tonight.
But he would not.
Because for the first time in longer than he could remember, the anticipation was better than the certainty. He liked the flames curling slow and sweet in his gut, the game between you and the war waged between what he wanted and what he was willing to take—an advantage he lost ground on embarrassingly fast with the way you cocked your head and waited for him to catch up.
And maybe—just maybe—he liked the way you waited for him to catch up. The way you watched him fumble, entertained but not unkind, not cruel, not condescending. You played him expertly, but with the kind of patience that never made him feel like you were keeping score.
And if he took you home now, if he let himself indulge in you like he so desperately wanted to, he’d cheapen it. He’d wake up tomorrow and feel like shit about it, and maybe you would too, and then this thing, whatever it was, would be ruined.
He couldn't remember you as the mysterious stranger in a bar that he wouldn't forget. You'd just be someone in his bed he wishes he could.
You were worth more than two glasses of rosé. You deserved better than the hands of a man who walked in with no standards beyond warm and willing.
You were not the cheap fling he’d been looking for.
Because this was the first real human connection he’d had in months, and he’d rather let that live on a pedestal in his head than cheapen it with something so fleeting and selfish. This could not be the transactional exchange of value that he came here to barter in liquor for sex.
He swallowed.
“Come on,” he rasped. “Let’s get you a cab.”
Your head tilted, barely perceptible, but he caught it. The fractional hesitation, the surprise in your eyes like a candle flickering in a draft. A blink, too slow, lips parted as if to speak, before pressing together again.
This clearly wasn’t the ending you’d expected.
Higuruma could see it in the minute shift of your posture, the way you squared your shoulders.
For the first time all night, he’d thrown you off balance, and the satisfaction of that warmed him. He’d managed to surprise you one last time. That you, who had him spinning in dizzy circles, who toyed with him like a cat does a mouse, had still miscalculated.
But he’d disappointed you. And he hated that.
Not enough to take it back.
But god, almost. Almost nearly had him snatching the words right out of the air and replacing them with an invitation, a proposition, and a plea for forgiveness and more of you.
But he stayed firm. Noble, or some attempt at it.
He thought you might press. Might tilt your head, drag your nail along the rim of your glass or right up his twitching thigh, part your lips around something as sharp as it was saccharine, a playfully twirled ‘Oh, really?’ dripping from your tongue that would shatter his resolve like the fragile thing he knew it was.
And he wished you would, because that would absolve him. You invited him. You pursued him after he tried to do the right thing. He could hardly be blamed for succumbing to the talent of your tongue that had played him all evening.
He forced himself to stand, to gesture toward the door instead of the obvious alternative; the one where he pressed his palm to the nape of your neck and pulled you into him, where the night ended in the dark quiet of his sheets and the frenetic undoing of you both.
And you didn’t argue.
You sighed and tipped back the last of your drink, exposing the smooth line of your throat to him like a provocation, like an invitation that he would spend the rest of the night vividly imagining taking.
You hadn’t a care in the world that he’d cut the evening short—short? Could hours be considered short?—short, maybe, of what it was meant to be, the foregone conclusion of the evening cast back to the dark primordial pool of its conception.
Your hair tumbled back from your neck to reveal the flawless hollow of your collarbone set aflame with orange and red neon marquee, a bewitching and captivating pyroead; would that he could grab you then, for his hand to support the small of your back as you arched back, and back, and back to ease the straight passage of alcohol down your flame-burned throat. He would ease that burn with his mouth, his lips, his tongue, suck the embers into his mouth and snuff them out—
Your glass met the bar with a soft click, the final punctuation on the evening.
And you looked at him looking at you, and maybe it was the stricken clenching of his jaw, or the way his eyes slid upward just a fraction in an expression undeniably pleading for compliance, that brought back your smile.
He followed you out, because of course he did. Held the door for you, stepped onto the cracked pavement at your side, adjusting to the shift in atmosphere, the cool night air dampening the heat that had been circling between you, diluting it into something easier to swallow.
His fingers twitched to his pocket, instinctively honed for the smushed carton of cigarettes in his coat but seemed to think better of it. The idea of ending the evening on a flaw, the abrupt reveal of an unattractive vice, sat poorly. He’d never cared for being known, it was a terrifying ordeal after all, but he hoped if he were to be remembered, if only for a night, it would be positively and not for his crutches.
You crossed your arms. “You always this much of a gentleman?”
He kicked a stray pebble with the toe of his shoe, shifting subtly closer as he feigned distraction. “I wouldn’t call myself that.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I would,” you sighed, studying him. “Shame that it suits you.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “You think so?”
“I know so.” You tilted your head, the curve of your lips widening. “Could’ve fooled me though, the way you were looking at me all night.”
His throat worked around a swallow. A slow blink, a glance at the curb, at the headlights slicing through the dark as a cab approached, anywhere but at you, his reprieve and his punishment all at once.
You took a step back as it slowed, the moment folding and collapsing into the black hole of itself.
Higuruma reached for the handle before you could, pulling it open, and you arched a brow.
“See?” You slipped into the seat, fingers drumming lightly against your knee as you considered him. “Perfect gentleman.”
He was still standing there blocking the door.
Standing like a pitiful monument to hesitation, caught in the limbo of decision and regret, watching the city’s sodium glow lap over the soft plane of your cheekbones, the divot of your collarbone, the long stretch of your legs beneath the hem of your dress.
His fingers flexed over the doorframe. He should move. Step back. Close the door.
It should’ve made it easier. If you didn’t ask, if you didn’t pout, if you didn’t lean forward or tilt your chin or murmur something coy or pleading, he should have no trouble stepping back, folding his hands behind his back like a penitent monk and watching you disappear into the night. But you didn’t ask nor did you dismiss. You just waited.
He considered closing the door without a word, deliberately debonair and mysterious and aloof. But he couldn’t quite snub you like that, not after he already had.
“Goodnight,” he said. “Get home safe.” He closed the door.
A sharp, clinical severance. A blade pressed clean through tendon and sinew, dividing this moment from all the ones that could have been.
Because this, you, had been good. And he was too fucking starved for the cadence of conversations that didn’t feel like transactions, for the acute, teasing barbs that engaged his tired brain rather than let it slip like goo through a storm grate.
You played him like a master's instrument, never in a way that made him feel like he was simply being tolerated for what was expected in return, and he knew it would be all too easy to get addicted off a single hit of what you had to offer.
The sex, he was sure, would have been good. But it would have been just that—good. Fleeting. A momentary indulgence that would have diluted the hours spent circling each other, indulging in something richer and better. He would’ve woken up hollow, the memory of it swallowed by the weight of knowing he had reduced it all to a simple means to an end.
And whether or not you would agree with that assessment was irrelevant to him.
The cab’s headlights cut through the dark, illuminating the stretch of empty pavement and took you with it.
He stood, hands in his pockets fiddling with a cardboard carton, watching the tail lights shrink, with nothing but the phantom heat of your gaze curling around his throat like a leash held in a rapidly receding hand.
“Fuck.” He spat.
Too weak to take you home.
Too proud to chase after you.
And knowing with certainty that he already regretted both.
A week passed.
And with it came adulthood's object impermanence—he had no time to think of you. And in those brief periods where he tried, it had been long enough for the memory to become uncooperative. He tried to chase it at night when the days ran him ragged and the mind sought something to smooth the frayed edges.
It frustrated him, left him hot and unsatisfied, a bitter echo of the night’s original goal and subsequent failure: he had left alone.
Higuruma never expected to see you again.
And yet, against all logic, there you were.
Not at the same bar, but a different one, his usual haunt, where the lighting was low enough to swallow him whole, and the only bodies pressed close were the ones who had come in together. A place for drinking, not for the company of strangers, which suited him just fine, because he had decided—resolutely, stubbornly—that hookups were not in his cards. He just wanted a drink.
At first, he’d thought it was an anomaly. An unfortunate alignment of stars placing you in his path just like it had the first time, as if you hadn’t tormented him enough. He didn’t believe in fate, too rational, too familiar with the staggering predictability of human error to entertain the notion of grand design. No, it couldn’t be you. A trick of the light. A doppelgänger, maybe.
But then you looked up, caught him staring, and your lips parted first with surprise, eyes full saucers, and then split with something suspiciously welcoming.
“Well!” You called, lifting your drink in a friendly salute. “I guess you do have a friend after all.”
Higuruma blinked. And then, before he could think better of it, sighed and took the seat beside you.
That night had been awkward in a way neither of you acknowledged, two actors stumbling through the second act of a play that had never quite finished its first. But the script came back quickly. The rhythm found itself. And he almost didn’t recognize you.
You didn’t play with him: the flirtatious foil you wielded at your first meeting was sheathed, and in its place you held a white flag. No games: you already considered it lost. No expectations: you considered his interest depleted. The sultry air about you was gone, but somehow the version of you he sat with that evening was even more beguiling.
Still friendly, not because you wanted him but because you wanted him. You spoke like you were old friends, not mere acquaintances with a brief and strange history. You made him comfortable enough to stay until he couldn’t justify lingering anymore, but still he was loath to leave as the clock struck midnight.
And when he left, alone just as he had the first time, there was something unfamiliar nestled beneath his breastbone. Not obtrusive and not in the way. Just… there, quiet and benign.
And then it happened again. And again.
He reasoned it was a coincidence. That bars were finite and he was predictable. But as the weeks stretched on, as your conversations bled from one meeting to the next without missing a beat, he could no longer pretend this was random.
The pattern was an accident until it wasn’t. It became something neither of you mentioned but both understood, until “see you next week” became synonymous for goodbye. Twice was chance. Three times, deliberate. And now, what did that make four and five? Habit?
Higuruma wasn’t a man given to fanciful thinking, but he was a man of logic and precedent. And precedent told him that this wasn’t normal. That it shouldn’t be this easy to fall into a routine outside of his normal footways.
He had his routines, he was comfortable in them, an old dog could learn new tricks but he had no desire to sit or roll over. And despite what every rational part of him insisted, you were beginning to look less like chance and an awful lot like certainty.
It wasn’t just the way you always seemed pleased to see him, but the way he’d begun expecting it. The way his eyes swept the room without thinking the second he entered, and how his muscles unknotted when he spotted you, perched in your usual spot, waiting but not waiting, and how a smile would brighten your face when you noticed him walking to you as quickly as he could without tripping over himself like an overeager puppy.
Somewhere along the way, his occasional desperation-driven crawls to the bar became habitual too. What were once monthly visits became weekly visits, and if anyone were close enough to him then maybe they’d be concerned about a budding development of alcoholism, but it wasn’t the drink he was drunk on.
It was this.
The simple joy of having something in his life that wasn’t an obligation but something he wanted.
With you, there were no buried landmines, no careful maneuvering or bomb squad precision required. You never made him feel like he was performing, never measured his words against an invisible rubric, because you had seen him from the start and you still looked anyway.
You knew what he was. An exhausted man, a woeful introvert burned out from playing extrovert all day. And with you, he didn’t have to keep up the act. He could slump over the bar, curl his posture, and snarl grievances into an ear that always stayed softer than his words.
You balanced sly barbs with sincerity so effortlessly it often made his head spin, catching him off guard in ways he hadn’t been caught in years. He was used to being the one reading people, dissecting them like puzzles to be solved, but you weren’t a puzzle at all.
You told him about your cat with a death wish who had a penchant for climbing curtains, and how you once moved across the world on a whim and sometimes felt the urge to do it again. That you thought the best movies were the ones that ended a little unsatisfactorily, and you were a menace when drunk and picked ridiculous hills to die on: like whether aliens had already made contact, or whether time travel could ever be ethical.
And in return, you learned about him too. You knew he hated mustard, and that he always carried two pens because he was the kind of person who lost them constantly, despite how meticulous he was about everything else. That he only speaks to his mother three times a year: on her birthday, on his, and on Christmas. That he’d once cracked a tooth on a popcorn kernel and now, without thinking, he always chewed gingerly on the left side.
He’d never offered any of it freely, but you had a way of coaxing things out of him that he never even considered to be of consequence until you smiled and encouraged him on.
Rain or shine, you’d be there. He knew you when his suit was wet from the rain and no umbrella, watching the shadows of raindrops slide down your shoulder as they raced outside an adjacent window; and he knew you when snow started to fall, blanketing the pavement in white with you bundled in his coat wrapped snug around your shoulders.
At some point, he couldn’t pinpoint when, the bartender stopped asking if they wanted separate tabs, and he started choosing darker shirts on Fridays—ones that wouldn’t show the inevitable splash of your lipstick when you hugged him goodbye.
And Higuruma still didn’t believe in fate.
But if he did, he’d think it was fucking with him.
Because no matter where the night ended, it always seemed to begin with you.
And tonight came at the tail end of one of those days.
The kind that left teeth marks in his patience, gnawed him down to marrow, stripped him of anything soft and spit out only the brittle, splintered remains. Hours in court, arguing a case he should have won—had won, if the world wasn’t built on loopholes and technicalities and the smug, self-assured handshakes of men who never had to fear the consequences of their actions.
A man who deserved to walk free had instead been led away in cuffs. And Higuruma could only stand by while the prosecution clapped each other on their backs, beaming over a win they’d stolen through a well-timed procedural roadblock. Nausea curled thick and acrid in his gut, the taste of injustice so familiar by now it hardly warranted a grimace.
But tonight, something in him had shifted.
It wasn’t just bitterness. It wasn’t just exhaustion.
It was rage. Hot, visceral fury that darkened his vision at the edges while he shook hands and accepted condolences like he was the one who had lost something, when the man behind those mahogany doors was the only one who would go to sleep in a cell tonight.
Higuruma had walked out of that courthouse itching.
To fight. To burn it all down. To throw something hard against the wall just to hear it break. He thought briefly that maybe he should’ve been the one in cuffs, because he was ready and willing to do something monstrous. If justice would not be served, he would be its sword and gavel and mete it out himself.
Instead, he’d come here.
Because it was Friday.
And no matter how long the week, no matter what fresh hell he’d had to wade through to get there, Friday meant you.
His grip on the door handle was tight when he stepped inside, flinging open the brassy door which clattered under his urgency. He found himself bracing against the possibility that tonight, of all nights, would be the one you weren’t there.
His gaze swept the room, fevered and searching, drinking in the dim haze of liquor-warmed bodies, the languid lull of conversation, the flickering hush of candlelight in lowball glasses until he found you.
Something inside him fractured with relief.
You looked up before he could move or his presence could be confirmed by anything as mundane as sound or sight—gravitational certainty clicking into place. The axis tilted. The inevitable collision loomed.
A smile started to form until your gaze traveled down, catching the undone knot of his tie, the disarray in his collar, the exhaustion pressed into the delicate creases around his eyes. Your expression dimmed.
And God help him, your concern filled him with a selfish pleasure he had no right to feel.
His stride devoured distance, any distance that would’ve kept him from you, driven by rankled recklessness into something cataclysmic, balancing the knife's edge of too much and he didn’t care over which side he fell.
You didn’t have time to turn fully before he was on you, his forehead pressing heavy into the curve of your shoulder, a groan, low and frayed, rumbling from deep in his chest, arms wound tight around your waist.
The force of him checked itself, urgency tempered. Where desperation drove him to crush you, as if the breaking of your pieces would produce the material to mend his own, he instead softened, reeling awareness back to himself with the pinprick narrowing of his eyes, fingers curled tight into the cotton of your sweater where he clung like a limpet.
His breath smoothed out as he exhaled against your throat, chin hooked over your shoulder. Eyes hardened and battle-weary slipped into heavy placidity, a conscious sinking rather than crashing, seeking out the soft shores that would smooth his entry into safe harbor; the warpath surrendered rather than succumbed.
A shuddering release, a tether unspooled and rolled up neater. He hadn’t just found you, he was letting himself—hoping to be—found, just before tipping over the precipice of something he didn’t think he could come back from.
The force of him unsteadied you, his weight bone-deep, pleading, arms locking around you like a drowning man.
“Oh—”
You gasped, startled but not unwelcome, your hands drifted down to hold his forearms, your body catching him as much as he ensnared you.
The tension in your frame bled out as you melted into him, your head tipping back onto his shoulder, an unspoken surrender that sent a shudder down his spine. He felt your breath, warm and steady, stirring the disheveled strands of hair by his ear, felt the rise and fall of your breath through your back, the rhythm of it grounding, lulling, undoing.
You smelled nice.
You always did, and he always noticed. He noticed it when you leaned in too close with a joke, or when you shrugged his coat over your shoulders, and when he got home at the end of the night and still caught traces of you on his sleeves.
A weaker man might’ve burned his coat just to rid himself of the evidence, but him? No, he was far worse.
He’d stand by the door some nights, fingers curling into the lapels, lifting them to his face and dragging in a breath deep enough to hurt like some lovelorn parishioner taking communion.
You chuckled, slipping a hand up into his hair, fingers threading through the strands, nails scraping light against his scalp. A shudder ripped down his spine, his eyes falling shut as he sighed into you, an old, weary dog curling into warmth. His arms tightened around you to keep himself from falling over.
“Poor baby,” you crooned, teasing but downy soft, softer than he figured he deserved.
He should let you go. A loaded thought, in more ways than one. He should release you, both from his arms and from the unhealthy dependence he’d let weave its way into his life.
But then again—
It wasn’t that bad, was it? If he’d replaced one vice with another? If he reached for you instead of a cigarette, if he found himself less addicted to nicotine and more addicted to the sound of your voice, or the way you looked at him, or how you always made things feel better, or— yeah, he was addicted.
But he hadn’t smoked in a month which was a month longer than he’d been clean in the last eight years. He could argue codependency could be cleansing, couldn’t he?
If he was going to break the habit, it wouldn’t be tonight.
He inhaled deeply, pulling you into his lungs, before finally peeling himself away, shoulders slumping as he sank onto the stool beside you. Immediately, he dropped his face into his hands, fingers pressing hard against his eyes.
You’d seen Higuruma after bad days before. He didn’t hide them well, never had. But tonight was different.
You studied him, tracing the open collar of his shirt with buttons undone, the way his tie hung limp and dead like it had been yanked loose the moment he could. You caught the way his fingers curled, flexed, like he was fighting the urge to clench them into fists.
“Bad day?”
“Something like that.”
You nodded slowly. “Wanna talk about it?”
He stewed on it, jaw tight. He could, and he knew you’d listen the way you always did. You’d nod, you’d tilt your head in that way you did when you were really hearing him, you’d let your own frustration flare up on his behalf, let your teeth flash when you called it bullshit in that sharp, biting way that always made him laugh despite himself.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because honesty wouldn’t just be about today. It would be about you. About why he had really come here, why he had reached for you like instinct, why the thought of spending the night not being here, not being with you, had been intolerable.
He wasn’t just used to this routine of yours now; this time, it just wasn’t enough. And if he were honest—with you, with himself—it never really had been. Not on the first night, not on the second, not on the fifth, and especially not tonight.
His fingers dragged down his face, sighing as he turned to you fully. “Honestly?” His pulse thrummed in his ribs where he felt the sharp warning dig of don’t do it, his throat tightened. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t do it. He can’t do it—
“I don’t want to be here.”
Your lips pursed before they softened back into a smile, your eyebrows lowering sympathetically. “Well… for what it’s worth, I’d have missed you if you didn’t come.” You admitted and oh, Higuruma really wished you hadn’t.
“What’re you doing here then? I’d have understood if you just went home, if you had a bad day…”
He hesitated.
And it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? How his stomach twisted and his throat went dry and cracked and hurt, and this part felt like it should be so much easier. He’d spent the last month in the palm of your gentle hand, let you pry him open piece by piece without ever realizing it was happening with lockpick and ice pick alike. And yet—
This felt like a leap.
This was the natural conclusion of the first act. The unsatisfactory ending that had been retconned, rewritten months later into something unfinished and still waiting to happen.
He smiled. Thought he did, anyway, but he didn’t feel his face move, couldn’t feel anything save for the cold adrenaline-hopped pounding of his heart as it tried to flee his body.
“I wanted to see you.”
Your expression warmed, a splash of color blooming across the bridge of your nose.
He swallowed. “And…” His voice cracked, quieter now, rougher. He cleared his throat. “To ask you to come home with me.”
The breath in his lungs locked tight in tandem with yours, the slow rise and fall of your shoulders freezing.
“Since I really would rather be home, but… I’d rather be there with ah—with you.”
Silence.
Then—
Slow and unhurried, your smile widened.
Higuruma’s stomach soared.
He was so fucking done for.
He’d gotten in the cab in a daze, hardly daring to look away from you, much less relinquish his grip on your hand. His fingers tangled with yours, tendons pulled taut, knuckles blanched white where they bridged the gulf of the backseat. He held your closed fist against his thigh, where the restless twitch of his leg betrayed the nerves sparking through his veins like wildfire.
You weren’t faring much better. The passing streetlamps carved fleeting, fevered impressions of you into his retinas; the curve of your lips, the flush licking up your throat, the jittery flicker of your gaze as it skittered away, then back, then away again. Every time it returned, it came with that small, demure smile that he had no interest in trying to reciprocate.
The ascent to his apartment was a blur of clumsy haste. Two stairs at a time, his hand pressing soft but impatient against the small of your back to herd you left, then right, then around the corner.
His keys rattled in his trembling fingers, slipped once, hit the floor. You giggled—high and pink-hued, like champagne bubbles bursting at the rim of a glass. Had you been drinking? He didn’t think so; he couldn’t smell it on you, but maybe he’d taste it—
The door swung open, barely, before he spun you against it, kicking it shut on the same breath he sealed his mouth over yours.
No, you hadn’t been drinking.
Higuruma’s hand shot out, bracing the back of your skull before it could meet the wood, his palm a buffer between you and impact. The moment slowed just enough for him to feel the way your breath hitched, the sharp little intake before his fingers curled into your hair, before he tilted his head and deepened the kiss. Half-dazed, like he still couldn’t believe this was really happening.
You, in his home. You, kissing him back like you meant it, fingers slipping beneath his collar, fumbling with the buttons in desperate, uncoordinated tugs.
His other hand traced the line of your spine, fingers pressing into each divot of vertebrae, urging you closer. But then it drifted, restless—up between your shoulder blades where your muscles pinched together; down, over the slope of your waist; everywhere and nowhere, greedy, utterly lost in what to do with you.
And you laughed.
“You’re shaking,” whispered through victoriously bared teeth, a giddy grin against his lips that Higuruma couldn’t help but reciprocate, delivering a playful nip to the plush lower lip against his incisors—a compromise to the firmer tug he itched to give.
He exhaled a breath of laughter, pulled back just enough to lift a trembling hand horizontally between your faces, fingers twitching from wrist to fingertip, eyes wide and feverish. “Maybe ah—just a little.”
Then, sheepish but unrelenting, that same hand cupped your jaw, tilting you up to meet him again. Because for all his nerves, he wasn’t done tasting you yet.
His lips slanted over yours, his tongue a bold sweep against your lower lip, and you met him with the same urgency, because hadn’t you always? Maybe never like this, but you’d learned the language of Higuruma in a different dialect—navigating the sway of barstools and the clumsy tangle of drunk limbs, stepping in sync down rain-slicked sidewalks, his hand polite at the small of your back to steer you clear of potholes and broken concrete. You had moved together for weeks, months—two celestial bodies caught in an orbit of their own making, drawn inexorably closer by gravity or lust or lov—curiosity.
Yes, it must be that.
Perhaps it was no surprise that this came as second nature. That when his hands slid down, skimming your waist before tightening possessive at your hips—when he hauled you against him and groaned into your mouth like he’d been starving for you—your body simply followed. That when his palms smoothed lower still, fingers digging into the plush curve of your ass, you felt the precise moment he decided.
And when he lifted you—when you gasped and synchronized your upward hop and locked your legs around his waist, ankles hooking at the small of his back—you decided too a long time ago. He’d just finally caught up.
He lurched down the hall with you, the path illuminated by muscle memory and the dull, ambient glow from the city bleeding through the blinds. You wondered, absently, how many nights he’d made this same trek under far different circumstances—staggering home from long hours, from longer cases, from cigarettes burned down to the filter on cold walks back from nowhere. But now his footing faltered for a different reason entirely, the weight of you shifting against him, pressing in, urging him deeper into the dark.
You peeled away from his mouth, chasing the warmth of him elsewhere—tracing the corner of his lips with the tip of your tongue, then lower to the dimple that had teased you for weeks, there and gone in a flicker of wry amusement, now yours to claim. The scrape of his jaw followed and you sought to carve yourself into it, dragging your mouth over the bristled edge until your tongue laved at the hinge and you felt a shudder rack through him like a fault line cracking.
He groaned, stumbling sideways, bracing himself against the wall with a heavy thud. His grip on you tightened, hands sliding impatiently down, then settling with a punishing squeeze of your ass, fingers roughly dimpling the flesh.
“I’m going to trip and kill us both,” he warned, voice ragged but trembling with something perilously close to laughter.
“Bedroom, Hiromi.” Your arm looped tighter around his shoulders, fingers slipping into his hair, nails raking just enough to make him jerk. You sealed your mouth to his throat, chasing the frantic pulse of the vein there, and when you finally latched your lips around it, sucked—
The noise that broke from him was wounded, a guttural gasp, part grunt, part whimper, his entire body seizing under the force of it. He nearly lost his hold on you, staggered against the wall again, his breath punching out in a sharp wheeze.
“Fuck—okay, okay we’re walking,” he managed, stumbling forward in a blind, desperate beeline toward the bedroom before he lost what little sense remained.
He used your back to push open the door, shuffling forward until his knees met the edge of his mattress where he dropped you. Not intentionally, of course, but he never claimed to be the strongest man, and a controlled descent was marginally less embarrassing than tripping headlong onto the bed with you.
You bounced once with a surprised squeak at the sudden lawyer-assisted gravity check, then laughed over the muttered ‘sorry’ that rumbled from the dark.
But it hardly mattered, because the second Higuruma’s hands were free, they were on you again, chasing the warmth he’d lost for half a second too long.
There was no ceremony, no pretense of grace—his urgency eclipsed everything else. His fingers found the hem of your shirt, bunched and yanked it over your head in a single graceless motion, the fabric vanishing somewhere behind him in the void of the room. He was already moving, already chasing you up the bed with the slow, insistent press of his hips, urging you backward until the headboard stopped you.
And then you were both grappling, tugging, and undoing.
His fingers hooked into your pants and yours dove for his tie, worked into the loosened knot and yanked it free, letting it slither away like a discarded leash. Next came the buttons of his shirt—one by one, popping free beneath your nails. Your hands followed the movement downward, skating over the crease of his collarbone, the ridges of his ribs, the flat, firm plane of his stomach as you shucked the open garment from his body.
He wasn’t built for show, wasn’t sculpted into the broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped frame of an effortless heartbreaker. He was lean, fit in a way that felt practical, arms strong from lifting boxes of manilla folders instead of weights, a dark smattering of hair dusting his chest, trailing down the center of his stomach to disappear beneath his belt. He wasn’t imposing or even particularly polished—and god, you wanted him.
It wasn’t some vague, floaty kind of attraction, either.
It was gnawing, aching, restless. A twist of want low in your belly, a feral little part of you that said this was yours, something that made your nails dig in a little harder when you threw his shirt aside and dragged him back down to you.
Your stomach twitched where his pressed against it, instinct warring with want, the heat of him searing into you like a brand, nerves fraying beneath the surface of your blood-rushed skin. Your body betrayed you in shivers, in the thin, winding breaths that stuttered from your lips as adrenaline tangled with something heavier. A slow-burning ache, a pulling tide. And you—marooned beneath him, the lighthouse and the lost ship all at once, beacon and wreckage, your fingers curling into his shoulders as though they might anchor you.
Higuruma hovered, his gaze trailing the contours of you with the same reverence his hands would soon follow. The hollow of your throat, the glint of saliva catching in the dim light as you swallowed, your chest rising and falling, your lacy bra doing nothing to conceal the softness of your breasts, the way your pert nipples peaked at the chill or the anticipation or both. The dip of your waist, the plush give of your stomach, the swell of your hips, thick and welcoming and overflowing the elastic of your panties, thighs pressed together in a way that made his mouth water. He could live there, bury himself there for hours, die there if he could—
Fuck, you were somehow more beautiful than he’d ever imagined.
His fingers curled at your sides, thumbs tracing the curve where waist met hip, salvation and starvation winding so tightly in his chest he could hardly tell the difference between them.
He followed the slope of your ribs with his mouth, fingers following suit, tracing their gaps and sinews, not skimming or skirting or rushing past the touching, he wanted to map you, to relearn the topography of desire with your body. His palms spread wide over the breadth of your thighs, squeezing into the softness like he could stamp his gratitude there.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re fucking perfect.”
Higuruma pushed up, nuzzling into the valley between your breasts to press a kiss to your sternum, then traced his way downward, dragging his lips in slow, reverent succession. A trail of petals laid in heat against your skin, his tongue dipping briefly into the shallow pool of your navel. His hands slid beneath your thighs, curling over their plush expanse with an eager grip, pulling you closer.
"Want to know something embarrassing?"
You watched him in the low light, his dark head inching lower, his breath panting soft shivers along your skin. The sight alone had your pulse clawing at the walls of your chest, a frantic, hummingbird beat rattling and railing against its cage. You propped yourself up on your elbows, breath coming short. "What?"
"I've thought about this a lot," Higuruma confessed, lips grazing your knee. He kissed the other, fingers tightening where they kneaded into your thighs, gently coaxing them apart.
"The first night we met, of course," another kiss, deeper now, just inside the tender skin of your knee. "A few times between then and the second..." His fingers skimmed higher, dragging up the curve of your legs like he would memorize them blind.
Higuruma thrilled at how easily they fell open for him, how sweetly you bared yourself.
"Every time after that too, actually," he said, littering open-mouthed kisses along the inside of one thigh, then the other. His voice was rough and thick, something that weighed heavy on the tongue that dared lower and lower and lower. "Never stopped thinking about you. And this. Doing this—" His lips hovered just shy of the damp patch in the sheer lace—absolutely useless as a garment now. “You made me come every time.”
His fingers dipped beneath the edge of your underwear, easing them down, the unveiling of this most holy of places far slower than the clawing and tearing of before. His eyes caught and hung on yours, bright and gleaming in the dark that painted your body in muted gradients and shades of monochrome—you were still the most vivid thing in the room—quite possibly his entire life, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say.
Wet and glistening in the low light, your thighs draped over his elbows, your pussy splayed open before him like something sacramental meant to be revered. Higuruma felt his mouth go dry, contradictory to the saliva pooling beneath his tongue. His eyelids drooped and melted with the anticipatory blush that kindled across his face. The scent of you filled his lungs, heady and intoxicating, both sedative and stimulant, turning his blood to magma.
He swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat. His fingers twitched with renewed tremors as they dragged lower, pressing into the softness of your inner thighs, thumbs spreading you wider, baring you completely to his hungry gaze.
And oh, he sighed, wistful and wanting to see how your hips rolled and stomach concaved with held breath. This need of his had festered, unchecked and untreated ever since he opened that cab door for you and let you go.
You were too good for him then. But it was different now, wasn't it?
It wasn’t just about sex now—it was about you, in a way it wouldn’t have been back then.
And he could prove himself worthy.
He could be cleaner, better, someone who could be held and kept, like the first creature to crawl out of the woods and deemed fit for domestication. You had let him into your orbit, let him sit close in your incendiary glow and be warmed by you, the pitiful creature that he was that night. And he could worship you, pious and thankful at your altar until he changed shape entirely, molded by your boundless patience and fashioned into something of use to you.
He could earn you.
You barely had time to process the suggestive rasp of the day's stubble scraping your skin before his mouth dipped lower, his tongue drawing a thin, exploratory stripe through your slit.
Your lips parted in a wet gasp, then muzzled by your teeth closing around your lower lip. He paused, the briefest moment where you thought he hesitated or changed his mind, only for his fingers to tighten their iron grip and drag you harder onto his mouth.
Months.
He’d spent months sitting next to you, drinking yourselves silly every Friday like clockwork, when this was between your legs all along? When he could’ve been drunk on you?
His eyes fluttered, conflicted by the need to keep them open and watch your face as your elbows wobbled and collapsed and your back flattened to his bed, or to let his eyes close and truly savor the taste of you on his tongue.
Slow blinks would suffice. Darkness, bliss and ambrosia only heightening the flavorful flavorlessness of you, then open, you bisected in orange from a streetlight slat sliced straight across your belly. You were always orange.
The needle point of his tongue flattened, a broad unhurried stroke from bottom to top, grinding over your clit in casual cruelty just to watch how you arched for him, the bend and bow of your spine and ripple of your thighs under his hands. His eyes slid open to watch it happen. Satisfied, they closed again when he lapped at you once more, savaging his face from side to side, lathering his tongue between your folds with a brutalized groan.
The sound that tore from your throat was breathless, the fractured gasp crackling between you, and when your mouth curled into something closer to a laugh—disbelief—he nearly preened. You, dazed and stunned that this was happening finally, and further, that he was any good at it.
He buried himself into you until the only thing that stopped him was the bent cartilage of his nose—no less a tool than his tongue as his mouth opened wider, the obscene splash of your arousal made to flow straight down his throat with the persuasive fucking of his tongue, his nose grinding firmly into your clit in a way that made your toes curl.
Your fingers clenched the sheets in desperate handfuls, nails digging into fabric like an anchor, but Higuruma wasn’t having that. He pulled back for a breath, imparting a flat and quick lick to your spit-slick cunt just long enough to rasp: “No. No—” his hands shot up, prying your grip from the bedding with firm insistence. “Not th’fuckin’ sheets—”
Your hands barely had the time to register the loss of their grip before he smacked them roughly upon the back of his head. “You pull on my hair,” he grumbled, muffled and slurred before his mouth was back on you, lips sealing around the hard pearl of your clit with a sudden, hard suck.
You howled, fingers digging deep into his roots. You were sure you’d find black strands under your nails come morning. But you did as you were told, yanking him down as your hips involuntarily bucked upward, grinding into his mouth. “Hiromi!”
His name had never sounded so sweet as it did painted by your breathless moan. He wished he could bottle it, save it for later…
Higuruma jerked off to the memory of that first cry of his name for years.
“Fuck-yes, jus’like that… keep goin’ jus’like that—” he encouraged.
His cock strained against the zipper of his slacks, aching and neglected for far longer than just tonight. The barrier of his briefs did nothing to protect from the bitter bite of the metal, and he hissed trying not to focus on the discomfort in his groin and instead on every little noise you made, what caused your thighs to spread wider and what made them clamp around his ears.
But he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think. He just couldn’t enjoy you the way you deserved to be enjoyed when he was so hard it fucking hurt.
Clinking metal and rasping leather played a poignant soundtrack to the obscene sucking of his mouth as he yanked, tugging his belt free of the loops, fingers shaking as he wrenched his zipper down with a damning zzrrt!
Finally relief—he gasped for air, his hips jerking forward instinctively clamoring to bury himself inside you as the unbearable pressure gave way to something almost manageable.
You watched enraptured, breath caught high in your mouth, full and gasping on air that never made it down to your lungs. Your already frantic pulse skipped at least three beats when his hand disappeared into his slacks, a soft, helpless whimper dripping from your lips. Higuruma felt how you tensed and quivered over his shoulders and fuck, knowing you were watching nearly ended him embarrassingly quick against his belly.
He adjusted himself, cock pointed up toward his navel and pinned flush beneath the band of his briefs but his hand had a mind of its own. His fingers wrapped around himself, tight and lubricated with your arousal, and he stroked just once—twice, three times—quick and desperate, his thumb sweeping over the swollen head with a breathy moan muffled only by his tongue buried deep in your cunt.
But he stopped there. His focus back where it belonged when you squirmed, your shoulder blades pinching together to arch your back off the bed, gasping your wordless warning to the ceiling. Higuruma's hand left himself immediately, looping back over your thigh to keep you still, desperation renewed to do good enough for you.
God, if he could make you come on his mouth he’d die a happy man, never ask for anything ever again, he’d have accomplished all he needed to anyway—
You yanked at the roots of his hair, grinding against his face, butting against his nose in a grand departure from the composure you’d clung to as your vision popped and undulated. “—don’t stop, please don’t stop—pleasepleasepleaseplease…” you chanted your desperate litany of pleas, and Higuruma knew there was not a force on earth that could part him from you.
He focused his attention on your clit, suctioning and grinding up-down-up-down with his tongue—at the same moment he bunched his index and middle finger, bundled tight and dragging them through the mess of his spit and bluntly drove them into you. He set a brutal pace, the obscene wet schlick of his fingers almost drowning out the needy moan of his own making as he rutted against the mattress.
“—you got it… right there, I’gotchu—”
His aim may not have been perfect, but it was enough. A final cry, a curl of his fingers, and your thighs snapped tight around his head so fast it was a miracle he still had one.
But what left him reeling wasn’t survival, it was the way you arched, fingers tangled in his hair, holding him there to take what you needed as he dragged you fractious and feral and drunk through your orgasm.
He worked you through it, thorough and slow and methodical in how he indulged himself. His fingers stilled but did not retract, and his tongue softened in savoring strokes, slow and calming but his chest squeezed. Rain clouds sprung heavy and wet his eyes, a suspicious teary shine making his throat stick.
One hand squeezed and massaged your thigh, while the other slipped from you and smoothed up your stomach with a grounding pressure over your ribs, holding you together while your chest heaved, and not even the dark could disguise the rosy glow in your throat. He’d done that. Done that to you, for you, and he was grateful that you’d even let him try.
“Stay with me, sweetheart.”
He rasped the words into you, heavy and congested. His lips followed, pressing a parting kiss to your clit before he reluctantly sat back on his heels, unaware of the tenderness that had slipped loose with his breath. He wasn’t sure if he meant conscious or forever.
You were weightless, floaty and elysian, lingering in that hazy blur at the fringes of reality where your body was warm and your brain was blessedly quiet. You managed a nod and a dazed smile. Eventually you evened, and when you finally opened your eyes, Higuruma was already watching.
He’d moved above you now, braced on a forearm beside your pillow—your pillow he thought, smitten, if you’d only take it—his face flushed and damp, doused in your slick from chin to cheek, lips swollen from the ruin he’d built of you. He looked wrecked and utterly flustered, with his messy hair and watery eyes.
“Still with me?” He asked, cupping your cheek to brush his thumb beneath your eye to snick away a teary streak racing to your hairline. Devastatingly tender, he cataloged each blink of your lashes up at him, felt the stir of your breath to sync his own.
Your breath crackled into an unsteady chuckle. “Barely.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, warring between a grin and besotted relief. He dipped down and pressed a sloppy kiss to your temple. Then another to the opposite side.
“Good,” he murmured. “I’m glad.”
His kisses bloomed across your skin, drowsy and unhurried, and you giggled, hoarse and breathless, turning your face away in a futile escape from his affectionate assault. But he followed.
Only when your face was nearly as damp as his he finally relented, forehead dropping heavily against your cheek, and you finally turned back, tucking your nose into his hair, burrowing close with a playful back-and-forth nuzzle-nudge.
“Thank you.”
Higuruma hummed, sedated and sated by the scent of your skin and the taste of you on his tongue. “For?”
“...That.”
He scoffed, drawing back just enough to narrow his eyes at you, shaking his head, firm and resolute. “Don’t thank me.” He kissed you before you could protest, stealing the words from your tongue. “Not for that. Never for that.”
You laughed against his lips, soft and sticky and uncoordinated, your mouth pressing into his like you weren’t quite sure how to shape words anymore. “Okay…but still—”
“No.”
“—still—”
“No.”
Another kiss, deeper this time to shush you, lips parting just enough for his tongue to slip past yours—teasing, curling, coaxing, like he could tempt the breath right out of your lungs. He shared the taste of you, because to him, there was no greater gift he could give.
You were warm beneath his bare chest, soft where he was hard in every sense. Your arms looped around his neck, fingers light on his nape, and you sighed against his mouth; gratitude imparted not in words but in the slow, melting press of your lips, where you could sneak it in unchallenged.
Your leg shifted, your toes scrunched against the back of his calf, and he followed, settling more heavily over you, because any inch of his skin not touching yours was space wasted. And as always, you moved with him, tandem-tied to synchronicity, habit and routine, a rhythm already written into your bodies long before tonight.
His hips met yours in an unconscious grind, and his breath snagged.
“…Do you…”
His lips barely parted from yours before his train of thought shattered, derailed entirely by the roll of your hips—a shift so slight, so innocent it may have been accidental—Higuruma’s brow pinched, the muscles in his forearms twitching where they braced above you.
“Do you still want this?”
A stupid question, and you made that clear in the bemused flare of your nostrils and deadpan lift of your brow. As if you would’ve stopped wanting him after that, like you’d scurry back into your clothes and leave right then and there.
“You?” You scoffed, breath warm against his mouth where he hovered, spellbound and hung on every word. “Yeah. I want you. ‘Course I want you.”
Higuruma’s sanity wobbled on its last legs, and he just barely managed to lock his elbows before he’d crumble into you. ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘You really don’t have to, there’s no pressure, I don’t mind, we can stop if you’d prefer’, all excuses and absolutions that immediately burst to his tongue. But they didn’t get far.
Your mouth returned to his, and now it was your tongue that coaxed his to silence before self doubt could sabotage.
It was a tough pill to swallow, even with your holistic husbandry. Doubt and deprecation had long been his bedfellows, an endemic entity in the ecosystem of his psyche. But your hands were gentle, not lancing old wounds but soothing them as you smoothed down his back, tight and knotted muscles shuddering beneath your fingertips, and he groaned when you dug in a little harder, working out a kink you’d found either by chance or some preternatural sense for his discomfort.
His breath rattled through his teeth as he broke the kiss with a final, fleeting peck, lips clinging for a second longer, reluctant to part from you. But he moved, because hesitation would be cowardice, and he refused to be a coward with you anymore.
He was forceful in how he lifted his hips and shoved his slacks and briefs lower, not letting himself think about it, kicking them free like he couldn’t stand the sensation on his over-sensitive skin a second longer. His cock flushed dark against his stomach, swollen so stiff it didn’t even move once deprived of support.
Your gaze slithered down his body, serpentine and glinting.
A gossamer veil descended over your pupils, hunger threading its fingers through your irises, curling into something that sent off a quiet danger! alarm in the rational part of his brain…but his other head transmuted the warning into pure oxygen, fueling the inferno of his lust.
It had been so long since anyone looked at him like that—had anyone ever looked at him like that? No. He didn’t think so. Not like he was a soft thing for you to sink your teeth into, to bite and never let go and devour him down to the pulp in his bones.
He almost laughed—his shaky breath fleeing to safety in a shuddering woosh—you were special. You would ruin him if he let you… and he would let you. You already had.
“One second,” he promised.
The drawer of his nightstand rattled as he wrenched it open, fingers skimming frantic and fluttering over his old watch, a few loose and crumpled receipts, the stiff spine of a forgotten book, and—
There.
A box—the box—of condoms. Unopened.
Bought months ago and placed atop the stand like a staggish monument, hubristic in his certainty that they would be used that night. Purchased with an itch in his blood and a desperation that whittled him down to that once craven creature seeking some anemic facsimile of intimacy.
But after that night, after you, the itch changed shape. No longer an abstract craving but a single-pointed ache, refined and sharpened to something specific. You, laughing over your drink. You, meeting his eyes like you saw through him. You, a storm and a hearthfire all at once, wreaking havoc on the solitude he’d chosen for himself and offering the brand of intimacy he’d all but decided he couldn’t afford.
It had been a long time. Too long. The realization struck like ice water poured over his head—fuck, what if he was shit at this? What if after months of wanting and self-denial and stringing you along you left his bed feeling disappointed and underwhelmed?
His fingers fumbled against the cardboard, nails catching at the plastic seal, but his nail slipped. Stupid. So fucking stupid, his hands were unsteady, breath shallow, the seal crinkling under his touch as he pried and clawed and come on, come on—
“You okay?”
His head snapped toward you, already defensive, scowling with hackles raised and bracing for some kind of judgment, he was floundering before he even got started.
But you were there, stretched languid and supine against his sheets, hips tilted just so, one arm above your head, lazy and patient and waiting for him. A slow smile curved your lips, softness dampening your gaze. The same look you’d given him across a bar table, the same look you gave him when you listened to his shitty days with a patience saints would envy.
That look could undo a man.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling. “I’m fine.” He made an effort to temper himself when he looked at you again, to erode his edges down to a smoother albeit sheepish smile.
“Packaging’s a scam.”
No, he’s just panicking.
You laughed. The movement was effortless, sinuous as you rolled onto your knees, thighs parting, muscles flexing with the shift of weight, graceful and poised; the tremors that still twitched beneath your skin only made him salivate more. The low light caught on the sheen of sweat caressing your curves like a lover's hand, tracing the soft bend of your stomach, gilded your skin like something ethereal, diaphanous and not made for mortal hands.
“Cmere,” you crooked your finger.
The box crumpled in his grip like tissue paper, his knuckles bone white as the flimsy package yielded to the force of his fist. Relief could’ve made him cry as he clawed through the remains, tearing at foil, fumbling for a packet with shaking fingers while the rest spilled onto the floor.
He rolled the latex over his cock with a wince, his head falling back with a pained grunt at the aching pleasure wrought by his own hand, his thighs flexed with the effort of not fucking into his palm like he immediately wanted to do.
He turned and gathered you, all at once, clumsy and desperate like if he didn’t touch you right then he might lose his nerve entirely.
His hands slid under your thighs, hauling you closer, up and over his hips which fell neatly between your own. He crowded into your space, no hesitation left to him now, no pauses to collect himself, his need laid bare and shaking spurring him forward.
Higuruma’s mouth crashed into yours, and you met him with equal fervor. With forearms bracketing your shoulders, weight warm and solid above you, he pressed into you and felt his breath shatter against your lips.
Stars streaked across his eyes, and there was a moment where Higuruma thought he might’ve died.
His head dropped to your shoulder, teeth catching on your shoulder with the need to bite down on something to keep from crumbling entirely.
He filled you with urgency, and didn’t stop until his pelvis ground against yours. With each thrust he told himself he could have this, and that you were special. He wanted to laugh at the sweet, reassuring nothings and praises you buried into his hair. And when your hand found his, clenched in the pillow beside your head, he held it tight—slammed it back down onto the pillow and hoped it would leave an indent forever.
And when you moaned his name again, he hissed yours like a reprimand.
It didn’t take long. It was never going to.
The tension snapped all at once, a low, helpless gasp wrenched from his throat as he folded over you, stiff and quivering, dampening your neck with humid, uneven breaths.
You held him. With your arm, your legs, your body, you held him and didn’t let go. Didn’t complain when the strength to hold himself together waned and he collapsed upon you fully, didn’t insist he move or clean up or let you go.
Higuruma let himself hold you, just as you held him. And somehow—impossibly—the intimacy of that surrender eclipsed that of any sex or orgasm that came before.
Moments passed. Minutes, hours, it could’ve been years, where his body went cool and sticky against yours; he didn’t move for fear of tearing it, undoing what fragile equilibrium he’d finally found. So he stayed heavy and unguarded, breath slowing in uneven stages while aftershocks ran through him in faint, involuntary tremors.
Your fingers traced idle patterns along his spine. Little circles, hearts, he thought he might’ve felt your name tattooed between his shoulders. This is the part where he would’ve expected you to leave.
Where you would slither out from under him, gather your clothes, and bid him goodnight while he went to sleep. Or where he would’ve run first, because he hated the sort of small talk that came as a side effect of these exchanges.
But Higuruma found he wasn’t bracing for that impact, wasn’t preparing to cut and bolt, and had to close his eyes against the soft brilliance of you when you eventually cracked a smile up at him.
“Hey,” you murmured.
He groaned in response, the sound low and contented. It occurred to you, distantly, that this may be the quietest you’d ever heard him—and for a man whose mouth was usually a reflection of his brain, you relished what that silence may mean.
“Where are your records at?”
One of his eyes cracked open. Then the other.
“Hm?”
“Your vinyl,” you clarified, still dazed and smiling. “Said you keep them in a closet.”
Higuruma exhaled through his nose, roughened between a scoff and an exhausted groan. His weight shifted, pressing you more firmly into the mattress as his hand slid up to cup your jaw, brushing the corner of your mouth with his thumb like he’d already forgotten what you were talking about.
“I don’t know,” he muttered and leaned down to kiss you.
It was lazy, unhurried and meant to derail you—he felt too good to ruin it with thinking, and it almost worked. You kissed him back, because of course you did, fingers curling into his hair, indulging in the warmth and solidity of him. But when he pulls away, just to burrow into your throat, satisfied like he’d successfully avoided a conversation, you laughed and scratched his neck.
“I’m serious,” you said. “Which closet?”
Higuruma frowned, brow scrunched as if you’d posed a genuinely difficult question. His gaze drifted to the ceiling, then toward the hall beyond the bedroom door, tracking the layout of his apartment in reverse of the mental map he’d never bothered to consult this closely.
“...Down the hall,” he said finally. “On the left…we passed it.”
“Mmm.” You nodded, then fell silent, and for once he felt no rush to fill it with whatever lackluster words he might come up with.
So silent, that Higuruma thought you might’ve fallen asleep…and though he did not feel obligated to fill your silences, he found himself unnerved, wanting you to speak and be as present with him as you had been before.
He pulled back to ask about this sudden line of inquiry, only to find you peering up at him.
“You should unpack them.”
And he sighed. The suggestion landed gently, without weight or expectation, but he stiffened just enough to feel it where your hand rested. His mouth opened, already forming some deflective response about ‘not having the time or space’ or ‘not knowing where to start’.
But you were special, Higuruma was quickly coming to accept. You know him well enough not to give him the chance.
“In the morning,” you added. “After breakfast.”
The future tense settled upon him like a blanket, and he found it strange. Not the concept, but the lack of hesitation with which he regarded it. And the knee-jerk reaction was not to refuse, but to kiss you again. And again a second time, where he finally said against your lips: “You don’t even know what’s in those boxes.”
“Vinyls, I assume.”
Higuruma hummed and tweaked your ear. “There could be bodies.”
“Sounds way more exciting,” you grinned.
And in between the lull of falling asleep, listening to distant cars outside his window, groggily arguing the merits of old records versus streaming, and warning you of the distinct possibility that he would in fact burn breakfast, he felt more at peace than he had in years.
He did not try to analyze that peace, and he did not interrogate it or demand justification for its existence. He simply let it exist, and allowed himself to exist within it.
Tomorrow did not seem so daunting a prospect, when the worst of it would be egregiously overcooking an omelette and being rewarded with your laughter.
This is my first time posting art on here. I love Higuruma’s train scene, and I wanted to show the contrast between his old (the lawyer) and new identity (the executioner). The way MAPPA represented his domain was beautiful so I replicated its smog, since it looks like a city is on fire. 🧑🏻⚖️
Most of all I just love him so much I could burst 😭
hiii! i just discovered your blog thru ur recent higuruma fic and i enjoyed it sm!! im abt to have a reading marathon for all ur other fics as well from how much i loved it💗
keep up the good work boo
Hi! 💖
I'm so glad you enjoyed Sublimation, every comment I've received has had me kicking my feet and running in circles, I'm truly floored by the warm reception! I'm pretty wordy on a good day, but I'm starting to find myself a bit speechless in the best of ways haha.
I hope you have a good marathon through my masterlists, make sure to hydrate! I'll go ahead and leave a little suggestion rainbow here for you:
Danse Macabre: A revenant!Nanami x reader folk-y story! Great reading for dark and dreary weather.
Gloaming: Post Shibuya Nanami, where you play the role of his wife, working through the aches and pains of what your relationship has become.
In Vino Veritas: Coworker Nanami sex pollen, with yearning and lots of flowers and just a smidge of botanical body horror. Not as gnarly as it sounds, I promise (or it is, but it doesn't last).
Sigil.: The first chapter of the series (second coming soon!), taking place in the canon universe, working alongside Nanami to put a stop to a series of increasingly concerning curse murders. Basically just your average JJK Tuesday, this one.
Occupational Hazards: Nanami x Higuruma sex pollen, with fighting and feralness and copious bodily fluids and a happy ending in both senses. (Can you guess my favorite trope...?)
Rain Check: A sick fic in which Higuruma takes care of you early on in your relationship, and you, begrudgingly, let him. He also nearly kills you with bad soup.
I hope the recommendations are welcome and that you'll enjoy them, but by all means, go where the wind takes you! I'll jump back on my giant hamster wheel and get back to writing now! Thank you so much again!
↳ Summary: Desire, when denied, does not disappear. A chance meeting with a stranger becomes an unscratched itch, and Higuruma is nothing if not a man who will torture himself about it.
↳ CW: canon-adjacent implications (no CG), slow-ish burn, Higuruma focused (amateur character study with porn), alcohol, smoking, mentions of addiction, oral sex(female receiving), piv sex, the real one night stand was the friends we made along the way
↳ WC: 14.7k
↳ AN: Happy Higuruma Day to all who celebrate! I've had this written for a while, because I knew after his debut I would be utterly mad and useless. So I prepared a little treat ahead of time before I go into hibernation with my vibrator. Let me know what you thought of his episode, I need hands to hold...it was fucking stellar and I don't think I'll ever recover.
The air hit him first—sweet and chemical, thick enough to choke on. Artificial watermelon, guava, blueberry, or some unholy combination of all three, fogging the taproom like cheap incense.
Higuruma realized the graveness of his error the moment he entered.
Humid with the sweat of too many bodies packed too close like sardines, stinking of cheap beer and syrupy cocktails, and that sticky undercurrent of desperation and carelessness he does not—did not—subscribe to. The music was too loud, some bass-heavy monstrosity rattling the floorboards, vibrating his teeth with a mindless thrum that dictated the movement of the room. The entire place reeked of youth and body spray, both were equally suffocating.
All he’d known was the place was popular, busy, and reviews were overwhelmingly positive… he failed to account for its prime location, situated between three large universities, and that those reviews were due to the tendency of the staff not to card its patrons.
What he’d thought was just a bar was in fact a shitty college bar.
He hadn’t set foot in a place like this in over a decade, repelled from entryways like uncrossable salt barriers. Even back then, it had been out of necessity rather than preference—somewhere to get drunk as quickly as possible for as cheap as possible, to sit shoulder to shoulder with classmates he hardly knew, and drink until the edges of his brain blurred enough to stomach whatever stressed or sorry state his life was in.
He dodged swaying girls with glossy lips and half-lidded eyes, shuffled past boys (and really, that’s what they were to him: boys) in letterman jackets sloshing their drinks down their wrists as they postured and peacocked in front of any half engaged girl.
They were all so fucking young. Their skin still tight with optimism, their lives still brimming with possibility. They looked barely old enough to drink, much less exist in his vicinity.
He slid into a stool, exhaled and raked a hand through his hair, disheveling the strands to fall mussed and curled over his forehead. The exhaustion of the week settled heavier now that he had nowhere productive to direct it.
Another long day in a long week in a long year atop the mountain of many. A never-ending cycle of cases and clients, of carefully crafted words and methodical dismantling, and fighting battles that rarely ever felt like victories.
The ice in his glass clicked as he tilted it, staring down into the shallow topaz pool of scotch. No doubt watered down and thin, both the drink and any sort of epiphany it may provide.
He was tired. Of work, of routine, of coming home to a quiet apartment where the silence stewed and only made him feel the weight of it that much more until his spine buckled him to his lumpy old couch.
He needed something different. A deviation.
A warm body, a willing mouth, a night spent drowning in something other than a bottle and depositions. A quick fuck, messy and anonymous, just enough to set him back to an uncomfortable but manageable baseline.
He’d thought, naively, this might be the place to find it.
But looking at the crowd now, the reality was jarring. The whole thing reeked of dissonance and miscalculation.
He wasn’t stupid. He was an aging man in a bar full of college students and he felt it.
The worst part was that they noticed it too.
The first had been easy enough to ignore—a girl barely past twenty, teetering in heels too tall for her as she draped herself across the bar beside him, giggling at something said by a friend before turning those narrow, glassy eyes on him. “You’re too handsome to be drinking alone,” she’d slurred, voice syrupy, fingers dragging over the counter and inching toward his arm.
He ignored her outright.
The second was harder to stomach—another girl, more forward, wrapped in something tight and sequined, barely passable for a dress that looked one sudden move away from fleeing her body.
“You look like trouble,” she’d purred, hanging herself off his arm, squeezing his bicep between her overflowing breasts that he thought surely should’ve stirred something in his loins but only stirred the nausea in his stomach. “Like you could teach me a thing or two.”
No, he thought miserably. I look tired and like I could be your father.
He spent his time buried in the bottom of a glass, head down, the original purpose of this foray all but abandoned to the wind he wished to be three sheets to. That glass made for his weapon and shield as he fended off comments about his hands, and his nose, and always liking older men.
He hated it. Hated the way it made his skin crawl and run hot then cold, his presence here felt even more wrong the more notice he attracted.
He could see it in their faces, the way they looked at him—not like a man, but an idea. Some sleazy fantasy conjured from parental issues and too many cheap romance novels.
It disgusted him.
What was he doing? Was this really what he’d been reduced to?
A pathetic old man wolfing at the edges of youth, hoping to lap up whatever scraps were left for him? He felt gross just being here and breathing the same air as these kids.
Does it make him lesser, that these advances don’t ignite hunger and flattery but revulsion? That the heat curling in his belly isn’t desire but disgust? Or does it make him greater, that he does not stoop, does not prowl, does not take, like a less scrupulous man might?
But what does it matter—lesser, greater—when the result is the same? When he is still here, nursing a drink in the dim fugue of a bar too loud, too young, too dizzying with its perfume of cheap liquor and cheaper thrills. When he is still a man past his prime, not the wolf but in fact seated among them, and though he does not salivate, does not sink his teeth into the softness offered up to him, the very fact of his presence damns him all the same.
Because what else could a man like him be doing here, if not waiting to be fed?
He should leave. Should have left the moment the first giggling thing slithered too close, before this whole endeavor soured into something even more pitiful; and that base, ill-advised need that had driven him here rotted into septic self-loathing. He resolved that he would leave. Would finish his drink, cut his losses, and slouch back to his apartment where his loneliness at least had the decency to be private.
And then the bartender set another drink before him.
Higuruma blinked. “I didn’t order this.”
The guy didn’t bother looking up as he wiped down the counter. “From her.”
A sigh curled from Higuruma’s lips, bone-deep, scraping at his ribs. No doubt this would be another girl, one with at least the restraint not to immediately drape herself over him and start peeling off his clothes or hers. He turned, already preparing a polite but firm rejection—
But then he saw you.
Already looking at him.
Higuruma tried to categorize you, and couldn’t do it fast enough.
You weren’t one of them; not young and reckless or drunk on the novelty of being seen or heedless in your indulgences. You held yourself with enviable serenity, chin propped in your palm, eyes bright with rationed amusement, like you’d already taken measure of the room and found it wanting.
Older than the crowd. Polished in a way that made you an island amid the tumult, unmoved and untouched by it. And when your gaze lifted and caught his, something in his chest went taut, sharp and immediate, as if he’d just stepped into the path of something he should’ve seen coming.
And for reasons he couldn’t immediately articulate, you were acutely aware of him.
And you’d sent him a drink.
Higuruma frowned, fingers curling around the glass, rolling the cool condensation between his palms as he considered it. Considered you.
The tilt of your head, the way your eyes held steady when most would already have turned away. You weren’t a child playing at adulthood, emboldened by too many vodka sodas and the illusion of invincibility. You weren’t swaying on unsteady heels, lips self-bitten and red with grenadine, or scanning the room for the next best thing.
You had chosen him.
And then you waved.
And god help him—he was already planning on choosing you back.
It had been a long time since he’d played this game, and longer still since he’d played it well. The motions felt rusty, the confidence (even if staggish and unearned) once honed to a razor's edge was now dulled from disuse. But you had played the first hand, and it would be remiss of him not to answer in kind.
He smiled—grimaced, more like—slow through his teeth, then lifted your gifted glass in acknowledgment. He flagged the bartender and sent one right back.
You smiled, pleased. And then, without ceremony, you stood.
He knew as surely as he felt the first bead of sweat travel down his nape that you weren’t the type to wait or play games.
“This seat isn’t taken, is it?”
Your voice was smooth, carrying easily between the electronic thumping that blew out crackling speakers, slipping to his ear as easily as you did into the stool beside him—close but not intrusive, poised but not distant. Everything about you screamed open and available and interested.
Higuruma’s gaze slid sidelong to meet yours. “I suppose it is now.”
“Mm.” You lifted the drink he’d sent back to you, studying the pink liquor like you might divine something from its depths, delphic in the way you regarded it, and then him, like you had gathered something after all.
“You look like you’d rather be anywhere but here.”
He leaned forward against the bartop, brows lifting as he rubbed his fingers against his jaw—relieved if only slightly by the cold suffusion of his drink to his sweaty skin. “That obvious?”
“Painfully.”
“So.” You took your time with your drink, rolling the stem of your glass between two fingers, your gaze still pinned lazily on him, expectant. “Are you going to tell me what brought you here, or do I get to keep coming up with my own ideas?”
His fingers tensed minutely where they rested, jumping around the sweat of his scotch. Then he grinned, slow and sloping. “I’m worthy of conspiracy?”
“Curiosity, at least,” you countered.
Higuruma was not accustomed to being an object of curio.
Befuddled humor lit his eyes, the strike of flint in a dark room that eased the severity of his brooding into something dangerously approachable. He grunted and leaned back slightly, like he needed space to take you in more fully.
“Well…” His perusal was indulgent as he looked you up and down, but you didn’t seem the type to be unsettled by it. “What have you got so far?”
“Oh, a few.” You leaned in, eliminating the small space he’d just made between you, elbows resting on your knees, voice dipping lower into conspiratorial invitation. “One: you’re engaging in some self-imposed punishment. A martyrdom of misery, if you will.”
He hummed, lips twitching. “That would be dramatic.”
You lifted two fingers. “Two: you lost a bet. Maybe with a colleague. Had to endure an hour of this as penance?”
He shook his head and the wry curve of his lips grew, sipping his whiskey. “That would require me to have friends who make bets.”
A beat of silence.
The nonchalance and ease with which he wielded self-deprecation came far too easily, and with a sudden prickle of ‘oh shit’ sluicing down his spine, the coy aversion of his gaze from yours snapped back with a quickness to read you.
He’s too jaded, too cynical, too friendless and uninteresting really, and now surely, you’d see it too, and this beacon of hope and charity you’d graced him with would be snuffed by his own droll and heavy hand.
But looking at you had been a mistake, because when you lowered your glass, your expression had changed—not pity, but something worse and far more thrilling. Interest.
Then: “Oof,” you muttered, and he watched with awe as your jaw quivered, valiantly warding off a grin that showed instead in the feline glimmer of your eye. You weren’t thrown by his fumbling or self-effacing honesty or the awkward shuffle of his own apparent attraction. You were entertained.
“Alright, then. Number three—” A casual swirl of your drink, the slow drag of your fingertip around the rim. “You’re just trying to get laid.”
Higuruma blinked and wrinkled his nose, left feeling again like he’d committed some kind of faux pas. Of course that’s why he was here, and he’d changed his mind about it almost as soon as he walked through the door. His intentions were as transparent as the shitty, waterlogged napkins used for coasters on the bartop, but he still blanched under your scrutiny.
The laughter that spilled from you was entirely unrepentant. “Oh, there it is.” You giggled. The truth was glaring—that he was a lonely man, just trying to get his dick wet.
“Was,” he corrected before he could stop the defense, his expression souring. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”
“This place isn't your speed? I never would've guessed.”
“Not at all,” he grumbled.
“That’s a real shame for your suitors,” you said lightly. “Hopefully they’ll recover in time for their eight a.m. lectures. Or midterms. Or whatever it is they’re stressed about this week—you’ve ruined their plans.”
He ducked his head, exhaling sharply through his nose as he tried—failed—not to snicker, caught by how cleanly you’d skewered them. And him, just a little.
He found himself liking that far more than expected.
“And here I thought you were trying to charm me.” His voice was rougher now, the low scrape of it accusingly sheepish as he held you in his periphery, like the distance afforded away from direct eye-contact might actually save him.
“Oh, I am.”
You lifted your glass in a slow, deliberate toast. “I’m also trying to decide whether I should be flattered or offended that you haven’t tried to charm me back yet.”
He stared at you outright. That alone should have clued him in. The evening had been an awkward dance of jerky avoidance, avoiding grabby hands, twisting away in ways that were probably (definitely) rude, stiffening under unwelcome touches and words and looks but you made him look.
You were different, in ways he could only begin to guess at. Your interest was overt, to call it coy would be an outright lie, and in that way you weren’t much different from his ‘suitors’. But your approach, your appearance, that little kernel of something catty—there was a certain je ne sais quoi about you that stirred something in him that nobody else had managed.
Excitement. Curiosity. A conquest of interest and intellect—the unnerving sort that slipped past his defenses before he’d realized he was being studied—and he’d swallowed your lure down to the sinker with the first sip of your offered drink.
He let out a disbelieving breath, amazed by his own blindness at having stepped straight into a bear trap. His tongue clucked against the inside of his cheek, his smile was tight-lipped. “I’m out of practice,” he warned, apologized.
Your smile deepened. “I can tell.”
He took his time to let the weight of that realization settle—to go through all stages of embarrassment, frustration, acceptance, and finally determination, before he finally turned his full attention to you. If you were not one to play with pretense, then neither would he.
He shifted, letting his forearm rest on the bar, his knee cocked outward to just barely brush yours beneath the counter. Accidental, if anyone asked. “Would you like me to?”
Your brows slid upward. “Like you to…?”
“Charm you.”
There was a flicker in your eyes, the slip of a match before the ember caught, and when it did your lips pulled back from your teeth with a pyres heat. He’d managed to surprise you, and the thrill of that made him want to keep doing it.
“I would.”
Higuruma might be out of practice and out of his league—he’s quite sure he’s not even playing the same sport as you. But he finds himself most desperately wanting to play anyway.
The bartender called last rounds, but Higuruma hardly registered it. He’d long since stopped keeping track of time, lost in grains of sand and the ebb and flow of conversation, the cadence of your voice, the pace of the evening dictated by the curve of your smile and the way your lips curled around your words, shaping them with a self-assurance he was only playing at… at least initially.
He was used to talking to people who either wanted something from him or wanted something of him.
His clients, his colleagues, the prosecution’s sneering cross-examinations, all of it a game of words measured to the ounce of controlled perceptions. Clients want outcomes, colleagues want leverage, and strangers, apparently, want a fantasy.
But this was different. There was no angle to you, no agenda, you approached with your palms open and out, your honesty was an easy pill to swallow with a throat so lubricated by drink.
You’d asked him what he did for a living. He’d told you—defense attorney—and braced himself for the inevitable.
Most people fell into one of two categories: the ones who saw him as a parasite, a man who twisted the law in favor of money and monsters; and the ones who saw him as some noble crusader, the last line of defense against a system that devoured the weak and helpless. Neither view sat comfortably with him.
But you only hummed, lips pursed in a way he came to recognize as thoughtful, considering it like a fact rather than a moral dilemma.
“Someone has to do it,” you’d said, before taking a sip of your rosé—the second glass he’d bought you. “Might as well be someone good at it.”
It knocked something loose in him he hadn’t realized wasn’t nailed down. No scorn, no admiration, just the bare truth of it. He wasn’t sure why that made his skin prickle and cheeks warm, why his eyes averted down to the melted ice thinning his drink when he smiled. Was the bar truly so low that a little compassion—no, not even compassion, it was damn near apathy—could undo him?
You’d asked him if he liked it.
And he’d told you the truth: “No, but I’m good at it.”
You snickered, and he smiled fuller. He’d never quite admitted that out loud before, but he didn’t think you’d pity him. All of the school, the sleepless nights, the blood and sweat poured over cases that barely graced the judges bench—not a waste.
You talked about books, the ones you pretended to have read to come off higher brow and the ones that lived permanently on your nightstand, dogeared and underlined. He hoped tomorrow he would remember some of their names. He wondered what annotations you’d have made in the margins and what lines spoke to you enough to bring pen to paper.
You asked him what he did with his time outside of work, and he scoffed at the notion—what time? But you just gave him that look again, like you’d already learned to read through his bullshit as easily as you could tear through wet paper, and so he told you.
He used to like going to the theater but hadn’t in years. He used to play the piano but couldn’t remember the last time he touched the keys. That he had an extensive collection of old vinyl records kept in cardboard boxes in his closet that he never had the time or energy to unpack. That, frankly, he didn’t know what he did outside of work anymore.
And you listened. Not just heard, but listened and smiled and laughed and somehow, that made it worse.
Because he’d come here looking for an escape. Take someone home for the cost of a drink and maybe a joke or two. And instead, he’d found this.
What could be, might be, a connection.
Something he hadn’t expected or accounted for.
And that was precisely why he couldn’t take you home.
The thought calcified in his head as he set his empty glass down, as he glanced at the bartender closing out tabs, as he felt the toe of your shoe brush his ankle beneath the bar the way you had for the last hour and a half when you dangled your heel just so. You were waiting for him to make the final move and say “I have another bottle back at my place, care to join me?” or “Why don’t I show you some of those records?” and turn this night into what it was supposed to be.
He could take you home.
He could press you up against his front door and taste the night on your tongue, trace it past your lips as he tilted your head back with his hands. He could let you whisper something ticklish against his mouth, something about impatience and the audacity of restraint, and answer with his teeth at your throat, his fingers already working at the zipper of your dress. He could lay you out beneath him, drink in every slow arch of your back, the pull of your fingers in his hair, the way his name might break apart in your mouth when he finally—
He could have you tonight.
But he would not.
Because for the first time in longer than he could remember, the anticipation was better than the certainty. He liked the flames curling slow and sweet in his gut, the game between you and the war waged between what he wanted and what he was willing to take—an advantage he lost ground on embarrassingly fast with the way you cocked your head and waited for him to catch up.
And maybe—just maybe—he liked the way you waited for him to catch up. The way you watched him fumble, entertained but not unkind, not cruel, not condescending. You played him expertly, but with the kind of patience that never made him feel like you were keeping score.
And if he took you home now, if he let himself indulge in you like he so desperately wanted to, he’d cheapen it. He’d wake up tomorrow and feel like shit about it, and maybe you would too, and then this thing, whatever it was, would be ruined.
He couldn't remember you as the mysterious stranger in a bar that he wouldn't forget. You'd just be someone in his bed he wishes he could.
You were worth more than two glasses of rosé. You deserved better than the hands of a man who walked in with no standards beyond warm and willing.
You were not the cheap fling he’d been looking for.
Because this was the first real human connection he’d had in months, and he’d rather let that live on a pedestal in his head than cheapen it with something so fleeting and selfish. This could not be the transactional exchange of value that he came here to barter in liquor for sex.
He swallowed.
“Come on,” he rasped. “Let’s get you a cab.”
Your head tilted, barely perceptible, but he caught it. The fractional hesitation, the surprise in your eyes like a candle flickering in a draft. A blink, too slow, lips parted as if to speak, before pressing together again.
This clearly wasn’t the ending you’d expected.
Higuruma could see it in the minute shift of your posture, the way you squared your shoulders.
For the first time all night, he’d thrown you off balance, and the satisfaction of that warmed him. He’d managed to surprise you one last time. That you, who had him spinning in dizzy circles, who toyed with him like a cat does a mouse, had still miscalculated.
But he’d disappointed you. And he hated that.
Not enough to take it back.
But god, almost. Almost nearly had him snatching the words right out of the air and replacing them with an invitation, a proposition, and a plea for forgiveness and more of you.
But he stayed firm. Noble, or some attempt at it.
He thought you might press. Might tilt your head, drag your nail along the rim of your glass or right up his twitching thigh, part your lips around something as sharp as it was saccharine, a playfully twirled ‘Oh, really?’ dripping from your tongue that would shatter his resolve like the fragile thing he knew it was.
And he wished you would, because that would absolve him. You invited him. You pursued him after he tried to do the right thing. He could hardly be blamed for succumbing to the talent of your tongue that had played him all evening.
He forced himself to stand, to gesture toward the door instead of the obvious alternative; the one where he pressed his palm to the nape of your neck and pulled you into him, where the night ended in the dark quiet of his sheets and the frenetic undoing of you both.
And you didn’t argue.
You sighed and tipped back the last of your drink, exposing the smooth line of your throat to him like a provocation, like an invitation that he would spend the rest of the night vividly imagining taking.
You hadn’t a care in the world that he’d cut the evening short—short? Could hours be considered short?—short, maybe, of what it was meant to be, the foregone conclusion of the evening cast back to the dark primordial pool of its conception.
Your hair tumbled back from your neck to reveal the flawless hollow of your collarbone set aflame with orange and red neon marquee, a bewitching and captivating pyroead; would that he could grab you then, for his hand to support the small of your back as you arched back, and back, and back to ease the straight passage of alcohol down your flame-burned throat. He would ease that burn with his mouth, his lips, his tongue, suck the embers into his mouth and snuff them out—
Your glass met the bar with a soft click, the final punctuation on the evening.
And you looked at him looking at you, and maybe it was the stricken clenching of his jaw, or the way his eyes slid upward just a fraction in an expression undeniably pleading for compliance, that brought back your smile.
He followed you out, because of course he did. Held the door for you, stepped onto the cracked pavement at your side, adjusting to the shift in atmosphere, the cool night air dampening the heat that had been circling between you, diluting it into something easier to swallow.
His fingers twitched to his pocket, instinctively honed for the smushed carton of cigarettes in his coat but seemed to think better of it. The idea of ending the evening on a flaw, the abrupt reveal of an unattractive vice, sat poorly. He’d never cared for being known, it was a terrifying ordeal after all, but he hoped if he were to be remembered, if only for a night, it would be positively and not for his crutches.
You crossed your arms. “You always this much of a gentleman?”
He kicked a stray pebble with the toe of his shoe, shifting subtly closer as he feigned distraction. “I wouldn’t call myself that.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I would,” you sighed, studying him. “Shame that it suits you.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “You think so?”
“I know so.” You tilted your head, the curve of your lips widening. “Could’ve fooled me though, the way you were looking at me all night.”
His throat worked around a swallow. A slow blink, a glance at the curb, at the headlights slicing through the dark as a cab approached, anywhere but at you, his reprieve and his punishment all at once.
You took a step back as it slowed, the moment folding and collapsing into the black hole of itself.
Higuruma reached for the handle before you could, pulling it open, and you arched a brow.
“See?” You slipped into the seat, fingers drumming lightly against your knee as you considered him. “Perfect gentleman.”
He was still standing there blocking the door.
Standing like a pitiful monument to hesitation, caught in the limbo of decision and regret, watching the city’s sodium glow lap over the soft plane of your cheekbones, the divot of your collarbone, the long stretch of your legs beneath the hem of your dress.
His fingers flexed over the doorframe. He should move. Step back. Close the door.
It should’ve made it easier. If you didn’t ask, if you didn’t pout, if you didn’t lean forward or tilt your chin or murmur something coy or pleading, he should have no trouble stepping back, folding his hands behind his back like a penitent monk and watching you disappear into the night. But you didn’t ask nor did you dismiss. You just waited.
He considered closing the door without a word, deliberately debonair and mysterious and aloof. But he couldn’t quite snub you like that, not after he already had.
“Goodnight,” he said. “Get home safe.” He closed the door.
A sharp, clinical severance. A blade pressed clean through tendon and sinew, dividing this moment from all the ones that could have been.
Because this, you, had been good. And he was too fucking starved for the cadence of conversations that didn’t feel like transactions, for the acute, teasing barbs that engaged his tired brain rather than let it slip like goo through a storm grate.
You played him like a master's instrument, never in a way that made him feel like he was simply being tolerated for what was expected in return, and he knew it would be all too easy to get addicted off a single hit of what you had to offer.
The sex, he was sure, would have been good. But it would have been just that—good. Fleeting. A momentary indulgence that would have diluted the hours spent circling each other, indulging in something richer and better. He would’ve woken up hollow, the memory of it swallowed by the weight of knowing he had reduced it all to a simple means to an end.
And whether or not you would agree with that assessment was irrelevant to him.
The cab’s headlights cut through the dark, illuminating the stretch of empty pavement and took you with it.
He stood, hands in his pockets fiddling with a cardboard carton, watching the tail lights shrink, with nothing but the phantom heat of your gaze curling around his throat like a leash held in a rapidly receding hand.
“Fuck.” He spat.
Too weak to take you home.
Too proud to chase after you.
And knowing with certainty that he already regretted both.
A week passed.
And with it came adulthood's object impermanence—he had no time to think of you. And in those brief periods where he tried, it had been long enough for the memory to become uncooperative. He tried to chase it at night when the days ran him ragged and the mind sought something to smooth the frayed edges.
It frustrated him, left him hot and unsatisfied, a bitter echo of the night’s original goal and subsequent failure: he had left alone.
Higuruma never expected to see you again.
And yet, against all logic, there you were.
Not at the same bar, but a different one, his usual haunt, where the lighting was low enough to swallow him whole, and the only bodies pressed close were the ones who had come in together. A place for drinking, not for the company of strangers, which suited him just fine, because he had decided—resolutely, stubbornly—that hookups were not in his cards. He just wanted a drink.
At first, he’d thought it was an anomaly. An unfortunate alignment of stars placing you in his path just like it had the first time, as if you hadn’t tormented him enough. He didn’t believe in fate, too rational, too familiar with the staggering predictability of human error to entertain the notion of grand design. No, it couldn’t be you. A trick of the light. A doppelgänger, maybe.
But then you looked up, caught him staring, and your lips parted first with surprise, eyes full saucers, and then split with something suspiciously welcoming.
“Well!” You called, lifting your drink in a friendly salute. “I guess you do have a friend after all.”
Higuruma blinked. And then, before he could think better of it, sighed and took the seat beside you.
That night had been awkward in a way neither of you acknowledged, two actors stumbling through the second act of a play that had never quite finished its first. But the script came back quickly. The rhythm found itself. And he almost didn’t recognize you.
You didn’t play with him: the flirtatious foil you wielded at your first meeting was sheathed, and in its place you held a white flag. No games: you already considered it lost. No expectations: you considered his interest depleted. The sultry air about you was gone, but somehow the version of you he sat with that evening was even more beguiling.
Still friendly, not because you wanted him but because you wanted him. You spoke like you were old friends, not mere acquaintances with a brief and strange history. You made him comfortable enough to stay until he couldn’t justify lingering anymore, but still he was loath to leave as the clock struck midnight.
And when he left, alone just as he had the first time, there was something unfamiliar nestled beneath his breastbone. Not obtrusive and not in the way. Just… there, quiet and benign.
And then it happened again. And again.
He reasoned it was a coincidence. That bars were finite and he was predictable. But as the weeks stretched on, as your conversations bled from one meeting to the next without missing a beat, he could no longer pretend this was random.
The pattern was an accident until it wasn’t. It became something neither of you mentioned but both understood, until “see you next week” became synonymous for goodbye. Twice was chance. Three times, deliberate. And now, what did that make four and five? Habit?
Higuruma wasn’t a man given to fanciful thinking, but he was a man of logic and precedent. And precedent told him that this wasn’t normal. That it shouldn’t be this easy to fall into a routine outside of his normal footways.
He had his routines, he was comfortable in them, an old dog could learn new tricks but he had no desire to sit or roll over. And despite what every rational part of him insisted, you were beginning to look less like chance and an awful lot like certainty.
It wasn’t just the way you always seemed pleased to see him, but the way he’d begun expecting it. The way his eyes swept the room without thinking the second he entered, and how his muscles unknotted when he spotted you, perched in your usual spot, waiting but not waiting, and how a smile would brighten your face when you noticed him walking to you as quickly as he could without tripping over himself like an overeager puppy.
Somewhere along the way, his occasional desperation-driven crawls to the bar became habitual too. What were once monthly visits became weekly visits, and if anyone were close enough to him then maybe they’d be concerned about a budding development of alcoholism, but it wasn’t the drink he was drunk on.
It was this.
The simple joy of having something in his life that wasn’t an obligation but something he wanted.
With you, there were no buried landmines, no careful maneuvering or bomb squad precision required. You never made him feel like he was performing, never measured his words against an invisible rubric, because you had seen him from the start and you still looked anyway.
You knew what he was. An exhausted man, a woeful introvert burned out from playing extrovert all day. And with you, he didn’t have to keep up the act. He could slump over the bar, curl his posture, and snarl grievances into an ear that always stayed softer than his words.
You balanced sly barbs with sincerity so effortlessly it often made his head spin, catching him off guard in ways he hadn’t been caught in years. He was used to being the one reading people, dissecting them like puzzles to be solved, but you weren’t a puzzle at all.
You told him about your cat with a death wish who had a penchant for climbing curtains, and how you once moved across the world on a whim and sometimes felt the urge to do it again. That you thought the best movies were the ones that ended a little unsatisfactorily, and you were a menace when drunk and picked ridiculous hills to die on: like whether aliens had already made contact, or whether time travel could ever be ethical.
And in return, you learned about him too. You knew he hated mustard, and that he always carried two pens because he was the kind of person who lost them constantly, despite how meticulous he was about everything else. That he only speaks to his mother three times a year: on her birthday, on his, and on Christmas. That he’d once cracked a tooth on a popcorn kernel and now, without thinking, he always chewed gingerly on the left side.
He’d never offered any of it freely, but you had a way of coaxing things out of him that he never even considered to be of consequence until you smiled and encouraged him on.
Rain or shine, you’d be there. He knew you when his suit was wet from the rain and no umbrella, watching the shadows of raindrops slide down your shoulder as they raced outside an adjacent window; and he knew you when snow started to fall, blanketing the pavement in white with you bundled in his coat wrapped snug around your shoulders.
At some point, he couldn’t pinpoint when, the bartender stopped asking if they wanted separate tabs, and he started choosing darker shirts on Fridays—ones that wouldn’t show the inevitable splash of your lipstick when you hugged him goodbye.
And Higuruma still didn’t believe in fate.
But if he did, he’d think it was fucking with him.
Because no matter where the night ended, it always seemed to begin with you.
And tonight came at the tail end of one of those days.
The kind that left teeth marks in his patience, gnawed him down to marrow, stripped him of anything soft and spit out only the brittle, splintered remains. Hours in court, arguing a case he should have won—had won, if the world wasn’t built on loopholes and technicalities and the smug, self-assured handshakes of men who never had to fear the consequences of their actions.
A man who deserved to walk free had instead been led away in cuffs. And Higuruma could only stand by while the prosecution clapped each other on their backs, beaming over a win they’d stolen through a well-timed procedural roadblock. Nausea curled thick and acrid in his gut, the taste of injustice so familiar by now it hardly warranted a grimace.
But tonight, something in him had shifted.
It wasn’t just bitterness. It wasn’t just exhaustion.
It was rage. Hot, visceral fury that darkened his vision at the edges while he shook hands and accepted condolences like he was the one who had lost something, when the man behind those mahogany doors was the only one who would go to sleep in a cell tonight.
Higuruma had walked out of that courthouse itching.
To fight. To burn it all down. To throw something hard against the wall just to hear it break. He thought briefly that maybe he should’ve been the one in cuffs, because he was ready and willing to do something monstrous. If justice would not be served, he would be its sword and gavel and mete it out himself.
Instead, he’d come here.
Because it was Friday.
And no matter how long the week, no matter what fresh hell he’d had to wade through to get there, Friday meant you.
His grip on the door handle was tight when he stepped inside, flinging open the brassy door which clattered under his urgency. He found himself bracing against the possibility that tonight, of all nights, would be the one you weren’t there.
His gaze swept the room, fevered and searching, drinking in the dim haze of liquor-warmed bodies, the languid lull of conversation, the flickering hush of candlelight in lowball glasses until he found you.
Something inside him fractured with relief.
You looked up before he could move or his presence could be confirmed by anything as mundane as sound or sight—gravitational certainty clicking into place. The axis tilted. The inevitable collision loomed.
A smile started to form until your gaze traveled down, catching the undone knot of his tie, the disarray in his collar, the exhaustion pressed into the delicate creases around his eyes. Your expression dimmed.
And God help him, your concern filled him with a selfish pleasure he had no right to feel.
His stride devoured distance, any distance that would’ve kept him from you, driven by rankled recklessness into something cataclysmic, balancing the knife's edge of too much and he didn’t care over which side he fell.
You didn’t have time to turn fully before he was on you, his forehead pressing heavy into the curve of your shoulder, a groan, low and frayed, rumbling from deep in his chest, arms wound tight around your waist.
The force of him checked itself, urgency tempered. Where desperation drove him to crush you, as if the breaking of your pieces would produce the material to mend his own, he instead softened, reeling awareness back to himself with the pinprick narrowing of his eyes, fingers curled tight into the cotton of your sweater where he clung like a limpet.
His breath smoothed out as he exhaled against your throat, chin hooked over your shoulder. Eyes hardened and battle-weary slipped into heavy placidity, a conscious sinking rather than crashing, seeking out the soft shores that would smooth his entry into safe harbor; the warpath surrendered rather than succumbed.
A shuddering release, a tether unspooled and rolled up neater. He hadn’t just found you, he was letting himself—hoping to be—found, just before tipping over the precipice of something he didn’t think he could come back from.
The force of him unsteadied you, his weight bone-deep, pleading, arms locking around you like a drowning man.
“Oh—”
You gasped, startled but not unwelcome, your hands drifted down to hold his forearms, your body catching him as much as he ensnared you.
The tension in your frame bled out as you melted into him, your head tipping back onto his shoulder, an unspoken surrender that sent a shudder down his spine. He felt your breath, warm and steady, stirring the disheveled strands of hair by his ear, felt the rise and fall of your breath through your back, the rhythm of it grounding, lulling, undoing.
You smelled nice.
You always did, and he always noticed. He noticed it when you leaned in too close with a joke, or when you shrugged his coat over your shoulders, and when he got home at the end of the night and still caught traces of you on his sleeves.
A weaker man might’ve burned his coat just to rid himself of the evidence, but him? No, he was far worse.
He’d stand by the door some nights, fingers curling into the lapels, lifting them to his face and dragging in a breath deep enough to hurt like some lovelorn parishioner taking communion.
You chuckled, slipping a hand up into his hair, fingers threading through the strands, nails scraping light against his scalp. A shudder ripped down his spine, his eyes falling shut as he sighed into you, an old, weary dog curling into warmth. His arms tightened around you to keep himself from falling over.
“Poor baby,” you crooned, teasing but downy soft, softer than he figured he deserved.
He should let you go. A loaded thought, in more ways than one. He should release you, both from his arms and from the unhealthy dependence he’d let weave its way into his life.
But then again—
It wasn’t that bad, was it? If he’d replaced one vice with another? If he reached for you instead of a cigarette, if he found himself less addicted to nicotine and more addicted to the sound of your voice, or the way you looked at him, or how you always made things feel better, or— yeah, he was addicted.
But he hadn’t smoked in a month which was a month longer than he’d been clean in the last eight years. He could argue codependency could be cleansing, couldn’t he?
If he was going to break the habit, it wouldn’t be tonight.
He inhaled deeply, pulling you into his lungs, before finally peeling himself away, shoulders slumping as he sank onto the stool beside you. Immediately, he dropped his face into his hands, fingers pressing hard against his eyes.
You’d seen Higuruma after bad days before. He didn’t hide them well, never had. But tonight was different.
You studied him, tracing the open collar of his shirt with buttons undone, the way his tie hung limp and dead like it had been yanked loose the moment he could. You caught the way his fingers curled, flexed, like he was fighting the urge to clench them into fists.
“Bad day?”
“Something like that.”
You nodded slowly. “Wanna talk about it?”
He stewed on it, jaw tight. He could, and he knew you’d listen the way you always did. You’d nod, you’d tilt your head in that way you did when you were really hearing him, you’d let your own frustration flare up on his behalf, let your teeth flash when you called it bullshit in that sharp, biting way that always made him laugh despite himself.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because honesty wouldn’t just be about today. It would be about you. About why he had really come here, why he had reached for you like instinct, why the thought of spending the night not being here, not being with you, had been intolerable.
He wasn’t just used to this routine of yours now; this time, it just wasn’t enough. And if he were honest—with you, with himself—it never really had been. Not on the first night, not on the second, not on the fifth, and especially not tonight.
His fingers dragged down his face, sighing as he turned to you fully. “Honestly?” His pulse thrummed in his ribs where he felt the sharp warning dig of don’t do it, his throat tightened. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t do it. He can’t do it—
“I don’t want to be here.”
Your lips pursed before they softened back into a smile, your eyebrows lowering sympathetically. “Well… for what it’s worth, I’d have missed you if you didn’t come.” You admitted and oh, Higuruma really wished you hadn’t.
“What’re you doing here then? I’d have understood if you just went home, if you had a bad day…”
He hesitated.
And it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? How his stomach twisted and his throat went dry and cracked and hurt, and this part felt like it should be so much easier. He’d spent the last month in the palm of your gentle hand, let you pry him open piece by piece without ever realizing it was happening with lockpick and ice pick alike. And yet—
This felt like a leap.
This was the natural conclusion of the first act. The unsatisfactory ending that had been retconned, rewritten months later into something unfinished and still waiting to happen.
He smiled. Thought he did, anyway, but he didn’t feel his face move, couldn’t feel anything save for the cold adrenaline-hopped pounding of his heart as it tried to flee his body.
“I wanted to see you.”
Your expression warmed, a splash of color blooming across the bridge of your nose.
He swallowed. “And…” His voice cracked, quieter now, rougher. He cleared his throat. “To ask you to come home with me.”
The breath in his lungs locked tight in tandem with yours, the slow rise and fall of your shoulders freezing.
“Since I really would rather be home, but… I’d rather be there with ah—with you.”
Silence.
Then—
Slow and unhurried, your smile widened.
Higuruma’s stomach soared.
He was so fucking done for.
He’d gotten in the cab in a daze, hardly daring to look away from you, much less relinquish his grip on your hand. His fingers tangled with yours, tendons pulled taut, knuckles blanched white where they bridged the gulf of the backseat. He held your closed fist against his thigh, where the restless twitch of his leg betrayed the nerves sparking through his veins like wildfire.
You weren’t faring much better. The passing streetlamps carved fleeting, fevered impressions of you into his retinas; the curve of your lips, the flush licking up your throat, the jittery flicker of your gaze as it skittered away, then back, then away again. Every time it returned, it came with that small, demure smile that he had no interest in trying to reciprocate.
The ascent to his apartment was a blur of clumsy haste. Two stairs at a time, his hand pressing soft but impatient against the small of your back to herd you left, then right, then around the corner.
His keys rattled in his trembling fingers, slipped once, hit the floor. You giggled—high and pink-hued, like champagne bubbles bursting at the rim of a glass. Had you been drinking? He didn’t think so; he couldn’t smell it on you, but maybe he’d taste it—
The door swung open, barely, before he spun you against it, kicking it shut on the same breath he sealed his mouth over yours.
No, you hadn’t been drinking.
Higuruma’s hand shot out, bracing the back of your skull before it could meet the wood, his palm a buffer between you and impact. The moment slowed just enough for him to feel the way your breath hitched, the sharp little intake before his fingers curled into your hair, before he tilted his head and deepened the kiss. Half-dazed, like he still couldn’t believe this was really happening.
You, in his home. You, kissing him back like you meant it, fingers slipping beneath his collar, fumbling with the buttons in desperate, uncoordinated tugs.
His other hand traced the line of your spine, fingers pressing into each divot of vertebrae, urging you closer. But then it drifted, restless—up between your shoulder blades where your muscles pinched together; down, over the slope of your waist; everywhere and nowhere, greedy, utterly lost in what to do with you.
And you laughed.
“You’re shaking,” whispered through victoriously bared teeth, a giddy grin against his lips that Higuruma couldn’t help but reciprocate, delivering a playful nip to the plush lower lip against his incisors—a compromise to the firmer tug he itched to give.
He exhaled a breath of laughter, pulled back just enough to lift a trembling hand horizontally between your faces, fingers twitching from wrist to fingertip, eyes wide and feverish. “Maybe ah—just a little.”
Then, sheepish but unrelenting, that same hand cupped your jaw, tilting you up to meet him again. Because for all his nerves, he wasn’t done tasting you yet.
His lips slanted over yours, his tongue a bold sweep against your lower lip, and you met him with the same urgency, because hadn’t you always? Maybe never like this, but you’d learned the language of Higuruma in a different dialect—navigating the sway of barstools and the clumsy tangle of drunk limbs, stepping in sync down rain-slicked sidewalks, his hand polite at the small of your back to steer you clear of potholes and broken concrete. You had moved together for weeks, months—two celestial bodies caught in an orbit of their own making, drawn inexorably closer by gravity or lust or lov—curiosity.
Yes, it must be that.
Perhaps it was no surprise that this came as second nature. That when his hands slid down, skimming your waist before tightening possessive at your hips—when he hauled you against him and groaned into your mouth like he’d been starving for you—your body simply followed. That when his palms smoothed lower still, fingers digging into the plush curve of your ass, you felt the precise moment he decided.
And when he lifted you—when you gasped and synchronized your upward hop and locked your legs around his waist, ankles hooking at the small of his back—you decided too a long time ago. He’d just finally caught up.
He lurched down the hall with you, the path illuminated by muscle memory and the dull, ambient glow from the city bleeding through the blinds. You wondered, absently, how many nights he’d made this same trek under far different circumstances—staggering home from long hours, from longer cases, from cigarettes burned down to the filter on cold walks back from nowhere. But now his footing faltered for a different reason entirely, the weight of you shifting against him, pressing in, urging him deeper into the dark.
You peeled away from his mouth, chasing the warmth of him elsewhere—tracing the corner of his lips with the tip of your tongue, then lower to the dimple that had teased you for weeks, there and gone in a flicker of wry amusement, now yours to claim. The scrape of his jaw followed and you sought to carve yourself into it, dragging your mouth over the bristled edge until your tongue laved at the hinge and you felt a shudder rack through him like a fault line cracking.
He groaned, stumbling sideways, bracing himself against the wall with a heavy thud. His grip on you tightened, hands sliding impatiently down, then settling with a punishing squeeze of your ass, fingers roughly dimpling the flesh.
“I’m going to trip and kill us both,” he warned, voice ragged but trembling with something perilously close to laughter.
“Bedroom, Hiromi.” Your arm looped tighter around his shoulders, fingers slipping into his hair, nails raking just enough to make him jerk. You sealed your mouth to his throat, chasing the frantic pulse of the vein there, and when you finally latched your lips around it, sucked—
The noise that broke from him was wounded, a guttural gasp, part grunt, part whimper, his entire body seizing under the force of it. He nearly lost his hold on you, staggered against the wall again, his breath punching out in a sharp wheeze.
“Fuck—okay, okay we’re walking,” he managed, stumbling forward in a blind, desperate beeline toward the bedroom before he lost what little sense remained.
He used your back to push open the door, shuffling forward until his knees met the edge of his mattress where he dropped you. Not intentionally, of course, but he never claimed to be the strongest man, and a controlled descent was marginally less embarrassing than tripping headlong onto the bed with you.
You bounced once with a surprised squeak at the sudden lawyer-assisted gravity check, then laughed over the muttered ‘sorry’ that rumbled from the dark.
But it hardly mattered, because the second Higuruma’s hands were free, they were on you again, chasing the warmth he’d lost for half a second too long.
There was no ceremony, no pretense of grace—his urgency eclipsed everything else. His fingers found the hem of your shirt, bunched and yanked it over your head in a single graceless motion, the fabric vanishing somewhere behind him in the void of the room. He was already moving, already chasing you up the bed with the slow, insistent press of his hips, urging you backward until the headboard stopped you.
And then you were both grappling, tugging, and undoing.
His fingers hooked into your pants and yours dove for his tie, worked into the loosened knot and yanked it free, letting it slither away like a discarded leash. Next came the buttons of his shirt—one by one, popping free beneath your nails. Your hands followed the movement downward, skating over the crease of his collarbone, the ridges of his ribs, the flat, firm plane of his stomach as you shucked the open garment from his body.
He wasn’t built for show, wasn’t sculpted into the broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped frame of an effortless heartbreaker. He was lean, fit in a way that felt practical, arms strong from lifting boxes of manilla folders instead of weights, a dark smattering of hair dusting his chest, trailing down the center of his stomach to disappear beneath his belt. He wasn’t imposing or even particularly polished—and god, you wanted him.
It wasn’t some vague, floaty kind of attraction, either.
It was gnawing, aching, restless. A twist of want low in your belly, a feral little part of you that said this was yours, something that made your nails dig in a little harder when you threw his shirt aside and dragged him back down to you.
Your stomach twitched where his pressed against it, instinct warring with want, the heat of him searing into you like a brand, nerves fraying beneath the surface of your blood-rushed skin. Your body betrayed you in shivers, in the thin, winding breaths that stuttered from your lips as adrenaline tangled with something heavier. A slow-burning ache, a pulling tide. And you—marooned beneath him, the lighthouse and the lost ship all at once, beacon and wreckage, your fingers curling into his shoulders as though they might anchor you.
Higuruma hovered, his gaze trailing the contours of you with the same reverence his hands would soon follow. The hollow of your throat, the glint of saliva catching in the dim light as you swallowed, your chest rising and falling, your lacy bra doing nothing to conceal the softness of your breasts, the way your pert nipples peaked at the chill or the anticipation or both. The dip of your waist, the plush give of your stomach, the swell of your hips, thick and welcoming and overflowing the elastic of your panties, thighs pressed together in a way that made his mouth water. He could live there, bury himself there for hours, die there if he could—
Fuck, you were somehow more beautiful than he’d ever imagined.
His fingers curled at your sides, thumbs tracing the curve where waist met hip, salvation and starvation winding so tightly in his chest he could hardly tell the difference between them.
He followed the slope of your ribs with his mouth, fingers following suit, tracing their gaps and sinews, not skimming or skirting or rushing past the touching, he wanted to map you, to relearn the topography of desire with your body. His palms spread wide over the breadth of your thighs, squeezing into the softness like he could stamp his gratitude there.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re fucking perfect.”
Higuruma pushed up, nuzzling into the valley between your breasts to press a kiss to your sternum, then traced his way downward, dragging his lips in slow, reverent succession. A trail of petals laid in heat against your skin, his tongue dipping briefly into the shallow pool of your navel. His hands slid beneath your thighs, curling over their plush expanse with an eager grip, pulling you closer.
"Want to know something embarrassing?"
You watched him in the low light, his dark head inching lower, his breath panting soft shivers along your skin. The sight alone had your pulse clawing at the walls of your chest, a frantic, hummingbird beat rattling and railing against its cage. You propped yourself up on your elbows, breath coming short. "What?"
"I've thought about this a lot," Higuruma confessed, lips grazing your knee. He kissed the other, fingers tightening where they kneaded into your thighs, gently coaxing them apart.
"The first night we met, of course," another kiss, deeper now, just inside the tender skin of your knee. "A few times between then and the second..." His fingers skimmed higher, dragging up the curve of your legs like he would memorize them blind.
Higuruma thrilled at how easily they fell open for him, how sweetly you bared yourself.
"Every time after that too, actually," he said, littering open-mouthed kisses along the inside of one thigh, then the other. His voice was rough and thick, something that weighed heavy on the tongue that dared lower and lower and lower. "Never stopped thinking about you. And this. Doing this—" His lips hovered just shy of the damp patch in the sheer lace—absolutely useless as a garment now. “You made me come every time.”
His fingers dipped beneath the edge of your underwear, easing them down, the unveiling of this most holy of places far slower than the clawing and tearing of before. His eyes caught and hung on yours, bright and gleaming in the dark that painted your body in muted gradients and shades of monochrome—you were still the most vivid thing in the room—quite possibly his entire life, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say.
Wet and glistening in the low light, your thighs draped over his elbows, your pussy splayed open before him like something sacramental meant to be revered. Higuruma felt his mouth go dry, contradictory to the saliva pooling beneath his tongue. His eyelids drooped and melted with the anticipatory blush that kindled across his face. The scent of you filled his lungs, heady and intoxicating, both sedative and stimulant, turning his blood to magma.
He swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat. His fingers twitched with renewed tremors as they dragged lower, pressing into the softness of your inner thighs, thumbs spreading you wider, baring you completely to his hungry gaze.
And oh, he sighed, wistful and wanting to see how your hips rolled and stomach concaved with held breath. This need of his had festered, unchecked and untreated ever since he opened that cab door for you and let you go.
You were too good for him then. But it was different now, wasn't it?
It wasn’t just about sex now—it was about you, in a way it wouldn’t have been back then.
And he could prove himself worthy.
He could be cleaner, better, someone who could be held and kept, like the first creature to crawl out of the woods and deemed fit for domestication. You had let him into your orbit, let him sit close in your incendiary glow and be warmed by you, the pitiful creature that he was that night. And he could worship you, pious and thankful at your altar until he changed shape entirely, molded by your boundless patience and fashioned into something of use to you.
He could earn you.
You barely had time to process the suggestive rasp of the day's stubble scraping your skin before his mouth dipped lower, his tongue drawing a thin, exploratory stripe through your slit.
Your lips parted in a wet gasp, then muzzled by your teeth closing around your lower lip. He paused, the briefest moment where you thought he hesitated or changed his mind, only for his fingers to tighten their iron grip and drag you harder onto his mouth.
Months.
He’d spent months sitting next to you, drinking yourselves silly every Friday like clockwork, when this was between your legs all along? When he could’ve been drunk on you?
His eyes fluttered, conflicted by the need to keep them open and watch your face as your elbows wobbled and collapsed and your back flattened to his bed, or to let his eyes close and truly savor the taste of you on his tongue.
Slow blinks would suffice. Darkness, bliss and ambrosia only heightening the flavorful flavorlessness of you, then open, you bisected in orange from a streetlight slat sliced straight across your belly. You were always orange.
The needle point of his tongue flattened, a broad unhurried stroke from bottom to top, grinding over your clit in casual cruelty just to watch how you arched for him, the bend and bow of your spine and ripple of your thighs under his hands. His eyes slid open to watch it happen. Satisfied, they closed again when he lapped at you once more, savaging his face from side to side, lathering his tongue between your folds with a brutalized groan.
The sound that tore from your throat was breathless, the fractured gasp crackling between you, and when your mouth curled into something closer to a laugh—disbelief—he nearly preened. You, dazed and stunned that this was happening finally, and further, that he was any good at it.
He buried himself into you until the only thing that stopped him was the bent cartilage of his nose—no less a tool than his tongue as his mouth opened wider, the obscene splash of your arousal made to flow straight down his throat with the persuasive fucking of his tongue, his nose grinding firmly into your clit in a way that made your toes curl.
Your fingers clenched the sheets in desperate handfuls, nails digging into fabric like an anchor, but Higuruma wasn’t having that. He pulled back for a breath, imparting a flat and quick lick to your spit-slick cunt just long enough to rasp: “No. No—” his hands shot up, prying your grip from the bedding with firm insistence. “Not th’fuckin’ sheets—”
Your hands barely had the time to register the loss of their grip before he smacked them roughly upon the back of his head. “You pull on my hair,” he grumbled, muffled and slurred before his mouth was back on you, lips sealing around the hard pearl of your clit with a sudden, hard suck.
You howled, fingers digging deep into his roots. You were sure you’d find black strands under your nails come morning. But you did as you were told, yanking him down as your hips involuntarily bucked upward, grinding into his mouth. “Hiromi!”
His name had never sounded so sweet as it did painted by your breathless moan. He wished he could bottle it, save it for later…
Higuruma jerked off to the memory of that first cry of his name for years.
“Fuck-yes, jus’like that… keep goin’ jus’like that—” he encouraged.
His cock strained against the zipper of his slacks, aching and neglected for far longer than just tonight. The barrier of his briefs did nothing to protect from the bitter bite of the metal, and he hissed trying not to focus on the discomfort in his groin and instead on every little noise you made, what caused your thighs to spread wider and what made them clamp around his ears.
But he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think. He just couldn’t enjoy you the way you deserved to be enjoyed when he was so hard it fucking hurt.
Clinking metal and rasping leather played a poignant soundtrack to the obscene sucking of his mouth as he yanked, tugging his belt free of the loops, fingers shaking as he wrenched his zipper down with a damning zzrrt!
Finally relief—he gasped for air, his hips jerking forward instinctively clamoring to bury himself inside you as the unbearable pressure gave way to something almost manageable.
You watched enraptured, breath caught high in your mouth, full and gasping on air that never made it down to your lungs. Your already frantic pulse skipped at least three beats when his hand disappeared into his slacks, a soft, helpless whimper dripping from your lips. Higuruma felt how you tensed and quivered over his shoulders and fuck, knowing you were watching nearly ended him embarrassingly quick against his belly.
He adjusted himself, cock pointed up toward his navel and pinned flush beneath the band of his briefs but his hand had a mind of its own. His fingers wrapped around himself, tight and lubricated with your arousal, and he stroked just once—twice, three times—quick and desperate, his thumb sweeping over the swollen head with a breathy moan muffled only by his tongue buried deep in your cunt.
But he stopped there. His focus back where it belonged when you squirmed, your shoulder blades pinching together to arch your back off the bed, gasping your wordless warning to the ceiling. Higuruma's hand left himself immediately, looping back over your thigh to keep you still, desperation renewed to do good enough for you.
God, if he could make you come on his mouth he’d die a happy man, never ask for anything ever again, he’d have accomplished all he needed to anyway—
You yanked at the roots of his hair, grinding against his face, butting against his nose in a grand departure from the composure you’d clung to as your vision popped and undulated. “—don’t stop, please don’t stop—pleasepleasepleaseplease…” you chanted your desperate litany of pleas, and Higuruma knew there was not a force on earth that could part him from you.
He focused his attention on your clit, suctioning and grinding up-down-up-down with his tongue—at the same moment he bunched his index and middle finger, bundled tight and dragging them through the mess of his spit and bluntly drove them into you. He set a brutal pace, the obscene wet schlick of his fingers almost drowning out the needy moan of his own making as he rutted against the mattress.
“—you got it… right there, I’gotchu—”
His aim may not have been perfect, but it was enough. A final cry, a curl of his fingers, and your thighs snapped tight around his head so fast it was a miracle he still had one.
But what left him reeling wasn’t survival, it was the way you arched, fingers tangled in his hair, holding him there to take what you needed as he dragged you fractious and feral and drunk through your orgasm.
He worked you through it, thorough and slow and methodical in how he indulged himself. His fingers stilled but did not retract, and his tongue softened in savoring strokes, slow and calming but his chest squeezed. Rain clouds sprung heavy and wet his eyes, a suspicious teary shine making his throat stick.
One hand squeezed and massaged your thigh, while the other slipped from you and smoothed up your stomach with a grounding pressure over your ribs, holding you together while your chest heaved, and not even the dark could disguise the rosy glow in your throat. He’d done that. Done that to you, for you, and he was grateful that you’d even let him try.
“Stay with me, sweetheart.”
He rasped the words into you, heavy and congested. His lips followed, pressing a parting kiss to your clit before he reluctantly sat back on his heels, unaware of the tenderness that had slipped loose with his breath. He wasn’t sure if he meant conscious or forever.
You were weightless, floaty and elysian, lingering in that hazy blur at the fringes of reality where your body was warm and your brain was blessedly quiet. You managed a nod and a dazed smile. Eventually you evened, and when you finally opened your eyes, Higuruma was already watching.
He’d moved above you now, braced on a forearm beside your pillow—your pillow he thought, smitten, if you’d only take it—his face flushed and damp, doused in your slick from chin to cheek, lips swollen from the ruin he’d built of you. He looked wrecked and utterly flustered, with his messy hair and watery eyes.
“Still with me?” He asked, cupping your cheek to brush his thumb beneath your eye to snick away a teary streak racing to your hairline. Devastatingly tender, he cataloged each blink of your lashes up at him, felt the stir of your breath to sync his own.
Your breath crackled into an unsteady chuckle. “Barely.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, warring between a grin and besotted relief. He dipped down and pressed a sloppy kiss to your temple. Then another to the opposite side.
“Good,” he murmured. “I’m glad.”
His kisses bloomed across your skin, drowsy and unhurried, and you giggled, hoarse and breathless, turning your face away in a futile escape from his affectionate assault. But he followed.
Only when your face was nearly as damp as his he finally relented, forehead dropping heavily against your cheek, and you finally turned back, tucking your nose into his hair, burrowing close with a playful back-and-forth nuzzle-nudge.
“Thank you.”
Higuruma hummed, sedated and sated by the scent of your skin and the taste of you on his tongue. “For?”
“...That.”
He scoffed, drawing back just enough to narrow his eyes at you, shaking his head, firm and resolute. “Don’t thank me.” He kissed you before you could protest, stealing the words from your tongue. “Not for that. Never for that.”
You laughed against his lips, soft and sticky and uncoordinated, your mouth pressing into his like you weren’t quite sure how to shape words anymore. “Okay…but still—”
“No.”
“—still—”
“No.”
Another kiss, deeper this time to shush you, lips parting just enough for his tongue to slip past yours—teasing, curling, coaxing, like he could tempt the breath right out of your lungs. He shared the taste of you, because to him, there was no greater gift he could give.
You were warm beneath his bare chest, soft where he was hard in every sense. Your arms looped around his neck, fingers light on his nape, and you sighed against his mouth; gratitude imparted not in words but in the slow, melting press of your lips, where you could sneak it in unchallenged.
Your leg shifted, your toes scrunched against the back of his calf, and he followed, settling more heavily over you, because any inch of his skin not touching yours was space wasted. And as always, you moved with him, tandem-tied to synchronicity, habit and routine, a rhythm already written into your bodies long before tonight.
His hips met yours in an unconscious grind, and his breath snagged.
“…Do you…”
His lips barely parted from yours before his train of thought shattered, derailed entirely by the roll of your hips—a shift so slight, so innocent it may have been accidental—Higuruma’s brow pinched, the muscles in his forearms twitching where they braced above you.
“Do you still want this?”
A stupid question, and you made that clear in the bemused flare of your nostrils and deadpan lift of your brow. As if you would’ve stopped wanting him after that, like you’d scurry back into your clothes and leave right then and there.
“You?” You scoffed, breath warm against his mouth where he hovered, spellbound and hung on every word. “Yeah. I want you. ‘Course I want you.”
Higuruma’s sanity wobbled on its last legs, and he just barely managed to lock his elbows before he’d crumble into you. ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘You really don’t have to, there’s no pressure, I don’t mind, we can stop if you’d prefer’, all excuses and absolutions that immediately burst to his tongue. But they didn’t get far.
Your mouth returned to his, and now it was your tongue that coaxed his to silence before self doubt could sabotage.
It was a tough pill to swallow, even with your holistic husbandry. Doubt and deprecation had long been his bedfellows, an endemic entity in the ecosystem of his psyche. But your hands were gentle, not lancing old wounds but soothing them as you smoothed down his back, tight and knotted muscles shuddering beneath your fingertips, and he groaned when you dug in a little harder, working out a kink you’d found either by chance or some preternatural sense for his discomfort.
His breath rattled through his teeth as he broke the kiss with a final, fleeting peck, lips clinging for a second longer, reluctant to part from you. But he moved, because hesitation would be cowardice, and he refused to be a coward with you anymore.
He was forceful in how he lifted his hips and shoved his slacks and briefs lower, not letting himself think about it, kicking them free like he couldn’t stand the sensation on his over-sensitive skin a second longer. His cock flushed dark against his stomach, swollen so stiff it didn’t even move once deprived of support.
Your gaze slithered down his body, serpentine and glinting.
A gossamer veil descended over your pupils, hunger threading its fingers through your irises, curling into something that sent off a quiet danger! alarm in the rational part of his brain…but his other head transmuted the warning into pure oxygen, fueling the inferno of his lust.
It had been so long since anyone looked at him like that—had anyone ever looked at him like that? No. He didn’t think so. Not like he was a soft thing for you to sink your teeth into, to bite and never let go and devour him down to the pulp in his bones.
He almost laughed—his shaky breath fleeing to safety in a shuddering woosh—you were special. You would ruin him if he let you… and he would let you. You already had.
“One second,” he promised.
The drawer of his nightstand rattled as he wrenched it open, fingers skimming frantic and fluttering over his old watch, a few loose and crumpled receipts, the stiff spine of a forgotten book, and—
There.
A box—the box—of condoms. Unopened.
Bought months ago and placed atop the stand like a staggish monument, hubristic in his certainty that they would be used that night. Purchased with an itch in his blood and a desperation that whittled him down to that once craven creature seeking some anemic facsimile of intimacy.
But after that night, after you, the itch changed shape. No longer an abstract craving but a single-pointed ache, refined and sharpened to something specific. You, laughing over your drink. You, meeting his eyes like you saw through him. You, a storm and a hearthfire all at once, wreaking havoc on the solitude he’d chosen for himself and offering the brand of intimacy he’d all but decided he couldn’t afford.
It had been a long time. Too long. The realization struck like ice water poured over his head—fuck, what if he was shit at this? What if after months of wanting and self-denial and stringing you along you left his bed feeling disappointed and underwhelmed?
His fingers fumbled against the cardboard, nails catching at the plastic seal, but his nail slipped. Stupid. So fucking stupid, his hands were unsteady, breath shallow, the seal crinkling under his touch as he pried and clawed and come on, come on—
“You okay?”
His head snapped toward you, already defensive, scowling with hackles raised and bracing for some kind of judgment, he was floundering before he even got started.
But you were there, stretched languid and supine against his sheets, hips tilted just so, one arm above your head, lazy and patient and waiting for him. A slow smile curved your lips, softness dampening your gaze. The same look you’d given him across a bar table, the same look you gave him when you listened to his shitty days with a patience saints would envy.
That look could undo a man.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling. “I’m fine.” He made an effort to temper himself when he looked at you again, to erode his edges down to a smoother albeit sheepish smile.
“Packaging’s a scam.”
No, he’s just panicking.
You laughed. The movement was effortless, sinuous as you rolled onto your knees, thighs parting, muscles flexing with the shift of weight, graceful and poised; the tremors that still twitched beneath your skin only made him salivate more. The low light caught on the sheen of sweat caressing your curves like a lover's hand, tracing the soft bend of your stomach, gilded your skin like something ethereal, diaphanous and not made for mortal hands.
“Cmere,” you crooked your finger.
The box crumpled in his grip like tissue paper, his knuckles bone white as the flimsy package yielded to the force of his fist. Relief could’ve made him cry as he clawed through the remains, tearing at foil, fumbling for a packet with shaking fingers while the rest spilled onto the floor.
He rolled the latex over his cock with a wince, his head falling back with a pained grunt at the aching pleasure wrought by his own hand, his thighs flexed with the effort of not fucking into his palm like he immediately wanted to do.
He turned and gathered you, all at once, clumsy and desperate like if he didn’t touch you right then he might lose his nerve entirely.
His hands slid under your thighs, hauling you closer, up and over his hips which fell neatly between your own. He crowded into your space, no hesitation left to him now, no pauses to collect himself, his need laid bare and shaking spurring him forward.
Higuruma’s mouth crashed into yours, and you met him with equal fervor. With forearms bracketing your shoulders, weight warm and solid above you, he pressed into you and felt his breath shatter against your lips.
Stars streaked across his eyes, and there was a moment where Higuruma thought he might’ve died.
His head dropped to your shoulder, teeth catching on your shoulder with the need to bite down on something to keep from crumbling entirely.
He filled you with urgency, and didn’t stop until his pelvis ground against yours. With each thrust he told himself he could have this, and that you were special. He wanted to laugh at the sweet, reassuring nothings and praises you buried into his hair. And when your hand found his, clenched in the pillow beside your head, he held it tight—slammed it back down onto the pillow and hoped it would leave an indent forever.
And when you moaned his name again, he hissed yours like a reprimand.
It didn’t take long. It was never going to.
The tension snapped all at once, a low, helpless gasp wrenched from his throat as he folded over you, stiff and quivering, dampening your neck with humid, uneven breaths.
You held him. With your arm, your legs, your body, you held him and didn’t let go. Didn’t complain when the strength to hold himself together waned and he collapsed upon you fully, didn’t insist he move or clean up or let you go.
Higuruma let himself hold you, just as you held him. And somehow—impossibly—the intimacy of that surrender eclipsed that of any sex or orgasm that came before.
Moments passed. Minutes, hours, it could’ve been years, where his body went cool and sticky against yours; he didn’t move for fear of tearing it, undoing what fragile equilibrium he’d finally found. So he stayed heavy and unguarded, breath slowing in uneven stages while aftershocks ran through him in faint, involuntary tremors.
Your fingers traced idle patterns along his spine. Little circles, hearts, he thought he might’ve felt your name tattooed between his shoulders. This is the part where he would’ve expected you to leave.
Where you would slither out from under him, gather your clothes, and bid him goodnight while he went to sleep. Or where he would’ve run first, because he hated the sort of small talk that came as a side effect of these exchanges.
But Higuruma found he wasn’t bracing for that impact, wasn’t preparing to cut and bolt, and had to close his eyes against the soft brilliance of you when you eventually cracked a smile up at him.
“Hey,” you murmured.
He groaned in response, the sound low and contented. It occurred to you, distantly, that this may be the quietest you’d ever heard him—and for a man whose mouth was usually a reflection of his brain, you relished what that silence may mean.
“Where are your records at?”
One of his eyes cracked open. Then the other.
“Hm?”
“Your vinyl,” you clarified, still dazed and smiling. “Said you keep them in a closet.”
Higuruma exhaled through his nose, roughened between a scoff and an exhausted groan. His weight shifted, pressing you more firmly into the mattress as his hand slid up to cup your jaw, brushing the corner of your mouth with his thumb like he’d already forgotten what you were talking about.
“I don’t know,” he muttered and leaned down to kiss you.
It was lazy, unhurried and meant to derail you—he felt too good to ruin it with thinking, and it almost worked. You kissed him back, because of course you did, fingers curling into his hair, indulging in the warmth and solidity of him. But when he pulls away, just to burrow into your throat, satisfied like he’d successfully avoided a conversation, you laughed and scratched his neck.
“I’m serious,” you said. “Which closet?”
Higuruma frowned, brow scrunched as if you’d posed a genuinely difficult question. His gaze drifted to the ceiling, then toward the hall beyond the bedroom door, tracking the layout of his apartment in reverse of the mental map he’d never bothered to consult this closely.
“...Down the hall,” he said finally. “On the left…we passed it.”
“Mmm.” You nodded, then fell silent, and for once he felt no rush to fill it with whatever lackluster words he might come up with.
So silent, that Higuruma thought you might’ve fallen asleep…and though he did not feel obligated to fill your silences, he found himself unnerved, wanting you to speak and be as present with him as you had been before.
He pulled back to ask about this sudden line of inquiry, only to find you peering up at him.
“You should unpack them.”
And he sighed. The suggestion landed gently, without weight or expectation, but he stiffened just enough to feel it where your hand rested. His mouth opened, already forming some deflective response about ‘not having the time or space’ or ‘not knowing where to start’.
But you were special, Higuruma was quickly coming to accept. You know him well enough not to give him the chance.
“In the morning,” you added. “After breakfast.”
The future tense settled upon him like a blanket, and he found it strange. Not the concept, but the lack of hesitation with which he regarded it. And the knee-jerk reaction was not to refuse, but to kiss you again. And again a second time, where he finally said against your lips: “You don’t even know what’s in those boxes.”
“Vinyls, I assume.”
Higuruma hummed and tweaked your ear. “There could be bodies.”
“Sounds way more exciting,” you grinned.
And in between the lull of falling asleep, listening to distant cars outside his window, groggily arguing the merits of old records versus streaming, and warning you of the distinct possibility that he would in fact burn breakfast, he felt more at peace than he had in years.
He did not try to analyze that peace, and he did not interrogate it or demand justification for its existence. He simply let it exist, and allowed himself to exist within it.
Tomorrow did not seem so daunting a prospect, when the worst of it would be egregiously overcooking an omelette and being rewarded with your laughter.
