ᰔ toji upsets his girlfriend during an argument and tries to comfort her afterwards. ♡
꒰ cw/tags: established relationship, comfort, angst, fluff. ⋆˙⟡
a/n: request from anon! hope you enjoy <3
it was another one of those late nights again, where toji was out on one of his risky missions, leaving you to worry and stress in your shared apartment that felt empty and cold without his presence.
from the day you found out what exactly he “does for work” and how he manages to have so much money, you’ve made it clear that you were worried for his safety, hell— his sanity. there’s no way it was good for his mind, you thought. you would always try to encourage him to find something better, even if it meant less income.
but every time, he would soothingly shut you down with a few simple words: “i know what im doin', baby. don’t worry about me.” “it ain’t too bad.” “you know i’m always gonna come back to you, yeah?”
regardless of that, you never felt truly reassured, and it’s never quite led to an argument, but… tonight, things just seemed to overflow in your chest, and it all came out.
12:00AM, toji had just stepped into the apartment, gently closing the door with a soft click that seemed to strangely reverberate through the space. he immediately sensed tension, and he knew that tonight wasn’t going to be a quiet, peaceful one that he would’ve hoped for it to be.
“doll… i’m home. got ya your favorite snacks, too.” he calls out as he slides his shoes off and places the plastic bag of snacks on the entryway table, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looks around. “babe?”
“toji.” you addressed him quietly, making your presence known. you were sitting on the living room sofa, already in your pajamas, your expression filled with hurt, frustration, and worry. “you’re home late. again.”
he heavily sighs, taking a moment to think about what to say, before he slowly strides into the living room with you. you could see the dried up blood stains on his tight shirt, the bruising on his knuckles and joints from the extrusion and the strain of this mission.
“i know, im sorry babygirl.” he murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. “but you know im always gonna come back—“
you immediately interrupted him, “do i, toji? do i really know that?” you say with a slightly raised voice that even surprised you. toji’s eyebrows rose, he’s never seen you this worked up before. “when you say that, it never really helps, you know that, right?” you expressed with frustration, tears already misting in your eyes.
toji was taken aback for a moment, before quickly recovering, stepping closer to where you were sitting. “hey, calm down—“
“no, toji! i’m not going to calm down, not when you’re… killing people just to support us, because you think you’re somehow invincible!” you cried out, standing up so you were both now sort of leveled. “find a better job, toji!”
that’s when the anger started to bubble in toji's chest. he wasn’t angry at you, really. he was angry with himself, and he felt the need to become defensive.
“don’t you shout at me, you’re bein' a pain tonight— shit. we’ve talked about this!”
“no, we haven’t! all you do is just… say the same things over, and over again. you don’t ever hear me out! you don’t ever hear my worries or suggestions!” you bit back, moving closer to him, fists clenched and body tense. “it’s like you care more about your pride than me—“
that last sentence did it for him, and before you could even finish it, he moved forward and backed you up against the wall, his expression angry, almost cold as he gets in your face.
“say that shit again. i fucking dare you.” he growls, one of his hands clenched tightly in a fist as it rests beside your head. “you don’t EVER, question what i feel for you, what i KNOW is true. if you would just… stop being a bitch and TRUST me, then—!”
but before he could go on a rant, that’s when he saw it— the fear in your eyes, the way you were trembling and on the verge of crying. damn it, he’s really fucked up this time.
“fuck… sweetheart, i’m sorry.” he breathed out, attempting to pull you into his embrace, but you whined and began to push him away, your hands shoving and hitting at his firm chest. “hey hey! c'mon, don’t be like that, shhh.”
after some struggle, you eventually relented, crying and hiccuping in his arms as you babbled, your fists hitting his chest in anger, “you’re so mean, toji. why can’t you just… listen to me!?” you said, your voice wavering. “why must you resort to hurting my feelings?”
toji’s chest was twisting with guilt and weariness, his strong arms tightening around you as you allowed yourself to cry and release some pent up anger. he knew words wouldn’t help yet— not until you were calm, and sated.
he continues to shush you softly, before grabbing your waist and carefully lifting you into his arms, cradling you close as he carries you to the sofa, settling down on the cushions with a soft grunt, holding you on his lap. “i’m sorry, doll. m'so sorry.” he murmurs quietly, his expression conflicted and tired.
. . . some minutes pass, and your cries eventually began to fade, leaving you tired, but in a more clear state of mind, less weight on your shoulders. toji looks down at you, his calloused hand gently cupping your cheek, using his thumb to brush away your tears. “there you go… my sweet girl.” he says as he shifts you in his lap to face him fully.
“damn it, i…” toji bit his tongue for a moment, allowing himself to suck up his pride for you. you didn’t need his pride right now, you needed him bare, you needed to hear his vulnerability.
“i’m sorry for all those times, doll. i was an idiot, a real fucking idiot.” he began, his hands slowly stroking along your back. “i’m sorry for cornering you like that, n' calling you a bitch.” he says, his voice tensing a bit, clearly bothered by his own actions. “fuck, i don’t deserve ya, i really don’t.”
you were silent for a long moment, taking in his words, before letting out a shaky breath, rubbing your eyes. “hey… you know i still love you, hm?” you say softly, trying to give him the reassurance that he needed. “i love you more than anything. but we can’t keep doing this, okay…? we need to communicate. properly. that means not brushing me off, and resorting to anger. just… listen to me, please.” you pleaded softly, your expression soft and seeking for reciprocation.
toji was silent for a moment, basking in your words. they repeated in his mind like a song, his eyes closing as he takes a deep breath, just holding you close and feeling your heart beat against his.
finally, he opens his eyes and allows his gaze to meet yours, his hands sliding up from your waist to your upper arms, giving them a gentle squeeze as he kisses your temple.
“alright, babygirl.” he murmurs, his voice soothing and his mind no longer scrambled.
crying in toji’s big yummy arms after you fail an exam
this was the worst day on earth. walking home in the sweltering heat had incited sweat to break out all over you. your head was pounding from the constant in and out of air conditioned rooms.
and worst of all, you’d failed an exam that you’d spent countless nights studying for.
water had been filling your eyes the entire day but the tears had stayed in their place, until now.
you entered into the apartment after forcing the door to unlock by aggressively jamming your keys into the hole. walking in, ofcourse, your sleeve just had to catch onto the doorknob and make your keys fall with a loud clatter. your final straw.
your gaze is glued to the stupid keys on the floor when toji who had already been in the living room gets up to greet you.
“hi sweetheart, how was y’er day?” he asks, only to be met with glassy eyes and a pink-tipped nose.
his eyebrows raise and he’s already wrapping his large muscle-packed arms around you, pulling you in for a tight hug. “woah baby, what the hell happened?”
he asks softly but the sobs that pour out of you take away your ability to properly answer. your arms hang limp at your sides as you bury your face into him, tears streaming down your cheeks.
the muscled arms around you only tighten and nearly swallow you whole—exactly what you needed after this shitty day.
“wanna talk about it, sweetheart?” he tries again, a warm big hand moving to rub the small of your back.
you hiccup slightly in between sobbing. “failed my—stupid fucking exam. and my head hurts. and I hate my life.” you mumble, letting out a watery laugh that crashes into another sob.
you’re crying and embarrassed, thinking about how your boyfriend is probably incredibly confused and possibly turned off and you failed your exam.
he lets go of you briefly to put your bag aside and help slide off your shoes before he’s scooping you up, taking you to the couch.
“poor baby, I’m sorry my sweet girl.” he murmurs, low and sincere. he sits with you in his lap and arms immediately wrap around you again like a stubborn vine.
you pout a little with quivering lips when he looks back at you to assess your expression. tears continuously stream down your face, leaving it wet and hot. “this is so dumb, I’m sorry.”
he has a stupidly endearing look on his face as he carefully tugs up the bottom of his shirt and wipes your face with the soft material. “it’s not dumb baby. fuck that exam and your shit professor.”
you nodded with a loud sniffle, a small smile threatening to crack. “yeah fuck him, he is shitty.”
toji’s lips lifted into a small soft smile. “mhm, that’s my girl.”
you snuggle into his arms and bury your face into the warmth of his shoulder. a sigh leaves you, he hugs you tighter. “thanks for being here while I’m a mess.”
a soft chuckle makes his body vibrate against you and he presses a few kisses to your temple. “‘m always here for my sweet girl, especially during her monthly meltdowns.”
you laugh weakly and hide your face in him, melting against his comforting hold. “shutup..”
It was horrible, everything was; being so over sensitive left those deep achey feelings nestled so deep within you to come blooming out at the most inconvenient times.
The apartment was warm, warm and sweet smelling from whatever airy scented candle had been burning before you’d left.
You stumbled into the living room, tossing your headphones onto the coffee table and immediately jumping into Toji’s lap.
He barely even had a chance to ask you how it went, and when he saw the way you’d curled up against him, eyes filled with a deep settled exhaustion he’d become ever so familiar with, he already knew.
Thick, muscular arms wrapped around you, tugging you up by your thighs to face him properly and straddle him.
He held you there, your head pressed to his chest as you regulated, listening to his heartbeat pound against his chest.
It’d been something you were so nervous to reveal to him, this weak, sensitive side of you that felt so embarrassing and dramatic.
But he loved you so dearly. So dearly, so deeply, it meant the world to him that you trusted him enough to see you in this vulnerable state.
He placed gentle kisses over the crown of your head, allowing you to nuzzle into him without forcing you to look up at him.
“What’s wrong, baby? Something happened?”
His voice was warm and gentle, coaxing you out of your closed off state.
You shake your head against his chest to which he hums softly, kissing your head again.
“That’s ok. Just a bad time? Too loud, yeah? Did your headphones die?”
Little sniffles slipped out, your hands reaching up to grip the fabric of his shirt.
“Yeah? Thats it? It’s ok, baby girl, there there..”
He cooed, a heavy hand resting against the back of your neck, grounding and attentive.
After a few more minutes of gentle kisses and whispered assurances, you peek up at him through wet lashes.
“There’s my girl..”
He hummed, a smirk tugging his scarred lip.
“My brave girl.. feel a bit better, baby?”
Your hands wipe at your eyes before wrapping around his torso, offering a tiny nod.
“Yeah.. ‘m sorry”
You mutter, settling more comfortably in his lap.
“What for?”
He whispered, tilting your chin to raise your face and place delicate kisses under each of your eyes.
“Such a sweet girl.. don’t be sorry. You’re ok?”
You nod again, nose scrunching up as he littered kisses across your face. Your frown twitches, unable to stop the barrage of little giggles as he continues his assault of love.
“Toji! Relax!”
You squeal, squirming in his grip.
“No can do, baby girl. Love you too much, this face too damn cute to ignore it..”
He grins against you before giving you a long, gentle kiss, his lips slotting softly between yours.
“Always here for you, baby. Anything for my girl”
He hummed between kisses, stroking the back of your head. You finally pull back, that sparkling look of love glistening in your eyes.
after a long day, it’s no surprise that you’re left with no energy to take care of yourself, let alone clean up and drag yourself off to bed. luckily for you, your two boyfriends— satoru and suguru, the infamous strongest duo who are as weak as kittens for you— take it upon themselves to bathe you and wash your hair. princess treatment has never felt this good.
⋆.˚ content: SFW but MDNI 18+, fem!reader, canon jujutsu universe (alt au where geto doesn’t defect), fluff fluff fluff, humor, established polyamorous satosugu x reader, gojo and geto are WHIPPED for you and for each other, domestic intimacy, a fair amount of suggestive jokes (but the entire fic stays non-sexual), mentions of battle wounds & scars
a/n: this is a requested drabble for the non-sexual acts of intimacy prompts “taking a bath together” and “having their hair washed by the other” for a fewww different anons 🙂↕️🫶🏽 hope you all enjoy cos this was sm fun to write 💓 masterlist.
Bathwater laps softly at the porcelain edges of the tub, warm enough to turn your skin dewy beneath the draping of steam that hangs hazily over the air like a wedding veil. The bathroom's steeped in the mellow glow of an amber and blossom-pink sunset filtering through the windows that overlook Tokyo. More jasmine-sweetened steam drifts in languid, translucent ribbons from the oversized tub fashioned to fit three (thanks, Gojo clan money).
Lounging with your lovers, everything is pleasantly heavy— your limbs, your eyelids which have long fallen together, your subdued thoughts— and softened by the calming ease of being in Suguru's and Satoru's presence.
You sit between them, back resting against Satoru's steadily beating chest, his ridiculously long legs fallen open for you to sit between them with all the careless assurance of a man who has never once worried about taking up space. Suguru rests against the opposite edge of the tub with one arm curled along the rim and his legs similarly extended. Satoru's and Suguru's calves and thighs skim against each other where they border yours beneath the water, neither inclined to break the comfort of simple touch.
"You've gone quiet." Suguru's observation echoes off the tile.
"Mhm." Your answer is only half there.
"You awake?"
"Ehhh… Kinda sorta, sorta kinda," you mumble, seesawing a hand.
Satoru leans forward until his forehead lightly bumps your nape. "No sleeping yet, pretty girl. Ragdolling while we try to get you clean is a surefire way to go down Ben Drowned-style,” he teases.
You whine a little in protest even though the reference makes your lips tick. "But you guys made me so comfortable already..."
And they truly have.
The bath had been waiting for you before you'd even thought to ask for one. Actually, the idea was planted in Satoru and Suguru's heads the moment you texted that you were dead-tired and grimy to the group chat from the back of Ijichi's car. You had been the only one to head out on a mission today, Satoru spending the day teaching and training the first years and Suguru mirroring him with the third years— Satoru had weaseled his way into a full hands-on day with his students, claiming he needed somewhat of a break, and Suguru spent most of his time teaching rather than hunting curses anymore, anyways.
(You and Satoru have been on the offensive with the higher-ups for years to nail down this arrangement for Suguru. Sure, Suguru still took on the occasional mission when everyone else was stretched thin by their own duties, but for his mental health’s sake, it was best that he stuck to guiding and nurturing the current generation.
You never want to see him as hollowly depressed as he was after everything that went down when he was a student.)
When you'd finally wandered into your shared house with knotted shoulders and your thumbs aggravatedly digging out the soreness from your temples, both your boyfriends snatched you up at the genkan and herded you like wildly insistent border collies to the master bedroom's ensuite, which had been transformed into a luxury spa during your twenty minute commute.
Towels were folded up in their warmer, candles swaying happily, the massive tub brimming with fragrant bathing oils and mineral salts— literally the whole nines. All the tiny things you'd long forgotten mentioning you preferred for a long soak were present, that information lovingly archived inside two impossibly attentive minds.
Before you could burst into happy tears at the lengths they went to for you, Suguru helped peel away your clothes before passing you off to Satoru, who offered both hands the moment you stepped toward the siren call of the water on sore legs, smoothly bowing as though escorting you into a ballroom instead of a bathtub.
Between them, lowering yourself into the steaming water (which was the fucking perfect temperature, holy hell) was less like climbing into a bath— another chore to hustle through before bed when you were already so worn-thin— and more like mindlessly handing yourself over for what they both dubbed your 'princess treatment.'
Suguru's smile is a ray of gentle light coloring his words, "Are we supposed to apologize for being good boyfriends?"
"Yeah. And you have to live with the consequences," you sigh, slumping further back into Satoru. The water rocks with you.
"You hear that?" Satoru says to Suguru over your head. You feel his chin nestle into your crown, arms loosely coiling at your waist. "She's blaming and threatening us."
"This is what happens when we go out of our way and draw us all a nice bath, huh," Suguru kisses his teeth, theatrically disappointed in you and what his and Satoru's efforts have come to. "Shame. I guess we won't be doing this ever again."
That finally gets your eyes to crack, blinking past the steam shrouding your slivered vision. Suguru watches the both of you with a sleepy beam curling the corners of his mouth, midnight lashes dampened and beading at their tips from the humidity. In spite of his long hair being wound up in a picture-perfect bun straight from Pinterest— his thorough wash-day took place yesterday and he's in no hurry to rewash his hair all over again— the baby hairs coiling at his nape and hairline are helplessly frizzy, fallen victim to the moisture in the air.
Suguru's gorgeous, a fallen angel meant to tempt you into the salacious temptations of the forbidden— much like the equally stunning white-haired beauty cuddled up to your behind, fluffed up white hair as refreshing as winter's first snowfall and his innate charming smile ten times more devastating than the cursed techniques sown into his very DNA.
"Hey," you protest, somewhat impressed by how he's twisted this situation to his benefit. "I didn't say all of that…"
A big warm palm finds a home on your shoulder, the callouses at the base of Satoru's fingers dragging a satisfyingly scratchy path over your skin. "I didn't agree to that either. Who's gonna appreciate all our hard work and dedication to pampering her if not, well, our princess?" Satoru wonders aloud, each richly pronounced syllable traveling in a velvety rolling rumble through his chest to your back.
Suguru cocks a brow, though he soaks up the reminder with a smoothly executed drag of the wooden bath tray closer to the corner of the tub's edge. Fancy crystalized bottles rattle, winking rainbow prisms across the walls; the oceanic waves of Satoru's irises, the deep earthiness of Suguru's.
You see them in everything, the two men coloring the world you traverse in a gallery forever curated in their likeness, to the point that you couldn't name a single thing on this planet without your lovers tinting your glasses.
Sometimes, you wonder whether the sky was always that boundless, cotton-candy blue, whether the nature crawling dense coils up Tokyo Jujutsu High's mountain campus had always carried such comforting shades of chocolate-brown, or if loving them has simply trained your eyes to always pay homage to Satoru and Suguru. Whatever the case, you're ridiculously smitten.
"Appreciation isn't the point, Satoru," lightly sniffs Suguru.
You wish you could see the stupid grin smeared across Satoru's countenance as he counters, jokingly, "It absolutely is."
"It really isn't," Suguru deadpans, looking to you as if to say get a load of this guy. You giggle.
"I don't know about you, babe, but I wanna be praised for my generous deeds," Satoru announces. "It hits like a line of coke after a long day."
Suguru slowly nods his assent. "That is true… though in your case, I'd say that cake is more your style than coke of all things."
"Snoooore," you loudly mime, deadpanning.
Satoru's laughter sears through your skin, beating a hearty rhythm between your shoulder blades. Suguru fans his fingers over his mouth as he joins in on Satoru's chuckling, amusement blossoming in the air. "Alright, alright. The deluxe princess treatment package is on its way now, promise," Suguru sing-songs with a little flap of his hand, finally easing up now that he's found a way back on track. "Satoru, you'll wash her hair and I'll do her body?"
"For sure," he chirps.
Ah, how nice it feels to lounge around like prized, celebrated royalty without a care in the world while your boys work a plan to pamper you.
All it takes is a simple curl of Suguru's black-painted finger for Satoru to obediently thrust his hand past your head, palm paralleling the ceiling as Suguru pops the glass stopper of a bottle and drizzles a generous heaping of shampoo into his hand's cup.
Satoru loops his arms around your front and works the shampoo between deft palms before your eyes, vanilla and camellia blossoms wafting up to your face, which you dip towards the comforting smell with a hum. It's Suguru's favorite shampoo— you're always surprised when he shares some of it and his conditioner with you, given how he treats it like the holy grail that he alone was blessed and entrusted with.
(Even funnier how he flat out refuses to let Satoru get his hands on it. Not that the white-haired sorcerer cares all that much anyhow; he uses a 3-in-1 shampoo and calls splashing tap water on his face a 'proper face wash.' You'd think a man so prideful about his vanity would splurge on products to properly care for himself and his Adonis body— the same way he buys from luxury clothing brands on the daily— instead of winging it like a head-in-the-clouds college fratboy, but alas…
You've gotta give it to him though: his genetics are killer. Curse Satoru and the goddamned perfectly pretty Gojo bloodline. It's not fair for the rest of you 'simpletons' who actually have to put in the work to groom and maintain yourself in order to look even half as unfairly attractive as he does on a random Thursday morning. The universe shamelessly plays favorites, and Satoru is its dazzling golden child.)
"Tilt your head back for me," he murmurs, long fingers immediately finding your hair— already sufficiently wet— the second you obey.
Humming an absent tune that lulls you into closing your eyes once more, Satoru gathers up all your hair, his usual boundless energy replaced by surprising patience. You can envision the way he's likely got his tongue peeking slightly between his teeth as he smooths the shampoo down your head, working up a rich, pearly lather from your crown to your ends with painstaking care exactly as Suguru once taught him.
Nobody from Jujutsu Tech— not Shoko, not Ijichi, not even any of the students— would expect such gentleness from the strongest sorcerer alive. The same man that tears into curses with calculated, almost joyous violence and blows them apart with a well-placed Red and a dry “oopsies,” is unbelievably tender in his task of shampooing the outer layer of your hair before diving to your roots, firm yet gentle. Reverent, really.
His nails glide along your scalp in purposefully light scrapes that send shivers down your spine. A contented sigh escapes you before you can stop it. "Satoruuuu…" You subconsciously roll the r in the same purring cadence that Suguru speaks his name in.
"Yooo, chill," Satoru splutters behind you, sounding alarmed by who knows what.
Suguru fills in the blank with a suggestive smile and thinning of his eyes: "Moan my name next, baby. I'm feeling left out."
Ah. Curious, you shuffle your hips back further into the cradle of Satoru's pelvis, glad to feel a distinct lack of engorged arousal insistently pestering your back; he's as flaccid as the day he was born. Your foot goes splashing water Suguru's way next. He catches your ankle beneath the surface and chuckles sunnily beneath the playful heat of your half-hearted glare.
"You're such a hater," he chastises.
"Excuse me for trying to enjoy my bath and the princess treatment you both promised me while you two horndogs try to make something out of nothing," you say dryly, though the pretense of sarcasm is rendered null by the next (accidentally) suggestive noise that floats its way past your lips when Satoru tugs a strand of shampooed hair just shy of too roughly.
"I didn't mean to do that, sorry!" Satoru jumps to apologize, presuming you'll give him shit for it and kick him out. But the joint snickers that both men promptly share over your head informs you that they're not exactly remorseful; and they're not even trying to play it sly.
"There's gonna be floggers and pillories in my online shopping cart by the end of the night if you two keep it up," you warn even though you're chuckling yourself. "That, or a sounding rod for you to share."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am," Satoru and Suguru innocently chorus.
Devils, the two of them.
But you're not any better, for you praise them in the sweetest purr possible, "Thank you. Good boys," and you all too joyfully reap the color budding across their already bath-flushed cheeks, tipping your head back against Satoru's shoulder to see his properly.
Suguru and Satoru: 1.
You: also 1.
You'll break that tie soon.
Fingers still wrapped in a delicate snag around your ankle, thumb sweeping over the protruding bone, Suguru one-handedly pumps a decent dollop of body wash into his palm, making a fist and dragging his fingers through it to warm it up a tad. "Lift your leg a little higher for me, sweetheart," he instructs, voice no louder than twinkling rain shimmering in silvery ribbons from the sky.
Conscious yet uncaring of the fact that you're already flashing him your most private parts (both your boyfriends have literally seen it all in every sexual and non-sexual scenario possible), you do just that, trusting that Satoru's solidity will keep you from sliding forward on your ass and submerging your face. Your hip flexor and quadricep tighten in a show of undemandingly easy dexterity— the movement of the latter has Suguru's eyes flicking down to watch as though you're his favorite film made human.
He scrunches his legs up in order to fit into the 'v' your own make. Shifting his grip to the back of your calf, he paints your skin in fragrant body wash from your foot, kneecap, to the crease connecting hip to thigh, coating you thoroughly and treating you to an impromptu massage along the way, thumbs kneading tenderly into muscle.
You're practically purring once he's done with your left leg. Suguru eases it back into the steaming bathwater and rinses you off with sweeping strokes of his broad hand until the jasmine-scented suds melt into the surface. Then, without breaking the tranquil rhythm you'd both settled into, he gathers your right leg in his grasp and starts anew from your foot upward, every motion as meticulous as the last.
You don't startle an inch when Satoru picks his task up again whilst Suguru works his soothing magic up your shin. Circles that bloom sweetness through your body are drawn into your scalp with the pads of Satoru's fingertips, thumbs gliding behind your ears before sweeping upward along your crown, coaxing the rich lather deeper through your roots.
His fingertips dance across your hair in broad, enthusiastic circles, working the shampoo in with enough vigor to make your head tip slightly. It's embarrassingly effective in making you lose track of where one minute ends and another begins. The little remaining tension loosens from your body like water through a sieve.
"Oh my godddd," you moan, blissful, completely swept up in their pampering that comes without a price. You melt between Satoru and Suguru without thinking, trusting the secure cradle of their bodies as completely as breathing itself. "This is exactly what I needed. This is heaven."
"You deserve only good things, especially tonight," Suguru murmurs affectionately, gently dunking your right leg and rinsing that one off, too.
"All the time, really," Satoru agrees. He leaves your hair once he's sure each strand is thoroughly lathered up. "Seeing you turn into a cute little puddle is the best bonus I could ask for. Just let us take care of you, yeah?"
He returns to you with a wooden rinse pitcher that Suguru hands to him. He cups warm bathwater into it, stray droplets sprinkling across the bath's surface when he pulls the pitcher free with an audible gulp of water. Anticipating what follows, you tip your head back and stay still as Satoru pours the first cascade of water over your head to cleanse you of the fragrant foam, his free hand shielding your forehead to keep it from spilling over your face.
"You wanna know a neat trick I thought of?" Satoru asks, voice overflowing with prideful excitement. You and Suguru rumble low noises from your throats at the same time, encouraging. "If Blue allows me to pull buildings apart at minimum output by drawing everything towards the impossibility, then it makes sense that if I put the tiiiiniest possible output into Blue—" you feel a tempered spike of cursed energy that makes the dampened hair at your nape prick to attention, "—the field of attraction is weak enough that I can siphon water from hair."
Before the dirtied water can rejoin the pooling bathwater lapping over you all, it peels from your hair like a clean, satisfying strip of tape as though the laws of nature, too, submit to the wonder that is Gojo Satoru.
You feel each saturated lock of hair lighten by degrees more than you see it. Suspended at your sides where you can spy it from the corner of yout eye, the extracted water gathers into a lazily revolving sphere no larger than a melon, pale with diluted shampoo that swirls in pearlescent ribbons beneath the bathroom's amber light. You can tell that Satoru's flicked his fingers behind you when it all goes gliding into a bucket by the tub— he probably thought to put it there in advance, you realize— with a muffled sploosh. Suguru whistles, impressed.
"There!" Satoru chirps, grin crystal-clear in his voice as though he'd unveiled the world's greatest scientific breakthrough instead of an absurdly overengineered bath hack using one of the greatest cursed techniques in history. "No gross rinse water in the tub."
"That was cool, Toru," you gush.
Suguru's laugh slips free in a quiet puff. "Good idea, baby."
The dual praise has Satoru radiating like an overjoyed sun behind you. "Right? Right?" He boasts with no modesty whatsover, chest jutting proudly against your back.
"You'll have to do that for my hair sometime, too," Suguru sighs longingly, tilting his head with a charmed look on his face. He's so cute. "I could use one of my curses, but Blue'll save me so much time. My hair's getting even longer than it already is, if you can imagine."
"Please never cut it," you and Satoru pipe up in genuine agony.
Suguru titters, enchanting brown eyes creasing in a blinding smile, brighter somehow for it. "Relax, you two. I won't. Aside from trimming split ends— knock on wood." He raps the wooden bath tray with his knuckles.
The exchange coaxes an involuntary smile of your own, the stretch of your lips so overly fond that your cheeks ache. It is so wonderfully, unmistakably the three of you— Suguru's easy indulgement forever balanced alongside Satoru's irrepressible enthusiasm and your habit of matching them both exactly where they stand.
Suguru re-lathers his hands to work on your abdomen, muscles fluttering in delicate butterly wings behind the bountiful garden of your skin at the ticklish feeling of his slickened touch; Satoru ladles another pitcherful over your head and repeats the process of gathering and discarding every soapy drop with Blue. Suguru glides soap up the valley between your perked breasts and beneath them as well, even massaging your tits without a lick of sexual intent; Satoru gives you one last rinse before passing curious fingers through your hair until the strands slide cleanly through his hands, gently teasing apart the few stubborn knots left over. The bathwater gently rocks against your ribs whenever they both shift, focused on their individual tasks but nonetheless in tune with one another.
By the time Suguru finishes off your front by washing your collarbones and shoulders and Satoru's just teased apart the few stubborn knots left over in your hair, your hair hangs sleek and impossibly clean, you're feeling squeaky clean from head to toe, and the bathwater around your bodies remains as clear as when you'd first slipped into it, aside from the body wash that's sluiced off of you.
You feel as though they’d somehow washed away not only the day's sweat and oils, but every bothersome thought that had settled there alongside them. You could seriously fall asleep any second without realizing you'd slipped into unconsciousness.
"Look at us working together in sync," Satoru lilts, signaling for the conditioner over your shoulder. Suguru hands it off from the bath tray without missing a beat. "The G.G. Salon is taking off."
"G.G.?" You ask, faint laughter already bubbling through your nose before he even elaborates. You're anticipating something so stupid that it's somehow funny.
"Get gucked," Satoru supplies, only to shriek a soprano's pitch and jackknife his leg through the water when Suguru aggressively pinches Satoru's big toe. "Yeesh, can't a guy joke around here? I meant the Gojo-Geto salon."
Suguru smiles serenely.
They make quick— but not rushed— work of the rest of your treatment. Suguru reaches between yours and Satoru's bodies to bathe your back while Satoru conditions the ends of your hair with the creamy fixture.
Clearing your hair of conditioner after it soaks in is easy as it was for Satoru with the shampoo. He splashes water along your back to finish off Suguru's work, and Suguru leans in to nuzzle a brief kiss against your forehead, lips lingering for only a second before he settles back against the tub's rim again, the picture of handsome relaxation. A moment later, Satoru cranes his head to smooch the side of your neck as if unwilling to be left out, then ducks past you to peck Suguru's mouth.
No words are needed in the wakeful peace that draws a curtain over you; you, Satoru, and Suguru seemingly come to a silent agreement to soak in the jasmine-fermented bath a while longer, all of yours eyes closed in bone-deep gratification. Heat loosens muscles and peels the firm grip of old aches and pains stemming from battles old and new, determined to ease your bodies that've been carved out from years and years of sorcerery. You only clamber out when the bathwater is cool enough to be drained, yours and Satoru's and Suguru's fingers and toes pruny from the extended soak.
The tired little shiver that quakes you when the air hits your damp skin is noticed immediately by Suguru, who quietly directs Satoru to empty the bucket of dirtied water down the tub before turning to you with towels straight from the tower warmer. He wraps one loosely around your hair and gently squeezes away the excess water.
His sweetened cooing of how cute you are when you're all sleepy and doted-on makes you duck your head into his touch if only to hide your face from the loving searchlights of his eyes. You allow Suguru to similarly wrap your body up in a second towel and you gleefully burrow into the fluffy comfort of it.
Satoru zips to your side in literal seconds with two more towels bunched under his arm, blue eyes alight and completely comfortable in his nudity. "My turn," he announces.
"Didn't you have plenty of turns in the bath?" Suguru amusedly points out in a lowered tone. "She's already dried off, anyways."
Satoru pokes his pretty pink lips out in a pout, sulky as a cat denied its dinner. "I want another."
"You always want another," you hum, eyes half-closed and about ready to conk out on the tile of all places. A plane could crash outside and you wouldn't even be fazed, your mind too up in the clouds and doped up on the princess treatment your boyfriends gave you to care.
“Well, I like taking care of you both,” Satoru admits with some sheepishness, scratching his shorn-short nape that you're sure is soon to be warmed pink as you and Suguru look at him with hearts for eyes. "Can't blame a guy for being in love, yeah?"
You really can't; not when you're just as stupidly infatuated with them both. Especially when, adorably, he surprises you both by turning to Suguru and toweling him off with great attention, making your dark-haired partner flush an even ruddier red than the hot water gave his body. For all of Satoru's impossible strength and impossible speed, his hands fuss with deliberate care as they work the plush fabric around Suguru's waist, folding one edge neatly over the other before tucking it securely against his hip. Then Satoru guides a stray bang that fell loose from his bun behind his ear, fingers lingering sweetly.
Suguru blinks once, twice, as though momentarily caught off guard by the simple gesture. "... Thank you, Satoruuu,” he purrs warmly.
The words are accompanied by a smile so soft it melts years off of Suguru's face, leaving behind only the boy who'd once looked at you and Satoru with that same impossible tenderness after late-night konbini store runs and shared umbrellas beneath summer rain as you all ran back to campus after shared misions— long, long before that accursed village sent him into a year-long spiral. Affection settles visibly into every elegant line of him, warming his browned eyes until they resemble polished amber.
Color rushes into Satoru's ears as he's blasted with the full superlunary rays of Suguru's love, almost shying away from his exuberant beam. "Don't mention it," he mutters, already smiling despite himself as he finally slings his own towel around his hips.
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it, sleepy and airy, and both pairs of eyes snap toward you with such immediate fondness. Your heart gives such a smitten start that it damn near ping-pongs off your ribs.
And then you open your unfiltered mouth, "You're both so cute. You two act like you guys haven't explored each other's holes for literal years."
Their expressions slacken into ones of pained amusement immediately. "Sweets, I love you so so sooo bad, but do you ever think before you reduce years of heartfelt intimacy to digging out each other's asses?" Satoru snorts.
"Please don't say it like that," Suguru bemoans, propping one hand on his towel-wrapped hip while the other drives a thumb into his creased forehead. Even so, he's openly snickering, even moreso when he slaps Satoru's chest. "Are you under the impression that you're any better?"
Satoru touches his heart with theatrical offense. "I've never said anything outrageous as her."
"You literally just did?" Suguru points out, exasperatedly tickled.
You attempt to muster a joke to chip in with, but a yawn stretches your jaw instead, eyes watering as exhaustion overtakes any dignity you might have had left.
"Awww," Satoru breathes out an impossibly stricken coo. "She's gonna fall asleep standing up like a horse."
"I was thinking the same thing," Suguru murmurs, tilting his head at you.
"I am awake and alert and alive," you mumble automatically.
Clearly, neither of them believes you for even half a second. Suguru chuckles beneath his breath before stepping forward, large hand finding the small of your back through the towel. "Looks like the delirium's getting to you, huh, angel? You've had a long day."
Satoru immediately appears at your other side. "For sure. Let's go get dressed and go to bed." Without ceremony, he bends his knees and scoops you into his arms bridal-style as though you weigh nothing at all. You let out the weakest little noise of surprise imaginable before instinctively curling against his warm chest, your cheek finding the familiar place beneath his collarbone.
"I c-can…" Your own yawn slashes the sentence in half, making Satoru throw his head back laughing as he turns towards the bathroom's entrance, "… walk."
"Oh, sweetheart," Suguru rumbles out a laugh.
"I can,” you grumble.
"You just lost consciousness mid-sentence."
"Mmmf," you say intelligently.
Suguru reaches over to straighten the towel atop your head one final time, brushing his knuckles fondly across your temple. "So spoiled," he whispers.
You hum contentedly, already halfway to sleep. "Your fault."
"Our fault," Satoru corrects, carrying you toward the door with Suguru walking beside him, shoulder brushing his every few steps. Then, as an aside to Suguru, "To be fair, we kinda made her expect this."
"I think I deserve princess treatment everyday," you exhaustedly pipe up, words dragging as you gradually drift off.
Satoru and Suguru exchange looks over your lolling head. So cute.
synopsis: you discover your boyfriend's kinks—how will he react to you finding out?
they discover your kinks!
synopsis: after you found out about their kinks and embarrassed them—it's their turn for revenge!
jjk!men getting praised by their partner for their power!
synopsis: you praise your partner for their impressive techniques—how would they respond to your admiration?
jjk!men texts you—but your kid replies for you!
synopsis: your husband unexpectedly gets a text from their child instead of you—don't interrupt!
fwb jjk!men confesses to you while they're drunk!
synopsis: your friends-with-benefits texts you after a night of drinking—drunk thoughts are sober thoughts right?
frat jjk!men spots nerd!reader at the club—without the nerd look!
synopsis: everyone starts wondering why the frat house is now hitting on you—but they didn't see you at the club that night!
jjk!men as your obsessed office co-workers!
synopsis: your co-workers are starting to behave more weirdly, unbeknownst to you—they're all fighting for your attention!
anonymous boyfriend jjk!men series!
synopsis: your mysterious boyfriend always wants to hear from you about a certain guy—not realizing that guy is him!
dating vessel!yuji itadori also means having to date the king of curses—ryomen sukuna!
synopsis: you knew dating itadori yuji was risky—and that's exactly how you found yourself sharing two souls in one.
jjk!men sends you messages on theunsentprojects.com!
synopsis: after your break up—they found themselves sending you notes they hoped for you to see on an anonymous website.
contacting your ex about their hoodies—what could go wrong?
synopsis: all you wanted was to return their hoodies—but now you've got several unread messages from a certain number.
they text you before your wedding starts!
synopsis: the day before your wedding—your boyfriend shares his excitement with you; his soon-to-be wife.
prince satoru gets turned into a frog by a curse—save him!
synopsis: a cursed user turns satoru gojo, the famous prince of today, into a weak, slimy creature. you get dragged onto his mess after he mistakes you for a princess.
your boyfriend gets caught cheating and asks jjk!men to cover for him. they played along, until they didn't!
synopsis: after getting caught cheating, your boyfriend asks jjk!men to cover for him, but they exposed him anyway.
in which aaron sees you with glasses for the first time and his brain can't handle it.
warnings: kissing, hotch is head over heels!
✦ ˑ ִֶ⊹
It's not that your day starts off necessarily bad, because the extra minute in bed comes nicely to you. What isn't as great is having to rush around your apartment to make it to work in time, huffing as you button up your shirt before clumsily throwing a sweater over it.
The only thing reassuring you that you didn't put it on backwards is the scratch of the annoying tag against the back of your neck — you'll have to remember to rip it off later.
You only realize you forgot your contacts when the letters of the ads on the subway blur, relieved when you find the glasses you always keep with yourself just in case inside your bag.
Not much thought comes into it, not used to wearing them if not in the comfort of your home late at night but simply a necessity now. You don't not use them for thinking that they look bad, but because they used to bother you more than help you and now you've simply gotten used to the contacts.
Once you arrive at the bullpen, you're only five minutes late and don't seem to be the last one arriving. You let that be a victory.
With your morning drink close by, you finally start working on the mountain of files pilling up at your desk.
"Good morning." You're only half an hour in when the familiar voice sounds behind you, steps sounding closer as Aaron comes to stand beside your chair.
"Hey." You greet back, leaning your head to look up at him.
"I don't mean to put even more in your plate but i really need you to fill these out." It's only now that he looks away from the papers and at you, eyes widening for one second in surprise.
You try to ignore it, though it settles something in you. It's a strict rule that have to act professional around each other at work — all an atempt to not have Strauss ripping your heads off.
"No problem." You take the files from his hands with a polite smile, setting them in front of you to start working on them.
Aaron lingers on his spot, clearing his throat. "You're wearing glasses."
“I am.” You state carefully, not sure where he’s getting at. Though you find yourself shifting on your seat a little subconsciously.
You don’t think you’ve ever seen him so dumbfounded.
“Since when?” His eyebrows are furrowed as if wondering if he’s missed this trait, sweet Aaron.
“Always?” You say with confusion, “I just usually wear contacts. Was a bit late today and forgot them.”
Your boyfriend nods at your explanation, eyes still fixated on you with concentration as you feel your skin grow hot under his gaze.
“You look good.” His words are gentle as he speaks after a moment.
His hand comes to tug a little on his tie — something you’ve noticed he does when nervous. It’s hard to believe you’d be the one to make him nervous.
“Thank you.” You answer just as soft, a little like a question.
It didn’t cross your mind that he’d never seen you with your glasses when you put them on earlier. But you suppose his reaction makes up for it.
Aaron’s lips pull into a small, “Anytime, honey.” Even lower than before. And then he’s walking back into his office like he didn’t leave you melting.
You almost forget about it as you distract yourself with work, getting up from your chair once you’re done and knocking on the door to Hotch’s office.
Once you’re given the green light to come in, you slip inside and close the door behind you before heading to his desk.
“Here you go.” You leave the files on it, moving to get back outside.
But before you can reach the door, you feel his hand catch your wrist. A gasp leaves your lips as he turns you around and presses his own to them in a hard kiss.
Aaron’s hand are on your face as he kisses you, a sight escaping his nose as he gets the first taste of you in the day. Instinctively your hands come to rest on his arm, fingers slightly gripping his button up.
He tastes of coffee with a mix of the mints he always has while working. The bump of his nose against the rim of your glasses has him pulling you closer, one hand moving to your waist to help with doing so.
You let your own hand wonder to his shoulder, feeling the muscles relax under your fingers as you softly massage them.
“You’re driving me crazy, sweet girl.” He mumbles after pulling way, lips still dangerously close to yours.
“What?” You giggle with curiosity.
To prove his point, you feel his fingers tap the rim of your glasses with care. “These are the reason.”
Your heart thumps furiously, shy grin on your lips as you keep him close. “You like them?”
“Love them.” Aaron corrects with an arm tightening around your waist, eyes set on every detail of your face.
“Not too nerdy?” You muse, mostly teasing compliments out of him.
“Just enough.” He reassures nevertheless, lips to your cheek for a sweet peck. “So pretty.”
You squeeze his elbow in return, not surprised when his lips chase you for another kiss. Not that you can complain, relished by the attention.
This one is softer, as if he knows you should get back soon and not wanting to get himself worked up.
“Wear them to our date tonight.” He practically begs, lips shiny from you.
“Pervert.” Your joke earns a grin from him.
“Can’t help it when it comes to you.” Aaron says with honesty. His grip loosens, mouth pressed to your temple.
“Pervert and corny. Wow, Hotchner.” You snort, hitting his chest with your pointer finger.
He catches it with ease, bringing it to his lips for a quick kiss there before reaching to adjust your slightly crooked glasses. “There.”
You hum in thanks, fixing his rumbled button up in return before leaving his office with a giddy feeling on your stomach.
Y/N learns that kissing her crush is significantly harder than acting like she doesn’t love it.
The shooting was taking place on a deserted street built entirely for the film. Storefront lights reflected against the soaked pavement, neon signs flickering softly through the artificial rain. Everything looked cinematic through the monitors. Cold. Dramatic. Intimate in the way only movies could be.
In reality, everyone was exhausted.
It was well past two in the morning and they had already spent hours filming fight choreography over and over again. Running. Falling. Arguing. Getting drenched. Resetting. Doing it again.
And now, only one scene remained.
The kiss.
Y/N sat on the hood of the car, trying not to think about it too much.
Which was impossible.
Her clothes clung heavily to her skin from the water, fabric damp and cold against her arms and legs. Strands of wet hair stuck to the side of her face, to her neck. The hood beneath her was slick beneath her palms.
Between her legs stood Gojo Satoru. All of the excitement she initially had in being casted in the same movie as him was turning into nervousness.
He was close enough that she could feel the warmth of him even through the cold rainwater soaking both of them. One of her hands rested lightly against his shoulder while the other held the script she had no reason to keep rereading anymore.
She already knew the scene.
Too well.
“This is the emotional shift,” the director was explaining somewhere nearby, gesturing toward them while speaking to the crew. “They’re angry, they’re exhausted, neither of them wants to give in first. That’s why the kiss matters.”
Y/N nodded automatically even though almost none of the words were actually registering in her head.
Her heartbeat was too loud.
“Yeah, alright. Got it.”
Gojo’s voice cut through the noise as he nodded toward the director before looking back at her.
“I am so tired right now,” he mumbled quietly.
His voice was lower between takes. Less performative. Softer around the edges.
A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“Same.”
The fake rain had finally stopped during the reset, but water still dripped from his hair, sliding slowly down the side of his face and disappearing along his jaw. It was distracting. Everything about him was distracting tonight. She was trying to keep everything professional.
But there was this thought… at the back of her mind, which she couldn’t quiet explain.
It felt wrong.
“You nervous?” he asked suddenly.
Her eyes lifted from the script immediately. “What?”
“The kiss scene,” he said casually, like it was no different from discussing camera angles. She stared at him for a second too long before looking away and being nonchalant. “No,” she lied.
That made the corner of his mouth lift slightly. Not enough to call it a smile. Just enough that she noticed. “You’re holding the script upside down,” he said.
Her eyes widened slightly. She immediately flipped it the correct way.
He laughed quietly at that.
Actually laughed.
And somehow that made it worse.
“Oh my god,” she muttered, covering part of her face briefly with the script. “I hate you.”
The crew moved around them resetting lights and camera positions. Someone adjusted the rain machine nearby. Another crew member hurried past holding towels nobody had time to use properly. Another did some final touch ups to their makeup.
The entire set buzzed with movement.
“Positions!” the assistant director called out.
Immediately, everything shifted. The atmosphere changed so quickly it almost felt physical. Crew members stepped away. Cameras adjusted. The street fell into controlled silence.
Gojo’s expression in an instant. The softness disappeared. His posture straightened slightly as he stepped closer between her legs, one hand settling against her waist.
Not Gojo anymore.
The character.
Cold. Angry. Breathing hard after a fight.
Y/N swallowed once and forced herself to focus. Her fingers tightened slightly against his shoulder as she slipped into character too, frustration settling onto her features.
“Rain on!” someone shouted and the machine started instantly. Water crashed down around them in heavy sheets, loud against the pavement, against the car, against their clothes.
Within seconds they were soaked all over again.
“And... action.”
The scene began immediately.
“You never listen,” she snapped, shoving against his chest as the argument continued from the previous take. “That’s your problem. You think you can control everything.”
“And you think recklessness fixes things?” he shot back. His voice was sharp now. Frustrated. Intense enough that even knowing it was acting didn’t stop the way it hit her.
Rain poured between them.
Down his face.
Across his mouth.
“You don’t even trust me,” she said.
“I do!” He shouted which actually startled her.
And then he moved. Fast enough that her breath caught. One hand tightened at her waist as he leaned in toward her exactly the way they had rehearsed.
The cameras rolled closer.
Everything narrowed.
And she suddenly became too aware of everything. Her mind went completely blank when his lips were only inches away from hers. Her heartbeat stumbled violently against her ribs. Her breath caught. And instinctively, awkwardly, she pulled back just slightly before the kiss could happen.
“Cut.”
The rain stopped. Silence followed almost immediately.
Y/N closed her eyes for half a second and mentally cursed herself.
Oh no.
The silence that followed felt worse because no one immediately said anything. The cameras were still pointed at them. Crew members stood frozen in place for a brief moment, waiting for instructions.
“Why did you pulled away?” the director finally called out from behind the monitors. His tone was not angry, just tired. “Everything before that was good. We just need the moment to land.”
Y/N nodded immediately. “Sorry,” she said quickly, pushing wet strands of hair behind her ear. “Sorry. I just... timing.”
“It’s okay,” the director replied. “Reset once more.”
Y/N exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself down. This was ridiculous. It was one kiss scene. Actors did this all the time. She had done kiss scenes before.
So why was this suddenly impossible?
“You alright?”
Gojo’s voice was quieter this time.
She looked up at him and immediately regretted it because he was still standing right there between her legs, still soaked from the rain scene, still holding onto her waist loosely like he had forgotten to let go after the cut.
“Yeah,” she lied instantly.
She let out a breath through her nose and glanced away, embarrassed enough that she could physically feel the heat rising to her face despite how cold she was.
“This is very humiliating for me,” she muttered.
“You know,” he said, lowering his voice slightly as crew members moved around them again, “usually people get nervous after kissing me. Not before.”
Her head snapped toward him immediately.
“Oh my god.”
“Positions!” the assistant director shouted once more.
Y/N took one slow breath and adjusted herself on the hood of the car, trying to settle her nerves before the cameras rolled again.
Across from her, Gojo slipped back into character with frightening ease. And somehow that was even more attractive. Which was deeply unhelpful.
“Ready?” the director called out.
Y/N swallowed once.
Then nodded.
The rain machine started again almost immediately.
Heavy water crashed down over the set, soaking through fabric that was already drenched beyond saving. The neon lights reflected against the wet pavement beneath them, painting everything in blurred shades of blue and red.
“And... action.”
They went through their dialogues again in the same intensity as before. In fact, they delivered a better shot.
“I do!”
And then he kissed her.
This time, she didn’t pull away.
Her breath caught immediately against his mouth, fingers tightening instinctively against his jacket as the kiss deepened faster than she had mentally prepared herself for.
It was supposed to feel angry.
Desperate.
The release after hours of fighting.
And Gojo played it perfectly.
One hand firm against her waist, pulling her closer against him while the rain poured endlessly around them. His mouth moved against hers with enough intensity that it almost startled her out of character entirely.
Her thoughts scattered almost instantly. The cameras disappeared from her mind first. Then the crew. Then the set. Until all she could focus on was the fact that this was actually happening. That she was kissing him.
And the hesitation came back.
It happened in the way she paused for half a second when he deepened the kiss further. The way her body tensed instead of responding naturally. The way her hands lost the rhythm of the scene.
It was subtle.
But not subtle enough.
“Cut.”
The rain stopped again.
Y/N immediately pulled back this time, breathing harder than she should have been.
“fuck,” she whispered under her breath, mortified.
The director rubbed a tired hand over his face behind the monitors. “The chemistry is there,” he said carefully, sounding like he was trying very hard to stay patient. “But Y/N, you keep hesitating in the middle of it.”
“I know,” she said immediately.
“We need commitment to the scene,” he continued. “The kiss is the emotional payoff.”
“I know,” she repeated, more frustrated now.
Mostly at herself.
The entire set had gone quieter again.
Crew members avoided looking directly at them out of politeness. Someone pretended to focus very hard on adjusting lighting equipment nearby.
Y/N slid off the hood of the car quickly, wet shoes hitting the pavement with a sharp sound.
“Can we take five?” she asked, then corrected herself immediately. “Actually maybe thirty. I’m just... really tired.”
The director exhaled heavily. It was nearly three in the morning now. Everyone looked exhausted.
But finally, he nodded. “Thirty minute break,” he called out.
Almost immediately the tension on set dissolved into movement again.
People scattered toward coffee tables and equipment tents. Someone shut off the remaining lights near the street setup. The artificial rainwater continued dripping from signs and car windows.
Y/N didn’t wait around. She wrapped a towel around herself quickly and headed straight toward her vanity without really looking at anyone. Her embarrassment sat heavily in her chest now. Because she knew exactly what the issue was. And that somehow made it worse.
She climbed into the vanity quickly, pushing damp hair away from her face as she stepped inside. The warmth hit her immediately after hours in the cold rain. For a second she just stood there breathing.
Trying to calm down. Trying not to think about the scene. Trying not to think about him.
The vanity’s door opened again before she could. She turned instinctively, only to see Gojo stepping inside.
Without a word, he closed the door behind him. The noise from outside softened instantly. Now it was just the two of them.
Y/N blinked at him. “You followed me?”
“You ran away so dramatically,” he replied calmly. “I got concerned.”
“I did not run away dramatically.”
“You absolutely did.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled. Almost. But the embarrassment returned too quickly for it to stay.
Gojo leaned lightly against the counter nearby, arms folding loosely across his chest as he watched her carefully now.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He stared at her for a second. Then nodded once. “Okay,” he said easily. “You’re lying, but okay.”
Y/N groaned softly and dropped onto the small couch inside the trailer, pressing the towel harder against her damp hair. “This is so embarrassing,” she muttered.
Gojo stayed quiet. She looked up at him finally. And immediately looked away again.
“It’s just...” she started before stopping herself.
She exhaled slowly. “It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“This,” she admitted quietly, gesturing vaguely between them. “The kiss scenes. All of it.”
Gojo frowned slightly. “We’re actors.”
“I know that,” she said quickly. “I know. That’s not what I mean.”
Another silence settled briefly. Outside, she could faintly hear crew members talking somewhere near the equipment trucks.
Then she finally forced herself to say it.
“You know I like you.”
The words sounded smaller out loud. More vulnerable than she intended but she kept talking before he could respond. “And everybody knows,” she added. “The interviews, the clips, the internet making edits out of literally everything we do...”
She laughed once under her breath, but there was no humor in it. “So now kissing you feels weird because you know,” she admitted softly. “And it’s probably uncomfortable for you, and I keep thinking about that instead of acting normally.”
The room went quiet after that. Very quiet. Gojo looked at her for a long moment without saying anything. And somehow that made her even more nervous.
Then finally, quietly, he spoke. “Why would I be uncomfortable?”
Y/N blinked at him. “What do you mean, why?”
She sat up straighter now, frustration mixing with embarrassment as she tightened the towel around herself. “This is probably completely professional for you,” she said. “You’re doing your job. You’re acting.”
Gojo stayed silent. Watching her carefully.
“But I’m obviously not handling it the same way,” she continued, words coming faster now that she had started. “And you know exactly why.” She laughed softly under her breath, though there was no amusement in it. “So how is that not weird for you?”
Y/N looked away from him again, unable to fully hold his gaze now that she had finally said it out loud.
“Wouldn’t it feel like I’m taking advantage of the situation or something?” she admitted quietly. “Like... I get cast with my crush and now I’m kissing him because it’s in the script.”
The words hung awkwardly in the air after that. Gojo stared at her for another second.
And then he laughed.
Loudly.
Y/N immediately frowned. “Oh my god, don’t laugh. I’m being serious.”
“I know,” he said between his laughs.. “That’s actually making this worse.”
He pushed himself away from the counter then, stepping closer toward where she sat on the couch.
“You think way too much,” he said quietly.
Y/N narrowed her eyes slightly.
“No, I’m not.”
Another small smile touched the corner of his mouth. He looked tired too now. His damp hair still slightly wet from the rain scene, dark shirt clinging faintly at the collar where it hadn’t dried properly yet.
“If I was uncomfortable,” he said slowly, “I would tell you.”
She opened her mouth immediately. “You can’t say that because then I’d feel bad.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
For a second they just looked at each other.
Then Gojo exhaled quietly and ran a hand through his damp hair, averting his eyes away from hers. “If you’re worried about taking advantage,” he said, voice lower now, quieter than before, “then do it.”
Y/N blinked. “What?”
His jaw tightened slightly like he immediately regretted phrasing it that way. “I said,” he corrected, clearing his throat softly, “I don’t mind.”
Y/N just stared at him. Still trying to process what he just said. And the realization hit her all at once.
Gojo shifted slightly where he stood.
He looked away for a brief second, rubbing the back of his neck before glancing toward the vanity mirror instead of directly at her. It was the first time all night he seemed even remotely unsure of himself.
Y/N’s heartbeat picked up again. “Oh,” she said quietly before she could stop herself.
That made him look back at her immediately. And for the first time since stepping into the trailer, the confidence in his expression cracked just slightly. He let out a short breath through his nose and reached for the door handle behind him a little too quickly.
“Anyway,” he said, suddenly sounding far too casual, “you should probably stop panicking before we waste everybody’s time out there.”
Y/N stared at him harder. Because that was absolutely not a normal transition.
“And I should...” he paused briefly, already opening the door halfway, “go see if they fixed the lighting.”
“The lighting,” she repeated slowly.
“Yeah.”
“…you don’t even know lighting.”
“I know enough.”
Before she could answer again, he stepped out into the cold night air outside the vanity. Too fast.
Far too fast for someone who had been perfectly calm five minutes ago.
The door shut behind him. And Y/N sat there for another few seconds in complete silence, staring at the spot where he had been standing.
Then slowly… very slowly… a smile spread across her face.
“Oh my god,” she whispered to herself.
Because Gojo Satoru had just…
This time when his lips landed on hers, she didn’t hesitate.
Her fingers slipped immediately into the damp strands at the back of his hair, gripping tightly enough to pull a quiet breath from him as she kissed him back with the same frustration that had been building between their characters the entire night.
Gojo’s hand tightened instinctively at her waist, pulling her closer against him with enough force that she slid slightly forward on the hood of the car. The movement was not part of the choreography. Neither was the way his other hand came up to her jaw, thumb brushing briefly against rain-soaked skin before tilting her face more firmly toward his.
It felt angry.
But not entirely.
There was something desperate hidden underneath it now. Weeks of tension folding into the scene all at once.
Her heartbeat slammed painfully hard against her ribs as his mouth moved against hers again, slower this time, deeper, less restrained than any of the rehearsals had been.
And she kissed him back without thinking.
Without overanalyzing.
Without panicking.
Finally.
A small sound escaped her somewhere between a breath and his name when his fingers pressed more firmly into her waist, and she felt him react to it instantly. The kiss shifted again after that. Less performative. More consuming.
Like both of them had forgotten where the scene ended.
Rainwater dripped from his hair onto her face, onto her lips, cold against skin already burning hot beneath it. Her hands tightened in his hair again and he stepped even closer between her legs instinctively, chest pressing fully against hers now.
The movement wasn’t scripted.
None of this was anymore.
The argument from the scene still lingered between every breath they took. It lived in the roughness of the kiss, in the way he kissed her like he was still angry at her, like he wanted to win something neither of them understood anymore.
And she gave it back just as fiercely.
Somewhere behind the monitors, the director quietly mouthed holy shit.
Because the chemistry they had been trying to force out of the scene all night had suddenly exploded into something almost impossible to look away from.
The cameras moved closer automatically.
Gojo’s hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers disappearing into wet strands of hair as he kissed her again with enough intensity to pull another breathless sound from her lips.
The rain continued pouring over them in heavy sheets while neon lights blurred around the edges of the set. The hood of the car creaked softly beneath her shifting weight when Gojo stepped even closer, and she could feel the rapid rise and fall of his breathing against her through his soaked shirt.
“Cut!”
The director’s voice rang out loudly across the set.
Neither of them moved.
Because the kiss didn’t stop.
Gojo kissed her again immediately after, slower now but somehow even more dangerous for it, his thumb brushing against the side of her throat while her fingers remained tangled tightly in his hair.
The crew collectively froze.
“Cut!” the director shouted again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
Y/N barely heard it.
All she could feel was the warmth of his mouth despite the freezing rain, the way his hand flexed slightly against her waist every time she pulled him closer, the way the tension that had followed them for weeks finally snapped all at once between them.
It was Gojo who finally broke the kiss first.
But only barely.
Only enough to breathe.
And even then his forehead remained pressed against hers, eyes still half-lowered, breaths uneven beneath the pouring rain.
For one dangerous second, it looked like he was about to kiss her again anyway.
“CUT!”
This time the entire set erupted into laughter and whistles.
Reality crashed back all at once.
The crew cheering.
Someone yelling finally!
The director dropping backward dramatically into his chair.
a/n - the internet will explode right??? read this crown!prince gojo
hi! i've sent this request to a few other smau writers, but i rlly wanna ask u! i have pretty bad depression, and i'd really love a jjk smau where they're encouraging you to take care of yourself, like texting you to get out of bed or to remember to eat! :) I'd really like to see it with all the characters you write for, and especially yuji because I feel like he'd be really encouraging! thats all, thank you for reading!!!
The JJK guys lifting you up when you’re down
Featuring: Gojo, Geto, Nanami, Yuuji, Megumi, Choso, Toji, and Sukuna
Tags: fluffy overall, I didn’t get too much into what y/n is dealing with and more so how they help out and keep her doing things. Sukuna can be tricky with this type of topic, so I hope I got his personality type across but he’s certainly got his own way of doing comfort lol
a collection of moments in the actor au where y/n work in the same industry as him, and unfortunately (or not), has a very obvious crush on Gojo Satoru.
What starts as a routine promotional interview quickly spirals when Gojo Satoru is put in the spotlight, and asked about Y/N, the actress who publicly named him as her crush.
The music came first.
Bright, rhythmic, unmistakably rehearsed, the kind of tune that signaled not just the start of a show, but the beginning of something carefully orchestrated. It filled the studio with an easy confidence, warming the space before anything had even been said.
The audience responded instinctively.
Applause rose, quick and eager, folding into the melody as the lights shifted, soft at first, then sharpening toward the center of the stage. The skyline backdrop glowed under it, polished and precise, every detail arranged to feel effortless.
Right on cue-
The host stepped out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, It's Adrian Cole and welcome back to The Midnight Spotlight!”
The reaction was immediate.
He smiled into it, “It is a great night tonight,” he said, glancing briefly across the audience, then back toward the camera. “We’ve got an amazing lineup for you and I’m not even exaggerating.”
A few cheers broke through, scattered but enthusiastic.
He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice just enough to pull the room in with him.
“Our next guests-” he began, drawing the moment out with a small pause, “-are here promoting the highly anticipated second season of one of the biggest series out right now.”
The audience shifted.
He smiled again, just a little sharper this time. “You know them. You love them.”
A beat.
Then-
“Jujutsu Kaisen.”
The name alone was enough.
The room erupted, cheers, applause, voices rising over one another, the energy spilling forward before it could be contained.
Adrian let it happen.
Then, lifting his hand slightly, “Please welcome...”
He turned toward the stage entrance. And the music rose again.
The music swelled, brighter now, louder, carrying the moment forward. From the side of the stage, the curtain shifted.
And then...
Gojo Satoru stepped out first.
There was no hesitation in him.
He walked into the light like it belonged there, offering a small wave that turned into something more as the audience reacted, louder, sharper, a ripple of recognition that followed him across the stage.
Behind him, Kugisaki Nobara emerged with an easy confidence, smiling like she expected the attention and knew exactly how to carry it.
Itadori Yuji followed close after, energy bright, lifting a hand in greeting, his grin immediate and unguarded as the crowd answered him in kind.
And then, Fushiguro Megumi. Quieter. More composed of the group
The applause didn’t dip, it built.
Layered now with cheers, a few voices calling out names that blurred together into something indistinct but full.
Adrian stepped forward to meet them halfway, greeting each in turn, quick handshakes, a brief word exchanged here and there, all of it partially lost beneath the noise.
“Come on, come on, have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward the couch.
They moved together, the moment shifting from entrance to ease.
For a brief moment, they adjusted, small shifts of movement, shoulders brushing, space being made without words.
Then it stilled.
Or as close to still as it could get under the lights.
Adrian returned to his desk, glancing at them with an easy grin, fingers tapping lightly against the surface as the audience slowly quieted.
“You guys hear that?” he said, gesturing toward the crowd. “That’s love.”
A few lingering cheers followed.
He nodded, satisfied.
“Welcome, welcome, it’s so good to have all of you here.”
Gojo inclined his head slightly, a faint smile playing at his lips. Nobara gave a quick, bright “thank you,” while Yuji lifted a hand in an easy wave.
Megumi gave a small nod.
Adrian leaned forward slightly, fingers tapping once against the desk.
“So... season two,” he said, like it was casual.
The audience reacted immediately anyway.
A few cheers. A few louder shouts.
He glanced between them. “I mean… I’ve seen some of it,” he added, lowering his voice just a little, “And I’m just gonna say... things get… intense.”
Yuji let out a small laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s one way to put it.”
Nobara leaned in slightly. “That’s a very nice way to put it.”
Adrian pointed at her. “See, that’s what I’m worried about. Because season one was already... ” he made a vague explosion gesture with his hands, “a lot.”
Gojo smiled faintly at that, relaxed as ever. “It gets worse,” he said and the audience laughed.
Megumi, without changing expression, added quietly, “It gets more complicated.”
“That’s not better,” Adrian said immediately.
“So for people who maybe, somehow, haven’t seen it yet,” Adrian continued, turning slightly toward the camera, “what can they expect this season?”
Yuji spoke first, a little more thoughtful now.
“It goes back a bit,” he said. “You see more of how things were before… and why things are the way they are now.”
Nobara nodded. “Yeah, it’s not just fights. It’s-” she paused, then shrugged, “-a lot of emotional damage.”
The audience laughed again.
Adrian pointed between them. “I love that you said that so casually.”
“It’s true,” she said, unapologetic.
“And Gojo...” Adrian turned toward him, “we get more of your character this time, right?”
Gojo tilted his head slightly. “A little,” he said.
Yuji let out a small scoff. “A little?”
Nobara laughed. “That’s a lie.”
Megumi, still calm, added, “It’s a lot.”
The audience reacted, cheers, a few claps.
Adrian leaned back, satisfied. “Okay, so we’re getting more of this guy,” he gestured toward Gojo. “That’s what I’m hearing.”
Gojo just smiled.
Didn’t deny it.
“Alright,” Adrian said, clapping his hands once, shifting the energy. “I don’t want to give too much away, because I know how fans get.”
A few loud cheers of agreement.
“So instead,” he continued, a grin forming, “we’re gonna do something a little more fun.”
The audience perked up immediately.
“Now, if you’ve seen this show before,” Adrian said, gesturing around, “you know we have a little segment we like to do.”
A ripple of recognition moved through the crowd.
“It’s called...”
He paused.
“Spotlight Secrets.”
The audience reacted instantly. Louder and more excited.
Nobara turned slightly toward Yuji. “Oh, I don't like this at all.”
Yuji smiled, already amused. “But I do!”
Megumi exhaled quietly, like he already knew where this was going.
Gojo leaned back further into the couch, one arm resting along the back, looking entirely too relaxed for someone who was about to be questioned on live television.
Adrian grinned.
“For those who don’t know, this is where we pull out… some interesting things about one of our guests, who gets picked randomly.”
He tapped the desk lightly.
“Stories, habits, little details that maybe-” he glanced at them, amused, “-you didn’t expect us to know.”
The lights of the studio suddenly went out.
Not completely, just enough that the stage fell into a softer darkness, the edges of the set dissolving into shadow while a single beam of light snapped on above them.
The audience reacted instantly.
The spotlight hovered for a second and then moved. It landed first on Itadori Yuji and the crowd cheered.
Yuji laughed immediately, lifting his hands in surrender. “Wait- already?”
The light didn’t stay.
It shifted again.
Over to Nobara. She straightened slightly, a grin already forming like she was ready for it. “Pick me,” she said, half-serious, half not.
The light moved again.
Now, at Megumi.
A quieter reaction this time, but just as warm.
Megumi didn’t react much, just a small shift of his shoulders, a brief glance toward the host like he already knew he wouldn’t be chosen.
And then the spotlight flickered. Before sliding, almost lazily to the end of the couch.
Gojo Satoru.
The audience erupted louder than before.
Cheering, clapping, a few voices rising above the rest like they had been waiting for this exact outcome.
Gojo didn’t move right away. Still leaned back. Still relaxed.
Then he tilted his head slightly, glancing up at the light. A faint smile touched his lips.
“Of course,” he said.
At his desk, Adrian raised both hands innocently.
“I don’t control the spotlight,” he said.
The audience laughed.
No one believed him.
The studio lights went back to normal now that the subject for the game was selected.
Adrian glanced down at the card in his hand, then back up, already smiling like he knew exactly what he was about to do. “So,” he began, casually, “do you happen to know… Y/N?”
The reaction was immediate. Loud. A wave of cheers, whistles, and laughter that broke across the audience before the question had even fully landed.
On the couch, Nobara turned toward him instantly. Yuji leaned forward, grinning like he had been waiting for this exact moment.
Megumi stayed still, but his gaze shifted, just slightly, because he was curious about the answer as well.
And Gojo... He laughed. It came easy.
Unforced. A short, breathy chuckle that slipped out before he said anything, his head tipping back just a fraction as if the reaction alone was enough to answer the question.
The crowd only got louder. Hooting. Clapping. Someone shouted something unintelligible from somewhere in the middle rows.
He lifted a hand, running it through his hair, pushing it back in a way that felt absentminded, but wasn’t. Then he looked forward again. Still smiling.
“Yeah,” he said, voice even, relaxed. “I’ve been hearing a lot about her.”
The audience lost it.
Adrian, meanwhile, looked delighted.
“Oh, you’ve been hearing about her?” he repeated, leaning forward slightly. “That’s interesting.”
Gojo only shrugged lightly.
Adrian turned toward the screen behind them. “Well,” he said, drawing it out just enough, “in case you missed it-”
He gestured.
“Let’s take a look.”
The lights dimmed slightly again, not as dramatic this time, as the screen flickered to life.
The interview clip appeared.
Her.
Sitting under bright lights. Smiling. Answering.
“Who is Y/N’s crush?”
A pause.
“Gojo Satoru.”
The audience reacted instantly. Even though they had already seen it. Even though they knew what was coming.
The clip continued.
“Who would Y/N like to work with?”
“Gojo Satoru.”
“Who does Y/N admire the most?”
A softer tone.
“…Gojo.”
The reactions shifted. From laughter, to something more interested.
The clip ended.
The lights came back up fully.
The audience was still reacting, talking, laughing, a few claps lingering as the moment settled.
Adrian turned back toward the couch slowly. Very slowly. His eyes landed on Gojo.
“Well,” he said, smiling, “that’s… a lot of admiration.”
Nobara covered her mouth, already laughing again.
Yuji leaned forward like he didn’t want to miss a second of this.
Megumi looked straight ahead, but didn’t miss it either.
Adrian tilted his head slightly. “So,” he continued, voice light, “What do you think?”
The question lingered.
Light on the surface.
Not light at all underneath.
Gojo didn’t answer immediately.
Not because he didn’t have one, but because he didn’t seem in a hurry to give it.
He leaned back slightly, one arm still draped along the back of the couch, gaze flicking briefly toward the screen behind them, where her face had been just seconds ago, before returning to Adrian.
A faint smile remained. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, easy. “I’ve seen it.”
Yuji let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Of course you have.”
“It was hard to miss,” he added.
A few laughs. A few ohhhs from the crowd.
Adrian leaned forward immediately, catching onto it.
“Oh, so you did watch the whole thing.”
“Mm,” Gojo hummed. “I admire her work too,” he said.
It was simple. Delivered without emphasis. Like it didn’t mean much.
The audience did not take it that way. The reaction came quick, cheers, louder this time, a ripple of excitement that moved through the room all over again.
Beside him, Nobara’s head snapped toward him. “Oh, now you admire her work?”
Yuji laughed openly. “That’s crazy.”
Megumi didn’t say anything.
But the glance he gave Gojo was brief, and knowing.
Adrian sat back slightly, smiling like he had just been handed something.
“Oh, this is good,” he said. “Now, fans also noticed something recently…”
The audience quieted just enough.
Adrian tilted his head. “Didn’t you follow her on Instagram?”
That did it. The reaction was instant. A mix of laughter, cheering, a few shocked sounds layered together.
And for the first time on the show, Gojo paused. It was brief, subtle, but it was there.
Nobara leaned forward immediately. “Ohhh?”
Gojo ran a hand through his hair again. “Yeah,” he said.
He adjusted slightly where he sat, still composed, but no longer as untouched by it as before.
“I mean-” he started, then paused briefly, choosing his words with just a little more care now. “If we end up working together,” he continued, tone returning to something easier, “it’s better to be connected.”
A small shrug. Like it was obvious. Like it meant nothing more than that. “I’d like to work with her in the future,” he added.
Adrian watched him for a second. “Just professional?” he asked lightly.
The audience laughed.
The question lingered just a second longer than necessary.
Long enough for the audience to lean in.
Long enough for the silence to feel… intentional.
Gojo let out a quiet chuckle. Like he knew exactly what Adrian was doing. “Yeah…” he said, dragging it just slightly, his gaze flicking down for a brief moment before returning forward.
A small smile tugged at his lips. “Just professionally.”
Jujutsu Kaisen Cast Interview: Season 2, Games & Spotlight Secrets | The Midnight Spotlight
14.9M views · 1 day ago · 121K comments
comments
lastcomment coming back to this when they get cast together
gojoupdates he smiled the entire time btw. entire time.
industrytea casting directors watching this like 👀
lowkeylurker “just professionally” bro even YOU don’t believe that
internetdetective he paused before answering the instagram question… y’all saw that right
deluluclub no ❤️
realistmaybe or it’s just pr guys relax
gojosimpnation the way he laughed when her name came up??? HELLO???
midnightviewer adrian knew EXACTLY what he was doing bringing her up 💀
yn.official
liked by gojo.satoru, nobara, and 1.2m others yn.official long week
comments
fanaccount1 GOJO LIKED???
jjkupdates HELLO????
deluluclub WHY IS HE HERE 😭
gojosimpnation he scrolled. he chose. he liked.
romcomenergy this is how it starts idc
someone123 HE FOLLOWED HER AND NOW THIS???
quietobserver he didn’t like her promo posts. he liked THIS one
“I can hear you breathing and it’s grating,” you grumble at him. “Can you stop?" You eye him up and down, scowling. “And did you have to wear that shirt?”
“What’s wrong with my shirt?” he asks, though it doesn’t sound much like a question. More a, what’s she going on about now?
Groaning, you enunciate as though you’re talking to a child, “You have much nicer shirts.”
“I like this shirt, don’t be a dick.”
“Fuck you.”
It takes about two metres of stomping down the street for you to notice he’s not walking beside you anymore. You turn around, glaring. He’s sitting on a short ledge, arms crossed and looking serene as he pretends he doesn’t have an angry girlfriend marching back towards him. “Why are you sitting down? Let’s go, you big, lazy dumm—”
Toji gives you a look. It’s not a look of anger or scolding, merely one that has you biting your tongue. He grips your hips, keeping you in place. You fight against it, not wanting him to touch you but he’s much stronger and you eventually get too tired to fight any more. “Take a deep breath. Count to ten. Mutter some mantra. I don’t give a fuck. Just do whatever you need to do to get your head on straight,” he says. “I’ll wait.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”
“No,” Toji insists. “You’re not fine. You’re tired, hungry, overwhelmed by the heat, the crowds, the noises, or whatever the fuck else. I get it. It’s fine. What’s not fine is snapping at me — you know damn well you can’t hear me breathing over the sound of traffic. And you like this shirt. You got me this shirt. You’re probably just lashing out because your social battery’s empty.”
A frown graces your features. “How do you know about that?”
“You talk about it. And I listen. That such a crazy thought to you?”
Looking up at you so earnestly, so patiently, the mean retort climbing up your throat dies. With a sigh, your whole body softens in his hold. You cradle his face, brushing the scruff on his jaw. “I’m being a bitch, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Toji. Ugh, I’m just so hungry, and my feet are sore, and I feel disgusting. I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”
He stands, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, uncaring of the people walking by and no doubt judging your PDA. He mutters, “I’m a grown man; I can take it. Just let me know why you’re really upset. Then I can do something about it. You know I can’t stand feeling helpless and shit. Makes my chest all itchy.”
“You’re so wise,” you say, a smile pulling at the corners of your lips.
Toji’s scarred ones mirror yours.
“Have to be, don’t I? How else will I survive your grumpy ass?”
Yeah, I'm not always horny. Sometimes I'm a big softie...
𝓲𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 ♰ fushiguro toji slowly falls in love with you, his chaotic flower-shop neighbor, as your little daily moments turn his quiet, guarded life into something soft, green, and impossible to stay away from.
✿ ◞◟) fushiguro toji 𝓍 gn!reader
𝓬𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 fluff, tattoo artist!toji, florist!reader, soft romance, slow burn but also not really because it’s only 15 days but it kinda feels slow, neighbors to lovers, toji is the biggest softie ever (in heavy denial), grumpy x sunshine.
— day one.
toji fushiguro had been in this exact spot on the industrial stretch of maple street for nearly four years now, and in that time, he'd watched three different businesses cycle through the narrow storefront next to his tattoo parlor.
first it had been a vape shop that lasted eight months before the owner disappeared one night with all the inventory. then a sad little thrift store that smelled like mothballs and despair. then six months of nothing — just a dark, dusty window with a faded 'for lease' sign yellowing in the sun.
so when the lights flickered on again last week, toji didn't think much of it. it was probably another doomed venture; he'd give it three months, maybe four if they were stubborn.
but this morning, when toji pulls up to the curb at 10:47 — seven minutes late, because his coffee order got screwed up and he wasn't about to start a twelve-hour shift without caffeine — he stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk.
there are plants everywhere.
not like, a few sad ferns in the window. like, everywhere; the entire front of the shop is a riot of green and color, cascading vines spilling from hanging baskets, fat terra cotta pots clustered on the sidewalk like they're waiting for a bus, a wild explosion of flowers in every shade toji didn't know existed spilling out of buckets and urns and what looks like an old clawfoot bathtub painted robin's egg blue.
the sign above the door says "thistle & stem" in a pretty hand-painted letters that curve like growing things, each one decorated with tiny gold leaves.
toji stares at it for a long moment, then he stares at his own shop, two doors down — black brick facade, a single neon sign that says "black dog tattoo" in flickering red, a metal grate over the window that he never bothered to take down because it looked appropriately menacing.
it's fine. he's fine.
toji doesn't care what his neighbor does.
he walks past the flower shop without looking in, keys jangling in his fist, and doesn't notice the way his shadow falls across the windowsill full of white roses. he doesn't notice the person inside, sleeves rolled up to their elbows and dirt smudged on their cheek, glancing up at the sound of his footsteps.
toji doesn't notice at all.
— day two.
toji is trying to eat a sad gas station sandwich in his back room when he hears it — a crash that makes him choke on a bite of turkey and cheese, followed by a string of words so creatively profane he almost respects it.
he's not nosy. he's not.
but the wall between their shops is thin enough that toji can easily hear when the coffee shop on the other side of him plays that same annoying indie folk playlist, and right now he can easily hear what sounds like someone fighting for their life against a potted plant.
toji sets down his sandwich.
he tells himself he's just going to check if they need help because he doesn't want the landlord raising his rent to cover someone else's property damage.
when toji pushes through the connecting door — it was left unlocked from his side because he's never had a reason to lock it before — he finds absolute chaos.
there are flowers everywhere. not like, a normal amount of flowers for a flower shop. like, a botanical garden exploded inside a greenhouse that was already mid-explosion; buckets of blooms crowd every surface, half-arranged bouquets spill across the counter, and in the center of it all, you're standing with your hands on your hips, glaring at a fallen shelf that has scattered about fifteen tiny succulent pots across the floor.
you look up when the door creaks.
there's a leaf in your hair and dirt on your forehead and something purple smeared on your wrist that might be paint or might be crushed petals.
"hi," you say, slightly breathless. "sorry, did that wake you? i forget people can hear—" you gesture vaguely at the shared wall. "i'm still figuring out the acoustics in here."
toji blinks.
he'd expected someone different, maybe, older. more... flower-shop-owner-shaped. instead you look like you just finished wrestling a hedge and lost, but you're smiling at him like it's the most normal thing in the world.
"shelf fall," he says, because his brain hasn't caught up yet.
"yeah," you agree, kicking gently at a piece of broken terracotta. "i think i overloaded it. which is funny because i literally told myself this morning, 'don't overload the shelf', and then i looked at this beautiful calathea and i thought, you know what, what's one more?" you laugh, and it's bright and a little self-deprecating. "famous last words."
toji watches you crouch down to start gathering the scattered succulents, and something about the way you handle them — so gently, like each tiny rosette of leaves is something precious — makes his chest feel really weird.
"you need help?" the words come out rougher than he intended, almost reluctant.
you look up at him, surprised.
"oh, i couldn't ask you to—"
"you didn't ask. i'm offering."
there's a little pause.
you tilt your head, studying him, and toji feels suddenly really aware of how he must look — scarred knuckles, the faded bruise on his jaw from a sparring match three days ago, the permanent furrow between his brows that makes people cross the street to avoid him.
but you just smile, smaller this time, and say;
"okay. yeah. thanks."
toji ends up spending forty-five minutes in your shop.
forty-five minutes, crouched on the floor with you, scooping dirt back into pots and holding things steady while you reattach the shelf brackets. you talk while you work — about the shop, about how you've been dreaming of opening it for years, about how your last job made you want to scream into the void so you saved up and jumped.
"it's terrifying," you admit, wiping your hands on your jeans. "like, what if nobody buys flowers? what if i'm bad at this? what if the plants unionize and overthrow me?"
toji snorts before he can stop himself.
"plants unionize?"
"you laugh, but have you seen how fast a pothos can grow? they're plotting something."
you're grinning now, and toji realizes he's still holding a tiny succulent in his palm, a little rosette the color of pale jade.
"you should keep that one. for helping."
he looks down at it, then looks back at you.
"i don't... have plants."
"well, now you do."
you pluck it gently from his hand and press it into his fingers, closing his fist around the pot. your hands are warm, a little calloused, and you don't seem to notice the way toji’s whole arm goes still at the contact.
"it's a haworthia. they're basically indestructible. you could probably forget about it for a month and it'd still forgive you."
toji looks at the tiny plant before looking back at you.
"...thanks," he says finally.
and he means it more than he should.
— day three.
the haworthia sits on the counter of his tattoo parlor, right next to the register, and toji has caught himself staring at it approximately fourteen times today.
it's just a plant; a small green thing in a plain terra cotta pot, but every time he looks at it, he remembers the way you'd brushed dirt off his sleeve without thinking, the way you'd laughed when he'd accidentally knocked over a watering can and soaked his boots, the way you'd said "see you around, neighbor!" like you actually meant it.
his 3pm appointment, a guy named marcus getting a traditional eagle on his forearm, raises an eyebrow at it.
"didn't peg you for a plant guy, fushiguro."
"i'm not," toji says flatly, wiping down his needle cartridge. "neighbor gave it to me."
"neighbor?"
"the flower shop next door."
marcus twists to look out the window, which is currently offering a limited view of the word "thistle" and a lot of morning sunlight.
"oh, shit, the new place? my wife's been talking about it. says they've got those fancy dried bouquets."
toji grunts.
"you should ask them out," marcus continues, because apparently everyone in his chair feels entitled to his personal life. "plant people are chill."
"focus on not moving or i'm gonna fuck up your eagle."
but after marcus leaves, toji finds himself standing in the doorway of his shop, looking sideways at the flower shop.
you're visible through the window, arranging something tall and purple in a pretty vase, your brow slightly furrowed in concentration. every few seconds you step back to squint at it, adjust a stem, step back again.
you haven't noticed him watching.
toji should go back inside, after all, he has a stencil to draw for a 6pm appointment.
instead, he finds himself crossing the few feet of sidewalk and pushing open your door, the little bell overhead chiming in a way that's embarrassingly cheerful.
you look up, and your whole face lights up.
"hey! how's the haworthia?"
"it’s… alive," toji says, because he checked it this morning to make sure.
"good."
you're beaming now, and toji feels something warm uncurl in his chest, which is annoying.
"did you need something?"
he did not need something. he has no reason to be here, but his mouth opens anyway, and what comes out is;
"what's a plant that won't die?"
you blink. "what?"
"like… the most impossible to kill plant you've got. something that even i can't mess up."
you stare at him for a second, and then you laugh — that same bright, startled laugh from yesterday — and toji realizes he likes the sound of it more than he should.
"well," you say, wiping your hands on your apron and moving toward a shelf of small green things. "if you really want foolproof, you want a snake plant. they thrive on neglect. i once forgot i had one for six months and it was basically fine."
you pick up a little pot with long, pointed leaves striped in yellow and green.
"this is a 'laurentii'. very dramatic-looking, and very low maintenance."
toji takes it from you, turning it over in his hands.
"snake plant."
"also called mother-in-law's tongue, but that feels a little aggressive for a first-time plant dad."
plant dad. toji doesn't know what to do with that phrase. he tucks it into a pocket of his brain labeled 'do not examine'.
"how much?"
you wave a hand.
"on the house. consider it a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. i should have brought you something sooner, honestly, but day two was... chaotic."
"you don't have to—"
"i want to."
you say it simply, like it's the easiest thing in the world, and toji doesn't know what to do with that either.
he stands there for a moment, holding the snake plant, watching you move back to your bouquet.
you're humming something under your breath, some song he almost recognizes, and the afternoon light is catching the dust motes floating through your shop and turning everything gold and soft.
"thanks," he says finally.
you glance up and smile.
"anytime, neighbor."
toji leaves with the plant and a feeling he refuses to name.
— day four.
the snake plant now lives next to the haworthia on his counter, and toji's 11am appointment — a nervous college kid getting her first tattoo, a tiny crescent moon behind her ear — spends the entire three-hour session glancing at them.
"they're cute," the girl says, when he's wiping away the excess ink. "do you name them?"
"no."
"you should name them."
"i'm not naming my plants."
"you could name one after me."
"i'm not naming my plants after my clients either."
she laughs, pays, tips well, and tells him she'll be back for another one next month. after she leaves, toji stares at the two pots on his counter for a long moment.
he does not name them.
( toji thinks about naming the haworthia 'asher' and then hates himself for it. )
around 2pm, he hears you through the wall — not words, just the sound of you singing along to something on the radio, your voice slightly off-key but very enthusiastic. toji finds himself listening without meaning to, his needle pausing over the stencil he's sketching.
"you're distracted today," says his 2:30, a regular named danny who's been coming to him for three years. "you okay?"
"i’m fine."
"you've been staring at that wall for like two minutes."
toji looks down at his stencil.
he's drawn a small flower, detailed rose right in the center of what was supposed to be a skull.
"shit," he mutters, scratching it out.
danny looks at the wall, then at the door that leads to the flower shop, and grins like he knows something toji doesn't.
toji simply ignores him.
— day five.
the pattern begins today, though toji doesn't realize it yet.
it starts when he runs out of coffee — actually runs out, the bottom of the bag empty, which means he forgot to buy more and now he's facing a twelve-hour shift with no caffeine and that's simply not an option.
the coffee shop is three blocks away.
but the flower shop is right there, and toji can see you through the window, watering something with a long-spouted can, and his feet are moving before his brain catches up.
the bell chimes, and you look up.
"toji!" you say, and the way you say his name, like you're glad to see him, like you've been waiting for him to appear, makes something in his stomach flip. "what's up?"
"coffee," he says, which is not a complete sentence, but you seem to understand anyway.
"oh, i've got a kettle in the back. you want some? it's not, like, fancy coffee shop coffee. it's just the grocery store kind. but it's hot and it has caffeine."
toji should say no. he should simply go to the actual coffee shop three blocks away and get his usual black coffee from the barista who already knows his order.
"yeah," he says. "okay."
you make him coffee in a chipped mug that says 'plant mommy' in glittery letters, and you don't seem embarrassed about it at all. you make yourself a cup too, and you lean against the counter while you drink it, and you ask him about his work — what kind of tattoos he does, how long he's been at it, if he's got any pictures.
toji shows you some on his phone, and you make all the right sounds of appreciation, pointing at one and saying; "the shading on that is insane" and another; "oh, i love the color saturation on this one, that must have taken forever."
most people don't get it. really, most people see toji’s portfolio and simply say 'cool' in a vague way and move on. but you're looking at each piece like you're really seeing it, like you understand the hours of work, the precision, the way a single shaky line can ruin everything.
"you're really good," you say, handing his phone back. "like, really really good."
"thanks," he says, and it comes out softer than he meant it to.
you smile at him over your mug.
"so what made you want to do tattoos?"
toji tells you.
not the whole story — not the parts about his family, about the expectations he couldn't meet, about the years he spent trying to be something he wasn't. but he tells you about the apprenticeship, about the first tattoo he ever did on real skin (a simple anchor on his own ankle, crooked and blown out but his), about the way it felt to find something that made sense.
you listen. really listen, nodding and asking questions and not looking at your phone once.
toji stays for forty-five minutes.
he drinks two cups of coffee, and learns that you moved here from across the country because you wanted to be somewhere that had 'actual seasons' and not just 'hot and then slightly less hot'. he learns that your favorite flower changes depending on your mood but right now it's sweet peas because they smell like your grandmother's garden. he learns that you have an orange cat named beans who is 'an absolute menace' and you're waiting until the shop is more settled before you let him anywhere near the merchandise.
when toji finally stands up to leave, you say;
"the coffee's always on, if you need. i'm usually here by eight."
toji nods. "eight."
"or earlier, if you're an early riser. well, i'm not, but i could be, theoretically."
"you don't have to—"
"i know."
you're smiling again, that easy smile that makes toji feel like he's missing something important.
"but the offer's there."
toji goes back to his shop after that, and he stares at his two plants for a very long time.
— day six.
toji shows up at 7:45am.
you're not there yet — the lights are off, the door locked — and he feels stupid, standing on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, waiting for a flower shop to open so he can... what? drink your coffee? talk to you about nothing?
toji is about to leave when he sees you coming down the street, a paper bag in one hand and a travel mug in the other, wearing a jacket covered in embroidered flowers that's definitely not warm enough for the morning chill.
you spot him and your whole face changes — eyebrows going up, then a smile spreading across your face like sunrise.
"toji! you're early."
"couldn't sleep," he lies.
he slept fine. he just... wanted to see you.
"well, lucky for you, i brought pastries."
you unlock the door and wave him inside, and the shop smells like soil and something floral and faintly of last night's leftover air. you flick on the lights and the whole space blooms into color, and toji watches you move through it like you belong there, like you were made to be surrounded by growing things.
you make coffee, you give him a pastry — almond croissant, still slightly warm from the bakery, you sit on the counter (on the counter, like you've forgotten there are chairs) and swing your legs while you tell him about a delivery that went wrong yesterday and how you had to re-pot seventeen succulents and your back hurts but in a good way.
toji leans against the doorframe and listens, eating his croissant, and doesn't think about how natural this feels.
"you know," you say, mid-sentence about the structural integrity of different types of potting soil. "you don't need an excuse to come over. you can just... come over. if you want."
toji's jaw stops mid-chew.
you're looking at him with something soft in your expression, something that makes his chest ache.
"i mean, we're neighbors. and i like talking to you. so… you know. door's always open."
toji swallows. "okay."
"okay," you repeat, and you're smiling again, and toji realizes he's in big, big trouble.
— day seven.
toji comes over without a reason.
he just walks through the connecting door at 2pm on a tuesday, when his schedule has a three-hour gap and he's already cleaned his station twice and reorganized his needle disposal system for no reason at all.
you're in the middle of an arrangement — something big and romantic, red roses and white lilies and some kind of trailing vine — and you even don't look up when he comes in, you just says "hey" like his presence is expected now.
"hey," toji says back.
he stands by the counter and watches you work.
your hands are steady and sure, trimming stems, stripping leaves, placing each flower like it's part of a conversation.
you talk while you work, not expecting him to respond much, just filling the space with words about your day, about a customer who wanted "something that says 'i'm sorry i forgot our anniversary but also i love you but also please don't be mad'" and how you solved it with peonies and eucalyptus.
"peonies say 'i'm sorry'?" toji asks, because apparently he's the kind of person who asks about flower meanings now.
"peonies say 'i'm an idiot but i'm trying'," you correct, and toji huffs a laugh before he can stop it.
you glance up at him, eyes bright.
"was that a laugh? did i just make fushiguro toji laugh?"
"no."
"that was definitely a laugh. i'm marking this on my calendar."
"don't."
too late. you're already grinning, reaching for your phone, and toji reaches out to grab your wrist before he thinks about it; your skin is warm under his fingers, and you both go still.
"don't," toji says again, but his voice is different now — a little lower, and way softer.
you look at his hand on your wrist, and you look up at his face; something passes between you, something that makes the air feel thick and electric.
"okay," you say quietly. "i won't."
toji lets go and steps back, clearing his throat.
"i should—" he jerks his thumb toward the door.
"yeah," you say. "okay. i'll see you later?"
"yeah."
toji goes back to his shop and stands in the middle of the room, heart beating too fast, and stares at his snake plant like it might have answers.
it doesn't.
— day eight.
the haworthia has grown a tiny baby.
a little offshoot, nestled against the side of the main rosette, and toji notices it at 9am when he's wiping down the counter.
he stares at it.
then he picks up the pot, carries it through the connecting door, and holds it out to you without a word.
you're repotting something in the back, dirt up to your elbows, and you look at the plant, then at him, then back at the plant.
"is that... a baby?"
"i don't know. it just appeared."
you set down your trowel and take the pot from him, turning it over in your hands with an expression of pure delight.
"toji! it's pupping! that means it's happy!"
"pupping?"
"producing pups. baby plants. it's a good sign—it means you're taking care of it." you look up at him, and your smile is so bright it almost hurts to look at. "you're a good plant dad."
toji's ears feel weirdly warm.
"i just put it on the counter and forgot about it."
"that's literally what haworthias want. you're really perfect for each other."
toji doesn't know what to say to that.
the man stands there while you coo over the baby succulent, explaining how he could separate it and pot it on its own or leave it to grow into a cluster, and he watches the way your fingers trace the leaves so gently, like you're touching something really precious.
"you can keep the baby," toji says. "if you want."
you look up, surprised. "really?"
"i don't need two of them."
you're quiet for a second, holding the pot against your chest.
"okay. but only if you let me give you something in return."
"you don't have to—"
"i want to."
you set the haworthia down and disappear into the forest of plants at the back of the shop, emerging a moment later with a small pot containing something trailing and green, with leaves shaped like tiny hearts.
"this is a string of hearts. it's a succulent too, so it's pretty easy, but it's... prettier. and it grows really fast. you'll have vines hanging down everywhere before you know it."
toji takes the pot; the leaves are delicate, almost whimsical, and nothing like the kind of thing he'd ever pick for himself.
"string of hearts," he repeats slowly.
"yeah." you're looking at him with an expression he can't really read. "i thought it might suit you."
toji doesn't know what that means. he takes it back to his shop anyway and puts it on the counter next to the snake plant, and now he has three.
he names none of them.
( he thinks about naming the string of hearts after you, and the thought makes him feel seventeen years old and stupid. )
— day nine.
the flower shop is busy today — toji can hear the steady stream of customers through the wall, the murmur of voices, the chime of the register.
he's busy too, a full day of appointments, and he tells himself that's why he doesn't go over.
but at 5pm, when his last client walks out the door and he's wiping down his station, toji hears something that makes him pause; not a crash this time, but something softer, quieter.
he pushes through the connecting door without even thinking and finds you slumped against the counter, your head in your hands, surrounded by the wreckage of what looks like a hundred flower stems.
"bad day?" toji asks, and you look up with red-rimmed eyes that make his chest go tight.
"wedding order," you say, your voice rough. "fifty centerpieces. due tomorrow. and i just—" you gesture at the mess around you. "i don't know what happened. i can't make them look right. everything's wrong."
toji doesn't know anything about flowers, he doesn't know anything about centerpieces or weddings or what makes one arrangement better than another.
but he knows what it looks like when someone's drowning, and he knows he can't just stand there.
"show me," he says.
you blink. "what?"
"show me what you're trying to do. maybe a fresh pair of eyes."
you hesitate, then nod, wiping your face with the back of your hand. you pull up a reference photo on your phone; something soft and romantic, blush roses and cream hydrangeas and sprigs of something delicate and white.
"this is what they want," you say. "and this is what i'm making."
you push one of the centerpieces toward him, and toji looks at it. it's not bad. it's actually pretty. but compared to the photo, it's... off. too crowded, and too symmetrical.
"you're trying too hard," toji says.
"excuse me?"
"the photo. look at it." he holds up your phone next to your arrangement. "theirs is looser and more natural. yours looks like you're afraid to let the flowers breathe."
you stare at him. "how do you know that?"
toji shrugs.
"tattoos are the same. sometimes you overwork a piece because you're scared it's not good enough, but what it really needs is for you to step back and trust the design."
you're quiet for a long moment, then you pull the centerpiece toward you, and start pulling out stems, rearranging. toji watches your hands move, he watches the tension in your shoulders start to ease.
"like this?" you ask, pushing it back toward him.
he looks at it; it's better and looser, more like the photo.
"yeah," toji says. "like that."
you let out a breath — it was something between a laugh and a sob — and scrub your hands over your face.
"thank you. i'm sorry, i don't know why i'm so emotional about this, it's just flowers—"
"it's not just flowers," toji says. "it's your business. it's your dream. it's okay to care."
you look up at him, and there's something in your expression that makes toji’s heart completely stutter — something raw and really grateful and maybe something else, something he's not ready to name yet.
"stay?" you ask. "while i fix the rest? you don't have to help, i just—i don't want to be alone right now."
toji should go. he has inventory to do, invoices to send, a million little things he's been putting off.
"yeah," he says instead. "okay."
toji stays for two hours.
he doesn't touch a single flower, he just sits on a stool in the corner and keeps you sweet company while you work, answering your questions about his day and telling you stupid stories about difficult clients and watching the way you relax bit by bit, flower by flower.
by the time you finish, it's dark outside and your hands are stained green and your eyes are tired but you're smiling again.
"you're a good neighbor," you say, walking him to the door.
"i'm a terrible neighbor, actually," toji says. "i often play loud music and my clients smoke outside and i've never once brought you cookies."
you laugh.
"cookies would be nice, but i'll settle for you showing up when i'm having a meltdown over roses."
"deal."
you softly hold out your pinky, and toji stares at it like it's a foreign object.
"pinky promise," you say. "you show up, i'll have coffee."
he hooks his pinky around yours; your skin is warm, your grip surprisingly strong, and the gesture is so silly and earnest that something in his chest cracks open just a little.
"pinky promise," toji repeats, and your smile could easily light up the whole street.
— day ten.
there's a flower on toji’s doorstep when he arrives at 8am.
not a potted plant this time — it was a cut flower, a single stem in a small glass vial of water, with a little note attached in your pretty handwriting.
for being nice when you didn't have to be.
— the florist next door.
the flower is a rose. but it was not a red one — it was something way softer, peachy-pink, with petals that curl inward like they're still waking up.
toji stands there holding it for a good full minute before he finally goes inside.
he doesn't know what kind of rose it is, he doesn't know what it means, but he puts it on the counter next to his growing collection of plants, and he catches himself looking at it all day, and he doesn't tell anyone why.
— day eleven.
the pattern has shifted now.
toji doesn't make excuses anymore; the man just comes over when he wants to — when he has a gap in his schedule, when he needs coffee, when he hears you through the wall and wants to see your face. sometimes he brings lunch, and sometimes he brings nothing at all.
today toji brings a customer.
well… not intentionally. but his 1pm appointment, a guy named javier who's getting a portrait of his dog on his bicep, sees the flower shop through the window and goes "oh shit, my girlfriend would love that place" and before toji can stop him, he's crossing the sidewalk and pushing through the door.
toji follows, because apparently that's what he does now.
you're behind the counter, helping an older woman pick out a bouquet, and you glance up when the bell chimes. your face does that thing — that little thing where you see toji and your whole expression softens — and javier notices immediately, because of course he does.
"dude," javier mutters, elbowing him. "is that your—"
"no."
"could be."
"no."
you finish with the customer and come over, wiping your hands on your apron.
"hey. what's up?"
"this is javier," toji says. "he wanted to see the shop."
"i wanted to buy flowers for my girlfriend," javier corrects, grinning. "and maybe watch toji be weird around you."
toji contemplates violence.
but you just laugh — that bright, easy laugh — and say;
"well, javier, what's your girlfriend like?"
javier tells you; she's an artist, she loves bold colors, she's been stressed about work lately and he wants to surprise her.
you listen carefully, ask a few little questions, and then disappear into the back. when you come back, you're holding an arrangement that makes javier's jaw drop — orange lilies and deep purple irises and something spiky and modern that toji doesn't know the name of.
"this is called protea," you say, pointing at the spiky one. "it's a little dramatic and a little weird and impossible to ignore. like you said she is."
javier stares at it, looks at you, and then looks at toji.
"you're good," he says.
you shrug, but you're smiling. "it's just flowers."
it's not just flowers. toji knows that now.
javier buys the arrangement, tips you twenty bucks, and spends the entire tattoo session asking about you. how long have you known each other, are you dating, are you going to date, because honestly man you should really—
"focus on your dog," toji says, pressing the needle a little harder than necessary.
"oww."
"good."
— day twelve.
toji notices the little things now.
the way you bite your lip when you're concentrating. the way you hum when you're happy and go completely silent when you're stressed. the way your hands move when you're explaining something — always gesturing, always reaching for something, like you can't help but touch the world around you.
he notices the way you look at him, too.
the way your gaze lingers on his veiny hands, his arms, the scar on his jaw. the way you lean in when he talks, like you're trying to catch every single word.
toji is not imagining it. he's not.
but he doesn't know what to do with it.
today, he comes over at closing time — 7pm, the sun setting orange through your windows, the shop empty and quiet. you're sweeping the floor, your hair slightly falling in your pretty face, and you don't even look up when he comes in, just says "hey" in that soft way you have, again.
"hey," toni says back.
he helps you sweep. he doesn't ask, he just takes the broom from your hands when you set it down to water something, and finishes the job while you close up.
you don't comment on it, but you smile at him when you notice, and that's enough.
"you want to get dinner?" you ask softly, when everything's done and the lights are off and you're both standing on the sidewalk. "there's a ramen place a few blocks over. nothing fancy, but it's really good."
toji's heart does something complicated in his chest.
"yeah," he says, a little too quickly. "i want to."
dinner is... easy. it’s easier than it should be.
you talk about nothing and everything — about your cat beans, about the worst tattoo toji's ever done (a tribal butterfly on a guy who wouldn't sit still), about the customer who cried because your flowers reminded her of her dead mother and how you cried too, after she left.
"it gets me every time," you admit, stirring your ramen. "someone gets emotional about flowers and i just—i can't help it. they're just plants. but they're also not."
toji nods. he truly understands that now.
after dinner, you walk back together, shoulders almost brushing. the street is quiet, the streetlights casting everything in gold, and toji is acutely aware of how close you are, how easy it would be to reach out and take your hand.
he doesn't.
but toji really wants to.
— day thirteen.
the string of hearts is growing.
toji noticed it this morning — new leaves unfurling along the vines, tiny and perfect, each one shaped like a heart. he'd stood there staring at it for a full minute, feeling something swell in his chest that he refused to examine.
well… he's examining it now, actually.
toji is standing in the middle of his tattoo shop at 10am, with no appointments until noon, staring at the delicate green vines and thinking about you.
the way you'd said "i thought it might suit you."
the way you'd looked at him when you said it.
the way you are looking at him all the time, like toji is something worth looking at.
he's so deep in thought that he doesn't hear the connecting door open. he doesn't hear your footsteps. he doesn't realize you're there until you say his name, soft and close, and he turns to find you standing right behind him.
"you okay?" you ask. "i knocked, but you didn't answer, so i—"
you glance at the string of hearts, then back at him.
"oh. you're looking at it."
"it's growing," toji says, like that's not obvious.
"yeah." you step closer, looking at the plant with him. "they grow fast when they're happy."
you're standing so close that toji can smell you — soil and something floral and underneath it all, something so warm and so sweet. he can see the small scar on your chin, the way your eyelashes cast shadows on your cheeks, the slight parting of your lips as you breathe.
"toji," you say, and his name has never sounded like that before — soft and wondering, like you're asking a question you're afraid to hear the answer to.
"yeah?"
you turn to look at him, and you're close enough that toji could count your freckles if you had any. well, you don't. but he could, if he wanted to.
"i've been meaning to ask you something," you say.
"what?"
you're quiet for a second.
then you reach out and touch his hand — just a brush of your fingers against his, light as a leaf falling.
"do you want to go on a date?" you ask. "like, an actual date. not coffee in my shop or ramen after work. a real one."
toji's heart stops, starts again, then beats too fast.
"a date," he slowly repeats.
"yeah."
you're blushing now, a soft pink spreading across your cheeks, and you're not looking at him anymore, you're looking at where your fingers are still touching his hand.
"unless i'm reading this wrong. and if i am, just say so, and i'll simply go back to my shop and we'll pretend this never happened and i'll—"
"you're not reading it wrong."
you look up. your eyes are wide, hopeful, and terrified.
"you're not," toji says again, and his voice is rougher than he meant it to be. "reading it wrong, i mean. you're not."
"okay," you breathe. "okay. good."
"good."
you're both just standing there, your fingers still touching his, and toji realizes he's been holding his breath. he lets it out slowly, and something in his chest unclenches.
"so," you say, "a date?"
"yeah."
toji has never said yes to something so fast in his life.
"a date."
— day fourteen.
toji spends the entire day nervous.
he usually doesn't get nervous; he's fushiguro toji, he's been doing tattoos for fifteen years, he's faced down bikers and gang members and a guy who tried to pay him with a bag of loose change. toji doesn't get nervous.
but he's nervous now.
he's wearing his good jeans; the ones without the paint stain on the knee. he put on his cleanest black t-shirt and actually brushed his black hair and he's now standing in front of his mirror like a teenager going to prom, wondering if this is too much or not enough.
the date is at 7pm.
you're going to some restaurant you picked out, something 'cute but not fancy', and toji has no idea what to expect.
at 6:30pm, there's a knock on his back door.
not the front — the back, the one that connects to the alley, the one only a few people know about. he opens it and finds you standing there, holding a small potted plant.
"for good luck," you say, pushing it into his hands. "it's a jade plant. they're supposed to bring prosperity and good fortune and also i was so nervous and i simply needed something to do with my hands."
toji looks at the jade plant, then looks at you. you're wearing something soft and flowy, your hair different somehow, and you're looking at him like you're not sure if you're allowed to.
"you look nice," he says, because it's true and because he doesn't know what else to say.
your whole face lights up. "yeah?"
"yeah."
you're both quiet for a second. then you laugh, a little breathless, and say;
it's easy in a way that surprises him, conversation flowing like water, no awkward pauses or forced small talk. you tell him about your childhood, about the grandmother who taught you about flowers, about the years you spent working jobs you hated before you finally took the leap.
toji tells you about his son. about megumi, about the custody arrangement, about how hard it is to only see him every other weekend. he doesn't usually talk about this — he doesn't talk about it at all, actually — but you're looking at him with such open attention that the words just come.
"you're a good dad," you say softly, and toji feels something crack in his chest.
"i'm trying," he says.
"that's what makes you a good dad."
after dinner, you walk through the city, not going anywhere in particular; the streets are busy, full of people and noise, but somehow it feels like you're the only two people in the entire world. your shoulders brush, your hands swing between you, close enough to touch.
toji reaches out and takes your hand.
you don't pull away.
you squeeze his fingers instead, and your palm is warm against his, and toji thinks he might actually be okay.
— day fifteen.
the tattoo shop has changed.
toji notices it when he walks in this morning — the way the light falls different, the way the space feels different. it takes him a minute to figure out why.
there are flowers everywhere.
not in a bad way, not in the way you'd expect from a tattoo parlor. but small touches, here and there — a single stem in a glass on the counter, a tiny succulent on the windowsill, a dried bouquet hanging upside down near the back door.
the string of hearts has grown another few inches.
the snake plant is thriving.
the haworthia's baby is doing well in your shop, you told him yesterday, already putting out roots of its own.
toji stands in the middle of his shop, surrounded by green and pretty growing things, and thinks about how different his life looks now than it did fifteen days ago.
fifteen days since a shelf fell and a person with dirt on their cheek asked him for help. fifteen days since he started finding reasons to cross the sidewalk.
fifteen days since toji started falling in love.
the connecting door opens, and you walk in without bothering to knock, two cups of coffee in your hands. you're wearing his hoodie — the one you stole yesterday, the black one with the hole in the cuff — and your hair is messy and your eyes are still soft with sleep and you are, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing toji has ever seen.
"morning," you say, handing him a cup.
"morning," he says back.
you lean against the counter next to him, close enough that your shoulders fully touch, and you look around at the tattoo shop — at the plants, at the flowers, at the evidence of your presence in toji’s space.
"your shop is getting very green," you observe.
"whose fault is that?"
"mine," you admit, grinning. "i have no regrets."
toji looks down at you — at the way you fit against his side, at the way you're looking up at him like he's something good, something worth keeping.
"hey," toji says.
"hey," you reply, giggling.
"i'm glad you moved in next door."
your smile softens into something smaller, more private.
"yeah?"
"yeah."
toji sets down his coffee, reaches out, and tucks a piece of hair behind your ear; his fingers linger on your jaw, and you lean into the touch like you’ve been waiting for it all along.
"i'm really fucking glad."
you stand on your tiptoes and kiss him.
it's so soft, and so gentle; your lips taste like coffee and something really sweet, and your hand comes up to rest on toji’s chest, right over his heart, and toji thinks he might actually die — right here, in his flower-filled tattoo parlor, with his arms around the florist from next door.
when you pull back, you're smiling.
"good," you say. "because i'm not going anywhere."
toji looks around at his shop — at the plants, at the flowers, at the evidence of you everywhere he looks. at the way his life has become something softer, something greener, something that feels like coming home.
"good," he says.
and for the first time in a very, very long time, fushiguro toji lets himself smile.
i honestly wrote the whole thing on a whim so im sorry if its not that good ugh (｡ᵕ ◞ _◟) but i was really craving some fluff with toji lol
dailybridgerton
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