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itoshislave · 6 days ago

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⊹₊ ˚‧₊୨ 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘈𝘊𝘌 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐𝘐 – 𝘈 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 ୧₊‧ ˚₊⊹ — Ryomen Sukuna

۶ৎ It’s 1946. The war is over. The city is learning to breathe again — but you are not. Nanami Kento, your husband, was buried in a common grave for heroes. A final telegram, a forgotten medal on the dresser, and a bloodstained letter were all that remained of him. Since then, you’ve lived in a house that feels far too big for one woman, and a bed that weighs like stone without his body beside you.

You spend your days writing letters that will never be read, listening to the neighbors rebuild their lives, smelling the coffee without feeling hunger. Loneliness is a cruel but constant companion. Until the union’s accountant — a man named Ryomen Sukuna — begins to show up more often than necessary.

He’s rough, ill-tempered, and smells of smoke and old paperwork. But there’s something in his eyes… something that sees you without pity, yet without condescension. A man marked by the war in another way. A man who also lost, but never speaks of it.

wc. 2.4k+ tw. prolonged grief, mentions of widowhood, extreme loneliness, silent depression, misdirected anger, self-deprecating thoughts, self-neglect, compulsive behaviors, emotional isolation, denial of affection, guilt about moving on, unresolved trauma, raw emotional pain, allusions to physical fights, episodes of emotional numbness, and the slow rebuilding of affection after loss.

taglist: @poopooindamouf @totallygyomeiswife @kamuihz tba...

Tuesday starts to mean something again.

The wall clock — an old, tired tick-tock made of dark wood — no longer marks the hours with the same indifference. Sometimes, you catch yourself looking at it at 2 p.m. Other times, you don’t even notice you’re brushing your hair.

He always arrives at the same time, with the same expression: sober, impassive, slightly bored. Carries a folded newspaper under his arm. And occasionally, a brown paper bag with two loaves of bread.

“Leftovers from the bakery. Didn’t want to throw them out,” he says.

It’s a lie.

You know he bought them.

That he remembered. That he thought about it.

But you say nothing. Not even thank you.

You take the bread and break it in half, like it’s an old habit.

The anger begins as a low ember.

You wake up in the morning and feel it beneath your skin.

It doesn’t scream. It murmurs. It asks:

Why are you still here, if he isn’t?

Why did the world keep going?

Why does the baker still knead the dough? Why does the sun still rise? Why does Sukuna walk through your door with warm bread — and why do you let him?

Guilt drowns you. Then spits you out. Then swallows you again.

Sometimes you catch yourself laughing at something he said — dry, blunt, cynical.

And then cry in the bathroom, ashamed to have laughed. Ashamed to feel anything other than grief.

On the third Tuesday, he notices your hands.

You don’t realize it at first. You’re peeling the skin off your fingertips, distracted. Thin skin, recent wound.

“That’s just boredom,” he comments, looking at your nails.

You raise your eyes, sharp.

“And what do you suggest? Embroider a handkerchief? Write one more letter to a dead man?”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t apologize. Just chews slowly. His large hand wrapped around the glass as if he wants to crush it — but doesn’t.

“No. I just think it’s ugly,” he shrugs. “You have pretty hands. Ruining them out of boredom is stupid.”

You go silent.

Then harsh.

“Have you always been this much of a brute, or is this new?”

“Always been. I just don’t usually visit widows,” he says, unblinking.

You get up abruptly.

The chair scrapes the floor like a scream.

You walk to the door.

Open it.

The wind comes in and chills your bare feet.

“Leave, Sukuna.”

He doesn’t move. But his gaze shifts.

As if he knew that’s exactly what you needed to say.

As if he’d been waiting for the eruption.

“I will,” he says. “But don’t lie to yourself.”

You turn to him, exhausted.

“Where did I lie?”

“That you want me gone. That you don’t wait for me on Tuesdays. That you didn’t hear my steps on the gravel before the bell.”

He points with his chin to the bread. “And that you didn’t break that bread like someone sharing a secret.”

The words are stones.

But he’s already up.

Leaves the newspaper on the table and walks out without looking back.

When the door closes, silence returns. But something remains suspended in the air.

A trace of truth.

A metallic taste of too much honesty.

You bite into the half-left bread.

It’s cold. But not flavorless.

That night, you dream of Nanami. But it’s not a good dream.

He’s distant. Almost faded.

You scream his name, but he doesn’t hear.

You wake up with damp eyes. And with rage.

Rage that he’s gone. That you stayed. That Sukuna exists.

Rage because maybe… just maybe… some part of you is relearning what it means to be touched by life.

The next Tuesday, he comes back as if nothing happened.

Brings smaller loaves. And coffee that’s far too strong.

You complain.

He laughs.

You do too.

But then the rage returns — because you’re still in ruins and he fixes nothing.

Because he lacks the tenderness Nanami had. Because he doesn’t know how to make tea. Doesn’t roll up his sleeves. Doesn’t say “please.”

Sukuna, with his unshaven face, tired eyes, huge hands, and short patience, is the opposite of what you had.

And precisely for that reason, he begins to fill the space between absence and the everyday.

One day, you confront him.

“Why do you keep coming?”

He chews slowly.

“Because I like you. And because no one else seems to notice that you’re still alive.”

The phrase hits you like a warm slap.

You don’t reply. You get up, grab the dishes, and begin to wash. The sound of water, soap, clinking crockery — everything feels too loud.

He gets closer.

You feel it. Before you hear it.

“You don’t need to like me,” he says. “But you need to stop dying a little every day. Because you didn’t die. Not yet.”

You drop the plate into the sink.

Look at him.

And for a moment, the world disappears.

“I don’t know how,” you whisper. “I don’t know how to be anything but his widow.”

He takes a step back.

No irony. No sharpness.

“I didn’t know how to be someone before I met you either.”

You almost ask what that means. But you don’t.

Truth is, you’re not ready for answers yet.

You want to get a little more lost.

You want to hurt, just a bit longer, to prove that you still love.

But you also start wanting to survive. Even if it’s in the wrong way.

So, you start leaving the door ajar on Tuesdays.

Just that.

But it’s enough.

There is a fury that starts in the bones.

You wake up and feel the cold embedded in your joints, in the pads of your fingers, at the base of your neck.

But it’s not winter.

It’s anger.

Silent, dense, viscous — it drags through you like old oil.

You hate being alive.

You hate the sound of church bells at 9 a.m.

Hate the whistling kettle, the creaking doorknob, the wall clock that insists on measuring time.

You despise the texture of clean linen.

Despise the scent of the soap Nanami liked.

Despise your own clothes — too old to be new, too new to be thrown away.

And on Tuesdays, you hate Sukuna.

Because he comes. Because he isn’t afraid of silence. Because he doesn’t try to fix you.

On the fifth time he walks in, he says nothing.

Just sits down. Drops the bread bag on the table. Looks at you like he knows he won’t hear a “thank you.”

And still, he stays.

You leave the kitchen warm on purpose.

Let the kettle burn.

Leave the door ajar and pray the wind slams it.

He doesn’t complain. But he takes off his coat, loosens his collar. The muscles in his neck shift as he swallows a sip of the strong coffee you made.

It’s far too bitter. You know that.

You made it that way on purpose.

“Tastes awful,” he comments, still drinking.

You cross your arms, defiant.

“Then spit it out.”

“I’ve had worse,” he shrugs, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. “You think you’re the first woman to poison me?”

You throw the dish towel against the sink with force.

“I’m not your woman.”

“And I’m not your problem,” he snaps back.

The silence that follows is heavy like a low ceiling.

You think about yelling. About breaking the mug. About throwing him out.

But you do something else: you pretend he doesn’t exist. Start cleaning the kitchen with mechanical fury. Wipe the counter too hard. Scrub a pot that wasn’t even dirty. Slam drawers shut with sharp clicks.

He watches. As if watching a play. Or a wild animal in captivity.

You hate that look.

So you snap:

“Don’t you have anything else to fix in the books? Planning to visit me every week now?”

He leans back in the chair, legs wide, looking more comfortable than he should.

“I like being here.”

“You like provoking.”

“Yeah. I like that too.”

His honesty is a dull blade.

It doesn’t cut clean. It tears.

“Why do you like being here? Because you enjoy watching a woman fall apart?”

“No,” he says. “Because you’re still standing. Even with all the cracks.”

That breaks something in you.

But you don’t show it.

You keep wiping the same spot on the counter far too long, until the wood seems cleaner than the rest of the house.

The next week, he brings something different.

A rose.

A bit wilted. One petal creased.

“Fell on the way,” he says, placing it on the table without looking.

You don’t touch it.

Don’t comment.

But you leave a vase of water nearby. And the next day, without realizing it, the rose is in it.

And that makes you angry.

Because it was you. Because you didn’t want to. Because you’re giving in, even if slowly.

That night, you write in your notebook:

He leaves traces like dust on the furniture. He doesn’t invade. But he’s everywhere. In the bread, in the pulled-out chair, in the warmth left on the used dishes. I’m starting to hear him in the empty rooms. And that terrifies me.

Anger changes color over time.

It shifts from red to blue.

From shouting to muteness.

You start to wait for him without meaning to.

Hear his steps on the gravel before the bell.

Smell the cheap cigarette before the door opens.

And you hate him for that.

On the eighth Tuesday, he says:

“This house holds a lot of memory. Some corners still smell like a dead man.”

You look at him, sharp:

“Then why do you keep coming in?”

“Because I’m stubborn. And so are you.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of relationship?”

“No. But it’s the start of something.”

You swallow hard.

You want to hate him. But you’re too tired of your own rage.

So, you offer the last piece of bread. Tear it with your hands.

Divide it in two.

This time, Sukuna says:

“Thank you.”

You don’t reply.

But something in you — something very small — softens

Unintentionally.

Uncontrollably.

Unforgivingly.

Tuesdays are no longer just a day.

Now, they are a kind of waiting.

You don’t even admit it to yourself, but the kettle boils at the right time. The table is set before the footsteps hit the stone floor outside.

You tell yourself it’s routine. But your hand trembles slightly as you fold the napkin.

The sound of his boots on the porch is almost comforting.

Almost.

There’s still a part of you that hopes he’ll go away.

But he enters. Always does.

On the tenth Tuesday, he brings two eggs. The shell lightly cracked on one.

“The neighbor gave me these. Said you’d know what to do with them.”

You fake indifference. But feel the weight of the gesture.

And when you crack them into the pan, your eyes water for no reason.

Maybe because of the smell, which reminds you of old Sundays.

Maybe because of the silence of someone who demands nothing. Anger begins to take another form.

It stops being a scream. Becomes exhaustion.

You don’t want to argue anymore. You just want to exist.

Even if just for minutes.

He speaks less.

Starts noticing the details of the house.

Touches the stair railing as if reading a story with his fingers.

Lets his eyes scan the picture frames on the wall.

One photo of you, very young, beside Nanami.

He doesn’t ask.

But you notice he saw.

And for a second, you want to say, “He smiled little, but when he did, the whole world felt right.”

But you don’t.

Rage still holds your tongue.

On the fourteenth Tuesday, he shows up with a bruised face.

A cut on his brow. Dark marks under his eyes. You hold your shock like someone holding breath underwater.

He says: “Bar fight.”

You answer, dry: “Did you win?”

“Wasn’t there to win.”

“Then why?”

He shrugs.

“Sometimes I need to feel something too.”

His words float in the kitchen like steam. Warm, dense.

And for the first time in weeks, you understand.

You’re not alone in trying to suffer with dignity.

There’s something crooked in him too.

Something that reflects what you don’t want to face in yourself.

On the twentieth Tuesday, the house darkens with sudden rain.

Windows slam. Wind slips through the door cracks like cold fingers.

You turn on the lights early.

He arrives soaked. No coat. Shivering.

Without thinking, you grab a towel.

“Take off that shirt before you get sick.”

He obeys. No jokes. No sarcasm.

And the sound of the wet shirt hitting the wooden floor echoes too intimate to be casual.

You dry him firmly. Still angry.

But not at him.

Angry at the time that passed. Angry at still being here. Angry at no longer knowing who you are without grief beside you.

“You’re an idiot. Couldn’t you have protected yourself?” you mutter as you press the towel to his chest.

He grabs your wrist. Not hard. Just enough to make you stop.

“Are you angry at me or at everything?”

You look at him.

Breath caught. Throat tight.

“I don’t know anymore.”

And he doesn’t respond.

Doesn’t say he understands. Doesn’t try to console.

He just lets go of your wrist slowly.

As if saying: it’s okay not to know.

On the twenty-fourth Tuesday, you set two plates on the table without realizing.

When he arrives, he notices.

“Was that on purpose?”

You shake your head, confused.

“No.”

But you don’t remove the extra plate either.

He sits.

Eats slowly.

And at the end of the meal, instead of leaving, he stays.

You don’t send him away.

You keep washing dishes while he watches the rain run down the window.

The sound of water hitting the sink blends with the outside world’s noise.

And something in your chest loosens.

The rage, maybe.

Or the fear. On the last Tuesday of that month, he brings an orange.

Peeled. Split into segments. Wrapped in kraft paper.

He places it in your hand without saying anything.

You bring one to your mouth.

The sweet juice. The sharp acidity.

It’s the first real taste you’ve felt in weeks.

“You still know what’s good,” he says.

You swallow hard.

“I do. Yes.”

And something in you finally breaks.

But not violently.

It’s a kind of gentle collapse. Like snow melting under the sun.

You don’t smile.

But you meet his gaze for the first time without the shield of anger.

He says nothing.

Just picks up the orange’s wrapper, crumples it, and puts it in his pocket.

Like someone who understands that a simple gesture can be everything.

Or almost.

©This content belongs to @itoshislave 2025, do not modify or repost on another platform.

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itoshislave · 7 days ago

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shoutout to all my fellow smut enjoyers

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itoshislave · 12 days ago

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⊹₊ ˚‧₊୨ 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘈𝘊𝘌 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐 – 𝘈 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 ୧₊‧ ˚₊⊹ — Ryomen Sukuna

wc. 2.6k+ tw. prolonged grief and extreme loneliness, depression and emotional alienation, widowhood routine and existential emptiness, hints of stagnation and self-neglect, silent relationship between pain and the presence of a stranger.

taglist: @poopooindamouf @totallygyomeiswife tba...

Previous next

Winter arrived without making a sound.

Not with snow — not in that town that only knows cold by the damp breath of the early mornings and the metallic smell of fog clinging to the windows. But it came. It came in the edges of doors that don’t close properly, in the purple tips of fingers, in the creaking floorboards that groan as if they too are tired of bearing so much silence.

You spent the whole first month in a fog. A thick veil over your eyes, as if the world had faded into the colors of wet paper.

Mornings were born slowly. You didn’t invite them. You just let them in.

The stove clicked on with the same dry snap, and the kettle still whistled. But the sound of boiling was no longer promising — it was a reminder. That your breath still existed. That time was still running.

You cooked every day, though you barely ate. The food was a silent ritual of staying present. You chopped onions until your hands burned. Filled too many pots. Seasoned for two. And served just one plate.

You kept the other one.

Let it cool.

Then threw it away with guilt.

There was a routine of ghosts.

Cleaning the same places. Organizing the same drawers. Folding socks that wouldn’t be worn.

You wrote letters to him.

Long letters.

Unraveling the days like someone embroidering on old linen.

Telling about the cold, the drizzle, the neighbor who lost her cat, the burnt bread, the noise heard at night.

Ending with the same “Come back soon.”

But never sending them.

You kept them all in a box, next to the one you buried.

Life’s letters arrived — invitations, bills, war bulletins.

You stacked them on the table, unopened.

Life spoke, but you didn’t answer.

Until, on a gray Tuesday, the wind brought something different.

A knock at the door.

Not like Mrs. Watanabe’s, with her sweetness of a funeral. But firm. Quick. A sound of someone way too alive.

You widen your sewing machine eyes. Your fingers still hold an unfinished hem.

You stand up. The robe already swapped for a wool nightgown, but there’s still the smell of mildew in the air, in your hair, in the whole house.

You unlock the door. Slowly. As if every inch was a risk.

And there he is.

Tall. Broad shoulders wrapped in a coat too dark for the bright day. Messy hair. Eyes somewhere between tiredness and sarcasm.

He doesn’t smile.

“Are you Mrs. Nanami?”

You freeze for a second. The word “Mrs.” hurts.

“I am.”

He raises a brown leather folder.

“I’m an accountant from the Central Restitution Office. There was an error in the war tax accounts. I need to review your late husband’s records.”

You stare at the folder as if it carried dynamite.

“Can’t this be done by mail?”

He sighs. His eyes scan the house behind you.

“Believe me, I tried. But since you haven’t answered any correspondence for months…”

Silence.

He raises an eyebrow.

You feel a stab in your stomach. It’s not fear. Nor irritation. It’s bewilderment. Like when the window creaks on its own at night.

“Got coffee?” he asks, as if you were old acquaintances.

You hesitate. Your body freezes. But then you step aside.

He enters. The weight of the coat makes the floor creak beneath his feet. His smell fills the space — smoke, cold, paper, something bitter and masculine.

Different. Alive.

You put the kettle on the stove. You feel his gaze on your back.

He looks around the room, the objects, the empty spaces.

He says nothing. But his eyes say everything: He notices you still set two cups on the table.

“How often do you review these accounts?” you ask without turning.

“Every month, since October. But every time it seems worse.”

You serve the coffee.

He accepts it black.

You watch how he holds the cup — firm, but awkward. Like someone unused to kindness.

He spreads the papers over the table. You pretend to understand the numbers. But it’s not for those that he’s here, and you know it.

“This here,” he points with a finger, “was declared incorrectly. Someone put your husband as honorably discharged, but the official records show active in the field until final discharge. This changes the restitution. And the taxes.”

You don’t answer. You stare at the coffee stain on the table. It looks like a map of another country. One where you’ll never live again.

He notices your absence. Closes the folder. Leans back in his chair.

“I can come back another day. When you’re more… willing.”

You look into his eyes for the first time.

There’s something there.

A trained hardness.

But also a crack.

You recognize it. It’s the same one you see in the mirror.

“Come back tomorrow.” You say. Your voice is low, but firm.

He nods.

Stands up.

Grabs the folder.

Adjusts the collar of his coat.

And before leaving, stops at the door.

But doesn’t look back.

“Beautiful house.” He says.

And leaves.

You close the door with a trembling hand and rest your forehead on the cold wood.

You don’t know his name.

But you know the sound he made when he entered. And, worse, the sound he left behind when he went out.

Silence, yes. But a different silence.

Alive.

Unsettling.

Like something about to happen.

The next morning arrives, but you don’t invite it in.

It drags through the window cracks, dripping down the wood like sweat from a forgotten fever. The light touches your feet first, then the sheets, then the frame on the wall — the one where he smiles in black and white, dressed in uniform, as if there were still time.

You wake up with breath caught between your teeth. There’s no sound in the room besides your chest. A muffled drum. The sheet wrapped around your legs, wet with night sweat. The pillow bears the mark of your nape, of your absence.

You didn’t dream. And that hurts more than dreaming of him.

You get up slowly. The floor is cold, and the cold runs from your heels up your spine. Each step echoes through the house. As if it too is testing its own existence.

In the kitchen, his cup is still on the table.

You hold the porcelain. There’s still a trace of dried coffee on the rim. You wipe it with your thumb. Slowly. Then bring your finger to your mouth.

The taste is bitter.

You close your eyes.

It’s just old coffee.

But for a second, it seems like something else.

Seems like skin. Seems like presence.

The house is exactly the same. But completely different.

You try to occupy the day.

Change the water of the dead flowers. Sew a button on a shirt no one wears anymore. Go down to the basement to reorganize boxes you know by heart. Wash clothes that still smell like September.

Time, in this state, doesn’t move.

It stagnates.

Like a clock left in the sun.

With every second, your body weighs more. Your chest, denser. The air, thicker.

You don’t speak.

Don’t sing.

Don’t sigh.

Because any sound can break the thin glass of your denial.

And you’re not ready to see the shards yet.

So you pretend.

That he just went there.

That he’ll come back after lunch.

That there are dirty boots waiting to be cleaned.

You don’t notice the time. But you notice the sound.

The doorbell.

Your body reacts before your mind.

You straighten up.

Smooth your blouse.

As if he had come back.

As if this was the scene of his return.

But it’s just the accountant.

He’s standing again, on the threshold. Same posture, same expression. Only the tie changed. Now blue.

“I’m back.” He says.

As if it’s normal. As if he did this every day. As if he hadn’t crossed the void of a devastated woman to get there.

You give space.

He enters. This time without asking for coffee.

The papers spread out on the table.

You pretend to listen.

He talks about restitution, taxes, acronyms. But the words are shapeless sounds.

You focus on his hands.

His fingers. The red hairs over the knuckles.

How the pen slides between long fingers. How the light touches his face when he leans over the numbers.

It’s ugly.

In an interesting way.

There’s an air of something too alive.

You wonder what kind of pain he has lived.

If someone waited for him when he came back.

Or if he also only returned to silent walls.

“This here…” he pushes a paper toward you.

You don’t read. You just sign.

He notices. But says nothing.

And that, somehow, is worse.

He gathers the papers.

Stands up.

Cracks his shoulders.

The chair creaks.

You follow him to the door. Say nothing.

He stops with his hand on the doorknob.

“I need to come back Thursday.”

“All right.”

“You’re not sure about that, are you?”

The question hangs in the air.

You don’t answer.

He opens the door.

Leaves.

And the house swallows you again.

You return to the living room.

Look at the couch where he sat.

The fabric still dented in his shape.

You touch the crease with your fingertips.

It’s just foam.

But it smells.

Of someone who is still here.

You go back to the kitchen.

The kettle is cold.

You fill it and light the stove.

The gas responds with a damp whoosh.

As the water heats, you open the window.

The wind rushes in. Stirring the curtains, the loose strands of your hair, the papers left unpinned.

You let it.

Because you want to feel something.

Anything other than this throbbing nothingness between your chest and throat.

When the kettle whistles, you allow yourself to cry.

But not like someone breaking down.

You cry with dry eyes, like someone who slightly bows under the weight of the invisible. Like someone who opens a crack in her own body for the pain to drip, drop by drop.

The tea spills.

You don’t stop it. Let it run over the edge of the cup onto the saucer, onto the table, onto the floor. Forming a warm puddle.

Like blood.

Like memory.

You wipe it with a cloth. Slowly. Like someone tending to a wound.

Then sit. And wait.

Not for the accountant.

Nor for Nanami.

But for yourself.

For that moment when your body will remember what it was like to be whole.

And maybe your spirit will slip back into your skin.

But it doesn’t come.

Not yet.

He comes back Thursday.

And Monday.

And later, with no set day.

Always the same excuse: a missing receipt, a wrong initial, a new ministry directive.

But it’s a lie.

Or maybe it’s too true.

He comes in with the same dark coat. With the same eyes that don’t get lost in condolences, but linger long on your wrists, your deep-set eyes, your always-too-clean clothes.

You offer tea.

He accepts.

You pour.

He drinks.

Neither of you speaks of loss. As if that were the agreement.

You don’t know why he keeps coming. Don’t understand if it’s stubbornness or kindness. Or something in between.

But he shows up. And you allow it.

Because Sukuna demands nothing.

He doesn’t touch. Doesn’t smile much. Doesn’t drag his body against yours nor his gaze.

He exists on the margins.

Like you.

And maybe that’s why he comes back. And why you don’t send him away.

On the days he doesn’t come, the house becomes a tomb dressed in wallpaper.

You sweep the corners. But don’t move the furniture.

You iron. But don’t fold his clothes.

You eat. But don’t savor.

Absence is a creature that lies with you. That holds your hand while you fold letters you won’t send. That whispers “I’m here” when you, alone in the early morning, find yourself speaking aloud to nothingness.

Sometimes you catch yourself writing in the air with your finger: K-E-N-T-O.

Other times, you set the table for two. Then undo it, like committing a crime.

What Sukuna finds each time he returns is a woman held together by organized shards.

Hair always tied back. Skin without shine. Lips cracked but not wounded. Hand steady but cold.

He doesn’t ask about Nanami.

But notices the frame you move to clean.

The hanger still hanging.

The cup you never use.

And one day, amid piles of notes and receipts, he asks:

“Aren’t you afraid of rotting alive in here?”

The phrase is neither cruel nor gentle.

It’s just direct.

Like him.

You don’t answer. Don’t look, just adjust your sweater sleeve at the wrist, as if that could protect you from what he said.

“There’s no answer to that.” You say.

“That’s why I asked.” He laughs, humorless.

You want to hate him at that moment.

For his presence.

For his rudeness.

For the voice that cuts through the invisible film with which you tried to wrap your days.

But you don’t hate.

Because he’s right.

And that’s the most unforgivable part.

The next morning, you wake up to the sound of wind. It pushes the half-open window, and the curtain dances like a forgotten bridal veil.

The sun doesn’t come in.

The day has the color of eggshell. Everything seems pale.

You shower, but don’t look at yourself in the mirror.

You dress. But without intention.

It’s like wearing wallpaper.

In the kitchen, the bread is dry.

The tea, lukewarm.

The body, tired.

The mind, absent.

You write his name in a notebook. Then cross it out.

Again.

And again.

As if that could lessen the weight.

On Tuesday, Sukuna comes back without warning.

The doorbell rings like a scream in the middle of the night.

You open it with your bare face.

No excuses.

No words.

He raises his chin, studies your too long face.

You know you’re worse.

Thinner.

Paler.

Less here.

“I didn’t come about any papers.” He warns.

You let him in anyway.

The silence between you is almost intimate.

As if you had known each other for a long time. As if there were something old in the repeated gestures — him touching his hat when entering, you carrying the teapot to the kettle without asking.

This time he watches you more.

With every step. Every sip. Every slight tremor you try to hide when holding the cup.

You look away.

You want him to leave.

You want him to stay.

“Do you eat?”

The question comes like a silent shot.

You shrug.

“I survive.”

“Surviving is the opposite of living.”

The phrase cuts through you.

You curl up.

Your hands press the table. The wood is cold. Or is it you?

“Why does it matter to you?”

He doesn’t answer.

He just leans over the table.

His eyes are like winter: uncomfortable, necessary, real.

“Because you bleed in silence. And because I know what that’s like.”

The words are a torn sheet.

And for a moment, you want to scream.

To say he doesn’t know.

That no one knows.

That your world was ripped apart with stitches and all.

That your body is still a coffin where love lies.

That every day you talk to a dead man.

That every gesture is an echo.

But you don’t scream.

You cry.

Soundlessly.

Hot tears. Heavy. Poured out like dammed water.

They fall on your wrists, run down your chin, mix with untouched tea.

Sukuna doesn’t touch. Doesn’t comfort.

He just stays there.

And strangely, that’s enough.

When he leaves, his scent lingers.

Tobacco. Rain. Something metallic.

You sit on the couch with your body still trembling. And for the first time in a long time… you sleep without guilt.

You don’t dream. But you also don’t run away.

You just exist. Quietly.

Like someone timidly beginning to leave a funeral that has lasted too long.

©This content belongs to @itoshislave 2025, do not modify or repost on another platform.

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itoshislave · 14 days ago

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⊹₊ ˚‧₊୨ 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘈𝘊𝘌 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦 – 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 ୧₊‧ ˚₊⊹ — Ryomen Sukuna

wc. 2.9k+ tw. Mention of main character death, recent grief, emotional isolation, deep loneliness, indirect mentions of war, explicit descriptions of anxiety and panic, sense of emptiness, melancholy and emotional anguish, MDNI, proceed with caution!

๋ ࣭ ⭑๋ ࣭ ⭑english is not my first language. So I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes. I hope you enjoy, anyway! <3

Masterlist next

The sound of the kettle on the stove is the only thing filling the house that morning. It starts as a whisper and grows, slowly, like a memory that refuses to stay quiet.

The thin whistle blends with the soft rustling of the trees outside, their leaves trembling without enthusiasm — as if even the wind were tired.

You’re in the kitchen, fingers sunk into the warm foam of the sink, scrubbing a plate you’ve already washed twice. Scrubbing harder than necessary. Not because of the plate — but because your body needs something to do. Anything that doesn’t involve remembering.

The soap smells like lemon. Almost aggressive. Almost too cheerful.

On the radio, a woman’s voice sings something in French. You don’t understand the lyrics, but you recognize the melody. It was the song playing at the bakery where you and Nanami used to hide on Sundays. The music fills the kitchen like an echo of a time that no longer exists. The bread in the oven is burning, but you don’t smell it yet.

And then, a knock.

The door. Three times. Paused. Like a sentence.

You freeze.

The foam drips through your fingers, warm, then cold. The kettle’s whistle screams. The song on the radio ends and a wet silence takes its place. You feel your heart — not beating, but trembling. An old muscle, tired of waiting.

Your legs move before you decide to.

The steps through the house are slow, almost ceremonial. The wooden floor creaks under your bare feet. A line of dust marks the baseboard where Nanami hung a crooked picture frame. You never fixed it. He said it was a “charm.”

You don’t run. You’re in no hurry to open the door.

You don’t want to. But you do. Because you know.

The doorknob is cold, as if it had been outside for hours.

The postman, when you finally open, keeps his eyes down. He’s a young man, maybe younger than Nanami, with shoulders curved as if the weight of the envelope in his hands were more than he could carry.

He doesn’t say anything. He just extends a paper.

A yellowed envelope, frayed at the edges, marked with sweaty fingerprints.

The red seal. The signature of the command.

You hold it by the tips of your fingers, as if it were poison. As if you could still protect yourself.

You close the door before opening it. Slowly. Resting your back against the door and holding the envelope to your chest for a moment, as if it were a bomb about to explode.

The air suddenly feels heavier. The light from the living room window has a different hue. Grayer. Less alive.

You walk to the center of the house. The kettle is still screaming in the kitchen, but the sound is distant now. Drowned. Almost irrelevant.

With trembling hands, you tear the top of the envelope. A dry sound. Paper against paper. You slide out the contents: a single telegram. A small sheet. Typewritten letters. Short sentences. Undigestible.

“Dear Mrs. Nanami, we regret to inform you that Sergeant Nanami Kento died in service on September 7th, 1946, at 03:47 local time. Our condolences.”

You don’t finish reading. You don’t need to.

The paper slips from your hands and dances in the air before touching the floor.

And everything vanishes.

The sound.

The time.

You.

It’s like falling into yourself. Like drowning without entering the water. Your lungs burn. You try to breathe, but the air feels made of ash. Your mouth is open, but no sound comes out. A sob stuck in your throat, hardened like stone.

You sit down on the living room floor. Not by choice — your body simply gives in. Your leg bends wrong. Your knee scrapes the carpet. You feel the rough texture against your skin, and the smell. The smell of lemon soap still on your fingers, mixed with old wood, mildew, and cold coffee. Time collapses around you like walls of sand.

You look at the curtain. At the wall. At the ceiling. As if searching for some anchor. Some proof that the world still exists. That you’re still in it. But everything feels… distant.

The radio starts another song. A cheerful little American waltz. Too cheerful. Too cruel. You stretch your arm and violently turn it off. The room sinks into silence. A silence that screams. A living silence.

And then comes the smell.

Of the burned bread.

You stagger to your feet. Go to the kitchen. Turn off the stove. Take the bread out with your bare hands and throw it into the sink. The heat bites your skin. You don’t react.

You open the window.

The sky is too bright for a day like this.

You lean on the sink and cry.

Not beautifully. Not with dignity.

You cry like someone bleeding inside. Like someone who lost their own name. Like someone who knows the love of their life won’t come back to fix the crooked portrait.

You slide down to the kitchen floor. The tiles are cold. You rest your forehead against your knees and breathe in sobs. The pain isn’t loud. It’s deep, drowned, colorless.

Outside, the world goes on.

Kites fly. Laughter crosses the street. The milkman sings. Life continues.

But you don’t.

You’re stuck there, in that moment. In that sound.

The knock on the door. The envelope tearing. The paper falling. Love dying without a scream.

The last sound was his silence.

And now, yours begins.

Later, when the sun has already run behind the rooftops and the light begins to crawl through the rooms like a dying animal, you realize the telegram is still on the living room floor.

Crumpled on one side, marked with the damp stain of your foot. The paper has absorbed everything: the touch of your fingers, the carpet’s dust, the salt of the tears you still refuse to admit.

You drag yourself to it. Slowly. Almost afraid. As if it could bite you. Or pull you with it.

You pick it up by the edges and read it again. But this time, with eyes too still. Without blinking. As if every word needed to be memorized. As if, by understanding the words precisely enough, you could undo what they say.

“Died in service.”

You imagine how it was.

If it hurt.

If he had time to think of you.

If he died with his eyes open.

If someone closed them.

You try to picture his body — but the image doesn’t come. You only see the back of his neck as he walked away at the station. The brown coat, too warm for summer. He wore that coat when he didn’t want you to see him cry.

That was the last time.

You get up, still trembling, and go to the bedroom.

The door is ajar. The light from the window draws lines on the wooden floor. Like bars.

You cross the threshold as if stepping on sacred ground. Every object seems more alive now.

The bedspread he never knew how to straighten. The chair where he left his shirts. The ashtray with the stub of the last cigarette he put out there before leaving. The wedding frame, with the photo slightly faded, where he smiles with his eyes. You didn’t remember that smile anymore.

In the corner of the wardrobe, the suitcase he forgot to take.

You kneel before it like before an altar.

And open it.

Inside, still folded, the winter clothes he said he didn’t need. The letters you wrote during the first months of the war, still sealed — he wanted to open them all when he came back, one by one.

As if he had time.

You run your fingers over the fabrics. A scarf with your perfume. A crushed pack of cigarettes. That Russian book he promised to finish. The margins are marked with his handwriting.

The feeling of absence is so physical it feels like there’s no air in the room.

You lie on the floor next to the suitcase, like an abandoned child. You stay there, motionless, eyes fixed on the ceiling, which darkens as twilight falls.

No thoughts come. No sentences form.

Only loose images:

Nanami brushing his teeth in the bathroom, foam at the corner of his mouth.

Nanami sleeping with his hand on your hip, even on hot days.

Nanami reading the newspaper with furrowed brows.

Nanami sitting on the stairs, tying his shoelaces slowly.

Nanami closing the door, saying “I’ll be back before Christmas.”

He lied.

You get up with difficulty. Your legs numb. And go to the dresser.

There, his cologne bottle is still in the same place. You open it, slowly, and inhale the scent like someone smelling memories.

The scent is warm, woody, with a hint of tobacco.

It’s Kento.

Your Kento.

You close your eyes.

And for a second — just a second — he’s there.

Behind you. Standing, silent, arms crossed. The serious yet gentle gaze. You almost feel his warmth. Almost hear his breath.

But when you open your eyes, you look at the mirror.

And it’s just you.

Alone.

With skin stained by tears. Hair tied in haste. A chest hollowed out, as if an entire organ were missing.

Night truly arrives now. The house covers itself in shadows.

Outside, the streetlights turn on with an electric snap, and the orange light invades the room in soft stripes.

You pick up the cologne and spray it on his pillow. Then, slowly, you lie down on his side of the bed. The pillow is cold, stiff, but now it smells like him.

You close your eyes.

And cry again. But not with a wet face. You cry with your body. With silence.

You don’t say his name.

You’re afraid he’ll disappear completely.

The entire room seems tilted to his side, as if the house itself mourned his absence.

You hear a distant creak. Maybe from the wooden roof. Maybe from inside you.

The world outside lives. But here, in the dark, there’s only one thing:

His absence, pulsing in every corner.

You feel it in your mouth. Between your bones. In the gap between your ribs.

His absence is what rocks you to sleep.

And before sleep fully takes you, you think, like a whisper:

“Come home…”

But he doesn’t come.

And the silence — the same one that began with the sound of the paper touching the floor — now settles in your soul.

And stays. Like everything that is irrevocable.

You don’t know when your body gave in to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t even sleep—just a kind of blackout, a short circuit. When you open your eyes, it’s still dark, but there’s something different in the air. A density less opaque, as if time were clearing its throat to cough the morning back out.

You’re lying on his side of the bed. Still wearing the loose robe that smells of a recent past, but the scent is already fading. The pillow is warm, damp with breath, maybe with tears. You slowly turn your face, as if your spine were made of glass. The fabric touches your cheek like a phantom hand. Warm. Absent.

Outside, birds sing. The sound is thin, hesitant, and you hate it. You hate that the world restarts as if nothing happened. As if Nanami hadn’t left with the last stars of the dawn.

How dare they sing?

How dare they be alive?

Light begins to seep through the crack in the curtain. First, a pale thread spreading like spilled milk. Then, a more yellowish tone, and everything invisible during the night comes back into existence: the half-open wardrobe, his lone shoe in the corner, the shadow of your body projected on the floor like a crooked map of what’s left.

You get up slowly, the robe slipping off your shoulder. The wooden floor is cold, sharp, as if punishing you for not sleeping. The house smells of dust and old coffee.

The smell of things that have stopped. The smell of something that doesn’t breathe.

In the kitchen, you hesitate before the kettle.

The same one as yesterday. The same as every day.

But everything seems to have aged a decade overnight.

You fill the kettle with tap water. The sound of water hitting metal echoes too much. Too loud. Like a gunshot in the thick silence of the house.

You light the stove.

The spark makes you flinch. It’s the harshest sound you’ve heard since the dry snap of the telegram hitting the floor.

While waiting for it to boil, you go to the cupboard. Your hands hover over the mugs. There are many. But only two that matter.Yours, with faded blue flowers. And his — white, with a chipped rim. He said it brought good luck. You laughed, called it silly superstition. Now, it feels like a sacred artifact.

You take both. One in each hand.

Place them on the table, side by side. Like they always were.

The kettle whistles.

You turn off the stove, pour the water slowly over the grounds. The steam rises like a spirit trying to escape. You close your eyes for a moment, inhaling that so everyday smell.

Coffee and death.

Now they’re forever mixed.

You sit at the table.

Hold his mug with both hands. The warmth enters your fingers, tries to warm you inside, but it doesn’t reach. The warmth doesn’t live in you anymore.

The chair in front of you is empty. But not empty like an inanimate object. Empty of someone. As if his absence had weight, volume, scent, presence.

You look away. You can’t bear it. Looking at the chair is looking at embodied absence.

You take a sip. It’s bitter.

You forgot the sugar.

But you don’t go back to add it. The pain fits better this way, with no sweetness at all.

A soft knock at the door catches your attention.

You get up slowly. Your knees crack. Your feet drag. The robe still smells like him, but it’s starting to smell like you — sweat, exhaustion, and salt.

You open the door.

It’s Mrs. Watanabe.

Her hair is tied in a messy bun, a flowered apron stained with flour, and eyes that try to smile but can’t.

She holds a bundle covered with a clean cloth.

“Fresh bread,” she murmurs, as if that could save something.

You nod. Take it. Say nothing.

She hesitates. Her eyes search yours. A brief touch of fingers, a caress on your sleeve.

Then she leaves.

No platitudes.

No “he’s in a better place.”

You silently thank her.

There would be no better place than here.

You close the door gently.

Go to the living room.

His armchair. The same. Untouched.

You stare at it for long seconds. Its arms are worn at the edges. The cushion sunken on the right side. There’s still dust where he used to run his finger. You never cleaned it properly there. He teased you. Now he won’t tease anymore.

You feel the knot rising in your throat.

It goes down. And rises again.

It’s like swallowing a stone.

You go to the cabinet. Take out a wooden box. The one with old hinges.

He used it to keep letters from his mother. You’ll use it to keep pieces of him.

You start gathering. The folded telegram. A yellowed photo of you two, in front of the train station. Your cheeks flushed, his sleepy face. A half-smoked cigarette. His favorite fountain pen. A button from the uniform that came loose before departure. A hastily written note: “I’ll be back before Christmas.” And the lighter.

The one you gave him as a gift. The same that lit his last cigarette at home.

You place them in the box as if packing bones. With reverence. With painful silence.

And go out to the backyard.

The morning is too blue.

Too open.

As if it didn’t know what just happened.

You kneel on the soft earth near the plum tree. You don’t take a shovel. You dig with your hands.

Your nails fill with dirt. Your skin scrapes on stones. But you keep going.

Digging deeper. As deep as you think is enough.

The box goes in with everything inside. With everything that’s left.

You cover it with earth slowly. One layer at a time. Like closing someone’s eyes.

When you’re done, your hands tremble. Your chest trembles.

You pick a stone — round, smooth — and place it on top.

No words. None needed.

Here lies what you managed to keep.

You go back inside like returning from a battlefield. Your body heavy. Your eyes burning. You close the door and the curtains.

The whole house feels smaller now.

Lower.

Colder.

You write his name on a torn piece of paper:

Nanami Kento.

You tape it above the wedding picture. As if marking territory.

As if saying: “You lived here.”

You sit on the floor. Lean your back against the wall. And close your eyes.

The body doesn’t know where to rest. The pain doesn’t know where to fit. And still… you breathe.

One.

Two.

And again.

And even if you don’t know how… The world breathes with you.

But he — Kento — does not.

And that is the loudest sound of all.

©This content belongs to @itoshislave 2025, do not modify or repost on another platform.

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itoshislave · 14 days ago

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⊹₊ ˚‧₊୨ 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘈𝘊𝘌 𝘔𝘈𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘓𝘐𝘚𝘛 ୧₊‧ ˚₊⊹ — Ryomen Sukuna

۶ৎ You and Sukuna are two survivors who slowly learn to wear a new skin without erasing the scars. Grief never truly goes away — but with it, another kind of love is born.

You don’t forget Nanami. You don’t try to. Sukuna doesn’t try to take his place. He learns to love you with him still there inside — like someone planting a garden next to a grave. And you learn that moving on isn’t betrayal. It’s just… breathing again.

Content warning: war aftermath, grief and mourning, heavy angst, widowhood, death mentions, trauma from loss, loneliness and isolation, emotional vulnerability, descriptions of depression, anxiety and panic, rough language, subtle age gap, slow-burn, eventual explicit sexual content, moral ambiguity.

Solace chapter Index:

Prologue – The Last Sound

Part I – A Silent House

Part II – A Man Without Kindness

Part III – Where Flowers Die

Part IV – A Letter for Two Men

Part V – Love Beyond Grief

Epilogue – He’s Still Here

©This content belongs to @itoshislave 2025, do not modify or repost on another platform.

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itoshislave · 2 months ago

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⊹₊ ˚‧₊୨𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘉𝘌𝘛𝘛𝘌𝘙 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘋𝘈𝘙𝘒୧₊‧ ˚₊⊹ — Suguru Geto

۶ৎ between the damp shelves of a bookstore forgotten by the rush of the world, two strangers meet under the melody of a warm rain — he, made of silence, she, made of absence. In a universe where words are too subtle for what is felt, their bodies recognize each other first in gestures, then in smells, and finally in touch. But there are stories that, even though they start out soft, carry old cracks.

wc. 8.2k+ cw. fem!reader, heavy angst! emotional and affective mourning, silence as a form of pain, memories of abandonment and absence, processes of affective reconciliation, love marked by scars and imperfections, explicit sex, fingering, dirty talk, sooo much pining!!, brief descriptions of painful pleasure/overstimulation, unprotected sex, cumming inside, physical and emotional longing, fragility of intimacy, melancholy and aesthetics of loss, characters are in their 20's, MDNI ๋ ࣭ ⭑๋ ࣭ ⭑ so… english is not my first language. So I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes, I'm still in the learning process so… yeah, my bad. I hope you enjoy, anyway! ૮₍ ´ ꒳ `₎ა

You always knew he loved more in the dark.

It was in the gaps of light filtered through the curtains that he would lean his body against yours. When the city slept and the noises of the world faded, Geto became whole. Not the man he wore for the day — but the one who existed behind the fold in his shoulders, beneath the silence.

At night, he said nothing. He just played—with a gentleness that hurt. Like someone who knew that everything could break at any moment. Like someone holding on to the last thing that was still real.

It was in the dark that he remembered to breathe for you. It was in the dark that he allowed himself to be vulnerable, dirty and true. Without the armor of speeches.

Without anyone's eyes.

In the shadows, he let himself be loved.

Slowly.

In a way that seemed to apologize for existing.

You felt it.

The weight of his body bending the mattress. His warm breath on the back of your neck. The sweet, woody scent of his perfume clinging to the sheets — twined with your skin.

It was in those moments — between the last strike of the clock and the first bird of the morning — that you understood:

He loved you.

Not like in the books.

Not like in the movies.

But like someone holding a memory with their teeth — so as not to let it slip away.

The room would wake up with damp walls and a tired body. And he would always leave before the light hit the floor.

He never promised you anything. But in the dark, he was yours.

Only in the dark. Only while no one was watching.

And no matter how much it hurt, you stayed.

Because there — in that colorless gap — he knew how to love you the right way.

"It was raining — not like it was pouring down, but like it was whispering. You just wanted shelter. He just wanted to forget. And, by accident or fate, you found yourselves in the midst of world-weariness. Before the touch, before the name, before the kiss — there was this. A suspended moment, between the smell of paper and the sound of an unexpected question. That's where it all began." — Before the Dance

It was a rainy day.

It wasn't a screaming rain. It was the kind that you can barely hear — a constant, humid whisper that seems to come from the ground.

The city breathed heavily, fogged up, exhausted.

The sky did not cry. It dripped.

Like someone who has cried too much and now all that’s left is to drip.

You didn't know exactly why you entered the bookstore. Maybe because the old awning promised shelter. Maybe because the fogged-up window seemed inviting. Or maybe because, somewhere between your pulse and your memory, you already knew there was something there waiting to be found.

The door bell jingled unhurriedly.

The air inside was warm, smelling of old paper, forgotten coffee, and damp wood. The yellow lights flickered in soft mourning, illuminating more dust than letters. Books were stacked like poorly organized memories. Silence broken only by the rustle of pages being turned by other people's fingers.

It was then that you saw him.

He was there, leaning in a corner—half shadow, half presence.

Black coat, hair tied up carelessly. Body inert, but whole.

And his eyes… his eyes didn't belong to the moment.

They moved even when stationary. As if they were always observing the invisible version of things.

You looked away. But it was no use.

Because he didn't divert his.

And then you approached. Not out of courage. Out of impulse.

Like someone who touches water without knowing if it is shallow or an abyss.

He turned his face slowly. He looked at you like someone reading a book they never finished for the second time. And he said, in a low voice with the texture of faded velvet:

“Do you like sad endings?”

The question passed through you with the lightness of something that was already inside.

You didn't even realize that you had stopped next to him. That your shoulders were almost brushing. That your fingers were dangerously close to the spine of the same book.

It took a full second — an echo-laden second — for you to respond:

“It depends. They have to make sense.”

He smiled.

Not with the lips. With the eyes.

Like someone who approves, but doesn't deliver. Like someone who recognizes something they didn't remember feeling.

And then there was that.

The first vibration.

A subtle tremor in the air between the two of you—a warm electricity, too delicate to name, but intense enough to be impossible to ignore.

No touch.

No exchange of numbers.

But at night, alone, with your feet still wet inside the house, you felt his gaze glued to your shoulder.

As if it were a heat that remained.

As if he were still there.

The next day, you came back.

Same time. Same rain. Same bookstore.

And he was there too.

As if time had folded back on itself just to repeat the moment.

This time, he talked about the book. Then, about the feeling of losing things that cannot be explained. You answered as if you were slowly opening a window that had been closed for years. Geto listened with the attention of someone who has hardly ever been listened to.

The coffees came.

The silences shared on damp sidewalks.

The near-touches.

The hands that brushed by accident — or choice.

The electricity was rising, but it remained contained. As if desire knew how to wait.

And then, in late autumn, with the sky so white it seemed diluted, he held your hand.

Without warning.

No fear.

As if that had already happened a thousand times in silence.

“You make me forget for a while.”

That's all he said.

You never knew exactly what he was forgetting—but for some reason, it hurt. As if it had to do with you.

From then on, everything was built in a raw way.

Slowly.

With tenderness that didn't dare assert itself. With touches that burned even when they didn't happen.

You started using that perfume.

Not out of vanity, but as an invisible letter.

You wanted him to feel, on your skin, what you still didn't know how to say.

He never commented.

But you saw.

He felt.

It was just the beginning.

But you already knew: there would be no happy ending.

Just dance. And absence.

You work with restoring old books.

Not by chance. Not out of romanticism.

But out of a silent need to restore wholeness to broken things, you spends your days with your fingers covered in vegetable glue, brushing broken spines, rebuilding what time and carelessness have unraveled.

It's a job that demands extreme attention. Obsessive delicacy. Like loving someone who's already broken — without trying to fix it, just keeping it standing.

Your studio is upstairs in a forgotten stationery store, with large windows and old glass, the kind that distorts the world outside. The smell of varnish and black tea fills the corners. The plants are always a little dying, but they are still there.

You always wear the same colors: gray, maroon, dark navy. Shades that don't draw attention, but keep you from feeling tired. Sometimes you wear your hair up any old way. Other times, you let it down — as if you don't want to hide anything, but also don't want to show too much.

The routine is a sequence of small repeated gestures: opening the window, putting the kettle on, turning on the crooked-arm lamp, arranging the books on the table.

But there are holes.

Holes in time.

In the sound.

In the skin.

Since he left — or rather, since he stopped showing up — your days have become cleaner, calmer, and, for that very reason, harder to bear.

Because now, every silence carries the weight of his absence. Every old song sounds like an echo with a certain address.

And the perfume — with the scent of chaos disguised as longing, which still sits on the bathroom shelf — remains untouched.

You stopped using it.

As if your body still knows he was not there to feel.

Sometimes, when the sky is the same pale white as that day, you think you'll see him around the corner.

You know it's foolish, but your eyes insist on searching for him among strangers.

The last time you saw him, he didn't say goodbye.

There was no fight.

There was no desenlation.

Just silence.

He stopped going to the bookstore. He stopped showing up at cafes. He stopped existing within your routine — like a character who stopped being written.

And that...that destroys you in a way that is impossible to explain.

Because there was no end.

The story just paused.

And you don't know whether to wait or bury it.

And yet, you continue.

Day after day.

Stacking books. Sewing pages. Blowing dust with a delicacy you no longer know how to use with others.

“He said few words. But the kisses came in abundance — heavy with meanings that you never had the courage to ask. It still hurts pretty. Like someone who bleeds inside, but with flowers in their veins.” — When the Body Remembers

There are days when the memory comes like a smell—it comes like a pulse between your legs. In the middle of the afternoon, between the steam of the tea and the creak of the old wood, you smell his perfume—not the one he wore, but the one that lingers after he’s gone.

Salt on the tongue. Dry sweat on the thigh. The flesh still throbbing with a pleasure that never asked permission.

Sometimes the warmth returns with such precision that you flinch. Your entire body reacts, as if your body still remembered to open when it heard his breathing change, as if your skin still waited for his touch, as if it still knew the path of his palm—slow, steady, silent like the way he looked.

Geto did not play in a hurry. He played as if he were praying quietly before sinning.

His fingers explored as if he wanted to decorate sacred territory — hot, moist, pulsating.

You remember the first time he tasted you.

It was a night too warm to be spring.

You had said you wanted to see the bookstore after work. He showed up with a key he shouldn't have had, an indecent smile on his lips, and that look that always promised more than it said.

The lights were off. The moonlight filtering through the windows made shadows dance between the shelves. You walked among the books as if you knew you were about to commit something irreversible.

He stopped at the philosophy section. You, at the poetry section.

But when you turned around, the desire was already there.

Him between your legs. You on his chest. The electricity in the narrow space between your mouths.

“You smell like someone who will destroy me.” He whispered, as if tasting his own fate.

You felt your belly tighten, your nipples harden beneath the light fabric. A thick heat ran down your thighs, hot as fever, sweet as guilt.

Then the kiss came — and it didn't come clean.

It came with tongue, with saliva, with teeth scraping the lower lip.

He came with his hands going straight to you waist, then up, then down, as if he didn't know where to start — or how to stop.

You moaned softly as he bit your chin. He growled as your nails scratched the back of his neck.

There was no music, but your bodies rhymed.

He pressed you against the bookshelf as if he knew the world was going to end that night. You opened your legs as if you were choosing the end.

The books watched. Silently. Like accomplices.

He licked your collarbone, bit you earlobe, whispered immoral promises in the lowest voice he had ever used.

You hurriedly ripped off his shirt. He took yours off more slowly than he should have—like someone unwrapping something too precious to tear.

And when he penetrated you with his fingers, right there, leaning against Rimbaud's verses, you bit his shoulder to keep from screaming.

But he wanted to listen.

“Don’t hide them from me, I want to hear them.”

That's what he said.

And you gave.

His name, in the rhythm of each friction.

Your moans, in the cadence of guilt.

Your body, begging to be discovered whole.

Geto pulled you close, his body pressed against yours with an urgency that seemed to want to grab the gift before it escaped. His fingers slid inside you with a mixture of haste and care, as if he knew that each touch was a stolen moment of something that wouldn’t last.

His eyes searched yours for a moment, and in that heavy silence, you recognized each other — two crooked pieces trying to fit together, aware that the shape would never be perfect, but unable to give up on the fit, even knowing that one day the pressure would make the edges bleed.

His kiss wasn't just desire, it was a silent request that, for now, that moment was all that mattered — even knowing that soon distance would reign again.

Your breathing mingled with his, heavy and filled with an almost painful tension, as if each moan carried with it the promise of a goodbye that neither of you wanted to say out loud.

He held your waist tightly, as if if he let go, you might disappear into the void he fears so much.

His fingers began to move with raw, relentless precision—it wasn’t just about pleasure anymore, it was about breaking you, leaving you shaking, begging, forgetting even your own name. He felt you throb around him, wet, hot, surrendered, but still fighting against collapse, against losing control.

And he wasn't going to allow it.

“Come on, baby…” he whispered against your mouth, his eyes fixed on yours, his voice husky, filled with urgency and desire. “Don’t run away from me now.”

His fingers sank deeper, his thumb finding your sensitive, swollen clit in firm, calculated circles. It was too much. It was perfect. Your body arched, your hips trying to escape and seek more at the same time, the pleasure rising so fast it burned.

“Look at me,” he commanded, but not harshly—needily. “I want to see you lose yourself. I want to feel you whole, all the way.”

Your mouth opened in a choked moan, almost a sob, and he didn't stop. His other hand held your waist tightly, keeping you there, trapped in him, in the sensations, in the moment.

“Suguru– ahh!”

“That’s it,” he growled with a sweaty half-smile, his pupils dilated, his breathing ragged. “you look so gorgeous like this… feel’s so good, right?” he whispered, sucking air between his teeth like hot steel through water.

He chuckled softly against your neck as he felt your legs tremble uncontrollably. His laugh was husky, muffled by the salty skin of your chest where his mouth sank, sucking hard, leaving red marks that burned. There was a cruel pleasure there—not in seeing you weak, but in seeing you open, alive, exploding in his hands.

You gripped his wide wrist tightly, trying to contain the movement of his fingers that still brought you to the brink of unbearable. Your body writhed against his, trying to escape the stimulation that burned you, broke you, pulled you into a second orgasm before you could even breathe between the first and the next.

“Oh no, baby…” he murmured, his warm breath fanning against her collarbone. “You look beautiful like this, trembling for me. I'm sorry sweetheart, I just can't resist abusing this pretty pussy a little bit.”

He slowly removed his fingers, covered in your pleasure, and brought them to his mouth—his eyes fixed on yours as he sucked them with relish, devouring the taste of what you were creating there. It was almost devout. Almost too dirty to be real.

And then he turned you around, one hand supporting your lower back, the other guiding his cock into you, thick, hard, throbbing with the need of someone who had been holding back for too long. He brushed the tip between your swollen lips, sliding easily along the entire length, without entering. Just teasing.

“Open up for me, baby,” he said, his voice low, almost a moan. “Let me feel all of you.”

And when you moaned in response, without the strength to deny anything, he sank in slowly—all the way. All at once. Without stopping. The sound that escaped your lips was almost a scream, mixed with his name.

He stood there for a second, buried inside you, his hands gripping your waist tightly. His face pressed against yours, sweaty, panting. The two of you were silent. A silence woven with anticipated longing, as if even pleasure knew it had an expiration date.

Then he started moving.

Slow. Deep. Rhythmic. Like someone who records in his memory the sensation of a body he knows he will never have again. Each thrust was firm, complete, as if he were trying to melt into you. As if pleasure was the only place he could live.

Your name escaped his lips in slow, almost reverent moans. His mouth found your shoulder, your jaw, the corner of your chin, leaving hot, bitten kisses between ragged breaths.

“You’re killing me, baby… look what you do to me,” he murmured, his forehead pressed against your temple, his thrusts getting faster, more intense. “squeezing me so tightly.. f-fuck–”

You moaned loudly, your hips moving in search of him, wanting more, wanting everything, even though you knew there would be no later. And that only made the now hurt more beautiful.

His hands moved down to your ass, pulling you deeper, making your body shiver with each encounter. He whispered through his teeth, hoarse and lost:

“You're so warm, so perfect, so mine right now... no one has ever made me feel this way.”

You panted, your entire body throbbing, begging, trembling around him.

“Keep me like this,” he whispered between moans, his eyes closed as if trying to memorize. “Make it last... just a little longer.”

The pleasure rose in violent waves, and when he brought his hand between your bodies, touching you with wet, quick fingers, you couldn't take it anymore. Your orgasm came tearing through you, intense and unbearably sweet on the tip of your tongue—his name escaping your throat in a dirty, broken, desperate moan.

He kept fucking you while you trembled, feeling every spasm, every contraction around him. And when you pressed your body against his, as if you wanted to merge it with yours, he moaned your name one last time — hoarse, broken — and came inside you hard, as if he were giving everything. His body tense, glued to yours, his breath caught in time.

Because there, in that moment, with sweaty bodies, with bated breath, with pleasure making you lose your footing, he was yours. Entirely.

Even if only until the end of the night.

When he stopped, minutes later, you were both exhausted, trembling, your breath slamming between your mouths and the taste of each other marked on your lips.

“That was stupid.” He muttered, his hand still between your thighs, as if he didn’t want to let go.

But you smiled, your eyes moist and your body still vibrating.

“It was inevitable.”

And that night, for the first time, you understood: some bodies don't love each other — they recognize each other.

And once found, burning is the only way to exist.

The day always starts the same way. With the muffled sound of the kettle, the window half-open letting in a bit of the street and the smell of violet incense burning lazily in the corner of the room.

You wear the same crumpled linen clothes, puts on the small earrings and puts on the shoes that Geto hated — the ones that make a lot of noise on the sidewalk tiles.

He said you always seemed to be leaving in a hurry. But you've never been in such a hurry as you are now, even though you have nowhere to go.

The store opens at ten. And until then, the neighborhood is still yawning.

You arrange the display with automatic hands — dried flowers, books stacked on purpose, small frames of black-and-white photographs that no one ever asks if they are for sale.

The studio is half store, half refuge.

You sell handmade paper, bookbindings, candles that melt like slow tears. And when you have time, you also write letters to strangers on request. People miss words they don't know how to say.

You meet a lady who talks about her grandson. Then a man who looks for paper to write a farewell. Then a girl who smells everything as if she were looking for something she doesn't even know she's lost.

And everything goes through you.

The voices, the looks, the brief stories. But nothing touches like it used to.

Nothing is Geto.

At six, you close the curtains and put up the "back tomorrow" sign.

The silence finally breathes along with you. And the store changes tone — it becomes a territory of intimate ghosts.

It's when you climb the narrow staircase to the mezzanine, where you keep your old notebooks, the inks that dried and were never thrown away, the memories that pretend to be matter.

It's hot.

Summer has finally arrived, but you still carry its cold on your back.

You start rearranging the shelves.

Without purpose.

Just to keep your hands busy.

That's where you see it.

The book.

Lying on his side, like someone who fell asleep waiting to return.

The cover is worn, the title faded around the edges. It's the one he lent you a week before he disappeared.

"No need to return it in a hurry," he said.

But you knew.

He didn't want the book back.

He wanted to stay inside your bookshelf.

You pick it up carefully—as if it might wake something up.

And then…

A piece of paper slips out.

Yellowed, folded in half, with nail marks on the corner.

You unfold it with trembling fingers.

The handwriting was his: firm, but tired.

As if each word had been written with the exact weight of what could no longer be said out loud.

"I don't know how to love you in the daylight. A lot of things are visible when the sun is high. Things about me you shouldn't see. Things I can't face either. But in the dark… in the dark I forget what broke me. And somehow, even after everything, I still remember how to touch you the right way."

There was no signature at the end.

Just the faded smell of incense and smoke.

And a silence so deep it almost whispered:"If I had learned to love you with the light on… maybe I would have stayed."

You feel the air empty.

As if the walls were receding, as if time had gone back a second.

That hot pain rises from your belly to your eyes.

But it doesn't run.

You just lean back in your chair, your fingers still clinging to the note. Your heart is nothing more than a disoriented animal.

There, on that ordinary night, among paper and dust, he came back.

Not in flesh.

But in word.

And word, with him, was always touch.

“This is how you survive an absence: one step at a time, with the care of someone who already knows that even the ground can hurt.” — Like someone learning to walk on glass

You didn't cry that night.

You just sat there, motionless, on the floor of the studio, with the book still in your hands and the note lying on your lap as if it had weight. As if it were made of lead and not paper. You read his sentence so many times that it lost its sound. But it didn't lose its smell.

“I don't know how to love you in the daylight.”

The next morning, you wore the wrong blouse.

The one he liked — loose at the shoulders, tight at the wrists, thin fabric, almost transparent against the light.

Not because of longing.

But because the body asked for it.

As if the skin still knew where he touched. As if dressing was a way to soothe the absence.

The studio opened at ten.

The first customers arrived in pairs, talking loudly, laughing a lot, like someone who lives with their chest full of air.

You smiled back.

You responded as always — kind, precise, almost rehearsed.

But something was different.

Your touch lingered longer on the fabrics. Your gaze wandered over buttons, threads, and memories. And every time someone mentioned the word “marriage,” your stomach churned as if swallowing a promise that was never made.

You sewed silences that day. And the following ones too.

During lunch, you read half of a book he would never have read.

You wrote down random words in a notebook.

Made lists of things you needed to forget—but just writing them down hurt, as if they were being remembered on purpose.

At night, you would return home with a limp body.

But your head was too busy to sleep.

One morning you woke up sweaty, with your lips half-open, and realized you was calling for him.

Not in a dream.

In reality.

As if your voice had escaped by accident, crossing the empty house like a lost whisper.

In the following days, the note remained hidden inside the book. But you could feel it even with the object locked away.

And that's how the healing began.

Not with relief.

But with routine.

With the body getting used to not waiting for him. With the fingers learning not to look for the back of his neck at the wrong time of night.

It was only weeks later — on a sultry late afternoon, the sky casting a dirty gold over the buildings — that you felt something different.

A strange kind of calm.

As if, for the first time, his memory fit entirely inside you.

Without hurting so much.

Without having to go out.

But then… the day the heat gave way to the wind, the day you didn’t think about him when you woke up — he appeared.

As if the time between you had not passed.

As if the note was still in your lap.

And your body.

Your body still knew exactly what it was like to have him around.

“There are places where memory is not erased — it just takes shelter under the skin. There, where the touch has already passed, but the body still twitches at the memory.” — Where the skin still remembers

It was raining again.

From that same fine, oblique, almost invisible rain — the one that tangles eyelashes and drags ghosts through the corners of the city.

You weren't expecting it.

Not like that.

Not with hands too busy to shake. Not with a heart so calm it seemed unaccustomed to racing.

Time passed as if it forgot to warn. The days piled up on top of the note — but it remained there, like a small crack that time could not smooth over.

You had left the studio late. Late enough for the city to have already faded into neon hues and the residue of voices.

You closed the door carefully and walked down the steps with the slowness of someone who still carries dust on their chest.

And there he was.

Standing.

On the other side of the sidewalk.

Under the same rain that didn't wash, it just wet.

Dark coat. Quiet shoulders. Looking at you—as if he'd been waiting since the first day he left you.

Geto Suguru.

He didn't smile.

But there was tenderness in the way he looked at you—as if your presence was a song he remembered by heart.

The world was silent for a moment.

And not that empty silence, but the dense one. The one that sounds like held breath. The kind of silence that precedes something that can't be undone.

You crossed slowly.

Each step was an echo of all that was and all that could have been.

Your eyes burned. Not with sadness—but with recognition.

He didn't say anything. Neither did you.

But when you was close enough, he took his hands out of his pockets. And held one of them out.

Not to touch.

Just to leave there — between you — the gesture that you never learned to forget.

You didn't move either.

You just let your eyes fill with it.

From the smell.

From the contour.

Of the time that passed and did not take away.

“You still wear the same perfume,” he said finally.

The voice was the same. Deep, clear. A little slower. A little deeper.

You just nodded.

And then he took a step.

Not abrupt, not invasive.

Just enough for the rain to cease to exist between the two.

And hugged you.

Slowly.

With arms like someone who gathers. With the chest like someone who shelters.

You sank there.

Not knowing if it was his body or the past that still lived in the smell of the shirt.

But it sank.

The whole world continued around you — horns, footsteps, the brushing of drops on other people's umbrellas.

But you were somewhere else. One that only exists when two bodies remember.

You didn't ask where he'd been. He didn't ask if you still hurt.

Because sometimes reunion doesn't require explanations. It only requires that two silences recognize each other.

And his — it was still the only place you could rest.

You stood there, on the curb, for too long to just hug. But not enough time for everything that needed to be said.

When he pulled away a little, he was still holding you by the arms. He looked at you like he didn't know where to start — so he started with the simplest thing.

“Did you read the note?”

You could lie.

But his name was still stuck in the roof of your mouth.

"Yes."

Silence.

He nodded slowly, as if the answer hurt and relieved at the same time.

“I almost didn’t,” he said. His voice was low, heavy with unsaid things. “I almost tore it up before I left. But I thought you…maybe needed one last thing from me.”

You swallowed hard.

“It was the first thing that made me feel again. It didn’t hurt like before. It just… burned.”

He let out a muffled laugh — sad and sweet, like someone laughing at themselves.

“You always had this beautiful way of describing pain.”

You looked down at the ground. The tip of your shoe touched the puddle where the water reflected the streetlights.

Geto looked at you, but with the gentleness of someone who doesn't want to force memories to come back before their time.

“Why did you come back?” you asked.

The question came out small. But it carried the weight of all the days he hadn't shown up.

Geto ran his hand through his hair, which was tied up haphazardly, took a deep breath — and responded with the raw sincerity of someone who is exhausted from running away:

“Because I thought I had managed to erase you. But I discovered that I had only locked you in a place where everything I touch has your name written on it.”

You closed your eyes for a moment.

And it all came back: the smell of the back of his neck on warm nights, the sound of his bare footsteps on the old wood, the weight of the kisses that never said anything but always meant something.

“I also trapped you in a corner,” you whispered. “But it was the brightest corner of the house.”

He reached out, touching your cheek with the back of his fingers. The touch was light, but it sparked something beneath your skin — as if the entire memory of your body had been awakened by that gesture.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” The question came like a whisper, almost shy.

You hesitated.

Not because you don't want to, but because you're afraid of losing everything again.

But then you remembered: what existed between you was never meant to last. It was meant to burn.

And you answered like someone learning to walk on glass:

“You can. But without promising anything.”

And he smiled.

With that same sideways smile, the first one that took you apart back there — in the bookstore, between the rain and the damp paper.

“Promises have never been our strong point.”

You walked down the same sidewalk, without holding hands, but with your shoulders almost touching.

And in the distance between one body and another — the dance began again.

He pretended not to look when you walked through the door, but his body knew before his eyes.

The muscles tense, the air thicker, the slightest shiver on the back of the neck—as if the universe had pulled back a thread that had never been broken.

You were there. Just as he left you, but with a new absence around your body.

Geto had always been good at reading silences. And your was saying that the days had passed heavily. That the note had been found. That the book had been in the right hands for too long. That He, even absent, was still leaning against every wall of your memory.

He wanted to smile. But the weight in his throat didn't let him.

Because it wasn't a reunion. It was a materialized memory. A reflection of everything that was left half-open — and that time, for some cowardly reason, didn't have the courage to close.

He remembered your scent before you breathed. How the back of your neck seemed to ask for shelter in his chest even when you didn't move. How your fingers trembled slightly after the third kiss. And how, inside, you bled softly. Without making a sound. Without asking for help.

And He…

He pulled away before you realized he was bleeding too.

You're standing now, right in front of him. Eyes fixed, no anger, no expectation—just that beautiful weariness of someone who doesn't want to get hurt anymore, but also doesn't know what to do with so much memory pressed against their skin.

He wanted to say everything.

But everything always seemed too much in his mouth.

And then He said what He could:

“You still wear the same perfume.”

You blinked slowly. A simple gesture. But at its pace, it meant something inside still recognized the tone of his voice.

Geto wanted to say that he even missed the silences. That the heat of his body was trapped in the sheets for weeks. That there were nights when he slept on his stomach just so he wouldn't remember the curve of your waist. That there were entire days when everything smelled like rain, even under the sun.

But time does not forgive those who return late.

So He stood there. Standing still. Just like the day you walked into the bookstore for the first time.

Hoping that, by instinct, you would come closer.

As before.

Like always.

“There are pains that are not extinguished by the daylight — they are embers that burn silently, persisting in the silence of the morning, reminding us that what burns is not lost, it just changes form.” — What still burns when dawn breaks.

He came back.

He didn't say it that will be back — and you didn't ask either.

There you were, in the same place where yesterday your eyes met with more fear than anger. The bookstore was too empty to hide any tension. The sound of the rain had gone, but its presence still dripped between the furniture, dripped down the shelves like a living memory.

Geto was standing again. As always.

But inside…

Everything hurt differently.

He thought time had made him dull, hardened. But you came and he knew: there were parts of him that were left open — waiting for you to receive him with the right hands.

You didn't say anything.

Just looked.

As if someone knew that words don't fit into certain silences.

And then he walked. Slowly.

The measured steps, the tense shoulders, the scent in the air like an ancient secret that never aged. He didn't know if it was the same or if it was just the way your skin held his scent.

You stopped next to him, on the same shelf as the first time.

And this time, it was Geto who spoke first:

“I never read the end of that book.”

Your answer came with a twinge at the corner of youe mouth. Almost a smile.

"Me either."

He felt something open in the middle of his chest.

Something warm.

Something that hurt.

But it was also too beautiful to ignore.

The conversation continued in fragments. Little sentences, memories thrown like stones into a lake. He told you he moved to another city for a while. That he tried to forget you. That he failed — but at least he learned to pretend.

You said you started painting again. That the colors came back a little shaky, but they were coming back. That some nights still smelled like sweaty bodies and that certain touches still lived between your sheets.

Geto looked down.

You touched the spine of a book and your fingers brushed against his. Lightly. By chance.

But that touch — God, that touch — ignited things he'd been trying to extinguish for months.

It was at that moment that he understood: you hadn't left. You had just hidden yourself in every part of him that still remembered the warmth.

Then he looked at you.

Truly.

With that look that analyzes, dissolves, understands. And he saw: the longing was still alive in your shoulders, in your lowered eyelashes, in the way you held back the words before they descended into your heart.

He wanted to pull you in. Right there.

But not the body.

I wanted to pull you back to a time when you could still believe.

“Do you still feel it?”

That's what he asked.

Not with the voice.

With the eyes.

With bated breath.

And you responded with the same silence you used the first time.

He understood.

Because sometimes what remains… is what was never said.

The silence between you is not empty. It is a low music, made of hesitations and contained sighs, a tension that vibrates in the warm air of the nearly deserted bookstore.

He smells your hair — that delicate mix of rain and cold coffee — and it's like an ancient spell that won't break.

You're close. Too close to be just a coincidence.

Geto extends his hand, slowly, almost without meaning to. It is a gesture so subtle that it could be an invitation, or a request for the world to stop for a moment.

Your fingers meet — light, almost hesitant — a touch that is everything and nothing, a promise hidden in the skin.

You don't back down.

It doesn't even move forward.

He just stands there, feeling the electricity running between his fingertips.

He holds your hand with a gentleness that contradicts everything they left unsaid. As if, in that touch, it were possible to glue together the invisible cracks that absence left.

His gaze searches yours, seeking permission, an answer that doesn't need to be said out loud.

You finally let out a low sigh, a sound that is lost in the immensity of the moment. An invitation.

Geto closes his eyes for a moment, absorbing everything you didn't say. When he opens them, the world seems to shrink until there's only that moment left—just you.

He pulls his hand closer, as if holding onto a piece of light he was afraid of losing.

His fingers brush against your skin, moving up your wrist, awakening a warm current that creeps inside.

It is inevitable.

The distance between you disappears.

The touch, once delicate, is now firm, precise — and full of that desire they both hid for months.

Geto leans in slowly, letting time dissolve into the space between breathing and touching.

And then, his lips find yours, not in a hurry, but with a sweet and cruel urgency, as if he knew that everything there was the dance that the bodies rehearsed without music.

The kiss is hot, heavy, loaded with memories and unspoken promises.

And you feel — finally — that that moment is where it all should have always begun.

The kiss lingers, slow, as if each second were a stolen piece of time—something the outside world couldn't take away.

You feel the heat of his skin, the weight of his hands that now hold your face firmly, but unhurriedly, as if they were afraid of breaking what exists between you.

The air is mixed, heavy with longing and contained desire, and the world seems to narrow until there is nothing left but the unbridled beating of hearts.

He still holds your face, his fingers sliding delicately, as if he fears you might disappear at any moment. The heat from his hand penetrates your skin, invades your bones, lights a silent fire.

You feel his breathing, slow and heavy, mixed with yours, an invitation and a confession.

“It’s been so long...” His voice is a hoarse whisper, which seems to weigh an eternity.

You sink into those words, into those thin lines between past and present.

“Not enough to forget,” you reply, trying to hold back the tremor that starts in your chest.

Geto lowers his face and his lips find your neck, warm, tracing a path of light, almost trembling kisses. Goosebumps spread across your skin, as if each touch was a reminder that you are still alive for each other.

“You know it was never just longing, right? It was more — it was pain, it was waiting...”

You close your eyes, allowing that confession to sink in deep, like a knife dipped in honey.

“I felt every absence of yours like a storm inside me,” he says, his voice choked. “But I also kept every piece of us here...” His hand touches his own chest, as if he could hold what was left intact.

His fingers curl around yours, firm, precise.

“I wish I had been better. I wish I had stayed,” Geto murmurs, with the raw honesty that always defines him.

You open your eyes and meet his gaze, an ocean of guilt and tenderness. And even in the face of the weight of silence, you dare to smile — fragile, but true.

“We weren’t perfect,” you reply, “but we were real. And maybe that’s enough.”

A soft laugh escapes his lips, an unexpected, warm sound.

“Too real to let go easily.”

The kiss begins again, more urgent, but still full of that melancholy that never disappeared. The bodies touch, slide, trying to reconstruct what time wanted to undo.

Your skin feels the texture of his shirt, the heat of his body against yours, the smell—a mix of rain, wet earth, and something uniquely his.

“Tell me what’s left,” you beg, breathless, “before I lose myself again.”

He holds your face with both hands now, so close that he can feel his own heart in his mouth.

“Everything. The fear, the will, the desire... but, above all, you.”

Your answer is a whisper, a caress:

“Then stay.”

For an instant, time stops.

And in the touch of hands, in the weight of gazes, you find the beginning of what could perhaps be a new chapter — fragile, uncertain, but entirely yours.

“Not everything comes back. But there are pieces that remain — like dust in the corners, like smells on clothes, like a voice that memory insists on repeating softly. You don't keep the person. Keep the echo. The gesture. The heat that did not evaporate.” — The Remaining Parties

The apartment is not big.

Light enters through the living room window in soft beams, piercing the dust in the air as if time were moving more slowly there. It smells of old coffee, fabric warmed by the sun and a dormant perfume on the collar of a blouse forgotten on the back of the sofa.

You are sitting on the floor, barefoot.

He too.

Geto rests his forehead on your bent knee, his hair half-down and his shirt wrinkled from someone who has had little or no sleep.

But he is there.

You don't talk much.

You don't need to.

The radio plays something instrumental and melancholic.

And when his fingers find yours, it's not a request. It's a presence.

A touch that says:“I'm still here, even if I don't know how.”

Geto looks at you the way he always has—with those eyes that seem to know too much and hide even more than they know.

“I don’t know how to fix any of this,” he murmurs, voice hoarse, still low.

“Me neither,” you reply, leaning your forehead against his. “But I don’t want to run away from what still breathes anymore.”

He closes his eyes as if it hurts.

But it stays there.

With fingers intertwined with yours.

With a tired body, but a heart… less haunted.

You share the silence.

You share the space.

You share the memory — without trying to erase it.

There are your clothes on the armchair.

There are his books piled up on the table.

And the perfume you wear seems to have permeated his sheets as well.

It's strange.

Inaccurate.

But there's a kind of beauty in it: accepting the cracks as part of the structure.

That night, he cooks badly, you laugh with tears in your eyes.

You eat on the kitchen floor.

Then you hear the city breathing through the open windows.

It's not about promises anymore.

It's about presence.

Of him running his fingers over your wrist as if to say, “I still feel it.”

You rest your head on his shoulder as if to say: “I still remember.”

And so, in the gap between what you have lost and what is still possible, you begin to learn another dance.

Less urgent.

More intimate.

An imperfect dance.

But true.

You didn't go back to the beginning.

You also didn't try to repeat the steps.

It was another dance now — slower, more crooked, more honest.

He still had the long silences, but now he let you in on them.

You still looked away when you felt too much, but looked back later.

Always looked back.

There were days when neither of you said anything.

You just shared the same space, the same breath, the same cup with half-full coffee.

Other days were full of failures.

He withdrew.

You got irritated.

The world seemed to repeat the same mistakes.

But at the end of the day, there was the payback.

Not as someone who finds themself, but as someone who chooses to remain.

The house, previously echoing with absence, began to smell of clean laundry and cheap incense.

The radio played songs that no one remembered the name of, and hands found their way to each other without needing an explanation.

You laughed more.

He slept better.

It wasn't perfect.

But there was calm.

And there was truth.

And when he lay down next to you on a normal Tuesday, his hair still damp from the shower and his forehead resting on your shoulder, you understood that love is sometimes not fire, nor a storm — but an ember that survives.

Some things still hurt.

But they didn't cut anymore.

Because now you bled together, and that changed everything.

“The space where both fit. Where touch doesn't hurt. Where absence no longer bites, and the presence... well, it calms.” — What's left when it no longer needs to hurt

There was no big statement.

No scenes rehearsed in the rain. No certainties announced too loudly.

It was a lazy Sunday.

The sky was overcast. Time was slowly slipping through the open window.

You were sweeping the room when he appeared at the door with two coffees—one with sugar, the other bitter. Knowing exactly which one was yours.

He dropped his coat on the armchair, sat on the floor beside you, and for once, Geto didn't say anything to apologize.

You didn't ask for explanations either.

Because the silence between you, finally, was not absence.

It was acceptance.

Your love no longer screamed.

It didn't entreat.

It didn't plead.

It was a tired body that, nevertheless, remained standing.

It was a breath that continued, even after the wind.

You saw it in his eyes — that same old question, but now without the urgency.

And for the first time, you answered without saying anything: just laid your head on his shoulder.

There, in the touch of skin against skin, where the world stopped hurting for a few seconds, you knew.

It wasn't about finding what you had lost.

It was about carrying what was left behind — even if your hands were shaking.

And Geto, with his eyes lowered and his breathing ragged, whispered in a voice that no longer trembled:

“This time I'll stay.”

You didn't answer.

You just touched your fingers to his, slowly, like someone signing an ancient pact that finally arrived at the right time.

Outside, the sky threatened rain.

But it didn't rain.

Maybe, just maybe, it was tired too.

And then, together, you followed.

Not for happily ever after — but for what is possible.

For real.

For now.

Because some stories don't need an end point.

You just need to know where to continue.

©This content belongs to @itoshislave 2025, do not modify, translate or repost on another platform.

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itoshislave · 2 months ago

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itoshislave · 2 months ago

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itoshislave · 2 months ago

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Me watching season 4 finale and Levi shows up:

Tears running down my face and thighs

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itoshislave · 2 months ago

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