#“SHUT UP I DRINK IT AND ITS REALLY GOOD” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gaywiththesauce · 2 years ago

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I ran out of tags so the first part will be in text!!

UISHKGDS AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

where do I begin?

the first half is actually so sad and I love it for that. it was so great to watch and so so painful! like the nice pain you get from reading angst. I was covering my mouth and gasping so so much while reading

“Because he would rather have lived in a world in which Y/N had been turned into his enemy than in one in which she did not exist at all.”

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THIS IS SO SAD TO READ AND HE FUCKING HE. HE. HE. HE DID THAT. HE THOUGHT THAT. KYOJURO RENGOKU.

like i always thought of him to never think of any reason for someone to willingly become a demon so for you to do THAT

Peach! your brain... its so big…

and then the cliffside and describing it and the buildup to it

oooooooooof

The anger and tension just building and wow. wowowowowow

im usually not an x reader fan (even less of a sub!reader) but lemme tell you my seatbelt was strapped

my hands were inside the car and ready for the ride

“Rengoku’s movements were just like those he wielded in battle — powerful; all-consuming; relentless; and unforgiving.”

EXCUSE ME?????????????

I READ THAT AND WOW

PEEEEACCCCCHHHHH I HAD MANY THOUGHTS

Tell Me to Stop: Part 2 (NSFW Kyojuro Rengoku x F!Ice Pillar)

A/N: oh man, it’s here. This took a lot out of me, so I hope that you all like it.

Part One can be found here: post-Mugen AU where Kyojuro lives; events take place post-Entertainment District.

Multiple POVs (Y/N, Shinobu, and Kyojuro). There are several flashbacks, which are in all italics and separated from the main text.

Massive TW: trauma/PTSD, anger, nightmares, descriptions of corpses, violence and violence between characters (shoving, grabbing/shaking). One character triggers another and it’s dubious whether it’s intentional or not.

CW: 16.7k words; explicit sexual content. Unprotected sex/oral (F!receiving), creampies, cursing, light scar worship, intimacy, angst.

For the song that inspired this, listen here.

Without further ado!

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N began her rehabilitation training within one week of awakening from her coma.

For those seven days of rest, Y/N had fielded all sorts of visitors — the Master, escorted by his two daughters; the Love Pillar, who had wasted no time throwing her arms around Y/N’s shoulders and sobbing in relief; and three of the Mansion’s youngest girls, all of whom crawled up on her bed and cried while hugging her.

Uzui had sent her a note by crow telling her he would be by to see her as soon as his wives finished making her favorite treat — red bean mochi — and said they could compare battle wounds in celebration of their feat.

Y/N had neither seen nor heard as much of a whisper from the Flame Pillar.

The Ice Pillar resolved to distract herself from the glaring absence of the man who embodied fire, though every day that passed without word from him only seemed to make that absence more pronounced.

Y/N had thrown herself into her rehabilitation training, as supervised by Shinobu. Because she was a Hashira, her recovery was vastly different from that of lower-ranked slayers, and she worked with the Insect Pillar directly, rather than with the haughty Aoi and other younger Mansion girls.

That particular morning, the Love Pillar had joined them in an effort to recuperate Y/N’s loss of flexibility as the result of the nearly two months she’d spent sedentary. Y/N cherished the one-on-one time she had with the other two women Hashira; the three of them had formed a tight bond with one another since ascending as Pillars, united amidst the predominance of male demon slayers.

“Good! Now just bend this way-“ Mitsuri Kanroji kept a steady hand at the small of Y/N’s back as Y/N arched over backward, teeth grinding as her stiff spine resisted her movement.

“Almost there! Just touch your other hand to the floor and hold it!” The Love Hashira said encouragingly.

Y/N stretched her left arm over her head as hard as she could. Her fingers had just graced the wooden grain of the training room floor when her body seized, and her legs gave out from under her.

“Oh!” Mitsuri caught Y/N effortlessly before she could crumple to the floor, gently helping her to sit while blushing at the stream of colorful curses that poured from the Ice Pillar’s mouth.

“This damn wound,” Y/N moaned, her hand pressing against the angry red mark that curved from below her belly button to her right hip. “You would think it would have healed by now.”

Shinobu frowned as she crouched next to the Ice Pillar, fingers lightly prodding at the scar left behind by Upper Moon Six. “It has healed; if it hadn’t, it wouldn’t have scarred already.” Shinobu pursed her lips. “Though, I suppose it could just be a residual effect of the Upper Rank’s blood demon art – after all, it was no ordinary blade that he pierced you with, was it?”

Y/N shook her head, though she tried to suppress the memory of the demon’s cursed flesh blade ramming through her back and into her stomach. “The blade was his conduit for his blood demon art – but I think it was made from him.”

“How often does it hurt, Y/N?” Mitsuri asked, rubbing soothing circles on her friend’s upper back. Mitsuri was one of the few people Y/N knew who preferred to give physical comfort, and Y/N was grateful for it.

Y/N furrowed her brows in thought. “In a way, there’s always just this dull ache I feel, though it becomes sharper whenever I move a particular way.” Y/N pulled at the band of her uniform bottoms in discomfort. “And, it doesn’t help that these damn pants chafe and rub against it. I’ve even foregone the belt, and it still feels like they’re cutting into me.”

Mitsuri hummed in thought. “Have you considered one of the uniform skirts? They sit a little higher on the waist, so they’re less likely to aggravate it.”

Y/N scowled. “I would rather be stabbed by Upper Six again than request a skirt from that pervert tailor,” she said severely, “Sorry,” she added when she saw the Love Pillar flush with embarrassment.

“Lecherous Corps tailors aside, you may have a good point, Mitsuri.” Shinobu said, eyeing Y/N’s uniform pants in thought. “Y/N, do you mind if I brainstorm some designs for you? I can’t promise whatever I come up with will be suitable for public appearances or assignments, but I might be able to come up with something that will at least keep you comfortable while you heal and build back your strength.”

Y/N smiled as she stretched her legs out, bringing herself into a pose meant to flex her hips. “I’d be grateful for anything you could do, Shinobu.”

The Insect Pillar nodded. “Mitsuri, you know how to sew quite well, do you not? I’m afraid my proficiency with the needle is limited to sewing up wounds.”

The pinkette glowed with enthusiasm. “Yes! I have an entire room dedicated to sewing at my Estate – if you bring by your designs, I’m sure I could put something together!”

Shinobu smiled. “Then it’s settled. I’ll see what I can come up with tonight, and I’ll bring it by in the morning.”

Y/N’s heart swelled at the dedication her two friends showed towards her comfort and recovery. “Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.”

Shinobu’s smile turned wicked. “Don’t thank us yet, Y/N. You have agility training next.”

Y/N groaned and pulled on her uniform top, buttoning it over her bindings. As a Hashira, agility training meant that she was to meet the Wind Pillar outside of Kocho’s estate where she would endure two hours of having to dodge his relentless attacks. Y/N got along just fine with Shinazugawa – he’d even welcomed her back, and gruffly complimented her work in the Entertainment District – but that did not mean he eased up in his ruthless training.

By the time the Wind Pillar had dismissed her with a satisfied nod, Y/N had all but limped back to her room, wondering whether she could even summon the strength to bathe after such an arduous day. She almost decided against it, but when her newest scar began to pulse and throb once more, she knew nothing else would soothe it better than the hot water in Kocho’s private hot spring.

Y/N greeted the bowing Kakushi who guarded the entrance to the northernmost wing of the Butterfly Mansion’s hospital as she passed by, and she hoped that Aoi had remembered to restock her room with fresh towels so she could go straight to her bath from her room.

She drew short at the sight of a familiar figure which stood outside of Kocho’s office, leaning against the wall of the small hallway.

“Rengoku!” Y/N was startled, taking a step back in surprise at the sight of the Flame Pillar.

“Y/L/N.” The man who reminded her of the sun nodded in greeting, but his familiar, sunny disposition was noticeably absent, his face impassive and his voice detached.

“I am happy to see you in good health.” Rengoku spoke with unnatural formality; he’d never used that cold, detached manner of speaking to her, not once since she’d caught him staring at her right before the commencement of Final Selection all those years ago.

--------------------------------------------------------

“Ice Pillar Y/L/N!” His sunny voice boomed, and Y/N groaned. She’d just gotten her migraine to calm down.

“Rengoku,” she nodded politely, as her comrade came to stand beside her, all smiles and warmth.

“It’s been a while, Y/L/N! I was beginning to forget what you look like when you roll your eyes at me.” He laughed, and Y/N scowled.

“Perhaps I’ll pay to have my photograph taken, Rengoku. That way, you can carry it with you wherever you go.”

Rengoku turned to her, an eyebrow raised in surprise at her willingness to engage with his banter so quickly. “If that’s the case, Y/N, I’d prefer to have one of you smiling. It would do well to keep me warm on those cold nights away from home.”

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“I heard you were called away on another mission— some train?” Y/N asked him as they strolled through the Master’s garden following their meeting.

“Yes, we’ve unfortunately lost a number of slayers. Perhaps it’s an upper rank!” The Flame Pillar responded jovially, but he stopped in front of Y/N when he saw her frown.

“What is it?” His voice was gentle, and Y/N shook her head, focusing her eyes on the blooming wisteria saplings that had been planted.

A warm finger curled under her chin and tilted her face up until her eyes clashed with pools of golden ore. “My dear Ice Pillar, are you worried for me?” He was smirking, and his thumb lightly caressed the underside of her jaw.

Y/N gingerly took his hand and removed it from her face, though she did not let it go right away. “You are the Flame Hashira, Rengoku. If anyone is capable of defeating an Upper Rank, it most certainly is you.”

Rengoku smiled broadly at her, his hand nearly grazing her own. “For someone whose prowess lies in ice breathing, Y/L/N, you sure know how to start fires.”

Under any other circumstance, she would have changed the subject, or not said anything at all. But Y/N couldn’t help her sudden desire to flirt back, just to see if she could knock him off his feet as he so often tried to do to her.

“Yours is the only one I’m interested in stoking, Rengoku.” She said sweetly.

She’d laughed at the Flame Pillar’s beet-red face for the rest of the day.

------------------------------------------------------

“And I, you.” Y/N responded, her eyes still wide with surprise as she came to a stop before him, maintaining a cautious distance between them.

A pregnant pause followed, and Y/N made to speak once more, but she was cut off by another deep throb from the wound on her lower abdomen, her hand unconsciously flying to press against it as she swallowed the gasp that threatened to leave her.

“You’re in pain.” It wasn’t a question.

Y/N shrugged in a feeble attempt at nonchalance. “I suppose it’s to be expected for a while yet. At least until I recover.”

Rengoku said nothing, and the silence felt suffocating.

“Would you-“ Y/N hesitated, and inwardly she’d never felt more embarrassed, or more uncertain than she did then as she stood before the uncharacteristically stoic Flame Pillar. “Would you like to sit down?”

Rengoku’s face remained impassive, and he turned away from her, dismissively.

“I cannot. I came only to retrieve a salve from Kocho.” His voice was just as cold, just as unfamiliar as the rest of him had been.

“Rengoku, is everything all right?” She stretched out a hand to touch his shoulder but was alarmed at how quickly he flinched away from her as if her touch could burn him.

“Everything is fine, Y/L/N. I need to be on my way.” Rengoku’s voice was flat, monotone, and wholly foreign to her.

“I’m sorry for not thanking you sooner — for everything you did to help me that night.” Y/N blurted, and to her relief, Rengoku froze mid-step, though he did not turn towards her. “I owe you my life.”

She did not miss the way Rengoku’s fists clenched at his side. “You owe me nothing. I would have done the same for any other comrade.” He replied, voice tight. “I must get going now. Farewell, Y/L/N.

She was so stunned that she’d not bidden him farewell back. Rather, she’d stood helplessly in her doorway, even long after the edge of his haori had disappeared around the corner of the Butterfly Mansion’s hall.

He had not looked at her once.

-------------------------------------------------------

(Kyojuro’s POV)

Kyojuro’s fists remained clenched the entire journey back to his estate.

He felt disgusted with himself. He felt like a coward.

It had nearly knocked him to his knees to see Y/L/N up and standing and talking because for so long, he had feared he would never again see the way she crinkled her nose when she laughed, or how she tucked that one loose strand of hair behind her ear whenever she was concentrating — the one that never stayed put in her braid.

But he had not been able to meet her eyes; couldn’t bear to bring himself to try, because he had been terrified of what he would see.

-------------------------------------------------------

Every night for the last two months, he has dreamed of her.

They were not pretty dreams, not like those he had before when he’d wrap her in his arms and kiss her until she laughed, the two of them living in a monster-free world and at peace.

Now, he dreamt of vacant eyes-tinged blue, unseeing and unblinking and frozen, just like the rest of her. He dreams of iced skin and blood and poison pouring from her mouth and her nose until she chokes, her chest rising once with a final rattle before it falls still.

He dreams of Upper Three, smiling deviously as he aims his fist to deal his final blow, and Kyojuro wrenches his blade down, desperate to finally win.

Only, his blade decapitates Y/N, not the Upper Rank demon and he is helpless to watch her head bounce pathetically to the ground. His hands are covered in her blood, and instead of disintegrating, her body falls uselessly to the side. Human.

As quickly as he kills her, the dream changes. He is in a lively street, filled to the brim with street vendors and women and men offering their services. It is night but the lights of the shops and gambling dens and pleasure houses are so bright that it looks like daytime.

He recognizes her by the back of her haori, and his feet move towards her, relieved to see her amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. He reaches out to touch her shoulder, her name whispering on his lips. But she turns before he can make contact, and though she looks healthy, her eyes — her eyes are white and unseeing.

I don’t understand, she pleads with him, it doesn’t make sense.

Kyojuro looks around in alarm and they are no longer standing amongst eager entertainment seekers, but among flame and wreckage, the once-ornately decorated stalls now smashed to splinters as fire slowly consumes the skeletal remains of the entertainment district.

He turns back to her right as a blade pierces through her gut, lifting her from the ground before letting her drop.

His hands shake as he reaches for her, desperate to check her wounds, but when she looks up at him, he stumbles back.

She is all wrong. Her skin is mottled and rotting from her face, and her hair is gray and matted. In place of her eyes are black holes, empty and cold.

Why can’t I come with you? Why can’t I go home, Kyojuro?

Please take me home.

Every night for the last two months, he awoke screaming.

------------------------------------------------------

Y/L/N was alive; he knew that. He knew that if he looked at her, he would not see a corpse; but terrifying visuals aside, Kyojuro had not been able to look at her because he knew what his nightmares were telling him.

He’d been responsible for her near death.

If the Kakushi had returned with a box rather than a Pillar, it would have been his fault.

The thought that Y/L/N — his Y/L/N -- had almost obtained her own headstone in the Master’s graveyard had rocked him to his very core, for that had almost become a reality. She had actually died – for the briefest moment – in his arms; and it had been his fault.

Why can't I go home, Kyojuro?

And though Y/N had awoken from her slumber, her corpse still haunted Kyojuro’s dreams.

--------------------------------------------------------

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was sprawled on her infirmary floor, preparing her limbs for another day of rigorous recuperation training at the hands of her fellow Hashira.

She stood to stretch her arms and lower back, wincing slightly at the pull of her scar. “Don’t you start,” she warned her body, willing total concentration breathing to dull the persistent ache that threatened to derail her entire day.

Y/N sensed movement near her doorway and knew, without looking, who watched her as she warmed up her aching muscles.

“Uzui retired. It’s time for you to do the same.”

Y/N who had been in mid-stretch, righted herself and blinked at the Flame Pillar. “Pardon?” Both the news of Uzui’s retirement and Rengoku’s words were a shock to her.

“Retire, Y/LN.” Rengoku repeated in that detached manner of his that she hardly recognized. “You helped take down an Upper Rank. You’ve done enough. Let someone else shoulder the burden, now.”

“I see no reason to retire, Rengoku.” Y/N retorted, voice hardening. “And unless and until the Master requests it or I perish, I see no reason to do so.”

Rengoku exhaled harshly through his nose. “You were injured — seriously so.”

“As were you, and yet you seem to have no intention of slowing down.” Y/N said, coolly.

Rengoku’s attention stayed fixed on the garden outside her window. “And I was only unconscious for three weeks. You were out for nearly two months, Y/L/N. That is unheard of and frankly, unacceptable for a Hashira.”

“What is your problem?” Y/N was growing more irritated the longer this inane conversation dragged on, and it wasn’t helping that Rengoku still refused to so much as look her direction, let alone meet her eyes. “Is this about what happened after you brought me here? Kocho told me everything — I’m not mad.”

Rengoku’s shoulders tensed. “It was necessary. Again, I would have done it for any one of my comrades.”

Y/N felt like she’d been slapped.

“You keep saying that, yet you won’t look at me— why?” Her confusion and hurt were beginning to melt into anger. “If I am just another comrade, then you should be able to meet my eyes.”

Rengoku said nothing.

“What Uzui did for me— that was what comrades do,” Y/N continued, her voice growing stronger as her blood grew hotter. “But you? You and I both know you were under no obligation to bring me back from the brink of death the way you did.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Y/L/N,” Rengoku answered after a long moment.

Y/N took a step towards him. “I want to know why.”

“It was necessary.”

Y/N felt like throttling him.

How long had they danced around each other? How many times had they caught themselves staring at the other for a breath longer than normal, had allowed an otherwise friendly touch during a spar linger?

How could he have held her, half nude for hours, putting himself on the brink of death all for the sake of keeping her alive — and then tell her she was the same as any other comrade?

“What are we doing Rengoku -- is this to be our destiny?” Y/N demanded, exasperatedly, her voice hard. “We continue to pretend like we don’t care about one another until one of us dies?”

Rengoku remained silent, back still turned away from her.

“We’ve each had a near-death experience in a matter of months,” Y/N continued, throat working hard to keep her voice steady despite the telling burn of angry tears in her eyes. “By all accounts, one if not both of us should be dead.”

“And yet, somehow, you expect me to act as though the fact you carried me back here— that you put yourself on death’s door to keep my heart beating — doesn’t mean anything?”

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense for him to fight so hard for her, to make her believe that someone valued her life that much, only to cast her aside.

She hadn’t wanted to wake up, initially; she’d felt relief for the hair’s breadth she’d thought she’d finally met her end. He was the one who dragged her back, and now he wouldn’t even look at her.

It didn’t make sense.

Y/N’s fists shook beside her, and she felt the venomous words fly from her mouth before she could stop them.

“You should’ve let me die.”

No sooner had she let the poison drip from her mouth had she felt herself flying backward, back slamming against the nearest wall of her temporary room.

“Never,” Rengoku snarled at her, his arm pressing firmly against her shoulders to hold her in place against the wood. “Never say those words to me again.”

Y/N’s chest was heaving, and she trembled beneath him, her fury threatening to explode out of her.

“There is no place on this earth where you could be in peril and I would not find you,” he said quietly, his eyes a simmering, fiery orange. “Where I wouldn’t find a way to bring you back home.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Y/N said softly, breath still coming hard from her nose but no longer from her anger.

“Doesn’t it?” Rengoku was close, dangerously close.

Y/N wanted nothing more than to lean in, to close the distance that barely existed between Rengoku’s face and hers and finally be done with all the nonsense. But he had spent so much time avoiding her gaze until that moment, and Y/N felt more lost than ever, set adrift by the look of heat and longing that was mixed with the burning rage in his eyes.

Something tugged incessantly at her gut and it would not allow her to move from her place against her recovery room’s wall.

Instead, her arms came up to rest against Rengoku’s chest before gently, but firmly, pushing him away.

“No, it doesn’t.” She repeated. “And I am tired, Rengoku.”

The Flame Pillar allowed himself to be pushed away, but he looked at her with a small, cruel smile.

“Then you’re right; it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

She flinched against the ugly slap of his words. Y/N had expected him to hit back, but she hadn’t anticipated his venom to sting as much as it did.

She felt all of the fight within her gutter out, leaving her with nothing but a heavy weight in her chest that she wished she couldn’t feel.

“Y/L/N, I-“ the Flame Pillar almost sounded remorseful.

“Thank you, for your clarification, Lord Rengoku,” she said numbly, formally, parroting his earlier tone with her. “And thank you for your assistance that night. Please, next time — don’t trouble yourself.”

Rengoku hesitated for a moment, his hand twitching as though he wanted to reach for her. He swallowed hard, and turned away, shutting the door to Y/N’s infirmary.

The moment the door at clicked shut, Y/N exhaled harshly, stumbling back against her bed as she hugged her arms around herself, and she tried to keep herself from falling apart.

It shouldn’t have hurt this bad. They were both in the Demon Slayer Corps; they saved strangers all the time without it ever meaning anything other than good will and a desire to exterminate all demons.

So why did his insistence that she was no different hurt so badly?

Because she wasn’t a stranger.

Because, while she’d always known she wasn’t his, she’d still thought she’d been something.

As Y/N curled against her blanket, an unsettling numbness began to spread from her heart, quieting even the dull ache from the scar across her belly, Y/N realized that she’d meant nothing to the Flame Pillar all along.

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(Kyojuro’s POV)

He hated himself.

He utterly and truly despised himself.

He’d been hurt by her insistence that she did not know his feelings even though he was the one who’d opened the door, yet somehow, it still felt like a rejection.

So he’d hit back, only for her to visibly recoil at the sharp blow of his words.

He would not forgive himself, for as long as he lived, for the way the light in her eyes had winked out.

He did not know what bothered him more: the fact that she’d assumed that he regretted keeping her alive, or that she’d said “next time” he needn’t bother. As though she were counting on there being a next time.

He knew he should turn around; knew that he should barge back into her hospital room, drop to his knees, and beg her to forgive his cruelty.

He knew that he should explain to her why he found it so difficult to admit his feelings for her — that he had watched his father turn into a shell of a man and abandon his children in the wake of their mother’s death, leaving them to raise themselves. That he had vowed, as he’d watched his father drink his days away, that he would never be like him, would never abandon those who relied on him most.

He’d promised that he would never be a coward, even if, in all honesty, the idea that he, Kyojuro, could ever love someone that fiercely only to have them ripped from his grasp terrified him to no end.

As he forced his legs to carry him to back to his estate, Kyojuro wondered if perhaps, in his desperation not to turn into his father, he’d become the old man after all.

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(Shinobu’s POV)

Shinobu felt the Flame Pillar’s presence in her office before she saw him, though she was in no rush to give him his salve, especially not after what she’d overheard him spit at her friend.

“If you do not mind, I would like to send my crow to collect this from here on,” Rengoku said tightly, and Shinobu could sense his failing attempt to keep his fury in check.

“Very well then,” the Insect Pillar responded just as tersely, turning away from the papers and books on her desk to pull out the small tin containing the salve the Flame Pillar used to soothe the ache of the scar he now bore across his pectoral and shoulder. Rather than handing it to him, she tossed it through the air, the Flame Hashira catching it swiftly in his hand.

Rengoku nodded his thanks and turned to leave.

“I didn’t realize it was against Corps’ rules to care about our comrades,” Shinobu said icily, if not to signal to him that there had been spectators to his ugly outburst.

He couldn’t resist taking her bait. “Maybe it should be. It would be easier that way — for everyone.”

“Is that so?” Kocho sneered, no hint of familiarity or kindness in her features; nothing but that poisonous, deadly smile. “Well, if that was the case, then you would’ve preferred Uzui to leave Y/L/N for dead among the rubble in Yoshiwara, correct?

“You would rather us be searching to fill the newest Hashira vacancy, with her corpse barely cold in the ground-“

“Do not say another word, Kocho.” Rengoku warned, quietly.

But for Shinobu, anger was her vice, and so his warning only spurred her on.

“Tell me, Rengoku, if the new Pillar had been a woman, would you have held her the way you held Y/N?”

Shinobu’s smile was chilling as she relished the way the Flame Pillar began to tremble. “Or perhaps, would you finally confess to her, having learned your lesson from the missed opportunity with Y/N? Would you live out your days with her, while Y/N rotted below the earth, having never known someone loved her?”

“ENOUGH.” Rengoku roared, and for a moment, Shinobu thought the Flame Pillar might put his clenched fist through her wall. The silence that followed was tense and long as Rengoku struggled to calm his breathing.

“What do you want from me, Kocho?” Rengoku finally snapped, wheeling around to glower at the Insect Pillar, eyes half-crazed in his frustration.

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(Two months earlier)

Dawn was still far off, but the hall of her estate was a mess.

Shinobu knew that at any moment, another group of Kakushi would be coming through the hole Rengoku had left in her wall bearing the unconscious body of the Sound Pillar, and if they did so, they’d be stumbling upon the chaotic scene that had unfolded before.

Rengoku was still on the floor, legs on either side of Y/N, who was slumped against his chest and fully exposed from the waist up.

With some satisfaction, Shinobu noted that the dark purple bruising around Y/N’s chest was clearing, a sure sign that she had chosen the correct antidote for the Flame Hashira to slam into her heart.

But her hypothermia persisted.

Rengoku, on the other hand, was beginning to breathe rather loudly, no doubt as he continued to maintain his high fever for the sake of the unmoving woman braced between his thighs.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu crouched down next to the Flame Pillar, her hand coming to a rest on his shoulder, which burned beneath her palm. “Rengoku, we need to move.”

The man lifted his head up to meet her eyes, his own glassy and unfocused. Shinobu clamped down on the swear building on her tongue — he had fever fog.

Rengoku grunted at her before his head slumped back down, chin nearly touching his chest.

Shinobu tried again. “Rengoku, we are in the open hallway of the Butterfly Mansion. Others will be arriving soon. Y/N is completed exposed.”

That seemed to get his attention. Rengoku’s head lifted, his eyes narrowed slits, but nonetheless open. He grunted in some sort of acknowledgement and began to shift Y/N in his lap.

He turned the unconscious Ice Pillar so that her back rested against one arm that curled around her bare waist. His free arm slid to grip beneath her knees, shifting her into a bridal-style position to carry her.

Two of the Butterfly Mansion’s staff moved to help him stand, but Rengoku shrugged them off, surprising Shinobu as he managed to rise steadily to his feet, Y/N secured against his chest.

He looked at Shinobu expectantly and she began ushering him towards a secluded wing of the Manor, towards her private hall. Across from her personal office was a special infirmary room, walled off from the rest of the recovery ward.

Shinobu withdrew a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the heavy, wooden door.

“You two can stay in here until her body temperature returns to normal,” She said, as Rengoku made his way towards the recovery bed.

Shinobu watched as Rengoku, still wearing his zori and uniform pants, ever so gently lowered himself and Y/N down on the bed, repeating his earlier positioning of her between his thighs. He propped up one leg slightly to keep the Ice Pillar from slumping over, her back pressed to his bare chest. Rengoku leaned against the headboard so that Y/N’s head could rest against his clavicle, though it slumped instead towards her left shoulder.

Shinobu made to grab a blanket to throw over the two topless Hashira but stopped short as Rengoku made to move again.

He seemed to realize that Y/N, while also still in her torn uniform pants and zori, was still bare from the waist up, her body positioned towards the door. He frowned, his hand coming up to graze the side of her arm. He flinched slightly, no doubt at the persistent chill that lingered on her skin, and he moved both of his large hands down over the back of hers as they lay limply on either side of her thighs, intertwining their fingers.

Awestruck, Shinobu watched as Rengoku brought Y/N’s arms up to cross them over her chest, locking them in place by covering her arms with his own, as though wrapping her in a sweet embrace. Shinobu knew that he’d done so to avoid touching her bare breasts himself, or at least to do so as minimally as possible, while still providing her cover. And, due to the breadth of Rengoku’s muscled forearms, Y/N’s sensitive area was almost entirely obscured from view.

Rengoku had barely been clinging to consciousness himself, and once she was sufficiently hidden in his arms, his head dropped forward until his forehead came to a rest on Y/N’s shoulder, opposite of where she’d rolled her head.

To the unassuming eye, it would have appeared as though the pair of Hashira were simply engaged in an intimate moment, rather than one desperately trying to anchor the other to life.

Shinobu moved to place the blanket over the Pillars’ laps, before quietly exiting the private room.

“Seal this wing off entirely,” she murmured to Aoi, who had been waiting dutifully outside. “No one comes down here without my explicit permission.”

Aoi bowed to her before she ushered the other Kakushi out. Faintly, Shinobu heard the arriving shouts of the group bearing the Sound Pillar. She took a single deep breath, steeling herself once more, before moving to check on her incoming patient.

-------------------------------------------------------

Shinobu raised her chin, looking down her nose at him in disgust. “I’m waiting for the man who would have set the world ablaze to save Y/N to reappear.”

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m waiting for the man who used his own body as her lifeline, and who tried to smash open the infirmary door when he was delirious with fever because he thought that she had died while he was asleep.”

The Insect Pillar’s masked smile finally slipped from her face and her true rage towards the Flame Pillar shone through. “It is cruel to make her feel as though she’s done something wrong,” Shinobu’s arms folded across her chest. “And it is cruel to you both for you to pretend as though she does not mean anything to you. Haven’t you both been through enough? Are you not exhausted as well?”

A tortured look passed over Rengoku’s face. “It is better this way, Kocho. I do not want to be the cause of her pain, and I cannot survive going through what happened to her again.

“For all your talk about either of you dying, I’ve yet to hear you mention the equal alternative,” Shinobu sighed, gathering her papers and books. “The one where we win and you both live. What do you suppose happens then?”

Rengoku said nothing and so, Shinobu continued. “Suppose we emerge victorious – would you truly prefer for you and Y/N to go your separate ways – to never see one another again, or never acknowledge the bond the two of you share?”

“There is no guarantee that either of us survives, Kocho,” Rengoku said quietly, his eyes falling to his feet.

Shinobu smiled but it was no longer cruel or bitter; it was wistful. “And there is no guarantee that either of you die. That’s the fickle nature of humanity, is it not? The very reason we fight?”

The Insect Pillar gathered her papers and stacked them neatly on her shelf. “For the possibilities of it all.”

--------------------------------------------------------

The sun was high in the sky by the time Shinobu had a moment to check on the two unconscious pillars in the back room.

Uzui had required quite a bit of attention in order to stop the poison from becoming deadly, though the fact that her combination of the wisteria antidote with the amphetamine had been so effective on Y/N meant that Shinobu was able to administer the same to the Sound Pillar in half the time.

She was exhausted; the strain of the night’s events weighed heavily on her, but she had to check on Y/N’s temperature — if the Ice Pillar still had not recovered, she feared that hope was lost.

She pushed the door to the private infirmary room open and saw the two Hashira, still in the same position she’d left them in. Rengoku was deeply asleep, no doubt from the exhaustion wrought by his high fever.

Enclosed within his arms, Y/N remained unconscious but pink.

Shinobu felt the relief course through her, but she did not allow herself to relax until she reached out a hand to lightly pinch the Ice Pillar’s cheek.

It bloomed red beneath her fingers, and it was warm to the touch.

He’d done it. The Flame Pillar had staved off her hypothermia. Their only obstacle now lay in getting her to reawaken.

Shinobu laid her hand across Rengoku’s forehead, frowning at the scorching heat of his brow; his fever had worsened more than she’d anticipated, and he would need intervention soon. She turned to nod at the Kakushi who waited by the door to the recovery room, and the three of them moved to separate the Flame and Ice Pillars.

“Put him in one of the other single-recovery rooms. Tell Aoi to administer the fever medication I keep in my cabinet – it should dispel his fever within a few hours.” Shinobu ordered, as the Kakushi, with great effort, lifted the Flame Pillar from his position behind Y/N. Shinobu gently eased her friend down against the bed and pulled a blanket over her exposed torso. “I will also need a fresh hospital gown for Lady Y/L/N.”

The Kakushi nodded their assent and got to work, heaving the unconscious Flame Pillar towards the door when he awoke. At first, his eyes were dazed, and confused as they darted around him, but as he took in his surroundings, he began to struggle against the grip of the Kakushi.

“Please, Lord Rengoku, your fever is dangerously high! Allow us to help!” One of them cried, though his efforts to tug the Pillar away were futile. Shinobu supposed the only reason he had not yet succeeded in completely throwing them off was the fact that his fever had severely weakened him.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sternly, coming around from her position by Y/N to meet his eyes, though he only thrashed harder against the Kakushi as he began to mutter incoherently under his breath. “Rengoku, that’s enough. You’re safe. You’re in the Butterfly Mansion, and you have a high fever. Please, let the Kakushi do their job.”

But the Insect Pillar’s words fell on deaf ears as Rengoku began to hyperventilate, his muscles straining as he tried desperately to break free from the Kakushi’s hold. Shinobu was at a loss; her comrade did not merely look frantic – he looked terrified, desperate, and utterly beyond reproach or reason. His heart rate had spiked considerably, and his breath was jerky and uneven, as though he could not fully understand where he was or that he was amongst friends.

As she strained to make out what the Flame Pillar repeated, over and over, under his breath, Shinobu realized that his eyes were not unfocused at all; they were locked on the unconscious Ice Pillar in the bed behind her.

“I can still save her!” he roared.

It all made sense then.

Shinobu realized that he thought they were moving him not because he’d successfully thwarted her hypothermia, but because he had failed — and that she was now dead.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sharply, trying to force the irate and delirious Flame Pillar to meet her eyes. “Rengoku, Y/N is alive. Her body temperature has returned to normal. She is safe.”

But the Flame Pillar seemed not to hear her, as he only struggled harder against the Kakushi desperately trying to usher him out of Y/N’s room.

Rengoku was becoming more violent, even as the Kakushi finally managed to shove him through the doorway of Y/N’s room. Just before they’d managed to slam the door shut, Shinobu caught Aoi’s eye and nodded, the younger girl quickly disappeared into the Pillar’s office.

Shinobu watched in stunned silence as the Flame Pillar broke free from the Kakushi and began hurtling his body against the door, Y/N’s name falling from his lips in an anguished chant.

Rengoku was so delirious in his fevered panic that he did not notice Aoi slip behind him and plunge a syringe into his neck, depositing a thick stream of the clear liquid that Shinobu knew would have a near-instantaneous effect on his consciousness.

The Insect Pillar felt a strange sense of pity and remorse as she watched her friend slump to the floor outside of the infirmary room, a final cry out for the Ice Pillar falling from his lips before the sedative lulled him back to sleep.

-------------------------------------------------------

(Kyojuro’s POV – three days later)

He didn’t know why he’d returned to the Butterfly Mansion.

Kyojuro tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to wait for his crow to return with Kocho’s salve, but he knew it was a pathetic excuse. He’d sworn to himself that he would leave Y/L/N alone after their last argument. He’d vowed that the door between them had been closed for good, and they would only ever be colleagues. Nothing more.

But he couldn’t stay away. Perhaps it was because he’d spent the last few days stewing over their last argument, and somewhere, amidst his endless supply of self-hatred, he’d also grown angry with the Ice Pillar.

Angry, because she had put herself in harm’s way when he’d specifically told her not to.

Angry because she’d nearly died, and she’d threatened to take the last vestiges of his sanity with her to the afterlife.

Angry that she insisted on remaining in the Demon Slayer Corps despite having given more than enough of herself to their cause; angry that she didn’t understand why he couldn’t yet do the same.

Angry because she didn’t seem to understand his feelings at all.

Perhaps in another life, they could have had each other. Had they both been born into a world without demons, then maybe they would have still found each other and maybe, just maybe, he would have been able to love her the way she deserved.

But for Kyojuro, their relationship would always be defined by a series of maybes, and nothing more.

--------------------------------------------------------

It would have been a lie for Kyojuro to say he’d not been struck dumb by her.

She was stretched out on the steps of Kocho’s engawa, legs dangling off the edge of the porch as she leaned back on her elbows, eyes closed dreamily as she kept her face tilted up towards the cooling night air.

Long, lean, bare legs, he realized, an uncomfortable heat creeping up his collar. He couldn’t help running his eyes up their length, fixating hard on the supple curves of her thighs.

Why were her legs bare?

She looked��so unguarded this way. Her haori was draped around her shoulders, one of its sleeves hanging loosely to the side and exposing her bare shoulder – how exposed was she, the idiot – and her hair was completely unbound, falling in a silken river to her waist.

It was a stark contrast to the braided crown she wore at the base of her neck. It hit him that, not counting the night she’d nearly died, he had not otherwise seen her with her hair down.

He liked it. A lot.

“I finally rid myself of one migraine only for another to appear,” Y/N’s lofty voice snapped him out of his reverence, as the Ice Pillar opened her eyes to glare at him.

“If you’ve come for Shinobu, she is not here. She’s on an errand and will not be back until early morning.” Y/N turned her attention away from him and back towards the garden, her voice stony.

At that moment, there were a million things Kyojuro could have said to the Ice Pillar.

How are you?

I missed the way you glare at me.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Any of those options would have been far better than what came tumbling out of his mouth.

“I hadn’t realized you were indecent. My apologies.”

Y/N’s head snapped back to him, her eyes chips of ice. “Indecent?” She rose from her seat on the engawa and faced him fully, and Rengoku nearly groaned.

Indecent, indeed.

Y/N was showing more skin than Kanroji did on a regular day. As she stood, Rengoku saw that she was hardly wearing any clothing at all, save for the haori draped loosely around her frame.

The Ice Pillar wore no top but the bindings around her chest, leaving a sizeable swath of her midriff exposed to the summer air. Whatever she wore as bottoms could hardly be labeled as “pants,” given that their hem ended just short of the middle of her thigh, leaving the vast majority of her legs exposed to anyone who would happen to walk by.

The Flame Pillar felt as though he were overheating, and he tugged uselessly at the collar of his uniform shirt. As he looked over the scowling Ice Pillar, Rengoku found himself unable to remember why he had come to the Mansion at all.

------------------------------------------------------

(Y/N’s POV)

(Earlier that day)

“Ta-da!” Mitsuri sang as she pulled the small bundle from behind her, a grin wide on her face. “A gift from Shinobu and myself!”

Y/N peered down quizzically at the small, folded bunch of cloth in the Love Pillar’s hands. “What is it?”

“A new take on the Corps’ uniform,” Shinobu replied crisply, sitting down on the tatami floor of her office. “I designed it myself, and Mitsuri sewed it.”

“But what is it?” Y/N pressed.

Mitsuri joined Shinobu on the floor. “Your new training pants. Altered, so that you have more flexibility and less irritation against your wound.”

Y/N held up the tiny scrap of fabric between her index finger and thumb. “Are you telling me these are pants?”

Mitsuri and Shinobu nodded, smiling.

Y/N looked incredulously at the two women. “But where are the pants?”

Mitsuri laughed. “Think of it as a cross between the uniform skirt and pants, but more modified.”

Shinobu nodded. “I used the same material that our uniform is made out of but designed it in a way to be more flexible – it will mold to your body rather than require you to use a belt to keep it up.” Y/N unfurled the cloth and gaped down at it. “They likely aren’t suitable for public, but around here and during your training, they should be perfectly adequate.”

“Perfectly adequate?” Y/N repeated, turning the garment over in her hands. “Shinobu, these are underclothes! Not pants!” The Ice Pillar could not stop herself from giggling. “My legs will be entirely exposed!”

“Try them on!” Mitsuri urged. “Shinobu and I estimated they would hit around mid-thigh, so you’ll still have some coverage.” Mitsuri looked down at her own skirt in consideration. “Slightly more so than I do.”

Y/N groaned but removed her uniform pants and slid into her friends’ gift. She was surprised at how comfortable they felt; they had a similar feel to the chest bindings most of the women in the Corps wore, in terms of fit. The black bottoms had no true waistband, but fit snuggly at the dip of her waist, before hugging her hips and thighs until the hem cut right above the middle of her thigh.

“How do they feel?” Shinobu asked as Y/N inspected the new garment.

Y/N turned from side to side, testing their flexibility. “Good. They don’t seem to rub against the scar at all.” Y/N smiled devilishly at her friends. “Even if they do leave little to the imagination.”

MItsuri giggled. “I hadn’t noticed Y/N, but you have – oh, what did Uzui call it?” She scrunched her eyebrows in thought. “Oh! An ‘easy and deliverable type of butt!’” The three girls laughed, carefree as Y/N wiggled her hips suggestively in front of her friends, her heart warm at the care and consideration they had put into their gift.

------------------------------------------------------

Y/N mused that Mitsuri’s assessment of how she looked in the undershorts had been correct as Rengoku’s eyes raked over her as she stood tall before him, an unmistakable glint of hunger glowing in his amber pools.

Until they snagged on the thick, curved gash that extended from the band of her bottoms to just over her belly button.

In an instant, simmering fire of the Flame Pillar’s gaze had been snuffed out, something harder and colder taking over as he glared at where Upper Moon Six had buried his poisoned sickle within her.

Under any other circumstance, Y/N might have felt self-conscious at the mixture of frigid contempt that pulled on Rengoku’s face as he ran his eyes over her scar, but at that moment, it only made her blood boil.

“You should return to your room. You shouldn’t be out here exposed like this.” Rengoku said after a moment, his eyes moving away from her to stare over her shoulder, resolutely avoiding her gaze.

Y/N wondered briefly if it were possible to make someone combust with the fire of their stare. She was so tired and so angry at the way in which he demanded she stay at arm’s length yet felt utterly entitled to boss her around.

She decided then that she would not comply. Instead, Y/N took one step and then another, and again until she pushed past him, marching intently up the path she knew led away from the Butterfly Estate and to a secluded, grassy, hilled clifftop.

“Stop — Y/L/N” Rengoku growled, lunging after her, but Y/N, despite her injured state, was still faster than he, and she twisted out of his grasp before he could grab her and haul her back to the Mansion.

She probably looked insane, and maybe she was -- barely dressed, hair unbound, and striding towards that grassy hill up the winding path from Shinobu’s estate like she had any idea what she was doing.

The Flame Pillar followed.

—————————————————————--------

Apart from her close friendship with the Insect Pillar, there was another reason Y/N spent so much time in and around the Butterfly Mansion — its view.

Though she supposed this secret area she’d discovered couldn’t really be counted as part of Shinobu’s Estate — it was, after all, up a rather steep and twisting climb from the western-most point of her friend’s manor, and one could scarcely see the lights of the house once they ascended the small cliff.

Her thighs ached after nearly two months of disuse as she stormed up the steep incline, narrowly avoiding the sharp, twisting branches of the ancient trees that had concaved over the beaten path, forming a tunnel of gnarled wood that forced her to duck her head to navigate.

Y/N’s chest tightened as she neared the end of the path, the steady beat of the Flame Pillar’s footsteps trailing closely behind her.

When she finally emerged from the thicket of branches, she felt as though she could breathe again.

The path had given way to a cliff-top clearing. Soft, emerald grass covered the earthen floor, peppered with various wildflowers in vibrant hues of periwinkle, white, and pink. Towards the center was a thick, ancient oak tree, with a trunk as wide as a small hut, Its leaves ruffled lazily in the slight summer breeze. Fat hotaru floated idly above the grass while the crickets hummed.

The clearing extended to a point before dropping into a rocky cliff. Had it been a night of a new moon, Y/N would never risk coming out here for fear of stumbling too close to the cliff’s edge. But that night, the moon was full and its silver light was so bright that Y/N could see all the way to the opposite of the clearing, down to the summer irises swaying in the warm night air.

It was a pity that instead of feeling the warm serenity she normally had when she came out to her little hideaway, she felt nothing but boiling anger and a growing headache.

“You need to go back inside,” Rengoku said from behind her. Y/N ground her teeth, turning sharply on her heel to face him.

“Why do you care — I thought you only did that when I’m unconscious.” She bit back, and it felt good to see him be the one who flinched for once. “Or maybe it’s when you think I’m dying?”

She laughed, derisively. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve long since forgotten the rules of your game. You change them so often, you see.”

“Go back to the Butterfly Mansion, Y/L/N. You shouldn’t be out here. Not in your current state.” He said, voice as hard and unforgiving as stone.

“I’ve told you already that you are not in a position to order me around!” Y/N snapped, her words and her eyes chips of ice as she glared at him.

He was so infuriating — he had told her, in so many ways, that she meant nothing to him, and yet here he was, glowering at her as though her very existence incensed him.

“You’ve been nothing but unkind to me since I awoke, and you’ve given me no explanation!” She took a step towards him.

“Stop,” the Flame Pillar bit out, barely concealing the way he trembled with rage. “Do not take another step. Turn around and go back inside.”

If Y/N had looked pissed before, she looked downright furious now.

“Why did you come to see me while I was unconscious?” Y/N demanded, shaking. “You came every day, yet the second I wake up, you stop?”

His refusal to answer her, to even look at her, only made her seethe.

“You’re a coward, Rengoku.”

Rengoku’s teeth gnashed together, his fists balling tightly by his sides as he drew upon every ounce last shred of sanity, of restraint, left within him.

“Go. In. Side.” He ground out dangerously, his voice dropping into a growl on the last syllable.

But the Ice Pillar took another step towards him, her eyes blazing with a fire that could outburn his own.

“No.”

Rengoku’s jaw flexed. “Y/L/N-“

“I said no, Rengoku.” She was now within arm’s reach of the rigid Flame Pillar.

His eyes met hers, cold and hard, but she did not balk. She went in for the kill. “You have no say over my choices when my life is meaningless to you.”

Y/N watched the blow land, and land hard.

“Meaningless?” Rengoku looked at her and there was a new fire in his gaze, a hot, angry fire that threatened to burn the grassy overlook around them to cinders. “You believe I think your life is meaningless?”

This time, it was Rengoku who advanced towards her, bringing her within an arm’s length, and forcing her to tilt her head up to hold his raging stare.

“Do you have any idea — any at all — what it was like to see you, half dead in Uzui’s arms?” Rengoku’s voice dark, and harsh as he narrowed his eyes at her. “Or what it was like to have to carry you to Kocho, not knowing whether your heart would give out before I could get you there?”

Y/N refused to cower beneath the intensity of his gaze, her chin lifting defiantly. “Do I know what it was like?” She hissed; hackles raised.

“Thank you Rengoku, truly — thank you.” Y/N laughed, but it was devoid of any humor. “I am so glad that you’ve finally given me something to work with — so those are your rules, are they?” She was toe to toe with the Flame Hashira, glowering down at her.

“Well since we’re keeping score, Rengoku, do you know what it was like to see you broken and bleeding out on Kocho’s table after the incident on the train?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Rengoku shot back bitterly.

“How the fuck is it not-?”

“Because it wasn’t your mission to take!” Rengoku finally broke, his voice rising to a shout. He could not stop himself as his hands shot out and gripped Y/N’s shoulders, shaking her lightly in his torment.

“You have no idea how it felt to know that you had died — no matter how briefly — because you went on a mission in my place!”

“To know that — that you could still die because I had been too weak on that fucking train. Your death would have been my fault, Y/N!”

----------------------------------------------------

(Kyojuro’s POV)

And there it was: the truth that he had tried so hard to suppress, laid flat out in the open.

Everything that had happened to Y/N, the whole entire mess — had been entirely his fault.

His fault because he had been too weak to finish off Upper Moon Three, too weak to do anything but let the demon’s punch a hole through his chest like it was nothing.

Y/L/N and Uzui had saved themselves in the end; they’d completed their mission, defeating not just one, but two upper ranks. They hadn’t succumbed to their injuries until after they’d fulfilled their duties.

But him? He’d only been saved by the grace of the sun and the tireless efforts of the Kakushi.

He’d nearly lost his life and he had nothing to show for it. Rather than do anything to further the Corp’s ultimate goals, he’d only set them back, and nearly cost them something priceless in return — their Ice Pillar.

The woman he loved.

He had no right to love her, of course — not when his reprehensible weakness had forced her to be offered up to two upper moon demons on a silver platter.

She’d been there, the morning he awoke from his three-week-long coma. She’d been right by his bedside, a sob choking from her throat as she’d called for Kocho to come quick!

At first, he’d been confused, because he hadn’t understood why she was crying. He’d tried to reach for her, to wipe the tears spilling down her cheeks when the pain had slammed into him, causing him to seize, arm suspended in mid-air.

Never before had he not been in control of his body; it had sent him into a panic.

“No, Kyojuro, please don’t move!” Y/N had cried, calling him, for the first time, by his given name. a warm hand wrapping around the one he’d stretched out towards her, lowering it gently down to the bed. “Your injuries are too grave!”

He didn’t remember much after that, only what Kocho had filled him in on later — namely, that he’d begun to panic, his breathing flaring out of control as he’d tried to fight off Y/L/N, a Kakushi, and the Insect Pillar.

His recovery had been long and slow. His wounds from the Upper Three demon had resulted in significant muscle damage that had required weeks of intensive care and training in order to build it back up again.

Those long days spent at the Butterfly Mansion had given him time to stew; to rage against himself. He’d been frustrated, so unbelievably frustrated over his inability to swing his own sword for more than five minutes that he almost considered giving in and retiring.

And then Uzui arrived, and he’d mentioned an upcoming mission to the Entertainment District, that they had discussed prior to Kyojuro leaving for the damned train, and the Sound Pillar revealed that his intel suggested the possible presence of an Upper Rank.

Kyojuro had promised to accompany him, and then he’d woken up in Kocho’s hospital, and that mission had been taken off the table and given to her.

The panic he had felt had been indescribable; he had narrowly survived an encounter with an Upper Rank, but then he was forced to watch the woman he loved walk straight into the wolf's den, and he had been incapable of convincing her to stay behind.

While she had been gone, he had railed against and prayed to and cursed at the gods, begging them to bring her home, to let her come back to him alive and whole.

Instead, they’d sent her back as a near-corpse and had laughed at his pitiful attempts to save her.

And then, she had straddled that narrow divide between life and death for nearly two months, and he had been as helpless as a cat chasing a string — his desire forever in sight yet somehow always just beyond his reach.

After his brush with death, he’d made a commitment to himself not to think of his battle with the Upper Three demon, to not waste his skill and energy on the past, but rather focus his fury on ensuring that when they did meet again, he would emerge victorious. He’d certainly not given any thought to the demon’s slime-tongued words.

He’d been disgusted when the demon had propositioned turning him into its like — and outright offended that those creatures could ever compare to the beautiful transience of humanity.

But then he’d cradled Y/N, broken and dying in his arms, and for the first time, Kyojuro had understood the appeal of the Upper Three’s offer.

Because he would rather have lived in a world in which Y/N had been turned into his enemy than in one in which she did not exist at all.

The very thought had shaken him to his core; because it meant he was not fully dedicated to their cause. He had no right to call himself a Hashira; nor did he have any right to claim to love Y/L/N. Not when he’d so easily damn her out of his own selfishness. So he had run.

A coward, after all.

--------------------------------------------------------

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was panting, her fury rippling off her in near-tangible waves.

“So, this whole thing,” she seethed, her voice shaking. “Your whole fucking attitude — has been because you’ve had your head so far up your ass, that you thought my injuries were your fault?”

It was unbelievable. It was ridiculous. And yet it was so Rengoku that it made her ears ring, made her see red as she tried to keep herself from imploding.

Rengoku said nothing, but she could see the way his eyes shuttered closed, his walls flying back up as he remained intent on keeping her out. He turned and began walking back towards the path back to the Estates.

“I was right — you ARE a coward!” She shrieked after him.

He froze. She stood there, heaving, daring him to turn around, to face her.

“Do not call me a coward again,” he said quietly, his back still to her, but his shoulders tensed, his fists balling once more at his sides.

Y/N smiled ruefully. “Then exactly what would you call what you’re doing now?.” Her lip curled into a sneer. “Run away, Rengoku. It’s what you do best.”

A flash of orange and white clouded her vision as Rengoku turned on his heel and closed the distance between them before she could draw another breath.

Y/N did not have time to react before his hands gripped either side of her jaw as he slammed his mouth down against hers, furious and heated.

It was not gentle; it was an angry clash of lips and teeth, but it also stoked a fire so hot in Y/N’s belly that she did not care, and she fully gave herself over to the bruising press of his lips against hers. She gladly opened up to him so that his tongue could slide into her mouth as one of his hands snaked behind her head to press her harder to him, demanding that she let him take and take until he was sated.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. They broke apart with a gasp, leaping back from one another as though burned. Their chests heaved as they stared at one another.

There was a line drawn in the sand between them. If either of them crossed it, there would be no going back.

He was a coward, but she wasn’t. And she’d grown tired of this tedious dance of theirs.

Yet it surprised her all the same that he reached for her at the same time she moved for him, the two of them colliding like magnets as their mouths clashed together once more.

Rengoku kissed her like he was drowning, and she was his lifeline.

Y/N threw her arms around his neck and tugged him down closer to her, determined to take from him as much as he wanted to take from her.

The pair of them stumbled back against the ancient oak tree that sat back from the grassy cliff, Y/N caged against its bark by the Flame Pillar.

His hands gripped fistfuls of her haori as though he couldn’t decide whether to pull her closer or tug her away. His lips devoured each breathy moan he pulled from her as one hand tangled in her hair and pulled, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

She ran her hands through the fiery strands of his hair, gripping and tugging it as he explored her mouth was his demanding tongue. Y/N, emboldened by the way his fingers dug into her haori, let her hands roam from his hair and to his neck, and then to the rocky planes of his broad chest before settling on his hips as she tugged him flush against her.

His control was slipping, and fast. “Y/L/N, I can’t- I won’t be able to hold back.” Rengoku moaned into her mouth, his hands scrunching the fabric of her haori, his fingers desperately seeking to hold her closer to him. “Tell me to stop, Y/L/N.”

Y/N’s hands only buried deeper into his hair, tugging him harder against her as she slid her tongue into his waiting mouth.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered against his mouth between breaks for oxygen. “Never stop, Rengoku.”

Y/N pulled back from him, just enough to unlatch his hands from where they were buried in the back of her haori, and moved them inside its folds, right on her bare waist.

The burning weight of his hands felt exquisite.

Rengoku shuddered as he felt the smooth, soft dips of Y/N’s waist, his fingers digging into her flesh as he sought to touch more of her, his hands running across every inch that was not covered by her bindings or those glorious undershorts.

Lips still moving furiously against hers, Rengoku bent slightly to run his hands down the silken expanse of her thighs, gripping under her knees before hoisting her up to carry her away from the tree and lay her down in the velvety grass below.

Y/N felt as though she were on fire. The ache between her legs was almost maddening, and she was desperate to have the Flame Pillar sheathe himself inside her, to make her forget even her own name.

If she could not have his love, she could at least have this.

Her hands dragged down Rengoku’s front, coming to a rest at his belt before she began fumbling with the clasp. Y/N had just managed to undo it when Rengoku’s hands — large, warm, and much stronger than her own, wrapped around her wrists, stilling her.

“Not yet, you impatient woman,” he smirked against her mouth. He moved one wrist to join the other in his left hand before bringing her arms up over her head, pinning her to the ground.

Y/N whimpered and rolled her hips against his, impatient and demanding, wanting desperately to feel some relief as her core clenched wildly around nothing.

Rengoku chuckled darkly, the rich timbre of his voice causing her blood to nearly boil with her want, as he made his way down her body with his lips.

He first came to her chest bindings, growling in impatience as he nipped at one breast over the tightly wound fabric.

His fingers brushed against her sternum as he ripped her bindings straight down the middle, Y/N shuddering as the warm summer night’s air caressed her sensitive skin, her nipples pebbling at the change in temperature.

She waited for him to lavish her soft mounds, but the Flame Pillar paused, eyes narrowed on the valley between her breasts, right on the pale, lilac mark where he’d plunged Shinobu’s antidote into her heart.

Y/N felt a lump form in her throat. He’d reacted poorly to the ribboned scar on her lower belly already, and now her once chance to finally have Rengoku in the way she’d so desperately longed to have him was about to be ruined.

But instead of pulling away from her in disgust, he leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against it the healed wound.

“I hadn’t realized I wounded you,” he murmured softly, reverently as he kissed it again. Y/N watched in bewilderment as he pressed his ear against her chest, letting his head rest there for a moment.

Listening to her heart hammer against her sternum.

“The sweetest music,” he whispered, pulling away to look at her not with lust but with unbounded tenderness.

Don’t look at me like that, she silently begged, don’t give me hope.

But as quickly as the moment had come, it passed and the esurient flame in Rengoku’s eyes flickered back to life. His lips continued down her abdomen, hot and needy until he reached the source of her near-fatal injury.

His mouth paused at the scar left by Upper Moon Six, the one he’d so callously glared at not even an hour before. This time, he ran his tongue along it, from the top to its base near her hipbone, pressing a fierce kiss against its end before continuing his descent.

“I will either have to thank my old Tsugoku the next time I see her,” Rengoku whispered darkly as he pulled at the soft waistband of Y/N’s undershorts with his teeth. “Or I shall have to burn her sewing room to cinders.” Rengoku’s fingers slid beneath the short hem of her bottoms, pulling them down inch by inch to expose her sensitive flesh.

Rengoku groaned when he saw Y/N was not wearing anything else beneath her scandalous bottoms. “Definitely burning.” His hands, so large and warm ran up the outer curve of her thighs, marveling at the silky smoothness of her skin. “Because you are far too tempting when wearing them.”

The Flame Pillar looked wild as he leaned forward, pressing his lips against the lower indent between Y/N’s hipbones as he kissed his way down to where she ached the most.

He ducked around the center of her desire in favor of sucking softly on her inner thigh. Y/N’s chest heaved as her hands flailed next to her, desperately seeking purchase, until the Flame Hashira caught them in his hands, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on her palms as their fingers interlaced.

“Rengoku - just fuck me already,” Y/N groaned as the Flame Pillar’s face settled between her thighs, his hot breath against her bare cunt causing her legs to attempt to clench shut.

“Well now, that won’t do,” Rengoku tutted, his hands withdrawing from hers as he wound his arms underneath both of her thighs, spreading them as wide as he could to expose her core to his heady gaze.

Rengoku leaned forward and lightly traced up her damp slit with the tip of his tongue. His amber irises which had been locked on hers, rolled back into his head as he groaned at her taste.

“I’m going to take my time with you. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time, Y/N.” He warned, hands tightening around her thighs as he pressed a light kiss against her slit, teasing her.

In the back of her mind, Y/N registered that he’d used her first name. But the graze of his lips against her most sensitive flesh had her crying out his name, high-pitched and breathy, and she watched helplessly as the sound made Rengoku’s eyes turn black.

In an instant, he was upon her, and he was ravenous.

His mouth latched to her center as though she was an oasis in the middle of a blazing desert, and he was a man dying of thirst.

The way Rengoku’s teeth grazed her sensitive nub made her abdomen clench, and she fought against his ironclad grip on her thighs as they spasmed, desperate to clench around his head.

Y/N moaned, head thrown back into the soft summer grass as she felt herself grow wetter and wetter beneath the Flame Pillar, her hands desperately tugging and pinching at her breasts in an effort to feel more pleasure.

Y/N felt as though she was hurtling towards a cliff that she could not stop herself from tumbling over as Rengoku increased the intensity of his ministrations against her needy cunt.

“You taste,” he ground out through harsh drags of his tongue up her drenched folds, “like fucking paradise.”

His mouth latched around her clit, giving it a sharp suck that had Y/N seeing stars. She barely had time to recover, to acknowledge that she was at her tipping point when Rengoku thrust his tongue into her core and began to fuck her.

Y/N came apart the moment she felt his tongue enter her, a rush of her juices spilling over his relentless maw, but he held her hips down and continued his feast. His teeth grazed her clit over and over while his tongue pumped steadily in and out of her, and Y/N was close to sobbing at the overstimulation.

The Flame Pillar kept his eyes locked on hers the entire time, the amber orbs glowing almost ominously in the indigo night.

“I- fuck.” Y/N breathed, grinding unrestrainedly against the blonde’s greedy mouth. “Rengoku!”

The Ice Pillar tried to sit up, tried to grab her comrade’s hair to tell him that she couldn’t take it anymore, that she needed him, but Rengoku was faster. Unfurling a steely arm from where it had been locked around her thigh to hold her open to him, he reached up her torso, his large hand splaying across her upper abdomen to restrain her.

“Sit down,” he growled between thrusts of his tongue into her aching cunt, nipping harshly at her inner thigh. “I am not finished.”

Y/N whimpered beneath the weight of his hand holding her down against the earth and the nearly painful ecstasy that Rengoku bestowed upon her between her legs.

Whether it was in praise for her obedience or a further act of torture, Rengoku then pressed his face flush against her core and rocked it harshly from side to side, his nose and the burgeoning stubble along his jaw scraping against her overstimulated and sensitive flesh.

Y/N slapped her hand against her mouth to stifle the howl that tore from her throat. Rengoku repeated the movement; it felt wonderful. It felt obscene. It made Y/N’s thighs contract around his head as her stomach dipped inward and a gush of her juices spilled out of her, more powerful than before, dampening the collar of the Flame Pillar’s haori.

For a breath, Y/N thought she would die of embarrassment until she felt Rengoku’s mouth vibrate against her from his groan of satisfaction. His tongue thrust once, twice more into her aching core before he withdrew completely, satisfaction tugging at the corners of his smirking lips.

But Rengoku looked nowhere near sated as he gazed down hungrily at her, wantonly spread out against the grass, the shredded pieces of her training attire strewn about, save for her haori.

“I will give you one last chance to end this now,” Rengoku whispered, kneeling above her but no longer touching her. “Tell me to stop, and I will. I will walk away, and no one will know.”

Though her body already ached from the intensity of Rengoku’s mouth upon her, she could not fathom stopping here, not when she’d barely begun to taste him herself. The thought of rolling aside to pull on the tattered remains of her clothing, to return to her estate and awake tomorrow as though he had not melted every icy reservation she’d held with his touch, was enough to make her want to cry.

Though her limbs felt boneless, she summoned all her strength to reach toward the Flame Hashira, to beckon him to return to her.

“I want you, Rengoku,” Y/N said, her voice a breathy whisper as tears clung to her eyelashes. “Please.”

Rengoku’s pupils exploded, his eyes darkening as he covered her nude body with his own. Y/N nearly sobbed in relief as his lips roughly caught hers, one hand coming up to cradle her face while the other snaked beneath her head, tilting it to the side so he could deepen his claim over her mouth.

Y/N’s hands rose, shakily, to pull at the buttons of his uniform top, desperate to feel his skin burn against hers.

“On one condition,” Rengoku said, moving his lips from hers to press against her ear, Y/N shivering. “You must call me by my name,”

“Rengoku?” Y/N questioned her mind too fogged by her own desire.

He nipped lightly under her jaw before pulling his face back from hers, smirking slightly at the way she whined when avoided her attempt to kiss him again.

“My true name.”

With clarity, Y/N realized what he desired. But he had teased her far too much already, and she yearned to return the favor.

So she looked up at him through her eyelashes, teeth sinking into her lower lip in such a way that made the Flame Hashira’s eyes darken.

“Please, please, Kyojuro,” she whispered, lancing a hand up his bicep. “Take me.”

The growl that clawed its way out of the heaving chest of the Flame Pillar made Y//N’s thighs clamp together. Rengoku — Kyojuro — pounced on her, and Y/N summoned all her residual strength to rip his uniform shirt open.

Kyojuro moaned into her neck as his shirt gave way and Y/N’s hands came to rest against his bare skin, her nails raking down his taut pectorals to the rigid planes of his chiseled abdomen.

Her lips began descending the path carved by her nails when she drew short at the dark, thick starburst-shaped scar that covered his shoulder and left pectoral. Kyojuro’s breath seized as she pressed her lips ever so softly against it, turning so she could look up at him from beneath her lashes.

Kyojuro was panting as she nuzzled against his scar, kissing it once more before gently gliding her hand over his heart and resting it there, letting herself savor the strong, sturdy beat from within his chest.

Just as he did before, she resumed her trail down his body, her lips coming to the edge of his pants when his hands wound themselves in her hair, every nerve in his body alight as she licked her way up the small happy trail that stopped just below his belly button.

As much as he wanted to feel her mouth around him, Kyojuro had been driven to the brink of insanity by Y/N’s touch, and his resolve was quickly dwindling.

“Y/N — my flame — I can’t wait,” Kyojuro said by way of apology, as he covered her hands with his own to still them on his belt. He slipped his hands down to grip her wrists, bringing them together in one hand and moving her arms up over her head, pinning them against the grasp. With his free hand, Kyojuro loosened his belt and his pants, and shimmied them down, kicking them off behind him. Y/N’s eyes widened at the sight of his proud length as it bounced against his belly button.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. She was no stranger to the male body, but this – she’d never had anyone compare to Kyojuro’s size or girth.

Kyojuro noticed her hesitation. “Is this – have you ever --?” Kyojuro breathed, hovering above her. It did not matter to him whether she had or had not, but he wanted to ensure that he did not hurt her.

Y/N shook her head. “No, it’s not my first time – but you are the first one to be so…well endowed.” Y/N flushed as Kyojuro laughed softly above her, and she felt his lips graze hers.

He pulled back slightly, reaching to grip the base of his aching cock tapping it against her soaked cunt in a warning and in permission.

Y/N seized beneath him at the spark of hot pleasure that was sent crackling up her spine as he rubbed his velvety head against the most sensitive part of her core. “Kyojuro,” she hissed through clenched teeth, rolling her hips impatiently towards him.

The mushroomed tip of his cock pushed into her entrance and Y/N felt herself go cross-eyed. It was heaven; pure, unadulterated, blissful heaven.

He was insistent on easing his thick length into her, but the throbbing between Y/N’s legs had grown nearly unbearable. He still wasn’t close enough, not nearly as much as she needed him to be.

Boldly, Y/N locked her ankles against Kyojuro’s backside, and with all her might, hauled him into her in a single stroke.

“Fuck!” he yelled, unable to restrain his volume as Y/N forced him to become fully seated within her. Her core was impossibly tight and so fucking warm and wet that it had been a true exercise of self-restraint not to spill himself inside her right then.

Y/N nearly screamed in pleasured relief at the way her body burned and stretched around Kyojuro’s considerable length, his base pressed flush against her sensitive clit as she began to grind furiously against him, desperate to relieve the friction that made her ache.

Kyojuro was still panting from the way Y/N had slammed him into her, nearly trembling with restraint as he willed himself not to finish before they’d truly begun.

Once certain that he would not climax like some green boy, he laughed quietly under his breath. The dark sound caused Y/N’s eyes to fly open, and her stomach flipped at the wicked glint in his eyes as he stared at her like a hunter stalking its prey.

Kyojuro leaned forward and took one of her breasts, harshly into his mouth, grazing his teeth over her nipple hard enough to make Y/N cry out in slight pain before he lapped at it soothingly with his tongue.

“You want me to fuck you, is that it?” He murmured between his ministrations, leaving fresh marks all over aching mounds.

Y/N could hardly make a sound as Kyojuro withdrew almost completely from her heat before slamming into her once, the Ice Pillar nearly choking on the breath that flew from her chest with his force.

Desperately — pathetically — Y/N nodded, whimpering.

“If that’s how you want it,” Kyojuro growled against her breast, giving her nipple one harsh nip with his teeth before pulling himself off her.

He sat on his knees, back straight as he began to pound relentlessly into her, his hands gripping her backside and holding her flush against his strong thighs. Y/N’s head remained thrown back against the earth, her fingers tearing at the soft grass beneath her.

Rengoku’s movements were just like those he wielded in battle — powerful; all-consuming; relentless; and unforgiving.

Y/N had never considered herself to be a particularly vocal person when engaged in carnal activities, but the way that Rengoku’s cock hammered into her spasming core over and over had reduced her to a moaning and whimpering mess. The only intelligible thing that fell from her lips was his name — Kyojuro.

“You look so fucking beautiful like this,” Kyojuro grunted out between forceful snaps of his hips against hers, the night air alive with the lewd squelching of Y/N’s dripping cunt as he pistoned into her.

Y/N looked to see the Flame Pillar’s eyes locked on her breasts as they bounced with the force of his thrusts. Between the moans and whimpers he pulled from her with every punishing thrust of his hips against hers, she lightly dragged her fingers from their place in the grass to her hipbone, and then up to trace teasingly around her peaked breast.

Kyojuro’s eyes followed every move, his thrusts hardening as she pinched her nipple and let out a breathy little scream, her walls pulsing around his aching length.

“Fuck,” Kyojuro grit, feeling himself twitch within her as he watched Y/N play with herself, spurring him to go faster, deeper within her.

He moved his hand under one of her knees and lifted her leg over his shoulder, allowing him to plunge deeper into her silken heat, and he teasingly drew his fingers up and down her outer thigh.

At that moment, as Kyojuro was poised against the silhouette of the moon, his amber eyes glowing as he watched where he appeared and disappeared inside her, the realization hit Y/N like a storm, and it knocked her entirely off her axis.

She was in love with Kyojuro.

Who else could make her feel so sacred and yet so angry? Who else had been capable of slipping past every wall she’d built within herself, capable of getting her to let her guard down before consuming her so furiously she had not realized she’d ever been in danger?

He was fire, she was ice. One of them had to give to the other. She’d just always thought it would be him giving into her.

Yet there, beneath the moonlight, her climax rising above her like a tidal wave, Y/N realized that she was powerless against the waves that rose to pull her under, to never again let her up for air.

Distantly, Y/N felt the Flame Pillar’s callused thumb find her clit and her climax slammed into her, and she succumbed to the endless sea called Kyojuro.

--------------------------------------------------------

As Y/N broke apart around him, Kyojuro swore he’d never seen anything as beautiful in his entire life.

She shattered over him with the prettiest scream he’d ever heard, and he could barely make out the drawn-out syllables of his name as her hips jerked up against his while her inner walls threatened to squeeze the life from him.

Y/N finally collapsed back against the ground, her body limp from the exhaustion of her pleasure. Kyojuro then moved in chase of his own release, his hips pressed solidly against hers as he rutted his cock deep within her.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his hands tightening around Y/N’s waist. The familiar electricity of impending release tingled at the base of Kyojuro’s spine, and his stomach began to clench as he began his ascent to his climax. “Y/N — I am going to finish soon,” his head was thrown back, and his groans were loud enough to alert anyone nearby of exactly what was transpiring between the two Hashira. “Please — tell me where--”

“Inside,” Y/N gasped, her legs tightening around Kyojuro’s hips in a feeble attempt to keep him within her, to ensure that he wouldn’t yet leave her. “Please, Kyojuro, stay.”

Kyojuro was a rational man, and he knew of one major reason not to allow his seed to spill inside Y/N’s heavenly body. But all those rationalities flew out the window at the sound of her wanton and needy whimpers and the way her heat fluttered around him and Kyojuro did not think he could pull out of her if he wanted to.

Kyojuro’s thrusts became more and more frenzied and bruising, with the Flame Hashira hardly dragging his twitching length out of her as he neared his own climax.

“Hold onto me,” he panted, falling forward so that his chest was pressed flush against Y/N’s, one arm going to wrap around her waist while the other snaked over to where her arm lay in the grass, gripping her wrist to pin it up over her head as his fingers interlocked tightly with hers.

Y/N hiked her legs higher up his waist, crossing them at her shins so that he was buried deep within her. Her free arm looped under the one he had braced above her head to wrap around his back, her fingers digging into the rippling muscle and scarred skin that littered his shoulders.

“Make me yours, Kyojuro,” she whispered against his neck, squeezing his hips with her thighs.

Y/N felt his entire body tense at her words and Kyojuro’s moans turned into shouts as he gave one final, deep thrust within her before he exploded. His hand tightened fiercely around hers with the force of his climax,

The pleasure that surged up his spine had been white hot as he pushed himself as deeply as he could possibly go within Y/N’s vice-like core. Kyojuro was not a novice to pleasure, but he had never finished as hard or as much as he did buried within her.

Kyojuro canted his hips, prolonging his release as he continued to empty himself into her, coming down from his earth-shattering high. Y/N mewled against his throat, her lips brushing against his sensitive pulse point as her legs spasmed. once more around his hips.

He finally stilled within her, arms shaking as he braced himself above her, to keep from crushing the exhausted woman beneath him.

He lowered his head down to her level. “Are you all right, my flame?” He panted, pressing a kiss between her brows before he rested his forehead heavily against hers.

She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and nodded shakily.

He no longer could keep himself from collapsing against Y/N, but as he fell forward, he gripped her and rolled, pulling her to his chest with his leaking cock still nestled deeply between her legs.

“I don’t want to push you away,” Kyojuro murmured softly after a moment, his chest finally easing as his breathing slowed.

Y/N made a show of looking down to where they were still joined, the Flame Pillar’s pearly seed slowly leaking out of her and onto the grass below them. “I think I’m about as close to you as physically possible, Rengoku.”

Kyojuro rolled his eyes and ground his hips slightly into her, causing Y/N to squeak against him.

“Quiet, woman, I’m trying to apologize to you.” He trailed his fingers up and down her spine as she nestled back against his chest, chin perched on his pectoral as she waited for him to continue.

“I was just so angry. After the incident on the train, when I woke up in Kocho’s hospital — I was furious. With myself.” Amber eyes met hers and softened to pools of melted honey. “It was never you I was angry with.”

Y/N held his gaze evenly, her voice firm. “But you took it out on me all the same.” It wasn’t an angry accusation — it was the truth; ugly and sharp. But it was real, and so was the tentative, knowing hope in her eyes.

“Yes,” Kyojuro breathed. “Yes, I did. And I am so sorry for it, Y/N.” His hand reached up to gently cup the side of her face, thumb smoothing over the soft expanse of her cheek. “May I ask for your forgiveness?”

Y/N leaned her head into his warm palm, and smiled, softly.

“You may ask, Kyojuro.”

He brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “Can you forgive me, Y/N?”

Y/N threw a leg out over his other hip, straddling him beneath her, though moving so fluidly that they remained connected at their base.

She rolled her hips against his, and he felt himself begin to harden within her once more. Kyojuro moaned softly, head falling back against the earth as he brought his hands up to steady her, fingers digging gently into her hips as she repeated the movement, again and again, until he’d fully stiffened within her.

“Yes Kyojuro,” she sighed, hands coming to brace themselves against his abdomen as she began to ride him. “I forgive you.”

Kyojuro groaned, his head thrown back as he began to gently grind up into her, goosebumps erupting over his flesh as she lightly raked her nails over his pectorals and the hard ridges of his abdomen.

He wanted so very badly to lose himself within his pleasure, to allow Y/N to consume him whole and never let him go again, but his atonement was not complete.

Because Y/N had given him every opportunity to confess to her before, and he had been careless with them; she would not open that door herself again.

So he would.

“And may I give you my heart, Y/N?” He asked, his hands gliding sensually up from her hips to brace themselves on either side of her sensitive waist, squeezing her firmly.

Her pace had stuttered slightly once his words registered, eyes widening as she looked down at him, and Kyojuro hated that he was the reason the shadow of doubt lingered in her eyes.

“Is it truly mine?” She breathed, resuming the intoxicating rise and fall and push and grind of her hips, breasts beginning to bounce as she picked up her pace.

Kyojuro’s mouth watered, but he restrained himself, holding her gaze. “It was only ever yours, Y/N.”

Y/N cried out then, her hips beginning to drop and roll into his with urgency. By the way her damp heat began to pulse and constrict around him, Kyojuro knew that she was barreling towards her release once more.

One hand left its searing position at her waist to drift down to where they were connected, his rough thumb toying with the sensitive nub that had her heavenly cunt squeezing him for dear life.

“My beautiful flame,” he moaned, “how lucky I am to have such a darling god be the keeper of my heart.”

Kyojuro rolled into her from below again, the hand still braced on her waist guiding himself to push deeper into her, as his thumb began to press harder into the apex of her thighs.

“Sweet tempest, please,” Kyojuro panted, the relentless squeeze of Y/N’s walls around his aching length beginning to drive him to the point of madness. “Please, may I have your love?”

Y/N’s moans were piercing as she half-sobbed above him, head thrown back into the night sky, the hoary glow of the moon making her look like a celestial deity given human form as she writhed above him.

“Yes!” Y/N cried, “Yes Kyojuro, you have always had my love!”

The moment the words fell from her lips, Kyojuro jolted upright, coming into a sitting position as Y/N’s legs instantly wrapped around him. He wound one arm around her waist to bounce her in his lap, the other moving to circle his fingers around her nub.

Kyojuro nuzzled her nose with his own, his lips mere centimeters from hers as he pressed his forehead against her and held her eyes. “Then come for me, Y/N,” he murmured, his breath tickling her lips as he nuzzled her again. “Come for me, my love.”

Y/N seized around him like a vice, her head falling back as she unleashed a euphoric cry.

The force of her climax had caused her to arch backward in Kyojuro’s lap, thrusting her breasts up and forward, and Kyojuro bent to suck one into his greedy mouth, his own release imminent. The warm sticky rush of her pleasure combined with the way her velvety, molten walls constricted around him had Kyojuro seeing stars as his seed shot into her, hot and fast, his strangled groan muffled only by the soft plush of Y/N’s breast as he filled her to her brim for the second time that night.

For a long moment, neither Pillar said anything as they came down from their mutual highs, Y/N’s head pressed against Kyojuro’s shoulder while the Flame Pillar kept his arms firmly around her waist, his fingers trailing up and down her spine.

“Y/N, are you all right?” He murmured into her ear, still buried deep within her heat.

Y/N nodded sleepily against his skin, savoring how full and complete she felt perched in his lap.

“I love you, Kyojuro.” She said so softly that the Flame Pillar thought his heart might break. Kyojuro pulled away slightly to bring his fingers beneath her chin where she lay against his shoulder. Gently, he tilted her face towards his and captured her lips with his own.

“My darling flame,” He murmured against her lips as they broke apart, his eyes sweeping over her face, committing every detail of her beauty to memory. “Thank you.”

Y/N gave him a lazy smile. “I cannot be your flame, Kyojuro,” she teased, “Not when I am made of ice.”

Kyojuro flipped her back beneath him and danced his lips teasingly across the bridge of her nose. “Don’t you know, my beautiful foil, that ice can burn just as well as flame?” He pressed a feather-light kiss against her lips. “And I have been consumed by your silvery fire since I first laid eyes on you at Final Selection.”

Y/N looked up at him in wonder, her hand coming to rest against his face as she adoringly caressed his cheek.

“I love you, Y/N. I am so sorry it took me until now to say it.”

-------------------------------------------------—

Epilogue

Y/N made back it into her room, sight unseen, just as dawn had crept over the horizon.

Feet bare, she padded softly over to her waiting bed, shrugging out of Kyojuro’s uniform shirt and falling into her blankets, not caring at the growing discomfort she felt as the Flame Pillar’s seed dried in her undershorts.

She just wanted to sleep.

Y/N and Kyojuro had come together twice more before the pair realized that morning was imminent, and they needed to return to their respective dwellings before anyone noticed they were gone.

Y/N had lamented that Kyojuro had shredded her chest bindings beyond salvation and had worried she’d be forced to sneak back into the Butterfly Mansion with nothing but her haori to cover her bare chest when Kyojuro slid his uniform shirt over her shoulders.

“No one will think twice if they see me bare,” he’d said by way of explanation, gaze dropping momentarily to appreciate the marks he had left dotted across her breasts before rising back to her face. “I would like to keep you hidden, however.”

Kyojuro then fastened each button one by one, beginning from the bottom as he kissed his way up Y/N’s torso until his lips found the sensitive spot beneath her jaw, which he’d nipped.

It had taken everything in her not to throw him down and have him for the fifth time.

Kyojuro had walked with her as far as the edge of the path back to Shinobu’s before parting her with a sweet kiss and a promise to return to her later in the morning. He had also mentioned, somewhat mischievously, that he would be inquiring into when Y/N could expect to be discharged from the Butterfly Mansion and return to her own Estate.

Her empty, person-free estate.

Y/N collapsed into her bed, ready to sleep for a precious few hours before her training would begin anew.

“So, do you mind sharing where you’ve been all night?” A dangerously sweet voice chirped from over by the door.

Y/N shot up out of her bed, stomach falling out of her ass, as she faced the smiling, enraged Insect Pillar seated primly atop her wooden stool opposite of her.

“I was quite worried, you know,” Shinobu tutted, the honey of her smile poisoned by the violence in her eyes.

Y/N had never been one to be at a loss for words, a quick comment, or a snappy retort always on hand when the situation called for it.

But to her horror, her mind had gone dreadfully blank, and her tongue was swollen stupid in her mouth.

Shinobu smiled like she knew, eyes slowly looking her over, and Y/N was left with the uncomfortable feeling that her friend could see every way she’d allowed Kyojuro to utterly defile her.

“Will you be in need of a contraceptive?” Shinobu asked lightly, and Y/N felt like she would drop dead right then and there.

“…Yes, please.” She managed to squeak, and the Insect Pillar turned to leave.

“I will bring it with your breakfast.” Her hand closed around the doorknob but stilled.

“And Y/N?”

The Ice Pillar whimpered as her friend turned to look back at her, all smiles and throbbing forehead veins.

“If you ever keep the younger girls awake from the sounds of your activities with the Flame Pillar again, I will poison you both.”

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

#just sdghdf give me a minute.! just #kisses your forehead #i will not recover from this #ice hashira will be on my mind getting her shit railed #and the ending!! perfect #of course shinobu found out #she been knew #and giving her a contraceptive because she knows Kyo and her are fucking stupid brains #those poor girls #oh oh!! Daylight is such a great song to this vibe! i forgot i was listening to it while reading because its just oooo #big brain #“oh i love it and i hate it at the same” “you and i drink the poison from the same vine”#totally drinking that pining poison of BITCH #kyos emotions are so complex and so good!!! I absolutely hate his stupid brain that keeps him running again and again because #wow he just cannot face his fears and the cold dead eyes he's so scared might be a reality #did i mention that i really loved delirious Kyo? high from his own efforts to keep her alive #might be my favorite thing #AND WHEN HES SO WORRIED THAT HE FAILED WHILE STILL DELIRIOUS??????#this is a cry-friendly zone right? it better be cuz imma flood those gates #i need to shut up but i wanna say more #like she got a scar??? from the shot Kyo gave her??? its lilac colored???#i will be dreaming about this fic #ok im done. peach you did such a wonderful job im so touched by this and its everything (can you tell lmao?)#kny rb #minors dni #kyojuro rengoku #saucys stupid #i could do this all day

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mochacoda · 2 months ago

Text

python | csc

Pairing: Choi Seungcheol x GN!Reader

Synopsis: When you broke up with your boyfriend to work in a different country, you didn't expect to see him ever again. But when you transfer to your company's Seoul branch four years later, the department head is your ex, and he’s made it his objective to make your life a living hell for leaving him all those years ago.

Content: Angst, Fluff, Comfort | Exes to Lovers | Office AU

Tags: emotions, miscommunication, heartache, workaholic!seungcheol, insecure reader, drinking, crying, begging, petnames (sweetheart, love), konglish w/ translations, no "y/n," this is for everyone who voted for cheol in the poll, loosely connected to too nice (joshua)

Word Count: 10.2K

Masterlist

“I hate him,” you seethe, your fists balled up, crumpling your rejected proposal. “God, I hate him.”

Your coworker, Joshua Hong, looks up from his cubicle with raised eyebrows. “Who?”

You breathe in deeply, willing your rage to dissipate at the sight of his confusion. Poor Joshua doesn’t deserve your anger. “No one,” you say, clenching your jaw.

Open-mouthed, Joshua blinks rapidly, eyes flitting over to glance at the office you had just walked out of. The door to the room is marked with a name plate that has 최승철 [Choi Seungcheol] in bold, gold letters.

“I’m fine,” you insist, hands uncrumpling the document you had just attacked.

“Uh, okay?” he says with a healthy dose of doubt, elongating the “o” in “okay.”

“I just—” you begin, then immediately shut your mouth. “Ugh, forget it.”

It’s one thing to crumple a proposal up, and another thing to start bad-mouthing your boss out in the open. You throw the tattered outline onto your desk, then plop yourself onto your chair. You rub your temples, and then mutter under your breath, “How did I get here?”

“Good question,” Joshua laughs. “Company synergy?”

You groan, “Don’t ever say that word again in my presence.”

“Mmh,” he says, walking over to your cubicle. “You won’t have to worry about my presence in a few months.”

“Don’t remind me,” you sigh, dropping your head in your hands.

Joshua would be leaving the Seoul branch and transferring to the New York branch in a few weeks.

Curse your company for its commitment to “workplace synergy,” swapping out a handful of employees across all departments in its international branches every few years. If it hadn’t been for this horrible program, you wouldn’t be here right now.

You want to rip out your own hair, at this point.

How did it even get to this? You shut your eyes, thinking back to older times.

When you first got a job offer at the New York branch of your dream company, your initial reaction was elation. Your second? Doubt. Leaving Seoul was almost unthinkable, not to mention the fact that you’d be leaving your boyfriend behind, too.

For the first few days after hearing back from the recruiter, you knew you’d accept, but kept the news to yourself. You’d heard of so many horror stories about long-distance dating, and after a long period of consideration, you wondered what the point was.

You knew your boyfriend—really knew him. You knew he’d make sacrifices for you at the expense of himself, and it was impossible for you to accept bogging him down with a 14 hour time difference. He’d stay up waiting for your calls, instead of getting much needed rest. He’d worry about you all the time, checking the weather in Manhattan instead of Seoul and calling you constantly instead of his family and friends. He’d wait on you for as long as you needed, in an almost obsessive way, thinking it could make up the difference in distance. But he deserved someone who could love him in person, all of the time.

It’d be better for Seungcheol if you just let him go, freeing him to focus on what mattered more to him. Like work.

He loved you too much to break things off with you himself, so it was better that you did it. For his own good.

That’s what you told him, at least.

────୨ৎ──── Four Years Ago

“Cheol,” you said, teary-eyed. “Cheol, look at me.”

Seungcheol stared blankly at the ground, face frozen.

“Please?” your voice cracked.

“Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t handle?” he suddenly choked out, eyes flashing with hurt. His hands clenched, like he was holding himself back from saying more.

You swallowed thickly, reaching for his arm. “Cheol, I—”

“Don’t call me that,” he said, snatching his hand away from you.

────୨ৎ────

But you had hidden the real reasons for the breakup.

Because, deep down, you had always suspected otherwise. Somehow, everything had just become so complicated. Loving Seungcheol—which had once been something as easy as breathing—had become a dull pain in your chest, clouding your every thought with insecurities.

Even from the start of the relationship, you’d loved him more, anyway. Back then, you didn’t mind it because you loved him so much, and he was always so, so sweet to you. But around the time of the job offer, paranoia had reared its ugly head, kicking your uncertain thoughts into overdrive.

It was obvious that he didn’t really love you anymore. While you were job seeking, he was distracted. Always checking his phone, not really listening to what you had to say. He made time for you, but he didn’t necessarily make you feel like he loved you as deeply as you did him—it didn’t feel like he was the same guy that you started dating.

Something about his actions just felt like he did them to claim that he loved you, rather than because he actually loved you. His actions were laced with a kind of surface level, superficial quality.

He’d take you out to a fancy dinner, open the door for you, pay for the meal, drive you home—all the gentlemanly things he did when you started dating, too. But on the car ride there and back, and while sitting down eating together, he wouldn’t remember the things you had said about the little things happening in your life—a major change, when compared to the start of your relationship.

And sure, he didn’t have an obligation to remember your next door neighbor's name. But shouldn’t he remember your favorite kind of pie, or your closest cousin’s name? Shouldn’t he just know not to check his phone every time it pings with a new email, or leave you to eat your stupid expensive pasta alone as he takes a call outside?

It was almost like Seungcheol had fallen out of love with you, but was staying with you out of some kind of obligation to continue what he had started? That was your only explanation for why he’d spend time with you, but wouldn’t pay close attention to the things you said. Every Thursday was movie night, and in hopes of trying to keep him away from work, you let him choose the movie every time. But what use was that, when he spent more time looking at his phone than the TV—and more importantly, you, for that matter?

You’d been dating a ghost of a man. While you loved him, he tolerated you.

If the two of you stayed together when you went abroad, he’d probably double down on texts, but he wouldn’t really remember anything you’d said if you mentioned details about them in calls.

You didn’t bring any of these fears up to him, because you knew that he would continue to deny it. In fact, you’d imagined it in your head so much that you could see it when closing your eyes to sleep. If you confronted him, he’d deny that he didn’t love you anymore. But he’d be staring at the ground instead of looking at you. He wouldn’t admit that he was only with you because he enjoyed the consistency of your affection, and because he somewhat pitied you—and most importantly to him, because he wanted to prove to himself that he chose correctly when he started dating you.

The pain of watching the love of your life push down his repulsion just to be with you was decidedly more horrifying than the pain of breaking up with him altogether.

Right before ending things, it had occurred to you that Seungcheol might not have ever loved you in the first place, and that just hammered in the idea that you were making the right decision. He’d get over the breakup fast. He’d probably be thankful for it in a few years, even. If you saw him again, you’d both probably laugh, and in his head, he’d realize that he was grateful that you ended things so that he could focus on his real love, his career.

If you were honest with yourself, you would admit that there was a bit of selfishness driving the breakup, as well. There was no way you could handle Seungcheol sacrificing things for you—if he lost sleep over you, if he worried about you, if he was distracted by you—because you knew he wouldn’t be doing it for love.

Because he only ever cared out of a superficial need to prove to himself that he made the right decision in asking you out all those years ago. Not because he really loved you.

Yes, he probably never loved you, and he would never know the real reason why you ended things.

────୨ৎ──── Four Years Ago

“You give up so easily,” he spat out. “Was I nothing to you?”

Tears were running down your face. “Don’t. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Seungcheol laughed, then buried his head in his hands. “God, to think I almost—”

He stopped, jaw tightening, then shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.

────୨ৎ────

A hand comes down sharply on your desk, jolting you awake.

“Sleeping while on duty?”

Wide-eyed, with tear-stained cheeks, you look up to face your ex-boyfriend. “부장님! [Department Head!]”

Upon seeing your red-rimmed eyes, Seungcheol falters.

Swiping at your under eyes quickly, you bow your head to him slightly. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

He swallows roughly, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. He opens his mouth, like he’s about to ask you why you were crying, and your heart drops.

You will crumble if you hear the tone of voice he had used when you broke up with him.

“Excuse me,” you blurt with choked words.

You don’t dare to look at his eyes. Instead, you get up from your seat, then immediately flee to the bathroom.

────୨ৎ──── Four Years Ago

“You can focus on work, now,” you squeaked out.

Seungcheol scoffed again, a cruel sound of disbelief. “What makes you think I give a damn about work right now?”

“Don’t you? Always?” you sniffled.

His eyes flashed with something you couldn’t quite describe. He seemed angry, but not just at you. At himself, too—his hands were balled into fists at his sides, fingernails digging sharply into his palms. His throat bobbed, and you could see the intense restraint he was forcing on himself. He opened his mouth with a sharp breath, then closed it again, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

────୨ৎ────

You stare with glassy eyes at yourself in the mirror, trying to calm your racing heart down. It would be alright. You would be alright.

If you just focused on your work, it would be fine.

Leaving the bathroom, you square your shoulders. You’ll draft up a new proposal that suits his standards, and you’ll do it so excellently that he can’t possibly reject it.

Hours later, and you’re standing outside Seungcheol’s office again. Taking a deep breath, you walk in without knocking or announcing yourself.

The stack of papers trembles in your hands as you place them on Seungcheol’s desk. You keep your expression blank, steadying your breath, willing yourself not to let any emotion slip. “This is the revised proposal.”

Seungcheol doesn’t look up immediately. He takes his time flipping through the pages, his expression unreadable. The tension in the room is suffocating, thick with words left unsaid from years ago. You stand stiffly, waiting, watching the way his fingers drag across the paper. Finally, he exhales sharply and sets the proposal down.

The room is unbearably silent as the question of approval hangs in the air. Your heart pounds so loudly you swear he can hear it.

He should say no immediately. It would be the easiest answer. The logical one. The one you expect.

But he hesitates.

His fingers curl against the polished surface of his desk, and his gaze lingers on the documents in front of him for just a second too long. It’s subtle—anyone else might not notice—but you do. His mask falters. Just a flicker.

And for a split second, you let yourself hope.

Then, his jaw tightens. His hands retreat beneath the table, as if physically pulling himself back. When he finally speaks, his voice is steady, controlled, and restrained—nothing like the eager, puppy-like man you knew him as when you first started dating.

“We’ll have to decline,” he says, and it’s final. Unshakable. Like he hadn’t wavered at all.

You nod stiffly, as if you hadn’t just watched something slip through his fingers. As if it hadn’t slipped through yours, too.

“Decline?” you blurt.

His face remains impassive. “Yes.”

You blink at him, momentarily stunned. You had anticipated that he would be difficult, but this—it’s too fast, too dismissive.

You steel yourself. “Why?”

“It’s not good enough.”

Your fingers clench around the hem of your blazer. “Can’t you separate private and work life?”

He meets your gaze, eyes dark and cool. “I am.” His voice is devoid of any warmth. “I don’t care. Your proposal is bad.”

The words strike harder than they should, more than just a professional critique. A cruel, deliberate dismissal. You know it’s personal—for the past two weeks that you’ve been at the Seoul branch, it has always been personal when it comes to him. Your blood simmers.

“I see.” You force your voice to remain level. “Would you like to point out what’s wrong with it?”

His lips press into a thin line. “No.”

A sharp, bitter laugh escapes you. “Of course not.”

Seungcheol leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “Four years ago, you didn’t choose me. So why should I choose your useless proposal?”

The shift is abrupt, the air sucked out of the room in an instant. Your nails dig into your palms.

“I have never loved anyone more than I loved you.” The words leave your lips before you can stop them, the truth of them ringing through the silence.

He scoffs, but there’s a flicker of something in his eyes, something raw. “You left me,” he says, voice edged with something dangerously close to hurt. “You. Left. Me.”

Your breath shudders. “You left me first.”

He leans forward, eyes searching yours, like he’s daring you to take it back. “How?” His voice is quieter now, but no less intense. “How did I leave you, when I was the one you abandoned in Seoul?”

Your vision blurs slightly. This. This is why it never worked between the two of you. He’s too bull-headed to even consider that he was in the wrong.

You shake your head. “Why didn’t you fight for us?”

His jaw tightens. “Why didn’t you?”

A bitter taste coats your tongue. “You gave up so easily.”

His eyes flash. “No,” he says sharply, “you’re the one who brought up work all the time.”

Your hands tremble. “Because if it wasn’t about work, you wouldn’t talk to me!”

That stuns him. His mouth opens slightly, but nothing comes out. His brows knit together, the first crack in his mask of indifference.

You exhale shakily, pressing forward. “Because if I talked about anything else, I knew you wouldn’t listen,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I knew I’d be talking to a man who loved the idea of me more than he actually loved me.”

Seungcheol flinches as if you had struck him. His throat bobs, hands clenched into fists on top of his desk. “That’s not true,” he grits out, but there’s something in his voice—something unsteady, like the words are slipping through his fingers before he can stop them.

“Isn’t it?” you press. His breathing turns uneven, his jaw tightening like he’s physically holding himself back.

“You made me feel like I was a burden,” you continue, the words tumbling out, years of buried pain unraveling in real time. “Like you had to tolerate me between meetings and emails. Like being with me was just another responsibility to check off your list.”

He exhales sharply, like the air’s been knocked out of his lungs. His fingers twitch, gripping the desk so tightly that his knuckles go white. “That’s not—” He stops, biting his tongue, like even he can’t bring himself to finish that sentence.

A bitter laugh escapes you. “You don’t even believe yourself, do you?”

Seungcheol stands abruptly, chair scraping against the floor, his composure unraveling before your eyes. “I worked so damn hard for us,” he says, voice raw.

Your voice is small. “I never asked you to.”

His lips part, and for the first time since you stepped into his office, his expression isn’t blank or cold—it’s vulnerable. And it terrifies you.

His expression cracks, pain flickering through his eyes. “I was trying to build a future for you,” he says, voice raw, desperate. “For us.”

“You were so busy planning a future that you forgot to love me in the present.”

A tense silence falls between you, the weight of the past pressing down on both of you like an unbearable force. His breaths are uneven, his knuckles white from how tightly he’s gripping the edge of his desk.

Finally, he exhales, a bitter, tired laugh leaving his lips. He looks down at the proposal—still sitting there, untouched, still rejected.

“This meeting is over,” he mutters, his voice hoarse.

Your heart clenches painfully, but you nod, blinking rapidly to push back the tears. Without another word, you turn on your heel and walk out, leaving behind the shattered remnants of everything you once were.

When you get back to the safe haven that is your apartment, you retrace everything he had said. Or, rather, the accusations he had thrown at you.

“You left me.”

“I was the one you abandoned in Seoul.”

“Why didn’t you fight for us?” “Why didn’t you?”

“I was trying to build a future for you. For us.”

Your heart strangely aches, remembering how shaken he looked when you called out his workaholic behavior. You had blamed him for the end of it all, but it takes two to end a relationship. Why didn’t you fight harder for him, back then?

────୨ৎ──── Four Years Ago

You’re alone now. It’s what you wanted. To be free from the self-doubt that loving Seungcheol had drilled into you.

Your chest constricted so tightly, you couldn’t breathe.

────୨ৎ────

Two days after the disastrous office meeting, you’ve somehow managed to have the misfortune of sitting in front of your ex-boyfriend at a steakhouse for work. The restaurant is dimly lit, the low hum of conversation and clinking glasses filling the space. Your body practically vibrates from the tension.

You can see Seungcheol’s gaze turn sharper every time he looks at you, and it makes it all the more insulting when he immediately brightens at Director Chun. You chug another glass of wine, hoping the buzz will numb the annoyance bubbling within you.

“Thank you, Director,” you say, reaching over the table to shake your superior’s hand. “It was a pleasure.”

“No, thank you, Team Leader,” he chuckles. “We’re lucky to have such competent, young people working for us. I’m sure the Brennans will be thrilled to see this project come to a close so quickly.”

Seungcheol laughs. “We’re lucky to have you, Director.”

It’s so fake, you’re itching to get rid of the stupid grin off his smug face.

“I’m sorry I have to leave so soon,” the director continues. “I’ll see you two back at the office?”

“Of course,” you say, standing up and bowing to him as he gets up from his seat.

When the director finally leaves, you can’t help but clench your fists. Wanting to relieve the tension in your poor tendons, you reach for the wine bottle, refilling your glass for the nth time tonight. The rest of the restaurant is loud, but it is far too quiet in your corner of the room.

Now you’re alone with Seungcheol.

The air crackles with an unspoken tension, thick and suffocating. Seungcheol, across from you, has his fingers curled tightly around the stem of his wine glass. His knuckles are practically white, the pressure of his grip betraying the storm raging inside him.

He hasn’t touched much of his food, and barely spoke beyond a few clipped replies to you. He had really only responded to Director Chun all night. But it’s nothing new. You have long learned to recognize this silence; it’s the same, bitter one that had stretched between you in the months before you left him.

You don’t know why you told Joshua you could handle going to this. Why, after everything, did you let Seungcheol pull you into a setting so painfully intimate, so reminiscent of the past? The last time the two of you were in a restaurant like this, he had left for 40 minutes to take a call outside.

Seungcheol swirls his drink absentmindedly, watching the ice shift in the glass before finally speaking. “You look well.”

You let out a breathy laugh, shaking your head. “Small talk? Really?”

His jaw tightens, and he sets his glass down with a quiet thud. “Would you rather we skip the pleasantries?”

“I’d rather we not pretend this is anything other than what it is.”

“And what is it?”

You lift your chin. “You tell me.”

Seungcheol exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. He looks at you—really looks at you—for the first time since you sat down, and it sends a shiver down your spine. It’s the same expression he made when you were in his arms, four years ago.

The one that made you feel like the only person in the world. The one that he used to assure you that he loved you.

And you hate yourself, because you can’t help but remember that he looked so good when he was yours. Worse, you can’t help but notice how he’s still devastatingly handsome.

Only now, his gaze is shadowed with something darker. Something unresolved.

“You know, when you told me you wanted to end things, I could’ve accepted it,” he says, voice steady, but his fingers twitch slightly against the edge of the table.

You swallow roughly.

“I could’ve accepted it if you said you just fell out of love with me,” he continues, “But then.” He takes a deep breath. “But then, you told me it was for my own good. That I wouldn’t be able to handle long distance.”

Your hands grip your wine glass. You want to say something, but you don’t know where to even start.

“You told me you loved me, and then…” he trails, before shakily saying, “abandoned me, because I couldn’t handle it?” He dips his head low, hands joining like he’s about to make a prayer.

“Cheol, I—”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

Seungcheol stares intensely at his half-eaten steak, a strand of hair coming down from his forehead to poke at his eyes. Despite yourself, your hand instinctively lurches to tuck it behind his ears, before you quickly jolt it back. A cloud of shame begins to envelope your mind. It’s not fair. Why does your body remember him so well, even after he broke your heart?

He takes a shaky breath before speaking again. “And you know what? That…that wasn’t even the worst part.” Choked up, he takes a deep breath and clenches his hands into fists to ground himself before continuing. “What’s worse, was what you said at the end.”

You furrow your brows, thinking back to all those years ago, right after you told him that he could finally focus on his work, and right before you walked away from him.

────୨ৎ──── Four Years Ago

“I’m sorry for wasting your time,” you whispered. You didn’t dare to look at him. “I’m sorry I made you miss that convention for my birthday.” You sniffled, voice breaking. “You shouldn’t have had to do that. I’m sorry I made you watch those stupid movies, and that I made you go out when you didn’t want to. I should’ve been more considerate of your dreams, Cheol. I’m sorry, I’m sorry I only realized it now. I should’ve—”

You exhaled deeply, blinking your newest tears away. They fell down your cheeks in streams. “You won’t have to worry about that kind of useless stuff anymore, okay? You don’t need to deal with me anymore. I’m sorry you had to handle all of that for so long. I, I really lo…”

You bit down on your lower lip, blinking desperately to get rid of your blurry vision. “I hope you get into the accelerator, Cheol. I know how hard you’ve worked for it. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

One last time, you smiled at him weakly, not meeting his eyes. “Goodbye, Cheol.”

And then you turned your back from him, walking away from the love of your life, partly because you really did wish him well on his startup journey, and mostly because you knew he was only with you out of obligation to himself—because he never loved you, anyway.

────୨ৎ────

“Oh,” you say, eyes feeling strangely prickly.

“I love—I loved you,” Seungcheol says, clutching his chest. He exhales roughly. “Did you not… see that?”

You blink rapidly.

His throat bobs as he swallows, eyes darting away for a brief moment. “I had plans for us,” he admits, voice quiet but strained.

At the sight of his clear pain, your stomach twists uncomfortably. “Plans?”

He nods slowly, still refusing to meet your eyes. The candlelight on the table flickers between you, casting shadows that dance across his face, highlighting the tension in his furrowed brow.

His mouth parts as if he’s about to say something—something important—but then he stops himself.

You reach across the table instinctively, your fingertips grazing his wrist. “Seungcheol. Don’t do this to me.”

He tenses beneath your touch but doesn’t pull away. Instead, he finally looks at you, and the sheer weight of emotion in his gaze nearly knocks the breath from your lungs. There is so much in his eyes—anger, regret, sadness, and a deep emotion you haven’t dared call love in years. All tangled together in a way that makes it impossible to separate one from the other.

“I was going to propose to you,” he confesses, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your breath hitches. For a second, the world tilts, the steady hum of the restaurant fading into white noise. You blink, your mind scrambling to process the weight of his words. “What?”

Seungcheol lets out a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head as if mocking himself. “I had the ring. I had everything planned out.” He exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was just… waiting for the right time.”

A sharp, painful lump forms in your throat. “Cheol—”

“But you left before I could,” he cuts in, his voice breaking at the edges. His eyes are glassy now, raw with unshed emotion. “You thought…you thought I didn’t love you enough. But I did. I loved you so much I—” He sucks in a shaky breath, his hands balling into fists on the table. “I was trying so hard to build a future for us. I wanted to give you everything.”

Tears burn behind your eyes, and your hands are still on his arm, but they’re shaking. “I didn’t need ‘everything,’” you whisper. “I just needed you.”

His face crumples for a split second before he forces his expression blank again. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Silence stretches between you, thick with everything you had never said to each other. The weight of missed moments, of love given but not received in the way it was needed, settles over the two of you like a monstrous thunderstorm.

You nearly choke on the sob threatening to break free from your throat. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

His voice is hoarse, like he has swallowed glass. “Would it have changed anything?”

You want to say yes. You want to believe that if he had just told you, things would have been different. But deep down, you aren’t sure. Because the truth was, you had already been slipping away from each other long before you had walked out the door.

You had told him you were leaving him so he could focus on his work. You had told yourself you were leaving him because he didn’t love you anymore. So, would you have really believed him if he had proposed to you? You’re not sure, but there’s no point in analyzing the hypothetical what-ifs, really.

Because now, looking at the man who had once been your world, you wonder if you had ever really left him at all.

────୨ৎ──── Three Years Ago

It was Seungcheol’s birthday. It hit you while you were at the grocery store, in the fresh produce section.

You saw cherries.

You cried.

Later that day, your finger twitched over his contact on your phone, before falling to your hips.

He was probably busy. He hadn’t texted or called you since the breakup, after all. He definitely wouldn’t want to hear from you even if he wasn’t busy, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” you said out loud, knowing that the person who needed to hear it most wasn’t there. “I miss you. Happy birthday.”

────୨ৎ────

You blink, and suddenly you’re outside. There’s a chilly wind blowing against you, making you shiver. When you try to take a step forward, you find your body is too sluggish to move much.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” Seungcheol says concernedly, his warm, strong hands finding an all too familiar spot against your waist.

“I’m fine,” you say, though your teetering body suggests otherwise.

Somewhere between watching Seungcheol laugh at Director Chun’s obviously not funny jokes and trying to give your hand something to do instead of ball into fists hearing his confession, you had drunk far too much of the expensive bottle of wine that the director had bought for the three of you.

Seungcheol says your name like it’s a warning, tone firm.

But you can’t help but laugh. You’re too close to him now. And oh, he’s so warm. Instinctively, your body presses against him, because it’s familiar and comforting and something you’ve subconsciously been craving for the past four years with every fiber of your body.

“I missed you,” you blurt.

Seungcheol swallows roughly.

“Fuck, don’t…” He can’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. “How did you get here? Taxi?”

You shake your head. “Too much money. Subway.”

“I’ll take you home, okay? Where are you staying now?” He squeezes your waist.

“Mmh.” Thinking, you close your eyes, fully leaning into his touch.

Three days ago, the company told you to move out of the original apartment they’d placed you in two weeks ago, and although you’d memorized how to get to your new place using the subway, you had yet to memorize the exact address. You’d always looked at your phone to double check, thinking that you’d be fine if you were stranded, since you’d always have your phone on you. Unfortunately, though, you hadn’t considered that you’d be lost if your phone died.

“That’s not an address, sweetheart.” He inhales sharply, realizing his mistake after it leaves his lips.

“I’m sorry,” you say with a frown, tears welling in your eyes. “Don’t remember.”

Here you were, wasting his time again. You’d left him four years ago because you were a hindrance to his career, and now you’re doing it again. Old habits die hard, don’t they?

You sniffle, “I’ll sober up soon, don’t worry. You can just leave me here. I’ll walk to the subway.”

Seungcheol’s throat bobs. “Hey, hey, don’t be sorry. I got you, okay? I’ll take you back to my place, if that’s okay?”

You nod, your voice small. “Okay.”

He breathes a sigh of relief.

Before you know it, Seungcheol has escorted you into the passenger seat of his car, and you’re on your way back to the house you had called your home only four years ago.

“Did you miss me?” you ask childishly, staring at the driver with sleepy eyes.

His Adam's apple bobs up and down.

For a moment, you don’t think he’ll answer. But then, he says softly, “I did.”

“Oh,” you say, and then you feel your eyelids get heavier. You let them close.

Right before you fall asleep, you catch him whispering something that sounds a lot like, “I missed you so much, sweetheart.”

────୨ৎ──── Six Months Ago

You blinked rapidly. “In the fall?”

“Yes,” Director Chun said. “I’ll be heading over to the Seoul branch as well, for a few months at the very least. I promise you’ll be under one of our best. Department Head Choi Seungcheol is known for being collaborative. I’m sure the synergy will be great between the two of you.”

You froze. Surely, not.

“Choi Seungcheol?” you asked breathily.

“Yes. Do you know each other?”

“No,” you said, far too quickly.

“Ah, I see. Perhaps he was impressed by the work you did with the Jeons,” the director said with a smile. “He requested you directly.”

Oh.

────୨ৎ────

Sleep is supposed to be relaxing, isn’t it? So why does it feel like your chest is going to cave in on itself, like a big boulder has plopped itself down on you?

You open your eyes quickly, only to be met with a mess of short, dark brown hair.

You try to blow on the hair, only to feel it enter your mouth. It’s horribly dry.

“Ack,” you spit.

And then it occurs to you that your hair has never tasted like this, or looked like this, for that matter.

You try moving one of your arms to get rid of the annoying strands, only to find that it has also been rendered immobile. You tense your core, trying to flop like a worm, but it’s of no use.

You furrow your brows, straining as hard as you can, but nothing happens.

For a moment, you wonder if you’re having a nightmare.

And then the boulder moves.

Your eyes widen into saucers. There’s only one explanation for this. You’ve only ever known one man who gives bear hugs in his sleep like this.

“Choi Seungcheol?”

“Fuck,” it groans. “Thought I told you not to call me that, sweetheart.”

You close your eyes, wondering if you’re still dreaming. But when you open them again, you see Seungcheol’s face.

Sleep lines are adorning his left cheek, and he blinks at you slowly. His pink lips are turned down in a slight pout, and the sight of him is so adorable, it makes you want to scream.

“Did you…” you pause, mind racking an explanation. “Fall asleep on top of me?”

“You said you were cold,” he says slowly, eyes half-closed, voice deep.

“Oh,” you say, then flush, feeling heat rush up the back of your neck and reach your ears. Trying to avoid eye contact with him, your eyes stray to your collarbone, and you see that you’re still wearing last night’s clothes. “Wait, did you let me into your bed with dirty clothes?”

“Mmph,” he says, rubbing his face into the crook of your neck.

“Wow,” is all you can manage. He never let you do that when you were dating.

“Go back to sleep, love,” Seungcheol mumbles.

“Can’t breathe, Cheol,” you groan, patting his back. “Too heavy, baby.”

He groans but shifts off of you, then cuddles up next to you, hands finding your waist immediately. “Five more minutes.”

“Mmh,” you sigh contentedly.

And as you close your eyes again, it occurs to you that Seungcheol is your ex, and that the two of you are definitely doing things that exes should not be doing.

────୨ৎ──── Two Weeks Ago

You folded your pride. You extended an arm out to him first.

“Department Head Choi Seungcheol, it’s a pleasure to work with you.”

You spat his first and last name out like venom, knowing all too well that he hated being called by his full name.

He stared at your outstretched hand, then scoffed.

Fuck.

────୨ৎ────

When you wake up again, you’re alone in Seungcheol’s bed. Out of habit, your arm moves to pat the other side of the bed.

For a moment, your mind flashes back to the lonely mornings you had with him four years ago. The days when the first thing you did after waking up was to check the other side of the bed, only for it to be cold. The hope of it all had fractured your heart slowly, but surely.

But today, for some reason, Seungcheol’s side is lukewarm.

Confused at the lingering warmth, you sit up in his bed, rolling back the covers.

Is it possible that he’s still here?

Then, you smell the distinct scent of ramen through the door to his room, which has been left slightly ajar. Planning on checking the kitchen, you move to get off the bed. But before your feet reach the ground, Seungcheol walks in.

He’s holding a tiny desk, the kind made for breakfast in bed. On it is a bowl of steaming ramen and a glass of water.

“Morning,” he says with a shy smile, and oh—oh, it’s so full of endearment and joy and hope, of all things.

God, something about it is just so, so pure and domestic, it makes your chest constrict. Seungcheol had never made you breakfast in bed when you had dated, because he had always been the first to leave in the morning.

But here he is, like he plans on making up for everything starting now.

And with how bright his smile is, your heart is aching to just let him.

“Is this… for me?” you ask in a small voice. Of course, it can’t possibly be for anyone but you, but something in you wants Seungcheol to admit it.

Seungcheol nods.

“Thank you,” you say.

“Ramen’s your favorite hangover meal, right?”

You nod slowly, and Seungcheol grins, like he’s proud of himself for getting it right. But something about it pokes a nerve. What use is there in remembering it now, when you’re not together anymore?

He watches you eat slowly, and you raise your eyebrows at the taste.

“It’s really good,” you say between bites, giving a thumbs up.

“Good,” he says, making intense eye contact with you.

He’s completely focused on you, phone and computer completely out of sight, and it makes you squirm. Now that his attention is on you without any distractions, it’s too easy to see how gorgeous he is.

You flush under his attention. “Stop looking at me,” you mumble.

“Don’t wanna,” he says dreamily, lying on his stomach on the bed, looking up at you with doe eyes.

You giggle, covering your face with your hands in embarrassment.

Seungcheol reaches out to swat your hands away from your face, taking the opportunity to hold your hands. When you look at him again, you’re taken aback by how serious he suddenly is.

Your laughter fades.

He takes a deep breath, and your heart sinks. You already know what he’s going to say.

“Can we… try ag—”

“Cheol,” you gently cut him off, withdrawing your hands from his familiar grasp. “Let’s not… we’re not…”

“Why not?” He looks at you innocently, with wide eyes.

You take a shaky breath. “I can’t do this again, Cheol. It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for you.”

At first, he just blinks at you, as if he misheard. But then, something in his expression hardens. “Who says you’re not good for me?”

“What?”

“Who says you’re not good for me?”

“Cheol,” you say with a sigh. “Let’s not do this again. It’s not gonna work.”

“Who says?” his voice breaks.

────୨ৎ──── One Week Ago

“Again,” he said dryly. “Redo the business model.”

You held back your anger. “Yes, Department Head Choi Seungcheol. Is there anything else you would like me to do?”

“Care more,” he said.

You frowned. “I have my full focus on this project, sir.”

“Care more,” he repeated.

────୨ৎ────

“I’ve changed,” he says frantically. “I can prove it to you, I promise.”

Your chest constricts.

“I won’t ever let you be lonely again, I promise. I won’t let it happen, I swear. I’m so, so sorry I hurt you back then, but I’m not the same man you left. I will never hurt you again.”

You swallow roughly, the ramen leaving a salty aftertaste in your mouth.

“Seungcheol…”

He shuts his eyes tightly, like you’ve wounded him.

“Please, call me Cheol again. Please, I can’t stand to hear you call me that.”

“It’s your name,” you tell him gently.

“No, it’s not. To you, I’m Cheol,” he insists stubbornly, crossing his arms. You have to remind yourself to breathe at the sight. Since when was his body so defined? You have to look away from his pronounced biceps to regain your will.

“Look at me,” he says with a frown. You obliged and he continues, “Sweetheart, please. I promise I will never hurt you again. Please, please, take me back.”

On the bed, he’s kneeling now, hands drawn together as if in deep prayer.

“I won’t let work get in the way of loving you. It was horrible and so stupid of me and I’m so, so sorry but it was only when I lost you that I realized I forgot what the point of working was. It was to provide for you, and I couldn’t do that if you were gone because I didn’t properly show you the love you deserved. I’m so, so sorry, my love. Please give me another chance?”

Seungcheol looks at you with so much sadness, but the history you had with his ghost makes you unsure about what to do.

“I don’t know, Cheol…”

He smiles weakly, resigned. “At least you’re back to calling me Cheol, though. Right?”

You nod slowly.

All of a sudden, Seungcheol lights up, like a last-minute godsend of an idea came to his mind. “If it’s too hard to say yes now, how about taking it slow?”

“What does that mean?” His definition of taking it slow probably isn’t like yours.

“I can take you out on some dates, and then you could decide?”

Your heart sinks. He’s so hopeful—eyebrows raised, eyes wide, mouth parted.

You don’t know if you have it in you to say no.

You press your lips together.

Seungcheol must have sensed danger in your face, because he immediately interjects with a rushed confession before you even open your mouth.

“I love you. So much. I loved you then, and I loved you after you left, and I love you now. There was no one after you, you know?” He looks a bit crazed, hands scrunching the blankets roughly.

Your heart jolts.

He continues, “You were everything to me—and still are. There wasn’t a single day that I didn’t think about you. But I couldn’t bring myself to reach out because I thought you hated me.”

He’s not exactly wrong. You did hate him. Then again, there’s a fine line between love and hate. Both are powerful emotions that require you to care about the person in question.

“I even quit the startup because I realized it had eaten up all my time, ‘cause it had taken you away from me.”

You gasp. This was the answer to why Choi Seungcheol, self-made entrepreneur who insisted on refusing to work for anyone but himself, had strangely become the department head of a company that he never had a hand in creating.

“I was,” he sighs self-deprecatingly, “unemployed for a while. Until I heard you were working here, and then I made it my mission to climb the ranks until I could ask for you to get transferred to Seoul. And when you accepted, I was so…”

Your heart breaks a little for him.

“I thought it was a sign.” Hesitantly, he clarifies, “That you might want to try again.”

You inhale sharply. There he goes, again. Talking so sweetly. Back then, that was all he ever did to show you that he loved you. It wasn’t enough then, so why would it be enough now?

At your silence, Seungcheol hangs his head, and your fingers twitch, wanting to reach out to him.

Except it’s different now, isn’t it? He’s finally doing all the things you once wished he would. Isn’t that what you wanted from him? You don’t trust him yet. But he’s trying, now, and every muscle in your body aches with an impossibly deep desire to pull him into your arms.

You exhale, and out with your breath goes your final worries.

Your lips part before you’ve fully decided what to say.

"Okay."

It’s barely a whisper, but it might as well be a strike of thunder with the way Seungcheol’s head snaps up. His eyes widen, mouth parting like he’s afraid he misheard you.

"Okay?" His voice trembles, cautious, like one wrong move could shatter whatever fragile thing is forming between you.

Your throat tightens. The weight of this—of him—presses down on you, but you nod anyway.

For a second, he doesn’t breathe. Then, his face crumples, and the sheer relief in his expression makes something in you splinter. His hands twitch where they rest on the blankets, like he wants to reach for you but doesn’t dare. He’s waiting—because this time, he knows he has to let you come to him.

And you do.

Slowly, hesitantly, you lean forward. His breath hitches, but he doesn’t move away. Your forehead brushes his, a soft press that feels like a heartbeat between you. You feel the warmth of his skin, the way his breath mingles with yours in the inches of space that remain.

Seungcheol exhales shakily, like he’s been holding it in for years. His hands hover near your waist, unsure, unsteady. He doesn’t pull you closer—he’s learned now—but he craves it.

Your eyes flutter shut, leaning into his touch, telling yourself it’d only be for a second. Just long enough to let yourself feel him, really feel him, without the weight of the past crushing you.

His voice is barely above a whisper, breath fanning across your lips. “Sweetheart…”

You could fall apart at the way he says it, so quiet, so reverent—like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he speaks too loud.

Your heart aches for more, but your mind reminds you of how he had left scars in your heart. For now, this form of affection would have to be enough.

After a few minutes in his arms, you reluctantly pull away to check the address of your new apartment on your finally-charged phone. Seungcheol drops you off, walking you to your door. You don’t invite him in, and he doesn’t ask. But something about the way he looked at you, right before you walked inside your apartment, lingers in your mind long after he leaves. He’d looked at you like you’d hung every glittering star in the sky.

Four years ago, you had decided that this gaze was something he’d manufactured while putting up with you. Maybe, you were wrong.

────୨ৎ────

Seungcheol keeps his promise of taking things slow. He’d arranged for you to meet him at a cafe the next day, and he’s already there when you get there. It’s a small, cozy place tucked into a quieter part of the city, the kind with warm lighting and the scent of freshly ground coffee drifting in the air.

You hesitate for a second when you see him through the window, seated at a booth near the back, fingers idly tapping against the ceramic cup in front of him. Then, before you can second-guess yourself, you push open the door.

His eyes meet yours instantly, and for a moment, he looks breathless—like he’s just as nervous as you are. But then he smiles. It’s a tiny, careful thing, but it makes your heart drum a little faster anyway. As you approach, he stands up, hand on his heart.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft, like he’s afraid to scare you away.

“Hey,” you reply, sliding into the seat across from him.

The booth is familiar. For a second, you’re struck by the memory of late-night conversations, of stolen kisses over half-finished drinks. You really were deep in love, back then.

You shake the thought away as Seungcheol gestures toward the counter.

“Still the same order?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting in something that isn’t quite a smirk but close enough that you recognize it as one of his signature expressions. You raise an eyebrow.

“You think I’d change it?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, tilting his head slightly. “A lot of time has passed.”

You exhale a small laugh. “Yeah, well. Some things stay the same.”

Something shifts in his gaze, a flicker of relief, of hope, before he nods. He waves down a barista and places the order without hesitation—exactly how you like it. When the cup is finally set in front of you, you find yourself staring at it for a beat too long, a strange warmth pooling in your chest.

“Thanks,” you murmur, wrapping your fingers around the cup.

Seungcheol watches you, his own drink forgotten, but he doesn’t push. Instead, he leans slightly forward, forearms resting on the table as he asks, “So, what’s new?”

You take a sip, letting the warmth settle in your stomach before answering. “Well, I have a wedding to go to next month.”

His eyebrows lift slightly, intrigued. “Oh?”

“Yeah. My coworker from the New York branch, Lee Chan, is getting married next month. I gotta fly out for it.” You swirl your drink absentmindedly, watching the steam curl into the air. “It’s kind of crazy. Feels like yesterday he was complaining about bad Tinder dates, and now he’s getting married.”

Seungcheol huffs a small laugh. “Guess he finally found the right person.”

“Yeah,” you say, a little softer. “Guess he did.”

There’s a pause, and you realize that for all the implications, for the way the topic is naturally leading to the idea of a plus one, you don’t bring it up. And, notably, neither does he. The question lingers, unspoken but present. Instead, Seungcheol shifts the conversation.

“You still baking?”

You groan, dragging a hand down your face. “If you can even call it that.”

He grins. “That bad?”

“Worse.” You sigh dramatically. “I was trying to perfect my chocolate chip cookies, right? Like, I found this recipe online, and it looked completely foolproof. But somehow, I nearly burned down my apartment.”

His amusement vanishes instantly. “What?”

“I mean, not literally,” you backtrack quickly, waving a hand. “But there was a lot of smoke. And my oven might hate me now.”

Seungcheol’s brows furrow in concern. “That apartment’s new, isn’t it?”

You nod. “Yeah, company orders. Still trying to get used to it.”

He exhales through his nose, tilting his head as he studies you. “Isn’t it hard? Being in such an unfamiliar place?”

You blink, caught off guard. “Oh, uh, I guess?”

His tone is casual—too casual—but you’re not oblivious. You see the way he watches you intently, the way he’s gauging your reaction. He thinks he’s being subtle, but it’s clear what he’s hinting at. Someday, maybe you won’t have to be in an unfamiliar place. Maybe you could come back home, to me.

You let out a small breath, looking down at your drink. “It’s fine,” you say after a moment. “It’s just an adjustment.”

Seungcheol doesn’t push, but his fingers tighten slightly around his cup. “If you ever need anything…”

“I know,” you say, and you mean it. Because for the first time in a long time, it feels like he actually means it, too.

The conversation shifts again, moving from baking disasters to random anecdotes about work, about old stories that slip out without either of you realizing. And throughout it all, you notice something: Seungcheol is listening.

Not just nodding along, not just waiting for his turn to speak. He’s really listening—leaning in, responding at the right moments, his gaze locked on yours with a kind of attentiveness that makes your stomach flip in a way you don’t want to acknowledge yet.

It’s different. He’s different.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s why this doesn’t feel like a mistake.

Fuck, do you love him, still?

────୨ৎ────

After the weekend cafe date with Seungcheol came the work week, much to your displeasure. Today has been an especially exhausting day. The kind that seeps into your bones, weighing down your limbs, making even the simple act of unlocking your apartment door feel like a chore. You barely manage to kick off your shoes before collapsing onto the couch, groaning into the cushions.

You didn’t even hear your phone buzzing at first. It takes a few rings before you muster enough energy to blindly fumble for it.

“Hello?” Your voice is muffled, with your face buried against the pillow.

“You sound dead,” comes Seungcheol’s voice, laced with amusement but tinged with concern.

“Feel like it too,” you groan. “Long day.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then, softly, “Have you eaten?”

“I had lunch,” you say.

Another pause. Then, decisively, “I’m coming over.”

“What? No, you don’t have to—”

“Too late. I’m already on my way.”

And just like that, the call ends. You blink owlishly at your screen, a bit too drained to call him back in protest.

Twenty minutes later, a knock comes from your door.

When you open it, Seungcheol stands there, hair still slightly tousled from the wind outside, carrying a takeout bag in one hand and a six-pack of your favorite drinks in the other.

“You used to drink these when you were stressed,” he says, holding up the pack as if that explains everything.

Your heart does something funny in your chest, but do your best to ignore it. Instead, you step aside, letting him in for the first time.

Seungcheol makes himself comfortable in your kitchen, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. He unpacks the food and searches for utensils without asking you for help. And before you know it, you’re sitting at your small dining table, warm food in front of you, while he nudges a drink toward your hand.

The silence is comfortable. You didn’t realize how much you needed this until now—until the tension in your shoulders starts to ease, until the simple act of eating next to someone who cares about you makes the world feel a little less heavy.

At some point, you sigh, rolling your neck to work out a kink. You hadn’t meant for it to be noticeable, but Seungcheol caught it immediately. Without a word, he shifts his chair closer and places a warm hand against your shoulder, thumb pressing gently into the tension there.

You freeze.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, voice softer now. “I got you. Just relax.”

And somehow, without even thinking, you do.

It isn’t grand, or dramatic, really. It’s just the quiet comfort of someone who knows you better than you thought he did. Who is all of a sudden remembering the little things, after all these years. He eases the weight of the world off your shoulders without even trying.

You don’t pull away.

And neither does he.

────୨ৎ────

A week later, and the workday is winding down. But the plans you’ve been looking forward to—a nice dinner that feels like a step forward, another stitch in the frayed edges between you and Seungcheol—suddenly teeter on the edge of collapse.

You’re gathering your things when Director Chun steps into the office, looking around before his gaze lands on Seungcheol.

"Department Head Choi Seungcheol," Chun calls, his voice even but firm. "I need you to stay back for a bit. The New York office just called me about a misalignment between Mr. Han’s vision and the work we submitted to their team. We need to smooth it over before tomorrow morning. I estimate it won’t take very long."

Your breath catches. Director Chun always sugarcoats things. It wouldn’t be just a couple more minutes, it’d be several hours of extra work.

It’s just a few words, a simple request by the director. But it’s enough to send you spiraling.

Because you've been here before.

You know how this story ends.

Your grip tightens around the strap of your bag as a million thoughts flood in, rapid and overwhelming. He’s going to say yes. Of course, he’s going to say yes.

Work will always come first. It always has, always will.

He’ll put you second again, and you’ll be left waiting, just like before.

The words you want to say—please don’t go, pick me, just this once—stick like molasses to the back of your throat.

You can’t stay here to hear him confirm it. You can’t bear to watch it happen all over again.

You walk away before Seungcheol answers the director, your feet carrying you toward the stairwell in a daze. The second the heavy door shuts behind you, a shaky breath escapes your lips. Your fingers press against your temples as you squeeze your eyes shut, willing away the sting that threatens to turn into tears.

Your chest constricts so harshly, you think you might be having a heart attack.

It shouldn't hurt this much.

But it does.

The past and present blur together in your mind—memories of cold dinners, of unanswered texts, of waiting and waiting and waiting. Until you stopped waiting altogether.

Why on earth did you think that things would be any different, now?

The door swings open with a rush of air.

"Sweetheart?"

Your stomach drops.

Seungcheol steps inside, eyes scanning the dimly lit stairwell before landing on you. His brows pull together in concern as he closes the distance between you.

"Hey," he murmurs, reaching out hesitantly. "What’s wrong?"

You shake your head, stepping back before his fingers can brush against your arm. "You don’t have to be here, Cheol."

He frowns. "What are you talking about?"

Defeated, you let out a humorless laugh, gesturing vaguely. "You don’t have to chase after me just to make me feel better about you choosing work over dinner. I get it. I know how this goes."

A pause. Then, softly, "Is that what you think happened?"

The sincerity in his voice makes you falter.

You blink at him, your heart pounding, confusion creeping in through the cracks of your resolve. "What do you mean?"

Seungcheol exhales, running a hand through his hair before stepping closer. This time, you don’t move away.

"I told Director Chun I couldn’t stay," he says, voice steady. "I told him I had a prior commitment, and that I wasn’t going to break it."

Your eyes widen comically. "What?"

His lips twitch into something that’s not quite a smile, but close. "I said no, sweetheart. I told him I had somewhere more important to be."

More important.

Your throat tightens.

"You—" The words catch, and you have to stop yourself from immediately replying, trying to process it. "You said no?"

"I did." His gaze softens, the weight of the moment settling between you. "I told you I wouldn’t let work come between us again."

His voice is quiet, but it carries years’ worth of unspoken apologies.

Of love that had once been misplaced, misdirected, but never truly lost.

Your eyes flicker over his face, searching. And the truth is written in the way he looks at you—open, unwavering, as if he’s willing you to believe him.

And you do.

It’s terrifying how easily you do.

The wall you’d built, the one meant to protect you from this very moment, begins to crumble under the warmth in his gaze.

Your breath shudders. "Cheol…"

His hand lifts, hovering near your cheek, close enough that you can feel the heat of it but not touching. His wide, sparkling eyes look eagerly into yours—giving you the choice, letting you decide.

Your chest tightens at his cute patience, the silent question lingering between you.

The space between you grows smaller.

You don’t know who moves first, but suddenly, you’re impossibly close, the tips of your noses nearly brushing. His breath fans over your lips, and your eyes flutter shut.

He doesn’t move to kiss you, but that’s okay. Because you’re finally ready to cross that line.

Tilting your chin up into him, your lips meet, and the warmth of him grounds you in a way that nothing else ever replaced, or ever could. His lips are so, so, soft, and as he melts into the kiss, he lets out a small content sigh. Everything about him is familiar, and yet, somehow different. It’s charged with a kind of electric buzz, the tension from the past weeks finally coming to a head.

For a moment, the world is still. You only see Seungcheol.

Then, in a voice so soft it almost disappears into the quiet of the stairwell, Seungcheol parts from your lips for just a centimeter, whispering, "I meant what I said. You don’t have to worry anymore. I’m 110% for you, I love you."

You close your eyes, exhaling against his skin, relishing his touch. And you say the next words with a full chest, “I love you so much, Cheol.”

Because for the first time in a long time, you believe him.

Masterlist

Author's Note: did u get the title?? seungcheol's the python bc he makes ur chest constrict and love is hard and hurts us sometimes anywayz happy valentines day <3

Disclaimer: nothing i write is representative of how svt acts off camera, take their names as stand-ins for oc's!!

Taglist: @syluslittlecrows - @junplusone - @fragmentof-indifference - @junniesoleilkth - @woncheecks - @peachypie97 - @viciousdarlings - @11zzyy - @thepoopdokyeomtouched - @dmstoyangyang - @christinewithluv - @snowcake666 - @rjreins - @namk00kie - @homelouisgirl - @slvrstrs - @jimintopiaaaa - @coupshour - @babycaratdeul

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