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scary-grace · 8 months ago

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blind date (part ii) - shigaraki x reader

After endless failed attempts to help Tomura up his game, his friends have settled on their last resort: A blind date. Even before you show up, it's not going well. No quirks AU, female reader.

Part 1

Part 2

“No.”

“Yes,” you say. You look sort of embarrassed. “Eight times.”

“No way.” Tomura studies you across the table. His eyes feel blurry with exhaustion and alcohol, but he’d prop his eyelids open with toothpicks before he’d let you think he was falling asleep. “I don’t buy it. Two, maybe. Not eight.”

“Why would I lie about this?” You take a sip of a drink. It might be yours, or it might be Tomura’s. There are so many mostly-empty glasses on the table between the two of you that Tomura’s forgotten which ones he ordered. “If anything, I’d lie the other way. Being stood up for eight first dates isn’t exactly a good sign.”

Tomura finds another drink, finishes it, and gives his verdict. “It’s a sign you met eight stupid guys.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” you say. “If it was one person, or two – but eight? At that point it’s more likely that I’m the problem.”

Tomura doesn’t think so. Tomura’s been talking to you for a while. Probably hours. He lost track of time at some point, probably around when he lost track of which drinks were his and which were yours, and there’s nothing about you that looks like a problem to him. Except the fact that nobody else is dating you, and that looks more like a crazy stroke of luck for Tomura than anything else.

Tomura might not be good at this shit, but he’s not naïve. He keeps checking in with himself, trying to make sure his interest in you isn’t just because you’re a woman who’s talked to him for longer than five minutes without looking at your phone. He hasn’t seen you take your phone out except once, and that was to put it on silent. Which was – hot isn’t right, but Tomura doesn’t really have a better word, except nice, which isn’t right, either. It’s not just because you’re a woman who talked to him or held his hand or ran to meet him even though you were late. He likes a lot of other things about you, too.

He likes that you showed up looking the way you actually look most of the time, instead of dressing up like Magne told you to. He likes that you don’t try to pretend to be something you’re not. When Tomura started talking about video games, you didn’t act like you knew something about them – just like he didn’t pretend he knew something when you started talking about horror movies or novels or manga. You’re funny, but not on purpose. Or at least that’s what Tomura thought, until he glanced at your face after you’d said something that made him laugh and realized that it was what you’d been hoping to do.

“Sorry,” you say, and Tomura snaps out of it. “Talking about past dates on a first date is kind of a red flag, isn’t it?”

“I asked,” Tomura says, wondering if you called this a first date because you’re hoping for a second one. You shrug. “If you’ve met that many shitty guys, how come you agreed to this? What did Magne tell you about me?”

“What did she tell me.” You finish one of the drinks and grimace slightly. “Um, she said you were my age.”

“Okay.”

“She said you have a job,” you continue, “and friends.”

“Yeah,” Tomura agrees. “We have an apartment. We were friends before we had the apartment. It’s not just because we have an apartment.”

“Magne said you’ve all known each other forever,” you say. You smile slightly. “It sounds nice.”

It’s a good thing Tomura’s known them forever. He hasn’t had a lot of luck making friends as an adult. The closest he’s come to making a friend as an adult is probably Dabi’s stupid fiancé, and that’s only because he never leaves. Toga keeps saying that she thinks he’ll like her girlfriend, but she also never lets her girlfriend within a kilometer of the apartment. One time Tomura asked her why not and Toga gave him the weirdest look he’s ever seen. “You’re all boys,” she said. “You’re gross.”

Maybe that’s true. Tomura’s never been in a woman’s apartment, so he doesn’t really have a way to confirm. How gross could it be, really? He should probably ask Toga for specifics. “Did Magne say anything else?”

“She said online dating and the apps weren’t really working for you,” you say. “You do better in person. I don’t know what you’re like online, but – I feel like she was probably right.”

Tomura’s face flushes. He finishes another drink to cover it up. “Your turn,” you say. “What did Magne tell you about me?”

“Uh,” Tomura starts. He finds another drink, but can’t quite stomach finishing it just yet. He’s already about to screw this up, and it’s going to be worse if he throws up on you afterwards. “Not much. Just that you were a girl and you were my age and that you agreed to it.”

You laugh at that. “That’s the important stuff,” you say. “She did a good job managing your expectations.”

“No,” Tomura says. You blink. “She should have told me more.”

“She doesn’t really know more,” you say. “I only see her at work. She got my number so I could tell her when I’m on shift and my boss is off.”

“What’s your boss’s deal, anyway?” Tomura asks. “Just an all-purpose asshole, or –”

“He’s not great to us. The employees, I mean.” You don’t like talking about this. Tomura can tell. “But he makes things really hard on customers who have certain prescriptions. HRT and stuff like that. He doesn’t do anything they can report him for, but he makes it so miserable for them that they don’t want to come in to pick their meds up.”

Tomura knows that type. Magne runs into that type a lot. If it happens when all of them are out together, Tomura and the others take care of it, but they can’t be there every second. “A few people have my number,” you continue. “I give them a heads-up when their prescriptions are in and he’s out.”

“Why didn’t she tell me that?”

“She did,” you say. Tomura meant before, and says so. “Maybe she thought you’d think I was too nice.”

Tomura snorts. “That guy who tried to cut us in line didn’t think you were too nice.”

If he’d been by himself, Tomura would have let it slide just because he doesn’t care enough, but you blocked the guy’s way with your arms crossed, and when he told you to move, you stared at him until he backed off. “Okay, so not too nice,” you say. You pick up another glass, see it’s empty, and wince. “But if she’d told you more about me, you’d have found a reason not to show up.”

“If she’d told you more about me, you’d have said no.” Tomura feels pretty confident in that, and more so with however many drinks under his belt. “She told you I was bad at app dating.”

“Lots of people are.”

“So bad at it that I’ve never been on a date.” Tomura feels pretty good about one-upping you right up until he sees your eyes widen, but his mouth is way ahead of his brain. “Beat that.”

It’s quiet for a second. Tomura stares at you, feeling his face heat up with embarrassment, while you peer into glass after glass, trying to find one that hasn’t been emptied yet. “I don’t know,” you say. “I think being stood up eight times is worse.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“My record is terrible,” you say. You find one more glass and drain it. “Your record, on the other hand – you’re one for one. I’d say that’s pretty good.”

“One for one on what?” Tomura asks.

“Dates,” you say. “This one��s going well.”

“Yeah?” Tomura’s mouth goes dry. He looks around for a glass with something in it, so that he’ll be able to speak without swallowing his tongue, but he comes up empty. You slide your water glass across the table to him and Tomura gulps half of it. “You think it’s going well?”

You looked pretty calm until he said that. Tomura sees you getting nervous. He slides the glass of water back across the table to you in case you want to drink it, but you leave it alone. “I mean,” you start, “we met up at five-forty-five, and it’s almost last call. Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t spend eight hours hanging out with somebody if it wasn’t going well.”

“Last call?” Tomura says, like a dumbass, only for the bartender to shout it out to the room at large a few seconds later. “Eight hours? Really?”

You nod. “So either it’s going well,” you say, “or you just didn’t have anything better to do.”

If Tomura doesn’t want to be somewhere, he goes home even if there’s nothing better to do. He’d rather spend hours watching the most boring vintage simulation game streams in history than spend two seconds longer being social than he wants to. Eight hours hanging out with one person is a record, even once Tomura subtracts the bathroom breaks he had to take because he was dumb enough to break the seal four drinks in. Has he ever spent eight hours doing nothing but talking with someone without getting bored? No. Not even close.

“It’s going well,” he says, and you look relieved. Not happy, just relieved. That’s – not good. “They’re kicking us out now.”

“Yeah.” You get to your feet and stagger a little bit. You probably drank at least as much as Tomura did, but you’re shorter than him, and you’re a woman. Are you okay? “I’m going to go pay. We should figure out rides home. The trains don’t run this late.”

Tomura fucked up somehow. He can’t figure out how, but he’s pretty sure he did. But you’re still about to get kicked out, and somebody has to pay the tab – and somebody has to figure out how you two are getting home. He gets to his feet, too. “I’ll get it. It can’t be that much.”

You look back at all the glasses on the table. “I think it’s going to be a lot. We’ll split.”

Even with the split, it’s more than Tomura’s spent on a night out, ever – and the longer he spends upright, the clearer it is that he’s trashed. You’re trashed, too. Maybe less than he is, because you’re still trying to work out how to get home. “It’ll be cheaper if we split a rideshare,” you say, and hold out your phone. “Put in your address.”

Tomura forgets his own address for a second. Then he types it in, and you take your phone back. “Okay. It’ll drop you off first, then me. Let’s go.”

Tomura follows you out, only weaving a little bit, and then the two of you are on the sidewalk again. The air’s still warm and humid, but at least there’s more of a breeze than there was before. You lean against the boardwalk railing and Tomura copies you. He leaves one hand open at his side in case you want to reach for it. You don’t, so Tomura goes for yours instead, and you look up at him. “Tomura?”

“It’s going well,” Tomura says. Your eyes slide away from his, and he asks a question that’s been on his mind since an hour or so in. “Want to do it again?”

“Stay out until two am on a work night and blow five times my hourly rate on drinks?” You shake your head. “Go on another date? Yeah.”

Tomura hears all of that in the right order, except the thing in the middle that he actually asked about. “It’s a work night?”

“For you, too. You said earlier.” Your hand moves in Tomura’s, unfolding your fingers to lace them together with his. “We should have called it quits four hours ago.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to.” Tomura shouldn’t have had this much to drink. He’s saying stuff he probably shouldn’t. Or should he? He doesn’t see the point in lying about shit on a regular basis. Why start now? “I still don’t.”

Next to Tomura, you take a deep breath, then let it go. “Okay. Give me your phone.”

Tomura fishes it out of his pocket with his free hand and passes it to you, then has to take it back to unlock it. He watches as you navigate to his contacts and add yourself to them – your first name, plus the words “blind date”, like Tomura’s going to forget who you are. How many women do you think he has in his phone? You hand it back to him after saving your contact and Tomura waits for you to hand yours over so he can add his number to yours. You don’t. “I need your phone. You need my number.”

“If you text me, then I’ll have it,” you say. “If you don’t, I won’t need it.”

Tomura feels weird about that. “Is this some kind of test?”

“I’ve gotten stood up eight times. I’m done chasing after people who don’t want me.” You loosen your grip on Tomura’s hand, like you’re giving him the chance to let go. “I ran sixteen blocks to meet you. You can send me a text.”

Tomura can see where you’re coming from. Sort of. The rideshare shows up, and the two of you slide into the backseat. Going from standing up to sitting down gives Tomura some kind of drunken headrush, and he slumps sideways against you. “Sorry –”

“It’s fine.” You shift around in your seat until Tomura’s cheek is resting on your shoulder. You’re still holding his hand. “I don’t mind.”

Tomura doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the next thing he knows, the rideshare’s coming to a stop outside his apartment building and you’re shaking him awake with the hand that was holding his. “We’re here,” you say. “It was nice to meet you, okay? I had a really good night.”

Tomura nods. His mouth tastes like something died in it, and his mind feels foggy, but not so foggy that he can’t figure out how he wants to say goodbye. Maybe you know. “What do we do?”

“How about a hug?”

Sounds good. Tomura’s mouth tastes too bad for kissing, anyway, and his lips are gross enough to make you wish you’d never met him. He reaches out and drags you awkwardly across the backseat and into his arms, and you – fit. Tomura normally hates touching people, and he hates it even more when he’s drunk, but you fit, still and quiet with your head tucked in against his shoulder and your eyelashes brushing the side of his neck when you blink. Tomura could go back to sleep like this, easy. He’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

“Hey,” the driver says from the front seat. “Are you staying or going?”

“Are you in a big hurry or something?” Tomura pulls away from you with an effort and gets out of the car. The door shuts behind him, and Tomura turns to say goodbye, but he’s too slow. All he gets is a glimpse of your face through the window as the rideshare drives away.

Tomura should text you right now. The thought occurs to him, but then a mosquito bites him, and he slaps it a second too late. He’ll get inside the stupid building and get to his room, and then he can text you. It’s a good plan. Whether Tomura will remember it by the time he gets to the apartment is an entirely different story.

Tomura and his friends live on the top floor. The entire top floor. It used to be a penthouse, back when both the building and the neighborhood weren’t shit, but now the rent is cheap enough that the seven of them can afford it together. They all get their own rooms, three bathrooms is usually enough for everybody, and usually there’s at least one person who’s willing to cook dinner and let the rest of them mooch. Tomura and his roommates all keep weird hours, but by two-thirty in the morning everybody’s usually in their rooms, even if they’re awake. He’s not going to bother anybody as long as he’s quiet.

Or at least that’s what Tomura thinks. He’s dead wrong, because when the elevator doors open, he finds all the lights on in the living room, and most of the people he lives with sitting in there, wide awake. It looks like they’re waiting for something. It occurs to Tomura with slowly dawning horror that they’re waiting for him.

He makes the first move out of shock more than anything else. “What the fuck?”

“We decided to wait up for you. Since it’s baby’s first date and all,” Dabi says with a smirk. His stupid fiancé is here, too, perched on the arm of the chair Dabi’s in. “So how’d it go?”

Tomura doesn’t want to talk about this when he’s drunk. He wouldn’t want to talk to Dabi about it stone sober. He shakes his head. “Come on,” Twice announces from where he’s sprawled out on the rug next to Toga. “Nobody comes back from a date at three in the morning and gets to shake his head about it. Spill. No, don’t spill! I don’t want any nasty details.”

“I want all the nasty details,” Magne says. “What happened?”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t quiz him,” Sako says from the other chair. “Shigaraki will tell us what he wants to, when he wants to.”

Sako is officially the only person Tomura’s not pissed at right now. “No, he has to tell us now,” Toga says. “We’ve all been working on this for a month. We have to hear how it went!”

“Give us at least a few details,” Dabi’s idiot fiancé says. “We need something to base our wild speculations on.”

“You don’t live here,” Tomura says. Dabi glares at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Wait, it was bad?” Spinner runs the opposite way with it. “Why didn’t you just come back? Or you could have called us – we’d come drink with you –”

“It wasn’t bad,” Tomura snaps. “I got her number.”

He was hoping that would shut everybody up. Instead they all trade glances. “That’s it?” Dabi asks, incredulous. “You get back an hour after last call and all you got was her number?”

That’s not all Tomura got. “She said we should go out again. And we held hands.”

“Are you thirteen or something? That’s so lame,” Dabi’s idiot fiancé says. “Was she like, not –”

“She’s not that kind of girl,” Magne says. She reaches over from the couch to punch Dabi in the arm, even though it was the goddamn fiancé who said it. “You think I’d set Shigaraki up with that kind of girl?”

“Yeah, because that’s the kind of girl he’ll be dealing with in Vegas. Did you time-warp back to the fifties when I wasn’t looking?” Dabi grimaces. “You’re supposed to be upping your game. This is a setback.”

Tomura finally gets his feet under him. “No, it isn’t,” he says. “I had fun.”

He feels weird saying it, even though it’s true. He had fun walking around with you trying to find a bar you both wouldn’t hate, because both of you hate when things get too loud. He had fun talking about any of the fifty things the two of you talked about over the course of the eight hours you spent together. He liked seeing you square off with the asshole who tried to cut you both in line and he liked seeing you order the weirdest drink on the menu, even though it was disgusting and neither of you could finish it. He liked that he didn’t notice you trying to make him laugh until it already happened. He liked holding your hand.

Tomura had fun on his date, end sentence. “You guys are assholes. I’m going to bed.”

“We’re not assholes! We want to help,” Twice protests. “You don’t need our help! You’re doing fine.”

“Yeah, I’m with Twice,” Spinner says. Twice starts arguing with him, but Spinner ignores it. “It’s a win if you say it’s a win. Hanging out with somebody who’s not us for that long is definitely a win.”

“It’s not a game,” Toga says. She rolls over on her back and stares up at Tomura. “Are you going to text her?”

Right. Tomura was going to do that. He fumbles his phone out of his pocket. “No,” Dabi and his fucking fiancé say at the same time. Dabi keeps talking. “It hasn’t even been an hour. Are you trying to look desperate?”

“I texted Ochako while I was on the train home from our first date,” Toga says. Toga’s the only one other than Dabi who’s in an actual relationship, rather than a bunch of situationships, friends-with-benefits things, and hookups they block the next day. “I wasn’t desperate.”

“You’re the most desperate person I’ve ever met. But you’re a girl, so it’s cute on you,” Magne says. “It’s not cute on guys. It’s weird.”

“I don’t think it is,” Spinner says. Tomura adds Spinner and Toga to the list of people he doesn’t hate right now. “Sending a dick pic or begging for nudes would be desperate. Just saying something is – nice. I’ve never had a date text me the same night before. I wouldn’t mind.”

“In that case, your date would be a girl,” Magne points out. “Cute when girls do it. Weird when guys do. I’d know.”

Tomura lost the plot a few sentences back. “I wasn’t going to send a dick pic. I don’t even have a dick pic.”

Dabi’s fiancé wheezes. “What?”

“Okay, that’s enough!” Toga pops up off the floor. “Tomura-kun has work tomorrow and so do I – and so does Spinner – so we’re all going to go to bed.”

“We are?” Spinner asks, then yelps as Toga yanks him off the couch. “Hey!”

“That’s right,” Toga sings out. She grabs Tomura’s arm, too, and Tomura barely manages to avoid getting yanked off his feet. He stumbles down the hall after her, colliding with Spinner a few times. It’s all he can do to keep ahold of his phone.

Toga’s bedroom, Spinner’s, and Tomura’s are all along the same hallway, sharing the same bathroom. Once they’re in the hallway, Tomura plants his feet. “Why are you kidnapping me?”

“We’re not kidnapping you. Your room is right there.” Toga points, like there was any way Tomura was going to forget. He’s drunk, but not that drunk. “They were being mean. I’m happy for you. So is Spinner. Right, Spinner?”

“Like I said. A win’s a win.”

“It’s not a game.” Toga elbows him. Then she looks at Tomura. “They’re making it sound complicated and it’s not. If you like her, text her. If you don’t, don’t. Easy. Now go to bed.”

It’s not a puzzle game. It’s a yes or no question. Tomura likes that a lot better than whatever the hell the others wanted him to do. Still – “Do I need a dick pic?”

It’s quiet for at least a minute. “You know what,” Spinner says finally, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I’m with Toga. Go to bed before you get yourself in trouble.”

Tomura’s tempted to tell them both that he’s doing it because he wants to, not because they’re telling him to, but then he decides not to waste the air. The sooner he goes to his room, the sooner he can send you a message without everyone bothering him about it. He shuffles back to his room, flops down on the bed – which he didn’t make this morning, because he’s just going to get back in it later – and pulls out his phone. When he taps the contact icon, the first thing he sees is the contact you set for yourself.

Your name (blind date). Tomura opens a message and gets stuck trying to think of what to say. Short is probably better. His mind is off on some weird paths right now, a lot of which have to do with you and his dick and all of which would be a lot more of a problem if he wasn’t still drunk. And none of which you need to know about. You also don’t need to know about the ambush his friends set up for him when he got home. Or the fact that Tomura’s friends only sent him on this date so he could get better at women before the trip to Vegas in two months.

That might have been why Magne set you and Tomura up, but that’s not why Tomura’s texting you. this is tomura. i want a second date. That gets the point across for sure. If you texted Tomura that he’d count it as a win, so he sends it. But Toga said it’s not a game. Spinner said it would be nice to get a text from a date. What would Tomura want you to say, if he got a text from you?

Tomura overthinks it. He overthinks it so hard that he falls asleep, and only wakes up when he drops his phone on his face. You haven’t texted back yet, but it’s only been fifteen minutes since he sent the message, and you’re probably asleep. What kind of text would Tomura want to see from you when he woke up in the morning? That you liked him. That you had fun. Maybe you’d say something funny, too. Tomura doesn’t do funny. He almost falls back asleep again, then hauls himself up to wakefulness hand over hand, sitting up in the bargain. One more message. It should be easy.

sorry I fell asleep on you is what Tomura says. He barely manages to plug in his phone before he falls asleep for good.

He wakes up to his alarm howling, right on schedule. He can hear Spinner’s alarm doing the same thing from across the hall. Tomura’s mouth tastes like he threw up in it in his sleep. He fumbles for his phone to hit snooze on the alarm, but in the split second before he does, he sees a text notification. Everybody he texts has been asleep for the last – Tomura looks at the time and groans – four hours. So who –

Tomura unlocks his phone at warp speed and taps the message icon. He remembers texting you last night, but he didn’t remember how stupid he sounded. Sorry he fell asleep on you? You’re probably texting him to fuck off. Tomura glances down at your message. His head hurts badly enough that he has to read it five or six times to process it all the way.

You gave his first text a thumbs-up, then asked what he wants to do on the second date. But you replied directly to his stupid second message. it’s okay. next time it’s my turn.

Tomura’s lips split as an uncontrollable grin crosses his face. He got four hours of sleep. He’s got a full day of work and a hangover to go with it, and the instant he sets foot in the living room, his friends are going to start up on him about how he’s handling this all wrong. But Tomura must not be handling it all that badly, because he’s got a second date, and for a few seconds, the hangover and work and everything else doesn’t matter at all.

#shigaraki tomura x reader #tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #reader insert #x reader #blind date au #man door hand hook car door #a bisquared production

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thesoftuglywrites · 28 days ago

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brat (affectionately)

Here is my submittal for @unintentionalseductress's Valentine's Day Blind Date Event!

Written for the lovely @flaneur001 (I hope you enjoy it and my selection for your blind date)

(This is my first time participating in this kind of event, as well as my first time ever writing for our beloved King of Curses so I hope I did the event and the character justice lol)

Disclaimer: No content warnings that I can truly think of to label them here. Fem!Reader/Modern!Sukuna/human!Sukuna/no curses au/Sukuna being a massive tsundere, is emotionally constipated and doesn't know how to show affection for the people that he loves and cares about... but he tries/he's got the tattoos, but not the facial ones.

WC: 8.6 K

Enjoy!

“I can’t believe that you talked me into this,” you grumbled, pulling your winter coat closer to your body as you closely followed behind Shoko, batting away a puff of cigarette smoke that she had exhaled out and that you had accidentally walked into. “I don’t need to go on a blind date right now, I should be studying for final exams.”

The cold winter air bit at your exposed skin the longer you followed Shoko to the supposed meetup spot that she had preselected for you and your blind date. Why she decided to do this for you, nay, to you, was something that was way beyond your comprehension at the current moment. When she initially had told you that you were going to be going on a blind date tonight, you had laughed in her face, thinking that she was joking; you were sorely mistaken when she didn’t laugh and instead grabbed your jacket and your wallet and threw them at you, clearly indicating to you that she wasn’t joking and was, in fact, serious about this.

Shoko let out a snort, and shot you a look over her shoulder with a lit cigarette clamped in between her teeth as the two of you trekked through the labyrinth that were the back alleyways of metropolitan Tokyo. She plucked the cigarette out of her mouth, and swung her body around to face you, but continued to walk backwards so she wouldn’t break her pace. “Girl, the first time I met you, you had your nose in a book and were a month ahead on assignments that your professors had already put out. If anything, you already have the material written on the inside of your eyelids and inscribed into the sulci of your brain. You’ll be fine taking one night off. Besides, you need this.” She twirled back around, facing forward once again.

You were a third year university student who had been lucky enough to spend your autumn and spring semesters in Japan at the University of Tokyo as an exchange student. You had done everything in your power to prepare yourself for your travels by studying up on the language, both the verbal and written aspects, the culture, etiquette, the inner workings of the university that you would be attending, and among various other things that were at your disposal before you would embark on your travels.

Shoko Ieiri was your dorm mate. She was the first person that you actually, truly got to meet, and really the first person that took you under her wing. The two of you did your best to communicate, given the fact that neither you nor Shoko really was fluent in each other’s languages. With time, however, you eventually found even footing when it came to communication between the two of you. Shoko was the one who had taken you around the city, introducing you to many eateries, bakeries, and cafes that she would visit, along with miniscule spots that she would spend what little precious free time that she had.

She had also been the one to introduce you to her circle of friends, as she had quickly noticed that you had a tendency to stay in your shared dorm. You didn’t join any clubs, you didn’t go to any campus parties or mixers, citing the main reason being that you simply wanted to focus on your studies so you wouldn’t flunk out of the classes in a university that you had fought tooth and nail to get assigned to. To be fair, it wasn’t a total lie.

While you were apprehensive at first, mainly having anxiety about meeting a group of people that you had no idea existed while they already seemed to have a great deal of information about you, you agreed to meet them nonetheless, over dinner and drinks. Those worries were immediately quashed the second that Satoru Gojo threw his arm around your shoulder and pulled you close into his side, as if you were lifelong friends instead of strangers that had just met seconds prior. Suguru Geto, who side-eyed Satoru with how touchy he was being with you, kept the exchange flowing by asking you questions about you, your life, your country, if you were taking a liking to Japan, etc. Kento Nanami, quietly listened to what you had to say, and continuously poured your sake for you throughout the event, granted he was a few years older than you and he constantly shot down your efforts to try and pour his drink for him; even though he didn’t take much of an active participation in the conversations that were happening around you two, the silence between you two wasn’t uncomfortable–it was even welcomed.

The only person that you truly had an issue with connecting with, was Sukuna Ryomen.

He didn’t say much of anything to you with the exception of a curt nod in your direction when you first made introductions to each other. He sat at the end of the table, slamming beer after beer after beer, but never once did he partake in the group dialogue. He sat quietly, watching everything unfold around him.

There were two things that you remembered from that whole meetup. The first being the fact that his eyes never left you. If you weren’t distracted by something or someone else, you became acutely aware of it–so much so, that it almost made you extremely self conscious; the way that he was staring at you made it seem like he was analyzing every move. The second thing, was when you had gone to pay for your dinner and drinks, the server that had been attending to your table had told you that your tab had already been taken care of; when you asked who it had been for further clarification, they responded: “The gentlemen with the pink hair requested that anything you ordered be applied to his bill, ma’am.”

You couldn’t even thank him or pay him back for it because he had taken off much earlier before everyone else was finished with their food and drinks. When you next saw him again after that, you tried to bring up the topic of paying him back, and he immediately wouldn’t hear the rest of what you had to say.

“I wanted to pay for your meal,” he said to you. “You don’t need to worry about paying me back.”

Since then, you two really haven’t interacted. He hadn’t made any effort to get to know you better or talk to you one on one whenever there was a group hangout, simply choosing to ignore your existence and engage with the others; and you were perfectly content with that.

Fast forward to the present moment, you and Shoko rounded the corner around a little dumpling and takoyaki stand that was operated by an elderly couple, bringing you two back out to the main street, and you could make out four figures standing near a streetlight in the distance. The closer the two of you got, you could make them out to be Satoru, Suguru, Kento, and Sukuna.

“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” you heard Sukuna growl the closer you got to them. “This is a complete waste of time and I don’t need to be doing this!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Kuna-Tuna!” Satoru chided, pushing his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. “You’ll have a great time with your date.”

“Okay, how many times have I told you to stop calling me that?” Sukuna straightened up, almost nearly squaring up with white-haired, blue-eyed man that was clearly past the point of annoying him.

Satoru being… well, Satoru, didn’t pay any mind to the hot headed man that was growing increasingly agitated in front of him, and kept up with his nonchalant, playful attitude. “Oh… since the second year of secondary school? Frankly, I don’t know why you keep trying to get me to stop calling you that when it’s pretty clear I’m not going to,” Satoru chortled.

“Hey, lover boy,” Suguru cut in, before Sukuna could respond–or rip Satoru’s head off, either one could work–and flicked his chin towards the direction that you and Shoko were approaching from. “I would think real carefully about your next move. You wouldn’t wanna scare off you dare, now, would ya?”

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, what?

Sukuna was your date?

Where there was once annoyance and irritation, it was quickly replaced with anxiety and apprehension; you could feel your heartbeat quicken, your mouth went dry, and your palms go clammy the closer and closer you got to the others. It wasn’t like you were afraid of him… but you certainly weren’t close with him to begin with; he was just intimidating. He towered over you, easily standing at six feet and five inches and was built like an ox. He swore like a sailor that had just gotten back into port, and did everything in his power to make himself appear larger than he actually was and take up as much space as he possibly could. Sukuna acted without a care in the world, and he certainly cared less what others thought of him.

For lack of a better word, Sukuna Ryomen was loud, and crude, and brash; everything and everyone around him could either tolerate him for who he was and what he stood for, or they could fuck right on off. In a way, you did have some sort of respect for him, though. To be your own individualistic person in a conservative, collectivist society like Japan certainly couldn’t have been easy.

“Ah, there you two are!” Satoru called out, greeting both you and Shoko as you approached them. “We were wondering how long it was gonna take you guys to get here.”

You kept your gaze downward as you could feel the heat flush your cheeks, feeling more self conscious than ever before, rivaling the time that you were about to meet your current friend group. From your peripheral vision, you could see Sukuna maintain his gaze on you.

“Hope you guys weren’t waiting too long.” Shoko plucked the cigarette from in between her teeth, exhaling out another puff of smoke that you accidentally walked into again, causing you to unintentionally breathe in the toxins. You were too anxious to really pay attention to it, too lost in thought as you dreaded the next several hours that were to come.

“No, thankfully not,” Kento responded, reaching up to push his hair back into the neat side part that he always sported. “We would have been here a bit sooner had someone–” Kento threw a menacing glare in Sukuna’s direction, causing Sukuna to scowl back in return – “not put up such a big fight to get him here in the first place.”

Shoko paused, the cogs in her head slowly turning as she realized that Kento, Satoru, and Suguru all had disheveled appearances the more that she inspected them. “Did… did it take the three of you guys to get him here?”

“Yep,” they all simultaneously answered all at once.

“We nearly had to pick him up and carry him to get him here,” Suguru grumbled under his breath as he reached up to rub at the back of his head, his fingers threading through his hair. “Nearly pulled a chunk of my hair out, too…”

Oh. Great, you thought to yourself.

He clearly didn’t want to be here, just as much as you didn’t want to be here, either.

You turned to Shoko, keeping your voice low. “Shoko, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean… does it just have to be the two of us?”

Shoko detected the hesitancy in your voice and pulled you off to the side, a bit further away from the rest of the guys so that you could speak a bit more inconspicuously. “Are you nervous?” she whispered, her eyebrows furrowing as her eyes looked at you with concern.

“A bit. I just, I don’t know, I don’t know Sukuna very well and I don’t think he likes me all that much…” Your voice trailed off as you voiced your worries.

Shoko fought off a snort. “You don’t know the half of it when it comes to Sukuna, Y/N. You really don’t.”

“Shoko,” you quietly moaned, borderlining on a whine.

“Listen, if you’re really all that nervous, we honestly don’t have to go through with this. Satoru, Suguru, and I thought it would be good for the two of you to hang out with each other one on one,” she explained. “Plus, Sukuna likes you a little bit more than he lets on. I promise that he does. He’s just… not very good at showing it.”

You let out a dismayed sigh, not wanting the actions of the other boys to go in vain, seeing as how it took some effort on their part to get Sukuna here tonight. “No, I’ll do it. Just–just keep your phone on standby in case things start to go south.”

“Of course.”

Satoru was the first to break the tension. “Welp!” He clapped his hands together once to get everyone’s attention on him. “Sukuna, we leave our beloved Y/N in your care. Take her to a night out on the town, get dinner, drinks, maybe visit that new arcade that just opened up in downtown Harajuku?” he said, slowly backing up as Shoko, Suguru, and Kento followed suit, leaving you and Sukuna by yourselves. “Have fun, you two!”

They rounded a corner, officially leaving you and Sukuna together.

By yourselves.

Alone.

Sukuna turned to you, his eyes looking you up and down as he took in your appearance. “You look nice,” he complimented, unsure of how to start the conversation between you two. He could, however, sense your unease. “Better than I do, actually.”

Though he wasn’t in earshot of the conversation that happened between you and Shoko, he had a pretty good idea of what it was about.

“Thank you,” you softly chuckled. You kept your gaze down, looking at his feet rather than his face. “Though, I wish I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

His head cocked to the side slightly, genuine confusion coloring his features. “What? Why?”

“I just prefer to wear my contacts, really. I haven’t been to visit the optometrist here and I’ve run out of my yearly supply, unfortunately. I’ll probably have to do that over winter break once exams are over.”

Sukuna let out a low hum, digesting your words.

You raised your eyes to meet his, looking at him quizzically. “What is it?”

“Well, firstly: thank you for finally looking at me.” He chuckled, a soft smile forming on his face. A rarity if you ever saw. “And secondly: I think I prefer you with glasses. You look rather cute, if I do say so myself.”

A flash of heat burned your cheeks at his comment, before you tried to save yourself a night of needless agony. “You know, Sukuna, you really don’t have to humor me if you don’t want to be here,” you said, not beating around the bush anymore. “We can just go our separate ways and if the others ask about it, we can-”

“Who says that I don’t want to be here?” he interrupted, his eyebrow raised.

You deadpanned. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe the fact that it took three grown men to get you here in the first place, and also taking into consideration that you put up such a fight, too.”

He threw his head back as a loud, boisterous laugh rang from his diaphragm. “That was before I knew that it was you, brat.”

“Brat? Seriously?”

He chuckled, and walked past you, waving a hand over to indicate that he wanted you to follow him. “Affectionately, of course. Now, c’mon. There’s a new ramen spot that just opened up not too far from where we are now and I’ve been dying to try it out.”

You looked as he started to stalk off in the direction where the ramen bar is, watching his back retreat the further and further that he gets away from you. Against your better judgment, and the annoyance that was starting to swirl in your chest at the mention of being called a ‘brat’, you follow him.

The train to downtown Tokyo is packed full with the evening rush of salarymen and women that are just getting off of work, to the point where it felt like it was a tin of sardines rather than a train car. Sukuna, using the full scale of his body and height to his advantage, blocked you into a section of the car where your back was up against the side of the car, but maintained his distance in order to prevent others from encroaching on your personal space. This was the most up close and personal that you’ve ever been with him, and with careful eyes, you observed all of the details that your date had to offer you. From the hem of his shirt, you could somewhat make out the darkened lines of black ink that resembled tattoos that just barely peaked out, where it wasn’t obscured by his jacket. He had a bit of peach fuzz on his chin, indicating that he maybe had just shaved. His hair, though slightly spiky, was smoothed back into a neat fashion, in some sort of measure–maybe that was Suguru or Satoru’s doing, who knows. Your eyes fell to his ears, noting that he had small black gauges in his earlobes. Were they new or had you just never noticed them before?

“What is it?”

His question brings you out of your train of thought and you realized that his eyes were on your face, looking at you with a curious expression.

“I’m sorry–what?” Your words tumbled out as they left your mouth.

“You’re staring at me. What is it, brat?”

You glanced away, not paying attention to the fact that he called you a brat again. “I–it’s nothing. I swear.”

His eyebrow cocked at that, not believing what you were saying for a single second. He leaned down to meet your eye level, putting his face closer to yours than what you deemed necessary. “Are you sure about that?”

You could feel the heat flush your cheeks again as you backed further into the plastic and metal side of the train car, trying to create distance. “Y-yes, I’m sure!”

He smirked at how flustered you were becoming, before silently shrugging his shoulders and closing his eyes, a silent way of saying: “Alright, then.” He straightened back up to his full height, but the smirk on his face remained.

When the train finally reached the desired stop, Sukuna had placed you in front of him, enclosing his jacket around you so that you were quite literally tucked against his chest. Once again, he used his height and size to his advantage, and began to walk the both of you forward through the crowd of passengers. Once out of the train car, he let you out of his jacket and continued to lead the way, but maintained a close enough proximity to you where your hands were nearly touching.

It was a ten minute walk from the train station to the ramen bar that Sukuna was so highly eager about. In the near distance, you could see the red paper lanterns decorate the outside with fairy lights strewn across the top of the entrance, and kanji characters that you most certainly weren’t going to be able to decipher. The hostess greeted you two with a bow and immediately sat both you and Sukuna in a booth that was public enough to put you close to the kitchens where you could see the chefs cook and create the meals that other patrons ordered, but private enough to where you could have your own conversations without the fear of others eavesdropping in on them, and the lighting dim enough to where no one else could truly see you unless they were actually stood at the edge of your table.

“So? What do you think?” Sukuna asked, the smug smirk having really never left his face since the departure from the train car.

“Of the restaurant? It’s nice. It seems fancy, all things considered,” you murmured, as you took out your phone to scan the QR code that pulled up the menu, only to be sorely disappointed to see that there were no English translations available for the food descriptions, and that it was all in katakana. “God dammit,” you muttered under your breath.

Sukuna noticed your distress. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not very good at reading the Japanese alphabet,” you muttered. “And there’s no English translations available on this menu for me to figure out what I want.”

“Let me help you out, then.” He waved an open palm towards you so he could look at the menu with you.

You turned your phone to Sukuna, sharing the screen between you and him. His eyes scan the options that are listed. “What kind of ramen do you like? Are you a miso girl? Seafood girl? Cold noodle broth? Or do you like spicy ramen?” His eyes glanced at you as he listed your options.

“Um… spicy ramen is fine.”

“You want spicy ramen? You tryin’ to be adventurous today?”

“What do you mean? I like spicy food,” you protested.

“You like spicy food, but you can’t tolerate it. And besides, this is the kind of ramen spot where when they say a particular dish is spicy, they actually mean it.”

You sat up a bit higher in your seat, slightly offended by his observation. “How do you know what I can and can’t tolerate?”

Sukuna snorted. “Did you forget that I was there when Satoru dared you to eat the hottest spice level at that Korean fried chicken place we all went to once? You were practically dying while Kento, Shoko, and I practically had to raid that convenience store that was next door to get you milk products and ice cream to help alleviate your pain.”

“Maybe I’m trying to expand my palate and build up on my spice tolerance,” you rebuked, your eyes glancing off to the side as subtle embarrassment made its way to the forefront of your mind as you reminisced on that moment.

He leaned forward, his brown eyes intensely focused on your face. Even if you weren’t directly looking at him, you most certainly could feel it. “You really want to take this night as an opportunity to do that?”

“... I’ll have miso ramen…”

“Good girl.”

At the mention of being called ‘good girl’, the heat returned to your cheeks tenfold and the flusterment hit you like a freight train all over again.

The server approached your table to get your orders input into the kitchen. Sukuna ordered for both you and him, speaking in a fast paced dialect that you couldn’t keep up with. You could make out some words, but the rest of it all jumbled together. The server bowed, and swiftly turned away and returned to the back of the kitchen.

“I got you water to drink, if that’s alright with you?” he asked, as he leaned back into his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

“That’s fine.”

A small silence settled between the two of you before you decided to bite the bullet and start asking your date some questions.

You started off small. “You have tattoos… right?”

Another smirk formed and he nodded his head once. “I do, in fact, yes.”

“May I ask what they are?”

He reached down and pulled up the sleeves of his jacket to reveal two black rings around both of his wrists. “You may or may not have seen these before. I know that I typically wear long sleeves around you whenever we’re out and about doing something with the rest of the group,” he mused. “Can’t fuckin’ stand the shit that this hellscape society thinks that I’m goddamn yakuza just because I have tattoos.” He pulled his sleeves down again and then reached up to pull at the collar of his shirt to reveal two thickened lines that were bilaterally placed on both sides of his shoulders. “And then these two lines start at my pectorals and then go all the way up past my shoulders and down my back.” He released his shirt and let his hands rest on the table, mere inches from yours. “I’ve got more I could show you, but then I would have to undress myself in order to do that,” he chuckled.

A giggle escaped you. “Do they have any significant meaning or are they just because they look cool?”

He shook his head. “In a way, yeah. I mean, they are supposed to represent the brandings that criminals would receive in pre-Edo Japan, but I like how simplistic they are.”

Your head slightly cocked to the side. “Why did you want to get the brandings of pre-Edo criminals on your body?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to get the brandings of pre-Edo criminals on my body?” He shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms again. A thoughtful look crossed his face as he decided to change the subject of conversation. “Will you be around during the summer season?”

“I’m not entirely too sure,” you answered, folding your hands together on the table, resting them there. “I’d have to see what my visa would allow for me considering that the school semester would be over and that’s really the only reason why I’m allowed in this country to begin with. Why?”

“The group and I like to visit private onsens up in the mountains during the summer season. Can’t really do the public ones because of the tattoos, ya know? It’s also matsuri season, too. I figured that you might wanna stick around for that and experience it, too.”

A smile formed on your face as you thought of the future prospect of experiencing a summer festival with the group of people that had so graciously accepted you into their circle. “I’d like that.”

“I figured that you would. I remember you talking to Shoko and Suguru about how you always wanted to attend both the Gion and Sanno matsuri festivals.”

You squint your eyes at him, surprised. “Wait, how did you know that? I said that ages ago…”

“Call it a photographic memory, brat.”

“Oh, yeah?” A wisenheimer grin formed, as you sized him up, ready to have him put his money where his mouth was. “What else have I said, done, or did that you can remember, you wannabe Savant?”

“Oh, where does one begin with you?” Sukuna sighed, rubbing his chin as he looked up to the ceiling as he racked his brain to carefully answer your question. “Well, for starters: you just told me that you prefer to wear your contact lenses over your glasses–which, to be frank with you, I find to be incredibly ridiculous as I think you’re very cute either way. I also remember you saying that you prefer to dress a bit on the formal masculine side when you go out–very chic, by the way–but really you would rather stay inside and indoors than go out and wear comfortable clothing. Baggy t-shirts and sweatpants, I’m assuming? What else…? Oh! I also remember you saying that you like to sing, but you wouldn’t do it when we all went to karaoke–which, I’m going to assume is because you either don’t feel comfortable singing in Japanese or because you have stage fright and don’t like singing and putting a performance in front of others, either or are plausible–but I have heard you hum before. You hummed the melody to Howl’s Moving Castle, which makes sense considering the fact that you’ve said that you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli films; your favorites being Howl’s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises. I’ve also noticed that you don’t like grand, extravagant gestures–basically anything that Satoru does for you–but you do have a soft spot for much smaller, and intimate ones; ones that are well thought-out and take careful consideration for you and what you want.” His eyes drifted down from the ceiling to meet yours once again. “...How am I doing so far?”

The grin slowly but surely faded from your face the more and more that Sukuna went on with his answer and it became abundantly clear to you what Shoko was talking about earlier, saying that Sukuna liked you a bit more than he initially let on. He paid attention to you, from the most macroscopic level to the most microscopic detail that you have offered him, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally. This man quite literally just read you like you were an open book, from the first page to the last. What had him so intrigued about you, you had no idea.

You were stunned.

His smirk deepened the more he looked at you and the more that your silence filled the table. “What? No witty remarks? Cat got your tongue?”

“No–I mean, yes, I just…”

“At a loss for words at how much I’ve noticed?”

You dry swallowed. “Yeah… I guess that’s it.”

Your server approached the table, setting the drinks and bowls of ramen in front of you. They promptly bowed, telling both you and Sukuna to enjoy the meal that the chefs prepared for you. Sukuna reached into the circular tin at the edge of the table that stored the chopsticks, grabbing two packages. He ripped the packaging off of yours and effortlessly broke the sticks apart, before handing them over to you.

You positioned the sticks in your hand, ready to dig in just before you heard a chiding: “Ah, ah, ah.” You glanced up to see Sukuna looking at you with a disapproving look on his face, his palms pressed together at the front of his chest.

“Oh, right. My mistake.” You set your chopsticks down to the side of the bowl and mimicked his position, pressing your hands together at the center of your chest.

“Itadakimasu!” you both chanted, your voices blending together as you bowed both of your heads together simultaneously.

“Ladies first.” Sukuna gestured to your bowl, giving you to go ahead to start eating before him, even though you were fairly certain that he was older than you. You didn’t question it.

“What did you order, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Sapporo ramen. Felt like it would do me some good on this winter night,” he replied, before swigging down several gulps of the tall pitcher of beer that he ordered as his drink. “Go ahead and eat. Let me know how the miso dish is, yeah?”

You nodded, using your chopsticks to break the dish and stir the contents around your bowl.

Uncertainty began to churn in Sukuna’s abdomen as he looked at you, noticing that you weren’t really looking at him… or talking to him; like all of the other interactions that you’ve had with him prior. He hated feeling like this–like he needed to be walking on eggshells around you. “I haven’t… made you uncomfortable, have I?”

The question caught you off guard, making you look up at him from your bowl to see his eyebrows furrowed as he gazed upon you with a somewhat concerned expression. “N-no. I promise you haven’t.”

He let out another low hum, his chopsticks twirling around in his fingers like it was a skilled craft that he had learned at the dinner table as a young child and had perfected the motions throughout his years. “Can I ask you a question, then?”

You mutely nodded; the aroma of the ramen bowl reached your nose, nearly causing your mouth to salivate.

“Did you not like me when we first met?” he asked, officially throwing all caution to the wind, fighting through the embarrassment and self-consciousness that began to plague him. “You never really chose to interact with me unless you absolutely had to, always choosing to go with either Shoko, Satoru, Suguru, or Kento.” God, he felt like such a little kid asking this question. He could feel his cheeks heat up, his face beginning to flush red, but he was choosing to attribute that to the alcohol that he had consumed, rather than his own emotional state of being.

If it was with anyone–legitimately, anyone–else, he wouldn’t have cared if they liked him or not; why were you suddenly the exception to his own ego and self esteem?

“I feel like I should be asking you that.”

Now it was his turn to be caught off guard. “What?”

“You kind of did the same thing, too…” you sheepishly replied. “You never really interacted with me, either. Plus, I found you to be quite…” You hesitated to say the next word, afraid that you might insult him.

“Found me to be quite… what?” Sukuna prompted; he honestly wanted to know what you were thinking.

“Okay, don’t be mad at me when I tell you this, but I always found you to be…” if there was ever a time to be honest, now was the time to do it, “...unnerving.”

“Oh.”

You hated his one word answer; he seemed dejected at the most minute level that you were able to detect and you absolutely despised the possibility that you might be the cause of it. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.”

“No, I’m not upset–I just don’t know why I expected anything different, to be honest.”

You internally cringed at his answer, knowing that, in some way, shape, or form, he was indirectly calling you out for your behavior towards him; you realized that you hadn’t been very fair to him, much like had anything or anyone else was in his life. It unsettled you to know that, in a way, you somewhat contributed to judgment, much like the rest of Japanese society had done to him.

You knew better than that.

“I’m really not upset. Honest. Please don’t think that I am,” Sukuna uttered, noticing your internal monologue play out on your face. He set down his chopsticks on the hashioki that was beside his bowl and grabbed your hand, trying to convey his sincerity to you. You looked down and saw that his hand completely enveloped yours, his lightened skin tone contrasting yours. “Listen, I know that I don’t exactly give people a warm, fuzzy appearance when they first meet me. Plus, the reason that the others continue to hang around me is because we’ve known eachother since early childhood–they’ve known me and have dealt with my bullshit for the longest time; I should have known better when it came to meeting you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t make much more of an effort.” He gingerly squeezed your hand, his thumb slowly swiping along the ridges of your knuckles.

“Maybe we’re just both failures at being sociable,” you dryly chuckled, trying to add some humor to the somber moment.

Sukuna snorted. “Maybe we are.”

The entire dinner was dealt with in a comfortable silence that settled between the two of you as you both ate your meals together. The discomfort and anxiousness that you initially felt at the start of your outing was long gone, finding yourself to be a bit more at ease with your dinner companion. It also helped that the meals that you both ordered were absolutely delicious, the broth from your ramen filling you with a warmth that you knew was going to last you throughout the night. When it came time to pay for your meals, you attempted to reach for your wallet, but Sukuna was much quicker with the money than you were, giving you that same disapproving look that he gave you at the start of your meal.

As soon as you both stepped outside of the restaurant, the winter air assaulted you once again, making a shiver rip through your entire trunk, rattling you to your core.

Sukuna immediately noticed this. “Are you cold?”

“A bit,” you answered, wrapping your arms around yourself in order to preserve what little warmth your body could conserve.

Without hesitation, Sukuna shrugged off his coat, placing it around your shoulders, making you do a double take at him. “Won’t you be cold?” you asked, concerned.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he cooly responded, trying to fight off a laugh that bubbled in his abdomen at how you were practically drowning in his coat. “You drink enough alcohol and eventually it’ll keep you warm. Plus,” he grabbed the collar of his coat, pulling it tighter around you so that it hugged your body a bit more snugly, “if I do get sick, you can always take care of me and nurse me back to peak physical health.”

You barked out a laugh. “I think you’ll be sorely disappointed at how badly I play nurse.”

“Please. I’m sure you’re a lot better than you think you are,” he said, wrapping an arm around you, tugging your body into his side, his hand rubbing up and down your arm to try and create friction based warmth for you. “Besides, you can’t be any worse than Satoru is. I got food poisoning once from 7-Eleven sushi that must have gone bad on the shelf, and I asked him to get me some clear broth, something that would be easy for me to digest after being violently sick for god knows how long–the man decided to get me a full scale meal from McDonald’s instead. He’s like a child that has the shortest attention span, I swear.”

Sukuna began walking you forward, you assumed back to the train station so that he could take you back to your dorm where you knew Shoko would be waiting for you. You passed an alleyway where you could see an entryway to a little night market had been set up when it previously hadn’t been before.

“Hey, do you wanna see what that’s all about?” you ventured, craning your head to look up at him. You weren’t entirely too sure if you wanted your date to be done and over with just quite yet.

“Sure, why not.”

He turned the both of you down that alleyway, where you passed a bunch of stalls and minishops that were selling various goods and services in preparation for the upcoming holiday season. You maneuvered your way out of his grip, feeling unbearably hot as Sukuna’s body heat began to seep through both yours and his coats. “I think I’m warm enough now,” you murmured, putting a bit of distance between you two, but still stuck close to him.

You both approached a little art section where people were paired off, one person sat in a posed position while the other faced them in the other direction and attempted to draw them.

“Come on. I wanna draw you,” Sukuna declared, pulling you towards the festivities.

“Like one of your French girls?”

“Ha.” He robotically laughed, finding the reference in poor taste. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

He grabbed your hand and led you to an open seat at the very far end, where there another seat had a selection of paper on an easel and a variety of pencils and markers available.

“Since when do you draw?” you asked, taking the seat opposite of where Sukuna was sitting.

“Brat, I’ve been drawing. You just never really bothered to ask in the first place,” he retorted, shooting you a playful smile. “I just recently took an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop that’s not too far from the university campus and I’ve been needing to work on my portrait skills, anyways. Now–” he grabbed the easel, placing it in front of him and selected the desired lead grades for the pencils that he wanted to use after careful consideration, “–turn your chest slightly to the side, but still keep your eyes on me.”

You followed his instructions, and held the position to the best of your ability, watching as Sukuna got to work. You don’t know how long you sat there for, but you observed Sukuna in his element, staring him down as he continuously glanced to you and away from you; though you couldn’t see what he was illustrating, you could see his hand that expertly gripped the pencil in between his fingers, fly across the paper. The cold, winter air continued to bite at your exposed skin, making your body want to shiver in retaliation to the elements, but you did your best to remain as still as possible, wanting to be a good muse for your artist.

“Have you always wanted to be a tattoo artist?” you wondered, holding steadfast to your stationary position.

He silently nodded, but his gaze was still focused upon his canvas; his eyes were strict with the attention to detail that he was placing upon the paper in front of him. “Wasn’t good enough for university, but I was always pretty good at crafting art and drawing random shit when I was a kid growing up. Figured I could make a career out of it.”

“What would you want to specialize in?”

He glanced up to you, shading in several more patches in between the lines. “Black and gray realism.”

“Yeah? Why is that?”

“You know, for someone that’s supposed to be a statue right now, you certainly are asking a lot of questions,” Sukuna teased, as he fought off a smile from forming on his face. “But, to answer your question, I like the attention to detail that that style requires. Now, no more questions, or talking in general–I’m almost done.”

Five minutes later. “Aaaannnnd, done!” he announced, carefully taking the paper off the easel as he set the pencils off to the side.

“Let me see it!” you said excitedly, jumping off the chair, eagerly making your way over to him so you could see what he drew for you.

“Nope,” he responded, his lips popping on the ‘P’. He held the paper above your head and carefully folded the paper so that he could tuck it away in the back pocket of the jeans that he was wearing. “I’ll give it to you when you get back to your dorm.”

“What? I just sat here for like twenty five, thirty minutes and you’re not even gonna let me see the final product? Rude.”

He chuckled once again, “I’m not saying ‘no’, brat. I’m simply saying ‘not right now’.”

“You’re still calling me that? How would you like it if I called you Kuna-Tuna?”

He reached up and ruffled the top of your hair, threading his fingers into the strands of your dark, brown hair. “Affectionately, of course. Plus, there’s a stark difference with that nickname coming from you versus Satoru and Suguru.” He sighed, ascertaining how late it was and that he needed to get you back to your dorm before the subways would shut down for the night. “I need to get you back to your dorm. It’s already late and I don’t want to pay the inflated rates for a taxi.”

“Oh. Right.” That one simple sentence brought you back down to reality, and you could feel a slight sadness begin to take hold in your chest. You didn’t want this night to end; you actually ended up having a lot more fun than you initially thought that you would, and your relationship with Sukuna was no longer on the rocks. You could actually see yourself becoming a lot closer with him if things continued to progress the way that they were after this.

“Hey, don’t look so down,” Sukuna spoke softly to you, his voice taking on a tender edge that you’ve never heard from him before. “After exams, you’ve got winter break, yeah? We’ve got plenty of time before that, and then some after. I figured I could take you to the Ghibli museum, if you’re not going back home, that is.” He looked unsure as he said that, hoping that you would prove him wrong and still be in Japan over the break.

“Like… as another date? Just the two of us?” you questioned, your eyebrow raising slightly.

“If… if you’ll have me, that is.”

You enjoyed seeing him flustered. It was a nice change of pace to the arrogant, smug facade that he always bared to the rest of society. You reached up and playfully, but gently punched him in his left pectoral muscle with a closed fist. “I’ll always have you, Kuna-Tuna.”

You shrugged off his jacket, handing it back to him before you two made the journey back to the train station. Just as you got back to the main street, you were about to walk on the outside, closest to the edge of traffic before Sukuna tugged on your coat sleeve, making you trade places with him so that he would be on the edge of the sidewalk, rather than yourself. When you got to the station, waiting for the car that would take you back to campus, a group of drunk, rowdy salarymen got too close for comfort for both you and Sukuna. Being the guard dog that Sukuna was, he pulled you tighter into his side and shot the men several glares that would have decimated them if looks could kill–strongly implying to them that they should keep their distance if they knew any better. Thankfully, even through their inebriated stupor, they took the hint and ventured to the far side of the station, keeping their distance from both you and Sukuna.

Once on the train, it was just you and several other passengers that were evenly spaced out in the car; a complete contrast to when you first rode the train to the ramen restaurant. You both sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company for the current time being. From your peripheral vision, you continued to observe him some more. His head was leaned back up against the car window, his eyes were closed–to some, it would indicate that he was asleep, but you knew that he was just resting his eyes. His Adam's apple was prominent from the way that his head extended backwards, and–

“You’re staring at me again, brat.”

“Your eyes aren’t even open, how the hell can you tell?!” you demanded.

“Call it a sixth sense. I’ve gotten really good at detecting when people stare at me.” Sukuna cracked an eye open, looking at you from the corner of it as a half hearted smile began to form.

“Oh, of course you have,” you muttered, turning to your head to face forward so you were no longer looking at him anymore.

He let out another boisterous laugh at your remark, leaning forward as he did. The other passengers glared at him, finding it rather annoying that Sukuna was disturbing their peace. He could have cared less in that moment, paying them no mind.

It wasn’t long before the two of you were standing in front of your dormitory building. You took several steps up the staircase that led to the front entrance, before you turned to face him, now standing eye level with him. You placed out an expectant hand, your palm facing upwards. “May I have my drawing now, please?”

Sukuna reached into his back pocket, placing the folded piece of paper in your hand. “Here you are, like I promised,” he said. He raised his eyes to meet yours. “You know, for what it’s worth, I’m glad that Satoru, Suguru, and Kento dragged me out to meet you tonight.”

You giggled at that. “I’m glad I didn’t put up much of a fight with Shoko… it’s not like I would have won, to begin with.” You glanced down at the piece of paper, before glancing back up to meet his eyes once again. “I had a good time tonight. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And, for what it’s worth,” you said, reiterating Sukuna’s words back to him, “I’m glad I got to know you a bit better.”

A red tint colored his cheeks for the nth time that night. “Yeah?”

You nodded, a small smile formed. “Yeah.”

A beat of silence passed between you two before he asked you, “Can I try something?”

You looked at him, questionably. “What is it?”

Sukuna took a step forward onto the first stair on the staircase, placing him at a higher height than you so you were no longer eye level with him. He reached towards you with a single hand, tenderly placing it on the side of your neck. He paused for several moments, gauging your reaction to see if you had any objection, to which you had none, before pulling you forward so that he could gently place a kiss to the crown of your hairline. Your breath hitched in your throat at the feeling of his lips on your forehead, but you remained still, basking in the physical affection that he wanted to give you. It only lasted for several seconds before he pulled his lips away and took his hand off your neck and stepped backwards off the first stair, so that you were eye level with him again.

“Have a good night, Y/N-chan. I’ll see you at the next group meetup, yeah?” Sukuna said, taking several steps backwards, but still maintaining eye contact with you. He reached up with one of his hands to rub at the back of his neck.

“Y-yeah. I’ll see you,” you stammered, your eyes locked on his retreating figure.

“Good. Get some sleep, yeah?”

“Y…you, too.”

Sukuna chuckled for the last time that night before he turned away from you, facing the other way so he could begin the venture back to his home.

You stumbled up the stairs, nearly tripping over your feet as you did, inputting the code into the locked door before it granted you access back into the dorms.

You unfolded the piece of paper to see the portrait that Sukuna had drawn for you and your breath caught in your throat when you first looked at it. There was such careful detail in what he had sketched out for you. From the way that he had shaded in your skin tone, to the meticulous line work that he had done for your face, specifically around your eyes, nose, and lips. He had drawn your hair to where it gently cascaded down your back, and wisps of stray strands softly wrapped around your face. To you, this sketch had felt like this was something that he had done with his heart and soul, rather than as a heat-of-the-moment thing to do simply because it was there. In this drawing, there was a gentleness and a tenderness that you felt like it couldn’t be replicated if he had tried to do it with someone else.

He sketched you so beautifully in this; it was as if he had perfected his craft when it came to you. Had he done this in his spare time before? Was this truly how he saw you and interpreted you and your existence?

You turned to look through the window on the door to see Sukuna’s body frame get smaller and smaller the more that he walked away from you and put more distance between himself and the girls dormitories.

Sukuna Ryomen was a man who was not good with his words; his actions, however, were far louder.

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aaroleswapau · 1 year ago

Note

Do you have a pearl design?

sure do! as you all can probably tell, these are very old pftt, here's some doodles of her way back then :0]

copypasting from my old replies on twt LOL:

pearl's set up to be another prosecutor like her ma, she's still a very sweet girl but she is very antagonistic towards miles and franziska bc they're going against prosecutor maya, who she still loves very much and idolizes.

i thought it would interesting if she served as an angry little force to be reckoned with during investigations instead of being helpful in what would be considered jfa in the swap au

she does grow a lot more chiller once she grows up pftt

also, kind of been thinking of pearls and simon friendshipisms bc when i was like doing an age table of all the swap au characters in excel, i realized that they'd be the same age which is WILD lol (i mean athena and pearl are the same age too so i should've seen it coming, but still!! wild!!!)

in my heart of hearts, pearl and simon are some flavor of aroace and whatever pearl wants to do with anybody's love life doing is going to be a disaster ASKSKS sorry queen </3

#get simon out of the blind date pearl devised for him please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#den's aa roleswap au #ace attorney #pearl fey #aa swap au art #aa swap au asks #im feeling impulsive so thats why im answering asks whoops dghj #sorry gusy . i cannot control what i can do most of the time orz <- adhd

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hbyrde36 · 10 months ago

Text

Inspired by this TikTok

I wrote this instead of everything else I should be working on, enjoy! 😂

Rating: G | WC: 2494 | AO3

Eddie took a deep breath, preparing himself mentally for the night ahead as he walked up the street towards the place he was supposed to meet his blind date.

He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this, but it wasn’t like he was having any luck finding love on his own.

After several failed long-term relationships with fuckboys that weren’t worth his time and heartache, who ran the second things got real, he joined the apps—quickly realizing that most of the guys he found on there were only looking for sex. Which was fun and all, but Eddie wanted more.

He was looking for romance, a spark, someone he could see spending his life with, who was also looking for a partner. Someone who wasn’t allergic to commitment.

So, he’d quit the apps.

And when Chrissy told him she had a guy she wanted him to meet he figured, fuck it, he’d tried everything else.

Steve Harrington.

He was a friend of Robin’s, Chrissy’s new girlfriend who Eddie hadn’t had the chance to meet yet, but apparently the three of them had gotten together last weekend, and now Chrissy was convinced the man and Eddie were perfect for each other.

“On the surface it’s giving opposites attract,” she’d said, “but under the carefully styled hair and button down shirts, Steve is not at all what you’d expect. He’s kind, funny, a little weird, and way different than the guys you usually go for—but in the best way. Just give it a chance. I promise at the very least you’ll have a good time and maybe make a friend.”

Eddie wasn’t so sure that’d be the case, but he was here, willing to give it a go, and he had a trick up his sleeve. A little idea he’d stolen from a TikTok video that had, so far, a 100% success rate for exposing duds.

He reached his destination and pushed open the door, entering the warm dimly lit restaurant, and before he’d even reached the hostess stand noticed a man rising from his seat, smiling and waving—waving at him.

And oh, oh Chrissy had better count her days because Eddie was going to fucking kill her. Steve, assuming this was the guy, was quite literally the hottest man he’d ever seen in real life.

She couldn't warn a guy?

Eddie raised his hand, absently returning the wave as he continued to stare a little dumbstruck at his date.

Get it together, Munson.

Mercifully, Eddie was able to snap out of it enough to put one foot in front of the other again and make his way over to their booth.

There was an awkward moment where Steve couldn’t seem to make up his mind between shaking Eddie’s hand, or hugging him in greeting.

Honestly Eddie wasn’t sure of the protocol either since it was his first blind date. He supposed this was to be expected. Not only were they about to embark upon the supremely awkward adventure that was every first date ever, but they were also meeting for the very first time having never seen or spoken to each other before.

In the end it became one of those half-and-half bro hugs with the little pat on the back, before they took their seats opposite one another.

Steve was the first to break the silence. “It’s good to meet you, Chrissy told me a lot about you.”

“Wish I could say the same.” Eddie muttered under his breath.

“Oh, um.”

“Sorry, it’s—I didn’t mean,” Eddie shook his head at himself. “Ignore me.”

“No, I'm sorry.” Steve raked a hand over his face. “It’s weird right? This is weird. I tried to tell Robin—I mean, who even goes on blind dates anymore!”

It surprised a laugh out of Eddie that he couldn’t have held back if he tried. He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late.

Great job, Munson, laugh at the guy—great way to make a first impression.

But then Steve was cracking a little lopsided smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling ever-so-slightly with it. He didn’t seem offended, or mad.

Fuck.

He wasn’t just dangerously hot, he was cute too.

Eddie tugged lightly on his shirt collar, and cleared his throat. “It’s a little weird, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

Their server chose that moment to arrive and introduce herself, taking their drink order—some local craft beer Eddie had never heard of for Steve, a Jack and coke for himself—and Eddie used the temporary distraction to try and regain some composure. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t already hoping this would go somewhere, that Steve would be different from all the others.

But when the server had gone and it was just the two of them again, Steve opened his mouth and Eddie instantly flashed back to every bad first date he’d been on.

“So, what’s your favorite—”

Steve hadn’t even finished asking his first question before Eddie was interrupting, raising a hand to tick off each response on his fingers as he went.

“Black, metal, D&D, the 1999 cinematic masterpiece The Mummy starring our lord and savior Brendan Fraser, The Silmarillion, cheeseburgers, Halloween, aaaaand—a dog.”

Steve blinked at him. “...What?”

“My favorite color, genre of music, hobby, movie, book, food, holiday, and of course the classic—if I could be any animal, what animal would I be and why?”

Eddie let his hand fall to the table with a soft thud. “Dog—hands down. And I know I look more like someone who’d say black cat or something like that, but I enjoy attention and physical affection far too much to be an aloof feline. Shaggy lovable mutt seems way more my speed.”

By the end of his speech, Steve was grinning from ear to ear, nodding in understanding.

Eddie gave half a shrug, blushing a bit under the full force of Steve’s dazzling smile. “Thought I'd save us some time and speed-run the same old, same old.”

A moment later their drinks arrived and they both sat up a little straighter reflexively as the server set each glass down on cocktail napkins in front of them before scurrying off.

They’d been leaning in towards each other without even realizing, it seemed. It was Steve’s turn to blush now, Eddie noted with delight as he raised his glass to his lips, grateful to have something to do with his hands.

“I take it you’ve been on a lot of first dates?” Steve asked, taking a long sip from his own drink.

“A few.” Eddie said, tilting his cup to swirl the ice around. “You?”

Steve made a waffling motion with his head. “A few.”

Eddie took another sizable swig from his glass, focusing for a moment on the burn of the whiskey and the tingle of soda bubbles in his throat as he swallowed, and carefully set his cup down on the table between them. It was almost empty already—should have asked for a double.

“Okay, my turn, “ he said.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You wanna know my favorite color?”

“No, there’ll be plenty of time to find that out later.”

“Presumptuous of you.”

Eddie hummed noncommittally. “More… hopeful.”

Steve let out a breathy laugh. “Alright, what do you want to know?”

Here goes nothing—

“What would you do if we moved in together and I started seeing ghosts and told you that our house was haunted?”

Steve tilted his head to the side, giving Eddie that soft crooked smile again, and damn if it wasn’t becoming one of Eddie’s favorite things. Can you be obsessed with something you’ve only seen twice?

Steve was quiet for a long moment, nearly draining his beer as he thought it over, but eventually set his own drink down beside Eddie’s and looked him dead in the eye. “Is it a nice ghost or a scary ghost? Are we talking banging on walls and rearranging furniture at 3am? Or a cold yet comforting presence in the corner.”

Eddie put on a show of thinking about it, rubbing his chin and staring off into space as he tried desperately to contain his excitement. He’d never had the question go over this well before.

Then their server was back, asking if they wanted another round—yes, of course—and if they were ready to order. They hadn’t even cracked open their menus yet, too distracted with talking.

“Do you know what you want?” Steve asked him.

Eddie swallowed hard.

You.

“I-I’m not picky. Order for me? Chrissy said you come here a lot so I’m sure you know what’s good.”

Without hesitation Steve ordered them a burger each, and a plate of some sort of fancy fries to share, apparently they had the best fries.

It hadn’t been another test, honest. Eddie really didn’t care what he ate, this was already turning out to be his best date in far too long—and It could have been a coincidence, maybe Steve ordered burgers there all the time, but Eddie chose to believe it meant Steve had been listening. Test or not, he’d passed with flying colors.

When they were alone again Eddie smoothed his hands along the table, drawing invisible patterns with his fingers and finally answered Steve’s question.

“Let’s go with scary ghost, but remember you have no proof, you haven't seen it with your own eyes, just my word.”

Steve waved him off as if that was inconsequential, upending his glass to get the last dregs of the beer, and wiping his lips on the back of his hand.

“Okay, well then it depends on how hands on you want to be. We could consult WitchTok, try and cleanse the house ourselves, ask the spirit to leave, that kinda thing. Or maybe find a priest who’d be willing to help us out? That might be a little more difficult since the church isn’t usually our biggest fans, but I could deal with a little homophobia to make sure you were happy and comfortable in our home.”

Eddie’s stomach flipped, heart beginning to race. He wasn’t surprised exactly, Steve had been blowing past his expectations at every turn already, but there was no more perfect answer to his admittedly insane first date question.

So naturally, he had to push.

“What if I wanted to move?”

Steve shrugged. “Then we’d move.”

Eddie stared at him incredulously. Steve said it like it was nothing, like uprooting his entire life for some crazy shit was akin to changing his socks. This was all hypothetical, Eddie knew that, and Steve could just be telling him what he wanted to hear, but Eddie had a feeling he was telling the absolute truth

“But we’d be out, at minimum, a month’s rent and security deposit, and what if the landlord won’t let us out of the lease?!” Eddie threw his hands up, suddenly taking his own game much too seriously. “Or godforbid we’d bought the place, then we’d have to sell it and all our money would be tied up in it, and—”

Steve reached out and took Eddie’s hands with his own, gently stroking his thumbs along the back of them. “Baby—baby it’s okay. No amount of money would be worth you feeling unsafe.”

And Eddie was simply going to pass away, because what the fuck—how was this man so perfect?

“Why—how are you single?”

Steve flashed a sad, self deprecating smile. “I’ve been told I can be a little… intense.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Well, historically speaking…”

Eddie leaned over the table, pressing a kiss to the back of Steve’s hand. “I happen to like intense.”

Steve sucked in a breath, cheeks flushing again with the most glorious shade of pink. “Good to know.”

They stayed hand in hand talking for a long time, taking turns asking each other the most random questions they could think of.

“Favorite episode of The Twilight Zone?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, easy. I don’t know the name of it but it’s the one where the kid is lost and her parents can hear her in the house panicking, but they can’t see her?”

Eddie nodded his approval. “Little Girl Lost, good choice.” God he was falling more in love by the second.

“Favorite Abba song.” Steve countered.

Eddie grinned. “How do you know I even have one? Mean scary metalhead like me.”

Steve rolled his eyes, and shot him a look that clearly stated he found Eddie neither mean or scary. “Everybody likes Abba.”

“Well played.” Eddie bit at his bottom lip. He felt like a teenager with his first crush all over again. “Fine—while Dancing Queen holds a special place in my heart, and maybe this makes me a gay cliche, but Gimme, Gimme, Gimme fucking slaps.”

It went on and on like that until eventually their food arrived, forcing them to separate. They still spoke as they finished their meal, and settled their tab, but Eddie missed the warmth of Steve’s hand in his already.

He suddenly understood why some couples chose to sit together on the same side of a booth. He’d happily look like a dork right now to have the opportunity to be pressed up against Steve’s side, to be able to slide a hand along his thigh and maybe—

“Eddie?”

Steve’s slightly raised voice found him in his daydream, snapping him out of it abruptly.

“Wha..?”

“Did I lose you there for a second?” Steve asked, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

Eddie rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. “Yeah, sorry, um—you were saying?”

“I said, I'm having a really good time, and I know we already paid the bill but I really don’t want this night to end, so—” Steve slid out of his seat and moved to stand in front of him, holding a hand out—which Eddie took immediately, of course, and let Steve pull him to his feet.

“I was wondering if you’d want to take this back to my apartment? Y’know, so we can plan a second date?” He finished with a smirk.

Jesus Christ.

Warmth shot through Eddie’s body at the implications but he found his heart skipping a beat too, because as much as Steve was teasing, Eddie knew somehow that he meant it about the second date.

He couldn’t believe his luck, Steve was everything Chrissy had made him out to be, and so much more. He was going to send her the biggest bouquet of flowers tomorrow, and maybe an edible arrangement. Were those still a thing?

Eddie leaned in, letting his lips brush along the shell of Steve’s ear as he spoke. “It’s not haunted, is it?”

Steve shivered, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and pulling their bodies flush. “No, but if you’re interested I can think of a few other ways to make you scream.”

Thanks as always to the lovely @penny00dreadful for everything😘😘😘

Permanent taglist(open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers @bookworm0690 @wonderland-girl143-blog

@goodolefashionedloverboi @themagicalari

#steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #blind date #modern au #i wrote this in just over 24 hours #do i have wips i should have been working on?#asolutely i do #but this was SO much fun #I gotta write fluff more often #💜💜💜

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flaneur001 · 28 days ago

Text

Lost and Found

A/N- This is my entry for the Valentine's Day event by the sweet @unintentionalseductress for the lovely @ravenclaw-jojo (And coincidentally my very first event <3 ) Pairing- Toji Fushiguro x F!Reader Tags- JJK Office AU, Office romance, Mutual pining, Angst with comfort, Smut, Eventual Smut, Slowest of slow burns Word count- 12.7k

The strange bit about love is, it’s a dramatic being. A flashy, attention-seeking exhibitionist, really. It doesn’t cower, when it sizzles through the briefest of a heated glance you share across a room, thinking no one noticed.

And surely, it doesn’t hide, when its remnants spill through the tears. Leaving dredges of exhausted, lingering feelings that just won't go away. They take root in your very self and cloy your insides.

This selfish thing stays venomous to the end, preening as it shatters your pride, while it walks in its glory for all to see.

For him to see.

You licked your lips, as the salt stung your wounded heart, leaving an acrid burn in its wake. Never in the time you knew him, did you ever imagine that you’d end up like this. Drenched, in the middle of the street, fists clenched at your side in a stubborn, pathetic last show of resilience.

The rain was pelting in a blur of icy water. Your sweater clung uncomfortably to your form, the water seeping through the material of your undershirt, leaving a chill to linger on your skin.

Yet, it was the frigid empty look in his eyes that made you shiver.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The weather forecast had predicted a cold albeit sunny morning, followed by a pink mellow day. Hence, You had dressed for the occasion. Subtly trying to coordinate outfits with him. You had felt confident, beautiful even, when you left your shared apartment together.

Today was meant to be special, perfect.

Memorable

So why then…

Why weren’t you surprised when he scrolled disinterestedly on his phone, as you fret over the several samples of cake lined before you?

You had kept telling yourself, over and over, that he’d come around. That it’s nothing. That you've just hit a plateau in your relationship.

Everyone goes through this right?

That it’s all in your mind, and that once you marry, things will change. You both will have something new to look forward to. To celebrate. To experience that feeling of being in love again.

A chance to revive a relationship that had concerningly declined into a dull, meaningless chore. An act. Something that you had perfected so well, that going through the motions had become second nature to you.

It was almost as if you had conditioned yourself to fill in the space left behind by him, to finish the unsaid sentences, and gotten used to feeling lonely even with him right next to you.

Learned to love him as he was. Just so he would stay.

And He did. In incomplete phases. Somedays you got all of him, A bright luminescent gaze full of love, others there’d be a crescent of a smile gifted to you, peeking through the parting smoke of cloud-misted eyes.

It was enough to sustain you through the moonless nights.

When your only other company was the glare of your phone screen, and some sappy Romantic drama that you lived through vicariously, while he dozed off peacefully without a care in the world.

What people don't realize is that learned habits are the nicer distant cousins of addictions. Not particularly harmful, but their symbiotic hold on our minds is impossible for the weak to break away from.

And you weren't struggling. Weren’t trying at all.

You didn't have many vices, but if complacency was a sin, yours was an irredeemable soul.

It was partly the reason why you had let it drag on for so long. Adult relationships were meant to be straightforward and realistic.

So what if you didn't feel that zap of butterflies in his presence, that you had only ever read about? It didn't matter if your skin never tingled whenever he touched you, made love to you.

It all boiled down to a sense of companionship, and stability. He was there, right next to you.

And that was enough. Enough to survive a lifetime.

Or so you thought.

You stood there, hapless, bewildered at the words spilling out of him.

“It was too much for me, I was suffocated”

You resisted the urge to scoff at his insensitivity, at the sheer audacity of this man.

Suffocated?

You should be saying that when you were the one pulling the weight of this ridiculously one-sided relationship.

“Your expectations kept mounting and I felt…I felt…trapped” He ground, surprisingly firm. With no ounce of gentleness to soften the blow. As if he believed every word he said.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. He drove the point home, shattering your ten-year-long relationship into a rubble of insignificance.

“You’re just so needy. I’m sorry. But I can’t do this anymore” He apologized, profusely, while being the least bit apologetic.

All those years and he couldn’t even bother to fake sincerity for you.

A loud venomous laughter escaped you, spilling out in a hysteric fury. You slid the engagement ring off your finger and flung it at his feet. Tears, rain, and the rage-filled clouds thundered, punctuating this moment that you’d probably never forget.

A million feelings wrestled up your chest, fighting to hurtle out, and all you could manage was a whisper.

A sigh of twisted relief.

“Thank you”

And unlike him, it was genuine. It was freeing. It came from a place of weird vulnerability that still saw the man and wished that he would take it all back.

That he would gather you into his arms, and say it was all a cruel joke. And then you’d go back inside and finish your cake tasting like nothing happened.

But he picked the ring from the puddle at his feet and turned around. Walking away with a wordless goodbye, like a perfect stranger on a rainy day.

And you stood there. Confused and stranded amidst your own emotions.

Love is a strange being indeed. A stupid vagabond.

For all its bravado, it still yearns. Seeking a place that it could call home.

***

The first week, it still hadn’t sunk in. You adhered to your morning routine just the way you did when you shared this apartment with him. Coffee for two. Two sets of toasts. One crispy golden, and the other a tad burnt, just the way he liked.

You cleaned every nook and laundered the clothes he had left behind. Ironed his work clothes, and restocked his favorite snacks. Didn’t watch the show you had on your wishlist for ages, because he insisted that he wanted to watch it together.

You winced as the dish slipped from your hands and shattered near your feet. In your absentminded daze, you didn’t even notice the cut left behind until it bled. Licking the wound on your finger, you swept the remaining pieces and emptied them into the trash. Another plate lost from your set.

Another broken promise brushed under the rug.

It was the second week, when the doorbell rang like a wake-up call, bringing an envelope with your share of the deposit that he had received after canceling the booking for the wedding venue.

And when the third week arrived like a grim reaper, standing outside your door in his likeness, a box in his hand, an empty suitcase, ready to collect his belongings and the soul of your dead relationship, that’s when you finally accepted it.

It was over...

So like the norm stated in the big book of breakups and galore, you donned your shoddiest pajamas, grabbed a tub of cheap ice cream, put on the angstiest of movies to drown your sorrows with, and swore not to shower, bathing in the stank of your gloom, for the rest of your eternal self imposed solitude.

“What’s the purpose of existing…” you trailed off sagely, propping your feet on the wall and laying on your back. Your eyes tracked the swirls of chipped plaster on your ceiling, imagining various images like your personal impromptu Rorschach blots.

A small sigh paired with a sharp click of tongue sounded on the other side of the speaker, and you instantly knew that you were about to get an earful.

“Shut.Up” A soft voice intoned, its edges roughened by the traces of habitual smoking. You could hear the squelch of something gooey, the sharp cuts of curious slices like incisions made on stretchy stale meat, and imagined the worst.

“Shoko, please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.” A groan escaped you, picturing your friend’s morbid amused grin.

“Don’t ask questions you can’t stand the answers to. And be grateful I’m being your personal shrink, instead of sending you to a legitimate one” She tsked, but there was no venom in her voice. Only the playful tinges that masked her actual concern.

“Look, I have said it before and I will say it again, He.Was.Not.The.Person.For.You”

She continued and you hummed along, now hugging the pillow to your chest which smelt faintly of his cologne.

Sensing the trudging reluctance in your voice, Shoko sighed, a long sigh this time.

You heard her as she put away the scalpel with a clank, removed her sodden rubber gloves with wet snap-snaps, and dragged a metal chair across the room to sit, to give you her undivided attention.

“Remember when I lived in my old apartment building?” Shoko murmured, and the sudden change in topic made you frown a little but you nodded, as if she could see you.

“Uh-huh, I do. You hated it there”

“Exactly. Because the unit had mold infestation, there was a dumpster placed right under my window, so the air was always stale and funky, my roof leaked, and to top it all off—“

“The meowing.” You finished for her, giggling at the memory of her at your door in the middle of the night, sleep-crazed and whiny, asking you to let her stay over.

“Yes. The constant shrill meowing of the next-door neighbor’s cat. He had adopted the stray right around the time I moved in. ‘Hope’, he had named her. Things weren’t bad then, she was a sweet little thing, clinging to his side day and night.” Shoko recalled, puffing out a short breath.

You closed your eyes, strangely calm as her voice rippled in waves around you. Lulling your various intrusive thoughts to sleep.

“It was when the guy moved out suddenly one night, leaving her behind while she slept outside his door, that it began. Her cries echoed through the lobby when he didn’t return. She scratched at the foot of his door, and crouched low to peek under it, wishing to catch a glimpse of him inside.

She loved him. Maddeningly so. To the point where she neglected food and water given to her by other residents. ‘Hope’, begged, bargained, and denied the truth, for days, weeks, and even a month. Right outside the closed door, engaging in some conversation that only she could hear,” Shoko paused, letting you imagine the small creature, on its futile vigil.

“And then?” You asked, half afraid of the answer.

“And then she died. Waiting for him.” She finished bluntly. Grimly. Meaningfully, as if trying to drive across a point.

“So, babe, always remember, ‘Naive hope is futile when spent knocking outside deserted doors’. When someone leaves, they have already left the moment they made the decision in their mind. Not when they put it to action.”

Her words ricocheted through your mind and settled somewhere deep inside, lingering long after she had hung up.

‘Naive hope is futile if spent knocking outside deserted doors’

Your eyes traced over the words of the email sitting on your laptop screen. It was an invitation from Zenin Corp. Your workplace was celebrating its 10th anniversary, by conducting a company-wide team-building event, somewhere on an exotic island just outside the country. Funded entirely by the CEO.

A week-long trip away from your worries. A perfect excuse to slack off and restart. And to think you were about to bail on this event. You rolled your shoulders and sat up straight, perching the laptop on your knees as you typed away.

Closing the laptop, you smiled. The first time in weeks, as you left the swampy hold of your bed and bounded towards your closet. Pulling out a suitcase, you piled in your best outfits, ready for a breeze of change. Ready, to live again.

***

Many mightier than you have fallen under the red-bottomed heel of fate.

You were nothing but a fly stuck on its windshield, as it monster-trucked all over your joke of a life, while you were forced into a reluctant front-row seat to this car crash of an experience.

If nature had decided to turn your life into a sitcom, you desperately wished to rewind and roll back to the moment last week. When you had hit the ”send” button on the email and agreed to come on this trip.

Things were good in the morning when you had arrived with your coworkers at this palatial, swanky hotel situated atop a hill—overlooking the sea, and the tropical landscape of this “nouveau hotspot for vacationing” as dubbed by the influencers online.

It was straight out of a luxury magazine. Somewhere only the crème de la crème of high society had access to. And you had felt weirdly out of place.

Nonetheless, you had decided to enjoy this little treat offered to you on a “complimentary” platter. Like hungry hawks, your coworkers descended upon the buffet, sharing excited conversations, and catching up on gossip after the lull of holidays.

It was all good. Too good in fact.

And that’s how we come to the current situation.

He was here. He was not supposed to be here.

Why the hell was he here, anyway?

The hall fell quiet, as Toji Zenin made his entrance. A crisp black shirt with the top three buttons undone, and sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Navy blue fitted slacks, and black dress shoes. To top it all off, his signature lazy smile, and that mysteriously eye-catching scar on his lips, completed the effortlessly confident aura that he exuded whenever he entered a room. Grabbing the attention and holding it captive, in his dark emerald shrewd gaze.

The CEO of Zenin Corp. In flesh. In his Six feet something, annoyingly imposing glory.

All the air was sucked out of your lungs as he casually sidled up to the General manager, grabbed a flute of champagne, and worked the room, conversing, greeting newer employees who hadn’t met him yet, and reacquainting himself with the older ones.

When it was your turn, you found yourself hastily reaching for a flute of Rosé nearby, hiding your expression behind the rim. You could feel him saunter towards you, lithely, like a panther out for a stroll, and pause. Head tilted to the side, that damn smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and those eyes. Roaming over your form slowly, sharply. Like the blade of a dagger tracing along your spine.

You sucked in a breath and cleared your throat, meeting his eyes in a show of feigned confidence.

He could tell, going by the mirth swirling in his gaze.

“Mr. Zenin”

He offered his hand, bending a little to level his gaze with yours.

“Too formal.” He corrected

You accepted his hand, biting your lip at the way it enveloped yours, in a warm comforting grip.

“Mr. Toji” You mumbled. A waver of doubt seeping into your voice.

He smiled wider, leaning in closer as he replied, with a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Too awkward”

“Toji…?” You enunciated the syllables feebly. With a question lingering in the air. One that was a coy inquiry about the current murky dynamic of theirs. He was correct in a way. Their history was too complicated to be insulted with forced formalities. Their professionalism belied a certain rapport they shared.

But where did they stand now after all this time?

He caught onto the question and answered, with an equally coy, mysterious grin lighting up his features,

“Toji. Say it again, a tad more firmly.”

“Toji.” You tipped your chin at him, and he broke into a silent chuckle, gifting you with a flash of his pointy canines, and a boyish charm that left some questionable swoops in your belly.

Satisfied with the interaction, he leaned back, letting go of your hand—but not entirely. His fingers lingered, his thumb finding the spot where your engagement ring should’ve been, tracing the lighter skin, in a quiet hidden caress of acknowledgment.

He bowed his head courteously and broke away, continuing his rounds, unaware of the way your skin burned. As if his touch had scalded and marked you. You picked up another flute, this time subtly pressing your ring finger against the cool glass, to relieve this sensation.

You could feel several eyes on you, watching with barely hidden amusement—relishing the reunion of their favorite power couple.

Your head ducked under their scrutiny, and a flush flared up your neck. His blatant familiarity bled through his actions like a wound he never let heal, scratching over the tender area anew, each time he shot her a look across the room.

She downed the drink and another, hoping to calm her frayed nerves.

This was indeed going to be a long week.

***

Something notable about being born middle class is the way you learn to walk with your feet pressed firmly to the ground.

No matter how much the blue allure of the sky beckons, you never dare dream of flight. You live with your head down, with your wings clipped, and grow up with an instilled acceptance. That your life will look similar to a lot of your peers.

You’ll study, work, study some more. Find a suitable companion, secure a steady job, marry, and live out the rest of your days in quiet predictability. A foretold story with a cliché ending.

And you did your best to stick to the plan—you grew up responsibly, studied diligently, and landed a sweet spot at Zenin Corp fresh out of college. It was a prestigious company. A conglomerate passed down from generation to generation.

Now the only thing left to do, was to slowly crawl up the corporate ladder, and save up enough to marry your longtime boyfriend.

But fate being its notorious self, threw an unexpected variable your way, blurring the preset path you were destined to follow.

Your own version of the yellow brick road.

An unforeseen, unfortunate variable called Toji Zenin.

The young disinterested heir, forcibly made to bear the weight of responsibilities, behaved like a stubborn mule. And you being your unlucky self, were set with the daunting task to assist him.

Beginning a series of events that’ll alter your life forever.

Although reluctant to admit it, Toji possessed that impeccable business prowess of the ones that came before him. He was shrewd, lethal, and unforgiving while dealing with company matters, carrying the Zenin name like a flawless burden.

His stature bore him a set of wings, allowing him to reach beyond the skies and peek at the heavens. Yet Toji preferred the mediocre simplicity. And that reflected heavily in the way he interacted with you.

He was keen, curious, and sometimes lazy, making him appear weirdly human in your eyes.

He wasn’t Toji Zenin when he was with you. He was simply Toji.

The man who could slay people with his razor-sharp negotiation skills was the same man who fumbled and flailed when it came to honing his foresight. He was brash—so incredibly impulsive—that stock trading became a task that fell directly under your supervision.

Together under your control, the company expanded by leaps and bounds. Zenin Corp experienced a success much greater than it had ever seen.

But that wasn’t all. He nudged you, poked and prodded sneakily, pushing you bit by bit outside those firm lines you had set for yourself.

You refused to dream. He fabricated them on a whim and dragged you along. Opening your tightly sealed eyes, to a world of possibilities. A vibrant colorful kaleidoscopic dream.

His world.

And somewhere along the way, you had borrowed the forbidden wings, unfurled them, and took flight. Taking a bite out of desire.

“How many times is that this week? Don’t you have any sympathy for me?” Toji leaned at the door jamb of your office and regarded you with an exaggerated frown on his lips.

“Mr. Zenin—“

“—Toji” He corrected

“Toji,” You smiled amused at his petulant behavior, “I have no say in your family matters. I’m only here to manage your schedule. And right now your schedule says that you have a blind date in thirty minutes”

“No say in my matters? Do you want me to call you out on your bullshit? Because I will. The old man is so taken with you. He respects your decisions. More than mine”

He walked in, and pulled out a chair opposite you, slumping down on it with his legs spread apart.

Oh, how you hoped that he didn’t see the flutter of a grin that threatened to break free. These days there was something abysmally wrong with you.

If not, then why were you suddenly enjoying this power given so readily to you?

Lately, your conversations with your boss ran freer. Crossing that subtle line of professionalism into something more.

Some days you would bring an extra lunch under the guise of making him eat healthier. Others you’d work overtime, bathed under the dim lights, a backdrop of cityscape shining under a canopy of stars outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in Toji’s grand office, and enjoyed an odd cup of coffee, with nothing but the rustle of documents to fill the companionable silence.

A secret solace and a stolen moment, made for a guilt-ridden cherished memory.

You knew you had a boyfriend—though he had been blowing off dates for ages. You knew that whatever this feeling was, it was nothing more than a fleeting distraction, a mere side effect of prolonged proximity.

But it didn't stop your heart from beating a mile a minute, whenever he tugged at that line you had drawn and pulled. Playing with it as he pleased.

“But, you’re forgetting something crucial.” He leaned forward with a smirk, effortlessly stealing the mug from your grasp and taking a long, shameless sip of your freshly brewed coffee.

You licked your lips, unconsciously tracking the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Something crucial…like what?” You replied, mentally kicking yourself at the way your voice came out raspy and low—as if you were parched.

Thirsty

“The fact,” he intoned, pausing for effect, “that I’m married”

“Since when?” you asked, raising a skeptical brow.

“Ha! You’re divorcing me already…my dear work wife?” he teased, a playful glint in his eyes.

So he had heard. The office was rife with rumors— whispers of speculations. Everyone seemed strangely captivated by the idea that Toji and you made a fabulous pair. The business scene was already acquainted with your combined prowess. Now, the only question that remained was—wouldn’t you be even better as an actual couple?

And so, the rumor mill churned.

…and churned, until it had reached him.

You shook your head, doing your best to ignore the pleased, almost flirtatious look he was giving you.

“Don’t joke around. You still have a blind date to attend, and I—“ Your excuse to brush him off died on your tongue when he raised a hand, cutting you off.

“—And you’re going to accompany me on a very urgent business meeting. Pronto”

His plans were all but ruined, with a single call from his grandfather. With much hemming and hawing, Toji begrudgingly changed into the emergency set of suits he kept in his office and trudged along to his nth blind date this week.

As for you, you packed your belongings and shot a quick message to your boyfriend to check-in. After months of rescheduling, you had finally managed to plan a movie date tonight.

You were excited. Eagerly looking forward to spending some quality time with your partner, hoping it would help erase this strange feeling you’d been experiencing around Toji lately.

You: Hey babe! Are we still on for that movie tonight? <3

Babe: Ohh, was that today?

Babe: I’ve unexpectedly run into some work. Overtime again. Raincheck?

You stared at the screen, disbelief creeping in. Especially when—just a moment ago—you had checked his social media.

He was out. With his friends.

Just who did he think he was, lying to your face like that?

A twinge of inexplicable sadness bubbled up your throat, threatening to spill over as tears. Swallowing hard, you swiftly locked your office, stepped into the elevator, and rushed down to the basement parking lot.

It was dark and deserted. Most of the employees had already left. You unlocked your car, ducked inside, and rested your head against the steering wheel as your quiet sniffles turned into wracking sobs.

Why did you always have to be the one to initiate things? Didn’t he care? At all?

It was in the late hours, with nothing but silence as your companion, that you felt the most like yourself—real, flawed, messy, and so unbearably lonely.

You were exhausted from giving him yet another chance. Five years. Five years of waiting, of understanding, of making excuses on his behalf.

When would he finally understand that you were a person too? That you had feelings?

Just then a tap on your window jolted you out of your crying session. You hastily reached for some tissues, dabbing at your face as you turned to look at the person who wouldn’t let you be miserable in peace.

Your eyes widened and an embarrassed flush crept up your neck when your eyes met Toji’s emerald ones.

He simply raised a brow and silently gestured for you to unlock the door. You did, and he climbed into the passenger seat—wordlessly handing you his handkerchief before reaching for the stereo to put on some mellow music.

And somehow, that small gesture undid you.

The tears spilled over, harder this time. Louder, messier, and uglier than you had ever cried before.

He didn’t ask what had made you like this. He didn’t press for answers or offer empty words of comfort.

Instead, he leaned over the console, gathering you into his warm, muscular embrace.

He smelled of pine, soft petrichor, and something unmistakably Toji. A scent that wrapped around you as he traced slow, soothing circles on your back. You mumbled incoherent complaints. Words you wouldn’t remember later, but ones he listened to anyway.

A moment passed and he pulled back.

Just enough to look at you—just enough to swipe his thumbs over your cheeks, catching the tears on the plush of them. His gaze, usually sharp and unreadable, softened as he studied you.

Amidst the sniffles and hiccuped breaths, your eyes flickered, from the warmth of his gaze to the curve of his lips. That greed, that longing, that quiet hunger that had been simmering in the pit of your stomach surged forward, untamed.

And before you could stop yourself, you leaned in ever so slightly.

A beat of silence. A strange impasse, where both your breaths mingled, curiously teetering on the edge of something neither of you could take back.

You recognized the look in his eyes. Yearning. Hunger. A deep, insatiable desire that mirrored your own.

The seconds stretched, thick with quiet contemplation, until at last…he leaned in.

His lips brushed against yours in a kiss so soft, so barely there, that it made you choke out a whimper. Such delicate treatment from a man twice your size sent your heart into a tizzy.

But before you could kiss him back, your phone rang shrilly, shattering the moment, and making you both jolt apart.

Toji cleared his throat, looking away, while you stared at your screen in haunted disbelief.

It was your boyfriend.

A cold, sinking feeling settled in your stomach.

You had a fucking boyfriend.

And you had just cheated on him.

The clock had struck twelve.

And it was time for Cinderella to head home. To leave behind her Prince Charming and pretend the fairy-tale kiss had never happened.

What happened the morning after was something neither of you could have predicted.

Toji had been prepared to clear the air. To finally address what had been simmering between you for so long.

What he hadn’t expected, however, was the gaggle of employees gathered around you, taking turns to gawk at the offensive rock now sitting on your finger.

Seems there was a first time for everything. And today, it was Toji’s turn to experience heartbreak.

Weeks passed. You quietly resigned from your position as his assistant, moving to the R&D department without a word.

Not long after, the company was left reeling from Toji’s sudden decision to relocate to their overseas branch.

His excuse was at least better than yours.

It would be a lie to say you didn’t miss him.

After all, he had given you a taste of a foolish dream and a rebellious flight.

And you had been happy being his Icarus. Melting under the warm weight of his presence, even as you fell.

***

The current situation called for drastic measures.

In lieu of the beautiful sunny weather conditions, the employees had all but postponed the team-building event, turning it into an impromptu beach outing. A day full of sunbathing, frolicking, and volleyball in the sandy stretches of this slice of heaven on earth.

Unbeknownst to them, You were experiencing your own personal nightmare, as you stepped out on the balcony of your suite, watching your coworkers enjoy the lick of salty ocean breeze, while you stood there—rethinking all your life choices.

The screeching of kids running amok with sand in their hair, and the hustle-bustle of surfers and swimmers in their vibrant swim gear, sent a nauseating shiver down your spine.

Nope, absolutely not.

The waves whirled forward kissing the shore, making your stomach churn along with them, and it was then that you decided.

You were getting out of this. By any means necessary.

And as luck would have it, the perfect excuse landed right in your lap.

During breakfast, the hotel staff announced a blind date event. Guests would draw a ticket with a number, and whoever had the matching number would be paired together for a “cute” hiking date along the scenic woodland trails surrounding the resort.

It was the perfect escape plan.

Not only would you get to avoid the beach-loving festive fiends, but you’d also successfully dodge any further interaction with Toji. Two birds, one stone.

And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, if things went well, you’d actually have something to look forward to for the rest of the week.

It started off well.

You had dressed the part—leggings, a fitted tank top, and a lightweight jacket in case the trail got chilly. Your hair was tied back, your backpack slung over one shoulder, and for once, you had approached the day with genuine optimism.

But it was premature.

Somewhere between what should have been an easy right turn and the realization that the trees all looked the same, it dawned upon you.

You were lost.

You bit the inside of your cheek as panic crawled up your spine languidly, and glanced at your phone. Zero signal. Of course. No location services, no messages, no SOS. Just your surmounting bad decisions and the steadily creeping dread that this might be the dumbest way to go out.

“Brilliant,” you muttered under your breath, shoving your phone back into your pocket.

You tried retracing your steps, sticking close to where the canopy wasn’t too thick, where the sun still managed to filter through, in golden, dappled patches.

But then, because fate was a notorious sadist, you miscalculated a step.

A loose rock, a moment of imbalance, and the next thing you knew. Pain.

Sharp, piercing, sudden pain that left your mouth agape in a soundless scream—jolted up your ankle.

You sucked in a breath, stumbling forward until you caught yourself against the rough bark of a tree, heart thumping frantically against your ribs.

Just fucking perfect.

You squeezed your eyes shut, exhaling slowly through your nose, trying to will the ache away. Trying to wrack your brain to come up with an idea. Any idea, Why the hell wasn't your mind working?!

Maybe if you just—

A rustle.

A presence.

It wasn’t loud. Just the quiet shift of movement. Your shoulders straightened your senses on high alert, catching the faintest of sounds, feeling the almost imperceptible weight of someone watching.

You turned your head sharply, and your stomach dropped.

There, leaning against a tree, arms crossed, expression unreadable was Toji.

Your pulse stuttered, a weird sense of calm encased you, when his eyes held yours.

The dappled sunlight barely reached him, but even in the shade, he was impossible to miss. Broad shoulders draped in a fitted black compression shirt, sleeves snug around his forearms, veins peeking beneath the taut skin. Dark slacks hung low on his hips, a contrast against the sturdy boots planted effortlessly against the uneven terrain.

His hair—messy, unruly in a way that somehow suited him—shifted slightly with the breeze, and when his head tilted just a fraction, the motion caught the faint scar curving against his lip. His eyes, deep, sharp, impossibly green, trailed over you.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just watched. Taking in every single inch of your body. The way you were gripping the bark, the way you were trying and failing, not to put weight on your injured foot.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he pushed off the tree and made his way toward you.

“Lost?” His voice was as smooth as ever, but there was something else beneath it. Something sharper. An almost angry pointed jab.

You straightened, as if that would somehow lessen the indignity of this situation. With feigned bravado, you shot back, mulish, “No. I just—”

His gaze flickered to your foot. Then back up, unimpressed.

“Right,” he scoffed, not bothering to hide the skepticism in his tone.

You scowled, bristling at his calm, impassive demeanor. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he crouched in front of you, his large hands wrapping around your calf. The touch was firm, steady.

You jolted, instinctively trying to pull back. “Toji—”

“Hold still,” he hissed through gritted teeth, ignoring your half-hearted protest as he pressed his fingers carefully over your ankle, studying the injury.

You swallowed, heat curling up your spine at the sheer casualness of it all. The way he handled you without hesitation as if you were something fragile, something that required care.

His touch was soft, his fingers were cold, yet it left something searing in its wake.

A beat of silence stretched between you.

His fingers slowed. His thumb brushed over the sensitive skin near your Achilles, a quiet, absentminded gesture. Then he finally spoke, in a low measured tone.

“You’re always running off without thinking, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. And a subtle nod at your shared past. A silent acknowledgement of the unmentionable incident.

He wanted you to know that he remembered.

So did you. As clear as yesterday.

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out.

He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly before standing, offering you his hand.

You eyed it. Then him. Desperately clinging onto your last bit of pride.

“I can walk,” you ground, forcing your voice to be steady.

He didn’t respond. Just waited. The guarded expression was back, save for the barest tilt of his head.

You hesitated.

A beat passed. A quiet staring match ensued. While your eyes read foolish resilience, his countered with a solid challenge. One that brooked no argument.

Finding yourself at a stalemate, you begrudgingly placed your hand in his.

His fingers curled around yours in a firm grip.

You half expected a cocky smirk or a teasing remark, but there was none.

And somehow, that made it worse.

The walk was sluggish. His hand remained around yours, firm but not forceful, a comforting touch that placated your frantically beating heart.

Your boots crunched softly against the earth, the only sounds filling the silence were the distant babble of a creek, the rhythmic drone of cicadas, and the occasional rustle of leaves.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy in flickering patches, casting shifting patterns on the forest floor.

His pace was perfect. He didn’t rush you, matching your steps with smaller measured strides.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then, finally…

“…What are you really doing here?” You murmured, breaking the quiet that had settled between you.

Toji didn’t answer right away. His grip on your hand tightened briefly as if contemplating how much he should let you know, before he exhaled.

“Tracking chip,” he said matter-of-factly.

You blinked, unsure if you heard him correctly, “What?”

He didn’t look at you, gaze still fixed ahead.

“The card you got for the blind date,” he clarified, tone soft, unhurried. “Had a tracking chip in it. For safety reasons.”

You frowned. And he sensed an argument coming so he raised his free hand, cutting you off before you spoke—

“It’s a precaution,” he continued. “So the hotel staff can locate anyone if they wander too far off the trails.”

Your brows furrowed, somehow you weren’t satisfied with his answer. Something didn’t add up.

“…So the hotel personally sent you to come find me?” You asked sharply. Pointedly.

No response.

Then, a slow, almost cocky smirk spread across his lips.

“No,” he admitted, finally glancing at you, amusement flickering behind dark green eyes. “I saw the alert and got there first.”

Your breath hitched.

Of course, he had.

This meddling, conniving, little—

You knew you would’ve eaten those words anyday. You did need his help. But you couldn't bring yourself to look past your petty grudges.

“You know, your expressions are so loud, I can almost hear them” He chuckled, bringing up a free hand to brush that strand of vibrant green away from your face.

You scoffed, yanking your hand back. “So what, you’ve taken up stalking now?”

You changed the topic, not wanting to get caught into his soft words and that beautiful beckoning gaze.

And it worked. The moment shattered.

Toji exhaled sharply, jaw ticking. “It’s called being prepared. Something you clearly weren’t.”

You bristled. “I would’ve been fine.”

He raised a sardonic brow, “You twisted your ankle on a fucking pebble.”

Your head snapped up, regaling him with a glare that could’ve burned a hole through him. “I was getting to my blind date just fine before you showed up.”

At that, his expression shifted. A flicker of irritation flashed across his features, he was unmistakably irked, but it was gone so quickly, that you wondered if you had imagined it.

“Right,” he scoffed, voice edged with a bite to it. “Because you’re so eager to throw yourself at some random idiot in hiking boots?”

Your arms flew up in exasperation. “Why do you even care?”

“I don’t,” he denied, a tad too quickly.

You narrowed your eyes. “Really? Because you’re acting pretty nosy for someone who doesn’t care.”

He paused. You knew you had done it now. Pushed him too far. Just when you were about to take back what you said—

Suddenly…out of nowhere…

“You’re such a goddamn escapist.” He whispered, low with venom coloring his voice.

And the words hit their intended mark. Direct. A low blow.

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he said, flat and steady. “You run the second shit gets too real.”

A disbelieving laugh bubbled up your throat. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You left,” he interjected. Unshaken. “You always leave.”

And somewhere deep inside you knew he was referring to that night in your car. When he had swallowed his pride, and silently held onto you. Desperately, almost begging with the way he had held your wrist. But you turned a blind eye to it all.

Even still, you opened your mouth, wanting to win this round with something equally hurtful—

Heat surged up your throat, an argument forming, but before you could fire back, his arms were suddenly around you.

Your stomach lurched as he lifted you with zero effort, one arm under your knees, the other bracing your back, pressing you against him.

“Toji—what the hell—”

“Shut. Up,” he growled, adjusting his grip as if you weighed nothing.

“For once in your life, stop fucking fighting”

You glared, oddly chastised, hands braced against his chest as you struggled in his iron grip. “Put me down.”

“No.”

You squirmed, but his hold didn’t budge. Somehow it felt tighter than before.

It was futile to argue at this point, so you gave up.

You wouldn't admit it, but you were weirdly comfortable, being held like this. His corded arms felt like a shield, cocooning you into his embrace.

The rhythmic sound of his boots crunching against the uneven terrain. The low whistles of air, sneaking past tiny gaps between rocks, and through the holes in the hollowed tree barks, made for a soothing backdrop. The creek nearby got louder, its wet slosh making you lament your sprained ankle.

If only you hadn’t been lost. You would have probably enjoyed your hike with that blind date. Stopped for a picnic near the creek. Exchanged conversations that made you bond over discovered common interests.

You let your eyes close, picturing that moment. But then…

You saw him. His unruly raven hair, moving with the gentle blow of the wind. His dark emerald eyes, as green and viridescent as the canopy of trees hanging overhead. His face, somehow even more beautiful with that scar at the corner of his mouth. And your heart missed several beats, with this sudden epiphany.

You opened your eyes and blinked at him. Taking him in fully, as he continued his walk. His peaceful expression was marred by a frown, a stern set of his jaw, as several thoughts swirled behind his head.

All this time, and it was always him.

Toji Zenin.

The reason behind your sorrows. The reason behind your smiles.

The contemplative hike came to an end, and it was then that you noticed that Toji hadn’t brought you back to the hotel. Instead, he strode up the worn concrete steps of a handsome Cabin. Something straight out of a fairy tale.

It was nestled comfortably between the trees. Its exterior was all warm wooden panels, a sloping roof, and a wraparound porch that overlooked the forest.

It was isolated in a quiet charm—dangerously inviting.

Your heart fluttered, and an anxious inquiry stuttered out of your lips.

“…This isn’t the hotel.”

Toji didn’t even glance back. He let out an exhausted sigh instead.

“Before you add kidnapping to my list of crimes, let me clarify—This is my personal Cabin. It was much nearer to the spot where I had found you. Going to the hotel would be a whole hike down, and it wasn’t possible with that ankle of yours. Tonight we’ll rest here. Tomorrow morning, I’ll call my driver, and the resort’s medical staff to look at your injury, and then we’ll leave. Any questions?” He drawled in a deadpan voice.

“No.” You paused, letting it swirl inside your mouth, kissing your teeth in an awkward stubbornness, but then with a resigned sigh, feebly added, “Thank you”

He nodded then unlocked the door with an electric tap of his keycard.

***

The water ran over your skin in hot, steady streams, pooling at your feet before swirling down the drain.

In your effort to escape the surmounting awkwardness, you had excused yourself, to hide. To bide your time, and calm your nerves.

You pressed your forehead against the cool tile and exhaled slowly.

Your ankle still ached, a dull throb pulsing beneath the warmth of the shower. But that wasn’t the real problem, was it?

No, the real problem was everything else.

You were supposed to be at the resort, on a mindless, easy blind date—exchanging pleasantries, indulging in meaningless conversation, giving yourself a distraction.

Instead, here you were.

In a forced proximity with the one man you wanted to avoid.

In a cabin, in the middle of practically nowhere, stranded with your boss of all people.

The boss that made you feel things you shouldn’t.

You squeezed your eyes shut, dragging a hand down your face.

There was no escaping him now.

Not here. Not like this.

With a deep breath, you turned the water off and braced yourself.

You stepped out, wincing as your weight shifted onto your bad ankle. Gritting your teeth through it, you limped towards the mirror, swiping a hand over the fogged glass.

Your reflection stared back. Tired and beat

You needed to get a grip.

You inhaled and exhaled. Another breath, another lingering moment, and then steeling yourself, you stepped out of the bathroom.

The first thing that your eyes caught was the white bathrobe that lay neatly folded on the bed.

You stared at it.

Touched it, almost hesitantly, fingers grazing the soft fabric before you picked it up and slipped it on, tying the sash securely around your waist.

It was Warm. Freshly laundered. A weirdly thoughtful gesture from a man who liked to pretend he didn’t care.

You could smell him on it, all pine and petrichor.

Shaking your head, you shoved that thought aside, padding towards the living room.

In your hurry to escape earlier, you hadn't let yourself savor the luxurious yet warm, welcoming interior of Toji’s cabin.

It was modest but beautiful. Wooden interiors, high ceilings. The furniture was functional, but lived-in. The couch was a deep-toned leather, a low coffee table cluttered with books, and the faint remnants of a fire still smoldered in the hearth.

But then you noticed, with a surprised start—

There was no light.

Instead, the room was bathed in the flickering glow of pine-scented candles, their flames swaying with the breeze that sneaked in through the drafts in the windows.

And Toji.

Standing by the window, lighting another one.

He had changed.

He looked impeccable, in his simple black t-shirt and loose grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips.

His hair was still wet from the shower, droplets of water rolling down his nape only to disappear somewhere in his shirt. His broad shoulders cast long shadows.

His sharp profile was illuminated by the wavering candlelight.

There was a certain allure about the sight of him—calm, steady, domestic—that made your stomach coil.

He glanced up, meeting your gaze, and you stared back, enraptured. The rain danced across the window, sliding down in swirls of beautiful tendrils colored golden by the flicker of candles inside.

Unable to take any more of this stare down, you decided to break the silence.

“You look like a cult leader,” you blurted, a pathetic attempt at easing this weird tension.

Toji blinked, then exhaled through his nose, snorting, almost amused as he replied, “You’re welcome.”

You huffed, crossing your arms. “Where’s the power?”

“Storm knocked it out,” he said, placing the lighter down. “Won’t be back till morning.”

You nodded, soaking in the information. Wouldn’t be the first time you had spent the whole night with Toji Zenin.

But then, that was when you and him had a strictly business relationship. And now, you didn’t know where you stood. And that left a certain stain of doubt, a splatter of something more, onto this pristine white pretext of a situation. You had no reason to be with him here, alone.

Yet you were. And the worst part was, he didn’t seem to mind. The proximity was welcome on his part.

Outside, the wind whistled through the trees, the rain was persistent now, tapping against the windows in slow, rhythmic beats. The storm wrapped around the cabin, folding it into its embrace, secluding it further from the world.

You pulled your robe tighter, shifting your weight as you felt the room close in on you.

Toji ran a hand through his damp hair, his gaze raked over you, too lingering to call it casual.

“This is weird,” you muttered.

He smirked. “A little.”

Another long pause. The room was surrounded by a weird vacuum of pregnant silence.

You looked everywhere but him.

While, Toji’s gaze dropped to your feet, catching you subtly shifting your weight from one to the other, he observed the way you kept adjusting your stance to avoid putting pressure on your bad ankle.

A sigh escaped him and he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Sit.”

You blinked. “What?”

“Your leg,” he said, already turning toward the kitchen. “I’ll wrap it before it swells any worse.”

You hesitated. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

You bristled. “Toji, seriously—”

But he was already grabbing a first aid kit from the cabinet, moving with that same quiet decisiveness that left no room for argument. When he turned back to you, his expression was determined and you knew you’d lost this battle before it even began.

With a reluctant sigh, you lowered yourself onto the couch.

The cushions sank beneath you as he crouched at your feet, effortlessly settling into a position that should have been uncomfortable. But, it wasn’t. Not for him.

Before you could think to stop him, his hands were on you.

Warm, big, and calloused.

His fingers skimmed over your calf, adjusting the angle of your leg. Your robe shifted with the motion, parting slightly to reveal the plush curve of your thigh.

And You saw the moment he noticed.

The slight shift in his eyes.The way his throat worked. The way his fingers tightened just a smidge, before he tore his gaze away, mouth pressing into a firm line.

Neither of you chose to acknowledge it.

Instead, he focused on his task, pulling out a roll of bandages and beginning to wrap your ankle with practiced ease. His touch was firm but careful. Not gentle, but thorough.

To dissipate the tension, you grasped for conversation—any conversation.

“How’d you even learn to do this?”

Toji smirked slightly, not looking up. “You think I made it through life without getting knocked around?”

You huffed, rolling your eyes. “No, but I figured you’d just walk it off and call it a day. You don’t seem the type”

“Sometimes.” He tugged the wrap snug around your ankle, securing it in place. “But I had to learn at some point. Can’t always rely on someone else to patch me up.”

Something about the way he said it, lingered.

You swallowed, shifting against the cushions. “Well… thanks.”

Toji nodded, gaze flicking up. His eyes were on you, probing, searching. As if he was debating whether he should do something.

And you got your answer when he braced his arms on either side you—

“You ran,” he murmured, point blank.

Your heart stuttered at his proximity. The bluntness of his question makes you lose several beats, trying to formulate some response, only to come up blank.

“You ran that night,” he repeated, voice strangely calm, controlled, but his eyes told a different story. “After I kissed you in the car.” This time, his tone held an almost accusatory note to it.

You inhaled sharply, and looked away. This was long coming. You should’ve known that he would want a clarification someday.

And he had decided that it was going to be now. When you had no way to escape. To run like you always do.

“You don’t have to answer,” he went on, turning back to your ankle. “I already know why.”

Something in the way he said that, made your chest tighten. He deserved to know. He had all the right to ask you this.

But like the coward you are, instead of giving him the truth, instead of admitting that your world had tilted, unraveled, and collapsed in that moment—

You lied.

“It didn’t mean anything,” you said, forcing the words past your lips. “I didn’t feel the same way.”

Toji’s hands stilled, and you felt like a jerk because going by the myriad of expressions flitting across his face, that hurt him.

It had to have hurt.

He didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he settled with a blank look. His walls were up, higher than ever.

He knew you inside out, but he didn’t call you out on the blatant lie you’d just fed him.

Instead, he let it settle, like a chasm stretching between you both.

He tilted his head ever so slightly. Dark emerald eyes studying, dissecting, contemplating,

Until he spoke.

“That so?”

Your stomach churned at the mild challenge and determination you saw reflected in his eyes.

You should’ve known he wouldn’t let this go.

“Toji,” you muttered, shifting guiltily under his scrutiny, but he wasn’t done.

“If you didn’t feel the same,” he pressed, “then why the fuck did you show up the next day wearing his ring?”

That… that caught you off guard.

He knew.

Of course, he did.

You swallowed, forcing yourself to hold his gaze. To sell your lie as much as you could “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?” he challenged, one brow arching in open skepticism.

A muscle in your jaw twitched. This wasn’t a conversation you wanted to have. Not now. Not ever.

But Toji was like a predator who had smelled blood in the water.

He leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs, dangerously close, leveling you with a domineering look. “We both know things weren’t fucking perfect with him, or else I wouldn’t have found you crying alone in your car that night.”

“So tell me,” he said, voice taunting, unrelenting, “why’d you suddenly go running back? Just what miraculous change occurred overnight that you decided to marry that man hours after you had let me kiss you?”

Your fingers curled into the robe, resisting the urge to flinch.

You should walk away. Should end this now.

But instead, you exhaled sharply, eyes flicking down to your lap.

“He didn’t blow me off that night.”

Toji didn’t react, but you could feel the shift in the air.

“He was out,” you continued, voice feebler now, almost ashamed, “Ring shopping.”

Your words somehow widened that invisible chasm.

“He proposed the second I got home,” you admitted, a bitter smile curling at your lips. “And I said yes.”

Toji’s jaw clenched. “Because you wanted to?” He stressed.

Your stomach twisted, heart jumping up your throat.

“No,” you sighed. “Because I felt guilty.”

That did something to him.

His expression darkened. You expected him to be angry, but the look he gave you was something far worse.

It was understanding.

“So that’s it, huh?” he whispered, sitting back, raking a hand through his already messy hair. “You felt bad, so you figured you’d just settle. After All your life is some sort of a bargaining chip meant to be thrown away, because you felt like you had to compensate him somehow. Right?”

You hated how easily he cut you open and picked you apart.

Hated that he was right.

You exhaled sharply, frustration lacing your tone. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

And then he laughed, low, victorious. He seized the opening he was waiting for, ever since he had seen you in the hotel that day.

His gaze flickered to your hands, then back up. He traced your empty ring finger, touching the lighter skin there, where the ring should’ve been.

“Then tell me,” he smiled, almost amused now, almost cruel.

“If you were so sure about him, why the fuck is there no ring on your finger? What did that sacrifice leave you with…You should’ve been married by now, shouldn’t you?”

Your breath caught, and tears of embarrassment sprung to your eyes, but you held them back.

You should’ve seen that coming.

You looked away, exhaling slowly. “Because we broke up.”

For the first time all night, Toji actually looked surprised.

He had half expected something like, ‘We’re on a break’ but not this.

“For good?”

“For good.”

His gaze was stormy. His expression—a kaleidoscope of feelings. Things had finally fallen into place now. He had gotten the missing pieces to the puzzle. But there was something that still left him with dissatisfaction.

This wasn’t enough for him.

You could sense it.

Before he could say something else, you cut in, babbling at this point, to fill the uneasy silence.

“And that’s why I wanted to go on a blind date today.”

His jaw ticked at that. He was much more open now. You could see his feelings reel on his face like a movie.

You hadn’t missed the irritation that surged off of him in waves.

It was your turn to interrogate now. And you leapt at the opportunity.

“Why do you even care? You left too. And you have been perfectly fine living oceans away”

He didn’t answer right away. You didn’t get the response you had so anticipated. No explanation, no half-assed excuse

Just a steady unwavering gaze, locked onto you.

And then all at once, he moved. So fast that you barely had the time to react.

A sharp inhale, his hand cupping your jaw, tilting your face up. And before you could speak, before you could even think—

He kissed you.

His lips caught yours with a searing force. It unraveled something in you that you weren’t ready to face.

A muffled squeak caught in your throat, your hands flew to his nape, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer.

But when Toji tilted his head, deepening the kiss—something in you cracked.

A sigh slipped from your lips, soft, surrendering, inevitable.

Because this was always inevitable, wasn’t it?

You opened your mouth slightly, and Toji groaned, tongue slipping in, tasting, exploring, taking greedily something that was always his. Like he was rewarding himself, the delayed gratification of someone who had waited for far too long.

His fingers dug into your waist, possessive, sure, and in between heated kisses, between stolen breaths, he whispered, nipping at your lower lip.

“Do you still not feel anything?”

You should have told him the truth. Should have admitted that the way he touched you, the way he consumed you, made something inside you collapse, burn, and dissolve at the same time.

Instead, you kissed him back harder, deeper, needier, like he was an oasis in the middle of a desert. Like you had been parched for a taste.

“No, I don’t.”

Toji chuckled darkly against your lips, teeth grazing, teasing. Enjoying this game of push and pull.

“Liar,” he murmured.

You barely had time to react before he took charge. You could feel that your words had goaded him into a challenge that he took all too seriously.

A large, calloused hand slipped down your jaw, pausing at your neck. He squeezed, just a little, just enough to make you shiver in anticipation. Then his hand journeyed down, downwards beneath the robe, moving it aside to expose your sensitive skin. His eager exploration slowed, choosing to let his fingertips map the uncharted territory with extreme leisure. He teased with light touches.

To your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, while he devoured you with his gaze. You could see that it was taking him every ounce of control to not hurry this along and just take what he wanted. Needed. Craved.

Rather, his other hand splayed against your back, pressing you flush against him, making sure you felt just how much he wanted you.

You gasped, feeling the rigid planes of his muscles against your plushness, feeling his throbbing erection brush against your stomach.

Your sharp inhale was cut off by his lips capturing yours again, swallowing the sound with a groan.

His hands moved slowly, deliberately, teasingly, dragging a myriad of sensations over your skin. He played you like an instrument. Palming, and cupping your breasts, thumb running over the pebbled nipples, pulling and pinching softly.

Your mind felt fuzzy, your thoughts slipping through your fingers like sand as he pressed fervent kisses along your jaw, down the column of your throat, sucking, biting, leaving open-mouthed wet and warm kisses, murmuring against your skin—

“Still nothing?”

You shivered in response, as his mouth descended to your collarbones and the valley between your breasts. He swirled his tongue around one pebbled peak, tasting and biting at your flesh, while he played with the other, kneading and squeezing until you were a puddle under his touch. All pliant and mewling.

He smirked against your breast, now lavishing the other with attention, pleased with your reactions, with the sounds he was drawing out of you. And you soon felt yourself develop a second heartbeat between your legs.

Without warning, his arms slid around you, lifting you effortlessly.

A startled gasp left your lips as he carried you through the dimly lit cabin, past flickering candlelight and storm-swept windows.

The air was thick, the silence broken by the sound of your fervent kisses. Your lips meeting each other in an almost frenzied need.

You barely had time to think before your back met the sheets, and Toji hovered over you, eyes dark, lips curling.

“You gonna keep lying to me? To yourself? Because I have the whole night to prove otherwise” he husked, voice deep, teasing, and full of promise.

“So…” he drawled, ducking down to bite at your earlobe, before soothing it with a flick of his tongue, “What’s it gonna be? Yes or No?”

When your only reply was a stubborn show of silence, he chuckled.

“I see” his gaze sparkled with excitement, resembling a predator preparing for a hunt “So that’s how it’s gonna be”

The surrealness of the situation wasn’t lost on you. You couldn’t believe that this was happening. That You were in Toji’s bed, half-naked, covered in the marks left behind by him.

Your chest heaved, and you pressed your thighs together to relieve the unabashed need.

Yes, you needed this man. Carnally. Biblically. Sinfully.

Lust in rivulets of undulated heat traversed through your body. He hadn’t removed your robe completely, yet you felt naked under his eyes.

Those emerald eyes. Storm-laden and destructive.

Strange how you saw your damnation and salvation married in them.

“One last chance to back out” his tone was business-like, a stark contrast to his earlier teasing remarks, as his finger looped around the belt of your robe.

“Because when I accept a challenge…” he grinned wolfishly, when you rewarded him with a nod of consent, “I play to win”

He paused, letting out a breath, before finally pulling. A soft tug and there was no going back.

You were completely exposed to him, in your wet and wanton glory.

He pulled the robe gently, from underneath you and tossed it away, never taking his gaze off of you. As if he half expected you to disappear.

“You’re beautiful” he whispered, caressing every inch of you with his lascivious eyes.

You were sure when you started, that this was going to be a one-night thing.

A night when you pilfer from the treasures of desires you kept sealed away, safe out of your own reach.

But when he lowered himself, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead— it was then that you felt the first tremors of fear. The whispers of doubt at your foolish impulsive decision. What the hell are you even doing?

This was a bad bad idea. You can’t move on after this. This was Toji Zenin, how could you ever forget him, after you let yourself experience what it feels like to be his. A single night wouldn’t be enough, a single night would wreck you and fuck—

Your hands flew to his hair, fingers threading through the locks as he found your neck again, nuzzling, nipping, moving down with urgent intent.

He trailed open-mouthed kisses, on your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, your stomach, then his hands grabbed the plush of your thighs, squeezing, gently nudging them open, as he made his descent.

He dawdled, leaving a teasing bite at your hip bone, then puffing out a breath, he paused, eyes melting into yours as he pushed your legs apart further. Looking at you from in between them.

His emerald eyes almost burned, like a forest fire, and he captured yours with their smokey, wispy, tendrils. Binding your gaze into a hypnotic pull.

You swore you saw a ghost of a smile linger on his lips when he yanked you forward, dragging your hips to the edge of the bed, but it disappeared when he ducked his head down and licked a long languid stripe.

From your aching clit, to your beckoning heat, and back up, teasing, tasting, sucking as if his life depended on it.

He set a torturous rhythm, his fingers dug into the curves, dimples, and divets of your thighs, prying them open and wider, as he hungrily feasted on your juices.

“Hah fuck you taste so damn good” he murmured, in between sloppy kisses to your cunt, greedily delving in between your folds, like it was his last meal.

You had long lost any sense of shame, your hips had a mind of their own, bucking in time with the firm strokes of his tongue, chasing that sweet pleasure that he was so readily giving you.

“Oh my god…Toji…yessss” you cried out, in delicious agony.

“You like that baby? Like the way I make you feel?” He mumbled, the sound muffling against your sex, he lost himself in between your legs, eyes closed, as he worshipped at your altar.

Clarity was so far away, hidden behind a wave of lust-addled haze. The words almost tipped over your tongue, at his sly questioning, but then, you bit your palm, holding back any foolish confessions that would be difficult to take back, focusing instead on chasing your pleasure selfishly.

“What did I ask?” He hummed, the vibrations making your hips jerk and your eyes roll back, “I need you to say it, darling. Do you like the way I make you feel?”

“Shit…Toji…mnnnhh” you bit your lip, in a feeble attempt to deflect, but he was having none of it.

You were too far gone, yet he was still very much in control. He moved his hand up your body, cupping your jaw, making your gaze meet his, as he caught your clit with other, pinching and sucking you into overstimulation.

He drove you close to that sweet release, dangled it before you like bait, only to snatch it away.

You whined, a desperate plea slipping out of you pathetically, “pleasepleasepleaseplease”

“Please what?” He smirked, still moving his palm on your cunt in painfully slow circles, “let you come?” He taunted, flashing you his canines in a smug, shit-eating grin. He had you right where he wanted you.

“Use your words,” he stressed, voice all saccharine sweet, as if he wasn’t actively edging you into madness, “Tell me how I make you feel, and I’ll let you come”

“Toji please” you plead, “I’ll be good, please—“ you whined and begged, moving your hips against the slow motion of his hands, desperate to get some much-needed friction.

“Uh uh uh, that is not the right answer I’m afraid.” Yet his gaze softened, and he folded, “But I’m not a monster” He chuckled, as you squealed in surprise and grateful relief, hips rising off the bed, when he went down on you again.

Just when you thought you’d die of deprivation, he inserted two long fingers in you, pumping them in and out expertly, pulling an earth-shattering orgasm with that ‘come-hither-motion’, while he held you close to his mouth, tasting, licking every last drop of your release like his own personal nectar.

You caught your breath, your throat hoarse from all the noises you let out. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Toji lift his shirt. He was standing before his floor-length mirror.

You always knew he was muscular under those compressed shirts that left little to the imagination. But seeing the actual thing? The broad shoulders, the chiseled abs, the tan corded lines of pure muscle—rippling before you, as he removed his shirt, his back muscles flexing in the process, and you felt your pussy clench around nothing, with a shameless need.

This man was lethal for your heart.

Feeling your eyes on him, he smirked. Catching your gaze in the reflection of the mirror, daring you to look. He pulled at his drawstrings and pushed his sweatpants to his thighs, then his boxers, freeing his throbbing cock from its confines.

He was already leaking pre-cum, the wet noises of his palm fisting at his length, made you open your legs and match him—with a hand slipping between your folds.

You gathered the slick pooling there from your recent orgasm and slipped two digits in, groaning, moaning, imagining his huge cock filling you to the brim.

This was unbelievably hot. His reverent gaze on you, and his insistent palm moving up and down his erection, fucking his fist to the chants of your name.

“Yes baby, just like that” he praised, his eyes never leaving yours, as he bit his lip, looking at your reflection with a deep-seated appreciation.

While the more explicit expressions overtook the moment, for Toji it was something that he cherished beyond words.

He was hot and bothered, he was needy, he lusted like a fiend for you, yet he wished to make love to you. To reach the deepest parts of you, and to make you his. Mark you forever, so that no one would dare take what was his.

So when you both reached your peaks, crying out each other’s name in soft cries of pleasure, he removed his sweatpants entirely and bounded towards the bed. Without wasting another second, he pulled you into a wet, messy, sloppy kiss.

His hands moved under your thighs, cupping your ass, corded arms supporting your weight, as he carried you to stand before the mirror. Facing it. Looking at all your flaws and foibles up close while he hugged from behind, skin against feverish skin. His hands never left your body, touching, teasing, pinching, and squeezing. His face lodged in the crook of your neck, making blooms of hickeys that would last for days.

“Look at me” he whispered, a hand splaying at your stomach, the other wrapping around your waist.

And to be honest? You simply couldn’t look away even if you tried.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” you whispered.

You were done lying, done pretending that you didn’t want this man.

“Then hold on tight”

Your fingers found purchase on his biceps, holding for dear life, as his hands slid to the back of your knees, lifting you, and bringing your legs to your chest.

A wild blush rose up your neck when you saw your reflection. You were exposed, utterly so. And entirely in his hands. This required so much trust on your part, and somehow, it came naturally.

You trusted Toji. Because he was Toji.

He was your rock. Someone who always found you.

Someone you could rely on, someone that you Lo—Ohhhhh

No warning whatsoever, as his huge cock lined with your cunt, entering it in one go.

A groan of pleasure reverberated through Toji, and he bit at your neck, slowly thrusting into your warm tight heat.

This was madness. It was not supposed to feel this good.

Yet here you were, mouth agape, tears streaming down your eyes, stuffed to the hilt, getting fucked in front of a mirror.

You watched his cock slide out halfway before he rammed it back in, setting a brutal pace. The room echoed with the obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh. His hot breaths on your neck, his lips nipping at the shell of your ear.

“See what you do to me?” He husked, voice a heady rumble, “I can’t help it, you’re fucking perfect”

The rain had cleared into a light drizzle, making the first spots of stars appear like tiny specks in the inky sky.

They bore witness to this passionate embrace shared by you and him.

Two souls, getting acquainted in the most primal of ways, intertwined. Lost into each other, not quite aware, of how they loved more than lovers.

***

Warm morning sun, notoriously peeped at the bare tangle of limbs, nestled into an intimate embrace.

Remnants of last night lingered as mementos on your skin, unfurled like sakura in bloom.

Remembering the past years, when he woke up to the blare of an alarm, and the cold empty spot next to him, Toji murmured a secret prayer, grateful to whichever God had blessed him.

For he did feel blessed. Immensely.

He sat up in bed, bracing himself on an elbow, as he took you in. Your soft cheeks, he thought, that he would never tire of touching. And never admit to having thought about biting into the apples of them, on many a slow afternoon.

Your brown hair was like a waterfall that cascaded under his fingers. He secretly loved the green streak in your hair—it made him remind of his own eyes.

Your plump lips.

He was jealous…Of the rouge that sat upon them preening.

No matter how much Toji tried to hide, to bury himself in his work, to avoid you, Fate had been weirdly persistent with the way it always tried to bring him back to you.

His first and the last heartbreak.

Slipping out the sheets, Toji grabbed a pen and a sticky note. If he was going to do this, he would do this correctly.

***

The morning melted into afternoon, its poignant warmth settled across the room with a lazy stretch.

Your eyes opened, bones heavy with a sated bliss. There was an ache in your muscles. A mark left behind by him on your body. Another solid print onto the pages of your memory.

You rose, finally leaving the comforting embrace of the bed, half expecting to see him mill about.

Putting on some slippers and a fresh robe again, you made a tour of the house, eyes keenly searching for that familiar mess of black hair.

But the cabin was empty. Populated by dust motes, and the lingering scent of pine candles, that lay in puddles of melted wax over various pieces of furniture, across the living room.

You fought off the disappointment bubbling up your throat; reminding yourself that he wasn’t your boyfriend. That one night didn’t translate to something more.

Just when you were about to leave the living room, your gaze landed on the dining table.

There was a covered tray of food, and a sticky note on top.

To my work wife, By now, I know you’ve already imagined the worst. It’s okay, I understand. I would have too if I woke up alone after last night—after what we shared. Sweetheart, I may look like a jerk, but I don’t hit and run. I know you, and that’s why I wanted you to have this day to yourself. To sit back, relax, and really think about what you want. Because I want you. Not just for a night. For every single night henceforth, until the day I die. Tucked by my side, safe and sound—just like this morning. So that I don’t have to find excuses like blind dates just to steal mere hours with you. If your answer is yes, you’ll find plane tickets in the drawer of my nightstand. If you want. If you’ll have me, that is. Yours, Toji P.S. Please heat up the lunch—I made your favorite. P.P.S. I’ve scheduled an appointment for your ankle. The doctor will be here in the evening. My place is at your disposal. Enjoy the rest of the work trip, and don’t miss me too much. P.P.P.S. AND NO MORE BLIND DATES.

You tried—and failed—to stifle the stupid grin that spread across your face when you found the plane tickets to Japan in his drawer, booked under the name Mrs. Zenin.

But that wasn’t all.

Inside lay a token, identical to the one you had received from the hotel staff for the blind date event—bearing the exact same number as yours.

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