#hsigt tag.

[kichous]

✧･ﾟ:*   no, i don’t disagree

summary. the least you could do is look at your husband while he’s talking about leaving you. you can’t even give him that. series. how should i greet thee ? part one . part two . part three . part four you’re here ! pairing. fushiguro toji x f!reader. warnings. post-partum depression. hurt no comfort / angst. word count. 2321

The life of a Zen’in lady is exactly as you imagined it to be. 

Meant to be neither seen nor heard, yet nevertheless intensely scrutinized all the same, your purpose is to pop out babies and little else. If you were a child or of a lesser rank, you’d be put to work as a maid or a governess. Your late father-in-law, may he rot in the deepest pits of hell, was the twenty-fifth head of the clan. With any luck, your son will be the twenty-seventh. 

But he’s only just a baby. You’ve done your part—squeezed out a healthy and handsome baby from your uterus—so what else is there left to do? Finally, for the first time in your life, you have the luxury to be bored. So, yeah, this is pretty much what you imagined life as a woman in a rich and powerful family would be like. You’ve always been a realist, just straddling the line of pessimism.

It had been hard at first, even as used to rejection and disdain as you are, being married to the black sheep of the family. Toji had been doing just fine without them, and his return with a young, beautiful, and hopefully fertile bride was met with more condescension and gossip than outright envy. Men openly scoffed and spat and women tittered behind there sleeves as you walked past, wondering if you were hubristic or just dumb for hitching yourself to a rotting, one-wheeled wagon. The mere notion that you loved Toji was apparently inconceivable.

And on the topic of conception, the whispering only worsened when you felt pregnant. The best you could hope for was morbid curiosity of what gifts your offspring would possess—if they’d inherit your technique or take after their ‘useless cretin’ of a father. Otherwise, it was more of the same old. Toji was a freak, you were a commoner, blah, blah, blah. When Megumi was born, your clansmen had the grace not to insult a baby. But once he grows to toddlerhood, you have a feeling the vitriol towards your family will return with full force.

When that happens, you may not handle it with the grace and dignity—ha, try saying that with a straight face—that you’ve managed thus far.

Motherhood is exhausting. Megumi is only three months old, his cranium still soft and malleable, his little hands and feet still terribly uncoordinated. But even so, you turn your back for ten seconds and he’ll have rolled out of your sight. You can only imagine what it’ll be like when he learns to walk and run. You are already so damn tired. Suffice it to say that your patience has also eroded with your energy. 

You’d already had one outburst, try as you and Toji might to pretend it never happened.

You worry, too, beyond more than just how squishy and breakable your son is. If by some miracle the clan takes interest in his powers, they’ll take him from Toji, and he’s so fond of the little guy already. You know that your first fear should be that the Zen’in clan will take the baby away from you, but well, when you say you’re tired—you mean of him, too.

Yes, it’s an awful thought. Yes, you despise yourself for it, but you had expectations for life at Toji’s side, and this part meets none of them. You expected idleness, not bone-deep burnout.

You miss spending time alone with your husband. You want to get a good night’s sleep every day. You want your leaking breasts to stop staining your clothes and to stop being sore all the damn time. Independently, these are relatively harmless wants—until you realize your sole obstacle to these things is your very own child.

The fact of the matter is that Zen’in Megumi was born to secure your place in the clan. You are a nobody and an outsider, and they will never let you forget that. You love Toji, you love the fact that you created a life together, and of course (you have to remind yourself), you love your baby. But it would not be untrue to say that Megumi was born of spite. That’s no reason for a child to enter this world. He’s innocent in all of this, undeserving—and, at his age, blissfully ignorant—of the monstrous cruelty from which he spawned.

Shouldn’t you know any better? You’d been adopted for much the same reasons. And how well had that turned out for you?

It stings, too, how much better Toji is with the baby. In the days leading up to the birth, he’d been just as nervous as you were, in his own Toji way. It hadn’t yet set in the magnitude by which your life was about to change. Not even as the months passed and your belly grew did either of you stop to think about what it actually meant. But after Megumi emerged from an arduous twenty-hour labor, Toji had taken to child-rearing like a duck to water. All too ready to take the fussy baby from your arms, he never complained about the early morning wails, nor about having to change Megumi’s diaper—even when one of his favorite shirts ended up getting splattered with pee from a wriggling infant. He spent a week babyproofing every surface of your home, and when one of the other members of the clan got too close, he would snap at them like  a rabid dog.

Fatherhood came easily to Toji. You’re almost certain he judges you for how difficult it is for you to acclimate on your end.

The look in his eyes says as much, distant and cold as the chilly March air. He has Megumi bundled up in his arms, the boy’s big eyes fixed on the underside of his father’s chin.

“Do you want to hold him?” asks Toji eventually, when he seems to realize telepathy via eye contact is not a feasible way to communicate his thoughts.

Megumi looks adorably comfortable in Toji’s arms, snug and relaxed and smiling openly—although it could be that he’s just exploring his facial muscles. You shake your head. No need to jiggle the baby around when he’s fine where he is. “I’m good.”

Toji rolls his eyes. “Typical.”

Your chest tightens as your heart skips a beat. You knew it. The man prefers outright aggression to the passive kind, but you could tell. He hasn’t been happy with you for a long time. “Excuse me?” you snap anyway, the sting of Toji’s rejection too much for your ego to bear. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Don’t waste my time by asking a question you already know the answer to.” He shifts Megumi, almost as if to shield him from you. “Would it at least kill you to pretend we’re not a burden to you?”

“We?” you echo incredulously. Since when have you ever—now you genuinely wonder where any of this is coming from. “You’re including yourself with the baby?”

Toji laughs sharply, a noise that startles your child, based on the way he starts fussing. You remember Megumi’s first smile, mirroring his father’s expression after his first sneeze. Toji had laughed then, too. But that was open, vulnerable, and genuine. This was sharp, prickly, and mocking. He usually reserves the caustic laughter for other people. He laughs with you, not at you. “You understand how that makes it worse, right? That you’re actually asking me that?”

You do, and that’s why you hold your tongue. You’re not eager to put your foot even further in your mouth. Fingers crinkling the heavy silks of your sleeves, you press your lips together. How had it all gone so wrong? There was a time when the two of you had been able to speak without words, a resonance between the two of you that had nothing to do with cursed energy. If you were a sappier sort, you’d say it was just a case of soulmates. But clearly that’s not true. Marriage had once been so easy. You’d never expected it to hurt this much with him.

He takes in your silence with gritted teeth. Shoulders tense, he barks, “Do you even still want to be here? Do you care at all? Or is that sort of thing beneath you now?” Each question is a blade that sinks into your heart. If you weren’t already sitting, you might have staggered. Sorcerer killer indeed.

“Of course I care,” you snap. It’s sharper than you intend, more furious than desperate, and you know that it will only serve to make Toji more defensive. He hates it when people raise their voices at him, same as you. You used to know how to talk to each other. But things have been falling apart between you two for a while now. Megumi was intended to be a bandaid as much as a political pawn, but instead he’s more like a torpedo to the best thing that has ever happened to you.

Rubbing your hands over your face, you dig the heels of your palms into your eyes. You want to claw them out. You want to tear your heart out of your chest and give it to Toji, but it’s already fallen out in the form of the little cherub in his arms, and all that’s left is hollow nothingness. It takes every ounce of your self control not to scream as you inhale shakily. “I care so fucking much,” you whisper, “that it is sapping the life out of me. It’s draining me, but I’ll give anything that I need to, even if it kills me.”

Toji’s gaze drops to the top of your son’s head. He leans down to press a gentle kiss to the dome, and he doesn’t meet your eyes as he speaks. “What if I said,” he begins, pausing to lick his lips, “what if I said I wanted out of here? What would you do?”

It’s a fact of life that the people you love most will also be the ones who hurt you most.

You can’t say the thought never crossed your mind, when the fights started to get more frequent and the nights lonelier and colder. Toji hadn’t exactly been subtle when he started to pull away from you. This was simply the natural conclusion. Failing to fix things, you allowed him to get to the point where he wanted to leave you. He’s not the first person in your life to abandon you. He won’t be the last. But this is one wound you won’t ever recover from.

You love him. Nothing could ever change that. At least he wasn’t having an affair. Not that you know of, anyway.

What’s the saying? If you love something, you have to let it go?

It’s undeniable that you’re selfish. You can blame your terrible upbringing ‘til you’re blue in the fact, but the circumstances by which you fell for Toji spoke volumes of your greed. If you’d left well enough alone, burying the hurt and shame of being unwanted by two incredibly awful people, if you had never chased after the Zen’in clan in the pursuit of revenge, he wouldn’t be breaking your heart right now. So it must mean something, how much you love him, that you choose to take the decidedly unselfish route.

Your throat is dry when you reply, struggling to get through the massive lump. Your eyes sting. “I’d let you go.” If it was what he truly wanted, to be rid of you once and for all, you wouldn’t stand in his way. “Do what you like.”

Unable to look at him, knowing that would make the tears fall, you only hear Toji exhale. “I don’t know what I expected,” he says quietly. “I don’t—I don’t know why I—”

He’s cut off by a distressed warble. Little Megumi seems to have absorbed the displeasure of his parents, waving a tiny fist in the air as he kicks and struggles in Toji’s grasp.

You rise onto numb legs as Toji shushes the boy softly with gentle apologies. At the very least, Megumi isn’t crying. How such a loud sound could come from such a tiny body, you’ll never understand. You come to a stop just in front of the baby, reaching out to tenderly stroke his head. You just can’t stop hurting the ones you love, can you?

He won’t be able to explain himself, on account of being a baby. When Megumi develops the vocabulary to articulate his thoughts, he probably won’t even remember that it happened. But you will.

Your face is wet when Megumi whines and ducks from your hand. It’s not the usual wiggle of a fussy baby. It’s a deliberate movement, shrinking away from you to bury his little face into his father’s chest. You look up at Toji, struck dumb, and even he seems as shocked as you are. And just as quickly, his expression shutters, replaced by something smug and vicious.

It’s like something’s rotted within you, necrosis eating at your insides in this icy sort of burn that just won’t go away. Like a void, a chasm, inside of you that just keeps growing and growing. How could he look at you this way, this man who said ‘I love you’ first? You’d broken your promise first, abandoning the honesty and authenticity, however ugly, you’d both vowed for the privilege that came with his family name. So you suppose he has a right to be this way. Still hurts, though.

A thousand needles is the punishment for breaking a pinky swear. As you force yourself to swallow, it feels like they’re already lodged in your larynx. Your husband is ummoved by the tears that track down your face. It really is over.

“Well,” sneers Toji, the curl of his lip pulling at his scar, “looks like the kid’s got a great intuition.”

[kichous]

✧･ﾟ:*   by the cold entrance

summary. fushiguro. so you hadn’t been the only one who moved on. series. how should i greet thee ? part one . part two . part three . part four . part five you’re here ! pairing. past fushiguro toji x f!reader. warnings. canon-typical misogyny. word count. 2092.

The elders never called upon you.

You are no longer a member of the main branch, the tenuous matrimonial tie severed after Toji absconded with your firstborn, destroyed entirely after it was clear he would not be returning—on account of his being dead and all. But even during your marriage, you went overlooked because of your husband. At most, you were tolerated for your technique’s vague similarity to the Ten Shadows.

The Zen’in clan at large is more fond of your second husband, Saiichi. But seeing as your only real point of reference was the nigh omnipresent derision towards Toji, the bar may as well be below the earth’s mantle. Regardless, you’ve been treated more kindly as the years pass. The cruelest among you will mock you for being abandoned by the lowest of the low. The rest see that you’ve redeemed yourself by serving as the perfect wife. You’ve even managed to gain a couple of sycophants after your secondborn, a strong and healthy son, began manifesting your technique, claiming Toji was an ungrateful fool for ever daring to leave you. 

It’s easier to accept these words than to admit the truth, that you had driven him away, and so you do.

But these were bottom feeders who would never be anything more in their lives. The true authoritative heads of the clan paid you little heed, and you were glad for it. Once they learned that Megumi had in fact inherited the desired technique, a bright red target was painted on your back for letting him slip from your grasp. Thus, when Naobito demanded (not requested, for that would imply he gave you the option to refuse) your presence, you were rightfully wary.

Little did you know that you’d been brought into discussions regarding the fate of your eldest son. Not that you were given permission to participate, instead made to sit in silence with your daughter on your hip as Naobito argued with a child.

The Gojo boy had asked, at one point, if you were ever going to speak. If you even could.

“She is not here to negotiate,” interceded Naobito on your behalf. You had been a little preoccupied with the girl using your torso as a makeshift jungle gym to respond, but you know he would’ve spoken for you even if you hadn’t. “She will be the boy’s guardian and tutor if he’s going to the clan.”

I’m his MOTHER, you want to scream. You hold your tongue instead.

It isn’t until they call a break in the talks that you get the chance to use your voice. Whilst the Zen’in elders talk among themselves, you slip away to corner the Gojo boy. He smiles as you approach, more at Nobue as she tugs at your ear with all the strength of a two year-old. Both of her brothers were far more docile, and you grab her tiny hands in a vice grip and pin them to her front.

“How old are you?” you ask the boy, in lieu of a proper greeting.

He purses his lips. “That’s rude,” says Gojo Satoru. “You wouldn’t like it if I asked how old you were, would you, baa-san?”

A vein throbs in your forehead. You know better than to rise to the bait. “You’re still in high school?”

“Does it matter?”

“I just find it hard to believe that my ex-husband would entrust our child to another child.” Comprehension dawns in his blue eyes, just barely visible over the rims of his glasses, and you allow your lips to curve just a bit. Shifting your grip on Nobue, you shrug. “Although, based on what I’ve heard about you, calling you a child wouldn't be doing you justice.”

“It just makes me look haughty to agree with you,” hums Gojo, a shrewd tilt to his head. He’s sizing you up just as much as you are him. You’re reminded of his much more guileless uncle, a prospective husband you’d written off because of the young man in front of you.

What had become of him? The Gojo clan is powerful, but their dominance rested solely on the shoulders of this brat and no one else. The Zen’in clan, by comparison, had a small town’s worth of capable sorcerers. You and your husband are considered part of the Akashi, just below the elites.

The boy grins, and you’re envious of his lack of crows feet. “But you’re right. Your ex never mentioned you, you know. Just the clan.”

Ruefully, you chuckle. “Knowing Toji, we’re probably one and the same in his eyes. Were, I suppose.” You still find yourself correcting tenses, even after all this time.

“Yeah, he kinda gave me the impression that Megumi’s mom was dead.”

An amateurish attempt at getting under your skin. You plaster a smile on your face. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” Leaning closer, you drop your voice to a whisper and impress upon him all the wistfulness you can muster. It isn’t entirely insincere. You are curious about the boy you’d once thought forever lost to you. “Megumi… what is he like? The last time I saw him, he was just a baby, not even a year old.”

Gojo takes a moment to ponder his response. He’s opting for honesty, then. “He’s stern for his age,” he says eventually. “Serious, even though he’s so little. I reckon he had to grow up quick after being abandoned by all three of his parents. He’s so unimpressed by everything around him that that in itself is a little impressive. Is that his little sister?”

You blink as he jerks his chin at Nobue, switching tacks so quickly you don’t pivot in time. “I’m not exactly a babysitter,” you snark, harsher than you had intended. So maybe he had ticked you off just a bit, implying that you’d left Megumi when in reality he’d been taken from you.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Gojo laughs. It’s an annoying sound. It suits him. “It’s just that he has an older sister,” he says. “They’re sort of a package deal, stuck together at the hip. She practically raised him, and he loves her a lot. But I’m not sure if the clan would take her in, since she’s just an ordinary person.”

Dismissively, you click your tongue. “What becomes of his stepsister is of no concern to the clan. There’s nothing for her here.” And you have your hands full as it is without having to care for someone else’s daughter. What was your replacement like, you wonder. Did Toji ever look at her the way he used to look at you? Did this brat also call him Dad? Jealousy is an ugly thing, and you are no stranger to it.

You don’t realize just how full of motion Gojo is until he stills at your words. “No,” he agrees. “I guess there isn’t.”

“Thank you for talking to me.” You pay his honesty in kind—with earnestness, if nothing else. You reach out to pat his shoulder lightly. He remains tense, and your hand never makes contact with him. His technique, it looks like. Being outfoxed by a boy is embarrassing. “You’re… different than how I imagined you.”

That breathes life back into him. Any chance for him to preen, you suppose. “Oh? And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means that I was expecting a snot-nosed, self-absorbed, greedy, and entitled little brat.” Nobue kicks you in the ribs, perhaps a warning that you’re laying it on a little too thick. “But you're just an ordinary kid.”

“Oh, I’m all of those things,” Gojo snickers. “But thanks. You’re different, too. I was the one who asked you to be here, or at least whoever they were going to pawn poor Megumi off to. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.” Wouldn’t that have been a surprise, if Naobito had simply dropped him into your lap one day without any warning?

No, the truth was that he’d used you as leverage today. Parade the birth mother around, make it seem like the boy was going to be in good hands, with his immediate family, when in actuality, you’d be lucky to even get a glimpse of him. Your hypothesis had been proven correct all these years later, and now the elders are chomping at the bit to have him. It’s highly likely you won’t even get scraps. Were they banking on Gojo to just wipe his hands clean of the entire thing? Or were they going to dress you both up as a loving mother-son duo if he so happened to stop by to see how things were going?

“I suppose I should thank you, then—though I’ll save that for after I hear your opinion of me. I may end up cursing you instead,” you tell him.

Gojo snorts, a noise curtailed by Naobito’s re-entry into the room. They lock gazes, and then Gojo turns to look at you. You think there may be a flash of understanding there.

More than anything, you want your baby back in your arms, even if he’s not actually a baby anymore. But as long as the man behind you still lives, you’ll never get your son back. Toji wouldn’t have wanted this, for the boy to be used as a puppet, corrupted by the vile brood that had once cast him out. Now that he’s gone, as is Megumi’s step-mother, you and the boy in front of you are all he has left by way of parents.

“If this were to fall through, who would be taking care of my son?” You speak carefully and quietly, all too aware of the needle-sharp daggers sent your way by your clansman.

“He’d be a ward of the school,” answers Gojo. “But I’d act as his primary guardian.”

“Ah. I see.” Good enough. The strongest sorcerer alive, the scion of a prestigious family. You smile at him, leaning closer and lowering your voice to convey shyness more so than conspiracy. “Do you… do you think he’d like me?”

Gojo’s spectacles slip down the bridge of his nose, and you’re met with the full ferocity of his blue eyes. They’re piercing, searching, and circumspect as he scrutinizes your face. Is this really what you want? As you dip your head, a wicked sneer spreads across his features, tempered slightly by the grudging respect in his gaze. It’s not noticeable from afar, and Naobito is distant enough that he won’t pick up on it.

Brows curved low, a brief flash of teeth, and a vicious curve of his lips punctuate Gojo’s too-loud  (or rather, loud enough) words: “Nah, you’re too much of an evil step-mom.”

It stings, but it’s for the best. They’ll blame you for this, for speaking out of turn and botching the deal. Your reputation will suffer. Your husband will be angry, for once, instead of merely indifferent. You lay your cheek on top of Nobue’s head as she whines and nuzzles into your neck.

This is the world she will grow up in, your sweet, feisty little girl. She will be made to be docile, to obey and never question, to serve her father and brother and someday her husband. The world will take and take and take from her, this clan nothing but a ravenous black hole that will never have its fill. Her brother Morinaga’s life will be a thousand times easier by virtue of his sex, though it can’t be said that the Zen’in clan was ever kind to its sons either. They will break him in his training, and if he winds up in the Akashi along with his family, the disappointment may crush him. And yet all you can do is hold your children a little tighter and teach them to endure and survive what’s to come.

But if you have to let one of go far away from you to spare him of this fate, of course you will. He is all that you have left of the love of your life—but you know that it will be better this way. Megumi will be safe, and with any luck, he will be happier than he would ever be with you.

Gojo is still talking, now over your head, playful and impish where Naobito is livid.

You press quick kisses to Nobue’s crown, then temple, then cheek, as you squeeze your eyes shut to try and drown out the image of a little boy with wild raven spikes for hair and his father’s jade eyes in shadow.

[kichous]

✧･ﾟ:*   i’d rather be so oblivious

summary. honesty is the best policy, especially with someone like toji. series. how should i greet thee ? | part one . pairing. fushiguro toji x f!reader. warnings. mentions of (non-explicit) sex. child abandonment / foster care. word count. 3731.

07.11.23 / read the updated re-release on ao3!

If it weren’t so sad, you might find it cute how much Toji loves playing house with you. It’s all so painfully quaint, the small two-bedroom apartment you have in the city. Your car is parked safely in a garage next to his sleek, black SUV — though you’d had to fight for two spaces and you’re now fairly certain the building manager hates you for it.

You’re practically a glorified housewife. He makes enough money on contract jobs that neither of you have to work for (at the most) months at a time. Sometimes he stays at the Zen’in family home because he’s too tired from hits to make his way back to you, but that’s never for long. He has years’ worth of clothes in your shared closet. He buys groceries every other week, alternates cooking with you, and you have a goddamned chore wheel set up. All that’s missing is the ring and the two little kids running around.

Maybe that’s what the guest bedroom is actually for.

Never in your life would you have imagined that this is where you’d end up. With a man loving you so much he’d give you everything without a second thought. Toji’s not one to express his affection with words. But he holds you close, and he holds you often. Even when the nights are so hot you have both windows open and the AC tripling your electricity bill, he tugs you against him, as though he’s afraid you’ll disappear at a moment’s notice. If he were anyone else, you might have.

But maybe he’s what you needed all along. It wasn’t the fancy name, the prestige of being part of a sorcerer family (as if that would ever mean anything to anyone outside of jujutsu society anyway). It was being loved. Wanted, needed. It was the feeling of being enough.

When your foster parents wasted five years of your life making you fall in love with them, only to give you up when they decided your cursed technique was too passive to take into their line, you wanted nothing more than revenge. They ruined you. That anger fueled you throughout your life, and it festered. It became this sickly, rotting part of you — an evil, wretched part that you knew you’d be better off leaving behind. But you didn’t know what it was like to live without it.

Without spite driving your every move, who were you? Zen’in Toji’s live-in girlfriend? Then, without Toji, who were you? Nothing?

Yes, nothing. Like you’d always been.

Therein lies the problem. You don’t really mind being nothing deep inside, as long as you’re with him.

The realization comes suddenly, jarringly, when you’re in the middle of making dinner. You stand in front of the stove, stirring the stew with an even, steady pace. Toji pads into the kitchen after a post-contract nap, and you hear him yawn and crack his neck. He comes up behind you and wraps his bulky arms around your midsection. Humming in acknowledgment, you turn for a split second to give him a kiss. He smiles at you when you part, soft and tender.

“That smells amazing,” he says. As per your usual routine, he starts setting up the table while you cook. He stops, chopsticks in hand, likely because he saw both the grill and hot pot sitting on the table. “No way… Are we…?”

“Why don’t you check the fridge?” You laugh when he jumps to do so. He barely stops the door from smacking you. “Like what you see?”

“Are you kidding me?” Toji starts yanking out the trays of meat two at a time, stomach and liver, tripe and flank steak, filet slices and colon. He barely has the presence of mind to remember to wash his hands before he tears through the packaging and starts arranging them on plates. Careful not to touch you with his bloodied hands, he takes you by the shoulders by his wrists and spins you into another kiss. “I love you.”

When you jerk back, he looks as surprised as you are that the words left his mouth. Neither of you move, simply staring at each other for a few moments. You break first, when the stew threatens to boil over and you quickly turn off the burner. You don’t turn back. You don’t want to see the inevitable regret on his face.

Toji clears his throat and offers a short chuckle. “What’s the special occasion?”

His attempt to erase the last ninety seconds does not put you at ease in the slightest. But you indulge him, like you always do. “I just felt like splurging. And maybe a little thank-you sex.” You press your cheek into the expanse of his back as he washes his hands, sliding your own up and down his sides before settling on his hips. “Though looking at how much I bought, it looks like a food coma’s more likely.”

“We don’t have to eat all of it,” Toji snorts.

“But you will.” And you will too, because you grew up knowing never to waste food.

He turns in your grasp and squeezes you in a tight hug. Two seconds, then he lets go, his hands heavy on your shoulders. Just forget about it. We’re still okay. You get it. Toji kisses the top of your head. “Fuck, my mouth’s watering. Didn’t realize how hungry I was ‘til I saw all the food.” He steps over to the stove to grab the pot of stew and puts it on the portable burner.

You follow him, balancing the plates of offal on your forearms before he turns back to pluck a couple of them and begin dumping the meat into the pot. “Save some for the grill,” you chastise, and he fishes some pieces of liver out to start barbecuing. “That’s disgusting.”

“My stomach won’t know the difference, get your own horumon.” He snickers when you elbow him lightly in the ribs before sitting down.

That’s the exact moment where the proverbial band-aid ends.

You have lived with him for six months, and never before has a meal been so quiet.

The two of you don’t talk about things that normal couples do. He talks about the sorcerers he’s fought, about the weirdos who hire him. It isn’t customary (right, normal, or good) to laugh at people’s dying words over a meal, but that’s what you do. That’s who the two of you are. And before he’d said those three little words, you would have given anything to just stay that way.

But now he’s gone and made you feel terrible.

This man, this murderer, this scoundrel, this renegade — he loves you. Whether he loves that you made him his favorite meal, or that you simply thought of him when shopping for food, it’s more than you’ve ever received in your life. And the thought of that makes you sick to your stomach, because you don’t deserve it.

You entered his life wanting to use him. Before, when it had been you and him and a beat up Toyota Corolla, all you had cared about was his name. Zen’in. Of the three families, perhaps the most likely to take you in. The cursed technique that doomed you to abandonment could redeem itself in that family. It was merely luck that you’d lured a young and handsome man into your web. His body was a luxury. He’d give you a pretty baby. Above all, his name, his blood, was what mattered.

Until it didn’t. Until he called you ‘babe’ for the first time, until he gave you a set of keys and four walls and someone to come home to. Until he made you forget why you were so angry with the world in the first place. How could it be cruel, when it had given you someone like Toji? God, you love him. You love him more than words could ever say.

You’re not stupid. You know he didn’t fall in love with you at first sight. But he let his walls down faster. He opened himself to you and you took and took and never gave him a bit of yourself — and that makes you a horrible person. Zen’in Toji may not be much better, but he deserves more than that. He deserves more than you. Unlike your foster parents, this is fact, not his own personal opinion. He doesn’t even realize it.

“Look, just forget what I said —”

“I need to tell you something —”

Both of you stare at each other, wide-eyed. “No, you go first,” in unison. An awkward chuckle, again simultaneous, until he gestures with a hand for you to speak. He crosses his arms, guarding his chest — his heart — from you. Good. He should have been doing that from the beginning.

You part your lips, but you aren’t sure where to begin. You realize that he knows next to nothing about you. He knows that you’ve lived in your car since you were eighteen. He knows that you’re horrendously picky about pizza toppings, because choosing more than cheese was a luxury when you were strapped for cash. He knows that you like it when he kisses the inside of your thighs before he eats you out. He knows that you like to rake your nails down his back because of the marks you leave on him, scarlet atop the scars from his family. He doesn’t even know your last name — though, to be fair, you don’t know it either.

“I love you too.” It’s the truth. You have to say it out loud before it makes your chest implode. He needs to know. Of all the things he should hear from you, it should be the truth. And if you want to tell him a truth that gets him to smile at you, can anyone blame you? Perhaps you should have saved it for the end as a balm. But then he might not want to hear it; or worse yet, he might not believe you.

Toji nods evenly. “Okay.” He pauses, considering what to say next. “You already know how I feel about you.”

He doesn’t want to say it again. He’s afraid.

You hate yourself.

“This whole thing… It didn’t happen by chance. I’ve been lying to you — or, I haven’t been telling you the truth about me. I haven’t said anything to you that wasn’t true, but I also haven’t been honest. Transparent is the world I’m looking for, I guess.” You chance a glance at him. Toji doesn’t visibly react, but he jerks his foot backward when you gently nudge it with your own under the table. Something aches in your chest, but you know you deserve it. “I want to tell you everything. I want us to be on the same page.”

Toji shifts in his chair. He scoots back a few inches. “Go ahead,” he says after a few moments of silence. “I’m listening.”

“I was abandoned as a baby.” This isn’t the time for theatrics. His jaw tightens at your words, but you don’t dare take the gesture as sympathy. He’s been through hell, just like you. Neither of you are predisposed to pity. “ I know a sob story’s no excuse, I’m just telling it like it is. I grew up in the foster system. You know how people are, they don’t want kids that aren’t their own. I thought I was never gonna be adopted. When I was about… four, I think, a couple of curse users fostered me. They waited for my cursed technique to develop, and they taught me everything they knew.

“They gave me back when I was nine. Decided that they didn’t want me after all, because my technique was too weak, or it didn’t suit their purposes. Something like that, I didn’t bother to clarify. By then, it was too late for me.” You smile, rueful and bitter, and look down. Your finger traces a groove where Toji had nearly splintered the table a week ago. “If people decide to adopt, they want babies. They wanna watch it grow up. Nobody wants a kid who doesn’t really need to rely on you. I guess it’s just difficult to bond when they’re already their own person.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to bond with ‘em even if they’re yours,” Toji says quietly. “When they’re not who you want them to be.”

Right. He understands. Probably more than anyone else could. “Yeah. So I stayed in the system until I aged out. At eighteen, I stole a car. I’m sure you can figure out the rest,” you tell him. You watch as he nods, his eyes drifting to a spot on the wall behind you as he tries to make sense of your words. “That’s context for what I wanted to tell you.”

“There’s more?”

“What, were you going to just accept it at that?”

He shrugs. “Everyone’s got issues. I just thought you were waiting until you were ready to tell me yours,” he mutters. “I love you. I’m not gonna let a little thing like a shitty childhood get in the way of that.”

“I love you,” you say, almost reflexively. You need him to know that. He can misunderstand everything else, but he needs to know that you love him as much as he loves you. “I… When they left me, it messed me up in all sorts of ways. I didn’t trust people, and for the longest time, all I could think about was how to get back at them.”

Toji’s eyes narrow then, and you know he must be thinking the worst of you.

“The one thing I remembered most from when they raised me was how they were obsessed with politics,” you continue. His lips twist into a frown. He knows. You’ve lost him. “They were always running errands for the big three families, trying to get in their good graces. I figured the best way to hurt them was to beat them at their own game. I asked around, wanted to see how they were doing — and it wasn't well. They’re still nobodies. So I saw my chance.

“I wanted to go after Jinichi, because he seemed like the easiest to con. Your cousins, the three of them were too closely aligned with the head of the household. I thought if I could find someone less… powerful, then I could rise above with my own merits. I’d get married to get my foot in the door, then make my own way up.”

“And then you found me,” Toji scoffs. “The biggest disappointment of all.”

You reach out but falter at the force of his glare. “I didn’t plan on meeting you,” you whisper. “You scared me shitless, remember? I thought you were gonna kill me.” He might now. You might even let him.

It had been a rainy night. You were parked off to the side, your cursed technique just barely active as you dozed in your car. Exhausted from the day’s work, you had made the mistake of falling asleep. But before you did, you planted pincers. If anyone with cursed energy stepped within range of your car, into the looming shadow of the building next to it, they’d be mincemeat. Toji, of course, had none, and he walked over the cursed landmines none the wiser.

One of your tail lights was busted, he said. He was doing a good deed. You almost activated the pincers when you woke, still disoriented, but then you realized there was a handful of ways he could have bypassed them at all. The most likely was that he was the Zen’in you’d heard frequented the area. And so you played it up. Thanked him profusely, batted your lashes. When he gave you the address of a local mechanic, you told him you couldn’t afford it — but you could think of a couple of ways to thank Toji for his kindness, and he slipped into your backseat without a second thought.

And the rest was history.

“At first, I wanted to use you. I thought if I could make something out of you, the Zen’in family would have no choice but to take me in, whether or not I was your wife.” You’d promised him honesty. He would never want you to soften anything for him, and you weren’t that kind of person. Even if it meant losing him forever, you would tell him the truth. “I guess I sort of did, looking at us now. You’re practically a family man, aren’t you?”

Neither of you had ever mentioned children, but sometimes you would catch him watching the little ones at the park nearby your apartment, the way they toddled into their parents’ arms and shrieked in joy. You wondered if it was because of the love he’d missed out on, or if he was staring because he couldn’t wait to give that love himself. You once told him off-handedly that you weren’t on the pill anymore, and all he had said was ‘okay.’ But your home rather speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

“I didn’t plan on falling in love with you. For the longest time, I tried to convince myself that I didn’t. That the way you made me feel — safe, secure, happy — was just because I was glad you were playing right into my hands.” He hasn’t looked at you for a solid minute, now. Part of you wants to reach over and tip his chin upward. The other doesn’t want you to lose your hand. “But I don’t want to play you anymore. I don’t want to manipulate you, or turn you into something you’re not. I’m in love with you, Toji. I’m not proud of who I pretended to be to get you to love me, but I wanted you to know the truth. That you deserve better, that you deserve someone who was honest from the beginning —”

“You don’t have to be.” You flinch at his interjection. Toji unfolds his arms, reaching over to take your hand. He squeezes, not enough to hurt, but enough that you can’t move your fingers. “You don’t have to be proud of it. Who the fuck needs pride? We’re both colossal fuck-ups, honey. You think I didn’t notice that you were hiding things from me?”

He breaks out into sharp laughter, his grip on your hand tightening. “Fuck, the way you were carrying on, I thought you were gonna say you found out you were my long-lost sister or something. Had me real worried for a second.” Releasing you for a moment, he gets out of his chair and makes his way across the table by you. He nudges the grill a little, careful not to make the grease spill, and sits on the edge. Toji tucks your head in close and presses a kiss into your dome. “I appreciate you being honest with me, sweetheart, but I don’t really need you to be sorry about all of that shit. You love me, right?”

You nod, almost violently. “I love you,” you tell him, reaching up to hold him. He pulls you up out of the chair and tugs you into his arms. The table shakes warningly, and he hops off. “I love you so much it scares me.”

Toji reaches up to cup your cheeks, his hands engulfing your face. He tilts his head so that you’re nose-to-nose. “Don’t let it,” he whispers against your lips, then kisses you hungrily. You fall into each other. “Let’s make a promise, baby.”

“What kind of promise?” You’re lightheaded from the kiss. Toji had practically stolen the air from your lungs. You had never imagined he would take this all so gracefully — or as gracefully as someone like him could manage.

“To live our lives the way we want to. I’m no stranger to spite. My family isn’t proud of me and I’m not proud of them either, the fucking jackasses.” He pulls you even closer to him, tucking your head into his neck. You feel the steady thrum of his pulse and clutch onto his ratty t-shirt. He’s so big he could swallow you whole.

“I’m not exactly a saint, myself,” Toji continues. “I’m a murderer. Who can say they’re proud of that? And you’re a liar, so no pride there either. We don’t need it. Let’s promise to live a life without pride — in ourselves and in others. At best, we don’t give a fuck about what other people think of us. At worst, we go around making the people who snubbed us miserable on purpose. It’s a win-win, don’t you think?”

You lean back to look up at him. His returning gaze is tender, despite the resentment dripping from his words. He must read your intent, as he dips his head to meet you half-way. You love it when he kisses you softly, every nerve in your lips tingling as warmth swells in your chest. You may even love it more than when he’s rough. But then you quickly come to the conclusion that you love them both equally — because it’s Toji kissing you.

“What do you say, babe?” Toji says gently. “Should we shake on it?”

You extend your pinky to him instead. “So if any of us fuck up, we have to feed the other a thousand needles.”

Toji laughs heartily, a full body motion that brings a smile of your own to your face. He hooks his pinky with yours and bumps your noses together. “Sure thing. Pinky promise. We should hit up a fabric store later.” He lets your hands fall, fingers still entwined.

The two of you stand there in the middle of your dining room, holding each other. It feels as though a boulder has been lifted from your chest, and you relish in the weight of him against you. He’s still here. He’s still yours.

“By the way,” Toji says as an afterthought, “if we’re starting from rock bottom — I know we are; look at us — we should probably look into getting married, huh? The family elders will shit themselves.”

He must find the shock on your face hilarious, because he doesn’t stop laughing for the next ten minutes.

[kichous]

✧･ﾟ:*   i think we should do something crazy

summary. zen’in toji is deeply intrigued by the fact that you live in your car.  series. how should i greet thee? pairing. fushiguro toji x f!reader. warnings. 18+/nsfw. word count. 2399.

07.11.23 / read the updated re-release on ao3!

Your poor little sedan shakes with each movement of your bodies. You’re parked in an alleyway, cloaked with your cursed technique, yet even still the thrill of getting caught rushes through your body. It has to be you on top. If Toji were left to his own devices, he’d have knocked the whole car over — and then where would you be?

Well, you did have the Kamo brat on speed dial. The Gojo ten years your senior you’d rather avoid; his inferiority complex over his nephew’s Six Eyes was going to tear through his hairline and you’d rather not be there for the impending mid-life crisis. Either way, it’s Toji under you, and you can tell with the violent turn of his thrusts that he must have noticed your mind wandering.

“Baby,” you moan, reaching over to trace his jaw with your fingertips, “baby, baby, baby.”

“Stick with me here,” Toji grunts. His hips snap upwards roughly, the leather of your backseat squealing whenever either of you so much as move an inch. It’s so hot and sweaty that your right knee slides off the seat, gravity burying Toji deeper inside of you. His hand wraps around all the way around your throat. He squeezes, forcing you to look down at him. The ferocity in his gaze has you giggling deliriously.

You’d met him by accident. Zen’in Jinichi had been your target — you hadn’t imagined you would find someone close to your age besides the Kamo heir, and he was already married. Toji snuck up on you, quite literally. His lack of cursed energy allowed him to bypass your safety net, and he’d startled you awake by knocking on your back window.

The very same back window that is now fogged up from your frantic lovemaking.

Toji’s growl, amplified by the confined space, tells you you’re in trouble. You really should’ve been paying attention.

He’s on you an instant, a panther leaping to maul its prey. You’re not even entirely sure what happened. Toji’s a blur, and all your body was really able to register was that there was a split second when you were in the air, and now you’re slammed onto your back into the seat ass up. His cock, erect and a furious red, was unseated in the scramble, but it only takes a moment before he pushes back into you.

“God,” you choke out, feeling so very, very full.

Toji snarls as he hooks your right leg over his shoulder. Seems he’s decided to give up human speech for the moment. The new position should be painful, stretching your body to its limits as he pounds away at a frenetic pace. It’s all you can do to hold onto his forearms on either side of you for dear life.

“Toji, oh, God,” you plead, a litany of noises falling from your lips as words seem to fail you as well. “Please, please, please, please, I’m so close, baby—”

Heat builds in your stomach, a tingling crawling down your thighs and creeping up your abdomen as your peak approaches. Toji reaches down between the two of you, his middle and index finger swiping away at your clit so quickly his hand looks like a blur. It sets you on fire, your back arching as you cry out and dig your nails into his arms.

He truly is a beast. Each and every movement oozes with power; there isn’t a moment where you don’t believe he could crush you to dust, and yet it’s his control that drives you crazy. It’s the way he angles each thrust, the way he times it in tandem with the movement of his hand, the way he’s so careful to have you teetering on the edge until you’re a keening wreck beneath him. Slick drips down the cleft of your ass into a puddle beneath you and leaves your lower half at his mercy. There’s no friction against the seat anymore.

You chant his name like a prayer as you chase the white hot pleasure bubbling within you. His eyes are wild as he pulls out of you and flips you over again so that you straddle his face. One of his hands reaches down to jerk his cock while the other guides two fingers into your sopping cunt. His tongue laves at you, quick flashes against your nub matching each curl of his middle and ring fingers. His mouth closes around your clit and you come screaming his name as he sucks on your flesh.

As his seed coats his stomach, he reaches up to grab your trembling hips with both hands. He keeps you still as you writhe, lapping away at your wetness until you’re loose and spent in his grip. It’s his punishment for not paying attention to him, based on the look on his face when he allows you to move. “Good girl,” says Toji with a shit-eating grin as his chin glistens.

You reach behind to scoop some of his cum on your finger and roll it onto your tongue. “You’re really somethin’, baby,” you whisper against him, voice shaking. His pink tongue darts out to swipe across your lower lip and you kiss him messily, relishing in the taste of you both. “Fuck.”

As you lie panting, pressed against his side, he uses his foot to roll down the window. His arm is too muscular to rest comfortably against the backrests, and so to the average passer-by it might look more like he has you in a chokehold than anything else, but you don’t mind. You don’t think he could do anything to ruin your glow.

And to think, if he’d bore the slightest hint of cursed energy, you might have stabbed him when you first met.

It’s counterintuitive to think of him as a meal ticket when his own family can’t stand him. It was after the third time you’d fucked that he told you of how he got the scar on his lip. That alone should have been a sign that you were better off exploring other prospects.

Even if you would start out as a concubine, the Kamo family was relatively stable enough that if you played your cards right, if you popped out the right baby, you could just as easily usurp the position of head wife. The Gojo family, now with their little heir, was undoubtedly on top. Just having the name alone would net you more prestige than you could ever dream of. The only logic in pursuing the Zen’in family was that Shadow Web was (hopefully) compatible with Ten Shadows, and any child you bore with a member of the main family had a higher chance of bearing the technique. But with Toji? Chances were slim. There really was no good reason for you to keep coming back to him the way you did.

It was the sex. Or maybe the conversation.

He catches your hand before it makes its way to his face, pressing it against the center of his chest so you can feel his heart beating, still rapid as he comes down from the post-coital high. Toji glances down at you, eyes inscrutable. “You need a bigger car.”

You laugh, a sound of chimes twinkling you perfected in the dark of night alone with just your hopes and dreams. “Are you gonna buy me one?” You wriggle closer until you can press a quick peck against his lips.

“I will,” he says, “and then I’ll fuck you in it so hard you won’t be able to walk, let alone drive, for a week.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I have a list of demands.” You can tell by the way his jaw tenses that he’s fighting back a smile at the tiny little kisses you pepper all over his face. As rough and tumble as Zen’in Toji looks and sounds, he melts like putty when you turn up the charm. How little he must have been loved, to have the cheesiest of gestures elicit such a reaction. It makes sense why you fit so well together, then. “I need one with seat warmers. Still leather seats, because cum is a bitch to clean.”

“I’m listening.” He isn’t, based on the way that he’s kneading the flesh of your ass.

“And of course, a big, big trunk so you can really break me in half,” you murmur, lips teasing his ear. He shudders as you nip at the lobe.

Toji chuckles. “I’ll see what Honda has to offer.”

With a feigned gasp, you sit up, making sure to arch your back. He notices, just like you wanted him to. “You wound me. Here I am, allowing you to violently thrash my house about for hours at a time, and you won’t even get me a luxury brand?”

“Don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he says. “I already take such good care of you.” His hand rubs soothing circles against your skin. You won’t lie back down until he kisses you, nibbling gently at your bottom lip. He hums contentedly  as you card your fingers through his hair and tucks you firmly into his side. Toji’s hand cradles the back of your head as you rest it on his chest. You move with the rise and fall of each breath, a serenity that seems unbreakable even with the stuffy humidity.

The two of you lay together in silence. You don’t go to sleep, not when you’re both still relying on the shadows to make sure you’re not caught. Toji seems most relaxed in these moments. You don’t expect anything of him (or so he thinks), he’s had his fill of you. Existing in the same space with someone has never been so comfortable. He never says anything, but it’s always clear he’s reluctant to leave you, as though he’d much rather live with you here. You fight back a sneer at the thought. That’s the kind of shit only someone with a roof over their head could think up.

“Does it always have to be here?” When you don’t respond, Toji repeats himself. “Babe?”

“Hm?” You tilt your head. “What do you mean?”

“We don’t always have to… park somewhere. We could get a hotel room or something.” He snorts. “There are literal hotels specifically for this purpose. No windows, discreet. Cheap, if you know the right place. It doesn’t have to be this uncomfortable. I’ll pay for it.”

You pout. “What, is this not enough? You need a whole ceremony now?” Leaning back, you exaggeratedly bow, pressing your forehead into the flesh of his tummy, which shakes with his laughter. “O’, Zen’in-dono, I beg of you — please take me into your arms and ravish me, but only in the comfort of a bed, whose springs shall never break when you touch the deepest parts of —”

“Okay!” he barks, pulling you forward. “I get it, I get it, I won’t bring it up again.”

You hum quietly as you stroke his chest. “I’m touched,” you whisper, letting earnestness pool in your throat. “Really, I am. I was under the impression that this was just fun for you but… Getting a love hotel? You know people might see you with… me.”

“Like I give a shit.” He sits up and brings you with him. Resting his chin on the top of your head, Toji leans against the door behind him. “You know I don’t give a fuck about what other people think. And don’t give me any of that Zen’in crap — you know, they even erased my name from the tree. I’m nothing to them.”

I’m nothing, just like you.

“Still…” Your heart thuds in your chest, and not for the reasons he must be thinking.

You had had a plan, of course, but that was just… scribblings in a notebook you’d bought for ¥100. Step one: hook up with a member of one of the three big families. Step two: get him to fall for you. Step three: get fucking married, maybe punch out a couple of kids as insurance. Step four: profit. This couldn’t — this couldn’t actually be step two, could it? Far be it for you to get scared off, but… shit, the way he’s looking at you. It’s almost like he cares.

He traces your face in circles with his eyes, starting from your lips, up to your forehead, and when he meets your eyes you have to glance away. You’re a good actor, but you’re not that good. He’d see through that shy, I’m not good enough for you bullshit in a heartbeat if you gave him the chance.

You make lots of plans. You’re rarely ever prepared to actually deal with the results.

“Hey,” says Toji, and he catches your chin between his thumb and index finger. The playfulness from earlier is gone, his eyes serious and dark. You’ve never seen him like this before. It’s vulnerable. Uncomfortable. “Quit playing with me. I don’t do bullshit, don’t know why I even tried. I’m telling you that I’m interested in more than just sex. You?”

Swallowing roughly, you nod. “Me too,” you say, so quiet that for a moment you fear he might not have heard. “I am too.” He meets you halfway when you lunge forward to kiss him. It’s intense, visceral, and you feel trapped in his grip despite the fact that he’s only got one tense arm around you. You reach up to take his face in both of your hands, and you can’t help the whimper that escapes when you part to take a breath. The best acting always relies on a smidge of truth, doesn’t it?

Except this isn’t an act. Except you feel like your heart’s about to leap out of your chest and into his hands, where he could do anything he wanted with it, like rip it to shreds. Except this is something you promised yourself would never happen again. You would never give anyone else the power to destroy you. And here Zen’in Toji is, unwittingly wielding it as carelessly as a toddler with a gun.

Toji rests his forehead against yours. His lips are split into a grin — boyish, open, defenseless. Genuine. The sincerity is palpable, and something eats away at your stomach.

“Good.” He kisses you again. And again, and again. Once more, with feeling. “Good.”

[kichous]

✧･ﾟ:*   addicted to a certain kind of sadness

summary. your son is a lip scar shy of looking like a ghost. series. how should i greet thee ? | part one . part two . pairings. past fushiguro toji x f!reader. minor oc x f!reader. warnings. implied postpartum depression. parental abandonment. word count. 2971.

You are horrifically out of place in his dorm room. It’s minimalist enough as it is, and you almost don’t want to move for fear of disrupting the gentle balance of a home nothing at all like yours. Megumi seems fastidious enough — but that in and of itself is yet another painful reminder. You don’t actually know your son very well at all.

Well, you know one of your sons quite well. Morinaga is the spitting image of you, just like how Megumi is practically a carbon copy of Toji.

Your daughter, Nobue, looks a lot like her father. Maybe that’s why you neglect her so much.

Whatever your relationship with his younger half-siblings, Megumi seems woefully ignorant of all things related to his blood. It’s likely the work of that white-haired brat. And Ougi’s daughter has no obligation to tell him the truth, not when she has her eyes set on his birthright. So really, you’re all that Megumi has left.

Or so you try to tell yourself.

He hands you a bottle of water and scratches the back of his head. He never makes eye contact, and you’re almost thankful for it. You want your son to look at you, but you also don’t want to meet the gaze of a man long dead. The unruliness of Megumi’s hair seems to be all that he bears of you, and that makes your heart ache just a bit.

A friend of his just died recently, you recall hearing. Sukuna’s vessel. The logical part of you believes it’s for the best, a threat ended. The part of you that yearns for your child’s affection demands that you comfort him somehow. But what could you do? He had pointedly avoided touching your hand, and the only reason you were sitting on his bed in the first place was because he hadn’t any other chairs to offer. You pat a spot on the mattress beside you, and Megumi reluctantly lowers himself onto it.

What do you say? ‘Hello, son. Nice to finally see you after fifteen years.’ That will be sure to go over well.

You inhale deeply, an action that causes Megumi’s chin to dip closer to his chest. You don’t know what to do with your hands, and you constantly shift them in your lap, clasping and unclasping fingers in different positions. Eventually, you settle on holding onto your elbows. “You look well,” you tell him. There are heavy bags under his eyes and every breath he takes is a hollow rattle in his ribcage.

His friend just died. Nice going. Mother of the year, you are.

“I’m okay, I guess.”

And then the silence persists.

Should you have even come at all? There’s no way he actually wants to see you. Inserting yourself in his life is 100% a selfish choice on your part. You want your son. You haven’t seen him since he was three months old, and so you need to know him, no matter how many hoops you have to jump through.

In your defense, Toji took him without your permission when he left. And you hadn’t wanted to disrupt Megumi’s already precarious home life when he was little by suddenly dragging him into the clan that ruined his father’s life. But you almost died this past winter — of illness, of all things! an anticlimactic end for a sorcerer — so you’re sure the powers that be can forgive you for being a little selfish.

(As if you haven’t been operating on self-interest for literally your entire life.)

It’s hard to reconcile the young man, perfectly self-sufficient and competent, with the tiny little baby you held into your arms over a decade ago. You still remember the first time he sneezed, his little face scrunching up and his little kushu!

“Ya okay, little man?” Toji had said, his voice quivering with laughter. Your heart had grown ten sizes that day. It stings to know how many firsts Toji stole from you. Steps, words. His first fucking birthday. You might’ve even ended up Megumi’s favorite parent, but because of Toji, you’re nothing but a stranger to him now.

The quiet is unbearable. Your forced cheery tone is perhaps even more so: “I’m so happy you decided to see me. I’ve been wanting to meet you for such a long time.”

“It’s nothing,” Megumi replies, bereft of the usual reassurance accompanying the platitude. You haven’t a doubt in your mind that you truly are nothing to him. The boy’s brow furrows as he worries at his lower lip, clearly deciding on whether to voice a thought. Megumi meets your eyes for the first time, and a jolt runs through you at the sight of familiar jade. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” you say, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Anything at all.”

His eyes narrow at your words. A skeptic, just like his father. A cynic too, then. His sightline drifts down to his hands, fingers steepled in his lap. He sits with his knees far apart — like Toji used to. It truly hurts just looking at him, but you can’t turn away. You won’t. You want to memorize every painful detail.

Megumi wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Why did you come now? After all this time… did you not look for me?”

Of course, it’s the natural question to ask. Part of the reason you hadn’t tried to snatch him away when you did find him was because you knew what it was like to have your home life chewed up and spit out by adults more concerned with each other than you. Both you and Toji loved Megumi — you know that from the bottom of your heart — but the two of you were also too vindictive not to get him caught in the crossfire.

What would it be like for a first grader to be ripped from his father, raised by two complete strangers he’d never met?

Saiichi was furious when you said you’d respect Toji’s wishes. It was really the only time you’d ever fought, which was saying something for six whole years of marriage. But the row alone had convinced you couldn’t allow him to raise Megumi as his stepfather.

“I did,” you tell him, reaching out to take his hands before halting at his flinch. You return your hands to your lap and squeeze them between your knees. He still watches them warily, as if they’re vipers ready to strike out at him. Oh, how you wish you could touch his face. “By the time I found you, your father had already remarried. I had heard that you had a stepmother and a stepsister. I thought you might be unhappy if I took you away from them.”

“So why now, then? Why not when Tsumiki’s mom disappeared, or when my sister fell into a coma?” There’s an edge to his voice, his words like papercuts on your skin. “You could’ve picked either of those times to waltz into my life but you didn’t.”

Your jaw goes tight, teeth grinding together. That little brat was always going to be a thorn in your side, wasn’t she? Her mother, you could ignore. You understood how easy it was to fall for Zen’in Toji and how empty the world seemed without him. But had it not been for Tsumiki, perhaps you might have gotten Megumi back.

You recall circular black lenses and the flippant, nasally drone of, “Mm, I don’t think he’d like you. Too evil stepmom-esque — more than his actual stepmom, how ‘bout that?”

All because you hadn’t wanted to take care of a bitch who wasn’t yours.

You settle on a half-truth instead. “I was afraid,” you whisper, letting your eyes drop. Megumi’s fingers twitch, and then he curls them into fists. He places them on top of his knees, crinkling the fabric of his pants. “That you would hate me. That you would never consider me your mother. And I was afraid of what this family would do to you. That’s why your father took you in the first place, you know.”

“No, I don’t.” He gives a short exhale, annoyed and bitter. “I don’t even remember him.”

...Does this mean that you win?

You despise the thought as soon as it comes to you.

Parenting isn’t a competition, and it is a damn shame that Megumi had no recollection of the man you made him with. Toji was a good father, in the months that you had seen the two of them together.

Such a large and hulking man, you had never seen him so delicate and gentle as he was with his newborn son. He would insist you continue sleeping, that because you had carried Megumi for nine months, Toji should be the one dealing with the baby when he woke crying at ungodly hours. He talked to Megumi a lot, sometimes parroting baby noises and sometimes monologuing a censored version of his daily routine.

He always had Megumi in his lap, and you recall times during meals when you had laughed at the baby’s wide eyes as they followed his father’s utensils in the belief they were to feed him. Toji built the crib and mobiles himself. The dumpy high chair was his own when he was a baby. He worked less and spent more time at home with you. It earned him ridicule, as it was typical of Zen’in men to leave child rearing to their women and servants, but Toji had only you and none of the latter, and so there was a grudging respect that he once more surpassed his kin in something other than sorcery.

At the very least, it appeared to most outsiders that Toji loved Megumi more than you did. The walls of the Zen’in complex are thin, and you are certain that most — if not all — of its inhabitants had heard you shriek that the baby was a disappointment two mere months after his birth. Toji’s wide-eyed look of betrayal, horror, and rage would stay with you forever.

That’s when everything was well and truly over, you think, but the reanimated corpse of your family had shambled along for another six weeks before Toji disappeared out of your life forever.

The last time you had seen your husband, he had just put your son to bed and climbed into your own, the broad expanse of his back facing you as he slept. The last time you saw your son, you’d wrapped him up tightly in a blanket the same shade as his eyes, and his lower lip had wobbled when you reached out to stroke a chubby cheek. There was a time when he would light up when you were near. He may not have understood the words, but perceptive little Megumi knew what you had said. He despised you. Toji came along and shushed him, and you had curled up under your covers in frustration and sorrow.

It’s hard to think of him as the same man who walked out on his second wife and children, let alone someone who married a woman who would abandon her children as well. You tried to resent Toji for leaving you — but you knew that you were a horrible wife and an even worse mother to his child. If your positions had been reversed, you’d have run off in the dark of night too. But it hurts now, knowing that he hadn’t lived long past his departure, and that your beloved son had grown up under the watch of a school rather than his only remaining parent.

“He sold me,” Megumi continues, each word a stab into your heart. “Clearly he wasn’t trying very hard to keep me away.”

“No,” you admit, lifting your head. “It must’ve been around the time you developed your cursed technique. I don’t imagine he would have done so otherwise. He thought you’d be happy here, as the heir.”

“Did he now.”

He freezes when you place a hand on his shoulder, though he doesn’t fight back when you wrap your arms around him and press his face into the crook of your neck. He’s tense, shoulders raised, and he doesn’t return the hug — but he doesn’t wholly reject you. You take that as a minor victory. His long lashes brush against your skin with each startled blink. “What are you doing?”

“I’m holding my son,” you say, using your other hand to stroke his back. You feel tears spring to your eyes, and you stop fighting them back for the first time in decades. They spill down your cheeks and onto his shirt, seemingly endless. “I’m apologizing — for both myself and your father. You deserved better from the both of us, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that he left, that I never came for you, and that you have spent your entire life in a power struggle you didn’t ask for.

“This family is a festering pit, and it has destroyed everything it touches. Your father saw that, and while he had hope that they would treat you well, he was right to have doubts. He saved you from us — from me.” You chuckle bitterly. It’s much wetter and tearier than you intended, losing its edge. “You would have been miserable with us. He made the right choice.”

Megumi’s Adam’s apple bobs against you as he swallows. “If that’s what you think, then why are you here?”

You can barely see him when you pull back, wiping your cheeks with your sleeves. The heavy silks were not made for this. He sits further from you, clearly wary that you might touch him without permission again. If anyone had asked, you’d say it was worth it. The last time you held him, he was barely 60 centimeters. He’s bigger than you, now.

“Sorry,” you say again, leaning back yourself. He relaxes at the motion, if just minutely. You sniff and swipe the pad of a finger under your eyes. You smile at him and lift your shoulders in a shrug. “I suppose it’s because I’m selfish. I didn’t want to die without ever seeing my baby boy again.” You almost move before remembering to ask. “May I?”

His eyes are trained on your left hand as you lift it and extend it towards him. He frowns, ponders it, and then leans his cheek into your palm. He finds the affection uncomfortable, you can tell by the furrow of his brows, but he allows it. “So soft,” you chuckle as you rub your thumb over his skin. “Just like when you were little.”

He huffs quietly, and you choose to assume that it’s a laugh. Megumi shifts and scoots back towards you, meeting your gaze. His lips part, and he takes a second to gather his words. “I don’t know if I’m ready for… all this,” he says finally, fingers once more curled into loose fists, “but I’m… I’m glad you’re here —” He pauses, seeming to think better of it, before throwing prudence to the wind. “— mom.”

You feel as though your heart is about to burst out of your chest. You don’t deserve this, and that makes you treasure it all the more.

“I can’t wait to get to know you.” When you open your arms to him once more, he moves into them of his own accord. It’s still an awkward embrace, and it’s clear that he isn’t used to hugs, but you relish the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck as well. “I missed you, Megumi.”

You feel his jaw tense against you — a misstep, it seems. No matter. He’s here, and he’s in your arms. He shifts, angling so that he can rest his face in the junction between your neck and your shoulder. As you feel the light puffs of his breath against your flesh, you stroke his hair. Never in the past fifteen years did you think you’d ever be able to see, let alone hold, him again.

Between your husband and the boy’s teacher, the two strongest people in the world, there was a lot standing in the way of your reunion with your son. Greatest of all was perhaps yourself, the omnipresent guilt for ever letting something as meaningless as cursed energy turn you against your own child. You’ll never tell him what you said; you could never bear to see his father’s face twisted with hurt yet again.

Shortly after you gave birth to your second child, you imagined Morinaga was Toji’s. He bore little enough resemblance to Saiichi that it was a possibility he was a parting gift. You concocted a second life left only in your mind, of you having run away with Toji — away from the Zen’ins, from sorcery, from the entire world, to some house in the suburbs where all that mattered was your little family. Toji forgave you and you still loved each other. You hadn’t made the mistake of staying behind.

The four of you would live happily. You’d help Megumi and Morinaga (Toji would never have named him that) control their cursed techniques, but they’d grow up never hearing of the Zen’in family. Your perfect revenge against your foster parents would still be complete. You didn’t need any underhanded machinations, you just needed your family. You would be happy with the man you love and your two children.

Getting pregnant with Nobue killed off what remained of that fantasy, and you had resigned yourself to your misery. But now, Toji’s son is here, and he isn’t pushing you away. He’s holding you, and he’s real.

You would never throw away this second chance. You’d kill yourself trying to hold onto it forever.

[kichous]

❝ if i should meet thee      after long years    how should i greet thee ? ----      with silence and tears. ❜ pairing. fushiguro toji & f!reader. genre. canon divergent. angst.

complete !

part one .

part two . 

part three . 

part four . 

part five .

bonus tag.