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moongirlcleo · 28 days ago

Text

Dutybound

❤︎ tags and content: arranged marriage, two dicks, double penetration, overstimulation, aftercare, rough and messy, raf is a smug bastard ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

Married to a god of the deep, you expect duty. You don’t expect desire.

Rafayel is patient, indulgent—dangerous in the way he watches, waits, toys with you. He lets you pretend this is an obligation, that you don’t want him.But when you finally ask—when you offer yourself to him—he makes sure you understand: This was never just duty.You were always meant to be his.

You had never met your husband.

That was the first thing people always wanted to know. "What’s he like?" they'd ask, eyes gleaming with the kind of curiosity that thrived on scandal. And you would laugh, awkward and forced, because how did you even begin to explain that your own husband was a stranger to you?

"He’s... mysterious," you’d say, which wasn’t a lie. He had to be, considering you knew next to nothing about him. Your marriage existed on paper, a set of meticulously drawn signatures binding your life to his in a way no real emotion ever had.

A political arrangement, they called it. A necessity. An alliance between two worlds that had once been at odds, the threads of old wounds still raw between the lines of diplomacy. You, a human with nothing particularly extraordinary about you, were now tied to Rafayel—the Lemurian prince, the so-called God of Tides, a man whose very name carried the weight of tides and tragedies you had no part in.

And yet, in the eyes of the world, you belonged to him.

It was an absurdity you had never fully wrapped your head around. One day, you had been yourself—just yourself. And the next, you were a wife to someone you had never spoken to, never touched, never seen outside of fragmented images and whispered rumors.

He was beautiful, or so they said. Ethereal in the way all Lemurians were, a creature woven from the sea itself. Dusky violet hair, bi-colored eyes like a shifting current. Taller than most men. A smile that either charmed or threatened, depending on his mood.

You had spent nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he thought of all this. Did he resent it? Did he scoff at the idea of being bound to a human he had never met? Or was he indifferent, viewing you as nothing more than another burden to bear?

Tomorrow, those questions felt heavier than usual. Because after months of silence, of letters exchanged only through intermediaries, of a wedding that had been sealed without so much as a glance between you—

You were finally getting the chance to meet Rafayel in person.

You wake up before dawn, the weight of reality settling into your chest before your mind fully catches up. Today is the day. The day you finally meet your husband.

The morning air is crisp against your skin as you dress, each movement meticulous, measured. You’d spent far too long the night before debating what to wear—something regal enough to match his station, but not so extravagant that it felt like an act. In the end, you settled for something simple yet elegant, the kind of thing that whispered confidence instead of shouting it.

Your hands are steady as you adjust the fabric, but your pulse betrays you, thrumming beneath your skin like the distant crash of waves.

You’d been prepared for this moment in theory. Advisors had coached you on the proper way to address him, on the history of Lemuria, on the subtle nuances of a culture long thought lost beneath the tides. But none of their words had prepared you for the reality of it—that in mere moments, you would stand before a man who was as much legend as he was flesh and blood.

And then, the summons comes.

A quiet knock at the door. A low-voiced attendant informing you that he has arrived.

Your breath catches. With a final glance at your reflection, you step forward to meet the mysterious man that, to the rest of the world, had stolen your heart.

The room is grand—of course it is. Every inch of this place is designed to remind you of the weight of history pressing down upon your shoulders. Dark wood panels stretch along the walls, and high arched windows spill the morning light across polished floors. It smells of salt and something faintly metallic, like the remnants of a storm at sea.

And yet, the man waiting for you is not the one you expected.

He stands near the center of the room, hands neatly folded in front of him, posture straight but not stiff. His suit is pristine, the deep navy fabric tailored to perfection, but there’s something about the way he holds himself that feels unshakable—a man who has long since mastered the art of control.

“Lady y/n,” he greets, his voice smooth and measured. “A pleasure.”

You blink, your carefully rehearsed introductions crumbling under the sheer weight of confusion. “I—thank you.” A pause. “I was told I’d be meeting my husband?”

Something flickers across his face—just for a moment, just enough for you to catch it before his expression smooths back into polite indifference. “Lord Rafayel has been... delayed.”

Delayed.

Your stomach tightens. You are standing here, in a place you do not know, bound to a man you have never met, and he—what? Couldn’t be bothered to show up?

Thomas seems to sense the shift in your mood because he exhales, a soft, barely-there thing. “It is not a slight, I assure you,” he continues, his voice dipping into something quieter. Smoother. “Lord Rafayel is... particular about how he does things.”

You don’t know why, but the phrasing makes something bristle in you. “And meeting his wife isn’t one of them?”

A ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of Thomas’s mouth, gone before it fully forms. “On the contrary. He has been very interested in meeting you.”

You don’t miss the deliberate wording. You fold your arms, tilting your head just slightly. “Then why isn’t he here?”

Thomas hesitates. Just for a second.

And that second tells you more than any explanation could.

“He prefers a certain... grandeur to introductions,” Thomas finally admits, and for the first time, the carefully placed neutrality in his tone wavers, like he knows exactly how ridiculous that sounds. “He will arrive soon. In the meantime, he has requested that I keep you company.”

You narrow your eyes. “To distract me?”

“To prepare you.”

The words land heavier than you expect.

You don’t know what you expected from this meeting, but something about the way Thomas says it makes your pulse slow, deliberate.

“Prepare me for what, exactly?” you ask.

The man finally allows himself a real smile, small but undeniably knowing. “For him.”

Thomas is efficient, moving through the room with the kind of practiced grace that suggests he has been in service far longer than his youthful features let on. A man trained to anticipate needs before they are spoken. He gestures for you to sit near a low table, where a tray of refreshments has already been arranged—an assortment of delicate pastries, rich tea, and something that gleams darkly in a crystal glass. Wine, perhaps. Or something stronger.

You sit, smoothing your hands over your lap, not missing the way Thomas studies you with the quiet precision of a man taking careful notes.

"You don't seem particularly nervous," he remarks as he pours your tea.

You arch a brow. "Should I be?"

Thomas lets out a soft, amused hum. "That depends." He passes you the cup, waiting until you've taken your first sip before continuing. "Most find Rafayel... overwhelming at first."

The way he says it—light, unassuming, but with a thread of warning—makes something stir uneasily in your chest. "And you? What do you think of him?"

Thomas considers you for a moment before answering. "I think he is not easily understood."

Not a good man. Not a bad one. Just... not easily understood.

Something about that unsettles you more than an outright warning would have.

You set your cup down, tilting your head slightly. "And why do I get the feeling you're trying to understand me?"

This time, Thomas doesn't bother hiding his smirk. "Because I am." He leans back slightly, his gaze assessing, sharp without being unkind. "I have been by Rafayel’s side for a long time. I am very familiar with how he operates. And so I am curious—what kind of woman agrees to marry a man she has never met?"

The question lands softly, without judgment, but still, you feel the weight of it settle in your ribs.

You glance down at the ring on your finger, at the delicate band that binds you to someone you should know, but don’t.

"My reasons are my own," you say finally, keeping your voice even. "Just as I imagine his are."

Thomas hums again, something like approval glinting in his eyes. "A diplomatic answer. You’ll need that."

Before you can ask what that means, the candlelight flickers. Just a whisper of movement in the farthest shadow of the room. A disturbance so slight that most wouldn’t notice it.

But you are not most.

The air shifts, the faintest rustle of fabric reaching your ears.

You are not alone.

And somehow, you never were.

Thomas, still composed, still pouring himself a glass of wine, does not turn his head as he speaks again. But his next words are different, heavier, threaded with something almost... knowing.

"Tell me," he muses, swirling the wine in his glass. "Do you prefer your introductions grand... or intimate?"

You don’t answer Thomas right away. Instead, your gaze flickers toward the far end of the room, toward the deep pockets of shadow that seem too thick to be natural.

The sensation of being watched drapes over you like silk and iron, both weightless and unyielding. It shouldn’t unnerve you as much as it does—this place is unfamiliar, its corners vast and unknown. It makes sense that you would feel small beneath its walls.

But this is something else.

Something pointed.

And Thomas—well. Thomas seems amused.

He watches you with the sharp patience of a man who already knows the game being played but is far too entertained to warn you of the rules. He swirls his wine again, watching the deep red liquid coat the glass before finally breaking the silence.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Your spine stiffens, and you force yourself to focus on him. “What question?”

Thomas tilts his head slightly, as if you’ve just confirmed something he already suspected. “How you prefer your introductions,” he reminds you, voice smooth as the wine he sips. “Grand or intimate?”

The way he says it—intimate—is deliberate. A brush of velvet over steel, a thread of implication woven just faintly enough that if you called him out on it, he could feign innocence.

You shift in your seat. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that you’re suddenly hyper aware of your own posture. The space you take up. The way your breathing has slowed just a fraction too much.

Thomas notices. Of course, he does.

And, somewhere in the shadows, so does your husband.

There’s a reason Rafayel has not revealed himself yet. He is watching, studying, waiting for something only he will recognize.

You lick your lips before you can stop yourself, forcing your voice into something composed. “Does it matter?”

Thomas smiles. A small, knowing thing. “To him? Oh, absolutely.”

The weight of unseen eyes presses heavier now, the air shifting in a way that makes the candlelight tremble. A flicker of movement—too swift to catch—somewhere just beyond your periphery.

Your heart picks up, but Thomas is merciless in his curiosity. He leans forward slightly, elbows resting on the arm of his chair, gaze never leaving yours.

“I wonder,” he murmurs, as if he’s speaking only to himself. “Do you fear him?”

The question catches you off guard. Not because you don’t know the answer—you do. But because you feel the shift. Something in the air tightens. A ripple, a tension pulling. And suddenly, you are very sure that whoever watches you from the shadows is no longer just watching.

He is listening. Waiting for your answer.

You wet your lips again, pulse thrumming against the delicate line of your throat.

Do you fear him? Or does something else coil in your stomach at the thought of meeting him?

Your lips part, the answer forming before you can second-guess it.

“No.”

The word settles between you and Thomas, clear, steady. A statement, not a question. Not a doubt.

For a moment, there is silence. A low, amused hum from the darkness shortly after. Slow. Drawn-out, ike someone savoring the taste of your answer.

“Interesting.”

The air in the room shifts.

The shadows stir, peeling away from the far wall like they are no longer satisfied with merely lurking. There is no grand reveal, no sudden burst of movement. Just a presence unfolding—fluid, effortless—as though he had been part of the very architecture, waiting for the right moment to detach himself from it.

There he is. Your husband.

Rafayel moves like a man who has never needed to rush a day in his life. His presence fills the space effortlessly, as if he had already claimed it long before he arrived. Tall, lean, otherworldly.

His dusky purple waves frame sharp, striking features—high cheekbones, a jawline that could cut, and eyes that are wrong in all the right ways. Blue and pink, flickering with something unreadable, something depthless.

He is dressed in dark silks that shift with every movement, the deep purples and blues of his coat nearly indistinguishable from the abyss he just stepped out of. And yet, despite his ominous introduction—despite the way your body knows he is dangerous—

He smiles at you. Not the smirk you expect, not the wolfish grin of a man who enjoys his power. But something softer. Playful. Amused. You don’t know what you were expecting from the Lemurian prince, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t the easy, almost lazy confidence in the way he watches you. It wasn’t the way his head tilts slightly, like he’s indulging in the sight of you, rather than staking a claim.

And it certainly wasn’t the first thing he says.

“You’re lovely.”

The words are too casual. Too intimate for a first meeting, as if he has known you for much longer than the last few seconds. You blink. Open your mouth. Close it. Thomas—damn him—looks supremely entertained. Rafayel’s smile lingers, his gaze flickering over you like he’s committing something to memory. Then, with a graceful dip of his head, he speaks again.

“I suppose introductions are overdue. Though I feel as if I already know you.” His voice is smooth, rich—like deep water lapping at the shore.

Then, his lips curve just slightly at the corners, teasing.

“You did say you weren’t afraid of me. I think I’m flattered.”

His tone is unreadable—mocking? Delighted? Genuinely intrigued? You can’t tell.

You should say something. You need to say something.

But your mouth has forgotten how to form words, and Rafayel—your husband—knows it. The way he watches you is almost lazy, eyes lidded in amusement, like he is waiting for you to catch up. As if he already expected this reaction. As if your flustered silence is exactly what he wanted. And Thomas—ever the opportunist—seizes the moment with all the grace of a man who lives for entertainment.

“Well,” he hums, setting his glass down with a soft clink. “I’d say my job here is done.”

You snap out of your daze just enough to flick a sharp glance his way. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

Thomas gives you a look that is all polite indifference, save for the glint of humor in his eyes. “You are married, my lady.” He gestures vaguely between you and Rafayel. “It’s only right that I allow the happy couple some time alone.”

The words send a fresh wave of awareness through you—because he’s right. You are married. To this man. To this prince. To this God of Tides whose presence alone feels like it has swallowed the entire room whole.

Before you can form a protest, Thomas inclines his head in a short bow. “I’ll take my leave, my lord.”

Rafayel, still entirely at ease, flicks his fingers in a lazy dismissal. “Thank you, Thomas.”

He doesn’t even look at him. His gaze remains on you as the door clicks and the two of you are alone. The silence stretches. You swallow, your fingers twitching slightly against your lap before you decide to busy yourself with the teacup Thomas left behind. You reach for it carefully, only to realize too late that your hands are not nearly as steady as you’d like.

Rafayel notices. He watches the way you hesitate, the way your fingers tighten minutely around the porcelain before you manage to lift it to your lips.

He smirks.

“You’re nervous,” he observes, tone far too amused for your liking.

You lower the cup, glaring at him over the rim. “I am not.”

Rafayel makes a low, thoughtful hum. “No?”

And then, before you can react, he leans forward just slightly—not enough to be invasive, but enough to make you feel it. The shift in proximity, the awareness prickling along your skin like the tide creeping up on unsuspecting shores.

His voice drops, low and measured. “Your hands tremble when you lie.”

Your breath catches. Heat prickles up your spine—traitorous, unbidden.

You pull back, willing your pulse to slow. “Maybe I’m just cold.”

His smirk deepens. “Are you?” You don’t answer. You can’t answer, which only seems to amuse him even more. Then, as if deciding to take mercy on you, Rafayel shifts back, allowing just enough space for you to breathe properly again. He watches you over the rim of his own glass as he takes a slow sip, considering.

“Would you like to ask me something, wife?”

The title lands heavier than it should. Not mocking, not teasing. Just… a fact. You grip your teacup a little tighter. There are a hundred things you could ask him. A hundred different paths this conversation could take. But what comes out of your mouth instead is—

“…Why did you watch me before revealing yourself?”

Rafayel pauses. Then, a slow smile unfurls across his lips, like the tide dragging back just before a wave crashes.

“I wanted to see if you were afraid of me,” he admits.

You blink. “And?”

He tilts his head, studying you. “I haven’t decided yet if I believe you.”

A shiver curls through you—one you hope he doesn’t notice. You clear your throat, shifting in your seat. “That’s not an answer.”

“Isn’t it?”

You glare at him, but he only grins. He sets his glass aside, propping his chin against his palm as if you’ve just become his new favorite curiosity.

“Ask me another,” he offers.

You hesitate this time, choosing your words more carefully. “What do you want from this marriage?”

Rafayel doesn’t answer right away.

He watches you instead, gaze dipping lower—not improper, but assessing. A slow, deliberate once-over, like he is measuring something unseen.

Then, finally— “Everything.”

Your breath stutters. All Rafayel gives is a smile. The way he says everything lingers in the air between you, heavier than it should be. It coils around your ribs, presses against the delicate skin of your throat, and sinks.

You swallow, pulse fluttering where it shouldn’t. “That’s—” Your voice catches, and you hate that it does. “That’s not very specific.”

Rafayel tilts his head, watching you with the slow patience of a tide creeping forward, his gaze shifting between blue and pink in a way that makes him unreadable. There’s a calm deliberation in his expression, as if he’s already considered every possible response you might give and is simply waiting for you to stumble into the most interesting one.

“It is not,” he agrees, amusement curling at the edges of his voice.

Your fingers tighten against your cup. “Would you care to elaborate?”

His lips curve, slow and deliberate, before he leans forward again—closer this time, enough that the warmth of his presence seeps into your space. He doesn’t touch, but he doesn’t need to. The sheer weight of his attention is enough to make you forget how to breathe properly.

“You wish to know what I expect of you?” he asks, voice as smooth as silk, laced with something you can’t quite name. “As my wife?”

There’s no mistaking the intent behind the way he says it, the possessiveness woven into the words, not spoken as a mere formality but as an undeniable claim. You hate the way heat pricks at your skin in response, creeping up the back of your neck despite your best efforts to ignore it.

You clear your throat, willing your pulse to slow. “That would be helpful, yes.”

Rafayel hums, watching you for a moment longer before settling back into his seat with a deliberate, unhurried ease, as if indulging you. His posture is all relaxed grace, yet something about the way he moves suggests he is always in control.

“In Lemurian tradition, a royal union is not truly sealed until it has been properly consummated.”

The words drop into the space between you like a stone into deep water.

You knew this. It had been mentioned in your endless briefings, an unavoidable detail buried among the many customs and expectations you were expected to uphold. But hearing it spoken by him, in this setting, while he watches you like that—like he’s already imagining what fulfilling that particular duty will look like—has your grip tightening around the delicate porcelain in your hands.

Rafayel notices.

His smirk deepens.

“I see you remember.”

You inhale sharply, forcing yourself to maintain your composure. “That’s not—” Exhaling slowly, you fight to keep your expression neutral. “That’s not exactly an immediate concern, is it?”

His gaze remains steady, unwavering, and entirely too entertained by your reaction. Slowly, deliberately, he tilts his head, studying you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. His voice drops just slightly, as if drawing out the moment for his own amusement.

“No,” he murmurs, taking his time with the word. “But it will be.”

Heat floods through you before you can stop it, spreading from the base of your spine up to your cheeks, and damn him for the way he seems to take pleasure in every second of it. He doesn’t move, doesn’t lean in again, but the weight of his presence feels closer than ever, as if he is already closing in, testing your reactions, measuring your every breath.

You force yourself to focus on something else—anything else—and grasp onto the shift in conversation when he finally moves on.

“Beyond that, there are formalities,” he continues, finally offering some distance, though the lingering amusement in his voice tells you he isn’t finished toying with you. “Public appearances. Celebrations in your honor. You are to be presented as the Princess of Lemuria, and with that comes expectation.”

You latch onto the new topic like a lifeline, willing yourself to regain some semblance of control. “What sort of expectation?”

Rafayel doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he watches you in that careful, assessing way of his, gaze dipping over you as if weighing something unseen. The pause stretches just long enough to make your stomach tighten, anticipation curling in the space between heartbeats.

“You are mine now,” he says, as if it is the simplest truth in the world, and it is not a metaphor. “And I intend for the world to see that.”

Your fingers press into your lap, grip tightening on the fabric of your dress. The certainty in his voice leaves no room for question, no space for doubt. It is not a boast or a threat—simply a fact, one that he expects you to understand as well as he does.

“There will be gatherings, ceremonies, and opportunities for you to become accustomed to your role,” he continues, tone lighter now, as if this is all perfectly reasonable.

You exhale slowly, forcing yourself to meet his gaze despite the lingering heat in your cheeks. “And what, exactly, does that role entail?”

Something shifts in his expression, not quite a smirk but something close, something knowing. He studies you for another moment, stretching out the silence just enough to keep you on edge.

“You will find out soon enough.”

The deliberate vagueness sends another shiver down your spine, and you hate the way he seems to enjoy the way you react to his words.

Your breath hitches, and for the first time since he entered the room, you realize—

This isn’t just a conversation to him. It’s a game.

And you, whether you like it or not, are playing it.

His gaze flickers over you one last time, that same unreadable look settling into his features before his lips curve into something slower, something deeper.

The silence stretches, thick and charged, his words lingering between you like something palpable. You will find out soon enough. There is no teasing lilt to his voice this time, no smirk playing at his lips. Just certainty. A weight that settles over you, pressing against your ribs, making your skin prickle with awareness.

Your fingers tighten in your lap as you force yourself to focus. You knew this moment would come eventually—that there would be expectations between you beyond the political union, beyond the public ceremonies and carefully curated appearances. There is another duty that marriage demands. A truth you’ve known from the moment you signed your name on the documents binding you to him.

You inhale slowly, steadying yourself. “About the consummation.”

Rafayel’s expression doesn’t change, but there is something new in his gaze, a flicker of interest as if he had been waiting for you to bring it up. He shifts slightly in his seat, his posture still relaxed, but there’s a weight to it now, an attentiveness that wasn’t there before.

“Oh?” His voice dips, smooth as the tide lapping against the shore. “You wish to discuss it now?”

Heat creeps up your neck, but you hold your ground, refusing to let him unnerve you any further. “I think it’s something that should be addressed sooner rather than later. It’s a requirement of the union, isn’t it?”

His lips curl—not quite a smirk, not quite a smile, just something slow and considering. “It is.”

You nod, exhaling softly. “Then we should establish expectations.”

Rafayel watches you, his fingers drumming lightly against the arm of his chair, his eyes flickering over your face as if he’s searching for something. The slow rise and fall of your breath, the way your shoulders are set with careful determination, the way you refuse to look away despite the heat pressing against your skin.

Finally, he moves.

Not much—just a small shift forward, a subtle lean of his body, but it feels as though the very air around you changes. He does not reach for you, does not bridge the space between you completely, but his presence alone is enough to remind you exactly who you are speaking to.

“You say that as if this is a contract negotiation,” he murmurs, his voice just above a whisper, something dark and amused threaded through it. “Tell me, wife, how do you propose we handle this particular expectation?”

Your pulse stumbles, and his gaze sharpens, catching the flicker of hesitation before you manage to smooth it over. You steel yourself, swallowing past the dryness in your throat. “I think it would be best if we approached it with a clear understanding. No surprises.”

Rafayel’s expression flickers, a shadow of something unreadable passing through his features before he settles back again. “No surprises,” he echoes, as if tasting the words, rolling them over in his mind. “How very... diplomatic.”

Your fingers press against your lap, resisting the urge to fidget. “I only mean that we should agree on—”

“On what, exactly?” His voice is softer now, but no less intense. “On how it will happen? When?” He pauses, and the way he tilts his head, the way his lips part just slightly as if savoring the thought, sends something warm curling in the pit of your stomach. “Or are you looking for reassurances?”

The words settle over your skin like a slow tide creeping in, dragging you under inch by inch. There is no outright mockery in his tone, no cruel edge, but there is something deliberate in the way he speaks, in the way he waits for your reaction, drinking in every little shift in your demeanor like he’s memorizing them.

Your throat tightens, but you refuse to look away. “I think it’s important that we both know where we stand.”

Rafayel considers you, his gaze sweeping over your face, lingering at your lips before meeting your eyes once more. “You’re tense,” he observes, and there is something far too knowing in his voice, something that makes your breath stutter despite your best efforts to remain composed.

“I’m being practical.”

His lips curve, slow and unhurried. “Are you?”

Your fingers twitch, curling slightly against your lap as heat prickles beneath your skin. You don’t trust yourself to answer, and he seems to know that too, because he shifts again, this time just slightly closer, his presence wrapping around you like the pull of deep water.

“You don’t need to worry,” he murmurs, and for the first time, there is something almost gentle beneath the amusement. “I have no intention of taking anything from you that you do not wish to give.”

Your breath catches at the quiet promise beneath his words, at the certainty in his tone that does not feel like a concession, but a truth.

And yet, something in the way he looks at you—the steady weight of his gaze, the quiet intensity simmering beneath the surface—tells you he does not believe this will remain an issue for long.

Because despite his patience, despite his willingness to let you set the pace, Rafayel is a prince. A man who has spent his life taking what he wants, bending the world to his will.

And right now, that sharp, unreadable gaze tells you exactly what he’s thinking.

He will wait. He will give you space.

But when you do come to him—and he seems certain that you will—there will be no mistaking that it was your choice.

The thought sends a fresh wave of heat through your veins, and as you quickly reach for your tea, desperate for something to focus on, Rafayel just watches.

The silence stretches long enough that your own thoughts begin to betray you. The weight of his gaze, the certainty in his expression—it’s too much, too overwhelming, pressing against your skin like the tide creeping in, swallowing every last inch of sand.

Your pulse stumbles, breath too shallow, and you hate that he can probably hear it. That he can see every tell in your body, every shift in your posture that betrays the nerves coiled tight in your stomach.

It would be easier if he were cruel. If he taunted, if he smirked with the satisfaction of making you squirm. But this—the quiet patience, the way he looks at you like he already knows exactly what you’re going to do before you do it—is far worse.

You need control. You need to take control before it slips completely from your grasp.

The words are out before you can think them through. “We should just do it now.”

The air changes.

Stillness settles over the room like the deep ocean before a storm, thick and weighted, suffocating in its quiet. You hear the faintest shift of fabric as Rafayel straightens slightly in his seat, but he does not speak immediately. He just watches.

And then—his lips part, voice smooth, steady. “Now?”

Your throat is tight, but you force yourself to nod. “Yes.”

His gaze flickers over you, trailing from your eyes to your lips, lower still before returning, a slow drag of attention that makes your pulse hammer against your ribs. “Because you want to?” The words are soft, deliberate, but you hear the unspoken question beneath them.

You know that’s what he means. And you know he’s right.

You lift your chin, pushing past the dryness in your throat. “Because it’s expected.”

Something glints in his expression, something sharp and unreadable, and for the first time since he stepped into this room, the air between you shifts. The teasing lilt in his voice fades, the lingering amusement dulling into something deeper, something darker.

“You truly wish to do this now,” he muses, voice slow and thoughtful, as if weighing something unseen. “To get it over with.”

The way he says it makes your stomach tighten, and you hate how clinical it sounds when spoken aloud. You clench your fingers slightly, willing yourself to stay steady. “I just think prolonging it will only make things... more difficult.”

For a long moment, he says nothing. Then, he moves.

Slowly. Deliberately.

He stands from his chair with an ease that feels far too controlled, like a predator shifting from rest into motion. His steps are unhurried as he crosses the space between you, silent save for the soft rustle of fabric, until he stands before you, close enough that the faint scent of salt and something darker curls around your senses.

Rafayel lowers himself into a crouch before you, resting one arm on the side of your chair, his other hand reaching out—not touching, but there, hovering near your wrist, close enough that you feel the warmth of his skin.

“If we do this now,” he murmurs, voice like the deep pull of the ocean, “it will not be because it is expected.”

Your breath catches.

His fingers ghost up your forearm, barely grazing over fabric, not quite a touch, just a whisper of presence.

“It will not be to ease your nerves,” he continues, eyes locked onto yours, unblinking, unwavering. “It will not be because you are uncertain, or because you think it will be easier to have it done and forgotten.” His voice drops, the syllables dragging over your skin like velvet and tidewater. “If we do this now, it will be because you are asking me to take you.”

The words send something molten sinking low in your stomach, twisting tight.

Your throat is dry, your fingers curling against your lap as his hand finally closes the distance, fingertips grazing lightly over your wrist. Just enough to feel. Just enough to make you aware of every inch of your own skin.

“Is that what you want?” His question is quiet, but not hesitant. Never hesitant. His touch is warm, his breath feathering against your skin as he speaks, but he does not push. He does not take. He waits.

For you. For your answer.

Because he meant what he said. If you say no, if you pull away, he will not press. But if you don’t—if you let him continue, if you let him show you what it means to be his—there will be no half-measures.

You will know what it means to be taken by Rafayel of Lemuria. And he will make certain that you never forget it.

Your pulse pounds against your ribs, every breath a battle between reason and the undeniable pull of him. You should hesitate. You should take a moment to think, to untangle the mess of nerves and desire twisting in your stomach. But the moment he touches you—just barely, just a whisper of warmth against your skin—it becomes impossible to deny the truth.

You do want this.

You want him.

Your fingers tighten slightly against your lap, your throat dry, but you force yourself to meet his gaze. His eyes are steady, impossibly deep, waiting for your answer with patience that feels far more dangerous than if he had pressed for it.

You could lie to yourself, pretend this is just about duty, about obligation. But you know, and he knows, that would be a lie.

Your lips part, and when the word finally comes, it is softer than you mean for it to be.

“…Yes.”

His gaze sharpens, that flicker of something dark and satisfied flaring beneath the pink and blue of his eyes. But he does not move, not yet. He waits.

You inhale slowly, pressing forward, trying to steel yourself. “I want it.”

A breath. A single moment where the weight of your words settles between you.

And then, Rafayel moves.

The shift is slow but deliberate, his fingers sliding higher along your arm, just barely trailing the fabric of your sleeve before settling at the crook of your elbow. His other hand rises, brushing a knuckle over your jaw—light, teasing, a feather-soft touch that makes your skin prickle beneath it.

“Say it again.”

His voice is low, a command wrapped in silk, coaxing you toward the edge of something you aren’t sure you’re ready to fall into.

Your breath shudders, but you do not look away.

“I want you.”

It’s barely above a whisper, but it doesn’t matter. Because the second the words leave your lips, Rafayel decides. His fingers tilt your chin higher, his touch still gentle but firm, leaving no room for retreat. His gaze flickers lower, to your lips, lingering there for a single, agonizing heartbeat. And then, he closes the distance.

The first brush of his lips is light—testing, deliberate—but it is not hesitant. He wants you to feel it, to know exactly what you have asked for, what you have invited. But when you don’t pull away—when your fingers twitch slightly, your breath catching in a way that betrays you completely—he presses.

The kiss deepens, slow and devouring, his fingers sliding down to your waist, drawing you closer in a way that makes it impossible to think of anything but him. He kisses like a man who has already decided that you belong to him, that you will know the weight of his claim, that this is no longer just about duty but something far more dangerous.

And when he pulls back just slightly, breath fanning against your lips, his voice is dark with satisfaction.

“Good girl.”

Heat floods through you so fast it makes your head spin, your stomach tightening at the way he says it, at the way it feels earned, at the undeniable truth beneath it—

You are his.

The kiss lingers even as he pulls away, leaving your lips tingling, your breath uneven. He watches you for a moment, his gaze heavy-lidded and dark with satisfaction, before his fingers slide lower, just barely grazing the pulse at your throat. He doesn’t need to comment on how fast it’s beating—he knows. He feels it beneath his touch, beneath the way your body shivers when he moves.

He exhales, soft and warm against your skin. "Come."

It is not a request.

He takes your hand, fingers lacing through yours with a casual intimacy that makes your stomach tighten, and rises fluidly to his feet. When he guides you forward, you follow—because what else is there to do now but go with him?

The halls are quiet as he leads you through them, the air thick with unspoken promises, with the knowledge of what’s coming next. Your heart pounds with every step, nerves and anticipation curling in your stomach, but Rafayel doesn’t rush. He walks as if he has all the time in the world, never looking back, knowing without question that you are with him.

And then, you are in his chambers. Your chambers.

The room is vast, but not in an overwhelming way. It is warm, dimly lit with the golden glow of candles reflecting off dark wood and deep blue silks. The scent of salt and something richer lingers in the air, something undeniably him. But your attention is drawn to the center of the room—the massive bed draped in fabrics the color of the ocean at midnight, waiting.

Waiting for you.

Your breath catches, and Rafayel turns to face you, fingers still wrapped around your wrist. He lifts your hand, pressing his lips to your knuckles, slow and deliberate, before trailing them lower, dragging warmth in the wake of his breath.

“There is no need to be nervous,” he murmurs, voice smooth, steady, but knowing. “I will give you everything.”

Your pulse stutters, heat licking at your skin despite your best efforts to stay composed. He can see it, feel the way your fingers twitch slightly in his grip. He hums, pleased, before guiding your hand to his chest, pressing your palm flat against the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

“You are mine now,” he continues, his other hand sliding along the curve of your waist, up to your shoulder, lingering at the clasp of your clothing. “And I intend to make sure you feel it.”

There is no hesitation as his fingers begin their work, unfastening the first piece of fabric, the cool air kissing your skin where the barrier once was. His touch is slow, agonizingly so, taking his time with each clasp, each ribbon, each delicate fold.

He doesn’t strip you—he undresses you.

With reverence. With purpose.

His fingers skim over the newly exposed skin, not grabbing, not claiming yet, just learning, just feeling the warmth of you beneath his fingertips. His breath is even, controlled, but his eyes burn with something deeper, something dangerous as each new inch of you is revealed.

You shift under his gaze, heat spreading in a slow, consuming wave over your skin. You should feel self-conscious, should feel exposed, but Rafayel does not let you. He does not let you shrink. His touch is steady, reassuring, making it clear that this is not just for him. This is for you, too.

A soft hum leaves him as his fingers finally slide the last piece of fabric from your shoulders, letting it slip down your arms, pooling at your feet. You are bare before him, and yet, he does not move immediately.

Instead, he looks.

His gaze drags over you, taking in every inch, every detail, like he is committing you to memory. Not with hunger—but with something deeper.

Possession. Devotion. And then, with slow, deliberate intent, he lifts his hand to your cheek, cradling your face in his palm as his thumb brushes over the heat of your skin. His lips curve, the barest hint of a smile, but his voice is low, heavy with something unreadable.

“Perfect.”

The word sends a shiver through you, your breath catching as his thumb drags lower, tracing the curve of your jaw, the column of your throat.

He leans in, lips barely a breath away from yours, and murmurs, “Lie down for me.”

The air between you is thick, weighted with something inescapable. Anticipation coils in your stomach, your skin prickling under his gaze as you lower yourself onto the bed. The sheets are soft against your bare skin, cool in contrast to the heat burning beneath your flesh. But the moment you settle, the moment you look up at him, everything else fades.

Rafayel stands at the edge of the bed, watching you with an intensity that makes your breath hitch. His hands move to the fastenings of his clothing, undoing them with a slow, practiced ease, shedding layers of dark fabric one by one. His movements are unhurried, deliberate, but his eyes remain locked onto yours, drinking in every reaction, every shift in your breathing, every quiver of expectation running through you.

When the last of his clothing falls away, your breath stutters.

Because he is not just a man.

You knew this already—of course, you knew. But knowing and seeing are two entirely different things.

His body is sculpted, all lean muscle and power, his dusky purple waves of hair falling over his shoulders, framing the sharp angles of his face. But below—where flesh meets something more, where the remnants of his oceanic lineage remain—his body shifts into something distinctly not human.

Two thick cocks spring from his lower half, soft pink, ridged and powerful. Dark veins tracing along their edges like the glow of some deep-sea creature lurking beneath the waves.

Your lips part, something tightening in your stomach at the sight of them.

At the implication of them.

Rafayel sees the way your breath catches, the way your thighs press together just slightly, and he smirks.

“You’re staring,” he murmurs, voice smooth as silk, thick with amusement.

Heat blooms in your cheeks, but you don’t look away. Can’t.

“What…” Your voice falters, your throat suddenly dry. “What do they feel like?”

Rafayel exhales a soft chuckle, and in one slow, fluid movement, he climbs onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. His arms cage around you, steadying him as he moves over you, keeping you exactly where he wants you.

“Why don’t you find out?” His voice is a murmur against your ear, his breath warm, teasing. One of them sits lightly against your thigh—not enough to do anything, just enough for you to feel.

A shudder runs through you. The skin is smooth but firm, powerful, the ridges adding the slightest texture against your bare flesh. The touch is exploratory, almost gentle, as if waiting to see how you react.

You exhale sharply, your body responding before your mind can catch up, your hips shifting just slightly toward him.

Rafayel notices.

“Eager,” he muses, fingers trailing down the length of your side, slow and reverent, while he shifts his own hips to drag them up your thigh, skimming over sensitive skin, teasing, testing. “Good.”

Before you can respond, his mouth is on yours again, stealing whatever thought you might have had, devouring you with the same slow, deliberate hunger. His kiss is deep, claiming, but controlled—he is savoring this, savoring you, taking his time unraveling you beneath him.

He pushes closer. The sensation is overwhelming, not just because of what he is, but the fact he remains controlled, patient, intentional.

You gasp, your fingers gripping at the sheets, your body arching beneath him, seeking more. Rafayel smiles.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs against your throat, his lips dragging lower, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of your neck. “I wonder…” His voice is thoughtful, teasing, dangerous. “How much you can take.”

And then, with slow, agonizing intent, he pushes both cocks inside.

The stretch is unlike anything you’ve felt before—the firm, thick heat filling you, the ridges dragging against your walls, sending a sharp jolt of pleasure through your core. The other slides into your ass as he holds you steady, keeping you exactly where he wants you.

A soft, broken sound escapes your lips, your body tightening around him, and Rafayel groans, the sound reverberating through his chest, vibrating against your skin.

“You feel—” He exhales sharply, his grip tightening at your waist, holding you still as he gives you more. “Perfect.”

Your head tilts back, pleasure rippling through you as he moves, slow and deep, every inch of him dragging against your walls, every ridge pressing in ways that make your toes curl. Your fingers scramble for something to hold onto, nails pressing into his shoulders, his back, needing something to ground you.

Rafayel’s breath is heavy against your skin, his lips brushing against your jaw, your cheek, your mouth, stealing every gasping moan that escapes you.

“You are mine,” he murmurs, his pace steady, unyielding, each slow thrust pulling another whimper from your lips. “And I will make sure you know it.”

His grip tightens, his cocks pushing, pressing, claiming, and the pleasure surges higher, drowning you, pulling you under, until there is nothing left but him.

Nothing left but the way he takes you—slow, deep, thorough—and the way you surrender to him completely.

Because you do.

You give yourself to him, to the weight of his body, the strength of his touch, the inescapable truth that you are no longer just yourself.

The pleasure coils in your stomach, winding tighter with every slow, deliberate thrust of his cocks inside you. Rafayel moves with intention, with precision, his pace measured, his control absolute. The firm ridges drag along your walls, each movement sending another wave of heat pulsing through your core, yet he does not rush.

He is holding back and you can feel it.

It’s in the way his fingers grip your waist, strong but restrained. It’s in the way his breath comes in slow, controlled exhales against your skin. It’s in the way his body trembles ever so slightly, like a storm waiting to break.

You need him to break.

“Rafayel,” you gasp, your fingers tightening against his shoulders, your nails digging into the smooth, firm muscle beneath his skin. His pace falters for the first time, a flicker of hesitation, as if waiting for something.

You swallow hard, tilting your head up just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes burn, a shifting mix of blue and pink, the light within them flickering wildly, barely restrained.

“I’m ready,” you whisper, voice trembling with something more than just need—trust.

And that—that—is what shatters him.

A growl rumbles from deep in his chest, vibrating against your skin, a primal, possessive sound that sends a shiver down your spine as he moves.

His grip tightens, spreading you open, locking you beneath him as he slams into you. The force of it knocks the air from your lungs, pleasure crashing through you like a tidal wave.

A sharp cry leaves your lips, and Rafayel devours it, his mouth capturing yours in a searing, claiming kiss as he sets a relentless pace. There is no hesitation now, no careful control—only need, raw and overwhelming, as he takes you the way he’s wanted to since the moment you walked into his life.

The ridges of his member drag against your walls, pressing against every sensitive place inside you with devastating precision. The second one, the one buried in your ass, throbs as you see stars. Your whole body shakes.

“You take me so well,” Rafayel growls against your skin, his lips trailing fire down your throat, his pace brutal and perfect. “As if you were made for me.”

Another deep thrust. Another broken moan spilling from your lips.

His voice drops lower, rougher, sending a shudder through your already trembling form. “Say it.”

You barely register the words, too lost in the overwhelming sensation of him filling you, stretching you, owning you. Your breath comes in ragged gasps, your fingers curling against his back, desperate for anything to hold onto as he continues his relentless claiming.

“Say it,” he demands, his thrusts growing rougher, sharper, pushing you higher, forcing you toward the edge. “Say that you’re mine.”

The pleasure builds too fast, too intense, threatening to consume you whole. You barely manage to choke out the words between gasps, your voice breaking under the weight of it.

“I— I’m yours,” you whisper, then louder, more desperate as he slams into you again. “I’m yours, Rafayel.”

His grip tightens, and his whole body shudders at the sound of it.

“Good girl,” he groans, his pace turning frantic, his breath hot against your skin, his teeth grazing your shoulder, threatening to mark. His fingers sneak between the both of you, pressing hard against your swollen nerves, sending sharp pleasure rocketing through you.

You don’t stand a chance.

The orgasm crashes over you like a violent tide, dragging you under, stealing your breath, making your whole body tighten around him. A cry rips from your lips, pleasure consuming everything, and Rafayel follows you into it, his movements turning erratic, wild, as he buries himself inside you, his own release shuddering through him.

His lips find yours again, a deep, lingering kiss, as if sealing something unspoken between you. His appendages slowly unravel, his hands smoothing over your trembling body, grounding you, holding you close even as the aftershocks pulse through you.

For a long moment, neither of you speak, the only sound in the room the slow, heavy breaths of two souls tangled together, bound now in a way that cannot be undone.

And then, softly, his lips brush against your ear, his voice a quiet, satisfied whisper.

“You were perfect, wife.”

The room is quiet now, save for the soft, steady rhythm of your breathing, still uneven but slowing as the aftershocks pulse gently through your limbs. Your body feels wrecked, boneless and sated in a way you’ve never known before, heat still lingering in your skin where Rafayel’s touch has claimed it.

You expect him to pull away, to put some distance between you now that the act is over, but instead, he stays.

His arms remain around you, strong and steady, his warmth sinking into your skin as if he isn’t ready to let go just yet. His breath is slow against your hair, his fingers tracing absentminded patterns along the curve of your back, grounding, soothing.

It’s almost tender.

You shift slightly, and immediately, Rafayel tightens his grip, pulling you closer, pressing you fully against his chest. A soft, pleased hum vibrates through him, low and content, and you feel the ghost of a smile against your temple.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice is rough from exertion but still carries that teasing lilt, that ever-present amusement as if he is entirely responsible for the state you’re in.

You huff, your cheek pressed against the solid warmth of his chest. “Nowhere. You’re holding me.”

He chuckles, the sound low and pleased. “Of course I am.” His fingers continue their slow path over your back, tracing every ridge of your spine as if memorizing you all over again. “Would you rather I let go?”

You hesitate. You should say yes. Should remind him that this marriage was not something you entered with romance in mind, that this was meant to be duty, obligation. But after everything, with his body wrapped around yours, his hands so gentle despite everything he’s done to you, the words don’t come.

“…No,” you admit softly.

His arms tighten just a little, as if rewarding you for your honesty. “Good,” he murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of your head.

For a long moment, neither of you speak. You listen to his heartbeat, feel the slow rise and fall of his chest against yours, and let yourself sink into the warmth of him.

And then, softly, Rafayel speaks again.

“You were perfect.”

Heat rises in your cheeks, and you make a quiet sound of protest, burying your face deeper against his chest. His chuckle rumbles through you, amused and knowing.

“I mean it,” he murmurs, his fingers tilting your chin slightly so you have no choice but to look up at him. His eyes, still flickering between blue and pink, are softer now, the intensity subdued into something quieter. “You are mine, and I will take care of you. Always.”

Something warm settles deep in your chest at the quiet certainty in his words.

He means it. Despite all his teasing, despite the way he enjoys watching you fluster under his gaze, there is nothing uncertain about this. He has claimed you, not just in body, but in a way that feels far more permanent.

And, perhaps most surprising of all—

You don’t mind it.

The thought should scare you, should send panic curling in your chest, but it doesn’t. Instead, it settles comfortably, as if some part of you already knew this was inevitable.

As if you were always meant to belong to him.

Rafayel watches you, his gaze flickering over your face, taking in your silence with something unreadable in his expression. Then, after a moment, his lips curl slightly. “You’re thinking very hard, wife.”

You roll your eyes, shifting against him. “I’m thinking that maybe this marriage isn’t going to be as awful as I thought.”

His grin is slow, satisfied, and utterly self-assured. “Of course it isn’t,” he murmurs, brushing another kiss to your jaw, trailing lower, as if he’s already thinking about pulling you under again. “I plan to make sure of it.”

Your breath catches, warmth flaring through your body all over again as your hips softly grind against him, eliciting a growl from the prince.

Maybe married life wouldn’t be so bad.

#love and deepspace smut #lads #lnds #lads rafayel #lnds rafayel #lads smut #lnds smut #rafayel x reader #qi yu #moongirlcleo

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smystermy · 1 month ago

Text

of all flowers: you

tags: gojo satoru x you; tooth-rotting domestic fluff; gojo's an idiot—but he's your lawfully married idiot; both of you are so ridiculously down for each other; yours truly never thought she’d be writing for this menace again.

warnings: gojo calls you 'wife' once.

word count: 1414.

notes: this oneshot is part of my 'heartbeat star' series, but you can dive in without prior reading!! hope you enjoy it—and if you do, likes, comments, and reblogs mean a lot!! the fic title is from here, the header image is from pinterest, the dividers are by @/adornedwithlight. jujutsu kaisen is not mine. 🥰🥰

The first thing you notice is the cold.

Not the kind that stings—just the kind that lingers, quiet and insidious, creeping into the spaces where warmth should be. The kind that shouldn’t exist in a bed meant to be shared, meant to always hold the weight of another.

The drowsy fog of sleep still clings to you as you shift beneath the blankets, stretching out a lazy hand, fingers seeking the solid, steady presence of your husband.

But instead of Satoru, all you find is the faintest imprint in the mattress, the last traces of his warmth fading beneath your touch.

You stir fully awake then, lips pressing into a soft frown as you bury yourself deeper into the sheets. The space he left behind is cool now, but his scent lingers, clinging to the pillows, woven into the fabric. It’s something sweet, something warm, something wholly him.

It soothes you for a moment, wrapping around you like a fleeting embrace—but it’s not enough. Not when the real thing isn’t here.

Even in sleep, even in the earliest hours of the morning, a faint ache tugs at your heart—missing him in a way that feels almost childish.

And as the weight of the moment hangs in the air—

A noise.

Faint, distant, barely there. The clatter of dishes. The soft sizzle of something on the stove. And then—

The smell of pancakes.

Your lips curve into a slow, sleepy smile.

So that’s where he went.

You stretch, languid and unhurried, relishing the gentle pull of your muscles before finally pushing yourself up. The air is cool against your legs as you swing them over the side of the bed, making you shiver. You tug down the hem of the oversized shirt you’re wearing—his, of course. It’s far too big for you, the sleeves slipping past your fingertips as you pad out of the bedroom, drawn by the warmth of the kitchen, by the presence of the man you love.

And when you step inside—

You lose your breath.

Satoru stands at the stove, bathed in the golden light of dawn, effortlessly beautiful in the quiet glow of morning.

His back is to you, all lean muscle and endless height, broad shoulders shifting as he moves. The only thing he’s wearing is a pair of boxers, slung low on his hips, leaving the entirety of his sculpted back on display—scarred and smooth, a map of old battles traced over sun-kissed skin. His hair is a mess, silver strands unruly from sleep, sticking up in odd directions like he’d run a lazy hand through it without thinking.

You stop in the doorway, heart stumbling over itself.

You’ve seen him like this a thousand times.

And yet, something about this moment—about him, standing there like this, utterly at home—makes your heart clench, makes you want to memorize him all over again.

You don’t even think. You move, drawn to him by something deep and instinctive, something inevitable, until—

You press yourself into his back, arms slipping around his waist, cheek pressing against the warmth of his skin.

Satoru stills for half a second, startled by the sudden contact.

Then, a low, sleepy chuckle rumbles through his chest.

“Mm?” His voice is thick with drowsiness, teasing and warm. “What’s this? My adorable wife, clinging to me first thing in the morning?”

You hum softly, pressing a slow, lingering kiss between his shoulder blades. “You left me.”

Another kiss, featherlight and reverent, tracing the curve of a pale scar near his shoulder.

“Unforgivable,” you murmur.

His breath catches—just barely.

But you feel it.

His free hand drifts down, fingers curling loosely around your wrist, thumb brushing absentminded circles over your skin, holding you there like he never wants you to let go.

“Didn’t know I married someone this clingy,” he muses, flipping a pancake with infuriating ease, despite the way your lips continue their slow, deliberate path across his back.

“You married your match,” you remind him, fingers slipping lower, skimming over the firm ridges of his stomach, nails barely scraping his skin.

This time, he visibly shudders.

"Troublemaker," he accuses, voice lower now, but his grip on your wrist tightens, betraying just how much he loves it. You relish the way his fingers linger—the warmth of his touch, steady and sure, grounding you in a way only he can.

The kitchen falls quiet then, save for the gentle sounds of morning—the soft hiss of the stove, the rhythmic ticking of the clock, the slow, steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your cheek.

When, suddenly—

He moves.

With effortless ease, he turns in your arms until he’s facing you, hands settling on your waist, spanning the entire curve of it like you belong there.

And God, he is so unfairly beautiful.

Sleep-mussed silver hair, ocean-blue eyes still heavy with drowsiness, lips curled in that insufferably smug, utterly lovestruck grin he always wears when he looks at you like this.

“You’re extra cuddly today,” he murmurs, brushing his nose against yours.

You sigh softly, hands fanning across his chest, feeling the slow, steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your fingertips.

“I just feel…” You hesitate, searching for the right words, before finally meeting his gaze, your voice softer now—almost like a confession.

“…helplessly in love.”

Something flickers in his expression.

His smile falters, just for a fraction of a second—like he wasn’t expecting you to say that, like it reached somewhere deep inside him.

His arms tighten around you, pulling you flush against him. Not in play, not in jest—but in something quieter. Something softer.

“…Yeah,” he murmurs, voice gentler now. “Me too.”

A hush settles over the kitchen.

Slowly, you melt into his embrace—warm and steady and so achingly familiar. His fingers move in slow, absentminded circles against your lower back, each movement soothing, anchoring. Like he’s holding you not just for comfort, but for certainty—as if keeping you close is the only way to convince himself that you’re really here.

Just then—

Pop. Sizzle. Smoke.

Your eyes snap to the stove.

“Satoru.”

He follows your gaze.

“…Oh.” A pause. Then, very unhelpfully, “Oops.”

You groan, reaching past him to switch off the stove before giving his chest a light shove. “I can’t believe you.”

“In my defense,” he says, raising a single finger like he’s about to deliver the most profound argument of his life, “I was preoccupied.”

“With what?”

His grin is immediate, shameless. “With admiring my unbelievably perfect wife, obviously.”

You deadpan. “That line’s not getting you out of this.”

He hums, tilting his head as if deep in thought, gaze flickering over your face like he’s considering his next move. “What if I said it again, but with more emotion?”

There’s a beat, a moment where you think you might answer—but then he moves. Swift, certain, like he’s been meaning to do it all along. His hands find your waist, lifting you with ease and settling you onto the counter like you weigh nothing.

“Satoru—”

He leans in, voice a quiet murmur against your skin, lips brushing the corner of your mouth.

"You know," he muses, like he’s sharing some great secret, "pancakes are overrated."

“Oh?” you say, arching a brow. “That’s convenient, considering you just burned them.”

He pulls away with a gasp—loud, dramatic, and entirely unnecessary. His hand flies to his chest like you’ve wounded him beyond repair. "I can't believe my own wife would call me out like this."

You snort, unimpressed. "Believe it."

His hands tighten at your waist then, fingers curling into the fabric of his own shirt draped over your frame. The movement is small, almost subconscious, but you feel it—the faint pull of his touch, the quiet need lingering beneath it. His expression shifts—just slightly—but enough. The amusement is still there, still dancing at the corners of his lips, but something gentler flickers beneath it.

Something that makes your breath hitch.

He leans in again, nudging his nose against yours, voice dipping lower. "How about I make it up to you?"

You narrow your eyes, pretending to consider. "By actually cooking breakfast properly?"

Satoru hums, his grin pressing against your skin. "Mmm. That, or…"

He trails off, deliberately, letting the words hang between you as his lips ghost over your jaw—featherlight, teasing, just enough to make your skin tingle.

Like he already knows which option he’d rather choose.

Like he already knows which option you’d rather choose, too.

And just like that—

The burnt pancakes are completely forgotten.

general masterlist || gojo satoru masterlist

#gojo x you #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x reader #jjk x you #jjk x reader #gojo fluff #gojo satoru fluff #jjk fluff #gojo satoru #jjk #[my posts: gojo satoru]

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verridaiya · 2 months ago

Text

—Dream Blooms

"I've seen you there, before."

This fic was born from watching Sylus's Abyssal Blossom card and watching my heart break into a million pieces. It hurt, but then I realized you know who hasn't been hurt by it? Sylus.

Based on the prevailing theory/my headcannons that the Abyssal Blossom card was just a dream, brought on by MC's yearning for a normal, quiet life after the events of Beyond Cloudfall chapter 7.

Synopsis: Sylus invites himself over to take care of you while you're sick. You tell him about a pleasant dream of yours and proceed to break his heart. (Or, you dream of something you've dreamt before, and Sylus hears about it for the first time.)

Contains: Spoilers for Sylus's Beyond Cloudfall myth and the Abyssal Blossom card, Sylus x MC/reader, gender neutral MC/reader, angst/hurt (the comfort will come later), current timeline Sylus & MC

Word Count: 1.7k

start | Part 2 >

“I had a strange dream again.”

“Another one, sweetheart?”

Sylus’s voice is a soft murmur above you. You open your blurry eyes to a darkened room and a pleasantly warm body under you, wrapped around you. Your head feels as hazy as the moonlight filtering in from the cloudy night sky through the window. Half-awake and half asleep, you can still feel the sensations of your dream like phantom memories. You hum an affirmation, shaking off the vestiges of a medicine-induced sleepiness.

You’re not quite sure how you found yourself in this position: sprawled out on your couch, nestled between a warm blanket and an even warmer Sylus, breathing in the scent of him through your admittedly stuffy nose. The last thing you remember was you laying collapsed on your bed, trying to convince yourself that you’re not sick, you’re just tired from a long week at the Hunter’s Association, and to muster up the energy to find something to eat. And then, suddenly, there was Sylus, filling your doorway as he had filled every part of your life, your thoughts, and now your dreams.

You’ve been having more of those recently, ever since you absorbed the power of another Aether Core almost a year ago. Reality intertwining with illusions, the people in your life woven intricately into a tapestry of dreams. Fragments of memories, glimpses of things that could never be, or never was. Flashing scales underneath glistening waves. Zayne, in a flowing robe you’ve never seen on him before, but looked so right on him. A silent forest, illuminated by starlight. You would wake up yearning for something just out of reach, hands outstretched to capture the essence of something that slips, incorporeal, through your fingers.

This dream was gentle, though. And this time, your hands didn’t need to reach far to grasp the heart of your dreams.

“You were in it this time, Sylus.”

“Oh?” he says, sounding intrigued. “Do tell, kitten.”

You hear him place something on the coffee table—his phone, probably—his attention shifting solely to you. He carefully moves to his side, extricating himself from under you, a large hand propping his head up so he can fully face you.

The soft moonlight illuminates on his face, throwing it into relief. Silvery hair threaded with shadow, a pale complexion half shrouded in darkness, eyes like banked hearths warming you with its glow. Through the haze of your fever, you can almost envision what you saw in your dream. You lift a hand pat his soft hair, as if searching for something that wasn’t there, before trailing your fingers down the side of his face.

“You had something on your head.” No, not exactly on his head. You can’t quite remember. The you in the dream was certain that the something was more a part of him than anything else. You frown slightly. The more you strain to remember the details of it, the more awake you became, and the more it danced out of your grasp. “Something sharp and twisting. Rough. It was beautiful, though. You were beautiful.”

Sylus stares at you with wide eyes you couldn’t decipher in your current state. There’s a spark of something foreign in his eyes.

“And?” he urges on, his deep voice uncharacteristically eager to your ears. He reaches to grab the hand that was holding his face, pressing it gently to him. His thumb rubs against the back of it in small soothing motions. “Can you tell me more about this dream of yours, kitten?”

You grasp at the cotton inside your head, stuffy from sleep and sickness. It takes so much effort, to tease apart the strands and find the wisps of fading dreams. It doesn’t help that you were also fighting off the drowsiness. You try, though, to give him what he’s asking for, as he always does for you.

“We were standing in a lovely field of flowers. They were breathtaking, Sylus. Such a vivid, dazzling red. There was a black spire in the distance, I think.” The spire had stood tucked away in the backdrop of rolling hills, but it was a small detail your mind was stuck on for some reason.

Thinking about that spire again, your mind can almost conjure a clear image of your dream. A lingering feeling of déjà vu washes over you, settling heavy on your chest. You’ve dreamt this before; you feel this with every bone in your body as an unshakeable fact. You’ve seen this obsidian spire before, this sprawling flower field. You know with startling certainty that you’ve had this exact dream before. But when you try to recall when, the feeling dissipates and leaves behind only a phantom sensation and an absence in your memory you cannot comprehend.

Sylus watches as you shake away the remnants of déjà vu. Your brow furrows. You’ve come to be accustomed to his intense stares through the months you’ve known him, but this one was… strange. It was as if he was trying to look deep into the fabric of your soul, even without the use of the Aether Core in his eye. His face remains a blank and indecipherable mask, leaving you with no indication of what he’s thinking of. You wanted to know what was going on in that unfathomable mind of his.

Longing. Trepidation. Yearning, a yearning that aches and makes you want to answer its call. You become distantly aware of emotions trickling into you that weren’t your own. You didn’t realize you were resonating with Sylus until he severed it, the hand holding yours shifting to catch your wrist instead. He leans down to brush his soft lips against it before letting your hand rest gently on your stomach.

“How about you recover from your fever first before you use your evol, sweetie.” He laughs softly, the red-gold brilliance of your evols intertwined fading from your hands.

“Oh, sorry.”

His presence in your mind and by your side was so natural that you weren’t even aware of when you began resonating with him. It seemed like your body responded to your desires even while your mind lagged behind. That brief glimpse into him enabled you to decipher that emotion in his eyes, though you struggle to make sense of it.

It was hope.

“Never apologize to me. What else do you remember?” he asks quietly, before you can puzzle over it further.

You close your eyes, willing the memories of the fleeing dream forward. The golden light of a setting sun. The crisp cold of mountainous air. The feeling of being the only two creatures in the world. And, inexplicably, the feeling of home.

“We were up in the air flying, somehow, before we landed in that blossoming valley. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I felt like I was in a whole other world. When I turned around to look at you, I saw you sitting there amongst the flowers. Red, like shining rubies. Red like-” you pause, the words at the tip of your tongue. A silhouette appears in your mind’s eye, before it sinks back into the void.

“Red, like rich wine,” you finish, though you know that’s not what you had wanted to say.

When he said nothing, you continued on. “I decorated you with those flowers. We were so carefree, unworried and relaxed. It was just us, no one else, in the valley that was our playground. I think I was teasing you, or maybe you were teasing me. You said something about seeing the other side of things, something taunting. We ended up play-fighting, rolling around and sending petals up in the air.”

You smile, the warmth of the dream enveloping you.

“It felt so real.” You wanted it to be real, this lovely lush field and this gorgeous, monstrous Sylus.

Monstrous?

Startled out of your reverie, you blink open your eyes. No, there is nothing monstrous about Sylus. Not anymore, not since those first few nights that you’ve met him so long ago. Shaking your head slightly to dispel the thought, you turn your head to glance at him, realizing he hasn’t spoken in a while.

His eyes are closed, brows furrowed and drawn tightly together. You’ve seen this expression on his face before, briefly, when he struggles to heal a particularly nasty wound. His body is so tense when you reach out to him, muscles taut and rigid beneath your fingers. You’re not quite sure he’s even breathing.

“Sylus?”

At your prompting, Sylus sucks in a breath through his teeth and exhales. He opens his eyes and your breath catches. Rich garnet eyes glow in the darkness, twin wine-dark seas drowning in sorrow, regret. Agony.

It is so at odds to the sweetness of your recounted dream that alarm shot through you, temporarily driving away the sleepiness. Seeing the pain in his eyes unsettled you; it didn’t belong on his face at all. Your sluggish brain tries to make sense of what you could have said to have garnered this reaction. Did you say something wrong? Your chest tightens at the thought of hurting him with your words, somehow. You begin to prop yourself up.

Sylus stops you with one gentle hand, pushing you to lay back down. He silently regards you, the silence between you stretching into something delicate.

There are so many things you want to say, to ask and to comfort. Sylus was never one to let his emotions show as openly as they are right now. You want to ask what was wrong, take back your silly little story if all it gave him was pain, even if you didn’t understand why.

But through the jumble of your fever, all that came out of your tired mouth was, “It was just a dream, Sylus.”

He quietly watches you for a few breaths longer. Slowly, he lifts a hand to gently caresses your cheek, holding you as if you were something as fragile as a memory. Leaning down, he brushes his lips against your forehead, soft as a butterfly’s wings, as the petals of a phantom flower.

“You’re right,” he says, with a grief you cannot fathom.

“It was just a dream, sweetheart.” His voice is barely a whisper. “It can be nothing more than a dream.”

#love and deepspace #lads sylus #sylus x reader #sylus x mc #verridaiya's writing -#yay I did it wooo #second ever fic 🎉#time to write the other parts! which I'm so excited for #there will be comfort I swear #after... one more hurt. just one #I can't help myself #this fic is once again brought to you by: the emotional devastation of beyond cloudfall

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hoe4hotchner · 7 months ago

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Ink | [A.H]

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x gn!Reader CW: Fluff, I mentioned haley once WC: 0.9k Summary: Hotch has tattoos

@lavenderspence my beloved, here's the tattooed hotch fic 🤭

You stirred from your slumber, groggy and warm, wrapped up in the sheets as the morning sun filtered softly through the curtains. The familiar rustle of fabric and the quiet creak of the floorboards made you aware that Aaron had gotten out of bed and was getting ready for work. Through heavy eyelids, you saw him standing by the dresser, his broad back to you as he slipped his shirt over his shoulders. Your gaze lingered on the arm that had yet to disappear into his sleeve, taking in the sight of the black outlines covering it from wrist to shoulder.

The ink swirled in intricate, detailed designs, tribal patterns that blended into abstract shapes and pictures, and hidden among them were symbols that meant something so profoundly personal to him. It was a side of him that still felt like a secret between the two of you, something he kept tucked away beneath the sharp, professional exterior of his suits.

A soft smile curled at the corner of your lips. No one at the BAU, except perhaps Rossi, had any idea of this hidden layer to Aaron Hotchner - the loving, soft man who hid beautiful art that told the story of him under his perfectly tailored attire.

You shifted under the sheets, drawing his attention as you yawned and stretched. “Morning,” you murmured, your voice was thick with sleep but laced with affection.

Aaron turned, his lips curving into a gentle smile as his eyes met yours. He was already nearly dressed, his pants on, tie draped around his neck, but the buttons of his shirt remained undone. He moved with the same grace and composure you’d come to love - always so calm and collected, yet with you, there was an undercurrent of warmth.

“Good morning,” he said. “Did I wake you?”

You shook your head, sitting up slightly, propping yourself on your elbows. “No. Just woke up to a nice view,” you teased, your eyes dipping to the few parts of ink on his arm still exposed.

He chuckled softly, a low sound that rumbled in his chest as he stepped closer to the bed. “The view, huh?” His tone was playful, his eyebrow slightly raised.

Your fingers reached for his arm, gently brushing over the designs. You traced the lines of one of the patterns, something abstract and fluid, before shifting to the more personal details - the initials of Jack woven into the design, a small symbol from his days as a prosecutor, and something you knew was tied to Haley, but never dared to ask about, it was a reminder of his past.

"I still can't believe you hide all this every day," you murmured, your fingers following the art up to his forearm.

His smile softened, a glimmer of something fond in his eyes. "Not exactly professional to show up with tattoos on full display at a federal agency," he replied, though there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Yeah, because Morgan doesn't do that every day," you teased, rolling your eyes, and then smiled more softly. "But I love that this part of you is mine to see," you whispered, your hand now resting on the inside of his forearm. His skin was warm beneath your touch, and you felt the steady pulse of his heartbeat there.

He watched you for a moment, there was something tender and unguarded in his expression, and then he leaned down, bracing his hands on the bed on either side of you. "You like the tattoos?" he asked softly, his lips close to yours.

You nodded, your breath catching slightly as his proximity made your heart race. “I love them. It’s such a contrast to the Aaron Hotchner everyone knows at the BAU.”

His gaze flickered down to your lips before meeting your eyes again. “I like that you get to see all of me,” he admitted, his voice lower now, rougher, as if confessing something vulnerable.

You smiled, reaching up to brush a stray strand of his hair back. "And I can't wait to see more when you come home," you murmured, your voice teasing but sincere.

Aaron smirked, leaning in to brush his lips lightly against yours, a fleeting kiss that left you wanting more. “I’ll show you as much as you want,” he whispered against your lips before pulling back slightly, his breath warm on your skin.

“Promise?” you asked softly, your fingers trailing down the front of his shirt, still unbuttoned, leaving a trail of warmth where they touched.

He pressed his forehead to yours, eyes closing for a brief second as he took in the moment. “Promise," he said, his voice soft but full of intent.

Reluctantly, Aaron pulled away, straightening up as he finished buttoning his shirt, hiding the tattoos once more. You watched as the last bit of ink vanished beneath the crisp, white fabric, a small part of you already missing the sight.

He reached for his tie, looping it around his neck with ease as you propped yourself up further on the bed, watching him with a mixture of admiration and affection. He caught your gaze in the mirror, smirking slightly at your look of longing.

"Don’t worry," he said as he tucked the end of his tie into place, "Tonight, I’ll make it up to you.”

You grinned, biting your lip. "You better."

With a soft laugh, Aaron grabbed his jacket, leaning down for one last kiss before he headed to work. It was slow and lingering, a promise in itself that he’d be back later tonight.

As the door closed behind him, you flopped back into the pillows, already counting down the hours until he returned. Because tonight, the suit would come off, and his ink would be on full display, and all of him would be yours once more.

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nicksolemnlyswears · 4 months ago

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FORGED UNDER FIRE

blurb: when brennan sorrengail died he left more than his family and a dragon behind. he left his best friend. he left his lover. he left his unborn child.

pairing: brennan sorrengail x rider! reader

word count: 1.1k

a/n: first and foremost, this is unedited. second, i've had this in my drafts since i finished reading fourth wing in september. i kinda wanted to make it a fic but lost some steam. i don't think i'll continue this but if i do it will be shorter blurbs/moments rather than the 10k monstrosities i like to write. i figured it wouldn't do anything in my drafts so here you go!

i like the idea of brennan having someone he befriends and takes under his wing while at basgiath war college. there's so much we don't know about him and this is me filling some of the gaps with the wonderful fanfiction.

i hope you enjoy! i honestly love fourth wing so damn much and i can't wait for onyx storm. i even have tickets for rebecca yarros tour in january. so yes, read, enjoy and let me know what you think!

The cold wind drifted around you, ruffling the grass and the branches of the dispersed trees. The sunrise was turning from a beautiful deep blue to a pale pink that bled into orange. The chill bites into your cheeks and nose, reddening them, but you welcomed it. It numbed the pain that continued to tear through your heart.

“You must stop thinking so much about him.” Your dragon Calliss shares through your link. She’s the angry voice in your head reminding you to move forward.

“I thought we agreed I could wallow in my misery this time of year.”

The day that marks his death came and went yet it left you with a whirlwind of emotions. You should’ve moved on long ago, the pain in your chest turned into a soft ache that you remember fondly as you rebuild your life without him. Still, it remains a deep gash that continues to bleed and keeps you up at night, unmoving.

“You have better things to do.” Calliss reminds you. Its inscription day and people from all over the continent will be arriving to drop off their children.

“Mhm. Yeah, sure.”

The red dagger tail huffs behind you. The air coming from her nostrils counteracting the cold breeze. She’s moody because you shut her out instead of letting her help.

The ground lightly shakes and the air stirs as another dragon lands near Calliss. General Sorrengail’s brown dragon, Aimsir. The older woman approaches you and sits down beside you on the damp grass. Despite her reputation she’s been kind to you, patient even. She’s kept you close, tucked under her wing just like he used to.

Your signet allowed Lilith to keep you closer than most. Otherwise, she’d have no choice but to leave you on your own to battle your emotional wounds.

It tends to weigh in your conscious that she only does it because you have the last piece of him. Had it not been the case, would she have cared as much?

At the same time, you’re eternally grateful. Had it not been for Lilith Sorrengail you would definitely be cold and dead. Despite all the bad days, there have been good ones woven in and you wouldn’t trade those for nothing in the world.

“Violet goes today,” Lilith says, looking at you sternly.

“You sure this is what you want to do?” You ask her, keeping your gaze on the mountain and the sunrise.

Lilith has discussed Violet's inscription with you time and time again. It's the one thing she continues to think about since the death of her husband, which is unusual. The woman is confident in her decisions, she's calculating and precise. A wonderful quality for a commander, but it falters when it comes to her children.

“Do you think she won’t be able to make it?”

You sigh and look down at the grass before your eyes shift up to look at her. “She’ll make it. She might've been raised by a scribe but she was also raised by you and Mira and Brennan which means Violet won't go down without a fight. She won’t go down easy. It is my belief dragons respect that.”

Saying his name is difficult. It's heavy on your tongue as you enunciate the syllables. So familiar yet strange at the same time.

Lilith hums in agreement, leaving a period of silence to hang in the air. She’s giving you time to talk, to bring him up. When you don’t she takes matters into her own hands.

“I can’t believe it’s been five years.”

“Only five and it feels like a century,” you scoff, pulling at the grass blades near your crossed feet. Calliss and Aimsir shuffle behind you two, making the ground tremble. It used to scare you as a cadet.

“You should get out there again, try and find something that at least resembles what you had with Brennan,” Lilith dares say.

You gasp in a sharp intake of air at the mention of his name. It’s not a surprise for Lilith to suggest such a thing. After all, it’s been five long years since Brennan left, died. But, does she not feel like she’s betraying her own son by suggesting this?

“She’s right,” Calliss voice purrs in your ear. She’s suggested it more than once, begging you to ‘release the tension you have inside.’ You've tried but the sense of betrayal that follows reopens old wounds.

“Hush, Calliss.”

Calliss growls from behind you, voicing her displeasure at you telling her to quiet. Humans do not tell dragons what to do.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able replicate what I had with Bren. It was forged at Basgiath under the threat of imminent death. I was another person there who needed help desperately and Bren was the perfect person to guide me. He was one of a kind, our circumstances were one of a kind. It might’ve been short lived but it held so much value.” You give Lilith a smile and shake your head, “I have everything I need. I’m making a name for myself, which was what I always wanted. I was married, and I have a child who I love to death.”

Lilith nods offering you one of her rare smiles. She stands, dusting off her clothes from any sticking grass. “Speaking of, we have to make our way back before he wakes and brings the house down.”

You nod and laugh, “Oh, he’s going to throw a fit when Violet goes.”

Your son and Violet are as thick as thieves. They get along well and Violet loves to spoil him. She’s never one to turn down babysitting or entertain him when you need a break. After all, he's what she has left of her brother.

“Maybe Mira will get him to calm down,” Lilith hopes, climbing up Aimsirs leg.

You have one question for Lilith. From the ground, glancing up at her you ask. “How do you do it? It’s been five years and I feel just as heart broken as I did that day.”

Brennan’s father passed away about a year ago. His heart giving out on him. All because of Brennan’s death. You mourned him too, he had always been kind to you and he loved his grandchild. It might’ve been the only reason he held on for so long.

Lilith sighs and takes a moment to form her words. “Your relationship was young and somewhat new, barely 4 years. He was the first person you trusted. You had your whole life ahead of you. My husband and I were together for nearly 30 years. We travelled all around Navarre, had three amazing children, and we watched them grow up. I wish he was here to see what will become of Violet but,” she pauses without finishing her sentence. “My point is you were full of what ifs and places to go. It’s hard to move on from that when you keep trying to make sense of it.”

“I wish I knew I was pregnant before he died so I could’ve told him. Maybe things would’ve been different,” you confess.

“Possibly. I know Brennan would’ve loved him.” With those last words General Sorrengail flies off, leaving you and Calliss alone once more.

“No more moping. We have a job to do,” she says, urging you to get on her back.

“Thank you for being patient with me,” you tell her honestly.

Calliss is opinionated but she wants what’s best for you. She continues to feel all the pain Brennan’s death caused you. All her snide remarks are only meant to encourage you to manage your pain and move forward.

“Beware. It’s running thin today.”

thoughts?

#fanfiction #fourth wing x reader #fourth wing fanfiction #fourth wing fanfic #fourth wing #iron flame #onyx storm #violet sorrengail #brennan sorrengail x reader #brennan sorrengail #fanfic

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lookadaydreamer · 4 months ago

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✨️ agatha harkness ✨️

hey, those are some of agatha fics that i've been reading. i will try to update this list weekly ;)

SFW

• softie (agatha x reader)

• agatha harkness vs salem: the kitenning (agatha x reader) WIP

• sickbed (agatha x reader)

• double trouble (agatha x eve fletcher x reader)

• deserving of love (agatha x reader)

• nightfall comfort (agatha x rio x reader)

• in her arms (agatha x reader)

• a witch's valentine (agatha x reader)

• cup runneth over (agatha x reader)

• unworthy of your light (agatha x reader)

• my love? (agatha x reader)

• whoa, is grandma a ghost? cool! (agatha x reader)

• scare me up (a little bit of love) (agatha x reader)

• both arms cradle you now (agatha x reader)

• you should have told me (agatha x reader)

NSFW

• the librarian (agatha x reader)

• and the ice, into my eyes, it fell and left me blind (agatha x lilia x reader) WIP

• the witches' forest (agatha x rio x lilia x reader)

• sugar, spice e everything nice (agatha x reader)

• a little wicked (agatha x rio x lilia x reader) WIP

• neighbourly care (agatha x rio x reader) WIP

• to be taught a lesson (agatha x reader)

• a lesson in jealousy (agatha x reader)

• sugar, spice and everything extra (agatha x rio x lilia x jen x alice x reader)

• unfinished business (agatha x lilia)

• what's your fantasy? (agatha x reader)

• the games we play ( agatha x rio x reader)

• i'm a good girl, detective (agnes x reader)

• your witch (agatha x reader)

• tastes like sugar (agnes x reader)

• leather clad (agatha x reader)

• long day, huh? (agatha/agnes x reader)

• swimming into her arms (agatha x reader)

• begging & end (agnes x reader)

• did i tell you how beautiful you are, already? (agatha x reader)

• glitter on the floor (agatha x reader)

• chains for you love (agatha x rio x reader)

• learning to focus (agatha x reader)

• my girl's a brat (agnes x reader)

• going up (agatha x reader)

• a well-deserved break (agnes x reader) WIP

• desperate times, desperate measures (agatha x reader)

• (not so) good girl, bad cop (agnes x reader)

• two professors and a student (agatha x rio x reader) WIP

• sharing is caring (agnes x reader)

• under her knife (agatha x reader)

• a study in forever ( agatha x rio x reader)

• a different kind of workout (agatha x reader)

• woven fates (agatha x rio x reader) WIP

• the girl is mine (agatha x reader)

• birthday girl (agatha x reader)

• all inclusive treatment (agatha x reader) WIP

• the psychology of love (agatha x reader) WIP

• how many secrets can you keep? (agatha x reader)

• ice cream dream (agatha x reader)

• from jealousy, comes a flood (agatha x rio x reader)

• help with the curriculum (agatha x rio x reader)

• the first to break (agatha x rio x reader)

• lilia's leggings (agatha x lilia)

• basement of mysteries (agatha x reader)

• sex therapy (agatha x reader)

• make me a mommy (agatha x reader)

• layover (agatha x reader)

• it worked (agatha x rio x reader) WIP

• working overtime (agatha x rio x reader)

• a few more minutes (agnes x reader)

• mommy's bunny (agatha x reader)

• jealousy, jealousy (agatha x rio x reader)

• sex pollen (agatha x reader)

• only say my name (agnes x reader)

• cooties (agatha x rio x reader)

#agatha harkness x reader #lilia calderu x reader #agathario #agatha all along #agatha harkness #agatha x rio x reader #rio vidal x reader #agatha harkness x rio vidal #lilia x agatha #calderess #lithario

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christopher-bangnaldoskzz · 3 months ago

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MIRROR

Pairing: Changbin x female reader

Word count: 1k

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, over stimulation, sexual intercourse, body dysmorphia, low self esteem Swearing there is a tone of adult content in this fic please be cautious.

Summary:Struggling with self-hatred was something you had mastered over the years, but everything changed when you met Changbin. His presence sparked a flicker of hope that someone might actually love you. One day, as you stood in front of the mirror, lost in an all-too-familiar spiral of self-doubt, Changbin walked in on you as you criticized your body.

"Look at you", he says, sliding his hand along your side, brushing so lightly along your hip, stopping right as his fingertips touch the side of your breasts.

Your gaze is fixed ahead, reflecting at you in the expansive surface of a full-length mirror. You study your reflection intently, the question lingering in the air, “How could you ever believe I am ashamed of you?” He tilts his head slightly, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine as he tenderly places soft kisses along the delicate curve behind your ears, each touch filled with affection and reassurance.

He hesitates, allowing a moment of silence to hang between them, his curiosity piqued by the unspoken question in his mind. "My wife," he murmurs, pressing gentle kisses along the delicate curve of your shoulder blades, his lips warm against your skin. "My beautiful... intelligent... wife," he continues, his fingers gliding down the smooth surface of your stomach, pausing just above the gentle rise of your pelvic bone. "I want you to see yourself the way I see you," he whispers, his voice low and tender as he places another kiss on your shoulder, a promise woven into each touch.

It has always perplexed you how someone like you could end up with a man as soft and undeniably attractive as Changbin. From the first moment you looked at him, his warm smile and twinkling eyes drew you in like a moth to a flame. When you finally mustered the courage to bring him home to meet your mother, the look on her face was priceless—her eyes widened in disbelief. For a moment, you feared she might faint out of shock at the delightful presence standing before her.

The day he proposed was another whirlwind of emotions. You were convinced he had utterly lost his mind as he knelt, ring in hand. The words slipped from his lips, and you spent a good moment in stunned silence, trying to wrap your head around the reality of what was happening. And now, here you are, standing in the middle of your bedroom, utterly exposed and vulnerable—physically naked before him, but even more so before your insecurities.

As you gaze at your reflection in the mirror, the person looking back is both familiar and foreign, abstract and concrete. The room is tinged with a sense of longing and desire, and yet, there is an unsettling tension as you confront your worst enemy: your self-doubt. His fingertips graze your skin with such gentle grace, igniting a thrilling spark that sends shivers racing down your spine. How he brushes against you feels electric, an irresistible dance of sensation that enhances every nerve ending. The air is thick with an intoxicating blend of passion and vulnerability, and you can't help but feel alive, your skin sizzling under his delicate yet fervent touch.

"Come on, just tell me, y/n... what was it you were saying before I cut you off?" Changbin's fingers gently trace circles on your stomach, his gaze locked onto yours, filled with a teasing intensity.

You feel a flutter of nerves at his touch, stuttering out a response, "I-I wasn't saying anything." But the shiver that runs through you betrays your words, hinting at the tension hanging in the air between you two.

"It didn't sound like nothing", Bringing his hand back up to just under your breast. "I hate that you think I'm ashamed of you…of this beautiful body." Cupping your breast in his hand, he begins to tease your nipple.

"I'm S-sorry", you breathe. "I didn't mean for you to overhear that", you continue as you bite your bottom lip.

"I'm going to show you…..what exactly about you I am absolutely crazy for?" Bringing his fingers to your mouth. "I want you to watch as I fuck you….can you do that?" His fingers now circled your throbbing clit. Changbin had this way of making you completely forget about the world. Nodding your head, you begin to relax against his chest.

"Look at the way your body fits me so perfectly" his lips are pressed against your ear. "Spread your legs a little more for me" he kisses your ear, rowing as he says it, allowing his fingers access to enter you. "Look how wet you get for me….I fucking love it", pumping two fingers inside you as his other hand massages your breast. Your hips not being able to help but grind against his clothes crotch.

Your mouth parts slightly as you let out a small moan "The sounds you make are like music to my ears", he begins to kiss down your neck.

"Bin….please", you moan as he pinches your nipple. Bending your body down just enough for Changbin to palm your clit “shit", you grunt as you can feel yourself tipping over the edge.

"Y/n", he growled, your head flicking up to see your reflection in the mirror. "I want you to see how beautiful you look coming undone around my fingers", rolling your eyes to the back of your head as he hits the perfect spot with his fingers. The edge of bliss reaches closer as his other hand traces along your lower stomach, and his fingers continue to dip inside you.

Watching Changbin finger fuck you in the full-length mirror is one of the hottest things to happen to you. A shiver washes over your body as you get ready to release all over his fingers.

Just as you are about to reach your climax, his fingers slide out of your clenching pussy. "Spread your legs wider and lean forward", the tone in his voice flipping into seriousness; you spread your legs wider, arching your body forward as you hear his pants unzipping. Licking your lips with anticipation, he glances up to look at you in the mirror, "I can't believe your mine", he says, slapping his dick on each thigh.

You feel his tip brush against your entrance, moving slowly at first before pushing in. His grip on your hips tightens as he thrusts harder and faster, his moans becoming louder with each thrust. You feel your body shake in pleasure as you reach an intense orgasm. He follows soon after, his body trembling as he releases his load inside of you.

“Listen to me,” he says, wrapping his hands around your throat and pulling your body up against his “The next time you feel ashamed”, his lips pressed to your ear “, I want you to think about my come, dripping out of your freshly fucked cunt….do I make myself clear.”

Taglist: @daceydeath @krishastumblernow @bakedlilgoonie @armystay89 @cakeracha

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mononijikayu · 5 months ago

Text

to you 2,000... or... 20,000 years from now… — ryomen sukuna.

As they stand to leave, his gaze drifts to one of his portraits—a work that captures a moment from another time, another life. In it, the King of Curses sits beside his beloved concubine, her expression full of light and laughter, radiant in a way that suggests an unbreakable bond. Ryomen Sukuna pauses, his hand still entwined with hers, and a rare, gentle smile crosses his face. Looking at the painting, he lets himself hope, just a little. Perhaps, even in a world he once saw as cold and unyielding, there are threads of something beautiful woven into his story. Perhaps, even for someone like him, there could be a happy ending, one he’d never dared to imagine. He leans down and whispers softly, almost as if confessing a secret. “I like to think they found each other again, you know? That somehow… this time, they got to be happy.”

GENRE: alternate universe - reincarnation;

WARNING/S: post canon, future timeline, fluff, possible romance, getting together, mild angst, reincarnation, conflicted feelings, hurt/comfort, dreams and nightmares, distress, grief, feelings, physical touch, character death, moving on, flashback, humor, no curse future au, pining, light-hearted, happy ending, depiction of the future, depiction of reincarnation, depiction of letting go, depiction of flashback, depiction of getting together, depiction of depiction of character death, depiction of distress, depiction of grief, mention of character death, mention of the past, mention of letting go, mention of grief, reincarnated! sukuna, reincarnated concubine! reader;

WORDS: 15k words.

NOTE: this concludes the final part of the main story of the other woman. i'm genuinely grateful for you love and attention towards my story. this was never supposed to be a series, it was supposed to be a one off fic. but because of your love for concubine reader, i was inspired to bring more to her life.

as i promised, this is a happy ending. well, the happy end that i think would suit the story. of course, this is not the end of concubine reader's story. there will be drabbles of sukuna and concubine reader's life that i never managed to put out.

if you have any suggestion or questions about the story, you can drop some words down in the inbox!!! i'm very happy when you ask questions about the story or have suggestions of what you wanna see next!!! please do so everyone!!!

i hope you look forward to them!!! thank you for reading, thank you for your support and love. i'll continue to write for you all!!! i love you <3

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if you want to, tip! <3

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HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW HE’LL GET THROUGH THIS. He’d never felt like this before. What do his other artist friends call it? Oh, that’s right. A slump. An artist’s slump. Yeah, that’s what it’s called. He’s never had that before.

But why should he? Ryomen Sukuna was a protege. He was a stellar artist with a golden hand, one who never stops. The one who works as though he’s running out of time. It’s him.

And yet, at that moment, he wasn’t.

Ryomen Sukuna had a problem.

He was stumped from hell and back.

And he doesn’t understand why.

A loud exhale releases from his mouth as he looks up at all the drying canvas in front of him in the various easels. They’re all beautiful, don’t get him wrong. But they’re all the same.

And that bothers Ryomen Sukuna as he purses his lips in a flat line. His own studio has become a homage to these paintings and sketches as of late. There was nothing else coming out of him. Nothing else was occupying his mind.

In the maze of half-finished canvases and dried paint of his studio, there were only those same eyes staring at him. He could feel it even now under the dim lighting casting long, wavering shadows across each and every tender gaze.

He couldn’t stand up anymore. He’s exhausted. He’s been up since god knows when. Everywhere there was paint. His hands are stained, his shirt splattered with colors that have long since dulled. It’s been weeks.

He doesn't know how to deal with this. How could he, when she finds him in every moment? How easy it was to be that way. He’s stopped keeping track of time, because time means nothing when all he can see, all he can paint, is her.

As of late, it was this that haunted him. It was the same as always. It was this woman with those kind eyes looking back at him. That same tender smile greeting him. That same beauty yearning towards him. Everything about the woman’s face consumes him. Everything that she is continues to follow him like a ghost, over and over.

He can’t even pinpoint when it started. It just started happening out of nowhere. At one point there were normal dreams and soon enough, there were something else.

And as time passed by, there was nothing else left but her. Her beautiful smiling face looking at him. Every single time, she never fails to be warm towards him. As though she could feel him, as though she could see him.

She’s become more than a fixation; she’s an infection, seeping into every corner of his mind, haunting the hours he’s awake as much as those precious few where he drifts into a broken sleep.

She first appeared in his dreams like a fleeting whisper, but her image has grown, intensifying with each passing night, filling his dreams with a crescendo of color and dread. And over and over, it was repeating.

Like a piano key stuck on the board, playing over and over that same repetitive note. And yet, it was still lovely. It was still tender. And then suddenly, it wasn’t. That was the worst part of it all, he thinks. He captures the beauty of her and then suddenly, it just disappears. It goes. Almost like smoke.

The dream is always the same every night. At first it was terrifying to him. He’d never seen anything like her before. He’d never seen what happened to her before, not to anyone. Not ever. But with her, it repeats.

That nightmare continues over and over again. And he hated it. He hated how he has memorized it. He has hated how it was all he could see over and over again. He hated how this was the fate that such a beautiful, kind woman had to meet.

That beautiful lady, she would stand there and smile at him. Often, she stands at the edge of a crumbling cliff, the ocean roiling and dark beneath her, waves crashing against jagged rocks far below.

She turns, her eyes fixed on him, lips curling into a smile that might be tender, might be mocking, it shifts each time, eluding any attempt to decipher it.

She extends a hand, beckoning, imploring him to come closer. His heart races, his feet propel him forward, but just as he reaches for her, she slips, and he’s left grasping at nothing but empty air.

Again and again, he tries to save her. Again and again, she falls.

The dream wakes him in a cold sweat, heart pounding, breath shallow. He stumbles to his studio, and without thinking, he begins to paint. Her face materializes with each stroke, her eyes holding secrets he can’t unlock.

Her smile flickering with a mystery that tightens his chest. He paints her until his fingers go numb, until his eyes blur from exhaustion. He paints her even when he’s on the verge of madness. And he hates it—hates her—but he’s powerless to stop.

The people around him have noticed the shift, though they don’t understand it. They speak of his new works with reverence, captivated by the haunting beauty of the unknown woman he’s made famous.

But they don’t see the toll she takes on him. They don’t see the shadow of sleeplessness etched into his face, the dark circles under his eyes, the wild desperation lurking just beneath his cool exterior.

Every time he tries to paint something else. Absolutely anything else, it does not work. Not anymore. He would feel his hands freeze, his mind goes blank, and all he can see is her smile.

She’s everywhere, a ghost in his waking hours, her gaze piercing through every wall he builds to keep her out. The thrill of creation is gone; all that remains is the raw compulsion to recreate her face, an act that feels more like exorcism than art.

Ryomen Sukuna slumps back into his chair, eyes trained on the painting before him, hands limp and smeared with shades of red and soft violet. Her face, the delicate arch of her brows, the smirk teasing at her lips. All of it stares back at him, alive, taunting.

It’s as though she’s watching him, laughing softly at his obsession, fully aware of the hold she has over him. The painted eyes seem to flicker, and in his exhaustion, Sukuna wonders if he’s the one painting her, or if she’s the one reaching through the canvas, carving her image into his mind with a precision that leaves him helpless.

“Damn it. This is so annoying.” he mutters, his voice echoing hollowly in the quiet room. He reaches for his brush, the movement automatic, but his hand falters, dropping it back onto the table as he releases a frustrated sigh.

The curse feels weak, a pitiful attempt to regain some control, but he knows it’s useless. She’s an endless riddle, one he’s compelled to solve yet doomed to never fully understand.

No matter how many times he paints her, he can’t capture her—not completely. The harder he tries, the more elusive she becomes, as though she’s slipping through his fingers, mocking his every attempt.

He sits there, shoulders slouched, the steady tick of the clock filling the empty space around him. Hours blur into each other, and yet he can’t bring himself to look away, his gaze locked on her face, that faint smile hinting at secrets she will never share.

And then, just as the clock strikes midnight, he hears it. That tender voice giving him grief. That warm voice turning him cold. That voice echoed that whisper, soft as a breeze, calling his name.

“My lord…..my lord Sukuna.”

He closes his eyes, the sound reverberating through him, familiar and yet so distant. She’s there, in his mind, like an echo carried across lifetimes, the warmth of her voice stirring something deep inside.

He knows it’s a dream, an illusion conjured by his own obsession, but he doesn’t care. For a brief moment, he lets himself lean into it, lets her voice wash over him like a balm.

“My lord, my beloved lord Sukuna…” Her voice is softer this time, coaxing, filled with a strange tenderness that he’s certain only exists in his imagination. He can almost feel her fingers trailing along his cheek, the faintest touch, leaving warmth in their wake.

“What do you want from me?” he murmurs, his voice a weary plea, barely audible, as if afraid to break the fragile spell she’s cast over him. “You’re there every night, haunting me, making me see you even when I close my eyes. But what do you want?”

In his mind, her laughter echoes, soft and familiar, as if she’s toying with him. “You know what I want, my lord Sukuna. You’ve always known.”

He clenches his fists, frustration simmering beneath his skin. “Then tell me, damn it. Tell me what I need to do to set you free.”

“Set me free?” she repeats, and there’s a hint of amusement in her voice, as if the very idea amuses her. “Oh, my lord Sukuna… it’s not me who needs freeing.”

His breath hitches, her words cutting through him like a blade. The realization settles over him like a heavy weight, and he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she’s right.

She isn’t the one trapped here—he is. Bound by his own memories, his own regrets, unable to let go of the past that has woven her image into every part of him.

He opens his eyes, staring at the canvas again, her face seeming to shift. It was almost ever so easy for her to taunt him like that, to tease him. Everything about her gave him that feeling that overwhelms him. Feelings that he's never felt in his entire life.

He could feel her eyes glinting with a knowing look that sends a shiver down his spine. He reaches for the brush, hand trembling as he adds another stroke, trying to bring her into focus, to finally capture the essence of her that has haunted him. But no matter what he does, he can’t reach her, can’t grasp the fleeting vision that seems to dance just beyond his reach.

“I’ll keep painting you. I swear.” he whispers, his voice raw, laced with something close to desperation. “Every night, every dream, until you’re satisfied. Until you let me go.”

But he knows, even as the words leave his lips, that she won’t; she’ll never truly leave. She’ll linger there, a silent muse, a relentless force guiding his hand, embedding herself deeper with every brushstroke.

And he, trapped in this beautiful, maddening cycle, will keep painting her face, night after night, each canvas only revealing a fragment of her and yet never enough.

The clock ticks on, marking the hours that slip away in her wake, but he’s long since stopped noticing. She’s there, in every line, every shadow, every flicker of light on the canvas.

She’s his prison, his muse, his madness—and he knows, even as he tries to break free, that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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BY THIS POINT, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN FINISHED WITH HIS COLLECTION. Usually, Ryomen Sukuna finishes his pieces weeks ahead, leaving everyone else; especially Gojo Satoru—scrambling to catch up. Well, perhaps because he usually doesn’t work until he stops messing about.

Still, the rivalry is a running joke among their peers. Gojo Satoru would tease him endlessly, his voice loud and mocking. “The world might as well end if you didn’t finish first, Ryomen Sukuna. I’d have to check if hell froze over.”

Gojo Satoru would say with that infuriating grin, and Sukuna would just roll his scarlet eyes, barely dignifying it with a response. He didn’t need to—he’d simply outdo him, his work claiming the prime spot at the National Gallery, cycle after cycle. That’s just how it works for them.

But now, as the days tick by and his canvas remains trapped in this maddening loop, the weight of that old joke feels heavier. Maybe it would be better if the world did end, he muses grimly, his frustration boiling under the surface. Each day that he fails to paint anything else, fails to break free from this woman’s image—drains him.

Every line, every shadow, every detail is etched with painstaking care, and yet each piece feels incomplete. He lets out a heavy sigh, his eyes narrowing as he looks once more at the canvas, the same haunting face staring back.

Another artist would leave the piece for a day, perhaps even a week, and come back with fresh eyes. But not Sukuna. He’s stubborn, relentless. Yet this time, it feels as though he’s been bested, and that thought is infuriating.

A soft knock sounds at the studio door, but he doesn’t respond. The door creaks open, and he doesn’t need to look up to know who it is—he can practically feel Gojo Satoru’s grin from across the room. This was a rare visit from his rival and somewhat friend. But, he already regrets giving him his address.

“Not done yet?” Gojo drawls, strolling in with a lazy confidence, hands shoved into his pockets. “Well, this must be it—the end of the world. Should I start making apocalypse preparations?”

“Leave, Satoru.” Sukuna mutters, his voice a low growl. But Gojo just chuckles, unperturbed.

“Can’t. I live wayyyyyy tooo far. Besides, I came all this way to see the fall of the great Ryomen Sukuna. And boy, is it a sight.” Gojo steps closer, his gaze shifting to the canvas. “Her again, huh? Your mystery woman? I thought you were done with her!”

Sukuna’s jaw tightens. “Say another word, and you’ll be painting with your own blood.”

Gojo just laughs, crossing his arms as he leans back against the wall. “Fine, fine. But it’s… interesting, don’t you think? You, stuck on the same image, over and over. And all of this because of one woman.”

Sukuna can feel his patience fraying, each word from Gojo Satoru like sandpaper on a wound that refuses to heal. But Gojo doesn’t stop, his tone shifting from mocking to genuinely curious. It’s already giving him a headache.

“So, bestie……” he says, a glint in his bright blue eyes. “Who is she? A muse? Some long-lost love? Because whatever it is, you’re about to drive yourself mad over her.”

“She’s nothing.” Sukuna says sharply, but the words lack conviction. He doesn’t want to dive into it. Especially for Gojo Satoru. He’d only try to make it all a joke and laugh about it. “Just a woman. Just a damn face that refuses to disappear.”

Gojo Satoru couldn’t help but arch an eyebrow. “Nothing? Could’ve fooled me, seeing as she’s all you’ve painted for weeks. Either she’s ‘just a woman,’ or she’s haunting you.”

Sukuna clenches his fists, his voice dropping to a murmur. “I can’t… get her out of my head, no matter how many times I try. It’s like she’s taunting me. Every stroke feels like a chase, and I can’t catch her.”

For once, Gojo’s grin fades, a shadow of understanding passing over his face. “So that’s it, huh? You’ve finally found a challenge you can’t conquer. Even after all these years.”

Sukuna scowls, eyes narrowing. “It’s not a challenge. It’s… more than that.” His voice trails off as he glances at the painting, his expression a mixture of longing and frustration.

“Then stop,” Gojo says bluntly. “If she’s driving you insane, stop trying to capture her. Paint something else. Anything else. Get back to your work, to the craft that’s kept you sane all this time.”

But Sukuna only shakes his head, his gaze fixed on the canvas. “It’s not that simple, Satoru. I can’t stop. I need to understand… Why is she here? Why does she keep coming back to me?”

Gojo sighs, running a hand through his bright snow colored hair, clearly torn between amusement and pity. “Well, I can’t say I envy you. But maybe you should try looking beyond the canvas, for once.”

Sukuna scoffs, though a hint of doubt creeps into his expression. “You think there’s anything outside this room that could give me answers?”

Gojo shrugs. “Who knows? Sometimes the answers we need are the ones we’re not looking for. But if this is what’s keeping you chained…” he nods towards the door, his voice lowering, “then maybe it’s time to find out why.”

Ryomen Sukuna says nothing, his gaze flicking between Gojo and the woman’s face on the canvas. And as Gojo slips out the door with a knowing smile, Sukuna feels the weight of his words lingering, as if daring him to break free of the chains he’s crafted for himself.

Gojo Satoru stayed in his studio for a while; the entire time his head hurt. But he couldn’t help admitting that his frustration was put on hold and that he was grateful for it. Annoying as he was, it was better than suffering what he had been suffering with the woman that haunts him.

But when Gojo Satoru leaves, he finds himself unable to leave either. From the night before, he hadn’t really found himself to sleep. But if he was still being honest, he really doesn’t think he made any progress from the ones he had already made that he feels happy about.

Well, except perhaps three more additions to his deluded dreams of this woman. He couldn’t stop with that. That was not something he could enjoy. It didn’t look good. He didn’t think it was the best he had ever done. He looks at his canvas again and squints his eyes. It was as though he was hoping that he had painted something else. But he knew he hadn’t. There was no need to double check.

Okay, well, he should be more honest — it’s four now. This is the fourth one. The fourth one for a while and it’s only past lunch time the next day. Wait, is it really lunch time? He looked around again and saw his clock. His mouth agape in shock. It’s already been a whole day? It’s already the blue hour? What the actual fuck is going on?

He groans as he puts down his paintbrush and covers his face with his hands. A loud groan echoes against his skin, reflecting that bitterness he feels. He was going mad, he’s genuinely sure that he’s really going mad. This time for real. The world is ending and he’s going mad.

Once more, Ryomen Sukuna sits slumped in his studio chair, the dim, cold light from the nearby cityscape casting a pallor over his face. How can this be possible? He's rubbing his temples, staring at yet another drying and yet truly unfinished portrait of her when a familiar voice cuts through his brooding. Ryomen Sukuna turned his back and turned it back once more, just as quickly.

Fuck, its Uraume.

Shit, shit. Is it already that time?

He hasn’t messaged them for two days.

How the fuck is he going to survive—

“Sukuna–san, you have the exhibition in two weeks, you know that!” Uraume reminds him, waking over with their tone both gentle and insistent. They’re standing at the edge of the cluttered studio, arms crossed, their eyes flicking between Sukuna and the growing stack of canvases lining the walls. “Everyone’s expecting new work, Sukuna–san. You can’t just say you aren’t producing anything when this is—”

He cuts them off with a frustrated wave of his hand, as if trying to dismiss both them and the exhibition out of his mind. “I know, I know, Uraume–san. You already know that I know. Don’t you think I know? I just…… What’s the point of even going here? It’s not…it’s not finished—nothing is complete.”

“That’s not what you’re supposed to be telling me—”

“I know, I know.” His voice trails off, heavy with exhaustion. He looks at the half-finished canvas before him, her familiar eyes staring back, mocking him. “Look, I need time. Okay? Just a little more time to get over it. I promise. It will be done soon.”

Uraume steps carefully, sidestepping the mess of brushes, scattered paint, and half-finished canvases that litter the studio floor. Their usual calm is tinged with a hint of bewilderment, their brows furrowing as they glance over at Ryomen Sukuna, who sits slouched in his chair, staring blankly at the portrait before him.

This is the first time they’ve seen him like this—so unfocused, so… lost. It’s unnerving. For as long as they’ve known him, Sukuna was always in control, his power and his confidence absolute. Nothing stumped him; nothing could shake him from his single-minded determination.

And yet, here he is, surrounded by portraits of a woman they’ve never met, trapped in a spiral of obsession that they don’t understand.

“Get over what, exactly?” Uraume asks, a soft but firm edge to their voice, breaking the silence that has grown heavy in the room. “The exhibition is practically sold out already. You are the star of this show—you know that.”

They hesitate, crossing their arms as they study his profile. “If you let yourself slip now, you’re going to lose everything. They expect something… groundbreaking, something other than…”

Their voice trails off as they catch sight of another painting, and then another; all of them of her. Each one shows a different expression, a different tilt of her head, a different light in her eyes, but always the same haunting face. Uraume’s gaze lingers on the latest painting, her smirk, subtle yet all-consuming, as if she’s daring anyone who looks at her to understand.

They shake their heads slowly, exhaling in frustration. “This obsession of yours…” They struggle for the right words, their gaze hardening as they glance back at him. “I don’t understand it. Who is she? And why are you letting her control you like this?”

Sukuna looks up, his expression weary, but there’s a flicker of something dangerous in his eyes, a glint that only appears when he’s truly challenged. “You wouldn’t understand, Uraume–san.” he mutters, his voice low, almost as if he’s talking to himself. “No one would. Not unless you felt what she did to me.”

Uraume raises a brow, taken aback. This isn’t like him—this vulnerability, this almost painful honesty. They’ve seen Sukuna bring cities to their knees, watched him command fear and respect with the simplest look, but now? Now, he looks more like a man haunted than a man in control.

“Then tell me, Sukuna–san.” Uraume says, their voice softening slightly, more curious than before. “What is it about her? Why does she matter so much?”

He leans back, a bitter smile crossing his lips. “It’s like… no matter how many times I paint her, she’s always out of reach, Uraume–san.” he says, his eyes flicking to the painting in front of him, the smirk that never changes. “Every stroke, every color—it’s as if she’s taunting me, daring me to try again, knowing I’ll never capture her.”

There’s a pause, the weight of his words settling between them, thick and tangible. Uraume takes a step back, their expression wavering. They’re used to seeing Sukuna drive toward a goal with relentless force, breaking anything that stands in his way. But this? This is something else. Something they can’t touch.

“Is she worth all this?” Uraume asks, more gently than they intended. “Worth losing your edge, your control?” They gesture to the canvases around them. “If she’s haunting you this much, perhaps it’s time to let her go.”

A dark laugh escapes Sukuna, low and humorless. “Let her go?” he repeats, his gaze still fixed on the painting. “I’ve tried, Uraume–san. But she’s there, every time I close my eyes. And I can’t…” He stops himself, the words caught in his throat. “She won’t let me go.”

Uraume watches him, feeling a pang of something they can’t quite name—pity, perhaps, or fear for what this fixation could mean for him. They take a step forward, daring to place a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re stronger than this, Sukuna–san.” they say softly, but firmly. “Whatever hold she has over you, it doesn’t control you. You’re the one in charge here, remember?”

For a moment, Sukuna seems to consider their words, a flicker of clarity in his eyes. But then he glances back at the canvas, at her knowing smile, and his face hardens, as if he’s resigned to the fact that he’s already lost.

“I thought so too, Uraume–san.” he murmurs, barely loud enough for Uraume to hear. “But I’m beginning to wonder… maybe she’s the one painting me.”

Uraume watches him in silence, feeling the cold truth of his words settle between them. They realize, in that moment, that they may be witnessing the unraveling of the man they thought was unbreakable. And for the first time, they wonder if he can even escape from the shadows of his own creation.

Sukuna follows their gaze, feeling a surge of irritation and helplessness. “It’s not that simple, Uraume–san. God, it’s just….” he mutters, running a hand through his messy fuschia hair, which is starting to look as unruly as he feels.

“She’s—she’s everywhere to me. And maybe that’s why she’s always here. Every time I try to start something else, there she is. Like a bad dream I can’t wake up from.”

He glances at Uraume, searching their face for some flicker of understanding. “Don’t you get it? I need to work through this. You can’t just snap your fingers and make it go away. If I had magic, it would have been fine, but I just….”

“Then maybe make her part of it.” Uraume replies, unphased by his frustration. “People will want to see this obsession—whatever it is. But they won’t be satisfied with half-finished canvases of the same face over and over.”

He stands up abruptly, pacing, as if movement will shake off the weight pressing down on him. “It’s not an obsession,” he says, though the words sound hollow, even to him. “I just need… time. To figure this out. To move past her.”

Uraume watches him with a calm patience that only irritates him further. “You’ve had time, Sukuna-san. And every day, I’ve watched you do nothing but chase shadows.” They gesture to the rows of unfinished canvases, the dozens of faces that all share her haunting expression.

“Maybe you don’t need to get past her. Maybe you need to go deeper, to figure out what she’s trying to tell you.”

Sukuna clenches his jaw, feeling the heat rise in his chest. He hates that Uraume, of all people, might be right. But how could he go deeper when she’s already consuming him? They should know that this is not what he needs right now. He needs support about this trying situation. He needs kindness about this. He needs—

He turns his eyes slightly and soon enough, they land on the first portrait he’s drawn of her. It was rough around the edges, it was true. But he was trying really hard to capture what he had found in her. He thought he would never see her again. That first time, it was all too interesting. Because he thought he would never see her again. And her smile would have been everything even that one time.

That once would have been enough, it would have fulfilled him whole enough. That one portrait, that first one — it would have been enough for Ryomen Sukuna to feel like someone was always going to look at him kindly.

That someone would always look at him with such tender eyes. He purses his lips in a line. Here she was. Once again, staring into his soul. Frozen in time. Looking towards him as though he was the world. As though life can only be known through looking at him. He gulped.

“I’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” he says finally, forcing his voice to steady. “Just… let me handle it my way.”

Uraume sighs, a long, exasperated sound. “Fine. But remember, Sukuna–san, time waits for no one. Especially not for you.”

And with that, they turn, leaving him alone once more in his dimly lit prison, with nothing but her face and the ticking of the clock to keep him company. Ryomen Sukuna could not move anymore for a while. He couldn’t. Not when you were looking at him like that.

The echoes of the night pangs into the slumber of the bright starry sky, and the silence in Ryomen Sukuna’s studio is absolute, broken only by the occasional soft creak of his chair or the quiet scratch of his brush against the canvas. And he despises it. Usually, he would be happy about that. It helps him focus on his work.

Yet, he’s almost afraid to move or make more noise or appease the silence with his enjoyment. Ryomen Sukuna was afraid that if he does, he’ll break the spell that’s settled over him, the fragile connection that’s come alive between him and her.

This ghostly woman, this chasing woman who has rooted herself so deeply in his psyche. He knows she’s not real, and yet every inch of him feels as if she’s in the room with him, closer than a shadow, more vivid than any memory.

The woman on the canvas feels different this time. He’s pushed past the limits of his frustration and reached a depth of expression that feels raw, unnerving. Her face, no longer a series of lifeless shapes and colors, seems to breathe on the canvas.

Her smile is softer now, her eyes almost… knowing. But the knowing isn’t comforting; it unsettles him, strikes some primal nerve deep inside. He steps back, shaking his head as if to clear it, to dispel the irrational thought that she’s looking back at him with intent, with purpose.

But even standing back, even half-closing his eyes, he can’t unsee her. She seems more real than ever before, like he’s peeled away another layer, only to find her hiding deeper within. He feels his heart beat faster, a slow wave of dread creeping into his veins. How can a face he created himself feel so alive? So sentient?

He backs away from the canvas, his hands covered in paint, feeling a chill settle over him. He’s been pushing himself to exhaustion these past few weeks, painting her in every possible way, but this—this feels different, like he’s crossed an invisible line. For the first time, the compulsion to paint her is laced with fear.

Still, he can’t look away. Her presence fills the room, and he feels the weight of it like a physical force. His eyes roam over her face: the faint shadows around her eyes, the suggestion of pain hidden in the tilt of her lips, the look of sorrow mingling with defiance. Each detail tells a story he’s not sure he wants to know, yet he’s desperate to understand it.

Uraume’s words echo in his mind again: Maybe you don’t need to get past her. Maybe you need to go deeper, to figure out what she’s trying to tell you.

He shudders, the thought reverberating through him. What if this woman, this apparition, isn’t just an accident of his imagination? What if she’s here for a reason, some purpose he’s been too afraid to uncover?

He recalls the dreams—the cliff, the ocean raging below, the way she extends her hand to him with that haunting smile, beckoning him forward only to disappear again and again. It’s always the same. He can’t save her, but he can’t let her go.

He’s always believed that his art comes from somewhere deep within him, from emotions he doesn’t fully understand, from memories he can’t articulate. But this feels different to him. He had never dealt with this before.

It was almost as if it’s coming from outside of him, as though she’s reaching through the boundary of his mind, using his hands as a conduit. He lets out a shaky breath, clutching the paint-stained edge of his workbench. Is this woman, this image, an echo from his past? A ghost? Or something darker, something he’s unlocked without meaning to?

The thought stirs something in him, a strange, unexplainable pull to keep going, to lose himself in this process of bringing her fully to life. He walks back to the canvas, hand trembling as he picks up his brush once more.

This time, he paints her hand, reaching out, as if extending toward him. The fingers are delicate, almost ghostly, and he layers shadows beneath them, giving them depth, weight. He works until the details blur, until his vision is smeared with exhaustion.

He steps back again, chest tight. Her hand stretches toward him now, inviting him, her fingers just a breath away. The air in the room feels thick, electric, as if she’s drawing him closer, beckoning him to cross some unseen line. He reaches out instinctively, the tips of his fingers barely brushing the canvas.

In that instant, a shiver courses through him, the chill going bone-deep. He feels his hand pull back, but it’s as if something is holding it there, holding him in place. His heart races. He hears the ticking of the clock, each tick louder, more insistent. The woman on the canvas seems closer now, her eyes sharper, more alive, her expression shifting as though she’s on the edge of speaking.

He tears his hand away, stumbling backward, the sudden movement jarring him back to himself. His studio comes into focus, the familiar mess of paint and brushes scattered around, the quiet hum of the city outside. But she’s still there, her face on the canvas, watching him with that faint, knowing smile.

His heart still pounding, he grabs his coat and stumbles out of the studio, leaving her behind, feeling her gaze burning into his back even as he shuts the door. The air outside is cold, crisp, and he gulps it down, trying to shake off the feeling that he’s walked out of a nightmare he can’t wake from.

But even as he steps into the city streets, even as the lights and the noise surround him, he can still see her in his mind, as clearly as if she were standing beside him.

And he knows, with a strange certainty, that no matter how far he runs, she’ll be waiting for him, waiting in the studio, in his dreams, until he finally dares to confront whatever truth she holds.

══════════════════

HE REALLY CAN’T HELP IT. Ryomen Sukuna’s heart hammers in his chest, louder than the muffled hum of voices in the museum, louder than the memories raging through his mind. He stands frozen, his scarlet eyes locked onto her.

This was the woman from his dreams, the face he painted until his hands went numb, until his sanity frayed. The woman he has known is like the back of his hand. She’s here, in the flesh, not on a canvas or a hazy memory, but real, close enough to reach out and touch. And yet, at this moment, she feels farther away than ever.

The woman doesn’t notice him. Of course she wouldn’t have. Why would she? He doesn’t expect her to know what he’s feeling now. She’s oblivious to the storm her presence has unleashed in his chest, the way his pulse spikes as he watches her, every nerve in his body caught between reaching for her and running away.

She’s gazing intently at the displays, her head tilting thoughtfully as she studies each artifact, and with each subtle movement, she reminds him achingly of her—of the woman he’d known in that past life, his concubine, the one he’d lost so long ago. She has that same air of quiet intensity, that gentle focus, the same soft curiosity he remembers.

And then she steps closer to the display holding the hairpin. That hairpin—the one he’d given to his concubine as a symbol of the promise he couldn’t keep, the one she had treasured even on the darkest nights, when the weight of their hidden love had pressed heavy upon them both. The hairpin he’d clasped in her hair before she was taken from him.

The sight of it had been a punch to the gut even before he saw her. But now, watching this woman—a stranger, yet painfully familiar—reach out as though to touch the glass, Sukuna feels something crack open inside him, a wound he’d buried lifetimes ago tearing fresh and raw.

She lifts her hand, her fingers hovering near the glass, her eyes lingering on the hairpin with a look he recognizes—sadness, longing, nostalgia she can’t possibly understand.

Her face is calm, her expression serene, but he knows that look, knows that feeling. Does she feel it too? Does she feel the echo of something lost, something distant yet so deeply embedded in her soul?

His own hand trembles at his side. He wants to go to her, to pull her aside, to demand to know if she remembers, if somewhere in her heart she feels that same aching void he’s carried for centuries. But the reality sinks in, cold and unyielding: to her, he’s a stranger.

She has no idea who he is. She doesn’t remember their stolen moments under moonlight, their whispered vows, the quiet, forbidden love that had bound them tighter than any promise. She doesn’t remember his face, doesn’t know the agony he’s endured, living each lifetime haunted by her ghost, painting her face in the desperate hope it might bring her back.

And yet, the hairpin calls to her. He watches her, rooted to the spot, as she studies it with a reverence she can’t name, can’t explain, an inexplicable connection to something lost to time. He can almost see the weight of her past life hovering over her like a shadow she doesn’t even know is there.

Sukuna’s fingers twitch, aching to touch her, to break this unbearable silence and tell her everything: that he’s waited lifetimes for her, that he’s dreamed of her every night, that every stroke of his brush was a desperate attempt to remember her, to reach her, to feel even an echo of what they once had. But how could he explain that? How could he unload centuries of grief, of longing, on her shoulders, when she doesn’t even know his name?

She turns, moving slowly to the next display. But for a single heartbeat, her gaze drifts in his direction. Their eyes meet, and in that split second, the air thickens, everything around him falling away. Her eyes—those same eyes, dark and deep, full of questions and secrets—fix on him, and he feels the weight of their shared history settle like a heavy cloak over them both.

He watches as something flickers in her gaze, an almost imperceptible flash of recognition. She blinks, and it’s gone, but he clings to it, desperate. Did she feel it, even if only for a moment? Did she feel the weight of a life before, a life they shared, a love they lost?

But she turns away, her brows furrowing slightly, as if shaking off a strange thought, and the moment shatters, leaving him stranded in a sea of regret and unspoken words. She disappears around the corner, her silhouette swallowed by the shadows of the exhibit.

A bitter pang cuts through him, deeper than anything he’s felt in centuries. She’s here, alive, within his reach, and yet she’s still lost to him. He’s still haunted by the echo of her smile, the shadow of her memory, the woman he could never save.

Slowly, Ryomen Sukuna forces himself to step away, his gaze lingering on the hairpin. He clenches his fists, feeling the familiar sting of regret, of promises broken, of lives tangled and torn apart.

He’d thought he was prepared to face her, though he could handle the pain that would come with seeing her again. But the reality is raw and relentless, tearing open old wounds he thought were healed.

In that moment, he was the only one who knew the truth: he’ll always be trapped in this cycle, drawn to her only to watch her slip away. No matter how many times he finds her, she’ll always be just out of reach, a dream he can never wake from.

Ryomen Sukuna’s heart nearly stops when he feels a soft hand on his arm, drawing him back to the present. His present. In front of this woman, this woman who haunted him with everything and anything in him.

“Are you… okay?” the woman asks, her voice gentle, her eyes warm with concern.

He’s stunned, his breath catching as he looks down at her, the stranger with the face he’s known all too well, the stranger who feels like a ghost comes to life. But he forces himself to gather his thoughts, to act like this is a normal interaction with a stranger, even though every nerve in his body feels charged with recognition.

“Ah… yes, I’m….I’m good.” he finally says, his voice rough but steady. “I just find the gallery… interesting.” The words feel absurdly inadequate, but it’s the only thing he can manage.

A small smile breaks over her lips, and the sight of it sends a sharp pang through him. It’s so familiar, so achingly familiar, that he has to clench his fists to keep himself grounded. She glances around the exhibit, her expression softening with a hint of pride.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, stranger.” she says. “It was… hard to tell the story. To do it justice, I mean.” Her gaze returns to his, warm and inviting. “I’m a Mikoto, by the way. A descendant of Hiromi.”

He feels his heart stop at the name, and it takes him a beat to respond. “Ryomen… Ryomen Sukuna, that’s my name.” he says, his voice catching slightly as he introduces himself.

He could only watch as her eyes widened in surprise, and she studied him, the weight of recognition glinting faintly in her gaze, though she didn't seem to realize its true depth. She probably did not expect him to have that name, that exact name, also.

“A descendant of Hiromi, too?” she asks with a soft laugh, her expression open, friendly. When he doesn’t answer, she shakes her head with a lighthearted smile. “It’s okay. The family’s too big for everyone to know where they come from anyway.”

He nods stiffly, a bit overwhelmed, struggling to keep his composure as memories flicker before him. There’s so much he wants to say, so much he aches to tell her, but he swallows it all down, letting the silence sit between them, as heavy as it is fragile.

Then, gathering his nerve, he glances at her. “Can I… can I ask you something about the exhibit? About Ryomen Sukuna?”

She tilts her head, curious. “Of course, you can.” she says. “But fair warning—it’s going to be a long story. A sad story.”

He meets her gaze, and in that moment, he sees a flicker of recognition in her eyes, something deep and familiar that calls to him. He nods. “That’s okay.” he says softly. “I think I need to hear it.”

She studies him a moment, as if trying to understand his need to know. Judging from her own reaction, it's a difficult story to even try and tell. But he was curious. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he wanted to know so badly.

He wanted to know more than anything how these two people lived. How she lived, that woman in his dreams — the woman right in front of him. He looks at her tenderly, curiously. And she nods, a quiet understanding in her expression.

“Ryomen Sukuna… and his concubine. Their stories are really not easy. Nor is her own. His concubine’s story is difficult. She led a long, sad life. They were together for a long time, longer than Sukuna and Hiromi were wed.” Her eyes lowered, the sight gleaming with sorrow as she touched the glass, trying to reach for the hairpin.

“She was devoted to him, in all the ways that one could describe devotion. And yet….she suffered under him… Quite a lot, if we’re to be honest. She gave him a son and she lost him and his indifference at times, it broke her.” She hesitates, glancing at him before continuing. “Though in his own way, he loved her. But well, was it enough? We cannot truly tell. From what we know from Ryomen Chiharu, she died without knowing. But perhaps, those are claims.”

The words pierce him like a knife. Hearing it from her lips, from her gentle voice, makes it all feel too real. The bitterness, the heartbreak, the weight of it all surges within him, yet he can’t look away from her. Is that what she has had to live through all that time? Was it only the heartbreak she had lived through? In that past life, in her past life — was it just grief born out of more, one after the other? Is that why she kept falling to her death? Suffering in all that pain?

“If he had loved her then….” Sukuna could feel some sense of anger bubble through him. “Why is it not ever clear, his feelings? If you love someone, you….you tell them! You make them know when they’re alive. Not when they’re gone! What kind of man is he? Is he even a man at that point? That’s cruel….That’s…..”

In that moment, her eyes turned wide as she gazed at him. She had seen people get angry on behalf of the long suffering concubine of the King of Curses. That was normal, to feel anguish on her behalf. And yet, this mayhaps is the first time he’s ever seen someone so infuriated. And aggrieved. And bitter. Truly, in the sense of the word. Her heart felt warm about that.

She smiles softly at him and places her hand on his own. “You know….he still did care. Even if he was a terrible man. In some ways.”

“Even then—”

“Come with me, stranger!” she says, her voice soft as she takes his hand, her touch sending an electric shock through him. She leads him to a long table draped in dark fabric, a single scroll lying open at the center. It was a magnificent piece of work.

In the middle was her, that concubine. With her elegant features and her bright eyed gaze, her tender smile that could bring life to a mundane world. The colors illuminated her with such ethereality that one couldn’t even understand. It would have taken much too much time to do this in their lifetime, during the Heian Era.

And yet, it was so carefully made, carefully thought of. So full of devotion to her, details that one couldn’t even find in any other portraiture in that time. Sukuna could only watch as her fingers glide along its edge with a reverence that pulls him in, as though she’s sharing a secret between them. Her smile grows wider.

“This is painted and written by Sukuna himself, mayhaps, a few years before she passed.” she whispers, her eyes shining as she looks at him. “We don’t know, if he had painted and made this in secret. Or if she had known and seen it. But….it was to her… a message. From him to her.”

The scroll is faded, ink blurred by age but unmistakable. And as Sukuna reads it, he feels his breath leave him, his pulse racing as he takes in the words he never thought he’d see again. In ancient script, barely visible, are the words he remembers writing so many lifetimes ago, a promise that felt foolish and desperate even as he wrote it:

“To you, my little one, from a thousand years to another twenty thousand years from now, you who will continue to be dear to me.”

His vision blurs, and he forces himself to swallow down the ache rising in his chest. How is that man ever so contradictory? How could he cause her hurt and then do…do something like this? How can one ever make amends, or show love, knowing they had caused grief and pain and suffering?

He purses his lips, his face echoing in conflict. He could feel his hand tighten in a fist. The woman he saw in his dreams, and the woman he sees before him now. How they both suffered to get to this point.

That smile a thousand years ago, so gentle and yet….so pained. And now, so beautiful and serene, happy. Truly so happy. He couldn’t help but be so overwhelmed by emotion. By all of this. She looks up at him, her face soft with empathy and warmth, her hand still resting lightly on his arm.

“What kind of person do you think could write something like that?” she asks gently, studying his reaction.

He swallows, searching for the right words, his voice barely a whisper. “Someone who knew… he’d never find peace without her.” he says, almost to himself, his gaze lingering on the scroll. “Someone… who wanted more time.”

Her eyes meet his, something unspoken passing between them, a quiet understanding that hangs thick in the air. She doesn’t say anything, but her expression shifts, her gaze softening, as if she’s sensing something she can’t quite place, something from another life pressing against the present.

In that moment, he knows he can’t tell her, can’t burden her with the weight of it all. This life may not hold the memory, the pain, the love he’d lost, but here she stands, still at his side. The universe, fate, something unknown has brought them here, and for now, in this fragile moment, it’s enough.

Sukuna’s mind swirls, each beat of his heart drumming louder against the silence that now surrounds them. The faint traces of this man’s ancient words—his promise, his plea—are scrawled on the scroll, untouched by time.

The weight of it feels unbearable, as if this fragile piece of paper holds not just a message from the past but the entirety of his soul. He risks a glance at her, the woman with his concubine’s face, her warmth, her spirit.

She’s watching him with an intensity that pulls him back from his reverie. “I wonder if he ever found her, if he was ever reborn and given new life.” she murmurs, more to herself than to him. “If… across all that time, they somehow managed to find each other again. And are more truthful to each other. I always thought that, even when I was a child. I hoped and prayed that they found happiness together in a new life.”

Her words send a chill down his spine. He wants to tell her they did, that he’s standing here, right now, because of her. But he knows he can’t—no matter how much his heart aches to reach out, to let her in on the truth he’s carried alone for so long. The curse of knowing, of remembering, is his burden alone.

Instead, he lets his fingers drift across the edge of the scroll, keeping his gaze lowered. “Maybe he never stopped searching. Even if he is reborn. Maybe if he doesn’t remember it all. He should find her and make amends.” he says softly. “Maybe that’s why his name and his memory linger even now. So that she’ll notice. And…maybe they’ll live the way you want them to.”

She tilts her head, considering him, her smile touched with the slightest hint of sadness. “That’s a beautiful thought. Almost… almost as if he’s still out there, waiting. Even if he had to endure every lifetime alone.”

Sukuna swallows, struggling to keep his composure. “Sometimes, we don’t have a choice, about it all.” he says, his voice low. “We’re bound by memories we can’t remember, by the promises our futures will have to remake, even if we have to carry them alone.”

She studies him for a moment, her expression thoughtful, as if she’s trying to glimpse the truth beneath his words. “That sounds like something he would have said, perhaps….perhaps to her.” she murmurs, almost to herself.

The weight of her gaze feels like a hand pressing against his heart, pulling him toward her, tethering him in a way that feels more ancient than memory. But she turns her attention back to the scroll, breaking the spell, and a soft smile touches her lips as she reads the words he once wrote.

“You know,” she says after a pause, “my family used to tell stories about Sukuna. He’s more of a legend now than a real person, but there are so many conflicting tales. Some say he was ruthless, others say he was capable of great kindness. I’ve always been fascinated by that contradiction.” She glances up at him, eyes alight with curiosity. “What do you think? Was he a monster… or was he something more?”

Sukuna’s breath catches at the question, the answer sitting like a stone in his throat. How can he possibly explain that the truth was more complicated than either legend or history could capture? That he was both and neither, a man torn by his own humanity and haunted by a love he couldn’t protect?

“It’s hard to say what he was.” he answers carefully. “Maybe he was both. A monster to some, but to others… he was someone who gave everything he had. No one is….no one is truly a villain, after all.”

She nods slowly, seemingly satisfied with his answer. “I like that answer.” she says quietly. “I think we all have pieces of light and shadow inside us. Maybe he was just… someone trying to find a balance, even if he had caused so much hurt. Even if he had failed.”

The irony cuts deep, the tragic poetry of her words like salt in an old wound. Her voice is gentle, but there’s a conviction in her tone that makes his chest tighten. If she knew the truth—if she knew what he’d lost, the sacrifices he’d made—would she still look at him this way, with this soft reverence and understanding?

Lost in thought, he hardly notices her reaching for his hand. Her fingers wrap around his, warm and grounding, and he’s stunned by the simple, natural ease of her touch, as though they’ve done this a thousand times before. Her hand fits perfectly in his, and for the first time in centuries, a glimmer of hope stirs within him.

“Come with me again, stranger.” she says, leading him past the scroll and into a smaller room at the end of the hall. “There’s something else I want you to see.”

They walk in silence, and he lets her guide him, his heart racing, wondering if perhaps, just maybe, she’s starting to feel the pull too—the invisible thread binding them across lifetimes. She stops in front of a display case holding a small, intricately carved pendant, its silver chain gleaming under the soft lights.

“This pendant, it was passed down to Ryomen Chiharu, after a few years.” she says, gazing at it with a fondness that surprises him. “It belonged to her. His concubine. One of the only things she kept close to her heart.”

Sukuna stares at it, his mind reeling. The pendant was once his gift to her, that King of Curses—a token, a promise of protection. Seeing it now, preserved and cared for, feels surreal, a whisper of the life they once shared. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, his voice thick with emotion he’s barely keeping in check.

He wondered, maybe if it was the right time, the right place. If he hadn’t been so enthralled with another — maybe it would have been a match that would have ended with less pain and more joy. Perhaps if the King of Curses had found himself able to move forward, he would have been happier. Maybe his concubine would have been happier.

But that was a thousand years ago. And humanity keeps making that same mistake. Little by little, you could find people repeating it over and over again. That makes Sukuna so bitter and sad, grievous and angry all at once. How could fate be so twisted? How could fate seem so indifferent to it all? How could…how could fate not stop such suffering of people who wish to be happy?

“I always thought it was sad, you know?” she continued, her tone soft. “She must have known he’d never be hers completely. But she still kept this close to her heart. Thinking of him. It’s like she never stopped hoping.”

Sukuna’s throat tightens, the weight of her words pressing into the raw ache within him. “Hope….hope is fragile.” he echoes, his voice hollow. “It can be a painful thing to carry, especially when there’s no chance of seeing it fulfilled.”

Her gaze turns up to him, searching, as though she can sense the depth of his grief but can’t name its source. “Maybe.” she says, her voice a whisper. “But sometimes… hope is all we have.”

He looks away, afraid she’ll see the truth in his eyes. He wonders if she understands, if somewhere deep down, a part of her remembers. But even if she doesn’t, he can feel her empathy, her gentle warmth reaching out to him, soothing his restless spirit.

She squeezes his hand, her touch gentle and grounding. “Thank you,” she says, smiling softly. “For listening to her story with me. I know it’s heavy, but… it’s part of our legacy, isn’t it?”

He nods, his heart raw and open, feeling the weight of the centuries fall away, even if just for this fleeting moment. It’s not enough—not enough to heal the wounds, to bring back what they’d lost—but for the first time, he feels something close to peace.

And in that silence, in her quiet smile, he dares to hope that maybe, just maybe, there will be a way to find and know each other again. She was right there. He likes to think she is. Right in front of him. There was hope, somehow.

That she would be happy. That maybe, just maybe – he could see her smile so beautifully again. A smile that would reach all the way to her eyes and warm her face and towards the reach of all the heavens.

Sukuna stands there, his fingers still brushing the edge of the glass case, the pendant gleaming faintly beneath his touch. He feels an unfamiliar warmth stirring within him, a strange, hesitant urge for something… more, something real and tangible. He looks down at her, her expression still soft with that quiet empathy that unsettles him as much as it comforts him.

Before he can second-guess himself, he clears his throat, casting a sidelong glance her way. “Would you, uh… would you like to grab a coffee sometime?” he asks, a bit gruffly, as if trying to sound casual. “Maybe you could help me with some ideas for my art. I’m….an artist by the way. ”

The question hangs in the air between them, and for a moment, he feels exposed in a way he hasn’t in centuries, like he’s offering a piece of himself he’s long since hidden. He braces himself for rejection, for her to smile politely and turn him down.

Sukuna watches her smile, a genuine, radiant expression that spreads across her face like dawn breaking over a darkened sky. It’s infectious, igniting something deep within him, as though it was a feeling that has lain dormant for centuries beneath layers of pain and regret.

Everything in him felt warm inside. Everything in him grasped to life, hoping that she could nourish it to last forever. Her acceptance feels like a lifeline thrown into the stormy sea of his existence, and he clings to it with a desperation he can’t quite articulate.

“Tomorrow sounds perfect, stranger.” she says, her voice a gentle balm against the jagged edges of his heart. “Oh, I should stop calling you that, shouldn’t I? My apologies, Sukuna–san. I wanted to tease you for a little more time.”

As she writes her number on a slip of paper, the world around them fades into a blur. The museum, the exhibits, the weight of history—all of it dissolves until it’s just the two of them, suspended in this fragile moment of connection.

He takes the paper from her, fingers brushing against hers for the briefest second. It sends an unexpected spark through him, and he’s momentarily lost in the warmth of her skin, the softness of her touch. He forces himself to pull away, catching her gaze again, wanting to savor the moment a little longer.

“What do you like to drink?” he asks, trying to keep the conversation going, to stretch this fleeting connection into something more tangible.

“Coffee, mostly. I love a good espresso.” she replies, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “But I’m always open to trying new things. I’m sure the cafe will have new wonders. How about you?”

He nods, remembering the countless cups of coffee he’d consumed over the years, each one a bitter reminder of the countless sleepless nights spent alone. “I’m more of a dark roast person myself. Stronger the better.”

“Then I’ll make sure to introduce you to the best place in town. They have the most incredible brews, fit for a long suffering artist.” she says with a playful grin, and for the first time, he can’t help but smile back. It’s a small, simple thing, but it feels monumental, like a bridge forming over a chasm he thought would always divide him.

“Great….I uh….” he replies, his voice a little steadier. “I look forward to it.”

They linger for a moment, both seeming to hesitate, caught in a bubble of anticipation and something deeper that he can’t quite name. He’s never been one for lighthearted interactions, especially when it comes to connections. Yet here he is, standing before a woman who feels like a piece of his lost history, someone he feels inexplicably drawn to.

With one last lingering look, she steps back, her smile still warming the air between them. “See you soon, then, Sukuna–san.” she says, her voice light yet meaningful.

“Yeah….. I’ll see you soon.” he echoes, his heart pounding in his chest as he watches her walk away, the soft sway of her figure leaving him breathless.

As he turns to leave the gallery, the weight of the memories of a thousand years presses less heavily on him. He had left behind Sukuna's world, and birthed a new. He hopes he can. He wants to. He wants to make that woman happy. She deserves to. She deserves to be happy, in the way he couldn’t do it. He promises himself that.

For the first time, he feels a flicker of inspiration reigniting in his chest, like a spark that’s been waiting for just the right moment to burst into flame. The idea of coffee, of sharing thoughts and laughter, of discussing art with someone who understands the nuances of his legacy—it excites him in a way he hadn’t felt in what seems like an eternity. It excites him to burn with joy.

The streets outside are bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, the colors alive and vibrant, reminding him of the canvases he has yet to fill. He can almost picture it now, a new piece forming in his mind—a swirling mix of shadows and light, of loss and hope, reflecting everything that has led him to this moment.

In the days and nights that follow, he begins to sketch again. The woman’s face, a beautiful blend of familiarity and freshness, dominates the canvas, layered with strokes of longing and the bittersweet pang of memory. He paints her laughter, the way her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, and the gentle warmth that radiated from her smile.

Every brushstroke feels like a conversation, a way to weave their stories together—a blend of art, history, and the unspoken connection that binds them. The artist’s block that had once felt insurmountable begins to crumble, each session at the easel pulling him deeper into his thoughts and feelings, and farther from the suffocating grasp of despair.

He dreams of their meeting, the way her presence felt like coming home, and as their coffee date approaches, he finds himself wrapped in a mix of excitement and nerves. What would they talk about? What would she think of his art?

That evening, as he stands in front of the mirror, he catches a glimpse of himself—disheveled fuschia colored hair, weary bright scarlet eyes; but beneath it all, there’s a glimmer of something he hasn’t seen in ages: hope. A hope for the future. A hope for a new world, a new life. One that will echo years and years from now about joy.

Tomorrow, he tells himself as he brushes down his shirt, it will be different.

Tomorrow, he’ll make her the happiest person in the world.

Tomorrow, he’ll hope that she will never have any more days to frown.

When the sun rises, he feels it all too well. There was a flutter of anticipation in his chest as he prepared to meet her. Each step feels lighter, each moment filled with possibility. The thought of sharing coffee and stories—his past entwined with hers—ignites a spark of creativity he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

As he enters the café, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee envelops him, and he scans the room, searching for her familiar face. When he spots her, seated at a cozy corner table, her hair cascading softly around her shoulders, he feels a rush of warmth.

Her smile brightens the space around them, and as their eyes meet, he knows he’s ready to embrace whatever this connection holds. It’s a chance to delve deeper into their stories, to explore the tangled threads of fate that brought them together.

“Hey!” she says, her voice lighting up the air between them as he approaches. “I’m so glad you made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” he replies, the weight of the past lifting as he takes a seat across from her. “So, what’s first on the menu?”

As you sit together, enveloped in the warmth of shared memories and laughter, Sukuna leans forward, his gaze both intense and gentle. The edges of his usually guarded expression soften, and the small lines near his eyes deepen with a smile that’s almost boyish.

“You know," Sukuna says, his voice low and thoughtful, “I have to say this to you… but… I never thought I’d find someone who could understand me like this. The things I’ve seen—it’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived through the same nightmares."

He glances down at his coffee, a faint smirk on his lips. “But with you, it doesn’t feel like explaining. It’s like I’m just… remembering with someone else who was there too. This feels so natural. Between you and I.”

She smiles, feeling a warmth blossom within her. “It’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, if someone had told me even a month ago that I’d be here with you, talking like this…” She trails off, laughing softly, feeling a little lost for words. “I would’ve thought they were crazy. But here we are.”

Sukuna chuckles, the sound surprisingly warm, free of his usual biting edge. “Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover it.” He pauses, his gaze meeting hers, searching as if he’s trying to decipher something hidden. “It feels like I know you… not just from now, but from a long time ago. Almost like I was meant to find you.”

His words send a shiver through her, a feeling both comforting and unsettling in its intensity. She nods slowly, letting the feeling settle within her. “I know what you mean,” she whispers, her voice barely above a breath. “It’s like we’re picking up where we left off… wherever that was.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, his gaze never leaving hers. “Every lifetime,” he murmurs, as if saying it to himself. “Every single one, I think I’d find you.” His hand drifts across the table, his fingers brushing hers in a tentative, almost reverent way. “And every time, I’d be the luckiest man alive.”

She looks down at his hand, his touch grounding her. “Do you believe in that, then? In soulmates? Lifetimes together?”

He smiles, almost a little sadly, as if unsure of his own answer. “Maybe I never did before… but with you, I can’t help but think maybe I was wrong.”

A comfortable silence settles between them, the words hanging like a delicate thread binding them together. After a while, he speaks again, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You… you make me see things differently, you know that? I just met you, but I just… I think it’s meant to be.”

There’s a vulnerability in his eyes, one she’d never expected to see. “Like maybe life doesn’t have to be as lonely as I thought it was. Or maybe, it just doesn’t matter, as long as I’m here… with you.”

Her heart aches at his words, sensing the pain he’s carried and the hope he’s now daring to hold onto. She laces her fingers with his, giving a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have to do it alone anymore, Sukuna-san,” she says softly. “Not as long as we have this. As long as we have each other. Maybe… maybe we’ll find something more to life together.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, exhaling a breath he didn’t know he was holding. When he opens them again, there’s something raw, something almost fragile in his gaze. “I’m… I’m honored,” he whispers gently, a small smile forming on his face. “If that means I’ll be able to live by your side in this life.”

She blushes, feeling the depth of his sincerity. “I’m just as grateful, you know?”

“Thank you.” he says, the words rough, yet sincere. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“You never have to say thank you to me.” She whispered back to him, smiling even wider. “Or say sorry. Okay?”

“Okay.” He smiles back at her, almost contagiously.

“So, do you….do you wanna watch a movie with me?”

“I’d be honored.”

In that moment, it feels as though nothing else exists—just her and him, caught in the quiet gravity of each other’s presence.

As the sun sets outside, casting a warm glow over their table, Ryomen Sukuna feels a flicker of something he thought long extinguished.

And as long as she’s beside him, he knows he’ll be right there with her, finding a new meaning to every breath and every heartbeat, perhaps better than he’d ever dreamed.

After that day, Ryomen Sukuna stopped having those nightmares about that long suffering concubine.

Instead, he started to dream of a tall man and that long suffering concubine, walking away from him — smiling. Together.

══════════════════

HE WAS LUCKY HE MADE IT. He hadn’t slept much, but it was all worth it. He liked to think that he made his best gallery presentation yet. He knew she liked it just as much as he did. And that had made him even more happy.

He wasn’t the best of storytellers, he knew that much. Writing was more or less something else to him. But, art like this? He could do it. And so, as he promised, he would make happiness appear on his canvas. He would make that concubine happy again.

As the evening progresses, the atmosphere in the gallery transforms, infused with a blend of excitement and reverence. Guests drift in and out, their whispers and laughter weaving a tapestry of shared appreciation for Sukuna's work.

The vibrant energy of the space pulses with life, but at its core lies a poignant sense of introspection; a collective acknowledgment of the stories each painting holds.

Sukuna stands near the centerpiece, his gaze lingering on the depiction of himself and his concubine, locked in an eternal moment of tenderness. The hues swirl together, capturing not just their faces but the very essence of their souls; a connection that feels almost palpable. Each brushstroke is infused with the weight of longing and regret, but now, standing beside his companion, he recognizes a glimmer of hope amid the sorrow.

As the crowd ebbs and flows, Sukuna finds solace in watching her interact with the guests, her warmth radiating in waves. She engages effortlessly, sharing her thoughts on the art, her enthusiasm infectious.

He catches snippets of their conversations, her laughter ringing out like music, and he can’t help but smile at the ease with which she navigates the social landscape. It’s a stark contrast to his own guarded demeanor, and yet, her presence encourages him to lower his defenses, to engage in this world he once viewed from the shadows.

With each passing moment, Sukuna feels a shift within himself. The uncertainty that had plagued him for so long begins to dissolve, replaced by an exhilarating sense of possibility. As the crowd gradually dwindles, he glances at the painting again, his heart swelling with emotion. It’s more than just an image; it’s a testament to love that transcends time, a narrative that binds past and present.

Suddenly, he turns to find her standing close, her expression reflecting a mixture of admiration and something deeper. “You’ve poured so much of yourself into this, Sukuna.” she says softly, her eyes shimmering with sincerity. “It’s not just about the concubine; it’s about you, too. You’ve laid bare your soul.”

The intensity of her gaze sends a shiver down his spine, and he swallows hard, feeling exposed yet liberated. “I wanted to capture the essence of what we had… to honor her, in my own little ways.” he replies, his voice low and steady. “But I realize now it’s also about my journey. This is as much about my pain as it is about her love.”

She nods, her understanding palpable, and in that moment, he feels a deep connection; there was an unspoken bond that links them through shared experiences and emotions.

The weight of his past no longer feels like a burden; instead, it becomes a source of strength, a wellspring of creativity he can draw from as he embraces this new chapter in his life.

“I think you’ve done an incredible job of that, you know?” she says, her voice softening. “You’ve shown that even in our darkest moments, love remains a guiding light. It’s beautiful.”

Sukuna’s heart races at her words, and he feels a warmth blooming in his chest—a mixture of gratitude and affection. “Thank you, really.” he replies, his voice sincere. “It means a lot to hear that from you. You’ve been… a source of inspiration for me.”

Her smile deepens, and there’s a spark of something electric in the air, a subtle shift that sends his pulse racing. “I’m glad I could be here for you, you know?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s a privilege to witness your journey, to see you reclaim a sad story to a happy one.”

He looks at her, the soft glow of the gallery lights illuminating her features, and he feels a wave of emotion wash over him. For so long, he had been shackled by the weight of his past, haunted by the ghost of his concubine and the mistakes that had led to their separation. But here, in this moment, standing with her amidst the beauty of his creations, he feels the chains loosening.

“Will you stay a little longer?” he asks, almost hesitantly, fearing her response. “I’d like to talk more… about the paintings, about everything.”

Her eyes light up, and the warmth in her smile reassures him. “I’d love that.” she replies, and they find a quieter corner of the gallery, away from the remnants of the evening’s festivities.

As they settle into a cozy nook, surrounded by the lingering essence of art and history, Sukuna feels a sense of calm wash over him. The world outside fades, leaving only the two of them and the unspoken connection that has blossomed between them.

“What do you see in these paintings?” he asks, eager to hear her perspective.

She leans forward, her gaze thoughtful. “I see love, loss, and resilience. Each piece speaks of a journey, a struggle to find beauty amidst pain. But what resonates most is the longing—the desire to reconnect with something that was lost. It’s powerful.”

He nods, her words echoing his own feelings, and as they discuss each painting in turn, he feels an exhilarating rush of creativity and clarity. The art becomes a conduit for their emotions, a way to explore the complexities of their shared experiences.

They dive deep into conversation, their voices low and intimate, each word exchanged drawing them closer together. She shares her own stories of loss and heartache, of moments when she thought she’d never find her way again. It’s a cathartic exchange, and he listens intently, captivated by her honesty and the strength she exudes.

With each revelation, Sukuna feels the walls that the King of Curses had built around himself begin to crumble. He shares his own struggles, the weight of his legacy, and the guilt that had shadowed him for centuries.

And perhaps, redemption may soon come for him in love. In this safe space, he finds himself opening up that man, that myth, that curse, in ways he never thought possible, unearthing emotions he had long buried.

The night wears on, and as the last of the guests trickle out, the gallery transforms into a cocoon of intimacy. It’s just him and her, surrounded by the echoes of their stories, and for the first time in ages, he feels a sense of belonging—a connection that transcends time and pain.

“I never thought I could feel this way again.” he admits, his voice thick with emotion. “After everything I’ve lived through… I thought I’d lost the ability to truly connect with anyone.”

She reaches out, her hand brushing against his in a gentle, reassuring gesture. “You haven’t lost that ability, Sukuna. You’ve just been waiting for the right moment, the right person….the right time.” she says, her gaze steady and filled with warmth. “I’m here now, and I want to be part of your journey.”

The sincerity in her words washes over him, and in that moment, he knows he’s found something rare—a connection that has the potential to redefine his understanding of love, art, and the future. The vulnerability he feels is both terrifying and exhilarating, but he knows he’s ready to embrace it.

As the last notes of music drift into silence and the soft, warm lights dim, the two of them sit close, hands intertwined, surrounded by the vibrant, intimate world he has created.

Each painting on the wall, each sculpture in the dim light feels like a memory brought to life, and she feels him relax beside her, the weight of his past somehow easing with each quiet heartbeat.

His thumb gently strokes her hand, and in that small, tender motion, she feels him say more than words ever could. With her here, in this sanctuary he’s built out of his own creativity and passion, he’s no longer the solitary figure haunted by shadows. He’s simply a man who has finally, against all odds, found someone who can see past his darkness and anchor him in light.

Ryomen Sukuna pauses, his hand still entwined with hers, and a rare, gentle smile crosses his face.

Looking at the painting, he lets himself hope, just a little. Perhaps, even in a world he once saw as cold and unyielding, there are threads of something beautiful woven into his story. Perhaps, even for someone like him, there could be a happy ending, one he’d never dared to imagine.

He leans down and whispers softly, almost as if confessing a secret. “I like to think they found each other again, you know? That somehow… this time, they got to be happy.”

She squeezes his hand, her eyes shining with warmth and understanding. “I like to think that too.” she replies gently, her voice full of affection.

They walk out together, the cool night air surrounding them as they leave his art behind. And as he catches her smile, he feels his heart swell with gratitude and a strange sense of peace.

For once, he isn’t looking back, haunted by the ghosts of what once was. Instead, he’s looking forward—toward a future that, with her beside him, feels so much brighter than he ever thought possible.

In his heart, he offers a silent prayer, hoping that they’ll continue to find each other, in this life and in all the ones to come. And as they disappear into the night, hands intertwined, this Ryomen Sukuna hopes that the King of Curses finally allows himself to believe that, this time, happiness might be his after all.

══════════════════

THERE WOULD BE NO MEMORY OF THIS WHEN HE’S REBORN. Ryomen Sukuna knows that much. That is the will of the unknown, of the gods unseen and unheard. He does not care much about the propriety of the accuracy. Why should it matter what their name is? He was dead, why should he care?

In the stillness of the afterlife, everything feels suspended, timeless. Everything was not what he had expected. Long ago, he had resigned himself to the thought that a final death would lead to the depths of burning inferno. And yet, it was not. He was stuck in a journey, a journey that continuously repeats over and over again.

He does not know what those gods intended with that. What was the purpose designed by the gods? What was the purpose of this journey? He had asked himself that for hundreds of years, walking and walking like the pilgrim he was and yet without end in sight. There was no road that was left to find a stop.

Perhaps, that is until now.

Ryomen Sukuna was the first to notice.

There was a wide shoji that appeared before them.

Ryomen Hiromi was quite unsure about what that was all about. But when she stepped right in front of it, the field protecting it had barred her from even touching it. She pursed her lips in a flat line. This door was not one for her to enter.

And she probably had already known that. Looking at him with those knowing purple eyes, she knew that it was not for her. It was for him. The gods had sent him a path, and it was not to be with her. It was a road for him to take, a road that was for him. Only him.

He took a short step towards it and allowed his hands to feel the space occupied by the massive wooden shoji. His touch could pierce its space. It was truly for him. There was no mistake in that. Uraume looked at him with a tense uncertainty. His most loyal Uraume is quite that timid child, still. Just as when Sukuna had met them years and years ago.

For a moment, it reminded him of Chizuru. That gentleness of that youth, that tenderness of youth. He could only see his little one. The little one that he misses most. His soul is already at peace, and perhaps Sukuna would never see him again.

He doesn’t deserve to. He wasn’t a good father to him. But moments like this, it gives him relief. Even if Chizuru didn’t need him anymore, then someone else did. And that someone still needed him. Even if he wasn’t the person suited to be needed.

Sukuna looked down at them, and then nodded reassuringly. Uraume reached forward and gasped. Their touch too pierced through its barrier. Of course, Sukuna thought to himself. Uraume tied their entire life to him.

They were one in the same. The loyal servant cannot live without the master. No, no. Sukuna corrects himself. There was always a need for someone. People will always need people.

He stands there idly as Ryomen Hiromi stood beside him, though keeping a distance. Everything around them had grown brighter. Brighter than before. All that surrounded them had been bathed in a soft, eternal light that neither burns nor fades.

This place, this moment, is for closure—a place where the bonds of the past can either linger or be released. A purgatory for souls, sinner or not. All souls look the same to the gods. Well, that’s what Hiromi had told him.

Sukuna’s gaze rests on Hiromi, taking in the warmth in her expression, the calmness in her presence. Even here, she glows with an inner light that he has always cherished. Serene as the moonlight, as mellow as the clouds.

There had always been a quiet grace that no one could replicate. He had known that in his long lifetime. And for as long as he had lived, he thought that his job had been to protect it. To protect her. No matter what, with everything in him — even if it often meant tearing down the world around him.

For a long while, they simply stand together, the weight of their shared history resting between them. A thousand years, feeling even more than that, reflected in the understanding that came in the silence. He had known her too well, she had known him too well.

There was nothing left between them. Only knowing. And perhaps, that’s why it wouldn’t have ever worked. He thinks about that. Knowing someone, even too well, will never truly be living a life with them.

There was too much he did not know about her life. There was much she did not know about his own. They had lived lives that grew out of their tender love. People who loved each other so much, that they risked everything in the world — finally became two boats in the night waiting for each other to pass.

Perhaps that’s all that there could be, he thinks about it now. No matter how much he loved her, no matter how much he still does love her — they were parallel lines. Right people, wrong place. Right place, wrong time.

That in itself was hard to admit, he knows that. He always has. But it was hard to say. It was hard to accept. Perhaps it always will be. Yet there is so much more beyond that grief of something already lost. Of life already lived and passed by. No matter how much he wants to follow Ryomen Hiromi with all the love in his heart, with all the devotion given from all his life, there will always be fate. And fate knows better than he.

As much as he tries, he was not a god.

He will never be one, he has tried to be.

He was just a sinner, a cruel cursed sinner.

Taking a deep breath, Sukuna speaks, his voice soft, yet resolute. "I can feel it, Hiromi." he says, looking down at his feet. “Somewhere out there……..I am soon to be reborn. Soon….I must enter this door.”

Ryomen Hiromi’s face softens, and a knowing smile tugs at her lips. She tilts her head, teasing, but with a hint of sadness that she can’t entirely hide. How could she? Ryomen Sukuna was her person. He was her family. Her dearest friend, her confidant. The man she loved, still does love. The love of her life.

But she knew that he was not yet ready. Perhaps he will never be ready to move forward like this. There was much tying him to the world of the living. To the earthly life. And she knew it wouldn't be her. It will never be her.

She could see it in the corner of his scarlet eyes. He too had lived a life. He had moved on. And he wants to see that loved one again. He wants to return. Even if he does not know it. He wants to see that smile on her face again.

"So, you’ll stop following me now, huh?"

He chuckles, the sound quiet, almost reverent, as he brings her hand to his chest. "I’ll love you most in the world, you know that.” he murmurs, each word weighed with truth. “You were the part of me that was good, Hiromi. Everything I am….was because of you.”

She looks at him, shaking her head. She remains smiling. “Endless flattery is not your style.”

His eyes warmed towards her. “It is not flattery if it's true. You know that most. I do not lie, not easily. Not without reason.”

“I know.” She huffs back in response, her eyes lowered to the floor. “I know you too well.”

“I need to go. You know that. There are still…..too much left undone. I have a lot to make amends for, things I must repair.” His voice grows steady, almost solemn. “I need to start with someone else I love. Someone who’s waiting, on the other side of the shore.”

Hiromi’s gaze flickers, her surprise shifting to understanding. There’s a light in her bright purple eyes, a pride that only deepens as she studies his face. For a moment, she wondered when he had grown up. When had he aged this well, lived this well. A part of her mourns the things they never saw. But she knew it was too late. He had someone else waiting to see those sides of him now.

“I always hoped you’d find something worth living for, beyond me. Beyond our clan. Beyond Jujutsu.” she says, her words carrying an emotion he hadn’t expected. She laughs. “You’ve done well, Sukuna. I know you would. And now you’re better at admitting your faults. You’ve….you’ve truly grown up! Father and uncle would be so glad to see it, don’t you think?”

The weight of her words settles deeply into him, her silent devotion across lifetimes coming into sharp focus. Ryomen Sukuna closes his eyes, feeling the immensity of all that they’ve shared, all that he’s never truly expressed.

“There’s still much for me to set right, Hiromi.” He looks at her, his expression softening as he finally speaks the words he’s never quite managed to say before. “But the love we shared… It's the best part of me. It’s the part of me I want to carry into the next life. Everything you taught me, it will be for the better.”

A soft laugh escapes her once more, and she shakes her head as if she’s hearing a promise she’s waited lifetimes for him to make. Her hand reaches up, gentle, almost motherly, as she brushes a stray hair back from his face. Leaning in, she presses a delicate kiss to his cheek.

“You don’t have to say anything else. I’ve always known you loved me.” She pulls back slightly, her hand lingering against his face. “I’ll always love you too, Sukuna. But we have different lives now. Paths that aren’t tied together anymore. No paths are bound, after all. Isn’t that what was taught?”

Her words are tender but firm, and he nods, finally accepting what she’s known all along. “I know.” he whispers, the smile on his face tinged with the bittersweet ache of goodbye. “But I think I’ll be alright, night flower. I’ve found something, someone… who I believe can make me better. She’s out there, waiting.”

For a moment, she could feel her heart shatter. In that moment, to remember what he had called her. With those words, with that tone of finality. With that tone of farewell. She could feel the warmth of water echo through her eyes. But she tries to make sure they do not pour. Those tears shouldn’t be poured. Not for him. He does not need it. She must send him happily. She must send him off with a smile. A good farewell.

Hiromi pulls away, her hand slipping from his, though her gaze remains fixed on him with a profound love and pride. Her bright eyes gleamed at him, even brighter than before. She smiles at him, though he could notice how tight it was. No matter how happy she is for him — she will mourn. She can’t help it.

“Then, I want you to find her, hm?” she says softly, the conviction in her voice like a benediction. “Find her and find your happiness, the kind that lasts. The kind that you finally deserve.”

He nods, and there’s a rare, open softness in his expression, a gratitude as deep as the ages they’ve spent together. He takes a good look at her, as though he was memorizing this moment. For as long as it still lasts, he wants to remember it. He wants to remember her, giving her blessing.

“Then, I’ll go, nightflower.” he says, his voice low and filled with purpose. “I’ll find her… and try to live the life I dreamed of with you.”

Hiromi smiles gently, and with one last lingering look, she turns to leave, pausing only to say. “Someday, I hope to meet her too—the one who brought you peace. Bring her back with you. So that I may thank her for taking care of you.”

He nodded at her. He takes a deep breath as he lowers his gaze and sees Uraume looking at him, as though asking for courage. Sukuna takes Uraume’s hand and tightly grips it, but is careful not to hurt them. A ghostly smile appears on his face, beaming it towards them.

Uraume could feel their eyes glisten as they felt the warmth of that smile. Uraume could feel warmth in them, tenderness — tenderness that molds their will to live with courage. Sukuna turns his head slightly, looking at Hiromi. His smile gets wider, and becomes more honest than before. She smiled at him, waving him off.

As he and Uraume walked towards the shoji, Ryomen Hiromi knew that she too has to move away. Ryomen Sukuna slowly watches her walk away into the path of light, alone, feeling the weight of a thousand lifetimes lifting from his shoulders. He could feel his breath hitch as he watches her walk away, perhaps for the final time, perhaps until they get reborn again.

If you were not waiting for him, if he had not met you, if he had not loved you — perhaps he would have turned away from these doors and moved towards the path of life and rejected rebirth. He would have let his soul rest in peace for all of time. But he knows that he was no longer that person anymore. He wanted to move forward. He wanted to break the cycle. He wanted to be with you.

Ryomen Sukuna is ready to face the world again, this time with a purpose that is as clear as the love he feels for the woman he will now seek. He must atone. He must live a new life. He must make you happy.

Both of you will be happy, he knows that. And as he steps forward, towards his own rebirth, he carries her blessings, his heart finally open to the happiness he had once believed was out of reach. He will live it now. He will atone, he will find redemption. He will make you happy.

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hatsukeii · 7 months ago

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think fast / childhood bsf!tsukshima kei x reader

genre(s): childhood best friends x soulmates???? past lives and normal people by sally rooney coded im a sally rooney MEATRIDER!! angsty, gut-wrenching longing, bittersweet / hopeful ending so it's not all bad!! nostalgia is going to carry this fic so hard it's going to be a fun, fun time...

warning(s): eventual smut!! all characters are aged up to 21!!MDNI (at least up until the observatory)!! unprotected sex here remember to wrap it before you tap it!! (sorry kids), female leaning anatomy because smut but pronouns are gn all throughout and honestly you could read it as gn anyways:)) dead dad warning (my dad is NOT dead this was just convenient to kick off the thing), i fw the timeline of the world??? pretend flip phones were still in use in like 2012 or something idk

wc: ~6.3k

tldr; time has a way of reminding Kei of its presence, and its escape. you are the reminder it has been sending to him for six years.

Fate: A power believed to cause and control all events, so that one cannot change or determine the way things will happen.

It is a sunny afternoon when you step foot into Sendai, Miyagi. A beautiful day of golden warmth beaming onto petals of pink, red, and white, wrapped in coffee-stained newspapers and tied together with a spool of twine. The bouquet lies on browning grass, a contemptible reminder of the time that has passed since your last appearance here, six years ago, and you crouch down to the ground. Now face to face with the engraving of a full name on a slab of polished granite, you hesitate. Your father lived in a language that you can no longer speak, died in a country you no longer call your home. When you whisper blessings and apologies at the gravestone in broken Japanese and slurred syllables, you sound like a stranger. A stranger who sits in a graveyard at noon, with nothing but a bouquet from the nearby florist in hand, and a promise, stuttered out in half-decent Japanese, to return again the next year.

When a second bouquet falls to the ground behind you, and you turn around, Tsukishima Kei thinks this is what English speakers like you would call fate. He’s a little taller now, and bulkier too, and you have to crane your head higher than you remember just to meet his eyes. You don’t recognise the glasses he dons anymore, the black rectangles from his teenage years swapped out for rounded squares and silver frames. But he has a towel in his hand, a towel that has his initials poorly stitched into the corner with red string. You wonder if the matching one he made you, eleven years ago, is collecting dust somewhere in your dormitory, halfway across the world.

“You’re back.”

“It’s been a while, Kei.”

You can no longer differentiate Japanese syllables clearly, and your statement jumbles into nonsense in your head. Kei hears the English woven into your accent in the way you roll your tongue like foreigners do, and in the odd intonations that don’t exist in your mother tongue. You don’t even remember your father’s dislike for white flowers. London has truly done a number on you.

“Why? Why now?”

You bite your nail, a persistent habit that Kei frowns at. He picks up his flowers, and steps towards the gravestone, just close enough for your knee to brush against him for a moment. The bouquet in his hand is wrapped in plastic and filled with red and pink, the white from your own sticking out like a sore thumb when he places his flowers gently on the grass beside yours. He tosses the towel in his hand, opening it up against his palm, and you take it from him. If you cannot get the language right, or the flowers, this is the least you can do. Cobwebs stick to the fabric as you sweep at the granite slab, watching soot and dust fall to the grass. The curves and dips of the gravestone are familiar once again, and you dig the towel into every nook and cranny. You feel Kei’s body shift, before his knee is touching yours and his face is finally level with your peripheral vision. He glances at you, waiting. His knees bounce in anticipation.

“Never had the chance, college has been a lot.”

Your phone rings as you finish cleaning. The ringtone is familiar, unchanged from when you used to have a flip phone, in fact. Kei hums along to the jingle for the four seconds that the call is left unanswered, before it cuts off into a flurry of English. He catches something about research, and a thesis, his shabby English unable to fill in any more than that. He’s never known you were interested in research, let alone what it is that you’re researching. All he’s known is your aspiration of becoming a librarian when you were six, and his promise to borrow books from you for the museum that he swore he would one day work at. Now, he works at the museum, sorts antique scripts and yellowed books into cabinets and display shelves. He does not borrow books from you. Now, you talk, but nothing makes sense to him.

You end the call, mumbling foreign curses as you shove your phone back into your pocket. Clicking your tongue, you turn to Kei, who stares at the flowers on the ground. He pushes his glasses up when they slide down his nose, and you resist the familiar urge to nag him about buying the right frames for his face.

“Yeah, college has been mostly phone calls like that.”

He nods, a half-hearted chuckle huffing from his nose. He’s forgotten what it’s like to sit at a graveyard with somebody else, the annual reminder of a lonely death replaced by another this year as you dust off his towel, and drop it onto his thigh. He swipes it from his leg, folding it into quarters and sliding it into his pocket.

“So you choose to come now, without a word? Not even a heads up? Six years after leaving?” Kei’s voice rises at each question, the same way it did six years ago when you broke the news of leaving Japan to him. This hurts him to ask, that much you can still recognise.

“I would have come sooner if I had the chance. I’ve missed everyone so much.”

You pluck a petal from a white flower in your bouquet, then another, until all that remains is the naked bulb, and scatter them onto the ground beside you. Perhaps the next person that’s been buried under six feet of dirt used to have a liking for them. Kei remains unmoving, throat bobbing as he swallows thickly. His knee stops bouncing.

“How long will you stay for?”

“Today, then Friday and Saturday too. Flight back is Sunday night.”

Six years of waiting, and this is what it amounts to. A weekend and a bit. Despite that, Kei still thinks this must be fate, in all the languages that it exists in. Six years of life, and love, and hurt, all to be condensed into four measly days. Yet as Kei pushes himself off the ground, dusting his trousers off, he still thinks that this unlikely, yet conveniently timed visit must be the answer to his pleas for your return. That this must be some heavenly reward, good karma for visiting your father’s grave annually on your behalf. You watch him turn to leave, and he calls out to you as he walks away from your father’s grave.

“Everyone’s at Hinata’s old place tomorrow. You should come by if you can.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Change: to replace (something) with something else, especially something of the same kind that is newer or better; substitute one thing for (another).

All it takes is one coincidental exchange of panicked glances at the first throw up of the night for you and Kei to leave together. Hinata slurs a drunken farewell, tries to embrace you as you slip your sneakers on at the door, and you make a note to yourself that you really do not miss most of the people here, spare for the volleyball team. Kei waits at the door, holding it open for when you finally shake Hinata off of your back, and step through. The night is chilly, the warmth in your skin from the indoor heating system emanating into the midnight air. You kick rocks along the pavement as you walk, scattering pigeons that remain awake and active at this time, and Kei smiles at your antics. You still hate birds, and you still remember the trick he taught you when you were nine for chasing away pigeons that flocked around you for food.

“Who are you staying with?”

“My mom’s.”

The road leads the two of you to a high school. Kei has not come back to Karasuno since graduation. You squint in the dark, scanning the school, and you don’t recognise the new building that stands in place of the old auditorium. He watches you crouch at the plaque next to the front gate, tracing the letters engraved on it with the pad of your thumb. Some part of him blames Karasuno for being a bad place to you, the other parts blame himself for not being good enough to outweigh it.

“It’s changed.”

“Everything has.”

You rattle the locked entrance, the chain and padlock hitting against cold metal. It won’t open, so you look up through the gap of the gate. Six years ago, on that rooftop, was where you stood over a cold lunch box and emptied convenience store drinks, back against the wire fence, saying to Kei, I’m leaving tomorrow. On that day, you had packed yakisoba for his lunch, and nothing for yourself. He could barely respond to your announcement, only dropping his chopsticks and asking you, why? You told him something along the lines of being an expat, and a better school for what you wanted, all in the fluent Japanese you once spoke. Nothing made sense to him anyways.

When you turn back to him, his hands are in the pockets of his jacket, and his nose is red from the cold air. You stand beside him, staring aimlessly at Karasuno from outside its barriers.

“Do you still play volleyball?”

“Yeah, Sendai Frogs.”

You hum, and then wonder why you only asked tonight, and why you’re surprised. He shrugs, clouds of white puffing from his mouth when he breathes out. He tries to blow a wisp of hair away from his face, and you suddenly realise that his hair has grown too, along with his height. It fails, and he tries again. You reach up to swipe at his bangs, before running your fingers backwards through his hair. It parts itself as you lift your hands from his head, and falls into place neatly. A cold breeze whizzes by, and undoes your work, sending strands of gold into his face once again. You snicker a little.

“You know, you could ask my mom to trim it for you like she used to.”

“Nah, I prefer this.”

It isn’t until you turn to look at him properly that you see how much time has passed. He likes his hair longer these days, the choppy hairdo of his teenage years now nothing but an old preference, and you wonder if he is still a loyal customer of your mother’s salon. When he pulls his hands from his pockets and blows hot air into them, calluses line the bases of his fingers, the blisters of his high school years hardened by trials of time and effort. There are bags under his eyes, eyes that are now a little rounder, and softer too. When he speaks, monotone and tired, you realise his snarkiness has dissipated into general frustration. You stare until his eyes dart to you, and turn away quickly, ashamed. Leaving Karasuno has taken your hand and led you to a purpose that you never knew you were capable of. You wonder what the hell it has done to Tsukishima Kei.

“It looks good.”

He breathes in sharply, then exhales with a huff, shoulders relaxing as he stuffs his hands back into his pockets. You suddenly realise that your fingers have gone numb from the cold of the night, fingertips tingling like a million frost-bitten needles poking into your skin. You also stuff your hands into your pockets, rubbing your fingers against each other to generate some heat. Then, Kei’s looping his arm around yours, and pulling you away from Karasuno High School. He keeps on his straight path, and you stumble along behind his leaping steps. When you round a corner, the night breeze grows into something less imperturbable, and more vicious, pushing the two of you forward from behind in slashes of cold. The sea is near.

“Is this the beach we used to go to?”

“You still remember it.”

He drags you down a flight of stairs to Fukanuma Beach, and the misty sea air rushes to your head. When he leads you to the shoreline, you hesitate. The sea has been off limits since the two of you were five, a regulation put in place in remembrance of the Great Sendai Earthquake. An earthquake that saw Kei and yourself hunched beneath the same table in the middle of class, huddled next to each other as you cried for your parents. Now, in your final years of college, as the water slips beneath the soles of his shoes, pushing and receding in layers of aqua and bubbles of white, it seems that time has slipped by just as easily too. Time, that saw the fading of the earthquake’s devastation, despite the loss of thousands, including your father. Time, that frayed the string connecting yourself to Kei as you moved through life halfway across the world from Japan. Time, that passes through you like sand spilling between your fingers on a beach you once thought you knew, but has changed like the unprohibited water that seems to push further up into the shore at each tidal wave.

“They lifted the ban?”

“A few months ago, yeah.”

You step into the next wave that fizzles into foam, and the water crashes into the toe of your shoes. Crouching, you push mounds of wet sand into a cylinder, flattening the top and pushing divots in equal intervals. Kei joins, moulding shorter ones beside your own and drawing windows into the side. You finish, and he stands, smiling at the creation. You cover the top, afraid he will stomp on it, a trademark of Kei’s whenever you built sandcastles with him in childhood. Instead, he laughs, and walks further into the water. When you get up to join him, the hems of his trousers are soaked, shoes also covered in a sheen of wetness. You hop over the castle, and the next wave that comes sends its foundations crumbling back into the sea.

“We used to do that. You’d destroy it every time.”

Kei chuckles, and looks back to see the half destroyed castle. Clicking his tongue, he returns to the rubble, and you watch his hands push mounds of sand towards what is left standing.

“I’d always build a better one for you afterwards though.”

He dusts his hands off when he finishes, and the waves fizzle out just before they hit the two-tiered sandcastle. You sniff, holding your arms close to your chest. When Kei looks up, he feels like the summer of being seven years old again, smiling at you with his missing front tooth when you sniffle and laugh at the improved castle he’s put together for you. Now, it is winter. He only grins with the corners of his lips. You only sniff because it’s cold.

“Kei.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s really been a while. How have you been?”

He steps over the castle towards you, careful not to break it. Your hair blows in your face from the beach breeze and your eyes squint from the sand that flies into the air, and Kei takes it all in when you’re face to face with him. When he opens his mouth, some selfish part of him thinks about casting his words into shackles of regret, so heavy that they weigh you down and keep you in Japan, in Sendai, on this beach, somewhere close to him.

“Do you want to stay the night? Like you used to?”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Nostalgia: A sentimental longing, or wistful yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.

Kei does not take you to his family house. He leads you up stairs that make no sense, and hallways that stretch on forever, until you finally reach his flat. He wipes his shoes on the doormat, throws his keys into a glass bowl upon entry, and hangs his jacket on a hook mounted to his front door instead of the coathanger that used to stand beside it. You look around, searching for the shells you once collected in a jar for his tenth birthday. When your eyes land on a jar filled with conches and cowries, you let go of a breath you were unaware of holding. They sit on the top of his bookshelf, above textbooks and file organisers. A knot forms in your throat at the realisation that the jar sits alone in its compartment, with nothing beside it. You’ve done the same to the jazz vinyl Kei gifted you at the airport before your departure. You don’t realise that he’s disappeared somewhere as you stare at the shells, until a shirt and a pair of shorts are thrown into your chest. He stands at the entrance to a hallway, donning sweatpants and an old hoodie, one that’s clearly a size too small. The pocket is lousily sewn on, a result of a mishap that occurred when you had borrowed it once. He doesn’t know that you spent the night learning to sew fabric just to fix it.

“Change. It’ll be more comfortable.”

You scurry through the hallway to his bathroom, pulling the shirt and shorts on hastily, before balling up your clothes and returning to the living room. Kei sits at his couch, now bound in leather instead of fabric, and clicks at the television. You join beside him, legs splaying across his own subconsciously. He doesn’t move. He stops at a movie, one you’ve seen hundreds of times before at his old house. It drones on in the background as he watches in silence, his arms now draped over your knees. The first time he watched this movie, it was in his old home, cross-legged on the carpeted ground with you on the couch behind him. Your hands used to press into his shoulders from above, shake them whenever your favourite scenes came on, squeeze them when you laughed until tears rolled from your eyes. Now that his new flat lacks a rug, he’s willing to settle with your legs on his own. Flashing lights illuminate the dark room in sequences that you can still recall perfectly from memory. He watches the movie. You watch him.

“Have you been doing good, Kei?”

Turning to you, he pushes his glasses up into his hair, leaning further back. You shuffle closer, legs bending as your shoulder digs into the leather couch. A strand of blond falls into his face, and you lift his glasses to tuck it back, before smoothing your hands over his mess of hair, combing and pushing with your fingertips.The words from the television melt into gibberish when he hums in satisfaction, what is unspoken between you two is more glaring than ever.

“I’ve been okay.” He cuts off, then finds himself thinking of what to tell you first, amongst the recollections of life that rush through his head. “Started working at the museum a couple years ago.” He wishes that you still remember the building, where the marble floors squeaked beneath your slippers, and glass panels lined the walls, hiding away treasures and artefacts that have withstood centuries, maybe even eons of erosion and weathering.

You nod, mind filling with the many museum visits you had with him there. He’s always liked the dinosaurs more than the shells. When you breathe out a chuckle, he knows you’re recalling the time he almost pissed himself at a life-sized, moving tyrannosaurus rex model.

“What about you?”

“Research. I’ve been doing research about…” you sign in the air, searching for the Japanese words that have slipped from your mind. Surrendering, you whip your phone out, searching for a translation.

“Archaeology?”

“Yeah, that. No more librarian dreams for me. More dinosaurs, though.”

A smile finds its way onto Kei’s face, one that softens his cheeks and flattens his eyes into crescents. He wonders if amongst the silver plaques and digital displays, your work is engraved in there somewhere. If each time he explains something to some bright-eyed child, who scuttles around the museum as you and him once did, he is unknowingly speaking in your language, translated until he can decipher the thoughts that run through your mind in your research, your memories, your dreams too.

“Maybe it’s in the museum somewhere. I’m willing to bet.”

“I hope it is.”

Your conversation fizzles back into silence, and the characters on the television do too. The two on the screen sit in a field, mere inches apart. The two of you look at each other, your knees now leaned into Kei’s chest and one of his arms draped along the back of the couch. When he pulls his glasses back to his eyes, and studies you all over again, it hits him that you really haven’t changed all that much, even after your six year separation. Six years older, with the exhaustion of a functioning adult, but you still gnaw on your cheeks, and tilt your head as you ask questions. Six years apart, and you are still you, who taught him to build sandcastles, and introduced him to his favourite movie, and fixed his hair whenever it stuck up in stubborn peaks of gold. When you let your eyes close, and drop your head onto his shoulder, you wait for lost time to tick backwards, until you’re on the rooftop with him once again. In this version of time, you blush when you tell him that you’ve chosen to stay in Japan instead. Pushing your head further into the crook of his neck, Kei’s chin reaches over to rest on the top of your crown. The credits of the movie roll in the background, and you mumble into the skin of his pulse.

“Can you take me there? I’ve missed it.” Your words send vibrations down his spine, sending his head into a frenzy as he pushes his hands against the couch harder.

“The museum?” It will be closed for the weekend, but Kei nods anyway. He’s sure he can find his way in through the back. Maybe he’ll take you to the fossils again, let you run your fingers along smooth amber and stone engravings. Perhaps he could show you the new exhibitions, ones that you won’t miss this time, as you have for the past six years. For now, he thinks he will let you sleep on his shoulder, listen to your soft snores, tremble at every hot breath that fans onto his neck.

The credits roll to the end, and come to a stop. Kei removes his arm from the couch to grab the remote from his coffee table. He rewinds the movie to the start.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

思慕 [しぼ, shibo]: yearning; deep longing, especially when accompanied by tenderness or sadness.

On the final night of your stay, you learn that Kei still giggles when he breaks rules, as he drags you through the back entrance of the closed museum. He maneuvers through hallways of antique paintings and repurposed junk, slips into dark stairwells illuminated by the flashlight of his phone, traps your wrist between his fingers and chuckles to himself, shaking his head as he takes you higher, and higher, and higher. You’ve lost count of how many flights of stairs have gone by when he taps his keycard against a sensor by a backdoor, and pushes it open. The museum observatory, once a mess of bamboo scaffolding and green covers, now allows silver moonlight through its glass dome, boasting billions of iridescent stars nestled in a blanket of hazy midnight. A decade of your anticipation has resulted in a circular space, hundreds of plush recliners lining the circumference of the room, and you wonder how many eyes have watched the stars from those seats before you ever had the chance to. When Kei leads you further into the observatory, you step foot onto the north star plastered on the ground in the centre of the room, where nothing but a telescope remains in a ten-foot radius. He takes a spot on the ground, back pressed against the cushioned edge of a seat.

“I figured this is the best spot. Better than any of the seats, actually.” He plants his feet on the ground, bending his knees and spreading them just wide enough for you to sit in between. You cross your legs, wagging them up and down as your hands hold your shins, and he lowers his legs, stretching them out in front of him. Leaning back, your spine hits a spot between his ribs, the same way it did when you were thirteen, and fourteen, and fifteen, staring at stars from the grass of his backyard. You pity the visitors that have yet to discover the simplicity of stargazing from the ground, hands pushed into the ground for stability, dirt and moisture seeping into the fabric of clothing. Pushing further into him, his breathing is heavy against your back, chest rising in rhythmic ups and downs. For what feels like hours, you sit in silence, eyes trained on your fingers that pick and fiddle. At the realisation that you haven’t looked at the stars in years, something bubbles in your stomach, pervasive, relentless. When you finally loll your head backwards to fall on his shoulder, and the tip of Kei’s nose grazes your cheekbone, you wonder how long he has not looked at the stars for as well.

“Why’d you stop calling?” His sudden question sends a haze rushing into your head.

You swallow thickly. If the passage of time were a sin, you’d burden it with all your explanations. Telling him that now would seem like some lousy excuse.

“It stopped going to your line a year after I left.” You pause, searching for the right words to use amidst the sea of Japanese and English that you must now sort out. “I only stopped trying after another month, the voicemail just said your number was no longer in use.”

Kei wishes he could dig his fingers into his chest and rip his heart out. If only he hadn’t stupidly broken his phone that night, five years ago during volleyball practice. If only he had checked his pockets before entering the court, just as he has done hundreds of times before. If only he had this, if only he had that, he might just torment himself for the rest of his life. His breath hitches, shoulder freezing rigid. Time does not differentiate between the knowing and oblivious. It slips and leaks beneath the noses of all that it encompasses, and it is but the cautious few that know to grab it, and join in on its journey. He knows now that he is not one of them, not after he’s cursed at the passage of time over and over and over for his own blunder.

“I broke my phone in a game. Got a new one so the number changed as well, fuck me.”

You laugh dryly into the empty observatory. The occasional twinkling of the stars above do nothing to make his explanation any easier. You think you’ll blame it all on doomed fate that you’ve spent five years trying to find somebody that felt the same as Kei did, to no avail. Blame it on cursed luck that you’ve clawed and grabbed at anything familiar enough, archaeology, jazz vinyls, old DVDs of the movie shared between two, all to remind yourself that he too, was once within grasp. You say nothing, because you don’t see a reason to. Instead, you push your head into his neck, drown in the scent of his cologne, ease yourself into his now grown body. You don’t see him wipe a hand across his mouth, then rub his eyes with pinched fingers.

When Kei decides to speak again, it is what feels like another hour later. He’s readjusted his posture about fifty times by now, arms removed from the ground and draped over your shoulders. The sensation of your hair against his skin is suddenly more prominent than ever when your hands find his own, holding them closer to yourself.

“If I didn’t find you at the grave, would you have looked for me?” His question is heavy, weighing his chest down as the words leave his throat in a hesitant cluster. You turn to look at him, and your eyes linger on his own when you squeeze his hands once, twice, then a third time.

“I’ve been looking for five years. Nobody else could take me home.” Your heart rushes to your mouth at your confession, and the bob of Kei’s throat does not go unnoticed. One of his hands comes up to hold your shoulder, pushing it towards himself until your body twists, rubbing against his. You let go of him, pressing your fingers into the ground between his legs instead, and he breathes out shakily, his windpipe suddenly cleared of its uncertainty.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Yes, I am.”

His fingers slide down to grab your wrist, before going numb completely. His unoccupied hand peels itself from the floor and settles on the side of your waist. Your mouth goes dry when Kei breathes, hot and heavy, his eyes travelling to every inch of you. A bout of heat rushes from his chest to his head, and his legs, and his arms too. The air between the two of you is thick, and it sends your head into a feverish blur. The ground collapses beneath your knees as they shift to press into the floor, and you come face to face with Tsukishima Kei, who prefers his hair parted in bangs on the sides of his face, and wears silver frames instead of black ones. Tsukishima Kei, who has been visiting your father’s grave on your behalf for six years, and still plays volleyball even in his adulthood. Tsukishima Kei, whose eyes are finally finished with their ventures across your figure, that is pushed up against him on the ground of an observatory, and is learning whatever he can about you when his fingers tighten around your wrists and he kisses you without a warning.

Once, at the young, innocent age of seven, Tsukishima Kei kissed you in this museum. You had run a little too fast, stepped on your loose laces and fallen onto the ground face first. You sulked at a bench facing some random painting of melting clocks, red dots scattered across a purple patch right beneath your eye. When he kneeled in front of you to grab your face, and pressed his lips onto the bruise for a fraction of a second, he must have kissed the pain away, mending the leaking capillaries beneath your skin as he separated from your cheeks with a pop. Now, he pulls against your wrists to push himself closer, traps you in the embrace of his legs around the back of your thighs, wheezes and stutters against your lips at the lack of oxygen in his lungs. His head is running in circles instead of straight paths, and everything is spinning. When your hands reach to grab at his shirt, and palm at his chest, he pulls away only to rip his glasses off and toss them to the ground. Beneath the glow of the moon from above, everything but your flushed cheeks and swollen lips is a blur. You take half a breath in, before it is interrupted by Kei’s palms pulling you in by the sides of your neck, and his mouth on yours again. At seven years old, he ripped bruising pain away from your face with a kiss. At twenty-one, he forces his pain, and grief, and regret rushing into your heart by pushing himself against you, fingers tangling themselves into your hair as he kisses you, desperate, almost distressed. Every tug at your lips is a confession left unspoken, every time Kei opens his mouth apologies spill out into you in choked groans and sighs. At the sensation of his hand leaving your neck, your arm searches for him aimlessly, before he’s palming at you through your pants. He swallows your sudden gasp, and your fingers grip his wrist until your knuckles go white.

“Did you ever like me?” You can do nothing but choke out a question against his lips, one you’ve pondered about, day in and day out, since your departure from Japan.

By the way that Kei nods frantically, you’re certain that this is what six years of separation has amounted to.

Sparing no time, your fingers tug at the hem of his boxers, pulling them down just enough to release himself from the fabric constraints. He does the same, hands roaming until they find the waistband of your pants to push them down, fingers tugging your underwear to the side with a flick. He grabs you by the waist beneath your shirt, yanks your body towards him until something feels right and he can’t help but let out a trembling sigh into your shoulder. And when you finally begin to sink yourself onto him, agonisingly slow, you wish that you had never left Japan in the first place. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, and you wish that you could spend the rest of your life in this observatory with Kei, your hands wrapped around the back of his sweat-slicked neck.

When he pulls you down to push further, more pervasively, you fall into him, head hanging over his shoulder and arms squeezing around his neck. His inexperienced hands rock you back and forth against his hips, pulling a flurry of gasps and moans from your throat. He lets himself learn how you taste when his teeth tug at the hem of your shirt, pulling it down to expose your bare shoulder. His lips latch onto your collarbone, biting and sucking a trail of red marks up to the side of your neck. You shudder at his advances, and he studies the way your walls flutter around him, the erratic pulses that draw stars around his head, how your nails dig into his shoulders, and send his mind into a senseless orbit.

When he pushes and pulls at you a little harder, you whimper his name into his ear, reduced to nothing but a babbling mess that nibbles at his neck and kisses up his jaw feverishly. First friend, first kiss, first love. The notion that this is another first that Tsukishima Kei has brought upon you sends your mind spiralling. He should have been your first prom date, first roommate, first dance too. If only you hadn’t left him first. You push your head off his shoulder, hands moving to hold his face instead. A wave of pleasure washes over you when his palm presses against your stomach, and you hang your head low again, a shaky sigh released from your chest.

When you look up, there are tears in Kei’s eyes. He rolls his head back onto the plush seat behind him, hands lifting you off himself fully, just to push you back onto him again. You collapse into his body, palms pressing against his heaving chest.

“I- fuck! I fucking loved you! I still do!” He speaks it into the glass ceiling as one hand reaches for his face. He wipes his palm across his eyes, only for more tears to form. They are uncontrollable, relentless as he turns his head away from you. He isn’t sure how he will live again tomorrow, not when he’s finally come to a reckoning with the pang in his chest at every thought of you. He thinks he could die the second you step onto that flight back to London, ripped away from him once again. The reality that he cannot stay buried inside you for any longer than the next couple of minutes haunts him to no end, the idea of being separated from you a second time unbearable to even imagine. When he turns back to see you, head on his chest and fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt, he decides that reality can wait until he’s finished with you.

“I love you too- shit, Kei! I never stopped!”

You rut against his hips senselessly now, chasing some unfamiliar high as your vision fades to black and you scream his name until your throat goes hoarse. Kei barely gives you time to breathe, before he’s coming undone from right beneath you, shuddering and groaning as you relax against his body and go limp. He holds you against him, one hand pushing your head against his chest and the other wrapped around your back. He tucks your damp hair behind your ears, places kisses along your temple so he can hear the hums of satisfaction that sound from your curled lips.

“Can you stay forever?” He mumbles into your hair, and you turn to press your ear against his chest. His heart pounds as he pushes his cheek into the crown of your head, and your hands crawl up his chest to wrap around his neck. When he looks up through the glass ceiling, the stars have not moved one bit.

“I’ll find you again, wherever you are.”

Time may slip away from Tsukishima Kei like petals that fall off the buds of flowers, water that seeps beneath the soles of his sneakers, stardust that hovers above the atmosphere. Yet he has learned that it has a way of always coming back to remind him of its presence, and its escape. You are the reminder that it has been sending to him for six years.

author's note:

ERM! never writing nsfw again that's for sure but this piece defs had some stuff that i was very, VERY proud of coming up with!! sorry to my minor moots who probably won't read this in its entirety bc of the big MDNI warning... but I honestly don't know how to feel about this piece as a whole... i was super excited to write it but i think i got a little impatient towards the end esp since im always writing at like 3am LOL but i hope you guys liked it anyways!!! i tried really hard to make the dynamic work and i hope it did!!!!!

also ps they exchange numbers again js a little extra bonus that i didn’t get to put into the actual thing

anyways tags!!

@staraxiaa @chuuya-brainrot @akaakeis @laughingfcx @writingsofanomnivore @t0rchknight @bailey-reeds @wyrcan @hiraethwa @fiannee @catsoupki @anonymity-222 @wishi-selfships @kuroppiii

ok love u guys thank u for being patient

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