Archive of Our Own

Nanami arrived at his own birthday camping trip late.

He had said he wouldn’t show up.

Then Gojo stole his car keys.

“You look nice, Nanamin!” Yuji, twenty-four years old, called from the fold-out chair by the river, taller and broader now, older around the scars, with the same smile.

Nanami adjusted his eyepatch, damp with sweat under the strap. The burn scars pulled a little near his mouth when he answered, “You’ve grown into a terrible liar.”

Yuji laughed and carded his fingers through Megumi’s hair, where Megumi had dozed off against his knee.

You were by the picnic blanket, sleeves rolled up, turning skewers on the small grill while Nobara yelled at Inumaki over the paint set, one eye narrowed above the edge of her eyepatch, and Maki opened a jar with one hand better than most people could with both. Panda had somehow been put in charge of the same fruit he'd been caught stealing earlier. Gojo had been kept away from touching the food after he tried to “improve” the rice balls with frosting. You looked up when Nanami reached you. “Hi,” you said, holding tongs in one hand. “You made it.”

“I was kidnapped.”

“You still came.”

“That is what kidnapping means.”

Your smile got bigger, and he pretended not to notice how easily that worked on him. Eight years, and he still acted as if your face had caught him off guard.

The first year after Shibuya had been the worst. You had arrived on the day he should have died with no past anyone could verify, both hands full of cursed energy and panic, and somehow dragged him to Shoko before death could finish making its case. He survived, but the burns still took his eye. Then you stayed through bandages and fever. From the first time he saw his face, he turned the mirror to the wall. Through every meal, he claimed he could cook for himself and then left it untouched—he had called you a nuisance. You still brought him soup the next mornings.

Now you handed him a plate before he even thought to ask, loaded with rice balls, grilled chicken, and orange slices without the white threads because he hated them. “You remembered,” he muttered as if it still somehow caught him by surprise after eight years.

You gave him a look. “I lived in your apartment for a year to care for you, Kento. I picked up things.”

Across the blanket, Gojo gasped. “He let you live with him? Kento, you slut.”

Nanami turned away. “I’m sitting with Yaga.”

“Yaga’s asleep,” Gojo grinned at Nanami, chucking the man his car keys back.

Nanami caught the car keys, muttered something passive-aggressive, and stomped away to check his tent.

“So,” Shoko turned back to you, red in the face from canned beer. “When are you two going to stop making the rest of us pretend this is friendship?”

Your hand stopped over the salad bowl, and Gojo’s grin went feral with interest. “Oh, this is good.”

“Shoko.”

“What?” Shoko tipped her can toward Nanami, who had come back for something and then gone still behind you. “You saved his life, fed him for a year, planned his every birthday since, and know he gets weird about orange pith. At some point, paperwork should get involved.”

You looked over your shoulder. Nanami glanced back. And for a second, the river was louder than everyone.

Then you turned to the salad and said, “The potatoes are burning.” They were not.

After that the late lunch passed in silence while you both avoided eye contact until Gojo called to take a group picture. “Everyone in,” he grinned, holding his phone too high. “Birthday boy in the middle before he starts pretending he has emails.”

“I do have emails,” Nanami grumbled.

“Your internet is working?” Maki asked.

Nanami did not answer, which was an answer. Then he already started creeping toward the edge of the group when you noticed his hand go to the strap of his eyepatch. You saw it before anyone else did—the way his mouth thinned where the scar tissue pulled from the old, ugly habit of remembering his face existed.

“I’ll take it,” you said, reaching for Gojo’s phone.

Gojo looked offended. “I have the longest arms.”

“You’ll make everyone look short.”

Shoko rubbed Gojo’s pant leg comfortingly because she was drunk enough to show emotions in public.

You ignored Gojo and waved everyone closer. Yuta ducked behind Panda. Yuji shoved Nobara’s elbow out of his ribs. Inumaki held up two rice balls like peace signs. Shoko stayed seated with her beer and lifted two fingers without moving. And the rest awkwardly gathered around. While Nanami tried to stand behind you.

You looked over your shoulder. “Kento.”

He stopped.

“Come here.”

His mouth shifted, almost not at all, but you knew that almost. You had known it in hospital rooms, in pharmacy aisles, and in his bathroom when he turned the mirror to face the wall and told you he did not need help shaving. But you never told him to smile or that he looked fine, nor did you tilt his face toward the unscarred side or pretend the scarred side was not there.

Nanami was too proud a man for those things.

He stepped closer, looking at you, maybe in a warning or a plea not to make a thing of it. So you didn’t and took the phone, herded everyone into place, and, when Nanami tried to stand at the edge, said, “Kento, hold this.” And handed him the paper plate with the two skewers on it.

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because if Gojo holds it, he’ll eat them.”

“I’m not a big back,” Gojo said, already chewing.

Nanami took the plate because it gave his hands somewhere to be and confused him enough to get distracted from his body.

“Fine, fine,” Gojo said, lifting the phone higher. “Everyone act like you like each other.”

“I don’t act,” Maki declared.

“That’s why we cherish you, Kiki-chan.”

Maki’s hand immediately lunged to yank Gojo’s hair back.

You only stepped beside Nanami when the others crowded in, your shoulder brushing his arm as it had in hospital corridors, Jujutsu Tech halls, his kitchen at three in the morning, and every quiet place where he had tried to become awful so you’d leave him alone but failed because you kept coming back with groceries. “Ready?”

Nanami looked down at you, and for one second, his face shifted again—less alone, maybe. “Yes,” he answered. Then he turned his head at the last second because you chuckled when Shoko pinched Gojo’s cheeks—your eyes bright, one hand caught at Nanami’s sleeve, like you had done it without thinking.

The shutter clicked.

The picture happened in the middle of everyone laughing, talking, or yelling.

When you lowered the phone, Gojo took it back, glanced at the screen, and said, much softer than usual, “Oh.”

Nanami reached for the phone thinking Gojo was about to make fun of him. But then he saw the picture and realized he was not looking at the camera at all. Not even facing it.

He was looking at you.

The angle had hidden most of the eyepatch from view. His face was turned far enough that the scarred side fell into shadow, but that was the first thing his mind usually reached for, out of habit since Shibuya.

Then he followed his gaze in the picture and saw you.

You were smiling like the whole noisy riverside had narrowed to the space between your hand on his sleeve and his shoulder beside yours without any careful softness meant to spare him. Instead it was happiness, plain and unguarded—caught before either of you could hide it.

Nanami stared too long, and Gojo, for once, did not ruin it.

You too leaned closer, looking at the screen. “Oh.”

Nanami’s thumb squeezed against the edge of the phone.

“I look ridiculous,” you said, staring at something else.

“No,” he answered, too quickly.

You looked up at him.

His ears were faintly red. “You look…” He stopped. Everyone was still close enough to hear, and dignity was a habit even when it no longer saved him.

Gojo’s grin started spreading menicingly.

Nanami locked the phone and handed it back. “Send that to me.”

Gojo’s eyebrows climbed. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.”

Shoko slapped his arm. “Satoru.” And Nanami thought she would be the voice of reason, but he’d forgotten the woman was drunk. “Let him do the Fushiguro thing in peace.”

Megumi looked up from where Yuji was showing him the backup photo his phone had taken from where it was propped against the cooler. “What thing?”

Gojo’s grin changed targets with speed. “Oh, you don’t know?”

Nanami had never been happier for Gojo’s lack of attention span.

Yuji zoomed in the picture on his phone before Megumi. And low and behold, in the corner of the photo, Megumi was looking at Yuji.

It wasn’t near him or past him but directly at him, with a small smile he clearly had no memory of making.

Nobara leaned over Yuji’s shoulder and made a noise of pure disgusted delight. “Oh, that’s embarrassing.”

“It was an accident,” Megumi snapped, snatching the phone away.

“You do this in every picture,” Panda laughed.

“I do not.”

Inumaki, already scrolling, turned his own phone around to show an old photo from their trip to Osaka.

Megumi lunged for it too, but Gojo caught the back of his shirt without even looking.

Yuji smiled traitorously. “You stare at me?”

“I was checking your surroundings.”

“By staring at my sleeping face in a locked train compartment?”

Megumi went red to the ears and tried to get Inumaki again. “Give me the phone.”

Gojo, delighted, lifted it out of reach.

Yuji leaned into Megumi’s shoulder, warm and shameless. “That’s cute.”

Megumi flicked the back of his head. “It’s not.”

Yuji rubbed the back of his own head but continued to grin dumbly.

Megumi covered Yuji’s face with one hand. “I’m going to kill all of you.”

“I’m sending it,” Gojo said to Nanami, still grinning, but he did not say anything else about the way Nanami had looked at you.

Your phone buzzed first. Then Nanami’s.

After dinner and the cake—which had been cut badly by Gojo while he was trying to get the biggest piece for himself and fixed by Maki’s blade—was eaten, everyone spread out. Nobara and Maki vanished into the woods with one lantern and two blankets. Shoko drank by the fire, her feet in Gojo’s lap while he massaged them and argued with her about the terms of their bet. Ijichi snored in a chair. Panda and Yaga were talking over roasted marshmallows. Inumaki and Yuta were catching fish in the dark with too much confidence. Far down the river, Yuji walked with Megumi, their shoulders bumping.

“Sensei’s sitting alone again,” Yuji said, nodding toward you by the water.

Megumi followed his gaze. “Nanami-san will go.”

“You think?”

“He has been watching her for twenty minutes.”

Yuji grinned. “They’re so married for people who say, ‘we’re just friends.’”

Megumi shoved his hands in his pockets. “He looks at her a lot.”

“She knows how he takes his coffee and practically everything he likes and dislikes.”

“He keeps pain medicine in his office for her cramps. Asked me to fetch it last time.”

“You know she bought him that ugly beige camping mug.”

Megumi’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look at Yuji when his arm slid around his waist casually. “He says it was a practical gift.”

Yuji laughed and leaned into Megumi’s side. “The man is down bad in business casual.”

“You would know,” Megumi mildly smirked.

Yuji’s grin widened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re holding my waist while saying that, so it’s not nothing.”

Megumi looked away toward the river, where the lantern light caught the scars cutting across his own face: one near his left temple and eye, the other paler on the opposite side, half-lost when he ducked his head. “You were walking too close to the water.”

Yuji looked delighted by this.

Megumi’s hand tightened once at his side before Yuji could start testing him. “Shut up.”

Farther downriver, Yuta lifted the lantern higher while Inumaki crouched near the bank, one sleeve pinned and empty where his other arm used to be. The light caught the stitches across Yuta’s forehead when he bent too close, watching Inumaki’s face again instead of the water.

“Salmon,” Inumaki warned without looking up.

Yuta straightened immediately. “Right. Sorry.”

Inumaki glanced back at him, eyes soft above his collar, then pointed at the river like Yuta had been the one scaring the tiny fish away.

Yuji followed Megumi’s gaze and smiled softer this time. “Everyone’s kind of obvious tonight.”

Megumi huffed a small laugh. “You’re one to talk.”

“Huh?”

“You were staring at me in the picture too.”

“I can admit that…" Yuji’s grin went soft around the scar cutting through his lip. “Maybe I like looking at you.”

Megumi looked away first, jaw working like he wanted to argue and couldn’t find anything worth saying. The distant lantern light caught the scars near his left temple and eye before he leaned in closer, his hand moving lower on Yuji’s waist. “Shut up,” he muttered, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth as he dragged him closer. “Come here.”

Yuji’s hands fisted in Megumi’s hoodie as he glanced back toward camp. “What if someone sees?”

“We’re not fifteen anymore,” Megumi whispered near his ear, moving Yuji’s face back toward him with a careful hand. “And everybody here has seen far worse things than grown adults kissing.”

Yuji laughed under his breath, his breath warm against Megumi’s mouth. “That’s true.”

Megumi pushed him back against the nearest tree to get them out of the path where the firelight could reach. His hand slipped under the hem of Yuji’s hoodie and settled burning at his waist.

Yuji stayed still for half a breath.

Megumi felt it because he’d trained himself to trace the tiny delay before Yuji remembered where he was. The way his body sometimes braced for bad things before his mind caught up, like some old part of him was still waiting for another voice in his head.

Megumi’s thumb tapped into his skin.

Yuji continued to stare at nothing.

Megumi rubbed his skin again, gentler, and Yuji’s shoulders loosened. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“Don’t be.”

Yuji looked at him.

“Don’t apologize for that,” Megumi said, with his eyes dropping briefly to the scar through Yuji’s lip before returning to his face. “Just stay here.”

Yuji’s smile came back. “Bossy.”

“Yeah.” His hand stayed where it was, and for a second, Megumi thought about the stupid unfairness of it. Nanami could give someone things and call it practical. Gojo could make a public nuisance of himself with Shoko and somehow still have the world bend around it. But what Megumi wanted with Yuji, something with same surnames, still had to be phrased around loopholes, paperwork, and whichever court felt generous enough to recognize it.

He would still ask anyway.

Just not tonight. Tonight was someone else's.

But Megumi would ask soon. And Yuji would make some awful noise when he realized. Might laugh first, then cry after, then ask, ‘Are you sure?’ Like Fushiguro Megumi hadn’t built his whole life around being sure of very few things, and selfishly choosing Itadori Yuji every day wasn’t always going to be top of them.

Megumi hooked his thumb in Yuji’s belt loop, keeping him close. “Besides,” he said, lower now, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth, “it’s easier to appreciate you in the dark.”

Yuji’s smile got warmer. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Megumi muttered, having difficulty taking his eyes off Yuji’s lips. “Oh.”

Yuji’s gaze flicked once toward the firelight, then back to him. “You gonna use your technique, bro?”

“Don’t—” Megumi’s ears went red, but he knew to suppress his reaction because he knew that Yuji said dumb things when flustered or nervous or excited—pretty much all the time. “Don’t make it sound weird.”

“You’re the one who said it.”

“I meant so no one sees you panic every time someone walks past.”

Yuji’s smile softened at the edges.

“And yeah,” Megumi’s other thumb brushed against Yuji’s lips and his scar, and he added, quieter. “Only if you want.”

Yuji stared at his mouth and at the broader line of Megumi’s shoulders, where he crowded him against the tree without actually pinning him there. “Yeah,” it came easily, his breath catching around the word. “I—ah—want you to.”

The shadow at Megumi’s feet started to gather around them, darkening the space between the tree and the river until the campfire disappeared into a dark blur through the leaves.

Yuji let out a small, nervous laugh. “That’s kind of hot.”

Megumi closed his eyes and kissed him before Yuji could make the moment difficult by being sweet.

Yuji wrapped both arms around him because Yuji had never learned how to accept small things from Megumi without giving his whole body back.

Back by the river, you sat with your feet near the water, your lantern beside you. The paper plate on your lap held a slice of cake you had barely touched.

Nanami stopped beside you. “May I sit?”

“It’s your day.” You smiled up at him.

“I was told I’m allowed very little free will today.”

“That’s because you were trying to ditch your own birthday party.” You moved your plate, and he sat on the grass with a careful breath. His knee clicked. You reached into the bag beside you to hand him the small cushion you had packed.

He stared at it.

“For your knee,” you told him. “Take it before I throw it at you.”

He took it, and for a while, you both just watched the river pull silver lines around the stones.

“I heard Shoko,” he murmured.

“I figured.”

“I should have answered.”

You picked at the cake with your fork. “You don’t owe people an answer about me.”

“I owe you one.”

Your hand stilled for half a second before going back to picking at the cake.

Nanami looked down at his plate, keeping his scarred side half out of the lantern light.

“I wanted to spend today alone. That was the plan. A quiet mountain cabin. Sandwich from a shop. A book I would barely read.”

You nodded.

“Then you sent a list of food. A map. A reminder about sunscreen. Then seven messages about whether I could still eat spicy sauce.”

“You can’t.”

“I can. It just comes with regret.” His mouth curved a little.

Then he sighed. “I was annoyed. Then I looked forward to it all week.”

Your throat worked around a small laugh that came out thin. “You’re bad at gratitude.”

“I’m worse at friendship, apparently.”

You finally looked at him. He met your eyes, and this time he didn’t look away first. “You were there when I was hard to be near. Then I made it harder. I knew you would come back, so I let myself be careless with your feelings.”

Your fork dug into the cake because you didn’t know what to say to that. Some small part of you tried to make sense of it before you could hope. Pity, obligation, eight years of habit, his loneliness finding the nearest person who already knew where the medicine was kept.

Then Nanami reached into his jacket, pulled out a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied with kitchen string, and handed it to you. “I bought this months ago,” he whispered. “Just kept waiting for a dignified moment.”

You opened it.

A key sat inside, along with a tiny wooden tag carved with your name.

Your breath caught and you looked up at him. “Is this because you feel responsible for me?”

His answer came too fast to be polite. “No.”

Then he lowered his voice. “I would like you to come home.” His voice roughened at the edges. “As mine. In whatever order you can accept. Girlfriend first, if that is easier. Partner. Wife, someday, if you can forgive the delay. If you still want that after we learn how to stop pretending.”

Your palm pressed to your mouth.

He looked alarmed. “Was that too much?”

You laughed into your palm. “Kento, you gave me a house key as a birthday gift on your birthday.”

“It seemed practical.”

“You are so stupid.”

“Yes,” he smiled, softer now. “I am aware.”

You leaned over and kissed the scarred side of his mouth before he could brace for it, his skin warm against your lips.

Behind you, from across the camp, Gojo screamed, “PAY UP, SHOKO!”

You smiled against him.

He sighed, warm and beaten. “I should have invited you to the mountains.” His hand closed over yours, and he kept the key pressed between both your palms.

Gojo’s voice carried across the camp again, loud enough to make bats startle somewhere in the trees. “SHOKO, YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE TERMS AFTER THE KISS. MY SIX EYES CONFIRMED IT.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Shoko called back, flat and drunk. “Your first choice is dead.”

The camp went still for half a second.

Then Gojo shouted, “Take that back.”

“I meant I’m the only doctor you idiots have.”

“WE HAVE MY GOOD STUDENT YUTA NOW.”

Yuta immediately grabbed Inumaki’s sleeve and started dragging him farther downriver.

“I did surgery on him. And you. I’m superior.”

“YAGA, SHE’S BULLYING ME AGAIN.”

Nanami closed his eye. “Ignore them.”

You laughed softly, and the sound made his hand tighten around yours. You were still too close to him, leaving small pecks against the scarred side of his lips. The little wooden tag pressed into your palm, your name carved into it like a promise. “Kento.”

“Yes?” He hummed.

“I’d like to come home with you.”

He went still.

You looked down at your joined hands because saying it while looking at his face would have made your voice crack. “Not tonight. I mean, obviously, but I mean properly. I want to move in. I want to start dating. I want…”

Nanami’s face changed slowly, like watching the door open after standing outside with his hand raised for years. “Girlfriend first,” he added, quieter.

You nodded.

“Partner when you are ready.”

You looked up at him. “I’m not the only one who has to be ready.”

He lowered his gaze, thumb moving over your knuckles, careful around the key. “I have been ready in undignified ways for some time.”

Your smile broadened. “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He gave you half a smile. “Hope it’s not the last. I intend to do better.”

“You’d better.”

He looked toward the river because smiling at you too openly still cost him.

You remembered his face before Shibuya only in fragments now: old photographs, mission reports.

This was the face you knew better. “I do need time,” you admitted. “For the move, I mean. I have things at my apartment, clothes, books, souvenirs, the kettle you said was a fire hazard.”

“It was a fire hazard.”

You smiled down at the key. “I’ll bring the kettle last.”

“I will dispose of it humanely.”

You slapped his arm lightly. “You will not.”

“I will hire someone.” He sounded like he was going to get someone from the dark web.

“Kento.”

His mouth curved, small so that nobody across the camp would have noticed. You did because you had always noticed him in the margins.

He glanced down at your plate. “You did not eat your cake.”

“I got proposed to by a man who doesn’t know if he asked me to be his girlfriend or his wife. I don’t care about the cake right now.”

His expression sharpened with immediate concern. “Do you want something else?”

“No. I’m teasing you.”

“I still need an answer.”

You loved him for that. In his dry insistence, he could be given a kiss, a key accepted, and a future placed in his hand and still worry about your blood sugar before his own feelings. “I’m okay,” you answered. “Just tired.”

That, he believed. Then he stood with effort, offered you his hand, and you let him pull you up. His knee bothered him. You knew the exact stiffness in his jaw that meant it had started to ache.

“You should go back. Before Gojo remembers he has lungs and yells again.”

“He never forgets.”

“No. He simply uses them irresponsibly.”

He walked you back through the camp slowly. The fire had sunk low. Shoko was laughing at something Gojo was saying too close to her ear, her cheeks flushed from beer, one hand resting on the back of his neck as if she’d put it there to keep him from running off into the dark. Yaga and Ijichi had already retreated to their tents on the far end of the site. Panda lay outside his father’s tent with one paw over his face, asleep under the stars with a plushy like a log and snoring as one.

You saw Nanami notice all of it.

Nobara and Maki had not come back. Neither had Megumi and Yuji. Inumaki and Yuta were still missing somewhere downriver with the lantern and the knife, which you chose not to examine too closely.

At your tent, Nanami stopped. The zipper was halfway open. Inside, your blanket had been kicked into a pile, your overnight bag still unlatched, clothes spilling out because Nobara had insisted she could style you for glamping and then abandoned the project the second Maki called her name.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Nanami told you.

“You’re not going to make sure I’m zipped inside so a bear won't attack me at night?”

“There are no bears here.”

“You looked up bears before coming here?”

“I know you would have.”

“Touché,” you said, stepping into the tent. “Good night, boyfriend.”

The word sank in him for the first time.

He stood there for half a second longer than necessary, his expression caught inside something softer. Then he bowed his head once, because Nanami Kento had no available defense against being called yours except good manners.

“Good night,” he repeated, lower this time. Then he walked back to his tent with red ears.

You waited until his silhouette disappeared past the fire before you looked at the key again.

You did not sleep but lay on your back under the thin blanket, phone held above your face, the key box sitting on your stomach because you just couldn't put it away tonight.

Outside, the river moved, leaves shifted, someone’s tent zipper caught, and bamboo wind chimes knocked softly near the picnic shelter.

You opened your messages.

You: I should probably ask what your move-in requirements are before I accidentally bring the fire-hazard kettle.

His reply came so fast that your chest warmed.

Kento: The kettle is not entering my home.

You: Is it not mine?

There was a pause long enough for you to worry you had made it too much too fast, even though it had been eight years.

Then his typing bubble appeared.

Kento: Our home. The kettle is still not entering it.

You covered your mouth with your hand.

You: Cruel landlord.

Kento: Boyfriend. Possibly partner. Future husband, if I do not lose the position over fire safety.

You stared at the message until the letters blurred at the edges.

Outside, Gojo laughed somewhere, quieter than usual. Shoko told him to shut up in a voice that had no real conviction behind it.

You: You’re very confident about future husband.

Kento: I have been accused of waiting too long. I am correcting the record.

You: By proposing an entire life on your birthday.

Kento: It seemed practical. I deserved a gift, and you deserved something permanent for planning this day and everything before it.

You: I’m going to bite you.

Kento: That is not a logistical concern.

The squeal you made into your blanket was embarrassing and muffled. You rolled onto your side, holding the phone close to your face.

You: I keep thinking I’ll wake up and you’ll decide this was fever brain.

Kento: I am not feverish.

You: The key is beautiful, and my name carved into it looks good.

Kento: I had a professional do that. (It was Megumi.)

You realized he didn't want anyone to spoil it.

You: That makes it sweet, actually.

Kento: I am aware.

The next message came after a long moment of his typing bubble appearing and disappearing and reappearing.

Kento: I wanted you to have something that could not be mistaken.

Your throat tightened. All the noise outside seemed to move further away. Even the river sounded softer from inside the tent.

You: Kento.

Kento: You have had very little permanence since you came here.

You stopped breathing for a second.

Kento: No family records or household. No one to call if something went wrong who belonged to you before this world took you in. You have made a life anyway. I know that. I am proud of that. But I wanted you to have a door that opened because your name belonged there.

You pressed the phone to your chest and stared at the dark fabric of the tent roof.

Untethered.

You hated that word. It made drifting sound graceful.

Gojo and Ijichi had made you legal enough for payroll, rent, hospital forms, and mission reports, but none of it reached backward. There were still blank spaces where parents should have gone. No childhood address. No family name that meant anything here. No one who could say what you were like before this world took you in.

You had caught yourself envying the students for ugly things: clan fights, dead relatives, living relatives, inheritance arguments, grief with names attached. At least someone had known them before.

Jujutsu Tech gave you a file. Shoko gave you headache medicine before you asked. Gojo bought things you never requested and called it community support. The others made room for you without making speeches.

And Kento.

Kento with the second phone charger he pretended came in a pack of two. Kento whose apartment had become the only place your body slept properly. And now he was saying your name belonged on the door.

You typed and deleted six different replies.

You: I don’t know how to say what that means to me without sounding pathetic.

Kento: You have listened to me say “girlfriend first, partner, wife someday” beside a river. I no longer have grounds to judge anyone’s process.

You laughed, but it broke halfway into a few tears.

You: I didn’t think I’d get to be someone’s family officially here. I know that sounds stupid because people choose each other all the time, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. Especially not with someone who knows I drink coffee like it counts as water.

Kento: It does not.

You: I’m being vulnerable. You can be nice.

Kento: You are. I am keeping you grounded.

You: By attacking my coffee?

Kento: By reminding you that I know it.

You blinked hard, looking for the right emoji to express your distaste.

Kento: When you first appeared, I was suspicious of you.

You: Romantic.

Kento: You had no file, no verifiable history, and enough cursed energy to drag a half-dead man out of Mahito’s grasp. Suspicion seemed reasonable.

You: Still romantic.

Kento: I was also afraid you would disappear the same way you arrived.

You did not know what to say to that.

Kento: I expected someone to explain you eventually as a curse, technique, or a temporary consequence of some larger cruelty. I thought if I became too accustomed to you, the world would correct itself and take you back.

Your fingers hovered above the keyboard.

Kento: Then you stayed. Argued with my pharmacist, replaced the mirror I turned to the wall with one too small for me to avoid entirely. You even left soup at my door after I called you a nuisance. You became domestic before I was ready for you to be irreplaceable.

The tent blurred. You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand and nearly dropped the phone.

You: You can’t say things like this over text.

Kento: I can say them outside your tent if you would prefer.

Your whole body went warm.

You: Oh lord no.

Kento: Understood.

You: I mean yes? Or no. I mean I’m wearing an old shirt and crying.

Kento: I have seen worse.

You: You are so bad at this.

Kento: Noted. I will improve.

You smiled into the dark. Then his next message came.

Kento: If things become too dangerous again, I need you to understand something.

You sat up.

Kento: I will not let Jujutsu society decide what happens to you. I have given enough of my life to institutions that eat people and call it duty. If the choice is between staying and keeping you safe, I will take you and leave.

You reread that message, a mix of emotions swirling inside you and choking in your throat.

You: You mean that?

Kento: Yes.

You: But you love your work.

Kento: I love being able to help where I can. That is not the same thing.

You: And if I say I don’t want you giving everything up for me?

Kento: Then we will discuss it like adults. And I will still keep the car maintained.

It was just so like him, devotion inside an emergency plan.

You were still staring at the message when another sound came from outside.

At first, Nanami ignored it.

In his own tent, sitting upright with his back against a rolled sleeping bag because lying down had proved useless, he heard canvas shift from the direction of Gojo’s tent and assumed the man was awake.

Which was not unusual. Satoru rarely slept like other people. Three hours, sometimes less, then he would wander the halls of the school or appear in kitchens, bright-eyed and awake past reason, eating someone else’s food and pretending insomnia was a lifestyle choice.

Nanami typed another message, thumb moving carefully.

Kento: For clarity, I am not planning to take your choice away. I am saying you have one with me now. If something like Shibuya happens. If we need to leave, we leave together.

The shuffling continued. A soft thump. A rustle. Then something like a hand catching against tent fabric.

Nanami paused. Then resumed typing because whatever Gojo Satoru did at night was between him, God, and the nearest vending machine.

Kento: I should have told you earlier. Years ago.

A muffled laugh came from the other tent.

Shoko’s.

Nanami’s typing slowed. Another rustle followed, lower this time, rhythmic enough that his mind and his technique, traitorous and precise, started assembling possibilities he did not want.

No. Absolutely not.

Satoru would not.

Nanami stared at the wall of his tent.

Then a muffled sentence came through canvas and night air, Satoru’s voice far too pleased with itself to be mistaken for sleep talking.

Nanami closed his eye. And for several seconds, he sat very still.

Satoru wouldn't do that. Wouldn't traumatize his students like that, would he?

And there were students nearby.

Former students, yes. Grown adults now, all of them old enough to drink, vote, kill curses, and make bad decisions in forests. But still. They had been children once. Children Satoru had bequeathed and taught. Children Nanami had, against his will and better judgment, worried about.

Except Nobara and Maki had disappeared into the trees hours ago. Megumi and Yuji had walked off in opposite direction around the same time—even their cursed energies weren't within a detectable radius now. Inumaki and Yuta had not returned from whatever fishing ritual required one knife and an alarming amount of staring contest. Panda slept like a boulder on the other side of camp. Yaga slept like a dead man with a pension. Ijichi slept like a person who had spent fifteen years being emotionally waterboarded by Gojo Satoru and could sleep through artillery if it meant nobody needed him.

So Satoru was traumatizing no one he cared about except Nanami.

Oh, but wait… Ijichi.

Nanami’s eye opened. That was it, wasn't it?

Satoru had pointed out, years ago to Kento, the way Ijichi hovered around Shoko with the doomed attentiveness of a man bringing coffee to a woman miles out of his league. Had mocked him for it, interfered with it, sabotaged it, and once bought him a book on “assertive romantic communication” that Ijichi had accepted with both hands and visible despair. The book contained the worst possible advice, such as shaving your head made you more aerodynamic for dates.

That was not poor judgment.

It was Satoru declaring territory.

Nanami put on his headphones. Then his gaze dropped to his phone.

You were in the tent near his—awake, emotional, and his to care for. And you could probably hear this. His thumb moved before he had fully decided.

Kento: Pack your bag.

Your reply came quickly.

You: what

Kento: Quietly. Ten minutes. Meet me just outside the campsite entrance.

You: Kento what happened

He glanced toward the canvas wall as another sound reached him.

Kento: Satoru.

A momentary pause.

You: oh my god

Kento: Yes.

You: shoko?????

Kento: Unfortunately.

You: is everyone else asleep

Kento: Gone, asleep, or morally unreachable.

You: what does morally unreachable mean?

Kento: Panda.

You: Kento I can’t just flee a campsite because Gojo and Shoko are having sex

Kento: I can. Pack.

You were outside in eight minutes after having packed so quickly that even your bag was zipped wrong and your hair had come loose around your face.

Nanami was already waiting near the entrance sign with his overnight bag in one hand. His hair was mussed from where he had dragged his fingers through it, and his eyepatch strap sat a little crooked. He looked you over once, checking that you had your shoes, your bag, yourself, then said, “My car is nearby. There is a hotel ten minutes from here. We will return in the morning.”

You followed him to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, and you hid a smile because he had always done that, even before tonight, even when he could still pretend it was only manners. Now the same small gesture felt claimed.

He shut the door once you were inside, walked around to the driver’s side, and started the engine.

Neither of you spoke for the first few minutes of the drive. The road out of the campsite was narrow and dark, trees pressing close on either side. Nanami drove with one hand on the wheel, his profile lit by the dashboard glow. The eyepatch hid one side of him. The scars caught in uneven lines. You watched his hand shift, steady on the gear, and remembered the way it had held yours around the key. Halfway to the hotel, his expression changed.

“What?” you asked.

He looked horrified. “Have you been drinking?”

You stared. “What?”

“At the camp. Shoko was giving everyone beer. Gojo had that terrible sweet alcohol. You were emotional. I should have asked before taking you anywhere.”

“I had half a canned peach thing four hours ago.”

His jaw tightened. “That is not an answer.”

“It was barely alcohol.”

“That is also not an answer.”

“Kento, I am not drunk.”

“You were crying.”

“Forgive a girl for being emotional after pining after a guy for eight years then suddenly being pulled out of the friend zone.”

He opened his mouth. “That was not—" Then he realized better and closed it. His grip eased slightly on the wheel, and he tried again. “That was not intended to impair judgment.”

“Well, it did.”

“Then I shouldn’t have sent the texts.”

“I didn’t say that.” You leaned your head against the window, smiling despite the ache in your chest. “I’m sober. Just feeling happy because you accidentally became my whole life and then asked me that we could stop pretending.”

He swallowed. The car stayed very quiet after that.

At the hotel, Nanami carried both bags, and you let him because arguing with him in the lobby would have turned him into stone. The receptionist looked at the two of you—your rumpled clothes, his serious face, the bags, the hour—and made a decision behind her polite smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We only have one room available.”

Nanami’s shoulders tensed. “Anything with two beds?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

You watched her glance at you while Nanami turned to set bags down.

Her smile sharpened by half an inch, conspiratorial. “Only if you’re comfortable,” she murmured, her voice too low for him to hear. “I can check again.”

You looked at Nanami, who was trying to help with your badly zipped bag. The key in your pocket pressed against your thigh. “One room is fine. I’m sure he’ll offer to sleep on the couch.”

The receptionist’s smile warmed. “Of course.”

Nanami turned back. “I can ask another hotel.”

“It’s late. The other hotels are far,” you mentioned. “And it’s better to get back faster in the morning before Yaga might wake up and discover we abandoned camp over tent crimes.”

His mouth flattened and the receptionist made a noise that might have been a cough.

The room was warm, clean, and too quiet after the campsite. One bed and one couch under the window, narrow enough to make even the idea of sleeping on it insulting. A small table held two glasses, a basket of snacks, and a complimentary bottle of gin with a ribbon around its neck like it had dressed for the occasion.

Nanami placed the bags down and went to wash his face.

You stood in the middle of the room for several seconds, listening to the water run. Then you opened your bag. A gold slip dress slid out like Shoko had packed it with malice. Satin, backless, thin straps crossing. You could still hear her earlier, shoving it into your hands after two beers and a prophecy. Wear it if he finally grows a spine.

You had told her to shut up. Then packed it anyway because between life as a sorcerer and your super exciting hobby of watching TV at home, you didn't have many occasions to wear it. So by the time Nanami came out, drying his face with a white towel, you had changed.

He was looking down at his phone, ordering room service because feeding you after fleeing a campsite was apparently the next big step in your relationship. “They have rice, fifty types of fish, and miso. Nothing ideal, but better than—”

He stopped.

You stood near the foot of the bed in the gold slip dress. The satin moved when you breathed, back bare, straps thin against your shoulders. From the front, it almost looked modest until Nanami looked at it.

His sentence died before dinner could be ordered. The towel lowered in his hand. His eye moved down, back up, away. Then back again. “You changed.”

“I did.”

“For sleep?”

“Yes.”

His gaze sharpened, dry even through the flush climbing his neck. “You sleep in that?”

“Sometimes.”

“You do not.”

You tried to look offended. It failed because your attention had dropped to his mouth, which you had looked at for years and punished yourself for noticing. The burn scar pulled at one side. The other side was soft, his lips a little damp from the water, his face bare except for the eyepatch and the damage he still expected you to look around. But you never did look around it.

Nanami’s hand tightened around the towel.

You looked back at his eye but said nothing.

His expression shifted then, slowly dawning into a kind of tired disbelief. “I have been set up.”

“Yes,” you smiled.

Nanami stared at you. Then cleared his throat when he realized he’d been gawking too long. “I can sleep on the couch,” he said, because he was fighting for his life and had chosen back pain as his cursed technique.

You glanced at the couch. It looked like it had been designed by someone who hated human bones. “You can’t.”

“I can.”

“You have a bad knee.”

“I have slept in worse conditions.”

“I know.” You turned to him. “That’s why I’m not letting you do it now.”

His throat moved.

You walked toward him before your nerve could fail. The satin whispered around your legs. His gaze dropped at the sound, then came back to your face with visible effort.

“Kento.”

“Yes?”

“Can I touch you?”

Nanami’s face went still in a way you knew. He had been touched for survival—bandages, ointment, physical therapy, and your fingers careful along the edges of the injury when he got sick. He’d become used to the pain because pain had become muscle memory for him. This was not that. You watched him understand that you were asking for a different kind of touch.

His voice came out low. “Where?”

“Your face first.”

His eye closed for a moment.

When it opened, he looked at you as if you had placed a hand over an old wound with care. “Yes,” he swallowed.

You stepped close so that the front of the dress brushed his trousers. He didn’t move. The towel hung forgotten in his hand.

Carefully, you lifted both hands.

He let you cup his jaw.

The unscarred side was warm and familiar. The scarred side was rougher under your palm, the texture uneven where the burns had pulled, healed, and stayed. His breath caught when your thumb rested there, not avoiding or testing but touching. You felt the muscle in his cheek tremble once or twice. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

“You can say no.”

“I know.” He said, leaning mildly into your palm.

You rose onto your toes and kissed the scarred corner of his mouth.

Nanami did not breathe.

You kissed him again, slower this time, letting your lips rest where the scar changed the shape of him. The towel dropped from his hands. His hands moved to your waist but didn't land.

“Touch me too,” you whispered.

His hand settled carefully on the satin at your hip. The first contact was almost too gentle. His palm was large and warm, barely gripping. Even now, with your body dressed in gold and your mouth on the part of him he thought ruined, he was still asking permission through pressure.

You turned your face and brushed your mouth over his once, then again. “Kento.”

His hand tightened.

You felt the moment he stopped trying to be untouched.

His mouth met yours properly, controlled for one breath, then rougher when you didn’t pull away. He tasted faintly of mint and the cake he’d been pretending to eat with you at camp, washed thin by water and warmed by the breath he kept failing to steady. His lower lip caught against yours where the scar changed the texture of his mouth.

You felt the careful grip at your waist turning less careful when your tongue brushed his. His fingers dug into the satin, dragging it tight across your hips. The fabric slipped under his palm. Your skin warmed beneath it, and you made a sound into his mouth.

Nanami pulled back at once. “Sorry,” he said, voice rough.

You caught his arms before he could take his hands away. “Don’t.”

His eye moved over your face.

“Don’t apologize.”

Something in his throat shifted. He looked at your mouth, then at the strap of your dress where it sat on your shoulder, then away because he was still trying to be decent.

You slid your hands to his neck. The skin there was warm and the tendons tense under your fingers. He had washed his face but not changed. His shirt was still tucked badly from camp, collar open, sleeves rolled to his forearms. Proper even after midnight with your lipstick at the scarred corner of his mouth.

“Can I take this off?” you asked, fingers catching the top button of his shirt.

Nanami’s heart beat faster under your hands. He wanted this. You felt that too, in the way his hand tightened at your waist, in the way he had stopped making space between you. The hesitation was somewhere else. His gaze dropped to the carpet, to the towel he had dropped there, to anything that was not your face.

“Kento.”

“It is not reluctance,” he said, before you could mistake it. His jaw tightened. “I want you. I am trying to decide whether I was foolish to think I could do this with most of my clothes still on.”

Your throat tightened.

“It is worse than my face,” he admitted.

You knew. You also knew he had never let you look for long, which was why your fingers stayed on his button instead of retreating. “Can I see you?” you asked.

He breathed in as if he were measuring how much of himself he could stand to show. “If you change your mind,” he whispered, “you will tell me.”

It landed painfully in your chest. You leaned closer until your forehead touched the center of his sternum through his shirt. “I’m going to tell you if I need to stop, but I’m not going to change my mind because of your scars.”

His hand lifted and hovered over the back of your head.

You rested against his chest.

After a second, he touched your hair.

“Please,” you asked. “Let me.”

His fingers flexed, then settled, and he nodded. “Yes.”

You undid the buttons slowly because rushing him felt cruel. The first three opened over skin you already knew from missions and loose collars. The next showed the edge of scar tissue, healed unevenly across the right side of his chest. You felt his body tense when you brushed the fabric aside. His breathing changed.

You kept your eyes on your hands until the shirt hung open. Then you looked.

He was broader than he acted, thicker through the shoulders and chest. Muscle sat under scars and old damage, earned through years of violence he had survived and never bragged about.

The right side of his chest was pale and smooth except for small marks from fights that had healed clean. The left side carried Shibuya in hard, darkened patches that ran from his shoulder down over his ribs, disappearing beneath the waist of his trousers.

He watched you look.

You knew he was waiting for mercy.

So you gave him an appetite.

You pressed your mouth to the unscarred side of his chest first. His hand tightened in your hair. You moved lower, then across, kissing him where the texture changed. His breath broke above you when your lips touched the burned side.

“Is this all right?” you asked against him.

His answer came huskily. “Yes.”

You kissed him again, slower, and felt the scared skin shift under your mouth when his breath caught. His chest rose in short, measured pulls, each one failing sooner than the last. Your hands moved with the same care, your thumbs lingered over his shoulders, down his ribs, and across the hard plane of his stomach where the burned skin dragged rough beneath your palms. You looked while you touched him, unable to help it, with a hungry look he noticed.

His fingers tightened at your hips, loosened, then tightened again, as if he could not decide whether to pull you closer or survive being seen.

“You’re beautiful,” you whispered.

Nanami’s eye shut. His throat worked, but all that came out was your name under his breath.

Your hands moved lower, teeth gently dragging against skin. “You are,” you said, and pushed his shirt off his shoulders.

The fabric hit the carpet beside the towel. Nanami stood bare to the waist in front of you, flushed down his throat, scarred and breathing hard, one hand braced at your hip while the other hovered near your jaw like he wanted to touch you back and had forgotten how to start.

You kissed the scar over his ribs.

His stomach jumped.

You smiled against his skin.

He felt it. “Do not look pleased with yourself.”

“I’m very pleased with you.”

His eye widened by a fraction, and a breath left him through his nose, almost a laugh, disbelieving and low, as if he had found some new, dangerous version of you he had no defense against.

You walked him backward. He allowed two steps, then seemed to dumbly realize what was happening. “The bed—”

“Yes.”

“I should—”

“You should sit.”

His mouth twitched, either at the order or at himself for obeying it. The backs of his knees met the mattress, and he sat. The bed sank under his weight. He looked too composed for someone half-undressed in a hotel room, scars bared.

You climbed onto him.

His hands shot to your waist. “Careful.”

“I am.”

“You drank.”

“Half a peach thing four hours ago and one barely there sip of terrible gin.”

“One sip?”

“It tasted awful.”

His gaze flicked to the bottle, then back to you. The corner of his mouth pulled. “Good.”

You settled over one of his thighs, knees bracketing his leg as the satin rode up. The fabric was thin enough that you felt the heat of him through it, the firm shift of muscle when your weight came down. His hands tightened at your waist, then loosened with effort, thumbs pressing into the slippery cloth as if he needed something to hold that was not bare skin yet.

You kissed him again, and this time he met you faster. His mouth opened under yours, warm and wet, still tasting faintly of mint and whatever sweetness clung to your own tongue from the campsite drinks. He caught your lower lip between his, sucked once, let go, then did it again when your breath broke against him. The restraint was still there, but thinner now, worn down by your mouth, your weight on his thigh, the small damp heat gathering where the satin pressed between you.

His hand slid up your back and found the bare skin where the dress opened. You felt his palm spread, calluses catching lightly, his breath changing when he realized there was nothing between his hand and you. Then his mouth curved against yours, small and disbelieving.

You kissed the smile out of him and shifted without meaning to.

His thigh tensed under you.

The friction went straight through the satin to your core. Your sound caught in his mouth, and Nanami’s hand gripped your back hard to pull you closer before he remembered himself. “Careful,” he said, rougher this time.

You looked down between you. He was hard against the front of his trousers, straining so badly that posture could not hide it anymore. He had tried though. The straight back, the careful hands, the cursed offer to sleep on the cuck chair.

Now his shirt was on the floor, your mouth was wet from his, your hips were open over his thigh, and there was nowhere left for him to put the wanting away.

You touched the scarred side of his chest again, fingertips dragging over the uneven skin. “Can I touch you there?” you asked, gesturing lower.

His eye dropped to where you were looking.

His hand flexed on your waist. “Yes.”

You eased him back before touching him there. Nanami went with it, stiff at first, then heavier as his shoulders met the mattress. His legs stayed over the edge of the bed, knees parted around you. Then your fingers moved over the leather first, tracing the warm line where it sat against his waist.

He breathed in when your hand lowered, palm settling over him through the fabric. Gentle at first. The heat of him was there, hard beneath the pressed cloth, and the muscles in his stomach pulled tight under the scars.

Nanami’s head tipped back against the bed when you squeezed.

“Oh,” you whispered.

His eye opened. “What?”

“You’re…” You swallowed and pressed your palm more firmly, dragging it along him through the trousers. His fingers dug into your hip.

“Kento.”

“Speak.”

“You’re big.”

He stared at you for a second, as though the words had reached him in a letter he did not believe. Then, incredibly, he frowned. “That is not something you need to say.”

You almost laughed, but the look on his face stopped you like he genuinely thought you were teasing him. So instead you leaned down and kissed the scar above his belly button.

His abdomen clenched under your mouth.

You kissed lower.

He said your name.

You liked how it sounded when his voice was strained.

You moved down his body, kissing the unscarred skin first, then the scarred side, leaving small red marks where his body responded most. His hand followed you to your shoulder, then stopped as if he did not know whether he was allowed to hold you there.

“Keep touching me,” you murmured.

He did—fingers in your hair, light at first, then firmer when your hand found him again, rubbing over the front of his trousers while your mouth worked over his stomach.

Your hips shifted against his thigh before you meant to. The friction went through the thin satin and made you gasp against his skin. Nanami’s thigh flexed under you again, harder this time, and his hand tightened in your hair as if he had to hold onto something.

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

Your dazed eyes looked up at him, mouth falling open around a breath. “I-I’m not.”

“...”

“I can stop.”

“No.” The word came too fast.

You sat up on his thigh to look. The flush had reached his chest now. His eye was dark, fixed on you with enough hunger to make your core clench around nothing. He looked embarrassed by the speed of his answer and too aroused to take it back.

“No?” you asked.

“No,” he repeated with visible effort, “if you are comfortable.”

You pressed your smile back to his stomach and kept moving your hand over him—squeezing and groping.

His control was slipping. You felt it in the way his fingers flexed in your hair, the way his breathing got heavier, the way his hips lifted into your palm before he caught himself. The sound he made when you kissed just above his waistband was quiet enough for him to pretend it had not happened.

You did not let him. “I want to taste you.”

His hand froze.

You looked up at him from between his legs. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know,” you repeated, softer. “I still want to.”

His eye searched your face, probably for pity, hesitation, obligation, anything. He found none of it. You wanted him in a way that had become most inconvenient. Finally, his hand loosened in your hair. “All right.”

You undid his belt with too much excitement.

His breathing changed again, faster under the careful mask. The buckle clinked softly. You opened the button, drew the zipper down, and tugged just enough to free him without undressing him completely in case he changed his mind.

For a second, you could only stare.

He was thick in your hands, hot and heavy, the head red-flushed and leaking at the tip. You wrapped one hand around him, then added the other because one did not cover enough of him. He looked down and saw your expression.

“Kento,” you said, helpless.

His face turned red in a way you had never seen from him. “Please do not look at me as though I have inconvenienced you.”

“You have.”

“That was not my intention.”

You grinned and stroked him carefully, both hands moving over him in a slow rhythm. The first pass made his abdomen tighten so hard the scars pulled. The second dragged a rough breath out of him. His fingers sank into the blanket.

“Is this good?”

His eye closed. “Yes.”

“You can tell me what you like.”

A bitter little smile touched his mouth and vanished. “I have not had much practice giving instructions to the woman who kept me alive.”

“I’m your girlfriend.”

His eye opened. The word still worked on him.

You leaned down and licked the head.

Nanami’s whole body jerked. “No,” he said, hand catching your shoulder.

You stopped immediately.

His chest heaved. His fingers were firm on you, but not pushing as if stopping himself as much as stopping you.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” His voice was rough, almost angry with himself. “No. It is just—”

You waited for him to continue.

He looked away. “You do not need to put your mouth on me.”

Your stomach twisted because he still thought desire had to be justified.

So you shifted closer between his legs and rested your cheek against his thigh, your hand still wrapped around him. “I know I don’t need to.”

His fingers loosened on your shoulder.

You kissed his thigh through his trousers, then the skin just above where you had opened them. “I want to. If you want it too.”

He looked back at you.

There was a long, hard silence.

Then his hand moved from your shoulder to your hair. His thumb brushed near your temple. “I want it.”

That was all you needed.

You kissed the head first because he seemed to break beautifully when you did it gently. Then you opened your mouth and took him in.

Nanami’s hand tightened in your hair.

His sound was low, almost startled. You worked slowly at first, learning him by the way his body responded. Softer with your tongue under the head made his thigh twitch. Pressure at the base with your hand made his fingers curl. Hollowing your cheeks made him breathe out through his teeth and grip the blanket with his free hand.

You liked the weight of him on your tongue, liked how a composed man became honest when he could no longer put coherent words together.

His hips lifted, then stopped. “Sorry.”

You pulled off just enough to speak. “Don’t.”

His eye was blown dark, mouth parted. Sweat had gathered at his throat. He looked wrecked already, and you had barely begun.

You took him again.

Deeper this time.

His hand flexed against your scalp but did not guide you. You reached for it, pulled it forward, and placed it more firmly at the back of your head.

He understood fast. “No.”

You held his gaze and nodded.

His jaw tightened. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You tapped his thigh twice.

His fingers curled, but he did not move.

You swallowed around him as far as you could.

Nanami cursed under his breath. It sounded dragged out of a place he usually kept sealed.

You pulled back, breathed, and nodded again. Your hand gripped his thigh.

He understood. His thumb brushed your cheek. “Tap twice if you need me to stop.”

You did it twice on his thigh.

He nodded, serious even now, because he made a system out of everything.

Then he moved.

Slow at first, barely a rock of his hips, giving you time to follow. You relaxed your jaw, hands braced on his thighs, and let him slide deeper.

The sound that left him when he reached the back of your throat made your thighs press together.

Then he stopped again.

You tapped once, impatient.

His breath came out broken.

The next thrust went deeper.

Then the next.

His hand held your head with care that turned rough only when you made a sound around him. Your eyes watered, and your throat worked.

He liked seeing you there, liked your eyes on him, liked your hands on his scarred stomach, your cheek brushing his thigh, your mouth stretched around him because you had asked for it. He liked the proof of being wanted so badly you let him use your mouth.

His hips found a steadier rhythm.

You moaned around him, your own hips twitching for something to hold you, but you stayed patient for him.

He shut his eyes and swore again—this time it came out in a low groan.

His control gave a little more, making his thighs tighten under your palms. His stomach flexed each time he pushed in, scars moving under skin. He kept one hand in your hair, the other elbow braced behind him on the mattress, and rocked into the wet heat of your mouth with breathless restraint that kept cracking.

“Look at me,” he grunted roughly.

You did with teary eyes.

The sight nearly had him coming right there.

His thrusts got deeper, less even. Your warm throat took him and fought him and made him grip your hair tighter before he forced his hand to ease. You tapped his thigh, not to stop, but to urge him on.

He groaned out a cursed word mixed with your name.

Saliva and precum mixed on your chin as you gagged around him and stayed determined to take more.

Your name came out rough, almost broken. “I’m close. Where?”

You pulled off.

He stared down at you, chest heaving, hair fallen over his forehead, face flushed with panic and arousal.

You stood on unsteady knees and climbed over him.

Your hands moved to the satin straps and slipped them off your shoulders.

His eye dropped as the dress fell down your chest, catching at your waist, leaving your breasts bare in front of him.

Nanami stopped breathing.

You squeezed your breasts between both hands and leaned forward, pressing his cock between them.

His head hit the pillows, and for a second, he was genuinely lost.

Because what menace of a god designed you?

“Kento,” you whimpered, looking up at him through wet lashes. “Cum on my chest.”

The first stroke made him choke on your name.

You held him there, slick with your spit and the wetness leaking from his tip, and moved with both hands pressed tight around him. Soft, warm pressure slid over him again and again, and his gaze locked on the sight of his cock disappearing between your breasts before it dragged back to your face.

You were concentrating hard enough that your hands trembled.

Your mouth was parted, your hands trembling around your breasts, your eyes fixed on his face as if every sound he made mattered. His scarred chest, his ruined side, the body he had spent years covering and managing, had become something you wanted with your mouth still wet from him.

For a moment, he forgot he had burns.

You looked hungry, devoted, and almost ruined by the simple fact that he was letting you do this.

Nanami’s hand found the back of your head, then stopped there, fingers flexing uselessly in your hair.

“You’re—” he tried.

You looked up.

Whatever sentence he had left died when your eyes met his.

You were wet-eyed and flushed, lips swollen, breathing hard through your mouth as you worked him between your breasts with a kind of desperate, eager obedience that made heat tear through him fast.

It all felt so fucking good.

You were good.

You kept going until his hands landed on your shoulders. His fingers dug in. His hips lifted off the bed, chasing the pressure, and the sound he made was almost helpless.

He had thought, for years, that being wanted would require forgiveness first.

But you were not forgiving him for his body.

You were enjoying it.

All of it.

His scars under your hands. His taste on your tongue. His cock sliding over your chest while you watched his face like every broken sound he made was something you wanted to hear again.

His hips lifted before he could stop them.

You moaned at the movement.

Nanami’s stomach clenched hard.

“Oh,” he breathed, and the word came out wrecked. “You like this.”

Your hands tightened around your breasts, pressing him closer. “Yes.”

His eye darkened.

The answer went through him more than your mouth had.

“You like being good for me,” he grunted out, not quite a question.

Your face went hotter, but you did not look away. “Mhm.”

His fingers finally tightened in your hair.

The last careful part of him gave way with a deep grunt.

“So good,” he said, voice low and rough, watching you shiver under the praise. “God, look at you. You’re so good for me.”

His hot cum spilled over your skin in thick pulses, painting your chest and dripping down to the satin bunched at your waist. Nanami came with a broken groan of your name, his hands gripping your shoulders, his face flushed and unguarded in a way you had never seen—pleasure and astonishment and a kind of grief he was starting to think had been foolish.

You slowed until he stopped spilling and shaking.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then his hands slid from your shoulders to your back, and he dragged you up against him.

Then kissed you hard—messy and uncareful now. His mouth found yours as if he needed to answer what had just happened and had no language for it besides the heat and the taste of both of you on your tongues.

You could feel him between you, sticky and cooling, but he did not seem to care. His hand cupped the back of your neck. His other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close enough that your ribs pressed to his, smearing himself over his chest from yours.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

His breath shook. “You’re all right?”

You laughed softly, dazed. “I should be asking you that.”

“You can ask later.”

He shifted, and your back met the mattress.

His body crowded yours with enough weight to make your breath catch. The dress was still half on you, twisted around your waist, one strap caught near your elbow. He looked down at the ruined gold satin, at your bare chest, at the proof of him on your skin, and his face changed again.

He was not embarrassed now; the restraint had turned possessive.

“This,” he said, fingers finding the dress. “Take it off.”

Your stomach clenched.

You lifted your hips.

He removed the dress with no patience, dragging it down your body until it slid over your ankles and fell off the side of the bed. Then his hands came back to you.

Everywhere.

Barely any patience this time, broad palms dragging over your waist, your ribs, your thighs, leaving heat everywhere they passed. His mouth followed lower. He took one nipple between his lips first, wet and careful, tongue circling until your fingers caught in his hair. Then his teeth closed, just enough to make your back arch.

“Kento—”

He answered by doing it again.

His mouth was hot on you, spit cooling where his tongue left your skin. He moved to the other breast with a rougher breath, sucking until the ache turned sharp, then softer, then sharp again when your hips lifted against him. His hand slid behind your knee and pulled your leg higher around him, holding you open while his mouth stayed filthy and focused, like he had decided your body deserved the same attention he gave every serious task and hated how much he wanted to be good at this too.

Your fingers tightened in his blond hair.

He groaned against your breast, and the vibration went straight through you. His mouth firmly attached to you.

You jolted.

He kissed there again, then bit gently, his teeth raking your skin while his arms kept your hips firmly in place, then bit down just deep enough to leave a mark. His hands dragged you close by your hips despite being close, like he couldn't tolerate even a breath of air between his mouth and your heat. The first stroke of his tongue made your back arch off the bed fully.

“Oh, fuck.”

You were so fucking wet already, but he did not tease you for it. Did it again. His mouth on you was filthy in a way that did not match the man who had arrived grumbling and arguing at the campsite. Or maybe it matched him perfectly, because Nanami did nothing halfway once he decided it mattered. He nipped your swollen clit with the same focused attention he gave everything he intended to do properly. Then he let go and started with slow, broad strokes, learning what made your thighs shake. Then firmer pressure around your clit until your fingers twisted in his hair.

Your legs tightened around his shoulders.

He groaned against you.

The vibration made you moan.

His hand left your hip. A finger pressed against you, slicking through the mess he was making. He looked up when he pushed one inside, watching your face as your mouth fell open. “Good?”

You nodded too fast.

“Words.”

“Yes. Kento, fuck—yes.” You were already slick from everything that happened before, so he added the second finger and curled the two.

Your body clenched around him.

His mouth returned to your clit, and you forgot decency.

You stared at his tongue, his fingers, the rough drag of his scarred chin against your thighs when he leaned in harder. The sound was obscene. Wet and hungry and so far from the careful silence you had lived in with him for years that your eyes burned. None of this seemed real after eight years of waiting for something you never thought would come. And yet here he was eating you out in the middle of the night like he had been denied something that belonged to him and was taking his time proving it.

You tried to say his name. It came out as a choked sob.

He pressed your hips down before you could squirm away, forearm across your lower stomach, then added a third finger and worked deeper. When he curled his fingers, they found the spot that made your vision go white before you could brace for it.

Your hand found his hair. His eye lifted to yours, and the sight of him between your legs, mouth wet, face flushed, scars disappearing under the weight of your thighs, shoved you over before you were ready.

You came against his tongue with a dumb little chant of his name because you couldn't help it. He did not stop—his fingers kept moving while your body pulsed around them, while your hips jerked, while you whimpered his name again and again until he finally pulled his fingers out carefully, softened his mouth around you, and kissed the inside of your thigh.

You lay there shaking.

Nanami rose slowly.

His trousers were still around his hips, open and ruined. He stripped them off with his underwear this time, no hesitation left, and the sight of him bare above you made your pussy clench again.

He saw it in the way your stomach had tightened for a split second.

A dark flush crossed his cheek. He leaned over you and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his mouth. Your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as he deepened it. “You sure?” he broke the kiss to ask.

Your hands slid to his shoulders, down the scarred side of his chest, to his waist. “Yes.”

Then you saw some realization hit him. “Kento?”

He shut his eye. “I don’t have anything.”

You frowned, still dazed under him. “Anything?”

“Protection.”

“Oh.”

There was a horrible, awkward silence.

Nanami looked down at you, naked under him, flushed, shaking, one leg hooked around his waist, and his jaw worked.

“We were not planning this,” you tried.

“No,” he answered, voice strained. “We were not.”

You bit your lip.

“Do not laugh.”

“I’m not.”

“You are about to.”

“I’m emotionally supporting your crisis.”

“This is not a crisis,” he said, already reaching for the hotel phone. “This is poor preparation.”

“Should’ve asked Gojo for a condom before fleeing.”

“I would rather chew off my own arm.” He groaned, running a frustrated hand through his hair, then added, “Besides, I didn’t know we would need one, and Satoru was in no position to hand me anything without showing me something I do not consent to see.”

You turned your face into the pillow and laughed. “Something tells me he’d be way too excited to show you. You know, with all the art he’s been giving you for years.”

Nanami’s shoulders shook with one suppressed laugh.

It faded quickly once the call started ringing.

He straightened, composure settling back over him like it had never slipped.

He held the receiver halfway to his ear and looked back at you: hair wrecked from your hands, mouth swollen, face still warm from him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you said. “Please continue.”

His eye narrowed.

Then he put the receiver to his ear.

“Good evening. Front desk. How may I assist you, Nanami-sama?”

Nanami closed his eye.

Of course it was a woman.

“This is room 1107.”

“Yes, Nanami-sama.”

“I apologize for the late hour.”

“No apology necessary. Is everything satisfactory with the room?”

“The room is fine,” he said, with as much dignity as a naked man could manage.

You pressed your face into the pillow.

“I need to request an item.”

“Of course. What kind of item would you require?”

Nanami stared at the wall. “Contraceptives.”

The pause on the other end lasted half a second too long.

You bit the pillow.

“Of course, Nanami-sama,” the receptionist said, professionally enough to be cruel. “We have standard, thin, and a small variety set. We can also include water-based lubricant.”

His shoulders went rigid.

You pushed yourself up on one elbow and nodded gravely, as if this were a meeting.

Nanami gave you a look that should have ended the relationship. It did not survive contact with your face.

“Standard,” he said. “And lubricant.”

“May I confirm the second guest is comfortable with the request?”

The room sobered.

Nanami looked at you.

You held his gaze and nodded. “I’m comfortable.”

“She is comfortable,” he repeated.

“Thank you, Nanami-sama. We’ll send those up with bottled water. Your room service order is still pending. Would you like us to hold it?”

“No. Leave it outside when it is ready.”

“Of course. Someone will be up shortly.”

He hung up and sat on the edge of the bed, bare back to you, one hand over his face.

You crawled closer and rested your forehead between his shoulder blades. His skin was hot under your cheek. “You’re very responsible.”

“I am aware.”

“It’s attractive.”

“Please stop helping.”

“She asked for consent. I respect her.”

“I also respect her, but I would prefer to respect her from a different hotel.”

You laughed softly, your breath warm against his back.

His shoulders rose with one long breath.

Then his hand found your knee and rested there, warm and firm, even while his face stayed hidden.

You turned his jaw toward you and kissed him. His mouth slotted against yours at once, and his arm moved to your waist, pulling you flush against him.

He lay back with you on top of him as you kept kissing him, your loose hair falling around his face. He bit your lip again, and you whimpered softly against his mouth.

His hands moved from your waist to your hips and squeezed, guiding you to move against him. Your pussy dragged over his hard length, and his breath caught hard, and you felt it against your lips.

You shifted again.

His hands tightened.

The knock came seven minutes later.

Nanami put on the hotel robe, tied it with the severity of a man preparing for court, switched off the lights, and opened the door only wide enough to accept the small paper bag.

The attendant bowed.

He bowed back.

“Thank you for waiting, Nanami-sama. We included bottled water.”

“That is thoughtful.”

“Please enjoy the rest of your stay.”

Nanami closed the door, locked it, and switched the lights back on.

For one second, he stood there with the paper bag in his hand, robe loose at the throat, scarred chest visible through the gap, hair falling over his brow.

The embarrassment had not cooled anything.

It had made him look more dangerous somehow, mouth set in a line that said he had suffered bureaucracy and intended to be rewarded.

He crossed the room, set the bag on the nightstand, and looked at you.

“Where were we?”

You reached for him.

That was all the answer he needed.

The robe came off first. He tore the condom packet open with careful fingers. The bed dipped under his knee, and the heat of him settled over you again.

He gave himself a few strokes before rolling it on with hands steadier than his breathing and lined himself up and paused.

You wrapped your legs around his waist. “Kento.”

He nodded and pushed in slowly.

Even after your mouth, even after his fingers, the stretch stole your voice. Your head tipped back, eyes closing. He was so thick you felt your body struggle around every inch, taking him in with slow, wet resistance until your nails dug into his shoulders.

Nanami stopped halfway. “You’re tense.”

“You’re huge,” you gasped.

His face strained. “Do not make me laugh right now.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

You laughed, breathless and wrecked, then moaned when the movement made him slip deeper.

He swore under his breath and braced one thick arm beside your head on the headboard. “Breathe.”

You did.

He gave you another inch.

Your mouth opened soundlessly.

“Again,” he said.

You breathed again, and he pushed the rest of the way in, telling you to breathe every few seconds.

For several seconds, there was only the pressure of him seated deep inside you, the weight of him above you, his forehead nearly touching yours. His hand stroked your side, grounding you the way he did everything else, while his own body trembled with the effort of staying still.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

His eye narrowed.

“Yes. Please move.”

He experimentally rolled his hips in.

Your mouth fell open around a soft moan.

He started slow at first, pulling back with a slick drag that made your toes curl, then pushing in with a depth that sent heat up your stomach. Your body clung to him every time he withdrew, wet and tight around the condom, making each inch return with a sound that put color high on his cheek. He watched your face with painful focus. The first few thrusts were careful, controlled, testing what you could take while your arousal smeared warm between your thighs and against the base of him.

Then your nails raked down his back.

His hips snapped forward.

You cried out.

He stopped at once.

You grabbed his waist. “Again.”

His eye searched yours.

You pulled him down and kissed him, rough and open-mouthed, biting his tongue, and he understood.

One large hand moved behind your head, and the next thrust shoved the bed against the wall.

You’d have hit the headboard if his palm had not cupped the crown of your head.

His hand stayed there, broad and protective, while his hips drove in harder, each thrust pushing you up the mattress and pulling a wet sound from where your bodies met. The condom was already slick with you, his skin damp where his chest pressed to yours, his scars dragging over your bouncing breasts whenever he bent low to kiss whatever part of you his mouth could reach.

He kissed whatever he could reach: your throat, your jaw, the side of your breast, the corner of your mouth when your face twisted and he needed to feel you breathe.

“Kento,” you gasped.

His hips faltered.

You said it again, broken around the stroke of him dragging out and pressing back in.

His hand came up to your face, palm calloused against your cheek, thumb brushing over your bottom lip like he needed to feel the vibrations of his name there. He was so deep your body didn't pretend it could take him calmly. Your thighs shook around his waist, slick spreading warm between you, every thrust dragging a wet sound out of your cunt before he pushed back in and stole the rest of your breath.

The headboard hit the wall faster now.

Nanami’s jaw tightened at the sound, but he did not stop. His hips snapped into yours, hard, the condom slick with you, his abdomen flexing every time your body clenched around him.

“Kento,” you gasped.

His thumb pressed down on your lip.

His hand left your lip to hold your cheek, thumb wet from your mouth when you turned and kissed it. That small thing broke the last careful rhythm in him. His next thrust hit deeper, and you clamped around him so hard he groaned against your skin.

You felt him everywhere. In your stomach, between your thighs, under your hands where his back flexed and shook. Your body kept taking him, wet and open and greedy, and every time he tried to pull back, you locked your legs around his waist and dragged him in again. His other hand slid between you, circling your clit before pinching lightly.

“Look at me,” he said, voice rough.

You did, though your legs shook.

His hair had fallen loose, his mouth parted, the scars across his chest flushed darker from heat and strain. He looked at you with so much want that your body reacted before your mind could.

The orgasm hit you hard.

Your nails dug into his shoulders, your mouth open around his name as your body pulsed around him in hot, helpless waves. He tried to hold still through it. You felt him try. Felt the strain in his arms, the tremor in his abdomen, the way his breath caught when you clenched again and soaked him through another broken cry.

Then his hips stuttered.

He said your name through his teeth, ruined by it.

He came with you, buried deep, jaw tight near your temple while his body shook above yours. The condom caught the heat of him, but you still felt the pulse of it, the way his cock throbbed inside you while your own body kept milking him through the aftershock.

For a minute, neither of you moved.

His weight settled over you, heavy and real. His mouth found your cheek, then your jaw, then the place beneath your ear where your pulse was still racing while you caught your breath through your mouth.

“You’re all right?” he asked, voice hoarse.

You nodded, dazed.

He checked still, hand smoothing down your side, over your hip, your thigh, the place where he had held you harder than before. His fingers came away slick. His gaze followed the shine on them, then returned to your face.

Something in him darkened again.

He was still hard inside you.

The realization reached both of you at the same time.

Nanami breathed out through his nose, almost a laugh, almost a groan. “I need to change this.”

You tightened around him on purpose.

His eye shut. “Cruel.”

He still managed to kiss you and pull out with a wet slide that made your thighs shake, tied off the first condom with hands that only looked steady, and reached for the paper bag on the nightstand. The second packet tore open between his fingers.

You watched him roll it on, thick and flushed and still aching for you, and your mouth went dry.

He saw your face and whatever restraint he had gathered broke. He rolled you onto your side and fit himself behind you, one arm locked around your waist, chest pressed to your back, mouth at your ear. The scars on his torso dragged against your skin each time he moved. He pushed in again with a slow, wet slide, deep from that angle, thick and making your breath break before the first full thrust was over. His hand slipped down your lower stomach.

Your thighs tried to close when his fingers found your clit, but he hooked your knee over his and kept you open for him.

“Kento—”

“I have you.” He rubbed you with the steady pressure, firm circles that made your hips jerk back against him while he fucked you slowly from behind. Your slick gathered where he kept pushing in, coating your inner thighs, making every stroke louder and messier, and the fit so wet that his breath caught against your neck.

You couldn't stay quiet with his mouth at your ear and his fingers working you open from the outside while his cock filled you from the inside, especially with his other hand pressing low on your stomach, holding you still when you started trembling too hard to keep the rhythm.

“You feel me here?” he asked, palm pressing down as he drove in deep.

You sobbed his name.

“I know.” His mouth touched your shoulder, then his teeth closed there. “Breathe. Good girl. You’re taking me so well.”

His fingers circled your clit again, slower now, firmer because he had learned how your body answered. You clenched around him so hard his hips stuttered.

“There,” he murmured, voice rough. “That’s it. Give me more.”

You could not answer. You could only push back into him, taking the steady drag of him, the pressure of his hand, the wet friction building until your whole body felt caught between his palm and his cock.

He turned you before it could break, pulled you over him, and made you sit on him until your thighs shook and you could barely lift your hips.

His hands held your waist, guiding you through it while his head tipped back against the pillows, throat exposed, scars stretched over his chest. Every time you sank down, he filled you so deep your hands flew to his shoulders. Your clit dragged against him with each uneven roll of your hips, slick smearing over his lower stomach, your body gripping him so tightly his abdomen jumped beneath your palms.

You leaned down and kissed the scars because you could not stop.

He groaned and thrust up into you so hard you dropped forward with a cry.

His hand slid between you again, fingers finding your clit through the mess both of you had made.

“Keep moving,” he exhaled against your mouth.

You tried.

He had to help you, one hand at your hip, the other rubbing you until your legs started to give out around him. Your mouth pressed to his scarred chest, open and useless, and he kept fucking up into you, kept working you with his fingers, kept watching your body fall apart on top of his like he had finally found proof he could keep.

You came almost together, and it still was not enough.

The third time, he changed the condom and put you on your back again.

Your legs ended up high, his hands under your knees, his body over yours.

He pressed your knees toward your chest and drove in deeper.

Your body took him with slick, helpless sounds, wetness spreading under you and shining on the inside of your thighs. Every thrust pushed the air out of you. Your hands searched for something to hold and found his forearms, corded and tense where he braced himself.

You never ended up using that lube after all.

He looked down at you: mouth open, breasts marked, thighs shaking, your body pulling him back every time he tried to leave.

The calm, tired man by the river was gone.

This was Kento stripped down to need, scarred, sweating, hair falling into his face, mouth open around a groan.

He shifted your legs higher until your knees hooked over his shoulders.

His hand moved to your throat.

He stopped before touching.

You saw the question in his face.

You took his wrist and placed his hand where you wanted it.

His fingers closed carefully at first, spread along the sides, thumb under your jaw. He was not careless even now.

Your body clenched around him.

“Fuck.” His focus sharpened. “Breathe for me.”

You did, barely, and his hand tightened enough to blur the room at the edges without taking you away from yourself.

His other hand braced beside your hip. Then his thumb found your clit, slow at first, testing. Your legs shook against his shoulders while his hips kept moving, harder now, rough enough that the bed frame hit the wall in a rhythm neither of you could have hidden from anyone.

You cried out his name.

His breath caught through his teeth.

You said it again, broken into pieces by his thrusts.

He stared at you under his hand, at your mouth open around his name, your chest marked by him, your body taking him, wanting him, choosing him without shame.

“I love you,” he blurted.

The words came out rough, almost angry, like they had forced their way past him.

You shattered around him.

Your orgasm hit so hard your body locked under his. His name tore out of you in repeated, useless cries, your hands gripping his wrist and shoulder while he fucked you through it, hand still steady at your throat, eye fixed on your face like he needed to see every second.

He lasted three thrusts after that.

His hand left your throat to cup your cheek, and he buried his face against your neck as he came, hips jerking deep, body shaking over yours. He said your name, softly wrecked against your skin.

Afterward, he did not move for a long time.

You did not want him to.

His weight covered you, heavy and warm, his breath damp at your neck. Your hand moved through his hair. The room smelled of sweat, sex, hotel freshener, and the faint chemical sweetness of gin you had barely touched.

Eventually, Nanami lifted himself on one arm, alarm returning in pieces. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

His gaze went to your throat.

You touched his wrist before he could retreat into regret. “No.”

His jaw tightened anyway.

You pulled him down and kissed him softly.

He let you.

Then the practical man returned in stages—condom disposed of and a glass of water pressed into your hand like a medical order.

You tried to sit up, but your hips refused.

Nanami noticed. “Don’t.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are lying poorly.”

“My legs just need to wake up, Kento.”

“Let them do it in the bath.”

He looked at you, naked in the wrecked bed with your hair ruined and your mouth swollen, and his face went red again as if he had not been the reason for most of it. “We should take a bath.”

“A washcloth won’t save us?” you teased.

“No.”

He ran the bath warm, checked it with his wrist, added the hotel bath bomb, and watched the water cloud and foam at the edges.

Then he helped you stand with an arm around your waist. Your knees wobbled. His did too, though he tried to hide it until the joint clicked once and you stared at him. “Kento.”

“It is fine.”

“You are also lying.”

He accepted that with the grim silence of a guilty man.

The two of you brushed your teeth at the sink first, shoulder to shoulder, naked and bruised and trying not to look at each other in the mirror because that made everything worse. You spat mint into the basin while he rinsed his mouth with too much seriousness.

Then he helped you into the tub.

The water rose around your thighs, warm and soapy, and you sank down with a relaxing moan you did not mean to make. Nanami stepped in after you, slower, one hand on the wall when his knee protested. You shifted forward so he could sit behind you.

He did, careful with his frame, then pulled you back against his chest.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

The soap slid between your bodies. Your fingers found his knee under the water and rubbed slow circles there until his thigh loosened. His hands settled on your hips, thumbs pressing into the sore places he had made, working them with steady pressure until your head tipped back against his shoulder.

“Too much?”

“No.”

His mouth touched your temple.

You took off his now sweaty eyepatch and set it aside, then reached to rub along his back, over the scarred side, over the places your nails had marked him. He breathed out through his nose and let his forehead rest briefly near your hair.

When the bath cooled, he carried you out into the shower to help you wash your hair, then dried you with a towel warmed over the rack. Only then did he let you rub his knee again while he sat on the ledge by the sink and pretended he was not enjoying being cared for after all this time.

After that, the two of you went back to bed, clean-skinned, sore-legged, most of the lights off, and with the kind of exhaustion that made the hotel sheets feel expensive for once.

A soft knock came from the hallway sometime after. Room service, finally.

He put on a robe and brought the food in himself: rice, grilled fish, miso soup, pickles, and more bottled water.

He made you eat a few bites, ate less himself, then set the tray aside and came back to bed.

Soon, you were curled halfway across his chest, tracing a scar near his ribs with one lazy finger. He did not flinch anymore. His arm was around you, hand resting on your back under the sheet, thumb moving slowly over your skin.

“You said you loved me,” you murmured.

His chest rose under your cheek. “Yes.”

“I love you too.”

His thumb stopped.

You tilted your face up. “That has been obvious for years, by the way.”

“I did not want to presume.”

“So you just randomly gave me a house key with my name carved into it?”

“That was after gathering evidence.”

You smiled and kissed the scarred side of his chest.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand with a message before he could tilt your chin up to kiss you properly.

Then yours buzzed.

Then his again.

Nanami reached for his phone with the grimness of a man expecting Satoru.

He looked at the screen.

His expression went dry.

“What?” you asked.

He cleared his throat. “Yaga.”

You sat up too fast and winced.

Nanami’s hand went to your hip. “Careful.”

“What is he saying?”

Nanami read it aloud, voice dead.

“Nanami. I am assuming you and she left the campsite for reasons related to Gojo and Ieiri. I do not want details. Yuji came back and passed out on Megumi’s shoulder. Again, I do not want details. Return by breakfast. Bring coffee. Strong.”

Your phone buzzed again.

You picked it up to see it was Shoko.

Shoko: if you’re alive bring painkillers and morning-after pills

You stared at the screen.

Oh.

So they hadn’t had condoms either.

Shoko: tl;dr someone stole Satoru’s stash and I’m not letting him leave until I’m hungover

Who would even.

You grimaced, put the phone away, and spared Kento the horror.

Morning had started to show through the curtains around the hotel room you had destroyed together.

Nanami lowered his hand and looked at the window. “We have been awake all night,” he mused.

You kissed his shoulder. “It was a practical decision.”

His mouth twitched. “I’m buying you a new kettle.”