Twitter Links As Yuuji Itadori

twitter links as yuuji itadori

NSFW

Pairing: Yuuji Itaodori x f!reader; Sukuna x f!reader (briefly)

Warning: All the links are porn!!

Yuuji is aged up in all my works (20+)

MDNI

link 1: Yuuji loves to have sloppy make-out sessions with you that turns out to be more than just that. His hand between your legs, lightly teasing your clit by putting pressure on it through your panties. Your panting in his mouth would turn him on even more, intertwining your tongues into an even messier kiss. Yuuji has a thing for when you both have saliva dripping down your chins… honestly at some point it’s not really a kiss just you sucking on each other’s tongue while touching up on the other.  

link 2:  Yuuji loves loves loves your ass!! So everytime he turns you around on your stomach to massage your beautiful butt with his big hands, he can’t help but spank you to see the fat jiggling. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Yuuji is a sadist, so he doesn’t do it in the intention to hurt or punish you, just for his enjoyment :)). His rough hands spreading your pussylips makes you whine and beg him to touch you. Yuuji gets lost in your ass a lot so he doesn’t keep going, leaving you frustrated and needy. At your protests the pink-haired boy puts his thumb on your slit, rubbing you through your panties. The longer he does it the bigger the wet spot becomes on your panties. Time for his meal :))

link 3:  Again, Yuuji loves to make out with you while he gropes you and rubs your pussy teasingly. If you sit on his lap, he grinds his bulge against your ass to gain some friction. 

link 4: There is nothing more this boy likes more than watching his cock getting sucked in by your needy pussy. The feeling of you squeezing his fat cock makes him moan needily. Maybe he even ends up recording it (with your consent of course) to have something to watch when you’re not there. He would rather watch your pussy being fucked senselessly instead of porn <33

link 5:  Okay, when I saw this I had to think about Yuuji fucking into you a little inexperienced, moaning and whimpering while he watches your tits bounce up and down at every thrust. You can’t blame the boy, he is just so horny and gets out of rhythm easily :((. Sukuna loves to voice that of course, watching his vessel not satisfy you as good as he could with 1000+ years experience. 

“You call this fucking, brat? You are humping her like you are in heat. Let me take over your body and show this pretty girl how a real man fucks a tight pussy.”

Yuuji chokes out an incoherent ‘shut up’ before he pulls out his cock (almost too late) to cum on your tummy but he has so much cum that it reaches your boobs, almost painting your whole torso. 

He loves it!! Your tits painted in his thick white cum is in second place after the image of his cum on your ass. 

Sukuna complains of course, about how a whore like you has to be bred with no cum wasted. You should be stuffed full to the brim, till your tummy bulges from the amount. 

link 6: When you and Yuuji go on missions to kill curses and Ijichi has important matters, leaving you both in the car; Oh boy…you both just can’t keep your hands off each other. You always end up on his lap, riding him as well as you can. Itadori loves to grab your ass to speed up the thrusts and make sure you both come as fast as possible. The fact that you are doing it in the car is so much more exciting because you could get caught any second…

Please like, reblog and follow if you like my content! <33 All interactions much appreciated. 

♡♡♡♡♡♡

the hymns of you | itadori yuuji + fem reader

Summer love is some of the sweetest, and it almost always happens by accident. Maybe that's why the relationship that blossoms between you and Yuuji is so magical; it's new, exciting, and it could be inconsequential in theory. As the end of the season dawns, though, you become convinced that theory and reality cannot be the same. Not this time, anyway.

genre: slice of life; fluff (it's just really romantic); falling in love; light hurt/lots of comfort; a teeny tiny bit of angst if you squint; reader attends uni in Japan; the story is set in an unnamed romantic place.

warnings: non-sexual nudity (skinny dipping, etc.); ambiguous relationship (eventually resolved!); she/her pronouns are used to refer to the reader; all characters are 21+ and in university contextually

words: 10.9k

content notes: this fic is more.. episodic and less linear than some other fics i've written, so keep that in mind. section-break lines (indented, bolded, + italicized) are quoted from Walt Whitman's poem "To You."

other notes: written as a part of @/katsupeach's a long, long fic collab, and, while i know emme's not on anymore, i'm thankful to her for hosting the collab and inspiring me, not only in the case of this fic, but in all of my work <3 thank you, too, to my wonderful beta readers, @yuki-no-akumu and @fairyfuyu! + tagging @anime-central and @hanayanetwork <3

WHOEVER YOU ARE

The first few steps off of a plane are always surreal, especially when your flight was ten hours. You regain your legs, your eyes, but not your mind just yet. When the sun touches your skin—or more accurately, your eyes—it’s with a stinging sort of freshness, the only of its kind in the stale airport. Once you’re out, though, it’s a different story.

It’s pleasantly warm and sunny, and luckily, the breeze is cool when it comes. When your cousin had asked you to house-sit for them at this time of year, you’d been hesitant. Sure, the scenery is beautiful, the local food is delicious, and you could rarely afford to travel, but you thought it would be deathly hot. You thought the air would be dense with humidity, unbearable. The air is sweet as you get into your cab, though. It’s sweeter as you pull up to your cousin’s neighborhood, and even sweeter still when you step out into the afternoon light to survey the town.

It’s small, albeit somewhat crowded. The buildings are old and brown, craning up into the sky at such angles that can only come with years of carrying the lives of so many, both breathing and long gone. Brick streets cobble along unevenly, and their once sturdy tops have been worn flat and smooth. The breeze moves more sluggishly the farther you venture, and on it ride the tightly mingled scents and words wafting between storefronts and clumps of friends and lovers alike.

Your cousin’s apartment overlooks the commercial district; it’s on one of the upper floors of a building just a block past the street’s last café. Behind it, however, are a mere few more blocks of housing, and then a wall of plush grasses and trees, untouched by anything beyond the barest effort to keep it behind the line of the road. Wheeling your luggage, your body feels odd: you’re eager to explore, but you’re exhausted. The only serious thoughts in your head are of a shower followed by collapsing into bed. The rest can wait.

I FEAR YOU ARE WALKING THE WALKS OF DREAMS

There’s something pure about the morning sunlight. Waking up naturally, unprompted by any alarm, you return to the world to find the delicate colorless glow, only scarcely interrupted by nearly imperceptible flecks of dust, floating through the room. Once the haze of sleep dissipates, you hum at the faint smell of…coffee? You shuffle to the window—still open from the previous evening—ah, right, coffee.

The café is visible from your bedroom window. It’s already open. A few people are sitting in the spots of shade on the patio, and you can see even more people milling about inside. The sight (and smell, of course) are reason enough for you to hurry up, get dressed, and head outside.

As you approach, the smell of coffee becomes accompanied by sweet butter and bread and brown sugar. The inside of the café is much larger than you expected, and you relax, grateful to claim a little table by the back window. You pick out a few pastries for yourself, order a coffee, and take your seat. You’re quiet, soaking in your surroundings, letting their noise and color tinge your edges. Letting them bleed into you and steal you away from any version of yourself that could have existed before this moment.

The tables around you, much to your ignorance, fill up quickly, and soon, someone is coming up behind you, tapping your shoulder.

“Sorry to bother you, but would you mind if I shared your table for a sec?”

It is unusual to be so acutely aware of the course of your life changing, but when you think back on this moment, there’s nothing else you can think to label this feeling as. Looking up, you meet a gaze so light and warm that you have to break eye contact.

“Yeah, sure,” you say finally. “I didn’t realize it was so crowded.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” He smiles at you, and it makes your stomach flip. “I really shouldn’t have assumed you would understand me…I don’t know why I did, but I’m relieved. I’m Yuuji, by the way. I feel like you should know since we’re on a pseudo coffee date now.” The remark makes you chuckle, then he adds: “Sorry, I guess that was kinda forward, huh?”

“It’s fine. Nice to meet you,” you say, and then you give him your name. “Are you a student?”

“What gave me away?”

“Your book bag. Plus, you have that lost puppy look in your eyes.”

“Aw, really? I thought I finally got rid of that! I swear I know my way around.”

At that, you let out another laugh, and his smile widens. “Maybe I’m just projecting because I definitely do not.”

“No? How long’ve you been in town?”

“One singular night.”

“Oh, for real?” His eyes get big and round. “I don’t mean to presume, but if you need someone to show you around…”

There it is again: that perfect smile. It curves up into his whole face, lifting it and crinkling the delicate skin near his eyes. You let yourself be dazzled by it briefly, then make yourself look away again, chuckling.

“I do,” you say. Then, not allowing the space to second-guess yourself, you ask boldly: “You offering?”

“If you’re free after I finish my work, then yeah. I just have a few notes to revise.” He, after digging in his bag for a moment, presents a wrinkled notebook and a bag holding ten of the same black pen.

Taking a mouthful of coffee, you hum affirmatively. Then, you take a map of the area out of your bag, and, picking apart your pastry, look it over. The neighborhood and business district span for quite a while before fading off into the local orchards—not quite commercial but not small enough to just be a few trees in a field, either. In the opposite direction, there are plush fields until the cliffs, then a rocky beach cradling the lake.

The bustle in the café doesn’t falter, seeming only to pick up with the ever-rising sun of midmorning. It comes in pockets: rushes of crinkling wax paper and cordialities. You observe Yuuji when these pockets seem to swell—the voices in the air seeming to say one quick look won’t hurt.

You’d already noticed, of course, that Yuuji’s pretty. He’s not pretty in the way that flowers or fabric or even other boys are. He’s pretty like a tree at the edge of the season: sturdy, fresh growth mingling with vibrant older leaves. Strangely, though, where you might expect to find a hardened exterior, the bark is still soft, almost as if the weather hasn’t been harsh enough to rid it of its youthful pliability.

His eyes, though, felt different. Clear and warm, they seem almost to overflow at their edges. It may be because of where you’re sitting, because of the way the sun slips through his irises in tiny, yellow slits. Ordinarily, you might feel embarrassed when those eyes meet yours after you’d been staring for so long, but they’re so kind—unjudging and almost comforting—that you can’t find it in yourself to do anything but smile.

Yuuji smiles back, then glances at his phone. “Oh, a couple of my friends are on their way here. Would you be opposed to more company?”

“Not especially,” you say.

“You sure? I’m already all up in your business.” He chuckles.

“I’m sure.”

In nearly any other situation, you’d feel more nervous. Even barring how kind and friendly Yuuji is on his own, there’s something about being so far from home that distills your inhibitions. Those things that might be too scary or spontaneous at home are as foreign as the rest of your surroundings; no one thing is more or less familiar.

It’s only a few minutes before a couple more people come into the café, and, even before Yuuji waves them over, you’d known they were his friends. Bickering, one is tall, dark-haired, and outwardly frustrated while the other is smaller, her nose wrinkling at something.

“Megumi, Nobara,” Yuuji says as they approach. Quickly, though, he turns to you again. “Ah, I really should have warned you beforehand, but those two can be a little—”

“I’m fairly sure I can make my own first impression,” the tall one interjects. His voice is cold in the same way a frozen lake is cold: a hard, snowy exterior with something slightly warmer still lapping underneath. “Megumi.”

“Jeez, how’d this guy trick you into sitting with him?” the other one—Nobara, evidently—asks, eyes wide with genuine concern.

“Nobara!” Yuuji whines, tossing his head to the side. The dramatic pout he puts on nearly makes you giggle.

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question!”

Megumi wordlessly turns away from the three of you and heads to the counter, returning with an uncovered paper cup of black coffee.

“So, you said you’d be done studying by this time,” Megumi says, interrupting the other two.

“Huh?” Yuuji looks up at Megumi. “Oh, yeah! I am. But, slight change of plans. I made a friend—”

“—tricked someone—”

“—and she just arrived here, so she asked me to show her around. So like…you guys wanna come or like..?”

“Yuuji, if you already have plans, then we can do it another time,” you say. “I’m here all summer.”

“You are? Well, all the more reason to do it today!”

“How do you figure?” Megumi asks, checking the clock on the wall.

“I can’t let her go any longer not knowing her way around, can I? Plus, it’s not like I’ll fall behind.”

You never would have pegged him as being stubborn, but you’d come to learn quickly that trying to argue with Yuuji is nearly always futile. Upon further inspection, you’d see those tell-tale signs of his intentional leading: the twitch of his eyebrow into a partial furrow inviting you to challenge him; the slight upturn of his mouth at the recognition that you won’t. These would be followed, inevitably, by an innocent grin, like he didn’t know what had just passed through the air between you.

The four of you leave the café together: you and Yuuji in the front; Nobara and Megumi following closely behind.

Yuuji, it turns out, is a very bad tour guide. He’s wonderful at presenting the places, but he really doesn’t know where to take you, and it shows. So, Nobara ends up taking the lead, which certainly lends to a…different experience.

That’s how you ended up shoulder-to-shoulder with Yuuji, nudging his elbow with yours as he rattled off the best treats at that café and how kind the owners of that shop were. He would do this until he caught a glare from Nobara, then, after briefly trailing off, it would start again with a little chuckle in your ear.

“Guess I gotta tell it like it’s a secret, huh?” he says this time.

You giggle. It tickles, and he smells good when he comes so close, and you want him to stay that close because it makes your heart feel fluttery. You want him to keep his hand on the small of your back like when he guides you.

By the time the sun begins to set, Yuuji—Nobara—has shown you the whole neighborhood. It might have been a much faster trip if the four of you—Yuuji—didn’t insist on going inside of every single business, dipping into every neighborhood. At some point, just as you’re returning to the main square, Megumi and Nobara take their leave because they “actually really do have assignments.”

“Do you have anyone to eat dinner with tonight?” Yuuji asks you, wrapping his hands around the straps of his book bag.

“I was planning to eat alone,” you answer. “I don’t really mind much. You don’t have to eat with me if that’s what you mean. I’ve taken up way too much of your time already today.”

Though it doesn’t quite feel that way, does it? It doesn’t feel like you’ve had him for quite long enough yet. It’s nice to have a face that has become familiar, nice to have just someone.

“I don’t want to impose on your alone time,” he says, and, internally, you sigh. “But, um, you gotta let me show you some of the places around here. I can’t eat out like, super often, or anything, but some of the folks are cool and give discounts sometimes.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, and sweet talking the old ladies doesn’t hurt either.”

That earned him a playful swat on the arm, and, once your laughter died down, he bid you goodnight, promising—for the second time—to take you to dinner soon.

WHOEVER YOU ARE

You truly intend to spend much more time alone on this trip. You leave in the mornings, get a coffee, then wander around in an attempt to find something you hadn’t seen yesterday. These little walks brought you to meet a myriad of interesting people: old women eager to talk about their gardens; young children with their mothers, excited to ask you about where you’re from; shopkeepers and baristas who persuade you to try their new creations each and every time with ease.

What you hadn’t intended, however, was to run into Yuuji in almost all of these places. These meetings started off short; you’d exchange little oh!s and are you busy?s, but these eventually turned into linked elbows and whispers of walk with me.

Today, in particular, Yuuji finds you in a homeware shop some few miles outside of town. It’s quiet, and sweet notes of acoustic strumming play through the tinny little speaker near the cash register. The business is family-run, you learn—though you might’ve assumed as much, seeing as the chain restaurants and stores in this area are few and far between.

Each dish is different from the last.

“Need some dishes?” a voice asks, startlingly close to your ear. It laughs when you jerk away in surprise.

“Ah! Yuuji,” you whine, swatting his shoulder. “You couldn’t have said hello from a normal distance?”

“Oh, come on, that’s no fun.” He chuckles. “Now, are you getting dishes or not?”

“Probably not. I just like looking. Might get some for my friend, though. She asked me to bring her something back from here.”

“Mm.”

“Why? Are you getting dishes?” You pause, resisting the urge to inspect what you know is a mischievous grin. “What are you even doing here?”

“Just passing through. We went to the churches north of here for class today,” he said.

“Mm…for…? What do you study?”

“Film. I’m on this kinda hybrid directing-cinematography thing right now. I have to pick one or the other at the beginning of next year, but for now, I’m doing both.” He leaned on the display case and promptly stood up again under the scrutiny of the girl at the register. “Damn, she’s kinda scary…anyway, what do you study? Or, I mean, are you in school?”

“Yeah, I am. Not while I’m here—I’m on break, thank goodness. I’m kind of at this, like, point where I’m changing what I want to do again, but like, it’s fine.” You sigh. “This is all to say that yes, I’m in school.”

“But the studying itself is a complicated question?”

“Sure is.”

“Gotcha…” Yuuji leans back to look at the girl at the register, then he glances over his shoulder at the street through the window. It’s starting to crowd with folks who just got off work, and the lights of the night market flicker on. “You busy right now?”

“I’m shopping for dishes, actually.”

“Yeah, but after.”

When you look at him, he’s already watching you, and it makes your breath catch in your throat. Suddenly, you can’t remember if you’d been meaning to do anything in particular after this beyond just heading back to your place.

“I’m not busy,” you murmur. It almost sounds like you say it to yourself, but Yuuji either doesn’t notice or is too nice to say anything.

He shifts closer to you, putting his grinning face squarely in front of yours. “Can I take you to dinner then?”

The version of the town you see alone scarcely measures up to the one you experience with Yuuji. While still rich and vibrant, the world seems to open up for him like a flower. Maybe it’s the way he speaks to people with such ease. Maybe it’s the easy slant of his body against every food cart, eyes always glowing with indiscriminate curiosity. Maybe it’s his alarming awareness—his vigilant observation of his surroundings and subsequent reports back to you of did you see that sign? and oh, wow, that’s a nice song! can you hear it? And he leads you straight to the source: an older man singing and plucking beautifully at his guitar.

The man is leaning against a lamppost. His voice is heavy on the breeze: heavy the way your foot is when it sinks to the bottom of a puddle. Swaddled, engulfed, but dense and present and alive.

You glance at Yuuji, and he’s enamored. Humming and swaying: he shuffles about on the brick street, letting his shoes scrape along their surfaces. The light from the storefronts and windows and streetlamps pours over him in thick streaks of amber. It coats him. He glows.

Then, he’s turning to face you. He’s doing it in playful little swings, drawing his arms up to your forearms. To the gentle, bodied strumming of the guitar, he leads you toward the center of the street, and you follow a clumsy few steps before recollecting yourself.

“Yuuji, the restaurant—”

“It’ll be open in five minutes. That place is open basically twenty-four hours, come on.” He smiles, endearing. “Just one dance.”

He pulls you by the wrist, leading you back to the corner. He takes you easily out of the stream of people and into the empty road. The sound of the guitar—the gentle melodic plucks rising high, the near-sleepy underlying strum—weaves through the air, as light and buttery as the scent of the nearby bakery.

Yuuji holds you to him. You’re not flush against one another, though, not at first. He sighs contentedly, though, when you step in closer, arms draping around his broad shoulders, and holds you gently closer, too.

“See, isn’t this fun?” he teases.

You giggle and sway and nod lazily. His cheek is velvety soft and plush against yours, and it stiffens a little, molding with what you know instinctively is a precious grin.

“Mm,” you hum in his ear. “You’re good at this.”

“At what? Dancing? Oh, I know.”

“No, I meant having fun.”

He adjusts his arms around your waist. “Ah, I see.” There’s a hint of playfulness in his voice. “It makes me happy that you have fun with me.” That sentence, however, is completely earnest—it’s so clear that it makes your heart leap, and you have to shift away to look at his face. “What?”

He’s making that face again. It’s his genuine inquiry face: the one where his eyebrows lift and widen his pretty amber eyes even further, that puffs out his lower lip, turns his mouth down at the corners to make him pout—as if he doesn’t already have you at his whim.

“Nothing,” you say. Why do you say that? Why don’t you tell him that his words made your cheeks burn? “I just wanted to look at you.”

That makes him blush, and he laughs nervously. “Ah…come on,” he says and pulls away until he’s just far enough to take your hand. “We should head to dinner, huh?”

The bistro is dim and small and full of laughter. The tables are spread haphazardly about the room—turned and shoved and finagled nearer and nearer to one another as groups of friends combine and spread. You take note of the walls especially. They’re exposed brick and littered with photos and paintings and posters. It’s comfortable. The warm light from the random lamps and candles and sconces is diffused such that the room feels absolutely frozen in time: devoid of any movement forward or back.

Yuuji says something, but you don’t quite hear him over the hum of conversation and clinking of dishes. He rubs the back of his head…wait, is he apologizing?

Coming closer, you say into his ear: “It’s so special, this place. I like it a lot.”

You’ve been on enough dates to know that this night, this dinner, with Yuuji is certainly one. The way he guides you by the small of your back—just as he had the first day you’d met—in tandem with the not-so-subtle swipes he makes toward your hands, inviting and reinviting you to offer it to him: wanting, careful.

He hops up from your table to run to the bathroom, and when the server comes, rather than asking him to come back, you chance an order for Yuuji, feeling oddly confident in your selection. That feeling—the one blooming in your chest—is one you haven’t felt in a long time. Excitement with a swirling core of comfort at its center: it’s a fluttering that’s warm and cool simultaneously.

You swallow, and the feeling is dampened by something heavier. Unable to keep yourself from looking forward, you see the dark edge of your time with Yuuji, and, though it’s far off, it blankets your thoughts in a subtle layer of dread. How to peel this layer away, you wonder, and how to savor time through the lens of premature missing without it.

In other words, can you let this feeling, the fluttering, flourish? Can you let it take root—let it live, nourish and cherish it—when it scarcely has time to blossom?

“You’re looking pensive.” Yuuji’s voice jars you from your thoughts. “What did I miss?”

“Hm?” You move your hand away from your mouth—had you been biting your nail?—and meet his eyes. “Oh, the server came.” Taking a moment to lay your hands on the table, you pause, then say, “I ordered for you.”

At this, his face lights up. “Really?”

Warmth pricks at the nape of your neck. “Yeah…I hope that’s okay.”

“No, no, yeah, it’s totally cool. I’m excited actually to, uh, see what you picked.”

The heaviness is gone when you look at him.

As you continue talking, your hands drift closer to the center of the table. You pick at the wicker of the bread basket and the tablecloth until something more solid grazes you. Following the sensation with your eyes, you stiffen at the visual. Yuuji’s fingertips lay gingerly over your first knuckles, and he uses his index finger to lead the touch further across your hand. When you inspect his expression, he appears focused, and, when he meets your gaze, a bashful smile tugs at his lips.

“Ah, sorry,” he says and moves to retract his hand, but he’s not fast enough.

You hastily grab his fingers. “No! I mean”—you close your eyes briefly in frustration—“I don’t mind.”

You’re thankful for the lift in tension when the server comes with your food. What you’re not so thankful for, though, is how mystified Yuuji looks now. He eyes his food briefly, then looks at you.

“Have I talked to you about eating here before?”

“Um…I mean, you mentioned that you come here a lot..?”

“No, like, about the food.”

“No?”

Yuuji nods firmly, blinks, then says, “This is what I usually order.”

You ask him if he’s joking, and, laughingly, assures you that he’s not. For the rest of the night after that, as you eat and chat and head back home, that fluttering never subsides. Rather, it grows to a burn: a little fire in your tummy.

He takes your hand. He kisses you goodnight. You watch him head home from your window. He looks back at you over his shoulder. You already want him to come back.

NOW I PLACE MY HAND UPON YOU, THAT YOU BE MY POEM

Each morning in this place reveals that they never get old. You wake up a bit earlier than you had yesterday and—while tempted by the white-gold light trickling between the wispy clouds, the dense fragrant waft from the café, and the clusters of words and laughs that float upon the warm breeze—you ultimately decide to stay in and plan.

When you’d found out you’d be coming here, you’d made a list of a few things you wanted to do. The top among these included exploring the local town alone—an activity you’d been psyching yourself up for over the past few months—and finding a way to catalog some of the memories.

The most obvious way to do this would, theoretically, be taking pictures, but you’ve never really been one for taking pictures of yourself, much less asking random strangers to take them for you, so this was all but out of the question. A friend suggested bringing a Polaroid camera, which you considered, but the ideal ultimately gave way to your final decision: from today onward, you will record five seconds of video and compile them together at the end of the summer.

You find such compilations exceedingly sweet: they flutter through the moments that you decided ultimately to capture, they prick at your waterline and burn in the back of your throat with longing and wistfulness and thank goodness—there’s proof this happened. You hope yours turns out like that, too. You hope there will be such lovely things worth remembering.

The app you downloaded for it on your phone seems easy enough to use: hit record, select project, repeat. It compiles them for you (which you’re thankful for since video editing is hard enough on the computer let alone on your phone), so all you have to do is find the moments. Find them and remember to save them.

In your notebook, you put to paper the list you’d been constructing in your mind. This only lasts a few items, though, because after a brief moment you find yourself staring wistfully out the window, chewing the end of your pen absentmindedly.

On the street just outside your building, you see a group of university students, and the flash of pink among their ranks makes your heart leap. You tell yourself that he seems busy, that you shouldn’t text him—you are perfectly content spending some time on your own.

You are. That’s why you gather your things and head down to the bakery across the street—not the café. That’s why you make yourself look away each time your eyes raise to that picture window, clear as day, to watch his silhouette. That’s why you shake yourself and busy your hands with scribbling or picking at your scone, each time your heart aches.

Love has been equated to countless sensations, given endless names, drawn over the most extensive of similes and metaphors. For you, though, it’s quite simple: love is in the wanting. It is in the natural gravity of bodies toward each other. It is in the conscious decision to be closer. It is in the subconscious shifting, the unconscious mirroring. Love is choosing, again and again, to act when natural forces could guide you just as easily.

It’s calling someone up because you want to hear their voice again. It’s taking someone’s hand when brushing knuckles had been enough only moments before. It’s seeing someone through a window and hearing their voice in your head, their laugh.

You return your attention to your notebook, and, forgetting what the rest of your sentence was meant to be, you close it. Yuuji is leaving the café across the street. He sees you. Breaking from his friends, he jogs across the street and beams when he gets to your table.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says. His voice is sweet. “I was hoping I would see you today.”

“Well, here I am.” You internally curse yourself. Well, here I am? Are you kidding?

Thankfully, though, Yuuji chuckles, then hums. “Here you are.”

I WHISPER WITH MY LIPS CLOSE TO YOUR EAR

You haven’t gone out yet today. You haven’t gone out yet, and you’re wondering if—at this point—you’re even going to bother.

The days have been long. They’ve been full of excessive internal translation, missed phone calls from home, and miscounting change so many times in a row that you briefly consider opening a local bank account just so you can avoid using cash forever. All of this, and you haven’t been able to hang out with the only person you know in this town for nearly a week. He’s a student, after all, who’s here to study.

The two of you stare at each other dumbly for a moment. Yuuji looks remarkably like he’s just turned up here on accident: his eyes are wide, eyebrows raised and alert. It forces a laugh through your nose, and the sound appears to bring him back to Earth.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he says. “You know, I wasn’t totally sure this was where you lived”—he glanced up at the ceiling briefly—“but I’m glad I followed my gut.”

“What’re you doing here?”

He rubs the back of his head. “Ah, well, I haven’t seen ya in a couple days, and I wanted to see if maybe you were free to do something.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess you don’t have my number…” you say, already stepping aside to let him in. “Not sure I’m gonna give it to you now since the default is apparently you showing up on my doorstep.”

“You into that?”

“Oh, I definitely am. It was very cute,” you tease.

You attempt to make quick work of showing him around, but Yuuji is easily distracted. He lingers in doorways, at the edges of counters and tables, hands itching to pass through your little piles of paper and memorabilia. He asks what’s yours, what’s not. What you brought from home.

Eventually, the tour ends in the kitchen, where your lunch remains half-made on the counter.

“What’re you makin’?” he asks, stopping you with a hand on the wrist.

“Oh, I was just making…whatever I had around,” you say, chuckling. “I didn’t really have a plan.”

He pushes his lips out a little, bobs his head, and turns to the counter. “You want me to cook for you?”

So, you agree to let Yuuji cook for you. Unsure of what to expect, you hover behind him as he collects more ingredients, rifles through your pantry for dishes, and clears a prep space for himself. Much to your surprise, he seems perfectly comfortable in the kitchen, though, and not in the reckless sort of way—in the way that only comes from hours of experience—and his demeanor brings a fluttering feeling to the base of your throat, a hum to your heart.

You come to stand behind him at the counter, watching over his shoulder as he measures oil.

“You cook a lot usually?” you ask gently in his ear. You don’t want to break his concentration, but that desire is not stronger than the one to hear his voice.

“Oh, yeah…a lot…actually…” Yuuji spoke slowly, not taking his attention away from the measuring spoon. He dumps the liquid into the bowl. “I remember when I first started cooking for Megumi—man, that dude has the funniest reactions to shit, I’m telling you.” He chuckles, then looks over at you finally before continuing, “Yeah, when I first cooked for him, he was all like, ‘Itadori. You’re gonna burn the kitchen down,’ and like, obviously I didn’t.” He smiles brightly to himself at the memory. “He makes me cook for him all the time now.”

“I have high expectations for this, then,” you say, voice thick with fondness despite its soft, airy tone.

Now that he’s finished with his task, you take the opportunity to drape your arms around his waist. Flush against his back, you can feel the subtle ways his firm back draws and flexes with each movement, each tiny adjustment, until his body is perfectly settled where he needs it.

Yuuji giggles and shakes his head. He feels around for another measuring spoon. “Well, don’t put ‘em too high. Can’t be disappointing you.”

I SHOULD HAVE MADE MY WAY STRAIGHT TO YOU LONG AGO

“Are you busy tomorrow?” Yuuji asks, staring at you.

Curled up on the bed beside you, he’s been watching you fold clothes for the better part of the last half hour.

You glance over at him, then chuckle. He looks so earnest—like he’s expecting you to possibly have anything to do beyond whatever he’s about to suggest.

“No, Yuuji, I’m not busy tomorrow.”

“Okay, great,”—he scrambles to sit up, scooting closer to you—“because I want to take you somewhere special.”

Giggling, you set the last towel in the basket. “Oh yeah?”

When you turn your head, you find him much closer than you’d expected, but you don’t startle, and neither does he. He laughs a bit through his nose, and you watch as his gaze raises slowly from your mouth to your eyes.

“Hey,” he says, voice low.

“Hey,” you say back.

“Um, I think you’re really gonna like what we do tomorrow. It’s in this place we all got to go at the start of our program, when we all like, uh, arrived,” he whispers, edging closer to you as he does. By the time he speaks again, the tip of his nose is brushing yours. “And uh, it was funny because…we uh…aren’t…”

“You’re still talking.”

“Sorry.”

There’s silence for a moment, and it sits in the air between your mouths, hanging—suspended in sap, crystalizing. Mindlessly, you wet your lower lip with your tongue, and you swear you can taste the sugar in the air. You two spend a few moments like that: breathing slowly into each other, acutely watching for those little shifts, the little nudges forward, teases toward closing the gap.

Yuuji becomes impatient first. He giggles. It’s an incredulous, airy sound—like he can’t believe you still haven’t kissed yet. And he really can’t; he says as much under his breath before laying his hand, warm and smooth, at the base of your head and finally comes closer.

It’s a slow beginning. His mouth hovers just before yours for a split second, and his lips drag up onto yours. They’re dry and soft, and he somehow applies the perfect pressure; you might think he’d somehow practiced, rehearsed, for this moment, but the giddy chuckle that comes out of him when you remember to kiss him back ruins the sensation so beautifully that you know he’s thinking about as much as you are right now—which is not at all.

Even as Yuuji lifts you into his lap, even as his arms snake around your waist, even as you giggle and sigh against his mouth, neither of you pushes any further. You swirl your fingers delicately in his hair, carefully combing the soft strands, and he holds you firmly, drawing half-minded designs between your shoulder blades. Just this, you think. Just this closeness is enough for now.

You don’t know why you’re surprised to find Yuuji alone when you meet him at the edge of town the next morning, but you are. He’d never said explicitly that this would be just the two of you, but nearly all of your activities thus far had at least started with the façade of being in a group. You’d all four meet someplace, then one way or another, you and Yuuji would inevitably split off—leading by entire city blocks or falling so far behind that you’d lose sight of Megumi and Nobara altogether. Not that you minded, really.

“Hey,” he says warmly, that usual smile tingeing his features at the sight of you.

And it really is at the mere sight of you, too, because even before you’d been within earshot, you’d caught him watching you absently, expression unabashedly dreamy.

“Good morning.” You shade your eyes from the sun beaming from just above his head. “How’d you beat me here?”

“Got excited,” he admits.

This, too, is unabashed—accompanied by his hands grazing your forearms, testing the boundary, waiting to see if you pull away. He hums contentedly when you make the move to take his hands.

“You didn’t eat yet, right?” He cocks an eyebrow at you.

“You said not to, so here I am, hungry and caffeine-free.”

“Not for long,” he promises, folding his fingers between yours. He watches your hands briefly, then continues, “I’ll get ya fed as soon as I can.”

Then, he’s leading you even farther from down and, eventually down a dirt path into what appears to be the forest.

“Yuuji, where exactly are we going?”

“I know it looks super sketchy right now, but I swear it’s not. You’re gonna love it.”

You do notice as he leads you that the greenery lining the road is tended to. The branches are cleanly kept just the right distance from the ground so that there’s a large, arch-like clearance. The grasses and bushes are full and long but trimmed, and, as you approach the bend of the hill, a subtle stone gateway comes into view. There’s no sign, but you can see the rows and rows of trees—all speckled with red fruit.

“Oh my gosh,” you say. “There’s an orchard this close?”

He beams at your excitement. “Right? And they let local people pay to pick some for themselves. Which,”—he tucks you under his arm, mouth coming just next to your ear—“is exactly why we’re here.” He nudges your temple with his nose. “You like?”

“I like.” You confirm your answer by turning and pressing a chaste peck to his mouth.

It’s the first kiss you’ve shared since the previous night, and a cool wash of relief comes over you both.

“Thank fuck, I’ve been wanting to kiss you all morning, but I wasn’t sure—”

“Me either.” You laugh. “’S okay, though. Next time you wanna kiss me…please do.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, and, when he does, you can hear the grin in his voice.

He takes your chin between his forefinger and thumb and kisses you again, with more substance. With more warmth and more sweetness, with your smiles breaking your lips apart and inviting the summer air between you.

The orchard is beautiful, and, while you do pick quite a lot of fruit, most of it is spent on your tongue before you even leave the dark underbelly of the canopy. Yuuji, with every few fruits, comes behind you and dangles a cherry or two right in front of your mouth.

“Ah,” he prompts, holding his mouth open like he wants you to.

“Aren’t you gonna eat any of them? I’ve had plenty.”

“Well, you know, I would, but interestingly, no one has fed me any.”

You laugh and take the fruit from him, raise your eyebrows, and turn to hold it in front of his mouth.

“You mean like this?”

“Uh-huh,” he says, holding your gaze as he takes it into his mouth.

Squealing, you tug your fingers away. You turn and sort through your collected cherries. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me the cherry stem question yet.”

“Cherry stem question?”

“Oh, you know, ‘can you tie a cherry stem with your tongue?’”

“Oh…can you?”

You snort. “Can you?”

“I’ve never tried…” Yuuji admits. Then, he’s behind you again, arms around your midsection. “You want me to?”

“Listen, I don’t care one way or the other.”

Yuuji snorts, nudging against your temple. “Why’d you bring it up then, huh?”

You hum and lay your head back on his shoulder. “Anyway, I think I’m done picking. My basket’s full.”

He chuckles in your ear, and, once your things are all wrapped and prepared, the two of you head out of the orchard. The sun is inching away from the center of the sky.

Yuuji’s arm comes to drape around your waist, his hand falling against the swell of your hip.

“Hungry?” he asks. “I’ve still barely fed you.”

You move your bag to your other arm, and he takes the opportunity to press in closer to your side.

“I am hungry,” you answer. “Cherries aren’t especially filling.”

“Oh, you don’t have to convince me. I think my stomach is going to digest itself.”

Yuuji seems like he wants to say more, but something distracts him. He eyes you for a moment then ducks down to kiss you. It’s sweet and brief, a gust over your unsuspecting mouth. He tastes like cherry juice and sunscreen. He accidentally breaks from you by smiling too widely—of course, he does—and you chuckle.

“Sorry,” he says, letting his thumb drift lazily over your cheek. “Got excited.”

I WILL LEAVE ALL AND COME AND MAKE THE HYMNS OF YOU

You’ve never been sure how to feel about bucket lists. On one hand, it could make sense for people to set goals about life experiences—this life is a finite resource. On the other, though, it, as you put it to Yuuji and Nobara one night after a glass of wine, “is a little grim, huh? Measuring the like…relative distance we still have to cover before we die.”

They, of course, took the wine away after that, but Nobara egged you on further.

“I’ve got to find out what sorts of things our precious little visitor has on her bucket list.”

“I don’t have a bucket list.”

“I do,” Yuuji interjected. Then, ignoring Nobara when she insisted that nobody asked, he continued, “It has a lot of things on it, and like, I’ve done a lot of ‘em, so I keep coming up with more.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm, and it used to be just like, the basic stuff. You know, um, like, ‘study for my dream job,’ ‘live abroad,’” he said, gesturing to the room with a grin. “‘Skinny dipping. I don’t know, that sort of stuff.”

“Skinny dipping?” you repeated. “I’ve never done that.”

“No? Do you want to?”

That’s more or less how you ended up following Yuuji away from Megumi’s apartment and through the street. The lack of humidity is striking, and the breeze slips along the crook of your bare neck, and it feels almost cold on your damp skin.

“Yuuji, this isn’t allowed, is it?” you ask.

The grass whisks away the bricks underfoot, and the ground feels softer—almost pliable. Like it could swallow you. Maybe that’s the wine, though, or maybe it’s how intensely you can feel Yuuji’s hand in yours. You are scarcely able to notice the world beyond the pull of his calloused fingertips over your knuckles. He’s facing away from you, leading you in perfectly blissful ignorance of your surroundings to the edge of the water.

Then, he’s looking at you, and you know you’re in too deep. It’s there for a moment before he begins undressing, but you catch it: Yuuji looks at you like he’s cradling your face in his hands, like you consume his field of vision. Like you’re the world.

The sun has been down for over an hour, and, while the air is almost cool, the water is warm. You push out of your shoes and bottoms, then strip your top off, dropping it into a pile on the sand. The birdsongs dwindle in the few trees behind the beach. The water calmly laps at the shore.

Yuuji, of course, is in the water first. He wails dramatically at the slight chill, and you laugh, following after him with an ease that should surprise you but doesn’t. You let yourself live, then, in what you will come to call the delusion of Itadori Yuuji.

It isn’t that he is delusional but that he imparts it on you, makes you wistful, and lets you believe that you are special among all things. You’re sure—or rather you convince yourself—ultimately, that he must make everyone feel that way. He’s among a rank of people that illuminates the world with their endearing glances and effortless accommodation to the tiny shifts in your body language. Even among those, Yuuji’s attention is the sweetest, the purest, the most genuine, and lacking in any motivation beyond making you happy—Yuuji is special among those who seem special, too.

After tonight, you tell yourself that you will take care not to let this feeling fester too heavily. This is just fun, right? That’s what it must be with a stranger in a new place.

With someone you’ll never see again.

The water brings you back down to Earth from wherever you’d been floating. It’s fresh and cool, and it moves around you in weak sinks and swells.

“Yuuji,” you call, reaching in his direction.

He comes to you. His hand is warm when it circles your wrist: familiar.

“Having fun yet?” he asks.

“Cold.” Your pout is apparent when you reply, and he laughs.

“Well, you are naked and wet in the dark. Not exactly a cozy combo.”

You groan and continue forward until the water comes up to cover your chest. Then, you let out a little scream. Yuuji comes up behind you, slipping his arms around your waist and clutching you against his firm chest. He laughs in your ear when you throw your arms above your head and cheer—congratulating yourself on having done it.

“Yuuji,” you say, laying your head back against his shoulder. “Yuuji, I love being with you so much.”

The stars are beautiful, only partially obscured by the shadow of his hair. His grip around you tightens.

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm,” you confirm. As if to punctuate this further, you release a deep breath in a contented sigh through your nose. “Wanna be with you all the time.”

When his lips touch your hairline, they’re smiling. He leans down to give a long kiss to the corner of your eye and another to your temple. His mouth comes close to your ear, and he murmurs: “I’ll stay with you, okay?”

“Forever?”

If in this moment you hadn’t still been intoxicated and sleepy, you, firstly, never would have asked him that, but, more so, you wouldn’t have had to learn through recollection that just here, Yuuji is sad.

It’s apparent in the weight of his sigh when it lands on the shell of your ear. It’s apparent in the way he tucks you tenderly closer, in the way he closes his eyes—eyelashes tracing sweetly against your skin.

Now, though, these gestures just feel purely loving to you. They feel like he’s trying to swallow you up, envelop you, and he is, you think.

“We should get out of here,” he says. “You need to sleep.”

At this, you whine and twist, forcing yourself round to face him. Once you do, you push your face into his neck, kiss his pulse point, and embrace his midsection.

“Stay with me,” you say. “I’ll miss you.”

YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN WHAT YOU ARE, YOU HAVE SLUMBER’D UPON YOURSELF ALL YOUR LIFE

The light is beautiful. It’s beautiful on its own; peachy and blinding, it smells of the bread baking down the road and, faintly, of the oregano from the garden in your building’s courtyard. Even as the sun begins to set, it’s warm. It peeks between Yuuji’s fingers when he brings a hand to his hair, pushing it away from his forehead.

That, too, is beautiful. His face is pink with a combination of the sun and his own bashfulness, cheeks peaked with a grin as he looks at you, sat back on his heels.

“You can’t look at me like that,” he says, lowering his eyes. “I might get the wrong idea.”

In the past couple of weeks, a more solid routine has developed between you and Yuuji. The mornings are pretty much fair game for you since he has a majority of his coursework and activities then, but once he’s done, the game is on. Most of the days you just wander around, but sometimes you’ll visit nearby neighborhoods or beg him to take you to whatever tourist location was next on your list.

The early evenings, though, are a different story. Those, you spend largely in your apartment. In the lull between whatever you’d done and what you had prepared for after sunset, the two of you recharge. You cook together. You talk, you watch films and share music. You exist together. Today, you weren’t doing any of those things. No, today, you recharge by touching.

You reach for him, and his shoulders are firm and smooth under your hands. You hum, and the sound winds up into a little chuckle.

“What could that be?”

“I dunno, maybe that you like me,” he jokes. “That you think I’m pretty.”

The words sound strange when he says them like that: as if it’s not already apparent that not only do you like him—as if he’s not objectively pretty. You frown slightly and, when he comes in close enough, you move a hand to the back of his neck and meet his eyes.

“Yuuji, that’s not the wrong idea.”

He laughs and shakes his head, the tip of his nose catching on yours as he does. “Hey now, don’t tease me.”

“Yuuji,” you say, trying to be stern. You fail, of course, as his hands come under your back, pressing you up into him. “Yuuji, shut up, you’re pretty.”

The laughter continues, but it comes, this time, as a giggle into your neck, one you mirror into his ear, and, as much as you love him close—as you love him this close, especially—you nudge him away.

His upper body is strong and built, the rigid curves of his muscles padded over with the gentle plush of relaxation. His skin is like honey: rich and smooth save for the scars and freckles, little bumps and abrasions that quiver when you draw your fingers over them in lieu of asking where they’d come from. Those things don’t matter anyway, not right now.

Not when he’s right here and his breath is catching in his throat, when you can’t tell if he’s nervous or excited. When he chuckles, the sound is airy and sweet and buzzing with that stunning purity characteristic of all of Yuuji’s sounds.

He takes his lower lip between his teeth. “C’mere,” he says, and takes you against him more intentionally. It’s clear that he’s had enough of your leading.

You make a noise of surprise when he hoists you up into his lap. In this position—with him flat on his back, his thighs keeping you sitting up—you feel particularly vulnerable. That warm, pre-sunset afternoon glow illuminates you, sets you alight with fresh exposure. You’re still wearing your tee shirt, though; it’s the light itself. It’s the air that makes you feel so seen, so looked at.

Yuuji smooths his strong hands over your thighs where they lay, parted, at his sides. He takes his time guiding them up to your hips. He’s patient. It’s not in a restrained sort of way, either. It’s not as if he wants to be going any faster. He’s savoring you, watching your legs mold under his grip, and you can tell from the look of curiosity—of near bewilderment—on his face. His brows are furrowed, his lower lip tucked securely between his teeth, and the bridge of his nose is wrinkled with some combination of concentration and thought. Yuuji’s expression softens, though, when his eyes return to your face.

Your expression must be a hair too solemn for him because he brings a hand up and slides it to hold the curve of your jaw.

“What’s up?”

How can someone who touches you like this not stay?

There are so many platitudes about the “purposes” of peoples’ entrances into your life, and, ordinarily, you don’t give too much value to them. Since you’ve met Yuuji, though—or, more realistically, since you’ve started wanting to keep him—they’ve been floating around in your head, these platitudes. One of them says something along the lines of how it doesn’t matter how long someone stays in your life, and what matters is the “impact” they made on you during that time.

And you can’t help but think that’s kind of cruel. Maybe it’s selfish, but while the thought of saying goodbye at the end of the summer is painful, what really makes your chest ache is the idea of trying and failing to make it work from across the world. Of missing all of him but his voice. Until when?

But what is the point of asking Yuuji that now? What’s the point of making him wonder, too, when this pretty sun will meet its horizon? Because surely, he knows it will, too.

You shake your head, smile absently, and assure him: “Nothing.”

He chuckles through his nose then lets out a long breath and slides his hands down your arms. They slip gingerly under the hem when they reach it, and they’re rough on the soft skin of your waist. He watches your face as he touches you this time, and you can feel something—maybe gravity—begging his gaze to drop once again to his hands.

Being with Yuuji is not dreamlike, you decide. Rather, it is dreaming itself—floating miles above the Earth.

“Yuuji.”

“Hm?”

“What’re you thinking?”

He’s quiet for a moment longer, keeping his eyes low. Then, he smiles. It’s not his usual smile, though. It’s subdued, almost directed at himself rather than at anyone else.

“Mm…just thinking about how much I like you.”

In any other situation, you might laugh out of sheer awkwardness, but you can’t. Not when he’s looking at you like that: like you’re a mirage, a treasure. Instead, then, you fold over him. You close the gap between your faces and, babying his chin with your fingers, kiss him.

Talking, sorting your thoughts out into coherent sentences, is hard. It’s hard to tell him how much it means to hear him say that. Hard to explain how much you have to fight not to disbelieve it. Kissing, though? Kissing is easy.

He cradles you when you kiss him. Yuuji holds as much of you in his arms as he can and savors you. He kisses you simultaneously like you’re the only thing he’s ever sought after in his life and like you were dropped in his lap directly from heaven.

Like this, that bitter feeling in your throat is soothed. The doubt is quieted for a few moments longer.

NO PLEASURE WAITING FOR OTHERS, BUT AN EQUAL PLEASURE WAITS FOR YOU.

“So, how’s that video thingy going?”

Yuuji sets his chin on your shoulder, a welcome patch of warmth in the cool evening air.

There’s a field just beyond the farthest reaches of the neighborhood. Really, it’s a small few meters of grass between the town’s edge and the cliffside. The plants are unkempt, and they burst from the ground in wild, uneven bunches. You’ve eaten here, come to read your books or draw or write, but it’s better tonight because the stars are out—and because Yuuji suggested you bring a thicker blanket to put down.

“Pretty good, I think. I keep forgetting to check it and like, make sure I’ve actually filmed stuff, but, well, here. Let’s see…”

You bite your lip, scroll back to the beginning of the footage, and let it play. From there, the clips start. The app has put a song lightly over it, and the melody underscores the raw audio incidentally, and you rub the edge of your thumbnail with your index finger, paying close attention—both reminiscing and also carding through your mind to see if maybe a better song would fit this clip or that one.

As the montage draws closer to the current day, you open your mouth to say something to Yuuji but stop short. The next clip that plays is not one you remember recording. So is the next one, and the next.

They’re of you, these mystery clips. From afar, from above, from behind, from angles you could never get on your own: they follow you, cradle and savor you. You look ridiculous. You laugh. You’re clumsy and thinking and making weird faces, and it takes you a moment to realize it, but these, too, are curated.

The ones you’d picked, of course, were curated. They’re what you thought you’d want to remember, what you thought was beautiful, and what you wanted whoever watched this to see. But these are different.

“Yuuji…” You take your time looking over at him. “Did you take these?”

“Sure did.” He shifts so he can look at you better. After a few moments of silence, his expression shifts into one of discomfort. “Was, um, was that okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean…I just didn’t…I didn’t know, obviously, uh.” You sit up. Scooting, you angle your body to face him. “When—How did you take these? When did you have my phone?”

“Baby, you ask me to hold your stuff all the time,” he says, mouth quirking into another smile. He leans toward you, setting his fingers over yours and pressing them gently into the blanket. “Honestly, I was like, one hundred percent sure you knew I was doing it.”

You pout, then glance at your phone again. “I look like shit in this one,” you say, chuckling as you point to the clip.

He giggles. Then, shaking his head, says, “What? No you don’t. You never look like shit.”

“You’re just biased since you like me,” you tease.

“Nah, that’s not it…It’s more like, I’m biased because I’m in love with you.”

You always thought that the reactions to confessions you’d read about in books or seen in movies were dramatic. Surely, surely they see it coming. Surely they never feel as excellently blindsided as they act.

You learn just now that you have been wrong about that. You learn, too, that—more than anything else—you are so afraid of what this means.

“Yuuji…Yuuji…you’re not…”

He gives you a moment to elaborate, but when you don’t, he says, “I’m…not? Why not?” He pauses again, nose wrinkled a little in confusion.

You don’t have a good answer for him. How can you explain succinctly that, over these past couple of months, you’ve both convinced yourself that your relationship could never work out and fallen hopelessly in love with him? How can you explain that you’ve come to the conclusion that he is far too good—too special—to be asked to prolong some throwaway summer romance with a nobody like you?

“Why not?” he repeats. He wants you to tell him. His mind, you’re sure, is blank for options because he just can’t imagine them. Or maybe he can. “Are you um…are you worried I’m lying?” He looks down, mulling that over, then shakes his head. “Because…you know me, you know I don’t just…I wouldn’t tell you I love you if I didn’t mean it.” He bites the inside of his cheek, then meets your eyes fiercely.

Yuuji, while always gentle with you—as you’ve learned—feels intensely. His emotions burn, eat him up, swallow him, and he needs them to be known. The way he looks, the way he interacts with the world, is his way of putting up in lights: this is what you make me feel. He’s not the best with words most of the time, so he has to choose them carefully, wrap them in their proper exteriors.

After thinking for a second, trying once again to rationalize this racing, nerve-led pulse, you reply. “It’s easy to love someone in a place like this, but I promise you that you don’t. You don’t know me without these beautiful fucking hills or live music or delicious local coffee—”

He cuts you off. The words burst out of him, unable to be contained. “Or baking even though the sun is about to come up or talking about books in some random bookstore until the owner kicks us out or falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon because the light is so warm, and you’re so pretty especially when you lay your head on my chest like that…Yeah, it’s really easy to think I love you during all of those times.”

Yuuji takes a breath, then continues: “How did you know which sandwich I wanted without asking? And…and how did you know I’d love that movie before we even watched it? Or—Or that I would forget my bag if you hadn’t grabbed it? Listen, you might not know my birthday or my blood type or whatever, but…you know me. I think I know you, too. I mean…don’t you think so?”

He watches you for a second, and you have to look away from him because the visual breaks your heart. His shoulders have fallen uncharacteristically low: deflated. His brows are drawn, his mouth in a frown that tries so so hard to remain shallow.

“Yeah…”

“Then…” he says your name. Then he says it again. “What’s wrong?”

You stare at your hands in your lap. You stare so intensely, unwilling to lift your gaze because you know he’ll be there to match it with his amber eyes. You know they’ll be clear and swimming with adoration. Yuuji always looks like that—like you mapped the stars onto the vast expanse of sky above, like you’d done something remarkable by just being.

He says your name. “Look at me,” he breathes. “Please.” He sounds so sad. His voice is ordinarily so vibrant, his presence so large, but in this question, he has made himself small. Small enough to fit in your ear and beg.

When you do look at him, it’s everything you’d been afraid of. He’s pleading and earnest, and you’re in love with him.

“I’ll never see you again.”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed. What’s stopping you aside from the ocean? Aside from the very boundary that separates this fantasy life from your very real one back home?

The capsules of our lives are broken by circumstance again and again—so why now can you not choose to break it yourself? To let its insides gush out onto the ground to be remade as you like?

Your vision is blurrier than before when Yuuji draws you back out of your head and into the world. He says your name, and the sound of it settles in your chest, begs you to curl around it, push it inside. Deeper, deeper, please.

Stay close to me.

“Why not?” you repeat back to him. His hands are gentle when they hold yours.

“Yeah,” he says. “Why won’t you see me again?”

“Yuuji…we met here,” you begin. Your voice is quiet, wavering. Your life will go back to normal, you explain. You have school and your friends, and you live far from this place. “And you do, too, Yuuji, and summer is going to end.”

A beat of silence passes. Then, Yuuji asks what you mean.

“Sure it is,” he adds. “Does…were you thinking this, uh, we’re just like…a summer thing?”

The unease in his voice makes you hesitate, but you nod. “I-I mean…not because I wanted it to be, but like…you know. How could it not be? People always say they’re going to stay in touch. That they’ll call or whatever—‘make it work,’ but they don’t. They don’t call, Yuuji.”

You ramble on along the same tangent line for a moment longer before a whimper, a small, pitiful sound, breaks through, and you cover your mouth with your hand.

The field is quiet save for your ragged breathing. A dog barks nearby. Yuuji takes you carefully by the shoulders.

“I want you. I wanna be with you in whatever way you’re willing to take me. But, baby, have you really been thinking that way the whole time?” He comes closer, takes your face in his hands, and he can’t contain his chuckle when he notices your shocked expression.

“I…I don’t know. I just…it…it didn’t really occur to me that you’d want—”

“I don’t know where home is for you, but I live in Tokyo, and I have a fully functioning cell phone. I’m gonna call you. I’m gonna call you so many damn times you have to block me.”

He grins. The hot weight in your throat lightens slightly. It slicks with the smallest coating of relief, and warm air fills your mouth, sneaking in between your lips, slightly parted in shock because did he say—?

“What?”

“I go to school in Tokyo.”

A cool rush of air passes between you. The grass tangles and untangles, ticking. The ocean laps at the rocky beach somewhere in the distance. Someone shouts, then, joined by another voice suddenly, laughs. They laugh together. Then, once again, as the sky further darkens, it is quiet.

“Of course, you do.”

Yuuji tosses his head back and beams at the sky. He looks at you next; he takes your face in both of his hands and kisses you. He kisses you over and over. He kisses you quick and hasty and like he’ll die if he doesn’t feel your mouth on his right this second.

Then, you make him pause, breathe, and he laughs. It’s melodic and clear, and it bubbles out of him in long, sweet tendrils. You hold his face in both of your hands and just let yourself look.

For the first time, the burning fog begins to clear. There is no heavy longing in your chest when you see him. In this moment, there is only hope, and it spreads to meet the horizon. It runs as far and wide as it can. It lets you stay here in this dream for now, fearlessly.

Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,

Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

jjk mlist | main mlist | long, long fic collab

DISCLAIMER! I do not own any of the characters or people mentioned in my work. these are works of pure fiction that do not reflect the views, opinions, or actions of any person, real or fictional. all characters in all works are depicted as 18+ regardless of the published canonical work unless otherwise stated.

all rights reserved © by kodzucafe. my work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. all fanfics belong to me, please do not copy, translate nor repost the fics or files seen above as this is strictly prohibited.

— FOUR TEA MUGS —

shinichiro sano x reader

fluff at the start. expect a wild turn. shinichiro is not the only guy in love with you, keep that in mind

wc: 3k

a/n: hello stranger that came across and kept reading :) this is my first fic ever *panic* but i’m glad i can share it with you. this story could have been separated in two different parts because of the turn it has, but i decided not to do it because this is the way i visualized it at first, and i wanted to stick to that, plus, i had so much fun writing it. hope you all like it too! in advance, thank you so much for being here and giving this a chance, means the world to me. also, i want to specially thank my dear friend @saturnmitsuya that helped me to make this possible, te amo bonita

reblogs, comments and likes are very much appreciated. please forgive any spelling mistakes and the constant editing

the day was serene and it was cold outside. 4:02 p.m. s.s. motors still open

shinichiro was holding is his arms what he enjoys, a little way too much, to call the woman of his life. both bodies over an old chair that stood behind a tore small desk where he wrote down things about motorcycles that he needed, making calls and all those sort of things you have to arrange when you run a store. you mockingly named it ‘’his office’’ just to piss him off

the situation right now, started because he decided to behave like the most pathetic and cute big baby ever, stating that ‘’he was freezing’’ all pouty and shivering, which was all bullshit, just to have you sitting on top of him. yeah. the sano’s family ability to find ways to convince people, runs just as hard as oxygen through his veins. but you didn’t really put up much resistance either, saying no to him it’s a pretty much impossible thing to do

hands playing with the black locks on the back of his head, arms snaking through your hips and waist, exploring under your sweater to slightly rose your free breasts, kissing his neck, moving to his cheek and finally his lips with wide grins in between. the position was provocative, yes. making out at the corner of his store while straddling his legs. but that was really it, just making out. simple, right?

see, the real core of shinichiro sano’s charm is that everything is just so simple when he is with you, and somehow, it always manages to feel perfect. as if you were pieces made for each other, and nothing else in this world could ever change the ideal way you both fit. or like two planets aligned together that dance around the same orbit, in one melody created by the universe just for yourselves to hear

-what do you want to have for dinner, bunny? i’ll close earlier so we can go eat, it’s on me today- he commented, lips a bit reddish from kissing, looking at you with the goofiest flushed expression ever, weak to women after all

-well, your grandpa’s miso soup could be real awesome right now cause it’s pretty chilly outside- you furrowed your brows in late realization -speaking of the weather, did you bring your jacket? i don’t want you to go out with that plain shirt, weren’t you freezing a few minutes ago? you will catch a cold you awful liar!-

he honestly wasn’t even listening to your attacks, well of course he was, but his eyes were mostly fixated on the movement of your lips, how you were scolding him

you really were the woman of his life, for sure. always so caring, always so loving, always you

-i love you y/n-

words just slipped in the middle of the bliss within his embrace. then, he started caressing your back, going all the way to your rear with a cheeky grin, planning to kiss you again. you stopped talking, cheeks and ears burning red. you couldn’t believe him, this bastard

-s-shin! don’t change the subject like that, i’m being serio-

-are we interrupting something?-

indeed, an interruption happened, one of shinichiro’s younger siblings, manjiro, stood by the door of the shop hands in pockets, deadpan. while keisuke, the friend of his that was following behind, was as pale as a corpse

both reactions shared a reason, later revealed

-oh! m-mikey! and keisuke!- shinichiro said looking up and removing his hands off your body immediately, taking a glance behind your back, nervous as hell. his little brother just busted him groping his girl’s ass right on top of his lap after a kissing session that lasted like, solid 20 minutes, fuck, did they saw that too? he might be 23 years old but he felt as a hormonal middle schooler all over again

-hello!- you greeted turning around as nice as ever, still on your compromising position. not giving a single damn. now it was time for your boyfriend to be embarrassed

-um w-we can come back later if- baji started, not knowing what to do with his stare, he was just as uncomfortable as shinichiro. sweaty palms and everything

while mikey was really quiet, just staring. strange you thought

-no! no! there´s no need, you didn’t interrupt anything. i will go make something to drink so you guys can talk okay? tea is fine baby?- you said twirling shin’s hair on your fingers, looking straight to his eyes, oh how you wished you could take a picture right now, then turning to the boys for approval

-sure love, it’s perfect thanks- the kids nodded and shin’s blood finally started to dissipate from his facial features. thank god

-alright- you said, giving him a last peck on the cheek while you placed your palms on his chest, getting off from him. -hey baji- you called him turning halfway -would you mind coming with me? i might need some extra hands-

-s-sure!- shit he thought

at this point, the explanation of the boys reactions earlier it’s revealed

there’s this thing that has been pestering baji since the moment that mikey, told him they were heading to see his brother to ask him for some advices, and that most probably, they would encounter his girlfriend too. actually, this comes from many years back, but he is just oblivious about it, until now

keisuke baji was a nice kid, since you’ve known the sano family for quite a while, you’ve come across to meet the friends they have made along the way. so since a very young age, baji has been around

you used to go to the same school and shared some classes with shinichiro as a teenager, and he always tried to get closer to you by intentionally pairing up in teams for projects, inviting you to eat at his household and such. you were his high school sweetheart, the girl he liked the most and for the longest time. and last but not meat, you also were the last 11 rejections of his lucky 20 until he won you over, but he decides to not bring that out very often

so when baji saw you for the first time, it was one of the times shinichiro took you to his house. you were peeking all over the dojo watching everyone practice, entertained. when suddenly, you landed your eyes on his tiny figure

and simply smiled

-so, how’s the shop thing going on?- you asked, pouring some water to boil, opening some tea bags and preparing the containers. there was a kitchenette at the very back of the establishment, with just a stove and a small freezer with water and some snacks

-s-shop thing? what do you mean?- shit! stop being an asshole, he pleaded his brain, or was it his heart?for some mercy. he didn’t really knew which one of them was messing things up and that was definitely a problem

-you already forgot? your dream of owning a pet shop that you told me about a while ago, you were much younger. i hope that you didn’t drop it- you mentioned, smiling, just like that one day

why?

why did you remembered that about him? why did you have to bring it out? the stupid dream, that he still desires, he told you once. making him feel weak for the 3rd time in a couple of minutes

why was he feeling this way?

he believed he was strong, he proudly called himself a member of a gang, but he started to sweat with a simple question like this? there has to be something real wrong with him, it can’t be that-

oh

you were leaning on the counter next to the stove, waiting for the water to be ready, hair a bit messy, black leggings, some slippers and your boyfriend’s silver chain freshly stoled from him this morning decorating your chest. you weren’t wearing a bra, and the loose fabric of an oversized sweater that was trying to keep you warm couldn’t stop your hard nippled breasts from showing. his throat closed and he felt he could die suffocated at any second, look somewhere else you piece of shit, he mentally slapped himself

-yeah i guess, i still like animals a lot- he scratched his head, avoiding your gaze by looking down. you noticed it but just decided to let it slip, and turned back to turn off the flame and pour the water over four identical red mugs to prepare the drinks

-that makes me so happy, keisuke. your shop will be the best in town, i’m sure of it. cats alredy love you. oh! and i’ll be your first client. don’t even forget that, okay bug?- you teased, poking his nose. dear god, he forgot you used to call him like that

you weren’t like the senior girls at his school that every boy his aged pathetically stalked, nor the older ones that lived near his apartment complex that elderly men disgustingly desired. hell, you weren’t even like the women of the porn magazines that pah kept hidden under his bed, which made them all drool over like a bunch of idiots

your beauty was anything but perfect. your beauty was the vivid personification of the word home, you felt like home, an immensely loving one. perfect wasn’t a word he could use to describe you because he would be lying, you were making tea in clothes you used for sleeping, and still, you looked like an angel to his eyes

he finally saw it

-y-yeah okay, i won’t- he stuttered, blushing. you grinned pleased and grabbed two of the cups on your hands, asking him for his help with the remaining ones, finally heading back to the front

you took a sit next to your boyfriend who was now casually smoking, and his brother, in some spair chairs he found, carefully offering them the steaming hot cups

he was sure he liked you, since the day he first saw you at the dojo. but he never truly paid any attention to his blooming emotions, ‘’who cares about that sappy crap anyway?’’ he did

still, he would never spill a word. it was no use

if he kept his feelings ignored and buried all this time, he could just keep doing it, right?

shinichiro draped an arm around your shoulders while all of you were chatting and making jokes, getting closer to blow breathy kisses in your ear every once in a while just to tickle you. mikey scolded him with pouts because of his clinginess and you laughed until your stomach ached, things were always like this with them, and you wouldn’t have it any other way

baji stared at your interactions for a while. he likes it a lot when you smile, he discovered that years ago, but he also discovered that shinichiro sano is the person who makes you do it the most. so he must be fine with that. he is just a kid with a dumb crush and you are a woman in a relationship that most likely, will last forever

the first taste of bittersweet teenage love in his life

so for now, his dream had a new meaning. the fact that you remembered it and wanted to be there when he fulfills it, made him feel like blushing again. and it was enough to keep him content

mikey finished talking with his brother, mugs went empty and it was time to leave. both boys decided to go back on their way

when they went out of the store and started walking along the cold breeze that provided them company, keisuke looked back to one of the windows, and he could see how shinchiro bent down to carry you, positioning himself between your legs in the air, both smiling widely at each other, enamored, and probably still joking about random things. he turned away, not wanting to pry anymore into the comfort of your intimacy

-ah man, if i get married someday i hope it’s with a girl like y/n- baji was talking behind mikey, walking slowly through the streets, sighing, arms over his head acting all cool, in an attempt to shake off the rests of wild emotions he felt moments ago, not even noticing in the slightest bit, the low temperature of the environment and the notorious dark aura his friend emanated, still silent and hands in pockets

oh how he wished he never said anything at first, he should have just kept his mouth shu-

-you like her too, right?-

so that’s

why he was so quiet

-hah?-

in the couple of minutes he stood there processing what he just heard mikey say, keisuke baji inaugurated, in a matter of seconds, a whole category in the depths of his mind called ‘’emotionally wrecker-fucker 3000’’ yeah…. to describe the second wave of feelings that literally crushed him in that moment

actually, that whole afternoon can be found saved in that mental file, not just the moments of realization, but all of it. boobs, cold weather, rushing blood, cigarettes, kisses, a mess of emotions, fighting with mikey in the middle of a random street and four tea mugs

there’s no way in hell he will ever forget this day

— MANY TIMES OVER —

shinichiro sano x reader

mostly fluff, some angsty parts in between. i was grieving for draken while writing, so yeah, that's were the inspiration for the sad things come from.

this maintains a discreet connection with my last post, making some subtle mentions of it. so, in case you would like to read it, it's here. i would appreciate it immensely

wc: 6.6k (sorry, i got a bit carried away)

a/n: this is my love letter to shinichiro, i put my heart and soul into this story, so i really hope you all enjoy it and don't get much confused with all the time jumps. i also would like to add that guys, seriously, just love whoever you want and don't ever give up what you desire, okay? don't be like yua's father and just let people be happy (you will understand after reading). life is short, and we stupidly think we have time, but we actually don't. be always joyful and hold onto your dreams with both hands. to anyone who is reading this, good luck! go and confess already or just fulfill that one thing you want the most, i believe in you

reblogs, likes and comments are deeply appreciated. please ignore any spelling mistakes, the constant editing and the awful glitching

yua — "primarily a female name of japanese origin that means love, affection"

eyes slowly opening. 9:11 a.m.

a couple of minutes after waking up, the cloudburst was captured by your senses

you’ve spent the night with shinichiro after he mentioned that today, he was not going to work at the shop and you were mostly free from your duties. so now, you found yourself laying by his side, head on his bare chest while one of his arms was keeping your body close, null distance

sadly, the comforting position didn’t last long. you decided to get up from his clasp to take a look outside, reaching the sliding door from his bedroom that lead to the backyard of the sano’s residence, leaving it open to allow the humid mist of the rain caress your skin, not forgetting to carefully make sure that the bed was far enough from you, so it wouldn’t bother shinichiro. all of this because, when the green of the plants that lie in the garden, moves slightly to the weak blows the water causes when dropping, it relaxes you

appreciating the view, you instantly recognized an old bike drowning on the ground next to some old motorcycle parts, causing a few giggles to escape from your lips

moments after, your boyfriend rolled in bed and felt your absence, making him sluggishly start to wake up too, huffing. he thought you had agreed to stay the ‘’whole day’’ in bed to be lazy together and here you were, up at nine in the morning

when his eyes adjusted better to the dim light the surroundings provided, he saw you standing against the doorframe, looking at the rain outside and laughing softly, in nothing more than black panties and one of his plain white shirts barely covering your thighs. how could he be mad at you for leaving his side when you looked like that? it wasn’t fair

he felt in heaven, he couldn’t describe it any other way. you were his angel, his day and night, his girl

he knew from way back that you loved watching the raindrops fall, and with the passing of years, he came to discover that he loved watching you

-good morning baby, what you doin' over there? what’s so funny?- he stretched out fully awake and placed his arms at the back of his head, getting into a more comfortable position to admire you better

-crap, did i wake you up?- you quickly turned around to look at him, startled by the sudden sound of his voice

-not really. i was missing you in my sleep, so i stopped doing it- he fake pouted and you rolled your eyes, he really beats himself every morning with stuff like this, it never ceases to amaze you

-you are ridiculous- you said and he smiled without saying anything else, waiting for your response

-so?-

-i was just thinking about that one time we ditched a whole day of classes to go for ramen with master kazo, when we were in middle school. the bike outside, it’s the same one, right?-

even if you tried, you couldn’t remember the exact date. you were both young and pretty much dumb, hungry and immensely bored. it just happened

-yeah. you mean our first date?- he asked biting off a smirk

-that wasn’t our first date, shinichiro. it was just one time we hanged out, we were still friends- you crossed your arms in your chest, protesting. he always teases you like this

-what do you mean friends? i already confessed to you like five times and i think i did it again that day- he said, sitting up

-with that one last confession, they were actually eleven-

-you counted them?- his voice sounded so offended that you couldn’t help but laugh in his face

-you didn’t?-

he laughed with you, a blush creeping his neck and cheeks. still the same dork

-that’s so fucking embarrassing- he rubbed his eyes, cringing

you left the door and walked towards him, standing next to his shirtless sitting figure at the corner of the bed, one of your knees on the mattress and both arms around his neck, fidgeting with his morning hair

-it is- you chuckled, gazing at him

-whatever, you were so whipped for me back then that you even kissed me at the end, how about that, hm?- he placed his arms around the back of your bare thighs, stroking them sweetly

-shut up, i just accepted the invitation because you pestered me so much and it really was a boring class. and the kiss was because you got all bruised for me and i felt bad about it- you frowned and looked away, now feigning annoyance

-that’s such an awful lie- he mentioned narrowing his eyes, making you laugh and give up

-yeah, it kinda is- you admitted

he smiled and stared at you for a couple of seconds in comfortable silence, as if he were thinking about something, an idea enlightening his mind

-would you like to try it again?-

-what?- you perfectly knew what he meant, the question simply slipped from your lips. did he really just came up with that?

-it’s raining, kazo surprisingly still makes ramen and i’m still in love with you. how about we take that same date right now? what could possibly go wrong?- yes he did, and you? you were a speechless, blushing mess trying to play it cool

-accidents, shinichiro? that could go wrong, and i don’t want us to die because of your damn motorcycle- who were you trying to fool? you actually loved the idea. but you were worried, you weren’t irresponsible kids anymore

-that won’t happen cause we are going to use the good old bike and take the alleyways, not the busy streets. just like that one time-

-but does it still work? seems pretty worn out, w-what if we crash again, shin?- you asked. excitement slowly starting to creep in the deepest parts of your being

-well, the story will repeat itself. quite tempting don’t you think, love? the bike is fine i promise, i’ll just wash it up- he proposed you, with that fatal closed eyed childish grin

yeah, of course you ended up agreeing

heavy drops tapped against the window that was next to your seat, humming a soft tune that kept you distracted, you were feeling sleepy

physics class. second period. 8:39 a.m. newton's laws of motion

your professor was explaining the theories and you took some notes, or whatsoever. it was raining, and the vibes in schools change entirely when the skies fall above carefree teenagers. no one gives a shit about subjects or activities for the rest of the day, and you were no exception

not even noticing when the teacher left the classroom. you put all your things away, waiting for the next class to start while you kept yourself in your chair, watching the clouds. enjoying the quietness and the water tumbling at your side. this climate always engulfs you in a particular peace that is rather difficult to explain, so each time, you decide to just dissolve within it. and you totally love it. that’s why, when some of your friends gathered around you and mentioned something about going out, you simply decided to keep yourself on the same spot, alone

‘’inertia. the first law states that if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force’’

in fact, you were the resting object, and shinchiro sano was the force that acted on you

-yo! y/n!- just like that, all the tranquility disappeared in mere seconds. as a loud thunderstruck in the dead of night, he entered your classroom, tripping, coming close to you with his unkempt uniform and that stupid greasy hairstyle

-so, how you been?- he stood next to your sitting self, hands on his pockets, serenely, as if he didn’t almost knock down an entire desk with his disastrous entry

-stop with that, shinichiro, we greeted at the gateway. what do you want?-

-would you like to go out with me? like, right now?- huh?

-no-

-cool, we are taking my bike. i know a perfect place we could-

-i literally said no, sano-

-i know, i heard you. but i’m not giving up that easy- you raised a brow and glared at him, unfazed

-our next class starts in like 10 minutes, what do you mean now?- he gulped and continued

-look, it’s raining. teachers are basically hidden, it’s going to be a free day for all of us. so you shouldn’t be here all by yourself, you need to go out and enjoy it you know?-

-i have my own ways to enjoy the rain, thank you-

-by just staring at it? come on, i can see you like that a lot but, please? i bet you are so bored that you don’t even have a nice excuse to give. and you’ve already said no so many times to me so please, please, let me take you out today- he was begging at this point, you almost made fun of him

-this is not the first time we hang around, shin. you invite me to your house very often, you are overreacting. by the way, what makes you think i’m bored?-

-yeah, but this is going to be a different occasion, i can feel it. and to answer your question, everyone is bored after physics class- hold on a second

-did you check my schedule?-

-of course i did! i memorized it, now come on- he grabbed your hand and made you stand up abruptly, taking with him your bag and placing it on one of his shoulders while he held his own with the other

-w-wait! are we are not coming back to take the other classes?!- he was basically dragging you. walking real fast through the school hallways, carefully avoiding to stumble with any teacher that could recognize you

-i don’t think so, y/n. this day is going to be for us only, okay?- he looked back at you, grinning, and your heart tingled

he made it look as the easiest thing ever and you gave in, squeezing his hand back. a little fun couldn’t hurt, right? well…

you had to act quickly to catch the only chance to actually escape classes without getting terribly penalized. the guard on the entrance gate took a 7 minute break to go for a coffee at the school’s office every day at the same hour, so the plan needed to be executed in that certain amount of time

step 1. wait for the entrance to be alone, step 2. be sure to not forget your bags and hold them firmly, step 3. jump the gate, step 4. take the bike out of the secured deposit at the front of the building in the shortest amount of time possible, step 5. run for your lives

the rest is history

a triumphant scream resonated against empty, watery streets, far enough from your shared middle school. shinichiro was speeding with his bike while you were taking a seat behind him, holding tightly to his waist with a huge smile on your face. you made it out neatly, on a path worthy of an olympic medal, and the adrenaline was just washing over your bodies, leaving you with pure bliss. both damped from the rain pouring over yourselves, not minding it at all

in that moment, it was only you and him in the world

-i can’t believe we made it, you good there, pretty?- your cheeks heated with the nickname, the rush surely boosted his confidence

-y-yeah, i think so- you laughed, a bit shy. hugging him closer and placing you head in his wet back. the gesture made his heart beat so roughly against his ribcage that he silently prayed to all the gods and deities he could think about for you to not notice

-but if you get me in trouble, i’ll stab you- you continued

-i would die happily knowing that it was on your hands-

-you are so stupid, shinichiro- he giggled

after a couple of more jokes and some time going around the city, watching together how the houses disappeared in an endless fog, you both started to get hungry, and he decided to visit the most reliable and special place to eat in town

yua ramen house

the owner is a man named kazori okamoto, mostly known as ‘’master kazo’’ for his amazing cooking skills and because he simply enjoys the nickname. he is a funny man and a very important person for the sano family, even to this day. he met grandpa sano in their early teenage years and the friendship still remains alive. he used to dream with being an elite chef, but certain circumstances he had to go through leaded him to abandon his desires. despite all, he claims that he is happy with what he has right now. ‘’life goes on, regardless’’ is one of his known personal quotes and little manjiro´s favorite, for some strange reason

so the fact that shinichiro decided to introduce you to him that day, definitely meant something else

-master! ‘you there?- shinichiro stepped in as if the establishment was his living room and you followed closely behind, taking a glance at everything. it was a tiny place, but very welcoming and warm

quite the opposite to how you felt, drenching in your school uniform

-sano boy! what the hell are you doing out with weather like this and- he looked directly at you. and you smiled, bowing to greet the old man

-nice to meet you sir, you both seem to be really close- you added, sheepishly -my name is y/n-

-of course you are!- he said getting closer to you and mockingly punching shinichiro in the arm, the poor thing almost flies from the ground. he had a nice smile, you noted -it’s my pleasure, sweetheart. i’ve been dying to finally meet you- oh, now that was new

-really?-

-i swear this brat never shuts up when it comes to you, even if i’ve never seen your face before, i could know it was you from all the things he has said to me- shinichiro coughed loudly, completely exposed

-y-yeah well, that’s because she will be my wife someday, sir. i’m trying my best- what the hell was he even saying

-you better, lover boy- kazo mentioned, with the biggest and cheekiest grin you've ever seen

you opened your mouth to answer to the revelation, embarrassed to the most, but master beat you to it

-so, what would you like? what can i do for you?- intentionally changing the subject to avoid any kind of denial from you

both creeps: 1 – you: 0

-u-um, what do you recommend?- you asked still a little shooked and flustered, looking at the menu

-i can surprise you if you let me, just give me the approbation that you don’t dislike any ingredient that you see and i will prepare a random dish for you, deal?-

-okay, deal. thank you so much, sir-

-no problem- he said, starting to roam around the kitchen in front of you, hardly trying to ignore the pool of water you were both making in his recently moped, squeaky clean, floor. one of his eyes twitching

-i would like some- shinichiro started

-yeah, yeah. i know what you always eat kid, so for now, how about you go to the back and look for a fucking mop to wipe the mess you made, you already know where it is. i can bet both of my legs that this was your idea-

-she is into this too!-

-then get her a towel you rat! here, the keys to the shed- kazo threw them his way and you sticked your tongue out to shinichiro while he disappeared to the back of the restaurant

-oh! how rude, i didn’t introduce myself. i’m kazori okamoto, but you can call me master kazo- you nodded and accepted the hand he was offering, containing your laughter, he was just like grandpa sano. all kindness to you and disinheriting shinichiro at the second

-then thank you, master. nice to meet you again and sorry for the disaster we brought- he accepted the apology and smiled back at you, turning to resume what he was previously doing, while you were sitting in one of the bar stools. the shop was empty, obviously, who in their right mind would go out to eat with a storm like this? exactly, only shinichiro sano would

you decided to take another look around, eyes wandering over the place now more carefully, while the old man was working on the food. a picture on one of the walls catched your attention, it was the portrait of a gorgeous woman, she was standing against a bridge that seemed to be somewhere in tokyo, in a red summer dress and an immense loving smile adorning her face, directed to the person behind the camera. it seemed old, a captured memory from a distant past

-master, can i ask you something?- you called him, curiosity winning over you

-yes?-

-who is the pretty lady of the picture?- you thought he didn’t hear you at first because there was a moment of silence, but turns out that he just hesitated

-my eternal muse- his voice faltered, revealing an intimate part of his soul so effortlessly to you. the tremendous sorrow in his expression was evident, but in those words, it also remained the tender affection of a heart whose love will never decline, a perpetual vow

and because of that, you didn’t feel like making any more questions

shinichiro came back, claimed he couldn’t find any towels, kazo called him useless, he moped horribly the floor, and then finally, you proceeded to eat. master prepared the most delicious and exotic shoyu ramen you ever had and some tonkotsu ramen for shinichiro, with an ice cold cola to the side, his favorite, it could never miss

kazo spoke with the heart open in his words, reminiscing hilarious experiences of his youngster era to entertain you while you finished. you were fixated in the way he seemed to relive those moments for an instant, but shinichiro was looking at you, inevitably. your laughing figure, those pretty lips and those pretty eyes shining in delight. if only you could imagine how much he liked you

the hours slid through your fingers like silk, between the anecdotes of an old man and the secret glances of an enamored teenage boy. proving that what they say it’s true, when you have nice company, time surely flies. but school hours ended, and you had little to no time to go back to your house before your parents suspected anything

-thank you so much for the food master, i really had a lovely time- you started

-no, no. thank you both for keeping me company, the place was alone until you showed up. you could have it all for yourselves, how lucky-

-it’s because today is a special day- shinichiro added smiling, referring to what he said to convince you earlier. putting his hands in his pockets, shrugging, while you blushed

-how come?- the old man asked

-it’s a secret- shinichiro grinned

-oh, i see- kazo winked an eye to him and you couldn’t be more puzzled, deciding to remain quiet

both creeps: 2 – you: 0

-we’ll be leaving now kazo. thank you very much, again- shinichiro payed, not taking any objections from you, and you agreed with his words once again, nodding and smiling at him

-you are welcome anytime, be sure to visit often, okay? bring your siblings and that old fucker of your grandpa that hasn’t stopped in a while too, alright? take care and be good, always-

shinichiro hugged him and you felt the urge to do it after, he just smiled weakly

you gathered your stuff and stepped out, while shinichiro stood inside for a second, master kazo calling him to say one last thing

you never knew what he meant with the words ‘’don’t forget our promise, son’’ but shinichiro surely did

a couple of weeks before that day, kazo sat down with shinichiro outside his store after the boy came back bruised from a fight. the sun was setting and he didn’t want to arrive home yet, so he found shelter with his most confident partner

master was smoking at the front, looking somewhat down, sad, he wasn’t his usual self at the moment and shinichiro noticed it

-are you okay, sir?- he approached him, almost timidly. like an infant, innocent and fearful

-i should be the one asking you that, punk. how’s the eye?- it actually hurt, a lot. he got beat up a couple of hours ago and it was finally getting to him, but he didn’t mind it at the moment, though. he decided to ignore his pain to focus on his friend. shinichiro has always been like this, always selfless about himself and always the most caring about the others, a gentle spirit by nature, destined to be a leader, to be great

-still works i guess, i’ve had much worse- the boy just shrugged, insisting -what about you? is everything alright? you weren’t in the kitchen when i arrived, that rarely happens-

-you are pretty fucking nosy, eh?- shinichiro barely smiled with the remark, he was getting seriously worried

after a couple of minutes in complete silence, master okamoto gathered himself and started to talk

-what are you studying? middle school?- shinichiro nodded. with that question, he opened the topic

-well, i was a bit older than you. it was my last year of high school and i was about to get into college. see, i used to have this teacher i appreciated deeply, he knew how much i cherished the field of gastronomy, and he was an amazing person, so he handed me some school forms abroad that could open my horizons and would be helpful to achieve the career that i wanted, you know? he helped me a lot. i also had the support of the love of my life, her name was yua muraka- the eyes of the man brightened with the single mention of his past lover. saying her name almost in a whisper, staring at nothingness. hoping that by mentioning her, she would appear in front of him with her arms open. thing that he has been waiting for decades, foolishly

-she used to be my girlfriend at that time, my whole universe, and she was happy with the idea of me leaving to accomplish my dream. but i’ve never been a selfish guy, and i wanted her to come with me, to accomplish all of that with me. so, i opened this small shop to raise some money to be able to take her in my journey, and make it one for both- shinichiro remained silent, carefully listening. the funny man he knew and cherished, was now crouched, small and tarnished

-the thing is that, her father hated me, son. he saw me as a punk, a good for nothing. i used to get into fights with your grandpa too, and i wanted to be a chef while he was a doctor. but i couldn’t care less about that crap, she was part of my dream and i was willing to give everything for her-

-the dates were getting closer, school was ending, i bought the tickets, and every day i had more money for finally moving away together and provide her with the life she deserved. but when her father noticed all of this, he started to restrict my visits to her home, and he didn’t let yua out- with every word, kazo started to get more emotional. shinichiro could see the rage in his eyes and the impotence behind his memories

-of course we had our escapades, and let me tell you, those were the best moments of my life. but the little bubble we were living in exploded when he suddenly sent her away. one day he just dragged his daughter to a train far from here, menacing her with the most horrid things that i don’t even want to mention- master took a long drag of his cigarette and continued

-i never found out about his plan or the things he said to her because it was so sudden, in an instant she was just gone. i couldn’t do anything to stop him, i never knew anything about the constant abuse either cause yua kept it all to herself- in minutes, the air turned heavy around them, dark, suffocating. as if the atmosphere absorbed the feelings that kazo’s words professed

-shinichiro, the train collapsed in an accident two hours after leaving the station, a day like this, more than 30 years ago. taking many lives, and ripping my love, my darling, away from me, forever- tears started to tumble from his wrinkled eyes, one by one, violently. the noises of the city turned into a heap of murmurs that made shinichiro’s mind enter a void of dizziness. it was awful, his juvenile heart fell to his feet and got burnt with the remainings of the cigarette that mr. okamoto’s trembling hands dropped, mindlessly

-i couldn’t even say goodbye to her, couldn’t even kiss her one last time- he added, stuttering, dragging his own words and choking with grief. shinichiro felt the urge of crying deep in his gut, but he swallowed it, not wanting to make his friend regret confessing him something so profound and distressing, so near to his core. he needed to remain strong for him

-a couple of months later, i encountered her mother on a random street, and realized that the woman was constantly being blackmailed by yua’s father, and that’s why she never defended her daughter. in that moment, she kneeled before me and asked for my forgiveness, confessing everything to me, all the things that i am telling you right now and how she really did wanted yua to live her life by my side, but that she was too afraid of what her husband was capable of doing- the old man started to gain his posture again, wiping his face. as he is used to doing, since that fateful date

-i never went to college after that and i closed the shop, sticking to the local jobs that miserable men stick to- it all made sense now

-years later i realized that yua probably wouldn’t like the way i was living, so i reopened the shop in her name and here i am, as you can see. ironical how they gave her such a beautiful appellation to edge her life to that extreme, with no love and no affection, huh?- a poisonous laugh escaped his mouth while he took out another cigarette of the tiny box and lightened in silence, shinichiro just remained staring, noting how the man next to him still wanted to cry, and how hardly he was retaining it

-i’m telling you this because you remind me of my younger self. i can sense the love you have for the girl you always tell me about with this tore eyes, that must have glossed the same way when i spoke about yua to someone else. i also suppose that you are concerned because you’re part of a gang and she is just a sweet girl, how you worry for her- the words echoed in every moment of doubt shinichiro recalled having about you, regret clouding his mind. kazo could read him so easily that he even felt embarrassed and disappointed with his own self. something snapped, he took a decision

-but please, shinichiro, don’t ever let her go okay? it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do and vice versa, none of that is relevant if you truly love her, so don’t ever let anything take her away from you. can you promise that to me, punk?- kazo was now clutching to shinichiro’s bloody shirt without even realizing, voice finally cracking with the last sentence, sobbing loudly, all over again. any trace of composure he tried so hard to keep, totally erased from the path they were on

a young shinichiro sano just hugged him, reciprocating all of those times kazo did the same to him as a kid. he opened his arms to let the old man release the huge load of his aching heart -i promise i will, i’m so sorry. i’m really, really sorry- he muttered to his ear, repeating the words almost inaudibly, like a prayer, while the night fell above them

shinichiro took the first drag of a cigarette that day

you were both on the bike again. the rain decreased while you were eating but it started pouring halfway to your house

-be more careful, you are going to get us killed- you exclaimed to the back of his neck, worried about many things, while shinichiro pedaled with all his might. it was actually pretty late, you should have arrived to your house 20 minutes ago and the storm you were caught in was not helping your nerves

-everything is going to be alright, babe. just hold tight- he said untroubled, as always. it was driving you insane

-that’s what i’m doing! and don’t call me babe!-

a couple of streets later, what was expected to happen

happened

you just remember the impact, but what really occurred was that the front wheel got stucked in a sewer hole that you couldn’t see because of the increasing amount of water on the ground, and both of you were catapulted to the pavement. now it’s a funny memory, but back then it wasn’t, and it ached insanely, mostly to shinichiro

he was weak in fights, for sure. but his reflexes were impeccable, using them to instinctly cover your body with his, scratching his whole face in the process and receiving the impact for both, almost breaking an arm for you, literally

while you just bruised your knees, he was still worried, as if the roles were inversed

-fuck! are you okay? are you hurt?- he quickly asked, coming closer to you, scared to death

-nothing serious, you don’t have to worry about it. what about yo- you said without looking at him, still trying to come to your senses. then you realized- oh my god, shin! you are bleeding. i‘m so sorry! i literally crushed you, and you hurted your whole face. p-please forgive me- you were so preoccupied, inspecting his injuries. but all he did was just smile, blood running over his brows and chin. the asshole entirely enjoying all the attention you were giving him at the moment

-i should be the one apologizing! i got us into this, i’m sorry y/n- he scratched the back of his head awkwardly. you weren’t even mad, the fright was still vivid on your skin

and then suddenly, you truly took a deep stare at his features, while the rain kept making a curtain between the two of you. there was no trace of gel from the morning and his wet hair was now fully down, covering his forehead, the water washing his wounds, his drenched white uniform shirt all dirty from the experiences of the day and his pants had an open scratch in the left knee

you didn’t even notice how close you were, sitting together on the corner of an empty alley he desperately took to arrive faster, just staring at each other in silence for a moment. you both cracked in laughter at the same time, the situation was absurd

even though you wouldn’t admit it or either show signs of, you really had great times with shinichiro sano

you like it when he stops to your classroom between breaks just to wish you a nice day, you like lying on the floor next to him at his house’s dojo when it’s summer to eat popsicles with keisuke and his siblings, and you also like the awful cheesy jokes he invents just to make you laugh. because you particularly know that under all those layers of nonsensical girl-crazy rambling lies the most amiable and boldest heart of all, a kind soul with a presence hard to miss

and you like that too

-you know, you look nice like this, without all that dumb gangster wannabe hairstyle, shin-

-did you just, admitted that i look nice?-

-oh god, of course you were going to focus only on that- you rolled your eyes, wishing to not have said anything at all

-i mean, is there anything else i should focus on? it’s an historical moment to me!-

-whatever, sano- you shook your head, chuckling. and he stared at you for the thousandth time today, blood pumping furiously all over his system. he could even feel it on his ears, like the sound a seashell makes when you put it close to you, but this time, amplified to a deafening point

taking a deep breath, he decided to try once again. he made a promise, after all

-y/n- you looked at him in the eyes, driving all your attention to him. he was shaking, he had done this many times with you and other girls before, twenty to be exact, but there’s something in the way you are staring at him right now that results mesmerizing, intimidating, but mesmerizing still. shit, he couldn’t take it anymore -you look pretty to me always. even now, in the most screwed up situation possible, i think you are the most beautiful girl in the world and i- he stopped, red as a beet. inhaling again, he continued -i like you a lot, you know? i’m p-pretty sure i’m in love with you- stuttering a little bit in that last sentence, but who wouldn’t?

-yes, i already know that, shinichiro. you’ve said it like a million times- you smiled softly, looking down at the puddle you were in

-you do?- he didn’t mean to sound so disappointed, but the ghost of what it looked like his twenty first consecutive rejection started to pester him and it was impossible not to, or that’s what he thought

-yeah-

-g-great, cause i will keep saying it until the day i achieve the billion times ‘cause you are my girl-

-i’m not your girl- you furrowed your eyebrows -at least not yet-

-but you will! wait, what?- he was so dumb, you smiled

-just shut up-

without thinking it any further, you pressed your lips against his. the kiss was sloppy, rainy and embarrassing. but to shinichiro was more like ‘’the long-awaited arrival of divine glory’’, that’s exactly how he described it to his little brother when he got home

the silence and the shout, the euphoria and the lull, his insides felt like exploding, the floor was spinning

and you were, in that instant you really were his girl, no turning back. and you kinda enjoyed it

with that kiss you decided to let your feelings grow, and maybe, in a remote future, you would give him your heart to hold for eternity

thing that actually happened faster than what you expected

back to the present, you were both in the same situation, something like an induced déjà vu

a pair of lovers riding an old and too small bike on their way to yua ramen house under the rain. both with 23 years old now, but sharing the same feelings in the same two beating hearts

you started to go eat to yua ramen house together frequently after that first time, but master kazo got sick a few years later, so he had to stop working for a while and decided to leave the country for a break. he came back a couple of years ago, but you have not visited him until now, so it’s been quite a bit since you’ve seen each other

when you arrived, you couldn’t help to feel nostalgic

-sano boy, it’s that you?- his figure was more hunched than before, hair whiter and the wrinkles above his eyes and forehead were more prominent, but despite the changes that the passing of life produces, he was the same funny man you once met

-nice to see you master, how’s the business going?- shinichiro felt so many things in that moment. he was no middle schooler anymore, he left the gang medium a while ago, his siblings were older, and you were still by his side. he has grown, but sometimes, he forgets about that

-as always, punk. it’s really nice to have you here after all this years- you stepped behind your boyfriend

-hello sir, it’s been a while indeed- the old man laughed joyful, taken by surprise

-i can’t believe what i’m seeing, the same two dumb kids that came in making a mess in my shop once, doing it all over again. right y/n?-

-that’s us- you laughed, reminiscing -i’m so glad to finally see you again, master-

-the pleasure it’s all mine, it makes me so happy to have my two best clients here with me-

-we missed you, kazo- shinichiro added, coming closer to give the man a hug, you followed after

-i missed you too- he smiled -but for the love of god, go get a damn towel, son! and search carefully this time!- shinichiro went out, laughing. you viewed the scene amused and moments later, your eyes drifted to yua’s picture on the wall, you felt your soul clench, wondering if master kazo would still answer the same way. of course he would you thought, eternal is eternal

this time, shinichiro did find the towels. and you both cleaned the mess of water sputtering around, waiting for the cook to finish your meals while you chatted, catching up on your lives

-so you really are together since then, huh? i’m proud of you, lover boy-

-i told you i was going to marry her one day, didn’t i?-

-oh! did you guys already?- kazo instantly turned around, almost dropping the pan he was using

-i’m still working on it, but i’ll make sure you get the invitation soon- you suppressed a squeal. you haven’t spoken about this yet, how dare he just throw it out so suddenly?

-wha- you couldn’t even finish

-i’ll be patiently waiting then! nothing would make me happier- mr. okamoto interrupted you, leaving your head blank, as they always managed to

both creeps: 3 – you: 0 you’re out!

the food orders were the same, and with the first taste you took, you travelled ten years in the past. memory is such a graceful thing

kazo sent a glance at the both of you while you were eating, and he couldn’t help his eyes from watering

he saw the same slicked back dark haired kid with wet uniform covered in dirt, sitting with a lovely girl at his side, hair shorter than now and clothes just as messed as the boy’s ones, but the same smile that once brightened her features still present, dedicated just to him and his silly comments

-are you watching this, yua? we used to love like this- kazo mentally talked with the picture on the wall, looking tenderly at it. he didn’t get an answer, but he didn’t need to, he was certain

your relationship was like this since the beginning, unchanging. always coinciding in a world where only you and him existed, surrendering to each other’s feelings many times over. relieving significant moments of your intertwined lives, and at the same time, creating new ones with each arrival of a new day. discovering together a hundred and one different ways to fall more in love,

if possible

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

testing a brush everybody say hi to draken

to all of you, thank you ! you are all special

<3