chapter 11: hummingbird and the reason she's blind
cw: explicit sex scenes, questionable power dynamics and unhealthy relationship, mentions of childhood trauma/rape, torture, and infanticide.
this is a relationship between two very damaged people, and while elements are shown from love, the relationship as a whole should not be idolized or emulated.
From a young age, Yuna has been taught not to want. Wanting is a luxury of the privileged and powerful—to yearn for something out of desire, not out of need, is a flickering feeling that, when indulged, surrenders control. Even as a child, Yuna understood the importance of control. She has so little of it that to yield any part of it could be catastrophic, so she controls everything within her minimal power, every word that escapes her lips, every twitch of facial muscle. She knows not to want.
Which is why her current position, in Fushiguro Toji's home, on his couch, at a time when not even the birds are awake, is so contrary to how she has lived her twenty-one years of life thus far. She cannot explain it, not when her blouse is somewhere on the floor and her skirt pools around her hips and her knees are pressed to her chest and Toji's face is buried between her thighs and her hands cannot decide where to find purchase. All she understands is an overwhelming desire, wanting in a way she has never wanted before, despite knowing that she shouldn't. Desire cannot necessarily be described as pleasant: she wants desperately to crawl out of her own skin because it feels like it's just too hot, too much, too—
Toji's tongue does something inside her and suddenly Yuna's mind fractures into pieces, the build-up of what has been the last minute or hour or day releasing like a long-awaited breath after nearly drowning; Yuna could be drowning on land at this very moment, so shallow come her breaths as she makes no noise but just feels, Toji's tongue is still inside her but now his fingers slip in her folds, too, the fingers that he couldn't fit earlier because she'd been "too fucking tense" and "too fucking tight" now curl inside her with enough stretch for her to almost feel pain, but her mind is too hazy still to really notice.
When some semblance of clarity returns, Toji's face is above hers. His lips are glistening as he licks them off, and his hands are still at her thighs, one pressing her legs apart, the other still thrusting two fingers inside her lazily, sending tingles down her legs.
"Better, now that I got you off," he rasps.
It's more a statement than a question, but Yuna nods dumbly anyway. Toji grins.
"Like it?"
She nods again.
"Quiet thing in bed, huh?" His fingers spread inside her abruptly and Yuna gasps—it feels good, after the suddenness, and her hands land on his shoulders for stability as her body naturally arches towards him. "I wanna hear you scream a bit, hummingbird."
Yuna feels her face burn, even though she knows she is likely as red as a beet at this point. "Fushiguro-san…"
Toji grimaces and his fingers stop. "Don't call me by my ex-wife's name when I'm fucking you."
Yuna nearly whimpers. "T-Toji-san."
A third finger slides in, as if he's rewarding her, and Yuna virtually convulses. Her body is full of contradictions as pleasure overshadows pain and she sinks her hips down against the intrusion, searching for friction and force. Sex with Yuudai had started off painful, then had become a chore; her husband had often compared her to a dead fish, which Yuna couldn't quite blame him for, because that was how she'd approached the act.
It's different with Toji. The pain has a different nature, a sinister promise that as long as she can bear it, she will be rewarded, and that reward is all she wants, all she has the capacity to know. He watches her as she lets her body chase sensation, feeling push and pull and full, yes, that's it, she likes the stretch after all, the feeling of fullness when his fingers sink deep into her. She does not realize what she is doing until Toji speaks again.
"Needy." Toji's voice is condescending, but his eyes are clouded with an intensity Yuna is not used to being subject to. "It's a good look on you, fucking yourself on my fingers."
She does not think it's possible for her to blush any harder. "I…"
He doesn't wait for her to make a coherent thought. His other hand cups her right breast as he kisses her like he will devour her. She wants him to. Her arms wrap around his neck and her legs around his hips, pulling him close so that his fingers bury in her even deeper. He touches her like she belongs to him, that cavalier manner of a man who is accustomed to having needy women in bed with him who will let him do whatever he wants. Yuna would have never guessed she'd be the same, but a mindless woman is what she is now. For all her fear of losing control, she wants Toji to own her, to envelope her completely, because when his body bears down against hers and his arms wrap easily around her torso and his tongue licks against hers, she feels absurdly safe.
She feels pressure climb between her legs and her abdomen contracts in anticipation for her body and mind to snap again, but Toji withdraws his hand at the last second, and Yuna hears herself whine at the loss, her heat clenching and craving. He scoffs at her blatancy. The sound of his disdainful amusement makes Yuna want to cringe away and crawl to him at the same time.
Toji shucks off his sweatpants, just low enough to free his cock. Yuna does not have many to compare to, but it matches the rest of Toji, thick and lengthy and overwhelming even just by sight. She does not think there is any possibility that he will fit, but he does not seem deterred.
He takes her hand and guides it to him, wrapping her fingers around his length. It's hot and already slick and Yuna can trace the veins lining it, feeling a faint pulse. She moves with him, learning from the amount of pressure Toji is applying to her hand, eventually finding a stroking pace that he likes, judging from the way his eyes mist over and his own hand falls away. This is something she's familiar with, pumping a man so that he can get it up enough to fuck, not that Toji has that problem, but Yuudai often did, with the amount of liquor lacing his bloodstream, and as Yuna's own mind clears she finds herself falling into old habits, just to get this done and over with—
Toji's hand clamps over her wrist, holding her in place. He cracks open an eye at her.
"Slow down. Feels as personal as paperwork."
Yuna stops her ministrations. "Sorry. This is just the way my husband liked it."
The look he gives her is one of disbelief and disgust. "Are you fucking kidding me? You're thinking about another man right now?"
She just blinks at him. "I'm sorry."
Toji lets out a growl and sits up. The loss of contact somehow yields a fluttery panic that douses any remnants of pleasure Yuna was feeling. She sits up with him, chasing his warmth.
"I'm sorry," she says again. Toji doesn't look at her; he's instead rummaging in a drawer next to the couch for something. "I'm sorry, don't be angry, I'm sorry—"
He turns back to her and Yuna winces instantly, bracing herself for a slap or the impact of a heavier weapon. Instead, he just has a row of condoms in his hand. Toji notices the wince and drops the condoms in her lap.
"Shit," he mutters. "You got some baggage."
Yuna, after the seconds it takes for her to recover herself, finds this statement very unfair, coming from the man who'd called her over here because he was being tortured by all his own baggage, but doesn't say anything. She looks away from his face, then realizes she's just staring at his still upright erection with its angry, glistening head, and so focuses instead on her hands grasping the creases of her skirt on which the benign condoms are settled.
Toji leans his head back against the couch and seems to be debating something internally.
"You sure you want this, hummingbird? I'm a piece of shit, but I ain't gonna force you."
"I know." She fiddles with the condoms and separates one from the others. "I want this. I'll…I'll make it more personal."
"That wasn't the fucking point. You're not some whore I hired, we're not…" Toji grimaces. "Why am I even debating? Fuck this."
He takes the condom from her, rips it open, and slides it on himself. He then grabs her by the arms and hoists her in his lap. His palms slide under her skirt so that they rest on her bare cheeks, and he pulls her forward so that her core rubs against the side of his cock.
"Move," he orders. "Do what feels good. I need you as wet as possible for me."
Yuna's ears are hot. She doesn't know how he can switch his tone from oddly considerate to horribly crass so quickly, but Toji's words reignite that pressure between her thighs and she obeys, rubbing herself against him, trying to find that spot Toji's tongue had abused earlier to get her to come. When she does, Yuna wraps her arms around Toji's neck and sets a punishing pace, grinding against him as she feels herself leak against his length, it's close but not quite enough, the sensation is there but she wants the fullness, too, she wants that stretch, she wants, she wants—
Her lips hover above his, they breathe each other's air, like passing back and forth whispers. Is she allowed to think Toji is devastating in the starlight, that she loves the way he's looking at her now, is she insane to think that there is gentleness in his expression, in the way his lips meet hers as he lets her chase pleasure with his body, or is that just more of what she wants?
The pressure is unbearable, she wants it to release but knows she cannot without him sheathed inside of her.
"T-Toji-san," she gasps between kisses. "I want you inside."
His grip on her bottom tightens, then shifts her hips to help lift her slightly up so that her entrance aligns with the head of his erection.
"Go," is all he says before burying his face in the crook of her neck. His arms support her weight as she lowers herself slowly. A small cry escapes her lips as he breaches her—he feels even larger than he looks, and the pain in the stretch is undeniable, even though she knows the promise of its subsequent pleasure will be fulfilled. Toji's lips are at her ear, his teeth worrying the skin at her neck, biting down when he hears her cry. He moves one hand to massage her breast and play with her nipple, sending pleasure shuddering down her body and distracting her from the centimeter-by-centimeter slip of his length inside.
It feels like forever before she has fully sunk around him, and when Yuna opens her eyes, her vision is blurry. She needs a moment to accommodate him completely, but she can tell that he wants to unleash a thousand curses and take over the pace on his own, based on the bruising grip on her hip and his teeth biting the skin at her neck so hard, she thinks he's drawn blood. She is unsure if she will ever be ready, but she feels badly for Toji and his patience and the tension so evidently holding his muscles still.
"Okay," she croaks.
"What?" Toji sounds like he's going to combust.
"Y-you can move now."
"No, what the fuck, you move, you fucking pillow princess."
Her irritation at his dismissal of her consideration cuts through all other sensations filling her, and as if to prove a point, she lifts herself up nearly completely, thighs shaking, then sinks back down.
It sends them both careening. Both of them curse simultaneously, Yuna's more a moan and Toji's more a snarl, but it breaks Toji out of his tension, for he grips her hips and starts to thrust in and out of her on his own. Yuna is grateful—she does not think her thighs could bear much more of her own weight—and instead she allows the intensity of Toji's dick pulsing in and out of her to overwhelm all other thoughts. Her walls squeeze around him, they want, she wants, she is making sounds consistently now, sounds she never thought she could make, they don't quite match what she would think is pleasurable, they nearly sound like sobs, but Toji's lips are curled and she thinks he likes hearing her, likes seeing her messy. His fingers find his way between her legs and, as he thrusts in and out of her, she feels her soak his digits and the knowledge of this makes her even wetter. She knows she's going to come soon, the pressure is unbearable and everything under her skin feels like it's on fire.
"Toji-san. I'm close."
He doesn't respond. One hand grips her hip and the other thumbs at her, pleasuring her. His thrusts inside her speed up, and he finds her mouth with his. Yuna's orgasm hits her again like wave after wave, he swallows her noises and holds her so close she can feel his heart beating too, fast, two hummingbirds coinciding. Her fingernails dig into his shoulder blades even as he slows down his thrusts and she rides out her pleasure, fading slowly into afterglow where all Yuna knows is warmth and safety and comfort.
"Toji-san," she says, for no reason, but just because she wants to.
She smiles at him dazedly, mind agreeably fuzzy, and leans her forehead against his. They stay like this for a few seconds, exchanging breaths, and she likes the way he's looking at her. Yuna kisses him, tenderly, like the first time, right over that scar on his mouth. She has wanted to do that since they'd sworn the binding vow in the park.
Toji freezes beneath her.
When she leans away, Toji's eyes are clear and his expression guarded, and she knows that somehow, she has made a mistake.
Thousands of possibilities flash through Toji's eyes, but he settles on one. Without a word, he lifts her up and flips her around in his lap so that her back is pressed against his chest while his cock still is buried inside her. The position switch and the added sensitivity from her recent orgasm make Yuna gasp, but Toji does not hear. He instead brings his soaked fingers up to her lips and dives into her mouth, his fingers thick and calloused, like the rest of him. They pull at her tongue and trap it in between two while thrusting in out of her mouth at the same time as he moves her up and down his cock. Pain shoots through her, but his hold is rough and strong and she is not in the headspace to break away. She gags, and saliva pools and dribbles down her chin, but she just lets him, unable to muster much else as he pumps in and out of her from two ends. His touch feels different now, cold and impersonal, and the sound of him entering her again and again and the wet squelch of her mouth and heat floods her ears in shame.
Yuna lets him use her. It doesn't feel good, necessarily, but it doesn't feel wrong either. She does not tell him to stop. He has already given her what she wants. Now, it is her turn to give Toji what he needs.
Toji's apartment is small and cramped. Located right along the Edogawa River, it is in a precarious flood zone, susceptible in typhoon season and high tides, with the stench of fish often lingering in the apartment after heavy rains. On good days, though, the apartment is flooded with light. After years of living in dark cells, Toji has found natural light to temper his worst moods and habits, which is why he'd chosen this apartment over larger ones in the same complex.
It is this familiar, comforting sunlight that wakes Toji up. He typically leaves the window open so that the morning breeze can waft through the bedroom, and he sleeps through the early chirping of birds. His bedroom, like the rest of his apartment, is in poor condition. The door of his closet is swinging on one of three hinges, and he only has a single, badly scratched dresser with squeaky shelves. He sleeps on a mattress on the ground, which he normally does not mind.
This morning, though, he is acutely aware of his rickety mattress without a bedframe when another body joins him in it. Toji's short relationships are typically contained at the woman's homes. He has no interest in sharing his space, however shitty, with someone else. The less strangers he brings into his home, the less chances of the Zen'in family locating him. Last night had been an exception, though as Toji ruefully looks at Yuna's sleeping profile, curled against his outstretched arm, he does not think it needed to end on his pitiful mattress.
He presses the palm of his free hand over his eyes. His head is throbbing. He cannot believe Nightmare's Whim still has such an effect on him. His sleep had been punctuated by dreams of his mother and her horrible death, of childhood tortures, of the first time he'd met Shizuka and the disaster he'd caused after. He had not dreamt of such things, especially Shizuka, in a long time. Everything about the preceding night makes Toji feel shame, a feeling he'd thought he'd long lost. He should not have asked Yuna for help. He should've found a curse to blast him with enough Cursed Energy to force the weapon's release. He should have rejected her at the doorway.
He shouldn't have fucked her. Especially the way he had at the end, brutally, first in his lap, then on her hands and knees, bent over the arm of the couch like a fucking animal. She'd made little noise in the end (not that she could, when he'd been fucking her mouth with his fingers), and she hadn't come again. Toji had, and he'd felt like shit immediately after.
He still feels like shit. He peeks at her. The golden rays fall on her sleeping face the same way moonlight did, softly, but it doesn't quite suit her the same way. Toji feels the urge to close the blinds and hide her away from it all, but he doesn't. He instead stares at the marks he'd left on her skin the night before. There's a particularly nasty bite mark on the lower part of her neck, and the parts of her hips that aren't covered by the thin sheets are littered in bruises. Toji recognizes his work when he sees it, and he feels a mix of both pride and disgust at the sight.
He's a dirty old man. He's no better than her ex-husband.
Toji maneuvers out of bed, careful not to disturb Yuna, and heads to the bathroom. He showers, shaves, and cleans up what he can of the tiny bathroom so that it is slightly more presentable for her use. He is in the middle of cooking breakfast when he hears Yuna enter the living room, which is only separated from the kitchen by a dirty counter crowded with bills, receipts, and schedules of horse races.
Toji doesn't turn around to acknowledge her, instead fixating determinedly on stirring soup that does not need to be stirred.
"Shower's in the bathroom," he says, immediately feeling dumb afterward because where else would it be?
"Okay," is her single word reply.
The shower runs shortly after. Toji just focuses on not burning the salmon.
When Yuna reappears in the kitchen, she is dressed in the same clothes she'd arrived in the night before, and something in Toji stirs seeing her wear the same blue skirt he'd just fucked her in. Incredibly, he can't spot any obvious stains on its outermost layer. Yuna's hair is wet and one of Toji's towels is wrapped around her shoulders to catch the droplets. Her makeup is already applied; he can tell because the bitemark at her neck has been carefully concealed. It annoys him that she appears as she normally does, when he had ravaged and reduced her to a wordless mess only hours ago.
Toji says nothing and pushes a variety of small plates toward her: pan-seared salmon, miso soup with kelp and mushrooms, store-bought natto mixed with green onions, tamagoyaki, and steaming fresh rice. Yuna looks at the meal carefully, then looks up at him.
"You're quite the cook, Toji-san."
There it is. The use of his given name, a simple but not simple thing, acknowledging that the night before happened. Yuna radiates no ill-will, no resentment. Her eyes are softer than they normally are, perhaps she's just tired, or perhaps she's just stupid.
"It's basic." He picks up his bowl of rice and chopsticks and digs into the salmon. Yuna thanks the gods for the meal first, even though Toji is standing right there, before she does the same. They eat in silence, standing on opposite sides of the counter, Toji slightly angled over the sink, Yuna upright, her manners perfect, as she elegantly picks at each dish. Her face lights up as she tries each one, and Toji is nearly offended by how surprised she is.
"I'm not totally useless, y'know."
"I didn't say that." Yuna wiggles a piece of tamagoyaki away from the rest and bites into it. "It's delicious."
God, she looks happy. He hates it.
"You don't need to sound so surprised."
She raises her eyebrows, just a little, and glances down at the clutter he'd shoved aside to make room on the countertop. "Being a good cook just doesn't fit the image given by the rest of your apartment. That's all."
"Yeah, well, you don't grow up a Zen'in servant without knowin' your way around the kitchen." Toji pinches an entire half of the tamagoyaki and wolfs it down. "Had to be useful to all the grand masters, somehow."
Yuna nods in understanding. "People tend to be kinder when their bellies are full."
Toji snorts. "I wouldn't say kinder. Less beatings, that's for sure."
She hums. She picks at a single natto bean and eats it. When the sleeve of her blouse slips down, he catches the purple imprints of his palms against her wrists, barely visible against her inkwork, but enough for someone who's looking for them (Toji is looking for them). Toji can't believe this woman had let him hold her down and fuck her the way he had last night and is now delicately eating breakfast with him. She should be livid, should be out of his house swearing that she'll never see him again.
Toji wishes she would. Everything about her demeanor annoys him.
"I used to overfeed my husband so he'd fall asleep right after dinner. He'd be too tired for sex. He was usually too drunk for it, anyway." She still picks the natto beans up, one by one. "Kamo-san was not as easy to fool."
"You talk a lot about men who used to fuck you with a guy who just did."
The chopsticks are halfway up to her lips and stop. The natto bean slips from between them and falls onto the counter with a plunk. Yuna looks at him, thinking, before she sets her chopsticks down.
"Are you angry at me, Toji-san?" Her blank tone is betrayed by her heartrate. It sounds even faster than normal. Toji thinks she should go into heart failure, with how fast and constantly it beats.
"No."
"You've not been able to look at me this morning."
"Because if I do, I'm going to bend you over this countertop and fuck your brains out."
Yuna does not blink. "Would that make you feel better?"
"God fucking—what is wrong with you?" he snarls. "Is there something wrong with your head?"
"Yes."
He waits for her to explain, but she redirects the conversation.
"I know it's not tasteful, but I haven't really ever talked about them with anyone else. But you don't like me mentioning my husband. Or Kamo-san."
"Don't give him an honorific, he doesn't fucking deserve it."
"Do you think you do, Toji-san?"
He laughs. "Of course I fucking don't."
Yuna just looks at him. He wonders if she looks at her students like this, and if they feel the same way being on the receiving end, if she can make them feel foolish and ashamed just from her silence.
Toji breaks eye contact and drinks his soup. It's too salty.
"Toji-san, you are the only person who has fucked me to ever ask if I wanted it." The word "fuck" sounds so different coming out of her mouth. "I don't group you in the same category. I realize that it can be misinterpreted that way, though, so I apologize. I won't mention them anymore."
He can't believe how warped she is. Yuna apologizes as naturally as she breathes, as if she assumes all the ills of the world are her fault—no, as if all ill moods, and consequently all potential sources of danger toward her, can be assuaged if she apologizes. He knows it is how she defends herself. It means she will never hold him accountable. He should've known that from the beginning, considering she has somehow never resented him for blinding her.
"I shouldn't have fucked you the way I did last night," he says into his miso bowl.
"What?"
"At the end."
She waits until he sets down his bowl and can meet her eyes before she speaks. "I let you."
"You shouldn't have," he exhales. "You…"
Deserve better. He can't make himself say it. Yuna's lips twitch, as if she knows the sentiment and finds it amusing.
"I didn't tell you to stop, Toji-san."
"You couldn't have, I was fucking gagging you."
"I could have, and I didn't. You…" She mulls over her words. "I did not mind."
"You're lying."
She does that mini-squint at him again, but does not reply immediately. "I didn't mind most of it. I liked…most of it. Yes, I thought I'd done something wrong. It hurt a bit at the end. But you'd warned me of that. I thought that's what you needed to finish."
The lengths to which Yuna goes through to process their night as normal is remarkable. It's an accurate assessment of his general shittiness to assume he'd have to hurt her to get off. Of course she thinks it's not a big deal. Instead, she thinks she'd done something wrong. Toji wants to shake her. What could she possibly have done wrong?
Oh, right, she'd fucking smiled at him, then kissed him like he was something precious, and Toji dealt so poorly with such gentle handling that he'd had to fuck it roughly away.
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"Okay." She looks down at her chopsticks. "I don't regret what happened last night, Toji-san. But it seems you do, and I'm sorry for it."
"Stop fucking apologizing. I don't regret it," he says, almost defensively, but realizing that it's true. "I just think you should."
"But I don't." She picks up her chopsticks and resumes eating. She looks up at him and chews on a piece of salmon. "So here we are."
"Here we are," he says gruffly into the palm of his hand. For a woman who yields so easily, winning an argument against her is oddly difficult. He's tired. "Don't let me do that to you next time. Not unless you want it."
Yuna sort of looks like she's smiling, not that blinding terrible thing that Toji could not stand the night before, but a shadow of it. It soothes the raw irritation he'd woken up with. He doesn't know how this conversation ended up with her comforting him.
"Okay."
He doesn't believe her.
He's left a little less than half of the dishes for her to finish. He watches as she finishes slowly, humming once in a while when she tastes something she likes. They settle into the silence, the fresh morning light bathing Toji's apartment, the sound of cars and motorcycles waking up on a late weekend, the river wave crashing into the shore. She smells like his bodywash.
Nightmare's Whim is tucked away in a bag somewhere, sealed, and Toji thinks that this time, the morning after is not quite so bad.
They fall into a routine of sorts (isn't it pathetic: Fushiguro Toji, falling into a routine?). They meet up once or twice a week for training. It often ends in Toji fucking her into the gym mat on weekdays and on all surfaces of his apartment on weekends.
Sometimes they go out to eat.
(Toji sometimes pays).
She brings back wagyu steak from a mission and cooks it for him. He finds out she enjoys drinking and keeps a bottle of sweet sake in his cabinet.
(He's relieved to find out she can drink legally).
When a job takes him a way for a week, he gives her a spare key to water his plants. He comes back to three more plants and a new, odd sense of calm that permeates through the space. Yuna has stuck talismans all around his apartment to keep it hidden from jujutsu sorcerers.
(He does not comment on the irony of a sorcerer using sorcery to hide the Sorcerer Killer).
Once a month, she cancels their weekend meeting because she has to replenish the seals around his kid in Saitama. Toji spends the weekend meticulously tracking down every head hunter who still wants a piece of that two-billion-yen ass Toji gets all to himself.
(The binding vow that started it all is omnipresent, but only in the back of their minds).
Comfort opens the door to discontent. Neither of them realizes either possibility until one night in the early summer. Yuna comes over after a long week at the School orienting new sorcerers, and Toji, distracted at the races, texts that he will be late. It is hours past the promised time when he finally gets back home, only to find Yuna frozen in the middle of his living room. She somehow has an apron on and a cleaner spray bottle poised like a gun in her pink, rubber-gloved hand. None of these items belong to Toji.
The apartment is as spotless as it could possibly be. The kitchen counter has been scrubbed, the grit fished out of his stovetop, his mail is stacked neatly on the side, the horse schedules are tacked to his refrigerator. His floors are swept and shining, his couch tidied with a newly washed throw, and the scents of bleach and citrus cleaner are so strong, they give Toji's superhuman senses a headache.
"You're late." She remains rooted to the ground.
"Yeah," he frowns. "Looks like you kept busy."
"I…" She looks torn between anger at him and horror with herself. It's the most expression he's ever seen on her face. "I was nervous."
"Why?"
She sets down the bottle and tears off her gloves. "I'm going back to campus."
Toji catches her wrist as she tries to brush by him. "Hang on, hummingbird."
"You're late." Yuna is never angry with him, but he can sense she is now. "You're late, and I…I was just waiting, and now I've gone and cleaned your home like, like I'm your wife or something just waiting for you to come home, and I'm…this isn't okay, I don't know what I'm doing."
"I didn't ask you to do any of this—"
"I just felt like I had to!" Her voice isn't raised, but it shakes and she has a wild look in her eyes that he hasn't seen from her since the cat café. She is angry, but more so, she is scared, and only she knows why.
Toji can hazard a guess, but doesn't have much patience to elicit it with finesse.
"Hummingbird, we ain't married."
She blinks at him. "I know that."
"I'm not ever gonna marry you."
"I know that too."
"So?" He raises his eyebrows at her. "You don't gotta act like a wife around me. I've been married before. Don't have much of a taste for it." He looks around the apartment. It honestly looks great clean, but complimenting it won't help his case. "You don't need to do that again."
She turns this over in her head. Toji has long learned not to push when she stews in silences and thinks about her next sentence, no matter how simple the matter and how irritating he finds the habit.
"Okay." Yuna suddenly looks like she's had all the wind knocked out of her. Toji thinks, not for the first time, that her ex-husband really did a number on her, and he isn't really much better than that son of a bitch.
He guides her to the couch and puts the plastic bag of takeout on the coffee table.
"Toji-san," she says tiredly.
"Mm?"
"Next time you're late, I'm going to leave."
"All right."
"I'm being serious." She takes the tray from him. "I won't sit here and just wait for you."
He grins and twists off the cap off a beer bottle before handing it to her. "Good. You never should."
To: Reason You're Blind
[08:09] Good morning.
[08:15] Do you think I'm in love with you?
[08:19] The fuck?
[08:21] Someone on the street said I looked like a woman in love.
[08:22] Were they trying to sell you something?
[08:22] Perfume.
[08:23] No, you're not in love, you're just stupid.
[08:24] I did not buy the perfume.
[08:25] You better not have.
[08:26] To be clear, I know I am not in love with you.
[08:26] I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that, too.
[08:26] In case I was giving off a look
[08:27] of a woman in love.
[08:35] That was the most roundabout way of just telling me
[08:35] to go fuck myself.
[08:36] ? I did not say that.
[08:37] Just.
[08:39] Never mind.
[08:45] You're coming over later right. What do you want for dinner?
[08:46] Indian, please.
[08:47] OK.
[08:55] In re-reading the conversation, I see how it could be insensitive.
[08:55] I apologize.
[10:20] You're not in love with me, right?
[10:21] Go fuck yourself, hummingbitch.
In the middle of class, Yuna laughs. Her students stare at her, and she attributes it to seasonal allergies.
To: Reason You're Blind
[20:29] Are you following us?
[20:30] Yup.
[20:30] You didn't tell me you were gonna wear a yukata.
[20:30] I told you, you don't need to be here. My students are very strong.
[20:31] They're scooping fucking goldfish.
[20:31] Yes, as they should be. They are children and we are at the Edogawa Goldfish Festival.
[20:31] Don't sass me, hummingbird.
[20:32] I'm trying to save you time. Go home.
[20:32] You're worried about your precious Gojou heir, aren't you.
[20:32] No, I am quite honestly never worried about him.
[20:32] I am worried he is going to realize you are following us.
[20:33] And then tear you to pieces.
"Sensei, look!" Haibara Yuu holds up the fruits of his labor for the last thirty-minutes, two bright orange-goldfish swimming in a bag. Beside him, his fellow first-year, Nanami Kento, waves his broken tissue-paper net like a white flag of surrender.
Yuna tucks her phone away. "They're lovely, Haibara-kun. Nanami-kun, any success?"
"No." He does not look too disappointed.
The new first-years are breaths of fresh air. Yuna is more comfortable in her role as a teacher now, but Yuu and Kento are also much more reasonable first-years than the second-year class. Yuu, whose father had visited the school earlier in the year, is not from a sorcerer family, but his parents have become well-versed in the sorcery world since their son presented as a sorcerer and have been incredibly supportive in Yuu's journey starting from a Grade Three Sorcerer. They treat Yuu as their pride and joy, sending him to school laden with gifts for his teachers, and call their son daily for updates. Yuu is radiant and joyful in a way that is contagious, if not naïve, and though Satoru finds him absolutely bizarre, Suguru and Shouko have taken a liking to him.
Kento is Yuu's opposite, a quiet teenager who must have foreign blood, given his angular face and blonde hair. Though Yuna likes Yuu very much, she feels a natural kinship with Kento, who behaves well beyond his years, who understands the underbelly of jujutsu sorcery and is jaded by it even on his first day. She doesn't know much about Kento's family and he doesn't offer up the information himself; she just knows Yaga scouted him and he agreed to join. Satoru finds Kento hilarious, if only because he enjoys annoying him.
The second-years huddle not too far away. Unsurprisingly, Shouko has the greatest number of goldfish, her surgical precision coming in handy as she effortlessly lifts her fifth fish with the same net. Satoru, who has wasted already ten nets, howls in jealousy, and Suguru mockingly shoves his hands over his ears. Yuna looks between the two groups and thinks that to passersby, Kento and Yuu are the seniors, while the second-years are juvenile delinquents, with Shouko and her cigarette, Suguru and his newly pierced ears, Satoru with his bright white hair.
"Nice of you to take all of us out, Yuna-senpai," Utahime says. She's the only upperclassman present; the summer surge has been relentless, and the third-years have been incredibly busy while the fourth-years have been given more time off for career exploration. Mei has taken extra missions for pay to help offload the work; Yuna had actually paid her to take a Grade One mission that would have been assigned to Suguru otherwise so that he could join this outing.
Yuna hums. "It's been a long time. I wish we could've done something earlier, but it's been hard to find a time where everyone is free."
"Feels busier than it was when we started, huh?"
"Yes, it does."
"Yet, somehow," Utahime says mischievously, "you've found a boyfriend amidst all the work."
"What?"
"Oh, come on, senpai. Everyone's talking about it. You're off campus nearly every weekend, and ugh, I'm going to sound like an annoying aunt, but your skin is glowing."
Yuna does not let anything show on her face. "Utahime-san, I promise nothing of the sort is happening."
"Not even just seeing someone?"
"Ooh, are we talking about this finally?" Satoru bounds up to them, his bright blue eyes lighting up behind his glasses. Shouko and Suguru trail after him, counting their remaining allowances. "Did you get a name?"
"I was fine without you butting in, Gojou."
"You're too nice about it, Utahime. Who's the dude, sensei? Not a sorcerer, right? Boring salaryman?"
Yuna frowns slightly. "Why do you assume they're not a sorcerer?"
"Ah-ha! There is someone!"
"Gojou-kun."
He shrugs. "You never come back with foreign Residuals. I figured a sorcerer would leave something behind."
Yuna had not realized the Six Eyes were this precise, but thinks she should have known better than to underestimate them. She internally thanks the gods that Toji has no Cursed Energy, though she is probably the only person on the planet who is thankful for such a thing.
"So?" Shouko prompts. Yuna plucks the cigarette out of her mouth and puts it out. Shouko huffs. "Are we gonna meet him?"
Yuna has long learned that half-truths are easier to defend than outright lies. "No, you won't."
"Eh?" Satoru blanches. "Are you embarrassed of us again?"
"No. He's not part of the jujutsu world. I don't want him to get involved."
"Oh, sensei," sighs Shouko. She pulls out her carton of cigarettes, but Yuna stares at her severely and she puts them away. "Those relationships never work. That's a fucking big part of you he'll never understand."
Yuna's stomach sinks, but she doesn't know why. She doesn't think about the future as a natural habit, but thinking about the future in regards to Toji seems to be on a different scale entirely.
"Language, Ieiri-san."
"Maybe sensei is just seeing how it goes," offers Suguru, perpetually trying to help Yuna out in these conversations where her students box her into a corner. "Don't need to cross all these hurdles at the beginning."
Satoru snorts. "Yeah, you'd know from personal experience."
Suguru glares at him. The first-years don't know about their relationship yet, so he doesn't say anything incriminating, but the two of them start to bicker.
"The fireworks will start soon," Yuna offers as a point of distraction. "Why don't we find a spot on the pier to get a better look?"
She checks her phone briefly. Toji had replied with only one text.
[21:38] I'd kill him first.
It makes Yuna pause. Toji has a dark sense of humor; he says inappropriate things constantly. She should ignore this, but the single text and the long gap in his reply lands uncomfortably.
"Nanami and I can scout ahead!" says Haibara brightly, breaking Yuna away from her phone. "We can go claim a spot!"
Yuna is about to agree, but Toji's text makes her uneasy. She does not want to dissect why.
"It's all right, Haibara-kun. Let's all go together."
They find a spot in the back of the pier, and only the tall ones—Satoru, Suguru, Kento—are able to see the fireworks and their reflection in the river, but the others don't mind. The fireworks display in the sky is enough. The crowd oohs and ahs as the night sky splits into an entire assortment of colors. Suguru lends Satoru a black tie to wrap around his eyes, and when they think no one is looking, their hands loosely intertwine. Yuna panics a bit at this—they can't do this, not in public, not when someone dangerous can see them. She looks around, and as a particularly loud firework bursts over them, she spots Toji in the crowd, illuminated in the blue glow. He is looking at their group, but not at her.
He is watching Satoru. Maybe it's the lighting, or the fact that it's nighttime. Maybe it's because Yuna has never been in the same space as both Toji and her students, and it feels like two worlds she has desperately tried to keep separate are now threatening to collide. Framed in the shadow of a red firework, Toji has the look of man possessed with singular focus, a demon whose purpose is only to maim and harm and kill. It is not as if Yuna does not know this, but it is one thing to know Toji does it for her or for his job. It is another thing to see him long out of nothing but spite, however justified, to destroy the other world she has found a way to occupy.
She steps between them, and Toji's eyes meet hers. Another firework explodes over them, this time purple, and something in Toji's face shifts, and his eyes go hollow.
When she blinks, he's gone.
Her phone vibrates.
From: Reason You're Blind
[21:49] I'll see you at home.
[21:50] Keep on the yukata.
She relaxes.
[21:50] See you at home.
She shuts her phone, stores it away, and resumes watching the display, thinking she has won.
She does not think she is in love, because Yuna has never been in love. She is unsure if Toji ever has been either. She doubts it, but the man has been married (Once? Twice?) and even though Yuna did not marry for love, perhaps she should not project her lovelessness onto all marriages. But just from watching him, she knows Toji loves few things, (gambling, wagyu steak, maybe his son in a strange way), and she is not foolish enough to truly ask if she may be one of them.
She does not think she is in love, but she is unsure. What exactly does it mean, if she laughs with Toji and not with anyone else, if she finds herself thinking about him throughout the day, if she lies in her own bed missing him and feels most at home in his? What does it mean if she has never wanted another man, and that even though kissing Yuki when they were students was passionate and longing, kissing Toji is all of those things and more?
What exactly does it mean that she feels safe with Toji, enough to fuck him, and eventually, enough to confess to him, not that she loves him, but a secret much, much worse.
It happens on a summer night, when the cicadas drone outside and twilight falls late so that lilac lingers. After a successful training session (Yuna had earned a, "Good job" for the first time after managing to hit Toji in the stomach), she curls on one end of Toji's couch, drinking a small cup of sake as she reads over her students' first-term papers. She takes up half of one cushion, while Toji sprawls over the remaining one-and-a-half as he splits his attention between the T.V. and the day's newspaper in his hands. He's working his way through the fruit basket she'd brought, even though their dinner had been a hefty American-style steak meal, mashed potatoes and all. She does not think she's ever seen Toji turn down food if it is available. She surmises the behavior is the remnants of being denied it so many times as a child.
Next to the T.V., an electric fan attempts to dispel the summer heat to limited success. Despite the humidity, one of Toji's hands absentmindedly strokes Yuna's ankle as he flips the newspaper. It sends her hairs on end, but she ignores it; she needs to finish grading these papers before she can indulge either Toji or herself. Luckily, Suguru and Shouko's essays had both been passable. She knows Satoru's will be a disaster, and so she saves it for last because she needs to brace herself, but it is something else to read it in its entirety.
The topic for the papers had been to present a three-part paper on Domain Expansions, including the history of Domains, the technical foundation for famous known Domains, and finally, the theoretical framework for their own proposed Domain. Satoru's paper is entirely focused on the third point, and most of his sentences, if complete, include onomatopoeias. The final paragraph concludes with the following:
My Domain will be amazing, like darkness but stars and then BOOM, Big Bang! Then, galaxy formation, the intersection of universes, TONS OF stuff, ASTEROIDS, but also MOLECULES, destroyed, but formed, BOOM.
The End.
(FYI They're all dead).
Yuna chokes on her drink when she gets to the final parenthetical. Toji looks at her as she laughs softly and underlines the sentence and writes, "Yes, thank you Gojou-kun, I concluded as much."
"Somethin' funny?"
She shakes her head. "Just…kids."
"The Gojou one?"
"He's such a child." She says it fondly, but still flips to the front page and writes in big letters, "Remediation."
"Only you think so."
Yuna glances at him. "Sorry?"
"You think anyone else in the jujutsu world would read a paper written by Gojou Satoru and giggle about it?"
Yuna wants to protest that she was not giggling, but something in Toji's face makes her realize this is not a moment to banter. She rarely talks about her work, just as he rarely talks about his. It's impressive, to some extent, how much time they spend together while avoiding topics of their daily lives outside of each other. The times she is called away to the School or on a mission, she minimizes the details because she feels oddly guilty knowing that to Toji, Jujutsu High a faraway land from a fairytale he's grown up hearing about but has never been allowed in.
"I realize who he is, Toji-san. I am well aware of the danger he could become."
"That's where you're wrong already. The danger he is. The danger he's been since birth."
Oftentimes, Yuna is reminded that for a man who was cast out of the jujutsu world, Toji knows it better than most, and he understands its cultural nuances because no matter how hard he tries, some part of him believes them. She remembers learning about the Three Great Families and the existence of Gojou Satoru and what he means for the jujutsu world, but it's one thing to have learned about it six years ago in a history lesson, another thing to grow up in a home being told what a threat this god-child could be to the entire family since conception.
"He's a child, Toji-san."
He smirks and it is unkind. "You think any kid in the Three Great Families has ever been seen as a child?"
"I know they're not." She does not add, as evidenced by yourself. "I know Gojou-kun has been the target of many assassins since birth. The Zen'ins sent a group on his first outing from the School. I just…" Yuna sets aside the papers and nurses her drink. "I think I'm in the position to give him that chance to be a child, so I try."
"You're gonna get yourself killed."
She picks at a stray thread of the couch. Toji pinches her ankle lightly to make her stop. "Don't do that, I don't have the money for a new couch."
"You would, if you didn't gamble away all the money I pay you."
"Not in the mood for a finance lesson, hummingbird." He lets go of her foot and reaches across the table for an apple. "You have no idea how dangerous it is to coddle them. The world ain't kind just because they're kids. Better for them to grow up fast and learn it early."
"Isn't that how you grew up?" Toji shoots her a look that she serves right back. "You think that worked out well?"
"You pointing out I'm a shitty person isn't a good argument, I woulda been shitty even without my even shittier family."
"You really think that's true?"
"Hummingbird, don't you think you coming out of all your fucked-up childhood while still being a nice person is perfect proof of that?" He bites into the apple. "I used to hear my old man talk about the soul and stuff all the time. The soul precedes the body, all that shit. You are your soul. You don't change it."
"I don't think that's true. I try to do what I can for these children because I wish someone had done that for me."
"No, you do it because you're a fucking nice person. God knows why you're hangin' around me."
He grins at her, but it is not the cocksure grin that she finds so attractive. It is the same unkind grin as before, the one he has when he purposely shatters her expectations of him because he hates being held to them. She has learned that Toji is especially cruel and mean when he feels like he has to prove just how awful he is, and this happens often when he is comparing them.
She hates when he does this, every time she does something kind, as if it is born out of her essence, not effort, that he puts her on a pedestal that he doesn't realize is full of cracks and will surely crumble. She tries to make him see it too; hadn't he called her personality bad before? Didn't she stab him in the heart and like it, so long ago? Does he assume everyone would be so unfazed by the times he comes home covered in blood and guts, that everyone would still willingly go to bed with him?
"I'm not a nice person," she mutters. "And you're not…as shitty as you always make yourself out to be."
"You think that because I'm a good fuck."
"Toji-san."
"What, orgasms make you dumb. Fact of the matter is that apples are born rotten."
"I don't believe that."
"Literally ask anyone in the jujutsu world and they'll agree. I was born rotten, so was that Gojou kid, so is most of the jujutsu world, and maybe you don't count because you got tortured into joining it."
"That's not it."
"Am I your charity case, hummingbird?" He can tell she's upset and is purposely needling her. "Do you think you're gonna fix me, and that's your proof of concept?"
"Toji-san, I don't want to argue about this." The heat in the apartment has suddenly become unbearable.
"Why?" he sneers. "Worried you can't? Worried this is all a waste of time? I can tell you the end of this story right now, it will be a waste, so if you're hoping for something else—"
"I'm not," she lies.
"You should give up now," Toji's words fly like the horses he's betting on, "'cause I'm a piece of shit and the best part about it is I know it and being nice to me ain't changing that."
"Please stop." The fan must have stopped working. Yuna's ears are ringing.
"No, hummingbird, you should know who exactly you're involved with, because one day you're gonna wake up and realize that all this effort you're puttin' into people like me, like the Gojou kid, even that other one with the bangs you like so much, it's all for shit. We're all born shitty, you can't redeem us." His eyes are alight and savage, he is in the mood to hurt and maybe Toji knows himself best after all. "All your effort is worthless."
Yuna stands up, packs her bag, and leaves without a word. He does not try to stop her.
She does not go back to the School, but instead pays a drunk man lingering in the hallway two cigarettes to let her up to the roof of the complex. She finds a corner between two walls to sit against, underneath the stars until her ears stop ringing, until that stone in her gut stops boiling hot, until she falls back to earth. It is not the first disagreement she and Toji have had, but the first one that he has let her run away from. Perhaps because he'd thought the reaction to be right and true.
She does not know her intentions with Toji, truly, and Toji has misinterpreted her badly, despite finding a sore spot to abuse. Still, there is something to be said about him pushing because he can, because he wants to at her expense. Perhaps it's a way to harm her while getting around the binding vow. Perhaps she should re-evaluate what exactly this relationship is, with a supposedly irredeemable man, by a definitively irredeemable woman. But she has no answers, doesn't even know if she has a desire to have an answer. She just knows that Toji means something to her, no matter how much he shouldn't, and that things are different—she is different—with him, and to have him misunderstand her—the core of who she is—sets her on edge, makes her think he has made a mistake, bought an item he didn't read the description for, and that this, whatever it is, cannot be real unless he does.
Toji comes up to the rooftop over an hour later, when Yuna is on her fourth cigarette.
"Come on, hummingbird." His voice has lost its confrontation. He talks as if he had not just needled her into a hedgehog. "Y'know I don't like the smoke."
She looks at him, blinks once, and smokes more.
He frowns, plucks the cigarette out of her hand by the glowing butt, and tosses it away. "You don't look good when you smoke. Doesn't suit you."
She ignores him. Toji sits down with a sigh in front of her, stretching his legs out and at the same time, caging her in the corner. He takes up so much more space than she does. Under the moon and stars, Toji's harsh edges blur out, and Yuna can convince herself that the way he's looking at her is softer too. She would not go so far as to believe he's feeling apologetic or regretful, but the fact that he followed her must mean something.
"You didn't leave," he says.
"How did you find me?"
"You're the only thing in this building that doesn't smell like rotten fish or beer." Toji rests his chin on one propped knee; the other leg extends out against her body. His foot nudges her thigh. "Shoulda gone home if you didn't want me to find you, hummingbird."
"I didn't think you'd look."
He arches an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. Yuna looks at him, then looks past him, at the wall, at the storage unit in the middle of the rooftop, up at the sky where the moon shines in full. She keeps waiting for him to say something, but he doesn't. The silence makes her more anxious. She knows her heart is racing, she can feel it pumping against her chest wall and it makes her feel ill. Toji can clearly hear it because he leans in, looking mildly concerned as if he thinks it's going to explode.
"Toji-san."
"You gonna die on me, hummingbird?"
"No. I…"
"What's goin' on with your heart?"
"It's called being nervous, Toji-san."
"The fuck for? I'm just sitting here."
"You're expecting something of me."
"I'm not. You're in your head. It's like training. Snap out of it."
She can't. She tries taking a deep breath but it doesn't work, her stomach feels like it's pressing up against her lungs. Yuna's vision blurs and the ringing is back in her ears. It zones Toji out of her senses, and now her vision is going dark and it is never good when her vision goes dark because and she'll just end up back in that tiny house in Ogawa where the only people who exist are Yuudai and Kamo Hiroto and the screaming thing soaked in blood—
"Fucking hell."
Toji wraps an arm around her waist, pulls her in, and kisses her. It's not his typical style, with tongue and teeth and never lasts too long because he'd rather just fuck. It's firm but reassuring, makes her feel warm and safe and wanted. Instantly her mind calms, and she leans into him, her tongue marking the outline of his lips, tracing over the scar, and she lingers there and sucks gently. Toji is so much larger than she that his arm can reach fully around her when both of hers can barely wrap around his torso. When he breaks it off, Yuna is curled completely against his chest, her head tucked underneath his chin, and she can feel the slow, strong thud of his heartbeat under her palm.
"You done?" he says dryly.
"Sorry." She feels either like a child or an easily distractible cat, on the precipice of a tantrum, mollified by something as simple as a kiss.
He doesn't tease her for it, even though he could easily. Instead, his lips press to the top of her head.
"That happen to you often?"
"What?"
"The panic attacks."
"Oh. No." She fiddles with the collar of his T-shirt. "Not anymore. It's been a while." A beat passes. "How did you know that was what was happening?"
Toji doesn't respond immediately. His fingers curl in her hair and he toys with the strands. He has mentioned before that he likes her hair down, and so she leaves it down around him.
"Did you have them too?" she guesses.
"Nah. Maybe when I was a kid, but I didn't know what was going on." He swallows with a click, and he starts to say something, but clears his throat and starts over with what Yuna guesses is a different sentence. "Don't you know your triggers by now? Or has no one else ever talked about how shit your students are?"
"That wasn't it."
"Then what was?"
She shakes her head. "Don't worry about it."
"I gotta, 'cause if one of those happens in the middle of a fight, you're dead as a doornail."
"I don't see you sharing your greatest vulnerabilities, Toji-san." Her voice comes out sharper than she intends. "Don't see how you should expect me to do the same."
His grip around her tightens, and he takes in a very deep breath and lets it out evenly. They sit in silence for several seconds, listening to the river slosh and the cicadas hum. The air is unbearably humid and they are sticking to each other, but Yuna buries her sweaty head deeper into the crook of his shoulder and neck, daring him to let her go.
"My kid's mom had them a lot."
Yuna is careful not to stiffen or make any sudden movements, as if she will scare off a rabbit. Toji talks often about the concept of marriage, is vulgar in recounts of his sexual escapades, but does not bring up the women he was married to or had children with. She slowly looks up at him, leaning her chin against his chest, and he meets her eyes.
"You know Zen'ins." His lips are contorted in a baleful smirk. "They fuck each other to keep the line pure. Not that it really mattered with me. I'm just sayin' don't freak out. She was some distant cousin of mine. Didn't have a Technique either, so life was pretty shit for both of us, though she was lucky not to come from the direct line. Still. She went through some shit. Anything would set her off. Pots bangin'. Dog bark. You learned to be really quiet around her."
"Still," continues Toji in what has to be the longest stretch of time Yuna has heard him speak, "even though she grew up in that hellhole, she was…" His fingers have found their way underneath Yuna's shirt and his touch prickles her skin into gooseflesh. "She was a good person. You remind me a little of her."
At the last sentence, Yuna's insides turn to ice. She knows Toji means well, but it is the last comparison that she wants made right now, not with this woman whom Toji speaks so fondly of and is the mother of his child, meanwhile Yuna's child is…was…
"Toji-san, you shouldn't disrespect her with such a comparison."
"Huh?"
"She bore your child. She actually gave birth to him and he is alive."
Something flickers in his eyes. "Just 'cause your kid was stillborn doesn't mean anything about you."
"Toji-san," Yuna looks up straight at him and utters words she has barely been able to think to herself for the last six years, let alone speak aloud, "my child wasn't stillborn. He…it was alive. Screaming. It had two heads, four eyes, and it made sounds like it was calling me Kaa-san. My blood was still flowing into it, so I could control it somehow. I had it kill my husband and Kamo Hiroto. And then, I killed it."
The words Yuna has buried so deeply inside her since she had committed her greatest sin now pour out of her, unencumbered, and she knows that with each passing word, she is writing the end of this even though she has never wanted anything more in her life. But there is no way that Toji, who loves so few things in his life (gambling, wagyu, maybe his son) could love her.
"I buried it in the backyard. I lied to Yaga-sensei when he asked. I've never told anyone. It just lives with me, every single moment of every single day, and I just…I am not trying to redeem you or Gojou-kun or anyone. I am just…I am just trying to do what I can to convince myself I am worth this life, Toji-san. This life I couldn't give to a child that didn't do anything wrong, it wasn't a crime, it was just born, but I just…I couldn't stand it. I know it'll never fix it. I know I'll never be forgiven. But I have to try."
Toji just stares at her, his dark green eyes glowing in starlight, on a hot summer night, and Yuna memorizes the way shadows cross under the angles of his face and the texture of small scars over his skin. Underneath her palm, his heartbeat is still sound, though faster than before. Yuna is oddly calm. Like Toji had said, there had only been on end to this from the start, and Yuna had known all along.
"Sorry, Toji-san." It comes out resigned. "I did not mean to disappoint."
She inches back, signaling to him to let her go, but he doesn't.
"I should go."
She pushes against his chest, attempting to wriggle out of his hold, but he tightens his grip on her waist so that it almost hurts and keeps her in place. Yuna glances up at him in warning.
"Toji-san, I didn't consent to this."
"Shut up and let me think. You can't just say all that shit and peace out."
Yuna thinks about this, considers it fair, and stays still. Toji doesn't seem angry or horrified. If anything, he looks pensive, and just when Yuna is about to say something again, he simply says,
"All right." He gets to his feet, standing Yuna up with him. She staggers a bit, her legs having gone numb, and he holds her wrist to steady her. "Come on." He tugs her toward the exit.
"Toji-san, wait."
"What?" he says, exasperated.
"You just…I just…" She gestures wildly.
"Yeah, I know." He looks bored. "You're fucked up. I knew that already. It doesn't mean anything I said before about you being good is wrong, but apparently telling you that is your trigger so we're just not gonna say it again. No wonder you never get off to me calling you a good girl."
She goes crimson. "How can you bring that up when I just told you—"
"You're not gonna scare me off, hummingbird. I've done way worse than you. Apparently, that won't scare you off either. And since neither of us is going anywhere, we might as well just go back home and fuck like we were gonna anyway. So let's go."
"Toji-san—"
"Oh, you should probably consent. Because you didn't before. Don't want that binding vow cutting off my dick or something." Out of everything he has heard tonight, this prospect disturbs him the most.
She stays still.
He wraps his hand around hers and pulls. "Consent, hummingbird."
Yuna wants to cry. She wants to hold him and hug him and kiss him dramatically and do something with this sudden outpouring of emotion that she has not let herself feel since she was a child. She wants to ask why, how this man can bear to touch her when he knows everything. She wants to profess her love and then throw herself off the side of the building.
Instead, she says, like she has so many times before, "I consent."
He leads her back to his apartment, to his bedroom that has no fan and smells like old rainwater and mold, and he fucks her into that sad little mattress, over and over again, until Yuna cannot hold herself up. Even then, Toji fills her again and again, whispering filthy things in her ear and holding her body so tightly she thinks it will be impossible to ever detach from him. She gives and he takes and she takes and he gives and all she knows is that here in this space, Hidden by her barriers and surrounded by his body, Yuna will never feel safer, will never feel so seen.
When, at last, after Yuna has come too many times to count and Toji finally exhausts himself, they lie next to each other, breathing harshly, drenched in sweat and release. Despite the discomfort, Toji brings an arm around her shoulders and holds her from behind. Toji has a particular smell, one that's different from the rotten fish and the peeling mold of his apartment, it's faint but sharp, like a candle burning, but he doesn't smoke. It lulls her.
I love you, she wants to say. I've never loved someone before. But I think I love you.
"Toji-san."
He grunts. It's late, and he wants to sleep.
"Am I in love with you?"
He scoffs. "No, you aren't."
"How do you know?"
"If you were, you wouldn't have to ask."
Outside, the earliest of birds start to wake up. It's very late, or very early.
"Toji-san."
"What?"
Are you in love with me?
She doesn't ask. She already knows the answer.
He presses his lips to the back of her neck. "Go to sleep, hummingbird."
She does.
Her sleep is full of the lie that he does, but in her dreams she doesn't know it's a lie, which is why that it is all it is: a dream.