Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: Jschlatt - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE PLEASE I WANT THIS TO BE REAL I WANNA BE THEM 😭😭

rkgk

The loves of my life 🫶🏻🫶🏻

_Wildflower_

Everytime you touch me I wonder how he felt

Pairs: #Satoruxreader and Suguruxreader

Tw: angst, literally sad

Inspired by the song Wildflower by Billie Eilish, you know it's about to be heavy on the heart

_14th February 2017_

"Suguru?"

The quick breath he let out was immediately sucked back into his throat as he raised a rough palm over his face making sure to wipe at the bottom of his eyelids, he was already short of breath and his head felt heavy of the constant-

"Are... Are you crying?"

At his side in less than a second you wrapped your arms around his frame and hugged him, his been alone for alittle bit to long in the bedroom of the hotel you booked for valentines day

"I got some of that heart shaped chocolates from the store down at the lobby"

Your voice soft and your tender hands rubbed at his temples to soothe any ache, fingers softly caressing his head and lead down to his soft, slightly wet from the shower he took, long strands of hair.

"The ones with the caramel inside?"

His voice was hoarse and cracked with each word, just how long has he been crying by himself?

"Yeah, you wanna talk about what's wro-"

"I found this movie Satoru suggested we could watch"

Suguru's warmth left your body as he got up from the bed and walked to the TV to set it up, Satoru hasn't spoken to him-or you since you announced your relationship.

_30th June 2016_

"I don't-I don't fucking understand why... Why she would just up and L-leave like that"

A angry huff of air escaped his nose, he paced the hard wood floor and dragged a hand down his face, his teeth clenched so hard he could break his molers, Satoru was pissed and fucking heartbroken, it hurt so bad that he couldn't breathe properly

"Satoru... I'm sorry"

"No suguru it's not... It's not your fault, I fucking I fucking l-loved her so much"

Gojo couldn't stop the crack in his voice for the second time, unbeknownst to himself a lone tear from his face down his pale cheek and til he tasted the salty liquid he shook his head and covered his face with both of his hands

Crouched down into Suguru's arms he wailed til his body shook, his tall frame felt so small into his best friends arms. Even though you left Satoru, Suguru have never seen him cry

"It's gonna be okay I promise, you'll get through this"

_July 2016_

Blue eyes met Purple irises, Gojo bumped his shoulder against Geto as he passed him

"Wait-Satoru.."

"Shut up"

Suguru choked up and he clutched his phone tighter, Satoru saw your ID caller on his phone as they stood outside the candy store before the start of the movie

"... What about the movie"

"I thought... Fuck the movie, don't ever fucking speak to me again-You... YOU FUCKING HEAR DON'T FUCKING SPEAK TO ME!"

Blue eyes blown out in anger, the silence so loud Suguru could practically hear the shatter of his heart, couldn't even speak a word to stop Satoru from walking away from him. He tried, he really tried to say something to ease some hurt to not get that fucking look from his best friend each time they crossed paths.

_December 2018_

"Suguru... I love you"

The warmth that spread across his chest made him feel so hot that the redness was evident from his eyes to his neck and cheeks

"I-im sorry for springing this on so quickly I just really wanted to express my feelings I know it's been really awkward this year but I feel so... I feel so comfortable with you, your so understanding and and helpful and I couldn't imagine being with someone else-"

The feeling of his lips onto your own felt like a rush of cool air on a hot day, like warmth on a snow day, it felt like it was meant to be. You made mistakes in the past but Suguru is not going to be another mistake that's a promise.

His hands smoothed over your flushed cheek as you slept fast asleep, your swollen lips dried with the mixture of his and your saliva, your skin tattered with his marks. Satoru... Why does he think of Satoru everytime you are together, it hurts sometimes, like he was burning on the inside

"I know... I crossed the line-"

Suguru spoke against your hair as he moved closer and hugged your body closer to his own

"But... Do you ever think of him... See him in the back of your mind when you look at me too?"

Subconsciously he hugged your body tighter against his own muttering how he should just put it all behind him. It's been two years since he last saw his best friend and you were already... Carrying something so precious inside you.

thinking about teen! nanami who looked at you with heart eyes when you both walked around the hallways of the busy school you went to, his heart fluttered at even the slightest nudge you'd give him. you were a little oblivious, but that didn't stop teen! nanami from repeatedly throwing hints and trying his best to get attention from you. especially when you walked down your driveway outside your house when he picked you up for prom— you had thought it was a friendly gesture. he took your hand in his, as teen! nanami danced with you in the hall, his face lit up as he twirled you around.

and finally, teen! nanami who watched you walk down the isle 15 years later, you still looked as beautiful as ever. stunning, majestic and he couldn't take his eyes off you. as you both said your vows, he couldn't help but remember— teen! nanami who thought it was a small, simple crush. now, adult! nanami was with you forever.

requested by an anon.

Pairing: Muzan x f!reader.

Content: Part 2of 2. Approx 15.5k words. NSFW. Oral sex (reader receiving), vaginal sex, fingering, animal death, character death. Canon-typical violence and themes. Canon-divergence. Read Part 1 here

In Another Life- Part 2

Chapter 7

There was no world for Muzan beyond your tender flesh. The caress of your lips, your fingers in his hair, your body against his. Warm and oh, so fragile. His hand brushed slowly down your back, following the ridges and curves of your spine, all-too aware that he could snap it in two before your next heartbeat. 

And a voice in the back of his mind told him he should. 

How little it would take to be rid of you. But then, he was certain he never truly would be. No, not after tasting your lips, not after hearing your sigh of pleasure, or the way your breath caught beside his ear when his kisses trailed down your jaw to the delicate skin of your throat. 

He was ruined, and you, vexing creature, were the source of it all. 

What was going through your mind, he wondered. Were you in crisis as he was, wondering whether you should put a stop to it. It was improper. If the pair of you were discovered, you might assume your reputation was destroyed. And yet, you didn’t seem to care. Your hands grasped him with just as much fervor as he allowed himself to exert upon you, your fingers at the back of his head, not just running through his hair, but holding his mouth to your neck, encouraging him to continue. 

Demanding. 

That was it, you were so very demanding. And Muzan was only too pleased to obey your unspoken commands. He kissed where you wordlessly instructed him to, his tongue following the throbbing path of your veins, every caress of his lips an act of pure worship. 

A war raged on inside him; the desire to please you, pitted against the instinctive urge to tear you asunder for your audacity. What power did you believe you had over him? And why did he yield to it as though you were the demon and he the mortal? 

It was wrong. It was against the order of things, and yet, he could not stop it. He let you take his hand, guiding it to your thigh, the fabric of your yukata slipping away so easily to reveal your bare flesh to him. 

“Are you certain?” he heard himself asking, his voice like that of a pitiful mortal man. 

“No,” you replied with a slight chuckle. His kisses had rendered you breathless, your face flushed with arousal. It excited him beyond measure. “And yes, Tsukihiko, I am.”

That accursed name. He wished beyond anything he had simply given you his true name the moment he met you. How he longed to hear you gasp it as his fingers slipped beneath the damp layer of your underwear. Slick and swollen with arousal, so responsive to his caress. Hands capable of tearing flesh from bone stroked your core with such gentleness he hardly recognized them as his own. 

And fuck, the sound you made at his touch; relief and pleasure carried on a broken breath, your lips hovering agonizingly close, then suddenly frantic against his as you pulled him back to you. This dance. He knew the steps so well. So many days he had been too weak to please you with his cock or his tongue, so his fingers had had to suffice. But gods, you never seemed to care. He knew your body like he knew his own, knew the pressure you liked, the pace. He knew exactly the curse you would mutter against his ear when he pressed two fingers inside you, and found himself smiling when his hypothesis proved right. 

He knew you.

And he was helpless. In a thousand years, he had not felt anything akin to the rush of blood pooling at his core, he had not uttered a single sound as desperate as the whine which escaped him when you pulled your lips from his just for a moment to draw air. How pitifully mortal you rendered him. 

How beautifully you destroyed him.

“Tsukihiko, I’m…”

That name again. If he could pull it from the air he would tear it to shreds and burn it so that he would never hear you utter it again. “Hm?”

“Don’t stop…”

He couldn’t. No matter how his pride snarled at him for following orders, he couldn’t stop if he tried. The demon king bowed to your command, his thumb devoutly stroking your clit, feeling your cunt clench around his fingers as you chased your high. And he needed it. Needed you.

“Yes…” he gasped, as though your pleasure was his, as though there was nothing in the world that could satisfy him more than your ecstasy. Not a means to walk in the sun, not blood or flesh, not an end to those who opposed him. You. Your bliss. Your breath. Your lips. “Come. Please…”

You came undone at that, fingers gripping the flesh of his forearm, cries muffled against his lips. On and on, you tensed and quivered and cursed beneath your breath.

Oh, how he adored the way you fell apart, so familiar, so utterly beautiful. “Perfect. I’ve longed for you. Longed to… to hold you…” The words spilled from his lips before he had a chance to consider how they sounded. Surely you would think he had lost his mind.

But you simply smiled, pressing your forehead against his chin as you fought to regain your composure and rein in your breaths. “Hold me for as long as you like.”

He couldn’t though. Not the way he wanted to at that moment, because you simply didn’t have an eternity to be held at your disposal. 

It was near dawn when he returned to the Infinity Fortress, his heart thundering in his ears, a pressure at his temples making him feel as though his head would explode. His lips tingled from the intensity of your kisses, his skin shivered as it lamented the loss of your touch. It was absurd, infuriating, maddening, enraging. 

His fingers flexed in the empty air, longing to feel you beneath them once more; your heat, your delicate mortality, you. 

As he stalked through the ever-shifting hallways, the castle molded to his needs and led him to the room which held the accursed vase he had put back together so long ago. He had to end it, forget you, destroy the memories and you along with them. 

“Foolish,” he spat, gripping it by the rim and preparing to hurl it into the abyss opening up in the center of the floor for just such a purpose. 

And there he stood, motionless, holding the vase you had fawned over on the day of your wedding a thousand years ago. Layered in silks of purest white, as though the rays of the sun had fallen for your beauty and draped themselves elegantly over your frame. 

He hadn’t known you then. He didn’t particularly want to.  In fact, he hadn’t wanted to take a wife at all. He was nothing but a sulking boy with a sickly body exhausted simply from the act of dressing formally and complaining all the while. Oh, how he had glared as you spent far too long thanking people for their gifts, mooning over that damnable vase like it was something fit for an empress. 

He’d wanted to smash it then and there, but doing so, he told himself, would ensure the marriage was irrevocably doomed. And how right he had been. The day he finally broke it was the day he took your life. 

Muzan scowled. 

Her life. 

He could not believe what his foolish heart told him. He could not believe the yearning cries of a soul which did not even exist. She was dead. You, for the time being, lived, and for the meantime, he could allow himself the indulgence of pleasure at least. He would permit himself to use you. 

Drawing a slow breath, he set the vase down back on its stand and stepped away from it. “Yes. That’s all it is. It means nothing and it is mine to take. That’s all there is to it.”

But even as he spoke he knew it was a lie. 

In truth, he felt the thread between you wound oh so tightly around his heart. And he knew there were only two choices before him: admit his true nature, or pretend to be Tsukihiko forever. Because he could not, would not give you up.

And neither one of the choices were possible. 

▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎

Tsukihiko came to you the next night, and the next night, and the next. Each night began with conversation and ended with kisses and pleasure; his fingers skillfully coaxing your climax while he kissed you as though you were the love of his life. 

He was pleasant to be around, gentle, polite, and so devoted to your pleasure. One night as you kissed, your hand wandered down to his groin, pressing against the bulge tenting the loose fabric of his hakama. 

Gods, the sudden hitch of his breath, the way he twitched as though he hadn’t been touched in forever, the choked back groan deep in his throat. He was addictive. And with Douma still missing and your pursuit of the demon king making no progress, there was nothing to do but indulge in your newfound vice. 

“I swear, I could taste nothing but your lips for an eternity and never crave another thing,” he whispered one night, weeks after the first as you lay together on your bed, limbs tangled, barely a hairsbreadth between your lips. 

You stroked back the silken waves of his hair, gazing into his eyes. What a curious hue they were, but their color was the least interesting thing about them. It was their softness, the reverence written across his face, a picture of adoration and awe. You couldn’t help but kiss him; first between those pretty eyes, then up to his hairline, down to his temple, his cheeks, his chin and on and on. And Tsukihiko laughed softly, luxuriating in your barrage of kisses, drinking in your affection like parched earth soaking up the first rains.

It did nothing to alleviate the pressure in your chest; the tightness gathering with every second you spent in his company which threatened to burst out. A declaration you would never be able to take back once you let it loose. But you did, you felt that. Love. Overwhelming, all-consuming, rendering everything beyond him dull and colorless. You loved him and that was disastrous.

Some part of you longed to run away from it all; the temple, the corps, the mission. You could take Tsukihiko’s hand and steal him away, find somewhere where the two of you could live forever in that state of perpetual bliss.

But it couldn’t be. 

Sorrow, sudden and sickening consumed you, causing you to pause your affections. You were a demon slayer, you reminded yourself, your job was to fight and quite possibly to die; to eliminate Muzan Kibutsuji no matter the cost. In all likelihood you would not grow old with your love at your side. And the sweet man gazing at you from the pillow with nothing but innocent concern etched across his face could never know. 

It was far better to let him live his life free of the knowledge of the monster who stalked the night. He was too beautiful, too pure, too lovely to ever even know the name Muzan Kibutsuji.

“What is it?” he asked, the warmth of his palm against your cheek easing you back to the present. “Is something troubling you?”

You shook your head. “No, everything is perfect.”

The concern in his eyes never waned, and he watched you for a moment, as though trying to read your thoughts. 

“I’m alright,” you assured him. 

“Perhaps it’s time you went to sleep. It’s getting late.”

He was right but the thought of him leaving to head to his own room wasn’t a happy one. “Just a little longer?”

“You ask as though I could ever deny you anything.” Shifting positions on the bed, he made room for you to lay at his side, your head resting on his chest as his fingertips skated softly against your brow, urging you to close your eyes. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

True to his word, when you finally awoke, late in the morning, he was gone. 

You remained in bed, nothing but the lingering scent of him on your pillow and the butterflies in your stomach giving any indication that he was ever there at all. Where he went during the day you had no idea. He was nowhere to be found within the temple. Many times you’d resolved to ask him, only to find yourself incapable of remembering to do so once his lips were pressed to yours. 

After dressing, you headed out to the garden where your crow, Mokutan, was waiting, strutting around the garden paths with a distinct swagger in his step. 

“Message from Master Ubuyashiki!” he cawed, tilting his head as you unfolded a square of cloth from the pouch dangling from your obi, revealing a sliced plum you’d stashed away for the bird. 

“Go on…”

The bird held up his foot, offering a small scroll of paper laced to his spindly leg. Evidently he was done talking, the plum taking precedence above all else. 

The message was written with a trembling hand, the Master’s sickness clearly growing worse as time progressed. “I am writing to tell you that, should you believe this mission to be a lost cause, I give you my full support for you to leave the temple. At present there have been no sightings of the demon, Douma, nor of Muzan Kibutsuji. You have done well and I do not wish for you to feel anything less than proud. Thank you for your bravery and for all that you have done to further our cause. Ubuyashiki Kagaya, master of the Demon Slayer Corps.”

Weeks ago those words might have come as a relief, but as your eyes scanned over the note again and again, dread billowed inside your chest. 

“Tsukihiko…”

“Is that your answer?” the crow quipped, flinging a slice of plum to the side and pouncing on it as though he was a hawk. “Favorite word! Tsukihiko. Mmh…Tsukihiko. Oh… Tsukihiko!”

A wave of heat washed over your head as the damnable bird rolled onto its back, repeating his name over and over, as though he’d roosted for the night outside your bedroom window and heard you in the throes of ecstasy. “What? No, that’s not my answer! I need… I need some time to consider. Will you stay closeby until tomorrow?”

“Oh, alright. But dried fish tomorrow! And cherries! And—”

“You’ll be well fed, don’t worry.” You rolled the message into a tight scroll and slipped it into your pouch.

“Food for Mokutan. Goodbye kisses for Tsukihiko!” Mokutan cackled before taking off to fly onto the temple’s roof. 

Curse the feathered shit. 

Still, he was right. You simply couldn’t spend the rest of your days idling at the temple. Yet again, you felt the need to remind yourself that you were a demon slayer. There was no room in your life for Tsukihiko. 

Leaving the temple was the right thing to do. You resolved to say goodbye to your friend that night, to advise him to get out of the temple and start a life far away where he might meet someone who could give him the love he deserved without restraint. 

Gods, but the thought of him loving another turned your blood to fire. 

Some selfish part of you wanted so badly to claim him, a nagging feeling that it was right he belonged to you. But he had already lost one wife. Losing a second was too cruel. You had to end it and delaying the inevitable wasn’t going to help anyone.

Mokutan sulked as you tied your response to his ankle that afternoon, accepting the Master’s invitation to abandon the mission. “No cherries. No fish…”

“I know, I know. Life is suffering, Mokutan,” you muttered. “We all must make sacrifices.”

He petulantly pecked your hand, and didn’t even talk back as he flew off to deliver the message. 

At sunset you returned to the garden to meet Tsukihiko for the last time, your heart heavy and your steps slower than they had been. You hardly looked up as you approached the maple tree which had become the habitual site of your rendezvous. 

And the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. A chill filled the air, snapping your attention toward the darkness surrounding the garden. Something was out there. Something terrible. 

“Hello, sweet thing,” a voice you knew all too well cooed from the shadows. “Goodness, how I’ve missed you.”

Douma smiled sweetly as he approached, wrapping his arms around you in a vice-like hug, lifting you effortlessly from the ground. 

“You came back…” you managed to say when he finally set you down, your mind racing. How far had Mokutan gotten, you wondered. Would he even think to return to the temple when you didn’t show up at the master’s mansion?

“I did. Oh, it’s so good to be home, my sweet thing, we have so much to talk about. But right now I’m so very concerned.” Douma’s heavy brows pinched as he held out his hand, where something black and fluffy lay across it. 

In the darkness it was near impossible to make out, so you held out your hand, your heart stilling as your fingertips brushed against sleek feathers. 

“It’s a crow,” he sighed forlornly, confirming your fear before unceremoniously tossing Mokutan’s broken little body into the dirt beneath the spider lilies. “A demon slayer’s crow. I caught it not a mile away from here.”

A nauseating terror rose in your throat, your vision blurring as your every instinct told you to run. But it was hopeless. You had no sword to fight with, no way to call for help. “A demon slayer?”

“Mhm, I think there could be one at the temple,” Douma whispered, his lips so close to your ear his breath tickled. “They aren’t good people, sweet thing. But don’t worry, I’ll find who it is and make sure they won’t hurt us. I won’t let any harm come to you.” His pointed fingernails caressed the curve of your cheek as he pulled back and smiled. “I’ll find them. I promise.”

Chapter 8.

Tsukihiko did not meet you beneath the maple tree that night. Douma’s return to the temple caused such a stir that you found yourself temporarily swept up in it, standing toward the back of the room as he joyously addressed his congregation. 

“I was away, searching for something very important. Oh, but I missed you all terribly. Your sweet faces. It’s so good to be home with you all!”

His smile was so wide, so seemingly genuine, that for a moment you forgot about the Lord Founder’s many masks. His apparent happiness and relief were contagious, spreading through the masses, every one of them elated to see their leader returned. For a fraction of a second, you were among them. 

That was his power, his ability to draw people to him, to disarm and comfort them even as he devoured them. And you balanced precariously on the edge of his trap as a sliver of fondness seeped through your armor and needled its way beneath your skin. It might have remained there, buried deep and barbed, were the image of poor Mokutan’s body not branded into your memory, reminding you that the beautiful man throwing children up into the air and hugging every one of his disciples as if they were his siblings, was in fact the third strongest and most brutal demon in the world. 

For the briefest moment, you swore you caught a glimpse of a familiar face among the cheering crowd. Tsukihiko with his ebony waves, rich, dark eyes, and that telltale sensation of a tether tugging at your heart as the crowd shifted and at once he was gone. 

Perhaps it was only wishful thinking.

But therein lay another problem. Douma was on the lookout for a demon slayer, which of course was you, but Tsukihiko behaved strangely, and should Douma begin to suspect him… Gods, the thought of that made you sick. What could you even do in that situation, you wondered. You had no sword, no way to call for help, no choice but to reveal yourself to the upper moon two and hope devouring your flesh satiated him long enough that Tsukihiko could escape. 

The thought of it turned your stomach. 

“Goodness, I’m so happy to be home,” Douma reiterated as the congregation eventually filed out of the room to begin preparing a feast fit to celebrate their leader’s return. 

You found yourself strangely relieved to be alone with him. It felt familiar. Comfortable. 

“It’s good to have you back.”

He sat down on his plump purple pillow and held out his arms. “Come, my friend. Tell me everything that’s happened while I was gone.”

“Oh but it’s been so boring without you,” you said with a smile, reaching out to take his hand but remaining on your feet rather than curling up into his arms as you had in the past. “I’ve had no one to talk to at all.”

He grinned, his smile sharper than a sickle. “Liar.”

Cold fear lanced you through the heart. “I’m sorry?”

Douma laughed, lying back on the pillow and pulling you with him as he stretched contentedly like a well fed tiger basking on a warm rock. You fell to your knees, stretched awkwardly across his chest, your arm still trapped in his vice-like grip. 

“They left a little love mark, right here,” he chuckled, tapping a finger to your neck. “Has my sweet thing found love among my disciples? Who is it? Oh no, please don’t tell me it’s Takeo…”

“It’s not Takeo. Besides, Takeo—”

“Thank goodness. Oh but how lovely! To think your heart is all a flutter for someone. It’s very sweet. And don’t worry, I don’t mind in the slightest. Make lots of babies with your love and we can all live together. I think that would be nice, wouldn't it?”

“Yes,” you said, the word trickling from your tongue with such ease. Because it wasn’t entirely untrue.

Within the walls of the temple, surrounded by gilded lies and lying in the arms of a monster, you had managed to find precious glimpses of happiness, of belonging you hadn’t known before.

Douma sighed. “I need to make sure you're safe. That's the most important thing. See, with a demon slayer in our midst your life is in danger.” He pondered and massaged his temples with his long, clawed fingers. “I don't think there's a demon slayer strong enough to take me down, but my followers… my favorite… The slayers are a ruthless, heartless bunch. If they think you're in league with me they won't hesitate to take your life too.”

Lies. All of it. You donned your mask. “What can we do?”

He regarded you with those opaline eyes, a distant smile lingering on his lips as though he'd forgotten to wipe it away. “I could make you stronger,” he suggested at last. “I could ask my master to give you the same gift he gave me.” 

The world stood still and a bone-deep chill spread through your body. “You mean, become a demon?”

“Yes!” he said brightly. “Of course, the decision would be entirely up to Lord Muzan– you’ll have to meet him and win his favor— but I’m sure if I put in a good word for you he’ll agree. That way we can protect each other, and we’ll be strong enough together to protect your love and all the innocent people here in the temple from the slayer. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

The window you had waited so patiently for had opened. Finally, after months, you had an opportunity to meet Muzan Kibutsuji, to discover his whereabouts. But with Mokutan dead, you had no way of relaying that information back to Master Ubuyashiki unless you delivered it yourself. 

But it was your duty to seize the chance. Even if it was a distant hope, even if it meant the end of your life. Even if it meant sacrificing your love for Tsukihiko. 

Douma was kind enough to give you the night to consider his proposal, a night you spent alone, tormented by false hope and grim realizations. Tsukihiko was nowhere to be found, but perhaps that was for the best. Your love for him had only ever been a dream, the foolish hope of a heart condemned to death one way or another. And so instead of spending the night in the arms of your lover, you spent what might have been your last night alive planning a way to get the information back to Ubuyashiki. 

If Muzan agreed and turned you into a demon all hope was lost. Demons were unwaveringly loyal to their progenitor and you knew that once your soul belonged to Kibutsuji, you would not relay his location to the demon slayer corps. If you were devoured there was no hope either. It seemed unlikely he would refuse and simply allow you to return to your life with the knowledge which could spell his demise.

Only one path lay open to you, and the thought of it chilled you. 

If you were to delay your inevitable death long enough to reveal Muzan’s stronghold, you would have to win him over. And the only way to do that, you were certain, would be to reveal yourself as a slayer and offer Muzan something he craved even more than flesh. You would have to tempt him with something so tantalizing he couldn’t afford to kill you right away, and only then might he give you vital time needed to get word to the Demon Slayer Corps.

You would have to offer him Master Ubuyashiki. 

▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎

“My dear lord Muzan, I have a proposal—” Douma began.

“You have returned empty-handed,” Muzan glowered as Upper Moon Two grinned idiotically at him from the steaming onsen at the back of his temple. “You were not to return until you found the blue spider lily.”

“But I searched, my lord. I promise I did. I even asked mortals if they’d seen any sign of it but none of them had. Aww… you’re cross with me, aren’t you? I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, how’s that?”

Muzan rested his fingertips lightly on his eyelids and tried to massage away some of the urge to destroy the buffoon. Such an act would only diminish his ranks, he reminded himself. 

Instead, he slipped off his yukata and stepped into the water, allowing the heat of the spring to relax his body and ease away the tension. As a mortal he had enjoyed the steam of the onsen; a temporary relief wearing down the sharp edges of his pain, and it seemed that not even a thousand years had taken away from that simple pleasure even if he was no longer hurting or fragile.

“See? Isn’t this nice?” Douma sighed, resting the back of his head against the edge of the pool. “Life doesn’t have to be all business.”

“Actually mortal businessmen do this too,” Muzan muttered. “They bathe together and discuss their ventures at the same time.”

“That sounds like a great way to ruin a bath.”

Muzan chuckled monosyllabically. Douma, for once, was correct. Talking to the fool only disrupted the peace. “You’re right. Let’s not speak.”

Whatever proposal Douma had felt the need to divulge earlier was quickly forgotten, and the two demons basked in comfortable silence. 

Though in the stillness, his thoughts wandered to you, and that was just as infuriating as constant chatter. He should not have cared, but the thought of you waiting for him and realizing as the minutes passed by that he would not visit you that night, made him more uncomfortable than he cared to admit. Was your heart aching, he wondered. Were you craving his touch, his kiss, him as ardently as he craved you. 

He had half a mind to send Douma away again, to invite you to the onsen with him instead and enjoy your warmth along with the water. To feel your gentle hands against his chest, your lips against his throat. 

It pained him not to come to you, and that in and of itself was reason enough to stay away.

Finally, with a contented sigh, Douma climbed out of the water and materialized his clothing, “Well, I feel invigorated but I’ve worked up an appetite. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to choose one from my flock?” he offered. “You’re awfully pale, my lord. I don’t think you’re eating enough.”

Muzan’s eye twitched. Those words were never well received. “I’ve fed enough. Begone.”

“Oh alright, but tomorrow I’ll introduce you to—”

“Nakime.” Muzan commanded, and in an instant the fool was removed from his presence. 

In the silence of the night, Muzan found peace. He remained in the onsen, allowing the warmth to cocoon him. If he closed his eyes, he could picture the sun, imagine its rays pooling around him, not deathly as they were to demons, but comforting, welcoming, soothing. 

And in his fantasy you lay beside him on the sun-warmed grass, gazing at him with those eyes, full of adoration and affection, tormenting him by adorning his hair with a crown of red leaves and pink flowers. 

“You’re absurd,” he chided you, though there was no venom behind it. He had no intention of stopping you. 

Muzan’s brow furrowed. Was it fantasy or memory? The two had often tangled since he met you. Her face and yours had merged in his mind to create one inseparable entity. 

“Well well… and here I thought you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

Muzan’s eyes shot open and he whirred around to face you, his pulse thundering. Never once in a thousand years had anyone been able to surprise him so. The air was ripe with your scent, your footsteps near deafening on the graveled pathway. And yet you had gone unnoticed, standing but a few feet away from him while he bathed. Had he allowed his senses to become so dulled by you? Had he grown so comfortable around you?

“It’s late,” was the only coherent thought he managed to summon into words. “You should be asleep.”

You shrugged, the shawl about your shoulders slipping ever so slightly. “I couldn’t sleep. Besides, you’re one to talk.” 

“I suppose I am.”

You smiled halfheartedly. Something was troubling you, and it pained him to imagine he could be the cause. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you—”

“No, it’s alright. I assumed with the Lord Founder’s return causing such a stir you’d simply gotten caught up in the celebration. I didn’t expect to see you at all.”

“I’m not one for parties,” Muzan replied. “And the onsen was calling my name.”

You nodded in understanding, walking to the edge of the water and crouching to dip your fingertips beneath the surface. A shiver ran through Muzan’s body; a deep ache he had yet to grow accustomed to, one he long thought himself immune from. The desire to be touched, to be close to you, the desire to be held and pleasured. And the desire to give pleasure in return. 

“How did you know where to look for me?” he asked, transfixed by the movement of your fingers beneath the water.

“I didn’t. I just wandered.”

His throat tightened. Was the universe so intent on tormenting him that it insisted on delivering you to him? “Do you want to join me?” 

Your eyebrows dipped in contemplation, no doubt engaged in that frustratingly human conflict between doing what you wanted and what was expected.  “We might be seen…”

“And?” 

You narrowed your eyes at his lack of concern for propriety, and Muzan found himself chuckling, but your expression soon faded into fondness. 

“You wicked man,” you whispered with a smile. “I have nothing to dry myself with anyway, as tempted as I am. I’ll sit on the edge and put my feet in, is that an adequate compromise?”

“So long as you’re happy,” he said, offering his hand to you as you sat on the edge of the pool, lifting the bottom of your yukata to midway up your thighs to dip your legs into the water. 

Your skin was only bared to him for a moment before his lips were tracing the length of your shins, his pride all but forgotten in your presence. Whatever power you held over him, he surrendered to it readily, gentle kisses turning heated as you ran your fingers through his dampened curls and offered your palm to his lips. 

Despite your insistence that he had caused no harm, there was something troubling you; he wasn’t so far detached from humanity that he couldn’t sense it. There was a desperation to you he hadn’t felt before when you reciprocated his kiss, parting your thighs to make space for him, not caring one bit if your clothes got soaked when he pressed his body against yours. 

You were sad. That was it. Your heart was breaking. And the thought that it was because he had neglected to come to you in favor of speaking to his subordinate did not sit comfortably with him. 

“Forgive me,” he whispered, as though those words were easy to utter. “Let me make it up to you.”

His kisses trailed down your body, one hand on your belly urging you to lay back with a gentleness he hardly knew he possessed. Yet you resisted, stubborn creature that you were, in favor of watching him as he slid away your undergarments and pressed the first devout kiss to your cunt, your breath hitching at the sudden spark of pleasure deep within your core. 

And gods, at that first taste of you, at the sound of your fractured breath, he was undone, the meek demeanor of Tsukihiko shedding away fully. Again and again he kissed you; his tongue caressing, tasting, teasing, pursuing your bliss with all the tenacity of a rabid beast.

So soft, so tender, flesh more exquisite than any he’d ever known. Your taste was like nothing else. Gods, how he’d missed it. 

He stifled your cries against his palm, the ache of his arousal gnawing at him, yet he ignored it in favor of your pleasure. Dragging the flat of his tongue along the length of your slit again and again, he licked you until your nectar dripped from his chin and you quivered beneath him. And then he lapped at your clitoris, surrounded it with his lips and kissed it with fervent hunger, enraptured by every frantic pulse of your sex. Until at last you cried in ecstasy, tensed and throbbed beneath his mouth, tugged sharply on his hair and squirmed in his arms, signaling for him to stop. 

And stop he did, eyes wide and wild and far too demonic, claws and fangs bared without restraint. Thank goodness you were still out of your mind with pleasure and he had time to compose himself before you sat up and pulled him to you, kissing him like it was the last kiss the two of you would ever share. 

What a fool he was to have believed that he could stay away from you. 

“Am I forgiven?” he asked between heated kisses as your fingers tangled in his hair and your trembling legs wrapped around his waist. 

“There was never anything to forgive,” you assured him, the gentle caress of your palm across his cheek, granting him more solace than he had felt in centuries. 

He felt himself smile, genuinely, without restraint, gazing into your eyes. “You’re soaked.”

“Yes, you saw to that,” you replied, glancing down at the wet cloth of your yukata. “Now I suppose there’s no reason for me to avoid getting into the onsen with you, is there?”

“No,” Muzan said, pulling loose the knot of your obi. “None at all.”

Chapter 9. 

The water of the onsen was black and infinite, and in the gentle abyss you found much needed comfort. 

Tsukihiko’s arms wrapped firmly around your waist, your taste lingering on his lips, your name whispered into their heated air between kisses. 

He was perfection, there was no other word for it; a man far too beautiful to be human but too vulnerable to be anything else. His heart was tender, healing, and he offered it to you with such aching sincerity you simply could not refuse.  He gazed at you with reverence as you perched on a rock ledge beneath the water, caging his hips between your thighs.

“Are you certain?” he asked, his lack of concern for propriety overridden by his constant desire to do right by you. Tsukihiko, you were rapidly learning, secretly believed the world owed him a favor, but never you. You owed him nothing. Everything, every gesture, every word, every kiss, was received like a gift he saw no entitlement to. 

He was beautiful,  wonderful, frustratingly perfect, and you had to let him go. 

Still, you saw no harm in modeling his behavior for the night. If you were to die at the hands of Muzan Kibutsuji in an effort to rid the world of demons, the least the world owed you was one night of pleasure. 

“Yes,” you said, your lips brushing against the shell of his ear and eliciting an almost feral growl at the back of your lover's throat. “I want to fuck you.”

Bracing your hands on the pool’s edge, you allowed yourself a moment’s indulgence, basking in the simple pleasure of Tsukihiko’s lips against your neck, the sharp pinch of his teeth against your flesh, and the excitement of knowing his control was slipping because of you.

He bowed his back, trailing his kisses lower, cupping your left breast in his hand and mouthing at your nipple with clumsy desperation, moaning softly as you put your head back and sighed in pleasure. 

The man was intoxicated by you, besotted, a shuddering breath escaping him as he rocked his hips, allowing his cock to slide back and forth along the length of your slit, his foreskin drawn back over his fat tip, rubbing against your clit so deliciously. He groaned against your breast as he teased the two of you, savoring the intimacy and the build-up until he could stand it no longer. And then he pressed the head of his cock against the opening of your cunt. There was a slight resistance as he eased into you, the water of the onsen had washed away most of your wetness, but your body gave way to accommodate him. A shiver ran through you both as he pushed inside and bottomed out with a groan. Perfect. He felt perfect. As though the two of you were made to be lovers. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve craved you,” he whispered, his face nestled in the space between your neck and your shoulder. “How many nights I’ve yearned to feel your touch once more.”

“I’ve craved you too,” you told him, “I want you so badly.”

Not just then, but always. You wanted to spend every night in his arms, yearned to grow old with him, longed to steal back every moment the cruel world demanded you sacrifice for people who would never even know your name or the magnitude of your deeds. 

You surrendered your hold on the pool’s edge to hold him, and the moment he felt your arms slide around his back, the muscles beneath your fingers flexed as he shifted his grip. Broad hands swept down the length of your spine to cup the flesh of your backside and his hips began to move.

Slow, savoring movement, grinding his pelvis against yours, chasing your pleasure above his own. 

You opened your eyes to find him watching your expression, seemingly fascinated by you, as if committing every detail of you to memory. 

“Like this?” he asked. “Is this what you want?”

It was perfect, as if he knew your body like he knew his own. And yet the night might have been your last, so you issued him with a simple command. “More.”

His lips curved into a feral smile, the sharp tips of his canines revealed in the pale moonlight. “More?”

“Don’t hold back.”

And he didn’t. 

He braced his knee on the ledge beside your thigh, giving himself leverage to thrust without restraint. And Gods, what pleasure then, his strength unlike any lover you’d known before. He was relentless, bestial, rutting against you, hard, fast, every sharp thrust punctuated by a breathless cry that never left the back of his throat; “Huh-uh-uh-” 

Nothing else mattered, not in that moment. Just the relentless pounding of his hips, the pinch of his nails digging into the flesh of your back as he dragged you out of the onsen and onto the smooth rocks at its shore where his strokes were unhampered by the water. You bucked your hips beneath him, meeting his stroke, rewarded by a guttural cry and the exquisite pain of his teeth pressing into the flesh of your shoulder. 

“Fuck. Oh fuck!” you cried out in agony and bliss. 

He tried to pull back, but you held him in place, pushing his head back down, urging him to bite harder. In pleasure there was solace. In pain there was catharsis. 

He brought you to the very precipice with him, his body trembling in your arms as he came undone. And he remained sheathed inside you even after his orgasm passed, one hand cradling the back of your head as the onsen’s waters lapped at your feet, only the slightest, slowest thrust breaking the stillness between you. With every languid grind of his hips, you couldn’t help but moan against his lips, the pleasure overwhelming, lingering. He pulled back to watch you, eyes dancing across your features.

“More?” he asked.

“Yes. Don’t stop.”

Your word was his command. He pistoned his hips again and again, his cock still unfathomably hard, fucking you with such desperation it seemed as though he too knew it would be the first and last time for you both. And you were both so greedy for each other, your nails raking across his shoulders, his teeth bared against your throat. You no longer cared if you were heard or seen. You silently cursed the world for demanding you rescind the happiness you had found in his arms, and scorned it with every fevered kiss. 

And when your pleasure peaked he held you firm, surrounding you with his arms and holding you as your cries of pleasure faded and all that remained in the stark silence of the night was your breath and his, and the whispered declarations it hurt you to hear. 

“I love you,” he said, tenderly kissing the aching spot on your shoulder that bore the marks of his teeth, “So very much.”

“Tell me I’m yours,” you said.

“You are. And I belong to you.”

And that was enough. 

Later, he brought you to your room, his curls still dripping as he bid you goodnight, kissing you softly on the cheek before he parted and leaving an unbearable emptiness in his wake. 

I love you too, you longed to call out to him. 

But it was done. It was over. 

A fitting goodbye.

You dressed in dry clothes and left your room, making your way to Douma’s quarters where the air was thick and heavily perfumed. His rooms were a separate temple all to their own, devoted to nothing but his enjoyment and pure opulence. The demon reclined contentedly on a mountain of silk pillows, sucking smoke from his waterpipe. 

He grinned as you approached. “Well, well my sweet thing. You smell just lovely tonight. I trust your lover treated you well?”

“I’m ready, Douma,” you said, causing his smile to widen.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I want to become a demon.” 

For years you had trained as a slayer, working to master your breathing and control the flow of strength to your body. And it took all of that training to steady your heart, to remain calm, to force the words from your lips and ensure they sounded genuine. You focused on that, on the mission, bristling with anticipation, attempting to prepare yourself to face the king of all demons. No matter how horrific he was to look at, you had to adore him. No matter how cruel his words, you would let them wash over you and dangle the promise of information too tempting to ignore before his rancid snout. 

You steeled your nerve and cemented your fate. “I want to meet your master and become one of you.”

▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎

A short walk from the temple a man lay dead, his lifeless eyes still pleading for mercy even after his heart had ceased to beat. It was meaningless. Muzan wasn’t hungry, the man had not insulted him or committed any crime beyond simply crossing the demon king’s path as he stalked through the mountains in search of… of what?

Muzan’s body could recover from injury in an instant. Blades, arrows, wisteria flowers; the pain they inflicted was momentary, more a nuisance than anything. But you, the ache you caused. That was pure agony. 

He continued his walk, hoping that the mountain air might offer clarity. 

A light shone in the temple below, cradled by the darkness of the valley, and he found himself wondering if it was you. Were you lying in your room with your lamp still lit, recalling the passion you had shared in perfect detail as he was. Did your heart lunge too whenever you thought of him? Did your blood burn for him as his did for you?

And what was he going to do with you? That was the most pressing matter of all. He had deceived humans before, charmed and manipulated them for his own gain without ever revealing his true nature. And those who had come to know what he was usually cursed his name, screamed in terror and tried to run. 

The thought of you running from him was enough to cause his jaw to clench. He could never reveal his true nature to you. Nor was it necessary. 

It would be so easy to live beside you undetected for the rest of your mortal life, aging his body on purpose so you would never suspect what he was. He would remain Tsukihiko until you died in his arms, loved and comforted by a lifetime of lies, whispering a name that was not his.

But then what? What void would you leave behind for him to dwell within.

Frustration simmered in his veins as he raised his hands to cover his face and growled against his palms. No. He would not watch you die. He would not be left alone when you slipped away from him. 

“You are mine,” he muttered as though you stood beside him. “And I will not let this accursed world tear you from my side. I will find the blue spider lily and perfect my immortality, and then I will find a way for you to defy death alongside me. Not a demon but something else.”

After all the cruelty the world had inflicted on him, it owed him that at least. It owed him you. And if it did not hand you to him willingly, he would tear the world asunder until it surrendered you. 

Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he tried to make sense of the veritable bramble thicket his thoughts had become. Barbs in every direction, yet when he was with you the world seemed not only simpler, but softer than he had ever known it to. 

One thing was certain, he would have to convince you to leave the temple and away from Douma. The upper moon had a preference for devouring women like you, and Muzan would not risk that. 

“Simple enough. Tomorrow night I will ask you to run away with me, marry me, and begin our domestic pantomime.”

The words were ash on his tongue. 

He wasn’t quite sure why he returned to the temple before dawn rather than seeking the sanctuary of his fortress, other than a simple yet infuriating desire to remain somewhat close to you a while longer. 

He wandered the gardens for a time, noticing most of the flowers had gone, no doubt withering away to nothing as the year drew to a close. The maple tree which had become your meeting point was beginning to drop its leaves and he sat beneath it for a time, watching insects crawl amongst the foliage until they noticed his presence and scurried away with an urgency they didn’t even afford to humans. 

Centuries ago there had been a tree just like it in the garden of his estate, its crimson boughs visible from his bedroom on the days he could stand to have the window open. On the worst days that tree had been the goal for the sickly mortal boy he had been. 

“If you feel better tomorrow we could try to sit beneath the maple,” you’d said, massaging an astringent balm onto his back which some quack had promised was a miracle cure and charged him an extortionate sum. “The sunlight will do you good.”

The pain was unbearable that day. Even drawing breath was agony. “Fuck the sun. And be gentle. Your hands feel like ox hooves.”

Such careful, gentle touches. Such patient love cruelly branded onto his soul so he could never escape you. 

“Lord Muzan!” 

Muzan’s jaw clenched as Douma’s voice carried across the garden, the upper moon beaming as he approached. Perhaps he would return to the infinity fortress after all. 

“Isn’t the garden beautiful tonight?” Douma said, “I’m so pleased you’ve been spending so much time here lately.”

“Not for much longer,” Muzan said, rising to his feet in one graceful movement.

“Awh, really? That’s a pity. Well, in that case let me give you a parting gift.”

The demon king arched a skeptical brow. “What is it?”

“A surprise, one you’re going to love, I'm certain.” 

Muzan despised surprises, but knowing Douma as he did, the gift could be anything ranging between a severed head to the damned blue spider lily formula perfectly recreated. Besides, if the demon displeased him, tearing off his limbs and beating him with them till sunrise might’ve been somewhat therapeutic. 

“This way!” Douma grinned, leading him into the temple’s main building, to the curtained off area you and he had once sat together in and talked over dinner. 

The curtains were sheer enough for him to make out the vague form of a woman dressed all in white, the upper moon’s penchant for opulence and drama applied to full effect. The floor was scattered with petals. The smoke of incense coiled from the burners, peppering the air and clouding his senses. 

“What is this?” Muzan demanded to know. “Douma…”

“She knows what we are, my lord. She isn’t afraid. And she wants to become one of us.” Douma’s elegant hands curled around the pulley cord of the curtain, parting the swathes of fabric with a gentle tug.

And there you stood, dressed all in white silk the way you had been the first time he laid eyes on you a thousand years ago. 

And the world once again stood still. 

Chapter 10. 

It was a joke. It had to be. You’d spent so long in Douma’s company you’d almost forgotten how cruel he could be.

Tsukihiko stared back at you, dumbfounded, his eyes widening at the sight of you draped in silk so fine you might have spent your entire life never knowing what it felt like beneath your fingertips if not for Douma’s sick little joke. 

You were dressed all in white, Tsukihiko in black; two halves of a whole. Pieces in a game only Douma seemed to know the rules to.

Whatever the upper rank demon had planned, you had to get that innocent man to safety no matter the cost. Your mind whirred with half-conjured, insufficient plans.

“Isn’t she lovely?” Douma was saying, his arm slipping comfortably across your shoulders before he whispered softly into your ear. “My sweet thing, this is Lord Muzan. He can make you into a demon like us, and then you’ll become strong and live forever…”

“Douma…” Tsukihiko said, his voice low and quietly commanding.

“Hm? Yes, my lord?” the demon at your side turned, smiling… obeying. 

“Leave.”

“Oh!” Douma gleefully clapped his hands. “Lord Muzan!! I knew you’d love her!”

Your lover’s eyes were burning red like hot coals, his pupils slitted like those of a cat. The air itself seemed to shiver and recoil, leaving your lungs completely empty. 

“Tsukihiko?” you whispered, a desperate plea, but even as you uttered his name you knew it was wrong. Some part of you had always known.

The man in black took a step toward you, still every bit as beautiful as he had always been. And yet, the demon at your side called him by the name of your sworn enemy. And he did not correct him. 

“Your name is Muzan?” you asked, the pounding of your pulse throbbing in your ears as you tried to keep your voice steady.

He paused, his lips parting slightly, as though he’d waited so long to hear you speak his name. “Yes.”

The acrid tang of bile rose in your throat and the world tilted beneath your feet. The fires of hell licked at your skin and lit the threads of your veins like a fuse. “Muzan Kibutsuji.”

His eyes widened at the sound of his full name, his breath audibly catching. “How did… oh…” The light in his eyes blazed with malicious intent as he stepped closer still. “I see.”

The air between you pulsed with danger and the desperate plea of your aching, foolish heart. It could not be real. You were dreaming. You had to be. The man you loved could not be Muzan Kibutsuji. 

Douma remained at your side, his shimmering eyes darting between the two of you before he released a pensive, “Huh…”

At once, Muzan’s eyes snapped toward the unwelcome audience, and faster than you could blink, the upper moon was gone along with his temple. 

You and Muzan stood facing each other in a room lit by the golden glow of electric lamps. The paper walls glowed a comforting amber as the air around you shifted and groaned. Pristine tatami mats padded the reddish cedar floorboards, soft and comfortable underfoot, but completely without scent. Beyond the windows sat another building, though its architecture made no sense. Walls upon walls, staircases which led nowhere, pathways one would have to defy gravity to walk. 

“The Infinity Fortress,” Muzan said in answer to your unspoken question. “We can talk without anyone else listening.”

You could talk, yes, but what to say? How could you put the maelstrom thrashing around in your heart and mind into words? Your lips parted, preparing to vent some of the pressure building in your throat but no sound came. 

“You’re a demon slayer?” Muzan said, more a statement than a question. “One of Ubuyashiki’s hounds sent to sniff me out.”

“You're Muzan Kibutsuji,” was all you could say in reply, painfully aware of how childish you sounded, whispering the demon’s name into the space between you. But in truth, it was the only way you could make sense of it all. Tsukihiko was gone— no, the man you’d loved had never even existed. It was all a lie and you needed to hate the monster that took his shape. 

A soft hum emerged from the demon king as he turned his back to you and walked toward a simple wooden chest, placing his hands gently on either side and opening it. “The Infinity Fortress is the domain of one of my demons. She obeys my command. I asked her to place us in a room with all that we needed to have this conversation.” He turned back to face you, a sheathed sword in his hand. “It appears our first lovers’ quarrel will be a bloody one.”

“We are not lovers,” you spat, lightning crackling through your veins as the demon tossed the sword to the ground by your feet.

“No?”

You crouched to pick up the blade, not daring even to blink. Even armed you stood no chance against the demon king. It was suspected that the combined strength of every hashira wasn’t even enough to defeat him. But the sword in your hand was solid and familiar, something to cling to as those plum-colored eyes watched you through slitted pupils.

“It won’t even hurt you, will it?” you asked bitterly. 

“No.”

“Then why give it to me?”

“So you can at least say that you fought.”

The moment you pulled the blade from its sheath he moved to strike, your reflexes kicking in and your blade tearing through the sleeve of his yukata. Crimson blood pooled in the slit causing your throat to close. That blood was the source of all that was evil and demonic in the world. And it was also the essence of the man you loved, a man you never wanted to harm. 

No, you had to stop thinking like that. That man had never existed and the thing which stood before you deserved to bleed. 

As soon as the wound opened it healed.

“Tell me then,” Muzan said. “Has your master stooped so low as to order his slayers to seduce his enemy now?”

“What are you talking about?”

His expression darkened as the lips that had kissed you with such devout tenderness curled back to reveal his fanged teeth. A clawed hand darted out toward you, your blade meeting his wrist with a sickening thud. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t continue his attack either. 

“For centuries the Ubuyashiki family has hunted me, doing all that they can to prevent me from discovering the whereabouts of the blue spider lily. But it seems he is even more malicious and cruel than I gave him credit for.” 

A black vine burst from the back of his hand, barbed and vicious as it wrapped around your wrist, tethering you to him. A sharp spike of pain radiated from the only thorn pointing inward and pricking your skin, drawing a single drop of your blood. 

 “I was not sent to seduce you, I didn’t even know you would be at the temple. My mission was to befriend Douma and have him tell me the whereabouts of your stronghold.” 

His eyes narrowed, the vine around your wrist tightening and dragging you toward him. “I believe you.”

The vine retreated, creating the perfect opening to strike. Your blade sliced through the air, cutting the flesh of his thigh before he blocked it, the impact of his forearm jarring yours like slamming into rock. 

Again and again you struck, and again and again he fought back, his moves thinly veiled attempts to block under the guise of an attack. You fought with everything you had, your frustration reaching its boiling point as your attacks did nothing. All your training, your experience, all your fury and skill were nothing, not even a mild inconvenience. 

“You’re toying with me,” you hissed. “You could kill me in an instant.”

He said nothing, but struck toward your chest, the collision of his fist against your sternum enough to knock the air from your lungs and send you staggering backward. Your backside hit the tatami mats with a heavy thud. And you could barely move your sword, the fatigue sudden and all consuming as you flopped exhausted onto your back. 

Suddenly he was staring down at you, his face a picture of neutrality. Before you came to the temple, the thought of facing Muzan Kibutsuji alone would have chilled you to the bone, but as you stared up at him, you didn’t feel a single shred of fear. Only… sorrow and something else. Anger. That was it. Gods, you wanted to tear the castle to splinters with your bare hands.

As if hearing your wish, the floor gave way beneath you, sending you plummeting headfirst through an endless abyss. Darkness surrounded you, the air rushing past your ears, the only other soul in that infinite pit the demon king himself. He fell with you, composed, upright, gripping your blade in his hands so tight his blood sprayed from his palms and into the air as he guided the sword to the pale skin of his throat. 

“When we land, you can use the momentum to remove my head,” he said.

“Would that work?”

“Not for me, no. But perhaps for you.”

The very sight of him incensed you. Your lips had traced every inch of his face, those hands had held you so gently. In your weakest moments you had mapped out a life with him despite some part of you knowing it could never be. You knew him. You loved him. And he loved you.

“Was it real?” you demanded to know. “Any of it?”

He looked back at you, and with utmost sincerity he tore your heart completely in two, “All of it. Every moment.”

With a flick of your wrist, your sword tumbled into the darkness and away from his throat. The two of you slammed into the ground, far softer than such a fall should have allowed, but with enough force to wind you again. 

Your fragmented breaths were the only thing breaking the heavy silence between you, the agony spreading throughout your entire body. And silently you cursed him, cursed your master for sending you on the mission and the hashira who first whispered the idea into his ear. You cursed Douma and the fools who gathered in his temple unknowingly praying for death. And above all else you cursed the world for making Muzan Kibutsuji, the demon king, for taking the man you loved and turning him into a monster. 

“It was real for me too,” you said at last, eliciting a bitter chuckle from the demon's lips as he lay at your side. 

But it couldn’t be. You knew it as well as you knew the sun would rise in the morning whether you were still a part of the world or not. It was wrong to love him. He was not a man but a demon; vile, cruel, the epitome of evil.

He had to be, because if he wasn’t, then perhaps it meant that you were. 

“Raise your sword, slayer,” he said, rising to his feet and observing you from above like you were a specimen on a microscope he needed to understand to make sense of everything. “Your heart is still so full of rage.”

Your hand trembled weakly as it searched the floorboards beneath you, until it finally wrapped around the hilt of the discarded blade. Every muscle in your arm screamed for rest. But he was right, you needed to go on, to fight, to resist, if only to say you did.

With a groan you rolled onto your front, your trembling arms lifting you from the ground, only to collapse beneath you. That low, thoughtful hum you’d come to know so well sounded at your back before Muzan appeared in front you, crouching to help you up.

You should have been afraid. You should have recoiled. You should have spat in his face and cut his head from his shoulders. It’s what you had been trained all your life to do, afterall. But the man crouching before you was gentle, patient, lifting you to your feet and cupping your burning cheek against his cool palm

“Keep fighting,” he urged you, his fingers curling on top of yours to keep them wrapped around your hilt. “You need to. There’s more to this than you know. Factors I myself am yet to reconcile.”

“What are you—” you shook your head, trying to make sense of it all. And yet some part of you knew what he was about to say. 

“You have always fought until you had nothing left. In this life,” he said, his brow puckering in contemplation before finally adding, “and in the life I once knew you in.”

A wave of cold washed through you as his words settled around you. And you knew, you understood, that pervading sense of belonging you had always felt in his presence. Your soul knew him even when your mind told you it was impossible. Your soul had always known his.

“A beast found its way into our home,” you said, recalling the story he had once told you with tears welling in his eyes. “The neighbors thought it was a wolf… or a bear. It attacked…” You pushed past the gathering nausea in your throat. “Me… in our bed and left nothing but blood and bones where I once lay.”

“You remember?” he asked, his voice but a breathless whisper of relief.

But you were once more tumbling into darkness.

There was no way to know how much time had passed when you awoke, but the world around you had drastically changed. You lay upon a plush futon, sheer curtains softening the brilliant light beyond them. The furniture in the room was ancient in style, yet the condition of it was new, all except for a big, beautiful vase which sat in the corner, covered in hairline cracks, as though someone had shattered it to pieces and meticulously put it together. And the sight of it caused your heart to squeeze. How you loved that vase.

“Muzan?” you called, not because you suspected he was nearby, but because the thought that he wasn’t was too horrible to bear.

Perhaps he’d fallen. Perhaps he’d tried to walk in the garden by himself and didn’t have the energy to make it back. Sudden panic pulled you from the bed, the pain in your body entirely forgotten as you pulled apart the curtains, expecting the familiar sight of the mansion’s garden. 

But in place of the maple tree, there was only darkness and distant, ever-shifting architecture illuminated by artificial light.

“We’re still in the Infinity Fortress,” Muzan said, sitting on the futon you had just risen from. “Nakime built it to my specifications.”

His appearance had altered, but it was still most definitely him. In fact, as he watched you from the bed in his comfortable white kosode, his long black hair spilling down over his shoulders, he looked more like himself than he ever had.

“How is your pain today?” you asked. 

He shook his head dismissively. “Non-existent.”

That should not have pleased you as it did. But you found your heart considerably lighter as you approached the futon and knelt by his feet, taking his hands in yours and looking for wounds. They were healed completely, you noted before admonishing yourself for such a foolish thought. Of course the wounds had healed; a thousand years had passed since he’d smashed the vase. 

No. That wasn’t right. The wounds from your sword had healed because he was a demon.  

“Muzan, what’s happening to me?” you asked, glancing up at him to be met with those rich carmine eyes, far too full of confusion and sorrow to be anything but human. 

He remained silent, contemplating your words while your hands remained joined. He traced a finger over the pinprick wound on your wrist and sighed. “In centuries, I have ended countless lives and never seen any evidence of gods or a world beyond our own. I have never received divine punishment. I have never encountered the vengeful spirit of a victim. People die and cease to be, that is the end of it. Or so I thought. No, I didn’t just think it, I knew.” There was real terror in his eyes, a silent and pervading dread as he looked up at you. “But I know with all certainty that my soul knows yours. We are bound somehow.” 

You nodded, already understanding the answer you sought from him. “I was yours in another life, and you were mine, in a room just like this. There was a maple tree with blood red leaves which burned like fire when the sun shone through them in the afternoon, and we would sit beneath it and curse the world together.”

“You say it so plainly.” He sighed, still agonizing even as he spoke. “It can’t be. But it is, isn’t it? You are her.”

“How long has it been?”

“A thousand years.”

“And the world is as shit to us as ever.”

The demon king laughed softly before laying back on the futon and making room for you to lay beside him. An overwhelming sense of belonging overcame you as you rested your head against his chest, like being swaddled in a warm blanket that had always been yours. 

There was nothing you could say to make sense of it, nothing you could offer him beyond the simple gesture of tenderly cupping his face and pressing your lips to his. And he kissed you like it was the first and last kiss you would ever share. Tender, adoring, desperate. The anger you had felt was gone, replaced by relief. Finally, finally you were home. 

“I wonder if it was just the once,” you mused later as you lay in his arms, your fingers idly fidgeting with the long waves of his hair. “Or have our paths crossed many times, many incarnations, and you’ve killed me in every one of them.”

His eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line. “Why would you put that thought into my head, you wretched thing?”

“Well, it would serve you right”

“Would it now?”

“Yes. The pitfalls of indiscriminate killing—”

“Ah.” The subtle smile dropped from his lips. 

You brought up a hand to rest against his cheek, relishing the way he closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. Oh, you were most assuredly going to hell, but he would be there alongside you, and in that notion you found a strange sort of solace. “I don’t know what will happen or how we’ll do it,” you said, pressing your lips to his brow, “but we’ll find a way to restore your humanity.”

His eyes shot open, brows slanting in confusion. The air seemed to shift, to become harsh and cold. “Restore my humanity?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

He sat, pulling himself from your embrace and glaring back at you. “No.”

Your heart plummeted as he moved away, climbing from the bed and pacing toward the window with its nothingness beyond.

“Muzan, we can be together…”

“I will not surrender my strength, nor will I die. I will find the blue spider lily and become a perfect being, and I will make you immortal too. Fuck our souls, we will be bound together for eternity.”

“I don’t want that.” Horrified, you rose from the bed to follow him, reaching out to take his hand. In one swift motion he pulled it from your gentle grasp as though the touch of your hand burned him. “Muzan… we can save you. We can talk to Master Ubuyashiki. One of the hashira studies medicine. Maybe—”

“Enough! I will not die,” he hissed. “How dare you ask that of me?”

“How dare I? How dare you ask me to become like you?”

He froze, eyes wild with fury. “Like me? A monster? Is that what you think?”

“Do you deny it?” you asked. 

He simply looked away, his lip curling to reveal his elongated fangs. No matter how human he appeared, it was only ever a facade. 

“You are a monster. How many people have you killed? How many lives have you ended like they were nothing, mine included.” The fire in your belly rose once more as those crimson eyes burned through you, his slitted pupils narrowing. “Muzan, I love you, but I cannot love the demon you’ve become—”

“Then your love means nothing,” he said, turning his back to you. “And neither do you.” 

You were back in your room in the temple faster than you could blink, and Muzan was no longer there. Your anger spilled over, hot tears lining your eyelashes as you bitterly cursed his name. 

“Ah, my sweet thing, there you are,” Douma sing-songed from the corner of the room, causing your heart to freeze. 

“Oh, Douma,” you breathed, placing your hand over your racing heart. There was a strange sort of relief in seeing him, the familiarity and comfort of your old friend. 

He watched you, a curious smile playing across his lips as he toyed with a scrap of paper between his fingertips. “I found this in a little pouch in your dresser while I was tidying away your clothes. It’s very interesting.”

Every cell of your body screamed at you to run. That paper… the little scroll your crow had brought you, relieving you of your duty. “Wait—”

“I am writing to tell you that, should you believe this mission to be a lost cause, I give you my full support for you to leave the temple. At present there have been no sightings of the demon, Douma, nor of Muzan Kibutsuji.”

Your blood turned to ice as he recited Master Ubuyashiki’s letter. “Douma. That’s not—”

“Oh but this is my favorite part. It’s so sweet,” the demon chuckled as he continued reading, “You have done well and I do not wish for you to feel anything less than proud. Thank you for your bravery and for all that you have done to further our cause. Ubuyashiki Kagaya, master of the Demon Slayer Corps. What a nice man. He sounds very polite, except for the little matter of wanting to kill myself and my dear lord Muzan.” 

“Speak to Muzan. You don’t understand.” 

“Don’t I?” He pouted, his dark eyebrows slanting in contemplation. “I’ve met many little liars in my temple, but none of them are quite as horrible as you. You sat beside me, listening to my stories, making me believe we were friends, and all the while you were planning to kill me, weren’t you? You were daydreaming about cutting off my head.”

He closed the space between you, backing you into a corner, the air pulsing with danger and sickening dread. Your pulse thundered. Every hair on the back of your neck stood on end as the weight of inevitability crushed you. “Please, D—”

And those were the last words you ever spoke. 

Chapter 11. 

The replicated Heian-era room lay in rubble around Muzan, pieces of shattered pottery scattered on the tatami mats, the curtains torn to shreds. Wrath and ruin were all he was capable of, so wrath and ruin he embraced. 

How dare you. 

The thought of him as a mortal man, weak, fragile, every beat of his heart a countdown to inevitable death, filled him with dread and a fear like nothing else could conjure. 

At least, that's the way it had been before you came back to him. Now the thought of spending eternity alone was even worse.  

As much as you had angered him, you had impressed him too, fighting so defiantly against him, knowing full well that you could not win. You were exactly who he needed. Fate, cruel bitch that it was, was also absolutely correct in its insistence to bring you to him. He belonged to you, and you to him. 

Still, you would require time to think over all that had happened and give your temper time to cool, as would he. He resolved to return to the temple the next night and try again to make you see from his perspective. 

He crouched and began picking up the shards of pottery. In his own way he had come to love it, to cherish it, knowing that no matter how many times it was broken it could always be mended. 

As he collected the pieces, Nakime appeared in the window, kneeling respectfully at the threshold. “Lord Muzan, upper moon two has arrived in the Infinity Castle.”

Muzan clenched his back teeth. His mood was still sour from the quarrel, though he supposed, he should speak to Douma and inform him that you were to remain comfortable at the Eternal Paradise temple until the two of you were ready to converse civilly. If he could only make you see…

“Very well,” Muzan said.

She needed no further instruction. The upper moon appeared before him an instant later, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of the destruction all around the demon king. 

“My my, the place looks lovely,” Douma chuckled. The sickly scent of death and incense filled the room, closing Muzan’s throat. His footsteps padded against the floor to a torn curtain which he inspected and tutted mournfully. “Aw, this is silk. It’s very nice—”

“Douma,” Muzan said, not even sparing him a glance as he continued his meticulous recovery of the vase. “The woman you brought to me. Take care of her.”

“Already done, my lord.”

“Good.”

The upper rank smiled contentedly, laying on the futon with an exaggerated sigh. “Ahh… this is comfortable. Sadly I’ve already eaten tonight and I’m still full.” He patted his stomach and stared at the ceiling. “But she’s gone. You have nothing to worry about from nasty little slayers.”

Muzan grew still, his fingers hovering an inch above a shard. Since Douma arrived, the air reeked of death, of blood… of you. No… No. His blood ran cold. “What have you done?”

The fool sat up, that damnable smile plastered onto his face slowly slipping. “My lord?”

A feeling unlike anything Muzan had ever known surged in his chest. Dread more powerful than that of his own death which had haunted him for a thousand years. It was nauseating, chilling, he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t make sense of a single thing around him. All he knew was that he needed to go to you.

Nakime needed no instruction. A moment later Muzan was storming through the Eternal Paradise temple’s hallways toward your room. Dread sat like a lead weight on his chest, the cold creeping sensation of inevitability churning his stomach and darkening his vision. 

He felt so disgustingly human as he hesitated outside your door before sliding it open. 

Your room was as it always was, and there you lay, serenely tucked up in bed. Still, cold, lifeless. At once he had to turn away, his hands instinctively rising to cover his face as a burning hot mass gathered in the back of his throat and the world tilted around him. 

No. No. 

No it couldn’t be.

He summoned every ounce of strength he had, forcing the feeling down, commanding himself to remain calm.

“Stop this at once,” Muzan hissed, his intense gaze remaining fixed on the wall beside the door, refusing to look at you. “Whatever this is. If it’s some way to punish me for what I said, then consider the punishment dealt. You’ve done enough.”

Nothing. No subtle hiss of breath, no sign of life. Only death. Only emptiness. 

He turned back to face you once more, met with that awful, beautiful sight. 

Douma had indeed taken care of you, the shred of humanity his soul yet clung to ensuring your death was quick and painless. Eventually you would have been discovered and it would have been assumed that you died comfortably in your sleep, warm and at peace. Ascended to the paradise the temple promised. 

“Wake up!” Muzan snapped, the lights in the room flickering with his outburst. 

But you did not.

“Fine. If it pleases you to try it, we’ll search for a cure, as you call it. Will that make you happy? Will it bring you b—” He bit back his words, painfully aware of how pathetic he sounded. Gods, he was choking. 

He was still holding the shards of that damned vase, he realized, so he set them on the end of your bed before sitting beside you, lifting you into his arms and holding you to him. He’d watched you sleep for so many nights, listened to your shallow breaths, watched the subtle shifts in your features, the flickering of your eyelids as you dreamed, listened to you mumble and sigh. So many nights, yet, so few. And now there would be no more. 

You were gone. 

“I suppose you expect me to endure this life alone again for a thousand years?” he asked you, knowing you wouldn’t respond. “Is that my punishment for saying that you and your love meant nothing? Hm?”

A tear landed on your cheek, but it could not have been his. No, he would not believe that. Tears were a symptom of humanity, a sickness he was long ago rid of. He was loath to let them trickle down his cheeks. It was beneath him. 

“How dare you,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss the smooth space between your brow, hoping to find comfort where there could never be any again. “You said earlier that you remembered cursing the world with me. That the world was as shit to us as ever it was but there was more we didn’t get to say. So much more.” He smoothed a hand across your hair before standing, carrying your body in his arms as he left the room, if only to get away from the cloying scent of incense which pervaded the air. How he despised it, pressing his nose instead to the top of your head, breathing in your familiar scent. 

“The world is cruel,” he said, “It has always been. To take you from me once more… and yet it brought you to me. And I do not know which I resent more.”

He carried you outside, to where the air was clear and the maple tree’s leaves fluttered softly to the earth, laying a crimson carpet for the two of you to rest upon. The sky was already turning from black to deep blue, and his demonic instinct begged him to retreat, but he told himself he would hold you there a little while, until the ache in his chest ceased.

Even then, he knew it was a lie. There was nothing waiting for him once he let you go.

“A lonely eternity, knowing what could have been,” he whispered, his hand gliding  down your cold cheek, wiping away the mess of tears that had accumulated on your skin. “That is the hell you’ve condemned me to with your love. Even if your soul is reborn, what chance is there you will cross my path again? And how long will it be? How long are you going to make me wait this time? Centuries upon centuries, you stubborn creature.” A bitter huff of laughter escaped him, and he shook his head, raising his eyes to the rapidly brightening sky. 

He had once enjoyed the way the sunlight shone through the red leaves, the fiery light it cast down upon the two of you as you sat in your garden centuries ago. Every cell in his body told him to run, to hide from the merciless glare. But what could he run to? What was left for him? He could not answer, and so he remained, cradling your lifeless body in his arms. 

“I am afraid,” he admitted. “But then… I have always been.”

You had always softened the world’s hard edges. You with your patient love. And so he held you firm.

The sun was still hidden behind the mountains when the pain began, but Muzan was accustomed to pain. Besides, it was only cells and nerve endings. Grief was a far deeper, more savage agony, one he clung to as his grip around you tightened and the maple leaves began to glow that brilliant, blazing red. 

And then, there was nothing. 

Muzan stood alone in darkness, the white cloth of his kosode stark against the abyss. Panic struck his heart, the sudden realization that you were no longer in his arms, that he had let you go. He was alone. He called your name again and again, bleating helplessly into that eternal night.

“I’m here,” you said, and at once his heart knew peace. 

He fell to his knees before you as you wrapped your arms around him, cradling his head against you and stroking your hand through the long waves of his hair. He no longer had the power to change it, he realized, but strangely, that no longer mattered. 

“Forgive me,” he whispered, holding you to him with a strength far beyond anything he had possessed as a demon. 

“Always,” you said. 

“I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you.”

Heat pressed against his back, the beckoning glow of hellfire he couldn’t shut out no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes shut and hid his face against you. 

“I think we’ll always find each other,” you said, your comforting touch enabling him to stand and face the inevitable. “And before you try to argue, I am coming with you. I have no intention of being reborn into a world you aren’t a part of.”

With the flames licking at his back, Muzan found himself able to stand, and unable to stop himself from smiling. You were right, there was little point in arguing. You were far too stubborn. So he took your hand, and walked into hell at your side. 

“My love,” he said. “My stubborn, ridiculous woman. I will love you for eons… even if the world will not allow it.”

Chapter 12- Another Life. 

“Your bloodwork results are promising,” Doctor Kocho said, switching the display so Muzan's tablet screen filled with the report from his recent tests. “If this continues I think it’s safe to say we should stick with the Lycorisol.”

Muzan nodded. “Agreed. It seems to be working well.”

“How are your pain levels?”

“About a five.”

“That’s good, considering when you first came to me you told me the numbers on the scale didn’t go high enough and you had quite a few choice suggestions on where I should shove my charts.”

“And look at me now,” he said dryly, watching as a black car pulled up on the gallery’s security screen monitor. His first visitor was right on time. 

The doctor laughed quietly. “Hopefully that number will be even lower at our next appointment.”

Muzan hummed in acknowledgement. Hope was becoming a familiar feeling, though one he remained hesitant to trust fully. “Thank you for your time, doctor. I’ll speak to you again next month.”

“Always a pleasure, Mr. Kibutsuji. Good luck with the exhibition.”

He ended the call, and pulled in a steadying breath. 

The exhibition had taken years of planning, and now that it was happening, he found himself uncharacteristically nervous. His shoes and walking cane clicked rhythmically on the polished wooden floor as he walked through his exhibit for what must be the hundredth time, inspecting each piece, as if decades’ of passion and practice could ever be erased simply by one of his vases being a fraction off-center. He was being ridiculous. 

Over the years he had honed his skills as a potter, his fascination with recreating ancient techniques and styles of ceramic bordering on obsession. Or so the magazine reviews had said anyway. 

His attention was drawn by the soft tap of footsteps behind him as a visitor entered the gallery, and at once his heart began to race. Nervous didn’t cover it. 

You walked slowly from piece to piece, studying the vases one by one, reading the little plaques he’d meticulously typed up describing his process behind each vase. And he could see it in your eyes, the vague interest but soul-deep yearning for… for what? That was what he needed to understand. What was the thing his pieces were lacking? Why did it never quite feel right? 

And then his eyes met yours and the world stood still. 

“Welcome,” he heard himself saying, though it seemed an insufficient greeting. He never was much of a people person.

“Hi,” you replied with a smile he almost felt he knew. “Are you the artist?”

He nodded. “I am. Muzan Kibutsuji.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you. I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time.”

“Oh…” His cheeks grew mortifyingly warm. “A fan.”

Gods, what was wrong with him? 

Your slanted smile made his pulse thunder, the sensation of your palm against his as the two of you shook hands damn near made him lightheaded. Yes, you were physically attractive to him, of course you were, but there was something else too. He’d known you for all of a minute, and yet the yearning he felt, the longing…

“This is going to sound so silly, but I think I’ve been daydreaming about coming here for so long I feel like we’ve already met,” you said. 

He gripped the head of his cane so tightly he felt as though the wood would splinter beneath his hand. “Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Oh, I could stay forever.”

“Please do,” he said, snapping his mouth shut as soon as the words left his lips.

But you simply laughed, quietly and not at all unkindly, glancing away as your own complexion darkened. And that’s when your eyes met the vase in the corner, the only one in the exhibition he had not made himself. 

“Oh… wow…” you said, walking closer to the piece. 

“Ah, that’s actually the vase which began my love of ceramics,” he said, standing beside you and finding himself transfixed by it as he always did. “I discovered the fragments inside an abandoned temple when I was twelve years old. The vase itself dates all the way back to the Heian period. It’s been broken and fixed many times. I used to play with it, putting it back together over and over like a puzzle until I learned the art of kintsugi.”

Your eyes traced the cracks he had permanently and painstakingly repaired with lacquer and gold powder. “It’s… I don’t know what it is…”

His heart sank just a little. “I suppose to most people it’s just a vase but I’ve always felt drawn to it.”

“No,” you said. “It’s not just a vase, is it? It’s a story.”

“Yes.” Muzan’s breath shook as he found himself suddenly on the verge of tears. His eyes met yours, and at once he felt as though he had found his place in the world. “You understand.”

▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎○▪︎

Three years later that vase stood on a plinth at the very same gallery as guests mingled and congratulated you on your marriage. 

Your new husband glared from across the room, his social battery completely drained and yet he couldn’t quite hold back the wry smile tilting the corner of his lips at the sight of you in your wedding dress. 

Not that he didn’t look absolutely gorgeous himself in his sleek black suit. So gorgeous, in fact, that you found yourself completely unable to stop staring at him.

He said something inaudible to the people surrounding him and made his way toward you.  

“Mrs. Kibutsuji…” he said as he approached, his hand slipping around your waist to rest on the small of your back as he pressed his lips to your brow. “I’m tired.”

“I know, love. We only have four more hours of wedding to endure,” you said leaning into his kiss. “But if you like we can bail and head back to the hotel–”

“No, let's stay, I haven't danced with my wife yet, ” he said, the gentle smile he reserved so often for you softening his features, “I am, however, keen to stop… how did you phrase it?”

“Playing nice?”

“Yes.”

You chuckled as he led you to the dance floor, swaying you to the music. Your husband was a curmudgeon– often with good reason– but he was completely, undeniably besotted with you. It was plain to see in his eyes, those soft reddish-brown eyes which gazed at you like you were the only person in the universe for him. And he was certainly the only one in the universe for you. 

He grimaced at the sudden shower of flashes from the guests’ cameras.

You couldn’t help but laugh as his misery compounded. “You poor thing, it’s killing you, isn’t it?”

“I must have done something awful in a past life,” he grumbled, but he didn’t mean it one bit. Muzan, despite his outward appearance, was happier than he had ever been. And so were you. 

“You must have,” you said, your lips seeking his, your heart full with the knowledge that Muzan Kibutsuji, that terrible, wonderful man was yours forever. 

THE END. 

I have inappropriate things to say.

Despair and hope

This is a crossover between OHSHC and Tokyo Revengers, and the reader is AMAB Nonbinary, for those who are curious.

may you never forget me | nerdjo x f!reader

one: lingering, like a ghost

summary: he has everything he’s ever worked hard for, except for that one girl who was in at least one of his classes each semester for the entirety of college. he never tried to actually get to know you, but he did help you in ways you'd never know… one of them was getting professor gakuganji fired for calling you out in class. graduation day was supposed to be the day he finally confessed, only for you to not show up at all. what will he do when he sees you again 5 years later?

genre: unrequited love, smut, angst, fluff, one-sided love, gojo’s lw crazy, very observant of reader in all there classes together, nerdjo has an existential crisis in between graduation and seeing reader again, set in the present but will have many flashbacks, more to be added

a/n: HI WELCOME TO THE FIRST CHAPTER! So real quick, this is in present time, but this fic will have a lot of flashbacks to when gojo and reader were in college. We are starting off strong with a gojo pov, enjoy and see you in the end notes ❤️ 3.7k words

SONG REC: night tapes - drifting

masterlist

Contrary to what people may have believed, Satoru never really liked school. Yes, he got good grades, has even won awards throughout his childhood. It’s learning that he likes– astronomy, taking random language classes, historical documentaries, it’s not that hard getting him interested in new subjects. 

But school itself? He actually kinda loathed it, to tell you the truth. 

Starting from kindergarten, when his nanny literally abandoned him in a class full of random kids and some grumpy old lady, that really should’ve been a fucking drill sergeant rather than a teacher, all the way to his first day of college, when he had to walk through school gates alone for the first time in 11 years. 

Thanks a fucking lot Suguru. 

…Mind you his best friend still finds himself having to apologize for not getting accepted into the same school.

Whatever. It was different that time around, college didn’t require you to have friends to get by, you can actually just go straight to your apartment (or dorm) after class. 

Not like those first 12 years of school, where you were literally stuck with the same shitty people for 8 hours a day. That’s probably the biggest reason why he loathed it so much. 

College was significantly better, everyone was less annoying too. There were still cliques of course, but not to the same extent as the ones in highschool, where they could reign terror on other students for 4 agitating years. 

He never had to endure bullying himself. Most people already knew which family he was a part of from just looking at him, the hair gives it away. 

But he did have to witness his other classmates go through it– shit was brutal. And for someone who didn’t like people all that much, it got annoying quick. 

Like c’mon— if you really hated Ijichi, you wouldn’t even spare him a glance, let alone spend your free time harassing him. 

Satoru apparently saved him that day. 

Ijichi’s worked at the company for 3 years now and which each year that passes, he finds himself thanking Satoru for that. 

The thing is, no one ever tried to get involved whenever this group of kids cornered Ijichi. Everyone was either too scared to say anything or just didn’t care. 

The best day of Ijichi’s life was the day Satoru rushed out of his house and left his earphones at home. The stars seemed to align that day since the library was also temporarily closed. 

The next best study spot for Satoru? Literally any empty classroom, he just needs it to be quiet. 

The silence he so badly needed that day only lasted 20 minutes. It came to a screeching halt when Ijichi literally goes flying through the fucking room. Satoru almost told him to shut up, but then he heard 3 other kids making their way into the classroom, laughing and taunting him. 

Satoru ended up closing his textbook and notebook at that point— to think he’d be able to finish all of his work before going home was pure delusion. 

He peeks at the end of the room to take a look at Ijichi’s limbs tangled all over the desk, which quickly made him cringe. That’s gotta hurt bad. There wasn’t much Ijichi could do either, he was this scrawny kid who had a hard time speaking up, when it came to anything. He remembers offering Ijichi a pencil after seeing him at his desk, staring at his broken pencil in silence, all while everything else continued doing their assignments. He said, and Satoru quotes, “Oh n-nO, it’s fine! !I don’t nEed onE~”

Ijichi was seriously planning on sitting there for the rest of the period, doing nothing, because he was so afraid of accepting a pencil from Satoru. 

Satoru didn’t have time to sit there, trying to convince Ijichi that he was just as deserving of a pencil as everyone else and ended up throwing it at him. 

Ijichi yelped. 

There’s no saving him. 

Well, at least not he’s yelping, they fucking winded him. Did the 3 of these guys pick him up together and catapult him into the classroom? He doesn’t even want to know. 

He’s more annoyed that these guys had to come in and fuck up his study session. He had to attend a clan meeting with his father tonight, he didn’t have time to do his work at home. 

“...Why are you guys so obsessed with him?” Satoru abruptly asked, right as Ijichi was about to get grabbed by one of the boys. His tone was anything but accusatory, he was genuinely curious. 

“Us?” One of them laughed. “Obsessed with him? He’s a fuckin’ loser, no ones obsessed with him.” 

“Are you sure..?” Satoru looks back and forth between the group and Ijichi, who looked like he was actually going to piss himself. “I feel like the first thing you guys do whenever you have the free time is look for him.”

“And what’s it to you? Tryna come in and save the day?” One of them cuts in, trying to antagonize him. That doesn’t really work with Satoru though— if he thinks you’re gonna end up nowhere in life, the last thing he’ll do is take you seriously. 

“I was just wondering.” Satoru shrugs. “Saying you're not obsessed with him, but then going straight to him every time lunch starts and school ends is honestly just kinda weird. It’s like your day revolves around him.”

One lets out a low laugh, “You’re calling us weird? That’s rich coming from you— only reason why nobody touches you is because everyone knows who your family is.”

“That’s—“ He immediately cuts himself off in order to get his thoughts together. Everyone’s confused, Satoru looks incredibly uncomfortable as he tries to figure out what exactly they meant by that. “So what you’re saying is you’d… touch me if I wasn’t?”

“Wh– no, not like tha– why don’t you just shut the fuck up and mind your business.”

“I was, it was you guys who came here.” Satoru reminds them in his still visibly disturbed state. “…to touch Ijichi— wait nooo.”

Satoru’s eyes widened in shock after jumping to his own conclusion.

“Why the fuck are you so focused on that word?!” 

“Why are you so focused on getting Ijichi alone??” Satoru responds with a question of his own. 

“We were gonna beat his ass!” The shortest one in the group says, but his words never reach Satoru’s ears.

His jaws practically on the floor and ends up having to put his hand over his mouth, just for the dramatics. His eyes slowly lose their vibrancy as he starts to look back and forth between the bullies and Ijichi— who still has yet to speak up. 

His silence makes it all look so much worse than it actually is.

“You guys like Ijichi.. like that?”

“…”

Crickets. 

They miraculously left Ijichi alone after that day– not out of guilt, but because the fucking digimon freak genuinely thought they were obsessed with Ijichi. 

After working for Satoru for some time, he realized he had just put on an act to get the group to leave him alone. What he didn’t know was that he only did that because he didn’t have his earphones that day and couldn’t concentrate with them torturing him in the background. 

But even if he found out, he’d still be thankful. He was saved around the time that group of boys started getting more aggressive with him, he’s sure they would’ve broken a bone or two towards the end of senior year. 

He also realized another thing, Satoru’s a smartass. 

It made him wonder if he was like this all along, or if he just found himself when he went off to college. 

He was always like this at home and unfortunately never fucking found himself in college. He’s not afraid to admit all that he had missed out on by keeping to himself so much. 

Sure, he made a few friends here and there, but he could’ve made more by joining clubs. He could’ve had more memorable nights and weekends if he had kept up some of the conversations his classmates tried to start with him, rather than just saving the discussions for his professors. 

Keeping up the grades and being at the top of all of his classes didn’t even matter if he had to be honest with himself. He would’ve still ended up working for his family’s company regardless of what his grades were. 

The only thing he took away from those four years, aside from the degree, was that life waited for no one– not even for the Gojo clan's golden boy. 

That’s right folks! Even the cities' most desired bachelor has a certain someone that got away. What’s even worse is she didn’t even fucking know, because he never tried to talk to her ever in those four years. 

It’s not like she was hard to reach either, he had at least one class with her each semester, they probably had the same major. He’s not 100% sure though, because he literally has never talked to her— but fuck, he honestly tried in the end.

Those last two weeks leading up to graduation were spent mustering up the courage to approach you and coming up with what to actually say.

He needed it to be interesting, the typical “hey, let's keep in touch!” wasn’t going to work because there was never a connection to begin with. He’s even pretended not to hear you at the library once during junior year.

Why? He doesn’t know. 

After what felt like a never ending back and forth with himself— coming up with different pick up lines and then dropping them, because he sounded fucking pathetic and gave himself secondhand embarrassment— he decided he was going to be honest.

“Hey! I know we didn’t talk much– totally my fault by the way, too nervous I guess– is it too late to ask for your number?”

It was sincere, honest, and the furthest thing from pushy. It would’ve worked. It was a good, solid plan that he was going to go through with on graduation day.

Yet when the day came? You were nowhere to be found.

He didn’t even hear your name get called.

Can he be mad? Only with himself, he had 4 years to say something to you.

Life waited for no one.

Even if that was really the only “life lesson” he learned, it was just as valuable as anything else, and decided he didn't want to miss out on anything, anymore.

Did he go a little overboard postgrad?

Mmmyeah he sure did!

Very overboard– apparently it was something about how isolated he suddenly felt after graduating, mixed with the realization that time doesn’t and will never stop, ended up triggering a full blown existential crisis in your boy. 

His therapist explains it a little better… psychology is that once section he tries to stay away from.

But did he have fun?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

He still does, just not the type of fun where he woke up confused as fuck in a holding cell. Or the night ending with someone’s husband chasing him out of his home, after catching his wife cheating on the bed they shared.

Please don’t ask him if he knew or not.

It’s been five years since he graduated, his little party animal phase has toned down for the most part. The need to make up for lost time no longer gnaws away at him. He’s made more memories than most these last 5 years, he’s satisfied. His “wasted years” have now reverted back to being his “uni days”– a thought that’s able to pass, rather than a regret that consumes him. 

But he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t tried googling a certain someone's name throughout the years though. His therapist asked what would change if you actually did show up in the search results. Not genuinely, but to try to turn it into a whole conversation about how it wasn’t going to change the past and blahblahblah. 

No fucking shit. 

He’d still follow you though and slide into your dms real smooth. 

“What if she was married or in a serious relationship?”

“I’d still say hi? What’s the issue with saying I recognized her and realized she was an old classmate?” 

Apparently the difference between randomly stumbling onto a profile and directly searching for one was the issue. He was glad that subject came up towards the end of their session, he was not trying to sit there for a whole hour being told that innocently saying hi to an old classmate wasn’t “healthy” for him— fuck all the way off, Calvin. 

Surely he saw the way Satoru’s eyes momentarily darkened when saying goodbye, that should be a good indicator that he wouldn’t be back for more sessions, because he fucking sucks at his job. Satoru was still a nice person though and decides to text his personal assistant to cancel the rest of his scheduled appointments with the shrink. 

| Akira: Would you like me to provide a reason?

| S. Gojo: Nah.

He doesn’t owe him anything, if anything he deserves a refund for today. Let’s hope the next therapist will be a little less pessimistic. 

—

That very first semester actually wasn’t when he started growing interest toward you. Of course he thought you were cute, but looks weren’t enough for him to go out of his way to speak to others back then, unless it was for a group project. Plus, you sat on the opposite side of the lecture room, coming and going through a different door than he did. 

It was his second semester that he started to acknowledge you more, in his head at least. You were in 3 of his classes that semester, which made you hard to miss if you asked him. Especially the one on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where he had to watch you struggle to set some solid boundaries with a guy who was too cocky to take a hint. 

At first he felt nothing but second hand embarrassment towards Kairo, maybe he just wasn’t very good at reading others. Then he started to feel kind of bad for you. Feel bad about the way he’d watch your shoulders slightly drop whenever that guy came to talk to you. How you’d stiffen up whenever he leaned into your space. You even used a different tone with him, because he absolutely was the type of guy to read in between the lines, instead of actually listening to the words you’d say. 

You could tell him you weren’t interested and he’d think you’re playing hard to get if your voice rose in the slightest. 

Then one day you came into class a little later than usual. Satoru already knew that was going to suck for you, Kairo sat right in the middle of an area that was fairly open, meaning you’d be forced to be close to him regardless of which seat you chose to sit in for that day. 

You could imagine Satoru’s surprise when you suddenly asked if you could sit beside him on… an end seat, rather than the two empty ones to his left. 

He almost offered them to you, but then he realized you probably wanted to hide behind him and ended up murmuring a quick “yeah”. 

Nothing else was said between you two after that. You didn’t even look in his direction, all to avoid Kairo’s gaze. You’ve been in enough classes with Satoru at this point to know he wasn’t going to talk unless it was to ask the professor a question, so that was probably the first time you’ve gotten a chance to relax in that class since it started. 

Luckily Kairo had already been expelled from the school by the time you returned to the class that following tuesday. Meaning, you got to relax for the rest of the semester.

The school tried to keep the reason under wraps, but it eventually slipped out and spread like a wildfire. Around 200 photos from a certain album on his phone had been emailed to just about every employee at the school. From professors and office attendants all the way to the principal and deans. Even if the school had tried to cover it up, it would’ve been impossible since authorities had been tipped off about the emails and were there to take a look first thing in the morning. 

There were no explicit details on what the photos were of, but it’s pretty obvious if the law got involved. The one thing nobody could figure out was who got the photos and emailed them to everyone, with full evidence they belonged to Kairo. 

But like every other scandal that happened in school, that was easily forgotten in less than a month. Even with Kairo being gone, you never went back to that side of the room. Satoru figured that the view of the projector screen was better from where he usually sat, it explained why you were usually a few seats away from him for the rest of that semester.

There were days where you’d walk past him and the smell of your perfume would linger for a while. He didn’t notice it that one time you sat next to him, his mind was too busy thinking about things that were a little more important, but it didn’t take long at all for him to notice afterwards.

He couldn’t figure it out– kinda fruity but not sweet, warm but not vanilla or musk, unavoidable yet not overpowering. 

He liked it. To this day he still hasn’t been around anyone who’s presence continued to linger around the room like a ghost after they’ve left. 

Time had flown by fast. Before he knew it, sophomore year had begun. The thought that you could be in one of his classes again never crossed his mind prior to going back. It wasn’t until that second week where he genuinely felt your absence. Interestingly enough, it was someone else’s perfume that made the realization hit him like a fucking truck, literally. 

It was so fucking offensive that it made him miss you, which even he thought was ridiculous at the time given how he’d never even spoke to you– yet there he was, wishing you could magically switch places with this girl. 

You eventually showed up on the third week of school, back from an overseas vacation. He knows because the professor singled you out and made you explain it in front of everyone, even after explaining it was a family emergency and the school excused it. He still wasn’t satisfied and continued to grill you.

“You’re an adult, you have your own responsibilities that need to be taken care of, you clearly didn’t have the consequences in mind and thought being with your family would shield you from them. That’s not how the real world works.” 

That old fuck was just rambling at that point, he was convinced he was trying to get out of an hour long lecture and was planning to throw the blame on you. 

“Professor Gakuganji?” Satoru eventually raised hand. “Weren’t we supposed to have a lecture today?” 

“Yes, we were.” He nods then looks back at you, “You can thank your classmate for interrupting my class.”

Some students groaned at that, while some looked at the old man in disbelief since you had arrived on time. Either way it was just annoying. 

“I don’t see how that should be everyone else's problem.” He says in response, which shocks some of the students because this is the most they’ve seen him talk. It’s hard to tell who he's annoyed at right now, you or the Professor. “We pay to be here at the end of the day, sir. A lot of our parents aren’t going to be very happy about us failing a quiz on a subject that you won’t teach us.” 

That wording seemed to get him to actually do his job, but it wasn’t enough for you, you never set foot in the class again. Must’ve been humiliating to have that happen on what was the first day of school for you. No one forgot about it either, especially on the days Gakuganji felt like being an asshole and making it everyone else's problem, again. That day gets brought up by someone at least a couple times a week, mainly serving as a reminder to not expect much from the old man. 

Yet for Satoru, the story of the girl who Gakuganji grilled was a reminder of something else. He eventually realized it was never the perfume. 

You didn’t need it to continue to linger around.

When the next semester comes, he finds himself in two classes with you. 

You don't get harassed by any students this time or get singled out by the professors either. Which was great, it was harder to get that old man fired than he had originally thought. 

And that was someone who wasn’t even liked by the other staff.

As for Satoru, he still didn’t talk to you, but that’s nothing new. Up until last semester, you thought he was nothing but this shy, quiet guy that kept to himself. 

Maybe he just had social anxiety or something, so you tried not to judge him. He never causes trouble for anyone. He even let you sit next to him that one time, when he could’ve easily said no after seeing the other empty seats around him. 

It wasn’t until Gakuganjis class where it all made sense. 

He’s a pretentious dick who thinks the world revolves around him. You’d think that being in an unfair position, someone would at least stand up for you, yet Satoru Gojo decided to do the complete opposite that day. 

“Can you start the lecture already?”

“That’s not my problem.” 

“I pay to be here.” 

How about try being the one that’s paying to be scolded?

And of course the one time he speaks up, it’s about himself!

You thought karma was doing its thing when Gakuganji got fired right when winter break started, but she’s clearly got some unfinished business with you by making you be in not just one class, but two of them with him. 

For once, you were glad he ignored you.

next

a/n: HI HELLO WELCOME TO THE END OF THE FIRST CHAPTER!! tysm of reading till the end I appreciate it 😚🫶🏻 okay! notes/recap:

poor satoru with his crush and turns out reader does NOT like him

you guys he fired his therapist that's so bad ??

gojo 2 kairo 0 gakuganji 0

ooo so do we think he's evil or???? guess we'll just have to find out 🙂‍↕️

Ko-fi link if you're feeling generous and wanted to show extra support ❤️

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☆ Something about you - S. Kusuo

synopsis: Saiki Kusuo Boyfriend Headcanons

pairing: Saiki Kusuo x fem! reader

warnings: fluff! (kinda ooc saiki sorry guys 😓)

❝ There was something 'bout you that now i can't remember ❞

- Saiki Kusuo, a physic who thinks everyone around him is annoying, who would've thought that he was capable of having a girlfriend?

- Saiki Kusuo who has a soft spot for his girlfriend

- Saiki Kusuo who would take you to dreamy dates, literally. such as a date in Paris or going to Korea, or even going to the moon if you want yes he would do anything for you

- Saiki Kusuo who would be so annoyed to Nendou and Kaido for interrupting your time together for some ramen

- Saiki Kusuo who's mother absolutely adores you

- Saiki Kusuo who brought you to his grandparents and ofcourse his grandpa was already planning his speech for your wedding for once saiki agrees to his grandpa's ideas

- Saiki Kusuo who would give up his coffee jelly for you. YES! HIS COFFEE JELLY. he would gladly give it to you

- Saiki Kusuo who always wants to spend time with you

- Saiki Kusuo who puts your safety above anyone

- Saiki Kusuo who would be very scared to tell their s/o about his physic powers, thinking if he would be hated by them

- Saiki Kusuo who would love you eternally and would do anything for you

a/n: HI GUYSS HUHU SO SORRY IT'S KINDA OOC 😓😓 hope you all like it though, next post would be a kny post about Tomioka Giyuu UWKAAAJAJAAK TYSM FOR REQUESTING!!

- cheatea ☁️

Fuck this broke my heart.