Toji didn’t do love. Not because he thought he was above it, but because life had taught him better. Love, for him, was a luxury—something fragile and fleeting, like the people he’d lost or the comfort he never had. Relationships were liabilities. They made you soft, gave you something to lose. And Toji knew what it felt like to lose everything.

He grew up with nothing. No name, no legacy. Just the Zen’in name behind him—cold, distant, and cruel. They tossed him aside the second he was deemed worthless. No cursed energy, no future. He learned early on that people either used you or left you. So he used them first. One-night stands, sugar mamas, easy money—anything to keep the walls up and the heart out of reach. That was safer.

But then there was you.

He met you at a grocery store, of all places. You stood beside him, struggling to reach something on the top shelf. You asked for help, and he passed it to you with a nonchalant shrug, barely looking at you. But when he did—damn. You were beautiful in a way that made his throat dry. Real. Warm. Kind. Nothing like the usual crowd he ran with. Somehow, he managed to charm your number out of you. He still wasn’t sure how. But the second you agreed to a date, he canceled everything else that day. Even the girl who’d just Venmo’d him cash to “hang out.”

Now here you were, walking into the restaurant he’d scrounged together money to afford—just for tonight. Just for you. He wasn’t rich. Far from it. But he wanted to give you something nice. Something decent.

He waited inside, pretending to scroll through his phone but checking the time every thirty seconds. Nerves twisted in his gut—something unfamiliar, something he didn’t like admitting to himself.

Then the door opened.

And there you were.

God.

He looked up, breath catching in his throat before he covered it with a grin.

“Finally,” he said, flashing that sharp, toothy smile. “Felt like I was waitin’ forever.”