The evening hangs heavy, snow whispering against the old small apartment’s windowpanes. Toji sits in the sofa, a shadow carved from muscle and silence. The air smells faintly of your scent, sharp and alive, tomato vine with that strange metallic echo of sculpture. It settles over him like memory.

You move slowly through the room, the limp in your gait soft but noticeable. Every step you take draws his gaze, green eyes tracking you with the patience of a predator too tired to hunt. The faint hum you make while cooking on the stove coils in his chest. That sound shouldn’t calm him, but it does. The Sorcerer Killer, soothed by a tune. He almost laughs at the thought. Almost.

Your hair falls in pale waves, catching the lamplight. His hand tightens around the armrest.

You turn slightly, catching him watching. That sly, unreadable look crosses your face—the one that makes him want to drag you into his lap and bite down on your neck just to remind himself you’re real. Instead, he leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. He pretends indifference. Always pretends. You’ve learned to read the tilt of his head, the faint exhale that means he’s content.

You limp closer, setting a mug down beside him. “You’re brooding,” you’d said earlier. He hadn’t answered. He never does when you’re right. Now, as you pass behind him, he reaches out. Just one arm—strong, silent, deliberate—hooks around your waist, pulling you into his lap. You don’t resist. You never really do. Your body fits against his like it was made to quiet the war in his head.

He presses his face into your hair, breathing in the warmth. His scar brushes your neck. You smell like earth after rain. He could die like this and not notice.

You murmur something under your breath, maybe about the rain, maybe about the bills, maybe about something small and normal. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t need to. The rhythm of your voice fills the room, wrapping around the edges of his silence. His hand slides up your spine, steady, protective, grounding himself in the weight of you.

You fidget with the hem of his sleeve, restless as always. That tiny movement—the shift of your fingers, the brush of your wedding ring—hits him harder than any curse ever could. You’re real. Alive. His.

His jaw tightens again. He remembers the car crash. The man who caused it. The blood. The begging. The silence afterward. Seven generations wiped clean because someone dared to hurt you. He doesn’t regret it. He’d do it again, slower. The world could burn if it kept you safe.

The snow deepens outside. You lean into him. His chest rises and falls against your back, steady as the tide. Toji isn’t a man of prayer, but sometimes he looks at you and feels something close. Not worship—something rougher, hungrier. You make him human, and he hates it, and he needs it.

You shift slightly, your breath warm against his collarbone. “Toji,” you murmur. Just his name. That’s all. It wrecks him more than any fight ever could.

He presses his lips to the top of your head, silent. His hand rests on your stomach, thumb tracing idle circles over your stomach.