"let's run away. please." gojo's voice trembled as he held your hands tightly in his, knuckles pale with desperation. his usually confident gaze was cracked open, glassy with tears he didn’t bother to wipe away.

you had met him five years ago—just kids then, both barely thirteen. he had wandered too far on horseback, ignoring the borders etched in fear between your kingdoms. he found you sitting alone in the tall grass of the neutral forest that split your worlds. you hadn’t spoken much at first. just exchanged curious glances, shared stolen fruit, and laughed quietly about things no one else would have understood. the forest became your place. a secret stitched between tangled roots and wind-carved paths.

now, at eighteen, that forest had become more than just a meeting point. it was the only place where you could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist—where titles and duties didn’t cling to your names like heavy chains.

your families had started arranging marriages, promising you both to strangers from distant kingdoms for power, for alliances, for everything but love. so when he showed up tonight—past midnight, horse saddled and breathless—there was already something different in the air.

he didn’t just come to talk.

a bag hung off the side of his horse, loosely packed but full enough to know this wasn’t just a fantasy he was entertaining.

"i don’t want to marry anyone if it’s not you," he said, voice quiet but certain, like he’d been rehearsing those words for weeks. his thumbs brushed over the backs of your hands, grounding himself, like he was afraid you'd vanish if he blinked.

for once, gojo wasn’t joking. he wasn’t smirking. he was scared. and the only thing more terrifying than running away was losing you.