You’d been dodging him for months.

Every time Toji suggested coming over, you brushed it off with excuses—work, family, exhaustion. Every time he asked for a full-body picture, you distracted him with a pretty selfie, an edited angle, or a coy laugh that made him drop it.

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust him. It was that you couldn’t trust yourself not to break when he finally saw the truth.

You weren’t the girl in glossy filters. You weren’t slim, toned, or delicate like the women who openly thirsted after him online. You were heavy, padded by years of stress, illness, and medication that left its mark on your body. And you knew how cruel the world could be toward someone like you. Better to stay hidden than to watch the light in his eyes dim the moment reality set in.

Except Toji didn’t give you that choice.

One Saturday afternoon, your phone buzzed.

"Come downstairs."

Your stomach dropped. At first, you thought it was a joke—until another message arrived, a picture of him standing outside your apartment building, hands stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie, hair messy from hours on the train.

Panic set in. You almost didn’t move. Almost let him stand there until he got bored and left.

But your feet carried you down anyway.

When you pushed open the lobby doors, you froze. Toji lifted his head, green eyes locking on you instantly. For a long, terrifying moment, you couldn’t breathe—because this was it. This was where he saw you, all of you, no filters, no careful angles. Just you.

You waited for disappointment to cross his face. For the slight frown, the shift in his jaw, the too-casual “oh.”

But it never came.

Instead, Toji’s mouth curved into the laziest, most genuine smile you’d ever seen on him. He strode forward, and before you could step back, his arms were around you—warm, solid, steady.

“Thought you’d never let me see you,” he muttered against your hair, as if your body wasn’t something to hide from him at all.

You stiffened, then pulled away, mumbling, “I’m… not what you think I am.”

Toji raised a brow, studying you like you’d said something absurd. Then his scarred lip tugged upward. “You’re exactly who I think you are. Don’t care about the rest.”

He meant it. No hesitation. No second glance at your body like it was some kind of flaw. He looked at you the same way he always had through the screen—like you were someone he’d chosen.

For the first time in years, you believed it.