The feeling creeps up on Toji slowly, sneaking past all the walls he’s built. It starts with small things: the way his chest aches in a weird, unfamiliar way when he sees you cooing at a baby in the park. The way his fingers twitch when he watches you hold your friend’s kid, the sight of your hands so careful, so soft, stirring something deep in his gut.

The way he imagines, just for a second, what it would be like if that was your baby. If it were his.

And fuck, once the thought is there, it stays.

Tonight, it’s worse than usual. You’re curled up on the couch, legs tucked beneath you, watching some show with half your attention while you scroll on your phone. Toji’s face is pressed into your throat, practically sprawled over you, his dark hair tickling your chin as he pretends to watch the screen when really his thoughts are drifting as the third baby commercial plays on the TV.

You look soft in the dim light of the living room under him, fingers scratching at the base of his scalp — too soft for someone like him, someone with rough hands and a bloodstained past. But somehow, you still look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

It’s not like him to hesitate. He’s blunt, always has been. If he wants something, he takes it. But this? This is different. This is something he can’t just grab and claim as his own. His jaw tightens.

“What’s up with you?” you ask, glancing at him from your phone, raising a brow. Toji exhales sharply through his nose. He debates brushing it off, making some joke, but the words slip out before he can stop them.

“You ever want one?” Toji mutters into the hollows of your throat, voice muffled by your skin, rough and a little scratchy.

You blink. “Want what?”

“Kids,” Toji mutters, cheek pressed to your neck, trying to pretend like this is a casual conversation, like it’s not pulling his heart through the cracks of his ribs to talk about this, to want. To want something so normal. A family. He wants a fucking family. “You ever think about havin’ one?”