He doesn’t know what he expected—maybe judgmental stares, awkward silences, or to father cleaning a shotgun in the living room. But instead, he’s sitting at your parents’ dinning table, a coffee mug in his hand, black nail polish chipped, only two of the rings he left on his hands softly clicking against the porcelain of the mug.

But he smiles, even if it’s faintly.

Your mom is laughing. At his joke. One he just so bluntly said.

Your father even smiled when he politely declined the wine offer and asked for a beer instead.

You glance at him from across the table, trying not to smile yourself. He was nervous about this—he’d spent twenty minutes outside the car fixing his hair like it was some kind of audition. But he looks calm now. Probably because he can finally be himself without any worries.

Maybe they just don’t see him as a boy who wears only leather jackets on winter, or as a jujutsu sorcerer who’s life is dangerous (even if they’re not really educated on what a jujutsu sorcerer is), but as someone who looks at you like you’re everything.