tw: implied abuse, no curses au
"Can I ask a question?" Yuuji digs his heel into the wood chips as he swings, digging a growing trench behind him. "You don't have to answer."
Ash falls from the end of Choso's cigarette. He leans against the anchor of the swing set, cheek against cold metal, and sighs. Twilight has passed and the streetlights have turned on, giving the playground a hazy, barely lit glow. Yuuji's guardian will start calling soon, but Choso decides the extra time together is worth the future ire.
"I already told you that I'm not giving you a tattoo."
"Aw, damn-" Yuuji clicks his tongue against his teeth. Ever since they met, he's been dying for a tattoo of his own, throwing out wild new ideas almost every day. One day, when he's eighteen and likes an idea for more than a month, Choso will bring him to his studio and comply.
But, not yet.
"That wasn't my question though," Yuuji says.
"Then go for it."
The younger boy takes a deep breath, then lets it out even slower, pulling the tension longer and longer until it snaps.
"Why weren't you... around? Like, when I was a kid and stuff."
Choso takes his own breath.
"Your mom-- our mom." The taste of that sits bitter on his tongue. He never called her mom, even back then. "She was different for me."
And for our other brothers, he adds silently. Yuuji doesn't need to carry that weight yet, the knowledge that he was the exception to it all.
"Why?" Yuuji pumps his legs a little softer, the back and forth motion of the swing slowly dying out.
"I dunno." Choso wishes he had the answer to that. "She was sixteen, did bad things. Don't worry about it."
Finding out about Yuuji wasn't a shock, somehow. Years after Ken had surrendered her children to the state, Choso had received noticed that she had died. The news felt overdue. No tears were shed, no love lost; the group chat of siblings had all agreed not to go to any service, but the day of, Choso had changed his mind.
He had put on his nicest outfit -some thrift store pants that didn't fit and a shirt he stole from foster dad three- and went expecting to be the only one there, the only one willing to say goodbye.
Choso hadn't known about her new family. They hadn't known about him either. It was typical of Ken to leave a mess in her wake.
Turns out, through a series of lucky breaks, the woman had clawed her way out of poverty and into the arms of a rich, but nice man. Her life was easy and sweet, filled with luxuries and love, including a son ten years younger than her eldest.
No one knows why Yuuji was different than the others, why she decided to be good to him and no one else. Mental illness is strange like that, picking and choosing how it pleases.
Yuuji huffs, gripping the metal chains tighter. "But-"
"Yuuji." Choso drops his cigarette and crushes it under his boot. Then, he thinks about the child that will play there tomorrow, shoveling wood chips into their mouths like idiots, and decides to pick it up. He jams it into his pocket. "You have good memories of her. Don't ruin that."
He used to resent how much Yuuji loved her. He was eight when she died, the same age Choso was when he first had to dial 911 for her. That anger had long faded, replaced with a strange amount of pity.
"But I want to know. What she did and stuff." Yuuji's voice jumps high with emotion. "I'm basically an adult, I can handle it."
"You're sixteen."
"Well, mom was doing this stuff at sixteen, so-" Yuuji is seething suddenly, brow furrowed and teeth grit.
"So?"
"So, she was old enough to be doing bad things and I'm not old enough to know about it?" He stands and the swing clatters behind him. He's stocky, yet tall, bunched with muscles that he's built from baseball. On one side of his cheek, there's a bit of chocolate stuck there, a remnant from the ice cream Choso bought him. Below it, there's a rosy hickey on his neck, a remnant of the boyfriend he hasn't told Nanami about yet. He thinks they're having sex, maybe, but doesn't know how to broach the topic without scaring his brother into never talking about it again.
"And you had tattoos at my age, by the way!"
Choso lets him stew in it, huffing and puffing. The blown out edges of first tattoo peek from under his sleeve, the image barely legible now. An older woman gave it to him at fifteen, in the basement of her house. It became so insanely infected that he ended up in the ER a couple days later.
"I'm not a kid. I can handle it." Yuuji states, calm and clear. "I'm not a kid."
A car passes, it's headlights stretching and pulling the shadows across the park. In the changes, Choso can see his mother in his brother, those soft eyes and thin lips and the same slightly crooked nose that Choso has himself. He thinks, maybe, if time was kinder and his father was better, they'd look more alike each other, but then the moment is gone and they no longer even look like siblings.
"Okay."
Yuuji untenses a bit. "Okay?"
"Okay."
"Like, okay, this conversation is done, or okay, I'll tell you?"
"I'll tell you," Choso says, jamming his hands in his pocket. The cigarette butt is there, mushed and still warm against his knuckles. "But not tonight."
"What?!"
"Next time, I promise."
Choso doesn't understand why Yuuji insists on rushing away from innocence, but he knows that he can't stop him. Yuuji will find out about the abuse, the neglect, the other brothers, and the other horrors in some way or another and then things will never be the same.
"Stay a kid just a little longer." Choso resists the urge to ruffle his hair. "For me?"
"Yeah, sure," Yuuji sighs. "One more day."
#1 reason why i've only posted one piece of writing
Had to make a meme to describe me currently
This is how many bullets they shot on a fucking kid.
the New Thing All Over My Dash Despite Me Not Interacting With It At All is now just pics of naked women. love the ladies, they're just hanging out but. why.
My family is still staying in half of the church that wasn’t affected by the bombing because there is nowhere else to stay other than tents. They are limited to one small meal a day and one shower a week. They are sleeping on the floors, but no one can sleep since there is bombing everywhere around them. Even when there is no bombing, they can still hear the loud buzzing sound of the military planes above them, which would keep anyone who hears it awake. Along with everything, My grandma has diabetes and osteoporosis, so she can’t walk. She has to take her insulin medication along with many others; however, she has run out of many of her medications.” Am on my knees requesting for donation. Target $450
i do not have many followers but support this family if u can!
note: remember to read the tags! + i do not own any of these works
4th avenue viewing
strangers on a train
less than zero
ups and downs
play
nights in tokyo
selfish
pride is the devil
i need some wine and you, you need to be nicer
lovefoolish
banana bread with nanami kento
bride-to-be
chaos theory
simple pleasures
a trip to the tailor's
ave maria.
convenience (store) marriage
interrupted
heaven (is a place on earth with you)
tender loving care
a bento for kento
you've got a fetish for my love
i hate people who know highways. “i’m heading south on I-65” okay man. i’m moving my rook to c2
look i think nanami is just as handsome gorgeous wonderful incredible as the next jjk fan but like. y’all. he is not a smooth suave bad boy. that man is autistic and annoyed at everything.
Pairing: Nanami Kento x Black!Fem Reader
Rating/CW: Just a fluffy drabble of Nanami Kento loving you.
Summary: Early morning musings.
a/n: I've really been suffering from writer's block these past few months. The words come and go at a pace that's maddening, but thankfully, they stayed long enough for me to write this little piece.
JJK Masterlist | Divider: @saradika-graphics
©mysteria157, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, plagiarize, reupload, modify, or translate (without permission) my work to other accounts and platforms.
"How did I get so lucky?"
It's the question that surfaces in Nanami's mind as he watches you sleep beside him, early morning light casting gentle shadows across your features. Your breathing is steady, peaceful, a barely there rumble with every inhale that he’s memorized over countless mornings like this one. Just as he’s done many times before, he traces the outline of your form, fingertips ghosting over your skin without disturbing you.
In those first few mornings of your relationship, your eyes would flutter open just from the proximity of his touch, catching him in his admiration. He wouldn’t bother to hide the blush, you would throw him a sleepy smile, then succumb to sleep again. Now, many mornings later, you’ve grown accustomed to his gentle exploration, allowing him to follow the curve of your shoulder, reconnecting the constellations that pepper your brown skin without stirring from your dreams.
In this position, while you sleep on your stomach, he can admire the subtle roll of skin on your neck where it meets your shoulder—a gentle landscape formed by the angle of your head against the silk pillow. It may be his own imaginings, but he can already smell the Shea butter from your neck, warming from the rising sun and wafting to tickle his nose in a half-remembered dream that lingers many hours into his work day.
Your diamond earrings glint in the morning light—beautiful studs you refuse to remove despite his concerns. He’s learned to love this small token of rebellion, unafraid to admit that the way the jewelry complements your skin makes you look particularly ethereal in the waking hours. The sunlight hits these diamonds at the right angle, splintering light in a mix of purple and green that plays across the curve of your cheek, as if nature is adorning you herself.
Even while unconscious, you are beautiful.
He traces up, fingertips brushing your lobe before smoothing through edges that have smeared on your skin like delicate wisps of morning fog. They’re perfect, tiny coils and curls that defy rule and frizz along your hairline, peeking from the cream satin bonnet. That bonnet, somehow still attached to you despite how wildly you sleep, showcases to him all the care you take with yourself, all the traditions passed sacred to you that he’s been allowed to learn, to witness, to cherish.
And god, how he cherishes the uninhibited abandon in which you sleep—the complete trust spoken in the way you sprawl across a mattress that was once solely his. Your cheek is creased from your pillowcase and hands, the corners of your lashes crystallized with evidence of your dreams, and your lips—slightly parted, pillowed with relaxation—glisten at one corner with moisture you have long stopped being embarrassed about in his presence.
It’s you in your purest form—unguarded, unfiltered, displaying a beauty more profound than anything the waking world gets to see. It’s you without makeup, you without measured words, underneath social performances, practiced smiles, and expectations—the raw truth of you, morning breath and all.
Just his. It’s a privilege so deep that it makes his chest ache, the gratitude overwhelming.
"How did I get so lucky?"
Nanami remembers the strict parameters he once set around relationships—the necessary boundaries, the premeditated time commitments, the emotional distance he maintained without thinking. Work—for as firm as he is about clocking out on time—came first, then necessities, then, if time allowed and he had the mental stamina, connection. For him, it was efficient. But terribly lonely.
Naturally, you shifted it all without trying.
The memory of seeing you for the first time still replays in his mind—fresh as the day it happened, enhanced by his own untempered affection that grows over time. He’s carried an unspoken envy for his parents’ love-at-first-sight story his entire life, a curmudgeon of his own making that could also speak of self-sabotage in relationships that never lasted. Surely they were exaggerating? Love at first sight? As if the cosmos aligned at the right moment to bring Mr. and Mrs. Nanami together? Nanami refused to believe it.
And yet he’ll tell anyone who will listen that every grievance he held about the concept evaporated the moment he saw you. Surrounded by greenery and the stifling heat of a plant nursery, perfect textured hair framing your face that pursed with contemplation, neck curved over a large Monstera Deliciosa. A sage sundress that fluttered over your form like gossamer wings catching the sunlight, the shimmer of your sunscreen across the expanse of your shoulders like dewdrops, a cock in your hip as you studied the plant only made you stand out as sublime elegance amongst the foliage.
Admittedly, he remembers feeling only embarrassment when he reached for the plant before his mind could truly register your presence—his original quest into the nursery solely to find a gift for his secretary, who was becoming a new mother.
He remembers the embarrassment flaring liquid hot in his chest when your eyes flashed with surprise and indignation that he would take something you had mentally staked claim to. He remembers how disorienting it all was—the sudden awareness of you as if the rest of the nursery had faded to shadows. Your brow had lifted in disbelief as you rolled your eyes and brushed past him, the subtle scent of what he now knows as Shea butter lingering in the humid air. Nanami found himself frozen, the Monstera forgotten in his hands, his perfectly ordered thoughts scattering like leaves in a sudden breeze.
He remembers how that white hot embarrassment quickly morphed into something unfamiliar, fleeting in previous relationships but never as prominent as in that moment—a flutter in his stomach, a tightness in his chest, and a desperation that he’s thankful to have embraced.
“I’m buying a gift for a new mother, but maybe I can find something that would not require so much care,” he’d said, the words tumbling from his mouth like a wobbling newborn calf as he watched you stop, turn to face him, guarded eyes taking him in. “Do you have any suggestions?”
He remembers how his heart hammered against his ribcage as he waited for your response, how the simple act of breathing seemed almost impossible. How utterly mortifying it was to realize that in thirty seconds, you had changed everything for him. How unbelievably confused he felt when the cosmos he mocked aligned for him when he ran into you at a bookstore days later, giving him the courage to ask you for coffee, for your number, for a date, and the many that followed to create the perfect cacophony of love.
"How did I get so lucky?"
It’s almost ridiculous how fortunate he is. How he gets to hear you laugh—genuine and unrestrained, choked around a snort when he’s said something particularly dry. How he gets to hear your musings in the comfort of your home—the melodic cadence of your humming when you bake, the unprecedented sailor mouth that would make his mother faint, the conversations you have with your dog as he follows you to the backyard. Every day, despite being subject to it many times, it feels like the very first time.
The novelty of it will never fade, because Nanami still calculates how to make you laugh so hard your lashes bubble with tears. He still asks what song you’re humming, knowing you’ll always reply “I made it up”. He still pretends to be shocked that the way a curse word flies from your mouth doesn’t make him unnaturally turned on. He still raises both brows when he hears you conversing with the dog, even though he has embraced the same habit.
"How did I get so lucky?"
The variation of thought comes naturally as his fingers fall back to his side, careful not to disturb you. There was a time when luck meant nothing to him—when grief was the only emotion he allowed himself to fully embrace, a painful reminder of his humanity when everything else felt hollow.
There was only one person who had truly seen him—experienced and witnessed the raw parts of the awkward growth through puberty, commiserated over failed crushes, shared late nights playing video games, and made him laugh until his stomach hurt. When that person was ripped away before their life could truly begin, it left Nanami in denial for so long that isolation became his sanctuary.
Each subsequent attempt at connection through romantic means only reinforced what experience had taught him—that opening a sliver of himself inevitably led to another goodbye, another confirmation that vulnerability was simply an invitation for devastation.
So it’s odd how that worry sprouted in the youth of your relationship with him but was never strong enough to take root. He was healthier, stronger even, and intelligent enough to know that you would not settle for someone who only loved in half-truths. For the first time, the fear of losing someone by not trying, outweighed the fear of the pain that might come with trying and failing.
When Nanami had the choice between protecting himself and never knowing you completely, or risking that devastation for the chance to build something real, he found himself making a choice that his deceased friend would have encouraged with a smile that could make the sun rise.
His efforts have paid off.
As the world wakes up and the noise of cars increases from the cracked window, Nanami counts his lucky stars that he tried. As he watches you sleep, he feels something swell in his chest—a fullness that once scared him but now feels like coming home after a long day.
Soon, he’ll slip out of bed like he does every morning, each day a ritual of thankfulness for the life he almost denied himself. Soon he’ll walk into the kitchen and measure coffee grounds with the same precision he applies to everything, his eyes drifting to the mug you always use—chipped on the handle, crafted from an impromptu class you dragged him to as a second date. He’d been so focused on not embarrassing himself with clumsy hands that he’d missed the exact moment you decided he was worth keeping.
Soon he will slide a fresh cup to you across the counter, taking in your ruffled form—bonnet still secure, eyes heavy with sleep, a blanket wrapped around you because you’re always cold, even in summer. The sight will catch in his throat like it always does, you trusting and vulnerable, showing a version of yourself that transforms his once sterile apartment into a home where love blooms in every corner.
But for now, he watches as you grumble and smack your lips, rolling over until your head is resting on his chest. He blooms with heat, an iridescent sensation that radiates outward from that exact spot, like your memory lives beneath his skin and thrums to life when you’re close. You wrap an arm around him, whether it’s to test the firmness of a pillow or to make sure it’s still him, he’s not quite sure. But it means nothing when you fall back into slumber, snoring softly against him, your breath a metronome that’s synched with his over time.
The rush of it all settles into his bones like it does every morning as he relaxes, his hand tracing the column of your spine absentmindedly.
You chose him. From the moment you rolled your eyes in that nursery, some invisible thread connected you both, and despite it all, that thread held tight. Out of all possibilities, out of all potential paths, you chose this one—with him. Not out of necessity or convenience, but with deliberate, purposeful love that continues to choose him, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.
"How did I get so lucky?"
“Kento,” you slur against his chest, voice gravelly with sleep, “stop thinking so loud so I can sleep. It’s too early.”
It’s almost eleven in the morning. But Nanami can do nothing but chuckle softly, pressing a kiss to your forehead, marveling as your curls tickle his nose before his fingers return to their pilgrimage across your body. Each brush of him against you comes with an unspoken promise—that he will never take this for granted, that he will chose you every morning just as purposefully as you chose him.
"How did I get so lucky?"
Who knows. But Nanami will spend every day making sure he deserves it.
Thanks for reading!
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