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Toji wouldn’t say his life is quite at rock bottom just yet. He’ll be the first to admit that since his wife died he’s pretty much got nothing left for him though. He’s got one more mouth to feed and one less mouth to kiss, he’s got this desperate need for money and he’s got no real qualifications to get it and so; he’s here. It’s not quite rock bottom because at least he gets to cuddle up with a clingy little toddler every night and at least that toddler looks and sounds and smells and acts exactly like Toji’s wife once upon a time.
In another world he’s sure he would find a distinctly painful horrific humiliation from being in this position right now; being stood here with his cock and balls out for bratty art majors to draw his anatomy in concerning detail in the entire spectrum of mediums, from chalk to charcoal to paint and pastels.
He doesn’t care though.
He thinks he probably should, he thinks there’s definitely something he should find degrading about being stood here for human observation in his barest form. Stripped and naked for all these people to see him physically vulnerable before them, observe his scars and his strength for more than what it is. All this for some money that really wouldn’t even manage to put more than a day’s worth of warm meals in Megumi’s belly.
He sometimes thinks he regrets hurting Gojo Satoru. If he hadn’t been such a wreck after his wife’s death he might never have gotten those damn fucking assault charges, he might have been able to find a better job that this shit if he hadn’t ruined his damn record by assaulting the damn Chief of Police.
It was Gojo Satoru’s own damn fault anyway though. They were the ones that fucked up. They were the ones who refused to do shit about his wife’s murderer.
He sometimes thinks he should have killed that damn Chief Inspector Gojo dingbat, he should’ve done way more than just rough him up.
Still, Megumi wouldn’t do well with one parent bled out and burned and the other in jail for avenging such a vicious death, so, even though Toji desperately wants revenge on everyone who was ever in or affiliated with that damn fucking gang that killed his beautiful wife, he marches on and keeps his head as straight as he can.
For Megumi.
Only because of Megumi.
Because Megumi is all he has now.
Every day he comes in and it's a different student’s turn to pose him however they want for that class and then they all draw him like he’s particularly interesting. They all arrange his limbs differently and they work in silence which is alright with Toji because he’s not the biggest fan of talking to them anyway.
Every day he sits in this room full of art students and he lets them draw him and he thinks because there’s nothing else to do. He lets them recreate the hard line of his shoulders and abs and the softness to his cock and his balls.
Today is a little different though. Class has a new student.
Usually Toji wouldn’t notice or care about the new students but, this one, he’s different. Sure he’s pretty like so many of the other ones are but he’s just different.
His medium is clay.
He’s a sculptor and he asks if he can come close and if he can feel and his foxy eyes are all demure and innocent, they’re all nonchalant like he isn’t asking to feel Toji’s scars and his past with his fingertips in the name of art.
Toji wonders for a second if the kid intends to feel everything. Chest and face, his cock, his balls? Does he want to brush his slender fingers through Toji’s hair or along the length of his thighs?
“Whatever,” Toji says because he really doesn’t care. He’s passed a point of shame, he’s been like this his entire life, stripped bare for people to hurt and ridicule him. He’s only ever been willingly naked and raw on one occasion and it was for a person who no longer exists. He feels nothing but apathy because soft curious hands on his skin for the sake of an art project seems far more appealing than hard cruel ones fuelled by anger and rage, this student’s hands feel far more appealing than the exploitative ones of his family. His hands feel like kindness and it’s something of a luxury that he’s only received from his wife before.
He’s careful with his touch, vocal too, asks quietly if it’s okay each time and Toji grunts affirmatively each time he approaches. The student doesn’t seem to care that every time he moves close to Toji he earns himself the ire of his classmates. He doesn’t seem to care that Toji scowls at him every time he comes close because even if Toji doesn’t really care, he’s also a little like a feral dog and all touch, gentle as it may be, makes him remember the hands that inflicted pain on him from the moment he breathed in this world.
He smiles at Toji each time and his smile is so pretty, so bright and hopeful and it’s nothing like the rest of these loser artists because everyone else here has this tortured soul aesthetic going for them which Toji can’t understand in the slightest because he is a tortured soul and if he had the choice he’d choose to look much less like one. He’d like for people to see him in a better light, maybe see him and assume he has had a happy childhood and he has a wife and child at home. He’d like for people to see him and assume he’s happy.
Or maybe he’d just like to be happy. Maybe that’s what he really wants.
Maybe he wants to be one of those people who look like they’ve been brought up with happy parents who don’t beat them half to death because he’d like to be a person who has had parents who love and care for them. Maybe he just wishes he was a different person.
The rest of the students are always drawing or painting or scratching at surfaces that are always pointed away from Toji, he never sees their works and it allows him this healthy detachment from exactly what it is he’s letting people do.
The sculptor though, Toji watches his brows furrow in concentration, deft fingers caressing and smoothing out chocolate brown clay, moulding and shaping and he can see all of it. He can see the way the artist considers and he ponders, can see his eyes analysing Toji carefully and he feels a distinct new way about being observed in as much detail as he is. Because the amethyst eyes gaze at him and they do it so longingly and kindly and Toji can see the soft glow of the soul hiding beneath his skin and it seems so beautiful, so lovely and sweet.
He’s got a thin sheen of sweat on his skin which makes sense for the Summer heat and the fact he’s wearing some moronic combination of a loose long sleeved turtle neck and these baggy black trousers which cover him so entirely that it’s no wonder his skin needs to sweat to breathe.
Toji watches the way the sculptor bites his bottom lip, pink and plush, decorated with a lip ring in the centre, a thin gold hoop wrapping around his lip like it was desperate for an embrace in the sculptor’s mouth.
He watches because he can for once. This job is painfully boring but it’s not like he’s fighting off job recruiters right now. The job is always so painfully dull because the canvases are always faced away from him, the students are always masked behind their art pieces, hidden behind what must be murals of him. He watches because the sculptor moves close to him and touches him and it feels electric as much as it feels shamefully wrong because the only person who ever made him feel electric is dead.
He watches because the sculptor twists his clay to focus on Toji’s back so Toji can see the way he’s dug his nail into the clay to carve out Toji’s scars and his burns, the way the cut of Toji’s abs looks rough and unpolished and the fact he’s including small details already like the lines of Toji’s snail trail.
The student sculptor looks up suddenly and he catches Toji’s gaze on him and Toji suddenly feels a reawakening in his shame gland because he instinctually turns his gaze away. It’s too much to look at those royal purple eyes of his, with their richness and their depth because he can see the soul behind it. He can see the sculptor and the sculptor can see him and he hates it.
He hates being seen, being perceived. Hates it and yet, it’s his job. He gets paid to be looked at and yet, it feels so different when this sculptor does it. It feels real and it feels raw to be under the watchful eye of this sculptor, under this man moulding Toji’s likeness in clay.
The student approaches Toji, careful and slow, like he’s a cat that might run off if he gets too close, like he thinks Toji is afraid of being touched, of being close to another person. He doesn’t know how true that is. He doesn’t know that Toji is terrified of proximity, that he always ends up getting hurt by people who get close to him. He doesn’t want to be hurt anymore.
“Is it alright if I feel around your biceps?” He asks, eyes not quite tall enough to look Toji in the eye. He looks up at Toji and it’s so genuine and it’s so inviting and Toji hasn’t had many people ask if it’s okay to touch him. If he’s being honest, his wife is the only person who’s ever asked. Megumi’s touch is the only one that’s ever invited at all times, he never needs to ask permission because it’s Megumi and he loves Megumi. This though, every time this artist asks if he can touch Toji’s skin, his body, he feels a little vindicated, he feels a little proud that someone sees him as worth getting consent from.
He grunts his approval because he doesn’t want to speak aloud. He’s a model, he’s meant to be seen and not heard and so he doesn’t speak, he just grunts a little so the sculptor knows he can touch and he can feel.
It feels foreign to have hands on him once again. To have the cool touch of delicate fingertips brushing along his skin. It feels nice and it feels comforting, kind of like coming home after a long time and something about it feels stinging hot with betrayal.
Long dainty fingers press into his biceps, dancing over the veins in them and feeling for the muscle, the ridges in his skin, the dips and textures of his stretch marks. They brush along his triceps and shoulders and the gentle caress feels calming and electric at the same time. He feels like he’s on fire, alight and alive, he feels like he’s floating in a pool somewhere, calm and quiet. It feels like it’s just him and the artist and it feels way too intimate and it feels way too soft, too gentle. It reminds him of his wife and it makes him sick to his stomach because he’s letting someone else touch him tenderly like she used to and he’s enjoying it, he isn’t recoiling from the sculptor’s touch and he isn’t running away from being near it, he finds he wants to lean into it, wants to feel it everywhere.
It feels sick. He feels sick. He feels like a monster for doing this to his wife when he promised he’d only ever have her, he swore that she was the only person he’d ever let touch him and here he is, letting someone else touch him. It’s not inherently sexual, the hands that touch him are exploratory and innocuous, they’re the hands of someone who wants to treat him like he’s fragile and not something of a beast. They’re the hands of someone who sees him as a human, as something to care for and respect, to treat with dignity and something capable of being loved.
Still, when he’s seen on such a level like this artist seems to see him, he can’t help the way his stomach turns with repulsion and self-loathing.
He likes it, he wants to lean into his touch, he craves it because it’s so soft and it’s so familiar and even though he doesn’t want to, he finds comfort in it. Like these hands, strong and delicate as they are, could piece him back together, hold the broken pieces until they stick, until there’s only the scars of a broken pot etched in his skin.
There’s something magnetic about the sculptor with his long hair tied back in a bun and the softness of his face, he conceals himself and he touches Toji who does not. They seem like complete dichotomy to Toji. Green and purple shouldn’t make sense according to the colour wheel in the corner of the art studio, long and short, rough and perfectionist. Still, he can’t deny the harmony and peace he feels next to the sculptor. It feels innate, like it’s only natural that he trusts this sculptor with his body, to be delicate and to be gentle with him. It feels like the sculptor is worshipping Toji, like this piece of art is meant to be an act of absolute devotion, an offering for a God. Is that what Toji is to this sculptor? Is he the Jesus to his Da Vinci? Or perhaps Michelangelo is more applicable considering they’re both sculptors.
Toji allows himself to lose himself to the feeling of two hands on him, grounding him, keeping his feet to the floor.
“Thank you,” the sculptor says with a saccharine smile, his eyes close when he does that. They close and they flick in a way that makes them look like crescent moons and it’s so pretty. His lashes are long and they’re close enough to Toji’s face that he can count them all individually, he can take note of the way they flick up and the way they curve and curl to frame his pretty foxy eyes.
He has this light to him, this sunshine inside of him that draws Toji in because his soul shines and he’s radiant with his warmth.
The session ends and the sculptor slips through his grasp. He finds himself wanting more of it and he hates himself for it because he belongs to someone else and even if that person is dead, his soul is attached to hers, right? When she died he died, right?
So why does he feel so alive? Why does he feel like the world has been ignited and there’s colour in the sky and the trees and why are the birds singing a song he can understand and why doesn’t the walk back home feel nearly as tiresome as usual? Why does he feel like he’s alight again once more?
Toji walks home, to his small apartment on the fourth floor with a busted elevator and shallow ass stairs. He walks in to find his toddler waddling around with drool on his lips and the rattle he’s been teething on in his hands.
Megumi is a sweet baby. Doesn’t cry or make a fuss too often, he eats what he’s given and gets on with his own thing, he babbles sweet things to daddy every once in a while in between rambling over that silly little dog show he’s obsessed with.
Today is no different.
“Daddy!” He cries and it’s sweet like honey, sticky enough that he wants to be stuck in his little boy’s voice for all eternity.
“Megs, how are you buddy?” He replies bending at the knee to pick up the child now sprinting towards him at about point one miles per hour. Toji nuzzles his head into Megumi’s neck and Megumi giggles at the sensation.
“Meg hungry,” he says and it’s an innocent enough statement, Toji is sure he is hungry which makes him feel like total shit. He leaves his baby boy home alone everyday to go pose naked for punk ass art students. He leaves his only son to his own devices in an apartment that could easily be dangerous for him with a belly full of porridge and leaves for the day. He does other shit too and while he does it his kid has to stay safe by himself. Toji has nightmares pretty often about shit happening to Megumi while he’s not home but there isn’t much he can do about it, he can’t do his odd jobs with a toddler crawling around, he can’t mow lawns for loose change with Megumi’s stomach growling in his ear.
So instead, Megumi stays home and Toji stays guilty.
It’s a cycle they might never break out of.
“I know buddy. Let’s go grocery shopping, yeah?” Toji asks and he tries to keep his tone jovial and make it sound like he doesn’t want to kill himself but it’s hard because he’s failing the last piece of his wife that exists. His baby boy, his Megumi, he’s hungry and he definitely deserves more than two meals a day. He deserves so much better than the life Toji offers for him but he can’t bear to give him up. Toji can’t stand the thought of putting Megumi up for adoption, can’t make it click in his head to even consider it for Megumi’s benefit, maybe he’s selfish, he probably is but, he’s been through so much already, aren’t there some things he can be selfish about?
He wants to keep Megumi. He wants to keep hearing giggles when he comes home and wake up to Paw Patrol on the TV. He wants to keep having his face kissed each night and his nose tickled with spiky black hair. He wants to hold on and he wants to keep and he wants and he wants and he thinks he’s given up enough to keep the one and only thing he wants in this world.
He’s okay with being a selfish man. As long as it means he gets to keep Megumi.
Megumi nods his head and it’s nestled in Toji’s neck. Sharpened spikes of deep dark hair that Toji had never seen before until his fifth date with his wife, he remembers her showing him a picture of her as a little girl, tiny and barely old enough to swallow solid food and her hair was just like Megumi’s. Megumi is the perfect mix of the two of them, he’s got Toji’s standoffish and quiet demeanour, but he’s bright and light like his mother when he’s happy and he’s comfortable, he’s got Toji’s green for irises but he’s got the upwards tilt of his mother for the shape. He’s got a pretty smile that brings Toji right back to his first love and he’s got a cute little pout that could win even Toji’s heartless family over.
And so Toji and Megumi leave the apartment together to go to the grocery store. Toji picks up some rice and some fish, some noodles that Megumi likes because despite the fact he’s so regularly hungry, he’s an incredibly picky child. He loves ginger and he hates chicken unless the skin is off and he’ll know if you’ve cooked it with the skin on and peeled it off afterwards.
Megumi babbles to Toji about nothing in particular, he points out when he sees a dog on their way to the grocery store and back and he giggles when the wind blows in Toji’s face. He uses his hands to cup Toji’s cheeks and squishes them together until Toji’s lips are folding in on each other.
Toji grabs some cheap cuts of pork because he fancies some tonkatsu and it’s something Megumi generally likes eating too although he eats it laboriously. He always takes a small slice and nibbles on it like it has to last him a week. Maybe he thinks it does, Toji’s sure the whole spending all day alone and hungry is going to have some awful effect on Megumi’s psyche, he’s just not sure what it will be quite yet. He’s sure he’s hurting Megumi with all of this, if he was a better man maybe he’d do what’s best for Megumi but how can he be a better man when he’s never learned how to be a good man?
“Daddy, mango,” he says pointing at the fruit, one arm clenched around Toji’s neck, eyes wide as saucers as though he’s seeing something magical.
Toji chuckles at his antics. He only ever really does that with Megumi these days. He laughs freely with his boy and that’s it. Nobody else can ever hear or touch that part of his soul that feels joy and happiness, nobody can light him up like his son or his wife ever could.
“Yeah, buddy, you want one?” He says, hand moving up to tickle Megumi’s sides. Megumi giggles and it’s like a chorus of his favourite song, the part he could replay over and over again and never ever get tired of.
“One, two, three, four.” He replies completely ignoring Toji’s question to count the mangoes on display instead. There aren’t enough words in the world to describe how Toji feels about Megumi, his precious son.
“Yeah, Megs, good job, you’re so smart. Do you want one of the mangoes, baby?” He can put it in Megumi’s porridge, maybe make something for dessert with them or something.
Megumi nods, head going back to rest on Toji’s shoulder.
It belongs there. Megumi belongs with him. Megumi belongs with his head on Toji’s shoulder and his hands wrapped around that damn stolen dog plushie.
Toji makes his way to the register with a toddler in one arm and a full basket of groceries in the other. Megumi pulls his head up before he crumples his eyebrows at the cashier because it’s not the old lady he’s used to, it’s some teenager that doesn’t give Megumi a free lollipop just for being the cutest thing alive. He pushed his head back into Toji’s neck as though it will conceal him, make him invisible. Toji’s boy is like that, he likes to hide away even when he should be shining. He’s wonderful in every way and he shouldn’t have to hide in the shadows, he should soar and he should scream because he deserves to see the open air and he deserves to be heard by the entire world.
“One scratch card too, mate.” Toji says as he pulls his wallet out to pay for all the shit he’s got.
The teenager hands him a scratch card, the cheapest one available and Toji goes off, four bags of groceries in one arm and a clingy toddler in the other.
Sometimes he has to wonder if the clinginess is a side effect of Toji’s absence at home or if it’s just a phase all toddlers go through. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really permanently fucking Megumi up by putting him through all this because of his own selfish desire to keep Megumi.
“Daddy, dog.” Megumi says pushing the plush in front of Toji’s face and he laughs because Megumi shows that dog plush around every chance he gets. He always shows Toji like it’s a brand new thing he’s never seen before.
“Mhm,” he replies and he wants to ruffle Megumi’s wild hair but he’s not got a hand free so instead he settles for fake chomping on his chubby little cheek.
Megumi giggles. “Daddy, stop, daddy no bite, daddy I’m not food,” and the words tumble out and they’re melodic and it doesn’t matter how many times he hears Megumi speaking, it always feels like the first. It doesn’t matter how many times Megumi smiles at him, it’ll never get old. It doesn’t matter because it’s Megumi and he loves Megumi with all his heart. He never thought he could love someone this much but he does. It doesn’t matter what he has to do for money, he’ll do anything and everything for Megumi.
Everyday the sculptor comes in and he refines this statue of Toji and Toji watches and he breathes and he scowls when the sculptor gets too close but he warms up to him and soon his touch is welcome and familiar. He finds that he likes it, leans into it and it’s warmth. He finds that he leans into staring at the artist’s beauty, his delicate facial features and his strong arms. He finds that he’s curious, he’s intrigued about this one, he finds that he finds a sense of comfort, a shared bond with the artist because everyday, no matter how warm, he wears clothes that cover him, every piece of skin that can be covered is covered. Toji has a feeling he knows why. Has a feeling he’s lived through the reason why.
Still, he makes no move to do anything about it. Doesn’t speak to the sculptor because he doesn’t want to go and say something entirely wrong, entirely presumptuous because the sculptor has this sunshine smile and it’s like the world revolves because of him. He has this beautiful warmth that Toji doesn’t recognise in himself and if he is right about the sculptor’s life then he doesn’t fit the part like Toji fits the part.
Well, he doesn’t make a move to say anything until the sculptor misses class, once, twice, thrice.
By the time he comes back his light is dimmed and he’s wearing these ugly sunglasses and Toji knows, he just fucking knows and it’s Hell to think about.
He doesn’t know if he wants to insert himself and so instead he stands there with his cock and his balls hanging low and his eyebrows crumpled in concern that even he can’t hide.
The sculptor doesn’t touch him anymore.
He makes no moves to come and touch Toji, he makes no moves to press his palms into Toji’s chest or his arms, he doesn’t caress the muscle of Toji’s thighs or the bones of his jaw and his cheekbone.
He works on his project in silence and Toji can see how all the other students seem thankful, how they seem to hate the sculptor, how they look at him with vindictive eyes, all selfishly thankful for his absence because it means Toji doesn’t move and the lighting stays the same.
Toji hates them for that.
He thinks they should care, thinks they should take note of how their classmate is clearly struggling and his behaviour has changed. He thinks they should want to take care of one of their own, they should at least care enough to ask where he’s been.
But they do nothing of the sort. The instructor tuts at him and tells him he’ll probably have to retake the class with attendance as shit as his and Toji knows it’s a scare tactic because he knows the class has no grading based on attendance, he knows well enough now that the teacher’s favourite students never receive such threats even when they only show up halfway between a hangover and another late night partying.
He finds he misses the touch, misses the delicate fingers on his skin. He’s grown accustomed to it and now it’s been ripped from him and he hates it. He hates that every time he finds comfort in something, it’s ripped away from him.
Not this time.
He wants this to come back. He wants to feel warm, pretty fingertips on his skin, exploratory and gentle. He wants to feel the caress of a sculptor, hear the sound of his voice pleading for permission.
He wants to feel the warmth of the sculptor’s soul radiating next to him once more.
He’s being selfish, he knows that, but still, he wants and he wants and he wants until he can want no more.
Today Toji hangs back after he puts his clothes on. He waits while the sculptor tidies away his materials and watches him throw on his jacket.
He waits and he watches, watches how the artist tries to smile at his peers on his way out but it doesn’t meet his eyes. Toji’s sure none of the rest of them notice though, they’re all in their own little worlds.
He wishes he could go back to his own little world, one where he wasn’t stuck watching this sculptor render his likeness in clay. One where he wasn’t stuck knowing the way his eyebrows crease with his left eyebrow twitching upwards when he’s concentrating, one where he doesn’t know the arch of his smile or the weight of his hand, one where he and the sculptor are strangers once more because Toji would feel like a better man. He wants to push his betrayal out the window, wants to get rid of the sculptor from his mind but he can’t because the sculptor is so gentle and he’s so worthy of all the affection in the world and someone is taking away his light.
A few more days go by. Toji makes tonkatsu and ramen and onigiri for dinners and he makes Megumi his porridge with the mangoes that Megumi counted out and he doesn’t get touched once in those days.
The sculptor looks at him longingly sometimes, reaches out like he wants to touch Toji but he always shakes his head like he’s come to his senses and Toji wishes he could just forget. He wants to forget the feel of soft hands on his skin and he wants to erase the feeling of being caressed because it’s much harder to miss something when you can’t remember what it is that you miss. He wishes just once the little artist would prance over to him with lithe hands and a bright smile and remind Toji what it is to be caressed, to be touched by someone else.
He’s a desperate man and desperate men do desperate things.
So after five whole days of being ignored, of going untouched, Toji decides to follow the sculptor out the door. It isn’t to be creepy, he doesn’t want to stalk the man, he just wants to know, he just wants to speak, he’s not really sure there’s anything he can do but speak. He wants to ask him to touch Toji again like he used to but that seems a little scary to ask.
“Hey,” he yells out semi-awkwardly when the sculptor enters the open air, a space that feels like it has enough oxygen for Toji to breathe but he still can’t because something about the little artist makes him breathless and fidgety and he hates it because he knows this feeling and he knows that if he’s already given this little sculptor the power to destroy him and he knows he won’t survive another heartbreak if it crumbles down on him.
The sculptor turns around, eyes wide with shock and confusion but they’re dim and they’re scared and there’s something in them that Toji doesn’t want to see in this sculptor that confidently came up to him on his first lesson and asked to touch him, to feel the ridges of his body like it was nothing.
He wants to embroider those eyes when they were bright and they were confident and he doesn’t know what happened but he knows he doesn’t want it to keep happening. He wants to see the sculptor’s skin, wants to reveal it from underneath those baggy turtle necks and those loose fitting trousers, he wants to see what the sculptor is hiding, he wants to kiss away the scars and the hurt in his heart and he wants to make it all better. He wants to worship this little thing that creates statues of Toji like it’s not a big deal, wants to caress his body like he does to Toji’s.
He wants to show him the light he’s brought back to Toji’s life just by existing in Toji’s orbit with that bright beautiful soul of his.
“Fushiguro-san,” he mumbles and Toji is taken aback by the fact that they know his name because he always assumed they’d forget. He doesn’t speak so there’s no point knowing the name Fushiguro Toji. But the sculptor knows him. Knows his name and his body, knows his pulse points and his breath shakes, the sculptor knows him.
It was different with Toji’s wife, it was a gradual process of letting her in but this artist has weaselled his way in and Toji has no idea how to get him out.
“You don’t wanna cop a feel these days, huh?” He says and he tries to sound jovial, like he’s joking around but he comes off flat and monotone and he kicks himself the second he realises.
He watches as the guy fumbles around choking on words he can’t say.
“Oh- I- uh, well, I’m sorry, I mean, well I am sorry,” and it’s all this jargon that sounds so foreign in his mouth. Like he’s nervous to be around Toji and he shouldn’t be. He’s never been nervous to be around Toji.
He always strolls right up to Toji and he asks if it’s okay to feel him up and he always treats Toji like Toji is the delicate flower.
“Why not?” Toji interrupts, not that he means to not let the sculptor finish, he just wants to get to the point so he can go home. He’s already doing enough by delaying his return for something stupid and entirely selfish.
Maybe he’ll bring home some fried chicken for Megumi as an apology.
The sculptor looks like he’s caught off guard. Like he’s terrified.
Toji thinks he knows the sculptor but maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the man isn’t the confident piranha he thought he was before.
The sculptor brings purple eyes up to meet Toji’s and it’s a clash of colour, green on purple and fuck is it magical. It feels like the Aurora Borealis, like being alight, it feels like poison and power, like chlorine and iodine, toxic and dangerous but addicting in all the worst ways.
“I can’t touch you anymore, he thinks of it as cheating. Thinks I’ll fall in love with you and run away from him,” he says and there’s no stammer to his tone, no fear in his eyes and Toji has to wonder where it disappeared to. “He’s right. He should be worried. You’ve barely said a word to me and I want you to eat me alive, Fushiguro-san.” He says and he steps closer to Toji and fuck is it beautiful to hear those words and see those eyes looking up at him. He wants to destroy the world for this damn sculptor.
“I can’t eat you alive. I’m not like him, whoever the fuck he is, I don’t hurt the people I love. I just want to feel you, is that okay?” He asks echoing the sentiment he’s heard the sculptor ask him half a million times.
Toji searches his eyes for doubt and the dimness floods out of them being replaced with the brightness they’ve always held.
“Yes, yes please, I want you to feel me, I want that so bad.” He replies and it’s blinking back tears in his pretty purple eyes and it’s clumping up lashes with moisture and defeat
Toji and the sculptor make it back to his apartment in a mess of hormones and unspoken feelings. He holds the sculptor’s hand on the way and it’s the first time he’s initiated any touch with him, it’s the first time he’s been the one to touch, the one to feel.
He wants to kiss him and he wants to cradle him. He wants to make all the hurt go away. He wants to make the sculptor a cheater because he wants the sculptor to be his. His little artist. His talented little sculptor. The same man who crafted Toji, hands and legs and cock and face, he wants to obsess over this man and his mannerisms for the rest of his time on this planet.
He wants to watch him hold his chopsticks, wants to see if he does that with the same odd hyperflexibility he uses to craft Toji’s scars. He wants to watch his eyebrows furrow and his tongue dart out to lick his bottom lip. He wants to feel the sculptor’s hand against his for a long time because the warmth is stabilising and it’s comforting.
He opens the door and is greeted with a familiar shriek and something he probably should have factored in before he brought home a new friend.
“Daddy!” Megumi yells and he throws himself at Toji’s legs like he hasn’t seen him in years and Tojis supposes for a two year old it probably does feel like years every time he leaves for more than four hours.
Toji picks Megumi up and peppers his face with kisses, forgetting temporarily about the man he was just holding hands with.
“Hey buddy,” he says. “How are you today, you hungry?” He asks and he realises he forgot to get the fried chicken but it’s fine for now, they have other things to eat today, Megumi can have his treat tomorrow.
He feels Megumi tense and hides himself away a little and realises he doesn’t even know the sculptor's name, he can’t introduce him to Megumi like this.
“Megumi, this is my friend from work, say hi, okay baby?”
“Hi, I’m Suguru, it’s nice to meet you Megumi,” the sculptor says back in a tender sweet voice and Toji wants to melt because his name is beautiful and his voice is back to normal and he’s so strong and he’s so wonderful.
Megumi lifts his head from his safe place in Toji’s neck and he offers a tentative stare and his brows furrow in apprehension and Toji wants Megumi to like Suguru, wants him to approve of this new man. He wants Megumi to see the light Suguru has.
“Megumi,” he says back and Toji isn’t really sure what to say about that greeting because it’s both more and less than Toji was expecting.
It’s a few more hours later, Megumi is asleep in his bed after playing with Suguru while Toji cooked dinner. The two of them bonded pretty fucking well and it made Toji’s heart soar.
Suguru and he stumble into his room, a clumsy mess of bedroom eyes and soft smiles, longing stares and the accumulation of a million sweet touches over these last few weeks.
Toji wants to take his time to appreciate Suguru for what he is, the warmth of this artist, the one who’s won Megumi over in a few hours, the one who’s won him over in a matter of days. He’s magnetic, he’s electric and Toji wants to show him how thankful he is that Suguru strutted into his life and set the world on fire again.
He’s so thankful he can see more than just the past and he can look forward to a future. He hopes Suguru feels the same, hopes Suguru wants him as desperately as he does. He hopes and he hopes and he hopes because he can do that now, he has something to hope for and so he hopes.
“Fushiguro-san,” he starts before Toji glares at him and pinches the skin of his waist. “Toji,” he corrects, giggling a little looking up at Toji with stars in his eyes and electricity in his touch.
“Brat,” Toji says quietly, leaning down a little to press soft tender kisses to Suguru’s jaw. He wants to feel him, wants to see and smell him, taste the warmth of his soul underneath it all. He wants to overwhelm all of his senses with Suguru the sculptor. He presses his nose against Suguru’s nape and inhales all of his scent, the scent of his soul into his lungs. He needs it, more desperately than he needs oxygen. He needs to be close to this man that intrigues him so much. He needs to know the outline of his soul, needs to know its scent and its taste, needs to know the colours of his breath and the sound of his future. He needs to know Suguru so intimately it seems dangerous, it seems even more volatile to do so now. He knows what love is now, he knows what hurt is too, still, he wants to choose this path for himself. He wants to choose to love Suguru because that’s how powerful this feeling is. He can feel his soul calling out for Suguru’s and he wants to let himself forget that it could hurt, that it could end badly because he’s smelling the aroma of Suguru and he’s looking into purple eyes with the warmth of a thousand suns.
Suguru leans up and wraps his arms around Toji’s neck, pulling him closer whilst giggling and the feeling of Suguru’s giggles, the sounds and the breaths, they make Toji want to worship him. He wants to create a religion based around Suguru.
They haven’t even kissed yet and already Toji thinks he can imagine his future with Suguru and Megumi by his side. They’d be a family of their own. They’d cuddle up together in bed with the thunder got too scary for Megumi to handle and they’d make dinner whilst cracking jokes and they’d make their own fun from the boring mundane shit.
Toji presses kisses from Suguru’s jaw to his cheek to his forehead and finally his lips. They’re all chaste and they’re all gentle. He wants to take things slow with Suguru, he wants to worship him thoroughly. Suguru tries to overpower the kiss and it’s just like him to be so confident, to do something like that. Toji wants to let him have his fun but he can’t he’s too desperate to taste Suguru’s soul and so he licks all around Suguru’s mouth, he fights his tongue and he licks and he suckles on it when he emerges the victor, he tastes and he tastes until Suguru is panting and drooling, mewling and pulling at Toji’s hair like he’s desperate.
Toji pulls his hands down to rest on Suguru’s waist, his clothes in the way.
He wants to see, he wants to observe.
He pulls away and stares at Suguru, eyes wide and horny and loving and tender and crazed.
“Suguru, take off your clothes for me,” he asks. Part of him wants to take care of that himself, he wants to do everything for Suguru but he’s always been Suguru’s observer, he’s always watched from the side and he wants to watch how Suguru does it. Does he take each item off with care? Does he start with his socks or his shirt? He wants to know what feels natural to Suguru, what he does, what he wants to do, he just wants to know Suguru.
Suguru stares up at him and apprehension leaks back into his eyes.
“Oh uh okay,” he says and it’s full of nerves once again. Toji figures his assumptions are probably right based on the apprehension, based on the mysterious boyfriend that Suguru has, based on the clues and the context.
Still, he goes over to lean on his bed and watches Suguru pull the long woollen sleeve over his left wrist with his right hand before doing the same with his left sleeve. After that he slips his arms down into the torso and wiggles his way out of the turtle neck with minimal needless tugging or harsh pulling.
Even with his clothing, with inanimate objects, Suguru is gentle, he is soft and he is tender and he cares for just about everything.
When the turtle neck makes its way off his body he shifts from one foot to another, tentatively displaying the array of purple bruises on his chest and neck, some from being strangled and some from being beat, some clearly love bites and some clearly jealous rage.
He doesn’t want Suguru to feel like he’s scrutinising him with his stare, he wants Suguru to feel comfortable. After all, he knows what it is to be afraid to show someone your bruises and your scars.
“Your soul is so radiant, Suguru. I hate that anyone hurt you but you shine so brightly anyway,” he settles on saying because he wants to continue the show, wants to play and pause and rewind when he sees the bright smile that appears on Suguru’s face at his words. He watches as Suguru grows more confident, more alive and he peels off his baggy trousers, followed by his socks. He watches as Suguru carefully folds each item of clothing up and places it on Toji’s floor and stands before him in his almost fully naked glory. Stands before him, scars and bruises, soul shining bright and eyes burning even brighter.
Toji feels his dick twitch painfully at the sight. He’s been turned on since he fucking heard Suguru’s voice again, since they first held hands on the walk back to his home.
Toji walks over and pulls Suguru into another kiss, ravenous and desperate. He moves his hands all over, Suguru’s arms to his waist to his thighs before he hitches Suguru up holding him by the ass whilst Suguru wraps his legs around Toji and moans into the kiss. He tries to dominate but it’s a losing battle and Toji loves that, loves Suguru’s spunk. He loves that he can taste the metal of Suguru’s lip piercing and the pretty brown of Suguru’s nipples lays beneath his fingertips.
He loves the taste of Suguru’s spit, loves the way he shivers and he squirms.
Toji presses Suguru against the bed, soft and gentle, tender like nothing else he’s ever done.
He kisses up Suguru's legs, soft and careful, worshipping relentlessly. He kisses the arches of his feet to his ankles and the side of his knee, he kisses a trail up Suguru’s inner thighs and looks up at Suguru desperately every time he mewls out the name Toji.
He says it like a prayer, like a chant of something supernatural and special. Toji likes that, he likes that Suguru worships him just as much as he worships Suguru. He likes that Suguru finds something worthwhile in Toji. He likes feeling like a God just as much as he likes being a devout worshipper.
Toji sees sparks of divinity flash before his eyes when he removes Suguru’s boxers and sees pearls of precum on his cockhead. He kisses those too. He kisses and sucks on the head, he tastes the essence of Suguru, this God, this beautiful spectacular little God.
Suguru moans too loud and too lewd and Toji has to shush him, has to remind him of Megumi, has to remind him that being too loud means waking up the baby and Suguru whines out a small complaint but manages to keep himself in check.
Toji moves from Suguru’s cockhead and trails down to his asshole, puckered and tinged with a pretty pink. He swipes his tongue across it and Suguru’s hands come down to push his head further.
Toji knows what Suguru wants and he’s desperate to oblige.
Whatever his majesty wants.
He pushes his tongue into Suguru’s asshole and swirls, tasting all the colours and the sounds of Suguru’s soul and his moans. He tastes marvellous, he tastes divine, he tastes like Suguru and that’s enough for Toji.
“Toji, fuck me please,” he whines out, his voice a low stutter and with tears building up in those pretty purple eyes of his.
How can Toji refuse such a direct request?
He smiles at Suguru and he can feel the scar in his mouth twitch like it wants to remind Toji of its existence. For once, remembering his past doesn’t hurt, it just makes him feel like there’s more detail in his face for Suguru to sculpt and carve. He feels like a work of art under Suguru’s gaze. He feels like he is a God and Suguru is there to capture his ethereal beauty and he loves it all, loves all the pictures of himself that Suguru can see because Suguru sculpted him and how could he hate anything made by Suguru?
Toji manoeuvres his body so he can rest between Suguru’s legs and kisses him deep and gentle. There’s no fighting for dominance, there’s just passion, two tongues colliding against one another, desperate to be heard, to be seen and felt and known.
He slips out of his sweatpants and his boxers, lips barely leaving Suguru’s in the process. Toji wraps his hand around his length and jerks, once and then twice. He could probably cum just by listening to Suguru moan but he’d rather not. Toji leans over to his bedside table to grab some lube and rubs it over his skin. He squirts some more into his fingers and presses them into Suguru’s hole, tight and warm. He thinks he can feel Suguru’s soul in there, he wants to press himself into it, fuck himself into Suguru’s soul for eternity. He wants to imprint the shape of his dick on Suguru’s soul because he can’t figure out how to show Suguru that his heart beats faster when he’s around him or that his voice is the first thing Toji craves when he wakes up in the morning.
“Fuck me, Toji, feel me, feel how ready I am for you, please,” he says and Toji thinks he must have died and gone to Heaven.
They’ve been feeling each other since the day they met but this is the most intimate. This is their souls connecting and he wants to live forever knowing that Suguru wants to connect his soul to Toji’s in any way at all.
Toji nods but he knows he’s nervous, he knows he looks it too. He hasn’t been with anyone intimately since his wife died. He hasn’t been with anyone like this for a long time and God does it feel like a betrayal to her memory but God, he wants to be happy. He wants to live for himself for once. He doesn’t want to hang onto a ghost, a love letter he can never come back to. He’s found a poem he can keep reciting, one that might have an answer for him and he wants to embrace it.
Suguru must see the tension because he leans up and he kisses Toji and his dread floods away. Suguru is so beautiful and his soul is so pure. Toji thinks his wife would approve. Toji thinks his wife would understand.
He lines up his cock and thrusts in hard and smooth and fast and Suguru clenches around him and he’s so tight and he’s so warm and welcoming and the two of them moan in pleasure at the sensation.
It’s like a hug but so much tighter, it’s like Suguru wants to squeeze Toji’s soul out of his cock and he thinks he’d be content with that.
He thrusts in and out slow and tender, sweet and hard.
“Faster,” Suguru gasps, eyes clouding over.
Toji obliges once more because he’s close to his peak and he wants to fuck until he sees Nirvana.
Once and twice and three more thrusts before Suguru cums from Toji’s cock brushing his prostate alone. He clenches tight and painful like a vice around Toji’s cock and it feels like Heaven or Hell or everything in between.
Cum lands on Suguru’s belly and Toji’s chest and Toji wants to swipe it up and eat it, lick it and taste Suguru’s soul in his sperm. He doesn’t want to overwhelm Suguru too much now though because Toji is still thrusting against an oversensitive prostate and Suguru is whining and mewling and pulling Toji in for a deep kiss with tongue and with passion.
It takes maybe five more hard thrusts for Toji to reach the peak of his pleasure and he cums inside Suguru, he doesn’t remember to ask for permission which he probably should have but he can’t bring himself to regret it. Suguru’s soul has had a taste of Toji, soon Suguru’s soul will be an expert in all things Fushiguro Toji.
Toji and Suguru have been in this limbo of dating and not really official. Suguru did break up with his boyfriend though which happened to be a relief for Toji because he really wasn’t interested in having to share.
Sessions become a lot more obscene when Toji starts showing up with hickies and scratches on his back and Suguru starts walking in with a limp and a sore back.
Toji always focuses dirty sexy gazes at Suguru and Suguru blushes red while he tries to focus on his piece because the showcase is coming up.
For the showcase Toji asks Suguru if he’ll let Toji dress him and Suguru agrees albeit reluctantly.
Toji picks out a royal purple shirt, it doesn’t quite reach Suguru’s hips and low waisted black jeans. He tells Suguru about the colour and how purple threads used to be made, how it used to be a colour of royalty because it was so difficult to make and yet Suguru just has it captured in his eyes for all eternity.
They show up to the showcase together with Megumi who’s warmed up enough that he’s hiding his head in Suguru’s neck when strangers come up to speak to him today.
“Where’s your work, love?” Toji asks, hand pressing circles into Suguru’s waist.
“The red studio,” he replies, eyes glancing up at Toji for just a moment but just one second is enough for Toji. Every time he sees that magnetic purple he feels drawn to it, it’s like the first time every time.
The trio walk to the red studio to find Suguru’s masterpiece.
I found a God - sculpted by Suguru.
Well, Toji isn’t sure he’s exactly a God. He is sure of one thing though.
Suguru’s hands moulded him, they changed him. For all intents and purposes, he truly has been sculpted by Suguru.