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he could feel his body slowly giving up.
the blood of dead cursed spirits cover the porcelain ground of the desolated train station. his breaths are ragged, the left side of his body numb. nanami thinks he may have a stroke.
there are a few more left alive, walking towards him in a painstakingly slow manner— as if taunting him.
nanami huffs, his eyesight blurred from his half lidded vision. and with all his might, a yell breaches from his burnt throat, although strong enough to echo around the walls.
he slashes his sword into the hideous cursed spirit, a squelch squeezing through the sliced body— gruesome as the blood splatters on his arm, the eyes rolling back into death, the body slumping on the ground; helpless. pathetic.
in the brink of light slipping through his fingers, he closes his eyes.
and suddenly he feels something light between his feet, ticklish on his soles. the sound of water splashing against each other, the heat of the sun kissing his skin, and the leaves of the trees swishing in the salt air breeze.
nanami's eyes open.
he's at the beach.
he looks down and sees that his body is fine, intact. his left side fully healed as if he wasn't scorched just a few hours ago, his hair being blown back.
in a state of ecstasy does he smile— every fiber of his body filled with elation. nanami walks towards the shore until the seaside meets his feet, the cold water gracing his skin.
"malaysia," he sighs, his head leaning back. "so beautiful."
"i hope you're talking about me."
he turns, startled, and sees your awaiting figure in front of a wooden cottage; clad in a white dress that dances in the wind. a beautiful smile graces your lips, the pearls of your teeth glinting in the sunrays.
nanami's heart beats faster, his hands twitching in excitement. he feels heat rush to his cheeks, and every step he took towards you seemed to strengthen him even more.
(for a moment, he forgets that he hadn't mourned over your scorched body, limp in his hands, his tears dropping on the blood on your cheeks; lifeless, and it felt as if you'd taken his soul with you too)
he murmurs your name past his smile. "what are you doing here?"
he stops in front of you, feet touching. you smile up at him and cup his left cheek, the other pushing his short hair behind his ear— a habit you'd always done even if his hair was no longer long.
nanami nestles into your touch, his nose rubbing on the skin above your palm, his lips kissing the inside of your hand. it feels real. it is real.
and he doesn't close his eyes. he was too afraid to lose sight of you.
"we live here, silly." you giggle. "have you forgotten? you take one walk and suddenly you forget that you built a cottage in malaysia for us to grow old in."
nanami remembers that conversation— just before entering the curtain in shibuya, he sat you down on one of the benches, fresh from an argument of trying to keep you outside, because you kept insisting that despite being a retired sorcerer, he forgets that you could fight, too.
"i can fight," you argued, almost plead, a look of desparation leaking from your eyes. but nanami had always been strong-willed; nothing could ever change his mind. you plead again that you were only there to help inumaki evacuate the civilians and not fight the curses. but he knows well that it was a lie.
"don't be stubborn," he sternly said, his hands were tight on your shoulders to keep you in place as he knelt between your legs. "i cannot lose you. do you understand that? you cannot stay inside that curtain, you cannot fight. stay here where you're safe—"
"bullshit, kento!" you had yelled at him, almost pushing him off you. "you act like i didn't save your ass multiple times back when we first years. i can fight. let me fight and help."
"stop it, (y/n)." it was a plea, his voice low but still hard, eyebrows raised and pinched together. he rubbed your tense shoulders, looking into your wide-eyed gaze of affliction. "it is better if you stay here. i'll be fine."
you groaned, tears welling up your eyes, the heel of your palms rubbing them off. nanami took your wrists into his hand and kissed them, placing them on his cheeks as a way of comfort in his distress. you'd looked at him tiredly, a hint of petulance radiating off your body.
"you're so selfish," you whined, squeezing his face between your palms. he stayed pliant. "what about me? do you think i'll be okay if i lose you? do you thi- do you think i'll be safe without you? i'd rather die with you than live a life without you, kento, for fuck's sake."
all nanami could do was sigh, closing his eyes, digging himself even more into your touch. his grasp on your wrists moved up to place them on either side of your cheeks, bringing you down to place your forehead against his.
"when i make it out here alive, we're leaving," he whispered. you hadn't realized your eyes had fallen shut until you found yourself opening them to stare at him, but his eyes remained closed. your thumbs rub his cheekbones, ring finger tracing the scar just below his jaw.
"what?"
"there's a cottage that i built in malaysia. in kuantan. i brought there all the books that i bought but haven't read yet. i brought there all the things that you loved. and the second this fight is over, we're going there and we're never going to look back. okay? i promise."
he felt a tear drop on his thumb. it was only then he opened his eyes and sees your sclera's tinted pink from the way your tears burned them; the way your face had etched itself in agony from all the dreadfuk thoughts that consumed you. nanami tilted his head up to kiss you.
it was the kind of kiss that hurt, with the way his eyes were squeezed shut and his hands trembled against your cheeks. it was the kind that told you he was scared of what's to come, that this time— he didn't actually trust himself.
but he put his faith in you. enough to make him fight until he sees you again. and he told you that when he softened against your touch and opened his mouth to kiss you even deeper.
but you'd always been stubborn, he thinks, as he looks down at your glowing body. nanami sighs and places his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to him that you place your toes on top of his feet and bump your chest against his.
"i remember," he tells you softly, grinning. "i apologize."
"it's okay, ken,"
your eyes were heavenly— like how an angel would stare at the clouds before flying towards them. there was a halo around your irises that gleamed ardor at the sight of him, tracing every figure of his face as if to wonder if he was real, the feather light touch of your thumb exploring his skin.
"you've been working overtime a lot, have you?"
nanami coughs up blood and watches it splatter on the floor. all the cursed spirits lay dead, surrounding him. all the colors turned gray, all the life in their eyes turned white. he bears no pity at the humans that reside in the thickened, disfigured bodies. he was too tired to feel anything.
a hand grazes his back.
his body slumps tiredly, back hunched, his head tilted down as his eyes closed. he cares no longer for the lethargy spreading all over him, his breaths becoming even— maybe weaker.
"i didn't know you were here."
mahito's taunting, sickeningly calm voice retorted in almost a scolding manner. "i've been here the whole time."
faint rushed footsteps run down the stairs of the station from afar. nanami's ears start to ring louder; he feels his body starting to swell, as if the blood cells inside him started to multiply in size and exit his veins to fill his muscles. but he knows nothing is happening yet.
"would you like to have a chat with me?" mahito says, and he could imagine the way the stitches on his face stretch as he smiled. nanami no longer had the energy to fight him back. "after all, you've played with me many times."
nanami chuckles.
"kento-kun, do you wanna go drink coffee with us?"
haibara stands excitedly beside you, his eyes wide even with the lack of caffeine in his system. your voice tickles nanami's eardrums, his head slowly moving up to look at you.
nanami had always liked you. he liked you even if you were too bubbly in times he was too tired to utter a word. he liked you even if you knocked at his door late at night just so you could eat chips with him. he liked you even if you reprimanded his austere manner at times you deemed it was inappropriate to be so.
despite the huge gap between your contrasting personalities, he liked you the most.
"okay," he says, standing up to place his book down on his bedside table. you no longer knocked when you came inside his room. to haibara, he would've scolded him into knocking at his door at all times. but to you— even if he was in the middle of changing, he wouldn't care. his door was always open to you.
the cafe you chose barely had any customers. only a student buried in his laptop, two people that he assumed were in the middle of a business deal at the sight of portfolios placed between cold coffees, and a girl who had recently walked in who already caught haibara's attention— so he excused himself.
"i hope he doesn't explode," you jest. nanami doesn't spare you a smile though— he's blanked out staring deeply at the swirls of his coffee. your eyes narrow, nudging his shoulder. "kento-kun,"
he blinks, almost animatedly, finally looking at you. "yes?"
"are you okay?"
heat rushes to his cheeks, half from embarrassment, half from the way you gaze at him with concern. nanami nods. "yes. why wouldn't i be?"
"you're blanking, big guy."
he still doesn't smile. but you're not hurt or anything— you don't expect any reaction towards him because he barely reacts to anything at all. he simply shrugs, reaching over to take a sip of his coffee.
"i'm okay."
a silence settles between the two of you. you've barely given him any personal space with the way your shoulder is slumped against his. but you look at him again, in a way he can't figure out if it was a friendly look, but you smile sheepishly at him as you ask:
"do you plan on still being a sorcerer after we graduate?"
nanami looks at you— finally. your faces are only a couple of inches apart, his gaze deep through his eyelashes.
"no." he says. "i don't plan to."
"really?! me neither!"
"what do you plan on doing?"
you look up, lips formed into a pout as you ponder. your arms are crossed, but your left fingertips tap his bicep gently. you look back at him and smile. "i'm going to college. get a degree in arts, maybe. you?"
nanami hums, his hands that were on his lap tapping his thighs. "maybe a salaryman. i'm not sure."
"sounds boring." you snort.
when you both see that haibara has sat down in front of the girl he saw, you and nanami decide to leave the cafe with your drinks in hand.
the streets of tokyo aren't as busy as they usually are in this time of day. there's only a few chiming bicycles and people walking by and crossing pedestrians. the sun adds a golden glow at the shine of your hair, your uniform warming your shivering body. both your hands hold your cup, and nanami only has one, the other in his pocket as he walks idly beside you.
"why do you want to quit?" you ask him, taking a sip. the way you look up at him with wide eyes almost makes the corner of his lip twitch upward. "do you want me to go first?"
one of his shoulder raises. "sure."
"okay," you beam. "i want to quit because... i realized that i'd be killing cursed spirits for the rest of my life and it's what i'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. nothing else. just... exorcising and protecting people who don't acknowledge us. they don't even say thank you because they don't exactly know what it is that's about to kill them, right?"
bitter, nanami thinks. the taste of his coffee that evades his mouth and the tone that drips off your tongue. "yes."
"we're not superheroes," you say. "no one thanks us for risking our life to save theirs. it's... futile."
the hair on the side of his face is whisked away by the wind. your stare is unabashed— unwavering off his face. it's as if you're staring at one of the old, handcarved marble statues displayed at a museum of found artifacts that tell the history of a forlorn tragedy. but you're not staring at him pitifully; you're staring at him with awe.
"i don't want to be a salaryman," he tells you. "i want to live in a cottage in malaysia, in kuantan."
"oh?" your eyebrows raise in curiosity. "nanami kento wants to live in a cottage. how adorable."
"yes," his brow raises. he finally smiles.
he thinks of you as a seashell. your beauty akin to the hardened glimmering crystals that forms the shape. maybe you were one of those pointy ones— an auger shell. though even if you were beautiful, nanami admired your sharp brain and strong exterior; the way you fought with keen precision, and how you were always so hard headed. and if he listened closely, there was always a melodious harmony slipping off you.
"anything else you want to do in that cottage of yours?"
"read books." he answers, sniffing. "maybe do some yoga."
"okay," you laugh at him. there's a flash of unbridled yearning behind your eyes. after a moment, you finally huff and stop in your tracks, looking at him with frustrated eyebrows. you hold the coffee in one hand, the other running down your face.
nanami looks back at you. "what's wrong, (y/n)-kun?"
"jesus kento," you sigh exasperatedly. "just kiss me already!"
although taken aback, nanami had spluttered something you couldn't understand but assumed was something that had agreed to your demand as he dragged you into a quiet alleyway and kissed you.
he kissed you not because you told him to but because he actually wanted to. he liked the way your different coffees mixed into something a little bitter but a little more sweet. he liked the way you—even if you'd demanded him in the middle of a street—sounded surprised at the feeling of his soft lips against yours. he liked the way he cupped your face and tilted your head upward as he bent down to kiss you deeply.
nanami liked the way you gingerly kissed him back and let yourself be enveloped in his touch.
mahito was smiling when nanami sees him at his peripherals. but his eyes settled on the blurry sight of itadori's pink hair from afar. when his eyes cleared, he sees the distraught look on his face.
he could no longer feel anything. he couldn't feel his legs, or his arms, or his hands, even if he was turning around to look at the young sorcerer he had been protecting for a few months.
instead, he only felt this sort of relief radiating through his chest. nanami was tired; he was inexplicably tired. and all he wanted to do now was rest.
because there was no will left in him to fight. not when he watched you die in his arms, not when you answered his pleas of resurrection, not when he muttered his devotion past his burnt lips. there was nothing left for him to fight for if his life was gone.
he could sense the smug victory off mahito when he dug his fingertips a little deeper on his back. nanami smiles at itadori.
"itadori-kun, i'll leave the rest to you."
the ends of your dress sway on his calves. your touch is comfort on his skin. nanami wraps his arm around your body tighter, chest to chest, and he feels your heart beat against him.
"you've been working overtime a lot, have you?"
the sound of his last words echo on his ears, but nanami has no idea what it could mean. he nods against your hands, smiling softly.
"i'm with you now," he says. "i can finally rest."
his head dips to kiss you. his mouth is hot, soft breaths exchanged, like he was breathing your air. nanami melts against you, his tongue grazing yours to kiss you deeper when your hands get lost in the clean cut of his blonde hair.
a sound of contenment is released from the back of his throat.
and everything else falls into place.