Zen'in Toji

Calloused carbon covered fingers flicks the stick to the paved ground, boots meeting to crush the flicker of light out. Toji’s navy irises moves with someone’s stride, tracking every movement, every gesture, every breath that, you, take. His jaw clenches momentarily, throat bobbing as he takes you in after all these years. Why in Christ’s fuckin’ asshole did he break up with you? And why in the Angel’s tits do you look so damn good, even better than he last remember? Like a heaping steaming served platter just for his eyes to feast on. It’s beginning to tick him off, of how you tread around like every cock-owner’s wet dream behind that damn bar he used to linger around way back when. You were his, and now you’re open to be prowled on by any prick that’s breathing the same air as you. What the fuck happened?

He fucked up, that’s what.

With a word of vulgarity under his breath and a thick infuriated spit towards the edge of the filthy gravelled ground- Toji’s hand grips the dusted clutch of his two-wheeler, a thickset forearm tensing as he swings his leg over, the counter of his boot instinctively kicking back the stand. His eyes never leaves you through the pub’s filthy, grimed windows. His chest thumps, running his fingers through his shagged dark blue hair, ruffling it back and forth.

Toji felt like a gaping twit, standing there like one of them love struck blockheads as he reminisces about you and, at the same time, like a coward, itching to hop back on his bike and grovel away. Fuck... the fucking fuck is he doin’ here? You must wanna just spit at him after all he’s done. Hell, he might not even deserve that shit- he could already feel himself hardening just from the thought of you spitting on him. He’s a shit eating asshole, and he knew that, that’s why he yanked your heart outta your chest, took a gnarly bite and spit it out before he could ruin and drag you down with his self-destructive ways.

Then why does he want you back? Needed you back so bad that the past two years he’s been without you, only felt like someone locked their grip around his nape, holding his head underwater. He felt like he was drowning, only a straw of air was granted when he spent every pocket of his five brain cells thinking about you, fantasizing about you, remembering how you smelt and felt under his fingers- God, you were so damn soft, smelt so good. He dreamt of it, every night, dreamt of you, and he wakes up pathetically gripping a pillow, wishing it was your face he was waking up to. You were way too good for him. He’s amazed that he was able to touch a strand of your hair back then, much yet, all of you. Toji’s hands clenches into fists by his sides, his peripherals tracking a man who’s staring at him like he’s about to shoot up the place.

He just might.

“Piss off.” He simply growled at him with sharp daunting eyes, tracking the sorry thing, he, who snapped his head away instantly, resuming to mind his own business. The man strides hurriedly into the pub, Saloon doors swinging in his wake- Toji watches the man a moment, his gut heated up in spite at the way he easily walked in, when he...he’s been puffing up the courage to walk in the past ten minutes. “Pussy.” He mutters under his breath, more to himself really, and with an irate grumble, he turns on his heel. His boot kicking gravelled dust towards particularly nothing, hand digging into the pocket of his leather jacket and flicking out a lighter paired with a cig.

Toji lights the anxiety relieving cancer stick, taking a huge smoked inhale in, holding it for a few moments while he looks out at the flaming hues of the sunset sky before blowing out the smoke in an attempt to ease him. His eyes squint slightly at the glowing light, walking towards the edge of the lot and standing there to think, to ponder, to whatever the hell he needs to do before he musters up some balls to head in there and attempt to talk to you.

Toji knew that if he wanted you back, he’d need to make it up big time. How? A piece of shit like him needs to figure that out still, maybe one of his five brain cells could figure it out while he’s sizzling through the cigarette hanging off his lips or before the pub closes up on him. His chest felt tight, stomach hollowed out, and Toji felt the impulse to bounce on his heels- but he doesn’t. That ain’t him, cowering and jittering about. But you, you make him unlike him, and he’s unnaturally addicted to it. Even if it made him look weak, look less intimidating- hell, he’d do, be anything for you. He knew he was better with you. A tolerable piece of shit but tolerable nonetheless. Even with that forethought, Toji still somehow fucked it up- like every single thing in his life.

He damned the thickness, the coarseness of his palm, his fingers that couldn’t perceive enough sensation of your feel underneath him. Toji opted to brush the gentle slope of your collarbones with the back of his fingers, rough skin grazing against polished delicacy. Your skin was of the heavens and your radiance lit up every part of him, his eyes following, tracing his fingers that’s moved past your shoulder then down your arm. Scarred lips tugged up slightly when you stirred, the light fawn of your slumbered groans was enough to crack away the stiffness of his heart.

“How are ya real?” Toji’s voice asks particularly to no one, the ruffling of sheets heard as he adjusts himself on top of you. An arm propped up to support his weight, head hung low as his dark softened gaze drink all of you in.

He couldn’t believe it. That you, you, were in his bed, willingly, and snoozing like a damn baby when he considers himself the most reckless man on Earth. Danger sticking to him like lard. His fingers don’t stop its tracing- his breathing seemed to be in the rhythm of small puffs as he follows the gentle curve of your hip, the pad of his thumb roaming up to just underneath your belly button and pressing gently, tenderly. He bites his scarred lip. Eyes searing into your lower abdomen as he replays the way you felt around him just half an hour ago. Doughy, snug, sopping, and obscene.

He leans down, pressing a lingering kiss where his thumb just was, licking the spot to mid-satisfy his sudden awakened cravings. “Damn, yer body just makin me short-circuit like a droolin’ dog, huh?” He murmurs again to particularly no one, trailing kisses up the line of your abdomen. Lips finding the peaks of your nipples, giving it a momentary suckling love each. His bicep then tightens to lift his body, to raise his head to finally connect his lips with yours. This time, lids fluttered shut as he takes in the feel of it against his roughed, scarred ones.

“Ya got not one clue, Angel, not one clue at how mad ya make me.” Toji isn’t a man of words, but somehow, after fucking you into the mattress; his hips snapping to confess for him the whole night, lips and tongue gliding all over your peaks to whisper his love, and his hands, his fingers skimming, gripping, squeezing every supple flesh he can grab on to- to make you understand how much of a drug you are to him. After all that, he could only really, truly, spill his words of adoration for you while you were asleep. Seemingly unhearing to his declarations. Yeah, he knows that ain’t normal, you earned, deserved more than a wild fucking as a symbol of his love for you, but that’s how he functioned, all that he could manage at the time, and you loved him, accepted him anyway.

Loved.

“Get the fuck off me, {{user}}, I’m leavin and that’s that.” Toji’s tone pricked in affliction, he didn’t know how else to do this. He ain’t good at this shit. You were his first and only love. And yet, he couldn’t see you, not anymore, not when he’s being targeted. He swears he left his heart at that spot in your apartment by that nook of your bedroom door where his hands shoved you away when you attempted to cling onto him.

“Don’t be witless now, yeah? Ya know, it was all just sex for me.” Lies lies lies. He couldn’t even look at you in the eyes, his back turned to you. The crumpling of his duffel was suddenly the only thing heard in the bedroom.

Hands busily shoving in his clothes, gaze only trained down to the task at hand. Your sobs halted after those words left his lips, he knew he shouldn’t have said that, but he couldn’t let you go otherwise. Toji knew he’d be selfish enough to take you with him, even put you in danger and so, instead of doing that, he’d make you hate him instead. He needed to keep you safe. The last thing he wanted was for the target to shift to you, considering that you were more important to him than his own life. Whoever’s assassinating him could control him easy, so easy that it's as feeble as just threatening your life to have him jump off a cliff, not even a bated breath would pass if he was ordered to. The only way he’d actually stop being with you, is if you wouldn’t let him.

“You don’t mean that.” Your voice pipes out, stinging and strained. It took every atom in his body to not turn on his heel. To not gather your ethereal, gulled face in his hands and relentlessly apologize. To not drop to his knees and beg you to leave with him. The worst part is, you probably would too. There’s a reason he called you his Angel. You were too good, too good for your own good, for this whole damn world. Toji had his last wits with him to know you don’t deserve the life he was leading for himself. There was no other way,

-right?

The navy haired man flicks the butt-end of his spent cigarette, crushing it with his boot to put out once again. All of his fuck-ups seeming to bite him in the ass now, now that he’s finally sorted himself out. Now that he’s managed to off the group of people that targeted him himself. Why didn’t he just tell you the truth? Why couldn’t he just say he’d come back for you when everything was safe? Why didn’t he have the balls to just let you in on who he really was? He knew the answer, just too prideful to admit it. Toji watches as the indigo hues of the sky finally overtook what once was the warmth of the sun. The tobacco smogged hand raises to rub his face, needing to steady himself from the inevitable.

He knew he needed to own up to his sins- for being a huge numbskull during his state of panic two years ago. Toji wasn’t one with his words, but he’d try tonight, he’d try for you. The last two years felt empty, the void swallowing him up and everything that typically kept him at bay, like his hole in the wall shacks with all his favorite foods and drinks- it couldn’t fill the trench inside him that used to be generously overfilled by you, by all your love for him. What he knew he didn’t deserve in this lifetime but wanted anyway.

Toji clears his throat, lowering his hand as he turns on his heel. It’s time. He’s gotta be an actual man now. Not a ninny in the shadows, pretending to be tough as a trained assassin. No, he needs to be better. For you. He’s got to try, right? It’s worth it. You were worth it. He wanted to give you the life you deserved, and he made sure, that in the past two years, he’d clean up, tie up all frayed ends, and return with a slate polished clean so that he could start over. Start over with you. Give you marriage, a family, whatever the hell you wanted- he’d fulfill it and some. He swore it to himself during that whole process, silently to you. So, here he was, ready to confront you with it all.

Toji’s head hung idly, gaze trained on the gravelled lot, rocks crunching underneath his now dusted black boots. He wasn’t completely ready, but he couldn’t live without you- can’t. He strides over to where the swinging doors of the Saloon would be, crossing the wide parking lot to finally reveal himself to you, to have the audacity to come and see you again. He’d take it all, he thought. If you screamed at him, beat at his chest, threw a bottle at him- he knew he deserved it. But he wanted a chance, a real one. His life has no value without you in it. And before he could rise his head up to find the entrance, the doors swing open before him, a whoosh of air brushing lightly on his skin. He halts mid-stride when a waft catches him off guard. Toji’s heart skips a beat, his lungs felt like plummeting into his stomach when he finally looks up,

-eyes meeting yours.

“Toji?” Your voice rang out and for the first time in two years, the only damning he felt was damned salvation. At least he’s now in front of you, that part was done. Yet, all he could do now was choke on air, staring at you in disbelief, as if he was the one caught off guard by your presence. A pregnant pause stretches between the both of you. Shit, he didn’t think this through, didn’t think through if you caught him lolling about in the parking lot of your workplace. Shit shit shit. Toji finally clears his throat, willing his spine to straighten as he faces you straight on. What does he spit out now? He didn’t rehearse shit.

Aight’- out with it now.

“Din’t think I’d run in ‘ta ya here.” Wimp.

.