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“Bhfuilis soranna sorcha,
ach tagais 'nós na hoíche,
trína chéile.
You’re all bright ease,
but you come onto me like the dark of night,
intertwined."
- De Selby Part 1, Andrew John Hozier-Bryne (2023)
Their lives have always been intertwined— from the first time Gojo saw his quiet, reserved, borderline unreachable junior classmate with the sand-coloured hair and honeyed eyes across the school— to the moment the same junior came back into his life, years later, with the same tired, but full of fire, eyes.
And sure, Gojo has never been able to stay so far away, maybe it’s that enticing omega scent, maybe it’s his own instinct, or maybe— as much as he hated to admit back then— it’s just…
Nanami Kento.
I.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” they said like they’re trying to convince themselves.
The first time it happened, it was years later when they’d grown apart yet somehow drifted back to each other like the end of the day seeping slowly into the night when neither of them expected it.
The clock was ticking just a few minutes past midnight on a random Friday at Nanami’s flat.
Gojo, as always, overstayed his welcome.
Lights off.
Not much talking.
Exchanged glances, his own laboured and unsure breath, and Nanami’s, "don’t make it weird,” mutter.
They kissed like it’s just something to pass time and mean nothing— a messy collision of lips and breath, noses bumping and teeth crashing, clumsy and not knowing each other's rhythm. And at some point, they just gave up on it completely.
Gojo, nervous though hiding it, cracked a joke about Nanamin being “embarrassingly proper, even naked,” and Nanami, to Gojo’s secretly complete delight, rolled his eyes and told him to “shut up and get on with it.”
It was awkward and quiet.
Fumbling hands, held breath.
A stuttering rhythm.
Neither of them moaned— neither of them dared say each other’s name out loud like it’s a curse.
But Gojo came with his face pressed to Nanami’s shoulder, and Nanami came from Gojo’s thumb on his clit and cock wrapped under the condom inside him.
Afterward, they cleaned up in silence— no cuddling, no eye contact, no questions.
Gojo walked home with Nanami’s scent still on his skin.
Nanami couldn’t sleep with Gojo’s scent still on his sheets.
II.
“No kissing, ” they both agreed on it somehow— on the basis of it being so horrible last time and the fact that they’re not together.
Ironically enough, that rule lasted exactly thirteen minutes into their sex.
Legs shaking and hands fitting the sheet, Nanami screwed his eyes shut and sucked in laboured breath, biting his lip as he’s trying not to moan when Gojo's fingers hit the right spot inside him, in the flesh that pulsed the same step of his heartbeat.
So Gojo leaned in and kissed him— just to muffle the sound and just so Nanami wouldn’t bruise his own lips, of course.
The omega gasped the first time, and Gojo expected to be pushed away.
But Nanami didn’t— instead the man beneath him dragged him closer.
So Gojo kissed him again.
Then again. Then again.
Nanami came with Gojo's tongue in his mouth, shaking and whimpering against him like someone who forgot all the rules.
After that, they always kissed. Not just mid-sex.
Gojo kissed Nanami’s shoulder whilst undressing him, kissed his jaw when he fell asleep before he left that flat.
Once, he kissed his palm like a prayer.
Nanami never said a word about it.
But he never stopped kissing him back.
III.
"Just stress relief."
They said it like a promise every time they collided back against each other— perhaps it’s a difficult day at Nanami’s finance job, perhaps it’s a day Gojo had to make a tough call, or perhaps it’s just another Tuesday.
Again, they said it’s nothing but an arrangement that worked for them both.
Except Gojo memorised every sound Nanami made when he went down on him. And Nanami got a tiny basket for Gojo to place his belongings when arriving at his place just right next to the flat entrance so he wouldn’t misplace and have trouble finding them later..
Some night, Gojo didn’t kiss him— just pressed their foreheads together, whispering, “you good?” before sliding in.
Some night, he did.
All of which— Nanami gasped and bit his own fist or the pillow to stay quiet.
Gojo watched him every time, in the dark because the lights were off as always, like he wanted— needed— to memorise every twitch, every gasp, every tremble, like he wanted to burn the images of Nanami writhing, dazed and unravelled, into his brain.
Because he never had the honour of capturing, and keeping those like they were his to keep.
IV.
Stress relief? Lol yeah that was just an excuse— Gojo finally stopped lying to himself.
He stopped lying to himself when he opened Nanami’s cabinet after sex to see the box of his favourite lollies Nanami neatly placed like everything else in his kitchen. He stopped lying to himself and started investing time to find the answer on why someone not a fan of sweets like this moody omega would have something like this.
Gojo tried not to read into it, and told himself that maybe, just maybe, Nanami’s a good host.
Instead, he decided to be a better guest by showing up with melon-pan or other bread he observed Nanami liked.
And when one stopped lying to themselves, one started to see things clearly— like how Nanami stopped changing the sheets between visits, or how his favourite brand of shower gel was next to Nanami’s in the bathroom.
Then he started noticing other small things, like his own toothbrush and towel Nanami had for him so he wouldn’t have to ‘carry them around like an idiot,’ like his own mug, obnoxiously covered in Digimons just the way he loved, like more and more stuff that some point the place looked like two people lived there.
And after sex, Nanami would lean into him, and Gojo would nuzzle back like he belonged there.
Then, before he left, Gojo would clean the omega up and tuck him in bed before locking the flat’s door behind him.
Eventually, after one clicking-shut noise of the door rang way too loud in his ears, Gojo realised it.
That whatever this was, it wasn’t just steam anymore.
It was something else.
Something they finally realised when they both stopped lying to themselves and started seeing more clearly.
V.
This time it was close— maybe too close?
Gojo was already on his knees, kissing Nanami’s thighs, coaxing him open like always with his fingers and tongue when the omega stopped him right before he got up, his cock so hard he could die if he’s not in Nanami anytime soon.
“We’re out,” Nanami said, flushed and panting, licking his lips as Gojo pursed his own into the thin line, thinking. Then the omega followed that with, “but I’m on birth control….if you want to.”
He blinked, “are you— are you sure?”
In the low, warm light of the bedside lamp, Nanami nodded and his eyes that were always confident averted at that moment. For the first time, the omega looked shy, timid— like he was afraid Gojo’s gonna say no, get up and leave, or maybe get mad for potentially somehow ruining their moods.
‘Who the fuck would do that, Nanamin?’ Gojo wanted to ask, and maybe tease him a bit.
But he could barely string words together and form them into a sentence— because when he slid in bare for the first time, Gojo felt the entire Bigbang explode behind his eyelids.
And he heard it so clearly— the way Nanami cried out, legs trembling and back arching like a bow with its string way too tight. Even Gojo himself nearly lost it from the heat, the slick, the closeness because finally, there was nothing between them.
"Kento,” he gasped, dizzy and delirious, then licked the sweat off Nanami’s temple and scented him, “you feel like home."
The omega whimpered, dragging him down so helplessly and he complied.
Gojo kissed Nanami exactly how he meant it.
They didn’t stop at one round.
Or two.
Or three.
Afterward, they didn’t say anything. But Gojo knew— and he knew Nanami knew it, too, that they both had slipped into something irreversible.
I.
It was raining.
Gojo showed up soaked and exhausted, his body aching and bruised from a very particularly cruel mission, and Nanami let him in without a word, not even complaining about the trail of rain left behind him on the wooden floor every step before he finally reached the bathroom. He didn't know why he's at this place, all he knew was he didn't want to go back home, because it didn't feel like home to him anymore with all its gloom and silence, its lack of light and warmth known to him as Nanami.
The kettle was put on as Gojo towel-dried himself, slipping into comfortable clothes before stepping outside and seeing Nanami pour hot water into their mugs.
The comforting scent of camomile tea to help them sleep filled the room.
There was no sex that night.
They were simply lying in bed, close and quiet— Gojo’s face buried in Nanami’s chest for warmth as those graceful fingers played with his hair so gently like the owner scratching the back of his loyal dog’s ears.
Minutes passed in silence.
Then Nanami whispered, barely audible:
“Will you stay if I ask you to?”
For a moment, it was so silent that the entire Tokyo could hear the pin drop— then Gojo exhaled.
Then he chuckled softly, breathless with relief.
“I will never leave your side again, Kento.”
Nanami pulled him in and kissed him— not rushed, not desperate.
Because they both knew that this was not the end, but the beginning.
And Gojo kissed his omega back like he’d been waiting his whole life, and promised himself to continue doing so for the rest of their life.