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You can let it all go,
It's called free fall.
One would say you've done everything wrong, that you've fallen from grace. Barely graduated university by the skin of your teeth, early twenties, pregnant with the child of a man whose family had disowned him with nothing but ¥13,000 to his name, and currently homeless.
In the moment, you barely let the warnings and insults sink into your mind. Maybe it was true that love is blind because you've done everything right up till you've met Zen'in Toji but everything just felt right with him.
Disappointment was an understatement when you refuse to look into the crumbling eyes of your parents. You were gripping your jeans, head bowed low, burning hot in anxiety and fear while you informed them of your pregnancy.
-
The wind whips violently through your hair, blowing behind you as the motorcycle roars through the country dirt road. Your eyes are far off, glazed over while the warmth of the sunset kisses the evergreen glades of young rice shoots. You're so far, far away from bustling Tokyo, far from the city you were raised in.
The distance was precious because the same hands that applaud you for your achievements and pushed you towards opportunity are the same that cast you down and smite you for your indulgence.
-
The weight of your father's frustration, your mother's cries, and active avoidance from your peers seem to pull you into the undertow of woe. Because they never expected their golden child to be a complete shame and blot to the Fushiguro last name, because you had it going for you, you only needed to graduate that accountancy major you never cared for, you only needed to take that last half of the semester. You could, you had time, but the disgust for the baby growing inside you before you were even married causes your father to bite out a cold, "How dare you."
Those three words alone were the kindest of all the words stressed onto you to be perfect, yet in the end of each aching reprimand, they still had hope for the harvest inside a girl who never wanted to be. A girl who was never meant to be.
Now, it was pure repulsion .
You want the floorboards of your home to open up and swallow you whole, grind you between the planks, let the nails sink into you and the soft earth below to suffocate you-
There's a large hand pressed to your lower back.
You gasp through the fat tears that sit in your lashes and look up to find your boyfriend, Toji. The malachite in his eyes are dark, almost menacing when paired with the sharp sculpt of his nose and jaw. It was almost threatening with the clean line of a scar that runs at the edge of his lips as he solemnly interjects,
"It was m' fault. We're going to get married."
It was barely a proposal. You're frozen in disbelief, convinced he only says so to appease the wrath of your parents.
But only when you were kicked out, disowned, and three days later in a judge's office where in his husky tone, quietly binds his life with yours--you believe him.
-
You inhale the wind of the countryside, almost warm out in the open. The air is fragrant and fresh, the sunset is enchanting as it sets just behind the skyline of Mt. Oyama, and with the steady rush of the motorcycle, you release a deep breath. You leave behind your family, your friends, your reputation, that promising job after graduation, and perhaps a nice salaryman you'd one day meet and impress everyone with.
That wasn't what you wanted anyway.
You curl your arms closer around Toji's solid waist who's narrow eyes are laser sharp focus on the road. The plain silver wedding band on his finger glints against the warm light while they grip the handles. The overgrown locks of his jet black hair tickle your forehead sometimes. You can't afford a helmet, it isn't a priority and the countryside does not give two shits about it. You rest your cheek against the broad expansion of his shoulders. All you feel is warmth, hard muscle that makes you sad to think about what he had to do to gain them or why.
The scent of musk, sandalwood, and mint is much closer this way and you're drunk in his presence alone.
It was him who you wanted anyway.
"You alright?" Toji calls out, the motorcycle slowing a bit that you can clearly hear the bass of his voice through his skin.
You smile into the soft material of his worn black t-shirt as you sneakily press a kiss to his back and respond soft enough to be enamored yet loud enough to be heard through the rev of the engine under you.
You glance at him, peering through his shoulder and into the side mirror where his eyes become emeralds in the gleam of the sunset. His expression is aloof as ever, he's probably never taught to smile nor accustomed to it as a child. But his eyes speak much as distant as they are, they are trained on you. There's a tinge of worry under the full brunt of his gaze.
Were you alright?
With a man abused, disgraced and disowned by one of the aristocratic families in Tokyo? With a man with no highschool education? With a man who's only ever been attached to pachinko shops and horse races? With a man who's first response to most situations is to talk with his fists? With a man who's scars have a gruesome story to tell? With a man who can't provide that dream wedding you've always fantasized about?
Yes.
You were alright with a man brave enough to have abandoned a clan with nothing but outdated traditions and abuse in their tipping scales. You were alright with a man amenable to learn skills and knowledge in spite looking like a uneducated fool. You were alright with a man who let scars stay scars so he could fight for you. You were alright with a man who spoke so little but sincerely mutters as he fits the wedding ring into your finger, "I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love."
Yes.
You were alright with a man who is visibly pale but offers you his leather jacket anyway as you speed through the cold summer nights. You were alright with a man who wordlessly gives you the bigger half of the only bread you can afford or give up the whole packet with a claim that he's too full though you've barely eaten that day. You were alright with a man who thinks he's slick with that hunkering body as he shuffles in the mattress in the middle of the night just so he can see you're alright, that you're real, and that you wouldn't run away from him.
"Yes," you say, pressing soft kisses at the base of his neck, where his shirt's collar meets his skin, "I have never been better."
Toji's smile is crooked because it's real. His canines flash at you as he responds, "Easy, sweetheart."
You chuckle, the song of your laughter carrying through the wind.
-
Yes.
A yes that lets you stand here with a man who worked at odd jobs to afford you both a tiny apartment with peeling wallpaper and noisy neighbors. A yes with the same man who hated talking, awkward at small talk, approached the older neighbors to ask if anchovies after ice cream was lethal for pregnant women. A yes where you find he struggled with kitchen utensils that aren't knives because you do the cooking, but your fingers are swollen and so are you. A yes where you wonder why he hasn't fainted at the sight of a head being popped out of your vagina when you pass out half way through a 19 hour labor. A yes where you giggle and chide him to stop calling your precious angel a "little shit" to which he only lets out the tiniest smiles, pressing an affectionate kiss on top of raven hair as black as his.
A yes where two years later, he's fallen asleep at an awkward angle in the engawa, your tiny blessing curled up and resting on his father's broad chest.
A yes that brings you your blessing, Megumi.
You sigh dreamily as you knelt beside them, lifting a tender hand to brush your knuckles against your son's rosy cheek smushed against hard muscle, eyes wispy and long resting at the fullness of them, the pink of his lips producing a slow drool. Megumi is a spitting image of his father despite his evident favoritism for his mother over his father.
You don't realize how your eyes glaze over with tears.
You're almost thankful--no--you are thankful that you turned away from expectations for a girl that wasn't real and followed Toji that day. Maybe love was blind, but that was alright because now you see this. Every hardship, every tear shed and every failure was worth it to reach this moment.
"Hey," Toji's voice is husky with sleep, as he blearily blinks to open the bright emerald of his eyes. His lashes flutter against the high planes of his cheeks, brows furrowing when he notes the glassiness in your eyes.
He gingerly sits up, carefully cradling the sleeping toddler to his chest. There's a big hand that reaches over to you, rough and calloused from things unspeakable and labors of love. His thumb brushes over your jaw as he whispers,
"You alright?"
One would say you've done everything wrong, that you're far from grace. That you've done everything right until Zen'in Toji, now, Fushiguro Toji .
They were not wrong in the first place--they were your first steps to the life you wanted, to the life here.
Here where you afford a humble estate, here where your husband becomes a private instructor at a jujutsu academy in Tokyo, here where you become a teacher, where you find twins that are similar to your Megumi, here where you both build a close knit bond of friends who support you.
Here where everything was right, here with the man who holds two of the blessings in his life to his scarred chest. You tenderly kiss your son and ease the frown off your husband by meeting his scarred lips with your smiling ones,
"Yes."