Archive of Our Own

Nanami breathes in the spiced air of New Orleans, Lousiana and follows the distant noise of a busking saxophone that seemingly guided his path. The asymmetrical cobblestone streets were full of people shopping and selling, chatting about everything, appreciating the look of the empty sky, charming each other in battles of compliments, or asking just how many toppings someone wanted on an already-humongous sandwich.

Nanami huffs, finding the place rather pleasant despite its quirkiness, but unable to fully enmesh himself in the atmosphere, the heels of his dress shoes clicking towards work.

He had a task. 

For some odd reason, there’d been reports of an abnormal uptick in spiritual activity in this area and while the rest of the world had a shortage of sorcerers, especially at Grade One or higher, Japan had an abundance. 

Nanami was sent to investigate and deal with the matter. 

So as lively and inviting as the town around him was, it was hardly a vacation.

Part of him wonders, while walking through the city streets listlessly, if this entire mission was based on a false alarm.

New Orleans of all places was a known hub for cursed activity, but it was mostly self-regulating and insulated, not really trickling out onto the rest of the world. He rarely heard of any incidents happening that required calling upon foreign aid. 

Nanami for sure didn’t want to be the foreign aid. Domestic labor was hard enough already. 

But he still took the job because he was best fit and it had to be done. Maybe the change of scenery would do him some good, help him clear his head from the unending ruckus back home. 

He loosens his tie, feeling choked under the bright rays of sunlight. He checks his watch, realizing it’d be setting any minute now.

When it came to curses, nighttime was the best time to patrol; that’s when all the creepers came out in full force.

He feels a chill run down his spine and sighs deeply, already annoyed. He senses something behind him. With an exasperated pinch to the bridge of his nose and a straightening of his glasses, he turns, facing the enemy.

This mission was going to be turbulent one, he could feel it.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

Nanami releases a sigh of relief when he sees an exquisite eatery, bursting with life even in the middle of the dark street, next to all the closed shops. 

He had spent the last few hours aimlessly wandering through town, quite literally looking for trouble, exorcising a number of small but insignificant curses.

He knew this couldn’t be what they sent him for. 

Still, he could shove that thought to the side in favor of eating. He’d been running on empty for the better part of a day now, and exerting himself chasing tiny, slippery curses wasn’t doing him any favors.

The second he touches the entrance of the building, he feels a thick layer of misery descend upon him, like a weighted blanket falling from the sky.

When he opens the door, that feeling is more reminiscent of a piano falling from the air instead.

Despite the vibrant chatter and the bustling staff, Nanami is overwhelmed by the oppressive presence of dozens of curses packed in the building as if they were additional customers. Some clustered in corners of the ceiling like spiders, one was tangled in the chandelier with its slimy tendrils barely hanging on while its eyeball practically dripped off of its body. Little warbling curses leapt onto the booths, right above patrons' heads, monstrous creatures slithered between the cracks of the wooden furniture, seemingly hiding from the sorcerer, intimidated by the presence of someone who could see them.

Nanami’s grip on his briefcase tightens. His thin brows pinch together as he analyzes the situation. 

The amount of curses stuffed in this room was utterly absurd; he’d estimate at that it was at least eighty, all of varying sizes and weights, all seemingly benign for the moment. They weren’t actively hurting any of the patrons or employees, nor did anyone else seem privy to their presence—which made the situation even more perplexing. 

The only one in this large room bothered and aware of the danger was Nanami. 

“Mister! I got a booth for you right here! You can follow me,” a young waitress, no older than twenty, says. “You came right on time, sir, we’re just about done for the night. What’ll you have to drink?”

“Coffee,” Nanami sits on the soft leather, trying to ignore the infant-sized curse seated at his side. 

“Coffee?” The girl repeats, incredulously.

“Yes, coffee.”

“Oh! Okay!” She scurries off and Nanami’s eyes follow her as she trails off into the brightly lit kitchen. He sees her chatting with a taller woman, who, quite frankly, looked beyond fatigued, yet still had enough energy to smile at her, seemingly reassuring her.

He sees a deep dimple and the glow of her mahogany skin and can do nothing but swiftly turn away, attention quickly stolen by the multicolored curses crawling on the ceiling and sliding down the engraved stair rails.

He hears the murmuring of a few other customers, elderly church ladies with solemn expressions throwing around piteous phrases about a ‘poor girl running herself ragged’ and being ‘touched’ and ‘so stressed’—all pointless drivel as far as he was concerned.

All he could think about was the amount of demons in the room, seemingly coming out of the walls. Each time he turns his head, he notices a new one. Nanami thinks rats may have been the better pest.

Curses stank in a way that was hard to fully conceptualize. He couldn’t describe it if he tried but the aura oozing off of them combined oddly with the savory-sweet aroma of freshly cooked food in the air. An empty stomach like his was primed for nausea in an environment like this; overwhelming, irritating, and still packed full of civilians, so he couldn’t kill them even if he wanted to, without causing a scene and risking everyone’s safety.

“Mister?”

When he looks up, he sees a different face. The dimpled woman, donning a humble yellow dress and an abused white apron, stained with the evidence of a tried and true chef. 

“Thank you,” he says, working a stiff smile onto his face.

“No problem, boo. You ready to order?” She has her notepad ready, standing with her weight rested on one leg, her hip slightly poked out, revealing—unfortunately—a tiny purple imp attached to her like a toddler gripping their mother.

Nanami’s lip twitches downwards.

He gives the menu a passing glance before dropping it on the table and telling the woman to surprise him.

He quickly comes to the awkward realization that he was the last being served, with the next booths over stacking their plates and laying down their tips. 

“Apologies. I hate to come so late and hold you up when you’re near closing time.”

“No problem, sir. It’s alright,” the woman says coolly, closing up her tiny notepad, sliding it into her apron pocket. The curse at her waist growls at the sorcerer. He nearly rolls his eyes but instead keeps his gaze on her, wondering why she wasn’t moving. “If you don’t mind me askin’, where you from? You got an accent, it’s cute.”

He clears his throat and responds curtly. “Japan.”

“Oh! That’s far. What’re you doing all the way out here?”

She asks politely, full of almost childlike curiosity. He can hardly focus on the question, instead analyzing her features. She looked oddly familiar… like he’d seen her somewhere before. She was round-faced, with starry, dark eyes, deep dimples that appeared with every movement of her two-toned lips, bright white teeth that were slightly crooked, which she habitually displayed in a homely grin—and the eyes of every curse in the room laser-focused on her as if they wanted to devour her then and there.

Nanami comes to a realization that has his stomach churning, slow and full of disgust.

He’s never seen anything like it. Especially outside of home.

He takes another sip of his black coffee, the bitterness recalibrating something in his brain, feeding him a response to tell the pretty woman. 

“I’m here for work,” he glances at his briefcase. 

The woman gives him a sidelong glance and Nanami can’t tell if she’s amused by his answer or completely over him and simply wearing a customer service smile to keep the peace.

He looks at her, then above her, then around her. The staff wipe down tables, count money, sweep floors; when it came to closing, they seemed pretty efficient, even with the invisible discomfort of cursed eyes on them from every angle, with evil hands reaching out towards them, just barely nipping at their collars or the strings of their aprons. He watches a few of them tense at the unseen contact.

The woman disappears into the kitchen to whip something up, never once indicating that she was inconvenienced, despite Nanami clearly coming at a bad time, being the customer to keep them late. He’ll have to be quite gracious on the tip.

Still, as he awaits his dinner, he can’t help but wonder how a restaurant so prosperous, so full of pleasant activity, with a well-used live entertainment setup, and full of such cheerful workers, could be so heavily swarmed with curses? 

They had low lights and jazz music playing. Clearly, the goal was to cultivate a calming, almost regal experience for any average person who walked in here—something enjoyable, memorable—so why?

Could it really be what he was thinking?

Were these curses—?

He hears shuffling footsteps and looks up to see five employees all filing out the door, saying their goodbyes to the lady clad in yellow, the boss, Tiana, thanking her for dismissing them. 

It takes three minutes for it to just be him, her, and the curses between them.

It takes an additional five minutes for Tiana to reappear, carrying a bowl of something that smells like heaven itself.

“Alright, mister. I present to you,” she rests the bowl in front of him, along with some utensils—none of which included chopsticks. “Yaka mein.”

He raises a brow. “Mein? Like Chinese?”

“Sort of. It tastes nothing like Chinese food though. I consider it a product of cultural exchange,” she grinned. “Welcome to the world’s melting pot.”

Nanami chuckles quietly as he stabs into the thick noodles with the silver fork, slurping it with ease and tasting the meaty broth on his lips. 

It was great. Flavorful, filling, good enough to put a genuine smile on his face. 

Since he arrived, he hadn’t really sat still like this and ate, instead surviving on street vendors’ sandwiches and kebabs that turned his stomach in all the wrong ways.

While he eats, she finishes off the sweeping, picking at little corners that only a manager could see, her broom unintentionally kicking peanut-sized curses to the side to sweep the dirt into the dustpan.

“Um… Tiana? Thank you for the meal,” the man says after he eats, standing up to meet her where she was. He shoves some money into her hand before adding, “I can help you clean.”

“What? No, sir. It’s fine, really!” She palms at the crisp bills in her hands, freshly printed. He paid way too much! “Let me give you your change and get you out of here. It’s late, sir.”

“It is late,” he agrees, glancing over his shoulder at the low rumble of a heavy curse, sitting like an oversized blobfish on a corner table. “I delayed you. Let me at least wash my own dish. You probably had to get a pot dirty again just to cook for me, am I right?”

Tiana puffs out air from her cheeks, admitting with a weak shrug. “Yeah.”

“Just let me do that and I’ll be out of your way,” he assures, his lips turned up into a friendly smile. 

“Fine,” Tiana concedes, throwing a rag over her shoulder as she finished off the last of the sweeping.

They made their way into the kitchen and just as Nanami suspected, she had chopped up fresh vegetables for him, leaving a stained pot and a cutting board. 

“Hey, mister—you’re all up in my kitchen, knowing my name... I didn’t get yours,” she says lowly, leaning against a wall, watching him dutifully scrub at a pot as if he were one of her workers and not a total stranger off the street.

“Kento Nanami.”

“You know, I always heard folks in Japan were exceedingly polite but I never would’ve thought it went to the extend of offering to close up shop for me,” she giggles, wiping some sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. She turns to dip the mop into the soap bucket and squeezes out the excess. With mutually soapy hands, they shake, properly introducing themselves. “I’m Tiana Hardiman. Living like a hardworkin’ man all my life is kind of… written in my blood.”

The blond chuckles, rinsing the pot. If her name was the thing bringing her such misfortune then he wouldn’t be against changing it for her. In the East, spouses didn’t really take on each other’s names, but in the West, well... Tiana Nanami didn’t have the worst ring to it. 

The man snaps out of it, embarrassed internally. He usually was more composed than this. This wasn’t the first beautiful woman he’d encountered on the job and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Where did such a lascivious thought come from? 

He keeps the chat flowing, “Like a bad omen?”

“Hmm. An omen for sure, I don’t know if I’d call it bad though,” she responds, ready to roll the mop past the man to go finish cleaning the main area. 

He halts her with a wet hand on her shoulder. Just as awkwardly, lacking the usual finesse present in his every movement, he rubs his hands against his pants, drying them quickly before snapping his fingers, right at her waist, right into the ear of that juvenile curse, watching it explode in an instant.

It happens in a matter of seconds but the moment still drags on for too long, so terribly strenuous with no explanation. He lets her walk by and finishes off the dishes before turning to wipe down the kitchen table one final time.

She may not immediately notice the improvement but something inside him twitches, hoping she does. He’ll be glad to have done at least that much tangible good tonight.

When they’re done, she packs up the last few beignets from the warmer and hands it to him as a gift. It was a bit silly; they seemed to be in a battle of politeness—but maybe that’s just what you get when you put a Japanese businessman and a Southern belle in a room together.

Before he leaves, the suited man can’t help but ask the question gnawing at the back of his mind.

“You look very familiar, Tiana. Have I perhaps seen you somewhere?”

The woman suddenly sighs and deflates—and the most eerie thing follows as she sits on a stool, swinging her tired legs—the entire army of curses sigh with her, like a single-minded horde, the sound travels through the sorcerer’s ears and sits in his chest uncomfortably. It only further supports his theory. He really wished it didn’t. 

He sits next to her.

“You may have seen me on the news before. I was… formerly married to one of the princes of Maldonia. We separated a few years back but were very public when we were together.”

“I see.”

The realization hits him swiftly. He recalls seeing it in passing on the news. She wasn’t just married to one of the princes down the line, but she was married to the eldest son, the one next in line for kingship, Naveen al Ayad, in the most impactful country in southeast Asia. Maldonia was small, about the same size as Hokkaido, snuggled between India’s eastern region and Bhutan, but practically built entirely of silver and chock full of other minerals used by the whole world for fuel and technology. The news was that the flippant, slothful prince had completely solidified into a man after falling for some modest American woman, and they’d repeatedly go viral for their charitable endeavors. 

The fact that Nanami was here, looking her in her eyes, was a bit insane.

“Yeah, we was better as friends. We jumped headfirst into marriage because of… I guess I’ll say, extraordinary circumstances.”

He can barely hear her over the wailing of the curses loitering all around them. He sees her frown a bit melancholically before she goes on about how the restaurant was her passion project, and even though she left it in the hands of others while she tended to royal duties, she couldn’t stand being away from home. She was a simple, humble girl deep down. 

After a moment, she realizes her rambling and catches herself, asking the man about himself and what he does but Nanami dismissively answers that she’d never believe what he did for work. 

Tiana scoffs. “I seen a whole lot more than you think, Kento.”

Nanami’s tongue feels heavy. He liked the way her lips hugged his name, the musical drawl of her voice rang nicely in his ears, managing to stifle the noise a bit.

“I’m just a salaryman,” he shrugs. “Like an accountant.”

He knows she knows it’s a load of crap but it’s not like he could say anything else.

She scowls. It was winsome. Her annoyance was light, from her irritation came a declaration. “I was born at night but not last night, mister!”

“That’s all I can say,” he finds himself grinning as her irked frown turns into a full-on dramatic glower. 

“You serious?” She hops off the seat, gesturing grandly to the building that was her pride and joy, dress floating with every step—and it would’ve been artistic, gorgeous, soulful, if only Nanami didn’t have the eyes of a sorcerer. She’s jubilant when she speaks but all Nanami sees are the harsh, glowing glares of misshapen curses ogling her. “You practically in my house but you can’t tell me what you do?”

“Jujutsu,” Nanami says plainly, wishing he could mow through all of these curses right now.

“What?”

“Jujutsu.”

“Now you messin’ with me. That’s childish. I ain’t expect that from you. I’m grown. I can carry a conversation but you gotta give me some to work with,” she puts her hands on her hips and promptly shakes her arms, muttering. “Huh. It don’t hurt no more. Nice.”

“What doesn’t hurt?”

“I couldn’t really… put my hand on my hip, on my left side. It was strange. It was like a pressure was there, stoppin' me, made my whole arm hurt. I’m… good now. Guess I just had to let it run its course. But don’t change the topic, sugar. You are a childish man in a snazzy suit! How old are you?”

“Freshly thirty.”

She pauses. “Really?”

“Is that surprising?”

Instead of saying something impulsive, she just answers, “You work real hard.”

Nanami shrugs. He barely agrees. He works only as much as he ever needs to and tries not to go a hair over. Jujutsu, unfortunately, just required you to give up a lot of your time... and body.

“I can deal with being old; if you called me ugly, that’d really hurt,” he deadpans.

“Don’t worry. I get it a lot too. Especially by some of the aunties who swear they just concerned for me. Half the time I think it’s just a way for ‘em to insult me to my face, sayin’ I look older than I am.”

“How old are you?”

She mimics, “Freshly twenty-nine.”

There’s a beat of silence, even amongst the curses, then a shared sound of barely-contained snickering.

It was far too much fun laughing at yourself with someone who immediately understood. It was even more astonishing that they could laugh so freely while barely knowing each other, only having highly edited versions of each other’s life stories.

“Work did this to us. Work is shit,” Nanami appraises.

“Uh-uh. The man who don’t work don’t eat.”

“Yet you feed everyone. The whole world has seen your charity… and I’ve seen how you treated me today.”

When Tiana finally closes up shop, she tells Nanami to try at least one of the beignets while they were still warm. Nanami promises to do just that and says he’ll be back with his opinion some other night, soon.

She gets into a blonde-haired friend’s car and vanishes.

Nanami wonders how often she closes that late by herself, that her friend knows to arrive an extra hour later without ever being called.

It was inconsequential. He’s just glad he could at least exterminate a few of those curses discreetly before leaving. 

He hears his hotel bed calling out to him. The caffeine keeps his eyes open against their will.

He may be going a bit insane.

He has a call to make.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

“So you’re telling me that the despair of a single woman grieves the entire town?” Utahime says on the other end of the line, in total disbelief.

“Dooms it, even, if we’re not careful. She puts up a good front, pretending to be happy and unbothered. What’s most surprising to me is the fact that it’s happening here of all places. New Orleans is one of the few places in the U.S. that’s flooded with sorcerers but most of them are private entities—out here it’s even harder than usual for a regular person to distinguish a scam from the real deal. It can easily get very gimmicky. It seems like the sorcerers here won’t act unless they’re specifically requested by the victim… even though I know for a fact that every single one of them feels that surge of negative energy when they pass that building. It’s too dense to miss.” Nanami inwardly cringes at his next phrase, finding the statement hypocritical coming from one sorcerer about the next. “There’s no goodwill. It’s like they’re waiting on permission before they give her aid. It’s nonsense… and it definitely won’t be pro bono. She'd likely have to come out of pocket.”

“If it’s anything like you described then maybe they’re not equipped to handle something of such scale. American sorcerers are decentralized; I doubt many of them would be willing to reveal their techniques to strangers in order to save another stranger,” the scarred woman pauses before hissing, envisioning the scene of the curse-crowded restaurant herself.  “Was it really that bad?”

“Yes… and if all those curses are coming from her alone then that’d mean she has cursed energy amounts that rival a small town at least. New Orleans’ population is about 300,000. I’d wager she holds a significant portion of that collective power singlehandedly without even knowing it.”

“Or having a grip on it,” the faraway woman sighs, feeling her comrade’s stress seep into her bones through the phone. Utahime queries, “Can she see them?”

“No.”

“Sense them?”

“Unknown. But… this area is highly superstitious…full of supernatural activity. There’s shamans and spirits looming everywhere. Anyone born and raised here is primed to at least believe in this sort of thing, so I wouldn’t rule it out, though I didn’t see anything from her today that would indicate she does.”

“You need to find out more about why she’s feeling that way. The only way to reduce such emotions is by dissecting the root cause.” 

“She’s in a negative feedback loop,” Nanami supplies woefully. “Her feelings feed into the curses which feed into her feelings. It’s even worse if there’s mental illness involved. If she’s, say, schizophrenic or bipolar, that’ll make the curses exponentially more potent. They’ll reemerge faster. I can exorcise most of them… individually. They’re pretty benign… for now. My main concern is them coalescing into a hive and gaining some sort of intelligence. I think… rather than solely relying on fighting, since this is an individual, I can talk her down. Possibly. Attack the source.” 

“Holy hell. You have to play therapist,” Utahime concludes flatly with a weak scoff. “That’s far removed from our realm of expertise. Frankly, we have no right… Us, of all people, giving life advice?”

“I know. I hate this job,” Nanami cavils, rolling in the bed, uncomfortable with his new predicament. This assignment just added a whole new layer of complexity that he was not fully prepared to face. But, like most things, it had to be done; so he’d get it done… with a complaining heart, of course. 

On the surface, sorcery and therapy seemed like they’d be interconnected fields, even if only vaguely, due to them both being heavily involved with studying and working within human nature—the mind, the emotions, the soul, how they interact—but the supernatural world was full of uniquely insane scenarios that required the touch of uniquely insane individuals—these were not the type of people to call when someone needed advice on how to achieve mental clarity. Nanami could laugh if it were happening to someone else—it was comical!

Jujutsu sorcerers were nowhere near therapists. They were combatants, first and foremost, and loosely holy. 

The fact that all of this fuss was generated from the soul of a single person just meant that Nanami had a steep challenge ahead of him, even as a Grade One operative.

In a way, it should’ve been easier with just one person—but of course, life was unfair and nonsensical. 

He hates to sound like Sukuna—of all people to resemble, what the hell—but he thinks he’d rather hack and slice through curses than do this; at least then, the job was immediately done. 

On the bright side, it gave him a reason to look at that pretty face again. He had no choice but to hover around Tiana’s corner… so it wouldn’t be too unpleasant… and he’d certainly be well-fed.

He wants to try every dessert on her menu.

Nanami groans into the speaker, practically howling with fatigue as he tells his colleague, “You know, Tiana Hardiman may be one reason out of many to why there’s such a spike in activity. Let’s not get overzealous about one possibility and ignore the others. I’ll look around elsewhere while I keep an eye on her.”

“Fine by me. I just know Gojo-san’s gonna get a kick out of this,” she snorts, combing fingers through her hair. “I mean, really! It’s unheard of—one person, and a civilian at that!”

Freakish occurrences like this prove time and time again that Geto wasn’t totally wrong. It was a messy truth Nanami had to sit and soak in, like the noodles Tiana made for him. Humans were troublesome, even unintentionally.

He frowns, shutting his eyes. “Please refrain from telling Gojo. He’s… a distraction.”

He hangs up.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

For a week, after spending his days taking out random curses as he encounters them, he’d end his nights at Tiana’s palace with new cuisine served on his plate each time.

As always, they were always the last in the building; as usual, Nanami insisted on helping the woman clean up, saying the mess was small, it was the least he could do, suave in the effortless way that only he could be.

With each passing moment they spent together, he takes advantage of the situation, charming her in conversation, learning more about her past, what made her the way she was, and what was in her mind that spawned these curses all around her.

While she’d speak, he’d sneakily knock down two or three of them. If he was lucky, he could get dozens. He tried his luck with one of the bigger ones, but it rattled a stool so hard it nearly crashed into an adjacent booth. 

She had ran out of the back, frazzled, thinking he slipped.

He blames it on clumsiness—and though Tiana hasn’t known him for long, she’s known him long enough to realize that despite his size, he’s got the agility of a feline. 

Regardless she swallows his lie like a dry communion wafer, preferring to let it be, finding him too interesting to side-eye over something so small.

The conversations were sweet like grapes, although they were both doused in a gross layer of sweat—Tiana’s from running an active establishment for the better part of ten hours and Nanami’s from attempting to do a very loud job, very quietly, killing the creatures that stuck to her walls, floors, and chairs. 

“Why do you insist on doin’ this, Kento?” Tiana tilts her head at him after utterly pulverizing a bottle of water from the back fridge. 

“I like to,” the man replies simply.

It gets under Tiana’s skin in the best way possible, and it almost scares her, how flustered she becomes.

She levies an accusation with a pointed index finger, though it’s softened with an unfettered giggle. “You know exactly what you doin’. Fine self. You finer than frog hair and you tryna make me jump out of character. Well, it ain’t gon’ happen.”

Nanami chuckles dryly. “I don’t know what any of that means. Sorry.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t,” Tiana blushes, very glad the man can’t see it. “If you learn all our lingo, I’m finished.”

“I’m serious. I like being here. After a long day of work, I like the atmosphere. I like how… tender… all the interactions are. It’s polite but… there’s still that… loving element to it. Doesn’t feel impersonal.”

Technically, this was work; but she didn’t need to know that. It didn’t feel like it.

Tiana beams proudly at his words.

“I built this place. It’s for me but it’s for my parents too. My daddy especially. Everything good about me, I got from them.”

Her assiduous nature, her charisma, her kindness… now he had people to credit.

“Sound like good people to me.”

“For sure,” she agrees lowly. “They surrounded me with two things constantly. Hard work and a whole lotta love. I don’t know how to do anything else—or how to be anything else but that. It’s baked into me.”

Nanami nods, glad to hear it. Despite how much the woman seems like the opposite side of a coin he shares, he’s relieved to know that her youth was a lot healthier than his. Hers seemed colorful, chirpy, warm, and innocent. His was so aggravatingly cold because it wasn’t really ‘youth,’ but the beginning stages of the rest of his life—a constant state of ‘growing up’ towards those steadily-approaching adult disappointments. Being a sorcerer from fourteen meant he wasn’t a child, but a tool of the system, and tools had to produce results—they had to constantly be used.

He hums, slamming his hand on the counter,  decapitating a serpentine curse that slithered around his glass. It vanishes but the blood spatter lingers for a second longer. He scrunches his nose in disgust but quickly fixes his expression to look at Tiana’s warm eyes again and the way some of her frizzy, chocolatey brown curls messily lay against her forehead through her bandana. 

“Curious,” Nanami prompts, finishing the rest of his cider. “How exactly did you meet Prince Naveen?”

The woman sneers, whole body laughing alongside her as she reveals, “That boy cursed me.”

Nanami’s caring look instantly hardens. It was a subtle shift but she could immediately see it—how his shoulders stood square and tense, how his fingers twitched as if he wanted to ball his fist, how the veins on his forearm bulged irately at the news. He seemed to be on high alert. The change in his demeanor genuinely worried her. Watching his composure falter was like watching candle wax melt, a bit nerve-wracking but also drawing her fingers to touch—something that could surely hurt her.

His tone is flat as he says, “What?”

“I’m joking Kento,” the former princess says with a timid laugh. She grabs his arm as some sort of assurance, though she’s not sure if it works. He was solid as a statue. She wondered what exactly he was so cautious of. It probably had to do with the nature of his job. She decides to further explain the circumstances of their meeting, hoping the wackiness would pull a smile from the suddenly stony man. “Hey, hear. When I was nineteen… I kissed a frog.”

She’s satisfied when he gives her an incredulous squint, looking at her like she grew a second head. 

“What?” He repeats before adding, “Is this… an attempt at humor?”

“No, boo, I’m dead serious,” Tiana nods, giving the man an honest look.

“What would make you do that?”

☾⊹₊ ⋆

“Usually,” Tiana prompts with a hum in the back of her throat, “when I tell the story, people take it as a tall tale. If they not already deep in the mystical and magical, they usually look at me like I’m speakin’ backwards or somethin’… but you,” she furrows her brows, leaning in to further inspect the man across from her, before continuing breathily, amazed. “Well. You swallowed down everything I said like good food. Not a single complaint. Not a single doubt—and I wouldn’t have blamed you for it neither ‘cause I was a serious doubter of this sort of stuff before it happened to me… What’s with that? You don’t strike me as a man who takes everything at face value.”

“You’re correct. I’m not,” he replies, letting all the details of her story sink in. Over the past few days, after a bit of prodding, thinly disguised as banter, he had been hovering, asking for more details about her and Naveen’s meeting. Her language when she described it showed all the signs of being cursed; and even though she joked that she was cursed by Naveen, it was obvious that they were both cursed by someone else—someone far greater, in terms of their mastery of their own cursed energy; an amoral sorcerer motivated by an inflated ego, greed, and an urge to burn others. The tired sorcerer huffs. Unfortunately, it was another tick off the list, even more confirmation of Tiana’s extreme circumstance. That incident from a decade ago may have very well been the genesis to her body and mind erupting with energy, especially after being victim of such a targeted attack. Knowing this, it’s honestly a wonder how this didn’t happen any sooner—but there’s no disputing that royal coin was a cushion. A lot of material problems could be solved with the right amount of money, especially old money. This was probably a delayed reaction for something that was bound to happen. Becoming a princess halted it. Maybe Naveen himself will go through something similar—a flare-up… hopefully not though. Nanami gazes upon her, then down at the bread buns she so kindly baked for him, neatly plated between them, and takes a bite, grounding himself in something sweet, supple, and warm. “I like to plan ahead. I hate surprises.”

Tiana looks despondent at his words. Witnessing it hurts something in the blond man that he cannot place—and that troubles him deeply. It happened occasionally, in the midst of their genial chatter—or during a playful battle of wits, which they seemed to frequently fall into—the mask would seemingly crack a bit, falter, and slip away—brief and sharp, like a cut from a kitchen knife, vastly different from the cleavers the elder was used to.

He hears a curse gurgling in his ear, out of its trunk-like mouth. There’s a dull chorus underneath the woman’s voice as she speaks; the croons of a hundred unintelligible specters, whining and droning in his ears mercilessly. No matter how many he sneakily offed, it appeared as if the number wasn’t really reducing.

He delights in Tiana’s company—truly—but everything surrounding her was migraine-inducing. He felt one brewing.

“Seriously,” Tiana pries, “what is your job? Could it be somethin’ related to—you know?”

Nanami shuts his eyes for a moment of internal conflict before coming to the conclusion that he had nothing to lose.

He’s candid, concise. He knows exactly what she’s referring to and exactly what she wants—and maybe needs—to hear.

“Yes.”

“Your position title?”

“Grade One Jujutsu Sorcerer,” he finishes the bread, folding his arms, glad to have his mouth full, wanting to let her soak in the information so he could gauge her reaction.

He swallows.

There’s a discernible pause.

Then a smirk. “A sorcerer!” He couldn’t tell if she was being facetious or not when she claps, invigorated. “Boo, I should’ve met you earlier! You probably could’ve saved us, huh?”

Nanami clears his throat, his tongue suddenly feeling foreign in his mouth. He feels warm and has no idea why. He’s sure he hasn’t blushed in ten years, so why now?

“Possibly.” He quickly tweaks his words. “Most likely.”

“So you’re like… a priest?”

“It’s… hard to explain. Jujutsu’s just jujutsu. I guess… the only other way to describe it is… magic. Specialized magic. But that sounds… fictitious.”

“Not more fictitious than turning into a frog!” She snorts. “You a voodoo man!”

“What?”

“A voodoo man. A hoodoo man. A witchdoctor. Same game, different name.”

“I do not… harm people.”

“No. You don’t. But voodoo’s just like that too. All about intentions. There’s gon’ be good and bad in every bunch—that’s just how people are.”

“How did… you turn back? Was it—”

Another sorcerer? But he stops himself, letting her fill in that gap.

“With the help of a wonderful, wise old lady named Mama Odie—she was a practitioner too. But if you ask her, she’d probably give the credit to true love’s kiss.”

For some reason, that stung. Horribly.

Nanami remembers himself. “If she was able to restore both of you at the same time then she’s practically a goddess in her own right. Being transfigured into another creature means that your souls were tampered with—”

Scandalized, the young businessowner interjects, “Kneaded like dough—”

The morbid analogy fits too snugly. 

“Exactly… and she was able form them back into the shapes of human souls, and more precisely, your specific shapes, to get your bodies back. I imagine it would be extremely challenging, especially if she’d only ever seen you in the frog state… It’s,” he takes off his green-tinted glasses, rubbing at his temple, “an impressive feat. You came across a very capable person.”

“Thank God I did,” she agrees before laying out her palms on the table. “So, Mr. Sorcerer… do you be readin’ folks?”

A quiet chortle follows as he stares at her small hands but his smile quickly washes away when he looks up and instantly sees a giant, revolting mouth, full of endless rows of teeth, open behind her, primed to bite, but unmoving, unable to move. His body itches with disdain; he needed to clean up this mess… badly. 

“Not quite,” he gently cups her hands in his, folding them shut, pushing them back towards her. “I don’t do too many person-to-person services. My ways are… well… a bit more… barbaric.”

“How?”

“Curses. When they show up, my main task is to hit them until they cease to exist.”

Tiana’s eyes trickle down. She very lightly kicks, the question evident in her entire body, “With your briefcase?”

“With what’s in the briefcase.”

“You gon’ show me?”

“It’s better if I don’t.” Nanami pauses, wondering if he should dig further or drop it in favor of asking another time. He decides to ask, rationalizing it as gaining intel on the mechanics of the technique that helped her escape her initial attack. “What… exactly did Mama Odie have you do… to break free?”

True love’s kiss. 

Truth be told, it could be anything. It could simply be a technique name, or a code, or absolutely nothing. But he felt the urgent need to decode it. Immediately.

“She had me and Naveen kiss. She kinda… officiated our first ceremony.”

Nanami’s eyebrows shot up. 

Tiana left a lot out. 

He grumbles.

“Explain,” the word shoots from his mouth like a militant demand. 

The woman gives him a look—somewhere between questioning and combative—but obliges him, picking up on his clear concern, and frankly, his mental disarray.

“Naveen… that man’s my soulmate,” she prompts—and the man’s Adam’s apple inexplicably feels like a massive stone in his throat as he listens. “He and I were meant to be in each other’s lives, I reckon. There’s love there. Certainly, or else the kiss wouldn’t even have worked.”

“Right,” Nanami responds flatly. 

Truth be told, he didn’t get it but he supposes some things weren’t for him to immediately understand. The fact that they survived a night as frogs was already a miracle on its own—returning to their human forms was basically a case of divine intervention.

He rubs at his chin.

“We were fated, I guess, to go through that together. It had to be us. It made us better in a way. Drew us closer… led us to unlikely friends… I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like if either one of us went through that alone. Probably a death sentence!” Tiana exhales before shivering at the thought. “And to think, after all that, we thought, ‘let’s get married!’ Good lord! Youth is pure foolishness!”

“In your defense, I think many people would interpret that to be a sign of finding their perfect match. You two just didn’t match the way you thought you did.”

“See, we was too busy lookin’ for the stars to guide us when our minds are down here,” she points to her head, expression lively and cute, almost like a child sharing a discovery with a friend.

“Human mistakes,” the blond states with a tilt of his head.

“Tell me about it,” the young woman gestures, her bright eyes growing dull as she looks around her large, gorgeous building, her mood souring in a matter of seconds. The mask. Again, slipping. “Now I’m here, workin’ like a mule tryin’ to keep this place up to par. My Tiana Touch ain’t hittin’ like it used to.”

Nanami’s lip twitches. He wants to ask if she receives alimony but… he knew two things from his two weeks of observing her—she liked to earn for herself and didn’t mind working herself halfway to death to do it, and… she speaks very highly of her ex-husband.

Knowing Naveen al Ayad’s public persona, even just vaguely, indicates that he has no qualms about flagrantly spending money; and knowing what Tiana’s said about him means that he probably did offer her some sort of spousal support after their separation—especially when demoting from royalty back to civilian status… It’s just a matter of whether or not she’d accept—and how much she was willing to receive before she started viewing it as a handout.

She surely was true to her name; a Hardiman down to the bone.

Apparently even to her own detriment.

He knows, if she could read his mind, she’d hate what she saw, but all the older man can feel is a sudden pang of pity.

He sympathizes. “You have high expectations for yourself. You’re ambitious.”

Maybe stretching herself thin.

“I’m reachin’ way too high knowin' I’m only 5’5! I got the spirit of my daddy though… and maybe that’s my problem,” Tiana mumbles bittersweetly. “He was 6'2! I’m still not exactly where I wanna be and frankly I don’t know where I’m headed… but I know I’m almost there. I’m makin’ somethin’ shake, bit by bit. That’s all a girl can ask for.”

☾⊹₊ ⋆

When the Japanese man lies in his square hotel bed that evening, his belly full of crawfish étouffée—easily one of the most stupendous dinners of his life, fantastic fuel for slaying curses—he ponders.

Typically, he was apathetic towards work. Jujutsu was his duty—not a calling, but something that was assigned to him because of his aptitude. Despite not coming from a special family, it was his birthright because he was who he was. It fell into his lap by happenstance so he didn’t particularly treasure the experience, nor did he take any pride in it. It was merely a job to be done and he had the skills and tolerance to do it efficiently.

Restauranteering was a passion project for Tiana. She cared deeply—it was both her driving force and her number one obstacle.

The tenacity and dedication to her craft was nothing short of admirable. It showed in every dish he tasted; and he appreciated how she made it a habit to cook exclusively for him, even when there was available kitchen staff to do it instead, as if it was her own personal show of hospitality aside from the rapt conversation. He supposes this feeling of satisfaction and bliss was what the Tiana Touch aimed to accomplish.

He was definitely feeling it. He falls asleep, recharging himself for the next night—his frequent dates with the devils in her shadow.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

More and more, he discreetly decimates the curses, crushing them, still deeply unsettled at the sight of so many evil eyes tracking the movements of the innocent woman as she flits through the building, floating from table to table like a lilypad in a pond.

His only consolation—despite the fact that some of them grew—was that they were relatively inactive and didn’t make any physical contact with the people in the vicinity.

Regardless, watching the open jaws, crooked teeth, and molten flesh of human-sized curses was aggravating whether they were causing physical harm or not. Their very presence was weighing down the restaurant and Nanami was certain the other patrons could feel it, even if only subtly.

They’ve been lingering for far too long.

Tiana’s palace that she built from the ground up was being actively polluted… and Nanami didn’t have enough range of motion to be a proper exterminator.

At the end of the night, when it’s just the two of them, Tiana reveals more about herself, trusting the strange man wholeheartedly, baring more of her scars for him to see.

It spawns a hapless deduction. Tiana’s trauma from all those years ago was still presently abusing her to this day. 

Tonight, she brings up the sorcerer by name.

Facilier. The Shadowman.

She bursts into tears suddenly as an onslaught of memories toss around her mind. It happens when Nanami was sweeping and he instantly drops the broom to comfort her, not knowing what to do with his hands, sitting her down on a barstool, squeezing her slender shoulder in a way he could only hope was supportive.

She’s a bit incoherent, hiccupy as she sobs and recalls the freakish taunts and sneers of his ‘friends from the other side,’ something Nanami could only assume was similar to Geto’s curse-swallowing technique—curses under his control, enacting his will for chaos upon others.

She sniffles, ashamed, wiping her tears swiftly. She comforts herself with the memory of the curses turning against him.

Nanami grunts, taking in the information, his hand dropping lower on her arm, his fingers barely hovering above her wrist. Apparently, Facilier didn’t have the same amount of dominion as Geto over his curses; it was a partnership, a deal, that seemingly went sour. But that still didn’t help the fact that Tiana saw them. She was close enough to death where she could see them; and that meant that she was a candidate to have it happen a second or third time.

The blond clenches his jaw, drawing his hand back. Tiana’s entire palace howls like rough winds.

Their chairs rattle lightly at the sinister song. The sorcerer tightens his fist on the table. Tiana sees. 

“I thought I got over it,” she whispers hoarsely. “I thought it was done but that one night threw my whole life out of order… even when I thought it was all good—it still got messed up. Even when I did it as best I could. I became a princess,” she sniffs and the curses weep and screech. “I had it all—my own palace—I did it all—but never at a hundred percent. Then we split… and got so much press… bad press… rumors, even though it was mutual, clean. I didn’t like none of it—good or bad, it was too much! I was supposed to be excellent. I wasn’t fit for Maldonia no matter how much love they gave me or how much good I did… I’m a small-town gal at heart—” A crescendo. Nanami’s ears were ringing. “Maybe I should’ve been greedy and took the merger offer when I got it—but I ain’t wanna dilute my recipes! This place is my baby, my heart… Goodness, this is so silly! I’m complainin’ about havin’ a successful business when people are starvin’! I’m so fortunate—I have clearance to the Maldonian Royal House, for cryin’ out loud—they still send me such fancy birthday gifts—but still I feel—”

“Confused?”

“No. I know exactly what it is,” she gripes, balling her own fist, steaming. Nanami noticed and it makes him flatten his hand, his fingers tapping on the table with excess energy. Her next word feels like a slap in the face, so contrary to her wholesome demeanor. It didn’t fit, coming from those lips—from a person who deserved everything. “Inadequate.”

Bullshit.

He’d known her for less than a month and could already tell that every ounce of success she had, she earned it—she deserved it.

He refused to watch someone else’s imposter syndrome be the death of them.

The building rumbles. Madly. The floors shake, the tables wobble, the heavy chandeliers overhead swing with unnerving recklessness.

The curses roar. 

There’s an earthquake… and it’s only in Tiana’s building.

He grabs her immediately, shielding her behind himself.

Clearly, he had let this fester for too long. There was no more prolonging it, he had to cut them all down right now.

“Kento!” She panics with a hand on his back.

“Trust me and do as I say,” he orders before quickly reciting the incantation, his index finger hovering above his lip as he lays out a veil. “Yami yori idete yami yori kuroku sono kegare o misogiharae.”

Unheard by the man as he forced open his briefcase, the woman gasps, “Voodoo.”

Nanami brandishes the wrapped cleaver, imbuing it with his energy. It flames blue with his power.

This was probably the best time for the curses to flare up. At least now, he only had to worry about protecting one person.

Immediately, he ran towards the largest one, hitting at a perfect 7:3 ratio, slicing its body into bloody pieces, watching the fluid spray into the eyes of the other curses, blinding them, making them much easier to destroy.

They yell in distress, tearing through Nanami’s sleeves as he charges at them, hitting them with a combination of his fists and his cleaver, all while shouting instructions at Tiana. 

“Get under table seven and don’t move!”

He’d try to keep that one out of the mix as much as possible.

Tiana’s breath caught in her throat as she struggled to follow his words, ducking under the unsteady tables, watching the man leap atop others to clash against unseen beasts—moving far too easily in the disorder of her building barely holding onto itself. 

Under the table, she holds her hands over her mouth, watching the man with muted screams and bullets of anxious sweat dripping along her body.

Following the precise movements of his arms—marveling at the way he seems to never touch the ground as he bolts from place to place—a burst of dark light, like a grenade going off—she sees it—the slowly emerging, grotesque, moldy colors of living, jumping cursed spirits, growling and gnashing teeth all around her.

She shrieks; her petrified body lurching as she struggles to stabilize herself, soaking in all the fast-paced images around her.

Blood chilled with terror, bones stiffened with dread, she exhales… “Friends.”

Nanami moves with heightened urgency. She hears him straining as he fights off the numerous curses, molding together in a frightening display of unity, assaulting him with vigor and hatred—and he fights back with pure frustration and an undying need to protect—

“Tiana!” He calls sharply when her screams halt. The silence of her voice was even more panic-inducing than the dozens of curses attempting to chew at him.  Screaming meant alive. “You alright?”

He hears nothing—he can barely hear through the chaos, grunting in pain as claws scratch his leg, tearing through the skin of his thigh like wolf claws—

They were more aggressive. He knew why.

Shit.

Tiana’s voice is muted, buried under the sickening musicality of her curses—the manifestations of her soul’s strife.

She sings—almost there, through trials and tribulations, look out world, look out boys—

It’s so unbearably quiet, he doesn’t hear her.

Tiana grips the leg of the table as a growling curse, resembling a deformed gator, stalks towards her, its silver teeth stained purple with blood and itching to taste hers. She had long shed her fear of crocodilians but this one mortified her—the fear striking her soul like an iron rod.

Her mind sings a steady tune. A requiem. Kento, Kento, please.

Like a saint, he doesn’t let it happen.

When Nanami gets down to the last vengeful spirit, Tiana screeches as it is killed, a bit of her soul touched by the impact.

Adrenaline tremors and warm relief follows.

The sorcerer immediately apologizes, soaked in curse blood, face red from exertion, chest heaving, sleeves torn, bloodied by his own wounds.

“I apologize,” he rasps. Tiana can barely stand. She squints in confusion. “Perhaps opening up an old wound was a mistake. It was unfair.”

Mentioning Facilier by name agitated them. Rehashing those carefully kept memories set everything ablaze in an instant.

“Unfair? Forget that—where did they come from?”

They. The curses. The friends.

“They’ve always been there… since I started coming here.”

“And you knew?” Tiana’s hands shook. “You could kill ‘em and you knew.”

Nanami adjusts his glasses unnecessarily, nervous. 

“I had to be cautious about it…to not further irritate them. Or you. But I was careless tonight.”

“Kento, you leavin’ somethin’ out!” She argues smartly. “You don’t gotta handle me with kid gloves. If you think it’s gentlemanly to skip the truth, it ain’t! Tell me the whole thing, Kento!”

He bites his lower lip. He averts his gaze for the first time the whole night.

“Curses are born out of negative emotions. Yours are… off the charts. For some reason yours specifically are extremely potent. A lot of them were bound to this building. You may have felt a sense of dread or… unexplainable weakness whenever you came in here. By their very nature they get stronger the more uncomfortable you feel—and they gathered in a place you always are, a place you love. It’s… a twisted situation. Those ones you saw were the last remnants of them... and the most aggressive. I was… quietly killing off the small ones each time I came here.”

“There was more?”

“There’s none now so don’t worry about that,” the sorcerer squeezes her shoulders. “Please, Tiana.”

She hugs herself, yet doesn’t worm away from the man’s warm hands.

“If I have all this power, why can’t I channel it? You got powers too and yet... I mean, you see those demonic things all the time and fight them—what am I supposed to do when you’re gone?”

“Rest,” he responds firmly. “Rely on your friends. These things are emotion-based. I’m not saying you have to be happy all of the time—that’s unrealistic, life comes at all of us fast—but… this is the result of letting things… simmer, Tiana. You need to rest and you need to rely on people that care about you. You need to make life manageable because as it stands right now, it isn’t.”

Tiana barely stops her eyes from rolling. “That sounds great… it’s easier said than done though.”

“I know,” he concurs raggedly, “but you asked me if I could read people, now I’m asking you. If this restaurant is your baby, who do you trust to watch it while you rest... or when you're not able to?”

She thinks of Lottie and her waitstaff. She couldn’t do that to them though. That was a ton of responsibility to toss on someone else!

“You don’t get it. I can’t just… go. I’m… I’m a Hardiman!”

Nanami groans, exasperated by her insistence on living life on the hardest mode imaginable. 

“Yes, I know. Hardiman, destined to work hard all your days—but that doesn’t mean work yourself to death or work yourself into a lifelong curse. Our actions, our words…they can summon beings like that; even when we don’t mean to. We work for money, for pride—to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Tiana, when was the last time you actually enjoyed yourself? Really?” 

She snivels and looks around warily. The place was ransacked but salvageable. A few broken tables and chairs but the light fixtures, paintings, and piano were relatively unscathed. Nothing a toolkit and some hot glue couldn't handle. Nanami tried his best to not cause any lasting damage. It was considerate of him. She’s uneasy when she looks upon the familiar—suddenly intimidating—dark corners of the room. 

With a defeated look, she admits, “I’m scared.”

“Still?”

She nods and Nanami’s heart skips a beat. He watches her twitch on nervous legs like a baby deer.

He almost offers something stupid, but kills the thought for its impracticality. He could invite her to his suite, solely for comfort, just for the night—but this was her city and he was the foreigner. It made more sense for her to just go home.

But then… it’s not like he could follow her there.

He gnaws on his inner cheek, watching her fret.

“Kento… do you… mind?” She stammers, “It’s r-real forward but… can you take me home?”

Nanami pauses, hoping his command of the English language hadn’t suddenly left him. 

It was like she was reading his mind. 

Still, he asks her to clarify. “How?”

“I don’t think I’ll be comfortable being in the house alone tonight.” 

“But me… a strange man with magical powers is better?” 

“Yes. I think I got… a good read on you, and you saved my tail, so… please?” 

She grabs his hands, stained with slowly-dissolving, still visible curse blood. She tightens her hold on them, a solemn request.

Nanami commends her bravery.

“Okay, Tiana. Okay.”

She hugs him with all her might, still weary from the events of the last few hours, snuggling against Nanami’s chest, unmoving, as if she were frozen in time. He lets her have the moment, softly wrapping his arms around her, shielding her.

He feels her thunderous heartbeat return to a normal pace.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

Nanami is grateful to be under the cool waters of a shower, trying to wash his scatterbrained thoughts down the drain.

He applies ointment onto his cuts and dresses them neatly with the tools from Tiana’s first aid kit before he changes into some clothes—Naveen’s forgotten shirt and some sweatpants from the vacant guest room.

Little things like that remind him of just how close the two really are. He looks down at the childish Superman graphic and just shakes his head. He wonders what the guy was like face-to-face.

Based on purely tangential knowledge, he seems a bit like Gojo.

Nanami sucks his teeth.

When he heads to the guest room, Tiana cordially suggests he stay in her room instead.

It was a bold move—one that the man realized took her a lot of gall to say. Her absentminded touches along her own body and the way she could barely look at him gave away how anxious she was.

“You know, what if… What if there’s one in the corner… or one that creeps up on me?”

Nanami doesn’t think it’s the best idea. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t,” Tiana reasons, yet the ‘voodoo man’ counters with a challenging stare. “Swear.”

“Nothing’s gonna get you,” he tries to soothe, yet he walks up to her and lets her shut the door behind him.

Her bed is almost wastefully large, so they’re able to keep a respectable distance.

Tiana thanks him and he only mutters in reply.

It’s silent for awhile, apart from the nighttime crickets—and the man stares up at the moonlight beaming against the wall, peeking through the blinds in thin glowy strips—only falling asleep when Tiana falls into her dreams first, her breath calm.

This had gotten out of hand.

Still, he smiles meekly, pleased with himself, happy she was alive… and he lets the darkness take him too, while the bed molds to his body as if it were waiting for him specifically to land on it.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

Nanami awakens—barely—to the addictive scent of sugar-glaze on his nose. It was still dark when he forced his eyes open a sliver, reaching across for his phone, instinctively hugging the figure nestled against him with his other arm, unthinking.

Three in the morning and his phone needs a charge, pitifully hanging on to a twenty percent battery.

He grumble, snuggling back against the thick, soft pillow—as it breathed against his chest, hugging back automatically.

By the time he really awakens, at six-something, he smells breakfast cooking and sees an empty, wrinkled half of the bed. With a hiss of realization, he remembers another body was there. The songbirds whistled in the background as he staggered to his feet, absorbing the sight of the unfamiliar room, running stressed fingers through his light hair.

He taps at his phone and the screen shows nothing but a black mirror. He can only rub his eyes and moan in disappointment.

When Tiana hears his footsteps, she shouts, “Mornin’ sunshine! I have a pack of new toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet you can use! Hurry and come eat!”

The man flushes, locking himself in the bathroom. All of this would have to be omitted from the report, lest he have his colleagues leap down his throat begging for details. The story wouldn’t be as glamorous or scandalous as any of them would assume but he still didn’t even want to deal with the implications or the drama of prying eyes.

His pink cheeks don’t subside even as he splashes cold water onto his face repeatedly and brushes his teeth as if he had a vendetta against them.

The line between business and pleasure was increasingly shaky.

The more he lingered here, the more it’d blur.

He bites his inner cheek, tasting spearmint.

When he hobbles out of the bathroom to gawk at what she’s preparing, she greets him properly, with an aura so enchanting it was nearing the levels of disgustingly romantic—both of them quickly recognizing how this situation looked—amorous in a way neither of them thought they’d ever have time for—the type they reserved in their imaginations—domestic bliss that was far too appealing to tear themselves away from.

He hovered over her shoulder as she grabbed her varying spices, grinning slightly up at him.

Easy. It was much too easy for the pair—caught up in this homey kitchen, first thing in the morning, meeting each other’s glistening eyes—drowning in them, drawn closer like magnets—like they were bound by an intangible thread, like they were cursed—blessed, even.

Tiana lifts herself a bit, on her tiptoes.

Nanami dips down. She was too inviting, too soft, too right.

Their lips meet in a chaste exchange, almost… dreamily; if not for the way they repeated the act, solidifying its realness.

Her lips were buttery-smooth and he could feel the indent of her deep dimples when his thumb brushed over her face. Goosebumps raised upon his arms at the contact.

It was hardly an erotic expression. It was one of pure peace in each other’s presence. No longer did she wear the distraught look she had merely a few hours ago, no longer was he stressing over her safety! They fell into the illusion and made it real for a split second, their affection displaying itself wordlessly, impassioned. 

However, they remembered themselves just as swiftly, sharply pulling away from one another as if burned.

Tiana, beaten down with a sudden wave of shyness, can only peek at the gorgeous foreigner from her peripherals, refocusing on the pan before her.

She tells him it’ll be a few more minutes before breakfast is complete and tries to ignore the way her skin heats up. She still feels the touch of his kiss on her lips. It’s a mighty distraction.

Nanami turns to stare at the firefly light fixture on her ceiling. Suddenly it was the most appealing thing he’d ever seen.

After breakfast, the man thanks her but says he should leave. Tiana wants to fight it but he gives a good reason—all of his clothes are at the hotel. 

Plus, she couldn’t be needy. He had already helped her so much… and he was as much a busy man as she was a busy woman.

Who knows what other things he had to deal with?

When Tiana escorts him out, he urges her not to forget what he said.

She nods in agreement but the man truly doesn’t know how much of his instruction would actually be followed.

When he steps out into the crisp morning air, he huffs.

His soiled, destroyed clothes from the night before were sealed in a bag. The slacks were salvageable, the shirt absolutely wasn’t. Notwithstanding, he felt incredibly odd roaming the streets in sleepwear… but it wasn’t abnormal for Americans, so when he enters the cab, the driver barely spares him a glance. Much like Nanami, mostly anything goes as long as he gets paid.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

As soon as his phone is reasonably charged, he dials Japan.

“I’m a fool,” he laments as soon as the Kyoto correspondent answers.

“Uh… context?” Utahime inquires, a bit shaken by her compatriot’s unusual demeanor. He was typically cool and collected. This man on the phone was neither of those things.

He’s gruff. “No.”

“M’kay then, I’m telling Gojo-san.”

As she says it, he hears Mei Mei’s irritating cackling in the background.

Sharply, he adds, “I need to hear absolutely nothing from you… Tell the higher-ups I’m expecting at least a twenty percent tip.”

The woman chokes, debauched. “For jujutsu? Did you forget we live in no-tip-necessary Japan?”

He groans. His heart wasn’t beating, it was spinning, just like his head. He licks his lips.

“The turmoil the U.S. caused me is grounds for a gratuity. I feel like I caught a bomb to the chest.” 

He hangs up before he can be called dramatic and takes a shower. 

He spends a good five minutes with his forehead pressed to the tile wall, thinking about the elegant chef and how her lips are equally as sugarcoated as her beignets.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

“I’m leaving next week,” he reveals, over coffee. It was the first time he came during the day—and the first time that there wasn’t a single curse in sight. The air felt fresher, better ventilated, less suffocating.

“When?” Tiana asks, her hand landing atop his.

“Friday.”

Decidedly, she clicks her tongue. “Well then I’ll see you off.”

He laughs. “You want to?”

“I must.”

“This is the first time I’m saying this about a mission but… I think I’ll miss this place. People like you make the tiresome travel worth it. You are… very kind. On top of that, you’re something of a celebrity,” he teases. “My mentees’ll be jealous.”

“You have students for this kind of work?”

He shrugs, flipping his hand over so that their palms pressed together, his thumb idly massaging her knuckles. There’s no need to acknowledge it. She simpers. 

“Somewhat. I’m more of a chaperone than a teacher. They’re good kids though. When it comes to jujutsu, Japan’s a constant mess, so we’re a glorified clean-up crew.”

Tiana’s voice quiets. “Worse than here?”

“Absolutely worse.”

“Sounds like I’m not the only one in need of a day off then. Hello Pot, my name’s Kettle,” she beams, suddenly extending her hand for a handshake. 

Nanami humors her, once again savoring the way her hand easily molds into his.

Tiana looks at their joined hands then back up at him—as if he was made of dreams and wishes and whatever the hell ‘true love’s kiss’ was.

“Spend your last week with me,” she suggests boldly.

“Doing what?” The man’s lips twitch upwards.

“Touristy stuff! You got a native NOLA baby right in the palm of your hand, you oughta enjoy it!”

So they did just that—out on the town during the day and sipping wine in Tiana’s empty, dark palace by night. The place carrying the weight of all of Tiana’s troubles suddenly transformed into her escape bubble from the rest of the world—the restaurant finally, truly mute when it was inactive—truly empty, aside from the two of them—with a few tables still a bit rickety from the curses’ uprising. One night, Tiana fires up an old radio with her dad’s homemade CDs, taking the sorcerer by the hand and showing him how to swing. 

“Isn’t that dance from the forties?” 

“Sugar, I’m my daddy’s daughter. We both old souls. Now dance! We gon’ have us a two-man fais do-do!”

They danced, bopped, and skipped, mostly with Tiana’s lead, the man letting himself be dragged around the open floor, keeping up with her, narrowly avoiding tripping over the sparkling, indigo trumpet gown Tiana wore—making her appear even more luxurious than she did on her best days as literal royalty.

They laugh, drunk on a number of things, very few of them being alcohol.

Chest to chest, ready to waltz, Tiana admits, “I’m gon’ miss you when you leave, Kento.”

“Likewise,” he says, loosely caressing the white, frilly feather rested against her bumped curls.

“You were my little gris-gris in human form.” 

“A what?”

 “A good luck charm. A protector… and speaking of protection, I never said it but thank you.” 

“You never had to. It’s my job.” 

“I still gotta say thank you,” she counters, lips pouty. “You oughta be thanked when you do a good thing…and I appreciate you. Really.”

☾⊹₊ ⋆

At Louis Armstrong International Airport, the duo quickly understand that their story was coming to an end.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t act surprised! I said I was comin’, didn’t I?”

“Yes but—”

“You take me for a liar?” The former princess jeers.

“Not at all.”

“You gotta let me know when you’re back in town. I know you a busy man. Maybe you can stop by for vacation? Now that you got southern favorites, I’ll make all of ‘em for you!”

“I’ll hold you to it. Do… does your phone do international calls?” He queries, flustered at the thought—inclination, need—to give out his number.

“Yes sir,” Tiana answers, a slow smile blooming onto her face.

“Take this.” He offers his business card, his name written in Japanese and English with his number printed in thick, gold lettering below. “I’ll be expecting your call. I may not always answer on the first ring but I definitely will answer.”

In what felt like mere seconds, his group number was called to board.

“I’ll hold you to it then,” Tiana says, suddenly pressing a farewell kiss to his cheek, staining it a light red, spawning a matching red from the rush of blood to his face, burning furiously hot. “Stay safe out there, sweetheart.” 

His reply comes out in Japanese, comfortably. He bows his head at her slightly and bites back a laugh when the woman swoons at his words halfway before they’re even out.

“O genki de, Tia-chan.”

“Ooh! You done gave me a cute nickname too!”

The woman squeals gleefully, sounding so much like the naive nineteen year-old she told him she once was. It brings him unspeakable satisfaction.

☾⊹₊ ⋆

Three days after he returns to Japan, he finds his post-operation report to be every bit as difficult and cumbersome to write as he expected.

His mind was too preoccupied with reliving the memories rather than notating them. 

He clicks his pen thoughtlessly, scribbling a new sentence every ten minutes.

At this rate, the draft alone would take forever.

He leans his head back and groans.

His phone rings.

The number is new, unsaved. Suddenly, he’s energized.

When he answers the phone, he hears a melodious, familiar voice, one he instantly recognizes. English. A Southern belle.

“Hey, sugar.”