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He was older. Quite a bit older. Not obscenely so, you supposed, not quite old enough to be mistaken for your father all the time, but it’d happened once or twice. He’d apparently dropped out of university when he was younger cause of family issues (he’d never elaborated on what that meant, even if you’d tried to delicately ask more than once - his family was a bit of a sore spot) and finally decided to come back as an adult. He avoided frat parties, but he did frequent local bars. When you’d first approached him, he’d tried to send you away - too young, too naive, too innocent for a man like him.
But you had something you wanted from him. After all, it wasn’t often you had easy access to a goth as old as him.
Again - Toji isn’t old. Just older than you. In his mid-thirties compared to your early-twenties. Therefore, more experienced. He knew what he was doing. Especially when it came to curating his style.
When you saw him around campus, you were surprised by the transformation. He was totally different there compared to at the bars. Sweats with stains on them, hair a mess, uncaring about how he looked. Then, on those nights where he was out in the bars with all the other students, looking just as at home as any of them with a drink in hand and a smirk on his lips as he freely flirted - he looked perfectly curated and put together. Like something from one of your pinterest boards. Dark clothes, always a matching jacket - you particualrly liked the dark denim one with the sheep fur collar - rings and chain necklaces, a chain from his belt loops, a subtle soft eyeliner, and those boots that you almost wished would step on you.
Not Toji - no because you wouldn’t think about him like that - just they’re attractive boots. Anyone would look good wearing them. But.. they did suit him, a lot.
Toji wasn’t just some poser either, he was fundamentally anti-establishment. Your spidey senses told you that was something to do with those family issues he never talked about. You never pushed, because it didn’t matter where it came from, it mattered that he did stupid shit like throw milkshakes at shitty local politicians, and somehow never got caught. You’d suggested that he might be a little old for that when he’d told you that story, but he’d just scoffed - ‘nobody ever gets too old to cause problems on purpose’. You figure he’s probably right.
So, over time, you’d worn him down. Convinced him to almost take you under his wing. He stood by and watched as you browsed thrift stores, taking away things he thought were bad picks or adding the most random things to the collection thrown over your arm with a comment of just ‘trust me’. You did, and he was almost always right.
He was pretty down on cash you found out over the course of your friendship, so it had made him resourceful. He was good at DIY, creating things from nothing, and you were much better at sewing than him so you actually made a pretty good team. He’d grumble and mutter as he added studs to your new jacket, while you sewed on those patches he’d been holding onto for years cause he refused to ruin them with shoddy stitching.
It got easier over time to be around him. Learning who the real Toji was beneath the grumpy face he wore around campus. He was talked about, looked at, judged for being an older student amongst those who’d come right out of high school, but you’d never looked at him like that. How could you? He was working to be better, getting educated to improve his life, that wasn’t something you could look down on. It was admirable. In return, he looked out for you.
Each morning, he picked you up in his beat up old car from the coffee shop you liked, and drove you both to campus in return for the coffee you’d get for him. He’d walk you to class before he headed to his own, and you could always rely on him to pick you up, no matter where you were or what time it was - he always answered when you called. And if those frat boys that’d been giving you trouble turned up to class a few days later with healing noses and swollen eyes? Well, there was no proof that it was him. It was hard to feel like you weren’t doing enough in return for him, but Toji always insisted that you didn’t need to. He helped you out because he liked you, not because he wanted anything from you in return.
But you did your best to find him in the library on long days to drop off lunch, and if you picked up his tab once or twice at the bar when his card declined, without ever saying a word on the topic - well that didn’t need to be spoken aloud. You looked out for each other.
Then it turned to staying at his place after nights out, when you were both stumbling around and leaning against each other, even if he was so much bulkier than you. You ended up with your own drawer in his dresser, used for keeping your clothes safe after he’d washed them, and keeping sleeping clothes (granted, you usually ended up in one of his t-shirts anyway). He had a toothbrush at your place, you’d started buying the snacks that you knew he liked just so you could always have something in your backpack, for those weeks where his grocery shop had been on the lighter side because money was tight.
As summer turned back to fall, and then to winter again, you found you were always cold. The issue with buying your clothes second hand was that a lot of them were a little more worn than if you’d bought them at full price from the rack, so that chilling winter wind always seemed to get to you no matter how many layers you wore. Toji though? He was always warm. So, it became normal to walk around campus with your body pressed against his, an arm around your shoulders - his heat kept you warm, and his broad body protected you from the wind.
Well, when things escalated from there.. was anyone really surprised?
It was a perfectly normal Wednesday night when the tension finally broke. You were shuffling around Toji’s apartment in one of his t-shirts and a pair of your own sweatpants. He was in the kitchen cooking something, you could smell it from the bathroom, music distantly playing from the TV in the living room. You followed the scent of spices and Toji’s cologne to the kitchen to grab yourself a drink from the fridge, and well it was a good excuse just to look at him, wasn’t it?
It’d been days since you’d been home to your own apartment. It just kept being easier to crash at his place - or at least that was what the two of you claimed. In reality, you weren’t sure you’d know what to do with yourself in an empty apartment anymore. You had a feeling that he wouldn’t either. Your apartment just felt empty when he wasn’t man spreading on your sofa, or eating your food, and his cologne wasn’t lingering on your blankets.
Toji looked up, a small smile quirking at his lips when he spotted you, idly sauteing something in a frying pan.
“You’re staring, doll.” He remarked, turning his attention back to the food he was preparing, though the amusement never left his face, he was smug no doubt but it was more than that too. Like it touched him that you even wanted to stare.
“You look good like that.” Came your reply before you could really consider the consequences of saying the inside thoughts out loud.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You do.”
A beat passed, one that was heavy in the air and seemed to surround and suffocate you. Had that been the wrong move?
“C’mere.” He finally said, lifting a single arm the way he did when he welcomed you in to walk beside him when the sharp winter air was blustering outside. You didn’t hesitate, hadn’t since the first time he’d offered it. You fit perfectly at his side, like it was where you were meant to be, the perfect place for you. His arm wrapped around your waist, large hand on your hip. He didn’t grip, just lightly held you, a grip just short of possessive.
“Smells good.” You remarked, peering at the mix of meat and vegetables in the frying pan. Toji just grunted, pausing in his stirring to look at you properly, the way you’d settled in beneath his arm like there was nowhere you’d rather be.
“You look good in my clothes, y’know.” He said, and it took a second to process that he was responding to the compliment that you’d paid him earlier.
“Yeah?” You asked, much the same as he had from you.
“You really do. Look like..” he trailed off, tongue darting out just to wet his lips. He looked pensive, like he was restraining himself - like the weight of the words on his tongue was too much for him to release.
“Like what?” You prompted anyway, your own arms slowly wrapping around his waist - cautious, but not quite nervous.
“Like you’re mine.” And that just about took the air from your lungs.
Your eyes met his, and it felt like somehow he was seeing not just your face in front of him but beyond that, deeper than it. The sound of the food still frying in the pan on a low heat became distant, because suddenly the only thing in the world that seemed to matter was the man with his arm around your waist like he was trying to protect you from something you couldn’t see.
When he tilted your chin up to make you look at him head on, your lips parting slightly without thought as if you were going to speak, but no words came out. How could they, when the tension of the moment finally settled into something obvious, crackling and living between you.
“You make me want things I gave up a long time ago.” Toji murmured, thumb ghosting over your bottom lip, pulling at it gently.
“Like what?”
“Don’t make me say that corny shit, doll.” He protested, even as he smiled softly at you, like you were something precious. You couldn’t help laughing.
“How about you kiss me instead?”
“Now that I can do.”