𝐆𝐨𝐝'𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭

♡ Angel Autopsy (Yandere! Il Dottore x Reader x Yandere! Various! Multiverse).

♡ Word Count. 11,333 words

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The house had been built to endure centuries of weather and war, not comfort. Stone that swallowed sound. Glass that reflected nothing but the people standing before it.

The Leonas’ main estate had survived empires by refusing to belong to any of them, and tonight it felt less like a home than a sealed vault.

Gojo leaned back in the chair he wasn’t supposed to slouch in, boots hooked around one of the polished legs of the table. The chair creaked once in protest. He grinned at it, irreverent, bright-eyed, irritatingly alive in a room that seemed designed to suffocate motion.

“So,” he said lightly, tilting his head. “You dragged us all the way back here because your favorite chess piece walked off the board.”

Silence answered him. Not the empty kind, but the kind that listened.

Across the table, the patriarch’s hands were folded neatly, fingers interlaced as if he were restraining something feral beneath his skin. He did not look at Gojo when he spoke.

“Mind your tone.”

Gojo snorted. “Hard to. This place sucks the fun out of everything.”

X sat to Gojo’s right, posture straight, hands resting on his knees.

He hadn’t spoken since arriving. His gaze was fixed on the far wall, unfocused, as if the room itself were an inconvenience rather than a threat.

When Gojo glanced at him, X gave a small nod—barely visible, but deliberate. Agreement. Silent, solid.

The matriarch finally raised her eyes. When she looked at someone, it felt like being assessed for structural weakness. Her expression was composed, almost kind, but it never reached her eyes.

“You were called because this matter concerns all of you,” she said. “But most of all, it concerns her.”

Gojo’s smile thinned. “You mean the kid who ran because you never let her breathe?”

The air sharpened.

“She was not deprived,” the matriarch replied evenly. “She was prepared.”

“For what?” Gojo shot back. “A life where the world’s ending and she’s expected to clean up everyone else’s mess?”

X shifted slightly. His fingers tightened once, then relaxed.

The patriarch finally looked up. His gaze was cold, steady, calculating. “That is exactly what is happening.”

The apocalypse was never spoken lightly in this house. It did not need embellishment.

Ten years ago, the world had begun to rot in ways no one could quantify properly.

Crops that refused to grow in specific regions without explanation. Cities where infrastructure decayed faster than maintenance could repair it. People falling ill with symptoms that did not correspond to any known disease, then recovering just enough to continue living—half-functional, half-hollow.

Entire ecosystems destabilized by something invisible, something that behaved less like a virus and more like a decision.

The Leonas had poured resources into it.

Research, relief, reconstruction. Their name was stamped on shelters and laboratories and disaster zones across continents.

And still, nothing worked.

“The probability curves are worsening,” the patriarch continued. “Every model we run points to the same conclusion. If the current trajectory holds, the Withering will reach a critical point within the next decade.”

Gojo exhaled through his nose. “Yeah, we know. We’ve seen the numbers.”

“Then you also know,” the matriarch said softly, “that none of you have produced a viable solution.”

That landed harder.

X’s jaw tightened. He did not look at Gojo this time.

“We are not talking about blame,” she went on. “We are talking about responsibility. She has avoided hers long enough.”

Gojo’s foot dropped from the table leg with a dull thud. His expression shifted—not angry, not amused. Something sharper.

“You trained her harder than anyone,” he said. “You broke her down earlier than the rest of us. And when she finally chose herself for once, you call it avoidance?”

“She chose indulgence,” the patriarch replied. “There is a difference.”

X finally spoke, his voice quiet, precise. “She was never allowed to choose anything.”

The matriarch’s gaze flicked to him. “That is untrue.”

X did not elaborate. He did not need to. The silence that followed did it for him.

“She is not like you,” the matriarch said, turning back to Gojo. “Not like any of you. You know this.”

Gojo laughed, sharp and humorless. “Oh, I know. You’ve been telling us that since she was old enough to hold a pen.”

“She surpassed your benchmarks before she understood what they meant,” the patriarch said. “Her cognitive adaptability, her anomalous output, her… influence. Even when she does nothing, things change around her.”

“That’s not her fault,” Gojo snapped.

“No,” the matriarch agreed. “But it is her burden.”

X’s fingers curled slightly. “You speak as if she exists for function alone.”

“We all do,” the patriarch said flatly.

That was the truth of the Leonas.

Not love. Not warmth.

Function. Output. Legacy.

Some shone brightly and burned out early. Others endured.

A few became indispensable.

And one had become intolerably absent.

“She is lazy,” the matriarch continued, unbothered by the tension. “Unmotivated. She refuses to apply herself. She watches the world suffer and calls it none of her concern.”

Gojo’s teeth clenched. “You don’t know that.”

“We know exactly what she chooses to show us,” the patriarch replied. “And what she withholds.”

X closed his eyes briefly. A fraction of a second. Then opened them again.

“You’re afraid,” he said.

The matriarch smiled. “Of course we are.”

The admission was calm, unashamed.

“We are afraid of what happens if she continues to refuse,” she said. “And we are afraid of what happens if she does not.”

Gojo barked a laugh. “So either way, you lose. Sounds like a you problem.”

“It is a world problem,” the patriarch corrected. “And she is at the center of it.”

Outside, the sky was the color of old bruises. The apocalypse had not touched this estate directly, but it had warped the light even here. Nothing escaped it forever.

“She has the highest probability of success,” the matriarch said. “Not certainty. Probability. But higher than anyone else. Including you.”

That stung. Gojo felt it, even if he masked it with a smirk.

“And if she doesn’t want it?” he asked.

“Then she will be brought back,” the patriarch said. “And reminded.”

X stood abruptly. The sound of the chair scraping against stone echoed too loudly.

“Don’t,” he said quietly.

The patriarch’s gaze hardened. “Sit down.”

X did not.

“You already took her childhood,” X continued, voice steady but threaded with something dangerous. “You took her sense of self. You labeled her selfish for wanting space. If you try to cage her again—”

“—she will comply,” the matriarch interrupted. “She always has.”

Gojo looked between them, his usual bravado cracking. “You don’t know her anymore.”

The matriarch’s eyes softened, just a little. “That is precisely the problem.”

For a moment, no one spoke. The house seemed to breathe around them, ancient and unyielding.

“You will find her,” he said. “Both of you. You will bring her home. Not as a child. As what she is meant to be.”

“And if she refuses?” Gojo asked.

The patriarch paused. “She won’t.”

X’s hands trembled, just once.

Gojo muttered under his breath, “You know what’s funny?”

No one asked.

“You keep calling her lazy,” he said. “But maybe she’s the only one smart enough to know this world doesn’t deserve her.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The table hadn’t changed since childhood. Same mineral-veined stone, same microscopic fractures sealed and resealed over decades.

Gojo remembered counting them once out of boredom, back when boredom was the worst thing he had to deal with.

Now the fractures felt like fault lines, carefully stabilized, pretending the pressure underneath didn’t exist.

He leaned back again, but this time he didn’t smirk.

The matriarch sighed. It wasn’t theatrical. It was the kind of breath someone took after rereading the same grim report for the hundredth time and realizing the numbers still didn’t care.

“Do you really believe,” she asked, eyes steady on him, “that we do not understand what we are asking of her?”

Gojo clicked his tongue. “I believe you understand it too well.”

The patriarch’s fingers tapped once against the table. Not irritation. Emphasis.

“You think we enjoy pushing her,” he said. “That we mistake pressure for love.”

Gojo shrugged, shoulders loose, posture careless, but his eyes stayed sharp. “I think you mistake survival for living.”

The matriarch didn’t flinch.

She’d heard worse. She’d said worse—to herself.

“You see cruelty,” she said calmly. “Because you are looking at the cost, not the alternative.”

X remained silent beside him, gaze lowered, but Gojo could feel the tension radiating off him like a restrained frequency.

“She is not being singled out because we lack affection,” the matriarch continued. “She is being singled out because the world will not treat her gently just because she wants to be left alone.”

Gojo scoffed softly. “The world doesn’t treat anyone gently.”

“Exactly,” the patriarch said. “And it devours the unprepared first.”

The word devours settled heavy in the room.

Outside, the apocalypse continued its quiet erosion—cities dimmed by brownouts that never fully resolved, regions where time itself seemed to move incorrectly, people aging wrong, ecosystems collapsing without spectacle. No dramatic end. Just subtraction. Every day, something less.

“She is special,” the matriarch said, not with pride, but with a kind of grave certainty. “Not in the way children are told to make them feel unique. In the way variables are labeled when they refuse to conform to models.”

Gojo rubbed the back of his neck. “You talk about her like she’s a formula.”

“We talk about her like she’s a constant,” the patriarch replied. “One that continues to affect outcomes regardless of intent.”

X finally lifted his eyes.

“That’s exactly why she ran,” he said quietly.

The matriarch nodded once. “Yes. And that is why she must return.”

Gojo let out a breath. Slower now. Less flippant.

“You ever think,” he said, “that maybe she just wants to be a kid?”

The matriarch’s gaze softened—not weakly, but truthfully. “She was a child. Longer than most. And shorter than she deserved.”

Gojo frowned. That wasn’t the answer he expected.

“You trained her brutally,” he continued.

“We trained her honestly,” the patriarch corrected. “The world does not soften its teeth for children who refuse to grow.”

Gojo’s jaw tightened. “She’s not refusing to grow. She’s refusing to be used.”

The matriarch folded her hands. “She is refusing to accept that she is already being used—by entropy, by chance, by forces that do not care whether she consents.”

The Withering wasn’t a villain you could punch.

That was the problem.

It wasn’t an enemy with malice. It was an imbalance. A slow failure of systems. A reality where cause and effect no longer aligned properly. Where effort didn’t guarantee recovery.

“She affects people,” the patriarch continued. “She walks through places and probability bends. Incidents resolve themselves. Disasters misfire. Individuals recalibrate. She does nothing—and still, things change.”

Gojo stared at the table. He’d seen it too. He just hated the implication.

“And if she steps in,” the matriarch said, “the scale shifts dramatically. We have observed this.”

“You’re saying she doesn’t get a choice,” Gojo said flatly.

“No,” the matriarch replied. “We are saying she already made one—by being born as she is.”

X’s fingers curled. Gojo noticed.

“She’s lazy,” the patriarch went on, voice even. “Unmotivated. She avoids engagement. She calls herself apathetic, as if indifference absolves impact.”

“That’s unfair,” Gojo snapped.

The patriarch met his gaze without hostility. “It is accurate. And accuracy is not cruelty.”

The matriarch tilted her head slightly. “She is selfish in the way exhausted people become selfish—by conserving what little they have left. That does not make her purely evil. But it does not make her purely harmless either.”

Gojo laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You talk like she’s a natural disaster.”

“No,” the matriarch said softly. “We talk like she is shelter.”

That shut him up.

Silence stretched.

“You think we don’t know what she’s capable of?” the patriarch continued. “We know she does not know. We know even you do not know.”

Gojo swallowed. That part was true.

“She plays at detachment,” the matriarch said. “She masks compassion behind disinterest. She believes refusing responsibility makes her free.”

“And you think chaining her to it will help?” Gojo asked.

“We think teaching her to wield it will,” the patriarch replied.

He stood, not as a dismissal, but as a declaration.

“When she returns,” he said, “she will begin formal Hero training.”

Gojo stiffened. “You can’t just—”

“We can,” the matriarch interrupted gently. “Because it is not a punishment. It is preparation.”

“For what?” Gojo demanded.

“For being alive in a world that is collapsing,” she said. “For standing without breaking when people project their hope and their hatred onto her. For understanding the full scope of herself.”

X finally spoke again. “You’re afraid she’ll disappear.”

“Yes,” the matriarch said plainly. “And we are afraid that if she does not act, others will.”

The patriarch’s gaze hardened. “The Withering will not wait for her to feel ready. Neither will the people who seek solutions through exploitation.”

Gojo knew that too. Black markets for anomalies. Governments scraping at the edges of miracles. If the world realized what she was—

He exhaled sharply.

“You’re asking me to drag her back,” he said. “Against her will.”

“We are asking you to bring her home,” the matriarch corrected. “To where she is safest. Where she is understood.”

Gojo laughed bitterly. “Under your watch?”

“Under our protection,” she said. “As we have always done.”

The patriarch looked at him, really looked. “You think we do this because we enjoy control. We do this because we have seen what happens when power is left unshaped.”

The Withering flickered in his mind—images of cities hollowed out not by explosions but by neglect, people who stopped believing improvement was possible.

“She is not entitled,” the matriarch said. “She is overwhelmed. And that is precisely why she must be taught to stand.”

Gojo leaned forward, elbows on the table now, fingers laced. The joking mask was gone.

“You know,” he said quietly, “she’s going to hate you for this.”

The matriarch smiled faintly. “She already does.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“We are not raising a child to love us,” the patriarch said. “We are raising her to survive herself.”

Gojo closed his eyes for a moment. He hated how much sense it made.

The world was ending slowly. Quietly. It didn’t care about comfort. It didn’t care about consent. It chewed through the unready and moved on.

And you—lazy, detached, uncaring on the surface—was standing at the center of something much larger than she wanted to acknowledge.

He looked at X.

X nodded once.

“…Damn it,” Gojo muttered.

The parents said nothing. They didn’t need to.

The decision had always been made.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The room felt larger once the doors closed.

Not emptier—just quieter in the way a battlefield feels after the last report is filed and the dead are counted. The table remained between them, polished and unyielding, but the weight on it had shifted.

There were no heirs left to impress. No arguments left to win.

The matriarch loosened her posture first.

It was subtle. A fraction of a breath released.

Her shoulders lowered by a degree that no one outside the family would ever notice. The expression she wore in boardrooms and disaster summits softened, not into weakness, but into exhaustion.

The patriarch followed shortly after. He removed his gloves—black ones, thin and immaculate—and placed them on the table with care, as if even this small ritual mattered.

For the first time that night, they looked like what they were.

Two tired parents.

“She can’t keep living like this,” the matriarch said quietly.

The words weren’t sharp. They weren’t an accusation. They were a fact, delivered with the same tone she used when reading casualty reports or projected failure curves.

The patriarch nodded. “No,” he agreed. “She cannot.”

Silence returned, but this time it wasn’t hostile. It was the silence of two people staring at the same unresolved equation.

“How did this happen?” she asked at last.

The question had no audience. It had been asked before—late nights, long flights, between emergency briefings and humanitarian budgets. It never had an answer.

“She was doing better than all of them,” the patriarch said. “Not just in output. In consistency. Discipline. Awareness.”

He frowned slightly, as if the data still offended him.

“Even him,” the matriarch added, and there was the faintest edge of fond exasperation in her voice. “And you remember how much effort that took.”

The patriarch almost smiled.

Gojo had been chaos incarnate. Brilliant, yes, but reckless, defiant, constantly testing the limits of tolerance just to see where they cracked. He had needed boundaries reinforced with steel. Structure. Consequence.

And he had pushed back every step of the way.

But you—

You had been different.

You had followed rules before they were spoken. Learned systems faster than instructors could adjust their expectations. You had been quiet, observant, frighteningly thorough. When given a task, you completed it not for praise, but because it made sense to do so.

A clean record. No rebellion. No outbursts. No warning signs.

Until four years ago.

“She didn’t fail,” the matriarch said softly. “She didn’t break protocol. She didn’t lash out.”

“She just… left,” the patriarch finished.

Ran away was the word others used. They never did.

You had simply stopped coming home.

You replied to messages. Answered when summoned. Appeared when needed. Polite. Distant. Functional. As if home had become an office you tolerated only during mandatory meetings.

No slammed doors. No dramatic severing.

Just absence.

“I keep replaying it,” the matriarch admitted. “Every review, every evaluation. I keep asking myself what we missed.”

The patriarch’s jaw tightened. “Nothing indicated distress.”

“And that,” she said quietly, “is what frightens me.”

They had always known you were special. That was never in question.

From the moment your projections surpassed established thresholds, from the moment your presence alone altered variables in ways that refused explanation.

They had adjusted for it.

They had protected you—more carefully than the others, not less. Structured your training with intention. Shielded you from exposure that would have turned you into a resource rather than a child.

They had loved you in the only way they knew how: by preparing you.

“We weren’t harsher with her,” the patriarch said, as if reassuring himself. “We were more careful.”

“Yes,” the matriarch agreed. “Because the world would not be.”

Outside the estate, the Withering continued its work. It did not roar. It did not announce itself. It seeped into cracks and widened them slowly. Infrastructure degraded without obvious cause. Recovery efforts stalled inexplicably.

People lost momentum—emotionally, physically, spiritually—and no amount of funding could restore what was missing.

They had seen enough collapse to recognize the pattern.

“This apocalypse,” the patriarch said, voice low, “is not a disaster. It is erosion.”

And erosion was what they had always fought.

“You know,” the matriarch said after a moment, “she used to ask questions.”

The patriarch looked at her.

“Small ones,” she continued. “Quiet ones. About why people accepted suffering they could prevent. Why systems allowed inefficiency when efficiency could save lives.”

She smiled faintly. “She was angry. Just… internally.”

The patriarch nodded. “And now she pretends she does not care.”

“Pretends,” the matriarch echoed. “Yes.”

They both knew better.

They had watched you disengage not from cruelty, but from overwhelm.

You conserved energy the way people did when they believed nothing they did would be enough.

“She calls herself lazy,” the patriarch said. “As if that excuses the magnitude of her absence.”

The matriarch sighed. “It is easier to believe she is selfish than to accept that she is tired.”

They sat with that.

“You think we were wrong?” the patriarch asked eventually.

The matriarch didn’t answer immediately.

“We did what we thought was right,” she said carefully. “We still are.”

She turned her gaze toward the window, toward a horizon bruised by a dying world.

“She cannot hide forever,” she continued. “Whether she acts or not, she affects people. Systems recalibrate around her. Outcomes change. And if she refuses to understand that—”

“—someone else will,” the patriarch finished grimly.

Exploitation was inevitable. If not from governments, then from desperation. If not from enemies, then from those who believed the ends justified any means.

“We are not asking her to save the world alone,” the matriarch said. “We are asking her to stop pretending she is not part of it.”

The patriarch closed his eyes briefly.

“She was doing so well,” he murmured. “And then one day… she wasn’t.”

Neither of them said the thought that followed.

That something had broken.

That maybe the world had reached her before they could prepare her for it.

“We still love her,” the matriarch said, as if stating it aloud might anchor it. “Even if she refuses to see it that way.”

The patriarch nodded. “Especially because she refuses.”

Love, in this family, was not indulgence.

It was responsibility.

It was expectation.

It was the belief that someone could endure more—and the refusal to let that endurance go to waste.

“She thinks we want to control her,” the matriarch said.

“We want to keep her alive,” the patriarch replied.

Alive in a world that would grind her down the moment it realized what she was. Alive with the tools to stand upright under the weight of hope, resentment, and fear.

“She will hate us,” the matriarch said quietly.

“Yes,” the patriarch agreed. “But she will be standing.”

They rose together.

Two parents stood in a house built to outlast collapse, exhausted but resolute, loving in the only way they knew how.

Not gently.

But completely.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The front doors closed behind them with a sound that felt less like wood meeting marble and more like a coffin sealing shut.

Gojo didn’t even wait until they hit the steps.

“What the hell was that,” he exploded, hands thrown up as if the house itself might answer him. “Seriously. What. The. Hell.”

X walked beside him, hands in his pockets, gaze forward, unbothered by the scale of the estate stretching behind them.

The Leonas’ home loomed like a monument to patience and money—both things Gojo was aggressively allergic to.

“They really looked at us,” Gojo continued, pacing sideways now, walking backward just to rant properly, “and went, yeah, sending Arlecchino—the one person she actually likes—didn’t work, so let’s send you two. Brilliant plan. Genius. Five stars. No notes.”

X shrugged.

That shrug alone was criminal.

“Oh don’t give me that,” Gojo snapped, spinning back around. “She ditched with Arlecchino. Voluntarily. Ran off with her. What makes them think we’re gonna be more convincing?”

X’s shoulders lifted again. Smaller this time.

“Statistically,” he said, “you annoy her more.”

Gojo gasped. “Excuse you?”

“You talk more.”

“That’s not—” Gojo stopped, scowled. “…Okay, that’s not wrong, but that’s not the point.”

They descended the steps, the lights embedded in the stone casting long shadows. The air outside was colder, sharper, carrying that faint metallic scent the Withering left behind no matter how rich the neighborhood was.

Gojo scrubbed his face with both hands.

“I’m so tired,” he said suddenly, the rant losing steam and turning real. “I’m actually exhausted. I haven’t had a full break in—what—two years? Three? I’ve been bouncing between zones like a glorified disaster patch.”

X nodded. “You take the worst ones.”

“Because they give them to me,” Gojo shot back. “And then when I complain, it’s ‘you’re adaptable,’ ‘you handle chaos well,’ ‘you thrive under pressure.’ Newsflash. I don’t thrive. I survive. Loudly.”

X hummed.

“And don’t even get me started,” Gojo continued, jabbing a finger in X’s direction, “on how you slack off more than I do.”

X looked at him. Blank. Calm.

“I don’t.”

“You absolutely do!” Gojo said. “You disappear for days. Weeks. And everyone’s like, ‘oh it’s fine, he’s efficient.’ Meanwhile I skip one debrief and it’s ‘Gojo, we expect better from you.’”

“That’s because,” X said evenly, “you argue in the debrief.”

“Because the debrief is stupid.”

X nodded. “Exactly.”

Gojo stopped walking. “Oh c’mon! They only tolerate you because you’ve been number one for four years straight.”

X paused, considering. “Five, actually.”

Gojo stared. “…Why would you correct me.”

“Accuracy matters.”

“I hate you.”

X resumed walking.

They reached the edge of the grounds, where the pristine stone gave way to asphalt and the world felt slightly more real. The sky overhead was bruised purple-gray, clouds unmoving in a way that always made Gojo itch.

“So,” Gojo said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “What’s the plan, genius.”

X was quiet for a few steps.

“Why not ask her betrothed?” he said casually.

Gojo froze.

Then—

“WOOP.” He spun on his heel, pointing at X like he’d just cracked the code of the universe. “YES. You’re right. Holy shit. That’s perfect.”

X blinked once.

“If anyone can convince her,” Gojo continued, pacing excitedly now, “it’s him. She actually listens to him. Or at least… tolerates him.”

“Low bar,” X said.

“Still higher than ours.” Gojo clapped his hands together. “Okay. Where is he?”

X shrugged.

Gojo’s smile slowly died. “What do you mean you don’t know.”

“I don’t know.”

Gojo reached out and smacked the back of X’s head.

X leaned to the side smoothly, the strike missing entirely.

“Rude,” X said mildly.

“You can’t just drop that and not know where he is,” Gojo said. “That’s illegal.”

“I know he’s coming back later this year.”

“How later.”

X thought. “End of year.”

Gojo’s eye twitched. “That’s too damn long, you idiot!”

“She’s leaving anyway.”

Gojo blinked. “She is?”

“University research trip,” X replied. “Month. Possibly longer.”

Gojo gawked. “How do you know that.”

X shrugged.

“…How do you always know what’s going on with her.”

“She tells me.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“She what,” Gojo said slowly.

“She chats,” X said. “Occasionally.”

Gojo stared at him like he’d just confessed to a crime. “She doesn’t even text me back.”

X nodded. “You overwhelm her.”

“That’s not—”

“You, Scar, and—” X paused. “Mostly you.”

Gojo spluttered. “I am delightful.”

“You are loud.”

“That’s personality!”

“She prefers quiet.”

Gojo stopped walking again. “She never calls me.”

X tilted his head. “You call her five times in a row.”

“That’s enthusiasm!”

“That’s harassment.”

Gojo opened his mouth, closed it, then expertly deflected. “Okay, but still. She runs off with Arlecchino, ignores me, chats with you—what am I? Chopped liver?”

“Yes.”

“…Wow.”

They were getting closer to the isolated area where their transport waited, the engines of nearby vehicles humming softly.

“So,” he said, voice dropping a notch. “We stall.”

X nodded. “As long as possible.”

“No dragging,” Gojo said. “No forcing.”

“Agreed.”

“She hates being cornered,” Gojo muttered. “You push her, she vanishes.”

“Like vapor,” X said.

Gojo sighed, staring out at the city lights flickering unevenly in the distance. “She’s not lazy.”

“No,” X agreed.

“She’s just… done.”

“Yes.”

Gojo ran a hand through his hair. “We give her time. Let her adjust. Ease her back.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Gojo smirked, crooked and tired. “Then we lie some more. Stall some more. Make excuses. ‘Oh she’s busy.’ ‘Oh she’s researching.’ ‘Oh she’s on another trip.’”

X nodded. “Parents won’t like it.”

“They never do.”

X glanced at him. “You’ll take the heat.”

Gojo grinned. “Always do.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The gravel crunched under their shoes as they crossed the outer perimeter of the estate, the kind of sound that felt deliberately expensive. Gojo kicked a loose stone off the path just to hear it skitter into nothing.

“Man,” he said, hands behind his head, stretching like he hadn’t just walked out of a pressure cooker disguised as a family meeting. “I swear this place gets bigger every time I come back. Like it feeds on stress.”

X walked beside him, unhurried as always. Same pace. Same neutral expression. Same irritating calm like the apocalypse was just another mild inconvenience.

They made it a few more steps before X spoke.

“By the way,” he said casually, “she might like-like someone.”

Gojo stopped so abruptly his heel slid on the gravel.

“…What.”

X kept walking.

Gojo whipped around. “WHAT.”

X paused, turned back, blinking once like he’d just commented on the weather.

“She might be interested in someone.”

Gojo stared at him. Then laughed. Loudly.

“No. No, no, no.” He waved a hand. “You don’t get to just drop that sentence and keep moving. Rewind. Rewind right now.”

X tilted his head. “Why?”

“Because you just implied,” Gojo said slowly, pointing at X, then at the sky, then vaguely at the universe, “that my dead-inside, emotionally allergic, romance-repulsed little sister has a crush.”

X shrugged.

Gojo made a strangled noise. “On a PERSON.”

“Yes.”

“A HUMAN.”

“Presumably.”

Gojo grabbed his hair with both hands. “Since WHEN.”

X thought for a moment. “Unclear.”

“UN—” Gojo choked, then took a deep breath. “Okay. Evidence. Proof. Receipts. Screenshots. Witnesses. A PowerPoint. Start talking.”

“She mentions him,” X said.

Gojo froze. “Mentions.”

“Yes.”

“How.”

“By name.”

Gojo’s pupils dilated. “By. Name.”

X nodded. “Repeatedly.”

Gojo felt his soul leave his body and file a missing person report.

“She doesn’t mention anyone,” Gojo said. “She doesn’t even mention food unless it’s an inconvenience.”

“Correct.”

“And you’re telling me,” Gojo continued, voice climbing, “that the one person who treats human interaction like a side quest is name-dropping a guy?”

“Yes.”

Gojo slapped his hands together. “WHO.”

“Zandik.”

The name hung in the air.

Gojo squinted. “That sounds fake.”

“It’s his name.”

“It sounds like a villain name.”

X shrugged. “Could be.”

Gojo spun in a slow circle. “No, no, no. I need context. When. Where. Why. HOW.”

“She brings him up when discussing unrelated topics,” X said. “Usually neutrally.”

“That’s worse.”

“She notes his behavior. His reactions. His thought processes.”

“That’s WORSE.”

X blinked. “Why.”

“Because that’s how she talks about problems,” Gojo said. “Not people.”

They resumed walking, Gojo pacing in tight circles around X like a stressed-out satellite.

“Okay, okay,” Gojo said rapidly. “Show me pictures.”

“I don’t have any.”

Gojo stopped again. “Why not.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“WHY NOT.”

“Because I’m not a stalker.”

Gojo snorted. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“I don’t track people recreationally.”

“You track threats.”

“Correct.”

“And you didn’t think a RANDOM MAN she keeps mentioning was a potential threat?”

X considered. “He hasn’t exhibited hostile intent.”

Gojo stared. “You are completely useless outside of hero work.”

X nodded. “That’s fair.”

Gojo pointed at him. “This is why I’m the eldest.”

“You are older by minutes.”

“MINUTES THAT MATTER.”

They reached the transport waiting at the curb, but Gojo ignored it, too busy spiraling.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “The girl who has never had a crush. Never talked about romance. Never even acknowledged attraction beyond ‘statistically inconvenient.’ That girl. Likes. A guy.”

X shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?!”

“She’s strange.”

Gojo scoffed. “Oh NOW you notice.”

“She doesn’t like people the way most do,” X continued calmly. “She fixates.”

Gojo paused. “…Fixates how.”

“Not emotionally,” X clarified. “Cognitively.”

Gojo grimaced. “That’s not comforting.”

“She treats things she finds interesting as problems to understand,” X said. “Patterns to map. Variables to isolate.”

Gojo groaned. “So he’s not a crush. He’s a math equation.”

“Possibly.”

“That’s worse somehow.”

“She’s very curious,” X added.

“I know,” Gojo snapped. “She dissected my fighting style when she was twelve and told me my footwork was inefficient.”

X nodded. “Exactly.”

They stood there for a moment, the city humming faintly beyond the estate walls. Gojo dragged a hand down his face.

“You got me hyped for nothing,” he muttered.

X glanced at him. “You hyped yourself.”

“I thought—” Gojo stopped, then laughed bitterly. “I thought she was finally growing out of that… vibe.”

X raised an eyebrow. “What vibe.”

“You know,” Gojo said vaguely. “The intimidating, boyish, don’t-touch-me-I’ll-bite personality that scares off every living being within a ten-meter radius.”

“That’s just her.”

“I know,” Gojo sighed. “I just thought maybe—just maybe—she’d meet someone who made her… softer.”

X considered this. “She doesn’t need to be softer.”

“I KNOW THAT,” Gojo snapped, then deflated. “I just… wanted something normal for her.”

X was quiet.

“She’s not normal,” X said eventually. “She never has been.”

Gojo leaned against the car, staring at the ground. “Does she seem… happy when she talks about him?”

X thought longer this time.

“… Engaged,” he said. “More present.”

Gojo winced. “Damn it.”

“She’s still distant,” X added. “Still apathetic. But less… flat.”

Gojo closed his eyes. “That’s all it takes, huh.”

X shrugged.

“So what,” Gojo said. “We interrogate her? Background check him? Run compatibility metrics?”

“No.”

Gojo opened one eye. “No?”

“We do nothing,” X said.

“That’s your solution for everything.”

“It works.”

Gojo laughed quietly. “You’re unbelievable.”

“A guy named Zandik,” he muttered. “Unbelievable.”

X watched Gojo’s constipated expression, “You’ll scare her if you bring it up.”

“I scare everyone.”

“Exactly.”

Gojo smirked despite himself. “Fine. I’ll pretend I don’t know.”

“That will last,” X said flatly.

Gojo snorted. “Okay, I’ll pretend for like… five minutes.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The car doors shut with a soft, expensive thud, the kind that felt engineered to mute reality. The estate gates slid open ahead of them, smooth and silent, letting the road swallow them whole.

Gojo didn’t start the engine right away.

He leaned back in the driver’s seat, hands loose on the wheel, staring through the windshield like the answer to something annoying might appear on the asphalt.

“…You didn’t bring that up for nothing,” he said finally, voice lighter than his eyes. “The whole ‘she might like someone’ thing.”

X didn’t respond.

Instead, he reached into the cooler wedged between the seats, cracked open a beer with a quiet hiss, and took a sip like this was just another calm drive home and not the aftermath of a family apocalypse briefing.

Gojo’s eye twitched.

“Oh absolutely not,” he said, starting the car. “You are NOT doing this again.”

X held up the can slightly, unbothered.

“You smell,” Gojo added. “You stink. You’re influencing Arlecchino with your drinking, you know that? She already thinks beer is ‘aesthetic.’”

X reached into the bag again and wordlessly handed Gojo a packet of Japanese sweets.

Gojo glanced at it. “…Is this bribery.”

“Yes.”

“…It’s working.”

He tore it open with his teeth, shoved one into his mouth, then immediately pointed accusingly at X.

“But answer the question.”

X took another sip.

“Seriously,” Gojo said. “I was joking earlier. Now I’m not. What’s the real reason.”

The car merged onto the road, the city stretching ahead of them—patchy lights, flickering signs, the subtle wrongness that had become normal since the world started decaying sideways.

X stared out the window.

“I’m worried,” he said.

That alone made Gojo glance over.

X didn’t say things like that. Not out loud.

“About?” Gojo asked, quieter now.

X exhaled slowly, beer balanced loosely in his hand.

“She’s isolated,” he said. “More than we like to admit.”

Gojo scoffed reflexively. “She isolates herself.”

“Yes,” X agreed. “Because that’s all she knows.”

Gojo’s grip tightened on the wheel.

X continued, voice steady, unhurried, like he was explaining a system failure.

“She’s the most intelligent among us. But she’s also the most inexperienced with people outside controlled environments.”

Gojo snorted. “She scares people.”

“Exactly.”

X glanced at him briefly. “Credentials do that. Her face doesn’t help.”

“That’s just her face,” Gojo protested. “She can’t help that she looks like she’s judging your bloodline.”

“She is.”

“…Okay, fair.”

X leaned his head back against the seat.

“She grew up protected,” he said. “More than the rest of us. Parents were strict with all of us, but with her? They were… careful.”

Gojo grimaced. “Yeah.”

They had been careful. Watching who got close. Monitoring influences. Structuring her time until her life became a spreadsheet of obligations and excellence.

“She interacted with family,” X continued. “Blood relatives. Classmates. Her betrothed. That’s it.”

Gojo chewed slowly, the sweetness in his mouth turning dull.

“She didn’t have friends,” X said. “Not really. A few. Arlecchino. Some outliers. But mostly… she was alone.”

Gojo swallowed.

“Work. Study. Duty,” X added. “She was good at it. Too good.”

“Yeah,” Gojo muttered. “That’s why they picked her.”

“Among all of us,” X said, “what made her the most suitable wasn’t power. It was her attitude.”

Gojo sighed. “Prioritize others. Duties first. Self last.”

X nodded.

The road stretched on. A billboard flickered, half-functional, advertising something no longer produced.

“She trusted systems,” X said. “Rules. Structures. Authority.”

Gojo’s jaw clenched. “People like that get eaten alive.”

“Yes.”

Gojo exhaled sharply through his nose. “So you agree with them.”

X took another sip. “I don’t like their methods.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“But they’re right,” X finished calmly.

Gojo didn’t argue. He hated that part most.

“She’s naive,” X said. “Not intellectually. Socially.”

Gojo laughed bitterly. “That’s a polite way of saying she’s bad at reading people.”

“She assumes others operate in good faith.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Yes.”

Gojo drummed his fingers on the wheel. “She’s too trusting.”

X nodded. “And too much of an overthinker to call things out when something feels wrong.”

Gojo’s mouth twisted. “God. That’s such a her problem.”

“She doesn’t have street smarts,” X continued. “Because she was never allowed to wander.”

They drove in silence for a bit.

Then X added, “Arlecchino hates him.”

Gojo slammed the brakes just enough to jolt them.

“WHAT.”

X steadied his beer without spilling a drop.

“She said he’s not a good guy,” X clarified. “At all.”

Gojo stared straight ahead. “Define ‘not good.’”

“Predatory.”

The word landed heavy.

Gojo’s jaw tightened. “That little—”

“Arlecchino is conflicted,” X interrupted. “Because she’s never seen her smile like that.”

Gojo’s chest felt tight.

“She’s happy,” X said. “Engaged. Animated.”

Gojo laughed weakly. “Of course she is.”

“And Arlecchino,” X continued, “is the most protective of her out of all of us.”

“That’s saying something.”

“She warned everyone already,” X said. “Told us to keep watch.”

Gojo swallowed. “Because if we confront her—”

“She’ll shut down,” X finished. “Go empty and apathetic. Like before.”

Gojo cursed under his breath.

“So she’s finally interested in someone,” Gojo muttered. “Finally alive. And it’s with the worst possible candidate.”

X shrugged. “Statistically consistent.”

Gojo snorted despite himself. “You’re unbelievable.”

“She lacks experience,” X said. “Which makes her vulnerable. Especially to people who know how to exploit curiosity.”

Gojo glanced at him sharply. “You think that’s what this is.”

“I think,” X said carefully, “that she doesn’t like him the way people usually like someone.”

Gojo laughed quietly. “God. That’s worse than a crush.”

“She’s not looking for love,” X said. “She’s looking for understanding.”

“And that,” Gojo said, “makes her easy to manipulate.”

“Yes.”

They drove past a checkpoint, guards barely glancing at them. Privilege still worked. For now.

“So what do we do,” Gojo asked.

X shrugged. “Watch.”

“That’s it?”

“Interfere too early, she rebels. Interfere too late, damage is done.”

Gojo groaned. “Why is everything with her a balancing act.”

“Because she was never allowed to fall,” X said. “So she doesn’t know how to get back up.”

Gojo was quiet for a long moment.

“…You know,” he said finally, “they weren’t wrong about one thing.”

X looked at him.

“She’s the one most likely to be taken advantage of.”

X nodded.

“Not because she’s weak,” Gojo continued. “But because she assumes people aren’t trying to hurt her.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Gojo drove like the road had personally offended him.

Not reckless—he was too experienced for that—but impatient. Every red light felt like an insult. Every slow car ahead of him felt like a deliberate act of sabotage. The dashboard clock blinked a time that meant nothing in a world where calendars had become suggestions and half the cities ran on rolling blackouts.

X sat in the passenger seat, one arm resting on the window ledge, beer can balanced in his other hand like it was part of his anatomy.

Gojo glanced at it and sighed like a man who had given up on justice.

“You know,” he started, voice already climbing, “I’m gonna say it again. You stink. Like barbeque. And regret.”

X took a sip.

“And the car smells,” Gojo added. “Do you understand that? This is my car. My car. Not yours. You can drink in your own dead-inside cave later.”

X nodded, solemn. “Noted.”

Gojo’s eye twitched. “That means nothing coming from you.”

Silence, then X opened another sweets packet and slid it toward Gojo without looking.

Gojo grabbed one aggressively and chewed like it was the concept of coping.

Then he spoke again, because he was physically incapable of not speaking.

“How,” he demanded, “does she do this?”

X blinked. “Do what.”

Gojo’s hand flew off the wheel in an exasperated gesture. “She picks the worst possible option like it’s a hobby.”

X stared out the windshield. “That’s subjective.”

“No it is not,” Gojo snapped. “We have Arlecchino. We have her judgment of character, which I trust more than government vetting at this point. If Arlecchino says a guy is bad, the guy is bad. Period.”

X hummed.

“And don’t act like you don’t agree,” Gojo continued. “We both trust her. She’s like—like an emotional bloodhound.”

“She bites,” X said.

“Exactly.”

Gojo slapped the steering wheel lightly. “So why is our little sister—who I remind you has enough weird abilities to make the laws of physics file a complaint—why is she choosing a guy that Arlecchino hates?”

X took another sip, eyes half-lidded.

Gojo squinted. “Do not tell me you’re about to answer me with ‘people are complicated.’”

X paused. “People are complicated.”

Gojo let out a long, pained sound. “I will throw you out of the car.”

X shrugged. “You won’t.”

Gojo hated that he was right.

“Okay,” Gojo said, forcing himself to breathe. “Let’s make this simpler. She has discernment. She can read people. She has… whatever the hell she has. You know. The creepy ‘I can tell you’re lying before you lie’ thing.”

X nodded.

“She can see through anyone or anything,” Gojo continued. “Better than me. Better than you. Better than literally everyone. So why does she pick the guy who pings every red flag on Arlecchino’s radar?”

X was quiet for a few seconds, watching the road like it held answers. Then he spoke.

“Because she can see through everyone,” he said, “and she’s bored.”

Gojo stared. “That’s your theory.”

“That’s the most likely one,” X replied calmly.

Gojo barked a laugh. “Oh my fuck. Of course. Of course it’s boredom. Of course the apocalypse’s biggest threat is my sister being understimulated.”

“She doesn’t get excited easily,” X said.

“That’s because she’s emotionally dead.”

“She’s emotionally quiet,” X corrected.

Gojo scoffed. “Same thing.”

X didn’t argue. He rarely did. He just continued, tone unchanged.

“She can read people,” X said. “So most people are predictable. Their motives are shallow. Their desires are obvious.”

Gojo’s grip tightened. “And he’s not.”

“Or,” X said, “he is. But he’s honest about it.”

Gojo blinked. “You’re saying she likes him because he’s… openly bad?”

X shrugged. “Maybe she likes that he doesn’t pretend.”

Gojo snorted. “She already has me.”

X glanced at him. “You pretend.”

Gojo sputtered. “EXCUSE—”

“You pretend you don’t care,” X continued. “You pretend you’re not tired. You pretend you’re not worried.”

Gojo opened his mouth, then closed it, then swerved slightly just to release rage into the universe.

“Okay, fine,” Gojo snapped. “But she has you. You’re honest.”

X shrugged. “I’m not interesting.”

Gojo stared. “That might be the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”

“It’s accurate.”

Gojo groaned. “I hate this conversation.”

X took another sip.

“She rarely uses what she has,” Gojo said, trying to redirect before he started feeling things. “That’s another thing. She could solve problems. She could end fights in seconds. She could probably slap the Withering in the face and make it apologize.”

X blinked. “Unclear.”

“She refuses,” Gojo pressed. “She barely uses her abilities unless she deems it necessary. Like she’s rationing her own power.”

X nodded slowly. “She is.”

Gojo frowned. “Why.”

“Because she’s afraid of what happens if she stops holding back.”

Gojo’s laughter died.

X spoke carefully, like this was a topic he didn’t want to poke too hard.

“She knows,” he said, “that if she uses everything, she changes things permanently.”

Gojo’s jaw tightened. He understood that in the abstract. The terrifying way a single decision could ripple outward and become irreversible.

“And she doesn’t want to be responsible for that,” Gojo muttered.

“Yes.”

Gojo exhaled sharply. “So she does nothing instead.”

“Not nothing,” X corrected. “She chooses small things. Safe things.”

Gojo scoffed. “Like dating a walking biohazard.”

X’s mouth twitched. “Exactly.”

Gojo glanced at him. “That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Gojo tapped the wheel. “So you’re saying she picks the worst option on purpose.”

“Not because it’s worst,” X said. “Because it’s… allowed.”

Gojo frowned. “Explain.”

X’s gaze stayed forward. “Most people around her have expectations. They want her to be perfect. Useful. Controlled. Safe.”

Gojo’s stomach twisted. “Yeah.”

“Even when they’re kind,” X continued, “they still want something.”

Gojo snorted. “Welcome to being a Leona.”

X nodded.

“She can see that,” X said. “So she avoids most people. Avoids attachment.”

“Because attachment is leverage,” Gojo muttered.

“Yes.”

They drove past a darkened district, streetlights dead, buildings lit by candles and emergency lanterns. People moved like shadows. The Withering didn’t need to invade the rich; it just waited for the cracks to spread.

“Then she meets someone,” X said, “who doesn’t ask her to be good.”

Gojo went still. “He asks her to be bad.”

X shrugged. “Maybe he asks her to be nothing.”

Gojo’s jaw clenched. “That’s still asking.”

X didn’t disagree.

“She’s curious,” X continued. “Not just academically. She’s curious about extremes. About limits. About what people become when stripped down.”

Gojo scoffed. “She’s a control freak about understanding.”

“Yes,” X said simply. “And he’s an unsolved problem.”

Gojo groaned. “So she’s treating him like a puzzle again.”

“Most likely.”

Gojo slammed his head back against the headrest for a second. “I can’t believe this. My sister is going to get herself killed because she wants to solve a human Rubik’s cube.”

X blinked. “She won’t get killed.”

Gojo glanced at him sharply. “Don’t.”

“She’s not fragile,” X said.

“I know she’s not fragile,” Gojo snapped. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

X was quiet.

Gojo gripped the wheel harder. “I’m worried about what happens when she gets hurt emotionally.”

X nodded once, small.

Gojo laughed bitterly. “If she even registers it.”

“She does,” X said. “She just doesn’t show it.”

Gojo sighed, rubbing his face with one hand while steering with the other like a criminal.

“So what,” he said. “She thinks she can handle him.”

“Yes.”

“And she thinks she can control the situation.”

“Yes.”

Gojo laughed. “Classic her.”

“She thinks she can learn,” X said. “That she can map him. Predict him. Contain him.”

Gojo’s expression twisted. “Contain. Wow. She really is our parents’ child.”

X nodded, gaze distant. “That’s why I agree with them.”

Gojo glanced over. “You agree with them?”

X didn’t flinch. “She’s prone to being taken advantage of.”

Gojo’s jaw clenched. “Even with all that power.”

“Especially with all that power,” X said. “Because she thinks it makes her untouchable.”

Gojo hated how true that sounded.

“And because,” X added, “she’s too trusting when it comes to intent.”

Gojo scoffed. “She’s suspicious of everyone.”

“She’s suspicious of competence,” X corrected. “Not transparency.”

Gojo went quiet.

X continued, tone steady. “She assumes people who are honest about being awful are safer than people who pretend to be good.”

Gojo swallowed. “Because at least the monster shows its teeth.”

“Yes.”

The car hummed along, tires rolling over cracked pavement that hadn’t been repaired in months. The world outside the windows looked tired. Like it was waiting for someone stronger to come fix it.

Gojo’s voice turned quieter, rougher.

“So she chose the worst option,” he muttered, “because it’s the one she can see clearly.”

X nodded.

“And because,” X added, “it’s something she chose for herself.”

Gojo clenched his jaw. “Even if it’s stupid.”

“Yes.”

Gojo exhaled slowly. “God. She’s impossible.”

X shrugged. “She’s human.”

Gojo laughed once, short and sharp. “Barely.”

X didn’t respond. He just stared out at the darkening skyline like he could see the threads of probability bending in the distance.

Gojo kept driving, sweets gone, anger gone, replaced by something heavier.

“…So what do we do?” he asked again, quieter.

X’s answer came immediately.

“We watch,” he said. “We don’t force. We don’t corner her.”

Gojo nodded slowly.

“And,” X added, “we prepare.”

Gojo frowned. “For what.”

X looked at him, calm as ever.

“For the possibility that Arlecchino is right,” he said. “And the possibility that she is wrong.”

Gojo swallowed. “That’s not comforting.”

X took another sip. “It’s realistic.”

Gojo groaned. “I hate realism.”

“I know,” X said.

The car rolled on, carrying two brothers through a world that was slowly falling apart, trying to protect a sister who didn’t want saving—and trying not to become the kind of cage she’d already learned to flee.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Gojo snorted, the sound sharp enough to cut through the hum of the engine and whatever grim probability web he’d been stuck chewing on for the last hour.

“Well,” he said, tone abruptly lighter, almost smug, “looks like her betrothed better step up his game.”

X glanced at him.

Gojo grinned. “Unless he wants his precious little princess swept away.”

X didn’t react immediately. He rarely did. The road lights slid across his face in steady intervals, painting him calm, unreadable.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” X said.

“Oh, absolutely,” Gojo replied. “I’ve been waiting years for that guy to sweat.”

X exhaled through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Close.

“You hate him,” X said.

“I do,” Gojo said proudly. “I really, truly do.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s completely fair,” Gojo argued. “He’s perfect. Like offensively perfect. Polite. Kind. Patient. Smiles like he walked out of a propaganda poster.”

X shrugged. “That’s why they like him.”

“That’s why I hate him,” Gojo shot back. “You know our parents like him more than me, right?”

X nodded. “They do.”

Gojo slapped the steering wheel. “I’m their actual son!”

“And he behaves,” X said calmly.

Gojo gagged loudly. “See? That. That right there. Makes me nauseous.”

He leaned back in his seat, one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing dramatically in the air.

“Seriously,” he went on. “Every time he visits, it’s all ‘good morning, Sir,’ ‘thank you for your guidance,’ ‘it’s an honor to be here.’ I feel like I need to shower afterward.”

X tilted his head. “He’s respectful.”

“He’s too respectful,” Gojo countered. “It’s unnatural.”

X shrugged again, utterly unfazed. “That is her ideal type.”

Gojo’s mouth opened, then closed.

“…Don’t say it like that,” he muttered.

“It makes sense,” X continued. “The arrangement was logical.”

Gojo scoffed. “Of course you’d say that.”

“They’re compatible,” X said. “Temperament. Values. Pace.”

Gojo glanced at him sideways. “You sound like our parents.”

X didn’t deny it.

“Out of everyone,” X added, “he has the highest probability of opening her heart without breaking her.”

Gojo grimaced. “Ugh. You had to make it sound poetic.”

“It’s accurate.”

Gojo rolled his eyes. “You know what I remember?”

X waited.

“I remember them as kids,” Gojo said. “And I remember thinking—wow. This guy is boring even at age ten.”

X’s lips twitched faintly.

Before Arlecchino had been born, before the house got louder and sharper and more complicated, there had only been a handful of people allowed close to her.

And one of them had been him.

“He was always there,” X said quietly. “Always patient.”

Gojo snorted. “Yeah. Because she barely talked.”

“She didn’t have to,” X replied. “He listened.”

That shut Gojo up for half a second.

“…Still boring,” he muttered.

X ignored that.

They drove on, the city thinning out into quieter stretches of road, the kind where streetlights flickered like they were tired too.

“You remember,” Gojo said suddenly, “when she tried to disappear behind the library shelves?”

X nodded. “She thought if she stood still long enough, no one would notice her.”

“And he found her anyway,” Gojo said. “Didn’t even say anything. Just sat next to her and started reading.”

X’s gaze softened. “She tolerated that.”

“She tolerates almost nothing,” Gojo said. “That was impressive.”

Another memory surfaced, uninvited.

“She fell asleep on him once,” Gojo added, smirking. “Right there. Head on his shoulder. Drool and everything.”

X nodded. “He didn’t move.”

“He didn’t even breathe funny,” Gojo said. “I tried to poke him and he glared at me like I’d committed a war crime.”

X almost smiled.

“He’s always been like that,” X said. “Steady.”

Gojo made a face. “Gross.”

“But good,” X added.

Gojo sighed. “Yeah. Yeah. I know.”

He drummed his fingers on the wheel.

“Still,” he said, tone turning playful again, “if he thinks he can just wait around forever for her to want him, he’s dreaming.”

X glanced at him. “She doesn’t respond well to pressure.”

“No,” Gojo agreed. “But she also doesn’t respond to inaction.”

X hummed thoughtfully.

“Either way,” Gojo continued, “it’s better than whatever the hell she’s doing now.”

X didn’t argue.

“Zandik,” Gojo said, the name tasting wrong in his mouth. “She’s treating him like a new lab rat.”

X nodded. “That’s accurate.”

Gojo snorted. “At least the prince isn’t a walking ethics violation.”

“He’s healthy,” X said. “Stable. Loving.”

Gojo gagged again. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

“I’m stating facts.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, the kind that only came from years of shared battles and unspoken understanding.

Then Gojo smirked.

“You’re thinking it too,” he said.

X glanced at him. “Am I.”

“She won’t let feelings get in the way of duty,” Gojo said. “Never has.”

X nodded. “Correct.”

“And once she solves the problem,” Gojo added, “she’s done.”

“Yes.”

Gojo laughed quietly. “She really does treat life like a game.”

X stared out the window. “She finishes what she starts.”

“And then she drops it completely,” Gojo said. “No replay value.”

“Exactly.”

Gojo shook his head. “Cold.”

“Efficient.”

“So you’re not worried,” Gojo said.

X shook his head. “No.”

“Because once she’s done playing—”

“She’ll lose interest,” X finished. “And return to baseline.”

Gojo grinned. “God. She’s terrifying.”

X shrugged. “She’s consistent.”

Gojo leaned back, stretching.

“Guess the marriage isn’t in danger then,” he said lightly.

“No,” X agreed. “Not long-term.”

“Still,” Gojo added, smirking, “I hope the prince gets jealous.”

X glanced at him. “Why.”

“Character development,” Gojo said. “Everyone needs a little.”

X snorted softly.

They drove on, the road ahead long but familiar, two brothers laughing in the quiet, trusting that their sister—brilliant, strange, impossible—would do what she always did.

Finish the game.

And walk away when the credits rolled.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

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He used the good paper.

Not because it mattered—paper was paper, ink was ink, words were words—but because if he was going to be ignored, he wanted to be ignored elegantly.

The crown palace had stationery so fine it made ordinary parchment feel like sandpaper. The crest was pressed into the corner in pale gold, subtle enough to pretend humility, expensive enough to be unmistakable. He hated how much he liked the ritual.

The letter was already half written when the attendant announced the wind had shifted again.

He paused, pen hovering, listening for the familiar distant groan of Septimont settling into its own skeleton. The city below was vast, layered, and stubborn, built to survive storms, coups, and the modern slow apocalypse that pretended it wasn’t one.

He resumed writing anyway.

Because you would not reply whether he wrote under perfect weather or a sky that looked bruised.

“Your Highness,” one of the palace aides murmured from behind the screen. “The courier is ready.”

He nodded without turning. “Tell them to wait.”

The aide hesitated, then wisely retreated.

He finished the line, blotted the ink with a practiced motion, and reread the paragraph.

It was careful. Thoughtful. Not too warm. Not too cold. There was always a line he couldn’t cross with you—a line no one could cross unless you decided it existed.

He folded the letter.

He addressed it in his own hand.

And then, because he had the kind of fatal optimism that could only be cultivated by royalty and repeated emotional rejection, he wrote a second one.

That one was shorter.

Less formal.

Almost… personal.

He stared at the blank space at the bottom where his signature should go.

Then signed anyway.

He sealed both with wax and pressed his ring into the red, watching the crest appear like an imprint of identity. It always felt strange, branding paper with proof he existed, proof he had reached out.

Proof you could ignore.

He set the letters aside and opened the lacquered box of gifts.

Today’s selection was modest. He’d learned, early, that if he sent too much you would interpret it as a transaction. If he sent too little you would interpret it as irrelevant. Balance was an art. He had been trained to negotiate border treaties and court politics, and somehow the hardest negotiation of his life remained: giving you something without making you feel like you owed him.

Inside the box lay:

A small charm carved from a pale stone said to repel nightmares.

A vial of ink that never smudged, even in humidity.

A book—thin, annotated—on an obscure historical collapse, because once, while overlooking a crumbling mural, you had stared too long and murmured, almost to yourself, “They always pretend they don’t see it coming.”

He remembered that moment more vividly than he remembered his own coronation rehearsal.

He arranged the items with unnecessary care, then closed the box.

The courier would deliver it.

You would not respond.

But you would keep it.

He knew you kept them because once—once—when you had visited the palace and had been forced through the ritual of tea and greetings and faintly insulting politeness, he had walked you to the guest wing afterward. He’d pretended it was because of protocol. In reality, he had wanted to see whether you carried anything of him.

You did not carry his letters.

But when you opened the drawer to deposit a knife you’d somehow acquired from the banquet hall—no one ever knew how—you revealed the corner of pale gold paper, neatly stacked. Wax seals intact. His crest, repeated.

Organized.

Preserved.

Unread? Maybe. But not discarded.

He had been absurdly happy for two whole days after that.

It was a ridiculous victory, but he took what he could get.

He rose from the desk and walked toward the balcony overlooking Septimont, letting the curtains whisper behind him. The palace always smelled faintly of citrus and cold stone, a scent curated by generations of rulers who believed scent could become memory.

Outside, the city stretched beneath him like a living map.

Septimont was a miracle with grime under its nails. The skyline climbed in elegant tiers—old towers reinforced with new metal ribs, bridges that arched like the spine of a great creature, canals that shimmered with reflections of a sky too tired to be blue.

In the distance, the Withering made itself visible not as destruction, but as absence.

A section of the far district where the lights no longer worked consistently. A neighborhood that smelled wrong when the wind hit from the east. A thin strip of land near the river where the plants grew pale and stubborn like they’d forgotten how to be alive.

People still walked there.

They always did.

The world didn’t end with screaming. It ended with routines.

He rested his hands on the balcony rail and let out a slow breath.

He could be sentimental, he reminded himself. He was allowed. Just today. Just for a minute.

He’d spent the last month buried under state matters so sensitive they made ordinary crises look like children’s games. He was a Crown Prince. His life was triage: which catastrophe first, which bleeding wound to bandage, which lie to tell so the truth didn’t collapse everything.

And lately, his older sister had been keeping him especially busy.

“Your presence is not optional,” the Empress had told him last night, voice clean as a blade. “Your country does not have the luxury of your feelings.”

She’d said it without cruelty.

Which somehow made it worse.

He loved his sister. He respected her. He would bleed for her if asked.

But he also wanted, sometimes, to throw himself dramatically onto the marble floor and scream, I am having a very normal human emotion, please allow it.

He did not, because he was a prince.

He sighed instead.

The wind lifted the edge of his sleeve and carried with it the distant scent of rain and smoke.

It reminded him of you, in a way that made no sense.

You had always smelled faintly like clean paper and metal—like libraries and sharpened blades. Like quiet determination.

Like someone who didn’t belong in soft places.

It had been a while since you last visited.

Long enough for the palace staff to stop asking when you would return, and start asking if you were real.

Long enough for the gardens you’d once inspected with mild disinterest to bloom twice and shed their petals, and for the fountain you’d stared at without blinking to be repaired again.

Long enough that even the palace guards—hardened men and women who had fought riots and beasts and human desperation—had begun to speak of you like an old rumor.

He missed you.

A lot.

He didn’t say that out loud either.

Instead, he turned back to the desk and picked up his pen again.

A third letter.

This one he didn’t intend to send. It was indulgent. Private. A confession he could not afford to make to your face.

He began anyway.

Because the only place he could be honest about you was paper.

He wrote about Septimont’s weather, knowing you would not care.

He wrote about the last council meeting, knowing you would find it predictable.

He wrote about the Withering’s latest shifts, knowing you would read between the lines and understand what he could not say openly.

He wrote about a small boy he’d seen on the palace steps last week, selling trinkets made of wire and beads.

The boy had bowed too low and said, “For luck, Your Highness.”

He’d bought the entire bundle.

Not because he believed in luck.

Because the boy’s hands were shaking, and the guards were pretending not to see.

He wrote that too.

Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he wrote about you.

Not directly. Never directly. He had learned that if he praised you openly, you recoiled. If he asked for you openly, you disappeared.

So he wrote around you like a planet circling something it could not touch.

He wrote:

There are things I want to show you.

Not as duties. Not as obligations.

Just… things.

He paused, pen hovering, and smiled faintly at his own hopelessness.

Then he heard it—a light tap at the door.

“Come in,” he called.

The aide entered, head bowed.

“Your Highness,” the aide said carefully. “Lady Arlecchino has sent another message.”

He didn’t flinch outwardly, because he was trained not to.

Inside, he braced like a man expecting to be stabbed.

“Read it,” he said.

The aide unfolded the letter—less a letter, more a threat written in immaculate script.

“She says,” the aide began, “that if you send any more gifts, she will personally feed them to the palace hounds.”

He blinked. “I don’t have hounds.”

The aide coughed politely. “She says she will acquire them.”

He exhaled slowly.

Of course she would.

Arlecchino hated all your suitors, which was almost impressive considering the number of noble families that had attempted to wedge their sons into your orbit like dogs circling a throne.

Arlecchino didn’t merely dislike them. She treated them like parasites.

Including him.

It wasn’t personal. It was devotion.

Arlecchino adored you with the kind of ferocity that made even palace security nervous. She was possessive in a way that was somehow both hilarious and terrifying, like a cat who had decided a particular human belonged to her.

He respected it.

He also found it deeply inconvenient.

“Thank you,” he told the aide. “You may go.”

The aide hesitated. “Your Highness… should we respond?”

He considered it.

He could respond formally, as a prince. He could send a diplomatic note. He could request a meeting.

He could also poke a bear and see what happened.

“No,” he said instead, gentle. “Let her threaten me. It means she still considers me within range.”

The aide blinked, then bowed and left quickly, as if afraid of catching whatever romantic sickness made a Crown Prince tolerate being bullied by a younger woman with sharp eyes and sharper loyalty.

He returned to his desk and stared at the unsent letter.

His pen hovered again.

He added one more line.

I hope you are safe.

Then he scratched it out.

Too much.

He wrote instead:

I hope you are eating.

That felt safer. Ridiculous enough to be acceptable. Practical enough to be unobtrusive.

He sealed that letter too, then tossed it into the pile of “maybe never.”

His gaze drifted back to the gift box.

He imagined it arriving wherever you were.

He imagined you opening it with that same expression—blank, faintly annoyed, like the world was a bothersome noise.

He imagined you picking up the book and flipping through it with quick, precise movements.

He imagined you keeping it.

Not because you wanted him.

But because the knowledge mattered.

Because you were like that: heart buried under layers of practicality, kindness concealed behind boredom.

He smiled faintly.

A prince, pining.

Pathetic.

He could hear his sister’s voice already: Get a grip. You are the Crown Prince of a nation, not a lovesick bard.

He did have a grip.

He just also had feelings.

A tragedy.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

If you were here, you’d probably say something dry like, “You’re making that face again.”

He’d ask, “What face?”

You’d say, “The one where you look like you’re about to apologize to the sky.”

He’d laugh, because you always had a way of turning sincerity into something tolerable.

And then you’d leave, because you always did.

He sat up.

He took a fresh sheet of paper.

Not palace stationery this time. Plain. Unmarked. Honest.

He wrote anyway.

Not because he expected you to reply.

Not because he believed in fairytale outcomes.

But because in a world that was slowly being eaten by something formless and relentless, he wanted to keep doing at least one thing that felt gentle.

Even if it was foolish.

Even if it was unreturned.

Even if the only proof of connection he ever got was a stack of unopened letters tucked carefully into a drawer somewhere, wax seals unbroken, his crest still visible—proof that you had not thrown him away.

He dipped his pen again and began.