𝘀.ugar baby

nine

There was something about thunderstorms that Toji always felt drawn to. They were great; overbearing in a way, rolling through and burying a perfectly fine day under gallons of rainwater and gray skies. Authoritative, condemning humans to take shelter lest they wish to drown in its fruits. Suffering the consequences; soaked-through clothes and sopping hair. He watches the pane of glass at the roof, a skylight barred into the flat of your high rise ceilings. The rain storm had reduced it into nothing but a drab, dusty square, baring the pelts of precipitation like punishment. Toji holds you in your bed. Your weight drapes across his chest like a blanket, your head tucked beneath the cut of his chin.

"Do you like the rain, Toji?"

He felt naked, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. The silken sheets that wrap your mattress were unfamiliar against this flesh, cold and slippery. Regretting the forfeit of pajamas. You two had shared a shower after dinner, of which you held him with all the sentiment in the world. Toji fucking hates when people stand at his back. He doesn't like it, feeling a presence before seeing them. But he let you stay centimeters behind, working peach and ginger scented shampoo into the roots of his scalp. When he was a boy and his mother had yet to find a place in the Zenin's private graveyard, he vaguely remembers receiving analogous strokes of care from the only family member in his life who didn't see him as a filthy disgrace. Mom bathed him like this, scrubbing blood and tarnish from his cheeks with a threadbare handkerchief in that tin can he called a tub. All that fucking family money, but a new washcloth or a proper bathtub was never in the cards for him. He remembers mom apologizing often when she washed him.

Toji fucked you in the shower. A difficult means of having sex, sure, but slippery surfaces and soap in the eyes weren't enough to quell that undying twist of hunger. So he took you against the sleek porcelain wall with his hands shelving beneath the curve of your ass and your legs constricting at his waist. You guided him to a quick orgasm with spouts of hushed praises spoken to his ear; he was certain you didn't cum, didn't feel that cute clench you did the first night you two slept together, but you lied and told him you did with a reassuring grin. Why did you lie?

"It's fine, I guess." A hand caressed your thigh, the one that was slung over and hiked up onto his stomach. Toji grazed his nails over your flesh, mindless and dejected.

Thunder clapped, then lightning struck, and all Toji could think in the moment was about you and him. Together. Stark nude in bed with limbs entwined. He, the thunder; loud and fierce. Scary, enough to make little children and small animals shake and cower in the corner with fear. You're more like lightning, he supposes. Elegant and powerful, something so naturally beautiful.

You will hear thunder and remember me.

More thunder boomed. Toji squeezes your body tighter. "I like that."

"Like what?" He asks.

You trace wobbly circles against his collar bone, avoiding the slices of silvery skin that raised off the plain of skin. Scars, Toji was doused in gauges. Scraped up head to toe, and he could feel your eyes dart lazily between each and every one of them. "I like the thunder," comes your reply, followed by a small, bashful shrug. "Ever since I was a kid."

Toji scoffs. Fuckin' mind reader. "Liar. Nobody likes thunder."

"Don't call me a liar," you slap his cheek playfully. "I mean it. The quiet can be disturbing sometimes. But to me, thunder is so... human-like? Makes me forget I'm alone."

This has the man tossing his head back against your feathered pillow. "You're so full of shit."

Another stroke of brooding thunder rapped against the window like knock, and if Toji was a believer in the Gods above, he'd curse every last one of them for their shitty comedic timing. You're giggling into his neck; Toji can feel warm puffs of breath fan over his pulse point. "See?" You ask through a grin. "He came back to yell at you." He, referring to the crack of thunder. Toji rolls his eyes. Leaves a pinch at your thigh.