synopsis: you always stayed away from the boy in your english class who was always misbehaving and borderline breaking the law. known for his suspensions and his attitude, everyone keeps ten thousand feet away. despite being an outcast he's learned to enjoy his own company but with your curious eye you've realised there's more to him than just the rumours about him and his family.
in your last few weeks of high school he swears that you'll never see him again but four years later you find out that isn't the case.
a lot can happen in four years and now that time has come between you, you can finally figure out who he really is.
tags: childhood friends to lovers, except they were not really friends, strangers to lovers, yearning, one sided pining, soft sukuna despite how rough he seems, fluff, yes based on the ethel cain song,
chapter one | chapter three
chapter two: his mother steady screaming he should be more like him...
word count: 2.3k
a note from angel: thank you so much for being so patient whilst i put this part out, this took longer than i thought because of uni but i'm glad people are still sticking with this story! thank you and enjoy!
You were the last person Sukuna expected to see on his way home.
He barely even noticed that it was you walking past, lugging your suitcase and a large backpack. He was too engrossed in what shifts he should pick up for next week and what he should make for dinner tonight. Leftovers again he thinks but the sound of his name suddenly interrupts his inner thoughts.
His body pauses.
He didn't recognise your voice, at least not at first.
Turning, his body looms over you and for the first time in a while he realises how much space he now takes up. A natural frown appears on his face, questioning why a stranger like you would stop him in the street. Why would someone even bother him in the first place.
Again, people in this town don't really address or speak to him first but over the years he's learned to cope with being the town's outcast.
Sukuna's eyes linger across your face and your features and then it finally hits him, the wave of recognition smacks against his body with enough force to almost make his face light up. He remembers you now. You were that girl who sat behind him in that one class during high school. His brow rises in familiarity, the images of nostalgia almost enough to make him nauseous.
"You're back?" he manages to spit out, his voice rough. He hasn't said much all day, mostly mute at work, letting his manager at the garage do most of the talking with the customers. That's how he's learned not to piss people off these days, taking his mother's advice for once:
'Just shut the fuck up and do your job and maybe people will like you.'
Sukuna's eyes take you in, you don't look much different than what he remembers of you from high school. But simultaneously there are things about you that he doesn't recognise, a sense of maturity and experience that lingers over you, etched into your skin like a layer of perfume. It's clear that you've learned a lot from college. It's clear that you've evolved. A lot more than he has.
He doesn't miss the nervousness that comes from you, barely able to make lasting eye contact with him as you answer his question. "Yeah." Your voice is small and awkward but it all comes back to him when you speak. "And you…stayed."
Sukuna nods. "I did."
A lot has happened over the years.
Ever since… that incident, Sukuna was never allowed on the school campus again. He ended up moving to another town, far from this one to live with his grandfather. Sukuna ended up graduating in the middle of nowhere, in some rundown school with less than 100 pupils in its senior year. His mother didn't attend but his grandfather and Jin did at least.
'At least you managed to accomplish something kid.' Those were the words his grandfather grumbled as he congratulated him.
Since graduation the past four years have been…somewhat rough.
His brother managed to make it into that stupid Ivy league school that Sukuna chooses to forget the name of. In his first year out of education it was inevitable that Sukuna would mix up with the wrong people. He moved back home to live with his mother who had false hope that he was finally on good behaviour. Sukuna guesses it was his job to always disappoint her and prove her wrong whilst Jin would inevitably become her best child.
The following two years he became tied to a few people that he shouldn't have, touched and sold a few things that he shouldn't have which landed up with him in jail for over a year. Over the phone during his sentence Sukuna received a pretty angry phone call from his brother asking where he was whilst their mother was dying from stage four cancer.
Sukuna rarely heard Jin get this angry. Or frustrated. It's so rare that Sukuna ever hears his brother sound like this that it causes a lump in his throat that he fails to swallow down. By the time he got out, Jin was ready to graduate.
Sukuna remembers at his return his mother was screaming at him, demanding why he wasn't like Jin who obviously would get valedictorian. So Sukuna left again. He left with less than a hundred dollars to his name. He picked up random shifts with low pay in the middle of nowhere. He managed to stay in a hostel for a cheap price, just until he figured things out for himself. He would move to a different state. Get a house — no, a farm, and own all types of animals and make a fortune for himself.
But then his brother killed his fantasy by announcing over the phone that their mother was on her deathbed.
Sukuna didn't make her final moments. He's pretty sure that she wouldn't have wanted him there anyway. Not in her final moments. He doesn't like to dwell on it too much.
Jin would let Sukuna keep the house under his name. An act of kindness because he didn't make it to her last moments. It wasn't much. A shitty two bedroom house but Sukuna still keeps his mother's old room as a spare for when Jin visits.
The house reeks of Sukuna's childhood nostalgia. If it didn't mean so much to Jin he would've sold it a long time ago but as of right now Sukuna can't afford to live anywhere else so he has to suck up the rundown corners and the paper thin walls where he once heard his mother argue over the phone about his behaviour.
Sukuna still sleeps in the bedroom that him and Jin had shared since childhood. His single bed is too small but it's better than sleeping in a cold jail cell.
But of course, Sukuna can't admit all of this to you. Not right now.
You're staring at him too hard. There's a few more tattoos on him and Sukuna understands he looks a little rough by now after coming from work but has he really changed that much?
"Is there something on my face?" he asks, curious about your gaze.
"Oh no, I was just—" you change your mind, "never mind."
Sukuna wonders what you were going to say but another question is prompted in his mind. "Are you staying for long?" No matter what he knows, you must be doing better than him. Like his brother did, he figures you'll only be in town for a few months before going on your own way.
"Yeah, I'm just moving back home after college. I wanted to stay with my parents for a bit before I — y'know, fly the nest for real."
He hums. You sound like you have a better chance at life than he does. You actually have the potential to make it out of this shitty town. This is when it all weighs on him, the heaviness of his life and how unlikely it seems that he'll make something of himself. Unlike you, Sukuna doesn't have a degree or financial help from his family. He's stuck living on paycheck to paycheck all because he didn't take anything seriously and tried to do life the 'easy way'.
There's an awkward silence and Sukuna doesn't have anything left to say and neither do you. So he takes it upon himself to end the conversation here, accepting the fact that he probably won't see you again.
"See you around, yeah?" he lies but you nod anyway agreeing with him out of politeness.
Sukuna's quick to disappear, making it seem that he has places to be despite there being no one waiting for him at home. He didn't mean to end it so abruptly and he wishes he could say something more but his body forces him to keep walking, to keep moving away.
To keep far away from good things before he ruins them.
/
Sukuna returns to an empty house.
A lot of his mother's stuff is still lying around, there's still stuff to be packed away into the basement but Sukuna keeps procrastinating.
Jin said it was up to him whether he wanted to keep or sell the unimportant things but Sukuna can't imagine there would be someone wanting to buy his mother's antique teapot collection — at least not for a high enough price for Sukuna.
As soon as the front door's locked, Sukuna's boots come off and he's stripping out of his shirt, revealing his tanned skin and hardened body. His routine is simple: home, shower, eat, sleep. He wakes up, goes to work and repeats. There's rarely a day without a shift either at the garage or the store meaning that he doesn't get a chance to rest.
The only unique thing that he can add to his days are the new recipes he can make for dinner. Working at the store means he gets employee's discounts on certain products working to his advantage of making cheap but efficient meals. It's the only thing that he gets to look forward to at the end of the day.
To some the image of Sukuna sitting at the dining table and eating alone would be depressing but for Sukuna he thinks nothing of it. He's learnt from a young age to enjoy his own company, he doesn't need anyone else around him to keep him satisfied. It's been years since he's been in close proximity with anyone. He wouldn't even call himself close with Jin at the moment.
But he can't help but think about his conversation with you today. It was short and he's mentally cursing himself for not talking to you for longer. He should've asked about your graduation, your degree, what college you ended up going to, what it was like for the past four years, what are your next plans?
And do you have a partner?
Okay, maybe not that part. He doesn't care about that part.
But compared to everyone else in this town you don't seem to hold any grudges against him. But that is also because you know nothing about his life after high school, although it won't be long before someone in this town runs their mouth about him to you.
Despite these thoughts there's a small idea that you could be Sukuna's first chance at making an acquaintance at least.
Maybe Sukuna should take the initiative for once and ask for a catch up. But when will he see you again? Or would you even bother to want to even see him anyway?
Sukuna pushes these thoughts away, distracting himself with what the next day will bring him.
Tomorrow, he has a shift at his second job because working part time as a mechanic still doesn't pay the bills. And despite Jin's willingness to help Sukuna, Sukuna would rather choke to death than to ask his brother for help or for money.
It was struggling to find a well paying job nevermind his criminal record. He had to go on probation for months at the store before they actually hired him permanently. And for the job at the garage, the owner was only doing him a favour because his mother was a 'sweetheart.'
Sipping on his beer, Sukuna's used to the silence around the house. He washes up and sets up his leftovers for tomorrow's shift. There isn't much entertainment apart from a shitty game show on the tv that Sukuna hate watches in the background.
With quiet boredom Sukuna switches off the tv and does his rounds to make sure the house is locked up. The stairs creek under his weight and he tries not to let the shadows of darkness get to him as he gradually switches off the lights. Reaching his childhood bedroom, the layout is the same. The blue paint is beginning to peel off and when Sukuna has the time (and the money) he'll make sure to repaint that.
The bed squeaks under his weight and he looks across the room at what once was Jin's childhood bed. The mattress is bare but Sukuna hasn't gotten around to dismantling the bed yet.
There's a lot of things that Sukuna hasn't gotten around doing.
Laying back in bed, his thoughts are bare. In jail, he learned the secret to spacing out. Whilst fights, shouting and screaming were happening in the background he's managed to learn how to ignore it, how to space out. Since then he doesn't give into provocations as easily as he did when he was younger. He can handle his temper and now approaches things with complete nonchalance. Unless someone swings first, he'll swing back and that's how he's kept himself out of trouble since.
The past few months have been uneventful and Sukuna feels like he's been living life on auto-pilot but that should be a good thing. He's sober, housed and steady with two jobs, something that his probation officer told him he should be proud of because many don't get the privilege of having the same experiences.
But why doesn't he feel satisfied?
Sukuna wouldn't even describe it as a type of anxiety that everything should be going wrong — he just feels…out of his own body. Numb almost. Since jail it takes forever for Sukuna to fall asleep, he doesn't need to pay a doctor to tell him that he might have insomnia and diagnose him with it — he already knows that.
Instead he stares at the ceiling hoping for tomorrow morning to arrive already, wanting to get this shitty day over already. But as he dwells first, for the first time in a long time there's a little hope inside Sukuna.
His thoughts are considered irrational at this time but his brain entertains it nonetheless.
If there's a chance that the universe has any way for making it feel like his current life is worth it then Sukuna only asks for one thing.
Vampire-Cowboy!Sukuna x preacher's daughter reader
Synopsis: In a town built on faith, the arrival of three strangers brings whispers of blood, disappearance, and something far worse lurking beneath the surface. Drawn to a man she cannot understand, the preacher’s daughter finds herself caught between light and darkness, until the truth reveals itself, and everything begins to fall apart.
Cw: Vampire-Wild West Au, gothic horror, religious themes, fem reader, emotional distress, angst, lots of yapping in this chapter
Previous Chapter - Next Chapter (soon)
Chapter 7: Book of Revelation
The crisp autumn air carried an unusual chill as the forest surrounding Whiskey Falls slowly surrendered to the changing season. Leaves that only days ago had been a vibrant green now burned with shades of amber, crimson, and gold, swayed from the branches whenever the wind stirred. A dense blanket of mist clung low to the streets, swallowing fences, storefronts and wagon wheels until the town looked almost unrecognizable beneath the morning light.
Yesterday's festival still lingered like the ghost of happier times. Colorful garlands remained draped between rooftops, paper streamers fluttered weakly in the breeze, and strings of lanterns hung untouched where they had been left the night before. Normally, by sunrise, the townsfolk would've already been outside—nursing sore heads from too much drink, laughing about the night's festivities as they packed away decorations and dismantled the food stalls. Instead, untouched mugs still rested atop abandoned tables, bottles lay scattered through the dirt, and cold meals sat forgotten.
Nothing had been cleaned. Nothing had been moved. It was as though the entire town had stopped the moment Riko's body was found. Every business had closed its doors. The saloon stood empty. The bakery never opened its ovens. The butcher's windows remained shuttered. Manami's boutique, the bank, the hotel, even the stables had all gone dark. For the first time anyone could remember, Whiskey Falls felt silent.
Inside the small wooden church every pew had been filled long before the service began. The scent of melted candle wax and incense mixed faintly through the air as sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, bathing the congregation in muted shades of blue and red. Not a soul spoke above a whisper. Heads remained low while quiet sniffles echoed throughout the sanctuary.
Near the altar, Junpei lit the final candle before quietly stepping away. The polished white wood from Riko’s casket looked almost too pristine, decorated with flowers chosen by her grandparents and a small framed photograph resting near the foot. At the back of the church Father Clarke stepped before the altar, gently opening his worn Bible.
“My dear brothers and sisters, today we gather not only to mourn the loss of one of our own, but to remember a life that, though far too short, touched many hearts. Death often leaves us with questions we cannot answer, but our faith reminds us that even in our darkest moments, the Lord walks besides us.”
He lowered his gaze to the Scriptures.
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
The passage ended, yet the silence remained. Father Clarke closed the Bible and looked over everyone again. “I know many of you are grieving, and grief is not a weakness. It is love with nowhere left to go. Though we may not understand why the Lord sometimes calls His children home so soon, we trust that He receives them with open arms. Let us pray not only for Riko’s soul, but also for those she leaves behind.”
Heads lowered throughout the church as the priest began the prayer. Riko’s grandmother clutched her husband’s hand so tightly that both their knuckles had turned white.
After the prayer had been done, Father Clarke stepped away from the pulpit and looked to the congregation. “If anyone wishes to say a few words before we begin the procession to the cemetery, you may come forward.”
Riko's grandparents stood first. Their voices trembled as memories slowly gave way to tears, forcing them to pause more than once while Junpei remained near them, gently offering support whenever the weight of their grief became too much to bear. Father Clarke rested a comforting hand upon the older man's shoulder, allowing them all the time they needed before helping them back to their seats.
When her family finished, her friends came forward. Suguru was the first to stand. His hands trembled faintly as he walked to the back. Standing before the casket, he stared down at the polished wood before finding the strength to speak.
“Riko…” his voice failed him almost immediately “You always had this way of making people feel welcome. It didn't matter if someone was having the worst day of their life... somehow you'd always find a way to make them smile. You were my friend, but more than that… you were the little sister I never had.” he lowered his head. “I should've protected you.”
Silence settled over the church. A sob sounded somewhere behind.
Suguru’s jaw tightened. “I swear, whoever did this... they'll answer for it. You have my word.” he looked at the casket one last time. “Rest peacefully, Riko.”
Suguru stepped away, wiping quickly at his eyes as Satoru quietly rose from his seat. Unlike Suguru, he didn't cry, not outwardly. His hands remained shoved inside his pockets as he stood before the congregation.
“I've known Riko almost my whole life. I watched her grow from a little girl who could barely reach the piano into someone who could fill an entire room with music... I always thought there'd be more time.” his eyes lingered on the casket. “I'm sorry.”
He returned to his seat before his composure could break. One after another—Utahime, Shoko, Yuki and Manami— also stepped forward. Utahime struggled to finish even a few sentences before tears overtook her. Shoko spoke softly, remembering how Riko would always stop by the clinic simply to ask how everyone was doing, even when she had no reason to be there. Yuki managed to make the congregation laugh through their tears by recalling one of Riko's clumsy attempts at dancing during last year's harvest festival, only to begin crying herself before she could finish the story. Manami smiled sadly as she spoke about the pale blue dress she'd spent weeks making.
By the time Manami returned to her seat, scarcely a dry eye remained inside the church.
Eventually, you stood. You had spent most of the service trying to think of the perfect thing to say, something meaningful enough to honor someone whose life had ended before you ever had the chance to truly know her, but as you walked to the front and looked out at so many grieving faces, you realized perfect words did not exist.
“I didn't know Riko the way everyone else here did,” you admitted quietly. “But every time our paths crossed, she always greeted me with kindness.” your eyes drifted to her casket. “I only wish I'd had the chance to know her better. Rest in peace, Riko. May the Lord carry your soul gently into His hands.”
When you returned to your seat, the church had fallen into complete silence again. Quiet sniffles echoed throughout the congregation while Riko's grandmother finally broke down completely, forcing Junpei to gently escort both grandparents into a private room so they could grieve away from the public.
Father Clarke remained at the altar until the doors closed, then he lowered his head and began the final commendation. “Into Your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend Your servant, Riko. Receive her into the arms of Your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace and into the glorious company of the saints in light.”
“Amen,” the congregation answered.
For several long moments, everyone remained seated as though rising would make the service truly over. A woman near the aisle pressed her handkerchief to her face. An elderly man removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Somewhere behind you, a little girl quietly asked her mother whether Riko could still play the piano in Heaven. Her mother pulled her closer and whispered that she could.
At last, one person rose, then another, and another. People followed along. The movement traveled slowly throughout the church until the congregation stood together and the pallbearers approached the casket.
The procession moved to the cemetery. Satoru pushed open the old iron gates while Father Clarke led the way, his Bible pressed against his chest. Suguru, Yuta, several deacons and a handful of townsfolk carried Riko’s coffin between them. Nobody strayed far from the group. Children clung to their parent’s hands, and families stood shoulder to shoulder.
When they reached the freshly dug grave, the casket was secured with ropes and lowered slowly into the earth. The wood creaked beneath its own weight. No one moved once it reached the bottom. Riko’s grandmother stepped forward first. Junpei remained close behind her as she leaned over the grave and released a single white rose from her trembling hands. It fell down and landed softly upon the casket. Her grandfather followed with another flower. Suguru, Satoru, Utahime, one after another, friends and neighbors followed until petals of every color covered the coffin.
Hosea and Bill approached with shovels, neither looked eager to begin. Hosea glanced at Father Clarke, who gave him the smallest nod.
The first heavy scoop of dirt struck the casket. The sound was dull and final. Suguru flinched.
A second shovelful followed, then a third. With each thud, Riko disappeared farther beneath the surface.
Riko’s grandmother let out a heartbroken wail, and her husband wrapped both arms around her despite the tears running freely down his own weathered face. Several people lowered their heads. Others turned away, unable to watch.
You felt someone move closer besides you. Utahime stood there with a handkerchief twisted so tightly between her fingers that the fabric had wrinkled into a knot. Her eyes remained fixed on the grave. “I can’t believe she’s gone,”
You slowly nodded. “I know…”
“It feels unreal. Just yesterday we were celebrating together... dancing... getting ready at Manami's house while we waited for her.” her voice cracked. “...Not knowing she was never going to come.” fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “What went wrong?”
You lowered your gaze, your fingers intertwining helplessly. “I don't know…”
Utahime shook her head, crying harder. “Maybe if we'd tried harder… maybe if we'd made more of an effort to befriend her... maybe she would've told us if something was wrong. Maybe we could've helped her. Maybe we could've—” the words caught in her throat. Deep down both of you knew there had never been a chance.
You stepped closer, wrapping your arms around her. Utahime buried her face against your shoulder as quiet sobs shook her body. “I just feel so hopeless. She was so sweet... always playing the piano... always smiling whenever someone asked her to play a song.” she drew in another shaky breath. “Why her?”
The question remained unanswered. Unfortunately you had no idea what to say.
Slowly, the crowd began disappearing from the cemetery. Families left together, waiting near the gates. Father Clarke remained behind with Riko’s grandparents, speaking quietly to them while Junpei collected the abandoned flowers that had fallen short of the grave.
Before leaving, you turned back one final time. Riko’s freshly covered grave was buried under the pale autumn sky, the dark soil still uneven where it had been packed down. Your eyes wandered only a few rows farther to the front until they settled upon another familiar headstone, your mother’s. The dahlia you had left there had withered, its once vibrant petals curled inwards and darkened.
You simply stood between the two graves, one old and one new. Without saying anything, you rested a comforting hand on Utahime’s back and guided her to the cemetery gates. Together, the two of you left the rows of weathered headstones behind.
The abandoned shack stood roughly a mile or two outside of town, hidden deep enough within the forest that few people ever stumbled across it. Years ago the structure itself had burned to the ground, leaving behind little more than a blackened stone foundation and the basement that remained untouched.
Naobito adjusted the cuffs of his shirt before wiping another bead of sweat from his forehead. The air underground felt suffocating, heavy with the smell of mold and old wood that had long since begun to rot. Somewhere deeper within the darkness, water dripped steadily against stone, each echo lingering just a little too long before fading into silence. Light only came from a lone oil lantern resting on the table before him, its small flame dancing whenever a draft slipped beneath the wooden hatch overhead.
Naobito hated this place. His eyes wandered across the stone walls. Deep scratches still marked the old support beams. Rusted iron hooks remained bolted into the ceiling. Dark stains refused to disappear from the floor despite everything.
Thirty years had passed since Edgar Westerhoff had been hanged, yet somehow the basement still felt alive. Back then, the shack had belonged to Edgar. Most folks remembered him as an odd recluse who rarely ventured into town. He spoke in quiet riddles no one understood, startled whenever somebody approached from behind, and spent far too much time collecting dead animals from the woods. People assumed he simply practiced taxidermy. Most dismissed him as another eccentric old hermit.
Until one day someone searched his home while looking for him.
The upstairs had appeared almost ordinary—a small kitchen, a dining table, a thin mattress tucked into one corner. It looked almost normal, however, it wasn't until the trapdoor hidden underneath the rug that the truth revealed itself.
Naobito had only been a young deputy back then, but he still remembered the awful smell.
There were bodies, so many bodies that the deputies had lost count. Some had been mutilated beyond recognition, others arranged almost lovingly upon wooden tables as though their killer believed he was preserving something beautiful instead of destroying it.
When the sheriff questioned him, Edgar never denied any of it. He only cried. “I only wanted them to live forever.”
Whatever twisted meaning lay behind those words died with him. Edgar Westerhoff had been publicly hanged a week later. His shack burned to the ground soon after, hoping the flames would cleanse the place of every terrible memory. Naobito glanced around the basement. Sometimes he swore that the walls themselves still remembered.
His thoughts drifted back to the previous night. He had expected for people to disappear eventually—that had always been part of the agreement—but not like this, not so soon and carelessly. If Sheriff Gojo started connecting the pieces, years of planning could unravel before they had truly begun.
The metal hatch above groaned loudly. Naobito didn't flinch. He already knew who it was.
Slow, measured footsteps echoed down the narrow staircase before three familiar figures emerged one after another. Sukuna descended first, followed by Choso and finally Toji, whose hands remained tucked inside his pockets as though this meeting were little more than an inconvenience.
The hatch slammed shut above them. The sound echoed through. Naobito waited until all three had reached the bottom before finally speaking. “You're late.”
Toji shrugged. “There was traffic.”
“...In the middle of the forest?”
Toji looked around. “I got lost.”
“You've been coming here for months.”
“Still got lost.”
Naobito pinched the bridge of his nose. “I see.” he gestured to the empty chair across from him. Sukuna sat down. The other two remained standing.
The older man rubbed a tired hand across his face. “Well… yesterday certainly wasn't what I had planned. Mind telling me what happened?” his eyes settled on Sukuna.
Sukuna stared back at him without so much as blinking. “About what?”
Naobito let out a dry laugh that carried no amusement. “A young woman in my town was found dead. The church was filled before sunrise. Gojo hasn't stopped questioning people since dawn. Needless to say this complicates things.”
“It changes nothing,” Sukuna answered flatly.
Naobito held his gaze. “It changes plenty.”
The oil lamp crackled softly between them.
“When people are afraid, they begin asking questions.”
“They always do.”
“They don't usually find bodies.”
Naobito shifted his attention to Choso. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?”
Choso didn't so much as uncross his arms. “No.”
Naobito studied him for another moment before slowly nodding. His eyes returned to Sukuna. “What I'm trying to determine… is whether last night was expected.”
Something almost resembling amusement crossed Sukuna's face. “No.”
“...Will it happen again?”
Sukuna didn't answer immediately, instead he leaned back in the chair, one arm resting lazily against its back while the other drummed slow, deliberate taps against the wooden table.
“That depends.”
Naobito frowned. “On what?”
“Whether everyone remembers the rules.”
“My town doesn't know any rules.”
“They don't need to.”
The lamp continued hissing quietly as the wick burned lower.
Naobito folded both hands together. “When we made our agreement I was promised discretion.”
“You still have it.”
“A body was found less than three kilometers away.”
“It was.”
Naobito's jaw tightened. “That's not discretion.”
Sukuna remained perfectly still. “No, it isn't.”
The simple admission caught Naobito slightly off guard.
“You admit it.”
“I acknowledge a mistake.”
Naobito searched Sukuna's face for even the slightest crack in his composure. There wasn't one.
“What concerns me isn't one girl. It's what happens after one girl.”
The room fell silent; Naobito continued.
“Gojo isn't a fool.”
“No.”
“Neither are his partners, Geto and Okkotsu.”
“No.”
“They'll investigate.”
“They should.”
Naobito frowned. “You sound awfully calm.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
Sukuna's crimson eyes met his. “Because panic causes mistakes.”
Naobito slowly leaned back. “...And you're certain you won't make another?”
“I don't intend to.”
The older man continued staring at him, searching for any hint that the vampire was bluffing. Instead all he found was confidence. Cold. Absolute.
“...See that you remain right.”
Neither men looked away, neither blinked. It wasn't quite a challenge, more like two predators measuring one another.
“We're finished here, Naobito.”
The mayor released a slow breath through his nose before pushing himself to his feet. As he reached the staircase, he stopped. Without turning around, he spoke one final time. “If another body turns up… we'll be having a very different conversation.” Without waiting for an answer, he climbed the stairs. The metal doors groaned as they swung open. Cold afternoon air poured into the basement before the hatch slammed shut once again, leaving the three vampires alone with the flickering oil lamp.
Nobody said anything. Sukuna's eyes remained fixed on the small flame dancing inside the lantern.
“...Toji.”
The black-haired man lazily glanced over. “Hm?”
Sukuna looked at him. “Would you care to explain what the hell you were thinking?”
Toji raised an eyebrow, genuinely puzzled by the question. “I got hungry.”
Sukuna stayed quiet for several seconds before repeating his words. “You… got hungry..?”
Toji shrugged. “Yeah.”
“And it never occurred to you to dispose of the body afterwards?”
“I thought I did.”
“You thought.”
“I left her in a ditch.”
Choso looked over. “...A ditch?”
“The forest. I figured the animals would take care of it.”
Sukuna stared at him. “...They didn't.”
Toji rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess the river got her first.”
Sukuna slowly closed his eyes, as though silently counting to ten. When he opened them again, the calmness in his face had become even more unsettling. “And you didn't think of burying her?”
Toji shrugged. “Didn't have a shovel.”
The excuse lingered in the air. Sukuna didn't answer immediately. He simply stared at Toji before quietly pushing himself to his feet. Every measured step echoed throughout the cramped basement until he stopped directly in front of him.
“If you didn't have a shovel then use your hands,” he said quietly.
Toji frowned. “...What?”
“You're strong enough to tear a man's ribs apart with your bare hands, but digging a hole suddenly proved impossible?”
“It was just a mistake.”
“No, you got careless.”
“It happens.”
“It keeps happening.” That single sentence hoovered heavily between them. Choso finally pushed himself away from the wall. “This isn't the first time we've had to leave because someone got sloppy.”
Toji rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go.”
“Grimrock.”
Choso counted on one finger.
“Black Hollow.”
A second.
“Coalriver.”
A third.
“Sourwater.”
He lowered his hand.
“We've buried more homes than people.
Toji's expression slowly lost its arrogance. “You make it sound like it was all me.
“Wasn't it?”
Toji looked away. The answer was obvious enough.
Choso continued. “Every time we settle somewhere we start over. A new town. New stories. And eventually… another mistake.”
Toji rubbed a tired hand across his face. “I said I know.”
“Then why do you keep making the same mistakes?” Sukuna asked, his voice remained level, almost emotionless.
The question remained between them. Toji shifted his weight, letting out a frustrated breath. "...I was hungry." The words came out much quieter this time, almost defensive. "I hadn't fed in months since we moved here."
The words were honest. None of them had fed since arriving in Whiskey Falls. Human food kept the hunger at bay for a time. They could eat steak, drink alcohol, even sit around a table pretending to be ordinary men, but none of it ever satisfied the ache buried deep within them. Blood always called louder. In the end it always won.
It wasn't fear that had kept their fangs sheathed. They had slaughtered entire settlements before when survival demanded it. Whenever their existence had been discovered, they erased every witness before disappearing into the night, leaving nothing behind but another forgotten ghost town and another legend whispered across generations.
Whiskey Falls was supposed to be different.
“I know.”
“You know?”
"I know.” Sukuna folded his arms. “That doesn't excuse leaving a body behind.”
Toji's shoulders slumped. “I thought the forest would've taken care of it.”
“It didn't.”
“I know.”
“You nearly exposed us.”
“I know...”
“You jeopardized everything.”
Each answer came softer than the last until Toji stopped responding.
Choso sighed. “We can't keep living like this.” his eyes settled somewhere beyond the stone wall. “I'm tired. Tired of running.”
The confession caught everyone off guard. Although the vampires all felt the same way, none dared to say the words out loud.
“Tired of changing names. Tired of watching people we know grow old while we stay the same. I'm tired of finally thinking we've found somewhere peaceful only to leave again.”
Sukuna looked towards the staircase. His thoughts drifting elsewhere. His jaw tightened. “We're not leaving.”
Sukuna's gaze lingered on the flickering lantern. “They're looking for a murderer, not monsters.”
Choso lowered his head. Toji said nothing. Neither of them noticed the certainty in Sukuna's voice had less to do with confidence ...and more to do with hope.
The sheriff's station remained closed. Outside, Yuta leaned against one of the wooden pillars, quietly watching over the nearly deserted streets. Normally the town would've already begun returning to its usual rhythm, but after the grim discovery the night before, Satoru doubted there would be much trouble today. Nobody seemed willing to wander farther than necessary.
Turning away from the window, he faced the others gathered inside the station. Father Clarke and Kenai occupied two chairs near the center of the room while Suguru leaned heavily against the desk, both hands resting upon its worn wooden surface. Elsu stood near the wall with his arms crossed, quietly observing everyone. After what had happened, this meeting had become unavoidable.
The image of Riko lying motionless on the examination table still lingered vividly in Satoru's mind. After her body had been discovered, he and Suguru had taken her directly to the clinic, remaining with Shoko as she carefully examined every inch of Riko’s body. With each new discovery, Satoru's suspicions had slowly become certainty. There hadn't been a single drop of blood left inside her body. No defensive wounds. No signs of a struggle. Only two small puncture wounds on her neck, precisely 35.67 millimeters apart. A bite. Every question Shoko had asked had been met with the same vague replies. I don't know. I'm not sure. We'll figure it out. Not because he truly lacked the answers, but because telling the truth would be risky. They were already struggling to cope with a murder. Learning that vampires had been living among them would shatter what little sense of safety remained.
Satoru stretched, the quiet pop of his neck echoing through the station. “…Guess we can stop pretending now. Shoko confirmed it. Riko didn't lose a single drop of blood, she was completely drained.”
Kenai lowered his head, the lines across his weathered face deepening. “...The marks?”
Satoru gave a slow nod. “Two puncture wounds on her neck.”
Father Clarke quietly folded his hands together, uncertainty weighing heavily across his expression. “Should we tell them?”
“No.” Kenai answered almost immediately.
Father Clarke turned to face him. “People deserve to know.”
”They deserve not to panic,” Satoru replied before Kenai had the chance. “They're frightened because a young woman was murdered. Tell them vampires have been living amongst them this entire time and they won't see neighbors anymore. They'll see monsters.”
Father Clarke sighed, rubbing a hand across his chin. “They're already frightened. Every hour another family walks through the church doors asking me what happened to that poor girl. They ask whether they're safe, whether whoever did this might return, and I don't know what to tell them.”
Elsu spoke, his calm voice breaking the silence. “Fear doesn't follow reason. Once it takes hold, people stop thinking clearly. They'll begin accusing one another, they'll lose sleep, they'll barricade their homes and cling to whatever makes them feel protected. Fear only needs somewhere to grow.”
No one argued. Everyone knew he was right.
Suguru hadn't spoken since the meeting began. His eyes remained fixed on the floor, his jaw tightening with every passing second until he finally broke the silence. “How many?”
The room looked towards him.
Satoru scowled. “What?”
“How many are there? Do we even know?” Suguru repeated, lifting his gaze.
Silence answered him.
His lips curled into a humorless laugh before he slowly shook his head. “So... we don't know how many there are. We don't know when they arrived. We don't know how long they've been here.” his voice hardened with every sentence. “We buried Riko this morning ...and we're sitting here talking about theories.”
The words hung heavily inside the room.
Satoru lowered his eyes before quietly speaking, “Because if we don't... there'll be another funeral.”
The wind rattled the station windows. No one dared interrupt. The weight of those words settled over everyone like another layer of grief.
Suguru's fingers slowly curled around the brim of his hat until the leather creased beneath them.
Kenai leaned forward in his chair, resting both forearms against his knees. “I understand your anger, Suguru. Believe me, I do. But anger won't help us hunt creatures who've survived for centuries. They've had more time than any of us to perfect the way they hide, the way they feed, and the way they disappear. Right now our greatest disadvantage isn't our weapons. It's that we know almost nothing about the enemy.”
Suguru exhaled sharply through his nose, frustration plainly written across his face. “Why can't we just gather everyone together? Make them eat garlic or something?”
Kenai couldn't help the faint smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. “That would be a terrible idea. Garlic doesn't kill them. At best, it keeps them away if they're close enough, and even then not all of them react the same way. Besides, the moment you tell an entire town to start eating garlic, every vampire within miles will know we've discovered them. We'd lose the only advantage we still have.”
Suguru let out an irritated sigh, dragging both hands down his face. “Then what? We just sit here waiting for another person to turn up dead?” his voice cracked ever so slightly near the end, betraying the anger that grief had been quietly feeding since the funeral.
“No.” Satoru answered firmly. “We prepare.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“We don't know who they are. We don't know how many there are, where they're staying, or how long they've been living here. But we do know one thing.” he paused. “They're hunting. They chose someone vulnerable. Someone who spent most of her evenings alone.” his jaw tightened. “That wasn't random.”
Kenai gave a slow nod. “Predators don't waste energy. They watch first. They would've learned everyone's routines before making their move.” his gaze drifted to the window overlooking the empty street outside.
“They've been observing us,” Father Clarke murmured.
“For longer than we'd like to admit,” Kenai replied.
The realization settled heavily over the room. Suddenly every friendly face in town, every stranger who had passed through Whiskey Falls over the last few months, seemed to carry an unsettling new meaning. They hadn't simply been living their lives. Someone had been watching them.
A fly buzzed lazily near the window. The coffee cup brewed for Suguru was left abandoned, cold on the desk.
Satoru broke the silence. “Until we know more, nobody goes anywhere alone. Minimum of two people at all times.” he looked towards Kenai, who nodded in agreement before he continued. “Curfew begins at sunset. Nobody wanders into the woods, the river, the fields or anywhere outside town after dark unless absolutely necessary.”
“And if they have to?” Father Clarke asked.
“They don't go alone,” Kenai answered immediately.
Satoru looked at Elsu. “I'd also like volunteers rotating through the streets after sunset. Quietly. No uniforms if we can help it. If the vampires are watching us, then we'll start watching them.”
Father Clarke slowly nodded. “Anyone who doesn't feel safe… the church doors will remain open, day or night.”
Suguru finally lifted his head. “And if they attack again?”
Satoru turned to the window again, his eyes settling upon the distant church steeple rising above the rooftops. The sun reflected faintly against its cross, the only thing in town that still seemed untouched by yesterday's tragedy.
“They will,” he said quietly. “They've already tasted how easy it is.” his fingers drifted down to the revolver resting against his hip before slowly wrapping around its grip. “They made the first move, so now we wait for the second.”
Kenai pushed himself to his feet, the old wooden chair creaking beneath him. “The stakes. They're finished?”
Suguru gave a short nod. “Every one of them.”
“And sharpened?”
“They're ready.”
Kenai turned his attention to Elsu. “Bless them before nightfall. Everyone here carries one, hidden. Including the boy outside.”
Elsu inclined his head once in silent understanding.
Father Clarke rose besides Kenai, adjusting the sleeves of his cassock before making his way to the door. Just as his hand reached the doorknob, Kenai suddenly stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
“And one more thing. Until we know exactly who's responsible, the word vampire never leaves this room.”
A chorus of quiet nods answered him.
One by one they stepped outside, leaving Satoru standing alone by the window. His gaze lingered on the streets of Whiskey Falls, where the decorations from yesterday's celebration still fluttered gently in the breeze, untouched by anyone. Less than twenty-four hours ago the town had been filled with music, laughter and dancing. Now… it waited.
For the first time in almost three years, Satoru felt something stir deep within his chest.
Gabriel purred quietly on your lap as he slept, the once annoying noise now strangely comforting, giving you one of the few moments of peace you'd managed to find since yesterday. Mary lay stretched across the wooden floor with her head resting between her paws while Yuki scratched behind her ears, the dog's tail lazily thumping against the floorboards every now and then. The rest of you remained scattered throughout the living room. Manami sat nearest the window, quietly staring outside as though expecting someone to walk past at any moment. Shoko looked exhausted, slouched deep into the sofa with yet another cup of coffee in her hands, the dark circles beneath her eyes making it painfully obvious she hadn't slept. Utahime looked little better, quietly stirring her coffee despite it having long since gone cold. Even you felt like a mess, your hair refusing to stay in place no matter how many times you tucked loose strands behind your ears.
The grandfather clock quietly ticked away in the corner, its pendulum gently swaying from side to side. Besides Gabriel's purring and the occasional clink of porcelain against a spoon, nobody said a word.
Utahime was the first one to break the silence. “Well… I think it's safe to say this is the worst girls' day we've ever had.”
“That's because your standards are remarkably high.” Shoko replied.
“I am trying here.”
A tiny chuckle escaped you while Yuki quietly joined in. Even Shoko let out the faintest laugh beneath her breath, though it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Only Manami remained unmoving, her attention still fixed outside as though she hadn't heard any of you.
Around the room, nobody seemed willing to meet anyone else's eyes. Gabriel continued purring peacefully on your lap, blissfully unaware of the heaviness hanging over the house. Outside, a cool autumn breeze brushed against the windows, making the loose branches scrape softly across the glass.
Utahime's smile slowly faded. She glanced towards Manami before looking back down at her coffee, mindlessly stirring it again. “Sooo…” she dragged out the word, searching for something—anything—to keep the conversation alive. “Is there anything anyone wants to talk about?” The question came out flat, drained of its usual playfulness.
The question landed awkwardly. Nobody answered. The grandfather clock in the corner continued its steady ticking, each swing of its pendulum seeming louder than the last.
“Choso followed me to the general store this morning, said he wanted to keep an eye on me.” Yuki rolled her eyes, though there wasn't any real annoyance behind it.
“Sounds responsible.” Shoko shrugged.
“I'm twenty-six.”
That earned another small laugh around the room.
“I think it's kind of cute,” Utahime admitted.
“It is,” Yuki smiled faintly before letting out a quiet sigh. “I just don't want him thinking I'm some defenseless little girl.”
“I'm sure he doesn't. He's probably just... shaken after…” Utahime gently shook her head. She didn't need to finish it. Everyone already understood.
The warmth that Yuki's story had briefly brought into the room quietly slipped away, replaced by the grief that seemed impossible to escape. It hurt seeing your friends like that. That's when an idea quietly began to form in your mind.
“We should do something for Riko.”
Utahime tilted her head, confused. “Like what?”
“I don't know…” you gently scratched behind Gabriel's ears, watching him stretch. “My father planted a whole garden of dahlias after my mother passed away. I was thinking maybe we could do something similar.”
The room quietly considered the suggestion.
“But what?” Shoko asked after a moment.
Yuki looked up from her mug. “She loved pot-au-feu.”
You blinked. “Pot-au-feu?”
She nodded. “Her grandfather used to buy beef and vegetables from our farm whenever he wanted to make it for her. Said it was her comfort food.” she shrugged. “Apparently it's French.”
You quietly repeated the unfamiliar name to yourself.
“I know how to make it,” Yuki continued. “Maybe... we could add it to the saloon's menu. Riko's Special.”
Utahime smiled softly, the first genuine smile she'd managed all day. “Riko's Special…” she tasted the words. “I like that.” her fingers traced the rim of her mug. “She spent half her evenings playing piano there. I think she'd like it.”
Everyone's thoughts were consumed by the thought of Riko's Special. Maybe it was sufficient, even though it wasn't much. A little measure to ensure Riko wouldn't just be another name inscribed on a gravestone.
From the window Manami finally spoke. “...I still have the dress.” her eyes remained fixed outside, watching the empty street as if she were waiting for someone to appear. “I couldn't sleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I'd end up getting out of bed and looking at it again. I kept thinking maybe I'd find a loose thread somewhere... or maybe I'd forgotten a button… Anything to keep me from thinking about why she never came.”
Manami continued.
“I keep expecting to see her. She'd always run past the boutique with a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth because she overslept again.” a tear rolled down her cheek. “I'd tease her for it and she'd just laugh... apologize... then run off before I could say anything else.” she slowly shook her head. “This… this has to be some kind of cruel joke, right?”
At last she turned to face everyone. Mascara streaked her cheeks, her eyes swollen from crying.
“She's not really dead... is she?”
Manami's hopeful smile slowly began to disappear. Her eyes searched each of your faces one by one, almost expecting someone to laugh and tell her it had all been some horrible misunderstanding. That Riko had simply gotten lost. That she would burst through the front door at any moment, apologizing for worrying everyone with that shy little smile of hers.
You watched the realization slowly settle over her. Her lips trembled. She swallowed hard, as though forcing herself to accept something her heart still refused to believe. Her shoulders began to shake, and before she could stop them, tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
Utahime stood up from the sofa. She quietly crossed the room before wrapping both arms around Manami, gently resting her head against the seamstress's shoulder. “Oh, Manami…”
Yuki joined them only a second later, placing a comforting hand on her back.
“Why her? She never hurt anyone. She was always so kind... so quiet... she wouldn't even kill a spider without carrying it outside first. She was young... she had her whole life ahead of her…” Manami cried.
The room remained still. Nobody tried to offer an explanation. There wasn't one anyone could give.
Her breathing grew ragged as her hands slowly curled into fists. “I swear…” her jaw clenched so tightly it trembled. “Whoever did this…” she swallowed hard.
“Manami…” Utahime held her a little tighter.
“I know.” she immediately shook her head, ashamed of her own words. “I know, Sweetpea... I'm sorry. I just can't do this.”
“We know,” Utahime whispered, gently rubbing circles across her back. “You don't have to pretend you're okay.”
Yuki quietly nodded in agreement. “None of us are.”
Those words seemed to break whatever little strength Manami still had left. She buried her face on Utahime's shoulder, crying openly now, the quiet sobs filling the room.
Yuki lowered her head, blinking rapidly as she fought back fresh tears of her own. Shoko quietly looked away, giving Manami what little privacy she still could despite sharing the same room. Even Gabriel stirred on your lap, lifting his head .
Manami's sobs became quieter. She drew shaky breaths between them, her fingers clutching the fabric of Utahime's dress.
Utahime looked at Yuki. “Help me get her home?”
Yuki nodded without hesitation. Each woman gently took one of Manami's arms while you stood from the sofa and quietly opened the front door for them.
“Thank you,” Utahime said softly before stepping onto the porch. “We'll see you later.”
You offered a small nod. “Take care of her.”
As the three of them slowly disappeared down the front path, your heart sank. Poor Manami. She loved everyone she considered family, but those closest to her always received a nickname: Sugarplum for you, Sweetpea for Utahime, Cowgirl for Yuki, Moonshine for Shoko, Buckaroo for Suguru, and for Riko it had always been Jellybean.
You still remembered hearing her call Riko that for the first time, back when all of you had been trying so hard to convince the shy pianist to join your little circle of friends. It had taken weeks before Riko finally stopped hiding behind nervous smiles and quiet nods. Looking back now you wished those weeks had turned into years.
Soft footsteps approached from behind. Shoko rested a gentle hand upon your shoulder, drawing your attention away from the now empty street.
“I should get going too.” she offered a tired smile that barely reached her eyes. “Satoru wants the examination report finished before sunset… Thanks for the coffee.”
You quietly wished her goodbye before closing the front door. The house immediately felt larger. Quieter. Lonelier.
With a slow sigh, you wandered to the washroom and splashed cold water across your face. Tiny droplets rolled down your cheeks and chin as you stared at your own reflection in the mirror. The past few months had become one long blur. First came everything that happened in Sourwater and your father's refusal to tell you what was really going on. Then he vanished for an entire week, only to return home with two strangers. The very same night, three more mysterious men appeared in Whiskey Falls. Just when life finally seemed to settle again, Naoya became increasingly persistent in courting you. Your father's health slowly worsened until the stroke finally came. And now… Riko. It felt as though life refused to give you a moment to breathe. Every time one storm finally passed, another gathered before the skies had the chance to clear. One wave after another, each crashing harder than the last until you no longer knew how much more you could withstand.
Your fingers tightened around the edge of the basin. It was exhausting, physically and emotionally.
After drying your face with a towel, you took one final look at yourself in the mirror before quietly making your way back to the front door. You needed air. If only for a little while.
Your boots dragged quietly through the dirt road, crushing stray pieces of confetti and wilted flower petals beneath each step. Empty beer bottles, forgotten decorations and the remnants of the celebration remained scattered throughout Whiskey Falls as though nobody had found the strength to clean them away. Garlands still hung between balconies, colorful banners fluttered lazily in the autumn breeze, and paper streamers swayed softly overhead, their faded colors looking strangely lifeless beneath the gray afternoon sky.
Your eyes wandered from one storefront to the next. Only a handful of townsfolk remained outside, each walking with hurried steps and lowered heads, eager to return home before night settled over the valley. One by one the familiar sounds of the town disappeared. Shutters slammed closed. Locks clicked into place. Even the gunsmith's had already gone cold. Your fingers instinctively tightened around the rosary resting inside your palm, the beads pressing against your skin.
As you passed the saloon, your pace slowed. Through the dusty windows you counted barely ten people inside. Most were the usual drunkards who seemed more interested in the bottom of their bottles than the fear quietly spreading through town. The cheerful melodies that had filled the room had been replaced by little more than muffled conversation and the occasional clink of glass.
You continued walking in direction to the church. If there was anywhere the townsfolk would gather today, it would be there. After everything that had happened, a meeting was almost inevitable. Just then the saloon doors creaked open. You glanced over your shoulder. Sukuna stepped outside. The moment his red eyes found you, he quietly crossed the street until he fell into step besides you.
“Didn't expect to see you out today,” he said.
“I needed to clear my head.” you looked to the buildings in the distance. “Besides there's a town meeting.”
“Ah.” his hands disappeared into his pockets. “Is that where everyone is?”
You shrugged. “Probably. If they're not there… they're likely too afraid to leave their homes.”
Sukuna didn’t say anything. Only your footsteps filled the silence while the distant tolling of the church bell carried softly through the valley.
“Are you?” he asked.
You hadn't expected that question. Your steps slowed almost without realizing it. The rosary dug deeper into your palm as your fingers instinctively tightened around it.
You hesitated. “...Very …Terrified, actually.”
Sukuna kept his eyes fixed ahead, though you couldn't shake the feeling that he was watching you from the corner of his eye. “What are you afraid of?”
A quiet laugh escaped you. Not because anything was funny, but because you didn't know where to begin.
“Everything.”
The autumn wind stirred the abandoned decorations overhead.
“...I'm afraid they'll find another body.” you swallowed. “I'm afraid whoever did this is still walking around Whiskey Falls like nothing happened. And… I'm afraid one day it'll be somebody I love.”
Sukuna remained silent. He didn't interrupt. He didn't offer empty reassurance. He simply listened.
“Whiskey Falls has always felt…” you searched for the right word. “...safe. Everyone knows everyone. Parents never worried if their children stayed out after sunset. People forget to lock their doors. You'd leave something outside and it'd still be there the next morning… probably…” your eyes lowered to the road. “It's the reason father decided to stay here. Now… everyone looks at each other differently.”
Another few steps passed before Sukuna spoke. “Even me?”
You looked at him, surprised. The question had come so quietly you almost wondered if you'd imagined it.
“No.” the answer came without hesitation. A faint smile touched your lips. “Not you.”
He looked away.
“Why?”
You thought about it longer than you expected. “I don't know.” your shoulders rose in a small shrug. “Maybe because I've gotten to know you, or maybe I just want to believe there are still good people in the world.”
Something flickered across Sukuna's face. Gone almost as quickly as it appeared. He looked ahead once more.
“You shouldn't lose that.”
You blinked. “Hm?”
“The part of you that still believes people are good.” his voice remained calm. “It's rare.”
You studied him quietly. “...Do you?”
He didn't answer immediately. His gaze wandered towards the mountains in the far distance.
“I think people become whatever they have to.”
His answer lingered in your mind. Before you could ask what he meant the church bells rang again, louder this time. The meeting was beginning. You looked ahead. The church now stood only a short walk away.
Turning back to Sukuna, you offered him another small smile. “Looks like they're starting.”
He followed your gaze.
“Are you coming?”
Sukuna looked back at town. “Maybe later. I still have to find Choso and Toji.”
“Alright.” you began walking backwards for a few steps, smiling just a little more genuinely this time. “I'll be waiting for you.”
Sukuna nodded just a little as he made his way back into town. You looked towards the church. Neither of you turned around. Neither of you noticed… that this would be the last peaceful conversation you two would ever share.
The moon had long since climbed above the mountains by the time everyone arrived at church. Its pale light bathed Whiskey Falls in silver, washing away what little warmth remained from the day. No stars dotted the sky tonight. Only the moon watched from above, hanging silently over the valley as though bearing witness to everything unfolding below.
Warm candlelight spilled through the stained-glass windows, flickering softly against the wooden walls. Even before reaching the front steps, voices carried through the open doors. Frightened voices. Worried voices. The kind born from sleepless nights and unanswered questions.
Almost the entire town had gathered inside.
The sanctuary had become crowded long before the meeting began. Some people remained seated in the pews, rosaries and crosses clutched tightly between trembling fingers while they whispered quiet prayers beneath their breath. Others stood in the aisles speaking over one another, desperately trying to find answers where none yet existed. Mothers held their children close, elderly couples refused to let go of each other's hands, and neighbors who only yesterday had been laughing together at the festival now exchanged uneasy glances, searching each other's faces for reassurance.
At the back of the church, Father Clarke and Satoru did everything they could to restore some sense of order, patiently answering one question only for two more to follow. Junpei and several of the deacons moved through the congregation, gently encouraging everyone to take their seats, while Suguru sat quietly with Kenai and Elsu, saying very little as they watched the frightened townsfolk.
“Please... everyone, take your seats,” Junpei repeated as he carefully guided another family to an empty pew. “Father Clarke will begin shortly.”
You quietly slipped into one of the chairs, careful not to disturb those already seated. The familiar scent of melted candle wax and old wood filled the air, strangely comforting despite everything that had happened. You looked around the sanctuary, faces you had known your entire life now seemed different somehow. Fear had settled over Whiskey Falls like a heavy fog, changing the way people looked at one another.
It took nearly ten minutes before the restless murmuring finally faded. One conversation ended, then another. Chairs stopped scraping on the floor. The whispers dissolved into silence until only the occasional crackle of candle flames and the distant chirping of crickets outside could be heard.
Father Clarke stepped away from the altar. He simply looked at his congregation, his people. Many of them had been baptized by his own hands. He had celebrated their weddings, buried their loved ones, watched their children grow into adults. Tonight, every face looking back at him carried the same question.
The old priest folded his hands together. “My dear brothers and sisters…” his voice was gentle, though the weariness behind it was impossible to hide. “I know your hearts are heavy tonight. Mine is too.”
The church remained perfectly still.
“What happened to Riko Amanai was a tragedy. A wound that every soul in this town now carries together.” he paused, drawing in a slow breath. “But tragedy is not proof that God has abandoned us.”
Almost immediately, a woman seated near the center of the church raised her trembling hand.
“Father… why would the Lord allow this to happen?” she asked, her voice barely holding together.
Before Father Clarke could answer, another voice rose from somewhere farther back.
“Was she being punished?”
A loud smack echoed through the church as someone slapped the man's shoulder. “Don't say foolish things.”
“Then why?” another called out.
“Is this a test? Have we become sinful?”
“I haven't seen anything like this since my grandfather spoke about the great fever.”
“This is worse.”
“But why would God punish an innocent soul?”
Questions rose from every corner of the sanctuary until they blended into one another, each born from the same fear that none of them could name.
Father Clarke closed his eyes, pressing two fingers gently against his forehead before raising a hand for silence.
“Enough.” his voice wasn't loud, it didn't need to be.
The murmurs faded again until the church became quiet. Father Clarke looked across the congregation, meeting as many frightened faces as he could.
“I know many of you are searching for an answer. When tragedy enters our lives, our first instinct is to ask why. Why would the Lord allow such suffering? Why would He take someone so young? Why would He permit evil to walk among good people?” he paused, allowing the questions to settle over the congregation. “I wish I could answer every one of those questions tonight, but I cannot.”
The confession surprised the room.
“I am only a servant of God. I do not pretend to understand every part of His will. There are nights when even I struggle to make sense of suffering.” he looked down briefly before lifting his eyes. “Faith is not believing because we have all the answers. Faith is continuing to believe even when we have none.”
The congregation listened quietly.
“Do not allow fear to become your shepherd. Fear whispers that your neighbor is your enemy. It tells us to close our doors, to distrust one another, to believe that evil hides behind every familiar face, but fear has always desired one thing.” he paused. “To divide us.”
He continued.
“If we allow fear to rule our hearts, then whatever darkness has come upon this town has already won.” his gaze wandered across the pews, lingering on the children seated besides their parents. “We cannot answer hatred with hatred, nor suspicion with more suspicion. We must remain what this town has always been, a family.”
A little boy near the front timidly raised his hand. “Father…”
Clarke smiled gently. “Yes, my son?”
The child hesitated before quietly asking, “Will God keep us safe?”
The old priest's expression softened. He stepped away from the pulpit and knelt so he was nearly at the boy's eye level.
“God has never promised us a life without hardship, but He has promised that no matter how dark the valley becomes…” he gently rested a hand upon the child's shoulder. “...we never walk through it alone.”
The little boy nodded. Father Clarke stood once before facing the congregation.
“So tonight… hold your loved ones a little closer. Forgive old arguments. Mend broken friendships. Tell the people you love that you love them. Because tomorrow is a gift none of us are promised.” he said quietly.
The words lingered heavily throughout the church. You noticed several people instinctively reaching for one another's hands. Parents embraced their children. Husbands wrapped an arm around their wives. Neighbors quietly exchanged reassuring smiles. Just for this moment the fear that had settled over Whiskey Falls seemed a little lighter.
Satoru stepped next to Father Clarke, allowing the silence to linger a few seconds longer before speaking. “Until we know who's responsible, nobody walks alone after dark.”
The comforting atmosphere slowly shifted back to reality.
“Always keep someone with you. After sundown there'll be a curfew until sunrise. Stay away from the forest, the river and anywhere isolated. Lock your doors before nightfall. If you own a firearm or any means of protecting yourselves, keep it nearby. And for anyone who doesn't feel safe in their own home Father Clarke has agreed to keep the church doors open.”
The congregation collectively let out a breath they hadn't realized they'd been holding. Some quietly made the sign of the cross while others lowered their heads, whispering prayers underneath their breath. Rosary beads clicked in trembling fingers as the conversations began replacing the silence. Though the fear hadn't disappeared completely, Father Clarke's words had managed to steady their hearts, if only for a little.
From every corner of the church came hushed voices. People embraced one another, promising to walk home together after the meeting. Parents pulled their children closer, smoothing their hair or kissing their foreheads. Elderly couples remained seated, their weathered hands intertwined as though afraid to let go. Since yesterday's tragedy, the church almost resembled what it had always been—a place of refuge.
Just then, the heavy wooden doors at the back of the church slowly creaked open. The entire congregation instinctively glanced at the entrance. Naobito Zenin stepped inside first, removing his hat as a gesture of respect before quietly making his way down the aisle. After him walked Naoya, his expression as boring as ever, followed closely by the rest of the Zenin family. Though they had arrived late, nobody questioned it. A few townsfolk simply nodded politely before returning to their conversations.
The Zenins quietly settled into one of the back pews. From where you sat, you could feel Naoya's eyes briefly drift to you. Only for a second, then he looked away again. You thought little of it.
Father Clarke slowly looked across the congregation, allowing the silence to linger for several moments before lowering his head.
“Brothers and sisters, let us bow our heads in prayer.”
Almost instinctively the entire congregation followed. The church fell so silent that the only sounds left were the quiet crackling of candle flames and crickets outside.
“Heavenly Father,” Clarke began, his voice carrying gently throughout the church, “tonight we come before You not with certainty, but with fear. We do not understand why suffering visits our homes or why grief so often arrives without warning. There are moments, Lord, when even Your servants struggle to understand Your will. Tonight is one of those moments.”
He paused, drawing in a slow breath.
“But though our hearts tremble, let them not be consumed by despair. Remind us that darkness has never overcome Your light, and that even in the deepest valleys, You continue walking besides Your children.”
The church listened to the prayer.
“Lord, You are our refuge and our fortress. Though we walk through the valley overshadowed by death, remind us that we do not walk it alone. Strengthen the fearful. Comfort the grieving. Protect the innocent. And if darkness walks among us this night… let Your light remain stronger still.”
He took another breath before continuing.
“Where fear tempts us to turn against our neighbors, grant us compassion instead of suspicion. Where grief seeks to divide us, bind us closer together. Watch over every family gathered here tonight, every child sleeping beneath these rooftops, every soul mourning the loss of one of our own, and should tomorrow bring another trial, grant us the courage to face it together.”
“Amen.”
“Amen,” the congregation answered in perfect unison.
The prayer seemed to settle over the church like a blanket. People slowly lifted their heads, many quietly making the sign of the cross before embracing their loved ones. The anxious murmurs returned, though noticeably softer now. Some approached Father Clarke with more questions while others gathered around Satoru, eager to hear more about the curfew. Even Kenai and Elsu found themselves surrounded by frightened townsfolk asking what they should do to protect their families.
The crowded sanctuary suddenly felt smaller. Hotter. Your chest tightened. You quietly excused yourself from the pew and slipped between the crowd, whispering soft apologies whenever you brushed past someone's shoulder. The farther you moved from the center of the church, the easier it became to breathe. By the time you reached the entrance, the cool air drifting through the open doorway felt inviting.
You stepped outside, drawing in a slow, steady breath. The night greeted you with silence. Moonlight spilled across the wooden porch, bathing the church steps in white while the surrounding valley rested beneath a sky empty of stars. The cool breeze carried the scent of pine, gently brushing loose strands of hair away from your face. Behind you, the muffled voices from inside the church blended into a distant hum, softened by the heavy wooden doors.
Everything felt quiet, until you noticed something, a man wearing a black cowboy hat. Sukuna stood a short distance from the porch, his hands tucked loosely between his pant as he looked at the church. He wasn't doing anything. He simply stood there, almost as though debating whether to walk any closer.
You tilted your head slightly. “You didn't come inside?”
He looked up at you, the warm candlelight spilling from the church behind you and framing your silhouette.
“Didn't seem appropriate,” he answered with a small shrug. “Didn't want to interrupt.”
A quiet laugh escaped you. “Don't be foolish.”
A faint chuckle rumbled from his chest. The sound felt strangely comforting.
You stepped farther onto the porch, resting your shoulder on the wooden doorframe while the muffled conversations from inside drifted into the night.
“You missed the sermon.”
“I've heard enough sermons for several lifetimes.”
You smiled. “I somehow don't doubt that.”
The silence between you two wasn't uncomfortable. It never seemed to be anymore.
“It feels strange,” you admitted quietly.
“What does?”
“Everything.”
Sukuna followed your gaze. “People are grieving.”
“I know. I just wish…” you looked down at your boots. “...I wish things could go back to how they were.”
“So do I.” the answer came so naturally that even Sukuna seemed surprised he'd spoken.
You looked back up at him. “You know… when you first came to Whiskey Falls, I thought you were terrifying.”
“Were?”
“Well…” you pretended to think. “You're still a little intimidating.”
He snorted. “But now?”
You shrugged. “Now I just think you're misunderstood.”
Something flickered across his face. Gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
“I was wrong about you, I judged you before I even knew you.” you smiled softly. “I'm glad I gave you a chance.”
Sukuna’s crimson eyes lingered on you longer than usual. “...Thank you.” his voice was so quiet you almost missed it.
Before either of you could say anything else, you looked around. “Choso and Toji didn't come with you?”
“Nah, they should be here soon.”
“I see.” you glanced back. “Well everyone else is inside.”
“I noticed.”
You smiled. “Then why are you still standing there like some lost puppy?”
A crooked smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Wasn't too sure I'd be welcomed.”
You rolled your eyes. “Everyone's welcomed.”
His smile changed, it became smaller, almost hesitant, then he said, “Is that an invitation?”
You laughed. “Don't start acting like Toji now.”
“I'm serious.” he took one slow step towards the porch. “I want to hear you say it.”
You opened your mouth to answer, but before you could speak another voice interrupted.
“Why?”
Both of you turned. Naoya stood inside the doorway, next to you. His eyes were fixed entirely on Sukuna.
“Why do you need to hear her say it?”
Sukuna's teasing smile disappeared. “What?”
“You heard me.” Naoya slowly descended the church steps. “Why do you need her to invite you inside?”
Sukuna didn't answer. His jaw slowly tightened.
Naoya studied him longer than a minute before slipping a hand into his pocket. “You know… I've been reading an interesting book these past few days.” he said casually.
“What?”
“Folklore.” his fingers searched through the pocket. “It talked about all kinds of creatures: the chupacabra, the banshee, the wendigo, the aswang, the minotaur, all different kinds of monsters.” he smiled. “But my favorites were the werewolves and the night drinkers.”
Naoya’s eyes never left Sukuna’s. “So I’m wondering which one you are.”
Sukuna's expression darkened. Naoya quickly removed something from his pocket, a silver knife, and lunged forward. The knife pressed firmly against Sukuna's cheek, drawing blood.
The reaction was immediate. A sharp hiss tore through the night. Smoke burst from where the blade met flesh, curling upwards into the cold air as the sickening smell of burning skin filled the church porch. Blood dripped down from his cheek.
Sukuna staggered back, one hand flying to the wound.
Your heart stopped. “...What…”
The conversations inside the church instantly ceased. Every head turned to the entrance. Behind Sukuna, Choso and Toji had just appeared a few steps away. They froze where they stood, their expressions hardening the moment they saw the smoke rising from the vampire’s face.
Slowly pain gave way to something else. His crimson eyes deepened until they resembled old blood. The pupils narrowed, slitting and predatory. Sukuna lowered his hand. His gaze settled upon Naoya.
“Boy…”
The voice no longer sounded human. It was colder. Older. Something ancient stirred beneath every word.
“I'm going to kill you.”
Panic erupted. Someone screamed. Children burst into tears. Pews scraped violently across the wooden floor as the congregation scrambled away from the entrance.
“Close the doors!” Father Clarke's voice thundered through the church. The deacons rushed forward without hesitation, each grabbing one of the heavy wooden doors.
You couldn't move. Your eyes remained locked on Sukuna. On the smoke still rising from his skin. On the burn that refused to heal.
Naoya grabbed your arms, pulling you backwards. The church doors began to close. For one fleeting moment your eyes met Sukuna's, not with anger, not with hatred, but with something else, something you couldn't understand.
The doors slammed shut, separating the two of you. The sound echoed through the sanctuary. You barely heard it. Your mind had already begun unraveling. The walks home. The quiet conversations. The afternoons spent together. The way he always slowed his pace to match yours. The dance. His laugh. The way he looked at you just seconds ago. Every memory shattered beneath a single realization. The man you had slowly, quietly begun falling in love with… was the very same monster everyone had been praying to be saved from.
⁀➷ summary: ryomen sukuna has been in jail for 9 years, 3 months, and 27 days...not that he's counting. sentenced to 20 years for a crime he doesn't regret committing, life has become so monotonous and dull that he barely feels alive. it isn't until he receives a letter from someone for the first time since he's been locked up that he feels even a shred of emotion...and he's not sure if he likes that. forced to be part of the prison penpal program in order to be considered for parole, sukuna slowly unravels his defenses with each letter received. perhaps there might be something worth looking forward to after all.
⁀➷ pairing: prisoner!sukuna x penpal!fem!reader
⁀➷ tags: prison au, penpals to reluctant friends to lovers, grumpy x sunshine-ish, probably ooc, slight age gap (reader is mid twenties, sukuna is early 30s), yearning, angst, slowburn, eventual smut, mentions of death, prison, minimal use of y/n in letters only, fluff-adjacent, awkward phone calls, social anxiety from reader, self-deprecation, sukuna is royally screwed (not literally), that's for later ;)
⁀➷ wc: 5.4k
⁀➷ warning: minors/ageless blogs: do not interact!
⁀➷ taglist: open, bio/pinned must confirm age
series masterlist
For the next few months, you and Ryomen continued to exchange letters. What started as stilted and a little awkward correspondence quickly melted into something like familiarity. You could tell by the way his language changed that Ryomen was starting to relax a little and become accustomed to your written presence. Though, you still could not say for sure if the two of you counted as friends. Even as much as you wanted to be.
You really liked Ryomen. He was insightful, sarcastic, interesting, and really funny when he wanted to be. He listened without judgement and offered advice, sometimes unsolicited but still good nonetheless. The man was honest to a fault, and you found that refreshing given that you worked with defense lawyers who had to stretch the truth often.
Every time you got a letter from him, you couldn’t help but smile like an idiot, your cheeks tinging pink. You tried not to read into the sheer happiness that the letters gave you. Tried to tell yourself that there was nothing special about this. Moreso, that you were probably not anything special to Ryomen. But, god was it hard.
His most recent letter was putting this flimsy belief system to the test.
Hey [Y/N],
Glad to hear that things are slowing down at work for you. Being overworked and stressed isn’t fun, and isn’t good for you. Hopefully that pace stays the same and you can find some time for yourself. Maybe you can take up a hobby or something, I dunno. Keep yourself busy so your brain doesn’t rot from all the accounting work you do. I’ve heard that doing math can be bad for your health. At least, that’s how I felt in school. I was always shit at math.
When you mentioned your favorite movie, it made me think of my brother. I haven’t seen Pride & Prejudice, but it’s probably not really my thing. I think it's a romance movie and the feel good stuff doesn’t really do it for me. I can see the appeal, though, if that is the sort of thing you like.
My brother’s favorite movie was Human Earthworm. Ever seen it? If you haven’t yet, don’t. It’s absolutely god awful. Worst movie I’ve ever seen. But my brother loved it so much and made me watch it a thousand times. I think I could still recite it from memory. And there’s like five of them. I swear my brother funded most of the damn series with the amount of times he bought tickets and movie merch.
Things over here are obviously slow. October is a weird month for me. My birthday is on the 25th and I hate celebrating it. It just reminds me that I’m stuck here in this stupid cell wasting away and that I’m not getting any younger. My dad sometimes calls me or sends me a few bucks, but otherwise I don’t do shit for it. I can’t even remember the last time I actually celebrated it. Doesn’t feel like there’s really much to celebrate anyway.
It also reminds me that I get the luxury of growing older while Yuji didn’t. Just sucks all around. I’m going to be 33 this year so I’ll have to head into retirement soon. I know they say 33 isn’t old but I feel ancient here. So this year I’ll be throwing myself a pity-party. You’re welcome to join.
Hope your month goes better. Doing anything for Halloween? That’s coming up soon. Yuji always dressed up as the dumbass Human Earthworm unsurprisingly. Sorry I keep talking about him, he’s just been on my mind a lot lately. My go-to was usually Ghostface (the guy from Scream if you aren’t sure who that is). What do you usually dress up as?
Whatever you decide to do, hope it’s fun. You deserve some fun.
Take care and talk soon.
R.S.
Talk soon, he wrote. It made your stomach flutter with happiness. The fact that he wanted to keep talking and clearly stated it out for you meant more than he would ever know. It was such a small thing, but it really warmed your heart. Your ex-boyfriend had sometimes made you feel like a chore or inconvenience, and knowing that someone wanted your attention in some way was affirming.
Even though he had started these letters by initially saying you two were not going to be friends, it was hard not to consider the way you talked to each other as anything but friendship. You could actually read and track the changes in his letters. When things started becoming more casual and more of his personality came out instead of being distant and matter-of-fact.
Take care. Ryomen often wished you well and told you to take care of yourself. Sure, he could have just been a polite or decent person, but something told you that this wasn’t typical. That Ryomen did not waste his breath or time on things that didn’t matter to him. In some capacity, you had to matter at least a little bit.
And the scarier, more thrilling thing was that he mattered a lot to you. Anymore, you thought about him often, wondering what he was doing and if he was feeling okay. It was silly, but sometimes you tried to visualize sending him good vibes or positive thoughts through the air, hoping that he could feel someone rooting for him. Ryomen seemed so alone, sometimes, and knowing how that felt made you want to fix that for him.
His birthday was coming up in the next week and he mentioned that he usually celebrated it alone. The thought tugged at your heart, because nobody should have to celebrate their birthday alone. Especially not Ryomen, when he was already going through a hard time and in one of the worst places one could find themselves.
An idea wriggled in your head like a parasite, whispering to you that maybe it could be a new thing to try. You were going to call Ryomen and wish him a happy birthday. To talk to him on the phone for the first time and hear his voice in real time.
Doing so would not only (hopefully) be a positive thing for him, but you hoped it would also help strengthen your social skills. While you still hadn’t had the courage to talk to your coworkers casually, writing to Ryomen had slowly started to build your confidence on interacting with people. Sometimes, you even shared pleasant looks and smiles with your coworkers! Perhaps if you actually talked to him, it might give you the boost that you needed to move forward in other aspects of your life.
The entire rest of the week, you actually scripted and wrote down your conversation plans with him, even going as far as to create a decision tree for different responses that he might have. You were absolutely overthinking everything, but you were determined for this to go as smoothly as possible. It was imperative to make a good first impression, as you desperately wanted Ryomen’s approval. Though it was probably unhealthy, you at least had to be honest with yourself about it.
The closer it got to his birthday, the more antsy and out of sorts you became. To try to distract yourself, you practiced your knitting skills during your breaks and in the evenings. Counting stitches became an easy repetitive action that soothed your fretting. It was your first time working on a sweater as a Christmas present for your mom, so focusing on the unfamiliar pattern further captured your attention.
There were a few times when your knitting caught a few curious glances from your coworkers, which counted as a win in your book. It meant that either you or one of them was one step closer to interacting and bridging the gap. Perhaps calling Ryomen was going to be the magic variable in the equation that would finally solve it after a long period of struggling to figure it out.
On Ryomen’s birthday, your attempt to call him did not go exactly as planned. Each step was detailed down to the minute, and you had hoped that the extensive preparation would set you up for success and be foolproof.
What you hadn’t anticipated, however, was the fact that it was apparently frowned upon to call the prison yourself. In all of your planning, you hadn’t even considered the fact that prisoners weren’t exactly immediately available to answer a phone call. They certainly didn’t have any phones or communication devices in their cells, and you could imagine that trying to use the communal phones was quite competitive.
Yet still, unknowingly, at 12:05pm you had called in and got connected with an operator. They identified the name of the prison he was housed at, confirming you had called the correct number.
“How can I assist you today?” a feminine sounding voice said on the other end of the line, sounding bored and like they had had a particularly long shift.
“Yes, I was hoping to be connected with one of your inmates there, Ryomen Sukuna. His inmate number is 0032147,” you recited by memory, voice slightly shaky with nerves.
“Oh,” the person sounded slightly surprised, making your heart stutter, “Well, unfortunately ma’am, calls into the prison are strictly prohibited. Calls have to be initiated by the inmate with approved phone time.”
Your stomach dropped into your feet. Shit, you thought in panic. Sure, you could respond to his next letter, but that would be after his birthday and you were really hoping to talk to him on the actual day. Scrambling to think of a response, you didn’t immediately say anything as you wracked your brain for solutions.
“Ma’am, are you still there?” the operator asked when you remained silent in distress. You really should have planned for this, you chastised yourself internally.
“Yes, sorry,” you spluttered, operating on pure instinct with your next words, “Is there any way you could get a message to him? I was really hoping to speak with him because it’s his birthday today.”
There was a moment of silence as the operator considered this. You felt stupid for even asking because you had clearly violated their rules and were now asking for special treatment. This is why spontaneity and last minute ideas were not exactly your strong suit. Even though the spontaneity in question had been a week in advance.
“Normally, we wouldn’t really do that, but I suppose I can make an exception this time,” they said finally, “I can’t make any guarantees that it’ll get to him, but I will do my best. What would you like to say?”
Relief coursed through your body so strongly that you swore you were going to start crying. The message needed to be brief but to also get your point across. Thinking on your feet was not a talent of yours, especially when you were under pressure.
“Um, just tell him that I’m wishing him a happy birthday and that I’d love to talk with him over the phone if he’s comfortable,” you settled on.
After that, you gave the operator your full name and phone number and they repeated that they would do their best but there were no guarantees. The second you got off the phone, you slumped over on your couch with a frustrated sigh. There was likely no way you were going to get to speak to him on his birthday.
Perhaps it really wasn’t meant to be. Perhaps you were forcing something that shouldn’t be, doomed to repeat the same mistakes as your last relationship. The more you thought about it, the worse you felt. You should have asked him first or looked up the stupid rules that the prison had for phone calls. They were ridiculous rules, really.
It was also presumptuous to think that he actually wanted to talk to you in the first place. As the day went on, you fully convinced yourself that you were delusional and that you shouldn’t have left that message. Unease bled through you when you thought that maybe he would consider this as crossing a boundary. He had never once indicated he wanted to talk to you in real life, and you selfishly assumed that he would magically be okay with it. Grateful, even.
Your mind worked itself into knots, twisting and turning between logic and irrationality like a roller coaster from the bowels of hell. Even knitting didn’t help distract you, as you were unable to get over the fact that you had potentially ruined everything with Ryomen. The first person that you had felt some sort of connection with since your breakup. The thought alone was devastating.
So engrossed were you in your hellscape of a mind that you didn’t think twice when your phone rang. You picked it up on instinct, assuming in your distracted state that it was your mother or a telemarketer, whom you never had the heart to hang up on. They were just doing their jobs, after all.
A robotic voice crackled through the phone announcing that it was from the prison, with a disclaimer that the call was being recorded and monitored. Your heart almost stopped beating in your chest. When it asked if you still wished to proceed, the poor muscle leapt in your throat, making it almost impossible to speak.
“Yes!” you nearly shouted in response, desperately trying to cling to any semblance that not all hope was lost.
“Confirmed. Connecting to inmate number 0-0-0-3-2-1-4-7,” the voice slowly sounded out. Impatience made you twitchy and you almost shouted at a literal robot to hurry the hell up. Not exactly your finest moment.
Then, the line ceased its fuzzy, electronic hum. Your pulse raced through your veins like a stallion running in the wild, tossing its head around in agitation. Anticipation crept up your spine until you thought you might snap into two pieces.
“Hello?”
It was Ryomen. His voice was a lot deeper than you had imagined, gruff around the edges in what you had to assume was a response to being in prison for a long period of time. He sounded like someone whose bad side you did not want to get on. Yet, there didn’t appear to be any malice or annoyance in his tone. At least, you didn’t think so. It was hard to tell from a single word.
Your mind went blank. It was actually Ryomen. He was on the phone speaking to you. It wasn’t a figment of your imagination or a dream you were having. You even pinched yourself to check. When you heard him calling your name in a searching manner, you realized you hadn’t even responded to his hello.
“You still there? This the right number?” he pressed, snapping you out of your internal reverie.
“Hi!” You blurted out, sounding like a bird chirping in alarm. It made you wince in embarrassment, but you powered through it, “Hi, yes, it’s me. Did you get my message?”
The second the words left your mouth, you instantly felt foolish. Of course he had gotten your message, that was the entire reason he was calling. A blush warmed your cheeks when you swore you heard a soft huff of air like a half-chuckle on the other end of the line. God, you were an idiot.
“Yeah, I did,” Ryomen said. Again, it was hard to read his tone, but it didn’t seem like he was making fun of you. Maybe more like he was mildly amused with your antics.
“Oh, that-that’s good,” you stammered, further adding to your growing list of humiliating things that were happening during the phone call.
In all of your preparation, you hadn’t actually imagined how nerve wracking and emotional it would be to talk to him. Sure, you had scripted what you wanted to say, but you hadn’t imagined actually saying it. Your voice sounded squeaky and unsure despite how hard you tried to keep it controlled. All of your scripting had been thrown out the window.
“What did-”
“I just wanted-”
Both of you spoke at the same time and instantly went quiet when you realized you had interrupted each other. At this point, you wouldn’t have been surprised if Ryomen never wanted to speak to you again. After an awkward pause, he was the one to break it first.
“Go ahead,” Ryomen said.
“Oh, um, sorry, I just wanted to say happy birthday,” you said quickly, “I hope it’s been okay.”
“Thanks,” he responded, his voice becoming something that you almost could’ve categorized as gentle, “It’s been…a day, I guess. Same as any other day.”
“Good, at least, I think that’s good. Sorry, I know this is kind of out of the blue, and I probably should have checked with you first, but I read your letter and I just thought it would be nice to call you on your birthday because I…just thought it would be nice to do it by phone and talk to you,” your words tumbled into one another like rocks down a cliff. None of it really made sense and you probably sounded like an incoherent fool.
“You didn’t have to,” he said after a moment. Your blood ran cold. The only possible reason he would say that is because you had upset him, right?
“I’m so sorry, I should have-” you started to say, but he actually cut you off, much to your shock.
“Hey, stop apologizing. It’s fine. It is a nice gesture,” Ryomen reassured you in that almost monotone manner of his, “I usually only speak to my dad and he didn’t call this year.”
You wondered if you were the only person who had wished Ryomen a happy birthday today. If he had any friends on the inside that would pat him on the back or whatever it was that men did to celebrate each other. If he and his dad had a good relationship or not. If he was disappointed by the fact that his dad didn’t call. If he was grateful that you did.
Scrambling to think of anything to say, you again completely forgot about your script entirely and blundered down the path of the conversation like Sisyphus' cursed rock.
“Did you do anything fun?” you asked suddenly.
It was like you had no control over your mind or tongue at all. What an utterly ridiculous question, you winced. He was in prison for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like they threw him a party at an amusement park with a paper crown on his head or took him to a bar to celebrate and do shots.
“Kinda hard to do anything fun in here,” he answered with another huff that you hoped was laughter and was not a frustrated admonishment of your poor conversation skills.
“No, right, of course. That…maybe that wasn’t the best question, sorry,” you mumbled, seconds away from banging your head against the coffee table in front of you.
There was a brief pause, and you actually thought about lying and saying you had something important to do so you could put him out of his misery and end the call, when he broke the silence once more.
“You always apologize that much?” he asked simply.
Nobody had ever pointed such a thing out to you, yet in this conversation alone you realized that you had apologized at least four times in the span of five minutes. If you really thought about it, you often did apologize to people. Especially to people you cared about or people at work. The amount of times you had apologized to Hiromi for bothering him had to be some sort of world record.
“Oh…I never really noticed,” you admitted sheepishly.
“Yeah. You keep apologizing for shit you don’t need to,” Ryomen said firmly. It didn’t sound like he was admonishing you, but you still felt like you were being scolded in a way.
“God, I’m sorry, that’s so ridiculous,” you lamented, putting your head in your hand with a sigh.
“You just apologized again,” he pointed out.
“I did? Sorry - dammit!” you swore as you caught yourself, pinching the bridge of your nose.
Then, Ryomen actually laughed. It wasn’t an ambiguous huff of air or even a slight chuckle. It was an actual laugh that made your insides feel warm and gooey. You had made Ryomen Sukuna laugh. It felt like you hadn’t made an actual person laugh in years. It was brief, but warm and rich with the timbre of his soothing voice.
“You’re fine, it’s all good,” he said, then sounding slightly hesitant, he asked, “How was your week?”
What started as a stilted, awkward conversation blended into something far more comfortable. The more you talked to him, the more it felt like you were slipping into a cozy cocoon of familiarity. Even if it wasn’t supposed to, it did feel remarkably like the two of you were old friends catching up. While his initial demeanor had been gruff and slightly intimidating if you were being honest, you found that to be mostly a facade. So far, your conversation with Ryomen made you feel…safe, in a way.
The phone call ended up lasting almost thirty minutes on the dot before Ryomen had announced that he needed to leave. Apparently phone call time was strictly enforced due to the popularity of it and he had already gone past his allotted time. Saying goodbye felt intrinsically wrong, but there was something like the hint of a promise as you disconnected the call that you couldn’t ignore.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Ryomen Sukuna had broken several of his major rules for human interaction, especially the ones he had arbitrarily made up for you in his head. The first being that he had actually returned your damn message.
His birthday had begun like any other abysmal day at that stupid prison. Sukuna had awoken in a foul mood that was typical for his birthdays, but something about this year had felt particularly offensive and annoying. Perhaps it was everything that had been brought up while exchanging letters with you and his recent nightmares about Yuji’s death that had made the entire affair more sour than usual.
On top of that, that dumbass Noaya seemed like he was up to something. Every time Sukuna happened to glance near him in the lunchrooms or in the courtyard, the motherfucker looked like he was scheming. Plotting. Talking with people whom Sukuna had had prior run-ins with in the past. It didn’t sit well with him.
On top of that, his father didn’t call this year. It wasn’t like they were particularly close or anything. Sukuna knew that Jin blamed him for Yuji’s death; most of his family did. Nobody had been shy about stating as such, and none of them had ever visited him in prison. In a way, he didn’t fault them for that. Sukuna mostly blamed himself, too.
His dad calling each year was a constant that he could rely on, even if they didn’t talk about anything of value. It was his one connection to the outside world, his outside world that he had previously known. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had actually been disappointed when his father didn’t call for once.
Briefly, he wondered if something bad had happened, but quickly dismissed that line of thinking. He was probably busy or had just decided to finally fuck off and leave Sukuna in the dust. If something bad had happened, none of the family would likely reach out, and there wasn’t really much he could do from in there. It would also just depress him to think about, so he did what he was used to with most emotional topics: stopped fucking thinking about it and shoved it as far away in his psyche as he could manage.
Imagine his surprise when the inmate who distributed mail had slid a piece of note paper through the bars of his cell later that day. It wasn’t a letter like he was used to expecting, and it was a bit soon for your response to his previous one. No, it was a memo from the prison phone operators from you. You had tried to call him.
It didn’t compute in his brain at first. Why the hell would you want to call him? The two of you had never discussed anything like that. Sukuna had been very careful not to do so. Had been very careful not to delve into any line of thinking that what you had between the two of you was nothing more than cordial penpals.
Yet, you wanted to call him. You had called him. Worse, you wanted to wish him a happy birthday. Because you were just that fucking nice. Sometimes it sickened him, but he knew that was probably his way of distancing from anything that bordered on affection or care. Affection and care got people nowhere good in prison. It certainly hadn’t done him any fucking favors in his life.
Sukuna knew he should ignore it. That he should pretend he never got the message and feign ignorance if you asked about it in the future. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that it got lost in translation or seized by the prison guards as suspicious. Sukuna should continue to operate as normal and toe the line between friendship and acquaintance. A category strictly reserved in his mind just for you.
That sickening, horrible curiosity burned in his gut, however. Like an infectious disease eating at his insides, he wondered things. Wondered what you wanted to say and how you would say it. If you were doing this only because you felt bad for him or because you actually cared. More humiliating, he really wanted to know if you sounded as sweet as you wrote.
Against all of his better judgement (which he attributed to temporary weakness due to the emotional state of his pathetic birthday), he booked time to make a call. He asked the operator to dial the number you had left and tried to pretend he was nonchalant about the entire thing. Even though his heart stuttered when the call actually connected.
To his utter horror, you did sound as sweet as you wrote. Your voice was unlike anything he had ever heard. Sweet, melodic, like a fucking siren luring him to the depths of the sea. Sukuna wanted to slap himself; he was being ridiculous. You were the first woman’s voice he had heard in years, so that was probably why it stood out to him so much. That was all.
His second mistake was being gentle with you. If he had had any amount of sense, he would’ve kept things no nonsense. He should have accepted your well wishes and ended the call. Yet he didn’t. He spoke with you for thirty fucking minutes. Worse, he comforted you when you seemed unsure and apologetic for literally no reason at all.
It hadn’t even been something he thought about. Sukuna reacted on instinct. He could tell that you were nervous and something in him had wanted to soothe that. The precedent was dangerous and he didn’t care for it at all.
His third mistake was allowing himself to be casual with you. By the end of the conversation, the two of you were chatting like old friends, chuckling at jokes and anecdotes like it was something that was always done. You were really easy to talk to, especially once you got more comfortable. The beginning of the call had started with you being spooked like a newly born fawn, and by the end you had melted into reassured, but quiet confidence.
Selfishly, it had felt good to talk to someone that actually wanted to talk back to him outside of being paid to do so like Suguru. That actually listened and seemed to care. It was foolish and he knew better than that. He knew that everything he touched was ruined. That when he cared, it blew up in his face every time. Yet he had still allowed himself to let you in. For fuck’s sake he had smiled. Laughed, even. Pathetic. Horrifying.
His fourth mistake was when the call ended. You had said something to the effect of, “we should talk again soon,” and he had stupidly agreed. This type of dynamic wasn’t something he should be encouraging. It really wasn’t. Right? Lord, he was already questioning his principles and that was never a fucking good thing. None of this was good.
The phone call ate away at him for the better part of the week. Given that there weren't many exciting events in prison, it was easily all he could think about. The conversation with you played in his head over and over. Even if he didn’t want it to, it gave him a strange warmth in his chest as he recalled it. Especially when he remembered your soft, sugary voice.
Bad, bad, bad. It was horrible. This was not good. Even more, detrimentally worse, your next letter came in, responding to his previous one.
Ryomen Sukuna, Inmate#0032147
Dear Ryomen,
I hope this isn’t strange to say, but I really enjoyed speaking with you on the phone last week. You could probably tell, but I was incredibly nervous. Not because I was scared of you or anything, but I didn’t want to sound like a fool. Well…that didn’t exactly work out. But you were really nice about it, so thank you. Funnily enough, I had actually written out a script of things to say and didn’t follow any of it when you actually called back.
Hopefully I didn’t scare you off or weird you out. If it’s okay, I think it would be really nice to talk on the phone again in the future. You know how I told you I have social anxiety? Well, the phone call really helped me and I think I could keep building my skills if we kept talking like that. Of course, I want to keep sending letters to you, too. It’s also a bit selfish, but I just really like talking to you and want to hear you again.
As far as your last letter, I decided to take your advice and get back into my hobbies, which has been a welcome distraction. While I had already known how to knit (not well, but decently enough), I hadn’t done it since my break-up because I didn’t have the energy or mental capacity. For the past few weeks, though, I’ve started getting back into it and it’s really soothing. I’m working on a sweater for my mom since Christmas is basically just around the corner, and I hope I don’t completely fuck it up. I’ll keep you posted, haha.
I had never heard of the Human Earthworm series, actually! In Yuji’s honor, I decided to do a marathon this past weekend. They were delightfully weird. Yes, they’re kind of bad, but it’s almost charming in a way. It even made me a bit emotional because I know how much you bonded with him over this and it was nice to get a glimpse into that. I don’t normally dress up for Halloween, but maybe I’ll be one of the characters this year to answer trick-or-treaters at my apartment door.
I can’t believe it’s already November and we’re well into autumn. It feels like just yesterday it was blisteringly hot and I had just gotten the courage to send you a letter. How time flies, huh? The holiday season is approaching, which means I’ll have to be around my family. We don’t necessarily have a bad relationship, but it’ll be the first one since the break-up and my mom can be a bit…critical at times. Does your dad ever reach out for holidays? I hope he does! Maybe we can chat during one of them?
Things at work have continued to be steady, which is preferable to being painfully slow or mind-numbingly busy. I’ve been working on my sweater at my desk, even! And I’ve only had to take it apart, like…10 times! Trust me, that’s an improvement.
I hope this letter finds you well and that things over there are going as decent as they can. Stay warm in these cooling months, okay?
Talk soon!
Sincerely,
[Y/N]
It felt like a bomb had dropped inside Sukuna's chest. You actually liked talking to him and said as much. Wanted to keep talking to him, even. You had watched the stupid ridiculous Human Earthworm films despite him warning you they were terrible. In Yuji’s honor.
Yeah. Sukuna was absolutely, irrevocably fucked. This was not going to end well for either of you. Of that, he was certain.
← prev 𓆩♡𓆪 next → (coming soon)
⁀➷ a/n: sorry it took a bit longer for this chapter! i had started out on a good stride but life happens and i had some struggles writing down what i wanted to write. this is also a bit of a longer chapter but has some really good deposition and fluff :) hope you enjoyed!!
Vampire-Cowboy!Sukuna x preacher's daughter reader
Synopsis: In a town built on faith, the arrival of three strangers brings whispers of blood, disappearance, and something far worse lurking beneath the surface. Drawn to a man she cannot understand, the preacher’s daughter finds herself caught between light and darkness, until the truth reveals itself, and everything begins to fall apart.
Cw: Vampire-Wild West Au, gothic horror, religious themes, fem reader, fluff, emotional distress, character death (aka major turning point for this story)
Previous Chapter - Next Chapter (soon)
Chapter 6: Dancing with Death
Your boot landed squarely in a puddle, sending cool water splashing across the forest floor. The trees around hummed quietly with life. Droplets from last night's rain still clung to the branches overhead, falling every so often with soft plinks against leaves, moss, and damp earth. A gentle breeze drifted through the towering pines and oaks, rustling their canopies while carrying with it the rich scent of wet soil and fresh flowers. Somewhere above, birds greeted the morning from nests hidden high among the branches, their cheerful songs echoing through the woods, while every now and then a startled rabbit or curious fox darted into the underbrush at the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Focus.”
Elsu's calm voice pulled you from your wandering thoughts. Unlike you, he hadn't once taken his eyes off the forest floor, carefully studying every patch of grass and shrub as though the plants themselves were speaking to him.
Currently, the two of you were searching for medicinal herbs to help father recover. He had made remarkable progress over the past month since suffering his stroke. Between the medicine Shoko had prescribed, plenty of rest, and Kenai's insistence that he take things slowly, his strength had slowly begun to return. Still, every now and then your father quietly admitted that his body still ached. It was enough for Kenai and Elsu to decide that it wouldn't hurt to gather a few traditional remedies of their own, just in case Clarke ever needed them.
“What are we looking for again?” you asked, attempting to balance across a fallen log. Your arms instinctively stretched outwards as you wobbled from side to side every time your footing slipped.
“Yarrow,” Elsu replied without looking up. “Look for small white flowers. They grow in clusters, with fern-like leaves running along tall stems.”
“I see.” you hopped down from the log, landing in yet another puddle with an unceremonious splash. “And what exactly is it used for?”
“It helps restore strength.”
You nodded thoughtfully before glancing towards the bundle tucked beneath his arm. “And the ones you're holding? What are those for?”
Elsu lifted the collection of herbs. “This is sage,” he explained, separating a bundle of silvery-green leaves from the rest. “Useful for many things. We'll actually need quite a bit of it, so if you happen to spot any, gather as much as you can.” he then held up another flower with delicate pink-purple petals. “And this is echinacea.”
You immediately held the basket out to him. “Put them in here. That's why we brought it.”
Elsu smiled faintly before carefully placing the herbs inside. “Thank you.”
With the basket growing a little heavier, the two of you resumed the search. Your boots carried you farther beneath the forest canopy where the morning sunlight filtered through the leaves in scattered beams, illuminating patches of wildflowers growing between the moss and damp earth. Towering pines stood shoulder to shoulder with sturdy oaks, while graceful birches swayed softly in the breeze. Shrubs laden with wild berries lined the undergrowth, and the gentle babble of a nearby stream mixed with the birdsong overhead, creating a peaceful melody that seemed to echo through the entire forest.
Your eyes wandered from one patch of flowers to the next before drifting back to Elsu.
He moved through the forest with remarkable ease, never appearing rushed. Every step was deliberate, careful not to disturb more than necessary. He rarely broke branches beneath his boots or stepped on the plants around him. It was almost as though the forest simply accepted his presence. Occasionally he'd kneel besides a flower, studying it for a moment before either harvesting it with practiced precision or leaving it untouched. There was a quiet respect in everything he did, one that made it clear he never took more than the land was willing to give.
That was when you noticed something.
“Uh... Elsu?”
“Hm?”
“Your shirt. It's ripped.”
Elsu twisted slightly, trying to catch sight of his back before finally reaching behind himself. His fingers found the tear almost immediately.
“Oh.” he let out a small sigh. “Probably because it's getting old. I suppose I'll have to replace it once I return home.”
“We can stop by Manami's shop later,” you offered. “She'll definitely have something that fits.”
"Oh, that won't be necessary."
You looked at him. “I'll buy it for you.”
Elsu blinked.
“Consider it a thank-you gift for everything you've done for my father... and for me.”
A look of genuine surprise crossed his face before softening into a warm smile. “That's very kind of you.”
The breeze stirred once more, carrying the earthy scent of petrichor through the trees. For a while neither of you spoke again. Silence never felt uncomfortable around Elsu. If anything, it was peaceful. The two of you simply continued searching side by side, stopping every so often whenever one of you spotted another useful herb. There was no pressure to fill the quiet with conversation. Elsu had never been much of a talker. He seemed content simply listening—to the birds singing, to the wind weaving through the branches, to the gentle rush of water nearby. It reminded you of your dad in some ways. Not because they were alike, but because both men understood that silence could often say more than words ever could.
The quiet was eventually broken by Elsu's voice.
“Found it!”
You immediately hurried over. Sure enough, nestled among the grass stood a cluster of tiny white blossoms exactly as Elsu had described.
“Huh…” you crouched, tilting your head. “So that's yarrow.”
Up close it looked almost ordinary, not particularly colorful or beautiful, but somehow this little flower could help ease your father's pain. Nature truly was remarkable.
Elsu carefully harvested the plant before placing it inside the basket. “We should head back,” he stood up from the ground. “We've already got what we came here for. No need to take more.”
“Alright.”
The journey home felt even quieter. Sunlight shimmered across the narrow stream that wound through the forest, tiny fish swimming lazily beneath its crystal-clear surface while dragonflies skimmed just above the water.
After several minutes, Elsu spoke up again. “I've seen you practicing with the bow.”
Your face immediately warmed. “Oh.” you hadn't realized anyone had noticed. You'd always waited until the backyard was empty before practicing, convinced everyone had already gone inside for the evening.
Elsu chuckled softly. “Don't worry. It's only an observation. Your aim is improving.”
A proud smile spread across your face. “Well... I do have an excellent teacher.”
The compliment drew another smile from him. “That you do.”
By the time the two of you returned home, the morning sun had climbed noticeably higher into the sky.
Elsu pushed open the front door, revealing a surprisingly quiet house. Aside from Mary, who immediately bounded towards you with enthusiastic barks and a wildly wagging tail, there wasn't another soul in sight.
“Hey there, girl.” you crouched down to scratch behind her ears.
Mary leaned happily into your hand before giving your cheek an affectionate lick.
Laughing softly, you stood up and made your way to father's room, knocking gently before opening the door. Inside, your father sat comfortably on the sitting room sofa with a book resting in his hands while Kenai occupied the chair next to him.
“Hello,” you greeted both men. “What are you two doing?”
Clarke yawned before lifting the book slightly. “Oh, nothing much. Kenai lent me this. He insisted I'd enjoy it.”
“I was right,” Kenai said with quiet satisfaction.
“What is it about?” you asked curiously as you crossed the room, handing your father his medicine along with a fresh glass of water.
“It explores love,” Kenai explained, “and the divide social class often creates between people.”
“Interesting.” a teasing smile tugged at your lips. “I didn't take you for much of a romantic, Kenai.”
“I'm a man full of surprises.”
“Many of them,” Josiah added.
Both you and Kenai laughed. The room felt wonderfully light. It was comforting knowing that, even after everything the past months had brought, laughter still found its way into the house.
“Well,” you finally said, “I'll leave you two to your reading. Elsu and I are heading into town for a few supplies.” Before leaving his room, you turned back to your father. “Do you need anything while we're out?”
Josiah rested a finger thoughtfully against his cheek before looking at Kenai. “Do we need anything”
“We're running low on coffee and eggs.”
“Coffee and eggs,” you repeated with a nod. “Got it.”
You wished them both goodbye before stepping back into the hallway; Elsu waited quietly by the front door. You offered him a small smile, which he returned with a simple nod before opening the front door.
Side by side, the two of you set off once more. The morning sun warmed your backs as the familiar road stretched ahead, carrying away the quiet comfort of home and into the cheerful bustle of town, where preparations for the anniversary celebration were already well underway.
Elsu's gaze wandered from one building to the next, his eyes quietly taking in every storefront, porch, and sign they passed. There was a look of genuine curiosity on his face, one that reminded you of someone revisiting a place they barely recognized.
“Not used to it, I take it?” you asked, keeping your eyes on the road ahead.
“Not really…”
“Is this your first time in Whiskey Falls?”
He shook his head. “No. I've been here twice before, but it looks very different from when I visited.”
“Different how?”
Elsu glanced towards the train station in the distance. “Well, a lot of these buildings weren't here back then. The bank and train station for example.”
You looked at him in surprise. “Really? Those have been here forever.” you tilted your head curiously. “How old are you, anyways?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Oh, you're older than me by quite a few years.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him before the conversation ended.
By the time the two of you reached the heart of Whiskey Falls, the town was already bustling with activity. The anniversary celebration had everyone busy. Shopkeepers decorated their storefronts with ribbons and banners, merchants unloaded crates of food and barrels of ale onto wooden sidewalks, and townsfolk hurried from one end of the main street to the other, making their final preparations before the evening festivities.
Your attention focused on the tear stretched across the back of Elsu's tunic. “Come on, let's get you that new shirt.”
The familiar storefront of Manami's boutique stood just ahead. The bell above the door chimed cheerfully, announcing the arrival of customers.
Rows of neatly folded shirts, dresses, skirts, and coats filled the boutique. Bolts of colorful fabric rested on tall wooden shelves while finished garments hung from mannequins arranged throughout the room.
“Be right with you!” Manami called from somewhere near the back. “Just one second!”
“No rush.”
While she finished helping another customer, you and Elsu wandered through the shop. Elsu's eyes widened ever so slightly as he slowly turned in place, taking in everything around him. Every shelf seemed to capture his attention.
You couldn't help laughing. “First time in a boutique?”
He nodded shyly. “Yeah…”
“Take your time then. Let me know if anything catches your eye.”
He continued browsing, carefully examining each display as though every article of clothing had been handcrafted by an artist. A few moments later the customer thanked Manami before leaving the shop. The seamstress immediately spotted you.
“Well!” she exclaimed, practically lighting up. “What a surprise to see you, sugar plum!” she hurried across the room and wrapped you in a warm hug before finally noticing the tall man browsing nearby. “And who's this handsome fellow?”
You laughed. “Hi, Manami. This is Elsu, he's a friend.”
Elsu stepped forward politely and extended his hand in greetings. “Hello.”
“Well, good morning to you too, sir,” Manami chirped as she shook his hand enthusiastically. “Now then…” her attention returned to you. “What brings you two here today?”
“We're looking for a new shirt for him.”
“A shirt?” she clapped her hands together. “You've come to the right place.”
Leading Elsu to another section of the boutique, she stopped besides several mannequins dressed in newly finished outfits. Neatly folded shirts were stacked across a nearby display table, sorted by fabric, color, and style.
Elsu studied each one carefully. His eyes moved from a thick knitted wool sweater to a durable work shirt reinforced around the shoulders, then to a more formal button-up suitable for church or town gatherings. None of them seemed to hold his attention for very long; then he stopped to take a better look. Resting near the end of the display was a dark red leather shirt with decorative stitching running across the chest and shoulders, finished with a short standing collar.
His gaze lingered there longer than usual and Manami noticed immediately.
“Ohhh.” she smiled knowingly. “That's one of my newest designs. They've been selling like crazy. Seems the gentlemen around town have taken quite a liking to that style.”
Elsu pointed towards it. “This one.”
“Excellent choice.” she unfolded the garment and handed it over. “Why don't you try it on? The changing room's right back there.”
Elsu thanked her before disappearing behind the privacy screen. The very second he was out of earshot, Manami hurried over until she was standing only inches from you.
She dramatically fanned herself. “Well... isn't he something?”
You giggled. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?!” she whispered loudly. “Look at him! Have you seen the man's shoulders? Those arms? Sugar plum, why have you been hiding him from me?”
“I haven't been hiding anybody.” you laughed harder. “I only met him about four months ago. Besides, I don't think he likes coming into town much.”
“Lucky you.” she sighed theatrically. “I bet you two would make an adorable couple.”
Heat immediately rushed to your cheeks. “Manami!”
She burst into laughter. “I'm teasing!” she said, though the mischievous grin on her face suggested otherwise. “But… if you don't want him, I'll gladly take him.” she punctuated the sentence with an exaggerated wink.
Elsu returned to the room before you could complain. You both turned and remained silent.
The dark red leather complemented his copper complexion remarkably well. His long black hair remained neatly braided down his back, while the red patterns woven into his headband echoed the color of the shirt almost perfectly. Feathers hanging by his face swayed gently as he adjusted the sleeves, and with the morning sunlight pouring through the front windows, his warm brown eyes seemed almost golden. The shirt fit him as though it had been made specifically for him.
Manami gasped dramatically. “Oh, darling…” she clasped both hands together beneath her chin. “You look absolutely gorgeous.”
Elsu instinctively straightened his posture, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks. “Uh... thank you?” he had a thoughtful expression on his face. “I think... I'll take it.”
“Wonderful! Will there be anything else today?”
You glanced back at the display before selecting a sturdy worsted wool button-up for Kenai. “This one as well.”
She carried both shirts behind the counter before pulling out her ledger and calculator. “The wool shirt comes to thirty-nine dollars…” she murmured while writing down the figures. “...and the leather one is forty-three.” she looked up. “That'll be eighty-two dollars altogether.”
You forced a polite smile while handing over the money, trying not to think about how much lighter your purse suddenly felt.
“Sorry, sugar plum,” Manami said sympathetically. “The cost of materials keeps climbing. Take it up with your Zenin boy.”
Meanwhile, Elsu approached the counter holding his old tunic. “What should I do with this?”
Manami glanced at the tear stretching across the back. “Leave it with me.” she smiled brightly. “I can have it patched up by tomorrow.”
You couldn't help smiling to yourself. Knowing Manami, the repair would probably take five minutes at most. This was simply an excuse to see Elsu again.
“That's very kind of you, Miss...?”
“Manami is fine.” she said with a playful smile.
Elsu hesitated for a moment before nodding. “...Miss Manami.”
She laughed. “Close enough. I'll have it ready for you tomorrow!”
You and Elsu said your goodbyes to her as the little bell above the door chimed after stepping back outside into the warmth of the late morning.
You let out a small sigh. “Alright. Next stop—coffee and eggs.”
“The farmers' market?”
You nodded. “The farmers' market.”
The morning crowd had only grown thicker as you continued through the main street. To your right, Elsu glanced down at his new shirt, smoothing one hand over the leather.
“She seems like a nice lady.”
“Manami?” you glanced at him. “She is. She's been one of my closest friends for years.”
The sun began rising slowly to its greatest point above, its increasing warmth signaling the approach of noon. The townsfolk continued on with their preparations; everyone remained peacefully unaware of what tonight had in store for them.
The servants quietly entered the dining room carrying silver trays laden with breakfast before carefully setting each plate in front of its rightful owner. Once everything had been arranged, they stepped back, gave a respectful bow, and disappeared through the kitchen doors without another word. Around the long dining table, nobody reached for their food. Everyone waited patiently for Naobito to begin first, just as the Zenin family had always done. Only after he picked up his fork, cut himself a piece of bacon and took the first bite did the rest of the table finally begin eating. It was an old tradition of the Zenins, one nobody questioned anymore.
“So,” Naobito spoke after washing the bacon down with a sip of coffee, gently blowing across the steam before bringing the cup to his lips once more. His gaze slowly swept across the table, studying each family member in turn. “How has everyone been?”
Jinichi answered first. “Pretty good. Been working on the stables. We've got a new batch of stallions arriving soon. Three Arabians.” a hint of pride crept into his voice. “Beautiful animals too, they'll be excellent for racing.” he glanced across the table at Ranta. “If you're interested, I could sell you one for your next race... for the right price, of course. Those beasts weren't easy to acquire.”
Ranta swallowed the piece of bread he'd been chewing before shrugging. “I'll think about it.”
Naobito nodded approvingly before turning his attention to Mai. “And you?”
Mai instinctively straightened in her chair. “I've been well,” she answered quietly. “Still attending my lessons. My tutor says I've improved quite a bit.”
“Good.” A faint smile crossed Naobito's face.
His attention shifted farther down the table. “What about you, Ogi? Anything new?”
Ogi lowered his glass of orange juice with a weary sigh. “If you're asking about the distillery, then no. Construction's still behind schedule. Those bastards seem determined to delay everything as much as possible.”
“Then make sure they don't.” Naobito's voice remained calm, though there was no mistaking the authority behind it. “People tend to work faster when they're properly encouraged.”
“I'll handle it.”
Only recently had the Zenins purchased an old factory a few miles outside Whiskey Falls. Naobito's latest business venture was to convert it into a distillery, one he hoped would eventually expand beyond the territory and into the rest of the country. There was always another investment to make, another opportunity to increase the family's fortune.
Satisfied, his gaze eventually settled on Maki. “And what about you? Anything you'd like to share?”
Maki calmly finished chewing on her breakfast before answering. “No. Nothing new.”
Naobito slowly set his fork down. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm…” he watched her for another moment. “Not even anything involving the Williams boy?”
“I haven't answered his letters.” she shrugged.
“And why is that?”
Maki met his eyes without flinching. “Because I'm not interested.”
A scoff escaped Naobito before he leaned back slightly in his chair. “Not interested,” he repeated. “Do you have any idea how much effort it took to arrange that match with his family?”
“I do.” her voice remained just as calm as before. “I simply don't care.”
The atmosphere around the table shifted almost immediately. Jinichi quietly returned his attention to his breakfast while Mai lowered her gaze to her plate. Even the servants lingering near the walls suddenly found something else to occupy themselves with. Nobody wanted to be caught in the middle of another disagreement.
Naobito stared at Maki in silence, the displeasure written plainly across his face. For the briefest moment irritation flashed in his eyes before he slowly reached for his coffee once again, taking a long drink to steady himself. Years of discipline had taught him there was little dignity in losing one's temper over breakfast.
Maki quietly pushed her chair back. “If you'll excuse me, I still have my studies to finish.” Without waiting for permission, she turned and walked out the doorway.
Naobito clicked his tongue. “Ogi.”
The man looked up immediately. “Y-yes?”
“Keep your daughter in line.”
“I will.”
As though nothing had happened, Naobito calmly resumed eating before finally shifting his attention to Naoya. “And what about you, my son? Anything new with your woman?”
Not wanting to repeat Maki's mistake, Naoya simply answered, “Yes.”
It technically wasn't a lie. Progress had been made, though nowhere near as much as he would've liked. You had accepted his gift, agreed to spend time with him, and even listened when he apologized. It wasn't forgiveness, not yet, but at least it was something.
Naobito smiled approvingly. “Excellent. That's what I like to hear.” he cut another piece of ham before bringing it to his mouth. “Tell me then, what's new with her?”
Naoya swallowed, not expecting his father to suddenly show so much interest in the conversation. “I gave her a gift and we went for a walk around town. We talked for a while…” he paused, searching for the right words. “She seemed thoughtful about it.”
“Hm.” Naobito nodded. “That's good. It means you're making progress.” he took another sip of coffee before setting the cup back. “Still... don't you think it's about time you stepped up your game?”
Naoya looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You've been doing the same thing for months. Walking around town, exchanging a few words, bringing her gifts. Women appreciate effort, Naoya. Take her somewhere. Do something memorable. Courting a woman requires patience, yes, but it also requires initiative.”
“I suppose so…” Naoya lowered his eyes to his breakfast, cutting into the bacon with his knife. His father's words barely registered. His mind had already wandered elsewhere, returning to everything he had learned these past few days. The map. The mysterious initials. Sourwater. Black Hollow. Then an idea crossed his mind. Perhaps he could use this conversation to learn something else.
“Say,” Naoya began casually, looking back up, “I heard something interesting while I was with her the other day. I asked Jinichi about it, but I figured you'd know more.”
Jinichi grunted quietly as he continued eating. Naobito dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “And what would that be?”
“Black Hollow.”
The effect was immediate. Naobito froze, the coffee cup stopping halfway before reaching his lips. The room, already quiet after Maki's departure, seemed to grow even more quieter. Slowly, he lowered the cup back onto its saucer, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly as they settled on his son.
“Black Hollow…” he repeated. “Where did you hear that name?”
Naoya kept his expression as neutral as possible. “Gojo mentioned it while we were talking. Said he'd heard stories about the place. It made me curious.”
Naobito continued watching him for another second before finally speaking again. “I know about it.”
Jinichi immediately looked up. “You do?”
“I've been there. Back in the days.”
Jinichi nearly choked on his orange juice. “What?” he coughed into his fist before wiping his mouth. “You've never told me that.”
“There was never any reason to.”
Jinichi scoffed under his breath and returned to his breakfast, though the surprise never left his face.
Naoya leaned forward slightly. “So... is it really abandoned like everyone says?”
“It is.”
“What happened?”
“The creek became contaminated.” Naobito answered without the slightest hesitation. “Toxic metals poisoned the water supply. The government evacuated everyone shortly afterwards. A shame, really. It used to be a beautiful little town. Quiet. Peaceful.”
“I see…” Naoya nodded, though he wasn't convinced. The answer had come far too quickly, almost as though Naobito had rehearsed it beforehand. Still, he knew better than to keep pressing. If he pushed any harder now, his father would only grow suspicious of why he had suddenly taken such an interest in Black Hollow. Besides, he had already learned something important from this conversation. Naobito had confirmed he'd been there himself, solving one of the many questions that had been bothering Naoya ever since he found the old map hidden inside the desk. Now only two mysteries remained: what had truly happened in Black Hollow, and who exactly was T.F.? If he could answer those, perhaps he'd finally understand why his father had been so adamant about keeping him away from Sukuna and his friends.
Naoya finished the last few bites of his breakfast before pushing his chair back and stretching his shoulders. “Well, I'm done. I'll be in my room.” he announced.
Without waiting for anyone to answer, he turned and left the dining room, making his way upstairs while the quiet clinking of silverware gradually resumed behind him, the conversation around the table carrying on as though nothing had happened.
Once inside his room, Naoya quietly shut the door before sliding the lock into place. Satisfied that nobody would interrupt him, he crossed the room to his bed and pulled the pillow aside. Hidden beneath it lay the old book he'd taken from Naobito's office, along with the small leather notebook he'd been using to organize everything he'd uncovered over the past several weeks.
He settled onto the edge of the mattress and opened the notebook first. Several pages had already been filled with hastily scribbled observations. Some were nothing more than names of towns connected by arrows and question marks. Others contained dates, little sketches copied from the old map, and reminders to himself. One page was dedicated entirely to the mysterious initials—T.F. Another simply read Black Hollow across the top with several possible explanations written beneath it, all of them crossed out one by one as he ruled them out.
Naoya flipped past those pages before opening Bee Bole's book. The leather binding creaked loudly with age, sending a small cloud of dust into the air. The pages had yellowed over the years, their corners curled from decades of use. Small illustrations accompanied nearly every chapter, each creature painstakingly drawn with handwritten notes filling the margins. Some passages had even been underlined by a previous owner, while little annotations had been squeezed wherever empty space remained.
Whether any of it was true… Naoya still wasn't sure. Had someone simply written an elaborate collection of ghost stories to frighten children? Or had Bee Bole genuinely encountered these creatures? Months ago Naoya would've laughed at the idea. Now… after Sourwater, the map and the letter… he wasn't so certain anymore.
The book covered countless legends from all over the world. Some spoke of cursed spirits, others of creatures said to lurk deep within the ocean or abandoned villages. Each chapter described where they originated, what they looked like, how they hunted, what they fed upon, and perhaps most importantly... how to survive an encounter with them.
Naoya turned to the page marked by a folded corner.
Werewolves.
According to Bee, they were humans cursed to transform into monstrous wolf-like beasts. Most changed only beneath the full moon, though older and more experienced werewolves supposedly learned to control the transformation at will. The curse itself could be passed through bites or deep scratches, slowly turning the victim into another beast over time.
Naoya tapped the page thoughtfully. Strong enough? Certainly. Capable of wiping out an entire settlement? Possibly. He scribbled another note into the margin of his notebook before turning the page.
Wendigos.
Unlike werewolves, these weren't animals at all. They were restless spirits born from greed and cannibalism, possessing humans until an endless hunger consumed them completely. The afflicted would eventually abandon all humanity, wandering frozen forests in search of fresh flesh.
Naoya frowned. Black Hollow wasn't exactly known for snow. Still, he wrote the name down anyways. Better not to dismiss any possibility too quickly.
The next chapter detailed the Chupacabra, a small nocturnal creature infamous for draining livestock of their blood, particularly goats.
Naoya barely gave it a second glance. Too small. Too weak. If Bee's descriptions were accurate, it wouldn't have been capable of massacring an entire town. He crossed it off almost immediately.
Several pages later another illustration caught his attention.
The Headless Priest.
Naoya couldn't help chuckling, that one was ironic.
Unlike the previous creatures, Bee admitted there was no single version of the story. Every town seemed to tell it differently. Some claimed the priest had died protecting his congregation, others believed he had been executed for betraying them, while a handful insisted there had never been a priest at all. Yet despite the contradictions, every account agreed on one thing; wherever the Headless Priest was said to appear, the church had first lost its shepherd.
Bee had underlined that sentence twice before writing one final note beneath it. Whether the shepherd dies first... or the Headless Priest follows after, no man has lived long enough to know.
“Now that's unsettling.”
Turning another page, his amusement slowly disappeared. The title alone was enough to hold his attention.
The Night Drinker.
Commonly known as the Vampire.
Naoya leaned forward. The illustration depicted a pale figure kneeling over another person, sharp fangs buried deep within their neck while dark ink spilled across the page to resemble dripping blood.
He continued reading. Night Drinkers survived by stealing the vitality of others. They hunted beneath the cover of darkness when ordinary people were least prepared, quietly stalking isolated victims before piercing the flesh with elongated canine teeth and drinking their blood until nothing remained.
Naoya's expression became more serious. Bee went on to describe them as unnaturally pale, stronger and faster than ordinary men, capable of recovering from wounds that should've killed them. And if they were ever confronted… one should pray.
Silver, garlic, and blessed objects would burn their flesh, though none alone were enough to kill them. The only reliable methods were to drive a wooden stake through the heart or remove the head entirely.
Naoya slowly lowered the book into his lap. His eyes drifted to the notebook resting next to him. Black Hollow. Sourwater. Bodies disappearing. Entire settlements wiped out. The more he thought about it, the fewer creatures actually fit what had happened. Werewolves possessed the strength. Vampires possessed the patience. Both hunted people. Both could leave entire communities devastated if left unchecked.
He reached for his notebook once more, drawing a line beneath the names before crossing out several others. Only two remained. Werewolves? Or Vampires?
He stared at them for several long seconds before another thought quietly surfaced. If one of those creatures had truly been responsible for Black Hollow… and if Naobito had been there… then what exactly had his father been doing?
The old map. The mysterious letter. T.F. His father's insistence that he stay away from Sukuna and his friends. None of it felt like coincidence anymore.
Naoya rubbed a hand across his jaw before reading the final paragraph beneath the vampire chapter once more.
Silver burns the flesh of the Night Drinker.
His eyes narrowed in interest. He quickly flipped back to the werewolf chapter, and there it was again.
Silver is fatal to the Beast.
A slow smile spread across his face. Finally, something both creatures had in common. Whether he was dealing with werewolves or vampires, silver would tell him which.
Closing the book, Naoya carefully slid it back beneath his pillow before tucking the notebook near it. Now all he needed was something made of silver. Perhaps a knife would do him just fine.
The cushions sank softly beneath your weight as you settled comfortably onto the sofa, one leg crossed over the other while a warm cup of chamomile tea rested between your hands. From somewhere deeper inside the house came the faint clatter of dishes as Manami disappeared into the kitchen, insisting that tea without biscuits was simply unacceptable.
Left alone for a moment, your gaze wandered around the room. Just like every other corner of her home, it reflected the woman who lived there. The polished wooden floors gleamed beneath the afternoon sunlight spilling through the windows, shelves overflowed with neatly folded fabrics in every imaginable color, and sewing patterns, ribbons, measuring tapes and spools of thread rested near half-finished garments waiting to be completed. The sweet scent of fresh linen mingled with polished cedar, cotton, lavender perfume and the faint aroma of beeswax from the candles decorating the room. Everything was perfectly organized, yet still felt comfortably lived in. It was unmistakably Manami.
She had always been that way. No matter how many dresses she had to finish or customers she needed to attend, she somehow always found time for herself and for the people she cared about. She knew exactly what she wanted out of life, and once she set her mind on something, there was very little that could convince her otherwise. Perhaps that was why the five of you had naturally gravitated towards her home this afternoon. It had become something of an unspoken tradition. Whenever there was an important event in town, everyone gathered at Manami's house first before heading out together.
Today was no different.
Today Whiskey Falls celebrated its sixty-first anniversary.
The entire town had spent the better part of the week preparing for the festivities. Restaurants, bakeries and saloons stocked their pantries until every shelf threatened to overflow. Farmers arrived early with wagons filled to the brim with fresh vegetables, fruit and cuts of meat while barrels of whiskey and ale were rolled through the streets towards the saloon. Colorful bunting, ribbons and banners hung from balconies and wrapped around porch railings, fluttering gently every time the breeze swept through town. The owner of the general store had even closed his shop for an entire day just to repaint the weathered exterior, determined to have it looking its best before the celebration began.
The church had been just as busy. Father Clarke insisted every pew be polished until the wood shined, fresh flowers decorated the altar, and the bells rang more frequently than usual, their familiar chimes echoing throughout the valley almost every hour. Near the center of town, Satoru and a handful of volunteers had spent the last two days building a wooden stage where musicians would perform once evening arrived. Everywhere you looked, someone was carrying crates, hanging lanterns, sweeping sidewalks or rushing to finish one last task before sunset. Even the children had caught the excitement, running through the streets waving little flags and chasing one another while pretending to be fearless cowboys and notorious outlaws.
It felt as though the entire town had come alive.
The gentle clinking of porcelain announced Manami's return before she stepped back into the living room carrying a metal tray filled with freshly baked biscuits, little cakes dusted with powdered sugar and colorful sweets she had undoubtedly picked up from the bakery that morning.
“Hope I didn't keep anyone waiting,” she said cheerfully as she set the tray down in the center of the table.
“Oh, not at all,” you smiled, carefully lowering the teacup onto your lap.
Manami glanced to the empty chair tucked neatly into the corner of the room before letting out a small sigh. “I guess Riko couldn't make it after all.”
Shoko reached over first, stealing one of the biscuits before taking a bite. “Don't beat yourself up over it.” she shrugged. “The girl's never been much for social gatherings. Unless you're Suguru, getting more than five words out of her is practically a miracle.”
“Or Satoru,” Yuki added with a small laugh from the sofa besides her.
Utahime lifted her cup and thoughtfully stirred the tea inside before speaking. “Now that you mention her… has anyone actually seen Riko lately? I haven't seen her stop by the saloon in a few days now.”
Yuki shook her head. “No, but with everyone running around getting ready for tonight, I haven't exactly been paying attention either. Besides, Riko's always disappearing for a while. She likes being by herself.”
“I know… I just thought she'd come tonight, at least. It's a special occasion.” Manami quickly clapped her hands together, brightening almost instantly. “But enough about that. Surely somebody has something interesting to gossip about.”
“Satoru's horse escaped again,” Utahime said so casually it almost sounded routine.
Nobody looked particularly surprised.
Shoko snorted into her tea. “I'm honestly more impressed that the baker somehow managed to burn twenty loaves of bread yesterday.”
Yuki nearly choked on her biscuit laughing. “Oh! I have one. Yesterday I found Mr. Martin passed out asleep in the pig pen.”
The room erupted into laughter. Even you couldn't stop yourself from imagining the old man snoring peacefully while surrounded by pigs.
Shoko reached for another biscuit before her attention shifted at you. “How's your father doing?”
“Much better now, thanks to you. The medicine's been helping a lot. Kenai and Elsu have also been making herbal remedies whenever the pain comes back.”
“I'm glad to hear it.” Shoko smiled warmly before taking another sip of her tea. “Just make sure he doesn't overwork himself again. A stroke isn't something people simply walk off.”
You sighed through your nose. “Believe me, I've tried, but you know him; the moment he started feeling even a little better he insisted on returning to church.”
“Sounds about right. He's as stubborn as every priest I've ever met.” Utahime chuckled.
Before you could respond, Manami suddenly rested her chin in both hands, a mischievous smile slowly spreading across her face. “Speaking of Elsu…”
Your stomach sank.
“...did you girls know the kind of man she's been hiding from us this whole time?” she looked around dramatically before pointing at you. “That man is definitely something.”
“Manami…” you groaned, already feeling your cheeks beginning to warm.
“What? I'm simply stating facts.” she defended herself with an innocent shrug.
“You've met him for all of five minutes.”
“And five minutes was plenty, but I'll admit... I wasn't expecting him to look like that either.”
You blinked. “Look like what?”
Manami stared at you as though you'd just asked the most ridiculous question imaginable. She sighed dramatically. “Sugar plum… have you actually looked at him?”
“I—”
“He looks like he could carry an entire tree on his shoulders.”
Utahime covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
“And those arms…” Manami continued, fanning herself with one hand. “Lord have mercy.”
“Dear heavens…” you muttered, burying your face behind the teacup.
“I'm serious!” she laughed. “Why haven't you introduced him sooner? That’s very rude of you, sugar plum.”
“I only met him a few months ago, and like I said, he doesn't come into town very often. He doesn’t like it much.”
“Lucky me then,” Manami replied with a grin. “If you don't want him, I'll gladly keep him for myself.”
The room erupted into laughter.
Once everyone had settled down again, Manami leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table. Her face softened. “But in all seriousness, you really should figure things out before somebody gets hurt.”
You frowned. “What do you mean?”
She looked at you as though the answer were painfully obvious.
“Naoya.”
She counted on one finger.
“Sukuna.”
A second finger.
“And now Elsu.”
The third.
“I'm not saying there's actually anything between you and Elsu,” she admitted, waving her hand dismissively. “But anyone with functioning eyes can tell Naoya and Sukuna are interested in you.”
“Manami, don’t say that…” your voice became a little more than a whisper.
“What? I'm only saying what everyone else is thinking.” she shrugged.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
You looked around the room. Utahime suddenly found her tea incredibly interesting. Yuki smiled awkwardly. Shoko simply raised one eyebrow.
“...Seriously?”
Shoko answered first. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The way Sukuna watches you.”
You stared blankly.
She continued. “Every single time Naoya comes anywhere near you, Sukuna looks like he's deciding whether or not murder would be worth the trouble.”
Yuki laughed. “She's not wrong.”
“And Naoya?” Utahime added. “That boy practically follows you around town like a lost puppy.”
You slowly set your teacup down on the table. “I know Naoya's been... persistent, but I figured Sukuna just found him annoying.”
“He does. Both things can be true at once.” Shoko replied.
The room fell quiet while you genuinely thought about it. Your mind wandered through every interaction you'd shared with Sukuna over the past few months. The teasing whenever Naoya appeared. The little remarks he'd make afterwards. The way he always seemed to insert himself into conversations without you ever questioning why.
You frowned; had everyone else noticed something you hadn't?
“...I don't think Sukuna likes me like that.”
The four women exchanged glances, then almost simultaneously they laughed.
Utahime smiled sympathetically. “Oh, sweetheart, you really don't see it, do you?”
You rubbed the back of your neck. “...No?”
Manami sighed dramatically before throwing her hands into the air. “This woman is hopeless.”
Another round of laughter filled the room, so loud that none of you noticed just how much time had slipped away until Yuki suddenly cleared her throat. “Well, speaking of romance…”
Every head turned towards her.
“I have something I'd like to tell you girls.”
She folded both hands together in her lap, unable to stop smiling. “Choso and I are officially dating!”
Nobody reacted for five seconds; then the entire living room blew up.
“What?!”
“Yuki!”
“Since when?!”
“I knew it!”
“I can't believe you waited this long to tell us!”
Yuki laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. “I knew that was going to be your reaction.”
“You've been keeping this from us?!” Utahime exclaimed, nearly spilling her tea as she leaned farther across the table. “For how long?”
Yuki scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. “About... one? Maybe two months? I can't really remember exactly.”
“Two months?!” Manami gasped dramatically, pressing a hand over her chest. “You've been sitting here listening to all of us gossip while secretly having a boyfriend?”
“I wasn't keeping it a secret! Well... maybe a little.”
You shook your head, unable to hide the smile tugging at your lips. “I had a feeling.”
Yuki blinked. “You did?”
“You disappear every other afternoon; it wasn't exactly difficult to put two and two together. Plus the day at the fair.”
Utahime snapped her fingers. “That's why you kept making excuses every time we invited you somewhere!”
“Okay... maybe I wasn't as subtle as I thought.”
Utahime leaned forward eagerly. “So? Tell us everything! How did it happen? Who confessed first?”
Yuki opened her mouth to answer, but before she could do so, Manami interrupted her.
“Absolutely not.”
Everyone turned to her.
She had already pulled her silver pocket watch from her dress, frowning dramatically at the time before snapping it shut. “As much as I would love to hear every last detail—and trust me, we'll be discussing this later—we're already running behind schedule. Tonight is the town's anniversary, ladies, and if any of you think I'm letting you arrive looking anything less than breathtaking, you're sadly mistaken.”
Yuki laughed awkwardly. “You're really cutting me off?”
“Temporarily. Your love story can wait another hour. My outfits have been waiting three weeks.”
“She does have a point,” Shoko admitted, standing from the sofa.
Utahime sighed dramatically. “Fine, but you're finishing that story later.”
“Promise.”
“Good.” Manami clapped her hands together, instantly slipping back into business mode. “Washroom's free. Go freshen yourselves up first, then meet me upstairs. I've finally finished everyone's outfits, and I'd like you all to see them before we head into town.”
You nodded before carrying your teacup into the kitchen, setting it inside the sink. Without wasting any more time, you headed down the hallway towards the washroom, deciding a quick bath would help freshen you up before the festivities.
Closing the door behind, you slipped the lock into place and crossed over to the old tub. Warm water poured steadily from the faucet while you reached for one of the bars of vanilla soap Manami always kept stocked on the wooden shelf nearby. Its sweet scent quickly filled the small room as steam slowly fogged the mirror above the washbasin.
The warm water washed away the dust collected throughout the morning, easing the lingering ache in your muscles after spending hours walking through town and gathering herbs with Elsu. For a little while, you simply stood there enjoying the quiet, letting the comforting warmth settle over you before finally stepping out and wrapping yourself in one of Manami's neatly folded towels. After drying your hair as best you could, you slipped into a fresh chemise and made your way upstairs.
Laughter drifted from the second floor long before you reached the bedroom.
“Well, there she is!” Manami called the moment you appeared in the doorway. She was busy braiding Utahime's hair. “About time, sugar plum.”
You smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“No apologies.” she waved the brush dismissively. “Perfect timing.”
The room itself looked as though a dressmaker's dream had exploded inside it. Bolts of fabric leaned against one wall while ribbons, lace, measuring tapes and tiny boxes filled with buttons covered nearly every available surface. Finished dresses rested proudly upon mannequins arranged throughout the bedroom, each one waiting patiently for its owner. The scent of perfume, pressed cotton and fresh flowers lingered, mixing pleasantly with the faint fragrance of vanilla soap still clinging to your skin.
Utahime stood from the chair once Manami finished fastening the final ribbon into her hair. The crimson gown suited her beautifully. The fitted bodice hugged her waist before flowing into a dramatic black skirt gathered high at the hips, revealing layers of deep plum fabric beneath that swayed gracefully with every step she took. Black lace stockings peeked through the opening before disappearing into polished lace-up boots, practical enough for dancing yet elegant enough to draw every eye in the room.
You couldn't help smiling. “Utahime…”
She turned towards you.
“...you look beautiful.”
Utahime's cheeks flushed. “You really think so?”
Before you could answer, Manami proudly placed both hands on her hips. “Beautiful? Gorgeous? Absolutely breathtaking?” she corrected. “Let's give credit where it's due.”
You laughed. “I was getting there.”
She narrowed her eyes playfully before suddenly brightening. “And speaking of breathtaking…” she hurried to the far side of the room where one particular mannequin stood hidden beneath a linen sheet. “I've been waiting all day for this.”
With a dramatic flourish, she pulled the cloth away. The gown beneath it stole the breath from your lungs. A floor-length black skirt cascaded gracefully to the floor in soft folds, while the fitted bodice, fashioned from muted plum fabric, was decorated with delicate vertical pleats that led to a sweetheart neckline framed by gentle ruffles. A high-waisted overskirt emphasized the silhouette before flowing seamlessly into the rest of the dress, and resting across the shoulders was a cream-colored fringed shawl embroidered with delicate flowers that seemed to shimmer beneath the afternoon light spilling through the windows.
Your voice barely rose above a whisper. “...it's perfect.”
She smiled nervously. “You really think so?”
Instead of answering, you wrapped your arms tightly around her. “I love it.”
The tension immediately melted from her shoulders as she returned the embrace.
“Oh, sugar plum…” she laughed, though her voice trembled. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that. Now stop making me emotional and go try it on.”
You nodded enthusiastically before disappearing behind the folding screen. The fabric slipped effortlessly over your body, fitting as though it had been tailored exclusively for you—which, of course, it had. After fastening the final buttons and smoothing the skirt, you stepped back out into the room.
After you walked outside the room was quiet. Even Manami seemed momentarily speechless, then she smiled wider than ever before.
“There she is!”
You wandered to the full-length mirror, scarcely recognizing the reflection staring back at you. The gown hugged every curve perfectly while the shawl softened the darker colors, making the entire outfit feel elegant without becoming overly extravagant.
“You look lovely,” Utahime said sincerely.
You felt your cheeks warm beneath all the attention. “Thanks… and thank you too Manami. This is truly a work of art. I'll have to repay you somehow.”
Manami shook her head as though the thought itself were ridiculous before gently guiding you to the vanity. “Don't even think about it, sugar plum. I've been planning these outfits for months. It just so happened I finished the last stitch right before the celebration. Besides... seeing all of you wearing something I made is more than enough payment.”
Your heart softened.
“You girls have always been my favorite muses.”
The brush glided gently through your still wet hair, starting carefully at the ends before slowly working upwards. Every so often Manami paused to smooth away a stubborn tangle, humming quietly to herself while deciding how she wanted to style it. Around the room Utahime adjusted the sleeves of her dress while you caught glimpses of yourself in the mirror, still hardly believing the woman staring back at you was the same person who had walked into the boutique that morning.
A knock sounded lightly against the open bedroom door.
“Shoko's washing herself now,” Yuki announced as she stepped inside wrapped in a towel, droplets of water still clinging to the ends of her damp hair. She rubbed another towel over it before her attention shifted to the line of mannequins arranged neatly against the wall. Her eyes immediately widened. “...Which one's mine?”
Manami smiled. “Oh, this one.”
She hurried across the room and stopped next to another mannequin. Unlike the elegant dresses she'd chosen for the rest of you, this outfit suited Yuki's adventurous spirit far better. A long-sleeved mauve blouse rolled neatly to the elbows, the first few buttons left undone, while a pair of cream-colored high-waisted trousers gave her far more freedom to move than any skirt ever could. Sturdy brown leather boots completed the outfit, practical enough for horseback riding, climbing fences, or getting into whatever trouble Yuki inevitably found herself in.
“You always complain that skirts get in your way, so I thought I'd try something different. I hope you like it.”
Yuki's face lit up. “Like it? Manami, I love it!”
Without another word she lifted the clothes from the mannequin and disappeared behind the dressing screen.
The next few hours slipped by almost unnoticed. Brushes, ribbons, curling irons and tiny tins of makeup were passed from one pair of hands to another while everyone helped fasten buttons, lace corsets, braid hair and straighten collars. Conversations drifted between stories, laughter and harmless teasing, interrupted only whenever someone needed another ribbon pinned or asked for help reaching the back of a dress. Before long Shoko joined the rest of you, and soon every corner of the bedroom buzzed with cheerful voices.
By the time the last ribbon had been tied, the final touch of powder dusted across a cheek and everyone had generously borrowed from Manami's seemingly endless collection of perfumes, the bedroom looked far less organized than when you'd first stepped inside. Makeup brushes rested forgotten atop the vanity, scraps of ribbon and loose pins littered the floor, discarded garments lay folded across the bed, and every available chair had somehow become covered in fabric.
Manami smiled to herself as she slowly began tidying the room, returning brushes to their proper places and carefully straightening the mannequins that had been left scattered throughout the bedroom. One by one they found their places again until only a single mannequin remained standing quietly near the window.
Your eyes followed hers. Draped over it was a pale blue dress. It was simpler than the others, yet no less beautiful. Delicate lace traced the sleeves while tiny embroidered flowers climbed gently along the bodice, the soft blue fabric catching the last golden rays of sunlight filtering through the curtains.
Manami walked over and gently smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the skirt. “I even made this one for her…” she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. “I really thought she'd come tonight.”
“I'm sure she'll show up eventually. It's Riko, she probably just lost track of time again.”
Manami nodded, though there was the faintest hint of disappointment in her eyes. “...Yeah, maybe.”
The silence didn't linger for long before Utahime suddenly clapped her hands together. “Well, we've spent half the afternoon getting ready. We better make sure all this hard work doesn't go to waste.”
A chorus of agreement followed as everyone gathered their shawls and handbags, excitement quickly replacing the brief moment of quiet.
Outside, the sun had long since slipped beneath the horizon. Lanterns glowed warmly along the streets of Whiskey Falls, and even from inside the house the distant sound of fiddles, laughter and cheering could already be heard.
“This is going to be a long night,” you sighed, already imagining tomorrow morning's headache.
“But a fun one,” Utahime replied with a grin, looping her arm through yours before leading everyone towards the front door.
Together, the five of you stepped out into the cool evening, completely unaware that before the night was over, the celebration would become one nobody in Whiskey Falls would ever forget.
The streets overflowed with life. Strings of colorful lanterns stretched from one building to the next, casting a warm golden glow over the dirt roads while cheerful melodies from fiddles, pianos and banjos echoed through every corner of Whiskey Falls. The scent of roasted meat, fresh bread, cinnamon pastries and caramelized sweets drifted lazily through the cool evening air, blending together into an aroma impossible to ignore. Everywhere you looked, people laughed, danced, toasted their drinks or stopped to greet neighbors they hadn't seen in weeks. For one night, the entire town seemed to have forgotten every worry weighing upon their shoulders.
“It looks crazier than usual today,” Utahime laughed as she looked towards the saloon where people were already squeezing through the front doors. She let out a dramatic sigh. “Which means poor Dorothy's probably drowning in customers by now. I better go help her before she sends someone to drag me back.” she waved goodbye before hurrying to the building, disappearing into the crowd.
Yuki watched her leave before chuckling. “Poor Utahime. Maybe we should stop by later and keep her company.”
Shoko slipped a cigarette from her pocket and lit it with practiced ease, exhaling a thin stream of smoke into the night sky. “Later. I want to enjoy the celebration before I get too drunk to remember any of it.”
The now four of you wandered aimlessly through the festival, allowing yourselves to be carried wherever the crowds happened to lead. Every few steps someone offered samples of baked goods or homemade candy, merchants called people over to admire their handcrafted trinkets, and musicians competed for attention from anyone willing to stop and listen. Time seemed to slip away almost unnoticed. Before long, nearly half an hour had passed, and somewhere along the way the group naturally split apart. Shoko disappeared after spotting an elderly group beginning a game of dominoes outside one of the storefronts, while Manami had already been swept onto the dance floor by an older gentleman who insisted she join him for a song.
That left only you and Yuki. The two of you continued strolling through town together, sampling practically every sweet, pastry and snack either of you found interesting until eventually neither of you could manage another bite.
“Uff…” Yuki groaned, rubbing her stomach. “I'm stuffed.”
“Me too. If I eat one more thing I might actually explode.”
Leaning against the wall of one of the quieter side streets, you spotted two familiar figures sitting together on a wooden bench. Father Clarke rested both hands atop his cane while Kenai sat on his left, the two men quietly talking amongst themselves away from the louder festivities.
“There they are,” you smiled before making your way over.
Your father immediately brightened the moment he noticed you approaching. “Ah, daughter. It's good to see you enjoying yourself.”
“Father. Kenai.” you greeted them both before sitting beside your father on the bench. “Having fun tonight, I hope?”
“We are,” your father answered with a gentle nod. “I was just showing Kenai the celebration. Though… I don't believe he's particularly fond of it.”
“It's not that I dislike it.” Kenai glanced at the crowds dancing. “It's simply... noisier than I'm used to. Still, it's nice seeing everyone happy. People need nights like these.”
You followed his gaze to the bustling streets. “They do. Truthfully, folks around here don't need much of an excuse to throw a celebration.”
Kenai laughed softly. “Perhaps that's a good thing. A person can only carry so much before they need to set the burden down, even if only for a single evening.”
You found yourself nodding in agreement. “...Yeah.”
Your father coughed into his fist before clearing his throat. “"I think we've stayed long enough.” he leaned heavily against his cane before slowly pushing himself to his feet. Kenai instinctively stood, ready to steady him if needed, though your father stubbornly insisted on finding his balance himself.
“My body's starting to grow tired. I should probably head home and get some rest.” he smiled apologetically.
“That's probably for the best,”
“Oh.” he reached into the pocket of his coat before holding something out towards you. “Before I forget... you left this on your bedside table this morning.” Resting in the palm of his hand was the silver rosary he'd given you months ago.
Your eyes widened. “Oh! I completely forgot.”
Carefully taking it from him, you fastened it around your neck, your fingers instinctively brushing across the small silver cross resting against your chest.
“There, much better.” he stepped closer before placing a gentle kiss against your cheek. “Take care of yourself tonight, daughter.”
“I will.”
“And don't stay out too late.”
“I won't.”
He began turning away before pausing once more. “Oh and remember, you're allowed to say no... no matter who it is.” his eyes met yours kindly. “If something makes you uncomfortable, then don't do it. Never feel obligated simply because someone asks.”
You understood immediately who he meant. “...I will, father.”
A small smile returned to his face. “Good.”
You stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him in a brief hug, careful not to squeeze too tightly. He returned it without hesitation, patting your shoulder affectionately before finally letting go.
“I'll see you at home.”
With that, Father Clarke and Kenai slowly disappeared into the sea of people and smiling faces, their figures blending into the festival until they were eventually lost among the crowd.
You and Yuki watched the two men disappear before turning back to the festivities. The music had only grown louder since you'd last wandered through town. Somewhere farther down the street a group of children chased one another between the adults with sparklers in hand while several couples danced freely. Laughter echoed from nearly every direction, blending with the lively melodies spilling from the saloons and the occasional whistle from someone already far too drunk for the hour.
You spent the next hour enjoying everything the celebration had to offer. Yuki danced alongside strangers who eagerly pulled anyone within reach onto the dancefloor, applauded the musicians after every song, and laughed as you somehow ate another pastry despite insisting only minutes earlier that you couldn't possibly take another bite. The night seemed to flow freely, each moment folding into the next until time itself became difficult to keep track of.
Eventually, with your feet beginning to ache from all the walking, you both decided to head over to the saloon.
Unlike the streets outside, the building was even more crowded than before. Every table had been occupied long ago, patrons leaned shoulder to shoulder along the bar, and even the second-floor balcony had filled with people watching the festivities below. The piano hadn't stopped playing once since you'd arrived in town, its cheerful melody accompanied by a fiddle and the steady rhythm of boots striking the wooden floor as couples continued dancing wherever they could find enough space.
From somewhere above, a familiar voice called your names. “Over here!”
You looked up to find Satoru leaning lazily against the upstairs railing with a beer already in hand while Suguru stood next to him, another empty bottle resting on the table nearby.
“There they are,” Yuki said.
Making your way to the staircase, your eyes briefly wandered across the first floor. They quickly landed on a familiar face. Elsu. He sat comfortably at one of the larger tables, wearing the leather shirt you'd bought him that morning. It suited him just as well now as it had inside Manami's boutique, though he seemed completely oblivious to the attention he occasionally attracted. Sitting across from him, Manami leaned so far over the table she was practically lying across it, animatedly telling some story while Elsu listened with his usual patient expression, nodding every so often whenever she emphasized a particularly dramatic part.
You couldn't help smiling. You had a feeling Manami would find an excuse to keep visiting him after tonight.
Shaking the thought from your head, you followed Yuki upstairs where Satoru greeted both of you with an exaggerated wave.
“About time,” he grinned.
“Having fun?” Yuki asked.
“You could say that. I've mostly been people-watching.” he lifted his bottle slightly.
Your gaze wandered to the balcony with a view of the street, where two familiar figures were standing, conversing with one another. Yuta and Maki stood side by side, each holding a drink while quietly watching the celebration below.
“They're not worried someone from the Zenin family might see them?”
Satoru shrugged. “I asked the same thing. They told me they've got it handled.”
“And you believed them?”
“No. That's why I'm staying nearby. If one of Maki's relatives decides tonight's the perfect time to start trouble…” he cracked his knuckles with a grin. “...I'd rather already be here.”
Suguru sighed. “I keep telling him not everything needs to end in a fight.”
“It usually does.”
“Because you make it.”
“I call it efficient.”
You laughed.
“How have you two been?” Suguru asked, setting another empty bottle aside.
“We've been good. Anything exciting happened while we were gone?” Yuki asked.
Satoru groaned dramatically. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” you repeated.
“Nothing.” he leaned farther against the railing. “Same old paperwork. Same old drunks. Same old idiots trying to pick fights after having one too many drinks. Honestly, the most exciting thing that's happened in the last three years was Mahito and his little gang trying to rob the bank.”
Suguru chuckled. “And we all know how well that ended.”
Satoru laughed. “Exactly.”
He looked back over the crowd filling the saloon. “Everything's been too quiet lately.”
You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “Isn't that a good thing?”
“Well…” Satoru scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, it is. Means people are safe, but I became sheriff to help people, not spend half my day chasing runaway livestock and breaking up arguments because somebody's pig wandered into the neighbor's garden.”
“You're complaining because the town isn't in danger?”
“I'm complaining because it's boring,” Satoru corrected. “There's only so many times a man can listen to Mrs. Henderson swear Mr. Collins stole her chickens before he starts hoping for something a little more exciting.”
Suguru rolled his eyes. “Careful what you wish for.”
Satoru simply shrugged before taking another drink.
“I'm sure something interesting will happen soon enough.” you said.
The conversation continued for another little while, jumping from one meaningless topic to another until you finally excused yourself, deciding a drink didn't sound like such a bad idea after all. Leaving the others behind, you made your way downstairs, a hand gliding along the polished wooden railing as laughter and cheerful music echoed throughout the saloon.
The first floor had emptied out considerably since you'd first arrived. Most of the townsfolk had wandered back outside to continue celebrating, leaving only a handful of patrons gathered around the tables while others continued dancing near the piano. Dorothy and Utahime remained just as busy behind the counter, though at least now there was enough room to actually reach the bar without squeezing between half the town.
Just as your boots touched the final step, a hand gently settled on your shoulder. You turned around to see who it was. “Naoya? What are you doing here?”
He looked as though the answer should've been very obvious. “What do you mean, what am I doing here? I'm celebrating the same as everyone else.”
“I just thought…” you thought of a quick answer. “You might've been at one of your family's saloons.”
Naoya immediately squinted. “Those old dumps? They're about as entertaining as watching paint dry.” a small grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “Besides... everyone's here. Including you.”
You smiled politely, already sensing where the conversation was headed. “I see. Well... it was nice seeing you around.”
Before you could move any farther, his hand remained lightly around your wrist.
“Wait.”
You stopped.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“...What is it?”
He hesitated. “Would you dance with me?”
The question caught you completely off guard. Your mind immediately began searching for an answer that wouldn't hurt his feelings. Of course you didn't want to dance with him. Deep down, you suspected he already knew that. Still, rejecting him outright felt cruel after how much effort he'd genuinely been making these past few days.
You laughed awkwardly. “I don't think I can dance right now. I feel a little tipsy.”
He smiled hopefully. “Come on, one dance won't hurt.”
You forced another polite smile. “Really, Naoya, I can't right now. Maybe another time. I'd only end up embarrassing both of us.”
“Nonsense. Everyone's drunk tonight. They won't even remember by tomorrow morning.”
Your patience slowly began wearing thin. “Naoya, I said no. Please leave me be.”
Neither of you spoke. Almost reluctantly he let go.
“...I see.” his jaw tightened ever so slightly as his hands curled into fists at his sides before he quickly forced himself to relax. “Maybe another time.”
Without another word, he turned and disappeared back upstairs. As he passed, Satoru gave him a quick glance before continuing downstairs.
“Man, that was rough.” he whistled quietly. “…Sucks for him.”
You let out a long breath, rubbing your forehead. “Not now, Satoru.”
He laughed. “Going for another drink?”
You nodded.
“Wanna come help me annoy Utahime?”
You looked at the exhausted waitress rushing from one customer to another. “Leave the poor girl alone. She's already got enough to deal with.”
“That’s exactly why it’s the perfect time to bother her.”
You walked next to him to the bar. It wasn't nearly as crowded as before as most people had moved either outside or migrated upstairs, leaving only scattered conversations across the first floor.
Shoko sat comfortably on one of the stools with a whiskey bottle already in hand. “Want a drink?” she asked, sliding it across the counter.
You looked at the bottle skeptically. “Just one sip.”
“Just one sip.” she repeated with a smirk plastered on her face. “It won't kill you.”
You sighed before taking the bottle. The moment the whiskey hit the back of your throat you immediately doubled over coughing.
“God… that tastes awful.” you winced, handing the bottle back.
Shoko burst into laughter. “You get used to it.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
You and Shoko lingered at the bar, asking her how she was, what she had been up to, how was work back at the doctor’s office, if she was seeing anyone, just letting the conversation wander wherever it pleased. One moment you were laughing over something ridiculous, the next talking about the politics of Whiskey Falls. Meanwhile, true to his word, Satoru had already gone to bother Utahime.
“What do you want now, Satoru?” her exhausted voice echoed from behind the counter.
Then, the saloon doors slowly creaked open, a cool evening breeze drifting inside. The lively chatter around the room seemed to quiet for the briefest of moments as the draft swept through the building, causing the lantern flames to flicker gently against the walls. Almost instinctively, your eyes wandered to the entrance.
Three figures stepped through the doorway. An odd feeling settled over you. Not quite fear, but something difficult to explain. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over you as though you'd lived through this exact moment before.
The men walked over to the bar, the tallest one taking the seat to your left. He spoke up, his voice low and familiar. “Excuse me, miss.”
You slowly turned towards him. “Yes?”
“Is there a place where we can stay the night?”
“There's a house at the edge of the town. Though I hear the owners are terribly strict. Especially the one with red eyes. He'll probably make you sleep on the front porch.” you answered innocently.
“Good thing I bought the place then.” he looked at you from the corner of his eye. “Would've hated getting kicked out of my own house.”
A soft laugh escaped you. It was strange. Months ago the two of you had exchanged similar words as complete strangers. Back then there had been uncertainty between you, neither knowing what kind of people the other truly was. Now, the conversation had become nothing more than a joke shared between two friends.
Utahime wandered over, already knowing what the answer would be before asking. “The same as always?”
“You bet.”
Toji tossed a handful of coins across the counter. Utahime caught them before turning around to grab three clean glasses, pouring each of them their usual drink without even having to ask what they wanted.
From the staircase Yuki suddenly came running towards Choso, nearly knocking him out of his chair as she threw herself into his arms. Bright red lipstick marks quickly covered his cheeks one after another while she laughed happily, paying absolutely no attention to the amused stares surrounding them. Choso's face immediately turned bright red, completely unsure what to do with himself as Toji laughed openly at his expense.
You couldn't help smiling at the cute scene. Everything felt peaceful, it felt right, even if just for a single night.
The lively melody filling the saloon gradually softened as the musicians changed songs, the quicker rhythm giving way to something slower and far gentler. One by one, couples began making their way onto the dance floor, allowing the music to guide their steps. Yuki happily dragged Choso along despite his obvious embarrassment, while to your surprise Manami had somehow managed to convince Elsu to join her as well.
Your attention lingered on them. The way everyone seemed so happy. Couples smiled quietly at one another, hands intertwined as they swayed beneath the lights. Some danced gracefully while others stumbled over their own feet only to laugh together seconds later. There was no competition, no expectations, no perfect choreography, just people enjoying one another's company.
Your expression softened without you realizing it. To your side, Sukuna had been watching something entirely different.
“Seems like you're into that sort of thing.” he spoke. His voice gently pulled you from your thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“The dancing.”
You looked back at the couples. “I just think they look cute... that's all.”
Sukuna smirked into his drink. “You sure that's all?”
You opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Instead, your eyes drifted back to the dancefloor where the couples continued moving together beneath the warm lantern lights.
Silence answered for you. You simply listened to the piano as the rest of the world seemed to disappear into the background.
Without another word, Sukuna finished the drink, stood up and offered his hand. “Dance with me.”
Your face immediately warmed, your shoulders instinctively drawing inward. “I shouldn't. I don't even know how to dance.”
Sukuna clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. “Then follow my movements.”
Before you could protest again, his larger hand gently closed around yours. There was no force behind the gesture, only enough encouragement to coax you onto your feet. Your heart skipped a beat as he led you away from the bar and to the center of the room where the other couples were. The wooden floor creaked softly beneath your boots while the piano and fiddle carried the melody effortlessly through the saloon.
“I'll step on your feet,” you warned, sounding far less confident than you wished.
“You probably will.”
“...That's not exactly reassuring.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him. “They'll heal.”
You shot him an unamused look before he guided one of your hands onto his shoulder. His other hand rested carefully against your waist, leaving just enough space between. You hesitated at first before finally placing your free hand into his, surprised by how cold his palm felt against yours.
“Now what?” you asked quietly.
“Now…” Sukuna glanced towards the musicians before returning his attention to you. “...listen.”
You frowned. “To what?”
“To the music.”
The piano’s melody sounded through the room in slow, gentle notes while the fiddle followed close behind, weaving effortlessly into the song. Around you, dozens of couples moved together, no one counting steps or worrying about getting them exactly right. They simply followed the rhythm.
Sukuna took one slow step backwards. Your body naturally followed. At first every movement felt painfully awkward. More than once you accidentally stepped onto his boots before immediately mumbling an embarrassed apology, only for him to pretend it hadn't happened. Eventually, your shoulders relaxed. You stopped staring so intensely at your own feet and instead allowed yourself to simply follow wherever he led, trusting that if you stumbled, he'd catch you before you fell.
“There you go,” he murmured.
“I still think I'm terrible.”
“You are.”
You looked up at him in disbelief. “...Excuse me?”
“But you're getting better.” a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
You rolled your eyes, unable to stop yourself from laughing. “That wasn't very nice.”
“I never claimed to be.”
You and Sukuna continued swaying together as the rest of the world slowly faded into the background. The laughter surrounding you softened into an indistinct murmur while the lanterns above cast a warm golden glow across the dance floor. Somewhere nearby Yuki spun happily beneath Choso's arm, Manami and Elsu moved together at the opposite end of the room, and even a few of the older townsfolk smiled fondly as they watched the younger generation enjoy themselves.
Your gaze drifted across the room before returning to Sukuna. “...You're actually pretty good at this.”
“I've had a long time to practice.”
“I would've never guessed.”
“There are many things you don't know about me.”
The cheerful sounds around you seemed farther away. You studied his face, illuminated by the soft light overhead. The teasing smile he'd worn moments earlier had faded into something quieter, almost thoughtful. It made you wonder, not for the first time, who Ryomen Sukuna had been before Whiskey Falls. Before the house. Before the horses. Before the man standing in front of you had somehow become someone you trusted without ever realizing when it happened.
You opened your mouth, wanting to ask him something when suddenly somebody yelled.
“MR. SHERIFF! MR. SHERIFF!” the shrill cry of a terrified child tore through the music like a knife.
Everyone in the saloon and outside froze. The music slowed down. The couples stood still. The conversations stopped. Within seconds, every soul came to an abrupt stop as frightened eyes turned towards the entrance.
Satoru was already moving before anyone else could react. He quickly crossed the room and knelt in front of the child, placing both hands firmly on his shoulders. “Hey.” his voice remained calm despite the concern settling across his face. “Take a deep breath.”
The boy tried and failed. His chest continued rising and falling so violently he could barely force the words out. “S-Sorry…”
“You're alright.” Satoru reassured him. “Just breathe. Start from the beginning.”
The child swallowed hard before finally managing to steady himself enough to speak. “It's just… there's... there's a body near the river.” his lips trembled.
“...A body?” Satoru repeated quietly.
The boy nodded frantically. Several audible gasps spread throughout the room. Someone muttered a prayer beneath their breath. Another quietly whispered, “Lord have mercy.” Even those who had spent most of the night too drunk to understand where they were suddenly looked sober.
Satoru's expression hardened almost immediately. “What were you doing near the river this late?”
“We…” the boy sniffled, wiping at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “We were trying to catch fireflies. Me... Wendy... and the others.”
“And then what happened?”
“Wendy tripped over something.” his breathing hitched again. “At first she thought it was just a log.” he squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry again. “But then she looked ...and it wasn't.”
The room remained deathly quiet. No one laughed. No one spoke. The cheerful atmosphere that had filled the saloon only moments earlier had vanished so completely.
Satoru slowly stood. He exchanged a glance with Suguru and Yuta. Neither of them said a word. They didn't need to.
“Alright.” Satoru rested one reassuring hand atop the boy's shoulder. “Show me.”
The child nodded. Without another question Satoru gently took the boy's hand, allowing him to lead the way outside. The crowd hesitated before curiosity got the best of them, and one after another people quietly followed behind them until nearly the entire saloon emptied into the street.
You found yourself walking next to Sukuna without consciously deciding to do so while Yuki and Choso remained close behind. Toji followed several paces back with Manami, Elsu, Shoko and Utahime, the musicians abandoning their instruments where they rested. Even the handful of drunken patrons shuffled after the growing crowd, sobered by the frightened expression still lingering across the child's face.
The walk felt wrong. Only minutes ago the streets had echoed with laughter, music and celebration. Now the laughter had disappeared. Boots quietly crunched against dirt while hushed whispers drifted from person to person, each rumor growing stranger than the last.
“Maybe it was a traveler…”
“Could've been an animal attack…”
“No... bears don't come this close to town.”
“Christ…”
The farther everyone walked toward the edge of town the quieter they became.
Eventually the little boy slowed. “There…” his trembling finger pointed toward a tall patch of grass. Several adults already stood there attempting to comfort a handful of crying children. The moment they spotted Satoru relief washed across their faces.
“Sheriff…” one of the mothers breathed. “Thank goodness.”
Satoru nodded once. “Everyone stay back.”
Nobody argued, they just obeyed.
Satoru slowly stepped beyond the crowd. The closer he got the more clearly the body came into view. A young woman lay peacefully among the grass, her long hair carefully braided over one shoulder. The simple dress she wore remained almost untouched, the fabric barely stained despite the damp earth beneath her. Her hands rested quietly across her stomach. She looked almost asleep. That was the unsettling part, had it not been for the unnatural pallor draining every trace of warmth from her skin. You could almost believe she might open her eyes at any moment.
Satoru crouched besides the body. His practiced eyes searched carefully for anything that could explain what had happened: a bruise, a knife wound, broken bones, anything, but there was nothing. Not a scratch. Not torn clothes. No signs she'd struggled.
His brow furrowed. “...What?” he leaned closer. Something caught his eye. Barely visible beneath the loose strands of black hair resting against her neck there were two tiny puncture wounds. No larger than the head of a nail.
Behind him Suguru and Utahime carefully pushed through the crowd.
“Satoru…” Suguru called quietly. “What is it?”
Neither of them received an answer.
Utahime stepped forward. The moment her eyes landed on the woman's face every bit of color drained from her own. Her hands flew over her mouth. “...Is that..?”
Suguru followed her gaze. His entire body went still. His breathing caught somewhere deep in his throat. The world seemed to stop turning. “Riko…”
Satoru exchanged glances with Suguru, then with Elsu and Yuta who were standing among the crowd. A silent understanding passed between them. The hunt had officially begun.
As you grow from a curious child into a watchful young woman, a series of quiet, charged encounters with the King’s fearsome knight, Sir Simon Riley, turns him from a distant symbol of war into the first thread of the love story that will change your life.
2. Before the Skull
You were seven the first time you saw him properly.
Not just as a blur of metal in the corner of your eye or a shadow behind your father, but as a man standing solid in the bright white of the training yard.
You had slipped away from your governess, as usual, ducking down the servants' staircase and squeezing behind a tapestry until her voice faded. Bare feet, bunched skirts, the thrill of getting away buzzing in your chest.
The little stone slit of a window over the yard was your favorite secret. You pressed your cheek to the cool wall and peered out.
He was the first thing you saw.
He was tall. That was what struck you first. Not giant, but taller than any man around him, shoulders wide under a plain quilted gambeson, arms thick and roped with muscle as he brought his sword around in a smooth arc. The strike landed with a ringing crack against his opponent's shield.
Dark blond hair clung damp to his forehead and the nape of his neck. His boots were heavy, you could hear them when he pivoted, but he moved quiet for someone that size, steps economical, sure. When he shifted into another guard, the light glanced off his blade, off the curve of his jaw.
He disarmed the other knight like it was nothing, steel flashing, the man's sword spinning away into the sand. The watching squires gasped. The man he'd beaten swore under his breath and tried to hide it.
You leaned farther, nearly smearing your nose on the stone.
"Who is that?" you whispered to yourself.
"Your Highness."
You startled. Your governess's hand clamped around your shoulder, gently iron.
"Who is he?" you insisted, nodding toward the yard.
She followed your gaze and made a small sound. "That is Sir Simon Riley."
"Sir Simon," you repeated, tasting the title. "He is a knight?"
"He is the King's knight," she said. "And not for little princesses to stare at. Come away this instant."
You dug your heels in as she tugged, trying to get one more look.
The tall knight turned his head. For a heartbeat your eyes met his from across the yard. Even at that distance you saw they were dark brown, sharp, and much older than the rest of him.
Your chest fluttered.
Then you were hauled away down the corridor.
"Stay away from knights," your governess scolded. "They are trouble and blood and war, not stories for your head."
You nodded because you were supposed to. But in your mind you kept seeing dark eyes and a sword that moved like part of him.
You did not stay away.
Not on purpose. The palace simply was not big enough to keep you out of each other's paths.
When you were nine, you rounded a corner too quickly, skirts too long, shoes newly polished and far too slippery. You collided with something solid.
Hands closed around your upper arms, catching you before your knees could hit stone.
You looked up.
He was right there this time, towering over you. Close, he seemed even taller, the top of your head not even reaching the breadth of his chest. Dark blond hair cut shorter now, sweat at the temples, dark brown eyes down on you with sharp assessment before he seemed to remember you were the princess.
"Easy, Your Highness," he said. His voice rumbled through his chest into your arms.
You straightened, trying to look less like a tangle of silk and panic.
"You were in my way," you said, because it felt better than admitting you had been running.
One of his brows lifted. Up close you could see a pale old scar nicking through it, a thin white line. "Apologies."
Behind him, two younger knights carrying spears stared very hard at the opposite wall, clearly trying not to look.
Your nursemaid puffed around the corner, grabbed you, started babbling apologies. You twisted in her grip, looking over your shoulder as she dragged you away.
He was still watching you, that same unreadable expression on his face, heavy boots planted steady on the stone, sword at his hip.
"Watch your step next time, Princess," he said.
You thought about that for days.
When you were ten, a summer storm swallowed the sky.
Thunder rattled the windows in their frames. Lightning turned the world outside white every few heartbeats. You snuck out of your chambers with a stolen candle to climb one of the towers and see the storm from the top.
You made it up. You did not think about getting down.
Halfway back, a gust of wind had your candle out. The stairwell plunged into darkness.
You told yourself you were not afraid. You put one hand on the wall and took careful steps. One, two, three.
Your toe caught on the cracked edge of a stone. You pitched forward with a little yelp you would later swear you never made.
An arm slid around your waist, hard and unyielding, stopping your fall.
"I thought I told you to watch your step."
That voice again, close to your ear this time.
The lantern he held lit his face from below. Rain beaded on his hair; plastered to his temples. The planes of his face were sharper now than when you'd first seen him: cheekbones cut clean, jaw dark with stubble. His dark brown eyes flicked over you, checking for harm before he seemed to remember himself and let go.
"Sir Simon," you said, feeling ridiculous for sounding relieved.
He looked past you up the stairs, then down. Always checking, always measuring.
"Alone, Your Highness?"
"I wanted to see the storm."
"And break your neck for it?" He huffed, a sound that might have been a laugh if it had any softness to it. He shrugged out of his cloak and set it around your shoulders. It smelled of leather and oil and the sharp bite of cold rain. It was so big it swallowed you almost to your ankles.
"The King will have my head if you fall from a tower," he said. "Come."
He walked you all the way back, lantern light casting your twin shadows long on the walls. He did not talk, but his heavy boots took each step soundless, like he'd learned how not to echo.
At your door, your governess nearly fainted with relief and outrage. Simon stepped back, giving her room to scold you, and the briefest flicker of something like amusement touched his mouth.
You opened your mouth to thank him, but the door shut on your words.
You lay awake that night listening to thunder, pulling his cloak tighter around yourself under the covers until the storm passed.
War talk began a year later.
The adults spoke in lower voices, but they did not lower them enough. You heard the way they said border and raids and skirmish, the way your father's hand closed into a fist over maps.
At eleven, you had learned which doors were never quite fully closed.
From the crack beside a hinge, you watched your father and his council bent over a table painted with your kingdom.
"They are testing us," the chancellor said. "Small hits, near the villages, nothing that will threaten the main road."
"Small hits build into larger ones," your father answered. "They smell weakness."
Simon stood on his right, armor plain but well-kept, helm under one arm. Even inside, with a dozen other men in the chamber, he moved quieter than most of them. He watched the map, arms folded across his broad chest.
He was a young man now, you'd heard. A man who had been your father's sword since he was still learning to read.
"The pass here," he said, callused finger tapping a narrow gap painted between green hills. "If they mean to push something heavier than raiding parties through, that is where they will do it. I recommend we put eyes on it."
"Yours," your father said, not really asking.
Simon did not look up from the map. "If that is your wish, Your Majesty."
"Take who you trust," your father said. "Bring me truth, not comfort."
"Yes, Sire."
You pressed your palm flat to the door. Leaving again.
He left two mornings later. You watched from the high balcony as the gates opened, horses stamping in the cold. He was easy to pick out even from above: tall in the saddle, dark blond hair catching what little sun broke through the clouds, cloak hanging straight from his shoulders.
He did not look up at the balcony. You told yourself he did not know you were there. Even if he did, he would and should not care.
They said he took a blade to the face.
You heard it from the laundresses first. You were not supposed to be in the laundry courtyard, but the steam felt good on cold mornings and they told the best stories.
"Straight through the line, they say," one woman said, beating a tunic against a flat stone. "Our lads holding, theirs screaming, and the King's hound right in the middle. Took a blade that would have gone into the captain behind him."
"And kept fighting," another put in, eyes shining. "They always do in the stories."
"It is not a story. My cousin's boy is a squire out there. Says he saw it."
You went cold all over and hot all over at once.
"You should not be here, Your Highness," your lady-in-waiting said, tugging you back toward the inner hall. "There are better things for your ears than blood and spears."
You did not argue, but your heart stayed in the courtyard.
When the riders came back, you were on the steps before anyone could tell you otherwise.
They came through the gate in a clatter of hooves and mud-splattered cloaks. Men thinner, horses tired. The air smelled of sweat and iron and the faint rot of bandages needing to be changed.
Simon rode among them, armor dented, dark blond hair longer and shoved back from his forehead. A strip of linen wrapped from his temple down across his cheek, stained rusty where it covered the wound. His dark brown eyes looked tired, but clear. He swung down from the saddle with the same quiet, controlled ease as always.
For a moment, as he turned to speak to an officer, his gaze slid over the steps.
You straightened without meaning to, chin lifting.
Then your father's steward called his name, and he disappeared into the palace.
You waited until dusk to slip away.
The healers' wing was full. Men on pallets, soft groans, the smell of boiled herbs. At the very back, in a small stone room with the door half open, you found him.
He sat shirtless on a narrow bed, back straight, muscles in his arms and shoulders coiled tight with the effort of sitting still while the healer cleaned the wound on his face. The blade had left its mark: a diagonal gash from just under his eye down toward his jaw. Angry, swollen edges, crusted with dried blood.
He flinched when the cloth bit into it, jaw clenching, but he did not pull away.
You shifted your weight, and the old floorboards betrayed you with a soft creak.
His head turned. Even half exhausted, his eyes cut to the doorway like an arrow loosed.
You froze, caught.
"Your Highness," the healer sputtered, immediately trying to bow and nearly dropping his basin. "This is no place—"
"I was just..." You swallowed. "I wanted to see that you were not dead."
It was a stupid thing to say. Heat rushed up your neck.
The corners of Simon's mouth moved, just enough that you saw how the new wound pulled with the beginnings of a smile.
"Not dead," he said. His voice was rougher than usual. "You can tell them that."
You stared at the thin, raw line on his face. You remembered the laundry yard stories and thought of a spear point aimed at someone else and his body in the way.
Your nurse caught up with you a moment later and hauled you out in a hiss of mortified apology.
You glanced back as the door swung shut.
He was still watching you.
The King called it a reward.
The court was summoned to the smaller hall a week later. You stood at your father's left, hands in proper folds, official gown heavy on your shoulders.
Simon knelt at the foot of the dais, armor polished as well as battered steel would allow, new scar a pale cut along his cheek. His dark blond hair had been trimmed close again, as if someone had hacked off the damaged part and not bothered much with neatness.
"Sir Simon Riley," your father said for everyone to hear. "You have been my sword since boyhood. You have bled for my walls, stood where others faltered. When enemies see you across a field, they know whose justice is at their throats."
The courtiers murmured their appreciation. You watched his profile: the set of his jaw, the way his shoulders did not quite relax even as the words washed over him.
"As such," your father continued, "I would see that they know you. And fear you, as they should."
A servant stepped forward with something wrapped in dark cloth. When the cloth was pulled away, people gasped.
The mask was bone-white. Shaped to fit over a man's face, brow to jaw, it had hollow black eye sockets and rough lines suggesting cheekbones, the shadow of teeth over the mouth. A skull, if a skull had been taught to sneer.
"Rise," your father commanded.
Simon rose.
Your father descended the last step of the dais and, with a pleased little smile, fitted the mask over Simon's face himself. Leather straps tightened behind his head.
"There," the King said. "Now when my enemies see you, they will see death itself riding toward them. And they will remember whose hand holds its leash."
Courtiers laughed. The chancellor smiled like he meant it.
You felt something twist under your ribs.
The mask hid everything. The scar, the tiredness, the small almost-smiles that never quite reached his eyes. The painted shadows turned him into a symbol instead of a man.
"As you will, Your Majesty," Simon said. His voice came slightly muffled now, deeper for the hollow behind the bone.
From that day on, you did not see his face in public again.
Years began to close over the moments like water over stones.
He passed you in corridors, heavy boots almost silent. Once, as you wrestled a stack of books bigger than your arms, one slid, about to crash to the floor. A gloved hand shot out. The book landed against his palm instead of the flagstones.
He handed it back, skull mask tilted down toward you.
"Thank you, Sir Simon," you said, trying to meet the dark where his eyes would be.
He gave the slightest nod and moved on.
In the training yard, from your high windows, you watched him put new recruits through their paces. The shape of him was always unmistakable: six foot three, broad-shouldered, sword in his hand an extension of his arm. He moved with the same quiet precision you'd first seen when you were small, only more so now, everything unnecessary worn away by years of drill and battle.
Sometimes, when you were very certain no one could see you, you raised a hand in a tiny wave.
Once, you could have sworn the mask tipped a fraction in answer.
In the chapel, you slipped in early and saw a man kneeling at the back, mask on the floor beside him, head bowed. You recognized the line of his shoulders instantly, the scars on his arms where the linen of his shirt gaped.
He heard you. His head turned, and for the first time in years you glimpsed the strong planes of his face without the skull. Dark blond hair longer than regulation, the scar on his cheek now pale and smooth.
You drew in a breath.
He picked up the mask and slid it back on before you could see more.
"Your Highness," he said, voice echoing faintly inside the bone. He bowed his head just enough to be respectful, then left by the side door.
You stood there in the quiet chapel, suddenly very aware of your heart beating in your throat.
On winter nights, you paced the long gallery when sleep refused to come. Far below, in the courtyard, you sometimes saw him crossing from barracks to stables to gate. A lone figure, cloak dark against the snow, mask pale as the moon.
You were told over and over to keep your distance. That the King's hound was dangerous, that he belonged to war and not to you.
You believed them. You stayed where a princess was meant to stand.
Still, your eyes followed him whenever he was near, and some stubborn part of you tucked away every glance, every almost-smile, every quiet rescue, like bright coins hidden under your pillow.
Short interactions. Passing moments. Nothing that could be called a conversation.
But under it all, war was looming closer, line on the horizon growing darker.
And whether anyone knew it yet or not, Sir Simon Riley was already part of the story your life was going to become.
Want to be tagged when the next chapter drops? Leave a “TAG ME” in the comments below.
꒰ summary ꒱ when a misunderstanding leaves your family convinced you’re bringing a plus one to your cousin’s wedding in Japan, the last person you expect to volunteer for the role is your infuriatingly observant intern, Satoru. it’s supposed to be temporary. professional. strictly off the record. but with your mother already sold on the idea of your mystery boyfriend, and Satoru proving far too good at the role, pretending starts to feel a little too dangerous. also, why is your “intern” secretly the heir to gojo corporation?!
꒰ tags/warnings ꒱ fake dating ⚹︎ undercover ceo! satoru ⚹︎ accountant! reader ⚹︎ satoru is 29, reader is 26 ⚹︎ lots of family pressure. reader has a complicated relationship with her mom ⚹︎ forced proximity ⚹︎ one bed trope ⚹︎ slow burn ⚹︎ mutual pining ⚹︎ wedding chaos ⚹︎ angst and fluff ⚹︎ some suggestive content but no explicit smut ⚹︎
꒰ authors note ꒱ surpriseeee — this is 3 parts now hehe. satoru is still our lovingly annoying sweetheart here, but this part does have a bit more angst than the last. nothing too wild though… just a whole lot of yearning and our poor reader being very committed to denial. i hope you enjoy! part 3 will be the last one. (art by @/hanamin_0123 on x)
<<< part 1 - main masterlist - part 3 >>>
part 2
“Ma’am, may I interest you in our menu?” the flight attendant asks, leaning in with a practiced smile.
"Oh—um. Yes... thank you."
The thick, cream-colored menu lands in your hands a second later, and you settle into your seat just as she disappears down the aisle. A seat that is far too comfortable for the current state of your life. But that’s the thing about first class — it makes it very hard to be appropriately miserable, and you are trying to be miserable right now. You are committed to it.
“If you need recommendations… I recommend the wagyu.” Satoru leans in, close enough that his breath feathers warm against the side of your neck. “It’s to die for.”
He grins, blue eyes glinting behind snowy lashes. And unfortunately, the wagyu isn’t the thing currently putting your life at risk. Because a shiver moves through you before you can stop it.
“O-Oh…” your head jerks away, quickly. “Uh-huh… sure.”
Refusing to turn, you keep your eyes stubbornly on the cabin — denying him the satisfaction of seeing what his closeness does to the treacherous, backstabbing organ inside your chest. But you catch him in your periphery — leaning back, entirely unbothered, reaching for his own menu with that pleased little hum that means, of course, he notices.
Ugh.
This is going to be a long-ass ten-hour flight. And first class, as it turns out, is only roomy when you aren’t seated beside the exact person currently making your pulse act deeply unprofessional.
…
Wait. When did your pulse start doing that?!
Miserable, you remind yourself. Yeah. Miserable.
With a sigh, you click your seatbelt into place and flip open the menu, genuinely trying to build a case for why this is the worst decision you’ve ever made. Unfortunately, it is hard to maintain righteous regret when the menu has no prices on it. Not one. Just elegant font, artful descriptions, and ingredients arranged like poetry.
…you’d booked economy.
Economy.
But then he’d upgraded your tickets last minute like that was a normal thing a person did — insisting you fly with him. Like swapping someone’s middle seat for a first-class cocoon with a duvet and a champagne flute was just… hospitality.
“Um… Satoru?” Your brow arches as you take in the absurdly extravagant menu. “How much does this cost, exactly…?” He doesn’t even glance up. “Mm? Oh.” Flipping a page, his hand waves lazily. “Don’t worry about it.”
…
Don’t worry about it?
You are very much worrying about it. Because how the hell does an intern afford this?! You know how much interns make at your company; you’ve worked with HR, signed off on the numbers — and it is categorically not this.
But fine. Whatever. That is, somehow, the least of your problems right now. And your mind was already veering back toward the more immediate catastrophe currently taxiing toward the runway.
Your family.
“Right… well. Anyways, Satoru,” you say, setting the menu down. “We should probably establish the basics before we get to Japan and—”
“—what do you like to eat?”
You blink, lips parting.
“I—sorry…what?”
“I like sweets,” he says, turning toward you. A toothy grin spreads across his face, dimples peeking. “Let’s see… cake, cream buns, mochi…” he muses. “Oh! Especially kikifuku mochi, it’s the best.” He nods solemnly. “Honestly, I think it’s the whipped cream inside that really makes the difference.”
Your brow furrows as you stare at him.
…when did this become a TED talk about sugar? You were trying to discuss a plan, and he is out here curating a dessert menu like the most pressing crisis of the next ten hours is pastry selection.
“Okay…? That’s nice. But we should talk about—”
“Food,” he states, picking up the menu you just set down. He flips it open and angles it back toward you like that is the only sensible conversation available. “C’mon. What do you like? Not what you’ll settle for… what you’ll actually like. Ten hours is a long time, sweetheart.”
Brow knitting, you frown.
He cannot be serious. That is not the priority right now.
“That—that can wait. We need to—”
“—establish the basics, yeah.” He rolls his eyes and tips his head back against the seat, like your resistance is personally exhausting him. But then his gaze flicks back, amused. “And I’m just saying food is a basic necessity. Because you skip lunch when you’re busy, forget breakfast when you’re anxious, and then act shocked when you feel like shit three hours later. So, eat.” He places the menu back in your hands. “Preferably something that isn’t stale pretzels, yeah?”
Something hot and startled climbs your neck so fast it’s almost impressive. Your mouth opens, but whatever rebuttal is forming never makes it. Because before you can recover—
“Honestly, I gotta say… the soba is pretty good too, actually.” His face is suddenly just over your shoulder, murmuring close enough that you feel the heat of him against your ear. “If you don’t want the wagyu, that is. Wait—scratch that. Maybe ramen…?” His finger traces a line on the menu, pale lashes lowering, tongue clinking gently. “Mm… never mind. Too much broth and there could be turbulence.”
Your whole body stiffens. Because his closeness does not feel unwelcome. Which is exactly the problem.
…when did he get so comfortable?!
“…stop doing that,” you mutter, pulling back. He looks over, the picture of innocence. “Doing what?”
Your lips purse.
“I dunno. Being…” But the word dissolves, and you're reaching for your water, needing something to do with your hands. “So… comfortable. So—” You cut yourself off with a small huff. “Like this.”
His grin is unbearable, lazy and crooked.
“Oh?” he reclines. “Like what, baby?”
You sputter into your water.
“Baby?”
You’re choking on your drink, and Satoru looks entirely too pleased with himself. He's chuckling, leaning over without a second thought, one hand settling warm between your shoulder blades.
“Awwh… what’s this? Don’t be shy now,” he hums, the picture of helpfulness, rubbing slow circles with a sigh. “We’re gonna have to get way cozier than this if I’m playing boyfriend. Just establishing the basics, yeah?”
As you straighten with a glare, you can tell without a doubt he is openly enjoying himself. That grin hasn’t moved a goddamn inch.
…asshole.
Huffing, you settle back into your seat. And it isn’t long before the plane shudders gently away from the gate, inching out onto the runway with that slow, terrible sense of inevitability that only air travel is capable of producing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time please ensure your seatbelt is securely fastened… flight attendants, prepare for departure.”
The overhead announcement crackles through the cabin, too polished to be comforting. While beneath you, the whole plane seems to draw tight, a low hum building through the floor, climbing up through your seat.
You exhale, letting your eyes fall shut. Just long enough to pretend you weren’t here. Just long enough to avoid the window, the runway, and the deeply unhelpful fact that your brain liked to save all its worst thoughts for takeoff.
…like how first class wasn’t exactly known for improving your odds. Like how takeoff and landing were statistically the worst parts. Like how the engine sounded different now, probably… maybe, and—
“Hey.”
Satoru’s voice came quieter this time; enough to pull your eyes back open. When you look over, that vibrant blue is already watching you — steady, unhurried, like he has been waiting for you to surface.
“Are you… nervous?”
“What? N-No…” you lie, huffing. His brow arches, sensing your bullshit. “Okay… then why are you doing that with your hands?”
Following his gaze, your fingers had folded into fists without even noticing, in that particular way they always do when you’re trying to physically hold yourself together.
Fuck.
It’s ridiculous, really. You knew flying was statistically safe! Knew it the way you knew balance sheets and quarterly projections and the exact percentage margins that kept departments alive. And yet, takeoff had always felt like the part where logic starts losing altitude.
“Oh…” A small, awkward laugh slips out, just as the engine begins to roar. You smooth your palms over your trembling thighs, shouting over it. “It’s fine! Really! I just… um—I guess I don’t particularly like takeoff, is all!”
His expression softens in a way you weren’t braced for. But before he can answer, the plane surges forward and your eyes squeeze shut. A massive force presses you back into the seat while vibrations climb through the floor and up your spine.
It’s terrible. Completely terrible. But somewhere in the middle of it, a warm hand slides against yours. It takes you a second to register his fingers lacing between your own, and the moment his thumb brushes the back of your hand, you instinctively grip him tighter.
Your eyes stay shut, but you feel the plane lift hard and fast into the sky. And somewhere between the roar of the engines and that awful pull in your stomach, the slow circles his thumb traces against your skin become the only thing your body seems willing to trust.
By the time the pressure eases and the plane finally levels out, your lungs have only just remembered how to work. For a second, neither of you moves until—
“…better?”
His voice brushes the quiet between you. You blink your eyes open.
“Yeah…” you whisper. “Um… thanks.”
He smiles. “Sure.”
That thumb brushes one last time against the back of your hand before finally pulling away, dropping back into his lap with a simple nod like it had been nothing. And the loss of that warmth was immediate enough to sting.
Oh…
He’s… annoyingly good at taking care of you. And worse, your body had recognized it before your brain could file the proper objection — clinging first, thinking later, like comfort was something you could afford to trust.
Maybe the altitude was messing with your head…
Ten hours was a long time.
Long enough to work out the safest parts of the lie. How long you’ve been together. Where you met. Which version of the truth felt neat enough to survive one wedding weekend without collapsing under the weight of follow-up questions.
It was just… not long enough, apparently, for the parts that actually mattered.
“Soooo… question…” Satoru had stretched lazily, turning his glass between two fingers as he glanced over. “What exactly should I expect when we land?”
You kept your attention on the blanket across your lap, flattening a wrinkle. “Probably… jet lag?” you mutter sarcastically, avoiding his gaze, fussing with the fabric. “And a long enough drive to regret everything in peace.”
He snorts. “Well, yeah. Obviously.” Ice clicked softly as he tipped his glass, shifting toward you. “Not what I meant, though. I meant with your family.”
And when the warmth of his attention settled against the side of your face — you hesitated. Because it was patient in a way that only made it harder to meet. Patient in the way of someone who’s learned that pushing doesn’t work on you. Which you’re unsure is better, or worse. Because waiting means he’s paying attention, and paying attention means he’ll notice when you crack.
“We’ll just… talk about that later,” you huffed, tugging the blanket a little higher before turning toward the window. “I’m tired. Gonna try to sleep.”
Later… yeah. Later.
But by baggage claim, you were running out of runway. You had to do it soon. Get it over with. Preferably somewhere between the airport and your hotel, where you could spit it out quickly and not have to watch his face too closely while you did.
So now, Satoru yawns beside the conveyor belt, tired blue eyes skimming the slow parade of suitcases rounding the carousel. Hands in his pockets, shoulders loose, posture easy in a way that only makes you more tense. You stand there staring at the back of him, fingers hooked tight in the seam of your shirt.
Now.
“Hey… Satoru?” you mumble. “Hm?” His gaze lands on your luggage and he’s already stepping forward to grab it. “Um, well…” You hesitate. “About my family… I—"
“—oh! Look—look! There they are!”
The moment her voice rings through the terminal, everything inside you locks. You turn, and for one wild second, you genuinely wonder if it’s too late to get back on that godforsaken plane.
Satoru hauls your suitcase off the belt.
“What about them?” he asks, turning when you stop short. Then he sees your face. “…sweetheart?” His brows furrow, following your line of sight — and there is your mother, cutting through the crowd with Trish beside her, moving with the kind of delighted urgency you aren’t prepared to see for at least another twelve hours.
No.
No, no, no.
“—oh my god, there he is!” Your mother walks straight past you — past you — and both hands are wrapping around Satoru’s like he’s who she came for. "Oh, he's handsome. Trish, look—"
It’s no surprise, really, that you’re a second thought. You’ve been a second thought since before you could name it. But that isn’t the wound that matters at this particular moment. The bigger problem is that she’s here.
…why the hell is she here?!
You were supposed to have more time—
“—oh my god,” Trish breathes to you. “Damn. girl. He’s, like… stupid handsome.” And Satoru’s grin went smug, drawling. “Oh, please, ladies. Keep the compliments coming. I’m feeling very welcomed~”
Your mother giggles. “Handsome and funny. Oh, he’s a charmer,” she says, smacking his shoulder playfully. Though the laugh lands bitter. “God. Why on earth would she keep you from me?! I mean… wow. I was beginning to think she’d die alone.”
The words hit like a slap dressed as a joke.
Satoru blinks, the smile faltering for half a second, head tilting imperceptibly.
…great.
Of fucking course she’d say something like that within the first thirty seconds.
“Mother… what—” your voice wavers, eyes falling shut with a swallow. “Sorry. I just—what are you both doing here?”
She did a tiny double take, like she’d only just remembered you were standing there. “Oh, honey…” A hand waves, scoffing. “Don’t be silly—of course we’re here to pick you up! God. I wouldn’t leave you stranded at the airport,” she snorts.
Oh, right.
So she wouldn’t abandon you at an airport. Just in another country.
…good to know there's a line somewhere.
“Besides, why don’t you both just stay with us instead?” she’s already reaching for Satoru’s hand again, bright with the idea. “We’ve got a guest room ready, and I’d love for the chance to talk to you.”
Your body goes rigid.
Oh no. Fuck no.
Anything but that.
Satoru must have seen it written across your face — that particular shade of panic —because his eyes cut to you for only half a second before he slips his hand free, turning back to your mother with a smile already in place.
“That’s incredibly kind, ma’am,” he says, tugging you into his side with an ease that shouldn’t have felt as steadying as it did. “But we’re staying pretty close to my family’s place, and I should probably swing by tomorrow morning.” He rubs the back of his neck with a theatrical groan. “It’s been a few months since I’ve seen my father, and trust me, I’ll regret it if he finds out I came to Tokyo and didn’t stop by, y’know?”
Apparently, ten hours isn’t long enough for the parts that actually matter, because…
“Oh? Your family’s place?” your mother repeats, brows lifting. “So, are they here in Tokyo too, then?” He nods. “Mm, yeah. Pretty much all the Gojos are—at least on my dad’s side. My mom’s in Kyoto.”
…
Wait.
Did he just say Gojo?
As in—
Your boss’s family?!
No. Absolutely not. Between the jet lag, the shock, and your mother still glowing beside you, your brain simply does not have the bandwidth for this. Your lips part, blinking like that might somehow rearrange what he just said into something less insane.
Nothing comes out.
“Gojo…” your mother repeats, brows knitting. “Why does that sound familiar?” Trish blinks. "Wait—like… Gojo Corporation Gojo?!"
Satoru’s grin widens. “Yep. That’d be us.”
“Ah!” Your mother snaps her fingers. “Gojo Corporation. Yes—of course! Silly me. I thought that name seemed familiar…”
And now, the hurt arrives before the shock finishes landing — ugly and precise and aimed at the exact spot that never heals right. Five years of your work, your career, your life inside that building. But she only knows it because a handsome man says it in a terminal.
You stare. “Mom… you can't be serious?” and the hurt in your own voice catches you off guard. “I’ve… I've literally been working at Gojo Corporation for the last five years.”
Fuck...
Get it together.
Out of the corner of your eye, Satoru watches you. But your mother moves on like you’re invisible.
“Oh Satoru Gojo, you just keep getting better and better.” You feel him hesitating as she tugs eagerly. “Come—come! At least let us drive you both to the hotel, hm? There’s so much I need to hear and—”
“—sorry ma’am, no.”
Satoru’s pulling you into him like the decision has already been made. And you blink while his fingers smooth gently through your hair, tipping your chin up with a long finger.
“Honestly, I’m beat…” His thumb brushes your cheek, gaze searching your face. “…aren’t you, love?”
There’s a hitch in your breath
Oh.
So… you’re not invisible?
As it leaves you in a quiet shudder, for one suspended second, there is nothing but that soft blue of his eyes and the way they’ve gone gentle for you. All you can do is nod — and a single tear slips free before you can stop it.
He tucks you against his chest, hiding your face, and flashes a grin back at your mother.
“Ugh… I appreciate you coming to get us, but we’ve been up for way too long and—” Glancing down at his phone, he lets out a small laugh. “Ah. Perfect timing! Would ya look at that—my driver’s here.” A tug of your hand. “But we’ll catch up tomorrow, yeah? Bye, ladies~”
Your legs are moving on their own, and you don’t even catch the expression on your mother’s face. Can’t. Not when your pulse is still tripping over itself. Not when his hand wraps around yours like letting go isn’t even a question.
The suitcase rolled behind you, with the airport crowd bustling. While those bright eyes flicked back, making sure you were still there every few steps.
“C’mon, pretty girl… we’re almost there,” he murmurs. “Just stay with me, okay? Eyes on me, yeah?”
And… you weren’t sure why he lowered his voice. Not when they were already well out of earshot. You only know that… it nearly undoes you all over again.
By the time the limo pulls away from the curb, Satoru had already figured out two things: your mother was awful, and somehow, he’d gotten you out of there only to realize he hadn’t fully brought you back with him.
It’s the furrow in your brow that gets him first… then the wobble in your lip — the one you think you’re hiding, the one you always think you’re hiding. You haven’t said a word since climbing into the backseat. Haven’t looked at him either. Instead, you stay toward the window, watching Tokyo slip by in blurred ribbons of light, glowing against the glass in streaks of neon. A city that has no business being that beautiful when you look that broken.
…shit. Should he crack a joke? No. Maybe not.
But asking if you’re okay feels useless. You obviously aren’t. And worse, saying it out loud feels like the fastest way to make you disappear even further behind that window — to watch you pull the shutters down the way you always do.
“Well, then…” A hand drags through his hair as he lets his head fall back against the seat. “Um… gotta say—your family really believes in making an entrance, huh? Talk about—”
“—I thought your name was Satoru Geto.”
He blinks.
“Huh?”
Your gaze finally pulls from the window, landing on him, and the hurt in it is so carefully contained it almost looks like composure. Almost. Except he’s spent four months learning to read you, and composure doesn’t tremble at the edges like that.
“…Satoru Geto,” you mutter carefully. “That’s the name on your employee record, no?”
Oh...
Right. That.
“…is it?” His gaze slips away, fingers scratching at the back of his neck. “Yeah… um. About that. Geto’s actually my best friend. I just used his last name because the initials matched.” He’s flopping back against the seat with a small shrug, one arm slinging across the top. “Made it easier to sign off on stuff that way. Gotta work smarter, not harder, right?”
And tilting his head, a crooked grin tugs at the corner of his lips.
Yours doesn’t move.
“Right,” you deadpan, turning back toward the window. “So your plan was to just let me keep calling you that.”
You don’t say it like a question.
…is it a question?
Satoru’s brow furrows at the hurt threaded beneath the words. “No… I—” he huffs, hands dropping into his lap. “Obviously I had to hide it while I was working with you, but my legal name was on the boarding pass I gave you, so it’s not like I was actively hiding it, sweetheart.”
You scoff under your breath. “Oh. Cool. So I was just supposed to… what—figure that out on my own?” And suddenly, your voice is doing this awful thing now — losing its clean, controlled shape, slipping into something thinner. Hotter.
He hears it immediately, sighing. “Sorry… but why is this the problem?” he asks, more confused than anything now. “Help me out here. I mean… I thought your mom was what had you upset back there.”
Your eyes roll. “Your name is literally on my paycheck, Gojo. How is that not a problem?”
He stares. Genuinely stares. Because for a second, he doesn’t know what to do with that. To him, his name was just a name. The company was just a company. Status had always felt like something other people got weird about first. Not him.
So, like an idiot, he goes for the joke.
“Well… technically, I think my name is on a lot of paychecks, so—"
“—Jesus Christ, am I a fucking joke to you?”
And the humor drops out of him so fast it almost startles you. Shit. That backfired tremendously. “Whoa—what? No!” He straightens, brow furrowing. “No, no, no. God, no—sweetheart, of course not. Why would you think that?”
You’re looking away before he can see what that does to your face, because you hate how quickly his voice goes from careless to cracked. Hate yourself for making it do that.
Damnit.
You know that wasn’t fair. He had just gotten you out of there. Seen you unraveling in that airport and stepped in without making it worse. Without making you ask. And still — somehow, in the span of twenty minutes, the whole world had shifted under your feet. Him, your mother, that last name. This damn… wedding.
…why does everything feel so hard to sort through right now?
“Just…” You swallow, shifting towards the window, blinking back tears. “Sorry. Don’t talk to me right now.”
His expression softens. “C’mon… no,” he murmurs. “Please… please don’t be like that. I’m sorry you found out this way. I should’ve told you sooner.”
The crack in his voice makes everything unbearable, and outside, Tokyo keeps sliding past in fractured light. So, you look at the window because it’s easier than looking at him. Easier than trying to untangle the mess that is your life. Easier than naming what specifically hurts so much.
And easier than asking yourself what, exactly, had been real and what had only ever been off the record.
Clearly, the universe looked at the absolute clusterfuck of this trip and decided it wasn't finished with you yet.
Because apparently, your fake boyfriend had a limo. Your fake boyfriend, who can upgrade your tickets to first class like it’s nothing. Your fake boyfriend who is also, apparently, your boss — and decided to book you at a luxurious five-star hotel in Tokyo while somehow neglecting to mention that part too.
Whatever. Either way, you're too tired to care. Or maybe just too tired to forgive him — despite the way the marble floors and soft gold light whisper luxury around you like an apology you didn’t ask for.
All you know, is that by the time the two of you make it upstairs, your silence was beyond awkward and hardened into something heavier. More deliberate. So, the moment the suite door clicks open, you’re beelining to the bedroom.
“Goodnight.”
You mutter it under your breath, shutting yourself into the bathroom before he can answer you. And when you change into your pajamas, you try not to linger in the mirror — because your whole face feels tight from holding yourself together, from trying not to cry for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. And as if that weren't enough, the wedding is tomorrow.
…how the fuck are you supposed to get through that too?!
With an exhausted sigh, you push open the bedroom door, reach back to kill the light, and—
“…what are you doing?” you deadpan, stopping cold in the entryway. Because at the foot of the bed, you find Satoru in sweats, crouched on the floor, carefully spreading a blanket across it. He smooths the corner flat and those blue eyes flick up, then drop back down.
“Making myself comfortable?”
…
That explains absolutely nothing.
Your brows pull together. “Okaaay…? Clearly. But—why?” Rolling your eyes, your arms cross. “Don’t tell me you fucked up the reservation. I mean, you’re the one who booked this place. Don’t you have your own suite?”
“Yup. I do.”
He says it so easily it almost irritates you more. You watch him fluff the pillow and set it on the floor like this is perfectly normal behavior for a man who can apparently summon private drivers and spend obscene amounts of money at the drop of a hat.
Your teeth grit. “Great. So go lay in your bed.”
Exhaling through his nose, he lowers himself onto the marble like it’s no different than a mattress. One arm tucks behind his head, the other rests over his stomach, all lazy limbs and impossible calm.
“Nah,” he says. “Think I’ll sleep here. Promised you wouldn’t be alone this trip.”
And the universe, apparently, hadn't taken quite enough from your dignity yet. Because you find yourself genuinely speechless.
For a moment, you just stand there looking at him — at the ridiculous length of him stretched out across the floor, at the fact that he has a whole bed somewhere else and was still choosing this — and at how he somehow managed to make the gesture feel casual enough not to embarrass you and sincere enough that it did anyway.
“…suit yourself,” you grumble, stomping over to your bed.
You yank the covers back and climb in with an irritated sweep, reaching over to find the light. Darkness folds over the room in one soft rush, and for a while, there’s only the low hum of air conditioning and the distant glow of Tokyo bleeding dimly through the curtains. Somewhere beneath it all, you can hear the faint rustle of fabric from the floor, the small settling sound of him getting comfortable.
…
Or trying to.
You lie stiffly on your side, facing away from the edge of the bed that he lays, staring into the dark like you can force your mind to shut up if you just do it hard enough.
Ugh…
Despite how tired you are, sleep feels impossible.
Rolling your eyes, you pick up your pillow and shift to the other side of the bed with an annoyed little huff. And there’s the broad line of his back in the dark. One arm folded under his head, the other sprawled carelessly over the blanket, like this is all perfectly normal. Like sleeping on the marble floor in a five-star hotel is not objectively unhinged behavior.
“…you’re actually gonna sleep down there?” you mutter into the dark.
“Mm.” His voice comes easy, amused. “You should be sleeping, missy.”
“So should you,” you huff. “In a bed.”
Chuckling, he shifts onto his back, sprawling out like a starfish. He hums. “Nahhh,” and an exaggerated exhale breathes out of him, tired. “The floor’s fine. I’m reconnecting with the earth. Re-centering. Some might say it’s very… grounding.”
You can hear that pleased little smirk of his, even in the dark, and it pulls a snort out of you before you can stop it. “…wow, seriously?” Biting back a grin. “You’re so stupid.”
He laughs under his breath. “Yeah… maybe. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called that. Probably won’t be the last, either. But…” With a tired sigh, he drapes his arm over his face, half-hiding in the dark. “…guess I’d rather be stupid than leave you alone, though.”
The words slip out, and the room goes strangely quiet. Something tender and awful pulling tight in your throat as you stare down at him for a second too long.
…what are you even supposed to do with that? With him?
He’s down there on the floor, keeping a promise you never asked him to make.
Swallowing, your fingers tighten on the blanket. “…hey, Satoru?” That low hum answers, and you hesitate, staring at the dark shape of him on the floor, your heart doing something stupid and uncomfortable against your ribs.
“Come up here,” you blurt.
…
Silence.
“Wait… huh?”
Your eyes squeeze shut.
As if saying it once wasn’t bad enough.
“I-I mean…” you’re shifting onto your back, staring hard at the ceiling because looking at him suddenly feels impossible. “I just… there’s plenty of room, so just—come up.”
…
He’s quiet just long enough to make your face burn hotter. And when he’s pushing himself onto one elbow, even in the dark, you can feel the disbelief radiating off of him like heat.
“Uh… right,” he laughs awkwardly. “I think the jet lag’s getting to me, because there’s no way I heard that right unless you’re fucking with me.”
You cover your face with a groan.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Christ, stop making this harder—” you snap, voice rising. “I’m serious you idiot! Because you’re not making me feel worse tonight by sleeping on the goddamn floor—so hurry and get your ass up here before—”
“—yes ma’am.”
He’s moving before you can rethink the entire thing, despite how your pulse is suddenly loud in your own ears. You scoot over, clutching the blanket to your chest, and the mattress dips beneath his weight — the sheets rustle. His body shifts. And then everything goes still.
…too still.
All you can do is lie there. Stiff. Acutely, helplessly aware of him. But it’s dark — mercifully dark — and thank god for that, because you don’t think you could survive seeing his face right now. Not this close. Not after that. Not with your own invitation still echoing back at you like something you’d like to physically retrieve out of thin air.
“Soooo…” he mumbles, fingers tapping the mattress. “Um… for the record, this is like… significantly nicer than my original arrangement. Way less marble.”
Despite the nerves, his words loosen a laugh from your chest. “…yeah? Well, good,” you mutter, tugging the blanket a little higher. “Because honestly, the level of commitment you were showing that floor was a little concerning.”
He chuckles. “True, true.” And suddenly, you can hear the lazy stretch of a grin in his voice. “Buuuut I mean… I wasn’t about to lose our first fight—not as your boyfriend.”
Your breath catches. “W-Wow…” You huff like that’ll cover it. “You—um… got real comfortable with that word fast,” you mutter, trying for dry and missing by a mile.
A low hum. “I'm a committed man. What can I say?” and his voice is all smug velvet and sleep-rough warmth. “Mmm… I kinda like the sound of it, actually.”
The words land lower than they should. Because that should not sound as good as it does.
“D-Don’t… don’t say it like that,” you stammer.
The mattress dips.
“Mm?” he whispers. “…well, how else should I say it, princess?”
…
Fake.
Fake boyfriend.
The word lands somewhere quiet and ugly under your ribs, and all at once the warmth of the bed feels strange against your skin. Because that's what this is. What it has to be. A role. A weekend. A lie with soft edges and an expiration date. And…
“Just—nevermind…” you mutter, shoving it down, repositioning your pillow. “Laying in a bed with my boss was not really on my bingo card for this trip. Or finding out halfway through it, apparently.”
He scoffs. “I’m not your boss. My dad’s your boss.” A humorless breath leaves you. “Yeah? Well, that is not as comforting a distinction as you think it is, Gojo, when your name is still on my—”
“—Satoru,” he corrects softly.
You blink into the dark.
“Wait. Sorry… what?”
A small huff leaves him, almost annoyed, almost something softer. “It’s just…” he grumbles, shifting against the sheets, “I like it a lot better when you call me Satoru…” And even without seeing him, you can hear it.
Is he… pouting?
The fabric rustles again as he shifts. “Look…” he says after a beat, and the teasing has gone out of his voice now. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just…” He exhales through his nose. “I didn’t think hearing my last name would make you start acting like I was suddenly somebody else...?”
Your lashes flutter as he scoots closer, and this time, your breath catches. Because a thin line of moonlight slips through the curtains, cutting across the bed just enough to catch him there. The loose fall of white hair over his forehead, the softened line of his mouth, the pale blue of his eyes gone dim and almost silver in the dark.
“And…” His voice lowers, softer now. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I liked just being Satoru to you..." Those blue eyes dip to your lips, just for a second, before lifting back to yours. His breath hitches.
“Y’know I’m still me… right?” He whispers.
As his breath fans across your face, you feel fingers slipping over yours, careful enough to feel like a question, and your pulse does something wild. Because for one suspended second, he doesn’t look real. He looks like something half-dreamed.
Beautiful.
“Right…” you breathe, the word thin. “I know that, and… I-I’m sorry for lashing out at you earlier. I just… I wasn’t expecting any of this, and then everything at the airport and—and god—and then my mom and—"
The words are tumbling out now, too fast, too loose, and even in the dark you feel laid open by them. Bare in a way that makes you want to snatch every one back. Because there he is, looking at you with that same unbearable patience, thumb brushing over the back of your hand in slow, absent strokes, his mouth tipped in a smile so soft it almost feels private.
…yours.
And that’s what’s terrifying. He feels like something you could lean into. Like warmth can be simple. Unconditional. Real.
But…
Nothing in your life has ever taught you how to lean into warmth without waiting for the condition beneath it. Without turning it over, looking for the fine print. So, perhaps that’s why, when his thumb brushes over your hand again, you pull away.
And his frown is instant.
“I-I…” Your eyes squeeze shut as you clear your throat. “Sorry.” The word comes out frayed. “I want you to know I appreciate you doing this. Genuinely. But…” You swallow hard around the ache pressing at the base of your throat. “Tomorrow is it.”
The room goes so quiet you can hear the air conditioning hum.
His brow furrows, pushing himself up on his elbow. “Um… what are you saying?” He scoffs, lips pulling into a disbelieving grin. “I don’t understand. Why are you acting like everything—”
“—after this is over,” you blurt, chest rising. “You can just—forget all this happened, okay?” And your voice thins. Blinking back tears, your eyes flick away. “That’s it. You’ll forget about me. You go back to your life. I go back to mine. Just like we agreed and—”
“—I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
Your eyes glance back from the hurt in his voice, and somehow that only makes it worse. Because...
Why?
Why does he have to look at you like that?
You exhale shakily. “I think we both need sleep more than we need this conversation, so…” The blanket is already up at your chin by the time the words leave you. “Let’s… leave it at that. Okay? I’m exhausted," you whisper. "Goodnight, Satoru.”
Shifting away, you roll onto your side before he can say anything else, before he can make this harder than it already is. The bed gives with a quiet creak behind you.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
And you lie there, holding yourself rigid, as if that could undo the part of you that almost turned back.
Still. Despite how tired you are… sleep feels impossible.
a/n. oof. sorry for leaving you on the angst 😭 but this felt like the right place to split it so part 3 can be fully wedding-focused. tysm for reading! i'm blown away by all your support. he's literally so patient and attentive, whaaa. i wanna eat him up 😭
❝You grew up behind locked doors—kept “safe” until safety started to look like a cage.
One night, something inside you snapped, and the world answered with sirens, courtrooms, and an iron-lit ward that promised treatment but fed on fear. That’s where you met him.
Sukuna—another monster on paper, another lifer with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He watched you like he recognized the shape of your loneliness. Like he’d been waiting. And when the ward turned bloody, when the gates cracked open for a moment too long, he took your hand and didn’t let go.
Now living in the aftermath—moving country to country, carrying secrets like loaded guns.
Because what escaped with them wasn’t just love.
It was something darker.❞
Your parents arrived the way spring arrived—quietly, not asking permission, simply happening.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no cinematic rush through an airport with tears and running and loud declarations. It was paperwork and careful planning and your father’s calm, measured voice on the phone, saying he’d accepted a transfer to teach at a university in China, like it was the most natural thing in the world to rearrange an entire life just to be near you.
Your mother found an apartment down the road from yours—close enough to walk, close enough that the city didn’t swallow her whole before she could reach you. Your father unpacked books first, of course. Your mother unpacked the kettle. Hiro moved in with them, laptop and quiet shoulders and the look of someone who had decided the only way to survive regret was to keep it in his mouth until it dissolved.
When they came by for the first time after the move, your father’s gaze went to the door immediately.
The camera was gone.
He didn’t say anything at first—only blinked, slow and thoughtful, like he’d expected to see a little black eye watching him. Your mother’s hand brushed the doorframe as she stepped inside, as if she could feel where it had been mounted, the lingering shape of it in the air.
Hiro looked too.
Then looked away.
You felt the smallest, strangest swell of pride in your chest. Not because you needed their approval—no, not that—but because you’d lived so long inside other people’s cages that even the absence of one felt like proof you had a life now. A life you could breathe in.
“Tea?” you offered softly, out of habit, out of love, out of the part of you that still tried to soften every room before anyone else could harden it.
Your mother’s eyes warmed. “Only if you sit down first.” You obeyed, because you were pregnant and tired and because her voice still carried that old gentle authority that had never needed to be cruel to be listened to.
Sukuna had been at work when they visited—welding dust and metal and long hours—but he came home later that evening, and your parents witnessed the version of him that existed now more often than not: quieter. He still filled a doorway like a threat, still had that crimson gaze that seemed to weigh everything. But his shoulders loosened when he saw you. His mouth softened, barely, in a way that would have looked like nothing to anyone else.
He didn’t greet your parents with warmth, exactly—Sukuna didn’t do warmth the way other people did—but he nodded once and then moved straight to you, checking your face like it was a temperature gauge, checking your hands like he could read your pulse through your skin.
“You eat?” he asked you first, voice low.
You nodded. “I did.” He exhaled like the answer held him together. Then he turned and brought you tea anyway. Brought you a snack without being asked. Sat behind you on the couch and, without making a show of it, lifted your feet into his lap like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world that your body deserved relief.
He massaged your arches with his thumbs while he listened to your father talk about the university.
Not fidgeting. Not pacing.
Just… there.
Your mother noticed, of course she did.
She watched the way Sukuna paused mid-press when you made a small sound, immediately adjusting pressure like he was learning the map of your comfort by heart. She watched the way he asked if you were nauseous, if you’d had water, if you needed to lie down, and how the questions were still frequent—still too frequent—but the tone was different.
Less like a leash.
More like a hand offered.
Your mom began coming with you to your prenatal classes, too. Your mother sat beside you sometimes, her hand lightly on your back, and met the other pregnant women with the same gentle brightness she brought to flowers—curious, careful, kind.
They noticed how often Sukuna called.
How he texted you even during work.
You there.
Eat.
Water.
Home at 6.
I love you.
Your mother saw you smile at the messages, soft and shy, like the attention warmed you even when it sometimes overwhelmed you. She saw you reply quickly, almost automatically, like you were afraid silence would make him unravel, and she saw the way he had changed since the camera came down.
Not healed—no. Not cured. But altered, like something inside him had been forced into the light and could no longer pretend it wasn’t there.
One afternoon, when Sukuna was at work and the city outside your window shimmered with late-day haze, your mother came to see you alone. She knocked gently, as if she still wasn’t sure how to step into your life without breaking something.
When you opened the door, she smiled at you, and for a second you were fourteen again, looking up at her through the blur of your own mind, trying to decide which voices were real and which weren’t.
“Hi, mama,” you said softly.
Her eyes glistened. “Hi, sweetheart.” She stepped inside and you both moved around each other in the kitchen the way you always had—her finding the kettle without asking, you pulling two cups down without being told. It was muscle memory. Love memory. The kind that lived deeper than fear.
When the tea steamed between your palms, you sat together by the window. Outside, China kept living—people moving, scooters buzzing, vendors calling out. A world that didn’t know what you’d been, what you’d done, what you’d survived.
You traced the rim of your cup and asked quietly, “Do you miss Japan?” Your mother’s gaze softened, then drifted. “I miss… familiar things,” she admitted. “The smell of home. Your father’s favorite market. The way the light hit the street in the morning.” You nodded. “Do you think the authorities suspect anything?” The words came out like a whisper you didn’t want the air to overhear. “Do you think they’re looking for us still?”
Your mother’s hand shifted on the table, her fingers folding and unfolding once. She had always been honest with you in a way that didn’t stab, only steadied.
“I think they suspect,” she said gently. “But suspicion is not proof, and borders are complicated. Your father took a legal route. Hiro works from home. We’ve done everything we can to appear… ordinary.”
You swallowed.
Ordinary.
You looked at your belly, the gentle swell of it beneath your shirt, and your voice dipped even softer. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back.” Your mother’s eyes lifted. “Back to Japan?” You nodded, and your throat tightened like grief had hands. “Even if I wanted to. Even if—” You didn’t finish, because the next thought tasted like rust: Even if I left Sukuna. Even if I—.
You stared down at your tea so you wouldn’t have to watch her face.
Your mother reached across the table and covered your hand with hers.
Her palm was warm.
“You don’t have to decide everything today,” she said.
A laugh almost escaped you—small, bitter, disbelieving. “My whole life has been decided for me,” you whispered, and the sentence felt like a confession you’d never dared to say out loud. “Even when I thought it wasn’t.”
Your mother’s grip tightened slightly, not painful—anchoring.
For a while, you listened to the city hum. Then your mother spoke, slow and careful, like she was stepping around something fragile.
“Sukuna has changed,” she said.
Your breath caught.
She continued, watching you. “He’s calmer. He’s… gentler. I’ve seen him take care of you in ways I didn’t think he knew how. So I need to ask you something, sweetheart.”
You looked up.
Her eyes didn’t accuse. They worried.
“What happened?” she asked softly. “What changed him?”
Your mouth went dry.
Because it wasn’t one thing.
It was a series of moments, each one sharp enough to leave a scar.
You stared at the steam rising from your tea like it could hide you, and you heard that kinder voice in your head—It’s okay. She’s safe. Tell her. Tell someone.
You swallowed.
“There was… a fight,” you admitted.
Your mother didn’t interrupt. She only nodded once, encouraging.
You took a breath that shook. “The camera,” you began. “Of course I noticed it. I… I confronted him.” Your fingers curled around the cup, knuckles pale. “And he got angry.” Your mother’s face shifted, small and pained, but she stayed quiet. “He said it wasn’t about trusting me,” you whispered, eyes stinging. “He said it was about not trusting you. But… it felt like he didn’t trust me.” Your voice cracked. “I’ve been obedient. I did everything he asked. I tried so hard.” Your mother’s hand slid to your wrist—gentle, as if she could still feel old bruises that weren’t there.
“I cried,” you said, and the shame of it burned even though it wasn’t shameful at all. “I told him I didn’t want to be watched. I told him it made me feel like a prisoner again.” Your mother’s eyes closed for a brief moment, like she was praying without words. “And then,” you continued, throat tightening, “he… he locked me in the bedroom.”
Silence fell heavy.
Not the ordinary hush of afternoon, but the kind of silence that made the air feel too thick to breathe.
Your mother’s lips parted. “He did what?” You nodded quickly, almost frantic, as if explaining could make it less real. “He was angry. He said I was worked up. Delusional. He—” You stopped, swallowed hard. “He made it seem like I was imagining it. Like I was the problem.” Your mother’s grip on your hand tightened, and her voice stayed soft only because she knew raising it would scare you. “Sweetheart…”
You shook your head, tears sliding down your cheeks before you could stop them. “And the next day we had a doctor appointment and I—” Your breath hitched. “I flinched when he woke me up. And he… he got so agitated. Like my fear offended him.”
Your mother’s eyes shone, wet and fierce.
You wiped your face with the back of your hand, embarrassed by how easily you still fell apart.
“At the clinic,” you whispered, “the doctor said my blood pressure was high. That I was stressed.” Your laugh broke, small and horrible. “And I told her Sukuna was stressful.” Your mother made a small sound—something between heartbreak and anger. “And when we got home,” you said, voice trembling, “he threw a pamphlet on the table. He asked what the fuck was wrong with me.” You looked down at your belly, fingers spreading gently over it as if you could shield the baby from memory. “And I… I snapped.”
Your mother leaned closer. “What did you say?” You inhaled shakily. “Everything,” you whispered. “I told him he didn’t love me. I told him he wanted control because he was afraid of being left. I told him he saw me as weak, and he was trying to mold me into what he wanted.” Your eyes squeezed shut. “I told him I would go back to Japan. That I couldn’t do it anymore.” Your mother’s hand flew to her mouth.
“He panicked,” you said, tears spilling faster now. “He… he looked—” Your voice broke completely. “He looked like a lost boy.” You remembered it too clearly: the way Sukuna’s face had gone pale beneath the anger, the way his eyes had blurred like he couldn’t see past the fear. The way he had dropped to his knees like standing was impossible. The way he had clung to your waist and pressed his forehead to your belly, shaking.
“He was crying,” you whispered. “He begged. He said he’d take the camera down. He said he’d let me go out. He said he would take his medicine. He—” You shook your head, like the words were too much to hold. “He was sobbing like he was a little boy again.” Your mother’s tears slipped free now, silent. She didn’t wipe them. She let them exist.
“And I…” you confessed, voice small and devastated, “I wiped his tears. I comforted him.” Your mother’s hand cupped your cheek gently. “Because you’re you,” she whispered. “Because you’ve always tried to hold other people together, even when you’re the one breaking.”
You leaned into her touch like it was the only safe thing in the room.
“I love him,” you said, barely audible. “And I hate that loving him feels like… like standing too close to fire. Warm. Bright. Dangerous.” Your mother kissed your temple—soft as petals, firm as roots. “Sweetheart,” she murmured, “I believe he can change in ways. I also believe you deserve love that doesn’t ask you to bleed for it.”
You swallowed, eyes burning.
“And that baby,” your mother added, her voice gentler still, “deserves a home where love doesn’t come with fear hidden inside it.” Your hand drifted to your belly again, you nodded, shaky and tired, and for a moment you let yourself imagine it—love without a leash, safety without a cage, a life that didn’t require constant apology.
Outside, the city kept moving.
Inside, your mother held your hand as if she could anchor you to something better—something that wouldn’t vanish the moment someone’s voice turned sharp.
And in the quiet between your breaths, you realized something that scared you with its tenderness: Your parents hadn’t come to China to take you away in the night. They’d come to stay close enough to catch you if you fell… at least thats what you told yourself.
Your father called when the tea had gone lukewarm and your mother’s thumb was still circling the back of your hand like a lullaby. “I’m downstairs,” his voice came through her phone, calm, ordinary—too ordinary. “I’ll take you both to lunch. Get some air.” Your mother looked up at you with that same softness she’d worn your whole life, the softness that used to mean safety.
“Lunch,” she said gently, like the word itself could soothe you.
You nodded.
You stood carefully, one hand bracing at your lower back, the other drifting to your belly out of instinct. Your mother helped you with your sweater even though you didn’t need it, her fingers fussing at the collar like she could tuck fear away with fabric.
Down the hall, down the stairs—each step felt like a small act of normalcy, a rehearsal for a life that didn’t always feel like it belonged to you.
Outside, your father’s car waited at the curb.
He smiled as you approached, and for a heartbeat you believed it. The normal. The family. The little afternoon where you could pretend the world wasn’t made of consequences.
He opened the door for you.
You slid into the backseat, your mother beside you, the car smelling faintly of his cologne and warm upholstery and home.
Your phone buzzed in your palm, and you typed quickly.
Going to lunch with my parents. I love you.
You added a little heart with your words in your mind even if you didn’t send one. You stared at the message a second longer than necessary, then hit send.
The car pulled away.
At first you watched the street through the window, letting the city blur into watercolor—shops and scooters, people crossing, sunlight on glass. Your eyelids grew heavy in that safe-sounding hum of a car moving, in the soft rhythm of your mother’s breathing next to you.
Pregnancy made sleep sneak up like a thief.
You didn’t even realize you’d dozed until your head dipped and your dreams swallowed the road.
When you woke, it was wrong before you even opened your eyes.
The air felt different.
Not the inside-of-a-car air—tight and familiar—but something colder, sharper, full of outside.
You blinked hard, groggy, mouth dry.
Your mother’s hand was gripping yours so tightly it hurt.
Your father wasn’t looking at you in the rearview mirror.
He was staring straight ahead, knuckles pale on the steering wheel and then you saw them.
Police.
Not one or two—enough to turn the street into a barricade, enough to make your stomach drop so fast it felt like falling.
You pushed yourself upright, panic snapping your fog into splinters.
“What—?” your voice cracked. “Where are we?”
Your mother’s lips trembled.
Your father parked.
The doors locked with a soft click that sounded like a gun cocking in your mind.
And then you saw her.
Shoko Ieiri stood near the police, her hair tied back, her expression careful—gentle on the surface, grim underneath. Beside her were nurses in familiar neutral uniforms, the kind your body remembered even when your mind tried to forget: hands that held clipboards, hands that carried syringes, hands that promised help while your skin screamed danger.
Your breath seized.
“No,” you whispered.
Your mother swallowed so hard you heard it. “Sweetheart…” You backed into the seat, your knees drawing in protectively, palms going instinctively to your belly as if you could shield the baby from the sight. “Y/n,” your father said, voice thick. “Listen to me.” You shook your head frantically, hair falling into your eyes. “No—no, no, no—”
Your mother’s eyes filled. “They just want you to be healthy and okay.” She squeezed your hand harder, pleading through touch. “We’ll fight for you not to go back to the ward. We will. But right now—right now we have to get you away from him.”
The words struck like a slap.
Away from him.
From Sukuna.
From the apartment that had become your world, your routine, your safety with teeth.
Your throat closed.
“No,” you said louder. “I’m not leaving. I’m not— I’m not going.” Shoko stepped forward slowly, palms open in that practiced way—non-threatening, clinical, calm. “Y/n,” Shoko said, voice soft as she could make it, “no one is here to hurt you.” Your laugh came out broken. “You’re lying.” Shoko’s eyes tightened—pain flickering, quickly buried. “I’m not.”
A nurse approached the back door of the car.
Your body reacted before your mind could negotiate.
You scrambled sideways, heart slamming, breath shredding. The nurse opened the door and reached for you with a murmured, “It’s okay, sweetheart—” You screamed.
A sound ripped out of you like it had been trapped behind your ribs for years.
“No! Don’t touch me—don’t—”
The nurse grabbed your forearm.
You clawed.
Not to kill—just to escape, to live, to not be taken. Your nails raked skin, and the nurse recoiled with a sharp gasp.
Your mother cried out your name.
Your father shouted for everyone to be careful.
You slipped out of the grasp, half-falling, stumbling down to the pavement, pregnant and shaking and flooded with adrenaline that didn’t care about balance.
Someone tried to grab you again.
You twisted away, sobbing, and ran.
Your feet hit the sidewalk in uneven bursts. Your lungs burned immediately. Your belly pulled heavy with every step, an anchor you carried with fierce love.
“Y/n!” your mother’s voice shattered behind you. “Please!” Police shouted something in Japanese—fast, urgent.
A nurse called, “Don’t run, you’ll hurt yourself!”
But the only thing your mind heard was: They’re taking you.
Japan.
Ward.
Solitary.
That door that closed and never opened unless someone else allowed it.
You ran harder, tears streaming, vision blurring.
You cut down a narrow side street, then another, and when you saw an alley between two buildings—dark and cramped—you dove into it like a prayer.
You pressed your back to the brick wall, chest heaving, hands covering your mouth to swallow your sobs.
Everything shook.
Your shoulders. Your knees. Your soul.
You felt the baby move—small, real, a flutter that snapped you open from the inside.
A kick.
Not strong, but undeniable.
Your hand flew to your belly.
“Baby,” you choked. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—” Your heart pounded so loud you thought it would give you away.
Through the mouth of the alley you could see movement—figures searching, scanning and then you understood, fully, horrifyingly:
They hadn’t brought local police.
They’d brought Japanese officers.
They’d brought Shoko.
They’d brought the ward—its language, its rules, its hands.
Your fingers trembled as you fumbled for your phone.
The screen blurred under tears.
You found his name.
SUKUNA.
Your thumb slipped once, twice, then finally hit call.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Each ring felt like a heartbeat you didn’t own.
He answered.
“Y/n?” His voice was immediate—low, alert, already sharp around the edges. “Where are you? I saw your text. Lunch—” Your sob broke open like a dam. “Sukuna,” you gasped, barely able to breathe. “Sukuna—please—” The line went dead quiet for a fraction of a second, the way it did when his mind latched onto danger. “What happened,” he said, not a question. A command. “Tell me.”
“They—they tricked me,” you cried, sliding down the wall until you were crouched on the ground, arms wrapped around your belly. “My dad—my mom— they said lunch and then—and then there were police and Shoko and nurses—Sukuna, they’re here, they’re here to take me—”
A sound came through the phone—like fabric shifting, like movement. “Where,” he said, voice dropping into something terrifyingly calm. “Where are you right now.”
“I ran,” you sobbed. “I ran and I’m— I’m in an alley, I don’t know where—I don’t know—” Your breath hitched into panic again, your chest hurting. “Please don’t let them take me. Please. I can’t go back. I can’t—”
“Breathe,” Sukuna ordered, rough and low. “Breathe for me.”
You tried.
It came out in broken pieces.
“I’m scared,” you whispered, the words tiny against the roar of your heart. “I’m scared, Sukuna. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be locked away. I don’t want… I don’t want to lose you.” On the other end, something in him shifted—audible even through a phone line. A silence like a blade being drawn.
“You won’t,” he said.
Two words.
Absolute.
And in the alley’s shadow, with your hands shaking around the phone and your baby moving faintly beneath your palm, you clung to that certainty like it was a lifeline—
Even as sirens wailed somewhere nearby,
Even as footsteps scraped the pavement in the distance,
Even as Sukuna’s voice, calm and deadly, murmured into your ear:
“Stay where you are. I’m coming.”
Sukuna found you the way storms found shorelines—inevitable, furious, guided by instinct and the thread he’d tied around your life with his own hands. Your knees were drawn to your chest on the concrete, your back against the alley wall, phone still clutched like a rosary. Your sobs had turned thin and breathless, hiccupping in your throat as you tried to stay quiet, tried to be small enough not to be seen.
Then shadow fell over you.
Your head jerked up.
Sukuna stood at the mouth of the alley like he’d been carved out of the dark—hair damp with sweat, chest rising too fast, eyes burning that deep, violent red that never promised mercy. He scanned you the way a predator scanned for injury.
When his gaze locked on your face, something in him cracked into motion.
He rushed to you.
Not cautious. Not careful. Fast—like he’d been holding his body back from sprinting through walls.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and tight, dropping to a crouch in front of you. His hands hovered for half a breath—like he remembered you flinching sometimes—then settled on your arms anyway, firm and grounding. “Look at me.” Your lips trembled. “Sukuna—” you tried, but it came out as a sob. “I’m here.” He swallowed hard, jaw flexing. His thumb wiped at your cheek, but it only smeared tears. “Can you stand?”
You shook your head, not because you couldn’t—because your body didn’t believe it was allowed to move.
He didn’t argue.
He rose in one smooth motion and pulled his phone out, turning away just enough to speak without letting you out of his peripheral vision.
“Toji,” he said, voice clipped. “Go to the apartment. Now. Check if anyone’s waiting—outside, inside, across the street. If you see them, don’t engage. Just tell me what you see.”
A pause.
His face tightened.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll handle it.” He ended the call and pocketed his phone like it was a weapon he’d sheathed.
Then he came back to you.
“You’re cold,” he muttered, even though the air wasn’t cold—your fear was. He slid his jacket off and wrapped it around your shoulders, pulling it snug like armor. The fabric smelled like him: clean soap, sweat, and something metallic that always lived under the surface.
You clutched the lapels and shook.
“I’m terrified,” you whispered, voice breaking. “Sukuna, I’m so— I’m so scared—” He crouched again, eyes level with yours. His expression was controlled, but you saw it in the veins standing out along his temples, in the way his hands flexed and released like he was trying not to crush the world. Rage hummed under his skin like electricity.
“They can’t arrest you here,” he said, slow and certain, like he was laying boards across a broken bridge. “They can’t drag you anywhere. Our crimes don’t follow us into China like a leash.”
You gasped a breath, shaky and thin.
“They fooled you,” he continued, voice dropping even lower. “That was illegal. They used your trust like a trap.” Your throat tightened so painfully you thought you might choke on grief. “My mom…” you sobbed. “My dad… I— I fell asleep, Sukuna— I didn’t know—”
“Stop.” It wasn’t harsh. It was final. He lifted you carefully, hauling you up by your arms until you were standing. He kept one hand at your elbow, steadying you when your legs wobbled. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Your belly tightened with stress, and you instinctively pressed a palm to it.
Sukuna noticed immediately.
His gaze dropped, softened for a split second in a way that almost made you cry harder. “Easy,” he murmured. “Breathe.” You tried. It came out jagged.
He guided you out of the alley, his body angling between you and the street like a shield. A truck idled nearby—the kind of unremarkable vehicle you’d walked past a hundred times without noticing. Sukuna opened the passenger door and helped you up like you were made of glass.
The seatbelt clicked across your chest.
Your hands shook so hard you couldn’t keep them still. Sukuna slammed the door and rounded the hood, sliding into the driver’s seat with a violence he didn’t direct at you—just at the world. His hands gripped the steering wheel, veins bulging across his forearms, knuckles white.
He turned to you.
“Look at me,” he said again.
Your eyes found his.
“I’m not letting them take you,” he said. “Not you. Not the baby. Not ever.”
The certainty in his voice was both a balm and a warning.
Your phone buzzed in your lap.
A name lit up the screen.
HIRO
You flinched like it was a knife. Sukuna’s eyes narrowed. He reached across you and snatched the phone before you could even think, thumb sliding to answer. “What,” he snapped, voice ice-sharp. “Do you want.” Hiro’s voice spilled through the speaker, rushed and strained—panicked in a way you’d only heard once before, years ago, when the world had first split open.
“Don’t—don’t talk to me like that,” Hiro said. “I’m not in on this.” Sukuna’s jaw jumped. “Funny.”
“I didn’t know,” Hiro insisted, words tripping. “They didn’t tell me. They called me after she ran—after it went wrong. They wanted me to convince her to do the ‘right thing.’” Sukuna’s eyes flicked to you—your trembling hands, your swollen eyes, your chest still heaving with leftover panic. “What right thing,” Sukuna said, voice low. “Back to a cage?” Hiro exhaled, sharp and shaking. “No. I told them no. Because I know what happens if she goes back.”
Sukuna went still.
Hiro’s voice dropped, heavy with truth. “They’ll take the baby.”
Your breath caught.
Your stomach turned over, nausea rising fast.
Hiro continued, voice breaking just slightly. “They’ll say she’s unfit. They’ll say it’s for the child’s safety. They’ll take the baby the moment she gives birth and lock her up again. They’ll call it help.” Tears spilled down your face again, silent this time—like something inside you had finally accepted what it always feared.
Sukuna’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until the leather creaked.
Hiro swallowed hard. “Listen. I didn’t tell you this before because I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to make it real. But I’ve been working on something for years.” Sukuna’s voice was deadly quiet. “What.”
“A way out,” Hiro said. “A real one. Not hiding forever. I’ve been saving. I hired a lawyer. I got you both visas.” Sukuna blinked once, like he hadn’t heard correctly. Hiro pushed on, urgent now. “America. The lawyer—he got it done. Legit. It’s in an envelope. Money. Keys. Passports. Visas. Everything you need.” Your mouth opened, but no sound came out.
America?
Your mind struggled to picture it—skyscrapers in movies, streets you’d never walked, an ocean between you and the ward, between you and Japan, between you and the hands that reached for you today. Hiro’s voice softened—your brother again, the one who used to knock on your door just to check if you were okay.
“I did this for you,” he said, hoarse. “I’ve been saving for this for years to get her free.” Sukuna stared ahead, breathing slow and harsh through his nose. “You’re lying,” he said, but there was something else threaded under it: calculation. Hope sharpened into a blade.
“I’m not,” Hiro said. “The envelope’s already been dropped off. You need to pack whatever you can and get the hell out of China before my parents try something again. They crossed a line today. They’ll do it again.” Sukuna’s eyes slid to you, and you saw the decision forming behind them—fast, brutal, absolute. “You hear that?” Sukuna asked you, voice quieter now, almost gentle in its intensity.
You nodded, tears dripping from your chin onto the jacket he’d wrapped around you. “I—” Your voice broke. “Hiro… you did that… for me?”
On the phone, your brother exhaled like a sob he refused to let out. “Yeah,” he said. “For you. For the baby. For the life they never let you have.” Sukuna lifted the phone again, voice clipped. “Where.” Hiro gave him the details quickly—addresses, names, instructions—like he knew there wasn’t time for softness.
Sukuna listened without interrupting, every muscle in his body taut, as if any second now the world might lunge.
When the call ended, Sukuna didn’t move for a moment.
He just sat there—staring at the windshield, jaw tight, throat working.
Then he turned toward you, and his hand found your knee, squeezing once—firm, grounding.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Tonight.” Your breath hitched.
Your fear tried to stand up again, to argue, to tremble louder than your hope.
But the baby fluttered faintly under your ribs, and your chest ached with the idea of a place where no one knew the ward’s name, where no one could dangle it over you like a punishment.
You swallowed.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Sukuna’s eyes locked onto yours.
“You trust me?” he asked, voice rough—like he needed to hear it, like he needed to believe he wasn’t the only one gripping this lifeline.
Your lips trembled.
You were scared of him sometimes.
You were scared of everyone.
But right now, you were more scared of going back.
You nodded. “Yes.”
Sukuna exhaled through his nose, a harsh, controlled breath.
Then he started the truck and pulled away from the curb like he was tearing you both out of the mouth of a trap—his grip on the wheel iron, his eyes scanning mirrors, the veins in his neck still standing out with barely-contained violence.
And beside you, in his jacket, with your palm over your belly and your phone heavy in your lap, you tried to hold on to the fragile, trembling thought that maybe—
maybe your life wasn’t over.
Maybe it was just changing shape.
Home felt different when you crossed the threshold again—like the apartment had become a skin you could no longer live inside. The air was the same, the furniture in the same places, but something invisible had shifted. Trust had been cracked open today, and the sound of it still rang in your bones.
Sukuna locked the door behind you and didn’t take his eyes off the peephole until the deadbolt clicked. Then he moved—fast, efficient, frighteningly calm in the way only Sukuna could be when his mind had chosen a direction.
You stood in the entryway with your arms wrapped around yourself, his jacket still on your shoulders, your belly tight with leftover fear. Your throat hurt from screaming, your cheeks sticky with tears that had dried and re-wet themselves too many times.
Sukuna glanced at you once, and his gaze softened—just a fraction.
“Sit,” he said, voice low.
You nodded and did, lowering yourself onto the couch like your body didn’t fully belong to you yet.
He went straight to where the envelope had been tucked away—exactly where Hiro said it would be, like your brother had predicted every breath you’d take after betrayal. Sukuna tore it open with one sharp motion and spilled its contents onto the table.
Cash. Thick stacks that made your stomach flip.
A credit card—his name embossed on it, clean and real, like a new identity printed into plastic.
Bank information.
Two brand-new phones still sealed in their boxes.
Keys on a keyring that looked too ordinary for what they promised.
And an address.
Sukuna picked up the paper and stared at it for a long beat, the way he stared at things when he didn’t want anyone to see he was moved by them. Then he pulled his phone out, typed the address in, and watched the screen populate with images.
A house.
Not a towering city box, not a cramped apartment like this one—an actual house. A yard that stretched green and open. Trees. A porch. A driveway. Quiet neighbors set back a few acres away, the kind of distance that breathed.
Outside New York City—more scenery than skyline.
A place that looked like mornings had space to unfold.
You blinked hard, disbelieving.
“I don’t understand,” you whispered, voice thin. “How did he…” Sukuna didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the photos again, jaw shifting as if he were grinding his disbelief into something usable.
Then, finally, he spoke—quiet, almost rough with it. “He’s been saving for you,” he said. “For years.” The words landed heavy in your chest, like a hand pressing there.
Hiro. Your brother who carried guilt like a second spine. Your brother who had looked away from Sukuna every time he visited, not because he hated you—but because it hurt to see you loved by someone dangerous.
Sukuna exhaled through his nose and stood.
“Eat,” he told you, already moving toward the kitchen. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m not hungry,” you whispered automatically.
He turned his head, crimson eyes pinning you.
“You’re pregnant,” he said simply, like that ended the argument. Not harsh—just absolute. So you nodded, because you didn’t have the strength for another fight and because the baby shifted faintly inside you like a small reminder that your body wasn’t only yours anymore.
Sukuna moved around the kitchen with quick, controlled motions—setting out something simple, something you could stomach. Crackers. Fruit. Water. A bland little meal built for survival.
He brought it to you and watched until you took a few bites.
Only then did he begin packing.
It wasn’t frantic.
It was surgical.
He dragged the duffel bags out first, unzipping them with a hard tug, then moved through the apartment like a man stripping a room of its ability to hold him.
Your clothes first—folded, stacked, shoved in with a blunt practicality.
His clothes next.
Baby items—everything you’d bought, everything you’d touched with careful hands: tiny fabric, little bottles, neutral blankets, the soft things that made you believe in gentleness again. He paused with one of the baby items in his hands—a small piece of clothing—and his throat worked like he swallowed something sharp.
Then he packed it too.
He went to the drawer where you’d kept your papers and pulled out everything that mattered: your medical records, your clinic notes, the prenatal papers from Dr. Lin, the ultrasound printouts you kept like talismans. He slipped them into a separate folder, sealed it in plastic, and tucked it into the safest part of the bag like it was a heart.
You watched him, foggy, exhausted, trying to make your mind catch up to the shape of what was happening. He crossed the room and crouched in front of you, hands braced on his knees.
“You need to sleep,” he said, your eyes stung. “I don’t think I can.” He tilted his head slightly, gaze narrowing—not in anger. In calculation.
Then his voice dropped, gentler.
“You’re running on fear,” he murmured. “If you don’t rest, you’ll get sick. Or you’ll fall apart. And I can’t—” His jaw tightened. He swallowed the end of the sentence like it was too honest. “Please. Just nap. I’ll handle everything.”
You stared at him.
Sometimes Sukuna asking sounded like a threat anyway.
But right now, it sounded like he was holding his own panic by the throat so yours didn’t drown you.
You nodded slowly.
“Okay,” you whispered.
He helped you stand—not because you couldn’t, but because his hands needed to do something with their helplessness. He guided you into the bedroom, pulled the blanket back, and sat you down with a quiet firmness.
“Lie down,” he said, softer now.
You did.
The pillow smelled like laundry soap and faintly like him. Your body sank into the futon, heavy as stone. You tried to keep your eyes open—tried to stay awake in case the world shifted again—but exhaustion won. Fear had burned through you like a fever, and now all that was left was ash.
Sukuna’s hand brushed your hair back from your forehead.
“Sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll wake you when it’s time.” You barely managed a nod before your eyes fluttered closed. Somewhere far away, you heard zippers. Fabric. The click of drawers. The quiet thud of bags being set down. Sukuna’s footsteps moving back and forth like a metronome, counting the seconds until escape.
You drifted in and out, and every time you surfaced, you felt him nearby—like a guard dog, like a storm on a leash, like the only thing between you and the hands that tried to take you today.
At one point, you felt him press something to your lips.
Water.
You drank without opening your eyes.
“Good,” he whispered.
Then the fog claimed you again.
When everything was packed, Sukuna stood in the living room and stared at the bags lined up by the door. His chest rose and fell slowly, as if he were forcing his lungs to obey him.
He pulled out his phone and called Toji.
You didn’t hear Toji’s voice from the bedroom, but you heard Sukuna’s.
Low.
Controlled.
“Clear?” he asked.
A pause.
His shoulders loosened by a fraction.
“Good,” Sukuna said. “Stay alert anyway.” He ended the call and moved quietly back to you. You were still asleep—your face turned toward the pillow, your body curled instinctively around your belly like you were protecting the life inside you from the world.
Sukuna stood over you for a moment, watching.
There was something strange on his face then—something that looked almost like grief, almost like devotion, twisted together.
Then he bent down.
Careful. Slow.
He slid an arm under your knees and another behind your back and lifted you like you weighed nothing at all. You stirred, a small sound leaving your throat, but you didn’t wake fully. “It’s okay,” he whispered against your hair. “I’ve got you.” He carried you out to the truck, the night air brushing your cheeks as the door opened.
He settled you into the passenger seat with a gentleness that didn’t match the violence in his blood.
Seatbelt.
Click.
He adjusted the blanket around you so it covered your legs and your belly, tucked it like he was tucking in something sacred.
Then he shut the door and moved around to the driver’s side.
The engine started with a low hum.
Sukuna’s hands gripped the wheel.
He looked once at the apartment building—at the place that had held you, threatened you, nearly lost you.
Then he put the truck in gear and drove.
Toward the airport.
Toward the envelope’s promise.
Toward a house with a yard, neighbors far away, and a future that didn’t have locked doors unless you chose them.
And beside him, asleep and bruised by the day, you breathed softly—unaware of how tightly the world was about to chase, and how hard Sukuna had already decided he would run with you in his arms.
The airport lights felt too bright—too sterile, too honest. They cut through your sleep the moment Sukuna eased the truck into a quiet corner of the parking structure. The engine died. The world went still except for the far-off hum of traffic and the faint echo of rolling luggage somewhere above you.
You blinked awake, foggy and sore, blanket tucked around your legs, your mouth tasting like fear that had dried overnight. Your neck ached from sleeping wrong. Your belly felt heavy, warm, alive.
Sukuna leaned across you, careful not to press into you, and brushed his knuckles along your cheek.
“Hey,” he murmured. “Wake up.” Your eyes fluttered. “Where—”
“The airport,” he said simply.
The word landed like a stone dropped into your chest.
Memory rushed back in ugly flashes—your mother’s trembling mouth, Shoko’s calm face beside police, the nurse’s hands grabbing at you, your feet slapping pavement as you ran, your lungs burning, your baby’s small kick like an alarm bell inside you.
You sucked in a shaky breath.
Sukuna watched you closely, his hand hovering near your shoulder as if he wanted to hold you but didn’t want to spook you awake into panic. “We’re leaving,” he said. “We’re safe.”
Safe.
The word didn’t fit yet.
You nodded anyway, because you needed something to hold onto, and Sukuna’s voice—steady, low—was the closest thing to a railing you had.
He helped you out of the truck carefully. You were still wearing soft clothes, comfortable enough for travel, and he immediately draped a thicker blanket over your shoulders like the world itself was a draft he could fight. He slung one duffel over his shoulder, grabbed the other with his free hand, and kept his body angled slightly in front of you as you walked—an unspoken barrier between you and everything.
Inside, the airport smelled like coffee and disinfectant and strangers.
Announcements echoed overhead in clipped, cheerful tones that felt almost cruel in their normalcy.
Sukuna guided you to the check-in kiosks first. His fingers moved fast on the screen, jaw tight, eyes scanning the room between each step of the process. Boarding passes printed. He took them, glanced at the names, and tucked yours into his pocket like he was afraid the paper might vanish.
Then baggage drop. Then security.
The line moved like molasses. People complained softly. A child cried. Somewhere a couple laughed, bright and careless.
You stood beside Sukuna and tried to breathe like you weren’t running from the shape of your old life. When the TSA agent asked you to remove your shoes, Sukuna’s hand hovered at your back as you bent down, protective, steady. When you stepped through the scanner, you felt exposed—like the machine could read your history off your skin.
But it didn’t.
It only beeped at belts and metal and normal things and somehow, that made you want to cry harder.
Once you were through, Sukuna guided you to a quieter corner near your gate. He found a seat, tugged you down beside him, and immediately tucked the blanket around your shoulders again. Then he reached into his bag, pulled out a bottle of water, and pressed it into your hands.
“Drink,” he said.
You did, obediently—because it was easier than thinking.
Your fingers trembled around the bottle. The water tasted like nothing, and still it grounded you. Your gaze drifted across the terminal. People in coats. People with backpacks. People with lives that did not include psychiatric wards or running while pregnant or being betrayed by the two people who had sworn they would never leave you.
Your throat tightened.
Sukuna’s arm rested along the back of the seat behind you, close enough to feel without trapping you. He leaned toward you slightly, voice lowered.
“You okay?” The question cracked something open. You turned your face into the blanket and tried to swallow it back, but your eyes burned, and your voice came out thin anyway. “I can’t believe they did that,” you whispered. “I—” Your breath hitched. “I believed them. I believed they wouldn’t.” Sukuna’s jaw clenched. You felt it even before you saw it, the anger vibrating under his skin like electricity.
You stared at the floor, shame flooding in hot and relentless, because that’s what shame did—it made everything your fault even when it wasn’t.
“And it’s my fault,” you blurted, words tumbling out faster as panic rose. “If I—if I hadn’t said anything, if I hadn’t—if I hadn’t made them worried, if I hadn’t—”
“Stop.” Sukuna’s voice cut through you, not loud, but sharp enough to make you freeze.
You blinked, tears spilling anyway.
Sukuna turned to you fully, crimson eyes fierce and steady. He reached for your hand—not your wrist, not your arm, not anything that could feel like control—just your hand. His grip was warm, firm, human. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You didn’t make them do anything. They chose it.” Your mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“They lied to you,” he continued, voice low with contained fury. “They used you. They tried to steal you back like you’re property.” You flinched at the word, and his expression softened—just enough to remind you he knew you were fragile in a way the world couldn’t see.
“You’re not,” he murmured, gentler. “You’re not property. Not theirs. Not anyone’s.” Your chest ached. The tears came harder, silent and humiliating.
Sukuna lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to your knuckles—brief, grounding, like a vow.
Then you heard it.
A throat clearing.
You jerked, eyes snapping up. A man stood there with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, hair slightly mussed from rushing, expression soft in a way you hadn’t seen on him in years—not fully. Not without guilt sitting behind it.
Hiro.
For a second, your mind refused to accept it. Like you were still in a fog and this was another hallucination your brain had invented to soothe you. “Hiro?” you breathed, voice small.
He smiled—gentle, tired, real.
“What are you doing here?” you whispered, eyes wide, tears clinging to your lashes. Hiro stepped into the row and slid into the seat on the other side of the aisle, close enough that you could see him clearly, far enough that he wasn’t crowding you. He set his duffel down by his feet and looked at you like he was trying not to spook a wounded animal.
“Did you really think,” he said softly, “that everything I worked that hard for was only for you and Sukuna?” Your throat tightened. Hiro’s smile wavered, emotion flickering across his face like light through water. “I’m coming too,” he said. “I packed my stuff. I’m coming with you.” You stared at him—your brother who’d carried guilt like penance, who’d stayed close even when he didn’t know how to fix what had broken, who’d just… shown up in the middle of an airport like love could still be simple.
Your lips trembled.
“You—” Your voice cracked. “You’re really…?” Hiro nodded once, eyes shining. “Yeah.” A sob slipped out of you before you could swallow it back. Your hand flew to your mouth instinctively, like you could hold the sound inside.
Sukuna’s hand tightened around yours, anchoring you.
Hiro leaned toward you just slightly, careful, respectful. “I’m not letting them do it again,” he said quietly. “Not to you. Not to the baby.” Your shoulders shook as you tried to breathe.
Tears slid down your cheeks in slow, silent trails and for the first time since you’d woken up to betrayal and sirens and hands grabbing for you, your heart did something strange.
PREMISE : sukuna ryomen is the university's undefeated boxing star, but his reputation might cost him the career he's been fighting for. you’re just a student trying to write the article that could make your name, until he offers you a deal : fake date him.
he gets the image he needs. you get the story of a lifetime.
it's supposed to be temporary. just an arrangement. just for appearances. but when the season ends and the cameras are gone… what happens when they have to figure out what's real?
PAIRING : boxing!sukuna ryomen x fem!reader
GENRES / TAGS / WARNINGS : modern college au, athlete!sukuna, boxer!sukuna, fake dating, senior sukuna, slow burn, enemies to lovers, banter, fluff, angst, smut, lots of jealousy, mutual pining, smau with written chapters, emotionally constipated sukuna, reader who talks back, competitive tension, campus drama
summary: sukuna has loved you since you were in high school, and when he finally gets his chance with you, four years after graduation, he's the perfect boyfriend.
he treats you like you're worth more than the entire world, devoted solely to you, committed to keeping you healthy and happy in his arms for all eternity.
if only he wasn't killing people behind your back.
word count: 10.7k
content: 18+ mdni, smut, dub-con in the later chapters, dark content, rough sex, yandere sukuna, obsession, stalking, murder, blood, gore, manipulation, deception, unhealthy dynamics, jealousy, cheating (reader cheats on her bf with sukuna), sukuna is awful in this but he's good to reader exclusively, fic takes place in the early 2000s, horror, torture, abuse, trauma and ptsd, suicidal ideation, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, sexual assault/attempted rape (not by sukuna)
a/n: this chapter is very dark so please heed the above tags - as a major warning, this chapter includes attempted sexual assault
Your hands were bound firmly behind your back, rope biting uncomfortably into your skin and leaving you squirming desperately in an attempt to loosen them and ease the discomfort. It didn’t help that your knees were aching beneath you, exhausted from the prolonged kneeling position that you’d been forced into.
The three of you were lined up on the floor, in varying states of coping within the new situation you’d been thrust into. Yuki was the calmest of the three of you, refusing to cry or even offer the slightest reaction to the intruders who stood over her, sitting silently no matter what they tried to say to her. Even when Mahito had slapped her across the face she’d remained stoic, offering them nothing.
Although you could hardly compare to Yuki’s mental strength, you were just about managing to hold yourself together too, keeping calm thanks to the steady belief that Sukuna would find you and help you through this.
You really believed it, you had to believe it.
Shoko was the biggest mess of the three of you, sobbing unwaveringly while her whole body trembled. You couldn't blame her - for some reason she’d become the sadistic focus of the other man, known as Jogo. If he wanted to inflict terror upon the three of you, it was always Shoko who found herself at the receiving end of his wrath, and as such her throat was terribly bruised along with her right eye, where he’d struck her hard across the face.
You were the only one who hadn’t been hit, at least not yet, but you weren’t sure it could be counted as a blessing. Mahito seemed to have taken a liking to you in a way that he didn’t extend to the other two, always reaching out for you and playing with your hair, stroking your face, running his fingers along the bare skin of your thigh. It made you sick, and each time you tried to draw away he would pull you back firmly with a wide smile, like it was all part of some game.
At first, you weren’t sure what their actual plan was, for the two intruders had broken in and tied you up, only to sit back and smoke weed for a while, leaving the three of you shivering and incapacitated, waiting for whatever was coming next. You supposed that was probably all part of the game - a ploy to send your imagination running wild with thoughts of what they might do to you.
But once they were done smoking their joints, their game had really started.
“Okay, you.” Mahito was pointing his gun at Yuki, staring down at her easily. “What’s a secret that you’ve been keeping from these two?” This was the third or fourth question of that manner that the men had levied that evening, seemingly finding joy in causing strife between you all and lashing out with violence when you tried to lie or refused to answer.
It was a little sickening to think that you’d been playing truth or dare earlier that afternoon, and now you were being forced to play it at gunpoint. It wouldn’t have surprised you to find out that Mahito had been skulking around the whole time, listening in on your interactions with your friends and building this encounter based on it.
“I don’t have any,” she said firmly, grunting as Mahito slapped her once more.
“Wrong answer.” He clicked the safety off the gun. “Come on, lie again or try to back out and I’ll pull the trigger. It’s only her that I need in working condition.” He jerked his head in your direction. “There must be something, maybe you fucked her boyfriend or something?”
Yuki sneered at the implication, but the hatred dissipated the moment she remembered her situation. Her dislike for Sukuna seemed rather petty and insignificant in the face of this new violence.
“Fine.” Yuki turned to you with an earnest stare. “I tried to get Sukuna to break up with you when I first found out you were dating. Sorry, I know you want us to get along, but I hate the guy. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is about him, but he’s bad news and I don’t want to watch him ruin your life with his bullshit. Sue me.”
Mahito watched the exchange carefully, eyes lightening up with a cruel glee, only to pout when you offered no dramatic reaction. Even if you hadn’t known the details, it didn’t surprise you that Yuki had tried to intervene - you’d been sure they’d shared some terse words that morning you’d all gone out for brunch, the tension at the table upon your return from the bathroom had been palpable.
“It's okay, I get it,” you said evenly, more than willing to let it go. Yuki had your best interests at heart, and she wasn’t wrong to be skeptical over some of Sukuna’s more possessive qualities considering the break-in stunt - even if you generally found his nature more charming than concerning.
“How boring. That’s all?” Mahito asked, switching his focus to you. “She tried to break up your relationship and it's just okay? Get mad about it!” You glared up at him, unsure how he could be so dense as to believe that you’d turn on your friends in this situation. It was pointless to get mad at Yuki right now, all that mattered was living through the evening unharmed.
“That’s all,” you mumbled, drawing a sigh from the blue haired man.
“Okay, then how about you, sweetheart?” He asked, edging closer and caressing your face with the barrel of the gun. You flinched at the cold touch of the metal, trying to stay calm in the face of it. You were worried that panicking would just annoy the intruders and cause them to put an end to you early.
Or perhaps they’d cause harm to one of your friends in a bid as punishment for freaking out. You didn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s suffering.
“What’s a secret you’ve been hiding? Share it with the class.”
Just like Yuki, you found yourself unsure as to what you might say, for there weren’t really any secrets you’d been keeping from the both of them. But in a bid to get things over with sooner, you turned to Yuki with a heavy sigh. “Sukuna broke into my house a few weeks ago to have sex with me in the middle of the night to fulfill some kink of his. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d go crazy about it.”
“What the fuck?” She asked, suddenly enraged as if forgetting the situation for just a moment. “He broke into your house? That’s so fucked up, why would you keep dating him after that?.”
“We talked it out,” you responded quickly. “He just got carried away and he thought I’d be into it too. He said it won’t happen again.”
“Right, because he’s so fucking honest all the time.”
“He’s good to me,” you argued.
“Really? Because what you just described makes it sound like he raped you.”
Immediately you were rearing back, your eyes wide in disgust, like Yuki had poured cold water over you. The words were unpleasant, a sickening feeling twisting within you to hear her describe it in such a manner. You’d never viewed Sukuna’s actions in such a way. Sure, he’d crossed a line in that instance, but sex with him had never been anything other than a pleasure. It was always something that you wanted, and if you ever told him to stop you had the utmost confidence that he would stop.
Yuki disliking him was one thing, but to cast such incorrect judgement over your dynamic had a spark of hatred igniting itself in your chest.
“That’s not what I’m saying, at all. God, not everything is black and white, Sukuna isn’t the root of all evil, and I’m so sick of you treating me like a baby all the time. Let me make my own decisions and you can bitch about me to Shoko in private when you don’t agree with them,” you spat.
“Oh, is that what you do about me?” She asked. “Talk about me behind my back rather than to my face?”
“Sometimes, yeah. When you're being like this.” Your words hung heavy in the room, and Yuki fell silent, shaking her head and diverting her brown eyes to the ground.
Mahito burst out laughing.
“Yes! That’s the kind of thing I was talking about!” He waved the gun at Shoko. “Now you!”
Shoko seemed a little bewildered. Of the three of you she was flagging the most, struggling to keep her eyes open. It was clear that there was significant damage to her neck, and even as she hesitated to find an answer, Jogo was striding over and putting his cigarette out on her shoulder, pulling a fearful yelp from her lips.
“Stop it.” Yuki hissed, only to be ignored by both men, who continued to urge Shoko on for an answer, rubbing the gun up against her temple.
“Come on, quickly now. Don’t want us to put a bullet in your skull, do you?” Jogo asked.
Shoko shook her head fearfully, biting down on her lip for a moment before taking a shuddering breath. “I slept with Choso a few months before you guys got together.” She confessed, keeping her gaze forward, seemingly terrified of casting a glance at Yuki.
You couldn’t keep the shock from your face, because you hadn’t known that. And based on the sheer guilt in Shoko’s eyes, you were certain this was the first time she’d told anybody.
“It- it was back when I didn’t know what I wanted and I was still exploring things. Me and him hooked up at a party. I knew that you liked him but I was drunk and things just kind of happened. Sorry Yuki. I should’ve told you.”
“Oooh, now that’s spicy!” Mahito exclaimed, glancing over at your blonde friend. You weren’t sure at first that she’d even registered it, seemingly processing too many things at once, as if she’d reached some sort of saturation point. But after a few seconds she breathed out a deep sigh and looked at Shoko.
“It was before we were dating?”
Shoko nodded earnestly, eyes still fixed in front of her.
“That’s fine. It’s just- why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Cho tell me?”
Shrugging, Shoko stumbled over her words, clearly struggling to formulate a coherent answer. “I don’t know. I guess I just felt like you’d be mad at me? You’d told me you were crushing on him and I still- fuck- sorry.” She trailed off.
There was more silence, before Yuki shrugged, turning her head away from the both of you. “Sure, whatever.”
“Girls and their drama huh?” Mahito cut through the silence. “Why can’t you all just get along like me and Jogo here? Always bitching about each other’s boyfriends, it's sad.” You stared at him blankly, eager to point out how sexist such a statement was, but unwilling to risk your life for such a correction.
Right now, all three of you needed to get it together. Sure, the evening’s revelations had been far from ideal, but it didn’t matter. You could squabble about that stuff once you were safe - none of it mattered if you were going to die tonight either way.
Twisting your hands in your bindings, you observed the area. You were still in the living room, where the two of them had come barrelling in through the window. If you were able to free yourself you could leap out the way they’d come in, or alternately make a run for the internal door and hope you could lose them in the maze of corridors that made up Satoru’s house.
Unfortunately, you weren’t convinced that all three of you would be able to break free at the same time, and you weren’t about to sacrifice the others for the sake of your own freedom. It wasn’t fair.
But still, there had to be some way out.
“Come on, Yuki, is it?” Mahito asked, crouching before her. “Don’t you wanna hurt these girls for what they’ve done? Tell me which one you’re angrier at, and I’ll inflict a wound on them to make sure they don’t forget it.”
Shoko whimpered, and immediately you were sitting bolt upright, breathing quickly as Yuki said nothing, her eyes still trained on the floor.
“Pick one, or I’ll shoot them both in the head.”
Panic flickered in Yuki’s brown eyes, the threat leading to her swiftly raising her head, glancing between the two of you. Shoko had started sobbing, Jogo’s arm wrapped threateningly around her shoulders, his hand stroking the side of her face with a cruel affection. You were calmer on the surface, eyes staring at her pleadingly, hands trembling a little behind your back.
Yuki spoke your name softly, guilt and hurt present in her expression before she dropped her head again, hiding beneath a mane of blonde hair.
You couldn’t say that you really blamed her. With the state that Shoko was in, and the pain that had already been inflicted upon her, Yuki would be wrong to suggest that she should be on the receiving end of any more suffering. But that didn’t mean that you weren’t terrified for yourself, quivering as Mahito approached you, drawing a blade from his pocket.
As he drew closer, you flinched back, trying to escape from his grasp. You were no match for his speed or strength, letting out a cry of fear as he took a seat on the floor, pulling you forcefully into his lap. “Shhhh. Calm down,” he hummed, his lips pressing against your hair in an action meant to comfort you. It filled you with nothing but revulsion, tears bubbling up in your eyes as he pressed the knife up against your arm.
“What should I cut into her, Yuki?” He asked. “I’m quite the artist, you know?”
Yuki said nothing, refusing to look at you. Tears were dripping down onto the floor beneath her, tremors wracking her body. For all of Yuki’s strength and confidence, it had amounted to nothing. She was just as scared as the rest of you, held at bay by a singular gun, unwilling to act like a hero and have her life stolen from her.
“No ideas?” Mahito asked with a pout. “I suppose I could write whore since you clearly are one. Enjoying your boyfriend breaking in to fuck you? That’s depraved. Bet you’ll like what I’m going to do to you later.” A sob escaped you, fresh horror making itself known in the pit of your stomach. You wanted to vomit.
“Please, don’t.” You rasped.
“No? Too bad you don’t get a say in the matter, sweetheart. We came here for some fun, you’re not depriving us of it just because you’re a stick in the mud.” He paused, giving you a look over. “Now, where should I cut you - any preferences on this matter, Yuki? You’re the one doing this to her.”
“Stop it.” She mumbled weakly, her face still averted to what was happening before her eyes. “Just leave them both alone.”
“No, no, no.” Mahito waved his blade haphazardly, before showing her the gun holstered in the top of his jeans, momentarily stowed away to allow him more control with his knife. “I told you already, it's the knife, or I shoot them both in the head. There’s no other option. So understand that you are doing this to her, and watch it happen like an adult.”
Mahito snapped his fingers at Jogo, who seemed reluctant to release Shoko from his hold. Clearly he was subservient in this little dynamic that they had going though, because he moved over to Yuki and wrenched her head back with a fistful of hair, forcing her eyes to meet your wide, frightened ones.
“Mmm, where to put it…” Mahito mused, your body jolting as his fingers found the hem of your shirt, pushing it upwards and trailing the knife up your stomach until it reached the bottom of your bra. “How about here?” He asked, tapping the space between your two breasts. “Then, anyone who fucks you will be able to see what you are plain and simple. You like that idea, Yuki?”
She shook her head vigorously, more tears streaming down her cheeks. The apology in her eyes was clear, and you found yourself sobbing too. You wanted to be in Sukuna’s arms, wanted to cling to him for all eternity, safely cocooned within his grip where nothing bad could ever happen to you.
But Sukuna wasn’t there, and there was no one else who would come to your rescue.
“Stay still.” Mahito cooed, “if you move about I’ll make a mess and then you might really be in trouble. You don’t want me cutting too deep by mistake.”
A pained cry ripped from your lips as Mahito made his first incision in the valley between your breasts, a long line of a ‘W’ cut into your sensitive skin, blood beading and dripping down onto the band of your bra. You and Sukuna had done knife play before, and it was nothing like this. With Sukuna, you felt safe, certain that he knew your limits - the knife would prick but never truly cut.
This was something different, something revolting.
You retreated within yourself, and somewhere in the distance you could hear your own voice begging him to stop. Perhaps you could hear Shoko and Yuki’s too, all pleading tearfully while Mahito added another line to his creation, your body jolting painfully with the careful movements of the knife.
Whether or not you were thankful that he only made it through two lines of the first letter before something happened, you weren’t quite sure. Because a big part of you would’ve chosen to have the word whore branded permanently on your chest over what transpired in those next few seconds.
Somehow, in the short time that Jogo had been preoccupied with Yuki, Shoko had wrenched her hands free of her bindings. And while the two men were distracted with you, she took her chance and made a bolt for the door leading further into the house.
She’d stumbled when leaping to her feet, and the moment she’d set off at a run, her feet had caught on the rug below, sending her careening onto her hands and knees for a second before recovering.
It was too many mistakes to make.
Mahito’s knife clattered to the floor, grazing your thigh with a cut as it fell past you. His pistol was in his hand in an instant, a shot firing before you had time to prepare for it, leaving a disgustingly loud ringing sound in your ears, muffling much of what followed. Mahito still held you, and the two men were arguing about something incomprehensible, but all you could do was stare at the blood stain on the white door, eyes wide in horror.
There was a body laying beneath it, one that had finally stopped quivering. This wasn’t the first time you’d seen a body, not even the first time you’d seen one covered in blood at the sign of a violent death, but that didn’t leave you any better equipped to cope. You emptied your stomach on the floor beside you, barely hearing Mahito’s complaints about how disgusting that was.
It wasn’t something you could help.
Desperate panic built within you, and you found yourself looking to Yuki, who seemed to be in the midst of a panic attack. Her breaths were coming out ragged, sobbing aloud in a way you’d never heard from her before, a look of pitiful defeat present in her usually lovely chestnut eyes.
“Why- why are you doing this?” You sobbed, surprised at the sound of your own voice. “She didn’t deserve that, y-you were cutting into my skin like you wanted, you didn’t need to-” you cut yourself off, not knowing what more to say.
You thought you might throw up again.
Mahito grinned, wiping a tear from your cheek. “It gets real boring out here, sweetheart. What better entertainment is there than playing with a bunch of pretty girls until they break? Killing is entertainment, and she was too panicky to be useful for much else.”
Noticing the horror in your expression, his grin only spread further.
“Not all things need any deep profound meaning, you know. I love the blood and the suffering! There’s little more to it.”
There was nothing for you to say, tears rolling down your cheeks as you stared at Shoko’s lifeless body spread across the floor. Her blood was seeping out and staining the wood beneath her, her life gone in a single instant, one which you and Yuki had been powerless to prevent. You felt pathetic, your hands flexing in their bindings, regretting agreeing to go along to Satoru’s holiday home, wishing you’d had a nice quiet weekend in Sukuna’s apartment like your boyfriend had wanted.
“You good to keep an eye on that one, Jogo? I don’t wanna wait much longer. The punishment games aren’t as fun when there’s only two.” Mahito’s gaze was fixed on you with deep lust, his fingers crawling up the length of your arm.
“Sure, whatever. I’ll watch her while you have your fun, then we’ll do the usual.”
“Great!” Mahito stood up, throwing you over his shoulder like you weighed nothing.
You couldn’t find it in you to struggle, your mind practically shutting down as Mahito stepped over Shoko’s body to head out into the corridor, like she was nothing more than an obstacle in his path.
Like she hadn’t been someone you loved.
—
Sukuna had been beset with the chilling feeling that something was wrong.
It had started just after they’d left the butchers, when he’d shot you a quick text to ask if you wanted anything from the liquor store. Usually, you were quick to reply to him, very rarely leaving your phone on silent, so when a few minutes passed by without you even reading his message, a hint of concern ignited within him.
He’d tried calling you then, since the rest of the boys had already bought what they wanted, and Sukuna didn’t want to leave without knowing if he should pick you something up, but the phone rang out, going straight to voicemail, and that really worried him.
Now, to his credit, he did try his best to reason with himself that everything was probably fine. You were likely just caught up chatting with the girls about one thing or another, perhaps you’d left your phone upstairs, or maybe you were watching some movie with the volume turned up so high that you didn’t hear the ringing of your cutesy mobile.
But he couldn’t quite shake the anxiety from his chest.
He cursed himself for even attempting to cast his worries aside once the boys made it back from their walk to find the house eerily silent. The window of the living room was smashed inwards, leaving shards of glass all over the wooden floor, and the menu screen for the Ferris Bueller DVD was drenching the whole room in bright white.
“What- what the fuck?” Satoru hissed.
The four of them were frozen outside, staring in through the window at the empty room. In the artificial light, Sukuna could just about make out blood staining the sofa, and more flooding the floor behind it. Amongst that partially obscured pool, he could make out what looked like a hand peeking out from behind the couch, and his heart dropped.
He didn’t wait to consult with the others in their state of shock, and gave little thought to the fact that whoever had done this might still be in the house. Instead he made straight for the window, heart pounding in his chest as he leapt gracefully through the gap, vision shaky but still fixed on that small hand partially shrouded in darkness.
It couldn’t be you. It couldn’t be.
It wasn’t.
Rounding the side of the couch, he stopped in his tracks at the site of Shoko. She was cold, motionless, her brown eyes still open. Blood was dripping from a gunshot wound straight through her skull, leaving her brown hair sticky and matted. There was still a flush to her cheeks, suggesting that whatever had transpired hadn’t taken place all that long ago.
This wasn’t the first dead body Sukuna had seen - in that area he would consider himself more than experienced. He’d disemboweled Ryu, had smashed Yorozu’s head in with a hammer, had gone so far as to actively torture Kashimo before finally disposing of him - and yet, none of that had made him feel sick like the sight before him.
Shoko had been a good friend of yours. She was a person who Sukuna liked - a good influence on you, someone that would always leave you happy after you’d gone to hang out with her.
She didn’t deserve what had happened to her.
But more to the point, whoever had done this to Shoko currently had you, and that thought made him want to vomit.
He had to find you.
There was the sound of glass crunching, and Sukuna glanced over at the boys making their way in behind him. They all looked freaked out, and Satoru’s eyes widened in horror as he finally reached Sukuna’s side, letting out a strangled yelp of horror. “Shoko! Oh fuck.” He was down on his knees in an instant, pouring over her as if he might find a pulse if he tried hard enough. “Quick, someone call an ambulance! Suguru - take my phone, oh shit.”
Suguru was already dialing 911, whilst Choso was standing with hunched shoulders, his expression riddled with terror. It was clear he was going through the same spectrum of emotions that Sukuna was, full of pity for Shoko but focussed on the fate of his own girlfriend who was absent from the room.
“Yuki-” he mumbled. “I’ve gotta find Yuki.”
“Do you have a gun?” Sukuna asked Satoru, his voice eerily calm. Internally he was panicking, seething at the idea of someone hurting you, but he wasn’t the type to get frazzled, especially not when he had so many executions on his hands already.
“What-”
“These fuckers are probably still here. Do you have a gun here?”
Satoru nodded. “There’s a cabinet in the kitchen. I’ll show you.” He slowly rose from his position beside Shoko, letting Suguru watch over her while he spoke with the police, asking for immediate support along with an ambulance - not that medical help would do much for Shoko at that point.
Hurrying into the kitchen, they avoided making too much noise, eager to have the advantage of surprise over any perpetrators. Internally, Sukuna was screaming. He wanted to go on a rampage around the house - tear doors off their hinges and scream at the top of his lungs. But he wasn’t stupid, any warning given to the person or people who had done this could lead to your death.
He would be nothing but calm and careful.
It wasn’t clear if the same could be said for Choso, who was visibly shaking while Satoru unlocked the gun rack. Sukuna wasn’t sure the boy had any capability of keeping it together, and he’d be damned if his friend’s weak heart led to your demise somehow. Fortunately, Satoru seemed to be more locked in to the task at hand, breathing easily as he handed Sukuna a pistol, keeping the hunting rifle to himself.
Satoru, despite his kind and friendly demeanor, had always been the type of man who could do whatever was needed when the time came. He’d been there for Sukuna in plenty of fights throughout high school and had lied their way out of being arrested when they’d been caught with drugs on more than one occasion.
He was the best person to have on hand in a situation like this, outside of Sukuna himself.
Later, he was sure the boy would be a total mess, but that was fine. All Sukuna needed was for him to be strong in the moment.
“I’ll cover the top two floors, you two deal with the bottom two.” Sukuna whispered after a quick check that the pistol was loaded. “If you find them, don’t hesitate to shoot. They deserve the same respect they gave Shoko.”
Depending on the condition he found you in, he’d probably give the cause a fate even worse than death, but there was no need to recommend that outcome to his friends. They could decide how they wanted to deal with the situation on their own.
“You gonna be okay by yourself?" Satoru asked.
Sukuna wanted to laugh at how vastly Satoru was underestimating him, but he was too anxious and enraged to waste any more time. “Yeah. Let's get to it.”
Hurrying up the stairs, he found it hard to balance speed with silence, wincing each time a step would creak beneath his feet. The stairs were situated at the back of the house, with connected flights moving directly up from the first floor to the fourth. He was on the landing of the second floor when he heard a muffled scream from down the hall, pausing him in his tracks.
The cry was followed by some begging and sobbing, in a voice which belonged to Yuki. Shortly after, there was the gruff sound of a man speaking and a harsh slap. He faltered in his decision, one foot already on the stairs to continue upwards. He’d assigned this floor to Choso and Satoru, who were still checking out the floor below, and if he was being completely honest, he couldn’t care less about Yuki’s fate.
What gave him pause was the idea that you might be in there with her, and that had him reversing back down the stairs and along the hallway to a partially opened door, light flooding out into the darkness Sukuna nestled within. Gun in hand, the safety already off, he peered round the door, catching sight of Yuki sitting on the bed, her face bruised and bloodied.
He watched silently as the large man standing over her struck her for a second time, blood dripping from her cracked lips. There was no defiance in her eyes, none of that fiery hatred Sukuna was often subject to. She had been reduced to a woman overcome with terror, her clothes sticking to her skin, tears rolling down her cheeks.
If he was a better person, he probably would’ve stepped in and helped - raised his gun to the man’s head in a swift movement and pulled the trigger. But you weren’t there in that room with her, and he’d waste no time aiding a woman he hated when the one he loved was still in peril.
Choso could save his own damn girlfriend.
So he backed away slowly, hoping the floor didn’t creak beneath him, before making for the floors above.
It didn’t take him long to find you after that, your sobs and whimpers flooding the area as he stumbled up onto the fourth floor, which housed the master bedroom Satoru had been staying in. You weren’t begging coherently like Yuki had been, your words a mess of desperate pleas and cries.
Heart soaring, he found immense comfort in the knowledge that you were alive, your body still warm and moving in a way that Shoko’s never would again.
But any happiness was quickly replaced by sheer rage at the reality you were currently living. Because at that moment you were alone in a bedroom with some creep who’d carelessly murdered your friend - completely victim to some psycho’s will.
Sukuna was no longer thinking, acting on impulse as he pushed open the door silently. There was no bright light like the room Yuki had been in, the bedroom instead illuminated by a softer lamp, as if the attacker had wanted to set the mood. He could hear blood pumping in his ears as he rounded the corner, allowing him full vision of Satoru’s bedroom.
You were there on the bed, laying down atop silk sheets which had clearly been disrupted in a struggle upon them. Even now you were wriggling, trying to pull at the fabric beneath you, letting out soft, anxious cries of fear.
It was an image that he’d seen hundreds of times - you, laying there with a flushed face, your shirt discarded elsewhere. Usually it was a pleasant image, one that he was always happy to see, knowing that you’d be beneath him, all happy and breathy in his arms.
But this was the most unpleasant scene he’d ever witnessed.
Because he wasn’t the one laying on top of you. Instead, you were pinned down by that freak from the gas station, a wide smile stretched upon his pale lips as he grappled with you beneath him, easily warding off your attempts to push him away.
Just like you, the man was in a state of partial nudity, his shirt thrown on the floor beside yours, and Sukuna found fleeting relief in the realisation that he wasn’t too late. You still had your comfy shorts on, keeping you from further defilement, and you were fighting hard for that dignity to remain intact.
The man had clearly hit you in an attempt to get you to what he wanted, a dark bruise rising around your left eye, and as Sukuna’s gaze drifted down your form he took note of a glistening red mark between your breasts - blood trailing from it down onto your stomach.
“Come on baby, stop fighting me. I told you we were gonna have a good time, stop being a bitch-”
You kicked at him as hard as you could, your feet barely doing any damage as he pinned you back down, a pale hand locking around your throat firmly, pulling a strangled whimper from your lips.
“What did I just fucking tell you? Play nice and maybe you’ll actually enjoy-”
The gun went off with no active decision on Sukuna’s part, his hands acting all on their own.
He was experienced with a gun - he knew how to shoot to kill just as well as he knew how to shoot to maim, and it was the latter that his body chose in that moment. He wanted the man off you, but he didn’t want him dead - not yet, because that would be far too lenient a punishment for a man who had laid his hands on you in such a manner.
Letting out a shocked cry, more sobs wracked your body as your attacker fell to the side, blood spraying over your trembling form. You wriggled away in an instant, escaping the heavy weight sitting atop you, and curling in on yourself towards the head of the bed. It was as if you hadn’t even seen Sukuna, hadn’t really comprehended what had happened, capable of doing nothing beyond consoling yourself.
Sukuna wanted to go to you immediately, yearned to pull you into his arms and tell you that everything was going to be okay.
But he needed to deal with your attacker first.
The man was shaking and gasping for air, a hand reaching up to cover the wound Sukuna had inflicted upon him. A knife had clattered to the floor at his side, and Sukuna was quick to grab it, tossing it out of his reach.
He also took stock of a gun laid out on the bedside table next to where you were curled up, rolling his eyes at how painfully stupid this man must be to have parted with his weapon. Perhaps he’d been arrogant enough to think that he didn’t need it when faced with a much weaker opponent like you, but Sukuna never would’ve made such a blunder when it came to his own kills.
It was always sensible to anticipate that something could go wrong.
“Piece of shit,” Sukuna hissed, hitting the man full force across the face, certain that his strike had landed twice as hard as the one this man had inflicted upon you. He cried out in agony, blood spurting from his wound as he wrenched his hand away, bringing it up to cradle his aching face.
But that wasn’t enough for Sukuna, nothing would ever be enough.
“Think you can touch my girlfriend, huh? You’re fucking with the wrong guy.” With a sickening crack, Sukuna stamped on the man’s leg, bringing his foot down over and over again until he was certain that the bone would be too mangled to ever repair.
He took pleasure in the way the man screamed, begging pathetically for Sukuna to stop. It fell upon deaf ears, because Sukuna had caused immense suffering for far lesser crimes than the one this man had committed. This was a person he deserved the full force of his rage.
“Now, stay there.” Sukuna said cooly, cutting through the man’s cries. “I’ll deal with you when I’m good and ready.”
He turned his attention then to you, heart panging at just how small you’d made yourself in the corner of the bed, your knees pulled up against your chest.
“Baby,” he spoke softly, approaching you with care. He hated how you flinched when his hand brushed against your skin, and found his bloodlust for the man on the floor flaring up anew. “It’s me, you’re okay.”
Taking a seat on the bed, he wrapped his arms around your trembling body and maneuvered you into his lap. You said nothing, but seemed to understand what was happening all the same, your fingers instinctively curling into his t-shirt as you burrowed yourself closely against him.
There he held you for a little while, focussing on your sniffling, completely ignoring the man groaning at his feet. Sukuna’s fingers combed through your hair, rocking you gently, cooing against your head with loving words of affection and comfort. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” He whispered over and over again like a mantra, not just for your benefit but for his own too.
He hated to think how close he’d been to losing you. If he’d been just a bit later you could’ve been dead, discarded after that freak was done having his fun with you. The thought made his skin crawl and he held you tighter still.
“I’m sorry,” you mumbled against his chest, leaving Sukuna perplexed, staring down at you as you raised your face up to meet his gaze. “I couldn’t stop him from touching me.”
Sukuna’s face twisted in distaste for a moment before he forced himself to correct his expression, not wanting to make you feel worse. He hated that you’d said that, hated that you were acting like this was somehow your fault when it was his. He should’ve never left you alone - it was on him to protect you.
It was on that creep to not touch you in the first place.
And yet guilt filled your teary eyes, like you’d somehow wronged Sukuna by failing to escape from something traumatic.
You really frustrated him sometimes.
“Don’t apologise,” he said, trying to keep the edge from his voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” His thumb wiped the tears from your cheeks carefully, taking a moment to inspect your face properly now you were looking up at him.
A purple bruise blossomed around one of your eyes, spreading out onto your cheek, and there was equally unpleasant bruising on your neck, as though your attacker had tried choking you in a vicious manner more than once. The observation that bothered him the most were the perfect lines cut in the valley between your breasts, where dried blood was smudged around the wounds.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I should’ve been here.”
You said nothing, huddling yourself against him once more, fingers moving to his arm and holding so tight he was certain you’d leave bruises on him. He wasn’t sure what was going through your mind at that moment - you seemed almost out of it, too shellshocked to articulate how you were feeling, seemingly unaware of the man wailing and clutching his leg mere feet away from you.
He was holding himself back from quizzing you on exactly what had happened, curious as to whether you knew about Shoko, whether you’d seen it happen. He wanted to know how far that creep had gone with you, just what punishment he’d dished out so that Sukuna could ensure he suffered appropriately.
Although, if he was gonna do anything he needed to do it soon. Suguru had called the police and Sukuna needed to make sure this man was dead before they arrived. He didn’t want the fucker to go through the justice system - if he got a good enough lawyer he’d get some cushy deal and be out in a couple of years, and that was unacceptable.
Sukuna would kill him before that. Any death would be written off as self-defence, all things considered. He’d broken into a house, killed a woman and sexually assaulted another - Sukuna was free to use reasonable force, which in this case was a bullet through the head.
“Why do bad things keep happening to me?” You asked in a small voice, one that twisted unpleasantly at Sukuna’s heart. “My bad luck killed Shoko…and Yuki, oh, Yuki!” For a moment you seemed to snap out of the haze, sitting up in a panic. “Sukuna! There’s another guy - he’s got Yuki, you have to help her, please-”
“Choso’s got it,” he said evenly.
He wasn’t sure if it was a lie, it might’ve been, but he’d heard no gunshots so he was opting to believe that Yuki was fine. He certainly wasn’t going to leave your side to go and help her, not when you were in such a tumultuous state. If he had it his way, he’d curl himself around you protectively and hold you like that for hours, until your terrified shivering finally stopped.
You needed him far more than Yuki did.
“Is she okay? She didn’t- they didn’t hurt her, did they?”
Yuki looked hardly worse for wear than you did when he’d seen her, and he was certain the woman was probably tougher than you regardless. He wasn’t particularly concerned with her state and you shouldn’t be either.
He loved how kind you were, it was something he admired about you, but it grated on his nerves sometimes. Here you were, sobbing in his arms after an assault, and you were still all worried about someone else.
You could really do with acting a little more selfishly.
“She’s okay. I didn’t see her properly, I was too busy looking for you.”
Sniffling once more, you lowered your head in shame, releasing your grip on Sukuna and bringing your hands up to your face. “I cursed them. I cursed them with my bad luck. Maybe I should’ve been the one who got shot instead.”
There was an unpleasant part of Sukuna that wanted to slap you. He didn’t want to hear you say such things about yourself, didn’t want to entertain the thought that you’d be comfortable with your own death. You were his, he wasn’t going to let you slip through his fingers because of perceived bad luck.
But he held himself together, aware that right now you needed comfort rather than reprimand. You weren’t thinking straight, clearly falling apart at the seams. Taking a deep breath, he leant down and kissed you on the forehead, before planting a few more gentle kisses all over your face.
“Don’t say that, please. I don’t think you know how broken I’d be.” You looked shocked at the sincerity in his voice, fresh guilt flickering in your eyes leading you to avert your gaze in shame.
“Sorry,” you mumbled. Sukuna supposed it was probably best to leave that conversation there, keeping his stern gaze on you for a few moments longer but not pressing the issue. He’d disregard it as a slip of the tongue, something he’d come back to later if he needed to.
“It’s all going to be fine baby,” he promised. “The police are all the way. Stop worrying and just let me take care of you.”
He’d assumed that you’d sink back into his arms, but after a few deep breaths you seemed almost reinvigorated, as if you’d shaken off the original paralysing shock and guilt and had transitioned into a new phase of panic.
“It’s not going to be fine, Shoko’s not going to be fine! Fuck- Shoko! I need to be with her.”
You wriggled in his arms before escaping from his grip, bare feet hitting the rug as you made for the door. Sukuna reached out to grab your wrist, eager to placate you and pull you back into his arms. He didn’t want you to go downstairs to see your friend in the state that she was in, he wanted to keep you close and safe.
“Baby, wait.”
You stumbled to a halt before Sukuna could grab you, your eyes wide and fearful as you peered down at Mahito rolling about on the ground, blocking the path to the door. It was like you were only just remembering he was there, half convinced Sukuna had killed him with that gunshot.
Sukuna watched you, his desire to keep you in his lap giving way to curiosity as to what you might do next.
You weren’t a person with a great tendency to hatred. Sure, you’d disliked people such as Yorozu and Uro, but he’d never really seen you lash out at anyone. But right now your face was a picture of disgust. His hand reached slowly for the pistol, eager to have a method of maiming the bastard should he try anything, but he wanted you to have your moment first.
“You.” Your voice was trembling. “You killed her.”
The man didn’t acknowledge you, too lost in a haze of pain. Blood was dripping from his mouth, a couple of teeth missing from the force with which Sukuna had struck him.
“You fucking killed her.” You raised your voice louder now, fresh tears streaming down your cheeks. You seemed almost aggravated that his attention wasn’t on you, and Sukuna figured he should be a good boyfriend and step in to fix that.
He rose from his place on the bed and stood over the man, planting a foot hard on his shattered leg, peering down at him maliciously. His screaming grew louder, but Sukuna’s voice cut through it. “Hey, my girl’s talking to you. Listen to what she has to say or I’ll smash up the other leg.”
His cries simmered down to a whimper, heterochromatic eyes turning to you. There was no glee on the man’s face anymore, none of the pathetic power he’d lorded over you just before Sukuna had arrived.
All that was left was fear.
“I hate you. I’ll always hate you. You’re the lowest person on this Earth. How dare you believe that you have a right to live while she lies dead,” your voice was surprisingly calm, and Sukuna found himself admiring how well you were holding it together.
Perhaps he’d underestimated you.
You took a step closer to the man, crouching down in front of him, covering your breasts with your arms, as if suddenly aware of how exposed you still were.
“She was studying to be a doctor, you know,” you said gently. “She spent her time helping people, doing good for the world. Now there’s one less good person on this earth, and more horrible men like you infecting it. You don’t deserve to be alive. I hope you suffer and you rot, and part of me wishes that I could ensure that by my own hands.”
Sukuna took a deep breath, steeling his mind and trying to take himself away from what was unfolding before him, because he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he didn’t force a mental step back. To see you threaten someone so firmly, standing with such confidence over a person he’d battered and bruised, it was painfully attractive to him.
His lust for you was high at the best of times, but to see you in a domain that he’d always considered as his and to find that you fit in just fine? Yeah, he liked that.
“You know what they say-” the man rasped. “Kill a killer and the number of murderers in the world remains the same.”
Sukuna bit back a laugh, amused at the statement because if he executed the guy, the number of murderers in the world really wouldn’t change. But you seemed mildly swayed, gaze filled with uncertainty.
“Besides,” he huffed, seeming to forget Sukuna was there. “Are you really gonna act all big and tough now? Just- just a minute ago you were crying under me - fuckin’ begging for it. You probably g- get off to the violence - I know you like it when your boyfriend’s rough-”
There was another sickening crack as Sukuna stamped down on his other leg. He wasn’t sure how the man was aware of such things, but he wouldn’t have it discussed in such a crude manner either way. What went on between the two of you was sacred and he wouldn’t have it marred by the words of this freak.
He’d expected you to yelp and rear back. Instead you stared up at him blankly, unphased by his actions. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, caught off guard by the resolve in your eyes, hidden behind layers of blood and exhaustion. You had no space for mercy towards this man, and Sukuna found himself with an idea.
“Do you want to kill him, baby?”
Horror registered in your expression for half a second, like you were shocked he’d suggest such a thing, only for something akin to interest to replace it when Sukuna held out the pistol to you, fingers brushing yours as he let the weight fall into your hands.
“This fucker killed Shoko, he laid his hands on you, he would’ve killed you too once he’d had enough. He would’ve killed me if he had the chance, would’ve fucking slaughtered all of us. Sure, the police will arrest him, but one day he’ll be back out on the streets and then what? Didn’t your buddy Hiromi have some client who escaped from prison? Do you wanna take a chance on this asshole managing that?”
“No,” you whispered, more tears staining your cheeks, fidgeting with the gun, as if it didn’t feel right in your hands. Sukuna took a step away from the man, circling behind you. His chest pressed against your back, and he gently steadied the gun within your grip, encasing your hands within his larger ones.
“He’s probably done this before, probably ruined and killed some other group of poor girls. Do you wanna give him the chance to do this to someone else? To do this to you again? We both know the justice system is fucked.”
“He deserves to die,” you murmured, hands clutching the gun tighter.
“Even death is a mercy for this bastard.”
Whether you were in your right mind, Sukuna wasn’t really sure, but he also didn’t want to pass up the opportunity you’d presented him. This was a bonding opportunity for the two of you, something that would bring you closer, keep you tied to each other in a manner so intimate that you’d never feel the same connection with anyone else.
He wanted that, wanted you to pull the trigger.
And he knew that somewhere within you, it was what you wanted too. You hated this man, he could feel the fear and anger rolling off you in waves. He deserved death, and giving that to him was all you could think about, held back only by morals that told you killing was wrong no matter the circumstance.
Sukuna wanted to break through that assumption.
He wanted to corrupt you, at least a little - wanted you to be able to see things from his point of view. You were his soulmate, it was only natural to let each other in on the interests you held dear, and dishing out justice and punishment was immensely dear to Sukuna.
“We can do it together,” he whispered.
Tentatively, your finger pressed against the trigger, guided by Sukuna’s steady hands. He did most of the work, purring compliments against your ear as he aimed the gun at the man who had transitioned from taunting to begging, spouting pathetic words which fell upon deaf ears.
“I can do it for you, if you’d like, but it's up to you. He killed Shoko, don’t you owe it to her to make sure he faces the same fate?”
“I do,” you whispered. Your hands started to tremble, and Sukuna kept them steady.
“Breathe with me, baby.”
You nodded, taking a deep breath, your eyes examining the pathetic form of Mahito for one last time before Sukuna pressed down on the finger positioned against the trigger. You didn’t yelp or jump as the gun fired, watching on in morbid fascination at the hole blooming with blood on the side of the man’s head, the light in his eyes immediately dissipating.
There were no tears from you, no immediate regret, just silence as you let the gun clatter to the ground. Sukuna gave you a tight squeeze, keeping you there in his arms and drinking in the sweet smell of iron which permeated the room.
It had been a terrible day for him and a worse one for you.
But there, with a dead man lying at your feet and your warm body in his arms, he wasn’t sure that he’d ever felt happier.
—
Things had passed in a blur after you and Sukuna had left Mahito in that room.
The police had arrived and taken accounts, grimly explaining that this wasn’t the first time something similar had happened in the area. Apparently, Mahito and Jogo had been busy with scenes like this one over the last few years, and on this occasion their luck had finally run out.
Jogo was still alive. Choso and Satoru hadn’t opted to use the gun, pulling the man off of Yuki and beating him until he was unconscious, tying him up and leaving him there in the bedroom for the police to deal with. You tried not to think too much about the blood seeping from Mahito upstairs, not completely sure you’d made the right decision - but with Sukuna’s comforting arm never lifting from your body you decided to allow yourself to be reassured.
Sukuna took the blame anyway when the officers arrived, telling them he’d shot the man to defend you when he’d arrived on the scene, easily explaining that Mahito had a gun to your head and he wasn’t sure what else he could’ve done. Neither of them seemed bothered by his decision, with one of them even clapping him on the shoulder and commending him for his bravery in defending you.
It's what they would’ve done.
Of course, they mentioned there’d still be an investigation - it was part of due process and necessary for corroborating what had happened and putting Jogo away, but they told Sukuna not to worry too much about any repercussions for his actions.
And that had been exactly how it went down over the few weeks that followed.
There had been a quickly moving investigation, and your family had Hiromi come down to help with everything. Sukuna’s actions were deemed as necessary self-defense after a short stint of questioning over Mahito’s leg wounds, which Sukuna claimed had been inflicted after the death in a lapse of rightful anger.
Whether that was believed or not, you weren’t sure, but there was a lot of sympathy towards all of you after what you’d gone through, which meant any suspicions towards the heroes that had saved you were swiftly dropped.
Both you and Yuki were a mess after everything that had happened. When you’d first come downstairs to see Shoko’s body, already covered up with a sheet by the medics and police who’d arrived on the scene, you’d broken down anew and allowed Sukuna to cradle you as the reality of what had happened settled in.
The whole thing felt like some nightmare - something that would happen to characters in a horror movie rather than to you. It was even worse than what had been done to Ryu, because at least you didn’t have to see the event happen firsthand with your ex. To watch the light disappear from Shoko’s eyes was something that would haunt you for the rest of your life.
You’d felt no such pain seeing the same happen to Mahito, a sick sense of pleasure coiling within you at that spark dying within him.
It was what he’d deserved.
Yuki had looked worse for wear than you - her face and body were littered with bruises and cuts, and her eyes were red from crying. It was an odd look to see on her, unaccustomed to Yuki being anything but strong and steady. Once Sukuna had released you from his grasp, the two of you had clung to each other for a while, unsure if you were sobbing in relief from being alive or in sorrow for your loss.
Maybe it was both.
At the very least, you were glad Yuki was alive.
Neither of you discussed what had happened to you when you’d been separated - it wasn’t something you’d speak about to anyone other than Sukuna, and you were certain your friend felt similarly. According to Sukuna, she’d been found by the boys before you had, so you hoped she hadn’t suffered any further than what you’d experienced.
You didn’t have much chance to speak with her anyway, or any of the others for that matter, in the weeks that followed. Outside of dealings with the police to get everything wrapped up, you seldom even ventured outside. Yuki would text you occasionally, as would Satoru, checking in on how you were coping, but you had no desire to do anything or speak with anyone.
All you could do was curl yourself up in blankets on Sukuna's bed and let him comfort you.
It was foolish, the speed at which you’d fallen apart all over again. You’d worked so hard to pull yourself together after Ryu’s death - had faced so many mental challenges and overcome them all with the belief that there was more to life than horror and suffering. But right now you were struggling to see that light in any capacity.
The only glimmer of hope came from Sukuna.
He was the only thing keeping you going, the only thing you had to cling on to.
Through it all, his presence was unfaltering, his hands steadying you when you’d awaken screaming from a nightmare, distracting you with caring words and a touch that chased away the slimy memory of Mahito’s hands on your skin.
“Do you think that I was an evil person in another life?” You’d asked him on one nightmare-riddled evening, tears dripping down your cheeks.
The clock read 3am, and you could only just make Sukuna out in the light of the streetlamp not fully shut out by his blinds. It had been a couple of weeks since the event and your most recent nightmare had been worse than most.
It had been you, completely stripped bare beneath Mahito, his touch searing into your skin. Instead of being in the bedroom, you’d been lying on the couch, your teary eyes meeting Shoko’s empty brown ones as you gave up beneath your attacker. You’d awoken not long after Shoko had opened her mouth to speak, black blood pouring from her mouth with a whole mess of spiders and cockroaches following, her voice cracked and deep as she’d said, “this is your fault.”
Sukuna was rubbing his eyes, hair sticking up cutely. He was clearly trying to pick apart your statement, still half asleep and trying to recover from the panic that had gripped him when you’d awoken him with a scream.
“Were you an evil person in another life?” He repeated your question slowly, like he was sure he’d misheard you. You weren’t sure if he was amused by these night terrors of yours - it was impacting his sleep as much as it was impacting yours, and you feared he’d grow tired of you acting like someone so broken.
Not that you seemed to be able to help it.
“Yeah…like- I don’t know…” You shrugged as you trailed off, wiping your cheeks. The shadows beneath his eyes betrayed his exhaustion, and you pulled away from him, laying back down on the bed. It was best to let him go to sleep, if you still wanted to discuss the matter in the morning you could.
It was wrong to rely on him too heavily.
There was silence for a moment before Sukuna laid back down beside you, sliding an arm beneath you and pulling you firmly into his grip. Your heart picked up as your face met his chest, basking in his familiar warmth as his hands soothed along your back and hair.
“I don’t think you were ever an evil person. You’re good to a fault - sometimes it's even a little annoying.” If you were in a better mood maybe you would’ve sat up and pouted at him, but instead you remained quiet, hanging off his every word. “You’re gonna be okay, baby. I’m here and I’ll stay here for as long as you still want me. Evil if you were evil or whatever it is you’re worried about.”
“You shouldn’t,” you mumbled quietly. Sukuna froze beside you, his hands stilling as his heartrate picked up a little.
“What?”
“You shouldn’t stay here. Someone’ll shoot you in the head or disembowel you one day.”
“I told you before, I won’t let that happen,” Sukuna said firmly, grip tightening around you. You wanted to believe him, you really did, but you just weren’t sure you could anymore. Ryu never would’ve expected what happened to him, Shoko wouldn’t have expected her fate, it just happened.
Not to come across as self-important, but you just had the sinking feeling that somehow it was your fault too. To witness two immensely violent tragedies on top of various other bits of bad luck, it just felt like you were being divinely punished. The last thing you wanted was for Sukuna to fall afoul of a similar fate.
He deserved more than that.
“How can you be so sure?” You peered up at him in the dim light, meeting his eyes. There was something in them which felt reluctant, like a few thoughts were flitting through his head and he couldn’t quite reach a conclusion on what he wished to divulge. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, stroking your hair once more.
“I can’t be sure, I suppose. Nothing in life is sure. But you, this life I have with you, is all that really matters to me. I would climb back up from the pits of hell before I let anyone take that away from me. Believe me.”
“But-”
“And, if some fucker did get me, even if we could say for sure that it was due to you being cursed or afflicted with bad luck or whatever, it wouldn’t make a difference. I would still choose to be with you even if I knew the life would be short, even if I knew I’d meet a horrible fate. If you made me choose between a long life without you, or a short life at your side, I would always choose the latter.”
You lay there in silence, heart pounding in your ears, struggling to truly comprehend the weight of his words. Sukuna’s love for you was no secret, but perhaps the depth of it was greater than you’d ever truly understood.
There was no question that he’d die for you. Considering Mahito’s state you already knew that he’d kill for you. He wouldn’t be pushed away by some foul omen you felt hung over your head, he wouldn’t leave you alone to spiral in the darkness like the fate you’d resigned yourself to after Ryu’s demise.
He was there, and his hands were on you.
And you were certain there was nothing that could part the two of you.
a/n: tune in next time to find out the thing that could maybe part the two of them :)
sorry for how horrible I was to reader (and everyone) in this chapter :(
hope you enjoyed and thank you for the support! comments and reblogs are appreciated as always! <3
After killing his father in a failed attempt to save his mother and fleeing into the night, twelve-year-old Simon Riley is brought before the King and forced into a brutal bargain that turns his desperate act of survival into the first step toward becoming a weapon in royal service.
1. The Sword or The Noose
The first scream did not wake him.
It was the second one, cut short like someone had clapped a hand over a mouth, that tore Simon out of sleep.
He sat up fast, breath already running ahead of him. His little bed in the corner of the loft was still warm, rough wool blanket tangled around his legs. Moonlight leaked in through the warped shutters and turned the dust in the air silver. Everything looked wrong. Too still.
Then he heard the thud. Heavy. A body, not a chair.
His hand went for the knife under his straw mattress before his mind even caught up. It was small and ugly, the handle wrapped in old leather. His father's, once. His now.
"Mum?" he whispered.
No answer.
He crept off the bed, bare feet silent on the warped boards. The air smelled odd. Smoke, but not from the hearth. Something sharp under it.
Another sound. Not a scream this time. A low, ugly sound. His father's voice. Words slurred, too thick to understand.
Simon moved toward the ladder and went down, one careful rung at a time, the knife tight in his fist. His heart was a drum in his ears. Somewhere outside a dog barked, then went quiet.
The single room below glowed red and gold with firelight. The hearth was burning too hot, flames licking at the soot-blackened stones. Shadows leapt across the walls.
His mother lay on the floor.
For a moment Simon's mind refused to name what he was seeing. Her skirt was rucked up around her knees, hair loose and wild on the packed earth. Her cheek was pressed to the floor, eyes open wide. Her lips moved like she was still trying to speak.
His father was on top of her.
"Get off," Simon heard himself say. The words came out thin. "Get off her!"
His father's head lifted. The firelight caught his face, all broken veins and anger, eyes bloodshot. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. Not his.
"Get back up there," he snarled. "This is none of yours."
Simon's fingers hurt from how hard he held the knife. "You're hurting her!"
His mother's gaze jerked to him. For a heartbeat he saw something bright in it. Hope, maybe. Or terror for him instead of herself.
"Simon," she wheezed. "Baby, go."
The sound of her voice broke something open.
"No!"
He stepped down off the last rung and into the room. The knife looked small, pathetic, in his hand, but it was something. It was all he had.
His father's face twisted. "You little bastard."
He shoved away from her, stumbled to his feet. His belt hung loose, buckle clanging as it swung. He lurched toward Simon, one big hand reaching. Simon could smell him now. Rotgut, sweat, the tang of old blood ground into the wool of his shirt.
"Dad, stop!"
The hand closed over his shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. His father shook him once, twice, like he could rattle the defiance out.
"You think you're a man now," he hissed. "Carrying that little pig-sticker around? You're nothing! You hear me?"
The grip tightened. Pain tore through Simon's arm. His eyes stung, but he swallowed it. The knife was trapped down by his side. His father's thumb dug into the bone of his shoulder until Simon felt something crackle.
"Put it down," his father said. Spit flecked his lips. "Go back up. Or I'll give you something to cry about, boy."
His mother tried to get up. She slipped in her own blood and fell.
"Please," she gasped. "Please. Leave him."
His father's head snapped toward her. "Shut your mouth!"
The hand left Simon's shoulder just long enough for his father to turn and kick her in the ribs. She folded in on herself with a sound Simon had never heard from her before. Small. Broken. Dying.
He moved without thinking.
By the time his father spun back, Simon's arm was already coming up. The knife was in his hand, blade catching the firelight. His father reached for him again, big fingers spread, and Simon drove the steel forward as hard as he could.
It went in easier than he expected.
For a heartbeat there was no sound at all. His father's eyes went wide, not angry now but almost surprised. His breath hitched.
Then the blood came.
It spilled hot over Simon's knuckles, slick and sudden. His father wheezed and staggered back, looking down at the knife hilt pressed to his own shirtfront like it had appeared there on its own.
"You," he croaked.
Simon yanked the blade free. The sound was wet, awful. His father dropped to his knees. One hand pawed at the wound, then at the floor, trying to catch himself. He failed.
He fell face-first into the rushes. He did not get up.
The fire popped. Somewhere outside, the dog barked again.
Simon stood there, chest heaving, the knife hanging from his numb fingers. His father's blood ran down his wrist and dripped off his elbow. It pattered onto the floor in a steady rhythm.
"Simon!"
His mother's voice dragged him back. She was sitting up now, one arm clutched around her ribs. Her lip was split, blood on her teeth. Her eyes were huge and wild.
"Baby," she whispered. "What have you done?"
"He..." Simon's throat closed. He swallowed hard. "He was hurting you."
She looked at his father's body. Looked back at him. He saw the moment it hit her, what this meant. What they had just become.
"Listen to me," she said, voice shaking in a way he had never heard. "Listen. You take that knife and you go. Now. Out the back, through the field. Do not look back. Do you hear me?"
"I'm not leaving you!"
"You are!" She grabbed his wrist, fingers slipping on the blood. "If they find you here... if they see him like this... they will hang you, Simon. Do you understand? They will hang my boy."
"I can tell them." His voice climbed high, thin. "I can tell them what he did. They will see!"
Her grip tightened until it hurt. "You think they care what a man does to his wife in his own house? You think they will listen to a boy?"
Her eyes filled. The tears made them look even bigger.
"Please," she whispered. "Please. Run. Live. That is how you make this mean something. You live. You do not die on a rope for him."
A fist pounded on the door.
"Open up!" a voice shouted. A man's, slurred with ale. A neighbor. Another. "Harris! We heard shouting!"
His mother flinched. Her hand shoved at his chest, hard enough to make him stumble.
"Go," she hissed. "Out the back. Now."
There was another heavy blow on the front door. The latch groaned.
Simon's legs woke up before his mind did. He turned and ran for the back, boots forgotten by the door. The kitchen window gaped, shutters half open. He grabbed the sill, pushed through, felt wood scrape his ribs and stones bite his knees. Then he was out in the cold night air, stumbling into the little yard behind the cottage.
The stars looked wrong. Too many, too bright. The moon hung low and red over the dark line of the treeline.
He ran.
The field behind the house was fallow, low stubble scratching at his bare feet. He cut across it, breath burning, the night air knifing into his chest. Voices rose behind him, angry, shocked. Someone shouted his mother's name. Another voice cursed.
"Boy went that way!"
"Get him!"
Light flared as someone lit a torch.
Simon pushed harder. The ground blurred under him, dark, then darker, then gone as he plunged into the trees. Branches whipped at his arms and face, scratching, clawing. He did not stop. The knife was still in his hand, slick with blood, and he clung to it like it was the only real thing in the world.
Roots grabbed at his feet. He went down hard once, knees slamming into the earth, hands scraping on stones. Pain flared up his shins. He staggered back up and kept going.
Voices crashed after him, getting closer, then farther, then closer again as they followed the sound of his breaking branches.
He burst out of the trees onto the old road that led toward the city. For a heartbeat he froze, chest heaving, knife hanging at his side. The city walls hunched on the horizon, black against the sky, lights pricking along their line.
Hoofbeats rolled down the road like distant thunder.
Simon's head snapped up. A small troop of riders was coming, dark shapes against the moonlit dust. The one in front carried a banner. The King's colors hung from it, limp in the still air.
Panic flooded him. He darted for the ditch, trying to fling himself back into the tree line, but his legs finally betrayed him. They buckled. He went to his knees in the mud, breathing like he had swallowed fire.
"Hold," a voice called. Deep. Commanding.
The hoofbeats slowed. Stopped.
Someone swung down from a saddle. Boots crunched on gravel. Armor creaked.
Simon tried to push himself up. His arms shook. The knife almost slid from his hand.
"Stay back," he rasped. His voice came out wrong, raw from screaming he did not remember doing. "I will use it!"
A low chuckle. "You already have, by the look of you."
A hand caught his wrist, fast as a snake. Gloved fingers clamped around his thin arm, turning it. Moonlight spilled over the blade and the blood that crusted it, over the smaller smears on Simon's nightshirt.
The man holding him swore softly. "Saints. How old are you, boy?"
Simon tried to jerk free. The grip tightened.
"Twelve," he spat. It felt like a lie and the truth both. "Let me go."
"Not yet."
The others murmured. One of them stepped closer, torch held high. The light washed over Simon's face, over the dirt and the blood and the wild stare.
"He is the one they yelled about," someone said. "The Riley boy. They say he killed his father."
Simon bared his teeth. "He deserved it!"
Silence.
The men shifted, uneasy, glancing to the rider who had spoken first. He had not let go of Simon's arm.
"Bring him," that man said.
Simon twisted. "I said let me go!"
The knight looked down at him properly then. The torchlight caught a face lined by weather and war, eyes a clear, cold gray. Not cruel. Not kind either. Weighing.
"You have a choice, lad," he said. "Run into the dark and the wolves will have you before dawn. Or come with the King's men and answer for the blood on that blade."
Simon swallowed. His mouth tasted of iron. "If I go with you, they will hang me."
The knight's grip loosened just a fraction. "Maybe. Maybe not."
He released Simon's wrist and stepped back. For a moment, strangely, there was space. An opening. The trees behind, the road ahead. The life he had just torn apart somewhere in the fields behind him, already fading.
"You choose."
Simon looked down at the knife. His father's. His.
He thought of his mother's eyes when she told him to run. How she only had a hand full of breath left and she used it to save him. He thought of the way his father had laughed when she begged. He thought of rope and wood and the feeling of a noose tightening around his throat.
Slowly, he closed his fingers tighter around the hilt and lifted his chin.
"Take me to him," he said. "To the King."
The knight's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Brave little bastard."
He caught Simon by the scruff and shoved him toward one of the horses. A soldier hauled him up behind a rider with a grunt, big hands nearly spanning his whole chest. The horse shifted, snorted.
As they turned toward the city, Simon looked back once. The trees were just dark shapes now. Somewhere beyond them, his home still burned. The sky above it pulsed orange.
He did not cry.
He set his jaw and stared at the rising walls of the King's city instead.
The King sat on a high, carved chair that looked more like a throne than the real one ever did. It was narrower, closer, easier to loom from.
Simon stood below it on the black and white tiles, bare feet cold, hands sticky with drying blood. The knife lay on the floor between them. A thin line of red had crawled from the blade toward the King's boot and stopped there.
"So," the King said. His tone was almost conversational. "You killed your father."
Simon stared at the knife. "Yes."
"Why?"
"My mum. He was hurting her." His throat scraped on the words. "He killed her."
The King leaned back, fingers tapping on the arm of his chair. He was not old, not young. His hair was going gray at the temples, but his eyes were dark and sharp. They took Simon in the way a butcher might look at a strange cut of meat.
"You did not run far," he said. "Were you trying to find me?"
Simon hesitated. "No."
That seemed to amuse him. "Honest at least."
Silence spread between them. Simon felt it, thick and waiting.
"They want to hang you," the King said at last. "The elders of your village. The priest. They say a boy who puts a blade into his own father's heart must be put down, before he grows into a worse man than the one he killed."
Simon's fingers twitched. He thought of his father's hand on his shoulder, squeezing until he saw stars. He thought of the way his mother's ribs had bent under that boot.
"I will never be him," he said.
One of the guards behind him snorted. The King lifted one hand and the sound stopped.
"You sound very sure of that."
"I am."
The King watched him for a long time, head tilted, like he was listening for something Simon could not hear. Finally he said,
"I see two truths. One, you are a boy who has killed. Two, you are a boy who will kill again."
Simon's lips parted. "No, I..."
"You will." The King's tone did not rise. It did not need to. "The world is full of men like your father. Who take and hurt and laugh while they do it. Someone must stop them. Someone must cut out the rot."
He lifted a finger. A guard stepped forward, picked up the knife, wiped it once on his own cloak, and held it out hilt first.
"The sword," the King said calmly. "Or the noose."
The hall seemed to shrink. Simon could hear his own heartbeat. Hear the small scrape of leather as the guard shifted. Smell metal, old sweat, the faint incense clinging to the stones.
He could picture the noose. He had seen one once in the town square, when they hanged a thief who had taken bread in winter. The way his legs had kicked. The way the crowd had watched.
Simon lifted his hand.
The hilt was rough against his palm, warm from the guard's fingers. Not heavy. Not yet.
He wrapped his hand around it.
The King's mouth curved in something that was not quite a smile.
"Good," he said. "You will be trained. Fed. Clothed. You will sleep in the barracks and drill until you can barely stand. You will learn to obey. Your life is mine now. Do you understand?"
Simon swallowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."
"Look at me."
He did.
"You kill for me," the King said quietly, "or you die for me. That is the bargain you made the moment you drove that blade into your father's chest. I am only putting a name to it."
Simon held his gaze. His fingers tightened on the knife until his knuckles went white.
"I understand," he said.
The King nodded once. "Then welcome to my service, Simon."
The clang of steel on steel rang across the training yard, sharp and bright in the morning air.
The boy was gone.
The man who moved where Simon had once stood was taller by more than a head, shoulders corded with muscle from years of drill. His hair was cropped short, gone from chestnut to something dusted by early gray at the temples. A bone-white mask covered his face, painted with the rough suggestion of a skull.
He flowed through the sequence the weapons master called, blade lifting, turning, cutting, always in the right place. His armor was plain, unadorned, the metal dulled from use rather than polished for show. Sweat darkened the linen at his throat.
Around the yard, younger men watched between their own drills, glancing at him with something like wariness. He had earned it.
Simon did not look at them.
He moved, and the sword sang in his hands, and the morning light slid over steel and leather and the blank, grinning mask.
When the sequence ended, he held his final guard a moment longer than needed, breath steady. Then he lowered the blade.
"Again," he said.
He did not have a boy's voice anymore.
From the high windows of the palace that overlooked the yard, he felt eyes. The King's walls were full of them. Nobles, servants, courtiers, all peering down. Somewhere behind one of those panes, behind silk and carved wood and gold, a princess lived her caged life.
Simon lifted his sword and moved back into the pattern, the past a ghost in his grip, the future waiting somewhere he could not yet see.
Want to be tagged when the next chapter drops? Leave a “TAG ME” in the comments below.
PREMISE : sukuna ryomen is the university's undefeated boxing star, but his reputation might cost him the career he's been fighting for. you’re just a student trying to write the article that could make your name, until he offers you a deal : fake date him.
he gets the image he needs. you get the story of a lifetime.
it's supposed to be temporary. just an arrangement. just for appearances. but when the season ends and the cameras are gone... what happens when they have to figure out what's real?
PAIRING : boxing!sukuna ryomen x fem!reader
GENRES / TAGS / WARNINGS : modern college au, athlete!sukuna, boxer!sukuna, fake dating, senior sukuna, slow burn, enemies to lovers, banter, fluff, angst, smut, lots of jealousy, mutual pining, smau with written chapters, emotionally constipated sukuna, reader who talks back, competitive tension, campus drama
Vampire-Cowboy!Sukuna x preacher's daughter reader
Synopsis: In a town built on faith, the arrival of three strangers brings whispers of blood, disappearance, and something far worse lurking beneath the surface. Drawn to a man she cannot understand, the preacher’s daughter finds herself caught between light and darkness, until the truth reveals itself, and everything begins to fall apart.
Cw: Vampire-Wild West Au, gothic horror, religious themes, fem reader, Naoya being annoying (again), hurt/comfort
Previous Chapter - Next Chapter (soon)
Chapter 5: Moonlight
Satoru leaned against the closed wooden door as he watched the men gathered around the table. Suguru, Elsu, Kenai, and Clarke sat discussing the same subject they had been discussing for months.
It had been three months, three months since they had traveled to Sourwater. Three months since they had visited the reservation. Three months of searching, questioning, and investigating, yet they were no closer to the truth than they had been on the day they first arrived. No new leads. No answers. Nothing. Satoru wasn't sure whether he should have felt relieved or horrified by that fact.
His thoughts drifted back to a few weeks after their return. Naobito had pulled both him and Father Clarke aside and invited them to the Zenin manor. It hadn't really been a request. Given little choice in the matter, the two men agreed to go.
Even now he remembered that day clearly.
A long trail lined with towering trees led deeper into Zenin territory. The farther they traveled, the quieter everything became until eventually the manor revealed itself at the center of the property like some monument built to remind everyone exactly who held power in Whiskey Falls.
It was an enormous two-story building. Its pale walls glowed beneath the warm light spilling from dozens of windows, while towering white marble columns supported wrap-around balconies stretching across the entire front of the house. Lanterns flickered beneath the covered porches, casting golden pools of light across polished railings and stone steps leading to the entrance. Above it all, a dark slate roof rose over the surrounding trees while shadows gathered beneath the balconies and between the columns, creating pockets of darkness untouched by the lantern light. The place was beautiful in a way that almost irritated him. It was the kind of home built by someone with more money than they knew what to do with.
The inside somehow managed to be even more impressive.
The moment they stepped through the front doors they found themselves standing inside a grand foyer. Three marble archways opened into different sections of the manor. To the right sat an extravagant dining room. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, scattering warm light across an enormous maple dining table surrounded by ten chairs, four on each side and one at either end. Fine china had already been arranged neatly across the tabletop alongside a floral centerpiece and a pair of silver candelabras. Beneath everything stretched a large dark green rug woven with intricate golden patterns.
The archway in the center led towards the rear of the manor where a sweeping staircase spiraled elegantly to the second floor.
The final archway opened into a lavish sitting room. Another chandelier hung overhead while a rosewood grand piano occupied one corner. Facing one another were camelback sofas upholstered in beige fabric and cushioned chairs dyed a soft salmon color. Paintings decorated the walls while more candelabras illuminated the room with warm flickering light. A small square table rested between the furniture with an abandoned newspaper and a coffee mug laid across its surface.
“Please, this way.”
A young man stepped forward to guide them upstairs. He was slim and small with wide brown eyes, bushy eyebrows, and black hair tied into a low ponytail. His voice remained polite and respectful as he led both the sheriff and the priest through the winding hallways of the manor.
The farther they walked, the more irritated Satoru became. Every room seemed larger than the last. Every decoration looked more expensive. Every hallway was filled with furniture worth more than what some families in Whiskey Falls earned in an entire year. The Zenin’s were really preposterous assholes. All this wealth. All this luxury. Meanwhile people living only a few streets away struggled to put food on their tables. Every year the Zenins raised taxes, and every year life became harder for ordinary families. Satoru could finally see exactly where all that money was going, and judging by the look on Father Clarke's face, the priest seemed to be thinking the exact same thing.
“In here.”
The younger Zenin stopped before a set of double doors and bowed as he opened them. Both visitors stepped inside while the man remained behind, closing the door and giving them privacy.
Naobito's office was somehow even more excessive than the rest of the manor. Bookshelves covered nearly every wall from floor to ceiling, hundreds upon hundreds of books filling the shelves. On another wall hung portraits of Zenin ancestors stretching back generations. Naturally, every portrait belonged to a man. The women were nowhere to be found. A lit fireplace crackled nearby, filling the room with warmth, while a grandfather clock stood besides a polished globe near the windows. Satoru wandered over and spun the globe idly, letting Father Clarke handle the formalities.
Behind an enormous mahogany desk sat Naobito Zenin. A smoking pipe rested between his lips while the smell of burning tobacco lingered throughout the room.
“Father Clarke. Satoru Gojo.” a cloud of smoke escaped his mouth. “It's nice of you both to join me.”
“Naobito.” Father Clarke bowed his head respectfully.
The Zenin offered the priest a small smile before shifting his attention towards Satoru, his smile vanishing immediately.
“Hello, Satoru.”
“Zenin.” Satoru tipped the brim of his hat.
“Everything going well at the station?”
“All as well as things can be.”
“Good.” Naobito breathed another stream of smoke before setting the pipe aside. “Well, let's get down to business. Please, sit.”
Father Clarke and Satoru obliged, taking the two chairs positioned in front of the desk.
“Why are we here then, mayor?” Satoru asked, settling in comfortably.
Naobito clasped his hands together on top of the desk. “As both of you are aware, everyone in Sourwater has disappeared without a trace. Being the mayor of Whiskey Falls—the town nearest to Sourwater—it is my responsibility to provide a report before the government decides to involve itself and send in their people.” his expression darkened slightly. “That would be inconvenient for all of us.”
As much as Satoru hated admitting it, Naobito was right. If the government got involved, the entire region would be placed under scrutiny. Sourwater would be searched from top to bottom, then every neighboring town after. Investigators would come pouring in, demanding answers nobody could provide. And if they couldn't find the truth, they'd settle for someone to blame. Whether that person was actually responsible wouldn't matter as long as it gave the appearance that everything was under control.
“Naobito,” Father Clarke began carefully, “as you're aware, the sheriff, myself, and several of his my boys already conducted our own investigation. Unfortunately, we found very little that could help us determine what happened. It's why I brought Kenai and Elsu here. They may be able to assist us further.”
Naobito took a slow breath through his nose before exhaling. “Well, Josiah, what exactly do you expect me to report? I cannot hand these papers back empty.” he gestured to the stack of documents resting on his desk.
Father Clarke shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Satoru understood why. The priest couldn't leave Naobito without answers, but he also couldn't reveal the truth of what they suspected. Even Satoru agreed it was better to keep certain things hidden, especially from a man like Naobito. Still, they needed something. Some explanation that sounded believable enough to satisfy the government.
“It was a gang of outlaws.” the words left Satoru's mouth before Father Clarke could respond.
Naobito's eyebrow slowly rose. “A gang of outlaws?”
“Yes.” Satoru nodded firmly.
“And how are you so certain?” Naobito asked. “Moments ago, Father Clarke told me he wasn't sure what happened; now you're telling me it was outlaws.”
“Well, for starters, the sheriff's office is riddled with bullet holes.” Satoru leaned forward slightly. “Looks to me like they fought back and lost. After that, the outlaws would've been free to do whatever they wanted with the rest of the town.”
Naobito remained silent.
“It's not exactly an unreasonable explanation.”
“Hmm.”
“You remember Junpei's mother, don't you?” Satoru continued. “Years ago she was murdered by outlaws too. Her killers were never found. Outlaws aren't nearly as uncommon in these parts as people like to pretend they are. Maybe you'd know that if you left this office every now and then.”
Naobito's eyes immediately narrowed.
Father Clarke interrupted before things could escalate. “We apologize for that comment, mayor. But Satoru is correct. Outlaw activity has become more common over the years. Every year I perform more funeral services for families who have lost loved ones to raids and gang attacks.”
Naobito pressed his hands together harder, visibly forcing himself to remain calm. He lifted the pipe back to his lips.
“And the Native Americans?” he finally asked. “Why exactly are they involved?”
“The Native Americans know this land better than any of us,” Satoru answered. “They're skilled hunters, trackers, and fighters. They're helping us search for those responsible and bring justice to the people of Sourwater.”
Naobito studied both men for several seconds. The only sound in the room came from the crackling fireplace and the slow ticking of the grandfather clock. Finally, he sighed. “Alright. I'll report that version of events to the government officials.” his gaze shifted between the sheriff and the priest. “You both better pray it's enough to convince them.”
Silence settled over the room. The tension lingered awkwardly between the three men. Even the warmth from the fireplace did little to make the office feel comfortable.
Father Clarke broke the silence. “What will happen to Sourwater now, Naobito?”
The mayor leaned back in his chair, staring at the window for a moment before answering. “I imagine the government will eventually send workers to restore what they can. Perhaps they'll encourage people to settle there again,” he shrugged. “And if they decide the effort isn't worth the expense, then it'll simply remain abandoned.”
“A ghost town.”
The words hung heavily in the room.
“I suppose so.” Naobito nodded.
Father Clarke lowered his gaze. “I see.”
Outside, distant wind rattled against the windows, yet none of it seemed loud enough to fill the uneasy quiet. Satoru found himself staring at the flames dancing inside the fireplace. A ghost town. An entire community gone, every family, every home, every memory left to rot beneath dust and weeds while politicians argued over paperwork. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. People would mourn for a while, speak of the tragedy over supper tables and gatherings, then eventually move on with their lives. Sourwater would become another story passed around campfires, another cautionary tale travelers shared on long roads. Yet Satoru couldn't stop thinking about the unanswered questions. Something terrible had happened. He knew it. Father Clarke knew it. Hell, even Naobito probably suspected more than he was willing to admit.
Father Clarke spoke. “Well then, will that be all, Naobito? Or is there anything else you require from us?”
Naobito looked at both men before giving a single nod.
“That will be all.”
Both men stood up from their chairs. Father Clarke extended a hand to the mayor while Satoru didn't bother with such formalities. He simply tipped the brim of his hat and turned for the door.
“Goodbye, Naobito.”
Father Clarke offered a polite farewell of his own before following after him. However, just as the priest reached the doorway, Naobito's voice stopped him.
“Father, may I speak with you for a moment longer? Something more private.”
Josiah's steps slowed. For a brief second, Satoru watched the old man stiffen. It was subtle, so subtle most people wouldn't have noticed.
“Yes, Naobito?” Father Clarke asked.
“I wanted to discuss our children. Naoya and your daughter.”
Satoru nearly rolled his eyes.
“Naoya tells me the two have become quite close.”
Father Clarke's expression remained polite. Only years of experience prevented the disgust from showing on his face.
“Uhh... I'll wait downstairs, Father.”
The priest nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Satoru.”
Without another word, Satoru stepped into the hallway and closed the office door behind him, leaving the two older men alone.
He wandered along the corridor, observing more of his surroundings. The walls were covered in pricey paintings. Overhead, there were more chandeliers. The lantern light shone on polished wood. Even the air had a peculiarly Zenin scent, a combination of dust, old books, tobacco, polished antiques, and misery.
Servants bowed respectfully as he passed. Satoru ignored most of them.
At the far end of the hallway a door suddenly opened. A man with blond hair stepped out, his expression half-asleep. Naoya, of course, just Satoru’s luck to come across him at this moment.
The moment Naoya spotted him, surprise flashed across his face. Satoru immediately turned away and continued to the staircase before he could start asking questions. Satoru wasn't in the mood for them.
As Satoru descended the stairs, movement caught the corner of his eye. Two heads disappeared behind a nearby wall. Satoru immediately recognized them. Maki and Mai, the twins.
Both girls peeked around the corner again only to immediately duck back when they realized they'd been spotted. A chuckle escaped him. Poor kids. If dealing with the Zenins annoyed him this much, he couldn't imagine what it was like actually growing up here.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the wall while waiting for Father Clarke. His gaze drifted up towards the second floor. The twins. Naoya. The endless portraits of dead Zenin men. Everything about the house felt suffocating. Satoru often wondered what kind of future waited for Maki and Mai. He knew they would never be allowed the freedom most girls dreamed of. The Zenin name came with expectations. Responsibilities. Arrangements made by men who viewed daughters as assets rather than people.
It was a cruel fate. To be born into a family that looked down on your very existence and then eventually be handed off to some stranger in the name of status or profit. Still, perhaps life wouldn't be completely cruel, perhaps it would surprise them, perhaps Maki would get lucky. The thought immediately brought Yuta to mind. Satoru couldn't help smiling. He still remembered catching the two teenagers sneaking around behind the sheriff's station one evening. The panic on their faces had been priceless. Both had looked absolutely convinced he was about to drag them straight back to the Zenin estate. Instead he'd laughed, then promised to keep their secret. He just hoped nobody else discovered it, especially not one of Maki's relatives. If that happened, things would become very ugly very quickly.
The thought lingered in his mind as the minutes passed.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen
Nearly twenty minutes later the office door finally opened. Father Clarke emerged and slowly began walking down the staircase. Each hand gripped the railing tightly as he carefully lowered himself one step at a time.
Immediately Satoru straightened. Something wasn't right. The priest looked pale. Far paler than before. His breathing seemed uneven and a thin sheen of sweat glistened across his forehead despite the cool temperature inside the manor.
“Father Clarke.” Satoru quickly crossed the room and offered an arm. “Let me help you.”
“Oh.” the old man blinked. He looked almost disoriented. He accepted the support. “Thank you, Satoru.”
Together they finished the steps.
Once they reached the bottom, Satoru studied him more closely. The priest's hand trembled slightly.
“Father Clarke, are you alright?” he asked. “You look a bit pale.”
Josiah wiped at his forehead. “Huh? Oh... yes. I'm alright.”
“You don't look alright.”
“I'm fine.”
The answer came too quickly, too automatically.
“Are you sure?” Satoru pressed. “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?”
“No.” Father Clarke shook his head. “No, that won't be necessary.” his breathing remained shallow. “Really, Satoru. Thank you for worrying about me, but I'm alright.”
Satoru said nothing. He didn't believe him. But if Father Clarke wasn't willing to talk, there wasn't much he could do besides stay close and make sure the old man got home safely.
“I don't get it. We've done everything you told us to do. Why haven't we seen any of these things?” Suguru grunted from his chair, pulling Satoru from his memories and back into the present. How much of the conversation had he missed? How long had he been zoning out?
“Patience, Suguru.” Elsu folded his arms. “These creatures have spent lifetimes avoiding hunters. They're not going to walk into the open simply because we're looking for them. If we haven't seen them yet, it's because they know we're searching.”
Suguru leaned back on his chair with a frustrated sigh. “Then how do we know we're not wasting our time? How do we know these monsters aren't just more of those fairy tales parents use to scare children into behaving?”
“Because they are real.” Kenai's voice remained calm. “My grandfather encountered creatures like these before.”
“How do you know he wasn't just making the whole thing up to mess with you?”
“Suguru,” Father Clarke spoke before Kenai could answer. “Satoru and I went to Sourwater. What we witnessed there was something no ordinary man could have accomplished, no matter how cruel or determined they were. Kenai speaks the truth. Vampires are real.”
The room fell quiet.
“Hundreds of years ago,” Kenai began, his voice lowering slightly as the room fell quiet, “across the great ocean, in the ancient lands of Mesopotamia where some believe humanity first learned to build cities and kingdoms, there stood a Huluppu tree upon the banks of the Euphrates River. The tree was no ordinary seedling for the goddess Inanna herself uprooted and carried it into her sacred garden, nurturing it with the hope that one day its wood would be worthy of something great. But as the years passed and the tree grew tall, it became home to three creatures: a serpent that could not be charmed, a young Anzu bird whose wings carried it across the heavens, and a wandering spirit with no place to call its own.”
Kenai paused for a moment to drink water from his cup.
“When Inanna discovered what had taken residence within her tree, she called upon the hero Gilgamesh for aid. Gilgamesh answered. He marched into the garden and struck down the serpent. The Anzu bird, terrified by his arrival, spread its wings and fled to the distant mountains. And the spirit...” Kenai's expression darkened. “The spirit had nowhere left to go. With the tree no longer its home, it fled into the wilderness. Homeless. Alone. Forced to wander the world without purpose or belonging. For days it searched for somewhere to anchor itself, somewhere it could finally call home again. But it found nothing.”
Kenai continued.
“In a nearby village lived a woman named Lilith. She was known as a healer, a protector, and a priestess. Whenever someone was injured or in need, she was there to help them. One day a group of wounded mercenaries arrived seeking shelter. Lilith welcomed them into the village and cared for them until they recovered. During their stay, the leader of the mercenaries fell in love with her. At least he believed it was love, but when Lilith rejected him and chose her duty to her people over him, he became consumed by humiliation and rage. The mercenaries repaid her kindness by slaughtering the entire village. Men, women, children. Even Lilith herself.”
The atmosphere around the table grew gloomy.
“They left the bodies where they fell without granting any of them a proper burial. In Mesopotamian belief, burial rites were sacred. Without them, the soul could not properly journey into the underworld and find peace among the dead.”
He explained.
“The spirit that had been driven from the Huluppu tree witnessed the massacre. It saw Lilith lying among the dead, barely clinging to life. Desperate to survive and desperate to find a new home, it merged itself with her. The spirit needed a body. Lilith needed life. Together they became something neither had been before.”
The room fell silent, the only sound was the distant chirping of birds outside having their own conversations.
Staring at the tabletop, Satoru tried to visualize everything. A lady in death. A spirit without a home. In a last-ditch effort to stay alive, two helpless creatures cling to each other. It was unexpectedly tragic.
“So vampirism started because two beings were trying not to disappear?” Satoru was the first to speak.
“In simple terms, yes.” Kenai nodded. “It was the desperate union of a spirit without a home and a woman who had been betrayed and left to die.”
Suguru rubbed the back of his neck. “Alright, but if it started with one woman, how are there more vampires?”
Kenai exhaled slowly. “I don't know exactly how the process works, but they can create more of their own. My grandfather once told me about a friend of his named Ashkii. During a hunt, Ashkii became separated from the group and disappeared deep into the woods. A week passed with no sign of him. Everyone believed he was dead.”
Satoru shifted slightly in his chair.
“Then one day he returned. At first everything seemed normal. Ashkii looked healthy. He spoke the same. Acted the same. But something wasn't right. His skin was paler. His eyes seemed brighter, especially at night. His canines had become noticeably longer. My grandfather tried to ignore it, convinced himself he was imagining things. Then one day he went hunting alone and stumbled upon something he should never have seen.”
Satoru leaned forward, intrigued in the story. “What did he see?”
Kenai's face clouded. “Another man. Barely alive. Blood covered his clothes and soaked the ground beneath him. Standing over him was Ashkii.” he paused. “His fangs were exposed. His pupils were dilated. He was feeding.”
The image was enough to make Satoru's stomach twist.
“The Ashkii my grandfather knew died the day he disappeared into those woods.”
There was another long period of stillness as Satoru and Suguru came to terms with reality,
“How did your grandfather kill him?”
Kenai looked at Suguru. “What?”
“How do you kill a vampire?”
Satoru's foot tapped anxiously against the floor. His hands remained tightly clasped together as he waited for an answer.
Kenai sighed. “After a long struggle, my grandfather managed to decapitate him with the axe he carried… but that isn't the only way to kill them.”
“What else?”
“You can remove their head or drive a stake through their heart. Sunlight won't kill them, but it weakens them. Garlic won't kill them either, though it burns them and leaves marks behind. Silver has a similar effect. Objects infused with faith, memory, or sacred purpose disrupt them. Holy water in Father Clarke's case. Sacred stones, totems, and blessings in mine.”
“Would a gun work?” Satoru unholstered his pistol and set it on the table.
“It can slow them down,” Kenai admitted. “But it won't kill them. If you intend to use bullets, coat them in garlic or have them blessed. Elsu can help with that. He's one of our finest shamans.”
Elsu immediately sat up straighter, a proud grin spreading across his face.
Suguru released a long breath. “Alright. Wooden stakes and decapitation.”
“Yes.”
“I'll gather wood tomorrow and carve enough stakes for everyone.” he paused before turning to Satoru. “Satoru... should we tell Yuta? He's one of us. If we're really dealing with something like this, having another person on our side wouldn't hurt.”
Satoru rested a hand against his chin, thinking it over before looking at Father Clarke and Kenai. “Do you think we should tell him?”
Father Clarke cleared his throat. “Do you trust Yuta with this information, Satoru?”
Satoru didn't answer immediately. He thought carefully before finally nodding. “Yes.”
“Then yes,” Father Clarke replied. “You may tell him, but be discreet.”
“I will, Father. I will.”
The conversation continued well into the morning. Different ideas were proposed, abandoned, and reconsidered as the men debated every possible way to lure the creatures into the open. How to trap them. How to kill them. How to outsmart predators that had spent centuries hiding in the shadows. Yet no matter how many plans they devised, one thought lingered in the back of Satoru's mind. If these creatures had truly survived for centuries, then they had likely faced hunters before, and somewhere out there, hidden beyond the forests, mountains, and empty roads stretching across the territory, those same predators were still waiting, watching, hunting, and unlike them, the vampires already knew exactly who their enemy was.
His socks muffled every sound against the wooden floor as he moved through the manor. Around him, servants went about their usual duties, carrying laundry, preparing meals, and tending to whatever ridiculous task they had been assigned for the day. None of them paid him much attention. Good, the fewer people looking his way, the better.
For weeks now, something had felt wrong. Every time Naoya thought he was getting close to an answer, someone gave him another half-truth. Father Clarke knew more than he was saying. The sheriff knew more than he was saying. Even the Native Americans seemed to know more than they were saying. And then there was Naobito.
His father was the worst of them all.
The old man had been acting strange ever since the incident in Sourwater. Not strange enough for most people to notice, but Naoya wasn't most people. He noticed the way conversations abruptly ended whenever he entered a room. The letters that suddenly needed to be locked away. The meetings he wasn't invited to. The questions that were answered with more questions. Naobito was hiding something.
Unfortunately for him, he'd made one very stupid mistake. He'd left the key to his office sitting on the dining room table. If the old man wanted to keep secrets, then he should've been more careful with them.
Naoya stopped in front of the office door and glanced down the hallway one last time. It was empty. Perfect, nobody to bother him.
He wrapped his fingers around the handle and slowly pushed the door open. Naoya looked inside before stepping through the doorway. Quickly, he locked the door behind him, ensuring nobody could accidentally walk in. His plan was simple: find something useful and leave before anyone noticed he had been there. It sounded easy enough.
His eyes swept across the room. Bookshelves lined nearly every wall while the expensive desk occupied the center. Paintings hung neatly between the shelves, depicting old Zenin ancestors whose names Naoya couldn't care less about. A grandfather clock stood in one corner. Various decorations and trinkets rested atop cabinets and side tables, each one undoubtedly worth more money than necessary. The entire office felt less like a workspace and more like a museum dedicated to reminding visitors how rich the Zenins were.
This was going to take a while.
With a defeated sigh, Naoya approached the nearest bookshelf and began scanning the titles one by one. At first he tried reading them carefully, hoping something would immediately stand out, but after the twentieth religious text his patience was already beginning to wear thin. There was the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, Vedas, the Tripitaka, Mahayana Sutras. Enough scriptures to convert half the country.
Naoya almost laughed. Naobito wasn't a religious man. He drank too much, smoked too much, and slept around whenever the opportunity presented itself. There wasn't a holy thing about him. Still, Naoya understood exactly why the books were here. They weren't for faith. They were for appearances. If Naobito ever needed to impress someone, all he had to do was pull a book from the shelf and pretend he'd read it. People loved men who sounded intelligent.
The next shelf proved equally disappointing. It was the fantasy section. Along the racks there was: Moby-Dick, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, several Buffalo Bill stories, Dracula. His gaze lingered on that last title for a moment before moving on.
One bookshelf became two. Two became three. Three became four. The longer he searched, the more irritated he became. Religious books. Novels. Scientific texts. History books. Farming manuals. An entire shelf dedicated to cooking. Cooking. Naoya stared at the collection in disbelief. The old bastard didn't even know how to boil water. Why exactly did he need cookbooks?
By now he'd spent nearly twenty minutes searching and had absolutely nothing to show for it. His jaw clenched. Normally this would've been the point where he kicked a chair or punched a wall. Unfortunately for him Naoya couldn't afford to lose his temper right now. If Naobito caught him snooping around the office, the punishment would be unbearable. Cleaning the stables. Feeding livestock. Helping prepare dinner. Or worse… washing Naobito's underwear. The thought alone nearly made him gag. He would rather enlist in the army than spend an afternoon scrubbing stains out of his father's underpants. That's what servants were paid for.
Rolling his eyes, Naoya turned away from the bookshelf, ready to move on to the desk when something caught his attention. One book sat differently from the others. The cover wasn’t that impressive; in fact most people probably wouldn't have noticed it. While every other book stood neatly upright, this one had been shoved sideways between them as if someone had thrown it there in a hurry or without care.
Naoya paused. Slowly, he reached forward and pulled it free. “Ghost Stories and Other Tales from Distant Lands by Bee Bole.”
Naoya turned the book over in his hands, studying the worn thing. The corners were bent, the leather faded from years of use. It didn't look particularly valuable. If anything, it seemed entirely out of place among the shelves of religious texts, historical records, and scientific journals surrounding it.
His thumb brushed across the spine. Ghost stories. Normally he would've put the book back immediately. He wasn't interested in fairy tales. Yet for some reason the fact that it had been hidden away from the other books bothered him. Why keep this one separate? Why not place it with the rest of the fiction? Unless Naobito had been reading it.
That was strange. Naoya could picture his father pretending to read philosophy or history. He could even imagine him pretending to enjoy religious texts if it helped impress someone important, but ghost stories? That didn't sound like Naobito at all.
Keeping it tucked beneath his arm, Naoya moved on to the drawers and cabinets scattered around the room. One by one he opened them, carefully inspecting their contents before placing everything back exactly where he'd found it. The last thing he needed was for Naobito to notice something had been disturbed.
Minutes passed. Then more. By the time he finished searching the cabinets, his patience had begun wearing thin. He crouched beneath furniture looking for hidden compartments. He removed books from shelves hoping to find secret mechanisms. He pressed carefully against sections of the wooden floor searching for loose planks or concealed storage. He found nothing, absolutely nothing.
With an irritated sigh, Naoya dropped into the cushioned chair behind the desk and rubbed a hand across his face. This couldn't have been for nothing. There had to be something. A letter. A ledger. A list of names. Anything.
His leg bounced impatiently beneath the desk as his gaze drifted towards the three drawers built into it. At this point he expected little more than parchment, ink bottles, envelopes, and writing supplies. But he couldn’t quit yet; he had to find something in this shithole.
The first drawer contained exactly what he'd expected. Several bottles of ink sat neatly arranged besides spare quills, stacks of parchment, envelopes, sealing wax, and enough writing supplies to last a lifetime. Everything was organized with almost obsessive precision. Not a single item appeared out of place. Naoya wasn't surprised. Naobito was the type of man who expected every servant, every family member, and every object in his house to remain exactly where he wanted it.
The second drawer proved only slightly more interesting. Bundles of bonds, tax records, property deeds, and financial reports filled nearly every inch of space. Naoya flipped through several pages before immediately regretting it. Numbers. More numbers. Then even more numbers. Whoever enjoyed reading this sort of thing needed professional help. He shoved the papers back into place with considerably less care than before and slid the drawer shut. If there was a secret hidden somewhere in those documents, it was going to remain hidden forever because he certainly wasn't about to spend the next three hours reading accounting records.
With little to no patience left Naoya grabbed the handle of the third, but the drawer refused to move. Naoya frowned and pulled harder yet nothing happened. His eyes slowly lowered to the right side of the handle where a small brass lock had been built into the wood. He simply stared at it and a grin spread across his face. “Well, well…”
There was a lock. Now this was interesting. The irritation he'd been carrying for the last hour immediately vanished. Nobody would ever put a lock on a drawer full of ink bottles and parchment. No, whatever was inside this one was important. Important enough that Naobito didn't trust servants, guests, or even members of his own family to see it. Which meant Naoya absolutely needed to see it.
His excitement was quickly crushed by a second realization. The drawer required a key. “...Fuck.” the curse left his mouth as little more than a whisper.
Naoya leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through his hair. Great. Another key. Just what he needed.
His eyes scanned the office again, but he saw no key hanging from a hook, no key hidden beneath the desk and no key sitting in plain sight waiting for him. He'd already searched the room from top to bottom and hadn't found a thing. That left only two possibilities. Either Naobito carried it with him at all times, or it was hidden somewhere in his bedroom. Neither option was particularly encouraging.
Naoya drummed his fingers against the desk as he thought. Breaking into the office had been risky enough. Breaking into Naobito's room was a fantastic way to end up buried somewhere nobody would ever find him. But he just couldn't give up, especially not now. Not after finding this mysterious lock. He wasn't about to give up.
His gaze drifted back to the lock. A memory surfaced. Years ago, he'd caught Maki sneaking outside the manor after curfew. Rather than using a key, she'd managed to force open a locked window using nothing more than a coin and an alarming amount of stubbornness. At the time, Naoya had been annoyed. Now? Now it might actually be useful.
“Huh.” he reached into his pocket and found a penny. Maybe Maki wasn't completely useless after all.
Carefully he inserted the edge of the coin into the lock and began twisting. The mechanism resisted at first, forcing him to adjust the angle several times. Sweat gathered on his forehead as the seconds dragged by.
“Come on… come on…” then he heard a click. The lock gave way. Naoya immediately sat upright. “No way.”
He glanced about the room for a bit, as though he was waiting for someone to storm in and accuse him of witchcraft, but nobody came. Slowly, almost reverently, he placed both hands on the drawer. Whatever Naobito was hiding was finally within reach.
His heart beat a little faster as he pulled the drawer open with a faint creak.
Naoya immediately leaned, expecting ledgers, letters, secret contracts, or some piece of evidence that would finally explain what his father had been hiding all this time. Instead he found a single rolled-up parchment. His excitement died almost instantly.
“You're kidding me.”
Carefully he pulled it from the drawer. The parchment felt fragile beneath his fingers. Time had stained it yellow and brown, the edges brittle and beginning to curl. Whatever it was, it was old. Very old.
Naoya unrolled it across the desk. It was a map.
An annoyed grunt escaped him. Of course it had to be a stupid map. Not a confession. Not evidence. Not some grand secret. Just a very old map.
His finger drifted across the faded ink. Beginning in the south, there was Blind Canyon. Beyond it sat Goldworth, the mining town. Following the route north brought him to Sourwater. Whiskey Falls rested near the center of the territory alongside the Misko Reservation. To the east were Alligator Marsh, Saint Beaumont, and Last Point. To the west sat Hightown and Old Lake. Smaller settlements, ranches, and villages dotted the parchment in between.
At first glance, everything seemed normal. Then his finger reached the northern region. Whisperbanks. Idleport. Black Hollow. Naoya stopped, his eyes narrowed.
“Black Hollow?”
The name meant nothing to him. That was strange. Naoya knew the territory well enough. Not every road, certainly, but he knew the major towns. If Black Hollow was large enough to earn a place on a map, why had he never heard of it before?
His finger traced the name again, when he noticed something else. Someone had circled it in red ink. The faded ring stood out immediately against the worn parchment. The mark hadn't been made by the cartographer. It had been added later. Someone had intentionally drawn attention to Black Hollow.
Naoya leaned in closer. “Why?” the longer he stared at the circle, the more uneasy he felt. If this was just some abandoned settlement, why keep an old map hidden away in a locked drawer? Why mark that specific town and no others? Slowly his suspicions began to rise again. Maybe the map wasn't useless after all.
He carefully rolled the parchment back up and moved to place it inside the drawer when something tucked along the side caught his eye. A letter. Naoya froze. Now that looked far more promising. He carefully set the map aside and reached for the letter. The envelope looked just as old as the parchment, its paper yellowed with age and stained by time. Whoever had written it clearly hadn't cared much for penmanship either.
Naoya unfolded it. Immediately his face twisted into annoyance. “What the hell is this?”
The handwriting was atrocious. Every word blended into the next in a mess of shaky cursive and splattered ink. Some sections looked as though the writer's hand had been trembling while others were so heavily smudged they were nearly impossible to decipher. It reminded him of a child learning how to write for the first time.
Squinting, he brought the page closer to his face. There had to be something useful here. Slowly he worked his way through the lines one word at a time. Most of it was completely illegible. Entire sentences dissolved into meaningless scribbles. Every time he thought he had figured out a phrase, the next word ruined it.
His patience began wearing thin. How could Naobito even read this?
Squinting harder he managed to understand. Whiskey Falls. Naoya frowned. A few lines later he found another. Nine months. Then another. Preparations. Offered. Contract. The farther he read, the more his stomach tightened. Hunt. Eat. Years. See you. Naoya lowered the letter and stared at it. The words made no sense together. At least not yet.
Slowly he repeated them under his breath. “Whiskey Falls... nine months... preparations... offered... contract... hunt... eat... years... see you…”
His eyebrows furrowed. Whatever this letter was discussing, it certainly wasn't normal business. The word eat bothered him most. It felt out of place. Whoever wrote this letter wasn't talking like a merchant, rancher, politician, or government official. It sounded almost like a threat, or a promise.
Naoya glanced at the office door, looked back down at the page, and continued scanning it until he reached the bottom where a signature was or rather part of one. Only two initials remained legible. T. F.
Naoya stared at them. “T. F…” he muttered. He searched his memory, running through every merchant, ranch owner, politician, deputy, and businessman he knew. No particular face came to mind. Just more questions.
With growing frustration, Naoya folded the letter and slid it back into the drawer. The map followed shortly after. Whoever T. F. was, they clearly knew something his father didn't want anyone else discovering. And judging by the lock, Naobito considered it important enough to hide from his own family. That made Naoya even more determined to find out the truth.
Carefully, he placed the letter back exactly where he had found it. The map followed shortly after. Once everything looked untouched, he slid the drawer shut and used the coin to lock it again. The soft click of the mechanism settling back into place almost felt insulting after all that effort.
That was it? An old map. A town he'd never heard of. A letter he could barely read. And two initials. T. F. Naoya leaned back in the chair and rubbed his hands. The search had answered nothing. If anything, it had only left him with more questions than before. Why had Black Hollow been removed from modern maps? Why had Naobito hidden that particular map away? And who in the hell was T. F.?
His gaze drifted to the Bee Bole book still tucked beneath his arm. At least he'd found something. Whether it was useful remained to be seen.
Standing up, Naoya took one final look around the office to make sure nothing appeared out of place. Satisfied, he unlocked the door and peeked into the hallway. The last thing he needed was to explain why he was leaving his father's office carrying a ghost story book.
Quietly he slipped back into the corridor and locked the door. The key was returned to the dining room table exactly where he'd found it. From there he headed upstairs to his room, shoved the book beneath his bedsheets, and immediately made his way back downstairs. Fortunately, the manor was busy enough that nobody seemed to notice. Everyone appeared occupied with their own responsibilities.
Naoya barely noticed any of them. His mind remained fixed on Black Hollow. The name repeated itself over and over inside his head. Black Hollow. Black Hollow. Black Hollow. By the time he reached the foyer, he'd already made up his mind. He needed answers. And if those answers weren't hiding inside the manor, then they were somewhere in town. A trip to Whiskey Falls was unavoidable. The thought irritated him. The roads were muddy. The people smelled. Half the town looked like it hadn't discovered soap. Saint Beaumont was infinitely better. Paved streets. Brick buildings. Actual civilization. One day, when he inherited enough influence, perhaps he'd move there permanently. Better yet, once you finally stopped being stubborn and accepted him, the two of you could leave this miserable place together. The image was pleasant.
As Naoya headed to the front door, movement caught his eye. Jinichi. His uncle—or one of them. Truthfully, Naoya had long since stopped keeping track of which relative belonged to which branch of the family tree. There were too many Zenins under one roof for him to care.
Still, he wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass. Jinichi might know something. And right now, something was better than nothing.
“Hey, Jinichi.”
“Hm?” Jinichi glanced up from the coffee cup in his hands. “What is it?”
Naoya slowed his pace as he approached him. “I wanted to ask you something.”
His uncle raised an eyebrow. “That's never a good sign.”
“Ever heard of a place called Black Hollow?”
Jinichi took a moment to respond. His reaction was nuanced; his eyes narrowed momentarily. However, Naoya saw it right away.
“Black Hollow...” Jinichi repeated. “Where'd you hear that name?”
Naoya shrugged casually. “Some boys in town were talking about it. Said it doesn't appear on maps anymore.”
Jinichi remained quiet for another second before taking a sip from his coffee. “I suppose that's true.”
Naoya felt his interest immediately sharpen. “So it was a real place?”
“Of course it was.” Jinichi nodded. “Used to be a lumber town up in the mountains. Small place. Mostly woodsmen, hunters, and their families. Not much reason for anyone to go there unless they worked in the timber industry.”
“And what happened to it?”
“Government claimed the river became contaminated. People started getting sick. Said the water wasn't safe anymore.” he shrugged. “Eventually the town was abandoned.”
“That's it?”
“What do you mean that's it?”
Naoya folded his arms. “I don't know. Usually when people abandon an entire town there's a better story attached to it.”
A faint chuckle escaped Jinichi. “Ah. You're talking about camp stories.”
“So there are stories?”
“There are stories about every town.” Jinichi took another drink. “According to local folk, people started disappearing long before the evacuation. Hunters wouldn't return from the woods. Travelers vanished from the roads. Families would go to sleep and wake up missing someone.”
Naoya's expression remained neutral despite the interest building inside him. “And people believed that?”
“Some did.”
“Did you?”
Jinichi laughed outright. “No.” the answer came immediately. “I've ridden through the area before. The river really does look strange. Copper-colored in some places. Whatever happened there, I'm more inclined to believe it was something natural than ghosts carrying people away in the night.”
Naoya considered that. Suddenly something dawned on him. “People don't just disappear without a trace though.”
“Sure they do.”
“Not entire towns.”
Jinichi hesitated at that. Only for a second. But Naoya was quick to take notice.
“What happened in Sourwater wasn't normal either,” he continued. “An entire town gone. Doesn't that sound familiar?”
The amusement vanished from Jinichi's face. “What happened in Sourwater was a massacre.”
“That's what everyone keeps saying.”
“Because that's what happened.”
Naoya studied him. There wasn't anything unusual in his voice. No sign that he knew more than he was saying. If Jinichi was lying, he was doing a surprisingly good job of it. Which meant he probably wasn't.
“Right.” Naoya nodded. “Just curious.”
“Mhmm.”
The two stood there.
Naoya raised a hand. “Well. I'll see you around.”
Jinichi nodded before taking another drink from his coffee.
Naoya turned and headed for the front door. The conversation had been useful at least. Now he knew Black Hollow had existed. Which meant the real question was no longer whether the town was real. It was why someone had gone through the trouble of erasing it.
He dismounted Falco and tied the horse to a hitching post outside the church before making his way towards the entrance. By now Naoya already knew what he needed to do. If nobody was willing to give him answers directly, then he would simply gather them himself. It was a skill he'd inherited from his father. Ask the right questions. Watch people's reactions. Pay attention to what they weren't saying.
The moment he stepped inside, the scent of incense washed over him. Soft humming drifted through the church as several monks worked quietly near the altar. A few of the townsfolk occupied the pews, heads bowed and hands clasped together in prayer. Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, painting the wooden floor in shades of red, blue, and gold. At the far end of the church stood a large wooden crucifix. Jesus hung nailed to the cross, a crown of thorns resting upon his head as he gazed eternally over the congregation.
Naoya had never understood why people found comfort in that image. How people could believe in something they hadn’t witnessed.
He slid into a pew near the confession booth and mimicked everyone else, leaning forward slightly with his hands clasped together. From the corner of his eye he watched the confession booth instead. That was why he was here.
A minute later a younger monk approached. “Can I help you?” he asked with a friendly smile.
Naoya shook his head. “No. Just came here to pray.”
“Ah.” the monk smiled warmly. “Sorry for disturbing you. It's just, I don't think we've met before. My name's Junpei, in case you might need anything.”
“...Thank you, Junpei.”
Junpei bowed politely. “I'll leave you to it then.”
Naoya watched him walk away before immediately returning his attention to the confession booth.
Waiting was the worst part. Minutes dragged by while he sat there pretending to pray. He occasionally mumbled random words under his breath whenever someone looked in his direction, maintaining the illusion. Whoever was inside confessing must've committed every sin imaginable judging by how long they were taking. The thought almost made him laugh. Then again, maybe not. If Father Clarke ever learned everything Naobito had done over the years, he'd probably spend the entire year listening to his confessions.
Eventually the booth opened. A man stepped out first, his eyes red and swollen from crying. Father Clarke followed shortly after. The priest rested a comforting hand on the man's shoulder before pulling him into a brief embrace. Whatever burden the man had carried into the booth, it appeared lighter now.
Only after the man left did Father Clarke notice Naoya. The priest visibly paused. “Naoya? It's... nice seeing you here...”
The hesitation didn't escape Naoya. “Hi, Father.”
Father Clarke approached slowly and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Is everything alright?”
The question sounded genuine. The concern behind it did not. Naoya had never voluntarily stepped foot inside this church before. Father Clarke knew that. Whatever explanation the priest had expected for his presence today, genuine prayer probably wasn't high on the list.
“Yeah, everything's alright.” Naoya offered a casual shrug. “I just wanted to speak with you.”
“About what?” Father Clarke tilted his head slightly.
Naoya glanced around the church before looking back at him. A few worshippers remained scattered throughout the pews while Junpei and the other monks quietly attended to their duties near the altar.
“Nothing serious. Just had a few questions.”
“Questions?”
“About Sourwater.”
Something flickered across Clarke's face. “What about it?”
“I heard the town was abandoned.”
The priest nodded slowly. “It was.”
Naoya waited for him to elaborate, but nothing else followed. He sighed. “That's all?”
Father Clarke studied him for a moment before letting out a slow breath. “No.”
The answer immediately caught Naoya's attention.
“No?”
“No.”
Once again, the priest said nothing further. The silence felt deliberate, like he was forcing Naoya to be the one to continue.
“People are saying a lot of things,” Naoya spoke. “Poisoned river. Disease. Some are saying the place was cursed.”
“People always say things.”
“Are they wrong?”
Father Clarke's expression remained calm. “What answer are you hoping for, Naoya?”
“The truthful one.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of the priest's mouth. “That depends on who's telling the story.”
Naoya clicked his tongue. Of course. A priest's answer. Not a lie, but not a real answer either.
“Then what about the men you brought back?”
“Kenai and Elsu?”
“Yeah.”
The priest cleared his throat quietly. “What about them?”
Naoya leaned back against the pew. “It just seems strange. You travel all the way to another town and suddenly come back with two strangers.”
“They aren't strangers.”
“Not to you.”
“No.” Father Clarke folded his hands together. “They've helped me more than you realize.”
The answer only made Naoya more curious. “Helped you with what?”
The priest didn't answer. Instead he asked a question of his own. “Why are you interested?”
“Just curious, Father.”
“Curiosity can be dangerous.”
Naoya grunted. “I'm not a child.”
“No.” Father Clarke nodded. “You're not.”
Something about the way he said it felt oddly pointed. The priest seemed to be studying him. Not the way most adults did. Not the way teachers or townsfolk did. Father Clarke looked at him the same way a sheriff looked at tracks in the dirt, like he was trying to figure out where they led.
Then, much to Naoya's annoyance, the priest abruptly changed the subject.
“And speaking of things that concern me...” Father Clarke slowly lowered himself onto the pew across from him, resting both hands atop the cane he had started carrying these last few months. “My daughter tells me you've been spending quite a bit of time around her.”
Naoya immediately resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Not that much.”
The priest raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Maybe a little.”
“A little?”
“Alright.” Naoya sighed. “More than a little.”
Father Clarke hummed thoughtfully. The sound somehow felt judgmental. “She's a good woman.”
“I know.”
“And she deserves to be treated with respect.”
“I know that too...”
The priest's gaze sharpened slightly. “Do you?”
The question caught Naoya off guard. “Of course I do.”
“Then perhaps you should start acting like it.”
The words landed harder than Naoya expected.
Father Clarke sighed and rubbed a tired hand against the handle of his cane. “I understand young men make mistakes. Especially when they're in love.”
“I wasn't trying to humiliate her.” Naoya clenched his jaw.
“Intentions don't always matter.” the priest's voice remained calm. If anything, that made it worse. “My daughter tells me she's said no. Several times, from what I understand. Yet you continue pursuing her.”
“Because she doesn't mean it.” the moment the words left his mouth, Naoya regretted them.
Father Clarke's expression hardened. “My daughter is kind,” he said quietly. “Sometimes too kind. She worries about hurting people's feelings. Which means she often says things softer than she should.”
Silence settled between them. In the corner someone lit a candle. The scent of melting wax drifted through the church, mixing with the incense already lingering in the air.
Father Clarke slowly rose to his feet with the help of his cane. For a brief moment Naoya noticed the strain in his movements, the way the priest leaned more heavily against it than he used to.
“The Lord gave us free will for a reason.” the priest turned and began walking away. After several steps he glanced back one final time. “And that includes the right to say no.”
Without another word he continued towards the altar where Junpei and the others were waiting.
Naoya remained seated long after Father Clarke disappeared. His jaw remained clenched. Something about that conversation irritated him. Not because the priest had been rude. Quite the opposite actually. Father Clarke had been calm the entire time. Patient. Polite. And that had been far more frustrating. Every answer felt incomplete. Every question had been met with another question. The old man never lied, yet somehow managed to reveal almost nothing at all.
Naoya stared at the wooden floor for a moment before finally pushing himself to his feet. Fine. If nobody wanted to tell him the truth, then he'd simply uncover it himself.
He stepped outside the church and was immediately greeted by the warmth of the sun. The sounds of Whiskey Falls drifted through the streets around him. Wagons rolled across the dirt roads. Shopkeepers called out to passing customers. Horses snorted from nearby hitching posts. Normally he would've paid little attention to any of it. Today his mind was elsewhere, to Black Hollow, the map, the letter, T. F., and now Father Clarke had practically confirmed what Naoya had already suspected. Something had happened in Sourwater. Something important. The priest hadn't denied it. If anything, he'd gone out of his way to avoid discussing it.
Naoya walked towards Falco and untied the reins.
Three clues. That was all he had. An abandoned town that no longer appeared on newer maps. A letter hidden inside a locked drawer. And a priest who clearly knew more than he was willing to admit. Not much, but enough to keep moving.
In one smooth motion he climbed into the saddle and gathered the reins in his hands. His next stop was obvious. You. Father Clarke's warning still lingered in the back of his mind, but Naoya wasn't particularly interested in taking advice from a man who spent half his day speaking in riddles. Besides, if anyone knew something, it was you. And if that failed… his gaze drifted to the far side of town, to where the boarding house with three very suspicious men had decided to settle.
Naoya frowned. Preferably not Sukuna. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, every conversation with that man left him feeling like he was the butt of some joke he wasn't clever enough to understand. And judging by his luck lately, Sukuna would probably be the first one he ran into.
With an annoyed click of his tongue, Naoya nudged Falco forward and headed deeper into town. One way or another, he was going to get answers.
You walked through the streets of Whiskey Falls besides Naoya, taking a slow stroll through town while he continued filling the silence with whatever happened to be on his mind. Before seeking you out, he had stopped by the general store to purchase a rose. According to him, it was an apology.
Not that Naoya truly believed one was necessary. As far as he was concerned, the whole situation had been blown wildly out of proportion. He had received terrible news that day. He had gotten drunk. People said things they didn't mean when they were drunk. That was simply how life worked. Any reasonable person would've understood that the alcohol had been speaking, not him. Yet of course things couldn't be that simple.
Instead, you had gone to your father. That had left Father Clarke with an even worse opinion of him than before. Naoya resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the thought. As much as he hated it, he needed to repair the damage. Not because he particularly cared what the priest thought of him, but because Father Clarke happened to be your father. That complicated things.
Still, he was trying. The flower was proof of that. Frankly, he considered you fortunate he was willing to put up with any of this in the first place. Most women would've accepted the apology and moved on already. Instead, every interaction with you felt like navigating a field of hidden traps. One wrong step and somehow he was the villain again.
No matter. The important thing was that he was still trying. After all, once the two of you were married, these sorts of misunderstandings would become a thing of the past. At least, that was how Naoya preferred to think about it.
Fortunately for him, he'd spotted you leaving Manami's boutique before you could disappear elsewhere.
“Hey.”
You turned at the sound of his voice. For a brief moment your expression brightened, assuming someone else had called out to you. The second you recognized him, the smile vanished. “Oh. Hey...” you rubbed your shoulder awkwardly.
Naoya cleared his throat before holding out the rose. “I wanted to apologize for how awful I’ve been.”
You accepted the flower carefully and brought it towards your face, breathing in its scent. “Thank you…” a pause “...I appreciate the apology.”
Relief washed through Naoya. At least you hadn't thrown it back at him.
“Wanted to ask if you'd go on a walk with me,” he said. “There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about.”
Your shoulders immediately stiffened. “About what?” your eyes darted everywhere except at him.
Naoya softly grasped your forearms and led you forward without giving you a chance to back down.
“Come. It's nothing bad.”
And that's how you two ended up exploring Whiskey Falls together. Naoya talked. You listened or at least pretended to. Most of your attention seemed focused elsewhere. Occasionally, you glanced down at the rose in your hand and brought it closer. Every time you inhaled its scent, your expression softened for a second. Naoya tried not to take it personally.
“You know,” he suddenly said, “I went to church earlier today.”
That immediately caught your attention. Your head snapped to him so quickly it almost made him smirk. Naoya? In church? The idea sounded ridiculous even to you.
“Oh?” you turned your head to look at him as the two of you continued walking side by side. “And how did that go?”
“Pretty well.” Naoya shrugged. “I think I might give this whole religion thing a try.”
Your eyes widened. Now you were certain the world was ending. A Zenin willingly attending church was strange enough. A Zenin deciding to pray? That was practically a miracle.
“That's... nice.” you struggled to find the proper response. “Any particular reason for the sudden change?”
Naoya's lips curled into a smirk. “Let's just say you inspired me.”
You blinked. “Me?”
He nodded.
“How?”
Naoya placed a hand against his chest. “Your devotion. Your faith. Watching how dedicated you are to the Lord made me realize perhaps it's time I started following the same path.”
You weren't sure whether to feel flattered or suspicious. Perhaps a little of both. A part of you genuinely wanted to believe him. After all, wasn't that what Father Clarke always taught? To believe people could change? To give them the opportunity to become better versions of themselves? And to be fair, Naoya had apologized. He had bought you flowers. He seemed calmer than the last time you had spoken. Maybe he truly was trying. Maybe. Still, another part of you couldn't ignore the feeling that Naoya wasn't interested in religion itself. That perhaps he viewed faith the same way he viewed everything else—as a tool to obtain something he wanted.
You glanced down at the rose in your hand. The flower smelled lovely. You hoped the gesture was genuine.
“Well,” you finally said, “I'm happy I've inspired you to follow our Lord's teachings. It makes me proud.”
Naoya's shoulders relaxed slightly. “Thank you.”
The conversation slowly faded. The two of you continued walking through town, passing familiar storefronts and townsfolk going about their day. Wagons rolled down the streets. Merchants called out to potential customers. Somewhere in the distance, a hammer struck metal rhythmically from the blacksmith's shop.
For several minutes, neither of you spoke. Then Naoya broke the silence. “Say, I've noticed something strange.”
“What is it?” you glanced at him.
“You remember the day your father left with Satoru?”
You nodded.
“And then those three men showed up that same night?”
Your stomach tightened. “Yeah...”
Naoya kept his tone casual. “I just think the timing's odd. Maybe it's a coincidence, but don't you find it strange that three complete strangers arrive right after people in Sourwater disappear?”
You nearly stopped walking. “Wait.” your eyes widened. “You know about that?”
Naoya laughed. “Of course I do. I'm a Zenin. Knowing what's happening around here is practically my responsibility. Especially if I'm expected to follow in my father's footsteps someday. A leader should know what's going on in his own territory.”
You remained quiet. That answer didn't really satisfy you. Something about this conversation felt different, like Naoya wasn't simply making small talk anymore.
The two of you continued down the street as your thoughts drifted, your mind already starting to daydream before Naoya interrupted, again.
“Speaking of mysterious men...” he said. “How are things going with your guests?”
“We're alright.” you smiled slightly. “Kenai and Elsu are nice.”
“And?” Naoya hummed.
You looked at him. “And what?”
“You smiled.”
“I always smile.”
“No.” he pointed at you. “That was a different smile.”
You rolled your eyes. “Elsu's been teaching me how to use a bow.”
Naoya nearly stumbled. “What?”
You blinked. “What?”
“How to use a bow?” he repeated. “Is he out of his mind?”
You immediately raised both hands. “No, no. It's fine. I asked him.”
“You asked him?”
“Yes.”
Naoya stared at you as though you'd just confessed to robbing a bank. “And why would you do that?”
You looked down at your hands. “Well...” you fiddled with your fingers. “I've seen him and Kenai go hunting before. They always come back with rabbits or deer, and they're really good with it.” you shrugged. “I thought it looked interesting...”
Naoya looked horrified, genuinely horrified.
“Interesting?” Naoya repeated. “Hunting?”
You nodded. “Yes.”
The blonde man rubbed his forehead slowly as if trying to prevent a headache. “Darling, you don't need to learn how to use a bow because you'll never have to hunt.”
You immediately frowned. “Please don't call me that.”
Naoya either ignored you or genuinely didn't care. “Hunting is a man's responsibility,” he continued. “Providing food for the family is a man's responsibility. Besides, it's not exactly pleasant work.”
“It doesn't seem that bad.”
“That's because you've never done it.”
You opened your mouth to argue, but Naoya continued before you could.
“It's dirty. It's bloody. Animals don't just fall over the moment you shoot them. Sometimes they run. Sometimes they suffer. Sometimes you have to finish the job yourself.” he shook his head. “Trust me, you wouldn't enjoy it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you're you.”
You rolled your eyes. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Naoya gestured vaguely towards you. “You cry when birds fly into windows.”
“That happened one time.”
“You cried when Mrs. Dawson's goat died.”
“Because I liked that goat.”
“You fed an injured squirrel for two weeks.”
“It had a broken leg.”
“Exactly my point.”
“That doesn't mean I can't learn.” You crossed your arms.
Naoya looked genuinely unconvinced. “A delicate thing like you couldn't even hurt a fly. What makes you think you're suddenly going to start hunting deer?” his expression shifted into something almost amused. “You'd spend the entire trip apologizing to the animal.”
“I would not.”
“You absolutely would.”
“I would not.”
“You'd probably name it first.”
Your face immediately heated.
Naoya pointed at you triumphantly. “See? You would.”
You groaned. “That's not the point.”
“Then what is?”
You hesitated. The truth was you weren't entirely sure yourself. Part of it was curiosity. Part of it was wanting to understand how to survive. Part of it was simply wanting to learn something new.
“I just...” you looked down at the dirt road beneath your boots. “I want to be able to do things for myself sometimes.”
Naoya blinked. He actually looked surprised.
“I can do things for myself,” you quickly added. “I know that. That's not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
You struggled to find the words. “I don't know.” And that was the truth. You really didn't know.
Naoya stared at you for several seconds before letting out a long sigh. “Whatever the reason is, hunting isn't something you need to worry about.”
“Maybe I want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I do.”
He stared at you in absolute silence. Neither seemed particularly eager to continue the conversation, so instead you walked. The streets of Whiskey Falls stretched around you, busy as always. A young boy stood near the corner selling newspapers to passing travelers. Yuta leaned against the wall of a nearby building, quietly observing the town as people came and went. In the distance a train departed from the station, its loud whistle echoing across the valley. Two men chatted outside one of the saloons while several women stood in front of the hotel discussing whatever gossip had spread that morning. Cowboys rode through town atop their horses. Merchants called out from storefronts. Somewhere nearby a dog barked loudly at anyone who passed close enough, demanding attention from complete strangers.
From a distance you spotted a familiar figure moving through the crowd. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed almost entirely in black. A cowboy hat rested atop his head while strands of dark hair spilled from beneath it. The closer you got, the more recognizable he became. It was Toji. He was heading for the gunsmith.
“Toji?” you called out. “What are you doing here?”
The man glanced over before stopping. “Just getting myself a new revolver.” he pulled the firearm from its holster and held it up. “This one's getting old.”
You leaned forward slightly to inspect it. “Oh. I see.”
Besides you, Naoya had gone unusually quiet. You looked over. The blonde man was staring at Toji as if trying to solve a puzzle.
Toji noticed too. “Is your friend alright?”
“Hm?” you followed his gaze before realizing he meant Naoya. “Oh.”
You gently grabbed Naoya's shoulder and gave him a small shake. “Naoya?”
He blinked. “Yeah. I'm alright.”
Toji raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Naoya cleared his throat. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.”
You sighed. Toji smirked. Naoya crossed his arms. The atmosphere became awkward.
“So...” Naoya spoke. “How long have you known Sukuna?”
Toji nearly laughed. “A while.”
“A while?”
“Mhm.”
“How long is a while?”
Toji pretended to think. “Long enough.”
Naoya's eye twitched. Very informative. “And where'd you meet?”
“Some place.”
“What place?”
“A village.”
Naoya stared. Toji stared right back. You looked between both men before pinching the bridge of your nose. “Are you two doing this on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The answers came simultaneously.
You groaned. Toji's grin widened. Naoya looked seconds away from committing a crime.
“Maybe I'm just curious,” Naoya muttered.
“Or maybe you're trying to solve a mystery.” Toji shrugged. He dramatically wiggled his fingers in the air.
The comment hit far closer to the truth than Naoya would've liked. His posture straightened slightly. “Is there a mystery?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“What mystery?”
“No clue.”
Naoya stared at him in disbelief. “Then why say that?”
“Because your face was funny.”
You covered your face with both hands. “Father in Heaven, give me strength.”
Toji barked out a laugh. Even a few people walking past chuckled after overhearing the exchange. Naoya, meanwhile, looked as though he was one sarcastic remark away from throwing himself into the river.
Eventually Toji took pity on him, or at least as much pity as Toji was capable of feeling. “Look,” he adjusted the revolver in his hand. “If somebody's hiding something, asking direct questions is the fastest way to make sure they never tell you.”
Naoya blinked. The advice sounded surprisingly genuine. For the first time during their conversation, Toji actually sounded serious. Then he ruined it. “But if you're really desperate, try following Choso around at night.” he shrugged. “Guy definitely visits some interesting places.”
Naoya narrowed his eyes. “Interesting how?”
“No clue.”
“You just said—”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because it's funny.”
You let out a long suffering groan. Toji looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“Anyways.” he hooked a thumb to the gunsmith. “Need a new revolver and some ammunition.” then he turned towards you. “Unless I'm still banned from entering this place.”
Your face immediately turned red.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Toji grinned.
“You can go inside, Toji.” you buried your face in your hands. “It's been months. Can you please let that joke die?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it's hilarious.”
“It isn't.”
“It is.”
“It really isn't.”
Toji chuckled and stepped back towards the gunsmith's entrance. “Agree to disagree.” with that he pushed open the door and disappeared inside. You and Naoya both watched him leave. Both of you sighed at the exact same time.
Before either of you could say anything else, a loud commotion erupted somewhere farther down the street. Voices shouting. Concerned murmurs. The kind of noise that immediately drew attention. You exchanged a glance with Naoya, and hurried towards the crowd forming ahead.
The closer you got, the louder the commotion became. Townsfolk were gathering in a loose circle in the middle of the street, craning their necks and pushing past one another to get a better look at whatever had happened.
“Excuse me.”
“Let me through.”
“Move aside.”
You squeezed between two men standing near the edge of the crowd while Naoya followed reluctantly behind. When you finally reached the front, you immediately understood the source of the panic.
A mare lay on her side in the dirt.
Her breathing was heavy and labored, each breath accompanied by a strained sound that made your stomach twist. Sweat darkened her coat as her muscles trembled with effort. Besides her stood a distraught young man clutching his hat so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
“What’s wrong with her?!” he shouted. “Why is she doing this?”
The crowd answered with a dozen different opinions.
“She’s dying.”
“No, she’s sick.”
“Looks like colic.”
“Maybe she broke something.”
“I’ve never seen a horse act like that before.”
The mare let out another strained cry.
You looked closer. Something pale protruded from beneath her tail. At first you couldn't tell what it was.
“Wait...” the woman next to you gasped. “Is she giving birth?!”
A murmur immediately swept through the crowd.
“I think she is.”
“Pregnant?”
“She's having a foal!”
The horse's owner looked horrified. “Pregnant?! I thought she was just fat!”
Several people turned to stare at him. You blinked. Even Naoya looked momentarily speechless.
The mare groaned again, trying to push, but nothing happened.
“She's struggling,” the same woman said nervously. “Someone go get Yuki!”
“Yuki's too far away!” another voice shouted back. “She's at the ranch!”
The panic only continued growing. Everyone seemed to have an opinion. Nobody seemed to have a solution. Then another voice cut through the noise. “Alright, everyone shut up.”
The crowd immediately turned. You recognized the voice before you even saw who it belonged to. Sukuna. He pushed through the gathered townsfolk and stepped into the center of the circle. Without hesitation he crouched near the mare, carefully examining her.
“The foal's coming out wrong.”
The crowd fell silent.
Sukuna glanced over his shoulder. “That's why she's having trouble.” his voice remained calm.
You watched him place a hand against the mare's neck, gently calming her while she struggled.
“I need a bucket of water. Soap. Clean rags.” he pointed at the crowd. “And bring me a few apples while you're at it.”
“I'll get them!” a young boy immediately nodded and took off running.
“Everyone else back up.” Sukuna motioned back to the crowd. “Give her room.” the townsfolk immediately obeyed, taking several steps backwards and widening the circle around them. “This isn't going to be pleasant to watch.”
That statement alone caused several people to leave. Naoya looked tempted to join them. You stayed.
The mare cried out again. Sukuna carefully inspected the position of the foal before muttering a curse beneath his breath. One leg had emerged. You didn't know much about horses, but judging by the expression on his face, that wasn't supposed to happen.
A few moments later the boy returned carrying the supplies. “Here!” he nearly dropped the bucket in his excitement.
Sukuna took it from him. “Thanks, kid.”
The boy looked absurdly proud of himself before retreating back into the crowd.
After washing his hands thoroughly, Sukuna got to work. The process was difficult to watch. Some people grimaced. Others looked away entirely. Several curious children had to be pulled back by their parents.
Despite the growing tension, Sukuna never seemed rattled. His movements remained calm, deliberate, focused, patient. Every action served a purpose. You found yourself unable to look away. This wasn't the same man who intimidated entire rooms simply by walking into them. It wasn't the same man who threw Naoya into the mud outside the saloon. There was something different about him here. Something softer.
“Easy,” Sukuna murmured, running a hand through the mare's mane. “You're doing fine.”
The horse responded with another exhausted breath.
Next to you, Naoya visibly grimaced. “I can't watch this.” without another word, he turned around and disappeared into the crowd. You barely noticed him leave. Your attention remained fixed on Sukuna.
The mare pushed again. This time there was progress. A second leg appeared.
“Good,” Sukuna muttered. “That's what I want to see.”
The horse trembled violently from exhaustion. Sweat coated her entire body now, darkening the white and brown patches of her coat. Every muscle strained as she fought to bring the foal into the world.
The crowd watched in complete silence. Even the children had stopped talking. The only sounds came from the mare's labored breathing and the occasional reassurance Sukuna murmured while guiding the foal into a better position.
“Come on, girl. Just a little more.”
The mare let out another strained cry. Slowly the foal's head emerged.
A collective gasp swept through the crowd.
“It's coming!”
“Look!”
“Oh thank heavens.”
You found yourself unconsciously holding your breath.
The mare pushed again. And again. Each attempt seemed weaker than the last. Concern flickered across Sukuna's face. His hand moved reassuringly across the horse's neck.
“Stay with me,” he murmured. “You're almost there.”
The mare's ears twitched at the sound of his voice. Then came one final push. The foal slid free. For a brief, horrifying minute nothing happened. The newborn lay motionless in the dirt. The crowd fell silent. Your heart sank. Then the foal suddenly jerked. A shaky breath escaped its lungs. The tiny body wriggled weakly against the ground.
A wave of relief swept through the crowd. Several people immediately began clapping. Others cheered. One woman actually started crying. The mare stretched her neck towards her foal, nickering softly as she nudged it with her nose. The newborn struggled against the ground, attempting to move closer to its mother.
You couldn't help but smile. Both of them were alive. Sukuna sat back on his heels and let out a long breath. Only now did he look tired.
The owner of the mare looked moments away from collapsing. “Thank you, sir.” his voice shook with relief. “I don't know what I would've done without you.”
Sukuna grabbed the bucket and washed his hands again. “What the hell were you doing riding a pregnant horse?”
The man visibly shrank. “Well... I didn't know she was pregnant.”
Sukuna stared.
The man shifted awkwardly beneath the scrutiny. “I thought she was just fat... She just had been eating so much these last few months...”
A few people nearby snorted. One old rancher actually slapped a hand over his face. Sukuna continued staring at him. Blankly. Wordlessly.
“If you can't tell the difference between a fat horse and a pregnant horse, maybe you shouldn't own one.”
The poor man looked ready to disappear into the ground. “I know. I'm sorry.”
“You're lucky neither of them died.”
“I know.”
“Very lucky.”
The owner rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “My pa usually handled all the horses. He passed away recently, so I'm still learning.”
That seemed to soften Sukuna's annoyance ever so slightly. Only slightly. “Well, you've got a lot more learning ahead of you.”
“Seems that way.”
Sukuna shook his head and grabbed one of the apples, placing it beside the mare. “Take her and the foal to the stables. Let them rest there for the night.”
The man hesitated. “But I'm not from this town… how am I supposed to get home?”
Sukuna slowly closed his eyes. You could practically see his patience evaporating. Without a word Sukuna reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and flicked it towards him. The man barely caught it.
“Get yourself a room at the hotel.”
The owner's eyes widened. “Sir, I couldn't—”
“You can.”
“Thank you.”
“Mhmm.”
“Really, thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Stop talking before I take the coin back.”
The man immediately shut his mouth. A few people laughed.
Sukuna stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants.
The crowd gradually began dispersing now that the crisis was over. Conversations resumed. People continued down the street. Children ran off to tell their friends about the baby horse they had just seen. Yet you remained where you were. Watching him. It would've been easy to leave. Most people already were. Instead you found yourself staring at Sukuna as he finished cleaning up. You couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd spoken to the mare, the patience and gentleness. It felt so different from the intimidating man who usually wandered around town looking like he could punch a hole through a wall.
Perhaps you hadn't been paying enough attention. Or perhaps there was simply more to Sukuna than he'd allowed anyone to see.
Before you could think too much about it, your feet were already moving. Following after him through the streets of Whiskey Falls as he headed off to who-knows-where. Sadly for you, the man walked far too fast. Between his long legs and naturally long stride, he covered ground with ease while you practically had to hurry after him just to keep up.
“Sukuna, wait!” you called.
He immediately stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “What?”
“That was amazing, what you did back there with the horse.” you finally caught up to him. “I didn't know you knew horses.”
“I don't.”
You blinked. “You don't?” you repeated. “Then how did you know how to do all that?”
“Lucky guess.” Sukuna shrugged.
The answer came far too quickly. You knew he was lying. Not that you understood why he felt the need to lie about something so harmless. Still, if Sukuna didn't want to explain himself, prying probably wouldn't get you anywhere.
“Alright,” you said with a smile. “If you say so. But still, that was amazing.”
“Mhm.”
Sukuna resumed walking and you followed alongside him.
The sounds of town life carried around. Horses trotted through the dirt streets. Townsfolk slowly began making their way home, though a few cowboys were already heading to the saloons to spend the evening drinking and gambling. Somewhere in the distance, the mournful horn of a train echoed before fading away.
“Saw you earlier in the crowd with him again.” Sukuna spoke.
“So you did.”
“He's not giving you trouble?”
You shook your head. “No. Actually he wanted to apologize for everything.”
“And he waited this long to do so?”
You shrugged. “Better late than never, I guess.”
Sukuna clicked his tongue. The disapproval in the sound was immediate. “You have too much patience with him.”
An awkward laugh escaped you. “Maybe, but I believe in redemption. If someone's heart is truly set on changing, then they deserve a second chance to prove themselves.”
Sukuna's gaze lingered on you. “And do you believe he means it?”
The question settled heavily between you.
You remained quiet for a moment before answering. “I'd like to think he does.”
“Tch.”
The response told you exactly what he thought.
Truthfully, you were willing to give Naoya another chance. You wanted to believe the apology had been sincere. You wanted to believe people could become better versions of themselves if they truly wished to. Yet somewhere deep inside, buried beneath your optimism, a small part of your heart already knew the truth.
Naoya wasn't changing, not really.
Maybe others would've called you foolish for continuing to hope otherwise. Perhaps they would've called you naïve. Maybe they were right. But this was how you had been raised. To forgive. To show mercy. To offer grace where others offered judgment. Your father had always taught that to be forgiven, one must also be willing to forgive. Holding onto resentment only poisoned the soul, while forgiveness allowed wounds to heal. Refusing to forgive others could harm not only your relationships, but your relationship with God as well.
Before you could think of anything else, Sukuna said. “Enough about loverboy.”
You rolled your eyes. “Can you not call him that?”
“No.”
A groan escaped your lips. Sukuna looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“How have you been?” he asked. “It's been a while since I last saw you.”
You chuckled softly. “Yeah... I've been busy helping my father and his friends.”
Sukuna raised an eyebrow. “They still there?”
You nodded. “Yes. Don't know exactly what they're doing, but whatever it is doesn't seem to be working. They all look upset lately.”
Something flashed across Sukuna's face before disappearing. “Interesting,” he shrugged. “Well, best of luck to them.”
“It hasn't been all bad though.” you smiled. “At least I get to spend more time with Elsu. He's been teaching me how to use a bow.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep.”
“Well then.” a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Guess you'll have to introduce us someday. Maybe we can go hunting together.”
Your eyes immediately brightened. “Really?”
“Sure.”
“Really really?”
A low chuckle escaped him. “Yes, really.”
The excitement on your face was impossible to miss.
You couldn't stop smiling. The idea sounded exciting. Father never seemed particularly enthusiastic about letting you wander through the woods chasing deer, and while Satoru and Suguru occasionally went hunting, you'd never had the courage to ask if you could join them.
You found yourself looking at him. Actually looking at him. At some point over the last few months, the intimidating stranger who had arrived in Whiskey Falls had become familiar. You weren't entirely sure when it happened. Perhaps it had been all the random conversations throughout town. The teasing remarks. The evenings spent talking. Or maybe it had been what you'd witnessed today.
The image of Sukuna kneeling besides the mare lingered stubbornly in your mind. It felt so different from the intimidating image he presented to the rest of the world.
You looked away before you could think too much about it, choosing instead to focus on the buildings around you.
The sun had begun its slow descent beyond the mountains, painting the sky in shades of gold, pink, and orange. Long shadows stretched across the town while lanterns were being lit in preparation for the night. The air had cooled considerably compared to the heat of the afternoon, carrying with it the scents of dust, horses, and distant woodsmoke.
Suddenly, a voice.
“There you are!”
The shout shattered the peaceful moment. Both of you turned. Yuta came running from across the street, breathing heavily. His face was flushed and his usually calm demeanor had completely disappeared.
“There you are,” he repeated between breaths. “I've been looking all over town for you.”
The knot in your stomach formed instantly. Something was wrong.
“Yuta?” You hurried towards him. “What's wrong? Are you okay?”
He bent slightly, placing a hand over his chest while struggling to catch his breath. “I'm alright.” his voice sounded strained. “But your father—”
The world seemed to stop. Your heart skipped. “What about my father?”
Yuta swallowed. “They said he was working at the church when he suddenly collapsed. Junpei and the others rushed him to the doctor's office.”
The words hit you like a gunshot. Everything else immediately ceased to matter. The streets, the people, the sounds of town life all faded into the background until there was nothing left except those horrible words repeating over and over inside your head. Your chest tightened painfully. Your knees threatened to buckle beneath as the panic rushed through your body, making it difficult to breathe, difficult to think, difficult to focus on anything beyond a single terrifying thought.
A hand settled against the back of your neck, grounding you. “Come on. Breathe.” Sukuna's voice sounded distant, muffled beneath the frantic pounding of your heart. You tried to listen, tried to focus on his words. His thumb brushed against the silver rosary hanging around your neck, and immediately his hand jerked away. A soft hiss escaped through his teeth. The reaction barely registered in your panic-stricken mind. Everything felt blurry. Distant. Unreal.
“Deep breaths,” he repeated, flexing his hand once before lowering it to his side. “In and out.”
“I need to see him.” your voice cracked. “I need to see him.”
Yuta immediately grabbed your hand. “Come on.” his grip tightened reassuringly. “Stay with me. We're almost there.”
Without another word, the three of you hurried to the clinic.
You unfolded the blanket around your father's frail body, making sure it rested comfortably over his legs before setting the cup of tea on the nearby nightstand. The medicine Shoko had prescribed sat next to it along with a glass of water. For what felt like the hundredth time since arriving home, you checked that everything he might possibly need remained within arm's reach.
“Father, do you need anything else?” you asked quietly, unable to keep the worry from your voice.
Josiah slowly lifted a shaky hand. “No.” he cleared his throat. “I feel better now. Thank you, child.”
“Of course.”
The old priest looked over at you sitting near his bed and offered a small smile. It wasn't his usual smile. It seemed sadder, tired.
“You know,” he began, “I did well in raising you.”
Your chest tightened. “Father—”
“No, let me finish.” he chuckled softly. “I'm proud of the person you've become. You've grown into a kind, gentle woman. More compassionate than I ever could've hoped.”
A tear threatened to escape. You refused to let it. Not now. He needed you to be strong, for both of you.
Josiah’s smile softened. “But go get some rest, daughter. Truly. I feel much better now.”
You hesitated. Everything inside you screamed against leaving.
According to Shoko, your father had suffered a minor stroke. The exact cause remained uncertain. It could've been his age. Exhaustion. Stress. High blood pressure. Perhaps a combination of all four. Whatever the reason, the reality remained the same. Your father wasn't young anymore. Time was finally beginning to catch up with him.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he reassured gently.
“Okay...” you slowly stood from the chair. “I'll be right next door. If you need anything, anything at all, just ring the bell or call for me.”
“I will.” his smile returned. “Thank you.”
As soon as you opened the door, Gabriel bolted inside the room and jumped onto the bed. Your father laughed. “See? You have nothing to worry about. My guardian angel is keeping watch over me.”
The cat circled twice before settling comfortably atop the blanket near his legs. You couldn't help but chuckle. “Alright. Sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams, daughter.”
You softly closed the door behind you. The moment you stepped into your room, you lost whatever composure you'd been desperately clinging to. The tears came immediately.
A stroke. Your father had suffered a stroke, and there wasn't a thing you could do about it. Sure, Shoko had given you medicine. She had explained what signs to watch for and what precautions should be taken moving forward. She had done everything she could to reassure you that Clarke would recover if he rested properly. But none of those things guaranteed anything. He was old. That truth had always existed, yet it had never felt any real until today.
For years you'd watched the small changes happen little by little. The occasional stumble. The trembling hands. The moments where he needed to sit down and catch his breath after a long day. You had noticed every single one of them while pretending not to. Now there was no pretending. Age was finally catching up to him.
You clenched your jaw. If he wasn't so stubborn, perhaps this never would've happened. If he would simply step down as priest and pass the responsibility to someone younger, maybe he wouldn't be carrying so much stress. If he would just let others help him. If he would stop insisting on solving every problem himself. If he had allowed you to help. If he had trusted you with whatever burden he, Satoru, Suguru, Kenai, and Elsu had been carrying these past few months. Maybe things would've been different. But Father Clarke had always been stubborn. Whenever you asked questions, he simply smiled and told you that you didn't need to involve yourself. That it was for your own good.
You let out a shaky breath and pushed yourself off the bed before heading to the washroom. Turning the faucet on, you splashed cool water on your face several times. Water dripped from your chin and nose while your trembling hands remained beneath the stream.
You closed your eyes.
Today's events had taken a toll on you. First Naoya. Then Sukuna helping the mare give birth. Then your conversation with him. And finally, your father's collapse. It was all too much. Far too much. You needed somewhere to breathe. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere familiar.
Leaving the washroom, you quietly made your way outside and into the backyard. The small garden rested beneath the moonlight, its flowers gently swaying in the evening breeze. After a moment of searching, you carefully plucked one and held it against your chest.
The moment you returned to the front of the house, however, you found Kenai and Elsu waiting there. Both men looked at you knowingly. Kenai spoke first. “I'm not going to pretend I don't know you're sneaking out.”
You stopped. The flower tightened in your hand.
“But after what happened today,” he continued, “and judging by the look on your face, whatever you need to do is important.”
Your eyes lowered. “It is.”
Kenai nodded and held up a finger. “One hour.”
You looked back up.
“One hour,” he repeated. “That's all you have. If you don't return by then, I'll have Elsu come looking for you. He’ll search this town from top to bottom.”
A weak laugh escaped you despite everything. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I'll come back in an hour.”
“Good.” Kenai's expression softened slightly. “I'll keep an eye on your father while you're gone.”
The knot in your chest loosened just a little. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” he pointed to the road. “And remember. One hour.”
You nodded before turning away. The house slowly disappeared as you walked through the streets. Most businesses had already closed for the evening. Only a handful remained open. The loudest among them was the saloon. Bright light illuminated its windows while cheerful laughter and piano music spilled into the street. Judging by the noise alone, everyone inside seemed to be having the time of their lives.
Poor Utahime. You didn't envy her tonight.
Continuing down the road, you eventually passed the church and kept walking. Your destination wasn't the church itself, it was what rested behind it. The cemetery.
Quiet greeted you the moment you stepped through the iron gates. The world seemed slower here. Softer. Rows of gravestones stretched across the field beneath the pale glow of the moon. Some graves were decorated with flowers. Others had been abandoned long ago, their names slowly disappearing beneath moss and time.
You didn't need to search. You already knew exactly where to go. Even after all these years. Your feet carried you through the rows until you finally stopped before a familiar stone.
Dahlia Clarke.
Your mother, named after the flower.
Kneeling down, you carefully placed the pink dahlia on her grave. The garden at home had been planted by your father after her death. His own way of remembering her. Of keeping a small piece of her alive even after she was gone.
“Hi, Mom.” your voice cracked. “It's been a while. I know.” a sad laugh escaped you. “Sorry. I've been so busy lately.”
Your gaze lowered.
“Had a terrible day today. I thought I almost lost dad.” the confession hung in the air. “He had a stroke. He's being stubborn. Won't let me help him, and I'm worried.”
A cool breeze drifted through the cemetery, stirring the grass around your feet.
“Been having problems with Naoya too. As usual.” your eyes rolled instinctively, then softened. “But I also met someone new a few months ago.”
You glanced at the flower. “His name's Sukuna. Well... Ryomen technically, but Sukuna sounds better.” you smiled softly before it disappeared. “Anyways. I just wanted to say hi, and that I miss you.”
Your fingers brushed against the stone. “Wish you were here.” a tear slipped free. “Bet you would've known how to make dad listen.”
You stared at the gravestone, reading the familiar words carved into the stone. Her name. The dates marking the beginning and end of her life. And beneath them, the small message your father had insisted on adding all those years ago.
You had read it hundreds of times before. Enough that you could recite it from memory.
The cool breeze drifted through the cemetery, carrying with it the scent of damp grass and wildflowers. You closed your eyes and took a slow breath, letting the cold air fill your lungs.
You had never truly known your mother. Not really. Everything you knew about her came from stories your father told on quiet evenings. Stories shared by older members of the congregation who still remembered her. According to everyone who knew her, she had been the sort of woman who could brighten a room simply by walking into it.
Father always spoke about her as though she had hung the stars in the sky. You couldn't blame him. She had been the love of his life ...And you were the reason she was gone.
The thought had haunted you for as long as you could remember.
Father had once told you how difficult it had been for them to have children. Year after year they had tried, only to be met with disappointment. Then, when they had nearly given up hope entirely, a miracle happened. Your mother became pregnant. Josiah had always called you a blessing from God. Yet sometimes you struggled to believe him. Your birth had cost them everything. You had taken your first breath while your mother took her last.
The guilt wasn't logical. You knew that. Josiah had spent years trying to convince you otherwise, yet the feeling remained all the same.
You lowered your head. “Sometimes I wonder what you would've been like. Would you have been strict? Or would father have been the strict one?” a weak laugh escaped you. “Actually... I think we both know the answer to that.”
The cemetery remained silent. Only the wind answered.
“I wish I could've met you. I wish I could've known your voice.” another tear slipped free. You quickly wiped it away. “I just… don't know what to do anymore.”
Everything felt overwhelming lately. Your father's health. Naoya. The strange tension hanging over the house. Whatever secrets Kenai, Elsu, Satoru, and Suguru were keeping from you. You felt lost.
You remained there, speaking quietly to a woman who would never answer back; sharing worries, complaints, small stories from your day. When suddenly a branch snapped.
The sound immediately caught your attention. Your head turned sharply. Someone stood several feet away beneath the moonlight. He was tall with broad shoulders, pink hair, and red eyes. Sukuna… again.
You quickly wiped the tears from your face, though there was little point in trying to hide them now. The man had undoubtedly seen everything.
Sukuna slowly approached. His gaze lingered on the gravestone before he slowly removed his hat. “My condolences.”
“Thank you.”
The silence stretched. Yet strangely, it wasn't uncomfortable. If anything, it felt smoother than most conversations you'd had lately.
Your eyes drifted to your mother's name carved into the stone. Unexpectedly, he said. “I know the feeling.”
You looked up. “Huh?”
“Of losing a mother.”
The words were simple, but there was something beneath them. Something heavy.
“Oh.” your voice sounded small. “I didn't know...”
“Most people don't.”
You turned your head fully to face him. The moonlight illuminated part of his face while leaving the rest hidden in shadow. His eyes remained fixed on the gravestone.
“I don't usually talk about her.”
Sukuna looked tired. Not physically tired. Something deeper. Older. The usual confidence and amusement that seemed permanently attached to him had vanished entirely.
“Thank you for telling me.”
His jaw tightened slightly, a small reaction. “My mother died when I was very young,” he admitted quietly. “Some days I remember her voice. Other days I can't.”
Your heart ached. The confession felt strangely personal, like something he hadn't intended on sharing, or rarely did.
“I'm sorry.”
Sukuna let out a humorless chuckle. “Don't be.”
You stood from the ground and brushed the dirt from your dress. The grief remained; it always would, but it felt lighter now. Shared.
Your hand gently settled on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Sukuna froze. As if he wasn't accustomed to being asked that question.
“Yeah.” his voice sounded rough. “Sorry. Didn't mean to get all emotional on you.”
“It's fine.” you offered him a small smile. “Really.”
The moon hung high above the cemetery, casting pale silver light across the rows of gravestones. The cold breeze returned once more, gently stirring your hair.
Deciding to spare him from the subject, you changed the conversation. “What were you doing out there?”
“Hunting. Eating.”
You blinked. “At this hour?”
Sukuna shrugged. “Was hungry.”
The answer itself wasn't strange. Everything else was. Your eyes briefly swept over him. He looked exactly the same as he had earlier. His clothes weren't dirty. There wasn't a rifle slung over his shoulder. No bow. No rabbit. No deer. Not even a squirrel. Nothing. Most hunters returned carrying something. Sukuna carried absolutely nothing.
You frowned. “Eating what exactly?”
“Food.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“It answered it perfectly.”
A sigh escaped you. Your gaze lingered on him a second longer. He certainly didn't look like someone who had just spent hours wandering around the woods. Aside from a few loose strands of pink hair escaping beneath his hat, there wasn't anything particularly unusual about him. Then again, there rarely ever was. Sukuna somehow managed to be both suspicious and completely ordinary at the same time.
“You know,” you said slowly, “most people usually bring the food back with them.”
“Why?”
“So they can eat it.”
“I did.”
The answer only confused you further.
You stared. Sukuna stared right back and smirked. “You think too much.”
“That's because you make no sense.”
“Yet somehow you keep talking to me.”
You rolled your eyes. Unfortunately, he had a point.
Somewhere nearby, an owl called from the darkness.
You looked back at your mother's gravestone one final time. Then back at Sukuna. Back at the town waiting beyond the gates. Back at your house.
“I should get going.”
“Of course.” his voice softened. “See you around.”
You nodded and began walking back home. After several steps you glanced over your shoulder. Sukuna was still standing there. Hat in hand. Motionless beneath the moonlight.
One walked back towards those waiting for her. The other remained amongst those long gone. Yet for a strange reason, neither felt quite as alone as they were before.
Note: SOOO I did a little bit of research on vampirism and the closest thing I could find was Mesopotamian cultures, so I decided to use that, but tell me whyyy it basically translates to misogyny? Anyways, that's why I decided to use some Mesopotamian elements in their origins with my own little twists
when he walks, it demands attention. every step filling up the sound, the area, the density around you so you know that he’s coming.
it’s even in the slight shake of the little trinkets adorning your coffee table as he drops in the couch, his heavy arms on either side of the long couch back.
or how small everything looked in his hands, how loud it was when he set something down even if it was meant to be light.
how harsh a slap to your ass felt every time you walked past him.
or when his big hands engulfed your waist no matter what you did.
how his body covered yours if you were even washing the dishes, grabbing your keys, beneath, over, under him and even in the shower.
even his fucking shadow dominated yours.
he was just big. and you loved it.
you loved every aspect of it, when he would be fucking so deep, the low drag of his dick pulling out from inside you till just his tip remained and he slammed back inside of you.
it was mesmerizing how heavy he was everywhere. how he didn’t need to do much barely lifting a finger or flexing a muscle to move you in any position he wanted.
but it was perfect watching him in missionary his long, bulky figure sweaty above you, his arms anchored at the sides of your head.
steady for him and a reminder for you of how fucking strong he was. how he could hold you in a armlock and fuck you how he wanted.
or he could bend you over anywhere, anyhow and take you cause you were his.
you’d imagine that’s your favorite position anything that demonstrated his otherworldly strength. the slight cut off of your airflow turning your moans get lighter and breathy while he fucked you on his lap.
or maybe a full nelson, feeling the stretch of your legs as sukuna forced you past what you thought your limit was, feeling the burn as he huffed only focusing on cumming and not the desperate squirm of your body with the new found angle.
but no.
your favorite position was missionary, missionary since you can wrap your legs around the sturdy expanse of his waist as he pressed back inside of you.
your arms could wrap, and scratch around his back and pull his large frame over to give you another kiss.
but your favorite part was when you’d press your hand firmly in the middle of his large back, catching him off guard and pressing all 280 pounds of muscle in top of you until you felt your chest constrict.
some might assume you’re a masochist, torturing yourself like this, feeling your body fight underneath your boyfriends as you chased your orgasm.
or maybe feeling the dark tingle in your lower abdomen as he nipped at your neck, eyes slightly wider than usual watching you heave below him but not wanting to stop.
and how hard it was you came when he finally accepted his fate and lessened the weight in his arms to lie fully on you, hearing the breathless gasp escape out your mouth while you scratch and cum helplessly under him.
but even regular life wasn’t much better.
sukuna could chalk it up to a kink, a sick desire you had or a underlying urge to be close to him.
but he couldn’t understand this.
on the train you’d always push to get on the crowded one, even with another a few minutes begin.
insisting that you stood at the door and he covered you, and every single time without fail he crushes you.
his hard body swinging from the influx of people or the harsh curve of the train, pressing you further and further to the door. and it’s not like you would move away, or that you could.
but he would observe your gleaming eyes, the tight hold you’d have on his dress shirt and the bite of your lips as you finally took a deep shaky breath when he would finally get to back an inch away.
though he was also concerned when it was time to sleep.
“c’monnnn kuna” you’d whine spread like a starfish out on your bed while he you watched your shirtless boyfriend at the end of the bed.
whose arms were folded, his eyebrows scrunched as he watched you almost scared.
“this is concerning even for you.”
“please baby, i’m always on top of you anyways.”
“no.”
“no?”
“no.”
yet and still he found himself, not even ten minutes later, laid out on top of you his heavy chest crushing yours again as you hummed underneath him pleased.
“there is no way you’re comfortable under there”, his muffled voice answered as you basically purred, rubbing his back.
“very.”
“and no way you can breathe.”
“gotten used to it.”
you’re unreal. but still he couldn’t be too bothered watching your light breathes when he turned with his bed head and see the small smile splayed out in your face.
and you?
this wouldn’t the last time you’d want sukuna’s full weight.
20K words, Simon’s hair has grown out, reader wears glasses, Simon doesn’t know how to dance, smut, the fluffiest fluff, angst, size kink, Simon is huge, pee mentioned, Simon is filthy but we all knew that. Tell me if I missed any tags.
He was four years old when he stole your crayons.
Not all of them. Just the good ones. The red one. The yellow one. The bright, sunflower-gold one that you'd been saving to colour the sun in the corner of your drawing, the way all four-year-olds drew the sun — a circle in the corner, rays shooting out like a child's idea of joy.
You looked at him across the low art table in that bright little preschool room that smelled of poster paint and digestive biscuits.
He was stocky even then.
Chubby-cheeked and heavy-set. A thick, sturdy little boy who sat with his legs wide and his fat fists curled around your crayons like he'd earned them.
He wasn't even looking at you.
He was colouring something — a car, maybe, or a blob that might have been a dog — and the yellow crayon moved in big, purposeful strokes across his paper.
You did not cry.
You considered it.
Then you leaned across the table and took them back.
He looked up.
Brown eyes. Even at four, they were startling — dark and serious and far too watchful for a boy his age.
He stared at you.
You stared back.
Then he slid the gold crayon back across the table to you, said nothing, and went back to his drawing.
His name was Simon.
You would not learn that until the register was called the following morning. But you remembered his eyes before you remembered his name.
— ✦ —
He broke your glasses in Year Two.
Not on purpose — or so you believed, for most of your life, until you were old enough to accept that
Simon Riley did very few things without purpose.
He knocked into you in the corridor outside the dining hall, your plastic NHS frames hitting the linoleum floor, one arm snapping clean off at the hinge.
You stood there, the world going soft and blurry at the edges the way it always did without them, and you felt the particular, humiliating sting of being unable to see properly — the vulnerability of it, the indignity.
Simon picked up the frames. Looked at them. Looked at you.
He didn't say sorry straight away. He examined the break with the seriousness of a boy who was already, at seven, very careful about what he said and when he said it. Then, "I'll carry your bag till they're fixed."
"You broke my glasses," you told him like he didn’t know.
"I know." He nodded.
"That's not the same as fixing them."
"No," he agreed. "But it's what I've got."
He carried your bag for three days. And when your mum brought the repaired frames in on the fourth morning, he handed the bag back without ceremony, turned, and went to join his mates by the football cage. No further apology. No acknowledgement that anything had occurred between you at all.
That afternoon, you kicked over his sandcastle in the playground.
He watched you do it. Didn't say a word.
You felt better.
And somehow, after that, you were friends.
— ✦ —
He couldn't read very well. You figured this out in Year Three, during the round-robin reading in class — when the teacher went along the rows and each child read a sentence aloud.
You noticed the way Simon's jaw set and his hands went flat on the desk the closer it got to his turn. The way his eyes moved across the page, laboured and slow, tracking words like they were things to be wrestled rather than known.
He got through his sentence. Barely. His face was blank when he sat back, the particular blankness he'd already learned to wear — that carefully constructed nothing that meant everything was fine when everything was not fine at all.
You didn't say anything about it. Not then. You were eight years old, not stupid.
What you did was start reading with him at break time. You presented it as something you needed — you told him you were practising for a reading competition and needed an audience.
Simon was not fooled. He was never fooled, not really.
But he sat down with you on the bench by the library door and listened while you read, and then slowly, carefully, you handed the book to him and asked what he thought happened next, and he had to read ahead to find out.
It took most of the school year. But by the summer he was reading chapter books. He never thanked you. He did start saving you a seat on the library bench every break time, and that was the same thing.
— ✦ —
He played football and rugby.
You read on the grass bank above the field.
It became a kind of institution — the ritual of your shared proximity without shared activity. Simon on the pitch, broad and determined and already bigger than the other boys by Year Five, already moving with that particular physicality that seemed less like playing and more like declaration.
And you on the bank above, your book open, your reading glasses (a better pair now, tortoiseshell) perched on your nose, half-reading and half watching without ever quite admitting to the watching.
He always knew you were there. He didn't do anything about it. But sometimes, when he scored, he'd look up at the bank first before he looked anywhere else.
You told yourself you were only there because the grass was nice and the light was good.
You were not a good liar, even then.
— ✦ —
The boy's name was Daniel Holt and he pushed you over in the playground in Year Five because you'd refused to give him the answers to the maths homework.
You'd said no three times and the third time he pushed you and you went down hard on your palms and your knees, the concrete was unforgiving.
You were crying before you'd fully registered what had happened. Not dramatically — small, shocked, indignant tears, the kind that arrive before the pain does.
Simon was there before a teacher was. You didn't even see where he came from. One moment the playground was its ordinary mid-morning noise, and the next Daniel Holt had a split lip and Simon Riley was standing over him with blood on his knuckles and a look on his face that was completely, utterly calm.
The calm was the frightening part. Even at ten.
He got three days at home for it. He spent the first afternoon sitting on your front step, eating crisps, because he knew you'd be furious with him and wanted to face it head-on.
You were furious. You told him he was an idiot. He told you Daniel Holt had it coming. You told him violence wasn't the answer. He told you Daniel Holt wasn't going to touch you again.
He was right. Daniel Holt never came near you again.
You didn't thank him either. You went inside and made him a sandwich, and that was the same thing.
— ✦ —
Secondary school arrived like a change in weather — everything slightly larger, slightly louder, the corridors longer and noisier, the stakes somehow higher and more ambiguous all at once. You arrived with a bag so heavy your shoulder ached within the first hour: your textbooks, yes, but also the extracurricular books you carried everywhere, the extra notepad you used for non-school thoughts, the six different highlighters you colour-coded by subject.
Simon took the bag from you on the third day without asking.
"I can carry it," you told him.
"I know," he said.
He slung it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing, which for him it probably didn't. He'd grown over the summer — not just taller, though he was that, but broader, thicker through the shoulders in a way that made him look like a man playing a boy, trying the shape of it on. He wore it well, even at eleven. He wore everything like he'd already decided what he was and was simply waiting for the world to catch up.
He carried your bag when it was heavy, and it was frequently heavy. He did it without comment and without making you feel small for needing it. That was the thing about Simon — he never made you feel small. He made other people feel small, sometimes, when they deserved it. But not you. Never you.
— ✦ —
The bruises were never from rugby.
You knew by the second year of secondary.
You were not naive — you had read enough, observed enough, understood enough about the world to recognise the shape of what was happening in Simon Riley's house even though he never said a word about it.
The bruises were in the wrong places for rugby. They appeared in the wrong season. They were around his ribs and his arms and once, memorably, along his jaw, and he came to school the Monday after the jaw bruise with that face — that blank, carefully constructed nothing face — and you sat next to him at lunch and said nothing at all.
You said nothing because there was nothing you could do. You were twelve. You were a girl with a book bag and highlighter pens and absolutely no power over the man who was hurting your best friend, and knowing that — the impotence of it, the helpless, hollow ache of caring about someone you could not protect — was the first truly adult pain you ever felt.
What you could do was this: you could make sure he had somewhere to go.
Your mother, who was perceptive in the quiet way that some mothers are, never asked questions when Simon turned up at the back door on a Sunday evening or a Wednesday after school.
She just set another plate.
Your house became a refuge without anyone naming it as such. Simon did his homework at your kitchen table, ate your mother's cooking, watched telly with your family, and slept on your sofa sometimes when the option was presented naturally enough that it didn't feel like charity.
— ✦ —
You got your period for the first time on a Tuesday in November, in Year Nine. In the school toilets, third period, when you were thirteen years old and the day had been entirely ordinary right up until it wasn't.
The particular cocktail of shock and pain and embarrassment and the specific existential bewilderment of being a person whose body was doing something enormous without prior adequate notice left you sitting on the closed toilet lid crying in a way you hadn't cried in years.
You got out your Nokia. That familiar brick of a phone, the keypad worn smooth at the number five. You typed Simon's number and pressed call before you'd properly decided to.
He picked up on the second ring. "Yeah."
"Simon." Your voice came out wrong. Too thin.
A beat. When he spoke again his voice had changed — quieter, more careful. "Where are you?"
"Girls' toilets. Near the science block."
"Right," he said. "Stay there."
He appeared outside the girls' toilets seven minutes later — you could hear him through the door, his voice low and flat, telling a Year Eight girl to go use the other ones — and then he was there, right there on the other side of the door, talking to you through it in that steady, even way he had when he wanted to be calm on your behalf.
"You're alright," he said. “Do you need me to go to the office?"
"No," you managed. "I need — I don't know what I need."
"I'll get you something from the vending machine," he said, that Manchester accent of his low and unhurried. "And I'll text your mum."
When you came out of the toilets twenty minutes later, looking wrung-out and clutching what the school nurse had provided, Simon was leaning against the wall. He looked at you for a moment — took you in, the way he always did, that comprehensive, assessing look — and then he stepped forward and kissed your cheek. Quick. Certain. His mouth warm and deliberate against your cheekbone.
"You're alright," he said again. He said it like a fact. Like he was making it true by saying it.
You cried a bit more, for different reasons, and he pretended not to notice.
— ✦ —
He was captain of the rugby team by Year Ten. It suited him — the leadership, the sense of purpose, the structure of it.
You went to his matches sometimes, wrapped in a scarf on the touchline, and watched him move across the pitch with that same quality you'd noticed on the primary school field: less like playing, more like declaration.
He was ferocious and focused and occasionally frightening, and the other boys deferred to him not just because he was bigger than them but because he had the kind of authority that doesn't need to be announced.
Afterwards he'd find you on the touchline, still carrying that quality — coiled, alert — and it would take him a few minutes to come back to himself. To come back to you.
"Good game," you'd say.
"Yeah," he'd say.
And then slowly, the set of his shoulders would ease, and he'd become Simon again. Your Simon. The one who stole your crayons and carried your bag and ate your mother's shepherd's pie like it was sacred.
— ✦ —
He could make you laugh. This was not a small thing.
Simon Riley was not, by general consensus, a funny person. He was serious and quiet and his face in repose looked like a man carrying a private weather system. But he had a dry, deadpan wit that he deployed rarely and precisely, and it landed, every time, like a key in a lock made specifically for it.
He knew how to make you laugh because he'd spent years learning you. The specific frequency of your humour. The things that made you dissolve into giggles rather than just smile. He deployed his wit with the same precision he deployed everything else, and the result was that when Simon Riley made you laugh — really laugh, the helpless, breathless kind — it felt like being given something he didn't give to anyone else.
Which, you would eventually understand, was accurate.
— ✦ —
His name was Ryan Marsh and he was your first kiss, in the park on a Friday evening in Year Ten, and it was fine. It was nice, even. Ryan was sweet and nervous and smelled of his older brother's aftershave and the kiss lasted approximately forty seconds.
Ryan Marsh had a broken nose the following Monday.
Simon maintained, with total conviction, that Ryan had walked into a door. Ryan, to his credit, corroborated this story completely.
You did not push the matter, partly because you had no concrete evidence and partly because some part of you — the part that read on the grass bank and watched the pitch and noticed when Simon looked up at the bank before he looked anywhere else — felt something that was not entirely uncomplicated about it.
You and Ryan Marsh did not have a second kiss. You told yourself it was because the chemistry hadn't been right.
You were getting a bit better at lying to yourself, by fourteen. But only a bit.
— ✦ —
GCSEs arrived the way all important things arrived — with more weight than you'd expected and less warning than you'd have liked.
Year Ten and Eleven were the years you restructured Simon's entire approach to studying, methodically and patiently, the same way you'd helped him learn to read, finding the approach that worked for how his mind moved.
Simon was not unintelligent.
He was, in fact, formidably sharp in ways that didn't translate easily to an exam paper: quick to read people, quick to understand systems, possessed of a spatial and strategic intelligence that you recognised and admired even as you taught him how to write it down in ways that the mark scheme would accept.
He sat with you at your kitchen table night after night — your mother quietly replenishing the tea,— and you explained things in the language that made sense to his brain rather than the language of the textbook.
He sat with you at lunch during school hours and glared at anyone who called you a nerd. The glaring was extremely effective. Simon Riley's face, by fifteen, was a significant deterrent.
His GCSE results, when they arrived, were good. Better than anyone who knew his circumstances might have expected from a boy who'd had so much working against him.
He rang you on the house phone when he opened the results envelope. He didn't say much. His voice, when he spoke, was different — something in it unguarded, the Manchester in it softer somehow, without the armour it usually carried.
"Couldn't have done it without you," he said.
"You did it," you told him firmly. "I just held the torch."
"Still needed the torch."
You smiled so hard your face ached. "Go celebrate, Simon."
"Yeah," he said. And then, quieter, "Thanks, sunshine."
— ✦ —
He was an apprentice at the butcher's on Renshaw Street after school — learning the trade with the same focused, physical competence he brought to everything else, solid and unhurried, his big hands learning new kinds of precision. You had a job at the bookshop two streets over.
On his lunch breaks you would walk over with a sandwich and a packet of crisps, and you'd sit on the low wall around the side of the shop while he ate and you talked about nothing in particular and everything in general.
He had sawdust on his boots and you'd have ink on your fingers from pricing stickers, and you'd sit in the thin afternoon light talking about books and people and where things might go from here, and it was the most ordinary, irreplaceable thing in the world.
You didn't know, then, that you were storing it up. You didn't know you were in the middle of something finite.
You were seventeen and you thought you had time.
— ✦ —
It was the eleventh of September, 2001.
You were at work when it happened — the bookshop had a small television in the back room, and you watched the footage with your hand pressed over your mouth and the world rearranging itself into a new shape around you.
Simon came to you that evening. He didn't knock — he had a spare key, had done for years — and you heard him come in and go into the kitchen and fill the kettle, the sound of him so familiar and domestic and real that something in your chest loosened a fraction.
He brought you tea. He sat on the sofa beside you and you watched the news together in silence, and at some point your head found his shoulder without either of you deciding it had.
"I'm going to join up," he said. Not asking. Telling.
You lifted your head from his shoulder. Frowned at him. "Join up what?"
"The military."
The word landed in the room and stayed there. You looked at his face — that flat, certain expression he wore when he'd already decided something — and you felt the ground shift slightly under you.
"Simon. You're seventeen."
"You can join at sixteen with parental consent," he said. Straightforward, as though he'd already looked into it. Which of course he had. "Seventeen without."
"That's—" You stopped. Started again. "You've thought about this before today."
"Yeah."
Of course he had. You could see it now, the shape of it — this was not a reaction to the footage on the television, not a hot, impulsive thing. This was something Simon had been building toward without telling you. The structure of it. The purpose. The particular kind of belonging that came from being part of something larger than yourself. You'd always known he'd go toward something like this. You'd just hoped, without ever quite admitting to the hoping, that it might be further away.
"You're not going to try to talk me out of it." Not a question.
"Would it work?"
He held your gaze. "No."
"Then no," you said. Your voice was very steady. You were proud of it. "I'm not."
He was quiet for a long moment. The television continued its awful repetition. Then his arm came around your shoulders, heavy and warm, and he pulled you in closer against his side.
You stayed like that until the tea went cold.
— ✦ —
The train station was grey and noisy with other leavings, other arrivals, other people in the middle of things.
Simon stood in front of you on the platform with his kit bag and his big, careful hands and the face he'd spent seventeen years learning to keep blank, and it occurred to you, not for the first time and not for the last, that you loved him.
That you had loved him in different quantities and different registers for most of your life. That you did not know how to say it and were not sure it would do either of you any good if you did.
So you didn't say it.
You went up on your toes and you hugged him — truly hugged him, arms around his neck, your face pressed against his jaw — and he held you back with both arms, the kit bag dropping to the platform, and he was so solid and warm and real that you memorised it.
"Don't be an idiot," you told him, muffled.
He made a sound that was almost a laugh. Almost. "Best I can do is try." The Manchester in his voice, low and warm and his.
"Simon."
"I know," he said quietly, against your temple. "I know, sunshine."
You stepped back. You held it together. He picked up his bag and he walked toward the platform and at the door of the train he turned, and looked at you standing there with your glasses and your coat and your hands pressed together in front of you, and for a second you saw something in his face that wasn't blank at all.
Then he was gone.
You cried on the way home. Proper, ugly crying, in the front seat of your mother's car, while she drove and said nothing and passed you a tissue.
You cried because you thought you might never see him again. Because the world had cracked open on a Tuesday in September and people were going toward the fracture and Simon Riley was one of them.
You cried because you never told him.
— ✦ —
He sent a birthday card every year.
They arrived with no return address and postmarks from places you'd never heard of, and sometimes they were late and sometimes they were so early you suspected he'd sent them weeks in advance in case he couldn't later.
They were always plain — Simon Riley was not a man who browsed the sentimental section — white or cream envelopes, the kind of card that was almost generic, and inside: his handwriting, which had improved vastly from the boy who'd struggled across the page in Year Three, and always the same thing. Your name at the top. Happy Birthday, sunshine. And then: S.
Just S.
Like he was still close enough that you'd know exactly who that meant. Like the initial was sufficient.
It was.
You sent his birthday gifts to a P.O. box he'd given you, wrapped carefully, the tag always: From your best friend. You didn't know if he received them all. You sent them anyway. It felt important to keep sending them — to maintain the thread, even when you couldn't see both ends of it.
— ✦ —
Thirty-four years old now.
You have no husband. You had come close, once — a man named Patrick who had been perfectly acceptable in every measurable way and who had wanted to marry you and had probably deserved someone who could give him more of herself than you could manage.
You had not been fair to Patrick. You knew that. You had been in love with someone else for most of your adult life, and even with the someone else absent and silent and possibly dead, there wasn't room for anyone else.
You have no children, though you wanted them. The timeline on that was becoming its own quiet ache, the kind you didn't prod too often.
You have a job that pays the bills and not much else — admin in an office building that smells of carpet cleaner and recycled air, the kind of work that requires enough of your brain to stop it from wandering but not enough to satisfy it.
You have an apartment that is functional and yours and that you have tried to make cozy, with books on every surface and plants that are mostly surviving and a kitchen you actually cook in.
It is not the house. It is not the house you told Simon about when you were sixteen and lying in his back garden on a summer evening, staring up at the sky.
No birthday card for five years now.
Five years of the particular, specific silence that was different from all the silences before, because the silences before had been interrupted. Annually, reliably, he had broken them.
Five years of nothing had the texture of conclusion. Of a chapter closing. And you had reached the point — slowly, painfully, with the kind of acceptance that doesn't feel like acceptance but feels like exhaustion — where you were fairly certain Simon Riley was dead.
Your heart ached for your best friend in the low, constant way of grief that has become so familiar it's almost structural.
You carried it the way you carried other things, quietly, with your spine straight.
Which is why you are sitting across from a man named — it didn't matter, it really didn't matter what his name was — on what your colleague Debbie had described as 'a perfectly nice date with a perfectly nice man' and trying to remember what it felt like to be interested in your own life.
The man sitting across from you was the complete opposite of Simon Riley.
He was trim and well-dressed and had the kind of face that was handsome in a way that required no effort to appreciate and inspired no particular feeling from you.
He had been talking for, by your reckoning, forty-seven minutes. In that time he had covered: his career (impressive, in his telling), his car (expensive, in his telling), his last holiday (exotic, in his telling), and his general philosophy on modern dating (nuanced, in his telling).
He had not asked about your job. He had not asked about your books or the one peeking out of your handbag; the one he'd glanced at and not commented on. He had not asked if your pasta was nice, which it was, actually, genuinely nice, and you'd have told him so if he'd asked. He had not asked you almost anything, come to think of it.
Simon Riley, who spoke perhaps a tenth as many words as this man, had always asked.
Simon Riley had always wanted to know. Not because it was polite. Because he actually, genuinely, in the particular way of people who care about very few things very deeply — wanted to know.
You excused yourself to use the bathroom and stood at the sink running cold water over your wrists and looking at your own reflection, and you thought: this is fine.
This is a perfectly nice evening with a perfectly nice man. This is what moving forward looks like. This is what being a person in the world, a person with a life and a future and reasonable expectations of company, looks like.
You dried your hands. You went back to the table. He had ordered himself another drink without asking if you wanted anything.
You finished your pasta and smiled at appropriate intervals and thought about Simon Riley and felt, as you so often felt, quietly furious at him for being gone.
— ✦ —
The birthday card arrived on a Thursday morning.
You almost missed it entirely — it was tucked between a pizza delivery leaflet and something from your energy supplier, the cream envelope almost camouflaged by the mundane. You shuffled through the post on autopilot and then stopped.
Your name, in handwriting you would have recognised anywhere, would have recognised in your sleep, had recognised in your bones for thirty years.
You sat down on the bottom stair. Your legs suddenly uneasy.
Your hands were not steady.
The envelope opened. The card was white. Plain. Almost generic.
Inside:
Happy Birthday, sunshine.
I'm sorry it's been so long.
I'll explain everything.
Come, if you want to.
If you can stand the sight of me.
Below that, an address. Three towns over. A postcode you didn't recognise.
And then, at the bottom, the way it had always been at the bottom: S.
You sat on the bottom stair for a very long time.
Then you got up, went to your room, and started thinking about what to wear.
— ✦ —
You plucked up the nerve to go on a Saturday.
The drive took forty minutes and you spent most of it trying to manage yourself — talking yourself through reasonable expectations (he is alive, that is enough, start there), warning yourself against things you could not control (the five years, the silence, the way your hands were doing that unsteady thing again), cataloguing everything practical (the address, the map).
The street was quiet. Semi-rural, the kind of neighbourhood that sits between things — between town and country, between the ordinary and the aspirational. The houses were spread out, set back from the road, each with its own front garden and its own character.
You parked. You looked at the address. You looked up.
And you stopped breathing.
It was a beautiful house.
Large, substantial and solid, the kind of house that had been built to last. White painted render, clean and bright in the afternoon light. A white picket fence surrounding the front garden, which was full of flowers. Roses climbing the gatepost. Lavender edging the path. Foxgloves and dahlias and great loose clusters of something purple you couldn't name from here. The kind of garden that had been planted with intention, tended with care, left to be a little wild in the best way.
A porch. And a porch swing, painted white, with a yellow cushion on it.
And flying from the corner of the roof, bright against the blue afternoon sky: the Union flag.
You sat very still in the driver's seat.
You were sixteen years old. It was a summer evening and you were lying in Simon's back garden on an old sleeping bag, looking up at the sky. He was beside you in the way he was always beside you — solid, quiet, taking up exactly the right amount of space. You'd been talking about the future the way teenagers do, in great floating hypotheticals that feel more like weather than plans.
"What kind of house?" he'd asked. He asked follow-up questions always, quietly, wanting the specifics. It was one of the things about him you loved.
And you'd described it. A big house, not ostentatious but real — space for books and for people and for a garden that did what it wanted within reason. A white fence, because you'd always liked them. A porch with somewhere to sit. A flag, because you were — despite everything — proud of where you were from.
Simon had been quiet for a long moment.
"Okay," he'd said. Just: okay.
You had thought he was humouring you.
You had not thought — you had not let yourself think — what it might mean, that he was going to do anything about it.
You got out of the car. Your legs were not entirely reliable. You held the gate and walked up the path — lavender brushing your hand where it grew close, the scent of it too perfect, almost staged — and you stopped at the foot of the porch steps.
The door opened.
He had to duck.
That was the first thing you noticed. The physical fact of him, the sheer size of him, his shoulders nearly touching the doorframe on both sides simultaneously, the automatic dip of his head as he stepped through onto the porch.
He straightened.
The afternoon light landed on him and you had to spend a moment recalibrating, because the last time you'd seen Simon Riley he had been seventeen years old with sawdust on his boots and a train ticket in his hand, and this man —
This man.
The white button-down shirt was simple, the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and from his left wrist to well past the roll of the sleeve his forearm was dark with ink — a sleeve of tattoos, intricate and considered. A whole geography of imagery that you couldn't read from here but would, you thought, take time to learn.
His right wrist carried a watch. His black slacks were fitted close enough that you could see the muscle of his thighs pulling the fabric with every shift of his weight, and his shoes — loafers, black with gold buckles, completely unexpected and somehow exactly right — were precise.
His hair. A dark sandy blonde, longer than military specification presumably allowed and slicked back from his face, which meant you could see all of it, his whole face; the angles that had sharpened from boy to man, the jaw, the set of his brow, and those eyes. Those brown eyes that had been watching you since you were four years old and had never, not once, looked at you with anything less than complete attention.
He was raking those eyes over you now. Slowly. With the same quality he'd always had — that comprehensive, unhurried assessment that somehow never felt like being measured — and his hands were in his pockets and he was standing there like that, on the porch he'd built or bought or arranged specifically around a description you'd given him at sixteen.
He looked like something out of a magazine and like Simon all at once.
You were going to murder him.
"Hi, sunshine."
His voice. Lower than you remembered, rougher, carrying all the years he'd lived since you last heard it. That Manchester accent — still there, unmistakably, that warm northern flatness underneath everything, the vowels shaped by a city, by a street, by a particular kind of upbringing that no amount of training had entirely smoothed out.
That nickname, in that voice, in that low, deliberate way he'd always said it: like you were his.
Like it was a prayer.
You opened your mouth. And you closed it. And you looked at him — this enormous, tattooed, stupidly handsome man who had stood on your mother's doorstep at twelve years old with bruises he didn't mention, who had kissed your cheek at thirteen and broken Ryan Marsh's nose at fourteen and waved goodbye from a train platform at seventeen and then sent you birthday cards from the edges of the world for a decade and then stopped for five years —
"Five years," you said. Your voice was very quiet.
Something moved in his face.
"I-,"
"I thought you were dead." You snapped cutting him off.
"I figured you would’ve."
"Simon."
"I know, sunshine." He said it the same way he'd always said things he couldn't argue with — not deflecting, not dismissing, just absorbing. The Manchester vowels in his voice like a hand on your shoulder. "I'll explain everything. I promise. All of it. Whatever you want to know."
You looked at him.
He looked at you.
The afternoon settled around the house, around the garden that was your garden in your own sixteen-year-old description, around the flag and the porch swing and the lavender and all of it, and the distance between you on the path and him on the porch steps was perhaps four feet and thirty years and five years of silence and a whole life of choosing not to say the one true thing.
"You built me the house?" you asked, whispering it. Like you were afraid to say it.
He was quiet for a moment. Then, "Bought it. Had the garden done the way you said."
"Simon." Your heart ached.
"You said lavender at the edges," he said. His voice was completely level. "You said a porch with somewhere to sit. You said you wanted to see the flag from the garden."
You pressed your hand to your mouth.
The rage was still there — it was not going anywhere quickly. The five years of it, the grief of it — but underneath it, something else. Something that had been there since you were four years old at a preschool art table, larger and quieter and more permanent than anything else you'd ever felt.
"You were sixteen," he said. As though this explained it. "You told me what you wanted. I just..." He stopped. Started again. "I wanted to be enough first. I wanted to have what you needed."
There was a long silence. A bee moved through the lavender. Somewhere a few streets away, a lawnmower hummed.
"Come inside," Simon said. "I'll make you tea. And I'll tell you everything."
You looked at him on the porch of the house he'd built you from a word, and you thought: you absolute idiot. You wonderful, impossible, infuriating man. You thought I'd stopped. You thought thirty years of this was something you could be enough for eventually, like it was a bar to clear, like there was a version of you I was waiting on instead of just —
Instead of just you. Always just you.
The lavender brushed your hand again. You walked up the steps and he looked down at you with those brown eyes that had never once left you.
"Hi, Simon," you said.
Something happened in his face. Something opened.
"Hi, sunshine," he said, his hand coming to the small of your back to guide you inside.
He made the tea.
You stood in the kitchen of a house that smelled of fresh paint and cedar and something faintly floral from the garden drifting through the open window over the sink, and you watched Simon Riley move around it like he'd always lived here — filling the kettle, finding the mugs without opening the wrong cupboard, knowing where the teabags were — and you thought: how long. How long has he been here, in this house he bought for you, learning where everything lives, waiting.
You sat at the kitchen table. It was a good table, heavy oak, the kind built to last and you ran your thumb along the grain of it and tried to arrange your feelings into some kind of order and failed.
Simon set the mug in front of you. Milk in last, the way you'd always taken it, which he knew because he'd made you approximately four thousand cups of tea over the course of your lives. He sat down across from you, his own mug between his big hands, and looked at you.
You looked back.
The kitchen light was warm and it caught the angles of his face. The jaw, the brow, the slight crook in his nose that was new, or newer, the result of something you didn't know about and weren't sure you wanted to.
He was watching you with that particular quality of attention he'd always had. Complete. Patient. Like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.
"You're not wearing your glasses," he said.
You blinked. Of all the things. "No."
"Contacts?"
"For about ten years now, yes."
He was quiet for a moment, studying your face with that same unhurried attention, "I missed them."
"You missed my glasses?" You say with the deadpan tone you'd perfected over the years.
"Tortoiseshell ones," he said. "Used to push them up your nose when you were concentrating." He took a gulp of his tea, Adam's apple bobbing when he swallowed.
You stared at him. Eighteen years. Eighteen years of distance and war and God knows what else, and he missed your glasses. "Simon."
"Just saying."
"You are unbelievable." You scoff.
"The contacts suit you," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved — barely, almost nothing, but you'd spent your whole life reading that face and you caught it. "Everything suits you. But I liked the glasses."
"Stop it." You snap.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever that is," you said, and you pointed at his face, at the not-there-almost-smile, at the quality of his voice when he said everything suits you, at all of it. "You don't get to do that. You've been — Simon, you've been gone. You've been gone for eighteen years and for five of them, I thought you were dead." Your voice stayed steady, which surprised you. You'd expected it to crack on that. "So you don't get to walk out onto your porch looking like — like that — and tell me you missed my glasses and flirt at me like no time has passed."
He listened without interrupting. He always had — it was one of the things about him, the way he gave you the whole space of what you were saying before he entered it.
"You're right," he nodded.
"I know I'm right." Your spine straightened.
"I owe you an explanation."
"You owe me considerably more than that, Simon Riley, but yes. An explanation would be a start."
He wrapped both hands around his mug again and looked at you across the table and there was something in his face that was not the blank-nothing face, was not the armour he'd worn since he was twelve years old but something that was quieter and more exposed and a great deal more frightening because of it.
"Not here," he said.
You frowned. "What?"
"I don't want to do it like this. Sat in a kitchen." He glanced around the room briefly, as though orienting himself. "Come to dinner with me tomorrow night."
"What I—"
"The Grill on Merton Street."
You went very still.
The Grill on Merton Street. You hadn't been in years — not since you'd moved away from the area, not since things had shifted and the rituals of your old life had quietly been replaced by other things.
But you knew it. You knew every table in it. The way the light came through the front windows on a Sunday, the smell of it — roasted meat and old wood and the particular warmth of a place that had been feeding families for decades.
Your mother had loved it. Your father used to order the same thing every time and be pleased about it every time, and you and Simon had sat across from each other in the corner booth with the sticky laminated menus and kicked each other under the table and laughed.
"That's still open?" you managed.
"Had a look earlier this week," he said. "Still there. New owners but the same building. Same corner booth."
You looked at him. He looked at you. Outside, through the open window, a late bird was making itself known in the lavender.
"Fine," you said. "Dinner. Tomorrow. And you're going to tell me everything." you struck at him with a serious face.
"Everything," he agreed.
"I mean it, Simon. All of it."
"I know you do."
You drank your tea. It was exactly right. The temperature, the strength, the milk ratio and you hated him a little bit for that. For the fact that he still knew, that across seventeen years and God knows how many miles he still knew exactly how you took your tea, and he'd made it correctly on the first attempt without asking, and you were absolutely not going to cry about that.
You were not.
— ✦ —
You dressed carefully.
Not because you were trying to impress him.
You told yourself this firmly, standing in front of your wardrobe in the room you'd taken in the local B&B — you'd booked a night, not knowing how long this might take, not knowing what state you'd be in for the drive home afterwards — and you told yourself that you were simply dressing appropriately for a dinner at a decent restaurant.
That was all.
That was the entirety of it.
The dress was deep green. Fitted through the waist, falling to just below the knee, with a neckline that was elegant rather than dramatic.
You'd bought it for a work event two years ago and it had lived in your wardrobe since, waiting for an occasion that felt worth it. You put your hair up — not elaborately, just neatly, the kind of arrangement that looked effortless and had taken twenty minutes — and you wore the small gold earrings that had been your grandmother's. Low heels. The good handbag. A slick of red on your mouth that you almost wiped off twice before deciding to leave it.
You were not trying to impress him.
You were absolutely trying to impress him.
He was waiting outside The Grill when your taxi pulled up, standing on the pavement with his hands in his pockets. The air around him relaxed and easy. An anchored stillness, like a man who'd learned to wait and had made peace with it. He has the same dark slacks as yesterday, same loafers with the gold buckles, but the shirt tonight was black.
A deep, clean black that made his shoulders look approximately the width of a doorway, which was in fact an accurate assessment — and he'd left the top button undone. His hair was the same: pushed back, dark sandy blonde curling at the nape of his neck and catching the amber of the streetlights.
He saw you get out of the taxi.
He went very still. Completely, suddenly, entirely present in a way that landed on you like a hand against your sternum. Under your heartbeat.
You crossed the pavement toward him and his eyes moved over you — slowly, comprehensively, that same rake of attention he'd given you yesterday on the porch steps, only this time there was nothing restrained about what it did to your pulse.
He eyed you the same way he used to look at the extra cuts of slow roasted beef your mother added to his plate every time he joined you for a Sunday roast after church.
"Hi," you said.
"Hi, sunshine." His voice was low. The rough Manchester sending tingles down your spine.
He opened the door for you.
The Grill smelled exactly the same.
Roasted meat and warmed bread and old wood and something faintly of candle wax. It hit you the moment you stepped through the door and you had to stand still for just a second, just one second, to absorb the weight of it.
Your father's coat on the hook by the door. Your mother's reading glasses going into her bag as the menus arrived. Simon across from you, fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, his big hands wrapped around a Coke glass, his eyes on you under that careful brow.
The layout had shifted slightly — new owners, as Simon had said — but the bones of it were the same. The dark wood panelling. The low warm lighting. The tables set with proper linen and actual candles in glass holders. And in the back left corner was the booth.
Simon's hand was at the small of your back as the host led you through. A light touch, barely there, the kind of thing that could be merely courteous and was absolutely not merely courteous.
You said nothing about it.
You were almost at the booth when a voice said, "Well. I don't believe it."
You turned.
Margaret and Gerald Howarth.
Margaret had been your mother's friend since before you were born — a small, bright-eyed woman who had somehow barely aged in two decades. Her silver hair cut the same way it had always been, her husband a large, genial man beside her with a napkin already tucked into his collar. They'd been eating here since before you were born too, you suspected. Some people were simply woven into the furniture of a place.
"Margaret," you said, and you felt a genuine, warm rush of it. Of being seen by someone who had known you as a child, who had watched you grow up, who carried that particular knowledge of you that only people of a certain generation can hold. She was already rising halfway from her seat, her hand extended, and you took it and she covered it with her other one, the way she always had.
"We heard you were back in the area," she said — which was interesting, since you'd only arrived yesterday, but news apparently still moved at its old speed around here. Her bright eyes moved to Simon, and something in them softened with recognition and surprise in equal measure. "And Simon Riley. My goodness."
"Mrs Howarth." Simon's voice was respectful, quieter than usual, and you noticed — because you noticed everything about him — that he straightened fractionally. Not stiffly. Just the particular adjustment of a man in the presence of someone he'd known when he was young and unguarded.
"Look at the size of you," Gerald said, not unkindly, staring up at Simon with the frank appreciation of one large man for another. "What are they feeding you?"
"Gerald," Margaret scolded mildly.
"It's a compliment." He shrugged.
Simon almost smiled. "Good to see you, Mr Howarth."
Margaret was looking between the two of you with the expression of a woman who had been quietly observing people her entire life and drawing accurate conclusions from very little evidence. "Are you together?" she asked, with the particular directness that came with age and with having known you since you were in a pushchair.
"We're having dinner," you said carefully.
Margaret's expression said, quite clearly, that she had heard this and had also heard everything it was not saying. "Well," she said, patting your hand once more before releasing it, "it's lovely to see you both. You always did belong together, the pair of you. I said that to your mother once, do you know. I said those two—"
"It was lovely seeing you, Margaret," you said, with great warmth and only mild desperation.
She laughed, a bright, pleased sound and settled back into her seat.
As you turned to follow the host the rest of the way to the booth, you were almost certain you heard Gerald say, to his wife, "told you" in a tone of quiet marital satisfaction.
Simon was very carefully not reacting to any of this. You were very carefully not looking at him.
You saw two others you knew before you reached the booth.
Kim Ashworth, who had been in your form in Year Ten and who looked essentially the same as she had in school except that she had a baby on her hip and a husband trailing behind her with a changing bag.
She stopped mid-step when she saw you, did a small, delighted double take, said oh my God twice, and then looked at Simon in a way that was extremely uncomplicated in its appreciation before remembering the husband with the changing bag. There were promises exchanged to catch up properly, phone numbers that would probably not be used, genuine warmth on both sides.
And then at the bar, perched on a stool with a whisky, Dave Pearce — who had played alongside Simon on the secondary school rugby team and who greeted him with the particular vocabulary of men who knew each other at fifteen and have not changed as much as they think.
There was a brief, loud exchange that involved at least one shoulder-clap that could have knocked a smaller man sideways, and then Dave shook your hand too and told Simon he was punching. Which Simon received without expression and you tried your hardest not to laugh, biting your lip.
Finally the corner booth. You slid in. Simon folded himself into the seat across from you, the table scaled to ordinary human beings and therefore slightly absurd against the size of him, his knees bracketing it, his shoulders blocking the view of the room behind him entirely.
The menus came.
They were not laminated anymore — proper printed card, changed seasonally, the kind that meant the new owners had ambitions. But the roast was still on. The proper Sunday roast, the one your father used to order when you could afford to.
"Same corner," Simon said quietly.
"Same corner," you agreed.
He was looking at you across the table the way he used to look at you across this table, except that now his face was older and larger and had been to places that had clearly asked things of it. The look was different in its texture. Deeper, maybe. Older in the same way he was older. Like it had more weight behind it from all the years of being carried.
"You said everything," you reminded him. "All of it."
"I know."
"So." You gestured for him to start.
He set his menu down. Looked at you. And then he started talking.
He told it the way he told everything — without embellishment, without drama, in the flat, precise language of a man who had learned to communicate facts and trusted the facts to carry the weight without decoration.
He'd gone in at seventeen and he'd been good at it. Not surprising. He was built for the structure of it, for the clarity of having a purpose and a unit and a chain of things that made sense.
He'd moved up fast — faster than he let on in the cards he'd sent you, which had been careful, he explained, deliberately careful, because the more you knew the more you might worry. Which, you pointed out, had not been his decision to make. He didn't argue with that.
Task Force 141 came later. Years later, after deployments that he summarised in a sentence each and you understood enough from his face to know that each sentence was doing the work of much longer things.
He was a lieutenant now. He said it the way he said most things about himself, flatly, without vanity, presented as information. He had certain freedoms now that he hadn't had before, certain ability to make choices about where he went and when and what he did with the things the years had given him.
You both ordered your food.
"And the five years?" you asked, sipping your cocktail the waitress had brought over.
He was quiet for a moment, he stared at his San Miguel pint, the condensation sliding down the glass. Your food had arrived at some point during the waiting, while Simon collected his thoughts.
He picked up his fork and then set it down again.
"There was a man," Simon said.
Something about the way he said it made you put your fork down too.
"He ran drugs. Major operation, international — I won't go into all of it." He said this without flinching, looking at you steadily, not softening it. You'd always appreciated that about him — the way he treated your intelligence as a given. "After I escaped him, he decided to make it personal. He went after the people I—" He stopped. Chose the word carefully. "The people I was connected to."
The candle in the glass holder between you threw warm, unsteady light across his face.
"He killed them," Simon said. "My brother. Tommy's family." A pause that cost him something; you could see it cost him. "My Mother."
The restaurant continued around you — the murmur of other tables, the clink of cutlery, someone laughing softly near the bar — and you sat very still.
"Oh Simon," you whispered, you could feel the way your face formed the sympathy.
"I'm alright." He said it the way he'd always said it, the Manchester flat and absolute. The way that meant; don't make it bigger than I can hold right now. You knew that voice. You honoured it.
"He knew about you," Simon said and you froze. "That was the other thing. He'd done his research." His jaw shifted slightly. "As long as he was alive, you weren't safe. If I'd contacted you, properly contacted you, kept the thread going the way I wanted to, it would have given him a cleaner line. A more reliable way to reach me."
You understood the logic of it. You understood it clearly and immediately in the part of your brain that processed information. The other part — the part that had sat on the bottom stair with a birthday card after five years of silence, the part that had thought past tense — that part was going to take considerably longer.
"So you cut me off," you said. Not as an accusation. As a fact, laid down. You were starting to understand the shape of it.
"To keep you safe. Yes."
"Without telling me why." You sighed but you knew you were being unreasonable, but you hoped he would let you for a little longer.
"If I'd told you why, you'd have known there was a threat. And you'd have—" He stopped. The corner of his mouth moved, something that was not quite a smile and not quite not one. "You'd have done something about it. Gone looking. Made noise."
"I would not have—" You stopped, because you would have. You absolutely would have. You'd spent thirty years being completely unable to sit on the sidelines where Simon Riley was concerned, and the knowledge that someone was threatening him would have made you entirely unreasonable. "That's—" you huffed.
"Yeah," he said.
"You could have found a way—"
"There wasn't one. Not one that was safe." His voice was very level. "I went through every option, love. I promise you. Every one."
The word arrived quietly, without ceremony.
Love.
He'd never called you that — not in thirty years, not in all the time and all the familiarity of what you were to each other. He said it the way he said everything that mattered: without preamble, without dressing it up, laid down like the fact it was.
"And now?" you asked. Your voice was quite steady. Steadier than you felt.
"He's dead." No elaboration. None needed. The flat Manchester vowels carrying the weight of it cleanly, without mess. "And you're safe. And I—" He looked at you across the table, across the candle and the white linen. "I bought the house," he said. "I've spent a while making it what it is. Making if perfect. I saved up for years. The 141 pays well when you get to a certain level and I wasn't spending it on anything else."
"For years," you repeated, feeling a shiver rack up your spine and your toes go numb.
"Since I was about twenty." He said this without apparent embarrassment, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to spend fifteen years saving money to buy a woman a house from a description she'd given you at sixteen years old. "Took a while to find the right one that wasn’t too far from your parents. The lavender took three growing seasons to look like it did when you pulled up."
Three growing seasons.
He had planted the lavender three years ago. He had stood in a garden three towns from where you lived and planted lavender along a path because a sixteen-year-old girl had mentioned it lying on her back in his garden thirty years ago, and he had tended it for three years, and he had waited.
"Simon Riley," you said.
"It's got room for your books Sunshine, built the shelves myself." His lips quirked up at the corners at your flabbergasted expression.
"You are the most—" You stopped. Started again. "Do you have any idea what the past five years have felt like? Do you have any idea what I—" Your voice did the thing you'd been preventing it from doing, cracked at the edge of the sentence like a plate under too much weight. You stopped. Pressed your lips together. "I grieved you. I sat in my flat and I genuinely, actually grieved you and decided you were dead. I had — Simon, I had a plan for getting through it. I was managing it."
"I know."
"Don't say I know." you snapped sounding more like a bratty child than angry.
"I'm sorry." And this was different. This was not the automatic I know, the absorbing of your anger. This was something he said the way he said very few things — carefully, with full weight behind it. His eyes on yours across the table. "I'm sorry for the five years. I'm sorry I couldn't find another way. I'm sorry you were on your own with it." A pause. "I'm sorry it took me this long to have something worth coming back with."
"The house is not—" You stopped. "You didn't need to buy me a house, Simon. I didn't need—"
"I needed to," he said. Simply. "I needed to know I was coming back with something real. Something that wasn't just me turning up with nothing after all that time, asking you to — to accept—" He moved his hand across the table, and his fingers stopped just short of yours. Not touching. Close. "Asking you to take me as I was. I needed it to be enough. I needed there to be something I could give you that was—"
"Simon." Your voice was very quiet.
"I know it's not—"
"Simon." You turned your hand over on the table. Just that. The small, deliberate movement of turning your palm up.
He looked at it. Then he looked at you. Then, slowly, he put his hand in yours — his enormous, careful, tattooed hand. Not quite the one that had carried your bag through every corridor of secondary school and pulled you up off the pavement after Daniel Holt and held you on the platform at the train station, but this one now and his fingers closed around yours and he held on.
"I only ever wanted you," you said softly.
"Sunshine-"
"You were always worth it," you cut him off. And then, because it was time — because it had been time for approximately thirty years and you were done waiting for the right moment when the right moment had repeatedly failed to arrive — "You were always enough. You were always the thing I was — Simon, you have always been the only one I wanted. Exactly as you are."
He was very still.
"I didn't tell you on the platform," you said. "I should have. I've thought about it every day since."
"So have I," he said.
The candle between you flickered in some movement of air from the kitchen, and in the warm unsteady light his face was open in a way you had waited thirty years to see. His hand was warm and sure around yours, and from the other side of the restaurant you were almost certain you heard Margaret Howarth say something to Gerald in a satisfied undertone.
"You planted the lavender," you grinned.
"Three years ago." He finally smiles back at you, it was crooked and uneven and you loved it.
"You are," you said carefully, "the most ridiculous man I have ever known." You shook your head still grinning.
"Missed you too, sunshine," he smirked.
Dinner ended the way the best dinners end — not with a definitive conclusion but with a gradual, reluctant unwinding, the kind where both people keep finding one more thing to say, one more thread to pull, because the alternative is standing up and the evening becoming past tense.
You ordered dessert.
Neither of you particularly wanted it but you both ordered it, and you both knew why, and neither of you said so. The chocolate brownie was very good. Simon ate his methodically, the way he ate everything, and at one point looked up and caught you watching him and said nothing.
The candle between you had burned down to a stub by the time the bill came.
He paid. You protested on principle. He gave you a look that had not changed at all since he was fourteen years old — flat, certain, faintly amused — and handed the card to the waiter without further discussion.
"That's not—" you started.
"Next time," he said.
Next time. You let it sit there between you, warm and presumptuous and everything you wanted.
Outside, the evening had cooled.
The last of the summer still holding in the air, the kind of September evening that felt like a concession, like the year wasn't ready to be done.
The street was quiet for a Saturday, just a few couples moving between the restaurants and a group of lads outside the pub further down having a smoke. The amber of the streetlights made everything look like something worth remembering.
Simon stood beside you on the pavement, close enough that his arm brushed yours when he turned to look down the street, and you were very aware of the warmth of him and the black shirt and the lavender you couldn't smell from here but could somehow still feel in your hands.
"Walk with me a bit," he said. Not a question, not quite. He'd always done that — phrased invitations as though the outcome were already agreed, as though he simply assumed you'd say yes because you almost always did.
"Alright."
He fell into step beside you, and for a little while you just walked — past the wine bar with its fairy lights, past the old library that had become a gin distillery at some point in the last decade, past the post office that had been there since before either of you were born. You talked about small things. Easy things. The kind of conversation that runs alongside the real one underneath.
Then he stopped.
You stopped too.
Simon looked down at you. His hands were in his pockets. That brown gaze of his moved over your face in the way it had been moving over your face all evening — like he was cataloguing it, like he was making up for lost time in the looking.
"Dance with me," he said.
You blinked. "What?"
He tilted his head, "Come dancing with me."
You stared at him.
Simon Riley, who had sat against the wall at every school disco you'd ever attended, arms folded, watching everyone else with the expression of a man conducting a private risk assessment.
Simon Riley, who you had never, in thirty years of knowing him, seen voluntarily approach a dance floor.
"You don't dance," you said.
"No," he agreed. "But you do."
The simplicity of it landed somewhere very central.
You do.
As though that were reason enough. As though your enjoyment of a thing were sufficient justification for him to walk into it without hesitation.
Which, you supposed, when it came to Simon, it always had been.
"Alright," you said, for the second time in ten minutes.
His hand found the small of your back again, that same light, deliberate touch from inside the restaurant and he guided you down the street.
Simon said you weren't far, when you heard it.
The particular sound of a Domino's box. The slight crinkle of a carrier bag. And then your mother's voice, carrying across the quiet street in the way it always had — warm and clear and entirely without volume control.
"Oh honey! We thought - oh!"
"Oh fuck," you cursed.
You said it very quietly. Not quietly enough. Simon chuckled under his breath.
Your parents were coming along the pavement from the direction of the only car park around here — your father in his weekend coat, your mother in the blue one she'd had for fifteen years. A Domino's pizza box balanced in her arms and a carrier bag hanging from your father's hand.
Movie night. Of course. They still did it every other Saturday, had done since you were small, and of course they would do it tonight of all the Saturday nights in the entire calendar.
Your mother's face when she saw you was pure, unguarded delight — the face she always made when she encountered you unexpectedly, as though each time were still a pleasant surprise. Then her gaze moved, naturally and automatically, to the man standing beside you with his hand at the small of your back.
The delight didn't disappear. It did something more complicated.
"Oh honey," she said again, but differently this time. Softer. Her voice going somewhere else entirely. "Simon?"
The Domino's box dipped. Your father caught it with the reflexes of a man who had been catching things your mother nearly dropped for forty years.
Simon had gone still beside you. Not that controlled, present stillness he had, the one that wasn't tension but something adjacent to it. He was looking at your mother with an expression you couldn't fully read from the side, but you could see the line of his jaw, and it was careful.
"Mrs—" he started.
"Don't you Mrs me," your mother said. Her voice was not angry. That was the thing — you'd prepared yourself, in the split second between seeing them and now, for anger, or for the brisk, self-protective coolness she used sometimes when she'd been frightened. But it wasn't that. It was something that had tears in it, which was considerably worse to witness.
She handed the pizza box to your father without looking at him — he took it with the silent competence of long practice — and she crossed the pavement in four short steps and she put her arms around Simon Riley.
He was so much larger than her. He had always been larger than her, even at fifteen when he'd eaten her shepherd's pie at the kitchen table and been careful to seem like it was casual and not like he was starving. Even when she gave him seconds and he looked like he would beg for thirds.
But now it was almost absurd, the smallness of her against the width of him, and he stood there for just a fraction of a second — that fraction where you could see him recalibrating, receiving something he hadn't prepared for — and then his arms came around her and he held on.
Your mother was crying. Small, quiet sounds, the kind she made when she was trying not to. Her face was pressed against his chest and her hands gripped the back of his black shirt and she said, muffled and with great feeling, "You absolute boy."
Simon said nothing. His eyes, over the top of your mother's head, found yours.
You had to look away. The street was very interesting. The lamppost in particular.
You bit into your lip.
Your father appeared at your shoulder.
He was a quiet man, always had been. The kind of steady, observant presence that took things in without making a production of the taking in. He stood beside you with the pizza box over one arm and the carrier bag in the other hand and watched his wife hold the boy who had eaten at their table for a decade, and he said, very quietly, to you,
"Well. He's not dead then."
"No Dad," you managed. "He's not dead."
"Good," your father said.
As though this settled it. As though the entirety of the past five years of your grief and his, because he had grieved Simon too in his quiet way, in the way of a man who doesn't say things aloud but feels them thoroughly. He looked at Simon over the top of your mother's head and gave him a single, deliberate nod. The kind that meant; we'll talk. The kind that meant; I have things to say to you. The kind that also, underneath both of those, meant; I'm so glad son.
Simon received the nod with equal gravity, which was exactly right.
Your mother finally pulled back. She held Simon by the arms — or tried to, her hands not quite making it around the circumference of them — and looked up at him with red eyes and the particular expression of a woman who has a great deal to say and is choosing, for now, not to say most of it.
"You'll come for dinner," she said. Not a question. The same tone she'd used on him at fifteen and apparently intended to continue using indefinitely. "Sunday. Proper dinner. Not a restaurant. Mine."
"Yes," Simon said. Immediately. Without hesitation.
"Good." She released his arms and reached up and patted his cheek once, firmly, the way you might with someone who had done something frustrating and beloved in equal measure.
Then she turned to you, and her expression did something complicated and warm and knowing, and she didn't say any of the things she was clearly thinking, which you appreciated deeply.
What she said instead was: "Don't stay out too late. You're thirty-five, not seventeen."
"Mum." You scolded.
"I'm just saying." She shrugged.
"We're going dancing," you told her, with the energy of someone redirecting a conversation through sheer momentum.
Your mother looked at Simon. Simon looked at your mother. Something passed between them that was private and thirty years old and not yours to have.
"Of course you are," she said.
Your father passed the Domino's box back to your mother, and said, "Right then. We'll leave you to it." He looked at Simon one more time. "Sunday," he confirmed.
"Sunday," Simon said.
Your parents moved off down the pavement.
Your mother looked back once — just once — and her face when she did was the face you'd seen her wear at your primary school nativity and at your GCSE results and on the morning you'd gone to university; the particular face of a woman watching her child be happy and feeling the full, complicated, loving weight of it.
Then she turned back to your father and said something you couldn't hear, and his hand found her shoulder as they walked, and they rounded the corner and were gone.
You stood on the pavement in the September evening and breathed.
Beside you, Simon was also very carefully just standing there.
"She cried on me," he said, after a moment.
"Yes."
"Didn't expect that."
You turned to look at him. He was looking at the corner your parents had turned, and his face had the quality it sometimes had when something had reached him — not visibly, not dramatically, just in that particular stillness that meant something had got through.
"She cried about you," you told him. "When you stopped writing. Three years ago — there were several times, actually, but three years ago was the worst. She held me in her kitchen and we both—" You stopped. Managed the next part carefully. "She loves you too, Simon. She always did. You were at our table every other night for years."
He was quiet for a moment. Something moved in his jaw. "I know," he said. And this time the I know was different from all the other times he'd said it tonight — heavier, and private.
"You agreed to Sunday dinner," you giggled.
"Of course I agreed to Sunday dinner," he said knowing full well he would have been stupid not to and gotten an earful from your mother.
Simon offered you his hand.
Not at the small of your back this time. His hand, palm up, in the space between you. Old-fashioned and deliberate.
You put yours in it.
"Come on then," he said. "Let's go dancing."
There was, as it turned out, only one place to go dancing in this town on a Saturday night if you meant actual dancing — the kind with a proper floor and music with a real structure to it.
It was not a club.
It was not a bar with a cleared space near the speaker.
It was the old church hall on Callow Street, which had been hosting the Saturday Evening Social Dance since before either of you were born, and which Simon seemed to know about with the specificity of a man who had done his research.
"A dance hall," you said, standing outside it. Through the tall, thin windows the warm light was visible, and the sound — strings, a proper band, something with a waltz rhythm that made the windows hum faintly. "You're taking me to a dance hall."
"Only place with a floor."
"Simon, this is a — there will be pensioners in there." you said quietly.
"There'll be a dance floor," he looked down at you. "And you said yes." he shrugged but looked smug.
He pushed the door open and held it, and because you had in fact said yes, and because the music through the door sounded genuinely lovely, and because you were still holding his hand from the pavement, you went in.
The church hall smelled of floor polish and tea. Fairy lights were strung along the rafters — someone's addition, not the original fixtures, and they made the whole space amber and soft.
Round tables lined the edges, most of them occupied by couples in their sixties and seventies and eighties, a few younger faces dotted among them, everyone dressed with the particular care of people who still believed an evening out was worth dressing for.
On the small stage at the far end, a four-piece band was working through something in three-four time with the ease of musicians who had played together for years.
And at the edge of the floor, clipboard in hand, wearing the same expression of organised authority she'd worn every PE lesson for fifteen years was Mrs Valerie Croft.
She was smaller than you remembered. Or perhaps you were simply larger.
She'd retired at some point — the hair was fully silver now rather than streaked — but the posture was identical: spine straight, chin up, the bearing of a woman who had spent decades telling teenagers to stand properly and had eventually simply become the embodiment of the instruction.
She looked up from her clipboard as you approached and her eyes moved from you to Simon, and to her credit, she didn't miss a step.
"Well," she tilted her chin up to meet his eyes, "Riley."
"Miss," Simon said. Which was technically incorrect given that she had a ring on her finger and had for as long as you'd known her, but you suspected it was because he'd called her Miss in secondary school the way you had. "Mrs Croft. Sorry. We were passing and— " He paused, which was unlike him. "Is there any chance we could crash it?"
Mrs Croft looked at him. She looked at you. She looked at your joined hands with the expression of a woman who had supervised enough teenagers to recognise a development when she saw one.
"Can you behave yourselves?" she asked.
"Yes," you said nodding.
Simon said nothing.
Mrs Croft made a sound that was not quite a laugh but was adjacent to one. "Floor's open," she said. "Don't knock anyone over." And she turned back to her clipboard.
The first dance was not elegant.
Simon was, as he had always been and had openly admitted, not a dancer.
He was a man built for other kinds of movement — purposeful, directed, the kind that had somewhere to go. Dancing required a different relationship with your body, a willingness to be present in it without agenda, and that was not naturally his.
But he was trying. And Simon Riley trying at something he wasn't good at with complete, unhesitating commitment was one of your favourite things in the world.
He held you correctly — one hand at your waist, the other holding yours at the right height — because he had clearly looked this up at some point, which you were choosing not to think about too hard. His footwork was careful. Deliberate. Slightly behind the beat in the way of someone counting silently.
"You're counting," you told him trying your hardest not to laugh.
"Shut up."
"Simon, I can see your lips moving." you snorted.
"I said shut up."
You were laughing now. Properly, helplessly, the kind that came up from somewhere real — and he looked down at you with that face, that flat, long-suffering, completely fond face, and something in his eyes that was warm in a way that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with the fact that your laugh had always been, apparently, one of his favourite sounds.
"You're doing fine," you told him, once you'd recovered.
"I'm doing terribly," he answered. "Keep going."
By the second dance, he was better.
By the third, he had found something. Some adjustment in the way he held you, the way his hand settled more fully at your waist, drawing you closer so the movement between you became less about individual steps and more about one shared thing. He was a quick study. He always had been, once he'd decided something was worth doing.
You became aware, gradually, of the room watching.
Not intrusively. Not all at once. But in the soft, peripheral way of a room full of people who have been in love for decades and recognise the particular weather of it when it walks through the door.
An older couple near the stage — she in pale blue, he in a suit that had been good once and was still cared for — had stopped talking to watch you.
A woman at one of the corner tables had her chin in her hand.
Mrs Croft, by the door, was very deliberately looking at her clipboard and failing to look only at her clipboard.
You didn't mind. You were too busy watching Simon watch you.
The band changed tempo at half past nine.
The waltz gave way to something with a different shape entirely — something that moved from the hips rather than the feet, a rhythm that was slower in its pulse and considerably less innocent in its intention.
A rumba.
You looked up at Simon.
He looked down at you.
"I don't know this one," he said.
"I'll show you." you breathed.
You took his hand and placed it lower at your waist, right above the curve of your ass. Deliberately watching his face when you did it, watching the shift in his expression, the way something in his eyes went very still and very focused. "Hip to hip," you told him. "Slower than you think. Let the music pull you."
He followed your lead with an attention that was frankly overwhelming in its completeness.
Simon Riley giving you his full, undivided, physical focus was not a small thing. He was so large and so present and he moved with you rather than against you, adjusting with every shift of your weight, and somewhere in the second minute of the song the counting stopped and something else replaced it.
He drew you closer. His hand at your hip pulled you in until there was no space left between you, until you could feel the warmth of him through the green of your dress and you were very aware of every point of contact, of the music and of the room full of people who had gone very quiet.
Then he turned you.
It was not technically correct. It was not what the dance required. But he turned you in a single, smooth movement that his body had decided on and yours simply followed, because that was what it did with him.
And then he dipped you.
The room tilted. His arm was across your back, solid and immovable, and you were suspended in the amber light with the music around you and your hand at his shoulder.
He lowered you — slowly, with complete control, no hesitation in the hold and then his face was close, very close, and his nose grazed the line of your throat making your breath hitch.
A slow, deliberate graze. The warmth of his breath against your pulse point. You felt it in places that had nothing to do with dancing, between your legs throbbing.
His hand — the one at your hip — slid down, just slightly, just enough, finding the outside of your thigh where the fabric of your dress lay, and he hooked your leg, slowly, around his hip. His fingers at the back of your thigh. Holding you there. His nose still at your throat.
The music resolved. Somewhere behind you, someone started clapping.
He brought you upright. Smoothly, slowly, until you were standing again and his hand was still at the back of your thigh. Your leg still around his hip and your faces were very close. Your heart was conducting itself in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with exertion.
You were panting. Slightly. Just slightly.
He was not panting. He was looking down at you with the almost-smile, the one that had always been rarer than gold and twice as valuable — and his eyes were warm and very dark and entirely, completely satisfied with themselves.
"You looked that up as well," you managed.
"No," he said.
"Simon—"
"That one," he said, "I just wanted to do."
From the table by the stage, the woman in pale blue was applauding with great enthusiasm. Her husband had two fingers in his mouth and was whistling.
Mrs Croft had given up entirely on the clipboard.
The taxi back was not a long ride.
It felt longer than it was, and shorter than you wanted.
You sat beside him in the back seat with his thigh against yours and the city moving past the windows and neither of you speaking. The silence had a texture to it that was thick and warm and anticipatory in a way that made the air feel heavy in your lungs.
His hand was on your knee. Just resting there, heavy and warm, the way he did everything — with complete, unapologetic certainty.
You did not move it.
The house appeared at the end of the lane with its white fence and its dark windows and the lavender silver in the moonlight.
You were out of the taxi before it had fully stopped and you were aware how eager this appeared and you didn't care.
Simon paid the driver and caught up with you in three strides because his legs were considerably longer than yours and always had been.
He got to the door first. Key in hand.
The door opened.
And you did not wait for him to step through it.
You took him by the front of his shirt, that black shirt, warm from his body, the fabric bunching in your fists and you lips were suddenly on his.
You walked him backwards through the doorway and you felt the moment his back met the wall just inside and you were already kissing him before he'd fully registered the sequence of events.
Your mouth on his. Your hands in the front of his shirt. Thirty years of it finding its way out all at once, without ceremony, without preamble, without any of the careful management you had been applying to yourself since you were four years old at a preschool art table.
He kissed you back.
He kissed you back the way he did everything — thoroughly, completely, with his full attention and no apparent interest in doing anything else ever again.
His hands came to your face, big and careful, tilting your jaw, and for a moment you were simply inside the realness of him and the warmth of him and the fact that he was here and alive and kissing you in the hallway of the house he'd bought for you.
He pulled back.
"Easy, sunshine," he said against your lips. Low. A little breathless, which you would be privately triumphant about later. The corner of his mouth pulled up in that crooked smile.
You became aware, in the slightly dazed way of someone returning from somewhere, that your hands were still in his shirt and his hands were still on your face and you were standing approximately two inches apart in his hallway.
You also became aware, in the refocusing of your vision, of his mouth.
Of the scar on his upper lip.
You didn't know how you hadn't noticed it before — through dinner, through the dancing, through all of it.
Perhaps you had simply not been this close before. Or perhaps you had been looking at so many things that you hadn't been looking at everything.
It was small, a thin pale line bisecting the left side of his upper lip, old enough to have faded to silver, the kind of scar that had been there for years and had been lived with so thoroughly that the face had absorbed it.
You lifted your thumb and touched it, gently. "How'd you get this?"
He went very still, alert and present and reading you.
You kissed it. Softly. Just that.
Something moved in his throat.
His hands shifted from your face to your waist, warm and settled, and he began to move you gently — backwards, one steady step at a time — turning you both away from the wall and deeper into the hallway. His foot found the door behind him and pushed it closed with a quiet, final click.
"If I tell you about that one," he said, his voice low and even above your head as he guided you past the entrance and toward the stairs, "I'll have to tell you about the rest."
He looked down at you as he said it, that look, the one that said you were the most interesting thing he had ever encountered. The one that made you feel simultaneously seen and slightly undone — and his expression had in it something that was fond and amused and entirely, devastatingly warm.
You kicked your heels off at the bottom of the stairs. They went somewhere behind you. You didn't look.
Your bag went next, dropped against the banister.
"The rest?" you repeated. Your voice came out slightly smaller than you intended. Your eyes, entirely without your permission, moved down the front of him — the black shirt, the breadth of his shoulders, his torso, his thick thighs, all of him — and back up again. Slowly.
He watched you do it. He said nothing.
You swallowed. "Tell me then."
His hand at your waist steered you up the first step, and then the second, and the stairs curved slightly toward the landing above, and at the top of the stairs he pushed open the door to a bedroom.
The room was large and furnished.
A bed, properly large, the kind that accommodated a man his size without complaint. Low lamps on either side casting the same amber warmth as the hall below. Dark wood floors, a window looking out toward the garden, the curtain shifting slightly in a crack of night air.
He kissed you, just inside the door you kissed him back and his hands were at your hips.
Then he pulled back with a groan. Both of you breathing slightly harder than was strictly accounted for by climbing one flight of stairs.
"I want to, sunshine," he said. His voice was very low. Restrained. His hands still on your body, holding you there, his thumbs moving in a small slow motion against the fabric of your dress that was doing nothing to help you think clearly. "I do. But I need to hear it from you first. Your permission. Clear words. I don't want to misunderstand you."
You opened your mouth.
And then your eyes moved, over his shoulder, to the dresser.
A skull mask looked back at you.
You closed your mouth. You looked at it. The mask, white and stark and precise but somehow both alien and completely, recognisably his. The balaclava beside it, folded neatly. And tactical gloves — enormous, black, reinforced, approximately the size of your head.
"That yours?" you asked.
Simon turned his head, following your gaze. He looked at the dresser, then back at you. "Yeah."
"What is it?"
"What I wear on missions."
"Oh," you said.
And then your brain did something entirely beyond your authority. It constructed, with great speed and considerable detail, an image: Simon, broad and enormous, in black tactical gear. Gloved hands. That mask. Hovering over you.
You swallowed.
The image did not leave. It simply settled in, warm and vivid and decidedly unhelpful.
"Sunshine."
His hand came to your face — his big, warm, ungloved hand, his actual hand, the one you knew — his thumb sweeping gently under your eye, bringing you back into the room and the amber lamplight and the present moment.
"Hmm?" you managed meeting his gaze.
His eyes moved over your face with the same comprehensive attention he always gave you.
"Your permission, love," he said. Quiet. Certain.
"Oh." You blinked. "Yes. Yes, you have it. Always."
The almost-smile. "Not for everything I want to do to you." His thumb was still moving, very gently, under your eye. "I'll ask. Multiple times."
You stared at him. "Multiple—"
"Times," he confirmed. His voice was entirely level. His eyes were not.
You pushed his shoulder and your cheeks burned.
He caught your hand as you pushed it and laughed, a low, real, full sound, the kind that you had spent most of your life engineering because it was so rare and so completely, unreasonably good.
You laughed too, properly, the helpless kind, and his forehead came down to rest against yours and you were both laughing in the amber light of his bedroom with the skull mask on the dresser and the lavender outside the window and thirty years behind you and everything in front.
The laughing settled.
Not all at once — it unwound gradually, the way laughter does when it's the real kind, leaving something warm and loose in its place.
His forehead was still against yours. His hands had moved from your face to your waist, both of them now, holding you the way he'd held you on the dance floor — with that complete, unhurried certainty, like you were something he'd been waiting to hold properly for a very long time and intended to do it right.
The amber light of the lamps lay across everything. Through the gap in the curtain, you could see the edge of the garden — the pale shapes of flowers, the dark of the lawn.
"Tell me about the rest," you said quietly.
He pulled back just enough to look at you. "The scars?"
"You said if you told me about the one on your lip you'd have to tell me about the rest." You reached up and touched the scar again — that thin, silver line — with the pad of your thumb. "So tell me about the rest."
He looked at you for a long moment. Then he reached up and began, without ceremony, to unbutton his shirt.
You were very still.
He did it the way he did everything — without drama, without performance, button by button from the collar down, and when he shrugged it from his shoulders and set it aside you understood, in a way you hadn't before, what eighteen years of that life had written on him.
He was enormous.
You'd known that in the abstract — had known it from the doorframe and the dance floor and the way rooms seemed to reorganise themselves around him — but this was different.
This was the specific, undeniable reality of his shoulders, the breadth of his chest, the muscle of his arms that carried the tattoo sleeve on the left, the ink wrapping from wrist to shoulder in dark, intricate patterns that in this light you still couldn't fully read but wanted to.
And the scars.
There were more than you'd expected.
Each one a different shape and age and story, written into the topography of him in pale and silver lines. A long one along his left ribs. Something older, fainter, across the top of his right shoulder. A circular scar below his collarbone on the left side that your medical knowledge was sufficient to identify and that made your chest constrict briefly and completely before you put that particular knowledge away for now.
He was watching your face as you looked. Careful. Giving you the time of it.
You stepped forward. You placed your hand flat against his sternum — his heart under your palm, steady and real — and you felt him exhale.
"The lip," you said.
"Kandahar. 2004. Caught the stock of a rifle." He said it the same way he'd told you everything tonight — flat, factual, trusting the fact to carry the weight. "Bit through my lip. Wasn't pretty for a while."
You moved your hand from his sternum to his ribs. Found the long scar there, traced it gently with your fingertips.
"That one."
"Knife. 2009. I moved the wrong way and the other man moved the right way." The shadow of something in his face that was not quite humour and not quite not. "Lesson learned."
Your hand moved to his shoulder. The older, fainter scar.
"Before the military," he said, before you asked. His voice changed, just fractionally. Flatter. Doing more work to stay level. "Not a mission."
You understood. You didn't ask further. You pressed your lips to it instead — gently, just that, your mouth against the old pale mark — and you felt the breath go out of him in a way that was different from all the others. Slower. Deeper.
"Sunshine," he said. Very quietly.
"The one below your collarbone," you said.
A pause. "That one's not a story for tonight."
You tilted your head back to look up at him. "Is it a story for eventually?"
His eyes on yours. Something in them that was considering, assessing, "Yeah," he said. "Eventually."
"Alright," you said. You meant it. You had waited thirty years; you could wait for the story of one scar.
His hand moved to your face. That same gesture from the hallway — his thumb at your cheek, slow and deliberate and he tilted your chin up and kissed you. Not urgently this time. Slowly. Deeply.
His hands found the zip at the side of your dress — careful, unhurried — and he looked at you, a clear question in it, and you nodded, and his hands were very steady and very gentle. Your dress went the way of your heels and your bag, somewhere behind you, unmissed.
He looked at you the way he had looked at you on the porch yesterday, and outside The Grill tonight, and across the restaurant table, and on the dance floor — with that complete, comprehensive attention.
Only now there was nothing restrained about what was in it. It was simply there, open and certain, and it was thirty years of something finally being allowed to be exactly what it was.
"Hi," you said. Which was absurd. Which made him laugh again, low and real.
"Hi, sunshine," he said. His hands at your waist. His forehead dropping to yours.
“Si I need to-“ you breathed in deep, “I um,” he pulled his head away from yours, looking into your eyes with those brilliant brown ones of his.
“What is it Sunshine?” He asked, his finger under your chin tilting your head up.
“I’m, I’ve never-“ you sigh, “I’ve told you so many things, I can’t believe I can’t even say this to you.”
“Do we need to slow down?” He asked, his voice softening.
“No. It’s not that. I mean I’m not a virgin if that’s what you’re thinking I just, no guy has ever-“ you sigh again, your eyes dropping from his.
Simon is quiet. He waits, the way he always waits — giving you the whole space of it, not rushing you toward the end of the sentence.
“Made it good,” you finally say, to his chest. “For me. It’s always just, fine. Maybe sometimes I get close but then it’s over. Not that there’s been loads of guys, maybe three.”
A beat.
You make yourself look up at him.
Something changes in his face.
You see the flare of it.
Anger.
Not toward you — you feel that immediately, the anger isn't at you, it moves through him and settles somewhere else entirely. His jaw shifts. His eyes, for just a moment, go somewhere dark and quiet.
"Every one of them," he says. Low. More to himself than to you.
"Simon—"
"Had you," he says. "And didn't—" He stops. The jaw again. His eyes squeeze shut. "Didn't pay attention."
"It's not—"
"It is." His eyes open. He looks at you, his hands moving to your hips, both of them, settling there with a weight that feels like anchoring, like he needs the contact as much as you do. The darkness has settled now, controlled, underneath everything else.
"And I wasn't here." Something moves through his expression — not guilt exactly, but something adjacent to it, something private and old. "Should've been your first, sunshine. Should've been there to—"
He stops himself. His forehead drops to yours.
"I've waited years for this," he says quietly. "I'm not rushing it. And I'm going to pay attention."
“Pay attention?” You ask breathless.
“To every sigh,” he kissed your cheek, “whimper and moan.” His lips moved down to your jaw. “To the way your hips move, the way your back arches, the way you’ll writhe under me, how I’ve imaged it every time I’ve gotten off for the last two decades.” He whispered the last bit into your ear, teeth tugging on your earlobe.
You gasp, “Simon.” Your cheeks burn.
“Oh don’t tell me you never thought about it.” He grins pulling back to look down at you.
You look at the floor sheepishly cause of course you have. Of course you’ve cum the hardest you ever have in your life only when thinking about Simon fucking you.
"Oh you have." He smirked titling his head.
“Shut up.” You push his shoulder and he laughs.
His hands leave your hips and then you're moving, his arms around you, and the edge of the bed meets the back of your knees.
Then his massive paws are in your hair and his lips are on your neck as your back meets the sheets. His weight heavy and solid on you. You could tell he was holding himself up so he didn’t squish you.
He leaned back on his heels, kneeling between your legs. You sighed in satisfaction when his fingers ran over your bare skin. His blunt nails scratching softly where your pelvic bone sits.
"So beautiful Sunshine," He grabs your hips and squeezes, "Fill my hands with you finally." Simon groans. A noise you've been picturing in your head. This and everything else that happens this evening, you truly believe, will be one of those times when reality is better than anything you have imagined.
Simon's brown eyes have always been intense, but right now the way he's looking down at you it's like he is someone else entirely. His eyes almost black with how much they have darkened.
"Simon." You tangle your fingers with his.
"Can I?" He asks. His hand, the one not in yours, trailing down your thigh and stopping on your mound. You clench around nothing when he pushes down, just a little bit of pressure that you feel in your clit and makes your hips buck.
You don't miss the way his lips do the almost smile thing. You nod furiously but he shakes his head.
"Need your words love." He raises a brow.
"Yes, yes Simon touch me." You breathe out, your chest feeling tight when he nods, moving his hand down to cup your cunt over your underwear.
And maybe its because you haven't had sex in three years, maybe its because you are touch starved or maybe its simply because its Simon, but your back arches and your moan is down right pornographic with a simple touch over your underwear.
"So responsive." He mumbles, his thumb rubbing circles over your clit through the fabric. "Get your tits out for me Sunshine, wanna see em." he grunts feeling your underwear getting wet.
Shakily you reach behind your back and unclip your bra. "Been thinking about them for years. What they look like, how they'll bounce when I fuck you." He groans as you pull the straps down your arms and fling the bra on the floor.
His eyes are on your chest, he doesn't blink. Then as if his system has rebooted, he blows air out of his cheeks and whistles low. "Fuck lovie, so pretty. You're a dream." Simon leans forward and wraps his lips around your breast, his tongue swirling around the nipple as his thumb continues circling your clit.
You moan, fingers tugging at his hair.
He comes off your breast with a pop making you whine and push at his shoulder. He grins pressing his thumb firmer against you, while sliding his other hand over your leg, index finger tracing over the small scar on you leg from when you fell off your bike after Simon broke your training wheels.
There was something comforting about this. Simon wasn't someone you had to explain yourself to, he already knew every version of you, he was simply adding this one to his list. This version, open and honest and begging the man you'd known for thirty years to make you cum on his fingers.
This didn't feel like a hook up, not like other guys have, but it felt like two people who have been each other's home for years and they're finally admitting it.
"Kiss me Simon." You're not even sure if what you said made sense with how much you were panting. But he leaned down to graze his lips along yours. Teasing and soft, despite the fast past he'd started to set with his thumb.
"Stop teasing." You huffed.
"Its my favourite pastime." He grinned hooking his fingers in your underwear, pulling them down and moving with them to settle between your legs.
You gasp, when his tongue slides from your asshole to your clit. "Simon!" His dark eyes are locked on yours as he swirls the tip of his his tongue around your entrance. Your toes curl, your head falling back onto the soft bed sheets.
A few occasions, you could count on one hand, had a guy you were with eaten you out and it was good but fuck, it didn't feel like this.
You felt like you were burning all over with each swipe of his tongue, each dip inside your entrance, each pattern he begins to circle over your clit.
He was learning you.
Simon groans against you, his breath hot, it made you dizzy. You feel everything, its too much to quick and your hips start to buck against his mouth.
Simon clearly had no intention of slowing down or stopping as he slides his arms around your thighs and splays his hands over the tops of them locking you in place.
It feels like fire, like molten lava pooling low in your abdomen the harder his tongue presses against you.
You don’t even recognise the sounds coming out of you, it’s as if every movement pulls a new one from you.
His thumb replaces his tongue and he rubs the bump in small circles until you can barely breathe. “Sound so pretty,” he murmurs just as your back arches and you moan loudly into the night air.
He is still speaking but you can’t hear anything he is saying, it’s all blurring together the way your vision is blurring. His thumb slides from your clit down until it’s pushing its way inside you. Your hips jerk away but his other hand is quick to hold you in place.
“No running.” Simon growls.
You cry out when his tongue comes back to torture you, lapping at you like he’s never had a drink and you're fresh water. Soon enough the rhythm he’s built has your hips rolling forward seeking more of whatever he has to give you.
Your hand reaches for his arm and squeezes hard the exact moment your vision turns white and your body shakes, dissolving into pleasure. It's like lightning pulsing through you. He works your through your orgasm, wringing every last wave of pleasure from you before he moves to your lips, kissing you.
“Did so good Sunshine. I’ve got you.” His arms wrap around you, your nipples grazing against the hair on his chest, that alone has you whimpering.
"Need more, want you inside me Simon. Please." You look into his eyes, your shyness gone with your orgasm.
"Okay Sunshine." Simon chuckles, the sound vibrating against you.
He pulls back and gets off the bed before he starts to unbuckle his belt. He pushes his black slacks down along with his underwear, his large, and he was so fucking big, cock already hard.
"Always wondered what you'd be like in bed," He tilts his head with a smirk, "If you'd like being in control. Or if you'd prefer me to lead," He knelt on the bed again, and oh my god Simon Riley, your best friend of thirty years and the love of your life was crawling up the bed towards you until his cock was flush with your entrance. "If you'd be needy and beg. Or if you'd bark orders at me." He slapped the head of his cock against your clit. "If you'd be loud or quiet."
"If you'd let me do whatever I wanted to you," his head titled back, eyes shut, "Fuck Sunshine, the things I've imagined doing to you," He looks down at you with the most intense gaze, pining you there on the bed, "Would you let me lovie? Do whatever I want to you?" He asks, pearly whites peaking out to sink into his bottom lip.
"Like what?" Your breath is so unsteady, so hitched and uneven you feel your cheeks heat even more than they have done at his words.
He grins, "Like what?" He chuckles pushing the head of his cock against your entrance, not in, but resting against it, "Wanna fuck you so hard you can't walk. Make love to you slow and so deep you'll feel me everywhere. Bend you over every surface in this house and make you cry on my cock-"
"Simon!" You gasp.
"Can I Sunshine?" He groans pushing in a little more and your eyes sting with tears at the stretch.
"Yes! Please yes!" He pushes in slowly. One of his hands coming next to you on the bed and the other gripping your hip. He keeps sliding in further, so slowly until its sheathed inside you.
Simon does not move. You can see the restraint within the way his teeth are gritted, his brows furrowed, sweat forming on his forehead.
“Fuck you feel amazing wrapped around me, so tight.” He groans.
You don’t have any words and even if you did, you doubt you would be able to say them. You have never felt so…full. So filled to the brim and unable to get a reprieve from it.
“M’gonna move, gotta move Sunshine,” Simon growls and the fullness disappears for a second before he’s pushing himself back in.
“Fuck you feel so good Si.” You shudder and stars appear in your vision when he moves forward and takes your legs with him folding you in half.
Simon Riley has you in fucking mating press and didn't even break the slow rhythm he's building. He continues this push and pull movement until it begins to flow, each movement begins where the other ends. The pattern making you sob, “Don’t stop!”
You can't function and its only now that you understand the phrase 'being fucked dumb', rocking your hips, trying desperately to keep up with each thrust, back arched so beautifully.
Simon lets his hand slip and curve around your jaw without thinking about it, "Taking me so well Sunshine." The feral look in his eyes sends a shiver up your spine.
"Too big." You sobbed, your hands grabbing at his large biceps as he thrusts harder. He could feel every ridge and curve of your sopping cunt.
"You can take it." He encouraged you, biting at your neck leaving marks in his wake and looking so damn happy whilst doing it.
You continued to moan and whimper, tears of pleasure falling down your face while Simon's huge body hovered over you. Protecting you from the outside world, in here, it was just you and him.
"Si..oh!" you cried out feeling him hit that rough spot inside your weeping, swollen cunt.
"There it is." He didn't mean to grin like a obsessed man in such an intimate moment but he couldn't help himself. He never can with you. Each thrust hits the one place no man ever seems to be able to find but Simon seemingly found with ease. A spot that makes a tightening begin like a coil, being wound with every drive of his hips.
Your sinful noises morph into higher pitched breathy little screams.
"I know lovie, I know." He cooed, holding you closer. His sweat glazed skin meeting yours as his large veiny hand slips under your head, his other arm curling around your waist.
You move your hips and he groans vulgar into the air, his hand gripping your hair and pulling your head back, a little to the side before he attacks your neck all messy. Smearing his lips across your throat, you don’t even recognise the sound that leaves your mouth.
He pulls away, his dark eyes flit to your squelching pussy, the noise attracting his attention pupils dilating, honing in on the way your cunt sucks his cock back in. He couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to and fuck he doesn’t, he wants nothing more than to stay in your pretty pussy forever.
“Simonfuckyespleaserighttheredontstop!” All the words and moans blend together until your mumbling nonsense trying your hardest to keep conscious, it’s difficult with the way he’s fucking into you so deliciously it’s making you delirious in the best way.
His big body towering over yours, big hands gripping you almost bruisingly. His thick muscular hairy thighs press against your skin compellingly, the sight before you, it's irresistible. All you have to do is look down to see his massive cock sliding in and out of you, a ring of white collecting at the base.
It's too much seeing him like this, feeling the sweet pleasure burn through you and yet Simon moves one of his hands off your head and presses a thumb to your swollen, aching clit.
You're done for.
You sob, so fucking loud you swear everyone in the world can hear it, hot tears flow down your cheeks staining them.
"That's it." The words wash over you with your orgasm, it swirls around you, clings to you, and pushes you down down down the rabbit hole of pleasure. Oversensitivity sets in making you whine at his touch, but you can't stop yourself from wanting more.
Your hips buck into his touch eliciting a dirty chuckle from him.
As Simon picks up his thrusts, he comes to the conclusion that he loves you like this, wants to see it everyday. You're so drunk, so delirious and he loves it. Loves the far away look in your eyes right before they roll back into your skull.
He shoves his face into your neck groaning, "Gonna cum Sunshine, need to. Where?" his thrusts pick up again, as if that were even possible.
"Cum inside me Simon, fill me up." You cry out.
Simon must have been right there as he cums the second you finish your sentence. Hot thick robes of cum pushing deep inside you. He rubs your clit faster and another smaller orgasm zips through you leaving you whimpering.
He stays in you, holding you until he goes soft. He moves your legs so they don't cramp. "Did so well for me Sunshine. I love you so much." He looks into your eyes as more tears spill down your cheeks.
"I love you Simon." you bring your fingers into his hair, pulling him closer to kiss you. The contrast between the way he just destroyed your guts and is now kissing you so softly, is astounding.
He is careful when he picks you up and walks into the ensuite bathroom to the right, flicking the light on and placing you on the toilet. "Gotta pee sunshine, don't want you getting you a uti." He says and you're so tired you don't even have the energy to be embarrassed.
Your eyes as still closed as you pee. Your hand moves to find the toilet paper but a warm flannel is being pressed against you, Simon's other hand on your knee to keep them open. You whine and push his hand away, "Simon that's icky." You frown at him opening your eyes to see him looking at you with a frown of his own.
"Nothing about you is icky Sunshine. I'm clearing up my mess, now move your hand." You do as told and it occurs to you, through your tired haze, while Simon gently wipes you clean that he must be used to clearing up mess with the job he does.
"All done. Want a shower or straight to sleep?" He asks.
"Sleep." You yawn making him smile at you.
He carries you back to the bed, lifting the duvet and settling you both underneath it.
The particular quality of afterwards settles in the room.
The warmth of it, the specific silence, the way the world outside the window continues to exist and you become aware of it again in layers. The sound of the garden. The distant sound of a car somewhere. The sound of him breathing.
You were lying with your head on his chest. His arm around you, heavy and warm. His heartbeat under your ear, steady and unhurried, the same heart that had been beating beside you in one form or another for thirty years.
His hand moved. Slowly, idly, up and down your back.
You watched the lamplight glow on the beside table. You thought about the lavender. You thought about the train station in 2001, and the birthday cards, and the bottom stair with the cream envelope, and Margaret Howarth saying you always did belong together with the satisfied certainty of someone who had known it before either of you did.
"Simon," you said.
"Yeah."
"You planted lavender for three years."
"You mentioned that already."
"I'm still processing it."
A low sound in his chest that was the rumble of a laugh contained. "Take your time Sunshine."
You propped yourself up and looked at him. His face in the lamplight — older, marked, those brown eyes that had been watching you since you were four years old, now watching you from a pillow in the house he'd bought you.
His expression was open in the way it had been open on the porch and at the restaurant table and in the dance hall, the way it had been open perhaps three times in thirty years before tonight and was now, apparently, simply his face when he looked at you.
You loved him so much.
You had loved him in different quantities and different registers for most of your life and now you loved him in this one too, this new one, and it was the same love and completely different and you thought you would be discovering its dimensions for a considerable amount of time.
"You should have told me," you said. "Years ago. Before the train."
"Yeah," he said. No argument.
"I would have said it back then too."
Something moved in his face. "I know," he said. And then, quieter, "I wasn't ready then. Wasn't enough yet."
"Simon—"
"I know what you're going to say."
"You were always—"
"I know," he said. "I believe you. Now." His hand came up to your face, tucking a strand of hair back, his thumb at your cheekbone. "Took me a while to get there. But I'm here."
"You're here," you agreed smiling.
"And you're here." his hand tangled itself in your hair.
"I'm here." you giggled.
He looked at you for a long moment. Then, "Stay with me."
Not a question, not quite — more like a hope said aloud. The rarest thing from him. He had carried so much silently for so long, and this one small thing cost him something, and you could see it, and you loved him for it.
"It's my house," you said cheeky and bright.
He blinked. Then that laugh again — the real one, the rare one — and your heart did what it always did when you earned it, that particular, irreplaceable lurch.
"Yeah Sunshine," he said. "It is."
You lay back down against his chest. His arm came around you. His heartbeat under your ear.
Outside, the lavender moved. The Union flag was still on the roof. The porch swing sat in the dark with its yellow cushion, waiting for morning.
"Sunshine," he said. Into your hair.
"Hmm."
"I love you."
You pressed your lips to his chest, above his heart.
"I love you too," you said. "I've loved you since you were that chubby four-year-old who stole my crayons."
A long pause.
"Chubby," he repeated.
"Stocky," you amended, grinning into his chest. "You were very stocky."
"I was four."
"You were a very solid four year old."
His arm tightened around you — not painfully, just firmly, the way of a man making a point through the medium of holding — and you laughed again, helplessly, into the warmth of him.
He made that sound, that low rumbling laugh that lived in his chest, and the lamp burned warm and low and outside the lavender moved in the dark.
Simon Riley.
Who stole your crayons at four and broke your glasses at seven and learned to read because of you and carried your bag through every corridor of secondary school and punched a boy for pushing you over and kissed your cheek in a toilet corridor and sat beside you through every lunch and glared at anyone who called you a nerd and came round to your kitchen table for years and went to war at seventeen and sent you cards from the edges of the world and planted lavender for three years and bought you the house you described at sixteen and came home.
Vampire-Cowboy!Sukuna x preacher's daughter reader
Synopsis: In a town built on faith, the arrival of three strangers brings whispers of blood, disappearance, and something far worse lurking beneath the surface. Drawn to a man she cannot understand, the preacher’s daughter finds herself caught between light and darkness, until the truth reveals itself, and everything begins to fall apart.
Cw: Vampire-Wild West Au, gothic horror, religious themes, fem reader, folklore horror, implied violence, mentioned infanticide, we still at the calm before the storm chapters
Previous Chapter - Next Chapter (soon)
Chapter 4: Ghost Stories
Footsteps echoed across the polished wooden floors of the Zenin Manor, the sound sharp and rhythmic against the quiet morning. Servants immediately lowered their heads and bowed as Naoya passed by them, careful not to draw attention to themselves as he made his way to his father’s office. It was where Naobito could usually be found at this hour, buried in paperwork or smoking one of his expensive cigars.
And exactly as Naoya expected, there was the old man.
Naobito sat comfortably in an antique velvet chair behind the recently fabricated mahogany desk he had commissioned nearly three months ago. The rich dark wood gleamed beneath the sunlight filtering through the windows, every corner polished to perfection. It was expensive and excessive, exactly the kind of thing Naobito liked to surround himself with.
“Father.”
Naoya spoke, his expression remained neutral, but the sharpness at the end of the word was enough to tell Naobito that whatever he had come to discuss was important …at least in Naoya’s eyes.
“Yes, Naoya?” Naobito exhaled a stream of smoke from the cigar hanging lazily between his fingers.
“I have a question.”
“For you to disturb me this early in the morning, it must be something important.” Naobito leaned back slightly in his chair. “Speak, boy. What is it?”
“Why did you let those bottom-feeders move in to town?” Naoya asked, his eyebrows furrowing tighter.
“You mean Sukuna and his boys?”
“Yes.”
Naobito brought the cigar back to his mouth, inhaling slowly before letting the smoke drift into the room.
“They paid good money for it.”
Naoya grunted lowly. “I ran into Sukuna yesterday, at the saloon. The way he spoke clearly showed that you two have some kind of history.”
Naoya was clever. He knew how to twist things, how to say just enough to make people reveal more than they intended. It was a skill he had inherited from his father, though neither of them would openly admit it.
Naobito stopped reading the newspaper. His head remained facing forward, but his eyes shifted upwards towards his son. With his free hand, he pulled the cigar from his mouth.
“We might, but what were you doing in the saloon with them? Is that why you missed yesterday’s dinner?”
“I went to see her.”
Her. Naobito knew exactly who his son was referring to. You. Father Clarke’s daughter. Of course, he knew who you were. After all, he was the one who had suggested Naoya begin persuading you.
An arrangement between his son and the priest’s daughter would provide the Zenins—especially Naobito, and eventually Naoya—with even greater influence over a town filled with religious zealots. With your father being one of the most beloved priests across New Clementine, it would only be a matter of time before more doors opened to them, allowing their influence to spread even further across the land.
Most people on this continent were religious fanatics who proudly called themselves Catholics or Christians. Naobito never cared much about learning the difference between the two. He wasn’t one of them. Not truly. But when the situation demanded it, he could play the role perfectly. Another humble follower of the Lord. Another respectable man spreading God's teachings.
How easy it was to fool these people. Tell them exactly what they wanted to hear, smile at the right moments, quote old scripture when necessary, and they would practically hand over their trust themselves.
Most of them, anyways. Father Clarke was one of the exceptions.
While Father Clarke had never openly confronted him, Naobito knew the priest had his suspicions. The old man was observant, he paid close attention to smaller details. Fortunately, suspicions meant nothing without proof, and Naobito had always been careful.
Good, let him theorize. Let him spend sleepless nights wondering. As long as those suspicions remained trapped inside the priest’s head, they were harmless.
Truthfully, Naobito had hoped Father Clarke never returned from his trip to Sourwater. Yet somehow he had managed to come back. Worse. He had returned with two more idiots.
The priest hadn’t revealed much about what they had found in Sourwater. Only that the town had been massacred and that they needed to travel north to the reservation because apparently Kenai and Elsu were necessary to continue the investigation and uncover whoever was responsible.
However, Naobito wasn’t stupid.
The problem ran far deeper than what Josiah was willing to admit. He could see it in the man’s face. Hear it in his voice. There were things Josiah wasn’t saying. Questions he wasn't answering.
Naobito intended to discover exactly how much the priest knew before the man interfered with matters he had no business involving himself in.
Naobito gritted his teeth. “Stay away from those men, boy. You hear me?”
“Why? Aren’t they just more of those stinkin' dwellers in town?”
“Stay away from them, Naoya.” Naobito commanded. “And as for your girl, you need to hurry up. I can speed some things up, but there’s only so much I can do. That matter depends solely on your actions.” his expression hardened. “Don’t embarrass our family in front of the whole town. You know how much they care for that girl.”
If Naobito had still been a young man, he would've courted you himself instead of relying on his useless son to do it for him. You weren’t an ugly woman. Quite the contrary, actually. The only unfortunate thing about you was who your father happened to be.
Father Clarke knew exactly why Naoya kept visiting. At every opportunity he could, the priest found some excuse to keep you away: a chore, church work, helping a friend, anything, anything to keep Naoya at arm’s length.
Naoya clenched his hands into fists, annoyed that his stubborn father had left him with more questions than answers. No matter. In due time, he would figure out what was truly going on. Why his father wanted him away from those men, why Sukuna unsettled him so much, and why Father Clarke had brought two strangers back from the reservation.
“Yes, father.”
Naoya bowed his head slightly before leaving the office. The doors shut behind him with a quiet click as he turned down the hallway and retreated into his room, his mind already turning over possibilities and suspicions of his own.
The bedroom door creaked softly as Mary pushed it open with her front paws. You followed her into the kitchen, still half asleep as thoughts drifted through your mind about what today might bring. Father was back, Satoru was back, and now there were two strangers staying in your home. It made you anxious. Anxious about what was happening, about what they had discovered in Sourwater, and most importantly, about what would happen next.
When you got to the kitchen Kenai was already there, standing in front of the stove with a cast-iron pan in hand. Eggs sizzled on the hot metal while the scent of bacon and toast filled the kitchen.
“Good morning,” said Kenai. “I made breakfast. Eggs, toast, and bacon. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Good morning,” you yawned, still trying to wake yourself from sleep. “No, I don’t mind. Thank you for breakfast. It smells really good.”
You sat down at the dining table, waiting for Kenai to serve the food. Besides your chair, Mary anxiously wagged her tail, staring at your plate with big eyes, hoping you'd share a piece of bacon with her.
“Your father already ate.”
Kenai set down three plates. One in front of you, one for himself, and one for the other man they had arrived with. What was his name again? Elsy? Elsa?
You looked down at the plates on the table. “This one’s for Elsa, yes?” you asked.
Kenai laughed. “Elsu,” he corrected. “And yes, it’s for him. We’ll be needing all our strength for what comes next.”
“For what comes next?” you repeated, already bringing a piece of toast to your mouth.
Kenai gave you a tense look and adjusted the hem of his shirt. “I uhh… think it’s better if you discuss this with your father.”
It was evident he hadn’t meant to let that slip.
You sighed. “Alright. Do you know where he is?”
“I think he was headed out to church.”
“Mass. I forgot. Today’s Sunday again.” you rubbed your forehead with a sigh. The stressful week had made you completely lose track of time.
“I imagine you want to go there?” Kenai chewed another bite of food.
“Of course. Thank you for breakfast.” you tossed a small piece of bacon to Mary.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
After you finished eating, you remained at the table for a few minutes longer, mindlessly tracing the rim of your cup. The morning sunlight filtered through the kitchen windows, warming the room and illuminating the dust particles floating through the air.
Eventually you stood up and returned to your own room, changing from the nightgown into a white church dress. Then you fixed your hair, checked your appearance one final time in the mirror, and finished preparing for the day ahead. For a brief moment, you studied your reflection. The past week had been more exhausting than you realized. Dark circles rested beneath your eyes, and there was still a sharp tension in your shoulders that refused to disappear.
Once you were done, you said goodbye to Kenai and Elsu before stepping outside. The town was already awake. Shop owners unlocked their doors, horses trotted through the muddy streets pulling wagons behind them, and townsfolk greeted one another as they began their day. The church bells rang in the distance, reminding everyone that Mass would begin soon.
You hurried over, the familiar sight of its steeple rising above the surrounding buildings. By the time you arrived, a few townsfolk were already seated in the pews. The familiar scent of candle wax and old wood greeted you the moment you stepped inside. Deacons moved quietly around the church, preparing everything necessary.
Father and Junpei stood off in one corner, discussing everything Junpei had gone over during his absence. From where you were, you could see Junpei speaking more than usual, occasionally gesturing with his hands as he explained something while your father listened attentively, nodding along from time to time. Every so often father would correct him on a detail or offer a suggestion, the younger man immediately taking the advice to heart. It reminded you how much Junpei looked up to him.
As Mass began and Josiah carried on with Bible study, discussing more of the Lord’s teachings, you sat in your usual spot near the front with the rosary tightly held in your hands. His words filled the church, echoing softly on the wooden walls, but you found yourself struggling to focus on them. You couldn't take your eyes off him. Not because you weren’t interested in what he was saying, but because now that he was finally back, you found yourself looking at him. Really looking at him.
The years had aged him. Wrinkles stretched across his forehead, deepening whenever he furrowed his brows while reading from the Bible. The laugh lines around his mouth had become more pronounced than you remembered. The skin beneath his neck sagged slightly now, while dark circles lingered beneath tired eyes—were they from the journey, or was he simply exhausted after carrying the weight of so many people’s burdens for so many years?—Then there were the gray hairs, they had spread through his eyebrows and across what remained of his thinning hair. Even his posture seemed different now; not weak but heavier, as if the years sat upon his shoulders alongside every confession, every funeral, and every grieving family he had ever comforted.
You were grateful he was back. More grateful than words could ever describe. Seeing him standing there brought relief you hadn't felt in days. The terrible scenarios that had haunted your mind while he was gone slowly seemed foolish now that he stood only a few feet away. But seeing him like this... so tired, so worn down. It made something ache inside your chest.
Perhaps it was time for him to retire. To finally pass the position to someone else.
Junpei would be a worthy successor. He had proven that much last week. You remembered how nervous he had been before his first Mass, only to surprise everyone with how well he handled it. However, he was still young, and there was always the possibility that the covenant wouldn't choose him just yet. Regardless, all you really cared about was your father. You wanted him to spend what remained of his life free from this burden. You wanted him home with you, so that for once, you could be the one taking care of him. To make him breakfast in the mornings. To remind him to rest when he worked too much. To stop worrying about everyone else for a change and allow someone to worry about him instead.
You had noticed the struggles over the past few years. The way he occasionally faltered while walking. How his knees sometimes threatened to give out for a split second before he caught himself. The trembling in his hands whenever he carried something heavy for too long. Even now, while turning a page in the Bible, you noticed a slight shake in his fingers before it disappeared. They were small things. Tiny things. The kind of things nobody else seemed to notice. You always did, because he was your father, and every one of those signs hurt. It hurt watching the man who had cared for you since you were a baby slowly deteriorate with things that once were natural for him to do. It hurt knowing that no matter how badly you wished otherwise, time was moving forward, and there wasn't a thing you could do to stop it.
You forced yourself to focus on the sermon. Yet even then, as Father Clarke continued preaching before the congregation, you couldn't help but hear how fragile his voice had become too. It wasn't enough for anyone else to question it. Most people probably didn't even realize the difference. You however, heard the slight strain whenever he spoke for too long, the moments where he paused to catch his breath before continuing.
The audience continued listening to him with the same respect in spite of everything. They saw a pillar of strength when they gazed at him. A man selected by God to lead them through the challenges of life. They were blind to the weariness concealed behind his smile and the burden he bore on a daily basis for the sake of everyone around him. Perhaps it was the reason why it struck so badly, because while the whole town leaned on Father Clarke for support, there was no one there to help carry him.
After Mass was over, you wandered through the streets of Whiskey Falls. Thankfully, the sun was shining brightly today, and most of the sticky mud had finally dried back into dirt. It was one less thing to worry about, staining your boots every time you stepped outside. Unfortunately, that did not erase the horrible smell of manure.
Honestly, something should really be done about it. Not only was it an awful smell, but surely it scared away travelers too? Oh, who were you kidding? Whiskey Falls was never short on visitors.
Being a livestock town with almost everything a person could need, people were bound to flock there no matter the season. If it wasn't cowboys trotting through with their horses and causing a ruckus every few days, it was wealthy travelers from Saint Beaumont stepping off the train with polished shoes and expensive luggage. They would stay at the hotel for a few nights simply because they had never seen a place like this before. The traditional wooden buildings, the endless farms stretching across the countryside, the dense forests surrounding the town, and the swift river that cut through the landscape all felt exotic to them.
Apparently Saint Beaumont was different. A city, they called it. Their buildings weren't made from wood but from stone, brick, and something called concrete. Their roads weren't covered in dirt and mud either. They were properly built, paved, and maintained. Strange. The idea of such a place almost sounded unreal. Perhaps one day, when you had enough money, you would visit and see it for yourself.
The idea played in your mind as you continued walking, occasionally greeting familiar faces passing by. Mrs. Arizona sat outside her house rocking gently in her chair while gossiping with a neighbor. A group of children ran down the street chasing one another with sticks in hand, pretending they were famous gunslingers from some dime novel. Further ahead, a ranch hand guided a small herd of cattle through town, forcing several people to step aside and make room.
Life carried on as usual.
You slowly pushed open the wooden doors to the saloon. Of course you were back here. It was everyone's favorite gathering spot. The place in town most filled with life. Today, however, it felt strangely empty. Only a handful of souls occupied the room. Two men sat at the bar with drinks already in hand while the rest of the seats remained empty. The usual laughter, music, and conversations that filled the building were nowhere to be found. Even the air felt quieter.
Confused, you walked over to Utahime.
“Hey,” you called out. “Where’s everyone? Why is this place so empty?”
Utahime cleaned the bar table with a cloth, not bothering to look up.
“Haven’t you heard? The circus is visiting town. Everyone's out at the fair today.” she sighed. “Hopefully I can close early today, or maybe Dorothy can cover my shift so I can go there. I feel so left out being stuck here while everyone else is having fun.”
“Dorothy? Who's that?”
“Ah, the other bartender. We cover each other's shifts when one of us isn't available. But I forgot about the circus coming over, so I stupidly agreed to work today. Whatever… I'll just ask her early tomorrow morning since she's out there having fun right now.”
“Alright, I'll leave you to it then. Hopefully Dorothy takes pity on you tomorrow.”
“I hope so too,” Utahime groaned. “If not, I’m going to be stuck listening to drunks complain all day while everyone else enjoys themselves.”
“You'll survive.”
“Barely.”
You shook your head, trying not to laugh as Utahime crossed her arms and sulked. She gave you a saddened expression as you turned around and headed back towards the front doors.
You felt bad for her. Being trapped inside all day while everyone else enjoyed themselves sounded miserable. Still, the moment she mentioned the circus, excitement bubbled inside your chest. It had been years. Years since one had last come through Whiskey Falls. You had only been six years old back then. While most of the details had faded with time, you still remembered how happy you had been. The bright colors. The music. The games. Your father holding your hand as the two of you wandered from attraction to attraction, determined to experience everything the circus had to offer.
A small ache settled in your chest. You doubted he would want to come with you this time. No matter. Maybe you could bring him something instead. Perhaps cotton candy or a balloon, something simple to make him smile.
Around you, more and more people seemed to be heading in the same direction, their conversations filled with excitement and anticipation. Children tugged at their parents' hands while groups of friends hurried ahead, eager not to miss anything.
In the distance, colorful circus tents stretched on the horizon, their stripes standing brightly beneath the sun. Wagons surrounded the grounds while tiny figures moved between them like ants from this far away. Even from where you were, you could already hear music drifting through the wind, accompanied by bursts of laughter and excited voices.
The last time you'd seen the circus, your hand had been wrapped securely in the palms of someone you loved, their presence making the world feel bigger and safer all at once. Now you stood there alone, watching from afar.
The crunch of dirt beneath your boots accompanied each step towards the fairgrounds. Out in the open distance stood the entrance, a large brightly painted sign welcoming visitors inside, with a small booth resting off to the side. Beyond it towered a giant red-and-white striped tent surrounded by smaller carpets of every color, stands, and wagons. The closer you got, the louder everything became. Music glided through the air accompanied by bursts of laughter, excited shouting, and the constant murmur of hundreds of voices blending together into one overwhelming sound.
You stood in front of the booth. The sign read:
Children ¢15
Adults ¢35
Elderly (ages 60+) ¢20
You frustratedly shook your head.
Unbelievable how expensive things were becoming. Just a few years ago all you had to pay was five cents. Now it was thirty-five. You placed the coins on the counter. The man inside grabbed them and handed you a ticket in return with a bright smile.
“Enjoy!”
Yeah, after all that money wasted you best believe you were about to enjoy every single thing this fair had to offer.
Inside, the fair was enormous. The stands and tents stretched in every direction. Different vendors sold all types of sugary sweets and strange foods while games and attractions occupied nearly every open space available. Everywhere you looked there was something happening. Crowds gathered around performers, merchants loudly advertised their products, and children darted between people while exhausted parents hurried after them.
Wandering without any particular destination in mind, you examined everything around you, trying to decide what to do first. Everything felt overwhelming. You just wanted to try all things at once.
Almost immediately your body made the decision for you as your stomach growled loudly, demanding lunch before anything else. Following the smell of food, you made your way over to the vendors. The closer you got, the stronger the aromas became. Different spices mixed together in the air alongside the scent of grilled meats, fresh bread, and sugary desserts.
Normally you'd eat something simple, but today wasn't a normal day. The circus was here and that meant trying something new.
Unfortunately, most of the stands had long lines stretching in front of them, and you weren't particularly interested in spending half afternoon waiting around. All you wanted was a quick bite before throwing yourself into everything else.
Scanning over the stands you noticed one almost empty. You started walking over to it. Thankfully there was only one person in line.
As their order was being prepared, you stepped closer and examined the menu hanging above the counter.
It read:
Spaghetti $8
Gnocchi $8
Lasagna $14
Pizza $3
Panzerotto fritto $1
Gelato $16
You could almost feel yourself pass out from the prices. What was wrong with people these days? Why was everything so expensive?
The person ahead of you moved aside the moment they received their order. You stepped forward, finally coming face-to-face with the man running the stand. He had creamy beige skin, short black hair, a silly upturned mustache, bushy eyebrows, and dark blue eyes. A white apron covered his clothes while a matching white hat sat neatly atop his head.
“How can I help you?” the man asked in a cheerful high-pitched voice. His accent sounded different from any you'd heard before.
“Uhh, can I please have a piss-a?” you answered, frowning slightly at your own pronunciation. You weren't entirely sure if you had said it correctly. Truthfully, you'd never even heard the word before today.
“Pizza. Piz-za.” the man corrected with a smile. “It's Italian.”
He quickly turned around, grabbed what appeared to be dough, and began pressing it flat with a wooden roller.
“Italian?”
“Yeah. Across the Atlantic Ocean there's a place in Europe called Italy, that's where I'm from.”
“Ohhh…”
“You've never heard of it?” the man continued working, now spreading tomato paste across the flattened dough before sprinkling shredded cheese over the top and placing it inside an oven.
“Can't say that I have, nope. Sorry…” you awkwardly scratched the back of your head.
“Ah, that's alright. Where are you from, if I may ask?” he turned back to look at you.
“I'm from here.”
“Whiskey Falls?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, I've never been here before, but it’s fine. Only have live in America for two years. Can't explore everything at once.”
“Ohh… that's nice?”
“Yeah. I mean, it's why I joined the circus. It allows me to travel all across the country while still earning my keep and being protected.” he paused briefly before continuing. “Gotta say, you guys have a lot of problems out there. I haven't personally met any of them, but I've heard all about these outlaws, gangs, bounty hunters…” the man's expression became noticeably more serious. “Those other hunters too, I guess…”
You frowned at his last words, you knew who he was referring to, and oh how much those men gave you the creeps. You weren't ignorant to what was happening out there in the world. The dangers lurking beyond the safety of towns and settlements. It was one of the main reasons you were grateful to live somewhere like Whiskey Falls. Every time you heard stories about what happened on the open frontier, your entire body felt numb. It was a cruel world.
Suddenly a ding rang. The Italian man immediately turned around and removed the pizza with a large wooden paddle.
“Here, try it.” he handed over the freshly baked pizza.
It was quite small, honestly. You could comfortably hold it with both hands.
Skeptical at first, you took a bite, letting the flavors settle on your tongue. The combination of warm bread, melted cheese and tomato sauce was unlike anything you'd tasted before. With every chew, the flavor seemed to grow stronger.
Your eyes widened, then widened even more. Without realizing it, you immediately took another bite and another and another. The pizza disappeared entirely within seconds.
The Italian man laughed. “It's good, am I right?”
You nodded enthusiastically, wiping your mouth with a handkerchief you had tucked away inside your pocket for emergencies. You'd clean the old piece of cloth later.
“If you want, I can make you another. Larger this time.” the man behind the stand suggested.
“No, it's quite alright. Thanks. Don't want to get too full before dinner.”
You pulled out your purse, handing over the money.
“Thank you for coming.” the man gave a polite smile.
You nodded back before turning away from the stand. The sounds of the fair immediately swallowed you again as laughter, music, and excited voices carried from every direction.
Lunch was finished which meant the real fun was about to begin.
There were attractions in every direction, making it difficult to decide where to go next. Bright banners fluttered overhead while people drifted between tents and booths.
Immediately your attention was drawn to a row of fenced pens. Strange animals were inside them. Animals you'd never seen before. Several children crowded around the enclosures, begging their parents for a few coins so they could buy feed from the attendants. Most of the adults eventually gave in, unable to resist the pleading looks directed their way.
The first animal caught your attention.
It was a bird. A very large bird. Ridiculously large. Strong legs supported its body while black feathers covered most of it, except for the white feathers decorating the tips of its tiny wings and tail. Its neck seemed impossibly long and ended in a small head framed by enormous eyelashes.
According to the sign besides the enclosure the animal was called an ostrich.
You stared at it for a moment. The ostrich stared back. The two of you continued staring at each other until the bird suddenly lowered its head and began pecking at the ground, apparently deciding you were not interesting enough to warrant further attention. How rude.
You continued looking, some animals you recognized, others you didn’t. A few pens later stood another strange creature.
At first glance it looked similar to a horse or perhaps a donkey. Its neck was long like the ostrich's, though far furrier, and its large eyes observed the crowd. White and brown fur covered its entire body. A llama said the sign.
You couldn't help but laugh when a small boy approached the animal with a small cup of grass and leaves. The llama leaned forward, stared at him for a second, then promptly spit directly into his face. The horrified scream that followed only made you laugh harder. The boy's mother looked far less amused.
Further down stood yet another enclosure.
This animal was strange too. At first it looked like a turtle, then you noticed it wasn't. It was much larger and carried a heavy dome-shaped shell on its back. According to the sign, tortoises were different from turtles. They couldn't swim, preferred living on land, and spent most of their lives eating plants and vegetables.
Interesting. Not nearly as entertaining as the llama, but interesting.
The final animal was perhaps the oddest of them all.
Its rounded body was covered in coarse shaggy fur while long limbs dangled awkwardly beneath it. Three enormous curved claws extended from each foot, and its small rounded head seemed almost too tiny for the rest of its body.
The creature moved slowly, very slowly. Painfully slowly. You watched it for nearly five minutes before realizing it had barely changed positions. A sloth. Its name felt very appropriate considering it appeared committed to doing absolutely nothing.
You eventually left the exhibit and headed for the games and activities that were waiting further ahead, already feeling the excitement to win a few prizes.
There were all types of games around here; bottles placed on a table for people to throw small circular objects onto them, another table with cups for people to toss balls inside, a water bucket filled with apples for people to catch using only their mouths.
A burst of complaints suddenly drew your attention elsewhere. A man sat atop a small chair suspended above a larger water trough with a bright red target besides him. A group of teenagers took turns throwing balls at it, determined to knock him into the water. They missed repeatedly until one finally managed to hit the center. The mechanism released immediately, sending the unfortunate man crashing into the water below with a loud splash. You laughed alongside the crowd as cheers erupted around him.
There were all sorts of activities happening around the fairgrounds. People laughed, children screamed excitedly, merchants called out to passing visitors, and performers wandered through the crowd entertaining anyone willing to stop and watch.
As you continued walking, taking in everything around you, a familiar head of blonde hair caught your attention.
“Hey, Yuki!” you approached her with a greeting.
“Oh hey, what are you doing here? Didn't expect to see you today.”
You awkwardly smiled, heat creeping up to your cheeks.
“Oh, by the way, this is Choso. I've been meaning to introduce you guys to him, but with everything that's happened recently, I haven't had the time.” Yuki stepped a foot back, allowing you to get a better look at him.
You recognized him immediately. He was one of the men who had been sitting with Sukuna that day in the saloon. He was tall, though a bit shorter than Sukuna …and Yuki, his pale skin contrasting sharply his long dark brown hair that reached just above the shoulders. Small dark eyes rested beneath thin eyebrows, while unusual markings stretched across the bridge of his nose and along both cheeks. Like Sukuna and Toji, he wore black despite the scorching afternoon heat. Honestly, you had no idea how any of these men weren't melting beneath all those layers.
For a brief second Choso's eyes widened in recognition too. Then, just as quickly, his expression returned to its usual blankness.
“Hi.” he said, bringing a hand up in greeting.
“Uhh, hello there. I'm...” you introduced yourself.
Based on his reaction, it was obvious he already knew exactly who you were.
Noticing the suspicious look lingering on your face, Yuki quickly stepped in. “Choso's allergic to the sun, if you're wondering why he's dressed like that.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean his friends are allergic to the sun too?”
The man immediately glared at you while Yuki burst out laughing. It might've sounded like a joke to her, but you definitely weren't joking. The more you learned about these men, the stranger they became.
Choso rolled his eyes and turned away, grabbing one of the balls resting nearby. Only then did you realize they had been playing one of the carnival games. A stack of cans sat arranged neatly at the end of a table. Players received three chances to knock them all down and win a prize. Choso pulled his arm back before launching the final ball. The remaining cans scattered through the air, sending Yuki jumping in excitement.
“Good job!” she smiled brightly while giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up.
The worker behind the stand picked up the fallen cans and arranged them neatly again before handing Choso a small plush toy as his prize. Without hesitation, he passed it to Yuki.
Immediately her eyes lit up.
“Thank you!”
Before Choso could react, she threw her arms around him in a hug. For a brief second he simply stood there frozen, as if his mind had stopped working entirely. Then shook his head and let out a quiet chuckle before placing an arm behind her back.
The sight was cute. It was nice knowing that Yuki was enjoying herself and that she felt comfortable enough around him. Then again, Yuki had always been like that with everyone. Friendly, open, and capable of making friends almost anywhere she went.
“Sooo, how do you two know each other?” you questioned, kicking a small rock on the ground.
“Oh.” Yuki paused, placing a hand on her chin as she thought back to the memory. “Choso helped me a few days ago. The gate to one of the sheep pens came loose or something, I'm not really sure what happened, but all the animals escaped and I had to run after them. Luckily Choso happened to be nearby and helped me round them all up. Ever since then we've been friends.”
“I see.” you nodded at the story, though your eyes lingered on Choso for a second longer than necessary. “Well, I'm just glad you're okay. You seem really happy to be here.”
“I am. I've never been to a fair before. Well...” she rubbed the back of her neck. “At least not a fun one like this.”
“That's good.” you smiled, then glanced at Choso again. “I was just worried, that's all.”
“Worried?” Choso finally spoke up.
You looked back at him. “Yeah.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “About what?”
You shifted your weight from one foot to the other. “Well, you know...”
“No, I don't.” the stare he gave you was intense. “You can say it.”
You awkwardly cleared your throat. “Well, you just met him a few days ago.” you motioned vaguely at him. “And people around here don't exactly have the best experiences with strangers showing up out of nowhere.”
Immediately Choso's expression darkened. “So because I'm a stranger, I'm suspicious?”
Before you could answer, Yuki placed a hand against his chest. “Hey, it's okay.” she laughed nervously. “She's just worried about me, that's all. She's a good friend.”
“She doesn't look worried.” Choso muttered.
“She is.” Yuki insisted. “That's just how she is.”
Choso stared down at her for a moment before briefly glancing in your direction. The look he gave you made it clear he wasn't convinced, but when his eyes returned to Yuki, some of the tension left his shoulders. He seemed to weigh his options, debating whether the argument was worth continuing.
Eventually he let out a long defeated sigh. “Alright. Alright.” he stepped back and folded his arms.
Yuki immediately brightened up again. “Hey, they're doing a show in a few minutes inside the big tent. You wanna come with us?”
Besides her, Choso rolled his eyes.
“Oh, wouldn't I be interrupting you two?”
“Nonsense!” Yuki waved the concern away. “Besides, Choso's friends are going to be there and I'd honestly feel a lot better having someone I know around. No offense, Choso, but your friends are kinda weird.”
He laughed. “No worries. I get it.”
“Great! Well, what do you say?”
“I mean, sure. If it's no problem.”
“Then that's settled.”
Before anyone could protest, Yuki immediately grabbed your hand with one hand and Choso's with the other, dragging both of you through the crowd. The giant red-and-white tent seemed to grow larger with every step while music and laughter drifted from somewhere inside. Whatever was happening in there, it sounded like it was about to begin.
The tent was huuuuge, rows upon rows of chairs occupying most of the space while a smaller stage stood in the center beneath the bright lights. People continued pouring inside, searching for seats as low murmurs filled the air. The scent of sawdust hung back beneath the smell of perfume, sweat, and buttery snacks people had purchased from the vendors outside. An awful combination.
The row you had chosen was completely full except for five chairs. Choso sat at one end with Yuki besides him, leaving her directly in the middle between the two of you. To your right remained two empty seats.
“I’m so excited for this.” Yuki whispered, barely able to contain herself.
“I know, me too.” you agreed while shamelessly stealing a piece of popcorn from the bag Choso had bought for her.
The two of you engaged in pointless chatter while more people slowly filled the tent. The empty seats gradually disappeared one by one until only a few remained scattered throughout the crowd. Children bounced impatiently in their chairs while adults settled in for the show. Soon enough the bright lights illuminating the audience dimmed, leaving the stage as the main focus of attention.
“Is it starting?” Yuki looked up excitedly.
Before you could answer, another voice suddenly joined in.
“Choso, you didn’t tell us you were bringing company.”
When you turned around you saw Sukuna. Of course it was him, and with Toji too nonetheless. He looked just as unimpressed as always.
“We’ll move up.” you offered, already beginning to stand. “That way you can sit together.”
“No need.” Sukuna waved the suggestion away. “Choso seems like he doesn't want interruptions, and besides...” his eyes briefly drifted towards you. “The view is much better from here.” a smug smirk appeared on his face.
Choso immediately grunted and rolled his eyes again.
“Okay...” you and Yuki exchanged confused looks as the two men sat down. Yuki remained on your left, Sukuna now occupied the seat to your right, and Toji claimed the remaining chair at the far end next to Sukuna.
Great. Just great.
“So...” Sukuna spoke up. “Where's your boyfriend? Did you two finally break up?”
The man didn't even wait five minutes before causing problems.
“He's not my boyfriend.” you admitted, already annoyed.
“No?” Sukuna raised an eyebrow. “Then what is he? Your best friend? A cousin? Your enemy? An acquaintance? Your fiancé? Future husband?”
The bastard was enjoying this. It was evident in his voice. You shot him a sour expression, irritated by how openly he was toying with you, but before you could retaliate another voice cut through the conversation.
“Sukuna, leave her alone.”
It was Choso’s.
“Alright, alright.” Sukuna huffed dramatically. “Just messing with you, sweetheart.” he leaned back into his chair. “You're no fun, Choso.”
The sound of drums suddenly echoed throughout the tent.
“Finally.” Yuki sighed happily.
A man emerged from behind the curtains dressed in black pants, a white button-up shirt, a golden corset, and a red jacket adorned with elaborate gold embroidery; a matching red tie rested around his neck while a black top hat completed the extravagant outfit. He strode confidently to the center of the stage, his smile bright and welcoming.
He stopped in the middle of the stage and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to the Magnific Travelling Cirque! We are honored to have each and every one of you here tonight.”
The crowd immediately erupted into cheers and applause. The man waited patiently, basking in the attention. He gave a small bow, removing his hat and pressing it against his chest before placing it back on his head.
“Yes, thank you, thank you! I am your gracious host, Antone Van Dusen—or just Tony for short, though only my friends call me that.” he grinned.
A few people in the audience laughed.
“And by the end of tonight, I hope all of you will consider yourselves my friends. Now, during my extensive travels across this great land and many foreign lands beyond, I have searched for wonders unlike any others. Marvels that have left kings speechless, travelers bewildered, and entire crowds questioning whether what they witnessed was real or merely a dream.” he slowly paced across the stage, his voice carrying effortlessly through the tent. “I have crossed oceans, climbed mountains, wandered deserts, and traveled roads most sensible people would never dare step foot upon, all in pursuit of one goal: to bring the extraordinary to ordinary folk.” his grin widened. “And because every dreamer deserves a chance to witness the impossible, I have ensured that the price of admission remains delightfully affordable.”
Delightfully affordable he said. You almost snorted. As if you hadn't nearly fainted earlier when you saw the prices.
Antone continued without missing a beat. “And the show is held without profit to me. It's true! For it is blessing enough to bring these gifted artists to you.” he paused dramatically before continuing “I discovered this first act in a tiny village in Italy. When I found him I fed him, bathed him, rescued him, and shaved him from head to toe. He is truly a wonder to behold.” his voice rose. “Now presenting... Luigi Monti!”
Antone disappeared behind the curtains and seconds later music filled the tent. The curtains parted, revealing a mountain of a man. Muscles bulged from nearly every inch of his body. Just as Antone had claimed, the man appeared completely shaved except for his mustache. He wore only a thin blue-and-purple shirt and matching shorts.
In front of him sat a massive weight.
Luigi flexed his muscles proudly, drawing whistles and cheers from different parts of the audience. A few women giggled. The strongman soaked in the attention for a moment before spitting into his hands and rubbing them together.
The chatter throughout the tent died down. Everyone watched in silence.
Luigi bent down and grabbed the handles. At first nothing happened. Then slowly, very slowly, the weight began to rise. Veins bulged along his arms and neck while every muscle in his body strained beneath the effort. His entire frame trembled as he lifted it higher and higher, the heavy metal creaking slightly until it finally rested above his head.
The crowd exploded into cheering. Several people rose from their seats to clap.
Luigi grinned triumphantly before lowering the weight back down.
CRASH!
The stage shook beneath the impact. The applauses only grew louder. Several workers hurried onto the stage pushing a tall machine covered in numbered markings with a bell mounted at the very top. Another worker dragged out a massive hammer that looked heavy enough to break a man's back.
Without hesitation Luigi grabbed it. The strongman swung the hammer over his shoulder and brought it down.
CRASH!
The plate at the bottom of the machine slammed downwards, launching a small metallic ball racing to the top. Everyone watched it ascend higher, higher, higher, until a DING echoed. The bell rang loudly throughout the tent.
The audience continued with their cheering even more aggressive than before. Luigi raised both arms victoriously before finally bowing as the curtains closed in front of the man.
“Tch.” Sukuna clicked his tongue. “I could've done that myself.”
“No, you couldn't.” you clapped your hands.
“Wanna bet?”
Antone emerged from behind the curtains.
“Yes, yes! Truly a feat of incredibility!” he spread his arms wide. “I told you he would bring all manner of personal satisfaction. He certainly does for me...” he chuckled to himself. “But ladies and gentlemen, if you thought that was impressive, then prepare yourselves. Our next performer comes from the distant lands of Brazil and possesses a talent so extraordinary it borders on the impossible.” he lowered his voice dramatically. “She breathes fire.”
The crowd immediately stirred.
“Yes! Actual fire!” Antone pointed towards the curtains. “Presenting... Paola Jardim Clemente!”
A gorgeous woman wearing a flowing green dress stepped onto the stage. Two wooden sticks rested in her hands while a lantern burned brightly nearby. She lit one stick before using it to ignite the second.
The tent fell quiet, everyone seemed captivated.
Paola moved gracefully across the stage, spinning the flames through the air as though they were nothing at all. The fire danced around her hands, illuminating her face in shades of orange and gold. She passed the flames between her fingers, brought them close to her mouth, extinguished them, and reignited them moments later.
Her movements were elegant, hypnotic, like watching a dance and a magic trick at the same time.
The audience watched in amazement.
Then Paola grabbed a golden flask, took a drink from it, stepped into the center of the stage and exhaled. A massive stream of fire came from her mouth.
Gasps echoed throughout the tent. The flames illuminated everything around in brilliant shades before finally disappearing.
For a brief second nobody reacted, then the audience burst into thunderous applause. Even Toji, who barely reacted to anything, was cheering now.
“Wow.” Yuki stared at the stage in amazement. “She looks like a dragon. You know, from those storybooks people read to children.”
“She does.” you agreed. “She's amazing.”
Paola smiled and gave a bow before disappearing behind the curtains.
Almost immediately Antone reappeared. “Oh wonder! Incredible!” he fanned himself with his hat. “It's getting hot in here.”
Several audience members laughed.
“Well then, perhaps our next performers can cool things down. I discovered these remarkable twins in the mysterious lands of Yemen. Please welcome Mazhar and Marwa Mohammedi!”
The curtains opened for the third or fourth time. You stopped counting after the first.
A woman dressed in pink danced across the stage with a massive snake draped around her shoulders. Next to her stood a man in red who looked nearly identical, a flute resting between his lips as he played a soft melody.
The snake moved alongside the music, or perhaps alongside the dancer. It was difficult to tell.
The twins danced around one another with practiced precision while the snake slithered across Marwa's arms and shoulders as though it too had rehearsed the performance. The music rose and fell alongside their movements, guiding every step and turn.
The audience watched in fascination. Some people leaned forward. Others looked mildly concerned every time the snake raised its head.
The music eventually slowed.
Mazhar—still with flute in hand—lowered himself besides a basket placed at the center of the stage while Marwa remained standing behind him. As the instrument continued playing, the snake slowly descended from her shoulders and lowered itself into the basket. The animal seemed to be hypnotized by the melody of the flute.
The final note lingered through the tent. The audience applauded once more. The twins smiled and bowed, holding their hands together before disappearing in the curtains.
The show carried on for a while longer. Performers from different countries stepped onto the stage one after another, each bringing something different to the audience. Some made people laugh, others amazed them, and a few left the crowd scratching their heads wondering how such things were even possible.
As the acts passed, the audience followed the same routine every time: watching in wonder, applauding once it was over, and eagerly waiting to see what would come next.
Antone stepped onto the stage once more.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, I know it has been quite a show, but I promise we have one final act. Unlike our previous performers who came from distant corners of the world, this next woman comes from here, the United States of America. Like me, she has traveled the world collecting stories, legends, and tales of the macabre. Stories that will leave every hair on your body standing at attention and send chills crawling down your spine. Please welcome Bee Bole.”
The curtains opened, revealing an elderly woman seated in a wooden chair with a book resting on her lap. Behind her stood a large white screen illuminated by dim lighting. Compared to the colorful performances before, the stage looked strangely simple. There were no exotic animals, no elaborate costumes, no giant props. Just an old woman and her book.
“Hello there, children,” she greeted warmly. “It's so nice for you all to join me tonight. Now I know you must all be exhausted after such a long day, so come closer and allow Auntie Bee to share some stories she gathered from all across the globe.”
The lights dimmed further. Behind her, shadows began appearing on the screen. Bare trees swayed in an invisible wind while their twisted branches stretched across the white canvas.
“This first story comes from a land not far from here. It comes from Méjico, as they call it over there... In the streets of Méjico there exists a legend about a woman.”
A shadow appeared with long hair and flowing dress. A lonely figure standing.
“The legend says Maria was once the most beautiful woman in town. Men admired her. Women envied her. Mothers pointed her out to their daughters and told them to grow up to be just like her.”
The shadow gracefully moved across the screen.
“And one day Maria got married.”
A second silhouette appeared next to hers.
“For a time she was happy. She had a husband, a home, and eventually two beautiful sons.”
Two smaller figures appeared before the couple.
“But happiness has a way of slipping through our fingers. Little by little, Maria began noticing things. Long absences. Broken promises. Strange perfume that did not belong to her.”
A fifth silhouette of another woman emerged in the far back. The man's shadow slowly turned away from Maria.
“Some say her husband betrayed her. Others say he abandoned her entirely. Whatever the truth may be, Maria's heart broke all the same.”
The shadows separated. Maria stood alone.
“Her grief turned to despair. Her despair turned to rage.” Bee's voice lowered. “And in that moment of madness, Maria committed an unforgivable sin.”
The two children appeared besides their mother.
“She led her sons to the river. And there...” Bee gave a dramatic pause. “She drowned them.”
The shadows struggled against the water. Splashes echoed throughout the tent. Then stillness.
“After realizing what she had done, Maria threw herself into the same river.”
The silhouette disappeared beneath the surface.
The atmosphere inside the tent shifted. A few people shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
“Now her spirit wanders forever in search of her lost children.”
The shadow returned. Wrong. Twisted. Its once graceful figure now bent unnaturally.
“Mis hijos...” Bee whispered, her voice echoed softly throughout the tent. “Mis hijos... ¿Dónde están mis hijos?”
The ghostly figure stretched its arms outward. Searching. Begging.
Nobody spoke. A few awkward claps eventually sounded from somewhere in the audience while others exchanged nervous looks.
“Scary, I know.” Bee smiled. “But our next story comes from much farther away. A strange place called Japan.”
The moment she said it, something felt strange. A tension settled over the row, subtle yet impossible to ignore. You exchanged a brief glance with Yuki and judging by the confused look on her face, she seemed to feel it too.
“In these distant lands there exists a Yōkai. A demon.”
The shadows shifted to something new. A shrine appeared nestled among mountains. Then a woman. Pregnant.
“Long ago, during a terrible drought, a shrine maiden found herself carrying a child. Food was scarce. Crops withered beneath the sun. The rivers shrank. People starved.”
The audience listened quietly.
“Yet despite the suffering, the life inside her continued to grow.”
The silhouette rested a hand on her stomach.
“When the time finally came for the child to be born, everyone gathered to witness the miracle.” Bee paused. “But what came into the world that night was no miracle.”
The silhouette changed. Several people gasped as the shape slowly took form across the screen. Four arms. Two faces. Four eyes. A second mouth resting upon its stomach. The figure looked grotesque, something that should not have existed.
“Horror spread through the shrine.”
The monstrous infant stretched across the screen.
“The villagers called him cursed. An abomination. A monster sent to punish them.”
The child sat alone. Tiny. Isolated.
“The other children feared him.”
Several smaller silhouettes appeared before running away.
“Adults crossed the road to avoid him.”
More shadows turned their backs.
“Some prayed for his death. Others wished he had never been born at all. But monsters are not born believing they are monsters.”
The silhouette remained alone.
“They learn it.”
The child grew older.
“Day after day.”
Taller.
“Year after year.”
The figure continued changing.
“Until eventually the child becomes exactly what the world always insisted he was.”
The silhouette towered across the screen now. A man with four arms and two faces.
The crowd watched quietly.
“He ravaged villages. Murdered without mercy. Devoured those unfortunate enough to cross his path.”
The monstrous figure laughed. In one of its lower arms rested the silhouette of a crying infant.
“Men called him a demon. Women whispered his name in fear. Parents used stories of him to frighten misbehaving children.”
The figure continued growing larger across the screen.
“Years later, heroes finally defeated him. Yet legend tells the demon split his soul into twenty of his fingers before dying.”
The shadows shifted to a younger man holding one of the fingers.
“Whoever consumes them gains unimaginable power...”
The figure raised it to his mouth.
“But in return...” she lowered her voice almost to a whisper, “they become possessed by the King of Curses himself.”
The shadow swallowed the finger. Darkness consumed the screen.
The tent remained completely silent. No one moved. No one spoke. Even the men seemed unsure whether they should be frightened or amazed. Only after several long seconds did applause begin spreading through the audience, hesitant at first before growing louder.
You turned your head.
Sukuna sat perfectly still. His eyes remained fixed on the stage. The applause washed around him, yet he seemed not to hear any of it. The expression on his face was impossible to read. Not amused. Not bored. Not irritated. Just distant. For the first time since meeting him, he looked completely caught off guard.
Slowly you reached over and nudged his arm. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Huh?” his head snapped towards you so sudden it almost made you jump. For the briefest moment his eyes widened in what looked almost like fear before he realized who had spoken, then it disappeared just as quickly.
“Yeah, I'm fine.” he swallowed hard.
“You seemed tense for a moment.” you smiled teasingly. “Don't tell me that story scared you. I bet none of it is real and just something somebody made up.”
“Sure...” he answered quietly.
You studied him for a moment longer. He still looked tense. His shoulders remained stiff against the chair while his jaw tightened ever so slightly. His breathing seemed shallower than before, and despite the air filtering through the tent, a bead of sweat rolled slowly down the side of his forehead. Maybe it was because of how crowded the tent had become. Maybe it was the heat from the lanterns. Maybe. Yet something about his reaction felt different.
Bee continued with her stories, telling tales of Baba Yaga, an old witch who lived deep within the forest, followed by the Headless Horseman and mischievous Poltergeists known for causing disturbances wherever they went. After that came the Banshee, a wailing spirit whose cries were said to foretell death before tragedy struck. The audience reacted much as they had throughout the evening, laughing, gasping, and occasionally shivering whenever a story became particularly unsettling.
Yet as the stories carried on, your attention drifted less and less towards the stage and more to the man sitting besides you. Every so often you'd glance in his direction, expecting him to have returned to his usual smug self. Instead, he remained unusually quiet, lost somewhere inside his own thoughts. He looked genuinely unsettled.
Soon later Bee’s stories came to an end and she closed her book, giving the audience one final smile. The crowd applauded politely, before the old woman stood from her chair and disappeared behind the curtains.
A minute later Antone returned to the stage.
“Well, that was Bee Bole. Hopefully you'll all be able to sleep soundly tonight.” he chuckled. “Be sure to check underneath the bed and inside your closets. Ahh, I'm just kidding with you. There are no such things as vengeful spirits, half-human sea creatures luring sailors to their doom with enchanting songs, and there are certainly not men turning into werewolves beneath the full moon.”
A few people laughed, others looked considerably less convinced.
“Well, that will be everything for today, folks. Thank you all for stopping by. Remember, we'll be hosting more performances tomorrow, so you're all welcome to return. For now, enjoy the rest of the circus!”
Antone bowed deeply. Behind him the curtains opened one last time, revealing the performers lined side by side. The audience applauded as every performer stepped forward and bowed together.
Slowly people began rising from their seats.
The tent immediately filled with random chatter. Conversations overlapped as people stood from their seats, gathered their belongings, and began making their way to the exit. One by one.
“Well that was amazing.” Yuki stretched her arms. “The fire lady was definitely my favorite.”
“The strongman.” Choso answered immediately.
“Of course you'd pick the strongman.”
“He was impressive.”
“He picked up heavy things.”
“Very heavy things.”
Yuki rolled her eyes.
You couldn't help laughing.
Next to you, Sukuna finally seemed to return to himself. The distant look that had haunted him during Bee's stories was gone, replaced once more by the familiar smug expression you'd grown accustomed to, or perhaps he was simply pretending.
“Ready to go?” Choso asked from the end of the row.
“Yeah.” Toji stood up first.
The rest of you followed shortly, joining the flock of people heading to the exits.
The cool air greeted you the moment you stepped outside. Lanterns illuminated the fairgrounds as the laughter and music continued across the night. Some families were already heading home, but many others remained behind, determined to enjoy every last moment before the circus closed for the night.
You glanced back to the tent for a second. From the outside it looked harmless; colorful, bright, filled with wonder. Yet despite that, Bee's stories lingered stubbornly in the back of your mind. A monster born in a drought. Ancient curses. Hungry spirits.
You shook the story away. They were only tales …at least, that's what you told yourself as you followed the others deeper into the fairgrounds.
The five of you walked away from the giant tent. The circus felt just as alive as before, if not more so. Music drifted through the air while the colorful lanterns flickered to life around the various booths and attractions.
“That was amazing!” Yuki exclaimed excitedly.
“Yeah, it was.” you smiled at her.
“I’ll probably come back tomorrow. The host mentioned they have more performances, so I’m curious to see what types of shows they’ll do next.”
You nodded. “Have fun, Yuki.”
“Bet I will. Hey, want to finish trying out those games?” she pointed at one of the booths farther down the street.
For a moment the offer was tempting, but you still had one last thing to do before leaving. You still needed to buy something for your father. One of those foreign pastries perhaps. It wasn't much, but at least it would allow him to enjoy a small piece of the fair despite being unable to attend himself.
“Uhhh, Yuki?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to go. It’s getting quite late and I don’t want to get home when the sun's fully gone.”
“Oh.” the excitement in her expression softened slightly. “Okay... I’ll see you later then. But hey...” she grabbed both your hands. “I had lots of fun with you today.”
You smiled warmly at her. “I did too.”
Neither moved, the sounds of the fair and cicadas carried on around. It had been a long time since you'd enjoyed yourself this much.
Yuki gave your hands one last squeeze before finally letting go. “Well, I'll see you around.”
“See you around.”
With that, the two of you parted ways. You turned and headed back to the food stands while Yuki returned to Choso.
The evening crowd had begun to grow thicker now, people stopping at booths with the same idea in mind; buy sweets and snacks before heading home.
You had barely made it halfway down the path when you heard it. The crunch of boots on dirt. At first you paid it no mind. It was a fair after all. Hundreds of people were wandering around. Of course there would be footsteps. Then it happened again. And again. Each time matching your pace almost perfectly. Your eyebrows furrowed. Maybe it was a coincidence. You slowed slightly. The footsteps slowed too. You sped up. They sped up. Now that was suspicious.
Stopping completely, you turned around only to find Sukuna standing a few feet behind you.
“Why are you following me?” you called out.
“I’m not.” he insisted without missing a beat.
“Hmmph...” you narrowed your eyes suspiciously before turning around and continuing down the path.
The footsteps followed again.
Deciding to ignore him, you continued. After looking through several options, you eventually settled on something simple. A pie. Large enough to divide between everyone back home—yourself, father, Kenai, and Elsu. Something small for everyone to enjoy together. Father would probably insist on giving away his slice to someone else, but that was exactly why you bought enough for everyone.
“Thanks.” you handed over the money to the vendor and accepted the small box containing the pastry.
And of course, standing directly behind you like some oversized bear, was Sukuna.
You sighed. “Why are you still following me?”
“I am not. I’m simply buying myself something to eat.” he stepped besides you and looked at the man sitting behind the stand. “A biscuit, please.”
The worker nodded and accepted the coins before handing him the pastry wrapped in a thin cloth. Sukuna immediately took a bite, crumbs sticking to the side of his face.
“So...” he chewed. “You taking that to someone or keeping it all to yourself?”
You exhaled. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m buying this for my father.”
As Sukuna spoke, your attention hovered elsewhere. Down at the end stood more familiar figures. Geto and Riko. Geto appeared occupied with whatever while Riko laughed. Not that she never laughed. She did, but usually only with him, however, this time was different. Toji was sitting at their table too and she was talking to him, laughing with him. Actually laughing. Willingly participating in the conversation with someone else besides Suguru. And from the looks of it, she seemed unusually talkative too.
How strange. Riko was rarely like that with anyone else, no matter how hard everyone else—you, Shoko, Utahime, Yuki, even Satoru and Yuta—tried. Still, it was nice seeing her like this. Maybe she was finally becoming more comfortable around other people. Maybe she was finally beginning to open up.
A voice suddenly interrupted.
“Hey. Are you listening to me?” Sukuna raised an eyebrow, his expression clearly annoyed that you had been ignoring him.
“Yeah, sorry.” you blinked. “Got distracted. What were you saying?”
You glanced back at the sky. The sun had lowered considerably now. Orange and pink painted the horizon while the first stars slowly began appearing overhead.
“Actually...” you adjusted the pie box in your hands. “Can you save it for another time? It’s getting late and I don’t want to be out after dark.”
Sukuna grinned. “Worried daddy’s gonna scold you for breaking curfew?”
“No.” your boot pressed harder into the dirt, dragging slightly as you shifted your weight. “Just don’t want to get back home so late.”
It wasn't entirely a lie, just not the whole truth. The real reason was much simpler… Naoya. For whatever reason, every unpleasant encounter seemed to happen around sunset or after. During the day he was usually occupied somewhere on the Zenin estate, but once evening came he suddenly appeared everywhere.
Sukuna studied you quietly. The way your heel dug into the dirt. The anxious shift of your posture. The furrow between your brows. The worry lingering in your eyes.
“And why’s that if he doesn’t mind?” Sukuna tilted his head. “After all, the real fun begins when the moon comes out. The town becomes a whole lot more interesting at night.” he chuckled softly, though from the sound of it he seemed to be talking more to himself than to you.
“I just don’t want to run into any trouble.” you admitted.
“Trouble.” he repeated, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “Would this trouble happen to be a certain rich idiot with an ego so big it needs its own property deed?”
Despite yourself, a laugh escaped. “Could be talking about any other man with that description.”
Sukuna barked out another laugh. “Heh. Fair point.” his smile widened, revealing those unusually long upper canines. “But jokes aside,” his expression softened ever so slightly. “You want me to walk you home? Make sure you get there safe?”
“Oh.”
The offer caught you off guard.
You quickly waved a hand. “No, don’t worry. That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine. You should just stay here and enjoy yourself with your friends.”
He clicked his tongue. “Nah. It’s fine. I should probably get back home too. It’s getting late for me as well.” his eyes wandered briefly before returning to you. “So what do you say? Your house is on the way to mine anyways.”
“You know where I live?”
Sukuna froze tho only for a second, but you noticed.
“Uhhh...” he cleared his throat. “Saw you a few days ago when you were on a date with your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Stop saying that.” you stomped a foot against the ground.
Sukuna immediately laughed at the reaction. “Alright, alright. Just messing with you.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. There was no way he had simply happened to see you. Not with how quickly that excuse came out of his mouth. Before you could question him any further, he stepped next to you and offered to grab his shoulder.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Without giving you time to argue, he guided you away from the fair and into the road leading back to town. Behind you, the circus continued buzzing with life. Slowly, the sounds began to fade the farther you walked away, leaving behind only the crunch of dirt and the presence of the infuriating man stubbornly walking you home.
The two of you walked from the outskirts of Whiskey Falls back into town. Night had begun settling over the valley, bringing with it the sounds of creatures emerging from their daytime hiding spots. Fireflies drifted lazily above the grass like tiny floating stars while an opossum froze the moment it heard approaching footsteps, collapsing dramatically onto its side and pretending to be dead. Somewhere high within the trees an owl hooted, its call echoing softly through the darkness.
It felt calm, serene. Your heart was at peace.
Father was back home safe. Whatever horrors he had witnessed in Sourwater, whatever dangers he had faced during his journey, he had returned. That alone felt like a blessing.
Of course, he hadn't come back alone. Kenai and Elsu were strangers, but you found yourself trusting them surprisingly quickly. Perhaps because father trusted them too. Perhaps because they carried themselves like honorable men. It was refreshing after having to constantly deal with Naoya and his endless persistence.
Then there was Sukuna. You still didn't trust him, not completely. He was still new to town, still a stranger, and trust was not something you handed out freely. But despite that, you couldn't ignore the things he had done. The first night in the saloon he had seemed intimidating. Dangerous. The sort of man sensible people crossed the street to avoid. Yet after spending time around him, that image had begun to crack. Not disappear. Just crack.
He was still intimidating, still unsettling, but he'd also helped you. Twice now. First when Naoya had humiliated you in front of half the town. And now by stubbornly insisting on walking you home.
You cleared your throat. “Soooo, what made you decide to come to Whiskey Falls?”
Sukuna glanced sideways. “Heard it was a comfortable town. Peaceful. Quiet.”
“And do you like it?” you asked, holding the box.
“Hmm.” he scratched his jaw. “So far, yeah. Few vermin running around here and there, but nothing we can't tolerate.”
“Ahh, I see.”
The road stretched ahead beneath the growing moonlight.
“What’s your story with those two other men?”
“Toji and Choso?”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing special.” Sukuna shrugged. “Just good friends of mine. Known them for a long time.” his eyes shifted to look at you. “Why do you ask?”
“Nothing.” you shuffled slightly. “Just curious. We're neighbors now, right? Should probably get to know each other better.”
“Right...” Sukuna smirked. “But enough about me. What's your story? Or rather, what's the story with lover boy?”
You immediately rolled your eyes. “Naoya? It's nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Guess he has a thing for me or something. I don't know and honestly I don't care enough to ask. I don't like him.”
“Seems pretty smitten to me.” Sukuna chuckled.
“You know, for someone who threw the man into the mud, you seem a little obsessed with him.”
That shut him up immediately.
Sukuna narrowed his eyes. “I am not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I just think it's pathetic how hard he tries.”
You laughed softly. “Sure.”
The glare he sent you only made you laugh harder.
Before long the familiar outline of your home came into view. Relief immediately settled in your chest and your pace quickened. The pie box tightened in your arm as you hurried up the front steps.
Just as your hand reached for the door, it opened. Josiah stepped outside. The worry on his face disappeared the second he saw you.
“Daughter.” he exhaled heavily. “Thank the Lord. I was beginning to worry, especially after what you told me before.”
“I’m okay, pa.” you stepped forward and kissed his cheek. “Here. I got sweets for you and your friends to share.”
You handed him the box.
Josiah smiled warmly. “That was very thoughtful of you. Thank you.” his eyes moved past your shoulder, the smile faded.
You turned around.
Sukuna had stopped a few feet away.
Neither man spoke. Neither smiled. Neither looked away. It felt strangely similar to watching two wolves sizing each other up.
“Father,” you said, oblivious to the tension. “This is Sukuna. Sukuna, this is my father.”
The silence lingered another second before Sukuna removed his hat.
“He extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, I'm Ryomen.”
Father Clarke accepted it, his grip remained firm. “Father Clarke.”
Their handshake lasted a second longer than necessary.
“Father Clarke, eh?” Sukuna tilted his head slightly. “Heard a lot about you.”
“Oh?”
“Mhm.” his smile never quite reached his eyes. “Everybody speaks highly of you. How your sermons make people cry. How you always know exactly what to say. Seems the whole town looks up to you.”
“Nothing to boast about. I'm simply doing the Lord's work as He commands.”
“How...” Sukuna paused. “Admirable.”
“Yes…” Father Clarke continued “My daughter tells me you're new in town.”
“That's right.”
“Settling in alright?”
“Can't complain.” Sukuna smiled. “People have been very welcoming.”
“I'm glad to hear that. Whiskey Falls is a quiet place. We don't get many newcomers, just visitors and travelers here and there.”
“That's exactly why I came.”
The priest's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Oh?”
“Mhm.” Sukuna placed his hat back atop his head. “After a while you get tired of moving around. Sometimes a man starts looking for somewhere he can finally settle down.”
Father Clarke remained silent for a moment. “Most people come here looking for peace.”
“That's the idea.”
“Then I pray you find it.”
The smile never left Sukuna's face. “I appreciate that.”
Something felt odd. Not in a rude or hostile way. It felt… strange. The way they looked at one another. The way neither seemed willing to break eye contact.
Father Clarke folded his hands together. “Have you traveled much, Ryomen?”
“A little.”
“A little?”
“Here and there.”
“Interesting.” the priest nodded. “Traveling teaches a man many things.”
“It does.”
“Sometimes things he'd rather not know.”
“That's certainly true.” Sukuna chuckled.
The silence that followed felt heavier.
“Father...” you laughed awkwardly.
Neither man reacted.
Father Clarke continued. “Well, regardless, everyone's welcome in Whiskey Falls.”
“That's good to hear.”
“Though I always tell newcomers the same thing.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
The priest's expression remained pleasant. “Secrets have a way of surfacing in small towns.”
Sukuna's grin immediately sharpened, not widened, sharpened. “Do they?”
“Eventually.”
“Guess that's true everywhere.”
“Perhaps.”
The two men continued staring at each other. You suddenly felt very aware of how quiet everything had become.
Then Sukuna spoke. “Good thing I don't have many secrets.”
Father Clarke smiled, it was the kind of warm reassuring smile he used during confessions. The one that never revealed what he was truly thinking.
“Of course.” Father Clarke sighed. “Well, I hope you find what you're looking for.”
“I already have a few things in mind.”
Something about the answer made the hairs on the back of Father Clarke's neck stand up. You, however, remained blissfully unaware.
You laughed awkwardly again, stepping between the two men before the strange tension could continue any longer.
“Well... we should probably get inside. Thank you for walking me home, Sukuna. It was really nice of you.”
Sukuna's expression softened the moment his eyes landed on you. “Please. Ryomen is fine.” then his gaze briefly shifted towards Father Clarke, only for a moment. “And if Naoya ever bothers you again, don't hesitate to reach out.”
“Okay.” you smiled.
Sukuna placed his hat back on his head and turned away. The darkness seemed to swallow him the farther he walked down the road. Fireflies drifted lazily through the grass while a thin veil of mist rolled between the buildings.
You stepped inside and closed the door, immediately you were greeted by Mary wagging her tail excitedly while Gabriel rubbed against your legs demanding attention. Kenai and Elsu sat near the table talking quietly amongst themselves. The smell of dinner floated throughout the house.
For you, the day was finally over. For Father Clarke, it felt as though something had only just begun.
His eyes lingered on the door long after Sukuna had disappeared into the darkness. The conversation replayed itself inside his mind. Every word. Every smile. Every glance.
...Perhaps the old man was simply being paranoid after everything he had seen in Sourwater. Yet deep down, a feeling settled heavily in his chest. The same feeling he had experienced standing inside that abandoned church where Father Bell's remains were left abandoned.
Note: Hope I tagged everyone that asked me to add them. Anyways, chat I'd say there's maybe 2-3 chapters left before shiiiit goes down the drain and we finally get some action. I'm not 100% sure yet because I want to properly develop Sukuna's relationship with the reader before anything too big, but he's just such a grumpy guy >_<
description: princesses are meant to be poised, delicate and untouched by things unbecoming. At least, that's what everyone expects of you. hidden away in your room, curiosity gets the better of you - one that takes a dangerous turn when sir simon riley, your father's most loyal knight, catches you in such an intimate moment. he's far too tangled in temptation - when you ask him to teach you, how could he say no...
word count: 4.2k
tags/warnings: 18+, SMUT with no penetration*, lots of touching (female masturbation), implied age gap, power imbalance. MASK STAYS ON.
"Soap!" Simon's voice echoes down the dimly lit hallway. The sound of metal clanging together as Johnny meets him by the end of the narrow path. Stairs leading towards the main part of the castle, concious that his back is to the wall, peripheral to every entrance - every possible way in.
"High alert tonight whilst the king is travelling. He'll arrive in a few hours but I'm concerned that whilst the princess is here alone we must be careful." Soap says and nods towards Ghost who says nothing behind the mask. The silver in his armour reflects the warmth from the candle's flames beside him, a dark contrast to Ghost's own.
"King's put me in charge of guarding the princess, you guard the main wall." Ghost states to him, who nods and, without question, agrees alongside.
"Happy to swap over once the King arrives Si." Simon nods, not overly pleased with the notion but happy to return to his usual post by the King instead of his daughter. Soap would never understand Simon's loyalty, the way his role had seeped into every crevice of his purpose. He'd fought hard, worked his way up the ranks and made a name for himself, something he would never sacrifice. His job was his life which meant even the princess's was too.
Flashes of (your hair colour and type) wisp into his mind at the thought of you, not getting much of an opportunity to truly speak to you as much as Soap had - you weren't his usual assignment but this time around you were.
Sweet scents of roses would waft his nose every time you'd entered a room or turned a corner, he'd resisted the urge to deeply inhale many times. Being surrounded by men day and night seemed to dull the senses after some time. Deep down he was looking forward to being able to let the scent invade his senses numb without the possibility of anyone watching.
Soap gives him a nod of acknowledgement before heading back down the hallway. Ghost scans his peripheral further before walking down to situate himself in front of your door which was currently manned by another guard several places below his rank. The guards silver armour coming into view.
Once Ghost rounds the corner into eye view, his eyes divert from the masked man to the floor in a second, straightening his posture in fear of being told off for slacking.
"Go." Ghost firmly presses. The guard wastes no time arguing; no one would dare question him. Soap, excluded, of course.
Watching as the guard hurries off without thought, Ghost positions himself with his back to the lightly stained wooden door. The scent of male sweat faded as the guard's steps disappeared; the faintest of something sweet wafted through. He deeply inhales, it was very faint, something you'd have to concentrate to truly appreciate it. You.
He says nothing once more, hoping the night watch was as easy as Soap always made it out to be. No one rarely entered in and out during the night; he assumed he'd spend only a few short hours before returning to the King's side once more.
Your father had been visiting a town not too far from the castle for a night and was returning not too long after leaving. With no one truly left to guard the city, your father had left Simon in charge of his army. With Gaz and John off beside your father, that left Simon and Soap by your side.
The castle settled around him. Servants disappeared into their quarters. Torches burned lower. Conversations faded until the only sounds remaining were the occasional crackle of firelight and the distant footsteps of patrols changing posts.
Behind the door, he could hear faint movement, nothing alarming.
A chair scraping across stone and rustle of fabric alongside the soft thud of something being set down. His shoulders relaxed by a fraction, the princess was still awake. Not unusual, you had always been restless. At least, that's what the servants claimed. Soap seemed to know more. The younger man always managed to find himself tangled in conversations with people throughout the castle.
Kitchen maids, stable hands and apparently princesses too.
"You should speak to her sometime." Soap's words from weeks ago surfaced unexpectedly. Simon had grunted and ignored him. Yet now, standing alone outside your chambers with nothing but his own thoughts for company, Simon found himself wondering. What were you doing in there?
Reading? Writing? Avoiding sleep?
His gaze travelled the length of the corridor once more. Then he heard it. A muffled cry, the sound had come from inside your chambers.
There he heard it again, pained cries - ever so faint in the night. He craned his neck, listening out once more. A hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to strike. Again. Coming right from the princess's room. He wastes no time, sword sheathed and the force of any experienced fighter he kicks the door open revealing the room in its entirety.
"Princess-." He’s across the room before the words die, only to freeze. His voice drops. Laid bare on your poster bed, one hand splayed on your stomach, the other parted within your folds. It took Ghost a second too long before his eyes darted "Shit! My Lady - God, so sorry." Face diverted to the wall now, sheer embarrassment and shock deep within him.
Your father’s most feared knight, a man who had faced war without blinking now looks completely, utterly unprepared. His jaw tightens beneath the scarred edge of his mask. “…Bloody hell,” he mutters quietly.
Heat rushes to your face as you scramble to collect yourself and hide what little is left of your body unseen. The one time you thought you'd get a night without any interruptions, here you were now exposing yourself to your father's own Knight. The feared masked Simon Riley, the Ghost.
“I thought someone was hurting you,” he says after a minute, voice rougher now, lower. The concern in his expression somehow makes the embarrassment worse, your face turning slightly pink at the intrusion.
You turn away immediately, fumbling for the blanket at the edge of the bed. “You weren’t meant to come in,” you mumble, mortified.
“Aye, gathered that.” He grumbles. Turning towards the door to leave, not sure what his next steps are. His voice is dry, and he feels himself go red, warmth rising in his chest and neck. Flashes of his position, of what will become of him if he doesn't right this. All those years of hard work thrown into waste, all for his recklessness. Simon exhales slowly through his nose and finally looks toward the door, like he’s reminding himself where the exit is. "I'm so sorry, M'Lady." He says, still slightly turned away, in an effort to give you some privacy.
“You really thought I was hurt?” You don't acnkowledge his apology. Simply ignoring the gravity of whats occured with a light tone in your voice. Had you really been that loud?
His gaze flicks back to you instantly. “You cried out,” he says simply. “Wasn’t about to ignore it.” He avoids watching you cover yourself in your night shift. He sheathes his sword in the side of his armour. The leathers and plating feel all too tight now. Flashes of your body crossing his vision.
Of course Simon Riley would tear through a castle door for you. "I apolgise, your highness. That was incredibly improper of me to see you like that and I will do whatever it takes to right my wrong." His eyes are diverting, not sure where to look.
“You can stop looking at me like I’ve committed treason,” you mutter quietly, pulling the blanket higher despite the warmth in the room. You’ve seen Simon bloodied from battle. Unshaken when your own father snapped orders at him like he was something less than human. But now? Now he won’t quite look at you like he usually does. Like the sight of you unsettles him in ways battle never could.
"M' Sorry m'Lady."
"Will you tell my father?" You ask, the thought making you cringe. He shakes his head, like thats the most normal answer.
Simon shakes his head immediately. "No." The answer comes so quickly it almost makes you laugh.
"No?"
"No."
"You didn't even think about it."
"M'Lady, there is not a force in this kingdom strong enough to make me repeat what I've just witnessed to your father."
A startled laugh escapes you before you can stop it. He tilts his head, confused if he truly is hearing you laugh. "Good," you say. "Because I think he'd die on the spot." A sound suspiciously close to a chuckle escapes him. You smile, thankful at his response.
“What happens in this room stays in this room.” His voice lowers, steadier now. “You’ve got my word.”
"Our secret." You confirm, with a soft smile on your flushed face. Your hair slightly messed, the loose shift on your frame exposed a bare shoulder. Simon held the instinct to look about your body. He'd already done too much already so he didn't. You hesitate before quietly adding, “Then… I won’t tell my father you barged into my chambers.”
That gets a real reaction from him as his eyes lift to yours instantly.
“You wouldn’t.” You raise a brow.
“You did enter unannounced.”
“You sounded distressed." He defends.
“You still entered.” You slyly respond, a hint of playfullness on your tongue.
A long pause emits from Simon, not sure how to respond. Not many render him speechless; never has he been unsure what to say back. But then the faintest huff of laughter escapes him. He's never had the chance to properly speak with you, never needing to when his primary assignment was the King. But here he was, cracking a smile under his mask, impressed with your wittiness. Had Soap interacted with you like this before?
“Right,” he mutters. “Suppose we’re both keepin’ secrets now.” You nod and wrap your arms around yourself. He watches as you ponder over him for a moment; he's never felt so intrigued by someone before. Never truly wanted to get to know a person, for their entirety. Something about the way you spoke to him with such tease and simplicity made him feel like he wasn't just the knight with a mask or the one people feared as he walked into a room.
"Could I ask for a favour?" You ask, a small hint of mischief splayed on your lips. You sit up, resting on your knees and leaning forward towards him. Now he was really paying attention. Fuck, you were beautiful.
"Yes, m'Lady." He says without a sliver of doubt. Right now, he'd do just about anything. The look on your face caused a low stir in his groin - oh, how he was ruined. How could he ever look at you the same ever again? The vision of your bare skin, pointed nipples and fingers between your folds would replay every time he'd stare into those (your eye colour) eyes.
"Could you stay, watch me and tell me if I'm doing it right?" Your question sure sends his heart into a stop and makes him miss a beat or two. He wasn't entirely sure you knew what you were asking, or if he knew what you were implying. The sound of your voice was slightly hushed, bashful.
"M'Sorry?" You smile cheekily. Sitting back onto your arse you position your hair on your head, releasing a few strands to sit neater.
"You see, the women of court - even my own handmaid won't talk to me about this. People around me tend to steer clear of these types of conversations, but I know you're an honest man, Captain." The way you speak is such a casualty of the context. He looks behind him to the open door - were you really having this conversation so openly?
"M'Lady, I don't feel this type of conversation is appropriate for someone like me. I'm a man of your father's watch, I am not a husband or a man of importance." You shake your head.
"That doesn't matter to me, Simon." Use of his real name sends him to stand straighter. "You wouldn't deny a princess of the King of her order would you?" You're teasing now and he cant help the need to put you in your place, for talking to him like a spoilt child but he shakes that thought away.
"You know what you're asking of me, m'Lady?" He reassures.
"Yes."
"I have a duty, I have an honour to your family to protect you. That would be the opposite." You shake your head, ignoring his words.
"I've heard many of my servant women speak of your expertise, I believe they said you knew well on how to please." You say so calmly, he almost forgets that he's speaking with a noblewoman. He smiles to himself under the mask.
You've clearly spoken about him before, recalled the way the other women he'd slept with had writhed in pleasure underneath him. Did you know about everything he'd done? So foolish to think the women didn't talk. You were different though; you weren't just any woman.
"I do not count myself an expert." He attempts to downplay it. Secretly hoping the notion impressed you.
"But you can steer me into the right direction?" You confirm. He stands there a while longer. Thinking about his duty, honour and every lesson beaten into him since he first picked up a sword. And, far more dangerously, thinking about you and the way he caught you pleasuring yourself so beautifully.
The princess, the same woman sitting before him who looked at him as though he were more than a knight standing guard outside her door.
Simon clears his throat. "Please," you say soft and pleading.
"Why me?" He asks, not sure if he wants to know the answer for himself. You roll your eyes.
"Trust me, I don't think I'd be able to ask Johnny if I really wanted to. He'd tell on me the first moment he saw me, you wouldn't tell on me, Captain." The sultry words warmed his core. The way you called Soap by his real name, "You've got a lot to hide, sir knight, and I do too. I know you wouldn't tell on me, and we don't ever have to speak of this again." He ponders over it. Did he know what you were asking of him?
"What'd you need me to do?" You smile, like you knew he'd agree and that you'd won him over.
"To make it less scandalous for your poor eyes, I'll wear my night gown and touch myself. Show you what I'm doing and you can guide me on what to do." Almost like you're asking but teasing him he shakes his head. You rise from your spot, fluff the pillows behind you and rest yourself comfortably. In truth, you had some idea on what to do but never made yourself get to the end. Were you teasing him? Maybe.
The idea of this masked man in your bedroom watching you pleasure yourself sends waves of warmth to your core, feeling the cool air against your pussy as you situate yourself to be covered by your shift. You didn't know where you'd gotten this confidence, but ever since you'd been told to never ask about your private times by your septor, you knew you wanted an ounce of what your handmaids had experienced with men. If you couldn't have sex with any man besides your husband, you sure would have fun otherwise. You were royal after all, you could do what you damn well pleased.
You watch as he watches you, unsure for a moment before deciding for himself that he would help you, reassuring him that this was purely to help you and nothing more. Looking out into the hallway for a sign of Soap or any other guard, but was met with an empty hallway. Shutting the door and locking it from the inside, he turns to you with your sultry eyes, and your back against your poster bed.
That wasn't going to work for him.
"Come here." He says firmly, pointing to the edge of the bed. Your eyes widen at the change in the tone of his voice, a deep, gruff sound that sends you shivering in anticipation. You gulp and nod, listening to his command as he navigates you to the edge of the bed.
"Lie on your back at the end of the bed. I won't touch you, but I'm going to sit beside you." You nod and give him a cheeky smile as you lie back. Your head is almost at the edge, your legs soon splay out. The night shift, hiding your exposed bareness. You felt very out of your element in front of this man, a man definitely much older than you. But the notion of such a strong, large man watching you like this makes you excited. Gods, if your mother could see you, she'd be absolutely turning in her grave.
"Princess, if you want me to leave I can. I won't speak of this, I will lay my life on it." You shake your head and give him a small smile at his reassurance.
"I'm fine. You know you can call me (Your Name), I don't bite." You tease. He doesn't say anything, your words itch him in a way he doesn't explain. Your carefree and bratty attitude is making him feel hot under the leathers.
The things he'd do to you, thoughts of spreading you over his knee and spanking you till you're a bubblering mess under his hand. He shakes that thought off. You're trusting him right now. The least he can do is stop imagining things he shouldn't and focus on what you're asking of him.
"Lay back for me." You listen closely and rest your head back, his body now sitting behind you on the floor by the bed. Kneeling so his head is now over yours, not too close of course. You move the shift from your legs, spreading your thighs just enough for Simon to see your cunt. Peaks of your folds peaking out for him at this angle.
"Bloody hell..." The softness of your skin under the fire lit in the hearth and the candles by your bed. He'd give what left of his soul to be able to touch it, if he could. You smile at his reaction, flattered and blushing under his gaze.
"You sure, m'Lady?"
"Yes!" You insist firmer. He nods and looks over your almost breathless body.
"Place the tips of your fingers at the centre of your cunt. Just like that." He trails off as you begin to place your pointer and index fingers at the sensitive spot on your folds, tipping your head up to watch. "Gently, begin to rub it how it feels good. How you were playing with yourself before I interrupted."
You start to circle your fingers, the sensation sending waves of pleasure through you. "Show me, Princess." You gasp and mewl at the sensation, sending your head back onto the bed. He chuckles, a deep throaty noise that seems to send you straight to seeing stars as you moan a bit louder.
"Look at you... I think you know what you're doing, little princess." He says. "Is your pretty cunt wet?" You reach further down between the circles to feel the wetness forming on your fingers; you nod messily with your bottom lip between your teeth.
"Am I making you wet?" He says without hesitation, deep in your ear. The warmth of it fanned the hairs. You nod again, you open your eyes, met with the ones behind the mask, which continues to remain on. The sight of the dark brown irises sends you into deeper and deeper pleasure. The not knowing makes you buckle under your fingers. The same man you'd watched beside your father for years was now above you, speaking absolute filth into your ears and watching you play with yourself.
"That's it, you know what to do." He reassures. You clench your eyes shut in pleasure at his voice and reassurance. "Touch your breasts for me, use your free hand to play with them." He commands, voice confident now. No longer unsure about breaking boundaries, enjoying himself right now. Everything he'd ever worked for in his life, all coming into this moment. "Fuck you're beautiful."
You use your free hand to palm your breast over the top of your sheer dress, the warm light allowing the pointed peaks of your nipples to poke through. "Fuck." He mumbles, he resists the urge to palm them himself. Wondering what you'd feel like to touch. "I think you were loud on purpose - wantin' someone to hear your cries. Want them to come in and help you finish what you started." You almost nod, it wasn't true, but the thought makes you moan a bit louder. "Were you hoping it was me waiting outside your door or Johhny?" You shake your head and look up at him pleading.
"You." you admit to him, which makes him smirk.
"The princess wants a man to touch her needy cunt." You nod fast with eyes clenched shut and your mouth open. Eyes fluttering open to watch his eyes focus on you.
"Can you touch me?" You plead and whine. Your fingers continue to work your clit, and his cock continues to strain in his trousers. By the Gods, he'd love to devour you with his mouth. Watch as you writhe on his tongue, but he settles for guiding you with his words. Continuing to sit behind you, settling by your head on the floor.
"You beggin' now, princess. What happened to the confident woman before?" he teases as he reaches for your free hand, clasping it in his. The feeling of his warmth from his gloved hand brings you back to the sensations between your legs. One you've never felt so intensely before in your life. You shake your head.
"No, I want you to touch me properly." You turn to face him, only slowing your movements slightly. Fingers are still working themselves at your clit. He shakes his head. "Please, Si." Desperate pleas falling your mouth along breathy moans and squeeks as you work your clit. "Touch my tits, please." He compromises with himself, tits were a lot less intimate than anything else. "Gloves off." You command now, a sense of confidence coming back.
He doesn't question it, throwing his dark leather gloves off his hands he watches as you continue to play with yourself. You were going to be the death of him. Without hesitation he palms your right breast, your body curves at his touch. "Oh gods..." you mumble.
"That's it." He encourages you to continue to circle your clit. The feeling of your breast in his hand sends his cock even more achingly hard, the pointed nipple poking his rough palm. If you'd told him he'd be touching a princess, watching her pleasure herself like this, he'd tell himself he's joking.
But here he was, not sure how he'd be able to function. How would he be able to look at you again? He'd definitely needed to relieve himself later, but right now, all he can think about is the sounds you're making and the way your body can't seem to react with him touching you like this and whispering things in your ear.
"Look how pathetic you are, touching yourself in front of me. Is this making you wet, Princess?" You nod, barely able to speak a word. Too lost in the new sensations. You start to feel a build-up in your core, the warmth spreading to your cheeks. The way his hand touches your body sends shock waves through you. How had you gone so long without experiencing this? Why hadn't you asked him sooner?
"I-I think I'm going to come." You say shakily. You'd heard about it from your handmaid Lily, who'd explained how good it can feel once you reach it.
"Good girl." That did it, sending waves of pleasure through you, your body curved and arched with your head shot back, and eyes scrunched together. Simon's hand still on your breast and your fingers slowly on your folds, you moan loudly, your body convulsing to the feelings. Stars crossing your vision and the world exploding in a sea of warmth. Wetness spreading to your arse and all over your hand and thighs.
Trumpets sound, breaking Simon from you. The sound sent you and him back to reality in an instant. The King had returned; he had to go. You sit up, your face flushed and your eyes now tired with now a light glow present on your face. He gets up, rushing for his gloves as he gets up.
"Thank you Si." He nods, runs his hand along your jaw, patting your head lovingly before retreating for the door. He adjusts the feeling in his pants, looking back once more to face you.
"Sleep well, princess." You wave him off, landing back onto your pillows and curling in the blankets satisfied. He smiles to himself under the mask and shuts the door behind him heading straight back down the hall. Meeting back with Soap at the post by the gates, not looking him in the eyes.
"You alright there Simon?" Soap says.
"More than fine." He says, a little more chuffed and proud of himself.
Soap gives him a looking over before Ghost returns within himself, his pants starting to loosen as he returns to his task.
Forever thankful he'd been tasked with keeping an eye on you and not Soap. Knowing that he'd be thinking about you for the rest of his life.
simon 'ghost' riley x f!reader | soulmate!au | 18.8k (oops)
Ghost didn’t want a soulmate, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either.
cw; soulmate!au in which soulmates share scars, references to self-harm, lots of talk about scars, angst, fluff, references to domestic abuse and past violence, references to simon's past, descriptions of pain, military inaccuracies, miscommunication, touch aversion, reallllly slow slowburn, ghost being sort of really bad and weird at affection
Simon didn’t remember how he got every scar on his body.
The big ones, the important ones, sure. He remembered them all too well, even through the haze of pain and fatigue that often hung thickly around their reception.
But there were too many to account for. To remember the particulars of each slash and burn and gunshot wound was a losing battle. He’d long since given up on keeping track of them. Little lines on the sides of his fingers, stretchmarks on the backs of his biceps, winged fans of a burn on the side of his thigh, a pale line along the point of his elbow that he might as well have been born with.
There were ones from further back, too. Scars that time and pain had eroded the precision of the memory, but not the feeling. Cigarette burns on his forearms, a necklace of animal teeth on his side, a craggy line across his hip, accompanied by the shadowy memory of hand reaching for him, and not being quick enough to duck out of the way.
They all meshed together into the hard patchwork of scar and muscle his body had wrought itself into.
Almost none of them could be helped, out of his control, out of his hands.
They were a catalogue of his life, a story traced on his skin.
Stamped, more like. Branded.
Survived.
And soulmates shared scars.
Their hurt was his; his hurt was theirs. Literally or metaphorically, he wasn’t quite sure. Simon had so many, spent so much time in pain, it was impossible to know if any of them didn’t belong to him originally.
He didn’t like the thought of someone sharing his scars, having felt what he did. Possessive of them and the pain in a strange way.
It’s ironic, then, that he should be able to find his soulmate more easily than the average unmarred person, and wanted to do nothing of the sort. Simon dismissed the whole thing as drivel a long time ago, anyway. If they did exist, if they weren’t just incredibly rare instances of luck, Simon was sure that he hadn’t been afforded one.
There was guilt, too, settled somewhere deep inside him, that someone had to endure it alongside him. It was easier to believe he’d been left out of the whole thing.
Better he was alone.
The likelihood of finding that person was slim. It almost never happened. Eight or so billion people swanning around the planet would do that. A one in eight billion chance.
A grand, cosmic joke. The unfairness of it drove some people crazy, drove them to do insane things to increase a probability that couldn’t be altered—to know that person probably existed somewhere and yet know that they would probably never run across them.
A trend of self harm cropped up online every few years, healed over self inflected wounds posted in forums of people seeking their other, fated, half. The presumption being that they were being desperately searched for in turn.
Idiotic. Determined. Fallibly human.
And taboo. Most saw it as circumventing fate.
Violently frantic for the thing Ghost had been unwillingly given. A way to find them, or, at least, easily identify them. And he never would.
But, sometimes, he wondered.
He tried to picture the imprint of a person somewhere out in the world wearing his wounds, suffering his losses. The thought would circle his brainstem in an unrelenting loop, a bright fish whispering around the perimeter of its bowl before it dissipated in lieu of something more pressing.
It was always there, though, waiting to be grappled with again.
He always came up blank. Nothing but a shadow in his mind where a person should be. Fitting, typical.
It was a cruelty he couldn’t imagine, somehow. Someone being fatefully, inescapably afflicted with him.
Simon didn’t want a soulmate anyway, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either.
If there was someone out there, someone wandering around with his scars on their skin, he was certain they hated him already.
He didn’t particularly believe in fate; life had taught him not to. He believed in himself, his capabilities, planning and contingencies. And Simon didn’t relish the thought of something he couldn’t control, someone holding the other end of his corded, deformed soul, like a leash they could tighten and use to yank him to his knees. Compromised, vulnerable.
It wouldn’t happen; the margin for discovery was so small it was practically nonexistent.
He blamed Soap, then, for tempting fate.
Ghost listened to Johnny yammer on, the sound of his voice louder than usual in the rattling dark belly of the transport plane home. The glow of green light, the roar of engines, the jangle of gear.
It was an irritating, and sometimes endearing, quirk of Johnny’s that he couldn’t stop talking in the post-op cortisol and adrenaline drop, his words a smeared haze of jumbled thoughts spoken aloud for hours afterward.
The notion of a soulmate was at the front of Soap’s mind, not for the first time. He’d always seemed to enjoy the idea of it, and find some comfort in it, particularly after a close call. There was someone waiting for him, somewhere, after all, it couldn’t all come to nothing yet.
Simon glanced out the window, watched the sea below morph into land.
A yellow network of light winked below, a sea of reverse stars swimming in the black.
“Lucky that way, Lt,” Johnny declared with finality, finally winding down, sounding exhausted. “Findin’ ‘em will be easier.”
Ghost glanced over, the first time in nearly an hour that he’d acknowledged the conversation beyond a hum and a nod. “What do you mean?”
Soap gestured to his scarred chin, then his temple. “Know ‘em straight away, wouldn’t I?”
Simon’s own thoughts spoken out loud; his hopes to never see his own scars reflected back at him turned on its head.
Johnny made it sound like a good thing, instead of the nightmare it was.
No, he thought for the nth time in his life, not that, not for him.
But he’d always had an extraordinary knack for beating the odds.
.
.
.
The base was a constant flurry of activity, a relentlessly buzzing hive of people. There were very few places that skirted away from the general chaos of life on a military base, but Simon had catalogued them all—the field behind the barracks when drills were not being run, the concrete service walkways beneath the base, crowded with spiderwebs and dust, the cool, sterile medical wing, and, the orderly administration offices.
Each place had caveats.
The service walkways were the most reliably quiet, but Simon hated being underground, hated the claustrophobia of it, like some part of him would always be clawing at black earth, and so usually avoided it.
Soap had found him smoking behind the barracks once and now regularly joined Simon there.
The medical wing could be crowded and frenzied, depending on the day.
The administration offices were practically serene in comparison. Neat file folders, tidy desks, windows that let in the watery, gray English sun. Square offices with their doors propped open, conference rooms bathed in the light of glowing intel reports, data convergences, and map overlays, uniform gray walls and floors.
The admin wing only occasionally spasmed into restless activity if an emergency op was underway or about to be, and if that happened, Ghost was usually already swept up in it himself, probably already long gone.
A spare office stuffed away at the end of the hall with the name plate removed technically belonged to him. A mostly unused space he sometimes finished reports in but, more often than not, sat empty.
He preferred to haunt the corridors, observe the more peaceful, inner workings of the military, breathing in the quiet air for five minutes at a time. It gave his perpetually over taxed nervous system, his forever-in-fight-or-flight-mode body, to relax, if even it was only an increment or two. The lightning was softer, the constant bark of orders and drills, the snap of gunfire, the general loudness of the rest of the place, was muted and far away.
Simon knew of all of the staff and their precuilarities—names, ages, birthdates, minor feuds among each other, immediate family members, previous posts, favorite foods, habits, complaints about the building’s irregular temperatures and the pervasive scent of diesel. It wasn’t information he necessarily collected on purpose. Gleaned over years of half heard conversations, glimpses of photos on desks. They, like the medical staff, didn’t often change, not like the revolving door of soldiers and operators.
It was a regular, routine, quiet place.
So it would be difficult for even the most oblivious person not to notice when the familiar order of the place was interrupted.
Soft, dandelion light flooded the hall from a doorway that had always before been shut tight.
The scent of an unfamiliar perfume lingered in the hall in a feathery streak, oakmoss and lavender. It settled hard in his lungs, made his footsteps slow slightly, caution prickling at the back of his neck.
The click of ceramic being sat on wood, the soft shuffle of files, tapping of computer keys emanated from within the now open office. The faintest notes of bubblegum pop floated by, at odds with the chill, still air.
Inside, you were hidden behind two massive computer monitors, the very top of a pair of lilac headphones just visible over the rim. Plants in colorful painted terracotta pots lined the window to your left absorbing what they could of pale winter light, a thick blanket was thrown over the back of a chair in the corner, a jumble of bright, hand crocheted squares. A brass floor lamp with a circular shade sat behind your desk and drooped forward like the antenna of a giant radio, or a bug, casting a delicate halo of light around you like a protective ward.
There was something. . .lambent that emanated around the room, that had nothing to do with the ridiculous lamp.
Simon hovered in the doorway, in the shadow of the dim hall, just to get a glimpse of your face. Start a mental file on you, begin his careful catalog. Something to match the color and light to.
It was a surprise to you both, then, when you glanced up and caught him at it.
You stood hastily, headphones sliding down your neck when the cord jerked taut, the tinny sound of pop echoing loudly from them until you slammed your fingers down onto the keyboard and silence descended abruptly. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there. Can I help you with something?”
Simon could only stare at you, a curl of dread snaking its way between his ribs.
Johnny was right, then, he would know his own scars anywhere.
He would know his own face anywhere.
He would, apparently, know you anywhere.
Your face was a faded mapping of his own, the same scarring traced with a lighter hand. The same crack over your lips, a line drawn across your cheek, a faded check through your brow, the bridge of your nose bisected, the outline of webbed burn scars crosshatched at the edge of your jaw and shoulder. A jagged, thick line crossed your throat.
Despite his legacy marring your face, you were pretty. Beautiful, even, with curious, cautious eyes, one side of your mouth pulled up into a half grin that tugged at the line across your cheek and somehow didn’t ruin the brightness of it.
You were watching him watch you with a tentative gaze, brows drawing slowly together the longer he stood there staring at you, breathing around the newly minted cavern under his lungs.
His eyes met yours again, and as soon as the realization settled in, something clicked violently into place inside his chest, like a missing rib bone had suddenly slotted into the cage around his heart.
Pain bloomed hot and tight across his chest, so acute he covered his side, expecting to find a knife inexplicably lodged there. He grunted mutely. The discomfort receded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a vast hollow just beneath his breast bone. Cavernous, lurching, undone.
The hollow hardened into a solid brick of pain.
Nausea swept into the back of his throat.
“Are you okay?”
He was frozen in the direct line of fire. Your eyes swept over him, fingers curling around a folder on the edge of your desk which you thumbed nervously. You began to lift your other hand, an aborted half movement toward your face that you dropped at the last second. But you didn’t avert your gaze. You looked past the mask, past him, and into his eyes.
You saw him.
Simon was not to be seen.
Ghost didn’t get caught, didn’t freeze.
Didn’t feel like an animal trapped in a cage, pinned and weak and panicked.
Not anymore.
He was a ghost, a shadow, a silent—
The silence unspooled, thin and fragile as unraveling lace.
Your smile widened, a slow, confident thing that stretched across your face crookedly, pulled at your scarred skin as you tilted your head. It was, maybe, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Sir?”
Amusement threaded your voice; a laugh curled like a sleeping animal in your throat.
Instead of answering, he faded back into the hall.
As he retreated an uncertain realization prodded at the back of his mind. One wonderful contingency.
You had not felt the shift, the world turning horribly on its axis, the pain that radiated hot as a wildfire.
You hadn’t recognized what he was.
And he was going to keep it that way.
.
.
.
It felt like there was a hook in his chest, slipped right between his ribs, a constant painful tearing that landed him again and again outside your office door. Like he was a fish on a line, and you held the reel in your fist, totally oblivious to it.
He didn’t love you, that’s not how the soulmate bond worked. You were tied together, for some reason, though that reason remained to be seen. Resentment was all he felt, a burning desire to chew his leg out of this trap, to grip the line that bound you and run a knife through it.
Better yet, through you.
Sever the tie as cleanly as a blade through an artery.
One sure way to free himself was your death.
It was unusual, but it happened—headlines of a soulmate killing their pair because they couldn’t tolerate the connection. It was taboo, considering how rare the bond was. The link suffocated them, instead of comforting them.
Simon understood the urge.
He thought of your office, the way your back was angled half toward the door, how easily he could slip in and slice your throat open. He had seen and done worse, but the thought of you lying in a pool of blood, let alone at his hands, was so abhorrent and wrong that he doubled over as an acute, sharp pain pinched between his ribs, like someone wriggling their fingers between the bars to claw at his insides.
Which irritated him. Things like that didn’t bother him, not anymore. At the very least, he was better at handling discomfort than this.
It did start him thinking about someone else doing it, though. Slipping quietly into your office and nudging a knife between your ribs, pressing a silenced pistol against your temple, Ghost left to find your cold corpse.
It was wrong.
He could feel your life wrapped around his fingers, tangled in little ribbons around his wrists. A pulsing, glowing, bright thing.
The resentment doubled because he should not care. He didn’t know you, trust you; your death should mean nothing. You should mean nothing.
Still, he found himself walking the administration wing again the following day, even though the sun was out and it’d be nice to sit behind the barracks and smoke and listen to Johnny rattle on about something or the other when he inevitably showed up.
Your door was open again, gold light spilling into the corridor, the low flutter of too loud music in your headphones accompanying it.
Simon would never admit it to himself, but he also needed to know that he could remain hidden from you. The shock of your eyes finding his still hadn’t left him. It had never happened before—not on an op, not about the base, not out among civilians. He blended in, he remained invisible, but you saw him, sensed him, and he needed to know if that was something he had to adjust to. Planning was survival, and you were an unknown factor he needed a method for handling.
Simon stepped close to your door, out of the beam of light.
Your office was bathed in soft, cream light but not from your antenna bug lamp.
Your back was fully turned toward the door, face tilted into the scarce winter sun streaming in the window as you leaned back in your chair. Your eyes were closed, headphones over your ears as he suspected they were.
Fuuucking hell.
Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, back toward the entry point of the room.
Your life hung there, trusting, fragile as spun crystal.
He waited, but you didn’t turn, didn’t seem to know he was there. Something in his shoulders uncoiled, tension slowly replaced with an odd sense of calm. The pain in his chest eased for the first time in twenty-four hours, fading to a tender ache.
Your lunch, half eaten, laid abandoned on your desk. The blanket that had been on the chair in the corner was swaddled around your shoulders.
You yawned, eyes still closed.
He waited for you to sense him, glance up, but you seemed unaware of him. He wouldn’t admit it then, but he half hoped you would.
Ghost backed away, left you to your peace.
The weight in his chest intensified again.
He hated you for it.
He went back the next day.
And the day after that.
.
.
.
Anchor might be a better descriptor.
Hook was too violent.
Simon knew what it felt like to have a hook between his ribs, and this feeling was not that.
He was satisfied, after weeks of observation as late winter turned to a wet spring, that you did not have a preternatural sense of his presence. In the process, he learned other things.
You hated the cold, and your office always seemed to be chillier than you would prefer, blanket perpetually tucked around your shoulders. He watched you fiddle with the radiator one morning, bottom lip caught between your teeth, sigh, and resign yourself to it. He waited for you to complain to your coworkers like everyone else did, to call maintenance to fix it, but you didn’t.
You liked to sit in the sun, however you could, squinting against the glare of it against your computer screens just to have it on your skin.
You hunched over your desk, and clearly had pain in your neck and back because of it.
You often stayed later on base than many of the staff and walked out of the building alone late at night.
You didn’t drink tea, but politely accepted the tea several different coworkers made for you with the very good intention of showing you a proper cup. You drank every drop as you chatted with them, even though you clearly detested it. It didn’t show, but Simon could tell. He didn’t like that he could, that it was instinctual and nothing else.
They were also plying you with shit tea, of course you weren’t going to like it. He watched as one bloke let it steep for a full fifteen minutes and then presented you with what must have been the bitterest lukewarm tea to ever pass through the base. An older secretary took the opposite approach and handed you a cup of barely brewed tea with approximately four tablespoons of sugar in.
Absolutely bloody foul.
Horrific crimes committed in your name, and you swallowed them with a smile.
And you smiled a lot. From the tiniest twitch of your lips when you were alone, to a grin so big he could see all your teeth, that your eyes squinched closed.
You nearly always had headphones on—wired earbuds dangling from the collar of your shirt as you walked down the hall, or over ear headphones looped around your neck at your desk, usually pop, occasionally 70s rock or alternative spitting from the speakers.
You talked a lot, and your voice carried. One of those truisms about Americans, you could be heard long before you were seen even if you weren’t being particularly loud. He didn’t need to be close to hear you, and he found himself thinking one afternoon good. It would be easier to keep track of you.
He liked your voice, anyway, liked your laugh, liked to hear you say English phrases in that accent of yours that made them sound ridiculous.
You could likely give Soap a run for a world record of useless chatter. Anyone who walked into your office was subject to your stream of consciousness if they lingered long enough.
Lonely, he might have called it. But you were new, to the base, and to the country. Your only connections were those you were attempting to craft with stuffy intelligence officers who sometimes seemed to regard you as below them.
He found his thoughts drifting to the sound of your voice once he’d left you for the day, replaying things he’d heard you say in the period of observation he allowed himself, like the tune of a lullaby. It calmed him.
The resentment in his chest festered like a badly healed wound. You were nothing but a distraction, a thorn stabbed into his side, stealing his focus from nearly everything that was more important.
That used to be more important.
Now his every thought was asterisked by you.
Distracted.
He didn’t do well with it.
He didn’t like that he could feel the newly rended hole in his chest corroding and throbbing when he wasn’t near you, suffocating him. He’d felt worse in his life, so he could mostly ignore it.
Simon decided that the nature of the bond was at least neutral. You were not a threat.
He was tired, anyway, of constantly thinking about your back to the door, your headphones playing too loudly.
After you left one evening in mid spring, he moved your desk.
Simon sat in your dark office for longer than he should have, letting the pain ease out of his chest.
It was enough to be where you had once been.
That was as close as he cared to be.
He fixed the radiator before he closed the door again.
.
.
.
He went by Ghost, you learned eventually.
His was a redacted, blacked out name in the files on your computer, so Ghost seemed less a name than a description. You briefly scanned the ops he had been on. It was a horrifyingly long list, most of them totally classified or excised beyond comprehensibility. And those were only the missions you could see, likely his involvement in many ops had been scrubbed entirely.
It was clear that he was good at his job, though it left you to wonder what he had been doing in the administration wing of the base, let alone peering into your office like a silent wraith.
It should have been terrifying to find him looming in your doorway. His massive frame had blotted out the corridor behind him. Mostly in black, a skull mask covering his face. You hadn’t been able to see his eyes in the low lighting. But you had only felt curiosity, apprehension, a delicate wrenching in your gut.
Something that a different person might liken to butterflies. Absolutely absurd, but nonetheless true.
Fear, afterward, of course, that you’d missed some kind of order or request.
It had also been a while since someone stared so openly at you, since you’d felt the urge to duck your head, obscure the scars littered across your skin. You never had before, and you wouldn’t have started then. You wore them proudly. Most bore their soulmate’s scars better than their own, and you were no exception.
It had become a rarity, really, in recent years that anyone spared you more than a glance. Being surrounded by military personnel who had seen worse, might have had worse on their own skin, meant you didn’t stand out.
When you mentioned the incident to Laswell, worried that some kind of disciplinary report, during your first month at this post no less, was headed your way, she had only shook her head. “That’s just Ghost. He probably didn’t say anything. You get used to it.”
The base, especially among the operators, was filled with odd personalities with even odder quirks, so you decided not to question it. You had only nodded, and said, “Okay.”
Laswell had smiled. “You’ll do well here.”
You suspected you were being watched in the weeks following the incident, though you couldn’t say why at first. The suspicion was confirmed when you arrived one blissfully sunny spring morning to find your office warm and your desk moved. Your other furniture was rearranged neatly around it. You rounded it, dropping your bag as you went, half expecting to find a note.
There was nothing, and you started to rotate it back, a bit irritated, when you paused and sat. The new angle gave you a clear view of the door and window. The sun hit your face without causing a glare on your screens. The monitors had been lowered ever so slightly so you could easily see over them.
You left your desk in its new position. It was better that way.
Ghost appeared in your office that afternoon as suddenly as he had left it.
You sensed that he’d been there for a long time when you finally noticed him in the doorway, that you were only seeing him because he wanted you to.
You smiled and turned away from a report. A welcome reprieve for your strained eyes and hunched back.
“Hi. Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?”
This time, he stepped into your office, grasped your offer with both hands.
The room seemed to shrink and adjust to his size. He was more massive than you remembered, in height and breadth. His eyes didn’t leave yours, a deep blackened honey brown half hidden by skull. Neither of you looked away.
“Have I passed?”
His head tilted ever so slightly. When he spoke his voice was like an iron rod shoved down your spine. Deep and jagged and rough, it settled between your ribs, in the pit of your stomach. “Passed?”
“Your test?”
“Think I’m testin’ you?”
“You moved my desk.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, still not dropping your gaze. The silence lasted so long you began to think he wouldn’t answer at all. “Practically had your back to the door,” he said eventually, as though that explained it.
It conjured the image of Ghost creeping around the base in the dead of night to adjust offices into more tactical configurations and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep the giggle in your throat from bubbling out.
You nodded and then shrugged instead. “I guess I don’t think about things like that.”
“Should.”
“Maybe.”
“Especially in the field.”
“I don’t do field work.”
He nodded slowly and finally took his eyes off yours, glancing around the room again. When his lashes caught the light, you saw that they were a light blond.
“Welcome to sit,” you offered, taking up a pen and a pad of yellow paper. “Ghost.”
He didn’t sit, but he didn't leave either. When he remained mute and motionless, you looked back at your report and continued working, resigned to the new addition to your office.
Minutes passed in silence, with only the scratch of your pencil over paper, the tapping of computer keys, for company.
All at once, the room sighed, and when you looked up, he was gone.
Ghost was strange, slightly off putting.
You liked him.
Maybe, you thought, he’d come back.
.
.
.
Ghost visited regularly after that.
Sometimes he simply stood at the door and watched you work.
His boots were so silent that you often didn’t know he was there until he was leaving again. It felt as though he often melted into nothing but shadow, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling.
You didn’t feel watched, so much as observed, minded.
But the lengthy silences began to wear thin, so you started talking to him.
Talked at him, more like, about anything that came to mind.
The shit weather and how cold you always were. Recounted phone calls with your sister and noted things you’d seen on your commute. You told him of your slightly creepy neighbor who would follow you occasionally down high street when you did your weekly shopping trip, but that was probably harmless.
You were sure he wasn’t actually listening, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance as he stood statuesque in the middle of your office.
The visits were occasionally broken up by operations that could last days or weeks, once up to a month. Time passed either way, but you found it passed more easily when you could reliably count on a visit from Ghost. Hearing his voice in staticky communications wasn’t the same. A blinking green dot on a map that you tracked just a little more closely than the others.
Ghost sat down for the first time toward the middle of a particularly miserable and cold spring afternoon. He sighed as he did, the only sign of any feeling. Almost a resignation in the soft cut of it.
You didn’t comment on it, just chatted as you usually did, buoyed in a way that you could not explain.
He started to bring you coffee, done up to your preference, always when you were hitting the midday lag.
In exchange, you left offerings at the edge of your desk. Baked goods, protein bars, chips, sweets— which disappeared when you looked away from him. You noted what went first so you could invest in it. Chocolate went more frequently.
But Ghost, whether he was listening or not, made you feel less alone. The ache of loneliness in your heart eased, and maybe that said more about you than him.
If he was around, he usually slipped in while you ate lunch. He didn’t eat with you, the mask never moved, but you began cooking extra in the evenings, leaving tupperware containers at the edge of your desk in addition to brownies wrapped in waxpaper, chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. “Don’t have to,” he always said.
“Want to,” you answered, and then received the empty, clean container from the day before as though it were an offering.
Your office always smelled like tobacco and tea for hours after he left, a comforting combination that you began to wish you could bottle.
He didn’t appear one day at his usual allotted, precise time. You figured something came up or he finally got tired of you, but he turned up instead late in the afternoon.
“Sorry,” he said as he sat, without explanation, a paper cup of coffee steaming at the edge of your desk like it appeared there by his will alone.
“Oh,” you answered. “You didn’t have to—“
“Did,” he said simply. “‘ave you eaten?”
“Yep. Got something for you, too.”
He settled back. “Neighbor still botherin’ you?”
You blinked in surprise, the slightly creepy neighbor had not spoken to you in a few days. “Oh. . .I—You were listening.”
He tilted his head. “‘Course I was, bird.” He leveled you with a look. “So?”
“Not recently. Not in a couple days.”
“Good. Let us know if he does, yeah?”
Then he sat back and waited, shoulders relaxed as though attending a sermon, but content with silence anyway.
When you glanced up from a report a while later, for clarification on a mission detail that he happened to be on, his eyes were closed.
It felt akin to having a wolf willingly curl up in your lap, blood wet maw dripping peacefully onto the floor.
.
.
.
When you turned from watering your plants one innocuous spring day, you found Ghost entering your office with a different mask on. A soft black balaclava. You could see his eyes and brows, the bridge of his nose and the thin, bruised skin beneath his eyes.
You froze and then smiled at him, tried hard not to stare. His eyes were always pretty but now you felt you could actually see him. Blond brows and lashes, his irises were lighter, amber honey in the yellow light of your bug lamp, as Ghost had called it one afternoon without a shred of humor.
It was raining, and the dim light made the small space cozier than usual. The patchwork blanket was around your shoulders, a ward against the chill bleeding beneath the window.
In his usual chair, you’d laid a gift.
He pointed to the blanket you had carefully folded there earlier.
“It’s for you. I knitted it.”
He froze, hand half extended toward it. You swept past him around your desk again, inundated with the scent of black tea and cigarettes as you went. His was alternating black and dark blue squares to your brightly colored purple and teal. “Just in case you were cold. You’re always so buttoned up after all,” you joked. “And you fixed my radiator this winter. So it’s a thank you, too.”
Ghost only moved it to the back of the chair. You hadn’t expected him to take it, really, but his gloved fingers lingered on it for a moment, rubbing the fabric gently. “How d’you know it was me that fixed it?”
“Who else would have?”
He grunted. “You knit?”
“When I can’t sleep,” you answered. “Keeps my hands and brain busy.”
His brows furrowed, and seeing even that small movement felt like seeing him naked, like seeing something he didn’t want you to. You averted your eyes, heat crawling up your neck.
“Can’t sleep?” His fingers slid off the blanket and he sat.
You shrugged. “Must seem silly to you. You see it with your own eyes. But some of the reports. . . stick with me.”
Ghost considered this for a long moment. “It’s not.”
“What?”
“Silly.”
The way he grunted the word made you laugh.
“Could I ask you something, Ghost?”
“Reckon you just did.”
You rolled your eyes. “Am I allotted only one question?”
“Just two.”
It was. . . funny. You giggled and shrugged. “Guess I’m shit out of luck.”
“And out of questions.”
You laughed again.
He surprised you by laughing too. If a low, graveled grunt counted as a laugh. You certainly counted it, a cache of swollen pride bubbling in your stomach. “Go on, then.”
“Where are you from?”
The levity vanished. His brows lowered. “Why?”
You shrugged. “Just curious. I’m not good with all the accents yet. Just can’t place you.”
He relaxed back into the chair again, but didn't answer.
The pinch of his brows, the tense line of his jaw, remained, his expression considering as he tilted his head back.
“Why do you come here?” You asked instead.
This question he answered readily. “It’s quiet.”
“That’s one way to tell me to shut up.”
He blinked and lowered his chin to meet your eyes. “Not the kind of noise I mean.”
You decided not to take offense at being called noise.
You snorted and reached beneath your desk, taking some pride in the fact that Ghost did not tense anymore than usual when you did, withdrawing your lunch.
“Hungry?” You asked.
“Tryin’ to see my face?”
You smiled. “Never,” you answered, “Not sure I want to see what you’re hiding under there.”
The rain tapped against the window as you popped the thermal lid off.
“Why are you here?” He asked as you folded your legs beneath you on the chair and tucked the blanket around them. Ghost rose without asking and twisted the knob of the radiator beneath the window a bit higher.
You waved your fork, indicating the office. “Fairly positive I work here. But perhaps base security is more lax than I thought.”
He sighed, a long suffering sound. “England, smartarse.”
You smile and dig your fork into last night’s spaghetti bolognese. The steam caressed your face in a warm puff as you lifted a bite. “I’m on loan to Laswell.”
“On loan?” He asked as he settled back into the chair, broad shoulders pressed to the wall behind him, against the blanket. It slid over his elbow a little, curled over his forearm. He didn’t move it.
When you lifted your gaze to his, his stare was piercing, brows lowered, furrowed. You imagined he must be frowning.
“Temporary replacement for whoever used to be in this office,” you explained. “She needed someone quickly, who she could trust.”
Ghost folded his arms across his chest, something more tense than usual in the movement. “How long are you on loan for, then?”
You shrugged, twisted your fork into the noodles. “It’s unclear. So, for now, indefinitely.” You smiled, “Hopefully not through another winter, though, I don’t think I’m cut out for the rain and cold.”
His shoulders eased, but only marginally. If it weren’t for all the hours he’d passed in your office, you weren’t sure you would have caught it at all.
“From somewhere warm?”
“Warmer than here. Especially in the winter.”
“Must be nice, that.”
“Has its perks. But the summer is its own kind of hell.”
“One you enjoy.”
“But of course. I like feeling like I’m baking alive.”
He snorted again.
You ate in silence for a bit. The quiet had become comfortable between you somewhere along the way, silken and gentle.
When you were scraping the last bit of sauce from the bottom of the container, Ghost said, “Manchester.”
“Hm?”
“Where I’m from.”
His voice was low; he wasn’t looking at you, eyes trained on the door instead.
“Manchester,” you repeated, trying to place it on the map of the UK in your mind. “And do you all sound sort of like—“
You were about to say like you have gravel in your mouth but he makes an affected noise, that stiff grunt again. “Are you laughing at me?”
“It’s your fucking accent.”
“My accent?” You asked incredulously. “Have you heard yourself?”
“Got a thick one, bird.” He imitated your voice. “Manchester.” The sharp rhotic r sound was like a gunshot in his mouth, each letter enunciated to the point of being butchered.
You scoffed, not bothering to fight your smile. “Takes one to know one, I guess.”
“Suppose it does.”
“Fucking Brits,” you said, without any venom. “I can’t do anything right according to you all.”
He tilted his head, something predatory in it. It made your heart flutter a little. “Who’s tellin’ you you can’t do something?”
You sighed, long suffering. “My coworkers. Can’t make tea, apparently. I don’t care for it and everyone keeps insisting I just make it wrong.”
“They make it wrong too.”
You groaned. “Not you too.”
Ghost rose to take his leave as you snapped the lid back onto the now empty container.
“I’ll show you how to make a proper cup sometime.”
You paused, a warm surprise sweeping into your chest, and decided not to linger on this solitary acknowledgement that Ghost would return to your office. “Big fan?”
“I love tea.”
It made you laugh. “Of course, English afterall.”
He nodded, just once, and started toward the door. “Ghost?” You called.
Ghost turned and you slid another tupperware container across your desk. “For you.”
He stared at it, for a moment too long, as he always did, like he was telling himself to leave it. “Didn’t have to.”
“I know.” You nodded at it again and then then ducked behind your computer screens. “I always want to.”
Ghost moved so silently that you didn’t hear or see him take it, but when you looked up again he and the container at the edge of your desk were gone.
.
.
.
It should be a good thing.
You would be gone soon enough, none the wiser of who Ghost was. Of what you were to each other.
But it didn’t sit well. It was a new thing to nag at the back of his mind, finding your office empty, you becoming a ghost in your own right. He hated the ache in his chest, the thought of you so far away. He could only assume you’d be stationed back in the US.
The thought festered, burrowed.
“Laswell.”
She jumped, hand going beneath her desk before she spotted Ghost in the corner of her office. She sighed and closed her eyes, fingertips rubbing her eyes instead.
“Ghost,” she sighed, “Don’t do that.”
Simon said your name, and Laswell lowered her hands to look at him. “How long has she got?”
“What do you mean?”
“Said she’s on loan. I want to know how long.”
Laswell considered him; Ghost waited. He wouldn’t explain himself, and Laswell knew that.
“Maybe as long as a year.” She tilted back in her chair and asked anyway. “Why?”
Ghost didn’t answer, slipping back out of her office and down the hall.
You were still in your office, hunched over the desk, lavender headphones pulled down around your neck. He watched you for a long moment, eyes tracing over scars that belonged to him. It was jarring each time to see pain he experienced threaded over your skin. It made him feel exposed by proxy.
As he watched, you lifted a hand and rubbed your neck with a wince, fingers lingering on the long scar slashed at the base of your throat. The grimace faded from your face and your expression receded into the impassive, blank, focused slate it always settled into as you continued working.
When he sat down in your office, you just shot him a tired smile and continued working.
He walked you to your car around midnight.
“Tell us if you’re here this late again,” he said, not looking at you.
“Ghost,” you said. “It’s almost enough to make me think you like me.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he answered.
You just laughed.
.
.
.
“Tea?”
You jumped, just as Laswell had, only your hand didn’t go beneath the desk. Nothing there to reach for, he knew, your vulnerability like a beacon, or a stain.
It would need remedied.
But first, this.
It was the sixth time in two weeks that you were at your desk well past when everyone else had gone home.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Unfortunately not.”
You laughed; his shoulders eased. “Ghost,” you said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” You tilted your head. “I’m starting to think you’re spying on me.”
“What’re you still doing ‘ere?”
“What are you doing wandering around our wing after hours?”
Not a line of questioning he was keen on following. That just being near a place you had been earlier in the day was enough to loosen that fucking tether in his chest. That he was worried incessantly about you being alone at night.
“Offerin’ to make you a tea,” he answered. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” you echoed. “Of course.”
“You’re supposed to tell me when you’re stayin’ late.”
“Ghost,” you said seriously, lifting your brows, “I’m here late again today.”
“Hilarious, you are.”
You giggled again. “Are you really offering to make me tea?”
He nodded. “C’mon then.”
You smiled and shrugged the blanket off your shoulders. He waited while you locked your computer and stood.
Simon allowed you to lead toward the breakroom where he’d observed the many cups of tea you’d politely swallowed from well meaning coworkers, who left it to steep for too long or too short, added too much sugar and milk, or left it totally plain.
The overhead lights were too bright, a blue-white glare that made you frown and squint. Your nose scrunched up in distaste. There were circles beneath your eyes, exhausted loops that matched his own.
“So,” you prompted, leaning against the counter, “How does one make a proper cuppa?”
“Not bad,” he said of your accent, lifting the electric kettle from the hook to fill with water. “Little posh.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
He grunted, and put the kettle on, before rooting through the cabinet above the sink for tea bags. A grim selection awaited him, but he’d make due with what was available.
“Ah, so you boil the water. I was under the impression you could just stick it all in the microwave.”
He involuntarily made a pained sound. “Fucking hell,” he muttered, “That your usual method?”
You bit the inside of your cheek, poorly concealing a laugh. “I scandalized a data analyst with that joke.” You cup your chin in your hand, peer up at him from beneath a thick fringe of lashes. “I do know how to boil water, I’ll have you know.”
“Got a head start then.”
You laughed again, shoulders shaking. Simon watched the corner of your mouth curl, and it eased something in his chest. You were painfully close, the woodsy, floral scent of your perfume curled in the air. Your elbow brushed his. He didn’t know how you could be unaware of the bond at that moment, when being that close to you felt like being lit on fire. He wanted to reach for you so badly that he had to clench his fist closed to avoid it.
If someone were to ask him to move away from you right then, it would end badly. Bloody.
The thin, needle sharp connection ached, begged.
Simon ignored it.
When you glanced up, he looked away. He could feel your eyes on his face, and didn’t mind the scrutiny in it. He didn’t mind you watching him, and wondered what you saw.
“I like being able to see your eyes,” you said, just as the kettle clicked off.
He met your gaze, disarmed by the declaration. Your features had softened, melted into a dangerous fondness. “Why?”
“You have pretty eyes,” you shrugged. “And it’s hard to see you with the other mask.” You shifted, watching him lift the kettle, pour the hot water into a mug and over the teabag he’d dropped into it.
“You can tell me to fuck off, if you want,” you began carefully, fingertips drumming nervously against the counter. “Why do you wear it?”
Simon watched the teabag bob on the surface of the water, thin amber trails unfurling, coloring the water slowly brown. “Five minutes,” he nodded at the tea. “Don’t touch it. None of that dunking shite.”
“Yes, sir,” you agreed. “Five minutes, no touching.”
He huffed, and your smile widened. You bumped your shoulder against his. The contact only lasted a second or two, but the relief it provided was so intense that he nearly choked on it.
The pain, softened by your proximity, returned immediately, crept down into the soft ligaments between his bones. He felt the loss in the roots of his teeth, the middle of his chest; it was like losing his breath in a different way, being suckerpunched in the solar plexus, knocked on his ass.
“To hide my face.”
“Your identity, you mean.”
“My identity,” he agreed.
“Why?”
He released a long, slow breath, and thought about telling you to piss off, maybe even just to see how you’d take it. Were you as good as your word? Would you let the subject drop?
Instead, he said, “There are a lot of bad people in the world, bird.”
You pursed your lips, fingers toying with the teabag string, flicking the tab at the end with your nail. There was another question swimming in your eyes, but you let it go unasked, dropping your eyes from his instead.
“You’ve seen more of them than most,” you said. “I would guess.”
“Part of the job.”
Your mouth curled a little, lashes fluttering against your cheek. “Hm. But y’know something? I think I’d know you anywhere,” you said, without a hint of shame or irony. “It’s all in your eyes.”
Before Simon could respond, you hid a yawn in your sleeve and rubbed your hand over your face, exhaustion layered in thick rings beneath your eyes. “Even if this is gross,” you indicate the tea, “At least it will keep me awake.”
“I take offense to that.”
You laughed again. “Hm. Sorry, Lieutenant.” You leaned in, “It smells so nice, so why does it taste like shit?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make you a coffee if it’s shit.”
“You’re kind.” This time when you leaned your shoulder against his, you left it there. The empty soreness like a bruise inside his ribs loosened again. For the first time in a while, he was left with the absence of pain.
When the tea was done steeping, he did yours with a bit of honey. There was no way you’d take it plain and like it, but he drew the line at milk. Especially the blasphemy that was the military issued powdered milk in a canister that sat on the counter. Abso-fucking-lutely not.
“There you are,” he said, “Cup of tea.”
“A proper cuppa,” you tried again. It was a little less posh this time.
He huffed. “Better all the time.”
“And I have you to thank.”
Your face creased as you took the cup between your palms, an unreadable expression flitting across your features. Then your mouth twisted to the side, a sure sign you were attempting to keep some emotion or thought in check.
Your shoulder was still pressed heavily against his.
“Thanks, Ghost.”
“”S just tea.”
You shook your head and lifted the cup, blowing gently on the surface before you took a tiny sip. He watched your face, watched your throat move as you swallowed, the flickering web of your lashes. A step up, at least, from all the shit tea from your coworkers that make your brows tense in an effort to conceal a grimace. “One good thing has come of this,” you said after a moment of contemplation.
“What’s tha’?”
“I know how to make tea for you now.”
“Like it?”
“I love it.”
You briefly tilted your head onto his shoulder, then pulled away entirely. The flood of discomfort was worse than before. His muscles spasmed around it in a violent convulsion. “I mean that really.”
He breathed out, through it. “I don’t take honey.”
You studied the contents of the cup, tilting it one way and then the other, like something important laid at the bottom of the porcelain well.
“Noted.”
Sure enough, the next day, a hot cup was waiting for him, which he drank as you chatted from behind your computer, decidedly, pointedly, giving him the privacy to do so.
.
.
.
Things settled into a pleasant rhythm.
A regimented, regular existence that you had long ago learned to embrace. The base became home more than the tiny apartment you rented and spent only enough time to sleep, bathe, and cook in.
You timed your days to the ebb and flow of the base, to visits to your office, debriefings and conference rooms, the restless energy of so many people in one place moving. You breathed around absences, the pockets of emptiness that sometimes cropped up. The loneliness that felt like an unfillable pit in your stomach.
People often saw your scars and thought not to bother. Why would fate have marked you so heavily if you weren’t meant to find your pair? The scars meant nothing, really. They were no more significant than anyone else’s. Your chances of running into your soulmate was no higher than someone who had accrued no scars from their bond.
You were a stopping off point, a bit of fun, but not someone to invest time and effort into, not when the reminder that someone else might come along and render it all moot was so visible, so literally in their face. To look at you was to be reminded of that bond waiting in the wings, for them and for you, and that you could only ever be temporary.
It made friendships hard too. Some were jealous, others thought there couldn’t be room for anyone else in your life. You were important to no one.
It had been proven to you time and again, and you weren’t sure what kept you hopeful that someone would one day see past it. So when Sergeant Davies stuck his head in your office one Friday afternoon long after Ghost had departed your office for the day, and asked you out, you found yourself saying yes.
“Would you like to go out sometime?” He asked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Just round the pub for drinks?”
“Oh,” you said. “I—”
It had been a long time since anyone took interest in you. You’d only talked to him a few times before, but Davies was handsome in a boyish way and sweet and you liked him well enough, you found yourself hesitating for half a second. To your horror, your mind flashed to Ghost, stomach lurching painfully, a knot of tension fisting itself in your chest.
You looked at his usual chair, empty now, seeing his large frame sprawled there anyway, thighs spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, eyes steady and focused, locked onto you with an intensity and constancy you still weren’t used to.
Heat bloomed in your lungs, crept up your neck. You glanced away, back at Davies waiting at the door.
“Yeah,” you answered firmly. “Sure.”
“Brilliant,” he grinned. “How about tonight?”
Your belly gave another sour squirm that you ignored; it had just been a long time, that was all. “I’m free.”
“Brilliant,” he said again. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay.”
His grin was crooked and self satisfied as he exited your office.
So you found yourself walking off the base with Davies later that evening. You found yourself laughing and hopeful in a local pub that you hadn’t gotten the chance to explore yet, busy as you were, the base a tide that tugged you back again and again. Like a magnet, you wanted to be there.
And all of it came to nothing, the moment Davies saw the extent of the scarring when you took him home. It wasn’t just your face, it was your hands and arms and chest and belly. Your whole body was marked, dogeared for someone else. He looked down at you in your bed, his head framed by your ceiling fan and you saw the moment it clicked. The moment it wouldn’t work.
“Someone out there is really looking for you,” he said. “You’re lucky.”
“No more than anyone else,” you countered. “You know that’s not how it works.”
“I know,” he said, pulling on his shirt. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you said before he kissed your cheek and retreated.
Still, you didn’t sleep, just laid on your side, half undressed, staring out at a sky that slowly lightened, stars fading, wondering if perhaps your truest fate was to be lonely for your whole life.
You didn’t hate your scars, or your soulmate. But sometimes you thought it would be easier if you didn’t have one at all.
.
.
.
Monday.
There was a knife in Simon’s pocket.
Not unusual in and of itself, he carried several at all times, slipped into his sleeves and belt and boot.
The one in his pocket, though, was for you.
A gift, a contingency, and an offer all wrapped in one.
The knowledge that it was yours was an uncomfortable weight in his chest. It meant admitting he cared enough to procure it, test it, hand it over.
It wasn’t quite your typical lunch hour, but Ghost was headed to your office anyway. It was sunny, for once, and he expected to find you taking an early break anyway, leaning back in your chair with your headphones on, absorbing the rare rays.
And, he wanted to be done with it, to stop tapping his pocket repeatedly, checking the blade was still there, like it might have run away.
Soap had noticed his fidgeting as they all sat through a briefing on intelligence reports with Laswell that morning. Ghost had forced his hand still, exuded a forced calm, but Johnny’s eyes hadn’t turned away.
When he arrived at your office, deliberately rustling against the doorjamb so as not to startle you, you glanced up and smiled tightly and his plan vanished.
Something was wrong. The blinds were closed, your office an unusual sea of gray air. Your shoulders were caved inward protectively, your expression wan and closed. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes, your voice was rough when you said, “Hey, Ghost.”
Simon took his usual seat, watching you type something, decidedly not looking at him. He watched you, the set of your mouth and eyes. He waited for your chatter to begin but it didn't.
“All right?”
“Hm?”
“You’re quiet.”
“Oh, only one of us is allowed to be quiet?” You joked, but it came out a bit brittle, and worn.
There were, he noticed as he looked at you, circles beneath your eyes. “What ‘appened?”
You looked up again, and shook your head. “I’m just tired.”
“Try again.”
Frustration crept into your features. “Who said I want to tell you?” With that, you ducked behind your monitors.
Simon waited, but you did not reemerge.
He stood, and rounded your desk. You glanced up then, leaning back when you found him so close. “Jesus, Ghost—”
“Nice weather.”
“I can see that.”
“And you aren’t out there sunnin’ yourself? Something horrible must have happened.”
Your mouth twisted to the side and you glanced away. “I. . .I’m just being dramatic.”
“C’mon, then.”
You blinked up at him. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer, but you rose anyway when he tilted his head toward the door. Simon snagged the blanket you’d knitted for him months ago from its place along the back of his chair, finally with a proper purpose, and carried it over his arm.
“Lunch.”
You grabbed it and followed him down the hall. Simon shouldered open an external door and held it open for you, the scent of your skin, the warm brush of your body so close to his as you ducked under his arm like a beacon, a light he wanted to follow.
Carefully, you nudged your shoulder against his as you walked. The familiar sharp, sweet pang whenever you brushed too close together settled in his chest. He wondered if you felt it too, if you felt that sickly flutter in your chest, or if his suspicion that he was holding one end of an untethered bond in his hand was right.
Just his luck.
Didn’t matter though.
He ticked his elbow out a little, and after a moment, you pushed your hand against the inside of his arm. His shoulders loosened; his jaw unclenched. The pain in his chest settled.
The absence of the ache was intense; he was so used to being in near constant pain.
“So, what are we doing?”
“Walking.”
“I can see that.”
“Why’re you askin’, then, bird?”
You huffed but didn’t ask anymore questions as he led you down one concrete pathway.
The sky was a flawless robin’s egg blue, only a wispy, thin line of cloud on the very distant horizon. The distant shouts of drill instructors snapped in the warm summer air. Your shoulders drooped as you walked, eyes fluttering closed for a few seconds at a time as you tilted your face to the sun, inhaling deeply.
He led you around the last building in a long line of barracks and brought you to a halt. The only thing beyond was a chainlink fence that marked the edge of the base. A faint breeze coated him in the smell of your skin, settled deep in the well of his lungs. He took a breath, watched your lashes flutter.
Your thumb stroked a pattern against the inside of his arm, lazy and slow. “You’ve got a soft spot for me, Ghost.”
He didn’t deny it.
“What are we doing back here?”
Ghost pulled away from you with some effort and spread the blanket over the grass. He sat on the concrete steps that led to the back door of the unused barracks.
You sat on the blanket, started to open your lunch and then flopped back in the sun instead. “A usual haunt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Secret’s safe with me.”
“Mind if I smoke?”
“No.” Then, “I won’t look.”
He grunted in acknowledgement, rolled the bottom of his mask up, carton of cigarettes and lighter pulled from the depths of a trouser pocket. Simon watched the rise and fall of your chest, tracing the latticework of scars over your face. They looked better on you, he decided. Not as noticeable as his own, faded and light, pencil through wax paper instead of the thick groves of his own.
They glinted a little in the sun, like the scales of an iridescent fish.
Your eyes remained peacefully closed, soaking up the sun like a long deprived plant. Sweat beaded along your forehead, and when you pushed up your sleeves, Ghost was reminded that all of you matched all of him.
He recognized a burn mark on your forearm that belonged to him, a cut that wrapped halfway around your wrist. He was pretty sure the burn mark was from a mishandled flare, the wrist scar from a rope that had gotten tangled and burned him.
Simon wanted to reach down and cup the side of your throat, feel the soft, sun warmed skin beneath his fingers. He wondered if your scars felt the same as his own, rough and grooved.
Probably not, they were imitations, ungenerous sketchings of his own.
He’d like to map them all against his own, find out if he bore any of yours. He wouldn’t have noticed something small that you might have collected yourself. A childhood fall, a careless burn while cooking.
He watched the delicate flex of muscle in your forearms. Your shirt was a little askew, more faded marks left like a tracery of veins on your chest and collarbone and shoulder. It was fucking awful, a wrenching feeling in his chest, to know all that had been inflicted on him, had fallen on you too.
He wondered about the pain again, imagined you writhing with terror and agony and confusion, every gunshot wound and burn and slash he received an echo inside you. Cigarette burns dotting your arms and wrists when you were just a child, months of pain without end when he was captured and tortured and his life was irrevocably changed.
Simon wanted to ask, needed to know just how much damage he’d inflicted. But the words stuck in his throat. A fear of knowing, if he asked about the pain, maybe he’d hear other things too, how much you must hate him and didn’t know it was the man in front of you your hate should be directed at.
When he stubbed out his cigarette on the heel of his boot and rolled his mask back down, you blinked into the sun and exhaled, long and slow, and then sat up, leaning back on your palms.
“What ‘appened?” He asked.
Your mouth twitched into your usual, if a bit more sheepish, smile. “You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?”
“Affirmative,” he said.
You rolled your eyes and set up straight, brushing your palms together before reaching for your lunch. “I brought something for you.”
“Stalling.”
“Pushy,” you countered, giggling, rummaging around in your bag. Your smile faded as you pulled free one of the usual containers, what looked like lasagne within. He watched the edge of your mouth curl, the scar slitted along one side pulling at your expression. “I went on a date this weekend.”
Ice slid down his spine, curled in a viscous circle in his gut. “Bad date?”
“No,” you said, shaking your head adamantly, staring down at the container in your lap. “No, it went really well.” You glanced up at him and then dug in your bag again, passing another one to him along with a fork. “Until he saw my—” You fidgeted with your sleeve and then yanked it down. The other followed suit. “My marks. My scars.”
“He’s a prick.”
“No, he wasn’t,” you shook your head. “It’s happened before. They see the extent of it, and it’s like something biological clicks. I’m off limits.” You sat your food to the side and wrapped your arms around your knees. “Even though I’m no more likely to find mine than anyone else.”
You looked very small, and alone at that moment.
“I know it’s not my soulmate’s fault,” you said quietly. “I know that. I know that. And I don’t blame them for it. But sometimes I get so lonely I just—I wish—I wish I didn’t have one. Sometimes I wish I could hate them.”
The chill spreads outward.
It was confirmation enough. If you knew, you would hate him. All that repressed, sentimentalized resentment would come bubbling up the moment you were actually faced with the person who so fundamentally changed the course of your life.
He looked at his scars winking in the sun on your skin and felt a self hatred so intense it nearly made him flinch. He wished he could crawl out of that grave and kill them all over again, slower, just for this.
You glanced up and smiled tightly. “But I’m a hopeless romantic, and dramatic. It was just disappointing. I always have hope someone will see past it.” You ran your hand over the blanket and unfolded yourself to finally begin eating. “This helped, though,” you said. “Thank you, Ghost.” You nodded at the food in his hands, averted your gaze again.
And even though you could easily glance at him, Simon pushed up his mask and popped open the lid of the lasagne still warm between his hands.
You ate together for the first time, in silence in the sun. You closed your eyes, kept your face pointed up and away, a cool breeze ruffling your shirt sleeves.
“Have you found yours?”
Simon looked at you, the edge of your jaw, the soft shadows your lashes cast over your ruined cheek. “Don’t think someone like me is meant for one.”
You nodded. “Me either.”
.
.
.
He walked you back to your office.
You felt better, settled, but he sort of just had that affect on you, you were coming to find.
Ghost smelled like sun and freshly mowed grass and cigarette smoke. His shoulder kept touching yours, something in your chest lurching each time, like a rib bone had come loose and was knocking against your heart and lungs.
Ghost carried the blanket back, folded it and set it carefully along the back of what had become his chair.
You sat and turned, expecting to find him already silently gone as was his way.
Instead, he was very close and depositing something on your desk.
Matte black, compact, deadly, cold to the touch.
A folded pocket knife sat at the edge of your desk. Ghost loomed over you, his shadow curling around your edges.
He slid it toward you, watched you fold your fingers around it. For a long moment, each of you was holding it. “What’s this?” You asked when he released it, gloved fingers sliding across your desk, back to his side.
“A knife.”
“Oh, really? I've never seen one before.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s for you. I’ll teach you how to use it.”
“Why?”
“In case you need to.”
“Is this about me staying late?”
“No.” He did not elaborate.
“You know I received firearm training. I can shoot a gun. Isn’t a knife a little—”
“But you don’t carry a gun.”
“No,” you agreed. “I don’t.”
He nodded as though that explained it. “Right.”
You considered it, flipped it open. Deadly, shiny blade newly sharpened and oiled and well cared for. It was odd to be given a weapon, and yet unsurprising where Ghost was concerned. You glanced up, watched his dark, intense eyes flick over your face. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but his brows knitted the longer you stared at each other. Concern, weariness.
“Okay.”
His shoulders loosened. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” you agreed.
.
.
.
If you thought you would receive one lesson in knifework and be done with it, you didn’t know Ghost very well.
You only ran drills first, as though Ghost were making sure the physical fitness exam you had to pass once a year was up to scratch. You proved again and again that you could run without getting too winded, disassemble, load, and fire a service weapon. When he was satisfied with that, the real training began.
You practiced with a rubber blade that bruised when stuck into your ribs. He did not go easy on you. You left the gym battered and bruised, sweaty and just a little bit resentful. But you could break a wrist lock hold, grapple and use your body and size to your advantage. The goal he repeatedly told you, was not to turn you into a fighter or a soldier, but give you an opportunity to get away, to run away.
What kind of danger he imagined you getting into between the base and your apartment you couldn’t begin to imagine. But you enjoyed spending time with him, enjoyed being in the gym. You found yourself laughing when you were repeatedly slammed into the mat, knife wrested from your fingers. It was fun. And, it was good for you, you decided, even if you thought his intense insistence was a tad dramatic.
Ghost was a bit dramatic about certain things, you were coming to learn.
This was one of them. You were, you thought with warmth, one of the things he was a bit dramatic about. For whatever reason, you’ve been tucked under his wing, into his shadow.
On the third week of relentlessly brutal training, you arrived at the base gym, empty as it always was, to find him holding a length of rope.
You eyed it warily and shifted from foot to foot, amused despite the discomfort. “What do you imagine is going to happen to me?”
Ghost didn’t answer as you set your bag down and pulled off your sweatshirt. The room was warm, close and humid, the scent of left over dregs of soldiers clogging the room for most of the day. The scent of plastic, lemon disinfectant, and sweat is thick on the air, but when you stepped toward Ghost, his familiar comforting smell of tea and cigarettes washed over you in a vacuous, orbital cloud.
You looked up just as his eyes slid away from you, blond lashes catching the light, skin pink around his eyes. You’d swear it was a blush if you didn’t know better. “Ghost?”
“Better to be prepared, yeah?”
“For what?” All the same, you turned with a sigh.
After a painfully long moment he stepped close and pressed the dark material around your wrists. His body was warm behind yours for that brief moment even without touching you, like the glow of a heat lamp that made the rest of the room feel cold by comparison.
His gloved fingers were carefully delicate against your skin. It sent sparks skittering up your arms. What would his bare skin feel like against yours?
Rough, warm. Safe.
It’s a thought that had curled its roots into your mind the first time you fell to the mat together and you felt his weight against yours, brief and heavy, but comforting somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be, he was playing predator, it should have been panic inducing.
Stupid, silly.
If your most recently failed date had shown you anything, it was that feeling anything for anyone that had seen your scars was a failing venture. And Ghost had seen more of them now, than most. Maybe you should start wearing a mask.
“What’s the goal today?” You asked, feeling a little like you couldn’t breathe. His warmth and scent and the weight of his presence was overwhelming in a way that made you want to curl into him, gladly suffocate.
“Same as always,” he answered drolly. “To get away.”
“Hm. I keep thinking you’ll challenge me,” you teased.
“Not a game, bird.”
“But what am I meant to do? I can’t fight.”
“Get out of the bindings. Get to the door.”
“Is that it?”
You would swear he’s smirking. “Simple enough, aye.”
It wasn’t easy.
For the third time in a row, you landed hard on your back.
Ghost’s weight was heavy against you, before it lifted away. Your sweaty skin stuck to his hoodie.
Your breath comes in hard, deep pants. Your wrists ached and panic had begun to set in.
“On your feet.”
Clumsy as a newborn deer, you stumble to your feet. You had to be faster than him, incapacitate him. “You won’t be getting away from me,” he’d said once, “so you’d have a chance.” It was a compliment; one that said you were doing good.
It didn’t feel like you were doing good now.
By the sixth time, you felt raw and helpless, wrists caught at an odd angle beneath you. It wasn’t fun; it wasn’t sparring. You couldn’t manage to wriggle out of the bindings and you were useless at anything he’d taught you without your hands.
“You’re hurting me,” you gasped.
He released you immediately and the pressure in your wrists eased. It hadn’t been pain, not really, just panic, just exhaustion.
But you knew instantly that you’d made a mistake, that he would not take it that way.
“Shit.”
.
.
.
The window was open and you were not in your office.
Simon paused in the doorway, noted your bag on the chair in the corner, the patchwork quilt trailing over the arm of your desk chair and spilling onto the floor. His was gone from the chair. You’d been wandering off without him recently.
He turned and marched back down the hall. An administrative assistant pointed toward the external door. “Getting sun, she said,” he said. “Sir.”
Ghost nodded and shouldered the door open. He found you behind the barracks, lying on his blanket, staring up at a patchy sky, slices of blue peaking from between low hanging gray clouds.
When his shadow fell over you, you opened your eyes and squinted up at him. “Ghost, you’re blocking my sun.”
“Not much sun to speak of.” You grimace and frown at the sky. “You weren’t in your office.”
“Sorry, should have left a note.” You patted the blanket next to you. “Sit.”
Simon sat on the concrete steps. “Where’s your lunch?”
“Forgot it.”
Worry sprouted, blossomed along his veins, ubiquitous as the pain that accompanies it.
“Canteen,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“It’s okay—“
“Wasn’t a suggestion.”
“You’re bossy,” you said but didn’t move, chin tilted up, eyes flitting shut again. “I’ll have a big dinner.”
He sighed and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, content enough to wait you out and smoke. The clouds continued to gather, putting your beloved sun to rest for the moment. The air grew steadily thicker with humidity.
“Gonna rain,” he commented.
You ignored him, eyes squinching closed harder, like you could will the sun to return. He watched you, made himself look at the bruises on your wrists and forearms, he knew there were matching ones on your ribs. They were harmless, just the usual consequence of sparring, but the ones around your wrists—that’s a mistake he won’t soon forget.
When a fat raindrop landed on your arm, you sat up with a grumble. “Ready now?” He asked, pulling down his mask again.
“I can see you won’t leave it alone.”
“Affirmative,” he said.
You rolled your eyes and started to get to your feet, pausing when he held out a hand to you. You stared for a beat too long before gripping his hand in yours.
Even through his gloves, it was like being electrocuted.
You released his hand as soon as you could, eyes skirting his. “Your lead,” you said. “I haven’t had the privilege.”
He grunted, followed you closely back inside.
As Simon’s misfortune would have it, Johnny was still in the canteen.
He lasered in on the pair of you immediately, a grin growing across his face as he approached. “Ach so this is where you’ve been off to LT.”
Ghost herded you into line, a raucous group of new recruits halting their conversation to ogle you before their eyes flicked to his and away, conversation continued at a more subdued level. He shifted closer, between you and them, though you didn’t seem to notice.
“Haven’t been off anywhere,” he grumbled.
“Who’s this then?”
You smiled and offered your hand and name. “It’s nice to see that Ghost has bad manners with everyone.”
“John MacTavish,” Soap said, all charm as he practically bowed. “Call me Soap.”
“Soap,” you giggled. “I’ve seen you in my reports.”
Soap’s gaze flicked over your face, sharp eyes making the quick calculations that had made Simon hope he wouldn’t be in the canteen. “Are they yours?”
“Sergeant—,” Ghost said sharply, a warning in his voice.
But you only laughed and touched your cheek with obvious pride as the line moved up. “No. None of them belong to me. They’re nice though, right?”
Simon went very still, swore his heart rate slowed. You held out your arm, showed off a sliver flash.
“Very becoming, lass.”
You smiled again and gestured to your own chin, the side of your head. “Yours?”
“Aye, all mine.”
“Ah, luck.”
“Lucky indeed.”
Johnny’s eyes shifted to Simon’s, brows raised, with a look that said he knew. Simon glanced away, gritting his jaw so hard it ached.
“Am I going to get food poisoning from this?” You asked as a tray was handed over, eying warily what was ostensibly mash, peas and carrots, mystery meat.
“Probably not,” Johnny answered cheerfully. “Been mostly fine.”
“Yes, but I think you military people might have tolerance to low levels of poison.”
“That’s for sure, bonnie.”
“Bonnie,” you said, giggling. “Are you calling me pretty?”
Soap covered his heart, balancing his tray with one hand. “You wound me. Simon only keeps us good looking bastards around.”
“Simon,” you said softly, glancing up at him. “I didn’t think anyone knew your name.”
Ghost didn’t answer for a moment, glaring daggers into the side of Johnny’s head, ignoring the way his heart was clenched so tight it felt like it was in a vise. Simon, his name on your tongue—
“It’s need to know,” he snapped.
Your expression folded and you glanced away. “Right, of course. Sorry.”
Simon clenched his jaw so hard it clicked as Johnny shot him a look. “This way, lass,” he said, leading you toward a spot in the corner of the mess.
“Oh,” you said weakly, “That’s all right. You don’t have to—”
Ghost couldn’t help but notice the anxious look you threw him, the thin line your voice had transformed into.
Soap wasn’t listening, already talking your ear off, pulling out a chair for you. You smiled and sat and Simon was left to silently watch it unfold.
.
.
.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Soap muttered when they’d safely returned you to your office where a contingent of lesser analysts awaited you. The corridor leading away from the now closed door seemed impossibly long. “D’ya know how many people would kill to meet their soulmate? You’ve got yours right under your fuckin’ nose and haven’t even told her yer name!”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“Yer name?”
Ghost leveled Soap with a stare.
Soap gaped at him. “Steamin’ Jesus. You aren’t plannin’ to tell the lass at all?”
“Stay out of it, MacTavish.”
Johnny followed him down the hall, outside into a bleak, gray drizzle. “You know it can kill you?” Simon kept walking. “Simon.”
He stopped, glanced at Soap with a warning in his eyes. “Do ya?”
“It won’t.”
Johnny continues anyway, urgently. “There’s a pain, they say, under the ribs when—“
“Stay out of it, Sergeant,” Ghost growled, that very pain growing as it always did as he moved further and further away from you. “It’s nothing.”
“It‘ll corrode,” Johnny said to his retreating back. “She’ll feel it eventually.”
Simon ignored him.
But he wondered as he walked away, if he died, if you’d feel the corded snap of his life floating away from yours.
Somehow, being that sort of ghost, didn’t sit well with him.
.
.
.
Johnny, predictably, did not stay out of it.
He regularly and reliably began to show up in your office. More than once, he looped Garrick into accompanying him. Ghost had watched as the same realization Soap had snapped into place on Gaz’s face, and knew it was only a matter of time before Price knew too.
Luckily, they were the only three on the entire base that could make the connection, that had seen his face, so at least it was done with. None of them said anything to him about it, but there were a lot of worried glances being exchanged.
Ghost felt the edge of his sanity begin to wear thin the longer it went on, not that there was much left of it in the first place.
The disruption, the infiltration, the distraction grated until his insides felt raw with irritation. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know, not because he was ashamed, but because you were his, and you didn’t deserve to be burdened by that. He would shoulder that horrible belonging for both of you.
But the way you’d tenderly touched your cheek remains burned into his memory. The soft look in your eye. The gentle way you and Soap always spoke of soulmates whenever they came up, reverent and tender.
You enjoyed their company, Johnny and Kyle, and seemed all the better for it. It was clear immediately how much you liked both of them. How much you desperately needed friends.
Ghost was loath to admit there was a seed of jealousy wriggling in his belly. The easy way you got on with them proof enough that a wire had gotten crossed somewhere, that you were more cursed by him than anchored by.
Then, the gifts left at the edge of your desk began to extend to the lads and not just himself, and it felt vaguely as though he were losing a vital piece of himself to it.
Then, you stopped coming to the gym. You were gone, office dark, before he could walk you to your car. You went on another date.
He didn’t know what to do with any of it.
One Tuesday at the end of July you were in your office, but Soap was there before him, tearing into a packet of crisps, lounging in Simon’s chair, patchwork quilt flattened beneath him in a heap. It was hot, and humid, a fan in the corner working overtime, window propped open.
You were happily listening to Johnny explain the ins and outs of football. A match was playing on your computer screen which you’d turned back so both of you could see.
Your eyes found Simon’s when he paused in the doorway, and you waved him inside, an unsure smile twitching at the corners of your mouth. “Hi, Ghost. Do you keep up with soccer, too?”
A groan from Soap. “Bloody Americans.”
“Sorry, sorry. You keep up with footie too, mate?”
“Horrendous,” Ghost said flatly.
Your smile faltered then brightened again. It didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You should hear my Scottish accent. Soap said I offended every one of his ancestors.”
“Aye and you did lass,” he said solemnly. “Yeh—”
“Sergeant,” Ghost interrupted loudly. “Aren’t you due for PT?”
“Ach, right,” he muttered, getting to his feet, “Thanks for the reminder, LT.”
“Oh, Soap,” you said, “Hold on.” You rummaged beneath your desk for a long moment, then passed him a brown paper bag full of cookies. “Your favorite, as requested.”
“You sweet on me or something, bon?”
You rolled your eyes and said, “Out of my office.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ghost took Soap’s vacated seat, watched you avoid looking at him as you moved things needlessly around your desk, twisted your monitor back around and muted the match.
The silence was suffocating.
“All right?”
You froze, then shuffled the papers together and slid them to a corner of your desk. “I wanted to apologize.” Your voice hitched a little.
He blinked, taken aback. He didn’t like that you could surprise him. “For what?”
You bit your lip, fidgeted again. “Your name, I guess. You didn’t want me to know.” Your mouth twisted to the side. “And your team bothering you here—”
“You’re apologizing for Soap?”
Your brow furrowed. “Well I encourage it—”
“No.”
“No?” You shook your head, “and that day in the gym—” You opened and closed your hands anxiously. “I think I upset you.”
He stared across the room, toward your big, sunny window, all those little potted plants that have flourished through the summer months. Your bug lamp seemed to droop in the heat, sad and watchful. He’d hurt you, and you’d taken the blame. Something horrible lurched in his belly, heavy and unforgiving. “Didn’t. I should have been more careful.”
“Right,” you said carefully. “So if it’s not that, why are you—”
He shrugged, watched one of the emerald leaves sway in the warm breeze. “I like you to myself,” he admitted. “Not the best at sharing.”
“Oh,” you said, voice tender. “Oh.”
“Mm.”
“I’ll make space.”
He didn’t quite understand what you meant by that, but he liked the way it sounded. Space for him.
“You’ll come to the gym later, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He stood, deposited your knife, which he’d snagged early in the morning to clean and sharpen, back onto your desk, along with the new box of tea because he noticed you were out the night before. “And don’t tell bloody Soap.”
“Aye, LT.”
He chuckled. “Take care of that.”
“Teach me how?”
He nodded.
“Thanks for the tea. I used the last bag yesterday afternoon.”
“I know.”
Your smile was soft, your fingers touched his. He breathed a little easier.
“‘Course you do.”
.
.
.
Simon couldn’t stop thinking about pain.
His body functioned at a constant low level of pain, had for years. Maybe it had his whole life, so he tended not to notice it. But the ache you caused had only seemed to grow over time, tendrils spreading to the furthest reaches of his body, the tips of his fingers, the backs of his knees, places he didn’t think could hold pain.
The intensity increased too, until he could no longer ignore it. It was like a whine, like a child begging to be seen to.
He kept thinking of your voice, too, dreaming of it. You’re hurting me. Panic ridden, laced with fear.
You said he didn’t, after, but he didn’t relish the thought of the possibility. Accidentally hurting you, hurting you on purpose. He thought of his mother, doing her best with a brutal man. He was afraid of unknowingly stepping into a cycle, to find himself standing above you one day, drunk, mean, angry.
You’re hurting me.
It echoed like a heartbeat. Inevitable.
You might collect his scars, but he would not add to them with his own hands. He’d rather die; he’d rather be burned alive; he’d rather crawl out of a grave a hundred times over.
He was afraid of it. Afraid that every terrible aspect of this bond between you could only bring you pain.
His father loomed in the recesses of his mind, all the violent men he’d ever known, every bloody fist. Simon’s scalp ached, the memories swam behind his eyes. Long nights, wild animals, dead girls.
There was one person who had a preoccupation with soulmates who was likely to know, who badgered him regularly about eroding the bond, about bond tears and pain. Simon could know, once and for all, if he was the cause of the indirect pain, at least. His own imposed on you, pushed into your skin like a punishment. He could cross that off his long list of sins.
Johnny, when Simon finally tracked him down, was sat in the armory cleaning a rifle. He watched over his Sergeant's shoulder for a long moment. The methodical movement soothed him, brought his heartrate down a little.
“Johnny.”
Soap jumped and glanced around. “Spooky fucker. Should put a bell on ye—”
“Does she feel it?”
“What—”
He exhaled long and slow. “My pain. If I’m shot tomorrow, would she feel it?”
“No, the lass doesn’t feel it.” Soap turned his wrist, pointed to a scar that was lighter than some of the others, a pale tracery that slipped from the inside of his elbow to mid forearm. “Not mine. Watched it fade in one mornin’. Didn’t feel a thing.”
Ghost looks at the scar, and Soap lets him. “Tha’ why you haven’t—”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Deserves better.”
Johnny nodded, continued cleaning the rifle. “Thing is, LT. She doesn’t. That’s the point.”
Well, at least he only had to worry about becoming his father.
Fucking perfect.
.
.
.
Two months deployment.
The pain in Simon’s chest was agonizing, a constant fire. He couldn’t sleep, pain meds did nothing for it.
He could only wait it out, wait until he was back on base and hope you were in your office, that the solace of your presence in that warm yellow light would be waiting for him. The pain would recede. He needed a plan, though. Clearly it wasn’t fucking viable to just let it go on. It was too distracting and only getting worse. It was no longer something he could ignore.
Maybe, he didn’t really want to.
Maybe, Johnny was right.
He half convinced himself that the lancing ache was so bad because you’d been posted somewhere else the last two months and you were further away than ever. Your office would be empty. This was just an agony he would have to learn to live with.
Finally, though, they were going home. Intel secure. One last building to sweep. Empty. A loaded silence that made the back of his neck prickle.
Not as empty as they thought.
Soap steps quickly into the last room ahead of him, gaze sweeping from one side to another before he lowered his weapon and stepped forward.
Ghost followed quickly, lowered his gun when he saw what Johnny had. Civilians. One curled around the other, sobbing so hard she made no noise.
When she lifted her face, Simon sucked in a startled breath. She looked like you, only without his scars. There was a mark slowly bleeding into place on her temple, one that matched the gunshot wound of the woman beneath her.
The wail that suddenly pierced the air was distraught, horrible, a lurch and a bang.
Soap was there, kneeling, looking for wounds that Ghost knew didn’t exist. Horror froze him for the second time in his life, your face swimming behind his eyes.
“I thought you said they couldn’t feel it,” he barked.
“What?”
“Soulmates.”
Soap looked at the pair with fresh eyes.
“They can’t, LT,” Soap said without glancing at him. “It’s no’ that. It’s just—”
Grief. The unbearable snapping of a fated cord. The tether in his own chest pulsed, ached. He thought of it breaking cleanly in two, as though it never existed, your light snuffed out, leaving him in total darkness again.
It wasn’t pain she was feeling, it was the absence.
“Ghost,” Johnny said sharply and Simon finally snapped out of it, went to his side.
It wasn't worth it, he thought. None of this could be fucking worth it. He was left with the sinking sense that all he could ever do was hurt you.
All the same, he felt an urgency to go home. To return to your side. To feel your pulse under his fingers.
Just to be sure.
It took them a long time to get her to leave the body.
.
.
.
Task Force 141 was deployed for nearly two months.
September and October passed slowly, in starts and fits that seemed to drag.
You developed a pain in your side, a stitch from taking it too hard in the gym you assumed. But nothing seemed to help it. The pang became a prick became a small misery that the base medical staff couldn’t pinpoint the origins of.
You missed Ghost, and Kyle and Johnny, tolerated the terrible tea your coworkers made for you, went on another series of failed dates, and finally became friends with your cross-hall apartment neighbor. Months of baked goods and hellos finally coming to fruition. Pieces of a life were falling together.
Finally, they were coming home. You left your offer that night with the assurance that they were uninjured, that Ghost, and likely Soap, would be in your office by noon the next day.
But Simon still managed to reappear as he always did, silently and without warning. A shadow crossed your back as you were locking your office near midnight, a hand grazed your back. You followed the series of steps you’d been taught months ago. Foot back, elbow out, knife in hand, open, turn—
Your wrist was caught by the flat of his palm, fingers of the opposite hand yanking it from your grip.
You blinked and breathed out heavily, relieved. The tight tenderness in your side leveled off for the first time in a month. “Ghost,” you murmured, lowering your now empty hand, “You aren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow morning.”
“That disappointed to see me?”
No. Never. But he was still in full tactical gear. The skin around his eyes was still layered with eyeblack, exhaustion and an acid tension rolling off him in a thick wave. His gaze was heavy, but steady, assessing you in turn. He smelled like diesel and cigarettes and gun powder. You lifted your chin. “Surprised to see you. Glad to see you.”
He only flipped the knife around and held it out to you. “Nice work.”
You smiled as you took the blade and stored it again. “You’re making me paranoid, I think.”
“Good. Paranoid keeps you alive.”
His eyes flicked over you, looking long and hard, though for what you couldn’t be sure. He stepped closer, until you were forced back against the door. He towered over you, corralled you back against the cool wood. Soft, dark eyes like wells of ink in the shadow of the hood pulled over his head, searched long enough that you began to worry something was wrong.
You reached out and rested your hand on his forearm. His body was so taut you could feel the tremble of exhausted, overwrought muscle. “Ghost,” you said gently, carefully. “Are you okay?”
He inhaled deeply, so hard and fast it sounded pained.
He looked at you again, eyes sliding over you slowly, like he was orienting himself, finding steady ground on which to stand.
“Why don’t you cover ‘em?”
Your belly clenched. “Cover what?” you queried, silently begging him not to ask that question.
“Scars.”
You went still, looking down at your skin. You had rolled up your sleeves earlier in the evening when furious typing had required it. They glinted silver in the low light of the hall. Pretty and delicate as dragon scales.
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before.
Still, you fought the urge to cross your arms. You hated when he stared at them.
“Why would I?” You rubbed your wrist. “I don’t want to. They belong to my soulmate.”
He glanced away from you, his jaw tight beneath the mask. “You actually believe in that shite?” His voice was harsh, aggressive in a way he had never spoken to you before. “It’s a bloody children’s tale.”
You bristled, felt something hard and mean well behind your breastbone in a tight knot. The pain that had been kicking you in the ribs lately reared again, made you wince and cover your side. “Well,” you snapped, gesturing to yourself with your free hand, “these aren’t mine, so I guess I have to.”
He scoffed and you felt your heart lurch, hurt settling in your gut, twisting an invisible knife that much deeper. You tried to side step him but he didn’t move, a terrible, solid wall of muscle and—anger? Irritation? You couldn’t tell. “What the fuck do you care? Maybe you’re ashamed of yours,” you said roughly, “But not all of us are.”
His brows furrowed and he shook his head again. “Oh, come off it.”
“What?”
“You’re tellin’ me that if you came face to face with the bastard that did this to you, you wouldn’t hate him?”
Indignation burned a righteous path up your throat. “You don’t get to do that,” you said lowly.
“You didn’t deny it,” he said. “You would.”
“No,” you interrupted vehemently, swallowing around the word like gravel in your throat. “No, of course I wouldn’t. It wasn’t done to me, it—”
But Simon was determined, his mind set.
“He hurt you, changed the course of your bloody life, whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll hate him for it, love.”
“For something he went through?” You asked incredulously, defensively. “Do you know how scared I was?”
Ghost’s eyes went blank, his stare suddenly flat and far away. His gaze drifted from yours, the weight of flinty amber lifted. “Of him,” he said viciously, like something terrible he’d always known had been confirmed.
“No,” you snarled again, not sure why Ghost was fighting you, not sure why he cared about your scars suddenly. “You aren’t listening. For him.” Your ribs ached, your breath came in short bursts. He was too close, the clashing sensations of safety and agitation calcifying the tension between you into a solid, immutable wall.
You inhaled shakily through the sudden distress. Your lungs hitched and spasmed before you could suck in a proper breath, feeling faint, glad for the wall behind you.
He blinked, looked down at you again. “Hey—”
“I was so scared I would lose him before I ever got to meet him. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had scars. Cigarette burns and scratches, bite marks. I used to hope he was older than me, so it wouldn’t have meant that he—so that he wouldn’t have been—” Agitation rises like a tide, all the nights you’d sat awake watching scars bleed into your skin. Your parents had been unable to look at you in the morning, wondering what the future held for you. What kind of person that child would grow up to be.
The same fear Simon seemed to be holding onto so tightly.
You stumbled over his concern, something prickling at the base of your neck.
“Once,” you continued shakily, “they just kept showing up, day after day, for months. I didn’t know what was happening and there was nothing I could do. I thought he was going to die and I couldn’t help him. I was so worried and all I could do was watch.”
You met his eyes, saw something so raw and wretched there that you flinched back, closed your eyes, breath caught.
You aren’t sure when you transitioned to using he instead of they.
It suddenly didn’t feel like you were talking about someone you hadn’t met yet.
You thought of how strangely intense he was about you. How you had felt so strongly about him immediately. How the only bit of his skin you’ve ever seen has been around his eyes; the delicate veins at his wrists.
You thought of him making you tea and teaching you to defend yourself. You thought of him walking you to your car and pulling you into sunny days. You thought of all the cups of coffee and boxes of tea, the gentle way he handled the blanket you made him from cheap cotton like it was spun gold.
You thought of Johnny asking after your scars the first time you met him. How not long after you’d been personally introduced to the rest of the 141 for no discernable reason. How they checked on you. How they were probably the only people that knew what Ghost’s face looked like.
“No,” you whispered, pieces of a terrible puzzle sliding together in your mind.
You opened your eyes.
“Ghost?” you asked softly, tentatively lifting your hand.
He jerked back. “Don’t do that,” he warned.
You stepped closer, knowing you were playing with fire, that he might burn you, lash out like a dog with its leg in a trap.
But if he was yours—
If he was yours, you would not be the one to inflict more hurt on him.
He did not want this, he did not want you, that much was clear.
You closed your hand and let it fall, pushed your fist against your heart instead. “I see you,” you said gently. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You don’t understand,” he rasped.
“You survived.” You backed away. “That’s enough. To know you’re okay.”
The empty spot in your chest ached, seemed to grow tendrils that wrapped around your heart. A bond so close and not latched. Because you haven’t seen him. He has to let you in.
“When you’re ready. If you’re ever ready. I'm here.”
He finally returned his gaze to yours.
“Did it hurt?”
“Did what hurt?” You tilted your head but he didn’t answer, just stared at you with big, moon dark eyes, brows pinched inward, eyeblack creating a tiny white line there. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, I guess.” You shook your head, “No I was just scared. Just worried. It didn’t hurt. You’ve never hurt me.”
He moved so quickly and silently that you jumped when his hand curled around your wrist. Light enough that you could pull away if you wanted.
“You don’t have to. You never have to. I don’t want to take anything else from you.”
Ghost hesitated, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Do I have any of yours?” The question was quiet, almost reverent.
You nodded, “‘Course you do. I fell out of a tree when I was a kid. Gave me a nasty scar on the back of my elbow. I landed on a rock.”
His eyes flicked away, like he was trying to imagine it. You twisted your arm, showed him the thick line of scar there, totally different than the lighter version of his on your skin. “See? You’ll have that one in the same spot but lighter. Maybe not even visible, since you’re so pale.”
Your breath caught when he stepped closer, the pain in your chest was so intense it made breathing difficult.
“It’s not fair to you.”
“What isn’t?”
“To bloody leave it. Hurts, yeah?”
You didn’t admit to the spasming in your chest; it wouldn’t help anything. “When have you ever cared about fair?”
He made a pained sound. “Don’t.”
“I’m okay. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.”
“You’re supposed to need things from me.”
He peeled his gloves off, tucked them into his back pocket. The hall was still and silent aside from your combined ragged breathing. It sounded like you’d been running a marathon. “Ghost—”
“Simon,” he said. “Please, call me Simon.”
You closed your eyes, felt his hands graze your collarbone, your throat, before anchoring on your jaw, tilting your face up. “Look at me, sweet’eart.”
“I can’t.” Your voice trembled, tears clogging your throat.
“Can.”
Very gently, he leaned down and pushed his forehead against yours.
You shuddered and swallowed and stepped closer. Simon curled his arms around you, pulled you into his chest. He was so broad and tall, you felt swaddled against him, warm and secure. His scent wrapped around you like ribbons holding you together. “No point dragging it on, yeah? No point you being in pain.”
“How long?”
“The whole time,” he admitted after a moment. His voice rumbled against your cheek. It felt like home. “First time I saw you.”
“You have had this pain for almost a whole year—”
“Not your fault,” he interrupted, one massive hand sliding down your spine. “Not your fault.”
You huffed, hooked your fingers beneath his tac vest. “I’m sorry anyway.” You pulled back, felt his arms tighten around you for a moment. He didn’t want to let you go. “Is there anything you need to take care of? Reports or debriefing or something?”
“No.”
“Would. . . would you want to come to mine—”
He reached under your arm and plucked your keys out of the lock before you could finish, guiding you down the hall, his hand never leaving your skin.
You had never seen Simon outside the base, you realized suddenly, and everything felt vastly more fragile. It also felt as though that hollow pulse in your chest would tear if you were asked to walk away at that moment, something real and physical would tear and drop out of you, an irreparable part of your soul.
You weren’t sure how you drove home, Ghost huge in your passenger seat, your hands shaking each time he shifted his grip on you.
In your apartment, you hesitated, not sure where you belonged in your own space anymore. Simon looked strange in your tiny living room, among soft blankets and years of collected books and knicknacks. An all consuming shadow. You wondered if this would end like all those dates, just another failure, another loss.
When you started to step toward the lamp, Simon’s fingers curled around your wrist to keep you by his side. “No.”
“Just turning on the lamp.”
He released you.
As you stepped away, a hollow pulse in your chest retched with pain that made you gasp and clutch the edge of the sofa. It felt real, like something was breaking, jagged edges clawing at the inside of your skin. You wondered what Ghost’s self imposed distance might have done to the bond. There were stories, albeit few, of corrosion. The bond literally rusting out, slowly poisoning the soulmate and their pair.
“Come ‘ere,” he muttered. “Sit down.”
When his palm cupped your elbow, the world became softer. Like purr instead of a shriek. He guided you onto the sofa.
Your hands shook when he released you, making quick work of the lamp. The room flooded with soft yellow light. He glanced around. Art on the walls, forest green rug over hardwood floor, molding you had painted a delicate gold. You felt embarrassed of it all suddenly.
“God,” you muttered. He didn’t seem to feel the pain at all, which made your chest ache in a different way and guilt pool heavily between your bones for it. You didn’t want him to be in pain, but you felt as though you were breathing water, choking on your own lungs. “How have you dealt with this?”
“Worse now,” he said, though you felt it was his version of a kind untruth.
He sat next to you, reached for you, then faltered, unsure. You closed the space, folded your fingers between his. The scars made a fucked up little mirror when you looked down at your hands. They matched exactly. “I’m sorry.”
Simon didn’t answer, but stayed close to you, letting you hold his hand. Even the smallest amount of space between you seemed to burn, a brazier that flared hot and demanded attention. But it was better; just having his bare hand in yours helped.
“Nothin’ t’be sorry for.” He said after a few minutes of uneven breathing, eyes trained on your hands, thumb running over the back of your fingers.
“You don’t want me.”
It wasn’t a question.
He glanced up, something razor sharp in his eyes. You flinched a little, but his hand tightened on yours.
“You don’t have to—We don’t have to bond,” you tripped over the last word. “It’s okay.”
“Obviously it’s not, bird.”
Your heart sunk and you glanced away. A one in eight billion chance was sitting under your nose for months, and he wanted nothing to do with you. He was being forced into it.
“I’m sorry,” you murmured again. “Ghost, I’m—”
“Simon,” he corrected.
“Simon,” you echoed.
He curled his hands around your wrists, lifted your palms to the bottom of his mask. He let your hands settle at the base of his throat, eyes never leaving yours. “I didn’t want you,” he said plainly. “I never wanted you to know.”
You swallowed and nodded. “I’m s—”
“No.”
You closed your mouth with a click of your jaw. You don’t expect a speech and he doesn’t give you one. “You deserve better,” he said. “But I’m all you get.”
His knee touched yours. Your faces were tilted together, so close that the only thing you could see were the soft depths of his eyes reflecting the gold light.
It didn’t feel close enough.
You wished it were all different.
That he didn’t feel forced, that you were what he wanted.
“I deserve you. Isn’t that the point?”
He watched you for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then nodded.
“Go on, then.”
Your throat felt tight as you tugged the mask upwards, heart lurching when you recognized the same scar on your throat on his. You pushed the fabric over his chin and mouth, up until you could pull it over his head.
You looked at him, the same scar over his mouth, along his cheek, the bridge of his nose was nicked, the outline of burn scarring crossed the edge of his jaw and neck. When you looked past that, you saw him. Crooked nose, thick, furrowed brows, dark eyes you’d loved for a long time cast darker by the black around them, light eyelashes and hair, longer on top and curling.
Something seemed to. . .snap then. A warmth broke between you, filled that awful, dark, pained well in your chest. It hurt, but the pain was brief, like stitches done by a seasoned medic.
Breathing was easier. You could feel the pulse of him without the threat of imminent pain. It was a warm, comforting, safe thing in your lungs. You inhaled, attempted to stand, to give him a bit of space. “Should be able to separate now. Shall we test it—”
You didn’t get a chance to move away, tugged suddenly from your seat and into his lap. You fell heavily against his chest, wrapped tightly in his arms, foreheads slanted together.
“No,” he said, sounding, for the first time since you’ve known him, breathless. “No.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Good.”
“Can I touch you?”
“Can do anything you like to me, bird.”
You stroked the side of his throat, felt him shiver. “Well, I won’t. Not anything.”
He made a content noise of agreement.
You touched his jaw, his cheek, the tail of his brow, the faded check through it that you’d never noticed matched your own. His arms tightened around you in increments until the pressure forced you to take shallow breaths. “You’re beautiful.”
“Lookin’ in a mirror, are you?”
“Sort of,” you answered. “A little.”
His hands shifted, anchored on your hips, and pushed you back a little.
Disappointment that it was over so soon pinched at your throat but you backed off, attempting to slide from his lap. His hand caught at your hip. “Stop trying to bloody move.”
“What—”
He was only taking off the vest, which probably should have been left at the base. It dropped heavily to the floor as he pulled you against his chest. It was warmer, softer like that, thick muscle coiled beneath your cheek when you rested it against his shoulder, heartbeat hard against yours.
“No more pain?”
“None.”
“Good.”
You pushed your face against his throat, felt him tense and then uncoil. One large hand cupped the back of your neck, holding you there. You brushed your lips against his pulse point, felt a scarred flutter against your mouth, a muted grunt.
“You’re all I want,” you admitted quietly. “I think I knew. I think everyone knew. I’m sorry,” you finally said, “that I’m not who you need.”
His hand squeezes your neck and then he’s pushing you down against the cushions, pressing one massive thigh between your legs, hauling you closer like it could never be close enough. The space between your bodies would always be too large, because you couldn’t climb into his chest, nest among his veins.
It would have to do then, his hand tilting your jaw up, his eyes searching yours as you part your lips.
“You are, sweet’eart,” he said simply, mouth brushing yours before he kissed you properly.
He tasted of black tea; his eyeblack rubs off on your temples.
Already, he was leaving pieces of himself behind with you to mark safe.
“Simon,” you murmured against his mouth. Just to say it, just to be rewarded with a shudder.
The kiss slipped into something more desperate, your hands felt the skin of his back, your own scar on his elbow, and you thought, maybe, you could become what he needed.
if you made it this far thank you for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!
