amateur porn star reader and best friend osamu who reader has recruited to help with her career.
when your site started taking off, you immediately thought of osamu to ask for help- he was really good with that tech stuff and you trusted him with everything.
at first, he started behind the camera, managing comments, setting up automatic payment systems, all that jazz, but recently he’s been making guest appearances when the time called.
he’d tie your bonds for you, try out a new paddle gifted by a fan, and he’d even be the lucky guy you got to suck off while your cunt was stuffed by a tip-based dildo machine.
before every show, you and osamu would look through your inbox together, particularly for a comment from who you could call a “generous viewer.” their requests were sometimes extraneous…but it had to be worth the money considering you kept accepting.
so once a week, you see a familiar name pop up in your long list of requests.
it starts off with edging, then overstim, then pet play, step sibling role play, bondage, anal, impact play, etc. at this point, you wondered what even else was there to try?
and of course, osamu is there to help you through it all- strap you up to the spreader, slap you down your sopping cunt, tug at the leash attached to your collar, truly, he is the bestest friend you could have.
and at the end of the day, he’s able to split the profits with you so it’s a win-win for everyone!
and now he gets to go give some of that money to his brother, atsumu, who’s just great at coming up ideas to request from pretty porn stars!
second guessing the quiet (times where he can’t stop overthinking)
katsuki bakugo x reader
summary: older now, katsuki fears slipping back into the boy he used to be. overthinking every move, he tries to be better. until you remind him he already is.
cont: slight angst with comfort, self-doubt, overthinking/anxiety, swearing (it’s bakugo), emotional vulnerability, glimpses of past toxic behavior (in thought).
wc: around 3.8k
every word, every touch, every silence—he fears ruining it all.
in the morning time
the alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but katsuki was already awake. he lay on his back, staring at the faint cracks in the ceiling, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
he was thinking. overthinking, really. about last night, about the way he kissed you goodnight. it had been rushed, almost awkward, just a brush of lips before he’d rolled over with a muttered “sleep.”
‘was that enough? did it feel cold? shit. she probably thinks i didn’t want to kiss her.’
he groaned, dragging his hands down his face. he’d been working so hard not to slip into his old habits—snapping when he got nervous, letting pride armor him until everyone around him felt pushed out. with you, he didn’t want armor. he wanted to be steady. safe.
but his head didn’t make it easy.
by the time you stirred beside him, sunlight filtering through the curtains, he’d already convinced himself that you were pulling away. that maybe you’d stop kissing him altogether if he kept screwing it up.
“morning,” you mumbled, voice soft with sleep.
he turned his head, heart thumping at the sight of you blinking awake. “morning,” he said, too gruff, too fast. idiot.
you stretched, then sat up, hair sticking up in a way that should’ve been ridiculous but just made his chest ache. he watched you rub at your eyes, and the thought shot through him before he could stop it: ‘she’s too good for me. why the hell is she still here?’
“you’re quiet,” you said, glancing at him as you slid out of bed.
“not quiet,” he muttered automatically, but even his own ears caught the lie.
you didn’t press. you never did—not unless he needed it. instead , you padded into the kitchen, the faint clatter of dishes filling the silence. katsuki sat there for another full minute, battling himself, before finally dragging his body out of bed to follow you.
you were at the counter, pouring water into the coffeemaker, when he appeared in the doorway. his shoulders were tight, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“you want breakfast?” he asked, tone clipped.
you glanced back, smiling faintly. “sure.”
he turned toward the stove, fumbling with the pan, and the spiral started again. ‘sure. just sure. not thank you. not happy. did i already fuck it up by sounding like i was annoyed? shit, i should’ve said something softer—’
“hey,” you interrupted, walking up behind him. you didn’t say more than that. just slipped your arms around his waist and pressed your cheek between his shoulder blades.
the tension in his chest faltered.
you didn’t tell him to stop overthinking. you didn’t ask what was wrong. you just held him. steady. warm. real.
and slowly, he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. his hands found yours where they rested on his stomach, gripping tight.
“…sorry,” he muttered, voice rough.
“for what?” you asked, muffled against his back.
he shook his head. he couldn’t explain it, not yet. but when you squeezed him once, grounding him, the noise in his brain finally dulled. just a little. enough to flip the eggs without burning them. enough to feel, if only for a second, that maybe he wasn’t messing everything up.
on his days off
days off were supposed to be easy. katsuki knew that. he only got a handful of them, and he was determined to use this one right—no patrols, no reports, no late-night calls dragging him away from you.
but “easy” wasn’t exactly in his vocabulary.
the two of you were walking through the park, side by side. it was quiet, the kind of afternoon that other people probably described as peaceful. for him, it was another minefield.
“look at that one,” you said suddenly, pointing across the grass at a little corgi bouncing after a ball. it’s stubby legs scrambled, ears flopping with each leap.
katsuki snorted before he could stop himself. “tch. dumb looking dog.”
you laughed, shaking your head, but the sound didn’t soothe him this time. his stomach dropped. ‘shit. too harsh. you probably think i’m being mean again. you like dogs, dumbass, why the hell couldn’t you just say it was cute?’
he shoved his hands into his pockets, scowling down at the path. every step felt heavier.
then you spotted a food cart up ahead, bright with umbrellas. “ooh, takoyaki,” you said, your face lighting up. “wanna grab some?”
he looked at it, then at you, and the words slipped out before he thought: “street crap’ll just give you heartburn.”
the second it left his mouth, he winced. ‘there you go again. always criticizing. she probably feels like she can’t like anything around you.’
you slowed a little, watching him out of the corner of your eye. he noticed, of course. he noticed everything.
“you’re quiet,” you said after a long beat.
he clicked his tongue. “’cause i’m an asshole.”
the words were bitter, spat like venom, but underneath was the tremor of panic.
you stopped walking altogether, tugging gently at his sleeve until he faced you. his heart hammered. he braced himself for a frown, a sigh, for you to tell him he was too much, too harsh—just like he’d always feared.
but instead, you smiled. soft. steady. “you’re not an asshole, kats. you’re just blunt. i know the difference.”
he blinked at you, thrown off balance. his mouth opened, closed, opened again. he didn’t know how to argue with that. didn’t know how to explain the way his head was tearing him apart inside.
then your hand slipped into his, warm fingers curling around his. you gave a little swing as if to make the gesture playful. his chest tightened.
“c’mon,” you said, tugging him forward. “let’s get some. you don’t have to eat any if you don’t want to.”
katsuki let himself be pulled. his grip on your hand was too tight, probably, but you didn’t complain. you never did. and even though the noise in his head hadn’t gone completely silent, the warmth of your hand in his grounded him enough to keep walking.
by the time you were handing him one of the skewers with a grin, his lips twitched against his will. not a smile—he wasn’t ready to give that—but something close.
maybe he’d never stop overthinking. maybe he’d always feel like he was one wrong word away from ruining everything. but with you, even the dumbest spirals didn’t swallow him whole. you wouldn’t let them.
when his temper flares
arguments were the one thing katsuki still couldn’t handle. not villains, not disasters—arguments.
it started small, the way it always did. you’d stayed out later than usual with friends. you hadn’t texted. the clock kept ticking, and katsuki sat on the couch, bouncing his leg, staring at his phone like he could will a message into existence.
by the time you walked through the door, laughing softly as you kicked off your shoes, his chest was a storm.
“where the hell were you?” the words exploded out before he could stop them. “do you know what time it is?”
the second it left his mouth, his stomach dropped. too sharp. too much. just like the old him.
you froze in the doorway, smile fading. “i… was out. i told you i might be late.”
“not this late,” he shot back, voice rising again. his fists clenched, nails digging into his palms. ‘shit. stop yelling. stop.’
the silence that followed was suffocating. you weren’t shouting back—you weren’t even frowning. you just looked at him, and something about the calmness in your face made the panic inside him worse.
‘you’re doing it again. you’re proving you haven’t changed. she’s gonna walk away. why wouldn’t she?’
his throat tightened. he wanted to take the words back, but they were already hanging in the air like smoke.
you set your bag down gently, then crossed the room. katsuki braced himself for anger, for disappointment. but instead, your hands came up to his face, cradling his jaw.
“katsuki,” you said softly. “i’m fine. i just lost track of time.”
he flinched under your touch, eyes burning. “i didn’t— i didn’t mean to—” his voice cracked, shame spilling out raw.
“i know.” your thumb brushed along his cheekbone, grounding him. “you didn’t scare me. you just scared yourself.”
the words hit harder than any punch he’d ever taken. his chest squeezed, and for a moment, he thought he might break apart completely.
“i don’t wanna be that guy,” he whispered. the admission tasted bitter, vulnerable, like something he’d kept locked away too long.
“you’re not,” you whispered back, steady as stone.
and just like that, the storm inside him slowed. not gone. never gone—but quieter. manageable. because you were there, holding him in place when he couldn’t hold himself.
katsuki dropped his forehead against yours, eyes squeezed shut. “i’m trying.”
“i know you are,” you murmured. “that’s all i need.”
he swallowed hard, breathing you in. he still hated himself for snapping, still felt the weight of his own sharp edges—but with your hands cupping his face, he could believe, just for a second, that maybe he wasn’t doomed to be that boy forever.
at night when he gets into his head
the city was alive outside your window—neon lights flickering, cars humming faintly in the distance. but the bedroom was dark. quiet. too quiet for katsuki’s brain.
he lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, jaw locked. his arm was stretched across the mattress, close enough that his fingers brushed yours, but not holding. not yet.
his mind was running laps.
‘you sighed earlier. was it because of me? did i say something wrong? am i too much? too blunt? too hard to love? she’s gonna wake up one day and realize she deserves someone easier. someone better. and i’m gonna lose her. fuck—what if i already am?’
he rolled onto his side, away from you, pressing the heel of his hand against his eyes. he didn’t want to wake you. didn’t want you to see him unraveling over things he should’ve been able to let go.
but the sheets rustled, and he felt your hand slide across his waist. gentle. anchoring.
“you’re awake,” you murmured, voice groggy with sleep.
“…yeah,” he muttered. his throat was tight, his chest hot with shame.
“you’re thinking too hard again.”
he let out a bitter huff. “how the hell do you always know?”
you shifted closer, fitting yourself against his back, your face pressed between his shoulder blades. “because i pay attention,” you whispered.
katsuki froze. his breath hitched, and suddenly, his eyes stung. you didn’t make him explain. you didn’t ask him to untangle the knot of thoughts that strangled him. you just… noticed. and stayed.
slowly, he let himself breathe again. he reached down, covering your hand with his, squeezing once like he might lose himself without it.
for the first time that night, his head went quiet.
and as your breathing steadied against his back, he whispered into the dark, too low for you to hear: “don’t leave. i’m better with you here.”
meeting your family
katsuki had faced villains who could level city blocks, walked headfirst into danger without blinking. but this? meeting your family?
he was sweating through his damn shirt.
the dinner table was set, the food smelled good, and everyone was polite enough—but katsuki’s mind wouldn’t stop tearing at itself.
‘don’t scowl. don’t cross your arms. don’t curse. shit, i cursed already—fuck. i mean—dammit. they hate me. they think i’m a loud, angry bastard. they probably think you could do better. you probably could do better.’
he stabbed at the food on his plate, chewing without tasting it. your dad asked him a question about work, and he answered too quickly, too clipped. your mom complimented his cooking reputation, and he grunted instead of saying thank you.
each mistake stacked on the last until his chest felt too tight to breathe.
you noticed—of course you noticed. you leaned in slightly, brushing your knee against his under the table. just the lightest touch, but it cut through the static in his brain.
“you okay?” you mouthed silently when your family’s attention turned elsewhere.
katsuki clenched his jaw, eyes darting away. he wanted to say yes, but the word stuck. he wanted to say no, but that would make him weak. so he just gave the smallest shake of his head.
without a word, your hand slid under the table, finding his. you laced your fingers through his, squeezing once. firm. certain.
and just like that, his pulse slowed. not a lot, but enough.
the conversation moved on without him, but he didn’t spiral as hard this time. your hand in his was proof—proof he wasn’t fucking this up as badly as he thought, proof you still wanted him there.
later, when the two of you were finally alone, he muttered, “bet they hated me.”
you raised a brow. “really? my mom told me she thinks you’re polite. my dad said you seem steady.”
“polite? steady?” He scoffed, shoulders tense. “i barely said shit.”
“and that’s what they liked,” you said, smiling. “they don’t want a performance, kats. they just want to know the person i love is real. and you are.”
his throat tightened, words caught behind his teeth. all he could do was stare at you, wide-eyed, as you reached up and brushed his hair out of his face like it was the simplest thing in the world.
grounded. again.
katsuki let out a shaky breath, leaning his forehead against yours. “…don’t know what i’d do without you.”
“you don’t have to,” you whispered.
talking about the future
the two of you were sitting on the couch, tv flickering low in the background, when the conversation slipped out.
you didn’t mean for it to be a big deal. just a casual comment, soft and easy:
“wouldn’t it be nice to have a place with a balcony one day? somewhere to put plants or sit outside in the mornings.”
katsuki froze. balcony. one day. plants. the words tangled in his chest like barbed wire.
‘she’s talking about the future. with me. a home. something permanent. what if i ruin it? what if i can’t be the person she needs long-term? what if she realizes i’ll just drag her down, that i’m still too much like the kid i used to be?’
his leg started bouncing. his jaw locked. the tv was nothing but noise.
“too much work,” he muttered finally. “plants’ll just die. waste of space.”
the second he said it, regret slammed into him. ‘why the fuck would you say that? she was dreaming out loud, and you crushed it. just like old times. just like the shitty kid you swore you weren’t anymore.’
you went quiet, watching him. he felt it like a knife.
katsuki shoved both hands into his hair, tugging hard. “shit. i didn’t mean—” his voice cracked, and he stopped, swallowing hard. “i don’t… i don’t wanna fuck this up.”
you blinked at him, the sharpness of his tone melting away as his shoulders hunched. for once, he didn’t look angry—he looked terrified.
“hey.” you shifted closer, slipping your hand onto his knee. “you didn’t ruin anything. i know what you meant.”
“no, you don’t,” he snapped, then winced, hating himself instantly. his voice dropped to a rasp. “you talk about the future, and all i can think is… what if i can’t do it? what if i turn into that asshole kid again and you wake up one day realizing i’m not worth it?”
the confession sat between you, raw and ugly.
you didn’t answer right away. instead, you slid both hands up to his face, forcing him to meet your eyes.
“katsuki,” you said, firm and clear. “you’re not that kid. you haven’t been for a long time. and i don’t want ‘perfect.’ i just want you. the you who tries, who shows up, who cares enough to even worry about all this in the first place.”
his chest ached, his vision blurring at the edges. “i don’t know if that’s enough.”
“it’s more than enough,” you whispered, thumbs brushing against his cheekbones. “you don’t have to prove yourself every second. you already did the work. you’re already better.”
for a long moment, he just stared, the storm in his head roaring so loud it nearly drowned you out. but the way you held him, grounded him, kept him tethered. slowly, his breathing evened out.
and when he finally leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours, it wasn’t defeat—it was relief.
“…balcony sounds nice,” he muttered gruffly. “maybe some chili peppers. something that won’t die easy.”
you smiled, and just like that, the weight in his chest loosened. maybe the future didn’t have to be terrifying—not if you were in it with him.
when the doubt strikes
the door slammed harder than it should have. katsuki cursed under his breath as he kicked off his boots, shoulders hunched like he was carrying the whole damn city on his back.
you were on the couch, book in your lap, and the second you saw his face you knew. his scowl wasn’t the usual grumpy end of shift scowl. it was deeper, heavier. his eyes didn’t just look tired; they looked defeated.
“rough day?” you asked gently.
he didn’t answer. just stalked past you into the kitchen, yanking open the fridge, then shutting it again without grabbing anything. his chest rose and fell like he was keeping something caged inside.
finally, he muttered, “i screwed up.”
you set your book aside, turning to face him fully. “what happened?”
“didn’t move fast enough. some damn civilian almost got crushed. if deku hadn’t been there—” he cut himself off, jaw snapping shut. his fists clenched tight enough to shake. “i froze for half a second. half a second, and it could’ve gone to shit.”
your heart ached. he was so hard on himself, harsher than anyone else ever could be.
he started pacing, voice rising with every word. “and then i come home, and all i can think is—if i can’t do my job right, if i can’t even keep people safe—then what the hell makes me think i can be good enough for you?”
that last part slipped out raw, torn from somewhere deep. his chest heaved, eyes wide like he couldn’t believe he’d said it out loud.
you crossed the room slowly, careful not to crowd him until you were close enough to touch. “katsuki,” you said softly, reaching for his hand. “look at me.”
he resisted at first, gaze locked on the floor, but you tugged gently until his eyes finally met yours. there was fire in them, but not the kind he liked to show—this was frantic, desperate, scared.
“you had one rough moment,” you said, your thumb brushing over his knuckles. “that doesn’t erase everything you did right. it doesn’t erase how hard you fought. and it sure as hell doesn’t erase who you are to me.”
his throat worked, like he wanted to argue, like he needed to. “you don’t get it—”
“i do,” you interrupted softly. “you think being perfect is the only way to prove you’ve changed. but katsuki—you’re allowed to have bad days. you’re allowed to be human. it doesn’t make you the old you. it just makes you you. and that’s who i want.”
he froze, your words sinking in. the tension in his body didn’t vanish, but it cracked, just enough for him to exhale a shaky breath.
without thinking, he pulled you into his arms, burying his face in your shoulder. his grip was tight, almost crushing, like he was afraid you’d slip away if he let go.
“…don’t deserve you,” he muttered against your skin.
you wrapped your arms around him, grounding him the way you always did. “you do. more than you think. and i’m not going anywhere.”
for a long time, he just held you, letting the storm inside him burn itself out. and when he finally pulled back, his eyes were wet but steady.
“thanks,” he said roughly. “for… not letting me drown in my own shit.”
you smiled, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “always.”
and for the first time that day, his chest felt a little lighter.
finally learning how to breathe
the night was quiet, but katsuki wasn’t.
he sat at the edge of the bed, elbows digging into his thighs, fingers tangled in his hair. his chest heaved like he’d just run a marathon, though he hadn’t moved in twenty minutes.
you’d seen this before. his spirals. his storms—but tonight felt heavier.
“talk to me,” you said softly from behind him.
he shook his head. “it’s nothing.”
you sighed. he always said that. always swallowed the panic down until it clawed its way back out. sliding closer, you rested a hand on his back. he flinched, then sagged under the touch.
finally, he muttered, “i don’t know how to stop.”
your brow furrowed. “stop what?”
“overthinking. ruining shit before it even happens. i keep… i keep going back in my head to the kid i was. loud. mean. cruel. i can’t stop thinking—what if i snap one day and you see that version of me? what if you realize i’m not worth all this work?”
the words spilled out like a confession he’d been choking on for years. his shoulders shook, and for once, he didn’t try to hide it.
you moved closer, wrapping your arms around his middle, pressing your cheek against his back. “katsuki,” you whispered. “you’re not that kid anymore. you’ll never be him again. you worked too hard to outgrow him.”
he let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “and what if that’s not enough? what if trying isn’t enough?”
you tightened your hold. “it already is. every time you stop yourself from snapping. every time you second guess your words because you care how they land. every time you let me in, even a little—you’re proving it. to me. to yourself. you don’t see it, but i do.”
his breath hitched, and he finally turned, eyes wet and raw. he looked at you like you were something fragile he didn’t deserve to touch.
“i’m scared,” he admitted. “scared i’ll lose this. lose you.”
your hand cupped his face, firm and steady. “you won’t. i chose you, katsuki. and i’ll keep choosing you. even when your head gets loud. even when you spiral. i’ll be here. every time.”
for a long moment, neither of you moved. his breathing was ragged, his gaze locked on yours. then, slowly, the tension in his shoulders cracked. he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to yours, eyes squeezing shut.
“…you make it quiet,” he whispered. “every time. you make it stop.”
you smiled faintly, brushing your thumb along his cheek. “then let me. you don’t have to fight it alone.”
katsuki drew in a shaky breath, then another. for the first time in a long time, he let himself believe you.
and as he pulled you into his arms, holding you like you were the only thing tethering him to the earth, he realized maybe you were.
maybe he’d always be an overthinker, always second-guessing. but with you, he was learning—slowly, stubbornly, imperfectly—to breathe.
a/n: something i made awhile ago before making this acc. if you read it all THANK YOU I LOVE YOU
would you be willing to write Eijirou Kirishima and female reader fluff? Ik he's not in your rules just wanted ta ask. Love your work and sleep 8hrs 🫶🏻 🫵🏻
hi nonnie!! i’ll be honest i just forgot to add kiri into my list of characters but i’ll write for pretty much all of class a (including the girls) & aizawa, hawks, dabi, shigaraki! i will also be up for writing for shinso and tamaki amajiki! i will never sleep 8 hours with all the uni work i have to do but thankyou for the good wishes🥹 i hope you like the post!!
Darkness. It was all consuming on nights like this. The light from the moon slithered through the curtains, but it was only light surrounding you. Weekends had never been your strong suit. Not since you met Eijiro. You’d been a business course student in your days at UA, your speedy writing quirk only good for paperwork. That was how you’d ended up at Dynamight’s agency. He knew you from UA, one of the only ‘extras’ he’d allow to be in his vicinity (only because you were his scribe for his homework.)
That was how you’d met Eijiro. Bakugo had hired you to handle any and all paperwork that came through his agency, you were his number one employee. Which is why you weren’t surprised to see the smiley redhead appear at your door with a stack of paperwork he just couldn’t finish.
The two of you had been inseparable ever since. You never actually thanked Bakugo for that.
Being head of HR for the Dynamight agency left you with days ending sharply at five, leaving you two hours to see Eiji before he left for night patrol. This was why you hated weekends. You hated sleeping alone. More than that…
You hated going to sleep without knowing if Eijiro would be there when you woke up. You know he’s strong, and you know he’s resilient. But he’s also yours.
So…weekends were tough.
You glanced at your phone, 3:45. Eijiro got off patrol at four. You knew he was patrolling your area tonight, so he’d be home shortly after. Not long until you had him back in your arms, and you could peacefully sleep. You distracted yourself with a book until you heard the faint sound of the front door closing, and the thud of his boots being shoved in the closet.
You braced yourself as he tiptoed into the room, quiet so as not to wake you up. You flipped the lamp beside you on, getting a good look at your boyfriend.
“What’re you still doing up, baby?” His voice was soft, it always was when he was talking to you. He’d always treated you like you were the most precious thing on the planet.
“Can’t sleep without you.” Your tiredness was evident in your voice, and the soft frown that resided on the redhead’s face made it clear he noticed. You watched with a faint smile as he stripped himself of his hero costume, the muscles in his back rippling as he tugged on a loose pair of shorts, before crawling into bed beside you.
You took his lifted arm as a sign to dive into his side, your head resting gently on his chest. You let out a deep sigh, your eyelids becoming heavier by the second. “Baby?”
You hummed in response, tiredness taking over your body now you knew your love was safe. “I’ll talk to Kats, see if I can take the day patrol, huh?” You nodded into his chest, almost purring as you felt his fingers scratching at your scalp.
“Get some sleep, pretty girl. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
where’s the trophy? he just comes running over to me…
pairing: ryomen sukuna x fem!reader :
wc: 1.3k
warnings/tags: boxer!sukuna, no curse au, violence, description of injury, language, she/her pronouns used, no use of y/n, kissing, no smut.
“Are you seriously listening to eye of the tiger? you’re such a cliché.” There was a grin on your face as you walked into the dressing room, Sukuna sitting on the bench, headphones tucked neatly in his ears as Uruame wrapped his hands in thick bandages. As Uruame pulled his gloves over his hands, tying the laces, you gave them a soft smile. “You give us a minute?” sukuna’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet as he looked to his trainer. They nodded, squeezing your shoulder gently as they walked by you.
“Hey.” You moved to cup his cheeks, letting him pull you to stand between his legs, gloves hands resting on your hips. “How you feeling?” Your hands were warm on the sides of his face, nails scratching lightly at the undercut at the back of his neck. “I’m good..” His voice was gruff, and he could barely meet your eyes, instead focusing on the dress you adorned for the match. “Hey. Don’t do that ‘king of curses’ shit with me. You’re not in the ring yet.”
“I got it, baby. You ain’t gotta worry about me. 43-0 remember?” The smirk on his face was teasing, but you knew he meant it. He was confident in his abilities and so were you. “Don’t get hit too much, huh? I like this face better when it’s not covered in blood.” He nodded, before pulling his hands away from your hips, lifting them up towards your face.
“Need my good luck charm, princess.” You grinned down at him, placing two gentle kisses on his white gloves, the colour a silent nod to his trainer, leaving red lipstick marks in your wake. “The kid here?” You nodded again, turning to pull him up with you, beginning to walk out of the dressing room. “Do me a favour? Take him on the walk-out with you.” Sukuna’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t push. Anything his girl wanted, she got. If that meant taking his little brother on his walk-out, so fucking be it.
As the two of you made it to the entrance of the walk-out, you stood up on your toes, placing a soft kiss on his lips. Sukuna was anything but soft, and he pushed deeper, gripping your waist and swiping his tongue across your bottom lip. You pulled away at that, a deep blush on your cheeks as you made eye contact with Uruame over his shoulder. “Go fight, asshole. I love you.”
“Love you, baby.”
You gave a subtle nod to Uruame, before making your way to your seat, directly ringside. You’d see all the action, including your boyfriend taking hit after hit because he refused to block. You took your seat beside Choso, who immediately held his hand out to you. It was a ritual the two of you had. Yuji tended to believe Sukuna was the coolest person in the world, and that he was invincible. Choso knew better. He knew Sukuna could be cocky and that he’d take the hits just to put on a show. So he chose to comfort you instead of staring at his step-brother in awe. “He’s got this.”
As the announcer called out Sukuna’s name, the lights dimmed, and the walk-outs began. Sukuna was fighting for his title tonight. While he was undefeated in the sport, so was his opponent. Toji Fushiguro was a force to be reckoned with, but Sukuna had the skill and the heart to win this. You never doubted him. The fight began, and Sukuna’s fists were in full swing. As much as you supported his career and wanted to be there to watch, you hated seeing him so beat up. The first seven rounds seemed to go quickly, a push and pull between the two fighters. As the eighth round began, Toji took it in his stride, pushing jab after jab into Sukuna’s face. You watched as blood poured from above his eye, slipping down the left side of his face. You winced, knowing you’d be the one to kiss it better once he was out of the ring.
The bell rang as Toji had worked Sukuna into the corner, his ribs now blooming with fresh purple bruises and sharp cuts. He sat down in the corner, Uruame climbing into the ring to push the blood out of his eye and onto the fresh white towel. “Ryomen. Ryo!” His eyes flitted to you, a sharp smirk on his lips. “‘Sup, baby?” You couldn’t help but smile. He was fine, still pushing through.
“Stop showboating. End this shit with a KO, you got it?” He nodded, his eyes darkening. You knew all the ins and outs of the boxing world by now. Uruame may be his trainer, but you were his manager. You had the final say on every fight, every charity match, every appearance he made in public. You were the key to his success. “And get your fucking hands up, you hear me?” You heard the ref screaming for seconds out, and Sukuna was up.
Gloves tucked high in front of his face. Who was he to disobey his girl? Fushiguro was furious now, his hits not landing where he wanted anymore. He knew he was done for. All it took was a few ducks and one solid uppercut straight to Toni’s jaw and he was down. The countdown seemed to go in slow motion, Sukuna dancing around the ring, taunting the man. The whole place erupted as ‘Ten’ was shouted. The fight was done. Sukuna won. Your Ryo won.
Sukuna turned to look at you, beckoning you towards the ropes so he could celebrate his win the way he wanted to. You couldn’t help but push yourself into the ring, grabbing your man by the jaw and planting a kiss on his lips. You were used to the blood, the metallic taste dying on your tongue as Sukuna pushed his own into your mouth. “44-0, baby.” You whispered against his lips. You felt him grin, a wolfish one that you’d seen time and time again. It reminded you of the look he gave you the night you met. When the two of you were tucked in the corner of the classroom together, forced to be partners by your fourth grade teacher.
You were slightly pushed to the side when reported surrounded Sukuna, begging him for some insight into his plans after the fight. “Sukuna, Sukuna! Any words for us?”
“Fushiguro’s a good fighter. He gave me a hard time, and I respect that. But my girl was sat ringside, and there was no way I wasn’t gonna win. Wouldn’t be here without my girl, and now i’m gonna take her home, and celebrate the way I wanna. Let’s go, baby.” He tucked his hand into yours, pulling you out of the ring with Uruame in tow.
As Sukuna was patched up, you sat silently and watched. The soft smile on his lips, the adrenaline finally gone from his body. This was your favourite version of him. When he was on a high and his mind wasn’t running him ragged. “Uruame, get over here.” The rest of the crew left, leaving just the three of you in the dressing room. “M’gonna take a couple months off. Spend some time with my girl before I come back. Why don’t you see if that new kid Ino needs a good trainer, huh?”
Uruame only blinked at him. “Not happening. I’ll take some time too. Just..let me know when you wanna come back.” They nodded, leaving the two of you alone in the room with only a smile sent in your direction. “Time off, huh?” You wrapped your arms around his neck, sighing when his scarred hands pulled your hips flush to him.
“Yeah. Just me and you, baby. You good with that?”
“shh, baby. you can take it, i know you can.” your hands are desperately clawing at the sheets, knuckles turning white as you clutched the soft fabric beneath them. your throat was hoarse from all the sounds katsuki had pulled from you since you walked in the door.
“katsuuu…s’too much.” this only seemed to spur your husband on even more, tongue messily circling your clit before dropping down to softly poke at your sopping hole. if anybody could see him now, pro-hero dynamight, on his knees for his pretty little wife, they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. “c’mon, sweets, i had a rough day. you wanna make me happy don’t you?” you nodded, whines being tugged from your throat as his fingers began to poke at your entrance.
“my pretty wife. always so good for me.”
katsuki always spouted pussydrunk nonsense when he was eating you out. something about wrapping his lips around your puffy little clit always made his brain short-circuit. “you’re getting tighter, sweets. y’gonna cum?” your hands weaved themselves into his hair, perfectly manicured nails scratching at his scalp and pulling him further into your pussy. “p-please, sukiii.”
he chuckled, the vibration sending a shock straight to your core, pushing you over the edge right as his lips wrapped around your clit, tongue flicking over the bud in both the best and the worst way. your body began convulsing, fingers tightening in his blonde locks, keeping his face pressed desperately in your heat as you rode out your orgasm.
“c’mere, baby. come gimme a kiss.” you lifted your head slightly for his lips to capture yours, letting out a moan as his tongue slipped into your mouth. he always made you taste yourself, no matter if it was a quickie or an all nighter.
you gasped as you felt the head of his cock slowly drag itself through your sopping folds, before tapping seductively on your little bud. “y’didnt think we were done, did ya?” your eyes widened, finding yourself transfixed on the cocky smirk spread across his face. “just lay back and look pretty, sweets. let me take care of my gorgeous wife.”
my blog will contain nsfw content, any minors or ageless blogs will be found. there’s a possibly of dark content, your choice to consume this is nothing to do with me!
characters! megumi fushiguro, saturo gojo, kento nanami, ryomen sukuna, yuuji itadori, katsuki bakugo, touya todoroki, ino takuma. if you aren’t sure if i write for a specific character, just ask!
no! male reader, step-cest/incest, teacher/student, ageplay, raceplay, self harm, sex involving gore, ed, pregancy.
yes! fem reader, gn reader, dub-con, non-con, breeding, violence, blood, corruption, somnophilia, dacryphilia. if you’re unsure about a request, this is a judgement free zone! i will only say no if i feel uncomfortable!
summary: when you find yourself in need of an emergency trip to the local vet clinic, it's late and the sign on the door is flipped to closed. luckily for you, animal science student megumi fushiguro is still around, and he's willing to help you and your dog out—and maybe get a little more than he bargained for in the process. but he's not used to letting people in, and you've never been particularly patient. when winter rolls around, will you be spending the holidays alone?
content/warnings: 20.7k words. complete. sfw. f!reader, you have a dog, megumi has his dogs, they are unbearably cute, megumi doesn't know how to communicate for shit, language, no use of y/n, christmas yay!!, aged up characters, including riko, she's in college, and she's a menace, (light) angst with a happy ending, mentions of deceased parents (typical fushiguro canon), soft, fluff, you know when your sister psychoanalyzes you at the kitchen table, car crash, alcohol, reader studies environmental science but can't keep plants alive for SHIT, so much unnecessary pining, gratuitous overuse of italics and em-dashes
note: this takes place in the same universe as out of my mind, but you don't have to read that to know what's going on here! though it may help with some context. happy hella late birthday megumi fushiguro you will always be famous
PART I // BATMAN & ROBIN
IT’S TEN O’CLOCK and dark when Batman decides to cause problems.
Batman, of course, being your three-year-old German shepherd mix, the one currently whining and staring up at you with big, dark puppy eyes while he holds one paw up limply.
“Oh, little buddy,” you sigh as you squat down in front of him, despite the fact that he hasn’t been little in a very long time. He’s been restless all night, so you caved and took him on a late night walk, and it’s so dark you can’t tell what’s wrong with his paw even in the glow of the phone flashlight.
God, fuck. Where’s the closest vet? The one in the city is definitely closed. You’re fairly certain there’s a smaller one somewhere on the outskirts of the JU campus, though, one that the pre-vet students use for clinicals.
“C’mon, champ,” you murmur, tugging gently on Batman’s leash. “Let’s go get you checked out, huh?”
The early September air is chilly, a little bit of a bite to it. You’re glad the temperatures haven’t yet dropped below freezing, so you don’t need to let your car defrost before going. “Up,” you say, patting the passenger seat with the door held open for Batman.
You punch the clinic into maps and pull out of your suburban street into the busier roads. It’s not far, thankfully, and you make a beeline for the door with Batman on your heels, not noticing until you’re right in front of it that the massive sign hanging on the door is flipped to CLOSED.
“No,” you groan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead to the cool glass of the closed door. You close your eyes, wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do, and then—thump.
You nearly jump out of your skin, eyes flying open and gaze raising to meet the amused eyes of a guy on the other side of the door, who’s trying and failing to suppress a smile that feels a little teasing. Oops.
You step back and wave sheepishly, and the boy unlocks the door and swings it open, taking in the sight of you and your limping dog.
“I’m sorry,” you blurt. “I know you’re closed and it’s some ungodly hour on a Tuesday, I just didn’t know what else to do—”
“It's fine,” he says, waving it off. “I’m just cleaning up, it’s not a hassle. Come on.” Batman has no qualms about following the guy through the open door, so you follow, glancing around the small clinic. It’s pretty sparse, save for the bulletin board overflowing with pet photos on one wall.
“Fushiguro,” the guy says in introduction, glancing back over his shoulder at you. He’s got deep blue eyes that match his dark scrubs, and his hair sticks out every which way in a manner that feels intentional. He must be around your age. It takes you a beat to remember yourself and give him your own name, stuttered out as you pass into the back exam room.
There’s a white coat tossed haphazardly over a spinning chair, and the guy—Fushiguro—picks Batman up like he weighs nothing and situates him on the metal table.
“Hey, bud. What’s your name?” he asks, scratching behind Batman’s ears. Your dog is usually weary of vets, but today his tail pounds on the metal of the table as he raises his head to sniff at Fushiguro’s face.
“Batman.”
Fushiguro’s gaze snaps to you and he blinks, evidently thinking you’re joking. “No.”
“Yes.” You hold your index fingers up above your head to imitate your dog’s pointy ears. “Batman.”
“Oh. My god,” he says. “And what, you’re Robin?”
“I am not the sidekick in this situation.”
“Batman dragged you out here at eleven on a school night. You absolutely are the sidekick.”
You scoff, moving up to the table and stroking Batman’s fur. “Am I just a sidekick to you, little guy?” you coo. “You wanna be a hero so bad?” He noses happily at your palm.
Fushiguro side-eyes you, half-grimacing as he grabs Batman’s paw to look at it. He doesn’t seem to mind, which is honestly a shock. He hates people touching his paws, even you. “You baby talk your dog?”
“You judge your patients?”
“Course not,” Fushiguro says, smirking as he looks back at you. “Just their owners.”
You roll your eyes but can’t help the huff of laughter, and his dark eyes reflect the fluorescent overhead light as he turns away. He’s undeniably attractive—you don’t remember seeing him around campus.
“You go to JU?” you ask, and he nods.
“Sophomore. Pre-vet. D’you?”
“Nah, Kaisen.” Your school is a lot smaller than the neighboring Jujutsu University. They’ve got something of an athletic rivalry with Kaisen College, but you really don’t care. “Environmental science.”
“You know everything there is to know about trees, or what?” His tone is teasing, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. The fact is you do know more about trees than normal college students probably should. Doesn’t mean you can keep plants alive for shit, though.
You’d guess there’s actually a fair bit of crossover between your course of study and a pre-vet student’s bio track, but you say, “I specialize in rare long grasses, actually.” It comes out so deadpan that he glances at you, brows knit together, trying to gauge if you’re being serious. You only last a second before you crack under his scrutiny, and he shakes his head and huffs as he turns back to Batman, who is now trying to lick Fushiguro’s nose.
“Excuse me,” he says. This only seems to encourage the dog kisses, but Fushiguro decides to just ignore them. He hums, grabbing a pair of tweezers and squinting as he moves to pull something out of Batman’s paw. “Just a splinter. The pad of a dog’s paw is one of the most sensitive parts of their body, so it’s not surprising he was so worked up about it.” You watch as he pulls out a thin sliver of wood, probably from stepping on some splintering twig, and drops it into a tray on the table.
You watch as your dog drops his paw back to the table and stands up, tail wagging at lightning speed, like nothing was ever wrong. He jumps off the table before Fushiguro can grab him and bounds over to you, rubbing himself along the outside of your leg like a giant cat.
“How much do I owe you?” you ask, pulling out your card, but he waves you off.
“It was literally a splinter.”
“But—”
“Honestly, it’d be more work to boot up the payment system again anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He holds your gaze, and you can’t tell if he’s lying about the payment system or not, but you slide your card back into your wallet without complaint.
Something passes between you, some weird spark of recognition—not that you’ve met before. You know you haven’t. But you don’t typically have this kind of easy banter with strangers. Something about this guy intrigues you, and you don’t particularly want to stop talking to him.
But you’ve already kept him past close, and you need to get home.
The moment breaks when Fushiguro clears his throat, leaning over to grab something off the counter. “Right. Well, give me a call if he starts limping again, but he should be alright.” He holds out a hand and you realize he’s offering you a business card, weirdly professional for a student.
M. FUSHIGURO
Veterinary Technician Trainee, JU
His number and email are printed beneath it in small sans serif lettering.
“Oh, you’re fancy.” You raise a brow at him, tucking the card into your jacket pocket. “Thank you. Seriously.”
“Well, who am I to refuse Batman?” he says wryly. He walks you to the door, and you try not to think too much of it—he just needs to lock up behind you, probably.
Before you slip out, he leans down and pats Batman on the head, earning a happy little tail-wag in response.
“Drive safe, Robin,” he calls, and you groan at the nickname as you unlock your car.
At home, you key his number into your phone and save the contact as fushiguro (cute vet). You sit there for way too long debating over whether you should text him—Batman’s fine, and it’s late, and he gave you a business card. Not exactly an invitation to flirt, tempting as that might be.
But you really want to.
“Should I text him?” you ask your dog, who’s decided to curl up right beside your bed and look up at you, waiting for an invitation. Your twin bed is not big enough for this and he knows it, but he always seems to think he’s a smaller dog than he really is.
Batman, unhelpfully, tilts his head at you, his perky ears flapping with the motion.
Maybe it’s because it’s past eleven and it’s dark out and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the best sense of judgment right now. Maybe it’s because Fushiguro’s just really cute.
“You’re right,” you say, nudging Batman with a socked foot. “No use waiting. Say cheese.”
It’s kind of embarrassing how you sit and stare at the screen for two minutes, waiting for him to answer. Batman snorts, like he’s making fun of you, and you lock your phone and toss it on the bedside table. “Oh, don’t start.”
Your roommate and best friend, Setsuko Sasaki, is studying abroad in Japan for the semester. It’s been lonely, strange without her occupying the second bedroom of your little rented townhouse. You’d like to say this is why you’ve resorted to talking to your dog, but that would very much be a lie, because you’ve always done this. Sometimes, when she’s home, Suko adopts a gruff, low voice and answers for him.
You jump when your phone buzzes and make yourself count to three before checking the screen.
fushiguro (cute vet): don’t mention it. always had a soft spot for batman, anyway.
fushiguro (cute vet): his sidekick’s alright too.
“Oh, he likes you,” you tell Batman. “Wingman. Thanks, little buddy.”
you: well, send a bat signal if you’re ever in mortal peril and i might show up
After that, you try to push Fushiguro to the back of your mind. He doesn’t go to Kaisen, so it’s not like you can stalk him in the university directory. You have no reason to run into him around town. As the semester ramps up and you fall back into your routine of classes and exams and friends, you don’t think too much about the cute vet tech who happened to be around that one night.
Or, you don’t for a grand total of six days.
You’re on a jog with Batman, afternoon sun making up for the fall chill in the air that’s hung around since it stormed last night. You don’t intend to stop, but Batman abruptly sticks his nose in the dirt about halfway through your run and refuses to move.
“Dude.” You backtrack and see that he’s discovered a couple pairs of dog prints, pressed faintly into the damp earth. “Oh, you smell friends, huh?” He tugs you forward, following the scent of these other dogs. “Hey!”
The thing about having a massive German shepherd mix, even one as docile as Batman, is that he is inarguably a lot stronger than you. So you don’t really have much of a choice but to stumble along after him as he bounds across the grass and comes out on the other side of the path—you don’t normally come this way, because there’s a dog park over here and he gets way too excited.
But today he’s on a mission, and you only see two other dogs in the fenced-in park—two huge balls of fluff, one white and one black. “Fine,” you say begrudgingly, undoing the gate and letting Batman off his leash. “Go play. But we aren’t staying long.”
He bounds off toward the other dogs while you latch the gate behind you, and then a familiar voice has you spinning around with your eyes wide. “Bat signal wasn’t me,” Fushiguro says, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “They did it.” He points at the other dogs, who are now engaged in a butt-sniffing circle with yours.
“Fushiguro!” You grin, making your way over to him. Once the other two dogs have deemed Batman a worthy playmate, they move on to you, sniffing at your palms and circling around you until the black one jumps up and nearly knocks you over with the force of it. “Oh, hello!”
“Kuro,” Fushiguro chides, rushing forward to tug at his collar. “Hey. Down.”
“It’s okay,” you promise through a fit of giggles as Kuro tries to basically hug you. “Oh, you’re cute, aren’t you? Hi, Kuro.”
Fushiguro huffs out a breath of relief when Kuro finally gets down. “That’s Shiro,” he says, gesturing to the white dog, who is now chasing Batman around the park. “Think she’s found a friend.”
“He dragged me all the way here,” you tell Fushiguro. “Guess he missed you or something.”
“Just him?”
You grin. “What, you think I was out here pining after you?” He only smirks in response. “I don’t even know your name, M. Fushiguro. What good is a business card without your first name on it?”
He hums, shoving his hands into his pockets, considering. “Guess.”
“Guess,” you echo. “Okay. Um. Michael.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Max.”
“Nope.”
“Um, Maverick.”
“What the hell?” He looks at you with furrowed brows. “Who in their right mind would name their kid—”
“Okay, hey,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I just watched Top Gun, okay? What do you want from me?”
“M—”
“Nope, out of tries for today. Three strikes, you’re out.” He shrugs, wholly unaffected, like this is just how the world works and he’s got no say it in whatsoever.
You gape at him, planting your hands on your hips in affront. “I hope you know I will be insufferable every single day until I’m right.”
Batman trots back over, prancing between you and Fushiguro until he crouches down to pet him. “You come here a lot?” you ask, glancing around the empty park. “I’ve never seen you here. Or your dogs. I think I’d remember giant balls of fluff like that.”
“Yeah, not often,” Fushiguro says, pushing back to his feet. “But Kuro’s been so restless all day. Had to let him run his energy down somehow.” The dog in question is chasing his own tail in circles while Shiro looks at him, unimpressed. “You live over here?”
“Few blocks out, yeah.” Your place is between the two campuses, an easy walk to both places because Suko takes Japanese classes at JU. Apparently Fushiguro doesn’t live too far away, either, just on the other side of the skate park where you know your friend Hajime hangs out all the time.
By “hangs out,” you mean he probably (definitely) buys weed there, but that’s not your business. Maybe he and Fushiguro know each other—they both go to JU. But Hajime’s a senior, so probably not.
You don’t get the chance to ask because Fushiguro’s phone rings, and he sighs and answers it with a glance at you that might be apologetic or might be mildly irritated. Hard to tell with him.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says gruffly. “Okay. See you.” He hangs up and tucks his phone back into his pocket, then whistles for the dogs. “Time to go.”
“Good to see you,” you blurt before he can turn away. He seems a little taken aback, but you don’t break eye contact, and you think he might be on the brink of a smile.
“You too, sidekick.”
—
After that, the two of you start texting more often, gradually moving from photos of your dogs to real conversation. And you keep your promise to be insufferable about finding out his name. You send him new M-names every day, never seeming to get any closer to the truth. For his part, he refuses to call you anything but Robin, cementing your existence as a superhero sidekick and nothing more.
you: new theory
you: the M stands for mr
you: monsieur
you: m’lord
He dislikes the messages in response, and you send him a teary-eyed emoji and hope the guilt is enough to get him to tell you.
It is not.
You and Fushiguro are in some sort of convoluted orbit around one another, sometimes colliding, sometimes drifting away. There’s really no reason you should keep stumbling across him, considering you go to different schools, live in different places, study different things.
But after that first day at the dog park, you might take Batman there a little bit more often.
Every time you talk, Fushiguro starts to take up more and more headspace. You find yourself searching for his flash of ink-dark hair, spiky and disheveled, in every crowd. Every set of fading prints in the grass or mud might be his, might be Shiro’s or Kuro’s. It’s stupid, how much you’re thinking about this boy.
At some point you start dragging your friends out to the coffee shops between your two campuses to do work, rather than the one in the student center. You justify it to yourself with the half-assed excuse that if you run into your friends less, you’ll get more work done, but really you’re just hoping he’ll be there. And your friends are happy to oblige, especially Riko, if it means she’ll get a glimpse of this mystery vet man you don’t shut up about.
Riko’s a year below you at Kaisen, but you know her from back home. She’s a frenetic ball of energy and indignation, and she’s fully prepared to go to every coffee shop in a ten-mile radius for the purposes of what she calls “the mission.”
But the coffee at the second place you try is actually god-tier, and you wind up there regularly after that, hunkering down to grind out your assignments in your spare time. It’s there that he finds you, sliding into the seat right across from yours so abruptly that you nearly fall out of your chair—your noise-canceling headphones really block out the entire world. He smirks as you sheepishly tug them down around your neck, glaring.
“Warn a girl, Jesus!”
“I did,” he drawls, taking a sip of his coffee. “Twice.”
“Boo.” You kind of forgot about your own drink because you were so into your work, and you pick it back up now, mostly for something to do with your hands. “Well, hi. What’re you up to?”
“Same as you, I think.” He nods at your laptop. “Mind if I hang out here?”
“You certainly can, but you’ve just stolen someone’s seat and you might have to fight for your life when she gets back from the bathroom.” His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and as if on cue, Riko is beelining toward the table from across the room.
“Well hello, Mr. Seat Thief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Fushiguro seems to be gauging Riko, and you realize this is kind of the first look he’s gotten into your private life outside of your dog, and you’re irrationally nervous about it. But he scoots over and grabs a chair from the next table over, giving Riko a mocking bow in response.
“Better?”
Riko nods, and then grabs his coffee and takes a long drag out of it. He doesn’t object, and that should have been your warning—you can see when the bitterness of it hits her all at once, her face twisting in some combination of shock and despair and mild outrage.
“Oh my god,” you say as Riko grabs her water bottle and chugs to get the taste out of her mouth, aggressively shoving Fushiguro's coffee back toward him. “Of course you drink coffee black, you fucking loser.”
“What, you dump six cups of sugar in yours? That’s not coffee.” You flip him off instead of justifying this with a real response.
“I was gonna use that as payment for your crimes,” Riko gasps dramatically, leaning over the table, “but I was instead punished. You’re in my debt now.” She glares at him fiercely, turning up her nose, before abruptly abandoning the bit and grinning at him. “I’m Riko, by the way.”
He snorts, but a very small hint of a smile appears in a corner of his mouth. “Fushiguro.”
Riko nods and glances from him to you, as if to say really? This guy? You can already hear the analysis she’ll be giving you on the way home. Easy on the eyes, I get it, but does he like, have a personality?
“I did research,” you tell Fushiguro, nudging Riko’s shin under the table in warning. “On you.”
“You stalked me online, is what you’re saying.” You’re learning that he’s not a very expressive person. He treats laughs and smiles like rare currency, and everything you need to know about what he’s thinking is in the tiniest shifts—a downturned brow, a blink, a tilt of the head. You’re still learning, but you like to think you’ve got it down enough to know that this doesn’t actually bother him, despite the resting angry face.
“Yes,” you say, shameless. “Except when I typed in Fushiguro and your school, I got all these results for the editor of your campus paper. You have a sister?”
If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Tsumiki, yeah.”
He doesn’t offer more, so you push. “Older?” You already know the answer, but best let him believe the depth of your internet stalking is shallower than it really was.
“Two years. She’s a senior.”
“Cool. I don’t know a ton of siblings that go to the same school.”
“You’d be surprised,” he sighs. “My cousin and her twin sister both go there, too. And one my roommates’ half-brothers.”
“Convenient, I guess,” you concede. “Sibling discount or something?”
“Nah, but it was easier this way,” he says, pulling a textbook out of his bag. “Go—uh, our legal guardian works around here anyway.”
Riko raises a brow but doesn’t ask, which is a remarkable show of restraint for her.
Legal guardian. Parents aren’t in the picture, then. You want to ask but you don’t, not yet.
The three of you buckle down and get some work done, casually exchanging conversation over the next few hours, and eventually Fushiguro has to head out. “Rehearsal,” he says.
“Rehearsal?” Riko asks, glancing at you as if you know what he’s talking about. You don’t, but you have some absolutely ridiculous mental image of Fushiguro in choir and you almost laugh out loud.
But he just says, as if it’s nothing at all, “Oh, yeah, I’m in a band.”
“What?” you nearly shout, jumping out of your chair so fast it pushes across the floor with a scrrcck. “You’re in a band? You didn’t think to tell me this before? What’s it called? Can I listen—”
“Nope.”
“But—”
“Nice to meet you, Riko,” he says loudly, cutting you off as he slings his bag over one shoulder. He mock-salutes you, two fingers to his brow as he turns to go. “Robin.”
You sink back into your seat and watch him leave, only turning back to Riko when the door swings closed. She opens her mouth and you hold out a hand. “Don’t start.”
—
At some point you start calling, letting yourself fill the silence of your little townhouse with idle chatter as he listens. He’s not one for small talk, you learn, and he’s a good listener. And he pays attention. He remembers the stupid little details you give him, the names of classmates and professors you can’t stand.
“Katie from Ohio?” he asks when you’re ranting one day about the partner you’ve been assigned in enviro. “We don’t like her, correct?” We.
“We do not.” Katie from Ohio does not pull her weight in group projects, and it’s driving you up the wall.
“You tell your prof about it? Isn’t this your favorite one?”
“Yeah, he is,” you groan. Haibara teaches your conservation bio class, and he also taught ecology your freshman year, and he’s the best teacher you’ve ever had. “But no. I don’t want to bother him about it. It’s whatever.”
He hums, unimpressed. “Is it?”
You groan, feeling like you’re getting lectured by your parents. You hate when other people are right. “You want me to talk to him.”
“I’m just saying, if you get a shit grade and it’s Katie’s fault, don’t come crying to me.”
“I will, though,” you say, putting your phone on speaker and setting it on the counter while you pour dog food into Batman’s bowl. “It’ll be super dramatic. I’ll sob in your arms and everything.”
He snorts. “Talk to your prof, Robin.” You stick your tongue out like he can see you.
But you do talk to your prof, and Haibara is your favorite for a reason. Katie gets a shit grade. You do not. Fushiguro does, in fact, say “I told you so.”
By mid-September, you still have no idea what Fushiguro’s first name is. You’re at the end of your rope.
you: GOOD MORNING MASON
fushiguro (cute vet): no.
you: MORT
fushiguro (cute vet): no.
you: why don’t you want me to know. is it crazy
you: melvin
fushiguro (cute vet): NO.
you: marie
you: meghan
fushiguro (cute vet): …
you: well, that’s it
you: i’m calling you maleficent until you tell me
you: i’m gonna do it in public too
you: so loud
INCOMING CALL: FUSHIGURO (CUTE VET)
You don’t greet each other when you pick up—you never have. Instead, Fushiguro just says, “You could’ve picked like, ten other Disney characters and you went with Maleficent?”
“Don’t hate. You’d rather be Mufasa? Boy’s dead.”
“Oh my god.” Everything Fushiguro says sounds long-suffering. You wonder what it sounds like when he laughs, really laughs, if those walls ever break down and he lets himself actually outwardly express his emotions.
“I can call you Mickey Mouse if you really want—” Batman starts barking from his spot at the window, and you groan, waving your hand at him pointlessly as you try to get him to stop. “Hey! No! There is nothing outside, what are you on about?”
“He probably just thinks you’re barking with him,” Fushiguro says unhelpfully.
“Oh, and yours don’t bark out of turn?”
“Not really.”
Now that you think about it, you actually aren’t sure you’ve ever heard Shiro and Kuro bark aside from excited greetings at the dog park. “What the fuck, dude? Do they teach you the secrets of the trade in vet school?”
“Nah, I’m just a natural.” He says it so deadpan you aren’t sure if he’s joking or actually being cocky.
“Come over and help, then,” you say, before you can think it through. It’s a Saturday night, and clearly neither of you have anything better to do.
You aren’t sure what exactly you’re expecting him to say, but for some reason you’re surprised when he just responds, “Okay.”
“Bring the dogs.” You text him your address, and half an hour later he shows up with the dogs in tow. Meeting him at the door, you see his car parked along the curb. It’s small, black, as unreadable and practical as everything else about him.
“That,” he says, pointing to the long-deceased cactus in the pot on your front stoop, “is dead.” Probably because it’s been there since August and you forgot it was there after one week.
“Yes, thank you, very astute.”
“Isn’t keeping plants alive your whole thing? What are they teaching you?”
“Okay.” You start to close the door, but Shiro bounces forward and noses between it excitedly, and you laugh, opening it to let her and Kuro in. “Be nice,” you warn Fushiguro, letting him step inside. He rolls his eyes as he passes, and Batman nearly knocks him over with how excitedly he leaps up to greet him.
He’s also barking, and you raise a brow at Fushiguro expectantly. “Okay, Dog Whisperer. Do your thing.” You close the door behind him, and in the two seconds that you’re turned away, Batman fucking stops barking.
You whirl around, planting your hands on your hips, and find Fushiguro kneeling in front of your very silent, very happy dog.
“What the fuck.”
He looks up at you with the most smug expression on his face, and you throw up your hands in exasperation.
“Hey, don’t pout about it,” he teases, standing and following you into the living room. “That’s what you wanted.”
“I wanted you to teach me how to make him stop, but apparently you just slipped him treats behind my back.”
“Insult to my talents,” he says, hesitating when Kuro leaps onto your couch. “Are they allowed—”
“Ah, yeah, it’s fine.” Batman follows suit. “Got enough dog hair on that couch to make another couch, probably.”
You suddenly find you don’t really know what to say. Because Fushiguro is here, in your house, on a Saturday, your dog is not barking, and you’re alone. Alone with a guy you are very much attracted to. Suddenly you just don’t know any of the words in the English language.
But Fushiguro seems entirely at ease. He always does, really. There’s a quiet sort of confidence about him, and you aren’t sure if it’s fabricated or not. He just looks like he belongs wherever he is, nonchalant about everything.
“Done any more stalking?” he asks, sitting next to Shiro on the floor. You flush a little, feeling weirdly caught out when you aren’t the one bringing it up.
“No, but I might if you don’t tell me more about this band of yours.”
He shakes his head, absently playing with Shiro’s fur. “Just a crazy idea my housemates had. We just practice in the basement. Probably not very good.”
You opt to sit on Shiro’s other side on the ground, and Batman uses the opportunity to lick you directly in the face, since he’s on the couch and you’re now eye-level. “Thank you,” you tell him dryly, shoving his snout away.
“Don’t get humble now,” you tell Fushiguro. “What do you play? Or do you sing?” You really can’t imagine him singing. Everything about this guy screams quiet bass player.
Apparently you’re right. He won’t tell you the name of his band, and allegedly he doesn’t have any gigs this month, so you let it drop—but only for now. “Cagey,” you accuse him, but you’re smiling.
You talk about your courseloads for the semester—his is pretty bio and anatomy-heavy this semester where yours is mostly ecology and conservation-focused, but there’s a bit of overlap in your curriculum, and you find that it’s easy to make conversation about your respective career paths, even though he won’t stop bringing up the fact that you managed to kill a cactus.
“They’re notoriously hard to kill,” he drawls. “Did you try to?”
“No!” You cross your arms over your chest indignantly. “Mean.”
“Honest and mean aren’t the same thing.”
You don’t really notice the sun going down until the living room is swathed in shadow and you have to flip on the floor lamp. It’s been hours by now, but it’s felt like minutes. Every thing you learn about Fushiguro opens up ten new lines of questioning, and you want to know so much more about him. But he shrouds himself in this mystery you can’t seem to get around.
Eventually you stand up to grab snacks from the kitchen, and when you return you find Batman practically on top of Fushiguro, licking his face while Fushiguro just takes it. Cute, you think uselessly.
Batman. But also Fushiguro. And also just the sight of Fushiguro playing with your dog and looking entirely at home on your shaggy living room floor. Fuck, he’s really cute.
“Have you always had dogs?”
He shakes his head as he sits up and nudges Batman off of him, gaze going just a little distant. “Not ‘til I was a teenager.” There’s more there.
“Your idea? Tsumiki’s?”
He shrugs it off, picking at loose threads on his sleeve that don’t exist, some nervous tic he’s developed that seems to only show up when you try to talk about him. Hence, shroud of mystery.
Like you gathered at the coffee shop, his parents aren’t in the picture—dead or absent, though, you’re not sure. He does tell you a little bit about his legal guardian. His name’s Gojo, and according to Fushiguro he is certifiably insane. He says this enough that you know he means it fondly—if he didn’t, he just wouldn’t bring Gojo up at all.
It shouldn’t be possible to talk so much and learn so little, but the hours keep slipping by and finally neither of you can hide the yawns punctuating your conversation. “I should go,” he says, and you reluctantly lead him to the door, crouching to say bye to Shiro and Kuro before you open the door.
“Drive safe, Fushiguro.”
You don’t expect him to respond, but he pauses halfway down your drive, turning to look at you over his shoulder. The moon is out now, and it casts him and his dark clothes in silver. You suddenly find you can’t look away.
Not that you really want to.
“Megumi,” he says.
“What?”
“My name.” He swallows, looking away quickly before looking back. “You can call me Megumi. If you want.”
Chill. Be chill, you tell yourself, trying to school your features into that same neutral expression Fushiguro—Megumi—always has, but you know it’s not working. You can’t help but smile. You feel, weirdly, like you’ve earned something.
“Okay,” you say, leaning on the doorjamb. “Megumi.”
Megumi.
You do one last little bit of internet stalking that night, because you just want to know.
His name means blessing.
—
Everything about Megumi’s house speaks to the collision of three wildly different college-aged boys tempered by the saving grace of one girl.
Remotes for a range of gaming consoles are sprawled across the floor, there are way too many half-empty bags of Doritos, and you’re pretty sure there’s just a single half of a drumstick stuck between two of the couch cushions. But there are also nice, dark tapestries pinned to the walls, string lights bordering the room, a couple plants that are better-kept than any of yours have been.
You know very little about Megumi’s three housemates except that one is a golden retriever in human form, one is a skater boy, and one is a senior named Kirara who somehow keeps them all in check.
“Sorry for the mess,” he says, gesturing at the controllers and chip bags that honestly don’t constitute a mess in your book. Not after all the boys’ dorms you’ve seen, including Hajime’s.
“I like it,” you say honestly. “Also, it smells good in here. I’m proud. Kirara?”
“Kirara.” He nods and leads you to the couch, where you confirm that yes, that’s a broken drumstick.
“I don’t even—Jesus,” Megumi says, pulling it out of the gap between the cushions and tossing it onto the low coffee table. “He breaks more of these than I think is normal.”
“He being skater boy or golden retriever?” you ask as you tug your legs onto the couch to sit cross-legged, facing him. You dragged Batman with you—Megumi said his dogs would appreciate the company—and he’s taken it upon himself to sniff every corner of the house before deeming it suitable for playtime.
“Golden retriever. His name’s Yuji. Skater boy is Ino.” None of his housemates are here—it’s a random Thursday afternoon and the two of you happened to not have classes after two thirty.
“How’d you meet them?”
“Kirara went to my high school, so I knew her before coming here. I knew Ino too, actually. Yuji—I don’t know that anyone really meets him so much as gets forcibly adopted by him?” He somehow manages to make his scoff sound affectionate. “Him and our friend Kugisaki. They’re crazy, but we were all in the same orientation group freshman year.”
“Your friends sound fun.” You like the idea of two outgoing freshmen just deciding Megumi had to be their friend. “How’d you know Ino?”
He tugs at the sleeve of his black henley, picking at a nonexistent string. There’s a bit of a pause before he says, “His—I don’t know, his mentor? Nanami, he knows Gojo. So he was around sometimes.”
You don’t really know what to ask, simply because there’s so much to ask. It doesn’t take a detective to know there’s a lot to unpack in Megumi’s past. “How long have you been…” What’s the proper term for this? “Has Gojo been around, like… since you were a kid, or...?”
Despite your attempt to catch his gaze, Megumi’s eyes are trained on the far wall. “Kind of. Yeah.”
When he doesn’t elaborate, you fight to keep your lips sealed, to not push. You don’t have a right to his past. He can tell you if he wants to. But you’ve always been impatient.
And it’s starting to become a pattern, this strange caginess about his own life. His family, his friends. Every so often he lets something slip, and then it’s like you can see the doors in his mind slam shut—six deadbolts holding you out.
You know a little bit about Gojo, but that’s where the information stops. You drop hints that you want to meet Tsumiki, and whether he’s protective or just too oblivious to pick up on them, you can’t tell.
Maybe, then, the issue is that you haven’t given him much either. He’s met your dog and Riko, but maybe you need to offer him more of yourself before he’s comfortable reciprocating.
So you do. You tell him about your family, sitting on his couch with Shiro at his feet and Batman between you, Kuro unable to sit still. He listens while you talk, unsettlingly attentive eyes intent on you. You live about a half-hour drive away from your parents' place, you tell him, though you don’t go home often.
“It’s not that I don’t like my family,” you sigh, leaning back into the couch cushions and stroking Batman’s fur. “It’s more just that they’re never there, always on business, wrapped up in their own shit. So there’s just… no reason for me to stick around, except a couple times a year on holidays.” You shrug. “At least here it’s not an empty house. Or it’s not usually. When my roommate’s not in fucking Japan.”
“At least Japan’s cool,” he says, shrugging.
You sit up, leaning toward him. “You’ve been?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, once. Gojo said Tsumiki and I weren’t allowed to hit sixteen without having been on a stupid-long flight somewhere. Which sounds insane, but that’s pretty standard Gojo logic for you, I guess.”
“That’s so cool,” you sigh, part of you wishing you could be on a stupid-long flight right now. On the way to somewhere warm, preferably. Fall is starting to give way to an early winter, and you’re not looking forward to running Batman in the cold.
Travel, at least, seems to be a safe topic, and the two of you trade stories about road trips and flights and different cities. You challenge Megumi to Mario Kart at some point and immediately regret it, because why is he so good?
After he thoroughly kicks your ass, you sink back into conversation, walk the dogs, and eventually part ways so you can get some work done.
megumi (cute vet): you know when somebody says they’ll text you when they get home
megumi (cute vet): and they don’t?
you: SHIT SORRY
megumi (cute vet): you’re not dead.
you: NOPE
you: sorry i got back and then batman knocked over a lamp
megumi (cute vet): you don’t have to cover for his vigilantism, sidekick. i already know.
You do feel bad for forgetting to text him, but part of you is a little warmed by the fact that he was worried. Not that he’d ever admit to being worried about anyone, except maybe a dog.
you: okay fine he was stopping a robbery
you: happy?
megumi (cute vet): depends on what they were trying to steal
The work on your desk says you should stop texting and buckle down on your assignments, but he starts teasing, and you start feeding into it, and then you’re on the phone again, and by the time you finally hang up it’s too late to reasonably get anything done.
You can’t say you’re particularly upset about it.
—
The semester ramps up quickly, and you’re drowning in work. That’s your excuse when your basil plant by the kitchen sink dies a week after you bring it home—you’re just busy.
Megumi notices, and the next time he’s over a rosemary plant mysteriously appears in its place. He denies any involvement.
When you aren’t with Riko or Hajime, on the phone with Suko, or hanging out with friends from class, you’re with Megumi. His place, your place, the dog park, the coffee shop. It hasn’t reached a point where your friends comment on how much time you spend together (except Riko, who has a loud opinion on everything and does not care if other people don’t want to hear it), but you like the hours you steal during the week just walking around or drinking coffee or trading idle conversation.
You even visit him at work one Sunday when the clinic is slow, watching him handle the few dogs and single cat that come through. He’s easygoing with the clients and has that same calming effect on every animal—like he speaks some secret language, understands them in a way other people don’t. You love watching him like this.
You like this guy. It’s not rocket science—you put him in your contacts as “cute vet” the day you met him. The hard part is that Megumi is too difficult to read. If he has feelings for you, you have no idea. You don’t think he’d go out of his way to spend time with someone he didn’t genuinely like, but whether it’s platonic or not is so fucking over your head.
Until you finally meet one of his friends.
It’s Riko’s doing, really. The two of you are at the coffee shop when she strikes up a conversation with a redhead in line, and it doesn’t take long for her to make the connection, probably because they’re both talking ten miles a minute and not holding anything back.
“Oh my god!” Riko screeches, turning to you after you place your order. “Hey! This is Nobara. She’s friends with Fushiguro.”
She beams at you. “How do you guys know Fushiguro?”
Riko answers for you. “The vet. She has a dog, the clinic was closed, he was there. It was probably super romantic.” You groan.
Nobara’s mouth forms a small O and then she says, “Ah, you must be the sidekick.”
You can’t stifle your laugh. “He even calls me that when he’s talking to other people?”
She laughs, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t tell anyone anything. Ever. But that’s what you’re in his phone as, and I saw his screen before he could hide it.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He won’t tell us who you are, which means he’s into you, y’know that, right?”
“Um. Is he? I don’t really—”
“Girl,” Nobara says flatly. “He doesn’t talk to people. Yuji and I have to force that guy out of the house half the time. If he’s hanging out with you, it’s because he likes you. Not that he knows that, probably. He’s horrible at feelings. I offered to give him a free therapy session and he said he’d rather become a monk.”
Riko mutters something about how that wouldn’t be too far off from whatever aesthetic he has going on right now, but you’re hung up on something else—Yuji and I.
“Oh my god,” you say, realizing something. “You’re Kugisaki.”
Her entire face lights up and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “He told you about me?” she squeals. “Ooh, he does love me! I’m gonna give him so much shit! What did he say? Was it good?”
The three of you end up talking for half an hour, after you all get your coffee and find an empty table. Nobara talks a mile a minute, but you can’t help hanging on to every word she says—she has a lot to say about Fushiguro, and you feel like you might be learning more about him this way than from the numerous conversations you’ve had with him.
She lives down the street from his place. She knows Gojo, who is apparently exactly the way Megumi described him—loud and eccentric and kind of stupid, but a guy who obviously loves his kids. She and Yuji, true to Megumi’s recollection, basically forced their friendship upon him on the first day of school, and they’ve been a trio ever since.
“He doesn’t tell anyone shit,” Nobara says, echoing her own words from earlier. “I feel like I probably know more about him from Gojo than anything. Or reading his notifications over his shoulder.” She smirks. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t put up with his shit if I didn’t mean that.”
“About—what you said earlier, about him… maybe having feelings for me,” you start.
“Definitely having feelings for you,” she corrects. “Whether he knows or not? Undetermined.”
“Right. Uh.” You don’t get the idea that Nobara is a person you ever want to argue with. “Could you not… mention anything about that? To him?”
She sighs. “Course I won’t. Y’know, the guys always say I can’t keep my nose out of things, but two of my roommates have been in love for years and haven’t done anything and I haven’t said a word. Even though it sucks out part of my soul every time they’re in a room together and they just stare longingly when the other one isn’t looking. They’re so stupid.”
“You and Fushiguro are also stupid,” Riko says helpfully. You glare at her, and she throws her hands up in exasperation. “What? You like him, right? You can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t like him.”
“He is a good friend,” you say, feeling the burn in your cheeks give you away even before Riko starts cackling.
“I like you,” Nobara tells her, sizing her up. “I might regret saying this, but I think I need you to meet one of my housemates. You could be chaos goblins together. I feel it in my bones.”
Riko rubs her hands together like she’s plotting something, and you think you should probably keep her as far away from said housemate as possible.
Eventually, Nobara pushes to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’m so glad I ran into you. I feel like a spy, knowing Fushiguro’s secret girlfriend.” She wiggles her brows at you, and you don’t bother denying it, just burying your head in your hands instead. “You guys should give me your numbers. I can give you Fushiguro intel.”
Riko immediately accepts Nobara’s phone. You wonder how Fushiguro will feel about all this—fond exasperation seems like the default emotion when it comes to his friends. But you give her your number, waving goodbye as she skips out the door, and lean back, thinking as Riko immediately starts to tease you about your boyfriend-not-boyfriend and how at least he has cool friends, even if he doesn’t have a personality.
You just keep looking out the window, trading snarky comments with Riko as it gets dark—earlier now, at the end of September.
“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Riko presses. “I don’t wanna watch you pine for the next six months.”
“We haven’t even known each other that long,” you insist, tracing patterns aimlessly on the tabletop. “And I don’t… I don’t know. I kind of want him to be the one to say something. Because if Nobara’s wrong and he isn’t actually into me, I could fuck everything up—”
“Isn’t actually into you?” Riko exclaims. “Oh. My god.” She waves a hand in front of your eyes. “Can you see? Do you need to get your vision checked? Do you—”
“Okay!” you laugh, swatting her hands away. “Message received, Jesus. Chaos goblin was right.”
“I wear that as a badge of honor,” Riko says solemnly.
Yeah. She can never meet Nobara’s housemate.
—
It’s a Wednesday, and you and Megumi are walking back to your place from the dog park. His car’s at your house, and the dogs have just had a very high-energy playdate that hopefully knocks them out for the night. The air is chilly and the sky dimming, and everything about it feels immaculately fall.
That’s where your conversation has ended up—the upcoming fall break, which is really just a Friday where neither of your campuses have classes. A three-day weekend really shouldn’t be called a break, you think. It’s misleading.
“You’re not going home?” he asks, and you sigh, shaking your head.
“Parents won’t be home. Not really much of a point.”
“We could—” He clears his throat. “We can hang out that weekend if you want. If you need the company.”
“You’re not going home either?” You glance over at him, a little puzzled. “Like—to Gojo’s?” His lips become a thin, tight line, and you wonder if you’ve somehow crossed some invisible boundary. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, despite being on the brink of insanity because he doesn’t tell you anything, ever.
But then he says, “He’s a bartender. Not around weekends, usually.”
“Ah.” Nobara mentioned that.
You did tell Megumi about running into Nobara in the coffee shop, and he immediately looked like you told him that you hung out with Gojo and saw all his baby pictures.
“She’s nice!” you insisted, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.
“She has no filter.”
“She’s fun.”
“She’s Kugisaki.” He shrugged. “Learn anything interesting?”
You told him about your conversation, minus the whole feelings thing, and he agreed that Riko and Toge Inumaki should never, ever meet. “For the good of the entire world,” he said solemnly. “People would die, Robin.”
Now, as the two of you turn onto your street, he glances at you like he’s trying to find something. And maybe it’s how tired you are, maybe it’s the way his eyes look so bright even though they’re so dark, maybe it’s that weird streetlight-night aura that makes everything feel a little bit not real, but you find yourself studying him right back, meeting his gaze without shame.
You want to know him, to be a part of his life in the way he’s become a fixture in yours. You want to meet his housemates. You want to meet his sister, his family. You want him to open the door and stop acting like you’re going to rob him or something the second you get inside. He knows you better than that, right?
He blinks, and you smirk. “I win.”
“Wh—that was not a staring contest.”
“It’s okay,” you tell him sympathetically. “You can’t be good at everything.”
His laugh—his real laugh—isn’t anything like you thought it’d be, but somehow it’s even better. It transforms his whole face, some blink-of-an-eye shift that lights up his eyes and makes everything about him brighter, louder.
You want to make him laugh like that again. As often as you can, really. Always.
“What?” he asks, staring at you, the light lingering in his eyes, some sort of afterimage of his joy.
“I just—I like your laugh.”
He stops, and you realize you’ve reached the end of your driveway. You drop Batman’s leash and let him run around the yard, and Megumi’s dogs follow suit, knowing better than to go far.
“I like your laugh, too,” he says, a crooked smile spreading across his face. And somehow that feels more like a confession than anything he’s ever said to you.
You’re very close.
He’s leaning in and you’re almost subconsciously reaching up to meet him, heels leaving the ground, and he’s still got the slightest curve of a smile lingering on his lips, and—
“Oh!” Shiro jumps on you from the side, tail wagging excitedly.
When you look back up at Megumi, laughter on your lips, his smile is gone, and he’s looking away, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Megumi—”
“That’s my cue,” he says, a forced-sounding chuckle punctuating the sentence. “I should, um. Get back.”
“Oh. Um, right. Yeah. Totally.” You’re kicking yourself now, feeling stupid, foolish. Did you just mess this whole thing up? Was it too soon? Did you read it wrong?
Megumi opens the back door of the car and lets the dogs hop in before circling around to the driver’s seat. “Robin…”
You look at him, trying to squash the hope adamant in your chest. And he looks like he doesn’t know what to say, for a moment, his lips parting and then closing and his eyes darting around before they finally land on you again. “Night,” he says quietly.
“Night, Megumi.” You lift a hand in a half-wave. “See you.”
Batman stares at the street long after the car has disappeared around the corner, and so do you.
“Fuck,” you murmur, and then again, louder, “fuck.”
—
Megumi’s texts over the next week are less frequent and more distant—at least, you think so. Maybe you’re getting too in your own head about it.
From then on, he’s pretty quiet. You wonder if you fucked up. You haven’t talked about it, the kiss. Almost-kiss. Your texts start getting fewer and far between, and in the chaos leading up to midterms you almost don’t notice. Almost.
Lots of almosts, lately.
you: still on for break?
Part of you expects him to go back on his word, say something came up. Especially when he takes a half hour to respond. He’s just busy, you tell yourself. Stop being dramatic.
megumi (cute vet): your place at 5, right?
“Oh,” you say aloud to nobody but Batman, smiling a little. Well, that’s good. You can ask him what’s been on his mind lately. He just seems… preoccupied.
When break rolls around, you spend Friday out with friends and Saturday catching up on schoolwork until Megumi comes over. You’ve hung out so often—you don’t know why you’re nervous.
And it seems contagious. He still shows up at your door and immediately picks up a conversation you left off on the last time you texted him, but he just seems slightly out of reach, somehow. You let it slide for about twenty minutes before you sit him down on the couch and ask.
“Okay. What’s going on with you?”
“What?” You don’t know if he’s playing dumb or just actually doesn’t realize he’s been acting strange.
“You’ve been… look. You’re acting weird. And I feel like we need to talk about whatever happened last week.”
The ensuing silence makes you want to take it back, or say something else, or do anything to create sound in the little bubble of waiting that's formed around the both of you. But you make yourself wait. Give him the space to find words.
“I guess… there is something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says suddenly, flatly, without looking at you. Your mouth slams shut and you find yourself drawing back a little, the remoteness of his voice almost physically distancing.
“Uh,” you say, like the eloquent person you are. “Okay?”
He swallows once, hard, and he looks at you with so much reluctance you almost wish he’d just look away. Your heart is twisting itself into knots.
“I think we should… take a step back.”
“What?” you whisper. “What do you mean?”
He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean—this is going… do you want a relationship?”
The question feels so abrupt you’re momentarily shocked into silence. But you know where he’s going.
He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want—you. And it hurts more than you thought it would. It’s not so much a sharp stabbing sensation as a thousand needles worming their way into the crevices of your heart, slow and numerous and deadly.
Because you do want this. You want him.
“Yes,” you admit, quiet.
And he says, “I don’t.”
In general, you want to ask, or with me? But the words stall in your mouth, all blocked up and sticky, and you don’t say anything at all.
“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs, looking down. “Want that. With me, I mean. It’s…”
“It’s what?” you ask, hesitant. Another long, horrible silence.
“It’s never going to work,” he says, detached. Almost cold. “Us. This.” He’s still not looking at you.
“Let me ask you something, then,” you say, hating the unsteadiness of your voice. “Do you want it to?” Do you have feelings for me? You want to know if this is something he’s denying himself or if he really just doesn’t like you.
You know your own intelligence, though. You haven’t made up whatever this feeling is between you.
He doesn’t answer your question. Just murmurs, “You don’t know me.” And somehow it sounds like an accusation.
“You won’t let me!” you burst out, your voice louder than you intended. But all this caginess, this dancing around everything real, it’s got you at the end of your fuse. Shiro looks up and whines, Kuro leaping off the couch to stand in front of the both of you, curious. “I told you everything! I told you about my family and my friends and my classes and my hometown and my car problems and fucking Katie from Ohio, and you don’t say anything, Megumi, you won’t talk about your family, you won’t introduce me to your roommates. You won’t tell me about your band or your childhood, you took weeks just to give me your first name! What—are you just embarrassed of me? Do you think I’ll judge you? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”
“No,” he practically growls. “God, it’s just—you don’t understand—”
“You’re right, I don’t!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. Batman paws at your leg, wondering why you’re shouting. “So help me understand. I know I’m not patient, but if you have shit you’re not ready to talk about, that’s fine. But just say that. Tell me to wait and I’ll wait. Just—give me something.”
He looks at you and he’s utterly unreadable, doors slammed shut.
“If you don’t want me in your life, just fucking say so,” you spit, but your voice is wavering now, uncomposed and only loud so it doesn’t shatter. If he really said it, said I don’t want you, you don’t know what you would do. It would be too sharp, too painful, too much.
“You don’t want this,” he says instead, averting his gaze. His tone is measured and even and emotionless.
“Don’t tell me what I want,” you seethe, but your words come out quiet. “If you really think I don’t want this, it’s because you won’t let me.” You’re whispering now, worried that if your voice raises any more, it’ll crack the paper-thin walls holding back your tears. “Megumi…”
“S’better this way.” He rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes, a messy movement that seems so at odds with the evenness of his tone. “I… I have to go, Robin.”
And the strange, unstable feelings of betrayal and confusion and hurt morph abruptly back into something hotter, something angrier. Because how dare he come here, spend fall break at your house, listen to you spill your heart onto the carpeted floor? How dare he run away, say he doesn’t want this, and then still call you that stupid, endearing fucking nickname?
“Yeah,” you say icily, glancing away with your arms crossed over your chest. “You do.”
You count to five, silently, before he moves, and you don’t look when he does. You blink tears out of your eyes when Kuro hesitates, nosing at your hip before following Megumi out the door.
It slams, hard, and Batman stays perched at the entry, tracking him as he walks out of your house, your life.
You don’t move for a very long time.
INTERMISSION // A REAL GOOD START
MEGUMI FUSHIGURO IS in deep, deep shit.
That is to say, he’s lost control of the situation, which is the one thing he does not allow to happen. Ever.
He can’t stop thinking about you.
Sleep is hard to come by in the days after he fucks everything up. He keeps thinking about how it could have gone if he’d just—if he’d done anything else. If he hadn’t run off after he almost kissed you, traitorous heart thumping in his chest even while his brain screamed danger!
You became part of his life so fast and so naturally he didn’t know it was too late until the damage had already been done. If he let himself kiss you, he would drown.
But he didn’t. He shut you down instead, on a Saturday night that could have been different.
He makes excuses when Gojo invites him over Sunday afternoon, going into work early just to avoid him. Even if Megumi’s perfected his poker face, nothing gets past Gojo. It’s like he has some sixth sense for when his pseudo-kids are in emotional turmoil. He’ll force Megumi into a talk therapy session (run by the most unqualified bartender of all time) and he’ll die of embarrassment on the couch.
So instead of talking to someone, anyone, he throws himself into his work, into rehearsals, into school. He goes to the clinic early and leaves late. His fingers are sore from plucking the same lines out on his bass until his housemates go to sleep. His eyes are dry from staring at his laptop until three in the morning. But it doesn’t matter what he does. He can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.
The thing about being in a band with all of his housemates is that there’s really no world in which they don’t notice something’s off. They’re spending even more time together lately than usual with the Battle of the Bands going on, and his only relief is that none of them say anything—at least not aloud. There are a number of raised brows and the occasional questioning shoulder nudge, but it seems Yuji, Ino, and Kirara know him well enough by now not to push. That, at least, he’s grateful for.
Nobara Kugisaki is a different story.
It’s a Monday when she storms into his living room—she didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. Shiro and Kuro run happily around her legs, and normally she’d be fawning over them, but today she looks furious. He can almost see smoke coming right out of her ears, eyes narrowed to dark slits as she stares him down.
“Fushiguro.”
“You,” he points out, “do not live here.”
“And you,” she seethes, “have one minute to explain to me what the fuck you did.” Before he can say anything, she waves her phone around in the air and says, “Hi, Nobara, I was just wondering if Fushiguro seems okay to you? Things kind of fell off and I would feel weird reaching out but I’m just a little worried.”
She’s quoting you.
Texts from you.
Shit.
Megumi knows that you and Kugisaki have met, but for some reason it just did not cross his mind that you might have exchanged contact information.
Control the situation.
He clears his throat, refusing to break eye contact. “Well, she said it,” he huffs, his usual toneless expression. “Things fell off.”
You still wanted to check on him. He treated you like that and you still…
“You broke up with her.”
“We weren’t together—”
“You broke up with her. Are you a fucking moron? This girl—” She jabs her finger into her phone screen so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t hurt— “is so fucking cool. And she puts up with you. And you like her. And now you’re acting all weird. So what, you go over there and tell her you can’t be together? What the fuck, dude? Why?”
What a loaded question that is.
“Because,” he grits out. “It wouldn’t have worked.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kugisaki repeats flatly, walking over to the couch and making herself at home way too close to him, staring him down. He turns his head away. God, she is so persistent. She is so annoying.
“Yeah, congrats, your hearing works. Can you leave me alone?”
“Tell me you don’t have feelings for her and I will.”
“I—”
“Look at me and say it,” she snaps.
Megumi looks at her. “I don’t,” he mutters.
Kugisaki rolls her eyes so hard Megumi can’t believe they stay in her skull. “Okay, sure,” she says skeptically. He doesn’t like this tone, where it’s going. “So if I set her up with Toge, you wouldn’t mind?”
“I—” He clamps his mouth shut, hands curled into fists. “Kugisaki, that’s not—”
“That’s what I thought.” Normally she’d look smug, victorious after pulling one over on him, but this is worse. She just looks… concerned. He hates it.
“Look,” she sighs. “You’re not going to talk to me, so I’m not going to waste my time. But when you figure this out—and you will figure it out, or I might kill somebody, and it will be you—I’ll be all ears.” Her gaze might as well be pinning him to the wall with how fierce it is. Sometimes he lets himself forget how much of a force Kugisaki can be, and right now, she’s got that glint in her eyes that he hates, the one that makes him feel like she knows something he doesn’t. “Understood?”
“If I say understood, will you get out of my house?” he grumbles. She says nothing, just looking at him, and he thinks maybe she could win a staring contest with a fish. For a long, tense minute, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.
Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll forget about it eventually.
He sighs, tipping his head back against the wall.
“Understood.”
—
Things seem to happen around Megumi, to him, not because of him. The last conscious decision he made was to end things with you, and now he’s just a passive witness to his own life. Ino has something going on with Nobara’s housemate, Yuji’s scrambling to pass his midterms, Kirara bounces between their house and Hakari’s place faster than he can keep track of, and Megumi… he just exists in the periphery, goes through the motions.
He keeps finding his thumb hovering over your contact name. A dog with a silly name comes into the clinic and he wants to text you about it. He hears a song that reminds him of you (every song reminds him of you) and he wants to play it for you.
He wonders if Riko has him on a hit list yet.
A voice in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like Kugisaki keeps repeating, Why?
Why did he end things? Why did he bite the bullet so fucking hard?
Because you deserve better than him, honestly.
You don’t know me, he told you. What he didn’t say, though—because you wouldn’t want me if you did.
Part of him knows that’s probably unfair to you—your words keep playing back in his mind and not even his music can drown them out. You won’t let me! But there are things he can’t imagine saying out loud. Explaining the way his dad disappeared, not even showing his face again when his mom died—eighteen-year-old Gojo from across the street on their doorstep, promising he and Tsumiki wouldn’t go into foster care. Bloody knuckles from fighting middle school bullies. Gojo and Geto trying to raise a bunch of kids when they were still kids themselves.
Gojo didn’t leave, but he should have. Megumi knows he threw away so much of his life for him, for Tsumiki. He could have done so much more. He could have done anything he wanted. But Megumi held him back.
Maybe he’s holding him back even now. He knows Gojo would deny it.
The point is, Megumi has shit to figure out for himself, and you shouldn’t have to sit by and watch him deal with it. That’s not fair to you. Yeah, he went about it wrong, but—but this is for the best. You can find someone who actually gives you everything you deserve, and he can… whatever.
Megumi’s band, Shibuya Incident, doesn’t perform this Friday at The Fix—Shoko and Geto’s bar. They’ve already made finals. Tonight will just decide who their opponents are. But even if he’s not up there playing, the Battle of the Bands is a welcome distraction. Even if Ino’s just making lovesick puppy eyes at the stage the whole time and Yuji won’t shut up about wanting Taco Bell. Megumi lets himself get a little lost in the music, and Kugisaki’s band is good, really. He votes for them as soon as the digital form opens and then vows to never tell her.
They should win, but Black Flash takes it again. Kasumi Miwa and Maki’s sister and their friends. They won the whole thing last year. Great, Megumi thinks.
The night comes and goes, and he dodges Gojo on his way out of the bar despite knowing he’ll get a text about it later. And then they’re all piled into Yuji’s car on the way to get his beloved Taco Bell, and he’s just about convinced he’s done with feeling anything at all when Kirara screams.
For a second, there’s nothing at all.
And then the world comes back to life around him in a shock of colors and sounds and a lot of cuss words, mostly coming out of his own mouth.
“Holy shit!” Yuji shouts, yanking the wheel hard to the right, and Megumi can barely process the sight of the white car barreling toward them before there’s crunching metal and shattering glass, and it’s like he feels the collision as an aftershock, shaking all his bones back into place. The airbags go off and he’s blind, wind knocked clean from his lungs, and then he’s moving—no, he moves. No more passivity. This is real.
“Everybody out,” he demands, wrenching the passenger door open and taking in the sight of the crash. Smoke is billowing from the hood of Yuji’s car, the vacant passenger side of the other one entirely smashed in. “Everyone okay?”
Yuji circles around the back of the car and Megumi clocks immediately that he’s holding his wrist weird, wrong. “Yuji—”
“Ino, come on—hey. Hey. Ino.”
Kirara’s got one knee on the edge of the backseat and one hand braced on the roof of the car, and Ino is not making any move to get out.
Sirens. Who called the cops?
“Kirara?” Yuji asks, moving to help her, but she holds up a hand and looks back over her shoulder.
“Don’t. I got it. We’re fine. Just—bad memories, I think.”
Megumi knows Ino hates driving. He doesn’t know why, but he can guess. So he doesn’t push it. Kirara’s the psych major, after all. And probably the one with the most emotional intelligence and any semblance of tact. She’s got him.
He’s about to turn to Yuji when somebody stumbles out of the other car. The car that had been driving in the wrong lane,directly toward them. If Yuji hadn’t reacted so quickly, they’d all be dead.
“What the fuck,” he hisses.
It’s his cousin.
“What,” he says, louder, “the fuck? Naoya!” He storms over and grabs Naoya by the front of his shirt—his breath reeks of alcohol, and he’s laughing, like he didn’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter. “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you? Are you—”
He hears… screaming?
But not from here. Not in person. It’s…
Megumi looks at the cracked phone on the ground, having been flung straight through Naoya's shattered windshield. He looks at his shitbag cousin, who’s half tipping-over, legs like jelly under him.
“Naoya,” he growls. “Who. Is. That?”
“Hah,” he slurs. “Mm. My ex! My ex. She is… she is.”
He’s not making sense, but Megumi might get back into Yuji’s car and drive it into his cousin on purpose. Naoya was dating this girl—Megumi knows her. She's friends with Yuji. Some brand of art major, he’s pretty sure, and she's nice, way too good for him. And then what, she finally gets away and he still torments her? By drunk calling her from the car, letting her listen as he crashes? The blood in Megumi’s veins might as well be venom.
He shoves Naoya back with a scoff, letting him stumble over himself, and grabs the broken phone off the ground. “Hey,” he says, and she’s still screaming, this poor fucking girl— “Hey! Hey. Calm down. It’s—hello?”
“Naoya? What the fuck, Naoya—”
She’s definitely talking through tears, maybe angry, maybe scared.
“Not Naoya,” Megumi sighs. “Uh, this is Fushiguro.” She’s quieting a little on the other end, and he hears a guy’s voice trying to talk her down. “Listen. Naoya’s fine. Just… drunk. And an asshole. Are you okay?”
After that, the entire night is a blur.
He talks down Naoya’s traumatized ex-girlfriend on the phone, Ino’s girlfriend shows up and calms him down, and then Gojo and Nanami and Shoko are there and Hakari shows up and Gojo’s dragging Megumi to the ER with Yuji to get his wrist checked out and it’s sprained and Tsumiki is running into the waiting room and hugging the life out of him and Maki calls and Naoya’s got a DUI and then finally, finally they’re home. Megumi can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn't know what time it is.
He sleeps harder than he has in months.
—
Megumi is so fucking exhausted that when his phone starts buzzing the next morning at the kitchen table, he doesn’t actually think it’s real for a second.
INCOMING CALL: SIDEKICK
He’s hallucinating. Sleep deprivation, or something. Or maybe he actually got a concussion in that car crash and now he’s seeing things that aren’t real. That’s the only explanation.
That or you butt-dialed.
He doesn’t bother explaining himself to the others as he stands up and retreats to the hallway, almost letting the phone ring out before steeling himself and swiping to accept the call.
“Hey?”
He’s never greeted you like that before. It sounds so fake. He usually picks up the phone and just starts talking about whatever you texted him, or whatever weird thing he saw that he has to tell you about. Not hey. Hey is for people he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care about.
“Um. Hey.” It is stupid, what just the sound of your voice over the phone does to him. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” he says, too fast, too sharp. Stop it. “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”
You clear your throat on the other end of the phone. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”
He pushed you out, and you texted Kugisaki to ask if he was alright.
He pushed you out, and you’re calling to make sure he’s okay.
I’m not, he wants to say. I fucked up. I fucked this up.
I miss you.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I… appreciate that.”
Maybe he can still salvage this. Still be friends with you, at least. But that’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? He’ll just hurt you again. But…
“It was my cousin,” he offers, not really knowing why he’s saying it. Maybe as a peace offering. He didn’t tell you things before, important things. Maybe he can start now. “Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”
“Oh,” you say. You sound surprised, but Megumi isn’t sure if you’re more shocked about his words or the fact that he gave them to you. “That’s… awful.”
“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”
“Good. That’s good.” A dog starts barking, and Megumi feels his lips twitch up into an almost-smile.
“There he goes,” he murmurs. You laugh, and he’s actually smiling, now.
“There he goes,” you say fondly. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…”
“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says, not sure how to end this. “Um, good… luck.” Stupid. That was so fucking stupid.
“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”
“Bye, Robin,” he says, but the line’s already gone dead.
—
Megumi sees you three times in the month of November, and every time he feels ten times closer to a train wreck.
It snows in November, because it’s stupid and cold and winter comes early here, and there are prints leading toward the dog park. Imprints of dog paws and boots, side by side, and he’s a vet student. He knows what size dog those prints mean. He knows exactly who it is.
He lets Shiro and Kuro tug him all the way to the dog park, and he doesn’t even remember letting himself through the gate. He just knows that you see him right after Kuro starts panting excitedly, and you freeze.
He half-waves in the most pathetic, lame response ever known to mankind.
“Robin,” he says, the nickname falling off his tongue like nothing ever changed.
“Fushiguro.” You smile, hesitant, and he wishes it didn’t feel like a needle that you used his last name. He walks over to you—just following the dogs, he tells himself, that’s natural. Batman almost knocks him over in his excitement.
Megumi can’t not smile at a dog. That would just make him a bad vet, wouldn’t it?
“Hey, bud,” he says, crouching down to pet him. “Yeah, I missed you too.” When he looks back up, your gaze is a little distant, and he closes his eyes for a second, collecting himself. He pushes back to his feet and turns to you.
“Did you know I’d be…” You don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what you mean.
“I… snowprints,” he says, shrugging. It seems to be enough of an answer for you.
“Snowprints,” you echo. “We found you with tracks too, the first time. Didn’t we, Batman?” Like he understands, Batman slaps his tail against the ground and flicks his ears forward and back. Yep. Sure did.
He scrambles for something to say in the silence—small talk is the bane of his existence, but is it ever small talk when it’s you?
Small talk doesn’t matter.
Everything you say matters.
“So. They teach you how to keep plants alive yet?” he asks, and has to fight not to physically cringe after he says it. God, it’s like he never learned how to talk. But you laugh, which he counts as a win.
“No, but someone is significantly less barky, so thank you for that.”
He has you for five minutes before your phone rings, and you chuckle, showing him the screen.
“Ah,” he says. Riko. He doesn’t object when you go, slipping out through the gate with your phone pressed to your ear, because he doesn’t have the right.
But you text first, later.
sidekick: it was good to see you
sidekick: and the dogs. obviously
“Look at that,” he mutters to Kuro, whose nose is nearly touching his phone screen. “You’re my good luck charm.”
megumi: you too, sidekick.
megumi: and batman. obviously.
The second time, you’re crossing paths in the coffee shop, both of you on your way to other places. It’s brief and stilted and still leaves him feeling like a mess.
“Black?” you ask, nodding at his coffee. You’ve got a hat tugged haphazardly over your head to ward off the persistent snowflakes outside, and it’s—you’re cute. Fuck.
He huffs a laugh, looking down at the sleet-stained floor just to avoid staring at you and your cold-flushed cheeks. “What else?”
“Vanilla latte,” he says, glancing at your cup, because he wants you to know he remembers. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he thinks you look pleasantly surprised.
The third time, you don’t see him.
He knew you had friends at JU, but he’s never seen you around campus before. You’re with the guy with the blue hair, always pulled up into two knots on the top of his head—Hajime, maybe?
You throw your head back and laugh at something he says, and it’s like—fuck. Laughter shouldn’t sound that poetic.
And he knows he can’t lie to himself anymore.
It’s time to talk.
Kirara would probably kick his ass the second he told her anything. Ino’s busy with his new girlfriend, Yuji’s an idiot, Kugisaki is… well, she’s Kugisaki, and he can’t handle that lecture right now. And he sure as hell isn’t gonna talk to Gojo.
Which means he only has one option.
When he knocks on the door of Tsumiki’s apartment, she takes one look at him and sighs, long-suffering.
“You finally ready to talk?”
This was probably a grave miscalculation. If Kirara would kick his ass for the way he treated you, Tsumiki might actually hang him from his ankles out the window and leave him to die. But not before he apologizes to you. So at least he’s got time.
He walks in without responding and ignores her invitation to sit, pacing the kitchen instead in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I fucked up.”
“Yeah, I gathered,” Tsumiki says dryly, but she hops up onto the counter and looks at him, patient as ever. Tell me, she doesn’t say, but Megumi hears it anyway.
“I think I might be in love.”
—
To her credit, Tsumiki is dead silent for the entirety of Megumi’s rambling explanation. He’s a little hoarse by the end of it—honestly, he never talks like this. He feels like he just dumped his heart onto his sister’s kitchen floor and is awaiting some sort of judgement.
“Also, I think she hates me,” he finishes, finally sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He tilts his head back and stares at the popcorn ceiling. “And I deserve it.”
For a beat, Tsumiki is silent. And then she says, “You wrote a song about her.”
He snaps his gaze to her so aggressively it hurts his neck. “What?”
She rolls her eyes and pulls something up on her phone, sliding up the volume and pressing play. She scrolls to some random point in the song, and Ino’s voice sings, “She’s got me up late starin’ at my phone, waitin’ for a text, feelin’ all alone.”
“Tsumiki—”
She turns it up, and Megumi looks anywhere but at his sister. There are plants everywhere, warm light filtering in through the windows onto herbs on the kitchen windowsill and succulents in the living room and god, everything reminds him of you.
“And she don’t even know what she’s doin’ to me, all my hopes are high-strung and she’s just gonna leave, no!”
“Okay! Okay, stop, I get it,” he huffs, dragging the heel of his palm down his face and trying to ignore her smug smile. “How did you even know?” he mumbles. “I’m not on the credits.”
“I know you,” she says dryly. “I also know Ino, and his lyrics are not that… I don’t know, poetically nihilistic.”
“I really can’t tell if you’re trying to insult or compliment me right now,” he says, sighing.
“Also,” Tsumiki says pointedly, “because this is what you do, Gumi.” He gives her a quizzical look in lieu of a response. “When people get close to you, you lash out and then you run away.” She hops off the counter and crosses the room to the table, pulling out a chair across from Megumi.
“No, I don’t,” he grumbles, tilting his chair away on its back legs and inadvertently proving her point.
She just looks at him until he relents, burying his face in his hands.
“I don’t think it’s unprecedented,” Tsumiki says gently, “considering the way we grew up. But you can’t keep shutting down good things, Gumi. You wouldn’t even be friends with Itadori and Kugisaki if they hadn’t forced their way past your bullshit. And you love them, right? They’re great. You know they’re not gonna hurt you.”
“Nobody knows that,” he huffs. “College will end and we’ll all go our separate ways and I’ll never hear from—”
“Nope,” Tsumiki says loudly, cutting him off. “Okay. My turn to talk. Shut up.” She glares at him, planting her elbows on the table. He feels stripped raw. “The whole pushing-people-away-before-I-get-hurt thing? You need to stop. You cannot look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t have people who would die for you, Gumi.”
He opens his mouth to object, but she swipes a hand through the air, silencing him. “I’m not done.” Megumi has only seen his sister like this a few times in his life, and he is fairly certain that if he tries to interrupt her again he might not leave this apartment alive.
“You have me. You have Gojo. You have Geto and Shoko and Nanami. You have all of your housemates, and Kugisaki, and probably all of her housemates too,” she says. “And none of us are going anywhere, okay? No walking out on the kids, no betrayal, no kicking you to the curb. So you need to get your head out of your ass, Megumi.”
Well.
“Look. It’s a defense mechanism. I get that,” she says, a little gentler now. “But you are not doing yourself any favors. And this girl? You’re in love with her, Gumi. That means she’s pretty special, okay? Because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look twice at a girl in your whole life. And I know she doesn’t deserve this, just as much as you know. So you have two choices.”
Megumi doesn’t think he’s going to like either of the two choices.
Tsumiki leans back in her chair, shrugging. “You can let her move on without you and keep screwing yourself over, or you can go tell her you fucked up and ask her to forgive you.”
He’s never liked asking for things. Tries to avoid it, actually. But he’s finding there are a lot of rules he’s willing to break when it comes to you.
“But if you’re going to ask this girl to step back into your life, you need to make sure you’re ready for it,” his sister says firmly. “You need to have your shit together. You need to know how you feel.” She pauses, catching his gaze, and once she has it she might as well be holding his face in her hands. He can’t look away, not when she’s looking at him this intently, like she’s waiting for an answer she already knows. “So. How do you feel?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, Tsumiki knocks on the table, like a dismissal. “Okay. You think about that, and when you know—you know.” She looks at him for a long moment after he stands up, those eternal curled locks of hair falling into her face, and he’s suddenly hit with a wave of affection, of gratitude, so strong he can barely stand it. Yeah, so he doesn’t have a mom. And fuck his dad. But Tsumiki—thank god he has his sister.
“Miki,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Uh—thank you. I…” He swallows once, hard. “Love you.”
Her smile is slow but wide, the kind that makes her eyes narrow just a little. “I love you too,” she says softly, and then she winks. “Hey, those words? That’s a real good start.”
—
When Megumi sees you next, he’s going to be ready. Just like Tsumiki said. He needs to know how he feels. So he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.
There’s a notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, scrawled song lyrics he’ll never let anyone see. He fills page after page after page trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, in his heart, how he can make it make sense. Fit together like two hands, two sets of prints in the snow. He tries to imagine what he’ll say to you, how you’ll react, but every word he thinks of falls short, everything just sounds stupid in the face of how much you deserve and how little he can give.
He keeps thinking.
It’s December 19, Kugisaki’s Christmas party before everyone parts ways for break.
Megumi won’t admit it, but he’s having a good time. He brought the dogs, and he and Yuji have been bouncing around talking to their friends. Tsumiki’s here too, and when he loses track of Yuji he makes his way over to her, leaning silently against the wall.
“They’re cute,” she says fondly, and he follows her gaze to the hall—Ino is standing there with his girlfriend, Skipper, and there’s mistletoe hanging right above them. No doubt Kugisaki’s doing. Skipper laughs and pecks Ino on the lips before he says something and drags her down the hall, and then Maki and Yuta glance up at the mistletoe, look at each other in mutual horror, and pointedly do not walk beneath it. They’re finally together, but they wouldn’t be caught dead kissing in front of other people.
And he wonders what you’d do, if you were here standing under it with him.
He doesn’t have to say anything. Tsumiki reads him like a book.
It’s like this:
Megumi is very well-acquainted with loss. But he’s not sure he can handle this one.
He let his own insecurities ruin a good thing, a bright thing. He shut it down before it could start. He struck first and he fucking regrets it.
That’s it, then. Pity party over. Delusions down the drain. It’s time to get over himself, to get real.
Because the truth of it is that he doesn’t give a shit about his birthday, about Christmas, about the trees and the lights and the stupid fucking carols, if you’re not there with him.
Oh, he thinks. His sister has the audacity to smirk.
He stays, because this is Kugisaki’s party and despite everything, he does love her. He’s getting better about that, about acknowledging it—he has people who care about him, and he has people he cares about.
But when he heads out just a little bit early, after whispering your name in Kugisaki’s ear, she nearly slaps him for not going sooner.
“Shiro, Kuro,” he calls, heading for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got somewhere to be.”
PART II // TO TRYING
FOR A WEEK after Megumi walks out your front door, you drown in self-pity like the flower you killed in September with too much water.
And then you open your computer and type his name into the search engine with jujutsu university and band. It’s not hard to find—one of the first results is some Instagram advertisement about a Battle of the Bands at JU, from a couple of weeks ago. One of them’s got to be his. You could just ask Nobara, but—it feels weird, somehow. Wrong. Like you’re encroaching on part of his life that he so clearly doesn’t want you to be a part of.
You can’t helping asking her to check on him, though. You just—it’s probably stupid, but you want him to be okay. Not that you think him pseudo-dumping you would tear him up or anything. But there’s a not insignificant part of you that doesn’t believe what he said that day. Part of you that knows a defense mechanism when you see one.
The thing is, you could’ve asked your friends about him. Hajime goes to JU. He might know Megumi, and if not he could’ve found out. But you wanted this for yourself, this mystery of earning his first name and his history and his heart, except you thought you’d gotten two of the three and it turns out he’ll only ever give you one.
You start typing in the bands one by one, figuring eventually one of them has to be his. A search for Black Flash turns up an artist image of a group of people surrounding a grinning girl with bright blue hair. No Megumi, though.
Shibuya Incident, then. You key it into Spotify and rub your eyes when the artist profile comes up, like you’re maybe seeing it wrong. No. It’s him.
There’s a dark-haired girl who must be Kirara leaning on a familiar-looking guy with pink hair, face split open in a smile. Front and center is a brown-eyed boy with a beanie tugged lopsided over his hair. And in the back, standing, looking characteristically bored, is Megumi Fushiguro.
Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this.
But you’re scrolling before you know it. Most popular songs. They have an EP called Over Duress. And they have a single—released recently, it looks like.
Strike First.
You only allow yourself one second of hesitation before you press play.
“Catch feels real quick,” a voice sings—Ino, must be. “And they go real deep.” You can’t help paying attention the bassline. It’s steady, constant, holding the rest of the band together as Ino sings. The lyrics almost sink into the background until the chorus snags your attention, and you have to go back and replay it.
“I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way. So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”
Oh.
You understand, then, even if his name isn’t listed in the writing credits, even if you have no proof. Megumi wrote this song. You can hear him in the unfamiliar voice of the lead singer. You can feel him in the pattern of the words. It’s his.
He didn’t want you to leave, so he left first. Is that it?
You understand, but it’s not enough. Abruptly, you’re just—you’re angry. What a stupid reason to let something fall apart. You don’t owe him patience. If he’s not ready to commit, that’s not your problem, it’s his. He needs to figure himself out, learn to let people in, and you can’t just sit here and wait for him to do it. It’s not your responsibility.
It’s not.
There’s some sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that there’s nothing else you could have done.
“Forget that,” you mutter, closing out of Spotify and intending to just toss your laptop on the bed. Case closed. Moving on.
But something in your search results catches your eye first.
JU senior issued DUI after crash on 34th and Olson Blvd Friday night
Okay. So. Nothing to do with Megumi, right? Except it’s showing up in your search of his name. You click on the article, heart suddenly pounding.
Jujutsu University Campus Police responded to an emergency call at 11:41 last night after an automobile collision on 34th Street and Olson Boulevard, four blocks from the popular campus live music bar, The Fix.
“No,” you breathe. “What the fuck?” You keep skimming, everything in you loosening up when it says nobody was seriously hurt, but it just—whose car is that, Yuji’s? It’s bright red. Not Megumi’s.
You’re not really thinking when you make the call. It rings for so long, and right as you’re about to give up, he’s there on the other end of the line, and you realize you have no idea what you’re supposed to say.
“Hey?”
“Um. Hey.” You sound more breathless than you should, just sitting here on your bed with your laptop open to a student news publication. You don’t wait for him to ask why the hell you’re calling, barreling on before you lose your nerve. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you o—”
“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Defensively. Oh.
Right. This is overstepping, probably. He doesn’t need you checking up on him. You should’ve just texted Nobara. You should’ve just not read the article, actually, shouldn’t have typed his name into your search engine. He probably thinks you’re a creep who put Google alerts on for his name or something. You don’t have any real excuse for how you stumbled across this fucking article.
But then he says, “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”
Thank god, you think. But you just clear your throat a little and say, “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”
The silence is so long you think for a moment that he’s hung up on you. But then, very quietly, he says, “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”
You don’t really know where to go from here. He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. Why the hell did you call him in the first place? It’s not like he’s going to offer you any information. Because he doesn’t tell you anything, which was the whole problem in the first place—
“It was my cousin.”
You blink.
“Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”
“Oh,” you say, more of a surprised noise slipping out before you can bite it down. It’s less shock at the actual words than the fact that he’s giving you something, that he’s offering you this. You scroll down in the article. Naoya Zenin. The senior in the headline who got a DUI. “That’s… awful.”
“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Batman chooses this moment to start barking at absolutely nothing out the window. He actually has been a lot better about that recently, but it’s like it’s his mission today to embarrass you on the phone with the guy who dumped-not-dumped you.
“There he goes,” Megumi says lightly, and you laugh a little, because he sounds almost fond when he says it.
“There he goes,” you echo. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…” What? You’ll what? See you around? No you won’t. Talk to you later? Unlikely.
“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says. “Um, good… luck.” With what? Batman? Life?
“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”
You slam your finger down on the red button before he can reply.
You don’t want to know what he says. Your name, or sidekick, or Robin, or nothing at all.
—
You try to forget about him, but it’s hard.
Every time your phone buzzes with a message from your friends, classmates, family, your heart jumps, foolishly thinking it might be him. You follow Batman to the dog park without making the conscious decision to, and berate yourself when you realize, lead him off in another direction. Your rosemary plant dies and you hear him in your head, teasing you—isn’t the environment your whole career? Better shape up, sidekick.
Riko prepares a half-hour long PowerPoint presentation about all the reasons he didn’t deserve you in the first place. She must’ve told your roommate, too, because Suko calls you in the middle of the night, Japan time, just to check in.
A week into November, it’s dulled a little bit, the hurt. You’re still startled when he shows up at the dog park, but… not unpleasantly so.
“Snowprints,” he says when you ask if he knew you were here. One word, but it means more to you. Snowprints means he knew what he was walking into, and he came anyway. Snowprints means he saw a chance and followed it to you on purpose.
That’s progress, isn’t it?
You see him at the coffee shop and he remembers your order. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. Snowprints and a vanilla latte.
He said he didn’t want this, but you just… don’t believe him.
But you’re not waiting for him. If the cute guy from ecology asked you out tomorrow, you’d say yes. This boy isn’t dictating your life while he figures himself out.
You hope he does figure himself out. But you won’t hold on to scraps.
And you do start to forget, a little. The cute guy in your ecology class does not ask you out, but your friends and your studies and your needy dog are enough of a distraction that Megumi isn’t in the front of your mind all the time. The semester is flying by, and you make an effort to keep in touch with Nobara despite everything—she really is fun.
It’s approaching break before you know it, and you’re going home for the holidays soon, though you’ll probably be back before the new year because Setsuko needs a ride. Man, you’re excited to have a roommate again.
Your suitcase is half-packed, poorly folded clothes covering the whole of your bedspread in some futile attempt at organization. Christmas is in six days—well, five, you think idly, glancing at the clock. Half past midnight. You should go to sleep, but your bed is covered in clothes and you need to finish packing for your drive home in two days.
“Hey, no,” you lecture as Batman sniffs at a shirtsleeve dangling over the side of the bed. You can tell he’s considering making the leap and taking a nap on top of all your freshly laundered clothes. “No. Stay down.”
You push to your feet, yawning, and then Batman freezes in place, his ears perking up and forward like he hears something.
“What’s up?” you mutter, and then his head snaps toward the door. “Dude, what? It’s past midnight—”
The doorbell rings.
“The shit,” you mutter, trudging to the front door. Irrationally you wonder if your roommate’s home early, but that’s stupid—she’d have needed a ride from the airport, and she has a key.
You don’t know what you expect when you nudge Batman aside and open the door into the cold night, barely holding him back from the cracked door with your leg.
Oh.
You’re face to face with Megumi Fushiguro, and your heart does a diving, spinning leap into the bottom of your stomach.
His lips are slightly parted like he stopped speaking mid-word, eyes wild with urgency, and you suddenly wonder if he’s in trouble, if something’s really wrong. Snow peppers his dark hair, the porch light bouncing off the white specks and making him look like he’s sparkling.
You can’t find any words. None at all, nothing that can actually articulate the shock and confusion and barely-squashed hope. What is happening?
“Robin,” he says. And then he says your name, your real name, and—it’s like a dam breaks.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I—I’ve had some time to think and I really, really messed up and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you but I have to try to explain, I—it’s me, it was all me, all my fault, you’re amazing and I’m insecure and I let that get in the way of something really fucking good and that was stupid, so stupid, and I like being with you and I like knowing you and I want you to meet my friends and my weird messed-up family and I want you to know me, I want to let you know me, and I’m sorry I didn’t just because I got too in my own head about it, about you. You take up so much headspace it’s insane and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since—since, I don’t know, since I fucking met you, and I—”
The multi-colored Christmas lights strung between the pillars of your front step cast colors and shadows over him as he rambles, his cheeks red from the cold and maybe something else, and you can’t take it, watching him like this, desperate.
“Fushiguro.”
But he’s on a roll now, the words spilling from him like they’ve been building up in the hollow space of his throat for years, and he’s not stopping now. You’re not sure he even hears you over the rapid, panicked lilting of his own confession.
“You should turn around right now, slam the door in my face, I get it, I deserve that, and I don’t have any excuse that matters, but I realized how important you’d become and that scared me more than anything I’d ever felt because that meant I could lose you, you could leave—”
“Fushiguro.”
“And it’s—I fell in love with you months ago,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, and I love you, I’m so in love with you, and I—”
“Megumi.”
He finally stops, panting, every part of him frenzied and undone. His lips are still parted around a word he hasn’t said, freeze frame, the remote in your hands. “Will you just come inside?”
The silent second feels like ages, years, maybe, and you can see the disbelief in his irises, like he’s afraid to trust this, afraid to hope.
“No,” he breathes suddenly, and something comes dangerously close to cracking in your heart. Did he come here, say all this, only to leave you again?
“I—”
“No, because I brought the dogs and they’re sitting in the back of my car right now,” he explains, sheepish. An unbelieving, slightly hysterical laughter bubbles up out of you, warm and surprising and not at all unpleasant.
You grab Megumi by the dark fabric of his coat and yank him toward you, pressing your lips to his cold ones, hand slipping up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s like your warmth leeches into him limb by limb, slowly unfreezing him both from the cold and the frantic fear that you’d turn him away again, and it’s below freezing but he’s melting beneath your touch, and you missed him so, so much.
You pull back, your breath fogging in the air like an echo. “You idiot,” you tell him. “Go get them, I want to see them.” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the doorjamb and finally processing how cold it is out here. It’s like it’s sinking right into your bones. “And then get your ass inside.”
He smiles breathlessly, standing still for a moment, and then it’s like he just snaps into action, like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind if he waits another second. The dogs run up the path before he does, and you let them barrel into you and then have their little reunion with Batman while Megumi catches up.
“Come sit down,” you tell him, shutting the door and closing out the cold air. “And tell me more.”
It’s almost like nothing ever changed.
You talk for hours in the lamp-lit living room, surrounded by three tired dogs and a record spinning in the corner. But this time, Megumi talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk. He tells you everything.
How he pushed you away and justified it to himself by saying you deserved better, when really you deserved the truth. How his dad left and his mom died young and Gojo was barely legal when he took him in. How he had a lot of issues with his self-worth growing up, and even now, and how it took him a very long time to accept that people care about him. How it was Tsumiki's idea to get the dogs, because after their mom died he couldn't stop having nightmares. How he wanted to call you every day and then he finally cracked and he went to Tsumiki and she psychoanalyzed him at the kitchen table and he sorted out all his shit so he could show up here like an absolute nuisance and beg you to give him another chance.
“That’s all I wanted, you know,” you tell him, the both of you on the floor, leaning against Shiro and Kuro as they sleep. Batman’s made himself comfortable on the couch, occasionally using his vantage point to lick you right in the face. “You, being honest. You didn’t have to tell me about your parents, y’know, if you didn’t want to. But just…”
“I know that now,” he murmurs sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Really. But I’m trying to get over the whole self-sabotage thing. Trying to… try. In general. With people.”
And he means it. Because the only time Megumi has ever lied to you was the day he told you he didn’t want this, and you knew even then that it wasn’t true. He might try to be all stoic and poker-faced, but he’s not a very good liar. You smile. “That’s a good start.”
You’re facing each other, knees touching, and you reach out, hand palm-up between you. He glances at you before he makes any move, like he’s asking—are you sure? But then he laces his fingers through yours. His hands are way bigger than yours, fingers folding over your own, warm and encompassing. Something about it feels very right.
“So I was wondering,” he starts, and this new side of him that is so hesitant but also hopeful is maybe the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. You squeeze his hand a little, and that seems to embolden him enough to ask whatever it is waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Uh, would you… want to meet my housemates?”
—
“They’re crazy,” Megumi says, standing outside his house with you the next day. “I mean it. I don’t know how to prepare you for—”
“Megumi,” you cut him off, laughing. “No disclaimers. I’m friends with Riko, remember?” This actually seems to be an effective argument, because he smiles a little, putting his hand on the door.
“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”
You are tackled the second you cross the threshold.
“Hi!” someone practically shouts in your ear, full-on bear-hugging you as you stumble back, laughing.
“Oh my god,” Megumi groans. “Itadori—”
“Sorry!” he yelps, pulling back and awkwardly offering a hand like he didn’t just squeeze the living daylights out of you. “I’m Yuji. Kugisaki’s told me all about you and Fushiguro said—”
“Itadori,” he says again. You immediately understand what Megumi meant. This boy is legitimately no different than the two dogs who have come to crowd around your legs. Actually, Shiro and Kuro have greeted you significantly more calmly than Yuji has. It’d be difficult not to like him, you think.
“No, you’re fine,” you laugh him off, using the handshake to pull him back in. “You’re fun. I like you.” Yuji grins victoriously at Megumi and lets you go, and you finally move out of the entryway and into the familiar living space.
“Ino,” you say, pointing at the boy in a beanie, and then shift to the girl crouched in front of the TV, rummaging through a bunch of games. “Kirara.”
The conspiratorial smirk Kirara gives you—along with the way the Wii games are scattered all around her like a personal hurricane—makes you think she might not actually be the long-suffering order in a house full of chaos. More likely, she and Ino and Yuji are only kept in check by Megumi’s neat freak tendencies and blunt nature.
“Hey.” Ino grins. “Okay, I gotta ask, is your dog actually named Batman? Because that’s awesome.”
“She’s been here for two seconds,” Megumi chides, but you nod happily. You are very proud of your dog’s stupid name.
“Well, I approve,” Ino shrugs, patting the space next to him on the couch.
And it feels natural, the way you fall into place with the rest of them. For all Megumi pretends they drive him insane, it’s obvious he loves his friends, and he seems relaxed around them even as you waste away the afternoon chatting and arguing and getting your ass kicked in Mario Kart (specifically by Kirara, whose undefeated record pisses off all the boys but makes you even fonder of her).
By the time night falls, you feel like you’ve been friends with all of them for years. You learn all about the band—Megumi didn’t tell you that they won the Battle of the Bands, which you plan to give him shit for later. They ask you about your school and friends and seem to actually, genuinely want to meet them.
You go home for Christmas, getting your annual few rare days of quality family time, but Megumi sends you photos from Gojo’s with Tsumiki and the dogs. You respond with a picture of Batman in a Santa hat.
megumi: they really want to meet you when you get back. if you want.
A smile splits across your face before you can stop it. Because this is exactly what you wanted—for Megumi to want you to meet his family, to know that part of his life.
“What are you smiling about?” your dad asks from the couch, and your blush must be answer enough, because he turns to your mom with a raised brow and mouths boy. You shove your phone in your pocket. You weren’t prepared for the interrogation, but it’s too late now.
The thing is, if your family had asked you if you were seeing anyone even last week, you’d have nothing to say. And maybe you shouldn’t dump all this information on them when it’s still so fresh, so new.
But something tells you this is going to last. He wants you to meet Tsumiki, to meet Gojo. You won’t keep him from your family if he doesn’t keep you from his. Plus, your parents leave on another trip in two days. You’re not sure when else you’ll get the chance to tell them this in person.
“So,” you say, before they can start grilling you. “His name is Megumi.”
—
There are prints in the snow.
It feels uncannily familiar, walking your usual path with Batman and seeing the two sets of paw prints and accompanying boots. You place your own footsteps in their wake, laughing at how they dwarf your own shoe size.
You aren’t supposed to see Megumi until he picks you up to go to Gojo’s tonight, but it seems fate—or Batman—has other ideas.
You let him drag you all the way to a big, snowy clearing, where you see your boyfriend and Kuro standing in the snow. It takes you a whole five seconds longer to make out Shiro, who basically blends right into the landscape.
The dogs, per usual, see you first, and Megumi turns at their excited noises to see you. He wastes no time setting off across the field toward you, and you grin, meeting him in the middle.
“So is this a coincidence, or is someone following me?” he asks, meeting you at eye-level as you crouch to greet the dogs. Batman basically shoves his nose in Megumi’s face in response.
“Snowprints,” you say, gesturing to the trail behind you. “Seems to be a theme.” Behind the wall of Kuro’s dark fur, you plant your hands in the snow, letting a mischievous smile grow on your lips. “Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you, because—”
You throw a massive snowball right at Megumi’s face.
“Oh,” he says, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes but leaving flakes of white stuck in his brows, on his lashes. “You’ve done it now.”
“Protect me,” you whisper to Kuro, and then you run.
All-out war. The dogs are thrilled at every snowball that misses its mark, all of them leaping to catch the wayward projectiles in the air, and you and Megumi chase each other and trip over the snow and wind up in a big, snow-covered mess on the ground, staring up at a shockingly bright afternoon sky.
You can barely breathe, you’re laughing so hard. “You’re crazy,” you pant, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, then your palms. An absolute mess of snowprints—his, yours, Shiro’s, Kuro’s, Batman’s—cross over each other in the snow, revealing patches of browning grass here and there, showing the signs of your battle. “Aw, hey. It looks like a giant heart.”
“Sap,” Megumi snorts.
“Buzzkill.”
“Instigator.”
“Oh, yeah?” You grab a fistful of snow and put it right on his head, letting it melt into his tousled, snow-streaked hair. “Well, I’ll instigate, then.”
He laughs, shaking his hair out like a dog, and tackles you back into the snow. “Then I’ll instigate something else.”
You’re so cold you can barely feel half your face, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he kisses you like this.
—
The first thing you think when Satoru Gojo opens the door is damn, he’s tall.
The second is holy shit, those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“Gumi!” he shouts, enveloping him in a very one-sided hug.
The third thing? Yeah, you like him.
“Gojo,” Megumi grumbles, half-heartedly pushing him away, but the fondness of the interaction doesn’t escape you.
“And I’ve heard all about you,” Gojo grins, pulling you into a hug as well—you don’t hesitate to hug him back, because now you know exactly what this man has done for Megumi and Tsumiki. And he’s important to Megumi, so he’s important to you.
Megumi telling you about his childhood and Gojo was one thing, but him actually wanting you to meet his family is another. You feel warm all over as Gojo ushers you into the apartment, where Tsumiki is already busy making dinner. She nearly drops the pan in her hands at the sight of you. “Hi!”
“You all hug so much,” Megumi says flatly when she hugs you too, and she just grins and forces him into an embrace as well.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“Shut up.”
“Love you too.”
“So,” Tsumiki says, turning back to the stove and insisting you sit down and make yourself at home when you offer to help. “Tell me about you.” Instead, she enlists Megumi to be her kitchen assistant, and you aren’t sure why it’s so surprising that he knows how to cook, but it is.
The four of you talk about school and the dogs (who are at home with Suko, now that she’s finally back from Japan) and your families and friends, and you can see Megumi growing more comfortable as the night goes on, once he’s sure that Gojo isn’t about to whip out a bunch of embarrassing pictures of him as a kid or tell you all his darkest secrets. Tsumiki is sweet and you take a liking to her immediately, talking all about her job running the campus paper. Gojo tells you about the bar he works at, about his college friends who founded it.
“Do you have to work tomorrow, then?” you ask between bites of the best meatballs you’ve ever had.
Gojo shrugs. “Yeah. But if I wasn’t, I’d be hanging out with all the same people I work with, anyway. Not so bad, huh?”
“We’re actually probably going to swing by the bar tomorrow,” Megumi says, avoiding Gojo’s gaze in favor of looking at you. Gojo lights up. It’s endearing, how excited he is at the prospect of seeing all of Megumi’s friends. “You coming?” Megumi asks Tsumiki.
“To the bar or the house party?”
“Both,” Megumi shrugs.
“Only if you are,” she says not to Megumi but to you, teasingly.
“Yeah, I gotta meet the rest of his friends. All of Nobara’s housemates.”
“Oh, I love them!” Tsumiki says. “Mm, you’ll get along with Yuta. I mean, everyone does. Oh god, and Toge. And S—yeah, okay, all of them, actually. Have you met our cousin Maki?”
“No, but they all sound great,” you say honestly.
“They are!” Gojo says loudly. “They can give you so much dirt on Megumi.” Megumi glares at him with a complete lack of heat.
“You and my friend Riko would get along,” you say, but as soon as you say it you’re not sure it’s true. Either they would immediately gang up on Megumi and make his life a living hell, or Riko would have the same dynamic with Gojo and they would argue until somebody threw a punch.
Megumi stares at you incredulously. “They can never meet. Ever.”
Except they do, because you bring Riko to the bar the following night. You feel like this might have been a dire miscalculation, because not only does this mean she’s meeting Gojo, but it means she’s meeting Nobara’s housemate who, in her words, is a kindred “chaos goblin.” This means that they’re both comm majors with too much time on their hands and they make it everyone else’s problem.
Toge Inumaki is the very possibly the only person you’ve ever met who can match Riko in terms of sheer chaos. It is terrifying. They’ve known each other for a grand total of five minutes before they’re planning a full-on bracketed Just Dance tournament with Rasputin as the final battle.
“You’re insane,” you tell Riko fondly, and she grins at you.
“I think we’re brushing over the fact that you think Rasputin is the hardest one on there,” Gojo says, leaning over the bar incredulously.
“What, you think your old man knees can handle it?” Riko asks shamelessly, and you excuse yourself as they launch into bickering worthy of siblings.
But nothing explodes, and you meet Shoko and Geto and Utahime and Nanami, and all of Nobara’s housemates, including Megumi’s cousin. She’s very no-nonsense in a way that you appreciate, and after you shit-talk Naoya with her, you feel like you’re probably going to be very good friends.
It’s well past eleven by the time you all get back to Megumi’s place, leaving Gojo to ring in the new year with his own friends. Someone puts the ball drop on the TV in the living room and you all scatter across the space, a swell of conversation and laughter as midnight inches closer.
It’s like this:
A living room full of your friends and his, laughing and smiling and teasing and playing Just Dance really aggressively (but that’s just Toge and Riko, really). Megumi’s knee pressed against yours as Tsumiki forces him to smile for a picture with you. Nobara throwing her arms around you, insisting you settle a debate between her and Yuta about the superior shape of pasta noodle. Sneaking off to Megumi’s room while Yuji is distracted, stealing kisses in the dark. Listening to his whispered commentary in your ear as the drinks and sleep deprivation start hitting Toge and Yuta and they get existential on the floor. Suko telling everyone all about Japan and the occult club she started at her university there. Yuji being way too into the idea of starting one between JU and Kaisen, launching animatedly into a discussion of all his favorite conspiracy theories.
Five minutes to midnight, Kirara pops open a bottle of champagne and passes you a glass, and you wave it in front of Megumi teasingly.
“What, you wanna toast to something?” he teases, leaning in toward you. “You gonna say to us? That’s pretty Hallmark movie of you.”
You hum, swirling the glass, lifting your gaze to meet his. “To trying,” you say. “And also vigilantism?”
And there’s his laugh, better than the ball drop, the streamers, the disco ball that came from god knows where in the corner. “I can get behind that,” he says, clinking his glass against yours. “To your superhero dog,” he says, leaning in closer. “And his pretty cool sidekick.” He kisses you as the countdown hits one, and you’re laughing against his lips, savoring the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck.
When he pulls away, it’s only by centimeters, just enough for him to lock eyes with you. “And,” he breathes against your lips, “to trying.”
a/n: sorry this took like twenty years and it's SO LONG. heh. i'm incapable of short-form content. it was fun to write though. let me know what you thought, and be sure to pop over to out of my mind (and, if you're curious about naoya's ex, greta's sukuna spinoff, if you are NOT a minor)! thanks loves :)
summary: ryomen sukuna, king of the school and reigning bad boy extraordinaire, has one rule: prom is for losers. but apparently, his too-good-to-be-true girlfriend (seriously, what are you doing with him?) thinks promposals are cute. so now he’s stuck planning the most over-the-top, cringe-inducing spectacle known to mankind. armed with zero artistic talent, a ton of misplaced confidence, and multiple dumb ideas, sukuna’s on a mission to prove that he’s boyfriend material. will he survive the humiliation of public vulnerability? will his classmates ever stop laughing at him? and more importantly, will you even say yes after watching him trip over his own ego mid-promposal? spoiler alert: sukuna might hate prom, but he doesn’t hate you — just don’t tell anyone or his bad boy reputation is toast.
warnings & tags: all characters except yuuji are high-schoolers [aged eighteen]. 100% sfw and crack. lots of high-school and social media related drama. sukuna is ooc but he's a loverboy. slight angst, misccommunication and misunderstanding, reader gets bullied. mentions of drugs & vaping. reader is sort of preppy [only when compared to sukuna], implied stsg and tomema. mentions of: yuuji, choso, gojo, geto, shoko, nanami, toji (zenin), naoya, yorozu, mei mei, uraume, mamaguro, wasuke itadori, mai and maki zenin.
a/n: i'm writing this because i'm thinking about my last year of highschool a lot. please enjoy <3
‼️i recommend reading on ao3 :) thank you for being here!
chapter one: love at first “you’re kidding, right?”
prom sucks.
sukuna's decided this long before he even knew what it was, back when he was a kid and thought dances were just for the weak. now? the banners are inescapable, plastered on every wall like wanted posters, except the only crime being committed is how much glitter they used. seriously, who thought this level of sparkle was necessary? he doesn’t even want to look at them, let alone read the overly enthusiastic “prom countdown” in bold bubble letters.
but here’s the kicker—you’re excited.
you. his girlfriend. the only person he’s ever willingly given his jersey to, the one he pretends not to care about but secretly loses his mind if you’re even five minutes late to meet him after practice. you’re actually grinning at the posters, casually mentioning how it might be “fun.”
fun. the word leaves a sour taste in his mouth, much like the time he accidentally puffed on his teammate’s fruit-flavored vape, pretending he didn’t low-key enjoy it. and now, just like back then, sukuna refuses to admit the truth: the idea of seeing you all dressed up, looking at him like he’s worth more than a fistfight and a bad attitude, is enough to make his brain short-circuit.
“you know,” you say one day, glancing over your shoulder at him as you tug on his sleeve. “prom doesn’t have to be a big deal. it’s just one night.”
“then why’s everyone acting like it’s the olympics?” he mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets. he keeps his eyes firmly on the ground, not on the way your smile softens like you already know what’s going on in his head.
because of course you know. you always know. it’s annoying.
but the thing is, sukuna’s always been a fighter. he knows how to take a hit, how to deliver one back, how to keep moving even when his ribs feel like they’re cracking under the pressure. this, though? asking you to prom? it feels like trying to fight blindfolded in a ring full of glitter bombs.
“you’re thinking too hard about it,” you tease, leaning closer, and he has to resist the urge to snap back with something sarcastic. instead, he just grumbles something incoherent, hoping you’ll drop the subject.
spoiler: you don’t.
“come on, it might surprise you,” you add, giving him that look—the one that makes his chest feel annoyingly tight and his brain feel like it’s melting. and just like that, sukuna knows he’s doomed. he doesn’t even know how you managed to turn this whole thing around, but here he is, contemplating how to ask you to prom like it’s some epic quest.
but for now? he’ll just keep glaring at the posters, convincing himself it’s all for you. definitely not because he’s secretly imagining what it’d be like to see you under those stupid lights.
yeah. that’s it. it’s for you.
why is sukuna losing his absolute mind over asking you, of all people, to prom? it’s not like you’re some untouchable deity perched on a golden throne. you’re just you—the one person who’s seen him shirtless and sweaty post-practice and didn’t immediately gag. the one who has the audacity to call him “cute” after he’s just finished smashing someone’s face in and honestly? he still hasn’t forgiven you for that.
and yet, here he is, spiraling like a damn teenager—which, fine, he technically is, but that’s beside the point. this isn’t just prom. this is war. but why does it feel like he’s already lost?
he doesn’t even know when this whole “you and him” thing started.
oh wait. yes, he does.
cue the flashback: sukuna, bloody and bruised, crouched in an alley after picking a fight with college kids who were built like linebackers. he was sure this was it. the end. game over. then suddenly, you appeared, haloed by the sun.
or maybe that was just his swelling eye playing tricks on him.
“are you seriously bleeding again?” you’d said, hands on your hips like you were scolding a toddler who’d colored on the walls. you looked so annoyed, so unimpressed, so... angelic? he doesn’t know. blame the blood loss.
“what’s it to you?” he’d snarled, expecting you to walk away like everyone else. but instead, you crouched down, pulled out a first-aid kit from god-knows-where, and patched him up right there. like some feral stray, he’d just sat there and let you.
and then, because subtlety is not in sukuna’s vocabulary, he’d yelled at you a few weeks later to “just be my girl already,” fully prepared for rejection. except you’d said yes. casually. like it was no big deal.
liar. it was a huge deal. he’d wanted to cheer so loud they’d hear him across town. instead, he’d just grunted and said, “fine,” as if he hadn’t just won the lottery.
now, here’s the thing: sukuna doesn’t “do” feelings. or labels. or mushy crap like this. but somehow, you’ve made it your personal mission to take care of him, and the worst part? he lets you.
so, yeah, obviously he needs to “man up” and ask you to prom before some other idiot gets the idea. the thought of someone else—someone less deserving—getting to stand next to you in those ridiculous photos everyone takes? absolutely not.
but how is he supposed to ask you?
“hey, wanna go to prom?” no. too boring.
“you and me. prom. be there.” god, no. too aggressive.
“i’ll fight anyone who tries to take you if you say yes.” okay, maybe, but he doesn’t want to scare you.
and what if you say no? …no, scratch that. you wouldn’t. right?
“why do you look constipated?” your voice pulls him out of his internal chaos, and he realizes he’s been frowning so hard his face hurts.
“shut up,” he grumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets. you just laugh, that soft little sound that makes his chest feel annoyingly warm. “you’re so silly sometimes.”
silly? silly? sukuna’s this close to snapping back, but he bites his tongue. for now. he’ll figure it out. eventually. probably.
unless someone else beats him to it.
nope. not happening. over his dead body.
chapter two: swipe, stress, repeat
if sukuna from a month ago could see sukuna right now, he'd be frothing at the mouth. the self-proclaimed king of school, the untouchable badass who spent his time punching people and skipping class, reduced to lying in his bed, phone clutched in hand, scrolling through tiktok like some lovesick idiot?
embarrassing. absolutely humiliating.
the guy would’ve torn his own future self apart, verbally and probably physically, for this kind of behavior. but present-day sukuna? he couldn’t care less. if past sukuna had a problem, he could take it up with the tiktok algorithm because, damn it, he was busy right now.
sukuna's room is peak sukuna. the walls are painted a deep gray—an edgy, brooding shade that screams “it’s not a phase mom,” and yet the color somehow sets off the aggressively pink hello kitty lamp on his bedside table. don’t ask why he has it. it’s your fault, anyway, since you bought it for him, and when he told you he wouldn’t use it, you pouted. now the damn thing stays on every night.
his bed is a mess of black sheets, crumpled in a way that suggests he both sleeps like a starfish and fights imaginary enemies in his dreams. the single poster above his bed is of some obscure underground metal band you probably pretend to care about when he rants, but the corner is peeling because he’s too lazy to fix it.
on the desk? chaos. protein powder tubs, half-used cologne bottles, random dumbbells, and a notebook that’s only ever been opened once—probably because he mistook it for a coaster. nestled among this battlefield of masculinity is his phone charger, tangled in a knot that somehow feels symbolic of his life choices.
but let’s talk about the tiktok doom scrolling session. sprawled on his bed, legs dangling off the edge, sukuna clears out his notifications, which are predictably 90% you tagging him in ridiculous couple reels. “this is us <3,” you captioned one, featuring two lopsided cartoon bananas cuddling. another one? a video of raccoons stealing food with the words “me and you robbing mcdonald’s after your practice :3” plastered over it. he groans loudly but still clicks the tag, because god forbid he misses one.
and then he sees it: the initials trend. he stumbles across a video with the letters r + your initial floating on-screen, surrounded by sparkly hearts. it takes him a solid two tries, but when the stupid thing finally lands on the right combination, sukuna practically slams the save button. the smug grin on his face could rival the one he wears after winning a fight. “got it,” he mutters to himself, as if he’s achieved something monumental. and maybe he has—because nothing screams romance like a tiktok filter confirming your undying love. his phone buzzes again, and it’s you, sending yet another video. he opens it, and it’s a clip of two fat seals flopping in the water together. “this is us,” you text, followed by a string of hearts. sukuna lets out a sharp laugh, shaking his head. “you’re so dumb,” he mutters, even as he saves the video.
but tonight, sukuna is a man on a mission. a stupid mission, in his humble opinion, but one he’s reluctantly accepted because of you.
his night started the same as it always does lately—on call with you while you go through your nightly skincare routine. he pretends not to care, half-listening as you ramble about serums and exfoliators, but if anyone asked why he knows the difference between niacinamide and retinol now, he’d deny it with his whole chest. “okay, goodnight,” you say eventually, and he feels weirdly warm when you pause, waiting for his reply. “yeah, yeah. goodnight,” he mutters, then sends you a five-line-long text he drafts with the precision of a tactical operation. it’s disgustingly sweet, full of things so cheesy he could probably use it as a weapon in a fight.
of course, he ends it with a selfie—him lying on his bed, shirtless but casual, because he knows you eat up this couple-y nonsense. “cute,” you reply immediately, followed by a flurry of heart emojis that make him roll his eyes and grin at the same time. with that out of the way, it’s doom scrolling time.
but tonight isn’t about your endless tags of raccoon memes or seal videos. no, tonight, sukuna is diving into the depths of promposal content.
his room is dimly lit, the only light coming from the soft glow of his phone and the offensively pink hello kitty lamp on his bedside table. the contrast between the lamp and his deep gray walls is glaring, but he’s gotten used to it—he even mumbles a “thanks, kitty” when he turns it off at night. sitting cross-legged on his bed, surrounded by a haphazard array of items—a half-empty protein shake, a stray dumbbell, and a random sock he’s too lazy to find the pair for—he scrolls through tiktok like a man possessed.
promposals flood his feed, one after the other, and his frown deepens with every video. flowers, posters, confetti—it’s all the same. one boy after another holding a sparkly sign with some cheesy pickup line, and a group of random bystanders shrieking like it’s the second coming of christ. “yuck,” he mutters under his breath, barely noticing when he tosses his dumbbell off the bed with a loud thud! “this is how people live? pathetic.”
then he sees it: a video of a guy holding a giant poster that reads, “are you a parking ticket? because you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you.”
sukuna’s jaw drops. “oh, hell no.”
without thinking, he types out a comment: “i can do better.” and when the notifications flood in from strangers defending the boy’s cringe-worthy effort, he actually guffaws, shaking his head in sadistic satisfaction. but then a thought strikes him. what if this is what you expect? what if you want the cheesy pickup line, the sparkly poster, the ridiculous crowd cheering you on? the idea makes him physically recoil, but he can’t ignore the tiny voice in his head whispering, it’s for her.
and when he exits tiktok, his matching hello kitty profile picture with you stares back at him, painfully cute and obnoxiously pink. it’s a sharp contrast to the guy who spent ten minutes this morning threatening his neighbor’s dog for barking too much.
groaning, he sets an alarm on his phone for tomorrow morning. “five hours of sleep,” he mutters to himself, glaring at the clock like it’s personally offended him. with a dramatic sigh, he reaches over and switches off the hello kitty lamp. the room plunges into darkness, but his mind is already racing, plotting ways to outdo every cringe-worthy promposal he’s seen.
you’d better appreciate this, he thinks, punching his pillow into shape before flopping onto it. because if sukuna’s doing this, he’s going to do it better than anyone else.
—
the next day, sukuna wakes up with the vague hope that he’ll somehow embody the effortlessly cool energy of those coming-of-age movie protagonists you seem to fawn over. the universe, however, has other plans. his “cool boy” morning routine includes stubbing his toe on the corner of his bed, swearing loudly enough to make the neighbor’s dog bark, and grabbing a shampoo bottle to wash his face before realizing, mid-lather, that something isn’t right.
by the time he’s dressed in a ratty old lakers jersey his mom gave him ages ago (that’s definitely seen better days), he’s already on edge. he triple-checks that the beaded bracelet you made him is securely on his wrist. one time, he forgot it in the abyss of his bag, and you didn’t talk to him for all of lunch period. the memory alone makes him shudder. high school relationships are no joke; he’s convinced they’re scarier than any fight he’s been in. “yuuji!” he bellows, dragging his seven-year-old brother by the scruff of his neck like a misbehaving cat. “we’re gonna miss the bus!”
“but i’m watching powaaaaa rangerrrrsssss!” yuuji wails, kicking his legs in protest. for the fifth time. in a row.
“i don’t care if they’re morphin’ again for the hundredth time,” sukuna snaps, hauling the squirming kid out the door.
once on the school bus, sukuna practically shoves yuuji into the front seat with his group of loud, chaotic little friends—toge, the broody one, and nobara, the one who’s probably already plotting world domination. “don’t cause trouble,” he growls, earning a cheeky grin from nobara and a half-hearted glare from toge. then, sukuna retreats to his rightful throne in the backseat. people probably think he’s texting some gang leader to set up a fight or maybe coordinating a weed deal. but no. you know what he’s actually doing?
writing you the sappiest good morning text imaginable.
with his phone held at a suspicious angle, he types furiously:
good mornin sunshine ❤️❤️❤️ sorry this is late. woke up thinking about you and totally forgot how to function lol. you’re probably already looking perfect but don’t forget to eat breakfast okay???? can’t have my girl passing out and making me look bad 😏. also did i ever tell you your bedhead is cute? bc it is. anyway have a good day baby i’ll see you in school soon. love you.
he stares at it, debating whether it’s too much. but then again, you’re the type who sends him texts like, “did you know sharks existed before trees? good morning !! <3 :3” so he figures he’s safe. after hitting send, he leans back with a satisfied smirk, like he’s just conquered the world. if anyone dares to ask, he’ll lie through his teeth about what he’s doing. but deep down, sukuna knows he’s whipped. totally and utterly.
—
sukuna’s morning ritual of chaos continues as he practically shoves yuuji toward the elementary school section, muttering curses under his breath while dodging questions about his bracelet.
“but when can i get tattoos like yours?” yuuji asks, for the millionth time this week.
“never,” sukuna snaps, ruffling yuuji’s hair just hard enough to mess it up.
“but why nooottt?” yuuji whines, pouting. “they’re cool! toge said they make you look like a bad guy!”
“tell toge to mind his own damn business,” sukuna growls, ignoring the way yuuji’s tiny friends scatter at the mere sight of him. when one of the kids starts crying, he scoffs loudly. elementary schoolers are weak.
with yuuji safely deposited, sukuna sprints—yes, sprints—to the high school section, expertly weaving through crowds of students. if anyone asks, he’ll say it’s because he’s late to class, but really, he’s looking for you.
when he spots you at your locker, a familiar warmth floods his chest, but he quickly shoves it down, replacing it with a carefully practiced scowl. if sukuna could have it his way, he’d profess his undying love for you in the most dramatic way possible—on his knees, quoting some shakespeare nonsense about your ethereal beauty or whatever the old dead guy used to write about. but alas, his bad boy reputation is at stake.
so instead, he settles for a gruff, “yo,” as he leans against the locker next to yours, arms crossed, trying to look casual. you glance up, smiling brightly. “morning! did you sleep okay?”
“yeah,” he lies, conveniently forgetting the part where he only got five hours of sleep because of tiktok research.
you go on, oblivious to the way he’s fighting the urge to smile like an idiot. “ugghhh, i got up five minutes late today. five whole minutes!” you pause dramatically. “so i didn’t have time to pack my stationery, and now i have to use my backup stationery pouch from my locker. do you know how annoying that is?”
“devastating,” sukuna deadpans, nodding solemnly. “truly, the world is cruel.”
“right?” you huff, pulling the pouch from your locker. “like, what if the backup doesn’t have my favorite pens? what am i supposed to do then?”
he watches you, amused, as you rummage through your locker like your life depends on it. secretly, he loves how animated you get over the smallest things, but god forbid anyone else find out. “wish i had backups,” he mutters, half to himself. “my locker’s just got junk. extra shoes, pants, a charger, and, uh…” he pauses, eyeing you carefully. “a vape.”
you turn to him, raising an eyebrow. “a vape?”
“it’s not mine,” he says quickly, standing straighter. “holding it for a friend.”
“sure,” you tease, smirking. “it’s true!” he insists, trying to look indignant but failing because you’re smiling at him, and it’s making his brain short-circuit.
as you shut your locker, you start rambling about your next class, and sukuna does what he does best—stands close, nods occasionally, and tries to act nonchalant. inside, though, he’s cataloging every word you say like it’s gospel, marveling at how even your complaints sound cute. he stuffs his hands in his pockets, pretending not to care, but the truth is written all over his face: sukuna is hopelessly, ridiculously in love. and it’s a problem he wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
as you and sukuna make your way down the hallway, everything seems normal—or as normal as a high school hallway can get. the fluorescent lights buzz overhead, lockers slam shut, and a cluster of juniors are trying to tape a "kick me" sign to someone’s back. sukuna’s tuned most of it out, but that’s when the universe decides to test his patience. smack dab in the middle of the hallway, it happens.
“oh my god!” you squeal, tugging on sukuna’s sleeve.
he already hates this.
in front of you both, a whole crowd has gathered. there are girls crying into their hands, boys hooting like it’s a football game, and teachers yelling about how this is a fire hazard, which no one is listening to. and at the epicenter of it all is none other than gojo satoru.
“suguru!” gojo announces, holding up a bucket of kfc chicken in one hand and a bouquet of roses made entirely out of dollar bills in the other. “you’re the butter to my biscuit, the drumstick to my chicken, and the love of my life! if you don’t go to prom with me, i’ll throw myself into oncoming traffic!”
“oh my god, he’s so dramatic,” you whisper to sukuna, but your voice is dripping with excitement. “this is adorable!” sukuna blinks at the scene, trying to process what’s happening. “adorable? this is a migraine waiting to happen.”
meanwhile, geto—poor, unsuspecting geto—is standing there looking like he’s debating whether to run or laugh. “satoru, what the hell?” he finally manages, his voice somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
“it’s love, suguru!” gojo declares, dropping to one knee for added effect. “say yes, or i’ll never recover!”
“that’s definitely not true,” sukuna mutters under his breath.
“shh!” you scold, hitting his arm lightly. “this is so cute!”
“the chicken makes it worse,” sukuna counters, crossing his arms. but he can’t deny that the bouquet of dollar bills is kind of genius. if he had to respect one thing, it’s that. geto sighs loudly, clearly resigned to his fate.
“fine,” he says, shaking his head but unable to hide the small smile on his face. “i’ll go to prom with you, satoru.”
the hallway erupts.
girls start crying harder, like their hearts have been ripped out of their chests. “geto’s off the market!” one of them wails, collapsing into her friend’s arms. the boys cheer, probably just glad they don’t have to be involved in anything like this. and gojo? gojo lets out a triumphant yell, pumping his fist in the air. “i told you he loves me!” their friend group immediately piles on, clapping geto on the back and hyping up gojo like he just won the lottery. you, meanwhile, are clutching sukuna’s arm and bouncing on your toes. “oh my god, that was so cute!” you gush. “did you see the chicken? and the bouquet? sukuna, that was so sweet!”
sukuna looks at you, then at the chaos, then back at you. he feels a headache creeping in. “sweet? that was... loud.”
“you’re impossible,” you say, laughing as you let go of his arm to keep walking.
but sukuna isn’t laughing. oh no, because now there’s a new problem: he has to top that. as he follows you down the hallway, he rubs his temples, muttering to himself. “chicken and dollar bills. great. what’s next? fireworks? a live band? a damn parade?”
you glance back at him, raising an eyebrow. “what are you mumbling about?”
“nothing,” he snaps, quickening his pace to catch up.
but inside, he’s panicking. topping gojo satoru’s level of absurdity is a tall order, and sukuna isn’t sure whether to be pissed off or impressed. probably both. one thing’s for sure, though: he has his work cut out for him.
sukuna finally wades through the chaos of the hallway—largely composed of gojo clinging to geto’s foot like a very loud termite—and drops you off at your first class of the day: english language and literature. you sigh dramatically, digging through your bag and muttering about how your lack of highlighters is basically a crime against academia. “how am i supposed to annotate macbeth without my stationary pouch?”
sukuna, leaning against your desk with all the casual confidence in the world, rolls his eyes. “it’s not that deep.” but then, in a move that makes you freeze, he pulls a neon highlighter out of his pocket and tosses it to you. “use that,” he grunts, like he just handed you a scrap of paper, not an intimate act of love.
you blink at the highlighter, then at him, like he just gifted you the moon. “did you just—where did you even get this?”
“don’t ask questions,” he snaps, already looking like he regrets the decision. (he definitely stole it from someone’s pouch months ago.) but you’re staring at him with so much adoration it’s almost embarrassing.
“this is... this is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for me.”
sukuna freezes. “you’re joking.”
“i’m not joking.”
he looks like he’s questioning every life choice that brought him here, but before he can respond, his phone buzzes in his pocket. it’s a text from toji zenin. the message is cryptic and infuriatingly vague: “grounds. now.”
sukuna sighs loudly, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “gotta go,” he mutters. he leans down and plants a quick kiss on your cheek before bolting out the door, and you both freeze for half a second, equally flustered. “uh—bye!” you call after him as he practically sprints out of the classroom, the beads on his bracelet jingling against his wrist.
by the time sukuna reaches the school grounds, he’s already mentally prepared for a fight. he’s even got his tough guy face on—jaw clenched, shoulders squared, the works.
but when he spots toji zenin and shiu kong standing by the bleachers, something feels off. toji isn’t cracking his knuckles or smirking like usual. instead, he’s pacing, running a hand through his hair like he’s stressed.
sukuna narrows his eyes. “what the hell is this? if this is another one of your stupid pranks, i’m decking you both.”
“relax,” toji says, holding up his hands. “i’m not here to fight.”
“yet,” shiu mutters, earning a glare from toji. sukuna crosses his arms. “then what do you want?”
toji looks around, as if checking to make sure no one else is listening. then, in a voice so low sukuna almost doesn’t hear it, he says, “i need your help.”
sukuna blinks. “what?”
“you heard me.”
“no, i definitely didn’t. because it sounded like you said you need my help.”
“i did.” toji looks like admitting it physically hurts him. “look, it’s about fushiguro.”
sukuna raises an eyebrow. “who?”
“you know, my... my...” he gestures vaguely. “crush.”
sukuna stares at him. “you dragged me out here to talk about your love life?”
toji groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “listen, it’s not that simple. i need your help to... to bully her.”
“...what?”
“bully her,” toji repeats, like it’s the most logical thing in the world. “you know, make her life miserable so i can swoop in and save the day. it’s foolproof!” sukuna stares at him for a long moment, trying to process the sheer idiocy of what he just heard.
“you want me to bully your crush so you can play knight in shining armor?”
“exactly.”
“you’re an idiot.”
“c’mon, sukuna,” toji pleads. “you’re good at the whole intimidation thing! you don’t even have to go hard, just—”
“no.”
“but—”
“no.”
shiu snickers from the sidelines. “told you he wouldn’t do it.” toji glares at him, then turns back to sukuna. “fine. then give me advice or something! how am i supposed to ask her to prom?”
“i don’t know, maybe try not bullying her?”
“wow, thanks for the groundbreaking advice,” toji says, deadpan. sukuna rolls his eyes. “look, just—give her something she likes. flowers, chocolates, whatever. don’t overthink it.”
“flowers? chocolates? what is this, a rom-com?” toji scoffs.
“then figure it out yourself,” sukuna snaps, already turning to leave. “i’ve got better things to do.”
“like what?”
“none of your business.” sukuna snaps, already regretting every second of this interaction.
this is the point where toji is wailing, absolutely wailing, and it’s honestly one of the worst things sukuna’s had to witness, and he once saw yuuji eat spaghetti with his hands.
“you don’t get it, sukuna!” toji cries, pacing back and forth. “if i don’t get fushiguro—mamaguro, the love of my life—i’ll look like a fool for calling myself toji fushiguro all year! do you know how many people think we’re already married? do you understand the pressure?”
“no,” sukuna deadpans, crossing his arms. “because i’m not insane.”
“this is a matter of marriage or death,” toji insists, dramatic as ever. “marriage! or! death!”
shiu, leaning against the bleachers, snickers. “it’s more like marriage or public humiliation, but yeah, sure, toji. go off.”
“shut up, shiu!” toji snaps. then, in the most embarrassing move yet, he turns back to sukuna, clutching his arm like he’s begging a god for salvation. “please, sukuna. please. i’ll do anything!”
sukuna yanks his arm back with a grimace. “don’t touch me.”
“i’ll pay you,” toji adds, desperate now. “how much do you want?” shiu, ever the opportunist, pulls out a wad of cash from his jacket. “i’ll double whatever you’re thinking.”
sukuna glares at him, then at the money, then back at toji, who’s practically vibrating with nerves. the sheer audacity of these people.
“what do you two think i am?” sukuna growls, stepping closer. “someone you can just buy?”
toji and shiu exchange a look.
“yes,” they say in unison.
“you’re not wrong,” sukuna mutters, snatching the cash out of shiu’s hand.
and that’s how sukuna finds himself storming into the art room, where fushiguro—lovingly dubbed mamaguro by the school fraternity, who is also the unknowing subject of toji’s unhinged obsession—is peacefully painting a landscape.
“yo,” sukuna calls, making sure his voice sounds just gruff enough to make an impression. mamaguro looks up, confused but polite as ever. “oh, sukuna. what brings you here?”
“uh…” sukuna falters for half a second. then, remembering the script toji forced on him, he clears his throat. “your art sucks.”
mamaguro blinks at him. “excuse me?”
“you heard me,” sukuna says, louder this time. “these clouds? they look like—like… mashed potatoes!”
“mashed potatoes?” she repeats, her tone teetering between disbelief and amusement.
“yeah! and this—this tree? it’s—it’s… ugly!”
he’s running out of insults fast, but thankfully, he doesn’t have to keep going because, right on cue, toji bursts into the room like a man possessed.
“stop right there, sukuna!” toji yells, pointing dramatically.
sukuna rolls his eyes so hard he nearly pulls something.
“how dare you insult her art?” toji continues, marching forward. “you know nothing of the beauty and grace she pours into every stroke of her brush! apologize to her, right now!”
sukuna glances at mamaguro, who’s now staring at toji like he’s grown a second head.
“um…” she starts, clearly confused.
“and not only that,” toji adds, dropping to one knee, “i, toji fushig– i mean, zenin, would be honored if you would accompany me to prom!”
the silence that follows is deafening.
“…what?” mamaguro says, her voice a mix of shock and secondhand embarrassment.
“say yes, please,” toji begs, still on his knee.
sukuna takes this as his cue to leave before his brain cells start dying en masse. as he walks out, he hears a mixture of toji’s frantic pleading, mamaguro’s incredulous laughter, and shiu’s obnoxious whooping from the hallway. “cringe,” sukuna mutters to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets. on the way out, he snatches the rest of the wad of cash from shiu’s hand. the guy doesn’t even protest; he’s too busy recording the whole disaster on his phone.
normally, sukuna would use this cash for something like a new vape or a pack of cigarettes. but now? now he’s a man with a mission. he’s going to use this money for your promposal.
assuming he can think of something. preferably something that doesn’t involve dollar bill bouquets or public humiliation.
as sukuna storms off the art room steps, he’s already thinking of how he could possibly top the circus act he just witnessed. whatever he comes up with has to be cool, low-key, and—most importantly—not the type of thing that makes people point and say, "look at ryomen sukuna doing that." because if there’s one thing sukuna won’t tolerate, it’s losing to toji zenin in a battle of charm.
he stuffs the cash into his pocket, muttering to himself, “this better be worth it.” and by "this," he means putting up with high school drama, helping idiots like toji, and figuring out the best way to ask you to prom without looking like a total sap.
little does he know, shiu is already uploading the footage of toji’s “promposal” disaster onto his burner account with the caption: “zenin family downfall: live footage.”
and in the back of his mind, sukuna knows one thing for sure—he needs to act fast. whatever he does has to blow everyone away, especially you.
—
sukuna leans against the wall outside the school gates, trying to look as nonchalant as humanly possible despite the fact that his brain is doing cartwheels. his day’s been an absolute dumpster fire—between toji’s soap opera, shiu’s cryptic smirks, and some freshman mistaking him for a guidance counselor (how? how does that even happen?), he’s just about had it. and then, like the climax of one of those rom-coms you force him to watch, you step out of the school building. sukuna swears he hears a choir of angels, some harp strings, and maybe even sees a glowing halo over your head.
but of course, he’s ryomen sukuna, and he’s supposed to be the "bad boy." so instead of saying something poetic like, “you’re the light of my life,” he settles on:
“what the hell took you so long?”
your indignant pout hits him like a sucker punch, and he immediately regrets his choice of words. “excuse me, mister,” you huff, hands on your hips. “i was finishing my community service hours.”
“community service?” sukuna raises a brow. “what’d you do this time? steal a library book? jaywalk?”
you roll your eyes. “not everyone’s a delinquent like you, ‘kuna. i was helping clean up the school garden.”
“right. of course you were.” sukuna mutters, trying to ignore the sharp contrast between the two of you. while you’re out here being a model student with a résumé the size of a textbook, sukuna’s résumé might as well just say “can punch really hard.”
you don’t notice his inner turmoil as you launch into your usual spiel about your packed schedule. “so after that, i had drama club practice, then i’m helping with the fundraiser for the library, and then i have to—”
sukuna zones out for a second, overwhelmed by the sheer productivity radiating off of you. jesus, she’s a walking linkedin profile, he thinks, mentally comparing your extracurriculars to his…well, lack thereof. unless fistfights, bad decisions, and looking hot in leather count as extracurriculars.
“—and next week i’m presenting at the school board meeting!” you finish, beaming.
“you know, some of us don’t have time to kiss ass,” sukuna mutters under his breath, though there’s no malice in it.
“what was that?”
“nothing,” he says quickly, reaching out to grab your hand before he can think too much about it. he gives it a small squeeze, hoping it’ll shut up the voice in his head that’s been nagging him all day. you glance down at your intertwined hands, your expression softening. “you okay?”
“yeah, fine,” sukuna lies, looking away so you don’t catch the slight pink tint creeping up his ears. you let it slide, leaning closer as you walk beside him. “you know, you don’t have to wait for me every day.”
“and let some idiot try to ask you out while i’m not around? yeah, right.”
you laugh, and sukuna feels his chest loosen a little.
“you’re silly,” you say, swinging his hand a little as you walk.
“and you’re too good for me,” sukuna blurts out before he can stop himself.
you stop in your tracks, blinking up at him. “what?”
“uh—nothing,” he says quickly, his brain screaming at him to shut up. but you don’t let it go. you tighten your grip on his hand and give him a look so sincere it nearly floors him. “sukuna, i like you for you, okay? not for some résumé or checklist or whatever you’re overthinking right now.”
“who says i’m overthinking?”
“your face.”
sukuna scoffs, trying to mask the relief that washes over him. “yeah, well. you’re lucky i like you too.”
you grin, leaning up to kiss his cheek, and sukuna swears he hears those angel singing again. maybe you really are untouchable, he thinks. but then again, you’re holding his hand, choosing him out of everyone else. and maybe that’s what true love is—messy, imperfect, and way too good to be true.
—
sukuna stumbles into his room after the long, exhausting day. his feet drag on the floor as he sheds his jacket, but leaves his shoes on—he's too tired to even care about a single thing right now. his bed looks like a warzone, clothes scattered across the floor in what can only be described as a "i’m a badass" fashion, but anyone who’s seen it knows it’s just laziness masked as chaos.
one of his dumbass bandanas is hanging off the lamp, and his hello kitty nightlight still glows faintly by his desk, casting a strange aura around the room. a vape lies carelessly tossed beside his pillow, some loose change, and a stack of junk food wrappers. he’d never admit it, but there’s a half-open box of chocolate chip cookies on his nightstand because, surprise surprise, he bought it for you earlier but kept it for himself when you weren’t looking.
ryomen sukuna, ladies and gentlemen.
plopping down onto his bed, he lazily scrolls through his phone before flopping down, leaving the screen bright enough to nearly fry his eyes. as if the day wasn’t already overwhelming enough, now he’s doing something even dumber. he opens discord.
and without thinking twice, sends a message to uraume, the e-friend he’s been talking to for months, mostly while they’ve been playing apex legends. he had no clue how this strange friendship even started, but honestly? uraume was sarcastic, annoying in a way that made him laugh, and didn’t take his “bad boy” persona too seriously.
he leans back, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds, holding the vape in his mouth while scrolling mindlessly through tiktok videos, making mental notes about the stuff you liked—stuff like cheesy couple memes, random boyfriend-girlfriend skits, and, of course, the tiktok videos of couples doing those “promposals.” sighing dramatically, he sends the message to uraume.
kingofcursezz: yo
kingofcursezz: how the hell do you ask someone to prom without making it cringey
kingofcursezz: help me out bro
kingofcursezz: i'm trying to avoid looking like an idiot
he exhales a puff of smoke, irritated with himself for even reaching out to uraume about this. this is beneath him. but the thought of you—and how you’re so sweet, how you deserve the best….
yeah... he can’t screw this up. not now, not after all the effort.
his phone pings with a reply, and sukuna, having put it off for a second, glances down at the screen:
starume666: LOL
starume666: are you seriously asking me this?
kingofcursezz: if you don’t help istg i’ll show up with a bucket of chicken and a bouquet of dollar bills. that’s my backup plan so you better give me something good.
he pauses to let out a tired, humorless laugh as he wipes his face. god, he’s not gonna survive this.
starume666: lmaooooo
starume666: dude you’re way too hard on yourself
starume666: just do smth simple but meaningful
starume666: what’s the thing you know will make her smile?
kingofcursezz: uhhhhhhh
kingofcursezz: how about not being a weirdo who doesn’t know what the fuck a promposal is?
kingofcursezz: i’ll be the guy in the background who just buys her flowers and does the bare minimum like some jock that’s been forced into this tradition 💀💀💀💀
starume666: yeah but you’re not a jock bro
starume666: you’re a bad boy 😹 so act like it
starume666: maybe do something unexpected n go off-script.
kingofcursezz: i mean ig she’ll like it if i show up in a full suit
kingofcursezz: but i don’t have a tux so
kingofcursezz: 💀
starume666: i swear if you don’t do this right i’m flying to your school and putting a bucket of kfc on your doorstep
starume666: figure out what she likes and then do that. just be honest dude.
kingofcursezz: okok fine
kingofcursezz: i’ll show up and do smth
kingofcursezz: if you could stop texting me like my mom, that’d be great.
starume666: [reacted 😹 to your message]
sukuna rolls his eyes as the conversation ends, staring at his phone for a long while. he can’t help but think about you and the fact that he might actually care enough to make this promposal thing work. he shakes his head and grins at the absurdity of it all. for you, though? he’ll do anything. even if it means figuring out how to pull off the world’s least embarrassing promposal.
with that, he flicks his vape one last time, sits up, and starts brainstorming—maybe a simple bouquet? or, wait—does she even like roses? the inner turmoil continues, but one thing's for sure: he’s committed to this, for you.
chapter three: flowers are expensive, but regret is worse
sukuna’s day is just one monotonous loop of chaos, like some cruelly predictable high school sitcom. the cycle starts as usual: he drags yuuji, still wailing about his half-finished power rangers episode, onto the bus. the kid still begs for face tattoos, and sukuna swears he’s about to lose his mind if yuuji brings it up again. after that, he waits for you by the school gates like some lovesick loser who’s too proud to admit it, walks you to class, and then spends the rest of his day dodging every cheesy, cringe-worthy promposal happening at every corner.
but today? today, he’s got a mission. because apparently, the hellscape of high school doesn’t just end at promposals. no, the school administration has to rub salt in the wound by charging $20 per ticket for prom.
$20. per person.
“are they funding a space program or what?” sukuna mutters under his breath as he trudges toward the admin desk, a wad of cash in hand. the admin, of course, isn’t at the desk. instead, gojo satoru is standing there, grinning ear to ear, holding a stack of offensively pink prom tickets. sukuna stops dead in his tracks.
“you’ve gotta be kidding me,” sukuna grumbles, glaring at gojo. “good morning to you too, sunshine!” gojo chirps, twirling the tickets between his fingers like he’s actually enjoying this. “what are you doing here?” sukuna asks, shoving the cash across the desk with zero ceremony.
“volunteering,” gojo says, batting his lashes as if he’s some kind of saint. “community service, you know? unlike you, i’m giving back to the school.”
“you mean they forced you here after you nearly set the chem lab on fire last month,” sukuna deadpans. gojo gasps, clutching his chest dramatically. “how dare you? those were experiments! i’m a man of science, sukuna.”
“you’re a man of stupidity,” sukuna snaps, snatching the two tickets from gojo’s hand before he can start twirling them again. the pink nearly burns his eyes.
“aw, come on, don’t be like that,” gojo says, leaning over the desk like some smug cat. “you excited for prom? oh wait, let me guess. you’re one of those guys who’s too cool for prom, huh? you’re just going for your girlfriend’s sake, aren’t you? how adorable.”
sukuna grits his teeth, refusing to give gojo the satisfaction of a response. instead, he grabs the clipboard to sign his name and yours, hastily scrawling the details. “oh, and while you’re at it,” gojo continues, leaning further into sukuna’s personal space, “you should totally sign up for prom king. i mean, look at you. tattoos, brooding face, bad-boy aura. the people would eat it up.”
sukuna freezes, pen hovering over the clipboard. “prom king? really?”
“absolutely!” gojo beams. “and hey, if you win, you’ll get to dance with your queen on stage in front of the whole school. talk about a moment, right?” sukuna scoffs but signs his name anyway. not because of gojo, of course. but because there’s no way in hell he’s letting some random idiot stand next to you on stage as prom king.
gojo squints at the clipboard, noticing sukuna’s addition. “wait, you’re actually signing up? no way! oh my god, this is going to be epic. i can already see the headlines: ‘bad boy turned prom king—how sukuna stole the crown.’”
“shut up, gojo,” sukuna growls, shoving the clipboard back across the desk. “you got it, your majesty,” gojo smirks, giving a mock bow.
sukuna storms off, tickets in hand, muttering to himself about how much he hates this school. but deep down, he’s already imagining you as prom queen, standing beside him, both of you looking annoyingly perfect.
sukuna’s first instinct when he spots you walking toward him is to shove the glaringly pink prom tickets into his mouth and chew. problem solved. except, knowing his luck, you’d catch him mid-act, choke on the damn thing, and die right there in the middle of the hallway like some bad joke.
so, instead, he opts for plan b: stuffing the tickets into his shirt. brilliant. considering you’re shorter than him and can’t reach his chest, it’s practically foolproof. he adjusts the tickets awkwardly under his jersey, patting them down like some suspicious drug mule as you get closer. totally suave. totally inconspicuous.
“hey!” you chirp, completely oblivious to his internal crisis.“yo,” he grunts back, hands jammed into his pockets like they’ve been superglued there.
you squint at him. “...you okay? you’re standing like you’re hiding a bomb or something.”
“nah, i’m good,” sukuna says quickly, shifting his weight like he suddenly forgot “how to human.”
you tilt your head, but thankfully don’t push it. instead, you start talking about your day—something about a community service meeting and a teacher who forgot their own syllabus—and sukuna does his best to nod and grunt in all the right places. but his mind? it’s running a marathon.
how the hell is he supposed to propose?
the obvious answer is to just...hand you the tickets. easy, straightforward, zero theatrics. you’d say yes, because of course you would—it’s not like you’ve been subtle about dropping hints that you wanted him to ask you. but then he remembers the look on your face every time you watch one of those elaborate promposal videos on tiktok. the way your eyes light up, how you gush about the effort people put in, how cute it is.
and that’s when it hits him like a brick to the face: this isn’t about proving a point to the rest of the school, or even about outdoing gojo’s obnoxious stunt with geto. it’s about you. about making you smile, giving you a moment you’d remember fondly for years. he’s gotta do it right. for you.
but how?
his brain is a war zone of terrible ideas:
buy a giant teddy bear and make it hold the tickets? nah, too cutesy.
write a message in the sky? too broke.
pretend to lose the tickets and ‘find’ them in front of you? too stupid.
he realizes, with a sinking feeling, that this is why he’s been spiraling. because this whole relationship thing? it’s uncharted territory for him. you’re his first relationship, his first everything, and the last thing he wants to do is screw it up.
goddamn it.
you’re still talking when he zones back in, noticing the way you’re looking up at him expectantly. “...so? what do you think?”
“uh,” he says, blinking. “yeah. sounds good.”
“sukuna, i just asked if i should shave my head for charity,” you deadpan.
he stares at you, caught red-handed. “...no?”
you roll your eyes, but you’re smiling, and he feels something in his chest unclench. for now, at least. he’s got until the end of the week to figure this out. totally doable. right?
wrong.
sukuna slumps onto the gym floor after basketball practice, sweat dripping off him like he’s just crawled out of a swamp. he grabs a water bottle, downs half of it, and tosses it aside like he’s starring in a gatorade commercial, all while muttering to himself, “this is a nightmare. i’m surrounded by idiots.”
“what’s the crisis this time, king sukuna?” naoya zenin drawls, leaning against the wall and doing absolutely nothing productive. the guy wouldn’t even break a sweat if his life depended on it, yet somehow he’s always the loudest voice in the room. “none of your business, zenin,” sukuna snaps, trying to ignore the fact that he even brought this up.
“aw, come on,” naoya smirks. “let me guess. girlfriend troubles? did she finally realize you’re all bark and no bite?”
sukuna shoots him a glare that could probably set someone on fire. “i’m trying to plan a prom-posal, dumbass.”
“oh, that’s why you look constipated,” toji pipes up from where he’s sprawled on the bleachers, looking like he’s auditioning for a mattress commercial. “need me to step in? i can bully her a little for you. worked like a charm with my mamaguro.”
“toji, shut the hell up before i make you swallow that smug look,” sukuna growls, though toji just chuckles, completely unfazed. “don’t listen to him,” nanami says, peeling off his sweatbands like he’s had it with everyone’s nonsense. “if you want a genuine suggestion, vogue says simplicity is key. a heartfelt speech, some flowers—”
“you’re reading vogue now?” geto interjects, raising an eyebrow.
“it was for a research paper,” nanami replies, deadpan. “and no, i will not elaborate.”
“you’re all useless,” sukuna groans, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. he turns to geto, the only one who hasn’t actively annoyed him yet. “what about you? you’re practically married to gojo at this point. what worked for you?” geto groans like he’s been asked to relive a traumatic experience.
“please, don’t remind me. the guy brought kfc and roses made of dollar bills. do you know how many times i’ve had to explain to people that i didn’t say yes because of the chicken?”
“but you still said yes,” toji points out, grinning like the devil himself.
“because he threatened to throw himself into traffic if i didn’t!” geto snaps, throwing his towel at toji’s face. “what was i supposed to do, let him die in front of the school?”
“yes,” sukuna mutters under his breath, earning a snort from nanami.
“look, you’ve got this,” nanami says, attempting to be the voice of reason. “just think about what she’d like. something meaningful. and maybe, just maybe, don’t get advice from this crowd.”
“i hate all of you,” sukuna announces, standing up and grabbing his bag. “but especially you, toji. never speak to me again.”
“love you too, bro,” toji calls out as sukuna stomps out of the gym, muttering curses under his breath. he’s no closer to a plan, but at least he’s 100% sure of one thing—he’s never asking these idiots for help again.
—
sukuna drags himself into the house, tossing his bag onto the floor like it’s personally offended him. the sound echoes through the living room, but yuuji doesn’t even flinch. the kid’s sprawled out on the couch, a juice box in one hand and the tv remote in the other, utterly engrossed in mean girls. “the hell are you watching?” sukuna asks, toeing off his shoes.
“mean girls,” yuuji replies, eyes glued to the screen. “it’s ‘bout some mean girls, duh.”
“you’re seven, yuuji. why are you watching a movie about high school drama?”
“’cause i gotta get ready for high school. duh again.”
sukuna rolls his eyes but stops when he catches the prom scene on the screen. his brows furrow as he watches. could this help? nope. just people dancing and some heartfelt speech about how everyone’s a queen or whatever. useless. he groans and flops onto the armchair, rubbing his temples. out of pure desperation—and because his brain’s running on fumes—he asks, “hey, yuuji, how would you ask someone to prom?”
yuuji pauses the movie and turns to him with the seriousness of a kid about to give the most groundbreaking advice in the universe. “easy! dress like their favorite power ranger.”
“what.”
“and then you go, ‘will you go to prom with me? hiya!’” yuuji does a karate chop for emphasis, nearly spilling his juice. “and if they say no… boom! mass destruckshin.”
“mass what?”
“mass destruckshin!” yuuji repeats, puffing his chest like he’s just dropped the most foolproof plan of the century. “you gotta show them you mean business!” sukuna stares at his brother, wondering if it’s possible to feel both amused and like his life is spiraling out of control at the same time.
“yeah, no. thanks for nothing, yuuji.”
“you’re welcome!” yuuji chirps, unpausing the movie. “don’t forget to do the hiya part!”
sukuna groans and leans back in the chair. he’s not about to karate chop his way into a promposal. that’s a one-way ticket to you dumping him on the spot. his mom would’ve been a better bet, but she’s probably halfway through her night shift by now—and even if she were here, she’d skip prom entirely and go straight to planning your wedding. he shudders at the thought. not because he doesn’t like the idea of marrying you—hell, the thought of you in a white dress has his brain short-circuiting—but because his mom would absolutely order a three-tier cake before you’d even said yes to a prom date. “get a grip, sukuna,” he mutters to himself, shaking his head. prom first, wedding later. priorities.
yuuji, oblivious to his brother’s existential crisis, pipes up again. “hey, ‘kuna, if she says no, can i have your power ranger costume?”
“i’m not wearing a damn power ranger costume!” sukuna snaps, chucking a throw pillow at yuuji, who ducks with a laugh.
“okay, okay! fiinnnneee. but if you mess up, can i have your juice money?” sukuna glares at him. “shut up, yuuji.”
“love you too!” yuuji sing-songs, turning back to mean girls like nothing happened. and sukuna? he’s mentally preparing himself for what feels like the most important mission of his entire high school life.
—
sukuna woke up with the enthusiasm of a cat being dragged to a bath. it was the weekend—not the artist, fortunately, but the actual day—and the irony of hearing the weeknd's "reminder" on loop in his brain from all those tiktok promposals wasn’t lost on him. tiktok really had a way of making everything worse, didn’t it? he groaned, rubbing his face as he sat up in bed, his hair a complete mess and his shirt wrinkled from falling asleep in it.
“alright, flowers,” he muttered, standing and grabbing a hoodie off the floor. it was one of those old, oversized ones with some random logo he’d stolen from his cousin choso. paired with his basketball shorts and beat-up sneakers, sukuna looked like he was ready to run errands or rob a gas station—either worked.
the neighborhood was its usual weekend self—kids playing, dogs barking, and aunties gossiping by gates like it was their full-time job. sukuna stuck out like a sore thumb as he wandered from florist to florist, hands shoved into his hoodie pocket, trying not to look like he was about to hold the place up.
his first stop was a quaint little flower shop with pastel walls and a ridiculously cheery name: bloom haven. sukuna stepped inside, immediately overwhelmed by the overpowering scent of roses and lilies. “good morning!” the florist, a middle-aged woman with a bright smile and an apron covered in flower prints, greeted him. “how can i help you today?”
“uhhh… bouquet?” sukuna said, voice low like he was ashamed to be seen in public buying flowers.
“wonderful! who’s the lucky someone?” she asked, practically sparkling with excitement. “just… someone,” he grumbled, glancing at a bucket of roses. “how much for these?”
“oh, roses are $5 per stem!” she chirped.
sukuna’s brain screeched to a halt. “five bucks? for one flower?”
“they’re premium quality!” she said, as if that justified daylight robbery.
“yeah, premium my ass,” he muttered under his breath, leaving the shop before she could try to sell him anything else.
the next place wasn’t much better. a hipster-owned flower truck parked near a cafe, blasting indie music and decorated with fairy lights. the owner had a man bun and greeted him with, “peace and petals, brother.”
sukuna hated him immediately.
“you got bouquets?” sukuna asked flatly.
“absolutely, bro. we handcraft our arrangements using sustainably sourced—”
“how much?” sukuna interrupted.
“oh, a bouquet starts at $45,” the guy said, like that wasn’t insane.
“yeah, but they come with vibes,” man bun said, gesturing to the arrangements like they were ancient artifacts. sukuna turned on his heel and walked away, muttering, “i’ll give you vibes, idiot.”
by the time he’d hit his fourth florist, his mood was sourer than expired milk. flowers were so stupidly expensive. why did people even like them? they just died after a week. he considered the idea of pulling a tree out of the ground—free, big, dramatic. totally memorable. but then he imagined you looking at him like he’d lost his mind and immediately scrapped the plan.
“what are you even doing, sukuna?” he mumbled to himself, stopping on a street corner to rub his temples. the hoodie wasn’t doing much to hide him from people who were now giving him concerned looks as he stood there, muttering like a lunatic. eventually, he caved and called the only person who might understand his suffering: geto.
“yo,” geto answered, his voice muffled. “what’s up?”
“how the hell do people afford flowers?” sukuna barked into the phone.
“uh, normal people have jobs?” geto replied.
“i have a job,” sukuna snapped. “it’s called surviving high school and taking care of yuuji. do you know how much that little monster eats?”
“okay, calm down,” geto said, laughing. “why are you even buying flowers? is this for her?”
“obviously,” sukuna muttered, lowering his voice like the trees might overhear. “just go to the supermarket,” geto said. “grab some from there. they’re cheaper.”
“supermarket flowers?” sukuna sneered.
“they’re not bad,” geto said. “it’s the thought that counts, right? plus, you’re gonna make up for it with the rest of the promposal, right?”
“...yeah,” sukuna lied, glancing at his empty hands and feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. “good luck,” geto said, clearly trying not to laugh.
“shut up,” sukuna muttered, hanging up and sighing. supermarket it was, then. hopefully, you wouldn’t mind flowers that came with a discount sticker.
on his way to the supermarket, sukuna didn’t plan to get distracted. but there it was—a tuxedo shop with mannequins that practically mocked him, standing tall in their fitted suits. he told himself he’d just peek. just a look. but somehow, sukuna was inside, staring at a rack of tuxedos, his hoodie feeling embarrassingly out of place in the crisp, polished environment. he ran a hand through his hair, eyes landing on a sleek black tuxedo with satin lapels. it was classic, clean, and exactly the kind of thing you’d probably love seeing him in. just try it on. what’s the worst that could happen?
five minutes later, sukuna was glaring at his reflection in the mirror, fumbling with a tie that refused to cooperate. “stupid, overcomplicated—” he grunted, yanking at it so hard he nearly choked himself.
“you’re gonna kill yourself before prom, kid.”
sukuna turned to see a short, older man with a grumpy face and an air of authority that reminded him of a drill sergeant. the man—wasuke, according to his name tag—walked over and snatched the tie out of sukuna’s hands.
“stand still,” wasuke barked.
“i’m not a kid,” sukuna muttered, but he stood still anyway, letting wasuke adjust the tie with the precision of a man who had probably done this a thousand times. “you’re fidgety. just like i was before my prom,” wasuke said, his gruff tone softening slightly. “you nervous about asking someone?”
“...something like that,” sukuna admitted. wasuke grunted, finishing the tie and stepping back. “i was nervous too. didn’t think she’d say yes. but she did.”
“showed up at her house with a dozen carnations, a guitar, and no plan,” wasuke said, chuckling. “played the worst version of wonderwall you’ve ever heard. still don’t know why she said yes, but she did. forty years later, she’s still here.”
sukuna blinked, caught off guard by the sudden sincerity. for a moment, he imagined himself and you forty years from now. he hated how much he liked the thought. “cool story, old man,” sukuna said, brushing it off.
“you’ll figure it out,” wasuke said, patting him on the shoulder. “just don’t overthink it. and maybe don’t strangle yourself with the tie.”
with that, wasuke waddled off, leaving sukuna to face the mirror again. the tux fit perfectly, hugging his broad shoulders and tapering at the waist. the black-on-black look was sharp, especially with the skinny tie wasuke had wrestled into place. he looked...good.
too good, apparently, because he did the dumbest thing imaginable: he pulled out his phone and snapped a mirror selfie. “what am i even doing?” he muttered, staring at the photo. it was too late to stop himself, though—his thumb hit send before his brain could catch up.
the text went to you.
you.
“shit,” sukuna hissed, panic gripping him as he watched the message deliver. seconds later, your name flashed on his screen. video call. “hey!” your voice came through immediately, bright and excited. “are you trying on a tux? lemme see!” sukuna groaned, holding the phone at arm’s length so you could see the tux. “don’t freak out,” he muttered.
“oh my god, you look so good!” you squealed, and sukuna swore he felt his soul leave his body. “is this for prom? are you finally gonna ask me?”
his heart slammed against his ribs. “uh, no,” he said quickly. too quickly.
and then, like the coward he was, he hit end call.
he stared at his reflection, his ears burning. “god damn it,” he muttered, yanking the tie loose. wasuke’s voice echoed in his head: you’ll figure it out. “yeah, right,” sukuna muttered, shoving his phone back into his pocket and heading for the fitting room. he wasn’t sure what was worse—your reaction, or his. probably his. definitely his.
—
a hello kitty phone charm dangled from your phone, clinking softly every time you tossed it onto the bed after furiously texting sukuna. you giggled like a maniac, clutching your phone with both hands as his unread replies piled up.
you: omg you’re SO HANDSOME, why didn’t you tell me sooner???!!!
you: can’t believe you look THAT good, excuse me while i pass away
you: also if you’re dressing like that for prom, consider me yours all over again </33
your fingers flew across the keyboard, unable to stop yourself. there was just something about seeing him all polished up that had you swooning, even if he couldn’t see your reaction. sukuna being flustered? rare. sukuna being flustered and looking that fine? a national treasure.
your room was the perfect mix of chaos and comfort, a little shrine to your personality. fairy lights twinkled around the edges of your room, casting a soft glow over the colorful mess that was your bed—a heap of throw pillows and the softest blanket you refused to part with since middle school. your laptop sat open in front of you, the screen glowing with pinterest boards full of prom dress inspo: sleek satin silhouettes, dreamy tulle gowns, and even some edgy alternatives, because why not keep your options open? stickers covered your laptop’s lid—mostly cute animals, a few doodles of your favorite characters, and a sneaky, ironic skull-and-rose design that reminded you of sukuna.
your room smelled faintly of vanilla candles, the remnants of last night’s study session still lingering in the air. posters of your favorite bands and a few anime characters covered the walls, some slightly crooked but perfectly placed in your eyes. your vanity table overflowed with skincare, hair clips, and makeup products, while a laundry basket overflowed in the corner—a battle you’d deal with later.
you rolled onto your back, phone still clutched in your hand as you refreshed sukuna’s chat. no reply yet. that was fine. you grinned, imagining him struggling to come up with something cool to say.
you: don’t tell me you’re too busy being HOT to reply now 🙂↕️😹
you: also hi ily bye 🤭
closing your chat for a moment, you leaned back against your pillows and stared at your laptop screen. prom dress inspo was serious business, and as much as you wanted to keep teasing sukuna, you couldn’t ignore the excitement bubbling in your chest. prom was coming, and with a boyfriend like sukuna, it was going to be perfect—even if he was probably sweating bullets over the whole promposal thing. let him sweat a little longer, you thought with a giggle, clicking on yet another gown that made your heart skip a beat.
chapter four: gossip girls and a guy who can’t communicate
the bathroom was dimly lit, the flickering bulb above one of the stalls doing nothing to make you feel any better. you hadn’t even been planning on overhearing the conversation when you snuck into the last stall, phone in hand, planning to scroll mindlessly through pinterest to distract yourself during the break. but then their voices carried in, sharp and intentional, like knives aimed straight for your heart.
"i mean, can you believe she hasn’t been asked yet?" yorozu’s saccharine tone dripped with malice, her voice echoing off the tiled walls. "like, it’s kind of embarrassing at this point. you’d think someone as clingy as her would’ve forced sukuna to do it by now."
mei mei let out a low laugh, the kind that made your stomach twist. "maybe he’s just not into her like that. i mean, bad boys don’t exactly do promposals, do they? unless it’s for someone worth the effort."
"exactly," yorozu snickered. "like, if he really cared, she’d have already been bragging about it all over instagram. but nope. maybe he’s keeping his options open? can’t blame him." their laughter cut through the air, and you pressed your hand over your mouth, trying to steady your breathing. your chest felt tight, and for a moment, you thought you might actually cry. not here. not in front of them. not where they could hear.
from the sinks, shoko ieiri’s voice came sharp and cutting, a stark contrast to her usual laid-back drawl. "god, can you two shut up? it’s break, not your audition for mean girls 2."
"what’s your problem, ieiri?" yorozu snapped, but there was an edge to her voice—shoko wasn’t someone to mess with lightly.
"my problem is your ugly-ass voices ruining my smoke break," shoko replied, exhaling a cloud of smoke with practiced indifference. "if sukuna hasn’t asked her yet, it’s probably because he’s not a performative little attention whore like, oh, i don’t know, you two."
mei mei sniffed. "whatever. we’re just saying what everyone’s thinking."
"yeah, everyone," yorozu added, her voice dripping with mock concern. "but hey, maybe sukuna will surprise her. or not."
their laughter followed them out the door, and the sound of it made your stomach churn. the bathroom felt unbearably quiet once they were gone, the only noise the faint hum of the fluorescent lights. you stayed in the stall for a moment longer, gripping your phone so tightly your knuckles turned white. their words circled in your head like vultures, each one pecking away at your confidence.
maybe he’s just not into you like that.
bad boys don’t exactly do promposals.
someone worth the effort.
your mind spun in spirals. was it true? sukuna had been acting distant lately—or was that just your imagination? he hadn’t replied to your texts about the tuxedo selfie, and now that you thought about it, what if it wasn’t meant for you? what if it was meant for someone else? maybe mei mei and yorozu were right. why would someone like sukuna—brooding, aloof, undeniably cool—want someone like you? you heard the stall door creak open, and shoko’s voice startled you out of your thoughts.
"hey. you okay in there?"
you hesitated before opening the door, forcing a tight smile. "yeah, i’m fine."
shoko frowned, her cigarette dangling loosely between her fingers. she looked at you for a moment, as if debating whether to say something, before finally muttering, "those bitches don’t know what they’re talking about."
"it’s fine," you lied, brushing past her. your hands were trembling as you gripped the strap of your bag, and the lump in your throat made it hard to breathe. shoko didn’t stop you as you left, her awkward, apologetic smile lingering in your mind as you walked down the hall, head low, trying not to let the tears spill over.
is he really stringing you along?
does he even care?
two days until prom, and he hasn’t said a word.
the voices in your head were relentless, their whispers feeding your growing self-doubt. and for the first time in your relationship, you wondered if you’d been wrong about sukuna all along.
the day had dragged on forever, the weight of yorozu and mei mei's words pressing heavily on your shoulders. by the time school ended, you were so emotionally drained you couldn’t even think straight. but when sukuna pulled up on his bike, leaning casually against it with that stupidly handsome smirk of his, you plastered on your best smile, determined not to let him see how much you were spiraling. "hey, handsome," you chirped, sliding onto the back of his bike, your voice just a little too bright. "miss me?"
he glanced back at you as he handed you the helmet, brow furrowed slightly. "you good? you sound... weird."
"weird? no way!" you forced a laugh, strapping the helmet on. "just, you know, long day. classes were boring. people were annoying. the usual."
sukuna didn’t look convinced, but he shrugged it off, revving the engine as you wrapped your arms around his waist. the ride home was silent, save for the growl of the bike and the occasional honk of a car passing by. usually, you’d chatter about everything and nothing, filling the air with your stories, your laughter, your plans. today, though, the words felt stuck in your throat, your mind too tangled in thoughts of prom and sukuna and you. when he stopped in front of your place, you hopped off and handed him the helmet, hesitating for a moment before blurting out, "can i ask you something?" his eyes narrowed slightly, his usual nonchalance giving way to something more guarded. "what’s up?"
you took a deep breath, trying to steady your voice. "why haven’t you… you know… said anything about prom?" sukuna blinked, caught completely off guard. "huh? what d’ya mean?"
"i mean…" you trailed off, suddenly feeling stupid for even bringing it up. "it’s just… prom is in two days, and everyone else is, like, getting these cute proposals and stuff, and i thought maybe… maybe you’d—"
"oh, come on," he cut you off, his tone more defensive than he intended. "you know i’m not into all that cheesy shit. i’m not gojo or toji, running around making a scene." your heart sank at his words, and you tried to keep your voice steady. "it’s not about making a scene, sukuna. it’s about—"
"about what?" he snapped, rubbing the back of his neck. "you already know we’re going together, right? so what’s the big deal?" you stared at him, your chest tightening. "the big deal is… i just wanted to feel special, okay? like you care. but if that’s too much to ask, then—"
"you think i don’t care?" he interrupted, his voice rising slightly. "you think i’m just stringin’ you along or some shit? what kinda dumbass idea is that?" the tears you’d been holding back all day threatened to spill over, and you quickly looked away. "forget it. i shouldn’t have said anything."
"no, seriously, where’s this coming from?" he pressed, his frustration clear. "you’ve been acting off all day, and now you’re throwing this at me?"
"you’re impossible," you muttered, turning on your heel and walking towards your door.
"wait, hold up—" he started, but you didn’t stop, the lump in your throat making it impossible to respond. sukuna sat there on his bike, watching you walk away, his chest tightening in a way he didn’t know how to describe. he wanted to call after you, to explain that he was trying, that he wanted to give you something special, but the words just wouldn’t come out. instead, he clenched his fists, cursing himself under his breath.
as you closed the door behind you, you leaned against it, tears streaming down your face. your thoughts were a chaotic mess. does he even care? am i being unreasonable? is this all in my head?
meanwhile, sukuna sat outside for a few moments longer, staring at your house with a sinking feeling in his stomach. he’d messed up, and he knew it. but how the hell was he supposed to fix it?
—
sukuna was lying on his bed, arms splayed out like he’d just been KO’d by life itself. staring at the ceiling, he let out a groan so deep it rattled his soul. it’s so over, he thought. this is it. the end. the fat lady’s singing. the curtain’s dropping. i’ve fumbled my way into boyfriend hell. his phone was propped up on his chest, the screen dimmed but still visible, waiting for the one thing that could bring him solace: a notification from you. no cute animal reel, no cheesy meme, no “omg this reminded me of you <3 :3” tag. nothing. nada. silence. sukuna stared at the unlit screen like it was actively mocking him.
so this is how it feels to die inside, he mused, scrolling aimlessly through tiktok, where every other post was either a cringy promposal or a “men ain’t shit” rant. great. he tossed his phone aside, facepalming hard enough to leave a red mark.
"bro, can you NOT," yuuji’s voice boomed through the thin wall, followed by the sound of something heavy slamming against it. "some of us are trying to get good sleep over here!" sukuna didn’t even flinch. "and some of us are trying to figure out why we’re the literal worst boyfriend on the planet, yuuji," he shouted back, voice muffled by his pillow.
there was a pause, and then yuuji called back, "sounds like a skill issue!"
yeah, thanks for the moral support, kid, sukuna thought bitterly, rolling onto his side and glaring at his phone like it held all the answers to his problems. should he text you? call you? grovel at your feet and beg for forgiveness? nah, too much. probably. "but what if it’s not too much," he muttered to himself, his overthinking spiraling like a tiktok rabbit hole. he grabbed his phone and opened your chat, fingers hovering over the keyboard. he started typing:
sukuna: "hey."
no, too casual. she’s probably still mad. delete.
sukuna: "sorry for being a dick earlier."
ugh, too vague. she deserves better than this half-assed apology. delete.
sukuna: "pls don’t leave me i’m stupid and i love you."
god, get a grip. delete.
he groaned again, tossing his phone across the bed and burying his face in his hands. he was spiraling, and not in the cute “omg i like her so much” way, but in the “my life is a flaming dumpster fire” way. the worst part? he couldn’t even properly apologize yet because the grand promposal he’d been planning wasn’t ready. and if he apologized now, you’d probably forgive him, but it’d ruin the big moment he was hoping to surprise you with. but what if waiting too long means she never forgives me at all?
“fuck,” he muttered to himself, staring at the ceiling again. “why is being in love so goddamn hard? people on tiktok make it look so easy. just dance, propose, and boom, happy ending. where’s my happy ending?”
from the other room, yuuji shouted, "SHUT UP, ROMEO!"
"eat shit, yuuji!" sukuna barked back, even though the kid was right.
god, he needed to get his act together before you realized you could do way better than him. but for now, he just laid there, shriveling up and dying like the dramatic dumbass he was, waiting for a miracle.
—
your room was a disaster zone: laptop open on your bed, your playlist stuck on “prom dress” by mxmtoon like it was 2019, your phone precariously balanced on a pile of mismatched socks, and tissues littered around like you were auditioning for a sad indie movie. the death metal hello kitty pajamas—thrifted with sukuna—clung to you like a bittersweet hug, the fabric somehow feeling heavier tonight. you weren’t about to cry over a boy. but also… you might cry over a boy. the duality of woman. and because emotional self-destruction is best paired with a sprinkle of pettiness, you grabbed your phone, snapped a cute selfie in said pajamas, and slapped a caption on it: “cozy nights >>>> everything else 💕”
posting it was an impulsive decision, but it was also calculated. you knew the power of a cute, casual post. it wasn’t technically aimed at sukuna, but you also weren’t about to sit here and pretend you didn’t want him to see it, to notice you, to maybe—just maybe—grovel a little in your DMs. the likes and comments started flooding in immediately because your socials were basically the hub for school tea and wholesome vibes.
mamaguro: our little fashionista!!! thrift QUEEN 😍
god bless that woman. she deserved the world.
shoko: (attached gif of a woman dramatically fainting on a chaise lounge)
classic shoko.
maki: ugh, if i thrifted this, mai would burn it out of spite. cute though. thumbs up.
mai: shut up maki. also, not bad. 8/10.
maki: don’t rate her outfit like it’s your stupid games, nerd.
mai: cry about it.
sibling banter in your comments? worth it.
and then, of course, there was:
naoya zenin: so glad someone else noticed how good you look in pj’s 😏
you rolled your eyes so hard you saw another dimension. of course he had to slither in. you didn’t even bother giving it a pity like.
you refreshed the page once, twice, twenty times. still no sign of sukuna. no like, no comment, no DM. you threw yourself back onto the bed, groaning into your pillow like a banshee. was it really that hard to double-tap? and then, the spiraling started.
what if he didn’t like it?
what if he thought it was cringe?
what if he saw it and scrolled past, thinking about how much of a baby you are for posting this in the first place?
or worse — what if he thought it was for someone else? like naoya?
ew.
you shook your head violently, trying to physically rattle the thoughts out. sukuna wasn’t that stupid. right? he had to know this was for him. but as the minutes ticked by, and the comments from your friends kept rolling in, the notification you wanted most stayed stubbornly absent.
boys are so stupid, you thought bitterly, scribbling “stupid sukuna and his stupid abs and his stupid everything” in your spiral-bound diary. it stayed locked away in your closet, expertly hidden in the event of an accidental snoop, because some things were too raw to share with the world. you hit play on “prom dress” for the 17th time that evening, feeling the lyrics a little too personally as you kept refreshing the post like a woman possessed. love, as it turns out, was truly exhausting.
—
sukuna had just slumped back in his chair, doom-scrolling tiktok and internally mourning the lack of a “girlfriend tagged you in a tiktok” notification, when your instagram post pinged onto his phone. for a solid five seconds, he froze. like a caveman discovering fire.
you looked ethereal. the death metal hello kitty pajamas, the soft glow of the fairy lights, the cozy chaos of your room in the background—sukuna didn’t even know how to process it. you looked like, uh, a… renaissance painting? yeah. except, sukuna was 98% sure he couldn’t spell renaissance if his life depended on it.
r-e-n-a…sauce? god, no.
whatever.
like an idiot, his thumb hovered over the comment section for too long, his brain scrambling for something cool but romantic but not cringe but also boyfriend-worthy. and then, because he was absolutely useless under pressure, he panicked and commented:
sukuna: 🔥🔥🔥
the second he hit send, he let out the longest groan known to mankind, slapping his hand over his face. what the hell, sukuna? he might as well have sent a dm saying, “wyd ;)” for how basic that was. wasn’t he your boyfriend? he was supposed to be above fire emojis!
meanwhile, across town, your phone buzzed, and when you saw the notification, your entire soul ascended for half a second before crashing back down. fire emojis? that’s what he gave you?
your reaction was visceral.
a gasp so loud it nearly knocked the fairy lights off your wall. your heart rate skyrocketed. every fiber of your being screamed, is this what my life has come to? my boyfriend thinks i’m fire-emoji-hot, not love-letter-hot? "oh my god, no," you muttered, pacing your room. this is it. the tiktoks didn’t work. i failed as a girlfriend. what’s next? marrying someone who comments ‘send bobs and vagene’ on my posts?
but before you could plan the ultimate self-roast in your diary, another notification came through. sukuna, clearly in full damage control mode, had added a second comment:
sukuna: my girl. 💪
you stopped mid-spiral, blinking at the screen. the simplicity of it. the possessive undertone. my girl. two words, and somehow your heart went from shriveled raisin to blooming flower.
back at sukuna’s place, he was staring at the new comment with narrowed eyes, second-guessing himself yet again. was that too much? was it cringey? what if she thinks it’s corny? what if she screenshots it and sends it to shoko, and they both roast me? what if—
and then, your like on his comment came through, followed by you pinning it under the post. sukuna let out a dramatic exhale, flopping back onto his bed. ah, love. exhausting, anxiety-inducing, and, somehow, totally worth it.
chapter five: when subtlety isn’t an option
dragging yourself onto campus that morning felt like a herculean effort. you were running on fumes and whatever scraps of serotonin sukuna’s ridiculously over-the-top goodnight message had left you. sure, it was sweet—ten whole lines about how he’d “reshape reality” for you or some nonsense—but was it an apology? was it a promposal? absolutely not. boys were a disease.
as soon as you stepped through the gates, gojo’s obnoxiously loud voice rang out, cutting through your existential crisis like a foghorn. “diva down!” he declared dramatically, clutching his chest like you’d personally betrayed him by showing up in less-than-perfect condition. before you could even muster a glare, geto’s hand shot out, smacking gojo square in the stomach. “read the room, satoru,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “ow!” gojo wheezed, doubling over. “i was just stating facts!”
you ignored their antics, trudging toward your locker, when the crackling intercom interrupted the usual morning chaos. nanami’s voice, as calm yet strained as ever, floated over the campus. “attention, students. all of you are required to assemble on the football field immediately. this is not a drill.” a murmur rippled through the halls. was it a fire drill? a surprise pep rally? something worse? you glanced around, half-hoping to see sukuna leaning against a wall with his usual “i don’t care about anything” face, but he was nowhere to be found.
“weird,” you muttered, joining the slow shuffle of students heading outside. on the field, clusters of confused teenagers were gathering under the bright morning sun. you scanned the crowd, squinting against the light. no sign of sukuna. where was that idiot? meanwhile, gojo and geto had caught up to you. “what do you think this is?” gojo asked, clearly already bored.
“hopefully not another motivational speaker,” geto muttered. “or a fire drill,” you added, your voice flat.
“whatever it is, it better be quick,” gojo whined. “my skincare routine does not involve standing in direct sunlight for this long.”
you rolled your eyes, turning your attention back to the crowd. something about this felt off. and you couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was happening, it had something to do with sukuna.
the murmurs in the crowd were growing louder, restless. one of the jocks inhaled, clearly gearing up to yell something stupid—probably “this is so lame” or some other brilliant insight—when the jumbotron sparked to life with a loud buzz. everyone froze, heads snapping toward the giant screen.
there he was.
sukuna.
in a tuxedo.
he looked… disheveled, to say the least. his tie was slightly crooked, and his bloodshot eyes gave him the appearance of someone who hadn’t slept in years. or maybe ever. but the way he leaned back in a chair, dressed like a mob boss with the confidence to match, had the crowd whispering excitedly.
“oh my god, is this for real?”
“is he—he’s wearing a tux! is this, like, a movie?”
“is he single?” one girl whispered, earning a sharp glare from her friend.
you? you were just standing there, slack-jawed, because what was he doing?
on screen, sukuna let out a deep sigh, his voice lower and rougher than usual, probably from the late hour. “hey,” he started, glancing off-camera like he wasn’t sure how to say this. “so, uh. this is for… my girl.”
your heart stuttered.
“listen,” he continued, running a hand through his hair, “i know i’m the world’s worst boyfriend. like, bottom of the barrel. absolute trash. no one’s worse than me.”
“i mean, he’s not wrong,” gojo stage-whispered from behind you. geto smacked him again.
sukuna’s voice dropped even lower, making half the girls in the crowd swoon. “but i’m trying. and if i have to humiliate myself in front of the entire school to make it up to you, then so be it.”
your breath caught as the screen cut to black with a simple message: turn around.
you whipped around just in time to see sukuna—your sukuna—riding his motorbike onto the football field like he was in a damn action movie. the crowd gasped, screamed, and scattered as he skidded to a stop in the middle of the field, yuuji riding behind him, holding on for dear life. “this is better than coloring claaaasssss!” yuuji yelled, his little voice carrying across the field. in his tiny hands was a bouquet of… lego flowers? some of the pieces were dangerously close to falling off. behind them, sprinting full speed like his life depended on it, was choso, carrying an actual vintage boombox over his head. half the girls in the crowd were now screaming, but not for sukuna.
“who’s that?”
“he’s so hoott! does he go here?”
“you’re all so basic,” geto muttered under his breath.
as sukuna parked his bike, yuuji jumped off and ran toward you, yelling, “you hafta say yes! otherwise big bro will cause mass destrunkshun!”
sukuna groaned, glaring at his little brother. “yuuji, shut up!” but yuuji ignored him, shoving the lego flowers into your hands. “here! they never die, just like big bro’s love for you!”
the crowd erupted in a mix of laughter and cheers as sukuna finally got off his bike and walked toward you, his face red but determined. “listen,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “i know i’m an idiot, and i suck at this whole ‘romantic boyfriend’ thing. but i love you, and i want to take you to prom. so… will you be my date?”
you blinked, tears welling up as the boombox suddenly blared heart of glass by blondie. choso gave you a thumbs-up, still holding the boombox over his head like a champ. “say yes! say yes!” yuuji chanted, jumping up and down.
“oh my god, yes!” you finally shouted, throwing your arms around sukuna’s neck. the crowd roared, clapping and cheering as sukuna hugged you back, a relieved smile breaking across his face.
“finally,” gojo muttered. “that was so painful to watch.” but you didn’t care about the crowd, or the noise, or even yuuji yelling, “yay! no destrunkshun today!”
all you cared about was the way sukuna looked at you, like you were the only person in the world.
—
sukuna flopped dramatically onto your bed later that evening, still in his slightly wrinkled tuxedo from the ridiculous escapade earlier, his head hitting the pillow with a soft thump. “do you even understand what i went through to pull that off?” he groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. “i might as well retire. i’m too old for this.” you snorted, sitting cross-legged on the floor, your gaze flicking to the lego flower bouquet proudly perched on your desk. “you’re eighteen, sukuna. relax.”
“eighteen with back pain,” he muttered, shifting to look at you. “and a vendetta against a certain flower set. do you know how many pieces are in that thing?”
“clearly, enough to drive you insane,” you teased, reaching over to nudge his shin. “so… tell me how it all went down. i need to know what mastermind put this together.”
he rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow with an exaggerated sigh. “fine. but just know that i better get some kind of boyfriend-of-the-year award for this.”
“you’ll get a sticker. now spill.”
“okay, first of all,” he started, counting off on his fingers, “i had to beg nanami to bend the rules. i was like, ‘listen, dude, just one announcement. i swear i won’t get detention for the rest of the year.’”
“and he believed that?” you raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
“well…” sukuna grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. “i might’ve also thrown in a promise to help him clean the chem lab after school for a month. he was this close to saying no, though.” you laughed, imagining nanami’s face at sukuna’s desperate pleas. “sounds about right. and choso?”
“ah, choso,” sukuna said dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest like he was reciting a shakespearean monologue. “the real goat. he flew in from across the state—i’m talking dead of the night—to bring me that stupid lego flower set.”
“you made him travel for legos?” you gasped, barely holding back laughter.
“hey, it was symbolic!” he defended, pointing a finger at you. “and he didn’t just deliver it; he stayed up with me all night building it. i thought we were gonna lose a piece at one point, and let me tell you, i almost cried.” you couldn’t stop giggling at the image of sukuna and choso frantically building lego flowers in the middle of the night. “okay, okay. what about yuu?”
“oh, he was the easiest to convince,” sukuna said, smirking. “i just told him, ‘power rangers need good deeds on their resume, like helping their big bro.’ he was all in after that.”
“of course he was,” you muttered fondly, shaking your head.
“so, there you have it,” sukuna finished, stretching out on your bed with a satisfied sigh. “a night of blood, sweat, and legos. all for you, baby.” you smiled, leaning back against the edge of your bed. “you’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“yeah, but you love me,” he shot back, his tone smug.
“unfortunately,” you teased, though your cheeks warmed at his words. there was a brief silence before you hesitated, biting your lip. “sukuna?”
“hm?” he hummed, eyes half-closed.
“mei mei and yorozu said some stuff yesterday. about you and… us.”
his eyes snapped open, narrowing. “what kinda stuff?”
you shrugged, trying to play it off, but he wasn’t having it. “they said you were stringing me along. that you’d never—”
“oh, hell no,” he growled, sitting up so fast he almost hit his head on your fairy lights. “i’m gonna—”
“no, you’re not,” you interrupted, grabbing his arm before he could launch himself off the bed. “we don’t beat people up, remember?” he grumbled under his breath, clearly displeased. “fine. but if they say one more thing—”
“they won’t,” you said firmly, giving him a look. “because we’re gonna ignore them and enjoy our nap instead.” sukuna sighed, flopping back onto the bed with a resigned groan. “you’re lucky you’re cute,” he muttered, tugging you down beside him.
“and you’re lucky i put up with you,” you shot back, settling into the warm space next to him.
the two of you lay there under the glow of your fairy lights, the faint scent of your vanilla candle filling the room. the lego flower bouquet sat proudly on your desk, a quiet reminder of sukuna’s chaotic but heartfelt effort. as you drifted off, you couldn’t help but smile. love with sukuna was messy, dramatic, and over the top—but it was yours.
you tried. you really tried to fall asleep. but how could you, when sukuna had casually dropped an “i love you” like it was just any other sentence? sure, he said it before when he asked you to prom, but that was in the middle of a chaotic proposal involving legos and yuuji screaming about power rangers. this? this was casual. this was deliberate. this was real.
your brain spiraled faster than your pinterest boards during finals week. did he mean it? like, really mean it? was it a slip-up? does he just throw around the word “love” like that? you stiffened in his arms, your body going ramrod straight like a ruler, and sukuna, ever the perceptive one (at least when it comes to you), noticed immediately. “you good?” he mumbled, voice groggy as he cracked one eye open.
you didn’t respond right away, too busy drowning in your thoughts. was this what all those romance novels meant by ‘confessions catching you off guard’? but this wasn’t a confession, was it? or was it?
“hey,” sukuna nudged you lightly, his brows furrowing. “you’re acting weird. what’s up?”
you sat up suddenly, twisting to face him, your fairy lights casting a soft glow on his confused expression. “you… you said you loved me.”
his eyes widened slightly, and for the first time in… well, ever, sukuna looked genuinely nervous. “uh… yeah? i mean, yeah. i did. i do. why?”
“you do?” you pressed, your voice rising slightly. you couldn’t help it; the man was notoriously bad at expressing his feelings, and now he was just casually confirming his love for you like it was no big deal? “uh, yeah?” sukuna scratched the back of his neck, suddenly very interested in the corner of your ceiling. “i mean… why else would i do all this crap? the flowers, the tux, the boombox…”
“so you’re saying you really love me? like, love-love me?” you clarified, your hands now gesturing wildly because, of course, this needed to be crystal clear. at this point, sukuna’s face was turning an alarming shade of pink—like, my melody type pink, and you could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. “yes, okay? i love you. love-love you. happy?”
you blinked at him, your heart doing that annoying fluttery thing it always did when he looked at you like that, all flustered and frustrated but undeniably sincere.
“wait, why are you smiling?” he groaned, covering his face with his hands. “this is so embarrassing. i knew i should’ve just—”
you didn’t let him finish, leaning forward to kiss him, your lips cutting off whatever self-deprecating nonsense he was about to spew. when you pulled back, his ears were now as red as his eyes, and he stared at you like you’d just stolen his soul. “i’m smiling,” you said softly, “because i love you too, dumbass. and because i think it’s cute when you get all flustered.”
“cute?” he repeated, deadpan. “did you just call me cute?”
“yep,” you chirped, lying back down and snuggling into his chest. “get used to it, my melody.”
sukuna groaned dramatically, throwing an arm over his eyes, but you could feel the way his heartbeat quickened under your cheek. and as he tightened his hold around you, mumbling something about how you better not tell anyone about this, you smiled to yourself. maybe you wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon, but at least now, you’d be lying awake with a warm, fuzzy feeling instead of overthinking yourself into oblivion. love-love really was something else.
chapter six: the painting, the prom, and the prince
the evening of prom was finally here, and sukuna rolled up to your house looking, dare he say it, hot. okay, maybe he wouldn’t say it out loud, but judging by the double-take you gave him when he stepped off his bike in that sharp tux, it was safe to assume you thought so too.
and then you walked out.
he swore his brain short-circuited. he’d seen you in a hundred different outfits, every single one somehow better than the last, but this? this wasn’t just a dress. this was art.
“you…you look…” he stammered, his usual cocky bravado completely out the window. “uh…you look like…you know…like…a renaissance painting or something.”
you blinked at him, clearly amused. “a renaissance painting?”
“yeah,” he muttered, scratching the back of his neck, clearly regretting his life choices. “you know, like, those really fancy ones. with, uh, good lighting.” you bit back a laugh. “i’ll take that as a compliment.”
“you should,” he grumbled, averting his eyes because looking at you too long felt like staring into the sun. “you look perfect.”
as the two of you got on his bike and headed to prom, sukuna felt like he was riding on air. that was, until you turned to him halfway there and asked, “so, do you have the tickets?”
oh, shit.
his mind raced as he remembered exactly where those tickets were: stuffed into his t-shirt so you wouldn’t find them during his promposal planning. and then, last night, in a frenzy of cleaning and trying to look cool, he’d tossed the shirt into the laundry. “uhhh…” he stalled, trying to come up with a lie, but your raised eyebrow told him you weren’t buying it.
“‘kuna,” you said, already exasperated. “please don’t tell me—”
“okay, okay, maybe i left them in the washing machine,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. you groaned, but to his surprise, you didn’t seem mad. instead, you reached into your purse and pulled out two tickets. “lucky for you, i bought these ages ago,” you said, smirking.
“wait, what?” he blinked, genuinely stunned.
“what? i wasn’t about to risk you being unprepared,” you teased.
“okay, wow, first of all, rude,” he said, though he couldn’t help but grin. “second of all, you’re amazing. third of all…can we pretend this didn’t happen?”
“not a chance,” you replied, laughing.
fast forward to the gym, where the school had, of course, gone full cliché with the decorations: fairy lights, balloons, and a weirdly overused “enchanted evening” banner that looked like it had been recycled from at least three other events. but none of that mattered when you spotted yuuji and choso standing near the punch table. well, you saw them. sukuna, on the other hand, saw chaos.
“why the hell is yuuji here?” sukuna hissed, his hands already on his temples. “don’t ask me,” you said, equally baffled. “how does a seven-year-old even get in here?”
“puppy eyes,” sukuna muttered, his voice dripping with disdain.
sure enough, yuuji was grinning ear-to-ear, his hair plastered to his head in spikes from what must have been an entire bottle of power ranger-branded gel. “big bro! you made it!” yuuji shouted, running up and practically tackling sukuna in a hug. “yuuji,” sukuna groaned, prying the kid off him. “what are you doing here?”
“helping!” yuuji declared proudly. “plus, i used your tickets!”
sukuna’s jaw dropped. “what?”
“he’s surprisingly resourceful for a kid,” choso muttered, clearly wanting to be anywhere but here as he adjusted his tie. “next time, don’t leave important things lying around.”
“you’ve got to be kidding me,” sukuna grumbled, running a hand down his face.
meanwhile, you were barely holding back laughter, especially when you noticed the cluster of girls gawking at choso from across the room. “looks like choso’s got some fans,” you whispered, nudging sukuna.
“yeah, well, they can have him,” sukuna muttered. “i’ve got everything i need right here.”
and just like that, the stress melted away, replaced by that smug, confident grin you loved so much. prom was a mess, but it was your mess. and honestly? you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
—
the night was winding down, and with prom nearing its end, you and sukuna made your way toward the photobooth. sukuna had his arm slung over your shoulder, and you leaned into him, already envisioning how cute your pictures would turn out. but, of course, peace was short-lived.
“oh, look who it is,” came mei mei’s unmistakably smug voice.
you stiffened, turning toward her and yorozu, who stood there with their arms crossed, both looking like they had nothing better to do than spread bitchiness. “figures you’d show up,” yorozu sneered. “thought you’d be too busy fixing your ‘perfect relationship.’”
“is this where you get your weekly drama fix?” sukuna drawled, his voice low and sharp. he glanced between the two with a look that could’ve cut glass. “or did you just run out of things to do since no one wanted to take you?” mei mei opened her mouth to retort, but before she could get a word out, sukuna bent down and scooped you up bridal style.
“sukuna!” you yelped, clinging to him in shock.
“don’t waste your energy on people like them,” he said simply, striding past the two women without so much as a second glance.
“you can’t just—hey!” mei mei called after him, but sukuna didn’t bother stopping. yorozu muttered something under her breath, but even she knew better than to push it.
“you really didn’t have to do that,” you mumbled, though you couldn’t hide the warmth in your voice. “didn’t have to?” he scoffed. “like hell i’d let them talk to you like that.”
the line for the photobooth wasn’t long, and before you knew it, you were stepping inside with sukuna still holding you as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“you’re not putting me down?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “nah,” he said with a smirk. “you look too good tonight. gotta keep showing you off.”
you rolled your eyes, but your cheeks flushed all the same.
once inside the booth, sukuna finally set you down, pulling you close for the first set of pictures. the two of you posed like a typical couple at first, all smiles and laughs. then sukuna decided to make things interesting by pulling faces, sticking his tongue out in one, and pretending to bite your shoulder in another.
“these are gonna look so stupid,” you laughed, pushing at his chest. “nah, they’re gonna be fire,” he said, grinning.
just as the final photo flashed, the curtain whipped open, and toji’s booming voice rang out.
“move over, lovebirds! we’re crashing this party.”
toji and mamaguro squeezed into the booth, nearly squashing you and sukuna against the wall.
“what the hell, toji?” sukuna groaned, glaring at the intrusion.
“what?” toji said innocently. “you think i’m missing out on free photobooth pics?”
“scoot over, lovelies,” mamaguro chimed in, pushing toji aside so she could squeeze into the frame.
“there’s no room!” you said, laughing as you were squished further into sukuna.
“there’s always room for one more,” came another voice, and before you could even register what was happening, gojo leapt into the booth, landing half on toji and half on sukuna.
“what the—get off me!” sukuna growled, shoving at gojo.
“smile, everyone!” geto called, popping his head into the frame at the last second.
the camera flashed, capturing the chaos in all its glory. by the time the prints came out, you were crying from laughter, holding onto sukuna to keep from doubling over.
“what a night,” you said, wiping tears from your eyes. “yeah,” sukuna said, his voice warm as he looked at you. “what a night.”
—
the picture on sukuna’s instagram was a beyonce level of iconic. the both of you stood side by side, wearing your prom king and queen sashes, though sukuna refused to actually wear his properly—it hung off his shoulder like he was in a fight club. you, however, looked perfect as always, your sash gleaming and your tiara slightly askew from all the dancing. sukuna was leaning just enough to rest his chin on your head (a “power move,” as he called it), and you were holding the bouquet of lego flowers proudly. the caption? equally sukuna.
prom king and queen, obv. any losers who’ve got something to say can take it up with me. she’s the queen, i’m the muscle. try us, idk 🤷♂️ also yeah, she's mine. no refunds.
within seconds of posting, the comments started flooding in.
gojo: the muscle? more like the court jester 💀
yorozu: lmao no one even voted for you two 💀💀💀
choso: solid pic 🔥 i’ll be charging for the lego flowers btw
mamaguro: MY BABIES LOOK AMAZING!!! 👑😭💕
toji: me and my girl did it better 😹
“yorozu really can’t keep my name out her mouth,” sukuna muttered, already cracking his knuckles. “ignore her, my king,” you teased, throwing a pillow at him from your desk chair.
your room was a warzone after the night’s chaos. your shoes were discarded near the bed like a crime scene, your fairy lights had a sad strand that had gone out mid-celebration, and your makeup wipes, bobby pins, and jewelry were strewn all over your vanity. you’d kicked off your sash somewhere in the mess, and your dress was neatly hanging off the edge of your chair because despite the chaos, you couldn’t risk ruining it. meanwhile, sukuna was lying sideways on your bed, scrolling through his phone like he owned the place, his tux jacket slung over the back of the chair you were sitting in.
“should we clean up?” you asked half-heartedly, already knowing the answer.
“nah,” he said, throwing his phone onto the bed. “it’s post-prom. chaos is mandatory.”
before you could argue, sukuna’s phone buzzed. he picked it up, squinting at the email notification, and then froze.
“what’s up?” you asked, turning to look at him.
he stared at the screen for a second before a grin slowly spread across his face. “i got in.”
“what?”
“sports scholarship,” he said, holding the phone up like it was a trophy. “same college as you.”
your jaw dropped, and then you were practically tackling him onto the bed, laughing and hugging him at the same time.
“we’re going to college together?” you asked, beaming.
“hell yeah, we are,” he said, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close. “best decision ever.”
and as the night wore on, with your messy room, tired limbs, and full hearts, you realized he was absolutely right.
epilogue
the morning sun cast a golden hue on your driveway, and there was a quiet buzz of excitement mixed with nervous energy as the taxi rolled up. your suitcases, meticulously packed with everything you thought you might need for college, sat neatly by the curb. sukuna, leaning against the taxi door, looked as relaxed as ever, though his towering frame and sharp features gave him an intimidating edge. “you ready?” he asked, a smirk tugging at his lips. he was holding your suitcase because, apparently, carrying your own bags was “not allowed” anymore.
“as ready as i’ll ever be,” you said, patting the strap of your carry-on bag nervously. the realization that you were actually leaving home was starting to hit.
“you’ve been glowing lately, by the way,” sukuna said casually, as if he hadn’t just paid you the highest compliment. “probably ‘cause you’re spending all your time with me.”
you rolled your eyes, though you couldn’t stop the small smile creeping onto your face. “it’s called a skincare routine, sukuna. maybe you should try one.”
before he could retort, a loud, familiar voice shattered the morning calm.
“WAIT! WAIT!”
both of you turned to see yuuji sprinting toward you, waving something in his hand like a man possessed. “YOU FORGOT THESE!”
you squinted, trying to make out what he was holding. as he got closer, it hit you: your prom queen sash and tiara. “oh my god,” you muttered, burying your face in your hands. “i knew i was forgetting something.”
yuuji skidded to a stop in front of you, panting heavily. “you’re welcome,” he wheezed, thrusting the items into your hands. “how could you forget these? you’re a queen!”
“thanks, yuuji,” you said, taking the sash and tiara from him and trying not to laugh at his dramatic delivery.
“don’t forget to wear it on your first day of college!” he added, grinning ear to ear. “yeah, sure,” you said, ruffling his hair. “and maybe i’ll wear a ball gown to class, too.”
“you’d still look better than half the people there,” sukuna chimed in, snatching the sash from your hand and draping it over your shoulder like he was crowning you all over again. “okay, that’s enough theatrics for now,” you said, adjusting the sash so it wouldn’t wrinkle. “we’ve got a flight to catch.”
yuuji’s face fell slightly, and he threw his arms around you in a sudden, tight hug. “i’m gonna miss you,” he mumbled into your shoulder.
“i’ll miss you too, yuuji,” you said, squeezing him back. “but we’ll visit, okay? and you better facetime me every week.” he nodded, pulling back and giving sukuna a pointed look. “you better take care of her, big bro.”
“always,” sukuna said without hesitation, ruffling yuuji’s hair in return. “and don’t eat all the snacks mom buys, okay?”
“no promises,” yuuji replied, grinning.
as you settled into the taxi and it pulled away from the driveway, you glanced back to see yuuji waving wildly until he was out of sight. you leaned back in your seat, holding the sash and tiara in your lap. “i can’t believe i almost forgot these,” you said, shaking your head.
“you packed a literal hello kitty lamp,” sukuna said, one eyebrow raised. “but not your prom queen stuff. priorities.” you laughed, swatting his arm. “the lamp’s for your dorm, thank you very much. i’m not letting you live in a depressing man cave.”
he smirked, but there was a softness in his eyes as he looked at you. “yeah, yeah. but hey, this is it, huh? college.”
you nodded, the weight of the moment finally settling in. “yeah. it’s the start of everything.”
“good thing we’re doing it together,” sukuna said, reaching over to take your hand.
and as the taxi sped toward the airport, you realized he was right. this was just the beginning—not just of college, but of a whole new chapter of your lives. and with sukuna by your side, you had a feeling it was going to be a damn good one.
thank you for sticking till the end <3 this was a drabble i decided to format into a full length fic because i recently came across my old prom photos and the nostalgia was very real. while i can safely say i did NOT have the ideal high school experience, i am deffo making my reader[s] have it 🙂↕️
if you'd like to find out what type of reader are you (based off of my fics), click on the quiz link here <3 thank u for reading !!
“say it, lovie.” the slap of simon’s skin against yours and your guttural whines were drowning out the sound of his voice. his hand came forwards, propping itself under your jaw and lifting your face to make eye contact with yourself in the mirror. his cock pistoned in and out of you at such a pace it had you seeing stars.
“say it and i’ll let you cum, yeah?” you were a drooling babbling mess already, and you’d barely even begun. you’d had some issues recently, not being able to fit into your favourite jeans anymore, and simon had just the thing to snap you out of that dark mindset you’d found yourself spiralling into. “come on, luv. you know you want to cum.”
“mmfhgh.” whines and whimpers and desperate attempts to push yourself back on simon’s cock were simply failing. you knew he was serious this time, eyes meeting his in the reflection of the mirror. the balaclava made him somewhat scarier, and you were almost certain this was ghost in the room with you.
“i won’t tell you again, lovie.” a sticky milk ring had formed around the base of his cock already, and it took everything in him not to watch his length disappear into your greedy cunt. your knees were beginning to buckle, and you knew you’d have to give in to his wishes if you wanted any form of release today.
“i’m-fuck-i’m a b-beautiful woman. you-shit, si. you love me. i have-i have a perfect body.” the last part of the mantra came out as one ramble, but simon heard it. he understood it. and he saw the way you were beginning to believe it. that was enough for him. he quickened his pace only slightly, his cock bullying your cervix with every thrust. if you weren’t a mess already, you certainly were now.
“such a good girl. you want a reward, lovie? wanna cum?” you nodded, not trusting you voice as only whines and drool seemed to come from your lips now. simon dropped one hand to your throat, placing only the slightest bit of pressure to make you lightheaded. his other hand wrapped around your front, pulling you up to his chest from off your elbows, fingers expertly sliding over your clit.
“fuck! so good, si. gonna cum, gonna cum, please.” you were like a bitch in heat. desperate and whining and almost limp from the way his cock was splitting you. he was grunting from behind you, fingers pinching and rolling your clit between them.
“cum f’me, sweet girl.” and you did. you shook as he pistoned in and out of you quicker, ripping your orgasm from you with such force, it knocked the wind from your lungs. he allowed you to collapse back down onto your front, keeping his hand running across your clit despite the aftershocks.
“good girl. such a good girl. you’ve got a few more in you, right? f’me?”
summary: in which hufflepuff reader sees only the good in mattheo, while everyone else sees only the bad.
warnings: injuries, angst, fluff
a soft knock sounded on the door, the lightest of taps, tentative and sweet. a sigh left mattheo’s lips as he stood, pulling the door open with a bored look. it was late, the moon had long since cast a shadow over his dorm. but there you stood, in all your glory, a soft smile on your lips. “what’s wrong, sweetheart?” it had never been uncommon for you to visit mattheo, but you were usually asleep by this time, tucked up dreaming happily of what mattheo could imagine was rainbows and sunshine.
“couldn’t sleep. need you.” you leant forward, head connecting with his chest, arms coming to wrap tightly around his waist. the boy was always stunned by physical affection, no matter how much you give to him. “okay, dove. let’s get you to bed, hm?” you hummed into his chest, allowing him to pull you over to the bed. you curled up beneath the covers, pulling him down with you. and suddenly, the monster in his head was silent as he rested his head on your lap. your fingers came up to brush away his curls, twisting them around with such care. his breath hitched as your hand came to his cheek, soft knuckles tracing the bruise blooming under his eye.
“this is new.” he turned to look at you more clearly, searching your face for some form of anger or resentment. but there was nothing. nothing but adoration and pure love. you were so pure. so sweet. he’d never quite been able to fathom how you’d fallen in love with him. “does it hurt?” you were so careful with him. you loved him in a way that made him feel like porcelain. like you were scared he would break if you pressed too hard. and in a way, he would. “not anymore.” his voice was barely above a whisper, doe eyes trained on your soft features.
“please stop fighting, matty. i know it’s hard, but i hate seeing you hurt.” he let out a frustrated sigh, eyes finally tearing away from you. “you don’t understand! you don’t get what’s it’s like to be me. everyone likes you! people fear me!” he felt the way your body tensed, and your hand fell gently from his hair.
“i’m sorry. m’sorry, angel. i didn’t mean to shout.” he curled into your body, praying your hand would continue it’s path along his scalp. and it did. he knew you could never be angry with him, and in a way he took advantage of that.
“it’s okay. i know how difficult it is. but sod everybody else. let them fear you. they don’t know you like i do.” a drawn out sigh escaped him once more. he hated it. he hated the way you refused to think badly of him.
“what do you see in me, dove?” your hand stilled for a moment, your body twisting so you could look into his eyes. “everything they don’t.” mattheo’s eyes softened, and so did his heart. you had thawed the ice around it and taken it hostage. realistically he was a victim, but he’d happily play that role for you.
“you’re not as bad as everyone thinks you are, matt. you’re a good man. you’re not your father.” he huffed, digging his head further into your chest. his hand grasped your free one, playing with your fingers gently as a distraction. “i try to be good, dove. i really do.” you nodded knowingly, a soft pout on your lips as you traced the scars littering his skin gently. mattheo was in utter awe of you. how someone so soft, so kind, could’ve ever fallen in love with him. he was tainted black, kissed by the devil at birth. he’d never be able to love you the way you deserved. but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
“am i no good?” you gasped suddenly, sitting up and pulling the brunette boy with you. your hands came up to cup his cheeks, thumbs delicately brushing over his skin. “you are all the good in the world, mattheo. i hate that you can’t see it.” he could see the few tears welling up in your eyes, pushing them away gently with his thumbs. every word you said to him was sincere, it wasn’t in your nature to lie. you adored him, more than anything.
“i love you. and you love me. that’s all that matters, okay?” he nodded, eyes boring into your own.
“i do love you.”
“i know. now, please, can we go to sleep? i have potions in the morning and i absolutely cannot be late.” he chuckled slowly, pulling you into his chest and breathing in your scent. he must’ve been blessed by an angel at some point in his life to have found you. and that’s all he needed to think about. the devil worked hard, but you worked harder.
simon’s hands held your hips steadily as his cock pistons in and out of your sopping cunt. even with your own height his body almost completely envelopes yours, casting a huge shadow over you. “tha’s it, lovie. right there.” your hands are braced across his chest, pink nails digging into the skin leaving crescent marks across his already scarred flesh.
“s-si. mmmf. can’t..can’t take anymore.” he’d made you cum a record of four times already, and your body was beginning to falter on top of him. this only seemed to spur him on, as his hips thrusted up once more, cock hitting impossibly deep. every thrust kissed your cervix and massaged your sweet spot, and all you could do was drool and whine as you let him use you.
“jus’ one more. one more f’me, love. then i’ll fill you up, yeah?” you moan again, that tight coil in your stomach threatening to snap with each sharp thrust of his hips. he always knew exactly how to make you come undone, leaving you a whimpering, sopping mess on his cock.
he shifted slightly, his fat length hitting a new angle that made you squeal. the room was quiet apart from your desperate whines and the squelch of your cunt. his hand came down to slide between your two bodies, fingers finding your puffy clit and rolling the bud between his fingers. “thas it, feels good, hm? make a mess of that cock and i’ll fill you up.” all you could do was stutter out his name as you came down his length, your slick gathering on both your thighs.
“s-si! no more, please. jus’…jus’ want you…” you could barely string a sentence together, no coherent thoughts being formed in your mind as he seemed to piston even faster into you. soft groans had started to leave his lips now, and you knew he was close. his fingers were digging bruises into your hips, as he held you firmly down on his own.
with one last groan, he came. filling you up with his cum and holding you there. his hips were stuttering and you were whining as your head fell to his shoulder, completely fucked out. “let’s get you cleaned up, lovie.”
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