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❝You had stumbled into the forest half-dead, running from a husband who wore a badge and your bruises like trophies. When you collapsed past the tree line, you fell onto the land of Sukuna Itadori—a reclusive lumberjack with scarred hands and a silence that felt like a storm waiting to break.
Taking you in should have been temporary, but your presence turned his quiet world into something violent and fragile. As he hid you from the law that protected your abuser, protection twisted into obsession, and love became a dangerous vow. In the end, the story was never just about escape—it was about what Sukuna was willing to destroy, bury, and become to make sure the man who broke you never touched you again.❞
word count; 12.2k
cw ; abuse. smut. trauma. murder
main masterlist | series masterlist | next
A week after Sukuna found you in the trees, your bruises had begun to turn strange colors.
They went from violent purple to muddy green and yellow, like storms retreating in slow motion beneath your skin. You could stand now without the room spinning quite so badly. You could walk—carefully, slowly, with the kind of attention usually reserved for tightropes. Washing yourself in the bath had become possible again, though you still winced when cloth brushed certain places.
The ache was still there. But it had dulled into something you could live around.
Life in the little house settled into a quiet pattern.
In the mornings, the light slid in through the curtains in narrow bands, dust floating through it like slow snow. You woke to the smell of coffee and the low thud of Sukuna’s boots as he moved around the kitchen. Sometimes he left you a plate—toast with jam, or eggs if he’d been up long enough—but more often than not, he’d simply nod at you from the doorway before heading out, a thermos in one hand, his lunchbox in the other.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he would grumble if he caught you shuffling around too early.
“I can walk,” you’d answer softly, and he’d huff like that annoyed him and secretly relieved him at the same time.
During the day, the house belonged to you and the forest.
You learned its sounds—how the woodstove ticked as it cooled, how the trees outside sighed when the wind changed direction. When the pain in your limbs felt distant enough, you wandered out to the small patch of earth beside the house where wild grasses had shouldered their way up against the wall.
Sukuna’s wife had once planted things there, you could tell. You found the memory of her in faint lines of old beds, in the stubborn herbs that still tried to come back every year—sprigs of thyme, the ghost of mint, a lonely stalk of something you thought might be sage.
You knelt in the dirt with careful knees and coaxed it all back to life.
Your fingers dug into the soil, nails caked with dark earth as you pulled weeds, loosened roots, patted new seeds into place. Your body still protested when you bent too long, pain shivering through your ribs, but working slowly kept your mind from circling the same dark thoughts. Out here, there were no slamming doors. Just the sound of your own breath and the occasional crow calling from a branch.
Inside, you kept busy in other ways.
You cleaned, partly because the house needed it and partly because moving made you feel less like a ghost in borrowed clothes. You learned which cupboard held the plates, which drawer the utensils. You washed dishes, swept floors, shook out blankets. You found Sukuna’s wife everywhere you looked—in the floral plates, in the faded dish towels, in the books stacked neatly by the bed.
Her clothes became your clothes.
He’d kept all of them, folded and stored in the dresser and closet like she might walk through the door at any moment. At first, it felt wrong to touch them. But he had opened the drawers himself one morning, muttered, “These’ll fit you,” and left you there with his wife’s things and the sound of the front door closing behind him.
You chose the softest pieces—the long-sleeved dresses, the nightgowns, the thick sweaters that smelled faintly of old detergent and pine. The fabric hugged your curves, clinging a little at your hips and the round of your butt, hanging looser over your waist. Sometimes you caught yourself in the small bathroom mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back: pale skin, freckles, long ringlet curls that fell to your mid-back, eyes still bruised around the edges but clearer now.
At night, Sukuna came home smelling like the forest.
Sap, sawdust, sweat, cold air. He’d trudge in with dirt on his boots and shoulders slumped from the weight of the day. The first thing he always did was look at you—just one quick, assessing sweep from head to toe, checking for anything new in the way you held yourself, in the set of your shoulders.
“How are you?” he’d ask, as though it were a weather report he needed before he could rest.
“Better,” you’d say, and mean it.
He would disappear into the bathroom, and you’d hear water running, the pipes groaning. After his bath, he would come back out with his hair damp, a clean shirt clinging to his broad chest, his bare forearms lined with pale scars. Sometimes he cooked. Sometimes you did, leaning on the counter when your legs got tired. On nights when you managed, you made simple things—soup, rice, vegetables, the kind of food your mother had once taught you to make before she’d decided what a good marriage looked like.
You ate together on the couch, the little boxed TV flickering with old shows and news broadcasts from the year 2000. The world on the screen felt far away—bright stores, crowded streets, all of it down in the valley while you lived up here, above it all, in a house suspended in trees and silence.
The second week started like all the others.
The air had turned sharper, the kind that bit your cheeks and made your breath smoke even at noon. You spent the afternoon in the garden, tucking a few last seeds into the soil and covering them with careful hands. Your wrist still twinged when you pressed down too hard, and your ribs ached if you twisted too quickly, but the pain no longer swallowed you whole.
By the time the sky began to turn gold behind the mountains, you were back inside, wiping dirt from your fingers, the house warm from the woodstove.
You had just finished setting the table—two mismatched plates, two glasses of water, the pan of potatoes steaming gently on the stove—when the front door opened with a heavier push than usual.
You straightened from where you stood by the counter, fingers still wrapped around a dishcloth. “You’re home early,” you said.
He grunted, kicking his boots off with a little more force than necessary. They landed against the wall with a dull thud. He shrugged out of his work jacket, flinging it over the back of the chair, then scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Everything okay?” you asked, heart tightening. You had learned, in the last week, that his moods were usually steady—quiet, dry, occasionally grouchy, but never… rattled. Not like this.
He hesitated, gaze flicking to the window and then back to you.
“Your husband’s looking for you,” he said. The words came out blunt, like he didn’t believe in softening blows. “He’s been going around town all day, asking questions. Showing your picture. Making noise.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Your fingers clenched around the dishcloth, wringing it so tight your knuckles blanched. “Oh,” you whispered.
Small details came flooding back—your husband’s voice when he drank, the way he’d say your full name like it was a slur, the weight of his badge when it glinted on his chest. You pictured him walking into the diner on Main, into the hardware store, into the grocery, that picture in his hand, asking: Have you seen my wife?
“He came by the mill this afternoon,” Sukuna went on. “Showed the foreman your wedding photo. Asked if any of us had seen you on the road, in town, anywhere out this way.”
You swallowed, throat dry. “And you…?”
“I said no.” His mouth flattened. “So did the others.” He glanced toward the window again, something calculating in his expression. “But he’s not stupid. He knows she didn’t just evaporate. And he knows there’s only so many roads leading out of town.”
A cold shiver ran down your spine. “Do you think he’ll…?”
A knock interrupted you.
It was loud, sharp, demanding—fist on wood, once, twice, three times.
You jumped, the dishcloth slipping from your hands and falling to the floor.
Sukuna’s head snapped toward the door. His eyes narrowed, crimson darkening like storm clouds rolling over.
“Back room,” he said, voice low and immediate. “Now.”
Your heart raced so hard it hurt. “What if—”
“Y/n.” There was no room for argument in his tone. “Go.”
Your legs moved before your brain did.
You limped down the short hallway, the floorboards creaking under your bare feet. Your ribs twinged with each breath, your wrist throbbing in time with your pulse. Panic made everything tighter, more fragile. You reached the bedroom door and slipped inside, shutting it softly behind you.
The room was dim, lit only by the last of the evening light sneaking through the curtains. You stood there in one of his wife’s nightgowns—pale blue, with a little lace at the neckline—your hands shaking as you pressed your back against the wall.
Out in the living room, you heard the front door open.
“Evening,” came your husband’s voice. Smooth. Controlled. The tone he used when talking to neighbors, to your parents, to anyone who thought well of him. Underneath, though, you could hear the familiar strain—the tightness that meant the mask was only skin-deep.
“Can I help you?” Sukuna’s voice was lower, dryer. You pictured him standing there, broad and solid in the doorway.
“I sure hope so,” your husband drawled. “I’m going around to everyone in town, asking if anyone’s seen this person.”
There was a rustle of paper. You didn’t have to see it to know which picture he’d brought.
Your wedding photo.
You remembered the day it had been taken—your hair in loose curls, your dress too tight around the ribs, your smile a bit too bright. His hand had been on your waist, fingers pressing in just a fraction too hard, leaving faint half-moon indentations on your skin. You’d told yourself it was affection.
From the other room, Sukuna grunted.
He must have taken the picture between two fingers, lifted it, glanced at it. You could almost see the barest flicker of something move across his face when he saw you standing next to the man now at his door.
“No,” Sukuna said. “Haven’t seen her.”
A beat.
Your husband exhaled through his nose. “She’s my wife,” he said, voice still smooth but edged now with something sharp. “Ran off a couple weeks ago. No note. No call.” A pause. “You sure? She’s hard to miss. Green eyes. Brown curls. Soft little thing. Looks like she’d blow over in a good wind.”
Your muscles locked, the words digging under your skin like splinters.
“I said no,” Sukuna replied, tone flat.
There was the sound of your husband shifting his weight, boots scraping lightly on the porch. You heard him make a little thoughtful sound, and then—
“What about that?” he asked.
You froze.
“That what?” Sukuna said.
“That sweater.” You could hear the amusement now, the satisfaction of a man who thinks he’s caught someone in a lie. “On the arm of your couch. I recognize it.”
Your breath seized.
The sweater. The one with the little embroidered flowers along the hem—the one he had bought you right after you married. You’d found it at the bottom of your bag when you’d fled, thrown it over the arm of the couch earlier and forgotten to tuck it away.
“It was our anniversary gift,” your husband went on, tone turning smug. “Funny thing, seeing it up here in the middle of nowhere.”
Silence.
Then a soft, dangerous little sound that might have been Sukuna’s jaw tightening.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said evenly.
“Sure,” your husband said. The smoothness in his voice cracked. “You mind if I take a look around? Just to be sure?”
“No.”
“See, that right there sounds like a man with something to hide.”
You heard the creak of the floorboard near the doorway—your husband pushing past.
“Said no,” Sukuna repeated, louder this time.
A scuffle. The thud of bodies bumping. A muttered curse you recognized as your husband’s.
And then—you heard him.
“Hiding her back here, lumberjack?” he sneered, voice muffled as he moved down the hallway. “Got yourself a little housewife in the woods? That it?”
Your lungs refused to work.
The doorknob twisted.
The door flew open, slamming against the wall with a bang that made you flinch.
He filled the doorway, uniform neat, badge gleaming, hair slicked back. His eyes swept the room once, slow and hungry, then landed on you.
You stood there trembling in the nightgown, fabric clinging to the curve of your hips. Your hair fell around your shoulders in tangled ringlets, your bare feet pale against the wooden floor.
For a heartbeat, neither of you spoke.
Then he scoffed, a bitter laugh tearing out of him. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “You’re here. In some other man’s house. Wearing another woman’s nightgown.” His lip curled. “You whore.”
The word hit harder than any fist.
You flinched, tears springing into your eyes, your hands flying to cover your chest even though the nightgown was modest. “I—”
He closed the distance in three strides.
His hand clamped around your wrist, fingers digging into tender flesh already weakened by previous bruises. Pain shot up your arm, white-hot and immediate. You yelped, a small, broken cry.
“Do you have any idea,” he hissed, yanking you toward the hall, “what kind of trouble you’ve caused me? Running off like that? Making me look like a fool in front of the whole damn town?”
Tears blurred your vision as he jerked you out of the room, your bare feet skidding on the floorboards. You stumbled, ribs flaring in pain as you crashed against the doorframe.
“I’m sorry,” you sobbed, because the words came automatically. “Please, just—”
He dragged you into the hallway, his grip bruising, his body a solid wall of fury at your back.
You barely had time to register the figure at the other end of the hall before your husband halted.
Sukuna stood there.
He filled the space from wall to wall, shoulders squared, every line of his body carved in stone. His buzzed pale-pink hair was still damp from his earlier wash, darkened at the temples. His crimson eyes burned in the dim light, narrowed to slits.
In his hands, he held an axe.
It was the same one you’d seen him use to split logs—a heavy, well-worn thing with a stained wooden handle and a blade that caught the light like a promise. He held it low, one hand on the middle of the handle, the other near the base.
“Let her go,” Sukuna said.
The words were quiet. That made them worse.
Your husband snorted, the sound ugly. “This your new man, sweetheart?” he asked, giving your arm a little shake that sent pain racing up your shoulder. “You run off with the nearest piece of muscle you could find?” He raised his voice. “You know harboring a missing person is a crime, right, lumberjack?”
“Let. Her. Go,” Sukuna repeated, each word its own stone.
Your husband’s hand shifted.
You felt it before you saw it—the way his body turned, forcing your arm up sharply, twisting you off balance so you stumbled into his chest. His other hand moved to his belt, fingers curling around the shape you knew too well.
“Sukuna,” you choked, panic flooding you. “It’s okay, I’ll go with him, don’t—”
The metallic click of a gun being unholstered sliced through your words.
Your husband pulled the pistol free, the barrel glinting darkly even in the dim hallway.
He swung it up, arm locking, the muzzle pointing straight at Sukuna’s chest.
You froze.
“Sukuna, please!” you cried, tugging uselessly at your husband’s grip. “Just let him—”
“Shut up,” your husband snarled, jerking your wrist so hard you cried out. He dug his fingers deeper into your scalp with his other hand, grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking your head back until your neck screamed. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
Tears spilled hot and fast, your scalp burning, vision tilted.
“You come near my wife,” he said, voice low and deadly as he glared down the barrel at Sukuna, “and I’ll drop you. Right here in your own damn hallway.”
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Sukuna took a step forward.
The air changed. You felt it physically, like pressure dropping before a storm. Something in his posture shifted—no longer a man just home from work, but something older, colder, honed by years of carrying things heavier than this moment.
“Last warning,” he said.
Your husband’s fingers tightened around the gun.
The hallway felt too small. Your ears rang. Your heart hammered so loud you could barely hear your own ragged sobs. Every inch of your skin was awake with fear.
Your husband’s arm jerked.
The gunshot exploded, deafening in the narrow space—one sharp, cracking sound that tore through your ears and sank into your bones. You flinched violently, a scream ripping from your throat as your knees gave way.
You saw the bullet hit the wall just to Sukuna’s left, splintering wood, sending a puff of dust into the air.
“You missed,” Sukuna said.
There was no tremor in his voice. No flinch in his body.
He closed the distance between them in two long strides.
Everything happened at once, and nothing arranged itself clearly in your memory.
You felt your husband yank you to the side, trying to drag you into the bedroom as a shield. You heard your own voice—high, raw—begging, “Please, please, don’t hurt him, he didn’t do anything—”
The axe moved.
It came up and down in one fast, efficient arc, like when he split logs in the clearing. A heavy thunk, then a strangled scream, cut off so abruptly it left a space in the air where sound should have been.
Your husband’s grip vanished.
You dropped to the floor, your knees slamming into the wood, palms skidding. For a moment you thought you’d slipped, that his hand had simply lost its hold in his surprise. Then the screaming started—high, terrible, torn from a throat you knew too well.
You scrambled, blind with panic, crawling away without knowing where you were going. The hallway blurred. You saw a flash of red on the floor and looked away, gagging.
There were more sounds—scuffling, grunts, something heavy thudding against the wall. The gun clattered across the floorboards and hit your foot, spinning to a stop by the door.
Then… gurgling.
Wet and awful,. Like someone trying to breathe through water.
You clamped your hands over your ears.
“No, no, no,” you sobbed, rocking slightly where you’d ended up at the top of the short steps leading to the back door. Your husband’s voice choked, then broke apart, pieces of it dissolving into inhuman sounds and then into nothing at all.
And then there was silence.
Deep and complete.
You stayed there, on your knees, shaking so hard your teeth clicked. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called once, then went quiet. The house held its breath.
Behind you, there was a wet, final thud on tile.
You didn’t know how long you knelt there, hands over your ears, eyes squeezed shut. Seconds dragged into minutes that felt like hours. The smell of iron crept slowly into the air, turning the back of your throat metallic.
A shadow shifted in the periphery of your vision.
You peeled your hands away, fingers trembling, and turned your head.
Sukuna stood at the other end of the hall.
He was breathing hard, chest rising and falling, but not like a man overcome—more like someone bringing himself back down from something sharp and focused. Blood spattered his shirt, his arms, a streak across his jaw. None of it was his.
He looked at you first.
Not at what lay behind him on the tile, not at the gun on the floor. At you—curled at the threshold, pajama hem bunched around your knees, hair wild and tangled, eyes wide and wet.
He walked toward you slowly, boots sticking slightly with each step.
“Y/n,” he said, voice rough but gentle. “Look at me.”
You did.
Up close, you saw the anger still burning in his gaze, but it wasn’t uncontrolled. It wasn’t the kind that smashed things just to hear them break. It was banked now, turned outward, away from you.
“He’s gone,” Sukuna said.
The words hit you like a physical blow.
You sucked in a breath that turned into a sob. “I—” you tried, but your throat closed.
He crouched in front of you, the axe nowhere in sight now, his bloodied hands hovering an inch away from your shoulders, as if he wanted to touch you but didn’t want to smear the red on your skin.
“Can you stand?” he asked quietly.
You swallowed, looking down at your shaking legs. “I—maybe,” you whispered.
He nodded, lips pressing into a thin line. “I need to take care of this,” he said. “But I don’t want you out here while I do.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the hallway behind him, then back. “Think you can go to the bedroom? Close the door. Stay there.”
You stared past him for a fraction of a second, catching a glimpse of something pale and still on the floor, and immediately looked away, nausea surging.
“Y-yes,” you choked.
His gaze dropped to your wrist, where your husband’s fingers had dug in moments before. It was already swelling, angry red marks standing out against your pale skin. His jaw clenched. Then his gaze moved to your hair, where sections had been yanked free from their curl, the roots aching, your scalp burning.
“He hurt you,” Sukuna said, voice low.
You laughed weakly through your tears. “He always hur—”
“Not anymore,” he said, cutting you off.
He slipped one arm around your back, careful not to touch your sore ribs, and the other around your legs. Even covered in blood, his hands were gentle. He lifted you from the floor like he had done that first night, carrying you back down the hallway.
When he set you on the bed, he didn’t tuck the blankets around you this time. He just stepped back, giving you space, his broad chest rising and falling slowly.
“Stay in here,” he said. “No matter what you hear. Can you do that?”
You nodded, tears sliding sideways into your hair. “What are you going to do?” you whispered.
He glanced toward the door, expression hardening. “Make sure there’s nothing left to find.”
A shiver ran through you, but you understood.
The town loved a show. Loved gossip. Loved a man in a uniform and a woman they could point at. If your husband vanished into the woods and never came out—no body, no gun, no blood in a hallway—that was a different story than finding him in pieces in Sukuna’s home.
You swallowed. “Okay.”
He looked at you one more time, as if committing the sight of you breathing to memory, then stepped out and closed the door with a soft click.
You lay there listening.
At first there was nothing. Then the sounds began—dragging, heavy, like something being pulled across the floor. The scrape of tile. A muttered curse. The back door opening with a creak. The dull thump of weight hitting the ground outside.
You curled onto your side, clutching the pillow, pressing it over your ears whenever the noises got too vivid. Tears soaked the fabric, your breath catching on quiet sobs. Your body vibrated with a mess of emotions—horror, guilt, sickening relief, grief for something you’d never really had, gratitude so intense it felt like pain.
Time stretched and blurred.
Eventually, another sound joined the rest—the crackle of fire.
You smelled it before you fully registered it: smoke, thick and dark, threading its way through the crack under the door. Not the clean scent of burning logs from the woodpile, but something harsher underneath. You squeezed your eyes shut, knowing without wanting to that somewhere in that fire, your husband’s uniform, his badge, his body were disappearing into ash.
Two hours passed, maybe more.
When the noises finally stopped, the house settled into a tense, sticky quiet. Your throat felt raw from crying. Your head throbbed in dull pulses. The nightgown clung to your knees, damp not just from tears but from the bit of blood you’d knelt in without realizing.
You heard the back door open again. Boots on the threshold. The sound of something being dropped in a metal bin. Then the bathroom door shut, and the pipes rattled as water ran hard. You could picture him standing under it, scrubbing his skin until it no longer felt like someone else’s blood sat on top of it.
You couldn’t stay in the room any longer.
The walls felt too close. The air too thick.
You slid your legs over the side of the bed and pushed yourself up, wincing as your wrist twinged. Your scalp still hummed with pain where hair had been yanked, but the worst of the dizziness had passed. Step by careful step, you made your way to the door, fingers brushing the wood.
When you opened it, the house greeted you with silence and the faint smell of smoke.
You walked slowly down the hall, each creak of the boards loud in your ears. The living room looked almost normal—the couch slightly askew, the blanket you’d used earlier half on the floor. The sweater that had started all of this still lay where your husband had spotted it.
But the kitchen…
Your breath hitched.
There were streaks of brown-red on the tile floor, smears along the spot where the hallway met the room. Not as much as you’d expected—he had done most of whatever he’d done outside, you realized—but enough. Enough to mark what this house had just seen.
Your eyes filled.
He had killed for you.
Not in some abstract way. Not in a promise. In the most real, irreversible way there was. Your husband’s voice would never fill the kitchen again with shouted insults. His boots would never stomp down this hallway. His hand would never close around your wrist.
It was over.
Your chest constricted. You didn’t know how to hold that truth. It was too big, too heavy, too soaked in blood and mercy all at once.
You stepped forward.
The nightgown brushed the floor as you knelt, fabric dragging through a slick red smear. You didn’t care. You reached for the rag that had fallen earlier and picked it up with shaking fingers, dipping it into a bucket of water that sat by the sink.
You began to scrub.
Slow, small circles. The tile was cold under your palms. The smell of metal and smoke wrapped around you. Your fingers turned red, water pinking in the bucket as you rinsed and wrung out the rag again and again. Your knees ached, your wrist screamed, but you kept going.
You weren’t sure why. Maybe it was the need to do something, anything, that wasn’t just lying in the dark listening to the echoes of your husband’s last sounds. Maybe it was the instinct to clean up the messes men left behind, something you had always done without thinking.
Tears dripped off your chin, mixing with the diluted blood on the floor.
You were bent over the worst stain, scrubbing so hard your knuckles hurt, when you felt a shadow fall over you.
You looked up.
Sukuna stood in the doorway to the hall, hair damp and curling slightly against his scalp, skin scrubbed clean but still pink in places from the heat of the water. He’d changed into a fresh shirt and sweatpants, bare feet silent on the tile.
His eyes moved from your raw, red hands to the wet knees of the nightgown, stained with streaks of rusty color, then to the half-cleaned patch of floor.
His mouth thinned.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
You swallowed, scrubbing one last time before your wrist gave a sharp, protesting twinge. “Cleaning,” you whispered. “You… you saved me. You did that for me. I can at least…”
The words fell apart.
He crossed the space between you in a few strides and knelt, one large hand closing over yours—not hard, not tight, but firm enough to still your movements. The rag was warm and slick between your fingers.
“That’s enough,” he said quietly.
You looked at him, vision blurring. “I just… I didn’t know what else to do,” you admitted. “I couldn’t just lie there while you… while you—”
“I told you to stay in the room,” he said, but there was no anger in it. Only weariness. “You’ve done more than enough.”
He gently pried the rag from your hand, dropping it into the bucket with a soft splash. Your fingers were wrinkled and raw, little red lines where the tile had grabbed at them. He turned your hand over, thumb brushing lightly over the swelling on your wrist where your husband’s grip had been.
“Look at your hands,” he murmured. “They’re a mess.”
You laughed weakly through the tears, a broken little sound. “So’s everything else,” you said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Which is why you need to go get cleaned up.” He glanced at the floor. “I’ll take care of this.”
Guilt flared, hot and irrational. “I should help—”
“You shouldn’t,” he cut in. “You shouldn’t have to see any more of this than you already have.” His eyes met yours, steady and unflinching. “You’ve had enough blood in your life.”
Your chin wobbled.
He stood and held out his hand.
“Come on,” he said. “Bath’s still warm enough. Wash off what you can. Put on something clean. Let me handle the rest.”
You stared at his hand for a long second—the same hand that had held an axe hours ago, that had swung it with enough force to end a man. It was calloused and strong and far from gentle-looking.
And yet, every time it had touched you, it had only ever been careful.
You placed your raw, shaking fingers in his.
He pulled you up with ease, steadying you when your knees protested, keeping a hand at the small of your back as he guided you toward the hallway.
As you walked, you glanced once toward the dark rectangle of the backdoor window, where a faint orange glow still pulsed in the distance, the fire in the grass slowly eating what remained.
A shudder ran through you.
“You’re safe here,” Sukuna said quietly, as if he’d read the thought. “He’s not coming back. No one is taking you out of this house unless you want to go.”
Your throat closed around a sob.
“I know,” you whispered. “I just… don’t know how to feel.”
“You don’t have to know tonight,” he replied.
He led you to the bathroom, opening the door with his free hand. Steam ghosted out, carrying the gentle scent of soap.
“Go on,” he said. “I’ll finish cleaning up.”
You hesitated in the doorway, looking back at him. His face was tired, shadows under his eyes, but there was no regret there. Only a grim acceptance and something like fierce protectiveness.
“Thank you,” you said, the words too small for what he had done but all you had.
He shrugged, but his gaze softened for a fraction of a second.
“Get cleaned up, Y/n,” he said. “We’ll figure out the rest in the morning.”
You stepped into the bathroom, closing the door gently behind you.
Outside, the fire crackled. In the kitchen, a man wiped blood from tile. In the small, warm room, you stripped off the stained nightgown and lowered yourself into the water, letting it hold your bruised, shaken body as the first thin threads of a future without your husband began to stitch themselves together in the quiet.
The house felt different after the fire. It was quieter, somehow. As if something loud and ugly had been dragged out into the night and burned, leaving the walls to sag with the relief of it. The smell of soap clung to the air now more than smoke, the faint scent of pine and clean cotton. You sat on the edge of Sukuna’s bed with your damp hair pulled over one shoulder, wearing a fresh nightgown the color of cream, hands folded in your lap. They trembled anyway. You watched your fingers shake like they belonged to someone else. Your knuckles were sore and red, the skin across your palms raw. Your wrist pulsed, bruises blooming there where Hiroki’s grip had been. Your scalp still throbbed in aching lines where hair had been torn at the roots.
The door clicked softly.
You looked up.
Sukuna stood in the doorway, clean and changed again, like he’d scrubbed not just his skin but the whole night off of him. His pale pink hair was damp. He wore a dark T–shirt and sweats, his bare feet soundless on the floor. He took one look at you—your stiff shoulders, your wide eyes, your trembling hands—and stopped a few feet away.
Then he crouched.
He dropped down to your level slow and deliberate, folding his tall body until his eyes were level with your knees. He rested his forearms on his thighs, hands relaxed, palms open. It made him smaller, less looming. You noticed that he’d done it on purpose. “I told you not to clean,” he said quietly, you swallowed. “I… couldn’t just sit there,” you whispered. He sighed through his nose, but let it go. For a moment he just studied you. The nervous flutter of your fingers. The way your toes curled against the floor. The tight pinch at the corners of your mouth like you were still bracing for the next blow. “What I’m about to say,” he began, “you’re not gonna like.” Your heart dropped. “You’re… sending me away?” you asked, voice a thin thread. “You said—”
“I’m not sending you back to him, he’s gone.” he cut in, firm enough that the floor seemed to hold steady again. “That hasn’t changed. I meant what I said.” He paused, eyes flicking briefly to the window, as if measuring the tree line and all the things beyond it. “But we can’t pretend tonight didn’t happen. And we can’t pretend we don’t live in a town that likes to stick its nose where it doesn’t belong.” A chill crept up your spine. “I don’t understand,” you said. He waited a beat, as if choosing his words carefully. “If people start connecting me, you, and Hiroki all up here in the woods,” he said, “they’re gonna ask questions. The wrong kind. Questions that end with you in handcuffs, or both of us, while a bunch of men decide if it was ‘self-defense’ or not.” You flinched at the word handcuffs, imagining them closing around your wrists. “But I didn’t do anything,” you whispered.
“I know that,” he said, eyes holding yours steady. “You know that. The floor knows that.” His jaw tightened. “Cops don’t always care. Especially not about some drunk colleague who vanished after his wife ran out.” He let that sink in. Your stomach turned. “So… what do we do?” He shifted his weight, knees creaking softly. “I’m going to take you back to your house,” he said. Your entire body recoiled before your mind caught up. “No,” you said, the word breaking out of you, raw and immediate. “No, I can’t—he—he’s there, he’s everywhere—”
“He’s not there,” Sukuna said, not unkindly, but not gently either. Just steady. “He’s not anywhere anymore. I made sure of that.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You’re not going back to him. You’re going back to four walls and a roof with your name on the lease and a town that needs to see you walk out the front door again.” Tears blurred your vision. “I don’t want it,” you whispered. “I don’t want that life. I don’t want that house. I don’t want to be his wife anymore.”
“You’re not,” he said. “By the time this is done, you won’t be.” He leaned in a little, but not enough to crowd you. “But right now, on paper, you still are. And if you just disappear into these trees forever, guess who the town looks at.”
You.
You saw it then, the way stories formed in people’s mouths. Wife runs off. Husband disappears. Strange man in the woods. It would be so easy for them to twist it, to turn you from victim into monster. To pretend they hadn’t seen the bruises spreading across your cheek.
Your nails dug into your palms. “What… what do I say?” He held your gaze, his crimson eyes calm, even as something darker simmered beneath. “You go home,” he said. “You unlock the door. You go back in like a woman who got scared and ran away for a while, and then remembered she has bills and a life in town.” His mouth curved, not in a smile, but in something like grim amusement. “You act like everything is… not alright, exactly, but normal enough.” You swallowed. “And when they ask?”
“You tell them the truth,” he said. “Just not all of it.” He counted on his fingers, slow. “You tell them Hiroki’s a drunk. You tell them he disappears, that he blacks out, that he doesn’t know where you are half the time. You tell them that you thought maybe it was your fault, that you were confused, so you went to stay with some relatives for a bit. You don’t give details. Let them fill in the blanks with whatever makes them feel smartest.” Your throat tightened. “Won’t that make me look… bad?”
“It’ll make you look like a scared wife who left a dangerous man for a while and then came back because she didn’t know where else to go.” He shrugged slightly. “Which you are. Or were. That’s a story they understand. It’s neat. They can fit it into their heads and go back to their own dinners.” You stared at the wall past his shoulder, vision hazy. “And him?” you asked. “What about… his body?” His jaw clenched.
“I burned most of him,” he said, voice going low and flat. “But I kept something.” You swallowed hard. “What?” He exhaled through his nose, eyes momentarily flicking away. “His hand.” You flinched, stomach lurching. “I’m going to take it down past the ridge,” he went on, as if discussing firewood. “There’s a drainage ditch out that way that the road crews never bothered to fix. Animals go through there. Water, too, when it rains. If I toss it there tonight, something will find it. Drag it. Spread the scent.” You pressed a hand to your mouth. “Eventually,” Sukuna said, “someone’s gonna notice. Some hunter. Some kids messing around where they shouldn’t. They’ll call it in. Cops will come dig around.” His eyes were cold now, but his voice stayed calm. “They’ll find a rotting hand with a familiar wedding band and a very familiar fingerprint.” Your mind conjured the image in spite of itself: the metal of the ring, the chewed flesh, the way the town would react. “You think they’ll know it’s him?” you murmured. “They’ll know,” he said. “A missing officer? A hand in the ditch? They’ll test it, write up a report, and what they’ll see is simple.” He spread his fingers, laying out the scene. “A drunk with a badge. A man with too many enemies. A man who started too many fights he couldn’t finish. They’ll say he could have been rolled by anyone—some angry ex-con, someone he arrested, someone he cheated, someone he hit.” His lip curled. “They won’t be wrong.” You shivered. The idea of Hiroki’s enemies—names you’d never heard, faces you’d never see—carried their own kind of ghost.
“But you,” he said, voice softening as he looked back at you, “are not going to be one of those enemies. Not on paper. Not in their eyes. You’re going to be the poor wife everyone feels sorry for.” The words landed like something heavy in your lap. “You’ll be a widow,” he said, matter-of-fact. “They’ll bring you the news. They’ll say ‘We found something, ma’am,’ and they’ll stumble through their condolences, and they’ll look at your fading bruises and your popped eye vein and the way your hands shake, and they’ll start rewriting their own memories. They’ll decide he drank more than they realized. That maybe they heard rumors about his temper. That maybe they should have said something sooner.” He released a slow breath. “They’ll do all that work by themselves. You just have to stand there and let them.” You stared at him, tears pricking your eyes again. “You sound so sure,” you whispered. “I know this town,” he said simply. “It likes easy stories.” He nodded toward you. “And you—you’re an easy person to pity. Soft voice, bruises, quiet little face.” He shrugged one shoulder. “They’ll want to believe you. They’ll feel better about themselves if they do.”
You looked down at your hands, still trembling in your lap. “I don’t know if I can do it,” you admitted. “Go back there. Sleep in that house. Wait while they… look.” He didn’t try to tell you it would be easy. He didn’t lie. “It’s going to be hell,” he said. “But it’ll be temporary hell. And once it’s done—once they call it, once they write the file and close the case—we move you out of there.”
“We?” you echoed. He held your gaze. “We.” A pause. “I told you, you could stay here as long as you want. That hasn’t changed.” Something in your chest cracked open. You blinked hard, vision swimming. “I’m… scared,” you whispered, because that was the truest thing in you just then. “I’m so scared. What if they know? What if someone saw? What if I say the wrong thing, or… or look the wrong way?”
He leaned in a little, but still kept that small pocket of space between you, like a respectful border. “They won’t know,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t go anywhere near that ditch. You never touched that axe. The worst you ever did was run into the trees while he went to the bar.” His voice softened at the edges. “And if you’re scared, that’s fine. You should be. Just let it show. Let them see you tremble. Let them see your hands shake when you sign the papers. It’ll only make their story stronger.” You let out a ragged, wet breath that might have been a laugh in some other life. “You make it sound like a script,” you said. “It is,” he replied. “All of this is theater to them. Let them have their show.” You were quiet for a moment, listening to the house creak around you, to the faint rush of the trees outside.
“What do I do tonight?” you asked, voice small. “Right now?”
“Tonight,” he said, “you sleep.” His mouth quirked. “Or you try to. Tomorrow, I take you down to your house at first light. We make sure you get in without anyone noticing me. You get your bearings. You breathe.” He paused. “I’ll go deal with the… rest.” You swallowed. “His… hand.”
“Yeah.” His jaw hardened. “The sooner it’s gone, the better.” He pushed himself up from his crouch, joints cracking softly. For a moment he just stood there, looking down at you, at the way the nightgown pooled around your thighs, at your bare feet tucked under the blanket.
“You’re shaking again,” he said, noticing the tremor you couldn’t quite hide. “I’m fine,” you lied automatically. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re not,” he said. “But you will be. One day.” You had no idea how you were supposed to get from here to that mythical “one day.” But you held onto the promise of it anyway, because he offered it like a rope in a river.
He turned toward the door, then paused. “Y/n,” he said, you looked up. “When this is over,” he said slowly, “and they stop asking questions… you’re not going back to being his wife. Not in anyone’s story. You understand?” Your throat felt tight. You nodded. “You’re going to be a woman who survived,” he added, almost grudgingly, like he didn’t like big words but forced himself to say it anyway. “Even if that doesn’t feel like it right now.” You blinked, tears finally spilling over. “Thank you,” you whispered, for the plan, for the brutality of his kindness, for the fact that you were alive to be terrified at all. He grunted, as if accepting thanks made him vaguely uncomfortable. “Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll wake you early.”
Then he left, the door closing softly behind him, leaving you alone with your pounding heart and the echo of what he’d just promised:
You’ll be a widow.
You’ll be safe.
You’ll have somewhere to go.
The morning came gray and thin. Mist clung to the trees, ghosting around their trunks as if the forest was still deciding whether to reveal the day. You rode beside Sukuna in his old pickup, your hands clenched in your lap, your body swaddled in one of his wife’s thick cardigans over your plain dress. The closer you got to town, the more your chest tightened. You saw familiar landmarks—Old Man Harada’s broken fence, the faded billboard for a soda company no one stocked anymore, the dip in the road where rainwater always collected. Your house appeared slowly, pulled into view by the curve of the street—a squat little thing with chipped paint and a crooked porch light. Your stomach flipped. Sukuna pulled the truck over half a block away, behind a row of scrubby trees that half-hid the view.
“You remember what you’re going to say if anyone asks?” he asked, you nodded, swallowing hard. “He’s a drunk,” you recited quietly. “He disappears. I thought it was my fault, so I went to stay with relatives for a while, but I came back because I didn’t know what else to do. I haven’t seen him since.” He nodded. “Good.”
“And if they ask about… him?” you added, flicking your eyes to his. “Nobody’s gonna ask you about me,” he said. “They don’t know I exist, remember? I’m just some guy up in the trees who built their station and delivers lumber once in a while.” His mouth twisted. “They barely look at me now.” Your fingers tightened in the cardigan. “Will I… see you?” you asked, hating the way the question came out small and childish. He considered you for a moment. “For a while, no,” he said. “Not in town. Not where anyone can link us together. But you’ll know where I am.” He jerked his chin toward the mountains. “And when the case is closed, I’ll come get you. You won’t have to ask.” You took a shaky breath. “Okay.” He killed the engine. The silence that followed hummed loud in your ears.
“Go,” he said quietly. “Before someone sees this truck.” You nodded again, hand on the door handle, frozen for one heartbeat more. Then you opened it and stepped out, the cold air biting your cheeks. The cardigan swished around your thighs as you walked, each step up the cracked sidewalk feeling heavier than the last.
You didn’t look back.
The house key was still in your pocket, exactly where you’d left it that night you ran. Your fingers fumbled with it, slipping once before sliding it into the lock. The door opened with a familiar creak. The smell hit you first. Stale beer. Unwashed clothes. The faint tang of something that had spoiled in the trash. You swallowed bile, stepping inside. The couch still had the dent where he used to sit. An empty bottle lay on its side on the coffee table, a little ring of dried amber around the mouth. You shut the door behind you and leaned against it, closing your eyes.
I’ll go back with him. Don’t hurt Sukuna.
Your own words echoed in your head, overlapping with the memory of boots, the gunshot, the gurgling. You pressed your hand to your chest, feeling your heart beating hard and fast, and forced yourself to move. You opened windows. You took out the trash with shaking hands. You found the sheets on the bed twisted and stained and stripped them without letting your eyes linger. You cleaned like a woman in a trance, and when the knock finally came that afternoon—lighter, more tentative—you were almost grateful for the interruption. It was the neighbor—Mrs. Ito, with her cardigan buttoned wrong and her mouth already forming questions. Behind her, you saw others watching. Curious. Concerned. Hungry for a story.
“Y/n,” she breathed, clutching at her chest. “You’re back. Where have you been? Hiroki’s been tearing the town apart—” Your hands shook on the edge of the door. “I… I went to stay with my aunt,” you lied softly, sticking to the script. “Just for a while.”
“Your aunt?” she repeated. “In the next town over,” you nodded. “Hiroki’s been… he drinks a lot.” The words tasted strange and dangerous, but once you said them, others tumbled after. “Sometimes he doesn’t even remember where I am. He wakes up and doesn’t know what day it is.” You swallowed, eyes burning. “I thought it was my fault. That I wasn’t… that I didn’t… I just needed to breathe.” Her face changed.
It was subtle at first—the tilt of her brows, the way her mouth softened. But behind her, you saw a few of the others exchange looks. You watched the quiet click of thoughts rearranging themselves. “Oh,” Mrs. Ito said. “Oh, honey.” Their eyes flicked to your face then, tracking the fading bruise on your cheek, the yellowed shadow along your jaw, the popped vein that still left a red web around your right eye. You saw the exact moment some of them realized those weren’t from walking into doors.
They didn’t say that, of course.
They brought food. They asked careful, circling questions. They clucked their tongues about how Hiroki “always did drink a little too much,” how they’d “noticed him getting rough around the edges lately.” No one had noticed enough to help you before. But now, with your trembling hands and your quiet voice, they couldn’t seem to stop noticing. You stuck to your story. You didn’t mention the woodsmoke that didn’t come from your stove. You didn’t mention crimson eyes or a house in the trees. You woke up sweating most nights, still hearing the echo of a gunshot that had missed by half a wall.
Days turned into weeks.
You went to the grocery store, pushing the cart slowly, flinching when the wheels squeaked too loud. People began to speak to you in that voice reserved for the bereaved and the fragile. They offered to carry your bags. They asked if you needed anything. They whispered to each other when they thought you couldn’t hear.
“He’s gonna get himself killed, drinking like that.”
“I heard he pulled his gun on someone in the bar last month.”
“You see the way she flinches? Poor thing. Must have been hell.”
You kept your head down, heart pounding. You bought potatoes and rice and sometimes a small piece of meat. You cooked for one. Then, one wet morning a month later, there was another knock at your door. This one you recognized before you even opened it—the slow, steady rhythm of knuckles that knew their own authority. When you pulled the door back, two officers stood there. One was Hiroki’s partner—a man you’d seen at barbecues, who had clapped Hiroki on the shoulder and laughed at his jokes. The other was a sergeant you knew only by sight. They both looked… uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Tanaka,” the sergeant said, clearing his throat. “May we come in?” Your fingers tightened on the edge of the door, but you stepped aside. They sat at your kitchen table, hats in their hands, eyes flicking around the small, tidy space that had once smelled like spilled beer and anger and now smelled faintly of cleaning products and the soup you’d made for yourself the night before. “Is this about Hiroki?” you asked quietly, standing because you couldn’t bear to sit. They exchanged a glance. “We… found something,” the partner said. The sergeant set a small folder on the table, but didn’t open it. “We’re still waiting on final confirmation,” he said, “but… a hand was found out past the ridge. The ring matches his wedding band. The fingerprints…” He trailed off. “We’re ninety-nine percent sure it’s his.” Your knees went weak.
You grabbed the back of the chair, sitting without remembering the transition. Your hands trembled so visibly that the partner looked away for a moment, as if ashamed.
“We’re so sorry, ma’am,” he said, his voice softer than you’d ever heard it. “We know this must be a shock.” You let your eyes fill, not having to reach far for tears. They were always there these days, just beneath the surface. “How?” you whispered. The sergeant cleared his throat. “We don’t know yet,” he said. “He’s…” He struggled for a neutral word and failed. “…He’s had some altercations. Made enemies. Could be anyone. Could be something as simple as him stumbling out drunk on the wrong side of town one night.” He shook his head. “We’ll investigate, of course, but… right now we’re treating it as a probable homicide.” Your vision blurred. Images of blood on tile and fire in the grass flashed behind your eyes. “A hand,” you repeated numbly. “Yes, ma’am,” he said gently. “It’s… not ideal. But it’s enough for us to declare him deceased. You’ll get the official paperwork in a few days. There’ll be some insurance things to sort out, pension—which we’ll help you with. You don’t have to worry about that right now.”
They watched you tremble. Watched your eyes drift to the floor. Watched your fingers twist in the hem of your cardigan. “You’re safe now,” the partner said, and you heard something there—a regret, a late realization. “He can’t… come home and hurt you anymore.” It was true. And yet the words made your stomach turn. You nodded slowly, letting the tears spill, not bothering to wipe them away. “I didn’t want this,” you said, and it was true in its own way. “I didn’t…”
“We know,” the sergeant said. “No one is saying you did.” He stood, placing a card on the table. “If you think of anything that might help the investigation, you call. If you remember someone he fought with, someone who threatened him…” He held your gaze. “But you focus on taking care of yourself now. Alright?” You nodded again. They left you there in the kitchen, the card staring up at you from the table like a small, white accusation. Through the window, you saw them stop at Mrs. Ito’s house next door. Saw the way she put her hand over her mouth. Saw the way her eyes flicked toward your home, full of pity now instead of curiosity.
The story had settled.
Hiroki Tanaka, drunk and mean, dead in a ditch. Y/n Tanaka—widowed, bruised, too soft for the man she’d been given to. Case closed.
You were free. You sat there for a long time, listening to the clock tick, your hands trembling around a cup of tea that had gone cold.
When the knock came two weeks later, it was different again. Firm, but not official. Familiar in a way that made your heart leap into your throat.
You opened the door.
Sukuna stood on your porch, one hand shoved into the pocket of his jacket, the other resting on the edge of a cardboard box. His truck idled at the curb, bed already loaded with a few taped-up boxes you recognized as your own. “Got your letter,” he said simply. You had written it in a moment of shaky resolve, three days after the officers left. Just a few lines, left under a rock at the edge of the tree line like he’d told you to.
They closed the case.
They said he’s dead.
If your offer still stands… I want to come home.
Home.
The word had shocked you even as you wrote it. Now, looking at him on your porch with his quiet eyes and his truck and his broad shoulders taking up too much space in the doorway, it didn’t feel as wrong. “You sure about this?” he asked. “Leaving this place?” You glanced over your shoulder at the interior of the house—the couch that still smelled like stale beer no matter how much you scrubbed, the walls that still remembered every shout. The emptiness of it now that it held just you and the echoes. “Yes,” you said, more firmly than you’d said anything in weeks, he nodded once. “Then grab what you want,” he said. “Rest can rot.” You packed slowly, methodically. Clothes first—your own, still in the drawers, folded around the edges of uniforms you left where they were. Books that had been yours before the marriage. The chipped mug your mother had given you when you were eighteen. A photo of you as a teenager, hair short and wild, eyes still bright.
You didn’t pack your wedding album.
Sukuna moved through the house with an efficiency that almost hurt to watch. He carried boxes out like they weighed nothing, loaded them in the truck bed, tied them down with thick ropes. He barely glanced at the framed pictures on the walls, at the indentation on the couch, at the dent in the drywall where a glass had once shattered. When you emerged from the bedroom with a final box in your arms, he met you halfway down the hall and took it from you without comment, his fingers brushing yours for just a second—calloused and solid, grounding you in the moment. “Anything else?” he asked, you looked around. There would always be something else. Some piece of yourself you’d left behind. Some memory lodged in the floorboards. But nothing you wanted enough to stay. “No,” you said. “That’s it.” He nodded. You stood in the doorway for a moment, hand on the frame, looking at the small, shabby living room where you had cried and cooked and flinched for two years. Where you had once believed this was where your life would be lived, for better or for worse.
“Goodbye,” you whispered, to the walls, to the girl who had stood here in a white dress and told herself it would be okay, you closed the door. Sukuna drove you out of town in silence, the truck rattling over familiar potholes. The houses thinned, the trees grew thicker. The mountains rose up to meet you, older than any badge or rumor. You watched the town shrink in the side mirror, until it was just a smudge of roofs and smoke. When the road turned to dirt and the forest opened up to reveal his clearing, something inside your chest loosened. His house looked the same—dark wood, sloping roof, smoke curling from the chimney. Your garden patch waited by the side, new green shoots poking through the soil you’d turned with your own hands weeks ago.
He parked, killed the engine, and hopped out, coming around to open your door. The air smelled like pine and cold and the promise of spring. “Welcome back,” he said, like he was saying, Welcome home. You stepped down from the truck, the ground solid beneath your feet. For the first time in a long time, the sight of a front door didn’t make your stomach twist. “You can stay here as long as you want,” Sukuna repeated, the same words he’d offered you when you were shaking on his bed, when the world had still been full of boots and shouting. “No one’s gonna come looking for you up here. Not now.” You looked at the house, at the garden, at the mountains that ringed this place like a quiet, watchful wall. You looked at him—at the man who had washed your hair, who had killed for you, who had planned the story that let you walk out of your old life alive.
“I don’t know how long that is,” you said honestly. “What I want.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “We’ve got time.” He grabbed the nearest box from the truck bed and jerked his head toward the house. “Come on. Let’s get your stuff inside before the neighbors you don’t have complain.” You laughed, a small, surprised sound that felt unfamiliar in your mouth and yet… right. You followed him up the path, your heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with fear this time, and stepped over the threshold into a life that—however borrowed it felt in someone else’s nightgown and someone else’s house—was finally, undeniably, yours. The door closed behind you with a soft click. Outside, the trees whispered in the mountain wind, keeping their own counsel as they always had. Inside, a new story began to take shape, quiet and slow, one day at a time.
stormborns
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