description -> there wasn't much you and frat boy!sukuna ryomen had in common...except your mutual disdain for partner projects. (un)luckily for the two of you, fate has a way of bringing together the seemingly incompatible. but as the project continues and studying sessions involve less and less studying, you both discover you're learning more about yourselves than the subject matter at hand...
word count -> 7.3k
cw -> kissing || smut (finally!) || dry humping || cunnilingus || mutual masturbation || multiple orgasms || p in v penetration || unprotected sex (you have been warned, this chapter it literally 80% smut) || small fluff at end :)
enjoy pookies! thanks for being so patient and sticking with me for so long - hope you enjoy but also please be gentle bc this is my first time writing smut lol
part eight || part nine || part ten
Sukuna could count on his hands the number of times in his life he’d been nervous. Once, when he was the ring bearer for his older brother’s wedding. The two gold bands sat on top of a red cushion and probably cost more than anything Sukuna had ever held before, and he spent the whole time thinking how much of an idiot his brother was trusting him to walk down the aisle without majorly fucking something up. The second time would have been when Yuji was born, and Jin brought him home from the hospital. Small, frail, and pale, with the signature pink tufts of hair and the softest look on his face, his big grey eyes unscathed, full of curiosity. Jin asked if he wanted to hold him, and Sukuna protested, having never held anything so gentle at such a destructive time in his life. Jin insisted and handed the bundle over carefully, with Sukuna clutching the baby close to his chest, not even breathing in fear of disturbing Yuji’s peaceful slumber.
The third time? Probably now, when you, staring at him with sultry eyes that stopped him in his tracks, walked backward into your apartment with an invitation that he was ready to beg for on his hands and knees weeks ago, with your last line hitting him like bricks to the chest.
Why don’t you come inside and find out?
He nodded dumbly, his mind wiped clear. His body moved on autopilot, his feet stepping before his brain could catch up. He felt your hand slide around his wrist, pulling him into your apartment, like his legs weren’t moving fast enough for either of your liking. He looked down at you, and a giggle escaped your lips.
“Don’t get all shy on me now.”
His mouth was dry.
God, you would be the death of him.
“You nervous or something?”
Fuck, was it obvious?
“No. Just…letting you take the lead.”
You hummed in approval, turning back around, your hand still encircling his as you led him through the front door and to your couch. You turned around, facing him again, gazing up through your lashes, your wide eyes hypnotizing. Sukuna felt himself leaning in and down to your face before you pressed a finger to his chest. He grunted in protest, irritation evident. You only offered a small smile.
“Sit.”
He sat.
Your smile widened. “You listen so well,” you commented, taking small steps forward, still standing, now slightly positioned between his open legs.
“Don’t start.” He took his hands and dragged them up and down your calves, his fingers drumming the back of your knees. His touch was instinctual, your body like a magnet, an attraction his body could not fight any longer.
He had to touch you. He was scared he might combust if he didn’t do so any longer.
“You gonna sit too?”
“Eventually.” You leaned forward, bracing your body on the back of the couch behind Sukuna. He leaned back in tandem, his eyes dark, pupils blown, legs stretching open wider as you brought your knee up, its weight sinking into the couch cushion, dangerously close to his crotch. “I just wanna make some things clear with you.”
He nodded, his hands slowly moving up from your calves to the back of your thighs. You could feel the heat of his hands through the fabric of your jeans, and your chest rose and fell at the memory of when he had his hands last on you. You dragged your other knee up, now fully in a straddling position, and brought your hands down, your fingers playing with the curls at the back of his neck. You saw his Adam’s apple bob as he kept his eyes on you, flicking down to your lips and back up, tracing the planes of your face. His hands kept roaming, the pads of his fingers still curled into your thighs. You hovered above, not fully sitting, teasing, not giving either what you wanted, what you came for, until you laid out stipulations on the table.
You weren’t sure where this confidence was coming from. Maybe it was the liquor running through your veins, liquid courage to get you kneeling above Sukuna, with him, his body so pliant underneath you. Or maybe it was the realization that you held the cards; you always did. For so long, you felt subject to the whims of the wind, where it blew you was the direction you stumbled in, but here, in your apartment, on your couch, with Sukuna looking up at you like you hung his moon and stars, and holding you like you would vanish at any second, you left the power of his desire rush to your head.
“I know you haven’t done this before, but I don’t like to share.” You started. Your thumb rubbed gently up and down the column of his neck, and he licked his lips, forcing his eyes back on yours. “If we’re gonna do this, I need to be it for you.”
“You’re it for me.” He repeated immediately. His earnestness made your lips curl up. “It’s only you,” he said, his voice raspy and low. His hands tightened around your thighs, pulling you impossibly closer. He felt starved like a madman, so hungry, so delirious that he thought you could get him to say anything you wanted. Blood had been rushing south ever since you wrapped your arms around his, and it had only gotten worse when he stepped foot in your apartment, your warm scent like an aphrodisiac, an addiction he wanted to bury himself in. He’d never been reduced to such a state, just pure putty in your hands, and yet, he’s right where he wants to be.
“I only want you.” His hands travelled further up, now resting on your hips, his thumbs sliding just underneath the hem of your white tank, lighting your skin underneath on fire. You inhaled shakily as he brought his head forward and down in solemn devotion, pressing the smallest kiss to your navel, right where the smallest strip of skin was visible between your shirt and jeans. Heat pooled deep, burrowing itself in your core, and you felt your heartbeat quicken, your blood like magma, carrying arousal throughout your being. He looked up at you through his lashes, a desperate craving puddling in his eyes like red rivers, their depth calling to you with the most primal tune that strummed through your entire body, a siren’s cry tantalizing you both.
“Please.” His voice cracked under the weight of his desire. ”Let me show you.”
You both were on the edge. Sukuna was like a chained dog, your leash wrapped around his collar, eyes set on the prize, waiting for the magic words to release him from this prison of torment. Your body, so close to his, your vanilla and hazelnut scent dizzying him so much he couldn’t think straight, the heat from your body and the feel of your fingers on his neck nearly burning him from how good the sensation is. His hands flexed on your sides, and his neck craned up, veins popping from the side as he strained his neck to reach for you.
“Please.”
A cord in you splintered. Your eyes, half lidded, were laser-focused on his. Slowly, agonizingly, you began to sink, dropping your weight on his lap, bringing your mouth closer to his face. Your breath was hot as it fanned over his skin, your whisper sending a shiver down his spine as you brought your lips to his ear.
“Fine. Show me.”
His reaction was immediate. With permission finally granted, his control snapped, leaving behind something animalistic and raw and dripping with want. It washed over and overwhelmed you, both too much and not enough, hot and heavy and everything you two had been craving.
He pulled your body down the rest of the way, refusing to deny himself the closeness of you on him. You gasped as you felt all of him beneath you, the sinewy muscle of his thighs and his hard center, pressing and pulsing against your heat. He swallowed up your gasp in a kiss, devouring the small noises you made when you finally made contact. Your eyes fluttered shut, as if depraving one of your senses would help you control yourself, but you couldn’t help your movements – your hands pulling at the hair at the nape of his neck, lifting his head back and deepening the kiss, your small turns as you nipped at each other’s lips, noses and foreheads brushing, your hips shifting back and forth, trying to relieve the smallest bit of pressure built up from weeks of yearning. His hand came around the back of your neck, his fingers buried in your hair as if he couldn’t bear for you to be further away for a second. His other hand came down to the top of your thigh, guiding you back and forth on his lap. The slight vibrations and the friction of your clothing rubbing against each other sent your heads spinning. He groaned inadvertently when you shifted over his bulge, and his grip tightened in your hair and on your hip, signaling you to move faster.
You broke the kiss for air, and he chased you forward, eyes glassy and pleading as you pulled back, chest heaving. You stared deep into his eyes, the darkest shade of red you had ever seen them, so dark they seemed practically black. He breathed out, voice and expression fucked out, even when you had barely touched. “What’s wrong?”
“Take off your shirt.”
His dick twitched. Like he was cast under a spell, he grabbed the bottom of his shirt, tugging it off and throwing it on the end of the couch, already feigning to get your lips back on his. He kissed you, sucking on your bottom lip as he took your hands, guiding them where he needed them, dragging them down the expanse of his chest, the feeling on your hands on his skin like euphoria, better than anything he could have ever dreamed.
“Touch me,” he whispered against your lips, his words littered between breathless kisses. “Anywhere. Anywhere you want. I need to feel you.”
Your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest. Greedily, you ran your hands along his skin, feeling every inch of his sculpted, toned body, his heat warming your insides. Your hands gripped his shoulders as you steadied yourself, grinding down on his crotch. He threw his head back, groaning, both hands shooting up to rest on your hips.
“Fuck,” he gritted out, your name coming out like a prayer. “Keep moving.”
You couldn’t stop even if you wanted to. You shifted your hips back and forth, your pace quickening as Sukuna assisted, little whimpers falling from your mouth as you launched yourself forward, burying your face in his neck. You flushed, too overcome with the sensations your body was feeling. Your breath became labored as you tried to control the searing hot ripple bubbling in your stomach. Sukuna took the opportunity to pull you closer, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your neck, nipping your skin everywhere you were sensitive, thrusting up into you, hardly reigning in his lust.
You dragged your hand down his chest, running over the ridges of his abdomen, curiosity and ardor clouding your mind as your fingers brushed over his clothed dick. You short-circuited when you felt him beneath you, how big and thick and hard he was, just from the little you had done.
He took your hand in his and guided it, rubbing it over himself, voice strained like a rubber band pulled taut. “You see that? You feel that?”
You nodded, unable to speak.
“That’s what you do to me.”
“God, Kuna, please, I – ” you whined, mind too foggy to even know quite what you were asking for.
“That’s how you make me feel.” His mouth only moved more ardently, sucking and nipping, glossing over the marks he was leaving with his tongue, the hot, biting sensation soothed by the gentlest kiss. You moaned when his lips found the back of your ear, the underside right near your lobe, so sensitive that when he pressed his lips there, you felt like your body underwent a factory reset, shuddering in his lap.
“You drive me fucking crazy.”
The coil in your stomach reared back like a viper about to pounce. Another grind along your core hit exactly where you needed it to, and your neck craned back in pleasure. A high-pitched whine escaped from your throat, and your eyes squeezed shut. “God, Kuna, I’m – ”
You felt him grunt against your chest, his arm wrapping around your waist. You yelped when you felt him stand beneath you, your arms flinging back to his neck, and your legs immediately wrapping around his hips. He carried you, supporting your weight with one hand as he made his way through your apartment, pushing your bedroom door open, still peppering kisses along your neck and jaw. Your head swam from the sudden loss of stimulation, and when your back hit the cushiony plush of your comforter, your legs hanging off the edge of the bed, you leaned up, resting your weight on your forearms to stare at Sukuna, who towered above you.
You blinked slowly, trying to steady yourself. “What – what’re you – ”
Your words died in your throat as your vision cleared and you saw him sink to his knees.
His hands came up, caressing the backs of your calves as he spoke. “You need to know how fucking sorry I am for ever making you feel like that. I need you to know.”
“Sukuna, I do know.”
But he only shook his head. “No. I’ll never say it enough. But,” he stared at you with eyes that made your thighs clench closer together. He wet his lips. “Please. If you’ll let me…”
“Kuna…”
“I wanna taste.”
Jesus fucking Christ. You felt your heartbeat stop as your cunt began to pulse. It was as if you could feel every cell rushing through every vein, every sense lit on fire by his words, melodic to your ears.
“Please. Let me taste you.”
You didn’t trust yourself to speak, so you only nodded. You began to move your fingers to unbutton your jeans, but Sukuna pushed your hands aside, ready to do it himself.
Painfully, agonizingly slowly, he undid the top button to your jeans, his fingers pulling down at the zipper and brushing over your mound of skin, already sensitive from earlier. You were embarrassed by the slight gasp you let out, but Sukuna couldn’t be bothered by how reactive you were to his touch; if anything, it fueled him.
He unzipped and moved toward your hips, pulling the fabric down over your thighs and knees, finally pulling off each leg and leaving you exposed in your underwear, tank top, and bra. His eyes honed in on your pussy, the lacy black material leaving so little to the imagination, you could almost hear the lewd thoughts spilling from his mind.
But nothing was ever easy with Sukuna. Like he was taunting you, he started at your lower leg, kissing up around your calf, to the back of your knees, up, up, to the plush of your thighs, sharing equal attention to both legs. You couldn’t help but begin to be antsy as he dragged his lips up the lower half of your body, kissing you everywhere but where you needed him.
He pulled at the skin of your inner thigh, biting lightly and still eliciting another gasp from you. You felt him grin against your leg. “So sensitive. Is that all for me?”
Him and his smart mouth. Just moments ago, he was on his knees, pleading to taste you, and now you could feel his canines against your skin, his smile teasing how visceral your body was to his actions. You wish you had the wherewithal to fire something back, but your mind and your heart and every other part of your body would begin to scream if he didn’t touch you the way you needed to be touched. What came out was on the verge of begging. “Kuna, please, I need – fuck! ”
Your plea was cut off by a long, slow, arduous lick up the lips of your pussy, through the fabric of your panties, so vile and crude it felt sacrilegious. Your back arched as his tongue made another stripe up your cunt, your fingers burying into your sheets, both the comforter and your face twisted in pleasure. “Oh, fuck,” you whispered, trying to breathe through the stimulation of his mouth and your panties working in tandem to wind you up.
You felt your legs begin to lock together, closing in around Sukuna’s head, and he brought his hands up to the outer sides of your legs, giving him leverage to push his face deeper into your cunt. His tongue lapped against your cotton gusset, already soaked from your arousal, and now dripping from his wetness. He pressed open-mouthed kisses against your core, pecking all around your clit to the point where you felt like you were vibrating from your aching cunt, all but pleading to be touched.
“Sukuna, please.”
“I know, princess, I know. Just wanna make you feel good.”
You were past the point of feeling good. You sighed as you fell back into your comforter, too wrapped up in your pleasure to hold yourself up any longer, instead trying to focus on keeping yourself together as his mouth continued working.
This wasn’t your first time being intimate with someone, but Sukuna was unraveling you in a way that made you blush like a virgin. With others, sex felt more like a means to an end. A transaction acts unspoken until necessary, a “not there”, a “wait, that doesn’t feel good”, an awkward laugh as you adjust positions - something to relieve stress and get both parties off quickly, if you were so lucky.
Sukuna, who was just rough and tumble and aggressive and sullen all over, instead, cupped his hands around your waist like you were glass, his tongue lapping at your essence like a dog in heat. He reached up, still kissing your cunt, wrapping his fingers around the elastic band and tortuously pulling down, your slick pulling glossy strings down with it. You whimpered as the cool air hit your pussy, leaving you so exposed in front of him. Your body was flushed all over, but you still couldn’t help but feel embarrassed with your level of exposure, with Sukuna’s eyes devouring every last inch of you. You writhed in his grip, but his fingers held you still.
“Nah, don’t run, let me have a look.”
You shut your eyes as you felt his thumb rub over your lips, ghosting over your clit.
“So pretty,” he muttered, his hot breath hitting your wetness.
And all of you was so pretty. A sight to be seen, one he revealed in you being kind enough to show him. He watched as your back arched off the bed, your chest heaving up and down, skin glistening as his fingers and mouth worked you up, you shuddering as his mouth ghosts over your clit, your subtle thrusts forward as you tried aimlessly to grind yourself on his mouth, begging for a hint more of friction. It was cute, honestly, seeing you pretend not to be so needy.
Your whimpers felt like they had a direct line from your throat to his blood, fueling him, egging him on. He finally caved, wrapping his lips around your bud, and the moan that left your mouth was heaven to his ears. Your fingers ran through his hair, nails dragging across his scalp as you pulled his face closer to you, as if asking him to ruin you wholly. He smiled as you began to fall apart beneath him, your breaths turning into pants, your pussy squeezing around nothing, coaxing to be filled. He felt himself rutting into the bed frame in front of him, chasing the high he was currently giving you.
He sucked on your clit, and it pulled out another moan from you as you trembled beneath him. He kissed it gently, looking up at you with the most reverent, pussy-drunk eyes that made your stomach do flips. “You taste so fuckin’ good, baby.”
Baby? Your hand flew up to your mouth to muffle the wanton sounds you couldn’t control spilling from your mouth. Your eyes were screwed shut as you felt yourself tumbling, your breath fighting to escape your lungs, the coil in your stomach so fucking tight you thought you would die if it weren’t released. You felt Sukuna’s teeth nip at your bundle of nerves, and you choked back a scream, your hand pressing more firmly into your mouth as you reared your head back even deeper into your mattress.
Sukuna’s tongue clicked in the back of his throat. The gasps and moans coming from you, whether involuntarily or not, were quickly becoming some of his favorite sounds, and he wouldn’t stand for you taking that away from him.
You felt Sukuna’s hand reach up, wrapping around your wrist and pulling it down from your mouth. “Mhm, lemme hear you, princess.” His fingers intertwined with yours as he pushed his tongue deeper into you, still lapping over your clit as you sighed, the pleasure washing over you like waves.
“God, Sukuna, it’s – I’m gonna – ” You were so beside yourself you couldn’t even form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. You felt your mind start to go white, your breath coming out fast and sharp as the pressure became insurmountable.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” he soothed, still gripping your hand with one and rubbing the side of your thigh with the other. His pace never ceased, his tongue rolling small circles over your bud as you felt your climax building higher and higher. He tugged on your arm, prompting you to raise your head and locking eyes with him, his pupils so blown it felt like you were staring into midnight.
“Come for me, baby.”
A searing, white-hot flash, then stars, spinning as you felt your spine arch, your fingers squeezing his hand as you came, his mouth still kissing you through your orgasm. The release of pressure felt so good that you could feel the tears pricking at your eyes, your gasps deep like you were trying to catch your breath. You twitched as Sukuna continued to lap you up, his chin and lips wet from your release, and you couldn’t decide if you wanted to push him away or if you needed him closer. “Kuna,” you moaned, too overstimulated to manage anything else out.
He kept circling, kept licking, kept kissing like a man addicted. Like it was his full-time job, like if he stopped, you would escape his grasp, fall just out of reach again, like things would go back to the way they were.
“Just one more, princess. You taste so damn good. Can you give me one more?”
You shook your head, crying out. “It’s too much, please – ”
You were cut off by a silent cry, a sob that wracked your body as he rolled over your puffy clit again, your body overheating with how much you were feeling at once. You heard Sukuna grunt as your fingers curled in his hair, as if you were trying to ground yourself in his pink tufts. You whimpered out his name again, your second climax rapidly approaching.
“One more, baby, I need it. Please, just give me one more.”
It’s like his voice was a trigger with how responsive your body was to it. You gasped as your second orgasm wrecked your body, your thighs shaking as they wrapped around Sukuna’s head. His entire being was light from the pressure and essence of you all over his tongue; he felt deluded. Your eyes fluttered shut as your head lolled to the side, your chest rising and falling rapidly as you tried to steady yourself, your entire body still buzzing from the two orgasms he pulled from you with just his mouth.
He pressed one last kiss to your pussy, and crawled up from his kneeling position, his body hovering over you. He wiped his mouth with his hand, licking up the last bit of you as you looked down at your figure, his smile bigger than you had seen it. The moonlight streaming from your window cast an angelic glow over your body, your skin practically illuminated as he drank your figure in.
“So gorgeous,” he whispered, leaning back down to press kisses against your neck. “You’re so beautiful. You did so well, princess.”
You moaned lightly, rolling your head back to give him more access. He kept kissing along your jaw as he spoke. “Are you ok? Was that too much?”
You opened your eyes, your half-lidded irises trailing over your project partner’s face. The same face that stared at you so sullenly, whose eyes flashed an angry red when you dared to talk back to him in the library, whose jaw clenched when you’d even entertained the idea of being interested in someone else, from whose mouth dripped nicknames and praises and words that made your stomach churn and pussy flutter, was now leaning above you, shirtless in his tanned and inked glory, asking if you were ok, attraction coming off his skin in heat waves.
You brought your hand up to his chest, your fingers daintily coming around the back of his neck, gently pulling him closer to you for a kiss. His mouth met yours, his hand resting between the juncture of your jaw and neck, cradling you as if you were something fragile. You pulled at his bottom lip, biting gently as you let go, looking at him with eyes coated in a mist of lust.
“Ryo, I need you.”
His world stopped. He became so painfully aware of his dick, aching, hard as a rock pressing against the seam of his pants, the front already damp from pre-cum that he felt his whole body vibrate. The veins in his arms popped as his grip tightened in the sheets below you. He thought he misheard you, but the look on your face and the need in your tone couldn’t be mistaken.
“You – ”
“I need you,” you repeated, leaning up. Your hands moved to the bottom hem of your white tank, pulling it over your head and leaving you in nothing but the lacy black bra that cupped your curves just right. You saw Sukuna’s throat move in a swallow, his eyes flicking between your chest and face, like he didn’t know what to look at.
He leaned forward, stalking toward you like a tiger, and you leaned back in tandem until the back of your head hit the pillow, and you were inches apart. You took a sharp inhale when you felt his heaviness pressing against your leg. His voice was strained as you spoke.
“Are you sure?”
You bit your lip, nodding. Your bra strap slipped off your shoulder, and his eyes tracked it like he was hunting. He rocked back, kneeling on your bed, his fingers nimbly unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans as a shadow crossed his face, his features impossibly sharper and eyes dark like dying stars, glinting in the night.
“Show me.”
Your pussy clenched. Your mouth went slightly dry. “What?”
“Show me how much you need me.”
This cocky motherfucker. Your breath was shaky. The tension had been built so high up that you couldn’t separate your gazes of fear of shifting the veil, removing yourselves from this singular moment where it was just you and him, eyes boring into each other, fires burning so passionately and breaths so aligned it was as if there was only one in the room to share.
Slowly, you brought a hand down toward your center, aching and leaking and begging to be filled, and deliberately took two of your fingers, spreading your folds, and began to rub, warming yourself up but keeping your eyes locked on him.
Sukuna’s inhale was sharp as he slid his belt out of his pants, swiftly taking them off and began palming himself over his boxes, his tip beading pre-cum and growing harder by the second as he watched you touch yourself. He ran a thumb over his tip, and you saw his abdomen contract, his Adonis belt sharp and mouthwatering and oh so tempting as you traced a vein down, disappearing into the black band barely obscuring the last part of Sukuna’s toned body. His dick was upright, flushed against his abs, and you felt your walls flutter as you looked back up at him, his jaw clenched so tight as he tried to control himself.
You touching yourself wasn’t enough, not after the ecstasy he’d given you only moments prior. You needed more, needed him, in you, filling you up, forcing you to chase that high of pleasure again. You settled for dipping a finger in, your head softly hitting the back of the pillow as your mouth opened, forming a small ‘o’ as your gasps came out in little pants.
Somewhere in your haze, Sukuna had discarded his boxers, leaving himself fully exposed to you, his dick flushed and red and erect in all its glory. He stroked it up and down, matching the pace of your fingers pumping in and out of your cunt, as if transfixed. The wet, slick sounds in the room made you want to turn away in shame, but Sukuna knew you, knew your body and reactions, too well.
He shook his head, his voice deep. “Eyes on me, princess.”
You wanted to cry in protest, but you kept going, barely holding your head up to stay focused on him, on his irritatingly handsome face, his eyes, which gave away how much he was affected by you, even if he didn’t want to admit it. You felt your free hand go up to hold yourself, clutching at your breast as your finger and thumb rolled over your nipple through the lace, your body begging for another form of stimulation as you remained locked under Sukuna’s gaze.
You added another finger, trying to simulate an iota of sensation that Sukuna would, but it still wasn’t satisfying. You pressed up, curling, trying to hit your sweet spot, but you couldn’t get there, no matter how hard you tried. “Ryo,” you whined, dragging out his name in a way that made his dick twitch and body shudder. “Please, stop teasing. I need you.”
Fuck. Your words wrapped around him, seeping into his pores and entering his nervous system like a drug. He was an addict, addicted to you, to your voice, to the scrunch of your nose, to the way you looked sprawled on your bed. Every inch of you, he craved, wanted to know intimately like a painter knows his subject. He watched intently as your fingers dipped inside you, and his heart hammered at the idea of sheathing himself in you, the thought making his head rush.
He crawled forward, coming closer to you, capturing your breath in another kiss. He pulled back and took your hand you had touched yourself with, still glistening and wet from your slick, and brought it to his mouth, sucking your taste off each of your fingers, all the while staring at you with a gaze that had you at a loss for words.
He let go of your fingers with a pop, then lowered himself to hover over you, reaching down to line himself up with your entrance. He rubbed his tip between your folds, and you moaned at the simple act. Sukuna hissed, trying not to bust when he hadn’t even gotten the chance to sink into you yet. He grunted, whispering your name. “Tell me if it hurts.”
You nodded, too turned on to do anything but. He breathed out, then, slowly, pushed in.
“Fuck!” He grunted. He’d barely made it through your first ring of muscle, and your walls were so tight, pussy gripping onto him like a vice, he was worried if he went any deeper, he’d finish prematurely. Your hands immediately scrambled to his bare back, your nails digging into the muscle as you gasped at the feeling of him entering you. You knew he was big, but Jesus Christ, you were worried he would split you in two.
You hung off his back as he paused, searching your face for inklings of pain or signs of discomfort, you both panting as your chests rubbed together. His stopping felt like torture. “Keep going,” you breathed out.
“You’re gonna kill me, princess,” he muttered, but obliged, pushing more of himself in until he bottomed out with a groan, your walls tight and sticky and warm and every bit as narcotic as he thought they would be. He felt he could die here, trapped between your walls, with your wide, watery eyes staring up at him, lips swollen and glossy with spit from your kisses, and so beautiful underneath him he felt like an idiot for taking so long to realize.
“You okay?”
You nodded, fingernails digging deeper into his back, and he groaned at the pain that brought him such pleasure. “Please, Ryo, move.”
He didn’t need to be told twice; his hips moved in sharp, snapping forward motions that made your eyes flutter closed and move in sync with him. Each thrust sent you both deeper and deeper into oblivion, your head so foggy all you could do was moan as his tip kissed your cervix, so deep inside you, you almost wanted to scream.
His hand and mouth found your chest, his lips kissing and sucking and biting at the chest above your chest as his fingers worked blindly to unclip your bra. The lacy black material fell to the wayside as he moved down, rolling one nipple between his fingers and the other over his tongue. The combination of his size filling you up so perfectly, and his fingers and mouth on you, left you babbling, chants falling out of your mouth as you felt your body shake. Your nails scratched down his back, trying to release the pent-up tension in your body in any way you can.
You felt your voice leave your body when his hand came down to push your leg up, pistoning deeper at an angle that left you seeing stars. He grunted, pressing his leg up as he hit a gummy patch in your walls, and you screamed his name, too fucked to care about your volume. “There she is.”
“Fuck, Ryo,” you sobbed, feeling past the point of no return. Each drag of his dick along your walls, feeling each vein rub against your skin, the slick wet sounds, and the smell of sex permeating the air, all sent you spiraling, tumbling down uncontrollably into your climax, this time building like a boulder in your stomach.
Sukuna felt it coming as you squeezed around him. He maintained his pace, bringing his mouth up closer to your ear, kissing along your neck and jaw as he spoke.
“Whose dick is this?”
It was like the gasp was ripped from your chest. You couldn’t bring yourself to answer; it might’ve sent you over the edge. You warbled out a mumble, but it wasn’t enough, not for Sukuna.
“Nah, I’ve been dealing with that smart mouth all semester. Don’t get all quiet on me now.” You felt him drag his thumb down, rubbing small circles over your bundle of nerves. You would kill him if you didn’t want to come so badly, tears started to fall, sliding down your cheeks. He only smiled, kissing the trails away, the masochist.
“C’mon, baby. Whose dick is this?”
A sob wracked your body. “It’s mine,” you cried out.
“That’s right, it’s all yours. I'm all yours, ‘nd only yours.” He punctuated each word with a thrust you could feel in your throat, your clit screaming from his thumb, and body wound so tight, you could feel yourself beginning to fall. He felt his climax coming too, his dick so hard it felt like it would fall off, and he leaned down, swallowing your cries in a kiss before whispering to you again.
“Now come for me, princess. Please.”
This last orgasm shook you to your core, ransacking your body and leaving nothing left. You gushed out, a high-pitched moan shuddering from your body as he kept thrusting, his orgasm chasing swiftly after yours. The feeling of your constricting around him, your juices flowing from your last climax, you cum mixing and acting like a lubricant, all made him feel crazy. His thrusts got sloppy and erratic as he neared. “Fuck, baby, you did so good, you feel so fucking good.”
“Ryo,” you whispered sleepily, every ounce of energy drained from your body as you came down from your high.
He looked up at you.
“Come inside me, baby.”
Shit. You looked so perfect, so fucked out, so otherworldly as you stared back up at him. You had done so well, had taken him so well, he almost faltered. “You –”
“Please, Ryo.”
Fuck, you’d be the death of him. He leaned forward, feeling so good he damn near whimpered into your neck, his face twisted as his hips stuttered as he came, filling you with hot ropes, the white substance leaking from your pussy as you both groaned from the feeling of him finishing inside you.
With a shaky breath, he lowered himself carefully, still lodged between your thighs, his weight resting on you but not crushing you, enveloping you safely. He wiped another tear from your cheek as you caught your breath, your eyes barely open. He kissed each eyelid lightly to not disturb you. “You ok?”
You nodded, too overwhelmed to bother forming a sentence. You two stayed like that, bodies connected, warmth transferred as you twitched around him, still so, so sensitive. Without thinking, your hands went up to his chest, tracing the sharp lines of ink that ran across his torso, up towards his neck, down towards his hip bones. You felt his shift inside you, still half hard from what had just transpired. You shook your head as he smiled without remorse, tugging you closer. “You’re impossible.”
He only kissed you in response, this one gentle, and slow, careful as he gently stroked your side. He stole your breath, pulling back and leaving you dizzier than previously.
“You always this touchy after sex?” You asked, winded and delirious from the past hours’ events.
He shook his head. “Just with you. Only with you.”
You sighed as he finally pulled out, his warmth leaving you feeling empty and already craving his touch again. He stood, heading to your bathroom and grabbed a wet, warm cloth, coming back and wiping you down carefully. Only then did he climb back into your bed, pulling the covers over your bodies, as if the heat you two generated wasn’t enough to keep you both warm, and pulled you into his chest, your limbs tangled, so intertwined it was hard to tell where he ended, and you began.
The sleep that overtook you both was the most peaceful you’ve had in months.
You only arose the next morning when the sunlight streamed through your window, its rays casting a glow on your face as you stirred, your back absent of Sukuna’s large, muscled warmth. You took in a breath, rubbing your face with your hands, and were distressed at the makeup from last night smudged around your eyes.
You turned, covering your body with the loose-fitted sheet, and furrowed your brow at the smell of something being fried in your kitchen. You rolled out of bed, slipping on some clean underwear and a discarded hoodie littered on the floor, and padded out of your room, your stomach grumbling at the idea of breakfast.
You stopped short at the sight of Sukuna, in your kitchen, shirtless, hips resting against the stovetop as he fried eggs, two plates with buttered toast waiting to be served. Miso sat in the corner of the room, slightly miffed at the not-so-strange stranger in her kitchen but pleased she had been acknowledged and fed by someone. She meowed at your disheveled entrance like a disappointed roommate, keenly aware of what transpired last night.
Sukuna looked up, attuned to your arrival. His eyes shot down to your bare thighs, trying to conceal his smirk at the love bits you clearly hadn’t noticed yet. “Hey.”
“Hey.” You had the nerve to sound sheepish. You cleared your throat. “Uh, good morning.”
“More like afternoon. It’s past 12.”
“Oh.” You fiddled with the ends of your sleeve. “Right. Guess I was really tired.”
“Princesses need their beauty sleep, right?” He chided, flipping the eggs in the pan, their yolks a royal gold color.
You hummed, propping yourself up on the counter behind Sukuna as he turned his attention back to the stove. Your eyes widened, and you flushed at the red, raised marks like claw stripes on his back, and the memories of last night came rushing back in a wave of heat.
“Hey,” he murmured. Your head snapped up, and he stood in front of you, pressing a finger against your forehead. “Don’t get trapped in there. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Nothing.”
His eyebrows flicked up as he caged you in, his thick arms resting on the countertop on either side of you, bringing his face in close. “What’s wrong?”
It was evident he wasn’t gonna let this go. You bit your lip before asking. “What…is this? What are we now?”
His eyes widened in incredulity, but all he could do was laugh when he saw the earnestness in your face, the vulnerability in your question. He let out a disbelieving laugh. “You serious? Did you actually just ask me that?”
You shrugged. He stared harder.
“I meant everything I said to you. In the library, at the party, certainly last night.”
You flushed before prattling on. “I just thought – ”
He tsked. “Stop doing that. You think too much. Complicates shit.”
He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead before turning back around, scooping the eggs out of the pan and serving them on top of the toast, bringing a plate and fork over to you. He took a bite of toast, chewing as he continued.
“Like I said last night, I’m all yours. And by the way you were screaming my name, I’d assume you feel the same.”
You scowled, your leg going out to kick him as he dodged, laughing at your antics. “You didn’t even ask me, dickhead.”
“Ask you what?”
“To be your girlfriend,” you mumbled shyly, kicking your feet as if you both hadn’t bared your souls to each other just last night.
Your chastity made him bite his inner cheek. You were too damn cute for your own good. “You want me too?”
You shrugged again, reaching for your toast. “Princess treatment, right?”
He smiled despite your feigned ambivalence. “Alright.” He grabbed your hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles, staring at you deeply with content and admiration and a mix of something else you weren’t quite ready to name, reflecting at you in his eyes.
He said your name like it was his favorite thing to hear. You hummed, as if telling him to proceed.
“Can I be your boyfriend?”
You smiled, flicking your brow up. He sighed, shaking his head.
“Please?”
The grin that stretched across your face made his heart skip a beat. You wrapped your hands around his neck, bringing his face closer to yours.
“Hmm, maybe I was right. You are a fast learner.”
His hands found your hips, rubbing small circles there as he grinned back, the type of grin he could only let you see.
a/n: and just like that, baby's first fic completed! i'm so proud and genuinely so grateful to have amazing readers whose comments fuel me and bring me life!! ilysm <33 i have a lot of ideas for new fics with new characters but fear not as frat!kuna will always hold a special place in my heart and i will def be writing more one shots of him and lovely reader :)) hope you guys enjoyed this and are willing to stick around with me for more content <3
Tbh I was telling my cousin how depressed I’m going to be when this fic is overrrr. I loved it from start until it finishes.xx
omg i'm lowk feeling the same way, this is my first fic i've ever finished and im gonna miss my two idiots :( thank you for reading and enjoying and always leaving sweet comments <3
description -> there wasn't much you and frat boy!sukuna ryomen had in common...except your mutual disdain for partner projects. (un)luckily for the two of you, fate has a way of bringing together the seemingly incompatible. but as the project continues and studying sessions involve less and less studying, you both discover you're learning more about yourselves than the subject matter at hand...
word count -> 14.5k
cw -> yearning || mutual pining || like, medium burn? || eventual smut || drinking || smoking || cursing || mean sukuna (but only if you squint) || side frat!gojo x nerd!reader || jealousy || angst (it's getting serious) || resolved tension and feelings
part eight || part nine || part ten
Sukuna woke up with a pounding headache and a sickness in his stomach that a hangover couldn’t rival.
He cast a sideways glance at the sunlight peaking through his blinds, a silver of the window visible, showcasing the outside world in a much better mood than he could hope to muster. His clothes from last night lay in the same pile he left them in when he stripped and climbed into bed, too drunk to do anything but lie there and let sleep overtake him. His mouth was dry, tasting of whatever liquor he’d mixed to get him in this state, but all he could remember was the feeling of you against him.
For one brief, blissful moment, everything felt correct. Months of feelings captured when he let his instincts take over his restraint, taking two steps forward and fully falling into you, pressing his lips against yours in a feverish state.
And you had responded in kind. He could still feel the way your nails dragged down the nape of his neck, fingers buried in his pinkish locks. He could still hear your body’s response, keening into him as if you two together were natural. His thigh between your leg, sliding in like a piece of a puzzle, your mouth slotted against his, his hands gripping your waist, and you, in the center of it all, so reactive and responsive to his movements.
And just as quickly as it came, it vanished. Fucked up by a drunken decision on a Sunday night that left him waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own with a girl who didn’t deserve to suffer the repercussions of his indecision and insecurity.
Toji, ever the enabler, accompanied Sukuna and some of their other frat brothers to their favorite dive spot, where the drinks were cheap, and the bartenders poured heavy, especially for customers they knew whose pockets were deep and got deeper the more drinks they had. Sukuna, by nature, was a favorite customer, only rivaled by Satoru, both of whom had closed shop one too many times.
It was late – too late to be drinking this much on a Sunday night, but Sukuna couldn’t bring himself to care as the bartender poured him another drink from the well. Toji, in a rare occurrence of rationality, cut himself off after the third drink. His eyes flicked over to the entrance of the bar, and they narrowed at what he saw.
“You’ve got trouble headed your way.”
Sukuna’s head turned, and Uraume’s clipped bob entered his vision. He sighed, ambivalent about her arrival, turning back to his drink. “Whatever.”
“Haven’t you been dodging her texts?”
“Yup.”
Toji stared at him incredulously, shaking his head as he lifted his glass, downing the rest of the drink in one swallow. “You’re ridiculous.” He slid his glass against the bar top and reached into his jeans pocket, pulling out a few crumpled ones.
Sukuna side-eyed him. “Where’re you going?”
Toji glanced back at Uraume, who spotted both men at the bar and began to make her way over. “Away from whatever shitstorm of bad decisions you’re about to make.”
Just as quickly as Toji exited, Uraume entered, flicking her hair over her shoulder and ordering two shots. She placed one gingerly in front of Sukuna, saying, “You look like you need this.”
Sukuna was positively sure he didn’t, but couldn’t focus long enough to form a sentence to argue as he wrapped his fingers around the shot, lifting it in cheers and clinking glasses with her before tapping the bottom gently on the bar, tipping his head back to down the clear, burning liquid.
Uraume followed suit, stacking their glasses and looking over at Sukuna. “So. Why’re you here on a Sunday night?”
He scoffed at the attempt at small talk. “Could ask you the same thing.”
Uraume shrugged, her eyes trailing. “Probably the same as you. Looking for a distraction.”
A distraction. That’s exactly what it was. A distraction, and a hazy-headed decision that led to him abandoning Toji at the bar, and waking up in Uraume’s bed, back slick with sweat and regret as she slept soundlessly next to him.
It was an asshole move, and he knew it. He knew as soon as he left the bar that he would regret it, but it wasn’t enough to get him to stop. He wasn’t sure why. He’d never been one to hesitate. And when it was offered up so casually, who was he to refuse when you and he had nothing tying you together? No loyalties, no pledges of abstinence or celibacy, no titles of girlfriend, boyfriend, or friends with benefits. Until last night, you hadn’t even kissed yet.
And now?
Sukuna wasn’t sure if he could even call you a friend.
All you had were close encounters and yearning glances from across rooms, hushed tones and subtle touches that lingered like the smell of your shampoo and the musk of his cologne. Momentary pleasure followed by a week of guilt, plaguing him like whatever sickness you had caught last week.
And just like that, his mind was back on you. You, and your dejected face as you watched the grimace form on his. The way you fought against your lower lip wobbling, your waterline dampening against your will. He wasn’t so bold or full of himself to declare your heart crushed, but he knows he saw something break behind your eyes, and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to repair it.
He reached for his phone, battery almost empty from last night’s negligence, and saw no response from you. He would’ve been embarrassed by the multiple texts going on unanswered with anyone else, but with you, he couldn’t give a damn.
sukuna | I know I fucked up but please let me explain.
sukuna | I’m so fucking sorry.
sukuna | Please let me talk to you.
sukuna | I regret hurting you but I don’t regret kissing you.
Timestamped at two in the morning; all left on delivered. He figured as much, considering how wounded you looked when you left him standing on the patio. He winced at the last text he sent, too drunk to come up with something better, something more soothing, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t true. Considering how hard he was when he felt you pressed up against him, he figured you knew it too.
He threw his arm over his eyes and groaned, feeling ill in more ways than one. It didn’t help that an unwelcome knock and entry of his white-haired friend timed itself so perfectly with his current state.
Gojo bounded over, propping himself on Sukuna’s bed, irritably chipper. “Well, don’t you look positively sunshiney.”
Sukuna glared at him from beneath his comforter. “Get. Out.”
“Y’know, maybe, if you’d just taken my advice when I gave it to you weeks ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But here we are. Feelings, trampled on, numbers, blocked – ”
“She hasn’t blocked me. At least, yet. Semester’s not over, and we’re project partners. She can’t.”
“Oh, I think she has the license to kill you after what you put her through.” Gojo retorted, tone playful, but eyes serious. “You really hurt her last night.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Sukuna snapped, sitting up in his bed, a menacing tone lacing every word. “Get the fuck outta my face. Who are you to tell me that, anyway? Some idiot who’s taken her on one date?”
“Last time I checked, it’s one more than you’ve been on with her.”
Sukuna felt his fist twitch beside him. He only glared in response.
“I don’t know why you’re glowering at me. I’m not the one who fucked up. I’m not the one who wanted to have their cake and eat it too. I’m not the one who – ”
“Yeah, yeah, I got your point, dickhead. I know I fucked up.”
“At least you’re not totally dense.” Gojo eyed him up and down, judgment oozing from his gaze. “So. What are you gonna do about it?”
Sukuna exhaled, casting a sideways glance at his window, still obscured by his curtains, and yet the midday sun persisted, a sliver of light illuminating his room.
“She won’t even talk to me. What am I supposed to do?”
Gojo shrugged. “Dunno, but it better be something good.”
Sukuna’s scowl deepened. “You’ve butt your head in every part of this since the beginning, and now you decide to stop talking?”
“Yeah, I gave both of you my advice and look where that’s got us. Maybe if I shut up, it’ll encourage you two to sit and actually figure out what you both want. Y’know, communicate. Like adults do.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not laughing. You shouldn’t be either. You better come up with something that sweeps her off her feet before she decides I’m clearly the better option.”
“Gojo?”
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck out my room.”
|||
Utahime, Yuki, and Shoko both watched with concerned eyes as you recounted everything they had missed – from the sickness, to him hooking up with Uraume the following day, to the cold shoulder treatment and the kiss on the patio. You watched as their jaws dropped lower and lower, and despite your overwhelming sadness and anger at him, you felt the blood rush to your cheeks as you recounted your shared moment outside the party.
“He did what?” Utahime leaned forward, flushed at your hushed retelling. “Oh, my God.”
Shoko placed her hand on your shoulder, nodding solemnly. “I am so proud of you. A lesser woman would have folded.”
“But I did fold! The fucking kiss, I – ” You buried your face in your hands. “I shouldn’t have kissed him.”
“Was it good?”
You flushed as Shoko and Utahime admonished Yuki’s question, but you felt heat rise to your cheeks from the answer that immediately popped into your brain.
It was fucking amazing.
You weren’t totally inexperienced. You had had your fair share of kisses in your lifetime, but none were quite as passionate as what you experienced on the patio that night.
Last night, after getting ice cream with Satoru and him dropping you off at your apartment, you laid in bed, wide awake, replaying what had transpired between you and Sukuna by the nanosecond, frame by frame.
His heated gaze. His hands, so big and hungry as they gripped your hips, squeezing, kneading, as if he was trying to fuse your bodies into one. His mouth, setting the pace, insistent, not overpowering, sucking and nipping at your lips so gently, yet wanton lust bled through every breath. His chest pressed against yours, heart beating wildly, the two of you generating enough heat to warm a small village. That warmth pooled at your stomach, sinking lower and lower as you felt him drag your body over his thigh, thick and sinewy with muscle pressed against your core and overwhelming all of your senses, sending your brain into overdrive.
You felt yourself get flustered thinking about it, and you hated yourself for reacting that way.
“It doesn’t matter whether the kiss was good or not; what matters is that he hurt her.” Utahime pulled you into her, trying to comfort you as best she could, running a hand on your shoulder. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
You mumbled out an empty thanks. It was nice to have friends who cared so much, but you could barely sort out your own feelings on the matter, let alone what you were going to do to proceed forward.
It was Saturday morning, and you and Sukuna’s normally scheduled study session had been abandoned, considering last night's events. His unanswered texts and calls weighed heavily on your phone as you contemplated what you should do next.
sukuna | i regret hurting you but i don’t regret kissing you.
You remember the sick, giddy feeling in your chest when you read that message when you woke up this morning. You wanted to scream, and cry, and berate him for making you feel so small, but you couldn’t help but crave his body on yours again, because as awful as you felt afterward, you didn’t regret it either.
He made you feel dirty, like someone to be used and disposed of – but that damn kiss…
Could it all have really meant nothing? Were you truly that simple, that one kiss could send you weak in the knees, abandoning your morals, what you stood for, ridding you of your self-confidence, for a man you’d only known for three months?
The logistics of it all sent your already reeling mind into a whirlwind. You didn’t understand how feelings could be so compartmentalized, for a guy to be able to kiss someone with that much fervor, knowing their date, who they’d slept with less than a week prior, was standing a couple of hundred feet away from them.
The hypocrisy almost made you want to reach out and apologize to Uraume, who was nothing but kind to you when she made small talk at the bar that night. Neither of you deserved this, but when whatever you and Sukuna have — or had — didn’t even have a label, what would you even apologize for? You knew they weren’t dating; nobody needed to tell you that the resident campus terror didn’t date, but you couldn’t help but feel like you owed her something, if not conciliation for the embarrassment of a night Friday was.
After Utahime, Shoko, and Yuki tired themselves out from their crusade against Sukuna they nobly took on for you, they left you to your own devices, both a blessing and a curse. The more you contemplated, the worse the knot in your stomach tightened.
You looked back on his text with disdain, your frown deepening as you read the messages over again. You shut your phone off, scooped up Miso, then locked yourself in your room, attempting to distract yourself from the horrors of yesterday. As the day went on and throughout the evening, while you tried to study, you kept hearing your phone buzz, and you got so fed up, you tossed it under your pillow, trying to force all your feelings down every time you saw his name pop up on your screen.
However, the universe seemed insistent on reminding you of everything, as Miso started meowing incessantly, perched in the corner of your room. You tried to ignore her calls for attention, focusing on a student’s paper you had to finish grading this weekend, when her meows started turning to howls, you whipped around, scowling at your cat. “What?” You snapped. “What do you want?”
Her tail curled, and it was then you faltered, seeing what she was sitting on top of.
Sukuna’s hoodie, still folded in the corner of your room, where you and he both left it the weekend you were sick.
Your lip twitched, and you locked eyes with Miso, who only blinked innocently in response. You huffed. “Traitor.”
You were restless that night, tossing and turning, and replaying Friday night as if it was a movie being projected overhead, thoughts and feelings too vivid for comfort. You groaned, burying yourself in comforters and pillows, and tried to ignore the heat in your stomach at the thought of his hands on you again.
The next morning brought about another flurry of texts. The unread messages from Sukuna were piling up, and you knew he realized you were adamant on ignoring him. You scrolled past, determined on not dealing with this problem until you had to, and instead went to see what Satoru had messaged you.
satoru | you know he’s crashing out right
you | Good.
you | He should be.
satoru | whew, icy
satoru | i love it
satoru | how long are you gonna ignore him for
you | Optimistically? Forever.
you | Realistically? Until class on Tuesday.
Satoru’s contact bubbled in and out of frame before he called, and you picked up the phone. “What’s up?”
“Just got tired of texting, and I wanted to hear your voice.” You heard a scuffle in the background as Gojo adjusted, then a door shut, presumably as he entered his bedroom. “How ya doin’, angel?”
You sighed. “Definitely better than Friday night. Thank you again for the ice cream.”
“Of course. Had to make sure my favorite girl was doing okay.”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re laying it on thick, Satoru. I’m still not gonna sleep with you.”
“But wouldn’t it be such great revenge?” You could almost see Gojo’s maniacal grin through the phone as he joked. “He’d be so mad.”
“Well, he would have no moral high ground to stand on, considering what he did.” You picked at your nails, holding the phone between your shoulder and ear.
“Yeah, well, he definitely knows he fucked up.”
“Please, he’s only upset that he got caught.” You scoffed, lips downturned into a pout.
“At least you know you mean something to him,” Satoru offered.
“Yeah, whatever,” you grumbled. “He doesn’t care about me.”
“That’s not true.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Um, do you not remember what happened, or do you need a refresher?”
“Trust me, I remember. I just don’t think someone who ‘doesn’t care about you’ would be blowing up your phone and texting you nonstop for the past few days. I’m surprised he hasn’t broken your door down yet.”
“And how would you know about the texts?” You drawled out.
Gojo deadpanned through the phone. “Angel. I live with him. Trust me, I know.”
In truth, Satoru had never seen the degree of crash-out Sukuna was displaying. If they thought Sukuna’s bad mood a few weeks ago was dreadful, this mood swing sent the pledge class into hiding. When he wasn’t checking his phone every ten minutes, he was scowling at anyone who entered within a five-foot radius. Toji and Gojo were the only two who were able to enter his berth without losing their heads, and even then, Sukuna could only stand their presence for a few minutes before he stormed out, irritated at the knowing glances Toji and Gojo exchanged. On the bright side, probably stemming from the fear and exhaustion he’s seen in pledges’ frames, Gojo has never seen the frat house cleaner.
A twisted part of you revelled in the fact that Sukuna was as affected as you were. You hummed in satisfaction, to which you heard Gojo chuckle. “Maybe send him a message, just so he knows you're alive. If not for yourself, for my sake. I can’t deal with this tantrum for much longer.”
“I refuse to apologize or be held responsible for the behavior of a man-child.” You sniped. “If he wants to talk to me, he’ll have to beg.”
You heard the smugness in Gojo’s tone. “Careful what you wish for.”
After getting off your call with him, you sat, contemplating his words as you read over your notes in preparation for your lectures on Monday. While you still hadn’t read any of the numerous texts Sukuna had sent, you thought about opening and responding countless times. You were sympathetic to the plight of innocent pledges, but you also knew your anger was justified. It was strange, knowing there was some care Sukuna had for you, even if all his recent actions couldn’t demonstrate it. But you think back to the soup he made, the few ice pops left in the freezer, the lattes that sat ready for every study session, and his stupid hoodie that still sat in the corner of your room. It couldn’t mean nothing, and you knew, deep down, it didn’t.
But even then, you knew what you wanted. You couldn’t be with someone where the physicality of it all was easy, but the words and actions were too hard. Regardless of your feelings for him, you wanted somebody you wanted you just as much, if not more. Even at your most angry, you didn’t ever seriously consider hooking up with someone else, and not out of some misplaced loyalty to Sukuna – you just couldn’t understand how someone could claim to be so interested in one person and sleep with someone else in such a short time frame. It grated on your nerves how all-consuming your stupid little crush became. It wasn’t like you didn’t have other options, but when Sukuna was right there, with his coral hair that curled slightly when it was damp, and his tattoos that contrasted with his tanned skin, and his frustratingly handsome smile that he only showed when he was feeling vulnerable…how could you be interested in another person?
You knew Sukuna didn’t owe anything to you; the two of you were “just friends”, after all. But he had a way of making you feel like you were someone that mattered to him, someone that he cared for, and someone he potentially wanted more with. For one moment, the kiss made it all feel possible.
But the platitudes you’ve heard so many times echoed through your head like chants in a temple. If he wanted to, he would. Actions speak louder than words. Hymns you’ve used more times than you can count in feeble attempts to protect yourself, and look how that turned out. You would think yourself into a stupor trying to parse his behavior like a psychologist, so you opted to stop thinking about it altogether. You would stop worrying about what would happen when you saw each other on campus, or how you would be civil enough to finish working on your project together. You decided to nip the problem in the bud, to stop this agonizing over a man who sent you into such a spiral. You opened your phone, scrolling past the number of texts he’d sent, and drafted one of your own.
you | Good evening. I’m texting to let you know that I will be finishing the project on my own time and no longer require your assistance. Your work in certain sections is appreciated and will be acknowledged with your name on the final submission. There is no need to further communicate with me, so at your earliest convenience, please delete my number. Good luck with your future endeavors.
You scanned it one more time before nodding in satisfaction, sending the message, and tossing your phone to the side. Not two minutes later, your phone began to ring.
Sukuna’s contact took over your phone screen, and you watched as the rings ran out, sending him to voicemail. A text pinged at the top of your screen.
sukuna | pick up your damn phone
His call rang again, and this time, you rejected it, sending him straight to voicemail. Not to be deterred, he called again, and you huffed, angrily shooting him another text.
you | Leave me the fuck alone.
you | I’m trying to ignore you.
sukuna | well you’re doing a great fucking job at that
you | I don’t know who you think you’re texting with that attitude, but it’s certainly not me.
you | Try that again.
sukuna | you’re not finishing this project by yourself
you | Watch me.
you | I’d rather chew glass than have to sit in your presence.
You waited for a text in response, but your messages sat unread. As the sun set on Sunday evening, and you prepared yourself for the long week ahead, you waited for another text from him to pop up on your screen, but nothing ever arrived. It wasn’t until the next morning, when you plopped yourself down in the first lecture of the day, that you opened your computer and saw an email waiting for you:
It has come to my attention that there seems to be an inequitable distribution of work amongst this particular partner group. Normally, I would leave disagreements to be settled between students, given you are no longer in kindergarten, but considering the strange, and might I add surprising, nature of the request I received, I felt it necessary to weigh in.
I felt I made it very clear the fair division of work for this project was imperative to earning a passing mark. Regardless of each student’s writing proficiencies and varying levels of engagement in our sessions, it is required that both students’ work be evident in the final submission. Clear evidence of a single student’s handiwork will result in immediate failure for both group members.
I hope the two of you can reach a consensus quickly, considering the final submission is due in just little over two weeks.
Best of luck,
Prof. M. Yaga
You blinked. Surely, this could not be in response to the text you sent?
But as you rechecked your inbox, you saw a post-script email, addressed only to you from Prof. Yaga:
You cannot complete this project by yourself, no matter how much you want to. I am expecting to be able to see your partner’s work evident in this submission. I would hate to fail such a talented student.
You saw red. Your nostrils flared. You felt your fingers twitch over the keys dangerously, and you fought the urge to send the most passive-aggressive email back to Sukuna. Instead, in a blind rage, you snatched your phone off the desk and marched outside the classroom, shoving through the double doors into the quietest part of the campus quad, dialing Sukuna’s number, ready to give him an earful.
The line had just barely been picked up before you began yelling into the receiver.
“Fuck you! Fuck you, you pig-headed, low-life, entitled piece of shit!” You hissed, not caring to police your tone in front of the few students milling about the grassy area. “You told on me? You tattled to our professor? Like a fucking child?” You laughed vindictively, no humor evident in your tone. “Are we in preschool? You can’t deal with the consequences of your own actions, like some spoiled brat? Oh, fuck you.” Your tone was frosted as you repeated yourself, insult after insult spewing from your mouth, built up anger for days now coming out like a geyser.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Sukuna remained silent, simply listening to your battering and berating of him with the smallest, smug grin on his face. Yeah, he was getting cursed within an inch of his life, and yeah, he could feel your vitriol spewing through his phone’s speakers. He knew your voice was loud enough through the receiver for his surrounding frat brothers, casually lounging on the sofa nearby, to hear your insults and throw worried glances back, wondering if this exchange was bordering on domestic abuse. But judgment be damned, he couldn’t care less. He was just glad to hear you talking to him, saying his name, and acknowledging his existence. The radio silence was eating him alive, and the anger in your tone told him that you still cared – he wouldn’t have known what to do if you were apathetic to it all.
He waited until you had tired yourself out, your heavy breathing coming through the receiver, before he responded. “I’m just trying to make sure I’m carrying my load of the work,” he responded, trying to keep his tone level. He knew that sensing a hint of mirth in his tone meant you would send him packing, and he was already in the dog house for the stunt he pulled last week.
“Oh, sure. You didn’t care about that at all when you suggested I do all the work a few months ago.” You responded snippily.
“That was then. Before I cared about you.”
Your lip twitched. “You mean before you cared about your grade in this class?”
“No, I mean you.” Sukuna ignored the shocked glances his frat brothers sent him, wondering if he was talking about the same person who was just cursing his bloodline for generations to come. “I care about you.”
You fought against the flutter in your chest, a flurried betrayal of wings battering against your ribs. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Sukuna responded firmly. “I’m gonna prove it to you, I’m serious about you.”
You exhaled. “Yeah, well, good luck with that.”
“I already fucked it up once. I’m not gonna do it again.”
You frowned, not sure whether to trust his words. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Sukuna hummed. “You’ll see it.”
You twisted your lips, partially stunned for words, partially refusing to say anything else lest you embarrass yourself. Sukuna took the opportunity to fill the silence you created.
“Do you want to meet in the library later to finish up the conclusion? I’ll be free the rest of the day.”
“I have plans,” you cut out, lying through your teeth.
“Fine. We’ll plan around you. When are you free?”
“Never.”
“Hm. That’s not conducive at all. What about 7:00?”
“I’m going to a seminar called ‘go fuck yourself’.”
“Sounds stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Maybe you should go to a comeback seminar instead, do they have those?”
You scoffed. “Goodbye.” You pulled your phone away from your ear to hang up, but his voice called out before you could hit the end button.
“The sooner we finish this, the sooner you can stop seeing me.”
You closed your eyes, sighing. You hated when he was right.
“I’ll see you at 7, then?”
“Whatever, fine.”
“See you then.” He hung up the phone, and you stared at the dark screen, apprehension painted across your face. You didn’t have time to be frustrated by his insistence, not when your lecture had started five minutes ago. You grumbled, heading back inside to prepare for class.
Back at the frat house, Sukuna grabbed a hoodie, tossing it over his shoulder, and snatched his backpack resting on the floor nearby. He heard Gojo call back from the foyer. “Where are you going? You don’t have class until noon.”
Sukuna grunted in response. “Gotta see about a girl.”
He slammed the door on his way out, missing the knowing grin Gojo had on his face.
|||
Sukuna sat as the population of the library dwindled down to a few straggling students, the mood somber as the lone souls sat scattered across the floors of the library, the mountain of work surrounding them dauntingly high. While the rest of the students’ faces were sullen, Sukuna’s eyebrow ticked up as the clock’s minute hand shifted forward another notch.
8:09 PM.
No text. No call.
He would laugh if he weren’t so irritated.
He knew what you were doing. He wasn’t surprised by it either. You were simply calling back to his ignorant actions when you first met – his egregiously late showing to the first study session you had together. One would argue it’s poetic justice, forcing him to taste his own medicine. He’d expected nothing less from you.
What he wasn’t expecting was for you to show up as late as you did in his hoodie.
The shades might’ve been overkill, considering the sky was a deep shade of purplish black by the time you waltzed into the library, finally gracing him with your presence. The large frames covered your face, a difference compared to the glasses you normally wear – he missed the way those sat on your face.
You stalked toward your usual table, and Sukuna bit the inside of his cheek, neglecting to comment on how cute you looked when you attempted to be brooding. You paused as you came across the empty chair sitting beside him. He raised his eyebrow in response. “Nice to see you made your way here. Did you get lost?”
You didn’t respond. Instead, you gazed past him, grimacing at the open chair next to him instead of across the table where it normally rested. You walked around his sitting figure, approaching the empty chair from behind and picking it up, trotting both the chair and you around to the other side of the table as Sukuna looked on in bewilderment. The four legs of the chair hit the library’s floor with a resounding thunk, and you plopped yourself down, folding your arms over your chest. He could feel your withering gaze, only concealed by the dark tint of your shades.
Your head ticked slightly to the side. “Here now. Let’s get this over with.”
Sukuna blew out a breath. He knew you were going to make this difficult, but he wasn’t prepared for how difficult you were going to be. No sense in beating around the bush, especially if this is already how you were acting. “We should talk about last Friday.”
You shook your head. “No.”
“We need to talk about it.”
“We don’t need to do anything but finish this damn project. And if we’re not gonna do that, then you wasted both of our time.”
“Fine. Then I’ll talk, and you can listen.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and listen to the excuses you scrambled to make.” You grabbed your bag, beginning to stand and exit, before you felt Sukuna’s hand grip your forearm. You head whipped back to glare at him, voice low. “Let. Go.”
“Let me explain.” His grip was like a vice, and as his fingers twitched, you could feel the slight, frantic desperation seeping through the pads of his digits. His eyes were still the hard, fire-forged red they usually were, but the centers were warm, as if lightened by the vulnerability he only seemed to be able to show you. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Please.”
The word sounded strange coming from his mouth, like it had been years since he’d uttered it. Your eyes met, his studying your face for signs of flight. You felt your features soften against their will. You hated how an earnest look and a pleading tone from him made you feel so weak and pliable.
You yanked your arm from his grip, dropping your bag and pushing your shades up your face. You folded your arms back across your chest, as if trying to hold yourself together, feigning strength in a moment you felt so little. “Fine. Explain.”
He took in a breath before beginning to talk. “I know I hurt you last week, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you didn’t matter, or that it – the kiss, I mean – didn’t mean anything to me, because it did.”
You pursed your lips, not giving him an inch. He scratched the back of his neck and continued.
“I did hook up with Uraume, and I’m not gonna make excuses for it. It was fucked. I know that. And it was more fucked that I kissed you like that. It wasn’t fair to either of you, but I wouldn’t take it back.”
You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, you’ve made that extensively clear.” You took a deep inhale, attempting to regulate your nervous system, now firing on all cylinders. “What does it matter to you anyway? We don’t owe each other anything. We’re not together, and I thought we agreed — ”
“I swear to God, if you say ‘to be friends’, I’m gonna lose my shit.” He laughed humorlessly, his eyes sparking as his fingers threaded more aggressively through his hair. “Are you serious? I don’t know how much more obvious I can be.” He scoffed before stepping closer to you, his scent invading your senses, your glasses the last line of defense against his proximity. His gaze was too strong, too charged, too heated for you to maintain focus. You shifted down, looking off to the side, but he shook his head.
“Look at me.”
It was your turn to swallow. Time started to catch like molasses being poured out of a jar.
“I am looking at you,” you said, your voice reduced to a whisper.
“No,” he shook his head as he reached up toward your face. You instinctively flinched back, but his touch was gentle, a stark contrast to the burning look in his eyes as he pulled your shades off, his gaze locking with yours as your neck tilted up to face him. “Look at me when I say this to you.”
You held your breath.
“I don’t wanna be your fucking friend.”
Exhale. Your chest rose and fell as his eyes flicked down to your mouth, slightly parted in surprise as his irises darkened. Flashes of the kiss ran across your mind like film strips in a projector, and you struggled to keep your breathing normal.
“I want you.”
There it was. Out in the open now, undeniable, irrefutable, resistant to your self-convinced state of denial. You felt your arms squeeze tighter against your sides. “Then why did you – ”
He cut you off. “She asked me weeks ago. And I thought you – I thought it would be best if I back off when it didn’t seem like you were interested.”
He seemed to move impossibly closer as his voice fell to a hush, its deep rumble caressing your spine.
“You set a boundary, and I wanted to respect that. I tried to. But – ”
His fingers twitched beside him as he resisted reaching for you again. He blinked, trying not to lose himself in your wide eyes, his pupils slightly blown.
“I don’t think I can anymore.”
Your breath caught. You searched his face and were taken aback at the raw emotion behind his confession. For a moment, it felt like you were back on the balcony, cornered, pressed against a column, every nerve singing, lit on fire by the vigor in his tone and eyes. Your tongue darted out to wet your lips, and you saw his eyes track it, as if he remembered how you tasted that night, the kiss sweet and fiery and intoxicating in ways that clearly left you both craving more.
Your eyes fought to stay on his, and like he sensed your apprehension, he closed his, letting out a breath of frustration and control, taking a step back and breaking the charged sphere you two had entered.
“Sorry. That wasn’t – I didn’t mean to say that. Fuck, I mean, I did, but not like that.” He palmed his forehead, his frustration with his own ineptitude that caused him to stumble over his own words. “I didn’t mean to ambush you with that. That’s not why I asked you to come.”
“So why did you ask me to come?” You could hear the exasperation in your tone, weariness pulling at your features as your frown deepened.
His shoulders slouched, mirroring your exhaustion. Such an intimidating figure, reduced to your whims.
“To apologize. To say sorry to your face.”
“Well, you did that. Mission accomplished.” You twisted your mouth in vain attempts to stop the tears pricking the corners of your eyes.
You couldn’t begin to say why you were getting emotional.
A confession, finally, begot by a night defined by drunken actions. Not how you wanted it, not how you planned, and very much not when you needed it to happen.
But was it too little, too late?
“Anything else?”
A pause.
“I needed to see if you’d give me another chance.”
“To do what?” Your facade crumbled with every earnest look he gave, his words like well-aimed arrows piercing your armor.
“Study with you.”
You exhaled shakily. He pressed forward.
“To let you know that I wanna be more than your project partner.”
Your hands flew up to your eyes, not being able to take the intensity of his look. Your fingers pressed into the sockets, as if trying to wipe him from your vision. “Sukuna, what are you doing?” You whispered.
A rhetorical question, asked from a place of denied delusion, your head spinning like you were wondering if the words coming out of his mouth were a figment of your traitorous imagination.
He continued. “I’m done dancing around this with you. I had to tell you before you decided to never speak to me again.”
“So you’re telling me in the middle of the library?”
“Seemed kinda fitting, don’t you think?”
You shuddered out a breathy laugh, shaking your head. “No. Fuck you. You don’t get to make jokes right now.”
“Sorry.”
There wasn’t a hint of remorse in his tone.
You felt his hands curl around your wrist, hesitant, but tender as they pulled your palms gently down from your face, and you blinked back tears to focus on him.
“I’m not good at this. I haven’t done…this, before, but you make me wanna try. And I know I fucked things up before, but I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance like you did when we first met.” He paused, waiting for any sign of resistance or rejection before continuing. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve been told I’m a pretty quick learner.”
This time, your laugh was watery, shock, humor, and disbelief all rolled together in a way that chimed in Sukuna’s ears. “Oh yeah? Who lied to you and said that?”
“Some girl who already called me out of my name, like, four hours ago.”
You shook your head slightly. “You deserved it.”
“Yeah, I did.” He didn’t try to put up a fight. “I’m sorry.”
His thumb caressed your inner palm before he pulled away entirely, shoving his hands into his pockets, afraid he would cross a line too soon after being granted the slightest bit of clemency from you.
You both already missed each other’s touch.
He gazed fondly at you while you fondled the slightly worn, frayed sleeves of his hoodie. He cocked his head to the side, gesturing to the table where his notes sat splayed open. “Help me draft the conclusion?”
You paused, thinking of how to respond, wiping your waterline dry from formed tears.
“Sukuna, I can’t give you an answer right now.”
“I’m not expecting you to.”
“I just need time to think. It’s just been, I don’t know, a lot, to say the least.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He’d lost track of the number of times he’d said it to you. More than he probably had throughout his college career, but he didn’t care. He’d say it a thousand times more, as many times as you needed to hear it before you’d believe him.
“I know it’s late, but…” he trailed off, his head nodding over to the textbooks and readings, lying abandoned on the table, inanimate witnesses to a long-awaited confession.
You stared at him before nodding, wordlessly following his lead and sitting down, beginning to pull out your laptop. The two of you worked quietly, burning the midnight oil as more students filtered out, and the two of you were left surrounded by the shelves of books and volumes of words left unspoken.
Well into your study session, you purposefully ignored looking at him when you asked your next question. “What would you have done if I refused to come?”
He paused, thinking of his answer. “Before getting on my hands and knees to beg? Maybe threatened to delete everything we worked on thus far.”
“Well, God forbid you do that. I still need to pass.” You raised an eyebrow as you considered his second statement. “So, is hands and knees begging still an option, or…?”
He snorted. “In your dreams, princess. Not since I know that you like me at least a little.”
“Shouldn’t that be more of an incentive? I thought princesses got what they wanted.”
He scratched his chin and looked up at you playfully. “Can’t pull out all the stops here. Week’s barely started. Besides, if you think I’m getting on my knees for you in the middle of the library, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Your stomach flipped at the prospect of him doing anything else. “Oh, so there’s more?”
“As long as you want there to be.”
You didn’t respond. You weren’t sure how to. And like a clairvoyant, he was already tuned to what you were thinking.
“I don’t need you to tell me yes or no right now. But, I need to know there’s a chance. That I’m not sitting here, trying to convince you of something you don’t want.”
The silence rested heavy between you as the pads of your fingers pressed along the keys, their clacking puncturing each second as Sukuna waited patiently, hopefully, for an affirmation.
You were gracious enough to give him one.
“I’m still wearing the hoodie, aren’t I?”
|||
“Is that him?”
You walked patiently behind the mass of students exiting the classroom. The session passed slowly with anxious students asking as many questions as possible before the onslaught of exam season hit. Unfortunately for you, your partner TA was out sick for the day, meaning you were the only one fielding questions. You were already tired, and had another two classes to go before you could go back home and crawl into bed. You sighed as the mass trickled outside like water dripping from a leaky faucet – agonizingly slow.
“Yeah, I think it is!” A hushed, excited whisper came from the young sophomore standing in front of you, pointing at a figure standing across the hallway and giggling to her friend next to her. “He is so freaking hot.”
You rolled your eyes at the comment. You couldn’t be sure who the girls were talking about, but you were certain it was some senior idiotic student athlete they had no business being interested in. As politely as you could, you began to shimmy past the two girls, rushing to make it to your next class across campus. “Excuse me,” you said, apologizing as you pushed past.
You picked up your stride, dodging the students strolling through the hallway when your spine stiffened at the sound of your name being called.
Your entire face tightened. Of course, it wasn’t just any idiotic student athlete – it was yours. At least, your project partner.
You registered his voice faster than you wanted to, and your steps faltered before you picked them up again, this time faster than before. You heard the two underclassmen whisper in confusion, wondering why the campus’s notorious rake was chasing after their relatively unassuming TA, and you flushed, trying to escape before the gossip ring suffocated you.
You heard him curse before his footsteps quickened, and before you could protest, he was walking next you, stride by side. “You walk so damn fast,” He gruffed out.
“Gotta get to class.” You hiked your bag higher on your shoulder, the computers and textbooks feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds.
His eyes took in your wince of pain at the weight of your bag. He held out his hand. “Let me.”
You balked, your hand tightening on the strap. He rolled his eyes at your apprehension. “Stop being dumb. Give me your bag.”
“I can carry it myself.”
“I don’t doubt that. Give it to me.”
“Once again, I’m fine.” You seethed, shouldering away from him.
“Your arm looks like it’s about to fall off.”
You scoffed. “You calling me weak?”
“Yes.” He took matters into his own hands, snatching the strap off your shoulder against your protests, and hiking it up on his. You had to admit, it was a funny sight to see, Sukuna with your ivory green bag hung over his shoulder, your charms and keychain dangling off it. He adjusted it a couple of times, clearly not expecting it to weigh as much as it did. “Where’s your next class?”
You raised your eyebrow. “You are not about to walk me to my next lecture. Are we fifteen?”
He sucked his teeth. “Well, I have your bag now, so I don’t know how you’ll attend class if I don’t.”
You rolled your tongue along your cheek. “You must be stupid if you think this is gonna make up for what you did.”
“And you must be more stupid if you think this is all I’m doing.”
You huffed, crossing your arms and stalking forward, refusing to face him or let him hear the fact that your heart skipped a beat. “Stupider. The phrase would be stupider.”
“That’s why I gotta keep hanging around you. You make me smarter.”
“That’s the only reason? Because I’m smart?”
He shrugged. “You’re not bad to look at either.”
You were irritated by how cloudy your demeanor was compared to Sukuna’s light, airy nature. He took his steps casually, but also cautiously, aware that you hadn’t totally forgiven him and trying not to push your boundaries too far. It was a delicate balance you both were traipsing between, with him trying to prove his feelings and you pretending not to be interested in his attempts. You knew it, and Sukuna basked in the light at the end of the tunnel – you were giving him a chance, and that was all he needed.
“So, this is your big plan, then?” You said, snark encompassing the curiosity in your tone. “The princess treatment?”
“If that’s what you wanna call it, then sure.” He glanced at you with the smallest smirk on his face, his dimples poking out and accentuating his face.
“Knew you liked the nickname.”
You exhaled through your nose and faced forward, continuing to walk and deciding you were done speaking with him.
You both ambled in silence, trekking through the middle of campus and collecting stares along the way. You knew Sukuna was used to the attention he received, but you surely weren’t.
He took in the anxiety on your face. “What?”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Besides being unwillingly escorted to class? Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“Bullshit. It’s all over your face. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just…” you hesitated, eyes flicking between the confused glances and lingering gazes. You pushed your frames up the bridge of your nose, the familiar motion soothing. “People are staring.”
He surveyed the area, onlookers whipping their heads away when they accidentally made eye contact. He scoffed. Pathetic. “Let them.”
“Not scared I’ll ruin your reputation?”
“Don’t really care, princess.”
He said it with such finality that it didn’t leave room for argument.
You bit your lip as you continued to walk. At what point was it cruel to let him do this? To pull him along on a string, to lead him on when you didn’t know if you could commit to him? You weren’t entirely sure what you were waiting on, if it was holding out to hear a magic phrase that could undo the mistakes that were made, or some grand, meaningful romantic gesture that seems to come out of the movies you’ve seen so many times with Shoko and Utahime. But was that not what had happened in the library yesterday? Maybe you were waiting for the hurt to stop feeling so fresh, for the cold delivery of Uraume’s words to stop feeling like it was a dagger, perfectly cut to the shape of your core, slicing through the emotions you had just begun to acknowledge.
You hadn’t come to a conclusion by the time you reached the building for your next class, the familiarity of your classmates sporting various levels of emotion, from shock to surprise, from approval to downright confusion at Sukuna dropping you off at the front door.
He shouldered your bag off handing it to you by the strap. “I’ve got class at noon, so I can meet you in the caf around 1:30?”
You raised your eyebrow. “Who said I wanted to have lunch with you?”
He exhaled. “Ok. Let me rephrase. I’ll be free at 1:30, and I’d like to have lunch with you. Will you meet me in the caf?”
You waited a beat.
He flicked his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “Please?”
You gave him a small smile. “See? Not so hard. Could do without the attitude, though.”
You took your bag from his hands, and he put his hands in his pockets. “So was that a yes for lunch?”
You shrugged. “If I feel like it.” You threw a wave over your shoulder as you stepped inside your senior seminar class, greeting your peers you’d been working with for the past few months.
A nice girl, with whom you had been friendly all semester, glanced at you peculiarly. “Were you talking with Sukuna just now?”
You nodded, hoping that would be the end of the questioning.
“Are you guys, like, together?”
You let out a small laugh, opening up your laptop. “He wishes.”
You clicked open your texts to see that your group chat with your girlfriends had new messages to read.
utahime | sho and i going off campus for lunch today! anyone want to join?
shoko | ramen shop nearby has an awesome lunch special that i wanna check out
yuki | i’d be down
yuki | can i bring cho?
shoko | NO
shoko | your bf cannot come everywhere with us yuki
yuki | he’ll pay
shoko | …
shoko | ok this time i’ll allow it
Shoko emphasized your name in the chat.
shoko | are you coming or what?
you | I think I have lunch plans
utahime | you think???
shoko | with who?
shoko | who could be more important and interesting than us?
yuki | her boyf
you | Not my boyfriend
yuki | sorry, soon-to-be boyf
shoko | NOT HIM
utahime | i thought we were done with him
yuki | i thought so too
yuki | what could have possibly changed in two days?
shoko | to be fair a lot
shoko | it doesn’t take a long time with these two
To your chagrin, Yuki and Utahime both laughed at Shoko’s message.
you | shut up
you | idk
you | He said please, I guess
yuki | oh wow, that’s actually a new one for him
utahime | the bar is in hell
yuki | wait i wanna lunch with you guys then
you | It wasn’t exactly an open invite
yuki | does it sound like i care?
yuki | not everyday you get to see sukuna groveling
utahime | wait so you said yes to lunch?
you | Not exactly
utahime | but you didn’t say no either?
you | Correct
shoko | should we unpack that orrrr
you | I’d actually rather not, thanks
With that, you exited the chat, putting your focus back on the lecturer, ignoring the way your stomach grumbled.
|||
The campus’s cafeteria was alive with bustling students and raucous chatter, under and upperclassmen alike carrying trays of food through the long dining hall, searching for a place of respite to take twenty minutes to fuel themselves for the trek ahead. You weren’t sure how you were gonna find Sukuna in the mass of students, but you didn’t have to worry because his eyes found you first. He called out your name as he walked toward you.
“You came,” he said, slight surprise clear.
“I gotta eat.”
He hummed, following you to the line with a choice meal. You looked over your options and selected something new on the menu. Sukuna frowned as you reached for your order. “That looks like shit.”
“Sukuna! They can hear you.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure they agree with me. It looks like literal ass. Don’t get that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Fine. Then let me suggest. I don’t think you’ll like that one.”
“Well, good thing no one asked you what you were thinking.” You thanked the server as you took your food, heading toward the end of the aisle to pay.
He rolled his eyes at your retort, ordering and dragging his tray of food behind you. Once you got to the cashier to pay, you fumbled for your card, only for Sukuna to extend his, reaching across you to hand it to the worker. “I got it.”
You whipped over to glare at him. “You are not paying for my meal.”
You reached to pull his hand away from the register, but he dodged, shoulder-checking you out of the way and pushing you out of line. “Stop being difficult. It’s just lunch.”
The cashier’s nails clicked against the screen as she took his card, swiping it and handing it back to him. “Not to intrude, but it’s honestly the bare minimum.”
Sukuna looked at you pointedly. “See? Bare minimum.”
You deadpanned, your grip tightening on your tray, and you turned your back on him, pivoting on your heel, looking for a free table to eat at. You set toward one near the edge of the room and set your bag down on the ground nearby with a thunk, with Sukuna following suit, taking the seat next to you. As you sat in the chair, he eyed the distance you put between yourself and him, and with his free hand, he grabbed the support beam underneath your seat, pulling you closer to him, his bicep flexing and the chair making an ugly scraping noise along the linoleum floors. By the time he stopped, you could not only smell the lunch he’d ordered, but him, who smelt of rain and sandalwood and all-around just too damn good for it to be the middle of the day. You stiffened in your seat as your knees brushed each other underneath the table. “You’re in my space,” you grumbled, pulling your tray closer to your body.
“Cope.” He said, already beginning to fork food in his mouth, adamant on not moving any further away.
You fiddled with your utensils, staring down at your meal. “So, are you just gonna follow me around for the rest of the day?”
His shoulders went up and down. “Until you tell me to stop.” He looked up from his plate and locked eyes with you, his gaze serious with a touch of vulnerability.
“Do you want me to stop?”
You broke your gaze first, staring down at your tray. You gnawed on the inside of your bottom lip, unsure how to answer.
He chased your eyes, leaning down to find your gaze again. “Do you?”
You landed on the truth. “No,” you mumbled, voice low and soft.
Sukunua felt the tension leave his shoulders, anxiety dissipating off his frame. “Ok. So I’ll keep following you around, and you can keep pretending not to like it.”
You wrinkled your nose. “I don’t like it.”
“Uh huh. Sure, princess.”
You couldn’t protest any further before Gojo and Toji arrive from behind, clapping Sukuna on his back. You saw him visibly tense, clearly irritated by the interruption. “What’s up, lovebirds?” Satoru chided, taking the seat next to you while Toji sat next to Sukuna.
Sukuna scowled. “What do you want?”
“The team’s wondering why you’re not sitting with them.” Satoru winks at you. “We see why.”
Toji chuckled, thumping Gojo on the back of his head. “Stop flirting with her before he kills you.”
“He won’t kill me. Not as long as she tells him not to.” Gojo’s eyes found yours, humor dancing behind his pupils. “Tell him not to kill me.”
You smirked, tilting your head to the side to look at Sukuna, who was already giving you the deadest stare back. “Don’t,” he gruffed out.
“Please don’t kill him.”
“How about seriously maim or injure?”
“Please don’t do that either.” Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh. “He’s your friend, y’know.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Gojo groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “Ugh, you guys are disgusting. I miss when you hated each other.”
“Says they’re number one, certified wing man.” Toji cajoled, reaching to steal food off Sukuna’s plate, who immediately smacked his hand away aggressively. “You’re just mad she didn’t want you.”
Gojo had flipped Toij off from across the table when you heard your name called, and you saw Yuki and Choso heading toward your group, their lunches in hand. It was almost as if you could see the dark cloud forming above Sukuna’s head as they dragged chairs up to your table, propping themselves across from you.
Choso greeted his friends while Yuki said hello to you. She eyed the distance between you and Sukuna and nudged your leg with her foot underneath the table, her eyebrow flicking up, and a repressed smile causing an upturn in her mouth. You shook your head slightly, telling her to disengage.
You felt Sukuna’s eyes on you as you picked over your food. Yuki glanced between you and Sukuna and looked at your full plate of food. “Damn, is the lunch that bad?”
“It’s fine, I’m just not that hungry.”
As if cued, your stomach grumbled, and you froze in embarrassment, giving her a sheepish grin.
You felt Sukuna grunt beside you. “Told ya you wouldn’t like that shit.”
“It’s fine,” you insisted. “It could just use a little salt. And pepper. And flavor in general…”
You trailed off, looking at Yuki bashfully. Sukuna nudged your tray forward away from you and almost imperceptively pushed his between to share. “Don’t eat that shit. Here.” He said, voice swallowed up by the conversation surrounding him.
“I don’t wanna eat your food.”
“I’m not gonna finish it all anyway.”
A lie. You’ve seen him and his teammates inhale meals like they were professional bodybuilders, calories or recommended portion control be damned. He’d even requested double portions today to load up for a scrimmage later today. He would have finished the entire portion and yours easily.
You stared at him, and he stared back, unwavering. Finally, you cracked, your hand gingerly reaching out to steal fries off his tray. You murmur a thanks, and he nods, turning back to Toji to join in whatever argument he’d started with Choso and Satoru.
Whether or not your tablemates saw what just happened, they gave you the grace of ignoring it, but you couldn’t help but be suspicious of the tiny knowing smile on Yuki’s face.
After the lunch hour was up, you stood to throw away your trash and walked back to the table to see Sukuna already standing with your bag. He looked up at you from his phone and asked where your next move class was. You went to respond before Yuki cut in.
“Actually, loverboy, I’m gonna steal her away for a bit. I’ve been meaning to catch up with her, but she’s such a busy woman.” She patted you on the shoulder, a gleam in her eye telling you that you knew you were about to face a serious interrogation.
Sukuna looked ready to protest, but Yuki silenced him with a wave of her hand. “You’re not bound by the hip. You won’t die if you’re separated for a few hours. You’ll be fine.” She snatched up your bag from his hands and held it to your chest. “She’ll catch up with you later.”
Yuki hooked her arm through yours and went to exit the cafeteria, shouting goodbyes to the boys you all left behind.
As soon as you were out of earshot, Yuki’s arms shoved your side, sending you stumbling off course. “Um, hello? Lunch, carrying your bag? What did I miss?”
You raised your hand to your brow, trying to rub away the stress marks Yuki’s questioning was already forming. “Yuki, please - “
“No matter. I have the perfect place for you guys to hard launch to the rest of campus.”
“We’re not dating,” you mumbled, but Yuki barreled forward.
“Sig Chi is throwing this Friday! We should definitely go, and I can get you on the list.”
“When has partying ever been the solution to something?”
“It’s always worked out for me,” Yuki shrugged. “But I digress. It’s kinda a joint thing, so most of the guys will be there. It’ll be fun, and it’s themed!”
“Oh joyous.”
Yuki pouted. “You used to be so much fun. What happened?”
“Well, the last time you invited me to a party, I ended the night crying in an ice cream shop.”
“Perf, then we can only go up from here!”
You rolled her eyes at her grating optimism. “What’s the theme?”
“Little White Lies.” You swore, her eyes sparkled as she shared the concept behind it.
“Y’know, for someone who claims to be so loosely associated with Greek life, you sure do love the social events.”
“Yeah, me and every other bitch. Trust me, I’ve seen half of those AGL’s drunk in a frat basement before. Everyone’s a hypocrite, I am just willing to own up to it.” She grabbed your arm, shaking you gently. “So, will you come? Pleeeaaaseeeee?”
You felt your extended eye roll turn into a long blink, and the next thing you knew, your eyesight was impaired by the lack of lighting in the frat house and the contents of your cup which sat drained quicker than you had anticipated.
It had been a long week, to say the least. Your brain fired back and forth between options, and Sukuna wasn’t making it any easier on your part. The gestures seemed to only get more elaborate, from walking you to class, to showing up early to your seminar with your coffee order in hand, his bedhead still evident and voice still gruff from his body being up before his mind. It almost seemed the more you tried to dig your heels in the ground, the more determined Sukuna seemed to prove himself to you. You struggled with the position you were putting both of you in, but you also knew a sick truth: at any point, you could have told him to stop, and he would have, without hesitation. You never did, and he gave you the grace of not mentioning it.
The end of the semester project came and went, with the brief class presentations of findings showcasing the wide variety of students’ preparation and levels of understanding of the material they studied for weeks. You and Sukuna’s was concise and clean, as to the point like a needle in a sewing kit, topped off with a nod of approval from Prof. Yaga himself. At the end of class, he beckoned the two of you to his desk, staring at your approaching figures over the rims of his glasses.
He folded his hands as he spoke. “Now, I won’t lie, I was worried about the contents and quality of your work, given the worrying email I received a few weeks prior.”
You braced for impact, but his next words threw you for a loop.
“But I must admit, you two surprised me.”
You blinked.
He continued. “Based on my preliminary readings and the presentation you all gave today, it seems like you both have a firm grasp on the material provided, and melded your writing voices and opinions together well to form one coherent sound.”
Sukuna stiffened. “Um, thank you?”
Yaga nodded, glancing between you two, the barest hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“You work well together.”
You wanted to scream. If only.
The hell you went through this semester, and the hell you were going through this past week alone, was enough to drive you into a deep slumber akin to hibernation, not waking until the promised bright spring day of graduation warmed your face with its rays. You felt the silence between you two as you exited the classroom. You shrugged your back higher as you glanced over at him. The end of the semester, the end of the enforcement of being in each other’s presence, the realization of this potential ending stung like the cold bite of the late November winds, icy and bitter.
You hadn’t anticipated it being so anti-climactic.
“So,” you started. “It sounds like we did well.”
“Yup.”
“I’m glad. I was nervous there for a second.” You chuckled nervously. Why were you nervous? You couldn’t say as you kept talking. “I was worried our third argument was weaker than our first two, but that supporting source you found at the last second really helped bolster it.”
He crinkled his brows, looking sideways at you while keeping your pace with his hands in his pockets. He called out your name, but your words overwhelmed him.
“I also thought we were gonna need another run through before presenting, but you’re a super solid presenter. I guess that comes with being in the business school, but you spoke really well, and you even added one of the facts that completely slipped my mind. Thanks for that, by the way.”
He called your name again, this time more forcefully. Your lips snapped shut.
“What are you doing?”
You felt your mouth go dry. He reads you so easily now, so intimately, it’s chilling.
“Nothing.”
“You’re rambling.”
“No, I’m not.”
He gave you a look. “We did fine. We did better than fine. Yaga’s such a hard ass that the review we got was practically glowing. You know this.”
You stayed silent.
He asked again. “What’s wrong?”
A million answers ran through your head. A confession, an acceptance, a forgiveness you’d been ready to extend when you heard him apologize in the library, a prideful snark you couldn’t bear to let go of. You didn’t want this, whatever it was, to end.
But why were you struggling so hard to just say that?
“Are you going to the party tomorrow?”
His eyes stared hard at you. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
A moment passed. You didn’t falter. He sighed softly, letting you get away with it.
“Sure, if you’re going.”
Your last conversation is why you couldn’t help but search for a particular pink head of hair in the crowd. You pulled at your tank top, crudely written words decorating its front in black ink while you rested your head against a wall, Yuki making conversation with a girl you weren’t familiar with. You trailed your eyes lazily over the throngs of people dancing, drinking, and laughing throughout the house. You felt a body slide next to your space against the wall. They took a sip of their drink before casting a sideways smirk at you. “Not your scene?”
You shrugged. “Just bored.”
“Maybe I can change that.” You caught a glance of his side profile, piercings adorning the crest of his ear, his hair cropped close to his head, plastered around his dome, not to be helped by the heat radiating off the bodies that surrounded them. Despite the feverish state of the room, this stranger felt inclined to move even closer to you. You pressed your body against the wall, in hopes its walls would concave and absorb you.
You let out a puff of air in sardonic laughter. “I doubt that.”
“Yeah? Well, let me get you a drink.”
Your grip tightened over the mouth of the cup. “I’m good, actually.”
“Come on,” he dragged, his face getting closer, the liquor on his breath almost palpable. “It’s just one drink.”
You wrinkled your nose, using your knuckles to press against his chest. “Can you chill?”
His grin was slimy as it grew across his face, his hand locking yours against him, his grip like iron. You tugged your arm away, but his grip only tightened. “Don’t be such a - ”
“Hey.” That dark tone, you’d recognize it anywhere. Both you and the stranger’s heads whipped over to Sukuna, brooding in front of you, eyes cold and hard like concrete. The guys’ grip loosened just enough for you to rip your arm from his grasp. You gave him a disgusted look as you stepped away, Sukuna subtly stepped between, putting more distance between you two as he used his fingers to gently guide you behind him. He glanced down at you, the facade behind his eyes cracking softly as he scanned you over.
“You ok?” He mumbled.
You nodded back. “I’m fine.”
The guy’s grating voice chimed back in as he observed you two. “Ah, I see. You’re Sukuna’s new plaything. Heard rumors, but didn’t think it was true.” He took a step back, putting his hands up in signs of surrender. “My bad man, you got it.” He smirked as he eyed you up and down, still walking away.
You scowled as the party’s crowd absorbed him, and you glanced up at Sukuna to see his jaw clenched, a vein in the side of his head popping out. He met your gaze, his eyes serious. “I don’t call you a plaything. He’s just an asshole.”
“I figured.” Your eyes shot down to his thick, tanned arms crossed over his chest, his eyes still scanning to make sure he was truly gone. “When’d you get here?”
He shrugged. “Maybe five minutes ago?”
“Are you drinking?”
“Of course. Just went looking for you first.”
Your heart fluttered as you bit the inside of your lower lip to stop yourself from smiling. You held up your empty cup for him to take.
“Top me off?”
He rolled his eyes, but took the cup from your hands, mumbling that he’d be right back.
He gripped the top of your cup as he pushed his way through the swath of bodies, heading to the kitchen to pour you a new drink and himself a triple of whatever he got you.
This past week consisted of Sukuna putting more effort into you than he had for most of his collegiate career. Early morning wake-ups to be waiting at the door of your classroom before you arrived, late nights walking you back from the library when you crammed for an important exam that had you stressed. A late-night run to the convenience store when you ran out of food for Miso, the suffering through your TA office hours listening to freshmen and sophomores ask the most moronic questions he’d ever heard, just to spend time with you. Snack breaks, coffee runs, and campus lunches sprinkled in between; he had never felt more out of his element.
And yet, it felt natural. Not like work, and not like a burden, because he wanted to do it, and he wanted to do it for you.
He slid through the contingent of frat men hovering around the bar area, searching for something sweet but not too strong that you typically get. He grabbed a handle and began to pour when he felt eyes on him. He glanced up, only for his face to fall when he saw who was smirking back at him. He grunted. “Naoya.”
“Ryomen.”
Sukuna went to reach for the nearest mixer, hoping his silence would be the end of the conversation. If he could only be so lucky.
“Nice girl you got there. She’s pretty. Not your usual type, though.”
Sukuna didn’t respond, instead focusing on eyeing how much was going into your cup. You’d definitely already had some drinks in you, and he wanted to make sure you still had a good time while not getting you sick.
Naoya continued, unperturbed by his lack of response. “I thought you were fucking that girl on the swim team? The brunette, remember? Didn’t have much to work with, but she gave great head.”
Sukuna set the bottle down with a bit too much force, the glass clanking against the countertop. He clenched his teeth, reaching to pour himself another shot.
“Or what about that cheerleader? She was a fucking dime, man. Too bad she was ran through. She’s fucked half of my chapter. Can’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.”
Sukuna refrained from mentioning how many girls had the displeasure of sleeping with Naoya by throwing the glass back, immediately reaching to pour another shot.
Naoya slid a cup over, gesturing for him to pour him one too. Sukuna gave him the dirtiest glance and pulled himself back from spitting in his drink as Naoya’s voice droned on. “Nah, she must not run in any of those circles. I’ve never seen her before.” Naoya side-eyed him, a malicious grin evident. “Clearly, you went out of your way for this one. Had to have someone no one else has touched, right? Nice picking, though. She’s hot. Real nerdy type, and they’re always killers.”
Sukuna slid his drink back with so much force the liquor nearly sloshed from the cup. Naoya wrapped his hands around it, cheering to Sukuna before downing the contents. He shook his head, crumpling the cup and tossing it to the side haphazardly. It was then that Toji strolled into the kitchen, closely followed by Satoru, who immediately took note of the situation and glanced at Sukuna, trying to see if an intervention was needed. He shook his head imperceptively, telling them not to engage. They nodded back, grabbing beers from the fridge and greeting Naoya.
“Hey man, long time no see. Nice party.” Satoru said, ever trying to be the diplomat. He couldn’t figure out what they’d just walked into, but all he knew is Sukuna was maybe two shots away from causing a scene he knew their frat president would be livid about having to deal with.
Naoya shrugged. “It’s whatever. The pledges are idiots. We lost most the decent crossbids to you, and the ones we got can’t throw for shit.” Naoya cocked his head toward Sukuna, who stared ahead at the wall, attempting to control his temper. “I was telling your pledge master that the girl he brought is hot as fuck. She looks like one of those types that’s all quiet and shit until you start fucking them, then they can’t shut up.”
Toji’s grip tightened around his beer bottle while Gojo’s back stiffened. He glanced between Sukuna and Naoya, the former not seeming to react to the latter’s comment. “Yo, dude, chill with that. You sound crazy.”
“I’m just saying. Let me know when you get bored with that, so I can show her a good time.” Naoya commented, clapping Sukuna on his shoulder.
Toji chuckled mirthlessly. Gojo sighed. He could hear the discordant snapping of a violin string, the line too far crossed for Sukuna to pull himself back. And here he was, hoping for one drama free night.
Sukuna’s head turned ever so slightly to the side, glaring at Naoya from the corners of his eyes. “What?” His voice was low, barely legible over the sounds of the party, but anger radiating from his tone palpable enough to be felt around the room.
“Lemme know when you’re done fucking her, so I can take her for a spin after.” Naoya looked at Sukuna’s reaction, his eyes blazing, and added, as if probing. “Unless you haven’t fucked her yet. Nerdy girls probably play hard to get. Typical. Just let me know and I can fuck her first, make it easier for you. Bitches like that need to be broken in, then they’re easy money - ”
To be honest, Sukuna would have been disgusted by Naoya talking about anyone like that. But because it was you, especially because it was you, he let pure, hot instinct take over, not caring about social consequences or fraternal relationships. He was graduating in a semester, and he’d been waiting to do this since he met Naoya during rush three years ago.
He didn’t even realize he’d thrown a punch until the crowd gasped and shouted in shock, Naoya’s hands flying to cover his face, his body staggering but not going down. Sukuna looked down at his own fist, knuckles already pulsing from the impact and starting to bruise.
Huh, he thought to himself. Must’ve been that last shot. His punches normally were a lot stronger.
Naoya wailed, blood spurting from his nose as his eyes found Sukuna’s in anger. “Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck was that?”
Sukuna shook out his hand, voice ice cold. “Do everyone a favor, and shut the fuck up and die.”
He stalked out of the kitchen, leaving a fuming Naoya behind with Satoru and Toji closely trailing.
Gojo shook his head. “Prez is gonna kill you for that.”
“Yeah, well he can go eat shit. Everyone’s been wanting to do that since freshman year.” Sukuna glanced over at Toji as if waiting for a comment.
Toji only shrugged. “Nice punch. Good swing. Needed more follow through.”
Sukuna rolled his eyes. “Give me a break. I’m ten shots deep.” He shook his friends on his shoulder, walking back around the house to find you. He stopped when he saw you on the porch with Yuki and Choso, your eyes glancing around as if searching for someone. He felt his cheek twitch before he stepped out into the chilly night, handing you your cup. “Here.”
You took it from his hands, whispering thanks. “What took you so long?”
“Got held up.”
Your face crinkled in confusion before you glanced back down at his hand, slightly smeared with blood. You looked back up, eyes slightly wide. “Is that yours?”
He scoffed. “Of course not.”
“Then whose is it?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
You exhaled, dropping the topic and raising the cup to your lips, taking a long sip. Sukuna’s eyes trailed down your neck, settling on your shirt as his eyes scanned the words on your chest.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Is that about me?”
You smiled into the rim of your cup. “What, this?” You glanced down, tugging the end hem of your white tank, the neckline sliding down, just barely revealing the top of your lacy bra that sat underneath.
I Hate Him. Big, black swoopy letters in the same handwriting he’d been reading all semester.
“Well, it’s not for Satoru.”
“Thank God for that,” Sukuna came forward, using his fingers and looping them into your belt strap, tugging you close to him. Your hips lurched forward, and the rest of your body followed suit, your wrist curling around your cup, its plastic shell being the only thing that separated your chests. “So,” his voice dropped down to a whisper, caressing your ears and gliding down your neck, encasing you two in an intimate moment, the surrounding party left behind. His thumb crept up, up, up, over the waistband of your jeans, the pad of his finger lighting a trail across your hip, where the tiniest sliver of skin was left exposed. His eyes flashed as he looked at you. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
Any other moment, you would have been mortified to be caught in such a position, on the front porch of raging party in the background, but with you three, four, five drinks in, and the guy you’ve liked for weeks, whose mouth and eyes and body you couldn’t get out of your head since you kissed, standing mere inches in front of you, staring you down like you were the only person around clouded your judgement the way his maroon eyes were – to be frank, you couldn’t give a damn.
“Do you want to be forgiven?”
His response was immediate. Firm, but charged, like his words were aimed directly at your heart. “Yes. Please. Forgive me. I’m sorry.”
The grin that stretched along your face was cat-like. “I like when you beg.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too used to it.” His tone went gruff, but the lilt in his smile gave him away, his canines glinting in the soft moonlight.
His words dissipated, but his grin didn’t fade as he held your gaze, his thumb still gently brushing your hip. His eyes dipped down to your mouth until he dragged them back up again. His voice held a slight rasp as he started to speak. “Can I – ”
“Yo, we should leave before Naoya finds you,” Toji’s deep voice cut through your moment as he appeared from the front door, bee-lining to his friend standing to the side of the porch. He eyed the distance between you two, and his lips quirked up into a smirk before continuing. “He’s not too happy.”
“Of course, he’s not happy, you broke his fucking nose,” Gojo came out after Toji, reaching to knock the back of Sukuna’s head before he tucked out of the way.
The warmth of Sukuna’s hand left your side as he reached to push his friends away, and you maneuvered out of the scuffle to tell Yuki you were headed out.
“But you just got here,” Yuki whined.
“Yeah, and now I’m just leaving.”
She groaned, but stood up. “Ok, let me walk you home.”
You shook your head. “No, it’s chill. Sukuna will.”
Yuki raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Oh, he will?”
“Stop it, it’s not like that.”
“Is it not?” She chided. “It’s ok, I can take a hint. We can debrief another time. But you kiss and make up, or whatever it is that you plan on doing.”
“I don’t plan on doing anything.” You protested.
“Oh, good, it’s much more fun when it’s a spur-of-the-moment type thing.” She nodded. “Do you need a condom?”
“Yuki, I’m walking away now. Good night.”
“Stay safe!” She called back, laughter obscuring her words.
You walked back over to Sukuna, who leaned against the wall as Gojo and Toji bickered beside him. You sidled up next to him, wrapping your arms around his. He raised his brows in curiosity, but didn’t pull away.
“Walk me home?”
He nodded, barely bothering to say bye to his friends before walking down the steps with you, arms still linked, holding you close as the night air nipped at your exposed skin.
Your walk was largely quiet save for the crunching leaves underfoot and the brush of the wind against the bare tree branches, its bend filling the air with a late night whistle.
You looked up at Sukuna to already find him gazing at you. “What is it?” He murmured.
“You broke someone’s nose tonight?”
He sucked his teeth. “He was on some fuck shit. Trust me, he deserved it.”
“Was it that guy from earlier?”
“Doesn’t matter. He was spouting absolute bullshit.”
“About me?”
Sukuna didin’t answer, but his eyes gave him away.
“I hope you don’t get in too much trouble for that.”
“Oh, no, I definitely fucked it up, but I don’t really care. I’d do it again. Probably swing harder, too.”
You chuckled, a small puff of air coming out from your warm breath. Autumn was well on her way out, and the crisp chill of winter was setting in, finals and the highly anticipated winter semester break looming overhead. You always found it funny how the shifting of the seasons was like the changing of the tides, and how your grasp on something so simple could slip and drop you in something wild and unpredictable. Autumn had shook the ground beneath you, causing your knees to buckle and head to spin, but with winter, and her frosty demeanor and ice below your feet, threatening to crack and cave causing you to slip, you found yourself ready, ready to shift your balance and take on the uncertainty in the storm, armed with a red hoodie that wasn’t yours.
As you approached your door, Sukuna stopped in front of you, the outside light shining through his tousled pink locks. He cleared his throat, somewhat nervously.
“So, about tonight…”
You hummed, telling him to continue.
“I don’t want to pressure you into an answer, and like I said before, whatever you give me, I can accept.”
You cocked your head to the side, a small smile on your face.
“I asked you if you could forgive me.”
You nodded, biting your lip.
“...Can you?”
You turned to the door, sliding in the key and bumping it open with your hip, looking over your shoulder to face him.
“Why don’t you come inside and find out?”
a/n: next chapter is pretty much just smut and i promise you will not have to wait a month and a half for it.
description -> there wasn't much you and frat boy!sukuna ryomen had in common...except your mutual disdain for partner projects. (un)luckily for the two of you, fate has a way of bringing together the seemingly incompatible. but as the project continues and studying sessions involve less and less studying, you both discover you're learning more about yourselves than the subject matter at hand...
word count -> 14.5k
cw -> yearning || mutual pining || like, medium burn? || eventual smut || drinking || smoking || cursing || mean sukuna (but only if you squint) || side frat!gojo x nerd!reader || jealousy || angst (it's getting serious) || resolved tension and feelings
part eight || part nine || part ten
Sukuna woke up with a pounding headache and a sickness in his stomach that a hangover couldn’t rival.
He cast a sideways glance at the sunlight peaking through his blinds, a silver of the window visible, showcasing the outside world in a much better mood than he could hope to muster. His clothes from last night lay in the same pile he left them in when he stripped and climbed into bed, too drunk to do anything but lie there and let sleep overtake him. His mouth was dry, tasting of whatever liquor he’d mixed to get him in this state, but all he could remember was the feeling of you against him.
For one brief, blissful moment, everything felt correct. Months of feelings captured when he let his instincts take over his restraint, taking two steps forward and fully falling into you, pressing his lips against yours in a feverish state.
And you had responded in kind. He could still feel the way your nails dragged down the nape of his neck, fingers buried in his pinkish locks. He could still hear your body’s response, keening into him as if you two together were natural. His thigh between your leg, sliding in like a piece of a puzzle, your mouth slotted against his, his hands gripping your waist, and you, in the center of it all, so reactive and responsive to his movements.
And just as quickly as it came, it vanished. Fucked up by a drunken decision on a Sunday night that left him waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own with a girl who didn’t deserve to suffer the repercussions of his indecision and insecurity.
Toji, ever the enabler, accompanied Sukuna and some of their other frat brothers to their favorite dive spot, where the drinks were cheap, and the bartenders poured heavy, especially for customers they knew whose pockets were deep and got deeper the more drinks they had. Sukuna, by nature, was a favorite customer, only rivaled by Satoru, both of whom had closed shop one too many times.
It was late – too late to be drinking this much on a Sunday night, but Sukuna couldn’t bring himself to care as the bartender poured him another drink from the well. Toji, in a rare occurrence of rationality, cut himself off after the third drink. His eyes flicked over to the entrance of the bar, and they narrowed at what he saw.
“You’ve got trouble headed your way.”
Sukuna’s head turned, and Uraume’s clipped bob entered his vision. He sighed, ambivalent about her arrival, turning back to his drink. “Whatever.”
“Haven’t you been dodging her texts?”
“Yup.”
Toji stared at him incredulously, shaking his head as he lifted his glass, downing the rest of the drink in one swallow. “You’re ridiculous.” He slid his glass against the bar top and reached into his jeans pocket, pulling out a few crumpled ones.
Sukuna side-eyed him. “Where’re you going?”
Toji glanced back at Uraume, who spotted both men at the bar and began to make her way over. “Away from whatever shitstorm of bad decisions you’re about to make.”
Just as quickly as Toji exited, Uraume entered, flicking her hair over her shoulder and ordering two shots. She placed one gingerly in front of Sukuna, saying, “You look like you need this.”
Sukuna was positively sure he didn’t, but couldn’t focus long enough to form a sentence to argue as he wrapped his fingers around the shot, lifting it in cheers and clinking glasses with her before tapping the bottom gently on the bar, tipping his head back to down the clear, burning liquid.
Uraume followed suit, stacking their glasses and looking over at Sukuna. “So. Why’re you here on a Sunday night?”
He scoffed at the attempt at small talk. “Could ask you the same thing.”
Uraume shrugged, her eyes trailing. “Probably the same as you. Looking for a distraction.”
A distraction. That’s exactly what it was. A distraction, and a hazy-headed decision that led to him abandoning Toji at the bar, and waking up in Uraume’s bed, back slick with sweat and regret as she slept soundlessly next to him.
It was an asshole move, and he knew it. He knew as soon as he left the bar that he would regret it, but it wasn’t enough to get him to stop. He wasn’t sure why. He’d never been one to hesitate. And when it was offered up so casually, who was he to refuse when you and he had nothing tying you together? No loyalties, no pledges of abstinence or celibacy, no titles of girlfriend, boyfriend, or friends with benefits. Until last night, you hadn’t even kissed yet.
And now?
Sukuna wasn’t sure if he could even call you a friend.
All you had were close encounters and yearning glances from across rooms, hushed tones and subtle touches that lingered like the smell of your shampoo and the musk of his cologne. Momentary pleasure followed by a week of guilt, plaguing him like whatever sickness you had caught last week.
And just like that, his mind was back on you. You, and your dejected face as you watched the grimace form on his. The way you fought against your lower lip wobbling, your waterline dampening against your will. He wasn’t so bold or full of himself to declare your heart crushed, but he knows he saw something break behind your eyes, and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to repair it.
He reached for his phone, battery almost empty from last night’s negligence, and saw no response from you. He would’ve been embarrassed by the multiple texts going on unanswered with anyone else, but with you, he couldn’t give a damn.
sukuna | I know I fucked up but please let me explain.
sukuna | I’m so fucking sorry.
sukuna | Please let me talk to you.
sukuna | I regret hurting you but I don’t regret kissing you.
Timestamped at two in the morning; all left on delivered. He figured as much, considering how wounded you looked when you left him standing on the patio. He winced at the last text he sent, too drunk to come up with something better, something more soothing, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t true. Considering how hard he was when he felt you pressed up against him, he figured you knew it too.
He threw his arm over his eyes and groaned, feeling ill in more ways than one. It didn’t help that an unwelcome knock and entry of his white-haired friend timed itself so perfectly with his current state.
Gojo bounded over, propping himself on Sukuna’s bed, irritably chipper. “Well, don’t you look positively sunshiney.”
Sukuna glared at him from beneath his comforter. “Get. Out.”
“Y’know, maybe, if you’d just taken my advice when I gave it to you weeks ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But here we are. Feelings, trampled on, numbers, blocked – ”
“She hasn’t blocked me. At least, yet. Semester’s not over, and we’re project partners. She can’t.”
“Oh, I think she has the license to kill you after what you put her through.” Gojo retorted, tone playful, but eyes serious. “You really hurt her last night.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Sukuna snapped, sitting up in his bed, a menacing tone lacing every word. “Get the fuck outta my face. Who are you to tell me that, anyway? Some idiot who’s taken her on one date?”
“Last time I checked, it’s one more than you’ve been on with her.”
Sukuna felt his fist twitch beside him. He only glared in response.
“I don’t know why you’re glowering at me. I’m not the one who fucked up. I’m not the one who wanted to have their cake and eat it too. I’m not the one who – ”
“Yeah, yeah, I got your point, dickhead. I know I fucked up.”
“At least you’re not totally dense.” Gojo eyed him up and down, judgment oozing from his gaze. “So. What are you gonna do about it?”
Sukuna exhaled, casting a sideways glance at his window, still obscured by his curtains, and yet the midday sun persisted, a sliver of light illuminating his room.
“She won’t even talk to me. What am I supposed to do?”
Gojo shrugged. “Dunno, but it better be something good.”
Sukuna’s scowl deepened. “You’ve butt your head in every part of this since the beginning, and now you decide to stop talking?”
“Yeah, I gave both of you my advice and look where that’s got us. Maybe if I shut up, it’ll encourage you two to sit and actually figure out what you both want. Y’know, communicate. Like adults do.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not laughing. You shouldn’t be either. You better come up with something that sweeps her off her feet before she decides I’m clearly the better option.”
“Gojo?”
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck out my room.”
|||
Utahime, Yuki, and Shoko both watched with concerned eyes as you recounted everything they had missed – from the sickness, to him hooking up with Uraume the following day, to the cold shoulder treatment and the kiss on the patio. You watched as their jaws dropped lower and lower, and despite your overwhelming sadness and anger at him, you felt the blood rush to your cheeks as you recounted your shared moment outside the party.
“He did what?” Utahime leaned forward, flushed at your hushed retelling. “Oh, my God.”
Shoko placed her hand on your shoulder, nodding solemnly. “I am so proud of you. A lesser woman would have folded.”
“But I did fold! The fucking kiss, I – ” You buried your face in your hands. “I shouldn’t have kissed him.”
“Was it good?”
You flushed as Shoko and Utahime admonished Yuki’s question, but you felt heat rise to your cheeks from the answer that immediately popped into your brain.
It was fucking amazing.
You weren’t totally inexperienced. You had had your fair share of kisses in your lifetime, but none were quite as passionate as what you experienced on the patio that night.
Last night, after getting ice cream with Satoru and him dropping you off at your apartment, you laid in bed, wide awake, replaying what had transpired between you and Sukuna by the nanosecond, frame by frame.
His heated gaze. His hands, so big and hungry as they gripped your hips, squeezing, kneading, as if he was trying to fuse your bodies into one. His mouth, setting the pace, insistent, not overpowering, sucking and nipping at your lips so gently, yet wanton lust bled through every breath. His chest pressed against yours, heart beating wildly, the two of you generating enough heat to warm a small village. That warmth pooled at your stomach, sinking lower and lower as you felt him drag your body over his thigh, thick and sinewy with muscle pressed against your core and overwhelming all of your senses, sending your brain into overdrive.
You felt yourself get flustered thinking about it, and you hated yourself for reacting that way.
“It doesn’t matter whether the kiss was good or not; what matters is that he hurt her.” Utahime pulled you into her, trying to comfort you as best she could, running a hand on your shoulder. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
You mumbled out an empty thanks. It was nice to have friends who cared so much, but you could barely sort out your own feelings on the matter, let alone what you were going to do to proceed forward.
It was Saturday morning, and you and Sukuna’s normally scheduled study session had been abandoned, considering last night's events. His unanswered texts and calls weighed heavily on your phone as you contemplated what you should do next.
sukuna | i regret hurting you but i don’t regret kissing you.
You remember the sick, giddy feeling in your chest when you read that message when you woke up this morning. You wanted to scream, and cry, and berate him for making you feel so small, but you couldn’t help but crave his body on yours again, because as awful as you felt afterward, you didn’t regret it either.
He made you feel dirty, like someone to be used and disposed of – but that damn kiss…
Could it all have really meant nothing? Were you truly that simple, that one kiss could send you weak in the knees, abandoning your morals, what you stood for, ridding you of your self-confidence, for a man you’d only known for three months?
The logistics of it all sent your already reeling mind into a whirlwind. You didn’t understand how feelings could be so compartmentalized, for a guy to be able to kiss someone with that much fervor, knowing their date, who they’d slept with less than a week prior, was standing a couple of hundred feet away from them.
The hypocrisy almost made you want to reach out and apologize to Uraume, who was nothing but kind to you when she made small talk at the bar that night. Neither of you deserved this, but when whatever you and Sukuna have — or had — didn’t even have a label, what would you even apologize for? You knew they weren’t dating; nobody needed to tell you that the resident campus terror didn’t date, but you couldn’t help but feel like you owed her something, if not conciliation for the embarrassment of a night Friday was.
After Utahime, Shoko, and Yuki tired themselves out from their crusade against Sukuna they nobly took on for you, they left you to your own devices, both a blessing and a curse. The more you contemplated, the worse the knot in your stomach tightened.
You looked back on his text with disdain, your frown deepening as you read the messages over again. You shut your phone off, scooped up Miso, then locked yourself in your room, attempting to distract yourself from the horrors of yesterday. As the day went on and throughout the evening, while you tried to study, you kept hearing your phone buzz, and you got so fed up, you tossed it under your pillow, trying to force all your feelings down every time you saw his name pop up on your screen.
However, the universe seemed insistent on reminding you of everything, as Miso started meowing incessantly, perched in the corner of your room. You tried to ignore her calls for attention, focusing on a student’s paper you had to finish grading this weekend, when her meows started turning to howls, you whipped around, scowling at your cat. “What?” You snapped. “What do you want?”
Her tail curled, and it was then you faltered, seeing what she was sitting on top of.
Sukuna’s hoodie, still folded in the corner of your room, where you and he both left it the weekend you were sick.
Your lip twitched, and you locked eyes with Miso, who only blinked innocently in response. You huffed. “Traitor.”
You were restless that night, tossing and turning, and replaying Friday night as if it was a movie being projected overhead, thoughts and feelings too vivid for comfort. You groaned, burying yourself in comforters and pillows, and tried to ignore the heat in your stomach at the thought of his hands on you again.
The next morning brought about another flurry of texts. The unread messages from Sukuna were piling up, and you knew he realized you were adamant on ignoring him. You scrolled past, determined on not dealing with this problem until you had to, and instead went to see what Satoru had messaged you.
satoru | you know he’s crashing out right
you | Good.
you | He should be.
satoru | whew, icy
satoru | i love it
satoru | how long are you gonna ignore him for
you | Optimistically? Forever.
you | Realistically? Until class on Tuesday.
Satoru’s contact bubbled in and out of frame before he called, and you picked up the phone. “What’s up?”
“Just got tired of texting, and I wanted to hear your voice.” You heard a scuffle in the background as Gojo adjusted, then a door shut, presumably as he entered his bedroom. “How ya doin’, angel?”
You sighed. “Definitely better than Friday night. Thank you again for the ice cream.”
“Of course. Had to make sure my favorite girl was doing okay.”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re laying it on thick, Satoru. I’m still not gonna sleep with you.”
“But wouldn’t it be such great revenge?” You could almost see Gojo’s maniacal grin through the phone as he joked. “He’d be so mad.”
“Well, he would have no moral high ground to stand on, considering what he did.” You picked at your nails, holding the phone between your shoulder and ear.
“Yeah, well, he definitely knows he fucked up.”
“Please, he’s only upset that he got caught.” You scoffed, lips downturned into a pout.
“At least you know you mean something to him,” Satoru offered.
“Yeah, whatever,” you grumbled. “He doesn’t care about me.”
“That’s not true.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Um, do you not remember what happened, or do you need a refresher?”
“Trust me, I remember. I just don’t think someone who ‘doesn’t care about you’ would be blowing up your phone and texting you nonstop for the past few days. I’m surprised he hasn’t broken your door down yet.”
“And how would you know about the texts?” You drawled out.
Gojo deadpanned through the phone. “Angel. I live with him. Trust me, I know.”
In truth, Satoru had never seen the degree of crash-out Sukuna was displaying. If they thought Sukuna’s bad mood a few weeks ago was dreadful, this mood swing sent the pledge class into hiding. When he wasn’t checking his phone every ten minutes, he was scowling at anyone who entered within a five-foot radius. Toji and Gojo were the only two who were able to enter his berth without losing their heads, and even then, Sukuna could only stand their presence for a few minutes before he stormed out, irritated at the knowing glances Toji and Gojo exchanged. On the bright side, probably stemming from the fear and exhaustion he’s seen in pledges’ frames, Gojo has never seen the frat house cleaner.
A twisted part of you revelled in the fact that Sukuna was as affected as you were. You hummed in satisfaction, to which you heard Gojo chuckle. “Maybe send him a message, just so he knows you're alive. If not for yourself, for my sake. I can’t deal with this tantrum for much longer.”
“I refuse to apologize or be held responsible for the behavior of a man-child.” You sniped. “If he wants to talk to me, he’ll have to beg.”
You heard the smugness in Gojo’s tone. “Careful what you wish for.”
After getting off your call with him, you sat, contemplating his words as you read over your notes in preparation for your lectures on Monday. While you still hadn’t read any of the numerous texts Sukuna had sent, you thought about opening and responding countless times. You were sympathetic to the plight of innocent pledges, but you also knew your anger was justified. It was strange, knowing there was some care Sukuna had for you, even if all his recent actions couldn’t demonstrate it. But you think back to the soup he made, the few ice pops left in the freezer, the lattes that sat ready for every study session, and his stupid hoodie that still sat in the corner of your room. It couldn’t mean nothing, and you knew, deep down, it didn’t.
But even then, you knew what you wanted. You couldn’t be with someone where the physicality of it all was easy, but the words and actions were too hard. Regardless of your feelings for him, you wanted somebody you wanted you just as much, if not more. Even at your most angry, you didn’t ever seriously consider hooking up with someone else, and not out of some misplaced loyalty to Sukuna – you just couldn’t understand how someone could claim to be so interested in one person and sleep with someone else in such a short time frame. It grated on your nerves how all-consuming your stupid little crush became. It wasn’t like you didn’t have other options, but when Sukuna was right there, with his coral hair that curled slightly when it was damp, and his tattoos that contrasted with his tanned skin, and his frustratingly handsome smile that he only showed when he was feeling vulnerable…how could you be interested in another person?
You knew Sukuna didn’t owe anything to you; the two of you were “just friends”, after all. But he had a way of making you feel like you were someone that mattered to him, someone that he cared for, and someone he potentially wanted more with. For one moment, the kiss made it all feel possible.
But the platitudes you’ve heard so many times echoed through your head like chants in a temple. If he wanted to, he would. Actions speak louder than words. Hymns you’ve used more times than you can count in feeble attempts to protect yourself, and look how that turned out. You would think yourself into a stupor trying to parse his behavior like a psychologist, so you opted to stop thinking about it altogether. You would stop worrying about what would happen when you saw each other on campus, or how you would be civil enough to finish working on your project together. You decided to nip the problem in the bud, to stop this agonizing over a man who sent you into such a spiral. You opened your phone, scrolling past the number of texts he’d sent, and drafted one of your own.
you | Good evening. I’m texting to let you know that I will be finishing the project on my own time and no longer require your assistance. Your work in certain sections is appreciated and will be acknowledged with your name on the final submission. There is no need to further communicate with me, so at your earliest convenience, please delete my number. Good luck with your future endeavors.
You scanned it one more time before nodding in satisfaction, sending the message, and tossing your phone to the side. Not two minutes later, your phone began to ring.
Sukuna’s contact took over your phone screen, and you watched as the rings ran out, sending him to voicemail. A text pinged at the top of your screen.
sukuna | pick up your damn phone
His call rang again, and this time, you rejected it, sending him straight to voicemail. Not to be deterred, he called again, and you huffed, angrily shooting him another text.
you | Leave me the fuck alone.
you | I’m trying to ignore you.
sukuna | well you’re doing a great fucking job at that
you | I don’t know who you think you’re texting with that attitude, but it’s certainly not me.
you | Try that again.
sukuna | you’re not finishing this project by yourself
you | Watch me.
you | I’d rather chew glass than have to sit in your presence.
You waited for a text in response, but your messages sat unread. As the sun set on Sunday evening, and you prepared yourself for the long week ahead, you waited for another text from him to pop up on your screen, but nothing ever arrived. It wasn’t until the next morning, when you plopped yourself down in the first lecture of the day, that you opened your computer and saw an email waiting for you:
It has come to my attention that there seems to be an inequitable distribution of work amongst this particular partner group. Normally, I would leave disagreements to be settled between students, given you are no longer in kindergarten, but considering the strange, and might I add surprising, nature of the request I received, I felt it necessary to weigh in.
I felt I made it very clear the fair division of work for this project was imperative to earning a passing mark. Regardless of each student’s writing proficiencies and varying levels of engagement in our sessions, it is required that both students’ work be evident in the final submission. Clear evidence of a single student’s handiwork will result in immediate failure for both group members.
I hope the two of you can reach a consensus quickly, considering the final submission is due in just little over two weeks.
Best of luck,
Prof. M. Yaga
You blinked. Surely, this could not be in response to the text you sent?
But as you rechecked your inbox, you saw a post-script email, addressed only to you from Prof. Yaga:
You cannot complete this project by yourself, no matter how much you want to. I am expecting to be able to see your partner’s work evident in this submission. I would hate to fail such a talented student.
You saw red. Your nostrils flared. You felt your fingers twitch over the keys dangerously, and you fought the urge to send the most passive-aggressive email back to Sukuna. Instead, in a blind rage, you snatched your phone off the desk and marched outside the classroom, shoving through the double doors into the quietest part of the campus quad, dialing Sukuna’s number, ready to give him an earful.
The line had just barely been picked up before you began yelling into the receiver.
“Fuck you! Fuck you, you pig-headed, low-life, entitled piece of shit!” You hissed, not caring to police your tone in front of the few students milling about the grassy area. “You told on me? You tattled to our professor? Like a fucking child?” You laughed vindictively, no humor evident in your tone. “Are we in preschool? You can’t deal with the consequences of your own actions, like some spoiled brat? Oh, fuck you.” Your tone was frosted as you repeated yourself, insult after insult spewing from your mouth, built up anger for days now coming out like a geyser.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Sukuna remained silent, simply listening to your battering and berating of him with the smallest, smug grin on his face. Yeah, he was getting cursed within an inch of his life, and yeah, he could feel your vitriol spewing through his phone’s speakers. He knew your voice was loud enough through the receiver for his surrounding frat brothers, casually lounging on the sofa nearby, to hear your insults and throw worried glances back, wondering if this exchange was bordering on domestic abuse. But judgment be damned, he couldn’t care less. He was just glad to hear you talking to him, saying his name, and acknowledging his existence. The radio silence was eating him alive, and the anger in your tone told him that you still cared – he wouldn’t have known what to do if you were apathetic to it all.
He waited until you had tired yourself out, your heavy breathing coming through the receiver, before he responded. “I’m just trying to make sure I’m carrying my load of the work,” he responded, trying to keep his tone level. He knew that sensing a hint of mirth in his tone meant you would send him packing, and he was already in the dog house for the stunt he pulled last week.
“Oh, sure. You didn’t care about that at all when you suggested I do all the work a few months ago.” You responded snippily.
“That was then. Before I cared about you.”
Your lip twitched. “You mean before you cared about your grade in this class?”
“No, I mean you.” Sukuna ignored the shocked glances his frat brothers sent him, wondering if he was talking about the same person who was just cursing his bloodline for generations to come. “I care about you.”
You fought against the flutter in your chest, a flurried betrayal of wings battering against your ribs. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Sukuna responded firmly. “I’m gonna prove it to you, I’m serious about you.”
You exhaled. “Yeah, well, good luck with that.”
“I already fucked it up once. I’m not gonna do it again.”
You frowned, not sure whether to trust his words. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Sukuna hummed. “You’ll see it.”
You twisted your lips, partially stunned for words, partially refusing to say anything else lest you embarrass yourself. Sukuna took the opportunity to fill the silence you created.
“Do you want to meet in the library later to finish up the conclusion? I’ll be free the rest of the day.”
“I have plans,” you cut out, lying through your teeth.
“Fine. We’ll plan around you. When are you free?”
“Never.”
“Hm. That’s not conducive at all. What about 7:00?”
“I’m going to a seminar called ‘go fuck yourself’.”
“Sounds stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Maybe you should go to a comeback seminar instead, do they have those?”
You scoffed. “Goodbye.” You pulled your phone away from your ear to hang up, but his voice called out before you could hit the end button.
“The sooner we finish this, the sooner you can stop seeing me.”
You closed your eyes, sighing. You hated when he was right.
“I’ll see you at 7, then?”
“Whatever, fine.”
“See you then.” He hung up the phone, and you stared at the dark screen, apprehension painted across your face. You didn’t have time to be frustrated by his insistence, not when your lecture had started five minutes ago. You grumbled, heading back inside to prepare for class.
Back at the frat house, Sukuna grabbed a hoodie, tossing it over his shoulder, and snatched his backpack resting on the floor nearby. He heard Gojo call back from the foyer. “Where are you going? You don’t have class until noon.”
Sukuna grunted in response. “Gotta see about a girl.”
He slammed the door on his way out, missing the knowing grin Gojo had on his face.
|||
Sukuna sat as the population of the library dwindled down to a few straggling students, the mood somber as the lone souls sat scattered across the floors of the library, the mountain of work surrounding them dauntingly high. While the rest of the students’ faces were sullen, Sukuna’s eyebrow ticked up as the clock’s minute hand shifted forward another notch.
8:09 PM.
No text. No call.
He would laugh if he weren’t so irritated.
He knew what you were doing. He wasn’t surprised by it either. You were simply calling back to his ignorant actions when you first met – his egregiously late showing to the first study session you had together. One would argue it’s poetic justice, forcing him to taste his own medicine. He’d expected nothing less from you.
What he wasn’t expecting was for you to show up as late as you did in his hoodie.
The shades might’ve been overkill, considering the sky was a deep shade of purplish black by the time you waltzed into the library, finally gracing him with your presence. The large frames covered your face, a difference compared to the glasses you normally wear – he missed the way those sat on your face.
You stalked toward your usual table, and Sukuna bit the inside of his cheek, neglecting to comment on how cute you looked when you attempted to be brooding. You paused as you came across the empty chair sitting beside him. He raised his eyebrow in response. “Nice to see you made your way here. Did you get lost?”
You didn’t respond. Instead, you gazed past him, grimacing at the open chair next to him instead of across the table where it normally rested. You walked around his sitting figure, approaching the empty chair from behind and picking it up, trotting both the chair and you around to the other side of the table as Sukuna looked on in bewilderment. The four legs of the chair hit the library’s floor with a resounding thunk, and you plopped yourself down, folding your arms over your chest. He could feel your withering gaze, only concealed by the dark tint of your shades.
Your head ticked slightly to the side. “Here now. Let’s get this over with.”
Sukuna blew out a breath. He knew you were going to make this difficult, but he wasn’t prepared for how difficult you were going to be. No sense in beating around the bush, especially if this is already how you were acting. “We should talk about last Friday.”
You shook your head. “No.”
“We need to talk about it.”
“We don’t need to do anything but finish this damn project. And if we’re not gonna do that, then you wasted both of our time.”
“Fine. Then I’ll talk, and you can listen.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and listen to the excuses you scrambled to make.” You grabbed your bag, beginning to stand and exit, before you felt Sukuna’s hand grip your forearm. You head whipped back to glare at him, voice low. “Let. Go.”
“Let me explain.” His grip was like a vice, and as his fingers twitched, you could feel the slight, frantic desperation seeping through the pads of his digits. His eyes were still the hard, fire-forged red they usually were, but the centers were warm, as if lightened by the vulnerability he only seemed to be able to show you. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Please.”
The word sounded strange coming from his mouth, like it had been years since he’d uttered it. Your eyes met, his studying your face for signs of flight. You felt your features soften against their will. You hated how an earnest look and a pleading tone from him made you feel so weak and pliable.
You yanked your arm from his grip, dropping your bag and pushing your shades up your face. You folded your arms back across your chest, as if trying to hold yourself together, feigning strength in a moment you felt so little. “Fine. Explain.”
He took in a breath before beginning to talk. “I know I hurt you last week, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you didn’t matter, or that it – the kiss, I mean – didn’t mean anything to me, because it did.”
You pursed your lips, not giving him an inch. He scratched the back of his neck and continued.
“I did hook up with Uraume, and I’m not gonna make excuses for it. It was fucked. I know that. And it was more fucked that I kissed you like that. It wasn’t fair to either of you, but I wouldn’t take it back.”
You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, you’ve made that extensively clear.” You took a deep inhale, attempting to regulate your nervous system, now firing on all cylinders. “What does it matter to you anyway? We don’t owe each other anything. We’re not together, and I thought we agreed — ”
“I swear to God, if you say ‘to be friends’, I’m gonna lose my shit.” He laughed humorlessly, his eyes sparking as his fingers threaded more aggressively through his hair. “Are you serious? I don’t know how much more obvious I can be.” He scoffed before stepping closer to you, his scent invading your senses, your glasses the last line of defense against his proximity. His gaze was too strong, too charged, too heated for you to maintain focus. You shifted down, looking off to the side, but he shook his head.
“Look at me.”
It was your turn to swallow. Time started to catch like molasses being poured out of a jar.
“I am looking at you,” you said, your voice reduced to a whisper.
“No,” he shook his head as he reached up toward your face. You instinctively flinched back, but his touch was gentle, a stark contrast to the burning look in his eyes as he pulled your shades off, his gaze locking with yours as your neck tilted up to face him. “Look at me when I say this to you.”
You held your breath.
“I don’t wanna be your fucking friend.”
Exhale. Your chest rose and fell as his eyes flicked down to your mouth, slightly parted in surprise as his irises darkened. Flashes of the kiss ran across your mind like film strips in a projector, and you struggled to keep your breathing normal.
“I want you.”
There it was. Out in the open now, undeniable, irrefutable, resistant to your self-convinced state of denial. You felt your arms squeeze tighter against your sides. “Then why did you – ”
He cut you off. “She asked me weeks ago. And I thought you – I thought it would be best if I back off when it didn’t seem like you were interested.”
He seemed to move impossibly closer as his voice fell to a hush, its deep rumble caressing your spine.
“You set a boundary, and I wanted to respect that. I tried to. But – ”
His fingers twitched beside him as he resisted reaching for you again. He blinked, trying not to lose himself in your wide eyes, his pupils slightly blown.
“I don’t think I can anymore.”
Your breath caught. You searched his face and were taken aback at the raw emotion behind his confession. For a moment, it felt like you were back on the balcony, cornered, pressed against a column, every nerve singing, lit on fire by the vigor in his tone and eyes. Your tongue darted out to wet your lips, and you saw his eyes track it, as if he remembered how you tasted that night, the kiss sweet and fiery and intoxicating in ways that clearly left you both craving more.
Your eyes fought to stay on his, and like he sensed your apprehension, he closed his, letting out a breath of frustration and control, taking a step back and breaking the charged sphere you two had entered.
“Sorry. That wasn’t – I didn’t mean to say that. Fuck, I mean, I did, but not like that.” He palmed his forehead, his frustration with his own ineptitude that caused him to stumble over his own words. “I didn’t mean to ambush you with that. That’s not why I asked you to come.”
“So why did you ask me to come?” You could hear the exasperation in your tone, weariness pulling at your features as your frown deepened.
His shoulders slouched, mirroring your exhaustion. Such an intimidating figure, reduced to your whims.
“To apologize. To say sorry to your face.”
“Well, you did that. Mission accomplished.” You twisted your mouth in vain attempts to stop the tears pricking the corners of your eyes.
You couldn’t begin to say why you were getting emotional.
A confession, finally, begot by a night defined by drunken actions. Not how you wanted it, not how you planned, and very much not when you needed it to happen.
But was it too little, too late?
“Anything else?”
A pause.
“I needed to see if you’d give me another chance.”
“To do what?” Your facade crumbled with every earnest look he gave, his words like well-aimed arrows piercing your armor.
“Study with you.”
You exhaled shakily. He pressed forward.
“To let you know that I wanna be more than your project partner.”
Your hands flew up to your eyes, not being able to take the intensity of his look. Your fingers pressed into the sockets, as if trying to wipe him from your vision. “Sukuna, what are you doing?” You whispered.
A rhetorical question, asked from a place of denied delusion, your head spinning like you were wondering if the words coming out of his mouth were a figment of your traitorous imagination.
He continued. “I’m done dancing around this with you. I had to tell you before you decided to never speak to me again.”
“So you’re telling me in the middle of the library?”
“Seemed kinda fitting, don’t you think?”
You shuddered out a breathy laugh, shaking your head. “No. Fuck you. You don’t get to make jokes right now.”
“Sorry.”
There wasn’t a hint of remorse in his tone.
You felt his hands curl around your wrist, hesitant, but tender as they pulled your palms gently down from your face, and you blinked back tears to focus on him.
“I’m not good at this. I haven’t done…this, before, but you make me wanna try. And I know I fucked things up before, but I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance like you did when we first met.” He paused, waiting for any sign of resistance or rejection before continuing. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve been told I’m a pretty quick learner.”
This time, your laugh was watery, shock, humor, and disbelief all rolled together in a way that chimed in Sukuna’s ears. “Oh yeah? Who lied to you and said that?”
“Some girl who already called me out of my name, like, four hours ago.”
You shook your head slightly. “You deserved it.”
“Yeah, I did.” He didn’t try to put up a fight. “I’m sorry.”
His thumb caressed your inner palm before he pulled away entirely, shoving his hands into his pockets, afraid he would cross a line too soon after being granted the slightest bit of clemency from you.
You both already missed each other’s touch.
He gazed fondly at you while you fondled the slightly worn, frayed sleeves of his hoodie. He cocked his head to the side, gesturing to the table where his notes sat splayed open. “Help me draft the conclusion?”
You paused, thinking of how to respond, wiping your waterline dry from formed tears.
“Sukuna, I can’t give you an answer right now.”
“I’m not expecting you to.”
“I just need time to think. It’s just been, I don’t know, a lot, to say the least.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He’d lost track of the number of times he’d said it to you. More than he probably had throughout his college career, but he didn’t care. He’d say it a thousand times more, as many times as you needed to hear it before you’d believe him.
“I know it’s late, but…” he trailed off, his head nodding over to the textbooks and readings, lying abandoned on the table, inanimate witnesses to a long-awaited confession.
You stared at him before nodding, wordlessly following his lead and sitting down, beginning to pull out your laptop. The two of you worked quietly, burning the midnight oil as more students filtered out, and the two of you were left surrounded by the shelves of books and volumes of words left unspoken.
Well into your study session, you purposefully ignored looking at him when you asked your next question. “What would you have done if I refused to come?”
He paused, thinking of his answer. “Before getting on my hands and knees to beg? Maybe threatened to delete everything we worked on thus far.”
“Well, God forbid you do that. I still need to pass.” You raised an eyebrow as you considered his second statement. “So, is hands and knees begging still an option, or…?”
He snorted. “In your dreams, princess. Not since I know that you like me at least a little.”
“Shouldn’t that be more of an incentive? I thought princesses got what they wanted.”
He scratched his chin and looked up at you playfully. “Can’t pull out all the stops here. Week’s barely started. Besides, if you think I’m getting on my knees for you in the middle of the library, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Your stomach flipped at the prospect of him doing anything else. “Oh, so there’s more?”
“As long as you want there to be.”
You didn’t respond. You weren’t sure how to. And like a clairvoyant, he was already tuned to what you were thinking.
“I don’t need you to tell me yes or no right now. But, I need to know there’s a chance. That I’m not sitting here, trying to convince you of something you don’t want.”
The silence rested heavy between you as the pads of your fingers pressed along the keys, their clacking puncturing each second as Sukuna waited patiently, hopefully, for an affirmation.
You were gracious enough to give him one.
“I’m still wearing the hoodie, aren’t I?”
|||
“Is that him?”
You walked patiently behind the mass of students exiting the classroom. The session passed slowly with anxious students asking as many questions as possible before the onslaught of exam season hit. Unfortunately for you, your partner TA was out sick for the day, meaning you were the only one fielding questions. You were already tired, and had another two classes to go before you could go back home and crawl into bed. You sighed as the mass trickled outside like water dripping from a leaky faucet – agonizingly slow.
“Yeah, I think it is!” A hushed, excited whisper came from the young sophomore standing in front of you, pointing at a figure standing across the hallway and giggling to her friend next to her. “He is so freaking hot.”
You rolled your eyes at the comment. You couldn’t be sure who the girls were talking about, but you were certain it was some senior idiotic student athlete they had no business being interested in. As politely as you could, you began to shimmy past the two girls, rushing to make it to your next class across campus. “Excuse me,” you said, apologizing as you pushed past.
You picked up your stride, dodging the students strolling through the hallway when your spine stiffened at the sound of your name being called.
Your entire face tightened. Of course, it wasn’t just any idiotic student athlete – it was yours. At least, your project partner.
You registered his voice faster than you wanted to, and your steps faltered before you picked them up again, this time faster than before. You heard the two underclassmen whisper in confusion, wondering why the campus’s notorious rake was chasing after their relatively unassuming TA, and you flushed, trying to escape before the gossip ring suffocated you.
You heard him curse before his footsteps quickened, and before you could protest, he was walking next you, stride by side. “You walk so damn fast,” He gruffed out.
“Gotta get to class.” You hiked your bag higher on your shoulder, the computers and textbooks feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds.
His eyes took in your wince of pain at the weight of your bag. He held out his hand. “Let me.”
You balked, your hand tightening on the strap. He rolled his eyes at your apprehension. “Stop being dumb. Give me your bag.”
“I can carry it myself.”
“I don’t doubt that. Give it to me.”
“Once again, I’m fine.” You seethed, shouldering away from him.
“Your arm looks like it’s about to fall off.”
You scoffed. “You calling me weak?”
“Yes.” He took matters into his own hands, snatching the strap off your shoulder against your protests, and hiking it up on his. You had to admit, it was a funny sight to see, Sukuna with your ivory green bag hung over his shoulder, your charms and keychain dangling off it. He adjusted it a couple of times, clearly not expecting it to weigh as much as it did. “Where’s your next class?”
You raised your eyebrow. “You are not about to walk me to my next lecture. Are we fifteen?”
He sucked his teeth. “Well, I have your bag now, so I don’t know how you’ll attend class if I don’t.”
You rolled your tongue along your cheek. “You must be stupid if you think this is gonna make up for what you did.”
“And you must be more stupid if you think this is all I’m doing.”
You huffed, crossing your arms and stalking forward, refusing to face him or let him hear the fact that your heart skipped a beat. “Stupider. The phrase would be stupider.”
“That’s why I gotta keep hanging around you. You make me smarter.”
“That’s the only reason? Because I’m smart?”
He shrugged. “You’re not bad to look at either.”
You were irritated by how cloudy your demeanor was compared to Sukuna’s light, airy nature. He took his steps casually, but also cautiously, aware that you hadn’t totally forgiven him and trying not to push your boundaries too far. It was a delicate balance you both were traipsing between, with him trying to prove his feelings and you pretending not to be interested in his attempts. You knew it, and Sukuna basked in the light at the end of the tunnel – you were giving him a chance, and that was all he needed.
“So, this is your big plan, then?” You said, snark encompassing the curiosity in your tone. “The princess treatment?”
“If that’s what you wanna call it, then sure.” He glanced at you with the smallest smirk on his face, his dimples poking out and accentuating his face.
“Knew you liked the nickname.”
You exhaled through your nose and faced forward, continuing to walk and deciding you were done speaking with him.
You both ambled in silence, trekking through the middle of campus and collecting stares along the way. You knew Sukuna was used to the attention he received, but you surely weren’t.
He took in the anxiety on your face. “What?”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Besides being unwillingly escorted to class? Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“Bullshit. It’s all over your face. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just…” you hesitated, eyes flicking between the confused glances and lingering gazes. You pushed your frames up the bridge of your nose, the familiar motion soothing. “People are staring.”
He surveyed the area, onlookers whipping their heads away when they accidentally made eye contact. He scoffed. Pathetic. “Let them.”
“Not scared I’ll ruin your reputation?”
“Don’t really care, princess.”
He said it with such finality that it didn’t leave room for argument.
You bit your lip as you continued to walk. At what point was it cruel to let him do this? To pull him along on a string, to lead him on when you didn’t know if you could commit to him? You weren’t entirely sure what you were waiting on, if it was holding out to hear a magic phrase that could undo the mistakes that were made, or some grand, meaningful romantic gesture that seems to come out of the movies you’ve seen so many times with Shoko and Utahime. But was that not what had happened in the library yesterday? Maybe you were waiting for the hurt to stop feeling so fresh, for the cold delivery of Uraume’s words to stop feeling like it was a dagger, perfectly cut to the shape of your core, slicing through the emotions you had just begun to acknowledge.
You hadn’t come to a conclusion by the time you reached the building for your next class, the familiarity of your classmates sporting various levels of emotion, from shock to surprise, from approval to downright confusion at Sukuna dropping you off at the front door.
He shouldered your bag off handing it to you by the strap. “I’ve got class at noon, so I can meet you in the caf around 1:30?”
You raised your eyebrow. “Who said I wanted to have lunch with you?”
He exhaled. “Ok. Let me rephrase. I’ll be free at 1:30, and I’d like to have lunch with you. Will you meet me in the caf?”
You waited a beat.
He flicked his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “Please?”
You gave him a small smile. “See? Not so hard. Could do without the attitude, though.”
You took your bag from his hands, and he put his hands in his pockets. “So was that a yes for lunch?”
You shrugged. “If I feel like it.” You threw a wave over your shoulder as you stepped inside your senior seminar class, greeting your peers you’d been working with for the past few months.
A nice girl, with whom you had been friendly all semester, glanced at you peculiarly. “Were you talking with Sukuna just now?”
You nodded, hoping that would be the end of the questioning.
“Are you guys, like, together?”
You let out a small laugh, opening up your laptop. “He wishes.”
You clicked open your texts to see that your group chat with your girlfriends had new messages to read.
utahime | sho and i going off campus for lunch today! anyone want to join?
shoko | ramen shop nearby has an awesome lunch special that i wanna check out
yuki | i’d be down
yuki | can i bring cho?
shoko | NO
shoko | your bf cannot come everywhere with us yuki
yuki | he’ll pay
shoko | …
shoko | ok this time i’ll allow it
Shoko emphasized your name in the chat.
shoko | are you coming or what?
you | I think I have lunch plans
utahime | you think???
shoko | with who?
shoko | who could be more important and interesting than us?
yuki | her boyf
you | Not my boyfriend
yuki | sorry, soon-to-be boyf
shoko | NOT HIM
utahime | i thought we were done with him
yuki | i thought so too
yuki | what could have possibly changed in two days?
shoko | to be fair a lot
shoko | it doesn’t take a long time with these two
To your chagrin, Yuki and Utahime both laughed at Shoko’s message.
you | shut up
you | idk
you | He said please, I guess
yuki | oh wow, that’s actually a new one for him
utahime | the bar is in hell
yuki | wait i wanna lunch with you guys then
you | It wasn’t exactly an open invite
yuki | does it sound like i care?
yuki | not everyday you get to see sukuna groveling
utahime | wait so you said yes to lunch?
you | Not exactly
utahime | but you didn’t say no either?
you | Correct
shoko | should we unpack that orrrr
you | I’d actually rather not, thanks
With that, you exited the chat, putting your focus back on the lecturer, ignoring the way your stomach grumbled.
|||
The campus’s cafeteria was alive with bustling students and raucous chatter, under and upperclassmen alike carrying trays of food through the long dining hall, searching for a place of respite to take twenty minutes to fuel themselves for the trek ahead. You weren’t sure how you were gonna find Sukuna in the mass of students, but you didn’t have to worry because his eyes found you first. He called out your name as he walked toward you.
“You came,” he said, slight surprise clear.
“I gotta eat.”
He hummed, following you to the line with a choice meal. You looked over your options and selected something new on the menu. Sukuna frowned as you reached for your order. “That looks like shit.”
“Sukuna! They can hear you.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure they agree with me. It looks like literal ass. Don’t get that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Fine. Then let me suggest. I don’t think you’ll like that one.”
“Well, good thing no one asked you what you were thinking.” You thanked the server as you took your food, heading toward the end of the aisle to pay.
He rolled his eyes at your retort, ordering and dragging his tray of food behind you. Once you got to the cashier to pay, you fumbled for your card, only for Sukuna to extend his, reaching across you to hand it to the worker. “I got it.”
You whipped over to glare at him. “You are not paying for my meal.”
You reached to pull his hand away from the register, but he dodged, shoulder-checking you out of the way and pushing you out of line. “Stop being difficult. It’s just lunch.”
The cashier’s nails clicked against the screen as she took his card, swiping it and handing it back to him. “Not to intrude, but it’s honestly the bare minimum.”
Sukuna looked at you pointedly. “See? Bare minimum.”
You deadpanned, your grip tightening on your tray, and you turned your back on him, pivoting on your heel, looking for a free table to eat at. You set toward one near the edge of the room and set your bag down on the ground nearby with a thunk, with Sukuna following suit, taking the seat next to you. As you sat in the chair, he eyed the distance you put between yourself and him, and with his free hand, he grabbed the support beam underneath your seat, pulling you closer to him, his bicep flexing and the chair making an ugly scraping noise along the linoleum floors. By the time he stopped, you could not only smell the lunch he’d ordered, but him, who smelt of rain and sandalwood and all-around just too damn good for it to be the middle of the day. You stiffened in your seat as your knees brushed each other underneath the table. “You’re in my space,” you grumbled, pulling your tray closer to your body.
“Cope.” He said, already beginning to fork food in his mouth, adamant on not moving any further away.
You fiddled with your utensils, staring down at your meal. “So, are you just gonna follow me around for the rest of the day?”
His shoulders went up and down. “Until you tell me to stop.” He looked up from his plate and locked eyes with you, his gaze serious with a touch of vulnerability.
“Do you want me to stop?”
You broke your gaze first, staring down at your tray. You gnawed on the inside of your bottom lip, unsure how to answer.
He chased your eyes, leaning down to find your gaze again. “Do you?”
You landed on the truth. “No,” you mumbled, voice low and soft.
Sukunua felt the tension leave his shoulders, anxiety dissipating off his frame. “Ok. So I’ll keep following you around, and you can keep pretending not to like it.”
You wrinkled your nose. “I don’t like it.”
“Uh huh. Sure, princess.”
You couldn’t protest any further before Gojo and Toji arrive from behind, clapping Sukuna on his back. You saw him visibly tense, clearly irritated by the interruption. “What’s up, lovebirds?” Satoru chided, taking the seat next to you while Toji sat next to Sukuna.
Sukuna scowled. “What do you want?”
“The team’s wondering why you’re not sitting with them.” Satoru winks at you. “We see why.”
Toji chuckled, thumping Gojo on the back of his head. “Stop flirting with her before he kills you.”
“He won’t kill me. Not as long as she tells him not to.” Gojo’s eyes found yours, humor dancing behind his pupils. “Tell him not to kill me.”
You smirked, tilting your head to the side to look at Sukuna, who was already giving you the deadest stare back. “Don’t,” he gruffed out.
“Please don’t kill him.”
“How about seriously maim or injure?”
“Please don’t do that either.” Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh. “He’s your friend, y’know.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Gojo groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “Ugh, you guys are disgusting. I miss when you hated each other.”
“Says they’re number one, certified wing man.” Toji cajoled, reaching to steal food off Sukuna’s plate, who immediately smacked his hand away aggressively. “You’re just mad she didn’t want you.”
Gojo had flipped Toij off from across the table when you heard your name called, and you saw Yuki and Choso heading toward your group, their lunches in hand. It was almost as if you could see the dark cloud forming above Sukuna’s head as they dragged chairs up to your table, propping themselves across from you.
Choso greeted his friends while Yuki said hello to you. She eyed the distance between you and Sukuna and nudged your leg with her foot underneath the table, her eyebrow flicking up, and a repressed smile causing an upturn in her mouth. You shook your head slightly, telling her to disengage.
You felt Sukuna’s eyes on you as you picked over your food. Yuki glanced between you and Sukuna and looked at your full plate of food. “Damn, is the lunch that bad?”
“It’s fine, I’m just not that hungry.”
As if cued, your stomach grumbled, and you froze in embarrassment, giving her a sheepish grin.
You felt Sukuna grunt beside you. “Told ya you wouldn’t like that shit.”
“It’s fine,” you insisted. “It could just use a little salt. And pepper. And flavor in general…”
You trailed off, looking at Yuki bashfully. Sukuna nudged your tray forward away from you and almost imperceptively pushed his between to share. “Don’t eat that shit. Here.” He said, voice swallowed up by the conversation surrounding him.
“I don’t wanna eat your food.”
“I’m not gonna finish it all anyway.”
A lie. You’ve seen him and his teammates inhale meals like they were professional bodybuilders, calories or recommended portion control be damned. He’d even requested double portions today to load up for a scrimmage later today. He would have finished the entire portion and yours easily.
You stared at him, and he stared back, unwavering. Finally, you cracked, your hand gingerly reaching out to steal fries off his tray. You murmur a thanks, and he nods, turning back to Toji to join in whatever argument he’d started with Choso and Satoru.
Whether or not your tablemates saw what just happened, they gave you the grace of ignoring it, but you couldn’t help but be suspicious of the tiny knowing smile on Yuki’s face.
After the lunch hour was up, you stood to throw away your trash and walked back to the table to see Sukuna already standing with your bag. He looked up at you from his phone and asked where your next move class was. You went to respond before Yuki cut in.
“Actually, loverboy, I’m gonna steal her away for a bit. I’ve been meaning to catch up with her, but she’s such a busy woman.” She patted you on the shoulder, a gleam in her eye telling you that you knew you were about to face a serious interrogation.
Sukuna looked ready to protest, but Yuki silenced him with a wave of her hand. “You’re not bound by the hip. You won’t die if you’re separated for a few hours. You’ll be fine.” She snatched up your bag from his hands and held it to your chest. “She’ll catch up with you later.”
Yuki hooked her arm through yours and went to exit the cafeteria, shouting goodbyes to the boys you all left behind.
As soon as you were out of earshot, Yuki’s arms shoved your side, sending you stumbling off course. “Um, hello? Lunch, carrying your bag? What did I miss?”
You raised your hand to your brow, trying to rub away the stress marks Yuki’s questioning was already forming. “Yuki, please - “
“No matter. I have the perfect place for you guys to hard launch to the rest of campus.”
“We’re not dating,” you mumbled, but Yuki barreled forward.
“Sig Chi is throwing this Friday! We should definitely go, and I can get you on the list.”
“When has partying ever been the solution to something?”
“It’s always worked out for me,” Yuki shrugged. “But I digress. It’s kinda a joint thing, so most of the guys will be there. It’ll be fun, and it’s themed!”
“Oh joyous.”
Yuki pouted. “You used to be so much fun. What happened?”
“Well, the last time you invited me to a party, I ended the night crying in an ice cream shop.”
“Perf, then we can only go up from here!”
You rolled her eyes at her grating optimism. “What’s the theme?”
“Little White Lies.” You swore, her eyes sparkled as she shared the concept behind it.
“Y’know, for someone who claims to be so loosely associated with Greek life, you sure do love the social events.”
“Yeah, me and every other bitch. Trust me, I’ve seen half of those AGL’s drunk in a frat basement before. Everyone’s a hypocrite, I am just willing to own up to it.” She grabbed your arm, shaking you gently. “So, will you come? Pleeeaaaseeeee?”
You felt your extended eye roll turn into a long blink, and the next thing you knew, your eyesight was impaired by the lack of lighting in the frat house and the contents of your cup which sat drained quicker than you had anticipated.
It had been a long week, to say the least. Your brain fired back and forth between options, and Sukuna wasn’t making it any easier on your part. The gestures seemed to only get more elaborate, from walking you to class, to showing up early to your seminar with your coffee order in hand, his bedhead still evident and voice still gruff from his body being up before his mind. It almost seemed the more you tried to dig your heels in the ground, the more determined Sukuna seemed to prove himself to you. You struggled with the position you were putting both of you in, but you also knew a sick truth: at any point, you could have told him to stop, and he would have, without hesitation. You never did, and he gave you the grace of not mentioning it.
The end of the semester project came and went, with the brief class presentations of findings showcasing the wide variety of students’ preparation and levels of understanding of the material they studied for weeks. You and Sukuna’s was concise and clean, as to the point like a needle in a sewing kit, topped off with a nod of approval from Prof. Yaga himself. At the end of class, he beckoned the two of you to his desk, staring at your approaching figures over the rims of his glasses.
He folded his hands as he spoke. “Now, I won’t lie, I was worried about the contents and quality of your work, given the worrying email I received a few weeks prior.”
You braced for impact, but his next words threw you for a loop.
“But I must admit, you two surprised me.”
You blinked.
He continued. “Based on my preliminary readings and the presentation you all gave today, it seems like you both have a firm grasp on the material provided, and melded your writing voices and opinions together well to form one coherent sound.”
Sukuna stiffened. “Um, thank you?”
Yaga nodded, glancing between you two, the barest hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“You work well together.”
You wanted to scream. If only.
The hell you went through this semester, and the hell you were going through this past week alone, was enough to drive you into a deep slumber akin to hibernation, not waking until the promised bright spring day of graduation warmed your face with its rays. You felt the silence between you two as you exited the classroom. You shrugged your back higher as you glanced over at him. The end of the semester, the end of the enforcement of being in each other’s presence, the realization of this potential ending stung like the cold bite of the late November winds, icy and bitter.
You hadn’t anticipated it being so anti-climactic.
“So,” you started. “It sounds like we did well.”
“Yup.”
“I’m glad. I was nervous there for a second.” You chuckled nervously. Why were you nervous? You couldn’t say as you kept talking. “I was worried our third argument was weaker than our first two, but that supporting source you found at the last second really helped bolster it.”
He crinkled his brows, looking sideways at you while keeping your pace with his hands in his pockets. He called out your name, but your words overwhelmed him.
“I also thought we were gonna need another run through before presenting, but you’re a super solid presenter. I guess that comes with being in the business school, but you spoke really well, and you even added one of the facts that completely slipped my mind. Thanks for that, by the way.”
He called your name again, this time more forcefully. Your lips snapped shut.
“What are you doing?”
You felt your mouth go dry. He reads you so easily now, so intimately, it’s chilling.
“Nothing.”
“You’re rambling.”
“No, I’m not.”
He gave you a look. “We did fine. We did better than fine. Yaga’s such a hard ass that the review we got was practically glowing. You know this.”
You stayed silent.
He asked again. “What’s wrong?”
A million answers ran through your head. A confession, an acceptance, a forgiveness you’d been ready to extend when you heard him apologize in the library, a prideful snark you couldn’t bear to let go of. You didn’t want this, whatever it was, to end.
But why were you struggling so hard to just say that?
“Are you going to the party tomorrow?”
His eyes stared hard at you. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
A moment passed. You didn’t falter. He sighed softly, letting you get away with it.
“Sure, if you’re going.”
Your last conversation is why you couldn’t help but search for a particular pink head of hair in the crowd. You pulled at your tank top, crudely written words decorating its front in black ink while you rested your head against a wall, Yuki making conversation with a girl you weren’t familiar with. You trailed your eyes lazily over the throngs of people dancing, drinking, and laughing throughout the house. You felt a body slide next to your space against the wall. They took a sip of their drink before casting a sideways smirk at you. “Not your scene?”
You shrugged. “Just bored.”
“Maybe I can change that.” You caught a glance of his side profile, piercings adorning the crest of his ear, his hair cropped close to his head, plastered around his dome, not to be helped by the heat radiating off the bodies that surrounded them. Despite the feverish state of the room, this stranger felt inclined to move even closer to you. You pressed your body against the wall, in hopes its walls would concave and absorb you.
You let out a puff of air in sardonic laughter. “I doubt that.”
“Yeah? Well, let me get you a drink.”
Your grip tightened over the mouth of the cup. “I’m good, actually.”
“Come on,” he dragged, his face getting closer, the liquor on his breath almost palpable. “It’s just one drink.”
You wrinkled your nose, using your knuckles to press against his chest. “Can you chill?”
His grin was slimy as it grew across his face, his hand locking yours against him, his grip like iron. You tugged your arm away, but his grip only tightened. “Don’t be such a - ”
“Hey.” That dark tone, you’d recognize it anywhere. Both you and the stranger’s heads whipped over to Sukuna, brooding in front of you, eyes cold and hard like concrete. The guys’ grip loosened just enough for you to rip your arm from his grasp. You gave him a disgusted look as you stepped away, Sukuna subtly stepped between, putting more distance between you two as he used his fingers to gently guide you behind him. He glanced down at you, the facade behind his eyes cracking softly as he scanned you over.
“You ok?” He mumbled.
You nodded back. “I’m fine.”
The guy’s grating voice chimed back in as he observed you two. “Ah, I see. You’re Sukuna’s new plaything. Heard rumors, but didn’t think it was true.” He took a step back, putting his hands up in signs of surrender. “My bad man, you got it.” He smirked as he eyed you up and down, still walking away.
You scowled as the party’s crowd absorbed him, and you glanced up at Sukuna to see his jaw clenched, a vein in the side of his head popping out. He met your gaze, his eyes serious. “I don’t call you a plaything. He’s just an asshole.”
“I figured.” Your eyes shot down to his thick, tanned arms crossed over his chest, his eyes still scanning to make sure he was truly gone. “When’d you get here?”
He shrugged. “Maybe five minutes ago?”
“Are you drinking?”
“Of course. Just went looking for you first.”
Your heart fluttered as you bit the inside of your lower lip to stop yourself from smiling. You held up your empty cup for him to take.
“Top me off?”
He rolled his eyes, but took the cup from your hands, mumbling that he’d be right back.
He gripped the top of your cup as he pushed his way through the swath of bodies, heading to the kitchen to pour you a new drink and himself a triple of whatever he got you.
This past week consisted of Sukuna putting more effort into you than he had for most of his collegiate career. Early morning wake-ups to be waiting at the door of your classroom before you arrived, late nights walking you back from the library when you crammed for an important exam that had you stressed. A late-night run to the convenience store when you ran out of food for Miso, the suffering through your TA office hours listening to freshmen and sophomores ask the most moronic questions he’d ever heard, just to spend time with you. Snack breaks, coffee runs, and campus lunches sprinkled in between; he had never felt more out of his element.
And yet, it felt natural. Not like work, and not like a burden, because he wanted to do it, and he wanted to do it for you.
He slid through the contingent of frat men hovering around the bar area, searching for something sweet but not too strong that you typically get. He grabbed a handle and began to pour when he felt eyes on him. He glanced up, only for his face to fall when he saw who was smirking back at him. He grunted. “Naoya.”
“Ryomen.”
Sukuna went to reach for the nearest mixer, hoping his silence would be the end of the conversation. If he could only be so lucky.
“Nice girl you got there. She’s pretty. Not your usual type, though.”
Sukuna didn’t respond, instead focusing on eyeing how much was going into your cup. You’d definitely already had some drinks in you, and he wanted to make sure you still had a good time while not getting you sick.
Naoya continued, unperturbed by his lack of response. “I thought you were fucking that girl on the swim team? The brunette, remember? Didn’t have much to work with, but she gave great head.”
Sukuna set the bottle down with a bit too much force, the glass clanking against the countertop. He clenched his teeth, reaching to pour himself another shot.
“Or what about that cheerleader? She was a fucking dime, man. Too bad she was ran through. She’s fucked half of my chapter. Can’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.”
Sukuna refrained from mentioning how many girls had the displeasure of sleeping with Naoya by throwing the glass back, immediately reaching to pour another shot.
Naoya slid a cup over, gesturing for him to pour him one too. Sukuna gave him the dirtiest glance and pulled himself back from spitting in his drink as Naoya’s voice droned on. “Nah, she must not run in any of those circles. I’ve never seen her before.” Naoya side-eyed him, a malicious grin evident. “Clearly, you went out of your way for this one. Had to have someone no one else has touched, right? Nice picking, though. She’s hot. Real nerdy type, and they’re always killers.”
Sukuna slid his drink back with so much force the liquor nearly sloshed from the cup. Naoya wrapped his hands around it, cheering to Sukuna before downing the contents. He shook his head, crumpling the cup and tossing it to the side haphazardly. It was then that Toji strolled into the kitchen, closely followed by Satoru, who immediately took note of the situation and glanced at Sukuna, trying to see if an intervention was needed. He shook his head imperceptively, telling them not to engage. They nodded back, grabbing beers from the fridge and greeting Naoya.
“Hey man, long time no see. Nice party.” Satoru said, ever trying to be the diplomat. He couldn’t figure out what they’d just walked into, but all he knew is Sukuna was maybe two shots away from causing a scene he knew their frat president would be livid about having to deal with.
Naoya shrugged. “It’s whatever. The pledges are idiots. We lost most the decent crossbids to you, and the ones we got can’t throw for shit.” Naoya cocked his head toward Sukuna, who stared ahead at the wall, attempting to control his temper. “I was telling your pledge master that the girl he brought is hot as fuck. She looks like one of those types that’s all quiet and shit until you start fucking them, then they can’t shut up.”
Toji’s grip tightened around his beer bottle while Gojo’s back stiffened. He glanced between Sukuna and Naoya, the former not seeming to react to the latter’s comment. “Yo, dude, chill with that. You sound crazy.”
“I’m just saying. Let me know when you get bored with that, so I can show her a good time.” Naoya commented, clapping Sukuna on his shoulder.
Toji chuckled mirthlessly. Gojo sighed. He could hear the discordant snapping of a violin string, the line too far crossed for Sukuna to pull himself back. And here he was, hoping for one drama free night.
Sukuna’s head turned ever so slightly to the side, glaring at Naoya from the corners of his eyes. “What?” His voice was low, barely legible over the sounds of the party, but anger radiating from his tone palpable enough to be felt around the room.
“Lemme know when you’re done fucking her, so I can take her for a spin after.” Naoya looked at Sukuna’s reaction, his eyes blazing, and added, as if probing. “Unless you haven’t fucked her yet. Nerdy girls probably play hard to get. Typical. Just let me know and I can fuck her first, make it easier for you. Bitches like that need to be broken in, then they’re easy money - ”
To be honest, Sukuna would have been disgusted by Naoya talking about anyone like that. But because it was you, especially because it was you, he let pure, hot instinct take over, not caring about social consequences or fraternal relationships. He was graduating in a semester, and he’d been waiting to do this since he met Naoya during rush three years ago.
He didn’t even realize he’d thrown a punch until the crowd gasped and shouted in shock, Naoya’s hands flying to cover his face, his body staggering but not going down. Sukuna looked down at his own fist, knuckles already pulsing from the impact and starting to bruise.
Huh, he thought to himself. Must’ve been that last shot. His punches normally were a lot stronger.
Naoya wailed, blood spurting from his nose as his eyes found Sukuna’s in anger. “Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck was that?”
Sukuna shook out his hand, voice ice cold. “Do everyone a favor, and shut the fuck up and die.”
He stalked out of the kitchen, leaving a fuming Naoya behind with Satoru and Toji closely trailing.
Gojo shook his head. “Prez is gonna kill you for that.”
“Yeah, well he can go eat shit. Everyone’s been wanting to do that since freshman year.” Sukuna glanced over at Toji as if waiting for a comment.
Toji only shrugged. “Nice punch. Good swing. Needed more follow through.”
Sukuna rolled his eyes. “Give me a break. I’m ten shots deep.” He shook his friends on his shoulder, walking back around the house to find you. He stopped when he saw you on the porch with Yuki and Choso, your eyes glancing around as if searching for someone. He felt his cheek twitch before he stepped out into the chilly night, handing you your cup. “Here.”
You took it from his hands, whispering thanks. “What took you so long?”
“Got held up.”
Your face crinkled in confusion before you glanced back down at his hand, slightly smeared with blood. You looked back up, eyes slightly wide. “Is that yours?”
He scoffed. “Of course not.”
“Then whose is it?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
You exhaled, dropping the topic and raising the cup to your lips, taking a long sip. Sukuna’s eyes trailed down your neck, settling on your shirt as his eyes scanned the words on your chest.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Is that about me?”
You smiled into the rim of your cup. “What, this?” You glanced down, tugging the end hem of your white tank, the neckline sliding down, just barely revealing the top of your lacy bra that sat underneath.
I Hate Him. Big, black swoopy letters in the same handwriting he’d been reading all semester.
“Well, it’s not for Satoru.”
“Thank God for that,” Sukuna came forward, using his fingers and looping them into your belt strap, tugging you close to him. Your hips lurched forward, and the rest of your body followed suit, your wrist curling around your cup, its plastic shell being the only thing that separated your chests. “So,” his voice dropped down to a whisper, caressing your ears and gliding down your neck, encasing you two in an intimate moment, the surrounding party left behind. His thumb crept up, up, up, over the waistband of your jeans, the pad of his finger lighting a trail across your hip, where the tiniest sliver of skin was left exposed. His eyes flashed as he looked at you. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
Any other moment, you would have been mortified to be caught in such a position, on the front porch of raging party in the background, but with you three, four, five drinks in, and the guy you’ve liked for weeks, whose mouth and eyes and body you couldn’t get out of your head since you kissed, standing mere inches in front of you, staring you down like you were the only person around clouded your judgement the way his maroon eyes were – to be frank, you couldn’t give a damn.
“Do you want to be forgiven?”
His response was immediate. Firm, but charged, like his words were aimed directly at your heart. “Yes. Please. Forgive me. I’m sorry.”
The grin that stretched along your face was cat-like. “I like when you beg.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too used to it.” His tone went gruff, but the lilt in his smile gave him away, his canines glinting in the soft moonlight.
His words dissipated, but his grin didn’t fade as he held your gaze, his thumb still gently brushing your hip. His eyes dipped down to your mouth until he dragged them back up again. His voice held a slight rasp as he started to speak. “Can I – ”
“Yo, we should leave before Naoya finds you,” Toji’s deep voice cut through your moment as he appeared from the front door, bee-lining to his friend standing to the side of the porch. He eyed the distance between you two, and his lips quirked up into a smirk before continuing. “He’s not too happy.”
“Of course, he’s not happy, you broke his fucking nose,” Gojo came out after Toji, reaching to knock the back of Sukuna’s head before he tucked out of the way.
The warmth of Sukuna’s hand left your side as he reached to push his friends away, and you maneuvered out of the scuffle to tell Yuki you were headed out.
“But you just got here,” Yuki whined.
“Yeah, and now I’m just leaving.”
She groaned, but stood up. “Ok, let me walk you home.”
You shook your head. “No, it’s chill. Sukuna will.”
Yuki raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Oh, he will?”
“Stop it, it’s not like that.”
“Is it not?” She chided. “It’s ok, I can take a hint. We can debrief another time. But you kiss and make up, or whatever it is that you plan on doing.”
“I don’t plan on doing anything.” You protested.
“Oh, good, it’s much more fun when it’s a spur-of-the-moment type thing.” She nodded. “Do you need a condom?”
“Yuki, I’m walking away now. Good night.”
“Stay safe!” She called back, laughter obscuring her words.
You walked back over to Sukuna, who leaned against the wall as Gojo and Toji bickered beside him. You sidled up next to him, wrapping your arms around his. He raised his brows in curiosity, but didn’t pull away.
“Walk me home?”
He nodded, barely bothering to say bye to his friends before walking down the steps with you, arms still linked, holding you close as the night air nipped at your exposed skin.
Your walk was largely quiet save for the crunching leaves underfoot and the brush of the wind against the bare tree branches, its bend filling the air with a late night whistle.
You looked up at Sukuna to already find him gazing at you. “What is it?” He murmured.
“You broke someone’s nose tonight?”
He sucked his teeth. “He was on some fuck shit. Trust me, he deserved it.”
“Was it that guy from earlier?”
“Doesn’t matter. He was spouting absolute bullshit.”
“About me?”
Sukuna didin’t answer, but his eyes gave him away.
“I hope you don’t get in too much trouble for that.”
“Oh, no, I definitely fucked it up, but I don’t really care. I’d do it again. Probably swing harder, too.”
You chuckled, a small puff of air coming out from your warm breath. Autumn was well on her way out, and the crisp chill of winter was setting in, finals and the highly anticipated winter semester break looming overhead. You always found it funny how the shifting of the seasons was like the changing of the tides, and how your grasp on something so simple could slip and drop you in something wild and unpredictable. Autumn had shook the ground beneath you, causing your knees to buckle and head to spin, but with winter, and her frosty demeanor and ice below your feet, threatening to crack and cave causing you to slip, you found yourself ready, ready to shift your balance and take on the uncertainty in the storm, armed with a red hoodie that wasn’t yours.
As you approached your door, Sukuna stopped in front of you, the outside light shining through his tousled pink locks. He cleared his throat, somewhat nervously.
“So, about tonight…”
You hummed, telling him to continue.
“I don’t want to pressure you into an answer, and like I said before, whatever you give me, I can accept.”
You cocked your head to the side, a small smile on your face.
“I asked you if you could forgive me.”
You nodded, biting your lip.
“...Can you?”
You turned to the door, sliding in the key and bumping it open with your hip, looking over your shoulder to face him.
“Why don’t you come inside and find out?”
a/n: next chapter is pretty much just smut and i promise you will not have to wait a month and a half for it.
˙ ✩°˖🍓🔪 ⋆｡˚꩜ when sukuna returns home, he doesn’t expect to find you — the annoying girl from university with whom he bickers constantly — tutoring his nephew and he is certainly not happy about it.
the second sukuna steps through the front door of his brother’s house, he knows something is wrong.
it’s not the smell— that’s the usual mix of jin’s attempt at curry and yuuji’s strawberry shampoo. it’s not the noise, either, because the house is never quiet when yuuji’s home. the kid bounces off walls like a pinball.
and then he hears your voice, calm and measured, explaining something about quadratic equations. he’d know that all-knowing lilt anywhere. it haunts his lectures, his occasional study sessions, his dreams and not in the fun way.
sukuna’s eye twitches.
he dumps his bag by the stairs and follows the sound to the living room, where the scene that greets him makes his vision go red.
you’re sitting at the kotatsu, yuuji’s math textbook spread out in front of you, a red pen tucked behind your ear like it’s the most normal thing in the world. your posture is perfect, annoyingly so, and you’re looking at yuuji with an expression that’s almost… adoring?
yuuji, his dumb, simple-minded, traitorous nephew, is nodding along to whatever you’re saying, a look of genuine understanding on his face.
“—so if you just move the variable over here, you can see it’s actually pretty simple. you were overthinking it.”
“ohhh,” yuuji says, eyes wide. “so it’s like when sukuna tries to explain something and makes it sound way harder than it is?”
you let out a soft snort. “a surprisingly apt analogy, yuuji.”
“what,” sukuna says, his voice flat and dangerous, “the hell is this.”
you just glance over your shoulder, and that infuriatingly calm expression doesn’t change. if anything, your lips quirk up just a little. “sukuna. good, you’re here. your nephew was about to fail his math test, but don’t worry, i’ve got it handled.”
“you,” he grits out, “are in my house.”
“i’m aware.” you turn back to yuuji, tapping the textbook. “so, for the next problem, you’re gonna want to—”
“no.” sukuna strides over, planting his hands on the kotatsu and leaning into your space. “no, shut up. get out.”
yuuji looks between the two of you, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “c’mon, uncle, don’t be a dick. she’s helping me.”
sukuna is so distraught he doesn’t react to his nephew calling him a dick.
“huh?” his voice pitches higher. “since when?”
“since dad called the university tutoring center and she showed up,” yuuji says like it’s obvious and he is the dumb one. “she’s really good at explaining stuff. way better than you.”
sukuna feels a vein throb in his forehead. he turns to you and you’re just sitting there, looking up at him with that insufferable little smile, like you’re watching a particularly amusing bug twitch on its back.
“you knew,” he says, low. “you knew this was my house. my family.”
“i didn’t since yuuji’s dad has a different surname, although the pink hair seemed familiar.” you tilt your head. “imagine my surprise when i walked in and saw the shrine of baby photos on the wall. you were a very round child, by the way. i’m not sure why i’m surprised.”
“don’t—” he snaps, then stops himself. takes a breath. tries a different angle. “you’re doing this on purpose. this is some kind of— of long-con psychological warfare.”
you blink at him, all innocence. “i’m getting paid twenty dollars an hour to teach a sweet kid how to graph a parabola. if that’s psychological warfare, then call me a general.”
yuuji snorts.
sukuna rounds on him. “shut the fuck up.”
“hey, i just wanna pass math,” yuuji says, unrepentant. “also, dad said if you harass my tutor, you’re making dinner for a week.”
sukuna’s mouth opens. closes. opens again.
you pick up your red pen, clicking it once. “so, yuuji. problem seven. what’s the first step?”
“uh… isolate the variable?” yuuji tries.
“good. see? you’re getting it.”
sukuna stands there, looming, vibrating with rage. you ignore him completely, guiding yuuji through the problem with the same calm, methodical patience you’ve never once extended to him in the two years you’ve been at each other’s throats.
it’s infuriating.
it’s also— he hates to admit it— kind of effective. yuuji, who normally looks at math like it’s a personal attack, is actually following along. his brow is furrowed in concentration, not despair, and when you nod at his answer, he grins like he just won the lottery, wide and toothy.
“yes!” yuuji pumps his fist. “okay, give me another one. i’m on a roll.”
you smile and flip the page. “alright. let’s kick it up a notch.”
sukuna watches for a long moment, arms crossed, jaw tight. then he turns on his heel and stalks into the kitchen, where jin is stirring his curry and pretending he hasn’t been eavesdropping.
“you,” sukuna says flatly.
jin looks up, all innocence. “me?”
“you called the university tutoring center.”
“yuuji needed help,” jin says, stirring. “and you were no help. you tried to teach him and he cried, sukuna.”
“he’s just dramatic. he’s a teenager, for fuck’s sake.”
“he’s sensitive. and now he has a tutor who, from what i’ve seen, is very good at her job. and also,” jin adds, a sly note entering his voice, “very pretty.”
sukuna makes a sound like a dying animal.
“what? i have eyes.” jin shrugs. “you could stand to be a little nicer to her, by the way. she’s doing us a favor.”
“she’s being paid.”
“at a discount because she’s is kind. and because, and i quote, ‘i have a soft spot for kids who try hard even when they’re struggling.’” jin points his spoon at sukuna. “such an angel. sounds to me like you might have misjudged her.”
sukuna wants to argue. he wants to list every single fight you’ve had— the time you dismantled his argument in front of the whole seminar, the time you called his taste in literature “basic,” the time you smiled at him after he thought he’d finally won one and said “cute, but no”— but the words stick in his throat.
because the truth is, you’re not mean. you’re just the only person who doesn’t back down when he goes sharp-toothed and cutting.
and now you’re in his house, teaching his nephew, and yuuji is laughing at something you said, a bright, easy sound, and sukuna feels something in his chest crack just a little.
he doesn’t go back to the living room. he helps jin with dinner— mostly chopping vegetables with more force than strictly necessary— and listens to the low murmur of your voice, yuuji’s occasional questions, the scratch of pencil on paper.
when dinner’s ready, jin calls out, “kids! food’s ready!”
you appear in the kitchen doorway, yuuji behind you, and for a moment, you just look at each other.
“um, i should go,” you say, and sukuna hates how his stomach drops. “i’ve taken up enough of your evening.”
“nonsense, sweetheart,” jin says, already pulling out an extra plate. “you’re staying. you’ve earned it.”
you hesitate and your eyes suddenly flick to sukuna as if giving him the out if he wants to take it. well, he is not so rude as to literally tell you to leave after jin insisted.
he should thouvh. he should say yes, go, get out of my house, should cling to the familiar rhythm of your animosity like a security blanket.
instead, he grabs a bowl and dumps a frankly aggressive portion of curry into it, shoving it across the counter toward you.
“eat,” he mutters, not looking at you. “all that useless arguing must burn a lot of calories.”
there’s a beat of silence. he can feel you stare in bewilderment before you laugh. it’s not your usual sharp-edged laugh, the one that’s half a challenge. it’s soft, surprised, and it does something weird to his chest.
“fine,” you say, sliding onto a stool and nudging yuuji. “but only because jin’s curry smells incredible.”
“it does!” yuuji agrees, already piling his plate high. “dad, this is your best one yet.”
jin preens. sukuna ladles his own portion, trying very hard not to notice the way you’re sitting at his kitchen counter like you belong there, the way your knee is almost close enough to touch, the way you catch his eye and offer a small, genuine smile that he has absolutely no idea what to do with.
dinner is loud. yuuji talks about his friends, jin asks you about your major, and you answer in that measured way of yours, but you keep glancing at sukuna like you’re waiting for him to start something.
he doesn’t. he just eats and listens and watches the way you relax incrementally as the meal goes on.
when it’s over, you thank jin profusely, ruffle yuuji’s hair despite his protests, and gather your things. sukuna follows you to the front door before he can think better of it.
you pause on the porch, pulling your jacket tighter against the evening chill. “so.”
“so,” he echoes.
“for what it’s worth,” you say, looking at the sky rather than him, “i really didn’t take this gig to mess with you. i didn’t even know it was your house until i got here. i’m not that committed to our… thing.”
“our thing,” he repeats, expression deadpan.
“you know.” you wave a hand. “the verbal sparring. the mutual animosity. whatever it is.”
“i never said that.”
“you’ve definitely implied it.”
he can’t argue with that.
you finally look at him, and he finds that your expression is strange. open, in a way he’s never seen before. “yuuji’s a good kid. he works hard. i like tutoring him. so…” you take a breath. “can we call a truce? at least while i’m here?”
sukuna studies you. the way you’re holding yourself, like you’re braced for him to say no and the way your fingers are curled around the strap of your bag.
he thinks about the curve of your smile when yuuji got the answer right. the soft laugh at his terrible joke. the way you looked at him when he shoved that bowl of curry at you, like he’d surprised you for once instead of the other way around.
“fine,” he says and your shoulders drop just a fraction. “but only in this house. on campus, all bets are off.”
your smile returns, sharp and delighted. “wouldn’t have it any other way.” you turn to go, then pause. “also? your brother is a much better cook than you.”
“i—what? you’ve never even had my cooking.”
“i’ve seen what you bring to the shared fridge. i’m extrapolating.”
“that’s not—extrapolating—you can’t just—”
but you’re already walking down the path, and he can hear you laughing, and he’s standing in the doorway like an idiot, yelling at your retreating back about culinary slander.
when he goes back inside, jin and yuuji are both looking at him with identical expressions of smug satisfaction.
“not a word,” sukuna snarls.
“i didn’t say anything,” jin says, in the tone of a man who has said everything without opening his mouth.
yuuji just grins. “she’s coming back on thursday.”
sukuna closes his eyes.
thursday.
he’s already looking forward to it, and he hates you so, so much for it.
—
(you do come back on thursday. sukuna makes curry. it’s actually pretty good. you don’t tell him that until three weeks later, and only because yuuji lets it slip that he’s been stress-testing recipes every time you’re scheduled to come over.
sukuna had always found his bitchy student council president hot, especially when you're pointing fingers at him. he convinces himself that you'll be the perfect brat when beneath him— but what happens when he finds out that you're all bark and no bite? the esteemed president, actually an inexperienced princess.
♡ ₊˚‧ sweetheart. this was commissioned by anonymous <3
"And then she blocked me!"
"Eh. Deserved."
"Excuse me? Who could ever say no to these baby blues?"
"Blue eyes on a rat don't change a thing now does it?"
Rolling his eyes to the air vents, Sukuna shut his locker in a rattle of metal. Shuffling his duffel bag over his shoulder, he side-stepped to thump the whining, white-haired nuisance beside him with a broad shoulder.
"Kunnnaaa, he's being mean to me," pouted Satoru, throwing an arm over his shoulders and squeezing on his bicep in that not-so-subtle way.
"Well for one, maybe stop sharing your love life with Fushiguro of all people." Sukuna reached a hand out, snatching his friend by the back of his pearly white tresses and wrenching him off. "And secondly, off."
"Don't you love me anymore? Is there someone else? Am I— gasp—" trembling his hands, Satoru raised them to his mouth. Exaggerating his eyes in what he probably thought was cute. "Am I the other woman?"
"More like a skank." Toji grinned, immediately side-stepping a hit that came his way.
Sukuna sighed, deep from his soul that had grown weary dealing with the dumb-and-dumber duo he called his friend group. Unfortunately these knuckleheads were also apart of his team. Guess this was fate.
The hallway bustled with a stream of college stereotypes. The preps and their perfect palettes, prattling as they pranced around. The stoners who propped against lockers on the far end of the hallways, zoned out and scrolling. The nerds with their arrogant stares, standing upright as they beelined for their next class, somehow avoiding collision even with a textbook wedged in their hand. Everyone had their role in this academic ecosystem and moral wasteland.
Role. Stereotype. Stigmatism. Sukuna never quite understood it. How most people plopped themselves into a box with a poorly-scribbled label on the front and called it home.
By definition, he was a jock. Captain of the college's star rugby team. With mean eyes and rough hands. Where girls swooned, guys were scared.
No one expected the jock to be an engineering major. Guess that's the assumption when your enrolment in an institution relied on a sports scholarship.
"Engineering," he remembered how a pretty girl from finance batted her eyes at him in surprise. "Wouldn't have expected that from you."
Sukuna always rolled his eyes at that. And what would anyone expect of an engineering student? Someone more put-together, refined, with a pair of fogged-up glasses and maybe a tight fitting button-up?
He'd never understand it.
"Hey you three, quit loitering."
But he always understood that smooth voice.
He could already see it from his peripheral. Your creaseless blazer shining your badge proudly. The pencil skirt that was exactly three fingers above the knee. Your hair fixed appropriately without a strand straying. The school's code of conduct glinted in your eyes.
Another one who fit her role perfectly. The pretty student council president.
"Oh c'mon, prez. It's end semester." Satoru cooed, still finding the audacity to lean against one of the lockers despite the reprimand.
You stopped. Shoes placed exact centre on the grey tiles as you shot the delinquent a look. "The end of the semester is Friday. It's Monday."
Satoru grinned, pushing hand through his hair. "Always sooo dutiful. Lighten up a lil."
Sukuna heard it before you said it. Saw the trail of your eyes before you had even darted your gaze to their mess of uniforms. Satoru's blazer was tied around his waist. Toji was missing his entirely. Sukuna's belt hung low. Don't even get started on all three of their hairstyles that broke at least four regulations.
Yeah, delinquent was putting it lightly.
Sukuna was already mouthing your reprimand before it left your lips.
"Fix yourselves." Calm and controlled, coupled with that glare in your eye as you folded your arms. "Lest I file a complaint in the register."
"Over what? Looking good?" Toji teased.
You huffed. Snapping your sharp stare over to Sukuna who was all but waiting for it. Red eyes held yours in nonchalance. With a hint of something dangerously close to amusement. Admiration.
"You're the captain of the rugby team. Be an example to your teammates, Ryomen."
Oh, there's that tone he loved. That strict, smooth command that sent a shiver up his spine. He bit back a smirk.
Yeah, you all had your roles. And yours was maintaining order and, by the looks of it, eye-fucking him in the middle of the hallway.
"Yes Ma'am." He nodded, pushing himself from the locker to stand at his full height. Towering over you just to see if you'd flinch.
You didn't, of course. You never did. You held his stare with an arched brow and your chin never downturned. That's what he liked about you. A bold brat through and through.
"C'mon you two. One last class before practice." Sukuna nudged at Satoru's shoulder who was a little too preoccupied with the sliver of your thigh peeking out of your skirt. The sight clenched Sukuna's jaw, but he bit back comments in favour of wrangling dumb-and-dumber.
Halfway down the hallway, and yet, he could still feel your eyes. Pierced into his spine. He couldn't help but shoot you a glance over his shoulder. Meet that controlled stare that always rivalled his.
Guess it's the one time he let the stereotypes get to him. He wondered how much you'd keep up that bratty beauty if he had you under him.
The thought of you had grown from annoyance to arousal months ago. The perfect president with her commands as sharp as crystal and her glare prettier than them. Always proper. So poised.
He wondered what it'd take to break that little attitude.
Although, if he's being entirely honest. He was kinda into those mint manicured nails that always pointed at him. Not to mention that stare? How you tried to pretend that it never lingered on him?
He saw you again at practice. Even with the sun glaring his vision and his throat burning for water. Sweat dripping down his forehead as he chugged down a bottle.
You were impossible to miss. Even in his exhaustion. Strutting along the outer corridor. Probably on your way to file in reports while others called it a day.
He caught your stare, as he always did. Felt it creeping up his back and shoulders.
Just like in the hallway, he shot you a look. Locked eyes. Only this time, he cast you a little grin.
You turned away. Like the stubborn brat he was hopelessly attracted to.
Nothing beat the rush of a whistle whipping through the air and a successful try on the final second. 50 - 46. Another win by the skin of their teeth.
The cheers of the stadium, the flashing lights, the bruised and battered arms of teammates that tossed around each other as an excited roar ripped through haze. Yeah, nothing beat that.
Well, the celebration that came after was a close second.
Stars of the league once more, Sukuna's team was treated to relax. He'd say for once, but other than training, his band of misfits hardly did much. Slacking-off was their everyday. But at least they'd earned it this time.
The blaring cheers had blurred out into the blast of music. Rhythm and beat vibrating the college assembly hall cleared out just for them. Littered in bodies and alcohol. The coach saw to them well, organised everything with the student council beforehand since he never doubted the team once.
Flashing lights. Grinding bodies. More booze than a Shibuya pub. Sukuna migrated through, his sharp shoulders finally sagged. Spotting some of his teammate with either their tongues down throats or chugging down red solo cups still floating beer pongs.
Steering through the crowd and shrugging off a drunk Satoru who tried to harass him as per-usual, he searched for the drink table. He was far too sober for this celebration. Shitfaced and slurring was what he wanted to be by the end of the night. He deserved it for being able to wrangle the hooligans he called teammates all semester.
And then, he felt it. That stare creeping up his spine.
He glanced to the left and sure enough— there it was. Calm and collected. Calculated even out of that blazer pressed with pristine in every inch. A black dress hugged and complimented your features far better. Certainly more than three fingers above the knee. Not so dignified with a drink in your hand.
Not even your posture was refined— you leaned against the drink table. One arm still folded over you, shoulders still squared.
You stare still on him.
Oh, his night just got a whole lot better.
"How irresponsible, prez." Drawled Sukuna as he stepped up beside you. Snatching one of the cups into his large hand and propping himself next to you.
Deep maroons roved your figure. The curves and dips in all the right places. Damn, he was almost jealous of that dress.
His head quirked with the corner of his lips. "It's a good look on you."
"Don't start." You scoffed a chuckle, raising the red plastic to your lips. Was that lipstick? Red. He could get used to his favourite colour on you.
It was almost uncanny. Seeing you so relaxed. Drinking. Completely out of your element and yet still poised in every right. It thrummed something deep within him. Dark.
He watched your eyes rake over him in what he could only describe as shameless with the flashing shadows obscuring it. You asked, "shouldn't you be celebrating with your team, Ryomen?"
"Sukuna." He corrected, just to watch your eyes. Watch your shoulders that tensed all the more firmer. As if it would break conduct to call him by anything familiar.
His smirk curled higher, as he slumped back with a swig. "And nah. Not when there's a pretty girl all alone back here."
Gauging your reaction, Sukuna bit a grin into the plastic rim of his cup when he noticed you cleared your throat. Where's all that confidence now, huh?
". . .Could it be that the elusive rugby captain is flirting with me?" You mused.
Something ticked within him.
His hulking body slanted, angled towards you as he propped a forearm on the table. Watched as you turned to him, almost hesitantly.
"Could it be that the uptight princess president is entertaining me?" He returned.
Your nose curled, the lights flashed over your face just in time for him to catch the wrinkles. A smile trembled over your lips. "Princess, huh?"
"Got a problem with it?
"Watch it. I'm still your president."
"Dirty talking already?"
Sukuna watched as your breath hitched. Bickering with him often came with ease, but it was a whole different ballgame when he shifted the playing field from president and delinquent to a jock and a princess.
It was amusing, to say the least. Watching you struggle for a rebuttal. You bristled when you finally found something. Straightened your spine with that manicured finger of yours so ready to point at him as you always did—
Thump!
"What the hell!"
"Ah— sorry. Soorryyy."
Alcohol seeped into the front of your dress. Clinging to the dark fabric and permeating the shimmers. A drunken smile was your only apology.
Sukuna stood straight. Shot a glare at his wobbling teammate who'd just bumped into you and ruined that pretty dress of yours.
"For fucks sakes Fushiguro," he grunted, watching as Toji lifted his hands up in surrender and then staggered elsewhere before he could get a scolding.
Turning back to you, Sukuna watched as your jaw tightened and your hands balled at your sides. Was that a pout? Cute.
"Sorry about that," he caught himself apologising when you looked up to him with batting eyes. The light flashing over the both of you in what he could only describe as fluorescent fate.
The idea came quicker than a smother tackle.
"If you need a change of clothes. . . " he almost caught himself drawling. As he stepped forward. You didn't flinch. You never did.
But it looked like you wanted to.
"Maybe I can offer a shirt? Sure I can find one for you back in my dorm."
Your stares locked, as they always did. Rivalling, controlled. Two leaders fighting for dominance as always. Only this time, you were faltering.
He watched your shoulders sag. Your arms cross over your chest tighter. Your chin still lifted but your lips pressed in a thin line.
Sukuna would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised when you actually agreed.
You looked prettier under his cheap dorm light.
Standing in the middle of his room with your legs too pressed together and your arms folded too tight. Your stare still seeped into his shoulders as he dug through his wardrobe on the far right. Looking like a fish who willingly crawled onto land and forgot she only knew how to swim.
Sukuna's dorm wasn't anything grand. His scholarship paid for privacy, not for space. The bedroom bled into a small kitchen area on the left separated only by a small counter top. A cramped couch wedged against it. On the right was his cabinet with a door that led to the bathroom. The bed laid at the centre with a singular side-table beside it.
Small, but neat. Neater than anyone would expect some jock's room to be, he's sure.
Finally, he fished out a red shirt. He could have gone for the black, maybe the white, but that deep rouge on your lips was his favourite colour. And he wanted to see you in more of it.
"This fine?" He asked as he approached, dropping the shirt into your hands that scrambled to catch it.
You pressed your lips together. Held the clothing article up by the sleeves to observe it. Flickering your gaze between him and the red.
"It's. . . big," you murmured.
And oh, poor you. There weren't any eyes anymore to hinder him. No bubbling hallways. No delinquents and presidents.
Just a jock. And a princess.
"Well I'm a big guy, princess." His head crooked in a predatory curve as his hands shoved into his pockets. The name slipped from his tongue. Easy. As easy as it seemed to fluster you, by the looks of it.
He watched you bristle again. Chew your lip and glance at the drywall as you balled the red fabric against those once perfect manicured nails that were beginning to look like they trembled.
Cute.
"Well— yeah, that's true." You stood straight once more. Uttered something that sounded like a thank you before you shuffled to the side. Not quite putting space between the both of you. But not exactly approaching him, either.
You cast him a side eye. Brought the shirt closer like it was your new knight. Poor princess.
"Are you gonna, uh, give me a moment?"
"Not unless you want me to watch?"
Flushed. Again. Like a flustered little flower with your face blooming in heat. How odd. Where's that beautiful brat that pointed and paraded in the halls?
"What?" Sukuna drawled, taking another step forward. Towering over you as he always did. You didn't flinch. You never did.
But fuck, it might have looked cute if you did right now.
"Don't tell me that the esteemed president is actually considering it?"
His voice dripped with something other than booze. Something scarily sober. Something dangerously close to want.
Want. Yeah, he's always wanted the prestigious campus princess.
"That's— that's not what I said," you stuttered. Actually stuttered. You, the poised president with your commands as sharp as crystals and your glare prettier than them. Stuttering all because the delinquent you eagerly pointed fingers at finally got you alone.
He grinned, glinting more than the usual charm back at you. "Didn't have to, princess."
"What's with that name?"
"What?"
He was right in front of you now. Close enough to hear the stutter of your breath. Feel your nerves. The shivers. Not very perfect of you, was it?
Leaning down, Sukuna established the height difference once more. His broad shoulders casting a shadow over you as his grin loomed closer. Dangerously so.
He could smell your perfume. Cherry mixed with nervousness. Hear the stutter of your heart. Every clear of your throat as you scrambled to resurrect the status-quo. When you could stare him in the eye and shoot him a command without your knees trembling.
His murmur was low, inviting. "Seems you don't mind being my princess one bit, yeah?"
Finally, he let himself touch you. A calloused thumb stroking your cheekbone. Oddly tender. Promising something rougher.
Your eyes gaped. Wider than he'd ever seen them. Confidence drained into your wobbling knees and your hands that clung to the shirt.
He paused for the first time that night.
Watched your sorry excuse for a stare. The press of your lips. The tremor that felt foreign to your dignified strut down the college hallways. This was far from the brat he fantasised you would be when he got you alone.
Sukuna's head crooked. "What's with that look?"
"Sorry. . . . I just, uh." You chewed your inner cheek. Cute, but odd for someone like you. ". . . Haven't. Done anything like this before."
He blinked.
Spoke in that terribly stark way.
"You a virgin?"
"Must you be so blunt?"
A pink brow arched. He slowed another blink at you and watched your every move. Watched your throat bob and your shoulders sag as a shaky sigh passed your red lips. It didn't look so bold under his stare.
"Yeah— yeah I am. I don't really have time for this kind of. . . " you motioned to him and how close he was. To his hand that was now cupping your face. "Thing."
He's dealt with virgins before. Had many doe eyes and shaky hands under his belt. So why'd you go under his radar? How hadn't he noticed the signs before? He'd been so swept up by your smooth voice and controlled stare that he completely slipped the possibility that the uptight college princess was—
"Sorry if that's. Like a turn off, or something."
Your murmur cut his thoughts right off. He locked stares with you once again— or at least tried to. For once, you couldn't meet his eyes.
Sure, it wasn't what he was used to. Wasn't what he expected. But honestly?
The thought of the uptight student council president being awfully inexperienced stirred another fire within him. Something deeper. Darker.
Wouldn't it be fun to corrupt a princess?
"Hardly," he scoffed, his grin settling into an arrogant smirk as his free hand slipped down. Snatched you by the waist and dragged you against him in a rough pull.
You yelped. Dropped the shirt and scrambled your hands for the one on him instead. Damn, even the way you clung to him was pretty.
That crystal stare of yours had melted into soft edges as you batted your eyes up at him. Achingly adorable for the pain in his ass you had been for the entire semester.
Cupping your face firmer, he drew you closer. Pressing every perfect inch of you into his callouses.
His voice rumbled, "you ever kissed anyone?"
Your brows furrowed. Warmth spread through his chest at the familiar sight. There's his beautiful brat. Bristling as your fingers bunched tighter on him and you huffed.
"Obviously! I'm not that—"
His mouth shoved to yours. Rough lips sealing over your cherry ones as the hand on your waist squeezed. Feeling your softness against his jagged. Your innocence to his experience. The way you squirmed— whether trying to get closer or further, he wasn't sure. He didn't think you quite knew either.
It was funny, really. How snarky you were with that tongue of yours. Now? It trembled. Fumbled. Struggling to keep up with his kiss as he leaned into your space and flushed you into him.
Your hands slipped to the top of his shoulders. He felt your nails scratching into the skin there through his shirt. Manicure nervous where it once was confident.
The whimper was what forced him to part. Already missing your warmth as his hand on your face slipped to the back of your neck. Cupping, caressing.
"No, no. Not like that." He coaxed, dangerously soft as he peered at you through hanging lashes. His thumb traced over your pulse, reassuring. "Relax. I've got you."
He felt your body lock up against him— then ease. Felt the flutter of your heart against his and the gulp under his thumb.
No words. Just a silent stare. A small nod. Sukuna guided you back in. Still rough, but slower. His lips moulding over yours and easing you into the kiss. Giving you room to breathe. Room to feel.
The hand on your waist slipped. Arm hooking around the small of your back and hoisting you closer. Impossibly so. To feel that sigh of relief that eased out of you and the melting of your muscles.
"Atta girl," the words muffled against your lips before he could overthink them. As if it was natural to hold a pretty virgin in his hands and corrupt her with guidance. Maybe. Or maybe it was just you. The fact that he got to take control for once.
Hot kisses smeared from your mouth. Along your jaw. Down your throat. Both hands roved over your sides now. Feeling the dress that clung to you in all the right places. The body you hid under pristine uniform.
"Can't believe you were holding out on me, princess." He groaned, breath fanning your pulse. A shiver ran up his spine as your fingers delved into his messy hair. Scratching a bit on the undercut only to rake through the fluffy strands.
Your small sighs of bliss were everything to him. For once, you were quiet. No sharp reprimands. No cool commands. Just quiet. Just his. His pretty princess in his arms as his mouth poured fire into your veins.
Big hands smoothed over your hips. Venturing behind. Cupping your ass. Squeezing. Your little yelp rumbled a husked chuckle from the back of his throat.
His teeth dragged over your pulse. Nipped. "Can I?" His fingers flexed with his desire.
You nodded.
"Words." He firmed, with a small swat! to your ass just to feel you jolt again.
You squeaked. "Yes— yes."
Your thighs bundled in his hands. Fitting perfectly. Like you were made for him. With ease, he lifted you. Nudged your legs around his waist as his mouth found yours again. Hotter. Messier. Banking on your fumbling to spur the kiss into desperation as he carried you back.
Sukuna wanted to say he tossed you onto his bed. But he was gentle. Achingly gentle. Tipping you back into his sheets and roaming your shivering body with his eager hands.
He withdrew with saliva this time. Locked eyes with you to make sure you saw the sinful string. Grinned when you flushed again and tried to avert your stare.
"Eyes on me." He ushered, cupping your chin.
You struggled. You, the studious student council president, struggling to hold his eyes for once. But you managed.
He drawled. "Good girl."
Then pressed a chaste kiss to your smeared lipstick and ruined it all the way back down your neck. Tracing your shivers as his fingers slipped below your waist. Over your hips. Teasing your thighs. Until he hooked into the hem of your dress.
"Let's take care of this mess, yeah?" He muttered into the crook of your throat. Sliding the fabric up. Slow. Slower when he got to your hips. Your tummy. Your breasts— over your head. Until you were laid bare before him aside from your underwear.
Red, too.
Sukuna arched his brow. "That your favourite colour? Or is it just for me?" A hand traced down your side. Cupped it so that his thumb could trace over the corner of your bra. Right over your tit. His hands were big enough to encase them entirely.
He watched you through lidded-eyes. Watched as you tensed. As you shivered. Chewing your lip when you were unable to hurl back a rebuttal.
He could get used to this darling side of yours.
A kiss atop your breast. Then the other. He pulled one out of your bra to circle his thumb on the pebbled nipple. Only to replace it with a kiss when you grew too sensitive.
You squirmed. Whimpered. Sensitive. Guess you really were a virgin. The confirmation thrummed something dark within him. Ticked his smug smirk back to his lips that dragged further down. Over the valley of your breasts. To your tummy.
You twitched when he reached your thigh.
"Fingers or mouth?" He mumbled into the softness of your inner thigh. Long finger hooked into the waistband of your panties as he stared back up at you. "Pick your poison, princess."
"I— uhm. . ." Your breathing was shaky. Fluttered. Like a poor little bird as you squeezed your thighs together— he wedged them apart with a huff.
"Fingers. . . I think."
Such a soft croak. Nothing like the girl he knew you to be. Not a prestigious president when you were under him. Drunk on his kisses and trembling from his touches.
No, here? You were just his princess.
"Tell me what feels good," he whispered, eyes locked on yours even as you struggled to hold his stare now. Fingers slipping from the waistband to your centre. Featherlight as he stroked on your thigh. Nursed the shivers there together with his mouth in softer than expected kisses.
Before he reached your soft heat. Brushed over your clothed slit. Up, down. A small stroke of his thumb. Testing. Teasing.
The damp spot tugged his smirk wider. His thumb pressed into it. Just a little firmer. A little hotter. Stroking up to nestle under the crook of your finger. Circle just right—
You pitched a whine.
"There?" His murmur fanned your tummy. Your little nod squeezed something in his heart as he circled his thumb again. "Mmm. Y'know what that is, pretty?"
"I— Yeah. . . mnn. My clit—"
"That's right," he cooed. "Feels good when someone plays with it, huh?"
Filth dripped from every words. Sought to seep into your veins and corrupt your perfect little soul. Now wouldn't that be a sight? To taint the pinnacle of perfection you always were.
After massaging over your clothed cunt enough to soak through the fabric, he hooked two fingers into the corner of your panties. Dragged them to the side to finally— finally get a look at the other girl he'd been waiting for all semester.
Wet. Sopping. Dripping a cute little leak down your sensitive slit. All for him.
"Wet lil' thing for a virgin, aren't you?" The vibration of his voice seemed to spill more of your arousal, and he chuckled at the sight. Repeated the cycle until you squirming with a small, pitiful whine.
"I've gotcha, princess." His thumb swiped over your slick. Over your clit and slit in a slow, agonising stroke that wrecked your thighs into a squirm.
"Ryo—"
"Sukuna." His thumb trapped your clit. "I'm playing with your pussy right now. You call me Sukuna."
His free hand shot out. Ambushing your wriggles and holding you still against his mattress for his hand to work between your legs. Maroon eyes pouring heat into yours as he locked your stares. Forced you to maintain it.
"Su—" you croaked, stirring under his grip as his thumb became two fingers that stroked you oh so sinfully. "Kuna. . . mngh."
"There you go," he praised, soaking his fingers in your slick just a little more. Before he circled your slit with his index. Prodded. Tested. "If it hurts lemme know. Just. . . feel."
A kiss to your tummy. A distraction. As his thick finger slowly slipped inside. Breaching your gummy velvet that clamped around his knuckle immediately.
The sound that left you was pathetic. Nothing like the president he knew. Just his pitiful princess who squeezed her eyes shut and clambered at his broad shoulder.
He paused his hand. Waited. Feeling the pulse of your walls and the tight clamp around only one of his fingers. What a little thing you were.
"Princess," he cooed. Dragging his index out. Slow. Agonisingly slow— watching the stickiness glint on his finger before he pumped it back to the knuckle. Curled just right. "If you're clenching s'much round just one fingers how're you gonna take my dick?"
You whined. Pretty. Pathetic. Your hips trying to buck into his finger that eased into a languid pace. Steady as he worked you open. Got you used to the feeling.
So silky. So soft. Spilling all over and he hadn't even given you two yet. The sight of your pussy clenching around his knuckle grumbled a groan from deep within him.
"Pussy's so eager to get her cherry popped," he muttered, pressing another finger to your slit. Waiting, working you open. Just a little further, a little more—
Your head fell back as two of his beefy fingers slipped into you.
"S'kuna. . ." you croaked. Blinking those big eyes at his ceiling as your chest rose quick. Falling in stutters. Struggling to breathe. Your nails slipped from his shoulder to his elbow. Trying to hold him. Trembling.
"Sshhh, I've got you. Doing so good." The hand holding you down stroked up your thigh. To your side. Caressing so tenderly as his fingers pumped slow yet filthy. Stretching you out on just his middle and index. Leaking your stickiness all over his palm and wrist. Fuck.
"Messy girl." Another kiss pressed to your taut tummy. He pumped back into your squelching pussy a little harder. A little faster. When he gouged you could take it. When your moans told him you wanted more.
He observed you. The scrunch of your face. The knit of your brows and the way your lips parted. Whines mixing into whimpers mixing into moans. Thighs tense yet squirming. Into him. Away from him. Causing his fingers to bump and grind on several sensitive spots within you.
He curled. You croaked. Bucking your hips down into his palm in a display he could only describe as need. That neediness poor little virgins broke out into when they learnt what true pleasure was.
He grinned. Curled his fingers again. Searched for a spot— there.
"Fuck— there," you whined.
"Here princess? Righhttt here?" He drawled, fingers circling that gummy spot until your spine lifted off of the bed and he had to return to holding you down. "Oh, there it is." His fingers thrust. Once— twice— maddening. "That's the spot. The one that's gonna make you cum for me."
Spilling. Messily, helplessly. Your pussy soaked him with every pulse. Spasming when his thumb finally joined the mix. Flushed to your clit and stroked as his fingers found a fast pace. Pumping mercilessly and working you up to that first orgasm.
"I— 'm gonna. . . fuck, kuna—" you whimpered, teary. One hand fisting the sheets while another shot to his wrist, clinging to him feebly. "Gonna. . . I'm—"
"Gonna cum?" His grin smooched your tummy. Fingers worked faster. Stroking deadlier. Right into that spot as he swirled your clit. He watched your face. Watched you break.
"Yeah you are. Cum for me baby."
Your body bowed. Obeyed him. For once. Cunt clamping around his knuckles. Quivering into pronounced throbs as a sob crossed with a whine spilled from your lips.
Sukuna watched your body submit to the orgasm. Shaking in thralls of pleasure as your hips mindlessly ground into his hand that had long since stopped. Fingers curling and rubbing into that spot along with your pitiful grinds to ride you through your high.
His pretty president. Just a pathetic princess. Cumming all over his hand.
"There you go. That's it, just feel it. Lose yourself." He swirled your clit one more time for good measure. Just enough to feel it twitch weakly against his callous.
His fingers slipped out. Coated in your slick. He brought them to his mouth without a second thought. Watched you through the haze of your orgasm and how your eyes still tried to find his even when you were wrecked.
His tongue flicked out. Laved over your wetness as he held your stare. Made sure you watching him enjoy the mess that he had made you. The taste on his tongue. Fuck—
Sweet. So fucking sweet.
"Always knew you'd be so sweet." He huffed, breaths heaving as he took the moment to observe you. The far cry that he had broken you down into.
So pretty when you were ruined. Just as he thought you'd be.
But still speaking, it seemed.
"Sukuna. . ." you murmured, trying to look up despite your rattling thighs and your shaky breath. Your grip returned to his shoulders. Clinging to him.
"Want. . . wanna make you feel good too," your legs hooked around his waist. Squeezed. Oh fuck.
He shut his eyes. Reran your words in his hazed mind. How could he ever deny you?
"What an eager princess." His hands snatched you by the waist. Swung you over so that you squeaked at how easy it was for him to manhandle you.
Propped in his lap like a pretty thing like you should be. Slotted so perfectly and wedged against his burning bulge. Nudged just right into your messy cunt and dragging the slick all over his jeans. Seeping through and soaking into him.
His eyes fluttered. A grunt forced between his teeth as his hands splayed over your waist. Clamping down and grinding you into the rough rolls of his hips.
A large hand found your face again. Cradled it so gently while his body worked animalistically. "Yeah? Want me to feel good too? What're you gonna do for me?"
His lips fell back to yours. Smothering your answer into pretty little whines. His tongue ventured in this time. Dominating you in every way he could. Searing his mark into you. His princess. His.
"I— hngh. Kuna."
"You gonna whine like a brat? Huh?"
"Mngh."
His hand slipped behind you. Palmed your ass and squeezed it. Pressing you firm into him to spur the sparks between your crotches. Rubbing the heat into something feral until you were both bucking messily.
Hot kisses laved your neck. Over your throat. Your pulse. Sucking hickies in his wake as he caught your clit on the rift of his erection. Grinding just right until you whined his name in that prettily pathetic way again.
"Fuck," his huff fanned your jugular. "Gonna fuck that pretty pussy so good. Make her all mine."
Rough hands dwarfed yours. Encasing them as he dragged your fingers to his belt. Pressed them into the buckle with the demand clear in sight. The promise of what was to come. What he'd do to you.
Your hands froze.
So did he.
With a tender consideration so uncharacteristic of him, Sukuna pulled from your neck. Nudged you to face him. "Hey," his thumb pressed to your cheek. "You okay?"
Your eyes tried to avoid him. He saw it. Dragging your stare back to him at least three times before you finally held it again.
"I. . . I just. . . I don't know if I—"
His eyes softened.
"Nervous?" He murmured.
You stiffened. Unblinking. Before you cleared your throat and slowly, so achingly slowly, nodded your head.
Sukuna was no brute. No matter what the stereotypes said. So the little nod was all he needed before his hands slipped back to your waist and carefully pulled you off of him.
"That's okay," the assurance didn't even sound like his voice. Soft, for the elusive rugby captain everyone knew him as. "We don't have to do anything else. You did good."
A kiss to your temple. He felt you ease against him as he sat you on the edge of the bed and got up. Walked over to where you dropped the shirt he'd gotten you earlier and came back to pull it back over your head. Careful. Attentive.
The fabric fell over you. Hanging low like a dress. He couldn't help the quirk at the corner of his lips. Yeah, his colour looked good on you.
"We'll get you cleaned up in a bit. You're gonna need some water."
"I. . . thanks. Thank you."
"For being a decent human being?"
He scoffed at your big eyes. Long arms caging you in on the edge of the bed as he observed you. Your pouting lips and tear-streaked face.
Fuck. He could get used to this.
"Don't get to used to it," the tease fanned your lips. Just to hear that hitch in your breath again.
The pretty, prestigious president. His pitiful princess. All softness to his callouses and tender to his roughness.
His thumb and forefinger caught your chin. Nudged it up.
"Next time, I won't let you run away, yeah?"
A rough peck to your lips. It sounded like a threat, but when he pulled back, there was no denying it. The affection in his eyes.
The affection for you. His pretty pain in the ass.
I don’t want to complain, but this picture took a whole week. I wanted to add more characters, but in the end it was a battle with my patience, to be honest.
sum: you get sent into a mission with Sukuna once again, because Yaga is a son of a bitch. Things go as they usually do, but when you both leave the battle grounds, something has changed. Not something, someone. Sukuna is acting even weirder than his usual unbearable self.
tags: fluff, true form sukuna, everyone is alive and teaching on jujutsu high, yeah sukuna too, you and sukuna are worse than sukuna and gojo in the bickering, this curse is a damn parasitic piece of shit, some yearning happening right there if you pay attention.
art by: @lacquerheadd
You are starting to think Yaga actively enjoys making your life harder.
There is no other explanation for why, out of every capable sorcerer on staff, he keeps pairing you with Sukuna.
Not Gojo, who would at least turn the whole thing into a joke and buy you coffee after. Not Nanami, who would be quiet and efficient and get the job done with minimal nonsense. Not Shoko, who would smoke through the paperwork and call the whole thing stupid with enough honesty to make it tolerable. Not even Suguru, who has the patience to stand there looking disappointed until people correct themselves.
No. It is always you and Sukuna.
You and the strongest sorcerer in history.
You and the most insufferable bastard currently breathing.
You and the man who looks like a calamity given shape — two meters of muscle and old violence, four arms, four eyes, black markings cutting over his skin like deliberate blasphemy, a mouth in his stomach, arrogance in every movement like the world itself should be grateful he has not split it open.
You hate how he talks to people. You hate the way he looks at colleagues like they are barely worth acknowledging. You hate how he acts like being right excuses being unbearable. You hate how he can do almost anything better than anyone else and never lets anybody forget it.
Most of all, you hate that Yaga keeps looking at both of you like this arrangement is somehow useful.
“He responds to you,” Yaga had said once, standing in his office with his hands folded behind his back while you stared at him in disbelief.
“He responds to me because I tell him to go fuck himself.”
“Yes,” Yaga had answered, completely serious. “That.”
You had looked at him for a long moment, then pointed towards the window, towards the rest of the school grounds as if the answer might be outside.
“There are students here. Children. Young people trying to learn. Why would you keep sending me as if I’m his goddamn handler?”
“Because,” Yaga had said, calm as stone, “when Sukuna gets excited in the field, collateral damage rises.”
“And that’s my problem...?”
“It becomes everyone’s problem.”
You had wanted to strangle him.
Instead you had left with your mission file and a headache already forming, knowing exactly how the day would go. Sukuna would be waiting somewhere he had no business standing, probably with that bored look that made it seem like he found all of this beneath him. He would say something cutting within the first thirty seconds. You would snap back. He would smirk, because apparently pissing you off counts as entertainment. Then you would head out, do the job, and try not to kill each other before the curse did.
That is exactly how it goes.
The abandoned lot lies on the edge of the city, boxed in by half-demolished warehouses and rusting chain-link fences. Wild grass pushes through broken concrete. There are whole stretches where the ground has caved in, exposing older foundations below, damp and black and threaded with cursed residue so thick it prickles over your skin before you even step past the police tape.
The reports say several missing persons over the last three weeks. Homeless people mostly. Two thrill-seeking teenagers. One contractor who ignored every warning and came in after dark because he thought urban legends were good fun until one of them bit him in half.
You stand with your hands in your pockets while the veil settles over the property and mutter,
“This place smells like shit.”
Beside you, Sukuna tilts his head slightly, scenting the air with that infuriatingly calm expression.
“Special-grade adjacent.”
“Glad the mighty king of curses can identify the obvious.”
His upper right hand flexes once, like he considers swatting the comment away and decides against it.
“You should be grateful I am here at all.”
You snort.
“I was doing fine before you decided to become faculty.”
His gaze cuts to you, all four eyes narrowing just enough to say he has noticed the wording.
“Doing fine.”
“Mm.”
“You sound unconvinced by your own lie.”
“And you sound exactly like why I hate staff meetings.”
One of the corners of his mouth lifts. It is the expression of someone amused in a way that promises trouble.
“Stay out of my way,” he says.
“You first.”
Then the ground ahead bursts open.
Concrete erupts in a spray of dust and jagged chunks. A shape drags itself up from the collapsed trench beneath the lot, huge and slick and wrong, all fused mouths and jointed limbs, too many eyes opening across its torso as though a dozen separate curses have been forced together and told to breathe with the same lungs.
It lets out a wet howl that vibrates through the air and into your teeth.
Sukuna steps forward like he has just been offered dessert.
You grab the back of his uniform before he can launch fully into it.
“Hey.”
He glances back over one shoulder.
“Remember,” you say flatly, “the job is exorcism. Not redecorating half the district.”
His sneer deepens.
“You insult me.”
“I babysit you.”
That earns you a low, ugly chuckle, and then he moves.
Watching Sukuna fight is always an ugly kind of miracle.
You hate admitting it, even in the privacy of your own mind, but the truth of him in battle is impossible to deny.
He does not simply engage a curse. He dominates space around it. The entire field shifts to him, bends around his presence, becomes his terrain. It’s mesmerizing to watch how mercurial he becomes as he fights.
The thing lunges and he slips aside with contemptuous ease, lower right hand catching one limb, upper left hand tearing another off at the joint.
Black blood sprays.
The curse shrieks.
He laughs.
Actually laughs.
You swear under your breath and move in before he can get too carried away, cursed technique flaring hot and bright along your arms as you carve through the mass splitting away from the main body. Smaller appendages skitter over the broken concrete, each with snapping teeth, trying to circle behind him and burrow into the blind spots he barely has.
You destroy three in quick succession, pivot under another, and shout,
“Left!”
“I have eyes,” Sukuna says, but one of his hands snaps out anyway and crushes the crawler before it reaches him.
“Use all of them, then.”
You hate him a little more every time you have to watch him enjoy himself.
“Are you done fucking around yet?” you shout, voice carrying over the crash of rubble.
All four of his eyes cut up toward you for a second. The upper pair narrows. The lower pair looks almost amused.
“Come down and do it yourself, then.”
You grit your teeth so hard your jaw pops.
The central body of the curse rears back. One of the mouths in its chest stretches open far wider than anatomy should allow, cursed energy building at its core.
You feel the surge a heartbeat before it fires.
“Sukuna!”
He does not dodge.
Of course he does not dodge.
He plants his feet and meets the blast with a grin that makes your stomach drop, as though the worst thing about him is not his strength but the way he enjoys using it. The impact tears a trench through the lot, pulverizing a warehouse wall behind him, and smoke blooms upward in a thick black cloud.
When it clears, he is still standing there.
Mostly.
His uniform hangs in scorched strips off one shoulder. Burned skin peels back along his side, already knitting itself together under reversed cursed technique, steam curling off him in ghostly streams. One of his eyes blinks through blood. His stomach mouth stretches in something like delight.
You stare for half a second too long.
Then he launches himself into the curse’s open chest.
The lot becomes carnage.
You do not know how many minutes pass, only that your lungs burn by the end of it, your forearms ache with the recoil of your technique, and the entire property looks like a bomb testing site.
The giant curse lies in sections. One piece still twitches. Sukuna stamps his heel through it with almost lazy finality.
Silence comes back in ragged pieces.
Dust drifts through the low evening light. The veil trembles and begins to dissolve. Somewhere beyond the lot, traffic resumes its distant hum, indifferent as ever.
You push sweaty hair out of your face and glare at the destruction.
“Yaga is going to have an aneurysm.”
Sukuna rolls one shoulder. Fresh skin has already replaced the worst of the burns. His eyes remain on the remains of the curse like he is still listening for another round.
“Then he should have sent me alone.”
You give him a look.
“So you could level the entire neighborhood?”
“It would have been faster.”
“It is always ‘faster’ with you. Then someone has to explain to the authorities why half the block vanished.”
He says nothing to that. He only stands there, breathing slow, steam fading from his skin.
That is when you notice something is off.
Not because he is quiet. Sukuna can be quiet, but it's the sort of quiet that makes people nervous because it is never truly absence, only restraint.
This is different.
The fight is over. He should either be needling you or insulting the curse for not being worth the trouble or looking half a second from demanding another hunt just to work the restlessness out of his system.
Instead he is staring.
Not at the remains.
At you.
You frown.
“What.”
His gaze does not move.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
His upper hands flex once at his sides, and for a strange, disjointed second he looks like a man listening to a conversation happening very far away. Then he clicks his tongue and turns from you.
You stare after him.
“What,” you repeat, more to yourself this time.
He does not answer. He only starts walking toward the exit gate.
You tell yourself it is nothing.
You tell yourself he is always odd. That trying to parse Sukuna’s moods is a guaranteed way to ruin an evening. That you are tired, sweaty, and already late getting back to campus, and the last thing you need is to start inventing new ways the king of curses can be bizarre.
By the time you both return to Jujutsu High, night has settled properly.
The school buildings sit under warm exterior lights, calm and orderly in a way that feels almost insulting after the wreck you just left behind. Students move through the corridors in pairs and clusters, some heading back from training, others from evening study. There is the usual mix of chatter and half-suppressed teenage chaos that clings to a boarding school no matter how many cursed objects or monsters exist around it.
You want one shower, one hot drink, and several hours where no one says the name Sukuna anywhere near you.
Instead, you stop by one of the halls because Suguru catches sight of you through an open classroom door and waves you in.
You lean on the frame, arms crossed.
“You look too relaxed. That means either your class went well or Gojo is somebody else’s problem tonight.”
Suguru smiles in that infuriatingly composed way of his.
“Both, actually.”
“Disgusting.”
Three of his students snicker. He ignores them.
“How was the mission?”
“Awful. Filthy lot, ugly curse, Sukuna in a fantastic mood which, as you know, is the worst possible mood for him.”
Suguru’s mouth tilts.
“And yet you are intact.”
“Barely.”
You start to step in fully, already reaching for the back of a chair, when the room shifts.
No. Not the room.
Your awareness of it.
Like someone large has entered your orbit without making a sound.
You turn.
Sukuna stands in the corridor behind you.
Not speaking. Not moving. Just there.
Weirdo.
Four eyes fixed on you.
You stare at him.
“Can I help you.”
“No.”
“Then why are you looming.”
“I am standing.”
“You are being weird.”
One of Suguru’s students abruptly remembers they have somewhere else to be and bolts. Another follows. Suguru watches the exchange with the kind of calm interest usually reserved for storms visible through safe windows.
Sukuna says nothing.
You wait.
He keeps looking at you.
A slow crease forms between your brows.
“What the fuck do you want.”
His expression shifts, faintly, like annoyance at the question itself.
“Nothing.”
“Then leave?” you feel yourself almost snapping from how infuriating this man is.
He does not.
Suguru coughs into one hand, definitely hiding amusement.
“Maybe,” he offers mildly, “he has something to discuss.”
“Then he can discuss it like a person and not like a haunted wardrobe.”
Sukuna’s gaze flicks to Suguru, then back to you.
“You speak too much.”
“You are welcome to fix that by walking away.”
He still does not leave.
You end up standing there another ten seconds just staring at him before you realize this will go nowhere. You ignore him, then, and keep talking to Suguru. Sukuna is still there, not speaking, not leaving, just occupying the space at your side like some huge, unsettling piece of furniture that breathes.
You turn again, already irritated.
“What, Sukuna?”
He looks at you in that same strange way he did at the lot. Intent and still. All four eyes fixed on your face and he seems to be fighting an internal battle you don't wanna know about.
Suguru shifts beside you.
Sukuna’s mouth curls just slightly, not quite a smile.
“Nothing.”
The answer lands wrong once again and you want to rip his face off for it. Instead, you stare at him.
“Then fuck off.”
He stays there another few seconds, then opens the door to the building when you move toward it.
Holds it. Actually holds it.
You stop short.
He lifts his chin, impatient now, as if you are the one making this weird.
You go through because standing there arguing about a door would somehow be even more humiliating. Suguru follows behind you, and you hear him exhale through his nose in quiet disbelief.
Later, when you pass the teachers’ lounge, there is a cup of coffee on the desk you usually steal from.
Black, no sugar. Exactly how you take it.
You look around the room.
Nanami looks up from grading. Shoko is half-asleep in a chair. Gojo is sprawled across the couch in a way that should not be physically possible.
“Did one of you—”
“Not me,” Shoko says without opening her eyes.
Gojo grins, too quick, too wide.
“You’ve got an admirer.”
“Shut up.”
Nanami adjusts his glasses.
“It was Sukuna.”
You stare at the coffee like it might be poisonous.
“He sneered the whole time,” Gojo adds helpfully. “Which somehow made it worse and funnier.”
You do not drink it immediately. You spend almost a full minute glaring at it first, eyebrows pinched so tight your forehead hurts. Then you drink it anyway because you are tired and the coffee smells good and you refuse to let him ruin caffeine for you too.
That evening in the cafeteria he corners you near the drinks machine.
There is no better word for it.
He does not touch you, he is simply too large, too close, too solidly there.
One second you are reaching for a canned tea, the next he is in front of you, broad shoulders blocking the aisle.
Students scatter without being told.
You keep your expression flat through effort and sigh.
“What.” you ask again, flat, thinking of how many times you're gonna have to ask him what the fuck is he doing in a single day.
He tilts his head, studying you.
“Come with me tonight on a date.”
You bark a laugh before you can stop it because what the actual everloving fuck.
“No.”
His upper right eyes narrow.
“You declined too quickly.”
“I’d rather eat a brick than going out with you.”
There is a beat of silence. Then, incredibly, he tries again.
“Tomorrow, then.”
You actually look behind you, just to check if Gojo is hiding somewhere filming this for blackmail.
When you turn back, Sukuna is exactly where he was, waiting.
You feel your eyebrows drawing together again, and now you are actually feeling yourself worry a bit.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He does not answer that either. He only watches you, gaze tracking every tiny shift in your face like he is memorizing it.
You step around him and leave.
It gets harder after that.
Every hallway seems to have him in it. Every room. Every conversation.
You are talking to Shoko in the infirmary and he appears in the doorway, says nothing, leaves only when you do. You are reviewing lesson plans with Nanami and he passes by three times in ten minutes despite having no reason to be in that wing at all.
By the time you find Gojo leaning against the training field fence after class, you are already keyed up and meaner than usual.
“There’s something wrong with him,” you say.
Gojo, for once, does not joke immediately. He watches Sukuna across the field, where he is standing utterly still while first-years pretend not to stare.
“Yeah,” he says. “I noticed.”
“He keeps following me.”
“Mhm.”
“He asked me out, Gojo.”
Gojo’s grin flashes, then fades when he sees your face.
“Okay, yeah. That part’s new.”
You fold your arms hard over your chest.
“Whatever happened in that lot, it didn’t end there.”
Gojo grows a little more serious then, eyes hidden behind his blindfold but attention unmistakably sharp.
“Suguru thought so too.”
“Is it possession?”
“Maybe.” He tips his head. “He’s less murderous than usual.”
“That’s not really comforting.”
“No, I know.” He pauses. “He’s focused, though. Weirdly focused.”
“On me,” you say flatly.
“On you,” he agrees.
Your stomach sinks a little at hearing it aloud.
The day keeps going. You teach. Or try to.
The students are restless, the evening humid, the classroom too warm. Chalk dust clings to your fingers. You are in the middle of explaining the structure of a barrier technique when the door slams open hard enough to hit the wall.
Suguru stands there, breathing a little fast.
Every head in the room turns.
“Come with me,” he says.
You blink and stare at him, wide eyed.
“What?”
“Now.”
Something in his face empties your lungs.
You hand the chalk to the nearest student without even looking.
“Read the next section. Quietly.”
No one argues. Suguru is already crossing the room, already grabbing your arm, not hard enough to hurt but firm enough that it is clear you are moving whether you agree or not.
The corridor outside is too loud.
Banging. Splintering wood. The sharp, ugly sound of impact from somewhere deeper in the building. Another crash follows, heavier this time, and the floor trembles under your shoes.
You wrench your arm back just enough to keep pace beside Suguru instead of behind him.
“What happened?”
He keeps moving.
“Don’t stop.”
“What happened, Suguru?” you try again, hating the suspense.
Another impact. Closer.
Students are being herded the opposite way by other teachers, pale and wide-eyed. The fluorescent lights overhead shiver.
Suguru finally answers, voice clipped.
“Sukuna lost his mind. He thinks we want to keep him from his wife.”
Your blood runs cold.
A roar of ruined plaster tears through the hall ahead. Then a body comes through the wall to your left in a burst of dust and broken concrete.
You jerk back so hard your shoulder smacks the lockers.
Gojo rolls with it, hits the ground, comes up on one knee already grinning like a lunatic even with blood at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, that’s fun,” he says, wiping his lip with the back of his hand.
You stare at the ragged hole in the wall, heart pounding high in your throat.
Heavy footsteps.
Not hurried. Not wild.
Heavy and deliberate, each one shaking dust from the ceiling.
Suguru moves half a step in front of you without seeming to.
“Satoru,” you call, because your voice is the only thing you can hear clearly.
He stands, brushing concrete grit off his shoulder.
“We think something latched onto him during the mission.”
Your head whips toward him.
“What kind of something?”
“The annoying kind.”
Another step.
The outline filling the ruined classroom beyond is too big to be anyone else.
Four arms. Too many eyes reflecting in the powdery light.
Tattoos cutting dark over skin and bared muscle where his uniform top has torn at the shoulder.
He looks at no one else.
Only you.
Your mouth goes dry.
Suguru answers the question you have not yet managed to ask.
“It seems to have rooted itself in a fixation. And that would be his wife.”
You hear your own voice, thin with disbelief.
“What wife?”
Sukuna steps through the broken wall.
Concrete snaps beneath his feet. Dust clings to his shoulders and hair. There is a shallow cut across one cheek that is already closing.
Suguru responds with something you refuse to believe,
“You.”
“What?” You laugh once, breathless. “What the fuck do you mean, me?”
Gojo cracks his neck to one side.
“We think the curse hit the first person he properly focused on after the fight.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Sukuna keeps walking.
His face is wrong in a way you cannot fully explain.
Controlled, but stretched over something feverish and absolute, like a man having a dream with his eyes open.
The hallway suddenly feels too narrow, too bright, too full of dust.
Gojo lowers his voice a fraction.
“We need time.”
You tear your eyes off Sukuna long enough to glare at him.
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
“How much time?”
Another step. Closer now. Sukuna’s gaze does not waver.
Suguru says,
“Not much.”
You hate both of them for making you understand before they say anything else.
Your tongue feels thick.
“So I’m bait.”
“No,” Gojo says, "I mean..."
“Yes, I am.”
Neither of them answers.
That is answer enough.
You inhale once, too sharp, lungs burning with plaster dust and adrenaline. Your whole body is telling you to run, but that would be worse. You know it. They know it. Sukuna would tear through half the school to catch up, and then you would still end up here except with more blood in the hall.
So you step around Suguru.
Behind you, both men tense.
Ahead of you, Sukuna stops.
The silence that falls is almost worse than the noise.
You have to tilt your head back, craning your neck to look at him fully.
Up close he is ridiculous, monstrous in scale and presence, all brutal strength and heat. Your pulse is beating so hard you can feel it in your gums. He smells like dust, sweat, iron, the sharp ozone tang of cursed energy.
His eyes drag over your face like he is checking for injuries.
When he speaks, his voice is low and rough and terribly certain.
“Will you stop avoiding me now?”
Your eye twitches.
Of all the possible things he could have said, that one nearly makes you laugh from sheer disbelief.
“You are destroying a school hallway,” you say. Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “And throwing teachers through walls.”
His expression does not change.
You force yourself to keep going.
“If you want me anywhere near you, you stop doing that first.”
For a second you think it works. He goes stiller, somehow. Listening.
Then you add, because someone has to try,
“You are cursed, Sukuna. There is something wrong with you.”
He scoffs.
Then, something happens so fast your body does not understand it at first.
One moment you are standing in front of him, furious and shaking and holding your ground on principle alone.
The next the floor is gone.
His hands are on you, one pair lifting, another securing, and suddenly your stomach drops as your body is hauled clean off the ground.
You hit his shoulder with a hard jolt that knocks the air out of you.
“What the fu— put me down!”
The world swings sickeningly. One of his arms braces the backs of your thighs to keep you from slipping while another settles heavy across your back. You can feel the heat of him through your uniform, the impossible solidity of muscle under skin.
You twist enough to glare back over his broad shoulder.
Gojo and Suguru are both staring.
Dust drifts lazily through the hall between all of you.
You do not dare say don’t fight him.
Do not dare say wait.
Do not dare say I am fine, because you are very much not.
So you settle for a look sharp enough to cut with.
Hurry the fuck up.
Suguru’s face hardens in understanding. Gojo’s grin is gone now, replaced by something colder.
Sukuna turns and starts walking.
You slam a palm against his back once, more insult than actual resistance.
“This is kidnapping, you know?”
“You were leaving.”
“I was not.”
“You were going to.”
“I teach here, asshole!”
“So do I.”
The absurdity of it all almost makes you choke.
The half-destroyed hallway lurches past beneath you as he carries you through it like your protesting means nothing at all. Broken plaster crunches under his feet. Teachers and students vanish from doorways the second he looks their way.
Night air spills in from somewhere ahead, cooler now, carrying the smell of rain and pine from the grounds.
You hate how helpless this feels.
You hate how your body is learning the shape of being carried by him against your will, cataloguing every hard line and shift of motion because it has no choice.
Hate the helpless bounce of each step.
Hate the strain in your stomach from trying not to panic.
Hate that you cannot tell if the shaking in your hands is fear or anger.
Probably both.
By the time he crosses the threshold out of the school building, the sky has deepened to indigo.
Campus lights are beginning to flicker on, pale and sterile against the trees.
You look back once over his shoulder.
The ruined corridor is now only a bright wound in the darkened building. You cannot see Gojo or Suguru anymore. You can only trust they are moving, searching, doing something useful while you are hauled farther and farther from where anyone can intervene quickly.
Sukuna does not head toward the staff wing. He does not head toward the road either.
He takes the stone path that leads toward his place.
Your mouth goes dry all over again.
He adjusts his grip on you, not gentle, not cruel either, just certain, and keeps walking as if this was always going to end with you in his arms and the whole school behind you.
The night feels suddenly huge.
You stare at the dark line of rooftops ahead, pulse hammering, every possible outcome crowding your head at once, and realize with a fresh stab of dread that whatever happens next, you are going to have to face it alone with him before anyone finds a way to stop this.
And Sukuna, maddened and resolute and carrying you like something already his, does not slow down once. You can’t do much, so you start thinking.
Thinking in that situation, unfortunately, is not helping much.
You had assumed the worst. Some locked room. Some insane display of territoriality. Maybe chains. Maybe Sukuna sitting outside a door like a living threat. Maybe a version of his fixation that becomes monstrous the moment there are no witnesses.
His home is large in the way that makes modern luxury seem almost embarrassed by itself. Not ostentatious, not cluttered, but it is expansive, high-ceilinged, clean-lined, expensive enough that you can tell every object in it was chosen and nothing was accidental.
Dark wood. Stone. Low lighting. Wide windows now reflecting the last of evening back at the room.
He still does not put you down until the front door has closed behind him.
When your feet finally hit the floor, you stagger. He steadies you at the waist automatically.
You slap both his wrists away.
“Hands off.”
Every one of his eyes fixes on your face.
Then, unexpectedly, he lifts all four hands and steps back half a pace.
The gesture should make you feel safer.
Instead it makes the room somehow stranger.
Because he is looking at you like restraint itself is painful.
His expression still carries its usual contempt at the edges, the natural sharpness of his face, the habitual sneer of someone made to rule through force. Yet underneath it there is something else working hard to surface. An almost restless pull in his body. His hands twitch once at his sides. Twice. Like he wants to reach and is stopping himself.
You swallow the lump in your throat.
The silence stretches until it becomes unbearable.
So you ask the first thing that comes out, voice low and somehow with real curiosity.
“What the hell is wrong with you.”
He stares.
“You are being impossible.”
“You abducted me from work.”
“They tried to keep me from you.”
“What,” you say, voice hoarse with secondhand embarrassment, “is wrong with your fucking brain.”
His mouth hardens.
“You are being difficult,” he goes on, voice low and rough with that peculiar certainty that only makes this worse. “Skittish. Avoidant. For no reason I can see. It is tiresome.”
You fold your arms, partly defensive, partly because you do not know what else to do with them.
“No reason?”
“You are my wife.” He says it like it is the simplest truth in the world. “You should let me embrace you. You should let me have you beside me as I wish.”
Half of you dies on the spot.
The other half goes up in flames so hot you swear your face could light the room.
You stare at him, unable to decide whether you want to laugh, scream, or throw something. The problem is that none of those responses would help. Not with the curse. Not with the school. Not with Satoru and Suguru buying time back there, trusting you to keep this disaster contained.
So you swallow the first ten things you want to say and force something else out instead.
“I am tired after the mission,” you say carefully, because this is still a game you are playing to keep him contained. “That’s all.”
His eyes hold yours for one long second.
Then he decides, with the ruthless simplicity that is very much still Sukuna, that this has a solution.
You know what he is doing a beat too late.
One moment you are standing.
The next you are in his arms.
Not hauled over his shoulder this time — scooped cleanly up, one set of arms under your knees, another at your back, as if carrying you like this is self-evident.
Your hands fly to his chest on instinct.
“Sukuna.”
“You are tired,” he says.
“That does not mean you can just keep picking me up.”
He looks down at you like the objection itself is irrelevant.
“I can.”
You open your mouth.
Close it again.
Because there is no point, and because he is already walking deeper into the house, and because some traitorous part of your body has noticed how warm he is.
Not warm. Hot.
He carries heat the way furnaces do, deep and constant, a living banked blaze under skin and muscle. It rolls into you through every point of contact.
You hate that you notice. You hate more that it feels good after the tension of the day.
He takes you to his bedroom.
Of course he does.
It is larger than your entire apartment had been in graduate housing.
Wide low bed. Dark sheets. Minimal furniture. Everything precise. The room of a man who does not need excess to prove anything. The curtains are half open, letting in city light in smeared bands.
You tense the moment he lowers you, but he does not trap you against the mattress.
He lies back first.
Then he settles you on top of him.
You freeze.
Completely, absurdly freeze.
Your cheek is pressed against the broad plane of his chest before you can decide where else it should go. One of his upper hands spreads over the middle of your back, heavy and steady. Another rests at your waist. The third braces lightly at your hip, not gripping, just holding your balance. The fourth lifts, pauses near your face, and then tucks a strand of hair carefully behind your ear.
The tenderness of it startles you harder than the kidnapping itself.
You do not know what to do with your face, your hands, your breathing, any of it. Your cheek grows hotter by the second where it is pressed to him, and you are suddenly grateful he cannot see all of it from this angle because if he does you might actually pass out.
He sounds almost practical when he speaks.
“Rest.”
That is all.
Just that.
Rest.
You stay rigid for nearly a minute, every muscle waiting for the catch.
There is none.
His hand on your back begins tracing idle shapes, broad slow passes that do not ask anything from you. The one at your waist only keeps you from sliding when his breathing shifts. Beneath your ear, his heart beats strong and even. No hurry to it. No escalation. No hidden demand.
You stare at the dark fold of his robe and think, in a stunned detached way, that you did not know this existed in him.
Not kindness exactly. Sukuna would spit on the word if someone used it about him.
But care, perhaps. Possessive care. Practical care.
The kind of thing that might surface only under very particular circumstances and then pretend afterward it had never been there at all.
You are so tired.
You do not know whether this tenderness belongs entirely to the curse or if it is only dragging something real out into the open and warping it beyond reason. The thought itself is dangerous. You shove it away.
You should not be wondering what Sukuna would be like with feelings. You should not be wondering whether there was ever a version of reality where he would touch someone like this without madness involved.
That is the problem.
Or maybe it is not the problem at all. Maybe the problem is that you have spent enough time around him over the last years to know the angles of his temper, the cadence of his contempt, the way he stands in a room and dares the world to be worth his effort.
Maybe the problem is that your relationship with him has always existed in clean familiar lines — professional, adversarial, sharp — and now every one of those lines is blurring because he has laid you on his chest like something precious and told you to sleep.
Your phone vibrates against your pocket.
You jolt like you have been caught.
Sukuna’s hand on your back stills.
“Ignore it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“It might be important.”
“It is not more important than your state.”
A pause.
Then, to your surprise, he does not stop you. He only grunts and lets you squirm one arm free enough to fish your phone out. The angle is awkward. You keep your cheek where it is because lifting your whole face feels impossible somehow.
The message is from Gojo.
managed to figure things out w shoko. curse should burn out on its own. keep him contained.
You squint at the screen, then type one-handed with ferocious irritation.
how long
There is a stretch where only Sukuna’s breathing and the faint city noise beyond the glass fill the room. He notices the device again after a minute and makes a dissatisfied sound.
“It distracts you from resting.”
“It is communication.”
“It is annoying.”
“You are annoying.”
That earns the smallest low chuckle, felt more than heard through his chest.
Then the reply comes.
around two days. yaga says do NOT bring him back unless u want the rest of the campus remodeled. sorry <3
You close your eyes.
Two days.
Two whole fucking days.
A fresh message follows before you can even process the first.
seriously though, are u okay?
You stare at it.
Then type back: no
delete it.
Type again: alive
Send.
The phone vanishes from your hand a second later.
You make a startled sound and lift your head just enough to glare. Sukuna has taken it with one of his upper hands and set it on the nightstand far beyond your reach.
“It was keeping you awake.”
You stare at him.
“You cannot just confiscate my phone.”
“I just did.”
“You are a twat.”
His thumb, the one resting between your shoulder blades, resumes its slow path.
“Sleep.”
And maybe it is the day finally catching up to you. Maybe it is the heat of him under you, the steady weight, the way his body is impossibly firm and yet more comfortable than any mattress has a right to be. Maybe it is the bone-deep exhaustion of adrenaline wearing off all at once.
Sukuna makes a quiet sound of satisfaction at your silence. His hand resumes its slow path along your back, tracing idle shapes that have no purpose except to soothe. The effect is immediate and humiliating. You can feel sleep creeping in through the cracks of your exhaustion no matter how hard you try to resist it.
After a while, one of his free hands finds one of yours. His fingers curl around it, big and callused and terribly warm, and that is what nearly undoes you.
You feel it happening and resent it instantly because this is absurd, because you should not be able to drift off draped over the most dangerous man alive, because some part of your mind is still screaming about every level on which this is wrong—
But his hand keeps moving. Slow. Measured. Thoughtless.
Your own body, traitorous bastard that it is, takes that as permission.
You fall asleep.
When you wake, the room is darker.
Not full night-dark. More the strange almost-blue hour before dawn or after it, where shapes exist in softness and the city outside has not fully committed itself yet. For a few hazy seconds you do not remember where you are.
Then you realize you are in a bed that is not yours, wrapped in warmth that is definitely not blankets alone. It takes you a moment to understand that you are no longer on top of Sukuna.
You are on the bed, curled toward him instead, one arm trapped between your chest and the mattress, your face almost buried in the broad wall of his chest. Sukuna is wrapped around you from both sides, his arms forming an inescapable cage.
His body is at your front, at your back, everywhere. You are boxed in by heat and muscle and the steady rise and fall of him breathing.
One arm heavy over your waist. Another tucked beneath the pillows behind your shoulders. A third resting over your thighs to keep you close. The fourth somewhere beneath your head, bent in a way that has caged you in without discomfort.
You lie there and breathe once.
Twice.
The peace of it is almost unbearable.
It feels nice.
That is the part that hurts, because for one dangerous second, you forget.
You forget the curse. The school. The fact that this is not normal, cannot be normal, should not make your chest feel this unbearably full.
All you know in that second is peace. Warmth. The strange, heavy comfort of being held like your place is meant to be exactly there.
If you let yourself stay in this feeling too long, if you let yourself believe the quiet and the warmth and the impossible steadiness of him mean something you are allowed to keep, you will be an idiot. Worse than an idiot.
You will be someone building softness out of a curse.
Out of a mistake lodged in a monster’s head.
Then you move.
Only a little. Just enough to test if you can untangle yourself.
His arms tighten at once.
“Stop wiggling, woman.” he murmurs, voice still thick with sleep.
You go still on instinct, then scowl at yourself for it.
“I need to get up.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You do not.”
You angle your head back enough to glare at the underside of his jaw.
“I need to go home. I need a shower. I need clean clothes. I’m not spending the whole night covered in dust and sweat.”
That gets one eye to peel open. Then another. And another. Then all of them are on you again.
His face, when he finally looks down at you properly, is rumpled with sleep in a way you did not know he could be. It lasts only a second before that familiar disdainful look settles back into place.
“You can shower here.”
You close your eyes.
Sometimes you truly believe he is a moron.
“What would I wear, genius?”
He scoffs, offended by the question itself.
“I have infinite options for you.”
You drag a hand down your face.
At this point, what are your options? You are here. The curse needs time. Yaga wants him contained. Satoru and Shoko need these forty-eight hours to pass without bloodshed. You can either keep fighting every step of it and risk setting him off again, or you can endure it.
So you exhale and sit up at last, helped rather than hindered by the fact that Sukuna immediately releases you the moment he realizes you are not trying to leave the room entirely.
His bathroom is larger than your whole apartment kitchen.
Hot water pounds down over your shoulders and back, washing away the grime of the mission in long, steaming streams. Dust lifts. Sweat goes with it. The ache in your muscles sharpens first under the heat, then loosens bit by bit until you can finally breathe without feeling every bruise and strain from the day.
You stay in there too long on purpose.
Partly because you need it. Partly because you are delaying whatever awkwardness waits outside.
By the time you step out with damp hair and flushed skin, wrapped in a towel, Sukuna is waiting in the bedroom with a folded bundle in one of his hands.
He hands it over without ceremony.
It is one of his kimonos. Light fabric, soft, expensive in a quiet way, and much too large. You put it on anyway because there is nothing else to do. The hem drags. The sleeves swallow your hands. The collar slips wide enough at the neck that you have to tug it back into place.
When you emerge from behind the divider, he looks up.
And grins.
That wicked, knowing grin that makes you instantly suspicious.
“What?”
He looks you over once, slowly.
“It suits you.”
The compliment strikes clean through your guard.
You feel it happen. That awful, helpless rush of heat from throat to cheeks.
Sukuna’s grin widens.
You consider throwing something at his head. Instead you just glare and look away, which only gets you a low chuckle in response, deep and pleased and so uncharacteristically unguarded that you almost trip over your own thoughts.
He takes you to the kitchen next.
You expect arrogance there too, maybe uselessness, maybe the kind of man who has a beautiful kitchen he never touches because someone else does it for him.
Instead he cooks.
Quickly, efficiently, with the ease of someone who knows where everything is and uses it often.
Steam curls up from the pan. Oil hisses softly. Aromatics hit the heat and bloom into something that fills the whole room and makes your stomach tighten painfully with sudden hunger. He moves with the same economy he uses in battle, no wasted gestures, no hesitation, just one precise action flowing into the next.
You sit at the counter and watch despite yourself.
“You cook?”
He cuts you a glance.
“Do you believe I live on air?”
“I believed you lived on spite.”
That earns a low scoff that might almost be amusement.
When he sets the bowl in front of you, it looks simple. It tastes anything but.
The first bite makes a helpless little sound leave your throat before you can stop it.
He notices immediately.
The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Good?”
You hate how easy honesty is when the food is this good.
“Annoyingly.”
He hums, satisfied with that.
You eat. You keep eating because it tastes incredible and because your body is still trying to catch up with the fact that you are clean and warm and no longer actively panicking.
By the time you finish, your limbs feel heavier in a different way. Rested, but only partly. The kind of tired that comes after a deep sleep taken too early, when the body has been tricked into thinking it is healed more than it is.
A yawn catches you by surprise.
You cover it with the back of your sleeve and stare down into the empty bowl, weighing what is left of the day. Or night. Time feels oddly meaningless in here.
The light outside the kitchen windows is pale and uncertain, somewhere between dawn and a cloudy morning.
You consider your options.
You could ask for your things from home. Message Shoko to bring clothes. Ask Yaga how classes are being covered. Try to impose some kind of schedule on this madness so you do not lose your mind first.
You could also admit, at least to yourself, that another hour of sleep would not be the worst thing in the world.
Sukuna watches you from across the counter, having finished his own portion long ago. He has that look again, attentive in a way that feels nearly predatory if not for the strange care threaded through it.
“You are still tired,” he says.
It is not a question.
You rub at one temple.
“That tends to happen after a mission, a kidnapping, a cursed delusion, and several identity crises in the span of one day.”
His expression does not change.
“Then sleep more.”
You let out a dry laugh.
“You know,” you mutter, “most people would ask what I want to do.”
“You are deciding,” he says, almost dismissive. “I am only stating the correct answer.”
There he is.
That pedantic, unbearable certainty settles over you so neatly that, absurdly, it is reassuring.
You lean your elbows on the counter and look at him through damp lashes and the remnants of your exhaustion.
“If I stay awake, you hover. If I sleep, you turn into a weighted blanket. If I leave the room, you follow me like an overgrown guard dog. So really my options are terrible.”
A pause.
Then, unexpectedly, his mouth twitches.
“Correct.”
You snort despite yourself.
The sound surprises both of you.
Something loosens in the room after that, not fully, not safely, but enough for the tension to shift shape. Still dangerous. Still bizarre. But no longer poised right at the edge of breaking.
You know, instantly and viscerally, that the decision has been made without you.
“Do not,” you say, pointing your chopsticks at him in warning. “Do not pick me up again.”
His gaze drops to the chopsticks, then lifts back to your face.
And sure enough, a minute later you are back in his room.
This time at least you walk there on your own.
A victory. A tiny, humiliating victory.
The borrowed kimono brushes your ankles as you sit, then sink, then let yourself lean back into the bedding with a slow exhale. The fabric smells faintly like him too, which is not helping. Neither is the way he watches you do it, standing at the edge of the bed for only a heartbeat before climbing up after you.
And then he is over you.
For a second your thoughts blank entirely.
The movement is smooth, controlled, almost lazy in its certainty, yet the sight of it sends a sharp nervous thrill all the way through you.
Four arms bracket you in an instant, two planted beside your head, another pair settling lower near your sides and hips, his whole body a towering wall of heat and weight above you. He does not crush you. He only hems you in so completely that the rest of the room seems to vanish around the edges.
Your breath catches.
You try to keep your face composed, you really do, but the strain of it breaks all at once when his head dips and his nose brushes the long column of your neck.
A small, bright, utterly traitorous giggle bubbles up and bursts out of you.
It surprises you so badly your eyes widen right after, but it is too late to swallow back. It leaves you in a breathless little rush, nervous and euphoric all at once, and the second it is gone you feel every hair on your body stand on end.
Sukuna stills.
Not much. Just enough for you to feel it.
The tip of his nose drifts once more against your throat, slower this time, as if he is testing the reaction again. Your whole body shivers beneath him. Not from fear. Not from tension. From something warmer and far more humiliating.
That is when the truth hits you in a way you cannot sidestep.
Maybe you do feel something for him.
Maybe you have for longer than you let yourself think about, and all the irritation, the bickering, the professional distance, the snapping at each other in hallways and training grounds has been covering something else. Something softer. Something much more dangerous because it would have required honesty, and honesty with Sukuna has never once felt safe.
Your body gives you away before your mind can catch up.
It does not tense under his. It eases.
It yields to his warmth like it was waiting for a reason.
You realize, dimly, that your hands have closed around the front of his kimono at some point. You do not remember doing it. You only know that your fingers are twisted in the fabric near his chest, holding on like you might drift away if you let go.
The knowledge makes your face burn hotter.
Sukuna says nothing about it.
He lowers his mouth to the curve where your neck meets your shoulder, where the collar of his borrowed kimono has slipped wide enough to bare skin, and presses a kiss there. You feel like the touch, tender as it is, scorches your skin. Then he presses another. Then another, each one unhurried and gentle in a way that does not suit him at all and yet somehow suits him perfectly in this terrible, secret place inside your chest you have not wanted to name.
There is no greed in it, no taking, no forceful urgency. Only a kind of reverence that seems impossible on him, as though he has found something he wants to handle carefully even if he does not quite understand why.
Your thoughts scatter for a moment.
You feel ridiculous.
You feel warm all over.
You feel like your bones have gone loose under your skin.
Why are you melting into this?
Why are you sinking into his touch like something half-starved finally given warmth?
Are you really this touch deprived? This affection-starved? This vulnerable to one man pressing his mouth to your shoulder like you are something precious instead of the colleague he bickers with until both of you are ready to bite?
The answer comes easy enough that you almost laugh at yourself.
Probably yes.
And what is worse, if someone offered you another version of this moment — cleaner, saner, not born from a curse and a crisis and two exhausted days trapped in the same house — you suspect you would choose it too.
Because now you know.
Not about the curse. Not about whatever is rotting sweetly through his mind and telling him wife and mine and come here.
You know something about yourself.
About why bickering with him has always come too easily. About why his attention burns in ways other people’s never do. About why even at your angriest with him there is still some fierce bright wire of awareness underneath. About why being held by him, absurd as it is, feels less like revulsion and more like the world narrowing into something dangerously simple.
You like him.
God help you, you like him.
Maybe you have for a while.
Maybe all that friction had been hiding sparks you never let yourself name because naming them would have been stupid, and risky, and deeply inconvenient.
Maybe the realization should come later, in saner circumstances, under any sky other than this one.
That thought only survives a second before his hands slide down and close around your hips.
The breath leaves you in a quiet rush as he shifts forward and lets more of his weight settle over you. The mattress dips deeper. His body presses you into it, broad and hot and so heavy it wrings a helpless groan right out of you.
Your arms move on instinct, lifting from where they had fisted his clothes and winding around his neck instead.
He exhales against your skin at the feel of it.
His face lowers, rests, nuzzles almost absently against the upper swell of your chest where the borrowed kimono has fallen a little farther open under the pressure. The sensation is so unexpectedly intimate that your mouth curves before you can help it, not quite into a smile, not quite into anything you have worn before.
It feels strange on your face. Soft. Open. A little dazed.
He breathes you in.
Deeply.
Like he is memorizing you through scent alone.
The heat of it against your skin turns your stomach over in the gentlest possible way. You do not know what to do with the feeling it gives you.
It is too mixed up, too warm and embarrassing and oddly tender to sort through quickly. So you do the only thing your body seems capable of doing.
Your fingers slip into his hair.
At first it is cautious. Just the pads of your fingers easing into those unruly pink strands, feeling how thick and slightly coarse they are beneath your hand, the warmth of his scalp underneath. Then it becomes a slow caress, your hand moving on its own, combing back through the mess of his hair with careful strokes.
Sukuna goes still again.
A low sound leaves him, almost too quiet to hear, more vibration than voice where his cheek is pressed to your skin.
You feel it everywhere.
For one long second you are acutely aware of everything at once. The solid drag of his weight over your body. The stretch in your shoulders from the way your arms hold around his neck. The soft whisper of the kimono fabric open at your chest. The warmth of his breath as he turns his face a fraction and brushes another kiss there, just below your collarbone this time. The callus of one thumb moving in a slow circle against your hip through the fabric.
Your pulse beats so hard you think he has to feel it.
You stare at the ceiling because looking down at him would probably finish you off in some new and mortifying way.
“This is insane,” you whisper.
His mouth shifts against your skin, not quite a smile, not quite not.
“Hm.”
You let out a breath that almost turns into another laugh.
“You are infuriating even now.”
“And yet,” he murmurs.
And yet.
The words settle heavily between your ribs.
You tug lightly at his hair before you can think better of it, just enough to make him lift his head. His face rises from your chest, and you finally look at him properly from this distance, close enough to count every line of ink on his skin, every lash shadowing those too-watchful eyes, every small shift in the hard shape of his mouth.
He looks different like this.
Not softer — Sukuna does not become soft. But there is less distance in him. Less iron. Less of that endless guarded contempt he wears around everyone and everything.
Beneath it, you catch something intent and raw and almost boyishly stubborn, something that makes your heart hurt in a way you do not appreciate.
Hunger dressed in gentleness.
He studies your face like he does not understand why you are letting him stay there.
The thought lands harder than it should.
Because maybe he does not understand. Maybe neither of you does.
You are the first one to look away.
Your pulse is far too loud in your ears. The room smells like soap from your shower, like warm rice and broth from the food he made, like clean linen and the faint iron scent that always seems to cling to him under everything else. His heat cages you in. So does the bed. So do his arms.
This should be impossible to enjoy.
It is not.
That realization makes you feel a little sick and a little giddy in equal measure.
You clear your throat and aim for dry, unimpressed, normal.
“You’re staring.”
“I am looking at my wife.”
Your whole body jolts with mortification so abrupt it nearly turns into a laugh.
“That is still... odd.”
“So are you,” he says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “You keep insulting me while touching me like this.”
You open your mouth, close it, open it again.
There is no argument available to you that does not sound pathetic.
Because he is right in the most infuriating way possible. You are touching him like this.
Worse, you do not want to stop.
You settle on glaring at the side of his face, which would probably be more effective if your hand were not still buried in his hair.
He looks maddeningly satisfied.
“Don’t smirk,” you say.
“It displeases you?”
“Yes.”
He smirks more.
You hate him. You really, truly do.
You hate how easy he makes it look to pin you here with four arms and a single look. You hate how his voice drops into that low register whenever he speaks to you like this and your stupid body listens to it. You hate that he cooks well and runs hot and apparently has a hidden talent for being unbearably attentive.
You hate that under this curse, with his mind bent sideways and all his edges turned toward you, he is showing you a shape of himself you had never been allowed to know existed.
You hate, most of all, how badly some soft and neglected part of you wants this to mean something after it ends.
He lowers his head again, slower this time, until his forehead rests near your shoulder. One of the hands at your hips slides to your side, spanning your ribs. Another remains firm at your waist. The upper pair shifts only enough to ease some of his weight from his arms and let it settle more fully across you.
You should feel trapped.
Instead you feel held.
Your fingers resume their slow pass through his hair, no longer even pretending it is accidental. The strands slip between your fingers as you smooth them back, over and over, until his breathing changes.
It deepens. Slows.
A tension you had not even fully registered in him starts to ease little by little under your touch.
The realization makes something in you ache.
So much of him is made of resistance. Teeth. Pride. Violence held on a short, vicious leash.
To feel him quiet under your hand like this, even a little, feels like being trusted with something you should not have access to.
You swallow against a throat that suddenly feels tight.
His hand on your side spreads wider, fingertips grazing the bare strip of skin where the kimono has slipped apart. The contact is light, almost absentminded, yet it sends another tremor through you.
Not because it is too much. Because it is not. Because he is touching you like he already knows the exact line where your body will welcome it rather than flinch.
Maybe the curse helps with that.
Maybe the curse has nothing to do with it.
That thought is too large to face right now, so you turn your head slightly and press your cheek against his hair instead.
He gives a low hum of approval.
For a while, neither of you speaks.
The room holds around you, quiet and warm, the outside world reduced to faint sounds beyond the walls. Your body loosens by degrees beneath his. The hand in his hair slows, then lingers, your fingers idly combing the same path again and again. His thumb keeps tracing small circles against your side as if he has forgotten to stop.
Sleep starts circling the edges of you again, soft and inevitable.
You are not ready to examine what it means that you feel safest with four arms caging you in.
You are not ready to decide whether this softness is yours, his, or something the curse merely dragged into the light before either of you could stop it.
Right now all you know is sensation.
The press of him over you.
The heat.
The impossible comfort.
The way your chest feels too full to contain itself.
And the awful, tender fact that when he buries his face closer and your fingers sink a little deeper into his hair, you do not want him to move at all.
description -> there wasn't much you and frat boy!sukuna ryomen had in common...except your mutual disdain for partner projects. (un)luckily for the two of you, fate has a way of bringing together the seemingly incompatible. but as the project continues and studying sessions involve less and less studying, you both discover you're learning more about yourselves than the subject matter at hand...
word count -> 10.2k
cw -> yearning || mutual pining || like, medium burn? || eventual smut || drinking || smoking || cursing || mean sukuna (but only if you squint) || side frat!gojo x nerd!reader || jealousy || slight angst (but like only a little) || slight angst (it's no longer minimal sorry)
part seven || part eight || part nine
You and Sukuna sat in his bedroom on the top floor of the frat house, textbooks open in between as you both attempted to study the words that ran meaninglessly across the pages, too distracted by each other’s presence to care about whatever assignment you should have been focusing on.
With the library temporarily closed for renovations, and his frat brothers gaming on the TV downstairs in the living room, Sukuna offered his bedroom as a last place of refuge to get some work done, not realizing the future implications you, his ultimate distraction, in his haven, would have on his ability to focus.
He lay lazily on his side on top of his comforter while you took the desk, hunched as you poured over the text, your glasses slipping down the bridge of your nose as you scrunched your brows, eyes squinted in faux concentration. He watched you with a small smile on his face as you mouthed the words to what you were reading, desperately trying to keep your eyes on the pages in front of you instead of your partner behind.
“Hey.” His baritone voice rumbled, smooth like a stone buried in a riverbed. You glanced up, mouth slightly parted as your wide, curious eyes met his. “C’mere.”
You tilted your head in confusion, but rose nonetheless, slowly coming to kneel on the edge of his bed, the mattress sucking you in as you tucked one foot underneath you. “What’s up?”
“Need help studying for physiology,” he started, pushing his pile of flashcards with sloppily drawn anatomic figures and terms on the back toward you.
You shook your head, laughing slightly. “That is not what we are supposed to be doing. Besides, I didn’t take physio. I can’t help you with this.”
“Sure, you can. You’re a genius. Just quiz me on the muscle groups,” he offered, rolling off his side and closer to your seated figure.
Your mouth curled into a smile as you fingered through the cards, trying to parse through his scribbled notes. “Kuna, I can’t read these. Your handwriting’s horrible.”
He leaned close into you, looking over your shoulder at the notes he had taken, and ignored the way your body tensed as you felt his breath fan over your neck. “Huh. Yeah, it is pretty shit.” He turned to you, his eyes a deep, rusted shade of red. “Looks like we’ll need a new reference.”
You swallowed, but maintained eye contact, your voice shaking slightly at his proximity and intense gaze. “Okay then. What should we use?”
“Use me.”
Your eyes clouded over. “Use…you?”
He nodded, his voice like velvet. “Use me as a model.”
“You mean…like – ”
“My body, princess.” He finished your statement, cocking his head at your flustered state, biting back a grin.
You fought to keep your breathing steady. “And - you’re sure this will help you study?”
“Absolutely.”
You adjusted your position on the bed, Sukuna turning his back to you, and rested on your knees to better accommodate his frame. You licked your lips, trying to remain steady. “Ok. So, do you want me to just…point, and you tell me the muscle group?” You didn’t comment on how you wouldn’t know if he was right or wrong, too overwhelmed by the closeness and sheer absurdity of what you were doing.
“How am I supposed to see what you’re pointing to?” He chuckled, purposefully leaning back onto his hands, flexing the muscles in his arms and invading your space even more. “You can touch me. Or am I that repulsive to you?”
You shook your head before you realized he couldn’t see you. “No. Not repulsive. Just…” Your eyes trailed over his backside, and you daintily fingered the short sleeve of his top. “Your shirt.”
“What about it?”
“It’s…in the way.”
He didn’t think twice before bringing his hands to his shirt’s bottom hem, pulling it over his head, leaving his tanned, inked back, sculpted, and hard from sinewy muscle on display to you.
“Better?”
Your mouth was dry. “Mmhm.”
Your hands hovered over his skin, unsure, as if his sun-kissed figure was fire, heating the underside of your palm, tantalizing, taunting, dangerous. You shook slightly as the pads of your fingers ever so gently brushed over his shoulders, then down, down, down, the rippling peaks and valleys of his back, tracing the indent of his spine.
You felt him inhale beneath you, the same way a flame does when it senses something nearby to consume. He hadn’t anticipated what your touch would finally feel like, bare skin against skin, ghosting over him so lightly, like feather kisses. He wasn’t used to such kindness in a touch, such fragility, such gentleness, and he couldn’t believe he was receiving it from you.
He needed more.
You weren’t even trying, and you were driving him crazy. His mind was blinking lights and flashing colors, a monster of a man reduced to his rudimentary abilities with one soft gaze from you. You hover, your scent, the way he felt your eyes on him – he wanted to devour you. Swallow you whole and leave nothing behind. Press into you and hold your hand as his teeth sank into your skin, your taste being the last thing on his tongue. He ground out your name, his voice almost wounded.
You wet your lips. “Yeah?”
“Stop being shy. Touch me.”
Your hands were hot as they brushed along his back, your feel of him more sure, more firm, more sensual. You spread your fingers across his expanse, your eyes serious as you asked for the names of the muscles you grazed.
“What’s this?” Your finger traced the outline of a wing on the left side of his back, right by where his arm and shoulder connect.
His voice was breathy, as light as his head felt. “Teres major.”
Your fingers sank, running down his lower back. “And this?” Your voice was low and rich, plucking his heartstrings like a bassist, strumming, eliciting a low, guttural groan from his chest.
“That’s – those are my lats. Latissimus dorsi.” He grunted out, breathless, trying to keep from slouching into your frame. He was worried he was already too far gone, his mind a mess, blood rushing from his head south. His fingers curled into the comforter, gripping it tightly to steady himself, tendons and veins taut in his forearms.
Your hands receded, and he twitched, already missing the feeling of you on him. He tsked disapprovingly, and restrained himself from leaning back in search of you. A quiet moment passed before he heard the rustle of his comforter, the sink of your weight inching closer to his. He felt your breath tickle the top of his back, edging so close to the nape of his neck, the heat of your body the only thing separating you two by mere centimeters, just enough to send him into delirium.
“And, this?”
Your lips pressed right at the center junction where his neck met his upper back, not lingering, but long enough before you pulled away. His eyes fluttered shut as his body shuddered, so charged, so sensitive, he could feel the stain of gloss you left behind, taking your heat with you as you retreated.
“What was that, Kuna?”
His eyes flashed open as he gasped, shooting up from his bed. He looked around, chest heaving as he took in his environment.
Dark room. Curtains drawn.
You, nowhere in sight.
He’d had a fucking dream about you, like he was back in middle school.
He groaned as he fell back into his bed, his heels rubbing against his eyes, as if he was trying to wipe away the memories of his imagination.
It’s too much. He wasn't himself, past the point of recognition, past the point of willful ignorance. And while he knew this was a problem he’d have to confront soon, he couldn’t help but be distracted by the bigger problem currently pressing against the seams of his boxers.
The next morning, he could feel the restlessness from the previous night seeping into his bones as he trudged toward the gym with Toji. The grey, overcast morning encapsulated exactly how he was feeling, and Toji seemed determined to make his mood worse.
“You look like shit,” he commented.
“I feel like shit,” Sukuna groaned back, wiping a hand down his face as if that would alleviate his fatigue. They swiped access into the campus gym and set their items in the locker room, the showers being practically empty on a Sunday morning.
Sukuna stripped, putting on his athletic wear as Toji started talking again. “Late night?”
“Something like that.”
“With that girl?”
“Yes, alright?” Sukuna snapped, angrily shutting the door of his locker closed. “If something’s wrong with me, you can probably assume it has something to do with her.”
Toji just stared, nonplussed at Sukuna’s reaction. “Well, are you gonna do something about it?”
Sukuna scoffed in incredulity. “Are we actually gonna talk about this now?”
Toji shrugged. “Rather talk through this than whatever bullshit we normally talk about.” He rolled his eyes at Sukuna’s disgusted face. “Don’t make this more awkward than it has to be. You’re clearly going through it, and I’m tired of feeling like I’m living with a girl. So talk. Or don’t. Either way, stop being a bitch about it, because it’s really starting to piss me off.”
Sukuna grunted, grabbing his water bottle and heading into the main floor of the gym, finding a free bench and loading plate after plate on each side of the barbell, Toji helping silently as soft music played over the gym’s speakers. As Sukuna tucked himself under the bar, resting his back on the bench, he muttered to Toji as he leaned against the side of the rack. “It’s stupid.”
Toji shrugged. “Can’t be more stupid than how you’ve been acting.”
Sukuna’s hands dropped to his chest as he breathed out. “I don’t really know what to do with her.”
Toji raised his eyebrows, insinuating that he go on.
“I think I like her. As more than a friend.”
“You think?” Toji grunted, coming to stand behind the bar. “I could’ve told you that. C’mon, start your set.” He hovered his hands under the bar, helping Sukuna start his first couple of reps.
Sukuna grunted as he began pushing the weight above his chest. “She asked just to be friends, and I’m trying, but she drives me crazy. I’ve never done this before.”
“What, like someone?”
He exhaled as he re-racked the weight. “Not seriously.”
“Just ask her out,” Toji said as they switched, Sukuna spotting him as he lifted the bar. “What’s the big deal?”
“I told you, she wants to be friends. Or go back to normal. Whatever that fuckin' means.”
“Damn. That sucks.” Toji huffed, pushing the weight back up and down. “When’d she say that?”
“After Halloween.”
“Oh, when you started getting real pissy. Makes sense.”
“Haven’t been pissy.” Sukuna watched Toji struggle with the weight for a second before helping him get the last rep up.
“Yeah, right, drama queen.” Toji wiped his hands on his shirt as he got up, taking a sip from his water bottle. “So, you told her you want to be something more, and she said no?”
“I haven’t told her anything.” He felt Toji’s hard stare on him as he leaned over the bar, his arms crossed.
Toji scoffed. “Pussy.”
Sukuna’s head whipped over, his eyes blazing. “Oh, fuck off. This is why I don’t tell you shit.”
“You don’t tell me shit because you know I’m right.” Toji chided, rolling his neck. “Either grow a pair and actually ask her out, or put yourself out of your misery and get over it.”
“Oh, right, because it’s that easy. Ask her out, then do what?” Sukuna ran a hand through his hair. “Date her? I don’t know how to do that shit.”
“You didn’t know how to ride a bike either, but you learned.”
Sukuna paused. “It’s different. I don’t want my shit to affect her. She’s so…together. And deserves someone who can be more… I don’t know, together…with her.”
“Together, like who, Gojo?” Toji laughed at the withering gaze on his friend’s face. “Jesus, I was joking. Chill.”
Sukuna groaned, putting his face in his hands. “See what I mean? I’m a fucking mess. A jealous, stupid fucking mess. So jealous I was ready to wring Satoru’s neck when he asked her out the other week. She doesn’t want someone like that.”
“You don’t know that. You’re making that decision for her based on what you think.”
“What I know.”
“What you think you know.”
Sukuna scowled. “What’s your point here, exactly?”
“You don’t know what’s going on in her head, and you won’t until you ask.” Sukuna leaned up from the bar, letting Toji underneath as he began to spot him. Toji continued, saying, “I think you’re fucking yourself over by making assumptions that aren’t necessarily true.”
“It’s not an assumption to recognize that we’re just really different people.”
“Different people who constantly look like they want to fuck each other at any given moment.”
Sukuna let out a puff of air, ignoring Toji’s vulgar statement. “I don’t wanna mess anything up. It’s weird, but I like whatever we have, even if it’s a little fucked, and I don’t wanna ruin it.”
Toji shook his head, reracking the weight. “Nah. I say ruin it.”
Sukuna damn near threw his water bottle at the smug man’s face, sucking his teeth at his insolence. “Have you listened to a damn thing I’ve said?”
“I am listening. And I’m telling you to ruin it. You’re fucking it up more by not doing anything.” Toji rose as he pushed Sukuna’s shoulder down, signaling him to do another set as he added more weight to both sides of the barbell. “I’m no genius, but any girl who is willingly spending that much time with you has to like you, at least a little.”
“We’re project partners; this is the definition of being forced to spend time together.”
“Listen, no one made you go over to her place after Halloween, just like no one made you spend hours at her apartment yesterday.” He paused as Sukuna sent him a questioning glare beneath the bar. “Don’t look at me like that. You weren’t in the house. I took a lucky guess. Besides, seems like she’s the only thing that gets your ass out of bed anymore.”
This time, the towel around Sukuna’s neck flew toward Toji’s face before he could register what he was doing. Toji batted it away with his hand, scowling. “Bitch all you want about it, you know it’s true.”
“Look, either suck it up, or don’t. Either face rejection or be a coward. But, please, do something, and free yourself from this torment, for my sake. I can’t keep watching you do this.”
Toji hadn’t put it gently, but he was right; whatever this was wasn’t sustainable. Sukuna knew sooner or later, he’d have to do something about this. He could only keep his head buried in the sand for so long. These feelings, however real or temporary they may be, were calling to be acknowledged, but if he was being honest, acknowledgement was the last thing on his mind.
He sighed, looking up at Toji. “Wanna get drunk tonight?”
Toji sighed, shaking his head. “Sure. But you’re buying.”
|||
“Soup?” Yuki’s eyes popped out of her head when you recounted your previous week. After resting under Sukuna’s orders, you returned to your weekly Sunday session post the following weekend, feeling mostly back to normal. You weren’t sure if the rumbling in your stomach came from the nausea you had experienced previously or because of your crush that had escalated from ignored, to denied, to extreme, but either way, you started to worry that your distress had manifested to the sickest state you’d been in years. For extra precaution, you tried to keep a respectable distance while you helped walk students through problems, but Yuki didn’t seem to care for your attempts to maintain a healthy gap as she pulled you into a secluded corner of the room, prying everything out of you, from your date with Gojo to Sukuna’s surprise home visit last Saturday.
“He made you soup?” Yuki clarified, speaking slowly, enunciating the question, shock and disbelief lacing her tone. “I’m gonna fuckin’ throw up. That’s adorable. Are you kidding me?”
“Yuki, please, don’t mention throwing up in my vicinity. I’m still slightly nauseous.”
You woke up that evening to Sukuna gone, but a clean apartment in your wake, the leftover soup packaged in Tupperware in your fridge, and ice pops for your throat in the freezer. Your fever had finally broken, but your skin was sticky from the sweat you produced from the first soundless sleep you’ve had in days.
You went to your phone to text a thanks to Sukuna, but your thumb slipped, dialing his number instead. Your eyes widened as his contact took up your entire screen, fumbling to press the end call button. “Shit, shit, shit, fuck – ”
“Hello?”
His voice was muffled, raspy, as if you had interrupted a good sleep. The deep vibrato sent a shiver down your spine. “Hi.” You gripped the phone against your ear, talking in a hushed tone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to call.”
“‘ts fine. D’you need somethin’?” His voice was thick, yet warm, as if he were amused by your antics.
“I just wanted to say thanks. Y’know, for the soup and all.”
He hummed. “You feelin’ better?”
You nodded. “Yeah. My fever finally broke. So, feeling way better than before.”
“That’s good.”
The line went quiet before you inhaled. “Sorry, did I wake you? Was this a bad time?”
“Nah, you’re fine.”
“Oh. Ok.”
The conversation lulled, but neither of you moved to hang up. You gnawed on your bottom lip, frantically looking for a conversation topic. You blurted something intelligible as he asked a question at the same time.
“So how are you - ”
“Are you gonna - ”
You both paused, letting out small laughs. “Sorry,” you said. “You go first.”
“No, you go.”
And you did. You both talked, and talked, conversation topics ranging, voices hushed, as if you were scared of getting found out, as if a decibel more would startle you both out of a reverie.
You had made your way to your kitchen while still talking with Sukuna, the soft pads of your sock-clad feet fidgeting as you rested your hip against your oven, waiting for your kettle to whistle as you prepared a cup of tea. Your phone rested between your shoulder and ear as you continued talking. “So, question, I’ve been so curious about this.”
Sukuna hummed in response, prompting you to continue.
“Has Toji actually done anything for the project? He’s never mentioned working on it once.”
Sukuna breathed out a laugh. “Trust me, he hasn’t done shit. I’d be surprised if he knew his partner’s name.”
You giggled, pouring yourself a cup and grabbing your bottle of honey. “I figured. Is he not concerned?”
“Well, not everyone gets stuck with a pain-in-the-ass control freak who threatens failing herself just to get her partner to do work, so he’s probably doing just fine.”
“Yeah, I suppose not everyone can be so lucky.” You feign a sigh, stirring the sweetener into your steeping tea. “It’s a shame there aren't more of me to go around.”
“The campus would implode if there were more of you wandering around. We’d have to construct a new classroom to fit another one of your big heads.”
You scoffed, sticking your tongue out. “You always this mean, or do I just get special treatment?”
“Would you be jealous if I said I treat everyone like this?”
“Yes. Exceedingly so.”
You felt him grin through the phone. “Then yeah, it’s just you.”
You migrated back to your bed, lying atop your comforter, your eyelids growing heavier by the passing minutes as your cup sat on your bedside table, now drained of its contents.
“You tired yet?” Sukuna asked, his voice lulling and slow.
You shook your head as you yawned. “Nuh uh. You sound sleepy, though.”
“Well, it’s almost two in the morning, and I spent most of my day taking care of a big baby, so, yeah, I’m a little tired.”
“I did not ask you to do that,” you protested.
“I know. I wanted to.”
You froze, then inhaled. “Sorry for keeping you on the phone for so long.”
“I didn’t mind.”
“Ok. Well, I’ll let you go then. Talk soon?”
“Counting down the seconds, princess. Night.”
“Night,” you whispered, your voice hoarse.
Your memories of the late-night phone conversation almost made you wince as you responded to Yuki. “Yeah, he made me soup.”
“Well, don’t be shy now! Then what happened?” Yuki grabbed your arm, shaking it furiously, already on the edge of her seat.
You blew out a breath.
What happened next?
Things got…weird.
Weirder than normal, that’s for sure.
After spending the rest of last weekend resting, recovering, and trying to catch up on work, you showed up to class on Tuesday and walked up the steps of your lecture hall to seat yourself in the back row with Sukuna and Toji. You bounded up, greeting them both. “Morning, guys.”
“Hey,” Toji responded. Sukuna’s head barely nodded in your direction.
You stopped short, your eyes flicking between Sukuna’s tufts of pink hair and Toji, who sat next to him. He made eye contact with you and rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “He’s being an idiot. You’re fine. Sit.”
Hesitantly, you took the last few steps up and gingerly sat next to Sukuna, both your bodies so tense and on edge it felt as though they were grating against each other. You unpacked your bag and paused before asking, your words stilted, careful. “How was the rest of your weekend?”
“Fine.”
You took a deep, sharp breath. At this point, you couldn’t keep up with the mood swings he went through. You felt like you trekked through different climates with him every day, from scorching desert to freezing tundra; it was a toss-up on how he felt like treating you that day. It was exhausting, and the events of the past week had already worn you down. “Alright then,” you said, your voice crisp.
You turned your attention to the front, straining to hear the professor as you took notes, and tried not to look at Sukuna for the rest of the period, all cylinders firing in your mind. You felt Sukuna shifting constantly beside you, all of a sudden finding it impossible to get comfortable. After his elbow nudged you for the third time, you hissed. “Am I making you uncomfortable or something? What’s your deal?”
“It’s not you,” he grunted out, unwilling to offer you anything else.
You couldn’t possibly fathom what happened between Saturday’s phone call and today that got Sukuna acting like a kicked dog, but whatever it was, you didn’t have the time or energy to help him work through his convoluted feelings. “Well, figure it out, because you’re pissing me off,” you grumbled back, nudging his elbow with your own.
Thursday was no better. You took one look at his sullen frame and scoffed, traipsing your way back to your usual seat in the front, absolving yourself from dealing with his attitude. You felt his gaze burning holes in the back of your head, but still, no text of protest or inquiry of why you moved seats, which admittedly hurt more than you would like it to.
“I don’t know. He’s been giving me the cold shoulder recently, and I cannot be bothered to run around campus begging him to tell me what’s wrong. I have more pride than that.” You answered truthfully, shrugging your shoulders at the reality of the predicament. “I like him. A lot, actually. More than I probably should, knowing everything about him, and I probably have for a while now. But I’m don’t wanna like people who won’t choose me. This runaround we’re doing is so beyond dumb. I’m not built for this.”
Yuki nudged your shoulder with hers, taking in the anxious debilitation around your eyes. “Well, at least you’ve come to your senses. If you took any longer, Sho and I were gonna start betting.” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait. Idea! You should come to my sorority’s date party this weekend. We’d have so much fun together, getting free drinks, making fun of people; you’d love it.”
“The one Gojo was telling me about?” You wrinkled your brows. “Hard pass. You know I won’t get along with anyone there.”
“It’s not about getting along with anyone; it’s about who you go with.” Yuki raised her eyebrows expectantly, hoping you were understanding what she was insinuating.
You weren’t. “And who am I supposed to be going with, pray tell? You and Choso, and be a third wheel all night? Spare me.”
“No, dummy, go with Sukuna! Get him to ask you!”
You gagged. “I’m not that desperate. Besides, I’m not in your sorority. I’m not even Greek life. Those girls would eat me alive.”
“Ugh, you talk about them like they’re all evil, but I’m there! They’re very nice when you give them a chance.”
“I am sure they are, but considering I would have no business being at their date party, I’m sure they’d be more than standoffish.”
“Did you miss what I suggested? Not if you went with Sukuna.”
“Oh, I didn’t miss it, just chose to ignore it.” You said flippantly, gently shouldering past Yuki to head over to a student with a hand in the air and confusion written all over their face. “I’m not about to beg a man to ask me to the dance. Who am I, Cinderella?”
Yuki rolled her eyes, following you as you tried to create space. “Ok, first of all, Cinderella did not beg. That’s like the whole point of the story. And secondly, you wouldn’t have to beg, just politely suggest semi-insistently. He’d probably love to take you.”
“If he'd love to take me, then he should ask.” You said pointedly, wanting to end the conversation.
“Ok, well, the next time you see him, you should bring it up casually.”
“Yeah, maybe if he’s not acting like an ass.”
As the door to the building opened with a slight tinkle of a bell, you heard Yuji’s voice ring out across the hushed tones of the crowd.
“Sukuna? What’re you doing here?”
Sometimes, you wonder if words are prophetic. If the intention behind what you say and when you say it puts out action into the universe, spurs momentum beyond one’s control, sends paths colliding in places one could never assume, like your volunteer study sessions halfway across town from your university campus. Or maybe you were still feeling the effects of your sickness, your fever’s delayed effects causing hallucinations and vivid daydreams of your hulking project partner, pink hair tousled from the wind, tattoos and piercings factoring him as immediately out of place, hands shoved into pockets, and a scowl painted on his face as he’d rather be anywhere else than where he was currently.
You almost laughed, your feelings echoing the sentiment on his face.
“Jin asked me to pick you up. He got caught up with some stuff.”
You could feel Yuki’s maniacal grin boring into the back of your skull, but you refused to look back at her or Sukuna, your eyes dead focused on the calculus formulas swimming on the worksheet before you. You called out, your voice low but strained. “Sorry, what was your question again?”
“You’re early! We don’t finish the session until one, and I have, like, twelve problems left.” Yuji complained.
You hated how you were so used to Sukuna’s presence, like a radio frequency; your ears antennas, specially attuned to the sound of his voice. His crass voice prickled at the top of your spine. “Don’t care. I’ve got somewhere to be, and dropping you off is taking me out of my way. C’mon.”
“Alright, jeez, let me say bye to my tutors at least.”
Your spine stiffened, and you heard Yuji haphazardly shove his papers and books into his backpack, ambling over to you. He couldn’t get a word out before you heard your own name in Sukuna’s disbelieving tone.
You finally looked up, straightening your back to see Sukuna standing off, still near the door, his whole body tense when making eye contact with you. He opened his mouth, but the words stumbled out like he didn’t know what he was saying as he spoke. “What are you – I mean, do you, uh, you volunteer here?”
Your mouth felt dry as you answered. “Every Sunday.”
Yuki giggled from behind you as Yuji’s head whipped between you and Sukuna’s wooden frames. “Wait, how do you two know each other?”
Your eyes searched each other’s, trying to parse through what was hidden beneath the lies you continued to spin.
“We’re friends.” You both responded, both voices coated in the sweet seduction, in syrupy sweetness of the delusions you feed into, spurred on by the narratives you chose to follow, no longer ignorant, now willingly obtuse. You both were suckers, caressing each other with padded lies and longing glances that dissolved until reaching the chewy center, both wanting to be stretched and swallowed.
“They’re in the same class and are working on a project together,” Yuki clarified to the room of kids, now distracted by the handsome collegiate who, under the fluorescent lighting, did bear a striking resemblance to Yuji.
Yuji’s eyes widened. “He’s your project partner?”
Your eyes flicked from your student to Sukuna, horrified. “Wait, it’s not – ”
“The incompetent one?” Nobara added on, no longer pretending to do a semblance of work.
Megumi hummed beside her. “Yes, I remember her calling him ‘worse than Yuji’.”
You turned around to face your students sitting near Yuji, hissing, “Guys, shut up!” You waved your hands back and forth in an attempt to defend yourself, looking back at your smirking partner. “That was weeks ago, you’re so much better now, I swear.”
“You complained about me?” Sukuna's voice was snide, but the upturned corner of his mouth proved he found the whole situation amusing. “Well, now at least all the horrible things Yuji has said about his tutors make sense.”
You recoiled in offense while Yuji protested. “That is not true! I have never said anything bad about her in my life!”
Yuki took this moment to sweep into the conversation. “Actually, this is perfect timing, Sukuna.” You craned your neck around, shaking your head inconspicuously to stop Yuki, but she plowed ahead, either unaware or ignoring your vain attempts to stop her. “We were just talking about the date party this weekend.”
You hated yourself for it, but you couldn’t stop your body from jerking back around, hungry for the look on his face. Your stomach turned when you saw his face fall, deep shadows cast across his sharp features. His voice was gruff, devoid of the playful tone he had once carried. “What about it?”
“She was just telling me how fun it sounded.” Yuki insinuated in a sing-song voice. “And a little birdie told me you still need a date.”
“Yuki, please, enough,” You muttered, far past embarrassed. Your eyes stayed on Sukuna, who now couldn’t seem to meet your gaze, his eyes hard, staring at the tiled floors beneath his boots.
“Yuki,” Sukuna started, but Yuki continued, not one to be admonished.
“Come on, we all know you want to take her anyway, so just – ”
“I can’t.” His voice was so sharp it felt like biting wind, the kind that pricks tears and causes teeth to chatter, cold and unforgiving.
“Why not?” Yuki bit back.
You whispered, desperate not to hear the answer you knew would send you into a spiral. “Yuki, please.”
Sukuna’s lips were pressed thin as he burrowed his fists deeper into his jacket pockets. He turned away, adamant on not meeting your eyes, not bearing to see the hurt look on your face.
“I’m already going with somebody else.”
There it was. You winced, closing your eyes as if that would prevent the words from seeping in. The awkward silence that filled the room was suffocating as your students shifted their attention away from the train wreck of an interaction, hastily fumbling to pretend they weren’t listening.
Disgust and anger filled Yuki’s expression. “Since when?” She spat out.
His voice was hard like nails on bricks. “Does it matter? I can’t take her.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop talking about me like I’m not here.” Your voice was cold and detached, outside of yourself. “Besides, I have plans then anyway.”
A lie, of course. Bold-faced and brazen. But this bitter green monster of jealousy had overtaken the typically rational control of your mind, now spitting out whatever you knew could strike back and defend yourself most effectively. Another lie tumbled from your lips faster than you could think of the ramifications.
“Gojo asked me, so I’m probably gonna go with him.”
Yuki’s eyebrows raised as Sukuna’s eyes frosted over. Their voices sounded at the same time, one of incredulity, another of cold rage.
“What?” “What?”
Yuji and Nobara gaped at you, mouths falling open in shock. “Satoru already asked you?” Yuji pursed his lips while Nobara nodded in approval at the date you’d managed to snag for yourself.
She leaned over, whispering to Megumi. “See, aren’t you glad we came today? We would’ve missed this.”
You shrugged in hopes you came off as nonchalant as you were trying to be. “Yeah. So. I guess we’ll see you both there.”
A line of electricity tied your and Sukuna’s gazes together as you looked up at him, a thumping, neon green to his blood red. The tendons in his neck were taut, his jaw tight, a vein pulsing on his temple.
Yuki could not contain her laughter as she bellowed out, running her hands down her face in happy disbelief at what you just said. “Oh, my God, I am so unbelievably excited for this weekend, you have no idea.”
“Yeah, me too.” Your voice was clipped, not an ounce of earnestness behind it. “Have fun with your date.”
Sukuna couldn’t even muster up the energy to repeat back your congenial lie. “Yuji. Let’s go.” His tone left no room for arguing; his back was already turned from the crowd of high schoolers watching him retreat.
Yuji pulled his strap over his shoulder, grumbling as he said bye to his friends and you. You muttered a goodbye, turning back to your student’s work as you heard the door open and close, the jingling bell out of place in the tense environment.
“You fucking liar.” Yuki sneered, poking your shoulder with her pointer finger. “Satoru did not ask you to that party.”
Nobara gasped. “You’re joking!”
Yuki turned to face her, almost as if she had forgotten the rest of the students were there. “Kukisagi, focus on your work.”
Nobara grumbled as she rested her head in her palm. “But this is so much more interesting.”
You were too distracted fumbling through your purse to chastise either Nobara or Yuki, searching for your phone to choke down your pride and text Satoru probably one of the most embarrassing requests of your life.
| Hey. I need a favor.
| A big, astronomical one.
Gojo’s response was almost immediate.
| those are my favorite kind
| what’s up?
| I need you to take me to the date party on Friday.
| B AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
| Gojo, I’m serious.
| i know you are, that’s why i’m laughing
| Satoru please
You heard Yuki snort from behind you. “So much for not begging a man to ask.”
| I’m desparate and stupid and lied and I need to you be amazing and do me this huge favor
| you are sick in the head
| do you have plans on wednesday
| why?
| because you’ll need a dress and i’ll need concealer for this black eye your friend is about to give me
|||
You were too many drinks in as you stumbled into the Uber from Yuki’s place, dress too short, heels too high, head too fuzzy, judgment too impaired. You shoved yourself between your date, Satoru, and Yuki in the backseat, Choso in front. Gojo’s long limbs tangled with yours as he shimmied into the seat behind the passenger’s side, your arms interlinked.
“You okay, angel?” He purred, his voice pitched low. You nodded, too inebriated to respond properly.
You hadn’t meant to get this drunk. Really, a slight buzz is what you were going for. But the nerves of being around girls who would immediately recognize you as an outsider, on the arms of one of the most eligible men on campus, and seeing your project partner wrapped up with some other girl, combined with Gojo and Yuki’s incessant calls for shot after shot, left your head feeling light and your words slightly slurred.
Yuki adjusted the shooters she had hidden in her purse and boots and turned to you, eyes glassy. “I’m sooo happy you decided to come!” She pressed her cheek against yours. “We’re gonna have the best time, I promise.”
You smiled weakly. You felt Gojo's hand grip yours and squeeze it gently. You turned to him, his eyes even brighter from the drunk glow. “I’ll be with you all night. It’ll be fine.”
“Thanks again for taking me, even though I forced you to.”
“Nah, it’s chill. Honestly, it’s nice not to have any pressure to do something after the party.”
“Thanks for the dress, too.” You mumbled, fingers lifting the hem that brushed your thighs. It was nice, much too nice for the night you weren’t fully prepared to have.
Gojo shook his head, brushing off your thanks. “Red looks good on you.”
“Well, I hope it does, since you forced me to get it.” You adjusted the strap that started to slip off your shoulder during the shuffle to get in the backseat.
As the car lurched forward, you felt your head loll to the side, resting on Gojo’s shoulder. “Am I being dumb?”
“Oh, absolutely. But I am so entertained, so please, continue.”
You stuck out your tongue at his joke. “Oh, whatever.”
“You don’t have to talk to him tonight.”
“I won’t.”
It was a promise you knew you weren’t going to keep. You knew as soon as you stepped through the double doors of the manor where the party was held. You knew as soon as you heard your heels click across the pristine hardwood floor. You knew when you felt Gojo’s large hand flex against your hip as you entered the foray, the girl's eyes sizing you up as you stepped forward by his side.
And you knew as soon as you laid eyes on him.
Sleek, pressed black button-up shirt rolled up his taut forearms, inky bands of black circling the tendons and disappearing underneath the fabric, stretched, but not bursting, over his frame. Nice black slacks, polished shoes, the unmistakable glint of his silver jewelry on his face.
He looked devastatingly handsome.
And some other girl had her arm linked with his.
You felt your heart flutter, and you cursed it for doing so. Gojo looked down at you, following your gaze and tsked. “Stop staring.”
“I’m not staring.”
“I don’t think you’ve blinked since we came in. I’m scared you’ll start drooling.”
You glared at your date. “I’m not drooling. Shut up. Let’s get a drink.”
You refused to make eye contact as you maneuvered through the crowd, heading to the makeshift bar set up in the foyer, ready to pour yourself a drink strong enough to make a sailor sing. But while your eyes adamantly fought to stay off Sukuna’s frame, he let his drunkenly roll over yours. It felt like heat simmered off your skin, and he could feel it radiating from across the room. The straps of the dress were thin, sparkly lines seemingly painted over your collarbones and dipping down the curve of your back. The crimson red fabric kissing the frame of your body, brushing the tops of your thighs, accentuating the curves and contours of your body – he felt starved.
He swallowed.
Uraume looked up at him and matched his gaze. Her eyebrow twitched up in recognition of your glasses from the photo on his phone from Halloween. “Let’s go say hi.”
Sukuna’s head tilted down slowly, the alcohol and absurdity of the statement slowing his reaction. “What?”
“To Gojo and his date. Let’s say hi and get a drink.”
“I don’t need a drink.”
“Well, I do.”
He felt his own grip on his cup tighten as he watched Gojo whisper something in your ear. You keeled over in laughter, and he couldn’t tell if the sound was ringing through the hall or just in his ears.
“Sure. Let’s say hey.”
You felt his approach before you saw him, your body reacting against your will, tensing as his pink hair entered your periphery. You felt a woman’s polished nails brush your arm while the hair on your neck stood up as his figure brushed past yours, his scent following him like a curse. You looked over to the girl who introduced herself as Uraume. You said your name back, words feeling empty as she attempted to make conversation while you were distracted, watching Sukuna roughly pull Gojo away, yearning to hear their exchanged words.
Sukuna fought the urge to address you, beelining for Gojo, a half-assed attempt to maintain a shred of his dignity. He grabbed Gojo’s forearm, pulling him away from both their dates, his voice strained as he tried to keep himself together. “What are you playing at?”
Satoru took a big swig of his drink, concealing his grin behind the lip of the cup. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”
Sukuna exhaled, nostrils flaring. “Why’d you ask her?”
Satoru’s eyebrow flew up. “Uh, because you didn’t? Haven’t we sung this song before?”
Sukuna’s blinks felt long and slow as he pulled his thoughts together, words escaping him as he tried to choke down his anger. “You told me I couldn’t. I asked you months ago, and you told me no.”
Satoru’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion before he barked out a laugh. “You were talking about her? Even back then?” He shook his head in disbelief, Sukuna’s confession alluding to how long he’s truly been acting so foolishly. “Since when do you listen to me, anyway?”
Gojo scoffed before continuing. “I don’t know how many times or in how many different ways we can tell you to stop being dumb, but it’s getting exhausting.” Gojo, despite his level of drunkenness, focused his gaze on Sukuna’s, eyes serious.
Sukuna couldn’t help the way his eyes dragged over to you again, your figure leaning in to hear Uraume’s words. Gojo’s sharp tongue forced him to look away.
“You fucked up when you didn’t say anything in the library, and you fucked it up more last weekend. Just do everyone a favor and try not to fuck anything else up tonight.” Gojo walked away from Sukuna, his hand back on your waist, pulling you away from Uraume toward a group congregating near the side of the room, thick cushioned chairs arranged to maximize socialbility.
Sukuna followed, taking his place by Uraume, his voice colder as he swallowed the rest of his drink, at the ready to pour another. “You wanna join them?”
Uraume snorted. “And do what, play Truth or Dare?”
“Beats standing here.”
He felt Uraume’s eyes gloss over his face inquisitively. “Alright. I’ll bite. We can go over there, but we’re gonna get sucked into whatever stupid game our president suggested they’re playing, and I’m not playing by myself.”
A heavy-handed pour later, Sukuna found himself sitting beside his date, you and Gojo across in the circular formation, drinks flowing and laughs chiming through the social circle as Yuki cleared her throat, catching everyone’s attention with a flash of her blonde hair. “Ok, Miss Prez wants us to play a game.”
He felt Uraume roll her eyes and look up to him expectantly, as if to say, “Told you so.” His eyes were still on you as you adjusted the hem of your dress, fighting the urge to show how nervous you were.
You mumbled, your voice only loud enough for Gojo to hear. “A game? Are we in middle school?”
“Yes, this is a date party.” Gojo teased, nudging you with his shoulder. “Just go with it. It’ll be chill.”
You took another sip of your drink as you listened to the guest go around, a strange, convoluted mix of Truth or Dare, combined with Put a Finger Down and Never Have I Ever, the game at its core reaching into the soul of the player, getting them to confess their most embarrassing moments while keeping the drinks going, sentences getting more slurred by the second. You giggled as Satoru told an elaborate, exaggerated story about getting caught by the father of the girl he was seeing in high school and running out of the house, his pants falling between his legs as he ran down the street.
A girl’s voice chimed out over the laughs from Gojo’s story, calling for a shot for every single body someone had. You grimaced, looking at Satoru. “That would genuinely kill you.”
Gojo chuckled, not denying your statement. “How about, put a finger down for every person you’ve fucked in this room?”
You snorted. “Is that any better? I’m sitting amongst half of your scorned lovers.”
Gojo grinned. “Just trying to catch you up to the rest of us, angel.” He jokingly grabbed your hand, pushing one of your fingers down. “C’mon, don’t be shy. We’ve all done it.”
Despite his fibbing nature, you blushed as the girls cooed around you. “Satoru, stop it.” You shoved him off of you, a smile still on your face. “You wish. I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
“Yeah? Tell that to him.” Satoru cocked his head forward, and you turned, seeing that Sukuna had excused himself from the circle, already halfway toward the door to step out to the patio area. Gojo sighed. “Such a drama queen.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“I’m not being any dumber than the two of you.” Gojo rolled his eyes, taking the drink out of your hand. “Go. Lick his wounds, or whatever else you all do.”
“Satoru!”
“Just go.” He pushed you off him toward the door that Sukuna had just walked out of. “I already know you want to, so go.”
You stumbled forward, wrapping your arms around your front as you glanced over your shoulder back at Gojo, who gestured you forward with his hands, turning back to the group with an ever charming smile on his face, distracting the crowd from your absence, regardless of whether they noticed.
You pushed the door forward and stepped out into the chilly air, Sukuna’s back toward you as he stood facing the inky, starry night. The sound of the door clicking shut and the click of your heels alerted him to your presence, his head twitching slightly to the left. You stopped as you stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and staring straight ahead.
Neither of you said anything as you shifted your weight onto the balls of each of your feet. You saw him take a sip from your peripheral vision and cleared your throat, tired of the quiet between you two.
“It’s not true, by the way.”
Silence.
“I haven’t hooked up with Satoru, I mean. He was just, I dunno, teasing, I guess.”
“Right. And why would I care?”
You couldn’t control the scowl that painted your face as you turned to face him. “Stop being a dick. You clearly care.”
“I’m not bein’ a dick. Just don’t know why you’re telling me worthless information.”
“You stormed out in the middle of the game like a child, and you expect me to believe you don’t care?” You spat. “You can’t even look at me.”
It was then that Sukuna’s head whipped down toward you, eyes ignited, silver jewelry glinting. “Trust me, princess, I’ve been looking at you all night.”
The intensity of his gaze made you pause; his eyes locked with yours, deep, stormy red. You breathed in, not to be deterred from your tirade. “You have a date. One you asked out tonight, mind you. And you’re looking at me?”
“We both know she’s not the one I wanted to go with.”
You weren't prepared for Sukuna's attacks back. Ruthless, forward, and honest. Your defenses were down, and you felt like you were scrambling to get your bearings, losing in a game where you didn't even know the rules. You swallowed. “You’re being mean. Stop it.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“No, you’re being mean. You’re drunk. You don’t mean that.”
“You know I do.”
You paused, your breath shuddering as you tried to wrap your head around what he just admitted. But once Sukuna started, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t control anything: his thoughts, his actions, his words around you. You nullified and lit up his senses simultaneously, like some sort of sick dog collar; he was on your leash, and when you pulled, he followed.
“Why him?”
“Stop. Sukuna, please.”
“Why him?” He repeated, stepping closer to you. His cologne, his scent washed over you, your head dizzy at his proximity and the liquor running through your veins.
“If it bothered you so much, you should’ve asked me.” You couldn’t brace yourself for any more of this conversation turned confessional. His eyes were too earnest, his body too close for you to think straight. You staggered back, turning your body to walk back toward the door when his hand shot out, grabbing your wrist and stopping you in your tracks.
“Would you have said yes?”
Your voice cracked. “What?”
“I need to know. If I had asked, would you have said yes?”
You felt tears prick at the corner of your eyes. You didn’t even know why you were crying - maybe it was the muddled emotions finally making themselves known, or the combination of liquor and unresolved weeks of denied tension festering in the pit of your stomach, but you couldn’t keep it in anymore, no matter how hard you tried.
“Of course I would’ve said yes, you idiot!” You bashed your fists against his chest, not knowing if you were trying to push him away or pull him in.
It didn’t matter. You didn’t have time to process, or think about what you had said, or what you had wanted, because the next thing you knew, your back was pressed against a pillar, Sukuna’s hands were circling your wrists, and his lips were pressed against yours.
It wasn’t gentle or slow, but desperate, pleading, as though he tried to push everything he couldn’t say into you through this kiss. You felt your brain short-circuit before jolting into action, your arms going to wrap around his neck, tugging him in, down into you, deepening what you felt you both had been waiting for. His hands dropped immediately, grabbing you by the waist and drawing you flush against his chest. It was like a game of tug of war, his desperate pulls for your bodies to be closer and his hungry kisses pushing you back into the foundation behind you, clawing for more in attempts to steal the very breath from your lungs.
You gasped into his mouth as his fingers squeezed the skin on your hips, lifting you against the smooth, cool pillar as he wedged his knee between your thighs, devouring your hitched breath like they were nectar. You wrapped your arms tighter around his neck, as if you could try to pull him any closer, your fingers threaded through the baby hairs on the nape of his neck. You felt his groan rumble in his chest as he inadvertently slid your core against his thigh, his muscles thick and taut beneath the dress pants as his cloying grabs pushed the fabric of your dress higher and higher up your waist.
“Kuna,” you pleaded, not knowing what you were asking for; stop, keep going, you couldn’t tell. You dragged your hands down his chest, fingers gripping the front in an attempt to ground yourself. Your eyes fluttered shut as he took the opportunity to kiss his way down your neck, nibbling at the sensitive part at the junction of your ear and jaw. “Kuna, please.”
His breath was hot as he pressed his lips against your throat, a small whimper escaping your mouth. “You drive me crazy, y’know that?”
You felt his sharp canines drag against your jugular, and you moaned. “Kuna, I - ”
His lips muttered against your skin. “Tell me what you want, because I want it too. I need to hear you say it.”
You panted, your entire body on fire, senses blazing as you felt his hand trail down under your thigh, pulling your leg up and pushing you impossibly closer. You felt your grip in his hair tighten as you felt him pressing against you, and your mind went blank, too overcome by what was happening.
“Kuna, I – ”
Your eyes shot open as you heard the back door creak on its hinges, and an inquiring voice calling for the man whose name just fell breathlessly from your lips. You stiffened and pushed him away, swiftly pulling your dress back down and pulling up the strap that had slid off your shoulder, hoping your hair wasn’t too mussed to be obvious what had just transpired.
Uraume rounded the corner behind the pillar, wide eyes immediately locking in on both your winded states, chests heaving, clothes wrinkled, eyes clouded, both of you clearly still affected by what had happened. Her head cocked to the side as she eyed Sukuna up and down, but his eyes never left yours, guiltily, as if watching for your reaction. You stood frozen, not knowing whether to apologize or wait to be reprimanded, your pupils blown as you watched Sukuna’s date size you both up.
After moments of agonizing silence, she let out a small huff, shaking her head. “Figures. If you weren’t interested, you should’ve just said that when I asked.” She fiddled with her purse, reaching for something small and metallic, tossing it at Sukuna’s chest. It reflected the moonlight as it sailed toward him, and he caught it in his palm, grimacing as he opened his hand, revealing a watch. You glanced down at it and back up at Uraume.
“You left that at mine last Sunday. Been meaning to return it.” Her tone wasn’t cold or menacing or vindictive, just tactical and honest as she crossed her arms, eyes hard as they flicked back and forth between you two. “Guess we both look dumb now, don’t we?”
You couldn’t tell if her last comment was directed at you or him as she walked off, her heels sharp against the paved ground. You felt Sukuna’s eyes on you, but you couldn’t see anything as your vision began to blur, the timelines merging in your head as you fought the sob that threatened to wrack your body.
Last Sunday, he was with her. Last Sunday, the day after you were sick, when he had come over, caring, or pretending to, as sickness wracked your body. Last Saturday, when you fell asleep, his warm, velvet eyes were the last thing you saw before fatigue took over. Last Saturday, when you all talked on the phone for hours about nothing, his voice was comforting you like the blankets you shrouded yourself in all weekend. Last weekend, when you could finally admit to yourself that what was between you, this pseudo-friendship, meant much more than you had ever intended it to, while clearly it meant nothing to him at all.
Sukuna whispered your name, his voice hoarse. “Wait.”
You pushed yourself off the pillar, turning your face away so he couldn’t see how easily he broke you apart.
You knew. Deep down, you knew. You couldn’t believe you had fallen for something so truly simple, so stupid, so archaic and ancient a story it had been told time and time again. You couldn’t stand to think of the pitying looks and knowing glances those girls would give you as you walked inside, your eyes red, mascara running, and chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. Played again by the infamous player. A silly, stupid girl, another victim of charm and deceit. You wished you could laugh instead of crying.
“Fuck you.” You bit out, eyes squinted as you willed the tears away. You whipped around, stalking toward the door Uraume had just exited from.
“Wait, stop.” Sukuna’s voice ground out as he reached for you again, but this time, you had the sense to pull away.
“Don’t touch me!” You hissed, ripping your arm out of his grip.
“Just – listen to me, I can explain.”
“I don’t want you to explain anything!” You shouted, practically hysterical, before you remembered yourself. You shuddered as you took a breath, attempting to ground yourself amidst the fury you felt. “You’re a liar.”
“I’m not a liar.”
“Don’t fucking interrupt me.” You pointed a manicured finger at his chest, and his lips pressed into a thin line as you continued. “You pretended to care about me when you don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself.” You angrily swiped at the wetness on your cheeks, embarrassed that he’s seeing you in this state. “I cannot believe I let myself think for one second you could actually – ” you shook your head, laughing at the idea you couldn’t even begin to let out. You stoned your face, wrapping yourself in steel armor, putting the guards back up that you should have never let down.
He took another step forward as you stepped back again. You tried to ignore the wounded look that crossed over his face.
“You’re exactly what everyone says you are.” You whispered out, your words like needles driving into his skin.
He shook his head. “Don’t say that.”
“Get away from me.”
“You don’t mean that. It’s not true. Please. Listen to me.”
“Sukuna, don’t.” You brought your hand up, palms facing him as you continued to back away. “Just leave me alone.”
You turned away from him, walking through the rest of the party looking for a familiar face to let them know you were leaving. Gaggles of girls and their dates passed in front of you like a maze, and you stumbled through blindly, searching for any sense of cognizance. You wiped away another stray tear as you walked into a body, mumbling out an apology over your shoulder.
You felt a pair of hands wrap around your arms, and you looked up, Satoru’s blue eyes concerned as he studied your face. You hoped you didn’t look as pathetic as you felt as his thumb brushed your cheek, wiping away another tear.
Gojo sucked his teeth. “I’m sorry, angel.”
“Did you know?”
His eyes didn’t turn from yours. “He should have stayed away from you. You’re too good for him.”
You winced, leaning forward, pressing your forehead against Gojo’s chest. “I’m such an idiot.”
Gojo pulled you closer, his hand gingerly holding the back of your head. “You’re not an idiot. He’s the idiot, I promise.” You felt Gojo pull away as you sniffled. “You wanna get outta here?”
“I don’t wanna cause a scene,” you mumbled.
“Too late for that.” Gojo joked, rubbing the sides of your arms, chilled from the night air. “Wanna get some ice cream? It’s getting lame here anyway.”
You nodded, too tired to do anything else, as Satoru quickly and diplomatically said goodbyes, making their way outside, waiting for the hailed car to arrive. Gojo sat down on the porch steps outside the manor, and gently laid his jacket on the ground, allowing you to sit down and rest your body weight against him as your head hung on his shoulder.
“What flavor are you gonna get?” Gojo asked, a feeble attempt to get your mind off what had just happened. He laced his fingers with yours as he pressed a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “I definitely want something sweet, like strawberry.”
You sniffed, trying to stabilize your wavering voice. “Nothing too sweet. Maybe a coffee flavour, or something.”
Gojo grimaced. “Gross. Don’t get that. Then I can’t have any.”
You turned to him, eyelids heavy. “Why not?”
He wrinkled his nose. “I hate coffee. Can’t stand the taste.”
You blinked. “What?”
Gojo rolled his eyes. “I know, everyone thinks I’m crazy. But it’s too bitter, no matter how much sugar they put into it. Can’t stand the stuff.”
“You…don’t drink lattes? At all?”
“I’ll chug a Red Bull before I ever fix my mouth to order a latte.” Gojo stuck his tongue out, faux gagging. “So please, get another flavor so I can steal some.”
You tuned out Gojo’s prattling on about flavors, your eyes vacant as the memory of hazelnut and vanilla filled your senses.
You felt another tear, traitorously, roll down your cheek.
a/n: please put down the pitchforks!! i promise this is the worst it gets!! there is romance to come!! trust me the next couple chapters feature pining and groveling sukuna and it will be delicious. also shoutout to y'all for commenting on this bc istg it truly motivates me to finish this story lol, which i will do!! much love <333
hiiiii new chapter coming this weekend and i am soooo excited about it
also sorry my updates have been more spread out, work has been so crazy recently #workingwoman but trust i always have you guys on my mind. thank you for being patient and i hope you like the next few updates! the end is in sight
