⋆˚࿔ about me: isfp! she/her :) i read & buy manga when i’m not reading fan-fiction, and i collect figures even if it means nearly going broke! i love blood orange and music from the 70-80s | choso is the sexiest man in the verse.
⋆˚࿔ masterlist
⋆˚࿔ before reading: | i only write sfw | everything i post and write is just for the fun of it! i do take requests, and please don’t be afraid of asking me questions, talking to me, or anything! i don’t bite ;p!
(˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵) tomodachi-life-obsessed!reader showing bf!sukuna the mii she made of him!
For the past four hours, you’ve sat sprawled covered in a mountain blankets—hunched in an uncomfortable position that you know will give you a lethal neck pain the next day—Playing on your nintendo switch.
For four hours straight.
Nonstop.
Tomodachi life.
And at this very point, every time you take a moment to blink, the vision of your tomodachi island is burnt and etched into the lids of your eyes. And that is not an exaggeration.
“Babe.” Sukuna’s gruff low voice echoes as he leans his large frame against your wood door.
“Hm?”
Your attention does not leave the illuminating screen once.
“The hell have you been doing for the past 4 hours? Last time I checked, couples are supposed to spend time together and do couple stuff, you know.” He huffs, crossing his large muscular tattooed arms together.
“I’m busy doing something,” You answer in an unamused tone.
He scowls, “What could you possibly be doing that has your undivided attention—for four hours straight. Have you even considered blinking?”
You peek up at him through the top of your switch and pat the empty spot next to you on the bed.
Sukuna grumbles something incoherent under his breath and plops down next to you. He pauses for a moment before wrapping his arms around your waist, and nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck trying to pry the switch away from your hands.
“Wait! Can’t you see i’m busy? I promise i’m almost done.”
“Busy doing what, women?!”
“… I’m trying to make our mii’s fall in love on our island,” You murmur.
“Our what?”
“I made you in my tomodachi island, and now i’m trying to make you fall in love with me back. My mii totally fancies you, and you only see me as just a friend.”
“—You better not fall in love with any of my other mii’s.” Your eyes narrow in suspicion as you jab your finger into the screen like a warning.
He lets out an exasperated exhale before getting interrupted by your rambling—“Wait, look at how cute you are! I made it look just like you, see?” You tilt the screen towards sukuna with a content smile.
He opens and closes his mouth before glancing down at the screen. He’s seen empires burning down and the deaths of so many that were caused by him with his very eyes.
And how he’s looking at a mii..
His mii looks.. Cute and chibi looking for the inspiration being a 7 foot something tall, muscular, scary looking man. The “King of Curses”, as some may call him even. But he cant lie, it’s a bit endearing how you captured the marks on his body, his pink hair the exact shade as his in real life, and made him cute looking. As if that was even possible in the first place.
“Tch. I look stupid.”
“I think you look pretty accurate,” You add, smiling proudly.
He quirks an eyebrow—narrow ruby eyes flickering between the screen, and back to your pretty smile.
He leans in closer, “Hm, no. It was me who ‘fancied you’ first. Not the other way around.”
Your eyes soften at his comment before you steal a quick affectionate peck on the tip of his nose—An “annoyed” rumble escaping his chest which makes you giggle and playfully nip his bottom lip in return.
He stays next to you for the rest of the afternoon listening and watching attentively as you give him a tour of your island—Pretending to seem bored when this whole time he’s secretly taking note on the way your dumb little island is so you without even trying—The backstories on each small detail and it’s meaning on your island, and each mii.
How cute it is when you get so passionate about something so trivial like this.
But he’d never admit that out loud.
“Oh! Oh! My mii is finally going to confess to you!” You clap your hands together excitedly and gleam.
“Is this really what entertains you?” Sukuna lets out a sigh pretending to sound irritated.
“Well, yes!”
A/N: im a larp i dont even own a switch lmfao i just thought this was a cute concept
˚⟡˖ ࣪ boyfriend!nanami with insecure!reader who cannot take compliments (*´-｀*) | hurt/comfort, self indulgent lowkey, ooc maybe, negative self images, nanami being soft
you sit on the couch with your knees propped up to close your chest, focused on whatever silly romcom movie that’s playing on the tv screen in front of you.
nanami stood across the living room taking in and admiring the way the bright screen illuminated your gorgeous features, the familiar habit in which you bite your bottom lip as you’re concentrated, and your hair framing your face in such a naturally pretty manner.
with you, he never fails to notice these small details he loves about you.
he always thought you were pretty since he first saw you sitting alone at the corner of his local bakery nearby his apartment, and especially now. but it wasn’t only your appearance that captivated him, but the way you carry your self, so warm in parts of your soul where he is cold—ways which he thinks his demeanor is not. the complete opposite of him.
he loves every part of you.
so it confuses him, really, when you deflate making your self smaller and turn into an awkward mess when he tries to compliment you—as if the concept of someone actually admiring you is foreign to you.
he begins to shuffle towards the couch and reaches for the remote, tossing it somewhere where it probably wont be found and plops down next to you.
“you look absolutely stunning.” nanami whispers softly in your ear as he brings his palm up to cup your cheek—then bringing your wrist to his lips to place a gentle kiss.
you immediately stiffen at his sudden commentary and internally panic.
suddenly, the room feels tighter and suffocating—like you’re being watched in a way where every single blemish, flaw, and imperfection is ten times more visible.
the words feel wrong, like you’re being mocked. not by him, no.. but by that nagging voice in the back of your head screaming at you saying ‘it’s not true, you don’t deserve to be told this, he doesn’t mean it.’
you’ve always walked everywhere with your head down ashamed—always feeling out of place and less to those around you, as if people are making fun of you when you turn your back treating your mere existence and appearance as a cruel inside joke.
so you’d sit in front of the mirror and stare at every imperfection for hours, your reflection being a ringing reminder you can’t seem to mute that this is why nobody will ever love you.
“um,” you snap out of your daze looking around the living room and nervously laugh as you try to free your self from his grip. “—what?”
compliments from nanami aren’t rare, but they’re not often either. his love isn’t loud or flashy, more so silent and gentle. he shows his love through quiet gestures—like admiring you silently when he thinks you’re not watching.
so moments like these still manages to catch you off guard each time.
he blinks, beginning to grow skeptical—how could his girlfriend not believe him when he says she looks pretty? this isn’t the first time you’ve deflected like this. he just thought you get flustered accepting and receiving compliments, even early on in the relationship—but he sees now.
“do you not believe me?” his eyebrows furrow.
you avoid his gaze and begin to fiddle with the edge of the throw blanket—already enough of a response for him.
he shifts closer to you as he wraps his bicep around your waist to stop you from getting up as you let out a sharp exhale.
“..why are you saying things like that.” you whisper through shaky breath—hiding your face from his honey colored eyes filled with worry.
“that?” he repeats, tilting his head with genuine confusion.
“yes, that.”
“i’m sorry, what do you mean?”
“well.. i don’t know. sorry, this is kind of embarrassing. i’m being difficult for no reason.” you murmur shamefully.
how could you even explain years of pent up insecurity to him?
“honey, you’re not being difficult. if it’s making you react this way, it’s not something to be embarrassed about. i just wish you wouldn’t have to carry and bottle this feeling alone, or even at all. what’s putting this thought through your head hm?” he laces his fingers through yours.
you pause before letting out a defeated sigh, “well.. since the longest time, i’ve never felt like i was pretty. or even deserved to be called that.”
softness flickers in his eyes, “but you deserve to know how pretty you are. you’re so gorgeous, so pretty. such a pretty girl. my pretty girl. i don’t say this enough and i’m so sorry, i really mean it. i’m going to keep proving it to you until you believe it. i wish you could see in my eyes how beautiful you really are. ” he adds not looking away once, making you feel so vulnerable and exposed.
with nanami, you feel like you’re the most special girl in the world with the way he looks at you like you hung up the stars.
you melt into him as he presses tender kisses across every single feature across your face and body.
“every day i wake up wondering how i got so lucky to be with someone so beautiful and gentle like you. i love your pretty eyes, your gorgeous smile, your cute nose, your beautiful hair.. you’re so perfect.” he presses a deep kiss to your lips—sealing his deep devotion like a final plea.
“kento..”
“shh.. i’m showing my pretty girl how perfect she really is.”
a/n: sorry hopefully this wasn’t too cringey HELP (╥_╥)
creators have spent the past few years begging people to reblog posts so that communities can continue to thrive, artists can continue to share their work, and people can still be exposed to the things they love. somehow, these years of begging have resulted in tumblr itself implementing an update that completely kills all creators. why even bother making a post if every person who reblogs it will get the credit. this is an absolutely devastating update to every creator & to tumblr itself as a community.
art credits: @//hunnismokah . divider credits: @//pixopix .
synopsis: sukuna always liked pretty girls, constantly eyeing the girl in his physics lecture, smart, sharp, always dressed like she means business—he thinks getting your number would be a piece of cake. only to his dismay, he’s met with what he could only describe as a rose with thorns, every eye roll, scoff and disgusted look you shot in his direction only tripling the infatuation he had, and slowly he can feel himself slowly falling for the kind of girl he never thought was his type.
(and thamk you to the lovely @sixxels & @lemonjuicie for helping me w this eek !!)
this is the first instalment to the bitchy!reader cinematic universe !
wc: 4.7k.
—
ryomen sukuna's life was always one that was full of noise, chaos and everything in between. he thrived in the mess that was frat life—the loud parties, the hookups that tasted like cheap alcohol and fruity lipgloss. being frat president came with responsibilities and a reputation that clung to sukuna's skin like the ink that dressed his body.
his notorious reputation always followed him around, not that he cared, he wore the persona like it belonged to him. he was too far in to ever leave the world that practically belonged to him.
his frat practically ran the place, filled to the brim with men that were exactly like sukuna—entitled overgrown pricks who always got what they wanted.
and there was absolutely no denying that sukuna was beautiful—over six feet of pure muscle, tattoos all over his massive arms, his blush pink hair being one of the things that stood out about him the most, always styled in a way that was messy but deliberate. his eyebrow and lip rings adoring his face, and he always had the most shit eating grin to top everything off.
sukuna orbited a domain that was so far detached from yours it was almost comical how far apart your worlds were. he lived in the midst of attention, thriving on any sort of drama he got into it, his lips sometimes bruised with all the pointless fights he got into.
you lived your life in everything sukuna would deem to be, quite frankly put, insanely boring. but you knew exactly what you wanted. and had your entire life planned before you.
you were sharp, straight forward, the biggest nerd any of your friends knew, most importantly you had absolutely no tolerance for people messing up absolutely anything in your insanely curated life.
your books were always aligned to perfection, you always sat at the very front of the class, your pens all matching your bag, your silly keychains crowding your bad almost comically. you always kept to yourself, people ruin things after all—they're loud invasive, some of them likened to bascterially resistant pests that you simply cannot destroy whatsoever.
so there the two of you were, two people universes apart, perfectly content in your own niches that it just made sense. but it wasn't like you were unaware of sukuna's existence. its be impossible if you were—your friends always finding out whatever mess he seems to have gotten himself to every week. you found him entertaining the same way you sometimes indulged in reality tv. it's fun to watch but you'd never touch it with a ten foot pole.
—
"what the fuck man you look like you got run over." toji says, eyeing up sukuna and his absolute mess of an outfit, his hair disheleved, his eyebags heavier than they usually are, flopping his entire body in the seat next to toji's.
"shut yer mouth toji." he almost groans, hands running down his face. he felt like shit. and he swore he could feel his head pounding in his skull, and lord he doesn't even know why he decided to show up to this stupid class anyway. but gods since he was here anyway might as well get it over with.
the class had barely begun before it started to feel like a drag, the professor spouting some nonsense that sukuna could barely comprehend before he heard the sweetest voice answer a question he was barely paying attention to.
his eyes immediately found you—and he swore he felt his breath catch in his throat momentarily. you were gorgeous, your hair done up, your glasses resting on your nose, your collared shirt hugged your body just right, your slightly tinted glossed lips almost shimmering in the classroom's blinding lights.
"yo, toji who's that girl?" he whisper shouts, nudging his friend in his ribs until he answered him.
toji barely registers it before he sees sukuna gaze fixed directly on your form.
"her name's uhh y/n or something. massive nerd, really knows what she's doing, most people are deathly afraid of her though" he says barely paying him any mind. because just had sukuna had his reputation, you had curated yours.
it came from the way you'd dismiss most people that ever dared to waste a sliver of your time, always flipping your perfect hair, having your headphones constantly in your ears blasting a song loud enough to rupture your eardrums to make sure people stayed away from you by all means. the way your eyes would roll to the back of your head when something even mildly infuriated you, just everything about you down to the sometimes bold makeup you'd sport, it just always turned you into someone that was never to be fucked with.
"scared of her, really?" it almost made him want to keep over laughing because well, you were adorable. there was no reason that any reasonable person would be afraid of you of all people, right?
toji snickered next to him. because god, if only he knew.
—
the class was dismissed after what felt like an era and then some, the entire classroom hurrying their way out.
right before you saunter your way out of the room, you can hear sukuna call out your name. and it has you stopping dead in your tracks.
"y/n ! wait up-"
you see the gigantic man run from the very edge of the class towards you and you let out the deepest sigh, because nothing he has to say could possibly be worth your time. you wanted to get back home, tuck yourself into your bed and binge the leftover tub of ice cream you had sitting in your fridge.
"and what could possibly want from me, ryomen sukuna, was it?" you shot right back at him, turning on your heel to stare right up at the man, your eyes narrowing while you committed his form to memory with the utmost scrutiny.
your response had sukuna nearly speechless, because he was used to people raving in his presence not eyeing him like whatever scum you would find at the back of your shoes.
"I—"
"well you didn't come all the way out here to talk to me, if you had nothing to say, correct?"
you were always quick with your words, or so you'd been told, every surefire response always sitting at the edge of your tongue like poison, it always had people on edge.
"I was going to ask you for your number, pretty." he managed to whisper out, his hand moving to scratch the back of his neck because he could feel the blood rushing straight into his head. this felt…so out of character—he's never let anyone address him like that before, so why should you be any different? people are always on edge around him, but something about the way you were looking at him as if you could pick his soul apart if he played all his cards wrong had him sweating under the stupid sweatshirt he was sporting.
"hmm, i'll think about it, sukuna." gods, even the way you said his name made him want to shrink into a corner, and a part of him went on a spiral as to why the fuck he thought it was so attractive.
and he had his feet firmly planted on the ground while he watched you leave, your hips swaying in the slightest, your hair swishing as you walked away from him.
this was only the beginning of what could only be described as the worlds worst obsession.
—
sukuna attend the next lecture too, hell bent on at least getting your number. still seated in the back of the class, eyes you while your eyes stay on the board, your expression deadly focused while you jot down your notes it has sukuna blushing like a teenager with a pathetic crush.
he's almost ashamed to admit that he spent a good portion of the next week trying to stalk you. finding all your socials, scrolling down your accounts to memorise each of your silly and perfectly curated pictures to memory, usually of a cute cafe or a hangout with your little friend group, almost the same sugary sweet drink in your hands in each one of them.
some of those pictures of you in cute clothes, your makeup done to perfection while you posed infront of a mirror, your hair framing your face so prettily, a part of his brain wanted to put you in his jacket, well, if you didn't terrify him that is.
sukuna didn't do romance, he didn't do relationships. and he for one, did not have a clue on how to charm a girl that wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
all he could do was gawk and stare, until the class inevitably ended and he was mentally preparing himself to try to talk to you again.
"she got you good, huh?" toji laughs from behind him, making him almost jump into the air.
"you're an ass fushiguro."
"yeah, yeah, you love me."
sukuna could feel his head clouding before catching up to you again. in the worst and arguably best way possible, you made him feel like an idiot.
"y/n!"
"oh it's you again. i thought you'd give up after the first try sukuna." you smirked, your expression painfully smug while you looked at him.
"well, i was surely not gonna give up that easily, y'know?"
"it's called being desperate."
"i'd like to call it persistence, really." he sounded a lot more confident than he felt, his palms almost sweating and shaking by the mere thought of you. it was pathetic, really. it's a shame you were attracted to pathetic men.
"can i at least walk you out of the class?"
"do as you wish." you snap, walking away, while he catches up to you like a lost puppy outside of the class.
the sight was so odd that you could practically hear the whispers from the people around you, and you mentally sighed. but it's not like you weren't a fan of drama either. it was just funny how quick people jumped to conclusions.
"is that—sukuna?"
"y/n, i thought she hated talking to people, and what's she doing with him."
conversation was practically buzzing and bouncing off the walls while sukuna followed you closely to the university's exit.
"well, that was..well whatever, i'll be on my way." you say before turning away, until he catches up to you again.
"wait! you always head to the cafe from here after class right?" shoot. he forgot that he technically wasn't supposed to know that.
"are you stalking me, ryo?" his brain was so quick to panick he barely registered the nickname before you continued.
"don't get your panties in a twist, i think it's cute." cute? well, yeah he could work with that for now. cute was okay, cute was good. and it definitely didn't have his heart beating uneven rhythms in his chest.
he walked you to the stupid cafe, trying his best to make small talk, but the more he tried to get to know you, the more intimidating you were. and gods, it was just so, so hot, it was killing him.
you rambled on about how you've always had a fascination with physics which is why you took the class, how you forced yourself to be good at it, because there was a time you sucked at the godforsaken subject so badly that it was embarrassing. and sukuna was nodding along taking mental notes before you joined your friends and waved him off.
yuki was immediately, looping her arms in yours,
"sukuna, really? i thought you had better taste, baby."
"well—whatever." is all you had to say for yourself before you ordered your stupidly overpriced coffee and headed home.
—
the next few weeks is just a culmination of sukuna shadowing you like he's a man on a mission.
he wants to know what you like, and moreover he wants to impress you. to the point that all his fraternity brothers hear about in parties is the way you smiled at him for a sliver of a second before scoffing again and they were almost as tired as you were. but a small part of them—toji, choso, gojo, who usually accompanied his drunk ass at parties were rooting for him. because they'd never thought they'd see the day where sukuna would be grovelling at his feet for a girl to look in his direction.
and when he's intoxicated, underneath overwhelmingly bright lights, all he can think about is how you would probably slap him across the face to sober him up. and that thought has him tighten around his pants, embarrassingly so, because the mere idea of you laying your hands on him has him painfully hard.
he can't even look in another girl's direction anymore without somehow thinking of you, the last time a girl tried to hit on him all he could think about was how much you'd love the bows she was wearing in her hair and just how cute they'd look on you.
and before he knows it he's back at his apartment, staring at pictures of you, his hands moving lower and lower until he's fisting his cock, thinking about the way you just roll your eyes, the way you huff when he says something stupid, the way you have him just wrapped around your pretty fingers, the mere idea of it all has him cumming embarrassingly fast, his abs coated in the prettiest sheen of sweat and cum while he groans into his pillows.
sukuna had started falling dangerously fast. but he absolutely did not need nor want to be saved.
—
"well do you ever plan on giving me your number?"
"mm maybe i will."
and that just immediately stuns him to silence. with most of his attempts at teasing, he'd already come to terms with the fact that you'd disagree to most things. so aftet all his begging and piss poor attempts to impress you, had he finally won?
"it's not like you can hold yourself in a conversation with me without sweating. i highly doubt you can text me without thinking thrice about the text, ryomen."
oh. well you were right, like you were almost always, he had no idea what to do with himself—eventually you dragged his phone toward you, inputting your contant with a little nickname and a bunch of pink hearts. well if you'd finally given him your contact, he had to mean at least something (look at this LOSER omfg), so he might as well use this opportunity to the fullest.
your phone would now always be full of stupid memes that sukuna would send to you trying to get you to laugh, even a little.
@//ryo: sooo whatcha doing?
@//y/n: there has got to be better ways to start conversations than that, ryo, try harder.
and this is the first time the stupid nickname you've been calling him finally registers in his brain, the blood rushing to his cheeks before he buries his face into his pillow. fuck, he was losing it. you had managed to nudge yourself into every crevice of his life that he could no longer imagine a singular day where you weren't around him to make fun of him.
—
the next week, he finds a way to be seated next to you in class, front and center, toji finds a way to tease him endlessly about it after, but the way you smile when he actually pays attention during the lecture while taking down notes has him riding that high for the rest of the day.
"you should just ask her out, y'know, this is getting out of hand." gojo says to him during a house party, bending over the pool table while looking back at sukuna.
"are you insane she'll kill me."
"there's NO way she's that scary dude." choso says while huffing out a puff of smoke from the worn out couch in the middle of the room.
"she barely likes me as is, if i pull that she'd kill me."
"and you'd be into that, win-win, right?" toji chimes in.
"you guys all suck." is all he says before finding a corner in the room to try to text you.
@//ryo: i'm so bored here, n/n get me out.
@//y/n: i never thought i'd see the day where you bore yourself out at a party, congratulations.
gods, it was almost just as nerve wracking texting you as it was to talk to you he just didn't understand it. everything about you always had him on edge. and he adored it to bits.
—
the next time he shows up to class he comes prepared. armed with your favourite drink (courtesy of the doomscrolling he did on your account), his stationary now matching yours, while he slowly sits down next to you again.
"what's this, ryo?"
"oh it's that drink you always like—"
"you know what drink i order?"
"no it's just- i'm- i just like remembering stuff about you, okay?"
okay. not the response you were expecting. you were hoping you could tease him into oblivion but the stupid things that sukuna said when he was put on the sport had your heart beating the same dangerous rhythm that his was. but you didn't want to let him in just yet. there's no person who ever made it this far in actually trying to figure you out. and you didn't know what to do with it except wanting to crawl under the ground and live there forever.
you slowly took the drink from him, whispering the sweetest little thank you before drinking it. and sukuna swore he could see stars. he was making progress with you. and by god, he had never felt more accomplished in his life before. because your edges seem to finally soften, even if it were only in the slightest.
—
you sat in your room, your body slack, a disgusting amount of sweat covering you from head to toe as you lay in your bed. you almost never got sick and without fail, every single time that you did you felt like you were being punished by the heavenly principles for something.
your body felt limp, before you continued to rot in your sheets, too tired to get up and shower and definitely too tired to show up to class.
—
sukuna showed up to the lecture like he always does, his eyes scanning the room to find his way next to your seat, only to find out you were weren't there. it wasn't unheard of for someone to be late—but not you, never you, and almost immediately his mind started finding the worst possible conclusion, what if you got kidnapped? what if you were finally so sick of him you left the place? wait no none if that made sense, he ultimately decided on texting you before he went down another embarrassing spiral about how you surely hated him.
@//ryo: y/n where are you class' starting yknow
@//y/n: sorry sukuna im sick :p im trapped in my dorms for today
oh. oh you were just sick. not the end of the world, right? but knowing you, you'd had to have been miserable to not show up for the entirety of the day, his heartbeat dropped straight to his stomach before he continued to type—
@//ryo: what's your dorm number?
@//y/n: r u gonna show up to my room like a knight in shining armour? its xxx.
he could feel his cheeks heat up, this was the most progress he'd made in so long, he barely noticed when toji was practically breathing down his neck and staring at his texts.
"you're actually talking to her huh im surprised."
"the fuck is that supposed to mean."
"you dont linger around someone for this long, sukuna, let alone someone who's shot you down so many times. maybe it's character development"
"she's just..i don't know, different, i guess? she isn't terrified of me, and she has that way of looking at a person that's terrifyingly alluring."
"a couple weeks of talking to this girl and she's turned you into fucking shakespeare, i'm happy for you man." he says before patting him on the back and taking his seat next to him.
—
the very second the class was dismissed, sukuna ran out like a man on a mission. he obviously couldn't get you the same coffee you always drink, that'd surely make you a lot sicker than you already were.
he remembers you vaguely mentioning that you liked soup, so he made his way to this place he always went to when he was hungover before a class, finding a soup that'd be spicy enough for your almost stupidly high spice tolerance, and stopping by a pharmacy to get you some medicine before heading to your dorm rooms in a hurry.
he slowly knocks at your door, hoping to god you gave him the right room number for the sake of his own sanity, and when the door creaks open, he's met with the sight of you, all huddled up in the hoodie that's three sizes too big, you eyes puffy, and your face entirely flushed, it made him want to roll you up into a ball and gnaw on you like candy.
he could hear your little sniffles, making his way into your room, setting down the bag of stuff he had managed to collect before he made his way inside.
"i didn't think you'd actually come, y'know."
"of course i did are you kidding me? look at you, you should be glad i showed up."
"whatever would i have done without you, my saviour" you rolled your eyes at him, trying your best to not let yourself slip. but you really were glad that he was here. it meant that he cared. that he wasn't just doing this with some form of underhanded motive in mind. it meant that it wasn't the same sukuna you first got to know. the one standing before you was softer, shyer, so disconnected from all the stories you'd heard of him and it scared you.
you show him the way around your kitchen, your brain still foggy from the near dangerous amount of cough syrup you'd downed before he made it to your place.
"your roommate isn't here, is she?"
"yeah she has work to get done, and i didn't want her to get sick." you sniffle almost pathetically.
"right, right." he said before moving around plating the soup into the pastel pink bowls you had in your kitchen, right before moving before you, slowly supporting your back to stop you from keeling over in pain.
"god, look at you, you can barely stand up straight."
"well, carry me around instead of kicking me when i'm already down, won't you?"
sukuna is stunned, well not for long before his hand moves to the back of your knees, the other supporting your back, carrying you back to your room bridal style. normally you'd have some smart retort, under other conditions you would've thrown a hissy fit, but now you were too tired to say anything, and having him carry you with near zero effort to your room had you weak in your knees.
he wastes no time in bringing the soup back to your room, dragging a seat close to your bedside, sitting down before he brings a spoon to his lips before blowing on it to make sure it wasn't too hot, before moving the spoon to your lips.
the cough syrup must've replaced the last brain cell you had left because you barely put up a fight before wrapping your lips around the spoon.
sukuna's shocked that you almost instantly comply, not before you shoot him the same look you gave him when you first met. you didn't have it in you to pick a fight, not when he was being this..nice. it made you all fuzzy and feel funny, and before you could find the rational part of your brain to try to stop you—
"ryo, why are you doing this?" you ask while he sets the bowl aside, while you sink into your hoodie, your voice barely a whisper nothing like the sharp confidence you wore while talking to absolutely anyone.
"what do you mean?" he shoots back, almost offended by the question.
"like..this, taking care of me, constantly bugging me with stupid shit, remembering the things i like, it's all so strange. people orbit you, sukuna. they'd worship the very ground you walk on. so, why me? is it so you can prove a point?"
sukuna was almost taken aback. that was probably the rawest confession he'd ever heard from you, all your walls cracking right before him right when you withdraw in on yourself, sinking into the plush mattress while trying to look everywhere but him.
"because you actually look at me past the stupid frat boy persona, y/n. you look at me as if you're picking me apart, you actually question the shit i do instead of just letting me get away with everything. you say things as it is, and i just really admire that. for what it's worth i'm not trying to prove a stupid point, if i was, i wouldn't go this far to change for you, right?
the moment he went on this little tangent, it did make you realise, he had changed essentially everything about himself to make sure he wasn't the same douche that he used to be. the whispers in the hallways thinned down, he got into lesser fights, and for the first time in all his years of college sukuna's name wasn't being talked about in some sorority girls' friend group on how he said he's call but never did.
it'd been subtle, well to you at least, until the person that was sitting by the side of your bed wasn't the same sukuna anymore. he'd changed. for you.
the both of you sat in that heavy silence, intelligible feelings bubbling to the surface with this careful game you'd been playing around each other. sukuna trying not to push you too far and you teasing him until he does.
"i—gods i want to ask you out y/n. this is killing me, but i'm not gonna do it here, you deserve something a lot more romantic, just let me down gently if you're gonna reject me, alright?"
you slowly nod, and to sukuna's shock,
"i think i'd like that. a lot, actually. just don't trip over your own feet."
he was almost ecstatic, jumping straight into you arms, wrapping his biceps around you, enveloping you in his warmth, crushing you underneath his weight while you slowly pat him on the back.
"mmph sukuna— youre heavy !"
" 'm sorry i'm not getting off of you just yet."
"you gigantic loser oh my fucking god—"
"aaaand she's back."
and before you know it the two of you are giggling in your bed, still crushed until sukuna's weight, while he has his face in the crook of your neck while you're comfortably lulled to sleep under his weight, the two of you forgetting everything else for a moment.
it felt like two galaxies collided, two disparaging universes, and two equally menacing people falling into each other's embrace as if they always belonged in each other's arms. and maybe letting your walls crack just the tiniest bit wasn't the worst thing in the world. because being in his arms wasn't difficult. not that you'd accept it anytime soon.
and sukuna, mr. frat president, had never had someone lodge themselves in his heart so permanently, so quickly, he just couldn't stop himself from falling. it felt like damnation and it felt like grace all at once. and he promised himself that he'd only get better for you.
CONTENT. Its late he's tired, he's mean for a bit, oral f.rec, p in v, creampied, fluff, good endings
WC. 4.9k
A/N. There's a part two dw
You’ve kept the lights low on purpose.
The soft glow from the kitchen spills down the hallway, casting the apartment in amber warmth. The scent of ginger and honey still lingers faintly in the air from the tea you made an hour ago—lukewarm now, untouched on the counter. A pot of rice you started sits covered on the stove. He always says he doesn’t need anything when he gets home late, but you know better. Nanami always eats if you ask him to.
You’re barefoot in one of his button-ups—thin cotton and a little too big, hanging just at mid-thigh. You’d picked it on purpose. Comfort and softness and him, all at once.
The clock reads 11:24 p.m.
You hear the lock turn before you see him.
“Hi,” you say, voice soft, stepping out into the hall. “Welcome home, baby.”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Nanami Kento looks like the night chewed him up and spit him out. His shirt is still tucked in, but crooked. His sleeves are rolled halfway, one button missing. There’s blood drying along the crease of his collarbone—someone else’s, you hope—and a faint line of bruising across the knuckles of his right hand. His tie hangs limp around his neck, and his eyes—
His eyes don’t meet yours.
You reach for him gently, both hands brushing his chest, offering comfort without a word. Your thumb grazes a spot just over his heart. “Rough night?” you murmur. “I can draw your bath—”
“Can I please come home just once,” he says, voice sharp and low, “without being smothered?”
You blink.
The words hit harder than a slap. His tone is stripped of affection—just blunt exhaustion, cruel in its honesty. You drop your hands slowly.
“It’s always something with you,” he continues as he walks past you, not even looking back. “Talking, hovering, asking. Just one night of peace. Is that so hard?”
You don’t say anything.
The apartment hums in the silence he leaves behind. A door clicks shut—the bedroom—and your heart follows it, folding in on itself.
You stand there for a moment, frozen, mouth slightly open like you were still halfway through a sentence. The tea kettle lets out a soft pop. The lights feel too warm now, like they’re spotlighting the hurt.
You don’t follow him.
Instead, you turn toward the bathroom.
The bath is only halfway filled when you kneel down beside the tub. You twist the hot water knob gently, the steam rising around your face. You don’t look at yourself in the mirror. You can’t.
You add a few drops of the cedarwood oil he likes, the one that smells clean and masculine and grounding. You test the temperature with your wrist, adjusting it exactly the way he prefers. You fold the towel and set it by the tub, then go to the cabinet for the soft robe he always wears afterward.
Each motion feels automatic. Practiced. Quiet. You’re not sure if you’re trying to comfort him or hold yourself together.
And then—finally—your throat tightens.
The tears come in silence at first. Your hands start shaking as you smooth the towel a third time, then a fourth. A lump forms deep in your chest, thick and choking. You sit back on your heels, lower lip trembling, blinking fast.
“Can I please come home without being smothered?”
It repeats like a loop in your skull. He looked right past you. Like you were too much.
Like your love—your softness, your waiting up, your effort—was noise.
You press a hand to your mouth just as the first sob breaks through. It’s small and ugly, a hitching sound that feels like it doesn’t belong to you. And then another. And another. Your shoulders shake.
You curl forward slightly, arms around your knees on the cool bathroom tile, letting yourself cry.
No yelling. No throwing things. No running after him to defend yourself.
You just fall apart quietly, with the bath still running.
Nanami doesn’t even remember dropping his keys.
He only notices when he hears them clatter faintly to the floor, near the threshold where he’d passed you without thinking—without seeing. They lay next to the small dish you always put out for him, the one with little white sakura etched into the ceramic. The one he never uses, but you keep setting out anyway.
The bedroom is dark.
His jacket is draped across the foot of the bed now, his tie tossed beside it. He unbuttons his shirt slowly, methodically, one cuff at a time. He doesn’t sit down. His body aches from the mission, the tension wound so tightly in his shoulders that it feels like his spine might snap.
But now—it’s quiet.
Too quiet.
No soft voice calling for him from the other room. No footsteps padding toward him. No tea cup gently placed on the nightstand.
The guilt doesn’t come all at once.
It creeps in slow—seeps into the spaces where your warmth should be. He frowns as he steps back into the hallway, bare feet on polished wood, tension pressing heavy on his chest.
And then he hears it.
The bathroom door is cracked open slightly.
Water running.
Faint sniffles.
He stops there in the hall, one hand braced against the frame.
The light inside is soft, golden. The steam has begun to cling to the mirror, and the bath is full—just the way he likes it. Cedarwood and citrus. A towel folded neatly on the rack. A robe hanging nearby. The dim sound of water lapping gently at porcelain.
And you’re gone.
No hum of your voice. No greeting. Not even footsteps echoing through the apartment.
But he sees it: a small folded note propped against the sink faucet.
He steps inside. Picks it up.
You don’t have to talk to me. Just thought you’d still want the bath. I’ll be in the other room. I’m sorry if I overwhelmed you.
It hits like a punch to the gut.
His hand tightens around the note until it crinkles.
You hadn’t defended yourself. Hadn’t pushed back. You’d drawn his bath anyway. The same hands he’d brushed off with a cutting remark had turned down the sheets, folded his towel, and left quietly so he wouldn’t be disturbed.
And now, he realizes, he hasn’t heard your voice since.
He finds you curled up in the living room—half-buried beneath the throw blanket, your back to the hallway. Your shoulders are still trembling faintly. Your hand is curled into a fist against your chest, and you’re shaking. Trying to breathe quietly through sobs that won't stop.
You’re trying not to let him hear.
That shatters him.
“Sweetheart…”
His voice is rough. Barely above a whisper.
You flinch. You don’t turn around. He steps closer, slowly, until he’s kneeling beside the couch.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
You don’t respond.
He reaches forward, hesitates, then gently brushes the back of his fingers along your shoulder. The touch is light. Tentative. He knows he lost the right to hold you without permission tonight.
“I was tired,” he says quietly. “That’s not an excuse. But it’s the truth. I came home wound too tight to see what I had right in front of me.”
Your breath hitches. You squeeze your eyes shut.
He shifts closer. His hand comes to rest near your hip, not touching—just there. “You were waiting for me,” he murmurs. “In my shirt. With tea. With warmth. And I… I tore through it like it meant nothing.”
Still nothing.
Until you whisper, voice raw, “I just wanted to say hi.”
His heart breaks. Fully, cleanly, completely.
You finally roll to face him, and the sight of your tearstained cheeks—your trembling mouth, your red eyes—makes him swallow hard.
“I’m so sorry,” he says again, fingers brushing your cheek with reverence now. “I came home and treated love like noise. And you still… you still made me a bath.”
You nod, barely. “Because I love you.”
“I know.” His voice is ragged. “And I’ve never deserved it more than in this moment. Please let me make it right.”
You don’t speak again.
But you don’t pull away either.
And that’s enough.
His hand rises to cup your cheek fully, thumb catching the edge of a tear. He leans in slowly, deliberately, resting his forehead against yours.
“I don’t want peace without you,” he whispers. “I want to come home to you. Always.”
The air between you shifts. Warms. Softens.
He doesn't kiss you right away.
Instead, he just keeps his forehead pressed against yours, eyes closed, breath slow and steady like he’s anchoring himself in your skin. His fingers linger on your cheek, tracing soft, penitent circles beneath your eye.
Your hands curl loosely in the fabric of his half-unbuttoned shirt. You still haven’t said much, and that hurts him more than yelling ever could.
He whispers, “Can I touch you?”
Your nod is barely there. A small tilt of your chin. But it’s enough.
He exhales like he’s been holding it all day.
Then, finally—finally—he kisses you.
Not rough. Not fast. Just warm, and open, and heartbreakingly gentle.
His mouth moves slowly over yours, like an apology spelled out in vowels. He doesn’t try to deepen it too quickly. Doesn’t chase your tongue. He just kisses you again and again, soft and reverent, his thumb still brushing your cheek as if he can soothe the words he never should’ve said.
You sigh into him. A sound of surrender, of ache, of wanting so badly to forgive.
His hand slides down from your cheek to your waist, curling gently around you as he draws you upright from the couch. Your knees come together as he pulls you closer, and he kneels between them, looking up at you now—golden hair tousled, shirt hanging open, eyes full of something wounded and worshipful.
“Let me take this off,” he murmurs, voice low and rough as his fingers toy with the hem of the shirt you’re wearing. His shirt.
You nod again, and raise your arms.
He peels it up slowly, revealing skin inch by inch. He pauses to press his lips to your sternum, just beneath your collarbone. Another apology. Then your ribs. Then the soft curve of your stomach.
By the time he lifts the shirt fully off, you’re flushed all over, breath trembling as you sit in nothing but a pair of soft panties.
“I didn’t even look at you,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You looked so beautiful when I walked in. I didn’t even see you.”
You open your mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a soft sound—half breath, half broken plea.
He answers it with his hands.
They slide up your thighs slowly, stroking your skin with careful reverence. He leans forward and kisses just above your navel, then lower, until your thighs are twitching gently under his touch.
“I don’t want you to forgive me because I’m touching you,” he whispers. “But I need to show you how sorry I am. I need you to feel it.”
You nod.
“Lie back for me, sweetheart.”
You do. Carefully. Your body is still tense, unsure—but the warmth in his voice, the softness of his touch, it starts to melt something in you.
He pulls your panties down next—slow, watching your face the entire time, like he’s checking for any sign of hesitation. There is none.
You lift your hips without being asked.
The air feels thick now. Not just with steam or want—but with emotion. That fragile edge of pain that still lingers, now curled tight with desire. He tosses the panties aside, then leans in over your bare body, dragging his lips from your thigh up to your hip, then to your ribs, then back to your mouth.
When he kisses you again, he sighs into it. Like he’s home.
And then, finally, he whispers:
“Let me worship you the way you deserve.”
You’re laid out beneath him like something holy.
Warm, bare, and still sniffling faintly when his hand drags slowly down your stomach—open-palmed, deliberate. He watches you closely. Watches the way your chest rises unevenly. The soft glisten still clinging to your lashes. Your lip, a little swollen from where you’ve bitten it trying not to cry again.
He bends over you again, murmuring low against your neck, “I don’t need to talk to be understood. But you—you’ve always spoken in care. In waiting. In touches. I think it’s time I spoke in your language.”
He kisses your shoulder. Then lower. Then lower.
You tremble.
His mouth hovers just over your breast, and he doesn’t dive in hungrily. He pauses. Waits. His eyes lift.
“Let me?” he murmurs.
You nod. Again. Quieter this time. Your voice barely works, but your body listens for you.
He presses a kiss there—soft and wet, then another, open-mouthed over your nipple. He warms it with his tongue, lips drawing around the sensitive skin until your back arches. You gasp, still soft from crying, and he hums low in response.
“Still so good for me,” he murmurs. “Even when I don’t deserve you.”
His hand slips between your legs, fingers slow as they find you already warm, already soft and aching. You’re slick at the edges—grief and longing swirled together like heat beneath the skin.
You whimper when he slides two fingers down the seam of your cunt.
“You always open up for me,” he murmurs, lips still brushing your chest, fingers now dipping inside, so slowly. “Even when I’ve been cruel. That’s what breaks me.”
You clench around his fingers, a small sob escaping—not from pain, but want.
He stills immediately, whispering, “You okay?”
You nod fast. Then swallow hard. “Don’t stop.”
That’s when the reverence turns filthy.
His fingers begin to move, shallow thrusts coaxing your body open, dragging wet sounds from between your thighs. You moan softly. Hiccuping still. Your eyes glassy and shining in the low light as he watches you fall apart slowly for him.
“I should’ve come home,” he breathes, “and gotten on my knees.”
His mouth trails lower. Down your stomach. Down your hip. He presses a kiss to the crease of your thigh, then bites—just lightly—until you whine.
“I should’ve dropped everything,” he continues, voice ragged, “and kissed you just like this—” and his tongue swipes a long, slow line over your folds, his fingers spreading you open to taste you properly—“until you were sobbing for me in the right way.”
You gasp. Your hips jerk.
He groans against your cunt, wet and open and obscene.
“I’m going to make you come with your thighs trembling,” he whispers. “With your hands fisting the couch. I’m going to eat you like you’re the only damn peace I’ll ever need.”
You’re already close.
You didn’t even realize how tightly wound you were—how much your body wanted to be loved like this. Handled like this. Like every inch of you deserved soft kisses and filth spoken into your skin.
“F-Fuck, ngh- Kento—” you choke, and his tongue circles your clit, his fingers still fucking into you slowly, deeply, until the pressure makes your whole spine curl.
Your thighs lock around his head. You cry out.
And he doesn’t stop.
Not even when you start to break—hips twitching, sobs turning into moans that sound like yes, yes, yes— not even when you finish, wet and hot around his fingers, pulsing so hard it feels like everything you’ve been holding back is flooding through your skin.
He groans. Kisses your thigh. Kisses your stomach. Then looks up at you.
“More,” he whispers. “Please. Let me keep touching you.”
Your legs are still trembling when he moves over you.
Not hovering—covering. Like a weight you’ve been craving. Warm and solid and safe. His hand slides behind your knee, lifting one leg to hook over his waist as he settles between your thighs. You’re still gasping, eyes glassy, lips parted, flushed from crying and climaxing both.
“You don’t have to—” you start to whisper, but his mouth silences you with a kiss that tastes like apology and salt.
“I need to,” he breathes. “Please. If you’ll let me.”
You nod. Soft. Immediate.
His hands cup your thighs as he pushes them further open—gentle, but commanding. He wants to see all of you. His gaze flickers down as his hips shift against yours, the heavy press of him sliding slow and hot along your slick folds.
You twitch.
“I should’ve come home and touched you like this,” he whispers, guiding himself to your entrance. “Held you open. Slid inside so slow you could feel every word I didn’t say.”
You let out a ragged gasp as he presses in—deep.
Not fast.
Not rough.
Just... there.
Thick and stretching and present. The kind of slow that makes your eyes roll back and your mouth fall open because it’s too much and not enough at the same time.
Your body clenches around him immediately, desperate and aching.
“Oh—fuck,” you cry, hands flying to his shoulders. “Kento—!”
His breath stutters. “There she is.”
He pushes in the rest of the way, hips flush against you, groaning as your walls squeeze around him like you never want to let him go.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers against your neck, rocking his hips just slightly. “I didn’t come home to be loved like this. But you—you gave it to me anyway.”
Each slow thrust sinks deeper. More reverent. More filthy.
“You still opened up for me.”
Your nails dig into his shoulders. Your back arches.
“You still made the bath.”
He fucks into you again—so deep—and you choke on a sob, your thighs twitching around him.
“You still curled up alone and cried so I could have peace.”
His pace stays slow, but his voice roughens.
“You deserve more than my silence.”
Your body clenches again. Your sob turns into a moan, high and trembling. “K-Kento—”
He grinds in, deep enough to knock the breath from your lungs, his mouth trailing along your jaw as he whispers, “I’m going to fill you, sweetheart. Slow. Until you forget every second I made you feel unwanted.”
You shake beneath him. You’re not crying anymore—you’re whimpering, soft and overwhelmed, your body too raw to speak back.
But he keeps going.
“You like when I fuck you like this, don’t you?” he whispers. “When I take my time. When I stay deep.”
You nod—hard. You can’t find your voice, but your body’s screaming it, clenching around him, trembling again.
“Say it,” he murmurs, biting your earlobe. “Let me hear you say you want it.”
“I-I want it,” you sob. “Kento—I need—”
“That’s right,” he growls, pace still slow but grinding now, filling every inch of you with unbearable fullness. “My perfect girl. So wet. So good. Still letting me in.”
He kisses you again—messy this time, tongues tangling, breath mixing—before pulling back just enough to look into your eyes.
“I’m gonna come inside you.”
You whimper.
“Gonna keep it there. Let it stay, let it soak in while you sleep in my arms.”
You gasp. Your body tenses—tightens—and then you’re coming again, helpless around him, clenching so hard he has to groan your name into your shoulder.
And then he follows—hips flush, cock buried as deep as it’ll go, filling you with slow, aching pulses while you sob and shake and hold on like you’ll disappear otherwise.
You don’t speak.
Neither does he.
Not for a long time.
Just breath and skin and the soft sound of his lips pressing to your temple.
You don’t even realize how hard you’re shaking until he kisses your forehead and murmurs, “I’ve got you. Don’t move, sweetheart.”
His voice is hoarse. Tender. He’s still inside you, still so deep and full and warm, and your body’s trembling under the weight of it—his words, his apology, his love. It’s not just sex anymore. It never was. Not with him.
You let out a tiny, shivering breath. And then another.
Nanami exhales with you, forehead brushing against yours, hand sliding up to cradle your face.
“I’m not leaving,” he whispers. “Not for a second.”
You nod, barely. A blink. A soft noise of understanding, but your body’s too limp, too overstimulated to respond in words. Your fingers twitch at his shoulders, like maybe if you move them just enough, he’ll stay right where he is forever.
He kisses you again—this time slower. Nothing sexual. Just mouth to mouth, patient and real.
Then, after a moment, he moves.
Carefully. Easing himself out of you with a groan so deep it sounds mourning, and your breath catches again as his release trickles down the back of your thigh.
He sees it. Sees your soaked skin and red eyes and how you instinctively close your legs in embarrassment.
“No,” he says, firm but gentle. “None of that.”
He kneels beside the couch and presses his lips to the inside of your knee. “You were perfect for me.”
Then higher. The soft skin of your thigh. “You took me so well.”
Then the bend of your hip, where your pulse still flutters. “You let me say it the only way I knew how.”
He rises again, scoops you into his arms like you weigh nothing, and you bury your face in his chest. You’re not crying now, but your body’s still trembling with something you can’t name. A bruise that sits beneath your ribs—not from pain, but from the tenderness of being seen again.
He carries you straight to the bathroom.
The one you had prepared for him.
The bath is still warm, thank god. The water is still milky, lavender-scented, filled with everything you thought would comfort him.
Now, it’s for you.
Nanami sits on the edge of the tub, pulls you into his lap, and steps you both in. He keeps you against him the whole time, arms tight around your waist, your thighs draped over his.
You sit in the water together—quiet, breath mingling with steam, your ear pressed to his heartbeat.
His hands don’t wander. Not in lust. Not now.
They smooth over your back. Up your spine. Across your hips. Slow, reverent. He murmurs soft things in your hair as he dips the sponge in warm water and runs it over your arms, your chest, your thighs—gentle, slow strokes like he’s washing off everything he said, everything he didn’t say.
When he rinses your hair, he cradles your head to his shoulder.
When you start crying again—this time quiet, soundless—he just kisses your temple and says, “I know. I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I should have come home to this. I should have come home to you.”
You don’t say anything.
But you reach for his hand under the water.
And when you squeeze it, he squeezes back like he’s never letting go.
He dries you off like you’ll shatter if he goes too fast.
A soft towel across your back. One hand wrapped gently around your wrist. Every motion slow, warm, methodical—his sleeves still damp from the bathwater, his hair curling slightly from the steam. He doesn’t ask you to stand. He kneels in front of you instead, pressing the towel between your thighs to dry you carefully, like even now, hours later, you’re still too tender for roughness.
You are.
Your body aches, but not badly. Not the way it would if this was just sex. The soreness is slow, deep in your hips, between your legs, in your throat. It’s from the weight of everything that passed between you—the strain of loving him even when he didn’t have the strength to return it.
“Here,” he murmurs, and holds out one of his shirts. It’s soft. Grey. Worn thin and familiar, and you slip your arms through the sleeves like it’s a kind of armor.
He helps guide it down over your shoulders.
Then lifts you again, bridal-style.
“Still with me?” he asks quietly.
You nod against his collarbone. “Mhm.”
It’s barely a sound. But he hears it. His fingers tighten at your waist.
He carries you to the bed like you weigh nothing. Lowers you down onto cool sheets. Then follows, sitting beside you, pulling the comforter up around your thighs before brushing your damp hair back from your face.
You watch him in silence.
His brows are drawn. His throat moves like he wants to speak but doesn’t know how. His hand lingers over your hip without squeezing—just rests there, warm and steady.
“Kento?” you whisper, voice hoarse from earlier.
He meets your eyes.
You know that look.
The aching one. The one that says: I’m scared you don’t want me anymore.
You sit up slowly. Crawl into his lap again, straddling his thighs, your arms wrapping around his neck even though your body is exhausted.
“I’m still yours,” you whisper into the shell of his ear. “I was always yours.”
He lets out a sound—something like a breath that got stuck in his chest all day and is only now finding its way out.
His hands come up. One at your back. One at the base of your skull.
He kisses you.
Softly. Slowly.
But not like he did earlier.
This kiss is fragile. Hungry. Sleepy. It tastes like thank you and I missed you and please don’t ever leave me alone like that again.
You whimper into it. Press your chest to his.
He moans quietly, nose brushing yours, voice shaking as he whispers, “Say it again.”
“I’m yours.”
“And I’m sorry.”
“I know,” you breathe.
“I’ll come home better next time.”
You nod.
“You’re everything,” he whispers.
You press a kiss to his cheek. His jaw. His lips again. Then rest your forehead against his, your fingers curling into his shirt.
“I missed you,” you whisper.
“I’m right here,” he promises. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
And then he pulls you under the covers, gathers you into his chest, and holds you there long past the moment your breathing softens. You fall asleep to the rhythm of his thumb brushing over your hip. To the warmth of his chest under your cheek. To the quiet, steady reminder that even after his worst days—
He always finds his way home to you.
When you wake, the bed is warm.
You’re tucked in tight—his shirt still clinging to your skin, thighs a little sore, muscles soft and heavy with sleep. The light is dim. Golden. The curtains are only half-drawn, letting in that quiet kind of morning sun that doesn’t ask anything of you.
He’s not beside you.
But his warmth lingers, soaked into the pillow, the sheets, your skin. You stretch slowly, groaning under your breath as you shift your hips, your body still tender in a way that makes your heart ache a little—but not from pain.
From everything else.
The door creaks a moment later.
And there he is.
Kento, barefoot, shirtless, hair mussed, holding a steaming mug in one hand and something wrapped in a napkin in the other. His eyes catch yours instantly.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs, softer than your breath.
You nod.
He crosses the room slowly and kneels beside the bed—kneels, again, like it’s instinct now. He sets the mug on your nightstand and rests the napkin beside it. Inside, folded and still warm, is a thick slice of honey toast. Slightly uneven. Burnt just a little at the edge.
You stare at it.
Then back at him.
“I tried to make breakfast,” he says. “But I don’t know where you keep the good pan.”
Your throat tightens. Not because it’s funny. Not because it’s perfect. Because it’s him. Because he got up before you did. Because he touched your kitchen and thought about feeding you.
“You didn’t have to,” you whisper.
“I did,” he says, brushing your hair back with his fingers. “I needed to.”
You sit up slowly and he helps, tucking pillows behind your back. Then he holds the mug out—your favorite tea, steeped just the way you like it. You take it. Hands trembling.
He doesn’t speak for a moment.
But then, quiet—so quiet you almost miss it—
“I don’t know how you do it,” he says. “The way you love me.”
You look up.
His eyes are wet.
Your heart shatters all over again.
“I come home cold,” he continues, “and you make it warm. I shut down, and you open up. I say something cruel—” his voice falters, “—and you still run the bath.”
You don’t say anything.
You just reach for him.
He comes to you instantly. Curls up beside you in bed like he needs the warmth more than the air, arms wrapping around your waist as you pull the blanket over you both. Your tea cools beside you. The toast goes untouched. His head buries into your chest and he exhales like he hasn’t taken a real breath in days.
“I want to be better for you,” he says.
You kiss his hair.
“You are.”
“I hurt you.”
“You healed me.”
He tightens his grip.
And then—
“I love you.”
You close your eyes.
“I know.”
And you do. You’ve always known. Even when he didn’t say it. Even when he walked through the door and gave you nothing but silence and distance. You knew. You felt it in the way he lingered when he took off his tie. In the way he always left the bathroom light on for you. In the way he came back.
mean!fratboy!toji who met you one night at a black out party his frat was throwing, curled up in the corner like some kicked puppy. he asked if you were okay, if you needed some air, maybe water, and that was that.
mean!fratboy!toji who fell head over heels for you that very same night, acting like he couldn't care less for the girl that was now stuck to his side n' holding his arm. yet, he knew deep down that your pretty little pout and tearful expression would soon be the downfall of his carefully curated tough guy act.
mean!fratboy!toji who's never actually had a girlfriend before, quick hookups and shitty talking stages were more his tune. but ever since he'd bashfully asked you to be his in the library after school, he'd promised himself to try and be the best he possibly could for you, his sweet girl.
mean!fratboy!toji makes good on his promise. well, mostly... he lets you get away with far more than he does with anyone else, that's for sure. when you're eating out, he lets you take whatever you want from his plate, even going as far as to snap photos of you stealing his food.
"up here, baby. smile f'me." he'd grin, but you were too busy devouring the best bits of his meal like the cheeky little shit you were.
now, if that were geto, or even worse, gojo? he'd have knocked them in their jaw for even thinking such a thought. not you, though. his precious little thing had far more privilege than those flops.
mean!fratboy!toji had convinced himself he hated physical touch, that a swift one-and-done was all he was cut out for. so, whenever anyone tried to initiate a hug, or even a pat on the back? he'd shrug them off with a deep scowl. but with you, he was so pathetically the opposite. at the start of every day? he's hugging you tight before the walk to class. moving through crowded hallways? he's grabbing for your hand. functions at the frat? you're sat up in his lap the entire time. every chance he had to be close to you, he took. maybe physical touch wasn't all that bad (as long as it was with you).
mean!fratboy!toji was a big guy, in every sense of the word. he was a 6'4 and 90 kg of pure muscle, and his ego wasn't too far off either. but probably his biggest asset, was his cock. the long, meaty thing he was a little scared to show you at first... you weren't that confident as it stood, what could make you wanna take this thing? oh well, it was something he'd work on...
mean!fratboy!toji always felt an overwhelming sense of infatuation wash over his body from watching your eyes widen with both fear and an adorable look of excitement whenever he pulled his thick cock out.
"toji... i...i'm sorry, i don't think i can take that..." you'd admit shyly, staring up a him through those long pretty lashes as you looked away from him shyly, a look so innocent it made his dick twitch and throb harder.
"aw, my poor girl, i know it's alot, but you can handle it. just let me work you open, yeah?" he'd reassure you. gently slipping in a thick finger until you whined and gasped for him to speed up.
mean!fratboy!toji gets real dirty with praise when you get sleepy. the minute your voice cracks he goes absolutely feral. he grabs the back of your neck and kisses you deep, whispering through his own moans,
“that’s my girl… keep giving me those pretty noises.”
he doesn’t stop feeding you praise that makes your stomach knot tighter.
“you feel so fucking good around my cock.”
“you take me so well pretty baby.”
“tell me what you want. fuck, i’ll give you everything.”
mean!fratboy!toji who thinks you look so pretty when you're all flustered and shy. he frequently goes out of his way to pull those cute groans from you, the ones that sound like he's seconds away from watching you pop from sheer embarrassment.
"pretty skirt, baby." he'd compliment, and just as your face lights up and you're about to thank him, he swoops in with the blunder. "d' look nicer hiked up your ass while i fuck you from behind."
he always had to try his best not to laugh at the way your eyes got glassy and your face all hot, you were just too easy to tease! he always apologised, though. weather that was with a hug or some action behind his claims was fully dependent on his mood.
mean!fratboy!toji had become a master at reading you. each of your faces meant a different thing, and with your shyness came the ability to determine what each of them meant due to your, sometimes, lack of conversational skills. when you'd go mute after he'd questioned you too long and hard about a difficult topic, he could clock the look that meant, hey, i've had enough. and if you keep going i'll literally cry. and he'd drop it immediately, scooping you up in his arms and peppering your face in soft kisses.
"m' sorry, sweetheart." he'd mumble into your neck, holding you tight so you knew you were still loved and cherished.
or when you'd get that sly look in your eye that meant you wanted to be touched, that might have been his favorite. one glance from you and he'd have you pinned down, marking up your neck and stripping off your clothes in mere seconds.
"i like how you always know what i want, toji." you'd pant through it all, and he'd take the praise as a sigh to go faster.
mean!fratboy!toji who too gets embarrassed sometimes. like, for instance, when he arrives to pick you up for a date and you come out of your apartment looking like a literal angel. blood might as well be gushing from his nose. he has to take a deep breath every time, or he's scared he'll get too excited and smother you in love, potentially ruining your pretty makeup.
on that note, mean!fratboy!toji gets insane cuteness aggression from his adorable, shy!girlfriend. one time when you're in your kitchen baking him some homemade protein bars for his workouts, toji walks in and his heart almost stops beating. you've got flour dusted on your cheeks, a cute little apron tied snug around your waist, and your hair thrown into a style you know he adores. he cannot contain himself. he stalks up to you and engulfs you in his mass, lifting you up and twirling you around in his strong arms.
"ahh! toji, put me down!" you giggle, smacking his shoulder lightly as he spins you around, pressing sweet kisses to your torso.
he eventually lets up, but when he sets you down on the counter, he's right in front of you peppering wet kisses all over your face. "you're js' so cute, can't help it." he admits, pressing one smiley kiss to your lips before letting you tend to the baked goods.
mean!fratboy!toji who can't stop talking to you at the frat, his friends are concerned the real toji up and died and this was his shitty doppelganger replacement. he'd get drunk after game day on thursday nights and just rant on and on about how much he missed you, how sweet you were, how no girl could ever compare, real simp shit.
"y' don't get it, kuna... she's the greatest fuckin' thing since avatar came out." he'd sigh, his head a little dazed but still fully focused on his pretty girl.
"yeah, i know. fuckin' talk about her every day, it's gay." the tatted man reiterates.
"how's it gay to like a chick, fucking idiot."
they were both sloshed, but the fact remained, even inebriated you were all that was on the big goof's mind.
mean!fratboy!toji who reeeeally shows off at his basketball games when you're there, wearing his jersey. the thing swallowed you whole, but that makes it all the more adorable. he'd constantly risk shooting three pointers much to nanami's dismay, but they always went in, so no harm no foul. it was all worth it to watch your eyes light up on the side lines while waved your flag in excitement, it made his heart feel full.
mean!fratboy!toji was still mean. and perhaps, even worse, he was possessively mean. whenever there was a party and you decided to come out of your sanctuary and tag along, the amount of men that would gawk at you really got him going. he loved and hated how attractive you were.
"the fuck d' you think you're staring at?" he'd snap at the particularly shameless ones, sizing them up and throwing them the dirtiest look imaginable.
they'd get the message eventually, because after a few too many punch ups with the guys who got handsy after he'd left you alone for a few minutes, the notion set in. you were toji's, and he'd sooner kill a man before letting anyone get a piece of you.
mean!fratboy!toji was definitely still mean, just not to you.
A/N: this was therapeutic but a little bit all over the place but like it's also 2 in the morning so like yeah
𐙚₊⊹ frat!gojo (re)baking cupcakes with shy!reader | part 1.5 to this fic but can be read alone, fluff, crack, he’s kind of a freak like once, they’re oh so whipped for each other (get it?) (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)
you contently slept in satoru’s comforting embrace for what felt like an eternity, feeling so secure and warm in his arms while he cradled you like you were something precious—completely forgetting about why you were spiraling earlier in the first place.
on the other hand, gojo feels like.. as if he’s forgetting something. but he can’t put his finger on what though..
then, a sudden alarming scent wafts through his nostrils, and finally gives it away.
‘oh my god, there’s something burning in the oven.’ his body shoots up from the couch and he darts to the kitchen with you in his arms.
the sudden movement startles you awake—you stir in his chest before peeking at satoru, as you’re met with his mortified cerulean eyes.
“satoru..? what’s wrong?” you mumble in his chest.
“did you forget to turn off the oven?” he yelps with genuine fear.
“…oh my god.”
in that moment, your heart just sunk to the bottom pits of hell,
how could you be so reckless? you nearly burnt down your entire apartment because of your sudden need to stress bake.
you slap your palm to your face before freeing yourself from his grip—quickly ushering to the oven afraid of what you might encounter.
you scan the room for oven mittens, grabbing a random pair that are probably mismatched, but will do to prevent potentially getting a third degree burn as you quickly put them on and slowly, but carefully open the oven.
you carefully take the burnt cupcakes out from the oven, flinching at the oven heat wave before placing the tray on top of the stove.
“oh my god.. they’re practically rocks,” you frown embarrassedly at how the what was once a cupcake, is now a fossil that makes a loud thud! noise when dropped on the marble counter.
“i’m sorry satoru, i baked these for you so you could eat them after class.. but i forgot about them and they burnt to crisp. i nearly caused a fire from my recklessness. i don’t even know how the fire alarm didn’t go off..”
“baby no no no! don’t apologize, if anything, this was the best case scenario. most importantly, i’m glad you’re okay. i’m just glad that the oven didn’t burn the whole apartment complex down.. ” he teases light heartedly.
“—hey, i really appreciate you for being considerate and thinking of me.” he laces his hand through yours and reassuringly rubs his thumb over your knuckles. “how about this, we rebake the cupcakes together.”
“really?” your ears perk up, and soft lips return into a gentle smile.
“yeah!”
you open the cabinet and grab a store bought box of cupcake mix and frosting to make chocolate flavored cupcakes.
satoru hums a familiar tune as he gets up from the stool—reaching for an apron as he brings it over your neck, wrapping it around your waist and ties a messy bow on the back—then planting a gentle kiss to your neck and grabs himself a matching apron.
you open the bag of batter and pour it into the bowl and quickly peek over at satoru, where he’s licking frosting off of the lid like there’s no tomorrow..
“the frosting isn’t going no where,” you tease.
“yeah yeah, whatever! want some?—wait! you should totally lick it off of my fingers.” he flashes a boyish grin and wiggles his frosting covered finger in front of your flustered face.
“ew! stop being perverted and do your job,” you swat your hand at him and giggle.
“worth a shot!” he shrugs.
you notice frosting on the tip of his nose and your heart melts at the sight, reminding you how much you truly adore satoru.
“you’re staring baby.” he tilts his head and bats his snowy lashes at your love-struck face.
“uh.. yeah sorry, you have something.” you press your lips together and wipe the tip of his nose with your finger. gojo’s smile reaches his ears at the thought of the fact that he’s being gently touched by you—he quickly peppers kisses all over your face.
“hmm?” you fight back a large smile.
“just showing my girl how much i love and adore her!”
“.. i love you too satoru.” you smile shyly at his confession.
“what was that?” he leans down to your ear and smirks.
“i love you satoru,” you whisper.
you an satoru spend the rest of the time playing with flour and feeding each other raw batter. he licks the batter off of the spoon in a “seductive” manner—which you then end up scolding him because he’s nearly about to finish a whole bowl of raw batter.
you’ve always loved domestic moments like these, just the two of you being silly and careless with each other while doing something together in the apartment no matter what it is. it’s a nice familiar way to ground each other, since he’s always busy with his frat stuff, and your nose is always stuck in books.
after occasional hip bumping, shared laughter, and throwing flour at each other, he helps you clean up and puts the cupcakes in the oven to bake.
and this time they don’t burn to crisp.
the sweet comforting cozy scent of chocolate and brown sugar lingers throughout the whole apartment as you sit on the kitchen stool in front of satoru—telling you about his day while you listen attentively before getting interrupted mid sentence by the sound of a ding! coming from the oven.
he claps his hands together as he bolts up from his stool. “oh my god.. these smell amazing.” —moaning exaggeratedly as he reaches for oven mitts and opens the oven.
you set the piping bags on the counter as satoru places the tray of freshly baked cupcakes on top of the stove—allowing the chocolatey flavored cupcakes to cool down before taking each individual cupcake out of the tray.
you both begin to precisely pipe each cupcake with frosting—but as you’re focused on your own cupcake, satoru stops mid pipe and and admires how you look so effortlessly pretty when focused on something small. like decorating cupcakes.
his cupcakes actually came out decent looking for what they are. he let you have the first cupcake bite of approval—watching your face light up in delight before taking a bite himself.
it’s safe to say you’re both proud of how the cupcakes came out after a very dangerously failed first attempt..
A/N: hihi im back from my monthly hiatus after saying id post more ✧٩(•́⌄•́๑)و ✧ anyway, i’ve actually never made cupcakes b4 (｡•́︿•̀｡) uhhhmmm i might write for either toji or nerdjo next
GASPP OMG THAT IS THE SWEETEST THING EVER I MIGHT CRY AWAHHHGGG I LOVE THIS CARD SO MUCH AHHHH ‧⁺◟( ᵒ̴̶̷̥́ ·̫ ᵒ̴̶̷̣̥̀ ) you are such a sweet loving person thank you i love you SO MUCH HAPPY VALENTINES DAY MOONAAAA may your valentines day be filled with lots of love, hugs, and sweetness just like you!! ଘ(੭◌ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚
dᥡ᥉gꫀᥙ᥉เᥲ 𓏲ּ𝄢 why suguru’s wife is the best cook in the world!
ᥴꪮᥒtꫀᥒt ᥲᥒd ᥕᥲɾᥒเᥒg᥉ 𓏲ּ𝄢 fluff„ au with no defection„ convenience store meet cute?„ pov alternating„ geto x cashier!femreader„ classic “she gifted me cookies” trope„ about 11 y/o Mimi and Nana„ just go ahead and try to pry awkward!reader from my cold dead hands why don’t you„ slight emeto/discussion of unhealthy eating patterns„ a little blood but not gorey„ healing„ b-day boy geto!
᭙ᥴ 𓏲ּ𝄢 𝟝.𝟛𝕜
“My wife’s cooking for my birthday, actually.”
Like dominos knocking each other into collapse, Satoru, Shoko, and Kento’s heads all swivel to Suguru, their expressions falling in unison, curdling sour with something like distress and hope. Just a smidge of hope— hope that he’d slap his knee and nyuck nyuck them with a “just kidding!”
A silence lazes over the break room, Suguru seated at that little table against the wall looking on at his friends without an ounce of remorse. Prideful, even, at his statement. Everyone else who’s standing has gone still, their attention trained on Suguru, waiting for him to sike them out.
…oh he’s not. He’s still smiling. Oh god.
Even Yu’s ever-present puppy grin coin flips into a faltering press of teeth, sucking in a breath and murmuring out a painful, “oooh…”
Nanami clears his throat, the first to speak.
“Let’s not make her go through the trouble,” He found himself saying hastily, finger hooking to adjust his shirt collar in a rigid series of movements. “You should both relax. Besides, Gojo already offered to buy everyone dinner, it’d be rude to turn it down.”
Nanami? Concerned with disrespecting Gojo?? Suguru’s brows pull together and he glances towards the window minutely to make sure grass is still green.
Haibara’s quick to jump on that train, head nodding exuberantly as he claps his hands together— almost a pleading gesture. “Yeah! Let’s just all go out, chillax, grab a bite n’ few drinks and—“
“—HER FOOD TASTES LIKE HOW RARERAREMON LOOKS.” Satoru gags over Haibara’s placation, an overdramatic shudder causing him to spasm some weird little wriggle.
He squeezes his eyes shut, tongue lolling. “Guhhh, I feel sick just thinkin’ about it. There’s probably some curse out there manifested by fear of her cooking, blegh!”
Shoko pinches him, eyeing him disapprovingly with a scoff. “That’s not—“ True? “—the way you should say it.”
She shakes her head when Gojo poutily mutters something along the lines of we were all thinking it as he rubs his side, folding her arms as her lazily lidded gaze shifted to Suguru.
“Geto, I mean this as nicely as I can put it, because I love your wife more than you do.” She leveled dryly. “Girl can’t cook. Like, at all. Let’s give her a break and go karaoke.”
Nobody argues.
It’s probably not the feedback any husband wants to hear from his closest friends regarding his wife, but it’s not like Geto didn’t entirely expect this reaction.
He knows that— by traditional standards— you’re no critically acclaimed chef.
But in truth, he’s no critic either.
Suguru can’t remember exactly at what point his sense of taste diminished, it’s not one of those things you can pinpoint to an exact memory. It had to have been somewhere in his teens, just one day realizing his miso didn’t taste like miso.
No, now that he recalls, the taste of food had become the least of his concerns at that point, eclipsed entirely by the acrid sapor that was necessary for him to consume.
He used to take a bite, shift it around from one side of his mouth to the other, waiting for it. The comfort of a warm meal, of his most favorite indulgences to ground him. To remind him that just like everyone else he could still be pleased by something so simple. Food looked good, it smelled good. It looked familiar and weighed on a utensil like it was supposed to, but when it met his mouth he felt nothing. It mashed between his molars, diluted with his saliva and clung to the back of his throat like a weak perfume over the stench that was humanity’s worst.
Curses don’t go down like anything natural. They linger, make his body recoil on itself like anything that shouldn’t be inside it would. They coat his tongue, nestle into the soft parts of his mouth, make home in the cleaves of his teeth right near the gum. Smug and permanent. Kissing his taste buds like sulfur.
It’s not something he could ever rinse with water, brush raw, or floss away. They sat stubborn and stagnant as bristles scraped futilely, even when he couldn’t recognize the metallic tang of his own blood until he was spitting it into the cavern of the sink, ruddied foams of white swirled mockingly with a minty blue he imagined was spicy and fresh.
He used to gorge right after.
Shovel in as much as he could to overwrite the residue curses left. Salty, sweet, sour, savory, spicy, umami, bitter. All faint and trapped beneath the flavor of something wrong, until his stomach protested. A fruitless effort, he learned eventually.
It didn’t disappear all at once, but it eroded. Sanded down slowly, until the memory of eating and feeling sated afterward was more akin to something he’d read in a book than something he actually experienced. Rice became a warm weight on his tongue, soup eventually just heat that stung any open wound in his mouth. Salt? Meat was a texture, sweetness existed as a concept that Satoru indulged in constantly, and sourness only if it was aggressive enough to bite through the numb.
And then eating became mechanical. Habit instilled by repetition over days, and weeks, and months, and years— since when he was small and new. But in those days it became action without reward, cruelly melding with his newest habit of taking in curse after curse. Over days. Weeks. Months. Years. Meal and mission were one blurred definition, joint disgust.
But he’ll still eat. If not for fuel, then for the questions to stop.
“Suguruuu, h’ve you lost weight?”
“Woahhhh duuude, you’re thinnin’ out! You look like Nanami—”
“—Hey.”
“You all good?”
“You hungry? Did you eat yet?”
“You okay?”
Ate earlier. Heat fatigue. He’ll eat later.
It all came from a good place, he’s sure. But it feels more like probing fingers than an extended palm.
In a restaurant it was a performance, pretending to savor what he couldn’t remember he was chewing as friends around him still found space for those small, menial disappointments that had become myth.
“This is waaayyy too salty.”
“How many calories do you think is in this?”
“Ughhh, I wanted something sweet!”
“What’d you wanna order again, Geto?”
At his name, Suguru’s head lifted from where he’d been blankly staring at the menu— pages of symbols and pictures all running together that might as well be the same word printed in a threat.
EAT.
But there was Haibara, grinning and staring expectantly for his choice. He smiled, a stretch of lips rehearsed for moments like these.
“Choose for me. Anything’s fine.” Everything was a varying shade of tolerable. After a moment’s thought, he added, “something sweet, maybe.” Satoru would probably end up picking off his plate.
All of it made him acutely aware of his own charade, how far away he was from the people he was sitting right next to. People who’ve never tasted a cursed spirit, who were still human enough to eat, and enjoy it. Praise or complain about what was on their plates.
No matter what was sitting before him, on smooth ceramic or in his hand, on a fork, pooled in a spoon, between his chopsticks. All of it was beginning to provoke the same reaction within him.
Just gaping his jaw with the intent of filling his mouth with something rancid disguising itself in different textures and colors and ‘flavors’ was starting to make his gut churn. Lazy, nauseous rolls beneath his ribs, sloshing, trying to prod and rise up his throat in a rush as if to punish him a second time.
He didn’t feel particularly nourished anymore. Food sat like a pile of stones when he could remember to eat it and managed to keep it down. Every swallow was a mistake, absorption or meal, it didn’t matter. He dreaded both with exhaustion, with the heavy clarity that nothing good waited for him at the end of either one.
So what was he doing this for?
For people, non-sorcerers that would never know the cost or the day to day toll. Who would keep committing horrible acts under his protection, at the cost of his struggle and the lives of sorcerers around him.
There was no longer really a question of what he would eat, just the why.
Why was he doing this? For who?
You, of course, were none the wiser to the depth of this turmoil.
A dull clunk! reverberates throughout the aisle.
You muttered some curse under your breath as you dropped a can of soda, shiny red aluminum rolling beneath the shelf you were stocking. The last month or so had been a blur of hazy summer days with a persistent sun and by night even harsher fluorescent lights buzzing overhead with the sharp scent of floral disinfectant biting at your nostrils.
You’d been working a lot of nights at this little 24-hour convenience store, donning the hideously patchwork-colored polo shirt because you needed a summer job to keep you busy and rack up some cash. But sometimes you debated whether or not the ¥1,075 wages were more worth than lounging around in your fuzzy socks binging movies and shows to your heart’s content.
You mourned such as you lowered yourself to your hands and knees, one elbow digging into the grout between the cool tiles as you stretched the other below the shelf and— yeesh, maybe you really should clean under here instead of skipping it every few nights.
A couple frustrated grumbles escape you as you peered under, cheek hovering dangerously over the un-mopped floor and fingers groping just the air before the can, when the little ring ring! of the storefront door’s bell chimed. Beyond this shelf and the next’s, you see a familiar pair of socks and sandals lay foot on the doormat.
With a final stretch you graze the side of the can into rolling towards you, snatching it before it can stray again.
“Gotchya,” you mutter to no one as push yourself back to your feet and set the thing back on the shelf, fleetingly considering how shaken up it was. Someone was sure in for a surprise when they opened that.
Only then do you swing your head around the shelf to glance at the customer that had ambled in.
You’ve seen him here several times before, always at varying times of night during your shift. Tall, broad-shouldered, with deep ebony hair sometimes loose, sometimes loosely tied back with stubborn strands slinking out and crowding his temples. Head hung slightly downcast like keeping it upright was becoming too much an effort, white shirt hollowed a bit around his collar bones, as if it was a size or two too big. He’s handsome, don’t get it twisted, but every visit he just looks more worn.
The man’s narrow eyes befall the hot case, drift to the drink coolers, and then briefly to you.
“Welcome in,” you chirped automatically upon eye contact, like you always did after staring at him a bit too long (which happens often.) He muttered some noncommittal thanks with a nod before wading into the store, towards the refrigerated section.
Your interactions always followed a sort of formula.
He comes in, you welcome him, he wanders around the store for a while, and turns up with some items at register. There you make a little small talk that’s become increasingly less awkward, and you bid him a good night.
Which, arguably, is about the normal routine for any store regular, but you guess you pay special attention to him.
When you first noticed his visits he used to approach the counter bearing tons of snacks, a slurry of different flavors. Just a splurge of low effort indulgences that were pre-prepared, things you could eat and enjoy without really thinking much of it. You’d make a bad joke about it being one of those days that you felt terrible for making him pretend to laugh at, and send him on his merry way with handfuls of plastic bags.
But that was quite some time ago. Now his visits were more spotty, and he never brought more than an onigiri or nikuman to the counter. Maybe it was rude, but you wondered, from the looks of him, if he ever ate more than what he bought from here. It was like he showed up now only when he either remembered or was reminded by his body that he needed to eat at least something, and chose this sucky konbini for his collations.
You’re staring again, you realize when he finally chooses something that he doesn’t seem like he’s particularly interested in and starts walking towards the register.
“How’s your night going?” You blurt conversationally as he approaches, finding yourself behind the counter before he could beat you there. To which he hums.
“How it usually goes,” like usual, smiling a pull of lips that’s practiced. He places a pork bun on the counter. “Just this, please.”
As you ring him up, you sift through a catalog of mundane conversation topics to fill the silence between clacks of the cash register and rustling of coins. The weather maybe? Or how his troublesome egomaniac friend’s doing that he’d brought up in a couple past talks— him or that peppy kōhai he seemed to be fond of and worry over.
Somehow you find the gull to ask, “do you like cooking?”
You bite down on your tongue the second the question stumbles out your mouth. Hopefully it doesn’t sound as probing as you actually mean it to be. You can’t help it, really. Watching him meander around the store like a half rotted corpse so many times has really started twisting some anxious little knot behind your ribs. You suppose it’s a bit better than blurting out “who died?” or “are you okay??” like you really wanted to.
His glazed eyes slid up from the greasy quartz to your face, regarding you with the curiosity of an unamused feline. Okay, so today definitely wasn’t a small talk day. But he humored you still.
“Not often,” he admitted, in a blink his eyes on the counter again. “I suppose I don’t find the time to.”
“Ah.” Without thinking, you respond. Mostly because you know if you don’t, the conversation will die here. “I do. I mean, I’m trying to learn.”
Your cadence is crooked somehow, sounding like you meant to add something then lost the nerve as you spoke. The air feels as stiff as your holding your shoulders— with painful, unnecessary awkwardness that you’ve brought upon yourself. You’ve really got a knack for talking your way into a proverbial corner.
“I’m bad at it,” you add quickly, falling back on self deprecation to hopefully smooth over this situation. “Like, bad bad. Like burn water bad.”
His lips twitch, not into what you might call a smile, but the tightness behind his expression definitely eases a tad. When he blinks, interest flickers in the inky hues of his eyes. He huffs a breath through his nose.
“Is that so?”
You nod, a bit too eagerly, a whole lot relieved that he didn’t just push the steamed bun back across the counter and walk out the door to escape the situation— which you totally wouldn’t have blamed him for.
“Yeah. But it’s pretty fun. I think if I keep trying at it I’ll, like, get the rhythm down, y’know?” You prattle, fingers tapping at the counter as the receipt prints. When it does, you tear it and secure it over the pork bun’s packaging— no bag, because you remember he’s politely declined it in some previous visit, and slide it towards him.
“Even when it turns out bad, though, at least I can say I tried,” you continue like you’re talking yourself into that affirmation. “Like, it’s slop, but it’s my slop…plus I kinda need to cut down my spending, and it’s cheaper than take-out, sooo…”
He hums again, not particularly dismissive or indulgent. “I’m sure.”
You’re just saying “Yeah.” another one too many times when the bell jingles, signaling another customer walking in, the moment stretching thin.
“Well,” you default back to script, self-consciousness cresting on you ten times stronger now with some stranger milling about. “You have a good night.”
He looks like he hesitates a second, like he might apologize for something or explain himself or— god forbid— force you to make more awkward attempts at small talk. But mercifully, he turns to leave.
“You too,” he replies automatically, and the bell tolls again with his exit.
Without him realizing, his visits start taking an incline into earlier hours of the night, while the sky is still bruised purple instead of ink black. Sometimes you’re there, and sometimes you’re not. Absurdly when you’re not, he feels cheated, somehow.
When you are there, though, you talk. And he means that in a very one-sided manner.
You tend to talk a lot when you get nervous, but he doesn’t mind that about you. Rather likes it, actually, it’s nice. It’s like putting a few yen into a guarantee-win pachinko and watching the little marbles spill out tumbling over one another. He’d only ever have to say a couple words at a time, sometimes surprise you with a full sentence or two. He listens more than he responds, and you babble more than enough to fill in the spaces between without expecting too much of him, or ever questioning his purchases despite it being so painfully obvious you wanted to ask.
You regale him with tales of annoyingly ardent customers with expired coupons, how you have to poke a hole in the buns before you microwave them, because last week you found out the hard way when one exploded in the microwave. And of your cooking exploits— which admittedly, sound less than lackluster. Or dare he say plain disastrous, but you aren’t ever without a new story somehow.
When he jokes about paying respects to your poor kitchen that takes the brunt of your chef’s journey, you groan in embarrassment and press your fingers over your eyelids and palms over your burning face as you sputter something about how if you keep trying you’re bound to get better, practice makes perfect and all that.
Like he said, it’s nice. It’s cute. It turns into something similar to routine.
Until one day you produce a small, carefully wrapped box from under the counter. Your palms look tacky, like they have to peel away from the packaging when you set it down.
Despite your stilted motions and intense expression about yourself, you seem…proud? Or maybe just more anxious than usual.
“I made these,” you say too fast. It’s almost too easy to watch you and tell where you’re derailing from lines you’ve rehearsed in your head. It lightens the threat the cutely wrapped package on the counter between you imposes on him. “For you. Or I guess— I tried to make them. This batch looked pretty edible. I think, so, yeah.”
He stares at the box, something vile twisting low in his gut. Not hunger, but trepidation.
He should refuse it, and he knows that. Accepting it means performing, pretending to enjoy something he knows he can’t, to revisit the familiar hollow disappointment he so often did. He’d like to smile, deflect, retreat back into indifference.
But he doesn’t need to look at your eyes to read your thoughts.
You’re watching him with wide eyes he can feel like spotlights, your braced patience already half way to disappointment regardless of the way you're trying not to make it completely obvious. Like you already anticipated his rejection, convinced yourself you misread something or overstepped somewhere.
Distantly, the questions that’ve been gnawing at him for months loom overhead.
What was he doing this for? Why was he doing this?
“They’re cookies. You don’t have to take them. They’re kinda okay?” You blurt in a rush, not allowing his contemplative silence to settle lest you cave in on yourself completely. “I think I used tablespoons on accident when I was measuring the baking soda. Or is it baking powder?— whatever the one is that’s supposed to be in cookies. I hope.”
His hand moves before he has the chance to finish the thought.
The pads of his fingers brush the soft fibers of the cloth wrap, tracing where it creased at the corners.
“…Thank you,” he murmured quietly, and the look on your face is worth the wave of nausea gaining traction in his stomach.
You’re grinning like you’ve just been handed a passing grade you weren’t expecting, relieved and crooked. Like he’s doing something for you rather than you for him. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
He doesn’t eat the cookies right away. And honestly, didn’t plan to eat them at all.
He’d just dump them out, pretend he did, and tell you they were good. It’s an easy lie he tells himself, he’s practiced at it.
He cements the actions in his mind despite the way he walks through the streets with the box gingerly tucked under an arm.
At home he sets the box on the table as he strolls by it, and lets himself forget about it.
He showers, rinses the day off his skin until the water runs lukewarm and the sensation between clean and numb blurs. He changes, tries to tend to some things. Plants he needed to water, a surface he hasn’t dusted in awhile, texts that feel so burdensome to respond to. The trash isn’t full enough to take out. Nor are there dishes to be done in the sink.
However when he circles back around to the kitchen, the cloth clad cookie box is still there. A pop of color in the dim space, patient and unassuming on the tabletop. And he just can’t seem to distract himself from it, not when the image of you standing there behind the counter wringing your fingers that were so obviously riddled with little burns from hastily grabbing a baking tray, claiming that you’d made them for him was so fresh in his mind after hours. For him.
When he opens the cloth wrap, it’s out of guilt rather than hunger.
And when he opens the box he finds…cookies?
Objectively, they’re bad. Just looking at them he can tell— lumpy little discs that are darkened a hideous brown at the edges and a gooey, sickening pale in the middles. Chocolate chips are measured by heart and distributed by an oligarchal system, some ‘cookies’ with more chips than dough and some with none at all.
Everything about them looks wrong, and muddled, and…frankly a bit pathetic.
He exhales from his nose. You really, really tried. At least these ugly cookies don’t look at him like they’ll pretend to taste good.
As he lifts one to take a bite, he can almost see it: you overmixing, using the wrong measuring cups. Apron smudged white and puffed cheeks flour dusted too, frowning as your head whipped between a bowl and instructions, muttering curses directed towards whoever made their recipe blog ridiculously impossible to navigate, refusing to quit when the first batch failed.
When he finishes the cookie, and then another, terribly unique, simultaneously crumbly and goopy texture dissolving away in his mouth, they don’t taste good. I mean, duh, just look at the things.
But the putridness of curses that always so eagerly latched onto whatever landed on his tongue is white noise. There and constant, but not overwhelming for once. Sickness doesn’t even curl beneath his ribs. They taste just like everything else he’s eaten in the past several months, but there’s sentiment in them that makes them bearable, dulling the worst of the taste.
He ends up wrapping the rest up, slow and more reverent than necessary, and sets them aside. They stay where they are on the table, a visible and intentional reminder.
“I liked them.” Suguru graces you with a smile on his next visit. His clothes still hang a bit awkwardly but at least the darkness beneath his eyes is not so harsh, though maybe that’s because of how immediate his grin reaches them. Unpolished and wide, a kind of smile that made him look boyish. “They were good, you did a wonderful job.”
He really expected you to fluster under the praise, but much to his surprise you angle your head and squint, giving him a sideways glance. “…you’re lying.”
He sputtered, his eyebrows hiking up his forehead as he blinks. “I’m not?”
“There’s just no way you actually ate those!” You accuse with folded arms, incredulity tugging your bottom lip forward. “I tried one and even I thought they were bad, you’re so lying.”
“I’m not!” Suguru repeats again, this time his words filtering through a chuckle as he leans forward against the counter, elbows planted on the surface and palms loosely clasped. “I’m not lying. Believe me, you’d know if I was lying.”
His eyes drift a bit as he makes that statement. That’s a lie in and of itself. He thinks himself a fairly good liar.
Your eyes narrow though, so maybe you did catch on to that scant hint of arrogance. Maybe you truly would know if he was lying.
“I did like them. Please,” He drapes himself a bit more over the counter, lips spelling your name for possibly the first time since you’ve met him, and it sounds so pleading, too. A shock darts through your system, at his cadence, sure, but also because you completely forgot he even knew your name. That he cared to remember it from your first introductions months ago. (Later you’ll realize you’re very clearly wearing your name tag.) “You’ll make me more, won’t you?”
“…I mean— I guess.” You murmur, your nail digging at some worn price sticker that’s been stuck to the oily counter since forever, eyes bouncing from one corner of his face to the gauge in his ear to his shoulder and back again. Anywhere but his eyes. “I guess we’ll see how long it takes for my food to kill you.”
He smiles softly at that, and it makes you feel unchecked warmth everywhere under your skin. “We will, won’t we?”
It’s not that you held some miracle cure— you didn’t make rice taste like good ol’ bland rice again. Didn’t bring sweetness back to mochi. Didn’t take away the mildewed tang of curses. But you gave him a reason to want to keep trying.
Instead of laying awake at night dreading, am I going to have to eat again? How soon? He could close his eyes musing, Oh god, what’s she going to try to make next? Burnt or undercooked? Both?? a smirk ghosting his lips.
Because if you’re going to put in the effort to try to make a meal for him, just for him, the least he could do was try to eat it. And he’d like to wager he’s maybe the best at eating your food. If nothing else.
You’re worth the effort.
That’s why when he pushes himself up from the table and turns fully to his friends all gathered in the break room, his eyes are upturned in tight little crescents. Mouth curved in a sharp sickle of a smile that just really radiates love for his wife.
Love for his wife, and sinister intent directed towards whoever dares to oppose him.
“You’re all invited to my birthday dinner,” Suguru reasserts calmly, the tranquil rumble of his voice seeming to leer like a warning. “You’ll eat it, and you’ll like it.”
“Scary,” seems to be the telepathical thought that links Shoko, Satoru, Kento, and Yu. Suguru could be that way when he wanted to be.
So they all turn up on the 3rd of February to the Geto household's doorstep, knocking at 6:00pm sharp.
Mimiko stands there to greet them, a doll stuffed in the hollow of one elbow and other hand on the door handle. Nanako’s next to her, head craned down to the tablet between her palms, tip-tapping away at the screen and barely sparing them more than a glance. The collar of her shirt is hooked up over the tip of her nose, a makeshift mask.
What’s truly noteworthy however is the fog, billowing out the opening the door made, thick and stinking like something evil just died in this house.
“Dad let Mom into the kitchen. Again.” Mimiko monotonously supplies the explanation that’s really not needed, but it doesn’t fail in inducing a fresh wave of apprehensive terror anyway.
Though it deters them, it doesn’t stop the group from depositing their shoes near the door. They’ll still find seats around the table, try to smile and not cry when you dish out servings of what looks like the uncensored version of dubious food from some video game.
It truly is impressive how consistently borderline inedible your cooking is even after years. Endearing to some, dreaded by others.
“Sorry, it’s not the best.” You apologize preemptively before they even lift their utensils, but that’s not gonna make any of the ‘food’ go down easier.
Everyone still thanks you, Nanami and Ieiri maybe a bit better at feigning gratitude than Haibara and Gojo. Yu tries, honestly really tries to look appreciative, but he looks more like he’s just been issued a suicide mission and trying to put on a brave face about it.
Satoru meanwhile tosses his eyes dramatically, muttering “no kidding,” under his breath— right before hissing sharply. Under the table, Shoko and Kento have crushed all ten of his piggies.
The girls duck under the table when neither you or Suguru are watching to scrape their portions off their plates and into the gaping mouth of the worm curse wriggling around on the floor, weaving through table and chair legs.
And when you threaten everyone with cake wearing a gentle smile, Satoru starts praying. Not for grace to any god, but that maybe by some slim chance the aforementioned dessert might be store bought. (It’s not.)
But it doesn’t really matter that by the end of the dinner everyone is looking green around the gills or that Nanako is already plotting her and Mimiko’s secret take-out order later in the night.
Suguru’s happy. Sitting at the head of the table like he’s hosting a perfectly ordinary birthday dinner and not an active biohazard. The way he’s situated with lax shoulders and chin propped in a palm after polishing off a second serving of what everyone else could barely stand to stomach a first of, speaks of fondness. And a touch of smugness, somehow.
He seems perfectly content letting everyone else at this table battle their own digestive systems, like he doesn’t even notice it.
But when Satoru’s literally muttering his first prayers (since last year’s birthday dinner at least) under his breath, you can’t help but notice. You lean towards your husband slightly, grimacing a bit in concern as you whisper.
“It’s not that bad this time, is it?” You wince. “…too much salt?”
The warmth of his hand covers yours, and without hesitancy he affirms, “it’s perfect,” tone gentle and sure, infinitely appreciative. “Thank you.”
ᥲᥒ 𓏲ּ𝄢 geunyang pogihae eochapi— eat it up, eat it eat it uuuup! I super headcanon geto having dysgeusia or hypogeusia (or combo of the two?) so I hope u enjoyed and see my vision! happy late birfdai to the princess himself <3
late + not proofread + I’m sick if this sucked pls dont kill me im new gennnn ૮ ྀིྀ◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ა but do not shy from sharing your thoughts, im eating the feedback like Geto ate those rank & stank cookies
RAAWRRRR this was so CUTE!!! yk what they say, food is the way to a mans heart (๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) hes so yummy i love how reader never shyed away from showing geto her efforts to cook and he silently supported her throughly the whole way even if it wasn’t that tastefully pleasant and her awkwardness (literally me) ARHGG this has officially turned me into a geto girly he loves his wife. ALSO THEY CONTRAST SO WELL OMG him always having that sick aftertaste from consuming curses constantly, and readers love and attempts to cook for him is better than a 5 star meal (╥_╥)
no because this IS actually such an issue, leaving hate on a fanfic is extremely insensitive and unnecessary as hell.. as well as leaving hate in someones inbox is just as disrespectful.. and why are we bringing authors down?
this is literally why people stop posting because theres ALWAYS THAT ONE PERSON.
dont like? dont read, but don’t go around leaving hate on other peoples fics or bring authors down because these authors keep fandoms alive, providing their creativity and passion, and it genuinely takes time and effort, its so discouraging
HAII MOOTIE AWE THANK YOU SM, i love your light blue theme!! it matches your apothecary diaries pfp so well (and makes me remember i need to start it HEHE.) EEK i also can’t wait to see your work!! ( ⸝⸝•ᴗ•⸝⸝ )੭⁾⁾
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