"She had spent her whole life learning how to be careful—careful with her body, her voice, her heart, and the truth of who she was.
Then Sukuna entered her life, all sharp edges, quiet obsession, and dangerous tenderness. He was not soft with the world, but with her, he became something close to gentle.
A secret romance between a trans woman still learning she deserves to be loved openly, and a man who makes it impossible for her to feel hidden."
cw; smut. fluff. homophobia (from parents)
one | two | three | four | five | six | seven
You had learned very young that softness made people cruel.
Not everyone, perhaps. But enough people.
Enough that you understood how quickly a gentle voice could become an invitation for ridicule, how a delicate face could make grown men feel entitled to harden you, and how anything beautiful or tender inside a child could be treated like a defect if it did not fit the shape others had chosen for them.
Your father had been the first person to teach you.
“Speak up.”
“Stand straight.”
“Stop moving your hands like that.”
“Don’t be a pussy.” The words had followed you through childhood like stones dropped into your pockets, one after another, until you learned to walk beneath their weight.
You had always been soft-spoken. Even before you understood yourself, your voice carried a quiet, feminine sweetness that made strangers occasionally hesitate over how to address you. Your face had remained smooth and gentle as you grew older, with wide eyes, soft cheeks, and lips your mother sometimes accused you of pouting when you were only sitting silently.
Your father hated all of it.
He hated the way you preferred drawing to sports. He hated the way you sat with your knees together. He hated that you did not laugh at the same jokes he did or look at girls with the hunger he insisted every teenage boy should have.
When you were eleven, he threw away a sketchbook filled with dresses because he said it was embarrassing.
When you were fourteen, he cut your hair himself after he found you growing it past your ears.
When you were seventeen, he found a pink shirt hidden beneath your mattress and asked whether he had failed to raise a son.
You never answered him.
You learned silence was safer.
But silence did not erase who you were.
By nineteen, you knew.
You had known for years, perhaps, but now you had words for it. Quiet words spoken only inside your own mind. Words read late at night on the glow of your phone beneath your blankets.
Girl.
Woman.
Transgender.
You had been assigned a life that never fit correctly, like clothing stitched for someone else and forced over your body anyway. Every morning, you woke and performed the version of yourself your parents demanded. You put on the loose shirts your father approved of. You lowered your voice when you remembered. You allowed him to call you his son while something inside you folded smaller and smaller.
But in private, you let yourself breathe.
You wore soft panties instead of boxers, ordered discreetly and hidden beneath ordinary clothes in the bottom of your dresser. You wore pink tank tops under your shirts, small slips of color pressed close to your skin where no one could see them.
You kept your hair in a short pixie cut. It was longer and softer than your father preferred, but short enough that he could still pretend it was masculine. You styled it carefully when you were alone, sweeping the fringe over your forehead and imagining how it might look brushing your shoulders one day.
And every week, behind a locked bedroom door, you gave yourself the hormone injection that felt like both terror and hope.
No one knew.
Not your parents.
Not the boys at school.
Not your roommate.
Especially not your roommate.
Your father had chosen the college for you.
An all-boys technical university.
According to him, it would “straighten you out.” The words had made your stomach twist when he said them over dinner, one hand wrapped around a glass of beer as if he were announcing a generous gift. “You need to be around men,” he said. “Real men. Enough of this art nonsense.” You had stared at the food on your plate. “I wanted to apply to an art program.”
“Art doesn’t pay.”
“I could—”
“You’ll study engineering.” You had looked toward your mother.
She kept eating.
Your father leaned back in his chair. “You need structure. Discipline. Something that’ll make a man out of you.” The cruelest part was not that you disliked engineering.
It was that you loved art.
You loved color. Shape. The way a pencil could turn a blank page into a face, a landscape, a dress, a world. You loved creating things that did not have to support weight or withstand pressure or prove their usefulness through numbers. Art had always been the one place you did not have to be useful. But your father had filled out the applications. Chosen the major. Paid the deposit. He reminded you frequently that you should be grateful.
So you went.
The apartment was the only mercy.
The university offered shared student housing, but your father decided the dorms would be too distracting. He arranged for you to split a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks from campus with another engineering student whose family knew someone connected to the school.
Ryomen Sukuna.
The first time you met him, you considered calling your father and begging for a dorm room.
Sukuna was enormous.
He stood six foot five, broad through the shoulders and chest, with the body of someone who spent almost as much time lifting weights as he did attending lectures. His pale pink hair was buzzed close to his head, making the sharp structure of his face even more striking. He had red eyes, dark brows, and a permanent expression that suggested he found most of the world mildly irritating.
He looked exactly like the sort of man your father wished you would become.
Loud without raising his voice.
Confident without effort.
Masculine in a way that seemed carved directly into his body.
You disliked him immediately.
Not because he did anything.
Because you were terrified of him.
On moving day, you stood in the apartment’s narrow living room with your arms wrapped around a box of art supplies you had lied and called school materials.
Sukuna looked at you once.
Then again.
His gaze moved over your small frame, your soft face, your short hair, and the oversized gray sweatshirt hiding the pink tank beneath it. “You the roommate?” he asked, you nodded. “Yeah.” Your voice came out too soft.
You waited for his expression to change.
For the smirk.
For the question.
Why do you sound like that?
Instead, he jerked his chin toward the hallway. “Room on the left is taken.”
“Oh.” You shifted the box in your arms. “Okay.”
“The closet in yours is bigger.” You looked at him in surprise.
He shrugged. “I don’t have much shit.” That had been your introduction.
For the first few weeks, the two of you moved around each other cautiously.
Or rather, you moved cautiously around Sukuna.
Sukuna did whatever he wanted.
He walked through the apartment shirtless after the gym. He left enormous containers of protein powder on the kitchen counter and complained whenever you moved them. He played music too loudly while studying and cooked portions large enough to feed four people, then stared at you like you were unreasonable when you declined a plate. “You need to eat,” he said one evening.
You sat at the small dining table with a textbook open in front of you, though your sketchbook was hidden beneath it.
“I ate earlier.”
“What?”
“A sandwich.”
“That’s not food.”
“It is literally food.”
“It’s bread pretending to be a meal.” You looked toward the stove, where he was stirring something in a pan. “I’m not very hungry.”
“You’re built like a paperclip.” You frowned.
He pointed the wooden spoon at you. “Eat.” You should have been offended.
You were, a little.
But ten minutes later, there was a bowl in front of you.
It was good.
You hated that too.
Despite his appearance, Sukuna was not quite what you expected.
He was rude, certainly.
Blunt.
Loud when he was irritated and entirely unconcerned with whether his opinions hurt someone’s feelings.
But he was not cruel.
There was a difference.
He did not mock your voice.
He did not tell you to stand differently or sit differently. He did not complain that you took too long in the bathroom or that the soaps you bought smelled like roses and vanilla.
He complained about the price instead.
“You spent twelve dollars on soap?”
“It lasts a long time.”
“It’s soap.”
“It smells nice.”
“It smells like a garden threw up.”
Yet three days later, you noticed him using it.
You did not mention it.
Sukuna also noticed things.
Too many things.
You had realized that within the first month. He noticed you never changed clothes with your bedroom door open, not even when he walked around in his underwear without shame.
He noticed you did laundry late at night.
He noticed you had more packages delivered than someone who claimed not to shop often. He noticed you always wore an undershirt, even when it was warm. He noticed that sometimes, when you thought he was not looking, you stared at girls’ clothes in store windows not with desire, but longing.
He did not know what any of it meant.
But he knew there was something.
One night, while the two of you sat on opposite ends of the couch, Sukuna talked casually about a girl he had slept with after a party.
You tried not to look uncomfortable. “She wouldn’t stop talking afterward,” he said, scrolling through his phone. “Kept asking if I wanted to go get breakfast.” You looked down at the engineering assignment on your lap. “Maybe she liked you.”
“Bad judgment.” You smiled faintly.
He glanced at you. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You ever been with a girl?” Your stomach dropped.
You turned a page, though you had not read the first one. “A couple.” The lie came out weakly.
Sukuna studied you.
You could feel it. “What were they like?” he asked.
You scrambled for an answer.
“Pretty.”
“That’s descriptive.” You shrugged, trying to look uninterested. “I don’t know.” He kept staring. You hated how easily his gaze seemed to strip the lies from you. “You like blondes?” he asked. “Sure.”
“Brunettes?”
“Yeah.”
“Redheads?”
“Also fine.” His mouth twitched. “You don’t give a shit about women.” Your eyes widened. “What?”
“I said you’re bad at talking about them.”
“I like girls.”
He lifted one eyebrow.
You forced yourself to meet his eyes.
The room felt too warm.
Then Sukuna looked back at his phone. “Whatever.” He never brought it up again.
But after that, you caught him observing you more often.
Not maliciously.
Curiously.
Like you were an equation with missing information.
You became even more careful.
Your hormones stayed hidden in a small insulated pouch behind a stack of old textbooks in your closet. You disposed of the needles away from the apartment. You wore loose shirts around the house even as subtle changes began shaping your body.
Your skin became softer.
The angles of your face gentled.
Your chest had begun to develop, only slightly—a small fullness that could still be hidden beneath layered clothing but was impossible to ignore when you stood undressed before the mirror.
You loved it.
You feared it.
Every change brought a warmth so intense it almost made you cry, followed immediately by panic over who might notice.
Sukuna noticed.
You knew he did.
Sometimes his eyes paused at your chest before moving away, his brow furrowing as if trying to remember whether you had always looked that way.
He never asked.
Not until the night he walked into your bedroom.
It was late, a little after eleven.
You had finished showering and were preparing for bed. Your bedroom door was shut but not locked, something you usually never forgot.
That evening, exhaustion made you careless. You stood near the foot of your bed wearing purple panties and a pink tank top. The fabric clung gently to your body, revealing the small curve of your chest. Your hair was slightly damp from the shower, the pixie cut falling softly around your face.
For once, you felt comfortable.
Not disguised.
Not hidden.
Just you.
You were folding the shirt you had worn that day when the door opened. “Did you take my—” Sukuna stopped.
Your entire body went cold.
He stood in the doorway wearing a black shirt and gray sweatpants, one hand still curled around the doorknob.
His red eyes moved over you once.
Not slowly.
Not hungrily.
Simply taking in the truth of what he saw.
Your purple panties.
The pink tank top.
Your bare legs.
The small but unmistakable swell beneath the fabric over your chest.
Your eyes widened.
For a heartbeat, neither of you spoke.
Then Sukuna looked away. “My bad,” he said. “Should’ve knocked.” He began to pull the door closed. “Wait.” The word escaped before you could stop it.
Sukuna paused.
You grabbed the nearest blanket from the bed and held it awkwardly in front of yourself, humiliation burning across your face and down your neck. “It’s not what it looks like.” He turned his head back toward you.
His expression was strangely blank. “You’re in panties and a tank top.” Your stomach twisted.
He nodded toward you. “It’s exactly what it looks like.” You could not breathe, your fingers tightened around the blanket. Sukuna leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, still keeping his gaze mostly on your face. “And it’s fine.” You blinked. “What?”
“I don’t care.” You stared at him, certain you had misunderstood.
He gestured vaguely toward your clothes. “It suits you.” Heat rushed violently into your cheeks.
You looked down.
The room seemed to tilt under the weight of relief, embarrassment, and fear colliding inside you. “You don’t think it’s weird?” Sukuna frowned. “Why would I?”
“Because…” Your voice faltered. “Because I’m supposed to be a boy.”
The last word felt ugly in your mouth.
Incorrect.
A label stuck to the wrong thing.
Sukuna watched you for a long moment.
Then his gaze shifted toward the bed. “You gonna stand there holding that blanket all night?” You looked behind yourself, then sat down slowly on the edge of the mattress.
The blanket remained gathered against your lap.
Sukuna stayed in the doorway.
For the first time since you had met him, he looked almost uncertain.
Not disgusted.
Not angry.
Just careful.
“You trans or something?” he asked.
The question was blunt.
Very Sukuna.
But there was no cruelty in it.
Your heart pounded so loudly you wondered if he could hear it.
You stared at your hands.
There were two choices.
Lie, as you always did.
Or trust him.
You did not know why the second option felt possible. Perhaps it was the fact that he had looked away when he entered. Perhaps it was the casual way he said it suited you, as though the sight of you in feminine clothes required no justification. Perhaps you were simply exhausted from holding yourself alone.
You nodded.
The motion was tiny. “Yes,” you whispered.
Sukuna remained still.
You forced yourself to continue before fear could close your throat. “I feel like a girl. I mean…” You swallowed. “I am one. I think I’ve always been one. I just didn’t know how to say it.” He nodded slowly. “My parents don’t know,” you added quickly. “They can’t know.”
“Why?”
“They’re homophobic. Transphobic too, probably. My dad already hates how I am.” Sukuna’s jaw tightened. You looked down at the purple fabric covering your thighs. “He put me here because he thinks being around men will fix me. He forced me into engineering too. I wanted to study art, but he said it was useless.” Sukuna’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But something dark moved through his eyes. “That’s fucked up.” A fragile laugh left you, though nothing was funny. “Yeah.” He crossed his arms. “So what are you doing to transition?” You looked up quickly.
The question surprised you.
Not because of what he asked.
Because he made it sound so ordinary.
As though transitioning was simply a process you were engaged in, something practical that could be discussed without shame.
“You mean medically?”
“Yeah.” You hesitated. “I take hormone shots.” Sukuna’s eyebrows lifted. “You do?” You nodded. “How long?”
"Secretly... since I was 16.” His eyes moved over you again, and this time you understood the look. He was connecting details. Your softer skin. The subtle changes in your face. The small swell beneath the pink tank top.
His gaze paused briefly at your chest.
You instinctively pulled the blanket higher.
He looked back at your face immediately. “That explains it,” he said.
Your cheeks burned.
“Explains what?”
“You’ve been changing.” Panic flickered through you. “Is it obvious?”
“To me.” Your stomach dropped, Sukuna must have seen the fear on your face, because he uncrossed his arms. “Not like that,” he said. “I live with you. I notice shit.”
“Oh.”
“No one else probably knows.” You let out a breath.
Silence settled between you.
Then Sukuna nodded toward your hair.
“You should grow it out.” Your fingers lifted unconsciously, brushing the short strands near your ear. “You think so?”
“Yeah.” He studied your face with the same blunt concentration he gave nearly everything. “You’d be a really pretty girl.” The words struck you so softly they hurt.
You stared at him.
Your lips parted, but nothing came out.
No one had ever said that to you before.
Not as a joke.
Not as an insult.
Not as a distant possibility.
A girl.
A pretty girl.
He said it like you were already halfway there. Like he could see her standing in front of him beneath the short hair and frightened eyes.
Your vision blurred.
You looked down quickly, blinking hard. “Thanks,” you whispered.
Sukuna shifted awkwardly in the doorway.
He was clearly unprepared for tears.
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m trying not to.” He sighed and walked into the room at last, closing the door behind him.
You tensed automatically.
He noticed. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not gonna do anything.”
“I know.” He stopped a few feet away, then leaned back against the wall rather than coming closer. You appreciated that more than he could know. “You don’t have to hide it from me,” he said.
You looked up.
Sukuna shrugged one shoulder.
“Wear whatever you want in the apartment. I don’t give a shit.”
“My parents could visit.”
“Then you hide it when they visit.”
“They might call.”
“They can’t see through the phone.” You smiled faintly.
His expression softened by a fraction. “And I’m not telling anyone,” he added. “So don’t worry about that.”
“You swear?” His eyes narrowed, offended. “I said I wouldn’t.” That, apparently, was stronger than swearing.
You nodded. “Okay.” He pushed away from the wall. “I’ve got your back.” There was no grand speech.
No dramatic promise.
Just those four words in Sukuna’s rough, matter-of-fact voice.
But they settled over you like warmth.
For years, you had imagined telling someone.
In those imaginings, people shouted. They cried. They demanded explanations. They asked how you could be sure or whether someone had influenced you or why you could not simply remain the person everyone believed you were.
You had never imagined this.
Sukuna walking into your room, seeing everything, and deciding within minutes that protecting you was the obvious next step.
Your fingers loosened around the blanket. “Thank you.” He nodded.
Then his eyes moved toward the floor. “My charger in here?” You blinked. “What?”
“My phone charger. That’s why I came in.” You looked toward your desk.
A black cable sat beside your laptop. “Oh. Yeah.” Sukuna crossed the room and picked it up.
You watched him, still dazed.
At the doorway, he paused.
Then he looked back at you. “What name do you want me to use?” Your breath caught. You had not expected that. “I…” You glanced down. “I haven’t picked one.”
“Then figure it out.” His tone was impatient, but his eyes were not. “You don’t want me calling you some name you hate forever.” A shy smile touched your lips. “Okay.”
“And pronouns?”
“She,” you whispered.
Sukuna nodded once.
“She.”
Your chest tightened.
He said it easily.
No hesitation.
No confusion.
Just she.
Then he opened the door.
“Sukuna?”
He looked back.
You held the blanket close, though now it felt less like armor. “Do you really think the tank top suits me?” His eyes moved briefly over the pink fabric. “Yeah.”
“And the panties?” His mouth tilted into the beginning of a smirk. “Purple’s a good color on you.” Your face burned bright red. Sukuna gave a quiet laugh, stepping into the hallway. “Go to sleep, princess.” The door closed behind him.
You remained sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the place where he had been.
Princess.
You lifted one hand to your chest, feeling your heart race beneath your palm.
For the first time since arriving at that school, the apartment did not feel like another place where you had to hide.
It felt, just slightly, like home.
The first week after Sukuna learned your secret, nothing changed.
And somehow, everything did.
He did not suddenly become gentle. Sukuna was still Sukuna. He still complained when you left mugs in the sink instead of rinsing them. He still stole the remote and insisted the movies you chose were too slow. He still called your homework “embarrassing” when you asked for help, then sat beside you for two hours correcting every equation until you understood it.
But there were small differences now.
He knocked before entering your room.
Every time.
Even when the door was already open, he tapped his knuckles against the frame and waited until you looked up. Sometimes you told him he could come in, and sometimes you said you were busy, and he accepted either answer without complaint. He never mentioned the pink tank top or the purple panties again, though once, while the two of you were putting away groceries, he pulled a bottle of strawberry-scented lotion from one of the bags and tossed it toward you.
You caught it clumsily against your chest.
“What’s this?”
“You were out.” Your eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“The bottle in the bathroom was empty.” You stared at him. Sukuna put a carton of eggs into the refrigerator. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I didn’t ask you to buy it.”
“I was already at the store.”
“You usually say it smells like candy.”
“It does.”
“And you hate it.”
“I hate hearing you complain about dry hands more.” You had smiled down at the bottle until your cheeks hurt.
He noticed when you wore a little gloss around the apartment too. At least, you thought he did. His eyes occasionally lingered on your mouth for half a second longer than usual, his expression narrowing as if he were trying to determine whether something had changed. But he never asked, and you never explained.
The word princess remained between you as well.
He did not use it constantly. That would have made it feel like teasing. Instead, Sukuna used it sparingly, usually when you were anxious or when he wanted to make you blush. He said it with a careless ease that made your heart skip, as though the name belonged to you naturally.
You still had not chosen another name.
You had written possibilities in your sketchbook, tucked between studies of faces and clothing designs, but none felt entirely yours yet. For now, hearing him call you she was enough. Hearing him say princess was more than enough.
It was Friday night when your father called.
You and Sukuna had both survived a long week of classes, assignments, and cafeteria food that even Sukuna refused to eat. The two of you were stretched out on opposite ends of the couch with a bowl of popcorn between you, watching some terrible action movie he had chosen.
The main character had already survived three explosions, a car crash, and being thrown through a second-story window.
You sat with your legs folded beneath you, wearing soft gray pajama pants and an oversized sweatshirt. Beneath it was a pale pink camisole you had bought online and hidden from everyone except Sukuna. Your short hair had been freshly washed, and you had brushed a little clear gloss over your lips without thinking much about it.
Sukuna sprawled across the other end of the couch, one arm resting along the back cushions. He wore a black T-shirt and sweatpants, his pale pink buzzed hair catching the flickering light from the television. A bowl of popcorn rested on his stomach, though he kept eating the pieces you took rather than the ones he had brought for himself.
On the screen, the hero leapt from the roof of one moving car onto another.
You frowned. “He would’ve broken both legs.” Sukuna tossed popcorn into his mouth. “At least.”
“And probably his spine.”
“Definitely.”
“Then why are we watching this?”
“Because it’s funny.”
“It isn’t supposed to be funny.”
“That makes it better.” You reached for the popcorn and found the bowl empty. “You ate all of it.”
“You were too slow.”
“It was between us.”
“And yet.” You gave him an offended look, Sukuna lifted one eyebrow. “You want more?”
“No.”
“That means yes.” Before he could stand, your phone began vibrating on the coffee table.
The sound was soft.
Ordinary.
But the moment you saw the name glowing on the screen, your entire body went rigid.
Dad.
Sukuna noticed immediately.
His gaze shifted from the television to your face. “You gonna answer?” You swallowed.
The phone continued buzzing.
Your father rarely called simply to talk. His conversations were inspections disguised as concern. How were your grades? Were you making friends? Were you exercising? Were your classes difficult enough? Had college helped you “toughen up” yet?
You reached for the phone, but your fingers hesitated over it. “I have to.” Sukuna muted the television. “You don’t have to do shit.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“If I ignore him, he’ll keep calling. Then he’ll call the school, or the landlord, or drive here.” Sukuna’s expression darkened. You picked up the phone before it could stop ringing and pressed it to your ear. “Hello?” Your voice changed automatically.
It happened so quickly you hardly noticed anymore. You lowered it slightly. Straightened your back. Smoothed the softness from your tone. Every part of you pulled inward, hidden beneath the version of yourself your father expected to hear.
Sukuna noticed that too. “Finally,” your father said. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry. I was studying.”
The lie came easily.
Your father grunted. “On a Friday night?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good. Better than wasting time.” You looked down at your lap. Sukuna sat still beside you, his gaze fixed on your face. The bowl had been set aside. The movie remained paused behind you, frozen on the image of an exploding vehicle. “How are your classes?” your father asked. “They’re okay.”
“Just okay?”
“They’re going well.”
“You keeping up?”
“Yes.”
“You need to do more than keep up. I didn’t send you there to be average.”
“I know.”
The words left you quietly.
Small.
Sukuna’s jaw tightened.
Your father continued talking, complaining about tuition and the cost of textbooks, reminding you that engineering would give you a respectable career if you stopped daydreaming and applied yourself. You listened with your eyes lowered, agreeing whenever he paused.
Every sentence felt like another layer of clothing pulled over your real skin.
Your father did not know about the hormone injections hidden in your closet. He did not know about the camisole beneath your sweatshirt or the gloss shining faintly on your lips. He did not know Sukuna called you she when the apartment door was locked.
He did not know his son was slowly disappearing because his daughter had finally begun to breathe.
You had been thinking about changing your major for weeks.
Not to art. You knew that battle would end before it began. Your father would laugh, then shout, then threaten to stop paying tuition. You had considered it anyway, staring at the art program’s website late at night until the photographs of paint-splattered studios blurred through tears.
Architecture had seemed like a compromise.
It was not the same as fine arts, but it was closer to the things you loved. It combined structure with shape, mathematics with imagination. You could sketch. Design. Think about light, form, color, and the way people moved through space. There was engineering in it, enough that perhaps your father would not dismiss it immediately, but there was beauty too.
You had rehearsed the question for days.
Each time, your courage had failed.
That night, with Sukuna sitting beside you and your father’s voice filling your ear, you decided you were tired of waiting for bravery to arrive before speaking.
You took a slow breath.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
The words trembled slightly.
Sukuna looked at you.
You pressed one hand against your knee to stop it from shaking. “Once I finish my main classes, could I switch majors?”
Silence.
The wrong kind.
Your father’s voice changed when he answered. “Switch to what?”
“Architecture.”
“Architecture?”
“Yes.” A sharp laugh came through the phone. “Don’t be foolish.” Your stomach tightened. “It still uses engineering and mathematics,” you said quickly. “A lot of the classes overlap, and I’ve looked at the requirements. I wouldn’t be wasting what I’ve already taken.”
“You’ve been there for one semester and already want to quit?”
“I’m not quitting.”
“That’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“No, I just think architecture would suit me better.”
“Suit you better?” Your father scoffed. “That’s the problem with you. Everything has to feel good. You think life is about doing whatever suits you?” You stared down at your hands. “No.”
“Engineering is stable. It’s serious. You don’t need to start chasing some childish dream because the classes are difficult.”
“It isn’t because they’re difficult.”
“Then what is it?”
Because I hate it.
Because every time I sit in class, I feel like I am living the life you designed instead of my own.
Because I am tired of being forced into shapes that hurt.
Your throat closed around every honest answer. “I’m interested in design,” you said instead. “I’ve always been good at drawing. Architecture would let me use that while still having a practical career.” Your father made an irritated sound. “Here we go with the drawing again. I thought that school would finally get that art shit out of your head.” Your cheeks burned.
Across the couch, Sukuna’s face went cold.
You shook your head quickly, though your father could not see you. “It isn’t like that.”
“It sounds exactly like that.”
“I wouldn’t be studying fine art.”
“Architecture is just drawing buildings for people who couldn’t handle real engineering.” Sukuna shifted.
Your eyes darted toward him.
He was no longer lounging. He sat forward now, elbows resting on his knees, his expression sharpened by irritation.
You looked away and tried to keep your voice steady. “I’ve done research. It is a serious career.”
“You’ve always been too easily distracted,” your father said. “Someone probably put this idea in your head. Was it that roommate of yours?” You glanced at Sukuna again.
“No.”
“What’s his name? Ryomen?”
“Yes.”
“At least he seems focused. You should take a lesson from him instead of looking for an easier path.” Sukuna’s eyebrows rose.
You wanted to disappear.
Your father continued. “You’re going to finish engineering. I’m not paying for you to spend four years doodling houses.” Your eyes stung.
You blinked rapidly, refusing to cry while he was still on the phone. “Okay,” you whispered.
Sukuna looked at you.
Something in his face changed when he heard the surrender in your voice.
He leaned closer. “That’s actually a really cool career choice,” he said.
His voice was not especially loud.
It did not need to be.
Sukuna’s voice carried naturally, deep and confident, and your father went silent on the other end of the line.
You stared at him with wide eyes.
Sukuna looked toward the phone in your hand and continued as if he had been invited into the conversation. “Architecture’s hard as hell. More design work, but still technical. Some of the best engineers I know couldn’t do it.” Your mouth parted.
Your father remained quiet.
Sukuna leaned back against the couch, entirely at ease now that he had inserted himself into the discussion. “And architects make good money if they know what they’re doing,” he added. “She—” He stopped.
Your heart nearly stopped with him.
For the smallest fraction of a second, panic flashed through your body.
Sukuna did not react.
He corrected himself so smoothly that the pause might have meant nothing. “He’s good at design,” Sukuna said. “I’ve seen his work. Makes more sense than forcing him into something he doesn’t want.” You stared down at your lap, your pulse thundering.
Your father cleared his throat. “You think architecture is respectable?” Sukuna’s expression turned incredulous. “Obviously.” Another pause. You could almost hear your father reconsidering. Not because your argument had changed. Not because you had explained yourself poorly. He simply valued Sukuna’s opinion in a way he did not value yours.
The realization hurt.
But hope rose through the hurt anyway.
Your father exhaled. “Well.” You held your breath. “As long as you’re not doing that art shit,” he said, “I don’t care. If architecture still gives you a real career, then fine. You can switch after your main classes.” You looked up so quickly your neck hurt.
Sukuna’s mouth tilted faintly. “Really?” you asked. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t fall behind.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll need to talk to an advisor.”
“I know.” Your father sighed as though granting permission had exhausted him. “Fine. We’ll talk about it later. Your mother wants the phone.” Your mother spoke with you for less than two minutes. She asked whether you were eating enough and told you the weather had been cold back home. You answered politely, still half in shock, and promised to call again the following week.
When the conversation finally ended, you lowered the phone slowly.
For a moment, you simply stared at the dark screen.
The apartment was silent.
The movie remained paused.
Sukuna watched you from the other end of the couch.
Then your face broke open.
A smile spread across it, wide and bright and impossible to contain. It was not the small, careful smile you usually allowed yourself. It lifted your cheeks and softened your entire face, relief spilling through every inch of you. “I can switch,” you said.
Sukuna nodded. “Yeah.”
“I can actually switch.”
“You heard him.” You turned toward Sukuna fully. “I thought he was going to say no.”
“He did say no.”
“You changed his mind.”
“I said one sentence.”
“You made him listen.” Sukuna shrugged, though he looked pleased with himself. “Your dad’s an idiot.” A startled laugh left you. “He only agreed because you said it was respectable.”
“Still agreed.” You looked down at your phone, then back at him. “Architecture.”
The word felt different now.
Not like a secret possibility.
Like a door.
You could already imagine yourself standing over a drafting table, sketching windows and archways, thinking about color and space instead of only formulas. It was not the art program you had once dreamed about, but it belonged to you in a way engineering never had.
Your smile widened again.
Sukuna stared at you.
His eyes moved over your face, then settled briefly on your mouth.
You noticed.
“What?” He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You wearing something?” Your hand lifted to your lips. “What do you mean?”
“They’re shiny.” Heat touched your cheeks. “It’s just lip gloss.”
“Lip gloss.” You nodded, suddenly shy. Sukuna continued looking at your mouth as if he had discovered a new detail and needed time to process it. “You don’t like it?” you asked.
His gaze lifted to yours. “Didn’t say that.”
“Oh.”
“It looks good.” Your heart fluttered. “Thanks.” He nodded once, then reached for the remote as though the conversation had ended.
You watched him for another second.
He had defended your choice without hesitation. He had nearly called you she in front of your father and managed to protect you without drawing suspicion. He had looked at you and spoken with such certainty that your father, who never listened to you, had finally paused.
Gratitude swelled too quickly to remain contained.
Before you could think better of it, you moved across the couch and wrapped your arms around Sukuna.
His entire body went rigid.
You hugged him tightly, pressing your cheek against his chest. “Thank you so much.” Sukuna sat frozen beneath you. One of his hands still held the remote. The other hovered awkwardly in the air beside your back, as though he had forgotten what arms were designed to do.
You realized, belatedly, that you had never hugged him before.
Sukuna did not seem like someone people hugged.
He looked more like someone people moved out of the way for.
Embarrassment rushed over you, and you began to pull back. “Sorry. I just—” His free arm came around you.
The motion was stiff at first.
Careful.
His hand settled between your shoulder blades and patted twice in an awkward rhythm.
You almost laughed.
Sukuna clearly had no idea how to return affection, but he was trying. “No problem, princess,” he said.
Your eyes burned.
You tightened your arms around him again.
This time, his hand stopped patting and rested properly against your back.
For a few quiet seconds, neither of you moved.
You could hear his heartbeat beneath your ear, steady and strong. His body was warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. He smelled faintly of soap and the spicy cologne he used too heavily because he claimed subtle scents were pointless.
Sukuna glanced down.
From where you rested against him, your short hair brushed his chin. Your lip gloss had left the faintest sheen against his black shirt, though neither of you noticed yet. “You good?” he asked.
You nodded against his chest.
“Yeah.”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re getting my shirt wet.”
“I’m really happy.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then his hand moved once along your back, gentler now. “Good.” You swallowed. “I hated engineering.”
“I know.” Your head lifted. “You knew?”
“You stare at your assignments like they killed your dog.” A laugh broke through the tears gathering in your eyes, Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “And your sketches are better than your calculations,” he added. “You should do something you’re actually good at.”
“That almost sounded nice.”
“It was an observation.”
“You could just say you think I’m talented.”
“I could.”
You waited.
Sukuna stared at you.
You stared back.
He sighed. “You’re talented.”
Your smile returned immediately.
He shook his head as though disgusted with himself. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.” You finally released him, though you remained closer than before, your knee touching his thigh on the couch.
Sukuna looked down at the spot where your lip gloss had marked his shirt.
He rubbed it with his thumb.
You gasped. “Oh no. I’m sorry.”
He looked at the faint pink sheen on his thumb.
“It’ll wash out,” you said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He glanced at your lips again.
The look lasted only a second, but something warm and strange passed through the space between you.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”
You looked away, cheeks burning.
Sukuna picked up the remote and restarted the movie.
The action hero was immediately thrown through another window.
Neither of you had any idea what was happening anymore.
You settled back into your corner of the couch, but not as far away as before. Sukuna did not mention it. A few minutes later, he set the popcorn bowl between you again, though it remained empty.
You looked inside.
“There’s no popcorn.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you put it back?”
He stared at the television. “Habit.”
You smiled.
After another moment, your shoulder leaned lightly against his arm.
Sukuna went still.
You almost moved away.
Then he shifted, not enough to make a show of it, only enough that your shoulder rested more comfortably against him.
The two of you watched the rest of the terrible movie that way.
You did not understand the plot.
Sukuna insulted every structural collapse on screen.
And beneath your sweatshirt, hidden against your skin, the pale pink camisole no longer felt quite so much like a secret.
Not with him beside you.
Not with the word architecture opening softly in your future.
Not with the lingering warmth of his awkward embrace still wrapped around your ribs.
For the first time in a long while, you let yourself imagine a life that belonged to you.
A studio table covered in drawings. Long hair brushing your shoulders. Dresses hanging openly in a closet instead of hidden beneath masculine clothes. Your father’s voice growing distant enough that it could no longer shape every decision.
You did not know what name you would choose.
You did not know how you would tell anyone.
You did not know how difficult the road ahead might become.
But Sukuna had looked at you in a pink tank top and purple panties and seen a girl.
He had heard your dream dismissed and called it cool.
He had made room for you without demanding that you explain every part of yourself first.
For now, that was enough.
More than enough.
Beside you, Sukuna glanced down at your small smile.
“What?”
You shook your head. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been smiling for ten minutes.”
“I’m allowed to smile.”
“It’s suspicious.” You laughed softly and leaned a little more firmly against him. “Thank you again.” He rolled his eyes, but he did not move away. “Go back to watching the movie, princess.”
You did.
Still smiling.
I was supposed to post this during Pride Month, but then it wa smy birthday month, finals, moving, and many mental break downs! #PRIDEFOREVER
thinking about the concept of a bodyguard au with abby….. like, how hot she would look in a suit with an earpiece…… and how tense she would be while escorting you through public spaces…… and how eerily calm she would be when she commits violence to protect you……..
if you’re maga or close to someone who is - hell, if you aren’t adamantly against maga - you really don’t belong in a fandom filled with queer people, women, disabled people and poc.
this comes from seeing a certain sevika writer agreeing with the stupid ‘it’s none of my concern if my friends are maga, we just need to love one another’ bullshit.
this is no longer ‘just political’. it is a complete lack of morals.
romaincrisis
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
