somebody else - ex!sukuna
ex!sukuna x ex!reader
synopsis: sukuna hates to watch you move on
content: 18+, MDNI, brief mentions of intimate moments, lots of sadness, mentions of emotionally unhealthy relationship, toxic relationship, anger, hurt no comfort, moving on after a breakup
wc: 2.1k
a/n: I was listening to Somebody Else by the 1975 when it hit me: ex bf Sukuna. This turned out heavier than I thought it would, but I think I want to continue drinking my sad juice. I loved being a little more creative and testing my writing like this, hope you enjoy (or not? idk sorry) <3
art by @hunnismokah <3
You laugh along at whatever the guy in front of you was saying, somehow missing everything he had said leading up to his soft chuckle. He had a nice smile, seemed to have enough of his life figured out, and he was sweet. The sweetness something you desperately craved in your life right now.
It had been a few weeks since you walked away. A few weeks since everything was so incredibly loud, but so quiet at the same time. So overwhelming, but so lacking. It was like that for the past two years, everything at once or nothing at all.
You thought that was normal, you thought losing part of yourself in a relationship was what people did. I mean, everyone talks about being each other’s half, but what they didn’t mean was halving yourself for another person. You learned the hard way that when people said their other half, they meant two people staying whole, and becoming one, together.
Three weeks ago you looked around at your life, looked at yourself in the mirror, and saw a stranger living a life you didn’t recognize. It was then that the fate you had been running from for months caught up. It looked back at you, showered light on the darkness you tried to hide, lifting the fog of devotion. Because that’s what it was with him, it was complete devotion. You thought it was love, in some twisted way, it probably was. But he was never capable of reciprocating love.
You packed that day, knowing exactly what time he would be home from work. Knowing exactly what he expected when he walked through the door, you waiting like you always did. Part of you wished you could have seen him walk through the door, what did he do when he realized you weren’t waiting on the couch like you normally were? You imagined him scouring the apartment, unable to find you, but being led astray by the remnants of you. Your scent, a hair tie you probably forgot, clothes you couldn’t fit in the few bags you took.
What did he do when he realized you were no longer there? He was short tempered, but he was never violent towards you. He was silent when you begged him for more, needed him more than what he was giving you. Did he throw you things away? Did he go out and fight at the bars? Or did he do nothing at all?
Even when he was his most volatile, you thought his indifference was a far greater punishment. You put yourself in a box, so as to not upset him, but when you slipped out of that box, the silence was deafening.
He wasn’t a good man, you don’t know why you stayed for so long. Why did you crave him the way you did? His charisma drew you in first, meeting while you were walking downtown with your friends. You were glancing over at one of them when you tripped, crashing into the man you didn’t know would strip you of everything and still ask for more.
So gorgeous, you remember thinking. Tall, muscular, a good sense of style. Then you noticed his pink hair, curling slightly at the ends, slightly overgrown. The tattoos covering his arms, even the ones on his face, those should’ve been the first sign of trouble. But instead, they captivated you. When you finally looked into his eyes, you were his. Drowning in the sea of carmine, every sense overridden by the man currently holding you up with one hand.
“You saved me,” you laughed lightly, oh how wrong you’d been.
You were drowning when you ended up on your sister’s doorstep, lost in everything you walked away from. Somehow feeling like you left what you knew of yourself back in your shared apartment. Ryomen Sukuna had taken over your life, and when you left him, you didn’t know what was yours and what was his anymore.
Your sister set you up on this ridiculous cafe date, the man in front of you, Shigure, was so kind. Not commenting on your lack of manners as you hardly spoke, hardly paid attention to anything he said. How could you when you weren’t looking at the familiar perpetual frown on the most handsome face you’d ever seen?
Was Ryo, no, Sukuna, on a date? Had he already been with other people? You felt sick as you excused yourself to the bathroom, quietly cutting into whatever Shigure was saying.
You splashed your face with cold water, trying desperately to bring yourself back to reality. To try to remember who you were before him, begging yourself to find out who you’d be after him. It wasn’t fair, if only he’d given you a little more. If only he’d been a little bit of a better man.
No.
You gripped the sink roughly, knuckles turning white as you forced yourself to look into your eyes. You gritted your teeth, trying to stop the well of tears from slipping down your cheeks.
A little more wouldn’t have been enough. You deserve more than what he was ever capable of giving. You should’ve walked away sooner.
By the time you were walking back to your apartment, you felt the weight of everything bearing down on you again. Your mind a constant whirlpool of thoughts, the loudest, the angriest being, why did you have to suffer so much even now?
-
Sukuna watched as you angrily swiped a few rogue tears from your cheeks as you headed towards the tiny room you called an apartment. He doesn’t know why he started doing this, whatever this was. Watching you from afar, watching as you struggle to put yourself out there again.
The darkest part of him secretly enjoys your struggle. Knowing that he experienced you in your most vulnerable, that he knows the notes to every song that composed you. He doesn’t know what he’ll do the day you follow someone to their apartment, or bring someone back to yours. Nobody deserves to know you that intimately, least of all him.
But he’s a terrible man, so he wants it all for himself anyway.
He doesn’t know why he started following you, maybe that dark place inside of him felt like he was atoning for all the times he brushed you off. All the times he dimmed your light, sucking it up with the darkness inside of him.
You don’t know how much he hates himself. Knowing that you were drowning, and he never tried to save you. He was already dead the day you found him, drowned by his own darkness and living at the bottom of nothingness. It begged him to let you drown too, it begged because it believed that if you drowned, you would be with him. You would be stuck and you would never leave.
It didn’t allow him to see that you were light, you were everything good he never had or understood. When you were too close, it burned. It burned away that darkness and it hated that, no it wanted you dimmer, not him brighter. He didn’t realize if he would’ve let you in closer, he could’ve burned brighter than he ever had in his entire life.
So he watched, he watched as you tried to find your spark again. Tried to light your life up again after being smothered by him for two years. Two years that were somehow the best years of his life, despite knowing they were the worst of yours.
He was a terrible man.
He took everything, and still asked for more. He took your sweet smiles, even if he wasn’t the one to earn them, he took them anyway. He took your melodic laugh, letting it become the beacon of light in his life, even if he wasn’t the cause for your laughter. He took your reverent touch, even if he didn’t deserve to be wanted by something so pure.
It continued like this, watching as you went on more dates as time continued to pass. Watching as you let yourself open up more, no, as you found the parts of yourself you had buried under the surface. It was like seeing you for the first time, and he hated it.
Sukuna hated seeing every part resurface, because that was a part you had buried when you were with him. It was a fatal hit every time he saw something new, something forgotten.
When he saw you laugh for the first time, he realized how much he hated it. It wasn’t for him anymore, so he hated it. Was your laugh ever really for him in the first place though? No, so he hated it more.
When he saw you hold hands with someone, he hated knowing how your hand felt in his. Knowing that those hands would never be felt on his skin again, his hatred burned brighter.
When he saw you kiss someone for the first time since you left him six months ago, his rage could’ve burned the world down. The memory of your lips on him was scalding, his body remembering every single press of your lips against it. He hated you unbelievably in this moment, like he had never known you in the first place, his hatred for you was all consuming.
Until it wasn’t, until he was taken back to the day he came home and you weren’t there.
He opened the door, throwing his keys on the counter before removing his shoes. He remembered he hadn’t even glanced at you before hanging his coat up, he had gone through everything before he finally looked at the couch. The empty couch.
You were probably in the room or bathroom, he figured. Not a care in the world as he stepped into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. He even opened the fridge and grabbed a small snack before he settled on the couch. He turned on the TV and started watching, after some time, he noticed you still didn’t appear.
When he entered your room, saw the items strewn about every surface, it made no sense in his mind. Even with the closet door still open to reveal the truth, his mind refused to acknowledge it. It looked like you had torn shirts off hangers, ripped the drawers open and grabbed handfuls of clothing.
It still didn’t process in Sukuna’s mind, what that really meant.
Not until he saw the note on his bedside table, five words scrawled in your familiar handwriting. Five words that would be burned in his mind until the day he died. Five words that altered the axis his life was situated on.
I can’t do this anymore.
He wished there was more. More anger, more sadness, more words. Anything more than this overwhelming nothingness that began to blanket his life again. He wanted more, something that he could rage at, because he knew how to rage best of all. He silently begged for an explanation for it all as he reread those words over and over.
It wasn’t until his knees hit the floor, that the explanation came rushing into his mind. Bright and all consuming like the sun.
When you kissed him, and his body stayed rigid. When you laughed all he offered was a silent stare. When you wanted to dance, he stayed rooted in place. When you cooked, he couldn’t even offer you a thank you.
He gave you scraps, if even that, and it wasn’t enough.
He fell towards the bed, his arms coming out to catch him, when the scent of you surrounded him. Then the rage hit. He was a fool, thinking he knew what rage was, thinking of it like a familiar friend. This was different, something he’d never known, so boundless. It destroyed every thought in his mind as he replayed every moment he failed you. You were the best thing in his entire life, a wish that was granted to him despite never having the courage to wish for it in the first place.
A gift given to him, given to someone so unwilling, who acted perfectly in his predetermined role until the very end.
He never deserved you, and he certainly acted that way. It’s why he punished himself, watching you find happiness while he was cursed to live a life in darkness. He would never bring himself to look for anyone again, not when you appeared in his life and he took it for granted.
He couldn’t bring himself to want you anymore, to crave your presence, it wasn’t fair to you. So he watched, and a piece of him chipped away every time. A piece he knew he would never get back, but it was yours to begin with anyway. It was a piece of himself he should’ve given you when you were his, which is why he gave it so freely now.
He was a terrible man.
So he gave when you couldn’t accept it. Silently watching you build a relationship, as he hated himself for losing the sunlight in his life of darkness.
a/n: this turned out differently than I originally thought, but I don't dislike the way it went. I think I enjoy writing sad stuff, oopsie