➴ childhood bsf trueform!sukuna x f!reader
[heian era canon adjacent au] - ongoing series
❝ the world is an unjust beast. it claws and tears until nothing remains but those cursed with the greatest gift of all; power. in another world, ryomen sukuna is the strongest sorcerer in history, capable of an evil no one can dream. but he was once a boy, and you were once a girl. now a devil with docked horns and an angel with tattered wings, you walk this world together, your curse to navigate side by side. ❞
➴ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. dark themes surrounding my interpretation of sukuna's upbringing and how it affects you both. graphic depictions of blood, gore, death, dismemberment, mutilation, cannibalism and hunted animals. character death. themes surrounding poor mental health. poor coping mechanisms. arguments. best friends to lovers. toxic codependency. child abuse & neglect. self-hatred. attempted self-mutilation. bigotry & period-accurate misogyny. vomit. eventual smut after both characters are over 18. angst. hurt/no comfort. eventual hurt/comfort. tragic lovers with a happy ending. dddne.
➴ wc ; estimated 100k.
➴ a/n ; huge shoutout to the artist i commissioned for the gorgeous art for this series, zb relic! please do not repost :)
i'll be trying out some shorter chapters with this series so rather than long chapters like my previous series, i'm hoping to get out more frequent shorter chapters!
ao3 || wattpad || main masterlist
1 / there is a hell, believe i've seen it
2 / true friends
3 / diamonds aren't forever
4 / teardrops
5 / blessed with a curse
6 / sleep with one eye open
7 / follow you
8 / run
9 / it never ends
10 / seen it all before
11 / and the snakes start to sing
12 / throne
13 / kingslayer
14 / there is a heaven, let's keep it a secret
➴ taglist ; OPEN. age must be visible in bio. 18+ only.
౨ৎ experienced!sukuna x virgin f!reader
[adult boutique au] - ongoing series
❝ chasing your dreams isn't all it's cracked up to be. your apartment shakes when the train passes and eating a scoop of peanut butter and calling it girl dinner is getting depressing. when you finally manage to land a job at a store that sells sex toys, it's possibly the biggest relief of your life. there's just one issue:
you're a virgin.
you don't know the first thing about toys and you don't want your cute and flirty white-haired co-worker to know. against your better judgement, you find yourself turning to your other co-worker for lessons and learn the hard way he's just as much of an asshole in bed as he is at work. ❞
౨ৎ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. fwb but you aren't friends. slow burn romance/fast burn smut. sukuna is 23ish, reader is 24/25ish. reader is sexually reserved but confident, nerdy, and a band geek. arrogant!sukuna. mild love triangle with gojo. dom!sukuna. mild corruption. size difference. sex toys & explorations of safety in kinks. destigmatization of virginity & sex. smut & piv. virginity loss. see masterlist for full cw.
౨ৎ wc ; 11.1k.
౨ৎ art ; ackshuallyvalerie
main masterlist || series masterlist || ⪡ prev || next ⪢
The door rattles on its hinges as the smell of approaching rain floods the shop’s interior. You can’t be sure whether the wind or Sukuna’s hand carries the door hard enough to slam on its hinges, his expression untelling. Little has changed since you asked him to be whatever the hell you are now two days ago, but you have noticed one thing, as small as it is.
His gaze lingers on you.
Not in the kind of way one might hope. You get the feeling that in spite of the fact that he’s still mildly inconvenienced by you, you equally surprised him. It’s as though he thought he had you figured out and now he’s trying to understand what he missed where once he was sure he had you read back to front like an open book.
It’s unnerving. The flapping of wings in the pit of your stomach is exchanged for a more ill-seated churning when Satoru leaves and Sukuna takes his place. Yesterday when you didn’t have the gumption to ask how the hell this arrangement was meant to work, you might have called it nerves, but by only day two, it’s just frustrating.
The brute glances up from whoever he’s texting, visibly fiddling with his lip ring that shifts each time his jaw ticks.
You meet his gaze from behind your phone, dropping the device from your gaze when he doesn’t waiver.
“Do you mind?”
His head tilts an inch, his chin raised just enough that his smirk feels condescending. “Not at all.”
You can’t decide whether you prefer Sukuna when the weather in his world is stormy or when it’s sunny and he’s amused. They’re a different brand of asshole.
“You know, asking you for help was pretty fucking hard to do in the first place,” you begin, frustrated with the theatrics of your co-worker. His brow cocks as you pin him in place with your words. “So I’d appreciate it if you stopped making me feel weird about it.”
His lips press into a thin line, any hint of amusement fading. “Look,” he begins with equal frustration. “I’m not trying to make you feel weird for asking for help. I don’t give a shit how you learn about what we sell, even if it’s because of Satoru. I told you that from the start. If you want someone’s instruction, whatever. That’s fine.” He pushes up off the counter, all six-foot-something of him towering over you. “You’re allowed to ask questions about sex, especially here. But you knew from the start what I’m like.”
The demeanor he carries himself with that gives you the sense he thinks he’s above not just you, but everyone, still simmers under his skin. You can see it in the way he carries himself, like that egotistical mindset never fades.
But you can’t be upset when he’s honest with you, and open too in the subject that makes your stomach flutter. His words aren’t comforting, but they settle your frustration and nerves. Something in the way he’s direct and has nothing to hide reminds you why you ever asked him in the first place.
Pushing his fingers back through his hair, he shakes his head. “Why not just tell Satoru you don’t have experience?”
Your shoulders rise and fall as you face him. “It’s not…” You sigh, your gaze falling. “Just about Satoru.”
“Then what’s it about? What’s getting to you so much that you asked me?”
Running your tongue over your lower lip, you worry it in between your teeth. When it takes you a moment too long to reply, Sukuna grunts questioningly again, pushing for an answer.
“I just…” you stall, scratching your shoulder. “I shouldn’t still be a virgin at this age, right?”
Somewhere under all of that snide overconfidence is a man who was raised right, in spite of all of his shortcomings and his belittling behaviour. His nose scrunches, his head shaking from side to side in short, disbelieving movements. “What? Who fucking cares, that’s your choice.” Then, something else dawns on him as he starts up again before you can answer. “Wait. You’re a virgin?”
“See, it does matter! And whether it’s Satoru, or any other guy, they’re just gonna think I’m a prude or something because I haven’t–”
Running a hand over the faint stubble along his chin, his jaw briefly hangs open as he listens to your retort. When you keep going, at last he interrupts. “No, it doesn’t matter.” He pauses, pinning you in place with adamance. “The reason I’m asking is because I want to make sure you actually want to do this shit with me,” he states plainly, no amount of teasing present in the serious gaze he fixes you with. “I’m not fucking around when it comes to boundaries and consent.”
As much as his condescension and total righteousness is frustrating, you can appreciate his ability to be serious when there’s a need. At least he has a couple of redeeming qualities under all of those layers of snide narcissism.
Shutting your eyes as you try to formulate an answer, you give a short shake of your head. “Look,” you sigh, waving a hand through the air as your lashes flutter. “I don’t know what possessed me to choose you,” you begin, earning a snide huff from the other party, “but I wanna do this. I’ve tried dating apps and things but I feel like it’s so hard to meet people organically and I finally found someone I really like, so I just don’t wanna mess things up with Satoru, okay?” Your shoulders hang as his expression remains largely unreadable.
Your closing remark has your co-worker dragging his hands down his face. When he finally drops them to his sides with a plop as they hit the denim of his jeans, he gives a haphazard shrug. “All this for that asshole,” he mutters. “Why start with an arrangement like this, anyway? Why not go to the bar if you’re so against dating apps? It’s not like some one night stand means anything either.”
You grimace. “I want someone I trust.”
He won’t admit it, but it’s humbling to a man like Sukuna. Not because he doesn’t think of himself as trustworthy, but because he’s given you no real reason to put so much of your trust in him. He’s been cruel from the start and only a few days ago was reminding you that no matter your deal, you aren’t friends.
He’s still for a long time, a genuine disgruntled frown unrelenting.
“Fine,” he gruffs at last. “For the record though, Satoru wouldn’t care that you’re a virgin. If he did, he’d be a piece of shit.”
If only your mind would wrap itself around that concept. Twenty some-odd years on an earth that treats virginity– particularly at your age– as taboo has taught you otherwise.
“Oddly insightful from you.”
Displeased as you throw snide commentary back at him, he takes another step forward. “No matter what you think of me, I wasn’t raised wrong.” His tone is low, almost dangerous, and you’re surprised when warmth spreads to the pit of your stomach. You’re grateful he’s already turned back to his laptop as you find yourself blinking at nothing in particular. “What did you want to try anyway? And you’re buying, FYI. This is for you, not me.”
You hum thoughtfully as you find yourself staring between the gaps in the shelves at the far end of the story. Your gaze briefly stops upon reaching the vibrators, which feels like a fairly low barrier of entry.
“A vibrator?” You query.
Sukuna, leaning over the counter on his elbows with his back facing you, rolls a muscle in his shoulder. “Sure.”
His lack of enthusiasm has you grimacing. “We get an employee discount, right?”
“Half-off.”
“That’s pretty good,” you comment in an attempt to make conversation as you slip out from the counter and walk to the wall to look over options.
He hums his agreement, typing as his eyes skim whatever project he’s working on.
Taking the hint, you let your attention drift back to the wall of silicone and plastic. Although there are a variety of different options, you’d made up your mind a while ago upon hearing Sukuna’s explanation.
With a small black bullet vibrator in a discreet box with a purple-blue gradient in-hand, you make your way back to the counter, setting it aside. Whether out of curiosity or a subconscious movement, Sukuna’s attention flips to you as he evaluates the box on the counter. He languidly shoots you a glance before you fall into nothing more than background noise for him once again. You don’t get much of an idea of his thoughts on your choice, if he has any.
And much like his silence on your choice, that’s how you spend the evening, aside from when he teaches you to close. Over the past month or so you’ve grown to find the dead air less and less uncomfortable and no longer feel the need to fill it. He still shoots you a disapproving side eye every time a customer asks a question that’s left to your anti-social co-worker because you can’t answer it, but it’s noticeably less harsh.
By, like, a fraction. He’s irritated still, but he’s not outright disappointed.
You call that a win.
You’re pretty sure your friends back home would call it sad.
But you can’t talk to Yuki or Choso about your arrangement with Sukuna anyway, so you suppose it’s not worth thinking too hard about it.
By the time you’re flipping the open sign and turning the lock on the door, Sukuna is ringing up the vibrator you chose, along with a bottle of something you didn’t add. He slides the payment terminal towards you as you make your way back. You don’t question his judgement upon finding the label to say toy cleaner. With your card in-hand, you find yourself hovering hesitantly over the payment terminal.
The question atop your tongue feels stupid.
“What?” Sukuna gruffs when you don’t speak your mind.
“Is this… a good choice?”
He sucks in a breath, measured. “It’s a fine first choice. It’s kinda cheap, but it’s a good starting point.”
“I know the quality and how long it’ll last would be affected, but does how cheap it is affect much beyond those two things?”
Another breath, but it’s equally measured. He picks up the box, his gaze darting across the lettering that covers it. “If it was your only toy, I’d say to invest in something better, but if we’re trying a lot, cheap is fine.” His mild expression seems to pick you apart when you’re faced with sanguine irises that flicker across your face. There’s the faintest hint of an upward quirk of his lips when he catches your pout.
“You never actually answered my question,” you mumble snarkily, snatching the box back from him.
No longer tempering his amusement, he shifts to the other foot with a full-blown smirk. “It’s a cheaper plastic or silicone. Less durable, the motor inside will give out quicker, and the battery won’t last as long. It’s louder than more expensive ones, too.” He glances at the box, a thoughtful narrow to his eyes. “It probably runs on watch batteries, which get expensive the more you go through.”
You recall him mentioning that to a customer, but given the circumstance, you suppose he’s right that it won’t matter. Nodding, you tap your card without another thought. He takes a bit of extra time to show you the remaining closing procedures which feels less like a courtesy and more like a curse given that you run on his clock at his will now, but you suppose a couple of extra hours won’t hurt here and there.
Even if you won’t be paid.
Shutting off the lights at the back, you make your way to the door where he waits. “So,” you start, digging through your bag for your keys, “my place is pretty noisy, should we–”
“Where do you live?”
“Oh, uh– I’m next to the station on third street.”
“Good. Meet me at the pub on the corner.”
You blink as he tosses you the store keys, barely managing to catch them in clumsy fingers. Before you can even protest, he’s already getting into the old but well-maintained black Honda across the street.
“O-kay,” you mutter to yourself, turning back to the door as you pull down the security shutter, locking both it and the glass door. His engine has already rumbled long into the distance by the time you finish fiddling with the old finicky locks and get in your beat-up vehicle. “You have to wait for me anyway, asshole.” Your muttering somehow feels better left for the world to hear rather than internalized.
The ride to the coffee shop has you once again replaying every life decision that brought you to this point in life. Maybe you should have given time to that guy who was trying to flirt with you in the library. Then again, you were studying for your final. Maybe you should have indulged the man who told you that you were pretty at a karaoke bar once. Well, no, he was creepy.
You’ve just been focusing on yourself and your fingers have done the trick anytime you were horny.
Not to mention, you can’t help but find that you don’t see yourself in porn and it doesn’t leave you feeling satisfied. That’s not even beginning to mention that much of what you found feels performative, which doesn’t cut it at an adult shop.
Though, that’s a lie too. Because at the end of the day although you are curious and this is something that you’re intrigued by given your environment lately, you’re equally hoping to impress Satoru.
Maybe Sukuna’s right that you should just tell him.
But that also feels like an uphill battle.
Stupid. This whole thing has you feeling like you’re overthinking everything and in an effort to stop thinking so damn much, you shut your car off and push into the pub.
Sukuna’s sitting in a booth at the back, already nursing a drink in one hand. His opposite arm is lazily strewn across the back of the booth, his gaze following you with that striking intensity that never fails to make your hair stand on end. Slipping in across from him, you watch as he leans back, completely at ease. As much as his arrogance can piss you off, his ability to remain calm and even puts out any fires your nerves threaten to stoke.
“Want anything?” He asks, jutting his chin towards the drink menu. Curiously, you flip to the first page before Sukuna’s hand comes down authoritatively, stopping you from browsing the menu he just offered. He flips to the back page confidently. “Non-alcoholic only.”
Fixing him with a scowl, you point towards his drink. “What are you drinking, then?”
He slides it an inch closer to you, an offer to test him. “Non-alcoholic IPA.” He lifts his hand from the menu, finally allowing you to browse your options as he leans back again. “We have rules to go over. Need your head on right and your consent after.”
As much as you don’t appreciate his commanding nature, you can admit it settles your nerves that he’s taking this seriously. He’s so flippant and dismissive when he wants to be that the soberness with which he’s treating the situation is reassuring.
In fact, it’s even a little hot, as much as you don’t even want to so much as think of the compliment. Truthfully though, you appreciate that he knows when to turn the damn attitude down.
Inhaling slowly, you look over the menu, waiting for the waiter to arrive. You order a Pepsi just for the sake of having something to hold and hide your fiddling as Sukuna’s gaze scarcely departs you.
“I thought we went over the rules already?” You ask when you finally have something to focus on. The condensation is cool against your fingers, a much-needed departure from the facetious personality across from you.
“Of the agreement, sure.” He starts, bringing his glass to his lips as he leans back casually. “But I’m not doing this without knowing what you want.”
“I thought I–”
He doesn’t give you the time of day, glass still held between his fingers as he leans forward on his forearm. “You want me in charge, yeah?”
You blink, nodding.
“You understand that that puts me in a dominant position for our agreement, correct?”
Your cheeks warm as you nod again. “That’s kinda what I wanted,” you admit quietly.
He hums, a hint of his teeth gleaming behind a smirk. He lets the moment hang a second longer, basking in the way you squirm under his gaze. Throwing back what’s left of his drink, he sets the glass on the table with a dull clank. “Right,” he begins, “so you’ve never been with anyone before?” He asks, growing more serious again.
His ability to casually swing back and forth between both moods is beginning to piss you off.
“Yeah, you know that,” you reply snarkily.
His eyes narrow. “Not what I mean, sweetheart. You ever done anything with anyone? In any capacity?”
You chew on your lip briefly. “I gave a guy a handjob once,” you admit quietly, painfully aware of the public setting.
Sukuna’s eyes avert for a moment as he considers how to approach things. “That's it?”
“I– Yeah, can you stop asking?”
His throat bobs as he swallows, frowning. He lays his thoughts out plainly, straight to the point and without the arrogant attitude. “Think what you want of me, but I’m not trying to embarrass you. I already told you it doesn’t matter. I’m asking because it gives me a good sense of where to start.”
Sitting upright, you nod slowly.
“Do you masturbate?”
With every question, you swear your face gets warmer. “Yeah.”
“But no toys?”
“No.”
He rolls his jaw, prodding his tongue against the side of his mouth. “Alright. I can work with that. Do you know what you like when you touch yourself?”
“Do we have to do this somewhere so public?”
He snorts. “No one’s listening. The closest table is so sloshed you’d think it’s three in the morning,” he points out, motioning over your shoulder. Admittedly, he’s right. There’s a group of three women and two men all slumped over, eyes red-ringed and laughter bubbling from within.
With a sigh, you turn back to him. “Fine. So what rules do we need to go over, then?”
“I need to know what’s completely off-limits for you.” He taps a finger once on the table. “I’m kinky but there’s shit I’m not into either.”
“Okay, um,” you take a moment to consider the toys lining the walls and some of the porn you’ve seen while browsing. “I don’t know, I guess I don’t think I’d be into whips or spanking.” Sukuna hums. “I know the candles are for… wax play, right?”
“Mhm. Some people like the pain.”
“I don’t think I would want anything painful.”
He nods his agreement. “Anything like that is off the table.”
Tapping your nails along the sides of your glass, you wrack your brain of the items that line the walls at work. “I don’t think I’m into collars or muzzles or anything.”
“Alright. No pet play. You not into being tied up, or just the pet part?”
Your hesitation is brief as you consider the difference. “I think I’d be okay with being tied up,” you muse. “Not yet, but–” you shrug, cracking a smile. “It sounds kinda fun.”
Sukuna smirks. “She’s a little kinky, I like it.” His lidded expression sends heat up the back of your neck and straight to the pit of your stomach. You adjust the way you’re seated, crossing one leg over the other as you focus on the glass in front of you. Amused, your counterpart pushes for details. “What about gags, handcuffs, and blindfolds?”
“I’d be open to those.”
His smirk grows, teeth bared just enough to call it a grin. “Alright. No whips, and pet and pain play are past the ceiling. Anything more intense than that’s off the table, yeah?”
You nod, grateful that he isn’t leaving you to try to come up with things when you’re scarcely familiar with the products at your own job.
“Hair pulling? Choking?”
You take a moment to consider it, but nod. “That’s fine.”
That seems to be the majority of his questions as he leans back in his seat again, stretching his arms overhead. He has that same expression from the day you originally made the agreement, the one that makes you feel like you’re no longer background noise in his world. Like you’ve surprised him and he’s willing to humor you.
“Alright. Anything else we can go over if it comes up,” he shrugs. “I just needed a baseline.” Yawning, he takes a moment to let his thoughts settle as he works out details in his mind. It gives you a moment to reset, gratefully taking the opportunity as you lean back in your seat, no longer fixated on your glass.
It occurs to you in that moment that he’s surprisingly quelled your nerves. You can’t place whether it’s through making a point of doing this in a public setting but ensuring this stays between you, or the way he’s actually maneuvering this conversation in a way that makes you feel open and in charge. Either way, you have to hand it to him that for a guy who’s made it clear he isn’t fond of people, he’s good with them. With you.
He spends a moment thinking things through before at last continuing. “Are you familiar with the traffic light safe word system?”
You meet his gaze, shaking your head.
“I need you to understand that even if I’m the dom, your word is my law. You tell me green and you leave shit in my hands to make you feel good. You tell me yellow and we’ll stop for a bit to figure out what you don’t like or what doesn’t feel good. You tell me red and my hands are off of you. What you say goes, you understand?” He leans forward with an intensity that seeps straight to your bones.
“Okay. I understand.”
“Good.” His shoulders rise and fall as he sucks in a breath, letting it out gradually. “And for the record, no kissing. No making out. No sex.”
As he repeats his rules, you press your lips into a thin line at how much he loves to remind you that you aren’t friends and these aren’t benefits. “You mentioned.”
“I’ll take my shirt off if it makes you comfortable, but that’s all you’re getting from me.”
“How sweet,” you comment dryly as he completely ignores your previous retort.
He grins, shrugging like the chivalrous man he is. “You didn’t ask for love, sweetheart.”
“And if I had?”
His grin stays in place, his chin lifting an inch as he regards you with the kind of expression only someone as conceited as Sukuna himself can manage. “Then you’d be switching to morning shifts.”
You want to roll your eyes, but you can at least respect his honesty, even if it’s painfully self-centered. You suppose it’s in part why trust comes easily with him. It’s not out of respect or friendship, but rather the simple fact that he doesn’t sugarcoat things. For better or for worse, he means what he says and has nothing to hide.
Jutting his chin in a motion to your nearly-finished glass, he keeps that painfully smug expression as he gruffs out a question. “Ready to go?”
Downing the last of your drink, you nod as you make your way to the bartender. She rings up your drinks together, only for Sukuna to step aside for you to pay.
Chivalry might just be dead, after all.
Your counterpart shoves his hands into his pockets with a haughty smirk, watching every micro expression cross your face as realization tents your brow, before twisting into a glare. Sukuna’s gait is entirely casual as his boots hit the pavement outside. When he comes to a halt by his car, his hand settles on the roof. “Send me your address,” are his last words before he ducks into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbles on and his music begins in an instant, a booming bassline that’s faintly familiar, but it’s too muffled to make out.
Sucking in a breath, you let the music fade as you head for your car, sending him your address just around the corner. You take an extra moment to make it to your car, breathing in the cool summer night air. The ever-present murky smell of smog hits you the moment the sharp scent of alcohol dissipates, but you’ve grown accustomed to it by now. The air on your skin is refreshing, and gives you a moment to think.
In spite of his frustrating tendencies, Sukuna treats sex– in all forms– differently from the men you’re used to. Not just men, but everyone. Even your closest friends. It’s not an expectation, it’s not something that requires any pressure. It’s whatever you want it to be, and whatever you’re comfortable with.
You appreciate the fact that in spite of you wanting him to take charge, this is all still at your beck and call. Sukuna says everything like it is. As much as you despise that for how plainly he’ll point out any fault the moment he finds it or throw you under the bus in a heartbeat when he sees himself as a man who’s always in the right, you appreciate the fact that he doesn’t make things into a spectacle either.
How many parties have you been to where ‘never have I ever’ turned into a wave of judgement, or a game where you found yourself lying to avoid it? How many times have you avoided parties altogether, hating the way all concepts surrounding you seemed to change over something that shouldn’t be everything it’s so often perceived as?
Hell, growing up in an era where sex was perceived as something cool and sold to adults through media only to be thrust into a new era where censorship is pushed more than education, it was bound to twist the perception around virginity.
Your own insecurity is an unfortunate side effect of those two very things clashing with one another. Just like your insecurity in the impression you’ve given Satoru, regardless of if you’ve actually spoken to him or not.
Which is why Sukuna’s attitude around sex is a breath of fresh air. There’s no judgement from him that you’ve abstained for so long.
And for that, you find yourself excited as you pull up to your house.
The man in question is parked before you even arrive, standing at the brick staircase by the time you lock your vehicle. The three-story building towers overhead, yet he still looks big at the base of the stairs.
His arms are crossed as he leans back casually, eyes on his phone. The racing jacket he sports hangs heavily over his broad shoulders. It looks like a replica F1 jacket of sorts, and in spite of its large size, the muscle definition beneath the tank top clinging to his skin is still obvious. It’s almost unfair that he’s so attractive and such a dick.
Just as the thought crosses your mind, his crimson eyes lift from his phone screen. He pockets it, looking you up and down once before letting you lead the way. You pull the front gate open without a word, unlocking the inner door and shutting it to latch behind you. Your apartment resides on the second floor, a single room backing onto the subway. Convenient, but noisy as all hell.
You like to think of it as the epitome of what it means to chase your dream, but in reality you know it’s little more than measly tape to cover up the fact that it feels more like failure. You’ve only been here for a couple of months and played at a couple of crappy venues that didn’t turn out well and you aren’t about to give up now, but your apartment fails to feel like home.
When you flick the lights on, it gives a warm glow to the run-down apartment.
“Make yourself at home,” you offer of the small space. It’s nothing more than a studio with a bathroom. A kitchenette sits at your immediate left with a microwave, fridge, and a single plug-in hot-plate, while your bed is pushed into the corner at the back. You’ve managed to fit a small TV on a table in the corner, and a tiny couch beside it, but that’s about all there is to see of your small space. Wallpaper peels at the top corners and there are stains and scrapes over the old wooden floor that could very well be older than you.
You’ve done what you can with the space. Over the couch is a number of signed and framed band posters and by the TV sits a cork board with memorabilia pinned to it. Old concert ticket stubs, set lists, and guitar picks all pinned or clipped in place. A lamp sits behind the TV in the corner that makes the space feel more warm, giving light to the two gaming systems sitting under the table. It’s not perfect, but it’s very you.
As you set your keys and bag on what little counter space you have, Sukuna takes in the sight of the small space, his gaze lingering on the signed posters and memorabilia before landing on your guitar, leaning against the couch haphazardly.
“You’re a concert girl?” He queries. It’s hard to get a read on where the question comes from when his tone lacks any real interest or enthusiasm.
“When I could afford it,” you agree with a wry laugh.
He hums, kicking his shoes off and dropping his jacket beside your guitar on the couch. He plops down on the double bed, picking up a drumstick sat on the small night stand wedged between the bed and the tiny table the TV sits atop. He twirls it on a finger as he continues to look around while you fiddle with the box for the bullet vibrator you got, picking at the tape keeping it shut.
Like a sixth sense, your hair stands on-end when his striking gaze settles on you again. He continues to fiddle with the drumstick, but his expression is otherwise unreadable. His slightly narrowed gaze gives you the idea that something is on his mind. “What?”
“Just thinking,” he mutters, his gaze dropping the full length of your body again.
Standing still at the counter, you chew on the inside of your cheek as he checks you out. Or something similar to that. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew this question would arise. A part of you had hoped to avoid it, but given the nature of your agreement with Sukuna, the question doesn’t bother you as much as it might from someone else.
“I won’t be offended, you know.”
The drumstick stills in Sukuna’s fingers. “About what?”
“If you ask.”
“Can you be fucking direct?” He sneers, his eyes narrowed to pinpricks as he fixes you with the kind of gaze that would have made your skin crawl a month ago. Back then, you would have taken it for genuine frustration, but you know now that this is a man who finds pleasure in the fact that one look can make someone avert their gaze.
But you don’t budge, turning to face him with the bullet vibe in-hand. “You wanna know why I’m still a virgin if I’m open enough to ask you for this arrangement.”
You can’t blame him. You get the feeling you’re a year or two older than him based on the fact that you graduated already and he’s in his last year. Your reply even seems to intrigue him as he leans forward just enough to show interest. You have his attention, although he doesn’t say it. He may not judge you for it, but you certainly can’t blame him for being curious. After all, your request was a bold one in the first place.
With a sigh, you set the toy on the counter as you manage to free it from its packaging. “You know how I told you I’m from a small town?”
“Mhm.”
“How small do you think I meant?”
He shrugs, having clearly never considered the question. “Ten thousand,” he throws out a haphazard guess.
“Four hundred people.”
His nose wrinkles at the mere thought. Fitting for a guy who seems well-versed in navigating life in a massive city.
“So my options kinda sucked with guys my age,” you laugh dryly, returning to the counter where you set the toy down. You turn to him suddenly, a finger held out pointedly towards his chest. “Don’t even get me started on the older men.”
He snorts, barely more than a push of air from his nostrils that gives way to his amusement.
“It was one of those roadside attraction towns where our whole thing was like,” you wave a hand through the air, looking for the right words to describe it. “Having one of those weird statues or whatever that people will pull over to see.”
“Yeah? So what weird thing did you have, then?”
You crack a smile. “The world’s largest garden gnome.”
He blinks in disbelief, in sudden understanding of the whole situation. One single garden gnome painting a whole picture of who you are and how you grew up. “Damn. That blows.” There’s something so strangely friendly in the interaction that’s unbefitting of everything he is, but for a moment you forget this is Sukuna you’re speaking with.
You laugh. “Yeah. It’s not even the world’s largest anymore from what I’ve been told. So now we’re the ‘original’,” you make finger quotations in the air, “world’s largest garden gnome.”
He snorts again, pushing a hand back through his hair. “No wonder you like punk music. You did need to get out of your town.”
You surprise even yourself at how heartily you laugh. When he’s not being a stick-in-the-mud, it turns out he’s kinda funny. In fact, when he isn’t acting like he’s above you, there’s even a sort of warmth to him that you don’t mind. Whether it’s a public front and he’s dropped the curtain for a moment or he’s growing more comfortable with you is yet to be determined.
Or maybe this is like a one time event that you were lucky enough to witness.
“You must have gone to the city pretty often if you go to a lot of concerts,” he muses. “No interest in hooking up with a guy or doing this shit with someone before now?”
You frown, glancing up from the instructions on the bottle of toy cleaner as you loosely skim them. “I never really considered any of this until the shop. And I’d rather be with someone I know.”
He grunts in irritation before you even finish the first sentence, but he lets it go by the time you finish. At least his frustration with you is purely on a work level. “You don’t know me,” he points out. “You don’t know jack shit about how I am in bed and you barely know me outside of it.”
“I trust you, though.”
His gaze drifts to the floor, something stoic passing over his expression as he allows the thought to sink in. “You trust me,” he parrots dryly, for no other reason than to solidify them for himself. You open your mouth to elaborate, but he’s already talking over you before you can spit out a second word. Infuriating man. “Right. And now you want me to show you the ropes–” he pauses at the irony of his statement, a smug smirk returning to his lips. “Literally.” He stands up from your bed, tossing the drumstick aside in the midst of his amusement.
With a roll of your eyes, you stop whatever narcissistic or teasing comment was about to leave his parted lips, steering the conversation another way before he’s too frustrating to handle. “I can make a guess.”
Sukuna pauses, stepping towards you with curiosity. “About–” he raises his brows. “What I’m like? In general, or in bed?”
“Both,” you shrug. “You like to be in charge. You like to have someone who’s willing to admit that you’re better at something and you like to be mean about it. You like when people feel small around you, it makes your ego feel good like the big man that you are.”
Where you expect offense, you only find amusement, which unfortunately isn’t in your favor either. At the end of the day, he’s still running this interaction like he owns it. His head tilts, his grin unrelenting. The way the muscle shirt he sports clings to his chest as it rises and falls feels unfair. He’s a tease without trying, all because he has the fortune of being hot. “Oh?” His voice comes low, a grit to it that sends heat between your thighs. “Are we guessing, or psychoanalyzing?”
You shrug. “It can be whatever you want.”
His gaze flickers around your face as you move past him to the spot where he was just seated. The amusement laced through sanguine eyes as he watches you sits under your skin in the kind of way that has you grimacing. The way he picks you apart so effortlessly is a shadow compared to the pile of things about him that frustrate you, but you hate the way it gets under your skin.
He has no issues making himself at home either, moving his jacket aside so he can manspread obnoxiously on the couch across from your bed. Your brows tent downwards as he doesn’t hesitate to reach for your guitar either, as though he knows that, too, will get under your skin. “Here, I’ll move that.”
You dart towards him, picking the instrument up before his fingers can graze the neck, setting in on the stand it should have been on anyway. His brow quirks, head tilting as he watches your every movement. The way he moves through life so easily is grating.
When you take a seat again across from him on your bed, you tap your foot a couple of times on the worn wood below. It sounds hollow, even beneath your clothed feet. “So… What should we do?” You query, praying you can find a rhythm with him that makes everything more comfortable.
A smile curls at the corners of his lips. “I told you. You’re–”
His words come to a quick halt, expression twisting into disbelief and clear concern as your apartment rattles briefly, before the obvious noise of the subway passing behind the building follows, and the room settles as it comes to a stop. Unphased, you await his next words.
“You fucking live with that?”
You shrug. “Yeah. I uh– didn’t really realize it would be an issue until I moved in.”
A puff of air leaves his nose, his eyes trailing between you and the window where the train’s shadow cast across the floor moments ago. “How the fuck do you sleep? The subways run all night.”
“They’re less frequent at night,” you offer.
“How the fuck do you get off with that noise?”
Worrying your lower lip between your teeth, you shrug. “It’s just background noise.”
Sukuna hangs in a state of disbelief for a moment, crimson boring into you like even he’s questioning how the fuck he got here now. When the moment settles, he runs his tongue over his teeth and shakes his head, muttering a curse under his breath. “You’re something.”
“Thanks,” you reply dryly. The nerves of opening yourself up to someone buzz more as you draw Sukuna’s attention away from the train. Your leg bounces involuntarily, a hollow thump to it as you wait for a reply to your question, no matter how snarky it’ll inevitably be.
But the arrogance never comes. His eyes flicker down to your leg, the previous curl of his lips gone and replaced with something far more staid. With a hand on the couch’s armrest, he moves across the small room with ease, his large frame casting a long shadow over the floor as he blocks the lamplight. Your heart pumps hard against its cage, jumping to your throat when his palm settles on your leg, pressing it to the hardwood to stop its pace.
“Relax.” His voice has a sultry tone that feels foreign to you yet lived-in, like he knows just how to pitch his voice to send it like a shock straight to your stomach. You shift at the sensation, drawn to his gaze as he leans in with a brazen chuckle, clearly pleased that he can affect you in such a way. “Stop talking. Stop thinking. About all of this shit. About me, about the job, the money, the train. Turn your brain off.”
He’s right, painfully so, about every little thing on your mind. But the most relief you usually get is a warm cup of tea on a cool night, and even then it’s disturbed by a train every few minutes. It’s not like you haven’t masturbated, particularly since starting at the shop, but your brain always seems to need something to latch onto and porn feels so performative you can’t get into it.
Sukuna gives you something to focus on, taking the bullet vibrator from within your fidgeting hands as his other hand glides from your thigh to your torso over your shirt. His thumb frames your breast, the sensation sending a shiver straight up your spine. He uses just enough force that you could call the pressure he uses to guide you back onto your bed a ‘suggestion’ rather than a command.
“Give me a color.”
“Green.”
“Good,” he hums, low and smug as you watch his smirk grow into something painfully self-assured and egotistical as he flashes his teeth. You don’t have time to be annoyed when your lashes are already fluttering as he drags the bullet vibrator in his palm over your clothed pussy with just enough pressure that your breath catches. “And it’s not even on yet,” he purrs in that ever-condescending tone.
“I should have asked someone less–”
He grinds the vibrator against your clit in an effort to stifle your attitude, shooting you a smug smirk when it works. “But you didn’t.”
Your scowl barely has a chance to form before it dissipates as he glides a thumb beneath your shirt. The sensation has you shivering as he scrutinizes every micro expression you make when his thumb glides over the sensitive skin of your bare stomach. Goosebumps rise in its stead, inevitable as your body reacts to the sensation. You jolt when his touch is so feather-light that it feels more ticklish than something sensual, and like everything else he picks it up and files it away for later.
When he stops at your hipbone and dips two fingers beneath your waistband, you instinctively suck in a breath, stiffening. His movement pauses, eyes narrowing as he fixes you with a sharp gaze that you recognize as instruction.
“Green,” you breathe.
Something smug in his expression has you swallowing your pride at the realization that submission came easily. He’s too keen to have not noticed how you’re not running your mouth anymore, and you don’t need to read between the lines to know that he enjoys that fact.
With your consent, two fingers drag your pants down, haplessly discarded as his gaze trails the length of your legs slowly. You can’t make out what he’s thinking, your hair standing on end as some part of you longs for warmth in a partner who might revere you, but that isn’t what you asked for. It’s not who Sukuna is.
When his eyes meet yours, they narrow an ounce. “Stop worrying,” he admonishes the thoughts he seems to be able to sense as though your insecurities are written in the air for him to see. It warms your cheeks further than they already are. When he catches the twitch of your brow, whether it’s a tell that he’s correct or some bratty form of defiance, he brings a hand to your jaw, his thumb and finger forcing you to keep his gaze. “I’m serious. Bodies are all different, and–”
“That doesn’t make me feel better, Suku–”
His thumb and finger shift until he’s pressing your cheeks together to shut up your protests. “Everyone is different. You should be. Stop fucking worrying.” He loosens his grip enough to allow you to nod, no longer pursing your lips. “Focus on my hands. Focus on the feeling. Don’t think about the fucking train that’s gonna pass in three minutes. Don’t distract yourself.”
He releases your face, shifting his hand until he’s prodding your abdomen pointedly with a finger. He waits for your gaze to follow before continuing.
“Masturbation is one thing because you know exactly what you want and can make yourself finish quickly, but bringing another person into things changes how your body and brain work.” He moves his hand back to the bed as he leans over you, watching with a faint smirk as the other hand presses the small vibrator, still off, into your clit and you take in a sharp breath. “If you get distracted by all the dumb shit going through your head and don’t stay focused on how you’re feeling, your body won’t let you cum. You’ll go straight into overstimulation without orgasm, or your body just won’t respond. It’s common as shit and a lot of people don’t think they can cum with a partner.”
You blink at how strangely insightful and educational the tattooed prick can actually be. Your shoulders fall into the mattress as you focus on the pressure of the hard silicone pressed into your clothed pussy.
There’s another side to it as well that has your mind ready to reel into something far more tangential, as much as you know you should listen to his advice. The fact is that the very same man who told you not to expect love or care from him is sitting here reassuring you, all the while explaining to you just how much he understands the human body. It’s not just from a biological or fact-driven perspective either, he’s putting your pleasure first.
Sure, it’s worth acknowledging that at the end of the day your arrangement does revolve around your pleasure, but Sukuna’s not just insightful. In one way or another, it’s caring. Whether he wants to acknowledge it or not, you’ve heard horror stories of men not being able to find the clit and it’s driven you further into insecurity surrounding the very concept of sex as someone with no experience.
Sukuna isn’t just skilled or good as you’re sure he’ll put it. He’s put time into this. Not just the kind that comes with being with people, but the kind that comes with research and education.
You knew he could talk about toys without batting an eye.
This is deeper.
He flicks your forehead, eyes flashing with irritation as you protest with a yelp. “What did I just tell you?”
“You’re just kinda being sweet,” you excuse yourself, blinking at him from where he’s crouched over your lower torso.
Something flashes in his eyes. “Don’t fucking mistake being good at what I do for sweetness.” His lip curls, the word dripping in disgust like the very concept is venomous to him. “Or do I need to remind you that this is a fucking deal and the moment this shit’s over you’re nothing more than my co-worker who doesn’t know fuck-all about the product?”
You let out a disbelieving scoff at the way he manages to kill the vibe entirely over what you might consider a compliment. “You’re right. You’re a dick.”
He straightens as he takes command of the situation once more, making himself look bigger as he leans over you. He shifts the reins like he owns your every reaction and can predict the situation. With a flick of his thumb, he turns the bullet vibe on, the vibration a sudden and intense sensation even over your panties. It’s a stark contrast to what your fingers feel like.
“Now stop thinking.” He drags the vibrator from your clit back across your clothed slit, your lips parting as you arch into the sensation.
“How am I supposed to focus when you’re being such an ass?” You grit in spite of the pleasure.
“Now you know why I’m good at this shit.”
He drops the attitude again as he manages to turn you on without the sensual touch or words of a partner, but rather through other methods.
Keeping a steady, albeit low vibration setting over your clit through your panties, he slips a hand under your shirt again. His thumb glides smoothly over your nipple, raising goosebumps along with his calloused touch. Sharp crimson eyes fix on the way your gaze finally shifts from his movements to the ceiling, your hands reaching for the blanket laying over the mattress. Your fingers curl into the cotton as all thoughts of insecurity and Sukuna’s attitude finally dissipate and all you’re left with is a tingling sensation that spreads warmly to your extremities.
“Thaaat’s it,” he guides you in a low tone that acts like sparks in your mind, kindling a fire that burns out whatever last thoughts served as a distraction. At last it’s just you and the sensation of his finger circling your nipple, slow and sensual as he takes the time needed to work your body up to a point where the vibrator won’t be too much.
The mattress dips as Sukuna shifts, his footsteps lost on you as the train passes by the window. It’s nothing more than background noise with your exterior senses dulled to focus only on touch. You blink at the tattooed man as the noise of the vibrator is silenced, lidded eyes watching his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties.
“Color?”
You swallow hard. His gaze lowers as he watches the movement, every tiny detail catalogued as he reads your reaction.
“Green,” you reply, breathless.
He gives a nod, fixed still on your expression when he gives the first tug. On instinct your legs twitch to close, so he guides you through the nerves rather than ignoring them. “You’re good,” he gruffs. It’s not soothing, but somehow it settles a modicum of the uncertainty that comes with putting your trust in someone else in such a vulnerable way.
Once they’re over your knees, he tugs the panties off, sending them across the room.
You still can’t help instinctively trying to hide yourself from him, squeezing the blanket tighter between your fingers as the cool air of your apartment reaches your dripping core.
“You want my shirt off?”
The question hangs before you, eyes dipping down to the black muscle shirt he sports, tight over his built chest. It’s the kind of thing you would spot at a gym, but it’s just loose enough over the rest of his torso that it looks less like he’s showing off and more like he effortlessly owns the look and everyone else is just mirroring him.
Pulling your lower lip between your teeth, you nod. When you meet his gaze again, it’s smug. He knows every last word that just ran through your head like he’s heard it before and the thought should piss you off, but you can’t be too bothered when he sets the vibrator on your abdomen and grabs the hem of his shirt with crossed arms. He pulls it up over his head with intention, flexing his biceps as he does so and sets it aside. Conveniently, his shirt doesn’t fly across the room.
The tattoos that curl around the sides of his neck snake over his shoulders in thick off-black lines that curve over his pecks. There are another set of bands similar to his wrists on his upper biceps and circles at his shoulders. They sharpen the persona given off by his intense egoism and dyed black hair, but they also accentuate his muscles in the kind of way that has your pupils dilating as you trail over the lines before falling to his abs.
As if that sight isn’t a show enough, at the base of his abdomen is a snail trail that you fix on just enough to earn a chuckle. It’s startlingly pink, matching the roots you spot every few weeks when they grow out.
Your hips shift as your stomach clenches at the sight. The cool air makes it obvious how turned on you are, and when you look back up, Sukuna is smirking. You’re feeding his ego more than you could know.
Satisfied with your reaction, he settles both hands on your thighs, slowly pulling them apart. Exposed to him once again, you find that action has surprisingly replaced your nerves with something far more debauched that has your mind racing.
This time, in all the right ways.
When your legs stay spread, he picks the vibrator back up, flicking it back on in one deft movement. The bed dips when he settles between your legs, dragging the vibrator through wet folds and over your clit, you arch into it with a soft moan. “Now you’re getting it,” he smirks as at last you let go of the endless stress of thoughts and give in to pleasure. “A bullet vibe is too small for much else besides placing direct pressure on the clit,” he explains as though your mind isn’t on another plane. “So it works best with other forms of stimulation.”
He keeps the small vibrator pressed directly to your clit. Your head falls back into the mattress, balling the fabric of your blankets up into your fists.
“You gotta work with me if you want this shit to work,” he continues, his hand pressing your thigh down when he adds additional pressure to the vibrator and your legs jolt shut on instinct. “What feels good?”
“I– hah–” You blink, cloudy eyes fluttering open to drag across the ceiling until they find his gaze, impossibly red and horribly smug as a moan tears your words apart. “The pressure is nice.”
“Nice?” He parrots the word, dripping in amusement. “I’m using a vibrator on you, don’t mince your words.”
You arch into the sensation in spite of his chatter, but he pulls away when you don’t reply immediately. Swallowing hard, you adjust your grip on the blankets and blink as your mind reels trying to catch up to what he wants. “It gets me a lot closer when you press it into my clit.”
He hums.
“But it’s kinda nice when you take it away too, makes the feeling l-last longer,” you stammer over the sentence when he tests your words, pulling it away for a moment. Your hips jolt, but the sensation is nice.
Vibration isn’t like your fingers. It’s far more intense and works you to the edge quicker when Sukuna knows how to maneuver the toy. “That’s called edging,” he gruffs, pulling the vibrator back as he waits for your eyes to meet his again. “This is a pretty tame form of it, but the human body wasn’t built for a vibrator so you’ll cum too fast if I don’t and it’s not as good.” You nod weakly, gaze flickering back down to the small device that he’s still holding away from your body. “Some people like being brought to the edge and coming down over and over, though. If that’s something you wanna try, that’s fine, but let me learn what you like first.”
You nod again, chewing on your lower lip as you buck your hips into his waiting hand.
He clicks his tongue, amused. “Eager.” Before you can retort with something equally cheeky, he presses the vibrator back to your clit as the stimulation curls through your body again, warm and welcome. It blossoms from your stomach to your chest until you can feel yourself teetering at the edge again, only for Sukuna to pull back. “Finger yourself.”
“What? Me?”
“You fucked stupid already?” Condescending prick. “Yeah, you. I told you, a bullet vibe works best with outside stimulation and I wanna see what you do to get off.”
You huff out a sigh, but your fingers slip from the blanket, down your body until you feel slick gather along your fingers. They’re cold, the thin windows giving way to a chill that seeps into your skin. The sensation has you sucking in a breath when they touch your skin, one finger slipping first between your folds, cool and pleasant, and then another. You work yourself open at a comfortable pace and adjust your hips until you find a rhythm and depth that feels nice, though it’s nothing compared to the vibrator.
“Could you cum just from that?”
“I don’t think so,” you breathe.
He hums in acknowledgement, pressing the vibrator with gradual pressure back into your clit. Your fingers stutter, pausing altogether. “Keep going,” he mutters. Even through the fog of bliss, you follow his instructions and keep the pace, your fingers curling into your walls as they begin to convulse around you.
Your breaths turn to soft, somewhat shy, moans with every second the vibrator spends pressed to your sensitive bundle of nerves. The world around you is fuzzy and you swear you can even hear the static that gathers at the edges of your vision. When your abdomen begins tensing and the rhythm of your fingers grows less accurate, more frantic, he uses more pressure to elicit the exact reaction he’s looking for. The sensation throws you over the edge without warning, hitting you in waves far more intense than the best orgasm with your fingers has ever given you.
As your body reacts to each wave of the orgasm, muscles clenching in time, the vibrator shifts slightly and the sensation heads straight into overstimulation. Sukuna reads the reaction and pulls away, letting you come down naturally. Your chest rises and falls heavily as you stare up at the rickety old ceiling.
Letting go and giving in entirely to the pleasure feels good. Your thoughts don’t race. There’s no constant stream of what needs to happen for the rest of the day or when you’ll head to the bar for your next gig. You’re just on cloud nine.
You feel Sukuna rise from between your legs. He moves around the apartment like he owns the place, opening the only door that doesn’t lead out without asking, and returning with a towel.
Pushing up onto your elbow, you hold out a hand expectantly, but Sukuna holds it out of reach. “No. I told you you’re not getting sweet, but I’m not leaving you without aftercare.” He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, folding the towel into something more manageable before holding it out for you to wipe your fingers on. “An arrangement like this,” he waves the folded towel haphazardly between you once you’re done with it, “means that the person in the dominant position should be helping clean up and make sure the sub is in the right headspace.” He speaks so matter-of-factly, you have a hard time believing this is the same guy who asked if you applied for the wrong job.
Tonal whiplash if you’ve ever heard it.
“If you ever have sex with someone who puts you in a submissive position and doesn’t give you aftercare, dump the prick.”
Truthfully, you’re not sure Sukuna has any right to call someone a prick, but you nod regardless. You’re not about to protest when he is cleaning you up and has gathered your panties and pants for you.
Once he’s satisfied, he sets the towel aside and pulls his shirt back over his head. He grabs you a glass of water as you cover yourself back up, and is surprisingly domestic as he checks in on you. “Feel good?”
“Yeah.”
“See what I mean when I say the bullet vibe is best with outside stimulation?”
You blink up at him from where he’s standing, a neutral expression plastered to his face as though nothing’s happened and there isn’t a tent in his pants. “Yeah, I guess.”
His eyes narrow, chin tilted up slightly. “You guess?”
“Sorry. I just don’t know what to do now.”
Unbothered, he simply nods, his gaze passing to the window as a train casts a dark shadow over the apartment, gone in a split second. He runs a hand through black strands of hair, revealing the pink at the roots before crossing his arms over his chest. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been… whatever we are, with someone.”
He snorts. “Can’t say I have either, sweetheart. Just talk with me until I know you’re back in a normal headspace. Tell me what worked and what didn’t.” He brings a hand up to his shoulder, rubbing the muscle along his back idly as he stands a short distance away.
Now fully clothed, you sit upright. “Okay.” Letting out a breath, you navigate the blissful fog still hanging over you in search of something to answer. “I appreciate that you took your shirt off,” you admit, heat climbing your spine as it curls up to your ears. You press on, grateful that he doesn’t make a big deal out of it in spite of his minute smirk. “I liked when you used pressure, but it was a lot when I came.”
He hums. “That’s overstimulation. Was it a lot in a bad way?”
Your brow knits together in thought. It was too much in the moment, but you don’t suppose you’d label it as bad. “No. Not exactly. Just too much.”
Shifting to the other foot, he considers your words. “Overstimulation is a pretty common kink. There’re a lot of people who like being pushed into that territory because it is a lot but the stimulation is also pleasurable and it can push you to cum again pretty quickly.”
“I think I saw that in some of the porn I tried watching.”
“I would say it’s one of the more common kinks in the kink community. Makes sense.”
You nod slowly, considering the sensation as you shift, your body still feeling particularly loose. “I think I’d try it.”
“Sure,” he agrees, seeming to only half pay attention when he pulls his phone out. A dim blue light illuminates the lower half of his face before he shoves it back in his pocket. “You seem good. Feeling alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. I’m leaving.” He turns abruptly on his heel, tossing his jacket over his shoulder as he makes his way to the door. “Clean the vibe,” he reminds you. “And don’t use it too often. We’re not built for electronics, we’re built for fingers. It’ll fry your nerves and regular stimulation won’t feel as good.”
You nod solemnly, his advice adding up. “Wait!” You call when his hand rests atop the old door knob, the golden paint chipping away as it gives up the facade of luxury. “You don’t want anything?”
“No.”
You shake your head. “Why did you agree to this, then?”
He pauses, turning fully to face you. His gaze travels to the darkened path over the wooden floor where enough steps have been taken that the wood has physically worn away. “It’s convenient,” he offers, “having you take my shifts. It’s…” he trails off for a moment, his tongue running over his lower lip. “It’s helpful, really.”
You’re shocked at the sincerity behind the admission, like in spite of how frustrating and egocentric he can be, he feels he owes you honesty.
“But you’re right.” He lets the words hang, pools of cerise washing intensely over you as your head tilts quizzically. He blinks as he searches for the words to put his thoughts together. “Look, it pisses me off that you applied to this job in the first place, but you’re here now and Jillian likes you.” He shrugs his shoulders. “There’s fuck-all I can do about that and you should have known this shit before applying.”
Your eyes narrow as he repeats something you’re getting real sick of hearing. You can’t say you’re sure how this goes with the statement ‘you’re right’, either.
“But this shit is hard to learn if you don’t have an in.” His hand leaves the door handle with a hollow metallic clang as he takes a step towards you. He’s still across the apartment, but it bridges a gap of sorts. “Sex is treated as something you’re not supposed to talk about and kinks are taboo. So finding resources brings you to all sorts of sketchy sites or outdated books because the resources surrounding it suck.” He shrugs. “You should have a way to learn and experiment without feeling stupid for not knowing shit or for asking questions.”
“You literally called me stupid for asking a question not even ten minutes ago,” you interject.
“I didn’t call you stupid. I asked if I’d already fucked you stupid, because the question was stupid.”
You throw your hands in the air at his brazen reply, in disbelief that he can somehow manage to be simultaneously the most frustrating man on earth and unusually open and honest on topics that deserve discussion.
“It’s not stupid to ask questions about sex, or toys, or rules, or anything that makes you more comfortable. It’s not stupid to ask questions about your body or ask me to adjust to something that feels better.” He begins his clarification as though it helps at all. “It’s stupid to ask who I meant when I said ‘finger yourself’ when you’re the only other person in the room,” he snorts, amused as you shoot him a deadpan expression. “And it’s stupid as all hell to apply to a store where you don’t have any fucking clue what we sell.”
“You’re–”
“Yeah, yeah. Save it for later.” He makes a quarter turn, hand on the handle again. “I gotta go. See you at work.”
And with that, he’s gone.
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౨ৎ a/n ; helloooo!! thank you all so much for all of the support :') i couldn't possibly have imagined all the love for this series, so it seriously means a lot.
i've gone for what i think is a fun writing challenge for myself in giving sukuna and reader both a very interesting dynamic, while also showing that sukuna's views on sex are very different than traditional ones bc of his line of work. we'll see more of satoru's perspectives as well and where those views come from!! reader, of course, struggles with insecurity in spite of the fact that she is bold and confident and slowly but surely we'll see more of that come into play in further chapters as well as where it comes from.
❝ it's been two years since you and shoko have seen the group that made up your friends in college- satoru, suguru, sukuna, kento, toji, shiu, hiromi, and choso. on a whim, satoru decides to host an exclusive halloween bash at his totally-not-spooky cabin in the woods. he promises all the best; free booze, good times, hot tubs, and the best costumes money can buy. what could possibly go wrong?
well- maybe the killer instincts hiding among your once tight-knit group of friends. ❞
꒷꒦꒷ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. inspired by your typical slasher film/game, please expect all the typical warnings of the genre. graphic descriptions of violence, blood, gore, injuries and death, sometimes played off in a comedic way. use of knives and guns. use of alcohol and cannabis. mentions and implied use/peddling of harder drugs. costumed killers. monsters. serial killers. reader needs to get her priorities straight. smut. piv. oral (m! and f! receiving). handjobs. fingering. biting. marking. monsterfucking. manhandling. size kink. voyeurism. praise. degradation. thigh riding. sex at inappropriate times. each ending will be tagged accordingly.
꒷꒦꒷ wc ; 90k estimated.
welcome killers and survivors alike to my 2025 halloween event! please read the intro here and choose your romantic interest to pursue for the night at the bottom of this post.
each route has a different killer- or killers- although you'll see recurring themes throughout each one should you choose to try your luck with each man!
main masterlist || ao3 || wattpad
Cozy, Satoru had called it.
Tucked within a pocket of trees just up the hill from where you had parked, his cabin sits slightly askew on uneven land. You scrutinize every detail of the worn wooden outer walls of the structure as the word echoes in your head. Acorns and Pine Cones decorate the fall ground, crunching beneath your sneakers as you shift.
Cozy.
You’re not so sure the wooden building fits that description. You suppose it’s fitting for Halloween, but it does make you feel as though you’re five minutes from stepping into some cheesy slasher film.
You would say the vibe is a bit more… like a run-down cabin that needs a little TLC, but you suppose maybe the outside is just weathered. After all, your old friend did mention that his parents have owned it for a while.
Still. What an oversell.
As you skeptically peer up at the structure, you’re so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t hear the sound of fallen pine needles and leaves crunching beneath heavy footsteps.
“Hey, doll.”
You jolt, turning to face your old friend-turned famous football player, Toji Zenin- scratch that, Toji Fushiguro- who you’re shocked to find actually made it. He’s sporting his signature jersey and a couple of black stripes across each cheek, just about the most half-assed attempt at a Halloween costume you’ve seen. Still, he did manage to make time for your old group, which you’re admittedly grateful for.
“Toji!” You grin, greeting him with a polite hug. He returns it with enough fervor to make you squeak under his strength. Just as you pull back, you spot his closest friend-turned-manager coming up the hill behind him.
“Do I need to remind you that I’m not your caddy, asshole?” Shiu spits from around the cigarette settled between his lips, an unimpressed look on his face as he dumps Toji’s bags beside the brute unceremoniously. Before the football player gets a chance to reply, Shiu’s brow is raised as his eyes find you. “Well, shit. Look who it is,” he greets you with a side hug.
“Hey Shiu!”
“Lookin’ good, love the cowgirl costume. Very classy,” he compliments your cute pink attire, his eyes shamelessly trailing on the plump of your ass that your shorts barely cover. “I’m a fan.”
You laugh, dipping your hat gratefully at his compliment off as your cheeks warm. “Thanks, Shiu. I love the uh- salaryman attire?” You make your best guess, but in truth he’s just in a suit.
He chuckles, moving his cigarette to his fingers. “Nah. We just got off a plane from Toj’s press conference. Sorry to disappoint.”
“No, you both look great,” you grin.
“You seen anyone else yet?” Toji inquires, giving you a light nudge.
“Not yet, but I got a text from Hiromi right before losing service. He’s almost here.”
Toji hums thoughtfully. “You keep up with him after graduating?”
“Not really,” you sigh honestly. “I kinda fell out of touch with everyone aside from Shoko. Kento and I try to meet up every now and then, though.”
“The reality of life,” Shiu shrugs. “I hear from Sukuna and Choso every so often.”
You wince at the mere thought. “Sukuna’s coming?”
Shiu smirks knowingly. “He is. Sorry, doll.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Water under the bridge,” you sheepishly reply, trying to set aside thoughts of seeing your former situationship once again. You’re both adults and it’s been three years. You can just avoid Sukuna if worst comes to worst. There’s enough people here to keep your attention away from that asshole and his inability to commit.
Besides, his little brother Choso was always sweet to you, junior to you by only a year. There’s no reason for you to be so wary about seeing him, at the very least.
You can just keep Sukuna at arms’ length.
Speaking of the devil, an obnoxiously large Jeep with a black matte wrap rolls up entirely too fast for your comfort, barreling up the hill Satoru specifically warned you all to walk up. The bass pumping from the vehicle shuts off as Sukuna and Choso hop out.
They both look good. Choso has put on a lot of muscle, filling out his baggy clothes with new piercings decorating his face. Sukuna rounds the car with a joint held between two fingers, carrying the bravado of a man entirely too cocky for his own good. Safe to say the one man you’re not so sure about hasn’t changed one bit. So, that’s just great.
“You haven’t changed one bit, huh?” Toji grins at Sukuna in spite of his mocking tone. He extends his fist to Sukuna, who bumps it without a word, silently offering a hit of his blunt.
Brushing his pink-dyed hair back with long fingers, Sukuna puffs out a sigh, smoke spreading before him. “Damn, was this a costume party?” He carries that same aloof expression as he stares down at his dark denim jacket and baggy torn jeans.
Snorting, Toji nods. “You two forget?”
“Yeah. Busy,” Sukuna excuses himself with a shrug and no regard for the party.
Honestly, you’re shocked all four of the men at your side were able to make it at all. Satoru and Suguru were a given, Kento and Hiromi could be convinced, Toji and Shiu had the excuse of travel, but Sukuna and Choso? You’d just figured they couldn’t give a damn enough to be here. They’d always been a bit on the outskirts of your group, mostly by choice- they prioritized their weed side-hustle more than you, something you had learned the hard way.
Sukuna’s disinterested and mildly stoned crimson irises sweep the cabin once, before turning to settle on you. There’s a slight twitch in his eye as his gaze drinks you in and you find yourself shivering as goosebumps raise along your arms. You’re not sure you care to know what he’s thinking.
“Alright, well I’m goin’ inside,” Toji decides as silence stretches on. He and Shiu begin their bickering as the former Zenin snarkily tries to get his manager and friend to take his bags, only to get a swift kick to the shin.
Choso quietly observes before leading the way up to the door. He tests the handle and pushes inside upon realizing it’s open. As Toji and Shiu sort themselves out and head in next, you trail after them. Tugging your bag up over your shoulder, you just barely catch a familiar baritone voice calling out for you to wait.
Flipping in place, you catch the warm smile of a very tired law student in his final year. His hair is longer than when you last saw him, a few stray brown strands falling across his forehead. “Hiro!” You grin as he jogs up to you.
Letting the door shut behind you, you step back out to hug him. He fixes you with a kind smile, his sunken gaze taking in your appearance. “Your costume is cute,” he speaks matter-of-factly, not daring to let his gaze linger too long like your friends with far less decorum. Always polite, he takes a step back to show off his own.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who put in a bit of effort,” you laugh, admiring his cheesy Superman- no, Clark Kent- costume. It’s fitting for him, and the Superman tee beneath has a certain cheesy charm to it. “That’s fun, I love it Hiro.”
“Thanks,” he smiles, averting his gaze for a brief moment. “Am I the last one here?”
“I think we’re still waiting on Ken,” you muse. “I haven’t seen Shoko, Sugu or Satoru yet, but I heard them inside.”
“Hopefully I didn’t keep anyone waiting too long.”
You shake your head, pushing the door back open for him. “No, I just got here and everyone else literally just headed inside. You’re barely late.”
“Ah, good to hear. So, that means you saw Sukuna?”
“Don’t remind me,” you groan. “I’m just looking forward to a stress-free fun night of booze and beer pong and forgetting that guy ever existed.”
Amused, the almost-lawyer blows air out of his nose in a hint of a laugh. “Well, if you need time away from him, give me a shout.”
“Thanks, Hiro.”
Pushing into the cabin, you take in the sights as you drop your back to the ground beside Hiromi’s. You’re pleased to find that with the fireplace lit in the center of the large living area, the cabin is considerably cozier inside. The slasher vibes seem to end at the front door.
Thank god.
Classic cabin attire decorates the large open living space with three couches surrounding the crackling fireplace and a TV hung over the mantle. Red plaid blankets and pillows are tossed carelessly across the furniture and a stuffed bison head hangs just before the entry to the kitchen. A large staircase can be found at the back of the room, leading up to the seven rooms this place apparently boasts.
Light floods from the door that you assume leads to the kitchen just as Satoru and Suguru make their way out from the kitchen.
“You all made it!” Satoru grins, greeting each of you with a tight hug. He’s grown considerably, no longer the twig he was back in your early college days. He fills his shirt out nicely, the material pulled taut around muscular shoulders, though you can barely tell under his plastic chainmail. There’s a hint of dark circles forming beneath his eyes, but you chalk that up to life as an adult. Or maybe costume makeup.
Probably the former.
Suguru, on the other hand… he looks a lot happier, and healthier for that matter. Maybe that’s just the part of you that’s still attached to your ex-boyfriend, doomed by distance after you moved overseas. With no bad blood between you, he offers a soft smile as he stands aside to let Satoru greet everyone first. As Satoru launches into chatter with Toji, Suguru slips through the crowd to approach you.
“Hey,” his smooth timbre remains low as those golden eyes slowly take in your appearance. “You look great.”
“Thanks, Sugu,” you keep your voice low as heat creeps up your neck, reaching the tips of your ears. You’re forced to avert your gaze from the attention his presence always seems to demand, completely effortlessly. Finding your footing, you can’t fight your smile any longer as you take in his costume.
A baggy white shirt hangs loosely from his shoulders with a vest tied tightly over it. An eyepatch dangles around his neck that you assume he got sick of, while his hair is half-tied up.
“You make a good pirate,” you compliment him.
Those calculated golden eyes you once fell so hard for slide down the length of your body, the fire beneath his smirk scarcely hidden. “You make a gorgeous cowgirl.”
You have to chew on your lower lip as you sheepishly thank him. When you look up, you catch a glimpse of blonde behind Suguru’s large form, alongside Shoko. Your eyes light up at the sight of your best friend and the only other member of the group you’ve succeeded at keeping in touch with.
“Satoru, I already told you, just because I’m dressed as a chef does not mean I’ll cook for you,” he gripes, mild irritation laced within his voice as he shoots the white-haired business mogul a frown.
“C’mon Nanamin, I was just saying hi,” Satoru groans, a mischievous glint in his eye as he uses Kento’s most loathed nickname. “I’ll be right back!”
You turn your attention back to Suguru briefly. “I’m gonna go say hi. Catch up later?”
Suguru gives you a warm nod with a soft ‘take care’, murmured only to you as you slip past him.
“I can’t believe you didn’t wanna drive with me,” you poke fun at Shoko despite the fact that she’d given you a perfectly reasonable answer when you’d asked earlier.
She pulls you into a hug despite having seen her yesterday. “You know how far the hospital is from us,” she retorts, indulging your teasing. Pulling back, you take note of her scrubs and narrow your eyes as you scrutinize the red drops across her sleeve.
“Please tell me these are clean.”
“They were until Satoru pulled out red food dye,” she shoots a snarky side-eye his way.
“Thank god.” Her scrubs are still about as half-assed of a costume as Toji’s, but at least they’re clean.
Turning your attention to the patient man off to the side in a cute chef’s hat, you grin. “Ken, hey!” You greet the blonde with a bear hug, who welcomes you with open arms.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he hums, pulling back from the hug to briefly remove his glasses. He rubs at his eyes before replacing them on the bridge of his nose and adjusting his apron. “I thought I arrived in a timely manner, but I was far too early and have been stuck as someone’s personal chef since then,” he shakes his head.
“The asshole immediately put us to work,” Shoko groans in agreement.
“Sorry to hear it,” you giggle. “In Satoru’s defense, Kento is dressed like a chef.”
“For Halloween,” he states dryly.
“I like it, it suits you.”
“I appreciate that,” he sighs, “still not Satoru’s chef,” he adds, taking a step back to look over the filled room as everyone begins to fall into conversation.
“Alright, alright!” Satoru beams, rubbing his hands together like an eager fly as he gathers the group’s attention. “Nanamin and I are just finishing up dinner-”
“We are not-”
“- so! Make yourselves at home. There’s seven rooms and a bunch of couches so pick your poison. Nothing’s off limits. All the alcohol’s in the wine cellar, but be careful down there, the door gets stuck sometimes.”
With that, Satoru’s totally normal cabin Halloween party commences.
which survivor, killer, or potential victim would you like to test your luck with?
꒷꒦꒷ a/n ; hello!! thank you so much for reading <33 i'll be trying to get every chapter out over the course of october, but please bear with me if i run over since all chapters have gotten longer than expected :) you'll see a lot of horror movie and game inspiration coming from things like until dawn, saw, friday the 13th, scream, scary movie, classic monster movies, as well as knives out. i hope you enjoy!
i'll only be doing a 50 person taglist + my permatags.
➴ childhood bsf trueform!sukuna x f!reader
[heian era canon adjacent au] - ongoing series
❝ the world is an unjust beast. it claws and tears until nothing remains but those cursed with the greatest gift of all; power. in another world, ryomen sukuna is the strongest sorcerer in history, capable of an evil no one can dream. but he was once a boy, and you were once a girl. now a devil with docked horns and an angel with tattered wings, you walk this world together, your curse to navigate side by side. ❞
➴ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. dark themes surrounding my interpretation of sukuna's upbringing and how it affects you both. graphic depictions of blood, gore, death, dismemberment, mutilation, cannibalism and hunted animals. character death. themes surrounding poor mental health. poor coping mechanisms. arguments. best friends to lovers. toxic codependency. child abuse & neglect. self-hatred. attempted self-mutilation. bigotry & period-accurate misogyny. vomit. eventual smut after both characters are over 18. angst. hurt/no comfort. eventual hurt/comfort. tragic lovers with a happy ending. dddne.
➴ wc ; 7.2k.
main masterlist || series masterlist || ⇤ prev || next ⇥
The fire puts itself out when there’s nothing left for it to devour in the morning following the attack. It leaves behind an ash rain that coats the charred earth. With every pained sob, it coats your lungs and throat, bringing with it a bitter feeling like grains of sand in your breaths.
Your brain and body can’t seem to keep up with the world as your consciousness fades in and out through multiple days and nights.
Two things stay consistent through the waking moments.
Exhaustion. Your head aches from a lack of sleep. The pressure behind your eyes is unrelenting and you find yourself wanting to keep them closed once your tears finally stop. Yet your mind won’t let you, caught up on loss and grief. Your limbs don’t feel like they belong to you. You’re like a ghost within your own body and nothing feels real. How could it, without Saya?
The second consistency is that Sukuna is a constant worry. Your brain seems to concoct countless ways in which the world could tear him from you, thus tearing you from your fleeting moments of rest too.
When you wake in the remains of Saya’s home while your parents care for her mother every day, you shake in the night and crawl closer to your parents.
This house is a hole like that left in your heart.
You don’t want to be here anymore.
It’s a miracle your body carries on in the barely functioning state you’ve been living in leading up to Saya’s funeral.
After a long week of rebuilding and trying to pick up the pieces of a farming village whose crops were razed and a tense conversation with Zen’in sorcerers who no longer live up to tales you know now as fallacies, at last the village is able to put the time into the funeral that the fallen deserve.
Your mother dresses you. It’s nothing fancy. She tells you it’s a kimono that survived the fire.
It’s not.
It’s Saya’s.
And when you stand at the burial plot outside the village, it’s a weight on your shoulders you aren’t sure you can bear.
The tears come again. Warm down your cheeks, long before the ceremony even begins. It’s the first time your mother has left your side in the past week in order to help prepare a pyre, and your body protests being alone, dropping to your knees. Your limbs are cold, your chest hot. Pressure behind your eyes. Shallow breaths. Panic. The kind of thoughts reserved only for nightmares. Sobs choke you, sputtering past your lips as you try to keep them in when you hear footsteps behind you.
Wiping your eyes as you attempt to hold it together, you only fall further apart at the sight of striking red eyes that also bear the evidence of tears. Pallid, your friend stares as though he’s finally been given something to grasp. Like if he doesn’t let go, he might not crumble under the pressure he, too, feels.
For as sickly as he looks, hidden by that same straw hat from the week prior, he pushes himself to keep control. He doesn’t collapse beside you, he makes the effort to stay steady at your side as he lowers himself to his knees. You can’t be sure whether he’s trying to stay strong for you, or for himself. Neither answer is ideal.
You’re both far too young to be grappling with the weight of a loss so great.
He’s far too young to be holding up the blame, on top of that. But how could you possibly know that much when you have yet to witness the transgressions committed against such a young child?
For all the control Sukuna exhibits in spite of his own pain as he settles at your side, the moment you collapse against him, his reaction is immediate. Your remaining best friend’s muscles release as he falls into you as well. Neither of your pain is being shouldered alone for the first time in days.
You appreciate your parents for their support, but they’re not who you needed.
“My mom wouldn’t let me see you.” Your voice scrapes in the back of your throat, raw. With your ear against his shoulder, you hear his breath catch as he stifles a sob.
“I wasn’t allowed to leave,” he murmurs in a voice equally broken.
It’s the first time an admission from him has come so easily. There aren’t layers of protection under lock and key, he simply gives in. When you wipe your cheek and lift your head to stare at him, there’s a small scowl pulling at his features, his jaw set as he keeps his gaze down, avoiding your shocked expression.
“Why?”
For a beat, he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even react. Then, like porcelain, he cracks. Small at first, a downward twitch of his lips. Then his chest heaves as everything hits like a wave.
His voice is barely a whisper. Had you not been leaning against him, you might have missed it. “It’s my fault.”
You shake your head, small and adamant. “No it’s not.”
His jaw shifts. The tension in his muscles rises under your grip.
“No it’s not, Ryo.” You give him a little shake that has him pulling away slightly with the faintest hint of that mildly irritated boy you’ve always known. The one who would butt heads with Saya at the first sign of a challenge.
He doesn’t fully pull away, though.
The breeze shifts. The clouds give way to the sun briefly enough to allow it to slant down over the both of you. It doesn’t feel like warmth bathing you in its gentle embrace like it might have a week ago.
It paints golden over the straw of his hat in a streak. When he glances up, the straw hat sitting atop his head slides back from where it unevenly sat, hanging by its string from his neck. His crimson gaze squints, blinking as the sun assaults the eyes that don’t sit over skin but rather the protrusion from his face. All four eyes respond in kind as he looks away, briefly focused on you before he finds the grass at his knees of interest.
The sun should feel like hope. Like an extension of the warmth it provides. Rather, it doesn’t sit right with you. Like an ill omen projecting a warning across your friend’s sanguine eyes that warns of a future not unlike your last week.
Dread sits at the pit of your stomach as you see something dark stir behind his eyes, but it disappears before you have time to think twice about it. The look he fixes you with next, his lower eyes shut once more, is simply tired.
“They were looking for something. Someone. One of the villagers told Murata-Sensei that they heard the sorcerers looking for a monster.”
Adamantly, you shake your head. You don’t even think twice about defying the omen that seems to write itself across your friend’s face. “So? You’re not a monster.”
He shifts an inch away from you. The ways in which he struggles are foreign and in spite of the fact that he seeks your comfort as much as you chase his, it’s a reminder that he’s alone in all of this. You’re his closest ally, the one person left that changed his outlook on the world, but at the end of the day, your story’s pages are brighter.
“I’m Ryomen Sukuna. From the stories.”
Your nose wrinkles at the concept. “Just because someone called you that after the story doesn’t mean you’re a monster.”
The disparity between you feels larger than ever for the little boy. He doesn’t blame you for not understanding. What child would assume the beast with hooked claws and jagged fangs was only a three-year-old child, now ten? You’re right to think otherwise.
Still, his chest draws in on itself for this is his burden to shoulder.
Alone.
“You’re right,” he murmurs, small. Your hands curl into the hemp fabric tied around his waist as he gives in, allowing you to hug him properly.
Alone, maybe. But he’ll bear that burden if he can keep your friendship.
The sound of footsteps has your friend scrambling to pull his hat back over his head as he glances cautiously over his shoulder. Your head pounds too steadily to make much of the noise or your friend shuffling. It’s not until you make out familiar voices that you wearily lift your head from Sukuna’s shoulder.
Murata shoots you a brief glance, alongside your mother. Saya’s mother and your father are too busy with preparation to pay you any mind. Imai and another villager’s gazes linger too long.
Sukuna ducks his head, curling into your embrace.
Silence permeates the air surrounding you both. Weary to your bones and both lacking in sleep, the shared embrace of being near someone who understands your pain– what remains of your trio– gives your body a chance to relax. Your nervous system stops firing constant concern to your brain, and with the thoughts of losing your closest friend coming to a halt, the breeze soothes you into rest.
It’s not sleep, but your muscles loosen enough to allow your body a chance to recover, even if only for a moment. Sukuna’s weight is heavy against your side, each of you contorted in a weird way as you sit in the grass, but it’s the most at ease you’ve felt in a week.
Sukuna is still here.
The thought loops until you can believe it. The feeling of his robes scratches at your fingers until you can ground yourself in that thought.
The world continues on around you, but you pay it no mind. Saya and her father’s bodies are among those being honored today. The adults are joined by more members of the village as a pyre is put together, wooden graves prepared to be added to the burial plot once the ceremony has ended.
It’s not a breeze or your friend shifting that brings you back to the present, but the natural murmuring of the village gathering around you.
Sukuna’s head falls forward when you lift yours, an inconvenienced expression gracing his features when he’s harshly awoken by your movement. It fades as his head whips around, taking in the sights of the whole village surrounding you both. He shifts, leaning on an upper arm as his hidden ones wrap tighter around his torso while he evaluates the gazes taking in the sight of you and a child they scarcely know.
Imai’s gaze sears his back like hot iron. His instincts tell him to run without so much as looking at the man. His body tells him that he doesn’t have the energy to give. His mind tells him that blood is the cost of living. Static brews in his chest, the sensation of power roiling within. His fingers twitch against the sparse grass, clenching as he leans on the ball of his palm.
But it all dissolves when you yawn and slump forward. His fists loosen, his gaze falls to the dirt, and he pulls his knees to his chest.
When half of the things that keep you going are ripped from your grasp, the last half becomes sacred. The same is true for the small child, who never truly knew how much he had to lose until it was gone. Now, he doesn’t dare risk what’s left.
After all, he has to remind himself he’s never acted out of anything but self defense.
He’s still a good person.
Right?
Your mother makes her way to your side, lifting you to your feet and beckoning Sukuna to follow upon noticing he’s more present than you are. He pushes off of the grand, brushing loose dirt and leaf litter from his palms and knees, but he doesn’t stray far. Murata already explained that with the shrine keeper being among those who’ve passed, the ceremony is his to carry out.
The open fields of the village don’t seem to carry sound as the small gathering quiets down with all preparations made. It’s as though the trees themselves have taken up the role of guards, preventing even the birds from making commentary.
If only they could have taken up that mantle prior to the attack and warned the village before it was too late.
You suck in a breath at the sight that faces you as you stand. A pyre made of stacked logs is ready to be lit, all greenery cleared from its immediate vicinity to prevent the spread of fire. Atop it lies those who were lost, wrapped in off-white hemp fabric and cord. The sight is enough to reignite the grief of the past week once more, the breath you took serving little use when you’re already struggling not to sob.
But it’s the fact that among those who were lost is a body smaller than the rest that strikes you through the very heart. It still doesn’t quite feel real, like some part of your brain is clinging to a fragile thread that this could all still be part of a nightmare.
Your friend sniffles beside you, shaking as he keeps his head lowered. You reach for his hand, squeezing it as your mother did for you. His face flicks briefly to you, revealing puffy cheeks, before he stares at the dry soil below his feet again.
Murata’s words echo across the fields that extend long past the trees. He doesn’t need to project his voice, for the silence of the lands speaks the volumes he doesn’t.
As the ceremony begins, Murata sullenly presents small statements about each individual. Although personal, his words are somewhat clipped. Without the traditions of the shrine keeper, he keeps things brief as he goes over their lives as though they weren’t family to many of the people standing here.
Your chest clenches, your lungs constricting as Saya’s name hangs in the air too close for you to grasp.
“Our time with young Saya was brief, but she affected many. I hope that we are able to come together and support her family and friends in their time of need.”
He speaks so practically that your skin crawls. Part of your world is gone and there’s so little to say. You know it’s simply the way Murata operates, but it feels so disconnected you can’t bear it. You don’t even realize how hard you’re squeezing Sukuna’s hand until he shuffles closer, the warmth of his shoulder bleeding through your robes.
It quells the way your body shakes, if only for a moment.
As Murata moves on to more traditional aspects of the funeral, your brain fills with fog. Your ears ring, your eyes water.
You feel sick again.
It’s not until smoke billows through the air when the pyre is lit that at last you’re present again. The sensation that feels not unlike your head being ready to burst is thrust aside harshly when fire warms your skin. You stand on edge at the sensation, too close in feeling to a mere week ago when you thought the fire might very well take you.
Recoiling away from the sensation, you hide behind your mother. Shielded from the heat, it’s the smoke that assaults your lungs next, but you refrain from coughing. Somehow, the pain of your throat allowing soot to drag through it makes you feel more alive than you have in weeks.
As the taste rots against your tongue, it leaves with it a sour reminder that this isn’t a nightmare after all. The sensation is too real, like being pinched, that you’re thrust very suddenly before the realization that the world is cruel. It takes and it so rarely gives back.
You hate it.
You hate that once smoke and embers is all that remains of the pyre, the village returns to normal. You hate that condolences are the most anyone seems to offer. You hate that you can hear Imai’s boys already back to playing while you’re forced to grapple with the loss of your dear friend.
It’s not fair.
The only people who linger are those who lost family and friends during the attack. A scarce group who choose to remain mostly silent, milling about the area where smoke looks harsh against the vibrant greenery it contrasts.
Your mother allows you the chance to grieve, unmoving as she lowers herself to the ground and cradles you close.
Sukuna remains nearby, huddled into himself with no one to offer the same support for him. The contrast of the fiery warmth to the early morning air that follows leaves him shivering. He casts a sidelong glance to your mother, edging closer, but she doesn’t acknowledge him.
Swallowing, his gaze finds the closest thing he’s ever found to familial warmth. Saya’s mother’s hair is done up in a low bun that sits between her shoulder blades. It’s more unkempt than usual, but Sukuna supposes that’s not unusual when his hair has been long flattened by natural oils, sweat, and a lack of keeping up with self-care in his current situation.
The first step he takes towards the woman is cautionary, but he gains confidence as he approaches her, addressing her quietly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He can’t possibly expect the look he receives when she faces him. He’s seen it before– some part of him is accustomed to it– but to see it from Saya’s mother? Such scorn feels unbefitting from her.
He’s lost. Like an animal tucking its tail between its legs, he shrinks under the intensity of her contempt. “Sorry will never be enough, Ryomen.”
He stumbles back a step, shoulders raised defensively as he holds his hands protectively in front of him. “I’m–”
What the hell can he ever say in reply to that?
He’s a child. In his ten short years on earth, nothing could prepare him for the one positive adult influence in his life to turn on him in such a way.
“Don’t,” she hisses, “don’t continue that.”
His jaw hangs ajar, puffy cheeks throbbing as the blanket of grief he’s already struggling with is doused in fear, too. “I didn’t–”
“Do you know what kind of bad luck you’ve wrought on us?”
His chest rises and falls too quickly, unable to tear his gaze from the disgust that sears his skin. He knows Murata is making a move to interrupt, but the man’s movements seem slower than Sukuna’s current reality.
Undeterred, the grieving widow continues. “My husband is dead because of you. Saya is dead,” she pauses, the words hanging in the air long enough that they feel like a slap to the face of the already-crying child. He flinches, wincing as his body protests the movement. “Because of you.”
There’s no static in his chest. Energy doesn’t move through his body like electricity. This isn’t a village of nobodies with pitchforks and fire ready to burn him.
This is the only adult who’s ever extended her motherly instincts to him without questioning anything. Her words take a shovel to whatever light is within him, burying it where he’s not sure he’ll ever find it. “I really didn’t–”
“I do not want to hear it, Ryomen,” she spits, her words far more formal than you’ve heard from her.
“Stop!” You cry out, the horror freezing you to the spot in your mother’s arms finally dissipating enough that you connect what’s going on.
Saya’s mother’s brow twitches as you pipe in. She visibly swallows, but her words are no kinder as she addresses you. “This is not your place, child.”
Murata finally reaches her side, attempting to calm her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That’s quite enough, this isn’t the time or–”
“I know they wanted you,” Saya’s mother ignores him, taking a step towards Sukuna that has the little boy stumbling as he trips over loose dirt in an effort to back away. You tear yourself from your mother’s grasp, your expression painted in equal pain as you steady your friend when he stumbles. You whine for her to stop through your own tears, but it’s no use. “I know it was you!” She cries scornfully over your protests.
Again, Sukuna stumbles, backing straight into you and tripping over your feet. You’re both sent toppling over into the dirt, his fall broken by you. Pushing up on your elbows, you don’t make a move to get up when Saya’s mother steps closer.
Murata shakes his head, interrupting with finality. “Enough.”
But Saya’s mother doesn’t listen.
“You did this! It’s all your fault!” She points her finger straight at the child. You can feel a subtle tremor move through him as he tries to insistently shake his head.
One way or the other, Murata’s had enough. His hand wraps around the woman’s wrist as he begins dragging her away from Sukuna, left with no options aside from this. Still, her cries echo through the trees and over the fields. The trees that stood as guardians now seem to push her voice inwards, like they want her words to haunt him.
“You killed her! You are a monster! You do not deserve this life!”
Your mother rounds the spot on the ground where you’ve toppled over, kneeling before each of you. Conflict breathes hesitation into her movement, her eyes flashing with something akin to uncertainty as she reaches out for not just you, but Sukuna too. You’re both dragged over ash-laden dirt into her arms, where she offers what little comfort she can.
Or, in Sukuna’s case, what little comfort she feels he deserves.
As his mind catches up to what’s happened, he shakes his head violently. “I didn’t do anything,” he insists, glancing up at your mother before staring pleadingly at you. He shifts, writhing in your mother’s grip as his fingers close around the material of your sleeves.
Your sleeves?
He blinks at the realization that the kimono you’re wearing isn’t yours at all. It’s Saya’s.
But your belongings burned to the ground.
So why does it still hurt?
His eyes burn, the lower pair blinking harshly against his best efforts to keep them shut when it feels like Saya is somehow here, placing the blame alongside her mother.
“I didn’t do it, I’m not a–” he chokes on the word ‘monster’. Would it be a lie to claim such a thing? He doesn’t want to be a fanged beast. He doesn’t want to be a story meant to scare children.
You pull him from his paranoia when you offer him real comfort, arms hugging him so tightly that he can feel your conviction through such a simple action. Or maybe you’re comforting yourself, but either way, his heart slows just enough to grasp at the frail footing that makes up his reality. He buries his face in your shoulder, and yours in his, all while your mother cradles you close.
“You’re not a monster,” you murmur into his shoulder, muffled by tears, sniffles, and fabrics. Your voice is so low he doubts your mother heard. “You’re my best friend.”
“I didn’t kill Saya,” he barely manages to push the words out between breaths.
“I know,” you murmur back, hugging him harder.
You believe him. It’s the one and only thing he clings to. His hope. His belief that the world isn’t all death, despair, and hatred.
But for how long can he keep the rest of the village at a distance when even the places he once considered safe exile him too?
The sun crosses the sky as you huddle into one another. Your mother is patient as the shadows you cast grow long. For all the time you’ve spent in the last week in and out of sleep and barely-awake states simply trying to make it to the next day, this is the closest you’ve come to rest. As minutes turn to hours, your heart finally manages to find a calm pace.
When your mother’s knees ache and her back begins to give out, once she’s certain your tears are dried and you’re both in a state where talking won’t feel like dragging your words through gravel, she finally speaks up. Her voice is hoarse from the day’s turmoil.
“Ryomen, why don’t we get you back to Murata-san’s? I think you both need some sleep,” she offers.
Sukuna still catches the way that kindness doesn’t easily roll off her tongue when it’s directed at him. He’ll take neutrality, but his heart pangs for what once was. He lifts his head from your shoulder, cheeks still puffy and exhaustion clear as day across his face. He yawns, casting his glance at you.
“Can she stay with Murata-sensei and I?”
You blearily stare up at your mother as well, whose lips press into a thin line. You find yourself yawning too, wiping at your eyes.
“No. We need to be with Saya’s mother.”
That stops you dead in your tracks. Your hands fall from your face as you vigorously shake your head. “I don’t wanna go back to their house,” you pull back from your mother’s grasp, remaining in her lap although you sit upright now. “What’s wrong with her? Why was she mean to Ryo?”
“Do not say that,” your mother reprimands you rather formally. Your shame is overshadowed by the need to do right by your friend.
“Why did she say that?” You ask again. “That was scary. And mean.”
With two pairs of wide eyes peering up at her looking for any sort of explanation, she sighs. At the end of the day, you don’t know better. You’re both just kids, and she’s forced to remind herself of such.
Running her tongue over her lower lip, she nods. “She lost her daughter and husband,” she explains. “She’s grieving.”
“So?” You speak up with that same boisterousness Saya always had. Sitting beside him in Saya’s kimono, Sukuna has to avert his gaze if he wants the weight in his chest to remain manageable. “We are too! I didn’t blame her!” You cry, one hand clinging to Sukuna’s sleeve, while the other points in the direction where you can make out the faintest of commotions still taking place.
Your mother nods slowly, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Everyone grieves differently.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” you mutter.
“It was unkind,” your mother agrees, keeping that formal lilt you’re growing to hate that every adult around you seems to enjoy throwing around. You may be a child, but you aren’t completely naive to the way Sukuna is treated anymore. You’re equally aware of the fact that you, too, are treated differently for simply being his friend. It’s unfortunate that it took Saya’s mother’s vitriol to realize it, but life is cruel in the worst of ways.
You don’t know yet that there’s a word for the mistreatment of Sukuna, as it’s still lost on you just what makes him so different, but someday you’ll learn of the deeply-ingrained prejudice the world harbors for him.
In spite of her agreement with your statement, your mother gives no real explanation, leaving you grasping at threads in an attempt to piece together what happened. When she begins shuffling, she dismisses any questions by guiding you both to your feet so that she can stand. “Come. Like I said, Ryo needs to go home. You both need rest.” She reaches out to take your hands and although Sukuna allows her with a weary glance, you snatch your hand away before she can take it.
“No.”
In a warning tone, your mother says your name.
“No!” You repeat yourself with an adamant step back. Your eyes flicker between your mother and the direction where Saya’s mother disappeared. Finally, you look at Sukuna, your small hands clasping around the cord tied around your friend’s waist. Relief washes over his face in place of the hurt, and his entire demeanor seems to relax as you choose him. “I can’t leave Ryo.”
“Ryo needs sleep and so do you,” your mother sighs, her irritation growing by the second.
“I can’t sleep at Saya’s place,” you shake your head, stepping closer to Sukuna. “Everything reminds me of her. You keep making me wear her clothes and–” Emotions swell in your chest like a violent storm. Wind whips everything to and fro until there’s nothing discernable but a tangle of hurt, pain, and grief. All at once, it’s too much to bear and the storm brandishes its face in the form of tears welling in your eyes. “I can’t lose Ryo too,” you sniffle, barely keeping the floodgates at bay.
“I am sorry about your robes, but our home burned down in the fire. Ryo will be perfectly safe with–”
But no explanation will ever be enough when the damn robes you’re wearing and the house you’re forced to live in smells like Saya. It’s no place to heal and what are you meant to do if all that’s left of your friends are memories? Saya’s loss already feels impossible to bear, how are you meant to shoulder that without Sukuna? How are you meant to shoulder it doubly, alone, should something happen to him?
It’s that very thought that has your ears ringing and your mother’s words lost on you. The storm in your chest acts like water filling your lungs, threatening to pull you under and knock your lights out before ever giving you a chance to fight. You cling harder to Sukuna as your knees threaten to give out under the duress of emotions pressing down on you.
You’ve known the fear of your parents or the dark your whole life, but the fear of loss is new. It’s new and somehow more terrifying than anything you’ve yet to experience. Sukuna must be able to feel the weight you’re holding up just by clinging to the cord around his waist as he tries to hold you upright, wide tumultuous eyes looking to the adult near him for help.
But what help have adults ever been for the likes of a child like him?
Your mother sputters for words, using reason and logic to tell you why Saya’s mother is in the right. She spits out facts and evidence. That your house is gone. Your clothes are gone. She can’t leave either you or Saya’s mother when you both need her. Words fall from her mouth like she’s searching for any reason to keep you from Sukuna, but your sobs only intensify.
Logic. Sukuna internally scoffs at the mere thought, his brow knitting together as he comes to the conclusion that your mother is as useless as his sensei. You’re struggling to find breath and the best your own mother can offer is endless drivel that only tears Sukuna down, whether inadvertent or not.
So he does the only thing he knows how to do. In the pocket of woods where the three of you remain alone, two extra arms emerge from his sleeves, tight enough that the seams pull taut as he wraps you in a tight hug. If not to comfort you, what good is having four arms anyway?
In spite of the tears that still burn his own eyes, he holds you tightly, four hands bunching the kimono that smells too much of Saya to quell his own sorrows. It smells like a damn reminder of what hugs used to feel like.
The thought shakes his body in a small sob, before his tears finally break the dam and he’s crying too.
“Fine! Fine,” your mother concedes with wide eyes, holding her hands out in defeat as she’s left with two sobbing children and no reasonable solution set out for her. “We can see about you staying with Murata-san for a bit. Would that be acceptable?”
Acceptable. The formality irks you. Still, your heart slows its pace to something you might call reasonable, and through comfort that isn’t provided by your own blood, you manage to nod between hiccups.
You won’t realize it until long after a straw mat has been laid out a short distance from Sukuna’s. You won’t realize it until long after construction on your new home has begun and the village comes together to rebuild. You won’t realize it until the village’s smaller numbers mean less time isolated in the outer edge of the farmland and more time surrounded by people you scarcely know.
But that was the night that killed the childish wonder your friend once had.
–
It’s several fortnights before your home is ready once more. Given that there was extra space in both Murata’s and Saya’s mother’s homes, your home took the least priority over the others.
You hardly mind. You’re just grateful to have some of your own clothes once again. Wearing Saya’s old clothes dredges up painful memories, and Sukuna, who grows like a weed compared to you, has already given away a majority of the clothes that might fit you. You practically swim in anything borrowed from him.
In fact, by the time the first day you can sleep in your home comes to pass, you find yourself staring up at the thatch roof with your heart pounding unevenly. Is it the new environment that has you shifting, the new bed? Is it the roof that you’ve already spotted a hole in that will reveal its inadequacy come rain?
For all of your ideating, you know the truth.
What if something happens to Sukuna while you sleep just as it did to Saya?
With the moon now partially across the sky and your eyes still wide as though it were daylight, you slip from beneath your new quilts and carefully cross the room to the door. It glides open without protest, allowing you to slip away unheard.
The dirt and newly-growing grass underfoot is a stark contrast to everything new that adorns what should feel like home. You jog the short distance to Murata’s, creeping up to the door. Listening intently through the thin door for any noise, your fingers curl over the edge as you slowly push it open, using small fingers to lift the inner latch through the small gap in the door.
Moonlight floods the interior as you pad to the back, revealing the spot where your old bed still remains. It casts a long shadow where Sukuna is already sitting up staring at you, two wide eyes roused to wakefulness as you try to sneak in. That is, if he wasn’t already awake himself.
Once he’s face-to-face with the one person he associates with safety, a second pair of stark crimson eyes blink open. It’s that very stare that trails after you as you slip into the bed a short distance from him. He doesn’t say a word as you curl under the blankets and shut your eyes without a second thought.
He doesn’t need to. Over the course of the last few cycles of the moon, you’ve come to notice that Sukuna is quieter and more observant, but he’s also far more perceptive. You want to say you’ve developed a sort of language where the unspoken is understood between you, but it’s truthfully one-way. Sukuna is somewhat of a closed book, his walls holding far too strong as he refuses to let even you in.
But from the moment you walked in, he knew. He knows you fear the sound of flames. He knows the quiet looms over you like an ill omen. He knows that distance between you sounds more like danger and approaching sorcerers than the nothing that it should sound like.
He knows the Zen’in sorcerers are no longer heroes to you.
He sees it all. He feels it all too, as much as he keeps those secrets close.
The moon has traveled far enough to say an hour has gone by before he speaks.
“You can’t sleep either?”
He knows you’re still awake. You’re shuffling too much to be asleep.
“No,” you murmur, rolling over to face him. With your eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, you can make out the dark circles under his eyes. He seems more tired than you, even.
He nods, his gaze averting as though the straw hatch overhead is of sudden interest. “I’ve been getting good at archery.” He offers the thought casually like it might serve as a distraction, something to help you sleep.
Unfortunately, it does the opposite.
You sit upright, your gaze far brighter than the tired one that flooded with relief at the sight of your friend. “You haven’t taught me in a while.”
He shrugs. “Murata-sensei’s been busy. I haven’t been able to learn anything new.”
“I wanna practice too!” You insist, still hushed in an effort not to wake Sukuna’s guardian.
He peers at the frail wall that separates you both from the village leader, before pushing out from under his blankets. He pulls on the outer layer of his robes before returning to grab your forearm and drag you outside. He sneaks around the outer walls in order to grab both his old bow and Murata-sensei’s. In just the past year or so since he began teaching you the ropes here and there, he’s grown so significantly that he stands nearly a head over you and can already somewhat use his sensei’s bow as he comes to the man’s shoulders in height alone.
You, on the other hand, almost can use his old bow confidently.
With the bows slung over his shoulder like a sash and an ebira of arrows tucked under his arm, he leads the way into the forest, where you can talk without a hush.
Worrying your lip between your teeth, you find your anxiety growing the further you travel into the woods, regardless of the fact that he brought you north, rather than south where you were attacked from. His steps falter as you near the burial grounds, his body betraying him as he finds himself staring at the wooden planks emerging from the ground. His shoulders visibly fall as the hitch in his step brings him to a sudden halt.
You’ve spent so little time apart since the attack that you know he hasn’t visited. You have, twice now, with your mother. It doesn’t hurt any less each time. The remains of the pyre sit nearby too, which never fails to make your heart sink.
“Ryo?”
He blinks, looking back at you with two pairs of sanguine eyes. Storms brew behind them, tumultuous as his readiness to retreat to the woods the moment one of you doesn’t feel well.
“Have you visited her?”
His lips pull into a thin line, curling down at the edges. He doesn’t reply, fixing the burial site with a scowl instead. Grabbing the ebira from under his arm, you beckon him to take a seat before the wood where the dirt still seems as though it’s been recently disturbed.
His scowl is impenetrable, even as he takes a seat. He wears it like armor, as though it’s all that keeps the storm at bay.
The wood before you is plain, too much so for the little girl it means to represent. The only remnant of her is her name carved into the bowed wood.
“What’s the point of this?” Sukuna mutters under his breath, adjusting the way the bows sit across his chest now that he’s cross-legged on the packed dirt with you.
“Here,” you reach over for the bows, pulling them over his head and setting them aside with the ebira. “Sit on your knees.”
He follows suit without protest, though his expression remains hardened. Two of his hands sit in his lap, the others hidden beneath layers of cloth as he waits for your instruction.
“This is how you pay respects,” you explain, bowing your head. With a glance in your direction, Sukuna mirrors your display. “My mother likes to bring gifts as offerings as well,” you add. One pair of crimson eyes briefly flickers to you at the way you refer to your parent, more detached than he’s accustomed to. “She said it helps their spirits move on. That way–” Her mere name chokes you, but you press on. “Saya can be at peace.”
His heart hangs heavy at the explanation. He’s never thought of a spirit as something positive when the stories surrounding sorcerers so often depict cursed spirits. He’s never considered there are spirits that aren’t curses. The tight knit between his brows loosens as he bows further, his fingers clamping down on the material adorning his thighs. His lip quivers, giving in to everything he’s kept under wraps over the moon’s last couple of cycles, his shoulders shaking as he remains doubled over.
You shuffle closer, your warmth offering comfort as you suppress your own sniffles.
“If I had just–” It isn’t a sob that chokes him, but his bottled up frustrations. His knuckles are white under the sheer force with which he clenches them. “I could have done something if maybe–”
“It’s not your fault, Ryo,” you murmur, leaning against him with a sullen frown.
“Saya’s mother–”
“It doesn’t matter,” you shake your head adamantly. You know he feels the movement, rather than seeing it. Either way, it means something. “She was mean. I don’t know why.”
“Everyone looks at me weird.” His tone no longer carries sorrow, but malignance. You can sympathize with his frustration given how much time you’ve spent by his side lately. You have yet to understand where the disdain directed towards your friend comes from, but you’re no longer blinded by naivety towards it.
It’s not just Imai. Every time someone stops by Murata’s home, they eye Sukuna like something to be picked apart. Even your own flesh and blood doesn’t extend the kindness to him that they did to Saya.
The world feels several degrees colder.
“They’re wrong,” you declare adamantly. “All of them.”
He appreciates your kindness more than you could know. He holds your tenacity close, for he has none left himself.
Still, it still stands as a reminder that while he knows you’re more aware of the difference between Sukuna and the rest of the villagers, there’s dissonance in the way you both view the world. But the world will keep turning. And the child has to keep going. So he sucks in a breath and nods, tempering his grief in an effort to truly pay respect to Saya.
The moon grows closer to the horizon by the time you’re back on your feet. You already know you won’t get much sleep when your mother inevitably comes to reprimand you, but your mind is set on something else.
Sukuna pauses after pulling the bows over his head again, allowing them to hang from his shoulder. He holds the ebira in a hand, rolling one arrow between two fingers. Slowly, he leans over to settle the arrow at the base of the grave. You suck in a breath at the sight, somber with loss.
“An offering,” Sukuna echoes your explanation from earlier, like he’s internalizing it for himself. “To let her know her archers are protecting her spirit.”
You blink several times in an effort to keep your composure, nodding at last when Sukuna seeks your approval to leave. With one more glance back at the burial plot, you follow after your friend to practice archery until the sun kisses the horizon.
main masterlist || series masterlist || ⇤ prev || next ⇥
➴ a/n ; we're baaack! ty as always for the love on this series <3 i also want to give a fair warning that the following chapters will deal with extremely dark content. while i don't want to spoil what will happen, please do read the warnings before diving in.
hold me like a grudge
ch6 - sleep with one eye open
➴ childhood bsf trueform!sukuna x f!reader
[heian era canon adjacent au] - ongoing series
❝ the world is an unjust beast. it claws and tears until nothing remains but those cursed with the greatest gift of all; power. in another world, ryomen sukuna is the strongest sorcerer in history, capable of an evil no one can dream. but he was once a boy, and you were once a girl. now a devil with docked horns and an angel with tattered wings, you walk this world together, your curse to navigate side by side. ❞
➴ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. dark themes surrounding my interpretation of sukuna's upbringing and how it affects you both. graphic depictions of blood, gore, death, dismemberment, mutilation, cannibalism and hunted animals. character death. themes surrounding poor mental health. poor coping mechanisms. arguments. best friends to lovers. toxic codependency. child abuse & neglect. self-hatred. attempted self-mutilation. bigotry & period-accurate misogyny. vomit. eventual smut after both characters are over 18. angst. hurt/no comfort. eventual hurt/comfort. tragic lovers with a happy ending. dddne.
➴ wc ; 7k.
➴ a/n ; please heed the warnings for this chapter.
main masterlist || series masterlist || ⇤ prev || next ⇥ - coming soon
You haplessly watch the wheat outside your window as the stalks bend to the whims of the wind. With hands folded politely in your lap and your nicest kimono tied around your waist, you find yourself growing bored of your mother’s lessons.
Everyone within the village has been home more often lately upon failing to track the fire-bending Gojo clan sorcerer. Your mother in particular refuses to leave you alone since the incident with Sukuna. She refuses to call it anything else, which only serves to further upset you. Shouldn’t it be an incident with Imai’s sons? Why does she make it sound like Sukuna is at fault?
Why does everyone make things sound like Sukuna is at fault?
How can a pair of extra arms and eyes affect everyone’s perception of your best friend so much?
“Do you understand?”
You blink, eyes trailing from the window to your mother. You take in the sight before you of the beige paste in the mortar before you, before your gaze lifts to meet hers. You nod in spite of hearing little else but ‘stomach ailments’.
“Good,” she smiles, going on to explain more herbs and their uses in basic treatments, although your mind keeps dragging you elsewhere as you struggle to stay present.
You know better than to think this comes from a good place. It’s not that your mother doesn’t care, of course these lessons are, technically, well-meaning and useful, the only reason she keeps you here is to keep you away from Sukuna.
Ever since the ‘incident’ in question, stray glances have been thrown towards your friend more and more often from more and more villagers. It has your hair standing on end, and being apart from him leaves you listless. Your mind can’t shed the image of your best friend with blood trailing down his shoulders, and the strange way he holds himself sends your mind into a near-constant spiral of panic.
If you find him like that again, will Arai help? Will you be so lucky as to find him in time again?
Instinctively, your eyes wander to the spot where Murata’s house resides, an overwhelming itch to check in on him suddenly coming over you.
With a severity to her voice that makes you flinch, your head whips back around to your mother as she states your name. “You need to pay attention. Someday, you could help heal your husband’s ailments using this. It’s your duty.”
Your brow knits, your disdain obvious in spite of the fact that you obey.
Husband. Duty.
You want nothing less.
The only boy who isn’t the worst is Sukuna.
Still, you murmur a half-hearted apology and let her carry on in another lesson you can’t escape.
You would be willing to wager a bet that a part of the reason she’s left the village so little since the incident with Imai’s boys is that she doesn’t want you near your closest friend. It feels as though every chance to sneak out and every attempt to simply walk out the door is foiled. It doesn’t often stop your friend, pokes you with a wheat stalk through the window on the nights where he hasn’t seen you all day.
He can’t pull his weight through the window anymore, struggling to carry the near-dead weight of his extra arms that never recovered from nerve damage, even nearly a year later.
But he never fails to show up.
And you rarely fail to sneak out on those nights.
Your mother carries on, droning on about mugwort and perilla until your ears feel as though they’ve just about fallen off and your eyes begin to glaze over. Were you being taught under different circumstances, you’re positive you would retain more. It’s not like the information isn’t useful, even if you were to approach it from the guise of using these remedies on yourself as an archer, but you can’t bring yourself to care, staring at the mortar and pestle with hardly-feigned interest every time she lifts it.
There comes a point where you swear time must have stopped because every time you look outside, the sun is still in the same place over the horizon.
It’s like the world is just playing games with you at this point.
Your head lifts when you hear someone young yelling. It’s distant, too far to tell whether it’s your friend or another of the village boys, but it drags away any semblance of concentration anyway.
“Pay attention,” your mother scolds you. It’s not like screaming is uncommon when it comes to children playing, so you give her back the small fraction of your attention that she had to begin with.
But it only lasts so long when the yelling turns into a full-blown scream. Not the kind that you might brush off, but the kind that turns your blood to ice. You freeze to the spot, eyes wide as you stare at the pulverized mugwort for only a split second as your nervous system goes haywire.
Your breathing picks up, every single scenario you’ve conjured over the past three years whisking through your mind like a whirlwind. Your body acts on sheer panic alone. Inaction had you nearly losing him once, and now that the wind isn’t muffling the noise, you know your best friend’s cry.
You push up to your feet in an instant, your mother’s protests lost on you as you forgo shoes and go racing out the door towards the racket. Your mother’s steps aren’t far behind as you find Imai and Arai dragging something out of the fields behind Murata’s house. Your feet carry you over the packed dirt and scattered grass so quickly you almost wish they didn’t.
Your body betrays you when the sight before you is somehow worse than anything you’ve ever conjured in your mind. Your nightmares seem easier to navigate than the cruel fate that awaits you.
Blood seeps too fast from a large hole in Sukuna’s chest, punctured all the way through by the hunting spear that usually lies behind Murata’s home. It’s lodged in his chest, too close to his heart. His head hangs. Pink hair, matted and bloodied, hangs from atop his head, enough stray strands scattered across the ground to say that he didn’t give in without a fight. He hangs limp as they drag him by the end of the spear and one of his upper arms, and you can’t say for sure whether you’re too late or not.
When your body freezes a second too long, your mother grabs a hold of your arm, trying to drag you away from the sight.
“NO!” You scream, the sound wrenching from so deep within your chest that pain rips through your throat. You throw your full force in the opposite direction of her grip, nearly barreling you both into the dirt as you physically claw at the ground to keep her from dragging you away. “RYO!”
Arai shifts, continuing to hold the back of the spear as he steps between you and Sukuna in an effort to prevent you from the gruesome sight as though he isn’t the very cause of it. One of the lower arms hanging awkwardly from Sukuna’s torn sleeves twitches against the ground where he’s been dragged.
With one goal and one goal only in mind, you dig your nails into the earth, pulling with all of your might against your mother. “LET HIM GO!” You screech, tears gathering in your eyes as you fight your instinct to wail and cry for help when you’ve already witnessed the reality of Sukuna’s life. The only help coming to aid him is you, and you alone.
The adults fail to acknowledge you as anything more than a nuisance. They’re tearing your world apart in broad daylight, and they talk about you as though you’re not even there.
“Get her out of here.”
“I’m trying!”
More footsteps follow, but everything else is a blur when your mind clings to your friend. It holds on for dear life, your grip on the ground so desperate that when you drag yourself forward, your knees scraping harshly over rock, the pain doesn’t even register.
“RYO!” You plead again, clinging to a thick root in the mud that sticks under your nails. “Please,” your voice breaks into something harsh and jagged as tears spill, the sobs tearing through your body. The words that spill from your lips next don’t sound like you. “I need you.”
Your friend twitches again, a movement you barely manage to spot from around Arai’s figure. It doesn’t give you hope, but it’s all you have. It’s the last thread that keeps you from losing yourself, too, in that moment.
“Get,” Imai grits far more harshly this time, “her out of here.”
Your mother’s grip shifts long enough for you to surge forward, but Arai grabs you by your collar, keeping you out of reach of your friend.
You can only catch another mere glimpse of him, and it sends your stomach into a nauseating spiral. The dizzying sensation throws you off-balance and your mother catches you beneath your arms, dragging you back.
“No. NO!” Fighting against your body’s flighty instincts and your mother, you take everything you’ve learned from your limited time spent sparring with Sukuna to launch your weight straight into the ground. The impact is sudden and immense as you shake your head and attempt to pick yourself up, not having expected to successfully pull from her grip.
She scolds you, calling your name repeatedly on top of every consequence she can think of, but it’s nothing more than noise to you. Every scream attracts more attention, and for better or for worse, her words fall in amongst the rest of the chatter.
“Is that the boy I keep seeing around Murata-san?”
“Does it have four arms?”
“Stop fighting!”
“What’s wrong with his face?”
“We’re better off without it.”
“We must return home!”
“STOP!” You screech through the onslaught of overwhelming commentary as your mother drags you by the arm again.
Your chest heaves, vision blurred by tears as you fight with every last piece of iron will in your body to save your friend.
To your surprise, your scream silences much of the gathered crowd’s chatter. The shrill nature of it catches even Arai off-guard and he recoils from the noise, the tip of the spear he was holding stabbing into the ground and holding Sukuna in place at an awkward angle. Arai steps aside just enough that you finally can face your friend. Your mother still attempts to drag you away but you hang as a deadweight to prevent her from doing so with ease.
Your chest heaves, but with every inch you’re dragged further from him, your nervous system is sent into a frayed panic. Your heart pounds, the overwhelming sensation that it’s been torn by hand from within its cage like sawing through steel. Your breathing picks up, eyes burning as every inch you’re dragged backwards betrays everything you’ve spent the last three years building up since Saya’s passing.
“NO!” You cry out again, wrenching at your mother’s grip hard enough to pin yourself to the dirt again. Blood slowly wets the ground where gravel digs into the skin under your nails, but it’s the least of your worries as you’ve finally anchored yourself, tiring both yourself and your mother, and you can see Sukuna at last.
Really see him.
His breaths are shallow but present as he hangs limp on the spear. You can barely make out movement of his chest at all, thanking every god that might listen that his robes shuffle just enough to call it breathing at all. The protruding part of the right side of his face is covered in blood, as though one of the men holding your friend hostage has attacked his face, drawing blood as it drips from his scalp and an exposed area at the top of the cartilage.
His shoulder doesn’t hang right. In fact, most of them don’t. The bottom two remain damaged, hanging limp, while the upper arm Imai still has a grip on is twisted wrong. It must be completely out of the socket. Blood pours without stopping from a slice that starts at the same arm’s palm, jagged when it reaches his wrist, only ending midway up his forearm. The crimson pooling beneath him is unrelenting, staining the burlap of his robes from the waist down into something earth-shattering.
But the worst part is the spear whose sharp stone end protrudes from the upper left of his chest, angled into the dirt. On the off-chance it didn’t scathe a vital organ, it may have only narrowly avoided it.
“Ryo.” Your voice is frail, scraped over rocks as a sob wracks your body. Ignoring the pain in your fingers, you dig your nails further into the dirt-packed ground. You’ve lost faith in the onlookers to help, the most you can do now is hope. Pray. As if your dearest companion was ever protected by a god.
Fingers on the better of his two lower arms twitch again. His lashes flutter, and you find immediate relief in the fact that, by some greater force of good, he lives still. It’s not much, but it’s something.
“Ryo,” you continue desperately, something uncomfortable churning in your stomach like stones. It’s heavy and nauseating, but you cling to the fact that he’s listening. He can hear you. Over your mother’s yelling, over Arai and Imai trying to navigate the situation. He hears you. You suck in a breath through your sobs, your chest heaving as the sensation rips through you like a wildfire. “You can’t leave too.”
His lashes flutter once more, remaining a crack open this time. His head still hangs, and it’s only the slight tilt to the way he’s positioned that allows you to get a glimpse of one of his upper eyes. When your breathing picks up as he responds, the upper eye positioned on the protrusion from his face slowly opens as well. It’s red, far beyond just the natural hue of his irises or even the strain of tears. A blood vessel has burst, flooding the eye with a deep, unnatural crimson.
Your mother drags you by your torso, but your grip on a stone in the mud is unrelenting. You hear her call out for someone to help her, further flooded with anger when movement stirs behind Murata’s house. Saya’s mother, proving that she’s not an onlooker, but a perpetrator of the violence, too. You grit your teeth, steeling yourself as your attention returns to Sukuna.
He doesn’t look at you, but he’s aware of you. It’s all you need. “Please,” you hiccup as you inhale sharply. “I need you.”
Like an axel lodging back into place, your words jolt something in his mind. The fog splits as though it’s been sliced, and his pupils rise to meet you.
You’re hunched over, dirt and mud clinging to your nice pink kimono. You fight tooth and claw, giving everything you have to be there with him.
Even as you fight, he hates the way your eyes flicker across his face, cataloguing every last detail you can before he becomes nothing more than a memory in the mantle of your mind. He pictures himself as a whittled carving, similar to the toys you once played with together. He’s sure his lower arms would be whittled with less care than the upper ones, a distant memory given that even you rarely see them. His lower eyes would be barely an indent, a remnant of what was, and what you can recall.
His mind cruelly conjures the image of his best friend, not even thirteen, alone in the world. Hunched over, your knees pulled to your chest as everything you’ve ever known is torn from you by forces out of your control.
He hates the anguish twisting every feature on your face out of place. He hates the temperature of red as it boils under his skin. His fingers twitch again, the muscles of his lower arms protesting when he tests them.
Familiar static lingers at the tips of his digits, little slices that barely divot the dirt at first. Sensing his defiance, Imai grabs the spear again, giving it a hateful and harsh jolt. Sukuna’s head hangs again, blood crawling up his throat to spill from his lips.
“RYO!” Your fighting grows more frantic, less controlled, as Saya’s mother bends over to tear your fingers from whatever it is you’re clinging to.
Sukuna’s jaw hangs ajar as he adjusts to the sharp seizing of torn musculature and chest pain that bleeds red. Imai spits cold words at him, but his mind swims with the only warmth he knows.
You. You. You. You.
The static grows sharp.
He doesn’t know how to unleash it with accuracy. It’s never been a blessing. It’s always been something dark that simmers like hot oil beneath his skin. An energy he can’t quite wield, yet it seems to draw some people to him like a beacon and he has yet to understand it. He sees creatures you don’t. He knows different of the supposed folklore you’ve both heard stories of.
He knows the horned beast with a long curled tail and spikes along its back, the entity so demonic for tearing down an entire village in one fell swoop is no demon at all. He knows there are no claws, no fangs, and no venom.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” You cry out in defiance as the two closest things he’s ever had to a motherly figure both try to pull you away without so much as a glance at him.
His head lifts again. He blinks as viscous crimson seeps between his lashes, temporarily blinding him in one eye. With the stronger of his lower arms, he drags it to the best of his ability to the spear, but before he can even grab it, Arai’s foot comes down hard on his wrist.
He’s never been more grateful for the severed nerves in his arms, but his jaw still hangs loosely in pain. It’s dull, but not gone.
You scream at the sight as Saya’s mother frees your hands from whatever it was that you were holding so steadily onto. The sight has your fear turning ugly. Both the maw on Sukuna’s stomach and face grit their teeth in kind. Tears flood your face as you pull, writhe, and scream against your mother’s wishes. You attract more attention that Sukuna has never shown himself to and it brings a startling thought to his weakened mind.
He wants peace. He wants to be normal.
But if not normal, he just wants to see you smile again.
“RYO!” Your voice is ragged, tearing through him in a violent wave. The hurt wavering your voice is more painful than any spear through the chest. He sucks in a shallow breath as he grits his teeth, both men above finally distracted enough that he’s able to reach for the spear with his good hand. The stone blade is sharp against his palm, but the static of tiny slashes provides enough friction that it doesn’t touch him.
He tries to push himself up, to maneuver his body in a way that it pulls the spear from the dirt, but his strength is miniscule. He shuffles uselessly against his assailants, but he’s left with no sensation in the lower half of his body. “Stop,” he sputters through the blood, not for his sake, but yours.
“Grab a dagger. Finish this,” Arai ignores him.
The man’s words are lost on him. “Stop,” Sukuna coughs. The way his body wracks sends pain like a jolt up his spine. He groans, giving a weak tug at the spear to pull it from the earth, but it only serves to bloody his palm.
Imai and Arai move around him like a mission as your mother and Saya’s drag you away. You dig your heels into the ground, you claw, you scrape, you bite.
But it’s the screaming that finally gets through.
“DON’T HURT HIM!” His heart wrenches. “LET HIM GO!” It twists, and he has to grit his teeth to bear the pain. “RYO!” You’re almost out of sight when he hears you cry out in pain as you’re dragged away wrong. “I CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!”
His blood runs cold as something inside him tilts. The static erupts into furious slices as he cries out for you. They travel over the ground, leaving harsh divots in their path. They sit in the air like a storm, cutting through tension, thick, hot, and no longer figurative, but undeniably real. He falls out of Imai’s grasp at last as the man steps away, allowing Sukuna to catch himself on the one good arm he has before his torso slides further down the spear. His attacks die down as he catches his breath when he startles both men.
“Get the dagger!” One of them yells with more urgency.
He can’t say which one of the men it is that moves first, but his good arm lifts as he cries out in fury and rage and in mere moments, the man has halted, bones sliced through so cleanly that the way he falls apart is unnatural. It doesn’t phase the child. His hand lowers back to the spear as he unlodges it from the ground with a harsh pull in the midst of the terrified screaming surrounding him.
Someone moves towards him, wrenching one of his bad shoulders. He recoils immediately, and with one look, they pay the price for touching him. His hand whips up and redirects his anger in a series of slashes. Their arm meets the ground as Sukuna falls back, the spear pulling more blood from his mouth as its weight shifts. He grabs the weapon again, his movements panicked as he feels the only gaze that matters searing into him.
He runs on adrenaline, fueled by an innate need to survive. He can’t let the image of you, alone in the world, become reality.
He slices clean through the spear’s wooden handle, holding the stone tip in a shaking hand. The situation around him has grown dire with many running to protect their families while others scream to kill him. To kill the two-faced curse.
One of his weaker arms drags off the ground, a modicum of strength and feeling returning to it. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but the energy within him shifts in ways he’s never felt before. In the same way your words stirred something within him, a grasp on the energy curling within fell into place out of sheer need.
His head lifts, bloodshot eyes searching the commotion for you. He looks past the stack of severed limbs at his side where you’re still fighting with every fiber of your being to get to his side.
“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” You cry, being dragged by one arm. With his senses on high alert and a new understanding of something within, he can practically feel your pain. In spite of the fact that your arm is at an odd angle, it’s the fear and desperation in your chest that he feels the strongest.
He wonders briefly if it’s the innate understanding of the energy in the world around him beginning to fall into place, or if your places in one another’s lives has simply connected you as such.
“STOP!” You sob again, your head whipping around to look back at him. You don’t see the limbs. You don’t see the blood. You don’t see the people running in fear.
You see your best friend.
You see a man with a dagger ready to plunge it into his back.
“RYO! LOOK OUT!”
One by one, every scream knocks something into place until his systems all begin to function once more. It’s fragmented and broken, it’s not the smooth motion of a waterwheel, but something far more cobbled together.
He twists awkwardly, plunging the tip of the spear into his assailant’s knee before they reach him. As they recoil, he reaches for the spear’s handle in his chest, gritting his teeth as he pulls it through his chest. Inch by painful inch, the bloodied handle gives way until he’s able to release it onto the ground before him. A hole runs clean through his chest, blood pouring from it in waves without the spear to cauterize the wound.
Your chest heaves with exhaustion as you kick and scream, yelling protests for the world to hear. Your calls and prayers are met in tandem with Sukuna’s ability to fight back, grateful to see life in his eyes, in spite of the ensuing violence.
When you see him free of the spear, his lower body slowly beginning to move as he gathers himself, your movements pause as you can only pray that by some miracle he isn’t left with horrible injuries. Saya’s mother takes the opportunity to reposition her grip, unaware that you’re paying avid attention. You twist your wrist, turning towards her as you free yourself. With your free hand, you pry your mother’s hand away and dart through the mess towards Sukuna.
What they might do to him, you can only hope they won’t do to you.
It’s the last ditch effort you can possibly think of that might stop this mess from ending in the only way you see it going.
Your arms wrap around him, blood soaking and staining your kimono as you collapse on top of him on the ground. His entire body heaves, his breathing laborious and his heart in a fit of uncertainty.
He wraps one weakened lower arm around you. The other remains limp, the effort of channeling his energy not worth it in the moment, and one upper arm remains out of the socket. He’s not quite sure how to fix that one with his limited understanding of his abilities. The other holds him up on an elbow, just out of his own pooling blood, cool and viscous against his skin.
The pressure and weight of your embrace doesn’t soothe the pain, but the world’s action quiets down for a moment.
Because you were right.
What they might do to Sukuna without worry, they will not do to you.
You sob endlessly into his shoulder while his head spins. His brain function is barely put together, unable to fully wrap his head around the concept of forcing the energy he wields to heal his chest when he’s running on fumes and lost an immense amount of blood. He can’t begin to tell where your tears end and his start. At some point, he became numb to the very sensation of his own.
The world is an overwhelming uproar of voices and yells, questions about the origins of the unknown boy and calls to find Murata. Between the noise, the sun, the wind, and your warmth all pressing down on him, he can’t make sense of the way the energy within him curls and bends. It may have clicked for long enough to pull himself away from death’s door, but now as he tries to stitch himself back together and reverse the damage of his injuries, he’s losing himself in the fog.
Imai’s voice rings out over your ragged breaths, grave and furious as he favors the knee without a sharp stone lodged into it.
“Move aside. This doesn’t have to do with you.”
You flinch, your grip tightening. Sukuna’s chest protests the movement, his jaw hanging open as a groan of pain parts his lips. He coughs, blood sputtering from his mouth as he struggles to hold himself out of his own pooling blood.
Imai calls for your mother, trailing behind as she watches in horror with Saya’s mother. “Get her out of here!” He hisses, his fingers clutching the back of your kimono as he attempts to drag you from Sukuna. The boy’s grip on you tightens, but even so, he prepares himself for disappointment.
But you only cling harder to him, burying your face into his shoulder. His heart pangs.
“NO!” You scream as your mother wrenches on your shoulders. Sukuna offers enough weight that pulling on you means trying to drag him along with you, an effort that can’t be accomplished with only one person. Asking someone to get near the equal parts terrified and furious boy is a big ask when they’ve seen what he’s capable of.
But with you this close, he doesn’t even know what he’s capable of and fears it altogether.
But even more so, he’s tired. The fight is leaving his body with your comfort tied to his side in a bloody bow.
As your mother fails to pull you from him, Imai takes matters into his own hands, the dagger in his hand suddenly held unsteadily at your jugular.
Sukuna’s eyes, bloodied and blurred, rise to meet Imai pleadingly. “Don’t,” he manages to rasp through the fog, “please.”
Imai’s lips curls. “You have no authority to make demands here. Let her go or–”
“How dare you?” Your mother roars furiously, her grip on you loosening on your shoulders as she makes a move to protect you. In the effort to do so, she staggers Imai’s stance, and the dagger lodges itself into Sukuna’s shoulder. He groans, inadvertently digging his nails into your side as it drags more of his blood to the earth below.
Your mother rounds Imai until she can separate him from you and Sukuna by the shoulders. She gives his hunched shoulders an adamant tug, sending him back and his hand flying outward, still tightly wound around the weapon’s handle. The dagger drags heavily over Sukuna’s shoulder, opening his wound further. Blood spills from his lips again, his eyes fluttering as he struggles to keep conscious under the weight of blood loss and brain fog.
He doesn’t even hear your yelp, it’s the way you jolt that makes him open his eyes again.
His clouded vision goes red at the sight that meets him. The cut from his shoulder drags straight into yours, the two forming a single, long slice telling of the misfortune that comes with being friends with the creature of nightmarish tales.
He swallows hard, pupils flickering across your shoulder until he finds your face. Contorted in pain, you look like another person.
His breathing comes hard. Every breath is purposeful when he pours every last ounce of harnessable energy into one hand, turning to shield you from the onslaught of slashes he lets out in the air.
Imai’s guttural cry makes you flinch.
But it’s your mother’s shocked gasp that has you looking up.
Regardless of how frustrated you’ve been with her, she’s still your mother. Some part of you hasn’t fully registered what Sukuna is capable of, in spite of the dismemberment and blood surrounding you. You don’t fully have a grasp on the damage he’s wrought and the choices he can’t come back from anymore, too caught up in anguish and anxiety.
But when you look up, your vision glazes over as you lift your head past the remnants of Imai to your mother, her chest heaving and eyes wide with fear. Sukuna’s arm falls into the pooling crimson beneath him, no longer only his own blood, as his consciousness begins to fade. Your mother’s scratches are only surface-level, a decision Sukuna made through fog and iron.
But she still breathes fury and desperation as she raises hell to pull you two apart, begging for help from villagers unwilling to come any closer. You can feel Saya’s mother’s fury burning into your back as she’s forced to watch Imai succumb to the violence that she already blames for the loss of her daughter and husband.
“What’s going on?” Murata’s voice rings out in the midst of your mother’s cries. You can hear Imai’s boys sobbing in the distance. Arai’s wife cries with them. No one dares to speak ill of the child whose very existence is calamity. The guardian locks eyes with his own child, his lips pressed into a thin line as he’s backed into a corner.
He doesn’t need any replies to his question, because through your sobs as you cling to Sukuna, Murata knows. He’s likely always known it would come to this.
Even as Sukuna– a few days from thirteen– stares up at Murata from over your shoulder, he knows already that there was never any question in what decision his guardian would choose. He’s seen it all before and he knew from the start that he would see it again.
“Forgive me, Ryomen.”
Crimson irises fall, rolling to the side as he willingly gives in with no fight left in him. He lets his head fall back into the bloodied dirt, matting his hair with the remains of those lost as he prepares for death, protecting you with what last energy he has and praying that when his world goes black, yours remains intact.
It’s the least the gods above could do for smiting him in such a cruel way.
–
When you wake, your head pounds. You shut your eyes tight, praying that the light won’t harm you, but it’s that same familiar sensation from when you slammed your head against the tree last year when facing Imai’s boys. The sun’s light furthers the sensation of something rattling in your brain and your memory is fuzzy.
You can’t recall falling asleep, nor can you recall passing out, if that was the case either.
There’s nothing but fog in every direction, and no discernable way out.
Your limbs are heavy as you lift them towards the sun, blocking its rays from hitting your face. Your throat is dry, raw, and you sputter out a cough as you attempt to sit up in your bed.
The noise attracts your mother’s attention, who kneels in front of you without niceties. You try to shake your head of her grip as she grabs your cheeks and turns your head this way and that, seemingly looking over your vision as though it isn’t swimming.
“Stop,” you rasp, clumsily swatting at her.
She grabs your wrist in her palm, her grip tight. Your brow furrows on instinct as you squint up at her, trying to make sense of your surroundings. When you shift your gaze, the back of your head begins pounding.
“I am not playing around,” she states, punctuating the phrase with your name.
You try to shake your head, but it just results in harsher pounding. You hiss, reaching for the back of your head to find swelling, but you can’t recall how it happened.
“I’m not playing,” you mutter, tugging on your arm, but her grip is without relent. “My head hurts.”
“I would imagine it does.”
Confusion clouds your mind as you stare at her, attempting to blink away the incessant onslaught of sunlight on your senses. She doesn’t grace you with a reply, though she finally drops your wrist.
It’s then that you notice that her arms and parts of her chest are bandaged, though you can’t recall why. Had she burned herself?
She gets back up to her feet, shaking her head at your father as they speak in a low tone you can’t quite make out. Your head drops, gaze fixating on your blanketed lap where your hands reside. Blinking, you flip one over, staring at your palm. It’s not just dirty from the day’s usual grime, it’s dry and cracking, a deep and stomach-churning crimson dried into the cracks. You lift your other hand, finding the same of both, with dried blood packed beneath your nails and a noticeable sting when you pick at it.
Your mind swims, cloudy as you trudge through memories in search of what happened.
Dried blood clings to you in all of the spots that aren’t so easy to clean, but what really strikes you is when you look down at your shoulder and find blood soaked into the hemp material of your clothes. You lift a hand, pushing them aside and staring blankly at a tightly wrapped bandage, soaked in deep crimson as it wraps from your clavicle to your shoulder and across your chest to secure it.
In true childlike manner, your first instinct is to touch it, taught an instant lesson when your body fights back with a stinging sensation. You wince, staring down at it in confusion.
“Do not touch your shoulder,” your mother reprimands you with little care in her tone as she physically wrenches your hand away. You whine in protest, resisting the way she pulls your arm.
“That hurts.”
You don’t even get a snarky reply this time.
“What did I do?” You query, completely at a loss as to what’s happened recently when something strikes you. “Where’s Ryo?”
Her eyes flash with something dangerous. “Do not ask about that boy.”
You can only watch in confusion as your stomach churns uncomfortably when she crosses the floor to whatever she has cooking over the fire. “What? Why?”
Her head whips towards you with enough venom to make you shrink away. “He’s gone.” The word sits before you like the ill omen they always considered him to be. You swallow hard as your stomach threatens to throw up the limited amount of food that’s already in it. Your body runs cold, a horrifying sensation settling into the tips of your fingers and toes as though they’ve already gone numb.
Your chest feels as though a weight presses down on it and in a horrifying burst of panic, you throw your blankets off and make for the door. Your mother calls for you, but you’re too fast as the door slams open and you’re met with a horrific sight.
The iron in the wind hits you first. A low metallic tang that grips you by the throat has you bringing a hand to your lips as there is no fresh air to save you. It’s the still-bleeding remains that finally wrench your stomach into full unease. Whatever food you had managed to eat in the last day is emptied from your stomach as you clutch it uncomfortably, unable to tear your eyes from the spot where the pooling blood is just that– still a pool. Not dried.
It hits you hard, yesterday’s events. The blunt force of the memory is more painful than whatever blunt object Murata made the decision to knock out not only Sukuna with, but you as well.
Which leaves you with one bitter question. He’s gone. That’s inevitable. But how gone? For as cruel as Murata could be, you don’t believe him to be a killer. You can’t. So you can only hope the hate harbored towards your friend wasn’t enough to spear him through the chest yet again.
The mere thought leaves you dizzy as your mother pulls you back inside. You stumble back, falling over your feet and onto your knees as you try to gather yourself, but nothing feels right. Anxiety grips every muscle in your body, stuck in a permanently tense sensation like your nervous system doesn’t know how to let go.
Struggling to suck in a breath from where you’ve fallen to the floor, you stare up wildly at your mother. “Where is he?”
Not an ounce of care stares back at you. Your father doesn’t even glance over his shoulder as you struggle to put together the missing pieces of the puzzle. “He’s gone.”
“Where is he?” You cry with increasing panic. White encroaches on the edges of your vision as your body goes into full-blown paranoia. “I can’t–” You shake your head wildly, pushing to your feet and taking a couple of steps away from your mother in the midst of your anxiety. “I need him, I can’t–” Your breathing picks up, every gasp serving to send your body in the wrong direction as you stumble away from the figures you can barely make out anymore. “Not Ryo too,” you cry out, tears spilling over.
Your mother calls your name, taking both of your biceps as she holds you in place. Your nervous system goes haywire, your body tipping over the edge as you’re sent into fight or flight. She tries to explain that you don’t need him. She tries to explain that you’ll be a good daughter. She tries to explain that someday you’ll be a good wife to a husband who you’ll take care of.
But nothing registers as all you can picture is your brute of a friend, cast away if the blood loss didn’t take him first. He didn’t even get ten years at your side before being sent out into the forest again to scavenge for rabbits and search for warmth in the sort of places most people don’t dare look.
And that’s only if you can hope he’s still alive.
“Where is he?” You repeat your question as she outright refuses to give you a real answer.
There’s no hope in your mother’s scream when she finally raises her voice past the disappointment she’s been holding over you. “HE’S GONE!” She moves you to a chair, your feet moving clumsily over the ground as she drags you across the floor. Your shoulder protests every movement and your mind can’t make out the difference between your left and right, caught between panic over Sukuna and the sickly feeling that comes with the complete and utter shutdown of your body.
Spiralling into a complete manic state, you stare through her as you barely manage to scrape a reply past your lips. “He can’t be. He can’t– I can’t–” You swallow hard in an effort to quell the uneasy feeling in your stomach as your head swims, the white ring around your vision closing in on you.
“You can and you will.”
But your world is dark again when your body and mind protest that sentiment with a complete and utter shutdown.
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➴ a/n ; it hurts my heart to put these poor babies through so much :'( i promise things won't be quite as intense going forward! thank you for the support on this series though, i appreciate you all <3
➴ childhood bsf trueform!sukuna x f!reader
[heian era canon adjacent au] - ongoing series
❝ the world is an unjust beast. it claws and tears until nothing remains but those cursed with the greatest gift of all; power. in another world, ryomen sukuna is the strongest sorcerer in history, capable of an evil no one can dream. but he was once a boy, and you were once a girl. now a devil with docked horns and an angel with tattered wings, you walk this world together, your curse to navigate side by side. ❞
➴ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. dark themes surrounding my interpretation of sukuna's upbringing and how it affects you both. graphic depictions of blood, gore, death, dismemberment, mutilation, cannibalism and hunted animals. character death. themes surrounding poor mental health. poor coping mechanisms. arguments. best friends to lovers. toxic codependency. child abuse & neglect. self-hatred. attempted self-mutilation. bigotry & period-accurate misogyny. vomit. eventual smut after both characters are over 18. angst. hurt/no comfort. eventual hurt/comfort. tragic lovers with a happy ending. dddne.
➴ wc ; 7.1k.
➴ a/n ; please heed the warnings for this chapter.
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“Straighten your shoulders.”
You follow Sukuna’s instructions, rolling your shoulders back.
“You’re leaning too much on your back foot.”
Your shoulders fall forward as you face him with an aggrieved expression. The bow and arrow fall, one to each side, as you pin him in place with frustration. “You’ve been correcting my posture for ten minutes. Can I shoot already?”
A couple of years ago, he might have smiled at your quip. Now, the almost-twelve-year-old stares at you with equal stubborn challenge in his eyes. “Your posture’s been wrong for ten minutes.”
All the patience in the world couldn’t help you deal with your friend. With a shake of your head, you adjust your stance, bringing the bow steadily back up. Your feet crunch over the remnants of the late autumnal snow as you let out a breath and adjust your stance, using every bit of training Sukuna has taught you. Your breath billows ahead of you, but the cold doesn’t penetrate your thick clothes.
You draw the string back, feeling the tension reach the point Sukuna taught you to hone your senses to feel rather than see, holding steady as you concentrate on the carved target on the tree ahead.
Your dad would kill you if he knew you weren’t making snow sculptures again.
“You need to–”
Ignoring Sukuna’s commentary, you let the arrow fly, embedding itself in the second ring carved into thick bark.
Four eyes stare at the spot where you completely outmatched his last shot, which fell just short of the target’s outer circle. He clicks his tongue, eyes narrowed like the fact irks him. You can practically hear how Saya would have poked fun at him for being beaten by someone who isn’t getting formal archery lessons.
She would be proud of you.
“That was pretty good,” he grumbles in defeat. You puff your chest out in pride. “Your stance is still messy though. It could just be luck.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
He nears the tree to pull both arrows from it, his gaze thrown over his shoulder towards you. His lip curls up just slightly as he shoots you a look with narrowed eyes, receiving a giggle in return. He would have smiled wholeheartedly at that sound not so long ago.
You often feel like you’re chasing what once was, rather than what’s in front of you. It’s not like you don’t care for Sukuna, that couldn’t be less true. He’s your best friend, through and through, but you long for the times where he seemed more willing to indulge his childishness. It’s been so long since you’ve played games that most of your time bonding is spent training.
“Ryo? Can we build a snow castle?”
He casts his gaze over his shoulder again, fiddling with one of the arrows. All four eyes blink. “Why?”
You pout. “For fun.”
His face contorts into a scowl. You can’t make out whether he’s upset or contemplating your question. It’s been painfully common as of late that you can’t make out what he’s thinking. Every time you think you have something pinned, he surprises you.
It’s frustrating when he can read you like a book. Especially when there’s scarcely a moment you aren’t together. Between the search for a new shrine attendant and the constant need for a perimeter guard, your parents and Murata aren’t around as often.
You can’t say whether Saya’s mother joins them. She spends much of her time with Imai these days, helping to care for his sons as if they’re her own. It doesn’t sit right with you when her daughter’s two closest friends are painfully isolated, but you’re old enough to know now that the world isn’t kind.
Still too young to see why, though. Sukuna may stand out amongst other children, but to you he’s just Ryo. He’s the little boy born with a few extra features. It’s cool. You once told him he could fire two arrows at once– which, anatomically, no– but it still stuck with him how much you uplifted him.
His muscles relax as the memory resurfaces and he finds himself nodding. “Okay.”
Setting the bows against the tree, he jogs to your side, kneeling as you begin balling up the sparse snow. It’s been warm enough that much of it has melted and what you’re left with is fairly dirty, but neither of you care too much. As you begin making the base of your first archery tower, your friend trudges around gathering what snow is still scattered around the area.
Once there’s enough snow to comfortably build something, even if it isn’t a full fortress, your friend takes a seat across from you. He builds a second archery lookout tower, but it’s half-hearted. It leans to the left, somewhat precariously.
Your head tilts as you offer a handful of snow. “I think your tower needs some reinforcement.”
His expression falters as you hold the snow out to him. The hardened scowl softens, and he packs the snow into a more reliable tower. Your smile broadens as he relaxes in your presence, even going so far as to slip his lower arms through his sleeves. You can hear a seam pop, but Sukuna pays it no mind as he shaves extra snow off the tower with a finger.
“Are your parents coming home tonight?” He queries quietly in that low tone that you know means he doesn’t want you dragged away to be scolded for training.
Home. At some point, the walls that surround the place you live stopped being known as such for you. You can’t say whether you’d give that title to any one place now. You haven’t known real safety in over a year. Not since the loss of Saya that keeps you up at night, particularly those away from your best friend.
Using your palm’s heel to pack snow down into a wall-ish shape, you shrug. “I don’t know.”
One pair of eyes glides towards you while the other continues on with his snow building. You always find yourself wondering how he manages to pay attention to two things at once when something as simple as chatting has you temporarily pausing your motions.
Sighing as you now have his attention, you shrug again. “Last night my father said a Zen’in sorcerer is coming to help.” The second pair of eyes glides to you now, his back straightening at the mere mention of the faux heroes. “They found some burnt trees a bit south and they think the fire Gojo sorcerer is nearby.”
The boy’s entire demeanor changes as you impart the information, something not unlike the very fire caused by the sorcerer burning behind his eyes. His expression harshens as two hands ball into fists, the others still holding snow. “We should practice more.”
Resigned, you shake your head as you watch him adamantly get to his feet and move towards the bows. “Ryo, we can’t fight a sorcerer.”
“We can,” he decides, facing you with a stark determination that’s so bull-headed you’re positive it’s a piece of Saya that he picked up over the years. “We have to.”
“We’re kids.”
“So?” His jaw is clenched, a desperation lingering behind his eyes that you’re just now catching as you stand up to follow his steps towards the tree.
“We should leave that to the adults,” you murmur, reaching out for the bow he’s now got clasped between his hands. You give it a little tug, but his lower hands stay firmly planted. “Murata-san is home tonight anyway, right? We’ll be safe with him.”
“He was home the night of the fire!” Your friend insists, tugging the bow back hard enough to tear it from your grip. “That didn’t save–”
He hasn’t been able to say her name since the night you taught him how to pay respects.
As he falters, you watch the shift in how he carries himself. His shoulders fall, the determination becoming forlorn as if he knows you’re right but abides by his stubbornness. “I could have done something if I’d just–”
He couldn’t have. Even as he stares at the very hands capable of calamity, he knows he can’t turn back time. If he could, he wouldn’t be the cursed child, would he? He would be a hero. It doesn’t make it easier to grapple with when he sees the way he’s so often stared at, either.
The mere thought has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and his head whips up suddenly, staring past you where he sees the faintest hint of movement. His lower eyes shut and he drops the bow, struggling to pull his lower arms back into the cover of his clothes, but it’s too late.
A pair of eyes a couple of years older is staring at him intently from behind a tree. Another pair pops out, followed by one more. All three bear the same features as their carpenter father, which includes the scorn that makes your skin crawl. The oldest’s lip curls as Sukuna attempts to hide his arms.
“We already know, there’s no point in hiding them.”
With one elbow partially pulled into his sleeve already, Sukuna freezes, scowling as he faces the boys. The oldest who you know as Noboru– as well as the boy your age whose name escapes you– both emerge from the trees, moving towards Sukuna. The youngest trails behind, watching more than he chooses to participate.
Sukuna is bigger. He’s taller, standing over a head above Noboru, but there’s a stark difference in the way they face one another as Noboru confidently approaches.
Sukuna is on the defensive, and startlingly conscious of the fact that you’re here. Too close, and too dear to him. Static brews in the air like electricity. It shoots from his chest to the tips of his fingers, but it remains there, within his grasp, where you can’t catch a stray slice, nor this life that he treasures. Hackles raised, two hands ball into fists, while the other two are held up defensively, with his forearms protecting him.
Noboru, on the other hand, moves with the confidence only a child of Imai could. At fourteen, the boy is still of a smaller stance than your four-armed friend, but the way he carries himself makes him feel bigger. The look in his eyes, the unadulterated hatred fueled by ignorance, is the sort of propaganda you’ve seen mirrored in Imai before.
Stepping up to Sukuna’s side, your fingers clasp around his sleeve in an attempt to push him behind you. You, the shortest of the bunch, trying to defend the very curse that caused your village to fracture.
If ever Sukuna needed proof he still has a heart, this moment stands as it. His chest clenches, but before he has time to process how quickly you stepped up for him, Noboru is already stepping forward.
“Why are you playing with him anyway?” Noboru’s attention turns to you. “You shouldn’t even be learning archery, it’s not your job.”
Frustration simmers under your skin with how often you hear that. From Noboru, it makes your blood boil. “I can do what I want!” You insist, hands balled into fists at your side. “Just leave us alone!”
“Not until he leaves!” The middle child calls out, pointing at Sukuna. There’s an air of innocence to him that Noboru doesn’t retain, like he’s simply following the leader and this situation holds no real stakes for him.
You inch in front of Sukuna again, your short posture barely coming to his chin. “I’m not doing anything wrong,” he grumbles out, his frustration restrained by your presence.
The eldest scoffs. “You’re what’s wrong. You know my dad said you ate your twin in the womb?”
For the briefest of moments, Sukuna averts his gaze. It’s a moment too long, confirming the statement.
“It’s true!” The middle child points out his blunder.
Sukuna’s breath fans the crown of your head behind you when his breathing stutters. “I didn’t– I wasn’t–”
“You didn’t,” Noboru mocks in a faux whining tone. “You’re a mistake,” he growls out with no regard for your friend. “You got everyone killed! It’s all your fault!”
For as hardened as Sukuna has gotten over the years to the constant cautious glances and hateful stares, the verbal assault still gets under his skin. It slips through the cracks and embeds itself in the way he clenches his fists and grinds his teeth. He swallows hard, lip curled as he tries to push back in spite of his vision going white at the edges with red hot anger. “I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even awake,” he grits out.
“I wish they got you instead of papa’s sister,” the youngest murmurs from the back, peering out behind his brothers.
Horror twists itself through your chest at the fact that the coldest statement thrown at Sukuna could come from someone so young. Sukuna’s breath fans the top of your head again as the words grip him in ways he could never prepare for. Barely audible is the way he breathes out at the dreadful way it slips beneath his skin, colder than the late autumn air.
“Stop!” Your voice breaks and you’re forced to steel yourself when Noboru is already scoffing. You hold your hands out protectively in front of your friend, casting your concern over your shoulder. He’s visibly shaken, for as much as he tries not to let anything affect him, it doesn’t change that he’s just a kid. “That’s not fair. You don’t have to be so mean.”
“Get out of the way,” he huffs. “This isn’t about you. I thought your dad told you to stop being around him anyway.”
The revelation comes as news to Sukuna, whose shoulders fall as his attention flicks to you. There’s a minute change in your stance, like the reminder is something raw and painfully real. It’s a knife to the chest and he’s certain that’s what Noboru wants, but it’s equally a reminder that you choose to remain by his side against your father’s wishes.
Against everyone’s wishes, he’s certain.
Even Murata hardly seems to tolerate him these days. He spends most of his time out of the village or holed up in a corner enacting Murata’s sudden need for secrecy. The only exception to this rule is archery or reading with the limited material the village has available.
But you only allow that raw shift in stance, giving away the truth for a brief moment before stiffening, building walls of brick to keep Noboru’s harsh words out.
You chose Sukuna. Again.
His gaze flickers back up to Noboru, brows drawn together to a tent to compliment the troubled frown he bears.
“It doesn’t matter,” you mutter in reply. “He’s my best friend. Just leave us alone.”
“Just get out of the way,” Noboru hisses, hand closing around one of your outstretched forearms as he wrenches you behind him into his two brothers. You collide with the middle of the three, whining as Noboru’s grip burns your skin as his palm twists around it. Before you have a chance to run back to Sukuna, who’s already charged forward to help as he calls for you, the middle brother’s arms close around you.
You throw your weight at his arms, but it’s not enough to break through his grip. The cold reality is that he’s stronger than you, but you don’t easily give up, wrenching against his arms that have closed around you.
Sukuna reaches for you, and in spite of his greater size and strength, he falls just short when Noboru gets a hold of his upper left arm. He pulls at just the right angle that the cursed child yelps, reminded of the sensation of the very same arm hanging loosely out of the socket when he was just three. Recoiling, Sukuna holds the arm close, having narrowly avoided the same fate as he faces Noboru with a scowl twisted with pain and uncertainty.
“I just want to be left alone,” the child mutters, cradling his arm.
“I want you to leave the village alone.”
“Don’t listen to them, Ryo!” You call, wrenching your body to the side and finally breaking free of the middle son’s grip. You stumble forward, narrowly catching yourself from falling face-first into the ground when you’re jerked back by your arm. Your body collides with the hard mix of mud and old snow, your head snapping back against the rough bark of a tree. You blink deliriously, looking up as the world spins around you and air finds your lungs once more after the rough landing.
You can hear them talking. You can make sense of Noboru’s intense sense of egoism passed down by his father. You hear Sukuna’s voice, smaller in spite of the fact that he should have the upper hand. He’s stronger than them, of that you’re sure, and you know he’s holding back out of fear of being left behind by the village.
You can sympathize with his need to stay in the one place he’s ever found a home, but you wish he’d fight back. You wish you couldn’t hear the way his voice wavers as Noboru’s words slip through the cracks. Ice forms within the boundaries of Sukuna’s being, the cold and bitter wind biting and gnawing at his mind until it leaves nothing behind.
Because that’s how someone like Noboru wins. Not through strength, but through cowardice and words.
And he knew it from the moment he emerged from behind the tree.
You blink, shutting your eyes tightly and rubbing at them as you attempt to make sense of what’s going on before you.
When your eyes open once more, Sukuna’s hardened expression isn’t one of rugged self-defense. His walls have crumbled, and the single step back he takes from the group is enough that all three boys jump him, assaulting him with the sort of vicious words only the cruel know while they attempt to restrain his arms.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Everyone is dead because of you.”
“You don’t deserve to live.”
“I bet your parents got rid of you!”
“I know Dad would have.”
They have the gall to laugh on top of it all.
Blinking hard, when the world stops spinning enough that your vision comes together, you’re able to finally make sense of what’s happening.
Sukuna is silent throughout it all, unwilling or unable to fight their cruel words. His chest heaves, eyes glossy as he attempts to keep his weak shoulder away from them, all the while enduring every pull and scratch at his arms and face. He doesn’t fight so much as simply trying to defend himself from the onslaught and it pains you to think it might be because he believes a word they say.
Your words don’t come together as well as you wanted, nausea tipping the scales away from your favor. “Ryo!” You call, tumbling clumsily from your lips. It catches his attention, even as he tugs and pulls his arms away. “They’re wrong!” Just slightly, his movements all stutter as the boys are almost able to restrain him fully while he holds his most vulnerable arm away. “Don’t let them hurt you!”
By the grace of whatever god listens, your words push him to use his strength. He sends the middle child flying back into the grass, forcefully wrenching his other arms away from the youngest and eldest. He stumbles back once he’s free from their grasp, a delirious and shaken expression on his panting face.
What really breaks you is the way he doesn’t seem to be all there. His eyes pass over you like you’re a part of the background of the scene, flickering around as he heaves for air. Whatever state he’s in, he clearly can’t make sense of what’s going on.
So he runs.
“Ryo!”
He stumbles forward the first few steps, his breathing audible as he struggles to put himself together, before he’s gone into the distance.
You push up onto your hands and knees on the chilly earth, your head still pounding as your vision starts at last to come together. It’s still white at the edges, fuzzy in ways that make you desperate to take a seat, but you can’t stay near the three boys.
You push up onto your feet, clinging to the tree you fell against as you look back at Imai’s boys, gathering themselves after the fight as they help the middle child back up. Turning away, you stumble back towards the village, rubbing your eyes repeatedly. The spot where your head collided with the tree is already swelling, an ebb to the way it aches as you walk. You hug yourself tightly, checking over your shoulder to make sure the boys aren’t following but you don’t spot them again.
As you near Sukuna’s home, you rub your eyes once more, grateful that the world is no longer spinning and your hearing is clear again. Your head still aches and some movements make your stomach churn uncomfortably, but overall you’re able to walk steady for the time being.
Your fingers curl around the bamboo perimeter of Murata’s door, gliding it open without thinking too hard. Slowly, you make rounds through the corners of the house that’s far larger than yours, but neither Sukuna nor his guardian are present. You know Murata is at the shrine rebuilding today, but you figured your friend would have retreated here.
Standing stagnant in the center of the small area, you wrack your brain for areas he may have gone, but it just has you pressing the heels of your palms into your forehead as you draw a blank. You passed the burial plot and he wasn’t there. He wouldn’t have gone to your parents’ or Saya’s, not since the attack.
Where the hell could he be?
Sliding the door shut behind you, you squint beneath the overcast sunlight, still too bright for your pounding head. You look left and right, but there are no signs of your friend to be found and the snow in this area has completely melted. You round the house to the field, pushing through the first layers of crops in hopes that you might find him hunched over somewhere, but it does no good.
The field’s too big, and he refuses to answer when you call out for him. Returning to Murata’s home in defeat is when you find something at last.
But it makes your heart drop to the pit of your stomach like a rock. It rocks your body with more nausea at the sight of crimson staining the white-speckled ground. It’s only one drop, it could be nothing, but as your eyes rise to the wooden exterior where Murata resides, you catch movement in your peripherals.
Your body goes rigid, frozen to the spot like it knows before your mind catches up. It doesn’t let your eyes move faster than a drag as he comes into sight, staring down into the very rain barrel that once reflected a flower crown back at him. Now, that feels like a distant past.
His lower arms have run red, the water beneath him slipping from a natural translucence to something far more agonizing as it ripples under tears and bloodshed in equal parts. His breathing is a wheeze between sobs, pained as his trembling upper hands dig a small iron dagger into the point where his lower arms protrude from his torso. The wooden handle is stained the very color of his eyes as he presses the weapon in deeper, exposing more flesh with each jagged movement.
He winces, his voice too high with each sob, too strained. It shakes you to your very core, more than your young mind can process.
Your limbs feel as though they’re being pulled down by tar. Every attempt at movement is heavy, leaving you feeling like a spectre out of your own body. Like you’re a passenger along for the ride in this life, unable to prevent those you love from getting hurt.
But it’s that very same thought that reminds you that this time, you do have autonomy within this situation. And you’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent the scenarios in your head from playing out.
“Stop.” It’s barely a murmur at first as you press forward, breaking through the barrier keeping you in place. “STOP!” You cry, startling your friend as you move towards him at last. He jolts, the dagger falling with a muffled thump to the dirt below. Tears blur your vision as you take in what’s happening, shaking your head in an effort to keep yourself conscious when fear, nausea, and your injury from earlier all collide.
You hold your hands out in front of you, trembling violently as they hang in the air before the sobbing boy still staring at his reflection. His jaw hangs open in despair, having gone silent as he grapples with the pain. His vision swims, and although he heard you, it’s clear that everything is a blur.
Nothing could have possibly prepared you for this moment, and you’re at a complete and utter loss at what to do.
“Ryo, please.” Your melancholic plead is all that you can manage, throat tight as you barely manage to keep yourself upright. But he needs you. So you press forward, hugging him tightly. He’s still and rigid in your arms, and painfully cold. “Stop, please stop,” you beg, hiding your face in his chest as you sob too.
You can’t say whether it’s his adrenaline draining or the lack of blood, but he slumps forward after a moment, barely managing to keep himself upright against you. To your relief, he finds it in himself to wrap one pair of arms around you. Your laboured breaths mix until you can’t make out where his ends and yours begins.
You can’t tell which of you is shivering harder, but his state takes a turn for the worst when his knees give out, sending you both to the ground.
“Why?” Your head pounds as you hit the ground under his weight. “Why did you do it?”
He coughs around a painfully dry throat. It takes a moment before he can manage to push out any semblance of words. “I don’t feel good,” he utters, head lolling forward onto your shoulder.
“Ryo? Ryo!” You shake him hard enough that his eyes flutter open. “I don’t know what to– I have to–” When you try to get a look at him, he slumps back onto the snow-covered dirt. His lower arms have splayed out beside him without movement, cold and irregularly pale with a blue hue. You don’t know the first thing about medicine, but you know it’s wrong.
You’ve seen your father bandage small wounds before, and use what information you’ve gathered from that to wrap his arms to the best of your ability with your outer kimono as you shrug it off. To your horror, it stains a dark red so quickly that a new wave of panic floods you.
“Hold on Ryo,” you mutter, hesitating as you get to your feet. Ignoring the pain in your head, you bolt down the path, past Imai’s boys to the shrine. Your legs carry you faster than you’ve ever moved as you nearly collide with Imai himself, holding up a beam being placed into a hole dug in the ground.
Scouting the space out for Murata, you bolt in the direction of familiar robes.
“MURATA-SAN!” You scream, earning his immediate attention and concern. As he whips around with wide eyes, horror fills his expression when he’s faced with a little girl covered in dried bloodstains.
He addresses you by name, moving towards you with urgency. “What’s going on?”
Terrified that your best friend won’t be cause enough for Murata to chase after you, you simply grab his wrist and pull with all of your might.
And it’s enough. He doesn’t question it as you lead him past Imai, past the three children, and behind his own home.
He audibly sucks in a breath at the sight that greets him.
You were here only a few moments ago, and yet it still strikes you to the bone to see him splayed out in stained snow. His chest rises and falls so shallowly that you fear it’s fate to lose the people who mean the most to you. You thank every god, every spirit, anyone who will listen that Murata moves into action faster than you do, moving aside your clumsily tied outer robes in an effort to get a look at what’s happened.
“Go get Arai.”
Your afternoon is a blur. Your evening is a blur. Your night is a blur.
The moon hangs in the sky like a taunt that the world will keep going, even if it chooses to leave behind the people who matter most to you.
The light that greets you in the morning when you wake up at Murata’s is too harsh on your pounding head, a forgotten relic of a terrible day.
But what matters most is that at some point in the hustle of saving your best friend, he stabilized. His breathing, although shallow, remained even all night, and his wounds were packed well enough that the lacerations cauterized.
Even if it came with a cost you have yet to learn about necessity, command, and bias.
Because Arai is not your ally, regardless of what he did for the young boy.
For now, that’s a distant thought.
For now, you focus on the boy laying awkwardly under a pile of blankets with a worn and weary expression. You’ve always thought that one should look peaceful when they sleep, yet evidence is pointing elsewhere when it comes to Sukuna.
Rubbing your eyes, you slip out from under the blankets, squinting in the intense light as you move closer to your friend’s bedside. Your palm hesitates as it hovers over the upper hand laying over his blankets. His blankets move steadily over his chest, but some part of you fears that when your hand meets his skin it might bear a cold that seeps to the bone like an ill omen.
You blink at the sight of his wrists. In the years since you met, you’ve never known Sukuna to have markings over them. His wrist bears a band, black as coal. Like ink, yet it doesn’t seem to be that, too settled in the skin to be fresh. It looks as though he’s worn the markings for years. You glance at the other one, chalking it up to delusion and a lack of sleep. You would have noticed if he had them before. You would have noticed if Arai or Murata had marked his wrists somehow, it would have taken too long given the evenness of them.
You brush it off as best you can, figuring it’s a puzzle for when your head feels as though it’s on straight and your heart feels as though it can beat steadily.
When you lower your hand, relief floods you as warmth curls into your fingertips. You let out a sigh of relief, slumping back as you lean on your free palm.
You can’t say how long you sit there. The sun moves across the sky, but you’re in and out of consciousness so often that time doesn’t touch you. Your hand never moves from his, though.
Sometimes you tell him stories. Sometimes Murata comes to check on him.
But only when his fingers twitch and close around your smaller hand, does your nervous system allow itself to shut down as you fall asleep on the floor beside him.
–
Your name is called with equal anger to what you feel as you slide the door shut behind you with force. The bamboo clacks hard as it collides with the exterior of your home. You can practically feel your father’s disappointment, but at twelve years old, you can’t be bothered to care.
Sukuna is leagues ahead in both archery and now reading with what little material Murata has been able to gather. He joins his guardian on small hunting trips held between only the two of them, while you’re left learning to weave with your mother.
You hate it.
You hate the household chores.
You hate the way you’re belittled for being a girl.
You hate the way you don’t get to read.
But most of all, you hate that the hobbies you’re meant to have are more or less chores too. Weaving, foraging, telling stories.
Why is it that you can’t stand alongside Sukuna and protect the village, too?
Now you can’t even read?
Trudging across the thick mud left behind by last night’s cold rain, you make your way to Murata’s, where you know Sukuna will be in the shadows nearby.
Things have changed since his recovery.
Your friend can rarely be found around others. He prefers to spend his time in solitude, save for your company and Murata’s teachings. He sticks to the shadows when he leaves, often guiding you through the field and far deeper than ever before into the woods to spend time with one another. He doesn’t sleep in his bed anymore, and you rarely see him return home for dinner either. His archery has improved enough that he can feed himself, keen eyes honing in on prey before you’ve even identified the possibility of it.
It’s a strange feeling to watch your friend excel in all the areas you wish to, while you’re taught to weave. The sensation of being left behind is stronger than ever these days, particularly when you find Sukuna leaning against the back of his home, knees bent as he studies the language strewn across a prayer scroll.
He doesn’t react upon your arrival, already keenly aware of your presence.
He looks bulkier these days, and while you know he did hit a growth spurt and has been training, you also see the awkward way he carries himself. It’s not so simple as outgrowing his own clothing, his robes are stuffed with hemp fabric. The severe nerve and muscle damage in his lower shoulders and arms causes them to sit wrong, no longer wrapped easily around his torso. The lack of feeling in the majority of both of them make it difficult for him to maneuver them, while one entirely lacks the strength to hold itself at such an angle altogether. He has to stuff his robes with fabric if he hopes to fake a semblance of normalcy.
You’re willing to bet it’s uncomfortable, but he never complains. He moves about his day like it’s just another fact of life.
But you see it, in the moments when midnight is a distant memory and the sun kisses the frost-bitten grasses. He’s tired. He’s angry.
He wants so badly to be normal.
When you plop down at his side, your shoulder brushing his arm, he lowers the scroll, his bottom eyes shut as he regards you with a contemplative frown. “Your father?”
“I hate that it’s predictable,” you grumble, pulling your knees to your chest as you rest your chin atop them.
He might have given you a wry laugh over that when you were younger. Instead, he’s quiet, blinking as he watches the way you eye the rain barrel to your left. He wonders if it’s subconscious, or if the pale remnants of a horrible day still staining the wood has drawn your attention. His throat tightens, shifting all four of his arms as his shoulders grow uncomfortable, but he can’t find a position that feels right.
“I’m practicing reading if you want to join,” he offers a distraction, holding the scroll out.
You turn your attention to his neutral gaze, unguarded as he only knows how to be around you. “My parents won’t teach me.”
One of his black-banded wrists that you never found answers for turns the scroll towards you, pointing out what he’s able to in an effort to explain its significance. Slowly but surely, you unwrap your arms from around your knees, pointing to different characters as you learn with Sukuna, who tilts his head at some of them. Still, as the sun begins to set over the horizon, you have the majority of the scroll memorized.
“Do you have any more?” You query, motioning to the paper.
He shakes his head. “No. The shrine keeper used to keep religious texts at the shrine, but they all burned up.”
You nod, but it’s a start that you’re thankful for regardless. Whether it’s the teenage rebellion your parents insist it is, or a denial of the world you were born into is yet to be determined, but you won’t let your father stop you.
Your gaze shifts to the left, staring at the stained rain barrel. Everything is only a termporary distraction when you subconsciously lean into your friend like he might disappear at any moment. Images of crimson deeper than his eyes stain every part of your brain until the question is unavoidable. “How are your arms?”
Sukuna’s hackles raise, his walls fortifying. “Fine.”
You know better than to expect more, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. You know his clothes are stuffed with additional materials to make the awkward way his arms sit less obvious. You were there when he first decided to do it, yet he still won’t talk to you about it as he remains carefully guarded.
He may shut you down quickly, but he doesn’t move away. The shared silence is one you welcome, in fact. Wheat stalks rustle in the wind, chill as winter quickly approaches. Snow feels imminent with the amount of frost that clings to the trees every morning.
“Ryo?”
“Mm?”
“Do you think someday we could really both be archers for an army?”
Sukuna raises a hand to push it back through his spiky pink hair, but he stops when the ball of his palm brushes the protruding cartilage of the right side of his face. The answer is plain as day, one of the many reasons that not only will Sukuna not be an archer for an army, but he won’t be anything to anyone someday.
“I think you could.” He fails to understand what could stop you. Your father’s word isn’t law, and although he’s now aware women aren’t commonly a part of any armies, it’s not impossible.
You’ve grown more keen over the years, no longer oblivious to Sukuna’s mistreatment, nor his own self-esteem issues. “What about you?”
His gaze flickers to you, although his head remains straightforward. It flicks back after a moment of stifling silence. “Maybe.”
He might agree, in some way or another, but the fact is that his tone and his body language give him away. He doesn’t believe there’s a place for him on the good side of history, doomed to be nothing more than the monster people make him out to be.
You catch his attention when you grab his upper shoulder, careful not to shake it too hard and disturb his still-healing wounds. “Don’t let Noboru get to you. He’s just mean because he can be.”
But Sukuna’s brow furrows now, his frustrations brought to light as you keep pushing for goodness in the world when he fails to find it anywhere but within you. You’re an exception, not a standard in this cruel world. “Stop,” he grumbles, shrugging you off his shoulder. “I know you want to think life is easy and things will work out because you want them to, but it’s not. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Come on Ryo, you can’t think like that. We can be better–”
“Noboru is the proof that things won’t get better!” He snarls, though the lilt to his voice is one of hurt and outward frustrations not necessarily directed at you. The reality of his situation is that he doesn’t get to leave any situation unscathed, while Imai’s boys don’t even get a slap on the wrist.
Life isn’t fair in ways you both have yet to comprehend, no matter how much you beg and cry for something to be done about Imai on Sukuna’s behalf.
Your brow tents as he lashes out and shifts away. His body twists awkwardly as he’s unable to hold his weak arm against his torso and it hangs at an angle that clearly bothers him. He huffs in frustration, rolling his upper shoulders and tugging the arm back into place.
“What if he isn’t?” You push up onto your knees as you face his retreating form.
“You can’t seriously think that Noboru is the different one here,” he deadpans, his lip curled into a phantom of a snarl.
“Saya and I–”
Something painful flickers in his eyes at the mention of your old friend. “Don’t bring her into this!” He pushes to his feet, glancing away as his jaw hangs open while he parses for words. “Just because one other person didn’t hate me–”
“What about Arai?” You interrupt with hopeful insistence, still seated on your knees with thumbs twiddling in your lap.
“Arai told me I would have been better off without my arms.”
Your shoulders drop at the revelation. You’ve spent much of your time at Sukuna’s side since that day, but you must have been asleep or gone when that took place. Your lips part in disbelief as you stare up at the vulnerable boy who refuses to look at you upon imparting that information.
“He’s wrong.”
Sukuna’s expression doesn’t change. The air that hangs around you isn’t without the tension of a hurt child, but you don’t let it stop you from providing comfort in the only way you’ve learned ever helps him. You push to your feet and envelop him in a hug. He stiffens, staring down at you with a stubborn frown.
“Don’t let them win,” you murmur into his chest, careful when you squeeze him not to jostle his wounds. “We’ll find our own way to be archers.”
He stares down at you, an intense frown curling his lips. He wants to believe you, he really does. The world just doesn’t have space for someone like him. His teeth grind as he lets the moment exist too long for your comfort without so much as a twitch of a finger.
“You’ll keep teaching me, right?”
There’s an anxious edge to your voice that crashes through his resolve. He shuts his eyes, swallowing hard as he shoves aside his doubts. He’ll make space in the world for himself, if it means sticking by your side.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his muscles loosening as he lets out a breath and envelops you in his upper arms. He leans down, not daring to leave the one good piece of his life with any doubts. You stay like that for a long time, clinging to one another like it’s all you have. “I promise.”
And it very well might be.
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➴ a/n ; thank you for reading <3 you might recognize some inspiration from hellboy b.p.r.d. 1948 and angel's origin in x-3 the last stand. unfortunately i see sukuna's situation as being vastly similar to theirs in many regards, as much as it pains me to put him through it.
as a note, please never be afraid to reach out to a crisis hotline if needed.
please continue to heed the warnings for the following chapter.
❦ ryomen sukuna x f!reader [college au] [completed series]
❝ you've heard his reputation and you've seen first-hand the way he's late to class if he even bothers to show up. paired with him for the most important project of the year, you choose to give him the benefit of the doubt- but maybe that's more than he deserves when your perfect grades depend on him, or maybe there's more to the aloof and irritable sukuna than meets the eye. ❞
❦ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. contains explicit sexual themes and content. use of alcohol. use of cannabis. use of nicotine/cigarettes. angst. hurt/no comfort. hurt/comfort. minor injury. family trauma. smut. slow burn. anxiety. panic attacks. self-loathing. mentions of difficulty eating. legal drama (likely with inaccuracies). medical content. minor descriptions of wounds. mentions of arachnids. withdrawal. pet names. oral (f! receiving). p in v. nipple play. fingering. neck kissing. marking. body worship. size difference. praise. aftercare.
❦ additional tags ; college parties and themes. reader is fairly preppy and implied to be smaller than sukuna, but he's 6'11".
❦ words ; 12.3k.
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The sun is high in the sky, warming your skin in the crisp air. The sounds of chatter and laughter fill the campus and in the distance a student is playing their guitar. Your thoughts, however, aren’t occupied by the warmth or the idle noise that fills the air around you. Your mind is preoccupied with Sukuna.
“Honestly, I just can’t get over the fact that you actually make it sound like you had a good time with him,” Shoko comments as you make your way from your lecture to the lunch hall. Of course, you’d left out any portions of the story that felt private, things Sukuna was likely trusting you with. Even without the shreds of vulnerability he showed you, your time with him is still so uncharacteristic for how Shoko would know Sukuna.
“Well… yeah. Honestly, I did,” you admit with a shrug, casting a glance at your phone to take a look at the time. “Hold on, I need to make a pit stop.”
Shoko hums in confusion, standing at the edge of the pathway as you casually jog to wait at the fountain for Sukuna a few minutes before noon. The autumnal breeze is cool as it hits your face, leaving behind a faint blush over your cheeks and the tips of your ears. Your fashionable but functional auburn knit sweatshirt hangs loosely over your shoulders to protect you from the wind’s bite as you shift from side to side on your heels awaiting Sukuna.
A minute past twelve, you catch a glimpse of him in the distance. His hair is pushed back as usual, his leather jacket hanging over his shoulders with a plain black muscle shirt and a pair of loose jeans hanging off his hips. His hands are shoved in his pockets, expression unreadable as usual.
As he approaches, you wave with a sweet smile. He meets your gaze, barely acknowledging you with a small nod. Coming to a stop before you, he drags his backpack down from his shoulder, digging through it for the GameBoy to hand it to you.
“Thought he left it at yours,” Sukuna sighs as he passes it to you.
Taking one look at the console, you shake your head as you slide your hands over his fingers and wrap them around the device for him. He scowls at you as he realizes your meaning before you can say it.
“You can keep-”
“No.”
You blink at his stubbornness, pulling your hands back to fiddle with the hems of your sleeves. “I really don’t mind. He’s a good kid, I’d rather it go to use than rot in my drawer,” you shrug.
“He stole, he doesn’t get to keep shit,” Sukuna insists.
“Then make it some sort of incentive. Get them to do some chores and if they do, they get it.” You smile at the idea, after all it’s somewhat of a gift for both kids given that they wouldn’t need to share any longer.
“It’s yours. I’m not taking it,” Sukuna stubbornly refuses, holding it out closer to you as though he’s trying to shove it into your grip.
Like that, it clicks and your gaze softens as you look up at the man towering over you. He doesn’t want to feel like a charity case, like he owes you something. He’s trying his best to get you to take it back for the same reason he hated that you paid for dinner. He doesn’t want to feel like he needs help.
“Why don’t we say it’s a gift for you instead of them, then?”
His brow twitches, somewhat taken aback, but he doesn’t say anything, quietly listening to you as you continue.
“As a thank you for saving me from being covered in oil. Now they won’t fight over your GameBoy and you can have some peace.”
You half expect him to boil over and blow up at you for even suggesting to give him a gift when you already paid for his dinner. And really, keeping you out of the hospital is more of a common courtesy than something that’s deserving of a gift. Yet, to both of your surprise, Sukuna just stares at the console, the air between you falling somewhere between tense and comfortable.
He’s fighting an inner battle to keep himself from blowing up, but he can’t bring himself to be upset with you. The part of him that does feel some sort of anger over the situation barely puts up a fight. He knows he doesn’t want to be angry with you just for being yourself. For being kind.
He sighs, shooting you one last look of consideration before he gives in. “Thanks,” he gruffs, shoving it back in backpack.
“No problem!” You grin cheerily. “Why don’t you come grab lunch with Shoko and I?” You ask, shooting a glance at your friend smoking on the path a few feet away as she waits for you.
Sukuna follows your gaze to Shoko before shaking his head. “Nah, I-”
“C’mon Sukuna,” you interrupt what you’re sure will be a meager excuse to not have lunch with you, making a point of not using his nickname in the middle of the campus. “Just for a bit?”
His eyes roll to the side as he gruffs out a “fine,” slinging his bag over his shoulder before shoving his hands in his pockets. He follows after you with a grumpy expression as you bound back to Shoko.
“Wait, is he coming with us?” Shoko asks, more in disbelief than anything else as you nod. She doesn’t mind, but Sukuna isn’t usually seen eating in the lunch hall. More often than not, he can be found with his group of friends tucked away in a back corner of the campus where it can’t be seen that they’re smoking weed.
Then there are the rumors that he’s been seen having a quickie in some girl’s car, something you wish Shoko hadn’t told you. You’re not even really sure why you’re so opposed to that knowledge but it makes you feel some sort of way.
You fall back into conversation with Shoko, trying to include Sukuna as best as you can although he doesn’t make it easy.
When you reach the lunch hall and grab your usual table, you pat the chair beside you for Sukuna to take a seat in as you and Shoko sit and pull out the lunches you’d both packed. You couldn’t be bothered with using one of the campus microwaves so you had meal prepped a bunch of sandwiches and salads for the week.
As more students begin filing into the cafeteria, the seats beside you begin to fill as the rest of your friend group finds their way to your table. Gojo and Geto sit on either side of Shoko, sharing an uneasy glance with one another at the sight of Sukuna at your side, followed shortly after by Nanami and Haibara, who hardly seem phased by the sight of Sukuna.
“Sukuna, right? I’m Haibara!” Yu introduces himself cheerily. You can practically feel the uneasy tension of the table as Satoru and Sukuna seem to have some sort of silent battle of egos. You can’t even really be shocked by it, they’re both about as boldly egotistic as it gets.
“Hey,” Sukuna replies without casting Yu a glance.
Sensing the uneasiness of the table, you do your best to lead damage control. “Sukuna and I have been working on a project together, I thought it would be nice to have him join us!” You introduce the idea to your friends, setting your palm on his bicep. Sukuna’s muscles are tense beneath your fingers, so you squeeze his arm gently in reassurance.
He finally rips his attention from Gojo, flashing your hand a glance before his unreadable expression lands on you. Slowly, Suguru pulls Satoru’s attention to him and the tension in the air dissolves. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as you take a bite of your sandwich.
When your hand leaves his bicep, Sukuna leans over the table on his elbow, chin in his hand as he stares blankly at the wall.
“Are you not gonna eat?” You ask with a tilt of your head.
“Nah, I’m fine.”
You pout, eyes filled with concern. Much to his dismay, you shove the rest of your sandwich in his direction. He curls his lip at the thought of taking more from you, shaking his head as he shoves your hand back. He can’t take more from you, not again. He can’t.
“I still have a salad, you can have it!”
Fuck, why are you so kind? And to him? Why are you so kind that he feels like he’s going crazy?
“Stop,” he grumbles, and he thinks if you were anyone else he would just walk away, so why does he tolerate how pushy you can be?
“Please?” You plead, tilting your head. You’re not sure what sort of miracle causes it to happen but with a glare, he snatches the sandwich and turns his shoulders to face the wall. Even as he makes a show of being a prick about it, you’re just glad he takes it at all.
You pull your fork from your bag with a smile and begin shoveling your salad into your mouth as you catch the look Shoko’s giving you. The way her brow is raised, eyes flitting between you and Sukuna says it all as you roll your eyes.
To your disappointment, Sukuna excuses himself shortly after finishing the sandwich, before you have an opportunity to chat with him at all. You call after him, but he doesn’t so much as acknowledge your presence. Sighing at the sight of him walking away without so much as a word to you, you can only hope you haven’t accidentally angered him again.
“What brought that up?” Geto asks curiously as the table focuses their attention on you.
“Yeah, since when does that asshole eat with us?”
“Satoru!” You kick the white-haired man from under the table. He sneers at you, crossing his arms over his chest dramatically as he waits for an answer. “He’s nice. I just thought he might want to join us,” you shrug. “He’s not an asshole.”
“Are we talking about the same guy? The guy who pretends he has charm for a night so that he can get someone to suck his dick at a party and not return the favor?” Satoru asks as he rolls his eyes.
“You’re one to talk,” Shoko teases with a knowing look, trying her best to divert the table’s attention away from your painfully obvious interest in the tattooed man as you fumble with your fork.
“At least I don’t flat out ignore anyone I sleep with afterwards.”
“Oh please, as if you’re any better. The way you greet people like they’re strangers that you didn’t fuck the night before may as well be criminal,” Geto scolds with a frown.
With a scoff and a roll of his eyes, Gojo drops the conversation, not thrilled at the idea of being roasted by the whole table. He may be the school’s heartthrob, but at this table he’s just Satoru.
You expect that to be the end of your lunches with Sukuna, but to your surprise on your way past the fountain the following day, you spot him sitting on the concrete’s edge. Nudging Shoko, you point at him and the two of you make your way over.
You walk past the courtyard fountain every day on your way to the lunch hall and you know for a fact that Sukuna doesn’t sit here. He’s in a baggy shirt and cargo pants, and you note that he looks tired again, his work likely wearing him down.
“Hey!” You greet him, bounding over with a grin. He lifts his head from what you assume is a notebook, his pencil halting as he looks you over and hums as a greeting. “You left so quickly yesterday, I didn’t get to say bye,” you pout, jutting out your lip.
His gaze flickers to your lips and back so quickly that you’re sure you imagined it. “Had somewhere to be,” he gruffs, shutting whatever he was working on.
“You should join us,” Shoko cuts to the chase, too hungry to watch you beat around the bush when clearly you wanted Sukuna to join your group for lunch again.
He contemplates the decision, but nods. When you grin up at him as he gets to his feet, he’s sure he must have gotten a head rush with how his head feels like it’s spinning. He’s not even really sure what he’s doing at the fountain to begin with, his legs brought him here without thinking twice about it.
He trails a short distance behind as you and Shoko discuss the strange lesson you had just gotten out of. Your professor has a habit of going off-topic to discuss his latest interests, which is frustrating enough as is, but on top of that, you have a test next week that both you and Shoko feel horribly unprepared for. Rather than learning about the modern revolution, you instead learned about your professor’s preferred bait to catch sea bass.
“Well if the test calls for the difference between deep sea fishing and lake fishing, I’m set,” Shoko scoffs, pulling a cigarette from a small box in her pocket and balancing it between her lips. She pulls out a lighter, sparking it multiple times to no avail, unable to light her cigarette.
Before she can groan about how her lighter’s about as useful as that class, Sukuna nudges her and hands her a lighter as he falls into step between you. Her eyes widen and she casts a glance at him before her lips quirk up into a grateful smile. Once lit, she hands the lighter back and thanks him as smoke puffs from her lips.
Sukuna hums, dropping the lighter in the pocket of his cargo pants. You don’t expect him to have anything to add to the conversation, but his deep voice catches you off-guard. “I could help.”
You tilt your head to look up at him questioningly.
“I’m a history major,” he reminds you.
“Oh!” You exclaim, lips pursed. “You know the modern revolution?”
“Mhm.”
“I-” You pause, staring straight ahead as you near the lunch hall. Of course you want to say yes, but one sidelong glance at his face reminds you just how little time he already has, and as is you’ve been taking up a lot of it recently. “Um, are you sure?”
He raises a brow as you hum and haw over his offer. “Wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”
It almost feels foreign to hear the man most commonly known for his shitty attitude and poor attendance offering his help in tutoring, of all things. Yet, if he’s proven anything to you over the past couple of weeks, it's that you shouldn’t be judging anyone so baselessly. After all, he may not be the most eloquent with words but Sukuna is extremely smart and dedicated.
“That would be great, thanks Sukuna!” You beam, grateful that maybe you won’t fail your test next week.
You push through the doors to the student cafeteria just as Shoko is stubbing out her cigarette beneath her foot. You and Sukuna follow her to your usual table, though as you make your way there it occurs to you for the first time that you’re being watched.
Multiple pairs of eyes follow you and your salmon-haired new friend, many giving you strange looks while others regard you with jealousy. You shrink into yourself, suddenly too aware of the eyes on you.
It’s not that you aren’t accustomed to staring on one hand, Satoru and Suguru sitting at your table earns a lot of longing eyes in your direction and you would be lying to say you don’t get your fair share of lingering stares. On the other hand, you can practically feel seething anger and envy coming from the surrounding crowd in droves, because Sukuna doesn’t sit with others at lunch. Sukuna doesn’t offer to tutor people. Sukuna to most, is an enigma. A hot one, at that. To most, he’s a cold-shouldered asshole who people would beg to sleep with.
Clearing your throat, you focus on the lunch you’ve pulled out of your bag as you take a seat. It’s still from the same group of prepped lunches from the day prior, a sandwich and salad, nothing too fancy, though your stomach growls at the sight of it.
Sukuna drops his bag at his feet, leaning forward over the table with his elbow propped beneath his chin just like the previous day. The rest of your friends file into the lunch hall shortly after you, and aside from Satoru’s clear contemptful look towards Sukuna, no one seems to think twice about having him there. Yu cheerfully greets him and Suguru offers a calm wave. Sukuna doesn’t return either, but if either of your friends are bothered, they don’t show it.
Before you can take a bite of your sandwich, you glance over at the man leaning over the table beside you. His expression is tired and distant as he stares blankly at the wall off to the side. Just like yesterday, he doesn’t have a lunch, so you push the container with your sandwich in it towards him until it nudges his elbow and gets his attention.
Sukuna blinks twice before staring down at the container. He shoves it back to you just as he had the day before.
“Take it as a thank you for helping Shoko and I study?” You plead, pushing it back towards him and insistently holding it in place. He sighs a little overdramatically and takes the sandwich, taking a bite of it and returning his chin to rest on his palm.
“You wanna do that now?” He asks as he finishes his first bite, staring sidelong at you.
Your eyes brighten and you grab Shoko’s attention with a nudge of your shoe against her leg across from you. “Come review the modern revolution with us.”
Her eyes, along with several other pairs of eyes at the table, fill with surprise and she nods as she gets up and settles on the opposite side of your new study buddy. Pulling out your textbook and notes, you open to the chapter your professor had seemingly glazed over in class.
You learn quickly that Sukuna isn’t the best teacher. He isn’t patient and doesn’t love repeating himself, but he does know the subject well. In spite of his obvious scowl when you ask him to reiterate a point, he still does so even if it’s followed by a dramatic sigh. By the time lunch ends, you have a surprisingly good grasp on the first chapter of your textbook.
“You’re a lifesaver,” you sigh as Sukuna gets to his feet quite suddenly. He doesn’t say anything, his expression unchanging as he slings his bag over his shoulder. He nods in acknowledgement and before Shoko can thank him he’s already gone again.
“You like one weird guy,” she comments as she slides into the chair he’d been occupying.
Turning your attention in her direction, you raise a brow. “I don’t like him in that way.”
She smiles, eyes shining. “Yeah, alright. You just run to him every time you see him for fun then, huh?”
“I don’t run to him every time I see him,” you scoff, shoving your notes into your bag.
“And I don’t smoke behind the lab,” she snorts, laughing when you shove her.
“Such a bad habit,” you mumble, diverting attention away from you. After all, Shoko’s wrong. Sukuna’s hot, but you aren’t crushing on him.
Not that the following day does anything to prove her wrong when you veer sharply to the right at the sight of Sukuna at his usual (as of 2 days ago) spot at the fountain.
“Hey!” You greet him as cheerily as ever as you stop in front of him. He shuts his notebook at the sound of your voice, his aloof expression shifting to one you almost don’t recognize on him- mirth. He looks well-rested today all things considered, and his shoulders seem to relax at the sight of you.
“Hey,” he replies easily, shoving his books into his bag as he gets up to trail behind you and Shoko without even needing to invite him to join you.
“You know, I’d almost think he likes sitting with us,” Shoko whispers quietly to you, casting a glance at him. He’s watching your exchange although you’re positive he can’t hear you. You do nothing more than giggle in reply.
“Care to share with the class?” Sukuna chides with a raised brow.
Just as you go to shake your head no, Shoko happily repeats herself. “I was just saying I think you like sitting with us.”
Sukuna’s expression is unreadable as his gaze flits to you momentarily before it lands on Shoko again. “I don’t have to help you study if you don’t want me to,” he replies evenly, his tone just as chiding as Shoko’s.
Her eyes widen slightly and she goes silent as she turns to light a cigarette with a new lighter. Sukuna smirks in triumph, his chest rumbling with a teasing hum. She lets you know she’ll catch up with you in a bit as she decides to finish smoking before following after you.
“How are Yuji and Choso?” You ask now that Sukuna falls into step with you as you enter the lunch hall.
He rubs a hand over his face, casting a glance around him. “Exhausting,” he grumbles, stifling a yawn at the mere thought. “Yuji’s been giving the sitter a hard time lately about going to bed when I’m not home.”
“That’s kinda sweet, honestly,” you comment as you catch sight of Haibara and Nanami already seated at the table. “He loves you.” Taking a seat beside Nanami with Sukuna on your opposite side, you quickly greet your friends before your attention returns to your tattooed counterpart. “I still don’t know how you do it all, though.”
He sighs as he leans forward on his hand, the dark circles under his eyes evident. “I dunno either.” There’s something forlorn about his tone that causes your face to fall.
You take in his expression for a moment, wanting nothing more than to offer your help but you think better of it when you recall the way he reacted the last time you offered help. “Sorry, Kuna.”
Sukuna sits pin-straight as you use his nickname, an unspoken warning in his eyes. “Don’t call me that,” he growls, his voice lowering an octave as he shoots a glance at his surroundings.
“Oh, right! Sorry,” your cheeks redden as he relaxes slowly, letting the mistake go as he realizes it wasn’t intentional. You let out a breath as you realize he’s letting it slide, thankful he’s not taking it too seriously. “I think it’s cute,” you comment with a shrug as you pull out your lunch. “The name, I mean.”
“The last thing I need is to be seen as ‘cute’.” The word is sour on his tongue as he scornfully huffs his displeasure at the nickname.
You can’t help a smile at his comment which is somehow equally as cute as the nickname itself. Before you can tease him anymore, Shoko takes a seat beside him, pulling her textbook open to chapter two of the modern revolution. It doesn’t take long for him to dive into explanations of the demise of the military government that begin to make more sense with someone explaining the subject in more broad terms than the textbook states.
At some point in his lesson, you push your sandwich towards him and to your surprise, he seems to subconsciously take and eat it. You’re grateful to see that he doesn’t make a big deal of it either. Sukuna isn’t entirely aware he took it at all, his body acting on instinct as a natural part of the new schedule that came along with joining you for lunch.
It’s heartwarming regardless to know that to some extent, you’re getting through his tough exterior.
As your next class quickly approaches, you begin to pack up and tilt your head at Sukuna. “Will I see you in Art History later?”
The tall man casts a glance at his watch. “Yeah but I’ll only have a couple of minutes after class. Choso has some…” he stares at the ceiling as he wracks his brain for an answer. “I dunno. Some thing at his school.”
“No worries! We only have the visual portion left anyway. Oh! But I did refine the written part a bit, I was hoping to go over that with you.”
“Sure,” he agrees, and just like every other day he’s striding quickly away before you can even say bye. You let out a soft sigh as you watch him leave, staring blankly at the door until Shoko nudges you.
She has a knowing gleam in her eyes as she slides into the seat where Sukuna had been. “So, lovergirl. Care to admit it yet?”
“There’s nothing to admit,” you groan with a roll of your eyes.
“Sure, sure.” She lets the silence hang in the air for a moment as she leans against the table. “So since when have you started lying to your literal best friend?”
“You’re so dramatic Sho, I’m not lying,” you roll your eyes. “There’s just more to him than people think. He’s nice.”
“He’s nice to you,” Gojo butts his head into your conversation, only to receive two glares in return.
“Shut up, Satoru,” Geto scolds the white-haired man with a scowl. You shoot him an appreciative smile, but you’re taking back the smile almost immediately as he follows up with, “I’m listening in to this Sukuna drama, don’t interrupt.”
Idiots, both of them.
“You’re equally as unbelievable,” Shoko rolls her eyes at her friend, shoving her textbook into her bag alongside you as you both get to your feet to head to your next classes. “Listen, all I’m saying is that you’ve been around him a lot lately and it’s pretty fucking obvious at this point. So I don’t know if you don’t want to admit it to the dumbasses at the table, to me, or to yourself, but you aren’t fooling me.”
“Sho seriously, I promise it’s not like that. I just… feel for him. He’s a nice guy and has way more on his plate than any one person can handle,” you insist.
“And you like him.”
“And I like being around him,” you rationalize yourself to her, staring up at the ceiling as you leisurely make your way to your next class.
“You’re lucky I need to go the other way, girl. I could fight you on this all day.”
You brush her off with a wave and smile, sighing as you’re finally blessed with silence. It’s not that you don’t love Shoko, but her incessant teasing over Sukuna is becoming a lot. Not only that, but you don’t want to begin questioning your emotions when it comes to him given that you both have enough on your plate as is. Your attraction to him is surface level, and that’s fine with you.
–
When you’re dismissed by the professor, you quickly make your way up to Sukuna, who’s chewing on a toothpick with his nose in his notebook. You take a seat next to him, knowing you won’t have much time but hoping to at least get something together for the visual portion.
Sukuna casts a glance at you, keeping his thumb on the page of his notebook he was engrossed in as he shuts it and leans back. There’s a scowl on his face as he takes a look at the time. “Y’ got ten minutes.”
He sounds grumpy, so you try to make things quick. “Right, let’s start with the visual portion, since we have about a week left.”
Sukuna hums, sitting up and setting his notebook on the surface in front of him. He taps it a couple of times in thought before he opens the page to the one his thumb had kept a tab on. Curiously, you peer at the page as he pushes the book towards you.
It’s not a notebook at all, but a sketchbook and your eyes widen as you take in the stunning art scrawled across the page. All three art pieces the two of you had chosen have been blended into one piece, with the fallen angel at the center. Your jaw drops as you pull the book closer, examining the details and the way Sukuna has shaded everything.
“You drew this?” You gasp, tearing your eyes from the gorgeous piece Sukuna has drawn to take a look at him.
“Yeah. It’s just a sketch. I’d do it on letter size paper if you’re good with it.”
“Just a- what?” You gawk at him as you stare down at his ‘sketch’. It already looks like a damn masterpiece and you’re certain you could turn it in as it is and still get a high grade. This is better than anything you had in mind, the only thing you feel guilty over is that he’s actually done the whole thing on his own, and you doubt you can do anything to help. “How can I- I don’t know how I can help with-”
“So y’like it?” He smirks, leaning somewhat closer to you.
“It’s amazing! I don’t know how I can help, though,” you admit, looking up at him with a furrowed brow as you examine his features. A muscle in his jaw clenches as he chews on the toothpick that’s still hanging loosely from his teeth, dark eyes set on the page in your hands.
“You could look after the-” he pauses, glancing around momentarily to find that there’s no one nearby when he continues. “-the brats while I work on it.”
“Is that… enough? I mean, I’ll owe a good portion of the grade to you,” you point out.
“It’s fine,” he shrugs nonchalantly.
You can’t help it, but you’re pouting at him, and he can’t help but smirk at the sight. You want to do more to help, though a break from his brothers is more than enough for him to consider the visual portion to be a group effort. Besides, he knows you edited his written portion to sound more formal. He doesn’t realize it only took you five minutes, but that’s besides the point.
“Text me when you’re free? Oh wait-!” You snicker to yourself. “Email me when you’re free?”
In an instant Sukuna is on his feet, shoving his things into his bag as you giggle to yourself. “I’m leaving,” he grumbles, throwing his hood up over his head and popping in his headphones.
“Don’t forget to email me!” You call after him. He flips you off on his way out the door, your continued laughter to yourself met with stares from the few remaining students around the room. You aren’t oblivious to the fact that you and Sukuna are… an odd pair to say the least, but it doesn’t make the stares any less uneasy as you quiet down and quickly slip out of the room not too far behind Sukuna.
–
Sukuna’s email came fairly early in the morning before you woke up. When you checked it, you smiled to yourself.
[email protected] - Saturday, 10:04 AM
You gotta make these emails sound less like booty calls. Sounds good though!! I'll be there at 5 :)
You’re don’t expect to ear back from him given his lack of phone, so you get ready and go about your day while you wait for four in the afternoon to pass.
To your surprise, a bit after he’s off work, Sukuna sends you his address and a teasing ‘don’t threaten me with a good time’ that sends your mind spiraling more than you’d like to admit as you stare at the screen with a pounding heart. You don’t know how to reply to the email, so you leave it be, shutting your laptop for good measure.
It’s just teasing, anyway. It has to be.
So why the hell will your heart not slow down?
You drive over to his address with a bag of takeout given the time. Sukuna’ll likely be irritated by it, but at this point you’re willing to push his buttons to show him gratitude for how much help he’s been on this project, especially if you owe what you can only imagine will be another perfect grade to his art skills.
You dial his unit number in the lobby of his apartment at the buzzer, listening to the shrill rings from the box as you wait.
“Come up!” Comes Choso’s voice over the buzzer and the door beeps as it unlocks. You smile and make your way to the elevator, glancing over each unit number until you reach Sukuna’s door.
“Come in,” Sukuna’s deep voice travels through the door. You twist the knob and realize suddenly why it was Choso who answered the buzz, and why Sukuna had insisted that watching his little brothers would be enough.
Towards the back of the apartment is a table where Sukuna’s seated, clearly trying to work on the project. Choso is leaning over the edge of the table, eyes trained on the drawing as his face is practically blocking Sukuna’s. Yuji, on the other hand, is another story entirely. He’s dangling off of his older brother’s arm, going on about something he saw on TV today. You can’t help a bubbly giggle at the sight of Sukuna’s frustrated glance in your direction. He looks like his patience is hanging on by a very thin thread.
Yuji’s head whips around to face you when he hears the door shut and he cries out your name, dropping from Sukuna’s arm to bound up to you. Choso follows shortly after, waving at you as the youngest brother runs straight into your arms. You pick him up, supporting his weight as he hugs you while you smile at Choso. You kick off your shoes, making your way over to your project partner.
“How’s it coming along?” You ask, taking note that Sukuna seems to be using more than one medium, graphite and charcoal. Peering over his shoulder, you smile at the sight. Sukuna’s got basic shapes blocked out on the page, and the fallen angel’s face started. It looks so professional that you can’t help but wonder what Sukuna’s doing as a history major.
“It’s coming,” he grumbles, leaning forward on the heel of his palm as he eyes the way you’re trying to hold up his youngest brother, while also holding onto a brown paper bag and your backpack hangs off your shoulder. “Yuji, get down,” he scolds, crimson eyes sharp as the young boy clambers down from your arms and immediately begins excitedly prodding at Choso to get his attention.
“It looks amazing so far! I brought some stuff to keep the kids entertained while you work,” you tell him, rolling your shoulder in reference to your backpack. “Oh! I also brought dinner for us all.”
Sukuna’s eye twitches. You know what’s going through his mind right now, you can practically hear it, so you elaborate before he can snap.
“I just thought it would be a nice thing to do since you’re doing the whole visual portion of the project and all I’m doing is watching these two angels.” You make sure to emphasize that he’s doing more work than you are, that this isn’t a favor, this is repayment. All you can do is hope he’ll let it slide.
Your tattooed counterpart lets his gaze trail to his brothers as you call them angels, before it lands on the bag. He frowns, reaching out to take it from you and set it on the table in front of him as he looks in the bag. You know he’s not happy, it’s about as obvious as the sun in the sky, but for one reason or another he’s holding back his attitude, and for that you’re grateful.
“I’ll eat while I work. Leave me be,” he mutters, his voice strained as he shoots you a very obvious dismissive and irritated glance.
Your smile falters as he pulls a meal out of the bag before shoving it back towards you.
“Just let me know if you need anything,” you smile hesitantly before grabbing the bag and turning back to the two boys. They lead you over to the living room, split from the kitchen and small table area by only a counter.
Sukuna’s apartment is nicer than you expected. It seems to be a two bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and living room area. It’s obviously older and a bit run-down in comparison to your apartment but Sukuna’s kept it fairly clean considering how much work he already has on his hands. There’s an old flat screen TV facing a couch in the living room, as well as a shelf of mostly kids’ movies and a couple of horror films.
You take a seat with both kids excitedly peering at you as you open the takeout bag and hand each of them a small plastic bowl with ramen. Yuji takes it giddily and Choso quietly thanks you as they begin eating.
Your night is entertaining as you look after Sukuna’s little brothers. They’re both sweet and excited to see you, and you’re more than thrilled to find them warming up to you even more. When you pulled the old GameCube out of your bag and hooked it up to the TV for them, they were both over the moon and entertained for the rest of the night, making your part of the project beyond easy.
Glancing back at Sukuna as the boys played an old kart racer, you find yourself admiring the way his broad shoulders rise and fall with each breath, sharp eyes focused on his art. His jaw would move every so often as he concentrated on the project, running a hand through his pink hair in an effort to keep it off of his forehead.
As the night closes in on all sides, Sukuna makes his way over to the couch, leaning over the back of the couch on strong arms.
“Time for bed, all of you.”
“All of us?” You tease, peering over at Sukuna. His veins are protruding obviously from his muscular forearms and you need to divert your attention as your cheeks heat up at your own thoughts.
He smirks at you, eyes somewhat lidded. After a moment, he chuckles breathily and rolls his eyes, but his attention is pulled away from you quickly by his brothers. Yuji and Choso protest adamantly with their older brother, neither of the young boys wanting to head to bed ‘so early’ as though nine is early.
“If you two go get ready, I’ll read you something before bed,” you coax in an effort to alleviate any effort on Sukuna’s part. He eyes you curiously, and though you can’t see his expression, he’s relieved that he doesn’t need to argue with the kids.
“Promise?” Yuji’s eyes are filled with wonder as he approaches you.
“Pinky promise,” you reply, extending your finger to him. He wraps his own tiny pinky around yours in a silent agreement before the two boys go running off to brush their teeth and get changed.
Silence settles between you and Sukuna, one that sits somewhere between easy and tense. There’s really no way of knowing with him whether he’s still upset that you brought dinner or not as his expression gives nothing away. You can only hope his chuckle moments ago points towards the latter.
“Are you that shit at MarioKart or did you let them win?”
His gruff voice breaks the silence with a teasing lilt that makes your lips pull into a smirk. “I let them win,” you say with a fond smile as you glance at the screen detailing your seventeen losses.
“Yeah? The Prom Queen’s a gamer?” Sukuna’s got a sparkle in his eye that you don’t recognize from the past couple of weeks of getting to know him, but it suits him. His tone is as teasing as it is cocky and it’s exactly what you would expect from someone with an ego as big as his, at least now that he isn’t so painfully sleep deprived and toning himself down to handle his brothers.
You wonder if this is a glimpse of who he really is.
… Wait, did he just call you the Prom Queen?
“Prom Queen?” You scoff, eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sukuna raises a brow. “You tellin’ me you didn’t try to get elected Prom Queen or however that shit works?”
You open your mouth in an attempt to defend yourself but you can’t manage to formulate a retort. As any chance of sparing yourself from humiliation dies on your tongue, Sukuna lets out a breath somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.
“Figured. I bet you ate that shit up in high school,” he teases further.
“Whatever, it’s not something to be ashamed of,” you pout, staring down at the indigo controller in your hands as you fidget with the buttons.
“So why’re you actin’ that way if you’re not embarrassed?” Sukuna pushes, smoothly hopping over the back of the couch as he leans close enough to you that your cheeks heat up from the close proximity. His eyes narrow as his smirk turns to a grin when an idea worms its way into his mind. “Holy shit, did I clock ya? You didn’t just try to get elected- you were the Prom Queen, weren’t you?” He pushes.
Huffing, you let out an exaggerated groan. “Yeah, I was. So what? It was fun.”
Sukuna throws his head back against the couch in a laugh. A genuine laugh that makes any amount of embarrassment over how easily he’d read you dissolve. His laugh is hoarse, husky in the way his speaking voice is, and you can’t help but smile despite yourself as warmth pools in your chest at the sight of him at ease and enjoying himself.
“‘Course it was,” Sukuna agrees teasingly with a shake of his head.
“I bet you didn’t even go to Prom.” There’s no way you don’t have him read like a book too, Sukuna wouldn’t possibly have gone to-
“You wanna put money on that bet?” Sukuna’s got a smug grin plastered across his face as your jaw hangs ajar. Shocked isn’t really the right word for what you’re feeling right now, but there’s certainly more to the grumpy history major than meets the eye.
“You went to Prom?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, Prom Queen,” he moves his hands behind his head, leaning back as he spreads his legs like a slut. Not that you’d say that to his face.
“I’m not- I’m just-”
Saving you from the embarrassment of trying to defend your misjudgment of Sukuna, Yuji calls out for you. Setting the controller aside, you flee from Sukuna’s side in search of the room where Yuji’s voice rang out. You disappear from the aloof man’s sight as you peer into the first of three open doors, oblivious to his gaze searing into your back as he chuckles to himself.
After a couple of moments, he sighs heavily, running a hand roughly through his messy locks. What the hell was he doing letting you into his life so carelessly? Fuck, you were helping his brothers fall asleep right now. Even for projects, Sukuna never brought anyone home. He didn’t get friendly with people either. His secrets started and ended with Uraume, his best friend, and now somehow you had wormed your way into his life and the thought of such a thing had him squirming in discomfort.
He rolls his shoulders backwards, staring at the ceiling as he listens to the sound of your voice. You’re speaking softly as you read to the boys, giggling when Yuji begins to tell you you’ve said one of the characters’ names wrong. Sukuna’s eyes flicker mindlessly over small details in the ceiling. A water stain here, a small hole from the rocket toy Choso had gotten for his birthday last year. Small details, small distractions from the real turmoil in Sukuna’s mind that he was avoiding.
You know too much about him. You’re too close. Once this project is over, that’s it. All ties cut loose, he can’t have you so close to him. He’s better off on his own, the way things have always been.
Hell, he’ll even still help you pass your test. But once that’s done and this project is handed in, that’s it. He’ll disappear. You don’t belong in his life and he doesn’t belong in yours. You aren’t two sides of the same coin, you’re cut from entirely different cloth.
You round the corner quietly after several minutes of Sukuna deliberating, smiling softly at him as you plop down on the couch beside him. “So, how’s the project coming along?”
Sukuna looks down at you, an eyebrow quirked. “Did they actually get to sleep?”
Your head tilts questioningly. Cute. Wait, cute? Sukuna shakes his head as if to shake the thought from his mind. Shit, he needs to get laid. Get these thoughts out of his head.
“Yeah, why?”
“Huh.” Sukuna taps his finger on his thigh twice. They never fall asleep without Sukuna there, even if he’s in the apartment. The neighbor across the hall who helps with babysitting always mentioned the two boys would whine and cry until Sukuna returned to say goodnight. So what makes you different?
When Sukuna doesn’t elaborate, you decide not to push, bright eyes moving behind the couch to the table. “Can I see the project?”
“Mhm.”
Your excited grin pierces his chest in a way that leaves him dumbfounded and frozen to the couch, unable to follow you as he stares blankly at the win screen of MarioKart. What the fuck was that?
Skipping off to the table, you stop and peer over the table at the mix of charcoal messily strewn along the edges of the paper in a similar style to ‘All is Vanity’, one of the three pieces your project is on, while the rest of the piece is precisely detailed in graphite. The fallen angel at the center of the piece admires himself in a skull-shaped mirror while clocks melt and litter the surroundings in a subtle manner. It’s so gorgeous and meticulously detailed that it draws your breath from your lungs in disbelief.
“Kuna,” you gasp, eyes wide as you admire the piece that Sukuna did in- what, five hours? “This is beautiful.”
The sound of your voice snaps him from his stupor and he gets to his feet, eyes trailing the length of your body before landing on the art piece.
“You think so, Prom Queen?”
“Don’t call me that,” you mumble, unable to pull your gaze from his art.
“Don’t call me ‘Kuna’.”
“It’s cute,” you insist, finally looking up at him. He’s frowning, eyes narrowed as he watches you sit down at the table and admire the art.
“I ain’t cute.”
You choose to ignore him, instead admiring his art once more.
“That work for the project?” He inquires.
Nodding eagerly, you grin at him. “There’s no way we don’t get a good grade. This is way better than anything I could have come up with.”
Warmth pools in Sukuna’s chest, unfamiliar as it takes root in his heart at your compliment. He scratches at his chest idly as if to rid himself of the feeling, humming in response.
Silence settles over you as you lean back in your chair. You know you should probably leave, but something piques your curiosity.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you in history?”
Sukuna’s crimson irises flicker between yours in thought. He contemplates whether he wants to bother with the conversation at all but gives in and sits down at the table with you. He runs a hand through his tousled pink locks, sighing.
“My dad was a history teacher, shit’s interesting. It made sense at the time.” He doesn’t look at you, resting over the table with his temple against his palm.
“Why not go into art?” You ask.
He shoots you a sidelong glance, rubbing his hand over his face. “What the fuck am I gonna do with an art degree?” He asks. There’s no malice in his tone, he’s asking genuinely. “Shit’s no better than history for someone like me.”
“I’m not sure…” You deliberate. “Marketing or graphic design?” You offer, blinking at him.
He scoffs a laugh. “Shit’s impossible to get into. No firm wants a delinquent with attendance issues and face tattoos for an intern.”
Though he speaks matter-of-factly, there’s an underlying sadness to his tone, one that’s burrowed between layers of exhaustion and carefully built walls. He rubs his eyes, inhaling sharply.
“It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.”
“I think you could do a lot with your art.”
He lets out a deep sigh. “Maybe.”
“Really, I mean it when I say-”
“I get it.” He interrupts, a biting edge nipping at his tone as he shoots you a sidelong warning glance. You blink at him a couple of times, nodding slowly as you realize this is clearly a tough subject for him. Really, what subject isn’t tough with him? Sometimes you feel like you’re walking on eggshells around him, never knowing what’ll set him off next.
“Sorry,” you mumble, glancing at the art in front of you. “I just thought-”
“I don’t care what you thought,” he snarls, that last strong of patience for the day snapping. “Shit’s complicated, alright? Not everyone gets everything handed to them on a silver fucking platter.”
Hurt pangs in your chest, piercing your heart in a way you don’t expect. You know his reputation, you know he can be an asshole, but it’s still a side of him that you haven’t seen yet. You bite your lip, nodding slowly. “You really think that?” He doesn’t reply, fire burning behind his pinprick pupils. You scoff out a breathy laugh. “Right. Um- I should go.” Your voice is meeker than intended as you get to your feet and head to the living room to pack up.
Sukuna’s head is still leaning on his palm as he stares at the table, his chest rising and falling with each frustrated breath. He doesn’t say a word as the looping background music from MarioKart cuts out suddenly. You stand uncomfortably on the opposite side of the couch, shifting on both feet as you stare at Sukuna.
“I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” You throw your backpack over your shoulder, turning to the door and flipping the lock. One last glance at your project partner tells you he hasn’t moved. You press your lips into a thin line, nodding as you show yourself out.
When you’re finally gone, Sukuna leans back in his chair, slouching back as he stares at the ceiling. He knows you’re hurt, he’s not oblivious that he snapped at you. Maybe this is for the best though. He’ll be gone from your life before the week even starts, like you never knew him at all.
–
Lunch the following day brings an uneasy feeling that settles in your chest as you walk past the fountain. You need Sukuna’s help, but when you slow as you approach the path that leads to the fixture, he’s not there.
Your heart sinks into the pit of your stomach. Had he really been that hurt by your words? You hadn’t meant to get under his skin, you only intended to help- but that’s the issue with him, it always is.
Besides that, you’re not sure what’s worse- the fact that you can hardly bring yourself to be mad at him or that he hurt you in assuming that life came easily to you and you didn’t have your own fair share of struggles. Sure, you aren’t working two jobs and taking care of your younger siblings, but that doesn’t mean life is a free ride for you.
“Where’s your bad boy?” Shoko asks, scanning the clearing for any sign of the man in question as she slows to a stop beside you. You don’t even realize you’ve stopped when you turn to face her.
You chew on your lip, shaking your head. “I don’t think he’s coming.”
Shoko’s brow lifts. “Oh?”
“I think I pissed him off,” you admit, mindlessly tugging at the hem of your skirt. “Sorry. If you fail the test, then drinks are on me,” you mumble, hardly trying to mask the hurt in your voice.
“Are you alright?” Shoko asks, pushing past your insistence on buying drinks.
“Yeah. Yeah! I’m fine,” you shoot her just about the least convincing smile she’s ever seen.
“C’mon girl, I always told you he was trouble. Just didn’t think he’d break your heart before you even admitted to liking him,” she mumbles the last part, earning a scowl from you as she tugs you away from the fountain.
Plastering a smile on your face, you let her lead the way to the lunch hall, taking a seat in your usual spot. Nanami slides in beside you alongside Haibara, with Gojo and Geto only a minute behind them.
“You’re early,” Kento comments, surprising you as his mahogany gaze peers past you to where Sukuna’s been the past week or so.
“We’re always the first ones here,” you cock your head to the side, wishing desperately in this moment that you could be oblivious to the stares from the rest of the table. For all they know, he could just be sick. Or away for the day. Or at work. They don’t need to know you had a petty and stupid disagreement.
“I fucking toooold you he’s an asshole,” Gojo interrupts your thoughts with the most grating comment he possibly can and you have to shut your eyes and take a breath in order to respond evenly.
“Nothing happened, Satoru. We just finished our project and he doesn’t need to hang around anymore,” you attempt to defend yourself.
“Oh? So studying wasn’t a priority, then?” Geto has his own way of being equally infuriating. Although Gojo has a reputation for being a nuisance, it’s a wonder Geto doesn’t share that reputation.
“We-” You pause, chewing on your lip. “Finished. We finished studying.”
“I seem to recall you were only on chapter three,” Nanami comments, though his push is more out of concern for your grades than your personal business, so you don’t let it get to you.
“That sounds right,” Geto agrees, as though the ball has been passed back to his court. “Of five, isn’t that so?”
“Enough, boys,” Shoko scolds in a motherly tone. You let out a breath, thankful for the way she manages to wrangle in Satoru and Suguru. Gojo shoots you one last knowing smirk, entirely too proud of himself for something that doesn’t concern him. Geto’s final glance cast your way is more genuine. Although he enjoys teasing, it’s clear he does care. You don’t spare either of them a glance as Kento speaks up.
“I can help you study, if you need. I’m no history major but I can read a textbook and make cue cards.”
You let out a grateful sigh, smiling half-heartedly at him. “Honestly, I’d appreciate it.”
He nods as you grab your textbook and notebook, pulling it open to the fourth chapter in the modern revolution section and beginning to go over it. As you work through the chapter with Shoko and Kento, you mindlessly pull out your salad and sandwich, your attention wavering and your hunger dying as you stare at the sandwich in particular.
Something stirs deep in your chest, twisting like a knife. Not only had your attention completely faltered, but so had your hunger, and you can only hope the rest of the table doesn’t notice as you quietly return the sandwich to your bag.
–
As Friday approaches quickly, you prepare your project to be turned in, only able to pray Sukuna would bring the visual component on his own terms, otherwise you’d be fucked. Your professor is fairly old-school and prefers everything to be turned in personally, which would be fine in most scenarios, but unfortunately you know Sukuna and you know he has a habit of not showing up to class.
Maybe you should have taken the art for safe keeping.
No, that would be rude.
Sitting in your usual spot with your printed thesis and your face in your hands, you rub your features in an effort to clear your mind. Sukuna needs this grade just as much as you do, he’ll be here. You sigh to yourself, watching the clock as the minutes tick by and Sukuna doesn’t make an appearance. You can’t even bring yourself to pay attention to the professor, too caught up in your own thoughts.
With one last glance backwards, you feel your heart sink to your stomach in dread as you have to turn in your project without the visual portion. You’ve chewed your lip raw at this point from the nerves of Sukuna not showing up and the taste of iron is stark on your tongue. Running your tongue over your lower lip, you wait until the rest of the class has left to meekly make your way to the front.
“Hi, I’m really sorry but I thought Sukuna would be here and he has our visual portion, so I’m not really sure what to do.” Your voice comes out as a mumble and your professor tilts his head questioningly.
“He dropped it off this morning. He let me know he wouldn’t be at class and that you have the thesis.”
“Oh.” You purse your lips, staring down at the thesis as you set it on his desk. You can’t decide whether you’re more shocked he was so proactive, or hurt that you couldn’t talk to him. Shaking your head, you plaster a smile over your features and take a breath. “Well, here’s the rest, then.”
Your professor observes you for a moment before accepting your submission, placing it in a folder with Sukuna’s art that’s been carefully placed inside a portfolio intended to keep charcoal from smudging. Catching a glimpse of the art makes the memory of Sukuna’s frustration pop back into your head and you press your lips into a tight line, excusing yourself.
It’s over. You don’t need to see him again. You don’t need to talk to him again. You can and should forget about him.
Pulling out your phone, you text Shoko in search of some liquid therapy.
–
A full week and a half later, your life has returned to the status quo, which you’re grateful for. Sukuna is little more than a passing thought, just another project partner in another class. Back to how it should be.
You managed to pass your history test and although you owe a good portion of that to Kento, you can’t deny the fact that Sukuna had been a godsend in helping you truly understand at least the first half of the modern revolution. You had wanted to share your grade with him, but at the end of the day, you weren’t friends. You had to keep reminding yourself of that.
“I literally owe you my life, Kento,” you sigh as you stare at your grade on your screen. “I honestly think my parents would have killed me if I lost my scholarship over a bad grade in history of all things.”
He hums, a calm smile gracing his sharp features. “No problem. I’m taking that class next semester, so I suppose I’ll be prepared.” You grin, casting a glance at Shoko who’s scrolling the page in search of her grade.
“Oh thank god,” she breathes out when she finally finds her student ID, leaning forward on the picnic table you’re all at after your last class.
The days are getting colder as fall makes way for winter. Leaves coat the ground, the sound of their crunching a constant as students make their way to their next classes. A crisp breeze bites at the exposed skin of your ankles, reminding you to swap your cute heels for a pair of warm boots.
Pulling your coat more snugly over your body as the breeze nips at you, you barely notice the vibration of your phone in your pocket. Pulling it out, you stare at the caller ID with a furrowed brow.
“Who is it?” Shoko asks curiously as she takes note of your expression.
You shrug, setting the phone back in your lap. “Auto Parts and Services?” You shake your head, leaning forward over the picnic table. “Must be a wrong number. I’ve never used them and my car is fine.”
“Maybe they heard the way you called your car fine even though it rattles whenever you stop,” Shoko teases.
You roll your eyes, shaking your head. “It’s just a loose screw or something, it’s not a big deal.”
“I would argue a loose screw in a car is a big deal,” Nanami frowns, concern etched across his features.
You open your mouth to defend yourself when your phone rings again. Confused, you pick it up, staring at the screen. “They’re calling back,” you comment, your thumb now hovering over the green button as you contemplate picking it up. Maybe someone hit your car while it was parked? No, then you would be getting a call from your insurance, right?
“They’re probably just trying to sell you something,” Shoko shrugs. “I’d ignore it.”
Taking her advice, you nod and set aside your phone again, letting it ring. If it was important, surely they’d leave a message.
“Anyways,” you continue, “you passed?”
Shoko nods. “I don’t know how you did it, Nanami, but I owe you too.”
He smiles easily, zipping his jacket up. “You don’t owe me anything. I don’t mind.”
“I’m still gonna do something for you,” you insist with a grin.
As your phone rings- again- you start to feel as though you really should pick up.
“Is it the auto shop again?” Shoko asks as you stare at the screen.
You nod, shooting a glance at her with a furrowed brow and, against your better judgment, you finally pick up and bring your phone to your ear.
“Hello?”
“Christ, you have a working phone but just can’t be bothered to use it, or what?”
Your eyes widen at the sound of the gruff voice on the other line. “Sukuna? You know, you could have started with a hello, or-”
Shoko and Nanami exchange a glance at the realization you’re getting a call from the very same Sukuna you’d been moping over the last week.
He audibly huffs on the other line. “Listen, I-” he cuts himself off with another frustrated huff, struggling to get through what he wants to say. “I wouldn’t be fuckin’ calling if I had anyone else to turn to.”
“Did you just call to insult me, or-?”
Another huff. “No. I didn’t mean it like that,” he sighs, shuffling on the other line. “Listen, I need-” he pauses, the silence on the line tense as he contemplates what to say. He harshly rubs his hand over his features as he finally manages to find his words. “I need a favor.”
Your jaw parts and you stare blankly at the picnic table. You should turn him down, you tell yourself. He should reap what he sowed in choosing to be rude to you, but are you even still mad about that? Were you ever mad over it? It hurt, sure, but a part of you hopes he didn’t mean to lash out. Didn’t mean what he said. You knew his boundaries and you’d pushed, even if only a little bit.
Sighing, you wonder if you’ll regret this. “What’s the favor?”
“The woman across the hall usually watches the brats while I work but Yuji just got sick and she’s ancient and doesn’t want to get sick too,” Sukuna begins to explain.
Stifling a halfhearted laugh, you shake your head. “You can’t say that about her, Sukuna,” you mumble over how he refers to the woman.
“What?” His smirk is audible in his tone. “It’s true. The point is, I can’t leave them alone. Choso barely has the hang of cooking and I don’t-”
He doesn’t have money for them to order and he doesn’t want to leave them alone. You can fill in the details without him needing to embarrass himself any further than you’re sure he’s already feeling.
“I can… I can watch them,” you agree quietly. Shoko and Nanami exchange another glance.
You hear shuffling on the other side as Sukuna lets out a breath of relief. “I’ll owe you one, or whatever,” he grumbles, covering the shop’s phone with his hand as you hear someone call his name. His voice is muffled as he tells them he’ll be right there. “When you get there, just let Cho know it’s you on the call box. He’ll let you in.”
“Oh, um, yeah! Okay. When will you be back?”
He pauses for a moment. “Ten.”
You pull your phone away from your face, blinking at the clock. It’s just past three, you’ll be with them most of the night, which you don’t mind, but the lingering feeling of discomfort over your last interaction with Sukuna is one that you don’t particularly want to face now that you’ve mostly gotten over it.
“Okay, I’ll head over now.”
“Fuck, I owe you.”
“I don’t mind,” you insist. “You’re sure Choso will let me in?”
“He’s a smart kid,” Sukuna shrugs, though you can’t see it. “I gotta go. This is the shop’s number, call if ya need anything.”
“Right,” you barely manage to get out, chewing on your lip as the line disconnects.
“What just happened?” Shoko asks in disbelief, four pairs of eyes glued to you as they wait for an answer.
You glance between Shoko and Nanami. You can’t tell the truth, given that you’d promised Sukuna you wouldn’t tell anyone he was the sole caretaker of his little brothers and Kento didn’t know, so you make your reply as simple as possible.
“I’m just doing him a favor.”
“You just got over him and you’re gonna make me hear about him again? You have such a soft spot for him.” Shoko complains, as if this is about her.
“There was nothing to get over,” you groan, zipping up your coat and getting to your feet. You fumble with your keys in your pockets.
“Be careful,” Kento hums, aware he’s missing several pieces of the puzzle that is your relation to Sukuna, but still caring in the way only Nanami knows how.
You shoot him a grateful smile before making your way to your car.
The drive to Sukuna’s place has grown somewhat familiar as you pull into a guest spot at his apartment. Walking up to the buzzer, you hit the unmarked button for Sukuna’s apartment. It clicks as someone picks up, Choso’s voice sounding tired as he answers your buzz with a ‘hello?’
“Hey Cho, it’s me!” You reply, thankful he lets you in when the door buzzes. You make your way up to the apartment and twist the doorknob, which Choso has already unlocked for you.
The sound of distant muffled crying has you wincing as Choso peers up at you with a grateful expression, immediately clinging to your waist as he hugs you.
“Oh-!” You let out a small noise in surprise as he squeezes you tight.
“I dunno what to do…” He mumbles against you, pointing towards his shared bedroom with his little brother.
“That’s okay, I’ve got you,” you assure him with a gentle hug before making your way into his room with Choso latched to your leg. Yuji’s bawling at the foot of his bed, arms wrapped around his knees as he wipes away his tears.
“Hey, it’s okay,” you coo, gently stroking his hair. “Can you tell me what hurts?”
Tears trail down Yuji’s cheeks as he stops wailing at the sight of you, sniffling and wiping at his face. “Where’s Kuna?”
“Your brother’s at work, honey,” you tell him softly, kneeling down to his level to get a better look at him. You press the back of your hand to his forehead and sigh. The poor kid’s running a high fever and you doubt he can keep anything down. His breathing is uneven as the news of Sukuna being at work goes over less than ideally and he starts sobbing again. “Shh, it’s okay,” you coo with a gentle smile. “Can you tell me what hurts?” You repeat.
He quiets down for another moment, hiccuping as he points to his stomach.
You nod in understanding. “Were you sick?”
He nods, sniffling.
“That’s okay, why don’t we get you in bed?”
Yuji complies immediately, letting you pick him up and tuck him into his bed.
“Choso, do you guys have any medicine?”
The older of the two boys nods from where he’s still stuck to your leg, pointing towards the washroom. He lets go of your leg finally to lead the way, opening the cabinet beneath the sink. There’s a very messy variety of different medications and hygiene products for you to sift through until you come across children’s tylenol. That should work, right?
Returning to Yuji, you pour some tylenol into the measuring cup it comes with and hold it up for him to drink. He makes a face, though over the amount of tears and snot dripping down his face, it hardly comes across as anything but sadness.
Your heart pangs as he takes the tylenol before burrowing beneath the covers and sniffling again. Sitting on the edge of his bed, you gently rub his back. “Are you hungry at all?”
He shakes his head no. “Cold.”
“Do you have blankets, Cho?”
Choso blinks at you with a devastatingly sad look of concern before padding out of the room. The sound of a thump has you wincing and you get up to peek out of the room in time to see a walking pile of blankets. With a lopsided smile, you pick up the top blanket and find the young boy’s hair standing straight from static. Pulling the blankets from his short arms, you glance back at the pile of remaining sheets, blankets, towels, and other linens.
“Can you go put the rest of that back? I’ve got this.” Choso nods, turning away. “Thank you!” You call after him, making your way back to Yuji. With a flick of your wrists, you spread a couple of blankets over Yuji’s bed, tucking them in around him before setting the last one at the foot of the bed. “How’s that, honey?” You ask with a sympathetic smile.
Yuji manages a sickly groan, huddling further under the blankets. You glance around the room, finding a large tiger plush and handing it to him. Like an eel awaiting its prey, he reaches for it and pulls it into his pile of blankets, burying his face into it. You smile at him before shutting off the lights and backing away to the door.
“Let me know if you need anything, I’ll be in the living room with your brother,” you let the young boy know softly before shutting the door.
Choso shifts on his feet outside the door, clinging to your side again.
“Hey Cho, did you have lunch?” You ask, gently rubbing his back.
You can feel him nod against you, clinging to you tighter as you attempt to make your way to the living room, dragging your leg and the boy along with you.
“What did you wanna do?” You ask as you finally manage to drag him to the couch, relieved when he finally lets go of you to plop down on the couch beside you.
“Did you bring your GameCube?”
“No, I’m sorry sweetie,” you frown, “your brother called me while I was at school.”
“That’s okay. Can we watch a movie?”
“Sure! What did you wanna watch?” You beam at him, getting to your feet to head over to the shelf of movies. Scanning the spines of the films, there’s a few that stand out as very obviously Sukuna’s, while the rest seem to be for the boys. That being said, you also notice they’re all older, from the same era as when you were their age and you wonder if they were once Sukuna’s as well.
“Can we watch the Land Before Time?”
Ohhh he wants you to cry. “Of course!” You grin, mentally preparing yourself to watch it. You fumble under the TV for the DVD player until the movie begins before settling down to watch it, thankful to see that Choso seems to relax once it’s on, no longer occupied with worrying about his little brother.
The rest of the evening goes by without a hitch as you make pasta for Choso and soup for Yuji, who manages at least a couple of bites before going back to sleep. The older of the two boys continues to cling to you, insisting on a movie marathon. It’s getting late, but the poor boy’s clearly still concerned and you don’t have the heart to tell him to get some sleep.
With The Nightmare Before Christmas playing in the background and the clock ticking closer and closer to ten, your mind wanders to how your conversation with Sukuna could possibly go. It doesn’t feel as though there’s a world where it goes over well, so all you can truly do is sit and boil in your own thoughts, waiting for the click of the door as Choso slowly drifts off to sleep clinging to your arm.
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❦ a/n ; poor yuji :(( i hope you enjoyed!! chapter 3 will take a bit longer as i'm going to a work conference all week so i won't have much time to work on it. as always, likes, comments, and reblogs are super appreciated <33
❦ taglist ; OPEN. please comment here or on the masterlist if you would like to be tagged. age MUST be easily visible on your blog.
