liaz!

“you can just—just hand it over. i can carry it the rest of the way,” you stammered.

he didn’t even look back. “not unless you want your shoulder fucked up by the time you hit bio lab.”

“i don’t—i don’t want to take up your time or anything.”

“what, like i was busy?” he scoffed, glancing over his shoulder. “don’t stress it, princess.”

and maybe it was the way he said it—but your stomach turned. and then the words fell out before you could stop them.

“are you… gonna expect something from me?”

he stopped. dead in his tracks. right there on the sidewalk. the breeze rustled the corner of your printout, the one he was still holding.

he turned to you, brow furrowed, face unreadable. “expect what?”

you looked down, suddenly wishing you’d kept your mouth shut. “i mean—i don’t know. people say you only help girls if you think you’re gonna get something out of it. i didn’t mean to—sorry, forget it, that was stupid—”

“sex?”

your eyes snapped up. he didn’t look angry. not even annoyed. just… confused.

“you think i’d carry your shit and walk you across campus because i expect to fuck you for it?”

you opened your mouth, then closed it again. he huffed out a laugh, but it wasn’t mean. more like disbelief. like he was realizing something for the first time.

“jesus,” he muttered, glancing away. “i’m not a fuckin’ creep.”

“i didn’t think you were,” you said quickly. “it’s just… that’s how people talk.”

he stared at you a second longer. then he handed you your books, all perfectly stacked. his fingers brushed yours.

“what’s your name?”

you told him and he nodded. “well, now i know who to look for when i need to fix my reputation.”

you blinked.

“you can tell people,” he added with a smirk. “the ryomen sukuna walked you to class and didn’t try to fuck you. crazy, right?”

you smiled. just a little. and that was enough. he saw it. and from that moment on, he always made sure you saw him.

after that first day, things changed.

not in any explosive, movie-scene way. more like soft glitches in the matrix—small, strange patterns that started popping up in your everyday life. like the way sukuna always seemed to be where you were, without ever making it seem intentional.

you’d show up to the dining hall, and he’d already be there, feet kicked up on a chair, nodding for you to sit even before you got your tray. at first you hesitated, standing awkward and clutching your drink, but he’d just pat the seat beside him and go, “you can sit, y’know. i don’t bite. unless you ask.”

you never really responded to those comments. just dropped your gaze, your cheeks warm, and quietly unwrapped your sandwich. he didn’t push. he just talked—about how shit his chem class was, how hungover he still was from friday, how satoru threatened to kick him out of the frat groupchat if he sent one more drunk gym mirror selfie.

he didn’t flirt the way people warned you he would. not really. he teased, sure. but it was light, casual. never serious enough to scare you off. just enough to make your heart kick a little harder when he looked at you.

he called you “shy girl.” like a nickname. like it was endearing.

“shy girl’s got a dark academia playlist,” he’d grin, seeing your phone light up with your study timer. “you gonna let me listen to that while i pretend to do my essay?”

you weren’t even sure when you started spending hours with him. it started in public—shared tables at the library, post-class walks, sitting together on the frat house porch during the golden hour when the boys were too loud inside and you were too overstimulated to focus anywhere else.

then it shifted.

it became nights. not overnight at first. just late. sitting in his room while he scrolled through music and showed you unreleased rap tracks from his friend who “might’ve gotten kicked out but has insane beats.” you’d stay curled on the edge of his bed, hoodie too big, knees tucked up, pretending not to be nervous while he passed you a cold bottle of yerba mate and insisted you had to try it.

you never drank the whole thing. he never let you throw it out. he always finished it with a smirk, like it meant something.

you didn’t remember when you started sleeping over.

maybe it was after midterms, when you accidentally dozed off beside him during an anime rerun, your head slipping onto his shoulder. you woke up with a blanket tucked around you and his arm slung behind you on the couch.

he didn’t mention it. just said “you snore a little,” like it was no big deal.

then it happened again. and again.

somewhere in the blur, his room started feeling like a second home. you kept a lip balm in his desk drawer. your charger was always plugged into the wall. his frat brothers started nodding at you when you walked in like you weren’t just some girl anymore. like you were his girl. even if no one said it.

and sukuna—god, sukuna was soft with you.

but sukuna was still... sukuna. loud and reckless and a little bit of a dick. he still left his empty red bulls on the counter, still got into dumb arguments with toji about which protein powder brand was superior, still acted like he owned the sidewalk when you two were walking somewhere and wouldn’t move for anyone. he still flirted shamelessly with the waitress even when you were sitting right there, not because he meant it—but because it was muscle memory. frat boy habits that died hard.

and sometimes, he’d say shit that stung. not always intentional. sometimes it was just him being careless, a throwaway comment or teasing jab that landed wrong.

but you were shy. sensitive. you’d laugh it off at first, but then you’d go quiet. your shoulders would tense. your eyes would shift down and away, and you’d nod along too much, trying to pretend it didn’t bother you.

he noticed. the second it happened—he noticed.

“wait. hey. fuck, no—i didn’t mean that like that,” he’d say, voice dropping, frown tugging at the corners of his mouth as he reached for your hand. “you know i didn’t, right?”

you’d just shrug.

sometimes he’d catch the glassy look in your eyes before you turned away and it made his stomach twist in this awful, unfamiliar way. because he’d seen girls cry before. but never because of him. not like this. not someone he gave a shit about.

and for the first time in his life, sukuna didn’t just apologize.

he adjusted.

he stopped making those comments. stopped brushing things off with humor when you got overwhelmed. stopped calling you “woman” in that joking, condescending tone when you corrected him about something. stopped turning everything into a bit just to avoid the quiet.

because the quiet wasn’t empty with you. it was sacred.

he started pulling back. not from you, but from the rest of it. the chaos. the lifestyle. the late-night parties and girls grinding on him at kickbacks and the endless cycle of beer pong and blackouts and shallow distractions. not because you asked. you never did. in fact, you never brought any of it up.

he just… didn’t want it anymore.

not when he could be with you instead. in his room. on the couch. watching you fall asleep on his shoulder while some old movie hummed in the background. he started ghosting the groupchat more, started saying “nah, i’m chilling tonight” when they invited him out. the first time he missed a themed party, toji asked if he was sick. satoru texted “who is she?” with twenty eye emojis.

sukuna left him on read.

he still teased you. still made stupid jokes and wrestled you into headlocks when you were fighting over what to watch. still took dumb shirtless mirror selfies and asked if he looked “academically hot.” he didn’t lose himself.

but he was learning how to be soft with you.

how to be patient.

how to earn the way you looked at him when you smiled, like maybe he wasn’t some campus legend or cocky asshole or party boy with a body count in the triple digits.

just a boy who liked being around you more than anything else.

and more than anything, he didn’t want to fuck it up.

they didn’t get it at first.

his frat brothers.

they saw you once—curled up in sukuna’s hoodie, hands wrapped around a matcha latte, barely making eye contact with anyone—and the whispers started.

“she doesn’t look like his type,” one muttered under her breath, eyebrow raised.

“thought he liked wild girls,” toji added, squinting toward you from across the common room.

satoru, smug as ever, just grinned. “maybe he’s tryna wife up a sweetheart for once.”

but it was naoya who really crossed the line.

you were sitting on the back porch with sukuna’s jacket draped around your shoulders, talking quietly to shoko. sukuna was only a few feet away, half-listening while pretending to be focused on his vape, when naoya sauntered up beside him.

“shy girls give the best head,” he said, elbowing sukuna like it was funny. “bet she lets you do anything you want. doesn’t even talk back, huh?”

and sukuna didn’t say anything. he just decked him.

no warning. no slow boil. just one clean punch across the jaw that dropped naoya to the grass, stunned and sputtering.

“say some shit like that again,” sukuna growled, standing over him, “and you’ll be spitting out teeth next time.”

toji laughed. satoru was hollering like it was the best show he’d seen all week.

but sukuna didn’t care about any of them.

he turned back toward the house, jaw tense, chest heaving. you were standing by the door now, eyes wide. you’d clearly seen it happen. he didn’t know how much. didn’t know if you heard what naoya said. didn’t want to explain himself with some clumsy, half-assed excuse.

so he just walked up to you, ran a hand through his hair, and muttered low, “you’re exactly my type.”

the words weren’t for you. not entirely. but the way you looked at him—like you’d just seen something real—it stuck.

after that, things shifted.

but truth is, sukuna had no fucking clue how to ask you out.

he knew how to start a fight. how to roll a blunt. how to get a girl in his bed if he wanted to—but this? this was different. he wasn’t trying to just get lucky. he wasn’t trying to play it cool. not with you.

so he did what any hopeless, tattooed, secretly-soft frat boy would do when faced with a problem.

he went on tiktok.

typed into the search bar with an annoyed sigh—“how to ask out a shy girl without scaring her”—and scrolled. and scrolled. and scrolled. most of it was bullshit. some of it was too corny, even for him. but one video made him pause: “bake her something. get her a treat. keep it simple. don’t make her overthink it. just show her you thought about her.”

cue the next scene: sukuna, standing at the front of baskin robbins, absolutely dead-eyed, arms crossed as the teenage employee nervously read back his order.

“you want the message to say… can i be your boufriend?”

“yeah,” sukuna grunted.

“you mean boyfriend?”

“no. boufriend. like, y’know. ‘boyfriend’ but wrong. cute and shit.”

the employee blinked. nodded. “...got it.”

that night, he showed up outside your dorm with the tiny ice cream cake in both hands, a sheepish little smirk tugging at his mouth, like he knew it was dumb but was trying to play it off.

“don’t laugh,” he muttered, cheeks a little red. “it’s cold. like you. so it reminded me of you.”

you blinked. stared at the cake. then stared at him. then blinked again.

“...boufriend?” you whispered, covering your mouth as you giggled.

“it was a choice,” he defended, but the sound of your laugh made it all worth it.

you didn’t answer right away.

instead, you leaned against the doorframe, all shy and flustered and pink-cheeked, then whispered: “do i get to keep the cake and the boy?”

he grinned.

“you get whatever you want, sweetheart.”

and that was it.

you kissed him on the cheek that night—just a quick press of lips—but he looked at you like it wrecked him. like you’d just broken the toughest part of him open.

and by the time he walked back to the frat house, empty cake box under his arm, phone lighting up with toji’s texts asking where the hell he was, sukuna just smiled to himself and thought: