cherry

He is too large for the space around him, as always. Too tall against the low wall. Too still under the streetlight. Four arms arranged with deceptive ease, body angled slightly as if he has been leaning there long enough for waiting to become a posture rather than an action. He’s in dark clothes suited to the winter night. Head turned already in your direction as if he has been waiting long enough to hear your steps before they were close enough to matter.

Your thoughts collide so hard they trip over each other.

Did he come while you were at the festival? Did he leave Tokyo before you did? Did he follow? Did he wait the entire day? Did he stand here under the eyes of your neighbors like a nightmare with patience?

You silence the questions before they show on your face.

“How the fuck do you know my address?”

He shrugs.

“It is not difficult to access teacher information.”

Of course.

Of course that is his answer. Practical. Mildly criminal. Delivered with no shame.

You cross your arms and keep what feels like a safe distance, though safe is always a relative word with him. The gate is behind him. Your apartment is beyond it. Your bed is beyond that. Your quiet. Your life. All currently blocked by a two-meter-tall problem with too many eyes and the emotional literacy of a thrown brick.

You wait for him to move.

He does not.

He does not even speak.

He only looks at you.

It is not the stare you remember from battle, bright with hunger and amusement. Not the sneer from faculty meetings. Not the feverish fixation from the curse. This one is heavier, harder to interpret. Still arrogant because he cannot breathe without arrogance, but not careless.

“What do you want, Sukuna?” you ask at last.

His answer is immediate.

“I want to take you on a date.”

For one split second you think you might actually throw up.

You gotta be fucking kidding me, you think immediately.

The cold air, the night, the ache in your feet, the weight of your bag, the exhaustion from travel — all of it seems to tilt. You feel sick and angry at once, a sudden curl of nausea under your sternum because the words are too close to something you once wanted and too close to the way he ruined it.

It feels deliberately cruel.

Of all the cruel things he could have done, this is almost elegant in its brutality.

Maybe that is the worst part. That he can stand there and say it like a normal thing. Like the last time you spent a whole day with him did not end with his thumb on your lip and his grin cutting you open. Like date is not a word he already poisoned once.

He sees your expression change.

“It is serious this time,” he adds.

Your mouth twists before you can stop it.

That addition almost makes it worse.

He really does not know shit about anything mildly emotional, does he? Not about timing, not about the weight of words, not about how normal people approach other normal people after hurting them.

No instinct for the wound, only the place he wants to press. No emotional intelligence broad enough to step around the obvious tripwire. Just straight through everything like that will somehow make the result cleaner.

He is completely unversed in the parts of human interaction that require kneeling before anything that is not power.

You start to raise your voice.

The first words rise hot and sharp—

Then you stop yourself.

Close your eyes.

Breathe.

You do not need this.

You do not want this.

You do.

You want it so badly the wanting itself feels like betrayal, but want is not trust, and trust is the thing he took in both hands and crushed just to see what shape your face would make.

You open your eyes.

“No,” you say. Then, because clarity feels good in your mouth, “And, get the fuck out of here before I beat your ass.”

That gets him.

Not in the way you intend, though.

One eyebrow lifts. The corner of his mouth tugs upward faintly, unmistakable. Something old and familiar kindles in his gaze, daring and taunting and alive.

He pushes away from the short wall around the complex and begins walking toward you.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Like every step is a question he knows will make you angrier.

Oh.

The motherfucker wants to fight.

Of course he does. Of course the answer to emotional conflict, in the great ruin of his mind, is to walk straight into physical conflict and see what survives. He wants his ass beaten. Fine. You are not in the mood to deal with him in any civilized capacity, and if putting him under is the fastest way to make him someone else’s problem, then so be it.

Maybe you will actually knock him unconscious this time.

You set your stance.

He sets his.

Some small, rational part of you points out that fighting outside a civilian apartment complex is a terrible idea. The lighting, the walls, the parked bicycles, the landscaping, the windows, the security cameras, the neighbors who absolutely do not need this at the end of their day.

Every part of this is bad.

You are also exhausted from travel, cold through the knees, still carrying the remnants of too many unresolved things in your chest, and the sight of him striding toward you like a dare given shape makes something in you crack into readiness with vicious relief.

You are so, so tired of his shit that caution has to elbow its way through rage, and rage has better footing.

He moves first.

Not fully. A test. You parry, shift, answer with a strike aimed at his ribs that he turns aside with a lower hand. The contact cracks through your arm. He is holding back. You know that immediately, not because he is slow or careless, but because the world around you remains intact for the first three seconds. That’s immense restrain when it comes to Sukuna fighting.

You do not need much power to make your point. You are quick. You know his body. Know where the openings usually are, how his weight shifts before a strike, which feints mean nothing and which ones mean duck now.

He knows you too, infuriatingly well. Knows the angle of your shoulder when you are about to use your technique. Knows how to redirect your wrists just enough to ruin your aim. Knows which attacks you expect and which you hate.

Rage pours off you in waves hot enough to feel.

He, bastard that he is, looks too delighted.

The grin on his mouth as you both get faster nearly makes you reckless. You compensate by getting meaner instead. Low strike, pivot, elbow, heel into his knee, duck under the upper right hand, catch the lower left wrist, torque, shove, move before the next blow comes.

His laugh — breathless and a little maniac — follows one of your harder hits.

The fight tightens.

You are faster now. You have to be. Against Sukuna, speed is not an advantage so much as the entry fee.

You slip under one arm, catch another at the wrist, twist enough to redirect but not enough to control. He lets you have the motion, then uses the shift to bring another hand toward your shoulder. You duck. Your heel strikes his thigh. He huffs something that might be a laugh and pivots before the hit can take his balance fully.

You need precision.

Palm, wrist, elbow, step out.

Avoid the lower left. Watch the upper right.

Do not track only his shoulders because half his body lies.

Do not let the extra arms become noise — read them as separate intentions.

He knows how you think too.

He catches the slight angle of your wrist before your cursed technique can land. Redirects your palm past him and close enough to a metal trash can that your technique buzzes through the edge of it instead. The can collapses inward with a shriek of twisted metal.

“You missed,” he crows at you.

“Asshole!” you snap.

“Observant.”

A lighting pole takes damage when he forces you sideways and you use the base to kick off, leaving a fracture spidering up the metal. A low branch cracks under the force of his body turning too sharply near one of the trees. The little decorative stones around the green patch scatter under your feet. Somewhere near that havoc, a security light flickers like it is considering resignation.

You are absolutely going to be billed for this.

You do not care yet.

You drive in again, aiming for his collarbone. He catches your wrist again before contact.

Your frustration spikes hot enough to sharpen your voice.

“Why are you being so fucking difficult?”

His laugh comes breathless this time, real from deep in his chest, edged by exertion and something like satisfaction.

“I have always been difficult.”

You wrench free and nearly catch his jaw with the next strike. He leans just out of range and adds,

“You never seemed to grow tired of it.”

That lands somewhere under your ribs.

For a heartbeat, the fight blurs with memory. Missions. Bickering. The old rhythm of him pushing and you pushing back, both of you too stubborn to name the way familiarity had grown beneath irritation like roots under stone.

Then he says, because apparently he has a death wish,

“If I win, I am taking you on that date.”

The rage that hits you is clean and scorching.

You attack in a burst sharp enough to make him give ground. One blow lands against his sternum. Another clips his jaw. A third, charged with cursed energy and all the offended dignity you have left, slams into him hard enough to send him flying backward several meters toward the apartment complex wall.

He hits the short wall with enough force to break the top layer and disappears behind it with the cloud of dust slowly thinning after a few seconds.

For one satisfying second, there is silence.

Then four hands rise into view.

He hauls himself back over the short wall like some obscene creature climbing out of a bad dream, laughing under his breath while one hand wipes blood streaming from his nose.

It streaks over his mouth and chin in red that looks almost black in the winter light. Smoke curls faintly off scorched skin where your attack burned through his shirt — the fabric is gone now, hanging in useless blackened tatters before falling away completely. His hakama, unfortunately, remains whole. One of his eyebrows is singed at the edge, and there is a darkening mark near his cheekbone where you caught him.

He looks better like that than any man has a right to.

He looks thrilled.

Weird man.

Terrible man.

Beautiful in a way that makes you angrier because even bleeding and scorched he has the nerve to look vigorous.

When he lunges back, he stops playing as much.

Not all the way. Never all the way, or the street would split open and the building behind you would become rubble. But he gives you enough of himself to remind you why he is what he is.

Now he moves like himself in the old way you remember — vicious, mercurial, impossible to fully predict because all four arms turn every opening into two new problems. Strikes coming from directions a human body should not be able to produce. Feints layered under real attacks. A rhythm that changes each time you begin to catch it. He’s making you sweat and he’s grinning like a demon the whole time.

He is not trying to maim you. You know the difference well enough to trust that much. This is not slaughter. It is overpowering. Dominance. A fight scaled precisely to the edge where he can have fun without tipping into irreversible destruction. A fight to press until you answer with everything he wants from you.

You parry what you can. Some hits get through. Your shoulder jars. Your ribs light up. Your heel skids through ruined grass. You growl through your bared teeth and focus on the single clean chance you need.

Your palm.

His skin.

Your technique.

He is too fucking fast.

You think you will miss again, and the thought makes your frustration flash white behind your eyes.

“I don’t care if you win,” you bark, ducking under a lower arm and twisting past the upper pair. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

All four eyes narrow.

There.

That tiny shift is enough.

You find your angle.

You step in instead of away, take the risk of his proximity, and plant your palm against the slope of his collarbone.

You fire.

He rips back almost instantly, creating distance with a burst of speed that makes the cold air snap between you, but you know you hit him.

Not enough to drop him. But enough.

His body knows the hit for what it is, and in less than a second the violence drains out of the exchange because he knows better than to keep pushing through that particular fog.

The fight stalls.

He stands a few paces away, teeth bared, growling low, shoulders rising and falling under the effort of adjusting to the sudden distortion in his perception, every line of him taut with frustration rather than rage. He blinks harder than usual. The pupils do not focus evenly.

Good.

You got enough of him.

Your technique sinks into the edges of his senses and bends them. Not intoxication exactly, but close enough to make balance unreliable, timing ugly, clarity slippery. The world will be lagging half a breath behind itself for him now. Not long. Not forever. But long enough.

He hates it. Always has.

You watch him carefully, one hand still raised.

For a moment, you think he might push through anyway and cleave you, maybe even dismantle.

Then he huffs sharply, more annoyed than furious, and disengages.

The sudden absence of violence is almost dizzying.

You remain standing until you are sure. Muscles trembling with leftover adrenaline. Breath cutting too fast in the winter air.

You wait, just in case.

Until his arms lower. Until the energy between you drops from active threat to unresolved tension.

You sit hard on the little patch of grass beside the complex that is now more dirt and damage than landscaping.

You breathe hard.

Your lungs hurt from the cold. Your palms sting. Your shoulder throbs. Your wrists ache. The back of your throat tastes metallic from the force with which you bit down on your own concentration during the fight. Adrenaline makes your hands tremble in little pulses you cannot quite hide.

Sukuna approaches after a moment, slower now. Still huge. Still ridiculous. Still bleeding at the nose and looking like a problem no city should ever be expected to manage.

You do not look up until he stops in front of you and lowers himself to his haunches, forearms resting on thighs and knees, huge body folded with strange patience. Blood is drying on his face. The scorch marks over his bare chest look worse in the streetlight, though you know he will heal quickly enough.

He says nothing.

Of course he says nothing.

The silence stretches until you are too tired to maintain hostility in its sharpest form.

“What is your problem?” you ask.

It does not come out angry or hostile.

It comes out honest. Worn down. Threadbare at the edges.

He looks at you — it seems to catch him slightly off guard.

“I have no problem.”

You stare at him.

You nearly laugh from disbelief.

“Then what the fuck was all that about?”

He clicks his tongue and looks away, briefly, toward the apartment building.

You follow the glance.

That is not an answer.

It is, somehow, an admission that he does not know how to give one.

You sigh, long and too exhausted, then push yourself to your feet. Your legs feel heavier now that the fight is done. The cold has found the sweat along your spine and turned it unpleasant.

You want a shower. You want your bed. You want your apartment to be empty of complicated men and full of uncomplicated silence.

Instead, against all good sense, you say,

“Come up.”

His eyes cut back to you.

“I’m going to regret it,” you add. “But I’d rather not leave you outside to brood and break more things.”

He rises.

You open the gate and walk ahead without checking if he follows.

He does.

You feel him behind you the entire way up.

Your apartment feels even smaller with him inside.

That is the first thing you notice once the door closes. Sukuna does not fit into modest domestic spaces. He alters them. The ceiling looks lower. The doorframes narrower. He is too big for the couch. Too big for the doorway. Too big for the narrow strip of open floor between kitchen and living room.

His presence changes the dimensions of the place simply by existing in it.

He stands near the entrance for a moment, eyes moving over the apartment with a look you cannot read.

“Do not touch anything,” you say, pointing at him as you move toward the bathroom. “I need to shower. I need to breathe for ten minutes. If I come out and anything is broken, I’m putting you through the floor.”

His gaze slides to you.

The corner of his mouth moves like it wants to become a smirk but thinks better of it.

“Sit,” you order.

A pause.

Then he sits on your couch, arms crossed, too large for it in a way that would be funny if you had emotional room left for comedy.

You shut the bathroom door.

The second you are alone, the fight drains out of you in a rush.

You brace both hands on the sink and bow your head. Your breath trembles once. Not crying. Just the body catching up with too much in too little time. The festival. The train. His presence. The date request. The fight. The fact that you invited him upstairs because apparently self-preservation and emotional clarity remain separate committees inside you and neither has full authority.

You strip and step under hot water.

The shower is almost too small, but tonight the closeness helps. Steam fills the narrow bathroom. Water pounds your shoulders, loosens the cold from your skin, turns the ache in your muscles into something you can name. Dirt runs down the drain. Sweat. A faint smear of blood from your knuckles that might be his or yours.

You breathe.

For a few minutes, you are alone with heat and tile and the sound of water.

It helps.

Not enough.

But some.

When you come out, dressed in fresh clothes with your hair tied back, Sukuna is still sitting exactly where you left him.

This obedience should not be noteworthy.

With him, it is.

You do not sit beside him. You stand near the couch, arms loosely folded, and look at him with the fatigue of someone who no longer has patience for performance.

“What did you think you would achieve by coming here today after what happened?”

He answers brutally.

“I thought we would argue.”

You wait.

“As we always did,” he continues. “I thought you would accept going out with me out of spite.”

He means it.

That is the worst part with Sukuna.

He truly thought that was a real plan.

You lower yourself onto the coffee table in front of the couch because standing suddenly feels too precarious for a conversation like this. Elbows on your knees. Hands hanging between them. You look at the floorboards for a few seconds, gathering your thoughts like scattered things after an earthquake.

It takes longer than you want.

Finally, you look up.

“What did you think would happen after you told me the curse was gone back in the park?”

His eyes snap to your face.

You keep your voice steady with effort.

“After you told me you had been free from it for the whole day. After you told me you were just messing with me to see how far I’d go.”

His nostrils flare once.

Something alive and unpleasant flickers across him — recognition, maybe.

The silence that follows is not empty. It is crowded with the memory of that night by the lake, his thumb against your lip, the moon on the water, the wine on his breath, the grin that turned every soft thing into a weapon.

“I thought you would just try to fight me,” he says.

You absorb that slowly.

“Curse at me,” he adds. “Try to put me under. Hit me, at the very least.”

You stare at him.

His jaw tightens.

“I realized I was wrong when I saw your face right before you got me down.”

Your hands come up before you can stop them. You press your fingers into your hairline, elbows still on your knees, and look down at the floor.

Of course.

Of course that is what he thought.

Violence, he understands. Anger, he understands. Challenge, insult, retaliation, fury — those are languages he speaks fluently.

He knows how to meet a blow. He knows what to do with an enemy. He knows how to turn conflict into a shape he can hold.

But grief? Hurt? Humiliation? The vulnerability of being toyed with in the exact place you did not want touched? Those had not even entered the calculation.

They ask for more than reaction. For recognition. For care before damage becomes entertainment. They ask him to imagine your inner life as something separate from his game, and that, apparently, is where his centuries of power and cruelty have left him nearly illiterate.

He really is terrible at this.

Not malicious in some grand sophisticated way.

Just catastrophically unequipped.

A genius on battlefields but a real calamity where human feeling is concerned.

When you look up again, he has not moved.

Not even slightly.

The stillness is so complete it almost looks unnatural. You wonder, absurdly, if he thinks that moving too quickly will send you running again.

The idea of Sukuna holding himself motionless like a cautious person approaching an angry dog should be funny, considering the sheer difference in your size and destructive capacity.

It is not funny.

It just makes you tired.

“Did you not consider how it would make me feel?” you ask.

His face gives you nothing.

You continue because stopping now will only make the pressure in your throat worse.

“Two days, Sukuna. Two days of you latching onto me with this massive wave of tenderness and attention and all those little things that would put anyone off balance. Even knowing it was fake, it was coming from a curse, it was still…” You search for the word and hate every option. “A lot.”

He watches you.

“Didn’t you think I would be better off knowing the curse was gone the instant it left? We could have had a normal adult conversation about what happened, about your memories and the curse and, I don’t know, anything helpful for Shoko and her research on the effects of that bullshit.”

His mouth tightens faintly.

“Didn’t you think I would be hurt,” you ask, quieter now, “by you pretending to feel something for me after all that delusion-fed care?”

Your eyes sting.

You hate it so much.

You hate that your voice thins near the end. Hate that the room blurs at the edges. Hate that he is here, in your apartment, seeing proof that he found the soft place and stepped on it.

His face changes.

Not much. With him, not much can mean a great deal.

He goes even stiller, if that is possible.

Then, slowly, he leans forward.

The movement is careful enough to pull your attention from your own rising tears. He reaches toward you the way someone might reach toward a flame they are not sure will burn or vanish. One large hand comes to the side of your face and stops there, warm palm cupping your cheek.

The touch is familiar.

Bitterly familiar.

Your eyes close for half a second before you can stop them.

“Don’t do this,” you say, voice thin, low. “That’s just cruel.”

He pauses.

For a heartbeat you think he will withdraw.

Instead, another hand rises to the other side of your face. He cups you fully between both palms and tilts your face up with a gentleness that makes your chest hurt.

“I did not do it with the intention of hurting you,” he says.

You look at him through the sting in your eyes.

He is serious.

Painfully serious.

It would be easier if he were mocking. Easier if he gave you something sharp to bite back against.

“I thought you would play it off,” he continues. “Go back to treating me as you did before. I thought you would be angry, not…” His thumbs rest near your cheekbones, not moving yet. His eyes move over your face as if the memory of your expression still confuses him. “Not that.”

You laugh once, soft and humorless.

“Devastated?”

His jaw works.

He does not repeat the word.

“I wanted another day,” he says instead. “With myself in control of my own actions instead of a curse. I did not think you would give me that if you knew the curse had ended.”

Your brows press together, trying to understand what was the logic behind his decisions.

“So you lied.”

“I omitted.”

“You fucking lied, Sukuna.”

His eyes narrow slightly, pride reflexively trying to stand up.

You stare him down.

After a tense moment, he says,

“Yes.”

At least that.

You take a slow breath, his hands still around your face. They feel too good. That is the awful part. You become acutely aware then of the warmth of him. Of how good his hands feel, even now, even after everything.

Big, callused, steady. Your body remembers too much. The curse may be gone, but your skin does not care. It still knows what it was like to be held by him, soothed by him, watched over in that unbearable way that made you soften before you had a plan for the consequences.

You missed this.

You did not want to. You missed it anyway. You missed the solidity, the warmth, the sense of being surrounded by a force that, for those cursed days, had turned toward care instead of destruction.

It sucks to feel his hands again because you already know you will miss them when they are gone.

“Why,” you ask, tired enough now that the anger has burnt through into something duller and more honest, “do you make everything so difficult? Why do you scheme the worst possible version instead of just saying what you feel. What you want.”

He does not answer.

That silence is an answer too, in its way.

Because he does not know how.

Because feelings spoken plainly probably seem to him like stepping into battle without technique. Because desire is easier when disguised as conquest, tenderness easier when blamed on a curse, apology easier when wrapped in a fight. Because he is ancient and powerful and still somehow terrible at being a person.

You are too tired to care about protecting every exposed part of yourself now.

So you say it.

“I started to understand my feelings for you because of the curse, at least.”

His fingers still against your face.

You look down for a second, though his hands make it difficult.

“I didn’t plan for that. I didn’t plan to feel anything. I definitely didn’t plan to be hurt by your stupid bullshit, but I was. Maybe that’s the curse’s fault, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know.”

Your words begin to gather speed, not because you know where they are going but because there is too much inside you and no graceful way to let it out.

“I was fine with how we were before. I didn’t mind bickering with you. You’re infuriating, but at least I knew how to deal with that. And now I’m in Kyoto, and I can’t just come back because you finally decided to develop half a feeling and handle it badly. I can’t afford another move. I have students here. I need to finish the school year with them. They deserve consistency, and I deserve not to keep rearranging my life around whatever the hell is happening with you—”

You are rambling.

You know you are rambling.

Something in you keeps trying to turn emotion into logistics because logistics can be solved. Apartments. School years. Transfers. Commutes. Schedules. Those are easier than saying — I missed you. I wanted you. You hurt me. I am afraid to believe you could want me without ruining it again.

While you talk, he leans closer and closer.

So slowly you do not notice at first.

His hands remain gentle at your face, but the distance between you narrows by degrees until the air changes. His presence fills your awareness. The heat of him. The faint smell of blood still dried on his skin, smoke from the fight, cold night air, something darker and familiar beneath it all.

You only stop when his eyes are inches from yours.

All four crimson eyes fixed on you.

Your mouth closes.

The room seems suddenly very quiet.

He waits one beat.

“I know you did not plan for that to happen,” he says. “I did not dislike that it did.”

Your throat moves around nothing. The flutter in your chest is stupid, immediate, and impossible to crush.

His thumbs move once, barely, over your cheeks.

“I only wish I had not made such a stupid mess of it.”

You try for a smile and almost manage one.

“I also wish you wouldn’t be so stupid.”

He clicks his tongue softly.

No bite in it.

Then he leans in the last fraction and rests his forehead against yours.

It is ridiculous.

That is the first thought that manages to rise through the ache.

Ridiculous that this is happening in your tiny Kyoto apartment after a fight that destroyed half the courtyard amenities.

Ridiculous that he is shirtless because you burned his shirt off, dried blood still scattered along his jaw and chest.

Ridiculous that you are sitting on your own coffee table in clean clothes, exhausted from travel, shower-warm and emotionally wrung out, letting the former King of Curses cradle your face like he is afraid of mishandling something he cannot replace.

You let out a little laugh.

It has no humor in it, but it has breath.

“What’s your big idea now?” you murmur. “Go back to pretending you’re cursed so you’re less irritating?”

“Too much work,” he deadpans.

That almost earns a real laugh.

Then he adds, after a small pause,

“I could try being nice to you and no one else.”

You blink.

It is such a ridiculous sentence that for a second all you can do is stare at him.

He means it.

That is the problem. He actually means it. It’s not a joke. He is offering selective decency like some warrior offering tribute after battle, as though being tolerable to one person might be a vow of significant weight.

Maybe, for him, it is.

Your chest and stomach flutter with the proximity, with his hands on your face, with the knowledge that you probably still like him. Not the cursed version. Not the imagined version.

Him.

The difficult, arrogant, emotionally catastrophic man in front of you who can level a city and still apparently cannot figure out that lying about feelings might hurt someone.

He does not push.

He waits.

He stays there, forehead to yours, hands steady, waiting.

So you are the next one to speak.

“I hope,” you say, voice low, “you’re better at kissing than you are at anything involving feelings.”

Something shifts in his face.

It is not the grin you expect. His eyes drop to your mouth, and the focus in them sharpens so completely that your breath catches before he even moves. One thumb strokes once near the corner of your lips, not over them, just close enough to send a line of heat through your whole body.

“You will tell me,” he murmurs.

Then he kisses you.

The first touch is careful.

That disarms you.

You had expected hunger, maybe. Arrogance, always. Some overwhelming proof of confidence, a kiss that announces itself like conquest because that is what Sukuna does with everything else. Instead his mouth meets yours slowly, warm and firm, giving you enough time to reject him if you choose.

You do not.

He kisses like he has been thinking about it.

For one suspended second, your body goes still not from fear but from the sheer strangeness of finally feeling him like this when neither of you can blame a curse. His hands remain at your face, grounding and gentle. His lips move against yours with a patience that makes your heart hurt. He is not clumsy or hesitant. He is controlled. As if control is the only way he knows to show care without making it too fragile to survive.

You breathe in through your nose and taste winter on him.

Blood too, faintly metallic, mixed with the heat of his mouth and the ghost of smoke from your fight. His skin smells like cold air, scorch, and the sandalwood that has always seemed to cling to him even when nothing else about him is soft.

He draws back after only a moment.

Not far.

Just enough to let the choice return to you.

You feel the space open and hate it.

So you lean forward.

The second kiss is yours first.

His answering sound is low and brief and almost embarrassing in how it goes straight through you. His hands tighten by a fraction, no more, thumbs firm against your cheeks. The kiss deepens slowly, gaining weight without becoming demanding.

Your fingers, which had been curled uselessly near your knees, lift and find his wrist first. Then his forearm. Then the hot, solid slope of his shoulder.

His skin is warm under your palm.

Too warm.

Alive and real and marked by your blows.

You kissed him in your head before, somewhere you never admitted. During the curse days, perhaps. On the bench by the lake, before the reveal turned the memory rotten. In the gap between anger and wanting. But imagination had not prepared you for the unnerving precision of his attention.

The way he follows the smallest shift of your mouth. The way he adjusts when your breath catches. The way he seems to put the full force of his focus into learning the exact line between welcome and too much. There is an expertise to him that is not polished or performative. Just attentive. He learns quickly, adjusts faster, follows the slight turn of your head and the softer pressure of your mouth with a precision that should be illegal in a man this annoying.

It is almost unfair.

When his tongue barely brushes the seam of your mouth, you let him in without thinking and hate how immediate the reward is — the tiny shift in his breath, the way his hands tighten fractionally, the unmistakable sense that for all his size and power he is paying attention to every sign you give him like they really matter.

The heat that rolls through you then is steady and full, less like being startled and more like something long-held finally loosening under touch. You are aware of everything. The coffee table beneath you. The ache in your ribs from the fight. The damp ends of your tied hair against your neck. The roughness of dried blood under your fingertips where your hand has drifted near his collarbone. The way his upper hands hold your face while his lower ones remain deliberately away from your body, as if he is making a point of not taking more than you offered.

That restraint matters too.

When the kiss finally breaks, neither of you moves far.

Your eyes stay closed for a breath longer than pride would prefer.

When you open them, he is looking at you with such total focus that your face warms.

“Well?” he asks.

The audacity nearly saves you.

“Well what?”

“You made a claim.”

You blink slowly, still dazed enough that irritation has to swim up through warmth.

“Are you expecting a grade?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you are.”

His mouth curves.

You should not want to kiss that curve.

You do.

“You’re still very irritating,” you tell him.

“That is not an answer to my question.”

“It is the one you deserve.”

His eyes narrow in faint amusement.

For a few moments, that is all you do. Sit there with his hands still on your face, your own fingers resting against his skin, your breathing not quite even.

The kiss has not solved anything. You are very aware of that. It does not erase the hurt, the months away, the transfer, the humiliation, the anger that made you put him on the ground by the lake. It does not make him suddenly competent at the parts of life that do not involve violence.

But it changes something.

Not enough to call safety.

Enough to call beginning.

His gaze shifts over your face, and his expression grows more serious.

“You are not crying,” he notes.

It is blunt enough to startle you.

Your throat tightens, but no tears fall.

“No.”

“Good.”

That one word is so heavy with quiet relief that you do not know where to put it. Whatever else he misread, whatever else he mishandled, he does not want to see that hurt on your face again.

You swallow.

“You don’t get points for basic decency.”

“I am learning that.”

“You are very late.”

“I noticed,” he grouses.

A small and tired laugh slips out of you. More breath than sound, but amusing nonetheless.

He seems to take that as permission to let his hands fall slowly from your face. They do not go far. They settle instead on your knees, one lower hand on each, anchoring but not holding. The shift gives you room to breathe, and the fact that he seems to understand you need it makes the room tilt again in a softer direction.

You wipe at one eye with the heel of your hand, irritated by the remaining sting.

He watches but says nothing.

Good, you are the one thinking now, maybe he can learn.

“You can’t just show up outside my apartment whenever you decide you’re ready to deal with consequences, by the way,” you say after a while.

“I am aware.”

“You can’t turn every conversation into a fight because it’s easier for you, too.”

His mouth tightens, but he accepts it.

“Fine,” he concedes but it seems to cost him something.

“You also can’t manipulate me into giving you time because you’re afraid I won’t give it freely.”

A pause.

Longer this time.

Then,

“No. I can not. I will not.”

You study him.

He does not look away.

You nod once, small and decisive.

“We’re good.”

He waits.

It is almost funny how visible the effort is now. Sukuna, who has never in his life lacked for action, sitting too big on your couch with blood dried on his face, forcing himself to wait because you finally made him understand that moving too fast costs him something he apparently does not want to lose.

You sigh.

“I also can’t keep pretending none of this matters.”

His fingers flex once on your knees.

You see the movement. Feel it through fabric.

“I know,” he says.

The answer is quiet.

Too quiet, maybe. It makes you look at him more carefully.

He has changed in some way you cannot yet measure. Not become softer, no. That would be too easy and too false. Sukuna is still Sukuna. You can feel the arrogance in his bones, the violence under his skin, the pride that takes up space even when he is trying to behave. But something has turned inward over the past months. Something has had to sit alone with consequence and found no immediate enemy to kill for relief.

“You stopped enjoying missions,” you mention and wait.

He glances at you sharply.

You lift a shoulder.

“Satoru complained for twenty minutes.”

“That idiot complains when the sun rises.”

“He said you locate, analyze, exorcise, leave. No collateral.”

“That is the job, is it not?”

“Since when do you care about the job more than the thrill?”

His eyes slide away.

For a while, he says nothing.

You let the silence sit.

Eventually, his jaw shifts.

“There was no point.”

You raise both your eyebrows in surprise.

“In enjoying it?”

“In dragging it out.”

You lean back slightly, the coffee table edge pressing into your thighs.

“Why?”

His gaze returns to you, and there is something almost irritated in it now, though not at you. At himself, maybe. At the fact that the answer exists.

“You were not there to stop me.”

The words settle into the apartment with more weight than you expect.

Your first instinct is to make a joke. To avoid the way your chest contracts.

You do not.

He continues, rougher now.

“If I went too far, someone else would try. They would fail, or get in the way, or make it tedious. So I ended it.”

You stare at him.

That is not exactly romantic.

It is not even healthy, for fuck’s sake.

But it is honest.

More importantly, it reveals something you had only wondered in the privacy of your own thoughts — he had trusted you to stop him. Not in the noble way people write stories about trust. In the Sukuna way. Brutal, practical, unspoken. He pushed because you were there to push back. He played because you could end the game.

Your absence changed the fight.

That knowledge moves through you slowly.

“You’re so fucking ridiculous, you know that?”

You say flatly because anything softer would be dangerous.

“I have been told.”

“By me.”

“Often.”

You huff, and this time the almost-smile stays.

The room eases by degrees.

You ask why he came today, specifically. He says he saw you at the festival. Not directly, not close enough for you to notice. He had been there, somewhere beyond the main crowd, watching the edges like he often does. He saw your old students gather around you. Saw Gojo occupy your attention with theatrics. Saw you laugh at something Suguru said. Saw you speak with Yaga near the takoyaki stall and look almost like you belonged to both schools at once.

Something in him, apparently, did not enjoy remaining unseen after that.

“That is not a normal emotional process,” you tell him.

“No.”

“At least you know.”

“I am not ignorant.”

You give him a look.

He exhales through his nose, annoyed.

“Not entirely.”

“Better.”

He asks about Kyoto then.

Not in a casual, polite way. He asks like he wants a map. About your students. Your classes. Mei Mei. Utahime. The commute before you moved. Whether the apartment is acceptable. Whether the neighborhood is safe. Whether anyone has bothered you.

“That sounds threatening,” you say.

“It is a simple question.”

“It sounds like a threat wearing a question’s skin.”

“Has anyone bothered you?”

“Sukuna,” you say flatly.

His eyes narrow and he raises a brow.

“You,” you clarify. “You bothered me. Outside. Recently.”

The look he gives you should not make you laugh, but it does.

You tell him about the school anyway. The disciplined students who still act like teenagers. Yuuta’s quiet intensity. Mai’s permanent offense at the world. Choso’s formal kindness. Toge’s expressive silence. Utahime’s competence. Mei Mei’s terrifying efficiency. The first apartment viewing. The moving day. Shoko insulting your lamp.

He listens.

Actually listens.

You notice because he does not interrupt to make every detail about himself. He asks follow-up questions, some weirdly practical, some unexpectedly sharp. He seems annoyed on your behalf when you mention one student refusing theory work because he thinks instinct is enough. He looks almost approving when you describe making that same student lose three consecutive sparring rounds because he failed to identify terrain risks.

The conversation stretches.

Not smoothly, exactly. Sukuna is still blunt enough to make rocks feel diplomatic. But there is effort in him now. Visible, imperfect effort. He does not always know what to say, but he tries not to make that ignorance your problem immediately.

“You still wanted to go on a date?” you ask after a moment.

“Yes.”

“After all of this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The answer comes without hesitation.

“Because I like being around you.”

You blink, startled.

It is such a simple sentence. So ordinary. So stripped of game and ego that it hits harder than anything more elaborate could have. He says it like a fact he arrived at late and resents only for its timing, not for its truth.

You exhale through your nose.

“That would have been useful to hear months ago.”

“I know.”

He is getting annoyingly good at that answer.

Silence settles for a while.

Not awkward. Just full. You become aware of the little sounds in your apartment again. The heater humming faintly. Water ticking in old pipes. A car moving past outside. Your own breathing slowly evening out.

Then your eyes catch on the dried blood still at the corner of his mouth and speckled on his chest.

“You look terrible,” you mutter.

He raises a brow.

“You did that.”

“I’m aware.”

He waits.

You sigh, because apparently this night is not done humiliating you by revealing all the ways in which your care still functions even when you would prefer to let him sit there crusted in his own blood.

“Stay there,” you tell him.

He snorts as if he had any intention of fitting anywhere else in the room.

You stand up.

Your legs complain. The fight is catching up with your body in delayed aches. Your ribs throb when you reach for a glass. Sukuna notices and starts to rise.

You point at him without turning fully.

“Sit.”

He sits.

You hide your smile in the cabinet.

When you bring water back, you also bring a damp cloth and your first-aid kit.

His eyes follow the kit.

“You think that is necessary?”

“You look like you got into a fight, so yeah,” you half-joke.

“I did.”

“Seems like you got beaten up really bad, huh?” You go on with the taunt because you finally feel like you can.

“Yes.”

“I’m just cleaning your face so my couch doesn’t look like a crime scene.”

He wisely says nothing in response.

You stand between his knees because there is nowhere else to fit comfortably, and his size makes the position feel more intimate than you intend. You tilt his chin up with two fingers. His skin is hot under your touch. The dried blood at his jaw flakes slightly when you wipe it away. He chooses remains very still so you can finish the job easier.

The blood comes off in dark streaks. His nose has already healed enough that only the mess remains. The burn across one collarbone is superficial. The singed eyebrow, unfortunately, is funny.

You stare at it.

He notices and sneers at you.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You want to.”

“You look asymmetrical.”

His expression flattens.

You press your lips together to stop the laugh, fail, and let it escape softly.

For a moment, he only looks at you.

Then his mouth curves, not fully, but enough.

The sight does something unpleasantly tender to your chest.

You clean the blood from the corner of his mouth last. The cloth drags carefully over his lower lip, and the closeness changes again. His eyes stay on your face. Your fingers slow despite your best efforts.

“You look better here,” he says.

Your hand pauses.

You know what he means without asking.

Better than that night. Better than crying in your apartment after running from him. Better than the expression he finally understood too late.

You continue wiping because stopping would feel too revealing.

“That is a low bar.”

“It is relief, not praise.”

That shuts you up.

You finish in silence.

When you step back, he catches your wrist lightly.

Not a grab. A pause.

His thumb rests over your pulse.

“I am not toying with you,” he says.

The words are plain enough to scare you more than anything elaborate would have.

You look down at his hand around your wrist. At the size difference. At the careful lack of pressure. At the man on your couch who tore open your sense of trust and then apparently spent months realizing it oddly mattered more than he anticipated.

Trust does not return because someone wants it.

You know that.

One kiss does not build a bridge strong enough to carry all of this. One honest conversation does not erase manipulation. One visit does not make him safe.

But you believe, at least, that he means what he says right now.

That is not everything.

It is not nothing either.

“You can visit,” you say.

His grip shifts.

“Sometimes,” you add immediately.

His eyes lift to yours.

“I will.”

“That was not automatic permission.”

“It sounded enough like it.”

You roll your eyes.

“This is why I said sometimes.”

His mouth twitches.

“I’m not moving back yet,” you continue. “Maybe not until the year is done. Maybe longer. I don’t know. I have students here. I have rent. I have a life that I am trying to build without constantly being dragged into your orbit.”

He absorbs that with visible distaste.

Not at you, you think.

At the limits.

He can dislike them and still obey them, or he can leave.

“You can come here sometimes,” you repeat. “But you ask. You do not materialize at my gate like a curse from my bad decisions.”

His mouth twitches.

“I am not a bad decision.”

“You are several bad decisions stitched together.”

“I am an excellent decision if handled correctly.”

“You are making your case worse.”

He sucks his teeth.

You almost smile again.

Then his expression grows more serious.

“I can take the train.”

The image is so absurd you pause.

“You. On the shinkansen.”

“If necessary.”

“You say that like public transportation is a battlefield.”

“You insult battles with your comparison.”

That one gets a real laugh out of you.

It startles you.

It startles him too, though he hides it quickly. The laugh is not loud, not bright like the ones at the festival, but it is real enough that the apartment seems to warm around it.

He releases your wrist.

You sit back down on the coffee table, closer this time. Close enough that your knees nearly touch his. The distance between you feels chosen now rather than accidental.

Your eye catches the dirt his feet tracked in and the faint blood smudge drying near the couch cushion.

He follows your gaze.

Silence.

Then, with the same gravity he used when proposing dating like a military maneuver, he says,

“I can clean.”

You stare.

He stares back.

The image of Sukuna cleaning your apartment is so violently absurd that it wipes your expression blank.

“You,” you say slowly, “want to clean.”

“I caused the damage.”

“That is not the same as knowing how to clean.”

“I know how to remove blood.”

Your brows stitch together and you stare at him like he' just told you he could grab the moon with his bare hands and use it like a basketball.

His brows pull together as well.

“What.”

“That is the least reassuring version of ‘I can help’ I’ve ever heard.”

He seems to think this through and, to your absolute astonishment, huffs out what might be a resigned acceptance of your point.

“I know household tasks,” he says, with visible distaste for the sentence. “I am not useless.”

The very fact that he sounds offended by the possibility nearly finishes you.

“Fine,” you say, still half laughing. “Get a cloth.”

He rises.

The apartment actually changes shape around him when he stands, every proportion suddenly wrong. You forget sometimes how enormous he is until he moves in a contained space and turns the whole place into evidence. He looks toward the kitchen like he expects supplies to announce themselves.

“In the drawer by the sink,” you tell him.

He goes.

You sit there in a daze and watch Ryomen Sukuna, strongest sorcerer in history, former king of curses, catastrophic idiot with the emotional instincts of a natural disaster, find a dishcloth in your kitchen and return to wipe dried blood off your floor.

The universe is laughing at you.

There is no other explanation.

He crouches, too big even for that, and cleans with efficient if somewhat alarming precision. You end up taking over because otherwise he will probably strip the finish off your floorboards, but the fact remains that he tried.

You both clean the little mess in companionable bursts of bickering, passing a spray bottle back and forth, moving around each other in a space too tight for it not to become intimate. His hand brushes your waist once when you both reach for the same rag. You nearly drop the damn thing.

He notices.

“You are distracted,” he says.

“You are in my kitchen.”

“And?”

“And that’s still very strange.”

“I could kiss you again in it if that helps normalize the experience.”

You nearly walk into the counter.

He looks far too satisfied with himself after that.

By the time the floor is done and the blood is off his skin as much as he allows while standing at your sink with a towel you reluctantly hand over, the apartment feels different.

As if some line that used to be rigid and defensive has shifted just enough to let another person inside without sounding every internal alarm you own.

The night grows late.

You both should be asleep.

He should probably leave.

You should probably insist.

Instead the conversation keeps finding new paths through the wreckage. He tells you, haltingly and with irritation at his own lack of fluency, that during the curse he remembered all of it.

Not like being possessed exactly. More like a set of instincts and certainties shoved into him so strongly that resisting them had felt absurd. He had believed you were his wife because the curse made the belief feel older than thought. He had wanted to hold you, feed you, keep you close, not because the curse invented desire from nothing but because it took something he had not examined and built a shrine around it without permission.

That, when he says it, makes your breath stop.

He seems to regret the phrasing immediately, perhaps because it gives too much away.

You do not mock him.

You ask, carefully,

“So it wasn’t all fake?”

His eyes hold yours.

“No.”

A small word.

A large consequence.

You breathe around it slowly.

The hurt does not vanish. It shifts. Reorders itself. Some pieces remain sharp, but others become more complicated. You had told yourself the tenderness was counterfeit because that made the loss cleaner. Now he is telling you the curse did not fabricate everything. It amplified. Distorted. Dragged something hidden into monstrous certainty.

That means the warmth had roots.

That means the lie afterward hurt because it covered something real.

You rub both hands over your face and groan.

He watches, alarmed in his subtle way.

“What?”

“I hate that this helps.”

His brows draw together.

“It makes it worse too,” you add. “But it helps.”

“Good…?”

“Don’t sound so proud. You are still on probation.”

“I was unaware there was a formal system.”

“There is now.”

He considers that.

“What are the terms?”

You lower your hands and look at him.

“Honesty, for one.”

His face does not move.

You continue.

“No more testing me to see how far I’ll go. No more deciding what I can handle without telling me the truth. No more treating my feelings like an opponent you can outmaneuver.”

His jaw tightens, but he nods once.

“And if you want something,” you say, slower now, “you say it. With words. Like a person. An adult person.”

He looks like you have asked him to perform surgery on himself without anesthetic.

You almost laugh, but do not.

Instead, you wait.

He stares at you for several long seconds.

Then says, with effort,

“I want to kiss you again.”

Your stomach drops in a way that is not fear, although it feels a bit close to it.

It is ridiculous that such a simple sentence can do that after everything. But perhaps the simplicity is why. No scheme. No curse. No wager. No taunt disguised as a demand. Just want, spoken plainly because you asked him to speak plainly.

Your voice comes out softer than intended.

“Well. Then ask.”

His eyes narrow slightly in concentration.

“May I kiss you?”

You do not let yourself answer too quickly.

Not because you want to punish him. Maybe just a bit.

Because you want both of you to feel the shape of permission.

Then you say,

“Yeah.”

The second time he kisses you that night, it feels different from the first.

Less like an answer to a challenge. More like a promise he does not yet know how to word. His hands do not go to your face immediately. One settles near your knee, the other at the edge of the coffee table beside you, as if he is physically reminding himself not to take hold before being invited. You lean in enough to close some of the distance, and only then does he lift a hand to your jaw.

His mouth is warm.

Still careful, but surer now.

You let your hand rest against his chest, over the place where your technique had struck earlier. His heart, strange and powerful and real, beats under your palm. The contact makes you dizzy in a quiet way.

You kiss him until your thoughts loosen.

Not disappear.

Just soften at the edges.

When you pull back, your forehead finds his again almost naturally.

“Better,” you whisper.

“At kissing?”

“At asking.”

He hums lowly, satisfied.

“Do not get smug.”

“That is not possible.”

You push lightly at his chest. He does not move because of the force, but he leans back because you want him to. That distinction sits warmly under your skin now.

Eventually the hour becomes impossible to ignore. The clock on your wall shows a time that makes tomorrow look dangerous for someone that needs to be up early. Your body aches from the fight and travel. His technique-induced dizziness seems to have mostly worn off, though every so often his focus lags just enough for you to feel smug as well.

“You should go,” you say.

The words come out reluctantly.

He hears that too.

“I can.”

Not I will.

I can.

You look toward the window. The night beyond it is cold and quiet. Then back at him, too large on your couch, cleaned of most blood but still bare-chested and bruised. Sending him out into the cold feels sensible. It also feels abrupt, and some fragile part of the night resists ending on distance.

“You can stay,” you say, then immediately lift a hand. “With rules.”

His expression shifts into something dangerously pleased.

You point at him.

“Do not look like that.”

“I am listening.”

“You sleep. That’s it. My bed is small and you are the size of a structural problem, so you do not crush me. You do not decide in the middle of the night that I need to be trapped under you for my health. You do not steal my phone. You do not make this weird.”

He looks around your tiny apartment, then down at himself, then at you.

“It is already weird.”

“Sukuna.”

His mouth closes.

“Fine,” he says.

You go to the bathroom to change because even now, especially now, boundaries are not optional. When you come back, he is standing near the bed in the small bedroom, taking in the space with what looks like profound skepticism.

“What?” you ask.

“This bed is too small.”

“You are too big. The bed is normal.”

“It is not.”

“It was normal before you entered the room.”

He glances at you.

“Many things were.”

You roll your eyes, but your face warms.

He notices.

Mercifully, he says nothing.

The logistics are ridiculous.

He lies down first because there is no other way to measure the space. Even carefully arranged, he occupies too much of it. You climb in afterward, suspicious and tired, keeping a deliberate gap that lasts maybe five seconds before the cold air between you becomes offensive and his heat becomes impossible to ignore.

He does not touch you.

He lies on his side facing you, lower arm bent near his body, upper arms arranged awkwardly to avoid taking over the entire mattress. The effort is so visible that your mouth twitches in the dark.

“You look uncomfortable.”

“I am not.”

“You look like you are losing a fight with the bed”

“Your furniture is inadequate.”

“You’re welcome to leave if you want.”

“No.”

The immediacy of that answer makes the air still.

You do not respond.

After a moment, softer, he says,

“Not unless you want me to.”

You turn your head on the pillow and look at him in the dim light.

That is new too.

“I don’t,” you say.

His eyes stay on yours.

You shift closer by your own choice, inch by inch, until the warmth of him reaches you properly. His lower arm comes around your waist slowly, giving you time to object. You do not. It settles there, heavy but not trapping. You let your back turn toward his chest, more because the position fits the narrow bed than because you intend to make a statement. At least that is what you tell yourself.

He is a furnace behind you.

The heat seeps through your sleep clothes, into your spine, across the lingering soreness in your ribs. His breath touches the back of your neck. Your body remembers this from the curse days and goes soft so quickly it embarrasses you, but this time the meaning is different.

He is not cursed.

You are not pretending.

No one is using delusion as cover.

It’s scarier and better at the same time.

You lie in silence for a while, eyes open in the dark.

Tomorrow will still be complicated. You will still be in Kyoto. He will still be in Tokyo. You will still have students, rent, schedules, boundaries, anger, caution. He will still be Sukuna, which is a problem large enough to require its own administrative department. There is no easy version of this waiting just because he kissed you well and admitted something true.

But for once, you are not being dragged.

You are choosing to remain still.

His arm shifts slightly around your waist.

“Are you awake?” he asks.

“No. Go to sleep.”

A low sound brushes the back of your neck. Almost a laugh.

Then, after a pause, he murmurs,

“I can learn.”

You do not ask what.

You know.

You close your eyes.

Your hand finds his where it rests near your stomach, and after one small hesitation, you place your fingers over his. His hand is too large under yours, warm and solid and capable of unimaginable brutality, but it does not close around you until you curl your fingers first.

Then it does.

Gently.

“You’d better,” you murmur back.

The room settles.

Outside, winter leans cold against the windows, while inside your apartment your bed is too cramped, and the former King of Curses holds you with careful restraint as if the act requires concentration. It probably does. That thought should not make your chest ache, but alas.

Sleep comes slowly.

No nightmares, no fear induced insomnia. Your body simply keeps noticing the difference between being haunted and being held, and for the first time since you left Tokyo, you let yourself believe that maybe difficult does not have to mean impossible.

It bothers you, but the problem is that it is also almost midnight on the third day since the curse latched onto him, and you are half trapped under the strongest sorcerer in history on his ridiculous bed, staring at the dark ceiling and counting the beats of your own pulse because you cannot understand why this still has not ended.

It was supposed to last two days.

Forty-eight hours, Shoko said. Maximum.

Now the second night has come and gone, the third has nearly burned itself down into morning, and Sukuna is still very much draped over you as if you belong there. One lower arm heavy over your waist. Another thrown over your thighs to keep you close. One upper hand resting open on your stomach like he placed it there in his sleep to make sure you remained within reach. The other bent above your head, long fingers loose against the pillow.

He is sleeping peacefully.

Peacefully.

That part alone almost annoys you enough to keep you awake for the whole night.

You are the one with a storm churning behind your ribs. You are the one running numbers and possibilities and consequences until your head hurts. He, meanwhile, lies half on top of you in profound, infuriating comfort, all that impossible size and heat turned tame by slumber. Like a princess. His face is angled toward your neck. His breath brushes warm against your skin every few seconds.

If someone had told you a week ago that you would spend three nights like this, tucked under Ryomen Sukuna like something he curls around instinctively, you would have laughed until you choked and then probably kicked this someone’s ass for suggesting such an absurd and borderline insulting situation.

Now you only stare into the dark and wonder what is going to be left of your life if this does not stop.

Shoko does not know what will happen when — if — it breaks. She admitted as much over text that afternoon in the clipped, irritated way she has when facts refuse to behave for her to study. No one knows whether he will remember the last days clearly. No one knows whether the emotions imposed by the curse will peel away cleanly or leave residue. No one knows if he will feel humiliated, enraged, indifferent, or amused.

You do not know which of those possibilities would be worst.

The version where he forgets is its own kind of horror.

The version where he remembers everything is another.

You cannot decide which one makes your stomach sink harder.

He shifts in his sleep. The mattress dips more under his hips, the hand on your stomach flexing once before going still again. Your whole body goes alert on reflex and then softens against your own will when he only presses his face a fraction deeper into the crook of your neck, seeking heat without waking.

You close your eyes for a second.

The two days behind you have been too… soft.

Not just inconveniently gentle, no, that would be manageable, you think. Not merely tolerable either, that’s just the overall definition of your days at the missions you share with him. No, they were soft in a way that has gotten under your skin and stayed there. Soft in ways you let yourself have because you were exhausted and angry and so starved for the absence of vigilance that the minute you realized you did not have to keep your shoulders high and your jaw tight around him, you let go more than you should have.

You let him fix the collar of the yukata he found for you after noticing you kept tugging the borrowed kimono one closed.

You let him fuss.

The memory of that makes your mouth twitch despite yourself.

He had stood behind you that morning by the mirror, all scowl and concentration, muttering about how the fold sat wrong and how you were somehow wearing it like an amateur insult to fabric. One upper pair of hands had redone the collar with sharp, efficient movements while the lower pair kept the robe steady at your shoulders and waist. You had expected smugness. Instead he had been almost offended by the task itself, like cloth daring not to sit well on you was a personal slight to him.

When he finished, he had looked at your reflection over your shoulder and said, with dreadful severity,

“Better.”

You had told him he sounded like an old woman fixing her grandchild for a festival.

He had stared down at you for one long beat and answered,

“If you continue moving like a startled animal every time I touch your sleeve, I will carry you there like one.”

You had laughed. Actually laughed, sudden and helpless, because he had been so grave about it that it broke something loose in you. The expression on his face afterward, faintly affronted and faintly pleased, had nearly made you laugh harder.

That had been the second morning.

Then there had been the market trip.

You had only agreed because there were vegetables he wanted that the small convenience store near his place did not carry, and because you needed air that did not smell like him for at least half an hour before your thoughts turned to paste. You had expected an ordeal. Sukuna in public seemed like a threat to social order on principle.

Instead, he had been strange in an entirely different direction.

He walked beside you with one hand at the small of your back whenever crowds got too close. He carried the basket despite the fact that four arms made him look absurdly overqualified for grocery errands. He argued with a tomato vendor over the quality of produce with the same deadly seriousness he usually reserved for combat analysis. He stole one bite of the sweet bun you bought at the register, declared it mediocre, and then finished the rest of it when you handed it over because, in his words, “You clearly chose poorly. I am fixing the mistake.”

By the time you both got home with bags hanging from three of his hands and one bag hooked over your own wrist, you had already realized something else.

He behaves like a house cat.

A monstrous, spoiled, overgrown house cat with enough power to level a city block, but still.

The signs are all there once you start noticing them.

He appears silently when you are doing something and pretends not to care while hovering a foot too close. He picks the warmest place in any room and takes it as if the concept of permission was invented for lesser beings. He can be insufferably aloof for ten minutes and then abruptly decide your lap, your shoulder, or your general proximity is his now. He resents being ignored. He resents being fussed over. He resents closed doors if you are behind them. He looks at you with open disdain when you make him wait and then acts as if your attention is some rightful due the instant you turn back to him.

And once you notice it, you cannot unsee it.

He had even blinked slowly at you from across the kitchen table after lunch that day when you caught him watching you and asked what the hell his problem was.

You had burst out laughing again then too.

He had narrowed his eyes.

“Explain.”

“You’re a cat.”

He had taken offense to that with such dignified outrage that you had to excuse yourself and lean against the counter until your face stopped hurting.

You rub your own face against the pillow now and breathe out through your nose.

Too soft.

Too easy.

Too dangerous.

Because the longer it drags on, the more the future begins to warp around it in ugly ways. Yaga had been half-joking and half-not when he told you to keep Sukuna contained. You know that tone. The school has always tolerated monstrous arrangements when the alternative is disaster. If this curse persists long enough, if Shoko cannot reverse it, if Sukuna grows volatile whenever he is not allowed near you, people will start making practical suggestions with polite voices and rotten implications.

Can you manage him? Would you be willing to spend more time with him temporarily? Could your schedule be adjusted? Could missions be reassigned? Could housing be reconsidered for the sake of stability?

At what point does babysitting become a job description?

At what point does a joke become policy?

The thought of it makes your chest tighten. You did not claw your way into teaching, did not work through endless paperwork and grief and late nights and battlefields and stubborn children and stubborn adults, just to become some domestication project for the Calamity because the administration finds it more convenient than risk.

You love teaching.

That truth sits in you with the weight of bone.

You love classrooms and chalk dust and the moment a student’s expression changes because something finally clicks. You love dragging intelligence out of kids who thought all brute force and talent were enough. You love teaching them how to survive and think and adapt and not die for stupid reasons. You love watching them become dangerous in the right ways.

You do not want to be reduced to the one person Sukuna behaves for.

You do not want to trade your life for containment.

And worst of all, you do not want to build yourself around feelings that are not real.

That is the part that tastes bitter every time you think too long about how nice the last two days have felt.

If his gentleness is only the curse, then it is nothing you can keep.

If his attention, his quiet hovering, the ridiculous care with your clothes, the food, the bed, the way he has looked at you like you are worth steadying instead of provoking — if all of that belongs to a delusion, then leaning into it is only another kind of self-harm.

You deserve more than counterfeit tenderness.

You know you do.

So why does knowing that not make it easier to pull away?

His thumb shifts in his sleep, a slow drag against your stomach through the thin fabric you changed into hours ago. The touch is accidental. It still sends a small, traitorous wave of warmth through you.

You hate that too.

Morning comes pale and stubborn through the gaps in the curtains.

You wake before he does, which is rare enough now that it feels like a victory. For a little while you lie still and take inventory. One leg numb. Shoulder warm where his chest has leaned against it for most of the night. Hair tangled. Mouth dry. Mind already running.

You reach for your phone carefully, inch by inch, until your fingertips brush it on the bedside table.

Shoko answers almost immediately to your message.

Still on him. Third day. He seems worse if anything.

You stare at the dots appearing and disappearing on the screen.

That shouldn’t be possible, comes her reply after a moment. We’re rerunning everything. Nanami is helping and being annoying about it. Don’t let him out of your sight.

As if that part is difficult.

He rarely lets you out of his anyway.

Another message comes.

If this persists past today, we’ll need to treat it like a new case entirely.

You swallow the knot that has formed inside your throat.

Untangling from him is hard, but it’s manageable, so you do it and pad out of the bedroom.

Kitchen. Coffee. Focus.

You had escaped the bed, showered, changed into the better-fitted yukata he had somehow produced for you from a store run that must have happened before you stirred, and perched yourself on one of the tall stools with your coffee and your phone, trying to build a plan before he started insisting on ruining it.

Your fingers hover above the keyboard. Before you can type back, heat blooms suddenly at your spine and then two strong lower arms slide around your middle from behind.

Apparently you lost the race.

You jolt so hard the mug by your plate clinks against the counter.

Sukuna folds himself against your back as if he has every damn right to do so. His chin settles on your shoulder, warm, heavy. Damp hair brushes your cheek. The smell of clean skin and soap, fresh shower steam, and that faint sandalwood scent you now associate with his clothes slides around you before you can brace for it.

“Who are you speaking to?” he drawls.

His voice is rough from sleep and low enough to slide straight under your skin. It takes all of you not to roll your eyes back under your eyelids and take a deep breath — not from annoyance, though, from something way more humiliating than that.

You glance down and make the mistake of noticing bare skin at the edges of your vision. He is fresh from the shower. Shirtless. A towel wrapped low around his waist and nothing else. His chest presses hot against your back. The tattoos over his arms look darker with beads of water still clinging to some lines. Heat from his body sinks through the fabric at your spine so quickly it makes your breath hitch.

You freeze for one stupid second.

Then you remember words.

“Unlike you,” you say, forcing your voice into something dry and unimpressed, “I am a responsible teacher and actually care about my students’ futures.”

He clicks his tongue beside your ear.

“The substitutes are paid to care about that now.”

“They should not be taking my classes when I am fully capable of doing my job.”

“You are capable of staying still and being fed. That is enough.”

He says it with such maddening conviction that irritation sparks clean through the awkward heat. You try to angle away, but his lower arms tighten around your waist just enough to hold you in place. At the same time his upper hands slide over yours where they still cradle the warm mug on the counter.

His fingers are damp and warm too.

He peels your hands gently from the ceramic and brings them together against your chest, trapping them there with one hand while the other smooths over your knuckles like he is the one soothing you. His cheek drifts along the side of yours, slow and shameless as he is, and then his mouth touches the slope of your shoulder through the open edge of the yukata.

One kiss.

Then another closer to your neck.

The shiver that runs through you is vicious.

He purrs, actually purrs, a low satisfied sound in the back of his throat before murmuring beside your ear,

“The substitutes can manage a little longer. I would rather enjoy my wife.”

You bite your tongue so hard you taste iron.

Every nerve in your body seems to light up at once. Heat floods your face, your throat, lower, everywhere. If you let yourself make a sound it will be a humiliating one, and you hate that you know it.

It is not real, you remind yourself violently.

He is cursed.

This is not real.

You use that thought like a lever, wrenching yourself back into motion. You twist sideways and drop off the stool before his grip can adjust. Your feet hit the floor a little too hard, and it may be a mistake because now you are face to face with the full problem of him.

Fresh from the shower.

Towel low on his hips.

Bare chest.

Tattoos stark on his skin.

Damp strands of pink hair falling over his forehead.

Morning light hitting the planes of muscle and ink over him in pale gold and making every hard line of him look even more unreasonably dramatic.

For one awful second your heart feels like it either stops or starts beating so fast it vanishes altogether.

He lifts a brow at your expression.

You begin talking immediately because silence would kill you.

“I—I need to change,” you stutter, which is not an excuse so much as a panic with a little grammar.

His mouth tips up.

That nearly sends you fleeing faster.

You skirt around him, grab the first shreds of dignity still fluttering in your chest, and march to his bedroom with speed that only barely avoids becoming a run. You can call it powerwalking if it saves you some of that dignity.

Your clothes are where you left them after washing them on the second day — folded in a neat little pile on the chair near the bed. You had kept putting off wearing them again because the yukata was comfortable and because he looked weirdly pleased every time he saw you in it, which had become its own private source of amusement.

That amusement is gone now.

You drag off the robe, shove yourself into your shirt and pants, and are crouched with one sock halfway on when the doorway darkens.

Fucking hell.

Sukuna fills it.

Arms folded now. Towel still on. Head tilted just slightly.

“Where do you think you’re going with such urgency?”

You stand too fast, your leather belt in hand ready to be looped around your pants, and nearly trip over the edge of the rug.

“I need to talk to Yaga.”

“That’s bullshit.”

The bluntness of it makes you bristle.

“Excuse me?”

“You do not need to speak to anyone. You need to stop running in circles and let me take care of you.”

He says it while crossing the room, and before you can angle around him he crowds you back, step by step, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed and buckle. You drop onto the mattress with a soft curse, your belt still looped in your fist.

His smile is immediate.

It is not kind. It is not especially cruel either, but that isn’t really soothing. It is delighted, which is concerning for you. Victorious in that small, smug way that makes you want to throw a shoe at his face.

“Oh, you enjoy this,” you mutter, a bit alarmed.

“Immensely.”

You backpedal on your hands once as he leans closer and towers over you.

He catches your ankle with one lower hand and drags you back exactly where he wants you, slow enough to make it obvious he is toying with you. The mattress shifts under his weight when he climbs up one knee at a time, looming over you with open amusement all over his face.

You should not notice how pretty he is like this.

Unfortunately your eyes work.

The tattoos. The broad chest. The water still tracking from his hair down the side of his throat. The flash of teeth in that terrible grin.

You school your face into a kind of surrender and let him mistake the stillness for giving in.

Then, the instant he lowers himself enough, you move.

Fast.

Your belt whips up and around his throat before the expression on his face can fully change. You jam the strap through the buckle in one practiced motion and yank it into a makeshift collar. His eyes widen — actually widen, not by much but enough to count as astonishment on him — and that tiny sliver of surprise is all you need.

You wrap your legs around his waist, use his own forward momentum against him, and roll.

He lands on his back with a heavy thud into the mattress.

You land astride his abdomen in the same breath, knees braced, belt pulled taut in both hands.

The grin that spreads over his face afterward is so feral it should probably frighten you more than it does.

Instead it mostly infuriates you.

Why is this man such a smug sleek motherfucker?

His upper hands rise slowly, palms open in a parody of surrender. His lower pair settle right on the sides of your thighs as if he cannot be bothered to pretend he is not enjoying this.

You wind the loose end of the belt around your fist for leverage and plant your free hand in the center of his chest to keep yourself steady.

He is hot.

Obscenely hot.

The heat of him blasts through your palm, through your pants where you sit over him, through every point of contact until it becomes a nuisance of its own.

“Behave,” you tell him, out of breath with effort and annoyance both, “or I’m putting you under.”

All four eyes narrow.

He is daring you.

You can tell by the exact angle of his chin, the tilt of his mouth, the challenge coiled in every inch of him. He thinks you will not do it. Or maybe he wants to see if you will.

So you raise your chin back at him and call the bluff.

“Do you really want me to scramble your head,” you say, tightening the belt just enough to prove the point, “until you feel drunk and useless and can’t spend your precious time off with your wife?”

The word works visibly.

Not in shame. Not in softness. In cold calculation.

He goes still for a beat, then sneers lightly as if agreeing costs him something.

That is how you end up standing at the edge of the bed a few minutes later, one hand gripping the improvised leash of your own belt while Sukuna, still smug, still shirtless, digs out clothes from a cabinet as if this is a perfectly normal arrangement.

You fix your gaze on the wall.

Not his back. Not his arms. Not anything lower than his throat.

“You are making this weirder, wife,” he drawls.

“You made this weird three days ago.”

“You are the one holding a leash as if about to walk me out like a dog.”

“You need one. A muzzle too.”

His laugh is low and rich enough to make your stomach do something stupid.

You hate that.

Eventually practicality forces change. He cannot get a shirt on without your belt coming off, and you know perfectly well the restraint only works because he is letting it. He could cut leather faster than you could blink if he chose. The knowledge takes some of the triumph out of it, but not enough to stop you from savoring the absurdity while it lasts.

When he is in pants and shoes and finally a shirt, you loosen the belt and step back.

He does not attack. Does not grab. Does not even move first.

He only looks at you, dressed now and more decent, and says,

“I want to take you out.”

You blink.

“As in a date or murder? Both things seem like common suggestions you’d make, ‘gotta check.”

He glares at you like you’re the least funny person alive but he somehow still likes you.

“A date.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“If you’re already deciding for me, why the fuck you ask?”

“Politeness,” he deadpans.

You massage your temples.

“I need to talk to Yaga about what happens if this curse decides to ignore every precedent in recorded history.”

“That can wait until tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

“Then later.”

You drop your hands and stare at him.

He stares back.

The silence stretches.

The maddening part is that he means it. Entirely. There is no game-face on him right then, none of the obvious needling. He truly wants to take you out like this is the most reasonable use of a day when both of you are technically supposed to be at work.

You should refuse, right?

Instead you think about the ceiling over his bed in the dark. About the squeeze in your chest every time you picture the school making this arrangement permanent if the curse drags on. About how thin your nerves have been for months even before all this. About the fact that you have not had a single uncomplicated day in longer than you want to count.

Your shoulders sag.

“Fine,” you say. “One day.”

His smile then is smaller than usual.

More satisfied than triumphant.

You would later think that might have been your first clue that the day was not going to play fair.

He takes you to brunch first.

Not somewhere sleek and dramatic like you would have guessed. Not the kind of place a man like Sukuna seems built for. He leads you instead to a narrow little family-run spot tucked between two older buildings, with warm wooden tables, handwritten specials on a board out front, and wind chimes at the door that ring softly when you step inside.

The owner looks up from behind the counter and brightens.

“Ah,” she says, as if Sukuna arriving with you is only mildly surprising. “You came back.”

Came back?

You turn to look at him.

He looks annoyed to have been perceived, which answers nothing.

The woman smiles at you next, warm, and asks if you would like the same set he usually orders because it is very good and he has better taste in breakfast than in conversation.

You cannot help it. You laugh.

Sukuna clicks his tongue.

“You are speaking too much.”

“She’s right?” you guess.

The owner pats your hand as she passes you menus anyway, but you end up ordering what she recommended.

It arrives steaming and fragrant and perfect in that quiet, domestic way that hurts a little because it makes the morning feel so normal. Rice soft and warm. Miso rich without being heavy. Fish cooked just right. Pickles bright enough to cut through everything else. Tea that tastes like comfort.

Sukuna eats with the same concentration he brings to everything worthwhile. He does not make small talk. He does, however, move one dish a little closer to you when he notices you like it, and later without comment he switches cups because yours has cooled too much and his is still hot.

You notice.

He notices you noticing.

Neither of you says anything.

After brunch he walks you by the lake because, as he tells you with the gravity of a man announcing military strategy, there is a small festival and apparently “the children are performing useless but interesting tricks.”

The children in question are young sorcerers no older than twelve, gathered on a temporary little stage with banners tied between poles and lanterns waiting to be lit for evening. They are doing theatrical demonstrations of cursed techniques for parents and older siblings and anyone else willing to clap loudly enough to make them feel like legends.

One little girl makes paper charms bloom into tiny birds of light. A boy barely taller than your hip uses his cursed energy to stack stones in midair with all the concentration of a surgeon. Another child produces such a dramatic plume of sparks that the instructor backstage flinches and yells for him to tone it down.

It is heartwarming in the most dangerous way.

Because you forget for stretches at a time.

You forget that this is Sukuna beside you.

You forget he is cursed.

You forget that this is not a date and start treating it like one.

You forget you should not, for your own sake, enjoy spending time with him.

He makes dry, terrible comments under his breath about posture, timing, showmanship. You laugh at them because they are legitimately funny in an assholeish way. He reaches up when you pause under a flowering tree and stare too long at a bloom caught high overhead, and a second later he is handing you the flower like it is nothing to pluck beauty from above your reach. His fingers brush yours when you take it. You tuck it behind your ear without thinking, and when you look back at him he is already looking.

The warmth that moves through you then is smaller than embarrassment and deeper than simple pleasure — something far more dangerous.

Something with roots.

He keeps close all afternoon.

Sometimes he holds your hand with one of his, enveloping it entirely, your fingers nearly disappearing in his grip. Sometimes one arm rests around your waist while the others hang free or carry whatever stupid little thing he bought you after you lingered too long near a stall. At one point you catch yourself leaning into that arm without realizing it. At another you say something half under your breath and he bends immediately, closer, because he refuses to make you repeat yourself into the air between your heights.

These are little things.

That is why they work so well.

By the time evening gathers properly over the lake and lights come on in strings over the water, you are tired in that pleasant, dissolving way that comes from being cared for just enough to stop fighting yourself.

Dinner is nicer, you admit.

He picks a place with a private little table near a wide window looking over the city, the skyline reflecting in dark glass as the night deepens outside. The room is low-lit and elegant without being stiff or corny. Wine arrives. Then more wine. The meal is expensive enough that you only realize how much when you look at the menu after already ordering, and Sukuna treats your quiet alarm with total indifference.

“You are not paying,” he says and it’s final.

You won’t argue, your salary as a teacher is not the best one and both of you know it.

The red wine is good. Very, very good. It loosens the last knots in your shoulders and paints a soft heat under your skin that has nothing to do with him, except that he watches the effects of it with an expression you cannot decipher.

You both talk more over dinner than you have in any corridor or mission debrief in all the time you have known each other.

Not about the curse.

About food. Teaching. Which students might be dead by thirty if they keep making the same idiotic decisions. The most absurd mission reports you have both ever had to file. Why Nanami’s handwriting somehow looks judgmental. Why Gojo is not allowed to choose restaurant reservations anymore after the incident with the live eel. The fact that Sukuna apparently knows far more about seasoning than you ever imagined and seems personally insulted by bland soup.

He says something so dry about Yaga’s face when first-years improvise that wine almost comes out your nose.

You laugh until your eyes sting.

He watches you do it.

And again, because the day keeps cheating, you forget.

Afterward you end up back by the lake from earlier, the festival quieter now, most families gone home, lanterns burning low and the full moon reflected over the dark water like a second world laid flat beneath the first.

The bench is cool under your thighs.

Sukuna sits beside you, one arm along the back of it behind your shoulders, close but not trapping. The night air carries damp grass, lake water, the faint sweetness of fried batter lingering from the festival stalls, and the clean bite of autumn waiting in the edges.

You are full, warm, a little tipsy, and dangerously relaxed.

When you snort at one of his comments and let your head come to rest on his shoulder, it feels almost inevitable by then.

His shoulder is broad and hard under the fabric of his shirt. Warm. Steady.

He tips his head just enough for his mouth to brush the top of your hair.

You close your eyes.

“This is nice,” you admit quietly. “Would be nicer if it was real.”

There is a pause.

Then his mouth moves again against your hairline, gentler this time.

“What do you mean, if it was real?”

The question threads through you like a pin.

You had not realized you said the second half aloud.

Slowly you lift your head and turn to look at him better.

His face is closer than you expected. Close enough that you can see how the moonlight catches along the bridge of his nose, how the red of his eyes darkens almost toward black at the rims, how his lashes cast faint shadows you hate noticing on a man you would usually rather strangle.

You take a breath.

“You’re cursed, Sukuna,” you say softly.

Nothing in his face changes.

Encouraged by the stillness, by the wine, by the day, by the terrible hope that honesty might be kinder than pretending, you keep going.

“You have been cursed for three days,” you tell him. “You believe I’m your wife. There’s nothing I’ve said that convinces you otherwise. It was supposed to wear off by last night, but apparently it didn’t.”

Still no reaction. Not the one you expect.

Your nerves start to prickle.

You push on anyway because you need to get it out before the softness of the day becomes something you cannot separate from wanting.

“Today was good,” you say and it’s almost painful. “Really good. And it would have been…” You stop, swallow, start again with more effort. “It would have been nice if it were true. But it isn’t. It’s a curse acting through you. It’s not you.”

His gaze lowers a fraction.

To your mouth.

You only notice because the movement is slight enough to make your own breath catch.

Then he leans closer.

His hand comes up and cups your face — you do not know when it moved there.

One second your skin is bare to the night air, the next his palm is warm and broad against your cheek, thumb resting just beneath your lower lip. His lower eyes stay on your mouth. His upper pair fix on your eyes with unnerving steadiness.

He does not kiss you, though, but his lips are close enough to brush yours.

He only says, in a low voice meant for you and you alone,

“I know.”

Your thoughts stumble.

“What?”

“I know I was cursed.” The pad of his thumb drags once, slow, over your lower lip. “I remember it. It burned out last night.”

The world tilts.

You stare at him without understanding.

The moonlight, the bench, the lake, the city lights beyond it — all of it feels suddenly too sharp and too distant at once, as if the scene has pulled away from you.

“What are you talking about?”

“It ended when we slept,” he says, almost idly. “This morning.”

Your face goes cold and hot at the same time. You think you will be sick.

The entire day unwinds in one sickening rush. Bedroom. Kitchen. Brunch. The old woman. The flower. His hand at your waist. The wine. The bench. Every soft thing. Every quiet thing. Every moment you let your guard down because you believed the kindness belonged to something false and therefore could hurt less when it vanished.

He watches the realization spread through you with rapt attention.

And because he is not finished, apparently there is some rotten part of him that finds the blade prettier when it twists, he goes on.

“I wanted to see,” he says, “how far you would go with me.”

You do not move.

Do not blink.

Do not breathe.

Something in your chest has started to crack, and he either does not hear it or does and keeps speaking to turn the crack into broken shards.

“It would be frowned upon, you see,” he continues, voice lightly amused now, but feels like he’s chiding you with a layer of mockery, “if the school learned you were willing to take advantage of a cursed teacher just to spend a pleasant day, and make out with him all night long… then maybe even let him fuck you until morning comes.”

The words slap harder than if he had struck you.

He is grinning when he says it.

Wicked, sick man.

“So I decided to be kind,” he murmurs. “And spare you that embarrassment.”

His thumb moves over your lip again.

You blink.

That is all, at first. Just a blink. The world slows strangely around the motion, as if your body has to relearn how to exist one function at a time.

Blink. Breathe. Hear. Feel.

Then feeling arrives.

Shock first, thin and bright, taut like your skin is too tight suddenly.

Then confusion, trying uselessly to catch up.

Then humiliation.

Then something uglier than hurt because it comes wrapped in grief for a thing that was never real and anger at yourself for selfishly wanting it anyway. Anger at him for offering it consciously and then taking it away in favor of making you look stupid. Anger at the day. Anger at every tiny domestic softness that now curdles in hindsight because he knew.

He knew and let you lean and laugh and hope and soften while he stood there watching you do it.

You had looked at him and thought maybe.

You had looked at him and wondered if some corner of those cursed affections might overlap with a real feeling he would never name otherwise.

You had let yourself believe he could be touched by tenderness instead of only entertained by it.

Monster, something in you says with perfect clarity.

Before the word fully finishes, your cursed technique is already in motion.

The blast of it leaves you in one violent pulse.

It catches him square and hard — full force.

One second he is close enough for you to smell the wine on his breath and sandalwood on his collar. The next he is torn off the bench and flung sideways into the grass with enough force to wrench his hand from your face and jolt the whole bench under you.

He lands badly, body twitching as your technique overruns his senses. You know exactly what it does because you designed it to stop men like him when battle makes them too hungry and too pleased with themselves. It scatters the edges of perception. It turns the mind syrup-thick. Makes coordination lag. Thought blur. The aftereffect feels like the worst hangover in the world dragged through a battlefield.

He will recover.

Of course he will recover.

But not immediately.

You are already on your feet.

He says your name once, slurred just enough by the technique to sound wrong.

You do not stop.

The bench, the moonlit lake, the city, the dinner, the flower tucked behind your ear at some point during the walk — all of it becomes unbearable in the space of a single heartbeat.

You turn and walk away. Then faster. Then faster still until walking cannot contain what is inside you and it breaks open into a run.

You run.

Your shoes slap hard against the pavement. Night air tears cold through your lungs. Your bag bangs against your hip. Your eyes burn and then blur and then the first tears finally spill hot enough that they only make you angrier.

Nothing can hurt him, you tell yourself as if the thought is a railing you can grip.

Nothing can truly hurt Sukuna.

He will wake miserable and furious and completely alive. He will go back to school. He will teach. He will sneer. He will recover because monsters like him always do.

But you—

You have to live through tomorrow.

You have to live through the look he will give you when he sees you next. Through the possibility that he says any of it aloud near the wrong person. Through the idea of sitting across from him in a meeting knowing he remembers your head on his shoulder, your laugh at his jokes, the stupid flower in your hair, the confession in your voice when you told him the day would have been nice if it were true, and the implication of that.

You hate him so fiercely that your chest aches with it and you want to scream.

You hate yourself a little too.

For hoping. For relaxing. For wanting more. For not protecting that want better.

That’s on you.

You knew he was cursed. You knew it wasn’t real — couldn’t be. You knew Sukuna was, is, and will always be that infuriating man that you can’t fully stand more than a few hours a day.

Stupid idiot, you think, still running home, why would you believe it was okay to indulge in a lie?

You try, once again, uselessly, to make sense of the last part of your night.

You do not remember the route home in any sensible order.

Not consciously.

You remember fragments. The hard slap of your shoes against the pavement. The way the night air saws into your lungs until breathing turns sharp and ragged and useless. The city lights smear every time tears flood your eyes again. Your pulse beats so hard it makes your vision feel narrow, tunneled, reduced to whatever stretch of sidewalk is directly in front of you.

You remember clutching your purse against your side like it matters. Like anything matters except putting as much distance as possible between your body and that bench, that park, that awful measured voice in your ear telling you he knew, he had known, he had not been cursed for the whole day, he only wanted to see how far you would go.

How far would you go.

The words keep hitting you in waves, each one worse than the last.

Not because you do not understand them. Because you do.

You understand exactly what he did.

He woke up free.

He looked at you that morning, in his kitchen, with your borrowed yukata sliding over your skin and your coffee between your hands and your guard already thinning from two days of soft reprieve, and he chose not to tell you.

He let you worry.

He let you continue managing him, continue excusing the way he touched you, the way he hovered, the way he folded you into his day and into his house and into his goddamn life as if any of it was necessity when it was only amusement.

And worse than that, worse than the humiliation of being tricked, worse than the fact that he sat through brunch and the lakeside festival and dinner and moonlight and wine and your stupid, stupid moment of honesty at the bench—

worse than all of that—

is that you were happy.

You were happy.

The realization keeps gutting you fresh every few steps.

Not miserable. Not merely tolerating him. Not white-knuckling your way through some obligation because Yaga asked and the school needed peace.

Happy.

You let yourself laugh with him.

You let yourself soften.

You let yourself believe, just a little, just enough to be ruined by it, that perhaps the curse had not invented everything from nothing. That perhaps somewhere under all the arrogance and spite and sharpness there was still a shape of tenderness he would one day mean.

And he knew.

He knew, and he kept going.

You nearly collide with someone turning a corner and do not even apologize, just jerk away and keep moving. By the time you make it into your building your legs are trembling with effort and your face feels raw from crying.

The hallway to your apartment swims in and out of focus. Your keys slip once in your hand. Twice. The third time you manage to get the door open, shove yourself inside, and slam it hard enough that the frame rattles.

Silence.

Not the silence of Sukuna’s house. Not the dense, ancient, watching quiet of a place built around a creature too large for normal life.

This is your silence. Thin walls, old pipes, the faint hum of electricity in the kitchen, the tiny familiar scuff in the entryway where you always drag your shoes too close to the wall. It should comfort you immediately.

Instead you stand there with your back to the door and shake.

Every part of you suddenly feels too full. Your skin. Your chest. Your throat. The back of your eyes burns. There is still sandalwood in your clothes from sitting beside him. There is still red wine on your tongue. There is still the remembered pressure of his hand at your face, warm and careful and false, so false you feel sick.

You make it three stumbling steps before your knees threaten to give out. Your purse drops to the floor with a flat, ugly thud. You brace both hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and bow your head over the sink, breathing through your mouth because if you breathe through your nose you catch him everywhere. On the collar of your shirt. In your hair. In the folds of memory.

Your stomach flips so hard you think you might throw up.

Nothing comes.

Only another wave of tears, hot and humiliating and impossible to stop now that they have started.

You scrub at your face with both hands. It does not help. The crying gets quieter, not better. The kind that hurts more because it goes inward, sinks into your ribs and sits there like a stone.

Then the rage and shame and hurt hit in a wave so strong it folds you half over.

“No,” you say out loud to no one.

No.

No more.

No more babysitting the inconsequential idiot. No more being drafted as the school’s answer every time Sukuna’s temper or interest becomes unmanageable. No more standing in the path of a man who thinks other people’s feelings are toys because he was bored enough.

Your phone is still in your bag.

The thought arrives through the haze and hardens into purpose fast enough to keep you upright.

Yaga.

You need Yaga now, before the night ends, before common sense or shame or exhaustion makes you soften your own demand. If you wait until morning, someone will try to talk you down. Shoko will be careful. Nanami will be reasonable. Gojo will joke first and get serious second. Even Suguru, damn him, will probably tip his head and ask whether you want a transfer or simply distance and make you say it twice.

No.

You grab your phone so quickly you nearly drop it. Your thumb misses Yaga’s contact the first time because your hand is shaking. The call rings. Rings again. Again.

He picks up on the fifth attempt, voice rough with age and interrupted sleep.

“What happened.”

No greeting. Just that.

The question alone almost breaks you once again in a single night.

You press the heel of your free hand against your sternum, trying to force the tightness there into something you can speak through.

“I need a transfer.”

A pause.

Then, sharper, more awake,

“What happened.”

You laugh once, and it sounds wrong even to you. Too small. Too frayed.

“I’m not dealing with him anymore. I’m done, Yaga.”

Yaga does not ask who.

You close your eyes so hard sparks dance behind your lids.

“I’m serious. I want out. I want the paperwork started tonight, tomorrow, I don’t care, but I’m not going back into a classroom next to that man and pretending any of this is workable. I am not his babysitter. I am not whatever fucked-up entertainment he thinks I am. I want a transfer, and if I don’t get one, I fucking quit.”

The apartment is so quiet around you that Yaga’s silence hums through the phone like pressure.

When he finally speaks, his voice has lost all remnants of sleep.

“Did he hurt you?”

The question lands in the center of your chest.

The answer is simple and at the same time is so complicated.

He did not break your bones. He did not trap you in chains. He did not force you into anything your body fought.

What he did is somehow harder to hold and harder to explain, because there was consent in the places that matter most and no honesty underneath it. There was care that felt real and tenderness that maybe was real and mockery laid over all of it like poison.

You sit down hard on the kitchen chair because your legs finally stop asking permission and give out anyway.

“He let me believe it,” you say, staring at nothing. “He let me believe he was still cursed.”

Yaga exhales, very slowly.

You keep going before you can lose your nerve. The words spill uglier now, less controlled.

“He knew. Since this morning. Maybe earlier. He knew and kept the façade, he took me out all day and let me think—” Your voice snaps. You swallow and try again. “He let me think it was the curse. Then he told me he wanted to see how far I’d go.”

Another silence.

You know how you sound— how you look.

Stupid. Naive. Not entitled to any of that turmoil under your ribcage because, once again, you were the one responsible for your actions, for the choice of believing in a lie as if it could have any other outcome than fucking you up emotionally.

You think that it all would have been so much better if he simply had chosen to push you away the instant the curse ran out.

Then… what? Maybe you could have taken a deep breath and go back to your apartment, to your old life, to the school, to your students.

It wouldn’t have hurt you, because you would be able to bury it, lock it inside a little box and shove it deep down yourself and never touch it again. Right?

You could bear the annoyance of missing his cursed self if it came to be just it.

You think the worst that it could have happened would be you telling him you would forever hold all that curse-induced-tenderness over his head if he ever pissed you off.

That is a very comfortable delusion to live in.

Unfortunately, Yaga snaps you out of it.

When Yaga speaks again, his tone is low and measured in the dangerous way it gets when he is angry enough to be careful with it.

“Where are you.”

“At home.”

“Stay there tonight.”

“As if I planned to do anything else,” you scoff.

“You won’t come in tomorrow.”

You laugh again, more bitterly this time.

“Thank you for the permission.”

“I’m not joking.”

Neither are you.

He seems to hear that in your breathing, because the next thing he says is gentler than you expect.

“The paperwork will be started by the end of the week. I’ll handle your classes until then.”

Something in you goes loose at that. Not relief exactly. Relief would be lighter. This feels more like one wall inside you being allowed to collapse without crushing the rest.

You rub at your mouth with your fingertips.

“Good.”

“I’ll need a formal statement.”

“You’ll get one.”

“And I want Shoko to check on you.”

That makes you grimace on instinct.

“I’m not injured.”

“I did not say you were.”

You say nothing.

His voice softens by a hair.

“You are one of my best teachers. I’m not losing you because he doesn’t know how to behave like a human being.”

The words strike somewhere too deep for your current state. Your eyes fill again. You press your thumb hard against the edge of the table until it hurts.

“Thank you,” you say, and hate how small it sounds.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

The call ends.

You lower the phone and stare at the dead screen until it dims in your hand.

Then you stand up and head for the bathroom because you cannot bear your own skin for one second longer.

The shower goes scalding hot before you step under it.

You strip in a trail from hallway to tile, all quick, angry movements — shirt turned inside out, belt unthreaded with jerking fingers, pants kicked aside, socks peeled off damp with sweat. The smell of the day rises out of the discarded clothes as soon as they hit the floor.

Wine. Restaurant smoke. Night air. Him.

You shove the pile into the laundry basket like it has been infected by the plague.

The water hits your shoulders hard enough to sting. Good. You tilt your face up into it until it runs over your closed eyes and mouth and nose and down your throat when you accidentally inhale wrong. The heat is almost painful. Still not enough.

You scrub yourself with the rough side of a washcloth until your skin goes pink.

Neck first.

Shoulders.

The curve behind your ear where he kissed you that morning, still half asleep and smug and devastatingly warm. You go over that place again and again until the skin there throbs.

Then your wrists. Your waist. Your sides.

Everywhere his hands rested with unbearable familiarity. Everywhere you let them.

Your throat tightens so badly you have to brace one palm against the wall.

Because that is the true rot under the humiliation, the thing you cannot scrub off no matter how hard you try.

You wanted it.

Not the mockery. Not the trick. Not being tested like some indulgence he could toy with because he had a free day and a monstrous sense of humor.

But the rest of it.

The arm around your shoulders on the bench.

The flower from the tall tree.

The private table by the window.

The ridiculous small family restaurant where the old woman knew what he always ordered and smiled at you like you belonged in the seat across from him.

The cooking. The warm bed. The stupid, infuriating way he bent around you in sleep like it was obvious that was where you should be.

You drop the washcloth and cover your face with both hands.

A broken sound tears itself out of you and disappears under the rush of water.

By the time you shut the shower off, your skin feels over-scrubbed and you are no cleaner where it counts.

You dress in the oldest pajamas you own, the ones stretched soft with years of washing. You braid your damp hair with clumsy fingers. You make tea you do not drink. You sit on your couch and stare at your phone while messages begin to arrive.

First Shoko.

Yaga called. Are you alone?

You type back immediately.

Yes.

A moment later:

Do you want company or not.

You stare at the words.

Shoko is the only person you know who can make comfort sound like a clinical procedure. Something about it steadies you. You type no, then erase it. Type yes, then erase that too. Eventually you settle on:

Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe.

Her response comes almost at once.

Fine. Lock your door.

Then Gojo, predictably several minutes later.

Heard you nuked him into the grass. Kinda proud of you.

Under any other circumstance, you would roll your eyes so hard it hurt. Tonight the message just makes your chest twist.

You set the phone face down on the coffee table and sit there in the dim light until the tea goes cold and your body starts nodding with exhaustion.

Sleep, when it finally takes you, is too thin and too mean.

You dream of the park bench first.

Not the reveal immediately. The few seconds before it, when you are leaning against him under the moon and the day still feels intact. In the dream you can feel the exact warmth of his shoulder under your temple, the easy weight of his arm behind you, the hum of distant festival lanterns being taken down across the lake. Your own voice says this is nice, and in the dream his silence before answering stretches on too long.

Too long.

Too long.

Then he laughs, and the bench gives way beneath you.

The second dream is worse because it is gentle, and it frightens you.

You are back in his bed in the gray edge between night and morning, one of his arms under your pillow, another braced over your waist, your face buried in the broad plane of his chest while he dozes around you like a living wall. It feels so good in the dream that when you wake with a violent jolt, the absence of it is its own fresh wound.

You lie there in darkness, breath ragged, fists knotted in the sheets.

Morning arrives heavy and damp with your own sweat.

Your body feels like you lost a fight.

Your eyes ache. Your throat is sandpaper. Every muscle is tight from sleeping badly. You shuffle to the kitchen for water and stand there in bare feet and old cotton, staring at the pale early light across your counter, trying to remember what normal life is supposed to feel like.

Your phone buzzes again just as you swallow aspirin dry. Shoko.

I’m coming over in an hour. Not optional.

You do not answer because there is no point.

True to form, she arrives fifty-eight minutes later with coffee, cigarettes she does not smoke but somehow always carries, and the face of a woman who is already tired of everyone involved.

You let her in wearing an oversized sweater and no patience. She walks past you like she lives here, sets the coffee on the table, glances once at your face, and says,

“You look horrible.”

“You too.”

“Yeah, but I earned it.”

That almost gets a laugh out of you. Almost.

She looks at your untouched breakfast on the counter and then back at you.

“Eat something before I start being a doctor on purpose.”

“I hate when you use your gifts for evil.”

She hands you the coffee. You take it because refusing Shoko when she is in this mood is a waste of energy.

For a while she lets the quiet stand. You sit at opposite ends of the couch, cups between your hands, the apartment filled with the scent of bitter coffee and the faint medicinal clean smell that always clings to her after long hours in the infirmary.

When she finally speaks, it is without preamble.

“He’s fine.”

Your grip tightens on the mug.

“Good.”

“He woke up with what he described as ‘a pounding skull and everyone around him being irritatingly loud.’”

That one does pull a weak, unwilling huff from you.

Shoko watches your face carefully over the rim of her cup.

“He asked where you were.”

You look away toward the window.

“And?”

“And I told him none of his business.”

“Thank you.”

“He didn’t like that.”

You sip the coffee just to have something to do. It is too hot. You burn your tongue and welcome the pain.

Shoko leans back, one ankle crossing over the other.

“Yaga filled me in enough to know he was an asshole, but not enough to know whether you want to talk about it.”

You stare into the dark surface of the coffee.

“He told me the curse ended on the second night.”

Her expression shifts, something cold sharpening behind her eyes.

“He admitted that?”

“He said he wanted to see how far I’d go.”

Her jaw sets.

You laugh once, quiet and ugly.

“Apparently the answer was far enough to let him take me on a full-day date before he decided to be honest.”

“That is a very generous way to describe emotional sadism.”

You wince and press the mug more firmly into your palms.

Shoko’s voice softens just enough to matter.

“Did you want the date?”

The honesty that rises is immediate and painful.

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t make you stupid.”

“It feels like it does, actually,” you grimace at the black coffee. “I knew, everyone knew, it was not real since the beginning.”

“It doesn’t. You’re allowed to have feelings, just so you know.”

You look at her then. Really look. Her face is tired but steadier than anything in you right now. Clinical when needed, merciful when it counts.

“I knew he was cursed,” you say. “I knew it wasn’t real, at least not the way he thought it was. I kept telling myself that. Every time he touched me or said something that made my head go light or did one of those terrible little considerate things that made me forget myself for five minutes, I kept telling myself this is a curse, this is a curse, this is a curse.” Your throat tightens again. “And then yesterday was just… good. It was so good, Shoko.”

She says nothing.

The permission in that silence breaks something open.

“I let myself enjoy it,” you whisper. “I let myself think maybe that still counted for something. Maybe if the curse fell away there would still be a little of it left. Maybe he liked me. Maybe he—” You stop before the word means too much. “I don’t know. Something. Anything. And he sat there all day knowing exactly what I believed.”

Shoko sets her cup down with deliberate care.

“Then your anger is appropriate.”

You swallow.

“So is the transfer,” she adds.

You blink at her.

She shrugs one shoulder.

“I like having you at the school. The students like you. But I’m not going to ask you to keep working next to someone who decided your feelings were a toy.”

The bluntness of it hurts. The accuracy hurts more.

You bend forward, elbows on knees, cup hanging loose between your hands.

“I hate that I miss him already.”

That surprises her enough that she actually pauses.

You laugh without humor.

“Not him. Not really him. Not the real him, I guess. I miss the version that made tea without asking how I took it because he already knew. The one that fixed my yukata and cooked and hovered like an overgrown cat and looked at me like I was the center of whatever room we were in.” You press the heels of your hands against your eyes. “I miss something that might not have existed for even two days.”

Shoko’s answer is quiet.

“That’s grief.”

The word lands clean.

Too clean.

You lower your hands slowly.

“Feels dramatic.”

“Grief usually does from the inside.”

She stays for most of the morning. Not hovering, just there. She makes you eat toast. She helps you draft the formal statement for Yaga because your first version reads like a cursed energy discharge in written form and your second dissolves halfway through when you realize you have to put his name next to the phrase intentional deception.

By noon, the statement is sent.

By afternoon, the transfer process is real enough to give you nausea.

Kyoto is the most likely option. Temporary at first, Yaga says in his reply, until they determine whether you want it permanent. He uses too many careful words around Sukuna without naming him directly. Professional conduct. Breakdown of trust. Incompatible assignment conditions.

You read those lines three times and feel colder each time.

Breakdown of trust sounds so clean for what happened.

It sounds like paperwork. Like two adults having a scheduling disagreement.

It does not sound like lying beside a man for two nights and letting him stroke idle shapes into your back while you drift off because you think the need in him is borrowed and temporary and therefore safe to survive.

It does not sound like hearing that same man tell you under the moon that he knows, he remembers, he wanted to see.

By evening you are so tired your bones hurt again.

Gojo calls. You nearly ignore him. Then you answer because if you do not, he will appear at your window somehow — he did before, he would do it again.

“I brought cake,” he announces.

“Okay?”

“You don’t seem excited. It’s cake!”

“What am I supposed to say? You’re not here, I’m not having your cake.”

“I could be.”

“You’re a menace.”

“I’m your favorite menace.”

“Not even close.”

His humor fades a touch.

“How bad is it?”

You close your eyes and sink farther into the couch.

“Bad enough.”

“I can go kill him a little. Would that help?”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitches.

“Yaga would write you up.”

“Worth it.”

You are quiet long enough that he stops trying to be funny.

When he speaks again, he sounds more like Satoru and less like Gojo.

“You don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t want to. But I need you to know nobody in that building thinks this is on you.”

Your throat tightens for the thousandth time since last night.

“Students will talk.”

“They always do.”

“They’ll say I spent three days at his house.”

“They’ll also say I eat three thousand calories of sugar before noon and half of that is true.”

You bark out a laugh before you can stop it.

There is victory in the silence on his end.

Then, softer,

“Let them talk. Anyone who matters will hear the truth from us.”

Us.

You press the heel of your hand into your chest, right over the ache there.

“Thank you.”

“Want me to tell you something annoying?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Nanami threatened to punch Sukuna in the throat if he so much as looked smug this morning.”

That pulls another startled laugh out of you, weak but real. Nanami is not one for threats or casual violence.

“Shoko had to intervene,” he continues, clearly pleased with himself now. “Suguru said very politely that if Sukuna intended to say anything about the situation in public, he should first decide how much dignity he was prepared to lose.”

You rub at your face.

“Why are all of you telling me this like it’s supposed to help.”

“Because it should. You’re not alone in this.”

He lets that settle before adding, deliberately light,

“Also because Nanami furious is a top-tier visual. Really hot. You should have seen.”

You let him talk for another ten minutes. Mostly nonsense. Mostly stories about students setting small fires during training. It helps in the way background music helps when you do not want to hear your own thoughts too clearly.

After the call, the apartment feels less like a sealed jar.

Not better. Just survivable.

The next few days pass in odd, broken segments.

You do not go to campus.

Yaga sends forms. You fill them out. Your handwriting starts neat and gets more vicious with every page.

Shoko drops by twice more. Once with clothes she had left in the staff room. Once with grading from your substitute because the woman assigned your classes has no idea how to read your shorthand notes. You end up marking essays at your kitchen table in borrowed quiet, red pen stabbing into paper harder than necessary while Shoko smokes out the window and occasionally says things like “this kid has no sense of paragraph structure” and “if you transfer permanently I’m stealing your good stapler.”

Suguru sends tea with no note.

Nanami sends a bottle of expensive headache medicine with the message “For the next time he decides to be insufferable within your vicinity.” Which is either dry humor or a threat, and from him it could honestly be both.

Sukuna sends nothing.

That should comfort you a bit, but all it does is make you bitter.

Because your mind, traitorous thing that it is, starts filling the silence with possibilities.

Is he laughing about it? Has he already moved on because to him it was a single entertaining day and you are the only fool still carrying it? Is he angry? Amused? Annoyed by the paperwork? Indifferent?

Indifferent is the one that hurts most.

On the fourth morning Yaga asks you to come in after hours to clear your office before the transfer is officially logged.

You stare at the message for a long time.

Part of you wants to refuse. Have someone else box your books. Let your desk sit untouched until moss grows over it.

But the thought of strangers touching your lecture notes, your annotated copies of technique manuals, the mug one of the third-years painted for you as a joke last winter, your little stack of confiscated novelty charms and ridiculous stress toys taken from students during exams—

No.

Those are yours.

So you go.

The school in late afternoon feels wrong with summer light turning long across the grounds and you arriving like a visitor.

Your shoes know the paths anyway. Up the stone steps. Past the side corridor. Across the courtyard where the younger students usually gather with too much energy and nowhere to put it.

You see none of them now. Classes are done. Training mostly over. The buildings hold that strange between-time hush where a school is still full of people but no longer loud.

Your office door sticks the same way it always has.

You push it open and stop on the threshold.

Everything is exactly where you left it.

The stack of papers angled wrong on your desk. The scarf over the back of your chair. Your chalk tin open by the window. Half a pack of throat lozenges in the top drawer. The sight of it all squeezes your chest so hard you nearly step back out again.

This was your place.

Not just employment. Not just a room. A small square of order you built inside a hectic life. Lessons planned here. Students encouraged here. Failures absorbed here and turned into strategies for next time.

You set the empty box Yaga gave you on the desk and stand there, breathing through your nose, until the urge to cry passes.

Then you start.

Books first.

Files.

Desk drawer.

The silly mug gets wrapped in old worksheets because you did not bring newspaper.

You are halfway through your bottom cabinet when a knock lands lightly against the doorframe.

You look up too fast and pain flashes behind your eyes.

It is not him.

Just one of your second-years, hovering uncertainly with two others behind him. Their faces shift from surprise to embarrassment the second they see the box.

“Sensei,” the boy says, voice smaller than usual. “We heard you were here.”

You straighten slowly.

“You’re supposed to be gone.”

One of the girls fidgets with the hem of her sleeve.

“We wanted to say goodbye.”

The sentence hits hard enough that you have to look away for a second.

“It’s not forever.”

Which is true in the bureaucratic sense and maybe false in every other one.

The three of them shuffle inside anyway. Awkward. Earnest. Too young to know how to make loss graceful and therefore doing it honestly, which is worse.

The tallest one sets a paper bag on your desk.

“We got pastries.”

“We are bribing you not to forget us,” the girl says, attempting sternness and failing because her eyes are already shining.

Your throat closes.

You end up sitting on the edge of your desk while they talk in overlapping bursts about stupid class moments from the year. About the time you made them redo an entire exercise because their formations were sloppy and one of them cried from frustration and you sat with her after until she got it right. About the first-years who are terrified of Nanami. About whether Kyoto students are snobs. About whether you will come back for the joint training event in winter.

You answer what you can. You smile where it does not hurt too much. When they finally leave, the pastry bag sits warm in your hands from where one of them nearly forced it on you.

The silence after them is unbearable for a full minute.

Then footsteps sound again in the corridor.

Heavy. Familiar. Unhurried.

Your body knows before your mind lets the knowledge form.

Every muscle in you goes rigid.

He fills the doorway a second later.

There is no curse in him now. No dream-sick fixation. No fevered certainty disguised as domestic calm.

Just Sukuna.

Tall enough to make the frame around him look insufficient. Broad shoulders catching the last amber light from the hall. Tattoos stark against visible skin above the collar of his uniform. All four eyes fixed on you with an intensity that makes your stomach clench in instant, furious memory.

He looks annoyingly fine.

You hate that first.

Then you hate that the next thought is relief.

Because he is fine. Because your technique did not do lasting damage. Because the part of you that still cares reaches for confirmation before anger can cut it down.

His gaze flicks once to the box on your desk.

“Leaving.”

Not a question.

You set the pastry bag down with deliberate care.

“Congratulations. You still know how to identify obvious things.”

The corner of his mouth tilts in a way that would have wrecked your composure a week ago.

Not now.

Not now.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him.

“No.”

He stops.

The quiet that follows is knife-thin.

You keep your voice level through force alone.

“You don’t get to close doors around me anymore.”

For the first time since he entered, something shifts in his face. Not enough to be guilt. That would be too human, too easy. But something. A recognition, maybe, that the room is not his to shape.

He opens the door again.

Better.

You turn back to your cabinet because looking at him directly right now might make you either shake or throw something, and you refuse to grant him either.

“If you’re here to gloat, do it quickly. I have work,” you say flat, refusing any feeling to bleed into your voice.

His voice, when it comes, is lower than usual.

“I did not come to gloat.”

You let out a small, disbelieving breath through your nose.

“Then your self-awareness has improved with the concussion I hope I gave you.”

He says your name.

Just that.

No title. No taunt. No wife in that maddening dark voice that had gotten under your skin so badly you still wake hearing echoes of it.

Your hands still.

You close the cabinet harder than necessary and straighten.

“Stop.”

He goes quiet again.

The hurt of it surprises you.

That he listened.

That he can listen when he wants to, and chose not to when it really mattered.

You turn to face him fully at last.

The distance between you is not much. Far too little for how much space you feel you need.

“What do you want?”

His eyes move over your face with that same terrible attentiveness from his house, only cleaner now, stripped of the curse’s haze. You can see the calculation in it. The restraint. He is choosing his words for once.

It almost makes you angrier.

“I wanted to know whether you meant it.”

You stare.

He continues, voice even.

“The transfer.”

The shock of the question is so absurd it turns instantly into fury.

“You thought I was bluffing?”

“I thought you were angry.”

“I am angry.”

“I can see.”

The agreement is so calm it feels like insult.

Your laugh comes out sharp as broken glass.

“You thought this was something I’d cool down from in a few days and what? Go back to cleaning your bullshit and babysitting you?”

He does not answer fast enough.

That is answer enough.

Something in you surges up hard and hot and final.

You step toward him before you can decide not to, jamming a finger into the center of his chest.

“You do not get to stand there and look confused, Sukuna. You do not get to act like this outcome appeared from the sky. You lied to me! You did it deliberately because you’re a sick fuck.”

His gaze drops briefly to your hand against him. He does not move it.

“You knew the curse was gone.”

“Yes.”

“You let me believe—”

“Yes.”

The clean, unashamed honesty of it nearly blinds you with rage.

“You let me think all of it was because you were infected with some ridiculous fixation out of your control! You let me keep managing my own behavior around you on false information and for what? You let me speak to you honestly while you knew exactly what I believed!” Your voice is rising now. You do not care. “And then you told me you wanted to see how far I’d go with you because you thought it would be funny to toy with my feelings? Fuck you!”

His jaw tightens.

Good.

You want some part of this to reach him beneath all that stone and appetite and ego.

“You want to know if I meant the transfer?” you say. “Yes. Because I can deal with you being cruel on a daily basis. I can deal with you being arrogant. I can deal with you being the most insufferable bastard in any room you walk into. That is normal. That is Tuesday. What I cannot do is let you make a spectacle out of my trust and some stupid vulnerability and then expect me to walk back into work beside you like nothing happened. I’m transferring because I can’t fucking stand you anymore.”

The last words come out rougher than you intended. Emotion finally catches on the edges.

You hate that too.

Sukuna’s face changes almost imperceptibly.

Not softer, but the satisfaction you expected is absent. The smug amusement. The sharp, pleased cruelty.

In its place is something more complicated and therefore less bearable.

“I did not make a spectacle of it,” he says but it does nothing for you.

The understatement is so monstrous you almost laugh again. Instead you just look at him.

At the man who carried you out of a broken hallway because a curse told him you were his. At the man who cooked for you and fixed your clothes and let you fall asleep wrapped around him. At the same man who sat across from you at dinner, wine in hand, already free, and watched you bloom under something he knew you believed to be false.

“You don’t even hear yourself,” you say quietly.

He is silent.

The anger does not drain. It cools. Settles. Becomes something steadier and more lethal than shouting.

“I liked that day,” you tell him coolly, and the admission hurts enough that your eyes sting instantly. “That is the part you don’t understand because… I don’t even know why you don’t understand. If I’d hated it, this would be so simple. I liked it. I liked the brunch and the park and the dinner and the stupid flower and sitting there by the lake thinking for a few hours that maybe I could have something easy for once before it maybe disappeared and we went back to the same bullshit. I liked you.”

The last word hangs there between you, bare and ugly and true.

All four of his eyes narrow, not in anger but in concentration so intense it makes your skin prickle.

You keep going because if you stop now you will never get it all out.

“And you took that knowing it rested on a lie for fun instead of just coming clean. So no, this is not me being dramatic. This is me refusing to keep working next to someone who can see my trust and think the best use for it is to test how much more he can get off on stepping over it again and again.”

For the first time since you started, Sukuna looks wrong-footed.

It would almost be satisfying if you were not suddenly so tired.

He says your name again, slower.

You step back before he can decide what to do with that.

“Fuck off.”

“I did not lie about all of it.”

You go very still.

There it is.

The thing you dreaded almost more than mockery.

Not denial. Not dismissal. Not him laughing in your face and calling you a fool.

Something worse.

A partial truth.

A hand reaching back toward the wound as if clarification might help.

You feel your expression close all at once.

“That is not your choice to salvage.”

His mouth sets hard.

“You think I would spend my day like that with someone I did not want.”

The words slam into you with enough force to make your breath hitch.

Not because you want to hear them.

Because you do. Gods, you do.

Because some starving, humiliated part of you has been waiting since the bench for exactly this cruelty — the possibility that the affection was real, that he was real, that only the context was false, and that somehow makes it better.

It does not.

It makes it worse.

You straighten your spine until it hurts.

“That would have been useful information before you decided to play with me.”

Something sharp flashes across his face then, quick as steel catching sun. Anger, maybe. Or the wounded pride of being told no in a language he cannot parry.

“I was not playing with you.”

“No?” Your voice goes cold. “Then what do you call it when a man keeps a woman in the dark on purpose to see how much tenderness he can pull out of her before she notices he’s just messing with her?”

He says nothing.

You nod once.

“Exactly.”

The silence expands. Outside in the corridor someone laughs far away, unaware that the air in this room could cut.

When Sukuna speaks again, his tone is lower, stripped back in a way you have heard only rarely, usually in battle just before violence.

“I misjudged.”

You almost laugh at the poverty of that.

“Yes,” you say. “You did.”

He looks at the box again. At the books. At the visible proof that consequences have mass.

“You would leave the school for this?”

The phrasing does it. Not the content. The phrasing.

For this.

As if the injury is abstract. As if the cost is unfortunate but puzzling. As if your leaving is the extreme variable rather than his choice.

Your hands start to shake again, this time from anger alone.

“I would leave the school because I can’t teach well while flinching every time I hear your footsteps in the corridor,” you say. “I would leave because I refuse to stand in a staff room beside someone who knows exactly how badly he humiliated me. I would leave because I worked too hard to build a life I respect just to let you turn me into your private joke.”

That lands.

You see it land.

He goes still in the dangerous way he does when something finally pierces the armor enough to matter.

“You were not—” he pauses, recalculates. “You are not a joke to me.”

You believe him.

You believe he means that exactly as spoken, and that the gap between his meaning and the damage is vast enough to swallow cities.

You look at him for a long moment, this impossible man with too many eyes and too much power and too little understanding of what other people’s tenderness costs them, and something in you finally gives up trying to bridge the distance.

“It doesn’t matter,” you mutter.

His jaw tightens again.

“It matters to me.”

There is no point pretending that does not hit.

It does. It hits because it is too late, because it may be honest, because you wanted something like that from him so badly without ever letting yourself name it.

You close your eyes once, briefly, then open them again.

“If it mattered to you,” you say carefully, “you should have acted like it before.”

He has no answer for that.

At last.

No answer. No clever cruelty. No smug turn of phrase. Nothing.

Just a man built like a disaster standing in the doorway of your office while the reality of his own behavior sits between you too heavy for either of you to step around.

You turn away first.

Not because you are yielding.

Because you are done.

You pick up another stack of papers and lower them into the box with painstaking care. Your fingers are clumsy now, adrenaline wearing off too fast. The room feels colder.

Behind you, he does not move for so long that when he finally does, the sound of fabric shifting makes your whole body tense.

“I will not stop the transfer,” he says.

You nod once without looking at him.

“Good.”

Another pause.

Then, quieter,

“I do not want you to go.”

Your hands stop on the edge of the box.

The words slice too cleanly through everything.

You stare down at your own knuckles whitening against cardboard and refuse to turn around. Refuse to let your face be seen with that fresh ache opening under your ribs.

Because there it is.

The thing you wanted.

Too late.

Too badly timed.

Too compromised to touch.

Tainted.

If he had said it at the bench before the cruelty. If he had said it in the kitchen that morning instead of pressing kisses behind your ear and hiding behind the remains of a curse. If he had said it on the second day when you were half asleep against him and still foolish enough to think softness might survive daylight.

Now it is almost unbearable.

You swallow until your throat works again.

“Then next time you want something,” you say without turning, “try treating it like it matters before you break it, yeah?”

When he leaves, he does it without another word.

You hear the retreat of his steps down the corridor. Heavy. Measured. Then gone.

Only then do you let your forehead rest against the edge of the open cabinet and breathe through the hurt until it passes enough for you to keep packing.

By the time you leave campus, the sky is deep blue and the air smells like rain.

The box is heavier than it should be. Your arms ache carrying it to your car.

You set it in the passenger seat and stand there a moment with the driver’s door open, watching the dark windows of the school reflect the last smear of twilight. Somewhere inside those walls is your classroom, your desk, your students’ half-finished projects. Somewhere inside them is Sukuna too, alive and infuriating and maybe more sincere than you want to know now that sincerity costs you this much.

You grip the top of the car door until the metal bites your palm.

Then you get in and drive home.

The transfer paperwork is finalized on Friday.

You sign where told.

Kyoto wants you Monday.

That night your apartment is full of boxes only half packed because you keep stopping to stare at things. Lecture notes. Old student gifts. The scarf from your office chair. The pastry bag from your second-years, now folded flat and tucked inside a book because you could not bring yourself to throw it away.

Rain taps softly at the window.

Your phone lies silent on the table.

You sit cross-legged on the floor amid the pieces of the life you are dismantling and let the ache in your chest settle into something more honest than fury.

Not smaller in any sense, cleaner.

You are hurt.

You are proud enough to leave.

You are angry enough to keep leaving.

And underneath all that, humiliatingly, tenderly, you are mourning something that came into your hands half real and half rotten, something you would have nurtured if only it had been given to you clean.

You rest your head back against the couch and close your eyes.

By morning you will finish packing. By afternoon you will be on the road. By Monday you will stand in a new classroom and introduce yourself to new students and build something useful again because that is what you do. You teach. You steady. You make the next generation stronger than the last. No one, not even Sukuna, gets to take that from you.

But tonight, alone with the rain and the boxes and the ghost of sandalwood finally fading from everything you own, you let yourself grieve the day by the lake, the flower from the tree, the warmth of a body too large to fit comfortably in any ordinary life, and the terrible, impossible fact that if he had only chosen honesty one day sooner, you might have stayed.

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.

i hope you're enjoying it so far <33

౨ৎ taglist ; OPEN. age must be visible in bio. 18+ only. @lilrosyhaven @tiny-mimi @grimm3r @yujisredkicks @knittybritty98 @sukunahs @saezzi @epicderpface @ynishalee @pandabiene5115 @silibiliballs @ane5e @feyrinnn @jkslvsnella @maomimii @megumuro @beereadzzz @beaniesayshi @ryomeowie @suguusatoo @gojosoups @yenayaps @m3owr3ow @tohru-tales @crimzie129 @lostgxrlblog @sterzin @scaraamo @sunyomz @norahlolzz @whateverineedsblog @buttclencher28 @blueemochii @pequnopastel @cupidxml @saintdilucc @officiallydrunk @yvannaille @brazzigy @ilovebeansyay @deewrites01 @martianzmars @volleyballgirl2022 @mtchamnsta @astrokenny @ge3ked @ri-sa20 @heichouaack @iluvgetosuguru @winkii

Tap.

Your already frayed nervous system completely misfires. A choked, involuntary shriek of pure terror tears in your throat before you can smother it. Your hands slam down and frantically shove off the desk, sending your chair crashing back until it hits the wall. Even then, you can’t look away from the disgusting thing sitting on your papers.

It’s a completely desiccated eye, or at least you think it is. It’s a shriveled, leathery ball about the size of a big grape, dull gray in color. It isn’t wet or slimy—just dry and brittle, more like something preserved than a living organ. The black pupil is still  horribly visible, a tiny frozen dot that seems to stare straight at you.

Sukuna gives himself exactly five glorious seconds to simply watch your complete breakdown. Then he throws his head back and lets out a loud, booming laugh, full of pure, unadulterated delight. He looks at your shaking, panicked form against the wall and leans on the edge of your desk, crossing one arm over his chest while the other large hand rests right beside the specimen.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he rasps, his voice thick and shaking with the raw force of his amusement as he takes in the white-knuckled, death-grip you have on the chair’s armrests. A slow smile stretches his lips when he nudges the dry sphere a centimeter closer to your side of the desk with the tip of his finger. “It’s not even wet or moving. Why are you screaming?”

You didn’t even realize you’d made a sound. Heat rushes to your face in a deep blush of embarrassment, but you can’t peel your eyes away from the grotesque thing.

“The first-years wiped out a nest this morning,” he says casually, tilting his head slightly. “Grade 3. Weak, pathetic little parasites.” His grin sharpens while he watches your expression carefully. “This one kept staring after they crushed the rest of it.”

“What,” you manage to choke out after an agonizing moment, your voice a pitiful croak, your throat feeling impossibly dry, “is wrong with you?”

That only makes him laugh harder. The sound crashes heavily through the office as he looks entirely pleased with himself and the terror he’s effortlessly caused.

"Consider it a souvenir... princess," he purrs, the condescending title dripping from his lips as he actively savors the tight, painful hitch in your breathing. “I knew you’d like it.”

Your stomach clenches and twists into a tighter knot. You hate the genuine enjoyment on his face. The worst part is that the thing itself barely matters now. The eye is disgusting, yes, but not truly dangerous compared to everything else about him. What bothers you most is knowing Sukuna saw some shriveled thing during the mission and immediately thought of you.

He finally lets out the last bit of laughter and straightens from the desk. A faint, triumphant amusement lingers in the corners of his mouth, but his attention is already drifting, bored with the aftermath of his game. The pressure of his cursed energy doesn’t fade, staying heavy in the room long after his gaze leaves you.

There’s no real need for weaving today, but Sukuna wants it anyway. The feeling from yesterday surprised him. For him, the state of his energy after fighting is like a dull toothache he’s constantly aware of and can’t easily ignore, or a phantom itch deep in a muscle he can’t reach. It’s a constant background noise he’s simply learned to live with.

The first time you touched him, the difference was barely registering, but yesterday it was distinctly, and strangely, bigger. A small part of that constant, grating awareness had simply gone quiet. It wasn’t entirely gone, and he doubted it ever could be, but the constant itch has eased a fraction, even if he cannot pinpoint where the change originates. Today, he can still feel it less irritating than it was forty-eight hours ago, and he wants more of that silence.

“Stop shaking,” he barks, his voice dropping into a dangerous, flat tone that cuts through your panic. “Get up.”

He doesn’t need to explain for you to understand. Your fingers grip the chair’s armrests while your body stays stubbornly frozen for one second too long, exhaustion still weighing heavily in your muscles. Your reserves didn’t recover nearly enough for another full session so soon. Judging by Sukuna’s look, he doesn’t care.

“I... my reserves haven't fully recovered,” you whisper anyway, the honesty feeling like a confession of weakness.

Sukuna’s eyes narrow, a cruel curve to his mouth mocking your hesitation. “I didn't ask for a status report. I said get up.” The second command is colder.

Before he decides your reaction time has become irritating, you force yourself upright. The abrupt movement immediately sends a wave of dizziness over you. Your body is still so strained that even this simple act makes your balance waver for a second. Sukuna watches the entire pathetic process with mild disdain before pushing away from the desk.

“Move.”

The command sends you shuffling uncertainly to the center of the office, farther away from both the desk and the couch. Cold dread settles in your stomach as soon as you stop. Yesterday, you at least had something nearby to brace against when the cursed energy overload began tearing through your nervous system. Here, you have nothing.

Sukuna follows you slowly. The pressure in the room grows heavier with each step he takes until your pulse starts to race before he even reaches you. Your body remembers too well what happens when you touch him: the overload, the nausea, and the violent pressure of his cursed energy crashing through your senses, blurring your vision as your technique pushes against the tangled buildup.

He stops directly in front of you, gesturing with a lazy, almost bored flick of his hand to you. “Do that again.”

There’s no mockery or amusement in his voice now. It’s more unsettling than if he had laughed, because for the first time since this arrangement started, Sukuna sounds truly impatient for the weaving itself.

Even though fear still claws relentlessly at your chest, your body moves faster this time when you finally raise your hand toward him. Instinct has already taught you that hesitation accomplishes nothing but making the wait worse before the inevitable contact.

Sukuna exhales sharply through his nose, visibly irritated by the minimal delay anyway. “About fucking time.”

After trying to swallow a hard knot in your throat, you press your hand against his chest. The impact of touching his cursed energy still slams through your nervous system, making your breathing catch.

Even in a somewhat improved state, every pulse of Sukuna’s colossal cursed energy crashes brutally through your senses as your technique hooks into the fractured buildup again. It’s still overwhelmingly compacted, almost solid, but the small section you smoothed yesterday still exists somewhere deeper within the structure, like microscopic channels forced between layers. Unfortunately, the difference it creates is still far too small to let you weave as you would with anyone else, leaving you with no choice but to take the exact same approach as before.

Without wasting energy exploring the structure again, you press most of your cursed energy hard against the first compacted section you find, forcing a narrow separation between the layers. The immense strain tears through your limited reserves, leaving just enough for the thinnest threads of your technique to slip in and smooth the splintered, jagged edges before the structure threatens to collapse in on itself again.

“Tck. The weakest, most pitiful output on this campus,” he mocks dismissively, but weaving steals all your attention, and the insult barely registers.

It’s grueling, repetitive work that leaves your head spinning. The heat of his presence mixes with your heightened senses until your world shrinks to the small patch of fabric under your trembling fingers. Your breathing turns ragged and uneven from the effort, and exhaustion drains your muscles far faster than you’d like. Sharp pain shoots up your arm from the constant output, and your hand shakes harder the longer you keep contact, but you don’t let go until the jagged edges finally yield and smooth out.

Sukuna stays perfectly still, watching the sweat on your forehead as he takes in the rough, almost violent way you have to use your delicate technique on him. When your hand finally slips away from his chest, your fingers are numb and your vision flickers with black spots.

The sudden loss of contact makes dizziness crash through your head, and your balance immediately tilts sideways. Your knees nearly buckle, your body finally giving up the fight to remain upright after burning through almost all your cursed energy. Your reserves just aren’t big enough for weaving sessions this close together.

You barely manage half a step before a large hand clamps tightly around your upper arm. The grip jerks you upright so hard your shoulder aches. Sukuna lets out a low chuckle; letting you fall and crack your skull open on the floor would be an inconvenient nuisance he has no desire to deal with, especially now that the weaving has finally yielded what he sought and left him craving more.

“Pathetic,” he says lazily, watching your chest rise and fall desperately as your breathing struggles against the pressure filling the room. He can sense that you didn’t manage to ease the itch as deeply as you did yesterday, but a subtle difference is still there. The silence you’ve forced into his energy is undeniably real. “You can barely handle a fraction of it without looking ready to collapse.”

Sukuna’s grip on your arm stays crushingly firm as your body struggles to steady itself under the lingering overload tearing through your nerves. Your vision still isn’t steady either. The room keeps spinning at the edges every time your pulse spikes too sharply from the aftermath of the weaving.

He watches the tremble in your legs and the effort it takes for you to remain standing as his cursed energy presses through the room around both of you. Then, abruptly and without the slightest warning, his grip vanishes entirely.

The sudden loss of support almost sends you stumbling sideways again before you manage to catch yourself this time, forcing your exhausted body to lock your knees so you don’t fall. Your skin throbs where his fingers dug in just moments ago.

Another quiet, dismissive laugh leaves him at the reaction.

“You look worse every time,” Sukuna muses lazily, a faint amusement replacing his earlier irritation. “Maybe your body’s finally realizing what it’s touching.”

Your stomach clenches into a cold, unpleasant knot.

The strangest part of this arrangement is that the weaving is over, he got what he wanted, and there’s no real reason for him to stay, and yet he does. After his boredom with simply watching you reaches its limit, he turns away and strolls back to your desk.

The dried eye still sits on your paperwork where he left it. He picks it up between two fingers, glances at it, then drops it back onto the report with another hard click. Then he throws himself onto your couch, sinking into the cushions like he has every intention of settling in for the foreseeable future. All the while, he makes absolutely certain to flood the room with his cursed energy, keeping it heavy and pervasive enough that your body never fully relaxes, even with several meters of safe distance between you.

You stand and stare at the disgusting object on your desk for a long, exhausted moment. Meanwhile, Sukuna stretches one arm across the back of the couch and closes his eyes, as if he belongs here now.

-

The days start to blend together. You wake up, go to work, sit at your desk, and at some point, the door opens without a knock. After that, the next few hours become harder to track. Sukuna doesn’t need an excuse or a mission to show up anymore; he just appears whenever he wants, taking over your office. What used to be a frightening surprise when the door opened has become a predictable, daily intrusion you’ve learned to endure in silence.

He’s there every day, stretched out on the cushions, while his cursed energy fills the room and makes it hard to focus even before he starts interfering directly. He’s relentless in his boredom; sometimes he watches you work in complete silence for almost an hour, then grabs your reports and reads them out loud in a mocking tone. He wanders around, touching things just to distract you, or leans over your shoulder to watch your hand tremble as you write. One afternoon, he snaps a pen in half between his fingers while staring directly at you the entire time, just to see how you’ll react.

What’s worse, you start adapting to his presence without realizing it. You find yourself instinctively shifting your body and adjusting your movements carefully around him to avoid even the slightest accidental contact as he makes himself at home in your space. You stop leaving stacks of paperwork near the edge of the desk because he always knocks it off, or you start working on reports late in the evening because experience has already taught you that if you start in the morning, there’s a decent chance he’ll eventually show up and ruin your focus, or, on not-so-rare occasions, your work.

The cycle of his activity leaves you with less and less time to recover between the moments when your hands are pressed against his chest. While the big missions happen less often now, his demand for the weaving only grows more persistent because he can feel the contrast by now and has gotten used to the calm you force into his energy. The parts you’ve already worked through stay intact, but new splinters form whenever he uses his techniques again. Even so, there is less of it than at the beginning, and the frayed edges aren’t as tightly packed, but you still end each session more exhausted than you expect. That’s why it never gets easier.

You reach for things on your desk and notice they’re not where you left them. It never stops bothering you, but you keep working anyway. More often than not, however, you feel trapped by the endless biting and mocking comments, and the mess he leaves behind serves as a permanent, stinging reminder that he doesn’t see you as a person—just as a fascinating, resilient toy he hasn’t quite figured out how to break yet.

By the end of the third week, you sit at your desk, staring at the door after it closes behind Sukuna. The room is quiet again, but it still doesn’t feel empty.

After a moment, you push away from your desk and head to Yaga’s office before you can talk yourself out of it. When you get there, you don’t give yourself time to hesitate and knock right away.

“Enter,” comes the muffled command.

You slide the door open to find Yaga sitting at his desk, surrounded by his half-finished cursed corpses. He looks up, his dark sunglasses reflecting the dim light of the room. For a long moment, he simply studies you.

“I need a favor, Principal,” you start, surprised that your voice is steady, though you find yourself smoothing the fabric of your pants to keep your hands from shaking. “And I think it will help the school as much as it helps me.”

Yaga pauses, letting the doll in his hand go limp for a moment. His shoulders tense, as if he’s expecting a tough request. His gaze remains fixed on you, unreadable behind the tint of his lenses.

“I’ve been looking at the curriculum for the first and second years. Or, rather, the lack of it. And I’ve seen Ijichi’s schedule,” you say, shaking your head as the image of the man's perpetually exhausted, graying face flashes in your mind. You take another step into the room, your gestures growing more animated as you speak. “Between driving sorcerers to mission sites, setting up curtains, and acting as Gojo’s personal errand runner for everything that isn't in his contract, he’s barely surviving. He doesn’t have the time to properly teach trigonometry or calculus, and the students are the ones suffering for it.”

Yaga lets out a low, barely audible hum of agreement, finally looking back down to adjust a piece of fabric on his desk. He knows better than anyone that Ijichi is the school’s most overworked resource.

“I’m already here full-time. If I take over teaching math, it would really help Ijichi,” you say, twisting your fingers behind your back as you try to sound logical. “I can’t just sit in my office for ten hours a day, waiting for the door to open. I need something else to focus on, something with rules and logic.” Your voice gets quieter as you admit, “If I have a routine that isn't just... him... I think I'll be more effective when he actually is there.”

The principal leans back. He’s acutely aware of the orders you received from the Higher-Ups and that you’re essentially stuck in your room when Sukuna is on the campus. He weighs the pros and cons. If you teach, it takes a big load off the Windows and assistant managers, and the students get a teacher who cares about them. More importantly, it gives you a chance to be someone besides Sukuna’s Weaver.

“Ijichi has mentioned that trying to teach the first-years anything while also handling mission reports is a losing battle. Itadori, especially, seems to have a unique talent for avoiding understanding math, no matter how simple it is,” Yaga says, with a faint frown on his face as he looks at you over the top of his glasses. “General studies have always come second here. The assistant managers do what they can, but their main job is mission support.”

He pauses, pulling a thread tight with a sharp snap that fills the room. “Satoru, even if he wanted to teach, is many things, but a provider of a stable learning environment isn’t one of them. He’s too chaotic and unpredictable. Atsuya’s patience is far too thin for that, and Sukuna...” He lets out a dry huff, almost like a laugh, and shakes his head. “Well, Sukuna only cares if they survive a hit.”

He picks up his needle again, showing he’s already made his decision.

“If you want the job, it’s yours. It’ll give Ijichi one less thing to worry about—maybe even keep him from crashing his car from lack of sleep—and it’ll give the kids some structure they really need.” He pauses, holding the needle in the air, then adds bluntly in a lower voice, “Just remember, math is logical. Sukuna isn’t. Don’t let the comfort of numbers make you forget who you’re dealing with. He might follow my rule about not killing the students, but he’ll make your life a headache if he thinks your new job is amusing.”

“I know,” you say, nodding quickly as genuine relief washes over you for the first time in weeks. “But I’d rather deal with that kind of headache than go crazy staring at my walls all day until I lose my mind.”

“Fair enough.” Yaga nods, already focused on his work again. “I’ll have the materials and class schedule sent to your office. Just don’t expect the kids to thank you when they see how much homework you give them.”

-

The first-years’ classroom is just three doors down from your office. It’s smaller than you thought it would be, but it feels much cozier than the classrooms you remember from your own school days. Morning sunlight slips through the windows, lighting up dust that floats slowly in the air. Outside, you can barely hear the muffled sounds of birds and the second-years’ training drills. The room feels strangely calm.

You stand by the board for a moment before class officially starts, shuffling your lesson plans in your hands out of nervous habit and running your fingers along the edges of the papers. Your attention keeps drifting unconsciously toward the door to the hallway.

The building is quiet, but after almost three weeks of Sukuna showing up without warning, you’ve started to listen for the specific, terrifying weight of his presence. Your heart beats a little too fast, like a quiet survival instinct is always there, whether you want it or not.

A fluttery lightness replaces your dread for a moment as the first-years come in. Megumi is first, seemingly bored until he sees you at the front. He blinks a few times with a frown, surprised to see you instead of the always-tired Ijichi. You give him a small, reassuring nod and point to the desks in the middle of the room.

Nobara comes in less than a minute later, looking annoyed by the concept of morning itself, and drops into an empty chair. Yuji is the last to arrive. He almost trips over the threshold because he’s already bowing and apologizing for being late before his feet are even fully inside the room.

“You’re actually thirty seconds early, Yuji,” you say, glancing at your watch with a small smile.

“Oh!” He stops mid-step, almost stumbling forward from the sudden stop.

He tilts his head at you, looking genuinely confused for a heartbeat, then suddenly brightens. A big grin spreads across his face as he shuffles to his chair and sits down with the boundless energy that seems to define him.

Once they’re settled, you set your papers on the teacher’s desk and lean against it. You consciously pull your focus away from the hallway and pin it to the three students in front of you, determined to give them at least an hour of normal, boring education.

“So. I’m officially taking over your general math classes from the assistant managers,” you announce.

Nobara perks up, leaning forward with her chin in her hand. “Ijichi finally died?” she asks, sounding hopeful.

“No, he’s very much alive,” you reply, unable to hide a small smile. “But I think trying to manage Gojo’s schedule almost did him in.”

Yuji snorts into his sleeve, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Megumi lowers his head, but you notice him biting his lip to hide a small smile.

“Actually, I had a long talk with Principal Yaga, and we agreed that Ijichi has too much on his plate. With Satoru’s unpredictable requests and all the mission planning, he’s barely keeping up,” you continue, your tone softening with genuine sympathy for the man. “He shouldn't have to worry about your general studies while he's busy driving you across the country and handling everything else.”

“So no more solving for X in the back of the car?” Nobara asks, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes, sounding skeptical but not too upset. “I’m pretty sure half my last test was marked wrong just because his driving made my handwriting impossible to read.”

“Exactly,” you say, smiling as you turn to the board. “I want to see where everyone is. We’ll work through a few problems together and—” You notice Yuji’s shoulders slump and his face fall into despair. “—Relax, Yuji. It’s not a test. No grades today.”

“Somehow,” he mutters, putting his forehead on the desk, “that sounds worse.”

Nobara huffs loudly and rolls her eyes at him. “You’re definitely the reason we’re doing this. I hope you’re happy.”

“I’m literally not!” Yuji protests, sitting up straight and waving his arms defensively.

You grab a marker before their bickering turns into a real argument and decide to take it easy on them. You write the first equation on the board:

2(x - 3) + 4 = 10

“I’m less interested in the answer and more in how you get there. Talk me through your reasoning out loud—no silent thinking,” you say, stepping aside so they can see the board. “How would you start?”

“Oh, I got this!” Yuji blurts out. He doesn’t even reach for a pen or paper; he leans so far forward he’s almost out of his chair, eyes narrowed at the board with intense focus. Nobara looks annoyed that he volunteered first. “Okay, so ten minus four is six, right? And then the thing should become three, and three minus three is zero, so x equals zero.”

Megumi already looks tired and rubs his temples. You stare at Yuji for a long, silent moment, trying to figure out the mental gymnastics he just performed to get to that answer.

At the same time, Nobara’s hand shoots out to point at him. “That made absolutely no sense.”

“It DID in my head.”

“That’s the problem!”

Yuji turns to you with wide, hopeful eyes. “I got close, though, right? The logic was solid?”

“You skipped so many steps, I honestly don’t know how you arrived at zero,” you admit.

Nobara snorts and stands up before you can even think of calling on her. She grabs another marker from the tray and rewrites the equation under yours: 2x - 3 + 4 = 10

“Six,” Megumi says before you can stop her from writing further.

Nobara freezes, then slowly turns to glare at him. “I know that, Fushiguro. I was getting there.”

“You just wrote it wrong,” Megumi points out, gesturing at her work and already sounding tired even though class started less than ten minutes ago. “It’s inside the parentheses. Two multiplies both terms.”

Stepping closer to the board again, you tap the marker against your palm and rewrite the equation under Nobara’s attempt. As you explain the order of operations, you notice your shoulders finally relax. Your voice steadies, and by the time you finish solving the equation with them, you’re gesturing naturally, the marker becoming an extension of your thoughts rather than a distraction.

The second problem goes more smoothly. You write the new system under the first equation while the students copy it down.

x + y = 10 x - y = 2

“This time,” you say, setting the marker down, “don’t try to solve it right away. Tell me what the equations are describing first.”

Yuji frowns at the board, mouthing words to himself for a few seconds as he thinks. Suddenly, his expression changes and his eyes widen.

“So one number is bigger than the other by two. And together they make ten,” he continues, leaning further over the desk now and talking faster. “So if they were both five, then one of them just needs to steal one from the other. That means… six and four.”

A moment of stunned silence settles over the room because, despite the wording being unconventional and bordering on ridiculous, the logic itself is completely correct. Nobara glares at him like she’s absolutely pissed by this.

“There’s no way YOU understood that faster than me,” she hisses, slamming her pen on the desk.

Yuji points triumphantly across the room with a grin. “I told you I’m not bad at math.”

“You absolutely are.”

The hour passes in a rhythm that feels surprisingly pleasant and grounded. It isn't smooth, exactly—Yuji continues to approach half the problems with just enthusiasm, and Nobara gets more irritated each time Megumi finishes an equation before she’s even halfway through. Still, it all feels real.

But the chaos gets easier to handle once you figure out how each of them thinks. Yuji isn’t lacking smarts, but he needs the concepts explained before the notation itself starts to make sense to him. Nobara understands more than she shows, but her impatience leads her to rush through the fine details. Megumi knows the basics so well that sometimes he explains things to the others before you can cross the room to assist.

By the end of the lesson, the board is covered in equations, corrections, arrows, and half-finished ideas. The students start packing up, and as you watch them argue about who’s buying lunch, you almost feel like a normal person in a normal world again.

“Yuji,” you say as he grabs his backpack, “can you stay for a minute?”

“Ooooh,” Nobara teases, dragging out the sound obnoxiously as she throws her bag over her shoulder. “Someone failed the non-test.”

“I didn’t fail!” Yuji protests, his face turning red.

“You absolutely failed,” she counters, nodding firmly.

“It wasn’t even graded!”

Megumi looks completely uninterested in the argument and is already heading for the door with his backpack. Yuji keeps defending himself with increasingly questionable logic until Nobara clicks her tongue, mutters something about him being a hopeless idiot, and drags Megumi out by his sleeve when he doesn’t move fast enough for her liking.

The classroom gets quiet as soon as the door closes. Yuji stands awkwardly by his desk, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He watches you with a mix of curiosity and worry as you start erasing the board.

“Am I in trouble?” he asks after a moment.

The question surprises you, and you pause with the eraser on the board.

“No, not at all,” you answer, glancing over your shoulder at him. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs and drops his eyes down to his shoes. “At my old school, teachers  only asked me to stay after class if something bad happened or I broke something.”

His honest answer leaves you feeling uneasy.

“You’re not bad at math, Yuji,” you say, turning to face him.

Yuji stares at you for a moment, then points back at the board behind you as if the messy calculations are physical evidence of his failure.

“I’m pretty sure that’s proof I am,” he says, giving a small, self-deprecating laugh.

“You’re not bad at math, just at structure,” you tell him, putting the eraser back. “Your logic is actually really good. You see the connections faster than you can write them down.”

He tilts his head and blinks at you, thinking it over. The reaction is small, but it hits you that no one has probably ever bothered to explain the difference to him. Most people probably just saw the disorganized mess of his work and thought he was careless or not smart. But during class, you noticed that under all the clutter, his reasoning was sharp. It’s chaotic and impulsive rather than a neat process, but it’s still smart thinking.

“You have a good instinct for answers, but your basics are a mess right now. When the problems get harder—and they will—your intuition won’t be enough to keep up.”

Yuji sighs and his shoulders drop. “Yeah, I figured. Ijichi usually just sighs and gives me the answer when I get stuck.”

“But you pick up the main ideas really quickly when I explain them,” you continue, leaning back against the desk and meeting his eyes. “The problem is you skip steps because your mind jumps ahead before you properly organize your work.”

Yuji looks startled by the assessment.

“That’s…” He pauses, scratching the back of his neck. “That’s actually exactly how it feels. I think.”

You nod. “If you’re up for it, come by my office a few times a week after class. We’ll work on the basics together before they turn into bigger problems.”

Yuji’s entire face brightens almost instantly, the gloom vanishing as if it were never there. He’s clearly used to being treated as an academic afterthought, so having someone offer to sit down and help him with his messy algebra seems to catch him completely off guard.

“Really? You’d do that? That’s awesome!” he exclaims, his voice booming in the quiet room. “I actually want to get this stuff! Before, teachers either gave up entirely or treated me like I was five the second I struggled.”

You look at him for a few seconds and let out a quiet sigh.

“Well, I’m not planning to do either of those things.”

A huge grin spreads across his face so wide and so fast it almost feels physically impossible to stop once it starts. It’s so infectious that you can’t help but smile back.

“Okay. Yeah! I’ll definitely be there!” He beams, shifting from foot to foot.

There’s no hesitation in his answer whatsoever, no hint of embarrassment about needing extra help.

“Then it’s a deal. Let’s start with twice a week,” you reply, feeling a sudden, genuine sense of purpose. You’re already thinking about how to make space for a second chair in your office. “Maybe three if necessary.”

“Ouch, three times? You’re a tough one, Teach,” he jokes, though his eyes are still bright.

“It’s only until you catch up, Yuji,” you laugh softly at his dramatic reaction, and a sheepish, lopsided grin pulls at his lips. “Come by tomorrow after you finish your physical training. I’ll have some practice sheets ready.”

“You got it! I'll be there!” The boy gives you an enthusiastic thumbs-up, already spinning around and heading for the door with a renewed bounce in his step. “See ya tomorrow!”

The casualness of the statement barely registers until he’s already disappeared into the hallway, leaving the classroom quiet behind him once more. Only then do you realize Yuji said it the way someone might talk about visiting a friend rather than meeting with a teacher for extra work.

—

Meanwhile, a little over two hours away from Tokyo, another district is already falling apart.

The curtain covers almost six city blocks. Outside, abandoned emergency vehicles clog the roads, left behind when the curse moved too quickly for the managers to keep up. The main commercial area is already in ruins, crumbling under relentless, brutal impacts.

Broken glass sparkles across the asphalt, catching the chaotic flashes of emergency lights. The remaining managers wait, with their shoulders slumped from exhaustion and faces pale with undisguised fear, knowing there’s a Special Grade inside the veil. And now, they strain visibly, trying not to look directly at what approaches the curtain.

Sukuna doesn’t slow down as he reaches the perimeter. The managers tense up instinctively as soon as he passes them. One of them tries to give a report, but Sukuna tunes him out before the first sentence fully leaves his mouth. The man’s palpable fear is already grating enough without adding unnecessary talking and irrelevant explanations on top of it.

Sukuna steps through the shimmering, oily curtain without a backward glance. The barrier ripples violently under the pressure of his cursed energy, then seals shut again behind him.

Inside the barrier, the air is heavy and hard to breathe. The district stinks of pulverized concrete dust, the acrid tang of burning electrical insulation, leaking gas, and the deep, metallic scent of fresh blood. The taste of iron lingers on his tongue, carried by the air.

Cheap construction materials, too. Sukuna notices it immediately. Most of the structures lining the street are newer, with decorative facades and weak support systems. They may look sturdy but are built with thin concrete, minimal reinforcement, and poor load distribution. Half the district is already collapsing under pressure that older buildings might’ve endured longer.

He clicks his tongue in contempt at the sight of it as he moves deeper into the ruined street.

Fucking pathetic. The Higher-Ups really dragged him out here to clean up garbage again.

Up ahead, the ground trembles violently. Another massive strike sends roofing material and shattered masonry cascading from already-pocked buildings. A distant, raw scream cuts through the air, only to be cut short moments later. Sukuna dismisses the sound with a brief spike of irritation.

A mountain of debris blocks the street ahead. Twisted steel sticks out from slabs of crushed concrete and broken glass, showing where a building’s upper floors have collapsed. Sukuna doesn’t bother searching for another way through, since such inefficiency is a human limitation. He instead walks straight toward a department store front, not slowing his stride as his hand rises in an almost dismissive gesture and slices the air.

Dismantle cuts perfect squares through the concrete wall as he walks by, leaving holes behind him. He hates the filth of these places, the gritty dust and the stale, awful smell left by those who didn’t escape.

He’s halfway through the shattered lobby when the atmosphere changes. The pressure flooding the district suddenly surges, so the drifting dust hanging in the air seems to freeze for a moment. Deeper ahead, cursed energy flares, rupturing several surviving windows all at once before the attack even comes.

The curse emerges. It’s a huge humanoid figure, taller than Sukuna even with its back hunched. Long limbs slam against the ruined floor, leaving new craters with every step. Its body is packed with dense, layered muscle under dark, taut skin that moves strangely over its joints. Its face barely resembles anything human beyond the placement of eyes and jaws, but those are stretched far too wide across its skull.

All morning, it has been demolishing buildings and infrastructure. Now, sensing the sheer threat Sukuna poses, it hurtles across the lobby, launching itself directly at him.

Good. At least this one understands territory.

The creature is brutally fast, but Sukuna stays calm and doesn’t flinch. He lets the curse believe it has an opening and that its reckless charge gives it an edge. The huge fist flies at his head. At the very last moment, Sukuna tilts his head. The movement is so slight and effortless that it seems an insult to the creature. At the same time, he attacks.

Not bothering to fully extend his arm, he flicks two fingers, sending a series of Dismantle slashes that cut through the air.

The curse’s dominant arm is instantly cleaved away at the shoulder and segmented into three pieces before the creature’s nerves can even register the injury.

The invisible blades continue their destructive path, leaving deep trenches in the wall behind the monster. They slice across the street beyond, shearing the roofs off a row of parked cars and cutting down a traffic light pole. A moment later, the sound of the destruction catches up, filling the air with a deafening eruption of collapsing stone and the hiss of broken utility lines.

The curse lets out a wet, guttural shriek of pain as it staggers backward. Already, the mutilated stump of its shoulder begins to bubble and reform.

Sukuna finally pauses, his lips curling slightly. “Huh,” he rasps with slight curiosity in his voice. “You actually survived the first touch.”

A flash of genuine, malicious interest crosses his expression. He realizes that this might actually provide enough resistance to be worth the dirt on his boots. A pleased grin slowly stretches across his face as he watches the graying flesh stitch itself back together. The arm is entirely whole in seconds. The curse immediately forgets pain and charges again, driven by the pure instinct that standing near Sukuna guarantees death.

The rest of the store explodes around them. The curse's frantic movements tear through supporting walls, collapsing them completely. Shelves and shattered displays fly out into the street as Sukuna sidesteps to avoid a blow. The curse is now so fast that just moving causes more incidental damage than its actual strikes. Every missed swing leaves deep craters in the floor or walls, or sends parts of the storefront crashing outside.

Sukuna grins wider. The fight finally breaks the crushing boredom that has stuck with him since he accepted this assignment.

The curse attacks again, its claws shearing the air where Sukuna’s torso was just moments ago. Sukuna answers with a light, shallow Dismantle across the creature’s ribs.

The cut opens the curse entirely from shoulder to hip, but doesn’t fully sever it. Layers of muscle and tissue are briefly exposed beneath the gaping split, then blur as the fissure welds shut. Sukuna stands perfectly still, close enough that dark blood splashes his uniform as he watches it heal.

He lands a heavier strike that shears through the curse’s thigh. The curse roars, shaking the ruins, then counters frantically, ripping a jagged slab of fallen concrete from the ground and hurling it at him. Sukuna doesn’t even bother to block. He walks forward, and his technique cleaves the projectile into a shower of harmless cubes before it reaches him.

The curse stomps, making the floor buckle. The rest of the ceiling collapses, sending concrete and steel crashing down. Sukuna dodges effortlessly, jumping up and landing lightly in the wreckage moments later. The curse bursts from the dust cloud, immediately throwing massive chunks of rubble toward him.

Sukuna carves the flying debris with slashes before the curse can close the distance. Each slice instantly atomizes huge chunks of concrete, reducing them into pebbles that scatter through the ruins. The creature's movements remain stubbornly aggressive despite the damage it sustains, regenerating injuries almost as quickly as Sukuna inflicts them. For minutes, the fight is a relentless, chaotic barrage of impacts violently shaking the whole district.

Buildings around them  continue to collapse under the pressure. The curse breaks supporting columns to trap Sukuna, but he just tears down walls whenever the space gets too tight and starts to annoy him. Floors keep collapsing, forcing him to constantly adjust his stance. Dust fills the air, quickly reducing visibility across the street until the ruins begin to disappear behind clouds of pulverized concrete.

By the third building collapse, Sukuna is clearly running out of patience.

They crash through the storefront onto the wide, ruined street. The curse is desperate, throwing derelict cars and ripping up the asphalt to make obstacles. Every time a section of the road caves in and he has to shift his weight, Sukuna feels a spike of irritation. He’s truly tired of having to adjust his footing.

“For fuck’s sake,” he growls, stopping dead in his tracks and dropping one hand to the broken asphalt. “Cleave.”

Cracks spread across the asphalt in a spiderweb pattern, and the whole street erupts from below. Dust and debris fall back down, leaving a massive crater. Sukuna stands untouched on the only solid ground left. He’s just destroyed a big part of the street just to give himself a flat surface to stand on.

A moment later, the building they had just left groans and slowly starts to collapse, its foundations irreparably damaged by the Cleave as well. The curse screams through the falling debris, half its torso reduced to shredded muscle. Skin races to regenerate over the raw tissue as it launches itself at Sukuna again.

Far-off emergency sirens wail, but are drowned out by another crash that bursts water lines underground, sending water shooting into the air.

Sukuna laughs sharply, his voice echoing over the crashing storefronts. He’s honestly amused; the creature has lasted this long only by stubbornness while continuing to embarrass itself, even though the outcome was inevitable the moment Sukuna stepped past the curtain.

“You’re still trying?” he asks, tilting his head with curiosity, but the curse replies with another attack.

Good. At least it hasn’t started running yet.

The tide turns several minutes later. The curse finally realizes the gap between them isn’t closing, no matter how aggressively it attacks. It changes its tactics, growing cautious and using shattered infrastructure and blind spots created by debris to put distance between them instead of fighting head-on.

Sukuna’s smile vanishes, his expression hardens, and all enjoyment dissipates. He loses interest the moment the curse starts fighting defensively. Now he just wants to get it over with.

The curse smashes through the side of a nearby office building, trying to get away from Sukuna. Without slowing down, Sukuna sends slashes that cut through whole sections of the building ahead of the creature. The building splits into massive pieces, burying  terrified civilians hiding in the lobby. The curse keeps running, heading deeper into the maze of ruined blocks.

This fucking thing.

It’s only still alive because the district itself keeps getting in the way, and Sukuna is quickly running out of patience with both the curse and this place.

Finally, trapped in the empty shell of a parking garage, the curse realizes its stalling hasn’t worked. It’s panting heavily, and its healing can’t keep up with the constant cuts appearing on its body. Good, because Sukuna’s getting really tired of looking at it.

For the first time during the fight, he sees hesitation in the curse’s behavior. It’s not fear, but more like instinct—the moment survival overrides every previous aggressive impulse.

Suddenly, the space around them twists. Damaged buildings groan, their upper floors bending at strange angles. The ground under Sukuna fractures and splinters. Windows implode, shards of shattered glass reversing their trajectory midair, as the curse’s innate technique violently compresses the environment. Entire sections of the district are dragged in, collapsing toward the center of the street in a swirling funnel of dust, debris, and twisted infrastructure.

Sukuna actually pauses for a moment. “Oh. So you did have one more trick,” he says, sounding pleased.

Maintaining the technique is ripping the curse’s own body apart. Its skin splits along its limbs and torso faster than regeneration can fully repair the self-inflicted damage. Roads break open, structural columns twist through the concrete floors, and tons of building material from nearby buildings hurtle toward the curse, trying to crush Sukuna under the weight.

With a sharp flick of his wrist, hundreds of intersecting slashes appear in front of him. Everything the curse pulled in is instantly cut to tiny floating fragments before the mass can reach him. Sukuna steps calmly through the dense, drifting cloud of dust and blood and reaches out, closing one hand around the creature’s throat as it attempts one last weak attack.

Cleave activates instantly, perfectly matching the curse’s durability. The creature’s body is severed so completely that regeneration never even begins this time. Flesh, bone, and cursed core divide cleanly beneath Sukuna’s grasp, falling into the rubble in wet, messy pieces before turning to dust.

Outside the barrier, the managers stay tense as sudden silence falls over the district, nervously exchanging glances. Emergency teams wait farther back behind the containment line. Then Sukuna finally steps out through the curtain.

They stand up straight as soon as they see him, covered in dust and clearly annoyed but otherwise entirely unharmed. The assistant manager maintaining the barrier lowers it almost right away, revealing damage so bad that several people freeze in shock when they see the full scale of the destruction.

The area looks more like a bombing site than a sorcerer’s operation. Roads are torn open, exposing broken tunnels beneath the asphalt. Flames spread through ruined storefronts, and sections of the street keep collapsing without warning, unable to withstand the cumulative structural stresses from the fight. Rescue workers hesitate at the edge, recognizing the danger posed by the infrastructure and how close everything is to falling apart.

Sukuna ignores everything and heads for the car waiting for him. Daichi walks up as Sukuna gets close. He glances briefly at the ruined district behind the sorcerer, then quickly looks back at Sukuna’s face, gauging his mood first and foremost.

Smart.

“Fifteen minutes, Daichi,” he says flatly, walking past without looking at him. “Then I’m done standing in this shithole.”

Daichi nods immediately, not wasting time responding aloud, and heads for the edge of the perimeter. The other managers jump into action the moment he starts giving orders. Operations surrounding Sukuna’s missions are always larger than standard deployments for exactly this reason. Normally, a sorcerer’s assignment just needs one assistant manager and a report written once everyone has safely returned. But Sukuna’s missions require an entirely different, specialized setup, since once the barrier is lowered, vast sections of the city may no longer physically exist.

Full support teams are mobilized before he even arrives. Extra managers wait outside the curtain to coordinate the inevitable emergency response, and separate staff is ready to start preliminary structural assessments right away. Everyone knows that when Sukuna fights, the destruction always goes far beyond the curse itself.

As Sukuna moves toward the sedan waiting farther down the blocked street, Daichi performs a quick sweep of the outer area, noting the most significant structural failures and the most immediately visible damage patterns before rescue teams move in. His role isn’t to conduct a thorough investigation, as no one assigned to Sukuna has the luxury of time for that. He notes the scale of roadway collapse, the number of buildings visibly beyond salvage, how far the destruction spreads, and which sections still seem too unstable for responders. Around him, city emergency crews start moving carefully into the ruins.

Sukuna, meanwhile, waits exactly as long as he said he would, not a second more. As soon as Daichi jogs back, Sukuna gets in the back seat without acknowledging the chaos behind them. Another staff member takes the driver’s seat, since keeping up with Sukuna is, unfortunately for everyone, the top priority. The car pulls away from the disaster zone, and Daichi starts working from the passenger seat, with a tablet balanced on one knee.

The report for Yaga, written during the drive back to Tokyo, is inherently incomplete. It’s based on Daichi’s quick notes and incoming updates from the teams still on site. These updates include detailed damage reports, casualty estimates from first responders, municipal emergency data, and rushed infrastructure reports from local officials desperately trying to stabilize the area. That’s why almost every report from Sukuna’s missions uses the same standard line: “Secondary destruction patterns not yet conclusively attributed.”

What Daichi finishes before they reach Tokyo is just a first draft. The final report, sent to the principal and the Higher-Ups later, adds in new data and the remaining reports collected long after Sukuna leaves. Even then, it’s almost impossible to fully capture the scale of Sukuna’s fights on paper once whole parts of the city are reduced to collapse zones and debris fields.

—

MISSION INCIDENT REPORT Tokyo Jujutsu High Filed by: Daichi Sera Mission ID: 2018/SZK/021 Operational Details Location: Shizuoka, Shizuoka Mission Start Time: 12:16 Mission End Time: 12:49 Assigned Sorcerer: Ryomen Sukuna (Special Grade) Original Threat Assessment: Special Grade Post-Operation Threat Assessment: original assessment correct Curse Status: Exorcised Damage Civilian Casualties:   · 40 deceased  · 96 hospitalized  · 17 critical Sorcerer Casualties: — Structural Damage:  Extensive structural failure was documented throughout the central commercial district and adjacent mixed-use sectors within the curtain perimeter. At least eleven buildings experienced partial or complete collapse during the engagement. Additional surrounding structures sustained severe damage to foundations, load-bearing systems, and segmentation, necessitating ongoing engineering assessment. Severe roadway deformation was also observed in the central district, including multiple large-scale asphalt ruptures that exposed underlying utility infrastructure. Significant secondary collapse persisted after curtain removal due to compromised structural integrity in adjacent sectors. Infrastructure Disruption: Severe disruption to municipal infrastructure was reported throughout the affected zone. This included widespread roadway collapse, ruptured underground utility tunnels, compromised gas and water mains, electrical grid failure, and loss of emergency access corridors within multiple sectors of the operational area. Several evacuation routes became inaccessible during the engagement due to cascading debris collapse and ongoing structural instability. These conditions resulted in delayed emergency response deployment and prolonged civilian extraction timelines. Restoration estimates remain pending due to unsafe conditions in portions of the district that are still undergoing stabilization assessment. Additional Notes  · Secondary destruction patterns within the operational zone could not be conclusively attributed exclusively to recorded curse activity at the time of preliminary assessment.  · Multiple structural collapses continued after the curse exorcism as a result of cumulative foundational destabilization sustained during the engagement.  · Emergency response mobilization required expanded support coordination because of ongoing infrastructure instability within the affected district.  · Post-operation assessment was delayed across several sectors due to residual collapse risk and restricted responder access.  · Full reconstruction of the engagement sequence remains incomplete due to extensive overlap between curse-generated and secondary environmental destruction patterns.  · Preliminary civilian casualty estimates are expected to increase following debris clearance and completion of secondary search operations.  · Civilian casualty figures are believed to have been significantly reduced as a result of successful early-stage evacuation procedures initiated under emergency tsunami and seismic response protocols prior to full curtain deployment.

You’ve been staring at the report for half an hour, trying to make sense of what you just read, but you stopped really reading a while ago.

Your eyes are stuck on the same section, somewhere in the middle. The words blur, and the ache behind your eyes just keeps getting worse. Casualty numbers and infrastructure assessments repeat in your mind, no matter how many times you try to stop thinking about them. Forty dead. Eleven collapsed buildings. Secondary structural failures continue after curtain removal. Emergency extraction delayed due to roadway instability. Everything is written in the same cold, official language that somehow makes it all feel worse.

Three weeks ago, parts of the report would have felt distant, and your mind would have softened the details to protect you from imagining too much. Now, the details stay with you much longer than you want. The collapsed roads, the delayed extraction routes, and the ruined buildings all leave mental images, even though you never saw the destruction yourself.

The thirty minutes you had before feeling the spike of pressure in the building definitely weren’t enough. Your shoulders tense before your thoughts fully catch up, while the familiar weight of Sukuna’s cursed energy fills the corridors of the school heavily so that the air itself seems denser several seconds before he actually reaches your office.

The door slides open and Sukuna steps inside, still in the same uniform from the mission. The dark fabric is torn in several places from falling debris, with a thin layer of concrete dust clinging stubbornly to the sleeves and shoulders, and dried blood splattered on the chest.

He walks closer and leans over the desk, glancing at the sheet of paper in front of you. Even from here, the residue around his cursed energy feels much worse than last time, but after a mission like that, it was bound to be.

“That thing was stubborn enough to stay entertaining for a while.” He lets out a low, rasping chuckle. “Almost made the trip tolerable.”

Sukuna stares at the report for another moment before losing interest in it entirely and dismissing it with a flick of his hand. His gaze shifts back to you, and the amusement in his expression grows sharper.

“Well?” he asks lazily, tilting his head. “Fix it.”

Your stomach tightens, a cold knot of dread forming in your gut, but there’s no point in delaying. After three weeks, you know the drill well enough that your body moves on autopilot, even while your mind is still stuck on the words from the report.

Slowly, you push up to your feet and move around the desk toward him. You want to ask him to lie down again, but you’ve been through this many times, so you swallow down the urge.  As soon as you get close, the full change in his residue hits you, and your whole nervous system recoils instinctively before you force it back under control with a shaky breath.

Sukuna notices your expression tighten the second you feel it. “Too much this time?” he asks mockingly, his voice dropping an octave as he watches you struggle.

You ignore him as best you can. At least, you try to. Your heart rate climbs, thudding against your ribs, as you reach out to bridge the gap. Your hand presses against the center of his chest, feeling the heat through the uniform. You curl your fingers into the fabric and carefully force your cursed energy into the fractured buildup around him. The process is exhausting right away.

Three weeks of repeated weaving sessions have taught you to recognize the structures faster and locate the worst compression points without wasting energy blindly searching through endless overlapping layers. But knowing the process better doesn’t make the actual strain any easier to handle.

The residue is tightly compressed and still needs your technique to force the layers apart before you can properly thread through the gaps. You focus harder, breathe slowly to calm your heart and save stamina, and push more cursed energy into the structure.

The layered compression surrenders reluctantly under pressure, countless splintered sections grinding against each other before finally separating enough for your technique to slip between them. Sweat slowly gathers at the back of your neck as your reserves steadily drain from the effort.

After several minutes, the structure finally starts to respond to your control and the sections separate. Your cursed energy carefully flows through the narrow gaps you’ve forced open, weaving through fractured layers before they can collapse again.

Sukuna watches your concentration tighten under the strain of weaving. He leans down curiously, resting one hand on the desk behind you, boxing you in between his body and the wood.

“What exactly are you staring at so hard?” he asks, and his face is suddenly so very close to yours that it fills far too much of your vision at once.

The proximity jolts your nerves, and a sharp spike of panic throws off your rhythm. The layers you just spent minutes separating collapse back together the moment your focus slips. Everything wedges together again, and you feel it through your technique as it tears free from the structure all at once, instantly shattering the connection between your energy and his.

He keeps his face dangerously close, watching the tremor in your fingers. The flow of your cursed energy against him vanishes, and as it does, a realization settles on his face as he pieces together your reaction.

“Oh,” he murmurs softly.

Humiliation burns under your skin while you struggle to steady your breathing again.

“You can lose it,” he says, almost thoughtfully, and his smile widens slowly. “Interesting.”

You pull your hand away, but Sukuna catches your wrist before you can retreat fully, tightening his grip around your arm. His gaze stays on your face with open amusement now that he understands what just happened and knows your concentration during weaving is yet another thing he can control or manipulate at will.

“Start over.”

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a/n: small note before someone comes for me with a math textbook. yes, i know this isn't the level of math most 15 year olds would normally be doing. i just needed a few simple equations for the scene and decided to keep them easy enough that nobody would have to solve an entire set of algebra problems while reading a fic.

tldr: yes i know. no i don't care. we're here for sukuna, not algebra.

taglist still open

Sleep last night did not come easy, which wasn’t surprising at all. Every time you closed your eyes, your mind betrayed you with thoughts of Captain Levi Ackerman. 

Except this time it wasn’t the odd things that you remembered about him from random parts of the day like the way he strutted across the fields or how he held his blades in an odd clutch different from everyone else. Now, all your mind focused on was the feeling of his hands on your face, thumb running across the cut on your face. If you thought even harder, you could feel the heat radiating off of his body, the smell of linen and bitter tea. 

But what your mind focused on the most was the way that he stepped away from you, acting as if it was the most innocent thing in the world, and walking out of the library to leave you stranded. You could remember the frustration you felt afterwards, alternating between grabbing him and dragging him into the library yourself or throwing one of the old dusty books at his head. 

It was stupid. Everything about him was stupid. His stupid eyes, his stupid hair, his stupid voice, and his stupid self-control and how it decided to stop only when it was convenient to him. He should’ve stopped things before he decided to put his hands on you and looked at you like that. He should’ve stopped things before he made it impossible to think about anything else other than him. 

You spent most of the night staring at the ceiling of the barracks, listening to everyone shamelessly sleep around you in their own beds. At some point, sleep must have somehow taken over you because when you opened your eyes, sunlight leaked through the windows. 

There was a kick against your bed. 

“Wake up.” 

You groaned, pulling your quilt up against your face, shielding yourself from the light like you could somehow convince the night to come back. “Go away.” 

To your disdain, the blanket was ripped away from your body through your hands, to which you opened your eyes. Turning your head, you saw Eren standing on the side of your bed, already dressed and ready to go for breakfast, looking well rested. Traitor. “I’m sick,” you lied, turning your back to him. “Tell the Commander.” 

“Good morning to you too,” Eren said, his hand coming to your shoulder and pulling you back to face him from your lying position. You grabbed your pillow, which wasn’t really a pillow from the way it barely supported your neck, and threw it at his face. He caught it with one hand like it was nothing because well, it was nothing. “You know, violence isn’t really a healthy coping mechanism.” 

You glared. “You woke me up.” 

“You slept through the bell.”

That perked you up, sliding your legs over the side of the mattress and hauling yourself up. Everyone else was almost ready too, so you made sure to pick up the pace a little bit more, pulling the straps past your legs and throwing on the dark green scout’s cloak over your body, which seemed determined to remind you of how much little sleep you got. Conversations between different groups got louder the more awake everyone got, and eventually people started to make their way downstairs to the mess hall. Footsteps blended into a familiar noise of another day starting. You hated how every single soldier looked normal like they always did, and you felt like your brain had been put through a meat grinder once and then again for good measure. 

As you walked downstairs, you almost tripped over your feet on the last stair, shielding your face from the redness that bloomed across your cheeks. You hoped that this wasn’t the start of a trend today, you really didn’t need more pressure on yourself and you definitely didn’t need any more attention from Captain Levi. 

You tried and tried to drill that into your brain. 

Connie and Sasha were already at your usual table when Eren and you walked over with your plates in hand. Mikasa, Jean, and Armin followed soon after, along with Reiner and Bertholdt. It was mostly silent between all of you, quick quips here and there because everyone seemed focused on trying to wake up rather than having any real conversation. Sasha was already through most of her meal before any of you could even get settled in, pushing Jean with her shoulder to try and convince him to give her some of his. 

“You are an animal,” Jean informed her, but he relented and gave her half of his bread anyway.

Today was supposed to be normal. 

The world seemed to have other plans. 

You, Eren, Mikasa, Sasha, Connie, and Jean were asked to come back upstairs to one of the larger meeting rooms. This room was typically only used for the higher ups like Commanders and Captains, recruits barely came in there unless they were being reprimanded. Or at least that’s what Jean kept saying as he led your group into the room. 

“I told you,” Jean muttered for probably the fifth time when he saw that Commander Erwin, Hange, Miche, and Levi were already standing at the front of the room. “We’re in trouble for sure. Thanks, Eren.” 

“I didn’t even fucking do anything why do you always think its me —”

Your hand shot up to push Eren’s back, telling him to shut up once you were all in hearing range. Maps were settled down on the table, spreading across the entire surface weighed down by various books and folders. When you looked over them, you saw the folders that you were sorting through last night, so maybe you guys weren’t in trouble after all. It wasn’t a disciplinary meeting, it was a planning meeting. Once all of you were shuffled inside and the door was closed, Commander Erwin stepped forward and the chatter within the group silenced almost immediately. 

The Commander stepped forward and glanced over at Jean. “At ease,” Erwin said. “You’re not in trouble.” Jean then visibly relaxed and a smile tugged at Hange’s mouth. Their eyes glinted with something that you couldn’t decipher when they looked over at Eren. 

“We’ve received reports from several supply teams operating near the eastern routes.” Erwin placed a large hand against one of the maps, finger touching one of the paths traced with red ink. “Near Karanese, there has been some increased Titan activity near Wall Rose. As you all are aware, Titan’s have started to bleed into Wall Maria territory after breaching the Shiganshina district and its Wall Maria entrance. It seems like they have started to head for the outlier district of Karanese, causing disturbances and civilian unrest.” 

You could feel Eren tense next to you at the mention of Shiganshina. 

“Normally, this wouldn’t warrant an immediate investigation from the Survey Corps, but we are heading that way for another reason that doesn’t pertain to this particular group at the moment, and we are going there to get a firsthand look before the rest of the Corps follow.” 

It was obvious that Erwin was not telling the full truth, but it wasn’t in your nature as a recruit to ask any questions to see what he was hiding. It must’ve been for a good reason from the way that you saw Levi give the Commander a side eyed glance. Your eyes lingered a few moments longer on the Captain and it seemed as though he felt it, flicking his eyes in your direction before immediately looking away. It was barely a heartbeat amount of time, enough to make your stomach drop before turning your attention back toward the map. 

“You will be operating under Captain Levi, Section Commander Hange, and Section Leader Miche. Normally we would not take a group this small, but since Eren will be joining us on this mission, we thought it best to stay discreet. And it seems as though he is much less volatile when he is around people that he knows best.”

You glanced at Eren along with everyone in the room, and he looked vaguely offended. “I am not volatile.” 

“Right,” Hange said, like they didn’t believe a word he said. 

Erwin’s hand shot up. “As I was saying, you’ll travel along the inside of Wall Rose to Karanese to stay there a few days to survey the area before the rest of the Corps catch up with you. If everything proceeds according to this schedule, you’ll establish a halfway camp shortly before midnight tonight.” 

Midnight tonight. Great, just the way that you wanted to spend your evening. 

“Pack light,” Erwin instructed as everyone began to move toward the door. “You’ll leave three hours before sunset.” The meeting dissolved almost immediately after that. Chairs scraped against the floor and conversations began to start again, hearing Eren start to complain about having to sleep outside in the forest. Sasha hushed him, saying she grew up with the forest and it really wasn’t that bad. 

The group of you spilled into the main hallway, walking towards the barracks to start gathering your things before departure. You were halfway down the corridor falling into step next to Jean before you heard a voice behind you that stopped your movement. Confused, Jean also stopped next to you. 

“Cadet.” 

Slowly, you turned around, seeing Captain Levi standing near the doorway of the meeting room. You saw that Erwin was already walking in the opposite direction with Hange and Miche. Levi held a folder beneath one arm, the same folder that you had organized in the library last night. Your pulse stumbled, remembering what you endured while trying to put them into the folder last night with him. “What?” you asked, immediately cringing at how defensive it sounded. Jean huffed a breath beside you, obviously bewildered by your question as well. 

The Captain didn’t notice or he was choosing not to acknowledge it. “The route reports.” 

“The what?” 

He gave you that look that crossed his face every single time someone said something particularly stupid during training. 

“The reports you organized,” he continued, eyes searching yours while gears began to shift in your brain. Levi held the folder out toward you and you stepped forward automatically to take it, fingers brushing his for only a brief moment, being everything and nothing at the same time. When you looked back up at him, you could have sworn that you saw his jaw tighten imperceptibly, letting go and letting the folder rest in your hand. “You’ll be helping with leading the group since you’re already familiar with them.” Your eyes brightened. “Don’t let it get to your head. I know it's hard to think after hitting your head, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.” 

Asshole. 

“Yes, Captain,” you said with a nod. Levi gave you a glance as he walked away, disappearing into the meeting room, door clicking shut behind him. 

Jean walked with you towards the barracks in the now empty hallway. “Am I missing something?” Referring to the weird interaction he had just witnessed. 

“Nope.” 

You pushed through the doors and it seemed the room was already chaotic, everyone frantically gathering supplies for departure. Once you made it over to your bed, you started to grab the essentials. You kneeled down to take the pack out from underneath it, placing it next to you as you reached for the bedroll and spare clothing you kept stored. Extra shoes and a small medical pack also made its way into the bag. You organized your stuff and then reorganized it to just make sure that everything you needed was there. 

“Hey,” Eren called, walking over with his already packed things. “What did the Captain want?” 

God, did anyone have anything else to talk to you about except Levi? You were already spiraling about the fact that you would be spending several days with him in close proximity, even taking some charge to lead everyone through the routes that had been mapped before. All of you would be together, so it wouldn’t be that bad, right? Nothing could happen. This wouldn’t be another library scenario where you found each other alone again. As long as you stayed close to Eren and the others, it would be fine. 

You grabbed the file the Captain gave you and showed it to him. “Reports.” 

“He gave you those?” 

Nodding, you said, “They are the ones he made me get from the library last night.” 

“Oh right, you never told me how that went,” Eren said. It was so normal the way that he said it, you almost wanted to laugh, but it hit you that he had absolutely no idea what had occurred in the library. No one did. You were holding this stupid weird secret from all of your friends and the only person who knew about it acted like it never even happened. If you thought about it one more time, you were sure that you would rip out your own hair. 

You let out a huff. “It was boring. That’s why I didn’t tell you.” 

Lie. 

Lie, lie, lie. It made you feel sick. Eren believed you immediately, because why would you have any reason to lie to him? 

“Fair enough.” 

And then Eren went back to grabbing his things, shoving them into his pack. The guilt sat heavy in your stomach, you’d never really lied to any of your friends before. Not about things that truly mattered, and especially not things that made your chest ache every single time you thought about it. Though a part of you knew this was something that you shouldn’t share. What were you supposed to say? That Captain Levi touched your face in the library? That you made a fool of yourself telling him that he wanted to kiss you? Or, even worse, he walked away while you closed your eyes and practically threw yourself at him? Absolutely not. 

Outside the barracks window, the afternoon sun was beginning its slow descent, which meant that in the next hour or so you all would be on horseback riding away from headquarters. You slung your pack over one shoulder and everyone else in the room was reaching the same conclusion. It was exciting, if you didn’t think of all the details. This was your first real expedition being in the Scouts, and as long as you didn’t die, this could be a good thing for you to show the higher-ups that you were more than just a recruit. 

Sasha stopped near the doorway, prompting everyone to look. “Oh, it’s starting to rain.” 

You immediately crossed to the nearest window and sure enough, there were small droplets starting to strike the glass, only a few, but you could tell that it would get worse throughout the night. 

“Wonderful,” Jean muttered under his breath. 

A knock echoed against the barracks door and a veteran Scout stepped inside the doorway. “We leave in fifteen.” 

Golden hues of orange and pink stretched over the horizon, the sounds of horse hooves filling your ears. Fields of grass swayed in the breeze while the forest began to come closer and closer into view, casting long shadows across the landscape and the group you traveled with. You were closer to the front of the group, helping to lead the other recruits down the slightly marked road from past expeditions. For a moment it was easy to forget things like Titans and death. You adjusted your grip on the reins and glanced over at the formation. 

The conversation between you and Eren, who was riding right next to you, drifted through easier territory. Mikasa joined in once in a while, especially when Sasha started to be concerned that she wasn’t going to have enough dried meat on the way there. Eventually the sun dipped below the horizon and orange skies faded into deeper blues, the temperature dropping enough to make you shiver. 

Everyone was tired and everyone was hungry, ready to stop and set things up before the rain became something more than just drizzle. Thankfully, Hange seemed to agree, as their hand lifted near the front of the formation and the entire column gradually slowed, the smell of trees overwhelming your senses. 

The relief was immediate when you slid from your horse, boots sinking into the damp earth below. The trees surrounding the group seemed to capture some of the rain, making it less wet but still enough to track mud on your shoes. Your legs protested the movement after hours from being on a saddle, walking over to tie your horse on a tree trunk and giving her a pat on the head. She huffed through her nose, nudging your shoulder for attention that you gladly gave her. 

A distant roar of thunder echoed beyond the forest and the rain worsened immediately, becoming steady rainfall. 

“Alright guys, let’s get the tents set up as soon as possible,” Hange ordered, pulling out their own tent from the supply packs attached to one of the bigger horses. The camp exploded into motion, Sasha and you going to grab tents for the recruits. They were big enough to house two people and people were already starting to section off into pairs. 

You dropped one near Jean and Connie. 

“I’m not sharing with him,” Connie said, pointing his thumb to Jean. 

Jean rolled his eyes. “Just get it set up.” 

Other tents dropped between pairs, and you went to grab the last one, though when you searched through the large bag, there were none left. Your brows furrowed, looking around to see if you had left one on the ground. But there was nothing, there was truly none left. “Uh,” you said out loud, escaping out of your mouth before you could stop it. “We’re missing a tent.” 

Hange looked up from where they were hammering the stakes for Mikasa’s tent. “What? No we’re not — Oh. That’s right, we did tear one on an earlier expedition. I thought that it got replaced but I guess it wasn’t.” You stared at Hange, blinking. There was no way something like this was happening on your first expedition out. 

This was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful and not horrifying whatsoever. Hange stood up and started counting, turning towards you when it was clear that the group was one tent short and the only person left over was you. “It’s fine, we’ll find you a place to sleep,” they said, walking closer in the middle of the group and you saw the moment the light bulb went off in their head. 

No. 

“Hange,” you said carefully.

Their lengthy finger pointed across the camp. “Levi has room! He always wants to have the tent to himself but I’m sure he’ll manage for one night.” Your soul left your body, following their line of sight and seeing Levi in the process of securing his tent. At the sound of his name, he looked up directly toward Hange. He hadn’t caught the last part of your conversation and you were not looking forward to what he was going to say when he heard the idea. 

“What?” Levi asked, obviously annoyed that he had to stop working and stay in the rain for a minute longer. 

“We’re missing a tent.” 

“Absolutely not.”

He had finally seemed to put the pieces together about the situation. And it was even worse that now that he was publicly denying having anything to do with a tent involving you. Your head snapped over to him and looked at the way his grey eyes squinted, tips of his hair dripping with rainwater across his face. “Hange,” he said slower this time, “I’m saying no.” 

“It’s one night. Do you really want a recruit sleeping outside in the rain?” 

For a moment it looked like Levi was considering it, the realization hitting you like a slap across the face. The rain was getting worse, pattering across the canvas tents from the dripping tree leaves overhead. The Captain stood with one hand resting against the support beam of his tent, the damp fabric of his shirt clinging to his shoulders. He looked unimpressed with this whole situation, his typical stoic face almost a scowl. “There has to be another solution,” He pushed. 

Hange clicked their tongue. “Name one.” 

Levi looked away, sighing. “Fine.” 

It felt like a death sentence. 

Your mind betrayed you, replaying every detail that happened last night. Rough hands against your face, the look he gave you when you grabbed his wrist to stop him from pulling away. 

I know you want to kiss me.

Maybe the forest floor in the mud would be okay. 

“See? Problem solved,” Hange said, clapping their hands together and delightfully going back to the shared tent with Miche. Levi had already turned away from the conversation, hands returning to pull the ropes with noticeably more aggression. Something about it irritated you, the way he moved with visible unhappiness. You didn’t know why it bothered you though, it really shouldn’t bother you. He was your Captain and things were merely platonic. You definitely weren’t reeling still at the one-sided humiliation of the previous time you were alone with him. 

You resigned, sighing and grabbing your pack to walk toward Levi — and now your — tent. Levi looked up from where he was kneeling, tying the last rope to the wooden tent stake at the front. He refused to even look at you, standing and pushing past you into the flaps of the tent. The dark green canvas fell closed and you stood in place, hearing the mud beneath your boots squelching. One moment he was looking at you in the library, wanting to pull you apart piece by piece, and the next he was acting like you were personally inconveniencing him, like you had planned for there to be a missing tent. 

The rain started to soak through your jacket and you finally moved, ducking through the tent entrance. 

“Take off your shoes,” Levi said with his back turned to you. “If you get mud on the floor I will make you sleep outside without a second thought.” No hello. No hi, how are you? Just threats. Vague threats of the same nature he said all the time to the recruits on the field. The tent was illuminated by a single lantern, oil burning as it hung from the center beam. It wasn’t a particularly large tent, just enough for two people before it turned uncomfortable. His side was already set up, bedroll placed neatly with his pack next to it, and the other side was empty for you. Everything on his side looked meticulously cleaned and organized, even his cloak was folded into a neat square in his corner of the tent. 

You kicked off your boots near the entrance next to his, dropping your pack and taking the bedroll out of the straps. Thankfully, the canvas underneath your feet was dry, giving you much needed relief from the hammering rain against the top of the tent. It was painfully silent between the two of you, the only sound was from you trying your best to unpack your things in a way that wouldn’t upset him. Everyone knew that Levi was somewhat of a clean freak just by the way he acted around headquarters, but having to share a space with him was obviously a whole different thing altogether. 

Thunder got louder above the forest and you took off your cloak, sitting down on the mat. Your shoulders were aching, exhaustion beginning to settle into your bones, though you still felt awake due to who was sitting across from you. Still silent, seemingly a pro at hospitality. He sat on his own bed, one knee bent while he was inspecting one of his blades before shoving it back into the holder. The edge had caught the glow of the lantern. 

The silence stretched until you said, “You know.” 

Levi didn’t even look up. “What?” 

At least he answered, that was a start. 

“You could try to stop acting like this is the most miserable thing in the world.” 

Levi’s eyes lifted, annoyingly unreadable as they locked onto yours. “You’re in my tent.” 

“I didn’t plan this!” 

“Could’ve fooled me.” 

The nerve of him to say something like that to you. Did he really think that you were trying to get closer to him when he made it very clear last night that he wasn’t interested in anything that had to do with you? He was the one who pulled away and you didn’t say anything about it when he did, and you hadn’t told anyone else. This was the last place that you wanted to be. 

Or so you kept telling yourself. 

As soon as you opened your mouth to say something, he already beat you to it. “Let’s get some sleep.” 

It was the one good thing that he said to you today. 

The darkness consumed everything in the tent. The only thing that provided light was the occasional lightning strike from somewhere far away. You stared at the ceiling, laying underneath the quilt of your bedroll, trying to keep warm. Sleep wasn’t seeming to come no matter how much you tried. You closed your eyes and started to count backwards, and when that didn’t work you listened to the rain pattering on the side nearest to you, and you even went as far as to think about tomorrow’s route by tracing the paths through your memory. Nothing seemed to work since every single distraction led back to the same place. 

Levi. The painful knowledge that he was only a few feet away made you turn on your side and then back to your back, then to the other side trying to find somewhat of a comfortable position that might lull you to sleep. But from this position you were facing him, a lightning crash let you see his silhouette of him lying on his back. 

“You sound like you’re trying to dig a hole through the ground,” he said suddenly, obviously not asleep like you thought that he was. 

You kept your eyes on the place he was even though you couldn’t see him anymore in the darkness. “You’re awake?” 

“What gave it away?” 

You rolled your eyes even though Levi wouldn’t be able to see it. The darkness felt different now that you knew that he was awake, almost suffocating. “What, are your dreams keeping you up?” You asked, a childish teasing tone. 

“Sometimes.” 

The answer came and you were thrown off your game, so much that you thought maybe you had imagined it. You blinked into the darkness, another flash letting you see that he was still laying in the same position. It unsettled you more than if he had just told you to shut up like he usually did. It wasn’t like him to tell information about himself, but this felt different than just that. 

Rain hammered against the tent. “What about?” You questioned. 

Levi was silent for a full minute, then another. Enough that you were beginning to wonder if he was going to answer at all. You shut your eyes, thinking that the conversation had dissolved into nothing. A soft feeling of sleep creeped up on you, relief flooding through your body. 

“People.” 

Your eyes opened, staring back to where he was. People. A simple word that made you question what he meant. He didn’t dream about Titans or missions, or things from his childhood that he probably wanted to forget but couldn’t push down. The answer was . . . surprisingly raw. Levi never really struck you as the type of person who was haunted by other people. He was always so headstrong, so sure of himself, and he always commanded everyone's attention when he was in a room. He never seemed terrified about anything or anyone. 

“Like who?” 

You wished you could take the question back, it was too personal and too intrusive. Though you tried to rationalize it by telling yourself that he had already given you an inside look into his mind. The rain continued to fill the silence, steady, relentless. Wind pushed against the side of the tent, fabric shaking. Just like the last question, Levi didn’t answer. You began to be aware of your own breathing, the feeling of fog leaving your mouth every time you breathed out. 

Perhaps he thought that your question crossed a line that he didn’t want you to cross. 

Perhaps it was easier to put a hand on someone's face and make them flail enough to ask him to kiss them than talk about himself. You wouldn’t have blamed him, no matter how much you wished it wasn’t true. 

Fabric shifted quietly from his side of the tent. It wasn’t much, but it let you know that he was still awake. The silence continued, in a way that should’ve been awkward but wasn’t, it was like he was weighing if he should say something or not. The world narrowed to the space between you and him, the same way that it had in the library. Suddenly the rain and the wind and the cold didn’t matter anymore. 

When Levi decided to speak, you barely heard it over the thunder. “Lately . . .” 

Another pause. 

“You.” 

Your heart was beating so hard that you were almost sure that he would be able to hear it from all the way over there. Though, the more you thought about it, he wasn’t that far away from you at all. Only a foot or so, enough that you could hear his steady breathing if you tried hard enough to. He said that like it was the most obvious thing, like it wasn’t supposed to affect you the way that it did. Your mouth went dry, staring with wide eyes where you knew that he was laying. Waiting for him to clarify himself, or take it back, or tell you that you completely misread the conversation. 

“You hit your head,” he spoke, voice sounding irritated. Though it didn’t seem it was towards you, towards himself. “You were unconscious for two days.” 

The lightning flashed again. 

“You didn’t show up for training, you weren’t there to talk, and you weren’t there to give me those looks you think I can’t see.” 

The two days in the infirmary, almost three weeks ago at this point. You hadn’t realized that he cared that much about you during that time, or even if he cared about you at all now. You thought back to what Eren said when you woke up from your sleep in the hospital wing, how he said that Levi was checking on you. 

Is she awake?

Is she dead? 

A crash brightened the space again, showing you just how close your bedrolls were together. Just a step away. You couldn’t stand it, the tension a physical weight making it impossible for you to breathe. He was close, so close that before you could stop yourself, you shifted a bit closer. 

This was dumb, it was dumb and wrong. You were being an idiot. And still, you couldn’t stop yourself from doing it. You sat up and paused right next to him, sitting close enough to his bedroll that when the lightning flashed again you could see the sharp lines of his face below you, jaw set, eyes fixed on your face now that you moved towards him. 

Reaching out into the gloom, your hand pressed against the pad of his bedroll right next to his face. 

The kiss you planted on his lips was hesitant, a tentative probe, like you were trying to test the waters. And to your dismay, Levi remained completely rigid, a statue of muscle, lips completely unyielding to yours. Below you, he didn’t have the ability to pull away, but he didn’t lean in either. Levi simply stayed completely still, a wall of resistance that seemed as though it refused to crumble at all. Your eyes widened. You had made a mistake. This was bad, this was really, really bad. 

You had just kissed your Captain. It wasn’t just something that you could fantasize anymore. It wasn’t just something that you could imagine happened if he hadn’t paused in the library. It was real, and it was dying in between the two of you. Like a beautiful blooming flower that had been set aflame, burning out into a crisp, lifeless. 

There was nothing in between you two, you realized. It had been all in your head. You made things up to fill in the gap that you thought was there but it wasn’t. You’d be kicked out of the Scouts. One complaint from Captain Levi was enough to make that happen, you knew that. Erwin trusted him more than anything. 

But then, the lightning crashed again, and he was looking right at you. It revealed the desperate look in your eyes, searching for something, anything. 

Levi seemed to snap at that precise moment. 

The change between the two of you was sudden and borderline violent. Whatever soft kiss you had given him was immediately swallowed up in the way that he kissed you, hand grasping onto the back of your head and anchoring you to him. He didn’t reciprocate, he consumed, knocking the air from your lungs as he continued this almost punishing pace of kisses. You could barely breathe, and the only amount of air that you could breathe out was immediately consumed by his mouth. 

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” He muttered against your lips, though he didn’t give you any time to respond, because he pulled you so close on top of him to stun you. His hand on the back of your head gripped then, pulling you by your hair to push you away. You couldn’t see his face in the dark, only hearing himself gasp for air. “You’re going to be the death of me.” 

A deep ache throbbed behind your eyes, spreading towards your jaw and neck, reaching to your shoulder and seemingly finding a home there. It pulsed beneath your skin, feeling unbearably hot like something was trying to push out of it. Your body ached in strange places, soreness stretching to places you had never thought they could reach before. At least you could feel your heart thumping. That had to count for something. 

There was the inexplicable smell of alcohol and linen reaching your nostrils, causing your brows to furrow. Slowly, consciousness began to drag you towards some sort of light, eyelids feeling  impossibly heavy despite you forcing them open. A second passed where you looked towards the ceiling, the soft lantern light emanating across the wood. 

“Hey,” a voice came from beside you quietly. 

You blinked, slower, enough to turn your eyes toward the chair sitting near your bed. You turned your whole head then, feeling the softness of a pillow behind you. It was Eren. The moment that you made eye contact with him, relief hit his face, making your chest tighten painfully. He had clearly been sitting there for a while, slouched against the wooden chair beside your head with his arms folded over his chest. There were dark circles around his eyes and he looked so, so tired. 

“You look awful,” you mumbled weakly. 

Eren let out a tiny laugh. “That’s what you decide to say after being unconscious for almost two days straight?” 

You stared at him blankly. Two days? You tried to comprehend losing that much time, and you failed miserably. The only thing you could remember last was the forest spinning, Commander Erwin talking and Hange examining you. And then there was nothing. You squeezed your eyes shut, the movement sending another throb through your skull. 

“Don’t do that again,” Eren said, leaning forward in his chair. “You scared the shit out of everyone.” 

Your mouth twitched. “Everyone? 

“Yes, idiot. Everyone.” 

Something warm bloomed inside of your chest. Quiet footsteps echoed somewhere outside of the room, other soldiers returning to the mess hall for dinner. Everything felt too calm to be true, though that’s how infirmaries had always felt to you. Detached from reality, a place of rest. Your gaze shifted back to Eren. “How long have you been sitting there?” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “Only a few hours. We’ve all been taking shifts. Commander Erwin thought that it was unnecessary, but Captain Levi gave us the okay. He was the one who lugged you back most of the way.” 

Your brows furrowed. “Captain Levi?” 

Eren nodded once, stretching in the chair. “Yeah. He said that someone should stay in case you woke up confused. Maybe he actually felt bad for what happened.” 

You stared at Eren, a quizzical look on your face. Captain Levi feeling bad for anything felt almost absurd to think about. It wasn’t impossible, there had to be some humanity locked deep within him behind his cold gaze. But . . . it was strange to think about. Like trying to picture a wolf apologizing to a sheep after biting it. You shook your head, no. It didn’t make sense. He was probably just trying to cover his own ass after what happened. 

“He doesn’t seem like the type,” you muttered, something lingering oddly in your chest. Because despite everything, like the insults and the sharp remarks, and how he always seemed like he was one moment away from throwing half of you recruits into a wall — he still caught you. He still carried you back. And apparently, he still made sure that someone stayed behind while you were unconscious. 

Eren hummed. “He’s actually been checking in on you. Maybe he doesn’t hate you as much as you think he does. He stopped by the infirmary once in a while to ask if you’d woken up yet.”

Heat reached your cheeks and you were lucky that the light was dim enough to not show it. 

“What did he say?” You asked. 

His expression flattened slightly, clearly trying to mimic Levi. “Is she awake.” A pause. “Is she dead.” Another pause. “Why is Hange still here.” 

Both of you erupted into fits of laughter.

Eren spent the next few minutes catching you up on some of the things that happened while you were unconscious. Everything seemed pretty typical, but a part of you knew that Eren was just trying to make you feel less bad about skipping whole days. He told you about all the people that came to see you. It seemed like you had made more of an impact on the people around you than you even noticed. Armin fell asleep in the chair beside your bed while trying to read to you (something about Hange saying familiar voices would take you out of your sleep), Mikasa threatened Connie at least twice for making too many jokes. Jean apparently complained the entire time he visited, but he had also been the first person to volunteer to watch you. 

It felt strange hearing all of it. Not a bad strange. Just incredibly unfamiliar. 

Before you had joined the Scouts, you hadn’t ever really stopped to consider what it would be like to belong somewhere. Truly belong somewhere. You had been pushed out of your home in Shiganshina by Titans, and forced to live the life of a refugee in a place where no one wanted you or your neighbors. Joining the military was a last ditch effort in order to stay with your friends at first, but now you couldn’t imagine yourself anywhere else. Being here had stitched everyone together in a messy and uneven way, something that would probably never fully come undone. Even now, waking up in the infirmary, there was someone sitting right beside you, waiting for you to wake up. 

“See? You’re not allowed to die now. Too many people would be annoyed about it,” Eren said, pushing your shoulder. “So don’t let something like this happen again, or we’ll think that you’re just doing it for attention.”

“You’re evil,” you stated, a grin on your face. 

Eventually, everyone heard that you were awake again and your friends came to visit you. That was, until Hange kicked them out and said that you needed your rest. Connie had attempted to argue, but Eren and Mikasa dragged him out by the collar with promises that they could come back and visit in the morning. As much as you wanted to stand up and leave with them, you knew that it was best to take it easy. You were still getting your strength back. Soon enough, you would be back on your feet. And everything would return to normal. 

Right? 

The evening had fully darkened now, moonlight slipping pale and silver through the infirmary windows. There were a few remaining sounds of soldiers moving through headquarters and somewhere in the small office that was nearby, you could hear pages turning. Hange, most likely. They were probably going over documents of her research until it calmed them to sleep. Did they ever sleep? You really weren’t sure. 

You shifted slightly beneath the blankets, trying to reach for the cup of water on the table beside the bed. However, you immediately regretted moving too much when the pain flared in your shoulder. Hange told you that it had almost been dislocated, and that you were lucky or that would have had you out of commission for a few weeks. Through your winces, you were able to take the cup and take a big gulp. It felt good down your throat, obviously parched from being asleep for two days. 

A quiet scoff came from the doorway. 

“You’re actually awake” 

Levi stood near the entrance of the infirmary, arms crossed over his chest while leaning against the doorframe, expression unreadable from so far away. From what you could see, there were bandages wrapped around one of his forearms that disappeared beneath the rolled sleeve of his white shirt. He walked closer now, crossing the room with the same authoritative drive he used when crossing the battlefield. Once he was at the foot of the bed, you could see the darkened bruises blossoming on the pale skin of his collarbone. He looked tired behind his eyes. 

He looked less like the untouchable strongest soldier and more like the man that you had been in the forest with, who had enough forethought to grab you so you didn’t end up with more injuries than you already had. A part of you wondered how badly he was actually hurt, and before you opened your mouth to say it, you thought about how it was better not to ask. 

“Hange said that your shoulder is still unstable,” Levi said. 

You glanced over your body, the bandaging wrapped beneath the straps of your black knitted tank top a testament to just how unstable it was. You shrugged with your good shoulder. “I’m hard to kill.” 

He huffed out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. His eyes were still looking at you and you almost felt like a bug under a microscope the way that they scanned from your shoulder to the cut that was already half healed on your cheek, your lip still cut and busted in one area. 

“You’re reckless,” he said finally, though it seemed to be less of an insult because it lacked its usual bite. “That isn’t the same thing as being hard to kill.” 

Your fingers tightened around the blanket in your lap. “You make it sound like I did it on purpose. I didn’t. I promise I didn’t see you there until it was too late. It was a one time—” 

He spoke your name, which cut you off from your half assed explanation of something that you weren’t even sure you were remembering correctly. Your name sounded weird on his lips. You were used to him calling you cadet, or soldier, or anything other than the name that you had been born with. There was no sharpness behind it either, just a soft syllabuled word like he had said it so many times before. Your heartbeat stumbled awkwardly beneath your ribs. 

You desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. Did he think that this was all your fault? Did he despise you for giving him injuries that he wouldn’t have if you had been looking where you had been going? 

Levi seemed to realize that he had been staring too long at you, because his expression began to harden again, putting an invisible distance between the two of you. “You’re off training for the next several days,” he said. 

Your face dropped immediately. “What? I’m fine.”

“You’re not using your ODM gear until Hange clears you.” 

It was a clear order. One that you knew you had to obey. 

The next two weeks passed strangely. It wasn’t slow, but also wasn’t quick. You were banned from ODM drills and almost all drills that didn’t have the gear either which, frankly, felt worse than your obvious head injury and your shoulder which had practically healed completely. While everyone else was off training in the forest or doing sparring drills or going out for small expeditions, you were stuck doing everything else. Inventory. Repairs. Cleaning. You were sure that if you had to wash the windows one more time or count another potato, you were going to explode. 

“He’s doing this on purpose. I’ve been fine for at least two days now and I’m still a glorified maid,” you complained to Sasha, scrubbing blood off of a set of blades that had been used in the latest expedition to kill some Titans that got too close to one of the walls. 

Sasha glanced over at the far side of the room where Levi stood, reviewing some paperwork beneath the dim lantern light. “Maybe he just likes staring at you.” 

You dropped the blade into the water bucket. Scrambling, you sifted your hand through the liquid to try and find it while saying, “What?” 

Sasha shrugged, like it was the most common thing in the world. “I’m just saying. He keeps assigning you to everything that keeps you very close.” 

You finally found the blade at the bottom of the bucket and pulled it out with an irritated splash, water dripping down your forearms while you held a scowl on your face. You told yourself that she was being crazy, that he was just keeping you close by in case your brain decided to hemorrhage or something like that. You spent so much time in your head, that was the whole reason that you had gotten hurt in the first place. 

You really needed to stop reading so much into things. 

And you really needed to stop looking for him every time you did something for some type of approval on his part. 

Unfortunately, your body decided to betray your mind, because even after telling yourself all of that, your eyes drifted toward the far side of the room where Levi was standing. The room was busy with soldiers doing menial tasks like cleaning gear and washing clothing and Levi still managed to look entirely separate from all of it. Completely self-contained, not worrying about anything around him. He was so sure of himself and his entire life that you wondered how long it had taken him to get to this point. You had heard the rumors about him, possibly too many rumors that you knew not all of them could be true. Though all of them had at least one thing in common with each other: he used to be very well known in the criminal underground before joining the Scouts. How he got to the Scouts was a bit of a mystery. Some people said that it was because he was bored being a criminal, and others said it was because Erwin took him captive and made him join the Scouts. 

Regardless, it all came down to the same idea that Captain Levi was incredibly different than almost everyone you had met before. 

The dinner bell rang and everyone was quick to finish or abandon their work. Once you polished the rest of the blade in your hand, you and Sasha walked into the hallway and met up with the others for another delicious meal of some-sort-of-vegetable-soup. You slid into your usual spot beside Eren, nudging him with your elbow before digging into your meal. 

“Oh, hey,” Eren said, nudging you with his own elbow in response. “I missed you out there today. It feels so wrong to see you just stand and feed the horses all day.” 

You sighed. “Tell me about it.” 

He laughed quietly beside you, the sound warm enough to pull a smile across your face. This was normal. You needed normal, especially lately. You listened while your gaze drifted absently across the mess hall. There were more soldiers coming in now, crowded into nearly every single table. And despite your better judgement, your eyes found Levi in the crowd. 

He sat near the farthest table from the entrance near Commander Erwin and Hange, with one hand curled around a teacup while the other seemed to fiddle with the same papers he had been looking at earlier. Your gaze lingered for only a second before you looked away, although it was too slow that you realized Eren had noticed. 

“You okay?” he asked. 

You blinked once, feigning indifference. “Hm?” 

“You zoned out again.” 

“Oh,” you said, shrugging. “Just tired, I guess.” 

Eren studied your face for another moment and you wondered if he could see through your lie. Another moment passed before he said, “You’ll be back to training soon. Don’t worry.” 

You nodded vaguely, lowering your gaze back towards your soup before Eren could say anything else. Around you, the conversation was shifting between if Connie could survive out in the wilderness alone while Sasha argued that he would die within hours. They kept talking while you tried your best to eat your food as fast as possible, longing for your bed and a good night's sleep. At least then you could begin to hope that you would be able to train in the morning. 

“Captain!” Armin exclaimed, looking at you, which made you raise your eyebrow. But then you heard the sound of shifting footsteps behind you, and it was then that you realized Captain Levi was standing right behind you and Armin was looking at him and not you. The entire table straightened, Connie stopped talking mid sentence and Mikasa lowered her fork from her mouth. Even Jean looked less interested in arguing about his wilderness survival now that Levi stood behind your shoulder. 

You turned in your seat, watching Levi look down at the table with an unreadable expression. His attention lingered briefly on the rest of your friends before settling on you. 

“Are you done eating?” he asked. 

You blinked once, glancing down at your mostly empty bowl. It had only been ten minutes of you sitting down, was he really going to make you do something else? You could only imagine what he was going to make you do now. Muck out the stables? Clean the floors near the bathrooms? You almost shivered at the idea of having to get your hands dirty like that. “Uh, Almost,” you replied. 

“After dinner, go to the library.” 

Your brows furrowed. “The library?” 

That dusty old place? What could Levi possibly want you to do there? You were sure that the room hadn’t been touched by any soldier since the military started using headquarters again. How could it have gotten that dirty? 

“There are old scouting formation records that need to be reorganized. It’s impossible to get records to Commander Erwin in the sorry state it's in right now,” he spoke. When he saw the quizzical look on your face, blinking a few times to make sure you were hearing him correctly, he spoke again. “You’re not training. Which means unlike anyone else, you shouldn’t be tired. Perfect for staying up later to do some paperwork.” 

Eren muttered something under his breath but you couldn’t hear it. You were too busy trying not to overthink the assignment or the fact that Levi had thought of you specifically for it. Again, you reminded yourself that you were thinking too much into things. It was a simple assignment, something that shouldn’t take too long and then you could go back to your life. And as far away as possible from whatever feelings you were having being near Levi for too long. 

“I can do that,” you replied. 

Levi sat farther into his heels, his eyes traveling from your eyes to the soft bandages that poked out of your uniform from your shoulder. He watched for a moment longer before walking away through the mess hall, boots echoing softly against the wooden floors. 

The library smelled of mildew and leather, a place that had a considerably less amount of foot traffic just by the looks of it. There was a fine line of dust along the top shelves where books that hadn’t been touched in years laid in wait. Luckily, those ones seemed to still be in chronological order. The ones that needed attending to were on the middle and lower shelves. It was clear that the groups of military who were here before left in some type of hurry, different papers strewn in between each book in a disorganized array. 

You dragged your fingers along the spine of one of the books while moving through the shelves, eyes scanning the faded lettering stamped along the leather bindings. Lanternlight glowed softly through the library, stretching shadows between each row of books, the heavy wooded doors fading any distant muffled noise. It felt almost abandoned, in the way that churches were quiet. 

A strange sort of heaviness settled in your body while you scanned each text looking for proper dates. Every single book in this room represented years of work, years of people fighting for the same thing that you were fighting for, and years of hope for a better life. Most of the soldiers that were in these past formations were probably not alive anymore, due to such a high casualty rate in the Scouts. Your gaze drifted to one of the papers sticking between two books, pulling it free and scanning the handwritten notes that covered the page. Words from a different time. 

To your right, Levi was sitting at the head of one of the many wooden tables, scanning over documents himself. It seemed like he was looking for something, the way that his long index finger traced the faded lines of text. If you watched him for too long, you found yourself staring at the vascular contours of his hands, a vein or two sticking out against his pale skin. The finger he was using traced so delicately as to not disturb the pages beneath it. 

You wondered, for a split second, if that finger would feel as delicate tracing the vertebra of your spine. And instead of the usual mortifying feeling you had thinking about your commanding Captain that way, all you could do was replay the motion over and over in your head. Your stomach twisted in on itself, the familiar feeling of heat rising to your cheeks. 

To try and combat this embarrassment, you looked back down at the papers in your hands, setting them down on the table and beginning to order them by date. Your fingers moved quicker than your thoughts, trying so desperately hard not to think about Levi touching you in any capacity beyond dragging you out of life-threatening situations or carrying you from the forest after you passed out from injury. It was one thing to notice that he was attractive, unfairly attractive, but it was another thing to imagine the exact way that his hands would roam your body while standing only a few feet away from him. 

Levi sighed, a sound that caught your attention in the intimate space between the two of you. When you turned to look at him, he had his hand running through his dark hair to the back of his neck, an obvious tiredness in his actions that made you wonder why he insisted on doing this tonight instead of tomorrow in the morning. Your memories flashed back to that night you had been outside with him and how late that was. Perhaps he also had trouble sleeping after all of these years. 

“Something wrong, Captain?” You asked, trying to make polite conversation regardless of your splintered and fractured feelings towards him. His hand paused briefly where it rested against the back of his neck before dropping back down to the papers. There was such a pregnant pause between your question and his answer that you almost thought he would ignore your question entirely. 

He leaned back into his chair, the creak of wood under the legs of it. “Headache.” 

You pretended that you didn’t hear the gruffness of his voice when he said it, the low timbre scratching right into your bones. It was such a common, simple word, and yet you were reeling from it. It took everything in you to not ask him more questions, to dig into how he was feeling, how he felt about what happened between the two of you in the forest. So, instead you tried to go back to work. 

It was hard though, because you could hear the scrape of Levi’s thumb against the old paper whenever he turned a page, or the quiet shift of his boots against the floorboards. You could hear the occasional low exhale through his nose when he realized how worn the words were on the page of whatever he was reading. You wondered if other people noticed these things about him too, or if they were too busy being afraid of him to even think about it. 

“I’m sorry,” you stated before you could stop yourself. Your eyes drifted back to him, watching him roll up one of his grey sleeves. “For what happened in the forest.”

His finger stilled against the page. 

You continued. “During the crash you got hurt because I wasn’t paying attention.” 

Levi stared at you, silence stretching thin. Maybe you shouldn’t have said that. Maybe you should have just kept your mouth shut so you could get out of here and stop thinking so much about him. He was your Captain, it was so inappropriate to even think about thinking these incessant thoughts about him. 

“You really need to stop thinking so much,” he said. An observation. If this had been a month ago when you were just getting to know your Captain, you would have probably taken it as almost an insult the way that he said it. Knowing Levi now, you knew it was just his nature. Levi stood up and put the book he had been reading away on one of the middle shelves, leaning against the wood afterwards to look at you fully. 

Your fingers twitched. “And what?” you asked. “You don’t think about mistakes after they happen?” 

“I don’t make mistakes.” 

You stared at him flatly for a moment, then a laugh escaped your throat before you could stop it. It wasn’t loud, just tiny enough that it slipped without any instinct. Levi’s eyes squinted, as if to ask why you were laughing when he was serious. He walked closer to you, footsteps echoing within the wooden walls of the library. It was here that you could see his face completely, every single painfully handsome detail. His jawline was sharp, so sharp that you wondered if it would soften with a kiss against it, or how it would look with a mouth shaped mark just along the junction between his jaw and his neck. 

His eyes stayed glued to yours, dark grey circles that looked right into yours, searching for something. You weren’t sure what. 

Maybe he didn’t know either. 

Your pulse beat so hard beneath your skin that you wondered if he could see it in the vein in your throat. He was so close now, close enough that if you leaned forward even slightly, your knee would brush against his leg. You could feel his breathing again, the same way that you had felt when you had landed on top of him in the clearing. Calm and concise, like he wasn’t affected by being so close to you. 

A hand came up, pausing for a moment while he looked into your eyes, and then landed on your cheek, tracing the faint line that still was present from the accident. Your breath caught in your throat. Levi’s hand was rougher than you expected it to be. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had touched the healing wound. Eren was obsessed with making sure it was healing properly. But Levi’s hands felt different than Eren’s, his touch felt different than Eren’s. His fingers curled against your jaw, steady and warm, thumb tracing carefully along the fading cut. 

It was impossibly gentle for a man who was capable of tearing Titans apart with ease. 

You kept your eyes fixed on his face while he examined the scar, gray eyes lowered beneath his dark lashes. You could see every tiny detail that you had spent the last two weeks trying desperately not to notice, like how the faint scar near his lip was pale with age, or how his expression softened just slightly when he stopped thinking so hard about maintaining his sharp persona that everyone expected from him. 

“You’ll scar,” your Captain murmured, thumb brushing once more against your cheekbone. 

You swallowed. Hard. “That bothers you?” 

His eyes shifted from the pale line slowly back toward your own. 

“No.” 

You remembered then the way he had said ‘no’ that night outside. The same certainty, a quiet finality beneath the word. 

Then you must have gotten what you wanted, right, Captain? 

No.

It hit you over and over again, just like it had that night beneath the moonlight, the coldness settling in your bones. Something about the way Levi said things made them feel immovable and absolute. He had already carved the thought into stone before speaking it out loud. He looked at your scar like it didn’t lessen you in any way, thumb lingering against your cheekbone before his hand moved, signalling he was going to move away. 

Your instincts took over, right hand shooting up and curling around the pale expanse of his wrist, holding his hand there against your face. The entire room seemed to stop breathing while Levi stilled beneath your touch. Your pulse was slamming violently against your ribs the second you realized what you had done, eyes blown wide as you failed to reach eye contact with him. 

This was your Captain. The same Captain who would kill a Titan without blinking. The same Captain who people stepped aside for in hallways like he had silently commanded it. Your Captain whose hand was still cupping your face while your fingers curled around the bones of his wrist like you couldn’t bear the idea of him pulling away. 

Instead of letting go, your grip tightened only slightly, prompting Levi’s eyes to drop towards your hand. His gaze then lifted towards your face again and you could’ve sworn that something dark flickered behind his gaze. It wasn’t exactly anger. Something worse than that. 

Your breathing was shallow, every inhale catching in your throat while his skin burned warm beneath your fingers. The tendons shifted subtly underneath your grip, his hand flexing as if to test the sturdiness of your hand. Neither of you had moved still, while the library became deathly quiet around you. You couldn’t hear the muffling of footsteps in the hallway anymore, nor the flickering of the lantern on the table. 

“Careful.” 

The word, that singular word, scraped against your spine. 

Still, you didn’t let go. 

Levi inhaled sharply. A tiny sound, barely there. And the noise nearly destroyed you. His eyes narrowed, though it didn’t look like irritation in his gaze. More like restraint, like he was forcing himself not to react to you the way that his body wanted him to. His thumb brushed slowly along your cheek, eyes still focused as if trying to memorize the exact details of your face. 

“If you keep looking at me like that,” he murmured. “Eventually you’re going to get yourself into trouble.” 

“How am I looking at you?” You muttered back, mouth going slightly dry. The question held there between your body, like a pulled blade, inches from being stabbed directly into his heart before having him bleed out on the library floor. His demeanor changed then, the same hand on your face tracing a slow path down your cheek to your jaw, finding purchase there before continuing its descent down, down, down and landing on the junction between your head and your neck. You gulped, which he could feel beneath his fingers. He didn’t squeeze, just held you there through his hand and his gaze. 

He stepped forward then, pinning you in between him and the table. “You know exactly how,” he said quietly. His eyes traveled downward to your mouth. “Do you want me to do something about it?” 

Yes. Your body screamed. Yes you wanted him to do something about it. He had been driving you crazy for the past two weeks, invading your thoughts and infecting your mind with only him. He made you stay close to him under the guise that he was watching your recovery. You hated him because he didn’t let you go back to training. And you hated him for making you seem like a maid to order around on your every whim. And you hated him now, for looking at you like you were the one who was coaxing him into something that he didn’t want. You knew he wanted something, it was evident. But something told you that he would never admit it. 

You wanted him to kiss you so bad that it physically hurt, an aching thing that you couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard you tried. In fact, you weren’t even sure that if he kissed you it would go away. It would be easier that way, if he kissed you and things would go back to normal. But the way that he was looking at you now wasn’t helping your rationale. He wanted this, you knew that he did. You could feel it in the way that his hand absentmindedly flexed against your throat as your breathing sped up and then slowed back down. 

And still, he was making you say it. 

“You’re cruel,” you whispered to him, inspiring a look of amusement from Levi. He hummed, the sound brushing against your lips from how close he was standing. 

You hated him for that too. For being so composed while your thoughts were spiraling into something embarrassing, something desperate beneath his gaze. You could barely even remember why you had been in the library in the first place. The reports, which were strewn lazily along the desk you were practically sitting on, felt absurdly unimportant to the both of you. 

“You keep asking questions you already know the answer to,” you stated. 

Levi’s other hand came to brush his fingers against your jaw, thumb coming up way too close to your bottom lip. 

“Do I?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then answer it.” 

A command, one that you were expected to answer. Under normal circumstances, you would have answered right away. Yes, Captain. But the words caught in your throat. It felt wrong to call him Captain at a time like this, when he was this close to you that you could smell the fresh linen scent emanating from his clothing and something like black tea on his breath. 

Swallowing your pride, you spoke low, “I know you want to kiss me.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me,” he said, a fact. But his voice was devoid of any type of uncertainty. It sounded wrecked. 

“Why?” You whispered. 

Because I won’t stop. 

Every inch of your body leaned unconsciously toward him, waiting for the kiss that felt inevitable now. His forehead pressed against yours and your eyes fluttered shut, the warmth of his breath ghosting over your mouth. 

And then? 

Nothing happened. 

Furrowing your brows in confusion, you opened your eyes. Levi was still looking at you, watching you unravel in front of him, as your stomach twisted and your heart beat right into your ears. What the hell was he waiting for? You had laid out what you felt and what you knew that he felt and . . . he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing!

“Captain,” you whispered, the title slipping free through your mouth, sounding all the more desperate than respectful. 

Levi stepped back, your pulse thrumming hard while his hands slipped away from you. His fingertips ghosted along your skin before they disappeared. The sudden loss of warmth hit you immediately and your body almost followed him on instinct. Which Levi seemed to notice, a faint exhale from him. It sounded almost like satisfaction. Like he had wrestled himself back under control and knew exactly what denying was doing to you. His breathing had calmed down, rolled sleeves exposed forearms with the same veins that you had been eying earlier. 

As if it was the most normal thing in the world, he reached down toward the table. 

“Organize the rest of these papers, then you can leave,” he said evenly. 

“You cannot be serious.” 

“I’m very serious.” 

“You were just —”

“Just what?” Mocking. 

You gave him a look, one that was half pleading and half accusatory. 

sukuna had been fighting since he was fifteen and filled with a rage even he couldn’t understand. 

toji found him bloody outside a convenience store after some older guys tried jumping him for gambling money. 

it was clear they didn’t get the money but sukuna took that fire in his gaze out on them. 

sukuna still recalled the way toji looked down at him, droplets cascading down his sharp features and dark hair, damp cigarette hanging from his mouth while blood dripped steadily from sukuna’s split brow. 

“you fight like an animal,” toji began, taking a drag of his fading cig before tilting his head at the salmon haired boy, “what if i told you that you could beat the shit out of guys every day and get paid for it?” 

a fucking dream is what that was. he gets to utilize his anger and he could finally get out of his father’s house. 

how could sukuna even say no? 

somehow, it turned into this. 

years later, ryomen sukuna had become the name whispered through underground rings across the city. not because he was the biggest or the strongest, but because he was cruel. 

there was something deeply unsettling about the way sukuna fought. 

controlled, almost lazy sometimes. like violence came so naturally to him that he didn’t even need to think about it. 

people feared men who fought emotionally. 

they feared ryomen sukuna more because he never did. 

most nights, he fought beneath screaming neon lights while crowds chanted his name loud enough to shake the walls. 

they bet on him like he was a sure thing and fuck, did he get a shitload of money from it. 

he’d leave each night, beaten and bruised with a duffel of cash hanging off his shoulder.

he was living the dream.

that was until he arrived home, in his apartment downtown, and sat in silence while somebody else’s emotions bled quietly into his chest. 

a girl he’d never met yet somehow knew like the back of his hand, all too intimately. 

he knew she liked coffee because of the bursts of energy he’d feel during mornings where he usually slept in because his fights usually carried into the night. 

he knew she did yoga often because his muscles weren’t as sore as they would get when he was younger and god knows it wasn’t his doing. he didn’t stretch nearly as much as toji nagged at him to. 

he also knew that she despised him. 

that one was obvious. 

their bond always sharpened after his fights. her irritation sat bright and hot beneath his ribs every time he came home bruised and bloody. 

sometimes he couldn’t differentiate between his own rage and hers. 

maybe they were more alike than he thought. 

truthfully, sukuna didn’t know how to do things any differently and frankly, he didn’t care enough to. 

he hated this whole soulmates shit. why would the universe ever pair two people together with the utmost certainty that they were perfect for each other?

and what fucking masacre did this girl commit to be bonded with him of all people? 

violence was the only thing sukuna had ever been good at and he wouldn’t change that for anyone, especially some girl who was almost a mere figment of his imagination. 

he did that sometimes. pretended that he was a non-existent and that he was merely hallucinating her. 

non-existents made up a very small part of the population and they were essentially humans who didn’t have soulmates. like toji was. 

lucky bastard. 

sometimes sukuna believed toji was lying because he’d get this distant look on his face some days, kind of like himself when he felt his own soulmate torment him. 

so maybe he was a late bloomer? 

either way, he was in a better situation than sukuna was. 

“your girl’s pissed again?” toji commented dryly from where he leaned against the boxing ring ropes, head tilted with a knowingness sukuna hated. 

toji was the one sukuna had to confide in because who else did he have? 

when he was overwhelmed as a young teenager about his soulmate, toji would be the one he would reluctantly go to. the older man had taken him under his wing, so yes, he did trust him more than anyone. 

he also knew that toji cared about him in his own fucked up way. 

sukuna’s knuckles ached tonight, phantom annoyance curling beneath his skin that didn’t belong to him. it was her. 

probably studying somewhere in the city while silently wishing death upon him. 

the thought almost made him grin. 

throughout the years, pissing her off became a hobby of some sort, though he knew she didn’t find it nearly as amusing as he did. 

“at least you know she’s got personality.” toji stated once more as sukuna finally stopped punching and turned to shoot the man a glare. 

“shut the fuck up.”

toji huffed out a laugh, “god help you both when you finally meet.”

the thought made sukuna freeze momentarily. 

it was almost sad. 

usually, at least from what sukuna knew, people usually couldn’t wait to meet their soulmates. 

then there was sukuna, filled with dread at the mere idea. 

sukuna hated even talking about the bond. 

he hated how aware he was of her. 

because despite everything, the distance and never seeing her to begin with, she felt woven into him already, like a haunting. 

some nights, when his insomnia clawed violently at his nerves after fights, he’d feel her wrap her arms around herself beneath warm blankets god knows where. 

and sleep came easier those nights. 

he couldn’t explain it and truthfully, he didn’t like to think about it. 

he hated talking about her because the truth was ugly. 

that he didn’t particularly hate her. which is exactly why he knew meeting her would ruin everything. 

naturally, his solution was to sabotage everything which is why he started to sleep around with non-existents whenever he got the chance. 

and he knew what it did to her. 

good. he hoped it made her despise him enough to never want anything to do with him, whether they meet now or twenty years down the line. 

sukuna didn’t want anything to do with her. 

∞

you hated downtown on friday nights. 

it was always too loud and all too crowded. 

neon signs bled into rain-slick streets while bass-heavy music spilled from every open doorway along the block. 

girls stumbled across sidewalks in tiny dresses and tall heels, drunken laughter cutting through the humid summer night air while taxis lined the streets endlessly. 

the city looked beautiful after dark, but you still wanted to be everywhere but here. 

“stop looking at people with that judgy look of yours.” shoko muttered beside you, nudging your shoulder lightly as the three of you crossed the street.

“i’m not judging, i’m just looking around…” you defended with a huff as you hugged yourself protectively, little kitten heels clicking against the pavement. 

“you are judging,” utahime confirmed, “it’s your classic disgusted and glare-ey look.” 

“well excuse me, you’re the ones who brought me to crackhead-ville.” you glared at the two girls as shoko rolled her eeys before hooking her arm through yours anyway. 

she pulled you towards the entrance of yet another overcrowded building downtown.

apparently, tonight’s party was being held somewhere above an abandoned old bar. or beneath it. 

either way, something you found entirely too ominous but you were too distracted when shoko was explaining to actually disagree. 

your soulmate had spent the entire evening restless beneath your skin. not angry but worse. 

aware. 

you felt him constantly tonight. 

a steady pulse of adrenaline humming through your bloodstream that didn’t belong to you. 

your chest had felt tight since leaving the penthouse, some strange tension settling low in your stomach like your body was anticipating something before your mind could catch up.

it was unsettling. 

you blamed the lack of sleep, or rather, you blamed him. you blamed him for it all. 

“ew, ew…” you muttered as shoko pulled you through the door into what you could only describe as chaos. 

warmth and noise hit you instantly. 

bodies crowded wall to wall beneath flashing lights while music shook violently through the floorboards. 

cigarette smoke lingered in the air despite the open windows somewhere deeper inside the space. 

you physically recoiled. 

“oh my god,” utahime muttered beside you, laughing softly at the expression painting your features, “you look horrified.” 

“i am horrified!” 

shoko snorted, “rich kids.” 

you threw her a glare before the three of you squeezed through the crowd until you reached a quieter section tucked near the back of the room. 

a curved leather couch sat half-empty beneath dim red lights, thankfully far enough from the speakers that your skull stopped vibrating the second you sat down. 

you exhaled deeply, chest deflating as you blinked up at your friends who were looking at you with amusement. 

“drinks?” utahime questioned as shoko nodded eagerly while you merely hummed, shoulders tense as you gazed around the sea of bodies. 

utahime disappeared toward the bar while shoko took a seat beside you, the leather beneath you sticky in a way that had you shuddering, sitting at the very edge of the couch. 

fuck, you hated this and you couldn’t explain why. 

yes, you hated parties in general but you just felt wrong. 

“you’re being weird tonight.” shoko observed, eyes narrowed on your tense figure. 

you frowned faintly, “i know…i feel weird.”

your skin felt like it was buzzing, chest vibrating in a way it usually wasn’t. 

it wasn’t necessarily bad, but simply off. 

you felt your soulmate more than ever tonight, you were almost hyperaware. 

he felt electric. 

every emotion coming from him felt sharper somehow, close enough that you could almost mistake them for your own. 

your pulse kept jumping for no reason. 

fuck, you hated this. 

“is it devils dick?” shoko casually asked as your eyes closed momentarily. 

how would you explain that it was both yes and no. 

yes, the bond felt different tonight. 

but no, it wasn’t muscle aches or phantom pain you were feeling on his end, though you didn't want to speak too soon. 

it was a friday after all. friday nights usually meant bruised ribs by saturday morning. 

“oh my god, guys!” hime stood before you, handing shoko her drink before placing a water bottle in your hand, “everyone’s saying gojo and his crew are gonna be here!” 

your eyes rolled gently, very much aware of utahime’s obsession with those random illegitimate fighters. 

underground fights happened constantly throughout the city. 

illegal betting rings buried beneath clubs and abandoned buildings, violent enough that respectable people pretended they didn’t exist despite everyone secretly knowing otherwise. 

your father even told you how known politicians and well known figures even placed bets they hid from the public.  

and lately, there was one name that everyone kept talking about-

“do you think sukuna would show up?” shoko questioned, eyes wide with excitement, taking a sip of her cherry vodka as you looked between the two girls. 

ryomen sukuna. 

you’d heard it constantly from utahime the past few months. 

uathime, shoko, sora and percy often went on double dates to these underground fights you had zero interest in. 

you were very much used to fifth wheeling alongside your friends, that wasn’t the issue. the issue was rooted in the prospect of spending the night in a filthy underground boxing ring riddled with people and violence alike. yuck. 

still, amongst all the fighters utahime gushed about, ryomen sukuna seemed to be the most known. 

the undefeated underground fighter with pink hair and a snake tattoo across his shoulders and collarbones. 

people were terrified of him just as equally as they were obsessed with him. 

“percy says sukuna knocked his opponent unconscious in under thirty seconds last week!” shoko stated, taking another sip as utahime nodded frantically. 

“he’s insane!” utahime gushed, “like, gojo is obviously a show off and just cares about the clout he gets but sukuna? he’s terrifying…”

utahime continued, you were sure. you could see her mouth moving but you didn’t-couldn’t register the words she'd uttered. 

the world around you turned hazy, just enough to feel like everything slowed in a way that definitely wasn’t normal. 

your heartbeat stopped, not metaphorically, but physically. 

a sharp wave of adrenaline crashed violently into your chest hard enough to steal the breath straight from your lungs. 

you went still, every muscle in your body tightening instinctively. 

you could see both of the girls leaning towards you, brows furrowed in concern, mouths moving and uttering words you knew were dipped in concern. you couldn’t hear any of it. 

you swallowed hard, eyes darting up and around you, as if a siren was luring you towards the crowd, come to me, come, come. 

fuck, were you drugged or something?

your heartbeat stuttered painfully beneath your ribs, once, twice then again. 

you felt like you’d been dropped underwater while everyone else remained above the surface. 

the bond felt raw and entirely too overwhelming.

it felt like standing at the edge of something life-altering, like your soul had recognized something before your mind could catch up to it. 

for the first time since you’d first felt your soulmate, he didn’t feel far away. 

you had grown used to the idea of him, something intangible and not truly real. 

merely a ghost haunting the edges of your nervous system, phantom bruises in the middle of lectures and an adrenaline rush at three in the morning. 

he was the deep-seated exhaustion that riddled your body but didn’t belong to you. 

but this felt real. close enough to touch. 

the sensation crawled slowly beneath your skin, winding around your ribs like invisible string being pulled tighter and tighter and tighter until you thought you might choke on it. 

the realization hit your bloodstream like a drug. 

he was here, you knew it. you could feel it in your bones. 

your eyes darted towards the door that had swung open, summer air rushing inside alongside four figures dressed almost entirely in black. 

the first thing you noticed was height. 

they all carried themselves with the same dangerous sort of confidence, the kind that came from men who had never truly feared consequences before. 

one of them had snowy white locks, the tallest of the bunch, bright enough to catch beneath the flashing lights, sunglasses balanced lazily across his nose despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. 

another stood beside him, quieter with shoulder length black locks with stretched gauges in his ears and sharp eyes that swept across the room once before settling into bored indifference.

the third one was shorter than the rest but still tall, black locks in two spiked buns with a joint resting between plump pink lips, eyes hooded in a way that exposed that joint not being his first of the night.

they were all attractive in a way that felt almost unfair and dangerous. 

people moved out of their path without being asked. 

your eyes turned to the one trailing just a step behind them and your breath caught so violently, it hurt. 

the salmon colored locks gave him away. 

ryomen sukuna. 

tattoos curled dark against tan skin disappearing beneath the collar of a black shirt that stretched across broad shoulders. 

even from where you stood, you could see the dried blood and bruises across his knuckles. 

he looked nothing like what you’d imagined from shoko’s descriptions. 

and simultaneously, exactly like it too. 

something deep inside you snapped taut, your stomach dropping. 

you could tell he was dazed too, jaw locked and eyes blinking at a slow pace, eyes looking around the sea of bodies. 

the soulmate bond surged so hard beneath your ribs, you physically recoiled, fingers gripping the edge of the leather couch. 

oh god. no, no, no.

oh my god…

“oh my god,” utahime whispered beside you, though unlike you, she sounded impressed rather than horrified. 

shoko looked moments away from passing out entirely. 

“that’s him!” she breathed out quietly. 

you couldn’t answer, breath stilling and hands trembling. 

because sukuna had stopped walking.

fuck, the realization came slowly enough to feel cruel. 

maroon eyes met your own and the room around you dissolved entirely. the music became muffled noise, lights blurring and the crowd disappeared.

all you could see was him. him. him. him. 

he was all you could see, feel and you knew all he could see was you. 

sukuna felt it the second he stepped through the doorway. 

you. 

the bond snapped violently alive beneath his skin hard enough that his entire body locked for half a second mid-step. 

he almost thought someone had drugged him until he remembered he hadn’t even drank anything yet. 

then what was this feeling? 

his eyes locked on yours and he felt the most alive he’d felt in his life.

something even the ring and the violence couldn't offer. 

there you were, all too pretty and wide eyed. 

he barely heard gojo speak beside him anymore, the lanky man rambling on about some idiot from last week’s fight who apparently called him out on twitter after. 

sukuna ignored him completely because across the room sat a girl staring at him like she’d seen a ghost. 

and in some ways, he was your ghost. 

he haunted you and lived under your skin in ways he was sure you didn’t appreciate in the slightest. 

his soulmate. 

years of phantom feelings crashed together all at once so violently, it almost made him sick. 

because the realization hit him harder than he’d anticipated and yes, he had anticipated this. 

the moment he’d meet his soulmate. 

well, he dreaded more than anticipated it. 

it hit him hard because he realized that he knew this girl. 

sukuna had never met you, yet, he bet he knew you more than the two girls hovering over you. more than fucking anyone. 

you were the girl whose stress bled into his bones during finals week, the girl who wrapped her arms around herself at night and somehow lulled him to sleep from miles away. 

you were real. 

and you looked soft. 

that was the first thing he took note of. 

soft skin, soft wide eyes, soft pink shimmery gloss coating your plush lips he recognized only through phantom warmth he’d felt against his own skin before. 

his soulmate was a pretty little thing, so pretty it almost made his chest ache. in your tiny skirt and halter top.

far too fucking pretty to belong anywhere near him. 

“sukuna?” 

choso’s voice cut through the haze faintly and sukuna snapped out of it, gaze finally leaving hers to glance at his friend who tilted his head towards the other side of the room. 

sukuna resisted the urge to glance at you as he made his way across the room.

fuck, fuck, fuck! 

this couldn’t be happening, this was a fucking nightmare. 

just as he made it across the room, he felt it. 

warm fingertips brushing his own skin despite his hands at his sides. 

his pulse stuttered once. 

his gaze snapped to yours once more and your eyes widened instantly when you noticed his hand drift to his neck where your own hand was resting. 

slowly and carefully, sukuna lifted his own hand. 

his fingers brushed lightly against the side of his jaw, a barely there touch. 

yet, across the room, your breath hitched sharply as warmth bloomed against your own jawline seconds later. 

not imagined or coincidence. it was all real, so so real. 

your stomach twisted violently. 

oh no. no no no no. 

shoko was gazing at you, “what’s wrong?!” 

you couldn’t answer, eyes stuck on a pair of crimson that held you hostage.

her eyes narrowed as both her and utahime followed your gaze before catching sukuna’s eyes on you. 

then they both looked between you both a total of five times before realization hit. 

“wait,” shoko whispered harshly, hand shooting out to grip your arm, “WAIT.”

utahime’s jaw physically fell open, “holy shit…”

your heartbeat pounded so violently, you thought you might faint right then and there beneath the flashing red lights.

what you despised most is that it made sense. 

of course it was him. a violent and dangerous underground fighter, fuck, that explained everything so perfectly.

if fate was a person, you’d have her by the neck right now. 

because sukuna was still staring at you, as if he knew you already and perhaps, he did. 

then horrifyingly, he smirked. 

and suddenly, you understood exactly why the entire city feared ryomen sukuna. 

sukuna moved before he could really think about it, jaw clenched but determined.

one second he stood on the other side of the room and the next, his body was already weaving through the crowd toward you like the bond itself had wrapped invisible fingers around his spine and dragged him to you. you. his soulmate. 

people moved instantly to let him pass. 

you took note of that immediately. 

you noticed the way conversations died around him, the way bodies shifted out of his path and nobody dared touch him, even accidentally. 

it was fear, you realized. people feared him. 

the recognition made your stomach twist. 

“oh my god,” shoko whispered harshly beside you, nails digging into your arm, “he’s coming over here!” 

“i can see that.” you hissed back faintly, though your voice barely sounded like your own. 

fuck, you should leave. you should absolutely leave. 

except, you couldn’t move, body drilled to where you sat, frozen in place while ryomen fucking sukuna rossed the room toward you like some predator chasing prey. 

closer and closer and closer. 

until suddenly, all his 6’4 glory was towering above you. 

your breath caught embarrassingly hard. 

up close, he was worse. 

taller than you’d imagined and broader too. 

there were faint bruises scattered along his jawline beneath the dim lights, on the very spot that you woke up feeling sore. fresh cuts healed across his knuckles. 

and his eyes, god, they looked at you with the same recognition burning through your own chest. 

sukuna looked down at you for a moment too long. 

fuck, you were even more ethereal up close. 

that thought hit him first and annoyingly hardest. 

his pretty little soulmate sitting curled into the edge of a leather couch looking at him with wide doe eyes, almost expectantly with a mix of fear and restraint. 

“hey.” 

his voice slid down your spine like smoke. 

low, dangerous and rough in a way even your mind couldn’t conjure up.

fuck, was this really happening?

your throat tightened instantly, “hi.”

the word left you horrifyingly softer than you’d intended and sukuna’s lips twitched at the sound. 

your voice was his favorite sound, instantly. 

“um,” shoko hummed, eyes wide as she shared a glance with utahime, “we’ll give you two a second.”

you almost wanted to yell in protest, but the two girls were already shuffling away, shooting you encouraging looks. 

as you glanced up at the dangerous man once more, you felt your heart still in a way you hadn’t ever felt before. 

not in fear or apprehension but calm. 

he made you feel calm, your body stilling and quieting in a way you hadn’t expected. 

regretfully, fuck, you despised it, but when that gentleness overcame you and you looked up at him…

his disheveled pink locks, his handsome rugged features and his dark eyes, all of it was him. 

and you felt stupid for trying to deny that this man was your soulmate. 

who else would it be? 

“i’m sukuna,” he stated lowly, moving to take a seat beside you, leaving an appreciative distance between you, “ryomen sukuna.” 

your name left you softly with a nod. 

as you gazed at each other, the same realization overcame you both. 

even with barely an introduction, you knew each other. 

while sukuna had only fond memories of what you’d done for him, your mind was riddled with poisonous ones. 

this was the man who often trained in the middle of the night, filling you with soreness and a rush of adrenaline that left you sleepless most nights. 

he was the one who fucked other girls knowing what that put you through. 

your heart clenched. 

beyond all those things, he was the one who hugged himself to sleep after that one night of utter hell. 

he was the one who held a hot water bottle to his stomach when your cramps left you nauseated and pained in bed. 

as much as you wanted to forget those things, to snap yourself out of the sad patheticness that riddled you, how could you?

how could you when those were the only memories that kept your hope that he wasn’t a total monster alive?

your eyes travelled along his bloodied knuckles, “you get those a lot.” 

sukuna’s fists instinctively clenched at the attention.

“and you burn yourself with whatever you do your hair with at least twice a week.”

your eyes widened instantly. 

“and you get punched like every other day!” 

sukuna’s mouth twitched and you hated how your eyes drifted towards the movement and your heart stuttered. 

“barely.” sukuna stated cooly, a small smirk painting his features. 

your eyes drifted toward him again before you could stop yourself. 

and then you remembered. 

every phantom feeling, every sleepless night and every ache.

all attached to him. 

the violence, the pain, the girls. 

your jaw tightened, "you’re not exactly the best person to be connected to, you know.” 

sukuna’s expression didn’t shift much, still cool, but you felt it. 

the hollow drop in your stomach that wasn’t yours. guilt. 

real and immediate, it almost made you laugh in disbelief. 

of course he felt guilty, he had to know he was a fucking nightmare. 

sukuna leaned back slightly, jaw working once as his gaze flickered away from yours for half a second, “yeah, i bet.” 

your brows lifted, “that’s it?” 

his eyes returned to yours, low and indifferent. 

you scoffed, anger bubbling up so quickly, it nearly startled you, “that’s all you have to say?” 

sukuna let out a breath through his nose, “what do you want me to say?”

“oh, i don’t know,” you let out a sharp little laugh that held not an ounce of humor, “maybe sorry would be a good place to start?!” 

sukuna’s head tilted, “sorry.” 

you stared at him in utter disbelief before a laugh left you once more, this time softer and dripped in something worse than anger, “wow…” 

sukuna’s eyes borrowed, “what?” 

“you’re unbelievable is what!” 

“you asked for sorry.” 

“not like that!” you nsapped, voice rising just enough to have your cheeks flushing, “not like you’re apologizing for stepping on my shoe!”

his expression hardened slightly and you felt it immediately, the irritation beginning to curl beneath his skin. 

ugh, you hated how the closeness made both your emotions so heightened. 

though, you hoped he could feel your rage. 

"an apology isn't gonna change shit. won't make y'feel better either."

his words enraged you even more.

“you have no idea what you put me through,” you continued, voice trembling despite you rbest efforts, “none.” 

sukuna’s gaze darkened, “don’t do that.”

“do what?” 

“act like i wasn’t there too.” 

you blinked at him, something hot and ugly twisting in your chest. 

was he for real? 

“you were there?” you repeated quietly, “you were there?” 

his jaw clenched, “don’t-”

“no, please,” you leaned forward slightly, anger sharpening every word, “explain it to me. because to my knowledge, you were the one making my life miserable while i was the one trying to keep us both sane!”

sukuna looked at you for a long moment, jaw clenching and unclenching. 

the lights washed over his face in flashes of red, making him look even more unreal than he already did. 

“you think i wanted this?” he stated more than asked and your heart clenched. 

hurt shot through you, your eyes growing glassy against your will because you knew he wasn’t referring to the pain he’d put you through. 

he meant the soulmate thing in general, fate as a whole. 

he didn’t want you.

you bit the inside of your cheek, willing your tears to stay in your eyes before breathing out, “no. but neither did i.” 

silence settled between you then, not peaceful but loaded. 

sukuna could physically feel your hurt and his eyes dropped briefly to your hands where they trembled in your lap. 

your fingers curled instantly, too proud as you hid the movement. 

it was too late. he’d seen it. 

even worse, he’d felt it.

“i didn’t know.” he stated lowly and you froze. 

your eyes flickered up, “what?” 

his tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, expression unreadable. 

“at first,” he clarified, “i didn’t know what it did to you.” 

your chest tightening, knowing what he was referring to and his words didn’t soothe you in the slightest. 

“and after?” 

in fact, it made it all worse. 

especially as he said nothing. 

your face fell slightly, all the anger in you cooling into something quieter and melancholic. 

“after, you knew.” 

his gaze remained on you as his fingers flexed once against his thigh, “yeah, i knew.” 

your eyes burned and you hated yourself for it. 

you hated that it still hurt despite knowing already, you hated that hearing him say it aloud made it real in a way the bond never had. 

“why?” you asked, the one word absolutely humiliating as much as it was devastating. 

sukuna looked away first and somehow, that hurt too, “because it was easier.” 

your lips parted faintly, “easier?” 

he lout out a grunt, “if you hated me, you wouldn’t look for me.” 

the words settled between you like something deadly. 

for a second, you genuinely couldn’t speak. 

then you did, “that is the stupidest, shittiest thing i’ve ever heard.” 

hsi eyes snapped back to yours, scowling, “careful.” 

“oh, fuck you!” you hissed lowly, “you don’t get to do that! you don’t get to hurt me on purpose and then act like it was some noble sacrifice.” 

his jaw tightened, “it wasn’t noble.” 

“yeah, no shit.” 

“it was necessary.” 

you laughed once, incredulous, “necessary? well, congrats, you got what you wanted, i absolutely fucking despise you.” 

sukuna’s jaw clenched, eyes glaring at you, “good. because you don’t know shit about me, this saves us both the hassle.”

“i don’t know you?” you shot back, “i know you more than anyone, probably. i know your body hurts more often than they don’t. i know you clench your jaw when you’re mad. i know you can’t sleep because of your nightmares and unless somebody practcially forces your nervous system to shut down, you could go days without it. i know you’re so angry at the fucking world, it makes you so hateful.”

sukuna went still, too still. 

you swallowed hard, eyes burning once more, “and i know that for years, i was the one cleaning up the damage you left behind.” 

his eyes darkened, “cleaning up?” 

“yes,” your voice cracked despite yourself, “me. i was the one hugging myself to sleep because you wouldn’t. i was the one stretching every morning because your body always felt like fucking concrete. i was the one coloring like a goddamn toddler at three in the morning because it was the only thing that made your anger stop choking me!” 

sukuna said nothing and you hated that even more. 

you wanted him to argue back, to answer, to fucking care. 

“do you know how pathetic that feels?” you whispered, “taking care of someone who kept hurting me?” 

his expression shifted, barely, but you felt it again. 

the guilt, even deeper this time. 

sukuna looked at you like he wanted to say something cruel and couldn’t quite manage it, settling with, “you didn’t have to do all that.” 

your laugh came out watery, tears now trickling down your heated cheeks. 

fuck, you felt nauseous, you felt so fucking sick. 

“yeah, i know that now.” 

something passed across his face then, a flicker of pain so quick, you almost missed it. 

but the bond didn’t allow you to miss anything. you felt it bloom in your own chest, sharp and unwanted. his. 

for one terrible second, you almost let it soften you. 

almost. 

because there it was again. 

that tiny, stupid sliver of hope you’d spend years nurturing because it was the only thing that kept you mildly sane. 

the one that whispered that maybe he wasn't all cruelty. maybe there was something beneath all that violence and pain. 

maybe the boy who held a hot water bottle to his stomach when your cramps got bad had to exist somewhere inside the man sitting in front of you. 

you looked at him then, through your blurry vision, really and truly looked. 

the hard line of his jaw, the coldness in his eyes and the casual arrogance sitting across his shoulders like armor. 

and that hope crumbled quietly inside your chest. 

not dramatically or all at once, but piece by piece, like something old finally accepting it had been dead for a long time. 

utter disappointment filled you then. you should have known better. 

this shouldn't be surprising. 

sukuna had spent years telling you exactly who he was, painting you the worst image of himself and you had hoped it was just that. 

the worst of himself. 

except the worst was all of him. 

sukuna was cruel. not because he didn’t know better but because he did. 

because he’d known what hurt you and decided hurting you was easier than wanting you. 

you swallowed around the ache in your throat, suddenly exhausted in a way a thousand years of sleep couldn’t fix. 

all you wanted was to be home now, cuddled up with ani in your room alone. 

“right,” you whispered, nodding once to yourself. 

sukuna’s brows pulled together slightly, “right what?” 

you pushed yourself to your feet, smoothing trembling hands over the front of your skirt because you needed something to do. anything that didn’t involve looking at him. 

“this was enlightening.” 

his eyes narrowed, “sit down.” 

the command sparked something sharp beneath your ribs, the thorn twisting in your heart. 

you let out a hollow laugh, “fuck you.” 

his jaw flexed, “don’t make a scene.” 

your name left him then and you hated the way your stomach fluttered at the melody of it in his voice. 

fuck, your heart hurt. 

because he was your soulmate. yours.

because some sick, twisted part of you had expected the universe to redeem itself when you finally found him. 

you expected the first moment to feel like every story you’d grown up hearing, witnessed amongst your friends. 

warmth, recognition and relief. 

instead, you were standing in front of the man who had turned your body into a battlefield and your heart into collateral damage. 

“i hope i never see you again.” 

something flickered across his face then and you didn’t stay long enough to decipher it. 

you turned around, the crowd swallowing you almost immediately as you walked away. 

music slammed back into your skull, bodies pressing close as you pushed through them with shaking hands and blurred vision. 

your chest felt too tight, lungs too small for the oxygen your body ached for. 

behind you, you felt sukuna rise before you saw it. the immediate pull.

his presence growing closer and your heart stuttered stupidly. 

some miserable, pathetic part of you sparked alive at the thought before you could kill it. 

maybe he did care. 

maybe he was going to take back all the words he regretted, that he would stop you and apologize properly this time. 

he would say what you’ve been waiting years to feel. 

the thought was so humiliating, it almost made you sick. 

“fuck are you lookin’ at?!” 

you heard his voice aimed at the crowd of people that were watching you both, probably since your conversation on the couch. 

you shoved through the door and stepped into the narrow hallway outside the main room, the music muffling instantly behind you. 

the air was cooler here, damp with rain and cigarette smoke, blue neon bleeding through the cracked windows at the end of the corridor.

you took in a breath like you hadn’t breathed in days, eyes shutting as your heart hammered against your chest, trying to simply process everything that had taken place. 

“hey.” his voice followed you out and you froze, heart stilling. 

stupid, traitorous thing. 

you turned slowly, eyes fluttering open. 

sukuna stood a few feet away, tall and shadowed beneath the hallway light. 

away from the party, he seemed even more dangerous. less like a person and more like a warning your body had spent seven years failing to understand. 

he was an enigma. 

for one breath, neither of you spoke. 

your hope stood there too, fragile and shaking, fucking pitiful. 

waiting. 

sukuna’s gaze dragged over your face once, catching on the wetness beneath your eyes and his expression tightened faintly. 

say it, you thought bitterly. 

say sorry! say you didn’t mean it! 

say something!

his jaw worked once, “no one can know.” 

your brows furrowed, the hope dying cleanly. 

“excuse me?” 

sukuna stepped closer, voice lower now. 

his mouth opened to clarify when his gaze met your own once more. 

your wide glassy eyes. your pretty face that was streaked with tears, your plump bitten lips. 

the little sniffles that left you, making his ribs ache. 

and suddenly, he froze, the words stuck in his throat. 

fuck, he had to get it together. 

“about this.” 

your lips parted faintly, “about us?”

the word us felt absolutely pathetic in your mouth. 

all too soft and hopeful. undeserved, even. 

something in his eyes shifted at the sound of it but it was gone before you could hold onto it. 

“there is no us.” 

oh. you actually felt that one. 

not through the bond, nor as some phantom ache borrowed from him. 

the pain was yours, all yours. 

you laughed once, quiet and disbelieving as you took a small step back, “wow…”

sukuna followed you, taking one step forward as his jaw clenched, “listen to me-” 

“no,” you shook your head slowly, voice trembling, “no, i think i understand perfectly.” 

sukuna’s eyes darkened, “you really don’t.” 

“oh my god,” you shook your head, “i can’t believe i thought-” 

you stopped, humiliation burning up your throat. 

sukuna stared, taking a step closer, his chest now brushing your chin, “thought what?” 

his voice was almost desperate and you swallowed, blinking hard, “nothing.” 

his face tightened and he felt it anyway, of course he did. 

the hope and hurt. 

the fact that some tiny, unbearable part of you had wanted him to come after you because he simply couldn’t let you leave. 

sukuna looked away first as you took a step back. fucking coward. 

“it’s dangerous.” he stated as you stared at the side of his face.

“dangerous?” 

“yes.” 

“for who?” 

his gaze cut back to yours, “for you.” 

you almost laugh but he continued before you could. 

“people know me and if they know about you, they’ll use you. you make me weak.” 

the words landed colder than you'd expected. 

sukuna watched you closely, as if waiting for the fear to register and maybe it did. 

somewhere deep, deep down, but anger got there first. 

“so that’s what this is?” you whispered, tears leaving you without you noticing, “damage control?” 

his silence was answer enough and you nodded faintly, tears burning hot once more. 

“right.” 

“you need to keep your mouth shut about it.” 

you flinched before you could stop yourself and sukuna paused, regret flashing through instantly. 

“don’t talk to me like that.” you stated lowly and his jaw clenched. 

“i’m trying to keep you safe.” 

“oh, how big of you.” 

the hallway seemed to shrink around you both. 

outside, rain tapped gently against the glass. 

inside, bass thudded like a second heartbeat through the walls. 

you looked at him then, this man that fate had tied to you with an invisible string and cruelty dressed up as destiny. and for the first time since you’d felt him at sixteen, you stopped wondering what it would be like to find him. 

because now you knew and god, you wish you didn’t. 

it felt like losing something you’d never even had. 

“is that all?” you questioned lowly, clearing your throat once.

sukuna stared at you, nose flaring and throat bobbing once, “yeah.” 

another piece of you gave out as you nodded, “okay.” 

the word was so calm, it made his eyes sharpen. 

you turned away, walking past him but his hand caught your wirst before you could take  full step. 

skin met skin and the bond went silent, completely and utterly silent. 

no buzzing or aching or distance. 

just him, all warm and real. terribly real. 

your breath hitched at his touch. it was the first time he’d ever touched you. 

sukuna froze too, fingers wrapped around your wrist like he’d touched fire and couldn’t make himself pull away. 

for one second, just one, all the cruelty fell quiet. 

and you felt him beneath it, scared and lonely, wanting and waiting. 

you felt it and you hated him for letting you feel it now. 

slowly, you looked down at his hand then back up at him, “let go.” 

his grip tightened by a fraction, “this is the best thing for the both of us.” 

your face crumpled before you could stop it. 

you pulled your wrist free and this time, he let you. 

“oh, trust me, not having to be stuck with you? i couldn’t agree more.” venom laced your words as sukuna’s expression changed, tightened and you felt the hurt then. 

sharp and immediate and you were glad for it. 

you turned and walked away then, tears streaming down your cheeks and a sob left you as soon as you were out of his vicinity. 

for the first time, the bond didn't feel like a thread pulling you closer…

it felt like noose.

∞

an | was so late with this but had the worst past few days so SORRY! anyways PLSSS lmk what u think cuz i'm iffy abt the direction of this BUT this is lowk my fav thing i've written omg! this is kinda like a prologue pt2, next chapters will deffo be longer! i cannot wait to write more of these two and sukuna's a dick but bear w him ! also each chapter in the masterlist will be titled a song and i recommend listening to it while reading for the vibes 🫡

It’s not like you expected a paying gig right out the gate when you moved to the big city to chase your dream of becoming a musician, but you at least figured you would be able to get something that pays in the meantime.

At this point, every rejection is a shot straight to the heart.

You applied to every store you could find with a hiring ad. Both online and in-person, skipping over the occasional store that you felt you weren’t cut out for. Now, it’s come to the point where you don’t have the luxury to be picky.

Still, the shoe store that wouldn’t hire you? At least you have shoes, even if they’re worn-in Vans and Converse for the most part.

The reception job at the law firm? It’s not like you have a degree or can cite any, but you know general laws.

This? You sigh as your gaze traces the letters across the failing light box, deep red letters spelling out Adult Boutique.

It’s not that you have anything against it.

It’s that you’ve never used a sex toy.

Hell, you don’t know the first thing about them.

You’ve never even had sex before.

Sighing, you throw your head back against the headrest of your old rusting sedan and take a moment to breathe in the harsh disappointment of chasing your dreams. Your hands settle in your lap as you set aside any reservations you have, snatching your resumé from the passenger’s seat and shutting the door behind you. You walk with as much confidence as you can muster into the shop, but it’s almost humiliating how far out of your wheelhouse you are when you’re met with the interior. For as confident as you are, it drains from you in an instant.

Humiliation is a kink though, right?

“ID?” You pause in the doorway before you can get much of a look at the store, staring at a man with piercing blue eyes and white hair. He’s handsome, maybe a year younger than you, and his friendly smile is horribly infectious.

You stand like a deer in the headlights, your lips caught in an embarrassing ‘o’ before your mind catches up. ID. You’re in an age-restricted store. Right.

“Shoot–” Your hands fly down to your pockets, reaching for the wallet…

… That you left in the car.

Your jaw hangs ajar at the realization, warmth climbing from the back of your neck to the tips of your ears as the handsome clerk’s startlingly blue eyes pin you in place.

You shut your eyes, biting down on your lower lip. “I’ll be right back.”

In the midst of your walk of shame back to your car across the street, every thought reminds you that you could just leave. You could forget this ever happened and simply accept you aren’t getting the job. The fact that your wallet is so empty that you left it in your unlocked car in a shady part of town serves as a reminder that, again, you don’t exactly have the luxury of being picky.

With a forlorn sigh and a drag of your hands down your face, you put on your best confident smile and make your way back inside. The clerk grins as you hand over your ID, leaning over the counter on forearms that you swear you’re not staring at.

They’re just veiny.

And incredibly hot.

“Sorry,” you sigh as you pocket your ID again.

“Don’t worry about it,” there’s a small wave of his hand to brush you off, and when you look up to meet his eyes, there’s a particularly sultry look to his gaze. It’s enough to warm your cheeks again, and you can only pray he doesn’t notice how much you’ve been staring. “Looking for anything in particular?” He bears a lopsided tilt to his grin that sets your nerves further alight as your stomach ties in knots under the handsome stranger’s gaze.

It’s gotta be a bad combination to be clueless on everything around you and thinking about the hot man in front of you rather than the job you’re applying for.

Shaking your head to center yourself, you put on your best smile. “Yeah, actually.” The man’s expression changes to intrigue as you hand over your resumé. His eyes skim it, brows raising.

He gives you a once-over, setting the paper down with a more genuine grin. “We could use the help,” he admits. “The owner’ll be in tomorrow morning, I’ll have her give you a call.”

That’s the most positive response you’ve received to an application thus far. Although you find yourself nervously eyeing a bottle of G-Spot Stimulating Gel on the counter that you don’t know the first thing about, you’re honestly relieved that things could be looking up. You can handle this job with a bit of research, surely.

“That would be great,” you offer a smile. “Thank you.”

–

So, the good news is that you have a job. The bad news is that you still don’t know the first thing about what you’re selling. Admittedly, you probably should have done some research or looked over the product offerings on the store’s site, but somewhere between preparation for a new job and trying to sleep through the train shaking your apartment every few minutes, you forgot.

The kind woman who interviewed you over the phone and the store’s owner– Jillian– greets you at the door as you push into the store. Her graying hair is curled tightly at her roots, her eyes wrinkled at the corner and kind. She wears a pale pink wool sweater that compliments her lip gloss, standing at about the same height as you. She’s old enough to retire and still gorgeous all-the-same.

“Welcome, dear,” she smiles brilliantly at the sight of you, ushering you towards the front counter with a hand on your shoulder. “I appreciate the help, it’ll be nice to step back from the counter and keep my job behind-the-scenes.”

“I’m happy to help,” you reply with a kind grin, keeping up your best customer service attitude. As she leads you behind the counter, your eyes flick to the two tall men standing behind the counter. You recognize the first as the hot white-haired man who accepted your resumé. Cheery, charming, and strikingly handsome with toned muscles visible from under his white t-shirt.

The man beside doesn’t bear the same welcoming nature. In fact, they’re the definition of polar opposites.

Standing a couple of inches taller than the one you recognize, he has black hair that must be dyed, pink roots standing out like a rose among thorns. His ears are pierced in a multitude of ways with matching brow and lip piercings and tattoos that travel up the back of his neck, reaching his jaw. He’s in far darker and more casual clothes, arms crossed over his broad and built chest with his hip leaned on the counter, and a look of mild disinterest that does no favors for your nerves.

Where the white-haired man bears a friendly smile and a button-up that makes him look ready for a job in a cubicle, his black-haired colleague is very clearly assessing your every move, and looks like he could be on-stage at a dingy bar.

She introduces you to the men, earning a grin from the one you recognize and… nothing from the man with black-dyed hair.

“I’ll be in every couple of days to do the cash deposit,” she explains. “I’ll also drop by to check on the office and put together paperwork, but Satoru–” she points to the white-haired man who casually salutes in greeting, “and Ryomen–” her hand waves towards the frowning man who doesn’t react save for a glance at the older woman, “will train you. Satoru usually does the opening shift and Ryomen does the closing shift. We’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays, but you’ll work the rest of the week.” You’re grateful for the consistency, if nothing else. “You’ll take the midday Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, you’ll be alone for a bit while the boys are in classes, and you’ll take the closing shifts on weekends to help Ryomen during busy hours.”

His gaze, a crimson so striking you have half a mind to wonder if they’re contacts, flicks to you, indiscernible, then back to Jillian.

“You won’t be alone while you train of course though, the boys and I will cover until you’re comfortable being alone.” She pats you once on the shoulder. “Does that work for you, dear?”

“Not a problem at all,” you nod. You clasp your hands together politely.

“Perfect!” She claps once in glee, clearly happy to step away from serving customers. You can understand that sentiment. “I’ll grab your paperwork.”

Satoru’s gaze follows her as she heads for the back room, then turns cheerily to you. “Hey, newbie!” He steps forward from the counter, outstretching his hand. “Nice to meet you.” Shaking his hand, you match his grin. “Well, by name anyway.”

You turn your expectations to Ryomen, who doesn’t move from the spot he’s standing in. His weight shifts to the other hip, still leaning against the counter when he juts his chin out in less of a greeting and more of an acknowledgement. “Hey.”

“Nice to meet you, Ryomen.” You give him a little wave.

“Sukuna,” he corrects you. His words aren’t sharp per se, but they carry a blunt edge. “Only the old lady can call me Ryomen.” His voice is as gruff as his style and stature, fitting of the brutish impression he gives off. His slightly narrowed eyes give off the notion that he’s evaluating you. Reading you.

With a tight-lipped smile, Satoru scratches at the back of his head. He shoots you an apologetic glance as you uncomfortably gather that this isn’t unusual for Sukuna.

“Got it, sorry.” You offer an apologetic smile, which he accepts with a nod.

Satoru steps forward to save you from the interaction, motioning with his head out to the store’s floor. “Why don’t I show you around?”

You nod gratefully, letting him lead you away from the counter. Sukuna’s gaze is quick to drop to the counter as he leans over a book of some sort, his chin resting atop his hand. You turn your attention back to Satoru as he leads you through the long back area of the store

A colorful assortment of dildos and vibrators line the walls of the first aisle, anything from glass to silicone in different shapes and size varieties. The light in the far corner flickers when you step into the aisle, faux wood creaking under-foot. The store has that sort of old strip mall feel where, although well-maintained, its age is evident in the old fixtures and failing lights.

“Sorry about him,” Satoru’s voice is a near-whisper as he shakes his head. His hair falls in front of those striking blue eyes as he leads the way down each aisle. You’re not sure you’d really call it showing you around, but you’re certainly walking the floor. “He’s uhhh–” he waves his hand through the air as he searches for the right term. “Moody, or something.” He chuckles. “I don’t know, you get used to it. Don’t take it personally.”

“He doesn’t seem like a customer service person,” you admit sheepishly, keeping your voice down.

Satoru does no favors keeping his own down as he barks a laugh. “No, not really, hey? He’s Jillian’s friend’s son, so–” he shrugs as you mentally connect the dots that landed him this job. “It’s an easy enough gig and honestly business is slow.”

“That’s a shame,” you offer, mostly for Jillian’s sake, although you don’t mind it being slow.

“I said it was slow, not bad,” he grins, eyes narrowing to that sultry gaze he shot you when you dropped off your resumé last week. “We have a lot of regulars. People who spend a lot. You’ll recognize them in time.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’ll be nice to have some company for the end of my shifts,” he adds, tilting his head to eye you. He crosses his arms over his chest, catching your attention as you glance at his muscles just long enough to consider yourself caught. He takes the opportunity and swings with it. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” His voice drops a tone, the flirty lilt warming the tips of your ears.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice to get to know you too.”

Jillian returns with paperwork before Satoru can take the opportunity to flirt any further– but you get the feeling he will. It seems to go hand-in-hand with his personality. Once everything is signed and Satoru has headed off for class, Jillian leaves training in Sukuna’s hands as she retreats to the back to file your paperwork.

Sukuna’s gaze is a slow drag down your form as he evaluates the dark blouse and nice jeans you chose to wear. Admittedly, you now feel a little overdressed given his relative comfort and ripped jeans, but in spite of the judgement clear as day in his eyes, he keeps it to himself. At least, as long as you don’t count the frown he bears. You can’t really tell if that’s meant for you or if that’s his neutral expression.

With a sigh, he shuts whatever book is on the counter behind him and gives you a rundown in short, clipped sentences. “Floor work first, cash after. You worked cash before?”

You nod, though the register looks fairly old here.

He gives a hum of approval. “Good. The floor's pretty self-explanatory. Everything is ordered by brand, then color. Shipments Mondays and Thursdays. Back room for any overstock.” He points over his shoulder to where Jillian disappeared as he lays out instructions like facts. “No clock system. Just work when you work. Pay is every second Friday. You’ll get a check.”

Again, you nod.

His gaze travels the length of your figure, but it doesn’t feel as though he’s checking you out. It’s an evaluation. And you’re pretty sure you’re failing before you’ve had the chance to start. “I don’t care what you do when customers aren’t around. Study, read, go on your phone. I don’t give a shit.”

“Oh, okay. That’s kinda nice.”

His tone is apathetic as he hums in agreement. “I didn’t have time last night and I know Satoru’s lazy ass didn’t clean this morning, so I’ll get you to organize the shibari while I put some shit away.”

You nod, slipping away from the counter onto the floor. His gaze tracks you as you very unconfidently thread through the rows in search of shibari. To your horror, nothing is well-labeled, which means there isn’t a distinct section with some big flashy sign to point you in the direction of a kink you don’t know the name of.

“It’s at the back,” Sukuna’s low voice calls out. Biting down on your lip, you move towards the back of the store, your gaze trailing along the wall. There are a number of bondage devices you can’t name, ropes that you assume go with bondage, and chains and whips that all feel bondage-adjacent.

So, more or less, you’re still at a loss.

Really failing that evaluation now.

Behind you, Sukuna is replacing products that were atop the counter at the front, but his movements stop when he fixes you with his narrowed gaze. “The ropes,” he points them out on the wall with displeasure prickling around the edge of his sandpaper-scraped voice. Now that you look at them, it feels obvious given how out of order they are.

“I know!” Heat flares beneath your skin in all the wrong places. Still, you won’t let him get to you. “I was just looking.”

He doesn’t reply, his crimson gaze boring into your expression so hard that you’re pretty sure he can see right through you.

At least you can’t fuck up the organization of the ropes.

Quietly sucking in a breath, you turn to the wall, pulling down the plastic-covered rope bundles that are out of place.

“So,” you turn your gaze over your shoulder. “You’re in school?”

“Mhm.”

“What are you taking?”

“Business.”

He’s difficult, too. Great.

Once the ropes are in a more sound order, you spin on your heel to face him. He’s already turning away, moving to a different area to put away a vibrator.

“Can I–”

“Here.” He tosses a bottle of lube at you, caught clumsily in unexpecting fingers. “Put that away, too.”

Pressing your lips into a tight line, you nod, more to yourself than him. At least you know what lube is.

You search the store for the spot where it belongs, twisting it on the shelf so the label faces out, then make your way to the counter where Sukuna’s already standing over his book again. Before you have the opportunity to speak, the bell over the door rings as a customer walks through the door. She’s around your age, and quickly flashes ID towards Sukuna, who nods.

A regular, you suppose.

The tattooed clerk’s eyes trail to you, jutting his chin out expectantly towards the customer.

Making your way up to the woman with cute blonde hair cut short, you fall into your customer service voice. “Can I help you find anything?”

“Hi!” She beams at you, her smile putting your first day nerves at ease. “Thank you, but I know where most things are,” she waves you off politely. “I appreciate it, though!” She moves past you towards the back of the store, whirling around suddenly as her gaze shifts between you and Sukuna. “Oh, actually, did you get any more of the cherry stimulants in?”

You turn your attention to Sukuna, who fixes you with a lazy unsure expression. “She can check for you.” He leans his hip on the counter again, arms crossed over his chest as he faces you. “It’ll be in the back. They come in a box with a cherry logo on them.”

Worrying your lip between your teeth, you nod as you make your way to the back.

Truthfully, the cramped room is a bit of a relief from the uncomfortable tension Sukuna just seems to naturally exude. Him and Satoru are big personalities in the most opposite way you can possibly imagine, but at least Satoru is willing to chat.

Jillian glances over her shoulder from an old computer at the back of the room. “Everything going well, dear?”

“Yeah,” you grin, though truthfully this already feels like a disaster where you’re being scornfully judged by your colleague and accidentally making enemies on day one. With one of the only people you work with. So that’s great. “There’s just someone looking for stimulants.”

She shifts in her chair, doing a once-over of the boxes. “Not back here. There’s an inventory list on this computer that you can usually use, but I don’t want to lose progress on your files. Can you ask Ryomen to check the holds drawer? Satoru might have put some on hold if he knew they were looking.”

“Sure, thank you!”

With a grateful smile, you head back to the front and relay the information to Sukuna.

“Holds drawer’s there.” He points to a handle on the lower inside of the counter. Within are a number of boxes and small sachet packs. “Mm, there they are.”

Clearly one of the sachet packs is what she’s looking for. Unfortunately, they all fail to say exactly what they are on the front with bright and bold brands rather than descriptors or even a damn cherry logo, which means you haven’t the faintest clue what you’re looking at.

“The orange one,” Sukuna adds when you’re still paused staring at the drawer. There’s an unimpressed lilt to his tone that has you wincing before you pull the sachet pack from the drawer. You do what you can to keep your expression neutral and feign confidence when you stand upright again.

The whole situation is tense and embarrassing. It might at least be tolerable with Satoru, but Sukuna either enjoys your suffering or he’s an asshole.

The unfortunate third possible option is both.

His grimace as you set the pack in his hand isn’t lost on you, although you choose to head towards the register in hopes that he can at least teach you how it works and you can get on with this day. He chooses not to say a word to you as the customer finishes looking around, returning to the front with a rose-shaped vibrator.

“Ooh, thank you!” She grins as she spots the packet at the register.

Sukuna nods, glancing over his shoulder to make sure you’re paying attention. “Just type the amounts into the register,” he explains, putting both prices from the stickers into the old machine. Once he hits the equals button, the cash drawer pops open as he gets the total and it calculates tax for him. The customer flashes a card, so Sukuna shuts the drawer and types the amount into the machine to his right. “While she pays, get the serials on each tag and write them here,” he explains, pulling the number from each barcode and writing them on a pad of paper left of the register. Once her payment is processed, a receipt prints, which he hands to her, keeping the second copy under the till. Finally, he bags the items.

She thanks him, giving you a polite little wave and retreating out the door.

You let out a breath, nodding. “The register seems easy enough,” you try more friendly commentary in spite of his half-assed teaching, but you suppose by now you shouldn’t expect Sukuna to be receptive. He hums, a judgemental flash in his eyes as he pins you in place with a narrowed gaze like he can see something you can’t.

He works his jaw in a slow grind of teeth like he wants to say something but thinks better of it, dropping your gaze. “I’ve got to study. There’s not much else to the job besides that, so keep yourself busy.”

Thankfully the rest of the day passes without much of a hitch and you’re able to leave as evening hits, with Sukuna staying to close the store.

He doesn’t give you another word for the remainder of the day. He doesn’t expect you to handle customers. He handles the till. He doesn’t even look at you as you let him know your shift is over. You aren’t sure whether to be grateful or dread the rest of your shifts with him, but thankfully you’re able to spend more time with Satoru tomorrow.

Given that you’re off a couple of hours before close, you use the opportunity to stake out local bars with stages and take note of a small pub tucked away in a little corner. The outside has a sign that doesn’t light up in the night’s cover, but within it’s rather warm, with string lights hung over a stage in the back. While you work on your online presence, it’s the perfect spot to get your stage skills up.

The thick metal of the door is cool on your hand, creaking on its hinge as you press through to the interior warmth. There’s a small two-man group on-stage performing low-energy grunge that seem to be garnering decent attention from onlookers and groups you would be willing to bet are regulars based on the way they move around the small scene.

Adjusting your jacket over your shoulder, you make your way to the bar. The bartender looks to be a couple of years senior to you, with short brown hair kept neat aside from a couple of stray strands that fall over his forehead. He has a prominent nose and sunken eyes that give him an overall air of tiredness.

The apron he wears over a clean-cut button-up pulls taut across his chest as he reaches overhead to set a bottle of whiskey along the back wall before turning his attention to you with a polite smile. “What can I get for you?”

“Oh, um, actually,” you begin with a polite smile, “I was wondering who I need to impress to be up there.” You point to the grunge band at the back as his gaze follows you.

He hums, his calm demeanor shifting from the routine of bartending to something more friendly. “I can give you the owner’s email. If you fit in with the crowd, he’ll work with your schedule.”

Casting another glance at the two men on-stage, you nod, chewing on your lip in an effort to hide your giddy smile. “That’d be great. So… what– a little moody, kind of chill? Maybe some minor chords in there?”

The bartender chuckles, picking up a glass like routine simply fills his subconscious. “Sounds to me like you’ve already got the gig.”

Leaving behind the smell of drowned sorrows and shared laughter, you can hold onto the fact that while your day took a turn for the worst, it’s just a job. Once you leave the building, you don’t have to think about it and can focus on music. Sukuna isn’t the end of the world and if you can manage to stay out of his hair, surely you can find some sort of common ground with him.

–

Wind whips too fast across the street when you lock your car behind you. Your unzipped coat flails in the wind, leaving you with a flustered expression as the shop door slams shut behind you.

“Hey newbie,” Satoru greets you with an amused grin. You flash him a smile as you smooth down your outfit, far more casual than the previous one with jeans and a band shirt. “How was yesterday?” He asks, wiping down the counter and tossing the wipe in a garbage as he claps his hands together to brush them off.

The chuckle that parts your lips is half-hearted as you drop your laptop bag atop the front counter. “Kind of a disaster?” You wince, shaking your head. “Is he seriously always like that?”

Satoru stands upright, running a hand through white locks. “He gets better when you get to know him, but yeah he’s kind of an asshole,” he laughs brightly, unbothered. “I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips.”

“Sure, if the chips are sour,” you mutter.

Satoru snickers, nodding. “What happened anyway?”

“I didn’t immediately know where everything is without being shown,” you wave a hand through the air, letting it hang there for a moment in disbelief.

Satoru, unphased, grins. “Oh, yeah. Sounds like a classic case of not running on Sukuna’s schedule. You should really get on that.”

You throw your head back with a sigh, giving a dismissive wave of your hands. “Whatever, it’s a new day, right? Maybe it won’t be so bad today.”

Satoru teasingly sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Sorry newbie, but my sources are telling me today’s weather is looking cloudy in Sukuna-land.”

Satoru’s unseriousness helps settle a modicum of your nerves as you find yourself laughing at his charm.

“But hey, you’ve got me for a couple of hours first.” He grins, settling the balls of his palms atop the counter as he leans his weight back. One of his sleeves, rolled to the elbow, slides down his forearm to his wrist. “What did he go over with you, anyway?”

You laugh loosely. “Like, nothing. He gave me a thirty second run-down of the till and told me I don’t need to clock in or out.”

“That’s gold,” Satoru shakes his head in an effort to get hair from falling into his line of sight. “I thought he’d be nicer to a pretty girl like you.” His face lights up as you avert your eyes, smiling at the scuffed floor underfoot. He keeps the conversation flowing like it’s second nature. “Tell you what, I’ll actually try to show you around before he gets here, and you can tell me what brought you to the city.”