“you're late.” taehyung called out roughly.

“getting nervous already sweetheart?”

you rolled up to the starting line between them with your bike, to your left jungkook straddled his bike, helmet in hand, looking like he already owned the entire track, that knowing smirk in place.

to your right was taehyung, his dark eyes fixed on you, tongue coming out to lick at his lower lip sensually as if already imagining what's about to happen after this race.

you pulled your own helmet up just enough to speak.

“just giving you both a few extra seconds to pretend you still have a chance.”

“cute, keep talking like that and we'll make sure you regret it...” jungkook rasps.

your heart pounds as you let out a scoff, rolling your eyes, hoping that none of them noticed the way your hands shook slightly, the ache between your legs present whenever one of them was around, your pierced clit throbbing hotly.

the three of you had been doing this for months, always competing in race, arguing about who's the best in literally every game, trying to insult and put the other down.

the rivalry was too obvious in front of everyone but the sexual tension was simmering even more... like it was threatening to burst any moment.

neither of them had ever admitted out loud how long they'd both been watching you and needing you.

that you unknowingly fueled a fire in their veins, made them feel more alive than any race or win ever could.

today's bet was different.

one that was agreed to by the two of them very easily almost and you should've known better of their intentions.

the rules were simple.

it would either end everything or be the beginning of something neither of you could resist.

it would all start with who would win.

taehyung leaned over his handlebars, eyes half lidded as they locked on you.

“reminder of the terms, the loser needs to do whatever the winner says, rules are rules.”

your mouth went dry and jungkook chuckled beside you, his gaze never left your face, intent on them as if he and taehyung were planning something very very dirty.

one that might not end well.

“you're that confident you'll win huh?”

“i'm that confident that you'll lose.” jungkook answers.

“and when you do, we're both gonna bend you over that little bike of yours right here on the track and fuck the attitude out of you until you can't talk shit anymore.”

your jaw clenched, your confident expression faltering for a while after you registered his words.

you swallowed, being the first one to look away, the flushed tint on your cheeks visible even with the helmet on.

you hated giving them the satisfaction of backing down but you didn't wanna focus on how much their words affected your body.

you wanted to win the race and put them in their place, the way you've always wanted to.

you're going to give both these men a goddamn lesson they'll never forget easily.

they'll remember it their entire lives.

“keep dreaming, both of you.”

as soon as the words left your mouth, the flag was raised, indicating the start of the game.

some part of you already knew exactly what was waiting for you the second the checkered flag dropped.

the three of you shot forward side by side, the only thing present in your hearts was the desire of winning as always.

today it was the desire for something else entirely.

somewhere along the race, jungkook's voice crackled loud enough for you to hear.

“don't forget what you promised if you lose baby.”

your grip tightened on the throttle, your answering laugh was meant to sound unbothered but it came out shaky already half ruined.

“i didn't promise you shit!” you hissed.

“we'll see about that.”

the finish red line waited so did your fate.

you couldn't forget the words they had whispered against your ear earlier.

“tonight you’re ours... no more pretending, no more racing around it.”

[ to be continued... ]

early access to this fic and even more exclusive spoilers and content will be available on patreon ! <3

you’re mid-chew, texting, when you feel satoru materialize behind you. that and the rustling of his plastic bags give him away . his chin hooks over your shoulder, breath warm against your ear.

“gum?”

you nod, not looking up. “yeah. want a piece?”

“mm.” his voice drops. “already have one.”

before you can ask what that means, satoru’s hand cups your jaw—gentle and firm—and turns your face toward him. he doesn’t ask. he doesn’t warn. he just leans in.

he kisses you slow and deliberate. you reciprocate after a moment, a motion mostly on instinct, which ends up giving him the right access. his tongue slides past your lips, not to deepen it, but to sweep.

satoru coaxes the gum from your mouth with an infuriatingly skilled curl of his tongue, pulling it into his own mouth with a soft, wet sound that has no right to make your stomach feel that way.

he pulls back and chews, his dimples showing as an unapologetic grin spreads across his face.

“mint,” he hums, like he’s tasting a fine wine. “good choice.”

you’re frozen, face burning and brain short-circuiting.

he plucks the slick gum from his own mouth and presses it back to your lips with two fingers. “open.”

you do. pathetically.

satoru pushes it past your teeth, taps your chin to close your mouth, and pats your cheek like you’re a good pet.

“now we match,” he says sweetly. “shared flavor. shared spit. shared everything.”

then he turns, waves at the cashier, and strolls out of the store front like he didn’t just ruin you in public.

ii. later during dinner, you both are eating something disgustingly sticky together—honey-glazed chicken wings and melted s'mores, because satoru having zero self-control around sugar is nothing new.

your hands are messy. his hands are a crime scene.

you see him eyeing your hoodie. that soft, oversized, perfect fit that you love more than life itself.

“don’t.”

satoru freezes, hand hovering. eyes wide and innocent.

“don’t what?”

“don’t wipe those fingers on me, satoru. i swear to god—”

satoru gasps, offended. “i'd never.”

you stare. satoru holds your gaze. too long. then, with the exaggerated deliberation of a man performing a magic trick, he slowly—so slowly—wipes both hands down the front of his own white t-shirt.

dark streaks bloom across the fabric. he looks down at the mess, then back up at you.

“see?” he beams. “respectful. courteous. boyfriend of the year.”

you blink. “you literally just ruined your shirt.”

“my sacrifice.” he clutches his chest dramatically. “anything for you, my love. i would never defile your sacred hoodie. i would rather die.”

then he opens his arms wide.

“now. hug.”

“no.”

“hug.”

“satoru, your entire front is—”

satoru doesn’t wait. he lunges, wraps his sticky, honey-drenched, s'more-crusted arms around you and squeezes. his open palms find your back. your shoulders. you try to save your hair.

you feel the tacky residue transfer. everywhere.

when he finally takes mercy and pulls back, both the front and back is a disaster of regret. and he’s grinning as if he contributed to your life in such a meaningful way.

“looks good,” satoru says, tucking a sticky strand of hair behind your ear as you continue to scowl. he inspects the honey smeared across your hoodie with genuine satisfaction.

“perfect.”

“perfect?”

“now everyone will know we hugged.”

The watch on Jeongguk’s wrist read half past five as he exited his workplace. He reached for the black umbrella in his bag as soon as the cold drizzle touched his skin. It was typical for him to stay an hour or two past his work hours, making the following day easier on himself; today, however, was the exception.

Being summoned by his higher-up had never felt as nerve-wracking as it did today. There were rumors and whispers of an alleged promotion — the kind that, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t have disrupted his strict and already impeccable routine. He wanted to believe this time wasn’t any different. Nonetheless, whoever got this promotion would be stationed in Barcelona, Spain. That single fact turned an otherwise unappealing opportunity into something he wanted badly.

Born and raised in Seoul, where he’d studied international business and spent the past six years working as an assistant director of international partnerships at a well-known global trading firm, Jeongguk had built a life that looked, on paper, exactly like what he was supposed to want. He was bored of it. Bored of the mundane, the repetitive, the predictable. Applying for the promotion had been impulsive, almost out of character, and he was certain it was a long shot. Still, he found himself working harder than ever, as if devotion now could make up for the doubt underneath it.

“Congratulations, Jeon.” Said the older man sitting across from Jeongguk, separated by a black marble desk. The highest in the food chain, as far as regional bosses go. “The position is yours. Six weeks until your flight to Barcelona departs.”

Flat and emotionless. His delivery strangely helped Jeongguk’s anxiety, which skyrocketed once he sat down before his boss. Somehow, he could not believe he was chosen, even though he was the best out of the bunch. He wasn’t particularly driven by passion or love for his craft, but he was disciplined, and most of his coworkers lacked this indispensable virtue. 

“Fuck.” Jeongguk whispered to himself, staring at his wet shoes. “I can’t speak Spanish.”

The same wet shoes were quickly dropped by the entrance as Jeongguk practically ran to his home office. “Spanish… tutors… near me.” He muttered while simultaneously typing on his computer.

Jeongguk’s decision to apply for this promotion wasn’t reckless solely because it would require moving halfway across the globe, but also because he barely spoke the language his new home would require him to speak. This concern never crossed his mind before because he was naturally skilled at communicating with others and rarely needed to step outside his comfort zone when it came to foreign languages. A talented business major through and through, Jeongguk already knew three languages — Japanese, Mandarin, and English — in addition to his mother tongue. He mediated countless meetings for company branches across East Asia, to the point that he assumed the unofficial position of spokesperson whenever any of these languages were expected. He never needed to learn Spanish; now it seems as if his life depends on it.

As Jeongguk scrolled through the first tutoring website he found, he felt a level of anxiety that practically blinded him. He didn’t realize until that exact instant… He was moving to Barcelona. Away from comfort, from his predictable routine, and from everything that was familiar. As he reached the seventh page of tutor profiles, his eyes landed on one that made him pause.

It was the only profile without a profile picture or a tutor description. You only wrote your name and the languages you spoke, one of which was Spanish. You thought adding a professional headshot and highlighting your experience and skills seemed too pretentious, considering you saw tutoring as a hobby, a hobby that provided you with a few extra coins. That may be why you've only had four students in the eight months your profile has been up on the website. Jeongguk could see that those four students were satisfied with their experiences, judging by the remarkable five-star rating next to your nonexistent profile picture.

Jeongguk laughed at himself, acknowledging that it would be a terrible idea not to go with the tutor with the most experience and reviews. Again, it seemed as if his life depended on learning Spanish in six weeks. However… There was something exhilarating about taking risks— the last one had gotten him a promotion and a life in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. After a life filled with monotony, he was ready to be reckless.

You were startled by the sudden notification on your phone, more so after seeing it was a request for your tutoring services. “Okay, Jeongguk wants to learn Spanish,” you mentioned out loud while reading his message. “Fun!”

You were different from other tutors. Specifically, you preferred doing your tutoring sessions in person. In a coffee shop, at a library, or sometimes in a park. You believed that face-to-face learning triumphed over online lessons because understanding the nuances behind certain words and phrases was easier if your students could clearly perceive your gestures, something that may be complicated if you were relying on your choppy wi-fi. However, you couldn’t deny that this preference may be strange to some of your potential students due to the lack of identifiable information in your profile.

Jeongguk was one of those students. He saw your request as if the universe was giving him one last chance to change his mind, return to the first page, and book a lesson with the highest-rated tutor. He, once again, decided to ignore his logical inner voice and quickly accepted your wish to meet in a local coffee shop. Who knows? He might find the best coffee he’s ever tasted there if things keep going how they are.

Sitting down in the nearest booth with his caramel macchiato, Jeongguk was fidgeting to calm his nerves. His mind drifted into a spiral of doubt. All he knew about you was your name and that you knew Spanish. That was all he needed to know; still, he kept his expectations low, focusing his mind on the tough task of learning a new language instead. His mind continued drifting until his thoughts were interrupted by a harmonious voice.

“You’re Jeongguk, right?” You approached him, recognizing his face from his profile picture. “It is so nice to meet you.” You introduced yourself and immediately sat down in the open seat across from him once he nodded to your question.

He repeated your name to himself, taking in your looks and thanking every higher power that you were not some weird scammer. “I look forward to learning from you.” 

Indeed, you were rather beautiful. It took him some time to adjust to actually focusing on your melodious voice instead of your drawing eyes. Your smile was blinding, and you seemed so carefree and pleasant, which was the opposite of what he had frequently observed while working in such a ruthless environment. Similarly, you had never seen someone like Jeongguk before. He wasn’t just handsome; he looked like a fallen angel lost on Earth, with the kind of face and body that would inspire artists from the Renaissance. It sounds hyperbolic, but you genuinely started trembling when he confirmed he was the person you were looking for. His profile picture must have been outdated, you thought, because he now had a lip ring that flawlessly accentuated his rosy lips. By the looks of his attire — clean, monochromatic, and professional —, he seemed important. You wondered why he chose you out of so many potential tutors. You were so used to teaching college students and youngsters looking for helpful phrases to use during overseas trips. This was sure to be a teaching experience unlike any you had before.

“So,” You began, digging your thoughts deeper into your subconscious. “Tell me a bit about yourself. Why do you want to learn Spanish?”

“Well, I recently got a promotion.” You briefly clapped at his news. “Thank you. The only thing is that I’ll need to relocate to Spain. In six weeks.” His expression suddenly shifted. “And, as you can probably gather from my request for your services, I don’t know how to speak Spanish.”

“That’s not too bad, six weeks is plenty of time.” You scoffed, noticing that Jeongguk seemed stressed. Six weeks was definitely not enough time, but admitting this wouldn’t make it easier on either of you.

Your reassuring words made Jeongguk feel at ease.

“Let’s start with the basics, then.” You took a few items out of the backpack you were carrying. “Tell me what you’ve done today so far. In Spanish, of course.”

Jeongguk laughed until he saw you kept a serious expression. “Oh… I guess we have different definitions of basics.” 

"Basics for me just means figuring out where you're actually starting from," you said, softening it when you saw the color drain from his face. "Everyone's basics look different. So humor me." You slid a vocabulary book across the table. "Tell me about your morning. In Spanish."

He blinked. "All of it?"

"However much you can manage. Doesn't have to be pretty."

He opened his mouth, and nothing came out. Not even a stumble— just silence, and the particular stillness of a man realizing he had absolutely nothing to draw from. You watched the composure that had gotten him through a promotion interview start to slip, replaced by something closer to genuine alarm, and it caught you off guard how quickly you wanted to walk it back for him.

"Okay," you said, gentler. "Let's try something smaller. Just tell me what you're drinking." You nodded at his cup.

"Café," he said, cautious, like it might be a trap.

"Good. Now put a sentence around it. 'Estoy tomando café.'" I’m drinking coffee.

"Estoy… tomando café." He repeated the phrase slowly, testing its shape in his mouth, and something in his shoulders eased when it came out right. "That's it?"

"That's it. You just said your first sentence."

He looked, for a second, genuinely pleased with himself. The kind of small, unguarded pride that didn't match the composed man you sat down across from ten minutes ago. It made you smile, watching that shift. "Okay. What else can I say?"

"Depends. What do you actually want to be able to say?"

"Anything. Everything. I have six weeks and apparently zero foundation to work with." He said it lightly, but there were real nerves beneath the surface, and you found yourself softening your approach without realizing it.

"Six weeks is tight, but it's workable if we're smart about it," you said. Then, because it felt wrong to let the reassurance sit there unchallenged, you added, "Honestly, tight is generous. It's going to be a lot of repetition and probably some frustration. I'd rather tell you that now than have you find out in week three."

He considered that, turning his cup slowly on the table. "I appreciate the honesty."

"I figured you'd prefer brutal honesty rather than a nicer version."

"I do." A small, surprised smile. "Most people give me the nice version."

"I'm not most people."

"Clearly." He said it like an observation, not a line, and something about the plainness of it sat warmer than a joke would have. His eyes lingered on yours longer than your heart could handle. "Alright. Teach me something else. Something I'll actually use."

You started him on simple present tense—estoy, tengo, quiero—building sentence by sentence off things actually in front of him: his coffee, the rain outside, the fact that he was nervous, which he refused to say out loud in his native language, let alone Spanish, until you needled him into it. He was quick, quicker than most students you'd had, picking up patterns after hearing them once and testing the edges of what he could say instead of just repeating what you gave him. It made sense when you learned that he was already proficient in a few languages. Holding this fact, you intentionally tried to increase the difficulty level. By the time you'd worked through a dozen sentences, he'd stopped bracing before he spoke.

"You're better at this than you think," you told him, and meant it.

"I had a good teacher rip the training wheels off in the first five minutes. Bit unconventional, but it worked."

"Don't get used to gentle. That was a warm-up."

"That was gentle?" He asked with genuine concern.

"Compared to what's coming? Extremely." You closed the notebook halfway, marking your place.

By the time the coffee shop's lights dimmed for closing, you'd gone through two rounds of conjugations, one increasingly ridiculous argument about whether "tú" or "usted" was the correct way to address your own boss, and a solid ten minutes where Jeongguk insisted he'd already mastered "estoy" and kept trying to bolt it onto everything, including things that didn't need a verb at all.

"Estoy Jeongguk," he tried, testing it.

"That's not how it works."

"Estoy... very confident that it does."

"It does not. You don't 'estoy' a name, you just say the name."

"You're telling me I can't improvise."

"I'm telling you that you tried to conjugate your own identity, and I need you to sit with that for a second."

"See, when you put it like that, it sounds insane."

"It was insane in real time, too." You laughed louder than you meant to. "Same time in two days?"

“Can’t wait to learn more from you.” Your heart skipped a beat seeing his smile as he waved goodbye to you.

On your next lesson, something was different. Same booth, similar monochromatic outfit, but he had a notebook of his own this time— not the one you'd given him, a different one, small and battered, already half full of handwriting.

"What's that?" You pointed to the notebook.

"Homework." He said it like a confession. "I looked up some things after our lesson. I wanted to see if I could get further on my own before you decided I was a lost cause."

"I don't decide people are lost causes."

"You did call me insane after I butchered the conjugation of ‘estoy.’"

"That was a joke, not a professional assessment." You reached for the notebook before he could stop you, flipping through it, and found — of course you did — that it was organized by category, verb tenses on one page, useful phrases on another, a small section labeled simply MISTAKES with three entries under it, each one crossed out with a correction written beside it in tidier handwriting than the original.

"You made yourself a mistake log." You were impressed, and your face showed it when you turned to look at a seemingly embarrassed Jeongguk.

"I like tracking things I've gotten wrong so I don't get them wrong twice."

"That's either extremely disciplined or deeply unwell."

"I like to think of it as a diversified skill set." He took the notebook back before you could read further, a little more self-conscious than his tone let on, and you found the sudden shyness almost more interesting than the notebook itself, because up until now, he hadn't shown you a single thing he wasn't fully in control of.

"Show me the mistakes," you said.

"Absolutely not."

"Jeongguk." This time, you finally sat down, your face inching closer to his.

"They're embarrassing."

"That's exactly why I want to see them."

He caved, eventually, sliding the notebook back across with the reluctance of a man handing over evidence at trial. You went through his mistakes: a gender agreement error, a mixed-up preterite, and a phrase he'd apparently misheard from a YouTube video and written down completely wrong. You corrected each one without laughing, though it cost you some effort, especially on the third, which you couldn’t even pretend you understood.

"This isn't even a real sentence," you said. "This means 'the elephant regrets nothing.'"

"I thought it meant 'no worries.'"

"It does not mean 'no worries.'" You both laughed at how ridiculous this mistranslation was.

"Well, now I know that. That's what the log is for."

You couldn't help it. You laughed again, and he looked so pleased with himself for causing it that you had to look back down at the notebook just to stop him from seeing exactly how pleased that made you in return. The rest of the lesson went quickly after that, buoyed by whatever he'd built on his own, and by the time you packed up, he'd added a fourth mistake to the log, this one made in real time, in front of you, without flinching.

"Progress," you said, nodding at it.

"Diversified skill set," he said again, and this time you both laughed.

He pulled out his phone to add your next session to his calendar, and you found yourself glancing over without quite meaning to—color-coded blocks stacked neatly across the week, each one labeled with a precision that bordered on excessive. Although you were the teacher, you thought there were many things you could learn from Jeongguk. So calculated, so thorough. So coordinated, so organized. It made you curious.

You gathered your things a few minutes later, the usual routine — notebook zipped away, pen capped, mental checklist for next time — except tonight you caught yourself lingering over it, in no particular hurry to leave the booth. It wasn't something you let yourself examine too closely on the walk to your car. However, you noticed, distantly, that you'd already started looking forward to the mistakes he'd bring you next time, and that this was not, strictly speaking, a normal thing to look forward to about a client.

For your third meeting, he was late for the first time, which felt so out of character that you almost texted to check on him before he came jogging in, tie slightly crooked, apologizing before he'd even sat down.

"Sorry. The meeting with the Barcelona branch ran long. They've started wanting updates every other day now.” He plopped himself down on the seat next to you. “I can't tell if that means they're excited or if they think I'm going to back out."

"Breathe. No need to apologize." The sudden proximity took you aback. He didn’t seem to mind how close he sat.

"I am breathing."

"You're breathing like you just ran here."

"I did just run here." He said as he let out a deep sigh, dragging a hand through his hair, and for the first time since you'd met him, the composure actually cracked all the way. "Sorry. I know I'm paying you to teach me, not to see me having a small breakdown in a coffee shop."

"You're allowed a small breakdown.” You reassured him. “This is a lot, what you're doing."

"Is it? Everyone at work keeps calling it exciting."

"It can be exciting and a lot. Those aren't mutually exclusive." You slid your own coffee toward him, only half-joking. "Drink that. You look like you need it more than I do."

He took it, and something in his shoulders came down half an inch. "Thank you."

"For the coffee or the pep talk?"

"Both. Neither. I don't know." He exhaled, finally looking like himself again, if a slightly more unguarded version of himself. "Can we just do something easy today? I don't think I have the bandwidth for you tearing apart my subjunctive."

"We can do easy." You considered him for a second, something softening in you that you didn't examine too closely. "Tell me about Barcelona. Not the job. Just— what do you actually know about the city? What are you looking forward to, if anything?"

It was meant as a distraction, a simple way of easing him back into speaking without the pressure of being right. He answered slowly, actually thinking about it, and what came out surprised you both. Something about wanting to walk somewhere without a schedule attached to it, about not remembering the last time he'd done something just because he wanted to and not because it was useful. He’s searched online for places to visit once he arrives. He looked excited, for once. You listened and didn't correct a single verb the whole time he talked, even when he got things wrong, because it didn't feel like it was your place to interrupt.

"That's the first real thing you've told me about yourself," you said, once he'd trailed off, a little embarrassed at how much he'd said.

"Is it terrible?" He looked self-conscious.

"Not at all, it's just very you. Apparently, even the stuff you want is efficient. You want to do unstructured activities, but you're already planning how you'll do them."

He laughed and didn't put any distance back between you, the way you half expected him to once the moment passed. If anything, he'd settled in closer over the course of the conversation, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him against your arm, and something eased between you that hadn't been there minutes before. The particular ease of two people who'd stopped performing for each other and stopped minding how little space was left between them.

In your next session, the coffee shop was particularly loud. A birthday party three tables over, someone's badly-timed acoustic guitar rendition of a song you both silently agreed was better left unplayed, and halfway through trying to explain the subjunctive over the noise, Jeongguk finally set his pen down.

"I can't hear myself think, let alone conjugate."

"Welcome to public spaces." You smiled. It was becoming hard for you, too.

"I'm serious. Is this shop usually this lively?" Jeongguk felt a headache coming on, so used to his completely silent office.

"Lately, yeah. New owner started doing live music nights, I think."

He considered something for a second, turning his cup, the same slightly-too-careful expression he got right before he said something he'd clearly been sitting on. "Would it be easier somewhere quieter? My place isn't far. I don't mind hosting, if that's okay with you."

You studied him for a beat too long, long enough that he visibly wondered if he'd overstepped, opening his mouth like he might take it back —before you shrugged, keeping your voice light even though something in your chest had gone very still. "Quieter's better for listening comprehension anyway. Send me the address."

Your mind started racing as you parked in front of his apartment. There was no power imbalance besides the clear teacher-student dynamic you were desperately trying to maintain. Regardless, it felt strange crossing this boundary with a client, as if you were doing something you knew was wrong. You were unsure why you felt this way… It wasn’t as if you were about to do something you weren’t supposed to. Right? 

You shook the thought off before it could finish forming, grabbed your bag, walked up to his door, and knocked. Whatever this feeling was, it could wait until after the lesson, or so you told yourself, right up until he opened the door.

His apartment was exactly what you expected from someone who color-coded his calendar: clean lines, nothing out of place, a bookshelf organized by height instead of subject. You almost laughed when you saw it.

"What?" he asked, catching your expression.

"Nothing. It's very... you."

"Is that an insult?"

"Depends on how the rest of the lesson goes."

"Ominous." He toed off his shoes at the door with the practiced neatness of a man who'd never once left them scattered. "Coffee?"

"Only if it's better than the shop's."

"It's way better than the shop's." He quickly scoffed.

"That's exactly what someone with worse coffee would say." A chuckle escaped your lips. You enjoyed teasing him this way.

He made it anyway and set the cup in front of you with the particular smugness of someone certain he'd win the argument once you tasted it. You didn't give him the satisfaction of admitting he was right, though the small, betraying sound you made after the first sip probably gave you away.

"I heard that," he said.

"You heard nothing."

"I heard a sound of defeat. I’ll claim the victory this time.” Still so smug, it was nice to see him being silly after your previous lesson.

You settled at his dining table, Jeongguk quickly sitting in the chair next to yours. The lesson went the way previous lessons had gone: efficient at first, then slower, then punctuated by tangents that had nothing to do with grammar. He asked about your other students, clearly fishing to find out if any of them got the same treatment he did.

"So," he said, entirely too casual for someone trying to be subtle about it, spinning his pen between two fingers instead of using it. "Your other students. Do they get this, too?"

"Get what?" Your face and voice conveyed confusion, but you knew exactly what he meant.

"This." He gestured between you, slow, deliberate, like he already knew the answer and just wanted to hear you say it. "The banter. The constant teasing. How observant you are of every little detail about me."

"That's a very specific thing to accuse me of." You maintained eye contact, believing it was exactly what he wanted from you. 

"Is it wrong?"

"Why does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't. I'm just curious." He wasn't backing down, still watching you with that same deliberate patience, like he had all the time in the world for you to answer. "So. Do they?"

"No." You held his eyes when you said it, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away first. "Everyone else just writes down what I say and follows my directions. You're the only one who argues back."

"So I'm special." His smile couldn’t get any wider.

"You're a pain in my ass, is what you are."

"That wasn't a no."

You scoffed at that, and he knew it, watching you with the particular arrogance of a man who'd gotten exactly the answer he wanted the entire time. "It also wasn't a yes."

"You're smiling."

"I'm not."

"You are. Very small. Very poorly hidden." He leaned back, pleased with himself in a way that should’ve been unbearable and somehow wasn't. "For the record, I like being the only one."

You went back to the lesson after that, or tried to. Still, you kept catching it, the thing you'd apparently been noticing without quite naming it until now: how he squared his shoulders every time you corrected him, like the mistake itself was a personal failure rather than just a wrong verb ending, how he'd repeat a corrected phrase three or four times under his breath until it was flawless, not satisfied until it was. How rattled he'd looked, days ago, defeated over not being able to form a complete sentence in a language he did not know— not embarrassed exactly, more like a man encountering a gap in himself he hadn't accounted for.

That was something worth asking about. "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends what it is." He kept writing things down in his notebook. You assumed he was correcting another of his mistakes.

"Why are you so bad at accepting help?" You said it lightly, half a joke, expecting a joke back, but he actually seemed to consider it, setting his pen down instead of deflecting.

"I don't know. I'm good at things I've already decided to be good at. I don't really do the part where I'm bad at something in front of someone." He reached for his cup, not quite meeting your eyes. "This is a lot of being bad at something. In front of someone."

"You're not bad at it." And you truly meant it. He was one hundred percent more invested than any other student you’ve taught.

"I was barely able to say a simple sentence two weeks ago." Jeongguk raised his eyebrows, perceiving your words as ironic.

"And now you're arguing with me about verb tenses like it's a personal insult. That's basically fluent."

"Very generous benchmark." He shrugged.

"I'm a generous person." You weren't, particularly, not with anyone else, and you both seemed to spot that fact at the same time. He didn't have a good answer for that, covering the silence by pretending to be very focused on his verb chart, jaw doing something complicated that wasn't actually about grammar at all. You decided to interrupt whatever he was doing. "You're stalling."

"I'm concentrating."

"You've been staring at 'poder' for two minutes. It's not that deep."

"It's a philosophically rich verb."

"It means 'can,’ Jeongguk."

"Exactly. Can I, can I not— very existential." He was grinning when he looked up, clearly pleased with himself, and you threw your pen cap at him for it. He caught it with a look of pride in his eyes.

"Teach me something useful," he said, halfway through his second cup, spinning the pen cap between his fingers like a trophy. "Not textbook stuff. Something people actually say."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Flirting.” Your eyes slightly widened at his request. “Isn't that useful? I'm moving to a city full of people I don't know how to talk to."

"And this is a professional request, right?"

"Extremely professional."

"Uh huh." You raised an eyebrow, but there was something under his tone — half joke, half something else entirely — that made you set your pen down instead of picking up the textbook again. Two could play at this game. "Fine. Repeat after me.” You looked him dead in the eye and said, with perfect, theatrical seriousness: “¿Tienes un mapa? Porque me perdí en tus ojos."

He repeated it, slow and careful, actually trying to get the pronunciation right before he asked, "What does that even mean?"

"'Do you have a map? Because I got lost in your eyes.'"

There was a beat of silence, and then he put his face in his hands. "That's the worst thing I've ever said in any language."

"It's a classic."

"It's criminal. Have you used it before?"

"Nope, it's objectively one of the worst pickup lines in existence, which is exactly why I'm teaching it to you."

"So you're setting me up to fail."

"I'm setting you up to make someone laugh so hard they fall for you. There's a strategy here." As the words came out of your mouth, you knew they sounded insincere. For some reason, the thought of Jeongguk flirting with a random girl annoyed you.

"A strategy," he repeated, deadpan, and then broke, laughing for real, dragging a hand down his face like he couldn't believe he'd actually said it out loud. You were laughing too, at the sheer commitment he'd put into something so deeply stupid, and for a second, neither of you managed to stop. "Okay," he said, once he'd recovered, still grinning. "Give me a real one. Something I could actually use."

You considered him for a second. Flushed from laughing, pen cap in his hand, looking at you like you were the only thing worth paying attention to in the room, and the next phrase came out quieter than you meant it to.

"Me encantas."

"What's that one?"

"It means I’m into you. I’m crazy about you, actually." You said it lightly, like it was still part of the lesson, but something in your voice gave you away, and you watched him catch it.

"Say it again." Something in him shifted; his eyes became even darker as he moved closer to you.

"Jeongguk—"

"Say it again."

You did, slower this time, without the joke to hide behind.

“Me encantas.” He repeated it back to you like he meant it, because he did, you both did. 

The words were the same, but the delivery was different—quieter, more deliberate, aimed at you rather than at a hypothetical stranger at a bar in Barcelona. Jeongguk felt the difference in his spine, a warm pressure spreading downward. The pen cap he'd been spinning clattered to the table, forgotten, as your faces came closer.

Jeongguk closed the gap between you by kissing your lips like a starved man. One of his hands held the back of your neck, attempting to bring you even closer, as if that was possible. His tongue explored yours relentlessly, bringing out breathless moans from you. Jeongguk felt blessed to hear you fall apart thanks to him. You felt his lip ring against your bottom lip when he bit it. It made you lose your composure. Your hands approached him, tugging his hair and pulling him away from you to take a breath. Although you were both breathing heavily, Jeongguk was far from done. He pecked your face, trailing kisses along your cheek and down your neck, where he stayed and left a few wet kisses.

“That feels so fucking good, Jeongguk.” You pushed your legs together and began grinding the seat, the sensation in your core intensified by Jeongguk’s neck kisses and grunts near your ear.

“Cursing, teach? That’s unacceptable.” He teased you, but you could only worry about how empty you felt without his lips on your skin. You were blinded by the pleasure you felt; you could barely discern what was appropriate from what wasn’t.

You sat on his lap, your legs straddling his, and he instinctively held onto your hips, smiling at how desperate you looked already. “What can I say? I think you bring out a different side in me that no other student sees.” He smiled, lips redder and lip ring shinier than before, and the increasing pulse in your crotch became painful. This time, you kissed him. Your hands found his hair again, and you loved how soft it was. 

Jeongguk didn’t think having you on top of him was enough. His fingers explored every inch of you they could reach. He rubbed your back, your exposed thighs, until he reached your ass and lingered there, holding onto both cheeks and taking control of you, forcing you to grind against him. You could feel how hard he was getting, and the pleasure created by the friction between your bodies was overwhelming. 

“Eres hermosa,” Jeongguk whispered as your lips abandoned his. You are beautiful.

You stared at him, impressed. You hadn’t taught him that; he’d done his homework. Those words reached a deep point inside you. Your head fell back, and your hips moved faster, the feeling of his hardened cock even more intense against your clothed clit. Jeongguk felt on top of the world, knowing that he had this effect on you. His lips found your neck once more, bridging the distance between you while his hips matched the rhythm of yours.

Before you could completely surrender yourself to the wave of pleasure that washed over you, the grating sound of a phone notification disrupted your rhythm, bringing you back to reality when you almost felt as if you were floating. You and Jeongguk shared a look, welcoming an awkward tension that was not there before. Behind you and towards the dining table, you realized it was your phone that cockblocked you. Reaching for it, your best friend’s name flashed on the screen. 

“Fuck, I completely forgot about it.” Still straddling Jeongguk, you covered your face in embarrassment. You made plans with her a while ago, way before Jeongguk was a regular part of your schedule. If only you were as organized as he was, you would have realized that you double-booked yourself. 

"Everything okay?" His hands were still resting at your waist, not pulling away, not pushing either, just steady, like he was giving you room to think without making you feel like you had to move yet. He didn’t want you to move away. His voice had dropped back into something calmer than it had been minutes ago, though his chest was still rising at the same speed it had been the past few minutes.

"I have to go. My friend, she’s waiting for me. I lost track of time, no— I forgot that I was supposed to meet her today." You sounded anxious.

"Don't." He interrupted you before you'd even finished getting up, quiet, almost surprised at himself for saying it at all. He didn't let go of your waist right away, thumb still resting against your hip like he wasn't ready to stop touching you yet. "Not yet. Just— give me a second before you go."

You stilled, half off his lap, caught by the shift in his voice. "Jeongguk—"

"I keep a color-coded calendar because if I don't plan something, it doesn't happen. That's not a joke, that's just how I've lived for the past few years. I decide what I want, I build a system for getting it, I execute." He wasn't looking at you now, focused instead on some point over your shoulder, as if it was easier to speak if he wasn't looking directly at you. "I didn't plan for this. These feelings. I don't know what to do with something I didn't see coming."

Now he did look at you, and whatever composure he'd been holding onto slipped the rest of the way. "I've had a mistake log for our lessons because I hate not knowing how to do something in front of you. That's how much I dislike disappointing you. And now you're about to walk out that door, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with how much I don't want you to."

You hadn't expected that. The specificity of it, no metaphor to hide behind, just him handing you the actual, unflattering shape of what he'd been carrying around this whole time. Something in your chest gave way at the honesty of it, some last piece of the distance you'd been keeping without quite admitting you were keeping it.

"I rescheduled a client for you last week." You said it like a confession, too. Quiet, meeting his gaze. You hadn’t noticed he was clenching his jaw until now.  "Someone whom I’ve been teaching every single week for a year. I told him I had a conflict… I just wanted to see you sooner."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I wasn't going to. It's not exactly professional." A short, unsteady laugh, nothing like your usual sharpness. "I just didn't want to go a whole week without seeing you, and I didn't know what to do with that, so I lied to a client instead of admitting it."

He didn't say anything right away. Just reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, slow, like he wanted an excuse to keep touching you a second longer.

"Good," he said finally, quietly. "I'm glad it wasn't just me."

Neither of you said anything after that; nothing was left that felt safe to say out loud. So you did the only thing that felt true instead: you kissed him again, slow, nothing like the urgency from an hour ago, just the quiet certainty that you weren't done with this, with him. Not even close, even if you weren't ready to admit how not close yet. When you finally pulled back, his forehead stayed pressed to yours for a second longer, like neither of you wanted to be the one to end it.

"Go," he murmured, though he didn't let go of your hand until the very last second. "Before I actually get on my knees and start begging you to stay."

You didn't remember the walk to your car. You remembered the door closing behind you, and the cold air hitting your face, and standing there for a full minute before your legs remembered how to move. Something in you needed a second to catch up with what had just happened before it would let you drive.

Two days passed before your next lesson, and they passed strangely. The kind of strange where every hour felt both too long and somehow already over before you'd noticed it happening. You went out with your best friend that night as you'd promised, sat across from her at the same bar you always went to, and heard maybe half of what she said. She was mid-story about a coworker's disastrous drama, and you were nodding at what you hoped were the right moments while your phone sat face-up on the table between you, screen dark, willfully unread.

"You're doing the thing," she said, snapping her fingers in front of your face.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you're here, but you're not here." She narrowed her eyes at you over her drink. "You've checked that phone four times in the last ten minutes, and it hasn't even buzzed."

"I have not."

"You have. Who is he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She didn't push it, which was somehow worse, because it meant she already knew there was someone, and was simply choosing to let you sit in the discomfort of being caught. You picked up your phone under the pretense of checking the time and found nothing waiting for you. No message, no missed call, nothing. You put it back down, feeling unreasonably disappointed by the absence of something you hadn't even told him to send.

You weren't usually like this. You'd always been the easy-breezy one, the friend who didn't lose sleep over a guy, who could go months without thinking twice about someone she'd kissed once and moved on from without much ceremony. Whatever this was, this counting down the two days until your next lesson like it was a deadline instead of a Tuesday, was new and a little embarrassing. You weren't sure yet whether you minded.

You mostly failed at that. You caught yourself rereading his one text from that night things got heated — made it home safe? sent a couple of hours after you'd left, casual on the surface, nothing underneath it you could point to and call proof of anything. You caught yourself, twice, standing in front of your closet trying to decide what to wear to your next lesson, before catching your own reflection in the mirror and feeling genuinely ridiculous about it. You'd worn the same three sweaters to previous lessons without a second thought, and now, apparently, that no longer applied. 

By the time the second day rolled into evening, you'd stopped pretending to yourself that the anticipation was about anything other than him.

He opened the door differently this time. No pressed shirt, no perfectly squared-off notebook waiting on the table, none of the rehearsed composure he usually greeted you with, the kind that made him look like he was walking into a client meeting rather than a Spanish lesson. Just him, in a soft gray t-shirt instead of his usual monochromatic uniform, hair slightly less deliberate than usual, lip ring catching the hallway light when he tilted his head. He looked, unmistakably, like he'd spent the last two days thinking about the same thing you had and hadn't landed on what to do with it either.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

Neither of you moved for a second. The air between you was thick with everything that hadn't been finished, everything that had been sitting, unresolved, for two days that had felt considerably longer than two days. Two days of half-read texts and half-worn outfits and half-listened-to best friends, and you suspected, watching the careful way he was holding himself in the doorway, that his version of the last two days hadn't looked all that different from yours.

"I didn't set anything up," he said finally, glancing back over his shoulder at the bare kitchen table. No cards, no notebook. "Didn't see the point in it."

"No flashcards? No mistake log?"

"I've been distracted." His voice had dropped, quieter than the joke deserved, and there was nothing careful about the way he was looking at you now. None of the calculated thoroughness he brought to everything else in his life, the thoroughness you'd watched him wear like armor since the day you met him. "You have that effect on me, apparently. Turns out it's hard to plan a grammar lesson when you can't stop thinking about the last one."

"That's very unlike you. Being unprepared."

"I know." He didn't sound bothered by it. If anything, he sounded almost relieved, as if being unprepared for once, in front of you specifically, was closer to a relief than a failure. "I figured we both already know where we left off."

"Do we?"

"I think so." He stepped back to let you in, close enough as you passed him that you felt the warmth of him even without touching, and something about the restraint of it made the two days of waiting feel almost unbearable. Both of you very deliberately did not close that last inch, not yet. 

The door clicked shut behind you, and the sound of it—that small, final latch—sent something electric down your spine. Neither of you moved for a breath. The air in his apartment felt different tonight, charged with everything that had been simmering since you walked out two days ago with his taste still on your lips.

"Two days is a long time," he said, voice low, not quite steady.

"You have no idea."

"I think I do." Jeongguk reached for you, fingers sliding along your jaw, tipping your face up toward his. The pad of his thumb traced your bottom lip, slow, almost reverent, like he was memorizing the shape of it. "I kept thinking about how you sound when I kiss your neck. Couldn't focus on a single fucking thing at work."

His voice dropped lower, rougher, as his thumb slid down to your chin, tilting your head just enough to expose the column of your throat. "I kept replaying that little noise you made, the one right before you pulled me back in. The one that told me you didn't actually want to leave." You felt the heat of his breath against your skin before his lips followed, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the spot just below your ear. "I sat through a three-hour meeting with the Barcelona team, and all I could think about was this." His teeth grazed your pulse point, featherlight, deliberate. "The way you feel in my hands. How you said my name like it meant something."

His hand slid from your jaw to the nape of your neck, fingers threading through your hair, tugging just enough to make your breath hitch. "I don't get distracted. I don't let myself get distracted. But you—" He exhaled against your skin, a sound that was half laugh, half surrender. "You're in my head. All the time.” His lips brushed your earlobe, his voice a low rasp.

"Show me what you were thinking about."

The words left your mouth before you'd fully decided to say them, and you watched the effect they had on him in real time—the way his pupils blew wide, the way his breath caught and held for half a beat too long. His thumb, still resting on your hip, pressed harder, a reflexive response he probably didn't even notice.

"I was thinking about this," he said, voice rough, and his hand slid from your hip down to the inside of your thigh, fingers tracing the seam of your jeans with deliberate slowness. "About how you felt in my lap. About the way your hips moved when I kissed your neck." His fingers curled, pressing against you through the denim, not quite touching where you wanted him most. "I was thinking about how you taste. I kept wondering if it would be as good as I remembered, or if I'd built it up in my head." His hand moved higher, cupping you through your jeans, palm applying just enough pressure to make your breath stutter. "And then I spent the rest of the night wondering if I'd ever get to find out."

"You're finding out now."

"Barely." He pressed harder, and you felt it everywhere, a dull, aching pulse that made you rock into his hand. "I want more. I want to memorize every sound you make, every way your body moves when I touch you."

His fingers found the button of your jeans, flicking it open with practiced ease, the zipper lowering with a sound that seemed too loud in the quiet of the room. "I thought about this part too." He slid his hand inside, palm flat against your underwear, the heat of him searing through the thin cotton. "About getting you out of these clothes and taking my time." His fingers traced the edge of your panties, teasing, never quite slipping beneath. "About how you'd look spread out on my bed, telling me exactly where to touch you."

"I can show you instead."

"No." His voice was firm, but there was a tremor underneath it. "Quiero oírte." I want to hear you. He shifted his weight, pressing his hips harder against yours as he closed the space between your body and the nearest wall, so you could feel exactly how much control this was costing him. "I don’t want you to hold back when I make you cum." He brought his mouth to your ear, breath hot and uneven. His teeth grazed your earlobe before he pulled back just enough to look at you, dark eyes searching yours. "That’ll be today’s lesson. I want to practice my Spanish while I make you feel good. I've been repeating phrases in my head all day, trying to figure out how to say the things I want to do to you. Now I want to see how you fall apart when I say them to you.”

The challenge in his voice sent a fresh wave of heat through you. He was trembling with the effort of holding back, but he was waiting, giving you space to meet him there, to play his game. His thumb traced your hip bone in slow, patient circles, and the corner of his mouth lifted when he saw the answer forming on your lips.

His mouth found yours before the words came out, hungry and impatient in a way that made your knees weaken. You could taste the lingering notes of the coffee he'd been drinking while he waited for you, bitter and warm and so distinctly him that your fingers curled into the soft cotton of his t-shirt, pulling him closer, needing more.

"Bedroom," you managed against his lips. "Ahora." Now.

He carried you through the apartment with a confidence that hadn't been there two weeks ago, each step deliberate, like he'd memorized the distance between the door and his bedroom and knew exactly how many seconds he had left to savor the weight of you in his arms. His grip tightened as he shouldered the bedroom door open, and the look he gave you—dark, hungry, certain—made your breath catch in your throat.

Jeongguk carefully laid you in his bed, and you pulled him down with you. He caught himself on his forearms, caging you beneath him, and for a moment he just looked at you—really looked, the way he'd been doing since the first lesson, like you were a problem he was determined to solve.

"Say something else," you said, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw. His skin was warm, slightly rough with the shadow of stubble he'd missed shaving. "En español." In Spanish.

"Eres lo más bonito que he visto." His voice had gone rough, the words deliberate and careful. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Good pronunciation." You deflected, pretending that his words didn’t form knots in your stomach.

"I have a good teacher." His hips pressed into yours, and you felt exactly how much he meant it. "Now you. Tell me something. Anything."

"Quiero sentirte dentro de mí." I want to feel you inside me. Your eyes never left his.

The sound of pure ecstasy he made vibrated against your throat as his mouth found your neck again. His hips rolled against yours, slow and deliberate, and the friction of denim against denim was nowhere near enough.

"Otra vez," he breathed against your skin. Again.

"Quiero sentirte dentro de mí."

“Fuck.” His hands slipped under your sweater, palms sliding up your stomach, your ribs, stopping just below your breasts. "I've thought about this. About you. About the sounds you'd make when I finally got my hands on you."

"Show me."

He sat back on his heels, pulling you up with him just enough to work your sweater over your head. His fingers traced the edge of your bra, following the line of lace with the same careful attention he'd given his verb charts. "You're shaking. Good." He unhooked your bra with one hand, practiced, confident, and let it fall away. You made a mental note to ask about that particular skill later. "I want you to remember this. Every second of it. I want you to think about it the next time you're supposed to be teaching me and can't focus because all you can remember is how my mouth felt on your skin."

He lowered his head, lips closing around one nipple, and your back arched off the mattress. His tongue worked in slow circles, the metal of his lip ring cool against the sensitive skin, and when his teeth grazed the peak, a sound escaped your throat that you didn't recognize.

"Like that. Make that sound again." He murmured against your breast.

He moved to the other nipple, giving it the same attention, and this time, when you moaned, his hips bucked against the mattress. His free hand slid down your stomach, fingers dipping below the waistband of your open jeans, and when they found the wetness already soaking through your panties, he swore under his breath in a language you hadn't taught him.

"You’re this wet from just my mouth on your neck?" His fingers traced the outline of you through the damp cotton, teasing, never quite pressing where you needed him. "Or did you think about this last night, too? Did you touch yourself thinking about what I'd do to you?"

"No." You reached for him, fingers hooking into his belt loops, pulling his hips back down against yours. "I wanted to wait for you."

"Fuck." The word came out almost pained. Capturing your mouth again, he kissed you deep and desperately while his fingers finally pushed your panties aside and found you bare and slick and ready. "All this for me?"

"Solo para ti." Only for you.

One finger slid inside you, then two, and your hips rose to meet him without conscious thought. He moved them slowly, deliberately, watching your face with the focus he usually reserved for his mistake log.

"Look at me," he said, and when your eyes met his, he curled his fingers forward, finding the spot that made your vision blur. 

"There. Don't stop."

"Wasn't planning to." His thumb found your clit, drawing tight circles that matched the rhythm of his fingers, and the dual sensation sent you hurtling toward the edge faster than you'd ever gotten there with anyone else. Your hands fisted in his sheets, your hips moving against his hand in a rhythm you couldn't control.

"Jeongguk—"

"I know." His voice was raw. "I can feel it."

When the trembling finally subsided, he withdrew his fingers slowly, bringing them to his mouth without breaking eye contact. He licked them clean, one by one, and the sight of it sent another pulse of heat through your already oversensitive body.

"Sabes mejor de lo que imaginaba." You taste better than I imagined.

"Your Spanish is getting better."

"I had motivation to practice." He lowered himself over you again, and this time, you felt the full length of him pressed against your thigh, still trapped behind his jeans. "But I'm not done yet. There's a phrase I need to try."

"What phrase?"

He didn't answer with words. His mouth found the hollow of your throat instead, then lower—collarbone, sternum, the soft curve of your belly. Each kiss came slower than the last, deliberate and unhurried, as he'd already calculated exactly how long he wanted to spend on every inch of skin between your neck and where he was headed.

"Jeongguk." Your voice came out thinner than you meant it to. "You said there was a phrase."

"There is." His breath fanned hot against your navel. "But I want to earn it first."

His fingers hooked into the waistband of your jeans, tugging them down past your hips, your thighs, your ankles. Your panties followed. The cool air hit your bare skin, and you shivered. Not from cold, but from the way he was looking at you. That same careful, cataloging attention he'd given his vocabulary lists. Only now the subject was you, spread out beneath him, still trembling from what his fingers had done minutes ago.

"You're staring."

"I'm learning." He settled between your thighs, his shoulders pushing them apart, his stubble grazing the sensitive skin on the inside of your knee. "Every part of you. Every reaction. I want to know what gets you to make that sound again."

His lips brushed the crease where thigh met hip. Not a kiss—barely a suggestion of one. Your hips jerked toward his mouth without permission.

"Just like that." His words hummed against your skin, sending shivers throughout your body.

"What are you learning exactly?"

"How you taste." His tongue traced a line along your inner thigh, stopping just short of where you needed him. "How you respond to pressure. How long I can tease you before you start begging me."

“I won’t beg.”

"Not yet." He said it with absolute certainty, the same tone he'd used when he'd insisted he'd master the subjunctive before his flight to Barcelona. Then his mouth moved higher, and higher still, until his breath was right there—warm and wet and maddeningly close—and then he stopped. "The phrase," his lips brushing against you as he spoke. "I looked this one up. Wanted to get it right."

"Tell me."

"Quiero saborear cada parte de ti." I want to taste every part of you.

"That's—"

His tongue flattened against your clit before you could finish the sentence.

The sound that came out of you wasn't a word. It wasn't even close. Your hand flew to his hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands, and he groaned against you like he'd been waiting for exactly that reaction. The vibration traveled straight through you, sparking along nerves still raw from your first orgasm.

"Where did you learn that one?"

"I've been doing my homework." His tongue dipped lower, tracing your opening, and your grip on his hair tightened. "Dulce." Sweet. He licked again, slower. "Suave." Soft. A third time, deeper, his lip ring cold against your heat. "Mojada." Wet. "Dime cómo se dice." Tell me how to say it. He lifted his head, chin glistening, dark eyes finding yours across the plane of your stomach. "I want to describe you. Every taste. But I need the vocabulary."

Your breath caught. He was serious. Beneath the hunger, beneath the way his hands gripped your thighs hard enough to bruise, he was still your student—still that same meticulous man who learned languages by memorizing patterns until they became instinct.

"Dulce," you managed. "You said dulce already. Sweet."

"Dulce." He lowered his mouth again, tongue working in slow circles. "What else?"

“Salado. Salty.” Talking became harder, your words coming out between gasps.

"Salado." He tasted you again, lapping at the slick gathering between your thighs. "Both. Dulce y salado. Like caramel with sea salt."

"Poetic."

"I've been reading Spanish poetry." His tongue circled your clit, slow and precise, and the deliberate pressure made your back arch off the mattress. "The Romantics. Bécquer. Neruda. I wanted to know how to talk about you without sounding like a textbook."

"Most students just learn how to order coffee."

"I thought you knew I’m not like most students."

His mouth sealed around your clit and sucked, hard, and coherent thought dissolved. The room narrowed to the hot slide of his tongue, the wet sounds he was making, the steady pressure of his hands holding your thighs open. He worked you with the same relentless focus he'd brought to verb conjugations. Patient, methodical, adjusting his approach based on your reactions.

"Amargo," you gasped, when he slowed down to kitten licks. “Bitter.”

"Where?" He sounded genuinely curious, pausing mid-lick.

"The edge. When I'm close, it tastes different. Sharper."

"Enséñame." Show me. His voice had gone rough. "Let me taste the difference."

Two fingers slid inside you, curling forward against that spot he'd found minutes ago, and his mouth returned to your clit with renewed intensity. The dual rhythm—fingers pressing, tongue circling—built something seismic in your lower belly, a pressure that made your thighs shake against his shoulders.

"More," you heard yourself say. "Ahí, justo ahí." There, right there.

He repeated the motion exactly, the same pressure, the same angle, his tongue working you in tight spirals. His eyes were glued to yours, seeking your approval.

"Sí. No pares." Don't stop.

"No voy a parar." His words vibrated against you. I'm not going to stop. "I need you to cum in my mouth." 

The command undid you. That, or the way his fingers pressed deeper, or the way his lip ring caught against your clit with every stroke of his tongue. It didn't matter. The orgasm crashed through you in pulses, each one wrenched out by the steady rhythm of his mouth, and he didn't stop—didn't slow down, didn't pull back—just kept licking and sucking and groaning against you like he was the one falling apart.

"Amargo," he breathed, pulling back only when your hips stopped bucking. His lips were swollen, his chin wet, his eyes nearly black with want. "You were right. Sharper. More intense." He licked his lips. "I like it."

"Come here." Your arms reached for him, shaking as you still felt your heartbeat in your throat.

He crawled up your body, and you tasted yourself on his tongue when he kissed you. Dulce, salado, amargo, all of it mixed. His length pressed against your thigh, still trapped behind denim, and you felt the damp spot where he'd been leaking through the fabric.

"Your turn," you said, reaching for his belt. "Quiero enseñarte otra cosa." I want to teach you something else.

His breath hitched. "What?"

"How you sound when you let go. En cualquier idioma." In any language. Your fingers worked his belt open. "Whatever comes out."

"Prometo que voy a estudiar," I promise I'll study. His hips jerked into your hand as you freed him, hot and thick and already slick at the tip. "Every word. Every sound. I'll write it all down in my mistake log."

"Don't." You guided him between your thighs, lining him up where you were still wet and open from his mouth. "Some things you don't correct."

His breath caught when you guided him against you, the head of his cock pressing into wet heat. For a moment, he just stayed there, forehead dropping to yours, lips parted around a word that wouldn't come.

“Wait.” He pulled back, and the loss of contact made you whimper before you could stop yourself. "Condom. I need—"

"No."

His jaw tightened. The lip ring caught the lamplight as he processed the word, turned it over, and examined it from every angle like one of his vocabulary lists.

"No?" Confusion flickered across his face, then something hungrier. "But—"

"Quiero sentirte." I want to feel you. Your fingers curled around the back of his neck, pulling him down until his mouth hovered inches from yours. "All of you. Nothing between us."

He swallowed hard. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything." Your thumb traced the sharp edge of his jaw. "I'm on birth control. And I haven't been with anyone in months. You?"

"Not since before the promotion." His voice had gone hoarse. "Not since I started wanting you." He said it plainly, like a fact he'd stopped trying to argue with, and the simplicity of it hit harder than any elaborate confession could have.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

He searched your face for any change in your expression, that careful scanning look, like he was checking for any sign of hesitation. Whatever he found must have satisfied him because he exhaled and something in him shifted. Surrender. Relief. The particular recklessness of a man who'd spent his life planning everything and was finally letting himself want something unplanned.

"You're going to ruin me." He said it like a fact, as if he'd already accepted the outcome. "I'm going to feel you, and I'm never going to be able to think about anything else."

"Good."

He pushed inside you in one slow stroke.

The stretch stole your breath. No barrier, just him, hot and bare and somehow more than you'd imagined despite spending weeks imagining exactly this. Your nails bit into his shoulders through his t-shirt, and he groaned, a sound dragged from somewhere deep in his chest.

"Fuck." He stilled, buried to the hilt, every muscle in his body trembling with the effort of holding back. He pressed his forehead to yours, breathing ragged, voice frayed at the edges. "Tell me what you want me to do to you now that I'm inside you. I want to hear you say the dirty things you're thinking while you can feel exactly how much I want you."

You felt him pulse inside you, a reminder that he was still holding on by a thread, and the power of that, the control you had over a man who controlled everything, sent a fresh wave of heat through your already oversensitized body. Your hips rolled experimentally, just a fraction of an inch, and the sound he made in response was worth more than any confession.

"You want to hear me talk?" Your voice came out lower than you intended, rougher. "Fine. I want you to move. Slow at first. I want to feel every inch of you dragging against me while I watch your face. I want to see the exact moment you stop thinking about Barcelona and start thinking about nothing except how good I feel."

His breath stuttered. His hips twitched, a reflexive forward press that made you both gasp, and you smiled against his mouth.

"I want you to learn a new word tonight. Despacio. Slow. Because I'm going to make you take your time. I'm going to make you feel every second of this, every heartbeat, every breath, until you can't remember what it felt like to want me from a distance."

Jeongguk's hands found your hips, grip tightening like he needed something to anchor himself. "That's—" He swallowed hard. "That's a lot of instructions."

"You asked for them." Your fingers slid into his hair, tugging gently at the roots. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No." The word came out desperate, immediate, and he seemed to realize how much he'd given away because he pressed his forehead to yours again, hiding. "No. Keep going. Please."

"Then here's your next lesson." You shifted beneath him, adjusting the angle just slightly, and the way his eyes rolled back was its own reward. "When I tell you así,” Like this, “you don't change a thing. You keep the same rhythm, the same depth, the same pressure. You let me feel exactly what you're giving me until I tell you otherwise."

His nod was jerky, barely controlled.

You tightened around him deliberately, watching his pupils blow wide. "Now show me how well you follow instructions."

He shuddered at the command, his hips stuttering as if your words alone could break his rhythm. But Jeongguk was nothing if not disciplined. Even now, even with his cock buried bare inside you and his mind swimming in the haze of desire, he found the control to slow down. His next thrust was measured, deliberate, the kind of precise movement that spoke of a man who had spent his life learning to obey instructions perfectly.

The slow drag of him against your walls was almost unbearable. Somehow too much and not enough all at once. Every nerve ending was alight, hyperaware of every inch of him, every ridge and pulse. He was watching you with an intensity that bordered on reverence, memorizing every micro-expression that crossed your face, learning what made you gasp versus what made you moan.

"Sí," you managed, the word coming out as a breathless sigh. "Just like that. No faster. No deeper. Just—" Your voice caught as he hit a particularly sensitive spot. "—así."

He repeated the same stroke, same angle, same depth, and the precision of it, the way he'd already learned what you liked, sent a shiver through you that had nothing to do with temperature. His thumb, still resting against your clit, began to move in matching circles, slow and steady, synced to the rhythm of his hips.

"You're so wet," he observed, his voice carrying a note of wonder. "I can feel it. Every time I push in, there's more. Is that because of me? Because of what I'm doing?"

"Don't fish for compliments while you're inside me."

A smug smile crossed his face, but he didn't stop. Didn't speed up. Didn't change a thing. Just kept that maddening, perfect rhythm, dragging moans from your throat with every slow, deliberate stroke. His free hand found yours, fingers intertwining, pinning your palm to the mattress beside your head.

"Tell me if I'm doing it right." The vulnerability in his voice cut through the stillness of pleasure. "I need to know. I need to hear you say it."

"You're—fuck, Jeongguk—you're doing it right." The words came out broken, punctuated by a gasp as he hit that spot again. "Don’t change anything. Así."

He groaned at the Spanish, at the confirmation that he was following your instructions correctly. His hips maintained their rhythm, but his thumb pressed harder, circles growing tighter, and you could feel the trembling in his thighs. The effort it took for him to hold back, to stay controlled, to give you exactly what you'd asked for, even as every fiber of his being wanted to take more.

"You’re so obedient. I love it," you whispered, and the sound he made in response—a desperate, wrecked noise that seemed to come from somewhere primal—told you everything you needed to know about how much those words affected him. Being under your spell, completely surrendered inside you.

His hips jerked involuntarily, a short, sharp thrust that made you both gasp. "Don't." Another slow thrust, deeper this time, his lip ring glinting as he smiled. "Don't tease me right now. I'm barely holding on."

He maintained that pace: long, deep strokes that filled you, the drag of him bare against your walls sending sparks up your spine with every movement. No rush. No urgency. Just the steady rhythm of his hips and the weight of his body pressing you into the mattress.

"Eres perfecta." The words fell from his lips like he'd been holding them in for weeks. You're perfect. "Perfecta. Tan apretada. Tan caliente." So tight. So hot.

"Harder." Your legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his lower back, pulling him deeper. But instead of speaking, you arched into him, a wordless demand. His answer was a low growl against your throat as his hips snapped forward, harder this time, stealing the breath from your lungs. The slightly slow, measured pace shattered; he drove into you with a desperation that rattled the headboard against the wall, each thrust a conversation you no longer needed words for. His mouth found yours, swallowing every broken sound you made as he took what you'd offered, and gave back twice as much.

His thrusts faltered, rhythm slipping as he lost himself in the sensation. You watched it happen, watched the careful composure crack further with every stroke, watched his eyes go dark and unfocused, watched his mouth shape words he couldn't quite voice. His teeth grazed your pulse point, and the sharpness of it, pleasure edged with just enough pain, made your inner walls clench around him. He shuddered, a full-body tremor that you felt everywhere.

He lifted his head, eyes finding yours. "Do that again."

"What?"

"Squeeze me like that again." His thrusts were harder, deeper, hitting a spot that made your vision blur. His rhythm didn't break. If anything, it grew more deliberate, each stroke aimed with the precision of a man who'd spent weeks learning exactly where to find what he was looking for. "Again. Otra vez. I need to feel it again."

The demand in his voice, rough and frayed, sent a fresh pulse of heat through you. You tightened around him deliberately, a slow clench that started at the base and rolled upward, and watched his composure fracture in real time. His jaw went slack. His hips stuttered. A sound escaped him, low and wrecked, that didn't sound like it belonged to the businessman who organized his bookshelf by height.

He let out a sound that was half laugh, half groan, and pulled back just enough to look at you. His pupils had swallowed most of his irises, leaving only a thin ring of dark brown around the black. "You're going to kill me. You know that, right? I'm going to die inside you, and I'm going to thank you for it."

His hips began to move again, slower this time, each thrust a deliberate drag against every sensitive nerve you had. The sensitivity from your previous orgasm made every stroke feel sharper, more electric, like he was relearning your body all over again. His hand slid from your hip to your thigh, hooking your leg higher over his waist, opening you further. The new angle made him hit deeper, and you felt it everywhere. A sharp, maddening hit of pleasure that made your toes curl and your back arch off the mattress.

His voice was low, almost reverent. "Your cunt is still so tight. You’re clenching around me, taking me so well." His thrusts got deeper, letting you feel the fullness of him. "Is that normal? Or is that just—me? Just what I do to you?"

“It’s you. Just with you.” You felt your face getting hotter, feeling exposed not only because you were naked.

A shudder ran through him at your admission, and he pulled out almost entirely before sliding back in with excruciating slowness. The drag of him against your oversensitive walls made you gasp, your hands flying to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. He watched your face with that same intense focus, taking all of you in.

"Good." He repeated the motion—slow withdrawal, slower reentry—and the deliberate pace was almost more overwhelming than the frantic rhythm from before. "Because I want to remember this. Every detail. The way you look right now. The sounds you make. The way your body welcomes me every time I push back in." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm going to think about this non-stop. When I'm alone. When I'm supposed to be focusing on meetings. I'm going to close my eyes and remember exactly how you feel around me, and I'm not going to be able to think about anything else."

His rhythm shifted, growing slightly faster, the shallow strokes targeting a spot that made your vision blur at the edges. His thumb found your clit again, pressing in tight circles that matched his thrusts, and you could feel another orgasm building; slower this time, deeper, gathering in your core like a wave about to break.

"Así," you moaned, the word barely making it past your lips. "Así. Please don't change a thing."

He didn't. He kept that same rhythm, that same depth, that same relentless pace, his thumb finding your clit in matching circles. And when you clenched around him again—involuntary this time, pulled from you by the sheer overwhelming pleasure of his cock inside you—he groaned your name like a prayer, like he'd been saying it in his head for weeks and was only now allowed to let it out loud.

His pace quickened, the slow, deliberate strokes giving way to something more urgent. The wet sound of him moving inside you, no barrier between your bodies, filled the room alongside your broken moans.

"I’m close." You said, barely a whisper.

He felt it. Of course he did. His cock could feel every shift deep inside you.

His hips snapped forward, a sharper thrust that made you cry out. "Every word. Every sound. Every lesson. I've been taking notes on you since the day we met."

"You’re obsessed."

“Yes." No denial. No deflection. Just the word, hot against your throat, as his rhythm faltered and rebuilt itself. "Estoy obsesionado contigo. Con esto." I’m obsessed with you. With this. "Con la manera en que dices mi nombre." With the way you say my name.

"Jeongguk."

"Así." Like that. His voice had gone ragged. "Otra vez." Again.

"Jeongguk—"

The orgasm hit without warning, ripped out of you by his name on your tongue and his cock buried bare inside you and the relentless pressure of his thumb. Your vision whited out. Your body clenched around him in waves, each pulse drawing a broken sound from his throat. The pleasure crested, ebbed, crested again. When you finally surfaced, he was still buried inside you, still hard, still trembling.

"You didn't—"

"I wanted to feel it." He said it like a confession. "All of it. Every second. The way you—" His voice broke. "I've never felt anything like that. Someone cumming around me. Bare. Like this."

"Cum inside me." You said it for him, watching his eyes go wide and dark. "Déjate ir dentro de mí." Let yourself go inside me.

"Fuck." His composure was completely shattered. No more careful student, no more meticulous planner. Just him, raw and desperate, hips snapping forward in a rhythm that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with need.

The permission in your voice, quiet, steady, utterly certain, was the final thread holding him together, and it snapped. His hips drove forward once, twice, a third time, each thrust shorter and more desperate than the last, chasing a release he'd been holding at bay since the moment he first touched you.

Your name tore out of him, ragged and broken, as his rhythm shattered entirely. His forehead dropped to your shoulder, his breath hot and uneven against your skin, and you felt the exact moment he lost control. The way his whole body tensed, the way his fingers dug into your hips hard enough to bruise, the way a drowned whimper came out of him.

He came undone inside you. You felt it in pulses, hot and deep and endless, each wave drawing a shudder from his frame, each pulse pulling a broken sound from his throat. His hips kept moving through it, involuntary now, grinding against you like he couldn't bear to stop, like he needed to feel every last second of this before it ended.

You tightened around him, and he gasped, his whole body jerking as a sharp sting of pleasure rolled through him. His teeth grazed your shoulder, not quite biting, grounding himself against the overwhelming sensation of being so completely undone.

When he finally stilled, he was trembling. Not the fine tremor of exertion, but something deeper. A full-body shake that spoke of a man who had given everything he had and was still trying to find his way back to himself. His breathing was uneven, his face still pressed into the curve of your neck like he couldn't bear to lift his head and face what had just happened.

He stayed there for a long moment, buried inside you, his lips pressed against your pulse point like he was memorizing the rhythm of your heartbeat. When he finally spoke, his voice was wrecked. Hoarse and raw and honest in a way he'd never let himself be before.

"Me encantas." The words came out broken, barely a whisper, pressed into your skin like a secret he'd been carrying too long. "Me encantas tanto que no sé qué hacer." I'm so crazy about you that I don't know what to do.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, and there was no armor left. Just him, flushed and spent and vulnerable, his lip ring glinting in the low light as he searched your face for something—reassurance, maybe, or permission to keep feeling what he was feeling.

You opened your mouth to answer him, and nothing came out.

It struck you as almost funny, in some distant part of your brain that was still capable of finding things funny in such a serious moment. You, who'd spent weeks handing him the exact right words for every occasion, who'd built entire lessons out of teaching him how to say the things he couldn't say on his own, and now here you were, wordless, in every language you knew. Nothing in your vocabulary felt big enough. Nothing felt like it wouldn't shrink the second it left your mouth.

So you didn't try. You reached up instead and pressed your palm flat against his chest, right over the place where his heart was still going too fast to be anything but honest, and held it there like you could say it that way instead. Like touch might succeed where every word you knew had just failed you. He went still under your hand, watching you with something that looked almost like relief, like he understood exactly what you were doing and didn't need the words either, not really, not when this was so much louder.

You leaned in and kissed him instead and felt him exhale against your mouth like he'd been holding his breath since the words left him. When you finally pulled back, your forehead resting against his, you found your voice again, small and unsteady and entirely true.

"I don't know what to do with it either," you whispered. Not a lesson. Just the truth, handed back to him in the only language you had left.

His arms tightened around you, and for a long moment neither of you said anything else. Because for the first time since that coffee shop, there was nothing left that needed saying out loud.

You try not to move too much on the bed, not to wake him. He needs rest, tons of it. But you think to yourself, you could make him some breakfast. You contemplate and think for a second but ultimately decide to get up and make him food and not to be loud. You move out of bed carefully and find your robe hanging up on the closet door and tie it around you and walk out of the bedroom closing the door gently. You walk to the kitchen and find some pans to cook some eggs and maybe pancakes, rummaging in the fridge you found the eggs and some sausage. “This will do, don't have to be fancy.” You set the carton of eggs and package of sausage on the counter before heating up the pan.

You hum softly to yourself and start cooking, not paying attention to the sounds around you before you feel a looming presence by you and then grabbing your waist pulling you close to him. “Why did you leave me.. in bed alone.” He says almost whining like a child, he nests his head on your neck and gives it a kiss around all the hickeys and bites he left last night on you. “Nanami… you should still be sleeping baby.” You hum softly, cracking another egg in the pan. “But you left me alone.. can't sleep alone.” He grumbles holding you tightly, he is extremely clingy this morning typically he is never like this but when he is you find it adorable.

“I know.. im sorry” you reassure him and he sniffs your neck and closes his eyes like he is about to fall back asleep. “Baby go back to bed..” You move from the stove and look down at him on your shoulder. “Hmm” he mumbles and you shake your head in amusement, “never seen you so needy.” You giggle and he moves from you and finds a chair to sit in and pulls it up besides you.

Looking over at him he is just in pajama pants he probably found on the floor. His hair is so messy and his chest is littered in small red marks, he looks so beautiful like this not a care in the world what he looks like nor how he is acting. “After breakfast can we go back to bed..” he mumbles once again looking up at you as you finish cooking off the food. You move to the coffee pot and fill it up real quick with water to brew some coffee. “How about.. we clean up the bedroom.. them sheets gotta be ready for a wash after last night.” You tell him and he blushes faintly and looks away from you. “Perhaps.. I am just feeling lazy today.” He puts his hand over his face and leans back into the chair as you walk back over to the stove plating the food. “You never feel lazy this is a shocker.” You tease him and he scoffs, “I know.. my hips hurt.” He groans and looks at you once more.

“I mean you did do good last night. My legs hurt but its a given.” You move over and put the food on the table and nanami tilts his head back to see the food on the table. You walk past him and ruffle his hair “I love you ken” you smile and he as well smiles “I love you too, y/n.”

The sound of him is so unmistakable that the ladies-in-waiting, who are busy fixing your hair and adjusting your robes, immediately freeze and stop what they're doing before quietly exchanging nervous glances among themselves.

You close your eyes and let out a quiet sigh before looking at them with a faint yet warm smile. "Thank you. You may now take your leave."

"M'lady—" They bow courteously.

But you cut them off before they can finish. "Now."

You silently watch them leave, and from the way they hurriedly gather their things, you can tell they're eager to get out of your husband's way.

Sure enough, Sukuna's large frame appears in the doorway only moments later. His head is turned toward the fleeing maids, a deep scowl etched across his face as he watches them quickly disappear down the hallway.

"What distresses my lord husband that he comes home this early?" His expression softens the moment he hears your voice. "Usually, you don't come home until the crickets come out to sing."

Sukuna's gaze slowly shifts toward you, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "I come home whenever I wish to do so."

You click your tongue and pretend to think. "...which usually means ungodly hours."

He doesn't bother responding. Instead, he quietly slides the door shut behind him without even looking, his attention never leaving you as he walks across the room.

To most people, Sukuna's expression is unreadable. To you, it's obvious that he's tired. You know your husband well. So well that your body instinctively shifts, making room for him before he even reaches you.

"How many was today's slaughter?"

Without a word, Sukuna lowers himself onto the futon and rests his head on your lap. A deep sigh escapes him as his eyes close the moment your fingers begin combing through his hair.

"I've lost count."

You hum softly. "Must've been a fulfilling victory."

His tired arms slowly wrap around your waist, pulling you close enough to steal your warmth and breathe in your familiar scent. "No different from the others."

Your fingers trail along the outline of his ear before lightly drumming against his temple, eventually disappearing back into his soft pink locks. "Even that one time you decided to kill one of my maids and have her served?"

Sukuna tiredly peels one eye open, trying to remember which incident you're referring to.

When realization finally dawns on him, he simply closes his eyes again. "You said the food was to your liking."

You stop playing with his hair.

"It was," you reply flatly, "until I found out who I was eating." You look down at him with clear disdain. "She was my favorite."

The moment your fingers leave his hair, Sukuna immediately notices. Without opening his eyes, he effortlessly reaches up, catches your hand, and places it back on his head.

"You'll fare well."

"No." You gently pull your hand away and rest it beside you instead. "You have to promise me you won't kill any of my girls."

"You're in no position to tell me how I want my food to be served."

A low grunt rumbles from his chest as he shifts against your lap. He reaches for your hand again, but this time, you resist his hold. His brows knit together slightly.

"You can look for a new favorite." Sukuna slowly turns his head to look up at you, only to be met with an equally deep frown. "Are you truly this upset over a peasant?"

"I'm serious, Sukuna." Your voice comes out much quieter than before. "They're the closest thing I have to having... friends."

Tears slowly begin to well at the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill as you hold his gaze. Silence settles between the two of you.

The longer Sukuna looks at your face, the more the past few days begin to make sense.

It was probably your orders that sent the servants rushing out of the chambers the moment they heard his footsteps approaching. It was also the delicious meal the maid he'd (un)knowingly served you, that had made you so distant these past few days.

And when he says distant, he means the way your fingers move through his hair.

You used to stroke it absentmindedly, gently threading each strand between your fingers as if you had all the time in the world. Lately, your touch has been different. It feels half-hearted and detached. He couldn't quite put his finger on what had changed, but now he knows.

Sukuna reaches for your hand again. Only this time, there's no force behind it. His large hand carefully cradles yours before bringing it to his lips, pressing an uncharacteristically gentle kiss against the back of it.

"For everything I've done to upset my dear wife..." His voice is quieter now. "I'm truly remorseful."

You don't answer. Instead, you simply look at him before a long sigh escapes his lips.

"Your servants shall no longer be served as food." The moment he sees the tension leave your shoulders, a small smile finally appears on his face. "Does this please you now?"

You inhale sharply before giving him a small nod. "Yes."

"Good." Satisfied with your answer, Sukuna settles back onto your lap and points toward his head with one finger. "Now continue where you left off."

A quiet laugh slips from your lips as your fingers return to his hair, gently scratching the back of his head the way he likes.

Sukuna doesn’t bother to look at him. His gaze stays glued to you, watching you laugh with Shoko, and a small, proud tilt curls at the corner of his mouth.

"Hard not to," Sukuna rumbles. "She looks way too damn good for a place like this."

"Right?" the stranger says, taking another slow sip of his drink, clearly taking that agreement as an invitation to keep talking. His gaze drags over Sukuna’s massive build, the plain shirt, joggers, and face tattoos, and a cocky smirk appears on his face, like he’s already decided he’s got the upper hand. “Hottest woman in here, hands down. Gorgeous, carries herself well, and that smile… I was just about to head over, buy her a drink, see where the night takes us.”

Sukuna finally turns his head, sizing the man up with calm, almost lazy interest. He’s objectively handsome—tall, impeccably groomed, his shirt tailored tight over a sharp, well-built frame. He looks like the type who’s used to getting whatever he wants and moves through the world with the confidence that says he’s never had to fight for attention.

"Yeah?" Sukuna rasps, amusement flickering in his eyes as the man keeps embarrassing himself.

"I mean, c'mon, look at her," the stranger continues, sipping his drink. "She looks like she’s got real standards. Probably has a great job, drinks the good stuff. She needs a guy who knows how to keep up with her and actually treat her right."

Leaning back against the bar, Sukuna crosses his massive arms over his chest, thoroughly entertained by the sheer audacity of it all. Listening to a complete stranger explain what kind of man his wife needs is absurd enough that he's more than happy to let him keep digging his own grave.

"Yeah, she’s something else alright," Sukuna drawls. "You really think she'd go for you?"

"Oh, I know she would," the man replies, adjusting his cuff with a smug grin. "I've got the job, the car, the looks. Women like her know a good thing when they see it."

A deep, amused huff rumbles out of Sukuna. If this idiot so much as crossed a real line, he’d snap his neck without a second thought. For now, though, watching this polished suit walk himself straight into a wall is way too funny to interrupt.

"You've got it all figured out, huh?"

"Hey, confidence gets results," the stranger says, grinning. “Tell you what—friendly wager.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his leather wallet, fishes out a crisp, high-value bill, and slides it across the bar between them. "This says I'll have her number and a kiss before the night's out."

Sukuna tilts his head, a wicked smirk slowly spreading across his face.

"Alright,” he says. “Mind if I go first?"

The stranger gives Sukuna one last once-over, lingering on the intimidating ink on his face, the back of his neck, and the lines wrapping around his wrists and biceps. To him, Sukuna looks like someone who got lost on his way home from the gym, or maybe a prison, though he’s a little too well-kept for that. He lets out a dismissive chuckle, already certain there's no way a woman like you would give a brute in joggers the time of day.

"Go right ahead, man," the guy says, waving him on. "Show me how it's done. No chance in hell you're pulling her."

"Watch," Sukuna says simply, pushing off the bar and walking across the floor, his massive frame cutting right through the crowded room.

Over by the bar, you're mid-sentence when a broad, warm palm gently taps your shoulder. You turn around, and the moment your eyes land on your husband, your whole face lights up.

"Hey," you breathe, the sight of him instantly making your cheeks flush warm. He looks stupid hot tonight, towering over everyone around him.

Sukuna steps in so close that your back presses into the edge of the bar, his body boxing you in until there's nowhere else to go. He pulls his phone from his pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to you, leaning down until his mouth hovers right at your ear.

"Can you look up that Korean place we went to, like, two months ago?" he rumbles, his voice low and soft against your ear, his warm breath sending a shiver racing down your spine. "I can't remember the name."

"Oh, so now you need me?" you tease, but your fingers are already flying over the screen. "Yeah, hang on…"

Across the room, the man at the bar narrows his eyes, watching you take Sukuna's phone without a hint of hesitation and immediately start tapping away. He smirks, swirling the melting ice in his glass, already convinced he's seen this play before. Classic move, he thinks, assuming you're just typing in a fake number to get the giant out of your personal space. He's already rehearsing his opening line for when Sukuna walks away empty-handed.

You hand the phone back to Sukuna, a triumphant little smile tugging at your lips. "Found it."

“Thanks, baby,” Sukuna murmurs, sliding the phone into his pocket.

His palm reaches up, fingers gently catching your chin, and he tilts your face up to his. Leaning down, he presses a soft kiss to your lips, sweet, unhurried, and so deliberate it makes your heart skip a beat. When he pulls back just a breath, his crimson eyes catch yours, gleaming with smug, mischievous heat. A knowing smirk tugs at his mouth as he shifts his weight, about to step away.

Across the bar, the guy rolls his eyes, muttering, “A polite peck? That doesn't count for shit—"

He doesn’t even get to finish the thought. The second Sukuna starts to pull away, your hands fly up, and your fingers twist tight into the front of his shirt. You yank him back down, but even then, you still have to rise onto your toes, stretching just to reach him. Your mouth crashes into his in a kiss that’s deep, intense, and filthy enough to strip away any composure he might have had left.

A low, surprised rumble vibrates against your lips before Sukuna's arm snaps around your waist and his other hand finds the nape of your neck, pulling you flush against his chest. He only deepens the kiss, his thumb digging into your hip while you cling to his shirt just to keep him close.

The stranger hasn’t moved at all, his jaw practically welded to the floor. His eyes are wide, blown out in pure shock, watching as the gorgeous woman he’d been so sure about just yanked a terrifying brute down for a kiss that leaves nothing to the imagination.

"What the fuck..." he mutters, staring in disbelief. "No way he actually pulled that off..."

Toji passes by on his way to the bathroom and hears the words. Without even slowing his pace, he just glances at the man’s stunned expression, lets out a dry, wheezing chuckle, and deadpans over his shoulder, “That's his wife, moron."

By the time your grip loosens and you drop back onto your heels, your breath is ragged, lips flushed and tingling, and you’re staring up at your husband with nothing but shameless, unfiltered adoration.

Sukuna’s thumb drags slowly across your lower lip, tugging it just a little, while a broad, utterly satisfied grin stretches across his face.

“Good girl,” he rasps, lowering his voice, and the praise sends a jolt right between your legs.

"Every fucking time," Shoko groans from the side. "One drink and you're attached to him again."

"You say that like I'm complaining," Sukuna chuckles.

"I fail to see the problem either," you chirp with a shameless grin.

Shoko shakes her head at you, then looks at your husband. "You know, I used to have a lot less patience for you. It's annoying how much harder you've become to stay mad at."

Sukuna just snorts at that.

"Anyway," he says, giving your waist one last squeeze before glancing at the rest of the group. "You girls joining us at the booth?"

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be there in a minute. Now shoo," Yuki says, waving him away. "We've got gossip to catch up on first."

Sukuna just lifts his hands in mock surrender, huffing an amused laugh as he turns on his heel and heads back toward the stranger waiting at the end of the bar.

“Easiest money I've made all week,” he drawls, picking up the bill. He gives the stunned man a small nod and walks toward his friends at the booth.

Rolling out of bed, you pick your white IKEA robe up from the floor where you dropped it last night, draping it over your silk nightgown and heading toward the bathroom to pee.

It hits you two minutes later, as you're standing in front of your open fridge, that you have vampire blood in there. The color-marked vials are staring back at you where they lie in all their glory, right next to a can of sugar-free Red Bull and the entirely empty bottle of ketchup you should've thrown out a month ago and that you evidently missed during your latest cleaning session.

Two of the three vials, you centrifuged at the clinic, meaning they're prepared for machine analysis but won't tell you much under the microscope. That's why you saved one, grabbing it—and the Red Bull—and putting them on the kitchen table, using your forearm to clear a space from the newly acquired library books.

You make a mental note to put the other two vials in the freezer since you don't know when you'll have a chance to analyze them at the clinic.

Vampire blood, how crazy. It's all you think about as you venture into your living room and pluck the microscope down from a shelf. Vampire blood. Who would've thought? When Jeongguk isn't near, it's easier to look at the situation objectively because are you entirely sure you met a vampire? You didn't just dream everything during a particularly rough fever?

But the blood staring at you from the kitchen table is different from what you usually deal with.

Preparing microscope slides is a process very familiar to you; something you could do with your eyes closed, but you don't think you've ever been as curious as you currently are, doing this one. The blood in the vial—already containing a bit of anticoagulant—is dark, and so is the drop you slowly transfer onto the thin glass slide with a plastic pipette.

Carefully, you place the coverslip on top, the smell of iron already wafting to your nose. It's not unpleasant, just… a lot stronger than what you're used to.

Leaning forward and putting your eyes to the ocular lenses, you switch the objective lens and adjust the position of the stage under it until the cells are sharp. You're not sure what you expected exactly, but you're not that surprised to see the massive amount of red blood cells; after all, they're what give the blood its red hue.

What you didn't expect was for them to be so much smaller than those of a human. You zoom in further, finding that they look a lot like ordinary red blood cells—almost like donuts—just smaller. Normally, having smaller red blood cells is a condition in itself and nothing good, but paired together with the astronomical amount of them?

There are surprisingly few goats in your town. When you do treat any, the most common reasons are difficult births, castrations, or urinary blockages, and therefore, it's been a long while since you got the chance to inspect caprine blood up close.

Taking a step back, you search for the phone you put somewhere as you prepared the microscope, finding it a little too close to the sink for your liking, before opening the browser and quickly typing 'goat erythrocytes'.

Just as you remembered: although rounder, the cells in the images that pop up are definitely smaller. There's also a shitload more of them, tightly packed like Jeongguk's. And as far as you can recall, those features are essentially what allow goats to live at higher altitudes, where the air is thinner and oxygen scarcer.

Since the exchange of oxygen happens at the membrane surface, and a bunch of smaller cells still have more surface area than fewer, larger ones, they're capable of transporting a lot more oxygen.

Satisfied with yet another plausible, logical explanation, you put the phone down and lean back in to the oculars, only to find that, despite the anticoagulant from the vial, Jeongguk's blood is already clotting.

Apparently, you lack one human emotion: shame. You know you possessed it as recently as a few days ago, but you must've lost it somewhere?

"Thank you so much."

"No problem, I'll email you the bill," you say, waving the relieved horse owner goodbye as you turn to the clinic car, vet bag firmly in hand.

A mere second after you've planted yourself into the driver's seat, you reach for the phone, pulling it out of your pocket. Your hands are dirty, fingers covered in that dark grime that comes from scratching a horse too long, but you barely notice as you inspect the screen for a reply to a text you sent an hour ago.

You: Hey, you wouldn't happen to be home, would you?

You don't even care if you just saw him yesterday. Or actually, you do care, cause it's embarrassing, but he also said to ask all the questions before he leaves town, so that's what you're doing.

You: Cause I'm driving by not far from you and I happen to have this jar I'd like you to spit in?

Yes, you're double-texting even.

But shame's claws reach and miss because just below your latest text, there's a reply.

Jeon Jeongguk: Stop by whenever. If I don't open then the door is unlocked.

Confusion grows as you start the car. Why wouldn't he simply open the door?

You try to think of a reason the entire ride there, none the wiser even as you step out of the car—hands cleaned by three antiseptic wipes—and walk up the stairs to the black-painted door.

However, five or so seconds after you knock, you hear footsteps approach on the other side, and then the door opens with a slight creak.

"Hey."

Jeongguk isn't wearing a shirt; only light blue jeans that you suspect he usually pairs with a belt because they're hanging a little too low on his hips, showcasing another white waistband stamped with the letters of Mr Klein.

Your wide eyes take him in, but his naked top half—bulging with muscle and skin even looking invitingly warm—isn't even what gathers most of your attention. No, that would be his black hair, messy and sticking out in multiple directions, and his half-closed, hooded eyes.

"Hi," you reply, your voice a tad too quiet as you admire him.

You'd try to hide it better, but it doesn't seem like he notices your slight—and almost dreamy—smile as he opens the door further and steps back. You follow, closing the door behind you and bend down to remove your shoes. While down there, you happen to notice that he's barefoot.

"Were you… sleeping?" you ask as you straighten up, seeing him look just a little more awake. Key word: a little.

He nods, turning to lead you somewhere. "Yeah, I tried to stay awake, but I ate just before you texted and that means I sleep after, like… almost involuntarily."

You follow, warmth spreading throughout your chest and not only because he's close by, his body heat radiating through your clothes.

"You sleep after eating?" you ask, endeared to hell and back. "You should've just told me you were busy today."

He stops in the kitchen, turning to you. You drop your bag on the floor.

"Yeah," he smiles lazily. "I can stay awake, but it's difficult."

"I can tell," you joke, tilting your head. God, why is he so endearing. "Do you think I could take your blood after you've eaten some time? See the difference and what makes you so sleepy?"

He nods. "Sure. Now?"

You pat your pockets, an act entirely uselessly since you don't keep your vet equipment there regardless.

"I don't have the right equipment with me, unfortunately. Maybe some other day?"

"Sure," he rubs his naked arm, yawning. "…Want me to bring blood to the clinic and drink it there?"

"I'd love that. Or…" You suddenly remember something. "When you say that you're hard to wake… Maybe it would be a bad idea to have you sleep at the clinic in case someone shows up again?"

His quick reflexes, speed, and agility were definitely the only reason Momo didn't find him at the clinic last time. You remember how heavy his limp arm was in your hands; what the hell would you even begin to do if someone came and Jeongguk wasn't waking up?

"Hm, you're right," he seemingly agrees, leaning against the counter, arms crossed lazily across his naked chest. "Come here then?"

"Sure," you agree, trying not to stare too blatantly at his chest or his arms. Or his abs and the faint little happy trail creeping up toward his belly button.

"Great. So… you wanted me to… spit in a cup?" he reminds you, and it looks like he's about to yawn again.

Suddenly reminded, you reach into your bag. "Yes, but also… I got a hold of one of these," you say, straightening up and holding the cup out to him. It's made out of a clear plastic with a soft, almost rubber-like lid up top.

"You want me to pee in it or what?" he asks, taking the cup from your hand and tilting it curiously in his.

"No," you snicker. "Although if you'd pee in a cup for me as well, I wouldn't turn it down. This is a special cup used for venomous snakes. Put their heads to the top, wiggle it a little, and they'll bite. Their fangs will sink through the lid here and the venom drips through and collects at the bottom."

He moves the cup to his mouth. "I just…?" he asks, demonstrating by sinking his teeth into the air above the cup.

"Yeah. Bite it and hold it there for as long as there's venom."

"Will you lend me your hand?"

Surprised—and with your heart skipping a quick beat—you blink but nonetheless offer him your left hand, electricity traveling through your skin when he takes it in his. He holds it so gently, feeling so warm against you, tired eyes finding some sort of focus as they lock onto yours, and he lowers his face to your wrist.

"I thought you… didn't need anything like this?" you ask quietly, heart jumping when he ghosts his nose over the sensitive skin of your wrist.

"Technically, I don't," he says, letting go of your hand and straightening up. You don't see any fangs. "Certain occasions make it easier, though. Like at the bar, when I was drunk, or now, when I'm already full and half asleep."

Nodding because his explanations are logical after all, you watch as he sinks his teeth—fangs—into the taut lid of the cup. Through the plastic, you see drops fall and liquid slowly pool at the bottom.

Then, you hear something. Something… small. You look down, seeing one of the kittens on its hind legs, clumsily reaching up toward you. "Oh, hello?"

It's so much bigger than when you last saw it and its siblings, and you crouch down, carefully picking the black little kitten up. It meows again, settling into your soft hold until it seemingly does a double take at Jeongguk, who stands motionless, watching, with his teeth still in the cup. The little kitten stares.

"What is dad doing, huh?" you coo quietly, smiling at the curious kitten.

Looking at the father in question, he lets out an amused breath before he removes his teeth from the cup, lifting it to inspect the results.

"Is this enough?"

You follow his gaze, watching the liquid at the bottom. It's much less than the blood you collected, and it's relatively translucent.

"Yeah, thank you so much," you say—way too excited—putting the kitten down and watching it dash away to pick a fight with an approaching sibling.

From your bag, you grab the other cup, a standard one meant for saliva, and you hold it out to Jeongguk, trading it for the collected venom.

"I just spit in this one?"

You nod, attention fully on the venom in the clear cup. It's just a tad thicker than water, fluidly following gravity as you tilt the small container.

"Do you happen to know the best way to store this?" you ask, peering over at Jeongguk, who's in the middle of letting his spit drip down into the other cup. "Because snake venom, for instance, is pretty sensitive and needs to be chilled rather quickly. But snakes are, you know, 'cold-blooded,' and you're like, insanely warm. I'm thinking I just go home and put it in the fridge? I'll definitely look at it tonight."

"I don't think it's that sensitive, but I know you can freeze it."

He hands you the other cup as well, and you pack them away safely in your bag.

"So… when are you free?" you ask, trying not to blush. "For the blood?"

Looking like he's soon succumbing to sleep whether he likes it or not, Jeongguk shrugs. "Tomorrow? If that works for you?"

You nod. "Sure. I'm busy later tomorrow, but sometime during the day? When do you typically… eat?"

"Noon?" he suggests.

You nod again, grabbing your bag. "I can do that."

"Yeah, but they just didn't care about it."

Nayeon tips her glass back and forth on the table, chin resting in her other hand. "That's insane. Child-free means child-free; why would they be exempt?"

"Yeah, but what did Dahyun do?" you chime in to ask. "I get that she's too nice, but she had a wedding organizer, didn't she? Couldn't that person throw them out?"

Just before a drunk dude—trying to squeeze past your table and the queue of people waiting to order at the bar—elbows her beer, Momo throws her hand out to catch it. She mutters something you don't quite hear over the music and loud voices before she gathers her thoughts.

"I asked the same, but she apparently threatened to cause a scene, so Dahyun just let her be. But the organizer… encouraged her to look after her kids so they wouldn't ruin anything else."

"Jeez," Nayeon shakes her head. "I just do not understand. Get a babysitter or don't go?"

You're about to agree when you hear someone call your name. It's a man's voice, but not the one you've come to prefer.

It's Joshua, approaching your table, his sight set on you while simultaneously scanning the area as if searching for his friends. Momo and Nayeon barely register what's happening before he's standing before you, leaning his palms on the table.

"Yo, what the fuck was up with that guy?" Joshua questions, looking confused and frustrated more than angry.

"What do you mean? What guy?" you ask, entirely comfortable with playing dumb.

"The guy you were with? Who lifted a car with one hand?"

You lean back in your seat, feeling your friends' confused gazes on your face and trying to channel something similar, your forehead creasing. "Lifted a car? That's not possible. I don't know what you're trying to do, but it's not fun, can we please just move on?"

Tight-lipped, he stares at you, and it brings you immense satisfaction to know that he and his friends must realize that somehow, you were right. You found something, but you're not sharing.

"Dude, what are you even on?" Momo questions. "Leave before we call security. Preferably the town."

Joshua looks between you, and then scans the heads around him that he can see. But luckily, his friends don't seem to be close by, and there's not much he can do but shake his head in frustration and walk away.

Keeping your eyes on him, you turn in your chair, and right before he disappears behind another group of people, he looks back over his shoulder. Without Momo and Nayeon seeing, you drop the confused and slightly hurt look on your face and give him a small smile.

Scientists, the whole bunch of you, you know Jeongguk would have them frothing at the mouth the same way he has you, but you. are. not. sharing. At least not with them; if it were up to you, you'd definitely consider letting your own friends in on the secret.

Meeting Momo and Nayeon's very puzzled looks, you do feel bad for essentially lying to them. But it isn't your secret to share, and you made a promise not to.

"I just don't understand what their problem is," Nayeon questions, clearly upset. God, you're a lucky girl, having friends like yours. "If they say one more thing, I think you should tell Joon because he'll give them a piece of his mind, and a man's scolding might—unfortunately—be what they need."

"Or Yoongi," Momo adds. "Yoongi, when angry, is not fun."

You think about the black haired man with unimpressed, cat-like features. "I've never… I don't think I've ever seen Yoongi mad."

"He doesn't raise his voice or anything, he just…" Momo grimaces. "You know the creepy guy with mals?"

You shake your head slowly. Belgian Malinois seem to be the go-to dog breed for creepy guys. Either that or toy poodles.

"The white, bald guy? I think he's on steroids. He threatened Sana like, years ago, and Yoongi made him leave the clinic, like, tail between his legs, with one sentence and a look."

"Rings a bell," you nod, thinking back to when you first started at the clinic. "I guess it's not that surprising, actually? Yoongi is… I can't even describe him, but he works by vibe? He can have the same no-expression on his face, and you know exactly what mood he's in regardless."

"Yeah. And he's sweet. You should tell him. Or Joon."

You lean back. "I don't know. If they approach me again, I'll think about it, but I don't feel like they're dangerous. Mostly annoying at this point."

"Still, they need to know it's not acceptable," Momo says, lifting the beer to her lips.

"Yeah," you breathe in agreement. "What time is it?"

"Eleven, just about," Nayeon answers, looking at her phone.

"I should get going." You slap your thighs like an old man having been out too late.

"You have the day off tomorrow, though, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm spent," you lie. There's one cup of spit and one of venom in your fridge, and they're both calling your name. God, aren't you a special kind.

Nayeon narrows her eyes. "Are you seeing someone we don't know about?"

Just about to stand, you freeze. "Uh, no? Why?"

"Cause Joshua mentioned a guy. And you have been a little absent lately."

Fuck.

"Okay, well…. It's not what you think, okay?" you start, deciding on a smaller white lie. "You know the guy with the stray kittens?"

Momo's eyes widen comically. "Uh… yeah?"

"I'm not seeing him as in seeing him, but I've been helping him with the kittens off-hours. He's not really an animal guy—well, he seems to like animals, he just lacks experience—and I don't really feel great charging him when he's doing a good deed, raising them."

"Oh, that's nice." Nayeon nods.

"But you like him too?" Momo asks, watching your cheeks start to burn.

Fine, seems like you have to admit defeat to your friends—just like you did your mother—at least a bit.

"You saw him," you point out, stirring the melting remains of ice in your glass with the straw. "How could I not?"

Momo chuckles. "That's why I'm wondering. Does he happen to have any friends in town?"

Before you can help it, your eyes widen. "Yeah, he does. Saw an entire friend group with him like… three weeks ago; they're all gorgeous."

"Well, let us know if you see them again," Nayeon encourages, smirking.

You laugh, partially at your friends and partially nervously at what you might've just signed up for. Jeongguk told you his friends were vampires too; would you set your friends onto vampires?

Sure, Jeongguk's nice, but you don't know his friends, and the last thing you want is direct your friends onto someone's dinner plate.

"I will."

"Alright. So, if you're really going home and not to cat guy's, let us know when you've gotten back, okay? If we don't hear from you in twenty, we're calling the cops."

You roll your eyes, but nod. Luckily, they didn't ask whether 'cat guy' actually lifted a car or not.

Walking home from the bar usually takes you around 12 minutes, the perks of living in a small town, but tonight, the…. eyes you think you feel on you as soon as you venture off the lively street have you covering the distance in 8.

Maybe it's paranoia? After all, you started feeling watched only after you conveniently found out there could be an assailant slowly but surely approaching your neighborhood. Despite trying to stay calm, the breath you let out when you're finally able to close and lock your apartment door behind you is long.

Recalling your promise, you send Nayeon a quick text, confirming your safety. She sends a heart back.

The blue numbers on your oven tell you it's nearing midnight when you finally sit down at your kitchen table, the microscope and the sample cups—fresh from the fridge—in front of you. The first drop you let fall on a slide is of Jeongguk's saliva. Clear, more viscous than water, it looks very much like something you could've spit into the container.

If you expected a groundbreaking, scientific discovery there in your kitchen, you'd be disappointed. Besides a lot… cleaner, Jeongguk's saliva looks like that of a human. And by cleaner, you mean that there's a lot less bacteria floating around. You're not entirely sure why, maybe analyzing the fluid would reveal some sort of additional antibacterial aspect?

God, the crimes you'd commit to have your own lab, capable of analyzing your collection of vampire bodily fluids.

Repeating the process but with a drop of Jeongguk's venom, you make extra sure to handle it with care. After all, you don't know a lot about it, and although Jeongguk claimed it wasn't dangerous in smaller quantities, maybe it stings like hell if you touch it and it enters a microscopic wound?

While you've never looked at pure venom under a microscope before, you've witnessed the cellular aftermath of envenomation as part of your education. You've seen cell shapes entirely mangled by one kind of venom, and you've seen blood turned to jelly by another. Death, essentially, following a snake bite.

To both the naked eye and those seeing through a magnified lens, Jeongguk's venom and saliva look quite similar. Even ordinary; not a lot happening within the clear fluids.

You stare at it, wondering…

Three seconds later, you're rising from the kitchen chair, eager steps taking you into the hallway where you rummage through the upper drawer of your small dresser. It's the designated knick knack spot, most of the contents more or less stolen from work; pens, clips, box cutters, and notes, but also things that sales representatives leave with you, hoping your clinic will become a distributor.

Digging through teeny tiny bags of cat treats—you don't even have a cat—you find a wrapped alcohol swab and the little glucose monitor kit you remember receiving last year.

Unzipping the small black bag, you grab the spring-loaded pricker and a lancet and leave the rest haphazardly in the drawer while you make your way back into the kitchen, already wiping your left index finger clean.

Realizing you should've removed the slide first, you do so with your finger clumsily held in the air, and then you're pricking your skin above the glass. To gather enough blood, you squeeze your fingertip, and with a big enough red bead on your skin, you turn your finger upside down, letting it drip.

Even before you put the coverslip back on top and lock the slide back under the lens, you watch the fluids mix, and your blood dilute. Because you're a creature of (human) habit, you put the pricked fingertip into your mouth as you lean forward to peer through the oculars. Only to stop breathing.

One by one, Jeongguk's venom drowns your red blood cells. You watch in real time as cell after cell warps, the venom aggressively mangling their cell membrane and starting to dissolve them. It's inevitable; they can't escape.

You watch the wave of death for close to a minute, and when only a few cells remain alive, fighting for their life, you lean back in your chair, and you stare at your ceiling.

Despite making another mind-blowing discovery right there in your kitchen only that morning, you can't shake that this feels… different.

Bag packed to the brim, you make the now very familiar drive out to Jeongguk's house in a better, more easy going mood than you were in the night before. It must've been the… alcohol remnants and the discomfort of walking home alone. Right?

You're smiling excitedly even before the door to the large house opens, even more so when your vampire appears, ushering you through the small gap 'before the kids escape.' While he doesn't touch you, he's certainly not scared of being close, and before you know it, you're standing there in the small hallway again.

"Hey, Mina," you greet one of the 'kids' toeing around your feet. "And… Lilith, was it?" you nod toward the mother cat that appears from God knows where, stroking herself against Jeongguk's leg. He's wearing light wash jeans similar to those he wore yesterday, but this time, he's also—unfortunately—wearing a dark green t-shirt.

"Wait," you pause, wide eyes watching him. "You did not."

Jeongguk lifts his eyes to meet yours, a knowing grin pulling on his lips.

"'Lilith' as in the mother vampire? 'Mina' as in Dracula's wife, and 'Ruby' for blood red, I assume? Don't tell me 'Angel' is after the vampire in Buffy?"

He chuckles, bending down to pick up the little kitten, who's definitely not as little anymore. She meows and closes her eyes almost instantly, cozying up on Jeongguk's arm and against his chest.

"What about… 'Nyx,' was it?"

"'Nyx' is the Goddess of the night," he informs, reaching his unoccupied hand out to take your bag the moment you set it down to take your shoes off.

"Went right over my head."

You think back to that night, when he stood beside you, holding onto that chilly metal railing outside the bar and telling you the kittens' names.

"I know you probably didn't plan on showing me like that, but were you planning to? At all?"

With your shoes neatly to the side, you straighten up and take a step toward him, intending on following him into the house. But he doesn't move, just watches you with your bag in one hand and the satisfied kitten on his other arm.

"I wanted to, but I'm not entirely sure I would've, had I not done it then. I definitely wasn't supposed to, so… naming them like that made me feel like I was at least giving you a little hint. Maybe even testing the waters a bit."

He tilts his head slightly, looking down at you before he seemingly remembers what you were supposed to do. "Anyway…"

Sight set on the kitchen, he leads. You follow, looking around even though nothing's changed since last time.

"So, about the house… Was it really passed down?"

"No," he shakes his head, putting the black kitten down on the kitchen counter and turning to you. "I bought it in… uh, sometime during the first half of the 19th century, I think. Tried to keep up with all the trends for my estates but gave up after a while. If I actually live somewhere, I'll have it up to standard, but like this, when I'm just visiting?"

"It was furnished like this already?"

"Yeah. I had the running water and electricity installed later on. Was quite the pain in the ass to be honest."

"It's a cool house, though," you compliment, once again peering around the light kitchen. "A bit like a museum. Can't believe you're so old, honestly, like you lived when this was trendy?"

Jeongguk inhales sharply, blinking dramatically in an offense you know he doesn't feel. It makes you laugh.

"Anyway," he repeats his earlier segue, putting your bag down on the floor and reaching for the fridge handle. You watch as he grabs a jug of already mixed blood, putting it on the counter with a soft thud.

"You only wanted blood from after I've eaten, right? Not before?"

Nodding, you can't believe the situation you're in. "Yeah. Thank you."

For a short while, silence settles. It's far from uncomfortable, and you're very busy, watching Jeongguk prepare the blood. First, he pours a big glass of it, plucking a spoon from a drawer to stir it. Of course, your gaze is torn between the way his big, veiny hands hold onto that fragile-looking glass and how his muscles dance discreetly under his skin as he stirs.

Putting the spoon down on the counter, he places the glass in the microwave, presses start, and then turns to you.

"Can I ask why you're visiting?" you take the opportunity to ask as the microwave hums lowly and the glass rotates inside it.

"You can ask," he smirks, leaning back against the counter. "But I can only tell you that it's for work."

"Work?" Eyebrows knitted together, you stare at him. "Like… vampire work?"

"Yeah."

But what kind of work would be deemed 'vampire work?'

"You don't like… work for the Volturi, right?"

"The what? Volturi?"

"Yeah, the vampire…. governing body—I guess—in Twilight. They keep the vampire citizens in check; make sure they don't hunt humans to extinction or expose themselves to them. Or, like, turn babies into vampires."

"Oh. No, not really."

"Good, 'cause you would've probably have broken a lot more rules than you actually did for telling me. And I would be in more shit for knowing."

…Which reminds you…

"Also, uhm…"

Jeongguk raises a dark eyebrow, curious as to what's suddenly gotten you apologetic.

"My classmates… They might approach you if they see you. Just to let you know. Sorry."

"They've been giving you any trouble after what I did?" he asks, voice turning serious.

You sigh. "No, not really. One approached me and asked about you, but he was more… frustrated and shocked than angry, I think. But I mean, what you did is not something a human just does."

A smile pulls on Jeongguk's lips. "I know. That was the point."

The microwave beeps behind him, indicating that his blood has reached his preferred temperature. The body temperature of a human. He turns, opening the door and taking the glass out.

At least relieved that he doesn't seem bothered, you let your shoulders relax a little. "Yeah, I know. I'm just warning you."

"I appreciate it," he says, retrieving the spoon from the counter to stir the red liquid again. "You don't need to worry about me, though."

Eyes again appreciating his hands and arms as he stirs, you can't let go quite yet. "I mean clearly you'd be able to defend yourself if they for some reason wanted to fight, but I'm mostly thinking whether them knowing and stirring up shit does cause you trouble."

"They didn't strike me as people who would tell. And who would believe them?"

"True." After all, you said the same thing.

"And if it comes to it, I can be pretty persuasive."

The tiny smirk he shoots your way has your skin heating, but yet another thought growing.

"You haven't seen The Vampire Diaries, either, have you?"

"No. Is that another movie?"

"A series."

He looks between you and the glass he holds up. "So, I drink this now? Just so you know, I'll get progressively sleepier in a few minutes."

You nod, the Vampire Diaries connection forgotten as a different memory resurfaces and a subsequent realization hits. "Wait, so… were you like dead asleep right after I left when I asked you to drink blood that first time?"

He smiles, putting the glass to his mouth for a first sip. "Yeah. It was pretty fitting that you left, actually. I can stay awake, but it's hard."

You don't quite notice how your smile grows until he asks you about it, wiping his mouth. "What's so funny?"

Watching him gulp down more of the contents, your eyes struggle to stray from his Adam's apple and how it moves with every swallow. "Not funny. I just find that… insanely adorable? What do you mean you eat and then you actually struggle to stay awake? How is that a good evolutionary trait when we don't have to?"

'We' as in 'you.'

Humans.

"Don't make me regret telling you about it," he says, giving you a warning eye and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand again. "Biologically, if I had… hunted for this," he lifts the mostly empty glass, coated in red, "then I wouldn't feel tired until the adrenaline wears off. Since I microwaved this, and I'm chilling in my own house, it hits sooner."

"Sorry. That's kinda cool actually."

He gives you a sweet look that tells you you're forgiven, and then he puts the empty glass down on the counter. "We can sit on the bed."

When he points to the bag you placed on the floor earlier, eyebrows raised in a silent question, you nod. "Yeah, I'll need that."

Before even giving you the chance to, he grabs the handles of your blue backpack, already heading toward the hall and the stairs. You follow closely behind, seeing two kittens play at the bottom of the stairs.

"You're so modern," you comment as you climb the stairs behind him. "Like, I would imagine it's hard to keep up with the ever-changing trends, and so I wouldn't blame you for not even trying? But you speak so normally, and you dress like that?"

"Like what?" you hear him chuckle.

"Like every other modern guy. Not that you're basic or anything, just that nothing about you screams ancient."

You hear the amusement in his voice as he turns to you at the top of the stairs. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should," you say, looking up at him as you come to stand before him. It's true, what you said, and while natural, non-altered facial structures don't change much with society, you could never tell by his face either. In a way, he's got a very classic beauty to him. At least according to you, but you don't say that, of course.

"Thank you, then. It's definitely something you learn; going with the flow of society. But it's also harder these days when trends evolve and cycle much faster than before. You used to get 20 years to adapt to big societal changes and now you barely get five. Some trends are dead and buried within six months."

You haven't been in his bedroom since it was covered in a thick layer of dust. Like the rest of the house, it's clean now. He doesn't seem to have a lot of stuff, but the bed is made with white fluffy sheets, a thick, golden bedspread over them and a big, black towel folded at the foot of it.

"Make yourself comfortable," he says, gesturing toward the bed as he puts the backpack down on the floor. "When do you want to take the blood?" he asks, grabbing the towel and unfolding it to drape over the bed.

Noticing your silence, he peers back at you.

"Uh… preferably in an hour and then an hour after that…"

"But…?" he asks, sensing your slight hesitancy.

"But there's something I'd like to do in the meantime."

You can't help it, the slightly sheepish smile that pulls on your lips. Or the heat you feel rise but desperately hope he can't see.

"You look like it's something you're afraid I won't like?"

"I don't know. I mean, I hope you'll be okay with it, and after last time, I think so?"

"Well, what is it?"

His dark eyes are curious and entertained like always, and you most definitely suspect he knows what's going on in your head.

"So when you lifted the car… using one hand, might I add, it made me curious about your back. A human would've probably herniated at least three discs and snapped their spine if they were able to even lift it like that. I figure that everything's probably just… stronger like the anatomy of your arm…"

"…But you'd like to see?"

Essentially asking to feel him up again, you bite your lip and nod once. "Yeah."

Instead of teasing you about it, Jeongguk unceremoniously grabs the shirt at the back of his neck and yanks it over his head, tossing it onto the foot of the bed. Taking the action as consent, you crouch in front of your backpack, excitedly rummaging through it for two things. Well, four things: your small notebook and a pen that you clip to the collar of your t-shirt included.

Sitting down on the edge of his bed—on its right side—Jeongguk looks back at you, his gaze falling to the thick books in your hands.

"Went to the library," you explain, placing them on the bed, next to his discarded shirt.

He cranes his neck to read the titles. One is just a huge book on human anatomy, and the other is slightly thinner and focused on sports medicine.

"Thought you knew everything?"

"I'm a veterinarian. I'd say I know a lot about humans, but far from everything."

A silence settles as you climb onto the bed, positioning yourself behind him and the books at your side for easy access. Jeongguk keeps his head sideways, calmly and quietly watching you open the thicker book on the right chapter, inspecting the sketched human back and its muscles.

Lifting your own gaze from the pages, you take in the sight of his broad, naked back in front of you.

"Okay, so I can…?" you ask, hand hovering over his skin.

He nods, turning his head forward and rolling his shoulders once. Slightly wide-eyed, you stare at the casual display of his muscles. God damn.

Shaking any non-scientific thought out of your head, you begin.

The first thing you do is let your fingers trace his spine as you search for the landmarks. Despite having a very, very low body fat percentage, Jeongguk's vertebrae are less prominent than you'd expected. You can still feel them, however, and soon enough, you have your fingertips on C7, the more prominent vertebra located at the bottom of the neck.

"I can barely feel your spine," you mumble, mostly to yourself.

Is there something other than fat almost… covering them? Can't be anything besides the connective ligaments, you think to yourself. In that case, they're a lot thicker and stronger than in a human. Unless it's muscle that's covering them? Or… maybe his vertebrae have a different design? Maybe they're smoother? Forehead creasing, you consider the shapes possible for vertebrae still able to connect and allow the spine to bend.

You grab the pen from your neckline, keeping your left hand on Jeongguk's back while your right scribble some quick notes in your notebook.

'Vertebrae non-prominent, covered by? muscle/ligaments? different structures?'

Moving on, you leave the pen on the notebook and instead put your right index finger on the drawing. Your left one copies the movement of your right as you trail it down toward the middle of Jeongguk's back.

Latissimus Dorsi. It's one of the muscles at risk of damage from a too-heavy one-handed lift like what you saw Jeongguk perform. Of course, you don't know whether the action impacted him at all; maybe he sustained micro tears? Doesn't make the feat any less impressive.

Using both hands, you trace the muscle where it connects to the spine, all the way from his mid back to the lower part of it.

"Do you usually lift heavy like that?"

As if he wasn't paying that much attention—or just not expecting to be spoken to—he takes a second or two to find his voice. And when he does, you feel your heart squeeze almost pathetically at how he already sounds a little sleepy.

"Yeah. I don't really need to work out to keep my muscles all that much, I just do stuff because it's fun."

"Oh? if my memory serves me right, a human needs to work out a muscle at least within two weeks or it'll start to atrophy to save energy. Muscles are really metabolically expensive to keep."

He straightens up a little. "I could go longer than that, I think. I usually do kinda workout more often than that though."

"Interesting," you remove your hands altogether to note down his words. "And does lifting heavy come with any kind of pain? Soreness?"

"Only if I strain myself, but that happens very rarely. Not when I lifted the car for example."

You nod, more so to yourself. "Okay. So you probably do get micro tears. How long does the soreness typically last?"

"A few hours at most."

"Really? A human will usually be sore for days."

"Yeah. Losers."

A bubbling laughter escapes you, but afterward, another bout of silence settles.

Jeongguk's breaths are slow and deep, and you feel every one of them under your hands as you move them over his back. He yawns.

"Do you need me… conscious?" he asks, repeating the same words from the clinic and glancing at you from over his shoulder. His barely-open eyes and sleepy words pull on your heartstrings. Not only because he's endearing and adorable, but because he's seemingly so comfortable with you. As established, you for sure don't pose a threat to him, but still…

"I mean, I don't mind, but… I guess if you're okay with it…?"

You move when he does, scooting back to give him enough space as he sighs deeply and lies down on his stomach. He's already closing his eyes.

"Go to town," he mumbles.

"You really trust me that much?" you ask, putting your hand on his lower back, feeling the thoracolumbar fascia that connects the latissimus dorsi to the spine. "What if I hurt you?"

"It's pretty hard to hurt me, and I never got the impression that you'd try."

That's definitely true, and you're glad he feels that. While the biggest risk of trusting you has never been bodily harm but exploitation for your scientific research—maybe even fame—you've never had any interest in that.

"I could be a vampire hunter, waiting for the chance to stake you?"

Without even opening his eyes, Jeongguk chuckles. "What a way to go, then. First massaged by a pretty woman and then staked in my sleep. Couldn't complain."

Head and heart soaring in the clouds—and cheeks warm—you can't do anything but flick his skin. He laughs, but it's even more sleepy now.

"Insane," you mumble, reaching for the books again. While you adjust, sitting cross-legged with the anatomy book open in your lap—this time your left hand on the sketch and your right on Jeongguk's skin—he falls asleep.

Once again, you have a gorgeous, huge, superhuman man unconscious under your hands, and you'd be a fool not to take advantage of the situation. Not that you're doing anything he'd object to if awake but feeling his body is easier when you don't have to worry about any kind of tension growing.

Fingers softly tracing the skin and then pressing just a tad harder, feeling the structures underneath, you note that… there's not a lot to note. Besides the vertebrae not being as easily felt, the rest of him feels as expected. His muscles are thick and well-developed, and the ligaments feel stronger and sturdier, just like the ones you managed to ultrasound in his arm. So no surprise there.

It's been roughly ten minutes since you think Jeongguk fell asleep when you feel something. You've got your right hand on his upper back, curiously inspecting his scapula and the trapezius muscle that stretches up toward his neck when there's… a grumbling? It has you pausing, wondering if maybe he said something. But a quick glance at his face confirms that he's still asleep, cheek resting heavily against a pillow.

He must've mumbled in his sleep or something, which… cute.

You resume, hand sliding down his spine and to his side, when you feel it again. But this time, it's not a quick ordeal; it's… longer. The sound is low, starting deep in his chest and reverberating up and through your hand. It's almost soundless, just a low, low sound in the otherwise silent room.

Your heart does what you can only describe as a backflip because it reminds you an awful lot of… purring.

It's been almost an hour when the purring stops. You have your hand on his lower side, toward the back, flipping pages with the other.

"Find anything fun?" a low, raspy voice asks you.

You look up to see that Jeongguk is watching you, his eyes warm but sleepy.

"Uhm, yeah," you state, abandoning the current page search and returning to another. "This," you say, moving your right hand to his upper side, where you run it back and forth, "seems to be an…"

You lift the book to read the small insert aloud. "'Axillary arch.' Which is a muscle… variation. Sometimes considered vestigial. Humans can still have it, but it seems like only around five percent of people do. And not only do you have it, but it seems to be super well developed. Turn over, please?"

No questions asked, Jeongguk rolls over slowly, looking up at you where he now lies on his back. With your eyes buried in the book, you reach for his arm that's closest to you, making it clear you want him to lift it. He does, obediently placing his hand above his head, waiting for whatever you're going to do.

"Okay, so it's a variation of the latissimus dorsi, which is this muscle on your back that reaches up here, " you explain, tracing his side. "But the axillary arch is when it branches off over here, connecting to the pectorals."

You look at your hand as it glides over his warm, taut skin, close to his armpit, feeling for the attachments. "It says here that many think it's useless, but that some suggest that it brings strength but also a more advanced shoulder proprioception."

"And what would that mean?"

"Well, if it does what they suggest, it essentially gives you almost a sixth sense when it comes to body control. Helps your body know how to move appropriately, at least your upper body and arms, and just how much force to use. My guess would be that it's actually very useful when you're so much stronger."

"Hm."

You continue. "Considering a low percentage of humans have it too, it could be another 'you' thing more than a vampire thing, though. I assume you don't know whether others like you have it too?"

"No."

"Alright," you smile at him. "It's very cool, though. Can't believe I missed it."

"When did you miss it?"

"Last time at the clinic? I was feeling your lymph nodes in your armpit."

"Oh yeah." He grins widely

You narrow your eyes as it hits you. The sound you heard when you felt for the nodes… was him letting out a little breath of laughter? "You were awake, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

You just shake your head, putting the book down. "Anyway, would it be alright to draw some blood?"

"Sure."

You get off the bed, digging through the bag for the supplies before you get back on the covers.

"Sit up, please?"

He does, leaning back against the wooden headboard and holding that veiny arm out for you. You position it how you want it, not thinking too much about how you inevitably place his warm hand to rest on your upper thigh, palm up. Drawing blood while sitting on a bed is understandably a first for you.

"You know you don't really have to do that. Or use gloves," he mentions when you wipe his skin with an antiseptic wipe.

You pause, thinking it through before deciding. "Don't wanna take any risks," you mumble.

Focused, you use the same kind of needle as last time, pushing it into his vein. It goes smoother this time around since you already know how much pressure to use. The whole process is smoother, relatively quick, and… silent.

Every glance at Jeongguk's face as he watches your hands tells you that he's dozing off again. It's such an endearing yet… surprising sight; the big, buff, half-naked vampire sitting up and his eyes getting heavier by the second. You don't tease him for it, honestly still flattered that he lets you see him like this.

"Okay, I'm done," you speak quietly. "Do you want me to leave it in or take it out and re-stick later?"

He opens his eyes half way, glancing tiredly at you. "It's up to you. I don't mind either way."

"Okay, hold on," you say, putting some gauze against his skin as you pull the needle out. Of course, it's more out of habit than need because the puncture wound doesn't bleed; it's barely a wound at all. "You can lie down."

He doesn't answer, just shifts to lie back down. Tired, he blinks heavily, and you can basically see him slowly fall asleep again.

With the anatomy book open on the muscles on the front of the human body, you trace his slow-moving chest lightly. To your delight, the… purring starts again.

Your touch is soft as usual when you trace his collarbones, making mental notes of the thickness and hardness of them, his sternum and the dip between his pectoral muscles, and the visible parts of his obliques and where they attach to his ribcage. His chest moves slowly and rhythmically under your hand, and his skin is invitingly warm. You'd write down your discoveries, but there aren't really any more.

Ten minutes later, you have indeed somewhat securely ruled out any big differences. You've even counted his ribs, and somewhere, between the slow, deep breaths of the vampire next to you, and the fact that you didn't sleep that well last night, the sleep bug bites you to.

Your tired eyes glance around the room. It's quiet and calm, and Jeongguk's bed is very spacious.

Would he mind? You don't think so.

Slowly and carefully, you lie down, leaving a good amount of space between you. The low sound coming from him—the purring—is so incredibly relaxing, even if you're too far away to feel it.

Unfortunately, you wake up to movement. Movement moving you.

Big, warm, strong arms are dragging you across the bed by your waist and torso, pulling your back flush against him. Despite waking up only half a second ago, your eyes are already open and they widen further when you feel Jeongguk's mouth in your hair. He draws a big breath, alarm bells sounding in your head as you're reminded of how he used your smell to trigger his fangs.

By pure instinct, you try to wiggle out of his grasp, but your arms are stuck, held tightly against your body, and panic starts to rise when you can't move.

He has to let you go; you can't overpower him.

Your heart beats so hard it hurts when he pulls you even closer, his mouth lowering, as if searching for something. You can barely move a muscle in his hold.

"Jeongguk?" you call desperately.

And just like that, he relaxes. Quick to sit up and carefully move toward the other end of the bed, you watch him. Eyes closed, lying on his side and breathing slowly and calmly, he's still asleep. God, you nearly shit yourself. Are you worried for your safety around him? Not necessarily, but him seemingly grabbing you in his sleep?

Smelling you and perhaps even searching for your neck?

A shiver racks your body.

Jeongguk continues to sleep soundly and unfazed for another twenty minutes, all while your racing heart slowly quiets down to normal again. Flipping through the books in your lap, you find yourself grateful that he didn't wake up because… he still let you go and maybe it would've also made it awkward? Whatever you and Jeongguk are, cuddle buddies aren't quite it.

Another reason for your gratitude is the vision the current situation grants you. Not that of Jeongguk asleep and shirtless—well, that too—but 15 minutes before he wakes up for the second time, someone enters the room. You don't hear the little paws; you only notice when the little kitten has climbed the bed and is in the process of climbing Jeongguk.

You can't tear your eyes away. You think it's… Nyx? who appears on his back, sight set on the little curve at the back of Jeongguk's neck. The kittens must be around five weeks old at this point, meaning they get around pretty efficiently but have yet to acquire the feline elegance someone like their mom possesses.

Jeongguk doesn't stir the slightest as the kitten gives off a tiny meow and curls up at the back of his neck, even tucking its paws in under itself.

And to make it worse, she's not the only one. Within a span of minutes, two more come padding, one using its claws to climb up Jeongguk's jeans, settling comfortably in the curve of his lower back. The other—Mina—finds her way to his front, squeezing in under his thick arm and curling up in the small space between his bicep and his chin.

Whatever you've claimed before, this is the cutest thing you've ever seen in your entire life. If you listen closely, you can hear at least two of the kittens purring.

Smiling to yourself, you turn the page to read about meniscus tears.

You're halfway through the section when movement catches your attention, and you lift your gaze from the text. Jeongguk is waking up, slowly opening his eyes and shifting.

"They're very comfortable with you, dad," you muse.

Jeongguk gives you a sleepy grin.

"Cats also like warm things," you continue.

"Yeah, I've noticed," he says, repeating what he told you the first time you informed him of the feline trait. You wonder if he was already referring to the kittens and their mother's desire to cuddle him? "If I don't have the fire going, they always come and find me," he says, taking a deep breath.

You can't do anything but observe, almost inclined to ask whether you can take a picture. "This is for sure the cutest thing I've ever seen."

Jeongguk lets out a lazy chuckle before reminding you of something. "Did you want more blood?"

"Oh. Yeah, if you're willing to give it?" You glance at your watch. "I'll need to leave soon."

He glances at you curiously. "Late shift at the clinic?"

"No," you shake your head. "Or, well, it depends. The Bar is having a Halloween night, and I promised Nayeon and Momo I'd come. But I'm also on call tonight, and this time of year, we see a lot of horses colicking and canine poisonings."

"Huh? Why is that?"

"Rapid temperature drops often make horses drink a lot less water, leading to blockages, essentially. And Halloween means candy everywhere and a larger risk of dogs getting into it."

"Ah. Sucks. I heard about the Halloween event. Tae wanted to go."

"Dress up and everything?" you question, wide-eyed.

You enjoy social get-togethers just as much as the next person, and you for sure like everything Halloween; it's just the overhanging anxiety regarding the mix of you, halloween themes, and the public.

"Yeah? Just because we're old doesn't mean we're boring. I can be a party guy if I want to."

"So you're going? Dressed as what?"

"You'll have to wait and see. What are you going as?"

"You think I'll tell you if you're not telling me?"

"I guess not. Do I have to sit up? For the blood?"

"Preferably, unfortunately," you smile sadly, looking at the kittens, all so comfortable.

Incredibly endeared, you watch Jeongguk reach behind him, gently grasping the black kitten sleeping deeply and satisfied on his warm skin. She wakes up, letting out a sad meow as she's being airlifted off Jeongguk by his large hand.

"Of course it was you," he mumbles when the kitten comes into view. "This one would crawl inside my skin if she could."

He puts her down on the bedspread, and she immediately bolts back to him, entirely intending on reclaiming her spot or at least one against his skin. Not like you can blame her. The other two—one under his arm and the other still on his lower back—move on their own when their heater slowly starts to sit up.

It's mostly that first one, stubbornly wanting to warm herself against him.

"No," he scolds gently, moving her away so that he can sit up without her accidentally getting in the way.

The moment he's upright and seated against the headboard, however, she uses her claws to climb up his jeans. He doesn't intervene until she's climbed her way up to the waistband of his pants and the visible band of his underwear, obviously having her sight set on warmth.

"No, you can't go in there," he chuckles, lifting her off a second before she digs her way in between his jeans and underwear.

"Do they sleep in here too?" you wonder, watching the little kitten fight for her rights.

"Yeah, most of the time. I prefer to sleep in a slightly… cooler environment, but if I don't have the fire burning, then they find me. I tried closing the door once—for their safety because what if I crush them in my sleep?—but that was a mistake because Lilith was just screaming at me to open the door."

You don't bring up that he almost accidentally murdered you in his sleep only half an hour ago. Okay, that's an over exaggeration but who knows what could've happened?

Still, it wasn't intentional, and he's clearly concerned about accidentally hurting others. Well, his kittens, but you feel like you belong in that category too; someone pathetically weak compared to him, easily injured, and who gravitates toward him. You definitely also like warm things.

Retrieving the equipment needed for yet another blood draw, you move closer to him. This time, you don't use gloves, but as he offers you his arm, you still clean his skin and your hands with antibacterial wipes.

"This doesn't hurt you?" you ask as you push the needle through his skin, out of the corner of your eye seeing him pet the kitten, who's settled on his thigh.

"No. I mean, I can feel it, and it's not nice, but it doesn't really hurt."

"That's good, makes me feel better for poking you so much."

"It's fine," he smiles, eyes on the little kitten as another approaches. "Have you… looked at it? Under microscope or whatever it was that you wanted to do?"

Fastening the needle with some tape, you reach for the first out of three vials.

"Yeah. Do you want to know what I found? Unless you already know the differences?"

"I think that we have smaller… cells? And more iron? At least that's what I remember."

"Yeah," you confirm, watching the blood start to fill the vial. It's just as dark as the samples sitting in your freezer. "Your red blood cells are smaller than mine, and so there's room for a lot more, even considering they're already packed, hence the darker color. Combined, they have a bigger surface area and can bind more oxygen, which I'm sure contributes to your strength. Your muscles get more blood due to the size of your veins, and your blood carrying loads more oxygen than a human man's would."

"Interesting."

"Yeah. Funny enough, goats have a similar… set up."

Amused, Jeongguk raises his eyebrows. "Goats?"

"Yeah. They're built to thrive at higher altitudes where oxygen is scarcer and one needs to be oxygen-efficient."

"That's cool."

"Yeah, I think so to. I haven't been able to analyze it at the lab yet, though." Removing the full vial, you attach the second. "And your saliva looks very similar to a human's, only less… bacterial. So I'm guessing there's something antibacterial in there that kills off bacteria. Which could make sense from an evolutionary standpoint if you're supposed to drink from the same human on different occasions. A dirty mouth would lead to more infections and human deaths."

"I think I heard something about that too, actually."

You blink, pretending to be offended. "You know these things but don't tell me?"

He smirks lazily. "I mean, what fun is that? Besides, I mostly remember them because you're bringing them up. I learned whatever I know so long ago, and it's knowledge I don't really need in my day-to-day life."

"I guess you're forgiven."

He chuckles. "You can't say you don't prefer getting to see and discover for yourself?"

You think about it, and sure, maybe you do. "Fine. But what if I miss things? I can't possibly go over every single part of your biology in a few weeks."

"You can try? And what about my venom?"

"You're stressing me out, Jeongguk," you admit, anxiety rising at the thought of having to explore without any help at all. "And your venom just looks a lot like your saliva, but seemingly behaves pretty similarly to some types of snake venom. I did—"

A loud meow interrupts you as the two exploring kittens seemingly get into a fight. They scream and hiss at each other in a way that's surprising for such young kittens. But before you know it, it's over.

"You're calm," Jeongguk pets the kitten on his lap. "You're a good girl."

"How do you know it's a she?" you nod toward the kitten without respect for personal boundaries.

"I can smell the difference."

"You can?"

He hums.

Seeing that also the last vial is approaching fullness, you prepare to remove it. "Since the start?"

"Yeah."

"So your names weren't based on vibes at all?"

He grins, watching you once again detach the vial and use a wad of gauze to pull the needle out. No blood this time around either.

"No. Or I mean, yeah; vampire vibes."

You roll your eyes, curiosity still spiking.

"I haven't asked that much about your senses besides your vision… But your sense of smell is good then, I take it?"

"Yeah."

"Like that of a dog? Do I need to take an extra shower before meeting you? An additional layer of deodorant?"

He laughs quietly. "I don't know if it's as advanced as a dog's. Maybe slightly less? But you don't need to worry; you always smell really nice."

Well, you definitely hope he's not lying—and he didn't seem to mind smelling you in his sleep—but also, you'll definitely make sure to always be extra clean when meeting him.

"You're much more polite than I imagined a vampire to be. I'm done now, thank you," you say, grabbing the vials and the discarded material having gathered on the bedspread.

"It's true though. You smell really pleasant. Very womanly."

You raise your eyebrows as you stand from the bed, packing everything away inside your backpack. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment?"

"You should because it is."

In the middle of feeling your cheeks heat just a tad, you're suddenly reminded of something. You straighten up, watching him where he remains sitting on his bed, stroking the kitten's back as the two others explore the bed.

"I know that I have… maybe a below average sense of smell for a human—possibly an advantage with my job—but you don't… smell much to me."

If you weren't so panicked when he grabbed you, you for sure would've jumped at the opportunity to see what he smells like.

"Can you smell another human? If they're not wearing perfume or have been out, sweating for hours?"

"…No."

"Right. Humans generally aren't able to. Up close, skin to skin, sure but not really from a distance. Vampires communicate more by scent than humans do."

"So you don't wear perfumes?"

"No. I don't like perfumes. Mildly scented soaps and stuff are alright, but not perfumes. A few vampires wear them, but they're the bane of my existence. For example, I would rather you show up here smelling of organic cow shit than… Victoria's Secret."

You chuckle. "Good to know."

<previous | next>

As the days of the new semester grew, you got more and more curious about the cute nerd in your Biology 101 class. He had a scar on his lips, raven hair, and these adorable glasses that definitely didn’t fit. You’ve only heard him speak a few times. He only ever spoke in class when he was called on, and when he was, he answered correctly, exuding confidence. The professor constantly applauded him for his work and even asked him to help out during her office hours. You considered showing up just out of pure curiosity, but decided against it. You didn’t want to stare at him like an obsessive loser. But an opportunity to talk to him fell on your lap on a random Tuesday afternoon.

During the third week of class, your professor announced something: everyone would sit alphabetically in the class for the next few days as she got used to everyone's names. This earned a few groans from the people who wanted to sit next to their friends, but she assured them it would be temporary.

“Everyone, everyone,” the room quieted down at her voice, “It won’t last too long. We just have one lab to complete then I should have everyone’s names down a few days after that. I’ve been struggling these past two weeks.” She looked down at her clipboard and moved to the first pair of chairs. “Now, let's start. Does anyone know if…” She called names one by one to show them their temporary seats. You didn’t know anyone in the class to begin with so you weren’t too bothered. Though, you’ve never heard of a college class that had a seating chart. That was definitely a first. And by the sounds of it, no one else had either. How bad could her memory be?

Lost in thought, you didn’t even realize when she called your name to be seated next. You blinked in confusion before realizing that she was assigning you to a seat. You mumbled an apology under your breath before sitting down. You exhaled, slightly embarrassed at your delayed reaction. Zoning out at the worst times seemed to be your strong suit. As you pulled out your textbook, you didn’t listen to hear who would be your shoulder partner. You looked up to see Toji, aka the guy you’ve been staring at for two weeks from across the room instead of paying attention to lecture, sitting right beside you. You quickly averted your gaze to recover from your shock. It was pure luck really, getting to sit next to him for the next few days, even if it was by force. He gave you a small nod of acknowledgement and you gave him an awkward smile back before quickly turning your head away.  Smooth, you thought to yourself, now he’ll think you’re creepy. Professor Nolan finished up the seating chart and brought up the upcoming lab.

“Our first lab will be tomorrow, and yes, your partner is who you’re sitting next to. It’s simple and it’s on everything we’ve covered this past week and a half. I’ll pass out the procedure.” She grabbed a stack of papers and started to give a small stack to each column. She handed Toji a stack and he handed you a packet. His hand brushed yours slightly, and your stomach lurched. His face remained neutral and he turned around to hand the rest of the lab procedures to the students behind you. You spent the rest of the lecture silently scolding yourself for getting so delusional over a guy that you didn’t know. The walk back to your car was one of shame. You hated how excited you got over things, especially since you got disappointed just as quickly. Sure, he was cute, but at the end of the day, he was just a guy. You reminded yourself of this and pushed it out of your mind. Tomorrow, you’d just focus on the first lab of the class. There was no need for unnecessary distractions.

You had spoken too soon. There was a need for distractions. They were very, very necessary. Especially if it entailed your cute lab partner walking you through the lab.

“You left your lab procedure on the desk. I tried to call after you, but you didn’t turn back.” He explained with a shrug. “No worries though, if you get stuck, I can try my best to explain it to you.”

You nodded, embarrassment creeping in. No way you were idiotic enough to leave your lab procedure behind. What a horrible first impression. “I’m so sorry, I’m not usually like this I—”

He shook his head and handed the packet to you. “No need to worry, I got you.” 

You nodded again, shutting up this time. Your eyes scanned the page, taking in what you had missed the previous night. It seemed simple enough, but it was your first lab. It had already started off on not the best foot… you couldn’t mess up again. A wave of determination washed over you. If he wasn’t bothered by your small slip up, why should you? The two of you prepared your station in silence before starting. It was a human cheek microscopic lab where you scrape the inside of your cheek, smear the swab onto a glass slide, add a drop of methylene blue stain, and cover it with a slip. You then observe under the microscope and take note of the structures. Simple stuff, really. The only annoying part was extracting the sample.

The two of you got to work immediately. You scraped your cheek with the toothpick, and in the process, poked it. You yelped and pressed your tongue against the spot. A metallic taste soaked your tongue and you groaned softly. You don’t know what’s gotten into you. You were usually great at labs, always taking them on with intense focus. An easy one like this shouldn’t be tripping you up, but here you were. You shot a glance at Toji and found him laughing quietly to himself. You glared at him, narrowing your eyes.

“Not funny,” you mumbled, tongue still applying pressure to the area you accidentally punctured. 

His grin grew even wider. “I dunno…it kind of is…How does one even achieve that?” He pressed his lips together to stop himself from laughing again. Your frown deepened at his reaction. He was actually laughing in your face. This was another level of obnoxious, this was plain mean. You went silent throughout the smearing and staining process, ego a little wounded at his blatant taunting. You didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or annoyed. You went with being annoyed; he said he’d help you out, not make fun of you.

When it was time to observe under the microscope, you let him go first. You watched him closely, the different expressions he’d make, the notes he’d take, and the small sounds of content he’d let out. You found it all amusing. He acted all mysterious, but the whole time, he was really just a weirdo that got very pleased when things went as he predicted. His drawings were so accurate, it was scary. He moved away from the microscope and gave you a cocky smile. There was no way you were beating that. Not that it was a competition or anything. You snuck a glance at him. He was watching you carefully. Maybe it was a competition and you didn’t know it. You swallowed hard before adjusting the settings as needed. The cells looked cool: their irregular shapes were highlighted with a vibrant blue from the stain. You zoomed in more to be able to see the cell structures better. From there, you could start to sketch your observations. You grabbed your pencil and lightly glided your pencil across the paper, careful to write lightly enough so you could correct any mistakes. You fell into a comfortable rhythm, looking into the microscope, and pulling away to add to your paper. You felt Toji watching you like a hawk from the side, but you still took your time. Within a few minutes, you were done with your sketches. You checked your work and grinned. Not too bad.

You felt someone shift behind you. You looked over your shoulder and found Toji there, sneaking a peek at your paper. He had a bored expression on his face and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be perfect, it was a sketch after all. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath and you raised an eyebrow at him.

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘not bad.’” He repeated before grabbing his notebook and walking off to start cleanup. You furrowed your brows in confusion. He was being nice again? What happened to being obnoxious and annoying? You scoffed and joined him. The two of you cleaned up your station and went your separate ways. You took the long way to your car, still in need of processing that entire lab period. The reassurance in the beginning, laughing at you making a small mistake, and giving you a half assed compliment to top it all off. You decided he was too cocky for his own good. He knew he was smart, he knew that he was better, and he let it get to his head. Sort of. He was still somewhat nice. Whatever it was, you only had to deal with him for a few more days. The first and only lab was out of the way. In retrospect, the worst had already passed.

Your stomach rumbled and you stopped in your tracks. After fumbling around in your bag, you realized you forgot to pack lunch today. You muttered curses under your breath as you turned around and headed to the college cafe. You weren’t this scatterbrained. Before today, you can’t remember the last time you forgot anything, especially of great importance like your lunch or schoolwork.

You walked into the cafe and went to the counter to order your usual: a grilled cheese sandwich with sourdough bread and the juice of the day. Today’s juice of the day was mango, Paige, the barista informed you. You paid and looked for a place to sit. The cafe was pretty much empty except for a few students on their computers. One person in the corner caught your eye though. You could recognize those scarred lips anywhere. His eyes locked with yours and you froze, quickly looking away. You snuck another glance and he was still staring. He raised an eyebrow at you and gestured for you to join him. You pressed your lips in a firm line before slowly walking over. Dropping your bag on the ground, you took the seat across from him. You felt his eyes studying you carefully again like they had less than an hour ago, making your stomach twist in knots. Trying to figure him out made your head spin. Never in a million years would you have expected him to invite you over to sit with him…it just didn't work like that. At least, not in your head anyway.

“You’re everywhere,” he said simply, taking a sip of his drink. “Oh, by the way, it’s good. Fresh and all.”

You shot him a bewildered look. “What?”

He pointed to his drink with a slightly annoyed look on his face. “The juice of the day? That’s the drink you ordered, no?”

You blinked at him, his words barely processing in your head. How long had he been watching you for? You just noticed that he was here. You frowned and nodded slowly. “Yeah,” you responded flatly. You didn’t mean to be rude, but he was getting on your last nerves. That's what you got for putting a stranger on a pedestal, they’ll always end up not meeting your unrealistic expectations and disappointing you.

He sighed, deep green eyes boring into yours. “You know, for someone who stared at me for two weeks straight without saying a word, you sure don’t have a lot to say now that we’ve actually met.” Toji chuckled as you gaped at him, taking another sip of his juice. “But hey, to each their own.”

You were speechless. The entire first week, he was at one end of the room and you were in the opposite, in a corner at that. Same for the second. How he knew you’d look at him, you had no idea. His back was to you 99% of the time too…was he bluffing? No, that was way too specific and accurate to be a bluff. Maybe you weren't as subtle as you thought.

The barista called your name for your order and you shot up from your seat. You took your sweet time: making small talk with her again, checking to see if it was your name on it, if you got the right sandwich, and sipping your juice to see how it tasted. He was right—it was fresh, the tangy taste dancing on your tongue. You needed a second to mentally prepare yourself. Facing him after him confronting you and your staring problem made you want to puke. What do you even say to that? Do you just gaslight him until he believes you? You doubt he would though, he was way too arrogant to give you the benefit of the doubt or even just to let it go and move on. You slowly made your way back to your seat. He looked at you expectantly as you took another sip of your juice.

“It’s good, you were right.” You muttered, not meeting his eyes.

“I know,” he shrugged. You didn’t like this, not one bit. He was nothing like you had expected at all. Sure, it was counterproductive to fit people into boxes based on their appearances, but you've never met anyone that carried themselves like this. Though you hated to admit it, you were intrigued. Why did he call you over here? You were classmates, he had no obligation to invite you to sit with him. And you still didn’t know how he knew you would stare at him the first few weeks…

“You were staring at me too, weren’t you?” you blurted out. For the first time ever, Toji was stunned. He didn’t know how to respond to the question—or, better yet—the right answer to it. You watched as he struggled to approach your question. You could practically see the gears turning in his head.

“What makes you think that?” He finally decided on. Safe, yes, but playing dumb wasn’t always reliable.

“How else would you know I was staring at you?” You replied. Not your strongest point, you admit, but it was what was at the front of your mind. 

“Well, for starters, you aren’t the most subtle person to grace this Earth,” he shot back. You narrowed your eyes at his deflection, but this only proved you were getting warmer.

“Aw, are you saying that my presence makes the Earth a better place ‘ji?” You asked sweetly, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Is that why you’ve been staring at me?” Your tone was so condescending you swore you saw his eye twitch.

“Don’t call me that,” he grumped. You giggled at his frustration and took a sip of your drink.

“Mmmmm,” you groaned dramatically. He glared at you from above his glasses. “Is this why you asked me to sit with you?” You stirred your juice with your straw, the ice cubes clinking together. His eyes followed the movement. Would he take the bait?

“...What do you mean?” He asked reluctantly. You could practically feel his discomfort. It loomed over his head, forcing him to engage in your shenanigans. It killed him to entertain your antics, but he couldn’t bear not knowing what you were going on about.  

“You heard I ordered the same drink as you, so you called me over to sit with you.” You replied. Obviously, that’s not what you believed, but you had to point out how ridiculous all this was. All this game playing, and for what?

“No, of course not. Don't be stupid.” He said with a scowl, mouth turning into a frown, like just the idea alone personally offended him.

“So you have been staring at me too then? I didn’t even notice you were here until I was looking for a place to sit,” you challenged. You were regaining confidence now, determined to pull this confession out of him. He wasn’t going to get out of this. You felt like you were going crazy before, you were glad to know you weren’t alone.

“Does it even matter?” He sighed, failing to meet your eyes.

“Yes,” you insisted.

“Why?” He countered.

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Answer the damn question. Then I can tell you why it matters,” you hissed. You took a bite of your sandwich as he hesitated. You ate in silence, waiting for him to figure out what he was going to say. The sandwich was half gone and the glass of fresh mango juice completely empty by the time he finally cleared his throat.

“To put it simply, yes I was staring—when you weren't looking at least. That’s why I invited you to sit here. But—” He raised his hands up in surrender. “I swear I had nothing to do with us sitting together. That was pure luck.”

You laughed at how terrified he was. Like he actually believed you thought he blackmailed your strict professor or something to get you guys to sit together. This was ridiculous. You laughed over the stupidity of it all and he tilted his head at you in confusion.

“Well duh, I know that. It’s not like you built a time machine and changed my last name to be right next to yours on the roster.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “Okay good. I’m not a creep. It was just a coincidence. So was the cafe, I assume?” He asked, now putting you on the spot. “Or are you stalking me?”

It was now your turn to be stunned into silence. You really hoped he was joking. “Give me the same grace. It was a coincidence. I was hungry, so I stopped here for a quick bite to eat. If you hadn’t called me over, I’d have left by now.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, smirking at your bewildered state. Reality finally crashed down on you—you guys have been playing eye tag this whole time, but you kept missing each other. Even though he got on your nerves—slightly—this was the best case scenario. You were both losers with a staring problem.

“So what now?” you asked before you could stop yourself. You regretted it immediately, especially as you watched his curiosity pique. He was either going to tease you beyond belief, or be completely honest with you like he had before. It was a gamble you weren’t sure you were ready to take, but it was too late. He studied the grimace on your face and nodded.

“I mean—based on this conversation, it’s safe to say there’s a mutual interest here so…I think it would be appropriate to ask you out.”

You blinked at him. Did he just ask you out without asking you? He winced at your unamused expression and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Er, sorry, I mean…would you like to go out with me sometime?”

“We’re technically out together right now if you really think about it,” you replied, pressing your lips together to suppress the smile creeping on your face. You weren’t going to let him off the hook that easily. Who did you take you for?

“Well no shit, but like another time if you wa—”

“I’m just messing with you. Of course I would like that.”

He stopped his rambling and smiled at you, really smiled at you. It reached his eyes and you decided right then and there, you wanted to be on the receiving end of more smiles from this man. God knows they were scarce, but when they did come out, they made your heartbeat pound like a drum in your ears and caused butterflies to fill your stomach. You knew immediately that they didn’t show up for just anyone, and that alone confirmed any suspicion you had about him liking you too. 

“Hey, you never explained why it mattered so much,” he said suddenly. Your eyes locked with him and you swore time stopped. The noise of the cafe faded in the background as the two of you held each other’s gaze. Blood rushed to your cheeks, the intensity of his gaze being too much. You were the one to break eye contact, twisting your hands in your lap nervously.

“Because,” you said pointedly, but there was no real bite in your voice. “The feeling’s mutual.”

There it was again. Another one of his rare smiles. Your eyes landed on his scar and you instinctively reached forward. He didn’t flinch or move away. He stilled as you traced it, fingertips ghosting over his skin.

“How did you get this?” You murmured softly. He avoided eye contact and grabbed your wrist gently. 

“That’s a story for another time.” He said firmly, though, he didn’t remove your hand. “I’ll tell it to you though, I promise.” He swallowed hard and held your gaze. In the quiet of your own little bubble, you whispered to him softly, things only for his ears. The rest of the world faded away as the two of yours started to grow and blossom.

Your first real date was as soon as later that week after class. He walked you to your car and sent you an ominous text once you got home.

toji: I’ll pick you up at 4pm.

toji: It’ll be a little cold inside, so wear long sleeves.

toji: And pants.

You snorted at that text. Did he expect you to pull up half naked?

toji: As in long pants. Of course you’ll wear pants. Duh. 

toji: Don’t laugh, you know what I mean. Shut up, stop laughing at me.

You laughed even harder. Underneath all of his cockiness and arrogance, Toji was really just a huge dork and it only came out in moments like these. Whenever you’d point it out, he’d get all grumpy and insist he’s not a dork—but if he was—that they are over hated. You always countered and said that that’s something a dork would say.

At 4pm at the dot, he picked you up in his white sedan. The inside of his car was very tidy. You wondered if it was always like this, or if he cleaned it up just because you’d be in it. You imagined a timid Toji, scrambling to make his car look presentable for a first date. The thought made you smile to yourself. Dork.

“What’re you smiling about? Like my car?” He asked, his tone a little hopeful. You were no expert on cars, but despite being very beat up on the outside, it looked nice. It was obvious he took good care of it. “Yes, I do,” you admitted. “It’s quite nice.”

“Thanks. I know,” he grinned at you, knowing that would piss you off. You poked his cheek and he pouted before putting the car in drive.

“So where is this mysterious location?” You asked casually. You were staring out the window, trying to make sense of where you were headed. It was the general direction of town, which only narrowed down the options slightly. He could be taking you anywhere from a fancy restaurant to Dick’s Sporting Goods. You hoped it wasn’t the latter, you didn’t pursue jocks for a reason…

“It’s a surprise. And if you nag me about it, I’ll just give you hints that are misleading.” He chuckled to himself, sneaking a glance at you. He was met with you glowering at him. Even after giving you basically nothing to work with in picking an outfit, he had the audacity to keep his lips sealed. You hated to admit it, but it was cute. The effort he was putting in was adorable and pushed your #TojiIsADork agenda even further.

Finding out on your own instead of being fed fabricated information sounded more appealing, so you shut up. Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of an unfamiliar building. It was huge, you stared at the building in awe and Toji smiled, “It’s the new science museum. They have this one biology exhibit, I thought maybe we’d check it out?” He looked at you for approval, and that’s when you realized. He was nervous. The cocky guy you met was nowhere to be found. Instead, a slightly self conscious one stood before you. He kept stuffing his hands in his back pockets and removing them and you swore you saw him wipe his palms on his jeans. Interesting. 

“This was thoughtful,” you said. His mood immediately posted at your praise, lips curving into a smile and even more confidence in his walk. He held open the door for you with a wink. “Ladies first.”

“Cornball,” you rolled your eyes, but slipped past him anyway. The guy at the front desk smiled as you walked up together. 

“Tickets for two?”

Toji nodded and pushed up his glasses. “Does that include the new exhibit?”

“Yes it does.” He typed away on his computer. “That’ll be $19.18”

Toji fumbled for his wallet before handing over a $20 bill. He waved his hand for no change. The tickets printed out of a small machine and the worker handed them to you. “Enjoy!” 

“Thank you,” Toji replied and the two of you entered the exhibit. 

You had no idea such a cool place was in your city, and just right around the corner too. They had everything you could think of: dinosaur skeletons, glass cases with insects, human evolution halls, a whole planetarium, and so much more. You took it all in, glancing back at Toji to see how he reacted. He didn’t look nearly as impressed as you.

“I’ve been here so many times before already," he quickly explained.

“Oh, that makes sense.” You turned back to the exhibit and read the fun facts. After you exhausted every corner of the last exhibit, you headed for the one he was talking about.

It was centered around microbiology. The exhibit walked you through the different structures and explained their functions. Some of the things rang a bell and others didn’t. Either way, it was pretty cool to take what you’ve learned in class and apply it. 

“This is way more in depth than what we’ve gone over in class, or in our lab together, but I wanted to show you since you seemed super intrigued in the lesson.” He explained. “Other than in me, of course.”

You scoffed, but you couldn’t hide the smile tugging at your lips. “Last time I checked, you were in the same boat.” You bumped him with your shoulder playfully.

“I still am, but I thought it was important to remind you of your roots. Your staring problem might be worse than mine,” he teased, bumping you back.

“I didn’t listen for your cafe order and then bring it up later to make a statement,” you pointed out. “Now who’s worse?”

“Hm,” he grunted. “I mean, I guess.” 

“I’ll take that as accepting defeat,” you said triumphantly. He fought back a smile and took your hand. His large hand engulfed yours, squeezing it lightly before he guided you to that last part of the exhibit. The knots in your stomach only twisted more at his gesture. 

“You mentioned during the first week that microbiology really interested you, so I saved the best for last.” 

You blinked at him, a bit stunned he had remembered that. The two of you hadn’t even spoken then. It was a trivial comment you barely remembered making. Before you could fully process it, a video played on the screen. It was an animation detailing eukaryotic cells, specifically highlighting their functions in humans. The two of you watched in silence and listened intently. After it ended, he turned to face you. 

“Isn’t it cool that under all these layers, we're just that.” He pointed to the nucleus of a small structure on the screen. “Humans are so complex. There’s so many things that are overlooked that are fundamental for us to function. Makes you appreciate the little things, you know?” He cleared his throat, eyes darting to the ground. “But yeah, uh, the video wasn’t too bad.”

He dropped his nonchalant act temporarily to connect with you, but you feel like you just missed your window yet again. His walls went up as quickly as they had gone down. You liked his take, it was very insightful. Plus, he’d remembered such a small detail about you and it meant a lot. 

“The little things are overlooked often, you’re right,” you said quietly. Fear bubbled in your stomach, the weight of the conversation crashing down on you. Last time you checked, this wasn’t first date behavior. It was way too deep, way too soon. But you didn’t feel uncomfortable necessarily, you felt afraid of being judged. Being vulnerable, even if it was about biology cells, wasn’t your strong suit. Especially with someone you liked, you didn't want them to think less of you.

Toji nodded and inched closer. You looked up to look at him, really look at him. His hair was slightly mused, the polo he wore fitted him so perfectly it annoyed you, and his eyes. His green eyes were practically shining and you knew what was coming before it happened. He cupped your cheek before pressing his lips to yours. You kissed him back, fingers tangling in his hair. It was tender; he stroked your cheek with his thumb as he kissed you like you were his oxygen. His soft lips captured yours and it felt like the rest of the world melted away. You pulled away, flustered, heart ready to leap out of your chest.

“We’re in public,” you reminded him, slightly out of breath. The museum was pretty much empty, and no one else was in the exhibit room other than the two of you. You turned your back to him to compose yourself. You had realized he was going to kiss you right before it happened, and yet, nothing could have prepared you for that. The rate your heart was beating at was alarming. You wanted to do that again, except in the privacy of a room where you could do whatever you wa—

“You okay?” He asked, interrupting your thoughts.

You turned around and found him looking at you with a concerned look on his face. His glasses were slipping off his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. He walked up to you, but still left some space between him and you. “Was that too much?” 

You shook your head. That wasn’t enough, but you couldn’t just say that. “No, it wasn’t. I’m sorry I—“ You paused to collect your thoughts. You liked him and it felt good to be here with him. But the pressure in your stomach wasn’t just butterflies. It was fear. You were scared of messing this up and it was eating you alive, preventing you from actually living in the moment.

“I think I’m just scared.” 

Silence. Your confession, short and brutally honest, was finally out in the open. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from your chest. You exhaled and met his eyes. They were sad. Droopy even. Was it from disappointment? Had you ruined the good thing before you even got to enjoy it?

“Me too.” His expression mirrored yours and his admission hung in the air as the two of you processed your mutual fear. It was ironic really—both of you were terrified of ruining a good thing with the other. You could pin yours to previous experiences causing you to have the doubt, but you wondered: what was his reason? The way Toji carried himself alone would make you believe otherwise…but the first thing you learned about him was to never judge a book by its cover.

“You look surprised.” He said it more like a statement than a question. You didn’t even realize you were letting your shock show on your face. You quickly made a neutral expression, but it was too late.

“Go ahead, ask me why that is. I know you want to.” You did want to, but part of you wasn’t sure if you should. Despite the obvious invitation, it felt like an invasion of privacy. Again, you reminded yourself, not first date behavior. But you were already way past trying to fit it into the box of how a first date should go.

“Why are you scared?” Your voice sounded smaller than you had anticipated. Still, you waited for an answer.

“I’m not good at this stuff. I struggled to pick a place for us to go out. I ultimately picked somewhere where I think would interest the both of us and where we could have fun, but I wasn't sure if that was the right choice I mean…” He sighed and his shoulder slacked. “I thought you’re supposed to have a fancy dinner. I wasn’t sure if you’d want that. And I doubt we could even afford it, us being broke college students and all—anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that I’m scared of doing this all wrong. It’s hard to pinpoint the balance between what I should do and what I want to do.” He was rambling at this point. It didn’t seem to bother him though. He seemed to be sorting through his thoughts verbally. “Is the expensive dinner the proper tone to set? Am I being a gentleman? Am I being too nice where it waters down our banter, but too rude where you think I might hate your guts? It’s a lot to wrap my head around.” 

That was a lot to take in at once. You didn’t know he felt this way. He acted so carefree about it all that he really fooled you. “All I know is that I like you, and I want to see where this goes.” He shook his head. “Wow what a first date. Feels like a therapy session.”

Your nerves calmed down and your face broke into a smile. “I like you too. And you don’t need to worry about how you think you should act too much. Just be. I like you for how you are. You’re unapologetically your authentic self. That’s something I admire about you.”

He mirrored your smile. “Oh? Well I guess saying my piece was worth putting everything on the line for,” he joked. You rolled your eyes and laughed. 

“Music to my ears.”

“Ugh,” you groaned. “Gross.”

“What? I can’t appreciate your laugh? And don’t say I’m being corny. Or a geek. I’m not a geek,” he argued.

“...That’s something a geek would say.” 

The two of you left the room and bickered all the way out of the museum, to the car, and the ride home to your house. He kissed you goodbye and drove off once you got inside.

A few hours later, you received a text:

toji: Okay, on a scale of 1-10, how was the first date? I’m open to criticism, but let it be constructive. No “geek” or “dork” nonsense.

you: 10/10 for the geek-ery

toji: I hate you

you: you really don’t

toji: Shut it

You giggled and rolled over on your bed. You were really happy with how the date went. You were beyond nervous, but it all worked out in the end

you: on a real note, i had a good time. thank you for nerding out with me

toji: Same, thanks for agreeing to go out with me even though I said it wrong the first time.

toji: Also, the hell is “nerding out?”

you: the nerd … doesn't know what.. nerding out is …

toji: Wearing glasses doesn’t equate to me being a nerd dumbass

you: quickly, who can recite the entire marvel series in order from memory?

toji: I don’t know but they sound pretty cool to me ngl

you: Dork.

It took a few more dates to get fully comfortable with each other, but when you did, it was amazing. He kept it up with the nerdy date ideas, which you appreciated. You got to dabble in each other’s interests along with tapping into your shared ones. You kept things in your science lab locker from each date: ticket stubs, receipts, and photos... lots and lots of photos. The more you learned about him, the more you fell for him. It was impossible not to love him, you decided. 

In class, you were eventually allowed to sit wherever, but of course neither of you budged. “These seats are lucky,” you declared one day. “We can’t move away.” Instead of teasing you, Toji agreed. There would be no seating changes since he was very happy with where he was at. He had said that last part pointedly and it made you grin.

Dating Toji was everything you’d imagined and more. He was attentive, noticing things you usually missed, and also kept you on your toes. He challenged you to try your hardest and be better. Whenever you needed help with school, he was the first person you went to. You couldn’t be more grateful.

And the sex was the best of your life. You remember your first time with Toji like it was yesterday: 

It was early morning and he had spent the previous night watching movies with you. He spent the night and slept in your bed. You woke up with him hard, pressed up against your ass…and you, soaking through your flimsy sleep shorts.

Of course, knowing Toji, teasing you was his first course of action. He spread your thighs open, teased your entrance with his tip, smirking as you whined for him to just put it in already. 

“Toji—” you whispered his name softly. His dark brows knitted together in mock concern. “Tojiii.” 

“Yes?” He asked innocently. The smirk on his face told him he was anything but innocent, but you were so needy you didn’t want to stall any longer. You closed your legs slightly and glared at him. He gripped your thighs to force them apart and your stomach dipped in excitement. 

“Stop teasing,” you pleaded. “Please.”

“Since you asked so nicely, I will. Give me a sec.” He took off his glasses and reached to put it on the nightstand, but you grabbed his wrist. 

“No, keep them on,” you urged him.

He stared back at you for a moment before putting them back on. The look he gave you made the butterflies in your stomach swarm. You couldn’t resist that look and he knew it. You leaned forward and kissed him. He melted into the kiss, cupping your face gently, and groaning softly before finding his rightful place between your legs. You gasped as he entered you, arching your back. Each inch was more agonizing than the last. He was just too big to take all at once. 

“S-slow down.”

He stilled and pushed your hair out of your face. “I’m sorry I got too excited, you wanna take it slow?”

You nodded eagerly and he rubbed small circles on your clit with his thumb. He tried again, except slower this time. You bit your lip as you attempted to take all of him again. “So tight baby—shit—That’s all of me,” he groaned as he bottomed out. He felt so good like this—thick cock stretching you out and burying you to the hilt. You moaned his name into the pillow underneath you softly.

“Mm don’t hide from me, I wanna hear you.” You lifted your head slightly at his words. He started to move his hips at a steady pace and you let out your broken moans this time. He groaned too, lost in the way your velvet walls hugged him tightly. For the first time having sex with him, he felt heavenly. You clawed at his back, whining as you took him. 

“Holy shit you turn me on so much.” His glasses kept slipping slightly down his nose and he kept pushing them up, but he didn’t take them off. The lewd sounds of skin on skin filled the room as dawn settled in. The sun rising didn’t stop either or you. Everything you needed was right here inside front of you.

“You’re taking me so well,” he groaned, causing you to flutter around him. His glasses were slightly fogged by now, each stroke stripped him of his resolve. All of his focus was on chasing both of your highs. He snapped hips and picked up the pace. Your broken cries egged him on even further and he twitched inside of you at your pretty sounds.  

“Feels s’good,” you choked out, eyes rolling to the back of your head. “I’m close.” Pleasure was building up in your stomach. You were so close you could practically taste it. You wrapped your legs around his waist and he turned his hips slightly. At this new angle, he drove even deeper inside your poor cunt, fucking you with purpose. The head of his cock kissed your cervix every time he bottomed out and you clenched around his length, eyes screwed shut. 

“Yeah baby? You're close? Cum for me. I wanna feel you squeezing around me,” he breathed, “Give it to me. All of you.”

With one more thrust, you came, cunt squeezing his cock, milking him for everything he has, just like he asked. His name escaped your lips as your orgasm crashed over you and you shuddered at the overwhelming pleasure. He slowed down, thrusts becoming sloppier than the last, rigid before he came himself. His thick seed shot deep inside your aching cunt. You whined softly as he collapsed beside you with a low grunt.

The two of you laid there, chests heaving as you caught your breath. 

 “Toji…” 

“'m sorry, I didn’t plan this either.”

You lifted your head to glare at him. “Oh, really? Who was humping me like a hormonal dog in their sleep last night?”  You shot back. 

“Fair point, let me make it up to you?” He folded almost immediately. 

You perked up at this, curious to see what he had in store. “Making it up to you” entailed the best aftercare of your life, though he swore he always prioritized aftercare no matter the situation. Toji cleaned you up with a towel before taking you to the bathroom.  He ran a hot bath with your favorite body wash and made sure the temperature was just right. He climbed in with you and handed you with care. Afterwards, you snuggled in bed together with you as the little spoon.

“Sometimes I wonder if I hadn’t forgotten my lunch that day. I wouldn’t have gone into the cafe,” you murmured.

Toji kissed your neck and sighed. “Yeah we wouldn’t have continued our little game.”

“I’m glad I did. I’m glad to be stuck with you.”

“Me too,” he murmured back, “I’ll always be right by your side.”

The temple sat modest on its hill, cedar beams darkened by centuries of incense. You had spent your life inside its walls. Sweeping stone paths at dawn, replacing withered chrysanthemums, murmuring sutras until your voice felt less like your own and more like something borrowed from the kami themselves.

Your hands were calloused only from scrubbing floors and carrying water; your body soft in the way of someone who had never known violence except as stories whispered after dark. When war finally clawed its way up the mountain road, you did not run. You knelt deeper. Forehead to the cool floor, palms pressed together, lips shaping the same prayer you had spoken every morning since childhood.

Sukuna found you like that.

The sliding doors exploded inward in a spray of splinters. Smoke curled around his silhouette as he stepped inside, two of his arms crossed, the other two loose at his sides. Blood still dripped from the knuckles of his rightmost hand; somewhere behind him a monk’s severed head rolled to a stop against a lantern post. He tilted his head, regarding you. You did not lift your gaze. You did not scream. You only whispered the next line of the sutra, voice trembling but unbroken.

He laughed once the sound of it came out low and rough, amused in a way that made the air feel heavier.

“Still praying,” he said, voice like gravel dragged over silk. “Even now.”

You swallowed. Tears slipped free, hot against your cheeks, but your hands stayed joined.

He crossed the prayer hall in three strides. One massive hand closed around the back of your neck. Not cruel yet, only possessive. He lifted you as though you weighed nothing, your knees scraping the floorboards before they left them entirely. Your prayer beads clattered to the ground. You reached instinctively for them; he caught your wrist mid-motion and pinned it behind you with casual strength.

“If I’m not there,” you managed, voice cracking on every word, “who will take care of the temple?”

He went still.

For one heartbeat the only sound was the crackle of distant fires and your own uneven breathing.

Then he leaned in until his mouth brushed the shell of your ear.

“That’s what I like about you already,” he murmured. “You think the gods still need you.”

He carried you out of the ruined temple slung over one shoulder like a prize of war. You beat uselessly at his back until your strength gave out; tears soaked the fabric stretched across his shoulder blades. The last thing you saw of your home was the torii gate tilting sideways, half-consumed by flame.

His fortress crouched against jagged black cliffs, more cavern than castle—rough-hewn stone corridors lit by flickering braziers, air thick with the smell of iron and cedar smoke. Servants scattered like leaves when he entered, heads bowed so low their foreheads nearly kissed the floor. Only one did not flinch: Uraume, pale and composed, white hair falling straight as a blade. They regarded you with cool interest as Sukuna dumped you unceremoniously onto the wide, low platform that served as his sleeping mat.

You scrambled backward until your spine hit the wall, kimono tangled around your knees, chest heaving. The room was vast, shadowed, dominated by his presence even when he turned away to shrug out of bloodied outer robes. No partition. No second mat. No door that closed between you and him.

You were his now.

He did not speak the words. He did not need to.

Uraume approached without being summoned, carrying a lacquered tray. Steaming rice, grilled fish, pickled vegetables arranged with meticulous care. A clay cup of water. They knelt before you, expression unreadable.

“Eat,” they said simply. “He does not tolerate weakness in what belongs to him.”

You stared at the food, stomach twisting with nausea and hunger in equal measure. Your fingers shook when you reached for the chopsticks.

Later, after the tray had been cleared away. Uraume returned with folded yukata of soft undyed silk and a wooden tub already filled with heated water scented faintly with yuzu. They gestured toward a screened alcove at the far side of the chamber.

“Wash,” they instructed. “He will want you clean.”

You obeyed because there was nothing else to do.

The water was almost too hot; it turned your skin pink as you sank into it, knees drawn to your chest. You scrubbed mechanically, arms and shoulders, the crook of your neck, until every trace of soot and temple incense had been erased. Your hair hung heavy and dripping when you finally stepped out. Uraume waited with a dry cloth and the yukata. They did not touch you; they simply watched until you had dressed, until the sash was tied neatly at your waist.

When you emerged from behind the screen, Sukuna was already reclining on the wide mat, one elbow propped beneath him, four eyes fixed on you with lazy predatory interest. The yukata clung slightly to still-damp skin. You felt naked beneath his gaze despite the layers.

He crooked two fingers.

You hesitated.

He crooked them again, but slower this time, deliberately.

You crossed the room on unsteady legs and sank to your knees at the edge of the mat, head bowed, hands folded in your lap the way you had been taught to approach superiors. The posture felt wrong here. Too reverent. Too much like prayer.

He reached out, caught your chin between thumb and forefinger, and tilted your face up.

“You still smell like incense,” he said, almost thoughtful. “I’ll have to fix that.”

His thumb dragged once across your lower lip rough and warm, a soft press.

Then he released you.

“Sleep,” he ordered, lying back and closing two of his eyes while the other two remained trained on you. “You’ll need your strength.”

There was no spare futon. No corner to curl into. Only the space beside him on the wide mat, close enough to feel the furnace heat rolling off his body.

You lay down carefully, on your side, facing away from him, every muscle rigid. Tears slipped silently into the thin pillow beneath your cheek.

Behind you, he let out a single exhale that sounded almost like a laugh.

“Good girl,” he murmured into the dark. “Faithful things last longer when they learn their place.”

The braziers guttered low. The fortress settled into uneasy quiet.

And you, stolen from the gods, lay awake listening to the slow, steady rhythm of the monster’s breathing at your back, knowing he had only begun to claim what he wanted.

The first days blurred into a haze of stone walls and flickering firelight. You kept to the edges of the chamber like a shadow trying to disappear into itself. Every time Sukuna moved, your body tensed up, waiting for the strike that never came. Not yet. He lounged on the wide mat most hours, sometimes sleeping with all four eyes closed (a rare vulnerability you noted and immediately regretted noticing), sometimes watching you with the lazy patience of a cat that has already cornered its mouse. Uraume appeared at regular intervals with trays of food you refused to touch. Rice cooled untouched. Fish grew dull-eyed on the lacquer. Pickles wilted. You told yourself it was defiance. You told yourself starvation was preferable to accepting anything from the thing that had burned your world down.

Hunger, though, was not impressed by principle.

Your stomach clawed itself hollow. Your limbs felt heavy, your head light. You sat with your back to the wall, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight around them as though you could hold yourself together that way. Sukuna noticed. Of course he did. He noticed everything.

On the fourth evening or perhaps the fifth; time had begun to slip like sand. He rose from the mat abruptly. Uraume had just left another untouched meal on the low table. Sukuna crossed to it in two strides, picked up the bowl of rice still faintly warm, and carried it to where you sat.

You pressed harder against the stone.

He crouched before you. He was too close, always too close. Balancing the bowl on one massive palm. The other three hands rested loose at his sides, deceptively calm.

“Eat,” he said. Not an order this time. Almost conversational.

You stared at the floor between his knees. “No.”

A beat of silence. Then a low sound escaped from him, not quite a laugh, more like air pushed through teeth.

“You think starving yourself hurts me?” He tilted his head, studying the stubborn line of your jaw. “It only makes you weaker. And I don’t keep broken things.”

“I’m not yours to keep.”

The words came out quieter than you meant, cracked from disuse and thirst. Still, they hung between you like a thrown gauntlet.

He considered them. Then, without warning, one of his lower hands lifted in a slow and deliberate motion to cup the side of your face. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just there. Warm. The calluses on his thumb rasped once against your cheekbone.

“You will eat,” he said, softer now, almost amused. “Or I will make you.”

You jerked your head away. “I said no.”

His grip tightened, just enough to still you but not enough to bruise. The other hand, the one holding the rice moved closer. He scooped a small clump with two fingers, brought it to your lips.

You clamped your mouth shut. Turned your face aside.

He waited.

The seconds stretched. Your pulse hammered in your ears. Hunger roared louder than pride.

Then slowly, so slowly you hated yourself for it. Your lips parted. Just enough.

He pushed the rice inside.

You chewed mechanically, eyes stinging, hating the way your body betrayed you by swallowing. The grains were perfectly soft, faintly sweet from whatever subtle seasoning Uraume used. You hated that too.

Sukuna watched every motion. The way your throat worked. The way a single grain clung to the corner of your mouth until his thumb brushed it away.

“Good,” he murmured.

He fed you another bite. Then another. Never rushing. Never forcing more than you could take at once. One of his free hands settled at the small of your back, not pulling you closer. Just resting there, steadying you as though you might topple sideways from the effort of hating him while your body demanded to live.

You ate half the bowl before shame choked you again. You tried to turn your head.

He didn’t let you.

The last bite he held between his fingers longer than necessary, letting you feel the heat of his skin, the faint pulse beneath it. When you finally took it, your soft lips closing around the pads of his fingers for one humiliating second and then something flickered in his eyes. Not lust, not yet. Satisfaction. The quiet pleasure of something stubborn beginning to bend.

He set the empty bowl aside. His hand lingered on your cheek a moment longer before falling away.

“You’ll eat tomorrow,” he said, rising to his full height again. “And the day after. And every day I decide you’re still useful alive.”

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, glaring up at him through wet lashes. “I hate you.”

He gave a small and sharp smile that was entirely genuine, you feared.

“I know.”

He returned to the mat, stretched out on his side, and closed two eyes while the other two stayed fixed on you. You stayed where you were, back to the wall, knees still drawn tight, tasting rice and salt and the ghost of his fingers on your tongue.

Hunger sated. Defiance cracked, just a little.

And in the shadowed quiet of the fortress, the King of Curses watched his stolen faithful with the patience of someone who already knew how this story ended.

Days bled into one another until the rhythm of captivity began to feel less like chains and more like gravity was inescapable and constant. Wearing down edges you once thought sharp. You no longer pressed yourself to the farthest wall when he entered the chamber. You no longer flinched at every shift of his massive frame. Vigilance replaced panic; observation replaced despair.

....

You learned the fortress the way a prisoner learns the bars of a cage. The low wooden chest near the alcove held his smaller blades. A curved tanto with black-wrapped hilts, edges honed to split hairs. You watched him retrieve them once, twice, committing the latch’s soft click to memory. Uraume never lingered near it; Sukuna himself seemed to forget it existed most days, as though no one in this place would dare touch what was his.

You told yourself the knowledge was survival. You told yourself the plan forming in the quiet hours, when his breathing evened out beside you and the braziers burned low....was justice that you'd claim. The temple still haunted your dreams: splintered beams, overturned altars, the last prayer dying on your lips as he carried you away. Revenge felt righteous. Necessary.

And yet.

His body had become a fixture. Four arms that could crush stone now draped carelessly across the mat at night. One slung over your waist when he slept deepest, another curled beneath his own head, the remaining two loose at his sides. The heat of him seeped through silk and skin alike, a furnace you could no longer pretend to ignore. You hated how your muscles learned to relax against that warmth instead of locking in terror. Hated how, when he spoke in low commands, mocking observations and that your replies came edged but quieter now. Less venom. More resignation. Familiarity was its own slow poison.

He noticed.

Of course he did.

Sometimes his gaze lingered longer when you answered him. A faint curl at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Something pleased. Something patient.

You waited for the right night.

It came without fanfare.

The moon hung thin and pale beyond the narrow window slits. Sukuna had returned late from whatever carnage called him away, reeking faintly of smoke and copper. His outer robes discarded carelessly near the entrance. He collapsed onto the mat with a grunt, eyes sliding shut faster than usual. Exhaustion, perhaps. Or arrogance. Two eyes closed completely; the other pair fluttered half-lidded for a moment before drifting shut as well.

You lay motionless beside him until his breathing deepened slowly, even pulls that lifted the wide plane of his chest. Minutes stretched. Your heart slammed against your ribs so hard you were certain he would wake from the sound alone.

He didn’t.

You moved.

Silent as temple shadow, you slipped from beneath the thin cover. Bare feet met cold stone. You crossed to the chest on trembling legs, fingers numb as they worked the latch. The blade came free easily, it was lighter than you expected, wicked curve glinting faintly in the dying ember light. You gripped it so tightly your knuckles ached.

Adrenaline sang in your veins. Fear. Fury. Something darker.

You returned to the mat.

Sukuna laid on his back, arms splayed, tattoos stark against scarlet skin. Vulnerable in sleep the way only predators can afford to be. You swallowed once hard, then swung one leg over his waist. The yukata rode up your thighs as you settled your weight astride him, knees bracketing his hips. He was massive beneath you; your thighs strained to accommodate the breadth of him. The heat of his body immediately soaked through the thin layers separating you.

You leaned forward.

One hand braced on his chest. Feeling the steady thud of a heart too strong, too steady while the other brought the blade to his throat. The edge kissed skin just below the sharp line of his jaw. A single bead of blood welled where steel met flesh, dark and sluggish.

You pressed.

Not deep. Not yet.

Just enough to feel resistance. Enough to imagine the rest.

Your breath came in shallow pants. Tears pricked your eyes. Not from fear now, but from the sheer weight of what you were about to do. What you had to do.

He didn’t stir.

Not yet.

But beneath you, his body registered the new pressure. A subtle shift of his muscles tightening minutely under your thighs, the slow rise of his chest hitching once as though some animal instinct registered weight, warmth, threat.

His four arms remained lax.

His eyes stayed closed.

The blade trembled in your grip.

And still he slept. Deep enough that the King of Curses had not yet woken to the faithful girl straddling his waist with death at his throat.

He felt you.

Not the weight of your body first, not the press of your thighs around his hips or the tremor in your knees but the cold kiss of steel against his throat. A single drop of blood had already slid down the side of his neck, dark against scarlet skin, before instinct finally pulled him from sleep.

His eyes opened slowly.

Two at first, then the other pair followed, crimson slits widening into lazy, unhurried focus. No jolt. No surge of violence. Just that deliberate unfurling of awareness, like a beast deciding whether the thing on its back was prey or amusement.

He tilted his head just enough that the blade bit a fraction deeper, another thin line of red welling up. His gaze locked on yours.

You froze.

The hand holding the tanto stayed firm, knuckles white, but the rest of you went still as temple stone. You had never been this close. Not really. Not like this. You had seen him bare-chested after baths, yukata slipping low on his shoulders, tattoos shifting over muscle as he moved. You had felt the furnace heat of him at night when one careless arm draped across your waist. But this, straddling the King of Curses, your thighs spread wide over the hard plane of his abdomen, faces inches apart, was different. Intimate in a way that made your pulse roar in your ears. His breath ghosted warm against your lips. His eyes held yours without blinking, pupils blown wide in the low light, drinking you in.

“You’re quite brave,” he murmured, voice rough from sleep, low enough that it vibrated through your joined bodies. “Finally took your chance.”

Your mouth opened. Closed. The words came anyway, cracked and furious and trembling all at once.

“You took everything from me,” you whispered. “You’ll take from others just like you did me.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t deny it. One corner of his mouth curled small, almost fond.

“I will,” he said simply. No apology. No justification. Just truth laid bare between you like an offering.

Then quieter, almost gentle: “You should follow through with something if you’ve made up your mind.”

The blade trembled. Your arm ached from holding it steady. This was it. The moment you had rehearsed in the dark, the righteous stroke that would end him, end the fear, end the slow unraveling of who you used to be.

You couldn’t.

The steel stayed pressed to his throat, but your fingers wouldn’t close. Wouldn’t push. Tears burned hot at the corners of your eyes; you hated them as much as you hated him.

His lower pair of hands moved first slow, carefully. Sliding up your arms until they settled on your shoulders. The grip was firm. Not bruising. Just enough to anchor you.

He shook you once—light, almost playful.

“Do it,” he said.

You couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe right.

“If I don’t kill you,” you managed at last, voice breaking, “you’ll harm more.”

Something flickered in his eyes— amusement, maybe, or recognition. Then motion.

In one fluid roll he flipped you.

The world tilted. Stone mat rushed up to meet your back. Air punched out of your lungs. He loomed above you now. He was massive and unyielding, entirely caging you beneath the breadth of his chest and the weight of four arms. One hand braced beside your head. Another pinned your waist to the mat, your trembling fingers keeping the blade trapped between your palm and his throat. The edge still kissed skin; a fresh bead of blood slid down to drip onto your collarbone, warm and slow.

He didn’t pull away.

Didn’t disarm you.

He simply looked down at you, his eyes half-lidded, mouth curved in that same unreadable almost-smile.

You stared up at him, chest heaving, the tanto still clutched in your shaking fingers, steel pressed firm to the pulse at his neck.

Neither of you moved.

The braziers crackled faintly in the silence.

Blood dripped.

And in the shadowed space between your bodies. He was close enough for you to feel every rise and fall of his breath against your skin and you both simply looked at each other, suspended on the razor’s edge of what came next.

His lower arms moved first, slowly. Wide palms broad and warm as they settled around your waist. Fingers splayed wide, thumbs brushing the dip just above your hipbones. He held you firmer then, not trapping, not bruising, just claiming the shape of you as though measuring how perfectly you fit in his grasp. The pressure was steady. Inescapable. Your yukata was already loosened from the roll, it slid higher under the coaxing slide of his hands. Silk whispered against skin until cool air kissed the bare curve of your thighs, the soft swell of your hips, the vulnerable heat between them.

You were bare underneath.

He was bare too.

The realization hit like a struck bell: the hard, thickening length of him—two cocks, heavy and hot pressed flush against the slick seam of your cunt. No fabric between you now. Just skin on skin. The blunt heads nudged against your folds with every shallow breath he took, smearing warmth, promising stretch, promising ruin. Your body clenched on nothing; a shameful pulse of wet heat answered him before your mind could catch up.

It was too much.

Too aware.

Too close.

He never looked away.

Those four crimson eyes held yours, unblinking-unhurried— watching every flicker of defeat cross your face. Your lips parted on shallow pants. Tears clung to your lashes. The tanto still trembled in your grip, edge kissing the steady throb at his throat, but the fight had bled out of your arm. You looked small beneath him. Broken open. Waiting.

He leaned forward until his mouth hovered a breath from yours.

“Stupid girl,” he murmured, voice gravel-rough and almost tender.

Then he kissed you.

Slow.

Sweetly.

His lips caught yours with a gentleness that felt obscene coming from him a soft press, slow drag. His tongue tracing the seam of your mouth until you opened for him on instinct. He sucked at your lower lip, gentle pull that drew a broken sound from your throat. One of his upper hands cradled the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, tilting you deeper into the kiss while his lower hands pushed the yukata higher still, to bare the soft plane of your stomach, the undersides of your breasts, every inch of skin he could reach.

He moaned into your mouth low and hungry, it vibrated through your chest.

The blade slipped.

Your fingers loosened. The tanto fell from your grasp, clattering sharp against the stone floor somewhere to the side. Forgotten.

Then your now empty hand rose instead, hesitant and trembling and unsure, until your fingers found the nape of his neck. Tangled in the coarse silk of his hair. Pulled.

Not away.

Closer.

You arched beneath him without meaning to, breasts brushing the hard planes of his chest, cunt sliding slick against the underside of one thick cock. The friction dragged a whimper past your lips; he swallowed it, tongue stroking deeper, tasting the salt of your tears and the faint sweetness still lingering from the rice he’d fed you nights before.

His lower hands tightened on your waist, his thumbs stroking slow circles over your hipbones. Keeping you pinned, keeping you open, keeping you his.

He broke the kiss only long enough to drag his mouth along your jaw, down the column of your throat where his lips felt your pulse flutter against it. His tongue flicked over the skin there, tasting your defiance turned to surrender.

You shuddered.

Your fingers tightened in his hair.

And beneath him, bare and trembling, you stopped pretending you wanted anything else.

His lower hands tightened on your hips, thick fingers digging into soft flesh just enough to bruise tomorrow and he rocked you forward in a slow, steady grind. Your slick cunt dragged along the thick undersides of his cocks, parting around them, coating them in the shameful evidence of your want. The friction was obscene: hot, slippery, relentless. Every slide nudged the swollen heads against your clit before gliding back, teasing without entering, promising everything and giving nothing yet.

A raw and broken moan tore from your throat in an entirely involuntary rush. You couldn’t swallow it down. Couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there.

He exhaled against your skin, a low, pleased rumble that vibrated through your ribs.

“That’s it,” he murmured, voice thick with dark satisfaction. “So wet for me, doll… so wet already.”

The words landed like a brand. You swallowed hard, throat clicking, but your arms only wound tighter around his neck, your fingers knotting in his hair, nails scraping scalp as though you needed to anchor yourself to the very thing destroying you. Your thighs trembled where they bracketed his waist; your hips jerked once on their own, chasing the pressure before shame could catch up.

He kissed down the column of your throat, slow and open-mouthed, then lower still. His mouth found the soft swell of your breasts, tongue flicking once over one peaked nipple before he closed his lips around it. Sucked. Hard. The wet pull drew a sharp gasp from you; your back arched off the mat, offering more without meaning to. He switched to the other, teeth grazing just enough to sting before soothing with slow, languid licks. Your nipples throbbed under the attention, so sensitive and aching now flushed dark from his mouth.

One of his upper hands slid down the inside of your thigh, palm rough and warm, pushing your leg wider. Then the other was spreading you open until the cool air of the chamber kissed the slick heat between your thighs. Exposed. Vulnerable. His cocks slotted perfectly now, the thick lengths gliding through your folds, the blunt heads catching on your clit with every roll of his hips. Harder. Faster. The rhythm built until wet sounds filled the quiet room: your arousal, his low groans, the slick slide of skin on skin.

A high and helpless whimper escaped your lips, lifting your hips to meet him, cunt clenching around nothing, desperate for more than friction. Tears slipped free again, sliding down your temples into your hair, but they weren’t from fear this time. Not entirely.

He lifted his head just enough to watch your face, with eyes half-lidded, mouth wet and swollen from kissing you earlier. One hand came up to thumb away a tear, almost gentle.

“Look at you,” he rasped, rocking you harder against him, letting you feel every ridged inch of him glide over your clit. “Already dripping. Already begging without saying the word.”

Your breath hitched. Your fingers dug deeper into his shoulders.

He leaned in again, his mouth brushing yours, not quite kissing, just breathing you in.

“Say it,” he murmured against your lips. “Tell me what you want, little faithful. Or I’ll keep you right here teasing your eager cunt, until you cry for it.”

Your thighs shook. Your cunt pulsed. The heat between you was unbearable now so wet, achingly unbearable.

And still he waited with slow patients, rocking you slow and filthy along the length of him. Watching every flicker of surrender cross your face.

You broke first.

The words slipped out on a trembling exhale, soft and fractured that was barely louder than a whisper. “Please…”

It wasn’t surrender spoken in anger. It was need, raw and stripped bare, voice cracking on the single syllable like glass under pressure. Your thighs shook where they cradled his hips; your fingers clenched in his hair so tight it pulled at the roots. You were shaking apart beneath him, cunt fluttering uselessly against the slow, torturous glide of his cocks along your folds, and still he waited. Watching you succumb. Drinking in the way defeat looked on your face when it finally wore your pride thin.

His mouth curved against your temple, almost gentle.

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he murmured, voice low and thick with something darker than amusement. “I’ll fill you up.”

He shifted then in a slow and purposeful motion, aligning the thicker of his two cocks with your entrance. The blunt, leaking head nudged past your folds, parting slick lips that had never known anything but empty ache. You were untouched. Virgin. He could feel it in every instinctive clench, every flutter of your inner walls trying to decide whether to push him out or pull him deeper. Your body was too eager and too overwhelmed, tight untrained muscles fluttering wildly around the intrusion before he’d even breached you properly.

He kissed you again, deeper this time. His lips pressed more firmly, tongue sliding slow and possessive against yours, swallowing the small, helpless sounds that spilled from your throat as he began to press forward.

The fat tip breached you.

Your cunt squeezed hard, reflexive and impossibly tight around the sheer size of him. A sharp, startled cry muffled against his mouth. He groaned low in his chest at the resistance, at the velvet heat clamping down like it wanted to strangle him already. Precum smeared inside you, thick and hot, easing the way just enough that he could inch forward another fraction. Your walls fluttered desperately around the fat crown trying to accommodate the sheer size of it. Failing and trying desperately again. Too much. Too full already and he’d barely started.

He held your hips steady with his lower hands, thumbs stroking soothing circles over the sensitive skin just above your mound while one upper hand cradled the back of your neck, keeping your mouth locked to his. The other braced beside your head, caging you without crushing.

“Relax,” he rasped against your lips, voice rough with restraint. “Breathe for me, doll. You’re taking it so well already.”

Another slow push.

Your back arched off the mat, a sharp gasp tearing free as another inch sank in. The stretch burned sweet, aching and so overwhelming. Your cunt spasming around him, milking the thick head like it couldn’t decide if it hated or craved the invasion. Tears slipped hot down your cheeks; he licked them away without breaking the kiss, tasting salt and surrender.

He didn’t rush.

He rocked into you with tiny, shallow thrusts working the his fat tip deeper with every careful roll of his hips, letting your body adjust inch by torturous inch. Your nails raked down his shoulders; your thighs trembled wide around him. The second cock laid against your cunt, still hard and heavy, it dragged along your clit with every motion, smearing slick, keeping the pleasure sharp and constant even as the stretch threatened to undo you.

You whimpered into his mouth a high and broken but there was neediness layered in.

He swallowed it.

Pressed deeper.

Your cunt yielded another reluctant inch for him, your walls fluttering, squeezing then fluttering again, your walls clinged to him so tightly he had to grit his teeth against the urge to slam home. Not yet. Not when you were still trembling like this, still so sweetly overwhelmed, still giving him every fractured sound and shudder.

He broke the kiss only to drag his mouth to your ear.

“Good girl,” he breathed, voice wrecked with want. “Let me in. Let me fill that tight little cunt the way it’s begging to be filled.”

Another slow, relentless push.

Your body opened a little, just barely around the thickest part of him.

And still he kept going in slow patient amd mercilessly trusts, determined to bury every inch until you were stuffed full and weeping for more.

Too big.

The thought looped through your mind like a broken sutra, too big, too big, too big as the thick head of his cock sank deeper, stretching you beyond what felt possible. Your walls fluttered wildly around him, spasming in protest and pleasure both, forced to yield inch by merciless inch. He swelled inside you, filling you up up up until every shallow breath pushed your belly taut, until you could feel the blunt pressure of him high against the deepest place inside.

Your body had no choice but to mould itself around him.

Soft inner walls reshaped themselves to the heavy ridge of his cock, clenching desperately, fluttering around him trying to push him out and pull him deeper all at once. He pushed in again slowly and relentless, and your cunt gave another reluctant inch, the stretch burning sweet and sharp until tears spilled freely down your cheeks. He was rearranging you from the inside, carving space where there had been none, claiming every fluttering inch as his.

The fat head kissed your cervix properly then, it pressed harder. You gasped, high and startled, hips jerking uselessly beneath him. He didn’t stop. Another shallow thrust and the tight ring of muscle yielded fully opening for him like it had been waiting, like your body had always known it would bend to this. He bottomed out with a low groan that vibrated through your joined bodies, cock buried to the hilt, pulsing hot against the deepest part of you.

“So tight,” he rasped against your throat, voice wrecked with restraint. “Look at you… taking it all. Opening right up for me like a good little thing.”

You whimpered softly, overwhelmed by the feeling, your nails digging crescent moons into his shoulders. Your cunt clenched hard around him, milking the thick length instinctively, every spasm dragging a rough sound from his chest. He stayed still for a long moment, letting you feel every inch, every throb, every vein. Letting your body adjust to the brutal fullness.

His second cock was still hard, still leaking as it dragged heavy along your clit with every tiny shift of his hips, smearing precum and your slick in filthy streaks. He could imagine it: both cocks splitting you open, stretching your poor cunt until it gaped around him, until you sobbed from the overstimulation alone. The thought made his hips twitch forward once sharp and involuntary, bumping your cervix again and drawing a choked cry from your lips.

But not yet.

He wasn’t going to force it. Not tonight.

He wanted to work this tight little cunt open on one first, to train it to take him properly, to crave the stretch, to weep and flutter every time he sank in deep. He rolled his hips in slow, grinding circles. Keeping himself buried to the root while the blunt head rubbed insistently against that sensitive inner spot. Your thighs shook around his waist; your breath came in ragged little pants.

He kissed you again messy, open-mouthed. Swallowing every broken sound from your quivering lips as he began to move.

Shallow thrusts at first, barely pulling out before sliding back in, letting your walls cling desperately to every retreating inch. Then deeper. Harder. Each stroke dragged along your fluttering walls, bumping your cervix, forcing it to soften further under the relentless pressure until it kissed the tip of him like a welcome.

Your body trembled beneath him, you were sweat-slick, overstimulated and utterly full. Your cunt squeezed him like a vice wet and hot around him but greedy now, coating him in slick that dripped down to soak the mat beneath you.

He groaned low into your mouth.

“That’s it,” he murmured, hips snapping onc deeper, it felt punishing, made your back arch and your toes curl. “Let it open for me, doll. Let me ruin this pretty cunt until it only knows my shape.”

Another thrust, harder still. Your cervix yielding completely now, letting him grind against the deepest place inside you.

You sobbed against his lips, the pleasure and pain blurring into something white-hot and overwhelming.

And yet still he moved slow when you needed slow, hard when your body begged for it. Working you open, reshaping you, claiming you until there was nothing left but the slick slide of him inside you and the broken, needy sounds spilling from your throat.

Fuck, it was so sloppy.

The way your cunt finally gave in and opened wide and wet and greedy around the thick length of him, cunt making obscene, slick sounds with every slow withdrawal and deeper plunge. Your walls clung desperately, fluttering and spasming, coated in a thick sheen of your own arousal that dripped down his shaft, down your thighs, soaking the mat beneath you in dark, glistening patches. No resistance left. Just raw, yielding heat that swallowed him whole every time he sank back in.

He watched it happen.

Watched the way your soft belly began to bulge properly now, unmistakably every time he bottomed out. The fat head of his cock pressed high against your cervix, then higher still, stretching your insides until the outline of him showed beneath your skin. A slow, obscene swell that rose just below your navel, then receded slightly when he pulled back, only to bloom again with the next deep thrust. He could see it. Feel it. The way your body reshaped itself around him, forced to accommodate every ridged inch until the shape of his cock was etched into your flesh.

He was mesmerised.

One of his upper hands left the mat and slid down, his palm broad and warm. His hand settled right over that curious swell. Fingers splayed wide, pressing gently at first, then firmer, feeling the hard length of himself moving beneath the soft layer of your stomach. He groaned low in his throat with rough, reverence. Hips stuttering once at the sensation.

“Look at that,” he rasped, voice thick with dark wonder. “Look how full you are, doll. Look how your little cunt bulges for me.”

You whimpered high and helpless, your head tipping back against the mat, tears slipping sideways into your hair. The pressure of his hand only made it worse, made you feel every inch more vividly, every throb, every slow grind against that deep, sensitive place inside. Your walls clenched hard around him in response; slick gushed anew, coating him, easing the next brutal slide home.

He rocked deeper but deliberately now. Watching the swell rise and fall beneath his palm like he was mapping new territory. His thumb traced the outline once slow, it felt possessive, larger fingers following the exact ridge of his cock as it pressed outward. Another groan tore from him, low and wrecked.

“Fuck,” he breathed, almost to himself. “I could watch this forever. Watch you take me… watch this pretty belly swell every time I fill you up.”

He leaned down, his mouth finding yours again, messy and hungry, kissing you through the next deep thrust that made the bulge bloom higher. His lower hands gripped your hips tighter, angling you just right so every stroke dragged along that spot that made your thighs shake and your cunt flutter wildly.

You sobbed into his mouth overwhelmed and overstuffed on his cock, ruined in the sweetest way, your nails still raking down his back as your body surrendered completely.

He didn’t speed up.

He kept it slow, torturously slow. Savoring every sloppy, wet slide, every visible proof of how thoroughly he was claiming you. Hand still pressed to your belly. Eyes fixed on the swell. Mesmerised by the sight of his own cock reshaping you from the inside out.

And still he moved against you deeper. Watching and feeling you. Owning every trembling inch of the faithful girl who had once held a blade to his throat.

Now you only held him. Deep you felt him, tummy bulging with how big he is, you felt full. Claimed and utterly his in this moment.

The wet noises filled the chamber were filthy and unmistakable. Every deep plunge of his cock dragged slick sounds from your stretched cunt: the lewd squelch of your walls clinging desperately to him, the wet slap of skin meeting skin, the obscene drip of your arousal coating his shaft and pooling beneath you. No hiding it. No pretending this wasn’t happening. Your body sang for him in every sloppy, soaked rhythm.

He fucked deeper into you now, faster. His lower hands locked around your waist like iron bands, holding you steady while he pulled you down hard onto every thick inch. The force of it jolted through you: cervix kissed roughly with each snap of his hips, the bulge in your belly rising sharp and obscene every time he bottomed out. Your thighs trembled uselessly around him; your nails raked red lines down his back. You couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe right. Only felt full, stretched and utterly claimed.

His second cock, still untouched against you dragged heavy and hot along your clit with every brutal thrust. The fat, leaking tip slid over the swollen bud in perfect, relentless friction: up when he pulled back, down when he slammed home. Edging you mercilessly. Building the pressure until your whole body wound tight, thighs shaking, cunt fluttering wildly around the cock already buried to the hilt.

“Fuuuck, look at you,” he growled against your throat, voice wrecked and reverent. “Taking it so deep… dripping everywhere… gonna cum for me, aren’t you, doll?”

You couldn’t answer. Only whimpered high, broken and needy, as the dual assault pushed you higher. The thick length inside you grinding against every sensitive spot; the second cock rubbing filthy circles over your clit until sparks burst behind your eyes.

Then it hit.

Hard.

Your cunt clamped down like a vice. Cunt spasming wildly and milking him in violent waves as you came undone around the fat cock splitting you open. A sob tore from your throat; your back arched off the mat, hips jerking uncontrollably as pleasure ripped through you in white-hot pulses. Slick gushed around him hot and messily coated his shaft, dripping down to slick the second cock still teasing your oversensitive clit. Your walls fluttered and squeezed, greedy and relentless, trying to pull him deeper even as your body shook apart.

He groaned low, almost sounding pained. His hips stuttering once at the sudden, brutal grip of your orgasm. His fingers dug harder into your waist, holding you pinned as he fucked you through it: short, punishing thrusts that dragged every last tremor from your cunt, making the bulge in your belly pulse with every slam.

“That’s it,” he rasped, mouth brushing your ear, voice thick with dark satisfaction. “Cum all over my cock… make it sloppy… make it yours.”

You shuddered, the aftershocks rolling through you. Hot tears now slipping down your cheeks as your cunt kept fluttering around him, still so full, still so stretched, still weeping slick with every slow grind he gave you now.

He didn’t stop moving.

Didn’t pull out.

Just kept you impaled deep on him, steadily watching your face with half-lidded eyes as your body trembled in the aftermath, the second cock still dragging lazy, teasing strokes over your throbbing clit.

Ready.

Patient.

Waiting to see how much more his sweet, ruined faithful could take.

He fucked into your creaming cunt with purpose now, his deep, punishing strokes that slapped wet and filthy against your thighs every time he bottomed out. Your slick had turned thick and white around his shaft, frothing at the base with every brutal plunge, coating him in creamy evidence of how thoroughly your body had surrendered. The bulge in your belly pulsed visibly with each thrust, rising sharp when he buried himself to the hilt, receding only to bloom again as he dragged back and slammed forward. Your walls fluttered helplessly around him, milking greedily, still spasming from the orgasm that had ripped through you moments before.

He groaned low, his voice was wrecked and ragged, his hips now snapping harder with speed. Chasing the tight, wet heat that gripped him like it never wanted to let go.

“Fuuuck look at this messy little pussy,” he rasped, one hand still pressed to the swell of your stomach, feeling himself move beneath your skin. “Creaming all over my cock… taking it so deep… gonna fill you up, doll. Gonna stuff this cunt so full you’ll feel me for days.”

Your head thrashed against the mat, fat tears streaming down, your mouth opened on broken moans you couldn’t swallow down. Your nails dug into his shoulders; your thighs trembled wide and useless around his waist. Every thrust knocked the air from your lungs, bumped your cervix, ground the fat head against that spot inside until stars burst behind your eyes again.

He was close.

You could feel it, the way his cocks throbbed heavier inside and against you, the way his rhythm stuttered, the low growl building in his chest. His lower hands clamped down on your hips, bruising and possessive. Sukuna yanked you down hard onto every upward snap as he fucked his way toward release.

Then it hit him.

A rough, guttural sound tore from his throat. Half growl, half moan as he slammed in one final time, burying himself to the root. His cock pulsed violently inside you, swelling thicker still, and then he came..hot and it felt endless inside of you.

Rope after thick rope flooded your fluttering pussy, his hot cum spurting deep against your cervix, filling you so fast, so much, that your walls couldn’t contain it all. Your cunt clenched reflexively around the invasion, milking him greedily, but there was too much. It leaked out around his shaft in creamy white streaks, dripping down to soak the mat, yet still he kept pumping his cum deeper. His hips grinding in slow, deep circles now, forcing every last drop higher inside you.

Your belly swelled visibly, bloating with the sheer volume of his release. The bulge that had once only shown his cock now rounded softer, fuller, stretching your skin taut as cum packed your womb and pussy full. You whimpered overstimulated, overwhelmed. Feeling the obscene pressure build inside, the heavy slosh of it every time he shifted even slightly.

He stayed buried deep, his cock still twitching, still leaking the last weak spurts inside you, while one hand slid up to cup the new, soft swell of your lower belly. Fingers splayed wide, pressing gently, feeling the warmth and fullness he’d forced into you.

“Fuck,” he breathed, voice low and reverent, eyes fixed on the way your cunt bulged around him, lips stretched tight, creamy cum seeping out in slow, thick rivulets. “Look at you… stuffed so full… bloating with my cum like a perfect little vessel.”

You shuddered beneath him, body trembling, your cunt still fluttering weakly around the thick length keeping you plugged with his cum. Tears slipped hot down your cheeks; your breath came in shallow, hiccuping pants.

He leaned down, mouth brushing your ear, voice dark and satisfied.

“You’re mine now,” he murmured, hips giving one last lazy roll that made more cum leak out around him. “Every inch… every drop… every swell. All mine.”

And still he didn’t pull out.

Just stayed seated deep letting you feel the heavy, warm weight of him inside, the obscene bloat of your belly, the slow drip of his seed claiming you from the inside out while the braziers flickered low and the fortress held its breath around the ruined faithful girl who had finally, completely, fallen.

The chamber settled into a heavy, humid quiet.

Only the low crackle of dying braziers and the uneven rhythm of your shared breathing remained. Your body felt foreign. Softened, swollen, reshaped from the inside out. His cock still rested deep inside you, softening slowly but not withdrawing, keeping every thick drop of his release plugged tight where it belonged. The obscene bloat in your lower belly had settled into a warm, heavy fullness that shifted with every shallow inhale. When you moved even slightly, you could feel the slow, lazy slosh of cum deep within you. It was thick, warm and still too much to be contained.

A faint trickle escaped anyway, creamy white slipping from where your stretched lips clung to the base of his shaft, sliding down the cleft of your ass to pool beneath you on the already ruined mat. The scent of it filled the air: musky, salty, unmistakably him. Mixed with the sharp tang of your own release. It clung to your thighs, your skin, your hair. There was no escaping it.

You lay limp beneath him, your limbs heavy and trembling faintly in aftershocks. Your cunt throbbed around the softening length still buried inside, fluttering weakly every few heartbeats like it couldn’t decide whether to mourn the stretch or beg for more. Tears had dried on your cheeks, leaving salty tracks; your lips felt swollen from his kisses, bruised and tingling.

He hadn’t moved much.

One lower hand stayed splayed over the soft swell of your abdomen, his palm warm. One thick thumb tracing idle, slow circles over the place where his cum had bloated you full. The other lower hand rested at the small of your back, holding you arched just enough to keep him seated deep. His upper arms braced on either side of your head, caging without crushing, while his face hovered close, his breath warm against your temple.

He watched you.

Not with hunger now. Not with that predatory gleam. Something quieter. Almost contemplative.

His thumb pressed once, gently against the rounded curve of your belly. You whimpered at the pressure; more cum leaked out in a slow, warm trickle. He exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh.

“Still leaking,” he murmured, voice low and rough from exertion. “Even plugged like this… your greedy little cunt can’t hold it all.”

You swallowed. Throat raw. No words came.

He shifted up slow, pulling back just enough that the fat head dragged along your oversensitive walls. You gasped sharp, startled as another thick gush of cum followed the motion, spilling free in a messy rush. Your thighs trembled; your hips jerked involuntarily.

He stilled again. Didn’t pull out completely.

Just watched the way your body reacted, how your cunt clenched around nothing now that he’d eased back an inch, how more of his seed dripped out in slow, obscene rivulets.

One hand slid up and cupped your cheek. Thumb brushing away the last damp track of tears.

“You took it well,” he said. Simple. Almost soft. “Took every drop. Look at you… all swollen and full. Marked inside and out.”

Your breath hitched.

He leaned down and pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth. Not demanding. Not claiming. Just there.

Then he finally began to ease out.

Inch by torturous inch.

Your walls fluttered desperately around the retreating length clinging and fluttering, trying to keep him inside even now. When the head finally slipped free with a wet pop, a fresh flood followed thick and hot, pouring from your gaping cunt in a slow, creamy cascade. It soaked your thighs, the mat, everything beneath you. Your belly deflated slightly as the pressure eased, but the fullness lingered: a deep, aching warmth that pulsed with every heartbeat.

You whimpered again, the sound even more small and broken, legs falling open wider on instinct as your body tried to adjust to the sudden emptiness.

He stayed above you, watching silently.

One hand dipped between your thighs, then two thick fingers sliding easily through the mess, gathering the slick mix of cum and your release before pushing back inside. Slow. Deep. Plugging you again with just his fingers while the rest continued to leak around them.

“Shh,” he murmured when you shuddered. “Keep it in. Let it settle.”

His fingers curled once to press against that spot inside that made your hips twitch again, then they stilled.

He withdrew them slowly. Brought them to his mouth. Licked them clean with deliberate swipes of his tongue, his eyes never leaving yours.

Then he gathered you.

Four arms moved at once, lifting you effortlessly, cradling you against his chest as though you weighed nothing. Your head lolled against his shoulder; your legs draped limp over one arm. Cum still dripped from between your thighs, warm trails sliding down his skin now too.

He carried you to the alcove where the wooden tub still waited, water long cooled but clean. Uraume had prepared it earlier, before everything unraveled.

He lowered you into it carefully.

The water stung at first, cool against fever-hot skin, then it soothed. He knelt at the edge, one hand supporting your neck so your head rested against the rim, the other dipping beneath the surface to cup water and rinse the mess from your thighs, your folds, your belly.

Gentle.

Methodical.

He washed you like something precious. Something his.

When the water turned cloudy with the evidence of what he’d done, he lifted you out again and wrapped you in a thick, dry cloth, carried you back to the mat (a fresh one already laid out; Uraume was nothing if not efficient).

He laid you down. Pulled the thin cover over your trembling body.

Then he stretched out beside you. Close always close, with one arm draped over your waist, palm settling once more over the soft, lingering swell of your lower belly.

“Sleep,” he said against your hair. Voice low. Quiet. “You’ll need it.”

Your eyes fluttered shut, exhaustion crashing over you like a wave.

The last thing you felt was the steady rise and fall of his chest at your back, the warmth of his hand cradling the place he had filled, claimed, ruined, and somehow kept.

The flood had passed.

But the aftermath lingered, with you. You'd never been this close to being worshiped, oh how the roles were reversed and he would always keep you tethering between God and him.

Waking up felt entirely new after being so thoroughly claimed.

Your body no longer belonged only to you. Every slow breath reminded you of the night before in vivid, aching detail. Between your thighs your pussy throbbed with a deep, sweet pain that radiated outward from the very center of your cunt all the way into your womb. 

The soft folds were swollen and tender, still slick with the remnants of everything he had pumped into you. Your inner walls felt stretched and sensitive, fluttering around nothing yet remembering exactly how it had felt to be split open and filled beyond capacity. 

Your stomach carried a lingering heaviness, a warm fullness that made your lower belly feel softly rounded and claimed, as if his cum still sat heavy inside you even after the slow leak that had happened during the night.

You awoke first.

The chamber was dim, lit only by the faint glow of embers that had burned low through the hours. Cool morning air drifted in through the narrow slits high in the stone walls. Ryomen Sukuna lay asleep beside you, his massive frame taking up most of the wide mat. 

One of his lower arms was still draped heavily across your waist, palm resting possessively over the gentle swell of your abdomen where he had pressed so many times the night before. His breathing was deep and even, chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm that you could feel against your back. Two of his eyes were closed in true sleep while the other pair remained half lidded in that strange way of his, as though even unconscious he refused to be entirely vulnerable.

You could not sleep any longer.

The intensity of every sensation kept your mind spinning. You wanted to push him off, to scramble away from the heat of his body and the weight of his claim, to reclaim some small piece of the girl who had once knelt quietly in a temple. 

Your hands twitched with the urge. Yet when you shifted slightly, the solid warmth of him pressed closer instead of repelling you. His arm felt strangely comforting in the quiet dawn, heavy and steady like an anchor keeping you from drifting into panic. The scent of him clung to your skin, musk and smoke and something darker that made your pulse flutter even as shame burned in your cheeks.

Instead of shoving his hand away you reached down slowly and wrapped your fingers around his much larger one. You lifted it carefully and pressed his palm flat against your chest, right over the frantic racing of your heart. The contact was warm, rough, grounding. 

Your heart hammered harder beneath his touch, wild and unsteady, begging for something you could not name. You wanted it to stop, wanted the frantic beat to quiet so you could think clearly again, so you could remember how to hate him properly.

He stirred.

Not fully awake yet, but aware enough. His fingers flexed once against your skin, then pressed harder, spreading wide so the heel of his palm rested firmly over your racing heart while his fingertips brushed the upper swell of your breast. The increased pressure stole your breath. A soft gasp slipped from your lips as the weight of his hand grounded the frantic flutter inside your chest.

He opened his eyes the rest of the way, crimson gaze settling on your face in the dim light. His voice came low and rough with sleep, rumbling through the quiet space between you.

“Does that feel better?”

You could only nod, small and shaky, unable to form words. Fresh tears slipped free from the corners of your eyes, sliding silently down your temples and into your hair. They were not from pain or fear this time, but from the overwhelming tangle of sensations and emotions you could no longer separate. The sweet ache between your thighs, the heavy fullness low in your belly, the comforting press of his hand over your heart, the way his body still curved protectively around yours even in half sleep. Everything felt too much and somehow not enough all at once.

He didn't pull away.

Instead he kept his palm exactly where you had placed it, pressing with steady, reassuring strength while his thumb brushed once, almost tenderly, along the curve of your collarbone. His other arms remained relaxed around you, one still cradling your waist, the rest loose but close.

You lay there in the quiet morning light, heart still racing beneath his touch, tears slipping free, pussy throbbing with the intimate memory of how deeply he had claimed you, stomach full and warm with the evidence of his release. And for the first time since he had carried you from the burning temple you did not try to run from the monster who held you.

You simply held his hand tighter to your chest and let the tears fall.

As the tears continued to fall your breathing slowly evened out once more. Exhaustion pulled you under again, your body surrendering to sleep despite the lingering ache and the storm of feelings swirling inside your chest. Your lashes fluttered once then stilled, cheeks still damp, lips slightly parted on a soft exhale. 

The morning light filtering through the narrow slits in the stone walls painted gentle shadows across your face, highlighting the faint redness around your eyes and the way your brows had relaxed in unconscious rest.

Sukuna remained awake, propped on one elbow, four eyes fixed on you with an unusual stillness. He never wondered how he made anyone feel. Pain was something he understood perfectly well, something he could cause with casual ease and never lose sleep over. He had spilled rivers of blood without a second thought, had watched villages burn and priests scream and never once asked himself if his victims hated him in their final moments. Their pain simply existed because he decided it should.

Yet now he found himself watching the slow rise and fall of your chest and wondering.

Were you in pain because of him?

Not the sweet ache between your thighs or the heavy fullness still settled low in your belly, those he expected and even took quiet pride in. But something deeper. Did you hate him now, truly hate him, after he had taken you so completely? After he had spread you open beneath the monster who had ripped you from everything you once held sacred? After he had flooded your untouched cunt until your stomach swelled with his cum and your voice broke on moans you could not hold back?

His fingers moved without conscious thought, the rough pad of one thumb tracing the glistening path of a tear that had slipped down your temple. The skin there was soft, still warm from sleep and emotion. You looked tired in a way that went beyond the night’s exertions. A little more delicate, perhaps, the faithful servant girl who had once knelt in prayer now lying claimed and tear-streaked in the bed of the King of Curses.

And yet.

He remembered how you had pulled him closer.

When the blade had clattered to the floor your hand had risen not to push him away but to tangle in his hair and tug him down into the kiss. You had arched beneath him, thighs spreading wider, cunt clenching greedily around the thick cock that split you open. Even at the height of your surrender you had chosen to draw him in rather than shove him out.

That had to mean something.

If you had truly wanted him gone you would have pushed when the knife dropped. You would have fought when he rolled you beneath him. Instead you had whimpered into his mouth, nails raking down his back, hips lifting to meet every deep thrust until you came hard around him and then again when he flooded you full.

His thumb brushed another tear away, slower this time, almost careful.

He studied the relaxed lines of your face, the way your lashes cast faint shadows on your cheeks, the subtle parting of your lips. The hand you had pressed to your own chest still rested beneath his palm, your heartbeat steadier now in sleep but still quick enough that he could feel it. He did not move his hand. The weight seemed to comfort you even unconscious, and for reasons he did not bother examining he found he liked keeping it there.

Sukuna shifted slightly closer, careful not to wake you, letting the heat of his body wrap around yours once more. One of his lower arms remained draped across your waist, palm resting lightly over the soft swell of your belly where his claim still lingered warm and heavy inside you.

He watched you sleep for a long time, tracing idle patterns along your tear-damp cheek with the gentlest touch he had ever allowed himself. The questions lingered in the back of his mind, unfamiliar and strangely persistent.

Pain?

Hate?

Or something else entirely that had made a temple girl pull a monster closer instead of driving him away?

For the first time in his long, bloody existence Ryomen Sukuna did not have an immediate answer.

And so he simply lay there, holding you, watching the slow rhythm of your breathing, wondering quietly what it meant that you had chosen to keep his hand against your racing heart instead of pushing it away.

Daylight brought no mercy.

When you woke the second time the chamber was brighter, pale morning light spilling through the high slits and painting long stripes across the stone floor. Your body ached in ways you had never imagined possible. Every small movement sent fresh waves of soreness through your core. Sitting up hurt. The simple act of shifting your weight made the tender muscles between your thighs protest sharply, a deep, dull throb that radiated outward from your swollen pussy all the way into your womb. Your lower belly still carried that heavy, warm fullness, a constant reminder of how thoroughly he had flooded you. Even the soft silk of the yukata brushing against your skin felt too much against the sensitive folds that had been stretched and used so relentlessly the night before.

You moved slowly, carefully, wincing as you rose from the mat. Standing hurt. Walking hurt. The ache pulsed with every step, a sweet, shameful reminder that your body had been claimed and reshaped by the King of Curses. Shame burned hot in your cheeks. You felt weak for the way your cunt still fluttered faintly at the memory, for the way a fresh trickle of his dried cum clung to your inner thighs when you moved. You told yourself it was only pain. Only the aftermath of violence. Yet your mind kept drifting back to the heat of his hands, the low rumble of his voice, the way he had held you afterward.

Sukuna did not crowd you.

He sat across the chamber on the wide ledge by the window, one knee drawn up, four arms resting loosely. He watched you but did not rise. Did not approach. Did not speak. There was deliberate space between you now, an invisible line he refused to cross. He wanted you to come to him if you needed anything. He wanted you to choose, even in this small thing. After taking everything else he could at least grant you the right to decide when you sought his presence. He would not rob you of that last fragile scrap of agency.

You felt the absence of him immediately.

At first you told yourself it was relief. You busied your hands folding the thin cover on the mat, smoothing wrinkles that did not exist, avoiding his gaze. But the longer the silence stretched the more your body betrayed you. A quiet longing bloomed beneath the shame and the pain. You missed the solid heat of his frame behind you. Missed the weight of his arm across your waist. Missed the strange comfort of his palm pressed over your racing heart. The realization made fresh shame flood your chest. How could you want the monster who had burned your temple and stolen you away? How could you crave the very hands that had spread you open and filled you until you bulged with his release?

You felt too weak for wanting him.

When it came time to dress you turned your back to him completely. Your fingers trembled as you slipped out of the night yukata and into a fresh one, trying to hide the marks he had left on your skin, the faint bruises on your hips where his fingers had gripped, the soft swell of your belly that had not yet returned to its usual flatness. You kept your shoulders hunched, arms crossed over your chest, shrinking into yourself as though you could disappear from his sight if you made yourself small enough.

He saw every motion.

He saw the way you hid yourself from his gaze, the deliberate angle of your body, the nervous hunch of your shoulders. Something tight and unpleasant twisted in his chest at the sight. He did not like it. Not one bit. The faithful girl who had once met his eyes with trembling defiance now curled away from him like a wounded animal. But he made no comment. He did not rise. He did not reach for you. He simply watched in silence, jaw tight, four eyes narrowed with an emotion he refused to name.

The distance stretched between you, heavy and unspoken.

You finished tying the sash with shaking hands and stood there, back still turned, heart hammering against your ribs. Pain pulsed between your thighs with every heartbeat. Shame burned in your veins. And beneath it all, quiet and insistent, the growing need to cross the chamber and seek the very monster who had caused it all.

Sukuna waited.

Patient.

Silent.

Wondering how long it would take before the girl who had pulled him closer in the dark would choose to come to him again in the daylight.

The days that followed carried the same heavy ache between your thighs, a constant, throbbing reminder that refused to fade.

When you bathed alone in the wooden tub, the warm water only made everything more obvious. Your pussy had become a terrible, swollen mess. The outer lips were puffy and sensitive, the inner folds still slick with an unusual, persistent wetness that had nothing to do with the bath. Your fingers slipped between your thighs almost without permission, parting the tender flesh to inspect the damage. Heat bloomed instantly at the lightest touch. Thick, creamy remnants of his cum still clung inside you, mixing with your own fresh slick until everything felt glossy and overheated. Every gentle press made your cunt flutter and leak a little more, the slickness coating your fingertips in a shameful sheen.

You hated how aware your body had become.

Your eyes kept drifting to him whenever he was near. You told yourself you were only looking, only noticing. But the stares lingered. Over the sharp lines of his face, the powerful set of his four arms, the broad expanse of his tattooed chest, the hard ridges of his abdomen. Then lower. Always lower. The heavy, intimidating weight between his thighs that you now knew so intimately. Your imagination supplied every detail without mercy: the thick veins, the way both cocks had throbbed against you, the brutal stretch, the endless flood that had left you bloated and dripping.

Your cunt clenched hard at the memory, another rush of slick slipping free to trail down your inner thigh. Shame burned so fiercely you had to turn away and press your forehead to the cool stone wall until the feeling passed. Your body knew exactly what it wanted now. Your pussy knew what it craved. The knowledge made you feel impossibly dirty, impossibly weak. You pushed the thoughts aside with gritted teeth and forced yourself to finish bathing.

Eventually the longing for the outside world grew stronger than the shame.

One quiet afternoon you finally gathered the courage to approach him. He was lounging on the wide ledge again, watching the horizon through the window slit. You kept your gaze lowered, voice small and hesitant.

“May I… go outside? Just for a little while. I miss the feel of grass beneath my feet. Sunlight on my skin. Fresh air.”

He studied you for a long moment, crimson eyes unreadable. Then he gave a single nod.

“I will take you.”

He did not make you walk far. He carried you most of the way, one set of arms cradling you against his chest while the others remained free. The journey ended at a secluded lakeside not far from the fortress cliffs. Tall reeds swayed gently at the water’s edge. Smooth rocks lined the shore, warmed by the sun. The air smelled of pine and clear water. Sunlight glittered across the lake’s surface like scattered jewels.

You had not asked for the lake specifically, but Sukuna had chosen it anyway, thinking the open view and soft grass might please you. He set you down on a broad, flat rock near the water and stepped back, giving you space once more.

At first it was perfect.

You closed your eyes, tilted your face toward the sun, and let the warmth sink into your skin. Bare feet pressed into cool grass. Fresh air filled your lungs. For a few blissful moments the constant ache between your thighs faded into the background.

Then you sat.

The moment your weight settled on the rock the soreness flared again. Your swollen pussy lips spread slightly against the smooth stone through the thin layers of your yukata. The unusual slickness that had been building all morning could no longer be contained. A warm trickle escaped, then another. You felt the wet heat seep out of you in slow, shameful pulses. Your cunt clenched uselessly around nothing, leaking more with every flutter. Within moments a small, glistening puddle had formed beneath you on the dark rock, catching the sunlight in a blatant, shiny evidence of your body’s betrayal.

You froze.

Heat flooded your face. You pressed your thighs together tightly, but the damage was already done. The puddle shimmered between your legs, unmistakable.

Sukuna noticed immediately.

He had been standing a few paces away, arms crossed, scanning the treeline out of habit. His gaze dropped to the rock beneath you. Four eyes narrowed, then darkened with recognition. The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile but something far more dangerous. He took one slow step closer, then another, until he loomed over you.

His voice came low, rough, and far too knowing.

“Look at that.”

He crouched, bringing himself eye level with the evidence. One large hand reached out, fingers hovering just above the glistening puddle without touching it.

“Still leaking for me, even out here in the sunlight. Your greedy little cunt doesn’t care where we are, does it?”

You couldn’t speak. Could only sit there burning with shame, the warm slick still slowly dripping from your swollen folds onto the rock while he watched every shameful drop with open, hungry fascination.

The lake sparkled innocently behind you.

The sun continued to shine.

But the ache between your thighs had just become impossible to ignore.

You stuttered the moment his words landed, voice cracking like thin ice.

“It is not… I did not mean…”

The denial died on your tongue. Heat crawled up your neck until your entire face burned. You swallowed once, twice, then forced the truth out in a trembling whisper.

“I have been… wetter there. Since that night. It will not stop.”

Sukuna’s smile widened, slow and wicked, four eyes gleaming with dark delight. He stayed crouched in front of you, one hand still hovering near the glistening puddle on the rock.

“Yes,” he drawled, voice low and teasing. “Why did you not tell me about that specifically earlier? I could have helped.”

You stared at him as though he had begun speaking in some ancient, forgotten tongue. Your mind refused to process the casual way he offered to fix the mess he had made between your thighs. The sheer audacity of it stole every thought from your head.

Tell him.

Tell the King of Curses that your pussy was a leaking, swollen, dripping mess because of him.

The words would not come. Humiliation crashed over you so violently that you twisted away, turning your back to him completely. Your shoulders hunched, arms wrapping tight around your middle as if you could hide the evidence of your body’s betrayal. Fresh tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. Your face felt scalding hot.

Behind you, Sukuna let out a soft, amused huff.

A big hand settled on your shoulder, warm and surprisingly gentle. The weight steadied you even as your heart hammered wildly. His fingers brushed upward, threading carefully through your hair, stroking slow and soothing from crown to nape.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he murmured, voice quieter now, almost tender. “Do not cry.”

You were mortified anyway. Tears slipped free despite his words, sliding down your flushed cheeks. Your swollen cunt continued to leak in slow, warm pulses, the slickness soaking through the thin fabric of your yukata and making the rock beneath you even wetter. Every tiny shift reminded you of the mess, of how your body refused to forget the way he had stretched and filled you.

Sukuna’s hand slid from your hair to cup your jaw, turning your face back toward him with careful insistence. His thumb brushed a tear away.

“Come on,” he said, the words rough but coaxing. “I can make it all better.”

He glanced around once, scanning the quiet lakeside until his gaze settled on a nice, soft patch of grass beneath a large pear tree. The branches hung heavy with white blossoms and early green fruit, casting dappled shade over the thick carpet of clover and soft earth. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in gentle golden patches. It looked peaceful. Private.

Without waiting for permission he scooped you up, four arms cradling you against his chest as though you weighed nothing. You gasped at the sudden movement, the ache between your thighs flaring sharply, another rush of slick escaping to smear warm and wet against his skin.

“Sukuna, what are you doing?” Your voice came out high and shaky. “Put me down!”

You had no idea what crazy idea had taken root in his head. Your heart hammered wildly as he carried you the short distance toward the pear tree. One of his upper hands came up to cup the back of your head, thumb stroking slow and soothing along your scalp.

“Do not make a fuss,” he said, low and calm, the words rumbling through his chest into yours.

Then you saw the tree.

He carried you beneath its wide, blossoming branches and lowered you carefully onto the soft grass. The ground was cool and yielding beneath your back, blades tickling your bare calves where the yukata had ridden up. Sukuna settled himself on the grass beside you, massive frame casting you in cool shadow. His big fingers brushed along your thigh, gentle but possessive, tracing the sensitive skin just below the hem of your robe.

You squirmed under his gaze, heat flooding every inch of you. He looked at you for a long moment, eyes dark and intent.

“You do trust me, right?”

The question caught you off guard. You nodded shyly, barely able to meet his eyes. The heat was unbearable now. Being held so close in his arms had stirred something deep and needy inside you. Whatever he was about to offer, your body already wanted it.

Sukuna knelt between your parted knees, his massive frame blocking out the sky. One of his lower hands rested on your thigh, thumb stroking slow, lazy circles over the tender flesh. His eyes never left your face.

“Lie back,” he told you, voice dropping into that low, commanding timbre that made your stomach flutter and your cunt clench. “Let me see how much of a leaking mess this pretty cunt has become for me.”

Your breath caught hard in your throat. Shame and desperate want twisted together so tightly you could barely breathe. But the gentle pressure of his hand, the patient way he waited, and the memory of how good his touch had felt even through the pain chipped away at your resistance until nothing remained.

Slowly, trembling all over, you leaned back onto the soft grass beneath the pear tree. Your cheeks still burned crimson. Tears still clung to your lashes.

Sukuna’s smile returned, darker this time, full of wicked promise.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “Now open your legs for me. Let me take care of what belongs to me.”

You obeyed.

Your thighs parted wider on the grass, yukata pooling around your hips. The moment the cool air touched your exposed pussy a fresh gush of slick slipped free. Your cunt was soaked, puffy and glistening, inner lips swollen and shiny with the constant leak that had tormented you for days. Creamy strands of his earlier release mixed with your own arousal, making everything look obscenely wet and needy.

Sukuna’s eyes darkened further at the sight. He leaned in slowly, lowering his head between your spread thighs. His breath ghosted hot over your dripping folds.

“So needy,” he growled softly. “This cunt is dripping and aching so much. All this slick just for me.”

He spread you open with two thick fingers, parting your swollen lips so he could see every glistening inch. Then he gave you the first slow, broad lick from the bottom of your slit all the way up to your clit.

The moan that tore from your throat was loud and broken. His tongue was hot and rough, dragging through your creamy mess with deliberate hunger. He licked again, slower, savoring the taste of you mixed with the remnants of his own cum. A low, appreciative groan vibrated against your pussy.

“Relax,” he murmured against your folds, the word warm and wet. “All this mess… you should have told me sooner.”

He licked deeper, tongue pushing inside your fluttering entrance to scoop out more of the creamy slick. Your hips jerked involuntarily. Another moan spilled from you, high and helpless.

“How could you keep this from me?” he continued, voice rough with something close to anger, though his tongue never stopped its slow, thorough exploration. “I would have licked this pretty cunt the moment I knew it was leaking for me. Would have buried my face between your thighs and cleaned every drop until you stopped aching.”

He sucked gently on your swollen clit, then licked back down to push his tongue inside you again, fucking you with slow, wet strokes. Your hands flew to his hair, fingers tangling tight as pleasure crashed through the soreness. Your cunt fluttered and leaked even more onto his tongue, the wet sounds obscene in the quiet shade of the pear tree.

Sukuna growled against your pussy, clearly enjoying the taste, the mess, the way you trembled and moaned beneath his mouth.

“Never hide this from me again,” he ordered between long, hungry licks. “This cunt is mine. If it aches, if it leaks, if it needs to be eaten until you cry… you tell me.”

He sealed his mouth over you once more, sucking and licking with renewed intensity, determined to devour every drop of the slick, creamy mess he had created.

And beneath the pear tree, in the warm daylight, Sukuna feasted on your dripping cunt like a starving man who had finally been given exactly what he craved.

He was greedy for it.

Ryomen Sukuna lapped at your cunt with shameless hunger, broad tongue dragging slow and heavy through your soaked folds again and again. He could still taste himself from that night, the thick, musky flavor of his cum mixed with the sweet, slippery heat of your arousal. The combination made him groan low against your pussy, the sound vibrating straight through your swollen clit and deep into your core.

His large tongue tunneled inside you without mercy, thick and hot, working your tight walls open with every wet push. Your cunt fluttered desperately around the intrusion, trying to clench and pull him deeper at the same time. One of your hands flew to his hair, fingers clutching tight in the coarse strands as you unconsciously fed his tongue even deeper into your leaking heat.

Deeper.

Deeper.

His saliva mixed with your slick and the remnants of his earlier release, turning everything into a messy, creamy glide. He fucked his tongue into you in slow, deliberate strokes, curling the tip to press against that sensitive spot inside that made your thighs shake violently. Then he pulled back only to seal his lips around your fat, aching clit. He sucked hard, tongue flicking rapidly over the swollen bud while two of his fingers spread your pussy lips wider, exposing every dripping inch to the warm daylight filtering through the leaves.

The pleasure was overwhelming.

Patches of golden light sparked across your skin as the breeze moved the branches above, warm little spots dancing over your bare thighs and heaving chest. The grass beneath your back was soft and cool, blades tickling your spine every time your body arched. In the distance the lake lapped gently against the shore, a soft, rhythmic hush that blended with the wet, obscene sounds of his mouth devouring your cunt.

It all felt too surreal.

Too good.

You moaned loudly, the sound breaking into a whimper as he sucked your clit harder, tongue still thrusting deep inside you. Your hips rolled up against his face without shame now, chasing the relentless pleasure. Slick poured from you in fresh waves, coating his chin, his lips, dripping down to soak the grass beneath your ass. Every greedy lap of his tongue pushed more of his saliva into your fluttering hole, mixing everything into a warm, slippery mess that made your cunt feel even more open, even more sensitive.

Sukuna growled against your folds, the vibration sending sparks shooting up your spine.

“Look at you,” he rasped between long, filthy licks, voice thick with lust. “Soaking my tongue like a good girl. This cunt was made to be eaten. Made to leak for me.”

He spread you even wider with his fingers, thumbs pressing firmly on either side of your clit while his tongue drove back inside, fucking you deeper, harder, faster. Your hand tightened in his hair, nails scraping his scalp as your back bowed off the grass. The ache that had tormented you for days melted into liquid heat under his mouth. Every suck, every thrust of his tongue, every wet slurp dragged you closer to the edge.

The pear blossoms continued to drift down around you like soft white snow.

Golden sunlight danced across your trembling body.

The lake whispered in the background.

Sukuna was still buried face-first between your spread thighs, your cunt pulsed and leaked and fluttered around his greedy tongue while pleasure built higher and higher, threatening to drown you completely in the most surreal, overwhelming bliss you had ever known.

He was getting hard from your scent alone.

The sweet, musky smell of your dripping cunt filled his lungs with every greedy inhale, thick and heady, making both of his cocks twitch and swell heavy between his thighs. They hung thick and full, the fat heads already glistening with beads of precum that dripped slowly onto the soft grass beneath him. The more he tasted you, the harder they throbbed, veins standing out sharply along the thick shafts, the second cock brushing against the first with every slight shift of his hips. Yet Sukuna refused to touch himself. Not yet.

He wanted you to cum on his tongue first.

His large tongue kept tunneling deep inside your fluttering cunt, fucking in and out with wet, obscene strokes while his lips sealed tight around your swollen clit. He sucked harder, tongue curling and pressing against that sensitive spot inside you until your thighs trembled violently around his head. Your hand clutched desperately at his hair, fingers twisting tight as you fed him deeper, hips rolling up to meet every thrust of his mouth.

“Fuck… that’s it,” he growled against your soaked folds, voice muffled and rough. “Let me taste how much this greedy little cunt needs me.”

He spread you wider with two thick fingers, thumbs holding your puffy lips open so he could bury his face even deeper. His tongue plunged in again, long and hot, licking up every creamy drop of slick and leftover cum. He drank you down like he was starving, saliva mixing with your mess until everything was sloppy and shining. Then he pulled back just enough to suck your fat, aching clit into his mouth again, tongue flicking rapidly over the swollen bud while two fingers replaced his tongue inside you, curling hard against that spot that made stars burst behind your eyes.

Your moans grew louder, broken and desperate, echoing softly under the pear tree. The golden patches of sunlight danced across your arched body, highlighting the way your breasts heaved with every panting breath, the way your stomach tensed and quivered. The grass felt cool and soft against your back, blades sticking to your damp skin as you writhed beneath his relentless mouth.

Sukuna’s cocks leaked harder, thick strings of precum stretching from the tips to the ground, but he ignored them completely. His focus remained entirely on you, on the way your cunt clenched and fluttered around his fingers, on the sweet, slick taste flooding his tongue.

He sucked your clit harder, tongue lashing fast and firm, fingers thrusting deep and steady.

“Come on, doll,” he rasped against your pussy, voice dark and commanding. “Cum for me. Cum on my tongue like a good girl. Let me feel this pretty cunt squeeze and flood my mouth.”

Your whole body tightened, thighs clamping around his head, back bowing sharply off the grass. The pressure built unbearably fast, the wet sounds of his mouth and fingers filling the quiet air beneath the tree. The lake whispered in the distance, blossoms continued to drift down like gentle snow, but all you could feel was the hot, greedy pull of his lips and tongue dragging you right to the edge.

Sukuna groaned deeply, the vibration shooting straight through your clit as he sucked harder, fingers curling relentlessly inside you.

He was not going to stop until you came undone on his tongue.

He kept licking you with long, greedy strokes of his tongue, lapping deep into your fluttering cunt while one thick finger circled your swollen clit in slow, firm spirals. The dual sensation was relentless. His hot, wet tongue fucked into you in steady thrusts, curling and dragging along your inner walls, while that single finger pressed and rubbed your clit with perfect, merciless pressure.

Your legs shook violently.

Sukuna noticed. With a low growl he shoved your thighs wider apart, spreading you obscenely open on the soft grass. Two of his hands gripped the backs of your knees, pinning them down and outward so nothing could stop the building storm inside you. The position left your dripping pussy completely exposed to his hungry mouth and the warm daylight filtering through the leaves.

It built fast. Too fast.

A strange, overwhelming pressure coiled low in your belly, heavy and urgent, completely different from the orgasms he had already forced from you. Your cunt clenched hard around his thrusting tongue, walls fluttering wildly as slick poured out in thick, continuous streams. Your hips tried to twist away, but his grip held you firmly in place.

“No… Sukuna…” you gasped, voice high and broken. “It feels weird… feels like you’ll make a mess…”

He did not stop.

If anything, your desperate little plea only made him hungrier. He shoved his tongue deeper, fucking it into you harder, faster, while his finger rubbed tight, relentless circles over your clit. His saliva mixed with your slick, making everything wetter, sloppier, louder. The obscene squelching sounds of his mouth devouring your cunt filled the quiet shade beneath the pear tree.

“It is going to feel good,” he growled against your folds, the words vibrating straight through your oversensitive clit. “Let it happen. Do not fight it.”

You whimpered, head thrashing side to side on the grass. The pressure kept building, sharp and terrifying and impossibly intense. Your stomach tightened, thighs trembling uncontrollably in his iron grip. Every lick, every circle of his finger pushed you closer to something you had never felt before. Your pussy felt too full, too hot, too ready to burst.

“I… I’m gonna…” Your voice cracked into a sob. “It feels like I’m going to make a mess… Sukuna, please…”

He sucked hard on your clit, tongue still thrusting deep inside you, finger rubbing faster. His crimson eyes flicked up to watch your face, dark with lust and wicked satisfaction.

“Then make a mess for me, doll,” he rasped, voice rough and commanding. “Squirt all over my tongue. Flood my mouth like the needy little thing you are. I want every drop.”

The words pushed you over the edge.

The intense pressure suddenly snapped. Your entire body seized, back arching sharply off the grass as a broken, keening cry tore from your throat. Your cunt spasmed violently around his tongue, walls clamping down hard before releasing in powerful, rhythmic pulses. A hot, clear gush of fluid burst from you, squirting hard against his tongue and chin, soaking his face and dripping down onto the grass beneath you.

You kept squirting, wave after wave, unable to stop as he continued licking and sucking through it all, greedily drinking down every drop while his finger never stopped circling your throbbing clit. The orgasm crashed through you harder than anything you had ever felt, leaving you shaking and sobbing, pussy gushing messily all over his mouth and the soft ground.

Sukuna groaned deeply, the sound vibrating through your oversensitive folds as he lapped up every bit of your release, refusing to pull away even as you trembled and whimpered beneath him.

Now you were ready.

Your body had gone completely limp on the soft grass, every muscle loose and trembling in the aftermath of that shattering release. Sukuna could feel how thoroughly he had wrung you out. Your cunt still fluttered weakly, puffy and glistening, but the desperate, aching need had finally eased into a deep, hazy satisfaction. He pressed one last slow, reverent kiss to your swollen pussy, lips brushing tenderly over the oversensitive folds. His tongue gave a few final, gentle laps, licking up the last of your slick with lazy indulgence, savoring every creamy drop. His chin was shiny and wet, glistening with your release and his own saliva.

He eased your trembling legs down carefully, letting them rest on the cool grass instead of holding them pinned wide. Then he shifted, stretching his massive frame out beside you on the soft ground. One of his lower arms slid beneath your shoulders, pulling you close until your face tucked into the warm curve of his neck. His skin smelled of smoke and salt and something darker, masculine, grounding. The other three arms settled around you, one hand gently threading through your hair, stroking slow, soothing pets from crown to nape. His fingers were careful, almost tender, as they combed through the strands damp with sweat and grass.

You felt weightless.

The warm sunlight filtered through the pear leaves above, painting shifting golden patterns across your skin. The faint sound of the lake lapping at the shore blended with the soft rustle of blossoms drifting down. Your body melted against his, boneless and heavy with exhaustion and pleasure. You could feel how hard he still was. Both thick cocks pressed hot and heavy against your thigh, leaking steadily, the blunt heads smearing warm precum across your skin with every subtle shift. Yet he made no move to take you. He simply held you close, petting your hair in slow, rhythmic strokes while his chest rose and fell steadily beneath your cheek.

You closed your eyes.

The world narrowed to the warmth of his body, the gentle drag of his fingers through your hair, the heavy, comforting weight of his arms wrapped around you. For the first time since he had stolen you from the temple, the ache between your thighs felt soothed rather than tormenting. Shame still lingered somewhere distant, but it could not reach you here, not while he held you like this.

Sukuna’s voice rumbled low against your ear, rough but quiet, laced with quiet satisfaction.

“See?” he murmured, lips brushing the top of your head. “Didn’t I help?”

You did not answer with words. You simply pressed your face deeper into the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent, letting the steady beat of his heart lull you further into the soft, floating haze. His hand continued its slow, comforting strokes through your hair. His cocks remained hard and leaking against your thigh, patient for now.

Beneath the pear tree, in the warm daylight and drifting blossoms, Sukuna held his stolen faithful close, content to let you rest against him while the evidence of your messy release dried on his chin and the grass beneath you both.

You fell asleep on the way back, cradled securely in his arms.

The walk from the lakeside to the fortress was not long, but the warm afternoon sun, the soft sway of his steps, and the deep exhaustion that had settled into your bones after everything beneath the pear tree pulled you under almost immediately. Your cheek rested against the broad plane of his chest, one hand loosely curled into the fabric of his robe. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the faint heat rolling off his skin lulled you deeper into sleep, safe and heavy in his hold.

Sukuna carried you without effort, two arms supporting your body while the other two remained free. In one of those free hands he held a small cluster of ripe pears he had plucked from the tree before leaving. Their smooth, golden-green skins caught the light as he walked, stems still bearing a few delicate white blossoms. He did not eat them. He simply carried them, turning one slowly between his fingers every so often, as though the simple act of holding something soft and sweet pleased him.

The fortress loomed ahead, stone walls dark against the bright sky. Servants scattered at the sight of their lord returning with the sleeping girl tucked against his chest, but no one dared speak. Uraume stood waiting at the entrance, pale eyes flicking once over your relaxed form and the pears before offering a small, knowing bow and stepping aside without a word.

Sukuna moved through the familiar corridors in silence, careful not to jostle you. When he reached the chamber he lowered you gently onto the wide mat, arranging your limbs with surprising care so you lay on your side, facing inward. The yukata had slipped slightly during the journey, baring one shoulder and the soft curve of your breast, but he did not adjust it. Instead he set the cluster of pears on the low table beside the mat, their faint sweet scent already beginning to fill the room.

He stretched out beside you, close enough that the heat of his body wrapped around yours once more. One arm draped possessively over your waist, palm settling lightly over the lingering softness of your lower belly. The other three hands found their places, one beneath his own head, the others resting near enough to touch if he wished.

You remained asleep, breathing slow and even, lashes dark against your cheeks, lips slightly parted. The faint marks of grass and blossoms still clung to your hair. A small smear of dried slick still glistened on the inside of one thigh, a quiet reminder of how thoroughly he had taken care of you by the lake.

Sukuna watched you for a long time in the quiet of the chamber.

He did not wake you.

He simply lay there, the stolen pears resting nearby, their sweetness mixing with the heavier scent of sex and skin that still clung to both of you. One of his fingers idly traced the curve of your shoulder while his mind turned over the strange, unfamiliar feeling of carrying something fragile and warm back to his den instead of leaving it broken behind him.

Outside the narrow windows the daylight slowly began to soften into evening.

Inside, the King of Curses kept his faithful close, pears and all, letting you sleep undisturbed in the circle of his arms.

You woke up dazed, the world soft and hazy around the edges.

For a long moment you could not remember the walk back. The lake, the pear tree, the overwhelming rush of pleasure beneath its branches, all of it felt like a fever dream that had slipped between your fingers. Your body was still coming down from the high, heavy and languid, every limb weighted with sweet exhaustion. A faint fever lingered beneath your skin, a warm flush that made your cheeks glow and your breathing slow and shallow. Between your thighs your pussy still throbbed gently, swollen and tender, the constant low ache now mixed with a deep, satisfied warmth that refused to fade.

The chamber was quiet, lit by the golden haze of late afternoon light slipping through the narrow windows. The faint sweet scent of ripe pear filled the air.

Sukuna was already awake, propped on one elbow beside you. In two of his hands he held the cluster of pears he had carried back. With the third he used the small, curved tanto to slice one open with precise, unhurried movements. The same blade you had once pressed trembling to his throat now moved steadily through the soft fruit, juice glistening along the edge as he cut neat, crescent-shaped slices.

He noticed the moment your eyes opened.

Without a word he brought a fresh slice to your lips, holding it between two thick fingers. The sweet, juicy flesh brushed against your lower lip, cool and sticky.

You stared at the knife for a heartbeat, then at the slice, then up at his face. A slow roll of your eyes was the only protest you could manage in your dazed state. Still, your mouth opened obediently. You took the piece of pear from his fingers, lips closing around the pads of his fingertips for a brief, intimate second as you accepted the offering. The fruit was perfectly ripe, bursting with cool sweetness that soothed your dry throat and made your fever-flushed cheeks feel a little less warm.

Sukuna watched you chew with dark, half-lidded eyes, the corner of his mouth curving in quiet satisfaction. He cut another slice, juice dripping slowly down the blade, and brought it to your mouth again. This time you did not roll your eyes. You simply parted your lips and let him feed you, the sticky sweetness coating your tongue while his fingers lingered a moment longer than necessary.

He fed you piece after piece in silence, the ironies of the moment hanging thick between you. The same knife that had once promised death now delivered something gentle and sweet. The monster who had stolen you from your temple now sat patiently slicing fruit and pressing each slice to your lips with careful fingers. Your body still hummed with the memory of his tongue between your thighs, yet here you were, drowsy and fever-warm, accepting every offering like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When the pear was nearly gone he set the core aside and wiped his fingers on the edge of the cloth nearby. One large hand returned to your hair, stroking slowly through the strands while another rested possessively over the soft swell of your lower belly.

“Better?” he asked, voice low and rough, but quieter than usual.

You swallowed the last sweet bite, the fever making your thoughts slow and heavy. Instead of answering with words you simply turned your face into his palm, pressing a small, tired kiss to the center of it.

Sukuna’s eyes darkened further at the gesture. He did not speak again. He only continued to pet your hair in slow, steady strokes, letting you drift in the warm, hazy space between sleep and waking while the faint scent of pear and the lingering taste of sweetness stayed on your tongue.

The blade lay forgotten on the low table beside the empty core, its edge still faintly sticky with juice.

And in the quiet chamber, he kept feeding his stolen girl small, sweet pieces of fruit, watching every flutter of your lashes with something dangerously close to tenderness.

Later that evening the air in the fortress had grown cooler, the faint scent of cedar smoke drifting through the corridors as braziers were lit for the night.

Sukuna had risen from the mat without a word, shedding his outer robes as he moved toward the private bathing chamber attached to the main room. You watched him from beneath half-closed lashes, still drowsy and warm from the pear and the long rest. Then you noticed.

His two thick cocks were fully hard, heavy and flushed dark, the fat heads glistening with steady beads of precum that dripped in slow, shiny trails down the veined lengths. They bobbed slightly with each step he took, leaking openly, untouched since the lake. He had given you everything beneath the pear tree and taken nothing for himself.

Something hot and liquid stirred low in your belly.

You crept after him on silent feet, heart hammering, the fever still lingering in your cheeks. The ache between your thighs had returned, softer now but insistent, your pussy growing slick and warm again at the mere sight of him. When he stepped into the bathing chamber you followed, hovering just outside the doorway, hidden in shadow.

He stood beside the large wooden tub already filled with steaming water. One of his lower hands reached down, wrapping loosely around both cocks at the base. He gave a slow, firm stroke from root to tip, smearing the leaking precum over the heads with his thumb. A low groan rumbled in his chest as he palmed himself, thick fingers barely able to circle both shafts together. The motion was lazy, almost absent, like he was simply easing an ache rather than truly seeking release.

Your breath caught.

He looked beautiful like this, massive frame backlit by the flickering lanterns, tattoos stark against scarlet skin, four arms moving with powerful grace. And those two leaking cocks… heavy, dripping, untouched because he had spent the entire afternoon taking care of you instead.

Your pussy clenched hard, fresh slick coating your folds and beginning to trickle down your inner thigh. Shame and desire twisted together until you could no longer stay still.

You slipped out of your yukata without a sound, letting the silk pool at your feet until you stood completely naked. Cool air kissed your fever-warm skin, making your nipples tighten and your swollen cunt throb. Heart racing, you stepped forward and pushed the sliding door wider, the soft wooden sound announcing your presence.

Sukuna turned his head slowly.

Four crimson eyes locked onto you immediately, taking in every inch of your bare body, the way your thighs pressed together, the faint sheen of wetness already visible on your skin. His hand stilled on his cocks, still gripping both thick lengths, the heads flushed and glistening.

For a long moment neither of you spoke.

Then his voice came low and rough, laced with dark hunger and something almost surprised.

“Look at you,” he murmured, gaze dragging slowly down to the slick glistening between your legs. “Coming to me naked and wet again. Did watching me stroke myself make that greedy little pussy leak for me?”

You stood there in the doorway, completely exposed, chest rising and falling quickly, the ache between your thighs growing unbearable. Your eyes kept flicking down to where his hand still held those two heavy, leaking cocks, precum still dripping steadily from the tips.

Sukuna’s lips curved into a slow, predatory smile. He gave himself one more lazy stroke, eyes never leaving yours.

“Well?” he asked, voice dropping even lower. “Are you just going to stand there… or are you going to come here and help me with this?”

Steam rose from the bath behind him.

Lantern light flickered across his skin...

You stepped inside.

Shy, but eager.

Your bare feet padded across the warm stone floor until you stood right in front of him. Sukuna’s four arms opened for you without hesitation, the gesture surprisingly gentle. He reached down, large hands sliding beneath your thighs, and lifted you effortlessly into the air. The moment your body left the ground you felt weightless again, cradled against his broad chest as he stepped into the large wooden tub with you.

The water was warm, almost hot, fragrant with yuzu and something faintly herbal that Uraume must have added. Steam curled up around you both as he lowered himself slowly, settling against the back of the tub and pulling you with him. He pressed you flush to his front first, your soft breasts squishing against the hard planes of his chest, your legs automatically parting to straddle his hips. The heat of the bath seeped into your skin, soothing the lingering ache between your thighs even as fresh slick continued to gather.

He leaned in and kissed your cheek, slow and surprisingly sweet, lips lingering against the flushed skin. The contrast between that tenderness and the heavy, leaking cocks trapped between your bodies made your head spin.

You settled fully against him, thighs spread wide over his lap. The sight of the large, grinning mouth on his stomach made your breath hitch. The moment your belly pressed against it, the thick pink tongue flicked out, dragging a wet, playful stripe across your soft skin. It curled lazily, tasting the faint sheen of sweat and the sweetness still clinging to you from the pear. One of Sukuna’s big hands settled on your lower back, holding you close while his thumb stroked slow circles over your spine.

He teased you then, voice low and rough against your ear.

“Your eager little pussy is still greedy for more, hm?”

You looked up at him with wide, glassy eyes, heat flooding your face. You could not hold his gaze. Your eyes dropped instead, lashes fluttering as you watched your own finger trace the seam of the stomach mouth. The moment your fingertip brushed the soft lips, the large tongue flicked out again, wrapping playfully around your finger and sucking gently before letting go with a wet pop.

You swallowed hard, voice barely above a whisper.

“I… I shouldn’t have all the pleasure.”

The guilt was quiet but real. He had taken nothing for himself earlier, only given and given until you shattered on his tongue. The thought made your chest tight.

Sukuna stilled for a moment, studying your downcast face. Then understanding softened the edge of his smirk.

“Guess we really should stop keeping secrets from each other then,” he murmured.

He tilted your chin up with one gentle finger, forcing your eyes to meet his again. Before you could look away he leaned in and kissed you, slow and deep and thorough. His tongue slid against yours, tasting of pear and your own slick, claiming your mouth with the same lazy hunger he had shown between your thighs.

You melted into the kiss, arms winding around his neck as you settled fully against him. His two thick cocks pressed hot and slick between your bodies, trapped against your soft belly and the dripping seam of your cunt. They throbbed heavily with every beat of his heart, leaking steadily, the precum mixing with the bathwater and your own fresh arousal until everything felt slippery and warm.

His stomach mouth continued to lick lazily at your skin, tongue dragging slow stripes across your abdomen while his hand on your back kept you pressed close. The other three arms held you securely, one cradling the back of your head, another resting possessively on your hip, the last stroking gently along your thigh.

He broke the kiss just enough to speak against your lips, voice dark and rough with want.

“No more secrets tonight, little one. Tell me what you want… and I will give it to you.”

The steam rose thick around you both.

The fragrant water lapped gently at your joined bodies.

And in the warm bath, straddling him, his leaking cocks pressed slick against your greedy pussy, you felt the last fragile wall between you begin to crumble.

“Please…”

The word slipped from your lips, soft and trembling against his own. “Need you.”

Sukuna’s mouth curved into a slow, wicked smile against yours. He did not answer with words at first. Instead one of his lower hands slid down between your bodies, gripping the thicker of his two leaking cocks at the base. He dragged the fat, precum-slick head slowly through your folds, teasing the blunt tip up and down your dripping slit. The heat of him was searing, the sheer size of just one cock already making your pussy flutter in anticipation and nerves.

Your slick coated him instantly, mixing with the steady leak of his precum until the glide became obscenely wet. Every slow pass nudged against your swollen clit, then dipped lower to kiss your entrance, spreading your puffy lips around the wide head before pulling back again. The teasing made your thighs tremble on either side of his hips.

He kissed you once more, slow and deep, then pulled back just enough to speak against your mouth, voice low and rough with hunger.

“Let’s just start with one tonight then,” he murmured. “Let’s see how good you’ll stretch for me.”

He lined the thick head up with your entrance and began to push.

The stretch was immediate and overwhelming. Even after everything he had done to you earlier, your cunt still had to open wide around the fat crown. A broken whimper escaped you as the head popped inside, your walls fluttering desperately around the intrusion. He was so thick, so hot, the veins along his shaft dragging against your sensitive inner walls as he slowly fed you the first few inches.

Sukuna groaned low in his chest, the sound vibrating through both of you.

“Fuck… still so tight,” he rasped, one hand gripping your hip to hold you steady while the other kept guiding his cock deeper. “Look at this greedy little pussy swallowing me up. Taking it so well already.”

He rocked his hips in shallow thrusts, working himself in inch by inch, letting your body adjust to the brutal girth. Your slick and his precum made the slide easier, but the stretch still burned sweetly, forcing your cunt to mould around every thick ridge. When he was halfway buried he paused, letting you feel the heavy throb of him inside you, the way your belly already began to bulge faintly from just one cock.

His stomach mouth licked a slow, wet stripe across your abdomen, tongue flicking playfully over the small swell as if tasting the place he was claiming from within.

You clung to his shoulders, nails digging into scarlet skin, forehead pressed to his as you panted against his lips. The water lapped gently around your joined bodies, steam curling thick in the air.

Sukuna’s eyes stayed locked on your face, watching every flutter of your lashes, every little gasp.

“That’s it,” he whispered, voice dark and coaxing. “Take all of me tonight. Let me feel how deep this pretty cunt can take one cock before I decide whether you’re ready for both.”

He rolled his hips again, sinking another thick inch inside you, stretching you open with slow, deliberate patience while the bathwater rippled around you both.

And in the fragrant steam, you gave yourself to him once more, soft pleas and broken moans spilling from your lips as the King of Curses began to fill you all over again.

You felt him immediately.

The thick head pushed past your entrance and the stretch bloomed all over again, sharp and sweet and overwhelming. Your cunt had to open wide once more, soft walls yielding around the heavy girth as he sank deeper. Every slow inch forced your body to remember him, to take his exact shape again until the blunt head kissed high inside you and the thick veins dragged along every sensitive spot. Your belly swelled faintly beneath the water, the faint outline of his cock visible just under your skin.

Sukuna let out a low, satisfied groan, eyes half-lidded as he watched your face.

“Looks like your cunt didn’t forget me after all,” he murmured, voice rough and pleased. “Still so tight… still sucking me in like it missed being full.”

Your hands pressed flat against his broad chest, fingers splaying over the dark tattoos as you tried to steady yourself. The water lapped gently around your hips with every tiny movement. He kept one large hand on your lower back, holding you close, while the other guided your hips down to meet his slow upward thrusts.

He fucked up into you with unhurried strokes, deep and deliberate, letting you feel every thick inch slide out until only the fat head remained inside, then pressing back in until he bottomed out again. Each thrust made your breasts bounce softly against his chest and sent ripples across the fragrant bathwater.

You were trembling.

The stretch felt so good it bordered on too much, but your body craved more. The empty ache where his second cock should be became impossible to ignore. Your pussy clenched hard around the one already buried inside you, leaking fresh slick around his shaft as the need built higher.

“Please…” you whispered, voice small and breathless against his neck. “The second one… I want both…”

Sukuna stilled for a moment, buried to the hilt. Then a dark, amused chuckle rumbled through his chest.

“Fuck… you’re eager,” he said, the words warm against your ear. One of his hands slid up to cup the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair. “Already begging for both after I’ve barely given you one. Greedy little thing.”

He rocked up into you again, slower this time, grinding the thick head against that deep spot inside while the second heavy cock rested hot and leaking against your lower belly, trapped between your bodies.

“You sure?” he asked, voice dropping even lower, teasing but edged with hunger. “You want me to stretch this pretty cunt even wider tonight? Fill you so full you can barely breathe?”

You nodded frantically, cheeks burning, eyes glassy with need. Your hips rolled down to meet his next thrust, taking him deeper as you whimpered.

“Yes… please… both…”

Sukuna’s smile turned sharp and satisfied. He tightened his grip on your hips with two hands while the other two cradled your face and back, holding you steady as he began to shift beneath you.

“Alright then,” he growled softly, pressing a slow kiss to your swollen lips. “Since you’re asking so nicely… let’s see how well this tight little pussy takes both my cocks tonight.”

He kept the first one buried deep inside you, holding still for a moment while the fat, leaking head of the second cock nudged insistently against your already stretched entrance, sliding through the mess of your slick and his precum.

The water steamed around you both.

Your hands clutched tighter at his chest.

He worked the second cock in slowly.

The thick, leaking head pressed firmly against your already stretched entrance, nudging beside the first one that was buried deep inside you. The stretch was immediate and brutal. Your cunt had to open wider than it ever had, soft walls straining around two heavy girths at once. You clenched up instinctively, a sharp gasp tearing from your throat as the second cock forced its way in inch by slow, relentless inch.

“Oh fuck—”

The curse slipped out before you could stop it, raw and broken. The temple girl who once spent her days murmuring sutras had never spoken such a word in her life. Sukuna’s eyes flashed with dark delight at the sound.

“Oh?” he teased, voice low and rough even as he fought to keep his composure. “The temple girl’s first swear. Committing so many sins tonight, aren’t you?”

Your cunt was impossibly tight around both cocks, fluttering and squeezing in panicked little pulses that made sweat bead along his temples. He could feel every ripple, every desperate clench as your body struggled to accept him. It hurt for you too. The burn was fierce, stretching you to your limit, tears already gathering at the corners of your eyes and spilling down your flushed cheeks.

Sukuna kept one big hand stroking slowly up and down your back, never stopping the gentle, soothing motion. His palm was warm and steady against your spine, thumb tracing comforting circles while he held perfectly still inside you, giving your body time to adjust.

“No, pretty girl,” he murmured, voice gentler now, lips brushing your temple. “Relax for me. Breathe.”

You whimpered, forehead pressed to his shoulder, nails digging into his chest. The stretch felt like too much and not enough all at once. Both cocks throbbed heavily inside your overstuffed cunt, leaking steadily, the dual pressure making your belly bulge noticeably even through the bathwater.

“You said you wanted both,” he reminded you softly, pressing a slow kiss to your wet cheek. “Don’t fight me, sweetheart. Let me in. Let this greedy little cunt take everything I give it.”

His hand kept stroking your back in that same soothing rhythm, slow and patient, while the other three arms held you close, one cradling the back of your head, another gripping your hip to keep you steady. He rocked up into you with the tiniest movements, just enough to ease the second cock deeper, letting your walls flutter and slowly loosen around the impossible fullness.

Tears kept slipping down your face, but the pain was already beginning to melt into something hotter, something deeper. Your cunt clenched again, this time less in resistance and more in desperate need.

Sukuna groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating through his chest into yours.

“That’s it,” he whispered against your ear, still stroking your back with steady reassurance. “Good girl. Just relax and let me fill you completely. You’re doing so well for me.”

Both thick cocks pulsed inside your stretched, dripping cunt as he waited for you to open up fully, the warm bathwater rippling gently around your joined bodies while he coaxed you through the overwhelming stretch with patience and dark, hungry praise.

Your cunt kept stretching.

It hurt, it burned, it felt impossible, but it took him.

More and more. Inch by thick, veined inch, both of his heavy cocks sank deeper into your fluttering heat until the stretch became something else entirely. Something overwhelming and perfect. Your walls yielded slowly, clenching and fluttering around the brutal double invasion, molding themselves around his shape like they had been waiting for this exact moment.

The way your tummy bulged was obscene.

You could feel it, see it, the soft skin of your lower belly rounding outward, the clear outline of both cocks pressing up from inside you. Every shallow breath made the swell shift and move. Deeper and deeper he pushed, until the fat heads nudged against your cervix and then beyond, forcing the tight ring to open for him, letting him claim space no one had ever touched.

Your eyes slid shut, lashes wet with fresh tears. A broken little sound escaped your trembling lips.

Sukuna cupped your face in two large hands, thumbs brushing away the tears as they fell. He pressed his forehead to yours, breath mingling with yours in the steamy air.

“Look at you,” he whispered, voice rough and awed. “Taking both my cocks so deep. Your pretty cunt is opening so well for me.”

He kissed your tears one by one, slow and tender, lips brushing over your closed eyelids, the corners of your eyes, the salty trails on your cheeks. When he finally reached your mouth he kissed you deeply, swallowing the soft whimper that left you as your cunt gave one last fluttering pulse and took the rest of him.

He was fully seated.

Both thick cocks buried to the hilt inside your overstuffed pussy, stretching you wider than you had ever been, your belly swollen and round with the proof of it. Your walls clenched helplessly around him, rippling and squeezing in waves, trying to adjust to the impossible fullness.

Sukuna held perfectly still, forehead still pressed to yours, hands cradling your face like something precious.

“There you go,” he murmured against your lips, voice low and soothing. “That’s my good girl. You did it. You took all of me.”

Your lips trembled. Another tear slipped free and he caught it with his thumb, then leaned in to kiss it away again.

The bathwater lapped gently around your joined bodies. Steam curled thick and fragrant between you. Your hands stayed pressed to his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart beneath your palms.

He stayed buried deep, letting you feel every throb, every pulse of both cocks stretching you open, while he continued to kiss your face softly, patiently, giving your ruined little cunt time to settle around the overwhelming fullness he had given you.

“You feel that?” he whispered, one hand sliding down to rest over the swollen curve of your belly. “That’s me. All the way inside you. No more secrets. No more holding back.”

Your cunt fluttered hard around him at his words, another rush of slick leaking out around the tight seal of your stretched lips.

Sukuna smiled against your mouth, dark and satisfied.

“Good girl,” he breathed. “Now breathe for me… and let me feel how well this greedy cunt is going to take everything I give it tonight.”

Your cunt was sucking and pulling at both of his cocks with every tiny movement.

The slightest shift of his hips made your walls flutter and clench desperately around the thick double intrusion, greedy and overwhelmed all at once. Any little motion sent sparks of too-much pleasure shooting through you. The stretch was constant, burning and perfect, your swollen folds stretched shiny and tight around the bases of both cocks. Your belly bulged obscenely, the rounded swell rising and falling with every shallow breath you took.

Sukuna watched your face with dark, hooded eyes, one hand still cradling your cheek while the other rested possessively over the swollen curve of your stomach.

“You’ve already done the impossible,” he murmured, voice low and rough with restraint. “Taking both my cocks all the way inside this tight little cunt. Such a good girl.”

He could feel every ripple, every helpless suck of your walls trying to milk him. But he insisted on doing the work now.

“You’ve done enough,” he told you softly. “Just let me take care of you.”

When he asked if you wanted him to move, you could only nod, lips trembling, eyes glassy with overwhelming sensation.

That was all the permission he needed.

Sukuna lifted you sweetly with two strong arms beneath your thighs, raising you just enough that several thick inches of both cocks slid out of your dripping heat. The drag was slow and devastating, your cunt clinging wetly to every veined inch as he withdrew. Then he rocked you back down, sinking both cocks deep again in one smooth, controlled motion.

A broken moan tore from your throat.

He set a slow, steady rhythm, lifting and lowering you on his lap with careful strength. Each time he pulled you up, your cunt fluttered and sucked around him, trying to keep him inside. Each time he rocked you back down, both cocks plunged deep, bumping your cervix and pressing against that spot that made your toes curl in the warm water.

The bath rippled around you with every gentle rock, fragrant steam curling thicker in the air. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into scarlet skin as he fucked you on his cocks with slow, deliberate strokes.

“That’s it,” he praised quietly, forehead still pressed to yours. “Just let me move you. Feel how deep you’re taking me, sweetheart. Feel how full you are.”

Your belly bulged visibly with every downward rock, the obscene swell pressing against his stomach mouth. The large pink tongue flicked out lazily, licking across the rounded curve as if tasting how thoroughly he had stuffed you.

You whimpered helplessly, eyes fluttering, tears still clinging to your lashes. Every rock sent waves of overwhelming pleasure crashing through you. Your cunt kept sucking and pulling at both thick cocks, greedy despite how impossibly full you already were.

Sukuna kept rocking you sweetly on his lap, never rushing, letting you feel every inch, every throb, every slow slide as he filled you completely again and again.

His voice stayed low and soothing against your ear between soft kisses to your temple.

“Good girl… such a good girl for me. Just keep taking it. Let me rock this pretty, stretched cunt on both until you can’t think of anything else.”

The water lapped gently around your joined bodies.

Your swollen belly rose and fell with every controlled thrust.

And in the warm, steamy bath, you were held close and rocked slowly on both of his thick cocks, letting your greedy, ruined little pussy suck and flutter around him while he took perfect care of you.

Huge.

That was all you could think as Sukuna rocked you on both of his thick lengths.

Your pussy stretched impossibly wide around the twin girths, soft walls squishing and clinging, milking him in messy, greedy pulses with every slow lift and drop. Wet, filthy sounds filled the steamy bath each time he moved you, slick and precum mixing together until everything between your bodies was slippery and obscene.

He pressed one large hand firmly against the swollen bulge under your tummy, feeling the way both cocks moved inside you, the heavy ridge of them shifting beneath your skin with every rock. The pressure made you whimper, made your cunt flutter harder around him, sucking desperately at the thick lengths as if trying to pull him even deeper.

One of his lower hands settled on your waist, holding you steady while he began to fuck up into you with more purpose. The thrusts stayed controlled but deeper now, lifting his hips to meet every downward rock, driving both cocks into your overstuffed cunt with wet, heavy strokes. Your belly bulged more noticeably with each upward thrust, the rounded swell pressing against his palm.

His other lower hand slipped lower, palming the soft curve of your ass, fingers digging into the flesh to spread you open even wider. He used the grip to help guide you, lifting and lowering you onto his cocks while he fucked up harder, the head of both lengths kissing your cervix with every deep plunge.

You were a trembling, moaning mess in his lap, forehead pressed to his, lips parted on broken little sounds. Your pussy kept milking him greedily, fluttering and clenching, leaking fresh slick around the tight seal of your stretched folds. The water sloshed gently around you both with every thrust, fragrant steam curling thick in the air.

Sukuna groaned low in his chest, the sound vibrating through you as he pressed harder against the bulge in your belly.

“Feel that?” he rasped against your mouth, voice dark and rough. “Feel how deep both are? Your greedy little cunt is sucking me in so messily… taking me so deep like it never wants to let go.”

His hand on your ass squeezed tighter, spreading you wider as he fucked up into you with slow, powerful strokes. The other hand stayed pressed to your swollen tummy, feeling every movement of his cocks inside you while he rocked you on his lap.

You could only moan helplessly, eyes glassy, body trembling as he took you apart so sweetly and thoroughly in the warm bath. Your pussy continued to milk him in wet, greedy pulses, stretched and full and completely his.

Sukuna kissed your trembling lips, then your tear-damp cheek, never stopping the slow, deep rhythm of his hips.

“That’s my good girl,” he murmured, palming your ass and pressing against your bulging belly at the same time. “Keep  me in just like that. Let me feel how much this pretty cunt loves being stuffed full.”

Every slow rock of his hips made both thick cocks rub deep inside your pussy, dragging heavily along your fluttering walls in a constant, filthy grind. Your swollen clit caught and rubbed against the dark, coarse hair of his happy trail with every downward motion, sending sharp sparks of pleasure shooting through you. The friction was relentless, perfect, turning every thrust into something overwhelming.

You were creaming on his cocks.

Thick, white rings of your arousal coated both shafts, frothing messily at the stretched entrance of your cunt with every deep plunge. The wet, squelching sounds grew louder, echoing softly off the stone walls of the bathing chamber as your pussy milked him greedily, sucking and fluttering around the double intrusion.

Sukuna groaned low, one hand still pressed firmly to the bulging swell of your tummy while the other palmed your ass, spreading you wider so he could fuck up into you just a little harder. His thumb found your clit, rubbing slow, firm circles over the swollen bud while he kept rocking you on his cocks.

“That’s it,” he murmured against your ear, voice dark and coaxing. “Make a mess all over both my cocks like a good girl. Let me feel how much you want it, how much you pretty pussy will take.”

The added pressure on your clit was too much. Pleasure coiled tight and hot in your belly, sharper and sweeter than before. Your thighs trembled violently around his hips, your cunt clenching hard around both cocks as the orgasm crashed through you.

You moaned, high and broken, body seizing in his lap as sweet, pulsing waves rolled through you. Your pussy gushed around him, fresh slick mixing with the creamy mess already coating his shafts. Sukuna kept rubbing your clit through it all, drawing the orgasm out until your vision blurred and your moans turned into soft, helpless whimpers.

When the peak finally began to ebb you collapsed forward into his chest, face buried in the crook of his neck, trembling and panting against his skin. Your arms wound weakly around his shoulders, body limp and spent in his hold.

Sukuna did not stop moving.

He kept fucking you deeper now, hips snapping up with more force, driving both cocks into your creaming, fluttering cunt with steady, powerful thrusts. The water sloshed harder around you, splashing against the sides of the tub as he used the grip on your ass and waist to pull you down onto him again and again.

His breathing grew rougher, chest rising and falling heavily beneath your cheek. You could feel his cocks swelling even thicker inside you, throbbing with his building release.

He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to your temple, voice wrecked and low.

“Fuck that's it! He said sharply.“Good girl… such a good girl for me… let me give you every drop, let me fill your cunt full.”

His thrusts grew deeper, harder, chasing his own pleasure while he held your limp, trembling body close, fucking up into your messy, overstuffed cunt with raw, building need. Your pussy continued to milk him greedily, squirting and fluttering around him as he drove closer and closer to the edge, determined to flood you full once more.

His cocks throbbed with heavy, insistent pressure deep in his abdomen.

The stomach mouth on his torso had its jaw locked tight, lips pressed into a thin line as if even that part of him was fighting to hold back. Both thick lengths swelled impossibly larger inside your already overstuffed cunt, stretching you even wider, the veins pulsing strongly against your fluttering walls. The first cock twitched hard, swelling thicker at the base, the fat head pressing flush against your cervix.

Sukuna’s breath hitched, a low growl rumbling through his chest as he fucked up into you with deeper, more urgent strokes. His hands gripped your ass tighter, spreading you open while he drove both cocks as far as they could go.

Then the first one came.

Hard.

Thick ropes of hot cum erupted straight into your womb, flooding you in heavy, pulsing spurts. The force of it made your belly swell even more, the rounded bulge growing visibly as he pumped you full. Your cunt clenched violently around him, milking every drop while creamy white seed leaked out around the tight seal of your stretched lips, mixing with your own slick in the bathwater.

Before the first cock even finished pulsing, the second one followed.

It swelled even thicker, stretching you to the absolute limit as it began to cum deep inside you. Another powerful flood joined the first, hot and endless, filling your womb until you felt impossibly bloated, stuffed beyond reason. Both cocks throbbed in tandem now, pumping load after thick load into your greedy, creaming cunt while your walls fluttered and sucked desperately around them.

You moaned weakly against his neck, body trembling, tears slipping down your cheeks again from the sheer intensity of being filled so completely. Your belly rounded out heavily between your bodies, the soft skin taut from the sheer volume of cum he was forcing into you.

Sukuna held you close, one hand still pressed firmly over the swollen curve of your tummy, feeling every powerful spurt as it filled you. His forehead rested against yours, breath ragged, voice rough and wrecked with pleasure.

“Take it all,” he growled softly, still rocking you slowly on his cocks even as he came. “Every drop. Let me fill this pretty cunt until you’re dripping with me for days.”

His stomach mouth finally relaxed, the large tongue slipping out to lick lazily across your bulging belly, tasting the evidence of how thoroughly he had claimed you from the inside.

You stayed collapsed against his chest, limp and shaking, your pussy still milking both throbbing cocks as they continued to empty into you, flooding your womb with thick, hot cum while the warm bathwater rippled around your joined bodies.

Sukuna kissed your temple, then your tear-streaked cheek, murmuring low praises against your skin as he kept you impaled deep on both of his cocks, letting the last heavy spurts pulse into your overstuffed, creaming cunt.

You had never felt so full.

So claimed.

So completely his.

Twin loads poured into you, thick and heavy, flooding your womb in endless, pulsing waves.

Sukuna kept fucking them deeper, hips rolling up in slow, deliberate thrusts even as he came, pushing every thick spurt further inside you. The obscene wet sounds of his cocks churning through the mess echoed in the steamy bath, cum and slick mixing together until your overstuffed cunt could barely contain it all. Creamy white seed leaked out around the tight stretch of both shafts, floating in cloudy ribbons through the water, but he refused to let any of it escape without effort. He rocked you down harder, grinding both cocks as deep as they would go, forcing the heavy loads back into your womb with every thrust.

He was sure it would take.

So much cum. More than your body had any right to hold. Your belly was already swollen and round, taut beneath his palm, and still he kept pumping more into you. He imagined it so clearly, his eyes sliding shut as pleasure and something darker, more possessive rolled through him. In weeks or months to come you would still be swollen, but not just with his cum. He pictured you utterly round and heavy with his babies, belly stretched tight, breasts full, cunt still greedy and leaking for him even while carrying his heirs.

A low, guttural groan left his throat.

His hand pressed firmer against the swollen curve of your stomach, fingers splaying wide as if he could will it to happen by touch alone. He pushed gently, feeling the way your belly gave under the pressure, feeling the obscene slosh of cum inside you as he fucked it even deeper.

“Take it,” he rasped against your ear, voice thick and wrecked. “All of it. Let it settle deep. Let it take root.”

Your cunt fluttered weakly around both cocks, still milking him through the last heavy spurts. You whimpered softly into his neck, body limp and trembling, completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume he had pumped into you. Your belly felt impossibly full, heavy and warm, the skin stretched tight over the twin loads he refused to let leak out.

Sukuna kept his hand there, palm pressed possessively over the swell, thumb stroking slow circles as if soothing the place he had just flooded. His other arms held you close, one cradling the back of your head, another wrapped around your waist, keeping you impaled deep on both cocks while the last thick pulses emptied into your womb.

He stayed buried inside you long after the last spurt, breathing hard against your hair, eyes still closed as the fantasy lingered behind his lids. You, swollen and glowing, carrying his children. The thought made his cocks twitch again inside you, another small leak of cum escaping despite how tightly he filled you.

He kissed your temple, then your cheek, voice low and dark with satisfaction.

“You’re going to look so beautiful like this… all round and full with what I put in you.”

The bathwater had gone cloudy around you both, thick with the evidence of his release. Your belly rose and fell heavily with every shallow breath, swollen and claimed, while Sukuna held you close, hand never leaving the soft, rounded swell he had created, already imagining how much more he would fill you in the nights to come.

After you took both his cocks, he held you like something breakable.

The water had gone thick and cloudy with his cum, the fragrant scent of yuzu now drowned beneath the heavy musk of sex. Sukuna felt a flicker of something close to guilt when he looked at the mess he had made of you, but it was quickly swallowed by the deeper satisfaction of seeing you so thoroughly claimed. Still, he needed to clean you. He could not leave you like this, leaking and trembling and swollen.

When he finally began to slip free, both cocks sliding out of your ruined cunt with a wet, obscene sound, you cried.

A soft, broken sob left your lips the moment the thick heads popped free. Immediately a flood of creamy white poured from your stretched hole, thick ropes of his cum gushing out in heavy pulses, sliding down your thighs and swirling into the already filthy water. Your poor pussy gaped for a moment, puffy and red, unable to close after taking both of his cocks so deep. More cum kept leaking, slow and endless, as if your body refused to let go of what he had given it.

You did not let him go.

The moment he tried to shift you, your arms locked tight around his neck, legs wrapping around his torso with surprising strength. You clung to him like a vine, face buried in the crook of his neck, eyes squeezed shut. Tired as you were, every ounce of remaining energy seemed to have gathered in your limbs. You would not release him, not even for a second.

Sukuna exhaled softly, one large hand cradling the back of your head while the other supported your ass, holding you securely against his chest even as cum continued to drip from your cunt onto his skin.

“It’s okay, pretty girl,” he cooed, voice low and soothing against your ear. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

He shifted carefully in the cloudy water, you still attached to him like a second skin, legs locked tight around his waist, arms wound around his neck. With one free hand he grabbed a clean cloth from the side of the tub. With another he reached over and unplugged the drain, letting the filthy, cum-laden water begin to swirl away. Fresh warm water poured in from the spout, clear and steaming, slowly refilling the tub around your joined bodies.

He held you the entire time, rocking you gently, pressing soft kisses to your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. Every time a fresh sob slipped from you, every time more cum leaked out of your swollen pussy and trickled down his abdomen, he murmured quiet reassurances.

“Shh… I know, sweetheart. I know it feels like too much. But I’m not going anywhere. Just let me clean you up.”

He dipped the cloth into the fresh water and began to wipe you gently, starting with your thighs, then carefully between your legs. The warm cloth soothed the tender, puffy folds, but every pass still made you whimper and cling tighter. More thick white continued to spill from your cunt no matter how carefully he cleaned, as if your body was determined to keep every drop he had pumped into you.

Sukuna did not mind.

He simply held you closer, kissing your closed eyelids, stroking your back with slow, steady hands while the clean water rose around you both. Your legs stayed locked around his torso, arms tight around his neck, face hidden against his skin as you trembled and leaked and refused to let go.

“It’s okay,” he whispered again, pressing another kiss to your hair. “I’m right here, pretty girl. I’ve got you. Let it all out. I’ll take care of everything.”

The bath slowly filled with fresh, steaming water.

Your cunt continued to leak his cum in slow, creamy pulses.

And Sukuna held you through it all, cooing soft praises and gentle reassurances while you clung to him with every bit of strength left in your tired body, safe and claimed in the arms of the monster who had ruined you so sweetly.

When he had you mostly cleaned, Sukuna gathered you up once more.

You were still latched onto him, arms locked tight around his neck, legs wrapped firmly around his torso as though letting go might make the world disappear. Even in your exhaustion your body refused to release its hold. He did not mind. He simply rose from the tub with you attached, water streaming off both of you in rivulets, and stepped out onto the cool stone floor.

One of his large hands petted your hair in slow, soothing strokes, fingers combing through the damp strands while he murmured quiet words against your temple.

“I’ve got you. Just keep holding on, pretty girl.”

He reached for a thick, soft towel and dried you as best he could while you remained clung to his chest. He wiped your back, your shoulders, the curve of your ass, moving carefully around the places where your bodies pressed together. The towel came away damp with bathwater and the last traces of his cum that still leaked slowly from your swollen cunt. Every gentle pass made you whimper softly, but you only tightened your grip, face buried deeper into the crook of his neck.

Sukuna carried you like that all the way back to the main chamber, your legs locked around his waist, your arms wound tight around his neck. He moved slowly, deliberately, one hand supporting your weight beneath your ass while the other continued to pet your hair in steady, comforting rhythms.

When he reached the wide mat he lowered himself down carefully, keeping you cradled against his chest the entire time. Only then did he try to coax you into drinking.

He reached for the clay cup of water Uraume had left on the low table, bringing it to your lips with gentle insistence.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice low and patient. “Just a little. You need it.”

You turned your face away at first, eyes still closed, too tired and overwhelmed to do anything but cling. Sukuna did not push. He simply waited, stroking your back, pressing soft kisses to your hair until you finally parted your lips. He tilted the cup slowly, letting you take small, careful sips. Cool water slid down your throat, soothing the dryness left from all your moaning and crying. You drank in tiny mouthfuls, swallowing obediently each time he encouraged you with quiet praise.

“Good girl… that’s it. Just a little more.”

When you had taken enough he set the cup aside and wrapped both arms around you again, holding you close against his warm body. Your legs stayed wrapped around his torso, your arms locked around his neck, your face tucked safely into the curve of his shoulder. Fresh tears slipped from your closed eyes, but they were softer now, exhaustion winning over everything else.

Sukuna continued to pet your hair, slow and steady, his other hands resting possessively along your back and the curve of your ass. He could still feel the occasional warm trickle of his cum leaking from your cunt onto his skin, but he made no move to clean it further. He simply held you, letting you cling as tightly as you needed.

“Sleep now,” he whispered against your hair, pressing one last gentle kiss to the top of your head. “I’m right here. I’m not letting go.”

You stayed latched onto him, trembling faintly, body heavy with fatigue and the deep, lingering fullness he had left inside you. The chamber was quiet except for the soft sound of your breathing and the steady rhythm of his hand stroking through your hair.

And Sukuna held you through it all, content to let his stolen faithful remain wrapped around him like you never wanted to be anywhere else.

He eventually pulled your tired arms away from his neck.

It took gentle coaxing, his fingers carefully unwinding your grip until your limbs fell limp and heavy against his chest. Even in sleep your body protested the loss of contact, a small, unconscious whimper slipping past your lips. Sukuna gathered you closer, all four arms cradling you against him like something infinitely precious. One pair supported your back and thighs, another rested along your sides, keeping you secure in the wide span of his hold. His massive frame curled protectively around your much smaller one on the wide mat.

He looked at you.

Really looked.

This small woman who had taken all of him so eagerly, who had cried and begged and still opened wider when he asked. He had put you through so much. From the burning temple to the blade at his throat, from the first brutal claiming to the bath where he had stretched you beyond reason and flooded you until your belly swelled. The memory of your tears, your broken moans, your desperate clinging lingered in his chest like an unfamiliar weight.

Guilt, quiet and unfamiliar, settled deep inside him.

One large hand came up to cup your face, thumb brushing slowly across your cheek. Your lashes were still damp, lips slightly parted in exhausted sleep. So delicate. So human. And yet you had taken the King of Curses into your body twice tonight and held him there like you never wanted him to leave.

His gaze drifted lower.

His hand slid down to rest over the soft, swollen curve of your tummy. The skin was warm and taut beneath his palm, still rounded from the sheer volume of cum he had pumped into you. He caressed it gently, fingers tracing slow circles over the place where his seed now rested deep inside your womb. The thought of it taking root sent a strange ripple through him.

He had never cared for heirs.

Rulers did not need bloodlines. Conquest was eternal. Legacy was written in blood and fear, not in small hands and soft cries. It was such a human thing.

But then he remembered the lake earlier that day.

You beneath the pear tree, sunlight dancing across your skin, blossoms drifting down while you came apart so sweetly on his tongue. The image shifted in his mind, unbidden, and suddenly he saw you again, months from now, belly round and heavy with his child, glowing, soft, still looking at him with those wide, trusting eyes.

It was not such a bad sight.

In fact, it felt… right.

The realization clicked into place with surprising clarity.

He would only want that with you.

Not with any trembling village girl or fearful shrine maiden he could have taken on a whim. Only with the faithful one he had stolen, the one who had once held a knife to his throat and then pulled him closer instead. The one whose body had learned to crave him, whose heart still raced beneath his palm even in sleep.

Sharing a life with you suddenly seemed possible.

Not just possession. Not just claiming. Something quieter. Something that looked like mornings with pears and evenings in the bath and nights where you clung to him even after he had ruined you.

Sukuna’s hand stayed cupped over your swollen belly, thumb stroking slow, almost reverent circles. His other arms tightened around you, pulling you closer until your cheek rested against his chest and your legs draped over his hip.

He pressed a single, lingering kiss to the top of your head.

“Sleep, little one,” he whispered into your hair, voice barely audible. “I will take care of you now. Whatever comes… I will take care of you.”

The guilt still lingered, but it was softened by something warmer, something dangerously close to tenderness. He kept his hand on your belly, feeling the faint flutter of your breathing, imagining the day it might flutter with something more.

For the first time in his long, bloody existence, Ryomen Sukuna allowed himself to picture a future that was not only conquest and fear, but one that included you, soft and full and his in every possible way.

He closed his eyes, still cradling you close, and let the quiet thought settle deep inside him.

You.

His.

Perhaps even carrying his child.

The King of Curses held his stolen faithful through the night, one hand never leaving the gentle swell of your belly, already wondering how soon he could make that vision real.

You laid on your back in the cool hush of his chamber, the thick bedding Sukuna had carefully arranged around you cradling your body like a nest. The night air was still, carrying only the faint crackle of a low brazier and the soft rhythm of your breathing. From across the room Sukuna stood watching for a long moment, four crimson eyes fixed on the peaceful sight of you.

Your eyes were closed in deep sleep, lashes resting against your cheeks, lips slightly parted. The thick layers of bedding he had swaddled you in kept you warm, but every time you shifted even the smallest amount the weight of your growing swell became more and more apparent. The soft curve of your belly rose gently beneath the covers, rounder now, heavier, undeniably full with the life he had planted inside you. The sight held him transfixed, something ancient and possessive stirring low in his chest as he stared at the proof of what you had taken from him and made your own.

You were pregnant.

The knowledge still felt new, strange, and yet utterly right.

The moment you began to shift again, a small furrow appeared between your brows. Your hands moved restlessly beneath the bedding, fingers clutching at the empty space beside you, searching, reaching for the solid warmth that was no longer there. A quiet, distressed sound slipped from your throat, barely more than a breath.

Sukuna was already moving.

He crossed the chamber in three silent strides, sliding onto the wide mat beside you before your hands could grasp at nothing again. His large palms found yours immediately, fingers threading through your smaller ones, pulling your hands against his chest. He drew you close with all four arms, carefully turning you onto your side so your swollen belly rested safely against the hard planes of his body. One arm slipped beneath your head as a pillow, another curled around your back, the third settled protectively over the curve of your tummy, and the last stroked slow, soothing lines along your spine.

The moment he had you tucked against him your breathing settled. The tension melted from your shoulders, your face relaxing once more into peaceful sleep. You nuzzled closer, cheek pressing to his collarbone, one leg instinctively draping over his hip as if even unconscious you needed to be as close as possible. A soft, contented sigh left your lips.

You had found utter comfort in Sukuna now, even more so since the pregnancy had begun to show. The fear that once lived in your eyes had long since softened into something warmer, something that sought him out in sleep and in waking. He had become your safety, your anchor, the only place where the weight of your changing body felt bearable.

Sukuna kept his hand splayed wide over the swell of your belly, feeling the faint, steady pressure beneath his palm. He could sense the life growing there, the subtle movements that had only just started to become noticeable. His thumb traced slow circles over the taut skin, reverent and quiet.

He had never imagined he would want this.

Yet here you were, swollen with his child, clinging to him even in dreams, trusting him completely with the fragile new life you carried. The guilt he had once felt had faded into something deeper, something that made him hold you a little tighter every night.

He pressed a slow kiss to the top of your head, lips lingering in your hair as he whispered against the strands, voice barely audible in the quiet chamber.

“I’m here, little one. I’ve got you both.”

Your fingers tightened faintly around his in sleep, as if answering him. Your breathing stayed even and deep, your body heavy and warm against his, the swell of your belly pressed safely between you.

Sukuna closed his eyes, but he did not sleep.

He simply held you, one hand never leaving the gentle curve where his child grew, listening to the soft sounds of your breathing and feeling the quiet wonder of how completely you had changed everything.

The King of Curses laid awake in the cool darkness, cradling his pregnant faithful close, already certain that he would burn the world again if it meant keeping this peace intact.

In the quiet dark of the chamber, with you safely tucked against his chest and the soft swell of your belly pressed between your bodies, Sukuna let his mind drift back.

He remembered the first time you had started craving fruit.

It began with pears, ironically enough. You would wake in the middle of the night and ask for them in that small, shy voice, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He had laughed low and fetched them himself, slicing the sweet golden flesh with the same blade that had once rested against his throat. You ate them with such quiet greed, juice running down your chin, eyes fluttering in simple pleasure. He had thought nothing of it then, only that his stolen girl had developed a taste for something soft and sweet.

Then the sickness came.

Mornings where you would suddenly turn pale and rush to the basin, retching until there was nothing left. He had frowned and blamed the pears at first, muttering that perhaps they had been too ripe, too cold, too much. He brought you warmer broth instead, held your hair back, and told you to stop eating so many. You had only shaken your head weakly and asked for another pear once the nausea passed.

Then your body began to change.

Your breasts grew heavier, more sensitive. Your hips softened. And your belly… your belly started to round in the gentlest way. At first he told himself it was only the constant fullness he kept pumping into you every night, the thick loads he refused to let you waste. But the rounding stayed even on the rare days he did not fill you.

The truth finally struck him one evening after you had bathed.

You were still wet and naked, skin glistening, towel having slipped from your fingers to pool on the floor. You bent to retrieve it, back arching, the curve of your spine leading down to the plush swell of your ass. Sukuna had been behind you in an instant, drawn by the sight like a moth to flame.

He stepped close, chest brushing your back, and slid one large hand around to cup the front of your tummy. The moment his palm settled over the gentle curve, something clicked into place. The weight felt different. Warmer. Alive.

His voice had come out low, almost hesitant, each word measured and slow as if he were testing the shape of something dangerous and beautiful.

“…It is not the pears,” he had murmured against the damp skin of your shoulder, fingers spreading wider over your belly. “I think… something else has taken root here.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch, letting you feel the weight of his hand and the weight of his meaning.

“Life,” he said at last, voice dropping even lower, almost reverent, “is growing inside you.”

Your breath had stilled completely.

Your smaller hands flew to cover his where it rested on your tummy. You exhaled shakily, the sound trembling in the quiet room.

“Pregnant…” The word left your lips in a stunned whisper. Then again, softer, disbelieving, “I’m pregnant.”

It sounded surreal even to your own ears.

Sukuna had pulled you back against his chest immediately, both arms wrapping around you from behind, holding you tighter than he ever had. No discussions had come before this moment. You had both known the possibility was there, after all the countless nights he had come deep inside you again and again, flooding your womb until it overflowed. Yet hearing it spoken aloud made the truth settle heavy and wonderful between you.

You looked down at your own tummy, watching the way his large hand cradled the gentle swell, and a soft, overwhelmed laugh bubbled up through your tears.

Sukuna’s chin rested on top of your head. His voice rumbled through you, low and teasing, but warm.

“What was that just now?” He gave the slightest roll of his hips, pressing the heavy line of his cocks against the curve of your ass. “Having lewd thoughts about how I filled you so well that it took?”

Your face burned, but you could not deny the fresh slick that had gathered between your thighs at his words. You nodded shyly, biting your lip, still staring down at the place where his hand protected the new life growing inside you.

He chuckled softly, pressing a slow kiss to the side of your neck.

“Good,” he murmured, hand gently rubbing circles over your belly. “Because I plan to keep you this full for a very long time.”

Back in the present, lying together in the cool chamber, Sukuna’s hand remained exactly where it had been that day, splayed protectively over the now much rounder swell of your pregnant belly. He felt the faint, fluttering movements beneath his palm and smiled into your hair.

The pears had only been the beginning.

Now you carried his child, and every night he held you just like this, quietly marveling at how completely one stolen faithful girl had rewritten his world.