✶.˚ hazel🐛 '# ༄

You had gone back to your own dorm.

Classes had happened, because they always do, cruelly, indifferently, no matter what personal catastrophe or revelation has taken place the night before. Your practices had kept happening too, then games, then workouts, then all the little public obligations of being you. You have still been smiling in hallways, still been answering messages, still been showing up looking polished and put together enough that nobody would guess you are spending entire lectures thinking about a man who insulted you into kissing him.

And Sukuna has kept existing in that infuriatingly specific way he does.

He keeps texting you.

Not constantly in some soft desperate way that would make everything easy and obvious, but enough. Enough that there is never any clean emotional distance to retreat into. He sends you dry one-liners when your professor posts something ridiculous on the class forum. You send him screenshots of memes that remind you of him, mostly because they are violent or humorless or weirdly overdramatic, and he reacts with exactly enough contempt to make you grin at your phone like an idiot.

He asks once if you survived practice or if the sport has finally done the world a favor.

You tell him volleyball hasn’t succeeded yet, but you’re rooting for it.

He sends back, shamelessly, I’m not.

It keeps going like that.

Lightly bickering. Bantering. Needling each other the same way you always have, except now there is something warm and messy and inconvenient under it all. Something that makes every message feel like it has a second meaning. Something that makes you stare at your screen after he leaves you on read for forty minutes and pretend you are not at all the sort of girl who notices a thing like that.

You do not know what you are to each other.

That is the problem you have now.

You did not ask. He did not ask. Neither of you stood in the aftermath of that first night and said something stupid and explicit like so what does this mean, because apparently both of you would rather die than phrase a vulnerable thought in a direct way.

So now you are stuck in this limbo where one night exists in perfect vivid detail between the two of you and neither of you has actually named it. Maybe it was a one-time thing. Maybe it was not. Maybe he is the sort of person who can kiss you like he wants to break your composure apart with his mouth and then simply go on with his week afterward. Maybe he thinks you can do the same.

You cannot.

Not gracefully, anyway.

It is not even just that you want to kiss him again. Though you do. God, you do. It sits in your body like a physical memory with teeth. The thought of his mouth on yours keeps hitting you at stupid times — while you are stretching before practice, while you are brushing your hair, while you are waiting for coffee, while you are supposed to be listening to a lecture on symbolism and all you can think about is how his hand had felt at your waist.

It is that you miss him in a way that feels structurally embarrassing.

You miss being in his dorm, miss the strange calm of that room, the lamp light and the tea and the books and the way he takes up space without ever seeming to perform for it. You miss lying on his bed and acting useless while he works. You miss the awful little rhythm of your evenings there, the low-grade irritation of him refusing to soften his insults for your benefit, the way he makes you feel both overstimulated and weirdly settled at once.

You are not used to this side of things.

You are used to being pursued.

You are used to men calling first, texting first, hovering close at parties, finding reasons to sit next to you, asking what you are doing later, whether you have plans, whether you are free this weekend, whether you maybe want to get dinner, maybe want to go out, maybe want to come over, maybe want to let them orbit you for a while until you decide whether their attention is flattering enough to keep. You are used to being desired in obvious ways. You are used to reading the room and knowing exactly where you stand in it.

With Sukuna, you keep feeling like the room changed shape while you were inside it.

Now you are in literature class chewing on the cap of your pen like a child with bad impulse control while Professor Hayashi says something you absolutely do not hear. The lecture hall hums around you with that familiar afternoon restlessness, pages turning, keyboards clicking, someone coughing two rows over, someone else whispering a summary of last weekend’s party into a sleeve. Usually you would at least fake attention. Usually you would take notes even if you do not care, because being visibly diligent has become second nature at this point.

Today your notebook is mostly empty.

You write a sentence fragment about narrative self-construction, then cross it out. You doodle the edge of a flower in the margin without thinking and immediately get irritated with yourself, because that is the kind of detail he would notice and use against you.

Every few seconds your eyes drift to the clock.

Then to the back of the room.

Sukuna is where he always is, occupying that back-row desk like the architecture was designed around him. One elbow braced on the surface, one long leg stretched out farther than anyone else’s chair seems able to allow, his notebook open but his expression unreadable. Today he is wearing dark cargo pants and a black shirt with the sleeves pushed up just enough to expose part of the tattoos along his forearms. His hair is half pushed back, half fallen loose again in the careless way it always does by the end of the day. He looks exactly like he always looks — tall, broad, dangerous in that way campus lighting cannot soften, bored enough to scare lesser people into silence.

And then Professor Hayashi asks a question and he answers in that clipped low voice of his and half the room goes quiet because even when he sounds mildly contemptuous of the text, he is still the smartest person in it.

You should probably dislike him more.

Instead your stomach does that stupid little drop every time he speaks.

He glances at you once during the lecture.

Only once.

But because you have been waiting for it without admitting that to yourself, the second his gaze catches yours you nearly choke on the pen cap.

He notices that too, of course, and one eyebrow lifts a fraction, amused.

Then he looks away.

Bastard.

The rest of the class becomes even more unbearable after that. You spend the final ten minutes trying not to count them. By the time the bell finally rings, something in you is already lunging forward before the noise fully settles. Chairs scrape back. Bags zip. People start their usual noisy migration toward the door.

You are already on your feet.

You do not sprint, because you have standards, but you move quickly enough that one girl from your section gives you a startled look when you slip past her row. By the time you reach Sukuna’s desk, he is slinging his backpack over one shoulder with that same unhurried economy he does everything with, as if time works differently around him and he is generous enough to let the rest of you borrow it.

He looks up when your shadow falls over him.

One eyebrow goes up again, the pierced one.

You do not give yourself time to overthink this. If you stop now, you will lose your nerve and spend the rest of the weekend mad at yourself.

“What are you doing tonight?”

That gets his full attention a little faster than it should.

He straightens enough that the distance between you shifts and you have the awful immediate sense of having walked directly into his line of fire on purpose.

Around you the room is emptying. There are still a few students lingering near the front, some talking to the professor, others shoving notebooks into bags, but the sound around the two of you feels oddly distant.

“My plans,” he says, voice dry as old paper, “currently involve studying, eating something, and avoiding my brother for the entire weekend.”

You blink once.

“Avoiding your brother?”

“Yes.”

“On purpose?”

He gives you a look that says you are lagging behind conversationally.

“That is generally what avoiding someone means.”

You cross your arms.

“I’m clarifying, don't be rude.”

“You don’t sound capable of it.”

You ignore that with practice born from weeks of dealing with him.

“Why are you avoiding your brother?”

“Because the brat wants to visit,” he says, pulling the strap of his backpack more securely onto his shoulder, “and I don’t want Yuuji in my room touching things with whatever disease-ridden hands he uses to experience joy.”

You stare at him for half a second.

Then laugh, because that is a real brother answer if you have ever heard one.

“You’re awful.”

“I’m protective of my property.”

“Against your own family.”

“Especially against my own family.”

You smile despite yourself.

“That’s not a very exciting Friday night you have planned, mh?”

He steps out from behind the desk and there it is again, that subtle immediate awareness of scale. In the lecture hall, with chairs and tables and rows between you, his size becomes part of the scenery after a while. Out in the aisle, with nothing buffering the fact that he is absurdly tall and broad and solidly put together in a way that looks more built than merely athletic, it becomes impossible to ignore. You hold your ground anyway.

“I’m not miss congeniality like you,” he drawls mockingly in that dry tone of his. “I have no intention of crashing some mediocre party and walking back out smelling like puke and bad cologne.”

You make an offended face and smack his bicep.

Light. Barely more than a tap.

Still.

His eyes narrow immediately.

You feel the exact moment your body remembers the last time you got overconfident about touching him like that on his dorm and earned a retaliatory tickling session that had been humiliating enough to make you avoid letting him get both hands on you for two days. The memory flashes through you in one bright mortifying streak, and before you can help yourself you take half a step back.

He notices that too, because of course he does. Something like amusement flickers at the corner of his mouth and vanishes.

“Coward,” he says.

“I'm being strategic.”

“You slapped me. In public.”

“Lightly. Barely touched you.”

“Public aggression is still aggression.”

“Sukuna, your arm is bigger than my thigh.”

He looks down at you with flat disdain.

“That's irrelevant. Violence is violence. It has consequences.”

You groan dramatically, but your nerves are so tightly wound already that even this stupid exchange feels like it is burning off energy you do not know where else to put. Around you the classroom has almost fully emptied. Professor Hayashi is stacking papers at the front. Someone holds the door for a friend. The whole ordinary shape of the afternoon keeps moving.

You take a breath.

Then another.

All right. Fine. You can do this.

“So,” you say, hating how casual you are trying to sound. “Do you want to hang out after my practice?”

He studies your face for a second longer than the question seems to require.

“Hang out?”

“Yeah.” You smile softly.

He waits.

It is unbearable.

You clear your throat.

“Maybe eat something. Maybe watch something. Maybe… I don’t know. Netflix and chill at your dorm?”

The second the words are out, you want to physically drag them back into your mouth and bury them alive.

Netflix and chill.

Really.

You sound like exactly the kind of horny, transparent frat boy you would never ordinarily give more than thirty seconds of patient attention to at a mixer.

You sound like some dude who still thinks euphemism is subtle because he has not once been forced to hear himself aloud.

It is so bad that for one whole second you consider turning around and leaving the country.

Sukuna, maddeningly, does not laugh.

He just looks at you.

Not blankly. Not cruelly either. Just in that awful measured way he has when he seems to be sorting through several interpretations of what you said and deciding which one amuses him most.

Then he says,

“I’m down for that, sure.”

For a moment you forget how to breathe.

“Really?”

“No,” he says flatly. “I thought I’d lie for entertainment.”

You glare at him even while relief spills through your body so fast it almost makes you lightheaded.

“You don’t have to be horrible every second of the day.”

“I do, actually.” Then, after a beat, “And you’re paying for the food.”

You stare.

“Excuse me.”

“You’re excused.” he smirks. “You hit me, so that's your consequence.”

“I tapped your arm.”

“Assaulted me. In public.” He corrects you and you see the smirk he's not letting show.

“It was hardly an assault.”

“Pay for the food.”

You throw your head back for a second because he is impossible, impossible, impossible, and yet you are so stupidly happy he said yes that even this sounds almost charming.

“Your biceps are bigger than my thighs, maybe both of them together, Sukuna!” you repeat, because that feels like a morally relevant point. “You cannot act like I endangered you. I don’t think I can endanger you.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me!”

“To your legal defense, maybe.”

“Oh my god.”

“Food,” he says.

You point at him.

“I hate that this is working, just so you know.”

“I know.”

And that is the end of the conversation, at least on the surface. He steps around you, shoulder close enough to brush yours if either of you leaned wrong, and heads for the door with that same infuriating calm. You stand there for a second feeling like all your insides have suddenly developed wings.

Then you remember you have practice.

The extra energy has nowhere reasonable to go.

So it goes to volleyball.

You practice like your life depends on it.

You show up to the gym already humming with too much adrenaline and too much relief and too much mortifying anticipation, and the only possible thing to do with all of it is turn it into force.

Your warm-up is sharper than usual. Your feet are quicker. Your serves come off your hand hard enough that one of your teammates whistles low and asks who pissed you off today. You tell her nobody, which is technically true and not at all informative.

You correct stances. You call out mistakes. You pressure people harder than you usually do on a Friday because if you let the session drag even a little, you are convinced you might start vibrating out of your own skin. The coach actually looks pleased with you for once instead of irritated by your tendency to rely on instinct and charm where discipline would do. You drill until your shirt clings damply to your back and your lungs feel open and raw and clean. Every time your thoughts threaten to drift back to Sukuna, you throw yourself harder into the next play.

It works, a little.

Not enough.

By the time practice ends on schedule, you are sweaty and flushed and still too eager by half. You shower faster than you should, take the stairs two at a time back to your dorm, and stand dripping in a towel in front of your closet with the suddenly enormous task of figuring out what exactly one wears to a maybe-date-maybe-not-date with a man who has already seen you sprawled across his bed and kissing him like you were trying to win something.

You do not want to look like you tried too hard.

You do not want to look like you did not try at all either.

In the end you settle on a soft cotton shirt that skims rather than clings, a pleated skirt because it makes your legs look good and that is simply strategic thinking, a light jacket because evenings have started turning colder and campus wind has no mercy. White sneakers. No jewelry because somehow it feels too deliberate tonight, too jangly and ornamental for the mood you are pretending not to take seriously. Just cherry lip gloss, because you know it tastes good and that fact slides into your thoughts with a warmth you should maybe feel more embarrassed about than you do.

You choose a perfume that smells clean and warm and a little expensive without being heavy. You brush your hair until it falls the way you like. You look at yourself once in the mirror, then again from farther back, then roll your eyes because at some point self-awareness becomes parody.

Still, when you finally leave, you are glad for the effort.

You walk to his dorm too fast.

Not visibly too fast, you tell yourself. Not enough that anyone watching would think you are practically trotting across campus in the direction of a man’s room on a Friday night. But your steps are quicker than usual, your body light with anticipation, your thoughts all bunching forward toward the next hour as if the rest of the day no longer counts.

By the time you reach his building, you make yourself stop at the entrance for one steadying breath.

Then another.

Then you go up and knock.

When the door opens, your brain blanks for one absurd second.

You have no idea what you expected.

A kiss, maybe? A grin, maybe not soft but at least pointed. Some sign in the doorway that the atmosphere of the evening would match the atmosphere living under your skin.

Something that says yes, I was waiting for you too.

Instead he just fills the frame.

Black shirt, black sweatpants, hair pushed back and still slightly damp, like he showered recently enough that you can catch the clean, sharp scent of his soap the second the door swings open. He looks freshly scrubbed and somehow even more dangerous for it, all broad shoulders and ink and that face of his set in its usual unreadable lines.

His eyes run over you once.

Then he says,

“Take off your shoes.”

And steps back, leaving the door open.

That’s it.

No kiss. No hug. No immediate shift in the air.

Just that.

Your mood drops so quickly it almost embarrasses you. Not because you are owed anything. You know that. You are not an idiot. But some foolish hopeful part of you had apparently been expecting a little more visible wanting. A little acknowledgment. Something.

Anything.

You toe off your shoes near the door and line them up beside his boots with more care than the task deserves. Your jacket comes off next and gets draped over the back of his chair because by now you know where everything in this room goes and that fact brings its own sting of fondness. Then you walk to his bed and sit down without asking permission, because if nothing else that much at least has become natural.

You plop down hard enough to bounce once, then settle in and fold one leg beneath you.

He watches you for a second.

Just watches.

Then he grabs the TV remote from the desk, comes over, and sits beside you on the bed with a comfortable sort of distance, not far enough to feel formal, not close enough to satisfy anything in you.

He hands you the controller.

“Pick something good,” he says. “Or I’m taking it from you and banning you from choosing ever again.”

You glare at him on reflex.

“That is not how democracy works.”

“This room is not a democracy. It's a tyranny.”

“You’re so controlling.”

“And you have terrible instincts. Pick.”

The mixture of excitement and disappointment inside you becomes harder to untangle the longer you sit there.

On the one hand, you are very obviously happy to be here. Almost stupidly so. Just being back in his room does something immediate to your nervous system, a strange relaxing around the edges. The air is familiar, the bed familiar, the quiet between you familiar. You like being near him. You like how natural it feels to settle into his space. You like how little effort it takes now.

On the other hand, a bigger part of you than you want to admit keeps waiting for some sign that he wants the same kind of night you came here wanting.

And when it does not come instantly, your thoughts start turning ugly.

Maybe you read too much into last week.

Maybe one night of aggressive making out and accidental sleeping-together, without anything else, had meant much more to you than it did to him. Maybe he is perfectly capable of filing that under interesting experience and moving on. Maybe the texting and the banter and the background warmth of the week had all been exactly what they looked like and nothing more — the aftermath of two people who now happen to be friends, or something close enough to it.

What a ridiculous little arc, if that is true.

Strangers, to bickering classmates, to your project-induced bargain, to a fling, to friends.

You hate how much that possibility hurts.

You scroll through the streaming service anyway because your pride is still functional enough to keep your face neutral. You choose The Expanse after scanning the description and deciding it sounds like something he would probably enjoy — dense enough to keep his attention, bleak enough not to offend his aesthetic preferences, smart enough that he cannot accuse you of having the media taste of a decorative houseplant.

“This one,” you say.

He glances at the screen.

“Better than I expected.”

“That sounded dangerously close to a compliment, Sukuna.”

“Don’t get used to it, then.”

You tuck one leg under the other and settle more comfortably against the wall.

“I’ll order food later when we’re actually hungry.”

He squints at you, deeply suspicious.

“You’re really paying this time.”

“If you say so.”

“You aren’t escaping this.”

“I’m aware, you’re good in extorting innocent girls, apparently.”

“You assaulted me.”

“With the force of a feather?”

“Aggression nonetheless.”

You make a face at him, but the argument feels so familiar now that it smooths some of the awkwardness inside you. He reaches over and flicks off the lamp, leaving only the TV light washing the room in shifting blues and whites. Then you press play.

The show starts.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

You sit side by side with your backs to the wall, legs stretched out over the mattress. He has one leg half folded, the other angled off the side so his foot can rest on the floor. His profile in the television light is all sharp planes and calm boredom, the kind of face that could look sculptural if he were not so obviously real and alive and faintly mean in every stillness. His attention seems to be on the screen. Your attention keeps drifting.

You last maybe ten minutes.

Maybe less.

Then, because you have never been subtle and apparently now is not the time to start, you lean sideways and lay your head on his shoulder.

The reaction is not dramatic, but immediate.

His whole body goes just a little still, a little alert, as if his muscles locked around the new information before deciding whether to accept it. You feel him turn his head. Not quickly. Just enough to look down at you.

Your heart starts thudding too hard.

You tilt your face up from his shoulder just enough to meet his eyes through your lashes.

He looks puzzled.

Genuinely, faintly puzzled, as if he is trying to determine what exactly you think you are doing and why you are doing it now.

Because you are, apparently, a very bold coward, he is the one who speaks first.

“What’s with the affection,” he asks, “instead of the usual aggression.”

You try to smile like you planned this all along.

“Maybe you’re more comfortable than you give yourself credit for.”

He scoffs softly.

“Don’t get too comfortable using me as a bed.”

“You’re warmer than the wall to lean on.”

“That sounds like a you problem once again.”

“And broad enough to be very useful,” you add.

That gets a flash of teeth.

Not a smile, exactly, but enough to count.

It gives you just enough courage to ask the thing you have actually been circling all evening.

“Do... you regret that night?” You blurt out before you can talk yourself out of it.

He stills.

Not in the same startled way as before. More deliberate now, like he actually takes the question in and gives it the dignity of thought instead of immediate deflection.

The TV continues throwing sound into the room. Somewhere in the hallway outside, a door closes.

None of it matters.

“No,” he says after a second. Then, because he is not going to let you keep the vulnerability all to yourself, “Do you?”

You swallow.

“No. Not at all.”

His shoulder under your cheek stays warm and steady.

“Then what’s the problem?”

You lift your head fully now because this deserves eye contact, even if that makes the whole thing more humiliating. You sit a little straighter and face him while he turns just enough to see you properly, the screen light moving over his face in pale cuts.

“I don’t know what it makes us.”

He looks at you for a beat.

“What.”

You exhale through your nose, frustrated already because the words sound stupid the second they leave your mouth, exactly like you feared they would.

“I don’t know what’s in your head, Sukuna,” you say. “We don’t spend time together like we did before, when I was always in your dorm for the project. I don’t see you after class every day. We text and send each other dumb things and that’s… fine, but I don’t know what to expect from you, because you’re not like anyone I’ve dealt with before.”

His eyebrows lift very slightly.

“Am I the first one you’ve met with a brain?”

You jerk back just enough to glare at him properly.

“I’m being serious, asshole.”

“So am I,” he says, and annoyingly, there is the faintest grin there. Not enough to make this easy. Just enough to force you to keep working.

Bastard. A thousand times bastard.

You cross your arms over your chest.

“Can you not do this for one second?”

“You chose a very dramatic method for a very simple question.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did, though.”

“No, I didn’t!”

He looks at you, then at the TV, then back at you.

“You invited yourself over on a Friday night, picked a science-fiction show neither of us is watching, leaned on me like a clingy cat, and now you’re trying to coax me into defining whatever this is without having to say you missed me.”

Heat floods your face so fast you almost feel dizzy.

“That— is not—”

“It is exactly what that is.”

You stare at him, horrified because he is right in such a specific and complete way that there is no graceful angle of denial left available to you. You came here wanting to make the whole thing look casual. Cool. Plausibly deniable. Instead he has apparently been reading your intentions like subtitles all evening.

He sees the exact second it lands.

And because he is evil, his mouth curves a little more.

“You elaborate this entire Netflix-and-chill plan,” he says, voice even and maddeningly thoughtful, “instead of just telling me you missed making out with me until you passed out on my bed.”

You are hot, and possibly bright red.

You know it.

You can feel the heat blasting out of your face hard enough to light the room.

You react before thinking.

You spring off the bed as if sheer vertical movement will somehow prove he is wrong, as if indignation has ever disguised desire from a man who notices everything. The mattress dips and rises behind you. The show keeps playing, forgotten instantly. You hear him breathe out something that is not quite a laugh and might be worse, that contained little chuckle.

“Stop being so full of yourself!” you snap, because it is the only weapon your pride can still grab. “Maybe you are projecting! Maybe you are the one who missed kissing me!”

That gets an actual chuckle because you sound so insanely childish and in denial.

Low. Annoyingly pleased. It follows you across the room as you march toward the little kitchen area without any real plan beyond escape. You do not even know what you are doing there until your hands start reaching automatically for the kettle, because fine, if you are going to die of mortification you may as well put water on for tea first.

You start filling it at the sink.

The pout on your face feels enormous and childish and very hard to control.

Behind you, the bed shifts. Then footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. Deliberate enough that every sound of them seems to land between your shoulder blades.

You refuse to turn around.

You set the kettle down, adjust the tap, watch the water rise. It is suddenly incredibly important to focus on this one practical task and not on the fact that Sukuna is still in the room with you and probably enjoying every second of your unraveling.

“You know,” he says from the kitchen doorway, “it really isn’t that hard to admit you missed my mouth on yours.”

You grip the kettle handle tighter, sulking.

He keeps going, because of course he does. Evil, evil nerd.

“You could’ve just said it.”

You do not look at him.

“Shut. Up.”

The water keeps running.

He pushes off the the doorframe.

You feel that change in the air that makes the back of your neck prickle. Then he is behind you, close enough that the heat of him reaches you even before the contact does, towering over you as you set the kettle down on the counter and reach toward the stove.

His arms come down on either side of you before you do.

Hands braced on the counter.

Caging you in without actually touching you.

Your breath snags. Hard.

His chin brushes the top of your head in the smallest accidental-seeming contact, and you know it is not accidental at all because he immediately speaks again in that voice of his, too calm for the position he has you in.

“You should’ve told me earlier you were this needy. I could give you some attention.”

You bristle instantly.

Not even lighting the stove, you turn in the little pocket of space he has trapped you in, one hand still on the counter, the other half lifted uselessly between you as if that could possibly help.

“You need to shut your mouth before I make you swallow your own fist!”

The threat should land better than it does.

It cannot, not when his face is that close.

Not when he is smirking.

Not the full hard smile he sometimes gets when he knows he has you cornered, just the faint upward pull at one corner of his mouth that makes him look much too pleased with himself and much too handsome to be tolerated.

Gods, why is he like this?

Your anger trips over itself. You frown at him because it is the only thing left.

“Stop playing with me as if you could win, nerd.”

His eyes drop to your mouth for half a beat.

Then back up, and the smirk becomes a grin.

“I’m absolutely winning this,” he murmurs.

Before you can retort, his hands leave the counter and close around your waist.

You gasp.

The sound humiliates you instantly, but there is no time to recover because he is already moving you. Not roughly. Effortlessly. As if your weight is nothing worth acknowledging.

He turns and walks you backward out of the kitchen, your hands going automatically to his shoulders for balance because the alternative is stumbling while being manhandled. You barely get out a protest before the backs of your knees hit the mattress and he uses the momentum to put you down on it.

The bed gives under your weight.

Then him.

You land half reclined, then fully when he follows and crowds in close enough to erase any practical space between your bodies. He does not trap you by force exactly, not the way a hand on your wrists or a knee between your legs would.

He traps you by presence, by keeping you flush against him, one arm around your waist and the other braced so near your shoulder that moving away would become an obvious choice instead of an accidental drift.

And apparently now that he has you here, he means to get his answer properly.

“Why didn’t you say it straight,” he asks, looking down at you with infuriating calm, “if you wanted to do this again.”

You try to wriggle out of his hold on pure reflex and get nowhere.

He barely tightens his arm. Barely. It is still enough to remind you how stupidly easy it would be for him to keep you right where he wants you.

“Because!” you spit, and then have to stop because the explanation sounds worse than silence.

His eyes narrow very slightly.

“Because what.”

You squirm again, fail again, and finally exhale in defeat because there is no dignified version of this.

“Because this is how normal people flirt, okay?”

He blinks once.

You hate that this apparently genuinely interests him.

You keep going because now you have committed and your pride is already dead on the floor somewhere.

“This is how people communicate things.” you mutter. “I learned that boys don’t usually just ask a girl out and say they want to bang her. They ask if she wants to hang out, or watch something, or come over, or do something that sounds casual, and then everybody understands what the subtext is supposed to be.”

He is silent for a second.

Then another.

You can feel yourself dying from the inside out just hearing your own explanation reflected off his total lack of rescue.

“You really just taught me flirting one-on-one,” he says at last, voice almost thoughtful.

“Do not phrase it like that ever again or I'm punching you.”

“You literally just did.”

“Fine! Will you shut up about it?” You grit out through your teeth.

He does not shut up.

He leans in instead, so that his mouth is suddenly much too close to yours for your thoughts to remain coherent. His eyes stay on your face. Every inch closer makes your pulse pound harder.

“If I understand you correctly,” he says softly, “you asked me to come back here tonight because you wanted to bang me.”

That is it.

That is the moment you actually leave your body.

Because hearing it said like that, plainly, with none of the euphemism or social choreography you were hiding inside, is enough to reduce every functioning part of your brain to smoke.

You make some sound. Not a word. Not even a syllable with enough dignity to be called an answer. Just a small wrecked noise that betrays you so completely you want to fling yourself through the window.

He chuckles.

Of course he does.

Of course he is enjoying this.

And then, finally, mercifully, he kisses you.

The relief is immediate and almost violent.

You do not ease into it. You latch onto it. One second you are burning alive under his gaze, the next your hands are on his jaw and your mouth is on his like you have been waiting for exactly this permission all week. The kiss lands hard, not rough in a careless way, but decisive. Real, hot, wanting. Full enough to knock the breath out of every stupid thought you have been choking on.

God.

You missed this.

That is the first clear thing in your head. Not even desire at first, just missing.

Missing the shape of his mouth, the heat of him, the deeply irritating fact that kissing him feels better than it has any right to after only one night. You kiss him harder because now that you have the thing itself again, the waiting of the past week feels unbearable in retrospect.

He rolls you both so you are now laying on top of him for once.

He is warm under you, all solid muscle and contained force and that maddening steadiness of his. He tastes clean, faintly of tea from earlier and something that is just him underneath, if you remember well — and oh you do. His hand tightens at your waist when you kiss him like that, greedy and a little angry with relief, and the response sends a thrill through your whole body.

You keep going.

You really do forget about the series.

The screen keeps throwing pale blue light over the room, spaceships drifting silent and important through some enormous black stretch of nothing, but it may as well be static for all you care. It turns into background hum, just noise and flicker, something to stain the walls with motion while your entire world narrows down to the man under you and the fact that he is warm everywhere you touch him.

You kiss him because now that he has finally shut up and put his mouth on yours, you remember with humiliating clarity that you did want this. Too much. More than made sense for one night of making out and a week of texting like two people pretending they are not circling the same thing over and over.

His mouth is as good as you remembered, which is the first problem.

The second problem is that now you know how he reacts when you get greedy.

You keep your body pressed close. You keep your mouth on his until your breathing starts breaking apart around it.

Somewhere behind you the TV still keeps playing.

It no longer matters.

Nothing matters except the fact that Sukuna is under you again and kissing you back with enough focus to make the rest of the world feel unsubstantial.

You pull back just enough to breathe and then go right back in.

This time you shift more fully over him, your weight settling on top of his hips and stomach, your knee pressing into the mattress beside him, your body using his like he actually is the bed you accused him of being earlier. The position suits you better than it should.

Gives you leverage.

Gives you access.

Gives you the dizzy little satisfaction of being the one above him for once, even if you know perfectly well he could reverse it in a heartbeat if he felt like it.

You drag your lips from his mouth to the sharp line of his jaw, then lower, because if he got to make you feel stupid in the kitchen then you get to take something back. His skin is warm and clean under your mouth, still holding traces of his soap, and there is something deeply satisfying about the way his breathing changes when you start paying attention to his neck. Not dramatically. Sukuna does not do dramatic responses. But his chest rises a little deeper under you, and the hand at your waist tightens just enough to let you know he is not as indifferent as he enjoys pretending.

That alone makes you braver to keep going.

You kiss lower, slower, then nibble lightly at the spot below his ear because you want to see what happens.

He hisses a laugh through his teeth, low and disbelieving.

“You get one victory and become insufferable.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, still straddling his hips, hair sliding over your shoulder.

“I am not hearing a complaint.”

“You wouldn’t. Your ego is too loud.”

You smile and lean down to kiss him again before he can keep talking. This time he meets you halfway with a hand sliding up your back under the thin cotton of your shirt, broad palm hot against bare skin where the hem has ridden up.

The touch is simple, almost absent-minded, but it lands in your body like a struck match. You feel it everywhere all at once. Your shoulders. Your stomach. The backs of your thighs where his other hand had settled earlier and now stays like he has a right to it.

Maybe he does.

That thought comes out of nowhere and settles hard.

You ignore it immediately.

His hands stay on you.

One at your waist. One sliding up your back over the fabric of your shirt, broad and hot enough that you feel every inch of the path.

He does not stop you. That almost makes it worse, the way he lets you climb him and kiss him like you are making up for lost time while he lies there accepting it with narrowed eyes and that faint, crooked smile threatening at the corners of his mouth whenever you pull away.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” you murmur against his jaw.

“I told you I was,” he says, and you can hear the smirk in it.

So you bite him.

Not hard. Just enough to make the skin of his jaw catch between your teeth for a second before you soothe it with a kiss.

That gets a real reaction.

Small and very real. His fingers flex at your waist. His breathing changes. Satisfaction blooms instantly and shamelessly in your chest.

Oh.

Fine, then.

You kiss along his jaw again. Slow at first, then less patient. Down toward his neck, where his skin is warmer and the clean scent of his soap lingers strongest. You can smell better the shower on him there, the freshness of it, the faint heat of skin fully dried after as you nuzzle softly.

Your mouth keeps finding places to land as if you have known this body longer than you have.

Your hands move too, one staying at his face long enough to thumb over the sharp line of his cheekbone, the other sliding down over his chest and then lower, traveling under the hem of his shirt because at this point restraint feels like a joke.

His skin is so damn hot.

The first touch of his bare stomach under your palm sends a shiver through you so strong you almost lose track of your own breathing.

He is exactly what he looks like — hard, solid, defined muscle under smooth warm skin, the shift of his abdomen under your hand immediate and impossible not to notice. You spread your fingers there without thinking, tracing up the ridges of him with a kind of fascinated hunger that might be embarrassing if you had any spare dignity left.

He tilts his head back just enough to watch you.

You catch the sight of his teeth when you look up — those sharp canines of his flashing in the low light, the edge of a crooked smile that is more amused than kind. His eyes are narrowed, not in annoyance but in concentration, fixed on you with that same intensity that makes you feel like he is always seeing two layers deeper than you intended.

You should probably feel self-conscious under that gaze.

Instead it only makes you bolder.

You kiss his throat.

You kiss the place just beneath his jaw that makes his breathing hitch almost imperceptibly. You let your hand slide higher under his shirt, over the flat plane of his stomach and the harder cut of his ribs, feeling the shift of muscle under your palm as he breathes.

You are a little feral about it now, and you know it.

The week of waiting, of texting and wondering and trying not to want too visibly, has apparently made you far less delicate than usual.

You keep kissing him and touching him and taking the fact of his body in with a kind of greedy delight.

He lets you.

That is the wildest part, when you think about it.

He lets you have your way with him for those moments, not passive, never passive, but permissive in a way that feels deliberate. He watches you work yourself into a state over him and does nothing to slow you down. One hand stays at your waist, the other slides up into your hair and rests there, not directing yet, just keeping contact.

He seems content to let you spend all the frustration you carried in with you.

You are thriving in it.

You kiss your way back up to his mouth, then down again, then back, unable to settle because every place you touch him gives you something back. The line of his throat. The rougher warmth under his shirt. The faint sound he makes when your nails drag lightly over his side. The way his mouth opens on an exhale when you kiss him deep and slow instead of hard and desperate.

“You’re staring,” you mutter against his mouth.

“I know.”

“That’s creepy.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s useful.”

You lift your head, suspicious.

“Useful for what?”

“For seeing how quickly you forget to act smug once you get what you want.”

You should pull away on principle. Instead you glare down at him, which only makes his mouth twitch.

“You are the worst possible person.”

“And yet you came here in a skirt that makes your intentions embarrassingly obvious.”

You go hot so quickly it almost hurts.

“My intentions were not embarrassingly obvious. It was an innocent hang out.”

Says you, the girl straddling his hips.

“Cherry lip gloss.” One thumb slides across your thigh, not wandering further, just tracing the line where your skirt ended. “Perfume. No jewelry because you wanted to look effortless, which means you thought about it long enough to decide effort should look accidental. Then you came to my room and pouted because I didn’t greet you with my mouth.”

You stare at him hard enough to poke holes on his head.

He stares back with quiet satisfaction.

You hate how cleanly he reads you. You hate it almost as much as you love the feeling of being seen that exactly.

“That is an invasive level of observation,” you tell him.

“It is basic pattern recognition.”

“You make me sound pathetic.”

“No.” His eyes drop briefly to your mouth, then back. “Just transparent.”

You lean down and bite his lower lip lightly for that.

He makes a small sound, one that goes straight through your ribs, and then his hand is at the back of your neck and he is kissing you harder, enough to turn your neat little retaliation into something that barely counts as winning. You laugh into his mouth once, breathless and startled and still a little giddy from how quickly the balance shifts with him.

With other men, you always know where you stand. You know how much to smile, how much to touch, how much to hold back so they keep wanting. You know how to steer the moment and how to let them think they found it themselves.

With Sukuna it never feels that simple.

With Sukuna you keep reaching for control and finding that you do not actually mind when he takes it from you.

That should concern you more than it does.

You sit up a little to catch your breath, one hand still spread under his shirt over the hard plane of his stomach. His hair is messier now, pushed back and then forward again by your fingers, his mouth pinker than before, expression ruined just enough to make the whole severe handsome thing of him feel unfair. He looks up at you from the bed, broad and relaxed under your weight, one arm crooked behind his head now like he has decided he can afford to enjoy himself.

That pisses you off on principle.

“You’re too pleased with yourself,” you say.

“You climbed on top of me and started kissing my neck like you were starving, why shouldn't I be?”

“I can still be right about you projecting.”

“You can be many things. Right is rare.”

You push at his shoulder, not enough to move him.

“You talk too much for someone who was begging to be kissed five minutes ago.”

One eyebrow lifts.

“Begging?”

“Yes.”

“When.”

“In the kitchen. Obviously.”

“I seem to recall you pouting over a kettle because I pointed out the obvious.”

You gasp softly.

“I was making tea.”

“You were hiding.”

“I was… regrouping.”

“That is a very pretty word for hiding.”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“You are trying extremely hard to make me admit I wanted this.”

He says it without hesitation.

“Because you are stubborn enough to choke on it otherwise.”

The answer knocks something loose in you.

You know, rationally, that he has wanted you since at least the hallway if not before. You know it from the way he looks at your mouth before he says something especially mean, from the way he made you show up at his dorm every time he worked on that project, from the fact that one kiss turned into a whole night and then a week of messages and memes and those infuriating little comments that are only possible when someone has been paying attention.

Still, hearing him talk like it is obvious matters.

You do not know what to do with the little bloom of relief that follows.

So you cover it with sarcasm, because that is apparently the only defense you have left with him.

“Maybe I just missed bullying you in person.”

His hand slips to the back of your thigh and squeezes, firm enough to make your breath catch.

“Liar.”

At some point he catches your chin.

Not to stop you. Just to make you look at him.

You do, breathing a little too hard, hair probably a mess by now, lip gloss long ruined.

His expression is unreadable for a second.

Then he says, very quietly,

“There. That’s what you wanted.”

You stare at him.

The words aren’t cruel. Not even mocking, really. They sound more like observation. Like he is naming the thing you spent all week trying to avoid saying aloud.

Your hand stays under his shirt.

His hand stays at your jaw.

The TV light flickers over both of you.

“Yes,” you admit, because at this point honesty has become less frightening than continuing to pretend. “It is.”

Something shifts in his face then. Small. Deep. Not softness exactly, but something adjacent to it, something realer than teasing.

His thumb brushes once at the corner of your mouth.

“You should say it sooner next time.”

Your heart trips so hard it almost hurts.

Next time.

Not maybe. Not if. Not some vague future possibility.

Next time.

You know he sees the effect because one side of his mouth pulls up again, faint and private and unbearably pleased with himself. But he does not ruin it by pointing the reaction out. For once he gives you the mercy of silence and lets the words sit there between you like an answer.

So there is a next time.

There will be a next time.

Something inside you unclenches so fully that the relief of it almost makes you dizzy. You had not realized how tightly you had been holding yourself until then, how much of tonight had been built on the fear of wanting something that might not be wanted back.

You exhale slowly.

Then lean down and kiss him again, not out of desperation this time, not to shut him up or prove something, but because the answer in his words settles warmly in your chest and you do not know what else to do with it.

This kiss changes too.

Still hungry, still charged, still full of the undeniable fact that you both want each other in ways neither of you is especially good at phrasing. But steadier now. Less like trying to seize ground, more like lingering over what you have already taken. You kiss him slower. He meets you there. One of his hands slides from your hair to the back of your neck, warm and firm and unhurried, and the other stays at your waist like he has no intention of letting you drift far.

You can feel the difference in him too. Not less intense. Just less set on making you squirm for sport. Or maybe he already got enough out of that in the kitchen.

When you pull away, you do not go far.

Your forehead nearly touches his. Your fingers stay hooked under the hem of his shirt. His breath brushes your lips when he speaks.

“You’re thinking again,” he murmurs.

“You say that like it’s a medical emergency.”

“It usually is with you.”

You want to be offended. Instead you huff out a laugh against his mouth.

Then, because you are still you and he is still him and nothing between you has ever lasted long without a little friction, you say,

“You know, most people would’ve just kissed me at the door.”

He looks at you with immediate disdain.

“Most people are transparent.”

“You’re telling me you weren’t waiting?”

“No,” he says. “I’m telling you I wanted to see how long you’d take before doing something entertaining or stupid.”

You groan and drop your forehead to his shoulder for a second because that tracks so perfectly it is almost offensive.

“You’re a jerk.”

He shifts one hand up your spine, slow and absentminded, almost a pet.

“And yet.”

“And yet,” you mutter into his shirt, “I keep ending up here.”

“That sounds like a personal failure, hm?”

You lift your head and glare down at him.

“You can just say you want me carnally, you know it, right?”

His eyes drift over your face. Over your mouth. Over the hair that has probably started sticking to your cheeks by now.

“You came here in cherry gloss because you knew it tastes good, you’re not subtle at all.”

Everything in you stops.

You blink. Once.

“Excuse me.”

He does not look remotely ashamed.

“I noticed last time.”

The heat that rushes through you then is almost too much to hold in one body.

“You noticed that about my lip gloss?”

“I noticed your mouth,” he corrects.

That is so unfair you have to kiss him again just to make him stop talking.

He laughs into it once, quietly, and the sound goes through you like a match dropped somewhere dry.

After that the night settles into something softer around the edges without losing any of its charge. At some point you do order food, because eventually even desire has to make room for hunger and because if you do not, he will absolutely use your failure to uphold the terms of his invented compensation against you for the next month.

The two of you eat half reclined against his headboard with the show still running, both pretending to follow enough of the plot to justify not restarting it later. He complains about your choice of takeout and then steals half of it for himself. You complain about his criticism and then eat from his container when yours runs low. It is absurdly domestic for two people who spent the last hour proving they are deeply incapable of behaving like normal adults around each other.

After the food, the bed swallows you both again.

Not immediately into kissing, though that returns on and off in waves, easy now that the tension of uncertainty has broken. Sometimes you watch the screen. Sometimes you talk over it. Sometimes one of you says something mean enough to start an argument that dissolves into mouths and hands before it gets very far.

At one point you end up tucked half against his side again, your head on his shoulder like earlier, except now one of his arms is actually around you instead of stubbornly absent. The possessiveness of it is subtle but unmistakable. You do not comment on it. He does not either. You simply let yourself fit there and feel the slow steadiness of his breathing under your cheek.

“What are we,” you ask eventually, because apparently you are going to squeeze all the dignity out of this evening while you can.

He does not answer immediately.

The question hangs there while some ship explodes on the screen and somebody delivers a grim line about survival you only half hear. His thumb moves once over your arm where it rests across you.

Then he says,

“You really like labels.”

“I like knowing what kind of idiot I’m being here.”

“That’s fair.”

You wait.

He glances down at you.

“We’re whatever this is while it’s happening.”

You make a face.

“That’s maddeningly vague for a control freak like you.”

“It’s accurate enough, I’d say.”

“It sounds like something said by an emotionally constipated man.”

He snorts softly.

“It sounds like you want guarantees after one week.”

You go quiet because that is, annoyingly, not entirely wrong. Not guarantees, maybe, but shape. Definition. Something you can hold up to the light and know where its edges are.

He must feel the shift in you because his voice loses some of its bite when he speaks again.

“I’m not uninterested,” he says. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” you echo, because you refuse to let him get away with pretending that part is self-explanatory.

“You’re still here, aren’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“You'll keep coming back, won't you.”

“Yes, because apparently I’m just like a dog.”

He looks at you.

“You keep coming back." Then, very lightly, taps two fingers against your thigh where your skirt has ridden up a little from all the shifting around. "That’s the answer you need for now.”

You study his face.

It is not the full sweeping declaration some softer man might give. No speech. No confession. No clean romantic arc tied up with a bow. It is still Sukuna. Still blunt where it suits him, still evasive where language tries to pin him down too early.

And yet.

There is honesty in it.

More than enough, maybe, for now.

You settle deeper against him and exhale.

“Fine,” you say. “But if you disappear on me, I’m keying something important.”

“You don’t know what I own.”

“I know your car. Your plants. Your door. I’ll improvise.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

You tilt your head up.

“Oh? Are you flirting with me again?”

“I’m threatening you.”

“That’s basically your version of flirting.”

He looks faintly offended by how correct that is.

You smile into his shoulder and the night keeps stretching.

The show moves on in fragments. You miss whole sections of it. Once you restart an episode because neither of you actually followed the last twenty minutes and he refuses to admit that he was distracted by you biting his neck.

You tell him he made no effort to stop you. He says that was his mistake and yours at once. You kiss the corner of his mouth while he is mid-insult and feel the sentence die there.

Eventually the room goes quieter.

You think that this might be the real thing you wanted.

Not just the kissing, though that is very much wanted. Not just the confirmation that he had missed you too. But this strange, charged comfort. The way the sharpness between you no longer feels like a wall so much as a language. The way his room already feels familiar enough to settle into. The way being with him still keeps you alert while somehow also making the rest of your life go quiet at the edges.

You are not used to wanting a person and the atmosphere around them with equal intensity.

With him, apparently, you do.

At some point your fingers find the hem of his shirt again and slide beneath it without even thinking, just to rest on the warmth of his stomach. He glances down at the movement, then at you, but says nothing. He lets you keep your hand there as if it belongs. The simple allowance of it does something absurd to your chest.

You look up at him and find him already looking back.

“What,” you ask.

“You’re so damn smug.”

“Am I now.”

“You are. You’ve been smug for the past ten minutes.”

“Maybe because I’m winning.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“At what.”

“At this.”

You gesture vaguely with your free hand, encompassing the bed, the room, him, your position half on top of him again without even realizing you drifted there.

“At whatever this is.”

The corner of his mouth lifts.

Then, because he cannot help himself,

“Remember you're here because you asked me if we could Netflix and chill like a nineteen-year-old idiot.”

You gasp, offended and delighted at once.

“That is ageist,” you squint at him.

“It’s just the truth.”

“You said yes even though you knew what it meant beneath it.” You narrow your eyes trying to go for scrutiny and landing on mildly provoking, probably.

“I know.” His hand slides up your side once, slow and possessive and far too easy. “And you’re still blushing about it.”

You hate that he is right.

You hate it enough to kiss him again.

He lets you win a little, this time. Or maybe he simply enjoys watching what confidence does to you when it comes back in waves.

Either way, he lets you climb into his lap properly, lets you take his face in both hands and kiss him until you feel that same answering heat spark through him and gather, lets you taste the pleased little exhale he tries not to make when you nip at his lip and soothe it with your tongue.

This time when you move down to his jaw and neck again, he tips his head back for you with only the faintest look of annoyance at his own compliance.

That alone might keep you happy for a week.

You smile against his skin and feel him notice.

“Don’t start,” he murmurs.

“Too late.”

“You’re so annoying when you think you’ve learned something.”

“I have learned something.”

His hand curls at the back of your neck and keeps you there a second longer before letting you pull away just enough to grin at him.

“You like me.”

He stares at you.

Then gives you the most insultingly calm answer possible.

“I tolerate you at a very high level.”

You laugh so hard you almost collapse back onto his chest.

He does not deny it further, and for you that is answer enough.