Snail

The goal is to serve your time, do your sentence, and eventually get access upstairs.

The unfortunate rule is that time can be added. Which, in a place run by the inmates with no laws, no dignity, and a catastrophic lack of ethics, makes it alarmingly easy to rack up a sentence.

You found yourself wandering up to the front desk, the waiting room stretched into a bright white that seemed to swallow the space, only to find your childhood plush sitting primly, wearing a tie.

No need for a name tag.

“Ah ha! You’re awake. Welcome to hell!”

The thing had a sweet voice, the kind that reminded you of a cartoon mascot or a customer service representative who had never known the feeling of despair. Its voice rang oddly in your skull, a little too crisp and far too close, and as you slowly looked around, the room itself seemed rather... unsettling.

It was pure white.

Not a warm white, like what you’d imagine the afterlife would have, but a sterile, flat white, like an office building scrubbed of all personality. Gone was the horrible waiting room chair and whatever space you had crossed to get here. All that remained was a thick glass barrier with a tiny microphone built into it and the plush sitting behind it, bent over and a little lopsided.

The barrier must be for people who didn’t take being in hell particularly well.

You forced yourself to ask the sort of question one generally asks upon dying.

What did I do to deserve this?

Sure, you were no saint, but there was nothing you could think of that actually warranted eternal damnation. And honestly, you had expected hell to be far more dramatic. At least something to match the descriptions in Dante’s Inferno. Something worth crying about, not this bureaucratic nightmare.

At the very least, give you the backrooms.

“You died by a...,” the plush paused. “Wait, wait, you asked what you did?”

The comfort object blinked at you with round, beady little eyes. Perhaps after years and years of handling people who stepped into the room, it had simply grown accustomed to a different string of questions.

“Huh. Usually they start with an ‘AHHHHH!’ and a ‘NOOOO! I need more time!”

The fuzzy little thing acted out each response with theatrical enthusiasm, its voice pitching and warping to accommodate each imaginary soul it seemed to be quoting. You stared at the thing, half convinced you had finally tipped into insanity. Maybe this was all some sort of terrible nightmare, one your feeble little mind couldn’t quite make sense of. Did everyone get their own plush? Was hell customized? Or was this simply the first sign that your mind, faced with the incomprehensible, had decided to protect itself by becoming stupid?

Before you had time to wrap your brain around it all, a paper scroll appeared in front of you with a dry little rustle as it unfurled. Only one line was written across it in a stiff, businesslike font:

Section 67, Rule 421: Copied Another Individual During a Major Test

A low, dramatic whistle rang in your mind. You assumed it was the plush, seeing as it had no mouth to accommodate such a sound.

“That’s really bad, you know!” It shook its soft little head, disappointment evident in its tiny features, before looking back at you through the glass divider. “Thankfully, you only have a week here. I think you’ll survive quite well.”

Unfortunately, you did not survive very well.

By the time you were discharged to the city streets through one of those plastic, bank-vault-looking things that dropped you into a particular district, you were already exhausted. You imagined everyone had a different drop-off location depending on their crime. You weren’t given a map, so there was no way to confirm whether your theory was correct.

Hell was not the cinematic inferno every cautionary church pamphlet had promised you. Instead, it was rather functional, much like a big city, except the time was always mostly night, or some in-between time designed to guarantee you would never have a restful second of sleep because your circadian rhythm would be forever screwed up.

The air was thick and damp, clinging to your skin like a second layer, with a persistent drizzle falling from somewhere above that never quite turned into proper rain but never stopped either. Instead, it slicked the pavement and softened the neon lights plastered above buildings, the words shifting through languages you didn’t know and yet could still understand.

Something large swept overhead.

You flinched on reflex, the shadow warping across the ground, and looked up just in time to catch the silhouette of wings cutting through the glow of the city, massive and slow-beating, before disappearing between buildings. Others followed, some similar in shape, others larger or smaller, either hovering, gliding, or simply watching.

You had the awful feeling that one of them lingered a beat longer than the rest, its eyes fixed on you as though you might be its next victim for an early dinner.

You decided to keep walking, matching the pace of the other creatures on their commute home, or to work, or wherever one went in hell. Some were human like yourself. Others had scales slick with rain, or fur damp and clinging to their bodies. Horns knocked faintly against passing umbrellas. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed loud enough to make your shoulders jump, but no one else seemed to pay it any mind.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

You managed to secure a place using whatever money was left in your bank account when you died. Unfortunately, your 401(k) had been drained and passed on to your loved ones, but with the sad little chunk of change you still had access to, you were able to get a furnished apartment.

Again, you did not survive your first day in hell well.

At least not socially.

Mr. Nanami had been kind enough to point you toward places that were hiring since, thankfully, your degree had transferred over. Which felt like one of the only mercies this place had afforded you. So naturally, in a desperate attempt to remain housed and not piss off your landlord, who accepted rent weekly instead of monthly, you tried to get a job.

Unfortunately for you, the hiring manager at one of the establishments Mr. Nanami had suggested was an orc.

A very ugly one, too.

Broad, tusked, and sweating through a short-sleeved button-up that strained across his chest. He smelled faintly of sulfur, wet pennies, and microwaved fish. The hiring office itself was hardly any better, with bolted plastic chairs and a sad little ticket dispenser by the front desk for interviews.

You waited nearly an hour for your turn, resume trembling in your hand as you were finally called up to take a seat in front of the gruff orc, who adjusted his glasses to read the small print of the freshly printed paper you had spent your last dollar on.

The orc squinted down at your paperwork, snorted, and tapped the note attached to your file with one bumpy green finger.

“Did you really earn your degree?” he asked.

Not quietly, either. Several heads turned in your direction as heat began to crawl up your neck. You forced yourself to nod, bottom lip wobbling, because this had to be the third place rejecting you over your crime.

“Sorry,” he said in an annoyed voice, his lips curling around the words before he spat them out. “Can’t do it.”

You did your best to plead your case. You insisted that you really had earned your degree, that one copied test did nothing to invalidate years of work, sleepless nights, and academic suffering. But the smelly orc merely jerked a crooked thumb toward the others waiting in line and informed you that, at the very least, they were more qualified than you.

Someone behind you made a little huff and whispered to another creature waiting for an interview, “At least commit murder if you’re going to end up here.”

You stood there for one long second, feeling every eye in the room on you, all because of one stupid test. The living had already been hard enough. Why did the dead have to be worse?

Something hot and furious crackled inside you. You reached for the hand sanitizer and the free lighters from the front desk and, well...

You torched the place.

In hindsight, perhaps not your best moment.

Still, you had not even known you were capable of that kind of firepower, which was at least a little exciting. The flames licked across the front desk and raced up a motivational poster with two kittens hanging over a branch above a fire pit, the words Hang in There curling black at the edges as the whole thing went up.

You did, unfortunately, kill a few people in your little arson attempt, to which hell did not respond with much whimsy.

A cheerful little ding sounded somewhere above your head, and then the plush returned to announce:

New Sentence: 667 Years

You picked up your torched resume off the floor and figured you had better find a job before Mr. Nanami refused to extend your lease because you couldn't make your next payment. Pitiful little crocodile tears could only get you so far in a place like this, and if you didn't figure out a way to make rent, and quickly, well, selling yourself was always an option.

Though you weren’t sure your soul would rest easy with that.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

With an odd little stroke of luck, you spotted it on your way back to the apartment while kicking rocks along the sidewalk. A convenience store was hiring, and the going rate was three times your rent every two weeks. The bubble letters were oddly specific.

Late Shift! Five-Year Contract!

Printed at the very bottom of the crumpled pink flyer, beneath faint stains you could only hope were ketchup and not blood, were the words.

Rules Apply.

Surely you could follow rules, and there was no way your crime would be a problem for an establishment like this. With your dignity hanging by a frayed thread, you stepped inside to apply.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

For as cheerful as the flyer had been, you expected someone equally cheerful behind the counter.

Instead, there sat a dragon hybrid who looked less like a store manager and more like a final boss guarding a dungeon you very clearly weren’t the right level for.

He was huge.

Not just tall, though he certainly had that going for him too, but broad in a way that felt excessive, built with the sort of monstrous proportions that made the cramped convenience store seem laughably too small for him. The place itself was dingy, with flickering fluorescent lights overhead, one of the drink coolers making a low rattling hum in the back, and tile floors sticky enough that your shoes made faint little tacky sounds every time you shifted your weight. A cheap bell had jingled when you walked in, though he hadn’t looked up right away.

Four arms. Two folded lazily across his chest, one hand flipping through what appeared to be hell’s version of a Playboy while another obsidian claw picked idly at one of his fangs. One of the lower hands was occupied with absolutely nothing at all, drumming black claws against the countertop beside the register, as he might eventually remember that he worked here.

You stared.

Because frankly, what else were you supposed to do when faced with that?

A pair of red eyes slid over you once. The slushie machine in the corner gave a loud, wet gurgle. “You here to buy something,” he drawled at last, “or just stand there gawking before asking for a job?”

Your mouth parted. You couldn’t say anything for a handful of seconds, which only made him roll his crimson eyes. “A job?” you merely squeaked out with your resume already crumpling in your hand.

“So you can read. That’s a relief. I was beginning to wonder if hell had lowered its standards again.”

You bristled instantly. “Yeah… I’m here for the job.”

He looked you over once more, taking his sweet time with it, and somehow managed to make standing there in your own skin feel weirdly humiliating. One claw tapped lazily against the laminated countertop. Somewhere behind him, a refrigerator compressor kicked louder for half a second before settling back into its usual little hum.

“That bad out there already?” he mused, flipping another page. Two of his four eyes dropped back to the magazine. “Couldn’t even make it a full day before crawling into retail?”

His tail gave a lazy thump against the floor, heavy enough to rattle a crooked little display of lollipops near the register.

“You can call me Mr. Sukuna,” he said. His voice came out low and rough, thick with amusement that never once softened the threat beneath it. “Not Kuna, not mister, not Sukuna, and definitely not by my first name. You don’t look nearly important enough for that.”

You almost asked if that meant you could call him Mr. Kuna, but one glance at the claws, the fangs, the tail, the extra arms, and the overwhelming possibility of dying again convinced you that perhaps restraint was a virtue after all.

He seemed to notice your hesitation.

“What?” he asked, mockingly expectant. “Got a smart little comment caught in that tiny head of yours?”

You said nothing.

“Pity,” he hummed. “You looked just irritating enough to have one.”

His crimson gaze dragged over you again, slow and invasive, from your shoes to your face, with all the lazy scrutiny of a predator deciding whether you looked more pathetic than useful.

Then he snorted.

“I don’t usually hire little runts,” he said, glancing back down at the magazine in his hand, “but you’ve got that desperate look I like in employees.”

He turned another page.

A beat passed.

Then, without warning, one of his lower hands reached beside the register, grabbed a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, and tossed both toward a customer who had apparently been waiting by the end of the counter the entire time. You startled hard enough to nearly jump out of your skin. The creature caught them, slapped a few crumpled bills onto the counter, and left without either of you acknowledging what had just happened.

“What?” he said flatly. “Did you think this was going to be a formal interview? I sell cigarettes, energy drinks, and cursed scratch-offs to the damned at two in the morning. If you can stand upright and count change without crying, you’re overqualified.”

That was fair, actually.

He finally looked back at you, grin turning sharp enough to split skin.

“But if you steal from me, mouth off to me, or make my store look worse than it already does, I’ll peel your hide off and use it to mop the freezer aisle. You understand, sweetheart?”

You were almost too stunned to say anything before nodding eagerly.

“You start now.”

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

As it turned out, working for Sukuna deserved its own circle of hell.

On your first night, he handed you an entire list of rules, most of which you had only skimmed with the sort of confidence only a fool, or someone recently dead, could possess. Some of them had been normal enough, if you could even use that word to describe hell.

Don’t antagonize armed customers. Don't flirt back with the customers. Don't open the back door past 3 a.m.

Others made you wonder why, exactly, he had thought to warn you in the first place despite his generally miserable exterior. Anytime you asked, he would grumble something under his breath about you being too much of an idiot to understand the basics of this kind of life.

You imagined he would know, seeing as he had apparently been here for two centuries.

And of course, there were also rules that felt a little too personal.

Don’t touch my food. Don’t sit in my chair. Don’t use my office for anything other than dropping off your timecard.

The most important one had been written in thick lettering and decorated with an alarming amount of stickers; you didn't quite take him for the type to own. You briefly wondered if he had someone locked in a basement somewhere making these signs for him. The thought passed almost as quickly as it came.

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

You had heard that one before back in the land of the living. Everyone had. And more often than not, everyone had abused it.

The job itself was relatively easy once you got used to the sort of riffraff that drifted into the shop. Sukuna would linger with you for the first few hours of the night, always with a new porn magazine in hand, which you sometimes caught him lazily jerking off to before scoffing when you looked his way.

He never stopped, though.

Sometimes he was kind enough to leave the old boxy television on. It played whatever happened to be popular in hell on a low, tinny volume throughout your shift, the sound crackling beneath the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the occasional wet gurgle from the slushie machine in the corner.

Commercials for blood banks and strip clubs. The occasional ad for demon casinos promising that you can even bet your soul! Prescription medication with side effects read so quickly you were fairly certain they had to be illegal. Even the local news changed depending on the district, usually something about possession rates, traffic pileups, or whichever neighborhood had the highest body count that week.

And every so often, music.

Some of it you had heard back in the land of the living. You supposed not every musician made it to the pearly gates on talent alone. Others were actual creatures you had never heard of before, though you were quickly becoming a fan.

Then one night, a familiar tune drifted through the store speakers.

A love ballad sung by two of the biggest pop idols in hell at the moment: Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru.

Lovers, some of the trashy little entertainment articles had claimed, which you had read during the slower hours of your shift while pretending not to. Apparently they had committed something heinous enough to land themselves a sentence nearly as long as Sukuna’s.

Sukuna often told you not to pay them any mind if you knew what was good for you. Especially if they ever made their way inside. You had laughed the first time he said it. You couldn't imagine men like that setting foot into a run-down convenience store in a district like this.

To which Sukuna had only given you a long, knowing look and muttered, “If they knew what they were looking for.”

Sukuna sometimes talked like he knew things you never would. You pushed, he pulled away, and the most he ever left you with was:

“No creature here is a good person.”

That had been reassuring.

So naturally, you paid him absolutely no mind.

Instead, tonight, you found yourself leaning against a mop and staring at their little performance on the old television. Satoru, with his blinding white hair and dazzling smile, reaches for the hands of screaming fans like he might siphon the feeling of love from their adoration alone. Suguru carried the softer notes, smooth and far too easy on the ears, only to slip into a rap halfway through before making a heart with his broad hands and winking directly at the camera with those pretty violet eyes.

You could see why people were stupid about them.

Sukuna noticed immediately. With a sharp click of his tongue, he stood and smacked the side of the television hard enough to make the image warp and shriek into static before blinking black.

You jolted and shot him a look that very clearly said: Hey, I was watching that.

“What?” he said without looking at you, two hands still counting bills while another idly picked at one of his fangs. “You here to work or stare like a creep?”

Heat crawled up your face. “I wasn’t staring.”

“Hm.”

His tail lashed once behind him, displeased.

Then his red eyes slid over you.

“Listen carefully,” he said, voice low and edged with irritation. “I don’t care if customers rob you, threaten you, or cry at the register. You follow my rules exactly. And if you don’t, I’ll crack your bones open with my teeth and stock what’s left of you in the freezer.”

You stared at him.

He stared back.

Then, with the sheer arrogance of a creature entirely confident in his place at the top of the food chain, he snorted and looked away first.

You decided to finally listen to the old bastard for once.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Still, that was not the rule you failed.

No, what you failed to do was correctly price-mark the limited-edition Dungeon Crawler Spellbooks over in aisle three. In your defense, they had been shelved right beside the clearance bin, and the little orange stickers had all started to blur together after your fifth hour under those migraine-inducing neon lights.

You had tried to explain to Sukuna that you had simply gotten confused.

Unfortunately, before you could fix your mistake, a goblin had waddled in, squinted at the shelf with all the greedy suspicion of a man born to haggle, and promptly robbed you blind.

Didn’t even pay the clearance price. Just stuffed the books under his greasy little vest and bolted.

What a truly spectacular stroke of luck for you.

So now nasty old Sukuna had docked your pay down to one penny a day, which you argued was not only ridiculous but deeply evil, and he had simply stared at you as if to say:

Are you planning to pay for what I lost?

You had, unfortunately, not been planning that.

Which was how you found yourself standing in front of your neighbor and landlord’s door, fist hovering in the air.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Your knuckles never made contact before the door swung open, causing you to startle back a step.

You had nearly forgotten just how large Mr. Nanami was.

He was not monstrous in the obvious way so many others in your district were, with their dripping fangs and proud vulgarity, their open displays of appetite and violence. His intimidation was of a far more insidious sort. The kind that did not announce itself. The kind that merely settled into a room and let your nerves discover it for themselves.

He was an orc, yes, but scrubbed clean of the usual roughness you had come to associate with most of them. His ivory tusks were smooth and immaculately kept, neat against the severe line of his mouth, and his skin lacked the grime, the sweat-slick coarseness, the animal disorder so many others seemed to wear with careless pride. There was nothing careless about Mr. Nanami. Everything about him looked deliberate. Pressed. Ordered. As though even his cruelty, if it existed, would arrive neatly folded and set before you without so much as wrinkling the tablecloth.

“I was just about to see you.”

His voice was soft, but there was a bluntness beneath it that made your stomach draw tight all the same.

He stepped aside, one broad hand motioning for you to enter. You brushed past him into the apartment and were struck all at once by how clean it smelled. Faint soap. Starch. Something dry and papery, like old books left undisturbed on a shelf. It wasn't an unpleasant scent.

“About my rent,” you began, though your voice had already started thinning by the second word.

The door shut behind you with a quiet click. Nanami didn't move right away. His hand remained resting on the lock for one suspended second longer than necessary, his expression unreadable, his posture still as stone.

“You have it, yes?”

Again, his voice was far too gentle for a landlord with a tenant already a week late.

Then the lock turned.

Such a small sound.

And yet it seemed to pass through you with the cold precision of a needle.

He motioned for you to sit, and with all the solemn dread of someone approaching their own execution, you lowered yourself to the floor before him while he took his seat opposite you. His knees spread slightly. One hand rose to prop his chin, thumb resting against the edge of his jaw, while the other came to rest low at his waist, fingers grazing the polished buckle of his belt.

Great.

You kept your head bowed, save for the occasional flicker of your gaze upward to see whether he was still looking at you. He was. Those hazel eyes had a way of fastening to you that felt less like attention and more like arrangement, as though you had already been set neatly into place before him. Pinned there. A specimen behind glass. Every second beneath that gaze felt like another fine silver needle slipped carefully through the fragile architecture of your ribs.

Your hands fidgeted in your lap.

“About that...” you started weakly, your nails picking at the skin beside your thumb until a quick, bright sting answered you. “I need another week.”

Silence stretched between you.

Not empty silence, either. It had shape. Weight. It gathered itself in the room until even the faint hum of the apartment seemed to recede beneath it.

You picked harder at the ragged skin around your nail until blood welled dark and sudden at the edge of it. You curled your fingers quickly, hiding the mess in your palm before any of it could stain the cream of the rug beneath you.

“You think hell is free?”

The firmness in his voice struck harder than if he had raised it.

You folded in on yourself at once. There was no bark to his tone. Only disappointment. Flat, measured, and somehow far more humiliating than fury ever could have been.

He exhaled quietly through his nose, one finger tapping once against the smooth curve of a tusk.

“I suppose,” he said at last, after you had sat there long enough to feel your own pulse fluttering in your throat, “there are other ways for you to pay.”

For one foolish moment, you didn't understand him.

Then came the soft metallic sound of his belt being undone.

Your head snapped up so quickly your neck nearly protested.

His gaze had not left you. If anything, it had softened, though only just. Not into kindness. Never that. Pity, perhaps. Or patience. The sort reserved for frightened things too small to understand the shape of what was being asked of them.

“I will only do this once,” he said evenly, and there it was again, that unbearable note of pity beneath the words. “I’m saving myself for someone who’s still living.”

How thoughtful.

Apparently, less respectable methods had arrived.

You moved closer in one unsteady shift, rising onto your knees. One hand came to rest against the solid breadth of his thigh, the muscle beneath his slacks firm and warm beneath your palm, while the other crept hesitantly toward the hard, heavy outline straining against the fabric and, oh.

That was...

You swallowed.

Could that even fit in your mouth?

He had to be at least ten, perhaps eleven inches. The sheer girth of him had your hand moving in slow, uncertain strokes, feeling each heavy vein and strange ridge of orc flesh through the thin fabric of his briefs.

You peeled them down by degrees, and his mossy-green cock sprang free, revealing the coarse blond patch at the base and a flushed, leaking tip that drew your tongue out almost on instinct. The taste of him was thick, almost creamy, touched through with salt and something muskier, that made your thighs press together before you could help it. You gathered what you could with slow, circling strokes of your tongue, both hands working along the hot, weighty length as you tried to slick him well enough to take more of him.

His broad hand came to rest at the back of your head.

He pushed your lips farther past the mauve tip, heedless of the sharp scrape of your teeth against him, and a low, rough sound broke from his chest in answer.

“Haa... it’s been years,” he sighed, nails pressing into your scalp as he began to guide you more insistently. “Haven’t done this since my, fuck... don’t bite now.”

You tried to loosen your jaw enough to accommodate the thick weight of him on your tongue, forcing yourself to take him deeper with every wet gag and muffled little whimper that never quite made it free.

“Breathe through your nose,” he said, the words frayed with strain.

You did.

He pushed all the way down until your hands were slapping weakly at his thighs for air, and still you obeyed, dragging shallow breaths through your nose as panic bloomed hot beneath your ribs. His cock pressed at the back of your throat before he drew you back to the tip, only to thrust you down again. Tears blurred your vision, spilling hot over your lashes as your tongue dragged helplessly along every bump and ridge of his heavy length.

It could only have been a matter of minutes.

It felt an awful lot like dying all over again.

When he finally came down your throat, hot, sudden, and far too messy, your body pitched forward of its own accord, his hand still resting and patting the crown of your head. Your throat spasmed around what he forced down your throat, chest hitching as you struggled to swallow, to breathe, to do anything other than sit there and choke on the ruin of him. Your eyes watered afresh, vision blurring as you pressed one trembling hand to his thigh for balance.

Nanami watched you for a moment.

Not with concern, exactly. More as if he were waiting for the obvious to pass.

Then his hand returned to your jaw, firm as ever, tilting your face back up toward the blunt head of his cock still aimed at your mouth.

Nanami Kento Has Earned One Day!

An overexcited plush employee announced it from absolutely nowhere.

And then came the rest.

He squeezed your jaw until your lips parted once more, still coughing, still trying to catch your breath, your tongue fallen helplessly from your mouth as the golden warmth of his piss struck it. The stream spread hot over what already sat heavy in your stomach, the heat of it thinning some of the thickness lodged at the back of your throat and forcing the rest of his seed down to your belly.

“Don’t cough any of it up,” he said, voice low and distant, as though remarking upon some minor inconvenience. “You’ve already made enough of a mess. And you can't imagine how difficult it is to get the smell of orc out.”

You swallowed with effort, throat raw, forcing everything down between gags from smells and conflicting tastes before taking the towel he handed you and pressing the plush fibers to your damp face.

Should you say thank you?

For the towel, perhaps.

For not letting you choke... debatable.

You coughed weakly into your sleeve, still trying to gather breath, and watched as he tucked himself back into his trousers with the same composure one might use to straighten a cuff. When he sat again, one brow arched very slightly.

“You alright?” he asked calmly, though it was plain enough he regarded the whole affair as transactional.

“I would’ve given you water,” he continued, “but I know you wouldn’t be able to pay me back for something like that.”

Right.

Water was a high commodity, and he was a stingy orc.

Apparently, not even tap water was considered worth wasting on someone like you.

“Right...” you breathed, your voice coming out hoarse and thin. You still remained on the floor, trying to gather yourself back into something resembling a person. “What... brought you here?”

The question slipped free before you could stop it.

Above you, Nanami leaned his head into one hand and looked down at you for a long, quiet moment.

“You almost remind me of my wife,” he said softly.

One hand reached out. His fingers caught a strand of your hair and wound it slowly around his meaty digit. The gesture ought to have felt absent, almost gentle. Instead, it was cold and something dreadful unfurled low in your stomach.

“I kept her in a basement for most of my life,” he continued, his tone as level as ever. “I suppose I earned all this through that.”

Silence followed between you.

The candle in the corner gave a faint little pop. Somewhere in the kitchen, water dripped once into the sink. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds by. Every small sound became suddenly, horribly distinct, as though his words had sharpened the apartment itself.

Your mouth parted, but nothing came out.

Because he had said it so casually.

Not like some shameful thing unearthed against his will.

You wanted to stand, to move, to put some distance between yourself and him that still fiddled with your hair, but something inside you begged you not to. Instead, your eyes moved over the apartment. The perfect order of how everything had a place. The locked door.

You could only imagine how much order had once gone into a windowless basement.

Your stomach turned.

Ah.

So he was not nearly as innocent as he had once seemed.

And judging by the way his thumb still idly stroked that strand of your hair, he had not entirely broken himself of the habit of keeping someone within reach.

“So you’re waiting?” you asked softly.

His eyes softened in a way that made your heart kick hard against your sternum, not from affection so much as dread.

“Mhm.”

That was all. No attempt to soften the meaning. Just that low little hum, as though of course he was waiting. As though patience had always come naturally to him.

Then, after a pause, his fingers loosened from your hair only to smooth once over the side of your head in a touch so domestic, it made your stomach dip.

“I keep my apartments the cheapest in the district,” he said.

The words took a moment to settle.

“She was always impulsive when she ran,” he continued. “Stubborn. Emotional. Never very good at thinking long-term.”

The words were not spoken cruelly. If anything, they carried the mild indulgence of someone remarking on an old and tiresome habit.

“So I figured,” he said, “if I kept the rent low enough, eventually she would have nowhere else to go.”

Your throat tightened. The room felt colder somehow, though you could hear the heater stir to life with a soft mechanical groan. His broad shoulders shifted as he leaned back in the chair, and for one awful second, all you could think was that this whole apartment building had all been part of one long, patient design.

One trap.

Laid carefully over years.

Waiting for the right person to stumble back into it.

“It’s the least she could do,” he added after a moment, his voice dropping into something quieter. “Considering she killed me.”

You coughed into your arm, whether to ease the tension or clear the last of him from your throat, you could not say. You watched the fondness drain from his hazel eyes before he finally said, coldly, “Rent is due on the twentieth.”

He gestured toward the door.

You didn't need to be told twice.

You rose too quickly, your legs uncertain beneath you. Something deep in your gut, dread, or some final scrap of common sense, told you that if you stayed there even a second longer, you wouldn't be leaving again.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅

You somehow managed to clean yourself up just enough before your shift, standing in the employee-only bathroom with one hand smoothing down your hair while the other braced against the sink. You wiped away the tears that threatened to push past the corners of your eyes, then dragged your toothbrush back through your mouth, trying your best to scrub away the taste of him.

How could you have stooped so low just to keep a roof over your head?

You spat into the sink.

The white foam blooming there was enough to make your stomach twist. It looked too much like the thick mess that had sat at the back of your throat, enough that bile threatened to rise again with the memory of what still seemed to cling stubbornly to your tongue, your teeth, the sour lining of your stomach.

The bell at the front chimed.

You jerked from your own pity party, then called out a hurried, “Coming!”

Sukuna had left you alone tonight, for which you were grateful. You didn't need him looking you up and down and somehow guessing exactly what you'd done to make rent. He seemed the type who would know on sight. Worse, the type to laugh.

Still, the thought of Mr. Nanami lingered.

Not for yourself, strangely enough.

For the poor girl.

The one he had spoken of so mildly. He seemed so certain his wife would eventually return to him, as though years, death, and distance were all very minor inconveniences before the weight of his patience. You couldn't stop picturing her now. Some frightened creature dragged back into those gentle, waiting hands, into whatever basement had once held her.

The thought sat ugly inside you.

You stepped back into the main part of the store and slid behind the register just in time to see two men by the snack aisle, one with bright white hair piling armfuls of junk food into the hold of a darker-haired companion who appeared to be chastising him for taking too much.

You recognized them at once.

You did your best not to visibly lose your mind, or worse, ask for an autograph. Instead, your first thought was whether there might still be toothpaste foam, or something even more humiliating, at the corner of your mouth by the time Geto Suguru made his way to the counter.

He dropped a small assortment of items onto it with graceful care.

Blood bags. Sweets. Condoms.

You began scanning.

Geto began talking.

You kept your eyes lowered, trying to remember the rules.

Don’t look a vampire in the eye for too long.

Which Geto certainly was. His hand brushed yours as he passed over the next item. His fingers were cool, the rings he wore colder still, and something about the symbols worked into the metal felt oddly familiar. Religious, perhaps. Or cultish. Which, honestly, wouldn't have surprised you.

“Old man Sukuna left you here alone?” he asked softly.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The scanner kept up its cheerful little chirp. You didn't answer beyond a small nod.

From somewhere behind him, Gojo called out, “Want coffee?”

Geto ignored him entirely.

Instead, he bent just enough to catch your face, and you, being the fool that you were, glanced up at exactly the wrong moment and found his violet eyes waiting for yours.

You nearly dropped a can of soda.

His hands closed over yours before it could fall, long fingers caging yours lightly around the dented aluminum.

“Careful now.”

His smile was pretty in a way that made your skin prickle. Feline. Far too familiar with itself.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He laughed softly, but the sound did nothing to settle the unease winding tighter in your stomach.

Then Gojo appeared at his shoulder in a rush of white hair and brightness, bumping into him hard enough to jostle the various items on the counter as he dropped even more items into the pile. His tail swept out behind him, knocking a few lollipops from the stand beside the register before he stooped to gather them with a delighted little hum and placed them directly into your hand.

“Oh, you do look familiar,” he said brightly, cheerful in the exact practiced way he always was on television. “You almost remind me of a pet we had.”

He snapped his fingers and nodded toward Suguru as though inviting confirmation.

Suguru only laughed under his breath and leaned in to murmur something too low for you to catch into Satoru’s ear.

Then Gojo turned back to you, smiling as though you were all in on the same joke.

“Give me your number.”

Geto's eyes settled on you. Whatever protest might have formed dissolved before the words could ever reach your tongue. Your hand had already found a receipt slip and a pen. By the time your mind caught up, you were scribbling your number down in your neatest handwriting, as obediently as if you had been asked for the total.