xoxo

You kick off your shoes and shuffle down the hallway, already pulling your hair out of the bun you'd done up that morning, now mostly falling out on its own. The bedroom door is cracked open, and when you push it wider, you find exactly what you were hoping for.

Satoru is sprawled across the bed like a starfish, still wearing his teaching clothes—black pants and a rumpled button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His blindfold is tossed carelessly on the nightstand, and his white hair is an absolute disaster, sticking up in every direction like he's been running his hands through it all day. His eyes are closed, one arm thrown over his face.

He looks as exhausted as you feel.

"Rough day?" you ask, and he groans without moving.

"The first years tried to fight a curse three grades above their level because Yuji said it 'looked easy,'" he mumbles into his arm. "I had to bail them out. Again. Then Megumi and Nobara got into an argument about mission protocol that somehow turned into a full-blown screaming match about who ate whose leftovers from the fridge. I had to separate them like they were toddlers."

Despite your exhaustion, you snort. "Sounds about right."

"And then," he continues, finally moving his arm to peek at you with one brilliant blue eye, "Yaga cornered me about paperwork I was supposed to file last week. Do you know how much I hate paperwork?"

"I'm aware." You're already moving toward the bed, unbuttoning your work pants. "You complain about it literally every time."

"Because it's the worst. I'm the strongest sorcerer alive. I shouldn't have to file incident reports."

"Mm-hmm, very tragic." You shimmy out of your pants and leave them in a heap on the floor—a problem for future you. Your blouse follows, leaving you in just your bra and underwear. "My day was also shit, for the record."

"Yeah?" He's watching you now with lazy interest, too tired to even sit up but still tracking your movements.

"My boss is an idiot, the coffee machine broke, I had to sit through a two-hour meeting that could've been an email, and Janet from accounting passive-aggressively cc'd the entire department on an email about someone stealing her lunch. Which, for the record, I didn't do, but she definitely thinks I did based on the way she was glaring at me."

"Want me to hollow purple Janet from accounting?" he offers, completely serious.

"Tempting, but no." You crawl onto the bed and without ceremony, flop directly on top of him, your full weight pressing him into the mattress. You bury your face in his chest with a long, dramatic groan. "I'm dead. This is me, dead."

"Hi, dead. I'm also dead." His arms come around you automatically, wrapping you up even though you're both too tired to really move. "We're both corpses now. This is our life."

"Our death," you correct, muffled against his shirt.

"Our death," he agrees solemnly.

For a moment, you just lie there, breathing in sync. He smells like his cologne mixed with the faint scent of the training grounds—sweat and grass and something distinctly him. It's comforting in a way you can't quite articulate. This exhausted, collapsed-together moment feels like home.

His hand starts moving on your back, slow and gentle, rubbing up and down your spine. It feels incredible, and you make an embarrassing sound of contentment that you'll deny later.

"You're tense as hell," he murmurs, fingers working at a knot between your shoulder blades.

"You try dealing with Janet's accusatory emails and see how relaxed you are," you mumble, but you're already melting into his touch.

"I'd just block her."

"You can't block coworkers, Satoru."

"You can if you're powerful enough." His hand slides lower, still rubbing your back, and you feel some of the day's tension starting to ease. "This okay?"

"It's perfect. You're my favorite human pillow."

"Just human pillow? Not devastatingly handsome boyfriend who you're lucky to have?"

"That's implied," you say, but you're smiling against his chest.

His other hand joins the first, both of them working at your tired muscles, and you honest-to-god almost start purring. This is exactly what you needed. Just this—him, the quiet apartment, his hands on you, the weight of the day slowly lifting.

But then his hands start to wander.

It's subtle at first. His fingers drift from your back to your sides, tracing the curve of your waist. Then lower, skimming over your hips. And then—

He grabs your ass. Both hands, full handfuls, squeezing appreciatively.

"Really?" you ask, lifting your head to look at him. "We're both dead, remember? Corpses don't grope."

"I'm a very motivated corpse." He squeezes again, shameless, and there's a grin tugging at his lips now. "Can't help it. You're lying on top of me in your underwear. What did you expect?"

"Self-control? Restraint? Basic human decency?"

"Baby, you know me better than that." His hands are still kneading your ass, and despite your sass, you can feel heat starting to pool low in your belly. "Besides, you love it."

"I love that you can't even wait until we've recovered from our respective terrible days before getting handsy?"

"Exactly." He's fully grinning now, that cocky, insufferable grin that makes you want to kiss him and smack him at the same time. "Your ass is the best stress relief. It's science."

"That's not science, you idiot."

"It's my science."

You snort, but you're not moving away. His hands are warm and familiar, and honestly, after the day you've had, this isn't the worst thing in the world. You let your head drop back to his chest, eyes drifting closed.

"Comfortable?" he asks, voice softer now.

"Mmm," you hum in agreement. "Don't stop."

"Wasn't planning on it."

For a while, it's just quiet. His hands keep moving—sometimes squeezing, sometimes just resting there, thumbs drawing lazy circles. You can hear his heartbeat under your ear, steady and strong. The tension in your shoulders is almost completely gone now, replaced by a different kind of warmth, something slower and heavier.

You're half-asleep when you feel it—the unmistakable hardness pressing against your hip.

"Satoru," you mumble, not even opening your eyes.

"Hmm?"

"Are you seriously getting hard right now?"

There's a pause. Then he says, "...Maybe."

You lift your head to look at him, one eyebrow raised. He has the decency to look slightly sheepish, but there's heat in his eyes now, that familiar hunger that never really goes away when it comes to you.

"We were having a nice moment."

"We still are."

"You've got a boner."

"I do…That doesn't cancel the nice moment."

You stare at him for another second before letting out a laugh.

"Seriously?"

"What?"

"I come home exhausted, use you as a human mattress for ten minutes, and somehow I'm the problem?"

"You are absolutely the problem."

"I literally haven't done anything."

"You climbed on top of me, got all comfy, made that little happy humming noise, and then fell asleep on my chest."

"I hummed?"

"You hummed."

"I don't hum."

"You do when you're really comfortable."

You narrow your eyes. "I've never noticed that."

"I have."

You glare at him.

"…Baby." He exhales dramatically, like he's carrying the weight of the world. "You're makin' me so hard."

You snort. "You're unbelievable."

"I'm trying to be respectful."

"Are you?"

Silence.

"…No." He grins without an ounce of shame. "Not really."

Despite yourself, you laugh again, dropping your forehead back against his shoulder.

"You're ridiculous."

"I know."

His arms tighten around you just a little. "But you look so comfortable."

His voice is quieter now. "So happy."

You burrow your face further into his shoulder.

"…I like when you're like this."

You feel yourself smile before you can stop it. "You're such a sap."

"Only for you."

There's a comfortable silence. Then his hands drift just a little bit lower again.

"…Okay," you mumble. "Now you're definitely not being respectful."

"No." He gives your ass another shameless squeeze. "I'm definitely not."

Before you can respond, he's sitting up, keeping you in his lap, and capturing your mouth in a kiss that's hungry and demanding. You can taste his desperation, feel it in the way his hands grip you like he's afraid you're going to disappear.

When he pulls back, his lips are already swollen, his eyes are dark with want. "I need to taste you," he says, and it's not a request. "Get up here."

"Up where—"

But he's already moving, sliding down the bed and pulling you with him. "On my face. Come on."

"Satoru—"

"Please." And there it is, that needy edge that makes your stomach flip. "I've been thinking about this all day. About you sitting on my face, riding my tongue until you come. Please, baby. I need it."

How are you supposed to say no to that?

"You're ridiculous," you say, but you're already moving, letting him position you. He's lying flat on his back now, looking up at you with such raw want that it makes you shiver.

"Not ridiculous. Desperate." His hands come up to grip your thighs, pulling you forward. "Now stop stalling and sit on my face."

"Bossy," you mutter, but you're lowering yourself down, and then—

"Oh fuck," you gasp as his tongue makes contact, sliding through your folds in one long, deliberate stroke.

He groans under you, the vibration going straight to your core, and his hands tighten on your thighs. "That's it," he mumbles against you. "Right there. Don't move."

But you're already moving, you can't help it, grinding down against his mouth as he licks and sucks and devours you like a man starving. His grip on your thighs is almost bruising, holding you exactly where he wants you, and when you try to lift up, worried about suffocating him, about being too much—he just pulls you back down harder.

"Satoru—"

"Stay," he demands, voice muffled. He pulls his face back to look up at you. "Fuck my face. Come on, baby, I can take it. Give it to me." Then he lowers his mouth to you again.

It's obscene, the wet sounds of his mouth on you, the way he's completely lost in it. His tongue circles your clit, then dips inside you, then back to your clit, and you're already shaking, already so close.

"That's it," he encourages, and you can hear the smugness in his voice even now. "You're dripping, baby. such a mess on my face."

"Shut—up," you gasp, but there's no heat in it because he's right—you can feel how wet you are, can feel it on his chin, his lips, and it should be embarrassing but it's just hot.

"Make me," he challenges, and then he's sucking your clit into his mouth, hard, and you cry out.

Your hands fly to the headboard, gripping the edge to steady yourself as the pleasure intensifies. You start to really move now, riding his face with purpose, and he moans underneath you like this is exactly what he wanted all along.

"Fuck, yes," he groans against you, the vibration making you gasp. "Just like that. Use me, baby. Take what you need."

His hands guide your hips, encouraging the rhythm, and his tongue is relentless—circling, flicking, pressing flat against you in a way that makes your thighs shake. You can feel yourself getting closer, that coil of heat tightening in your belly.

"Satoru, I'm—fuck—"

"Do it," he demands, voice rough. "Come on my face.”

His tongue flicks rapidly over your clit, and that's all it takes. Your orgasm crashes through you in waves, pleasure rolling through your entire body. You're grinding down against his mouth, riding it out, and he's groaning underneath you like this is the best thing that's ever happened to him.

When you finally come down, shaking and oversensitive, you try to move off him, but his hands tighten on your thighs.

"Not yet," he mumbles, pressing soft kisses to your inner thighs, your hip bones, anywhere he can reach. "Just—give me a second. You taste so fucking good."

"You're gonna kill me," you pant, but you're smiling.

But he's already diving back in, and you gasp as his tongue finds your clit again. Your whole body jolts at the sensitivity, but he doesn't let up—he's relentless, his hands gripping your thighs to keep you steady as he works you over. The pleasure is almost too much, bordering on overwhelming, and you're already moaning his name.

"Satoru—fuck—it's too much—"

"I know, baby," he groans against you, the vibration sending another wave through you. "But you can take it."

He's eating you out like he's starving, like he can't get enough, and your whole body is shaking. Your hands grip the headboard tighter, your hips moving against his mouth almost involuntarily. The pleasure is building again, impossibly fast, and you're gasping and moaning as he works you toward another orgasm.

"Oh god—Satoru—I'm gonna—"

"That's it," he encourages, his tongue flicking faster. 

Your second orgasm hits you like a wave, even more intense than the first, and you're crying out as pleasure crashes through you. Your thighs are shaking so hard you can barely hold yourself up, and he's groaning underneath you, clearly getting off on how much he's affecting you.

When you finally collapse, completely spent and oversensitive, he finally releases you, and you fall onto the bed next to him, breathing hard and trembling.

"And I'm dramatic?" He's grinning like he just won the lottery, his face wet, his hair a complete disaster. "That was—fuck. I love you, baby."

"You're insane," you say, but you're pulling him in for a kiss, tasting yourself on his lips.

"About you? Absolutely." His hands are already roaming again, cupping your face, then sliding down your sides. "But I'm not done with you yet."

"Oh really?"

"Really." He's kissing you again, slower this time, deeper. When he pulls back, there's something vulnerable in his expression beneath all the confidence. "You have no idea what you do to me."

"Then show me," you challenge, and his eyes darken.

"Oh, baby."

He's fumbling with his pants, shoving them down along with his boxers, and his cock springs free—flushed and hard and already leaking. You reach for him, wrapping your hand around his length, and he hisses.

"Fuck, baby—"

"What?" You stroke him slowly, base to tip, and he's already trembling.

"Your hands—shit—they're so much smaller than mine. Look so good wrapped around my cock."

"Yeah?" you tease, giving him another slow stroke.

"Yeah." His voice is strained. 

He gently removes your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm, and then he's pulling you against him. His arms wrap around you, one hand sliding up your back, the other gripping your hip possessively. You can feel him, hard and hot against your thigh, and he's just... holding you there.

"Satoru—"

"Give me a second," he murmurs, his voice already rough. His breathing is uneven against your neck, and you can feel the tension in his body—the way he's trying to maintain control. "Just—fuck—you feel so good.”

His hips shift slightly, and you feel the length of him drag against you—not entering, just the pressure of him sliding through your wetness. The friction makes you gasp, and he groans.

"There it is," he breathes. "That sound. The little gasp you make when I—" He does it again, a slow roll of his hips, grinding against you. "When I touch you just right."

"Satoru, please—"

"Please what?" His hand slides down to grip your ass, pulling you tighter against him. "Tell me what you want, baby."

"You know what I want."

"I do." Another slow grind, and you can feel how wet you are, how easily he slides against you. "But I wanna hear you say it. Love the way your voice gets all breathy when you're desperate for me."

"You're killing me—"

"Good." He's kissing your neck now, teeth grazing your pulse point. "You've been killing me all day. All week. Every time you look at me with those eyes, every time you smile at me like I'm the only person in the world—fuck, baby, you have no idea."

His voice is shaking now, and you realize he's not teasing anymore—he's barely holding on. The head of his cock catches at your entrance, and you both freeze.

"I can't—" His forehead drops to your shoulder. "I can't think straight around you. Can't control myself. You just—you exist, and I'm gone."

"Then stop trying to control it," you whisper, and you feel him shudder.

"Fuck." He shifts, lining himself up properly, and then he's pushing in—slowly, so slowly. The stretch is intense, pleasure edged with the sweetest hint of pressure as he fills you inch by inch. "Fuck, baby. You feel so good. So tight. So perfect."

"Satoru—"

"I know. I've got you." He's only halfway in, taking his time, letting you adjust. His forehead is still pressed to your shoulder, and you can feel how much restraint this is taking him—the way his muscles are tense, the way his breath comes in short gasps. "You're taking me so well. You always take me so well."

Finally, finally, he's fully seated inside you, and you both just breathe for a moment, adjusting to the feeling of being completely connected.

"Okay?" he asks, lifting his head to look at you.

"Yes baby," you manage. "You can move.”

"Thank fuck." He pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then thrusts back in. The drag of his cock against your walls makes you gasp, and he groans. "That sound. Fuck, I love that sound."

He sets a steady rhythm, deep and deliberate, each thrust making you feel impossibly full. His hands are everywhere—cupping your face, tangling in your hair, gripping your hips—like he can't decide where he wants to touch you most.

"You're so beautiful like this," he murmurs, watching your face. "All flushed and breathless. The way your eyes get all hazy when I'm inside you—fuck, it drives me crazy."

"Satoru—"

"I love you so much." His voice is rough with emotion now, not just desire. "Love everything about you. The way you feel, the way you look at me, the way you let me have you like this—"

"I love you too," you gasp, and his hips stutter.

His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, and when he opens them again, there's something raw there.

"Say it again."

"I love you."

"Fuck." His pace falters, becomes less controlled. "You can't—you can't just say it like that when I'm inside you. You're gonna—shit—"

"You feel so good," you tell him, cupping his face. "So perfect. You always make me feel so good."

His breath catches, and suddenly he's kissing you desperately, his thrusts becoming harder, deeper, less measured.

"You're everything," he gasps against your mouth. "Everything to me. The way you trust me, the way you look at me like I'm—fuck, baby, I can't—"

"You are," you insist, and his composure cracks completely.

"Fuck—" He's moving faster now, hitting that spot inside you that makes you see stars. "Love how you fit around me. Like you were made for me. Like we were made for each other."

"We were," you gasp, and his eyes flash with something fierce and possessive.

"Damn right we were." He shifts slightly, changing the angle, and suddenly every thrust is devastating. "There it is. That's the spot, isn't it?"

"Yes—fuck—right there—"

"I know, baby. I know." His voice is breaking now, emotion and desire tangled together. "Gonna make you come again. Wanna watch your face when you—fuck—when you come because of me."

The pleasure is building so quickly you can barely breathe. Your hands clutch at his shoulders, his back, trying to anchor yourself as he drives into you again and again.

"That's it," he encourages, watching your face like he's memorizing it. "I can feel you getting tighter. You're close, aren't you? So fucking close."

"Don't stop—"

"Never." One of his hands slides between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing in tight circles. "Come for me, baby. Let me feel it. Let me see you."

The combination of his cock hitting that perfect spot and his thumb on your clit is too much. Your orgasm hits you hard, pleasure crashing through you in waves that make your whole body tense and shake. You're clenching around him, and he groans at the sensation.

"Fuck, yes," he breathes, still moving, fucking you through it. "That's it. That's my girl. You're so good. So beautiful. Fuck, I love you so much."

When you finally start to come down, gasping and trembling, you expect him to follow you over the edge. But instead, he slows his movements, pressing soft kisses to your face.

"Satoru—"

"Not done with you yet," he murmurs against your lips.

Before you can respond, he's pulling out and lifting your legs, draping them over his shoulders. The new position opens you up completely, and when he pushes back in, he's somehow even deeper than before.

"Oh fuck—" you gasp, and he groans.

"There we go." He starts moving again, and this angle is devastating. Every thrust feels impossibly deep, hitting places that make your toes curl. "How's that, baby? That good?"

"Yes—fuck—Satoru—"

"I love you so much," he says, his voice rough. "You know that? I'm never letting you go. You're mine. Always gonna be mine."

"Yours," you agree breathlessly, and something in his expression goes even more intense.

"That's right." His thrusts are harder now, more purposeful. "Gonna take care of you. Gonna make you feel so good. Gonna love you for the rest of my life."

His hand moves to your stomach, pressing down, and suddenly his eyes go wide. He can feel himself inside you, the bulge of his cock with each thrust, and something feral takes over his expression.

"Holy shit," he breathes, completely mesmerized. His hand traces the outline, feeling himself move in and out of you, and he starts fucking you even harder, unable to look away. "Look at that. Look at you taking me so deep."

You're already building toward another orgasm, the intensity of this angle and his words and the way he's looking at you like you're the most incredible thing he's ever seen—it's all too much.

He's transfixed, watching his cock disappear inside you again and again, feeling the movement under his palm. His breathing is ragged, his movements becoming more frantic.

"Can you feel that, baby?" he asks breathlessly, his voice completely wrecked. "Fuck—I'm so fucking deep—you feel that?"

You look up at him with half-shut glazed eyes, your mouth parted open, completely fucked out. "Yes—fuck—yes, Satoru, I feel it—"

He groans at the sight of you—at how thoroughly wrecked you look, at the way you're falling apart beneath him. "You're so hot. So fucking hot. The way you look right now—fuck—I'm obsessed with you."

He's fucking you harder now, more urgently, his hand still on your stomach feeling himself move inside you with each thrust. The visual seems to drive him wild, and his movements become almost desperate.

"Come for me again," he demands, his other hand finding your oversensitive clit. "I know you can. I know you've got one more in you. Come on, baby. Give it to me."

"Satoru—I can't—it's too much—"

"You can." His thumb presses harder, circling your clit. "You can, baby. I need you to.”

The pleasure is building impossibly fast, almost painful in its intensity. You're so sensitive from your first two orgasms that every thrust, every touch feels magnified.

"That's it," he encourages, watching your face. "I can see it. You're right there. Just let go, baby.”

His voice is breaking, his control completely shattered, and then something raw escapes from him. 

"I want you—" His hips snap forward harder. "Fuck—want all of you.”

His composure finally snaps.

"They've been on my ass my whole life about the bloodline. About heirs. About duty." Another hard thrust, his voice is cracking. "And I never—fuck—never wanted it."

He's breathing hard, almost gasping between words.

"Not until you."

His forehead drops closer to yours, his movements becoming more frantic.

"Only you. Want to marry you—want to wake up to you every day—want to call you my wife and—ah—know you're mine—"

Your orgasm crashes through you even harder, triggered by his words, by the desperation in his voice, by the sight of him completely undone above you. You're clenching around him so tight he gasps, your whole body shaking with the intensity.

"Fuck, yes—" He's just… staring at you, still moving, still feeling himself inside you. "So beautiful—The way your face—the way you sound—fuck—"

The sight of you completely wrecked under him, the feeling of you clenching around him, the way you gasp his name—it pushes him over the edge.

"Ah—fuck—fuck—fuuckk—" He buries himself as deep as he can go and comes hard, spilling into you in hot pulses. His whole body shudders with the intensity of it, and you can feel him throbbing inside you, can feel the warmth spreading.

He collapses on top of you, careful not to crush you but clearly boneless. For a while, you just breathe together, sweaty and satisfied.

"Holy shit," you mumble.

"Yeah." He's pressing kisses all over your face—your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, your lips. He can’t seem to stop touching you, his hands running over your skin like he needs the contact. "You're amazing. Incredible. Best girlfriend in the entire world."

"Best girlfriend, or best pussy?" you tease, and he pulls back to look at you with mock offense.

"Both. Definitely both." He's grinning now, that soft, genuine smile that he only gives you. "But mostly you. I love you. Like, so much. An embarrassing amount."

"I love you too, you needy disaster."

"Your needy disaster," he corrects, and he's still touching you, hands running over your skin like he can't bear to stop. "Mine now. No takebacks."

"Wouldn't dream of it," you say softly, and you mean it.

He pulls you closer, tucking you against his chest, and you can hear his heartbeat starting to slow. The exhaustion from earlier is creeping back in, but it's different now—satisfied, content, the good kind of tired.

"We should probably shower," you murmur, but you're already half-asleep.

"Later," he mumbles into your hair. "Right now I just wanna hold you."

"Clingy."

"Yep." He doesn't even sound ashamed. "You're stuck with me. Forever. Hope you're ready for that."

"I think I can manage," you say, smiling against his chest.

you should have known, and damn you definitely did know. but nooo, take it upon yourself to try and see the ‘good’ in everyone. giving everyone a chance, for whatever stupid reason.

as you stare at sukuna, you couldn’t believe it. all those times you defended him, it all flashed through your mind like a mocking mantra.

‘he’s just teasing!’

‘he’s a good guy!’

‘he’s just a bit busy today!’

‘…don’t worry, he’ll be here soon.’

‘he’s just with her because their mutual friends…’

yea, you definitely knew. cause no one’s that dumb to see the signs and not sense it coming. but as you stood in front of him, in front of his stupid frat brotherhood. you couldn’t even yell or shout at him for what you had just heard.

what was meant to be a casual night after a frat party, turned south when satoru’s nerd ass brother, satoshi ended up blurting out sukuna’s ‘business’, you all were left to unpack it unwillingly.

‘hey sukuna?’

feeling him shoot his head up in the direction of the voice from the common room couch that both of you were laying on.

groaning in response, he yelled out. ‘what?’

with his arm around your waist, and your upper half on his lap as you stared at the tv with a bored expression.

personally you weren’t really interested in what they were going to start talking about, continuing to surf through channels for anything that could entertain you.

only for satoshi to get unusually comfortable with himself and sukuna by sitting on the other couch to your right.

‘oh well i was just gonna ask… are you still with yorozu?’ this made you perk up, turning your gaze towards satoshi.

because what the hell did he mean by ‘still with yuzuha?’ from all you know she was sukuna’s ex and that two of them were ‘done for good’ in his words before you two started dating.

so what was with the sudden inquisition now, knowing the obvious that sukuna was with you?

but before you or sukuna could voice out your thoughts, the frat king himself came around to sit next to his twin brother, interrupting through both of you.

‘yea suki, what happened after you had her all over you that night?’

hah. you didn’t know whether to laugh or to start crying at the mention of that.

involuntarily, it made you sit up straight as you felt sukuna’s blood run cold from the hand he had on your waist - hearing what should have been left for discussion after you left or when he was alone, dropped onto the floor right in front of you, he knew this had to be a set up.

but should that really be his main concern when he already had you looking at him like you were just about ready to get up and throw him through the tv screen, if that was even humanly possible for you.

trying to assess some damage control towards what you had just heard, he turned to both gojo twins.

‘hah? what are you two fuckers talking about!?’

and as if ‘getting the hint’ had flown out the window tonight, satoru decided to double down on his claims. figuring that it was time you learn the truth.

‘you know what i’m talking about sukuna.’ playing with the cap he was wearing as he removed it to brush through his hair, just to wear it again as if all of this was some casual conversation you were all having.

he slowly shifting towards a more serious tone when he realised that sukuna disregarded him with silence, letting his gaze fall towards you.

‘that night. a couple weeks ago. when you had yorozu outside of the frat house. and you guys started making out. do you remember it now?’ punctuating each detail as if to engrave it in your head that you should have know this.

feeling your heart drop all the way to your ass, you didn’t even know what to say. your mouth involuntarily opened just to end up closing right back as you stared at satoru after what he just said.

turning to sukuna who was left frozen behind you. you felt your chest tighten with each passing second, gosh you even felt the stupid carpet fur where you had planted your feet onto as you made your way further and further away from him.

after what felt like years, merely a 15 seconds to the others in the room. you pushed sukuna by his shoulders out of rage.

‘what the fuck ryo?!’

and as if that was his cue, as if now he had the heart to finally speak up. he got up just as quickly and tried to hold you back from moving away from him with every step that you took back. reaching out to you as a means of grounding you with him. you slapped his hand away.

‘don’t you dare fucking touch me ryomen.’

taken aback at your outburst, it had been a long time coming since you dropped the formality of calling him anything other than pet names and nicknames. answering you back with a fury of his own that was characteristic his personality.

‘will you fucking calm down and let me explain myself!'

and as if the situation couldn’t get any worse for him, the gojo twins decided to interject again from their seats. with satoshi starting it off.

‘what’s there to say sukuna?’

‘yea, i mean i'm even shocked you hadn’t yet told the missus.’

but as stared at the two of them just to look back at sukuna who was all furrowed eyebrows and tight jaw, you grew increasingly aware of the situation that you had been left in the dark from.

‘will you shut it up you two? don't you think you’ve done enough already?’

‘oh come on suki, she had to know at some point?-‘

‘shut the fuck gojo.’

narrowing your eyes at his form, as all thoughts circled your mind. the whole situation was honestly comical and hearing you laugh is what broke sukuna out of arguing with satoru.

‘hah, oh my fucking gosh. i’m going to actually die.’ feeling yourself unable to to breathe with how much you were laughing as you stared at the ground.

confused as to what type of za you could have taken this time to make you react like this. sukuna tried to reach out to you again, only to have you take back another step as you widened the gap between you two.

‘what the hell are you laughing about? are you not mad?-‘

having you cut him off as you went on with your own internal monologue.

‘…fucking fool.’

having expected that, sukuna felt himself overcome by relief. knowing that he could now try to interject with an apology.

only for you to repeat yourself with, ‘i’m a fucking fool.’ well i guess the aplogy flew out the window too.

‘what?’

‘i’m a fucking fool sukuna. i’m so fucking stupid. i saw this coming, how the hell could i let you embarrass me sukuna?’

unable to find a way to make this any better, he took a hesitant step towards you.

‘i know, im sorry baby-‘

cutting him off as you looked back at him. ‘don’t call me that.' as he had a borderline betrayed expression. 'just wow. i just have to hand it to you sukuna-‘

‘you don’t call me that either.’

feeling yourself grow irritated that he was even trying to argue with you.

‘i don’t think you have any right as to what i can call and not call you right now.’

clenching his fist at that, he wanted to try and regain some control to this, to get you close. but damn were you standing your ground.

‘i mean you can’t seriously think that a half ass apology is going to fix this.’ crossing your arms over your chest.

‘listen to me. it’s not what you think it is-‘

rolling your eyes, ‘then what is it?’ growing more and more impatient at how he stayed silent, letting out a breath as you remembered all the times he told you not to worry, you resorted to mocking him with his own words, bringing him out of his thoughts.

‘she’s going through a tough time, name.’

‘i’m not even with her like that.’

tilting your head as you captured his gaze, staring right into his eyes. he then only realised that you were holding back tears.

‘you’re the one i love, name.’

‘can’t you fucking see that, name!'

frustrated at yourself for believing his utterly selfish lies. you yelled out.

‘no the fuck i don’t sukuna. because if i did then we wouldn’t be here right now!’

looking to the side at that, he tried to find anywhere else to look. he couldn’t find it in himself to see you hurt, especially because of him.

‘i’m sorry…’

‘what did you say.' practically daring him to repeat it.

staring up at you and the other two that you had even forgotten about. he apprehensively repeated himself.

‘i said i'm sorry-‘

‘hmm… i heard it the first time. just, you know what sukuna?’

staring at you and you alone to listen to what you had to say.

‘leave me the fuck alone.’ turning around and leaving the house, despite hearing him call out for you, you never turned back.

grabbing both satoru and satoshi by their collars after they stopped him from getting to you after you left.

‘what the fuck is wrong with you two?!’

busy fixing his glasses, the other gojo decided to speak up - i mean he was the one who decided to drop everything. as if he wasn’t practically being held by someone who looked like he was about to kill him and then kill him maybe three times again. he casually responds.

‘ahh come on suki, how long were you trying to hide it for?’ throwing him a smug smile.

sukuna felt like he was going to choke him by his stupid chain. but before he could do so, the other gojo spoke up dryly.

‘yea. i mean, i didn’t even really do much. but you could have stopped us, you just kept quiet and froze like a little bitch.’

seemingly more infuriated at what they were saying to him. ‘are you both fucking with me right now?!’

‘listen suki-‘

‘don’t call me that.’ gojo rolled his eyes knowing he was going to do the opposite. he grabbed sukuna’s arm to remove it from where he was grabbing him.

‘oh please, like the missus said, you have no place to pick what you get to be called right now.’ pulling himself away.

‘i mean, maybe you should probably go spend some time with yorozu, blow off some steam. if you know what i mean.’ chuckling to himself as he made his way out of the common room. finishing it off with a low blow where his tone shifted to a more chillingly cold one.

‘since you thought that having her was worth all of this.’

with that sukuna felt his grip loosen, giving satoshi the unwarranted opportunity rip himself out without a fight and follow his brother out the room. leaving sukuna alone, in the whatever he was going to do about all this.

you probably had more than a thousand text messages and several hundred calls from sukuna since that fateful night. it had been roughly a week and you wanted to block him, but what fun would that be? you enjoyed having him see that his messages would seemingly get delivered or how you would occasionally leave him on read.

not to mention, how you loved hearing how pathetic he was as you’d sometimes pick up his calls just to hear him beg as you kept quiet on the other line.

‘listen to me baby, it really didn’t mean much.’

rolling your eyes as you had him on speaker while you got ready for the day.

‘she was just there and she just came onto me.’

feeling a bit of a headache coming in with each lie he spat out, you stared at your reflection with a bored expression. wondering just what you could have possibly done in a past life to warrant being subjected to this.

gosh if anyone other than your friends were to find out that you got cheated on, it just made you feel so stupid and embarrassed.

‘i don’t know what the two imbeciles were talking about, but i promise you, that it wasn’t even that bad’

‘i know you can hear me and i know you see my messages, just please give me the chance to talk to you face to face-‘

with that you hung up on him and switched off your phone. sukuna ryomen does not beg. but for you he does and you liked warranting the fact that you could hear him do it more often that not because of all of this.

and as if you even wanted to see him, you just thanked the universe that you both do opposite majors and don’t get the time to see each other in class.

yet, you knew you’d have to eventually. with a football game coming up that him and his frat brothers were sure to win. you just know that you'll find yourself at one of those parties - because there was no way as your name, were you going to be stopped from bestowing your presence, lest you get people spreading rumours about how pathetic you truly are just because he cheated on you. hah, fat chance.

until then you could stall for a bit more.

having just finished all your classes for the day, you fell into your new routine that you had been following for the past week - where you’d leave the class as quickly as possible in hopes of not having to run into sukuna who would come storming into your faculty building in hopes of a confrontation.

bidding farewell to shoko and the rest of your friends, you made a beeline for the exit. only to feel someone grab you by your bag, halting your movements.

the culprit? satoru gojo. turning around to face him, the last time you had talked to him was when you and sukuna had that whole thing. so you bluntly asked him.

‘what do you want, gojo?’ as you watched him feigning offence at how you had referred to him, he let go of your bag and held a hand over his heart.

‘huh, gojo? i get that you’d do that to sukuna. but come on, the fight is with him not me. what’s with this whole calling me ‘gojo’ thing?’

holding back the urge to roll your eyes at him, he had a point. you knew better that you had crossed over the boarder of calling him just gojo a long time ago.

‘maybe the fact that i’m not in the mood right now.’ turning your gaze towards the clock that hanged over the massive lecture room whiteboard. if you didn’t leave soon, it would only be seconds before sukuna barged in here. and that seemed to be a sentiment that satoru could read straight off your face as he followed your gaze at the clock only to look back at you.

hearing him chuckle brought your attention back on him.

‘ah, name? you’re so easy to read.’ deadpanning at his audacity, you figured he was probably trying to waste your time so that sukuna could catch you here. probably some bullshit favour for their ‘brotherhood’. but before you could leave he stopped you again, and you only grew more irritated at him.

‘okay okay wait, i didn’t mean to hurt your feelings-‘

uninterested you cut him off, ‘you didn’t hurt my feelings, goj- satoru.’ switching his names as you noticed how he twitched at the mention of his surname.

‘but what is that you actually want?’

sending you one of his signature smiles, ‘well, i wanna go try out this café and who else to go with than our resident cheer captain before the big game tomorrow?’

‘awww, that’s so nice of you.’ shooting him a faux smile as your words were laced with deceit and sadly he looked like he had fallen for it, ‘yea i know, it’s just a short drive!-‘

‘i’m not interested satoru.’

‘what?’

‘i’m not interested. i know this is some sort of setup to get me back with sukuna. i don’t want any to deal with any of that right-‘

cutting you off by laughing at how 'humorous' you were being, he was practically throwing his head back as he shook his head realising you were not seeing things his way.

‘that’s where you're not getting it, name.’ getting serious for a moment, almost giving you whiplash if it wasn't for how quickly he stopped himself and got back to his usual personality.

‘it’s not a setup. if it was you could even stab me in the throat for it.’ and honestly you didn’t know whether he was trying to make you believe that or himself.

‘just a small…? outing!? yeaa an outing!’ grabbing your bag from your shoulder as he put his other arm over your shoulder.

with how close he was, you heard him whisper the last bits into your ear, ‘between two good friends!’ grabbing the door for you and practically moving your body the way he wanted to go.

too strung out from how quickly he was walking and the whole train of events, before you knew it he was ushering you into the black leather passenger seat of his dark tinted car.

going around the front of the car with your bag still on his arm - and you’d find it funny if it wasn’t for how dazed you were right now. coming up to the driver’s seat and throwing it to the back seats. hearing the car’s engine start is what pushed you to grab satoru’s hand before he could grab the steering wheel.

‘what the fuck satoru?! why am i in your car right now? i didn’t agree to your stupid outing!’

staring back at you through his dark sunglasses that he had worn when he entered the car. he slowly turned the car off as he pulled his hand away from you. unlocking the car doors with a click from the side, he looked forward and kept his voice steady and coldly authoritative.

‘listen name, it’s your call. the door’s unlocked…’

taking that as your cue without even hearing what he had to say, you turned to grab your bag from the back seats. only to hear satoru finish it off with something that made you retract yourself back to the passenger seat.

‘but you should be sure that you want to leave knowing that sukuna is right around that corner.’

and lo and behold, when you looked forward to where satoru was looking, there he was - fuming as it is at the fact that he was leaving your faculty building without finding you in there. watching as he grabbed his phone from his back pocket and started calling someone.

still unusually serious, gojo voices out, ‘he’s calling you.’ and to your chagrin your phone starts ringing and it was actually him.

facing the two options you had, you made up your mind and pulled the seatbelt as you settled your body into the car comfortably, ‘just drive.’

with a smug smile, gojo turns the car back on and does as he’s told, beaming that things went his way. thank gosh for his dark tint though because you don’t know what you would have done if sukuna found you in his friend’s car.

wrapping up at the café with gojo, you tried to keep it lowkey - if that’s the word you could describe how you had a small drink and pastry while it looked like gojo was eating for a family of 5 with how many drinks he had already downed and the multitude of cakes and pastries he had on his side of the table. blaming the fact that today was 'cheat day!'

full of cake in his mouth, he pointed out with his fork. ‘are… you sure… hmph’ swallowing the remnants of his food as he noticed how you were looking at him funny.

‘what i was trying to say is are you sure you don't want to order anything else?’ perplexed at what he could have meant by that, you turned to him and finally held eye contact with him since you’ve been here.

from his side, since the moment you both entered you’ve been in quite an awkward position. looking at the door every time you heard someone enter, staring at the people who’d pass next to the window and through it all whenever he’d talk to you, you’d look everywhere but at him and even when you did it would only last a few seconds before you started playing around with the frosting or crumbs on your plate, like right now.

‘uh… yea, i’m good. you don’t need to worry about me satoru.’ he didn’t believe you but he also didn’t feel like pushing you.

yet, even as it looked like he had his face buried in his food. when your phone lit up on the table with maybe the 50th message from sukuna since you’ve both sat down, he glared at it and noticed how you were slowly reaching out for it.

clearing his throat to gain your attention and stopping you from doing so, which worked when he saw how your hand retracted from grabbing your phone. he decided to ask with feign interest.

‘so, you’ve been ignoring sukuna?’

looking up at him, you played around with your fork as you tapped it on your plate to ease your nerves. ‘uh yea, ever since that night.’

‘ah well he’s been persistent.’ that made you perk up as you furrowed your eyebrows as to what he could be talking about.

with his attention on you, he leaned back in the booth as he flared his arm and clasped them behind his head. plus, with how unreasonably tall he was, he grazed your leg slightly from under the table with how slouched he was in the seat opposite to you.

looking down to where he was touching you and back at him, he held a neutral expression. he wasn’t planning on moving and you took that as a sign to not press.

‘and what do you mean by he’s been persistent?’ smiling at you knowing he has you right where he wants.

‘well i’m not really sure, but from what i’ve gathered he’s really going through it. hasn’t even talked to me since.’

‘of course he wouldn’t be talking to you. you practically outed him.’ feeling yourself grow agitated at the thought of that whole night and how unrealistic sukuna was being.

‘i mean what was he even thinking? even if you didn’t tell me, did he really think that shit wouldn’t have reached me?’

‘hah. cause your little miss popular, right?’ rolling your eyes at the obvious trial at his teasing. you continued, showing the most emotion since you’ve sat here.

‘i just can’t believe it though, like what the hell? if he wanted to be with her then why break up with her in the first place and then get with me?! like who the fuck even does that?’

smiling at you, he shrugged. ‘hm, i don’t know. i guess he does. wanted you both at the same time.’

letting out an outburst at the emotions you had been keeping to yourself for the past week. ‘ack! its honestly so frustrating because i saw the signs. i just feel so stupid for believing him in the first place.’

‘yea, we all get there.’

confused as to how he was even relating to this, you asked, ‘okay satoru i get that your trying to play therapist right now. with the whole outing and trying to get me to vent. but who in the world is ‘we’?’

looking at you through his glasses as if daring you to continue, you were one to talk so you felt indifferent to his gaze. ‘i mean you and sukuna aren’t far apart, i’m sure that you’ve done this shit to multiple girls before.’

chuckling at that, you felt him sit straight as he made sure to brush your leg again. ‘that’s where you’re wrong. the difference between me and sukuna is that i wouldn’t have done that to you.’

this made you quickly realise the inappropriate situation you were in as you slowly fell right back into the shell you had when you had gotten here. what would you even say to sukuna if he caught you with him right now.

‘…yea, i guess so.’ unsure of whether that was the truth or if you were just agreeing to try and end the topic.

smiling to himself, he was confident at how this little ‘outing’ had gone his way, and the result of it would pay him back quite soon. ‘you want me to drive you home?’

looking back towards him, you nodded your head and followed him out. too in your thoughts about his words and how he said them.

the ride was silent, and when you finally reached your dormitory you felt kinda indebted to him.

‘uh, you know i can pay you back for the café thing-‘ pulling out your phone to send him the money, only to get him pushing your phone away as he replied back in disbelief.

‘are you out of your mind?! i’m satoru gojo, why would you pay me back?’ shocked that you would even think about that, he knew you well enough that the moment you left his car you were definitely going to send him something. he just had to do you one better.

‘plus, i’m the one who initiated it.’ wiggling his eyebrows at you while he locked his gaze with yours through the frames of his sunglasses.

laughing at his antics, ‘okay okay fine… but thank you. i… um really appreciate it.’ sensing the sincerity in your words, he sent you a genuine smile.

‘don't worry about it.’ unlocking the doors for you with a click, as you reached out to open it, you heard him in the smallest whisper - probably have thought you imagined it if it wasn’t for how close he was to you.

‘goodnight.’

pushing yourself back and out of the car, you regained some distance and replied while you were outside.

‘yea… goodnight satoru.’

as you walked away, he couldn’t stop staring at you with a smile till you disappeared into the building, and right when you left his line of sight, he grabbed his phone and posted a seemingly harmless photo to his instagram story. switching his phone off right after, as he pulled out of the driveway with a more than just smug satoru gojo smile. he was smirking to himself and his thoughts.

after a good shower, you had finished your nightly routine and decided it was time for some well deserved doom scrolling. except, when you turned on your phone expecting the usual couple hundred missed calls and messages from sukuna.

you had an alarming 7 missed calls from shoko, 5 messages from geto, a couple from yuki and not to mention the insane amount of mentions and follows you were getting from new random accounts on instagram.

‘what the fuck?’

clicking on shoko’s messages first, you were bombarded by her missed calls and her trying to spam text you to respond and check your phone.

lung cancer ❤️

bro brooooo missed call your name NAME missed callmissed call omfg you bum ass loser check your phone like damn bro i knew you were mad and wanted to get over sukuna but GOJO?!? especially SATORU?! 😭🙏 man why didn’t you go for his hot nerd brother satoshi, i thought i taught you better 😔 but i mean if you are actually dating satoru then damn mommy you switched up fast!! get that rebound but also like i heard sukuna is going to beat your ass 🤣🤣 missed call

wondering what the hell she was on about. how did she know you and gojo went out together? and why would she ever think that you've started dating him? you haven't even yet to officially break it off with sukuna.

turning even more confused as you read through geto and yuki’s texts, you grew more and more alarmed at what was going on behind the scenes that you were unaware of.

geto suguru

hey just wanted to let you know that sukuna is about to kill satoru today, hope your happy knowing you stole and are about to get my man killed 💔

now that was off, other than geto being unserious. did gojo just end up opening his mouth again and blurting it out to sukuna that you two were out together? but what would he get from that knowing that it would only result into a fight.

yu-yuki 💕

omfg bro your killing me here😭😭😭 gojo??? but i mean whatever floats your boat, but i thought you were still with sukuna?

after checking all your other messages while ignoring sukuna’s earlier messages knowing it was going to be the usual. you felt a migraine coming over you, as you finally entered instagram and there it was.

gojo had decided to take it upon himself to post a candid photo from when you were eating at the café and captioned it, ‘me n bae’ and mentioned you in the corner.

feeling your soul actually leave your body, that would explain all the new followers, mentions and messages from everyone. but what the fuck?

now everyone and their damn mother thinks you and gojo are dating, not to mention the fact that once sukuna kills him, he’s probably going to come kill you.

dropping your phone on your table, it was too late for this shit and in a short span of actions, you switched off your phone and decided to sleep under the covers early.

who knows what gojo must be going through. you don’t and you frankly did not care at the moment.

unbeknownst to you gojo was actually going to die tonight. as he dodged the pillows and cushions that sukuna had been throwing at him since he reached the frat house. he felt his eyes widen as sukuna went ahead to grab a lamp and threw it at him practically grazing his face, warning him that he was close enough to have hit him.

this struck a chord within him. ‘what the fuck suki?!’

pausing for a moment as he recoiled from the stupid nickname. ‘suki!? how many fucking times have i told you to cut that crap?’ launching what was now one of geto's books that had lied dormant on the coffee table at gojo who was standing a few meters opposite to him in the torn apart common room.

sukuna was even more livid ever since he saw that story and what was so crazy is that he didn’t track down gojo. didn't ask around. didn’t even text you or call you after seeing it. he waited, and for the impatient man he was that was already so much to be asked from him.

what now escalated after gojo got home and was confronted by him on why he was with you, where gojo merely shrugged and said that he was with you because ‘she needed to be with someone who wasn’t going to lie or play her dirty.’

all hell was let loose as sukuna threw the knife he had just finished sharpening at him only to hit the door when gojo ducked as they continued their cat and mouse game where they’ve now found themselves in the now disheveled common room. where some of the couches had been flipped over to when gojo had decided to take refuge in, while some had been ripped apart from sukuna’s assault to grab something to throw.

‘listen suki- sukuna.’ switching his words as he saw how a visible vein on sukuna's forhead twitch. gojo held his hands in mock surrender as he spoke with a sincerity in his words that made sukuna losen his guard.

‘all i posted was a photo from us hanging out as friends, nothing more nothing less. the bae thing was just a joke... well for now.’

catching the expected remote that was thrown to his face with the last bit of his sentence. ‘but what i’m trying to say, is that if you think you still have a chance.’ smiling at him while he lowered his sunglasses to get a better view of him.

‘why don’t you try your luck tomorrow at the frat party. i’m sure she’ll be there.’

finishing it off by setting the remote on the coffee table and leaving him alone in the room again.

gojo was confident you would come tommorow, him and sukuna both. just… who would you end up accepting in the end?

author’s note:

ik ik cliffhanger but it felt like this shit was getting unnecessarily long. 😭😭😭. and i don’t know guys, do we get back with a cheater, which i personally would not want but it sounds addicting to write, especially with how pathetically i want to have him beg🤣

orr, do we get with one of his hmbs - preferably gojo satoru (fratking himself) please 🙏

we can maybe do a poll if this thing does good, or i forever leave it in it's peace like this and never touch it again 😘🤔😛

part two out now!

polka dot divider by @candvcane, taglist; @alebrasil0101, @ejk31.

lest that you bring forth shame and disgrace to your people and kingdom just because you were caught casually conversing with the knights and guards about the heavy honour of carrying a sword or shooting an arrow.

and maybe it was your fault for wanting to live both worlds, because for a princess who was born into a stereotype dysfunctional royal family, surrounded by larger than large kingdoms and a proposal at every step.

it was living like a pretty bird put on display under the guise of being decorated and clothed with beautiful ruby diamonds, shining gold and the softest silk that covered and mimicked the expanses of a cage.

frankly it all felt very a bit unfair to your 'prim and proper' mind to make sense of it all, as the future queen in line that was meant to fulfil the desires of a man who would be renowned as a king to you kingdom and his own.

why is it that the young girls your age have the freedom and capacity to do all that you've ever wanted to, while you had to live the life of curated and superficial royal who might as well be stuck in an oil painting for private viewing.

'your majesty?

at the sound of one of your newest handmaidens referring to you at the edge of the doorway's entrance, you tore your mind away from your prior thoughts and feelings about being royalty.

she was awfully cute looking and her pristine blonde hair framed her softer features even more. yet, you were sure that under the doe looking eyes, there held a fierce and outspoken voice that lay hidden due to your company.

in her position where she stood waiting. she was not too close to warrant an imposition to the private affairs of your bath, but still far enough to allow you to invite her presence into your space with your acknowledgment.

and that you tried to do, turning your attention away from the soapy bubbles of your bath to her shy and slightly scared eyes that she had forced to stare at the floor. you expected her to feel welcomed.

out easing into the fact that she was waiting for your vocal response to usher her way into the reason she was here. you cleared your throat and offered a gentle and soft tone to your voice in hopes of making her more comfortable in your presence.

'yes?'

and to that it seemed that it helped with how she had slowly retracted from her rigid stance and raised her head to gaze towards you and provide you with the simple eye contact that you were longing for.

captured by the common entrapment of your regard and attention, to be in such an audience and vulnerable environment of the transient princess. it was something that very few people have had the honour and prestige to be fully showcased with beyond the castle walls.

remembering what she was here for in the first place with the comforting silence turning deafening. you watched as she regained the consciousness of the things she had to offer.

'uh yes...' walking towards you with a fresh robe in her hands.

your maid of honour suggested that i remind you that an overly large amount of time in the bath can cause your skin to wrinkle and age quickly.

wanting to roll your eyes at what she just said, you pushed the action at the back of your head knowing that the messenger did nothing but speak out what she was told.

albeit, your face always regularly spoke your mind for you.

withholding the truth about how you felt about it, your expression had already made an explicit reaction that you only realised with how your handmaiden seemed to stutter over her words and become less vocal again.

‘...she recommends that you leave and take your rest outside of the bath’

'but it is also important to take into account your own feelings! if you'd like i can wait outside and wait at your disposal?

you could understand that she was trying to juggle the pressure of her duty while still offering you a bit of care in this strange world, and you were about to lurch out of the water to catch her before she goes and tell her that all of that wasn't necessary.

but before you could accidentally flash and scar the poor girl of more trouble after being forced to come here and get you. your maid of honour made her presence known by swiftly coming to her side with a gentle voice.

'is her majesty giving your trouble momo?'

and this time you actually did roll your eyes at the sound of your maid of honour, feeling like you should hide even further beneath the water of your bath in hopes that maybe you'd magically disappear before she'd pull you out and force you to face this 'unfair' reality.

'nishimiya dear, let me deal with this.’ speaking to her softly and reassuring her as she grabbed the silk robe from her arms.

and as the former sent her a pleased smile that someone else was put to taking care of you right now. she walked out the door and you suddenly felt the air shift as your oh so 'gentle' maid of honour made her way towards you.

she was a fair lady, beautiful in fact and you'd sometimes think that you pale in comparison. with her perky spiky short hair that presented her delicate features in a small contrast, others who were unaware to her character would never dare to think that a woman who looked like her would have such a sharp tongue that she used infront of the princess.

'oh come on, don't look at me like that!'

sensing her form that had made itself closer to the edge of your bath that you had peculiarly taken an obsessive liking as you clinged to the opposite end of it to stray away from her grasp.

slipping her hand into the water to tug on your leg and pull you towards her. 'this is for your own good, name!'

begrudgingly adding, 'you know what the noblewomen and men will say?’

gosh it was always about other people and their thoughts and opinions about your appearance or being. but even then, you also had no choice as to what the system had set up for you.

you could only let out an apprehensive sigh and lift your gaze for the first time since she had entered to give her a surrendering look.

'i know i know, mamaguro.’

and to that your devoted and dedicated maid of honour was slightly appeased, albeit knew that this was far from over with the way you spoke to her.

'but don't you-' cutting yourself off knowing that the question would only be left in the air and hidden as further discussion would warrant no change.

even then though, as your maid of honour and friend after tireless years of being around you. you watched as mamaguro tilted her head and gave you an opportunity to speak your thoughts - it's the most that she can do to give you a space where you felt like your opinions were valid and heard. something that you could only yearn for outside of the enclosure she had created for you.

‘but...?'

and you could try to brush her off to tend to other things running in your mind, but you knew her just as well as she knew you, and that the action would only result in her nagging you till you break. blurting it out.

‘...do you think if i was a prince that this would all be easier?'

she expected that from you, it was something that you had already discussed with her before. so she wasn't shocked when you asked her about the political gender biases of the kingdom, that's why she wasn't so unfazed.

'hmm... that's definitely a thought?’

thinking to herself in feign contemplation as she put her hands on her lap.

'a thought indeed.’ and you stared up at her with bountiful encouragement of what she had to say, which she could only feel the need to ignore the stinging noise of the disappointment you'd feel with her next words.

'but even if i were to give you the obvious answer to your question. we all know it wouldn't change anything…’

staring longingly away from your gaze causing you to drawback into the depths of the bath water once again as you relinquished in the mere and blatant fact of your existence.

aware of the situation and environment that has been put into place, you watched as mamaguro placed the robe on a stray roller cart filled with essential oils and after-bath perfumes.

moving with swift precision to her tasks as she walked towards leaving the room. without turning to look back at you, she left with a better 'answer' to give you to your question.

‘i can try stalling for you till your ready to come out.’

she may not be able to change things around you, but she can support you through them.

and as she finally left the intimate shared of space between you two and was closer to everyone else's outside. she spoke with a more strict standing.

'don't take too long, your majesty.’

in characteristic terms of fate and love, the dutiful title and pressure of becoming king befalls a young foreign and ‘cold’ prince.

‘cold’ was a term that the people outside of his remote circle would often use to describe him. which was in fact that complete opposite of what the people inside the castle would say to talk about the fierce, slightly arrogant and malevolent man.

because he was nothing close to being cold, his raw intensity being burning like a fire and not at all creeping like the cold.

sukuna ryomen.

prince sukuna ryomen.

closest in line to becoming king of his kingdom. brother to prince yuji itadori and half brother to prince choso kamo - who decided to renunciate his royal duties.

but prince sukuna was even more so renowned as a ferocious, raw and untameable force of nature on the battlefield after building a reputation with his esquire and right hand-man, toji fushiguro.

‘what are the plans about the settlements propagated in the east wing?’

with his usual scowl and furrowed eyebrows, sukuna spoke with a precedented demanding and condescending tone as he read through the lettered report in his hand.

standing at the front of his desk and leaning back on it with casual superiority in a room filled with his advisors and esquire. none would dare to question his chosen position and the way he went about things.

not only because he was sukuna.

but it was also because he was a prince and a future king, no less.

raising a frustrated brow at the overbearing silence that he was met with, the room watched as sukuna scrapped the papers towards the desk behind him and folded his arms across his chest.

the response was in their court ballroom, as the advisors and ‘knowledgeable’ counsel.

surveying through his options, toji who was his closest companion and a formal ‘servant’ to his qualms, was fully aware of the true purpose of this meeting.

the issue with the settlements was something that prince yuji had already dealt with, as a familiar peacemaker when it came to the matter.

this was something that fell short out of sukuna’s jurisdiction and line of duty.

so, to toji he was pleasantly obliged to the mere fact that this was very obviously a cover-up to what the advisors had to ‘advice’ to their fair prince.

he leaned back into the carefully crafted rich couch with a faint smile gracing his features, all-knowing to whatever the advisors had planned was going to cause quite the internal and outward warfare with sukuna and his reactions.

feeling the heavy weight of the silence in the room, a timid and hesitant advisor decided it would be wise to speak up soon before sukuna’s thin thread of patience snapped.

‘uh yes, about the settlements your grace…’ turning to the rest of his colleagues in search of hope that maybe one of them wanted to speak up.

being met with blank faces and turned heads, the man who had set himself up slowly diverted back towards facing sukuna.

and at this point it seemed that the already intimidating expression he always held was even scarier.

clearing his throat to ease his nerves, while sukuna held a fake interested expression to what he had to say - already knowing that the settlements had been dealt with and stringing the advisors along in the same way that they thought they were doing to him.

‘the settlements have already been dealt with, your grace.’

he could honestly chuckle to himself about the whole situation. did they really think he wouldn’t know or thereof lack the intelligence to cover the minuscule details of the kingdom’s resources? they were talking to future king.

but the pride and arrogance that was filled in his mind and heart closely came to bite him as he perked up to listen to the actual purpose of this meeting.

was it going to be a new waiver that gave a large monetary stimulus to one of the noblemen’s businesses? or a mock-up charity ball that was meant to attract noblemen and women to gossip and use as an opportunity make rumours about the royal family?

either way, whatever it was. sukuna already felt himself irked at the idea of it being anything of the above.

‘we think it’s time you look into getting married.’

toji wanted to burst out laughing at the way sukuna’s usual disdainfully amused face fell and paled in comparison the ivory coloured documents and scrolls that lay around the small table infront of him.

suddenly getting a grasp of the whole situation and assessing that what he just heard wasn’t funny make belief, sukuna ended up barking out as a response through utter shock and bewilderment.

‘are you out of your fucking minds-‘

scowling and muttering curses under his breath as he was cut off by an elder adviser, who suddenly got a new sense of confidence after the other adviser’s words.

‘yes! we all think that it’s high time that you look into the eligible bachelorettes that we have short listed.’

and with the matter-of-fact tone that the elder was using as he cut him off, the whole situation only proved to be even more vexing to sukuna.

trying to brush out the hard on creases that formed on his forehead at the internal distress he was feeling at the moment.

sure, he could reject the idea and call it downright ridiculous… but he knew that once his advisors start talking - he was completely and royally bound to accept.

call it being a clipped bird in a cage… rather than one who was put on display.

after some deliberate silence from his side, and the idea of lashing out infront of everyone being more trouble than needed.

the advisors watched in quiet disbelief that their young prince seemed to breath out an apprehensive sigh and shift towards a strangely, frightening calmness.

‘i’ll consider the possibility.’

turning away from the audience, facing the desk and grand chair of his study. he could only aim to clear his frustrations by looking outside through the imposing glass window.

still he knew that the room was waiting for a reaction, turning with a dark glare over his shoulder at the audience behind him, he spoke with a strict, authoritative voice.

‘do not push me. you are dismissed.’

and as quietly and hurriedly as they could, the advisors scrambled to leave the room before sukuna decided to change his mind and explode on them.

still, there were only a few handful of people who knew to push through his growing and everlasting walls.

‘so, do you have someone in mind?’

he heard toji speak up from his relaxed state where he yawned and got comfortable on the now free and empty couch after the advisors left.

relishing in the plush seat and laying down as he stared expectantly at sukuna’s back, all the while he lazily looked over the document that the one of the advisors had left behind and surveyed over the names inked.

‘you’ve got a nobleman from the north, a girl from the south… and oh would you look at that? princess name-‘

without turning to face him as he stared at the desk and the contents of the documents that lay atop of it, he cut him off before he could continue annoying him with the utter nonsense that he could not even imagine or be bothered to listen to right now.

‘frankly i do not care or want to think of the options that are available, fushiguro.’

lifting a scroll that had interested because of the proud sigil on it, he skimmed through it as he left toji to discard of the earlier conversation.

‘i suggest that you drop the matter. whatever the advisors have decided on, i will have no option than to obey.’

finishing it off by closing the scroll after reading its contents, he knew that the list of bachelorettes was a ruse. the advisors would never come into this meeting without a plan and decision on who they actually wanted him to marry.

and a plan on how to get him to agree if he had decided that he didn’t want anything to do with marriage, sighing at the thought. he switched to turn back around to face toji who seemed ready to sleep on the couch at this point.

feeling a vein almost pop at his temple at the sight of his esquire lounging in his study like he was king.

toji quickly realised that the earlier subdued irritation could end up being thrown out onto him and sat up straight with open ears to listen to the expected response sukuna had to all of this.

pleased at his actions, the latter felt himself being a little less irrational to all of this. thinking to himself with a faint smile, his earlier humour to the exchange with his advisors coming back again.

with a lighthearted chuckle that never seemed to throw off toji, he followed suit with a mirrored smile.

‘plus, a wife or getting married, it’s all for the public. i need not to treat her as ‘my wife’ behind closed doors.’ shrugging his shoulders at the prospect.

‘so long as she isn’t a bother, i won’t have the thought of having to dispose of her.’

and toji was well aware of what he meant by ‘dispose’ but that would have to be something he’d worry about when the time comes.

‘name!’

turning from the flowers that you had been tending to in the entryway of the garden, the yell of your name from the castle pulled you away from them.

it was very rare that any of the servants were to call you by your given name without adding any royal honourifics and mamaguro knew better than to regale your personal relationship with her by calling you by your name in the public.

there was only one person who would call you by your name like that and in fact yell it out without a care.

‘yes, baba!’

and for what it was, a personal call by your father only eased you into anxiousness at the new proclamation that he had for you today.

as you gathered the rather large train of your dress to protect it from any grime of dirt that may cause an argument with your father about your public image.

you only hoped that this wasn’t going to be about going out of the castle recently - to be frank, your father had forbade you to leave the castle your whole life… well ever since your mother…

it wasn’t unless it was due to public appearances, where you only went covered (out of sight to the public eye’s scrutiny). you could honestly laugh at the juxtaposition of all of it.

your people hadn’t seen you or heard anything about you in years, yet, day and night you’d be oppressed to learn all the ways to maintain the illusion of a carefully crafted submissive beauty.

not to mention, the hoards of royal guards and personnel that would have to be put in place to escort and ‘protect’ you.

those chances were slim and all the while created such a bother. which meant your chances of contact to the outside world were closer to zero.

so can you really be blamed for taking it upon yourself to get that sense of contact.

walking with small quickness that still procured the elegance of a princess and the speed that demonstrated the internal worries that you had for what could be awaiting for you at your father’s call.

all the while you greeted and smiled at each servant and royal guard who seemed to turn and gaze at your presence.

‘would you like me to help you with your gown, princess?’

‘did you need an escort, your majesty?’

all the while you greeted and smiled.

shaking your head at each humble request and gesture. knowing that they worked at your best interest but there was also so much that you wanted to do without feeling like you were on training wheels.

still, you couldn’t say that out loud and risk the idea of being portrayed as an ungrateful and spoiled princess.

so you continued your trek on your own with fake smiles and even faker laughter. well that was until you found yourself situated infront of the grand doors of your father’s study that were always protected under the regard of his highly ranked guardsmen.

at your behest, mamaguro was standing a few meters away from the door, awaiting your arrival. which confused you to say the least. whatever it was, you were sure she must have caught wind of it to make due of whatever she was doing and to be here for you.

quirking a brow towards her she only responded with a slow shake of her head, signalling to you that ‘now’s not the time’.

patting yourself down and making sure you looked presentable for whatever audience that was inside. you had mamaguro give you one last look over and nodded towards the guardsmen to open the door for you.

entering with a bowed down head, you looked behind to see the attendance of mamaguro at your side - albeit, two steps behind you, only to be shocked to watch the grand doors curtly close without her presence.

you could honestly have the world swallow you up right now.

‘hey hakari?! kashimo?! what’s the deal?’

you faintly heard mamaguro through the thick-heavy doors yelling at the aforementioned.

‘the king asked for the princess.’ you heard hakari respond.

‘an audience of one.’ with kashimo rubbing it in.

on the other side, mamaguro rolled her eyes at their antics with being so formal, she knew that this was only because your father was only a door over.

scoffing and turning around. you were on your own for this one and dutifully from your side, you watched in cue as your father called for you and patted the empty seat next to him.

for some reason the small and familiar study felt awfully large and intimidating.

‘come here, dear.’

well that was a good sign. if he knew about your escapades out of the castle, he would have started with that already. but you followed his request and sat next to him, and still, your father was your father.

‘why are you so rigid? you’d think you saw a ghost, what’s wrong?’

feelings yourself freeze, you quickly became more comfortable and conscious of each breath that you took. sending him one of your practised smiles.

‘nothing’s wrong baba, whatever do you mean?’

deadpanning at your blatant lie, he brushed it off and became conscious of his own actions and the matter he needed to tend to with you being here. watching as he tried to get the right words out.

that was strange, you thought.

‘ah… it must be because i’m getting old!’

and you awkwardly laughed at that because he never stopped mentioning and bring it up it as of late.

‘you do know where i’m getting at?’ turning towards you with a sudden seriousness. and in genuine confusion at the whiplash he was giving you right now, you felt your tongue speak before you could even think of a well spoken lie.

‘no.’

feeling himself get a bit agitated, you watched as you father reached out to grab your hands in his. suddenly feeling your heart in your ass crack with how he was looking at you, you were thrown off about the whole atmosphere to even think of faking an all-knowing reaction of sorts.

‘i think it’s time name.’

‘uh… time for what?’

‘i’m getting older dear.’ looking into your eyes so intently that you thought maybe the answer was in them. ‘you know what that means…’

and you hardly had the idea that maybe he was alluding to dying but it’s not like he was sick or something, so your confusion was evident on your face with the furrow of your brows.

‘name don’t make me spell it out for you.’

letting go of your hands as he suddenly gave up trying to gentle parent you into understanding his thoughts. which was a preposterous take from his side, cause how were you supposed to know when he was the one who called you here for a discussion in the first place.

‘you need to get married to get a king for our kingdom.’

…

bursting out of laughter and utter hysteria, you keeled over as you father stared in disbelief.

trying to catch your breath as you panned over to look at your father to see if he was laughing as well. you felt yourself nearly choke at the sight of his solemn and disappointed expression.

‘why aren’t you laughing?’ you breathed out with a rare genuine smile and tears in your eyes.

‘because i’m not joking.’

and you deadpanned at that. because what was he even talking about. getting married? to get a fit king? where was he going anyway? can’t he just be king forever?

suddenly the ‘humorous’ environment turned grim as you became frustrated at the revelation of what your father was saying without even giving you an option to all of it.

‘you’re actually serious?!’ asking him with a disgusted scowl etched on to your features.

‘princess-‘

‘don’t princess me!’ standing up out of irritation at the whole ordeal. yet, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is what people say.

your father mirrored your actions and was fueled with a similar anger. but his was out of the concept that you were being far from acceptant and the idea that you even thought of getting angry when this was for the good of everyone.

‘no! you will listen.’

and at the sound of his shout. you slowly withdrew yourself and retracted like a dying flame to the tremble of water. realising your ‘place’ and bowing your head once again.

you didn’t want to apologise, but it was what you were taught to do in these cases. with the smallest of voices, you lingered on the edge of just leaving the room without saying it and just saying it. picking the latter through gritted teeth.

‘i, am sorry.’ feeling your fists clench at your sides with the bubbling frustrations having nowhere to be released other than at the sacrifice of your palms where you squeezed till you felt the stringing pain of your nails.

whereas your father was releasing a hearty sigh of resignation. your father was scarcely the type to let anger get a hold of him. but when it did, it was bad.

‘as i was saying…’

of course he wasn’t going to apologise, it had your earlier anger resurfacing but forced down under the external weight of a social label.

you wanted to roll your eyes at what he was spewing out of his mouth right now, actually strangle him instead. but it was all a blur as bits and pieces of whatever seemed to be the most interesting, stuck on your mind.

you just wanted to leave.

‘…you’ve rejected one too many proposals. i gave you the freedom to pick from them and you’ve left me with no choice but to pick…’

and you wanted to argue. argue that it wasn’t that you rejected the proposals because of the people. you rejected them because you didn’t want to be stuck with a stranger, no less a man who became your proud and true ‘husband’.

‘…this is for your own good. the good of the kingdom… they need someone to bear the throne after me…’

somewhere along the lines of what he was saying, your inner thoughts spoke louder today and out of the restraints of your mind, making them public and on display for his criticism.

‘and why must a man who comes from elsewhere become our king?’

watching as your father rubbed his face in irritation at why you you were being so awfully stubborn right now. and you were being stubborn, but this was your livelihood on the line.

yes, as a royal you were supposed to be able to put your people’s best interest at a priority but why did that have to come at your expense?

‘baba, you know that i’ve studied all the rules and ways.’

‘you know that i could lead our kingdom!’

‘you know that i am fit to be king.’

feeling your voice break at the end as you struggled to grasp the reasoning behind why you couldn’t be the one to lead. why did it have to be your gender that stopped you, when a man who knew less became a better candidate just because he was a man.

and with each and every single word of truth that you shot out, your father felt himself faltering at the truth. he was well aware that as his only child and indirect heir, you were more than fit to rule than any of the other princes and noblemen that he has had the pleasure of meeting… but you were a princess.

a princess was seen as a painting.

an accessory to her husband’s public image and internal carnal desires. a family’s carer and facilitator of bearing future children.

and a father’s pride, especially yours.

he wishes you’d be able to see it from his side that he wasn’t trying to be a villain to you and that he wasn’t trying to punish you for being a princess (as much as it does look like that).

and he hates to say it, because if things were different you’d make a wonderful king.

‘name.’

the gentle look your father held that accompanied the gentler tone of his voice. you slowly felt the anger you had subdue as a calm submissiveness entrapped your being.

‘i understand.’

turning without a hint of fire of an argument in you, as you accepted the fate in which you were born to.

a step into what was ‘good’ for the kingdom. a step into protecting your kingdom. a step into fulfilling your duty as a princess.

all at the sacrifice of your own ‘feet’ with each torturous step.

a few weeks had passed since the discussion with your father, and ever since you hadn’t gone out of the castle. well not until today…

‘i thought that you stopped this going out nonsense after being told you were going to be proposed to? why the sudden need to go out today?!’

and she was right, for some reason today you woke up with a ‘nagging feeling’ with the need to go out. lying to her and hiding the actual reason on why you wanted to go out today.

who knows? this might be the last time you’d get the chance to run out of this castle and interact in a ‘reality’ that was stripped of the label of a princess.

trying to shift the conversation from what she said, you brought it back to general knowledge that wouldn’t quirk the curiosity of mamaguro.

‘i mean, you heard the king!’ faking a roll of your eyes and a grimace at the recollections of your father.

to be frank, you had already come to terms with the proposal and prospect of marriage, especially with it’s impending arrival coming so soon, but that was still news to everyone else.

‘who knows what might happen when i get married to some guy who keeps an eye on me like a hawk, and i end up not even leaving my room without him saying something about asking him for permission?!’

shaking your head at the thought, while mamaguro pondered to try and get your sprits high.

‘i mean did you even catch the name of the prince your father has picked on? maybe he’s not that bad and maybe pretty good looking!’

turning your head at her to deadpan at her she laughed at your reaction.

‘don’t look at me like that!’

and as much as mamaguro was in the dark, you really should have asked your father who he was wedding you to. but that was a little to late.

as you dressed yourself in more plain and simple clothes that hid your presence from looking like royalty and more like anyone else.

mamaguro sighed in surrender. there was no dissuading you once you had put your mind onto the idea of going out. so mamaguro did whatever a maid of honour does as their duty.

helping you remove the heavy jewellery that adorned your ears and neck. slipping you into a plain face veil that covered your face and left your eyes in sight.

you looked through the mirror’s reflection and watched her movements, slowly feeling a sense of growing gratitude and appreciation towards her… and maybe regret to not telling her the truth.

as she finished with the last finishing touches. before her body could retract away from you. you grabbed her hand and brought them close to your mouth underneath the veil and kissed the top of it. peering at her through your veil and whispering with the same breath of gratitude in your voice.

‘thank you.’

and as your one and only friend, it was also her duty to remind you that this was not a transactional activity that warranted appreciation. this was her doing her best to give you the capacity to enjoy yourself as name and not just a silly princess.

smiling at you with a soft warmth, you blinked at her and sent her a reciprocated smile that reached your eyes. waving her off and letting her go.

when words were left unsaid, the hearts grow fonder and stronger till the next time.

somewhere through the cracks and turns of the castle, you moved with quite practised precision towards the gates that allowed you to enter the ‘outside’ world.

the guards on watch being kashimo and hakari, on usual days it would be the common royal guards. but you had an inkling that they were stationed there because of the ‘guests’ coming today.

still they were easygoing just as the rest of the folk were. distracted with each other as they ‘fought’ with each other and drew their swords against themselves. you easily slipped between the people leaving the castle grounds and held a lowered gaze.

‘hey! you there!’

you instantly froze at the sound of kashimo’s voice behind you. and before you could turn towards him, you instantly felt yourself gratified at the sound of hakari’s voice.

‘kashimo! are you really trying to run away from me beating yer ass by acting like better knight?’

and turning back before he got too close to you, kashimo turned back towards hakari with a smirk, forgetting what he was even doing here in the first place.

‘hah?! your out of your mind if you think that you won that round!’

sighing out of relief as you left the gates without another hitch. you felt yourself encapsulated with the escape of the gravity and reality of your own situation with the lives of others, as bad as it sounded.

but it’s what kept you grounded all these years.

to see the owner of the fruit stand interact and feed the children of the market, even when he’s sales weren’t doing well.

to see the young women and men dancing at the bazaar without a care of the world.

to see the mother and daughter, hand in hand walking together and running errands together. oh how you yearned for that, but that was something to unlock your heart to and think about later.

to see the royal guards and foreign chariot and carriages trek towards the streets of the market that led closer to the castle.

wait, that was not a familiar sight. and a sight seen way too early.

turning towards the alienated chariot and the bold emblem that it had etched into its side. narrowing your eyes at it, you were unfamiliar to what kingdom it was from, other than the fact that it seemed to have come here for you.

‘ahh that must be another proposal here for the princess!’

you heard an onlooker yell and point at the chariot, a bit perplexed as to how he could have come to that conclusion on his own.

sure there had been past proposals that have littered the streets of the kingdom which made them aware of the people who came for your hand, but it had been a while since you had gotten one as of late, the first thought should have been that this was for a formal meeting.

‘excuse me, but why do you think it’s for the princess? what if it’s a negotiation with the king?’

chuckling at your nativity, he laughed and added. ‘well that’s because the king’s announcement!’

flashing you the scroll with the proud crest of you the castle, quoted words and everything right in your face.

snatching the thing from his hands and turning away from him as he yelled about being gentle and that it was a family heirloom.

you ignored his qualms and went on to briefly read it. skimming through to find the specific detail that you had missed the day of your father’s introduction to the concept of getting married.

‘…i am pleased to say that princess name shall be betrothed to prince sukuna…’

prince sukuna… you had never heard of him. why was he the only option that your father had been stuck with? gosh you already thought of the ideas that ran in your mind about the man that you were about to be engaged to.

what if he rules like a tyrant? what if he’s a dictator? oh what if he’s some old scrawny old man?

man, you really should have been careful about agreeing to this, and maybe that’s why he was the only option. you should have accepted it when nobleman suguru geto came knocking on the castle doors.

in your focus of the overwhelming thoughts that ran across your mind, you were unaware to your surroundings and found yourself right infront of the royal chariot which carried the mysterious prince sukuna.

and in your unfortunate case, you nearly became the victim to being trampled by the large horses that yielded infront of you and stopped at their tracks.

while you were distracted and stuck frozen, you heard the onlookers yelling at your very wrong defense and blaming the charioteer (the person who controls the horses on a chariot).

thus creating a ruckus in the streets as they stopped the traffic of the royal convoy.

‘hey! can’t you see where your going?’

‘yea, you think that just because you come here with your big carriages and chariots you can do whatever you want?’

‘you nearly hurt the poor lady!’

with an elderly woman coming by your side and asking.

‘sweetie, are you okay?’

turning to nod your head towards her in quite remission. the quick turn of events seemed to have taken you into a daze. not only that but it looked like all the noise and arguing of the people and the charioteer, alerted the people within the chariot.

…

‘what the fuck is going on out there?’ sukuna asked with a usual scowl to his features and impatience in his voice.

toji looked outside through the small curtained window, analysing the situation, only to find a lady in a face veil and a few market men yelling and arguing with their horse rider.

he turned back to face sukuna. ‘seems like there’s a scuffle between your future people and our rider. do you want me to deal with it?’

already reaching out to leave the chariot without a word, toji felt himself get cut off as sukuna turned to wordlessly grab the door before him and open it to leave the chariot.

leaning back inside, he got comfortable and sighed to himself. if it was an impression that people wanted, then it was an impression they would get.

from outside, you and the onlookers were stuck frozen in fear as you watched as a large and intimidating man come out of the chariot. he was covered in face tattoos and had roughly combed look to his hair.

yet, he gazed upon you all with a sense of superiority and judgment. carrying to himself a silent demand of respect and fear from everyone around him. not to mention, the ‘uniform’ he was in had been decorated in an illustrative amount of metallic pins and medals.

whispers and gasps behind you only proving to instil more panic in you at your future circumstances.

‘that’s prince sukuna!’

‘ahh yes, he’s the one who’s going to propose to the princess.’

you widened your eyes at the women behind you and stared back right infront of you at the sight of the man who held a large scowl on his features. this was the guy you were supposed to call your husband? gulping at the thought of this man even being a prince and not a guard or esquire.

to have him look like this and be bold enough to make a public appearance prior to entering the castle gates, you could only imagine what type of person he was under that dark gaze.

and it seemed that your stare and thoughts were so intense that it had the man in question break through his glare that he targeted at the general situation, to turn towards you and hold an intense sense of weird of eye contact. from your perspective.

and in sudden succession of fear of punishment and maybe persecution that his ‘future king’ was right infront of him right now. the onlooker who has just been proudly defending you a few moments ago, pushed you to the front and yelled as he walked away.

‘she’s the one who’s caused all of this!’

as other onlookers took that as a sign to leave you to tend to your own consequences alone.

looking around at what just happened and breaking the eye contact with the man infront of you, unaware to the fact that his gaze still followed your movements.

you thought about the people of the market just now, for being such a tight knit community that was ready to face things other. they really were in sync on how to let another person down.

and you’d rather curse them out but that was a thought left very far when you were stuck in the same spot at and under the sight of the man that you were supposed to be getting ready to meet right now.

you felt a bit awkward to having someone stare at you so intently and suddenly felt conscious and fell into your old habits. staring at the ground and hoping that it would rid you of the attention you were getting right now.

with a raised brow and bored look, the prince looked at your form, from up to down till he was satiated and then turned back to the charioteer.

‘you should be more careful around these parts, there are children and women walking.’

thereafter, wordlessly without an utterance of anything less or more. he enters back into the chariot.

watching as the chariot and carriages move back on their track towards the castle, you let out a breath that you you had been holding and turned to the man who just ratted you out with a sharp look to which he could only shrug at.

‘i wonder if with the proposal we’d ever see the princess outside the castle gates again?’

‘ahh it’s been too long since we saw her, ever since the queen…’

and pulling you out of your thoughts, the gossip and talk of the women reminded you that you were in fact the exact princess they were talking about.

and that, that supposed princess was a lady in waiting. waiting for her ‘fiancée’ to walk through the castle doors for her hand.

in a rush to make it in time before the royal convoy, you sped through the streets with nothing but shortcuts and a miracle. hoping that your father and the pressure of this whole ordeal wouldn’t be too much for mamaguro to handle.

‘mamaguro be sure to have the princess ready soon for the prince!’

the former could only bite the knuckle of her finger as she stared through your room’s window and prayed that not a single guard, handmaiden or especially your father came into your room right now.

‘yes, she’s just about finished in the bath!’

thinking to herself just where in the world you could be on such a grandeur day with your proposal. she knew that she shouldn’t have let you out!

before she could start thinking of ways to leave the castle without a trace and risk getting the death sentence for aiding in your escape.

she felt a wave of hope enter her fleeting soul at the sight of your struggling hand trying to grasp the windowsill’s edge.

‘where have you been this whole time? i was so worried-‘ already scolding you for leaving the castle today.

‘can i get any help up here first?’ you breathed out as you felt yourself slipping. before you could fall into the rose bushes below you, you felt a warm hand grab you hand and help you up.

even before you had a good landing of your two feet on the solid ground of your room. you watched and heard mamaguro berate and lecture you as she grabbed a cart filled with perfumes and hair necessities.

‘do you know how risky outing was? and to find out that today coincidentally was the day you were getting proposed to!?’

she situated you infront of your vanity mirror and got to work with removing your face veil and slipping you into a silk robe.

‘a shower will have to wait till later. i can’t belive the king didn’t inform of us of this earlier?!’

‘i mean how does he expect you to accept such a thing on the spot!’

and you suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over you, the thing is was that you knew. knew from the day you had the argument with your father when this proposal was happening, you just for some reason kept it to yourself and hidden from mamaguro.

residing in your silence and disassociated gaze, you felt mamaguro halt her ministrations on your hair.

‘you knew…’

staring at her through the reflection of the mirror, you watched as her face morphed into a face of disappointment at your dishonesty.

you couldn’t even defend yourself before she dropped the comb that was in your hair as she turned towards the door.

‘i think i’ll be needing more help with the princess.’

creating a wall between you and her effectively, as you were stuck being corseted up, jewelled, corrected by a multitude of hands and women who comeplemented and dressed you up.

by the end of it, you were on the surface, encapsulated in elegance and beauty.

albeit, your gaze kept on dragging back to mamaguro who held a fixed gaze on your appearance rather than you with crossed arms.

‘she’s finished?’ asking the few handmaidens who were waiting for her approval.

nodding her head in acknowledgment, the handmaidens left and you were left alone with her. looking at yourself in the mirror, your were in a large dress that was decorated with your kingdoms adoring colours and jewels that complemented the rich color of your skin.

you really did look as beautiful as what the women who surrounded you said, but the gnawing feeling of not having mamaguro say that to you overthrew the whole sentiment.

‘i’m sorry mamaguro-‘

‘we should go now.’

nodding your head without a word, her indifference was valid in yiur heart. you hadn’t even had the room to tell her of the interaction you had earlier.

face to face with the grand doors of the throne room and where you were told your father and ‘to be wed’ were waiting. you held a lowered and nervous gaze.

yet, the nerves seemed to have been eased at the sight of mamaguro in your peripheral, standing a quiet distance away from you.

always two steps behind you.

she might have been mad but atleast she wasn’t going to leave you alone.

as the doors opened, the men inside turned towards your presence. you looked regal and quite stereotypically, like a true princess. but underneath that, anyone could sense the quiet authority that hadn’t yet been explored.

‘ahh there’s my daughter!’ you father yelled out, announcing to everyone as if this wasn’t already awkward and embarrassing enough.

to sukuna though the expression that you held spiked a thought in his mind. for such an elusive princess, he could have sworn he’s seen you before.

toji on the other hand failed to understand the intricacies of the formal environment he was in and started nudging him in the ribs at the sight of you. earning him a particularly sharp glare that had him rolling his eyes and moving a small distance away from sukuna.

walking towards them with a faltering sense of self-confidence at the man who was infront of you again, the room felt cold and unnerving.

‘this is prince sukuna.’ your father gestured to when you were at a closer distance, causing you to look up at the familiar man. it’s not like you haven’t already been introduced to him.

‘and i’m sure you’ve realised that this is my daughter, princess name.’

you could see how sukuna faked the mirrored smile to your father’s humour, which seemed to slightly irk you. ‘yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you princess.’

why’d he agree to this if he didn’t want to be here? same could be said to you.

still, he respectfully regarded you and reached out for your hand like all princes do. looking between him and your father you hesitantly placed your hand in his deeply calloused and rougher hand.

and as princely as he could while toji tried to hide his snickering, he lifted your hand towards his lips and gave you a faint kiss. making sure to look at you thoroughly as he seems to search for something in your eyes.

feeling a bit self conscious, at his stare your turned your gaze away from his crimson eyes and retracted your hand far quicker than he expected you to.

well other than the fact that he was quite intimidating. can you blame a girl for getting close to combusting at the faintest touch for the first time in her life.

your father seemed to be a bit offended at the interaction tho as he held a frown at sukuna’s action. and sukuna? well he was too busy deciphering something in his thoughts.

the whole thing was plenty uncomfortable for you, you can’t imagine how much worse it was for mamaguro and the strange people with trays of sweets, jewellery, silk and other gifts for your hand in marriage.

clearing his throat at the sudden awkward atmosphere, you’d think that toji was the one proposing with how enthralled and entertained he was at the whole situation.

sukuna peered at his esquire to understand what it could be that he was alluding to now with the insistent cough of his. he only then realised he had forgotten about the the other people in the room with him.

‘on the other contrary, i’ve also brought gift for the princess from our kingdom. as a thank you for her hand in marriage.’

which with the last phrase it seemed to rub you off the wrong way, as you cut off your fathers sentence.

‘ahh you shouldn’t have price sukuna-‘

‘so you intend to buy me? with gifts…’ looking at him with a disgusted face.

everyone in the room was appalled to say the least at your outburst, having been quiet since you entered the room. the most that they were expecting was for you to giggle and smile flirtatiously at each and every word that came out of sukuna’s mouth - that was only toji’s idea of you.

and to sukuna he can’t lie to say that he wasn’t a bit shocked at your comment, from what he had assumed, you were quite the submissive type.

but the way your eyes lingered on his, he finally had a conclusion to the questions that had been running in his mind.

sending you a genuine smile that came out in the form of a sly smirk that flashed you his canines, you were thrown off at the sudden cocky confidence he had gotten.

‘no, but if that’s what you’d prefer…’

‘then i think it would be an incredible undersight in your judgment to think that a woman of your value is worth the frivolous gifts i’ve brought with myself today.’

looking at him with a strange sense of humour, you scoffed and wanted to throw another word at him. only feeling yourself silenced at the sight of your father’s glare and whisper of your name.

‘name.’

to which sukuna made quiet notice of as he watched you swallow the reply you had at the tip of your tongue.

sending them both a smile. your father took the initiative to control the conversation himself and cut the ‘tense’ environment that the both of you had procured.

‘well aren’t you just both charmers!’ you father said trying to alleviate the atmosphere. to which it only made the room sound quieter, like seriously a cricket could be heard faintly outside somewhere.

‘wouldn’t it be good if if the two betrothed were to get some time alone to get to know each other?’

your father asked rhetorically and to no one in particular, as no one dared to disagree with him in the room. turning towards you with a soft smile.

‘dear, why don’t you show him around the royal garden?’

and through gritted teeth, ‘with pleasure baba!’ turning without a second thought and begging for help as you passed mamaguro by the door.

and before she could follow through to exit behind you, the mention of her name halted your movements and hers.

‘mamaguro.‘

‘i uggest we give the two some time alone…’

and he didn’t meant it as a suggestion where he outlined an option, he meant it as a hidden order. leaving you to continue your walk without her and without a care if sukuna was following you or not.

and as slimy as he was. toji was not about to let his prince get too far before asking, knowing that if he tried following he’d be stopped in the same way mamaguro was.

‘so what do you think of the princess?’

you were already too far gone to end up hearing him, so he replied to toji with something that would leave him pondering why he said it before he left.

‘those eyes aren’t something to forget.’

author’s note:

CLIFFHANGERRRRR

yes im still on the agenda that i think toji and sukuna would be friends, i feel like they’d be way closer friends than even gojo and sukuna!

yes mamaguro is mamaguro’s name😭

what did yall expect, if i shat out a random name here towards the common fanon ideology here, we would have all thought i’ve inserted some sort of oc

also i have no idea why i didn’t feel like having name tell mamaguro she was getting proposed to, idk future me will get to develop that further

this had been an idea i’ve had for so so long and im so happy i was able to finally write it, i also can’t wait to develop this storyline further if yall are interested! HIGHLY highly inspired by my fav disney movie Aladdin + the live action

BUT OOF

this was so good to write, i think im really enjoying writing longer pieces of fanfiction rather than shorter ones and i think the quality and depth of it is reflected with the ‘cheater’ series and the short stories ive been posting for the celebration party

either way i still do love writing for whatever piece of genre it is, i just think i like doing these longer ones a tad bit more 🙂‍↕️

but frankly that means they take way longer to procure and i hate to make you guys wait! just know each day i see all the endless support through the likes, reblogs and comments! 😘😘😘

and for my other readers the last part to my cheater fic is already in the works and will be released next in my lineup of longer fics

so dw AT ALL, i haven’t forgotten about it - it’s literally like my eldest child

but in regards to this particular fic, i hope to add on to the story between reader and king sukuna with a few drabbles here and there, and maybe just maybe turning it into a full blown series or smthn after i’ve finished my other drafts!!!

this was just a bit of an introduction to the concept and story, lmk how you guys feel about it?

and if you caught any references to princess and royal core media, then yes your totally right! that did not come out of my head and was probably from digital media that i consumed over the years 😉

polka dot divider by @candvcane

so why is it that such a fact, a belief - easily and significantly flew over your head, especially when you seemed to be the root cause of evidence that ‘scientifically’ supported the said belief.

multiple instances have demonstrated to the people of okhema and the chrysos heirs that phainon was utterly down bad for you, it was fully justified when you would hesitantly call for him, or request him of something.

the great deliverer would drop everything in order to be the first and only (as if someone else dared) person who was able to respond to you.

yet, through it all it seemed that you had decided that for all he does for you, it was purely a ‘friendly’ gesture and not at all an advance towards a more intimate relationship status with you.

‘these are for you!’

turning around from the fruit stall, you were met face to face with a massive bouquet of your favourite flowers with phainon hiding behind them.

shyly trying to hope that you wouldn’t register the massive blush he had coating his features, but of course you wouldn’t. you were too busy distracted by how large and beautiful the flowers were.

‘aww, phainon! you shouldn’t have-‘ feeling yourself get cut off by how he pushed the bouquet into your open arms. all while the large framed man was deduced to utter putty under your gaze.

scratching the back of his neck as he looked everywhere but at you and to ease his nerves. ‘it’s really nothing, don’t even worry about-‘

only for you to cut him off in the same manner, playing with a few petals as you thought about where you’d place the bouquet into your house.

‘i can’t belive you remembered it was best friends day!’

and as cringey as that sounded, nothing could have made phainon anticipate the way his face fell at the state of your smiling face and the words you just spoke.

you weren’t even looking at him when you said that!

and well okay, i guess sure, why not stare at the massive bouquet that your ‘best friend’ bright you to celebrate the forsaken ‘best friends day’?

of all the ways phainon thought this would have played out this was not one of them, like did you really blame him if he thought this was going to get him atleast a kiss on the cheek like the ones he had seen you giving a few kids yesterday when they brought you a stray flower.

a small peck if you were feeling squeamish at the thought of pda infront of everyone, but this…

clearing his throat with a cough to clear his head of the thought of just grabbing you and kissing you, the act was able to also capture your attention as you to turned to look at him.

he sighed apprehensively at the situation he had put himself into and had to accept with the way your innocent eyes stared into his.

‘yea… their for best friends day!’ gritting his teeth with the mention of the last phrase.

‘thank you phainon.’ saying it with a sing-song lilt to your voice, thinking that the conversation was over and with sending him a beaming smile, turning to continue with your errands with a massive bouquet on your shoulders.

unbeknownst to the general public’s feelings and phainon’s. with you out of sight from his vision and further from the dream he wishes he could turn into reality, phainon felt a heavy arm sling itself across the expanses of his large shoulders.

one that could only go par to par with him, turning to the side to see mydei’s all knowing face holding onto an indifferent expression as he stared at the sight of you several meters away from them, enjoying your day as usual and conversing with onlookers. calmly stating to him.

‘seems like your gesture was accepted on the wrong foot.’ calmly stating as if this was something he had expected and foreseen ‘cycles’ earlier.

which in turn only forced phainon to let out a defeated grunt and have him try to pry off mydei’s unsupportive arm away from where it rested in his shoulders.

this surprised the latter. mydei was familiar to phainon’s distinctive appearance and emotional reactions when it came to you… but this, this was different.

he rarely ever looked so - defeated. if that was the right term to place the way he saw him when he narrowed his eyes at how you seemed to walk in a different direction and where phainon had turned his back from you, he realised that this time it was more than fleeting disappointment phainon was feeling.

this must have felt like an utterly cruel rejection to end his advances, and mydei was none the wiser to try and get him to think that was the truth.

following suit behind him, he mirrored his earlier actions and wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

‘oh great deliver, what about a spar to ease your mind.’

and mydei knew him better than anyone else, for phainon’s melancholic expression had seemed to slightly shift towards pleasant surprise at the request of the prince of castrum kremnos.

‘i mean is it crazy to say that i thought she liked me back?’ staggering in his movements as he put more room into concentration over you, rather than the brooding man infront of him who kept on attacking at his weak defenses.

he wasn’t even trying and to mydei the spar that he had thought was meant to clear phainon of his thoughts of you, only left him at a capacity where he thought this was a let’s discuss name therapy session.

at some point, phainon deliberately plunged his great sword into the training grounds and leaned over it to continue his one sided conversation about the lack of progress he had when courting you.

‘like did you even know it was best friends day today?’ scoffing to himself as he looked at the bright sun. at this point more so speaking to the sky than mydei himself, leaving the rhetorical question up in the air.

which in turn got mydei to roll his eyes with a heavy sigh at his friend’s ministrations and walk out of the training grounds to leave phainon to his own thoughts.

it’s not like this was his area of expertise and he was sure that any point in time where he tried to interject and provide his opinions - phainon would only cut him off to provide his own perspectives towards his doubts and questions.

passing through the gates of the training grounds, he made swift notice of aglaea’s form entering into the vicinity of the training grounds.

sure that if there was one person who could help phainon wake up from this stupid unrequited love spell, it must have been her. unaware to the presence following behind aglaea as he thought about his own priorities and duties.

and to aglaea, from what she could ‘see’ under her thingy veiled gold threads, phainon was purely and utterly disheartened as he leaned his frame and sat on the ground using his sword as a support for his back.

quietly ruminating over the newest and profound rejection from you, so deep in thought that the great deliverer who was more aware of his surroundings on other days had yet to notice the romantic figure of aglaea moving towards him and a certain other party that was the reason for his heartache.

i mean can you really blame him if he thought that you’d get the hint by now?

first it was during one of the festivals in okhema that was meant to celebrate love and romance with aglaea at the forefront. he thought that him inviting you as his plus one was already a sure bet that he was professing his feelings in some way.

only for you to end up celebrating it with him and dismissing his feelings and your own as feelings of mutual respect and ‘friendship’.

and now that he remembers the whole friendship ideology between you two, he thinks the whole thing is just a social construct that makes it more difficult for you two to be together.

it’s not like he doesn’t value your ‘friendship’ with him, he just wishes that sometimes it wasn’t the root excuse that creates all of his rejections and becomes an obstacle to what could have been.

but then… maybe it wasn’t merely ‘friendship’ that stopped him from being with you.

maybe it was you.

you who probably saw all the signs but decided to ignore them and lay him down gently all these times under the guise of ‘friendship’.

you who probably didn’t reciprocate his feelings and felt like you couldn’t tell him.

you who probably must’ve have felt uncomfortable with each time he had the courage to speak up to you and channel his feelings of intimacy and love to you.

but what phainon couldn’t fathom at this point, even when you were simply right there behind him, wanting to act as a better support to his troubles than the great sword he was was leaning on could hardly do.

was that you were hopelessly and completely lovestruck to him, just as he was to you. you just assumed that his endless implicit confessions were plainly put - ‘friendly gestures’.

so slowly as he talked to himself and later noticed aglaea behind him, using her as his new ear to hear all the ridiculous things you had put him through.

as they conversed with infront of you, with his back facing the both of you and his mind unable to capture the sight of you. he went down the road of saying everything and all of it at once, thinking that you were probably never going to hear from him again after what had happened today.

‘aglaea, i’m no expert romancer but hardly anyone could have guessed that i’m in love with name.’

and with the latest confession it seemed that somewhere between the cycles, it seemed that fate was on phainon’s side for once. looking between the two chrysos heirs with aglaea being the one you looked at for actual confirmation to what you had just heard.

with her nodding to give you the go ahead that what you heard was in fact true. you were completely shocked at, but even more so to the fact that all the times you kept on acting oblivious to your own feelings, you had also been oblivious to his.

sighing to yourself at the whole ordeal with a faint smile, you looked over to aglaea who retracted her form to give the both of you some space at the new revelation.

phainon had quieted down now after his recent proclamation, and was lost in thought about how he was to try and get himself to forget about you and give up on this endless war of love.

albeit some part of his golden heart told him that he was to still cling onto the thing threads of fate.

crouching down to sit side by side to phainon who was still unaware to your presence, you sat on the same ground that he had been using as a companion for his mid-day admissions about you.

‘well maybe if you had said that from the first place i wouldn’t have looked so stupid.’

you finally quirked up with a bright smile gracing your features, as phainon was left speechless, turning to his side to see you sitting next to him.

embarrassed yet cautious to how you were reacting right now, he felt himself feeling a bit hot and bothered at how long you could have been here the whole time he was complaining about you.

either way though, as he assessed his surroundings and how you hadn’t yet fled for the gates of okhema after everything he said and instead were sitting next to him. then maybe, just maybe you also liked him back.

and it wasn’t until you decided to be bolder did he actually come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t just hallucinating or dreaming about you.

‘sooo, are you just going to stare at me the whole time?’ you mentioned, making him look towards you again with a confused expression.

‘…or finish your earlier conversation about wanting to kiss me?’

feeling yourself giggle at how he had quickly switched and captured the gravity of the situation, turning to grab your face and do just as what he had said before.

because as the great deliverer, isn’t it his role to deliver.

authors note:

nothing too angsty or emotionally heavy, also first fic of the celebration party!

- and i couldn’t be happier with what were celebrating as well like omfg 100 followers?! it’s unbelievable to me that i’ve hit triple digits when going into this i expected to writer just for me, myself and i😭

but it’s really beautiful and i love the tight knit ‘community’ that has come about from people interacting and supporting my works! it really does mean a lot and i can’t thank you enough.

polka dot divider is by @candvcane

you should have known, and damn you definitely did know. but nooo, take it upon yourself to try and see the ‘good’ in everyone. giving everyone a chance, for whatever stupid reason.

as you stare at sukuna, you couldn’t believe it. all those times you defended him, it all flashed through your mind like a mocking mantra.

‘he’s just teasing!’

‘he’s a good guy!’

‘he’s just a bit busy today!’

‘…don’t worry, he’ll be here soon.’

‘he’s just with her because their mutual friends…’

yea, you definitely knew. cause no one’s that dumb to see the signs and not sense it coming. but as you stood in front of him, in front of his stupid frat brotherhood. you couldn’t even yell or shout at him for what you had just heard.

what was meant to be a casual night after a frat party, turned south when satoru’s nerd ass brother, satoshi ended up blurting out sukuna’s ‘business’, you all were left to unpack it unwillingly.

‘hey sukuna?’

feeling him shoot his head up in the direction of the voice from the common room couch that both of you were laying on.

groaning in response, he yelled out. ‘what?’

with his arm around your waist, and your upper half on his lap as you stared at the tv with a bored expression.

personally you weren’t really interested in what they were going to start talking about, continuing to surf through channels for anything that could entertain you.

only for satoshi to get unusually comfortable with himself and sukuna by sitting on the other couch to your right.

‘oh well i was just gonna ask… are you still with yorozu?’ this made you perk up, turning your gaze towards satoshi.

because what the hell did he mean by ‘still with yuzuha?’ from all you know she was sukuna’s ex and that two of them were ‘done for good’ in his words before you two started dating.

so what was with the sudden inquisition now, knowing the obvious that sukuna was with you?

but before you or sukuna could voice out your thoughts, the frat king himself came around to sit next to his twin brother, interrupting through both of you.

‘yea suki, what happened after you had her all over you that night?’

hah. you didn’t know whether to laugh or to start crying at the mention of that.

involuntarily, it made you sit up straight as you felt sukuna’s blood run cold from the hand he had on your waist - hearing what should have been left for discussion after you left or when he was alone, dropped onto the floor right in front of you, he knew this had to be a set up.

but should that really be his main concern when he already had you looking at him like you were just about ready to get up and throw him through the tv screen, if that was even humanly possible for you.

trying to assess some damage control towards what you had just heard, he turned to both gojo twins.

‘hah? what are you two fuckers talking about!?’

and as if ‘getting the hint’ had flown out the window tonight, satoru decided to double down on his claims. figuring that it was time you learn the truth.

‘you know what i’m talking about sukuna.’ playing with the cap he was wearing as he removed it to brush through his hair, just to wear it again as if all of this was some casual conversation you were all having.

he slowly shifting towards a more serious tone when he realised that sukuna disregarded him with silence, letting his gaze fall towards you.

‘that night. a couple weeks ago. when you had yorozu outside of the frat house. and you guys started making out. do you remember it now?’ punctuating each detail as if to engrave it in your head that you should have know this.

feeling your heart drop all the way to your ass, you didn’t even know what to say. your mouth involuntarily opened just to end up closing right back as you stared at satoru after what he just said.

turning to sukuna who was left frozen behind you. you felt your chest tighten with each passing second, gosh you even felt the stupid carpet fur where you had planted your feet onto as you made your way further and further away from him.

after what felt like years, merely a 15 seconds to the others in the room. you pushed sukuna by his shoulders out of rage.

‘what the fuck ryo?!’

and as if that was his cue, as if now he had the heart to finally speak up. he got up just as quickly and tried to hold you back from moving away from him with every step that you took back. reaching out to you as a means of grounding you with him. you slapped his hand away.

‘don’t you dare fucking touch me ryomen.’

taken aback at your outburst, it had been a long time coming since you dropped the formality of calling him anything other than pet names and nicknames. answering you back with a fury of his own that was characteristic his personality.

‘will you fucking calm down and let me explain myself!'

and as if the situation couldn’t get any worse for him, the gojo twins decided to interject again from their seats. with satoshi starting it off.

‘what’s there to say sukuna?’

‘yea, i mean i'm even shocked you hadn’t yet told the missus.’

but as stared at the two of them just to look back at sukuna who was all furrowed eyebrows and tight jaw, you grew increasingly aware of the situation that you had been left in the dark from.

‘will you shut it up you two? don't you think you’ve done enough already?’

‘oh come on suki, she had to know at some point?-‘

‘shut the fuck gojo.’

narrowing your eyes at his form, as all thoughts circled your mind. the whole situation was honestly comical and hearing you laugh is what broke sukuna out of arguing with satoru.

‘hah, oh my fucking gosh. i’m going to actually die.’ feeling yourself unable to to breathe with how much you were laughing as you stared at the ground.

confused as to what type of za you could have taken this time to make you react like this. sukuna tried to reach out to you again, only to have you take back another step as you widened the gap between you two.

‘what the hell are you laughing about? are you not mad?-‘

having you cut him off as you went on with your own internal monologue.

‘…fucking fool.’

having expected that, sukuna felt himself overcome by relief. knowing that he could now try to interject with an apology.

only for you to repeat yourself with, ‘i’m a fucking fool.’ well i guess the aplogy flew out the window too.

‘what?’

‘i’m a fucking fool sukuna. i’m so fucking stupid. i saw this coming, how the hell could i let you embarrass me sukuna?’

unable to find a way to make this any better, he took a hesitant step towards you.

‘i know, im sorry baby-‘

cutting him off as you looked back at him. ‘don’t call me that.' as he had a borderline betrayed expression. 'just wow. i just have to hand it to you sukuna-‘

‘you don’t call me that either.’

feeling yourself grow irritated that he was even trying to argue with you.

‘i don’t think you have any right as to what i can call and not call you right now.’

clenching his fist at that, he wanted to try and regain some control to this, to get you close. but damn were you standing your ground.

‘i mean you can’t seriously think that a half ass apology is going to fix this.’ crossing your arms over your chest.

‘listen to me. it’s not what you think it is-‘

rolling your eyes, ‘then what is it?’ growing more and more impatient at how he stayed silent, letting out a breath as you remembered all the times he told you not to worry, you resorted to mocking him with his own words, bringing him out of his thoughts.

‘she’s going through a tough time, name.’

‘i’m not even with her like that.’

tilting your head as you captured his gaze, staring right into his eyes. he then only realised that you were holding back tears.

‘you’re the one i love, name.’

‘can’t you fucking see that, name!'

frustrated at yourself for believing his utterly selfish lies. you yelled out.

‘no the fuck i don’t sukuna. because if i did then we wouldn’t be here right now!’

looking to the side at that, he tried to find anywhere else to look. he couldn’t find it in himself to see you hurt, especially because of him.

‘i’m sorry…’

‘what did you say.' practically daring him to repeat it.

staring up at you and the other two that you had even forgotten about. he apprehensively repeated himself.

‘i said i'm sorry-‘

‘hmm… i heard it the first time. just, you know what sukuna?’

staring at you and you alone to listen to what you had to say.

‘leave me the fuck alone.’ turning around and leaving the house, despite hearing him call out for you, you never turned back.

grabbing both satoru and satoshi by their collars after they stopped him from getting to you after you left.

‘what the fuck is wrong with you two?!’

busy fixing his glasses, the other gojo decided to speak up - i mean he was the one who decided to drop everything. as if he wasn’t practically being held by someone who looked like he was about to kill him and then kill him maybe three times again. he casually responds.

‘ahh come on suki, how long were you trying to hide it for?’ throwing him a smug smile.

sukuna felt like he was going to choke him by his stupid chain. but before he could do so, the other gojo spoke up dryly.

‘yea. i mean, i didn’t even really do much. but you could have stopped us, you just kept quiet and froze like a little bitch.’

seemingly more infuriated at what they were saying to him. ‘are you both fucking with me right now?!’

‘listen suki-‘

‘don’t call me that.’ gojo rolled his eyes knowing he was going to do the opposite. he grabbed sukuna’s arm to remove it from where he was grabbing him.

‘oh please, like the missus said, you have no place to pick what you get to be called right now.’ pulling himself away.

‘i mean, maybe you should probably go spend some time with yorozu, blow off some steam. if you know what i mean.’ chuckling to himself as he made his way out of the common room. finishing it off with a low blow where his tone shifted to a more chillingly cold one.

‘since you thought that having her was worth all of this.’

with that sukuna felt his grip loosen, giving satoshi the unwarranted opportunity rip himself out without a fight and follow his brother out the room. leaving sukuna alone, in the whatever he was going to do about all this.

you probably had more than a thousand text messages and several hundred calls from sukuna since that fateful night. it had been roughly a week and you wanted to block him, but what fun would that be? you enjoyed having him see that his messages would seemingly get delivered or how you would occasionally leave him on read.

not to mention, how you loved hearing how pathetic he was as you’d sometimes pick up his calls just to hear him beg as you kept quiet on the other line.

‘listen to me baby, it really didn’t mean much.’

rolling your eyes as you had him on speaker while you got ready for the day.

‘she was just there and she just came onto me.’

feeling a bit of a headache coming in with each lie he spat out, you stared at your reflection with a bored expression. wondering just what you could have possibly done in a past life to warrant being subjected to this.

gosh if anyone other than your friends were to find out that you got cheated on, it just made you feel so stupid and embarrassed.

‘i don’t know what the two imbeciles were talking about, but i promise you, that it wasn’t even that bad’

‘i know you can hear me and i know you see my messages, just please give me the chance to talk to you face to face-‘

with that you hung up on him and switched off your phone. sukuna ryomen does not beg. but for you he does and you liked warranting the fact that you could hear him do it more often that not because of all of this.

and as if you even wanted to see him, you just thanked the universe that you both do opposite majors and don’t get the time to see each other in class.

yet, you knew you’d have to eventually. with a football game coming up that him and his frat brothers were sure to win. you just know that you'll find yourself at one of those parties - because there was no way as your name, were you going to be stopped from bestowing your presence, lest you get people spreading rumours about how pathetic you truly are just because he cheated on you. hah, fat chance.

until then you could stall for a bit more.

having just finished all your classes for the day, you fell into your new routine that you had been following for the past week - where you’d leave the class as quickly as possible in hopes of not having to run into sukuna who would come storming into your faculty building in hopes of a confrontation.

bidding farewell to shoko and the rest of your friends, you made a beeline for the exit. only to feel someone grab you by your bag, halting your movements.

the culprit? satoru gojo. turning around to face him, the last time you had talked to him was when you and sukuna had that whole thing. so you bluntly asked him.

‘what do you want, gojo?’ as you watched him feigning offence at how you had referred to him, he let go of your bag and held a hand over his heart.

‘huh, gojo? i get that you’d do that to sukuna. but come on, the fight is with him not me. what’s with this whole calling me ‘gojo’ thing?’

holding back the urge to roll your eyes at him, he had a point. you knew better that you had crossed over the boarder of calling him just gojo a long time ago.

‘maybe the fact that i’m not in the mood right now.’ turning your gaze towards the clock that hanged over the massive lecture room whiteboard. if you didn’t leave soon, it would only be seconds before sukuna barged in here. and that seemed to be a sentiment that satoru could read straight off your face as he followed your gaze at the clock only to look back at you.

hearing him chuckle brought your attention back on him.

‘ah, name? you’re so easy to read.’ deadpanning at his audacity, you figured he was probably trying to waste your time so that sukuna could catch you here. probably some bullshit favour for their ‘brotherhood’. but before you could leave he stopped you again, and you only grew more irritated at him.

‘okay okay wait, i didn’t mean to hurt your feelings-‘

uninterested you cut him off, ‘you didn’t hurt my feelings, goj- satoru.’ switching his names as you noticed how he twitched at the mention of his surname.

‘but what is that you actually want?’

sending you one of his signature smiles, ‘well, i wanna go try out this café and who else to go with than our resident cheer captain before the big game tomorrow?’

‘awww, that’s so nice of you.’ shooting him a faux smile as your words were laced with deceit and sadly he looked like he had fallen for it, ‘yea i know, it’s just a short drive!-‘

‘i’m not interested satoru.’

‘what?’

‘i’m not interested. i know this is some sort of setup to get me back with sukuna. i don’t want any to deal with any of that right-‘

cutting you off by laughing at how 'humorous' you were being, he was practically throwing his head back as he shook his head realising you were not seeing things his way.

‘that’s where you're not getting it, name.’ getting serious for a moment, almost giving you whiplash if it wasn't for how quickly he stopped himself and got back to his usual personality.

‘it’s not a setup. if it was you could even stab me in the throat for it.’ and honestly you didn’t know whether he was trying to make you believe that or himself.

‘just a small…? outing!? yeaa an outing!’ grabbing your bag from your shoulder as he put his other arm over your shoulder.

with how close he was, you heard him whisper the last bits into your ear, ‘between two good friends!’ grabbing the door for you and practically moving your body the way he wanted to go.

too strung out from how quickly he was walking and the whole train of events, before you knew it he was ushering you into the black leather passenger seat of his dark tinted car.

going around the front of the car with your bag still on his arm - and you’d find it funny if it wasn’t for how dazed you were right now. coming up to the driver’s seat and throwing it to the back seats. hearing the car’s engine start is what pushed you to grab satoru’s hand before he could grab the steering wheel.

‘what the fuck satoru?! why am i in your car right now? i didn’t agree to your stupid outing!’

staring back at you through his dark sunglasses that he had worn when he entered the car. he slowly turned the car off as he pulled his hand away from you. unlocking the car doors with a click from the side, he looked forward and kept his voice steady and coldly authoritative.

‘listen name, it’s your call. the door’s unlocked…’

taking that as your cue without even hearing what he had to say, you turned to grab your bag from the back seats. only to hear satoru finish it off with something that made you retract yourself back to the passenger seat.

‘but you should be sure that you want to leave knowing that sukuna is right around that corner.’

and lo and behold, when you looked forward to where satoru was looking, there he was - fuming as it is at the fact that he was leaving your faculty building without finding you in there. watching as he grabbed his phone from his back pocket and started calling someone.

still unusually serious, gojo voices out, ‘he’s calling you.’ and to your chagrin your phone starts ringing and it was actually him.

facing the two options you had, you made up your mind and pulled the seatbelt as you settled your body into the car comfortably, ‘just drive.’

with a smug smile, gojo turns the car back on and does as he’s told, beaming that things went his way. thank gosh for his dark tint though because you don’t know what you would have done if sukuna found you in his friend’s car.

wrapping up at the café with gojo, you tried to keep it lowkey - if that’s the word you could describe how you had a small drink and pastry while it looked like gojo was eating for a family of 5 with how many drinks he had already downed and the multitude of cakes and pastries he had on his side of the table. blaming the fact that today was 'cheat day!'

full of cake in his mouth, he pointed out with his fork. ‘are… you sure… hmph’ swallowing the remnants of his food as he noticed how you were looking at him funny.

‘what i was trying to say is are you sure you don't want to order anything else?’ perplexed at what he could have meant by that, you turned to him and finally held eye contact with him since you’ve been here.

from his side, since the moment you both entered you’ve been in quite an awkward position. looking at the door every time you heard someone enter, staring at the people who’d pass next to the window and through it all whenever he’d talk to you, you’d look everywhere but at him and even when you did it would only last a few seconds before you started playing around with the frosting or crumbs on your plate, like right now.

‘uh… yea, i’m good. you don’t need to worry about me satoru.’ he didn’t believe you but he also didn’t feel like pushing you.

yet, even as it looked like he had his face buried in his food. when your phone lit up on the table with maybe the 50th message from sukuna since you’ve both sat down, he glared at it and noticed how you were slowly reaching out for it.

clearing his throat to gain your attention and stopping you from doing so, which worked when he saw how your hand retracted from grabbing your phone. he decided to ask with feign interest.

‘so, you’ve been ignoring sukuna?’

looking up at him, you played around with your fork as you tapped it on your plate to ease your nerves. ‘uh yea, ever since that night.’

‘ah well he’s been persistent.’ that made you perk up as you furrowed your eyebrows as to what he could be talking about.

with his attention on you, he leaned back in the booth as he flared his arm and clasped them behind his head. plus, with how unreasonably tall he was, he grazed your leg slightly from under the table with how slouched he was in the seat opposite to you.

looking down to where he was touching you and back at him, he held a neutral expression. he wasn’t planning on moving and you took that as a sign to not press.

‘and what do you mean by he’s been persistent?’ smiling at you knowing he has you right where he wants.

‘well i’m not really sure, but from what i’ve gathered he’s really going through it. hasn’t even talked to me since.’

‘of course he wouldn’t be talking to you. you practically outed him.’ feeling yourself grow agitated at the thought of that whole night and how unrealistic sukuna was being.

‘i mean what was he even thinking? even if you didn’t tell me, did he really think that shit wouldn’t have reached me?’

‘hah. cause your little miss popular, right?’ rolling your eyes at the obvious trial at his teasing. you continued, showing the most emotion since you’ve sat here.

‘i just can’t believe it though, like what the hell? if he wanted to be with her then why break up with her in the first place and then get with me?! like who the fuck even does that?’

smiling at you, he shrugged. ‘hm, i don’t know. i guess he does. wanted you both at the same time.’

letting out an outburst at the emotions you had been keeping to yourself for the past week. ‘ack! its honestly so frustrating because i saw the signs. i just feel so stupid for believing him in the first place.’

‘yea, we all get there.’

confused as to how he was even relating to this, you asked, ‘okay satoru i get that your trying to play therapist right now. with the whole outing and trying to get me to vent. but who in the world is ‘we’?’

looking at you through his glasses as if daring you to continue, you were one to talk so you felt indifferent to his gaze. ‘i mean you and sukuna aren’t far apart, i’m sure that you’ve done this shit to multiple girls before.’

chuckling at that, you felt him sit straight as he made sure to brush your leg again. ‘that’s where you’re wrong. the difference between me and sukuna is that i wouldn’t have done that to you.’

this made you quickly realise the inappropriate situation you were in as you slowly fell right back into the shell you had when you had gotten here. what would you even say to sukuna if he caught you with him right now.

‘…yea, i guess so.’ unsure of whether that was the truth or if you were just agreeing to try and end the topic.

smiling to himself, he was confident at how this little ‘outing’ had gone his way, and the result of it would pay him back quite soon. ‘you want me to drive you home?’

looking back towards him, you nodded your head and followed him out. too in your thoughts about his words and how he said them.

the ride was silent, and when you finally reached your dormitory you felt kinda indebted to him.

‘uh, you know i can pay you back for the café thing-‘ pulling out your phone to send him the money, only to get him pushing your phone away as he replied back in disbelief.

‘are you out of your mind?! i’m satoru gojo, why would you pay me back?’ shocked that you would even think about that, he knew you well enough that the moment you left his car you were definitely going to send him something. he just had to do you one better.

‘plus, i’m the one who initiated it.’ wiggling his eyebrows at you while he locked his gaze with yours through the frames of his sunglasses.

laughing at his antics, ‘okay okay fine… but thank you. i… um really appreciate it.’ sensing the sincerity in your words, he sent you a genuine smile.

‘don't worry about it.’ unlocking the doors for you with a click, as you reached out to open it, you heard him in the smallest whisper - probably have thought you imagined it if it wasn’t for how close he was to you.

‘goodnight.’

pushing yourself back and out of the car, you regained some distance and replied while you were outside.

‘yea… goodnight satoru.’

as you walked away, he couldn’t stop staring at you with a smile till you disappeared into the building, and right when you left his line of sight, he grabbed his phone and posted a seemingly harmless photo to his instagram story. switching his phone off right after, as he pulled out of the driveway with a more than just smug satoru gojo smile. he was smirking to himself and his thoughts.

after a good shower, you had finished your nightly routine and decided it was time for some well deserved doom scrolling. except, when you turned on your phone expecting the usual couple hundred missed calls and messages from sukuna.

you had an alarming 7 missed calls from shoko, 5 messages from geto, a couple from yuki and not to mention the insane amount of mentions and follows you were getting from new random accounts on instagram.

‘what the fuck?’

clicking on shoko’s messages first, you were bombarded by her missed calls and her trying to spam text you to respond and check your phone.

lung cancer ❤️

bro brooooo missed call your name NAME missed callmissed call omfg you bum ass loser check your phone like damn bro i knew you were mad and wanted to get over sukuna but GOJO?!? especially SATORU?! 😭🙏 man why didn’t you go for his hot nerd brother satoshi, i thought i taught you better 😔 but i mean if you are actually dating satoru then damn mommy you switched up fast!! get that rebound but also like i heard sukuna is going to beat your ass 🤣🤣 missed call

wondering what the hell she was on about. how did she know you and gojo went out together? and why would she ever think that you've started dating him? you haven't even yet to officially break it off with sukuna.

turning even more confused as you read through geto and yuki’s texts, you grew more and more alarmed at what was going on behind the scenes that you were unaware of.

geto suguru

hey just wanted to let you know that sukuna is about to kill satoru today, hope your happy knowing you stole and are about to get my man killed 💔

now that was off, other than geto being unserious. did gojo just end up opening his mouth again and blurting it out to sukuna that you two were out together? but what would he get from that knowing that it would only result into a fight.

yu-yuki 💕

omfg bro your killing me here😭😭😭 gojo??? but i mean whatever floats your boat, but i thought you were still with sukuna?

after checking all your other messages while ignoring sukuna’s earlier messages knowing it was going to be the usual. you felt a migraine coming over you, as you finally entered instagram and there it was.

gojo had decided to take it upon himself to post a candid photo from when you were eating at the café and captioned it, ‘me n bae’ and mentioned you in the corner.

feeling your soul actually leave your body, that would explain all the new followers, mentions and messages from everyone. but what the fuck?

now everyone and their damn mother thinks you and gojo are dating, not to mention the fact that once sukuna kills him, he’s probably going to come kill you.

dropping your phone on your table, it was too late for this shit and in a short span of actions, you switched off your phone and decided to sleep under the covers early.

who knows what gojo must be going through. you don’t and you frankly did not care at the moment.

unbeknownst to you gojo was actually going to die tonight. as he dodged the pillows and cushions that sukuna had been throwing at him since he reached the frat house. he felt his eyes widen as sukuna went ahead to grab a lamp and threw it at him practically grazing his face, warning him that he was close enough to have hit him.

this struck a chord within him. ‘what the fuck suki?!’

pausing for a moment as he recoiled from the stupid nickname. ‘suki!? how many fucking times have i told you to cut that crap?’ launching what was now one of geto's books that had lied dormant on the coffee table at gojo who was standing a few meters opposite to him in the torn apart common room.

sukuna was even more livid ever since he saw that story and what was so crazy is that he didn’t track down gojo. didn't ask around. didn’t even text you or call you after seeing it. he waited, and for the impatient man he was that was already so much to be asked from him.

what now escalated after gojo got home and was confronted by him on why he was with you, where gojo merely shrugged and said that he was with you because ‘she needed to be with someone who wasn’t going to lie or play her dirty.’

all hell was let loose as sukuna threw the knife he had just finished sharpening at him only to hit the door when gojo ducked as they continued their cat and mouse game where they’ve now found themselves in the now disheveled common room. where some of the couches had been flipped over to when gojo had decided to take refuge in, while some had been ripped apart from sukuna’s assault to grab something to throw.

‘listen suki- sukuna.’ switching his words as he saw how a visible vein on sukuna's forhead twitch. gojo held his hands in mock surrender as he spoke with a sincerity in his words that made sukuna losen his guard.

‘all i posted was a photo from us hanging out as friends, nothing more nothing less. the bae thing was just a joke... well for now.’

catching the expected remote that was thrown to his face with the last bit of his sentence. ‘but what i’m trying to say, is that if you think you still have a chance.’ smiling at him while he lowered his sunglasses to get a better view of him.

‘why don’t you try your luck tomorrow at the frat party. i’m sure she’ll be there.’

finishing it off by setting the remote on the coffee table and leaving him alone in the room again.

gojo was confident you would come tommorow, him and sukuna both. just… who would you end up accepting in the end?

author’s note:

ik ik cliffhanger but it felt like this shit was getting unnecessarily long. 😭😭😭. and i don’t know guys, do we get back with a cheater, which i personally would not want but it sounds addicting to write, especially with how pathetically i want to have him beg🤣

orr, do we get with one of his hmbs - preferably gojo satoru (fratking himself) please 🙏

we can maybe do a poll if this thing does good, or i forever leave it in it's peace like this and never touch it again 😘🤔😛

part two out now!

polka dot divider by @candvcane, taglist; @alebrasil0101, @ejk31.