Lux

it couldn’t be. sukuna doesn’t have any weaknesses, and yet he can feel his body reacting to that unfamiliar emotion again. all because of you— that one human who always succeeds to occupy his mind.

he couldn’t let himself succumb to it—he’s not going to. sukuna is not going to let a mere human like you deter him from his superior identity that he’s had for decennia. he’s not going to let you have that power over him and his body.

and thus, when you return to the estate, you find yourself being laughed at. you were unpacking your luggage when two concubines stand at your doorway, hiding their evil smiles behind their handheld fans.

they don’t waste a single second and immediately rush to ruin your carefree mood.

“you know, you shouldn’t have returned at all,” the brunette giggles, her laugh sounding like nails scraping against a chalkboard. she looks to the other woman next to her before glancing back at you, “i mean—heh—lord sukuna definitely didn’t seem to mind your absence.”

you figure it’s just another way to get you riled up, so you do your best to ignore them. you put your packed kimonos in your wardrobe as your back faces the two.

yumi, the second concubine, nods along. she knows what she’s about to reveal will get on your nerves. and deserved, if you ask her. they had successfully caught the attention of their king while you were away. for the first time in a good while since your arrival in the estate.

the fact that they managed to spend quality time with sukuna again, is a wonderful first step to your downfall. one that will surely crumble your confidence as his so-called ‘favorite’.

“mhm,” yumi grins as she recalls the memories of her time with sukuna. time spent together that you were unaware of, “lord sukuna definitely didn’t seem to mind your absence when he had me in his bed last night.”

you freeze.

your brows furrow and the corners of your lips twitch. you don’t know if you should believe them—they could’ve lied about it for all you know. although, the voice in the back of your head had already rang the alarms.

guessing by the way they were dying to talk to you the second you came back - which never happens - you realise that they’re probably telling the truth. they’re only telling the truth to agitate you. it’s so painfully obvious, and yet so. . . hurtful.

“what?”

you don’t recall when you’ve choked up. you feel a lump in your throat. it shouldn’t even be there. you promised yourself to not get attached to a monster like sukuna.

so what if he went to bed with his other concubines?

of course he’ll get pleasure from his other women when you aren’t around. he doesn’t feel any love, he sees it as worthless, so why did you expect him to not indulge himself? he still has his other concubines around for a reason.

you really shouldn’t be surprised by this revelation.

“what do you mean ‘what?’ - you heard me,” yumi shrugs, that cocky smirk still on her face.

she’s clearly enjoying your reaction to everything she’s revealing. all the two concubines wanted to get out of this encounter with you, is to break that delusion of yours.

the delusional thought that you’re special to the king of curses. the delusion that sukuna considers you as something more than a toy to emotionally manipulate and play with until he’s tired of you.

“my lord spent all night with me in his chambers until the sun rose,” yumi continues without an ounce of shame.

she bites her lip as she remembers the way sukuna had her body positioned on his large bed. for her, it’s a dream come true.

though for you, it’s a living nightmare. even if you try to deny the fact that it physically and mentally hurts. there’s a painful twist at your heart—reminding you of the truth.

the truth being that you had truly thought that sukuna wasn’t really a monster of a man. you thought he was a different, more softer person around you.

you should’ve listened to the servants when they told you to not get tricked by sukuna’s special treatment, that he could easily manipulate you and make you do and act as he pleases.

“do you want me to explain it in detail?” yumi crosses her arms over her chest as she looks down at you with a menacing glare.

both of the concubines are loving that face you’re making. that face of defeat that you’re attempting to hide from them, “how he held me and pleasured me until i—”

“enough,” you cut them off with your hands clenched into fists.

you don’t want to hear another word. you’re already feeling awful; already, not even an hour into your return. you can never catch a break.

you have an urge to throw things around. you already feel stupid, and if you decide to throw a fit, you bet that you’d feel even dumber. you truly do not know why you’re getting this worked up about it.

maybe it’s because of the special treatment. the delusional thoughts you have about your relationship with sukuna. you really thought that you two had something special. an unofficial romantic relationship, perhaps, or something that resembles it.

a secret, unspoken deal where you’re promised his loyalty in exchange for your body and soul.

although, those dreams have been shattered this very instance. you’re once again reminded of the animalistic nature of the being called ryomen sukuna.

he told you clearly that he’d never tie himself to someone, a human no less. devotion to one person? why would he.

“out of the way.”

you push the brunette and her sidekick the other way. you’re going to confront the man yourself. or at least, you’ll try to. you can hear their sick laughs and chuckles fade into the background as you stomp your way towards sukuna’s chambers.

the other concubines seem to have gotten the gist. some peek their heads out of their rooms, grinning at you in victory. seeing your confidence slowly crumble and the realisation kick in - the realisation that your dear lord’s special treatment means absolutely nothing - is a sight for sore eyes to them.

you enter sukuna’s room and close the heavy doors behind you. you swallow the lump down your throat and try your best to look presentable.

no tears, you promise yourself. you’re not going to waste them on something like this.

“oh, it’s you, little one,” the familiar voice calls out.

sukuna’s low and husky voice rings from his bed. he’s laid back against the many silky pillows, blowing smoke from his kiseru. he lays there like he doesn’t care about your reappearance at all.

he eyes you up and down, “how was your vacation, hm?”

sukuna asks like it’s the most normal thing to do. it seems like he’s trying to catch up with you, to ask you how you’ve been enjoying your time alone, though it also seems like he couldn’t care less at the same time.

“just absolutely fine, my lord,” you reply with gritted teeth and an obvious hint of sarcasm.

there’s also a bitterness to your tone that doesn’t go unnoticed by the pink-haired man. he frowns—this cold greeting is not what he expected nor what he wanted to hear from your mouth. he expected you to at least smile at him like you usually do, but you didn’t.

on top of that, you seemed to be annoyed with him. that unexpected attitude of yours made something inside of him snap. it irritated him somehow; the fact that you’re so comfortable talking to him like that . . . it reminded him of the recent inner conflict he had which you were the cause of.

one of his hands tightens into a fist at his side. his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow into slits. you’re physically in front of him, which means that he’s also about to experience those complicated feelings again. the same ones he tried fleeing from by letting you go on a break, and by physically taking his mind off you.

he did the latter by taking his frustrations out on his other women. the stress that came with the thought of him possibly liking a human, relieved by pure animalistic sex.

that’s exactly what you’re upset about.

there’s an urge inside of sukuna to act normal. to ignore those difficult emotions and just treat you like he usually does. yet, another part of him is trying to protect his sense of superiority by trying to push you away.

there’s a war going on in his mind as he tries to calm himself down. you’ve always had this effect on him and it’s becoming unbearable. he has to show you, no - remind you, that you’re nothing to him. you mean nothing—nothing at all.

he’s the king of curses, you’re but a human. he’ll need to remind himself of that obvious statement as well. he’s got all the power in this situation. not you.

you cannot rule over him or his mind.

“you dare come back with an attitude? tch,” sukuna scoffs, nearly breaking the kiseru with his fingers as they squeeze around the solid material.

he’s turning off whatever emotion present in his body. that doesn’t belong there anyway. he won’t care if you cry—he won’t care at all.

you notice the sudden change in sukuna’s tone as well. you’re sure you’re the reason for it. perhaps you crossed a boundary with how sassily you replied to him when he was simply asking you how your vacation went.

“my apologies,” you murmur with a sigh.

you try to avoid getting on sukuna’s nerves any further, yet when you remember the words from the concubine, how she implied that sukuna had given her the best night of her life when you were away, you get mad again.

your eyes have a fiery look in them. you don’t want to get worked up. you don’t have the right to. you were warned from the very beginning to not get attached to an asshole like ryomen sukuna.

you’re to blame for feeling like this. it could’ve been prevented if you just weren’t so weak. if you just stayed away from him.

“did you have fun while i was away, my lord?” you continue, your voice shaking a little. you need the confirmation.

you’re sure sukuna knows what you’re referring to by now, especially because of the way you’re acting out of character.

the king of curses raises a brow at your question. you sound even angrier, even more pissed off. he tilts his head after taking a deep inhale of the tobacco from his kiseru.

he tries to figure out what you’re hinting at, “what are you—”

and that’s when everything fell into place. the dots connect.

sukuna’s jaw clenches. he realises that you’ve found out about him receiving services from his other concubines while you were away. there could be no other explanation behind your sudden attitude. besides, he knows how his other concubines could be. they must have told you the moment you came back.

normally, he’d say that it’s none of your business. what he does is up to him—he does not care about the consequences of his actions. though, seeing the slight hurt in your eyes, mixed with sadness and disappointment stirred something inside of him. he brushes that feeling away and stares at you intently, awaiting another comment. perhaps you’d cuss him out or bawl your eyes out in front of him.

either way, he promises himself that he won’t care.

sukuna is the king of curses. feeling bad for a human like you would only further tarnish his image, that image of superiority and power he has.

he’s a man of many needs. you should’ve kept that in mind when you left him. he wanted to keep you with him—to hold you down and refuse to let you leave—but that would be another sign of weakness. one sukuna could not manage to show.

when you departed, he was irritated by the fact that he had no one to turn to with his needs. from simple needs like wanting your company to sexual needs like craving your body.

keeping you by his side or letting you go; both decisions seem to clash. either way, there’s one thing he’s sure of, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it: he missed you.

sukuna can’t believe that he can feel an emotion like that. he can’t accept that fact. that’s why his irrational mind took over—his dark urges that strived to prove himself to still be the same old ryomen sukuna. the monster that did not need a single soul. the ruthless man that did not depend on anyone else, especially not a human. a woman like you.

he thought he’d forget all about you if he’s surrounded himself with other women. but, he was quick to be proven wrong, and that only caused to enrage him more and more.

every time sukuna fucked a concubine, his thoughts still manage to drift away to you. to how he wished that it was you he was holding.

nothing hit the same with the other women and that frustrated him. he’d keep them around in his room after he fucked their brains out, something he never allowed a woman to do except for you, yet kicked them out again after a few minutes.

it doesn’t hit the same.

you’re just different. your presence is soothing and calming to the chaotic soul of the pink-haired man. no one else could compare. that realisation made him feel inferior; a feeling he loathes.

sukuna’s red eyes glow. he hates seeing you look so defeated, but he cannot give in. if he tells you the truth, he’ll admit his weakness. he’ll admit that a human like you has completely taken over his brain. that’s no good.

if he doesn’t tell you the truth, he’ll save face. he’ll feel like himself again. his old self—the cold ruthless monster that he was before he met you. one without a soft spot for a human.

it’s an active dilemma that’s running through his mind as he slowly blows out another cloud of smoke. you cannot guess what’s going on behind those intimidating eyes staring you down.

sukuna tilts his head back and scratches his neck, smacking his lips as he makes his decision.

“yeah, i did. i had lots of fun.”

the words sting. they hurt you and make your heart ache in a way that makes you physically weak. you should’ve expected that answer. your shoulders tense up and your fingers curl around the material of your kimono—feeling a sense of anger and betrayal.

you can see a ghost of a smirk on sukuna’s lips, which only reminds you of his nature. his nature as an independent, aloof and cold man who likes to play with his prey. a natural disaster that knows no emotion, that shows no mercy to anyone.

you’re naive for thinking that you could be the exception. all of those times with sukuna were confirmed to be but a lie in that moment. as your gazes meet, you can now easily interpret what that look in those red eyes meant.

‘know your place,’

that’s what it means. you’re foolish, dumb. you take a deep breath to compose yourself after you’ve been made out to be a total fool. you should’ve listened to those warnings, you should’ve known that you were getting played.

this is exactly what sukuna desired to achieve. to build up your trust, to make you comfortable enough with him, to think you’re special and that he won’t need any other woman other than you — just to shatter your pathetic delusions when the time comes.

“tsk tsk. no need to look at me like that,” sukuna scoffs, a mocking laugh leaving his lips.

he can hear a small voice in the back of his head telling him to shut up and let you go, to not make it worse, but who is he to listen to that irrelevant thought? he can decide for himself.

“y’ weren’t around, so the other concubines simply did their job by serving me,” he stares the other way, seemingly not interested by your presence anymore. his face is as expressionless as ever, “what do y’ think i keep them ‘round for, brat? for decoration purposes? hah, nah.”

another loud mocking laugh makes you nearly burst out in tears. you don’t know if it’s in anger or sadness. you take a deep, shaky breath for the last time. you unclench your fists and nod, accepting the reality check you’d just gotten.

it’s a slap to the face, but it helped you get out of your delusions. the delusions that sukuna is a man capable of loving someone, even if it is just for a tiny bit. this visit confirmed that there’s not an ounce of love or appreciation in that man’s body.

“i’m glad you had fun, my lord,” you answer after a bit of silence.

you bow at sukuna in an attempt to stay polite while struggling with that inner turmoil. you don’t even glance up at him anymore. you need another break already.

sukuna isn’t dumb. you may think that you’re good at hiding your emotions, but you’re not. at least not around the king of curses. he’s spent enough time around you to realise that you’re going through a lot right now.

he’s the reason for it, yet he cannot bring himself to feel an ounce of empathy. he just looks at you with a blank stare, thinking that this is for the best.

“good night then,” you add and turn around to walk out of sukuna’s room.

your steps are slow as you secretly hope to be called back, like sukuna would do every time you’d leave his room after an intimate night. you just want him to tell you that this was a test of some sort—a cruel joke.

you want to feel like his favorite again. you don’t want to be thrown away like this. you don’t want to be on the same level as all the other concubines. you want to stand out to him.

unfortunately, you don’t hear sukuna’s voice anymore. he lets you walk away without a care in the world. the heavy doors of his chambers close behind you and you feel your knees buckle.

“fuck,” you cuss to yourself and clench your chest.

you lean back against the closed doors and try to regain your composure. crying can be done when you’re in your room—not in the hallway where anyone could catch you. you don’t want to give the other concubines more reason to bully you.

you drag your feet across the wooden flooring. all those times with sukuna, all those slight glimpses of his soft side that only you’re allowed to see— all of that is thrown into the trash.

you really shouldn’t have gotten so attached to him on an emotional level.

meanwhile, sukuna is silently sitting on his bed, thinking back to what just happened. he usually never doubts his decisions, but this is an exception. why couldn’t he just tell you the truth?

his mouth had moved before he could let his mind process all that he was feeling. a small part of him regrets it, though strangely, he couldn’t feel any real sympathy for your situation.

sukuna drapes an arm over his eyes, clicking his tongue at himself. he just wants to let the situation go, though his brain isn’t letting him to. the image of you standing at the edge of his bed, clearly hurt by his actions, flashes through his mind again.

he sighs. he’s sure that he’s going to forget about you soon enough. he needed an excuse to get rid of you for the sake of regaining control over his own being and he took the chance. he should be glad that he did—it meant that he’d be his usual self—with no weaknesses to look out for.

sukuna blows out another cloud of smoke through his mouth. as much as he’s proud of himself for not giving in to you, he can’t help but let his thoughts wander again. you’re probably crying in your room. he knows you’re sensitive. you would always cry about the smallest of things and he’d hold you (feigning reluctance) until you’ve calmed down.

he can’t do that now.

well, he can, but he won’t. sukuna has made his decision today: it’s power and status over you. that’s what it’s always been. you were but a toy he used to get a stronger grip on himself.

perhaps he simply is what people make him out to be; a monster. nothing more, nothing less.

He had a calm voice and a nice laugh. One month and a half of decent conversation, book recommendations, a very confident opinion about soup dumplings, and enough green flags that you had lowered your guard by four percent to show up here without thinking of ending up on Dateline.

You checked your phone again.

7:16 PM.

The meeting time had been 6:30.

You called once more, and it went straight to ringing, then voicemail.

You stared opened your chat with Uro.

You: i hope all his hair falls out.

Uro: Did he arrive?

You: if he did he is doing a stealth mission.

Uro: Men from dating apps need ankle monitors.

You: i wore the boots.

Uro: The black ones?

You: yes.

Uro: Jail.

you: he hasn’t picked up once.

Uro: Jail with soap drops.

You stood near a booth where a man in a foam hot-dog hat shouted about ring toss prizes. A toddler screamed at a plush duck. Couples passed with paper trays of fries and stupidly linked hands. Then you got startled by a generator coughing behind the cotton candy stand.

Your phone buzzed again.

Uro: I have to pick up my niece from my sister’s. She tried to feed a Lego to the dog.

you: that’s advanced.

Uro: I’d have brought her, but she's three, so fairs are still beyond her. Go enjoy the place. You already paid for parking and the outfit.

you: I got stood up.

Uro: But your boots are innocent, babes. Just eat overpriced food, and have fun. God knows you need it.

You looked down at your boots.

They really were.

you: fine. if i die on a carnival ride-

Uro: I’ll sue the park.

You put your phone away and bought cotton candy from a teenager. Pink sugar melted against your tongue. It was too sweet, coating your teeth, but the outrageousness helped.

The fair had a local committee feel—half the lights flickered, the prizes looked as if they had been won in divorce court, a banner near the main stage promised LIVE MUSIC AT 8 but the band currently tuning looked prepubescent.

You wandered because you were good at taking yourself out. That skill had come from practice. Movies, cafes, bookstores, and whole birthdays turned into errands because if you waited for people to show up on time, you spent half your life facing an empty chair.

So you did the stalls.

You threw darts at balloons and missed every single one, which the booth guy treated as a genuine tragedy.

You watched a little boy win a plastic sword bigger than his arm and immediately whack his father in the shin.

You texted Uro a photo of a plush frog with one eye sewn higher than the other.

you: this is suguru.

Uro: Too handsome.

you: true. suguru had better hair.

Uro: Frog has better commitment.

You laughed and got powdered sugar on your lips.

By the time you reached the rides, the sun had dropped behind the school building beside the fairground. The Tilt-A-Whirl sat near the back, painted red and yellow, its bulbs blinking in frantic loops. The cars spun in drunken circles while a group of teenagers shrieked.

Your stomach did a happy little flip with them.

You loved rides that ruined balance—Ferris wheels were pretty, carousels felt decorative, and the Tilt-A-Whirl was nonsense with bolts. It made your insides lift and swoop, and for three minutes your head cleared out.

You bought a ticket and climbed into an empty two-person car with your cotton candy tucked against your side. You hoped the operator would forget about you or place a woman beside you.

You continued to eat through your leftover cotton candy while looking at what other rides you could go on after this one.

The car dipped as someone sat right next to you.

You half turned.

Tattoos.

Black Line Tattoos.

Your hand clenched around the paper cone.

He was looking away, one elbow braced on the edge of the car, his phone in his hand. His hair was shorter than when you had last seen him. He wore a black jacket over a plain t-shirt, and the side of his neck still had that faint tan line from racing gear. He looked rich in the way drivers did after sponsors got involved—expensive, mildly sleep-deprived, capable of getting photographed beside a model and smirking through the headline.

You looked away so fast your neck nearly clicked.

Fine. Fine. He hadn’t seen you.

Maybe.

The fair was crowded. The ride was loud. The universe had placed him next to you as a practical joke, but you had survived worse jokes.

You reached for the lap bar to lift it.

It locked.

The operator gave the car a bored shove.

The ride started.

Your soul left your outfit.

Sukuna still hadn’t turned. He was watching someone by the fence. You followed his line of sight without moving your head much and caught sight of Yuji waving both arms while Choso held a paper plate piled with funnel cake. Some younger cousin or family friend bounced beside them with a flashing wand—so they were out on family night.

Aww cute.

No.

Horrible.

Your exit routes had been sealed by machinery and his entire goddamn bloodline.

The first spin was mild—your car rolled around the platform, gaining momentum. Wind pulled at your hair, and the cotton candy trembled in your grip.

Sukuna’s knee hit the side.

You tried to look at him from the corner of your eye without turning fully toward him.

His jaw had tightened.

Oh.

You remembered now.

He could take corners at speeds that made sports commentators develop religion. He could slide a car through rain, through smoke, through the hideous math of another driver trying to cut him off.

Yet put him on a county fair ride operated by a boy named Mason with an energy drink, and Ryomen Sukuna became a trapped alien.

The car swung harder.

His hand landed on the seat between you, palm pressed flat.

You turned your face away and bit the inside of your cheek.

Another spin, faster. The platform tilted. Your stomach tingled in the way you loved, a bright swoop that rushed up your ribs. You almost laughed.

Sukuna made a sound that could have been a cough—if coughs carried primal fear.

You stared at the painted horse on the booth across the ride and, without looking at him, placed your hand over his.

He seemed too busy fighting for his life to notice.

But the car spun again, and his hand gripped yours on instinct, hard enough to make your rings press into your skin. He still didn’t turn. Maybe he thought you were a stranger. Maybe he was far gone in battle with the Tilt-A-Whirl deity. Maybe he had recognized you from the first second and decided mutual delusion was better than conversation.

You kept your face angled away.

The ride grew faster and meaner, so your laughter broke out, helpless and breathy. Sukuna’s shoulder bumped yours, his body almost lurching forward.

When the ride slowed, you pulled your hand back before he could catch it properly. The lap bar lifted, and you stood while everyone around you stumbled out.

Sukuna finally turned.

His eyes caught on your waist, right where his hand used to land before dawn when his alarm went off and he reached across the bed half-asleep, finding you before he found his phone.

Recognition moved through his face with vulgar speed.

You were already moving through the crowd.

You didn’t run because that would imply guilt. You were simply a dignified woman fleeing a carnival ride because your ex had discovered your waist by sight.

He called out your name, but it was so loud he couldn't hear his own voice.

A child with a glow stick cut across your path. You dodged. Someone spilled lemonade near the duck pond game. You stepped around it. Your heart was making a ridiculous amount of effort for a body that had only eaten sugar.

You almost reached the row of food trucks when a hand closed around your arm.

You turned.

Sukuna let go at once.

For a second he looked exactly as stupid as you remembered him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that was you.”

You stared at him.

His mouth opened, then closed. His eyes flicked over your face, the boots, and the cone of cotton candy crushed in your hand.

“You changed your hair,” he said.

“You still scared of rides at a carnival.” Adreline made you blurt it out before you could stop yourself.

His face loosened, his crimson eyes relaxed into his features, and it reminded you too much of the day you’d last seen him.

You cleared your throat. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How have you been?”

“Driving in circles for money.”

“Healthy career path.”

“You?”

You nodded toward the fair in general. “Being abandoned beside a corn dog booth. Thriving.”

His brow moved. “Abandoned?”

Your phone buzzed in your bag. Probably Uro asking if she could pay an Etsy witch to get Suguru stalked by goats.

“Long story.”

Sukuna studied you, then glanced toward the ride. “You stayed on.”

“I was trapped.”

“You held my hand.”

“You were dying.”

“I was assessing structural failure.”

“Mason looked very qualified.”

“The operator?”

“He had a whistle.”

Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “Powerful credential.”

You hated how fast your face warmed. You hated the stupid, familiar muscle memory. You hated that the air between you could still find the old groove with one push.

“I saw your last race,” you said, because your mouth had chosen arson.

Genuine surprise crossed his face. “You watch them?”

You scrunched your nose mildly, accidentally. The way you did when you’d been caught.

Sukuna stared at that tiny movement. He’d never told you about that one tell.

His expression did a weird thing—softened at the edges, then caught itself.

You swallowed. “Some highlights came on. At a gay bar with friends.”

His brows rose. “I have gay bar fans?”

“You have fans with questionable betting habits everywhere.”

“Which bar?”

You refused to explain that you had begged the bartender to put the race on while you sat alone PMSing, a gin and tonic beside your hand, pretending you wanted sports because sports had become a pathetic substitute for his absence. You had watched his car move through the screen while drunk men argued behind you about karaoke. You had missed him so badly you had ordered fries you didn’t want just to stay until the podium interview.

“Some place downtown,” you said. “The bartender said you were probably annoying.”

He leaned a little closer. “You care about other people’s opinions of me?”

“I was doing community outreach.”

“So you follow me.”

“You have gotten hard to miss.”

He smiled then, infuriatingly flustered beneath the smirk. “Are you seeing someone?”

Your grip tightened on the cotton candy cone again.

You could have said you had been stood up by a man whose most impressive quality was voice-note confidence. You could have said everyone after Sukuna had felt as if they never really saw you. You could have said you had wanted him to be there so many times that no one would ever compare.

Instead, you said, “How’s the model?”

“The model?”

“The one from the news at the rooftop dinner. Tall one.”

He huffed. “You follow me pretty closely for somebody asking casual questions.”

It should have made you laugh.

That was the script. He teased, you deflected, he leaned closer, you rolled your eyes and pretended your heartbeat didn’t sing for him.

Instead, something inside you slipped.

Satoru would have loved this. He would have demanded screenshots, then called Sukuna a pink-haired lizard, then told you to stop acting as if a breakup suddenly made you mature. 

Your smile thinned before you could poker-face it.

Sukuna saw.

He stopped teasing so fast it hurt more than anything.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

He looked at your face as if he could pull the answer out, then seemed to think better of it. His hand flexed at his side.

“I fly back the day after tomorrow,” he said, instead. “Before that, can we get coffee tomorrow night?”

You watched a father lift his daughter onto his shoulders near the balloon stall. The little girl had blue face paint smeared across one cheek.

You said zilch.

Sukuna’s mouth tightened. “I need an answer. I can’t call you.” He paused. “Same number?”

You had blocked him so thoroughly your phone treated his existence as malware.

“Same number,” you mumbled.

“I’ll pick you up.”

“I can drive.”

He ignored you. “You live at the same place?”

“Next to the old one.”

“Six then.”

“I didn’t agree.”

“I did for both of us.”

You should have hated that.

But your lips twitched before you could stop them.

He saw that and looked pathetically relieved for a man paid to risk death.

At home, you called Uro from the couch.

She answered with, “Tell me Suguru got shingles.”

“I saw Sukuna.”

There was some scrambling on the other side.

“Ryomen Sukuna?”

“How many Sukuna exes do you think I have?”

“With your taste? I fear categories.”

You told her everything—the Tilt-A-Whirl, the hand, the gay bar lie, the coffee.

Uro went silent.

Then she sighed. “You should go.”

You sat up. “Why?”

“Sukuna didn’t cause this.”

You looked toward the TV, where a cooking show contestant was crying over burned fish.

Uro lowered her voice. “You ended it because of Satoru.”

Your throat tightened.

“You told Sukuna he was boring,” she continued. “Which was insane, by the way. That man has a lethal jawline and a deadly career.”

“He did become boring.”

"No, honey, you panicked because your brother relapsed, and the illness came back worse, and Sukuna was training for the season that could make his career. You thought he’d throw everything away and come sit in oncology waiting rooms.”

You pressed your thumb under your ring, twisting it.

Uro added, “You also kept telling everyone you were fine, which was your least convincing era.”

“I couldn’t make him choose.”

“You chose for him.”

You closed your eyes.

“Go for coffee,” she said, smiling. “You can still leave if he’s gotten stupid. I’ll key his car.”

That made you laugh, but it hurt coming out.

After the call, you fell asleep with your boots still beside the couch.

Satoru woke you by poking your ankle under the blanket. “Breakfast.”

You opened your eyes in the old house, in his room, on the giant bed you had practically moved into during the bad months. The emergency bell sat on the nightstand beside many bottles of prescription eye drops, a strip of tablets, and the ugly plastic water bottle he hated because it made him “feel eighty in a hospital commercial.”

He stood at the doorway in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hair white around his face and paler at the lashes. Before the cancer, he had black hair and caramel eyes. He used to say the universe stole his color and made him ethereal.

You sat up too fast. “Why are you moving around?”

He waved a hand. “I made pancakes, nurse warden.”

“You’re meant to rest.”

“I am resting.”

“Satoru.”

“I feel better, let me have this.” His smile spread, bright and crooked, a little thinner than it used to be. “Breakfast for my baby sister.”

You followed him to the kitchen because arguing with him had once been a full-time job and you missed him having the stamina for it.

The pancakes were your favorite—he'd made them with extra fruit and too much syrup. He had even warmed the plate.

You took a bite.

The taste was wrong.

It was floury, flat, and a little bitter.

Satoru’s smile faltered. “Meds messed with my taste buds again, huh?”

“It’s good.”

“Liar. Give me the bowl. I’ll remake it.”

You pulled the plate closer. “It’s perfect.”

“Add more syrup.”

He sank into the chair across from you, breathing a little heavier than he wanted you to hear.

“Will Kento or Shoko come by today?” you asked.

“Don’t feel like socializing.” He sighed, stretching his shoulders with a wince he couldn't hide well. “I was thinking we watch a movie.”

You fully looked up.

He shrugged. “Unless you have better plans. Like maybe calling your bubblegum-haired ego a problem."

“Sukuna has a name.”

“Sukuna has anger issues.”

You laughed.

Satoru leaned back, pleased. “Call him back.”

“I broke up with him.”

“Why?”

“He should focus on his career.”

“If he’s going to be worth anything, he should learn to multitask." He speared a piece of fruit from your plate. “If he has a girl, she’s high maintenance. He’ll have training.”

“You barely know him.”

“I know he looks at you as if you’re a pit stop he wants to marry.”

You choked on syrup.

Satoru waited until you stopped coughing. He passed you water, then kept his hand around the glass for a second, as if he knew you might use it to hide your face.

“I’m serious,” he said.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “That’s new.”

“Don’t get cute. That’s my job.”

“You’re bad at it.”

“I’m excellent at everything. Keep up.” His smile faded before it could become a joke. “You shouldn’t have broken up with him because of me.”

You looked down at your plate. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. You make every decision like every part of your life has to consider me first.”

“That’s not—"

“It’s true.”

You pressed your fork into the pancake. “You’re sick, Satoru. You need me.”

“I know that.” His voice stayed steady, but his fingers tightened around his mug. “I need my sister. I don’t need you to turn into a nurse with no life after me.”

Your throat burned. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“It’s a horrible thing to watch.”

You looked at him then.

He held your eyes, tired and pale and still your brother under all of it. The same brother who had signed your school forms when your parents forgot, who had shown up to parent-teacher meetings in his uniform because he had practice right after, who had made your lunch badly for a month before he learned how to pack fruit without smashing it. He had been loud about everything except the things that mattered most.

“You think I don’t see it?” he asked. “You don’t sleep unless I sleep. You don’t eat unless I complain first. You keep your phone face down because you’re scared he’ll call and you’ll want to answer. None of this is good for you.”

You swallowed.

“Sukuna makes you happy,” he said. “He also annoys you, which is good. You get unbearable when nobody argues with you.”

A weak laugh left you, then quickly turned into tears you blinked away.

“I’m scared too.” Satoru leaned back, breathing through the small cost of sitting upright for more than his body was able to bear right now. “I don’t want to say that because then you look at me like your whole chest got kicked in. But I’m scared. And I still don’t want your life to shrink down to this house.”

“Satoru—”

“No. Listen to me.” His voice cut through yours, low and clear. “Love me. Take care of me. Fight with doctors. Make ugly pancakes taste worse with extra syrup. Fine. But don’t throw away someone you love because you think suffering alone is what you deserve.”

You wiped away the tears that came treacherously anyway.

“I raised you better than that,” he said, softer now.

You tried to smile anyway. “You raised me to be dramatic and suspicious.”

“I raised you to have standards, and somehow you picked a race car demon, but I’m choosing peace.”

“He’s not a demon."

“He has face tattoos.”

You laughed again, a little bit bigger this time.

Satoru opened his arm to let you tuck in. “Promise me you’ll call him. If he’s useless, I’ll hate him with you. If he shows up, let him.”

“You make that sound easy.”

“It won’t be.” His hand rubbed against your temple, careful and warm. “Do it anyway.”

He grinned, and for a second he looked sixteen again—school jacket half-zipped, practice bag slung over one shoulder, his mock-test rank posted near the top of the board. Boys copied his notes despite hating him. Girls found reasons to borrow erasers. Teachers used his name in warnings and compliments in the same breath. He played whichever sport had a vacancy that week, won enough to make coaches greedy, then came home with convenience-store candy for you because you had texted him a sad face during math.

You spent the afternoon watching a dumb action movie. It had three explosions in the first twenty minutes and a villain with an accent from nowhere. He kept making comments under his breath, weaker than his usual running commentary but smug enough.

Halfway through, his head tipped against the back of the couch, heavy medication dragging him under.

“You’re missing the part where the car jumps through a hospital.”

“Mmph.” He made a lazy sound, eyes closed.

You let him sleep.

The medicine did that to him lately—took his words first, then made his limbs sluggish, then the rest of him slower to react. You checked the time on your phone, compared it with the notebook on the table, and saw his next dose still had some time. Fine. He could sleep. You could give him that.

The movie kept playing—someone on-screen was shouting about a bomb as Satoru breathed beside you, shallow but steady, so your body allowed itself to unwind.

You must have drifted off too, because when you opened your eyes again, the room had shifted into evening. The TV had gone to the streaming menu, and the house had that late-day smell, dust, syrup, old coffee in the mug by his elbow.

Your neck hurt from the couch angle.

You yawned and nudged his knee with your foot. “Toru. Go to bed.”

He stayed slumped against the cushion.

You rubbed your eyes and sat up properly. “Seriously. Your back’s going to hurt more if you sleep here.”

His hand rested palm-up on the couch between you—long fingers, pale knuckles, and a small bruise near the wrist from the last blood draw. You nudged his palm.

“Medication time soon,” you added. “Come on. I’ll help you walk.”

He stayed still.

A small irritation rose in your chest, familiar and domestic. The type of annoyed you got when he acted dramatic during eye drops or complained about water tasting “aggressively round.”

“Satoru.”

You leaned closer and shook his shoulder.

His body moved with the shake, then settled.

Your irritation thinned.

“Toru?”

You touched his cheek.

It was warm but too still under your palm. His lashes were pale against his skin, white from the treatment and the strange pigment loss.

“Hey.” Your voice came out softer. “Wake up. You have to take the evening meds.”

The notebook lay open on the coffee table—pills and drops listed by time. The little boxes you had drawn and checked and checked again because order made you feel useful.

You reached for his wrist.

His pulse was hard to find.

Your own pulse got in the way, slamming through your fingertips.

“Satoru, stop it.”

You pressed harder at his wrist, then shifted to his throat the way the nurse had taught you during one of the discharge briefings.

“Wake up,” you said, even louder. “Go to your bed. You’re too tall for the couch, and I’m sick of hearing you complain about your spine.”

His head stayed angled toward the TV.

You grabbed his shoulder with both hands.

“Satoru!”

The name came out in a cracked scream.

You shook him again, rougher than you had touched him in months.

“Stop. This isn’t funny. Toru, get up.”

You bent close to his mouth.

For one awful second you thought you felt breath, then realized it was yours hitting his skin and coming back.

“No,” you said, and the word came out small, stupid, and useless.

You pressed your ear to his chest.

You waited.

You moved your ear, searching.

You held your own breath so you could hear his.

Nothing came.

Your hands began to shake so hard his shirt wrinkled under your fists.

“Toru,” you whispered.

Then you screamed for him.

The dream broke there, same as it did every time.

You woke on the couch in your apartment, gasping, sweat cooling under the collar of your shirt. The TV had gone to sleep, your phone had slipped between cushions and outside, daylight had already moved across the room and started fading again.

You had slept through most of the day.

Coffee was in an hour.

You got ready in simpler clothes because the idea of another date outfit made you feel stupid. New jeans, clean socks and the oversized white cashmere sweater Satoru had bought you years ago, back when he had money, black hair, caramel eyes, and a talent for buying gifts that made you cry in private.

Downstairs, Sukuna waited beside a car you couldn’t place. New or rental.

He straightened when he saw you.

Then he opened the passenger door and held out flowers.

You stared at them.

They were real flowers—pink and white, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine.

“For you,” he said when you kept staring at them.

“I gathered.”

“You going to take them?”

“I’m thinking.”

He waited.

You took them.

He looked away, and the edge of his mouth moved, almost smug.

You wanted to beat the smugness off with the said flowers, but instead you got in.

The car ride carried all the comfort of small talk. He asked about traffic near your building. You asked about his flight schedule. He mentioned a sponsor event. You said the fair food was probably giving him diarrhea. Sukuna laughed.

The cafe was small, upscale, and filled with people who seemed able to drink espresso after sunset without ruining their nervous systems.

Sukuna held the door. You hated that too.

At the counter he asked, “Usual?”

You nodded.

He ordered it correctly.

You took a table near the wall.

“So,” he said once he sat, “what are you doing these days?”

“Work sabbatical. Finishing my degree.”

His eyes stayed on you. “That good?”

"Please, I don’t need judgment from a man who believed cigarettes were breakfast.”

His mouth twitched. “I matured.”

“You bought a sports car.”

“It was assigned.”

“What? Corporate custody?”

“Something along those lines.”

The server arrived with drinks plus a small pizza cut into uneven squares. Your usual.

You stared at the tray for a second too long.

He sipped his coffee. “How’s Satoru?”

Your body became hyperaware of your reality.

The hiss of the steamer grew enormous. A chair scraped behind you. Someone laughed near the window, high and sudden. The chili oil on the pizza smelled acidic. The sweater collar touched your throat.

“He died.”

Sukuna froze. “What”

“It’ll be a year soon.”

His hand hovered near the table, then lowered. “How?”

You folded your napkin, then unfolded it. “Peaceful, according to the doctors.”

His jaw worked. “Are you living alone?”

“Yes.”

“Family?”

You almost smiled. “Satoru was the family.”

The words hurt to speak aloud.

Sukuna knew you had family, but having and being reciprocative with affection and meeting a child's needs were two different things. They didn’t like you or satoru much.

“Have you…” Sukuna looked at you for a long moment. "Cried since?”

Your hands felt cold.

“What?”

“Since he passed.”

You pushed back from the table—the legs screeched. The cafe turned its head toward you in a hundred tiny ways. Every cup, every voice, every light on the wall became a separate grating sound.

Sukuna rose with you, fast enough to catch your wrist before you could knock something over.

You flinched, and he released you.

Then he stepped close enough that his voice could reach your ear and no one else. “Breathe. You can skip the answer. I pushed.”

You shook your head.

“Breathe,” he said again. “Look at me or the door. Pick one.”

You looked at the door because you didn't have the capacity to look at him right now—his crimson eyes were too expressive at the worst of the times.

"Please…" You took a deep breath in. “I want to go home.”

“Okay.”

The drive back was short.

He made zero attempts at conversation, keeping both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. At your building, he parked and walked around to open your door.

“I can get upstairs.”

“I know.”

He followed anyway, carrying the pizza and flowers, as if the evening had become a delivery service with unresolved romantic history.

Inside your apartment, Toru stood in the hallway—white fur and blue eyes. A body shaped by luxury and criminal entitlement.

The cat looked at Sukuna, then at you, then back at Sukuna.

Sukuna stared.

You mildly introduced them, “That’s Toru.”

Toru blinked slowly, withholding citizenship.

Sukuna took off his shoes. “Does he bite?”

“He does and also loudly meowdels every old man complains he has.”

“Fair.”

You went to the couch because your bones had become heavy. Sukuna went into the kitchen without asking, which should have annoyed you, except you were less overwhelmed now. He filled the kettle. Opened cabinets and found the pan.

Toru followed him and sat near the fridge, supervising with contempt.

“You eat?” Sukuna asked the cat.

Toru’s tail moved softly.

“Useful answer.” He paused, then asked. “She eat?”

You pulled a pillow over your face, quite far away to hear any of this.

Sukuna continued, fully serious. “Blink once for very little. Twice, if she survives on coffee.”

Toru blinked once.

“He seems credible," Sukuna calls out to you.

“He licks plastic bags.” You yell back.

Sukuna smirked towards Toru and tapped his nose, making the cat paw at its nose. “It’s okay. Witnesses are allowed to have flaws.”

The cat squared up and hissed, which meant he was flawless.

From the couch, you heard the scrape of a knife, the tap of the cutting board, and the click of the stove. He made coffee first. Then stir-fry, simple and fast, with vegetables cut the way you used to cut them and sauce mixed from memory.

Your recipe.

Stolen.

Also, the only thing he’d eat after a long day.

You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep until Sukuna stood over you with a bowl in one hand and the remote in the other. You woke up with the smell of garlic and soy.

“Sit up.”

You sat up because your body, treacherous thing, wanted the food.

He sat beside you with his own bowl and put on a terrible movie. Some action sequel where cars exploded for reasons that offended even him. Toru jumped onto the armchair and watched Sukuna as if waiting for a confession.

The first bite loosened your chest. Warm rice, vegetables, and sauce with slightly too much garlic because he remembered you liked it.

“You still cook it wrong.”

He glanced over. “You’re eating fast for a critic.”

“You stole my recipe.”

“I improved it.”

“You put too much ginger.”

“You need flavor.”

“You need to be humbled.”

“Tried it. Bad fit.”

A huff of a laugh escaped before you could stop it.

Sukuna looked at your face, then back to the TV.

You ate half the bowl before speaking again. “Satoru wanted a cat.”

Sukuna kept his eyes on the screen. His body shifted into less performative ease and more attention.

“Our parents would never let us have one,” you continued. “Which made sense in the practical way. Then it made less sense because they weren’t indulgent with anything, so it became this larger question of why they had children at all.”

Toru groomed one paw, deeply unmoved by human origin stories.

“Satoru used to send me photos of cats. He said once he got better after treatment, he’d buy a bigger house and fill it with cats who were babied and spoiled.”

Sukuna set his bowl down.

“During the last months, his hair went whiter. Lashes too. The doctors explained it, saying it was pigment cells, immune response, and treatment side effects. His eyes were the first problem. He couldn’t see well, but you could work around that while the meds still worked. There were tools, routines, labels on bottles, brighter lamps, audiobooks when reading hurt too much. Then—”

You swallowed because if you’d stopped now, it’d stay stuck in there forever and eat you worse. “Then the liver got worse. He had these drops, and scans, and appointments where everyone used gentle voices at us.” You swallowed. “He made jokes about turning into a designer ghost.”

Sukuna made a small sound, almost a laugh, because Satoru had deserved that much.

The crying began softly—a few tears you could have blamed on the movie.

Then Sukuna moved closer and put his arm around you.

“I kept thinking if I managed the appointments and the meds and the food and the calls, it would make a difference. If I stayed in his room and stayed awake, I’d catch everything. If I heard every breath, if I woke up fast enough...” Your spoon rested against the bowl.

“It didn’t matter.”

Sukuna said your name.

Your face hit his chest, and the sound that came out of you was ugly and torn loose. Years of holding yourself upright broke down into his shirt. He moved the bowl away with one hand and pulled you in properly.

You cried until your nose ran, until Toru abandoned the armchair and jumped onto the couch, until Sukuna’s shirt was damp and his hand had settled at the back of your head, warm and familiar in a way your body accepted before you realized.

“I told you that you were boring,” you choked out because he deserved that.

“I remember.”

“I was lying.”

“I know.”

“I thought you’d ruin everything.”

“You should’ve let me choose.”

“I’m sorry.”

His mouth pressed to your hair. “I know.”

His eyes burned once before he blinked hard and looked away. The wins had come with the money, the cameras, and the noise.

None of it fixed the part of him that still looked for you after every flight, every podium, every room full of people talking too much.

Every success felt a little thinner because every hotel room still ended with him reaching for a phone he couldn’t use to call the only woman he’d ever cared about.

Back then he’d known you were lying, he just hadn’t known how to make you come home.

You cried harder because you probably hadn't since your brother left.

At some point the movie ended and the streaming app tried to play another. Toru fell asleep against your thigh. Sukuna kept holding you until your body gave out.

You woke once when he carried you, mumbled something unintelligible, and fell asleep again.

He carried you to your bedroom.

You hadn’t slept there in weeks. The bed looked almost staged.

Sukuna set you down and left only long enough to bring water, your phone, and Toru, who protested being handled until Sukuna told him, “Your landlord requires supervision.”

Toru bit his arm.

Sukuna winced and let the cat curl up to you.

Sukuna got into bed beside you fully clothed. He didn’t crowd you at first. He lay on his back, one arm open.

You moved into it.

The sweater smelled faintly of your perfume and old cashmere. Sukuna smelled of coffee and the same cologne he used to wear when he had early flights and kissed you in doorways while pretending he had plenty of time.

You slept deeply.

Morning arrived without the usual panic of dreams.

For a few seconds, you knew that before you knew anything else. Your body had rested properly because your jaw didn’t ache and your hands weren’t curled into fists under the blanket.

Then you reached beside you.

The pillow held a dent, but Toru had claimed Sukuna’s side of the bed and looked pleased.

Your chest tightened, then eased in a tired, resigned way.

Of course. He had a flight. He had said so.

Maybe last night had been a mercy visit from an ex with guilt and good arms.

That was fine.

It had helped.

You could survive that much.

You got up to feed Toru.

A note was stuck to his bowl in Sukuna’s handwriting.

I’ll be back next month. Unblock me.

You stared at it.

Toru headbutted your ankle because romance meant little compared to tuna.

You fed him first.

Then you unblocked Sukuna.

A text came through almost at once with a photo.

You were asleep on his chest the night before, your cheek squashed against his shirt, Toru sitting on your hip as if guarding property. Your hair was everywhere and your mouth was slightly open. Sukuna’s jaw was only partly visible, but his hand rested over your back, his thumb blurred mid-stroke.

Below it came a calendar invite, already adjusted to your time zone.

1:30 PM Video Call.

Don’t dodge me.

You clicked on the calendar and saw that he'd squeezed it in after his team debrief. It was surreal to see that your ex had a Ferrari schedule, a flight, and a body people paid millions to keep functional, and still he had blocked out time to annoy you himself.

You accepted it.

Then you went into the kitchen and saw the flowers resting in a mug of water on top of the fridge.

And inside, cold brew waited in a glass bottle, labeled with tape.

Eat something first.

Beside it sat the remaining pizza, wrapped properly, and a container of leftover stir-fry.

You took out the bottle of cold brew, took a photo of it, and sent it.

You: i’m sorry, and i’ll wait for you.

The typing bubbles appeared so fast you almost dropped the phone.

A picture arrived.

Toru sat on the kitchen counter near the same coffee bottle in the gray morning light, tail curled around his paws, blue eyes aimed at Sukuna behind the camera. Beneath it, Sukuna had written:

Your brother might approve.

A/N: I hope you loved this piece as much as I did writing it even if the keyboard was blurry through most of it. I wanted to write only crack and fluff in this; however, Satoru stole my keyboard midway. So hopefully the next story I post isn't going to be as hurt/comforting.

Want to read the same pairings but with Gojo as the endgame?

Masterlist | Rabies | Chuki

That explained your recent chills. You turned around to see the man you thought was a myth. Seven feet tall, two pairs of arms: the bottom pair crossed, the top pair resting on his hips. The wind ruffled his black haori and light-colored pants. He had foreboding stature, yet to you he was enticing, alluring. He was looking down at you, eyes slighty narrowed with analysis, trying to figure out your next move, how you would react.

You didn't scream or run, but you replied. "I usually don't thank men who lurk from afar. If you had made yourself known, I would've."

That wasn't what he expected. His eyebrows furrowed, making small wrinkles on his forehead. "It is not lurking when it is my forest."

"Then do you prefer the word stalking?" You stood to your feet. "I believe that's a better fit."

His scowl deepened. "You are lucky I've let you stay here for so long. I'm sure you are not oblivious, you know who I am. What I am capable of."

"I do." You nodded. "Yet, my village needed herb, which this forest has plenty of. So, I suppose I will thank you for that."

His lips twitched, wanting to say more, but he pushed it back down. "You will leave now." His voice boomed. "Go, while I am still giving you a chance."

Sukuna's words held no malice, and his threats were always empty. Every other day, he'd spot you in the forest again picking and cutting plants. He caught on to the routine, figured out where you'd enter, and left a pile of plants near it. The pile increased in size as the weeks passed, and the small basket you carried wasn't enough anymore. Sukuna crafted you a bigger one. When your yukata got caught on a branch, he left you a new one. A blue yukata bright as the sky on a spring morning, that's how he saw you.

When the herbs turned into gifts, you realized this was a courting attempt, as much as you didn't believe it.

You went back to the forest, but not looking for any herbs. You wanted to find Sukuna, but he found you first.

He stated your name. "Do my gifts suffice?"

"Your gifts have been nice, but they've also made me weary. I've given you no reason to do this, so there must be something you want in return."

"You're smart." The corner of his lips curved into a smirk. "I want you to be my wife."

He stated it like it was common knowledge, not a proposal. Not asking for lifelong devotion.

"Your wife?" You questioned, dumbfounded. "That's not humorous at all."

"Do I look like I am trying to make you laugh?" He met your eyes, repeating his prior statement. "I want you to be my wife. You are gorgeous, I've given you gifts, are you not satisfied?"

"I just told you I liked your gifts, didn't I? It's just, what did you expect from me? I am not all powerful like you are."

"Your words hold more power than I have ever seen." A genuine compliment. "They can quickly irritate me, but I've grown to appreciate the irritation. You could say i've grown fond of it." Sukuna slightly swayed. Only admitting something like this could make the King of Curses waver.

You smiled. "You're nothing like what I've heard. You're sweet."

His fond expression quickly turned into a frown. "Watch yourself. I have uttered those words for nobody else. Nobody but you."

Sukuna became your husband, and you moved into the estate. Spacious halls to accommodate his frame. Everything was left neat and tidy due to the servants who worked. You'd adjusted to living there, but not to his huge body.

Both of you were in the bedchamber, moon high in the sky. You attempted to sleep, but one of his arms would occasionally fall onto you. Every time you moved it, he would grumble.

"Wife," he huffed. "could you stop moving while I'm trying to get a moment of rest?"

"You're telling me to stop moving? You have not stopped moving since you've laid down!"

"That is not true." He quickly denied.

"It couldn't be more true! You, stop moving your arms."

"Or what?"

"Or I will move to the guest room. No, I changed my mind, you will move to the guest room."

"You think you can—" He turned over and assessed your glare. "fine."

the room goes silent.

gojo sato freezes against the whiteboard, marker still in hand. sukuna has leaned away from suguru, eyes wide, as if suguru has just admitted to not showering this morning. the two boys stare at suguru. then at each other, then back to suguru again.

“ouuuu shii,” they drawl simultaneously.

“please don’t start this nonsense…”

“suguru, this is huge!” sato lets his marker fall to the floor, and runs to crouch in front of geto, elbows on suguru’s knees. “think about it, man. you and the girl of your dreams. partnered up to play husband n’ wife and take care of a plastic baby.”

suguru bites his cheek, neck hot. “it’s just a project.”

“no, it’s an opportunity,” sukuna corrects. “this is the girl who calls you bestie even when you look at her like you wanna eat her alive.” he snaps his fingers. “this is your chance, idiot. to show her you’re husband material. you have an excuse to call her wifey, for fuck’s sake.”

suguru’s phone is tight in his palm. his thumb is still tracing the line of your smile in the image he was staring at before he clicked his phone off.

“she thinks i’m her friend,” suguru murmurs, voice half-gone as he slips his phone into his pocket. “she’s comfortable with me. i’m not gonna ruin that by acting like a feral dog.”

“you’re already feral, idiot. y’think i didn’t see you staring at her IG photos like a creep?”

geto blinks. “how did you—“

“not important!” sato interrupts, slapping suguru’s thigh. he rests his chin on suguru’s knee, blue eyes glimmering in the light. “what’s important is, you have an opportunity. she’s already comfortable with you—you just have to take it further. call her sweetheart. baby. wife. see if she doesn’t stop you. take the leap, suguru.”

“take the leap,” sukuna grins.

take the leap. but the leap is a jump with no safety net. geto suguru knows what’s at stake. he knows if he ever let himself get too greedy—too carried away—he risks losing the friday mornings spent at the library with your head against his shoulder while you pretend to read from a book. he risks your voice calling his name across campus, and the way you hug his arm when you haven’t seen him in days, and the way you tug the piercing on his lip with a playful smile when you want his attention. geto suguru knows better than to risk it. he knows not to take the leap.

but he nods, lips tight as he reaches for his car keys on the table. “i’ll take the leap.”

“let’s go, daddy geto!” sato roars, dapping sukuna up. the boys watch with stupid grins as geto shoves things in his pockets. geto glances at the time: 5PM. “i’m going to her place now, we agreed to meet up.”

sukuna clutches his heart, then waves. “go get your wifey, asshole.”

suguru doesn’t look back. it’s time to fucking leap.

# SHOW TIME !

“suguruu, stop acting responsible and come cuddle me.”

ah, you’re such a fucking bother.

it’s sometime after six and geto suguru is in your bedroom with his shirt tossed somewhere on the floor and his silver chain cold against his chest. he’s putting together the plastic baby crib in preparation for the project’s official start on monday, and trying very fucking hard to ignore the fact that you’re all sprawled out on your bed behind him: hair fanned out, pillow to your chest, and whining his name because who are you if not a tease?

“you’re such a bad husband,” you mumble wistfully. “leaving your wife all alone on her bed like this…”

god.

geto’s throat bobs. there’s blood in his throat but his eyes skim the instructions with hazy focus. lord knows he wants nothing more than to press you into the covers and kiss you till you’re laughing his name and you can’t fucking breathe, but he knows the minute he pads over there you’ll laugh in his face.

his mouth dries.

“someone has to build the crib, angel,” he murmurs. it comes out lower than he intended, but whatever—it came out regardless. pet name number one, okay. “unless you want our fake baby sleeping on the rug?”

“i want my fake husband,” you hug your pillow tighter, and geto can hear the pout in your voice. your eyes are still on the ceiling, and geto doesn’t miss the fact that you don’t comment on the pet name. perhaps you didn’t hear it. perhaps you just don’t care. “and the baby is plastic,” you grumble. “it doesn’t care if it sleeps on a mattress or a floor.”

he hums. “bet it doesn’t complain as much either.”

“hey!” you gasp, chucking your pillow at him with a laugh. geto’s lip twitches in a smile. he rubs the back of his head, sweeping away the black strands falling in his face. he turns to glance at you, and then he wishes he didn’t, because you’re staring back at him with the brightest eyes he’s ever seen.

he bites his cheek. and then he pads over to you.

you watch, starry eyed, as geto lets the instruction manual glide to the floor. he presses a knee into the mattress, leg swinging over your thighs, bed dipping underneath his weight. his hair tickles your jaw and his chain dangles in front of you and geto suguru smells like dogwood and something too warm to have a name.

you blink up at him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he murmurs. “you look cute like this.”

he shouldn’t say that, he knows he shouldn’t, but you’re already curling your hand around his necklace and letting your thighs squeeze underneath him. and geto’s eyes rake down your body—just once, just a little, because he knows better than to leap that fucking far. so he bites his lip.

“i always look cute..” you mumble, lashes fluttering and voice fading underneath him.

“mm, but you look extra cute today,” he mutters, “like a real life mommy.”

you tug his necklace, grin cheeky. “geto suguru. are you trying to seduce me?”

“no,” he murmurs, and his voice is too low and the words come too fast. “i’m being a good husband. taking care of my wife’s needs before she even asks.”

he’s still propped up over you, bare pecs heaving & chain glinting too close to your face. the heat of his body pricks at your skin. you tug him closer by the chain: “and what needs do i have?”

“attention,” he murmurs, thumb grazing your cheek. “you've been whining since I got here. wanted me to stop working. wanted me to come cuddle you.”

“i was only joking..” you mumble, slightly shy. and geto wishes you wouldn’t say that. wishes he didn’t know that already.

but he’s a patient man. and how can he be upset when you look so pretty underneath him?

“i know,” he murmurs, voice warm, half-lidded eyes boring into yours. “i’m sorry. am i making you uncomfortable?”

he says he’s sorry but his thumb still grazes your cheek, because he can’t not. you lean into him reflexively, and then you blink.

“what—? no, no. it’s just—“ your brows furrow, and you frown in that way that makes geto want to kiss it off. “it’s just… you’re so good at this, geto!”

his thumb pauses over your cheek. “what?”

“this husband thing!” you grin up at him, cheeks flushed. “you made me feel all hot and funny inside. your future wife is gonna be so lucky.”

geto blinks. you keep going.

“you were so hot,” you cup his cheek with a palm, and geto’s jaw is slack. “and you’re so responsible setting up the baby stuff. whoever you date and marry is gonna be so lucky. in a way this is perfect practice, isn’t it?”

his jaw tightens. “yeah, practice.”

he doesn’t say you’re the only girl he’s ever wanted, the only girl he’ll ever want, that last summer when you fell asleep on his couch with his hoodie on your shoulders he thought about you with his last name; or that every time you swat his chest and laugh away his efforts his heart cracks a little in his chest. he doesn’t tell you he’s only a man and his heart can’t take much more much longer.

but he squeezes your hip. bites your neck so you giggle and swat him away. rolls off you and pretends his chain isn’t still warm from your grip.

geto suguru pads away to kneel by the crib’s side. “is my wife gonna keep whining, or is she gonna help me fix this?”

SATO’S REMARK : TOUGH LUCK. BUT KEEP AT IT, BROTHER!

HUSBAND TACTICS #2: GET DOMESTIC !

taught by: toji zenin

“wanna woo her? take her on a family-esque activity. that’ll show her you’re husband material.”

ΣΧ

sigma chi’s frathouse kitchen is two bottles of bourbon & cranberry jam left open on the countertop. in the kitchen suguru geto is there, a hyper-realistic plastic baby on his hip as toji scribbles grocery items in handwriting geto will have to pretend to understand.

“here’s everything,” toji grumbles, clicking his pen and passing the note to suguru. geto’s face scrunches immediately, piercings glimmering as he squints his eyes in a desperate attempt to read the list. “how the hell is your handwriting worse than sukuna’s?”

“you’ll figure it out. it’s for meg,” toji answers, bored, drumming his pen against the sticky counter. “and some of the organic stuff my girl likes. i’ll be back late today, so i need you to drop it off at my place.”

suguru shifts the doll over his chest, taking one last look at the sorry note before stuffing it in his pocket. “are you taking meg with you today?”

“no, he’s home with the babysitter,” toji grunts, slipping his hands into his skinny jean pockets to hide the fake ice on his wrist. “new job’s paying good, so i’m taking the missus out on a date.”

“aww,” suguru softens, smile tugging at his lips. he’s pleased to see toji doing better, to say the least. he’s engaged to a pretty, rich lady now; working hard as a ghost writer for drake, all while being a good young father to meg. he pats the doll’s head absentmindedly. “that’s cute. what are you planning?”

“luxury shopping date,” toji mumbles.

“really?” suguru tilts his head. “where are you going?”

“shoppers drug mart.”

geto doesn’t comment.

“you should take that girl with you,” toji says, hands still in his pockets. “take her n’ your plastic doll grocery shopping. it’s good domestic practice. get her some expensive strawberries and see if she doesn’t fall head over heels.”

suguru bites his lip, phone already heavy in his pocket.

can’t hurt to try, right ?

# SHOW TIME !

suguru wishes you wouldn’t do this to him.

wishes you wouldn’t look all cute standing by the store’s glass doors, lashes fluttering as you blink around trying to find him. he should raise his hand, text you he’s just two aisles over and you should move before the lady behind gets mad at you for blocking the entrance. instead he watches with a fond smile as you frown and fumble to grab your phone from your purse.

he sighs, walking over to stand behind you with the fake baby in his arms. your eyes are still on your phone as your thumbs tap frantically, typing a message to send to his contact: ‘SUGURU. where are u???’

his lip twitches. he’s leaning so close over your shoulder that he can smell your shampoo, and your hair is tickling his nose, but you still don’t notice. so cute. geto thinks you’re so cute.

he hums into your neck. “who are we texting?”

“suguru!” you gasp, whipping around at the sound of his voice. he’s looking down at you with those half-lidded eyes, teasing smile, dark sweater sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. you frown at him. “you scared me! don’t you know you shouldn’t sneak up on vulnerable young women?!”

suguru blinks. “what?”

“you heard me,” you grumble, fake pout on your lips as you lean down to the plastic doll in his arms. “hi, lafayette. daddy’s being mean to mommy again.”

“i still can’t believe you named our baby after a revolutionary leader.” geto mutters.

“he’s my fave in hamilton,” you hum, slipping lafayette into your arms. “shall we get shopping?”

——

in geto’s shopping cart, there’s five shades of lipgloss, a bag of plantain chips, and four other items that are not on the shopping list.

geto suguru needs to start saying no. but it’s hard to deny you when you look up at him with those pretty eyes, batting your lashes all sweet in that way that makes his chest hurt. so he pushes the cart, resigned, watching the sway of your hips as you balance lafayette on your side and coo silly things to him like he’s a real human child. he shakes his head, bites his lip. geto suguru is utterly fucked.

“suguru! look at this!”

he shouldn’t look. because it’s just going to be another item you’ll seduce him into buying, but he looks anyways. you’re pointing at a box of dinosaur cereal—a clear off-brand version of froot loops. “lafayette would love this. can we get it for him?”

he pads around the cart to get a better look. “lafayette can’t eat cereal.”

“i meant megumi,” you coo, running a hand down his pecs. “he likes dinosaurs. he’ll love this.”

“no, he likes gummy worms,” but geto suguru is already distracted by your hand stroking his chest. his lip twitches, “you want this for yourself, don’t you?”

“caught me,” you flash him your sweetest smile, squeezing his pec before setting mamdani in the cart. geto watches as you lean up to the top shelf, skirt riding up your thighs as you reach for the box of cereal. his eyes drop. but then his neck heats and he quickly looks away.

“suguruu,” you frown, still reaching. “help me.”

suguru lets out a rough breath. he shouldn’t help, but he always will—what else can he do when you call his name like that?

he steps behind you, chest pressing against your back, arm reaching up and caging you in the process. your breathing hitches. suguru doesn’t miss it.

“suguru,”

“hm?”

“what are you doing?”

your voice comes out breathy, and suguru has to pretend he doesn’t like the way you sound or how you’re staring up at him with big eyes. he hums coolly. “i’m helping my wife.”

“oh,” your lashes flutter as he reaches to tug down your skirt. his knuckles brush your thigh & you glance down at his arm snaking around your hips before mustering up a smile.

you tease, “such a good husband, protecting my modesty.”

“mm,” he murmurs, “the best.”

your mouth opens slightly, but no words come out. geto watches your lashes flutter—shy? nervous?—as your hand curls around his bicep to steady yourself. your palm squeezes his arm. he lets his hand dip to squeeze your inner thigh, and prays you don’t hear his breathing hitch.

“do good husbands usually grope their wives..?” you murmur, and geto thinks you’re teasing, but your lashes are low and your voice is so small and god he wants to kiss you so badly.

“don’t think so,” he mutters. “am i bad?”

“so bad,” you breathe. and your breath is hot & he’s leaning so close he can feel it on his lips. you squeeze his arm, eyes boring into his, and you really need to fucking stop before he leans down and kisses you. “but i don’t mind.”

god. you’re gonna fucking kill him. geto parts his lips to speak but you get your words out first.

“so,” you beam up at him, “the cereal?”

oh. the cereal.

fuck you and the cereal.

he doesn’t mean that, though. his jaw tightens as he lifts the box and drops it into the cart. his hands shove in his pockets, and geto suguru can only blink away the irritation burning in his eyes.

“thanks, sugu,” you lift lafayette into your arms. he’s gripping the cart handle right now, trying to ignore the fact that you’re smiling up at him and cursing himself because even now he thinks you are so beautiful.

“well then,” you chirp, grin sweet, “back to shopping!”

TOJI’S REMARK : SHE DON’T WANT YOUR ASS 🤦🏿‍♂️

HUSBAND TACTICS #3: GET SMOOTHER.

taught by: toru gojo

“your problem is that everything you do maintains plausible deniability. i think it’s time you claimed her in a way she can’t deny.”

ΣΧ

the good news is, even though geto ended up spending $200 on items not on toji’s list, the plantain chips you roped him into getting were really good. the bad news is, sato gojo is lying here on his lap, forcing geto to feed him said chips while gaming on sukuna’s nintendo switch.

“sugu, i want one,” -> geto feeds sato a chip. chew, swallow. “i can’t believe you embarrassed yourself like that.”

suguru’s eye twitches. “no more chips for you.”

they’re on the bed in toru’s room, and toru gojo sighs before slipping his headphones off at his desk. “sorry, but you guys are getting crumbs on my bed.”

sato laughs. “as if sukuna doesn’t jerk off in here every other day.”

“that was before he finished therapy,” toru mumbles in response, cheeks flushed in dismay. god bless geto for enrolling sukuna in therapy for his exhibitionist kink, despite sukuna’s wishes. toru takes his glasses off, runs a hand through his hair. “suguru, what’s this about you and y/n?”

“every time suguru tries something with her, she laughs him off,” sato snitches. he flashes geto a clumsy grin, smile totally innocent. “sugu, i want one.”

geto shoves him off his lap.

“maybe you’re not obvious enough,” toru plays with the stem of his glasses. “you guys are super close. even if you’re touching her, she might not take it seriously because she’s used to touchy friendships.”

“yeah!” sato agrees, fist pumped up, face flat on the floor. “my thoughts exactly, twin brother.”

“shut up.” geto and toru say simultaneously.

“anyway,” toru continues. “maybe get bolder. do something she can’t pass off as ‘just friends’.”

geto stares at the chips in his lap. “just friends, huh?”

#SHOW TIME!

geto leans by the kitchen door. “hi, mommy. what’re you doing?”

suguru’s over at your house for dinner. he’s just put lafayette to sleep in his crib, and he has his hands in his pockets as he pads over to you, sweatpants low on his hips. his arms cage you by the stove. “you smell good,” he mutters.

you ignore him. “i’m making dinner!” you beam, turning to face him.

geto can’t even tell what you’re showing him. in your hands is a charred mess, and geto can only pray the squiggly thing on the plate is spaghetti and not something else. his brows furrow in amused confusion as you beam up at him, lashes fluttering.

he cocks his head. “is this a burnt offering?”

“rude,” you swat his chest, and geto only smiles, eyes tracking the way your hair falls over your shoulders. you mutter curses as you shift the plate away, staring at the pot in dismay. “i wanted to cook for you.” you grumble.

his lip twitches. “like a real life wife?”

“yeah,” you turn to him, lips in a pout as you play with the chain on his chest. “but it didn’t work out. can you believe it?”

“i believe it,” he hums, but in reality he’s trying not to laugh, or rather, avoiding thinking about how glossy your lips look when you pout. his palms find your waist, “need your hubby to help?”

you smile up at him, “if he’d be so kind.”

geto lifts you by the hips before you can think better of it. you yelp as he sets you down on the counter, gripping him in a panicked hug. “suguru! you can’t just do that!”

he smiles, big. “do what?”

“lift me! and without warning!” you’re still hugging his neck tight, heart racing against his collarbone. he laughs, face in your hair to muffle the sound. his hands are splayed on your back, anchoring you against him.

“stop laughing at me,” you frown, and geto pulls back. he still has that lazy smile on his lips. “i’m not laughing,”

“yes you are,” you cup his face, smushing his cheeks in your palms. “look at your smile. it’s mocking.”

“adoring,” he mutters, gaze reverent.

“lying,” you pout, frown deep.

geto doesn’t argue. he only watches, eyes half-lidded, as you lift a palm from his cheek to card through his hair, stroking softly. you’re still pouting, still pretty. his thumb presses into your spine.

“i’ve never lied to you in my life,” he murmurs.

“yeah?” you’re still raking his hair, eyes never meeting his own. “then were you laughing at me just now?”

“no, mommy.”

“see?” you cock your head. “liar.”

he lets out a long, shuddering breath, hands sliding from your back to your waist, then down to squeeze your hips. you’re still stroking his hair, unbothered. no idea that you’ve got him crumbling beneath you.

“you feel so soft,” he murmurs before he can think better of it.

you tilt your head. “my hips?”

“and your waist, and your thighs,” he drawls, and he’s not even thinking straight anymore. “everywhere.”

you stare at him, brows knit, hand pausing in his hair. “suguru,”

“yeah, baby?”

“you’re being bad again.”

he lets out a strangled breath. he’s staring at your lips, he has been for a while now, and his gaze is bleary & eyes half-lidded. “sorry mommy,” he mumbles, “are you uncomfortable?”

“no?”

“then i’m gonna kiss you now.”

“sugu—“

and he does. he pauses just slightly—just enough to let you pull away if you don’t want this, if you don’t want him—but you don’t so geto presses his lips to your own. his first thought is gloss. your lips are so glossy; strawberry sweet & sugary fake. he lets his tongue slip out to lick your mouth, before cocking his head to kiss you deeper. you squeak, moaning into his mouth, kissing him back as he presses you into him. your thighs squeeze around his waist and geto slips a groan past your lips.

“so good,” he chases your lips when you pull away to breathe, “taste so good, pretty,”

you let him press sloppy kisses to your jaw, hands still in his hair.

but geto doesn’t notice how you freeze underneath him.

TORU’S REMARK: MY ADVICE WORKED?! THIS IS WHY I’M THE BETTER TWIN!! :)

HUSBAND TACTICS #4: GO GET YOUR WIFE !

taught by: ryomen sukuna

“good progress, bud. now all you gotta do? maintain the pace. keep showing her you’re the man now.”

ΣΧ

in sigma chi’s living room, ryomen sukuna is strapped to an armchair as sato hooks him up to a birth simulator.

idiots, the both of them. it started with sukuna saying that taking care of their plastic baby isn’t much work after all, and so motherhood can’t be that bad, and giving birth must not be that bad either. sato, ever the feminist, decided to challenge him on that. now it’s a weekday evening and sato is pressing electric pads to sukuna’s belly with his tongue in his cheek. sukuna the second (their plastic baby—sukuna won the argument it seems) is crying somewhere in the distance.

“nice work, daddy geto,” sukuna hums, shifting so sato can press another pad to his belly. “you’ve gotten the girl.”

geto has. so why doesn’t he feel like it?

you kissed him back. kissed him again. in fact, he’d say he had your lips for dinner. but the texts he sent you this morning are still unread: did you sleep well? can we talk?

geto shakes his head, relaxing into the sofa with his legs spread out as he watches sato fumble with the machine. “now all you gotta do is keep up the good work,” sukuna mumbles. “easy-peasy.”

“i feel like something’s wrong,” geto plays with his necklace. “but i’m not sure what it is, exactly.”

“nothing’s wrong, dumbass,” sukuna squints, watching sato frown at the remote. “you’re just not used to being forward. months of holding back will do that to ya. what you need to do now? ramp it up. tell her you wanna put a baby in her or something. girls love that shit.”

“oh, i agree with that. it’s like saying she’s wifey type.”

“you get me, sato.”

sato grins. then he presses a button on the remote and sukuna screams.

“jesus christ of nazareth!” sukuna roars, jerking in the chair. “fuck—! turn this shit off! sato!”

sato watches him jerk with his hands on his hips, lips bent in a clumsy smile. “what? i can’t hear you over your screaming!”

suguru eyes his frat brothers, both sukuna’s—and sukuna the second’s—cries roaring in his ears. he’s still not sure why this is even happening, but he’s long concluded both his frat brothers were born with a brain. he sighs, burying his face in his hands.

he really needs to fucking see you.

#SHOW TIME !

geto wasn’t sure you’d want to see him.

but you’d already planned to meet up today; long before he kissed you on the countertop, long before he sent you six messages & deleted them all when he received no response. it would be wiser to stay home but he shows up anyway, because he’s a coward who’s trying not to be, and he hasn’t eaten anything in days because everything in the sigma chi kitchen suddenly tastes like your lips.

you greeted him with a smile on your face.

lafayette on your hip, pretty smile as you beckoned him in. said you were just about making lunch. asked him to go handle it in the kitchen because obviously you don’t want to see his face.

geto shakes his head, stares at the water running off his hands in the sink. he has to think positive.

“lafayette, baby, please don’t cry,” your voice comes from the living room. “mommy’s trying so hard—oh my god. i swear i’m gonna take out your batteries!”

geto laughs through his nose before he can think better of it.

he wipes his hands, pads over to the doorframe to watch you fuss over lafayette in the living room. you’re bouncing the plastic robot in your hands, trying to get it to stop its automated wailing. “shhh. want me to sing you a song, baby? you like songs from hamilton, right? okay, okay. why do you cry like you’re running out of time—”

lafayette screams. geto falls in love.

well he was already in love, but somehow his heart has gone sticky in his chest. it’s silly, isn’t it? but geto’s thought about it a lot. your laugh in the kitchen on sunday mornings, your contact saved with his last name, you waking him up at 3am for some ridiculous craving; and he’d get up to retrieve it, of course. because geto suguru would go to the ends of the earth for you if you’d allow it.

is it weird to think of domestic life with someone you aren’t even dating?

probably. but then he thinks about your thighs squeezing his waist on the kitchen counter, your pretty moans in his mouth, your hands in his hair—and god. god god god. geto suguru has never wanted something so badly.

so he doesn’t think too much before padding over to join you in the living room, arms wrapping around your hips. “hey.”

you tense, just a little, just enough that geto doesn’t notice, then relax into him just slightly. “hi. are you being bad again?”

he can hear the smile in your voice, but your usual playfulness isn’t as strong. “maybe. you look cute, bouncing our baby like that.”

you force a smile, eyes dropping to lafayette wailing in your arms. “well—“

“you’d make such a pretty mommy,” geto breathes, and even he’s not sure what he’s saying. all he knows is you’re warm and pretty and in his arms and it’s all he’s ever wanted, all he’ll ever want.

you don’t respond, and geto’s in his feelings now, so his mouth keeps moving: “i think about it a lot,” he murmurs. “mornings with you. you burning the eggs because you’ve never been a good cook.” his palm shifts to your belly. “and i’ll eat them anyways.”

“suguru,”

“and you’d get mad at me for eating them,” he breathes, collapsing into your neck. “tell me you don’t need my sympathy and frown up at me while bouncing our baby on your hip. and then you’d kiss me because you secretly find it sweet of me.” he breathes. “i think about it a lot.”

“you’d make such a pretty wife, such a pretty mommy,” geto breathes. and your neck is so warm, and his lips are ghosting over it, and as his palm glides over your belly his dizzy mind flashes back to sukuna’s words: girls love feeling like they’re wifey!

so he kisses your neck. “can’t wait to see you round with my baby.”

if you were tense before, you’re frozen now.

“suguru.”

“hm?”

“i’m uncomfortable.”

geto freezes.

you step out of his hold, lafayette to your chest, pretty eyes looking up at his. but you’re not looking at him with your usual fondness. your eyes are bored—unimpressed—something geto’s hazy mind can’t seem to name. your lips are tight. “i think you should take lafayette for the weekend.”

“y/n—“

“and don’t contact me,” you snap, irritated. “don’t call, text, nothing. i just—“ you bite your lip, “you need to leave, geto.”

not suguru, geto. okay. okay.

geto leaves with lafayette in his arms. his heart is still in your living room.

SUKUNA’S REMARK : WHO TOLD YOU TO SAY THAT?!

HUSBAND TACTICS #5: DIVORCE COURT !

taught by: nanami kento

“you’ve been leading with actions instead of words. are you really surprised?”

ΣΧ

is it so bad to be forward?

geto has his head on the steering wheel & his heart in his throat. lafayette is crying in the backseat but geto doesn’t care, doesn’t care to rip out the batteries or at least sing the doll to sleep. instead he grips the steering so hard his knuckles turn white.

can’t wait to put a baby in you.

why did he say that? he wants to blame it on sukuna but he can’t. geto knows it’s all on him, of course. he let himself get too love drunk, too hope drunk, too drunk on a future that will never exist. he thought about sato and sukuna who don’t think before they talk and still manage to get the girl. but life has never let him have anything easy, and with you in his arms he managed to forget that. now the only girl he’s ever wanted thinks he sees her as just flesh, and geto is a coward so he doesn’t plan to redeem himself.

it’s best to let you go.

“do you intend to drive?”

nanami’s voice is flat beside him. it’s more of a bored comment than a question, and geto lifts his head up slow. nanami kento is beach-blond hair & pressed on clothes and a bored look that never seems to leave his face. he stares at geto. geto stares back.

“i’m going through a crisis.”

“i observed. should i get toji to drive me instead?”

“have a heart, kenny,” geto slumps against the driver’s seat. nanami’s license is on a three-day suspension for being slightly tipsy while driving, and it’s unusual for kento, but we all have our problems. geto reaches for a cigar in the glove box. nanami smacks his hand away.

“this is about y/n, correct? sato told me all about it.”

of course he did—what a snitch.

geto rests his head on the wheel, careful not to let the horn sound. “is it my turn for some advice?”

“i suppose,” nanami pushes up his glasses. “did you ever try speaking english?”

geto blinks. “english?”

“the others advised you to be forward, correct?” nanami starts. “touch her, kiss her, all of it. but did you ever speak english? tell her that you liked her? wanted her?”

geto blinks. but kento’s not done.

“i heard about what happened most recently, sukuna told me all about it,” nanami sighs. “telling a woman she’d make a pretty mom. telling her you can’t wait to see her round with your baby.” kento scoffs. “you have your domestic fantasies, geto. but do you know how terrifying that is to a woman who you haven’t even told ‘i love you’?”

ah. geto knew he’d been missing something.

he’s always been a coward. at thirteen, he pierced his own ears with a ballpoint pen and hid the bleeding from his parents for weeks. at seventeen, he got his first tattoo, and charred it off with cigarette butts until all that remained was the outline. at nineteen, he kissed a girl and blocked her the next day. at twenty-two, he fucked up his chances with the only woman he’s ever loved. geto suguru has never known how to handle wanting something. he either destroys it or runs far, far away.

“so what do i do now?” geto asks, brows knit. “she told me to stay away from her.”

“then you do exactly that,” nanami’s already unbuckling his seatbelt. “give her the space she needs. you’ve crowded her for long enough, suguru.”

he has, hasn’t he?

“i’ll ask toji to give me a lift,” nanami is standing outside the car. “you’re in no condition to drive.”

nanami slams the door shut. lafayette is still crying in the backseat.

# SHOW TIME !

geto suguru is back in your room again.

not in the way he’d like, not sprawled on your bed or with you curled into his side. he’s sitting diagonally across from you on the mini-table you have laid out, because he’d tried to sit opposite you and caught the way your lip twitched with irritation.

geto is on his best behavior.

the plastic doll is asleep in its crib as you and suguru fill out spreadsheets. logs on feeding times, that sort of thing. he stares at the gleaming columns—empty. they’ve been empty for an hour now, because geto suguru can’t stop his eyes from shifting from his laptop screen to your face.

“feeding log,” you say flatly. “did you do the 2PM ?”

“yeah,” he did—he thinks. everything is blurry.

“no you didn’t,” you bite. “i’m literally looking at the column right now. it’s empty. and it shouldn’t be.”

geto’s fingers twitch over his keyboard. the spreadsheet in front of him is empty, but the previous one—the one you’re looking at—shouldn’t be. he remembers logging it yesterday with his back bent over the kitchen island, eyes clouded over, thinking, wondering if he should send you a message.

he croaks, “i did fill it in. check the—“

“you didn’t,” you snap, and geto’s never had you snap at him before so he’s not sure what to do with that. “i’m literally looking at it right now. can you please take this seriously?”

“okay,” he swallows.

you turn back to your laptop, irritated. geto fills out the spreadsheet in front of him. he won’t give you reason to be upset with him any longer.

———

the second time geto sees you after the incident, it’s at the local library.

you’re already done with today’s work, and the walk back to the residences is long & winding. geto suguru knows his place. he has his eyes down on the pavement, wind flinging his hair in his face, three feet behind you because you’d eye him if he got any closer.

you’re shivering.

and geto noticed it three minutes ago, to be honest. noticed how your shoulders hugged together, how you shoved your hands into your pockets. he should give you his jacket. you’re cold, and he doesn’t want you getting sick, and he doesn’t want you to snap at him or shoot him down but you’re cold and you’re beautiful and geto suguru is calling your name before he can think any better of it.

“y/n—here.”

he holds out his jacket. you turn back to look at the material, and then back at him.

“i don’t want it.”

he should stop. “you’re freezing. i don’t want you to catch a—“

“i’d rather freeze.” you deadpan. “can you not speak to me?”

geto bites his lip. he stops himself before he can say okay.

——

in the library’s study room, geto suguru has his head on his keyboard and eyes staring at the glass door.

his phone chimes, but he doesn’t check the message because he knows it’s just team snapchat. but then it chimes again, and geto reaches for his phone even though he knows there’s no point.

—

y/n :)

where are you

i have your location.

we need to work on the project

—

geto scrambles—actually scrambles, he accidentally knocks over the chair behind him—and then he breathes. wipes his face with his hoodie sleeves. breathes again.

when you walk in, you don’t say hi.

you sit diagonally across again, and open up your laptop. you look pretty today. hair loose over your shoulders, cheeks flushed from the weather, lashes fluttering in the light. and your lips are glossy again, like they were in the supermarket, like they were on the kitchen counter—and oh god. geto needs to stop staring.

but he doesn’t. he watches, mouth slightly agape, as your nails click at your keyboard. he can tell you’re upset or irritated, and he thinks—no, knows it’s because of him, and he really needs to get this work done so you won’t get sad and snap at him again. he doesn’t want to be in trouble. he doesn’t know what to do when you get like that. so he turns his eyes to his laptop. but somehow, they drift back to your face again.

“can you stop fucking staring at me?”

“sorry—“ he flinches. “i’m sorry, i’ll look away.”

there’s a lump in his throat. he’s looking at the screen but he can’t quite see it, and the numbers and columns have mixed together and swollen up on the page.

but you aren’t done.

“seriously, what is your problem?” you snap, irritated. “we have a project to do. and you’ve been letting your stupid feelings get in the way of it all!”

he wants to say he’s sorry again, and that his feelings aren’t stupid but he’s sorry, and it’s all he’ll ever be, but instead his voice comes out as a croak. “i’m trying.”

you stare at him in disbelief. his fingers are shaking under the table. has he always been this jumpy?

“you need to try harder,” you snarl. “or what? too busy thinking about marrying me? having me round with your baby?” he shrinks. “what the fuck, geto?”

he doesn’t know how to explain that that day in the living room he wasn’t thinking of actually giving you a baby, at least not right now. he doesn’t know how to explain that when he looks at you he thinks of forever, he wants forever, and ever since starting this project ‘forever’ has looked like wedding bells and sunday mornings and grocery runs with a mini-you in the cart. he doesn’t know how to say he wants you to be his, your last name, your everything, and it’s sick and twisted and too much too fast but geto suguru has never been able to want in increments.

so he shrinks. stares at his keyboard. you snap, “say something!”

“i’m sorry,” he croaks, eyes on his lap. “i didn’t want to—i wasn’t trying to—“

“you scared me!” you snap. “geto, you scared me. you’ve been scaring me! these last few weeks—“ you slam your book shut. “touching me. kissing me. and i don’t mind—swear to god i don’t. but you’ve been acting so weird so suddenly! saying things you’ve never said before. is this some kind of twisted roleplay?!”

geto stifles a breath. tries to count in his head so he doesn’t breakdown in front of you. he knows that wouldn’t be fair. you keep going:

“i don’t know what i’m supposed to think,” you grip the table. “my best friend of how many years gets partnered with me for a project, great! but then he starts kissing me on countertops. standing too close in grocery stores. telling me i’d make a pretty wife and mommy and—it’s weird! i don’t know where it’s coming from! he’s never said he likes me in his life, but he can’t wait to see me round with his baby?”

you’re sniffling now. “what the fuck, geto?”

your shoulders are shaking, and you’ve sat back down, and your pretty face is in your hands as you cry. geto’s heart aches. because you’re not supposed to cry because of him. because he’s not supposed to make you uncomfortable, or confused, or upset, and he’s done all of that in the span of a week. and geto’s mouth dries. he wants to pad over and hold you in his arms but he knows he doesn’t have the right to fucking do that.

he breathes in, deep.

“i’m sorry—for moving too fast,” his hands fist. “i’ve been in love with you since freshman year. and i tried, i swear i did, to show it. but you always laughed it off. and instead of telling you outright, i just got more and more aggressive with it. i think part of me has always thought you’d never feel the same,” he swallows. “so i thought it’d be safer to show it than say it out loud. but that was only safe for me.”

he bites his lip. you’re still bawling into your hands, small and terrified, and geto‘s eyes sting. he can’t believe you’re shaking because of him.

“baby—“ he catches himself, “please don’t cry,”

“i hate you,” you sob, “i’m never gonna forgive you ever.”

he swallows. “you don’t have to. but please don’t cry,” his hands tighten on his jeans. “i don’t know what to do when you cry.”

and it’s the first time geto’s been honest, because he really doesn’t know. because you’ve never cried because of him, and normally if you ever cried at all he’d drag you into his chest but right now that doesn’t feel appropriate.

but he gets up anyways.

takes your hands from your face. and you’re so gorgeous even with tears on your cheeks, eyes glistening wet, lips puffed out & nose flushed from crying. and he wants to hug you so badly, but for now he settles for crouching to your height and wiping the tears from your eyes.

you glare down at him, and he should be scared again but all he can think is that you’re so fucking cute. your nose is all puffy and your eyes slightly red. “you’re such an idiot.”

“i know.”

“and this is so cliché.”

“i know.”

“and i want you too, but slower.”

“i didn’t know that.”

“you know it now,” you curse. “you’re an idiot, i swear.”

geto breathes. and then you cup his face, watching the way his eyes glisten with wet. “you still haven’t confessed to me, suguru.”

“i love you,” he says too quickly. “since freshman year. i think about you too much. you’re always on my mind, and i don’t want anyone but you, and i love you so much y/n and i’ll love you forever if you’ll let me—“

you interrupt him with a kiss.

BONUS !

“i can’t believe he said he wants you round with his baby.”

the project is long over, and today you’re on the countertop of the sigma chi kitchen, legs swinging as you gossip with sukuna. he has your plantain chips in his hands, leaning against the counter as he eagerly munches on the snacks.

“i told him to approach you calmly and honestly, y’know? told him girls love communication,” sukuna clicks his tongue. “nobody listens to me in this household.”

you laugh, “really? that would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.”

“right?” sukuna shakes his head, passing you a plantain chip. “he’s got his brain in his ass cheeks, i swear.”

you giggle, and right then, the door swings open. sato gojo hurts in with his arms spread out in glee. “we’re back!”

geto trudges behind him, holding too many shopping bags for one person. sato has already run towards his room, leaving you and sukuna confused—but then geto drops the bags to the floor with a thud. he looks up at you. “hey,”

sukuna absentmindedly blocks your head with his own. “yo, man.”

“can you move your fat fucking head?” geto walks past him, ignoring the gasp sukuna lets out. he brackets you on the counter, forehead slightly sticky with sweat, chain glistening in the afternoon heat.

he murmurs, “hi, baby.”

“hi, handsome,” you cup his face. “back from your date with sato?”

“not a date,” he mumbles, kissing your palm, then your cheek, then your jaw. “was getting groceries.” he murmurs. “missed you so bad, pretty.”

you gigle, squeaking and squirming away as he attacks your face with kisses. he pulls back teasingly, smile smug, before you tug him back in by his chain. sukuna watches calmly, shoving another plantain chip in his mouth. he nods in approval of the flavor.

but he quickly grows bored. “don’t get too comfortable guys. i’ll whip out my dick and start stroking right now.”

“what...?”

“can you pretend to be normal?!”

before suguru can strangle sukuna, sato bounces back into the kitchen. his grin is clumsy, cap tilting off his hair, and in his hands is a machine that looks like a mini-tablet and a bunch of wires connected to pads at the ends.

sukuna’s face contorts in horror. “is that—“

“yup!” sato beams. “it’s time for round two!”

SIGMA CHI’S REMARK : NICE WORK, DADDY GETO !

# SIGMA CHI STORIES !

© HEARTKAJI. do not steal, copy, edit, translate or reupload.

It was late at night when Sukuna found her. 

A damp cardboard box next to the trash compactor of his apartment complex, and inside was a ball of fur, curled into itself. Shivering from the cold, while the thin blankets barely did anything to keep her warm. The lamppost over his head flickered on and off, lighting up the pathway leading to the dark, filthy alleyway where she was.

The sound of his footsteps had her curious head peeking from under the blankets, and before he knew it, he was staring back at a pair of green feline eyes. Her brown fur was matted and wet, and her ears stood tall. His hands reached forward slowly, hesitantly—only to be followed by a hiss. However, the smell of his sandalwood perfume and his calm patience comforted her. With his hand open and welcoming, she nuzzled her face into his warm palm.

Soon enough, huddled beneath the warmth of his hoodie, she found her home. And Sukuna, who couldn't even take care of a rock, found himself becoming a cat dad overnight. 

It took some time for her to ease up to him, to trust him, but little by little, with each treat and each scratch behind the ear, Sukuna won her over. She was one spoiled cat; that much was sure. After all, Sukuna could never find it in himself to say no to his pretty girl—whether it was an extra treat, a new toy, or even a sparkly collar that caught her eye at the pet store.

She was a feisty cat, and a possessive one too. Ever since the day Sukuna took her in, she never left his side. Constantly vying for his attention with soft meows and her big eyes.

That is until you came into the picture.

With messy hair, clothes stained with coffee and a voice that brought a smile to his face. 

You met on a gloomy day. The soft pitter-patter of rain against the windows became your company inside the quaint little cafe. The soft yellow lights highlighted your features, and your attention remained undivided as you stared attentively at the laptop in front of you.

The pull was magnetic—at least for him. Even as he was giving his order, he couldn't help but keep his eyes on you, throwing a look over his shoulder every five seconds—a small, hopeful part of him waiting to catch your attention.

His gaze wandered across the room, and in a cafe that was hardly crowded, he chose to take the seat right in front of you. The scrap of chair legs against the floor had you looking up, only to be met with, most possibly, the hottest man your eyes have ever laid upon.

Standing before you, Sukuna looked like a man of sin.

His leather jacket hugged each built muscle of his arms, his hair tousled and swept back, as if he'd been running his fingers through it all day. Silver hooped earrings decorating his ears glinted under the soft lighting of the cafe. His lips curved up into a smirk, peering down at you with piercing eyes, catching the way your eyes trailed across the pretty tattoos on his sharp features, until they met his—making heat rush to your cheeks from being caught. 

It took your brain a moment to process what was transpairing, and once you did, your face warmed with embarrassment. Not only did he catch you staring, but your own attire left you feeling embarrassed. Clothes dishevelled and hair a mess from sitting in this quiet corner for hours, working tirelessly on the last few pages of your thesis on the role of engineered microbial enzymes for plastic biodegradation.

"Hey."

Dear god, his voice was equally as hot as him.

"Hi."

And eventually, you found a home with him too.

You still remember the first time you came over to his place, his arm wrapped around your waist as he guided you through the doors of his apartment. The second the door creaked open, you were greeted by a dash of brown fur, and the sound of excited paws against wood flooring filled the quiet atmosphere. Your heart warmed at the sight, watching her tail curl around his calf as she welcomed him back home.

Reaching forward to pet her, you were met with a hiss, turning her back towards you in rejection. A frown crossed your face, while the man towering behind you laughed as if he was having the time of his life. 

"What..." You were left dumbfounded, disappointed by her hostility. Sukuna merely chuckled, his arm pulling you to him, planting a kiss to your hairline.

"Don't worry about her," he reassures, while the her in question left the room long ago, preferring to spend her time with a toy mouse and not with you. "It'll take some time for her to warm up to you," his hands reach for the collar of your jacket, helping you slide your arms out and hooking it to the coat hanger, "or to anyone," he said under his breath.

Your ears, however, did not miss his whispered words. 

Since then, you found yourself competing for his attention with a cat, of all things. Every kiss shared was interpreted with a meow, every attempt to cuddle on the couch met with her sliding herself between you two, and every lingering touch of his trailing further was met with a paw smacking away at his eager hands.

It wasn't until that one night when everything changed. 

Pulling up to the parking lot of his apartment, you slammed the door to your car shut, locking it while your hands juggled between your purse and car keys. 

Your phone, on the other hand, was caught between your right ear and shoulder as you stayed on call with him. Sukuna was stuck at work, held back in a meeting, while you were already waiting outside of his door. Digging through the purse, you find the spare keys to his place. 

"Kay, don't worry," you reply, twisting the doorknob and stepping inside. On his end, all he hears is shuffling, and then the sound of your keys placed onto the counter as you take off your coat. "I can take care of her, Sukuna." You roll your eyes at the thorough instructions he was throwing your way.

With a sigh, you hang up the call, making your way further into his place, your feet leading you straight to the living room where she was perched up on the beige couch, cuddled into herself like a loaf of bread. 

"Looks like it's just you and me today, pip," you say, placing a hand on your hip, receiving a dejected meow in response from her.

It was going to be a long night.

Your attempts all felt fruitless, throwing a toy or treat, only for her passive attitude to dismiss you. Even following her dinner down to the last scoop, mixing her dry and wet food as instructed, you were met with a flick of her tail in disinterest.

By the time you gave up, the day had already passed—tirelessly at that. It wasn’t until you let your guard down, giving up with a defeated sigh and plopping yourself down onto the couch, that she moved. Slowly by slowly, through the periphery of your eyesight, she was inching toward you on the couch, while you mindlessly scrolled through Netflix.

Until she finally reached out, pawing at your hands. Your heart swelled at the sight of her big eyes and the soft meows, letting go of your frustration from the day you finally gave her a pet—nails scratching behind her ears as her eyes closed in contentment.

And when Sukuna finally came home that night, exhaustion on his face from the day wearing him down, he was met with the sight of you two lying on the couch—her small form cuddled into your chest underneath the throw blanket. 

"I knew you could win her over."

The killer of all things good, sunk its teeth right through Leon’s carotid and dragged him off some years ago, it seems. You lean against the kitchen island and silently take in how barren your home suddenly is now. 

The pictures were the first things that went. Not that there were many of them to begin with, only a select few handpicked by Leon himself because he always looked like he was constipated in any you took — fishing trips with Chris, one trip to Italy Spring of 08’, a few from D.S.O. holiday parties, and some from end of year ceremonies when he was in between having too dark hair to be considered blonde and hair too light for it to be brown.

It’s surreal coming to terms that in a week this place’ll be someone else's problem. A new family will settle in and all traces of your marriage will be completely overwritten. They’ll argue over what color to paint everything over and start fresh. The sage green you’d painstakingly picked out with Leon would get replaced with something beige, or worse. Grey. 

God, isn’t that a dreadful thought. 

But, that’s the point of all this, you suppose. A full, fresh reset. If they want to paint over the ghosts of your marriage and turn over a new leaf, they can, they paid for the place after all. Hopefully they get around to fixing the creaks in the staircase or the leaky sink. Lord knows Leon was never going to get around to it.

You open your mouth to speak. "You talked to the realtor? Everything's squared away?" 

Despite being in the email thread, you still ask. The answer is a confident 'yes', it's just hard to fill in the blanks where laughter and easy breezy conversation is supposed to be. 

How do you even make conversation in this sort of scenario? Are you supposed to throw a blanket over the elephant in the room and ask him how’s it going? Pretend it isn’t there and talk about work? (Last you knew he was griping about having to take a rookie under his wing again. How long ago was that?) 

Ah. It’s a little too late anyways, the boxes are piled high beside the door, tomorrow they’ll come get the last of it and it’ll be on its way to storage til’ you both get your own places and move forward. Leon hasn’t gotten his own apartment yet, neither have you. Chris’s bachelor pad has gotten a little more sadder. 

“I don’t know, she didn’t call to confirm.” Leon starts, then grumbles beneath his breath. “Let me check...” 

He pops his hip against the island and reaches into his pocket. You frown. Didn’t he reply first? You could’ve sworn he had. You don’t call him out on his ‘bad memory’. Instead you settle in and watch his fingertips dance across the screen, let him pretend neither of you are on edge and painfully aware of the other.

You can't help but notice the pattern is the same. It’s those little things that become engrained enough for you to realize he hasn't changed his password yet, a string of numericals spell out your anniversary. 

You’d click your tongue and tease him for still having it set to something so sappy, something holds your tongue, dries it up and scatters the ashes elsewhere, the words ‘Seriously? You’re so corny,’ unwilling to form. 

You like to think he’ll change it after you’re gone, replace it with some other important date or nonsense and let the wound heal over. Yeah right. You roll your eyes at that. If you know anything about Leon, it’s that even if something wasn’t to have been his fault; he’d still lose sleep over it regardless. You must’ve exacerbated it by insisting it wasn’t. 

Is there even a chance he’d change that after you’re gone? 

You really can’t imagine a world where Leon would ever be the type to turn a new leaf and let the wound scab over, he’s always been the sort to pick and prod and keep it fresh and raw. Pour salt and a splash of lemon juice in it every once in a while wondering about the what could’ve beens and the what ifs. 

“You find it yet?” You prod, his finger gets to swiping again. 

“Still looking.” Leon grunts. You have half a mind to pull your own phone out and call his bluff, you’d find it in mere seconds. Leon’s got his lip jutting out and his brow pulled tighter than usual. He’s thinking. 

About what? 

Is he just trying to come up with something to talk about too before parting ways? That’s sweet, in a real sad, prolonging-the-inevitable way. 

And also probably just you projecting. 

Whatever, you’ll play along for now, let him have this. You’ll find something else to do while he turns questions over in his head and no doubt, handpicks the best joke to lighten the mood. 

Inevitably, your eyes wander. You can’t help but note Leon looks as if he’s aged another decade this past year, oddly enough. You don’t mean it in a bad way, he looks good. More than good. 

It’d be silly to say he looked anything less because of his age; you aren’t young either anymore, your roots show just as much as his do. Greys pop in faster year after year, but that doesn’t make you any less attractive. No, a mature woman is a well seasoned one, there’s an appeal to that.

The same applies to a mature man. 

Leon’s greys stand out like little grains of rye amidst wheat. You remember when he’d first noticed them, they looked like platinum highlights then, not so much now. He’d freaked out, ran his hands through his hair and sat on the couch for a good long while, worried himself to death that he’d be slowing down soon. He’d been thirty seven then. 

What did it matter if he wasn’t that young agent anymore? An older man is still a functional one, for the most part. If you ignore the wrinkles and looked shoulders down, you’d almost forget a man like him has real bad back problems.

Leon’s always managed to look leagues better than most men his age, he still has a waist anyone would understandably envy. His biceps have real muscle coiled through them, earned through hearty meals and rigorous exercise — no steroids or supplements here. 

Your eyes dip from his pinched brow, down the slope of his nose and towards the main attraction. His sleeves are rolled up to expose his forearms, veins pressing firmly against skin, no extra skin to sag and leave him soft. 

Leon’s handsome, always has been. Makes you wonder what he saw in you to stay all these years.

 There isn’t necessarily anything special about you, as lame as it is to accept and admit. Back then you'd felt like you’d been shoved into the deep end of the pool and left to drown when you’d stumbled onto the dating scene, a doe caught in sights. 

Leon had to have had other options, anyone with eyes could come to that conclusion. It always gnawed on your nerves, that thought; he could’ve had anyone else, someone with more experience, more confidence, more everything in whatever department you lacked in. 

But he stayed with you. Through all the bumps, Leon patiently held your hand, kissed your worries away, and promised he’d be there tomorrow. You guessed it was easy for him to be there when your flaws were considerably smaller in comparison to his.

Your eyes flit up to his face again, they trace the moles and beauty marks, one hidden against his adam's apple, another beside his nose, the rest are scattered across his body. Your eyes linger on his jaw. It’s hard to ignore he’s let his stubble get a bit scruffy, salt and pepper dotting above his lips and below. 

Leon never let it stay for that long because it never came in evenly. It was his biggest gripe. He’d run his hand along his chin and complain underneath his breath every other morning. If you could chalk it up to a change in style, that he’d suddenly decided to let it go rogue, you would. 

But you know he’s the type to stick with what works. 

He cared more about maintaining it with you around, it seems. You look away before he could notice you’re staring, focus all your attention on the marble counter top. 

God you hate yourself. You hate him, you hate this house, you hate everything that has to do with the ugly thoughts that led you to settle on divorce. 

If you could disappear into the walls, tuck yourself behind drywall and become some ghost story, — ‘…didn’t Leon used to have a wife…?’ ‘Yeah, but they got her.’ sort of deal — you would. He’s used to loss and grief, it would’ve been a much easier pill to swallow if you’d been lost. It would’ve been better for your love story to end with an em dash. 

But you’re alive, and you’re here, and the papers will be signed come Monday.

Your cheek finds its place against the palm of your hand. You’re certain Leon’s bullshitting you about looking for that confirmation email. It’s been three minutes of this tense god forsaken silence. 

The grey clouds outside are suddenly more interesting than thinking about or looking at Leon, Leon, Leon.

Outside, summer rain showers bring the promise of thunderstorms, muddy roads, petrichor and puddles. There was a time where you loved the rain, before Leon. (There he is again, he waltzes around in your head and you wish he’d trip.)

You’d open your windows and let the sound lull you to sleep, then get annoyed when a puddle would form on the floor or on the window sill. A few drops splatter against the window pane, the first to trail down like tears. 

After Leon, you couldn’t find too much beauty in it, not when you’d wake and find him wide eyed, staring at the ceiling. He never did like stormy nights, you always found him staring up at nothing in the middle of the night, stuck in some trancelike state you had to navigate carefully lest you step on a landmine. 

You find yourself hoping Leon’ll be alright tonight. He never did tell you why he was so clammy, always had something to do with work and you got it, you did. You just hope he doesn’t take to the bottle again.

On the other hand, you still find it difficult to sleep without having him next to you. A mountain of pillows makes for a poor substitute, can’t replicate his warmth or the sound of his breathing whenever he would manage to fall asleep before you did. 

You shift and let hands your clasp together against marble, forehead pressed against them in mock prayer. What does he really think about all this? Like really think. Not the stuff he’d said to try and make this seem amicable and mutual. 

Is he as nervous as you are? Does he even want to make small talk? Is he just waiting for you to bring the axe down again? 

‘Hey, I gotta go, actually. Thanks for the years and whatever, bye.’ You’d love to kiss the barrel right about now if he really is just waiting for you to initiate the goodbye sequence and you’ve just been standing here waiting this whole time, deluding yourself.

You want to laugh. Small talk. That’s what you’ve both been reduced to. The last hour you had both been so focused on clearing out what was left of the place there was no real time to try and play house again. He’d give you that awkward stare if you tried to ask him what he thought about the weather lately.

God, what if he hated you?

"Mhm." Leon finally grunts and breaks you out of your reverie, pulls you out the downward spiral before it can drag you under. "Everything’s good. The attorneys are settling the split." He slips his phone back into his pocket and turns, taps his fingers idly against the marble.

You lift your head up, your smile tight and out of place. “That’s good,” You sigh and rest your chin in the palm of your hand again as you settle into a ‘relaxed’ posture. “I’m glad it sold for more. Would’ve been a scam if it didn’t.”

Leon opens his mouth to say something, all that comes out is a quiet ‘amused’ scoff before his eyes go downcast in thought. Conversation was never this hard to make with you. Its weird how suddenly you two became estranged. You shared meals, a bed, a home and last names for years, yet somehow it feels like he doesn't know you at all anymore.

It feels wrong. 

Ending things was never his forte, should he just say goodbye, shake your hand and call it a day? Things would be easier that way, it'd be a cleaner, neater, less awkward cut than whatever this was quickly becoming.

And there it is again. The silence. You run your tongue across your teeth and bite back your sigh. God you hate him.

It's funny to think there was a time where you could just skip town, stop answering calls and travel around. Just drift from coastal city to coastal city, wind in your hair, sun on your skin. But you can’t really ghost your ex-husband now can you? Not when you’re this close to the finish line. 

Maybe in the future you’ll consider it, punishment for some guy who won’t understand signals of disinterest, if you even decide to date after Leon. 

Leon opens the door for escape, "You need a ride or..." 

“No!” You scramble to pull your own phone out, “No, I got um. I got one…I’m staying with Val, she actually dropped me off so…I’ll just call…” You trail off and start typing out your; ‘Hey girl! Everything’s packed up :) Save me from this please?’ message. 

“Val?” Leon drawls the name out like it’s unfamiliar, your friend group is a variable he never considered much, a bunch of girls he’d heard about a handful of times and saw very little of towards the end. 

Your friends never really came around to begin with, living cities apart tends to put that sort of strain when it comes to keeping close. And if they did come around he was always off somewhere else, saving the world and wondering if you’d had dinner midway through. 

“Yeah, Val. You met her.” You clarify, brows drawing together in confusion. “At our wedding, she was a bridesmaid? The red head?”

Leon contemplates this. It’s not that he didn’t remember your wedding and who all was there, it’s that all he really remembers from that day is you, you can’t fault him for that. 2007 was a long, long time ago and the world nearly ended a handful of times in between the years. 

…Lanshiang, New York, Alcatraz — to name a few. Forgive him for not memorizing the bridal party. 

Then, it clicks. He remembers a Valerie, though he’s not sure if it’s this Val. How could he get it wrong? How many red heads go by Val anyways?

He nods and snaps his fingers, stuttering on a hum. “She uh, she’s the girl who fell during...” He trails off and scratches the nape of his neck. 

You finish the sentence for him. “Her heel snapped before the photos.” You snort. There we go, it did ring a bell.

“Right. Her.” He leans against the island too, mirrors you and glances towards the front door as if she’d walk right in and haul you away by your forearm, save you from this situation and that’ll be that.  

“Is she on her way?”

You glance down at your phone and feel your heart sink. “She’s forty something out…” You mutter and offer him a small awkward smile. Leon’s brows furrow again. “She lives on the other side of town.” You tack on and wave your own set of keys at him. 

“You can go, I know you have that thing with Chris, right? I can lock up.”

The thing with Chris. You say it as if it’s a super important event and not the two of them drinking themselves numb in the corner of some poorly lit dingy sports bar. He loved that about you, always managing to find some way to make things sound better than what they were. 

He’ll miss that. He’ll miss a lot of things, actually.

“I can wait.” He shrugs. “Chris isn’t doing much today. He’s..”

“…still on bed rest.”

“…still healing from his last mission?

You both finish the sentence at the same time. Different variations but the same conclusion at the end of the day; Chris’s arm is fucked.

Leon snorts, a small smile makes its way onto his face. “How’d you know?”

“Claire.” You smile back.

That’s another thing. Your lives were so intertwined it’s gonna be hard to ignore you’re gone next time they all go out for drinks. It already is.

“So forty minutes?”

“I guess.”

— x-x-x-x-x-x —

Somehow, you both end up in the garden. It’s easier to sit in silence when you’ve got the rumbling of thunder and the chirping of frantic birds to fill it for you. The only place where you can comfortably sit on is the bench bolted down to the gazebo in the backyard anyways. 

The movers took the couch weeks ago, the staircase grew to be bad for Leon’s back after five minutes. At any rate, you’re sure a nail would come through if you sat on it for long.

There’s a respectable distance between you two where you’re perched, not enough room for Jesus, but it’s certainly there. Soft purple passionflower, fruity and fragrant, trails down the column beside you, its vines searching blindly for something to cling to. 

You steal a glance at Leon. He’s sat with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head tipped back, adam’s apple protruding like he’s got something stuck in his throat, his eyes are closed, seemingly content to take a load off and soak in the sounds. 

You settle in too, not as comfortably as he has, but enough to let out whatever tensions left over. You’ll miss this place. 

The garden always was your favorite, Leon had the gazebo installed year five as an anniversary gift, one peek at the board of magazine clippings you kept was all it took for him to hire contractors and plan it out. You’d bought flower bulbs in bulk just so you had something to do while he painted it white. 

Come spring it always brought in all sorts of bugs and pollinators — mourning cloaks, and sootywings on overcast days, monarchs and swallowtails if the sun was bright enough. You wonder if the next family will tear it down in favor of a pool or something. A playground for the children you and Leon never got around to having or if they’d install one of those little playgrounds like the neighbors had. 

Absent-mindedly, you bring up a random memory that pops up in your head. “You remember when the neighbors built that privacy fence and put that big ass camera up?”

Leon snorts, he pries his eyes open and stares at nothing in particular. “That guy was a nut job.” Leon mutters.

You laugh and shift in your seat, conversation rumbles to life, purring contentedly. “We always had shitty neighbors.” You hum, dipping further in. It’s easy to talk about the past. “Remember back when we lived in those shady apartments?” 

It takes Leon a while, but it dawns on him eventually. He only lived in two apartment complexes with you, the last one was nice and isolated, notably. The unit across was empty the two years you both stayed there — something about it being the landlord's show unit. 

That leaves the other option, and those apartments make way more sense. The apartments he used to live in near the DSO, back when he actually valued being on time and you two had just started dating. Living there was fine for him; it wasn't until you moved in that he realized he had to get you both out of there. Being near a government building doesn’t necessarily guarantee the people’ll be model citizens.

“Yeah. Yeah I do.” He grunts. “The guy who always thought we were stealing his packages. Asshole tried breaking in didn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” It sounds ugly when he puts it like that. “He was just…on something.”

Leon rolls his eyes and stares at you deadpan. ‘On something.’ It doesn’t exactly give a man permission to bust down a door over what ended up being a package that got held by customs. That’s another thing, you always downplayed things. It’s a huge part of why he can’t believe you when you say it’s not his fault. 

He’s known you for years and still can’t find a real deal-breaking fault, but he can pinpoint all of his. So how is he supposed to think that somehow you’re the reason this didn’t work? 

“Right.” he drags it out, making it clear he doesn’t believe you. He wasn’t home for it, so all he ever had to go off of was the frantic phone call you’d made. That guy was on something, though. Had to be. “I should’ve just moved into your place.” 

You quirk a brow. Your place? 

Your apartment before him was less of a home and more of a shoebox, it had the basics but that was it. One bedroom that instantly transitioned into kitchen, dining room and entryway. If the neighbors smoked, you smelled it.

You huff. “My place wasn’t any better.” 

At least Leon’s had a hallway. And it was near a park you’d both frequented when he wasn’t too tired after work. Dumbarton Oaks with its fields of peonies, tulips and draping wisteria. 

You don’t think you can ever go back to it without thinking about Leon, he’s cursed to haunt the grounds with you forever, your hand in his, his eyes on you.

Your lips curl slightly at the edges. He loved that place in the spring too. You turn your head to face him a little better. “Do you remember—“

“Sorry I never got you that dog.” Leon says out of the blue. 

Whatever you’d wanted to drudge up slinks back into sludge. It gets a little reaction out of you though, the words die in your throat. Your expression is a mix of bewilderment and amusement - brows twitching, lips pursing. Why does that matter now? 

It’s a cliche, the pet every couple gets and then has to coparent. You forgot all about that, he’s dusted those memories off and buffed them out. The late night conversations that came whenever you’d bring it up come roaring to the forefront, the ones that always ended up turning into plans for the future. 

At the time, you’d shown him some big, dumb looking chocolate lab with its tongue lolled out and its head cocked to the side, of course he said no. It was too big a dog.

‘We should get a dog, there’s this shelter nearby that...’ 

‘…No, we don’t even have room for a dog that big…‘ 

‘…we can only get a dog if our kid asks for one? That’s not fair, that’s so far away!’

‘Sounds fair to me, princess. A dogs a big responsibility…’

‘Yeah, I know. I had three, but what if…’

But that was then. This is now. A dog really would’ve been nice, it would’ve made the house feel a little less lonely, Leon wouldn’t have had to install so many cameras if you had gotten a big dog like you wanted but…

“Sorry, what were you gonna say?”

You wave the memories away, tuck them back into whatever box they tumbled out of. “No it’s fine,” You tuck one leg up onto the bench and wrap your arms around it. 

“I know you were like, scared of them.” 

Leon scoffs,  “I wasn’t scared of dogs.” It sounds absurd. It sounds weak when you put it like that out loud. Leon. The D.S.O. 's legendary and longest standing agent. Leon.

Leon S. Kennedy. Afraid of dogs. 

“You’re not?”

“No, it’s just,” he pauses, and you wish you’d just let it go. 

There’s a story there he never told you. You wish you couldn’t read him so well either, but his eyes tighten around the corners and give him away, he never could look you straight in the eye when he was hiding something or lying. 

“Does it really matter now?” He settles for that, doesn’t mean to sound so bitter, but he does. 

There’s a lot of things Leon never told you about nor explained; the keychain, the nightmares, why he’d been so exhausted as of late, and why he’d pulled away and why he’d been disappearing, — another thing you had to forgive, your lawyer would’ve hounded him in court if you hadn’t. — everything is on a need to know basis, and you technically, don’t need to know. 

There’s no point in badgering him in attempts to get him to spill his guts. These things really do just…not matter anymore, if you couldn’t get him to be honest while married or at least extend a sliver of an olive branch, then what’s the point in trying to do it now? 

They can remain as he’d like them; mystery’s, left abandoned to collect dust alongside the memories. 

You try for something light hearted, your smile is soft at the edges, understanding as much as it could be. “It’s fine to be afraid of dogs.” You tease and roll your eyes, nudge his shoulder with yours. “I would’ve been fine with a cat. Or a little dachshund, we didn’t have to get a lab.”

Leon rolls his eyes and leans away from you, slumps into his corner of the bench. It isn’t odd for him to do this, now that he’s got a grip on himself he does this when he’s found himself needled. Instead of reaching for the bottle, he shuts the doors and searches for some sort of reprieve, walks circles in that head of his and still lets the concept of ‘talking things out’ go forgotten.

Ah, you’ve walked yourself into a trap. Your smile falters, and just like that, the easy going atmosphere dissipates like a drop of water in a hot pan. 

Was it something you said? (Of course it was.) Or was it something you hadn’t? Did he want an apology? Some sort of understanding? Maybe you should’ve brushed it off, said ‘No, I really really didn’t want a dog anyways, let’s talk about the park please.’ and steered the course back to safer waters. 

It doesn’t matter, you repeat. It really doesn’t. You’re stuck in a loop of apathy, dancing to a tune you don’t quite recognize and can’t turn off. The pitter patter of rain softens its sharp edges, though it doesn’t completely erase the need to fill it with something light hearted. 

You glance down at the tan line on your ring finger. It’ll take a while to go away, a lighter shade to remind you of what once was until you slip on another. Though you doubt you’ll remarry. Your eyes find Leon again, you wish it was easy to get lost in your thoughts and forget he’s here, let the minutes pass in relative peace; it’s harder to ignore the fact he’s still got his ring on.

You curl your fist and pray he hasn’t noticed yours is missing, it’s tucked away in velvet, left on your vanity to lose its sparkle. The guilt settles heavy in your heart, a snake creeping through the grass that makes you think twice; why does he still have it on? Was it too early to take it off? 

There must be some sort of guideline to divorce etiquette you’re missing. 

Was there a vital bullet point tucked in one of the blog posts you skimmed through that you actually needed to read? ‘The Do’s and Dont’s of divorce; don’t take your ring off until months after your divorce is settled, it looks bad if you do.’ or some other quirky point written by some ‘journalist’. 

The answer to why he has his on is simple, why kid yourself? Leon didn’t want this, there’s no room for miscommunication there. No oh, well, maybe he knew it was dead and didn’t want to pull the plug first, no chance of saying it was mutual even if it might be amicable. 

He took so long to sign the papers, dragged his feet and had his lawyer plead for separation first instead under the guise of managing assets and other legal jargon neither of you ever thought you'd have to care for. 

You know he was hoping you’d change your mind, that therapy would’ve made you have a come to Jesus moment and rescind your demand. Unfortunately for him, it hadn’t. And at the altar when he’d said forever and always; he’d meant it, every single word. 

Then, his hair had been shades brighter and a little shorter, his eyes less crinkled at the edges, his suit and tie impossibly starched and a cold sweat had settled at the nape of his neck, he’d stopped wiping it away lest other people notice. 

It was funny to look back on, Mr. Suave rendered down to a fidgeting groom the second the organ began. Every nerve had lit itself on fire the moment you’d walked down the aisle to meet him at the finish line. 

At what moment in time had the spark fizzled? What had he missed? (Besides birthdays, trips you’d started to organize alone - no longer clinging to hoping he’d get the days off, and date nights.)

Suddenly the world’s been turned over on its head and he’s meant to forget all about you and all the things you like. Life is supposed to go on and he’s supposed to let the feeling of your hand in his become a distant memory; you’ll be preserved in an imperfect film, the exact moment you fell out of love burned away in the negatives.

One thing resurfaces, however, was this why?

“You think we waited too long to have kids?” Leon asks with the subtlety of breaking glass. Was it then? Had he waited too long? You never gave him a clear answer the night you’d asked for divorce, he can’t help but want to peel it all back and get some clarity. 

Would you have stayed if he had gotten you pregnant? The question buzzes around in Leon’s head violently, he’s poked a hornets nest, the poison sinks into his system because the answers yes, isn’t it? 

You stiffen visibly, the spotlight is rather harsh. Your heart stutters and comes to a stop in your chest. You hate this line of questioning, everything in your body’s gotten the jitters. So it seems he remembers those conversations too. The topic always came up, in conversation with friends, after grocery trips, in the comfortable silence that followed after dinner. 

The house always felt like something was missing. A dog, a cat, a damned parrot. Something that made noise. Something that breathed life into this house. Anything so long as it wasn’t just you and the late night news. 

Those two little babies always manifest and never go away when you think about them too hard. The pitter patter of little feet running up the stairs. A boy with that cute little dimple in his chin. A girl with moles scattered around like ink droplets. 

What traits or physical attributes would they have gotten from you? Would they have been all Leon in the face or would hints of you be there too? You would’ve torn the gazebo out for them too if they wanted a pool. But, you have to let them go. 

You know now the solution would’ve never been children, they would’ve simply been just that; another thing that would’ve filled the silence that came after he was gone.

The only semi-truthful answer you can find comes out naturally. “I…I don’t know.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye. Leon’s jaw is shut tight, molars working against themselves to death.

You’ve come to terms with that, it’s too late to have any of your own either way. No choice but to march on with time. You don’t resent him for wasting your youth, Leon couldn’t ever change the fact he was a man who would’ve never really been home, you knew that when you married him. 

You just thought that something would’ve changed down the time. Maybe things would've been different. 

That’s on you isn’t it? 

“Did you really want kids?” You don’t shy away from asking. Dreaming out loud with Leon was your favorite pastime.

Leon rubs his hand against the scruff on his chin, manages to grit out, “Always wanted a girl.” He risks it, meets your gaze head on. “Would’ve looked like you.” 

Your eyes widened slightly, thrown off guard. “Still?”

You figured he would’ve changed his mind and wanted a boy like every other guy seemed to want, could’ve raised him up to be like himself. Named him Leon Jr or something dorky. Just not Scott. You wouldn’t have let him name your son something that dorky. Leon can let that die with him.

“Yeah.” Leon smiles, it brightens the storm clouds around him, it's infectious, you feel your own lips itching to match his mood. He’d have been a good girl dad, he’s got some experience, after all. 

“Yeah?” You reach out and shove him lightly, a real smile tugging on your lips. “You would’ve annoyed the hell out of her.” For the first time since you’ve started this whole process, Leon chuckles. The sound is low and rich though carrying a weight he lets out in the sigh that follows. 

“You annoyed the hell out of me.” You murmur in jest, it’s lighthearted, he knows. “But she would’ve loved you for it, I loved you for it.” You rest your cheek against the top of your knee and trace the lines on his face, he’s still as handsome as the day you met him, you don’t even notice what you’re starting to say. 

“Still do.”

Leon stares back, his eyes have widened a bit but that all doesn’t matter much now. He’s still your tired Leon with his sad blue eyes, worry lines etched in his forehead. With his greys poking out through the blonde — if it could even be considered that anymore, it’s as brown as ale now, aged just like that. — that frames his face. He barely even has smile lines but he musters another big one up for you, accentuates them. 

“Yeah?” He rumbles lowly.

You don’t retract it. “Yeah.” 

Time itself seems to come at a standstill, everything else blurs. And suddenly, it’s the first summer you both spent out in the countryside after he came back from Spain, and it’s beginning to feel like you never uttered ‘I think this just isn’t working anymore.’ to him.

It rained then too. You could almost pretend that’s where you’re at again, out in the middle of nowhere skinny dipping like brain dead teens in horror flicks, he’d questioned how smart the idea was yet still followed you into the lake muttering warnings to ward off ‘big ass fishes’.

Leon shifts in his seat, turns his body towards you subtly. This is a bad idea. You swallow the thought, Don’t, don’t.. your heart races in your ears and drowns out any reason.

You shouldn’t play with his feelings. Your gaze is pulled downward to settle on his lips, dusky pink and still plush. Don’t. You remember when he’d stopped shaving, somewhere in between 2014 and 2015, you used to hate the beard burn then, you wouldn’t mind feeling it again now.

“I’m sorry, I…” You mutter, “I..I shouldn’t have…”

Leon’s eyes flick down just a fraction too. He always did like the slow burn, you’d play coy and dance around what you wanted, and it’s killing him to know all he’ll have after this is memories that’ll slip through his hands like sand. 

The fractures start to show, eyes lingering a second too long for people who are supposed to be moving on after this. The distance between you two became negligible somewhere along the lines enough for them to have long dissolved. 

You both move at the same time, all coordination goes forgotten when you come to connect, his nose knocks against yours before your lips finally meet again after having spent half a year apart. Your other hand latches onto the front of his shirt, his finds the curve of your cheek, the jigsaws always fall into place.

Your tongue rolls over and against his, the scant space when lips part is filled with shared breaths and desperate pants, the rains pouring down eagerly now, splashing off the gazebos railing and splattering against the stone, but none of that matters now, not when he’s hauling you onto his lap by your hips like old times. 

Your hand reaches out to tangle in his hair as you shift  and crowd him against the benches corner, Leon’s hand grips your waist, adjusting your thighs to bracket his. 

“Right here?” He cracks one eye open. Yours are screwed shut.

“Mhm.” You pant, your breath is hot against his lips, his teeth clack against yours. “Please.”

That sweet little ‘please’ does all the work for you, his blood rushes southbound all in one millisecond, they left one blood cell in charge upstairs and that one too is screaming ‘go! go! go!’. 

Leon keeps you firmly on his lap, one hand rests against the small of your back while the other scrambles down south, working his fly open just enough for future ease. Your lips meet his time and time again, it’s nice to kiss him when he doesn’t taste like whiskey, even better after being deprived of him for so long, you’ll ignore that it’s self inflicted. 

His tongue licks into your mouth softly, swipes against yours with a sigh of relief. How long has he been thinking of doing this again? Too long. It’s hard to kill his attraction for you, it isn’t some switch he can just turn off. 

You’re it for him, you always were and always will be. It doesn’t matter if he’s gotta sit parallel to you and sign his name on a line come Monday, if it makes you happy. He’ll do it. But right now he can be a little selfish, can’t he?

“This is a bad idea.” You hiss, a reminder to you both, his hand still works its way up your ass, hiking your pencil skirt up enough to expose a whisper of lace. 

“I know.” Leon murmurs against your lips, swallows down whimpers and gasps alike. “Just once. ‘s all it has to be.”

Liar, liar, liar, liar— 

You cling onto that just once and guide his hands. He’s right. It’s all it has to be. Just one teensy mistake.

You nod dumbly, helping him shove your panties aside, his fingers prod along your slit clumsily, that sharp intake when he dips them between flesh makes you feel slightly self conscious, you’re wet, unmistakably so. He parts your folds with a quiet click and all your worries melt away the second he finds your clit, rubs it softly with his index and makes you stutter out a sweet little moan.

“You needed this, huh?” Leon huffs, it’s easy to fall into line, he hasn’t forgotten this dance just yet, his fingers circle and your clit, “Didn’t mean to let it get this bad.” 

Your eyes flutter shut before opening again to watch his face. Leon presses his forehead against yours and closes his own. Two slip in down to the knuckle and out to the tip, rhythmically pumping into your entrance playfully, enough to stimulate, not enough to please. 

He did let it get this bad, what with him being gone all the time and leaving you with nothing but a bunch of plastic to fill in the gaps, how gracious of him to finally make it up to you. But you won’t leave him hanging, even if you should.

“Let me help,” You sighed, “please?” 

There it is again, that magic word. He never could say no to you, didn’t help he never wanted to in the first place. Leon shifts slightly, tips his hips up and lets you do all the work, it’s hard to focus on anything else but the warmth radiating from between your legs. 

Your hand slipped in between you both to find his length, through the fabric of his briefs he’s warm but noticeably, soft. Half-hard, if you were generous, nearly flaccid if you weren’t, it would’ve been a bit of a blow to your ego if the problem was you there. But it wasn’t. Your hand still slips into that weird little gap in his briefs, it was for easy access you assumed.

It was him, age does these things after all, nothing to be ashamed about, though you know he is, in fact, ashamed. You can count on your hands how many times you’ve seen him get pouty when you’d recommend that little blue pill.

“Still having problems?” You murmur against his lips, languidly stroking him to life, thumb rubbing the vein along the side, slipping up to tug the skin encasing his frenulum down, worrying the edge of his cock head til it starts to weep pearly beads of pre-cum.

“Don’t put it like that.” Leon groaned, pushing his cock further into the cradle of your hand, rubbing his fingers through your folds a little harder before lightly smacking them against your pussy for punishment, you jolt and squeeze a little too hard. “Still working, isn't it?”

Now it is. You rut against his fingertips for more, press a kiss to the tip of his nose and smoosh your forehead against his. “Yeah.” You glance down in between you both, watching your hands work in tandem, his stuffed between your thighs, yours working over his lap. 

Leon’s cock stiffens up to attention, all his blood going right where it needs to be, thickened up and engorged as much as it could possibly go, your thumb drags a few more beads down to slicken him up, palm twisting to work him not over, but nearly. 

Your eyes squeeze shut, your strokes lose their rhythm, blurring faster than you intended, you could never lie that when it comes to this, Leon knows you as well as you know him, maybe even more so, he’d turned you into his own pull apart - put back together attraction over the span of a decade or two and somehow never managed to get bored. 

Always found something new to fixate over, a new place to bite, another to nip and suckle at. If you were in your bedroom, he’d have you belly down, ass up for the next hour or with his arm coiled around your neck, but, alas. From here on out, you could only dream. 

A choked whine leaves your lips, the slick that’s collected on his fingers makes for easy traction, his fingers work in earnest, two spread your entrance open, scissoring before twisting in deeper. Leon feels the exact moment the pads of his digits start to bully your sweet spot, your cunt clings to him and your whimpers scream: Right there, there, there, there— 

But, he stops and pulls out abruptly. Your pussy clenches strongly around nothing, a protest of its own that leaves you chasing the feeling you’re being suddenly denied of, humping the air and wondering where his fingers went. It isn’t long until you figure it out. 

You let go of his cock when you feel him take over for you, gripping at the base and effectively relieving you of duty.

“You ready?” His other hand cups the bottom of your ass cheek and tugs it aside, spreading you open and lining himself up clumsily. The tip of his cock nudges against your opening and notches itself to land. You bite the tip of your tongue and fight the urge to impale yourself with him.

“C’mon, yes or no.” Your eyes flick up to Leon’s face. He’s so smug. Staring up at you with that little gleam in his eyes and an easy grin. He sinks you down just an inch more, watches you gasp before tugging you back up. Bastard.

“Yes, please.” You nod dumbly and wrap your arms around him like he’s come home from a particularly long mission, let your body cover his and spread your legs as much as you can without making it hard on him.

The ruddy tip of his cock kisses your folds again, he misses once before he finally notches himself in, parts them with relative ease, sinking in deeper inch by inch and ignoring how his cock kicks and throbs with each warm sigh you let out against him. Your pussy is mind-meltingly warm, slick and viselike, if he weren’t careful he would’ve shoved himself into you instantaneously. 

Leon was big, there’s no room for arguing there, he’s always had a cock that makes you think twice before going in with little to no preamble like this, if it hadn’t been for his hands holding you steady you would’ve squirmed away, begged him to kiss it better and really work you open with his fingers, not whatever he was doing before. 

It felt like he was splitting you open in the best and worst ways possible, each whimper and whine soothed away bit by bit by him shushing you and rubbing little circles into the divots of your hips to distract you.

One thought makes its way through the haze. You aren’t going to last, your thighs squeeze shut as best as they can, granting your poor clit the friction it’s still begging for, though in a small amount. It’s hard for Leon to focus on lasting in the first place too when your pussy hugs him so tightly, it misses him, that much is clear. 

Maybe that’s the part of you that misses him more than your heart does. 

His fingers dimple the fat of your hips, squeezing and kneading, savoring the way flesh gives beneath the pads of his fingertips, if he holds on hard enough he won’t let himself get carried away by the wave. 

“You okay?” Leon pants. He presses kisses where your cleavage is pressed against his face. Suffocate him, why don’t you? 

You peer down and catch his gaze. Leon’s pupils are blown, black swallows up blue until it’s a thin line just around, eyes half-lidded like he’s on downers and ready to nod off. You like Leon most when he’s just as lost as you are, makes you wonder why you stopped having sex in the first place.

“Uh-huh,” You cradle the back of his head and press him closer against you. “C’mon, kiss ‘em for me.” Your other hand tugs the cups of your breast down just a bit, enough to pop a tit out and offer it up for his pleasure. 

You don’t have to tell Leon twice, he takes one into his mouth and teases your nipple between his teeth, biting down hard enough to make you shudder out a moan and shut your eyes. The pleasure-pain has your pussy clenching around him tighter than it has before.

“Fuck,” Leon hisses in between kisses, his hips jolt forward to chase his own pleasure now that your body’s reminded him exactly where his dicks at. Leon starts to steadily rut up into you like it’s your last day on earth. 

And in a way he isn’t wrong, it surely feels like it is. 

Any moment now a big rock will come flying down and wipe out humanity and you’ll die in his arms like you’re meant to. Vows always speak of for better or for worse, until death do us part. So what is he to do after this?

His palm slides down to grip onto the soft flesh of your ass, uses it as leverage and holds you just where he wants you. He’d take you hostage if he didn’t have morals. 

You tip your head back and let out a low throaty moan, arch closer and plaster your tits further against his mouth. “Shit—” You whine, your hands plant themselves firmly against his shoulders, “Leon,”

Your mouth hangs open, half choked moans and words tumbling out in between gasps. Leon’s constantly adjusting his hold on you, starting to become uncertain with where to put his hands. Too pussy drunk to really care, each thrust sends a wave of heat through your core.

Your nails dug in as much as they could, praying they’ll rip through fabric and make contact with skin, score him to make certain he’s real and this isn’t some dream you’ll wake up from to find yourself sweat slicked and embarrassed to see you’ve rutted yourself against a pillow.

How long has it been since he’s last fucked you? A year? Two? Your cunt answers for you, too soaked for it to have been any less. No, it couldn’t have been that long. The last time you’re certain he had you like this was after he’d come back from the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t narrow it down but you know you’d been crying then too. 

You always do.

Wait.

You’re crying? 

You open your eyes and stare up at the roof, a snotty intake of air and a real sob is all Leon needs to hear to come to this realization too. Your chest expands and stutters half way. You’re crying?? The lump in your throat is confirmation.

“Why’re you crying?” Leon rasps out, your heart is being squeezed in a vice, he slows his thrust. His cock slides in and out in languid, syrupy strokes meant to let you get a grip, give him an answer that isn’t ’I don’t know.’ or a moan.

You force yourself to tilt your head down, sobbing softly against him. It’s not that you don’t know what you’re about to say, it’s that fucking Leon without saying it feels wrong. You love him. You do love him. Enough to let him go. Enough to not let your relationship deteriorate further. You still love him enough to be able to say it and mean it. 

“I love you,” You whisper hoarsely, “God, I love you.”  your own hips start to work themselves in tandem with his, taking him in deep and whimpering when the tip of his cock starts to shift from hammering against that little spot to grinding against it, wringing stars out from the sky’s above. 

Leon groans like you’ve punched him in the gut, in a way you did, his head tips back and rests against the bench’s back rest. His eyes screw shut. You don’t mean that. You couldn’t mean that. Not while you’re drunk off pleasure and high off the tension, it isn’t real this way. 

“I love you,” You repeat raggedly, dipping your head down to hide against the crook of his neck, your spines being lit ablaze, flames traveling up the base to melt your brain. You whine his name and curl further into him. He shifts just enough to press his forehead against yours again. His jaw clenches.

Your noses bump against each other unapologetically. 

“I know,” He grunts, “I got you, fuck, baby I got you. Always do.”

The truth is, he doesn’t. He hardly ever had time for you those last few months. And you can’t stand feeling so alone anymore, missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries...it all piled up. You’d rather die than end up one of those bitter bored housewives who stayed for the money. 

You love Leon enough to know he deserves better. You know he feels guilty for not being home so often, it’s best to just rip the bandaid off now. 

At least for now you can believe it, pretend everything’s alright. It feels like it is. It feels like you’re twenty six again, giggling under his bedsheets and finding out what makes him tick all over again. Pressing kisses against his face and teasing him for going redder than he already was. 

You open your eyes to find he’s already staring at you. So close you can see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and that his lashes have got greys too. 

He's close. You can recognize that expression anywhere. His lips are pulled up in a pained snarl. His grunts turning to groans, slipping past his lips and reminding you how pretty he sounds when he’s about to cum. 

“I love you too,” He parrots, catches your bottom lip between his teeth and presses his against yours again, swallows your words before either can dig the grave deeper. His arm bands around the small of your back, his fingers dig into the fat of your waist, hips smacking up against yours, that nasty squelch of slick flesh meeting again and again emanating louder between you two.

Your throat closes up, the knot that’s formed behind your navel starts to pull loose little by little, your half-bit keen comes in time with the pulsing of your inner muscle around him, if he’s delusional enough, he could believe you’re apologizing for breaking his heart in morse code. 

Your hips twitched and jerked as you squirm and pull off, crying out that it’s too much, what hasn’t been emptied inside you spurted out and trickled down the length of his cock, both of your chests heaved in similar cadences, body’s going tense to jelly like in a matter of seconds, boneless and gone to the word.

Only when you met his gaze again and the afterglow started to fade, did you realize what exactly happened.

— x-x-x-x-x-x —

You stuff your compact mirror back into your purse.

For the last five minutes you’ve been scrubbing away the evidence off your face. Mascara trails down beneath your eyes, bits flake off and coat your cheeks like soot. Tirelessly, you’ve tried wiping away the flushed color from your cheeks, ignoring the way they burn. 

While it’s easy to blame the rain for your dishevelment, it’s harder to ignore the jelly-like condition that’s suddenly rendered your legs useless.

Leon stands awkwardly behind you, he’s been adjusting his jacket for the past couple of minutes, tucking his collar up, slipping the extra in his waist band before pulling it back out, and sneaking glances he thinks you don’t notice.

God. The silence is worse this time around.

Your gut churns violently like waves crashing again and eroding a cliffslide. You’re stupid. You’re an idiot. An ingénue who let herself get carried away with the storm and scrabbled for land, solid and familiar. It’s still raining, it’s worse than before actually. You wonder if that’s the world trying to tell you something, maybe it’s berating you; for fucking him after divorcing him, for divorcing him in the first place, for telling him you loved him during, for not taking it back after. 

Where would you two be if Leon had just tried? Would you have managed to find happiness again? Would he have found the time to come back to you as he was? 

You didn’t mind having him jaded, drunk, mean, anything so long as he was there. You patched over those gaps, tucked them away out of sight, out of mind because at least he was there. Ugly and down in it, drowning in the currents right there with you. 

And you know to some extent that these shadows and breaks were necessary, that he had to keep you in the dark and away from him as much as possible, it isn’t his fault. Leon couldn’t have known you’d grow this tired, he suspected it was a possibility, but he never let himself really acknowledge it. You’d vowed to each other, hadn’t that meant something? 

Maybe it’s for the best things ended this way. There’s no real way to patch a fracture this wide, no way to bridge it when one party can’t compromise. Things are easier this way, they’ll have to be. What other choice do you have?

You already were indifferent to some degree towards the end, if you’d have ended up really hating him, wishing he’d just die in some corner of the world so you could collect…You scrub your hands against your face again. You’d rather this than that.

Your face is wet, breaths come out in puffs against your shaking hands and you wonder if it’s left over droplets from the rain or fresh tears. Does Leon regret this as much as you do? God, you could just take it all back, throw yourself at him and beg; ‘Please don’t let me divorce you, call the lawyers, it was a mistake, I'm so sorry hun’, i’m so stupid, I love you.’ 

You could try, you could get on your knees and grovel and Leon would hold you like he always did, he’d kiss the top of your head and cradle you like you’re something soft and small and in his arms you’d believe you were, he’d say you’re not stupid and he’d promise you things like he always has—

“That can’t happen again.” You blurt out. The rustle of fabric behind you stops. Your tongues gone numb between your teeth, bad habit. 

You don’t want to turn around, your bloods both frozen in your veins and boiling hot bubbling beneath skin, the silence behind you is deafening, until you hear Leon exhale through his teeth.

When he finally opens his mouth, he tries for a joke like always, “Was it that bad?” 

It doesn’t take a genius to hear it’s lacking his usual bravado. ‘No hard feelings’, you could hear it clear as day in his tone. 

“No, it’s just…” You keep your hands pressed against your face then they slap against your sides rather loudly. Don’t make me say it, you want to say. Won’t you please tell me? you could hear him say in return if he knew.

You force yourself to turn and take one look at him, a risk, and it tells you all you need to know. He came to the conclusion the moment you’d scrambled back inside, it’s in your eyes, in your pinched brows and pouted lips, in the tears you hide under the guise of rain droplets.

“No, I know. I shouldn’t have let it go that far.” Leon apologizes first and your heart splits in two to hear that dejected tone he’s trying to hide so hard beneath gruff timbre. Your Leon, always the one to take the blame. 

Your vision blurs again, tears stinging like nettles. ‘I’m sorry, Leon.’ is all you should say, all you could say. You’d repeat it over and over again until you both believed it. But it’s exactly what you won’t say. Leon’s zipped his jacket up and settled against the doorframe, you need to pull the plug, he needs to pull it. 

It’d be better if you took one for the team, let him be the one who leaves first for once. 

“My rides almost here." You swipe at your eye and mumble. You’ve no idea where your friend is, forty minutes have long since passed. “I’ll um…I’ll see you Monday.”

Leon stays silent, stares at the floor, then at you. You think he’ll say something, fight you about it, force you to shake off this weird mood so it can be like before again. Instead he just hesitates and nods, always too good at taking orders.

“Yeah.” He mutters, patting his pockets for his phone and his keys before he reaches for the door handle. “See you.”

The door closes with a click shut behind him, and maybe you preferred the silence from before. You don’t know what’s worse. That look on his face, the flat sound of his voice, or being left behind to wait alone in this big empty house. 

Watching Leon go still makes a lump form in your throat. Reminds you of the nights he’d wake you before he went off on some mission, leaving you behind with a soft kiss and a ‘Love you, be home soon.’ 

After a few minutes of mind numbing silence, you move towards the window on your own accord and lean against the window, just out of sight. Leon’s already sitting in his Porsche, head pressed against the steering wheel. 

The rain trickles down the pane and obscures your vision. You think after today, you’ll come to hate it too. 

well, not exactly. toji zenin has his biceps flexing under the weight of crates but his eyes don’t lift to the shelf he places them on. instead his pupils flit to the automatic entrance doors, thick & glass-heavy, before he glances at his watch & back to the door again. 12:30 PM sunday. toji knows you should be here by now.

but you’re not, so toji’s lip twitches as he stares at the box of freezies in his arms and sighs. it’s pathetic, really. he’s got five more boxes of who-knows-what to arrange before the end of his shift but he can’t fucking focus. his mind’s on your short skirt & pretty laugh & the way your voice goes sweet whenever he pretends to help you look for items while holding your hand between the aisles. toji grunts, shakes his head. focus focus focus.

“toji.. can you help me reach the olive oil? the cold-pressed one with the pretty label?”

toji’s head snaps up so fast he almost drops the box of freezies.

it’s you—oh god, it’s you, and you’re looking down at him with those pretty lashes & short skirt & your hands holding a basket behind your back. you’re in those cute kitten heels you had on the first time he saw you—did you get your nails done? so pretty. you’re so pretty, you’re always so pretty, and toji’s mouth dries.

he doesn’t say anything because he can’t, because your perfume smells like honey & has his lungs sticking to his throat—but he slowly stands up anyway. you’re humming to yourself as you pad closer, getting in his way, heel clicking against the tile as he traps you in the aisle.

he reaches up to the glass bottle, and he can see your lashes fluttering up at him. your chest presses against his, and his lip ticks upward.

“you want this, princess?” he mumbles.

you playfully swat his chest, but your palm doesn’t slide off. you’re caressing his pecs now, teasing. “toji, give it to me. i have a pasta to make tonight. i’m busy.”

toji chuckles, slipping the bottle into your basket and letting his palm sneak over your waist instead. your hands are still on his pecs, lightly squeezing as you laugh when he tugs you closer. he nuzzles your jaw, murmuring, “only if i get an invite, sweetheart.”

“we’ll see,” you tease as his tongue licks your earlobe. you’re running a thumb over the silver tag on his chest: TOJI. “if you’re good, maybe i’ll let you wash the dishes.”

he kisses your neck. “m’always good for you, baby.”

you’re giggling now, shoving him away with flushed cheeks & a laugh too bright. toji catches your hands, tugging you back with a smile on his face before squeezing your hips. your lips are so glossy. is that the new gloss you bought last week? can he kiss it off?

he’ll never know, because he’s holding your hips while you tug at his collar and whisper something he doesn’t care about in his ear. his manager calls his name.

fuck.

toji gives your hips one last squeeze. “go pay, princess. i’ll bag your stuff.”

“you better.” you huff, spoiled & sweet, and toji can only watch the sway of your hips as you make your way to the register.

you’re a pretty girl with a posh life who will never know lack. toji’s a 24-year-old who’s still in college, working odd jobs with a son waiting at home.

in the third aisle of the local loblaws, toji zenin has his hands on his hips and his eyes on the ground. toji zenin will never say it out loud, but he knows he will never, ever, get the girl.

ⵌ AT THE FRATHOUSE !

“you can’t pull someone like y/n, no offense.”

toji wishes suguru wouldn’t spell it out. he already knows, for christ’s sake.

in sigma chi’s living room, toji zenin is sprawled out on the center rug while suguru and sato eat on the floor beside him. sato is between geto’s legs with his back against geto’s chest & his toe tickling toji’s jaw through his socks. suguru is tilting his shawarma for sato to bite from before taking a bite of his own.

sato’s about to dish out an insult of his own when the door swings open. in comes ryomen sukuna, standing in the doorway with bags in his hands and his limbs stretched out like some sort of clown. he bellows, “therapy fucking sucked today. i still don’t think i need therapy, by the way. watching porn and jerking off is completely normal—fuck you, suguru.”

“maybe it is,” suguru’s lips are sticky with shawarma sauce, “but having your dick out in the same room as other people is not.”

“a young man can’t be an exhibitionist? suck my dick, man.”

“oh, i’m not hungry..”

sukuna trudges over toji’s legs, then plops on the ground opposite sato and suguru. sato throws him the middle finger with a grin. sukuna throws it back. “i brought drinks. toji, why’re you on the floor? ya need therapy too?”

sato snickers. “toji’s fallen for a rich girl.”

sukuna snorts, “don’t even joke, lad.” but suguru and toji aren’t laughing. his brows scrunch. “wait—“ he turns to toji, “you’re serious?”

toji eyes him. “mind your own business.”

sukuna doesn’t believe in complex schools of thought like ‘minding your business.’ so instead of picking a shawarma for himself and eating in silence, he joins sato and nudges his foot against toji’s cheek. “does she know you’re poor?”

“hey, hey,” geto bites his cheek, “not too much on him.”

but sukuna continues. “what about the kid? does she know you have a son?”

toji’s jaw only tightens.

sukuna looks at toji in disbelief. then at sato, then suguru—then shakes his head, laughing. “jesus christ of jollof rice,” he cracks open a beer, “you’re fucking cooked, bro.”

toji drags his hands over his face. his eyes are hot, for some reason.

suguru sighs, resting his chin on sato’s head as sato munches happily underneath him. “i hate to suggest this, but there’s a way you can get her to give you a chance.”

sukuna and toji both perk up.

“if she doesn’t know about meg—or your, uh, economics,” suguru clears his throat, “then you keep it that way. she thinks you’re some hot older uni student who works at loblaws for beer money. lean into it.”

sato frowns. “this sounds like something i’d suggest. so not good, i think.”

suguru pokes his cheek, making sato’s pout grow deeper. “i’m just spit-balling here. it’s obvious you really like her, toji. and megumi needs a mommy.”

“i don’t like her because i want her to play housewife.”

“we know,” suguru’s smile is affectionate. “that’s why we’ll help you.”

sukuna grunts in agreement. “sounds scummy but it makes sense. if she finds out you’re a baby daddy with no money, she’ll just run back to her range rover.” he takes another swig of his beer. “we’ll help you hide your true identity. you just get her hooked enough that when she eventually does find out, she won’t leave.”

sato nods. “we’ll babysit. lend you money. heck—you can drive my porsche to your dates.”

on the floor, toji zenin is staring towards the ceiling. it’s a stupid plan, his frat brothers are even stupider, and there is no way in hell whoever is up there will actually let things work out in his favor.

but toji’s desperate. he has been for a long time. so before he can let himself think about it, his lips part to respond.

“alright,” he grunts. “let’s fucking do it.”

SIGMA CHI’S REMARK : DON’T WORRY BRO, WE GOTCHU !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #2: WHO’S YOUR DADDY ?

taught by: sato, sukuna, suguru

“babysitting a five year old brat. how hard could that be?”

ΣΧ

megumi zenin is tufts of black hair, sleepy blue eyes & a tiny fist in a jar full of gummy worms. he’s slumped against his dad’s thick leg, shoving fistfuls of gummies in his mouth with candy-smeared cheeks & a bored expression on his face.

sato, sukuna and suguru are side-by-side on a straight line.

hands tucked behind their backs & chests puffed out like soldiers. toji clears his throat. “listen up. i’m going to be gone for exactly two hours. if i come back and the kid has a single scratch on him, i’m throwing all of you into a pond.“

suguru shakes his head, stepping forward to crouch down to megumi’s height. he wipes megumi’s cheeks with a smile. “don't worry, toji. we've got him. right, little man?”

“hi, uncle sugu,” megumi’s voice is flat but he leans into geto’s palm on his cheek. “are we going to draw today?”

“of course, kiddo. i bought some new crayons just for you.”

toji scoops his son up in his arms, ignoring the way his tiny body writhes towards the gummy worms abandoned on the floor. suguru lifts the jar back to megumi with a smile. sukuna, however, is frowning. “why is his face like that.”

“sukuna, do not fight my kid.”

megumi points towards him. “my daddy calls you a pervert.”

sato bursts out in laughter. suguru’s snickering too, though he’s doing a better job of hiding it. toji drops his son to the ground and crouches to his height. megumi offers him a soggy, wet gummy worm. toji eats it off his palm & pokes his belly.

he rises to his feet. “suguru is in charge. rest of you, keep your hands off him. i’m leaving.”

megumi waves a sticky hand. “bye, daddy. bring me a cookie.”

“will do, brat.” and the door shuts with a thud.

——

“we should go to wonderland. you like amusement parks, ‘gumi?”

megumi zenin has a crayon in his hands, scribbling furiously with a focused expression on his face. he’s seated in geto’s lap, occasionally having suguru hand him a crayon as he perfects his artistic masterpiece. to his right, sato gojo is leaning over the table and talking a mile-a-minute.

megumi answers, scribbling a drawing of what looks like him and his father—DADDY AND ME. “i’ve never been to an amusement park.”

“what?” sato slams his palm on the table, distraught. “what kind of kid has never been to an amusement park?!”

“my father is poor.”

“oh,” sato shrinks. “fairs.”

suguru lets out a fond huff, burying his nose in megumi’s hair to hide the fact that he’s shaking from laughter. sato looks crushed by guilt. “i can’t take this anymore, suguru.” he clutches his chest. “we’re going to the apple store and getting him an ipad pro right now.”

suguru raises a brow. “toji said no screens. and either way, i won’t let you turn him into an ipad kid.”

megumi slumps against geto’s chest. “i want a blue gatorade.”

“i’ll get it for you, buddy,” suguru smiles before kissing his cheek, easing him off his lap. “don’t let sato teach you about investment and stocks while i’m gone, okay?”

sato has his chin on the table, defeated. and just as suguru’s back turns into the kitchen, sukuna saunters in, steps heavy, palm curled around a blue bottle of—is that the last gatorade?!

sukuna cracks the plastic seal, taking a slow, heavy swig of the drink while staring right at the five year old. megumi’s tiny brows furrow. “that’s mine. uncle sugu said i could have it.”

“well,” sukuna licks his lips, slow. “uncle sugu’s not the king of this house.” he takes another gulp, throwing his head back with a refreshed ahhhhhh. megumi frowns, lips tight.

and then he screams.

“uncle sugu! mister pervert’s being mean again!”

sukuna chokes on his gatorade. “who the hell are you calling mister pervert, you little brat—“

sato jumps over the table to hold back sukuna before he can strangle the five-year-old. suguru runs out of the kitchen in alarm, quickly scrambling to hold back sukuna’s wrath alongside sato.

megumi only blinks at the display. three grown men bickering and shoving over gatorade. hell, he’s not so sure he even wants it anymore.

he sighs, reaching across the table to pick up sato’s iphone. he dials his dad’s number, palm smushed into his cheek as he watches suguru smack sukuna for his bad behavior.

ⵌ AT THE DATE !

in the local coffee shop, your lashes are fluttering & the sunlight kisses your skin as you stare out the window.

toji zenin has his heart in his throat. his hands are in his pockets but his ribs are cracked against his chest, and the sight of you pouting out the window has his mouth drying with want. he strolls over regardless, posture lazy, steps cool, because toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.

“hi, princess,” he slides into the booth seat—next to you, not across, because he’s been thinking about the feel of your waist in his hands since last thursday—and his ankle hooks around yours on autopilot.

“hi,” you smile, leaning into his side as he kisses your hair. toji takes your palm in his. your fingers are so dainty. fuck.

“you look nice today,” you hum. “who are you trying to impress?”

your lashes are batting up at him, but toji manages to keep his cool. his smirk is lazy & gorgeous. “you, obviously.”

toji wonders how you can let him touch you so casually. even now he’s nibbling your ear as you talk about something from class—a lazy professor or something else, it’s hard to listen when your thumb brushes his jaw while you speak—and toji’s mind wanders. he’s kissing your neck now, thumbs rubbing circles on your thighs as your breath hitches between words, and toji wonders why you haven’t yet flinched in disgust.

he doesn’t dwell on it too long, though. he knows the topic will only get him down.

so he kisses your neck as you laugh and swat him away, telling him he’s distracting you from your story. you never push him off, though, and your thigh’s on his lap now.

but all good things must come to an end.

toji’s phone buzzes.

loud & obnoxious. SATO, his screen reads. he quickly swipes it away. “sorry…just spam.”

“spam?” you poke his bicep, grinning. “or is your little side piece getting impatient?”

“don’t have a side piece, baby,” he murmurs into your cheek. “only want you.”

1 NEW FACETIME AUDIO CALL : SATO 🤡

his phone has been buzzing for ages now. you sigh, crossing your arms & clearly annoyed. “toji, just answer it. what if it’s an emergency?”

you’re right, he should answer it, because if anything happened to megumi, he’d fucking flip. he bites his lip, “one second, princess.”

he presses his phone to his ear, but megumi’s voice greets him instead.

“daddy! uncle kuna’s trying to kill me because of blue gatorade!”

toji’s eyes widen. from the corner of his eye, he can see you inching closer, brows furrowed in concentration as you try to listen in.

in the background of the call he can hear sato shrieking. “suguru—! use the spatula! use the spatula! sukuna stop—“

you’re blinking at him, inching closer to his bicep on the table. “daddy? who’s calling you daddy?”

toji’s soul leaves his body.

“daddy, are you coming home soon? uncle sugu’s spanking him now. it’s very loud—“

he ends the call before you can hear any more.

“do you have a son?”

toji’s breathing stutters. you’ve inched away from him now, lips bent in a frown, brows furrowed, expression curious—or cautious, toji can’t really tell. and it pains him to lie to you, but what else can he say when you’ve already shifted your thigh off his lap?

“nah,” he answers too fast. “it’s my nephew.”

toji reaches out to thumb your cheek, but you don’t relax into his palm. “think he meant to call my brother, not me.”

he tugs your bottom lip as you speak. “i didn’t know you had a brother…”

“there’s a lot you don’t know about me, princess,” he leans in to kiss the corner of your lips, because he knows he doesn’t deserve any more than that. your pout deepens.

“we can change that though,” he lies, smiling. “wanna get dessert?”

SATO’S REMARK : NICE SAVE, TOJI ! AND MY BAD—HAHA !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #3: BLEACH !

taught by: geto suguru, toru gojo

“inviting her over already? we’ve gotta scrub this place clean, then.“

ΣΧ

toji zenin has one hour to make it seem like megumi doesn’t exist.

geto suguru is scrubbing the bathrooms. toru gojo has somehow been roped into this predicament and is scrubbing away in the kitchen. in the living room, toji zenin is picking up cheerios from the rug, phone in his ear with sukuna on the line.

“hi daddy,”megumi’s voice is flat through the speaker. “uncle kuna’s being nice to me today.”

“that’s great, kiddo. can you put him back on the phone?”

“yo,” sukuna’s voice crackles through.

“if anything happens to my son, i will spread your ass cheeks and sprinkle paprika in the hole.”

“oh.”

“yeah,” toji shifts the phone in his neck. “make sure he has a good time at that amusement park. and don’t let sato spoil him too much.”

“heyyy toji!” sato’s voice crackles through the speaker. toji sighs before grunting back a hello. “keep megumi safe, got it?”

“yes, sir!” / “we got it, boss.” / “bye, daddy!”

toji says his goodbyes. just as he clicks the end button, toru gojo pads into the living room, glasses tilting off his face & slipping rubber gloves off his hands. “all done in the kitchen. remind me why we’re deceiving this poor lady again?”

toji picks up a gummy worm tucked under the rug and cringes. “because she wouldn’t look twice at a broke guy with a kid.”

toru softens, adjusting his glasses. “you don’t know that. have you tried telling her?”

“no.”

“why not?”

"because,” he picks up another gummy worm hidden under the couch, glaring at it before throwing it away. "because every time someone finds out about megumi, they look at me different. like i'm a burden. like he's a burden."

toru purses his lip. he’s watching as toji ducks under the couch, picking out stray bits of cereal and snacks and other things that make toji’s nose scrunch up in disgust.

toru shakes his head, taking off his glasses to set them on the counter. “but you don’t know if she’s like that.”

“i know i can’t lose her before i even have her.”

toru purses his lip. toji’s voice came out too tight.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

when toji opens his front door, you’re in a too-short dress and there’s moët & chandon in your hands.

god, you’re gorgeous. and toji really needs to stop thinking that. needs to stop saying it in his head before he slips up and says it out loud with a tone he can’t take back.

“hi,” you tilt your head, batting your lashes in that way that makes him stupid. “you gonna keep standing there? or are you gonna take this bottle off my hands?”

ah, right. toji reaches for the bottle but you pull it back. he raises a brow.

“say ‘please pretty girl, may i have the wine?’”

you’re still peering up at him, hugging the bottle of wine to your chest, teasing smile on your glossy lips. toji leans against the doorframe. arms crossed, dark eyes raking over your hips, plush thighs, pretty waist. fuck.

his lips twitch, “i’m not saying that.”

“aww,” you pout, glossy and spoiled. “guess i have to turn back home and drink this expensive wine all by myself.” you turn, and toji bites his cheek because your dress has ridden up to give him the perfect view of your ass. so soft. he can’t wait to squeeze it.

“i’m gonna be so lonely…” your back is still turned to him, voice wistful. “and i came all the way over here, too. i’m so upset.”

toji doesn’t let you take another step.

you squeal as he scoops you up with a grunt, arms snaking over your waist & under your thighs to lift you bridal style. you squeeze the bottle of wine in your arms, eyes shut tight as you giggle while he kicks the door shut. “toji! put me down!”

careful what you wish for.

toji drops you to his couch with a thud. you land with a breathless laugh, dress bunched up to your hips & he can see the print of your panties. your hair is fanned out, and the bottle of wine is pressed to your stomach. you’re giggling, eyes bright, and god. you look so fucking gorgeous all laid out for him. toji’s jaw ticks.

he climbs over you, pressing his warm body down until the wine digs into your stomach. his eyes are dark. hungry.

“please, pretty girl,” he murmurs, breath hot, lips teasing your neck. “may i have the wine?”

oh.

your breath hitches. you stare up at him, cheeks hot, eyes wide, thighs squeezing together in anticipation. but you’re a bad girl, so you don’t give toji zenin what he wants just yet.

your smile falters, but you tilt your head. “thought you weren’t gonna say it?”

he grins, pressing a hot kiss underneath your ear. “and i thought you were leavin’.”

you let out a shaky gasp as toji licks a hot stripe up your neck. he’s filthy—big hands gripping your hips to keep you pinned to the couch, squeezing you hard each time you moan and buck yourself into him. his breath is hot against your neck, sucking and kissing and teasing, the occasional nip when you whimper just the way he likes.

his weight presses the wine harder into your stomach. you gasp, “toji, the wine—“

“hold it, baby.”

your eyes squeeze shut as his kisses trail further down your neck, tummy fluttering as heat pools between your thighs. his thumb on your hip sinks under the silk of your panties, and you whine his name before he shushes you with a sweet kiss to your cheek.

toji doesn’t kiss you on the lips. the lips are too honest, and toji is not.

you’re still clutching the bottle, chest heaving as toji presses your hips deeper, deeper—

“ow!”

toji freezes.

in truth, toji zenin has never been a gentle man. his body is too big and his hands are too rough, and life itself has never treated him gently, nor given him much reason to be gentle towards others. but as toji hovers over you, limbs frozen in alarm, his stomach can’t help but twist with disgust. said body and rough hands have crushed something soft yet again.

“did i hurt you?” his voice comes out weird. “doll—look at me. you okay?”

“i’m fine,” you wince, cheeks flushed as you try to steady your breathing. you twist your leg slightly, sliding your fingers down into the sofa cushion where something sharp poked at you. “something... something poked my leg.”

you pull out a tiny, red brick.

you blink. “a lego?”

for the second time this evening, toji freezes.

he takes it from your hand, flicking it away. he lifts your arms to wrap them around his neck, and lowers himself back to your chest. “that what you stopped me for, princess?” he mutters coolly, like his heart isn’t beating in his throat. “had me so worried, baby.”

“toji, why do you have a lego?”

he kisses your jaw, “my nephew’s.”

ah, that makes sense. you hug his neck tighter, giggling as he slips the wine off your belly & onto the floor. he presses yet another kiss to your neck, warm & sweet, and you let your chin rest on his shoulder as he loves you with gentler hands.

but then you see it.

on the metal door of the kitchen fridge, past a jar of gummy worms and a poorly placed broom, a banana-shaped magnet is there.

and right under it, a scribbled drawing. the messy figure of a man with spiky hair, and a smaller, more spiky-haired boy.

DADDY AND ME.

your body goes still.

toji’s hands are on your hips, thighs, waist—but his touch suddenly itches. the warmth has gone cold.

“toji,” you whisper. “who drew that?”

toji doesn't move. his eyes slowly follow your gaze to the fridge, and the panic in his eyes is unmistakable. the lie slips out of his mouth before his brain can even catch up to it.

“sociology project,” he breathes. “developmental regression. drew it with my left hand.”

“your left hand…”

your voice trails off as toji sinks his lips back to your neck.

toji zenin does not study sociology.

TORU’S REMARK : YOU CAN’T FOOL HER FOREVER.

BROKE BOY TACTICS #4: LEAN INTO THE LARP !

taught by: sato gojo

“you can’t pull up to a date in an uber. take my porsche—you’re a rich guy now.”

ΣΧ

it’s late, and three floors down, toji zenin has his hands on his hips, staring at sato’s sleek black porsche in disbelief while his tie itches at his neck. three floors up, in toji’s crappy apartment, the gang’s all there.

megumi has a blanket pulled up to his chin, seated on the couch next to suguru. sukuna is lounging on the floor with his back against said couch. sato is flipping through TV stations. the light in the room is dim, and sato snickers at something sukuna says before tossing him the remote.

“why does everyone always leave me?”

the trio freeze.

megumi’s expression is flat. he’s staring into the tv’s glow, but his eyes are soulless and empty. suguru hesitates—but then he rests a hand on megumi’s hair. “what do you mean, kiddo?”

“daddy’s always leaving now,” megumi closes his eyes, rigid against the couch cushions. “he never spends time with me anymore. he’s acting like my mommy did.”

the three boys’ hearts crack right down the middle.

they’re staring at each other now, the weight of megumi’s words on their shoulders. how do they tell a little boy that the reason his father has been less present—and is also not present tonight—is because he’s currently trying to hide his child’s existence to impress a woman? and that they’re all helping him?

sato speaks first. too quick, too fast.

“he’s just been busy,” he croaks out. “he’s been picking up new shifts. he’s working really hard.”

“yeah,” sukuna agrees. “he’s working hard. to take care of you, meg.”

megumi stares into the tv screen. geto’s hand is still heavy on his head, and his body is limp and his eyes are heavy.

“i know.” megumi mutters. “he’s my hero.”

suguru bites his lip. “you know what, meg? why don’t we draw something? a new picture for your dad?”

megumi’s eyes flit to the kitchen fridge. DADDY AND ME. the picture is still there, but the paper is crinkled and damp now. as if someone threw it away with heavy eyes, then somehow thought better of it.

megumi nods, “yeah.”

“okay, buddy. i’ll go get the crayons.”

“i’ll get the paper!”

“and i’ll… uh. you want a gatorade, kid?”

the three adults go after the various items. megumi takes one last look at his drawing on the fridge, and then he slips off the couch and pads away.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.

so today, he pretends the sleek black porsche parked outside your house is his. he pretends he’s not wearing sato’s luxury cologne, that his tie isn’t secondhand, that the cuff of his suit isn’t too tight on his wrist and that the guilt in his mouth doesn’t taste like his blood.

he’s gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white.

when you open the car door, you look like a dream.

your lips are glossy, always glossy, but it’s a different shade of shimmer tonight. your hair is loose all over your shoulders, heels clicky, dress black and matching the shade of sato’s car. toji stares, jaw slack as you slide into the passenger’s seat. the words in his throat have turned into bile.

“Hi.” you blink at him.

“Hi.”

he can’t say much else, and he really ought to but he can’t, so instead he only watches as you huff and click your seatbelt in place. toji licks his lips, turns back to the wheel. says a quick prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in. “you look gorgeous.”

you don’t respond.

the car starts with an expensive growl. it makes toji wince, and he hopes you don’t notice. he’s practiced starting the car three times so he can pretend he’s used to it. he isn’t, and he’ll never be.

he pulls onto the streets, eyes frantically scanning the road as his pulse drums in his teeth.

“toji?” you say, eyes trained ahead of you, voice flat.

“yeah, baby?”

“where are we going?”

toji’s fingers drum on the steering wheel. he turns right at the fork. “somewhere nice,” his voice is strained. “somewhere you deserve to be.”

he lets his right hand shift to the center console, trying to bridge the gap. his hand is sweating, maybe. you glance at it. glance away.

you peer out the window, head against the edge, watching the lights blur through the glass. “i feel like i’m sitting in a museum,” you murmur, quiet. “everything feels curated. including you.”

he swallows. “i’m trying to make tonight special.”

“special…” you trail off, lashes fluttering as you stare out the window.

“i don’t know who you are, zenin.”

toji’s head aches. and so does his chest, violent and sharp and stabbing. he’s a liar, a con artist, a selfish man with rough hands and a son waiting at home. oh—megumi. his phone’s been buzzing in his pocket for a while now. how’s megumi?

“i’m just a guy,” he chooses to say. “a guy who likes you.”

“do you? or is that just part of the exhibit?”

maybe there really is a god watching, because before toji can respond something makes a sound.

he’s not sure what, honestly, but he’s quick to capitalize on it. he needs the air. toji turns into an empty street to park. he unbuckles his seat belt, leans over a bit. “stay in the car, okay?”

you only nod, and toji’s throat curls with guilt.

the night air is cool on his skin. he opens the car bonnet—careful, as careful as a man like him can be—pretending to scan the engines for a possible source of the noise. he doesn’t find anything wrong, and he knew he wouldn’t, but he holds up the bonnet and pretends to check anyways.

three minutes pass before he returns to the car.

three minutes of toji zenin teaching himself how to breathe. the same way he does when megumi shuts down even though he thinks the steps are corny. having a kid really changes you, doesn’t it?

megumi. he looks at his watch, 9PM. his boy should be in bed by now.

the buzzing from his phone has stopped. he should check it now, but you’re still waiting. still beautiful. still hurt.

so toji slams the hood shut. sucks in a breath and slides back into the driver’s seat. you’re staring at him as he buckles his seatbelt.

“toji,” your voice is careful. “do you have anything you want to tell me?”

yes. i work three jobs and i’m drowning in student loans. i got a girl pregnant when i was eighteen, and she left me when i turned twenty-one. i have a boy who’s five-and-a-half and he’s the only good thing i have left. and i’m sorry i lied, but i didn’t want you to leave me before i could love you and i’m sorry, and i’m sorry again, and you deserve better, and i’m sorry.

“no,” toji lies.

you purse your lips. “okay.”

the engine roars back to life. and toji is sweating, and the date feels over before it’s even started, and his pulse is too loud and—

“daddy?”

toji’s blood runs cold.

in the backseat of sato’s porsche, megumi zenin is there, body tucked under a blanket and rubbing his eyes. he slips off the seat and stumbles towards the console, still rubbing at his face. “hi, daddy.”

toji zenin can only stay frozen as megumi wraps his smaller arms around his neck.

he tries to speak, fingers twitching as they hover over his son’s back. “megumi—hey, buddy—what’re you doing here?”

megumi buries his nose into his father’s neck. “i didn’t want to be alone again.”

toji bites his lip. he can feel your eyes boring into him, and he nervously scrambles. “hey—you’re never alone, buddy. where are your uncles? come here.”

he lifts megumi into his lap, avoiding your gaze.

“is this your son?”

toji’s mouth dries.

he could say it’s his nephew, make up some lie about him referring to both him and his ‘brother’ as dad, but god. you’re already looking at him with something he doesn’t have the vocabulary to name, and toji’s jaw aches.

“yes,” he sucks in a breath. “this is my son, megumi.”

he brushes megumi’s hair back, taking his little fist away from his face so he stops rubbing at his eyes. “meg, say hi to the pretty lady.”

“hi, pretty lady.”

megumi waves a small hand, then collapses against his father’s stomach.

you force a smile and flick your eyes back up to toji.

“i think you should take me home.”

???’s REMARK : YOU CAN’T LARP YOUR WAY INTO BEING LOVED !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #5: EMBRACE YOUR ECONOMICS !

taught by: nanami kento, megumi zenin.

“maybe she doesn’t hate you. maybe she hates that you thought so little of her you felt the need to live a lie.”

ΣΧ

it’s a new day, and toji zenin is laden with old burdens.

he’s slumped against his bedroom wall, phone pressed to his ear with megumi on his stretched out legs. megumi has a red & green colored hand in another jar full of gummy worms. toji makes a mental note to hide it better next time.

“you didn’t just lose the date,” nanami’s voice cuts through the speaker, flat and professional as always. “you insulted her intelligence. made her out to be a shallow woman who’d only care about you if you had money in your bank account.”

toji stares at the ceiling. then at megumi, who’s about to eat a gummy worm off the floor. he flicks it away. “she looked at me like i was trash, nanami.”

“she looked at you like you were a liar,” nanami corrects. “which you are.”

nanami sighs, breath sending a crackle through the speaker. all he wanted to do was spend his afternoon reading his new favorite BL, doukyuusei, but once again the shenanigans of his friends have interrupted his peace.

“toji, you’re a smart man. and she sounds like a smart woman. i doubt she’d lose interest because you have a son—i believe she hates that you lied to her.”

megumi takes a worm and makes it crawl through toji’s lips. it’s cold, but toji chews and swallows anyways. “i need to apologize.”

“yes,” toji can hear a page flip. “and quickly. i have to attend to other matters now, but say hi to megumi for me.”

the line goes dead, and toji drops his hand to the floor.

megumi chews a gummy worm. then he takes it out of his mouth, frowns at it, then eats it again. “daddy, are you mad at me?”

toji frowns. “for what?”

“i ruined your date,” megumi looks into the jar of worms, frowning, then back at his dad. “with auntie.”

toji looks at his son. at his candy smeared cheeks, sticky hands, black spikes of hair and sugar in his teeth. megumi looks just like him. he’s always known it, but he’s growing to look more and more like his father every day.

“you didn’t ruin anything,” he murmurs, pulling his son into his chest. “you’ve never ruined anything in your life.”

he pats megumi’s hair, head thrown back. “i’m sorry, meg.”

five-year-old megumi zenin has already lost interest. he’s more focused on getting the red and blue gummy in the sea of yellow-green ones, small hand grabbing fistfuls of worms before dropping them back. he doesn’t know his father is sorry, sorry for everything, for trying to erase his existence to impress a woman and for bringing him into this world knowing he will never be able to give him the future he deserves.

megumi retrieves the red and blue gummy worm. his favorite flavor. he blinks at it once, twice.

then he turns to his dad. lifts the gummy worm on his palm to his face.

toji zenin eats it right off.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

megumi zenin is in his best clothes: baby blue button-up from suguru. a white top with a red race car that sukuna had got him for his birthday. light up skechers from uncle sato. toji had tried to get him to wear normal shoes, but megumi shut that down quickly. he wanted to be seen.

you no longer frequent the local loblaws.

and it breaks toji’s heart, actually. you haven’t blocked him just yet, thank god, so toji thinks you might not yet hate him completely. that he might still have a chance.

call him a weirdo, but he’s been to almost every grocery store nearby.

no frills, sobeys, you name it. and now, at 12:30PM sunday, toji zenin is in his car with his son, watching you load groceries into the backseat with a pout on your lips. like you’re above this. like you need a big, strong man to offer his help. and toji’s chest aches. because he could be that man, you know. if you’d let him.

toji slips out of the car. megumi hops out too.

he stops just a few feet behind you, watching you mutter curses as you haul a carton of juice. toji’s lip twitches. then he pulls megumi along.

“let me help.”

you blink as toji comes out of seemingly nowhere to save the day. he lifts everything out of your cart and into your car, never breaking a sweat. truthfully, your groceries aren’t even that heavy. he’s not sure why you were struggling, but he thinks it’s so fucking cute.

he lets you click your remote to close the boot shut. then he turns to you: “i owe you an apology.”

you tilt your head. “do you?”

he squeezes megumi’s hand in his own to ground himself. “i lied because i was scared,” he admits, and you never thought you’d hear toji and ‘scared’ in the same sentence. “you’re a pretty girl from a nice family who spends my rent money on groceries,” he breathes. “and i want you, bad. and i thought if you saw me—the me who lived paycheck to paycheck and has nothing except this little brat,” he raises megumi’s hand, “you’d leave before i even got a chance.”

he shifts his hand to megumi’s head. “it’s fucking stupid, i know. but this is my son,” he ruffles megumi’s hair. “say hi, kid.”

“hi, auntie.”

your gaze shifts away from toji, and drops to the little boy beside him. megumi is apple cheeks, dark, messy hair and nervous feet shifting on the pavement. he looks like his dad, and the sight makes your heart melt.

“hi, baby boy.” you crouch down to his height. “i love your shirt. do you wanna come here?”

megumi nods. he abandons his father’s side to let you scoop him up in your arms.

toji frowns.

megumi’s a shy kid. or not shy—awkward. he can’t make eye contact with kids his age, his tone is too flat, and his eyes are always bored. he doesn’t like to be touched by people he isn’t familiar with, and he’s very quick to say no to what he doesn’t like or want. so toji can only watch, brows knit in confusion, as megumi’s fist curls over your necklace and he lets you press a kiss to his cheek.

“hi, auntie,” megumi collapses into your shoulder, fist still gripping your necklace. “i did a very good job.”

“so good, baby,” you kiss his hair, grinning. “i’m gonna buy you all the gummies in the world.”

megumi blushes from the affection. he shifts his head over your shoulder so all you can see is his pink chubby cheek.

“what the hell is happening?”

“daddy’s a big dummy,” megumi mutters into your shoulder. “the biggest,” you agree.

toji’s frown deepens, and you laugh. “i’ve already met megumi, silly.”

toji blinks. he’s about to ask how, but you beat him to it: “remember when you got out of the car? megumi woke up in the backseat,” you kiss his ear softly, and megumi’s blush deepens. “we had a long chat about you, toji. and i asked him to pretend we’ve never met, and go back to sleep in the car.”

you watch megumi, fond. his fingers curling deeper into your necklace, his eyes shy and staring behind you. “i can’t believe you’ve been keeping this little angel from me. you’re a monster, toji.”

“dummy monster…” megumi mutters. you kiss his cheek again and he hides.

toji thinks about it. to megumi referring to you as auntie back in the apartment. fuck. he didn’t think too much of it, but perhaps he should’ve.

“so? you two were testing me, or some shit?”

you shift a hand from megumi’s back to your hip. “no attitude, mister. i’m still mad at you,” your frown, and then your shoulders drop. “did you really think you had to fake having money to impress me? picking me up in a porsche when i’ve already seen your crappy apartment?”

you stroke megumi’s hair. “and lying about meg,” your expression goes soft, sad. “have you apologized to him?”

“yeah,” megumi tugs your necklace. “he told me sorry.”

you smile at him, then kiss his little fist. “that’s great, baby. you deserve an apology. and i’m sorry as well, for taking away your time with your father.”

megumi pats your face, voice flat. “i forgive you.”

you giggle, pinching his cheek, and toji can only stare in disbelief.

megumi’s cheeks are pink from your kisses, little fingers curled tight around your necklace while you sway him absentmindedly against your chest. his light-up skechers blink every time his feet kick against your thighs. you’re smiling at him like he’s heaven as a boy, and megumi—quiet, awkward, megumi—is hiding his face in your shoulder because he’s shy.

how greedy.

how greedy of toji zenin to pick out cheerios from between couch cushions like trying to erase evidence of a crime scene. how greedy of him to scrub crayon off his walls, peel gummies off his floors and hide away his son with other people he can’t truly call family. how greedy of him to rip his son’s drawing off the fridge, only to put it back again later because he can’t even be greedy right.

how greedy of toji zenin to hide the only good thing in his life away; all because he wanted yet another good thing: you.

he wanted your pretty laugh in his apartment. wanted your heels by the front door, wanted your perfume in his sheets and your voice mixed with megumi’s cartoons on saturday mornings. toji zenin wanted everything.

now his everything was shoving his chubby hand in the face of his other everything to keep from getting attacked by kisses. but he was smiling. megumi zenin was smiling, and blushing, and laughing—and toji thinks about how he hasn’t seen megumi this childish in a while.

his heart aches.

“i’m sorry.”

sorry for what? he knows what he’s sorry for, but the words have failed him again, so he can only watch. watch as you tilt your head the way you always do, before megumi glances at you and tilts his head back at him the same way. oh god.

“‘gumi, do we forgive daddy?”

“yeah,” megumi’s feet kick. his shoes light up, red and blue. “if he stops hiding my gummies.”

toji won’t hide his gummies anymore. hell, he’ll never hide anything again in his life.

and maybe megumi senses the guilt on his father’s shoulders, because he squirms his tiny body for you to set him down and dashes so hard into his father’s legs that he knocks his forehead against his knee. “ow…”

toji snorts, crouching. “what are you doing, kid.” but he’s scooping megumi into his arms anyways. you pad closer, grin cheeky, and poke megumi on his side.

“how about we go shop for some gummy worms?”

BONUS — Y/N AND MEG’S FIRST MEET !

“who are you?”

the voice makes you jolt. you’re staring at your hands in the passenger’s seat of toji’s rented—no, probably borrowed—porsche, blinking away tears in your eyes when a tiny voice speaks behind you.

you whip your head around so fast your neck aches.

and standing there is a little boy, tiny, maybe four or five, rubbing away sleep from his eyes. his hair comes in tufts of black, and his eyes are blue, and oh my god he looks just like his father.

toji.

megumi is rubbing his eyes harder now. your heart melts.

“hi, baby,” you coo, patting away your own tears on your lashes. “i’m friends with your daddy. what’s your name?”

“i’m megumi,” he sniffles, yawns. “my friends call me meg. but i don’t have any friends.”

oh. “hi, meg. what’re you doing here? did your dad leave you home alone?”

you hope he says no, because you know toji’s been hiding something—someone from you, but he wouldn’t go that far. at least, you hope he wouldn’t.

“no, my uncles are at home,” he says sleepily. and you hover your hands over his face in silent permission. he blinks at your hands, sniffles again, before nodding to let you brush his hair back from his face. “i wanted to see daddy. he left for work.”

work? no he didn’t. toji zenin is outside, lifting the bonnet of a car he knows is too good to call his. “did he tell you he was going to work, meg?”

“no, but i know he is. he works for us. he wears the tie and he goes away.”

“oh, baby…”

toji zenin is a liar. a liar with a handsome face, and warm touch, and words that make your head dizzy. and you should be mad, really. you are, but the sight of this little boy with a face like his father’s only makes your heart ache.

you want to ask questions: who are your uncles? where were you when i came over? is your mother still in the picture?

but megumi zenin is blinking sleepily as you caress his cheek, leaning into your touch with a sigh.

“megumi, do you wanna make a deal?”

“what kind of deal?” megumi tries to rub his eyes, but you ease his fist away.

“a super simple one. your daddy’s been acting really strange, right? to you and me,” you pat his cheek. “all you have to do is act like we’ve never met, and i’ll give you anything you want.”

megumi thinks very hard. then he asks, “are you the lady daddy wants to impress?”

you blink. “what do you mean?”

“i heard him on the phone with uncle sugu,” megumi rests his head against your leather car seat. “he said he likes a nice lady. said he wants to be a better man for her.” he rubs his eye. “then he started leaving me. where’s daddy? i wanna talk to daddy.”

“oh, meg,” your heart breaks. “come here, baby.”

megumi hesitates, but then he lets you pull him into a hug. his hands are limp by his sides, but he pats your back once before his tiny hand slips away. “auntie, why are you crying?”

your shoulders shake over him. you sniffle, “don’t worry about it, meg. and your daddy’s gonna come back soon, okay? and he won’t leave you alone anymore. i’ll make sure of it.”

megumi pulls back. “you promise?”

you cup his cheeks. “i promise. go back to sleep, okay?”

EPILOGUE !

on the couch of toji’s crappy apartment, megumi zenin is curled into his father’s side, gummy worms in his mouth as he presses his sticky hands to the screen of his brand new ipad pro. a shiny gift from his loving uncle sato, who bought him the device despite suguru and toji’s wishes.

megumi offers his father a gummy worm. “when is auntie coming?”

toji eats it off his palm. “soon, kid,” he clicks his tongue. “swear you like her more than me now.”

megumi picks out five gummy worms from the jar, then lines them up on his ipad screen for convenience. “nah, i like daddy the most.”

toji softens.

all toji can see right now is the top of his little boy’s head, his tiny nose poking out and his chubby little cheeks. the ipad screen is sticky and candy smeared—much like megumi’s hands—and on the screen is a video of a teacup in a ballet dress—ballerina cappucina?—getting married to a little espresso man wearing a ninja bandana. toji frowns. the video gives him flashbacks to his days of working as skai jackson’s personal AI prompt writer. he shivers.

toji shakes his head. “meg, you know i’m never leaving, right?”

“i know,” megumi groans. “you told me a billion times yesterday!”

“quit whining,” toji murmurs, pulling his son into his lap. megumi reaches for his jar of gummy worms, and toji tugs it closer. “just wanted to remind you.” he mumbles.

megumi slumps against his father’s chest. soft, distracted, satisfied. “you don’t need to say sorry anymore. i forgive you.”

toji kisses his hair, burying his face in the dark strands. he sighs, “thanks, kiddo.”

———

when the doorbell rings, toji zenin is already half-asleep.

the sound—and megumi’s accidental jab of his elbow against his stomach—wakes him right up. toji smooths his hair, rubs the sleep from his eyes. then he turns to tell megumi to go wash his sticky hands, then decides not to.

he sucks in a breath and opens the door.

“hi, pretty.”

“move. i’m not here for you.”

you shove at his chest and push your way into the apartment, and on the couch to the right megumi zenin is there, ipad in hands and cheeks sticky and looking up at you with big, blue eyes.

“auntie?”

“oh, my baby!”

you scoop him off the couch and into your arms, and megumi clutches your shoulders tight as you attack him with kisses on his forehead, cheeks, everywhere. toji’s eye twitches in disbelief. “are we serious?”

“oh, you’re still here,” you glance over at him, bored. “meg and i are gonna make cookies today. mind being a doll and fetching the ingredients from the car?” you toss him your car keys.

toji looks at the keys in his hands. then you, who is cooing silly things that make megumi blush and bury his head in your neck.

toji pads over to you, slow. “i wanted to see you.”

you ignore his hands snaking around your hips. you turn your nose up at him, “and now, you have.”

“you still mad at me?”

of course you’re still mad. maybe not as mad as you were a week ago, but still upset. that he lied. that he thought so little of you that he went out of his way to sculpt a whole other life and hide away the little angel in your arms. but toji’s hands are still heavy on your hips. his voice is warm in your ear. and he apologized, you know. in the parking lot that day. at your house on monday, holding a bouquet of half-dead flowers and wearing a rented suit that went to waste because you refused to go out with him anyway. he sent you an hour long voicemail apologizing. you listened to it all on the way here.

toji zenin is such a sap.

he acts like he isn’t, though. but he is, and you feel it in how he presses his lips to your neck, over and over and over again. i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry.

megumi shoves his father’s lips away. “daddy stop.”

you laugh, nuzzling megumi’s cheek. “he’s such a dummy, isn’t he meg? do you think i should forgive him?”

“yeah,” megumi mutters, collapsing into your neck. “he said sorry a billion times to me yesterday. daddy’s really sorry for everything.”

“aww. daddy’s so cute when he’s sorry, isn’t he?”

toji is glaring at you. you can only giggle and press a kiss to his jaw, and his eyes widen a bit in surprise. you cup his jaw and press another one to his cheek. just one more, because you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t missed him as well.

“i forgive you, mister. now go get those groceries—shoo!”

toji nuzzles your neck before leaving the apartment.

megumi is still on your hip, clutching your shoulders for balance as you pick out pans and trays from the cupboard. he grips your hair in a tiny fist. “auntie?”

“hm, gummy?”

megumi hides in your neck—shy, nervous. “are you gonna be my new mommy?”

you freeze.

megumi clutches you tighter. his face is buried in your throat, and he’s gripping so tightly his little nails bite into your skin, but you soften. toji had already confessed everything in his voicemail. his mom isn’t in the picture anymore. how a mother can let go of a little angel like meg, you don’t know, but who are you to judge and conclude?

“i don’t know, meg, it’s too soon,” you hum softly, setting a pan on the tabletop. “but i know i’ll be here, baby. for you.”

“will you be at my school, too?” he peers up at you, big eyes glimmering with hope. “all the other kids have mommies except for me.”

“oh, megumi—of course i’ll be there!”

it’s taking everything in you not to carry this boy and run! you attack his face with kisses, and megumi squirms in your arms but he’s giggling. his hands are sticky on your face, neck, everywhere, but you kiss him over and over again, because you’ve only known him for a little over a week but you’re already ready to give him the world. “auntie, stop!” but he’s laughing. “there’s lip gloss all over me!”

when toji walks in, he can’t believe his eyes.

there are too many shopping bags in his hands, because everything about you is too much, even down to your shopping, and toji is staring in disbelief. the woman of his dreams in his kitchen, holding his son, and his son is laughing. laughing the way he used to before his mother left him two years ago.

and he doesn’t really deserve the warmth curling in his chest, or the strange feeling coursing through his veins, but who is toji zenin if not greedy?

so he drops the bags to his feet (gently, because you’d curse him if the eggs broke), and pads over to the kitchen where you’re showering megumi with affection, and he snakes his arms around your waist and drops his head into your neck. you turn, grinning, and you don’t push him away when he presses a quick kiss to your lips. the lips are honest, and now toji is too.

“aww, look at you getting all sappy.”

“auntie made my face all sticky..”

toji squeezes you both tight. a little greed never killed a man.

MEGUMI’S REMARK : CAN I HAVE SOME GUMMY WORMS…?

#SIGMA CHI STORIES !

LOVE OVER LOBLAWS, end.

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You were cut off before you could even think to share your thoughts with your husband.

"We will find the perpetrator, Lord Ryomen, they cannot be far-"

"Leave us," Sukuna's voice held a deep vibrato that seemed to rumble through the surrounding walls. You had heard it before, threatening and etched with malice. It shook you more now though. having never heard him sound so callous toward Uraume of all temple-goers.

"My Lord..."

"Leave us. Now."

His order came in a serpentine hiss as his hand clutched yours, punctuated only by the shuffling of robes as Uraume retreated. His hand tightened around yours at your fidgeting and if you didn't know him better, you might've thought your bones would snap under the pressure.

To weak to open your eyes you sunk deeper into cold, velvet sheets and hummed, "Don't take it out on Uraume, S'kuna..."

He huffed at your order and rebutled it with his own, "Quiet. Conserve your strength. And stop shuffling. The more you exert yourself the fast your heart will pump that filth around your body."

That filth.

The poison supposedly slipped into your evening meal, strategically tainted on the night of Sukuna's absence as he visited a Western province. He had raced home on horseback at the news of your collapse and it made you feel almost guilty. You were sure you had interrupted some important political meet that you had no previous interest in.

You thought about the servants downstairs, clumsily searching for anything that might aid your condition. You supposed it didn't matter, though. Your breaths were already laboured and something ugly was brewing behind Sukuna's eyes.

"What are you thinking about, dove?" He muttered, bringing you limp hand to his lips. His body dwarfed yours as he planted soft kisses unto your palm and up your wrist. It felt like a goodbye. It made you feel ill.

"Us," you admitted, voice tinged with guilt. "I'm sorry, Sukuna."

He shook his head with an amused chuff, though you could register the pain behind it, "Stupid woman. Apologise for nothing. You are a queen," he pressed one last, devastatingly soft kiss to the weakening pulse-point on your wrist. "My Queen."

It was early in the morning when you exhaled your last breath. A painless death-rattle that Sukuna couldn't help but be thankful for in a way that made him nauseous. The idea that the only reprieve he had was that you had gone comfortably curdled in the bottom of his stomach. Perhaps that was some sick mercy from the Gods above?

It didn't feel like it. In fact, it felt as though the beings above him were mocking his very being. Ripping his beloved from him as if she wasn't the only thing he would protest to have stolen.

The thoughts made clouds form behind his eyes as a punishing silence suffocated him, engrossed in the stillness of your body. It felt so unnatural, so wrong and perverse to see you like this.

Slow patters of rain splattered from the heavens and off the engawa outside, providing a soft song as he held you close; still warm and clinging to his kariginu. Somewhere in his twisted mind, the act felt wretched and intentional. As if the God's themselves has accompanied your loss with their own laughter in the form of the soft rain-pellets, a melody you used to comfortably sleep to now tainted by their mockery of the cursed being below them.

"Uraume?"

They appeared as if they had never left, "Yes, my Lord?"

"Cull them all."

The Gods would pay.

I hope you enjoyed this fic <3