Kazim.fin

Not reposting someone's work when they SAID they don't want them to be reposted. You knew it, you SAID it. So please, please take your head from up your ass before coming online to talk shit.

Basically the fuck you said was: I know sixxels said she doesn't want us to repost HOWEVER I am entitled enough to ignore the author's wishes and I WILL REPOST because fuck sixxels, fuck her wishes, fuck everything that made her deactivate, I want the fics here hehehe I wanna read them it doesn't matter what their creator thinks idgaf ^^

Sixxels is out, she's taking her time and dealing with the bullshit those imbeciles from the gossip blog and people with no brain put her through as some mutuals explained me the situation, I hope she's doing well and when she comes back, if she choses to do so, she doesn't have the terrible experience to see her works reposted, disrespecting her wishes, by some fuckass who thinks they are above the author's own fucking pleas.

If your favorite fic from sixxels is gone, then it's gone. Because sixxels, the fucking AUTHOR, chose to delete it. You people should respect author's words and choices regarding their work, for fuck's sake, you seem to be kids throwing a tantrum online because someone who got harassed and doxxed ASKED for their works not to be reposted as they leave, take some time, figure out what to do with their life.

Next time you guys simply should take down a gossip harassing blog before it comes to this same outcome, what about that? Instead of bitching and moaning and crying because the PERSON behind a real blog, the PERSON writing stories got pushed to their limit and decided to leave such a fucking toxic stupid fandom. Jeez.

Everyone who pointed at the facts for OP, you should never feel bad for telling them to fulfill the author's wishes and stop reposting shit unauthorized.

Flat.

You flatten yourself to the cabinets and slip by, pulse banging in your ears.

His hands stay braced — palms spread on oak, tendons up — like he’s giving himself something to hold that isn’t you.

You don’t see that part until later, replaying it, wondering why you didn’t collide.

Oil pops. You yelp. He’s there, jerking the pan from your hand with a scalded sound.

“You trying to brand yourself?” he bites out, angling his shoulder between you and the heat. “Out.”

You step back, stung.

You hate how the word works — how you go.

He kills the flame, rotates the handle inward, flicks the vent.

“Watch what the fuck you’re doing.” You nod like you’re eight.

You spend the next hour angry at your own hands.

You reach for the biggest knife in the drawer.

His tattooed fingers clamp the handle before you can touch it.

“Don’t,” he says, bored and cruel. “They’re not toys.”

The sneer skims your skin like a cold wind.

You sleep on it wrong and wake up to a mid-size knife on the counter, a cheap plastic sheath on the blade, a sticky note in his blocky hand, Use this. Guard stays on. — S.

You tell yourself it’s control.

You tell yourself he doesn’t want you touching his things.

You climb the step stool to reach a jar on the top shelf.

He’s suddenly behind you, voice right by your ear.

“Get down.” The tone is filth-soft, like smoke dragged across velvet. “You fall, I’m not patching drywall.”

You climb down because your body obeys that voice before your brain decides to.

When your feet hit tile, something shifts — the warm presence of his forearm hovering at your waist and then withdrawing, like a hand you imagined.

He reaches above you, grabs the jar, sets it in your hands without looking at you.

“Ask,” he says, already walking away.

Like a rule.

Like he hates that you tried.

You clean to a happy playlist.

He crosses the living room and kills the speaker with one jab.

“Enough,” he says without glancing up.

Your apology is automatic and you want to bite your tongue off for it. Later you hear him in the kitchen humming the same chorus, low, off-key, like he pocketed the noise so you wouldn’t spin out on it.

The balcony door is open for air, he plants a palm and slides it shut with a hard click.

“Inside,” he says, eyes on the night-dark lot. “Door stays closed at night.”

You feel stupid and scolded.

Two days later the neighbor with the too-long smile tries a conversation that lasts one second longer than polite. When you get home, you can’t stop seeing the way Sukuna had stood that night — shoulders squared to the lot, body a wall, attention on the dark instead of on you.

The AC dies and your fingers won’t warm.

A dryer-hot hoodie hits your chest as he passes.

“Put it on,” he snaps. “You sound like teeth chattering.”

It smells like him. It helps. You tell yourself it’s a territorial thing, his name written on you in fabric.

You don’t let yourself think about the heat already in it, like he knew you would pretend you weren’t cold and planned around your pride.

The pipes bang while you shower.

His knock has the force of a cop.

“You’re flooding the place,” he says through the door, gravel and impatience. “Finish up.”

Shame rips through you like a pulled muscle, you rush, ten minutes after, there’s a rubber bath mat leaning against the tub.

No note. No comment.

Just fewer ways to crack your skull open on tile.

Crossing the living room in shorts, you feel it — the slow, dead-eyed inventory as his gaze rakes over you and back, unapologetic. Your stomach drops. You translate it as disgust, judgment, rude boredom.

You don’t clock the way his jaw flexes once and then stills, or how his hands stay buried in his pockets like he’s holding them there on purpose.

You lug four grocery bags up the stairs. He opens the door and rips two away.

“You take too long,” he says, like you failed a test he didn’t announce. You seethe. Later you notice your greek yogurt, your tea, your brand of honey in the fridge, resting on the second shelf you can actually reach.

You tell yourself someone like him remembers everything so he can hold it over you later.

You chain the door wrong.

He flicks it open, shuts it, flicks it again.

“Don’t do that.” The look he gives you is mean enough to sting. “Top chain, bottom deadbolt. Leave the knob unlocked.”

You bristle, say you’re not an idiot.

He repeats the sequence without commentary and then leans his shoulder, testing the frame.

“If you scream,” he says, flat, “I’m coming through it.”

It takes you a day to realize he showed you the way he could shoulder the door because he was imagining needing to.

You host a silly apartment date because you’re tired of being alone and tired of feeling hunted in your own kitchen. The guy is harmless, loud, and brings cheap rosé because he thinks it’s whimsical.

Sukuna passes through like a storm front — silent, big, eyes acidic.

“Feet off my table,” he says to the room, never quite looking at your guest.

It lands like a threat.

Your cheeks heat, you want to crawl under the couch.

When the bottle opener skitters toward your fingers, Sukuna’s hand appears, big and fast, and plucks it out of the air, then sets it by your elbow so the metal edge doesn’t slice you.

He slices limes with surgical calm you don’t deserve and leaves a plate of wedges by your glass because once — weeks ago — you cut yourself trying to garnish something you didn’t need to garnish.

Your date tries a joke at Sukuna’s tattoos.

Sukuna stares through him like the man is furniture and says, “Yes,” when asked if the ink hurt. The conversation dies.

The thermostat ticks, colder. A hoodie you did not wear to dinner appears on the back of your chair as he passes.

It goes off the rails when the guy calls you “kiddo.”

You freeze, small and furious.

From the kitchen,

“Don’t,” Sukuna says without looking. “She’s not your anything.”

There’s no heat in it, only patience sharpened into a knife. Your date laughs too loud and tries again with “babe,” and Sukuna’s mouth pulls into something that isn’t a smile.

“Don’t ‘babe’ her."

Your crush blinks.

“Excuse me?”

Sukuna lifts his eyes, finally. There’s nothing theatrical in his stare — just the kind of patience that makes people reconsider their choices.

“You heard me.”

Your crush tries on a laugh and finds it doesn’t fit.

“My bad,” he says to you, all forced charm.

“It is,” Sukuna agrees mildly, and goes back to slicing.

Nobody enjoys the rest of the movie.

When the door finally closes on the silly date, Sukuna stacks plates with quiet hands. You dry glasses. Your fingers brush and you both pretend they didn’t.

“He seemed… nice,” you say, because you hate the silence.

“He seemed loud,” he says, jaw ticking. “You like loud?”

“I like kind.”

Something shifts in his expression, a small retreat you can’t name.

He rinses, passes, rinses.

“He call you kiddo again, I’m throwing him off the balcony.”

“We’re on the second floor.”

“He’ll live.”

He says it like a promise to himself to keep it verbal.

You slip in late another night and he’s at the counter, arms folded over his chest.

“Who dropped you,” he says, not a question.

You flare.

“You my parole officer?”

He just waits until you mutter a first name.

“Next time,” he says, “text you’re alive.”

It feels like a leash.

Later, when rage cools, you notice the lamp in the living room is on a timer — clicks on at ten, off at two.

You notice the scuffed track his boots make from the door to the window.

You notice the idle of his truck you didn’t hear over your date’s laugh.

In the hallway, you brush too close. He inhales, sharp, almost a growl.

“Watch it,” he says, stepping aside late, forcing you to reroute around him like you’re avoiding a boot. His hand curls and uncurls against his thigh, tendons jumping, as if stopping itself from settling on your waist.

He smells like mint and smoke and heat.

You walk away on shaking legs and tell yourself you hate him.

Rain threatens, you reach for the knob without an umbrella, he flips you the spare and says,

“Don’t be stupid.”

You take it because you’re cold and stubborn.

Inside the sleeve is a folded bill and a metro card with rides left.

You find it waiting for you after the storm.

You never mention it.

Neither does he.

You laugh on the phone at midnight because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. He appears in your doorway like a shadow.

“Quiet,” he says, low and edged enough to cut off your breath, “I’m sleeping.”

You apologize. He leaves.

Ten minutes later there’s a glass of water outside your door with ice clinking like punctuation.

The apartment is silent so you can breathe.

This is the rhythm — his voice like a weapon, your spine learning its shape, the hard click of doors, the snap of rules, you reading every look as a sneer, every order as contempt.

The house learns your flinch.

You learn the circumference of his temper and pretend you don’t notice how it never actually lands on you.

One night, late, you catch him at the sink.

The kitchen light is off, only the hood lamp is on.

Water runs, steam climbs his forearms and softens the ink.

He doesn’t turn when you enter, he doesn’t acknowledge you, you can feel him see you anyway — the way the air charges, the way the room holds its breath.

“I can be quiet,” you say, because you think maybe that’s all you are to him, a noise to manage, a problem to compress.

He shuts the tap.

He stands there a second, hands braced on the counter like they’ve been everywhere else he’s needed them to be — on cabinets, on doorframes, on anything that isn’t the small of your back.

“Yeah,” he says finally, voice rougher than usual, like gravel under a tire. “I know.”

He turns, and the look he gives you is the same one that has had you thinking wolf, knife, red eyes.

It still looks like that.

It’s still a lot of hunger, none of it polite.

But there’s something else leashed under it that you recognize now that you’ve learned the edges of this place, the way he stands between you and heat, between you and dark, between you and anything with teeth. The way his meanness is grammar, not content. The way every order lands like a safety.

You look at his hands on the counter. You look at the space he leaves between you and himself, a precise, stubborn inch of restraint that keeps not closing.

Only later will you name the pattern. In the moment, all you can do is breathe and try on a different translation.

Maybe he doesn’t hate you.

Maybe he’s surviving you.

Maybe you’re the thing he doesn’t trust himself with.

He pushes off the counter, gives you that inch and a little more, and nods at the hallway.

“Door stays closed,” he says, voice quiet, mean on the edges out of habit. “Sleep.”

You go.

You lock your door, then unlock it, then lock it again because you don’t trust yourself either.

On the bedside table, you set your phone face-down on a sticky note you’ve been pretending isn’t there — the one with a license plate scribbled on it from the night your date left.

No signature. No lecture. Just numbers.

You live like prey in your own apartment until you realize the predator has been hunting with the safeties on.

And by then your heart is a problem you don’t want to fix.

Next morning you wake up mean with it — raw throat, wet cough, cramps dragging like an anchor. The apartment is too bright, your skin too loud.

You shuffle to the kitchen in his oversized hoodie because everything else on your body feels like sandpaper.

He’s already there, back to you, rinsing a mug. The smell of mint and soap, the low noise of the hood fan. You keep your distance, open the cabinet, and reach for the painkillers.

The bottle rattles like a threat, your hands are clumsy.

“Two,” he says without turning. “Not four.”

It lands like a slap.

You swallow a dozen answers and pick the worst.

“Thank you, Officer.”

He flicks a look over his shoulder, unreadable.

“I don’t need you faceplanting in the hallway.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

“You don’t have to,” you bite.

The words come hot, a flare you can’t leash.

“Every day it’s, move, don’t, stop, quiet. Like I’m fucking five! Or your dog. Or a problem you’re stuck with.”

The faucet shudders off, he turns fully.

Mean eyes. Flat mouth.

“You done?”

You hate the way your eyes burn.

You hate that you keep going.

“I’m sick, I’m— ” you gesture uselessly at your stomach “ —I’m not sleeping, and you just— ” Your voice frays. “I can’t do the drill-sergeant act today.”

Something tightens in his jaw, then releases. He doesn’t bark back. He doesn’t roll his eyes. He sets the mug down carefully, like careful is a language, and says,

“Okay.”

That’s it. No lecture. No sneer.

It makes you cry anyway. Not big sobs — stupid, quiet overflow you swipe away with your sleeve while humiliation crawls up your neck.

“Forget it,” you mutter, retreating, heart banging. “I’m sorry, I just— forget it.”

You escape to your room and sit on the floor beside the bed because sitting on the bed feels like a commitment.

The cramps gnaw.

Your head throbs in time with the pipes.

Shame curdles everything.

Five minutes later, you get up and go back.

You stand in the doorway, hoodie sleeves swallowed over your hands, and force your throat to work.

“Sukuna. I’m sorry,” you say, steady as you can make it. “I’m… on my period. And this cold is making me cranky. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

He watches you with that stillness that reads like disdain until you learn it means don’t spook.

Then he nods once.

“You’re sick,” he says, voice rough but quieter than usual, as if rough is habit, volume is choice. “Sit.”

You do because your legs feel borrowed.

He turns back to the counter, you hear the drawer, the knife, the hard thunk of ginger coins against the board.

Kettle. Steam. Honey. Lemon.

He doesn’t look up while he works, like looking would make it something else.

When he comes back, he sets the mug near your hands, handle turned to your dominant side.

The steam hits your face with a rush of ginger that clears a corridor through your skull.

“Drink.”

“I was shitty.” you say, small.

He shakes his head once.

“You’re sick,” he repeats, like it’s a verdict, not a pass.

A beat.

“You wanna put something on the TV?”

For a second you truly wonder if the fever cracked something.

“What?”

“TV,” he says, like he’s reminding you English exists. “Noise helps when your head won’t shut up.”

You blink.

“Like… a movie?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t make you choose. He pads into the living room, grabs the remote, and sinks into the couch like it owes him rent. He leaves a lane between him and the corner — space you can take or not.

You wrap your hands around the mug and follow, because the idea of your room feels mean suddenly, like a place where your breath will catch on your bones.

He scrolls past too-serious options and lands on something dumb and loud with big colors and no stakes.

“That okay?” he asks, already pressing play like he expects you to say yes.

“Yeah,” you breathe, surprised to mean it.

He doesn’t sprawl. He sits like he’s making himself small, which is ridiculous given the acreage of his shoulders. He keeps his hands on his thighs and his attention forward.

The ginger burns a path down your throat and warms the pit of you where anger used to sit. Your nose runs, you swipe with your sleeve, he says nothing.

The hood fan clicks off in the kitchen. The apartment softens.

Onscreen, people run from explosions as if cardio is a personality trait.

You try to track it and fail. The rhythm of the action settles into white noise. Your head tips, then jerks, then tips again. You tell yourself you’re just shifting the mug. At some point the mug is on the table and your cheek is against heat that doesn’t feel like a pillow.

You realize too late it’s his shoulder.

Everything in you goes rigid.

You start to sit up.

“Relax,” he says, not looking away from the TV. “You’re fine.”

“I didn’t— I didn’t mean to— ”

“I know.”

His shoulder is a broad, stubborn thing, and it doesn’t move when you test it. His T-shirt is warm and soft with too many washes. You concentrate on breathing like a person and not a trapped animal.

His smell — smoke, cedar, mint — threads through the ginger and settles you faster than you want to admit.

He doesn’t take advantage. He doesn’t shift you closer. He doesn’t do the theatrical arm-over-the-back-of-the-couch move.

He sits there, a ridiculous block of heat, and lets your weight be what it is.

Onscreen someone yells “Go!” like it’s profound.

You huff a laugh that’s almost a cough. He snorts, barely.

“You hate these,” you murmur, eyes closing without permission. “You always turn off my music.”

“Your music tries to run a red light,” he says. “This is just… dumb. Dumb is good when your head hurts.”

You hum, sleepy.

“You’re not… mean right now.”

“I’m not mean,” he says, and it should come out defensive. It doesn’t. “I’m loud. Scary, even.”

“You’re… controlling”

“Better than mopping blood,” he says, like he’s listing groceries.

You want to argue and don’t have the energy. The movie blurs. Your body does that soft drop it does when it decides without you.

You feel him reach — not to you, past you. A blanket unfurls, drops over your knees and up to your hips like a quiet tide.

He moves slow, careful not to jostle the place where your forehead meets his shoulder, careful like he is with knives and doors and every stupid thing you misread as contempt.

“You’re hallucinating,” you mumble to yourself thinking you're just talking in your head, because it’s easier than saying thank you out loud.

“Yeah,” he says, dry. “Ginger tea’s a hallucinogen.”

You drift.

Somewhere in the middle distance, digital cities burn prettily. Your breaths even. His do, too, big and steady, a metronome under your ear. He lowers the volume half a notch. You don’t see his eyes track your face, the tiny frown he gets when you sniffle, the way his hand hovers once over your shoulder and then falls to the couch cushion like he’s reminding himself of a rule.

You come back up from sleep because your neck twinges.

The credits are slow-rolling names you don’t care about. The lamp is low. The ginger is a memory in your chest.

“Hey,” he says, voice close and quiet. “Bed.”

You blink, embarrassed.

“I didn’t mean to— ”

“You say that a lot,” he says, almost amused. “You can. It’s allowed.”

You push up.

The blanket slides. He catches it before it hits the floor.

“Thanks for the— ” you gesture at the whole scene — mug, TV, shoulder, mercy.

He shrugs like it’s nothing and meant everything.

“Next time you’re sick, you say so. Don’t try to soldier through and then bite me.”

“I didn’t bite you.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“You tried.”

Heat flickers under your skin, this time not from fever.

“Sorry,” you say again, but it lands differently now — less apology, more acknowledgment.

He nods.

“Text if you feel dizzy,” he says, back to basic. “I’ll be here.”

You stand there an extra second, halfway convinced the cold cooked your brain. He looks like himself — mean eyes, foul mouth, rough lines — and somehow the edges don’t cut.

They fence you in.

“Goodnight,” you say, voice gone soft without permission.

“Sleep, rabbit,” he says, just as soft.

You pad to your room. You don’t lock the door. You think you should and don’t.

In bed, under your own blanket, you can still feel the ghost weight of his shoulder under your cheek and taste ginger where the apology used to burn.

Maybe you’re hallucinating.

Or maybe not.

On the coffee table, your mug sits with the handle turned just so, waiting where he left it.

You don’t make it to work the next day.

Alarms happen to somebody else.

Your phone buzzes until it gives up.

The room tilts if you turn your head. At some point you decide the air is heavy and crack the window, damp morning heat spills in, then a draft that feels like knives.

You sweat, then shiver, then sweat again.

Brilliant.

A knock, two short, one long.

“You didn’t leave,” he says through the door. “You alive?”

“Mm,” you croak, which is not a language.

The knob turns. He steps in, fills the doorway, scowl already forming.

His gaze strips the scene fast — open window, heap of blankets, you blinking like a stunned animal.

He crosses to you, sets the back of his fingers to your forehead.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re boiling.”

“It’s fine,” you lie, trying to roll away.

Your body disagrees.

He shuts the window with a click that feels like judgment. Curtains down. Thermostat up a hair. He swears at the room in general and then at you, softly,

“You open a window with a fever? You trying to die on laminate?”

You try to glare, it comes out damp.

“Too warm.”

“Yeah,” he says, all gravel. “Your brain’s cooking.”

He holds the digital thermometer to your temple, it beeps high.

His mouth goes flatter.

“Up.”

“Don’t wanna."

You sound five and hate it.

He ignores that and gets an arm behind your shoulders, forearm braced like he’s practiced lifting broken things.

“C’mon. Tub. Before I call a clinic.”

“I can— ”

“You can’t.” He hauls you gently, efficiently.

The room swims, the hallway’s too bright. In the bathroom he already has a towel on the floor, the rubber mat in the tub, the water running just on the cool side of lukewarm.

He checks it with his wrist, not trusting the dial.

“Sit.”

You sit on the edge because he said it like gravity.

He peels the blanket off your shoulders and drops it outside your reach.

“No.”

“I’m cold.”

“Yeah.” He guides you in, steady hand at your elbow, keeping his palm broad and impersonal. “That’s the point.”

Water climbs your shins, your thighs, your spine.

Your breath stutters, your teeth chatter. He crouches, big man made small, and dunks a washcloth, wrings it, lays it over the back of your neck, then your wrists, then your forehead.

He works the cloth across pulse points with ruthless competence, refreshing it the second it warms. Every now and then he glances at the thermometer like it insulted him personally.

“Breathe,” he says when you start to pant. “Slow.”

“You’re mean,” you whisper, which is unhinged and true.

“Yup.” He brings the cloth back to your throat, thumb careful at your jawline like he’s trying not to touch more than he has to. “Stay with me.”

Time kinks. The vent hums.

He times five minutes on his watch, resets, does another five with your ankles propped on the tub edge to catch the cold better.

When you try to curl for warmth, his palm lands flat between your shoulder blades and pins you lightly.

“Uh-uh. No hiding. Fever breaks first.”

You hate him.

You adore him.

You might be hallucinating both.

When the thermometer finally chirps a number he can live with, he exhales like a door unlatching.

“Okay.” He helps you up, towels you fast, friction and heat.

He doesn’t let you grab the blanket yet, he drapes a the towel over your damp t-shirt and steers you back to the bedroom.

Your fingers find the hem of your wet clothes and you're too cooked to make sense of not changing in front of him.

He sighs and steers back to the door, leaving you to it.

“Soup,” he says. “Bed. Don’t move.”

“I’m fine,” you protest, already sinking in the mattress once you replace damp with dry and warm.

“You’re nonsense,” he corrects, gone before you can answer.

He returns with actual soup — steam, spoon, a wedge of bread. He sets it on a tray, nudges your pillow higher, and sits on the edge of the bed.

He feeds you the first spoon because your hands are stupid and you hate that you let him.

You also hate how good the salt tastes. He watches your throat when you swallow like he’s checking how much effort it takes.

“Slow,” he says. “You aspirate, I’m not explaining that to triage.”

“You’re being… nice,” you tell him, woozy and sentimental, “for someone who hates me.”

He looks at you like you just said the moon is inside the microwave — sharp, cutting, unreadable.

You’ll forget the look later, write it off like a fever glitch.

Right now, it lands in your chest and burns there.

“Eat,” he says finally, voice rough. “Then meds.”

You drink, you slurp, you do as ordered. The soup dwindles. The room softens.

He presses two pills into your palm, thumbs the ginger-ale can open with a hiss.

When you try to burrow under the comforter he flips it back with a single irritated hand.

“Nope.”

“Please,” you whine.

“You drop back under ninety-nine, you get a blanket. Until then? Suffer.”

“You’re impossible.” but you don't try again.

“Accurate.” He takes your empty bowl, sets it aside, and then stupidly, carelessly rests his hand on the mattress near your hip — close enough that your fingers brush when you shift.

You grab him.

It’s pure fever-brain.

You tell yourself that as you latch your hand around two of his fingers like a child catching a coat hem.

He goes very still.

You expect the jerk-away and the snarl.

He doesn’t pull.

He doesn’t move at all for one long breath.

Then his knuckles turn, slow, like a tide rolling palm-up under yours so you can hold properly if you’re going to.

You do.

Your fingers barely span half his hand.

His palm is hot, heartbeat steady under callus.

“Look at me,” he says after a while, and you do.

He leans in enough that his red eyes fill your vision.

You feel your skin flush with heat.

He lifts one finger of his free hand and traces left-right, up-down.

“Follow.”

You track like a drunk moth.

He checks your pupils, nods to himself, clicks the thermometer again.

It chirps a better number. He huffs.

“Good. Keep doing that.”

“Breathing?”

“Existing.”

You hum, heavy. Sleep drags at your lashes. You fight it and lose in small waves.

You surface to the cool weight of a fresh cloth on your forehead, to his thumb pressing the pulse at your wrist, counting.

You surface to him cursing the kettle for boiling too slow and the bottle cap for being glued on and your stubborn thermostat for existing.

You surface to his voice at the doorway — “Yeah, she called in sick,” — flat, final, probably to your work if they rang, and you cannot process how he would know the number.

Once, you wake because the room is too bright. He’s there immediately, dimmer in hand, light down.

“Eyes,” he says, soft.

You open them. He checks the time, your face, the slick at your hairline.

“You hungry?”

“No.”

“Water.”

You sip.

He adjusts the fan angle so air skims your skin without chilling you. When your teeth start to click, he waits it out, then tucks the sheet to your hips and, after another thermometer beep shows a cool, reasonable number, finally lets the blanket cover you.

It feels like permission.

“Stop being nice,” you mumble into the pillow.

“I’m not nice,” he says, automatic, like you accused him of tax fraud. “I’m efficient.”

“You hate me.”

He makes a low noise that could break glass.

“Go to sleep.”

You do, because he said it and because your body is heavy water.

The day loops, sleep, wake, check, drift.

Once, your grip on his hand loosens and he starts to pull away, you make a small, miserable sound you’ll deny forever, and he settles right back into the same spot, palm up, as if you’re an IV that can’t be jostled.

Another time, he puts the back of his hand to your cheek and swears happy under his breath at the cooler skin.

He doesn’t smile.

He doesn’t say good job.

He just leans back in the chair and lets his eyes close like someone flipped a switch for thirty blessed seconds.

Dusk comes violet at the edges of the curtains. Your head’s a dull ache instead of a furnace. You roll toward him, still holding his hand, and find him watching your face like a patrol — bored expression, eyebrows mean, attention total.

“Hi,” you rasp.

His mouth twitches.

“Hi.”

“Sorry about… earlier.”

You gesture at everything with little effort, the snap, the tears, the open window, your entire tragic body.

He shakes his head once.

“You were sick, you know it. I know it.” A beat. “Text next time. Before you try to fix it alone.”

You’re too tired to argue.

You squeeze his hand.

He lets you.

For a long, quiet minute, that’s the whole conversation — your pulse learning his, his thumb idly pressing the back of your knuckles like a metronome.

When sleep comes again, it’s easier.

He’s a big, rude shape in a chair, an ugly blanket folded near, a glass of water within reach, the room the exact temperature he decided. You drift with the dull certainty that you’ll wake and he’ll still be there, scowling at a thermometer like it owes him money.

In the morning you might file this under fever dream.

For now, with your fingers curled around his, you know exactly what it is, a giant predator running every safety he’s got and still refusing to leave the den.

You wake up feeling better.

The days pass, the same routine repeats.

Bare feet, soft steps around the house. Mug tucked to your chest as if ceramic could ward off a six-foot-plus problem with red eyes and a jaw that could cut glass. You clock the boots by the door, the keys in the dish, the way the air smells faintly like smoke and cedar when he’s home.

You reroute down hallways like a rat in a maze.

Your head is back at it because of the routine — as if he didn't nurse you back to health even when you snapped at him and then dozed off like a sick victorian child.

He hates you. Obviously. You didn't change your mind about it.

He grunts when you say hi, ignores when you ask if the shower’s free, reaches past you without a word for the top shelf you can’t reach.

He's your best friend’s older brother and sharing an apartment with him has a lot of pros, money-wise.

Living with him is… manageable if you treat him like a cyclone — track it, give it space, survive.

Tonight you miscalculate.

You come around the corner toward the kitchen and walk into a wall of muscle and heat and black T-shirt.

Your mug taps his chest and you jolt like you’ve touched a socket.

“Whoa.”

He catches the mug with one big hand and steadies it, steadying you with the other at your waist. His palm is hot. You freeze. He looks down. The red of his eyes flicks to your mouth, back up.

“Relax. I’m not gonna bite.”

“Okay,” you whisper, which is dumb because everything about him says bite.

You step sideways to slip past, he doesn’t move.

“Why are you always walking like I’m the landlord and you’re late on rent?” he asks, lazy and rough. He smells like soap and smoke, fresh ink and clean sweat. “I live here too. You don’t have to sneak.”

“I wasn’t— ”

“Lying,” he says, cocking a brow. “Try again.”

You open your mouth. Close it. You hate how your pulse hammers, how your throat goes tight when he stares like that — flat, unblinking, cutting through pretense.

“I don’t want to… bother you,” you manage.

He huffs a laugh, it edges on a scoff.

“If you were bothering me, you’d know.”

Your fingers go clammy around the mug.

“Right.”

He leans his hip to the counter, caging you without quite touching again.

“You’re scared of me.”

“No.”

He tilts his head, considering.

The ink on his neck shifts with the movement, the light picks out the line of his throat, the scar through his eyebrow, the ring in his lip he worries with his tongue when he thinks.

“You look like a rabbit when you see me,” he says. “Big eyes. Freeze, bolt. Cute.”

Your cheeks burn so fast it’s embarrassing.

“I’m not— you can’t just call people rabbits.” your brows knit together.

“Why not? Fits.”

His gaze drops to your bare legs, the hem of your sleep shorts.

“Soft,” he adds, voice lower. “Skittish.”

“I’m not skittish,” you mutter, which sounds skittish.

He pushes off the counter and crowds a step closer.

You smell the mint on his breath.

He bends until his mouth is near your ear.

You can feel every single hair of your body standing and you need to kill a soft sound as it crawls up your throat.

“You think I hate you?” he asks, tone gone velvet and dangerous. “You really that bad at reading people?”

Your spine stiffens.

“You don’t exactly scream friendly.”

“Don’t need friends,” he says.

He drags knuckles down the outside of your arm, barely there, a static-soft graze that lights up every nerve.

“Don’t hate you either.”

“What do you— ” you go tense with the heat of his body so close to yours. Closer. Almost touching.

“If I hated you,” he murmurs, and you feel the curl of his smile against your cheek, “you wouldn’t be in my apartment.”

Your apartment, technically, but you’re not stupid enough to argue that with his mouth this close.

He straightens and looks at you like he’s been trying not to.

Direct and greedy. No flinch, no hiding.

“I don’t hate you,” he repeats, blunt, like a verdict. “I want to fuck you.”

The word lands low, hot, flipping your stomach like a coin.

You blink, aghast.

The mug in your hands suddenly weighs a ton.

You set it down before you drop it.

“You— you can’t say that.” Your voice comes out thinner than you want. “I’m— your brother's friend.” as if this would stop anyone, honestly.

“He’s not my keeper.” He studies your face. “You’re an adult. I’m an adult. We’re both sober. I’m saying it out loud so you don’t have to keep inventing stories where I hate you, rabbit.” His tongue touches his canine, the faintest flash of fang. “I don’t.”

"You can't say things like this— out loud."

You hate the wobble in your voice. You hate that you mean please don’t be mean and please be careful and please say it again.

“Why not.” He doesn’t reach for you

He doesn’t soften the line of his jaw. He keeps his hands flat where you can see them like a cop at a traffic stop.

“I’ve been decent. I’ve been loud instead of touching. I’ve been letting you spook. You’re not spooked anymore.”

“I’m spooked,” you say, wobbly laugh. “I’m—” You gesture at him. At the hoodie. At the sum of a week where a man like him ran a cold bath and timed your pulse points. “You scare me.”

“Yeah,” he says, like water is wet. “I’m scary.”

He tips his chin, gives you the full, unblinking red of his eyes.

“And I’m telling you so you stop inventing stories where I hate you. I don’t. I wanted you the second you put my knife back crooked and pretended you hadn’t.” The corner of his mouth pulls, wicked and fond. “Been running safeties ever since.”

“Safeties,” you echo, stupid with heat.

He nods once.

“Doors. Knobs. Knives. Voice.” He taps his throat, lazy. “This is me being polite, rabbit.”

The nickname shouldn’t make your stomach drop.

It does. It always has.

This time it doesn’t feel like a collar, it feels like a hand outstretched that could close, if you let it.

“I thought I was a nuisance,” you say, because the narrative you’ve been living in doesn’t know where to go.

“You’re annoying,” he says, without mercy and somehow with warmth. “I like annoying.”

He leans in a whisper of an inch, and the world narrows the way it does before a bad decision.

“I like you.”

You swallow. The kitchen feels smaller. Your silence stretches, he lets it, patient in a way you didn’t know he was capable of.

Finally, you breathe,

“What— what do you want me to say?”

“‘Yes’ if you want it,” he says simply. “Or ‘no’ and I’ll step back and stop crowding you. I won’t bring it up again. You can go back to tiptoeing and I’ll pretend I don’t hear you do those little gasps when you open a jar.”

“You do not hear—” your face is a furnace and your eyes go wide.

He grins, sharp and delighted.

“Every time.”

Your face is lava. You glance at his mouth. At his throat. At the veins in his forearms where black lines wrap muscle.

You have spent weeks dodging him like he’s a fault line.

You have also spent weeks not thinking about the way his shirt rides up when he reaches high shelves, not thinking about the soft grunt he makes when he drops a heavy pan, not thinking about what his hand would feel like at your throat—

“Close the fridge,” he says, gentle.

You blink, you had backed into it and left it cracked.

You nudge it shut with your hip.

“Okay,” you say.

Your voice is small but steady now.

“Okay.”

“Okay yes,” he clarifies, heat flaring.

You meet his eyes and nod once.

“Yes.”

The change is immediate.

The tension that always coils in him loosens into something focused and hungry. He steps in and cups your jaw carefully, thumb gliding under your cheekbone as if he’s making sure you stay exactly where you want to be.

“Knew it,” he murmurs, then kisses you.

It’s not gentle. It’s not cruel either. It’s thorough — like he’s been cataloging the idea and now he’s checking every line against the original.

His mouth is hot, peppermint-bitter. You brace on his chest and feel him, solid, heat thrumming under cotton. He groans when you open for him, it punches through you like lightning.

“Fuck,” he says against your lips, the word a growl. “You taste sweet.”

“Tea,” you manage. “Honey.”

He licks into your mouth like that’s an answer he likes.

Big hands bracket your hips and lift, easy as breathing, setting you on the counter.

The cool stone against your thighs shocks a small sound out of you.

His eyes go darker at that sound, his smile turns feral.

“Pretty,” he says. “Knew you’d be.”

“You act like you planned this.” you say as if you didn't imagine it a thousand times.

“Thought about it,” he admits, shameless. “Wanted to be decent about it.”

He noses along your jaw, finds the spot below your ear that makes your knees restless even with nowhere to go.

“Still can be. You stop me anytime, rabbit. Say the word.” He meets your gaze, waits. “You hear me?”

“I hear you.” like hell you're stopping him.

“Good girl.”

Heat runs through you like a fuse.

He drags his mouth down your throat, teeth scraping just enough to make your breath hitch, and you tip your head back and give him the length of your neck without thinking.

He laughs low, pleased.

“See? Not skittish.”

“I could run,” you say, breathless.

“You won’t.”

He sucks a mark into the tender skin above your collarbone, slow and proprietorial.

“You’re shaking, but you won’t.”

“I don’t— ” Your protest becomes a gasp when his hand slides under your shirt, rough palm over the softness of your stomach, up, up. He pauses at the band of your bra, eyes on yours. You nod. He slips his hand in and groans when he finds your breast, thumb circling once, twice, until your back arches to his palm.

“Pretty sounds,” he says, pleased and mean, like he’s proud he’s extracting them. “Been imagining what you’d sound like for weeks.”

“You— god— heard me open jars but not— ”

Your words dissolve when he mouths at your nipple through the thin fabric.

“Oh, I hear everything,” he says, wicked. “Like how you breathe when you’re alone in the shower.”

He smirks against your skin when you make a scandalized noise.

“I’m not a saint. I left the apartment for a reason some nights.”

“You’re filthy.” you feel your heart thundering and still you're too aroused to care about his wicked ways.

“I’m considerate,” he counters, amused. Then, softer, honest, “And I was trying to give you room to decide.”

Something tender tugs under your ribs. It’s swallowed quick by the way his hand drifts under the hem of your shorts, fingers squeezing the curve of your thigh before sliding inward. He pauses again, patient.

You nod too fast.

He drags the pad of his middle finger over the damp cotton between your legs like he has all the time in the world.

Your stomach drops, heat flashes, your hips tip forward without your permission and his mouth goes back to your throat, humming, satisfied.

“Warm,” he murmurs. “So fucking soft.”

The words are filthy but his tone is reverent. He presses his forehead to your shoulder, fingers teasing slow until you’re clutching his shoulders and making little helpless sounds you will deny later.

“Hold on to me,” he says, and you do, wrapping your arms around his neck, feeling the flex of corded muscle as he works you with lazy precision.

“Sukuna— ”

“Yeah?” He kisses the corner of your mouth, smirking when you chase him.

“Bedroom,” you say, surprising yourself.

The kitchen feels suddenly too bright, too open, too like a decision you cannot walk back from in the place you both cook eggs.

His eyes flare at the word.

He leans in and kisses you again, slower this time, like a promise.

“Bedroom,” he agrees. He steps back, palms lingering on your hips before he slides you down. Your knees wobble and he steadies you, pleased. “Can you walk?”

You glare.

“Yes.”

“Prove it.” He takes your hand anyway.

Your room is only a dozen steps, but they feel like a ritual. His hand is big around yours, warm and sure.

In the doorway he stops you with a tug, makes you face him.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he says. “You say ‘stop’ and I stop.”

You breathe, look at him — at the ink at his throat, the red in his eyes, the stubborn set of his mouth that somehow means he’ll keep that promise.

The fear you carried around like a talisman loosens, slips. Something else settles in its place, a greedy, giddy relief you don’t try to hide.

“I don’t want to stop,” you tell him.

“Good,” he says, and for the first time since you moved in, he smiles without teeth, without edge, heat softening the hard lines of his face. “Then come here.”

You do.

You're in his arms, and then in your bed. Clothes get lost in the process of him getting you breathless with his kisses and touches. He relishes in every single sound he drags from you and is shameless about enjoying them too much.

You learn he lied earlier, he does bite.

He bites your inner thigh, he bites your belly and your neck and even your hip. He also soothes you with his tongue and lips, but he's mean, nonetheless. He circles your clit, presses with the flat of his tongue and edges you but doesn't let you come — you don't know how he knows so accurately when you're close.

He plays with you, lets his huge frame cage you from above as he fingers your needy cunt with one hand and keep his forehead against yours because he won't have you looking anywhere else besides his eyes as he undoes you prettily.

He chuckles in your mouth when you urge to kiss him, arms around his neck and chest pressing against his own as he finally lets you ride your orgasm while pumping his perfectly curled fingers in and out of you.

You don't remember the last time you came so hard, but he let's you know this won't be the last time of the day.

You ask him to choke you when he's already inside you and he stills for a whole second before opening a wicked grin, satisfied you decided to ask for what you want instead of burying it in your creative little mind.

And his hand around your throat is everything you thought and more.

Borderline obscene.

You moan louder, even with raspy voice you feel like the pleasure suddenly enhanced.

He lets himself enjoy you as much as you enjoy him, he places kisses and more bitemarks on your skin, he thrusts inside you with steady, strong pace that has your body shaking under his frame, he bites your lips, moans and groans against them and let you drink his lust as his crimson eyes sear their way through your glinting orbs.

Why did you take so long to— talk.

The brief regret of taking a long time to have this melts the instant he flips you and lets you ride him, big hand still encasing your throat and pulling you down so your chest lays on top of his, other big hand firm on your hipbone, settling you down so he bottoms out inside of you — gravity is a bitch sometimes.

You roll your eyes back when you feel the heat wave uncoiling in your stomach, his eyes bright with mirth as he sees how easily he rips another orgasm out of you, and he guides your body to grind against his. Swollen nub rubbing against his pelvis as his length twists and stroke in a lazy pace your inner walls. Your body shakes and muscles spasm — his mouth clashes on yours and he seems to feed on your whiny undone little sounds.

And as you ride your orgasm he chases his, fucking into you and making your body bounce on top of him, keeping your face close to his, chest to chest, hand now splayed at one of your ass cheeks before he grabs it so tight you yelp and he chuckles for a second and a wrecked moan escapes his lips in the other.

He finishes inside and oh god what is that sensation.

The heat increases and you feel him twitching, then a deeper thrust has him shooting thick hot ropes of cum inside you. You can't define it as other than strangely soothing, and of course, filling.

Later — sweat cooling, his breath slow against your neck, your sheets a mess — you’ll hear him say it again, rough and almost shy into your hair.

“I don’t hate you.”

“I got that,” you say, smiling in the dark, chest matching his. "You fucked the hate out."

He snorts, kisses your shoulder, pulls you closer with an easy, owning strength that makes your heart do stupid tricks.

“Good,” he repeats, and you feel the curve of his grin where his mouth rests on your skin. “So stop sneaking around our place, rabbit. If you need something, you ask.”

You pretend to think about it.

“What if what I need is on the top shelf?”

“Then I’ll reach.”

“What if what I need is you?” you feel sappy but you can allow yourself this one time.

He hums, pleased, and the sound goes through you like a warm hand.

“Then you won’t have to tiptoe for it.”

Yuji shows up like he always does, door flung with too much enthusiasm, a chorus of “hellooo!” and the smell of takeout preceding him down the hall.

He’s got a six-pack hooked in his fingers, a paper bag of gyoza clenched in his teeth, and exactly zero respect for doorframes.

“Peace was an option,” Sukuna says from the kitchen, deadpan, not looking up from the skillet.

“Peace is boring,” Yuji says around dumplings. He kicks off his shoes and beelines for you. “You look alive again! Did Bro stop waterboarding you with soup?”

You try to glare. It probably reads as fond.

“He did not waterboard me.”

“He would if it worked,” Sukuna says, flipping fried rice like the pan is an extension of his wrist. “Sit.”

You drift to the counter, meaning to help, and end up stealing a crispy bit from the pan. Sukuna’s eyes cut sideways — red and amused — and he taps the counter once, wait.

You do, because your survival instinct learned that tap.

Yuji bustles, sets down the bags, talks at a speed that defies physics.

“I brought gyoza, karaage, and those little sesame balls you pretend you don’t like.”

He leans in, stage-whispers,

“He eats them when you’re asleep.”

“I do not,” Sukuna says, already plating exactly three sesame balls on the far side like they’re under witness protection.

You reach for a plate, Sukuna slides it out of your hand with two fingers and jerks his chin toward the living room.

“Go sit.”

“I can carry—”

“Go sit,” he repeats, like gravity.

You go, muttering something about tyrants.

The couch sighs as you sink into it. The TV is on a streaming menu, the volume low.

You scroll, not really looking, Yuji follows with napkins and chopsticks and that big brother energy he has despite being the younger Itadori — “I will take care of you, and also I will drink your soda.” kind of vibe.

Sukuna arrives last, loaded like an efficient warlord — plates, bottles, extra sauce. He drops one plate on the coffee table and, without ceremony, drops himself onto the couch.

He hooks an arm around your waist and tugs you in, easy as breathing.

There’s no question.

One second you’re sitting next to him, the next, you’re sitting on him — across his thighs, your knees bracketing his, your plate balanced on the broad shelf of his quad. He nudges your ankle with his knee to angle you just right. His chin finds the notch of your shoulder like it was measured for him.

Yuji blinks.

Once.

Twice.

You can see the math happen behind his eyes.

“Ah, fuck,” he says, not exactly quietly.

Your stomach drops.

“Yuji— I was going to tell you,” you blurt, heat climbing your neck. “I just— I didn’t want it to be weird and I—”

He’s already grinning, palms up in surrender.

“No, no. I owe Megumi ten bucks.”

You short-circuit.

“I— what?”

Yuji thumbs out a text like he’s filing a claim.

“He said there was no universe where my brother would let you stay untouched and unkissed. Knowing you. Knowing him.”

He points his chin at Sukuna’s arm locked around your waist.

“Honestly? We’re late. I thought this would be, like, week two.”

Your cheeks go atomic.

Sukuna barks a laugh, chest shaking under your spine, and squeezes you closer until you can feel the smug roll of his hum against your nape.

“She thought I hated her,” he tells Yuji, delighted, like he’s reporting a crime.

Yuji cackles so hard he has to plant his hands on his knees.

“She’s always like this when people flirt— bold as hell and somehow blind.”

“I am not blind,” you say, attempting dignity from the worst possible vantage point —his lap. “He’s rough and mean.”

“Compliments,” Sukuna murmurs into your skin, teeth grazing your shoulder just to be an ass.

Yuji, gleeful,

“Bold. Blind.”

You stab a gyoza, refusing to be flustered.

You last three chews.

Sukuna, absolutely not helping, adds in that ruinous, lazy tone,

“You didn’t complain about rough and mean while I was fucking you.”

The noise that escapes you is not recognized by science.

Yuji facepalms so fast he might sprain something.

“BRO. I am present. I am a witness.”

“Be grateful I’m being polite,” Sukuna says, and steals half your karaage with audacious eye contact.

“Polite,” you echo, elbowing him in the ribs. It’s like elbowing a wall. “This is your polite setting?”

“Mm.” His breath warms the tiny hairs at your neck. “Figure you like me better out of prison.”

Yuji points two chopsticks like tiny accusing swords.

“New house rules. One, no filthy metaphors within three feet of the rice. Two, if you sit in his lap you forfeit food taxes. Three, I was right.”

“Megumi was right,” you correct weakly.

Yuji makes a show of texting.

“Pay up, Fushiguro. 😌”

Your phone buzzes a second later.

Megumi,

I won. Another, Also tell him to stop stealing sesame balls.

Sukuna snorts, mouth already full of a stolen sesame ball.

You try to regroup.

“For the record,” you say to Yuji, chin up, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know if it was— if he—”

You gesture vaguely at the man-shaped problem you’re sitting on.

“He’s not exactly… obvious.”

Yuji barks a laugh.

“He is the most obvious man alive. He moved the top-shelf stuff to the second shelf and pretended it was gravity. He washed your hoodie, that he gave you, and warmed it in the dryer like a cat.”

Sukuna grunts.

“Shut up.”

Yuji grins wider.

“He installed the rubber bath mat.”

You whirl.

“You told him that?”

“Didn’t have to,” Yuji says. “Bro’s been doing silent acts of service since we were kids. He thinks if he uses verbs it makes him weak.”

Sukuna flicks a dumpling at him.

Yuji catches it with the reflexes of a raccoon and eats it triumphantly.

You… soften.

It’s ridiculous, how fast the embarrassment drains into something buoyant.

The room feels bigger. Your shoulders slide down.

From this close, Sukuna’s “rough and mean” is just… texture. Heat.

The absurd safety of being bodily anchored to someone who blocks doors and fixes thermostats and snarls at gyoza.

Yuji leans back, satisfied, and opens a beer.

“Anyway, congrats, lovebirds. When’s the wedding.”

“Eat glass,” Sukuna says calmly.

“Bring a plus-one,” you add, and Yuji wheezes.

The movie you didn’t pick plays in the background — something loud and unserious.

Yuji heckles the physics, you laugh, Sukuna hums, that low pleased sound that vibrates where your spine meets his sternum, and presses a kiss to the hinge of your jaw like he’s checking it fits there.

You swat at him with your chopsticks, useless.

“Yuji is right there.”

“I know,” he says, utterly unbothered, and nips your nape on pure principle.

Yuji throws a napkin.

“Two feet rule! Two feet!”

“Three feet,” you say primly, trying not to melt.

Sukuna’s mouth curls against your skin.

“I’ll allow it,” he says, like a king bestowing mercy, and slides one big palm over your thigh to anchor your plate. “Eat.”

You eat. He steals. Yuji steals from both of you like a happy goblin and gives running commentary about how Megumi is sending him a ten with a skull emoji.

Somewhere in there, your phone buzzes again — Nobara, tell him if he breaks your heart I’ll break his kneecaps — and you show Yuji and everybody laughs, including the alleged kneecap owner, who says,

“Get in line.”

At some point you lean back without thinking.

Sukuna’s arm tightens, automatic, the way seatbelts do in old cars. You pretend not to notice how good “automatic” feels, and he pretends not to notice you noticing.

Yuji finishes his beer, wipes his mouth, and eyes the two of you like an anthropologist closing a field notebook.

“Well,” he says, smug, “this turned out wholesome. Disgusting.”

“Get out,” Sukuna says without heat.

“In a minute.” Yuji snaps his fingers. “One more rule, if you’re going to be gross, at least admit you’re happy.”

You make a face.

Sukuna doesn’t.

He just hums against your shoulder again, low and obscene and somehow soft, and says,

“Happy she thought I hated her?”

“Yeah, and she still climbed you like a tree,” Yuji fires back.

Your face combusts again. You bury it in your hands. Both brothers laugh — Sukuna’s a bass rumble under your palms, Yuji’s a bright crackle that fills the room.

It should be mortifying. It is. It’s also easy. It’s loud and dumb and perfect.

You peek through your fingers.

Yuji is texting terrible memes. Sukuna is licking sauce off his thumb like a menace.

You are sitting on a man who used to terrify you and now feels like a gravity you got to choose.

“Hey,” Yuji says, half out the door later with leftovers dangling. “For real. If he’s too mean, I’ll steal you.”

“You can try,” Sukuna says, amused, hand heavy and warm at your waist.

You stick your tongue out at Yuji.

“Megumi still gets the ten?”

Yuji groans.

“I’m never betting against that man again.”

The door shuts. Silence returns like a friendly cat. You let your head tip back onto Sukuna’s shoulder.

He nudges the plate away and folds you in both arms like it’s his job.

“Bold and blind, huh,” you murmur.

“Bold,” he corrects, mouth at your pulse. “Not blind anymore.”

You smile, helpless.

“Rough and mean.”

“Mm.” He kisses your neck, unhurried. “You didn’t complain.”

“It’s color-coded for a reason. Blue for incidents, yellow for low-grade exorcisms, green for post-stabilization reports.”

“Yeah, yeah. You and your systems,” he sighs, but there's no complaint in the sound. Haruki is the type to keep his entire desk organized by proximity to the nearest coffee machine, so your meticulous methods are a source of endless teasing.

You smile at that and finish writing the last sentence on the current form—a detailed, painfully dull account of a weaving after a Grade 4 curse was exorcised from a local park fountain. Once completed, you flip the blue-tabbed file open.

The regional branch of Jujutsu Sorcerers you work at is, thankfully, a backwater. The only curses that ever trouble this area are usually low grade, minor nuisances that a junior sorcerer can easily handle, earning their required field hours. You’ve always preferred that quiet peace of mind and the slow, predictable rhythm of your daily life here.

It’s nothing spectacular, to be honest. Mornings spent typing reports, afternoons in weaving sessions, coaxing the frayed energy of battered Grade 3 sorcerers, and quiet evenings in a modest, perfectly safe apartment where the loudest noise is usually the neighbor’s neurotic Pomeranian barking at the shadows. Your life might seem desperately boring to a combat sorcerer, but you don’t mind. Actually, you like it that way. It’s safe.

Which is why the longer you read the document in front of you, the deeper the frown creases your forehead. It’s a report on last night’s mission that was originally classified as Grade 3, when an unexpected Grade 1 had appeared and cracked open a young sorcerer's ribs before someone from Kyoto had finally arrived and managed to kill it. 

Unfortunately, you’ve heard of no sorcerers with RCT in Japan besides Shoko Ieri, so recovery in cases like this, relying on conventional medicine, is a long, painful process.

“I’m going to the infirmary to check on him,” you say with a deep, weary sigh, pushing back from your desk with a squeak of the chair legs.

Haruki nods, his expression mirroring your own concern. “Give Sota my best. Tell him to stop rushing in like a maniac.”

“I’ll try, but you know he won’t listen.”

The infirmary is on the quiet side of the building. When you walk in, all the hospital beds are empty but one, which is occupied by Sota, whom you came to see. Next to his bed sit his friend and your supervisor, Akiko, who’s questioning them both about the more detailed points of that botched mission. Akiko looks up, and when she sees you, her professional expression softens slightly. She quickly stands, leaves the empty chair for you, and then subtly motions the healthy sorcerer aside, giving you the necessary space to work.

“Can I?” you ask Sota softly, gesturing with an open palm toward his bandaged chest.

He manages a faint, pain-laced smile. “Yeah,” he rasps out, shifting gingerly on the thin mattress.

You pull the chair close, resting your hands lightly against his warm skin just above the bandages. Focusing, you let the thin threads of your cursed energy slip between the microscopic splinters and cracks in his own, like fingers meticulously combing through snarled, knotted thread. You can’t heal him, but your technique, the Weaving, lets you bind the splinters down and make the energy flow smooth again. It’s not much, but it ensures his cursed energy won’t irritate the deep tissue wounds, so at least he’ll be back on his feet sooner.

Not even half an hour later, just as you feel the worst of the knots loosening, a voice you don’t recognize cuts sharply through the quiet infirmary.

“We’re looking for the Weaver.”

You lift your head to see two men in crisp black suits standing in the doorway. They look entirely out of place in this provincial setting. Akiko visibly jumps to her feet and steps closer to them, and her professional demeanor instantly snaps back into place.

“Oh,” she says quickly with a note of surprise in her voice. “I wasn’t informed you’d be coming today.”

“You weren’t required to be.”

The response is calm and polite in tone, yet completely dismissive in substance. The way her mouth presses into a thin line afterward tells you enough about how this conversation is going to go.

“Is there a problem?” you ask cautiously, still seated by Sato’s bedside, hovering your hand over his chest.

“No problem,” the taller man says, glancing at the injured man in front of you. “Please continue, we’ll wait.”

Right then, Sato winces sharply as your focus slips for half a second under their intense scrutiny.

“Sorry,” you murmur softly, immediately smoothing the jagged edge you’d disturbed. Being observed like this by two silent, intimidating men while working with such delicate energy isn’t helping. “Almost done. Just breathe through it.”

He nods with gritted teeth, and your fingers graze his skin, combing through until you can’t feel any more frays or snags.

“Thank you,” he sighs, before he gently pulls his hospital gown back on with a painful groan.

“We should have one more session tomorrow morning,” you inform him with a reassuring, slightly forced smile, finally standing up. “Then they’ll let you go home.”

As soon as you leave and the door closes behind you, the strangers in suits turn their full attention towards you. 

“You’ve been reassigned.”

Your mind stalls right away, struggling to catch up. “…reassigned?”

“To Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School,” the taller one continues flatly. “Effective immediately.”

You blink at him, once, then twice, waiting for it to make sense, for some kind of logical explanation to follow that actually explains the why. Tokyo stands at the center of Jujutsu society, serving as the hub for the entire structure. Secondary branch specialists don't just get summoned there.

“Effective—wait, I—what about my current cases? I have two Grade 3s in…”

“They’ve been transferred. The reports are already being processed.”

“My supervisor—”

“Already notified.”

You glance sharply at Akiko. Something sharp and deeply uncertain settles under your ribs, a sense of betrayal, but she doesn’t meet your eyes, looking away. That somehow feels worse than any outright explanation.

“…for what reason?” you ask slowly, keeping your voice even despite the sudden, escalating panic inside you. “Tokyo doesn’t usually pull resources from secondary branches unless it’s a matter of—”

“A high-priority stabilization case.”

Your heart gives a small, nervous skip against your ribs, a quick flutter of dread. “I specialize in post-injury smoothing,” you press, your voice sounding a touch higher and more strained than you’d like in a situation like this. “Recovery support. That’s not exactly a—”

“It aligns with your technique.”

“Surely there are Seniors who—"

"They were very specific." The second man, who hasn’t spoken until now, holds out his arm with a sealed folder for you to take. It’s stamped with a seal of the Jujutsu Higher-Ups you’ve only seen in textbooks.

You open your mouth to press further, to demand clarification on what kind of case requires immediate reassignment without notice, briefing, or transition period, but the unyielding look you receive from both men shuts the question down before it can fully form. This was never intended to be a conversation or a negotiation. It was an order.

“…when do I leave?”

“Now would be ideal. A car is waiting outside. We’ve already cleared your absence with the local director. You won't be coming back tonight.”

You let out a quiet breath through your nose that’s almost a strangled, disbelieving laugh of helplessness. So both the director and your supervisor, who is still pointedly avoiding your gaze, were fully aware of this, and neither gave you any notice to prepare.

“Can I at least get my things from my office?”

Both of them nod, and you start walking toward the office wing, hoping desperately for a moment alone, but the men are following closely behind. Your colleagues look up in surprise when they notice the two figures trailing you upon your entering the room, but you just offer a weak, reassuring smile and tell Haruki you’ll text him later with an explanation you don't yet have.

You reach for your desk with numb hands, gathering files, closing folders, and mindlessly putting away the small pieces of a routine you hadn’t realized how deeply attached you’d grown to until someone decided to take it away without asking. As you pack your things, your mind races, grasping at whatever vague, terrifying rumors you’ve heard over the last year.

Everyone in the jujutsu world, even in the quiet provinces, knows something colossal happened in the capital a year ago. They spoke of fire and a shadow that turned the sky red, and of a reincarnation—something ancient and terrible, taking root within the city. The Disaster in Tokyo, they called it. But the details never made it into official reports. At least, not to the ones your small branch was privy to. 

You had imagined it was a problem for heroes, for men like Satoru Gojo. And it had probably been the case, since the vague rumors had stopped a few months ago, suggesting the monster was either dead or at least pinned under a mountain of seals and restrictions.

This sudden summons has to be something else, but it still doesn’t explain the immediate, emergency reassignment of a specialist in recovery support.

“…this stabilization,” you start, not looking at them as you walk with them toward the waiting car, forcing the words out into the hallway. “Is it a curse?”

For a moment, neither of them answers. The silence stretches as they try to find an approved answer that won't violate any security protocols. Then, one of them finally says, with practiced neutrality, “It’s being handled.”

That’s not remotely what you asked, but the non-answer only confirms that you’re not getting any actual information until you arrive at the Tokyo main campus.

The officials make a quick stop at your apartment, where you’re informed to pack for at least a few days and, most emphatically, to hurry. Inside, you move on autopilot, tossing in a few changes of clothes, your battered laptop, and documents you need into the small suitcase.

The car ride to Tokyo is a blur of passing lights and the heavy, suffocating silence of the two men. You sit stiffly in the backseat, clutching your bag to your chest like a shield, watching through the window as the familiar, quiet world of the province recedes and finally disappears. An official folder from the Higher-Ups sits heavy on your lap, but its contents offer no clarity, only an imposing, formal letter of summons.

As the sedan nears the campus, you notice with some relief that it’s at least outside Tokyo, high in the mountains, and the area looks far more peaceful than you’d ever expected. The car slows, finally pulling to a stop in a broad, paved courtyard. The taller of the two men steps out and silently opens your door.

"This way,” he instructs.

The walk through the Tokyo Jujutsu High campus is an exercise in deceptive normalcy. The grounds are a sprawling mix of modern, functional structures and smaller, elegant buildings in traditional Japanese architecture. On first glance, it resembles a prestigious, if somewhat secluded, private academy. 

But no matter how beautiful it looks, you notice subtle, unnerving cracks. They’re small, easy to overlook unless you pay close attention. There’s a thin fissure at the base of a wooden veranda on an older building, and another spidering up a stone pillar near the main entrance—neatly patched but still visible. Under your feet, a hairline fracture runs through the stone walkway. You glance at them as you walk, brow furrowing. Are these construction damage? Settling foundations after an earthquake? The campus is clearly well-maintained, yet these quiet fractures appear in scattered places. You briefly wonder what could cause such precise little breaks in a place that otherwise appears so ordinary.

"Standard maintenance isn't enough when the ambient resonance is this high," the taller man offers abruptly, like that explains anything when he catches you looking around. 

The officials keep a brisk pace, and you hurry to match it, pulling your suitcase behind you. As you’re walking past a training field where a handful of students practice, their bright laughter drifts through the air.

Only when you climb the short flight of stairs and step inside the main building does the air begin to change and something begin to press against your senses.

As you proceed down a corridor, the longer you go, the more the atmosphere distorts. It begins as a faint hum just beyond perception. A heavy, suffocating pressure starts to build, pressing on your chest—cursed energy, vast and overwhelming. It’s not sharp or aggressive, but immense, like witnessing the tide pull back to reveal the ocean’s true depth.

It emanates from somewhere ahead, dense and thick enough to fill your lungs with every breath. Your steps falter briefly on the polished floor. You’ve encountered powerful sorcerers before, mostly visiting Grade 1s, but this is an entirely different category of existence. It doesn’t flex or flare; it simply is, spreading in slow, relentless waves that raise the hairs on your arms and quicken your heartbeat involuntarily.

You swallow hard, risking a quick sideways glance at the two officials. Their faces remain stoically impassive, but you notice the taller one’s shoulders are a fraction tighter than before. Neither of them offers an explanation, leading you down the sunlit corridor.

Between two branching hallways, a flash of white hair and a tall silhouette turns the corner ahead of you. Your stomach gives a small, instinctive flip of recognition.Of course, Gojo Satoru would be here; everyone knows he teaches at the main campus. Still, seeing the strongest sorcerer alive in the same building where something else radiates an energy that forms a monumental presence that’s as solid as the stone does absolutely nothing to ease the unease already crawling up your spine.

The power grows heavier with each step. It feels old, layered with centuries of existence that no modern sorcerer could possibly carry. Your breathing turns shallow when you realize it dwarfs anything you’ve ever experienced, and it’s coming from behind an ordinary door at the very end of this hallway.

"The Higher-Ups were very specific about your technique," the official states, halting abruptly in front of it. He doesn't look at you, but you notice how incredibly stiff he holds himself while maintaining a respectful distance from the handle. "They believe your weaving method is the only thing precise enough to smooth out the snags without... aggravating the source."

You desperately want to tell him that your work typically involves dealing with battered teenagers and Grade 3 sorcerers, not “sources” that cause buildings to crack. But before you can speak, he opens the door, revealing what looks like an ordinary faculty meeting room—long wooden table, chairs arranged neatly, and sunlight slanting through plain windows onto the wooden floor.

“Go inside.”

The room is nothing that should make the world tilt sideways, but the instant you step through the threshold, the power slams into you like a physical wall. The change in pressure is so abrupt that your body reacts before your mind can even process it. Your breath hitches painfully halfway in your chest as your lungs struggle to expand properly. The air feels thick and oppressively heavy, charged with staggering density of cursed energy that neither dissipates nor settles. It fills the entire room from wall to wall and presses against you from every direction at once.

It’s everywhere, rolling in slow, inexorable waves that seem to seep into your bones and leave a metallic, coppery taste in your mouth. Its vastness drains your strength, causing your legs to falter. The handle of your suitcase groans under your tight grip. A cold sweat blooms across your back, prickling beneath your uniform blouse, while your heart stutters once, twice, then hammers against your ribs with such violence that you are half-convinced the officials can hear it.

This isn’t the crisp, contained brilliance you felt when Gojo Satoru passed by. This is something ancient, pressing down on you until your vision narrows at the edges and your knees threaten to buckle completely.

Even amidst that, your eyes instantly lock on the man, seated calmly at the far end of the long table in a chair that looks ridiculously small against his large frame. He looks completely relaxed, with one arm casually draped over the backrest of a nearby chair, his shoulders at ease, exuding complete, effortless control of the space around him. He's tall, broad, and muscular, and his slightly tousled pink hair is a jarring contrast to the dark lines of ink across his face.

Despite the sheer, terrifying magnitude of the energy radiating from him, he isn’t a disfigured curse; his appearance isn't distorted or monstrous as you might have expected. For a fleeting moment, your mind struggles to reconcile this calm exterior with the intense, overwhelming pressure that fills the room.

Your body refuses to follow any logical instructions, entering a full, paralyzing vasovagal freeze. Your muscles lock tight until you’re nothing more than a statue standing just inside the closed door; your hands tighten even further against the suitcase handle, the sharp edges digging deeply into your palm, desperately grounding yourself in something physical while everything else in the room shifts beyond your control.

The cursed energy filling the space sinks deeper into your skin, sharpening until its vibrations are clearly felt along your nerves. It makes absolutely no sense that it’s contained so effortlessly by the will of the person sitting before you.

The scale of it causes your breathing to falter further. Each breath grows shorter, your chest tightening as your body struggles to find a steady rhythm under the overwhelming weight. Your shoulders tense and your jaw clenches as you attempt to regain control of your breath, but you fail to steady it.

Never in your life have you felt even ten percent of the power this man is deliberately letting you see.

One of the officials clears his throat, the sound painfully small and fragile in the charged silence. 

"This is Ryomen Sukuna," he starts, keeping his voice carefully neutral, as though the name itself doesn’t carry the weight of centuries of nightmares. "Special Grade sorcerer.” 

The name hits you like a physical blow, sending ripples of pure dread straight through your chest. You know the legends—the King of Curses, the strongest sorcerer in history, the calamity that had turned the Heian era into a slaughterhouse painted red with the blood of sorcerers and civilians alike. A man who nearly wiped out civilization.

Hearing that name spoken aloud here, in this room, in the 21st century, instantly turns the terror coursing in your blood to ice. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle line up with what your eyes are seeing, and the true extent of it sinks in now that the presence has a name.

“He works as a teacher here at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School."

You’ve always chosen to believe those stories were just half-myths, exaggerations designed as horror stories to keep young, ambitious sorcerers humble. But even if they’re true, he’s supposed to be dead. He’s meant to be only a record, a story explaining limits that no one dares to push anymore. Yet he’s sitting right in front of you, and, what is somehow worse, he’s an official part of the faculty.

The reality is more terrifying than anything your mind could ever imagine. Your hands begin to shake visibly, the tremor running through your fingers so violently around the suitcase handle that you can feel the plastic biting sharply into your palm. Your feet remain firmly planted, your body still, despite every instinct screaming at you to turn and run.

Across the room, Sukuna hasn't moved since you walked in. He looks profoundly, dangerously bored, almost like any other teacher enduring a tedious meeting, with his head resting languidly on one hand, his elbow braced on the table. The fingers of his other hand lazily drum once on the back of a chair next to him. The tiny motion sends another slow, immense wave of that cursed energy rolling outward, and you feel it brush over you, sliding across your bare nerves.

The room seems to physically shrink around his seated form; the sunlight itself feels dimmer, thinner, almost like his cursed energy is actively drinking the light, leaving only a heavy pressure that makes your teeth ache at the roots and your stomach twist into a cold, nauseating knot. 

You’re about to feel sick and faint, standing here trembling with uncontrolled terror before he’s even looked at you. A distant, hysterical part of your mind wonders whether the Higher-Ups, presumably watching from behind the panels on the side, are watching their sacrificial lamb’s face pale and shoulders stiffen, as calmly and clinically as they must have watched every other person they’d sent before you.

Then his head tilts toward you lazily, and his eyes—four of them, you realize with a fresh, sickening spike of horror—settle on you. The movement is subtle, but it instantly heightens your awareness of the contrast between his vast cursed energy and his concentrated focus.

He assesses you, tracking your chest hitching with shallow, useless gasps and your hands shaking hard. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but something far more menacing: the faint spark of curiosity as he spots an intriguing new toy on the floor. 

Then, he decides to play. He slowly rises from the chair, his powerful body unfolding to its full, staggering height in one motion that somehow instantly shrinks the room around you even further. The difference in scale becomes immediate, and your line of sight is forced up as your eyes follow him, your body remaining locked where it stands.

Your heartbeat suddenly pounds loudly in your ears. He calmly takes the first step toward you, hands in his pockets, and the dread that had already been suffocating you doubles, then triples, becoming something living, squirming, and writhing in your chest.

Sukuna intentionally floods the space with his energy, letting you feel the full, ancient enormity of what he is wash over you like an unstoppable tide with no intention of receding. The presence expands, tightening around you as he moves, with the pressure rising in direct proportion to the narrowing gap between you. The vibration under your skin sharpens further, irritating your lungs and making your breathing stutter again as your chest fails to keep up with the change. 

With every step he takes, the air grows denser and heavier. Your hands shake so badly that the suitcase handle rattles against your thigh despite your effort to hold them steady. Sweat trickles down the small of your back, and your vision tunnels until the only thing left in the world is the approaching figure.

Thanks to your technique, the closer he is, the easier it is for you to feel the clear, sharp splinters flicker at the very edges of his power. It’s like static electricity dancing along a live wire, yet even those splinters are nothing compared to his sheer paralyzing presence.

He stops directly in front of you, towering over your smaller frame and casting a shadow that swallows you whole, forcing your gaze up fully. Your focus narrows as the details of him fill your vision: the texture of his skin, the lines of the tattoos across his face, and the steady, unaffected rise and fall of his chest, completely unbothered by the pressure he’s filling the room with. Up close, the tattoos give the illusion of pulsing against his skin, stretched taut over muscle that could snap you in half without the slightest effort.

Sukuna lets even more of his cursed energy surface. The sensation floods your entire awareness, intensifying into something that borders on pain without crossing into it, making every nerve ending in your body scream in terror. It’s so intense that your very skeleton might shatter under it.

Behind you, one of the officials takes an involuntary half-step back and stumbles awkwardly, unable to withstand the suffocating spike in tension as Sukuna leans down, closing the last of the distance.

The sorcerer’s gaze flicks past you for the barest fraction of a second, acknowledging the official’s cowardice with a look of complete, detached boredom, before it returns to you with the same terrifying intensity. Your breathing breaks entirely for a second before returning in short, ragged, uneven gasps that do nothing to ease the pressure crushing your chest.

Your fingers twitch uselessly, while your mind screams at you to move, to run, to do anything, but you can only stand there, frozen, as his face comes so close that you can feel the hot breath ghost over your skin. Your heart is hammering so hard you’re certain it will burst through your ribs.

Those four eyes study you with curiosity, drinking in the details your body fails to control. They track how your pulse flutters wildly at the hollow of your throat, how your shoulders tense so tightly they ache, and how you’re shaking so fiercely that your vision blurs at the edges. He just looks, letting the weight of his presence settle over you like a shroud.

A low and deep chuckle rolls out of his chest, dark and rich with profound amusement as he takes in your reaction in full. 

Then, at last, he straightens back to his full height, but he doesn’t look away from you even as he addresses the panel behind where the Higher-Ups sit in silence.

"I’ll take this one," he rumbles.

The silence holds for a moment before the unknown voice from behind the panel responds with a brief confirmation.

“Understood.”

Sukuna lingers a second longer where he is, his attention still on you, amused by how your body stays locked in place despite the absence of any direct contact. His lips curl slightly, pleased that the pressure he exudes is more than enough. His gaze leaves you only when he decides he’s done observing. Suddenly, he moves, walks past you, slides the door open, and leaves the room without another word.

That pressure doesn’t vanish with him, though. It lingers, clinging to your skin, leaving you swaying on your feet until your knees finally threaten to give out entirely. A low, helpless sound escapes your throat before you can clamp your jaw down and swallow it back.

One of the officials, the shorter man, steps forward quickly, his face pale with something akin to alarm. He steadies your elbow carefully, his own hand shaking slightly.

“Breathe,” he says under his breath. “It gets… easier. Marginally.”

Behind you, the second man exhales quietly, then adds after his colleague, “You’ll adjust.”

Your hands are still shaking uncontrollably, and you stare down at your right palm. There, where the rough plastic handle you’d been gripping had pressed, a deep, angry-red welt is already visible. Then you realize you’re still gasping for air. Your lungs hitch and burn, struggling to remember how to expand now that the weight of his cursed energy is no longer physically pressing against them.

The reality of what just happened crashes over you. Ryomen Sukuna. The King of Curses. A living nightmare now walking these corridors as a teacher.

"You should count yourself fortunate," the taller man says, though his voice lacks any real conviction. "He hasn't shown that much… interest in a specialist since his arrival at this campus. In fact, he hasn't accepted any of the previous candidates we presented.”

You look up at him, your vision still slightly tunneled at the edges. Swallowing again, your throat still unbearably tight, you try to force a coherent question out past the lingering fear. 

“Fortunate?" you rasp, your voice sounding like dry paper. "He looked at me like I was... a thing. A toy."

The official pointedly ignores your remark and the barely suppressed tremor in your voice, smoothing down his suit jacket with fingers that, despite his attempt at composure, are visibly trembling.

"Regardless of your personal feelings, the decision has been made. Sukuna has accepted you. From this moment forward, you are assigned directly to him."

He begins to pace the small area between the table and the door, his eyes darting everywhere but meeting yours.

"Your primary duty is to manage his cursed energy. Sukuna’s power is... immense. After his missions, his energy becomes more volatile, jagged, and overwhelming than usual. If it builds up—if those snags are not addressed and smoothed out by someone with your unique capabilities—his energy continues to bleed uncontrollably into the environment and…” he pauses, searching for a bureaucratically acceptable word to describe unchecked destruction.

“...incidentally damage to campus infrastructure,” the shorter man helpfully offers, gesturing toward the window, toward the campus you walked through only mere minutes ago. "The fractures you noticed in the stone, the splintering foundations—that is what happens when he’s left unmanaged. The school can no longer keep up with the repairs. Your job is to ensure his energy stays contained and regulated entirely within him. You will weave and smooth it whenever he returns from the field."

"And when he doesn't need me?" you ask, your voice barely a ragged whisper. The thought of being in the same room with him for an extended period already makes your stomach churn.

"When he isn’t in need of your services, you may be called upon to assist Shoko Ieiri in the infirmary. But make no mistake: your priority is him. Daily sessions. And if he calls for a session outside of that, you drop everything else. Am I clear?"

Daily sessions with him. Alone. You manage a shaky, nauseated nod, though the motion feels strangely disconnected from your body. Then, the reality of your technique finally settles into your mind. Your Weaving isn't a distance-based ritual; it requires direct, skin-to-skin contact to smooth out the energy. You realize, with a sudden spike of lightheadedness, that you aren't just going to be sitting across a table from the King of Curses. To do what you were brought here for, you’re going to have to reach out and actually touch him. 

“Come with me,” the shorter official says after a moment, turning toward the door. “I’ll show you your office.”

He leads you out of the meeting room and down the corridor in the opposite direction Sukuna had taken. After a few tense steps, he glances back at you, his professional mask finally cracking, softening into something that looks like genuine, if detached, pity.

“You aren’t the first we’ve sent, you know. The Higher-Ups tried everything to regulate his energy. Binding techniques, suppression methods, and direct intervention. They sent many sorcerers who showed even a slight ability to detect and manipulate irregularities in cursed energy.” 

He looks down the hallway, checking to see if the walls are listening. 

“Sukuna doesn't need to actually act to exert pressure. His mere baseline output is more than sufficient to break most people.” You understand that much already, painfully so. "He didn't even have to lift a finger against any of them. He simply sat there, much as he did today, allowing his cursed energy to overflow and saturate the room. The sheer, suffocating mass of it..." He trails off, the memory clearly disturbing even him, then finishes in a low murmur, “They either withdrew or were quickly reassigned for their own safety.”

The words sink into you like heavy lead, bringing a sudden, hollow ache to your chest. Your reassignment isn’t a promotion; it’s merely a reckless gamble by men who have already lost every other bet.

If Grade 1 sorcerers couldn’t survive working with him for more than a few days, what chance do you have? You, who spent your mornings color-coding files and your afternoons smoothing out the cursed energy of Grade 3 and 4 sorcerers?

The official stops before a row of unmarked wooden doors, slides one open, and gestures for you to enter first. "This is your office. It has been fully equipped for your work.”

Inside, the space is a modest but entirely functional office, bathed in the soft light of a spring afternoon. There is a wide desk already stocked with fresh stationery, a comfortable-looking chair, a small couch against one wall for your sessions, and tall windows overlooking the main training fields.

“Living quarters on campus have also been arranged—nothing extravagant, but secure and close to both this facility and the infirmary. Your belongings from your previous residence will be collected and delivered by this evening. The Higher-Ups were quite… insistent on speed.”

The official lingers in the doorway. “Take some time to settle. Sukuna will likely find you when he needs you. Until then… try to rest. You’ll need your strength.”

He offers a shallow, almost sympathetic bow, then closes the door behind him, leaving you alone in the sudden, ringing silence.

Your suitcase slips from your numb fingers and thuds against the floor. You stand there in the middle of your new office, new life, hands still trembling at your sides, the memory of four eyes and that low, amused chuckle burning behind your eyelids.

series masterlist ◦ next chapter

you had no legitimate reason to be mad at SUKUNA in the first place. just because the limited-edition hello kitty mug you wanted to buy was out of sale does not mean you have to be mean to him! >:(

you’ve been slamming doors, huffing and pouting at everything sukuna had to say, rolling your eyes and calling your boyfriend a list of obscenities.

and after a while of attempting to be patient with you? sukuna had finally snapped.

…aand that’s how you ended up getting fucked in the ass with a vibrator shoved against your clit. holy fuuuck was it too much for you to handle without going dumb.

“fuuh–fuuuck, ‘kun-naa! s’ too m-muchhh!!” you’d squeal and cry out of overstimulated pleasure as your eyes slightly crossed, drool dribbling from the corner of your lips.

“shut up already. you were bein’ a fuckin’ bitch to me alll day, weren’t you?” he’d talk so nasty into your ear with the way he had you pressed in the meanest full nelson. the fact he didn’t get an immediate response from you just fueled his anger.

“i asked you a question, ma. weren’t you bein’ a fuckin’ bitch all day?” he wrapped a thick n’ girthy forearm snug around your throat, not enough to cut your airway.

“f-fuck — yesss! ohmygodsukuna!! m’ gonna cu-cummm!” you were so fucking close. but a punishments a punishment, right? you had no right to be enjoying this.

“like hell you are,” he’d take the vibrator off your clit for a split second to roughly spank the bud of nerves before placing the vibrator right back where it belonged, “fuck, yer’ so tight.. slutty ass was made jusss’ for my cock, right?” he’d spit on the skin in between your neck and shoulder.

you were gargling and crying for a deep breath of air as you were officially fucked dumb. you oh so desperately wanted to cum and squirt all over in sticky, messy gushes, “p-pleaseee! n-need to cum so-soooo bad! ca-can’t help itt!”

“ohhh fuuck, yer’ damn lucky i’m close,” sukuna was so close to cumming deep in you. his cock twitched and throbbed inside the gumminess of your ass.

“fuckfuckfuckfuuuuck, ‘kuna!! m’ cumming!” as soon as you seized with orgasmic motions, empty pussy throbbing as you squirted your liquid gold — sukuna came deep in your ass.

it felt so messy and sticky in there; like it didn’t belong. you’re eyes rolled to the back of your brain even after your earth-shaking orgasm as sukuna groaned and growled in your ear.

“f-fuck, stupid cunt..” he’d growl into your ear before roughly yanking the vibrator off of your clit and pulling out of your ass with a squelching wet POP! “you learn yer’ lesson?”

“m-mhm! won’t be mean to y-you again..”

"like it ain't the truth," sukuna retorts as toji called out a "don't knock it til you try it" in response. sukuna rolled his eyes as if his flat mate could see him and only stood up in defeat. he chalked it up his briefs falling into the backrooms or something; at this point, anything was better than suggesting toji had been wearing them, accident or not. almost as if on cue, a knock is heard on the apartment door. neither of them bother to get it, already knowing who it was and that whoever was at the door had a house key. 

you enter the threshold of sukuna and toji's shared apartment using the key sukuna had given you when your relationship had started getting serious. it was a rather silly memory looking back on it. he had tried to look so cool during the whole ordeal but the pink on the tips of his ears gave him away. the two of you were seated on his couch, alone in the flat for once since toji had gone out for drinks with shiu. during the movie, sukuna kept fidgeting like he was nervous for something. it wasn't until a boring part of the movie came up that he cleared his throat and reached for something in his pocket. he then tossed a metal key into your lap in faux-nonchalance.

"so you don't gotta wait for us to open the door next time," he muttered, keeping his eyes on the tv screen to avoid meeting your gaze. "you practically live here at this point, only fair ya' got a key."

even though he had given you the key, you still found yourself knocking before letting yourself in. bad habit, you suppose; for a while, you had to knock a few times before one of them could hear and finally decided to answer the door for you.

you close the door behind you and slip into the house slippers you bought for everyone. you had managed to get sukuna to get matching slippers with you—fluffy bunnies nonetheless— but toji opted for his rubbed slippers (that were falling apart, mind you). sukuna doesn't wear them often, claiming that his feet get too hot when they're in the slippers for too long. but, every now and then, you see him wearing them when he's cooking. such an odd sight to see; a man of his stature and build wearing nothing but sweats riding dangerously low on his waist and baby pink, fluffy bunny slippers to match his girlfriend.

"yo, yn! just in time," toji calls from the couch. "you boyfriend's calling me a panty thief."

"well he wouldn't be wrong, fushiguro," you reply. sukuna grins as he approaches you from the hall, he pulls you in by your waist, planting a brief kiss on your lips as a greeting before going back to heckling his friend.

"told you, man," sukuna says.

toji only shrugs it off, "i ain't ashamed of it- ill speak my truth."

"yeah well speak your truth away from my shit," sukuna grumbles, pulling away from you to head into the kitchen to finish working on dinner for the three of you. out of habit, and knowing he wants you to follow him anyways, you trail behind him into the kitchen, asking what brought on the topic of toji being a panty thief.

"not that it's anything new," you began, "but why are we calling toji a panty thief this time?" you hear toji say, "y'know i can hear you, right?" but only ignore it and bring out the chopping board and a knife.

sukuna wordlessly thanks you for bringing it out with a kiss on the side of your head before putting the veggies on the wooden board and beginning to chop them with perfect precision. "nothing too major, just missing some boxers. ill just buy some more tomorrow or something."

he does not notice the glint in your eyes and the slight upturn of the corners of your lips as you hum your response. "how weird," you murmur, as if in thought. currently, snug around you was a pair of your boyfriend's calvin klein. because as much as sukuna bullies toji for it, your boyfriend is no stranger to stealing panties. just like you're no stranger to missing underwear. call it retaliation and whatnot, but you just think it's funny watching sukuna get all confused about his missing boxers and briefs. it's just a bonus that his are so damn comfy.

you remember the first time you had noticed your missing underwear. sometimes, you do laundry at their place since they had their own machines, plus it was just easier since you were there so often. so imagine your surprise when you were loading the washing machine only to find—or rather to not find—your favorite pair of cheeky underwear for victoria's secret was missing! your first thought was to head to sukuna's bathroom, maybe you had accidentally placed it in sukuna's hamper on accident. on your way to the bathroom, you hear some rather.. incriminating noises coming from sukuna's room. his door was slightly cracked and you just couldn't help yourself from peaking in. 

lo and behold, there was your lacy pair! oh and there was sukuna on his back with his nose pressed up against the fabric as he used his free hand to lazily stroke himself. if you tried hard enough, you could even hear his muffled groans of your name as his hips twitched against the sheets as he jerked off. even though the two of you were alone this time since toji was out, you couldn't believe the balls on this guy (literally and figuratively). i mean, to jack off with your underwear when you were mere feet away doing laundry? the gall! what first started as something interesting and kinda really sexy, only turned into an eventual inconvenience when you were slowly but surely running out of all your favorite pairs. and while you weren't going to complain about catching your boyfriend so needy for you that he would go as far as to steal your lacy pairs, underwear wasn't cheap! then again, when you brought it up to him, he only handed you his wallet and told you to go crazy. you had squinted your eyes at him and knew that he only wanted fresh.. uh 'material' so to speak.

so in addition to practically maxing out his card on new pairs of underwear, you have also resorted to stealing his underwear too! now, you weren't a complete freak; you only took the clean ones and it wasn't for any dirty, ulterior motive like sukuna's. it was only to inconvenience him and your plan was working.

but… you didn't expect to get caught let alone punished.

you expected today to go smoothly; sukuna had invited you over for dinner with him and toji before the latter went out of town for some business retreat with shiu for a couple days. you knew the real reason was for him to get you to stay at his place while toji was gone. since you were currently wearing evidence of your little crime, you had hoped you would be able to slip away after dinner to take a shower and change into your actual underwear, a pair that sukuna would more than likely end up pocketing for himself soon after. you didn't expect toji to walk in on you mid strip in nothing but hisunderwear. 

"hey yn, you wanna help me with the table real quick? toji's bitch ass left right after scarfing down the food, he said thanks for the food by the-" sukuna is cut off short when opens the door of the bathroom to see you in nothing but the calvin klein pair he was looking for just earlier. instead of the anger you expected to see on his face, you are shocked to see nothing but amusement in the mirth of his eyes. the cocky bastard even goes as far as to lean against the doorframe as he takes in frame, causing you to cover yourself up with your hands. "don't get all shy on me now, sweetheart— not like it's nothing i haven't seen before." the man steps forward until he is practically leaning over your figure, enjoying the embarrassed look on your face as he smirks down at you. "who knew the real thief was you, huh?"

"says the panty sniffer?"you retort, still holding your arms to your chest to save any little bit of dignity you had left. even if sukuna's gaze never left your eyes, you couldn't bring yourself to remove your arms from your chest. from the way sukuna's eyes widen and his brows raise ever so slightly, you find yourself grinning a little too. "don't think you were smooth, ryo. i mean, you were practically porno-moaning my name when you stole my panties, you freak."

the look of shock melts from his face and is once again, replaced by the damning smug look.

"'freak' huh?"

in a blur of motion, sukuna managed to throw you over his shoulder with an almost practiced ease and place you on his bed. when you try to crawl from him, a large hand shoots out to grab your ankle as he clicks his tongue and gets on the bed himself. you can hear him muttering to himself something along the lines of 'dirty girl' as he peels the calvin klein from you and throws it over his shoulder as his hungry eyes meet your sex. the second his mouth meets your core, you feel the moan practically ripped from your throat. it wasn't your first time having sex with toji but no matter how many times you've done it in the past, you could just never keep up with him. everything about the man was so heated, it only made sense that the sex was the same.

it was sloppy the way he practically made out with your cunt, the vibrations from his groans only adding to the stimulation, causing your hand to reach out and pull his pink locks. this elicited another groan from him as he meets your gaze. sukuna constantly switches from lapping you up to sucking so harsh on your clit that it causes your legs to shake. well, shake as much as sukuna would let them from how he kept a firm grip on your thighs. 

sukuna's eyes stayed on you, closing only every now and then to revel in the taste. he pulled away for a moment with little pop and residue surrounding his mouth. "way better than the panties," he tells you, as if it's something to be proud of. had it been any other situation, you would have hit him for being so crude. but for now, you settled for pushing his head back down to your core, where he happily accepted his place and continued his previous ministrations. he was more determined now, quicker in his movements and grip just a little harder on your thighs. when he feels your thighs try to close around his head, he knows that you're close and takes it as a signal to start fingering you rapidly, sending you over the edge even faster.

"please—! slow down-" you're cut off by your own moans as sukuna lets out another groan into your cunt. he runs his tongue flat against you before giving your clit one last, harsh suck which finally sends you over. when sukuna pulls away, the lower half of his face is covered in you and his spit. his tongue pokes out to catch the last bit that was on his lip as he looks down at you smugly. quickly, he removes his sweats and final piece of clothing then pulls your limp body into his lap. with you now seated in his lap, he wraps a hand around your throat lightly as he kisses you, letting you taste yourself.

you both groan into the kiss as you feel sukuna use his free hand to guide himself into you. inch by this inch, he pushes himself in, pulling pornographic moans from the both of you. when he's finally hilted all the way, he lets you get used to the size before he feels you move up and down ever so slightly. bouncing as much as you could while still reeling from the previous orgasm. he chuckles at your rather pitiful attempt, both of his hands go to firmly grip your hips and bounce you on his lap until his thighs become sticky and the sound of wet plaps fill his bedroom.

"pretty girl can't even take it without my help, huh? poor baby," he coos condescendingly, as if he wasn't rutting up into you so harshly it was practically knocking the breath from your lungs. each thrust is deeper and harder than the one before, all of them making you weak. when you can no longer hold yourself up, you lean into him and wrap your arms around his shoulders, though they barely reach with just how broad his traps and shoulders were.

sukuna lets out a gruff chuckle, never once stopping his thrusts. "yeah baby— just hold on to me, lemme do all the work for you." you can only moan into the side of his neck in response, only being able to take what he gives you. he feels you spasm on him, and his breath hitches at the feeling. no matter how many times the two of you fucked, you always managed to take his breath away.

"you gonna cum for me?" he asks you. nodding into his shoulder, you whine out a yes, your grip on his shoulders tightening as his thrusts sped up. sukuna grips your hips as he continues to bounce you up and down on his length. he lets one hand off your hips to land a harsh spank, pulling a loud whine from you. "c'mon baby, milk my shit—fuck-!" he moans one final time before he feels you come undone above him, ultimately throwing him over the edge too. his thrusts do not stop but they do slow down as he lets you ride out your high with him. he leaves with with one last harsh thrust, causing you to clench around him, "ah shit, baby- you're gonna kill me one of these days."

"i really should since you've stolen a dozen of my panties by now," you grumble against him.

"eh let's just focus on the now, hm?"

"the 'now', ryomen, is that you're a dirty panty thief!"

woah what a ride (get it?) i lowk hate this so don't be surprised if she's gone later T^T smut defo takes some practice.. well wtv i hoped u guys liked this more than i did LOL