You made me question whether being alive is worth the emotional cost.
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F1 Driver Soft! Ex-Ryomen Sukuna x F!Reader (Satoru's sister)
+ Brojo being the absolute best brother around.
Summary: You got stood up at a local fair by a man from Hinge, then got trapped beside your ex, and remembered that Ryomen Sukuna could drive a Ferrari for a living but still get scared by carnival rides. Then you relearn that Sukuna still knew your usual order, your cat hates him on sight, and your brother had once told you to stop throwing your life away for him. (Ft. Gojo Satoru, Catoru, Takako Uro & mentioned Geto Suguru Slander).
Or, Satoru got sick a few years ago & you haven't been the same since. Will the F1 driver be able to get you back?
Based on this poll. WC: 6.5K.
Warnings: Contains Fic Spoilers, Crack treated seriously, fluff, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, mentions of illness (metastatic uveal melanoma (ocular cancer with secondary poliosis)), brief panic attack/sensory overwhelm in public but don't worry Sukuna’s there, nothing graphic & good ending.
A/N: I have never cried this much while writing a fic (at Satoru's parts.) Not beta read; I'll reread it once I'm not smelling colors. Playlist
You arrived at the fair in an outfit that made men stupider, which meant Suguru from Hinge had chosen a historic day to become legally dead to you.
The skirt and the boots were new. The lipstick was so expensive that it made you eat fries with caution and drink water through a straw held at an angle. You had spent twenty minutes deciding between earrings, then another ten pretending that decision said anything meaningful about you on a first date.
Suguru had sent you a voice note that morning.
Can’t wait to finally see you.
He had a calm voice and a nice laugh. One month and a half of decent conversation, book recommendations, a very confident opinion about soup dumplings, and enough green flags that you had lowered your guard by four percent to show up here without thinking of ending up on Dateline.
You checked your phone again.
7:16 PM.
The meeting time had been 6:30.
You called once more, and it went straight to ringing, then voicemail.
You opened your chat with Uro.
You: i hope all his hair falls out.
Uro: Did he arrive?
You: if he did he is doing a stealth mission.
Uro: Men from dating apps need ankle monitors.
You: i wore the boots.
Uro: The black ones?
You: yes.
Uro: Jail.
you: he hasn’t picked up once.
Uro: Jail with soap drops.
You stood near a booth where a man in a foam hot-dog hat shouted about ring toss prizes. A toddler screamed at a plush duck. Couples passed with paper trays of fries and stupidly linked hands. Then you got startled by a generator coughing behind the cotton candy stand.
Your phone buzzed again.
Uro: I have to pick up my niece from my sister’s. She tried to feed a Lego to the dog.
you: that’s advanced.
Uro: I’d have brought her, but she's three, so fairs are still beyond her. Go enjoy the place. You already paid for parking and the outfit.
you: I got stood up.
Uro: But your boots are innocent, babes. Just eat overpriced food, and have fun. God knows you need it.
You looked down at your boots.
They really were.
you: fine. if i die on a carnival ride-
Uro: I’ll sue the park.
You put your phone away and bought cotton candy from a teenager. Pink sugar melted against your tongue. It was too sweet, coating your teeth, but the outrageousness helped.
The fair had a local committee feel—half the lights flickered, the prizes looked as if they had been won in divorce court, a banner near the main stage promised LIVE MUSIC AT 8 but the band currently tuning looked prepubescent.
You wandered because you were good at taking yourself out. That skill had come from practice. Movies, cafes, bookstores, and whole birthdays turned into errands because if you waited for people to show up on time, you spent half your life facing an empty chair.
So you did the stalls.
You threw darts at balloons and missed every single one, which the booth guy treated as a genuine tragedy.
You watched a little boy win a plastic sword bigger than his arm and immediately whack his father in the shin.
You texted Uro a photo of a plush frog with one eye sewn higher than the other.
you: this is suguru.
Uro: Too handsome.
you: true. suguru had better hair.
Uro: Frog has better commitment.
You laughed and got powdered sugar on your lips.
By the time you reached the rides, the sun had dropped behind the school building beside the fairground. The Tilt-A-Whirl sat near the back, painted red and yellow, its bulbs blinking in frantic loops. The cars spun in drunken circles while a group of teenagers shrieked.
Your stomach did a happy little flip with them.
You loved rides that ruined balance—Ferris wheels were pretty, carousels felt decorative, and the Tilt-A-Whirl was nonsense with bolts. It made your insides lift and swoop, and for three minutes your head cleared out.
You bought a ticket and climbed into an empty two-person car with your cotton candy tucked against your side. You hoped the operator would forget about you or place a woman beside you.
You continued to eat through your leftover cotton candy while looking at what other rides you could go on after this one.
The car dipped as someone sat right next to you.
You half turned.
Tattoos.
Black Line Tattoos.
Your hand clenched around the paper cone.
He was looking away, one elbow braced on the edge of the car, his phone in his hand. His hair was shorter than when you had last seen him. He wore a black jacket over a plain t-shirt, and the side of his neck still had that faint tan line from racing gear. He looked rich in the way drivers did after sponsors got involved—expensive, mildly sleep-deprived, capable of getting photographed beside a model and smirking through the headline.
You looked away so fast your neck nearly clicked.
Fine. Fine. He hadn’t seen you.
Maybe.
The fair was crowded. The ride was loud. The universe had placed him next to you as a practical joke, but you had survived worse jokes.
You reached for the lap bar to lift it.
It locked.
The operator gave the car a bored shove.
The ride started.
Your soul left your outfit.
Sukuna still hadn’t turned. He was watching someone by the fence. You followed his line of sight without moving your head much and caught sight of Yuji waving both arms while Choso held a paper plate piled with funnel cake. Some younger cousin or family friend bounced beside them with a flashing wand—so they were out on family night.
Aww cute.
No.
Horrible.
Your exit routes had been sealed by machinery and his entire goddamn bloodline.
The first spin was mild—your car rolled around the platform, gaining momentum. Wind pulled at your hair, and the cotton candy trembled in your grip.
Sukuna’s knee hit the side.
You tried to look at him from the corner of your eye without turning fully toward him.
His jaw had tightened.
Oh.
You remembered now.
He could take corners at speeds that made sports commentators develop religion. He could slide a car through rain, through smoke, through the hideous math of another driver trying to cut him off.
Yet put him on a county fair ride operated by a boy named Mason with an energy drink, and Ryomen Sukuna became a trapped alien.
The car swung harder.
His hand landed on the seat between you, palm pressed flat.
You turned your face away and bit the inside of your cheek.
Another spin, faster. The platform tilted. Your stomach tingled in the way you loved, a bright swoop that rushed up your ribs. You almost laughed.
Sukuna made a sound that could have been a cough—if coughs carried primal fear.
You stared at the painted horse on the booth across the ride and, without looking at him, placed your hand over his.
He seemed too busy fighting for his life to notice.
But the car spun again, and his hand gripped yours on instinct, hard enough to make your rings press into your skin. He still didn’t turn. Maybe he thought you were a stranger. Maybe he was far gone in battle with the Tilt-A-Whirl deity. Maybe he had recognized you from the first second and decided mutual delusion was better than conversation.
You kept your face angled away.
The ride grew faster and meaner, so your laughter broke out, helpless and breathy. Sukuna’s shoulder bumped yours, his body almost lurching forward.
When the ride slowed, you pulled your hand back before he could catch it properly. The lap bar lifted, and you stood while everyone around you stumbled out.
Sukuna finally turned.
His eyes caught on your waist, right where his hand used to land before dawn when his alarm went off and he reached across the bed half-asleep, finding you before he found his phone.
Recognition moved through his face with vulgar speed.
You were already moving through the crowd.
You didn’t run because that would imply guilt. You were simply a dignified woman fleeing a carnival ride because your ex had discovered your waist by sight.
He called out your name, but it was so loud he couldn't hear his own voice.
A child with a glow stick cut across your path. You dodged. Someone spilled lemonade near the duck pond game. You stepped around it. Your heart was making a ridiculous amount of effort for a body that had only eaten sugar.
You almost reached the row of food trucks when a hand closed around your arm.
You turned.
Sukuna let go at once.
For a second he looked exactly as stupid as you remembered him.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that was you.”
You stared at him.
His mouth opened, then closed. His eyes flicked over your face, the boots, and the cone of cotton candy crushed in your hand.
“You changed your hair,” he said.
“You still scared of rides at a carnival.” Adreline made you blurt it out before you could stop yourself.
His face loosened, his crimson eyes relaxed into his features, and it reminded you too much of the day you’d last seen him.
You cleared your throat. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How have you been?”
“Driving in circles for money.”
“Healthy career path.”
“You?”
You nodded toward the fair in general. “Being abandoned beside a corn dog booth. Thriving.”
His brow moved. “Abandoned?”
Your phone buzzed in your bag. Probably Uro asking if she could pay an Etsy witch to get Suguru stalked by goats.
“Long story.”
Sukuna studied you, then glanced toward the ride. “You stayed on.”
“I was trapped.”
“You held my hand.”
“You were dying.”
“I was assessing structural failure.”
“Mason looked very qualified.”
“The operator?”
“He had a whistle.”
Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “Powerful credential.”
You hated how fast your face warmed. You hated the stupid, familiar muscle memory. You hated that the air between you could still find the old groove with one push.
“I saw your last race,” you said, because your mouth had chosen arson.
Genuine surprise crossed his face. “You watch them?”
You scrunched your nose mildly, accidentally. The way you did when you’d been caught.
Sukuna stared at that tiny movement. He’d never told you about that one tell.
His expression did a weird thing—softened at the edges, then caught itself.
You swallowed. “Some highlights came on. At a gay bar with friends.”
His brows rose. “I have gay bar fans?”
“You have fans with betting habits everywhere.”
“Which bar?”
You refused to explain that you had begged the bartender to put the race on while you sat alone PMSing, a gin and tonic beside your hand, pretending you wanted sports because sports had become a pathetic substitute for his absence. You had watched his car move through the screen while drunk men argued behind you about karaoke. You had missed him so badly you had ordered fries you didn’t want just to stay until the podium interview.
“Some place downtown,” you said. “The bartender said you were probably annoying.”
He leaned a little closer. “You care about other people’s opinions of me?”
“I was doing community outreach.”
“So you follow me.”
“You have gotten hard to miss.”
He smiled then, infuriatingly flustered beneath the smirk. “Are you seeing someone?”
Your grip tightened on the cotton candy cone again.
You could have said you had been stood up by a man whose most impressive quality was voice-note confidence. You could have said everyone after Sukuna had felt as if they never really saw you. You could have said you had wanted him to be there so many times that no one would ever compare.
Instead, you said, “How’s the model?”
“The model?”
“The one from the news about the rooftop dinner. Tall one.”
He huffed. “You follow me pretty closely for somebody asking casual questions.”
It should have made you laugh.
That was the script. He teased, you deflected, he leaned closer, you rolled your eyes and pretended your heartbeat didn’t sing for him.
Instead, something inside you slipped.
Satoru would have loved this. He would have demanded screenshots, then called Sukuna a pink-haired lizard, then told you to stop acting as if a breakup suddenly made you mature.
Your smile thinned before you could poker-face it.
Sukuna saw.
He stopped teasing so fast it hurt more than anything.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at your face as if he could pull the answer out, then seemed to think better of it. His hand flexed at his side.
“I fly back the day after tomorrow,” he said, instead. “Before that, can we get coffee tomorrow night?”
You watched a father lift his daughter onto his shoulders near the balloon stall. The little girl had blue face paint smeared across one cheek.
You said zilch.
Sukuna’s mouth thinned. “I need an answer. I can’t call you.” He paused. “Same number?”
You had blocked him so thoroughly your phone treated his existence as malware.
“Same number,” you mumbled.
“I’ll pick you up.”
“I can drive.”
He ignored you. “You live at the same place?”
“Next to the old one.”
“Six then.”
“I didn’t agree.”
“I did for both of us.”
You should have hated that.
But your lips twitched before you could stop them.
He saw that and looked pathetically relieved for a man paid to risk death.
At home, you called Uro from the couch.
She answered with, “Tell me Suguru got shingles.”
“I saw Sukuna.”
There was some scrambling on the other side.
“Ryomen Sukuna?”
“How many Sukuna exes do you think I have?”
“With your taste? I fear categories.”
You told her everything—the Tilt-A-Whirl, the hand, the gay bar lie, the coffee.
Uro went silent.
Then she sighed. “You should go.”
You sat up. “Why?”
“Sukuna didn’t cause this.”
You looked toward the TV, where a cooking show contestant was crying over burned fish.
Uro lowered her voice. “You ended it because of Satoru.”
Your throat tightened.
“You told Sukuna he was boring,” she continued. “Which was insane, by the way. That man has a lethal jawline and a deadly career.”
“He did become boring.”
"No, honey, you panicked because your brother relapsed, and the illness came back worse, and Sukuna was training for the season that could make his career. You thought he’d throw everything away and come sit in oncology waiting rooms.”
You pressed your thumb under your ring, twisting it.
Uro added, “You also kept telling everyone you were fine, which was your least convincing era.”
“I couldn’t make him choose.”
“You chose for him.”
You closed your eyes.
“Go for coffee,” she said, smiling. “You can still leave if he’s gotten stupid. I’ll key his car.”
That made you laugh, but it hurt coming out.
After the call, you fell asleep with your boots still beside the couch.
Satoru woke you by poking your ankle over the blanket. “Breakfast.”
You opened your eyes in the old house, in his room, on the giant bed you had practically moved into during the bad months. The emergency bell sat on the nightstand beside many bottles of prescription eye drops, a strip of tablets, and the ugly plastic water bottle he hated because it made him “feel eighty in a hospital commercial.”
He stood at the doorway in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hair white around his face and paler at the lashes. Before the cancer, he had black hair and caramel eyes. He used to say the universe stole his color and made him ethereal.
You sat up too fast. “Why are you moving around?”
He waved a hand. “I made pancakes, nurse warden.”
“You’re meant to rest.”
“I am resting.”
“Satoru.”
“I feel better, let me have this.” His smile spread, bright and crooked, a little thinner than it used to be. “Breakfast for my baby sister.”
You followed him to the kitchen because arguing with him had once been a full-time job and you missed him having the energy for it.
His pancakes were your favorite—he'd made them with extra fruit and too much syrup, even warmed the plate.
You took a bite.
The taste was wrong.
It was floury, flat, and a little bitter.
Satoru’s smile faltered. “Meds messed with my taste buds again, huh?”
“It’s good.”
“Liar. Give me the plate. I’ll remake it.”
You pulled the plate closer. “It’s perfect.”
“Add more syrup.”
He sank into the chair across from you, breathing a little heavier than he wanted you to hear.
“Will Kento or Shoko come by today?” you asked.
“Don’t feel like socializing.” He sighed, stretching his shoulders with a wince he couldn't hide well. “I was thinking we watch a movie.”
You fully looked up.
He shrugged. “Unless you have better plans. Like maybe calling your bubblegum-haired ego a problem."
“Sukuna has a name.”
“Sukuna has anger issues.”
You laughed.
Satoru leaned back, pleased. “Call him back.”
“I broke up with him.”
“Why?”
“He should focus on his career.”
“If he’s going to be worth anything, he should learn to multitask." He speared a piece of fruit from your plate. “If he has a girl, she’s high maintenance. He’ll have training.”
“You barely know him.”
“I know he looks at you as if you’re a pit stop he wants to marry.”
You choked on syrup.
Satoru waited until you stopped coughing. He passed you water, then kept his hand around the glass for a second, as if he knew you might use it to hide your face.
“I’m serious,” he said.
You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “That’s new.”
“Don’t get cute. That’s my job.”
“You’re bad at it.”
“I’m excellent at everything. Keep up.” His smile faded before it could become a joke. “You shouldn’t have broken up with him because of me.”
You looked down at your plate. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You make every decision like every part of your life has to consider me first.”
“That’s not—"
“It’s true.”
You pressed your fork into the pancake. “You’re sick, Satoru. You need me.”
“I know that.” His voice stayed steady, but his fingers tightened around his mug. “I need my sister. I don’t need you to turn into a nurse with no life after me.”
Your throat burned. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“It’s a horrible thing to watch.”
You looked at him then.
He held your eyes, tired and pale and still your brother under all of it. The same brother who had signed your school forms when your parents forgot, who had shown up to parent-teacher meetings in his uniform because he had practice right after, who had made your lunch badly for a month before he learned how to pack fruit without smashing it. He had been loud about everything except the things that mattered most.
“You think I don’t see it?” he asked. “You don’t sleep unless I sleep. You don’t eat unless I complain first. You keep your phone face down because you’re scared he’ll call and you’ll want to answer. None of this is good for you.”
You swallowed.
“Sukuna makes you happy,” he said. “He also annoys you, which is good. You get unbearable when nobody argues with you.”
A weak laugh left you, then quickly turned into tears you blinked away.
“I’m scared too.” Satoru leaned back, breathing through the small cost of sitting upright for more than his body was able to bear right now. “I don’t want to say that because then you look at me like your whole chest got kicked in. But I’m scared. And I still don’t want your life to shrink down to this house.”
“Satoru—”
“No. Listen to me.” His voice cut through yours, low and clear. “Love me. Take care of me. Fight with doctors. Make ugly pancakes taste worse with extra syrup. Fine. But don’t throw away someone you love because you think suffering alone is what you deserve.”
You wiped away the tears that came treacherously anyway.
“I raised you better than that,” he said, softer now.
You tried to smile anyway. “You raised me to be dramatic and suspicious.”
“I raised you to have standards, and somehow you picked a race car demon, but I’m choosing peace.”
“He’s not a demon."
“He has face tattoos.”
You laughed again, a little bit bigger this time.
Satoru opened his arm to let you tuck in. “Promise me you’ll call him. If he’s useless, I’ll hate him with you. If he shows up, let him.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“It won’t be.” His hand rubbed against your temple, careful and warm. “Do it anyway.”
He grinned, and for a second he looked sixteen again—school jacket half-zipped, practice bag slung over one shoulder, his mock-test rank posted near the top of the board. Boys copied his notes despite hating him. Girls found reasons to borrow erasers. Teachers used his name in warnings and compliments in the same breath. He played whichever sport had a vacancy that week, won enough to make coaches greedy, then came home with convenience-store candy for you because you had texted him a sad face during math.
You spent the afternoon watching a dumb action movie. It had three explosions in the first twenty minutes and a villain with an accent from nowhere. Satoru kept making comments under his breath, weaker than his usual running commentary but smug enough.
Halfway through, his head tipped against the back of the couch, heavy medication dragging him under.
“You’re missing the part where the car jumps through a hospital.”
“Mmph.” He made a lazy sound, eyes closed.
You let him sleep.
The medicine did that to him lately—took his words first, then made his limbs sluggish, then the rest of him slower to react. You checked the time on your phone, compared it with the notebook on the table, and saw his next dose still had some time. Fine. He could sleep. You could give him that.
The movie kept playing—someone on-screen was shouting about a bomb as Satoru breathed beside you, shallow but steady, so your body allowed itself to unwind.
You must have drifted off too, because when you opened your eyes again, the room had shifted into evening. The TV had gone to the streaming menu, and the house had that late-day smell, dust, syrup, old coffee in the mug by his elbow.
Your neck hurt from the couch angle.
You yawned and nudged his knee with your foot. “Toru. Go to bed.”
He stayed slumped against the cushion.
You rubbed your eyes and sat up properly. “Seriously. Your back’s going to hurt more if you sleep here.”
His hand rested palm-up on the couch between you—long fingers, pale knuckles, and a small bruise near the wrist from the last blood draw. You nudged his palm.
“Medication time soon,” you added. “Come on. I’ll help you walk.”
He stayed still.
A small irritation rose in your chest, familiar and domestic. The type of annoyed you got when he acted dramatic during eye drops or complained about water tasting “aggressively round.”
“Satoru.”
You leaned closer and shook his shoulder.
His body moved with the shake, then settled.
Your irritation thinned.
“Toru?”
You touched his cheek.
It was warm but too still under your palm. His lashes were pale against his skin, white from the treatment and the strange pigment loss.
“Hey.” Your voice came out softer. “Wake up. You have to take the evening meds.”
The notebook lay open on the coffee table—pills and drops listed by time. The little boxes you had drawn and checked and checked again.
You reached for his wrist.
His pulse was hard to find.
Your own pulse got in the way, slamming through your fingertips.
“Satoru, stop it.”
You pressed harder at his wrist, then shifted to his throat the way the nurse had taught you during one of the discharge briefings.
“Wake up,” you said, even louder. “Go to your bed. You’re too tall for the couch, and I’m sick of hearing you complain about your spine.”
His head stayed angled toward the TV.
You grabbed his shoulder with both hands.
“Satoru!”
The name came out in a cracked scream.
You shook him again, rougher than you had touched him in months.
“Stop. This isn’t funny. Toru, get up.”
You bent close to his mouth.
For one awful second you thought you felt breath, then realized it was yours hitting his skin and coming back.
“No,” you said, and the word came out small, stupid, and useless.
You pressed your ear to his chest.
You waited.
You moved your ear, searching.
You held your own breath so you could hear his.
Nothing came.
Your hands began to shake so hard his shirt wrinkled under your fists.
“Toru,” you whispered.
Then you screamed for him.
The dream broke there, same as it did every time.
You woke on the couch in your apartment, gasping, sweat cooling under the collar of your shirt. The TV had gone to sleep, your phone had slipped between cushions and outside, daylight had already moved across the room and started fading again.
You had slept through most of the day.
Coffee was in an hour.
You got ready in simpler clothes because the idea of another date outfit made you feel stupid. New jeans, clean socks and the oversized white cashmere sweater Satoru had bought you years ago, back when he had health, black hair, caramel eyes, and a talent for buying gifts that made you cry in private.
Downstairs, Sukuna waited beside a car you couldn’t place. New or rental.
He straightened when he saw you.
Then he opened the passenger door and held out flowers.
You stared at them.
They were real flowers—pink and white, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine.
“For you,” he said when you kept staring at them.
“I gathered.”
“You going to take them?”
“I’m thinking.”
He waited.
You took them.
He looked away, and the edge of his mouth moved, almost smug.
You wanted to beat the smugness off with the said flowers, but instead you got in.
The car ride carried all the comfort of small talk. He asked about traffic near your building. You asked about his flight schedule. He mentioned a sponsor event. You said the fair food was probably giving him diarrhea. Sukuna laughed.
The cafe was small, upscale, and filled with people who seemed able to drink espresso after sunset without ruining their nervous systems.
Sukuna held the door. You hated that too.
At the counter he asked, “Usual?”
You nodded.
He ordered it correctly.
You took a table near the wall.
“So,” he said once he sat, “what are you doing these days?”
“Work sabbatical. Finishing my degree.”
His eyes stayed on you. “That good?”
"Please, I don’t need judgment from a man who believed cigarettes were breakfast.”
His mouth twitched. “I matured.”
“You bought a sports car.”
“It was assigned.”
“What? Corporate custody?”
“Something along those lines.”
The server arrived with drinks plus a small pizza cut into uneven squares. Your usual.
You stared at the tray for a second too long.
He sipped his coffee. “How’s Satoru?”
Your body became hyperaware of your reality.
The hiss of the steamer grew enormous. A chair scraped behind you. Someone laughed near the window, high and sudden. The chili oil on the pizza smelled acidic. The sweater collar touched your throat.
“He died.”
Sukuna froze, frowning. “What?”
“It’ll be a year soon.”
His hand hovered near the table, then lowered. “How?”
You folded your napkin, then unfolded it. “Peaceful, according to the doctors.”
His jaw worked. “Are you living alone?”
“Yes.”
“Family?”
You almost smiled. “Satoru was the family.”
The words hurt to speak aloud.
Sukuna knew you had family, but having and being reciprocative with affection and meeting a child's needs were two different things. They didn’t like you or satoru much.
“Have you…” Sukuna looked at you for a long moment. "Cried since?”
Your hands felt cold. “What?”
“Since he passed.”
You pushed back from the table—the legs screeched. The cafe turned its head toward you in a hundred tiny ways. Every cup, every voice, every light on the wall became a separate grating sound.
Sukuna rose with you, fast enough to catch your wrist before you could knock something over.
You flinched, and he released you.
Then he stepped close enough that his voice could reach your ear and no one else. “Breathe. You can skip the answer. I pushed.”
You shook your head.
“Breathe,” he said again. “Look at me or the door. Pick one.”
You looked at the door because you didn't have the capacity to look at him right now—his crimson eyes were too expressive at the worst of the times.
"Please…" You took a deep breath in. “I want to go home.”
“Okay.”
The drive back was short.
He made zero attempts at conversation, keeping both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. At your building, he parked and walked around to open your door.
“I can get upstairs.”
“I know.”
He followed anyway, carrying the pizza and flowers, as if the evening had become a delivery service with unresolved romantic history.
Inside your apartment, Toru stood in the hallway—white fur and blue eyes. A body shaped by luxury and criminal entitlement.
The cat looked at Sukuna, then at you, then back at Sukuna.
Sukuna stared.
You mildly introduced them, “That’s Toru.”
Toru blinked slowly, withholding citizenship.
Sukuna took off his shoes. “Does he bite?”
“He does and also loudly meowdals every old man complains he has.”
“Fair.”
You went to the couch because your bones had become heavy. Sukuna went into the kitchen without asking, which should have annoyed you, except you were less overwhelmed now. He filled the kettle. Opened cabinets and found the pan.
Toru followed him and sat near the fridge, supervising with contempt.
“You eat?” Sukuna asked the cat.
Toru’s tail moved softly.
“Useful answer.” He paused, then asked. “She eat?”
You pulled a pillow over your face, quite far away to hear any of this.
Sukuna continued, fully serious. “Blink once for very little. Twice, if she survives on coffee.”
Toru blinked once.
“He seems credible," Sukuna called out to you.
“He licks plastic bags.” You yelled back.
Sukuna smirked towards Toru and tapped his nose, making the cat paw at its own nose. “It’s okay. Witnesses are allowed to have flaws.”
The cat squared up and hissed, which meant he was flawless.
From the couch, you heard the scrape of a knife, the tap of the cutting board, and the click of the stove. He made coffee first. Then stir-fry, simple and fast, with vegetables cut the way you used to cut them and sauce mixed from memory.
Your recipe.
Stolen.
Also, the only thing he’d eat after a long day.
You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep until Sukuna stood over you with a bowl in one hand and the remote in the other. You woke up with the smell of garlic and soy.
“Sit up.”
You sat up because your body, treacherous thing, wanted the food.
He sat beside you with his own bowl and put on a terrible movie. Some action sequel where cars exploded for reasons that offended even him. Toru jumped onto the armchair and watched Sukuna as if waiting for a confession.
The first bite loosened your chest. Warm rice, vegetables, and sauce with slightly too much garlic because he remembered you liked it that way.
“You still cook it wrong.”
He glanced over. “You’re eating fast for a critic.”
“You stole my recipe.”
“I improved it.”
“You put too much ginger.”
“You need flavor.”
“You need to be humbled.”
“Tried it. Bad fit.”
A huff of a laugh escaped you.
Sukuna looked at your face, then back to the TV.
You ate half the bowl before speaking again. “Satoru wanted a cat.”
Sukuna kept his eyes on the screen. His body shifted into less performative ease and more attention.
“Our parents would never let us have one,” you continued. “Which made sense in the practical way. Then it made less sense because they weren’t indulgent with anything, so it became this larger question of why they had children at all.”
Toru groomed one paw, deeply unmoved by human origin stories.
“Satoru used to send me photos of cats. He said once he got better after treatment, he’d buy a bigger house and fill it with cats who were babied and spoiled.”
Sukuna set his bowl down.
“During the last months, his hair went whiter. Lashes too. The doctors explained it, saying it was pigment cells, immune response, and treatment side effects. His eyes were the first problem. He couldn’t see well, but we could work around that while the meds still worked. There were tools, routines, labels on bottles, brighter lamps, audiobooks when reading hurt too much. Then—”
Sukuna took your bowl and set it aside as well.
You swallowed, eyes distant, because if you’d stopped now, it’d stay stuck in there forever and eat you worse. “Then the liver got worse. He had these drops, and scans, and appointments where everyone used gentle voices at us. He made jokes about turning into a designer ghost.”
Sukuna made a small sound, almost a laugh, because Satoru had deserved that much.
The crying began softly—a few tears you could have blamed on the movie.
Then Sukuna moved closer and put his arm around you.
“I kept thinking if I managed the appointments and the meds and the food and the calls, it would make a difference. If I stayed in his room and stayed awake, I’d catch everything. If I heard every breath, if I woke up fast enough...” Your spoon rested against the bowl.
“It didn’t matter.”
Sukuna said your name.
Your face hit his chest, and the sound that came out of you was ugly and torn loose. Years of holding yourself upright broke down into his shirt. He moved your bowl away with one hand and pulled you in properly.
You cried until your nose ran, until Toru abandoned the armchair and jumped onto the couch, until Sukuna’s shirt was damp and his hand had settled at the back of your head, warm and familiar in a way your body accepted before you realized.
“I told you that you were boring,” you choked out because he deserved that. “I was lying.”
“I know.”
“I thought you’d ruin everything.”
“You should’ve let me choose.”
“I’m sorry.”
His mouth pressed to your hair. “I know.”
His eyes burned once before he blinked hard and looked away. The wins had come with the money, the cameras, and the noise.
But none of it fixed the part of him that still looked for you after every flight, every podium, every room full of people talking too much.
Every success felt a little thinner because every hotel room still ended with him reaching for a phone he couldn’t use to call the only woman he’d ever cared about.
Back then he’d known you were lying, he just hadn’t known how to make you come home.
You cried harder because you probably hadn't since your brother left.
At some point the movie ended and the streaming app tried to play another. Toru fell asleep against your thigh. Sukuna kept holding you until your body gave out.
You woke once when he picked you up, mumbled something unintelligible, and fell asleep again.
He carried you to your bedroom.
You hadn’t slept there in weeks. The bed looked almost staged.
Sukuna set you down and left only long enough to bring water, your phone, and Toru, who protested being handled until Sukuna told him, “Your landlord requires supervision.”
Toru bit his arm.
Sukuna winced and let the cat curl up to you.
Sukuna got into bed beside you fully clothed. He didn’t crowd you at first. He lay on his back, one arm open.
You moved into it.
The sweater smelled faintly of your perfume and old cashmere. Sukuna smelled of coffee and the same cologne he used to wear when he had early flights and kissed you in doorways while pretending he had plenty of time.
You slept deeply.
Morning arrived without the usual panic of dreams.
For a few seconds, you knew that before you knew anything else. Your body had rested properly because your jaw didn’t ache and your hands weren’t curled into fists under the blanket.
Then you reached beside you.
The pillow held a dent, but Toru had claimed Sukuna’s side of the bed and looked pleased.
Your chest tightened, then eased in a tired, resigned way.
Of course. He had a flight. He had said so.
Maybe last night had been a mercy visit from an ex.
That was fine.
It had helped.
You could survive that much.
You got up to feed Toru.
A note was stuck to his bowl in Sukuna’s handwriting.
I’ll be back next month. Unblock me.
You stared at it.
Toru headbutted your ankle because romance meant little compared to tuna.
You fed him first.
Then you unblocked Sukuna.
A text came through almost at once with a photo.
You were asleep on his chest the night before, your cheek squashed against his shirt, Toru sitting on your hip as if guarding property. Your hair was everywhere and your mouth was slightly open. Sukuna’s jaw was only partly visible, but his hand rested over your back, his thumb blurred mid-stroke.
Below it came a calendar invite, already adjusted to your time zone.
1:30 PM Video Call.
Don’t dodge me.
You clicked on the calendar and saw that he'd squeezed it in after his team debrief. It was surreal to see that your ex had a Ferrari schedule, a flight, and a body people paid millions to keep functional, and still he had blocked out time to annoy you himself.
You accepted it.
Then you went into the kitchen and saw the flowers resting in a mug of water on top of the fridge.
And inside, cold brew waited in a glass bottle, labeled with tape.
Eat something first.
Beside it sat the remaining pizza, wrapped properly, and a container of leftover stir-fry.
You took out the bottle of cold brew, took a photo of it, and sent it.
You: i’m sorry, and i’ll wait for you.
The typing bubbles appeared so fast you almost dropped the phone.
A picture arrived.
Toru sat on the kitchen counter near the same coffee bottle in the gray morning light, tail curled around his paws, blue eyes aimed at Sukuna behind the camera. Beneath it, Sukuna had written:
Your brother might approve.
A/N: I hope you loved this piece as much as I did writing it even if the keyboard was blurry through most of it. I wanted to write only crack and fluff in this; however, Satoru stole my keyboard midway. So hopefully the next story I post isn't going to be as hurt/comforting.
Want to read the same pairings but with Gojo as the endgame?
Masterlist | Rabies | Chuki
Header Images from Anime & Pinterest, dividers are mine.
Not to defend MEGATRON because he DID absolutely fumbled but the way he keeps coming back for us to do his bandages like he's a toddler making me kind of want yandere gumi???
But ONLY if he like hurting his hands on purpose or is it normal? (sorry for asking if you covered it and I missd it)
I KNOW he’s not innocent, but he’s also so fifteen-year-old boy with too many feelings and no mouth about it.
Also the fucking audacity to get angry that "YuJi kNowS TinGs."
Bitch DPMO
And unfortunately Yuji has a mouth, melon pan and carries our heavy stuff so Megumi should ducttape his mouth shut at this point.
MEGATRON 😭
And no, don't apologize; you didn’t miss anything!
He isn’t purposely hurting his hands in this version. It’s more that his life is already violent and he keeps using injuries as an excuse to come back because apparently saying “I wanted to see you” would make him explode instantly.
It's like he's an emotionally constipated stray cat, Gumi, that shows up hurt and accepts medical attention but will hiss if you imply he has feelings.
Then leaves before evolving.
But yes, the “Yuji knows things” audacity is insane because, baby, Yuji knows things because Yuji filled out the application form called "Asking Questions." Megumi saw him carrying a pharmacy bag and decided she was mentally cheating without even him committing to her.
Fortunately, Yuji brings us food, manners, arm strength, and working vocal cords. Megumi never stood a chance with this one.
This series is basically Yuji's revenge AU for another one of my stories where Megumi is an absolutely unhinged yandere. Think it's Delusions & Architecture.
Yuji nervously getting reader flowers was so sweet. As someone who buys others and myself flowers and love reading floriography in stories, it made me feel so bad for her and I was so happy when Yuji fixed that. Like poor girl (pun intended unfortunately) literally doesn’t even have any time in her life to imagine spare-money to buy herself flowers and Yuji just walks into a florist panicking like a golden retriever holding a wallet lmaooo I need her to get spoiled so badly.
Hey anon,
PLEASE the “poor girl” pun is unfortunately accurate and I hate that for all of us. 😭
But yeah, Yuji in that florist was fighting for his life—no strategy, no suave, no secret masculine flower knowledge. Just one doggy and his wallet.
I also love flowers as a character detail because to her, they’re such an unreasonable object. You can’t eat them, nor can you pay a bill with them.
So when Yuji buys them, it’s not practical help but proof that she deserves to have something pretty for once.
F1 Driver Soft! Ex-Ryomen Sukuna x F!Reader (Satoru's sister)
+ Brojo being the absolute best brother around.
Summary: You got stood up at a local fair by a man from Hinge, then got trapped beside your ex, and remembered that Ryomen Sukuna could drive a Ferrari for a living but still get scared by carnival rides. Then you relearn that Sukuna still knew your usual order, your cat hates him on sight, and your brother had once told you to stop throwing your life away for him. (Ft. Gojo Satoru, Catoru, Takako Uro & mentioned Geto Suguru Slander).
Or, Satoru got sick a few years ago & you haven't been the same since. Will the F1 driver be able to get you back?
Based on this poll. WC: 6.5K.
Warnings: Contains Fic Spoilers, Crack treated seriously, fluff, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, mentions of illness (metastatic uveal melanoma (ocular cancer with secondary poliosis)), brief panic attack/sensory overwhelm in public but don't worry Sukuna’s there, nothing graphic & good ending.
A/N: I have never cried this much while writing a fic (at Satoru's parts.) Playlist
You arrived at the fair in an outfit that made men stupider, which meant Suguru from Hinge had chosen a historic day to become legally dead to you.
The skirt and the boots were new. The lipstick was so expensive that it made you eat fries with caution and drink water through a straw held at an angle. You had spent twenty minutes deciding between earrings, then another ten pretending that decision said anything meaningful about you on a first date.
Suguru had sent you a voice note that morning.
Can’t wait to finally see you.
He had a calm voice and a nice laugh. One month and a half of decent conversation, book recommendations, a very confident opinion about soup dumplings, and enough green flags that you had lowered your guard by four percent to show up here without thinking of ending up on Dateline.
You checked your phone again.
7:16 PM.
The meeting time had been 6:30.
You called once more, and it went straight to ringing, then voicemail.
You opened your chat with Uro.
You: i hope all his hair falls out.
Uro: Did he arrive?
You: if he did he is doing a stealth mission.
Uro: Men from dating apps need ankle monitors.
You: i wore the boots.
Uro: The black ones?
You: yes.
Uro: Jail.
you: he hasn’t picked up once.
Uro: Jail with soap drops.
You stood near a booth where a man in a foam hot-dog hat shouted about ring toss prizes. A toddler screamed at a plush duck. Couples passed with paper trays of fries and stupidly linked hands. Then you got startled by a generator coughing behind the cotton candy stand.
Your phone buzzed again.
Uro: I have to pick up my niece from my sister’s. She tried to feed a Lego to the dog.
you: that’s advanced.
Uro: I’d have brought her, but she's three, so fairs are still beyond her. Go enjoy the place. You already paid for parking and the outfit.
you: I got stood up.
Uro: But your boots are innocent, babes. Just eat overpriced food, and have fun. God knows you need it.
You looked down at your boots.
They really were.
you: fine. if i die on a carnival ride-
Uro: I’ll sue the park.
You put your phone away and bought cotton candy from a teenager. Pink sugar melted against your tongue. It was too sweet, coating your teeth, but the outrageousness helped.
The fair had a local committee feel—half the lights flickered, the prizes looked as if they had been won in divorce court, a banner near the main stage promised LIVE MUSIC AT 8 but the band currently tuning looked prepubescent.
You wandered because you were good at taking yourself out. That skill had come from practice. Movies, cafes, bookstores, and whole birthdays turned into errands because if you waited for people to show up on time, you spent half your life facing an empty chair.
So you did the stalls.
You threw darts at balloons and missed every single one, which the booth guy treated as a genuine tragedy.
You watched a little boy win a plastic sword bigger than his arm and immediately whack his father in the shin.
You texted Uro a photo of a plush frog with one eye sewn higher than the other.
you: this is suguru.
Uro: Too handsome.
you: true. suguru had better hair.
Uro: Frog has better commitment.
You laughed and got powdered sugar on your lips.
By the time you reached the rides, the sun had dropped behind the school building beside the fairground. The Tilt-A-Whirl sat near the back, painted red and yellow, its bulbs blinking in frantic loops. The cars spun in drunken circles while a group of teenagers shrieked.
Your stomach did a happy little flip with them.
You loved rides that ruined balance—Ferris wheels were pretty, carousels felt decorative, and the Tilt-A-Whirl was nonsense with bolts. It made your insides lift and swoop, and for three minutes your head cleared out.
You bought a ticket and climbed into an empty two-person car with your cotton candy tucked against your side. You hoped the operator would forget about you or place a woman beside you.
You continued to eat through your leftover cotton candy while looking at what other rides you could go on after this one.
The car dipped as someone sat right next to you.
You half turned.
Tattoos.
Black Line Tattoos.
Your hand clenched around the paper cone.
He was looking away, one elbow braced on the edge of the car, his phone in his hand. His hair was shorter than when you had last seen him. He wore a black jacket over a plain t-shirt, and the side of his neck still had that faint tan line from racing gear. He looked rich in the way drivers did after sponsors got involved—expensive, mildly sleep-deprived, capable of getting photographed beside a model and smirking through the headline.
You looked away so fast your neck nearly clicked.
Fine. Fine. He hadn’t seen you.
Maybe.
The fair was crowded. The ride was loud. The universe had placed him next to you as a practical joke, but you had survived worse jokes.
You reached for the lap bar to lift it.
It locked.
The operator gave the car a bored shove.
The ride started.
Your soul left your outfit.
Sukuna still hadn’t turned. He was watching someone by the fence. You followed his line of sight without moving your head much and caught sight of Yuji waving both arms while Choso held a paper plate piled with funnel cake. Some younger cousin or family friend bounced beside them with a flashing wand—so they were out on family night.
Aww cute.
No.
Horrible.
Your exit routes had been sealed by machinery and his entire goddamn bloodline.
The first spin was mild—your car rolled around the platform, gaining momentum. Wind pulled at your hair, and the cotton candy trembled in your grip.
Sukuna’s knee hit the side.
You tried to look at him from the corner of your eye without turning fully toward him.
His jaw had tightened.
Oh.
You remembered now.
He could take corners at speeds that made sports commentators develop religion. He could slide a car through rain, through smoke, through the hideous math of another driver trying to cut him off.
Yet put him on a county fair ride operated by a boy named Mason with an energy drink, and Ryomen Sukuna became a trapped alien.
The car swung harder.
His hand landed on the seat between you, palm pressed flat.
You turned your face away and bit the inside of your cheek.
Another spin, faster. The platform tilted. Your stomach tingled in the way you loved, a bright swoop that rushed up your ribs. You almost laughed.
Sukuna made a sound that could have been a cough—if coughs carried primal fear.
You stared at the painted horse on the booth across the ride and, without looking at him, placed your hand over his.
He seemed too busy fighting for his life to notice.
But the car spun again, and his hand gripped yours on instinct, hard enough to make your rings press into your skin. He still didn’t turn. Maybe he thought you were a stranger. Maybe he was far gone in battle with the Tilt-A-Whirl deity. Maybe he had recognized you from the first second and decided mutual delusion was better than conversation.
You kept your face angled away.
The ride grew faster and meaner, so your laughter broke out, helpless and breathy. Sukuna’s shoulder bumped yours, his body almost lurching forward.
When the ride slowed, you pulled your hand back before he could catch it properly. The lap bar lifted, and you stood while everyone around you stumbled out.
Sukuna finally turned.
His eyes caught on your waist, right where his hand used to land before dawn when his alarm went off and he reached across the bed half-asleep, finding you before he found his phone.
Recognition moved through his face with vulgar speed.
You were already moving through the crowd.
You didn’t run because that would imply guilt. You were simply a dignified woman fleeing a carnival ride because your ex had discovered your waist by sight.
He called out your name, but it was so loud he couldn't hear his own voice.
A child with a glow stick cut across your path. You dodged. Someone spilled lemonade near the duck pond game. You stepped around it. Your heart was making a ridiculous amount of effort for a body that had only eaten sugar.
You almost reached the row of food trucks when a hand closed around your arm.
You turned.
Sukuna let go at once.
For a second he looked exactly as stupid as you remembered him.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that was you.”
You stared at him.
His mouth opened, then closed. His eyes flicked over your face, the boots, and the cone of cotton candy crushed in your hand.
“You changed your hair,” he said.
“You still scared of rides at a carnival.” Adreline made you blurt it out before you could stop yourself.
His face loosened, his crimson eyes relaxed into his features, and it reminded you too much of the day you’d last seen him.
You cleared your throat. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How have you been?”
“Driving in circles for money.”
“Healthy career path.”
“You?”
You nodded toward the fair in general. “Being abandoned beside a corn dog booth. Thriving.”
His brow moved. “Abandoned?”
Your phone buzzed in your bag. Probably Uro asking if she could pay an Etsy witch to get Suguru stalked by goats.
“Long story.”
Sukuna studied you, then glanced toward the ride. “You stayed on.”
“I was trapped.”
“You held my hand.”
“You were dying.”
“I was assessing structural failure.”
“Mason looked very qualified.”
“The operator?”
“He had a whistle.”
Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “Powerful credential.”
You hated how fast your face warmed. You hated the stupid, familiar muscle memory. You hated that the air between you could still find the old groove with one push.
“I saw your last race,” you said, because your mouth had chosen arson.
Genuine surprise crossed his face. “You watch them?”
You scrunched your nose mildly, accidentally. The way you did when you’d been caught.
Sukuna stared at that tiny movement. He’d never told you about that one tell.
His expression did a weird thing—softened at the edges, then caught itself.
You swallowed. “Some highlights came on. At a gay bar with friends.”
His brows rose. “I have gay bar fans?”
“You have fans with betting habits everywhere.”
“Which bar?”
You refused to explain that you had begged the bartender to put the race on while you sat alone PMSing, a gin and tonic beside your hand, pretending you wanted sports because sports had become a pathetic substitute for his absence. You had watched his car move through the screen while drunk men argued behind you about karaoke. You had missed him so badly you had ordered fries you didn’t want just to stay until the podium interview.
“Some place downtown,” you said. “The bartender said you were probably annoying.”
He leaned a little closer. “You care about other people’s opinions of me?”
“I was doing community outreach.”
“So you follow me.”
“You have gotten hard to miss.”
He smiled then, infuriatingly flustered beneath the smirk. “Are you seeing someone?”
Your grip tightened on the cotton candy cone again.
You could have said you had been stood up by a man whose most impressive quality was voice-note confidence. You could have said everyone after Sukuna had felt as if they never really saw you. You could have said you had wanted him to be there so many times that no one would ever compare.
Instead, you said, “How’s the model?”
“The model?”
“The one from the news about the rooftop dinner. Tall one.”
He huffed. “You follow me pretty closely for somebody asking casual questions.”
It should have made you laugh.
That was the script. He teased, you deflected, he leaned closer, you rolled your eyes and pretended your heartbeat didn’t sing for him.
Instead, something inside you slipped.
Satoru would have loved this. He would have demanded screenshots, then called Sukuna a pink-haired lizard, then told you to stop acting as if a breakup suddenly made you mature.
Your smile thinned before you could poker-face it.
Sukuna saw.
He stopped teasing so fast it hurt more than anything.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at your face as if he could pull the answer out, then seemed to think better of it. His hand flexed at his side.
“I fly back the day after tomorrow,” he said, instead. “Before that, can we get coffee tomorrow night?”
You watched a father lift his daughter onto his shoulders near the balloon stall. The little girl had blue face paint smeared across one cheek.
You said zilch.
Sukuna’s mouth thinned. “I need an answer. I can’t call you.” He paused. “Same number?”
You had blocked him so thoroughly your phone treated his existence as malware.
“Same number,” you mumbled.
“I’ll pick you up.”
“I can drive.”
He ignored you. “You live at the same place?”
“Next to the old one.”
“Six then.”
“I didn’t agree.”
“I did for both of us.”
You should have hated that.
But your lips twitched before you could stop them.
He saw that and looked pathetically relieved for a man paid to risk death.
At home, you called Uro from the couch.
She answered with, “Tell me Suguru got shingles.”
“I saw Sukuna.”
There was some scrambling on the other side.
“Ryomen Sukuna?”
“How many Sukuna exes do you think I have?”
“With your taste? I fear categories.”
You told her everything—the Tilt-A-Whirl, the hand, the gay bar lie, the coffee.
Uro went silent.
Then she sighed. “You should go.”
You sat up. “Why?”
“Sukuna didn’t cause this.”
You looked toward the TV, where a cooking show contestant was crying over burned fish.
Uro lowered her voice. “You ended it because of Satoru.”
Your throat tightened.
“You told Sukuna he was boring,” she continued. “Which was insane, by the way. That man has a lethal jawline and a deadly career.”
“He did become boring.”
"No, honey, you panicked because your brother relapsed, and the illness came back worse, and Sukuna was training for the season that could make his career. You thought he’d throw everything away and come sit in oncology waiting rooms.”
You pressed your thumb under your ring, twisting it.
Uro added, “You also kept telling everyone you were fine, which was your least convincing era.”
“I couldn’t make him choose.”
“You chose for him.”
You closed your eyes.
“Go for coffee,” she said, smiling. “You can still leave if he’s gotten stupid. I’ll key his car.”
That made you laugh, but it hurt coming out.
After the call, you fell asleep with your boots still beside the couch.
Satoru woke you by poking your ankle over the blanket. “Breakfast.”
You opened your eyes in the old house, in his room, on the giant bed you had practically moved into during the bad months. The emergency bell sat on the nightstand beside many bottles of prescription eye drops, a strip of tablets, and the ugly plastic water bottle he hated because it made him “feel eighty in a hospital commercial.”
He stood at the doorway in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hair white around his face and paler at the lashes. Before the cancer, he had black hair and caramel eyes. He used to say the universe stole his color and made him ethereal.
You sat up too fast. “Why are you moving around?”
He waved a hand. “I made pancakes, nurse warden.”
“You’re meant to rest.”
“I am resting.”
“Satoru.”
“I feel better, let me have this.” His smile spread, bright and crooked, a little thinner than it used to be. “Breakfast for my baby sister.”
You followed him to the kitchen because arguing with him had once been a full-time job and you missed him having the energy for it.
His pancakes were your favorite—he'd made them with extra fruit and too much syrup, even warmed the plate.
You took a bite.
The taste was wrong.
It was floury, flat, and a little bitter.
Satoru’s smile faltered. “Meds messed with my taste buds again, huh?”
“It’s good.”
“Liar. Give me the plate. I’ll remake it.”
You pulled the plate closer. “It’s perfect.”
“Add more syrup.”
He sank into the chair across from you, breathing a little heavier than he wanted you to hear.
“Will Kento or Shoko come by today?” you asked.
“Don’t feel like socializing.” He sighed, stretching his shoulders with a wince he couldn't hide well. “I was thinking we watch a movie.”
You fully looked up.
He shrugged. “Unless you have better plans. Like maybe calling your bubblegum-haired ego a problem."
“Sukuna has a name.”
“Sukuna has anger issues.”
You laughed.
Satoru leaned back, pleased. “Call him back.”
“I broke up with him.”
“Why?”
“He should focus on his career.”
“If he’s going to be worth anything, he should learn to multitask." He speared a piece of fruit from your plate. “If he has a girl, she’s high maintenance. He’ll have training.”
“You barely know him.”
“I know he looks at you as if you’re a pit stop he wants to marry.”
You choked on syrup.
Satoru waited until you stopped coughing. He passed you water, then kept his hand around the glass for a second, as if he knew you might use it to hide your face.
“I’m serious,” he said.
You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “That’s new.”
“Don’t get cute. That’s my job.”
“You’re bad at it.”
“I’m excellent at everything. Keep up.” His smile faded before it could become a joke. “You shouldn’t have broken up with him because of me.”
You looked down at your plate. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You make every decision like every part of your life has to consider me first.”
“That’s not—"
“It’s true.”
You pressed your fork into the pancake. “You’re sick, Satoru. You need me.”
“I know that.” His voice stayed steady, but his fingers tightened around his mug. “I need my sister. I don’t need you to turn into a nurse with no life after me.”
Your throat burned. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“It’s a horrible thing to watch.”
You looked at him then.
He held your eyes, tired and pale and still your brother under all of it. The same brother who had signed your school forms when your parents forgot, who had shown up to parent-teacher meetings in his uniform because he had practice right after, who had made your lunch badly for a month before he learned how to pack fruit without smashing it. He had been loud about everything except the things that mattered most.
“You think I don’t see it?” he asked. “You don’t sleep unless I sleep. You don’t eat unless I complain first. You keep your phone face down because you’re scared he’ll call and you’ll want to answer. None of this is good for you.”
You swallowed.
“Sukuna makes you happy,” he said. “He also annoys you, which is good. You get unbearable when nobody argues with you.”
A weak laugh left you, then quickly turned into tears you blinked away.
“I’m scared too.” Satoru leaned back, breathing through the small cost of sitting upright for more than his body was able to bear right now. “I don’t want to say that because then you look at me like your whole chest got kicked in. But I’m scared. And I still don’t want your life to shrink down to this house.”
“Satoru—”
“No. Listen to me.” His voice cut through yours, low and clear. “Love me. Take care of me. Fight with doctors. Make ugly pancakes taste worse with extra syrup. Fine. But don’t throw away someone you love because you think suffering alone is what you deserve.”
You wiped away the tears that came treacherously anyway.
“I raised you better than that,” he said, softer now.
You tried to smile anyway. “You raised me to be dramatic and suspicious.”
“I raised you to have standards, and somehow you picked a race car demon, but I’m choosing peace.”
“He’s not a demon."
“He has face tattoos.”
You laughed again, a little bit bigger this time.
Satoru opened his arm to let you tuck in. “Promise me you’ll call him. If he’s useless, I’ll hate him with you. If he shows up, let him.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“It won’t be.” His hand rubbed against your temple, careful and warm. “Do it anyway.”
He grinned, and for a second he looked sixteen again—school jacket half-zipped, practice bag slung over one shoulder, his mock-test rank posted near the top of the board. Boys copied his notes despite hating him. Girls found reasons to borrow erasers. Teachers used his name in warnings and compliments in the same breath. He played whichever sport had a vacancy that week, won enough to make coaches greedy, then came home with convenience-store candy for you because you had texted him a sad face during math.
You spent the afternoon watching a dumb action movie. It had three explosions in the first twenty minutes and a villain with an accent from nowhere. Satoru kept making comments under his breath, weaker than his usual running commentary but smug enough.
Halfway through, his head tipped against the back of the couch, heavy medication dragging him under.
“You’re missing the part where the car jumps through a hospital.”
“Mmph.” He made a lazy sound, eyes closed.
You let him sleep.
The medicine did that to him lately—took his words first, then made his limbs sluggish, then the rest of him slower to react. You checked the time on your phone, compared it with the notebook on the table, and saw his next dose still had some time. Fine. He could sleep. You could give him that.
The movie kept playing—someone on-screen was shouting about a bomb as Satoru breathed beside you, shallow but steady, so your body allowed itself to unwind.
You must have drifted off too, because when you opened your eyes again, the room had shifted into evening. The TV had gone to the streaming menu, and the house had that late-day smell, dust, syrup, old coffee in the mug by his elbow.
Your neck hurt from the couch angle.
You yawned and nudged his knee with your foot. “Toru. Go to bed.”
He stayed slumped against the cushion.
You rubbed your eyes and sat up properly. “Seriously. Your back’s going to hurt more if you sleep here.”
His hand rested palm-up on the couch between you—long fingers, pale knuckles, and a small bruise near the wrist from the last blood draw. You nudged his palm.
“Medication time soon,” you added. “Come on. I’ll help you walk.”
He stayed still.
A small irritation rose in your chest, familiar and domestic. The type of annoyed you got when he acted dramatic during eye drops or complained about water tasting “aggressively round.”
“Satoru.”
You leaned closer and shook his shoulder.
His body moved with the shake, then settled.
Your irritation thinned.
“Toru?”
You touched his cheek.
It was warm but too still under your palm. His lashes were pale against his skin, white from the treatment and the strange pigment loss.
“Hey.” Your voice came out softer. “Wake up. You have to take the evening meds.”
The notebook lay open on the coffee table—pills and drops listed by time. The little boxes you had drawn and checked and checked again.
You reached for his wrist.
His pulse was hard to find.
Your own pulse got in the way, slamming through your fingertips.
“Satoru, stop it.”
You pressed harder at his wrist, then shifted to his throat the way the nurse had taught you during one of the discharge briefings.
“Wake up,” you said, even louder. “Go to your bed. You’re too tall for the couch, and I’m sick of hearing you complain about your spine.”
His head stayed angled toward the TV.
You grabbed his shoulder with both hands.
“Satoru!”
The name came out in a cracked scream.
You shook him again, rougher than you had touched him in months.
“Stop. This isn’t funny. Toru, get up.”
You bent close to his mouth.
For one awful second you thought you felt breath, then realized it was yours hitting his skin and coming back.
“No,” you said, and the word came out small, stupid, and useless.
You pressed your ear to his chest.
You waited.
You moved your ear, searching.
You held your own breath so you could hear his.
Nothing came.
Your hands began to shake so hard his shirt wrinkled under your fists.
“Toru,” you whispered.
Then you screamed for him.
The dream broke there, same as it did every time.
You woke on the couch in your apartment, gasping, sweat cooling under the collar of your shirt. The TV had gone to sleep, your phone had slipped between cushions and outside, daylight had already moved across the room and started fading again.
You had slept through most of the day.
Coffee was in an hour.
You got ready in simpler clothes because the idea of another date outfit made you feel stupid. New jeans, clean socks and the oversized white cashmere sweater Satoru had bought you years ago, back when he had health, black hair, caramel eyes, and a talent for buying gifts that made you cry in private.
Downstairs, Sukuna waited beside a car you couldn’t place. New or rental.
He straightened when he saw you.
Then he opened the passenger door and held out flowers.
You stared at them.
They were real flowers—pink and white, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine.
“For you,” he said when you kept staring at them.
“I gathered.”
“You going to take them?”
“I’m thinking.”
He waited.
You took them.
He looked away, and the edge of his mouth moved, almost smug.
You wanted to beat the smugness off with the said flowers, but instead you got in.
The car ride carried all the comfort of small talk. He asked about traffic near your building. You asked about his flight schedule. He mentioned a sponsor event. You said the fair food was probably giving him diarrhea. Sukuna laughed.
The cafe was small, upscale, and filled with people who seemed able to drink espresso after sunset without ruining their nervous systems.
Sukuna held the door. You hated that too.
At the counter he asked, “Usual?”
You nodded.
He ordered it correctly.
You took a table near the wall.
“So,” he said once he sat, “what are you doing these days?”
“Work sabbatical. Finishing my degree.”
His eyes stayed on you. “That good?”
"Please, I don’t need judgment from a man who believed cigarettes were breakfast.”
His mouth twitched. “I matured.”
“You bought a sports car.”
“It was assigned.”
“What? Corporate custody?”
“Something along those lines.”
The server arrived with drinks plus a small pizza cut into uneven squares. Your usual.
You stared at the tray for a second too long.
He sipped his coffee. “How’s Satoru?”
Your body became hyperaware of your reality.
The hiss of the steamer grew enormous. A chair scraped behind you. Someone laughed near the window, high and sudden. The chili oil on the pizza smelled acidic. The sweater collar touched your throat.
“He died.”
Sukuna froze, frowning. “What?”
“It’ll be a year soon.”
His hand hovered near the table, then lowered. “How?”
You folded your napkin, then unfolded it. “Peaceful, according to the doctors.”
His jaw worked. “Are you living alone?”
“Yes.”
“Family?”
You almost smiled. “Satoru was the family.”
The words hurt to speak aloud.
Sukuna knew you had family, but having and being reciprocative with affection and meeting a child's needs were two different things. They didn’t like you or satoru much.
“Have you…” Sukuna looked at you for a long moment. "Cried since?”
Your hands felt cold. “What?”
“Since he passed.”
You pushed back from the table—the legs screeched. The cafe turned its head toward you in a hundred tiny ways. Every cup, every voice, every light on the wall became a separate grating sound.
Sukuna rose with you, fast enough to catch your wrist before you could knock something over.
You flinched, and he released you.
Then he stepped close enough that his voice could reach your ear and no one else. “Breathe. You can skip the answer. I pushed.”
You shook your head.
“Breathe,” he said again. “Look at me or the door. Pick one.”
You looked at the door because you didn't have the capacity to look at him right now—his crimson eyes were too expressive at the worst of the times.
"Please…" You took a deep breath in. “I want to go home.”
“Okay.”
The drive back was short.
He made zero attempts at conversation, keeping both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. At your building, he parked and walked around to open your door.
“I can get upstairs.”
“I know.”
He followed anyway, carrying the pizza and flowers, as if the evening had become a delivery service with unresolved romantic history.
Inside your apartment, Toru stood in the hallway—white fur and blue eyes. A body shaped by luxury and criminal entitlement.
The cat looked at Sukuna, then at you, then back at Sukuna.
Sukuna stared.
You mildly introduced them, “That’s Toru.”
Toru blinked slowly, withholding citizenship.
Sukuna took off his shoes. “Does he bite?”
“He does and also loudly meowdals every old man complains he has.”
“Fair.”
You went to the couch because your bones had become heavy. Sukuna went into the kitchen without asking, which should have annoyed you, except you were less overwhelmed now. He filled the kettle. Opened cabinets and found the pan.
Toru followed him and sat near the fridge, supervising with contempt.
“You eat?” Sukuna asked the cat.
Toru’s tail moved softly.
“Useful answer.” He paused, then asked. “She eat?”
You pulled a pillow over your face, quite far away to hear any of this.
Sukuna continued, fully serious. “Blink once for very little. Twice, if she survives on coffee.”
Toru blinked once.
“He seems credible," Sukuna called out to you.
“He licks plastic bags.” You yelled back.
Sukuna smirked towards Toru and tapped his nose, making the cat paw at its own nose. “It’s okay. Witnesses are allowed to have flaws.”
The cat squared up and hissed, which meant he was flawless.
From the couch, you heard the scrape of a knife, the tap of the cutting board, and the click of the stove. He made coffee first. Then stir-fry, simple and fast, with vegetables cut the way you used to cut them and sauce mixed from memory.
Your recipe.
Stolen.
Also, the only thing he’d eat after a long day.
You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep until Sukuna stood over you with a bowl in one hand and the remote in the other. You woke up with the smell of garlic and soy.
“Sit up.”
You sat up because your body, treacherous thing, wanted the food.
He sat beside you with his own bowl and put on a terrible movie. Some action sequel where cars exploded for reasons that offended even him. Toru jumped onto the armchair and watched Sukuna as if waiting for a confession.
The first bite loosened your chest. Warm rice, vegetables, and sauce with slightly too much garlic because he remembered you liked it that way.
“You still cook it wrong.”
He glanced over. “You’re eating fast for a critic.”
“You stole my recipe.”
“I improved it.”
“You put too much ginger.”
“You need flavor.”
“You need to be humbled.”
“Tried it. Bad fit.”
A huff of a laugh escaped you.
Sukuna looked at your face, then back to the TV.
You ate half the bowl before speaking again. “Satoru wanted a cat.”
Sukuna kept his eyes on the screen. His body shifted into less performative ease and more attention.
“Our parents would never let us have one,” you continued. “Which made sense in the practical way. Then it made less sense because they weren’t indulgent with anything, so it became this larger question of why they had children at all.”
Toru groomed one paw, deeply unmoved by human origin stories.
“Satoru used to send me photos of cats. He said once he got better after treatment, he’d buy a bigger house and fill it with cats who were babied and spoiled.”
Sukuna set his bowl down.
“During the last months, his hair went whiter. Lashes too. The doctors explained it, saying it was pigment cells, immune response, and treatment side effects. His eyes were the first problem. He couldn’t see well, but we could work around that while the meds still worked. There were tools, routines, labels on bottles, brighter lamps, audiobooks when reading hurt too much. Then—”
You swallowed, eyes distant, because if you’d stopped now, it’d stay stuck in there forever and eat you worse. “Then the liver got worse. He had these drops, and scans, and appointments where everyone used gentle voices at us. He made jokes about turning into a designer ghost.”
Sukuna made a small sound, almost a laugh, because Satoru had deserved that much.
The crying began softly—a few tears you could have blamed on the movie.
“I kept thinking if I managed the appointments and the meds and the food and the calls, it would make a difference. If I stayed in his room and stayed awake, I’d catch everything. If I heard every breath, if I woke up fast enough...” Your spoon rested against the bowl.
“It didn’t matter.”
Sukuna said your name.
Your face hit his chest, and the sound that came out of you was ugly and torn loose. Years of holding yourself upright broke down into his shirt. He moved your bowl away with one hand and pulled you in properly.
You cried until your nose ran, until Toru abandoned the armchair and jumped onto the couch, until Sukuna’s shirt was damp and his hand had settled at the back of your head, warm and familiar in a way your body accepted before you realized.
“I told you that you were boring,” you choked out because he deserved that. “I was lying.”
“I know.”
“I thought you’d ruin everything.”
“You should’ve let me choose.”
“I’m sorry.”
His mouth pressed to your hair. “I know.”
His eyes burned once before he blinked hard and looked away. The wins had come with the money, the cameras, and the noise.
But none of it fixed the part of him that still looked for you after every flight, every podium, every room full of people talking too much.
Every success felt a little thinner because every hotel room still ended with him reaching for a phone he couldn’t use to call the only woman he’d ever cared about.
Back then he’d known you were lying, he just hadn’t known how to make you come home.
You cried harder because you probably hadn't since your brother left.
At some point the movie ended and the streaming app tried to play another. Toru fell asleep against your thigh. Sukuna kept holding you until your body gave out.
You woke once when he picked you up, mumbled something unintelligible, and fell asleep again.
He carried you to your bedroom.
You hadn’t slept there in weeks. The bed looked almost staged.
Sukuna set you down and left only long enough to bring water, your phone, and Toru, who protested being handled until Sukuna told him, “Your landlord requires supervision.”
Toru bit his arm.
Sukuna winced and let the cat curl up to you.
Sukuna got into bed beside you fully clothed. He didn’t crowd you at first. He lay on his back, one arm open.
You moved into it.
The sweater smelled faintly of your perfume and old cashmere. Sukuna smelled of coffee and the same cologne he used to wear when he had early flights and kissed you in doorways while pretending he had plenty of time.
You slept deeply.
Morning arrived without the usual panic of dreams.
For a few seconds, you knew that before you knew anything else. Your body had rested properly because your jaw didn’t ache and your hands weren’t curled into fists under the blanket.
Then you reached beside you.
The pillow held a dent, but Toru had claimed Sukuna’s side of the bed and looked pleased.
Your chest tightened, then eased in a tired, resigned way.
Of course. He had a flight. He had said so.
Maybe last night had been a mercy visit from an ex.
That was fine.
It had helped.
You could survive that much.
You got up to feed Toru.
A note was stuck to his bowl in Sukuna’s handwriting.
I’ll be back next month. Unblock me.
You stared at it.
Toru headbutted your ankle because romance meant little compared to tuna.
You fed him first.
Then you unblocked Sukuna.
A text came through almost at once with a photo.
You were asleep on his chest the night before, your cheek squashed against his shirt, Toru sitting on your hip as if guarding property. Your hair was everywhere and your mouth was slightly open. Sukuna’s jaw was only partly visible, but his hand rested over your back, his thumb blurred mid-stroke.
Below it came a calendar invite, already adjusted to your time zone.
1:30 PM Video Call.
Don’t dodge me.
You clicked on the calendar and saw that he'd squeezed it in after his team debrief. It was surreal to see that your ex had a Ferrari schedule, a flight, and a body people paid millions to keep functional, and still he had blocked out time to annoy you himself.
You accepted it.
Then you went into the kitchen and saw the flowers resting in a mug of water on top of the fridge.
And inside, cold brew waited in a glass bottle, labeled with tape.
Eat something first.
Beside it sat the remaining pizza, wrapped properly, and a container of leftover stir-fry.
You took out the bottle of cold brew, took a photo of it, and sent it.
You: i’m sorry, and i’ll wait for you.
The typing bubbles appeared so fast you almost dropped the phone.
A picture arrived.
Toru sat on the kitchen counter near the same coffee bottle in the gray morning light, tail curled around his paws, blue eyes aimed at Sukuna behind the camera. Beneath it, Sukuna had written:
Your brother might approve.
A/N: I hope you loved this piece as much as I did writing it even if the keyboard was blurry through most of it. I wanted to write only crack and fluff in this; however, Satoru stole my keyboard midway. So hopefully the next story I post isn't going to be as hurt/comforting.
Want to read the same pairings but with Gojo as the endgame?
Masterlist | Rabies | Chuki
Header Images from Anime & Pinterest, dividers are mine.
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Warnings: Yuji's hair & Maki's domestic terrorism over Yuta.
Dividers are mine; images are from anime and Pinterest.
Ch 1 | Epilogue
Ch 2 - Itadori Yuji
That evening, you set the coffee counter, restocked the sandwiches, and moved through the shift with your face set right.
At 9:18 PM, the door chimed, and the whole little procession came in at once.
The pink-haired boy first, hungry on sight. Kugisaki was behind him, already judging the meal selection. Zenin was flipping a coin. A dark-haired guy you vaguely remember as Yuta—only because you’d seen him being yelled at by Zenin outside Jujutsu Tech—was picking up a basket. Fushiguro last.
You were crouched in the refrigerator aisle, fixing the packaged sushi that had slid forward against the glass while holding discount stickers in your apron pocket.
Kugisaki recognized you before anybody else said a word.
The pink-haired boy stepped around the handbasket left in the aisle. “Sorry.”
You stood. “It’s okay.”
The repair shop smell never fully left your hands even after two washes so you hid both hands in your apron pockets.
The pink-haired boy smiled at you with his whole face. “You work here too?”
“Umm...yeah?”
He laughed, and the sound was kind of sweet.
You looked at his hair. “It looks nice.”
He smiled. “My hair?”
“Yeah.”
Kugisaki made a sound under her breath. Zenin’s mouth moved at one corner. Yuta looked down into the freezer case and suddenly became very interested in ice cream mochi.
The pinkette ran a hand through the mess on instinct. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled, then seemed to remember you had no reason to know who he was. “I’m Itadori. Yuji Itadori.”
You did not know why he introduced himself like James Bond, but you told him your name.
“I figured you were one of Fushiguro’s friends.”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back before he could stop himself. “I am.”
Itadori seemed a little smug about the fact.
Fushiguro stood by the drinks cooler with a can of coffee in his hand and said nothing. He did not look embarrassed or sorry. Only watched the can, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
Itadori looked back at you, and whatever he saw on your face made his own expression shift.
“So,” he said, awkward now, one hand still at the back of his neck. “Are you and Megumi…?”
“No.”
Kugisaki’s eyes snapped to Fushiguro.
Zenin stopped turning the bottle in her hand.
Yuta made a small sound.
Fushiguro cracked open his can.
Itadori asked, “So you ahh dating anyone?”
The aisle froze around the question.
“No.”
Itadori’s eyes went immediately to Fushiguro.
You understood loyalty and even respected it. What you hated was the way Fushiguro let Itadori look at him as if the answer belonged to him.
Itadori looked at him, waited one second too long, then turned back to you.
“Then can I ask you out?”
Nobody moved.
Kugisaki leaned both elbows on the top of the cooler. “Well?”
Itadori flushed. “Not like that. Only if you want to. We could get food sometime, or something to drink. Normal drink, obviously, I’m not eighteen yet, and you look younger than me, so—” He stopped, looked briefly horrified by how much he was talking, then tried again. “Here is probably weird since you work here, so somewhere else.”
Zenin took a bottled water from the shelf. “Itadori, breathe.”
Yuta coughed into his fist.
Fushiguro said nothing.
You looked at Itadori. “You’re not doing this because you feel bad, right?”
“No.” His answer came too fast, then he steadied it. “I mean, I do feel bad, but that’s not why.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to.” He swallowed, then added, “You can say no.”
You looked past him once, to Fushiguro by the cooler, waiting for anything from the boy who had kissed you under the dead store sign last night and then made you feel small in front of his friends.
Fushiguro lifted the can to his mouth.
You looked back at Itadori. “Can I think about it?”
His shoulders lowered a little, his smile still warm. “Yeah. Of course.”
Kugisaki bought three puddings she did not need so she could linger by the counter. Zenin paid for water and protein bars. Yuta thanked you twice. Fushiguro left without meeting your eyes.
---
Outside, on the sidewalk near the vending machines, Kugisaki rounded on Itadori before the door had finished swinging shut.
“You looked at Fushiguro before talking to her.”
Itadori rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
“That was ugly.”
“I know.”
Zenin twisted the cap off her water. “If he cared, he had words.”
Fushiguro stopped walking.
Itadori looked at him because he could not seem to stop doing that. “Fushiguro?”
Fushiguro kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Do what you want.”
Itadori’s mouth opened, then closed.
Kugisaki stared at Fushiguro for a long second. “That’s all?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
Zenin slid her water into her bag. “Anything.”
Fushiguro stayed silent.
---
Two days later, Itadori came back alone.
He stood at the end of the counter with his hands in his pockets while you wiped down the espresso machine. He had a small paper bag from the bakery near the station, the cheap one that sold melon pan after six for half price.
“I shouldn’t have looked at him before asking you.”
You set the cloth aside and sanitized your hands.
He looked embarrassed. “That was rude.”
“It was.”
“Yeah.” His fingers tightened around the bakery bag. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at the bag first, then at him. “Did they make you come back?”
“Nobara yelled at me,” he admitted. “Zenin senpai said I was being stupid and she was embarrassed to know me.”
“That sounds...”
“And Megumi said to do what I wanted.”
The almost-laugh died before it reached your mouth.
Itadori saw it happen and did the first thing right by leaving Fushiguro’s name alone after that.
He held up the bakery bag. “I still want to ask properly. Food somewhere that isn’t your job. No pressure. You can say no, and I’ll still buy stuff here like a normal customer who doesn’t make the closing shift weird.”
That got a small laugh out of you, mostly because he looked genuinely worried about the possibility.
“You brought melon pans?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you liked.”
“I like them.”
From there it started small.
---
That weekend, Itadori showed up outside the repair shop ten minutes before closing with a clear umbrella he clearly didn't need and a packet of strawberry gummies.
"I panicked," he explained when you looked at the gummies.
"About what?"
"The possibility of me having a date."
That made you chuckle.
The date itself lasted twenty-three minutes.
You missed your train.
Itadori paid for the replacement ticket before you could argue. "You're not paying me back."
"I didn't even get to offer."
"That's why I said it first."
---
The next one was at a platform bench near the station while you waited for your train.
Two canned coffees and a pack of dorayaki.
Itadori spent fifteen minutes telling you about a movie he'd half watched and completely misunderstood.
You spent fifteen minutes explaining the ending.
When he walked you to your train, he handed you the unopened second coffee he'd bought by mistake.
"You hate black coffee."
"I know."
"Then why did you buy it?"
He looked offended. "What if you wanted two?"
---
The actual relaxed date was at a ramen place near the river.
You ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.
Itadori ordered the same thing.
Halfway through the meal he excused himself to the bathroom.
When the bill came back, it already had a receipt stapled to it.
You stared at it.
The waitress smiled. "Your boyfriend paid before he got up."
You found Itadori outside afterward kicking at a loose pebble.
"I can pay for myself."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"My grandpa would've comeback to haunt me."
You laughed a little.
He looked relieved.
---
Then another one was a walk to the pharmacy one rainy afternoon because you said you had to pick something up before work, and he matched your pace.
The rain started halfway to the pharmacy.
Itadori opened the umbrella before you could.
The two of you walked shoulder-to-shoulder beneath clear plastic while water rattled overhead.
You were talking about nothing important when you reached the counter.
The pharmacist handed over the white paper bag. "Would you like to delay the remaining payment again?"
You answered on autopilot. "Yes."
The pharmacist nodded and moved on.
You left the store and walked with Itadori.
Your tote strap snapped crossing the street.
Without a word, he took the pharmacy bag before it could hit the pavement.
The florist was next door.
You would have walked right past it.
Itadori stopped.
"What?"
"Wait here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm doing something, and if you ask too many questions, I'll lose my nerve."
Before you could answer, he disappeared inside.
You stood under the awning watching him through the glass.
He spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to the woman behind the counter.
Pointing.
Shaking his head.
Pointing again.
Eventually she laughed and handed him something wrapped in pale paper.
When he came back out, he looked almost nervous.
The bouquet was small, white sweet peas, pale pink and blue delphiniums.
“I…” Itadori held them out. "For you."
You stared. "What are these for?"
He shrugged. "No reason."
People didn't buy you flowers for no reason.
People didn't buy you flowers at all.
Flowers you'd never once thought about buying for yourself because flowers were for people with spare money.
You were still looking down at them when a woman from your old neighborhood stepped out of the florist. She stopped when she saw you, then looked at Itadori, the pharmacy bag, your work shoes, and the old school charm still hanging from your cracked phone case.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still here.”
You smiled. “Hello.”
Her eyes went back to Itadori. “Better this than the old man, I suppose. Your poor grandmother.”
Your fingers tightened around the broken tote strap.
Itadori said nothing until you reached the station platform. The rails buzzed underfoot. A vending machine swallowed someone’s coin and refused to give it back. You watched the red numbers over the tracks count down from seven minutes.
Itadori held the pharmacy bag in both hands. “Do you want me to know, or do you want me to stay out of it?”
You looked at your grandmother’s name printed in blue on the white paper.
“It’s over,” you whispered. “That arrangement never got far.”
He waited.
“My grandmother got sick. People got generous in ugly ways and tried to set me up with an old guy. I left school and picked up more shifts. I don't have anyone other than her. That’s the story.”
He nodded and held you closer with one arm around your shoulders. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
You hid your face against his chest as the tears came.
His hand settled between your shoulder blades and stayed there.
The train rattled through three stations before the knot in your throat finally loosened.
By then your eyes burned, your head hurt, and exhaustion had crept into your bones.
At some point you drifted sideways against him.
Yuji shifted just enough to keep your head from knocking into the window.
When you woke near your stop, his arm was still around your shoulders and his thumb was moving slowly across the back of your cardigan.
He looked down when he realized you were awake. "Sorry," he whispered. "You looked comfortable."
You stared at him for a second because nobody had ever treated your sadness like something worth holding onto before.
"Don't apologize," you mumbled.
His ears turned red.
---
After that, Yuji started showing up in different ways when he wasn't at school or on a mission somewhere.
He unloaded milk crates when deliveries ran late and stayed red-faced through half the task because he kept trying to lift too many at once. He carried parts boxes up the narrow stairs to the repair shop and listened when you told him which labels meant "fragile." He learned which tea your grandmother would drink.
He never told Fushiguro.
You knew that because Fushiguro looked at you the same way he had in the refrigerated aisle, as if he had mistaken silence for a place to stand still and realized too late that the ground had caved under him.
He came into the store less after you started seeing Yuji.
When he did come, Yuji’s name sat between you on the counter with the coins and the receipt tape.
Once, Yuji was behind the counter helping you break down cardboard when Fushiguro walked in for bandages and a rice ball.
Yuji straightened. “Hey, Fushiguro.”
“Hm.”
Fushiguro’s eyes landed on the flattened boxes, the cutter in Yuji’s hand, then on you.
You kept taping the next bundle.
He paid and left.
The bell rang once. The door shut. Yuji looked at the tape gun in your hand.
“You want me to go after him?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
You pulled the tape hard. “He made his choice.”
Yuji did not argue.
---
Winter came in through the door every time a customer opened it. Your grandmother got worse, then steadier, then worse again. The repair shop cut hours after New Year. The store heater coughed dust into the air. You slept when you could and worked when you could not.
One night, just past closing, the bell rang, and Fushiguro walked in alone with split skin over his knuckles again.
You were counting cigarette cartons behind the counter. He set a packet of gauze down without speaking.
You finished the count, typed the number in the ledger, and reached for his hand.
He let you take it. His skin was cold.
“Do you do this on purpose?” you asked.
“Do what?”
“Come in here bleeding.”
He gave you the silence again. You cleaned the cut, wrapped the gauze, and pressed the tape flat. His breath held too carefully in his chest.
“You heard me that day,” he finally whispered.
You pressed the tape down over the bandage.
His hand stayed under yours. “I didn’t mean—”
You looked up.
He stopped there.
That was the problem with Fushiguro. He always got close enough for you to see the thing under the surface, then he sat on top of it until the moment passed.
“You didn’t mean what?”
His jaw moved. “I don’t know.”
That almost made you laugh because it was the most honest thing he had ever said to you and still somehow did nothing.
You let go of his hand.
He set money on the counter. It was too much.
You pushed back the excess. “You don’t have to do that.”
He looked at the coins, then at you. “Yuji knows things.”
The sentence was bitter where it should have been ashamed.
You stacked the returned change into his palm and folded his fingers over it. “Yuji asks.”
His face sank further.
Outside, footsteps crunched over the salt thrown down near the entrance. Through the glass, you saw Yuji under the awning, half-hidden by an umbrella and carrying the pharmacy bag you had forgotten to pick up that morning.
Yuji had been checking his phone, looked up, and saw Fushiguro.
He did not come in.
You reached for the back hook and took down your coat.
“We’re closed,” you said softly.
Fushiguro looked at the coat in your hand.
Then he nodded, picked up the bandages he had already paid for, and walked to the door. At the threshold, he stopped with one hand on the glass.
If he had turned then and found the right words, maybe seeing him around would've hurt less.
He left them unsaid.
The bell rang above him, bright and so stupid.
You killed the front lights, locked the register, and stepped outside into Yuji’s umbrella. He moved it over you first, then himself.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
You looked through the glass once.
Fushiguro was already halfway down the street, shoulders set, head lowered against the cold, both hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” you answered Yuji.
Yuji shifted the pharmacy bag so it would not get wet. “Your train?”
“In twelve minutes.”
He nodded and started walking with you.
Behind you, under the flat white store sign, Fushiguro turned with bandages on his hand and nothing useful left to protect.
Yuji asking “do you want me to know or do you want me to stay out of it” actually made me put my phone down for a second.
IT was such a small sentence but it's everything. Like he doesn’t force her to tell her eveerything like some brutish men force their way into your personal life just because you drunkenly flirted with them once and concent is a jooke to them, like now I'm supposed to owe Chad my darkest trauma and insecurites so he can use them later against me???
My baby Yuji just would never! He'd hold space for us and this is why he's always gonna be my fav, the best mc there is.
I wish I had someone like that and I fear i am no longer neutral in this love triangle
You are right anon.
A lot of people mistake intimacy for access, and I hate it too. They think attraction, worry, jealousy, or one decent act somehow earns them every private detail of your life. That is where “I want to understand you” turns into “give me information so I can feel important, and maybe use it later.”
Yuji does the opposite because Wasuke raised him right. He sees something is wrong but leaves the choice in her hands.
But he does not make his concern bigger than her right to choose what she shares. He does not treat her vulnerability like proof that he is a hero.
And psychologically (from what I have read), that is why she can tell him. People open up when they feel they can still say no, but the second someone forces a confession, the body reads it as danger.
That is why the triangle shifts so hard. Megumi has feelings but hides behind silence. Yuji turns his feelings into action: apology, food, flowers, the pharmacy bag held carefully.
Megumi had the wound-care-and-midnight-first-kiss but Yuji understands that being close to someone does not mean owning their story’s copyright.
That being said, I think Megumi can be trained like a dog to communicate (maybe with a few head bonks).
okay i all wanted megumi to suffer a little after the “annoying girl” thing but why am i feeling bad for him??
the bar was underground and he still brought a shovel.
i need to know if he ever actually manages to say anything in the epilogue or if yuji is goingto keep winning by being able to speak
Hiii, anon, your ask made me laugh.
His head was indeed like,
"No, I'm not deep enough. I'll fumble from sea level."
And I agree, communication is the only difference here. Megumi would have done all those things if he had only opened his mouth to ask her what her life was outside the store when she wasn't staring at his eyelashes.
Also, no spoilers about the epilogue, because if I even breathe in that direction, I'll spoil it.
Warnings: Yuji's hair & Maki's domestic terrorism over Yuta.
Dividers are mine; images are from anime and Pinterest.
Ch 1 | Epilogue
Ch 2 - Itadori Yuji
That evening, you set the coffee counter, restocked the sandwiches, and moved through the shift with your face set right.
At 9:18 PM, the door chimed, and the whole little procession came in at once.
The pink-haired boy first, hungry on sight. Kugisaki was behind him, already judging the meal selection. Zenin was flipping a coin. A dark-haired guy you vaguely remember as Yuta—only because you’d seen him being yelled at by Zenin outside Jujutsu Tech—was picking up a basket. Fushiguro last.
You were crouched in the refrigerator aisle, fixing the packaged sushi that had slid forward against the glass while holding discount stickers in your apron pocket.
Kugisaki recognized you before anybody else said a word.
The pink-haired boy stepped around the handbasket left in the aisle. “Sorry.”
You stood. “It’s okay.”
The repair shop smell never fully left your hands even after two washes so you hid both hands in your apron pockets.
The pink-haired boy smiled at you with his whole face. “You work here too?”
“Umm...yeah?”
He laughed, and the sound was kind of sweet.
You looked at his hair. “It looks nice.”
He smiled. “My hair?”
“Yeah.”
Kugisaki made a sound under her breath. Zenin’s mouth moved at one corner. Yuta looked down into the freezer case and suddenly became very interested in ice cream mochi.
The pinkette ran a hand through the mess on instinct. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled, then seemed to remember you had no reason to know who he was. “I’m Itadori. Yuji Itadori.”
You did not know why he introduced himself like James Bond, but you told him your name.
“I figured you were one of Fushiguro’s friends.”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back before he could stop himself. “I am.”
Itadori seemed a little smug about the fact.
Fushiguro stood by the drinks cooler with a can of coffee in his hand and said nothing. He did not look embarrassed or sorry. Only watched the can, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
Itadori looked back at you, and whatever he saw on your face made his own expression shift.
“So,” he said, awkward now, one hand still at the back of his neck. “Are you and Megumi…?”
“No.”
Kugisaki’s eyes snapped to Fushiguro.
Zenin stopped turning the bottle in her hand.
Yuta made a small sound.
Fushiguro cracked open his can.
Itadori asked, “So you ahh dating anyone?”
The aisle froze around the question.
“No.”
Itadori’s eyes went immediately to Fushiguro.
You understood loyalty and even respected it. What you hated was the way Fushiguro let Itadori look at him as if the answer belonged to him.
Itadori looked at him, waited one second too long, then turned back to you.
“Then can I ask you out?”
Nobody moved.
Kugisaki leaned both elbows on the top of the cooler. “Well?”
Itadori flushed. “Not like that. Only if you want to. We could get food sometime, or something to drink. Normal drink, obviously, I’m not eighteen yet, and you look younger than me, so—” He stopped, looked briefly horrified by how much he was talking, then tried again. “Here is probably weird since you work here, so somewhere else.”
Zenin took a bottled water from the shelf. “Itadori, breathe.”
Yuta coughed into his fist.
Fushiguro said nothing.
You looked at Itadori. “You’re not doing this because you feel bad, right?”
“No.” His answer came too fast, then he steadied it. “I mean, I do feel bad, but that’s not why.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to.” He swallowed, then added, “You can say no.”
You looked past him once, to Fushiguro by the cooler, waiting for anything from the boy who had kissed you under the dead store sign last night and then made you feel small in front of his friends.
Fushiguro lifted the can to his mouth.
You looked back at Itadori. “Can I think about it?”
His shoulders lowered a little, his smile still warm. “Yeah. Of course.”
Kugisaki bought three puddings she did not need so she could linger by the counter. Zenin paid for water and protein bars. Yuta thanked you twice. Fushiguro left without meeting your eyes.
---
Outside, on the sidewalk near the vending machines, Kugisaki rounded on Itadori before the door had finished swinging shut.
“You looked at Fushiguro before talking to her.”
Itadori rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
“That was ugly.”
“I know.”
Zenin twisted the cap off her water. “If he cared, he had words.”
Fushiguro stopped walking.
Itadori looked at him because he could not seem to stop doing that. “Fushiguro?”
Fushiguro kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Do what you want.”
Itadori’s mouth opened, then closed.
Kugisaki stared at Fushiguro for a long second. “That’s all?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
Zenin slid her water into her bag. “Anything.”
Fushiguro stayed silent.
---
Two days later, Itadori came back alone.
He stood at the end of the counter with his hands in his pockets while you wiped down the espresso machine. He had a small paper bag from the bakery near the station, the cheap one that sold melon pan after six for half price.
“I shouldn’t have looked at him before asking you.”
You set the cloth aside and sanitized your hands.
He looked embarrassed. “That was rude.”
“It was.”
“Yeah.” His fingers tightened around the bakery bag. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at the bag first, then at him. “Did they make you come back?”
“Nobara yelled at me,” he admitted. “Zenin senpai said I was being stupid and she was embarrassed to know me.”
“That sounds...”
“And Megumi said to do what I wanted.”
The almost-laugh died before it reached your mouth.
Itadori saw it happen and did the first thing right by leaving Fushiguro’s name alone after that.
He held up the bakery bag. “I still want to ask properly. Food somewhere that isn’t your job. No pressure. You can say no, and I’ll still buy stuff here like a normal customer who doesn’t make the closing shift weird.”
That got a small laugh out of you, mostly because he looked genuinely worried about the possibility.
“You brought melon pans?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you liked.”
“I like them.”
From there it started small.
---
That weekend, Itadori showed up outside the repair shop ten minutes before closing with a clear umbrella he clearly didn't need and a packet of strawberry gummies.
"I panicked," he explained when you looked at the gummies.
"About what?"
"The possibility of me having a date."
That made you chuckle.
The date itself lasted twenty-three minutes.
You missed your train.
Itadori paid for the replacement ticket before you could argue. "You're not paying me back."
"I didn't even get to offer."
"That's why I said it first."
---
The next one was at a platform bench near the station while you waited for your train.
Two canned coffees and a pack of dorayaki.
Itadori spent fifteen minutes telling you about a movie he'd half watched and completely misunderstood.
You spent fifteen minutes explaining the ending.
When he walked you to your train, he handed you the unopened second coffee he'd bought by mistake.
"You hate black coffee."
"I know."
"Then why did you buy it?"
He looked offended. "What if you wanted two?"
---
The actual relaxed date was at a ramen place near the river.
You ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.
Itadori ordered the same thing.
Halfway through the meal he excused himself to the bathroom.
When the bill came back, it already had a receipt stapled to it.
You stared at it.
The waitress smiled. "Your boyfriend paid before he got up."
You found Itadori outside afterward kicking at a loose pebble.
"I can pay for myself."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"My grandpa would've comeback to haunt me."
You laughed a little.
He looked relieved.
---
Then another one was a walk to the pharmacy one rainy afternoon because you said you had to pick something up before work, and he matched your pace.
The rain started halfway to the pharmacy.
Itadori opened the umbrella before you could.
The two of you walked shoulder-to-shoulder beneath clear plastic while water rattled overhead.
You were talking about nothing important when you reached the counter.
The pharmacist handed over the white paper bag. "Would you like to delay the remaining payment again?"
You answered on autopilot. "Yes."
The pharmacist nodded and moved on.
You left the store and walked with Itadori.
Your tote strap snapped crossing the street.
Without a word, he took the pharmacy bag before it could hit the pavement.
The florist was next door.
You would have walked right past it.
Itadori stopped.
"What?"
"Wait here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm doing something, and if you ask too many questions, I'll lose my nerve."
Before you could answer, he disappeared inside.
You stood under the awning watching him through the glass.
He spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to the woman behind the counter.
Pointing.
Shaking his head.
Pointing again.
Eventually she laughed and handed him something wrapped in pale paper.
When he came back out, he looked almost nervous.
The bouquet was small, white sweet peas, pale pink and blue delphiniums.
“I…” Itadori held them out. "For you."
You stared. "What are these for?"
He shrugged. "No reason."
People didn't buy you flowers for no reason.
People didn't buy you flowers at all.
Flowers you'd never once thought about buying for yourself because flowers were for people with spare money.
You were still looking down at them when a woman from your old neighborhood stepped out of the florist. She stopped when she saw you, then looked at Itadori, the pharmacy bag, your work shoes, and the old school charm still hanging from your cracked phone case.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still here.”
You smiled. “Hello.”
Her eyes went back to Itadori. “Better this than the old man, I suppose. Your poor grandmother.”
Your fingers tightened around the broken tote strap.
Itadori said nothing until you reached the station platform. The rails buzzed underfoot. A vending machine swallowed someone’s coin and refused to give it back. You watched the red numbers over the tracks count down from seven minutes.
Itadori held the pharmacy bag in both hands. “Do you want me to know, or do you want me to stay out of it?”
You looked at your grandmother’s name printed in blue on the white paper.
“It’s over,” you whispered. “That arrangement never got far.”
He waited.
“My grandmother got sick. People got generous in ugly ways and tried to set me up with an old guy. I left school and picked up more shifts. I don't have anyone other than her. That’s the story.”
He nodded and held you closer with one arm around your shoulders. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
You hid your face against his chest as the tears came.
His hand settled between your shoulder blades and stayed there.
The train rattled through three stations before the knot in your throat finally loosened.
By then your eyes burned, your head hurt, and exhaustion had crept into your bones.
At some point you drifted sideways against him.
Yuji shifted just enough to keep your head from knocking into the window.
When you woke near your stop, his arm was still around your shoulders and his thumb was moving slowly across the back of your cardigan.
He looked down when he realized you were awake. "Sorry," he whispered. "You looked comfortable."
You stared at him for a second because nobody had ever treated your sadness like something worth holding onto before.
"Don't apologize," you mumbled.
His ears turned red.
---
After that, Yuji started showing up in different ways when he wasn't at school or on a mission somewhere.
He unloaded milk crates when deliveries ran late and stayed red-faced through half the task because he kept trying to lift too many at once. He carried parts boxes up the narrow stairs to the repair shop and listened when you told him which labels meant "fragile." He learned which tea your grandmother would drink.
He never told Fushiguro.
You knew that because Fushiguro looked at you the same way he had in the refrigerated aisle, as if he had mistaken silence for a place to stand still and realized too late that the ground had caved under him.
He came into the store less after you started seeing Yuji.
When he did come, Yuji’s name sat between you on the counter with the coins and the receipt tape.
Once, Yuji was behind the counter helping you break down cardboard when Fushiguro walked in for bandages and a rice ball.
Yuji straightened. “Hey, Fushiguro.”
“Hm.”
Fushiguro’s eyes landed on the flattened boxes, the cutter in Yuji’s hand, then on you.
You kept taping the next bundle.
He paid and left.
The bell rang once. The door shut. Yuji looked at the tape gun in your hand.
“You want me to go after him?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
You pulled the tape hard. “He made his choice.”
Yuji did not argue.
---
Winter came in through the door every time a customer opened it. Your grandmother got worse, then steadier, then worse again. The repair shop cut hours after New Year. The store heater coughed dust into the air. You slept when you could and worked when you could not.
One night, just past closing, the bell rang, and Fushiguro walked in alone with split skin over his knuckles again.
You were counting cigarette cartons behind the counter. He set a packet of gauze down without speaking.
You finished the count, typed the number in the ledger, and reached for his hand.
He let you take it. His skin was cold.
“Do you do this on purpose?” you asked.
“Do what?”
“Come in here bleeding.”
He gave you the silence again. You cleaned the cut, wrapped the gauze, and pressed the tape flat. His breath held too carefully in his chest.
“You heard me that day,” he finally whispered.
You pressed the tape down over the bandage.
His hand stayed under yours. “I didn’t mean—”
You looked up.
He stopped there.
That was the problem with Fushiguro. He always got close enough for you to see the thing under the surface, then he sat on top of it until the moment passed.
“You didn’t mean what?”
His jaw moved. “I don’t know.”
That almost made you laugh because it was the most honest thing he had ever said to you and still somehow did nothing.
You let go of his hand.
He set money on the counter. It was too much.
You pushed back the excess. “You don’t have to do that.”
He looked at the coins, then at you. “Yuji knows things.”
The sentence was bitter where it should have been ashamed.
You stacked the returned change into his palm and folded his fingers over it. “Yuji asks.”
His face sank further.
Outside, footsteps crunched over the salt thrown down near the entrance. Through the glass, you saw Yuji under the awning, half-hidden by an umbrella and carrying the pharmacy bag you had forgotten to pick up that morning.
Yuji had been checking his phone, looked up, and saw Fushiguro.
He did not come in.
You reached for the back hook and took down your coat.
“We’re closed,” you said softly.
Fushiguro looked at the coat in your hand.
Then he nodded, picked up the bandages he had already paid for, and walked to the door. At the threshold, he stopped with one hand on the glass.
If he had turned then and found the right words, maybe seeing him around would've hurt less.
He left them unsaid.
The bell rang above him, bright and so stupid.
You killed the front lights, locked the register, and stepped outside into Yuji’s umbrella. He moved it over you first, then himself.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
You looked through the glass once.
Fushiguro was already halfway down the street, shoulders set, head lowered against the cold, both hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” you answered Yuji.
Yuji shifted the pharmacy bag so it would not get wet. “Your train?”
“In twelve minutes.”
He nodded and started walking with you.
Behind you, under the flat white store sign, Fushiguro turned with bandages on his hand and nothing useful left to protect.
Warnings: Yuji's hair & Maki's domestic terrorism over Yuta.
Dividers are mine; images are from anime and Pinterest.
Ch 1 | Epilogue
Ch 2 - Itadori Yuji
That evening, you set the coffee counter, restocked the sandwiches, and moved through the shift with your face set right.
At 9:18 PM, the door chimed, and the whole little procession came in at once.
The pink-haired boy first, hungry on sight. Kugisaki was behind him, already judging the meal selection. Zenin was flipping a coin. A dark-haired guy you vaguely remember as Yuta—only because you’d seen him being yelled at by Zenin outside Jujutsu Tech—was picking up a basket. Fushiguro last.
You were crouched in the refrigerator aisle, fixing the packaged sushi that had slid forward against the glass while holding discount stickers in your apron pocket.
Kugisaki recognized you before anybody else said a word.
The pink-haired boy stepped around the handbasket left in the aisle. “Sorry.”
You stood. “It’s okay.”
The repair shop smell never fully left your hands even after two washes so you hid both hands in your apron pockets.
The pink-haired boy smiled at you with his whole face. “You work here too?”
“Umm...yeah?”
He laughed, and the sound was kind of sweet.
You looked at his hair. “It looks nice.”
He smiled. “My hair?”
“Yeah.”
Kugisaki made a sound under her breath. Zenin’s mouth moved at one corner. Yuta looked down into the freezer case and suddenly became very interested in ice cream mochi.
The pinkette ran a hand through the mess on instinct. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled, then seemed to remember you had no reason to know who he was. “I’m Itadori. Yuji Itadori.”
You did not know why he introduced himself like James Bond, but you told him your name.
“I figured you were one of Fushiguro’s friends.”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back before he could stop himself. “I am.”
Itadori seemed a little smug about the fact.
Fushiguro stood by the drinks cooler with a can of coffee in his hand and said nothing. He did not look embarrassed or sorry. Only watched the can, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
Itadori looked back at you, and whatever he saw on your face made his own expression shift.
“So,” he said, awkward now, one hand still at the back of his neck. “Are you and Megumi…?”
“No.”
Kugisaki’s eyes snapped to Fushiguro.
Zenin stopped turning the bottle in her hand.
Yuta made a small sound.
Fushiguro cracked open his can.
Itadori asked, “So you ahh dating anyone?”
The aisle froze around the question.
“No.”
Itadori’s eyes went immediately to Fushiguro.
You understood loyalty and even respected it. What you hated was the way Fushiguro let Itadori look at him as if the answer belonged to him.
Itadori looked at him, waited one second too long, then turned back to you.
“Then can I ask you out?”
Nobody moved.
Kugisaki leaned both elbows on the top of the cooler. “Well?”
Itadori flushed. “Not like that. Only if you want to. We could get food sometime, or something to drink. Normal drink, obviously, I’m not eighteen yet, and you look younger than me, so—” He stopped, looked briefly horrified by how much he was talking, then tried again. “Here is probably weird since you work here, so somewhere else.”
Zenin took a bottled water from the shelf. “Itadori, breathe.”
Yuta coughed into his fist.
Fushiguro said nothing.
You looked at Itadori. “You’re not doing this because you feel bad, right?”
“No.” His answer came too fast, then he steadied it. “I mean, I do feel bad, but that’s not why.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to.” He swallowed, then added, “You can say no.”
You looked past him once, to Fushiguro by the cooler, waiting for anything from the boy who had kissed you under the dead store sign last night and then made you feel small in front of his friends.
Fushiguro lifted the can to his mouth.
You looked back at Itadori. “Can I think about it?”
His shoulders lowered a little, his smile still warm. “Yeah. Of course.”
Kugisaki bought three puddings she did not need so she could linger by the counter. Zenin paid for water and protein bars. Yuta thanked you twice. Fushiguro left without meeting your eyes.
---
Outside, on the sidewalk near the vending machines, Kugisaki rounded on Itadori before the door had finished swinging shut.
“You looked at Fushiguro before talking to her.”
Itadori rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
“That was ugly.”
“I know.”
Zenin twisted the cap off her water. “If he cared, he had words.”
Fushiguro stopped walking.
Itadori looked at him because he could not seem to stop doing that. “Fushiguro?”
Fushiguro kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Do what you want.”
Itadori’s mouth opened, then closed.
Kugisaki stared at Fushiguro for a long second. “That’s all?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
Zenin slid her water into her bag. “Anything.”
Fushiguro stayed silent.
---
Two days later, Itadori came back alone.
He stood at the end of the counter with his hands in his pockets while you wiped down the espresso machine. He had a small paper bag from the bakery near the station, the cheap one that sold melon pan after six for half price.
“I shouldn’t have looked at him before asking you.”
You set the cloth aside and sanitized your hands.
He looked embarrassed. “That was rude.”
“It was.”
“Yeah.” His fingers tightened around the bakery bag. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at the bag first, then at him. “Did they make you come back?”
“Nobara yelled at me,” he admitted. “Zenin senpai said I was being stupid and she was embarrassed to know me.”
“That sounds...”
“And Megumi said to do what I wanted.”
The almost-laugh died before it reached your mouth.
Itadori saw it happen and did the first thing right by leaving Fushiguro’s name alone after that.
He held up the bakery bag. “I still want to ask properly. Food somewhere that isn’t your job. No pressure. You can say no, and I’ll still buy stuff here like a normal customer who doesn’t make the closing shift weird.”
That got a small laugh out of you, mostly because he looked genuinely worried about the possibility.
“You brought melon pans?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you liked.”
“I like them.”
From there it started small.
---
That weekend, Itadori showed up outside the repair shop ten minutes before closing with a clear umbrella he clearly didn't need and a packet of strawberry gummies.
"I panicked," he explained when you looked at the gummies.
"About what?"
"The possibility of me having a date."
That made you chuckle.
The date itself lasted twenty-three minutes.
You missed your train.
Itadori paid for the replacement ticket before you could argue. "You're not paying me back."
"I didn't even get to offer."
"That's why I said it first."
---
The next one was at a platform bench near the station while you waited for your train.
Two canned coffees and a pack of dorayaki.
Itadori spent fifteen minutes telling you about a movie he'd half watched and completely misunderstood.
You spent fifteen minutes explaining the ending.
When he walked you to your train, he handed you the unopened second coffee he'd bought by mistake.
"You hate black coffee."
"I know."
"Then why did you buy it?"
He looked offended. "What if you wanted two?"
---
The actual relaxed date was at a ramen place near the river.
You ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.
Itadori ordered the same thing.
Halfway through the meal he excused himself to the bathroom.
When the bill came back, it already had a receipt stapled to it.
You stared at it.
The waitress smiled. "Your boyfriend paid before he got up."
You found Itadori outside afterward kicking at a loose pebble.
"I can pay for myself."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"My grandpa would've comeback to haunt me."
You laughed a little.
He looked relieved.
---
Then another one was a walk to the pharmacy one rainy afternoon because you said you had to pick something up before work, and he matched your pace.
The rain started halfway to the pharmacy.
Itadori opened the umbrella before you could.
The two of you walked shoulder-to-shoulder beneath clear plastic while water rattled overhead.
You were talking about nothing important when you reached the counter.
The pharmacist handed over the white paper bag. "Would you like to delay the remaining payment again?"
You answered on autopilot. "Yes."
The pharmacist nodded and moved on.
You left the store and walked with Itadori.
Your tote strap snapped crossing the street.
Without a word, he took the pharmacy bag before it could hit the pavement.
The florist was next door.
You would have walked right past it.
Itadori stopped.
"What?"
"Wait here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm doing something, and if you ask too many questions, I'll lose my nerve."
Before you could answer, he disappeared inside.
You stood under the awning watching him through the glass.
He spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to the woman behind the counter.
Pointing.
Shaking his head.
Pointing again.
Eventually she laughed and handed him something wrapped in pale paper.
When he came back out, he looked almost nervous.
The bouquet was small, white sweet peas, pale pink and blue delphiniums.
“I…” Itadori held them out. "For you."
You stared. "What are these for?"
He shrugged. "No reason."
People didn't buy you flowers for no reason.
People didn't buy you flowers at all.
Flowers you'd never once thought about buying for yourself because flowers were for people with spare money.
You were still looking down at them when a woman from your old neighborhood stepped out of the florist. She stopped when she saw you, then looked at Itadori, the pharmacy bag, your work shoes, and the old school charm still hanging from your cracked phone case.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still here.”
You smiled. “Hello.”
Her eyes went back to Itadori. “Better this than the old man, I suppose. Your poor grandmother.”
Your fingers tightened around the broken tote strap.
Itadori said nothing until you reached the station platform. The rails buzzed underfoot. A vending machine swallowed someone’s coin and refused to give it back. You watched the red numbers over the tracks count down from seven minutes.
Itadori held the pharmacy bag in both hands. “Do you want me to know, or do you want me to stay out of it?”
You looked at your grandmother’s name printed in blue on the white paper.
“It’s over,” you whispered. “That arrangement never got far.”
He waited.
“My grandmother got sick. People got generous in ugly ways and tried to set me up with an old guy. I left school and picked up more shifts. I don't have anyone other than her. That’s the story.”
He nodded and held you closer with one arm around your shoulders. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
You hid your face against his chest as the tears came.
His hand settled between your shoulder blades and stayed there.
The train rattled through three stations before the knot in your throat finally loosened.
By then your eyes burned, your head hurt, and exhaustion had crept into your bones.
At some point you drifted sideways against him.
Yuji shifted just enough to keep your head from knocking into the window.
When you woke near your stop, his arm was still around your shoulders and his thumb was moving slowly across the back of your cardigan.
He looked down when he realized you were awake. "Sorry," he whispered. "You looked comfortable."
You stared at him for a second because nobody had ever treated your sadness like something worth holding onto before.
"Don't apologize," you mumbled.
His ears turned red.
---
After that, Yuji started showing up in different ways when he wasn't at school or on a mission somewhere.
He unloaded milk crates when deliveries ran late and stayed red-faced through half the task because he kept trying to lift too many at once. He carried parts boxes up the narrow stairs to the repair shop and listened when you told him which labels meant "fragile." He learned which tea your grandmother would drink.
He never told Fushiguro.
You knew that because Fushiguro looked at you the same way he had in the refrigerated aisle, as if he had mistaken silence for a place to stand still and realized too late that the ground had caved under him.
He came into the store less after you started seeing Yuji.
When he did come, Yuji’s name sat between you on the counter with the coins and the receipt tape.
Once, Yuji was behind the counter helping you break down cardboard when Fushiguro walked in for bandages and a rice ball.
Yuji straightened. “Hey, Fushiguro.”
“Hm.”
Fushiguro’s eyes landed on the flattened boxes, the cutter in Yuji’s hand, then on you.
You kept taping the next bundle.
He paid and left.
The bell rang once. The door shut. Yuji looked at the tape gun in your hand.
“You want me to go after him?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
You pulled the tape hard. “He made his choice.”
Yuji did not argue.
---
Winter came in through the door every time a customer opened it. Your grandmother got worse, then steadier, then worse again. The repair shop cut hours after New Year. The store heater coughed dust into the air. You slept when you could and worked when you could not.
One night, just past closing, the bell rang, and Fushiguro walked in alone with split skin over his knuckles again.
You were counting cigarette cartons behind the counter. He set a packet of gauze down without speaking.
You finished the count, typed the number in the ledger, and reached for his hand.
He let you take it. His skin was cold.
“Do you do this on purpose?” you asked.
“Do what?”
“Come in here bleeding.”
He gave you the silence again. You cleaned the cut, wrapped the gauze, and pressed the tape flat. His breath held too carefully in his chest.
“You heard me that day,” he finally whispered.
You pressed the tape down over the bandage.
His hand stayed under yours. “I didn’t mean—”
You looked up.
He stopped there.
That was the problem with Fushiguro. He always got close enough for you to see the thing under the surface, then he sat on top of it until the moment passed.
“You didn’t mean what?”
His jaw moved. “I don’t know.”
That almost made you laugh because it was the most honest thing he had ever said to you and still somehow did nothing.
You let go of his hand.
He set money on the counter. It was too much.
You pushed back the excess. “You don’t have to do that.”
He looked at the coins, then at you. “Yuji knows things.”
The sentence was bitter where it should have been ashamed.
You stacked the returned change into his palm and folded his fingers over it. “Yuji asks.”
His face sank further.
Outside, footsteps crunched over the salt thrown down near the entrance. Through the glass, you saw Yuji under the awning, half-hidden by an umbrella and carrying the pharmacy bag you had forgotten to pick up that morning.
Yuji had been checking his phone, looked up, and saw Fushiguro.
He did not come in.
You reached for the back hook and took down your coat.
“We’re closed,” you said softly.
Fushiguro looked at the coat in your hand.
Then he nodded, picked up the bandages he had already paid for, and walked to the door. At the threshold, he stopped with one hand on the glass.
If he had turned then and found the right words, maybe seeing him around would've hurt less.
He left them unsaid.
The bell rang above him, bright and so stupid.
You killed the front lights, locked the register, and stepped outside into Yuji’s umbrella. He moved it over you first, then himself.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
You looked through the glass once.
Fushiguro was already halfway down the street, shoulders set, head lowered against the cold, both hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” you answered Yuji.
Yuji shifted the pharmacy bag so it would not get wet. “Your train?”
“In twelve minutes.”
He nodded and started walking with you.
Behind you, under the flat white store sign, Fushiguro turned with bandages on his hand and nothing useful left to protect.
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Summary: Gojo Satoru’s undercut is a work of art, & you’re only human. When you finally give in to the urge to touch it, his reaction is… well, let’s just say it’s very Gojo. Fluff, giggles, & a whole lot of smugness.
A/N: Listen, we have all thought about touching it. So today I let all our intrusive thoughts win. Lack of self-control & the fact that this man is too pretty for his own good are the only things on the reader's mind.
Nanami Kento's version
Gojo Satoru was a lot of things.
Infuriatingly smug? Yes.
Too handsome for his own good? Unfortunately, also yes.
The embodiment of every problem in your life? Absolutely.
The root cause of your headaches. The walking disaster who filled your days with cocky grins and unhinged antics. The reason you constantly questioned your own sanity.
And yet, despite all of that—or maybe because of it—he was also the love of your life.
Right now, though?
Right now, you were struggling for dear life.
Because Satoru was sitting in front of you, leaned back, and exuded the kind of effortless, jaw-dropping, world-ending attractiveness that should have been illegal. And like any person of culture ovulating, you were staring—gawking, honestly—at him.
And worse? Because Satoru was an absolute menace, he caught on immediately.
"Don’t think you can hide your stare, babe," he drawled, his lips curling into a slow, knowing smirk. "I’ve caught you ogling my shoulders more times than I can count."
Your soul left your body.
Oh, Lord, nooooo.
Your eyes darted away, guiltily.
You tried—tried so hard—to play it cool, but his stupidly gorgeous face and that self-satisfied grin made it impossible.
He smirked, stretching his long, stupidly muscular arms behind his head, and good god, it was unfair how obnoxiously attractive he was.
His arms were amazing, yes, but no way were you letting his ego get any bigger.
Because you weren’t some blushing maiden.
No, you were a menace too.
"I think your undercut is more impressive," you hummed, tilting your head, eyes locked onto his hair.
And just like that, you had his full attention.
His white lashes flickered, his smirk faltering just a little as he processed your words.
"Oh?" he said, voice lower and intrigued. "So it’s my undercut that’s got you all hot and bothered?"
You hummed in confirmation, arms crossing as you drank in the sight of him, all smug and lounging like he owned the very air you breathed.
"I wanna touch it," you admitted, point-blank, unashamed.
Satoru stilled for half a second, and you swore you saw his pupils dilate.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he ran a hand through his undercut, dragging his fingers along the buzzed side before raking them through his longer, impossibly soft, white strands.
Smug. As. Hell.
"Is that so?" he murmured, closing into your space, voice dropping to a sinful, sultry whisper. "You wanna touch it, baby?"
Your fingers twitched, but you held back.
He leaned in, bending so his head was right in front of you, the scent of his cologne—a mix of expensive bergamot and something inherently Satoru—filling your senses.
"Go ahead," he coaxed, his voice like pure temptation, the corner of his lips lifting. "I won’t stop you."
Carefully, so lightly, like a Victorian man witnessing an ankle for the first time, you reached out—
His undercut was soft but sharp, the contrast between the buzzed sides and his longer, silken white strands too damn good.
Satoru stilled, his breath hitching at the sensation.
"Careful there, baby," he chuckled, his voice unusually low, shivering slightly under your touch. "You're acting like you’ve never touched a man’s hair before."
Your fingers traced small circles, feeling the contrast between the soft fuzz and the longer strands, utterly entranced.
"I haven’t touched yours," you murmured, all focus on him, on the way he reacted under your touch, still rubbing your fingers along the short fuzz, delighted.
He exhaled sharply, a pleased sound rumbling in his chest.
"That’s true," he hummed, tilting his head just a little, giving you more access. "But clearly, you’ve been thinking about it."
Your fingers trailed up, sinking into his silken white hair, reveling in the way he shuddered under your touch.
And then—because you had no self-control—you tugged. Gently, but enough.
Satoru groaned, head tipping forward, his hands snapping to your waist like instinct.
"Can’t blame you," he rasped, a little breathless, his forehead nearly touching yours now. "My undercut is pretty damn fine, if I do say so myself."
"It is," you agreed, honest, still entranced. Grinning as you continued playing with his hair, enjoying the way his eyes fluttered shut for just a second.
His smirk widened, endearing and cocky, but his cerulean eyes darkened slightly, locked onto you.
"You like it that much, huh?" His voice was a little rougher now, his hands skimming your waist, pulling you closer. "Can’t keep your eyes... or your hands... off me?"
You let out a soft hum, gazing deep into his eyes, challenging. "Maybe I can’t."
His lips parted, his expression shifting from smug to wrecked in under a second.
"Oh, I can see that, baby," he murmured against your lips. "I don’t mind being the center of your attention."
And then, because you were both disasters, without warning, you closed the distance and kissed him, fingers tugging at his undercut, feeling the way he shuddered against you.
Satoru sucked in a sharp breath, but then he melted, crashing into you with all the force of a starving man.
His arms tightened around you, moving you to his lap effortlessly, pressing you against him like you were made to fit there, pulling you flush against his chest, and oh, holy hell—
His hands. His grip. The way he held you like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go.
When you tugged at his hair again, his reaction was instant—a deep, unfiltered groan, his nails digging into your hips as he kissed you harder, hungrier, and sweeter all at once.
By the time you broke apart, gasping, his forehead pressed against yours, his lips still brushing against you, Satoru was grinning like a fool.
His cerulean eyes, impossibly bright, impossibly soft, shone with pure, undiluted adoration.
"Baby," he murmured, lazy and smitten, kissing you again, softer this time, just because he could.
You hummed against his lips.
"You can touch my hair anytime, baby."
A/N: Unfair this man is.
Nanami Kento's version - [Tumblr/Ao3]
Masterlist
The header image is from Pinterest, dividers are mine, and the engagement banners are from @saradika-graphics.
Warnings: Yuji's hair & Maki's domestic terrorism over Yuta.
Still minor characters, teen dating, awkward romantic tension, referenced attempted arrangement with an older man, unwanted generosity with strings attached (no one takes it, don't worry), mild crying in public, emotional hurt, jealousy, minor injury, bloodied knuckles & wound care, Megumi being emotionally stunted, Yuji being a painfully sweet & respectful green flag.
Ch 1 | Epilogue
Chapter Playlist
Ch 2 - Itadori Yuji
That evening, you set the coffee counter, restocked the sandwiches, and moved through the shift with your face set right.
At 9:18 PM, the door chimed, and the whole little procession came in at once.
The pink-haired boy first, hungry on sight. Kugisaki was behind him, already judging the meal selection. Zenin was flipping a coin. A dark-haired guy you vaguely remember as Yuta—only because you’d seen him being yelled at by Zenin outside Jujutsu Tech—was picking up a basket. Fushiguro last.
You were crouched in the refrigerator aisle, fixing the packaged sushi that had slid forward against the glass while holding discount stickers in your apron pocket.
Kugisaki recognized you before anybody else said a word.
The pink-haired boy stepped around the handbasket left in the aisle. “Sorry.”
You stood. “It’s okay.”
The repair shop smell never fully left your hands even after two washes so you hid both hands in your apron pockets.
The pink-haired boy smiled at you with his whole face. “You work here too?”
“Umm...yeah?”
He laughed, and the sound was kind of sweet.
You looked at his hair. “It looks nice.”
He smiled. “My hair?”
“Yeah.”
Kugisaki made a sound under her breath. Zenin’s mouth moved at one corner. Yuta looked down into the freezer case and suddenly became very interested in ice cream mochi.
The pinkette ran a hand through the mess on instinct. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled, then seemed to remember you had no reason to know who he was. “I’m Itadori. Yuji Itadori.”
You did not know why he introduced himself like James Bond, but you told him your name.
“I figured you were one of Fushiguro’s friends.”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back before he could stop himself. “I am.”
Itadori seemed a little smug about the fact.
Fushiguro stood by the drinks cooler with a can of coffee in his hand and said nothing. He did not look embarrassed or sorry. Only watched the can, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
Itadori looked back at you, and whatever he saw on your face made his own expression shift.
“So,” he said, awkward now, one hand still at the back of his neck. “Are you and Megumi…?”
“No.”
Kugisaki’s eyes snapped to Fushiguro.
Zenin stopped turning the bottle in her hand.
Yuta made a small sound.
Fushiguro cracked open his can.
Itadori asked, “So you ahh dating anyone?”
The aisle froze around the question.
“No.”
Itadori’s eyes went immediately to Fushiguro.
You understood loyalty and even respected it. What you hated was the way Fushiguro let Itadori look at him as if the answer belonged to him.
Itadori looked at him, waited one second too long, then turned back to you.
“Then can I ask you out?”
Nobody moved.
Kugisaki leaned both elbows on the top of the cooler. “Well?”
Itadori flushed. “Not like that. Only if you want to. We could get food sometime, or something to drink. Normal drink, obviously, I’m not eighteen yet, and you look younger than me, so—” He stopped, looked briefly horrified by how much he was talking, then tried again. “Here is probably weird since you work here, so somewhere else.”
Zenin took a bottled water from the shelf. “Itadori, breathe.”
Yuta coughed into his fist.
Fushiguro said nothing.
You looked at Itadori. “You’re not doing this because you feel bad, right?”
“No.” His answer came too fast, then he steadied it. “I mean, I do feel bad, but that’s not why.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to.” He swallowed, then added, “You can say no.”
You looked past him once, to Fushiguro by the cooler, waiting for anything from the boy who had kissed you under the dead store sign last night and then made you feel small in front of his friends.
Fushiguro lifted the can to his mouth.
You looked back at Itadori. “Can I think about it?”
His shoulders lowered a little, his smile still warm. “Yeah. Of course.”
Kugisaki bought three puddings she did not need so she could linger by the counter. Zenin paid for water and protein bars. Yuta thanked you twice. Fushiguro left without meeting your eyes.
---
Outside, on the sidewalk near the vending machines, Kugisaki rounded on Itadori before the door had finished swinging shut.
“You looked at Fushiguro before talking to her.”
Itadori rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
“That was ugly.”
“I know.”
Zenin twisted the cap off her water. “If he cared, he had words.”
Fushiguro stopped walking.
Itadori looked at him because he could not seem to stop doing that. “Fushiguro?”
Fushiguro kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Do what you want.”
Itadori’s mouth opened, then closed.
Kugisaki stared at Fushiguro for a long second. “That’s all?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
Zenin slid her water into her bag. “Anything.”
Fushiguro stayed silent.
---
Two days later, Itadori came back alone.
He stood at the end of the counter with his hands in his pockets while you wiped down the espresso machine. He had a small paper bag from the bakery near the station, the cheap one that sold melon pan after six for half price.
“I shouldn’t have looked at him before asking you.”
You set the cloth aside and sanitized your hands.
He looked embarrassed. “That was rude.”
“It was.”
“Yeah.” His fingers tightened around the bakery bag. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at the bag first, then at him. “Did they make you come back?”
“Nobara yelled at me,” he admitted. “Zenin senpai said I was being stupid and she was embarrassed to know me.”
“That sounds...”
“And Megumi said to do what I wanted.”
The almost-laugh died before it reached your mouth.
Itadori saw it happen and did the first thing right by leaving Fushiguro’s name alone after that.
He held up the bakery bag. “I still want to ask properly. Food somewhere that isn’t your job. No pressure. You can say no, and I’ll still buy stuff here like a normal customer who doesn’t make the closing shift weird.”
That got a small laugh out of you, mostly because he looked genuinely worried about the possibility.
“You brought melon pans?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you liked.”
“I like them.”
From there it started small.
---
That weekend, Itadori showed up outside the repair shop ten minutes before closing with a clear umbrella he clearly didn't need and a packet of strawberry gummies.
"I panicked," he explained when you looked at the gummies.
"About what?"
"The possibility of me having a date."
That made you chuckle.
The date itself lasted twenty-three minutes.
You missed your train.
Itadori paid for the replacement ticket before you could argue. "You're not paying me back."
"I didn't even get to offer."
"That's why I said it first."
---
The next one was at a platform bench near the station while you waited for your train.
Two canned coffees and a pack of dorayaki.
Itadori spent fifteen minutes telling you about a movie he'd half watched and completely misunderstood.
You spent fifteen minutes explaining the ending.
When he walked you to your train, he handed you the unopened second coffee he'd bought by mistake.
"You hate black coffee."
"I know."
"Then why did you buy it?"
He looked offended. "What if you wanted two?"
---
The actual relaxed date was at a ramen place near the river.
You ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.
Itadori ordered the same thing.
Halfway through the meal he excused himself to the bathroom.
When the bill came back, it already had a receipt stapled to it.
You stared at it.
The waitress smiled. "Your boyfriend paid before he got up."
You found Itadori outside afterward kicking at a loose pebble.
"I can pay for myself."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"My grandpa would've comeback to haunt me."
You laughed a little.
He looked relieved.
---
Then another one was a walk to the pharmacy one rainy afternoon because you said you had to pick something up before work, and he matched your pace.
The rain started halfway to the pharmacy.
Itadori opened the umbrella before you could.
The two of you walked shoulder-to-shoulder beneath clear plastic while water rattled overhead.
You were talking about nothing important when you reached the counter.
The pharmacist handed over the white paper bag. "Would you like to delay the remaining payment again?"
You answered on autopilot. "Yes."
The pharmacist nodded and moved on.
You left the store and walked with Itadori.
Your tote strap snapped crossing the street.
Without a word, he took the pharmacy bag before it could hit the pavement.
The florist was next door.
You would have walked right past it.
Itadori stopped.
"What?"
"Wait here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm doing something, and if you ask too many questions, I'll lose my nerve."
Before you could answer, he disappeared inside.
You stood under the awning watching him through the glass.
He spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to the woman behind the counter.
Pointing.
Shaking his head.
Pointing again.
Eventually she laughed and handed him something wrapped in pale paper.
When he came back out, he looked almost nervous.
The bouquet was small, white sweet peas, pale pink and blue delphiniums.
“I…” Itadori held them out. "For you."
You stared. "What are these for?"
He shrugged. "No reason."
People didn't buy you flowers for no reason.
People didn't buy you flowers at all.
Flowers you'd never once thought about buying for yourself because flowers were for people with spare money.
You were still looking down at them when a woman from your old neighborhood stepped out of the florist. She stopped when she saw you, then looked at Itadori, the pharmacy bag, your work shoes, and the old school charm still hanging from your cracked phone case.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still here.”
You smiled. “Hello.”
Her eyes went back to Itadori. “Better this than the old man, I suppose. Your poor grandmother.”
Your fingers tightened around the broken tote strap.
Itadori said nothing until you reached the station platform. The rails buzzed underfoot. A vending machine swallowed someone’s coin and refused to give it back. You watched the red numbers over the tracks count down from seven minutes.
Itadori held the pharmacy bag in both hands. “Do you want me to know, or do you want me to stay out of it?”
You looked at your grandmother’s name printed in blue on the white paper.
“It’s over,” you whispered. “That arrangement never got far.”
He waited.
“My grandmother got sick. People got generous in ugly ways and tried to set me up with an old guy. I left school and picked up more shifts. I don't have anyone other than her. That’s the story.”
He nodded and held you closer with one arm around your shoulders. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
You hid your face against his chest as the tears came.
His hand settled between your shoulder blades and stayed there.
The train rattled through three stations before the knot in your throat finally loosened.
By then your eyes burned, your head hurt, and exhaustion had crept into your bones.
At some point you drifted sideways against him.
Yuji shifted just enough to keep your head from knocking into the window.
When you woke near your stop, his arm was still around your shoulders and his thumb was moving slowly across the back of your cardigan.
He looked down when he realized you were awake. "Sorry," he whispered. "You looked comfortable."
You stared at him for a second because nobody had ever treated your sadness like something worth holding onto before.
"Don't apologize," you mumbled.
His ears turned red.
---
After that, Yuji started showing up in different ways when he wasn't at school or on a mission somewhere.
He unloaded milk crates when deliveries ran late and stayed red-faced through half the task because he kept trying to lift too many at once. He carried parts boxes up the narrow stairs to the repair shop and listened when you told him which labels meant "fragile." He learned which tea your grandmother would drink.
He never told Fushiguro.
You knew that because Fushiguro looked at you the same way he had in the refrigerated aisle, as if he had mistaken silence for a place to stand still and realized too late that the ground had caved under him.
He came into the store less after you started seeing Yuji.
When he did come, Yuji’s name sat between you on the counter with the coins and the receipt tape.
Once, Yuji was behind the counter helping you break down cardboard when Fushiguro walked in for bandages and a rice ball.
Yuji straightened. “Hey, Fushiguro.”
“Hm.”
Fushiguro’s eyes landed on the flattened boxes, the cutter in Yuji’s hand, then on you.
You kept taping the next bundle.
He paid and left.
The bell rang once. The door shut. Yuji looked at the tape gun in your hand.
“You want me to go after him?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
You pulled the tape hard. “He made his choice.”
Yuji did not argue.
---
Winter came in through the door every time a customer opened it. Your grandmother got worse, then steadier, then worse again. The repair shop cut hours after New Year. The store heater coughed dust into the air. You slept when you could and worked when you could not.
One night, just past closing, the bell rang, and Fushiguro walked in alone with split skin over his knuckles again.
You were counting cigarette cartons behind the counter. He set a packet of gauze down without speaking.
You finished the count, typed the number in the ledger, and reached for his hand.
He let you take it. His skin was cold.
“Do you do this on purpose?” you asked.
“Do what?”
“Come in here bleeding.”
He gave you the silence again. You cleaned the cut, wrapped the gauze, and pressed the tape flat. His breath held too carefully in his chest.
“You heard me that day,” he finally whispered.
You pressed the tape down over the bandage.
His hand stayed under yours. “I didn’t mean—”
You looked up.
He stopped there.
That was the problem with Fushiguro. He always got close enough for you to see the thing under the surface, then he sat on top of it until the moment passed.
“You didn’t mean what?”
His jaw moved. “I don’t know.”
That almost made you laugh because it was the most honest thing he had ever said to you and still somehow did nothing.
You let go of his hand.
He set money on the counter. It was too much.
You pushed back the excess. “You don’t have to do that.”
He looked at the coins, then at you. “Yuji knows things.”
The sentence was bitter where it should have been ashamed.
You stacked the returned change into his palm and folded his fingers over it. “Yuji asks.”
His face sank further.
Outside, footsteps crunched over the salt thrown down near the entrance. Through the glass, you saw Yuji under the awning, half-hidden by an umbrella and carrying the pharmacy bag you had forgotten to pick up that morning.
Yuji had been checking his phone, looked up, and saw Fushiguro.
He did not come in.
You reached for the back hook and took down your coat.
“We’re closed,” you said softly.
Fushiguro looked at the coat in your hand.
Then he nodded, picked up the bandages he had already paid for, and walked to the door. At the threshold, he stopped with one hand on the glass.
If he had turned then and found the right words, maybe seeing him around would've hurt less.
He left them unsaid.
The bell rang above him, bright and so stupid.
You killed the front lights, locked the register, and stepped outside into Yuji’s umbrella. He moved it over you first, then himself.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
You looked through the glass once.
Fushiguro was already halfway down the street, shoulders set, head lowered against the cold, both hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” you answered Yuji.
Yuji shifted the pharmacy bag so it would not get wet. “Your train?”
“In twelve minutes.”
He nodded and started walking with you.
Behind you, under the flat white store sign, Fushiguro turned with bandages on his hand and nothing useful left to protect.
A/N: Do we like the ending and the endgame?
Ch 1 | Epilogue
Masterlist
Dividers are mine; images are from anime & Pinterest.
Summary: Nanami Kento is the man, the myth, and the legend. Also, the man who is about to discover that no amount of discipline can withstand the unbridled craziness of a reader on a mission. Today's mission? Touch. The. Undercut. Let's see how long he survives. <3
Gojo Satoru's version
Nanami Kento was a disciplined man.
A man of structure, of routine, of calculated control. He did not falter. He did not waver. He certainly did not allow himself to be flustered over something as simple as a woman flirting with him.
Or so he thought.
Because then there was you.
You, with your sharp wit, your unfairly charming smile, and your absolute refusal to let him be at peace.
You were a nuisance, really. A menace to his carefully constructed walls.
And the worst part?
You knew it.
Which was precisely why he was currently suffering as you leaned over his desk, arms folded, chin resting on them, watching him with a look that spelled trouble.
Nanami tried—tried so hard—to ignore you.
But he felt your stare, burning into him with unrelenting intensity.
Finally, he sighed, adjusting his tie as he glanced down at you.
"Is there a reason you’re watching me like that?"
"Hmm," you hummed, tapping a finger against your chin. "I was just thinking…"
"That’s dangerous."
You grinned. "I know."
He exhaled through his nose, unimpressed. "Enlighten me, then."
"I wanna touch your undercut."
Nanami froze.
His grip tightened slightly on the pen he was holding, and he blinked at you slowly, as if giving you a chance to correct yourself.
You did not.
Instead, you tilted your head, shameless and unrepentant, eyes flickering to the clean, sharp lines of his undercut like you were already imagining your fingers buried in it.
Nanami set his pen down.
"You want to what?"
"Touch it," you repeated, plain as day, with no shame whatsoever. "I’ve been thinking about it for a while."
His jaw ticked. "That’s… concerning."
"Why?" you asked, blinking up at him like you weren’t currently dismantling his self-restraint brick by brick.
Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling deeply.
"Because," he said, patient but firm, "I am not some attraction at a petting zoo for you to gawk at and—"
"Then stop looking like one," you interrupted, smug, bold, completely unbothered.
He opened his mouth. Paused. Shut it.
Because what counter could he possibly have to that?
Nanami prided himself on his ability to maintain his composure. But you—you made it your personal mission to test his limits at every given opportunity.
And now, you were winning.
"Just once?" you pressed, your voice dropping to something syrupy sweet, tilting your chin up ever so slightly. "Promise I’ll be gentle, Nanami."
He swallowed. Hard.
The way you said his name, soft and coaxing, made his pulse stutter.
He knew he should shut this down immediately, should deny you and go back to his work, but—
Your eyes. Your voice. The way your fingers twitched in anticipation.
He was a damned fool because he found himself leaning forward just slightly, enough to let you know that he wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea.
Just once. Just to get it over with.
The moment your fingers brushed against his undercut, he stiffened.
Your touch was soft, careful, and yet—
Nanami exhaled sharply, a slow, measured breath through his nose, his lashes flickering as you continued, fingers smoothing over the buzzed undercut before trailing into his softer hair.
"Hmm," you hummed, eyes glimmering as you deliberately dragged your fingers through the contrast in texture, a lazy smile spreading across your lips.
Nanami forced himself to remain still, to ignore the way his skin burned under your touch, the way something inside him threatened to unravel.
"You okay there, Kento?" you teased, your voice like silk, your gaze flickering up to his.
His jaw tightened at the use of his first name.
"I’m fine," he said, firm. Too firm.
You giggled, fingers skimming lower, playing with the edge of his hairline. "You’re so tense, Nanami. You act like I’m trying to kill you, not touch your undercut."
"Same difference," he muttered under his breath.
You laughed—softly, liltingly, utterly delighted.
And Nanami, against all his better judgment, felt himself melt.
Just a little.
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Are you satisfied now?"
"Almost," you murmured, and before he could process it—
You leaned in, lips brushing just behind his ear, and whispered, low and sweet,
"It really suits you, Kento."
Nanami short-circuited.
Every single cell in his body screamed at him to remain composed, to not react, to not give you the satisfaction of knowing exactly what you were doing to him.
But the way his throat bobbed, the way his fingers curled into fists, the way his eyes darkened just slightly as he exhaled—
You knew.
And judging by the smug little smile on your lips, you were thoroughly enjoying watching him struggle.
"You’re insufferable," he muttered, shaking his head, but the way his voice dropped an octave completely betrayed him.
"Mm," you mused, stepping back finally, satisfied. "You like it."
Nanami sighed. "I tolerate it."
You grinned. "That’s just your way of saying I can do it again."
He groaned, tilting his head back, resigned to his fate.
And deep down—though he’d rather perish than admit it—
Maybe he wouldn’t mind if you did.
A/N: 🗳️ Would you rather touch Nanami’s undercut OR listen to him explain the intricacies of bread making for an hour in that deep, smooth voice of his?
Gojo Satoru's version - [Tumblr/Ao3]
Masterlist
The header image is from anime, dividers are mine, and the engagement banners are from @saradika-graphics.
Summary: You are sick, and your six soulmates are there to comfort you.
Pairing: Chronic Illness Riddled Soft F!Reader x JJK Men (Ryomen Sukuna, Zenin Toji, Daddy Kento, Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguwu, Kamo Chocho.) Ft. Dr. Higuruma Hiromi.
The header was made by me, line dividers are from @cursed-carmine, and bunny dividers are by @dividersnook11.
A/N: I see you guys wanted this one posted first. Based on this ask I got last year. Symptoms are vague, and the reader's gender/pronouns aren't really relevant to the plot. WC: 2.7K.
For @mullermilkshake, hope you heal properly and swiftly, my love.
You woke up to six men arguing in your bedroom.
“Move your damn elbow,” Sukuna snapped.
“That’s not my elbow, fatass,” Satoru fired back instantly from somewhere near your feet. “That’s her plushie.”
“…Why the fuck does she sleep with seven stuffed rabbits?”
“Because she likes cute things,” Choso answered softly, internally proud to have figured it out.
“Shocking,” Toji muttered from the doorway, carrying a grocery bag full of medicine, chips, and three different kinds of soup. “Tiny bunny likes fluffy shit.”
You blinked awake slowly from beneath the mountain of blankets cocooning you. Your body ached horribly today—everything felt too much, too rough, too painful against your skin: the blanket, your socks, and even the pillow under your knees. Your legs throbbed like somebody had filled your bones with static, and lifting your head made the room tilt.
Immediately, six pairs of eyes snapped toward you.
“Good morning, bunny." Suguru smiled.
Kento was already getting up to cross the room, setting a cool hand against your forehead while the others crowded like feral dogs and cats behind him.
“You’re still warm,” he sighed, thumb brushing your temple.
“No shit,” Sukuna scoffed, arms crossed. “She’s been hurting for two days.”
“Your bedside manner is beautiful,” Suguru deadpanned.
“I’ll kill you.”
“You say that every day.”
You made a tiny, weak noise from the bed.
Instantly, everyone was silent.
Choso dropped beside you fast. “Baby? Do you need something?” His voice went all soft and worried immediately, eyes huge. “Are you hurting?”
You nodded miserably.
That was maybe the wrong answer because suddenly all of your soulmates reacted like someone had stolen their wallets.
“Where?” Kento asked, with concern barely hidden.
“How bad?” Suguru added.
“You nauseous?” Toji interrogated.
“You need water?” Satoru shoved a cup into view so fast that water sloshed onto the blanket.
Choso caught it before it drenched you, scowling at him.
Sukuna leaned over everybody else, glaring. “I’ll kill the doctor.”
You stared at them blearily. “…my legs hurt.”
The room collectively melted.
“Oh, bunny,” Choso whispered, as if your pained voice had stabbed him right in the chest.
You were very soft, very sweet, and very bad at handling pain, which meant whenever your chronic illness flared up, your boyfriends acted like overprotective teddy bears.
Especially because you kept apologizing like the pain was poor manners.
“Sorry,” you mumbled weakly. “I’m useless today…”
All six of them looked offended.
Toji narrowed his eyes. “The hell d’you mean, useless?”
“You can barely walk,” Kento remarked gently, pulling blankets higher around you. “You’re in pain, darling, so you need the rest.”
“But you guys have stuff to do…”
Satoru looked genuinely horrified. “Baby, I skipped work.”
“You skip work every week,” Kento deadpanned.
“Yeah, but this time it’s for love.”
Suguru rolled his eyes before crouching beside the bed. "Bunny, look at me.”
You peeked at him slowly.
“You do realize none of us mind taking care of you, right?”
“She still thinks the opposite regardless,” Sukuna grumbled, arms crossed over his chest.
“Even says ‘sorry’ every three seconds,” Toji grumbled.
You shrank deeper into the blankets, sheeoish. “Sorry—”
“See?” All six snapped at once.
You softly chuckled.
Then Choso carefully climbed into bed beside you, big arms wrapping around your waist with sweet gentleness because he always thought you were something precious and fragile.
“You don’t have to apologize for hurting,” he murmured against your hair. “We love taking care of you.”
That made your achy little heart squeeze embarrassingly hard.
Unfortunately, Satoru immediately ruined the delicate moment by climbing onto the bed, too. “My turn.”
“No,” Sukuna yelled loudly.
“Yes.”
“No!”
“I’m undoubtedly her favorite.”
“The fuck you are.”
“You wanna test that?”
“Gladly.”
Kento rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Can we not start testosterone wars around the sick woman?”
But it was too late.
Toji was already dragging Satoru backward by his hoodie while the latter clung strongly to the blankets.
“Baby,” Satoru whined. “They’re separating us.”
“You’re crushing her legs, idiot,” Suguru groaned, shoving him off you.
“Oh.” Satoru paused. “…Sorry.”
You rubbed a hand over your face. “You all are too loud.”
“Unfortunately,” Sukuna muttered, already moving to massage your feet.
The rest of the morning passed in stupid domestic little rotations.
Kento handled medicine and water. Suguru handled soup and tea. Toji took care of things around the house before your feet could even touch the floor. Choso hovered close enough to feel everything personally.
Satoru called himself emotional support and immediately got banned from touching the thermometer.
Sukuna said he wasn’t worried, then spent twenty minutes rubbing warmth into your calves with a scowl that wasn't directed at you.
---
By afternoon, they had relocated you to the couch.
The pain had gotten worse. You couldn’t walk much at all—your joints kept locking whenever you tried moving.
So naturally, Choso had decided you belonged attached to him permanently.
You were currently bundled in his hoodie while sitting in his lap on the couch. His chin rested lightly atop your head while his strong arms stayed looped around your waist snugly.
All the while, Satoru was sprawled across both of you as Sukuna sat nearby, pretending not to watch you but the TV. Kento read while keeping track of your medicine timing every few minutes. Suguru sat next to Choso and brushed your hair gently as Toji cooked something in the kitchen, cursing at the stove.
You sniffled softly. “I love you guys.”
Sukuna clicked his tongue immediately. “Yeah, yeah.” But his ears looked suspiciously red.
"Holy shit." Satoru gasped. "Say it again."
“She’s medicated,” Kento warned.
“I don’t care.”
Suguru smiled softly and booped your nose. “We love you too, bunny.”
“To a criminal degree,” Toji added from the kitchen.
Choso squeezed you tighter, not saying much.
You looked around at all six of them—your loud, insane, overprotective men who argued and threatened each other daily and somehow still took care of you like it was the most important thing in the world.
Your chest felt warm.
“…can we all cuddle?” You mumbled sleepily, making grabby hands from where you sat tucked against Choso’s chest.
Satoru immediately launched himself over you, almost shoving Choso away. “MOVE, LOSER.”
“The fuck are you diving for?” Toji barked, appearing from the kitchen and catching him by the hoodie before he crushed you.
“She wants cuddles!”
“She’s already cuddling me,” Choso muttered, anger lacing his tone, his grip around your waist tightening possessively.
“Greedy bastard,” Sukuna scoffed, shifting closer to you.
Kento sighed like a tired father of five and sat near your feet, adjusting the hot water bottle.
Suguru calmly started rearranging blankets before the situation devolved further. “Honestly, all of you are acting like children.”
“Sure, daddy,” Satoru grinned unrepentant.
You made a tiny, pleased noise as warmth surrounded you from every direction: Choso behind you, your face pressed into Sukuna’s warm chest, Satoru somehow trying to crawl into your chest, Toji’s heavy hand rubbing absentmindedly over your ankle, Kento checking the heating temp around your legs, and Suguru smoothing your hair back from your sweaty forehead.
“You comfy, baby?" Choso murmured near your ear.
“Mhm…”
Your sleepy eyes fluttered shut while the six of them continued bickering quietly around you.
“You’re crushing my arm.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Why’s your foot so damn big?”
“Why’s your head so empty?”
“Can all of you shut up? She’s falling asleep.”
“Aw,” Satoru whispered. “Kuna cares.”
“Say another word and I’ll hurl you through the wall.”
You smiled weakly against Choso’s chest, feeling safe, warm, and loved stupidly.
---
In the evening, you woke up alone on the couch, thirsty and foggy enough to make one very stupid decision.
“You are not supposed to be out of bed.”
You froze in the hallway with one hand on the wall, fuzzy socks dragging slightly against the floor.
Toji stood at the end of the hall with a laundry basket tucked under one arm, staring at you.
“…Hi,” you whispered.
His eyes dropped to your shaking knees. “Don’t ‘hi’ me, bun.”
“I was just getting water.”
“There are six men in this house.”
“I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
That was the wrong thing to say because he kept the basket aside, and then within the next seconds you were suddenly in his arms, lifted off the floor like a misbehaving kitten.
“Toji!”
“Nope.”
“I can walk.”
“You were about to fall over in pain.”
“I was not.”
“You swayed at the word ‘water.’”
You pouted, but your body was melting into his chest because everything hurt today and he felt safe and solid.
By the time Toji carried you back into the bedroom, everyone had somehow been summoned there like you’d triggered a silent alarm.
Kento had been looking for you with medicine in one hand, water in the other, and a look on his face that made you feel two apples tall.
Satoru was kneeling on the bed, horrified. “Bun bun! Bunny, why were you escaping?”
“I wasn’t escaping.”
“Caught her making a break for it,” Toji deadpanned.
Suguru sighed from beside the dresser, where he was folding one of your blankets properly because Satoru had somehow turned it into a rope. "Bunny, you promised you’d call one of us if you want something.”
“I felt bad.”
Choso, who had sat down quietly near your pillows, looked wounded. “Bad?”
“Choso…”
“You were hurting, and you felt bad?”
“Oh no,” Satoru whispered. “She broke him.”
Sukuna walked over with a soup bowl in his hand. “Good. Maybe now he’ll stop looking like a kicked dog and help make her eat.”
“I am helping,” Choso growled, voice low and deadly.
“You’re staring at her like she’s dying.”
“She could have fallen.”
“She didn’t. Big guy caught her.”
Toji finally dropped you gently onto the mattress. “Damn right I did.”
Kento immediately moved in. “Sit up a little, love.”
You obeyed because Kento had that calm voice—the one that made your insides all warm and fuzzy like a forest cabin.
He handed you the pills first, then the glass. “Drink.”
You made a face.
His brows furrowed.
You swallowed the pills and drank.
“Good girl,” Satoru cooed.
Your stomach did a little flip.
Sukuna’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t praise her for swallowing medicine.”
“Why? Jealous?”
“I’ll gouge your eyes with the spoon and then shove it down your throat.”
Suguru took the bowl from Sukuna before murder became part of your care routine. “Soup first. Violence later.”
“It’s not violence if he deserves it.”
“Kuna,” you mumbled.
“What?”
“Be nice, please.”
He scoffed, but his ears went suspiciously red again. “Eat your soup, brat.”
Suguru sat beside you and lifted the spoon to your mouth. “Small bites.”
“I can feed myself.”
Your hands trembled trying to reach for the bowl.
Every man in the room stared.
You slowly put your hands back down. “…Okay.”
Choso made a tiny distressed sound and shifted into bed beside you, paying careful attention not to jostle your legs, and softly held your hand under the blanket.
“You should have told me,” he whispered. “I would’ve carried the water. Or you. Or both.”
“That’s my job,” Toji grumbled, annoyed.
“You had laundry.”
“I can multitask.”
“You put a red shirt in with her white socks last week,” Kento added dryly.
Toji looked away. “I’m colorblind."
Choso stared at him. “Since a.. when?”
Satoru crawled toward you with tragic eyes. “Bunny, were you trying to leave me?”
“I just needed water.”
"Could've called me.”
“You were snoring,” Sukuna stated, refilling the empty glass.
“I was communicating with her soul.”
“You were drooling on her plushie.”
“My love language is moisture.”
You almost gagged, unable to swallow the soup Sukuna had made.
“Satoru,” Suguru muttered pleasantly, glaring, "stop talking. I need her to eat."
You tried to laugh, weak and breathy, until the movement made pain flare through your legs and your smile crumpled before you could hide it.
Kento adjusted the heated blanket over your knees. "Relax, love.”
Choso squeezed your fingers. “It’s ok, you don’t have to be strong right now.”
Suguru brushed damp hair from your face with his other hand while Toji lowered the lights.
Satoru pressed a kiss to your temple, unusually quiet.
Sukuna sat in front of you on the bed, his big hands wrapping around your ankle, rubbing slow warmth into the ache.
Your eyes stung.
“Oh, bunny,” Choso whispered. “Does it hurt too much?”
“I’m sorry." You nodded, sniffling, embarrassed by the tears slipping down your cheeks. “I’m being annoying and needy.”
“No. None of that thinking,” Kento said firmly.
“Pain’s pain,” Toji muttered.
“And you’re our girl,” Suguru added softly.
Sukuna clicked his tongue. “Cry if you need to. Just don’t apologize for it.”
Satoru gasped. “That was almost mature of you, Shrek.”
Sukuna’s hand paused on your ankle. “Say that again.”
“Compliment or insult? Be specific. I’m receiving a lot of energy from you right now.”
“I’ll fry your testicles.”
Satoru grinned.
Then, very quietly, added, “With garlic butter?”
“That’s it. Timeout.” Toji straightened immediately. “Bathroom. Now!”
“Wait, wait, I have follow-up questions—”
Suguru handed the soup over to Kento, caught Satoru by the collar before he could finish, and moved him out like a man escorting a raccoon out of a wedding. “You are taking a ten-minute break.”
From the hallway, Satoru yelled something incoherent.
Sukuna went back to rubbing your ankle.
---
Hiromi woke up at 1:07 AM because someone had rung the bell once and knocked multiple times.
He opened the door, rubbing his eyes blearily.
Then he looked up.
Six men stood in the hallway.
Kento was holding a folder; Suguru, a paper bag of tea; Satoru waved; and Choso looked like he had been crying in the car, while Toji had one hand braced on the doorframe like he was the landlord.
Sukuna growled, “Our bunny hurts.”
Hiromi thought it must be sleep deprivation, so he shut his eyes.
Opened them again.
They were still there.
Choso held up a bunny plushie the size of his head. “The Warmie does not work.”
Sukuna’s jaw twitched. “He means she's still crying every few hours.”
“Did she say anything?”
Suguru answered first, immediately furious. “She asked if needing help was too much.”
Hiromi stared at all of them for a long second. “I meant about the medical condition.”
Toji cracked his knuckles.
Hiromi sighed so hard he aged four years.
From the back, Choso raised his hand. “Can she have pudding with the medicine?”
Sukuna clicked his tongue. “That’s what you came here to ask?”
“She makes the sad face.”
“She does make the sad face,” Kento agreed.
“I’ll write it down.”
Sukuna nodded once, satisfied. “Good doctor.”
Hiromi pointed at him. “Do not praise me like a dog.”
Satoru was already backing away, texting. “Great news, bunbun. Doctor says pudding is medically binding.”
“That is not what I said.”
Suguru patted Hiromi’s shoulder as they left. “Thank you for your time.”
Kento added, “We were never here.”
Hiromi closed the door.
Locked it.
And looked for tickets to Alaska.
---
At 3:45 AM, you blinked awake.
Choso was behind you, rubbing your back. Kento sat close, glasses low on his nose, reading something on his phone with the grim focus of a man trying to defeat your illness himself. Suguru tucked the blanket beneath your chin. Toji blocked the edge of the bed like a guard dog. Satoru had his cheek squished against your other shoulder.
“You comfy, bunny?” Choso murmured.
“Mhm,” you breathed, still sleepy.
Satoru smiled, turning to you, his lips close to your forehead. “She looks drugged.”
“The medicine is kicking in,” Kento added.
“Same thing.”
Sukuna pulled the blanket higher around your legs. “Try walking again, and I’m putting a bell on you.”
Your eyes fluttered shut. “…a cute bell?”
“Absolutely not," Kento groaned.
“Whichever one you want,” Satoru agreedat the same time.
Suguru’s eyes closed like he was praying for Satoru to get electrocuted.
Choso, traitorously, whispered, “Maybe a small one.”
Toji looked at him. “You serious?”
“It would help us know where she is.”
“I am not a cow,” you mumbled into Satoru’s shirt.
Sukuna’s mouth twitched.
“No,” he said, rubbing your ankle under the blanket after pulling your legs over his lap. “Livestock stays where you put it.”
You were asleep before you could argue.
When you woke up three hours later, there was a tiny pink ribbon bell tied to your stuffed rabbit’s neck.
And Toji, who had previously not approved it, flicked the bell every single time you tried to leave the bed unnecessarily.
Would you guys live with them? And if yes, who'd be just a lil bit your fav?
For me it's a tie between Sukuna & Choso, but Sugu, ahhh, I can't pick.
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Summary: Fushiguro keeps coming back to your closing shifts with bloodied knuckles and bad excuses, but Itadori is the one who notices what Megumi never asks you.
Warnings: Bipolar Megumi, Teenagers kissing, "I'm 14 and this is deep" behavior.
Context: Reader works two jobs—one at the PC+console repair shop during the day and the konbini near Jujutsu Tech in the evenings—and is younger than both guys.
Dividers are mine; images are from anime and Pinterest.
Ch 1 - Fushiguro Megumi
WHAT IS THE TRUE MEANING OF STRENGTH?
The essay prompt sat beside the register, trapped under the corner of a pharmacy receipt you kept turning face down. You had written three answers and scratched through all of them until the paper started to thin under the ink.
The bell over the convenience store door rang at 10:43 PM, and Fushiguro came in with blood drying over his knuckles. He went straight to the first-aid shelf. Picked up gauze, disinfectant, and tape. Then added bottled tea and one egg sandwich from the markdown tray. When he set everything on the counter, his eyes dropped to the loose page by your hand. “What’s that?”
“Something my old teacher still sends me.”
He looked at the crossed-out answers. “You still doing homework?”
You flipped the pharmacy receipt under the till slip before he could read the name printed at the top. “I don’t have time during the day.”
His hand stayed on the counter when you took the tape from him. He did that sometimes, offered up blood and silence as if both were normal things to leave with a girl working the closing shift. You wet cotton with disinfectant and pressed it into the split skin. His fingers twitched. “What do you think it is?” he asked.
You looked up. “What?”
“Strength.”
He said it with the same voice he used when asking where you kept the soy sauce packets.
“You.”
Fushiguro stopped fidgeting.
The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.
“Me?”
You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”
When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.
Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.
Fushiguro never did.
He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.
You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.
“That’s your answer?” he asked.
“It is, but you can complain if you want.”
He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”
That was more than he usually gave you.
He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.
You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.
---
The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.
After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.
You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.
He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.
You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.
He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.
That one made you laugh.
Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”
“You’re funny sometimes.”
“I’m really not.”
“You are to me.”
His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.
By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.
---
Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.
He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.
“You’re here late again,” he observed.
“I work here.”
“You were here yesterday too.”
“My shift is late.”
He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.
You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”
His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”
“You have.”
“That’s bad.”
“It was kind of cute.”
He made a face. “I’m not cute.”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.
He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”
“What?”
“That essay.”
You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”
He nodded.
You covered the paper. “You tell me.”
His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.
Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”
You let him continue.
His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”
“That’s your answer?”
His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”
Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.
You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”
He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”
“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”
His head turned back. “Sweet?”
“And talkative.”
“Most people think I’m cold.”
“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”
He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.
You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.
He didn’t move away.
“There,” you said. “Cute too.”
He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”
“You’re blushing.”
His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”
“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”
He stared as you turned away.
The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.
Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.
When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.
“You should go home.” He whispered.
“You first.”
“You’ll miss the last train.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen you run for it.”
That made your face warm.
“Look at me.”
He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”
His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”
You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.
His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous.
Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.
You laughed quietly.
“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.
He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”
This time, he leaned in first.
He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.
His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.
You forgot what to do with your hands.
Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.
It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.
Your mind stopped—
Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.
When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.
And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.
You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.
“You’ll miss your train.”
You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.
“Oh no, no, no, no.”
Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”
---
The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.
He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.
Fushiguro saw you.
You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”
His ears went red before his face did.
The others turned as one.
You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.
Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”
Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.
“Some annoying girl from the store.”
The crossing light changed.
You walked.
The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.
Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.
PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER
Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.
You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.
Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.
You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.
You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.
All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.
Some annoying girl from the store.
You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.
