songtress

sukuna had been fighting since he was fifteen and filled with a rage even he couldn’t understand. 

toji found him bloody outside a convenience store after some older guys tried jumping him for gambling money. 

it was clear they didn’t get the money but sukuna took that fire in his gaze out on them. 

sukuna still recalled the way toji looked down at him, droplets cascading down his sharp features and dark hair, damp cigarette hanging from his mouth while blood dripped steadily from sukuna’s split brow. 

“you fight like an animal,” toji began, taking a drag of his fading cig before tilting his head at the salmon haired boy, “what if i told you that you could beat the shit out of guys every day and get paid for it?” 

a fucking dream is what that was. he gets to utilize his anger and he could finally get out of his father’s house. 

how could sukuna even say no? 

somehow, it turned into this. 

years later, ryomen sukuna had become the name whispered through underground rings across the city. not because he was the biggest or the strongest, but because he was cruel. 

there was something deeply unsettling about the way sukuna fought. 

controlled, almost lazy sometimes. like violence came so naturally to him that he didn’t even need to think about it. 

people feared men who fought emotionally. 

they feared ryomen sukuna more because he never did. 

most nights, he fought beneath screaming neon lights while crowds chanted his name loud enough to shake the walls. 

they bet on him like he was a sure thing and fuck, did he get a shitload of money from it. 

he’d leave each night, beaten and bruised with a duffel of cash hanging off his shoulder.

he was living the dream.

that was until he arrived home, in his apartment downtown, and sat in silence while somebody else’s emotions bled quietly into his chest. 

a girl he’d never met yet somehow knew like the back of his hand, all too intimately. 

he knew she liked coffee because of the bursts of energy he’d feel during mornings where he usually slept in because his fights usually carried into the night. 

he knew she did yoga often because his muscles weren’t as sore as they would get when he was younger and god knows it wasn’t his doing. he didn’t stretch nearly as much as toji nagged at him to. 

he also knew that she despised him. 

that one was obvious. 

their bond always sharpened after his fights. her irritation sat bright and hot beneath his ribs every time he came home bruised and bloody. 

sometimes he couldn’t differentiate between his own rage and hers. 

maybe they were more alike than he thought. 

truthfully, sukuna didn’t know how to do things any differently and frankly, he didn’t care enough to. 

he hated this whole soulmates shit. why would the universe ever pair two people together with the utmost certainty that they were perfect for each other?

and what fucking masacre did this girl commit to be bonded with him of all people? 

violence was the only thing sukuna had ever been good at and he wouldn’t change that for anyone, especially some girl who was almost a mere figment of his imagination. 

he did that sometimes. pretended that he was a non-existent and that he was merely hallucinating her. 

non-existents made up a very small part of the population and they were essentially humans who didn’t have soulmates. like toji was. 

lucky bastard. 

sometimes sukuna believed toji was lying because he’d get this distant look on his face some days, kind of like himself when he felt his own soulmate torment him. 

so maybe he was a late bloomer? 

either way, he was in a better situation than sukuna was. 

“your girl’s pissed again?” toji commented dryly from where he leaned against the boxing ring ropes, head tilted with a knowingness sukuna hated. 

toji was the one sukuna had to confide in because who else did he have? 

when he was overwhelmed as a young teenager about his soulmate, toji would be the one he would reluctantly go to. the older man had taken him under his wing, so yes, he did trust him more than anyone. 

he also knew that toji cared about him in his own fucked up way. 

sukuna’s knuckles ached tonight, phantom annoyance curling beneath his skin that didn’t belong to him. it was her. 

probably studying somewhere in the city while silently wishing death upon him. 

the thought almost made him grin. 

throughout the years, pissing her off became a hobby of some sort, though he knew she didn’t find it nearly as amusing as he did. 

“at least you know she’s got personality.” toji stated once more as sukuna finally stopped punching and turned to shoot the man a glare. 

“shut the fuck up.”

toji huffed out a laugh, “god help you both when you finally meet.”

the thought made sukuna freeze momentarily. 

it was almost sad. 

usually, at least from what sukuna knew, people usually couldn’t wait to meet their soulmates. 

then there was sukuna, filled with dread at the mere idea. 

sukuna hated even talking about the bond. 

he hated how aware he was of her. 

because despite everything, the distance and never seeing her to begin with, she felt woven into him already, like a haunting. 

some nights, when his insomnia clawed violently at his nerves after fights, he’d feel her wrap her arms around herself beneath warm blankets god knows where. 

and sleep came easier those nights. 

he couldn’t explain it and truthfully, he didn’t like to think about it. 

he hated talking about her because the truth was ugly. 

that he didn’t particularly hate her. which is exactly why he knew meeting her would ruin everything. 

naturally, his solution was to sabotage everything which is why he started to sleep around with non-existents whenever he got the chance. 

and he knew what it did to her. 

good. he hoped it made her despise him enough to never want anything to do with him, whether they meet now or twenty years down the line. 

sukuna didn’t want anything to do with her. 

∞

you hated downtown on friday nights. 

it was always too loud and all too crowded. 

neon signs bled into rain-slick streets while bass-heavy music spilled from every open doorway along the block. 

girls stumbled across sidewalks in tiny dresses and tall heels, drunken laughter cutting through the humid summer night air while taxis lined the streets endlessly. 

the city looked beautiful after dark, but you still wanted to be everywhere but here. 

“stop looking at people with that judgy look of yours.” shoko muttered beside you, nudging your shoulder lightly as the three of you crossed the street.

“i’m not judging, i’m just looking around…” you defended with a huff as you hugged yourself protectively, little kitten heels clicking against the pavement. 

“you are judging,” utahime confirmed, “it’s your classic disgusted and glare-ey look.” 

“well excuse me, you’re the ones who brought me to crackhead-ville.” you glared at the two girls as shoko rolled her eeys before hooking her arm through yours anyway. 

she pulled you towards the entrance of yet another overcrowded building downtown.

apparently, tonight’s party was being held somewhere above an abandoned old bar. or beneath it. 

either way, something you found entirely too ominous but you were too distracted when shoko was explaining to actually disagree. 

your soulmate had spent the entire evening restless beneath your skin. not angry but worse. 

aware. 

you felt him constantly tonight. 

a steady pulse of adrenaline humming through your bloodstream that didn’t belong to you. 

your chest had felt tight since leaving the penthouse, some strange tension settling low in your stomach like your body was anticipating something before your mind could catch up.

it was unsettling. 

you blamed the lack of sleep, or rather, you blamed him. you blamed him for it all. 

“ew, ew…” you muttered as shoko pulled you through the door into what you could only describe as chaos. 

warmth and noise hit you instantly. 

bodies crowded wall to wall beneath flashing lights while music shook violently through the floorboards. 

cigarette smoke lingered in the air despite the open windows somewhere deeper inside the space. 

you physically recoiled. 

“oh my god,” utahime muttered beside you, laughing softly at the expression painting your features, “you look horrified.” 

“i am horrified!” 

shoko snorted, “rich kids.” 

you threw her a glare before the three of you squeezed through the crowd until you reached a quieter section tucked near the back of the room. 

a curved leather couch sat half-empty beneath dim red lights, thankfully far enough from the speakers that your skull stopped vibrating the second you sat down. 

you exhaled deeply, chest deflating as you blinked up at your friends who were looking at you with amusement. 

“drinks?” utahime questioned as shoko nodded eagerly while you merely hummed, shoulders tense as you gazed around the sea of bodies. 

utahime disappeared toward the bar while shoko took a seat beside you, the leather beneath you sticky in a way that had you shuddering, sitting at the very edge of the couch. 

fuck, you hated this and you couldn’t explain why. 

yes, you hated parties in general but you just felt wrong. 

“you’re being weird tonight.” shoko observed, eyes narrowed on your tense figure. 

you frowned faintly, “i know…i feel weird.”

your skin felt like it was buzzing, chest vibrating in a way it usually wasn’t. 

it wasn’t necessarily bad, but simply off. 

you felt your soulmate more than ever tonight, you were almost hyperaware. 

he felt electric. 

every emotion coming from him felt sharper somehow, close enough that you could almost mistake them for your own. 

your pulse kept jumping for no reason. 

fuck, you hated this. 

“is it devils dick?” shoko casually asked as your eyes closed momentarily. 

how would you explain that it was both yes and no. 

yes, the bond felt different tonight. 

but no, it wasn’t muscle aches or phantom pain you were feeling on his end, though you didn't want to speak too soon. 

it was a friday after all. friday nights usually meant bruised ribs by saturday morning. 

“oh my god, guys!” hime stood before you, handing shoko her drink before placing a water bottle in your hand, “everyone’s saying gojo and his crew are gonna be here!” 

your eyes rolled gently, very much aware of utahime’s obsession with those random illegitimate fighters. 

underground fights happened constantly throughout the city. 

illegal betting rings buried beneath clubs and abandoned buildings, violent enough that respectable people pretended they didn’t exist despite everyone secretly knowing otherwise. 

your father even told you how known politicians and well known figures even placed bets they hid from the public.  

and lately, there was one name that everyone kept talking about-

“do you think sukuna would show up?” shoko questioned, eyes wide with excitement, taking a sip of her cherry vodka as you looked between the two girls. 

ryomen sukuna. 

you’d heard it constantly from utahime the past few months. 

uathime, shoko, sora and percy often went on double dates to these underground fights you had zero interest in. 

you were very much used to fifth wheeling alongside your friends, that wasn’t the issue. the issue was rooted in the prospect of spending the night in a filthy underground boxing ring riddled with people and violence alike. yuck. 

still, amongst all the fighters utahime gushed about, ryomen sukuna seemed to be the most known. 

the undefeated underground fighter with pink hair and a snake tattoo across his shoulders and collarbones. 

people were terrified of him just as equally as they were obsessed with him. 

“percy says sukuna knocked his opponent unconscious in under thirty seconds last week!” shoko stated, taking another sip as utahime nodded frantically. 

“he’s insane!” utahime gushed, “like, gojo is obviously a show off and just cares about the clout he gets but sukuna? he’s terrifying…”

utahime continued, you were sure. you could see her mouth moving but you didn’t-couldn’t register the words she'd uttered. 

the world around you turned hazy, just enough to feel like everything slowed in a way that definitely wasn’t normal. 

your heartbeat stopped, not metaphorically, but physically. 

a sharp wave of adrenaline crashed violently into your chest hard enough to steal the breath straight from your lungs. 

you went still, every muscle in your body tightening instinctively. 

you could see both of the girls leaning towards you, brows furrowed in concern, mouths moving and uttering words you knew were dipped in concern. you couldn’t hear any of it. 

you swallowed hard, eyes darting up and around you, as if a siren was luring you towards the crowd, come to me, come, come. 

fuck, were you drugged or something?

your heartbeat stuttered painfully beneath your ribs, once, twice then again. 

you felt like you’d been dropped underwater while everyone else remained above the surface. 

the bond felt raw and entirely too overwhelming.

it felt like standing at the edge of something life-altering, like your soul had recognized something before your mind could catch up to it. 

for the first time since you’d first felt your soulmate, he didn’t feel far away. 

you had grown used to the idea of him, something intangible and not truly real. 

merely a ghost haunting the edges of your nervous system, phantom bruises in the middle of lectures and an adrenaline rush at three in the morning. 

he was the deep-seated exhaustion that riddled your body but didn’t belong to you. 

but this felt real. close enough to touch. 

the sensation crawled slowly beneath your skin, winding around your ribs like invisible string being pulled tighter and tighter and tighter until you thought you might choke on it. 

the realization hit your bloodstream like a drug. 

he was here, you knew it. you could feel it in your bones. 

your eyes darted towards the door that had swung open, summer air rushing inside alongside four figures dressed almost entirely in black. 

the first thing you noticed was height. 

they all carried themselves with the same dangerous sort of confidence, the kind that came from men who had never truly feared consequences before. 

one of them had snowy white locks, the tallest of the bunch, bright enough to catch beneath the flashing lights, sunglasses balanced lazily across his nose despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. 

another stood beside him, quieter with shoulder length black locks with stretched gauges in his ears and sharp eyes that swept across the room once before settling into bored indifference.

the third one was shorter than the rest but still tall, black locks in two spiked buns with a joint resting between plump pink lips, eyes hooded in a way that exposed that joint not being his first of the night.

they were all attractive in a way that felt almost unfair and dangerous. 

people moved out of their path without being asked. 

your eyes turned to the one trailing just a step behind them and your breath caught so violently, it hurt. 

the salmon colored locks gave him away. 

ryomen sukuna. 

tattoos curled dark against tan skin disappearing beneath the collar of a black shirt that stretched across broad shoulders. 

even from where you stood, you could see the dried blood and bruises across his knuckles. 

he looked nothing like what you’d imagined from shoko’s descriptions. 

and simultaneously, exactly like it too. 

something deep inside you snapped taut, your stomach dropping. 

you could tell he was dazed too, jaw locked and eyes blinking at a slow pace, eyes looking around the sea of bodies. 

the soulmate bond surged so hard beneath your ribs, you physically recoiled, fingers gripping the edge of the leather couch. 

oh god. no, no, no.

oh my god…

“oh my god,” utahime whispered beside you, though unlike you, she sounded impressed rather than horrified. 

shoko looked moments away from passing out entirely. 

“that’s him!” she breathed out quietly. 

you couldn’t answer, breath stilling and hands trembling. 

because sukuna had stopped walking.

fuck, the realization came slowly enough to feel cruel. 

maroon eyes met your own and the room around you dissolved entirely. the music became muffled noise, lights blurring and the crowd disappeared.

all you could see was him. him. him. him. 

he was all you could see, feel and you knew all he could see was you. 

sukuna felt it the second he stepped through the doorway. 

you. 

the bond snapped violently alive beneath his skin hard enough that his entire body locked for half a second mid-step. 

he almost thought someone had drugged him until he remembered he hadn’t even drank anything yet. 

then what was this feeling? 

his eyes locked on yours and he felt the most alive he’d felt in his life.

something even the ring and the violence couldn't offer. 

there you were, all too pretty and wide eyed. 

he barely heard gojo speak beside him anymore, the lanky man rambling on about some idiot from last week’s fight who apparently called him out on twitter after. 

sukuna ignored him completely because across the room sat a girl staring at him like she’d seen a ghost. 

and in some ways, he was your ghost. 

he haunted you and lived under your skin in ways he was sure you didn’t appreciate in the slightest. 

his soulmate. 

years of phantom feelings crashed together all at once so violently, it almost made him sick. 

because the realization hit him harder than he’d anticipated and yes, he had anticipated this. 

the moment he’d meet his soulmate. 

well, he dreaded more than anticipated it. 

it hit him hard because he realized that he knew this girl. 

sukuna had never met you, yet, he bet he knew you more than the two girls hovering over you. more than fucking anyone. 

you were the girl whose stress bled into his bones during finals week, the girl who wrapped her arms around herself at night and somehow lulled him to sleep from miles away. 

you were real. 

and you looked soft. 

that was the first thing he took note of. 

soft skin, soft wide eyes, soft pink shimmery gloss coating your plush lips he recognized only through phantom warmth he’d felt against his own skin before. 

his soulmate was a pretty little thing, so pretty it almost made his chest ache. in your tiny skirt and halter top.

far too fucking pretty to belong anywhere near him. 

“sukuna?” 

choso’s voice cut through the haze faintly and sukuna snapped out of it, gaze finally leaving hers to glance at his friend who tilted his head towards the other side of the room. 

sukuna resisted the urge to glance at you as he made his way across the room.

fuck, fuck, fuck! 

this couldn’t be happening, this was a fucking nightmare. 

just as he made it across the room, he felt it. 

warm fingertips brushing his own skin despite his hands at his sides. 

his pulse stuttered once. 

his gaze snapped to yours once more and your eyes widened instantly when you noticed his hand drift to his neck where your own hand was resting. 

slowly and carefully, sukuna lifted his own hand. 

his fingers brushed lightly against the side of his jaw, a barely there touch. 

yet, across the room, your breath hitched sharply as warmth bloomed against your own jawline seconds later. 

not imagined or coincidence. it was all real, so so real. 

your stomach twisted violently. 

oh no. no no no no. 

shoko was gazing at you, “what’s wrong?!” 

you couldn’t answer, eyes stuck on a pair of crimson that held you hostage.

her eyes narrowed as both her and utahime followed your gaze before catching sukuna’s eyes on you. 

then they both looked between you both a total of five times before realization hit. 

“wait,” shoko whispered harshly, hand shooting out to grip your arm, “WAIT.”

utahime’s jaw physically fell open, “holy shit…”

your heartbeat pounded so violently, you thought you might faint right then and there beneath the flashing red lights.

what you despised most is that it made sense. 

of course it was him. a violent and dangerous underground fighter, fuck, that explained everything so perfectly.

if fate was a person, you’d have her by the neck right now. 

because sukuna was still staring at you, as if he knew you already and perhaps, he did. 

then horrifyingly, he smirked. 

and suddenly, you understood exactly why the entire city feared ryomen sukuna. 

sukuna moved before he could really think about it, jaw clenched but determined.

one second he stood on the other side of the room and the next, his body was already weaving through the crowd toward you like the bond itself had wrapped invisible fingers around his spine and dragged him to you. you. his soulmate. 

people moved instantly to let him pass. 

you took note of that immediately. 

you noticed the way conversations died around him, the way bodies shifted out of his path and nobody dared touch him, even accidentally. 

it was fear, you realized. people feared him. 

the recognition made your stomach twist. 

“oh my god,” shoko whispered harshly beside you, nails digging into your arm, “he’s coming over here!” 

“i can see that.” you hissed back faintly, though your voice barely sounded like your own. 

fuck, you should leave. you should absolutely leave. 

except, you couldn’t move, body drilled to where you sat, frozen in place while ryomen fucking sukuna rossed the room toward you like some predator chasing prey. 

closer and closer and closer. 

until suddenly, all his 6’4 glory was towering above you. 

your breath caught embarrassingly hard. 

up close, he was worse. 

taller than you’d imagined and broader too. 

there were faint bruises scattered along his jawline beneath the dim lights, on the very spot that you woke up feeling sore. fresh cuts healed across his knuckles. 

and his eyes, god, they looked at you with the same recognition burning through your own chest. 

sukuna looked down at you for a moment too long. 

fuck, you were even more ethereal up close. 

that thought hit him first and annoyingly hardest. 

his pretty little soulmate sitting curled into the edge of a leather couch looking at him with wide doe eyes, almost expectantly with a mix of fear and restraint. 

“hey.” 

his voice slid down your spine like smoke. 

low, dangerous and rough in a way even your mind couldn’t conjure up.

fuck, was this really happening?

your throat tightened instantly, “hi.”

the word left you horrifyingly softer than you’d intended and sukuna’s lips twitched at the sound. 

your voice was his favorite sound, instantly. 

“um,” shoko hummed, eyes wide as she shared a glance with utahime, “we’ll give you two a second.”

you almost wanted to yell in protest, but the two girls were already shuffling away, shooting you encouraging looks. 

as you glanced up at the dangerous man once more, you felt your heart still in a way you hadn’t ever felt before. 

not in fear or apprehension but calm. 

he made you feel calm, your body stilling and quieting in a way you hadn’t expected. 

regretfully, fuck, you despised it, but when that gentleness overcame you and you looked up at him…

his disheveled pink locks, his handsome rugged features and his dark eyes, all of it was him. 

and you felt stupid for trying to deny that this man was your soulmate. 

who else would it be? 

“i’m sukuna,” he stated lowly, moving to take a seat beside you, leaving an appreciative distance between you, “ryomen sukuna.” 

your name left you softly with a nod. 

as you gazed at each other, the same realization overcame you both. 

even with barely an introduction, you knew each other. 

while sukuna had only fond memories of what you’d done for him, your mind was riddled with poisonous ones. 

this was the man who often trained in the middle of the night, filling you with soreness and a rush of adrenaline that left you sleepless most nights. 

he was the one who fucked other girls knowing what that put you through. 

your heart clenched. 

beyond all those things, he was the one who hugged himself to sleep after that one night of utter hell. 

he was the one who held a hot water bottle to his stomach when your cramps left you nauseated and pained in bed. 

as much as you wanted to forget those things, to snap yourself out of the sad patheticness that riddled you, how could you?

how could you when those were the only memories that kept your hope that he wasn’t a total monster alive?

your eyes travelled along his bloodied knuckles, “you get those a lot.” 

sukuna’s fists instinctively clenched at the attention.

“and you burn yourself with whatever you do your hair with at least twice a week.”

your eyes widened instantly. 

“and you get punched like every other day!” 

sukuna’s mouth twitched and you hated how your eyes drifted towards the movement and your heart stuttered. 

“barely.” sukuna stated cooly, a small smirk painting his features. 

your eyes drifted toward him again before you could stop yourself. 

and then you remembered. 

every phantom feeling, every sleepless night and every ache.

all attached to him. 

the violence, the pain, the girls. 

your jaw tightened, "you’re not exactly the best person to be connected to, you know.” 

sukuna’s expression didn’t shift much, still cool, but you felt it. the hollow drop in your stomach that wasn’t yours. guilt. 

real and immediate, it almost made you laugh in disbelief. 

of course he felt guilty, he had to know he was a fucking nightmare. 

sukuna leaned back slightly, jaw working once as his gaze flickered away from yours for half a second, “yeah, i bet.” 

your brows lifted, “that’s it?” 

his eyes returned to yours, low and indifferent. 

you scoffed, anger bubbling up so quickly, it nearly startled you, “that’s all you have to say?” 

sukuna let out a breath through his nose, “what do you want me to say?”

“oh, i don’t know,” you let out a sharp little laugh that held not an ounce of humor, “maybe sorry would be a good place to start?!” 

sukuna’s head tilted, “sorry.” 

you stared at him in utter disbelief before a laugh left you once more, this time softer and dripped in something worse than anger, “wow…” 

sukuna’s eyes borrowed, “what?” 

“you’re unbelievable is what!” 

“you asked for sorry.” 

“not like that!” you nsapped, voice rising just enough to have your cheeks flushing, “not like you’re apologizing for stepping on my shoe!”

his expression hardened slightly and you felt it immediately, the irritation beginning to curl beneath his skin. 

ugh, you hated how the closeness made both your emotions so heightened. 

though, you hoped he could feel your rage. 

"an apology isn't gonna change shit. won't make y'feel better either."

his words enraged you even more.

“you have no idea what you put me through,” you continued, voice trembling despite you rbest efforts, “none.” 

sukuna’s gaze darkened, “don’t do that.”

“do what?” 

“act like i wasn’t there too.” 

you blinked at him, something hot and ugly twisting in your chest. 

was he for real? 

“you were there?” you repeated quietly, “you were there?” 

his jaw clenched, “don’t-”

“no, please,” you leaned forward slightly, anger sharpening every word, “explain it to me. because to my knowledge, you were the one making my life miserable while i was the one trying to keep us both sane!”

sukuna looked at you for a long moment, jaw clenching and unclenching. the lights washed over his face in flashes of red, making him look even more unreal than he already did. 

“you think i wanted this?” he stated more than asked and your heart clenched. 

hurt shot through you, your eyes growing glassy against your will because you knew he wasn’t referring to the pain he’d put you through. 

he meant the soulmate thing in general, fate as a whole. 

he didn’t want you.

you bit the inside of your cheek, willing your tears to stay in your eyes before breathing out, “no. but neither did i.” 

silence settled between you then, not peaceful but loaded. 

sukuna could physically feel your hurt and his eyes dropped briefly to your hands where they trembled in your lap. 

your fingers curled instantly, too proud as you hid the movement. 

it was too late. he’d seen it. 

even worse, he’d felt it.

“i didn’t know.” he stated lowly and you froze. 

your eyes flickered up, “what?” 

his tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, expression unreadable. 

“at first,” he clarified, “i didn’t know what it did to you.” 

your chest tightening, knowing what he was referring to and his words didn’t soothe you in the slightest. 

“and after?” 

in fact, it made it all worse. 

especially as he said nothing. 

your face fell slightly, all the anger in you cooling into something quieter and melancholic. 

“after, you knew.” 

his gaze remained on you as his fingers flexed once against his thigh, “yeah, i knew.” 

your eyes burned and you hated yourself for it. you hated that it still hurt despite knowing already, you hated that hearing him say it aloud made it real in a way the bond never had. 

“why?” you asked, the one word absolutely humiliating as much as it was devastating. 

sukuna looked away first and somehow, that hurt too, “because it was easier.” 

your lips parted faintly, “easier?” 

he lout out a grunt, “if you hated me, you wouldn’t look for me.” 

the words settled between you like something deadly. 

for a second, you genuinely couldn’t speak. 

then you did, “that is the stupidest, shittiest thing i’ve ever heard.” 

hsi eyes snapped back to yours, scowling, “careful.” 

“oh, fuck you!” you hissed lowly, “you don’t get to do that! you don’t get to hurt me on purpose and then act like it was some noble sacrifice.” 

his jaw tightened, “it wasn’t noble.” 

“yeah, no shit.” 

“it was necessary.” 

you laughed once, incredulous, “necessary? well, congrats, you got what you wanted, i absolutely fucking despise you.” 

sukuna’s jaw clenched, eyes glaring at you, “good. because you don’t know shit about me, this saves us both the hassle.”

“i don’t know you?” you shot back, “i know you more than anyone, probably. i know your body hurts more often than they don’t. i know you clench your jaw when you’re mad. i know you can’t sleep because of your nightmares and unless somebody practcially forces your nervous system to shut down, you could go days without it. i know you’re so angry at the fucking world, it makes you so hateful.”

sukuna went still, too still. 

you swallowed hard, eyes burning once more, “and i know that for years, i was the one cleaning up the damage you left behind.” 

his eyes darkened, “cleaning up?” 

“yes,” your voice cracked despite yourself, “me. i was the one hugging myself to sleep because you wouldn’t. i was the one stretching every morning because your body always felt like fucking concrete. i was the one coloring like a goddamn toddler at three in the morning because it was the only thing that made your anger stop choking me!” 

sukuna said nothing and you hated that even more. 

you wanted him to argue back, to answer, to fucking care. 

“do you know how pathetic that feels?” you whispered, “taking care of someone who kept hurting me?” 

his expression shifted, barely, but you felt it again. 

the guilt, even deeper this time. 

sukuna looked at you like he wanted to say something cruel and couldn’t quite manage it, settling with, “you didn’t have to do all that.” 

your laugh came out watery, tears now trickling down your heated cheeks. 

fuck, you felt nauseous, you felt so fucking sick. 

“yeah, i know that now.” 

something passed across his face then, a flicker of pain so quick, you almost missed it. 

but the bond didn’t allow you to miss anything. you felt it bloom in your own chest, sharp and unwanted. his. 

for one terrible second, you almost let it soften you. 

almost. 

because there it was again. 

that tiny, stupid sliver of hope you’d spend years nurturing because it was the only thing that kept you mildly sane. 

the one that whispered that maybe he wasn't all cruelty. maybe there was something beneath all that violence and pain. 

maybe the boy who held a hot water bottle to his stomach when your cramps got bad had to exist somewhere inside the man sitting in front of you. 

you looked at him then, through your blurry vision, really and truly looked. 

the hard line of his jaw, the coldness in his eyes and the casual arrogance sitting across his shoulders like armor. 

and that hope crumbled quietly inside your chest. 

not dramatically or all at once, but piece by piece, like something old finally accepting it had been dead for a long time. 

utter disappointment filled you then. you should have known better. 

this shouldn't be surprising. 

sukuna had spent years telling you exactly who he was, painting you the worst image of himself and you had hoped it was just that. 

the worst of himself. 

except the worst was all of him. 

sukuna was cruel. not because he didn’t know better but because he did. 

because he’d known what hurt you and decided hurting you was easier than wanting you. 

you swallowed around the ache in your throat, suddenly exhausted in a way a thousand years of sleep couldn’t fix. 

all you wanted was to be home now, cuddled up with ani in your room alone. 

“right,” you whispered, nodding once to yourself. 

sukuna’s brows pulled together slightly, “right what?” 

you pushed yourself to your feet, smoothing trembling hands over the front of your skirt because you needed something to do. anything that didn’t involve looking at him. 

“this was enlightening.” 

his eyes narrowed, “sit down.” 

the command sparked something sharp beneath your ribs, the thorn twisting in your heart. 

you let out a hollow laugh, “fuck you.” 

his jaw flexed, “don’t make a scene.” 

your name left him then and you hated the way your stomach fluttered at the melody of it in his voice. 

fuck, your heart hurt. 

because he was your soulmate. yours.

because some sick, twisted part of you had expected the universe to redeem itself when you finally found him. 

you expected the first moment to feel like every story you’d grown up hearing, witnessed amongst your friends. 

warmth, recognition and relief. 

instead, you were standing in front of the man who had turned your body into a battlefield and your heart into collateral damage. 

“i hope i never see you again.” 

something flickered across his face then and you didn’t stay long enough to decipher it. 

you turned around, the crowd swallowing you almost immediately as you walked away. 

music slammed back into your skull, bodies pressing close as you pushed through them with shaking hands and blurred vision. 

your chest felt too tight, lungs too small for the oxygen your body ached for. 

behind you, you felt sukuna rise before you saw it. the immediate pull.

his presence growing closer and your heart stuttered stupidly. 

some miserable, pathetic part of you sparked alive at the thought before you could kill it. 

maybe he did care. 

maybe he was going to take back all the words he regretted, that he would stop you and apologize properly this time. 

he would say what you’ve been waiting years to feel. 

the thought was so humiliating, it almost made you sick. 

“fuck are you lookin’ at?!” 

you heard his voice aimed at the crowd of people that were watching you both, probably since your conversation on the couch. 

you shoved through the door and stepped into the narrow hallway outside the main room, the music muffling instantly behind you. 

the air was cooler here, damp with rain and cigarette smoke, blue neon bleeding through the cracked windows at the end of the corridor.

you took in a breath like you hadn’t breathed in days, eyes shutting as your heart hammered against your chest, trying to simply process everything that had taken place. 

“hey.” his voice followed you out and you froze, heart stilling. 

stupid, traitorous thing. 

you turned slowly, eyes fluttering open. 

sukuna stood a few feet away, tall and shadowed beneath the hallway light. 

away from the party, he seemed even more dangerous. less like a person and more like a warning your body had spent seven years failing to understand. 

he was an enigma. 

for one breath, neither of you spoke. 

your hope stood there too, fragile and shaking, fucking pitiful. 

waiting. 

sukuna’s gaze dragged over your face once, catching on the wetness beneath your eyes and his expression tightened faintly. 

say it, you thought bitterly. 

say sorry! say you didn’t mean it! 

say something!

his jaw worked once, “no one can know.” 

your brows furrowed, the hope dying cleanly. 

“excuse me?” 

sukuna stepped closer, voice lower now. 

his mouth opened to clarify when his gaze met your own once more. 

your wide glassy eyes. your pretty face that was streaked with tears, your plump bitten lips. 

the little sniffles that left you, making his ribs ache. 

and suddenly, he froze, the words stuck in his throat. 

fuck, he had to get it together. 

“about this.” 

your lips parted faintly, “about us?”

the word us felt absolutely pathetic in your mouth. 

all too soft and hopeful. undeserved, even. 

something in his eyes shifted at the sound of it but it was gone before you could hold onto it. 

“there is no us.” 

oh. you actually felt that one. 

not through the bond, nor as some phantom ache borrowed from him. 

the pain was yours, all yours. 

you laughed once, quiet and disbelieving as you took a small step back, “wow…”

sukuna followed you, taking one step forward as his jaw clenched, “listen to me-” 

“no,” you shook your head slowly, voice trembling, “no, i think i understand perfectly.” 

sukuna’s eyes darkened, “you really don’t.” 

“oh my god,” you shook your head, “i can’t believe i thought-” 

you stopped, humiliation burning up your throat. 

sukuna stared, taking a step closer, his chest now brushing your chin, “thought what?” 

his voice was almost desperate and you swallowed, blinking hard, “nothing.” 

his face tightened and he felt it anyway, of course he did. 

the hope and hurt. 

the fact that some tiny, unbearable part of you had wanted him to come after you because he simply couldn’t let you leave. 

sukuna looked away first as you took a step back. fucking coward. 

“it’s dangerous.” he stated as you stared at the side of his face.

“dangerous?” 

“yes.” 

“for who?” 

his gaze cut back to yours, “for you.” 

you almost laugh but he continued before you could. 

“people know me and if they know about you, they’ll use you. you make me weak.” 

the words landed colder than you'd expected. 

sukuna watched you closely, as if waiting for the fear to register and maybe it did. 

somewhere deep, deep down, but anger got there first. 

“so that’s what this is?” you whispered, tears leaving you without you noticing, “damage control?” 

his silence was answer enough and you nodded faintly, tears burning hot once more. 

“right.” 

“you need to keep your mouth shut about it.” 

you flinched before you could stop yourself and sukuna paused, regret flashing through instantly. 

“don’t talk to me like that.” you stated lowly and his jaw clenched. 

“i’m trying to keep you safe.” 

“oh, how big of you.” 

the hallway seemed to shrink around you both. 

outside, rain tapped gently against the glass. 

inside, bass thudded like a second heartbeat through the walls. 

you looked at him then, this man that fate had tied to you with an invisible string and cruelty dressed up as destiny. and for the first time since you’d felt him at sixteen, you stopped wondering what it would be like to find him. 

because now you knew and god, you wish you didn’t. 

it felt like losing something you’d never even had. 

“is that all?” you questioned lowly, clearing your throat once.

sukuna stared at you, nose flaring and throat bobbing once, “yeah.” 

another piece of you gave out as you nodded, “okay.” 

the word was so calm, it made his eyes sharpen. 

you turned away, walking past him but his hand caught your wirst before you could take  full step. 

skin met skin and the bond went silent, completely and utterly silent. 

no buzzing or aching or distance. 

just him, all warm and real. terribly real. 

your breath hitched at his touch. it was the first time he’d ever touched you. 

sukuna froze too, fingers wrapped around your wrist like he’d touched fire and couldn’t make himself pull away. 

for one second, just one, all the cruelty fell quiet. 

and you felt him beneath it, scared and lonely, wanting and waiting. 

you felt it and you hated him for letting you feel it now. 

slowly, you looked down at his hand then back up at him, “let go.” 

his grip tightened by a fraction, “this is the best thing for the both of us.” 

your face crumpled before you could stop it. 

you pulled your wrist free and this time, he let you. 

“oh, trust me, not having to be stuck with you? i couldn’t agree more.” venom laced your words as sukuna’s expression changed, tightened and you felt the hurt then. 

sharp and immediate and you were glad for it. 

you turned and walked away then, tears streaming down your cheeks and a sob left you as soon as you were out of his vicinity. 

for the first time, the bond didn't feel like a thread pulling you closer…

it felt like noose.

∞

an | was so late with this but had the worst past few days so SORRY! anyways PLSSS lmk what u think cuz i'm iffy abt the direction of this BUT this is lowk my fav thing i've written omg! this is kinda like a prologue pt2, next chapters will deffo be longer! i cannot wait to write more of these two and sukuna's a dick but bear w him ! also each chapter in the masterlist will be titled a song and i recommend listening to it while reading for the vibes 🫡

Winning Imola felt good.

It always did — the track, the flow, the way a lap could come together there like a sentence that finally made sense. The car had still been difficult, still on the edge of uncooperative, but he’d dragged it where it needed to go and stood on the top step anyway.

Applause. Champagne. Noise.

By the time Max made it back to the factory a few days later, the win had already settled into something quieter — pride instead of adrenaline. He expected congratulations. Handshakes. Smiles.

What he hadn’t expected was how clearly, immediately, he knew where he was going.

Charlotte’s desk sat where it always did: half-buried in screens, notes taped at precise angles, a mug that had definitely gone cold hours ago. She was leaning forward slightly, chin tucked, eyes fixed on a replay loop from the simulator, fingers tapping lightly against the desk as she thought.

Max stopped a few steps away, watching her for a moment.

Still pretty. Still focused. Still not looking at him.

He cleared his throat.

She glanced up. Recognition flickered — quick, contained.

“Hey,” she said.

Just that.

No excitement. No smile. No Imola! hanging in the air between them.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

“Well,” Max said finally, tilting his head, “we won.”

Charlotte nodded once. “Yes. Congratulations.”

That was it.

No follow-up questions. No gushing. No visible awe. She turned back to the screen, already rewinding a segment of the run.

Max frowned slightly. “…You saw the race?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And the mid-corner balance looked improved,” she said, still watching the data. “The correlation update helped.”

He blinked. “That’s—” He stopped himself, then tried again. “That’s all?”

Charlotte looked back at him properly this time, dark eyes assessing, not unkind — just curious. “Did you want something else?”

Max stared at her.

People usually did something when he won. Even people who tried very hard not to care still leaked enthusiasm at the edges. Pride. Excitement. Relief.

Charlotte just… processed it.

He shifted his weight, suddenly aware that this wasn’t going the way he’d pictured.

“I thought,” he said slowly, “you might be… impressed.”

She considered that. “I’m glad the work helped,” she said eventually. “But you’ve won races before.”

It wasn’t dismissive. It wasn’t rude. It was factual.

Max felt something unfamiliar flicker in his chest — not annoyance, not quite — more like disorientation. “…Right,” he said.

She tilted her head slightly, studying him now. “Is everything okay?”

He huffed out a small laugh despite himself. “Yeah. Just—”

He stopped. Tried to find the words.

Normally, this part was easy.

Normally, the women he was interested in reacted. There was a rhythm to it — admiration first, curiosity second, the unspoken understanding that this was impressive and he was part of it.

Charlotte wasn’t playing that game.

She wasn’t unimpressed.

She just wasn’t impressed by that.

“I just wanted to say hi,” he said finally.

She nodded. “Hi.”

Then, as if remembering something, she added, “Good drive.”

Two words. Earned. Clean.

Max felt more validated by that than he wanted to admit.

She turned back to her work, conversation clearly concluded.

Max stood there for a second longer than necessary, then walked away, hands in his pockets, brain spinning.

That had not gone according to plan.

At all.

He’d come expecting to dazzle her.

Instead, he’d been treated like a variable that performed as expected.

And for the first time in a long while, Max Verstappen found himself genuinely, deeply dumbfounded.

Which was… annoying.

And, inconveniently—

Kind of thrilling.

***

GP did not look surprised.

Which, frankly, offended Max a little.

They were walking down the corridor toward the sim wing, Max still buzzing with post-win energy that had nowhere to go, irritation prickling under his skin like static. He’d tried to ignore it. Failed. Badly.

“So,” Max said finally, unable to help himself, “I went to see Charlotte.”

GP hummed. Noncommittal. Dangerous. “And?” he asked.

Max stopped walking and turned on him. “She didn’t care.”

GP blinked. “About what.”

“About Imola,” Max said, exasperated. “About the win. About—” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Any of it.”

GP sipped his coffee. Took his time.

“She said congratulations,” Max added quickly. “But like. Professionally.”

GP stared at him for a long moment. Then: “Mate.”

Max folded his arms. “Don’t.”

“You have it bad.”

Max scoffed. “I do not.”

“You came to find me specifically to complain about a woman not being impressed by you winning a Grand Prix,” GP said evenly. “That’s not subtle.”

Max opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. “…She just went straight back to her screen,” he muttered. “Like I was a meeting reminder.”

GP nodded. “Sounds like Charlotte.”

Max frowned. “You know her?”

GP shrugged. “Some. Hannah does more. They’re friends through one of the other sim engineers.”

Max perked up despite himself. “They’re friends?”

“Yes,” GP said. “They talk. Coffee. Normal human things.”

Max exhaled. “Of course they do.”

GP gave him a sideways look. “You’re spiralling.”

“I am not spiralling.”

“You are,” GP said calmly, “standing in a hallway, emotionally compromised by a woman who complimented your driving efficiency instead of your ego.”

Max grimaced. “When you say it like that, it sounds —”

“It sounds accurate,” GP finished.

They resumed walking.

GP took another sip of coffee, then added casually, “Also, you need to recalibrate your expectations.”

Max shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

GP didn’t hesitate. “Charlotte has a Cambridge degree,” he said. “She’s been buried in sim models since she was about twenty-two. She’s not a wannabe model, influencer, or someone impressed by trophies.”

Max bristled. “I don’t only go for—”

GP raised an eyebrow.

Max sighed. “…Usually.”

“Exactly,” GP said. “She doesn’t orbit your world. She has her own. And she’s not going to perform admiration on command.”

Max stared ahead, jaw tight.

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care,” GP added. “It means you’re going to have to try something you’re not very good at.”

Max groaned. “What.”

“Being interesting without winning something,” GP said.

“That’s harsh.”

They walked in silence for a moment.

“…She said the car looked better,” Max muttered. “Said the correlation update helped. That it was a ‘Good Drive’.”

GP smiled faintly. “High praise. From her.”

Max glanced at him. “You think?”

“I know,” GP said. “If Charlotte Fischer tells you ‘good drive’ and means it, that’s about as close as you’ll get to a standing ovation.”

Max absorbed that slowly. Then, quieter: “I didn’t know what to do.”

GP looked at him then — really looked.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe this time, you’ll learn.”

Max huffed a reluctant laugh, shaking his head.

“I hate this,” he said.

GP smiled into his coffee.

“No,” he said. “You really, really don’t.”

***

Slack Channel:  #general-racing-not-business-definitely-not-gossip

Members: far too many Red Bull Racing employees

Aero_Matt:rumour check did max actually go to charlotte after imola expecting her to be impressed

Sim_Ruby:yes

Aero_Matt:oh my god

Garage_Pete:how bad was it

Sim_Ruby:she said congratulations and then went back to the model

Strategy_Leah:iconic

Composite_Tom:brutal

Powertrains_Nina:efficient

Garage_Pete:did she at least smile

Sim_Ruby:no

Aero_Matt:MAX VERSTAPPEN WON IMOLA AND GOT A CALENDAR NOTIFICATION RESPONSE

Comms_Jess:wait is charlotte even single

Aero_Matt:do we know literally anything about charlotte

Sim_Ruby:she has a cat

Garage_Pete:called tilly

Powertrains_Nina:tilly wears hats

Composite_Tom:crochet hats

Strategy_Leah:seasonal crochet hats

Comms_Jess:okay so we know cat lore do we know boyfriend lore

Sim_Ruby:no boyfriend has ever been mentioned

Aero_Matt:has ANY personal human ever been mentioned

Powertrains_Nina:hannah?

Garage_Pete:hannah is not charlotte’s boyfriend

Strategy_Hannah:Thank you for clarifying.

Comms_Jess:no but seriously she’s pretty, terrifyingly smart, has an expensive accent, went to cambridge, and max is acting like a teenage boy someone should know if she’s single

Composite_Tom:“expensive accent” is so real

Aero_Matt:she says “can’t” like there’s inheritance involved

Sim_Ruby:she was born in austria though

Comms_Jess:SHE WAS WHAT

Garage_Pete:welcome to charlotte lore part 2

Strategy_Leah:austrian but sounds like she was educated by the bbc

Powertrains_Nina:because she was

Aero_Matt:boarding school apparently

Comms_Jess:how do we know all this and still not know if she has a boyfriend

Sim_Ruby:to be fair charlotte doesn’t talk about herself

Composite_Tom:she once answered “did you have a good weekend?” with “it was operationally sufficient”

Garage_Pete:that’s romantic actually

Comms_Jess:max would probably propose if she said that to him

Engineering_GP:Do not give him ideas.

Aero_Matt:GP CONFIRMED MAX HAS IDEAS

Engineering_GP:I confirmed nothing.

Strategy_Hannah:You confirmed it by appearing.

Engineering_GP:I regret teaching any of you how to use Slack.

Comms_Jess:okay facts we know about Charlotte Fischer:

Austrian

Cambridge

sim engineer wizard

posh accent

cat named Tilly

crochets cat hats

immune to Max Verstappen Grand Prix victory flirting

possibly single

mysterious family situation??

Aero_Matt:what family situation

Sim_Ruby:her mother died, I think

Comms_Jess:oh

Powertrains_Nina:yeah. she doesn’t talk about it much.

Garage_Pete:does she have family here?

Sim_Ruby:not really, I don’t think

Composite_Tom:I’ve never heard her mention anyone

Strategy_Leah:she has Tilly

Strategy_Hannah:And before anyone gets weird: that is enough information.

Comms_Jess:understood

Aero_Matt:respecting boundaries in the gossip channel growth

Garage_Pete:wait wasn’t there also the cancer thing

Comms_Jess:the what

Sim_Ruby:Pete.

Garage_Pete:sorry

Strategy_Hannah:Careful.

Garage_Pete:no I mean not gossip way just like That why everyone is protective of her, right?

Powertrains_Nina:yes. partly.

Composite_Tom:she had a brain tumour a few years ago. she’s okay now.

Comms_Jess:oh my god

Strategy_Leah:she gets migraines sometimes. we cover when she’s out.

Comms_Jess:okay suddenly max having a crush is less funny and more like oh no he is going to be extremely sincere about this

Engineering_GP:Unfortunately, yes.

Aero_Matt:does max know about the cancer?

Strategy_Hannah:Not from this channel.

Sim_Ruby:good point

Garage_Pete:if max finds out he’s going to hover

Strategy_Leah:he already hovers

Composite_Tom:he does emotional hovering

Comms_Jess:what does emotional hovering look like

Sim_Ruby:asking whether the low-speed model has been updated when what he means is “is Charlotte here today”

Aero_Matt:walking past the sim wing three times

Powertrains_Nina:bringing coffee and pretending it was extra

Garage_Pete:liking Tilly’s strawberry bonnet at 01:13

Comms_Jess:HE DID WHAT

Strategy_Hannah:Please stop monitoring the man’s likes.

Aero_Matt:he followed a 39-follower cat account that’s public behaviour

Comms_Jess:back to the important bit how did max take charlotte not being impressed by imola

Engineering_GP:Badly.

Aero_Matt:details

Engineering_GP:No.

Strategy_Hannah:He complained that she “didn’t care.”

Composite_Tom:HAHAHAHA

Garage_Pete:world champion defeated by woman saying “expected performance”

Strategy_Leah:to be fair she did say good drive

Sim_Ruby:that is basically a standing ovation from Charlotte

Powertrains_Nina:that is Charlotte throwing underwear on stage

Strategy_Hannah:Nina.

Powertrains_Nina:sorry

Aero_Matt:did GP give him advice

Engineering_GP:I told him to be interesting without winning something.

Comms_Jess:that is the meanest and most useful advice I’ve ever heard

Garage_Pete:did he survive it

Engineering_GP:Barely.

Sim_Ruby:max has never had to flirt uphill before

Composite_Tom:flirt uphill 😭

Strategy_Leah:Charlotte is basically Eau Rouge emotionally

Strategy_Hannah:Difficult, fast, and punishes arrogance?

Engineering_GP:Accurate.

Sim_Ruby:I am gonna go and find out if Charlotte has a boyfriend. 

***

It happened over coffee.

It always did.

There was something about the Red Bull sim wing before ten in the morning that made people forget themselves. Maybe it was the bad coffee. Maybe it was the hours. Maybe it was the false intimacy of standing around half-awake with mugs in hand, pretending they were not all about to spend the day arguing with data that had the emotional temperament of a spoilt racehorse.

Charlotte had been halfway through explaining a small but irritating inconsistency in a tyre degradation model when one of the younger engineers, Ruby, — bright, well-meaning, and entirely too invested in the romantic prospects of everyone around them — looked at her over the rim of her mug.

“You know,” Ruby said, far too casually, “my friend is single.”

Charlotte paused. Only for a second. “No,” she said.

Ruby blinked. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to tell me he works in aero,” Charlotte replied, turning back toward the screen. “Possibly that he is tall. Probably that he is normal, which is never as reassuring as people think it is.”

A beat.

Ruby’s mouth fell open. “How did you—”

“You have tried this twice before.”

“I have not.”

“You have. Once with the gearbox analyst. Once with the composite materials guy who owned a bearded dragon.”

“He was lovely.”

“He brought the bearded dragon to a first date.”

“That shows commitment.”

“That shows poor judgment.”

Someone at the next desk laughed into their coffee.

Ruby, undeterred, leaned against the edge of Charlotte’s workstation. “Okay, but this one is different.”

“They never are.”

“He’s nice.”

“I’m sure.”

“Tall.”

“As predicted.”

“Works in aero.”

“Tragic.”

“And he’s normal.”

Charlotte looked at her then.

Ruby winced. “Okay, I hear it now.”

“Good.”

“Oh, come on,” Ruby said, laughing. “It’s just coffee. No pressure. You might like him.”

Charlotte’s face settled automatically into something pleasant and final.

“No, thank you.”

The words came easily.

Too easily.

They always had.

Ruby held her gaze for a moment, looking for a crack in the answer, some hidden hesitation she could widen into a yes. Charlotte gave her nothing.

Eventually, Ruby shrugged. “Fine. Your loss.”

“Statistically unlikely.”

That earned another laugh, and the conversation drifted back toward the model, toward tyre behaviour and track evolution and the clean relief of problems that did not ask to be loved.

Charlotte appreciated that.

She appreciated people who knew when to stop.

Still, the thought followed her after Ruby left.

It sat beside her through the next simulation review, quiet and unwelcome. It lingered when she corrected an input error, when she sent an update to Hannah, when she stood by the coffee machine later and realised she had forgotten to drink the first cup entirely.

Dating required openness.

Not the fashionable kind of vulnerability people discussed in seminars, all neat language and tidy conclusions. Not the sort of thing that could be packaged into a sentence about communication styles.

Real openness.

The kind that meant letting someone close enough to see the places where you had learned not to expect much.

Charlotte did not have that in her anymore.

Or maybe she had once, and it had been worn away so gradually she had not noticed until it was gone. Either way, she had lost the ability to trust gently a very, very long time ago.

She had never had a boyfriend.

Not in school, where safety had felt temporary and affection like something that could be revoked without warning. She had been too busy learning which version of herself took up the least space.

Not at Cambridge, where she had worked until her eyes burned and her hands cramped, pouring herself into problem sets, libraries, lectures, late-night calculations, anything that could be solved by discipline. People had flirted. Some had even been kind about it. She had deflected them all with essays and deadlines and the cold, efficient belief that competence was a better investment than connection.

There had always been something more important.

Then there had been the cancer.

That had settled the matter in a very definitive way.

Charlotte still remembered the room where the doctor told her.

Sterile walls. Too-bright lights. 

A poster about neurological symptoms curling slightly at one corner. The careful, gentle cadence of a specialist explaining timelines and treatment options and probabilities as if kindness could soften the shape of the words.

Tumour.

Surgery.

Radiation.

Chemotherapy.

Monitoring.

Support.

They had said that word several times.

Support.

As if it were a thing a person could simply decide to have.

Charlotte had sat with her hands folded in her lap, listening carefully, asking precise questions, nodding in the appropriate places. And somewhere beneath the clinical calm, a thought had arrived with perfect clarity.

This is not something you ask someone to share.

Nobody should be burdened with that.

The fear. The uncertainty. The possibility that she might disappear halfway through someone loving her.

She had survived, yes.

But survival had come with a cost.

It had taught her to carry her own weight and then some. To plan for the worst and apologise for nothing. To assume that if life dropped something unbearable into her hands, it was still her responsibility to hold it.

Opening herself up enough to let someone in would mean explaining too much.

Her mother.

Her father.

The house where she had learned to be silent.

The years no one had come for her.

The scars, visible and otherwise.

Charlotte no longer knew how to do that without flinching.

So she didn’t.

It was easier that way.

Cleaner.

By the time Charlotte got home that evening, the migraine had settled in properly.

Not the sharp kind. Not the kind that made her vision blur at the edges and forced her immediately into darkness.

This was duller. Heavier. A pressure wrapped around her skull like a hand tightening very slowly, making the world feel faintly misaligned, as though everything was half a second behind where it ought to be.

She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.

For a moment, she stayed there.

Bag dropped at her feet.

Forehead pressed against the cool wood.

Breathing.

In.

Out.

Again.

It was not panic.

It never was anymore.

But migraines still carried echoes.

Pressure behind the eye. Light sensitivity. The low, traitorous whisper at the back of her mind: you have felt this before.

Charlotte closed her eyes.

“I know,” she murmured, to no one in particular. “I know.”

A soft, questioning noise answered from the hallway.

Charlotte opened her eyes and looked down.

Tilly sat on the floor, tail curled neatly around her paws, a round orange face tilted up in stern disapproval. She looked profoundly unimpressed by human frailty.

“You’re right,” Charlotte said quietly. “I’m late.”

Tilly blinked.

Judgment, but with affection.

Probably.

Charlotte kicked off her shoes and padded into the living room, switching off the overhead light before it could worsen the pressure behind her eyes. She left only the small lamp on near the sofa, its glow low and amber.

Muscle memory.

Survival habits never quite left. They only softened around the edges until they looked like preferences.

Tilly followed at her heels.

Charlotte sank onto the couch carefully, one hand pressed against her temple. The migraine pulsed, insistent but contained.

Unpleasant.

Not alarming.

She repeated that to herself automatically.

Unpleasant. Not alarming.

Still, every migraine carried the echo of hospital lights. Of MRI machines humming too close to her skull. Of doctors speaking gently in that terrible voice people used when they were about to change your life.

It’s probably nothing, they had said at first.

It had not been nothing.

Tilly jumped up beside her without waiting for an invitation, circled once, then climbed into Charlotte’s lap with the deliberate gravity of a creature who considered herself medically essential.

Charlotte exhaled.

“There you are,” she whispered.

Tilly tucked herself against Charlotte’s stomach, purring almost immediately.

Charlotte let her head fall back against the couch.

“Cancer cat,” she murmured, resting one hand on Tilly’s warm back.

Tilly flicked an ear.

Charlotte had gotten Tilly on a Tuesday.

Charlotte remembered that with unreasonable clarity.

The shelter had smelled of disinfectant, old blankets, and damp fur. Charlotte had still been wearing the blouse she wore to the appointment. She remembered that too. White. Stupid choice. Too formal for a diagnosis, too ordinary for the fact that her life had just split neatly into before and after.

The doctor’s voice had still been in her head.

We caught it early.

The prognosis is good.

You’ll need support.

She had not called her father.

She had not called anyone.

Instead, she had gone to the shelter on the way home, because some part of her had known before the rest of her caught up that she could not return to an empty flat with a brain tumour and nothing alive waiting for her.

Tilly had been in the last cage.

Quiet. Watchful. Recently surrendered.

Not performing charm. Not pawing at the bars. Not begging to be chosen.

Just sitting there, looking at Charlotte with an expression that seemed to say, Well?

Charlotte had crouched in front of the cage.

Tilly had stared back.

And Charlotte had thought, with startling, absurd clarity: If I die, this cat will not understand why I left.

So she had stayed.

Through surgery.

Through radiation.

Through the long, ugly recovery no one put in pamphlets properly — the fatigue, the dizziness, the fear disguised as medical vigilance, the slow crawl back into a body that no longer felt entirely trustworthy.

She had stayed because every evening there was a cat waiting to be fed.

A cat waiting to complain.

A cat waiting to climb onto her chest as if she could hold Charlotte’s soul in place by sheer stubbornness.

Charlotte stroked Tilly’s fur now, slow and steady, feeling the vibration of her purr seep through her hand and into her bones.

“I stayed,” she whispered. “See?”

Tilly pressed closer.

The migraine dulled, fractionally.

Outside, the world went on. Rumours, races, strategy calls, factory gossip, the noise of a season slowly trying to eat itself alive.

Inside, there was low light, warm fur, and the steady proof of something Charlotte still struggled to name.

Not happiness, exactly.

Not peace.

But life.

Chosen once.

Chosen again.

Chosen every day since.

Charlotte closed her eyes and let herself rest beneath the weight of the cat who had once made survival feel less like an obligation and more like a promise.

Just for a moment.

Just long enough to remember why she was still here.

***

The simulator room was wrong.

Not silent — the simulator room was never silent. There was always the low electrical hum of machinery, the faint murmur of engineers speaking in half-sentences, the click of keys, the shuffle of someone moving between consoles with a coffee in one hand and three problems in the other.

But it was missing something.

Max noticed before he meant to.

A rhythm.

A presence.

The far console, usually lit before the rest of the room had properly settled, was dark.

Charlotte’s chair was empty.

Max pulled off his gloves slowly, gaze lingering on the workstation as if she might appear if he looked long enough. Which was stupid. He knew it was stupid. He had known her properly for only a handful of weeks, and yet somehow his brain had already started cataloguing the room by whether or not Charlotte Fischer was in it.

He looked away.

“Where’s Charlotte?” he asked.

Casual.

Perfectly casual.

Like he had simply noticed a missing engineer and not the absence of a particular woman with short dark hair, dark eyes, and the ability to make him feel like an idiot by raising one eyebrow.

One of the sim engineers looked up from their laptop. “She called in sick.”

Max nodded. “Oh.”

The word landed badly.

Too heavy.

Too obvious.

He made himself set his gloves down.

Another engineer, older and more familiar, grimaced slightly. “Yeah. Migraines.”

Max paused. “Migraines?”

“Yeah.”

“She gets those a lot?”

The engineer hesitated.

It was small. Barely anything. But Max noticed it the way he noticed hesitation in a car before it snapped.

The first engineer glanced at the second.

The second shrugged. “After the brain tumour,” they said. “Yeah. Sometimes they’re brutal.”

Max went still.

For a second, the hum of the room seemed to flatten into one long, dull note.

“…The what?”

Both engineers looked at him.

The older one’s expression shifted first.

Realisation. Then regret.

“Oh,” they said slowly. “You didn’t know.”

Max shook his head once.

“No.”

The answer came out too quiet.

There was another pause, and this one was heavier. A silent exchange moved between the two engineers — not gossip, not panic, just the quick calculation of people who had learned there were things you handled carefully because Charlotte mattered.

That, somehow, made it worse.

The younger engineer spoke first, voice gentler now.

“She had cancer. A few years ago. Brain tumour.” He said it plainly, without drama, which only made the words more brutal. “She survived. Obviously. But the migraines stuck around.”

Max stared at them.

Brain tumour.

Cancer.

The words did not fit.

They refused to attach themselves to the woman he knew — precise, contained Charlotte, who rewound sim runs with a frown of intense concentration and spoke about flawed modelling assumptions like the data had personally betrayed her.

Charlotte, who crocheted tiny hats for her cat.

Charlotte, who had looked at him after Imola like winning a Grand Prix was a perfectly normal thing for a Grand Prix driver to have done.

Charlotte, who had made the car honest again.

“She’s fine now,” the engineer added quickly, as if Max had asked. As if the room could feel the sudden, sharp drop in him. “It’s not… I mean, they monitor everything. She’s okay. It’s just that sometimes her body reminds her.”

Max nodded.

He did not trust himself to speak.

Sometimes her body reminds her.

He looked toward the empty console again.

Her screens were off.

Her chair pushed in.

A neat absence.

The older engineer followed his gaze and sighed softly. “We basically force her to stay home when it hits.”

Max’s eyes moved back to them.

“Force her?”

“She’d work through it otherwise.”

“Of course she would,” the younger engineer muttered, fond and exasperated. “Last time she tried to remote into the model review from her sofa with one eye open.”

“She lasted eleven minutes,” the older one said. “Then Hannah threatened to change her passwords.”

Despite himself, Max almost smiled.

Almost.

“She’s stubborn,” the younger engineer said.

“Brilliant,” the other added. “But stubborn.”

Then their tone shifted, just slightly. Firmer. Protective.

“And we don’t mess around with it. If Charlotte says she’s not okay, she’s not okay. End of.”

Max looked between them.

That was when he saw it properly.

Not pity.

Not curiosity.

Not the strange, hungry interest people sometimes had in someone else’s tragedy.

This was different.

Quiet. Unshowy. Absolute.

They protected her.

Not because she had asked them to. 

Max suspected Charlotte Fischer rarely asked anyone for anything.

They protected her because they had decided she was theirs.

The sim department’s. Red Bull’s, in that strange, territorial way the team had with people it loved.

The same way half the building treated Max like he was both weapon and child.

Except Charlotte had earned it without ever inviting it.

Something tightened in Max’s chest.

“How long has she been here?” he asked.

“Since she graduated,” the younger engineer said. “Cambridge. Straight in.”

“Barely took time off even then,” the older one added. “Had to be bullied into it, obviously.”

Max let out a slow breath.

Cambridge.

Austria.

Boarding school.

The cat account.

Cancer.

Migraines.

The pieces rearranged themselves, but they still did not make a full picture. If anything, they made less sense now. Or maybe they made too much.

Charlotte’s composure. Her distance. The way she did not waste energy trying to be liked. The way she treated praise like a weather report. The way she had made herself necessary and still somehow almost invisible.

“She never talks about it,” Max said.

It was not really a question.

“No,” the older engineer replied. “And we don’t push.”

The younger one glanced toward Charlotte’s empty console, expression softening. “She earned that.”

Max nodded once.

He understood that.

More than he expected to.

There were things people did not get to know simply because they were curious.

There were parts of a person that had to be offered, not taken.

Still, the knowledge sat badly in him.

He had gone to her desk after Imola wanting her to be impressed.

The memory turned sour now.

He had stood there with a trophy somewhere in the building and a win still fresh in everyone’s mouth, waiting for Charlotte Fischer to look at him like he was extraordinary.

And she had survived a brain tumour.

Of course she had not cared about Imola the way he wanted her to.

Of course she had looked at him like winning was simply what he was supposed to do.

Her scale for important had been rewritten by things he had not even imagined.

Max swallowed.

“Right,” he said finally. “Okay.”

It was neither right nor okay, but there was nothing else to say.

He turned back toward the simulator, movements automatic. Helmet. Seat. Straps. Wheel. Systems coming online around him, the familiar ritual settling over his body even as his mind stayed fixed on the empty workstation beyond the glass.

The run began.

The car loaded.

The model waited.

Max stared at the screen for a moment longer than necessary.

He was supposed to be thinking about balance. Entry instability. Rear load. The thousand problems of a car that wanted to punish him for believing in it too much.

Instead, he thought about Charlotte sitting alone somewhere with a migraine bad enough to keep her away from the one place she seemed to prefer over people.

He thought about her colleagues closing ranks without needing to discuss it.

He thought about a woman who had survived something enormous and then returned to work as if that were the logical next step.

A few days ago, he had been curious about her.

Annoyingly curious.

Embarrassingly curious.

He had wanted to know why she sounded British when she was Austrian. Why she crocheted hats for her cat. Why she looked at him like he was a variable instead of a world champion.

Now the curiosity had changed shape.

It had become concern.

Not abstract. Not polite.

Personal.

Max tightened his hands on the wheel.

That was inconvenient.

That was dangerous.

That was very, very bad.

Through the glass, Charlotte’s console remained dark.

Max looked at it once more.

Then he drove.

***

Max found Hannah exactly where he expected to find her.

In her office. Half-hidden behind two monitors, shoulders rounded toward a screen full of data, a mug beside her hand that had probably been hot once in a previous lifetime.

She looked up when he knocked.

Then immediately narrowed her eyes.

“You have a face,” she said.

Max paused in the doorway. “I always have a face.”

“No,” Hannah said. “You have that face. The one where you are about to ask a question you have already decided is casual, even though it absolutely is not.”

Max exhaled through his nose and leaned one shoulder against the doorframe.

“I found out about Charlotte.”

Hannah’s expression changed.

Not dramatically. Not with alarm.

Just softer.

“Oh,” she said.

That confirmed it before she said anything else.

Max’s jaw tightened.

“They said she called in sick. Migraine.”

Hannah nodded once. “Yeah. That happens sometimes.”

“Because of the tumour.”

She watched him for a moment, measuring how much he knew and how much he was trying very hard not to show he cared.

“Yes,” she said eventually. “Brain tumour. Cancer. A few years ago.”

The words were not new anymore. He had already heard them in the sim room.

They still landed badly.

Max looked down at the floor, then back at her. “She’s okay?”

“If it’s one of the migraines, she’ll be fine in a day or two,” Hannah said. “She knows her limits.”

Max gave her a look.

Hannah sighed. “Mostly.”

That sounded more like Charlotte.

“She tries to work through them?”

“Of course she does,” Hannah said, as if this was a deeply irritating fact of nature. “Because apparently surviving cancer did not teach her that rest is not a moral failure.”

Max’s mouth pressed into a line.

Hannah leaned back in her chair.

“She doesn’t like people making a thing out of it,” she added. “She doesn’t hide it exactly, but she doesn’t volunteer it either. It’s not how she wants people to see her.”

“No,” Max said quietly. “I can understand that.”

Hannah studied him.

There was too much understanding in her face.

Max hated that.

He shifted, folding his arms. “So she’s alone?”

Hannah blinked.

“Alone?”

“At home,” Max clarified too quickly. “I mean, if she has a migraine. Is someone there? A boyfriend or something?”

Silence.

It lasted half a second too long.

Then Hannah’s eyebrows rose.

Max immediately regretted everything.

“Oh,” she said.

“No.”

“Oh, Max.”

“I am just asking.”

“No, you are absolutely not just asking.”

He straightened. “It’s a normal question.”

“It became abnormal the second you said boyfriend or something like the word boyfriend was trying to murder you.”

Max looked away. “Forget I asked.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Hannah.”

“She’s single,” Hannah said, far too calmly.

Max’s eyes flicked back to her before he could stop them.

Hannah saw it.

Of course she saw it.

Her smile sharpened.

“She lives alone,” she continued. “A few minutes from campus. Quiet flat. One cat. No boyfriend. No secret husband. No dramatic situationship with an aero engineer, despite several people’s attempts.”

Max absorbed that with a level of interest he did not want to examine.

“Oh,” he said.

Hannah’s smile became unbearable.

“Right,” he added, because apparently he was determined to make it worse.

She rested her chin in her hand.

“You want to check on her.”

“No,” Max said automatically.

Hannah waited.

He made it three seconds.

“…Maybe.”

“There it is.”

“I can’t just show up at her apartment,” he said. “That’s weird.”

“It can be weird,” Hannah allowed.

Max stared at her. “That is not helpful.”

“It depends how you do it.”

“How is there a non-weird way to show up at someone’s home when they’re sick?”

“By not making it about yourself,” Hannah said simply. “By bringing something useful. By leaving if she wants you to leave. By not expecting gratitude, vulnerability, or a scene from a romantic comedy.”

Max frowned. “I don’t want a romantic comedy.”

“No,” Hannah said. “You want a woman who doesn’t care that you won Imola to let you care about her without biting your head off.”

Max opened his mouth. Closed it. “That is very specific.”

“And yet accurate.”

He rubbed a hand over his face.

“I don’t even know her that well.”

“No,” Hannah agreed. “You don’t.”

That should have helped.

It did not.

“But you know enough to be worried,” she added.

Max looked at her.

Hannah’s voice softened. “And for Charlotte, someone being worried without trying to take over is not the worst thing in the world.”

“She doesn’t need me checking on her.”

“No,” Hannah said. “She doesn’t need anyone.”

That hit him harder than expected.

Because Hannah did not say it admiringly.

She said it like it was a fact and a wound at the same time.

Max looked toward the corridor, though Charlotte was not there. Her empty console flashed in his mind again. Dark screens. Chair pushed in. The whole room subtly wrong without her.

“She would hate people fussing,” he said.

“She would despise it.”

“So I should not fuss.”

“Correct.”

“But checking is different?”

“It can be.”

Max huffed. “You are being very unhelpful for someone who knows her.”

“I know her well enough to know she won’t want pity,” Hannah said. “And I know you well enough to know pity is not what this is.”

Max went still.

Hannah let that sit for a moment.

Then she stood, picking up her tablet.

“Don’t overthink it.”

“That is impossible.”

“For you, apparently.” She moved around the desk, then paused beside him. “Bring normal things. Migraine-safe things. Crackers. Electrolytes. Nothing scented. Nothing loud. Don’t knock like the police. If she opens the door and tells you to go away, go away.”

Max nodded slowly, committing the list to memory with the same seriousness he gave race strategy.

Hannah looked at him and sighed.

“Oh, you are completely doomed.”

“I am not.”

“Max,” she said, almost fond now. “You came into my office to ask whether Charlotte Fischer has a boyfriend because you heard she has a migraine.”

He said nothing.

There was really nothing useful to say.

Hannah patted his arm once as she passed.

“She lives on Hawthorn Close,” she said. “Number twelve. I did not tell you that.”

Max stared after her.

“That seems very much like you told me.”

“No,” Hannah called over her shoulder. “I merely released information into the room. What you do with it is between you, your conscience, and whatever terrible romantic instincts you apparently have.”

“Hannah.”

She glanced back, smiling now.

“You really do have it bad.”

Then she was gone, leaving Max alone in her office doorway with Charlotte’s address in his head, concern sitting uncomfortably behind his ribs, and the deeply inconvenient realisation that, for once, winning something would not help him at all.

He stopped. eyes landing on Yuji, then the running sink, then the soaked phone in Yuji’s hands.

Silence. A really bad silence.

“…what the fuck did you do?”

Yuji froze, his tiny shoulders shot up to his ears. “I-I didn’t mean—”

“The hell happened to my phone?”

Yuji’s lip immediately started wobbling. Sukuna stormed forward and ripped the phone out of his hands. Water dripped all over his fingers. His face twisted instantly.

“You put my phone in water?!”

“It had fingerprints—”

“ARE YOU STUPID?”

Yuji physically flinched.

“I was cleaning it—”

“With SOAP?!” Sukuna snapped. “Who the hell washes a phone in the sink?!” Yuji looked seconds away from crying now.

“I didn’t know…”

“This was a brand new fucking phone.”

Tiny sniffle.

“You can’t just throw electronics into water because they’re dirty, dumbass.”

Yuji’s eyes filled immediately, but Sukuna was still too pissed to notice.

“You know how expensive this shit was? Huh?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Sorry doesn’t magically fix it.”

Yuji’s breathing started getting shaky. The second Sukuna saw that trembling little face, his expression flickered for half a second, but he was still angry.

“So now I gotta waste money replacing it because you decided to play housekeeper?”

Yuji’s chin crumpled. That was it, he turned around and bolted. Little socked feet slapping loudly against the hallway floor while Sukuna stood there holding the dead phone.

“…oh, for fuck’s sake.”

A second later your bedroom door slammed open. You looked up from your phone just in time to see a tiny pink-haired blur launch himself onto the bed.

“Save me!”

Yuji crashed into you and immediately tried climbing into your lap.

“What happened?” you laughed softly, already rubbing his back.

“Sukuna hates me,” Yuji whispered miserably. You frowned a little.

Then Sukuna appeared in the doorway looking furious, soaked phone still in his hand. “He washed my fucking phone.”

Yuji hid his face against your chest instantly. “It was a accident…”

“He put it under running water.”

“It had fingerprints…”

Sukuna stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“IT’S A PHONE. NOT A PLATE.”

You bit the inside of your cheek trying not to smile. “He was trying to help.”

“I don’t give a fuck, he broke it!”

Yuji squeezed your hoodie tightly.

“…are you gonna throw me away?”

The room instantly went silent, Sukuna’s anger visibly cracking. Yuji looked genuinely terrified now. Like he actually thought he’d ruined everything. Sukuna stared at him for a long moment before swearing quietly under his breath.

“…kid.”

Yuji sniffled.

“I didn’t mean to…”

Sukuna rubbed hard at his face with one hand. When he spoke again, he still sounded rough, but not nearly as sharp.

“I’m not gonna throw you away, idiot.”

“You yelled really loud…”

“Yeah, cause I was pissed off.”

Yuji flinched again, which made Sukuna immediately look annoyed at himself now.

“But not at you,” he muttered. “At the phone.”

Yuji peeked up carefully.

“…really?”

“Yeah, really.”

You watched the anger slowly drain from Sukuna’s face the more he looked at Yuji trying not to cry. His shoulders dropped a little.

“This is why kids shouldn’t touch expensive shit,” he grumbled.

Yuji sniffled harder. “I can give you my piggy bank…”

Sukuna snorted before he could stop himself. “…you have twelve dollars in there.”

“It’s thirteen now,” Yuji whispered.

“You’re not paying me thirteen bucks for a thousand dollar phone, dumbass.”

Yuji crawled a little closer toward the edge of the bed. “You still mad?”

“A little.”

Yuji immediately hid again.

“But,” Sukuna sighed, reaching over to flick Yuji lightly on the forehead, “I’m not mad enough to stop loving you. So quit lookin’ at me like I’m gonna put you up for adoption.”

Yuji blinked. “…what’s adoption?”

“You ask too many questions.”

You laughed quietly while Yuji finally gave a tiny giggle into your shoulder. After a minute, Yuji carefully held his arms up toward Sukuna, a silent request. Sukuna stared at him.

“You were just hiding from me.”

“Carry me pwease.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

Still, Sukuna scooped him up with one arm. Yuji instantly wrapped around him like a baby monkey.

“…you still love me?” Yuji asked quietly.

Sukuna looked offended. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “Unfortunately.” Yuji giggled softly against his shoulder. Sukuna adjusted him higher on his hip before muttering, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I said sorry…”

“You also broke my phone.”

“It was dirty.”

Sukuna stared at the ceiling for a long moment like he was asking for strength. Then he sighed and pressed a quick rough kiss to the top of Yuji’s pink hair. “Next time,” he muttered, “you ask before cleaning expensive shit.”

Yuji nodded seriously.

“…okay.” A pause. “Can I wash your laptop too?”

“Absolutely the fuck not.”

★ james

★ martin

★ juhoon

★ seonghyeon

★ keonho

★ various

Alas, Choso’s resigned himself to accept the fact that maybe - just maybe - this was the universe’s way of telling him that his pretty best friend was indeed too good for him. Something he’s suspected ever since the both of you were eight.

The realization had hit him like a semi-truck back then - five of them, in fact. And a whole zoo of animals afterward.

Of course, it’s not like that was any secret. He always thought you were perfect from the second you’d moved in - that new family next door he’d been eagerly waiting ages to arrive. And Choso, being the dutiful oldest son, was the one to deliver welcome cookies to your doorstep. Stumbling, and carefully trying to reach for the doorbell without dropping any. 

“Um, welcome to-”

“Your hair’s funny.”

Now, Choso’s never greeted neighbors before, but it surely wasn’t supposed to go like this. Why was he being insulted by some little girl - you were missing a few teeth, and his had just grown back in so obviously he was much older and wiser. All unapologetic smiles and twinkling eyes as you blink up curiously at his space buns. Pretty, even when you were tearing his heart out because hey, he thought this hairstyle was cool, okay?

Which is what had him huffing and puffing back home, running straight into the arms of his dad while he tried not to cry. That is, until you came knocking at his door with your parents. Very much bawling and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug with wet mumbles of “M’sorry, meant your hair’s very cool. Wanna match-”

And, if his cheeks burned just a bit, well, Choso blamed the tears. 

After a disaster like that, of course you’d grow to be best friends within the day. 

But what that didn’t explain was when - after hours of bickering over whether to play tag or house - you were all tuckered out and sat beside him in a corner of his room, too exhausted to talk his ear off. Head lolling once. Twice. Falling softly onto his shoulder.

Oh. 

Now, Choso might just be having the first epiphany of his entire, grueling eight years in this world - that you were very, very pretty fast asleep with your head on his shoulder. 

Why? Why were you here barging into his life and turning it upside down? Calling him your “new best friend” and dragging him along wherever you went. It made his poor head absolutely spin, not daring to move a muscle so that you didn’t wake up and see this tiny predicament.

He didn’t know why. But what he did know was that he found himself subconsciously reaching for your hand, a strange little part of himself wanting to see how much smaller they were than his. They looked so soft and warm and-

“I WANNA PLAY T- Oh.”

Oh indeed. He hastily lurches away from you like it burned, hands raised like he was caught red-handed. Feeling slightly sorry when he sees you blinking away the sleep to take in your surroundings, eyes bouncing off of a very excited Yuji and resting on the clock.

“Oh no. Mommy’s gonna be mad.” you gasp, hastily getting up. And he feels a weird pang as you quickly dust down your dress, running out the door with a laughed out, “Bye, Yuji! See ya later, Cho~!”

“Bye, crybaby.”

And then it’s quiet. Only Choso still staring after you, and Yuji staring at his older brother, somewhat awestruck and wondering only one thing-

“Big bro, why are you so red?”

Choso doesn’t think he’s gotten a moment alone with you since that first initial meeting. 

Fourteen was definitely the worst, in his opinion.

“Hey, Cho, y’know the girl sitting next to me in math said she had her first kiss today.”

“Oh.” It’s all Choso can manage to get out, paying more attention than he should to the gravel beneath him as he tries not to trip over air beside you. Hot under his uniform collar at the sudden shift in conversation from the usual after-school banter. 

Looping your arm with his, you heave out a playful sigh, “I wonder what that feels like. Have you ever thought about it?” 

No, but Choso has never thought that he’d be here - face burning at your body pressed up against his. Just knowing that his ancestors above are laughing at what a loser he is, barely able to stammer out an answer to your question. 

Okay, maybe he was being dramatic. Because it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about kissing before - it’s just that whenever it popped into his mind, you were usually accompanying him. Along with those strange thoughts of whether your lips are as soft as they looked? Or would your heartbeat be as fast as-

“Man, are you even listening?” 

Shit. 

Your hand waving in front of Choso’s face brings him back to reality. Blinking hastily, he tries to gather his thoughts, mumbling out a quick, “Uh, yeah, sorry. Just lost in thought.” averting his gaze as he feels the heat rise to his cheeks at your intense gaze.

Your smile only widens, a mischievous glint in your eyes as you nudge his side. “Thinking so hard about kissing, huh? Cho, you lecher!” 

“Am not.”

“Am to.”

“Am not.”

“Am to.”

“Who were you imagining it with, huh? Gonna give ‘em a big smooch tomorrow?”

God, you were going to be the death of him. “N-no! I haven’t even- shut up, crybaby, it’s not like-” he sputters out useless protests over your laughter - his favorite song, even when you were teasing the hell out of him. But ah how you relish in his embarrassment, tittering out little giggles all the way until you’re steering him onto your lane. 

Choso, on the other hand, keeps wishing the ground would swallow him up more and more with each step towards his porch. He’d have broken into a sprint right then if he hadn’t known you and the way you’d race him there instead.

“Alright.” you declare once you’re stood at his front door, jolting Choso out of his reverie. And he’s barely opening his mouth to register your words before you plowing on confidently. “We’ll just have to practice our first kisses with each other.”

Perfect. Great. Wonderful. 

The final nail on his coffin. You might as well have planted a bombshell right in the middle of his already-chaotic world with the way he was reeling in- shock? Fear? Anticipation?

“Practice.” Choso whispers, more to himself than you. Yet you nod anyway, eyes locked with his like you were studying his reaction. “For…practice.”

Doubt starts to creep into your pretty features, “Well, we don’t have to if you do-”

“No no no no, I want- ahem.” he cringes at the pathetic desperation in his voice. Desperately trying to scramble back some semblance of sanity as he clears his throat, “I want to. Just-” Choso urgently looks around for- ah, there it is. 

Dragging over the brick from the side of his porch because goddammit he might be 14 but he sure hadn’t hit that growth spurt yet. “Practice, right?”

You nod with a fiery determination that, later on, would make Choso chuckle with fondness. Muttering out a firm, “Practice.” Letting the boy in front of you nervously leans closer, breath fanning your face. And shit if you were nervous then you didn’t show it, but Choso felt like he was about to spontaneously combust. 

Brows furrowing in concentration, eyes only squinting ever-so-slightly as he takes peaks at how pretty you looked. Close enough that he could count every lash as your pretty eyes closed shut, lips glistening with that strawberry chapstick you loved, puckering adorably. Only inching closer and-

Click! 

“You two are so cute! But um- dear, how do you mute this thing?”

You spring apart so fast that Choso wouldn’t be surprised if you’d teleported. He doesn’t even know what’s happening before, from the safety of about three meters away from him, you’re muttering out an embarrassed little, “Hi there, Mr. Itadori. The gardenia are coming along nicely.”

His dad smiles like he hadn’t just starred in what was likely Choso’s villain origin story. Waving happily, “Aww, thank you, sweetheart. Now, why don’t you two go back to doing your lil’ thing and I can ah- practice my photography.”

“Dad, I’m running away.”

That practice kiss never happens. And, well, if there was a proudly framed photo down the hallway of the two of you - with Choso absolutely bright red and standing comically on a brick to meet your height, faces nervously scrunching towards each other - well, neither of you ever mention it. Jin Itadori does, though - every time you come over, in fact. 

It’s only when you’re both eighteen, when Choso’s a lot deeper in his feelings - and only slightly less embarrassed about it - that he thinks that maybe not all family interruptions were that bad. 

Graduation was…something. Not exactly something that he’s sure if he’ll ever want to relive with the sheer amount of awkward photos and tears that his dad lets out. God if he has to shuffle into another-

“You alright, Cho?”

Ah. 

Traitorously, a smile makes its way onto his face, peering down at your beaming face. Both of you having made it way past the awkward early teens. Well, at least you certainly have - Choso still feels like the same awkward little boy with an even more awkward crush. “Hm? Yeah, m’great.” 

“Are ya sure? Because you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm any second now.” you raise a brow teasingly. Ah, how gorgeous you were - even when you’re picking him apart. 

“Yeah. Great. Only had this smile plastered on for the last five hours.”

“Aww, but you look so pretty smiling.” you shrug, with the audacity of someone that didn’t just have Choso’s knees dangerously weak. “Anyway- A bunch of us are gonna try to convince ol’ Yaga to let us take photos with his shades, you wanna come?”

“You think m’pretty?” he muses, embarrassingly late.

“Cho.”

“Yaga. Shades. Got it.” Choso mock salutes, drinking in the little laugh it startles out of you, eyes sparkling with mischief and looking right into his soul. Beautiful. You were always beautiful. 

And Choso can’t just stand around and do nothing about it.

“Crybaby, look, I-” Fists clenching, he takes a steadying breath. The heat only rising to his cheeks at your awaiting gaze, “I…”

“HEY, GRANDPA HELPED STEAL YAGA’S SHADES LET’S TAKE A PIC-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP ITADORI. YOU’RE RUINING A MOMENT, LET THEM HAVE THEIR MOMENT.”

“I don’t know either of you two.”

It would be a miracle for a moment not to be ruined with two overly-energetic first-years (and a very reluctant Fushiguro) pushing their way into your little bubble. Choso bites back a groan as you’re immediately swarmed by a bickering Kugisaki and Yuji, one apologizing for “ruining your k-drama moment” and the other trying to get you to put on some sunglasses. Well, at least he could empathize with the black-haired boy, who gave him an apologetic nod. 

He’s only halfway through waving off the interruption before a voice speaks up from his side. “Why didn’t you say it?”

Whirling around, Choso comes face-to-face with the disappointed look on his grandfather’s face. Already having some idea of what you mean, “Wha-”

“I may be old but m’not deaf, yet, boy. Why didn’t ya tell her?” he sighs, tilting his head to where you were wearing those shades and taking ridiculous pictures with two animated first-years. 

“I don’t know what you-”

“M’not blind, either. Quite frankly I’m insulted.”

And, well, if there’s anyone that he can’t hide from - it would be his grandfather. So he heaves out a defeated sigh, touselling his hair while muttering out a pathetic little, “M’not- Ugh, she’s too fuckin’ perfect and I…I chickened out.”

Choso doesn’t know what he expected in response but it definitely wasn’t for his grandfather to laugh. Full, and raspy - loud enough that even you stop to stare. “Thought so, idiot boy.” he chuckles, drawing indignant protests. “Did she tell you?”

Raising a brow, “What?”

“Did she tell you that you weren’t good ‘nough for her?”

“No, but-” Whatever protest on the tip of Choso’s tongue is cut off by a rough hand smacking his back in what he thinks is reassurance, but felt more like a punishment for being such a pussy around you all these years. 

“Then go. Ya might just be surprised. After all, you’re my grandson, and all the ladies at bingo love me.”

Shaking with both adrenaline and the effort to keep that image out of his mind, he makes his way towards you. Purposeful. Pointedly ignoring the matching smirks flashed his way. 

“You really think they’ll finally get together today?” Fushiguro deadpans from where he’d snuck up beside the old man, in an attempt to escape the public nuisances he calls ‘friends’. 

Choso’s grandfather hums thoughtfully, watching the scene play out before him - Choso flushed such a delicate shade of pink as you playfully put Yaga’s sunglasses on him. Settling on a gruff, “I’ll give it a few months more. He’s my grandson, after all.”

“That’s generous. I’d give it a couple years more.”

“Wanna bet, brat?”

“...”

Safe to say, his second button ended up safely in your hands that day. But Fushiguro would be the one to really win the bet. 

Because it was only 2 years, 4 months and 3 weeks after this little incident that Choso finally had you exactly where he wanted - with no interruptions. All for him. 

Freshly twenty one, splayed out on your apartment bedroom and having a conversation that he never in a million years would’ve even dared to imagine he’d have - with you of all people. All because of that stupid R-rated film you’d put on for movie night. 

“You’ve never what?” you gape, turning down the volume to those painfully fake moans coming from the tv.

Oh, how gorgeous you looked - all shocked and batting your lashes up at him in surprise. Choso almost swoons inwardly (and outwardly) before he realizes that shit you were probably waiting for an answer.

“I mean, yeah?” he sputters out, cheeks heating up as you lean in closer to hear him. Close. “So what if I’ve never…uh-” eyes darting to the erotic scene on-screen. “M’surely not missing out on that much.”

Goddammit, some strange, carnal part of himself twinges dangerously at the little smirk that curls your lips. One that he quickly - and embarrassingly - realizes has the blood rushing straight to his cock. Humming a low, “Maybe. Maybe not.” The mattress dips slightly as you shift closer, lips ghosting his ear. “Want me to help you find out?”

Which is, well, how Choso found himself shoved against the armrest. Blanket thrown on the floor now, swollen cock leaking furiously through his pants as your pretty lil’ cunt hovers above his mouth. So wet that if he stuck his tongue out he could have you dripping all onto him. 

“Y-you sure about this, sweetheart?” he hisses despite his hands looping around your thighs, bringing you closer to him.

You raise a brow, “Are you sure, Cho?”

He should say no. He should laugh this all off as a bad joke. He shouldn’t ruin this friendship - but oh how badly he wants just a taste of your dripping pussy - see if she’s as sweet as the rest of you is. So, throwing caution to the wind, Choso nods slowly. “Yes. Want it s’bad.”

Grinning wickedly, you whisper, “Thought so.” And then he’s pulling you onto his mouth, hot and urgent.

“Oh fuck-” he groans, eyes rolling to the back of his head at the first taste of your sweet sweet juices. “Shit shit shit.” So sloppily licking up your swollen folds - barely moving with any method or patience, just that he’s drunk on your pussy and wants more more more-

“Hngh- f-fuck. You sure this is your hah- first time, Cho?” you gasp breathlessly. And oh your best friend was so fucking beautiful. Dark hair untied and tousled, eyes half-hooded, your slick already smearing across the bottom half of his face and trickling down his jaw because shit he was so messy. So addicted to that desperate expression on your face that he just can’t help but tease you a little bit. 

“Mhm?” he smirks, tongue swirling around your pulsing clit. Purposefully missing right where you wanted him the most because shit he loved those cute lil’ whines spilling out of you. 

You let out a huff, hips trying pathetically to inch him closer - but Choso wasn’t budging. Holding you so firmly by the hips that you’re sure he leaves bruises, licking all over your cunt except for your clit. “Cho.” you warn. Brows furrowing in frustration at the way he bats his long lashes up at you so deceivingly innocently, “What?”

“You know…”

“I don’t.” he titters teasingly into your pussy. 

“Choso.”

Now, Choso’s known and seen everything there is to do with you - but never like this. Spread open shamefully and pouting so adorably on top of him, so needy for him. It made his head spin to think of just how much the dynamics had shifted. 

Shit, he really should’ve watched that godforsaken movie with you sooner. “Tell me what you want, crybaby.”

And oh how his cock twitches at the way you manage to get out an embarrassed little, “Wan’ you to ngh- tonguefuck me properly. Wanna cum on your pretty face, Cho.”

And that’s all that’s said before he’s surging forward, glossy lips wrapping around your pulsing clit to suck harshly. Rolling his soft tongue over and over-

“Wanted this for so long.” Choso mutters, muffled as he buries himself deeper into your pretty pussy. The vibrations sending white-hot pleasure running down your spine. “You have absolutely no idea, pretty.”

And you barely even have the time to register his little confession before Choso’s moving down to bully his tongue past your folds. Nose pressing against your throbbing clit as he dips into your sloppy hole. 

“Oh shit. Jus’ like that.” For a beginner, your best friend really knew what he was doing. Eating you out like his favorite meal, tongue squeezing into your snug pussy to thrust in and out, swipe against your walls, stretching you out right to his will. Over and over-

“Use me.”

Your eyes snap down to meet the pure adoration in his eyes as he makes out filthily with your cunt. Choking out a little, “What?”

“Use me.”

There it was again - that strained little mantra. And as if to prove his point, Choso reaches out to deftly place your hands on his head, bucking into you touch. 

And, well, how could you say no to that?

Because before you know it, you’re bunching Choso’s soft strands in your fists. Angling him just right to ride his pretty face. “C’mon, Cho. Ngh- H-harder, jus’ a bit- Oh!” he just devours the way your mouth drops into an adorable little oh! as his tongue curls deftly against that one spot. Again and again. Letting himself be so used, dragging your dripping cunt harder on his mouth. 

And he likes it. Hell, he loves it even - because you’re so sweet n’ pretty on his mouth. Better than everything he’s ever been dreaming of for the past few years. And always in his dreams, you’d be clenching so deliciously around his tongue when you were close - just like right now. 

So he speeds up his movements, breathing you in maddeningly. A hand snaking down from it’s favorite place on your hips to draw quick, frenzied little circles on your poor, ravaged clit. Jaw almost aching with how filthily he was dripping in and out of your entrance - be he did give a shit. Only wanting to have you breathless and creaming all over his face.

You jerk violently on top of him, “Hah! S’too much, Cho. M’so close- gonna cum- gonna-”

And then you’re cumming. Fast, and hard. 

Plushy walls clamping down on Choso’s tongue, hips stuttering on his face as he laps up all your juices, an arm around your waist helping you ride his face through your high. 

“S’sweet. Could get used to that.” he slurs into your cunt. Tipping his head back as far as it’d go to let the last of your juices slide down his throat. “Better than I imagined.”

The words ring in your ears as you blink back your vision. Deliriously whirling down to look down at Choso - still beneath you and looking more smug and content than you’d ever seen him. “Imagination? S’that why you’re so good.”

“No.”

You’re being flipped before you know it. Manhandled so easily by your best friend as he lays you on your back, sinking into the cushion while he looms above you. “S’jus’ that…” grunting as he flings his shirt off, “Been dreaming of your pretty cunt on m’tongue for years.”

Okay, now his confession hits - more than it did when he was tonguefucking you into insanity, anyway. 

“Years, huh?” you breathe out, eyes roaming all over his sculpted torso. Taking in every dip and curve of Choso’s toned abs - all the way from his broad shoulders to the rock-hard cock straining against his pants. As if in a trance, your hand reaches out to cup his leaking erection, “S’that all you’ve been dreaming of?”

“You little minx.” he lets out a low hiss. 

Before you can even react, Choso’s fumbling with that belt - cursing because shit, he’d have worn sweatpants instead if he knew they’d end up on your floor. 

And you’re not any better, fingers popping open his buttons and tugging impatiently and oh- You always thought that your best friend would have a big dick - but this?  He was so intimidatingly long - and thick enough that you wondered whether you’d hurt yourself. Fat tip flushed such a pretty shade of pink to match his cheeks, leaking down down down, all the way to his heavy balls. 

You’re only jolted out of your little reverie by Choso spitting a steady stream of spit onto your quivering cunt, spreading it lazily across your pussy with his thumb. A ringed fist pumping his cock slowly, as he drags his tip across your folds, pooling your sweet juices. Muttering out a raspy, “I’ll be gentle.”

“You better not be, now jus’ fuck me-”

Well, you didn’t have to ask Choso twice. Because you’ve barely gotten the words out before he’s bullying massive cock into your tight cunt. Pressing in inch by fucking inch as you gasp and buck underneath him. 

“Shhh, s’okay, crybaby. This is what you wanted, right?” he mumbles, with all the audacity of someone that wasn’t fucking into you in rapid, mindless little jabs to fit inside your snug lil’ pussy. Struggling to hold back at this point. “Wanted to be split apart on m’cock?”

You were so full of him. Even more so when he throws your legs over his shoulders, bending all the way down and folding you in half so easily beneath him. 

He drinks in the barely-lucid squeal that leaves your swollen lips. Kissing your forehead gently, whispering against the skin, “Because I’ve wanted this for so fucking long.”

And then it was like something snapped - maybe his sanity, maybe the restraint that Choso’s been holding back for too long. Because immediately he’s plunging his throbbing cock into you - all the way till his balls, all angry and squeezing so painfully, smacks against your ass. 

“Wanted this.” he rasps into your open mouth. His hips were out of control now, thrusting you in shallow, desperate rams. Pounding into you like a man possessed, and running his mouth just as much. He laces his fingers on top of your head, pushing you down even deeper into his relentless cock - as if the bastard wasn’t fucking you dumb already. “Fuckin’ needed this needed this. Shit- so bad.”

“Ch-Choso- fuck hah-” you plead as his mouth clashes with yours. All sloppy with teeth and spit and his profanities - and it felt so damn good. 

“Yeah? Who’s fucking you silly, now?” he’s going harder now, tip hitting your poor cervix over and over. And you’d be sobbing at the burn and the stretch but all you can think of is shit this is Choso - the kid you used to play hide and seek with. And now he seems fully intent on breaking you. “Say m’name.”

A rough thumb starts toying with your clit, in time with the cute lil’ whines of his name that escape your mouth like a prayer. “Shit. Y’look so pretty like this.” he babbles. “Gonna cry, pretty girl?” smirking down at the way you were too cockdrunk to even snap back, only looking up at him with delirious, teary eyes. “Be a crybaby for my cock?”

You’re tugging on his hair, thighs shaky and bucking upwards. “Cho-”

“Mhm?”

“W-wanna cum. Need you to fill m’up till I can’t take it anymore.”

Oh if Choso was any lesser man he’d have cum right then and there. Instead settling for a guttural groan, drunk off the way you were milking his cock so hard as if to prove your point. It almost made him want to stay like this forever. But no - not right now. 

“Oh yeah?” Hips becoming sloppy now, “Need it? Shit- m’so close.” Each word slurred, punctuated by a harsh thrust, strokes long and frenzied. Using your heavenly pussy like his personal fucktoy. So hard that he’s sure you’d have embarrassing matching bruises tomorrow - his balls on your ass, your nails raking down his shoulders.

“Me too- fuck fuck fuck-” you mewl into his neck, as Choso buried his face into yours. 

“Cum f’me, my girl.”

My girl. 

And then you are - and he is. And you don’t know who cums first, just that you’re seeing stars behind your eyes and Choso’s teeth digging into your neck as he thrusts once. Twice. Before cumming and cumming so hard he might as well have seen the pearly gates of heaven. And you were an angel.

Thick, hot ropes of cum that paint your walls white, so much that it gushes out of your poor overfilled pussy. Dripping down your legs and pooling into a sinful, creamy ring at his base. 

“Mm- shit. Choso.” you moan, barely audible over the lewd squelches from below. 

“M’here, my girl.” he grits out, voice shot. And it seems that that was his new favorite nickname, because Choso keeps murmuring it over and over as he keeps fucking his seed into you. Not even thinking about it at this point - just mindless, shallow grinds of his hips. 

In the haze of your orgasm, you think you hear his quiet voice, strained with exhaustion and something that you weren’t in the right state of mind to decipher right now. 

“Shhh, m’here. “Can’t believe I waited so fuckin’ long.” Whispering against your lips, “Love this. Love this pretty cunt.” Kissing softly, “Love the way y’take me. Fuckin’ made f’me.” And maybe even a soft little, “Love you.”

And maybe - just maybe, you whisper the same into his. Kissing him softly, exactly the way you’d wanted to all these years. 

Neither of you speak after that. Not when Choso’s hips stall, body sticky and collapsing onto yours. Nor do you speak when he pulls away with a playful nip to your lower lip - a promise. Searching through your clothes for a washcloth he can wipe yourselves clean with. 

It’s only when he settles back under the covers beside you, looking at you with such dark, hazy eyes - whirling with too many emotions to name - that the silence is broken. 

“Crybaby.”

“Cho.”

“Corny.”

“You started it.”

Chuckling, Choso pulls your body close to his. Not even a hair’s breadth between you two because shit now that he’s got you, he doesn’t think he ever wants to let you go. 

“Y’know…” he starts, “I think we should- I mean- if you want…” nervous now more than he was even after all that just transpired. Cheeks flaring as he meets your amused gaze, just daring him to go on - because you saw through him. You always did. “I lov-”

“Am I late for the mov- WHAT THE FUCK I ALWAYS KNEW BRATS WEREN’T JUST FRIENDS-”

---

Itadori Family Groupchat + Two More

Dad: Hey, all. I can’t seem to get a hold of Choso to confirm tomorrow’s dinner plans. Can anyone else let me know if he’s ok? XX

-Jin.

Yuji <3: He’s probs at rhat “best friend movie night” still 

Dad: Hello, Yuji. What is a “probs”? XX

-Jin.

Kugisaki: He’s suspiciously quiet, though… Y’all think that “best friend movie night” is codeword for something else? 

Yuji <3: Better not be cuz Sukuna stole my sparw key sayin something ab crashing it idk

Kugisaki: *spare

And you just LET him?

Yuji <3: HE THREATENED TO BURN MY MEGAN THEE STALLION POSTER 

…

AND DID IT ANYWAY

Kugisaki: L

Fushiguro: L

Gramps: L

Sukuna (do not answer): DID Y’ALL KNOW THOSE TWO WERE FUCKIN????

*Fushiguro has left the chat*

Dad: :0

-Jin.