#|| whether hand work... house work... serving

You tried to put up a fight, you really did, but it was all just a waste of time and energy. 

You offered to sign an NDA, to which you got laughed at by Sukuna and all of his men. NDA’s protected secrets like affairs, not criminal activity. Not that you’d know, you weren’t a fucking law student.

Then you tried crying– saying you were just trying to get by and that you had no reason to go off and snitch on him. You just wanted to live a peaceful life, you didn’t bother anyone. You quickly sucked it up after realizing he enjoyed watching others cry. He even encouraged you to keep going, all while there was an evil twinkle in his eye, the biggest smile on his face showing off his perfectly straight and glittering white teeth.

And how could you ever forget the hunger strike? That didn’t last long either. Sukuna found out you were refusing to eat, going as far as throwing away all the meals you were served in the same minute you got them. He woke you up that night by barging into your room with multiple boxes of take-out. 

This is where the annoying portion of his shitty personality comes in– he sat across from you and began to slowly eat, not holding out on expressing how good the food was after each bite. The room was excruciatingly quiet too, you heard each crunch and he eventually heard your stomach growl. 

He got you to eat in the end, just not any of the take-out he used to persuade you with. 

“Sorry sweetheart, bad girls don’t get rewarded,” is what came out of his mouth when he handed you a plate of dry chicken and rice. You wouldn’t be surprised if he cooked it himself too. 

You are going to die here.

It's harsh reality that eventually settled in for you. You do your best to accept it, knowing you’ll perish in the home of someone who playfully taunted you once with food. It’s almost laughable, it would be if you didn’t have to circle back to the fact that he’ll probably be the one to watch you take your last breath.

Each time you clean blood up off the floor, you hope it’s the final straw that makes your brain finally realize just how traumatizing it is. You hope it goes into overdrive, just so that the next time you have to stand before a presumably innocent person’s blood, you are numb and dissociated enough to clean up his mess without a thought.

But nothing ever changes, it’s always just as filthy and disgusting as the time before, holding back on a gag or several when you first get started with mopping his white marble floors. His home was too beautiful for all the bloodshed that happens in it, the only reason why it’s not riddled with angry spirits is because he has a shaman come in frequently to spiritually cleanse the place. 

You spend most of your nights trying to figure out why he keeps you here, he has plenty of unpaid maids already. He has more of a reason to keep them instead of you, he’s saved them from their lives one way or another and they are more than happen to serve him. Not that you didn’t need to be saved, you absolutely did, you were drowning in debt from student loans. 

But still, you’d take your old life any day over being a literal modern-day slave, at least you would’ve been able to still go to the liquor store and grab a bottle of vodka to wash your worries and pain away. 

But now you are painfully sober, mainly by choice. You’ve declined Sukuna the couple of times he’s offered you a drink, you didn’t trust him enough to believe that he wouldn’t slip something in there. Except there’s something that tells you he was the type of person to use a psychedelic over something else, just so he could watch you have a bad trip and laugh about it the whole time. 

Some days you’re convinced that he just wants someone to tease and make fun of while he’s home, kind of like an extra source of entertainment for when he gets bored of scrolling through tiktok. 

Like a pet. 

He ignores most of the workers, but you? He makes it his life’s mission to get under your skin, he taunts you for sport. 

He’ll come up behind you, childishly flicking your ear, poking the side of your waist, lightly pulling your hair. Then there’s his favorite, dropping a random object on the floor or counter when you think you’re alone in a room, just so he could startle you. He laughs at your pain and frustration everytime he does it, yet you can’t say anything because he’ll probably torture you.

“Mr. Sukuna is requesting your presence.” One of the many staff members knocks on your door and says. 

More like demanding, but you had no choice either way. So you drag your feet down the long, cold hallway and into his office filled with many books that you doubt he’s ever touched, let alone read. To no one’s surprise, he’s been patiently waiting. As always, he's leaning back in his chair with his feet kicked up on the table, absolutely no care in the world.

“Took your sweet time getting here, didn’t ya’?” He says with a smug look on his face. 

“Of course not.” You respond dryly. “May I ask why you requested my presence?” 

“No you may not.” His tone is even drier. “Have a seat.” He says, gesturing at the leather chair in front of him.

You continue to look at him reluctantly, all while he continues to encourage you to take a seat. His words blend together in your brain, translating to one big ‘pspspspsps’ because that’s how he makes you feel at this point, a fucking pet.

What could he possibly want this time?

He says nothing at first and just continues to stare you down. It’s not uncomfortable anymore, you got used to it after a month of staying here. You’ve been here for 7 months now, what used to be a painful silence accompanied by your racing heart and barely contained fidgeting has turned into a waiting game– sometimes he’ll speak after 3 minutes, other times longer. One time he didn’t say anything at all and just had you sit in front of him for a whole hour– once the timer was up, he excused you. 

You really thought about saying something to him about it that day, but decided to hold your tongue. It’s not like you had anything else to do, your life revolved around him and his orders. 

“Did you miss me while I was gone?” He smirks as he asks. He already knows the answer to that, but wants to watch you struggle as you lie straight to his face.

You try your best to hold back a scowl, apparently he likes it when women look at him with disdain and you do not want to give him that pleasure. “I don’t think a week is long enough to miss anyone, Sir.” 

“Yes it is.” He refutes, sitting upright in his chair. “My girlfriends usually start to miss me after 2 days.” 

Your eyes almost roll into the back of your head when he says that, he treats those poor women like shit and they just eat up. “Must I remind you that I’m literally one of your victims, not one of your girlfriends.” 

There she is, he thinks to himself. He likes it when you get all sassy with him, especially when he’s trying to be nice to you. “You are neither.” He corrects you, then plops a wrapped gift on to his cherry wood desk. “I would’ve never gotten you these if you were.” He adds, sliding the mystery gift toward you. 

“What is it?” You ask, not as excited or pleased as he’d like you to be over his kind gesture. 

“Maybe if you opened it, you’d find out.” He says condescendingly. “Go on– don’t let my efforts of trying to be a better boss go to waste.” 

“More like my abductor.” You mutter to yourself, making the man chuckle because he knows it’s true. You slide the gift closer to yourself and pull the ribbons string, quickly undoing the shitty bow that he most likely tied together himself. 

Under the wrapping paper is a collection of books, you don’t know if you should be happy or even more disgusted by him. There’s a part of you that feels excited, you’ve missed reading. You’ve never asked to read any of the books he has, because fuck him, and you didn’t have a phone that you could go online and read free books from. 

But on the other hand, “Did you get me a collection of Dostoevsky books just so I could be in even more despair?” You’re quick to accuse him. 

“What? No.” He grimaces, you can’t tell if he’s lying or not.

“Then why did you get me these?”

“You were a student before I took you in, no?” He clasps his hands behind his head. “Just thought you’d like ‘em.” He simply says. 

You turn your attention back to the books, there’s 5 of them and it’ll probably take around a month to read through all of them– not bad. But you still don’t trust him. “What do you want?”

“Well, right now I want you to stop asking all these stupid questions.” He answers sourly, clearly a little offended that you weren’t showing more joy over his gift. Who knew the man could be this sensitive, you watched him cut someone's fingers off last month for fucks sake. “Do you want them or not? ‘Cause I can toss them in the fireplace right n–”

“No need.” You chirp out, grabbing the collection and plopping it on your lap. “You already got them, might as well read them.” You casually say, biting back on thanking him because that was the last thing you wanted to say. 

“Great.” He begins to look at you expectantly.

“Mhm.” You respond through shut lips. “Well– I should uhm… probably get back to work.” 

He nods and agrees, “You probably should.” You move to get up, but are quickly stopped when he continues to speak. “Buuut if you say thank you, I’ll let you take the day off.” He offers. 

You almost want to laugh at him for that, “Seriously?”

“Yup.” He pops the ‘p’. “C’mon, I know you want the day off, just say it.” 

“..Thanks.” You mutter under your breath. 

“What? Sorry, didn’t hear that.” 

“Thank you.” You say a little louder and it puts a smirk on his face. 

He leans forward, planting his elbows on the desk. “Knew you could do it, guess I just had to talk you through it a little bit.” 

It sends a slight shiver down your spine, he’s never been that suggestive with you, ever. Before you even get the chance to process it, he goes back to his cold, distant demeanor that he presents to the world and excuses you from his presence.

—

Your wish of wanting him to leave you alone more was surprisingly granted. Work is still as difficult as always, but ever since he gifted you those books, he’s moderately toned down the daily torment towards you. No longer poking you or tugging at your hair. 

But the sly, unsolicited comments still persist. You’re used to them though, they’re more like background noise to you at this point. 

Your duties for today were dusting and polishing the wine glasses that literally nobody uses. You decide to go with your first task– there was something about ruffling the feather duster that was oddly satisfying to you. Or maybe you were just going stir-crazy in this place, who knows. 

“Oh- sorry.” You mutter after realizing you had just intruded in on one of Sukuna's meetings. He usually has them in his office, not the entertainment room. 

“It’s fine.” He dryly mutters, not bothering to spare a glance towards you. “You can continue.” 

You nod in response before making your way to the corner shelf. The only good thing about him was that he generally didn’t berate his workers in front of others unless it was called for, which was great since his actions usually set the precedent for how his guests treated them.

Aside from the frequent blood spillage, the mansion was honestly pretty clean, so you didn’t have to put that much work into tasks like dusting. You doubt there was any dust on the shelf or the items on it to begin with, so you worked quickly but quietly– drowning out the voices that filled the room until they morphed into muffled sounds in your focused state. It was almost kind of nice, until one of the men in the room directed his attention toward you.

“I think you missed a spot sweetheart.” He says. You’ve witnessed enough of these meetings to know that he’s not one of the big guys in charge– most likely a newbie, a little henchman. 

Even if he was a new face, you still weren’t used to any of them directly speaking to you, so you stopped and looked up at Sukuna. It wasn’t an act of defiance this time, you were more so just looking at him for direction. 

"Keep cleaning." Sukuna murmurs, still not bothering looking your way. He decides to ignore the whole thing, hoping that was just a one and done comment. He trusts Akiro will deal with his little recruit later, just not now when they’re trying to handle some business. 

But sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to, even he isn’t prone to situations like this. 

“Nope– still haven’t quite gotten it, maybe you should bend over a little bit more, I’m sure that’ll help.” He smirks and comments again, because that’s how untrained dogs are, they continue their bad behavior until you correct them. 

You don’t even look at Sukuna this time and continue to clean despite how shaky your hands start to become. Anger begins to slowly boil up in your chest. It was like being back with the Zenin’s all over again— the harassment, the small degrading comments. 

Sukuna notices that– he also notices how the little fucker won’t stop eyeing you up and down, eye-fucking you, thinking about you in ways that he shouldn’t. Doesn’t matter if you’re not with Sukuna romantically, you’re still his– you belong to him. 

As fucked up as it may sound, only he’s allowed to do that to you. And even then, he doesn’t.

Since Akiro refuses to train his new dog, he figures it’s his job to do so, which is why he takes it upon himself to grab the nearest vase and breaks it over the kids head. Before anyone could blink, there were shards scattered all across the floor. Around everyone's feet and just inches away from where you were standing.

Everyone of course flinches, because he did that shit without a warning, not even changing the bored expression on his face once. It’s that one quality that’s made him so successful in his line of work– his unpredictability. There’s no point in guessing what he’d do, you just pray he’s not feeling extra self-indulgent that day. He’s a glutton for violence and enjoys what he does– worse than his father who just wanted to get the job done. 

No one in the room makes a sound– especially not you. You stand still in place, watching the blood begin to trickle down the guy's forehead as he laid over the shards, groaning over the pain that began to kick in. His head stung more and more with each second that passed, he needed a vicodin or something the moment he got home. 

That’s if he even makes it home. 

Sukuna cuts the tension by directing his attention back to Akiro, who can’t help but bow his head down, out of fear of being next. “Why did you bring him here?” 

“Just moved up in the ranks, Sir. We made the mistake of promoting him.” Akiro’s quick to take responsibility for the decision. Taking accountability like that will more likely increase his chances of getting out of here unscathed.

Sukuna lets out a low laugh, an insulting one. “Recruiting him was the real mistake. My men would still be standing if I busted a vase over their heads.” He then turns to the half-conscious man on the ground. He stands over his body and without bothering to kneel down, says “Apologize to her.”

He forces himself to get up, which takes a good amount of effort, and bows before Sukuna instead. He expresses his deepest apologies for acting out of line, and everything else you’d expect someone to say towards a man with a murder count that was unmatched. The words have no meaning to Sukuna, but his lips do quirk up for a split second, he loves it when people bow down to him. But it wasn’t about him this time, it was about you. 

“No.” Sukuna finally says after letting the guy ramble for what seems like forever. “Apologize to her.” 

He then reluctantly turns to you, with his eyes glued to the ground, and mutters an apology that was half of the one he gave to Sukuna. He didn’t like that and kicks the kid in the stomach. “I didn’t hear you. Again.”

“I-I’m sorry.” The boy heaves. “I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t have done that.”

You don’t acknowledge it and continue to clean. He didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t even be surprised if he wished you were dead right now since he couldn’t get away with being a fucking pervent towards you. 

“Now get out.” Sukuna harshly orders. He watches the man get up from the ground and stumble out of the room with his head down, with the rest of the men following suit. You wait a bit for them to leave before making your exit as well, wanting to avoid them when you finally do so. 

“I didn’t say you could leave.” Sukuna mutters, pouring himself a glass of scotch. 

“Right.” You say in response, slightly shaken up from the scene you had just witnessed, it never gets easier. You watch as he slowly fills his glass, unable to tell what he was thinking right now. 

“You okay?” He finally asks, putting the crystal decanter back down onto the mini bar.

“Uhh– yeah.” You usually have something smart to say in response, but you’re kind of at a loss for words right now over why he did that. “Not that big of a deal. His words I mean. Not that disrespecting you is okay, but I’m not– sorry, I’m fine.” 

For once he patiently listens to you as you struggle to come up with a response, more so because he’s pretty sure you’re scared of offending him right. He surprisingly doesn’t want you to feel that way right now. 

“Alright.” He shrugs, taking a sip from his glass. He’s honestly starting to feel bad right now, it’s bothering him. He’s quick to cut off the thoughts brewing in his head and gestures at the shards sprinkled all over the floor, “Clean this up and go take the rest of the day off.” He orders, but his tone’s softer, less demanding than the last one he just gave to the group of men.

You nod, “Alright. Yeah– I can do that.” 

Without another word or taking another look at you, he walks out, leaving you to clean up his mess once again. 

You slept earlier than usual tonight. 

If you had to be honest with yourself, aside from reading the books that Sukuna had randomly gotten you, sleep was the one thing you looked forward to the most. It was quiet, away from everyone else. 

You try to get the most out of your sleep, it’s how Sukuna’s able to get away with sneaking into your room tonight without getting caught. He just wanted to see how you were doing, but you fell asleep before he got the chance to.

So now he's here, sitting at the edge of the shitty bed he’s been forcing you to sleep on for months. Gaze fixed on your form, listening to the sounds of your shallow breathing. He’s never really gotten the chance to see you like this, for the most part you have a distressed look on your face whenever he’s around, it makes him wonder if this was how everyone else saw you.

He also wonders why he’s even sitting next to you now, watching you. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat it, it was creepy, he felt like a fucking weirdo. But he pushes that thought aside– not like he was going to do anything to you anyways. You’re safer with him more than you’d ever know, maybe that’s why he ended up feeling bad over the way you were scared of saying the wrong thing to him earlier. 

But he couldn’t lie, the longer he sat there and stared at you, the more he wondered what it would be like if he just… reached out? Ran the back of his knuckle down your cheek or something? 

No, that’s weird as fuck, don’t do that. 

He keeps his hands to himself as he continues to get lost in his thoughts, letting them take a darker turn. He could end this– end you, if he wanted. But he doesn’t feel like it, nor does he feel like setting you free so you can go back to living a normal, relatively safe life. How shitty of him. Even as you sleep, you still don’t look at peace. Maybe his mistake all along was not killing you that night. 

But just as quickly as the foreign feelings came, they vanish, making him wonder what the fuck he was even doing with his life right now. He could be getting drunk, or better yet, getting laid right now. But he’s here, watching a girl that loathes him sleep. 

Sukuna exhales slowly and quietly gets up from the creaky bed, the last thing he needs right now is you waking up and freaking out– you already hate him enough as is.

He successfully does so and leaves your room, gently closing the door as well. 

Which easily became another regret after realizing he’s never closed a door so carefully in his life.

—

Things between you two went back to “normal” after that. Normal as in, annoying you at every chance he gets and calling out for you whenever he needs something cleaned. Eventually he summons you back into the abyss of sorrow and despair– his office. 

As always, he’s waiting for you, ready to mentally torment you for however long he pleases. 

“How can I help you?” You sigh and ask. 

He just gestures towards the seat in front of him in response. Once you finally sit down, he takes a second before speaking, using that time to get a good look at you. 

When it comes to him, getting a good look at you means just that. He’ll look you dead in the eye and try to gauge how much you’re hating your life at the moment. Sometimes his gaze will drift to your lips or your hair, but that’s about it. Even then, you don’t feel like it’s in a predatory way.

“Did you finish your work in the sunroom?” He asks. 

“I did.”

“Good.”

“Mhm.” Is all you have to offer, your mind’s more on what he wants because you know he didn’t summon you just to ask that.  

He leans back in his chair. “Have you gone through that collection of books I got you yet?”

“I did. Finished the 5th a couple days ago.”

“Good to know.” He leans to the side to pick up another box and sets them down on the desk. “I heard Murakami books were a good read.”

You look at the collection, this time it’s a set of four rather than five. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“Google.” He mutters. 

“I see.” You want to laugh, but receiving a second set of books makes you feel just as unsettled as it did the first time around. 

You slowly reach for them, but in his typical asshole fashion, he nudges them back.

“Say, ‘Thank you, Lord Sukuna.’” He laughs as he poorly mimics your voice, he sounds like an idiot and you hate that you can’t make fun of him for it right now. 

You just stare at him in return because you’d rather not call him that and he starts to become visibly annoyed. If you weren’t so scared of him deep down, you’d think watching his demeanor shift is hilarious. It’s a silent tantrum. His lips thin, his pupils shrink, a vein or two pop out because of the way he holds his breath. 

“Tell me, do you like having a tongue?” He eventually asks, since you won’t say anything. 

“Can’t put it to full use anymore, but yeah I guess.” 

“Yeah, I fuckin’ thought so– wait what did you just say to me?!” He’s stunned and honestly, so are you. You honestly don’t know why you said that, it’s probably just from the months of pent up frustration. You obviously didn't have the best life, but you could’ve fucked more people– the past 8 months have made you realize that. 

Now you don’t have that choice because you’re stuck here, with a “boss” that pisses you off every waking moment and “coworkers” that follow him like he’s some sort of prophet. 

“I said I like having a tongue, please don’t cut it out.” You respond, hoping he just leaves it at that. 

“I never said I was gonna cut it out.” He quickly says, still looking at you like you’re the crazy one. 

“Then why did you bring up my tongue?”

“Are you actually talking back to me right now?” He scoffs before pointing at that door, “Outta my sight. You don’t deserve my attention right now.” 

You stare at him a little longer and notice he’s holding back that annoying smile of his. Who knew talking like that would actually get the man to leave you alone. 

“Don’t forget your books too, you little nerd.” He barks out right before you walk out of the room. 

You want the books, so you turn around to grab them. His head’s cocked to the side while he watches you walk back in amusement. 

You're not sure why he even excused you in the first place. He’s not done toying with you, that much is known when he nearly slams his hand down onto the stack of books and moves them a little closer to him. Sukuna looks quite pleased with himself when you don’t bother hiding your emotions this time and look at him with pure disgust. 

“What’s that little look for?” He purrs, voice dropping an octave. 

“You’d hold anything hostage.” You answer truthfully, watching his finger lightly tap on the cover. His nails are painted black today, he usually does that whenever the blood stains are too stubborn to be scrubbed out. 

“I know.” He’s not afraid to admit, he sounds neither proud nor ashamed to say it. “Doesn’t mean you can’t read in the backyard or sunroom, probably better than your room.”

“I would but I’d rather not spend my leisure time in an area where someone’s probably died.”

He chuckles, “I’m surprised you went this whole time thinking nobody has ever died in your room before.”

“Didn’t have to tell me that.” You murmur. 

“My bad.” He finally slides the books over to you. “Sunroom’s safe though.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” That piece of information does nothing to help your new fear of your room being fucking haunted. “They didn’t die in my bed, right?” 

“The mattress was replaced right after.” 

“So they kind of did?”

“No more questions.” He hates when people ask too many questions, it’s annoying and he’d like to keep this interaction as light-hearted as it is.

“Fine.” You finally take the books and he doesn’t stop you this time. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah.” He’s not really sure what to say, never been much of a ‘you’re welcome’ guy. At least he didn’t bother making you repeat yourself, even though you said it as quietly as last time. 

—-

“Shoulda suggested this place to you sooner since you use it so much.” He walks in with his usual glass of whiskey, interrupting your reading time. You really should’ve gone to bed hours ago, the clock on the wall says 3:14 AM. “Or are you scared of being in your room now?” 

You avoid the question because it’s true and you’d rather not have him make fun of you for it right now. You’ve been here every night until you can barely keep your eyes open since he suggested it.

“Have you been spying on me or something?” 

“Or something.” He smirks and takes a sip. You’re not sure if ‘friendlier’ is the best word to describe him when he’s having a drink, but there’s for sure a change. “Kinda hard to miss when I gotta walk by after getting home.” 

“Never noticed.” You fold the corner of the page you were on and set the book down. 

“That’s ‘cause I'm as light as a feather.” The dry humor starts and you struggle to keep a straight face from how ridiculous that statement sounds coming from him. 

You bring your knees up to hold and to lean your head against, before humoring him just a little. “I’m sure you are.” 

“That’s all? You’re allowed to laugh y’know.” 

“Ha-ha” You say in a monotone voice.

Instead it’s him that bursts out laughing, maybe harder than he should from his little drink. You actually end up laughing a little from that though, it’s contagious when it’s not an evil or manic one.

“There she is.” He husks out. There’s a moment of silence after you two finally settle down, with reality inevitably settling in for the both of you. 

Aside from making jokes and picking on you, there’s nothing to talk about. What’s there to be said to someone who’s life was ruined by him? The world thinks you're dead, it went on without you. 

You know that, he knows that too. 

But he’d still like to try to talk to you, even if it is the alcohol speaking. Though he doubts it, he feels this way when he’s dead sober. It’s kinda why he pushes your buttons to the point where you begin to consider if telling him off is worth losing your life over. 

“Sputnik Sweetheart.” He reads the title of the book out loud. “Weird name. What’s it about?”

“It’s about this guy who’s in love with a girl, but she doesn’t love him back because she’s a lesbian and is in love with an older woman. But the older woman doesn’t love her back either.” 

“So what is it, like a reverse love triangle?” 

“No— maybe. I don’t even know if that’s a thing.” You end up laughing with him, more so because he sounded like a fucking frat boy asking that. He probably would’ve been one too in another life, a less violent one.

He nods at the pen next to the book, ignoring the fact that he’s never supplied you with one before. “You taking notes or something?”

“Here and there, only on the parts I like.” 

“Let me see.” His eyes drift back to you, looking extremely defensive. “Oh c’mon, you act like I’m gonna go off and tell someone.” 

“Fine.” You nudge the book towards him. 

He figures you fold the top of the page to mark where you left off and the bottom folds are the pages where you’ve written them. He picks a random page and reads to himself what’s been underlined. 

“If they invent a car that runs on stupid jokes, you could go far.” The note for that one is simply “sukuna”. 

He ignores that one and goes to a different page. 

“After all this, I won't start to hate you.” The note? “Easy for you to say.” 

He almost laughs at that. 

“Sometimes I feel so- I don’t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you’re used to has been ripped away.” No note. 

That’s.. sobering.

He looks to you after reading that part to find you’re no longer paying attention to him. The moon’s shining bright tonight, it allows you to look at the perfectly manicured backyard through the glass wall. What were you thinking about? Were you even thinking about anything at all? Just looking at you right now makes you seem like the type of person that allows their mind to take a break. He wonders what that’s like.

“Are you done?” You ask after eventually realizing that he’s staring. 

“Yeah.” He slides the book back to you. If you didn’t know any better, he looks a little remorseful right now. You mostly underlined things on the sadder side, so maybe that’s why. 

“Nice to know that you bleed like the rest of us.” You say in almost a whisper, but he catches it. 

He takes another sip from his glass, acting like he didn’t hear that. Sukuna will always have his own issues, but the last person that should be humanizing him right now is you. 

He yawns and looks at the clock, realizing he definitely needed to go to sleep. You really should too since you have shelves to dust tomorrow, but he wasn’t going to kill the mood by saying that. Staying up to read hasn’t messed with your schedule so far.. not that he knows of. 

“M’gonna call it night.” His voice is raspier than usual, he sounds like he needs the sleep from whatever kind of a day he’s had. 

“G’night.”

—

A month’s gone by and Sukuna catching you reading in the dead of night has become a part of your routine. Sometimes he has a glass of liquor with him, sometimes he doesn’t, but he’s surprisingly respectful each time. 

Over that course of time you’ve grown a little more comfortable with him. Not to the point where you’d consider him a friend, but enough to where you can bring yourself to have a conversation with him without having the searing urge to leave. 

He doesn’t care to read, saying he gets a headache after a while, but he seems to like it whenever you summarize chapters for him. You tried suggesting audiobooks, but that sounded so much worse than actual reading to him.

What he enjoys the most is reading through your notes, that may or may not have gotten more dramatic just to fuck with him. 

It’s the only way you could get back at him, even if he does find a majority of them laughable. 

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart. “no shit”

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. “i can promise you that this was not optional.”

He ends up closing the book after that, you sound like you’re arguing with the author at this point. 

“This is the last one, huh?” 

“Yeah.” You take a sip from the glass of scotch you two have been sharing. “I finished it a couple days ago, I’ve just been rereading it.” 

“Coulda gotten you more by now if you said something.” He says, taking the glass out of your hand, brushing his fingers over yours. 

You’re starting to think it's not a coincidence anymore. Not when it’s been enough times to know his hands are as rough as they look. Always the one wanting to do the dirty work, his skin’s gotten tough over time because of it. 

“I’m saying something now.” You rest your head on the palm of your hand as you watch him finish the very last of the drink. It’s better that he finished it, even with the small sips you took, you still felt it more than you should’ve from how long you’ve gone without drinking. 

Almost a whole year. 

9 months to be exact since you’ve been cut off from the world. You try not to think about it too much anymore, especially with how friendly you’ve become with your captor. Who knew the guy that pointed a gun to your head and forced you to get in a van would eventually become the same person you would look forward to having nightly talks with. His eyes have begun to soften whenever he looks at you, even during the day when you both play your roles. The tone of voice he uses when he’s asking something of you makes the request sound more like an apology, it’s sincere, hesitant almost.

“Got any requests?” He asks, setting the glass down. 

“I’m sure I do, just can’t remember any right now. Do you think you’ll let me come back with a list tomorrow when you’re grumpy and sober again?” You ask, watching a little smile form on his lips. Sometimes you wonder what those feel like, can’t be rougher than his hands. 

“You think I’m grumpy when I’m sober?”

You shrug, “I’m sure Ino thinks so with the way you had him shaking from just shooting him a glare.”

“Fuck Ino.” He clicks his tongue and knocks his knee against yours. “M’not grumpy with you– what are you rubbing your knee for? That did not hurt.”

“Maybe not for you.” You continue to complain, rubbing the spot he hit even though he was right, it didn’t hurt. You just wanted to mess with him. “My bad, you’re not grumpy, you’re just mean.”

“Damn, even after I offered to get you books of your choice?” He plays along.

“Mhm.” You try to ignore the way he leans forward and places a hand on your knee– rubbing a little circle with his thumb, looking at you as if he were listening to you pour your heart out. “You’ll probably just ask google which books are better too.”

He chuckles, “you wound me sweetheart.”

“Clearly not enough if you’re rubbing on my leg like this.”

“Nothing wrong with trying to make it feel better.” He brushes you off and keeps going, inching his hand up a little higher. He leans in closer, you can smell the liquor on him, he can probably smell it on you too. “I’d say I’m pretty nice– right now at least. Want me to stop?”

“I’d probably hate you even more if you stopped being nice to me.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were actually starting to kinda like me.”

“I think you’re just delusional, Sukuna.” You giggle and he rests his forehead against yours. He’s too far into this to try to back track now, so he lets himself be a little more delusional by pressing his lips against yours. 

They’re soft. Too soft for someone who spews the harshest words. He’s gentle too, even when he’s grabbing the back of your neck to pull you in closer, deepening it. Swiping his tongue across your bottom lip until you let him in. If warmth had a taste, this would be it. You let out a little hum when he swirls his tongue around yours and it makes his blood start to rush, his loose sweats suddenly start to feel tight. 

What a sweet sound. He’s sure everything else is sweet too. 

He feels you start to pull back and he lets you, loosening his grip on the back of your neck, but not letting go. There's a thin string of saliva connecting you two. 

For someone so evil, Sukuna looks almost angelic right now— warm pink brushed over his cheeks, lips slightly swollen, eyes searching for more than what you’ve given him so far. 

“Did you like that?” He asks. 

The way he looks at you almost puts you in a trance. At a loss for words, you slowly nod. 

“Want more?”

“For tonight, yeah.” You whisper, letting him pick you up and take you to the master bedroom on a select few can enter. 

There’s clothes scattered throughout the floor from you two taking your time getting them off of each other. There’s kisses in between each piece that comes off– all over his neck, all over your chest, trailing down to your exposed breasts. Your nipples harden from the cool air in the room, the way he swirls his tongue around them gives you relief, until he pulls away and the saliva he left begins to cools down with the room. 

He fully lays you down and shows some impatience when he gets to your pants, removing them along with your panties in one go.

“So fuckin’ wet.” He says in awe, slowly running the backs of his fingers up your slit. You squirm a little when they glide over your clit. He looks up and watches the way your eyes glaze over from just that. “Sensitive aren’t you?”

It doesn’t help that he adds some pressure with his thumb and slowly rubs in a small circle. 

“A little.” You mumble, holding back a little moan. 

“I can tell,” he chuckles and throws your legs over his broad shoulders. “Gonna make you cum so fuckin’ much.”

He’s not so gentle anymore when he suddenly grabs onto your hips and begins to lap at you like he was starved. He didn’t give you a chance to work up to it, you find yourself immediately gasping from the way he just attacks you in all the right places. You can feel him groaning from how good you taste when he sucks on your clit, letting out a lewd pop! when he pulls away.

He lifts your hips up and grinds you against his mouth while he goes to fucking work with you, like he was trying to make you cum as fast as he could. And at this point, it was going to be the fastest you ever have. The orgasm that's quickly brewing inside of you makes you grab onto the sheets with both hands because it’s all you really can do, he wasn’t letting go of you anytime soon. You tasted too good and the sounds you were making just made his cock throb even harder. 

“Ohmygod– fuck– w-wait.” You gasp out. This can’t be fucking happen, you don’t how this even possible. 

And Sukuna doesn’t wait, he fucking speeds up. 

He even slides two of his thick fingers into your cunt and starts curling them in, finding your weak spots immediately and still lapping your clit. It was obscene, you’ve never been this wet before and the clicking sounds he was able to make from pumping his fingers in and out of you was the proof. 

“Gonna cum for me?” He asks after feeling you squeeze around his fingers even more than you already were. 

You nod, but it’s not enough for him. 

“What’s that mean?” He laughs from how he’s able to render you speechless. “C’mon baby let me hear it.”

He goes even faster and it’s impossible to hold back anymore. You try to pull away but he just holds you down, not allowing you to run away from what he’s giving you. 

“Fuck, fuck, f-fuuck!” It’s all that comes out, you sound like a broken record, just how he likes it. You’re squealing, damnear crying from how overwhelming it is. He coos at you and tells you to just let go, but you’re honestly scared to at this point. Nobody has ever made you feel this good before.

He sticks his head up from in between your legs, still finger fucking you with precision. There’s a grin on his face from how much you're struggling to take it and let it happen. He has an idea and places a hand on your lower stomach. You already know what he’s trying to do and close your legs without a thought, but it’s already too late. He’s pressing down, his fingers that are deep inside of you press up. Your ears start to ring as the orgasm completely rips through you, you couldn’t even hear the noises that came out of you when you began to completely gush around his fingers. 

Your brain even blocked out whatever the fuck he was saying to you. You just know he’s laughing at you, probably taunting you for how much a mess you made even though it was his fault. 

You finally come to when he’s pushing your knees up to your chest, getting ready to split you open with the huge cock you figured he had. Your eyes widen at the length and girth, it’s no wonder why he looked down on most men. 

“So big,” you almost sound like you’re complaining, barely hearing the cocky ‘I know’ coming out of Sukuna. “Go slow.”

“I will, baby.” He purrs, running his tip through your wet folds. You’re even more sensitive now and nearly flinch the first couple times he slaps it against your puffy clit. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” You feebly respond, looking down at where your body’s connect and watching him slowly push into you. He doesn’t hold back on making noise, he even starts talking you through it. 

It seems like it’s more so to himself at this point from how tight of squeeze you have around him. His fingers did no justice in terms of working you open, he begins slowly rocking back and forth– bottoming out in one go was not it tonight. 

“Relax a little.” He advises as he repositions your legs, spreading them out a little more so he can bend down and cage you in with his arms.

“I’m trying.” It doesn’t hurt, you just feel full. You have know idea how he’s going to fit it all inside of you. 

He makes it happen, all from sweetly whispering filthy things in your ears while rolling his hips. He fully drags his cock out of you before pushing it back in, fucking you slowly while telling you how good your pussy feels and how he couldn’t wait to have you crying over him again. Some of the things were borderline threats, yet your walls still fluttered around him. 

“Better not run from it too.” He whispers in the shell of your ear as he begins to snap his hips against you. The tip of his cock begins hitting your fucking cervix and you’re already seeing stars. The sounds of squelching and slapping begin to pick up, he makes you look him in the eye and you already know he was fully ready to ruin you. 

Before you know it, he has your legs thrown over his shoulders as he fucks the shit out of you.

His nails sink into your hips while pulling you in, making you meet each and every single one of his powerful thrusts. He pounds every single inch into you without a care in the world, not even bothering to hide his own moans, convinced there’s nothing better than this. 

Having you under him, crying and begging for more as he aggressively works an orgasm out of you. He effortlessly hits every spot that drives you crazy and you’re a mess because of it, the pressure starts to build up again and you’re clawing at his back from it all. He groans at the scratches, encouraging you to keep going like the masochist he is.

“I’m gonna– nghh– c-cum.” You whine, clawing even more– he swears you’re gonna draw blood and he hopes you do. 

He's slamming into you harder, chasing after something that could only be found deep inside of you. “Fuckin’ do it– cum all over my cock. Bet nobody else has ever fucked you this good, huh?”

“No. J-just you.” you practically gasp out, bracing yourself for the second orgasm of the night. “Oh my fu– ohmygod— so close, m’so fucking close.”

He eventually presses his palm down onto your lower stomach again, you don’t even try to fight it again. He slows down but still gives you the deepest strokes— rolling his hips into you, hitting the spots that make you weak. It doesn’t take long before your toes curl and vision goes white again– falling apart on his cock and crying out his name in choked moans. 

Your positions eventually switch and you end up being bounced on his cock, Sukuna has the time of his life because of it. One hand’s slamming you up and down all 10 inches while the other rubs at your clit. He’s made you cum so much that he just slips right in. At some point he slips right out, you both just laugh and he shoves it right back in until the laughter turns into moans of pure pleasure once again. 

He makes you feel everything and nothing at the same time. Reality starts to slip away, but then you get pulled right back after he hits your sweet spot in a way that you love. It’s fucking amazing, the way he’s figured out your body, the way pushes it to its fullest extent.

-

You hardly remember falling asleep, you just remember him finishing on your back and telling you he’d take care of it. 

It’s not until the morning when you realize just how bad of an idea that was. 

You wake up slightly confused, but comfortable since his sheets are better than the ones he provided you. Then you hear light sounds of tapping, they eventually pull you out of your slumber, looking to the side and seeing the view of messy pink hair. 

Your heart drops at the same time he looks up from the phone and turns to you. He was already expecting to see the look of regret on your face, he wasn’t even sure what to say about it. 

He enjoyed last night, he’s also enjoyed all the other nights he’s spent with you where you two just spoke.

He enjoys being around you. 

It’s why he doesn’t talk about it, pulls you into his chest, and starts talking about something else. You follow his lead like he hoped you would, you didn’t wanna talk about it either. 

You two turn into something. 

Neither of you put a label on it, not when you already had the label as his captive— his property. You don’t even want to ask what would happen if you two didn’t work out. He’s glad you never do, the answer’s obvious. 

But even with that unspoken rule of not talking about the past or future, you two are happy. You no longer have to clean up the messes he makes. Instead, you spend your days lounging around the mansion. He’s allowed you to turn the sunroom into a recreation room, where you spend your time painting, reading, or sometimes even just napping. You no longer have to wear a uniform anymore either. He had you order whatever clothes you wanted online. You opted for simple, comfortable ones since you weren’t planning on stepping out of the house anytime soon. 

You never ask why he stands behind you or next to you whenever you do, you already know it’s to keep you from going on facebook or something to ask for help. You thought about telling him that he could trust you once, but that wouldn’t have made a difference. 

Sukuna is kind to you.

It doesn’t matter how bad of a day he’s had, it never stops him from greeting you with a soft kiss and smile. He holds your face in his hands when you tell him all about your day, the same hands that have been used to abuse others just hours prior. But he’d never abuse you, you can see it in the way he looks at you. Your days are boring, but he still cares, he still wants to hear you summarize the chapters you’ve read in a book that day. 

You two have grown so close yet still know nothing of each other. 

You don’t tell him about your family, friends or your time spent in school. There was no point, it’s not like you were going back to any of it. 

He doesn’t tell you about his friends, family or his life outside the mansion doors either. He wanted you to love him. You know enough about what he does– you’ve seen it, you’ve experienced it, it’s all you need to know.

He’s lucky enough that you’re willing to turn a blind eye, live in your own little world.

Yet there's that thought that gnaws away at him, you weren't willing to turn a blind eye. You were forced to.

-

You’re abruptly woken up one night and had your mouth covered before you could scream. It was fast, thinking about the way you were tied up, blindfolded, and thrown into the back of a van almost doesn’t seem real.

You finally stop fighting back an hour into the drive. After 2 more, the van finally stops and a strong arm pulls you out. Despite having a blindfold on, you can tell the suns just started to rise. There’s a light breeze and birds are chirping in the background. 

You’re going to die here. 

Why else would they bring you to an open space? Soon, you’ll hear a little click and feel a gun pressed on to the back of your head. 

Thoughts like that begin to swirl all around you. You do your best to stay calm, an ending like this was inevitable- but it’s impossible. You think about the life you’ve had, your friends and family that’ll eventually hear the news after nearly two years of having no closure. 

Lastly, you think about Sukuna, who’s most likely long gone. That’s the only way people were able to break in and grab you. You hope that it was quick, you know him though. There’s people out there that pray for his demise, and that it’d be anything he’s ever done look like a walk in the park. 

The man who has a hold on your arm finally lets go and speaks.

“I’m sure you won’t, but I have to say it anyway.” 

“Sukuna?” 

He doesn’t respond to that and begins listing demands. “Don’t look for me, don’t talk about me or about your time working for me—“

“What are y—“

“And do not even think about turning me in, I’ll find you so fuckin’ fast and snap that neck of yours.” 

The knot in the pit of your stomach tightens, this is the same exact tone he used with you when you first met.

“Why would I do that? Why did you even bring me here?” You begin to frantically ask. 

“You’re going home.” He responds coldly.

To abruptly end things on such a sour note is expected when it comes to people like him, but it doesn’t make it any less painful knowing that fact. 

He told you he loved you for the first time last night.

You told him you loved him too.

“You’re seriously gonna send me off like this? Throw me out like I’m a piece of trash?” Your voice begins to tremble, it makes him snap. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Like actually, what the fuck is wrong with you?! You spent months wanting— wishing— to go back to your life and the moment I give you that opportunity, you're not taking it?!” 

“It's not that I- you ripped me out of my sleep and brought me here!” You power through the lump in your throat. “You didn’t even tell me about any of this!”

“Because I knew you’d try to fucking stay! I knew you would, look at you! Crying, whining.”

“I don’t—“ you inhale sharply, your hearts pounding and nothing’s  helping. “You haven’t even bothered taking the blindfold off. You won’t even let me look you in the eyes, Kuna.”

“Don’t call me that.” He warns you. “Don’t ever think you got close enough to be able to come up with some stupid nickname. You sound so fucking dumb right now.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“I’ll call you whatever I want.” 

You yell back in frustration. “Don’t fucking call me that!” 

“Then don’t fucking act like it!” He yells even louder. 

“So what? You’re just gonna throw me out into the middle of nowhere?” 

He laughs, “glad you’re finally starting to put that brain of yours to use.”

“You’re gonna leave me and spend the whole drive wondering which direction I went off in.” 

“Yeah, I'm sure that’ll happen.” He says rudely. 

“I don’t even have a phone. Even if you somehow find it in your heart to turn around, I wouldn’t be where you left me. You’ll start to look for me and after about 10 minutes the panic will start to kick in.” 

He scoffs, you continue. 

“You’ll give up after a while, maybe even convince yourself that what you did was the right thing to do. I bet you’ll start to doubt that too when you struggle to fall asleep, because it’s the first night I won’t be under your roof, under your watch. You won’t even know if I’m safe. You won’t know anything about me the moment you get in that fucking van and drive off.” 

He suddenly grabs the blindfold, pulls it down, and yanks in towards him— you obviously hit a nerve with the way he’s looking at you.

“I should’ve killed you that night.” He mutters, eyes blazing with pure anger. 

“You already did.” You spit back. “I had a chance to go back out there and be normal again, but you woke up this morning deciding that you were going to twist the knife and fucking gut me.” 

“WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?!” He yells again, getting dangerously close to your face.

“I don’t KNOW.” You try to take a step back but you don’t get far. “It’s too late now, just let go of me. Gonna be a longer day for me than it will be for you.” You say coldly. “Untie me.”

He grudgingly lets go of the blindfold and pulls out a knife, choosing to cut the rope instead. You begin to relax after your hands are fully unbound— they were tight enough to begin with, but something about arguing with him made it feel like you were losing circulation.

He’s still standing right behind you, probably with his head down, waiting for you to walk off so he knows you wouldn’t turn around and try to attack him. 

You won’t. 

Saying anything at this point would’ve been a waste of energy, he’s clearly made up his mind. But you can’t help it.

“I know you heard me when I said it, but I take it back. You don’t bleed like the rest of us, your blood’s cold, that's not something to be proud about. To think that you have the ability to truly act like you cared about me just makes me feel sorry for you, Sukuna.” 

You can only hope that people like him stay far away from you. It’ll probably be your main goal in life after this too. Even if that meant judging people a little too soon, but you're sure it's better to be a little lonely.

“I’m sorry.” His voice finally cracks. You turn around and his eyes are red, there’s tears streaming down his cheeks, he can barely look at you.  “Every time I look at you, I see what could’ve been. I can’t fuckin’ do it anymore, I can’t. I wish I met you somewhere else, at school or at some coffee shop before I start my 9-5, and that’s not possible for me. I’ll never get to have that.” 

He ends up having to cover his face after that, saying it out loud is more painful than all the times he’s thought about it. His path in life was already determined for him by his father before he was even born. He never had a chance. 

He feels your arms suddenly wrap around him, it encourages him to keep going.

“If things were different, I know I still would've found you. Even if I saw you walking on the other side of traffic, I would’ve ran across the street just to ask for your name. Just not in this life.” He holds you tightly as he says it, droplets start to fall on your shoulder. “I swear I love you, but I can’t keep you around like this.” 

“I know.” You say with a heavy heart, the tears begin to flow back. “I’m gonna miss you.” 

His life has always been undoubtedly cruel, having to spend the rest of it missing you too is further proof. 

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

a/n: why did I do that I got a lump in my throat now lol phew. anyways, there will be no pt 2 but i'm down to answer some q's about lore

“If only there was someone who offered to pay-”

“Mh, I didn’t call to hear you scold me for not taking your charity. It’s weird for you to even suggest it.”

“And why is that?”

“You’re my ex-husband.”

He groaned into the receiver. “When’re you gonna drop that label?”

“As soon as you change it. I believe boyfriend is the next step in our little cycle.”

“The cycle is redundant at this point, and having to go through the dating phase again is stupid. Childish, too. We’re in our thirties.”

You rolled your eyes as you slid into your car. “Maybe it’s stupid and childish to you, but it’s not to me. Besides, it’s your turn to ask since I did it the first time. So, how quickly you stop being my ex-husband is entirely up to you.”

“The last thing I want to be is your boyfriend, sweetheart. You know that.”

“Then we’ll just play house until you grow a pair.” 

“We’ve been playing house,” he deadpanned, “For two weeks.” Sukuna didn’t wait for you to offer a rebuttal before he sighed. “What time are you coming home?”

“I have a meeting after work, but it shouldn’t take too long. I’ll be back before-” Your phone started vibrating in your hand, signaling a call from the last person you would have expected, but who you hoped would have. You snickered, “Hold on. I’ll call you back.”

You promptly ended the call with Sukuna before taking Hiro’s, and as soon as you opened your mouth to greet him, he started laying into you with curse after curse, which only had you grinning to hear it. 

When it finally seemed like he had most of it out of his system, or at least enough that he could take a quick breather, you mirthfully surmised, “The papers have been served, I take it.”

“Yes, they have! Are you fucking serious?!”

“As a heart attack.” Your dry humor was not appreciated by the other.

“No. No fucking way. I’m not signing this shit.”

His answer wasn’t the least bit surprising to you. “That’s fine. We can have it all figured out in court-”

“No!” he interrupted you, “You can’t fuck around with your ex and then divorce me after getting caught! That’s not how this works!”

“But that is how this is working, Hiro.” You hooked your phone up to the hands-free car feature and began your route to work. “Not sure why you’d want to stay married anyway. I cheated on you. Don’t you feel scorned–well, clearly you did, since you backhanded me across the face.”

“You hit me, too.”

“I did.” You let out a sigh. “And that’s part of the reason I think we need to be separated. If we’re putting our hands on each other like that, we shouldn’t be together-”

“Oh, don’t pretend like the fight was anything new to you.”

“Excuse me?” Your car jerked to a stop at a red light. “What are you implying?”

“You know exactly what I’m implying-”

“That Sukuna hit me? Are you fucking stupid?”

“Not stupid enough to think he didn’t–the man is a felon. I looked up his record, and I saw his charges. He’s violent! And you’re willingly going to go back to him? You could barely handle me!”

The weird competitive undertones of his statement aside, you felt yourself grow angry that he would assume that Sukuna would ever put his hands on you like that.

“The only people who think Sukuna is nothing but a violent man are scared little pussies like you, Hiro.” Your thumbs drummed against the steering wheel. “Though, if there’s one person who will get to see his violent side, it’s definitely you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Hardly. As if I’d waste my breath threatening you. I was only stating a fact. And regardless, I have to go.” And before you hung up, you added, “Sign those papers, Hiro. Let’s end this smoothly, okay-?”

The call ended abruptly, leaving you to huff before dialing Sukuna again, who answered almost immediately. “Don’t do that to me again.”

You breathed out a laugh. “Sorry. Hiro called-”

“What did he want?”

With another eye roll, you went on to explain, “If you had let me finish, I would have told you he called to say he’s not on board with ending things mutually, so it looks like we’ll have to file for divorce.”

“You know, I could have things ended for good before you even get home from work if you’d let me.”

“You’re not killing him. I already told you we’re going to do things the right way, not the Sukuna way. Besides, they always look at the spouses first in a murder case.”

“I can make it look like an accident-”

“No,” you snapped, tone lacking any real heat. 

If anything, you were flattered to know he was willing to risk a murder charge for you. 

* * * 

Higuruma: He wants to reschedule tonight's meeting.

That message from your attorney wasn’t a nice one to wake up to, and you glared bitterly down at your phone while you sipped on your bitter black coffee, feeling really fucking bitter about the whole ordeal–the ordeal being the divorce of you and Hiro. 

It had been two weeks since you served him the dissolution papers and a week since you filed for divorce after he refused to sign said dissolution papers. The man was now dodging the meetings to discuss splitting the assets–not that you wanted to discuss that anyway; you were only asking to keep two things: your car and your photo albums, which could have easily been settled with something as simple as dissolution.

You knew Hiro was going to make this process as difficult as possible, but you were hoping that with the amount of time that had passed, he’d lose interest in keeping you around. After all, you really wanted nothing to do with him anymore, as you were fully content and satisfied with how your life was going in that moment. 

Of course, it had everything to do with Sukuna, but despite that, your relationship hadn’t really moved forward–and it wasn’t from a lack of trying. Since moving back in with him, he’d come to realize that you just wanted to do things the right way this time, and he was willing to do that for you, even if that meant taking things a little slower than he liked. 

The only setback was time. 

With both of you working, taking care of two kids, there weren’t many opportunities to properly discuss taking the relationship to the next step. And with the added Hiro Bullshit on top, eating up all your free time, you were sort of in a standstill with the progress, hence your utmost inner bitter feelings.

You: Of course he does.

As you replied to your attorney, a thick arm coiled around your midsection, followed by a warm, muscled body pressing up behind you. The physical feeling didn’t do much to quell your inner feelings. 

With a light kiss to your throat, Sukuna mumbled, “Since when do you drink your coffee black?”

“Since we ran out of cream, and I forgot to pick some up on my way home from work yesterday.” Your nose curled when you forced yourself to take another much-needed sip from the mug, desperate for some sort of caffeine to soothe your incoming headache that Hiro was no doubt going to give you today. 

A real gift that just keeps on giving, wasn’t he?

Caught in your own thoughts, you didn’t notice the way Sukuna reached around your shoulders to take the cup from your hands, and since you were so bogged down with bitterness, you didn’t stop him either. As he drank from it, still pressed to your back, he leaned over and grabbed your phone from the counter to read over the messages between you and Higuruma.

A knowing hum met your ears as he realized the cause for your bitter mood. “Hiro’s being a pain in the ass,” he surmised, placing your phone back down beside you, along with the mug of coffee.

“He is. Like always.”

Two big hands settled on your hips, sliding over the silky red fabric of the nightgown Sukuna had given to you on a whim a couple of weeks ago. 

“If only you’d let me fix it,” he rasped against the side of your neck. 

“I think your idea of fixing it will only make it worse.”

He scoffed, but leaned into you even more, cheek resting against the top of your head. “You have no faith in me as a criminal.”

From the counter, your phone chimed with a new message. 

Higuruma: When are you available to meet next week?

Next week?

An irritated groan rumbled from deep within your chest, not only from the rescheduled meeting, but because you knew Sukuna was seconds away from running his mouth-

“The offer is still open-” 

You reached behind you, threading your fingers through his hair to give a harsh pull, wordlessly telling him to shut up about the topic. A low warning sound vibrated against your skin, one that didn’t tell you to stop, but said keep going and see what happens instead. It had heat coiling tightly in your lower stomach and reminded you that you had been without that sort of intimacy for way too long.

Not because you didn’t want it–you did. The second the doctor cleared you for sex, you had been ready for it. But like with everything else, there wasn’t much time for it, and when there was, you both were too tired to even want it anymore, which was just another reason to feel so fucking bitter. 

Too tired, too horny, too stressed, too wound up with everything that life was throwing at you. Trust that if you were able to, your frustrations would have been fucked out of you the minute you voiced them to Sukuna–he wanted it just as badly as you did, and the way he was feeling you up in that moment only solidified your theory.

He tapped on your phone screen to light it up, displaying the time of 7:42 am. “We have a little bit of time before they start to wake up.”

Hopeful that you could manage something, you didn’t stop him when he slid his hand down your nightgown, sliding underneath the fabric to knead at your chest, which was heavy, and reminded you that you were going to start leaking if you didn’t take care of that issue.

A gentle pressure from his hands had you scolding, “Don’t. I don’t want them to start-”

The pitter-patter of feet coming down the hallway was a sobering sound, and had you and Sukuna hastily pulling away from one another by the time your daughter stormed into the kitchen. You turned toward her with a forced smile while Sukuna stayed facing away to subtly deal with his issue and pretend to mess with the coffee machine. 

Her face was scrunched up in her usual morning glare, still bleary-eyed and coming out of sleep. The tousled pink hair of hers was sticking in all different directions, and the indents of her pillow were marked on her cheeks–she was not a morning person.

Her eyes flicked between you and Sukuna, blinking the sleep away before they settled on you and your forced smile. Upon seeing it, she only glared harder, though you knew she was anything but upset with you as she stalked over and wrapped her arms around your waist, face pressing right into your stomach. It was a familiar action to you; she greeted you like this most mornings.

“Good morning,” you mumbled quietly, brushing down some of her messy hair.

“Morning,” she groused, voice raspy and muffled against your body.

“How’d you sleep?” She shrugged in response, nestling herself closer into you. “That doesn’t sound good. Have a nightmare or something?”

She groaned in annoyance at your prodding, whining, “No. It was fine. Stop asking questions.”

“Watch your tone,” Sukuna lightly scolded, still not used to Ryo’s usual remarks and attitude that she used with you. He saw it as disrespectful; you knew it wasn’t like that; the girl was just trying to wake herself up, she really wasn’t being rude. 

And while he wasn’t used to her antics that she reserved for you, she wasn’t used to Sukuna scolding her in your defense for something that was familiar to you both. 

She pulled her face away from your stomach, turning her glare to her father’s back. “Why are you guys acting weird?” she asked, bringing you and Sukuna to both go still. 

And that was just another added stressor in your life–hiding your relationship with Sukuna from Ryo. Well, you weren’t hiding it, per se; you just hadn’t divulged the truth yet. 

And why haven’t you? There wasn’t time, of course–at least there wasn’t any time that felt like the right time. 

How are you supposed to tell your daughter, who is highly perceptive, that you and her father are together again, while also telling her that her half-brother is actually her full brother, without her putting the pieces together that you had been cheating on Hiro? 

At the moment, she was under the impression that Hiro was away for a long trip, and you were living with Sukuna to help each other take care of the baby–an assumption that she’d come to on her own, and you and Sukuna just didn’t correct her. She was still curious about a few things–the biggest being why you and Sukuna slept in the same bed, and now, why Sukuna was rushing to your defense.

“No one is acting weird,” Sukuna began, turning to face her now that he was calm again. “You just need to mind your manners. You wouldn’t talk to me that way.”

“Yes, because-”

“Don’t argue with me.”

The girl’s mouth fell shut before she could, in fact, argue with her father. With a huff, she turned her face back to your stomach, hiding it away while you carded your fingers through her hair. She melted into the feeling, per usual. 

“What do you want for breakfast?” you asked, giving her back a gentle pat.

“Mm, I don’t know. Daddy can make something.”

You let out a little hum, pretending to contemplate your options before saying, “Well, Daddy has to run to the store.”

Said Daddy’s eyes flicked to you. “He does?”

“He does,” you confirmed with a nod. “We need cream for the coffee. Can you go get some while I feed Chibi? And maybe get us breakfast, too? That little place near the garage has omurice that Ryo likes.”

“Ooo! Yes!” the girl exclaimed, turning toward her father with pleading hands. “Please, please! And let me come, too! Please-!”

“Okay, alright,” Sukuna conceded, biting back his amusement to calm her down. “Go get dressed.”

She didn’t hesitate to bolt toward her room, sleepiness evading her entirely at the mention of her favorite omurice. When she was gone, Sukuna’s hands were on you again, dragging you in closer in an abrupt movement. To steady yourself, your arms circled his neck while his circled around your waist, and in an instant, his mouth was on you. 

You swallowed back your yelp of surprise at how quickly his mood had changed. Parting from your lips just enough to speak, he mumbled, “Should really have Yuji babysit sometime soon.”

“What for?”

With a nip to your bottom lip, he pressed his lower half into you. He wasn’t hard, but the implication was there. “Guess.”

Your quiet laughter was muffled by his lips. “Didn’t think you needed it that badly.”

“I didn’t either, until these started leaking.” 

He reached up, palming one of your breasts in one hand and teasing the nipple of the other, which you’d noticed felt wet. Looking down, sure enough, you were leaking and it had soaked into the red silk nightgown, creating a dark maroon patch. With a disgruntled sigh, you tried to break away from him to grab a paper towel and clean yourself up, but his grip on your waist wrangled you back in.

“Sukuna–no, wait-” 

From down the hallway, you heard a bedroom door open again, bringing you both to go still, but rather than rushing down the hall, Ryo called out, “Daddy! I’m taking a shower! Don’t leave without me!”

The bathroom door slammed shut seconds later, leaving you and Sukuna alone once again. And when he heard the shower start up, a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. 

“Sukuna,” you warned quietly, which left him looking a bit delighted. “There’s not enough time.”

“I’ll be quick-”

“No, really, there’s-” He slid his hands down your body, smoothing them down the silk fabric to the hem. “-not enough time-”

He cut you off with a kiss, moving his fingers to pop the buttons at your chest and reveal your tits, little droplets of milk sliding down the swell of them. When he leaned back to look, his hungry eyes followed the tiny beads of liquid as they soaked into your clothes.

“Such a mess.”

“Because they’re full-” A deep groan rumbled from his chest to hear that, which had you shoving at his shoulders in light-hearted annoyance. “Don’t be weird.”

“I’m not.” 

You didn’t stop him when he brought his hand up to cup the bottom of your heavy breast, grazing the pad of his thumb over your nipple. Your breathing hitched in your throat–they were sensitive. 

A pleasured sound vibrated against your skin after he took your nipple into his mouth. When his teeth grazed it, you gave a harsh tug to his hair as a warning, which only spurred him on. 

“Gentle, asshole.”

He listened to you, trading in the bite of his teeth with a smooth tongue to softly coax the milk out, and swallow down the small mouthfuls of it with a quiet moan. Pulling back just enough to speak, he mumbled, “Fuck, you were right.”

“H-Hm?” you choked on nothing, subtly arching into his mouth. 

“Not enough time,” he said, “To do what I want to you.” He seemed rather disappointed, but didn’t pull away entirely. Instead, he hiked up your nightgown and slid his hand into the front of your underwear. “Looks like it’s just for you this time–aren’t you so lucky?”

When you went to push at him for goading you, he slipped his two fingers down your slit, delving in just enough to circle your clit. Your hesitation softened then, as did your limbs when you leaned into the feeling. 

“Messy and needy.” He clicked his tongue. “Bet you’ll be greedy, too. Think this’ll be enough.”

“Fuck off,” you whispered through a pant, drawing him closer to you with your arms around his neck. He pressed you up against the counter, just barely leaning you back until his free hand lay flat to hold himself up, his other hand toying with you under your clothes. He was gentle with his touch, but it was cruel to be so delicate, not when you were so horny. “Sukuna, if you don’t get me off in the next five minutes, you’ll spend the next five weeks with your right hand on your dick, understand?”

“Sounds like an empty threat since you feel this wet in my hand already, but I’ll humor you.” He chose that moment to plunge his fingers into you, which is the first thing that had been that deep in months. You clenched around them, releasing a shuddering breath and unknowingly rocking into his palm. You only knew you’d been doing it when you heard his amusement rumble out of his throat. “Empty, empty threats, indeed.”

Not keen on wasting any more time entertaining his taunting, you pulled his mouth to your to speed up the process. And it worked excellently because before you knew it, the upward angle of his fingers turned really precise and really persuasive in coaxing that orgasm out of you. Stifling your noises by biting down on his clothed shoulder, you came hard, arching into him, and he pulled it out of you until there was nothing left but the smoldering promise of more sexual frustration.

Your unsteady breathing was pretty pathetic, you had to admit. Thankfully, it wasn’t mentioned as he pulled back to kiss you, dragging his fingers out of your sensitive pussy to roughly tap them against your clit. You jolted at first, but then leaned into it, thrusting up for more until he realized it for himself. 

“As I said,” he muttered against your mouth, “You’re greedy.” The rough tapping turned into heavy petting until you were writhing with need. “And easy, too–fuck, you’re about to cum again?” His taunting only made you wetter, but you still had your pride–though it wasn’t doing you much justice with your next retort. 

“Fuck you.” It was weak, pitiful, and apparently amusing to him. “Hate you.”

You heard him chuckle. “Don’t lie, you fucking love me,” he whispered teasingly against your ear, and the chills of his breath hitting your skin did you in. You tensed up against him as you came again, scrambling to bring him in even closer, though it was impossible. His teasing remarks hit your ear, but rolled right off your back as you rode out the feeling, too drunk on it to really care. 

It wasn’t until the feeling of something warm and wet wrapping around your nipple brought you to reality that you realized your surroundings again. Looking down, you watched as Sukuna’s tongue collected the small streams of breast milk that had leaked down your sternum, and even the droplets that beaded at the tip of your nipples. All the while, never taking his hand out from between your legs as he tapped at your oversensitive clit.

“Enough,” you huffed, pushing at his wrist to give your pussy so time to recoup. 

The hand he brought out from between your legs was soaked, glossy in a thin layer of your arousal. Mortification colored your cheeks, though he looked pleased nonetheless, unobservant of your embarrassment– well, he was unaware until your choked-up whimper hit his ears, just as he sucked your liquid off his middle finger. 

A sly, knowing grin replaced his look of obliviousness, and as lewdly as possible, he pulled his fingers from his mouth to completely ruin the moment by asking, “Want some?”

You pushed at him hard and snarled, “Don’t be fucking disgusting.” Your scold went unheeded, per usual. 

“Must not be too disgusting if it’s got you clenching your thighs together like that.” 

He motioned toward your lower half, which was exposed, thanks to your nightgown somehow caught on the counter behind you. Lo and behold, your thighs were indeed clenching together because, yes, you did find his crude sense of humor to be really fucking hot, and you were desperately trying to hold yourself back from jumping him like an animal. 

“Yuji’s on spring break, you know? I doubt he’d mind babysitting the kids on such short notice-”

“Shut up,” you groaned.

With a complacent smile, he listened and reached forward to button your nightgown back up for you. When he reached the top button, he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a soft, sweet kiss. It ended too quickly when he slowly eased away from you, staring intently at your face. Briefly, insecurity stippled over your skin, but familiar red eyes were drawing you back in from that ledge. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

You set him up for such a sweet comment, too, but of course, he didn’t rise to take the opportunity. Instead, he opted for a more ‘Sukuna’ approach.

“Just appreciating how fucked out you look-”

“Oh, my god,” you grumbled, pinching at his stomach. 

“Seriously, it’s impressive. My dick is still in my pants-”

“You’re so fucking annoying.” 

When you went in to pinch him again, he easily grabbed your wrist and guided you back in for one last chaste kiss that left you a little stunned. Maybe it was the abruptness, maybe it was the sweetened taste that contrasted heavily with the bitterness of your morning coffee.

Or maybe it was the next question out of his mouth, since it was oddly domestic and just… natural.

Simple. 

 “What else do you need from the store?”

* * * 

Eight Years Ago

“Thank you for coming with me. You didn’t have to–I know today was your day off both jobs, and you probably-”

A warm, tattooed hand clamped down over your mouth, pulling you and your cart to a halt in the entrance of the grocery store. In the child seat, your daughter peered up at you, wide red eyes flitting to her father’s, who stood right behind you, peering over your shoulder. Seconds later, his raspy voice hit your ears as he leaned forward. 

“If I have to hear you thank me for coming grocery shopping with you again, we’re gonna have problems.” His cheap wedding band–which had long since tarnished after a few hand washes– caught the fluorescent light of the store. “We’re married. Stop treating me like a shitty high school boyfriend. And let me push the cart.” 

His hand slipped away from your mouth to wrap around your waist and pry you away from the cart. Finally standing beside your husband, you peered up at him and his deep, dark circles that were stamped below his eyes. Guilt twisted sharply in your gut, and when he realized the look painted on your face, he snapped, “Don’t look at me like that.”

You rolled your eyes and hooked your arm with his much-thicker one. “I’ll look at you however I want, my dear husband. Even if that means my pitiful glances.”

“Alright, the last thing I ever want is your pity.”

With a sigh, you argued, “It’s your day off.”

“It’s your day off, too.”

“Yes, but today is your only day off. I don’t work every day.”

“Right. You don’t. On the days when you’re at home, you’re taking care of our baby.” His rebuttal was irrefutable. “You get to spend more time with her than I do, so stop worrying about how my time is spent. I wanna be here.”

“You’re exhausted. I can tell.”

“You don’t look caught up on your beauty rest either, sweetheart-”

“Wow, thanks. But what I meant was, you should be sleeping.”

“Mm, I should do a lot of things,” he stubbornly replied while ending the conversation by venturing further into the store. You lengthened your strides to catch up with him and Ryo.

“I just worry about you getting sick, is all.”

“How could I with all the vitamins you force me to take?”

You scoffed, “Bitch all you want about the vitamins, asshole–I just want you to be healthy, and if that means smothering you, so be it.”

“Smothering–yes, that’s the perfect word for it. I’ve just been calling it overbearing, bossy-”

“Screw you-”

“A real big nag, always running that mouth for something, and you’re so good at riding my ass-”

“You don’t have to be-”

“And it makes me love you even more.” His admission had you looking up at him, finding that the usual scowl laced on his mouth was curled into a faint grin–he was fucking with you. Clearly. 

You sharply poked his arm. “I was so fucking close to making you sleep on the couch tonight, you know that?”

He tutted at you, giving his attention to the grinning baby in the cart–she’d just learned to crawl, which was a milestone that only you had been present for, but you managed to capture a few photos of it on your camera. 

“See how I’m treated, Ryo?” In response to his question, the baby merely cooed around her slobbery fingers she was chewing on. He hummed over her babble, pretending to understand. “You’re right–Mommy is a pain in the ass-”

You gasped, “She would not say that!”

“And you think she doesn’t know how to take a joke?” he continued his one-sided conversation with Ryo, acting like you weren’t even there. “Right again, Ryo. She’s a real stick in the mud-”

“I’m about to stick my fist up your ass if you don’t stop pulling my baby into your antics.”

“And people say I’m the violent one.”

You’re sure the other shoppers in the store were regarding your little trio with disgusted grimaces, not impressed with the chaotic aura that surrounded you in the slightest, but if they were glaring at all, you couldn’t feel it, nor could you see them.

* * *

“The car,” Hiro stated flatly, earning the incredulous looks of you and your divorce lawyer. “I want the car.”

You glanced at Higuruma, waiting for him to step in because you weren’t sure that the next words out of your mouth were going to be appropriate. Understanding your expression, he cleared his throat, turning back to Hiro to say, “I think you’ve been mistaken-”

“My client has not mistaken anything, Mr. Higuruma. He’s put money into the car-”

“The most he’s ever put into it is a quarter tank of gas!” you exclaimed, “And the car isn’t even his–it’s not even mine! It’s Sukuna’s, and the only one who’s made any sort of payment on it is him-”

“Bullshit!”

Your eyes narrowed in your husband–ex-husband–soon to be ex-husband’s direction. “No, what’s bullshit, Hiro, is you cancelling these meetings over and over for the past two months after you’ve insisted on them in the first place. And then you're telling me you want one of the two things I’ve asked to keep out of this marriage?”

“That’s what these meetings are for, aren’t they? To discuss splitting assets-”

“The car isn’t even my asset!”

“It was given to you as a gift, yes?” his lawyer asked. 

“Barely. I borrowed it and just didn’t give it back.” 

Now that you're thinking about it, what happened to your previous car?

“If that’s true, why is the title in your name, as well as the registration?”

“What?” You sat forward, looking toward your own lawyer for confirmation, but you were met with tired eyes that told you Hiro’s guy was telling the truth. “Since when?”

“Since it was purchased last year. And the loan was in Sukuna’s name, but it’s been paid off already. Technically speaking, the car is an asset of yours that was acquired during the marriage,” Higuruma explained, rubbing at his eyes and turning to Hiro. “But, that being said, I suggest you reconsider. My client is being very sparing in what she’s asking for. Quite frankly, she could get a lot more out of this, but she wants this process to be over as quickly as possible. So, before she wants to start asking for alimony, maybe let her keep the car and the photo albums without making such a fuss.”

Hiro scoffed, “She can’t ask me for alimony when her ex is supporting her.”

“Actually, she can. Since they’re not legally married, securing alimony is more than possible, and given the difference in your salary, it only makes it more likely that the judge would agree.” Hiromi gathered up the spread of papers in front of him, tucking them into a neat stack. “If only she weren’t still married to you, then she could marry Sukuna, which cuts off any chance of alimony…”

Hiro and his lawyer shared a look, a silent conversation passing between them before Hiro had the audacity to look back at you with too much confidence. “I still want the car.”

* * * 

Two texts were waiting in your messages as you began to slowly climb the stairs to Sukuna’s house, your mind still reeling from the meeting. Despite your best efforts, staying optimistic in regard to the divorce was getting difficult, and this was just your first time meeting to discuss it. 

You weren’t asking for much, and of course, Hiro was trying to make the end as brutal as possible, doing everything within his power to drain you dry, which wasn’t entirely surprising. Your relationship with Hiro was and always had been an exchange of sorts. 

You knew of Hiro when you were still married to Sukuna, and while he was in prison, you got to know Hiro a little better, too. It was never something that strayed toward romantic–not even platonic, really. He was a regular patron in the cafe where you worked part-time, and when the rug was pulled out from under your feet, he was there to catch you. 

Sort of.

Trust that you were never interested in the man–you had always been in love with Sukuna–but you were interested in giving your baby what she needed at the time, so when Hiro offered a friendly helping hand, you took it in a weak, shaky, and hesitant grasp. You maintained that boundary, no matter how many times Hiro wanted to cross it. 

He wanted to move you in the second you mentioned your lack of housing, which you declined. He wanted to give you a job as his assistant, and you turned it down. He wanted to give you money, but you didn’t always take it–counter-productive to your cause, you’re aware, but Hiro wasn’t Ryo’s father, Hiro wasn’t your husband–Hiro wasn’t even really your friend. 

Hiro wasn’t Sukuna.

Hiro was Hiro.

Overbearing and assertive. Controlling at times, too. But he was consistent and stable, so sometimes leaning on him when he offered didn’t bother you too badly. 

Then Sukuna came home. 

You were angry and unforgiving–a natural response to being abandoned by the man you loved. Then to be picked up by someone who looked like him, sounded like him, but did not act like him was heartbreaking–he didn’t even apologize to you. Mentally, he was barely there. Physically, he was sitting in the corner of the room, quiet and dull. 

You were aware of what they had done to him during his time in there–they isolated him. For two years. 

You tried to be understanding of that, you gave him time, too, to figure himself out again, but it wasn’t working. You started to think that maybe it was you. Maybe he just didn’t think you were worth it anymore–which you could have lived with. But when you realized that you weren’t the only one suffering from his self-isolation, that Ryo was suffering, too…

Your fights were terrible. Half the time, they were one-sided–you being the only one who was engaging. The other half, the times when he would fight back, he was brutal. No longer were you two just at each other's throats, bickering to get under the other’s skin. You were holding knives out, attempting to flay the other alive. 

Like you were out for blood.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

When you voiced these issues to Hiro, after being pried into over and over, he suggested that you and Sukuna get a divorce. You brushed off the idea at first, because how could you live without Sukuna?

But after Hiro shoved the idea down your throat a few more times, and the realization that you’d been living without Sukuna for a while at that point, you thought that maybe that was the best course of action. 

The decision didn’t come easily, and like always, there had been a breaking point. 

You were arguing at the time, nothing out of the ordinary for you two. It was mean and cruel, both of you desperately trying to hurt the other, using whatever you could to make it happen.

And he got you so fucking good. 

“If I were given the chance to leave you again, I would.”

As soon as those words came from his mouth, the heated tension of the argument went cold, cooling until it was practically frozen.

He hadn’t just nicked an insecurity. He stabbed right into a fear, and twisted the knife for good measure.

Naturally, to parry his statement, you needed to be just as cruel. 

And to protect yourself, you needed to promise that you’d get away first.

“I want a divorce.”

The room stilled, and in the silence that ensued, you were begging for him to say no. 

But he didn’t. 

Emotionlessly and quietly, he nodded. 

“Okay.”

Hiro was there to pick up the pieces and tape them together–it was a shitty job, but you were put together again, nonetheless. He put you and Ryo in an apartment, he gave you a job, and he supplied you with what you needed. You took it without complaint, too drained to fight against him anymore.

You just wanted to rest.

A few years after you divorced Sukuna, you agreed to marry Hiro. 

It wasn’t a happy union, but it wasn’t forced.

You walked down that aisle while telling yourself who you were really doing it for, which wasn’t for you, not even for Hiro. 

You did it for Ryo.

You went into that marriage with the bare minimum, and you were coming out of it asking for the same, but being denied even that.

A couple of photo albums and your car, and he wasn’t going to let you have them easily. Not after he’d convinced himself that he was your true savior and held that above your head any chance he could.

And you fucking hated having things held above your head.

Higuruma: We’ll meet again in a week. Let’s see if his attorney can talk him out of being a total POS.

You didn’t respond to him and went to the next text instead.

Sukuna: Took the kids out to dinner. Text me what you want to eat. I’ll bring it home.

Checking the time, you realized he sent that to you over an hour ago, which means they’re most likely on their way back. With a deep, steadying breath, you willed back your tears of stress to type out a response. 

You: That’s okay. I’ll have leftovers from last night.

You pulled out the keys to his house, ready to unlock the door, which appeared to already be unlocked. With an eye roll, you pushed it open, fully intending on scolding him once again for not remembering to lock up the house before leaving.

If someone wants in, they’ll get in, or so Sukuna says. Though he swears he makes a point to remember when he watches the kids.

Upon stepping inside, you tossed your keys down on the entryway table, dropping your purse at your feet before toeing off your shoes. Your fingers worked on pulling off your outer layers of clothes as you padded through the living room, bunching up the fabric to take to the laundry room. Dropping the pile into the hamper, you reached under your camisole and unhooked your bra, tossing that down, too.

Now, sufficiently less clothed, you felt a bit better. You’d make a point to dress before Sukuna returned with the kids, but for the time being, your under shirt and underwear were good enough for you. 

Watching your food spin on the microwave plate, listening to the hum of the machine filled your brain, letting you blank out-

Until the sound of creaking floorboards behind you had you focusing in on reality–the one where you weren’t alone in your darkened kitchen. You paused, waiting to hear it again so you could pass it off as the house settling, but the creaks could only hide the sound of footsteps so much. And after the day you’ve had, you didn’t find yourself caring much to do things the proper way, especially for an intruder. 

Your fingers wrapped around the handle of the biggest knife in the display block on the counter before you followed the sound. Thankfully, months of living in Sukuna’s house granted you the knowledge of the layout, so even in the dim area, you navigated just fine, something the intruder couldn’t do. The sound of them tripping over the archway into the hallway clued you in on that fact. 

Their body stumbled around a bit, a whispered curse passing their lips, but they ventured toward the light coming from the living room lamp. You followed them, taking quiet, padded steps that they couldn’t hear. The closer you both got to the living room, the easier it was to see who they were. 

And the easier it was to see them, the more you wished it could have been anyone other than him.

* * * * * 

Sukuna pulled into his driveway and cut the engine to his truck before turning to look over his shoulder at his daughter. “Carry in your mom’s food, will you?” The girl nodded, accepting the packaged to-go box when he handed it back to her. “And wait for me. I’ll help you out so you don’t spill it.”

He rounded the truck, pulled open her door, and lowered her to the ground, all while wondering what the hell you were watching inside and why it was so loud.

“What’s that sound?” Ryo asked with a frown. 

“Your mom. Probably watching those damn reality TV shows again.” He shut the door and went to grab his son from the other side before leading Ryo up to the front porch. The closer they got to the door, the more Sukuna thought that the argument sounded a little familiar. 

More specifically, the arguer sounded familiar–they sounded like you.

Either it was a coincidence, or you really were yelling at someone in there. And if you were the one making the noise, who were you talking to? Probably Hiro, over the phone. Sukuna knew he had called you a few times. Perhaps even your lawyer. Or maybe you were talking to Emi, because sometimes you get pretty excited over things together.

However, any scenario that Sukuna could have come up with while he worked on unlocking the front door did not even come close to what was actually happening inside. 

He was correct in thinking you were the one speaking at such a high volume, but he wasn’t prepared to see his twin underneath a barely clothed you and holding a knife to his neck while you sobbed, “...you don’t get to come into my life for a third time! And fucking ruin it again!”

“Please, I’m not–I swear-”

You kept talking over him. “I won’t let you–I’ll kill you before you even ask him-!”

At his side, Ryo reached over and grabbed onto Sukuna’s shirt, taking it into a tight fist. 

“Daddy?”

She was scared–you were scaring her, and you didn’t even know it.

“It’s okay. Take your brother outside,” Sukuna said, rushing the baby into Ryo’s arms so quickly that she dropped the food. With the door firmly shut behind her, he managed to remember to turn on the porch light before moving toward your pile on the floor.

“That’s not why I’m here!” his brother shouted back in defense, trying to gently reason with you, but clearly you couldn’t be reasoned with because you kept talking over him, choking and crying, promising that you’d really kill him.

He stood behind you, curious to see where you’d take it, but decided against letting you actually kill him. Having to deal with a dead brother and your guilt would be a terrible experience.

His brother looked relieved to see him standing there, still you weren’t aware of the company. Not until Sukuna’s hands wrapped around your wrist. The first bit of contact made you flinch as he pried your hands away from Jin, removing the blade from his brother’s neck. You were fighting against his pull, but he dragged your hands away anyway.

“Drop the knife,” he ordered as softly as he could.

Shaky and panting, you replied, “No.”

Your stubbornness made him huff, “Yes.”

“No. I won’t.”

“You will or I’ll make you.”

“You will let go of me, or I’ll chop off your dick.”

With a groan, he reaffirmed his grip on you to haul you off his brother. “Your negotiation skills suck. Give me the knife.” 

Your hold remained tight around the blade, fearful of letting go. You were terrified, that much was obvious, and you weren’t going to let go until it was safe to do so–though Sukuna’s not sure what the knife is really going to do besides send you to jail for murder. 

To save you the felony, he managed to pry it away from your fist, and as he did so, you… broke. You turned to wrap your arms around him, going limp against his tense body to cry. His hand fell to the back of your head, holding you to his chest, offering support as much as he could. 

Over you, Sukuna peered down at his brother, seeing him shrivel up under his stare. He wondered if Jin was competent enough to sense the level of anger that was quickly rising in him, or if the dope really fried all of his brain cells–why else would he be inside Sukuna’s house after he explicitly told his brother to fuck off.

Jin must have sensed something because in a soothing tone, he began, “S-Sukuna-”

“Shut the fuck up.” 

Your trembling body against his was the only thing grounding him in place, keeping him from moving you aside so he could beat the shit out of his brother. However, his lividity wasn’t going to make you feel better, but he couldn’t comfort you with his number one stressor lying on the floor behind you, either.

“Why don’t you go wait in the bedroom-”

His suggestion had you panicking. “No-”

“I’ll be there in a second. Let me put the kids to bed-”

A strangled whimper from you twisted guilt in his chest. “Sukuna-”

“I’m not leaving. I promise.” 

Still, you hesitated in pulling away from him. It wasn’t until he pressed a kiss to the top of your head that you actually moved. A slow turn toward the hallway, a few sniffles, and a wipe of your eyes seemed to be all you needed to somewhat snap out of your scared daze. 

As you passed by Jin, you spared him a glance, which he flinched away from. If he weren’t so angry, Sukuna might have felt a bit of pride at the sight. 

When you were gone, Jin tried to reason with his brother, attempting to scurry away, too, because Sukuna was stalking toward him with a knife in his hands. His twin wasn’t stupid enough to think that he wouldn’t stab him in an instant if he made one wrong move. 

“I’ll leave! I’ll–Sukuna, wait!”

When Sukuna raised the knife up, Jin closed his eyes, turning away from it, and prepared himself for his end. However, stabbing the knife into the man’s chest isn’t what Sukuna did. Jin looked over after hearing and feeling the blade embed itself into the floorboard, and he realized that the most Sukuna had injured was Jin’s shirt. He swallowed thickly, peering up at his brother’s glare.

“You’re not going anywhere until I figure out what the fuck is wrong with you-”

“I can explain-”

“Shut up, Jin,” Sukuna muttered, venturing toward the front door. He pulled it open, motioning for Ryo to come in. Slowly, she did so, peering around, presumably for a dead body, as Sukuna took Chibi from her arms. As they passed the man pinned to the floor, Ryo slowed to look at him.

“Who is that?” she asked her father quietly.

With a tick in his jaw, Sukuna answered, “Yuji’s dad,” and guided her back to her bedroom. He could tell she had more questions, but there wasn’t time for that at that moment. “Ask me all about it tomorrow, okay?”

In your bedroom, you were waiting on the bed, sitting up and hugging your knees to your chest. When he entered, you only looked at him for a second before tearily eyeing the baby, motioning for him to hand your son over. 

He slid onto the bed beside you, handing off the boy to ask, “What happened?”

You sniffled, bringing Chibi closer to you. “He was just… in the house. I didn’t know it was him at first when I was following him, and-”

Sukuna raised a concerned hand to cut you off. “You were following who you thought to be an intruder around the house?” When you shrugged, the look Sukuna gave you was nothing short of exasperated.

“Don’t look at me like that. I had a shitty day.”

“So you were going to take it out on a stranger, who could have been dangerous? What if it wasn’t Jin? What if it was someone who had a weapon-”

“I. Had. A. Shitty. Day.” Each word was enunciated, like that was supposed to drive the point home. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, and so what if I was going to take my stress out on an intruder? Don’t fucking scold me right now. I don’t need it.”

Sukuna closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, moving closer to you on the bed. “Okay. What happened today that had you feeling homicidal?”

Your answer was easy. 

“Hiro. He’s–I…” You trailed off into a mess of sniffles again, which angered Sukuna like nothing else could.

You crying over Hiro. He was sick of seeing it.

“What did he do?” Whatever it is, I’ll kill him, Sukuna thought, but didn’t say. He knew it would only piss you off. 

“He wants my car.”

For fucks sake…

That man was really fucking asking for it.

“Isn’t that the only thing you’re asking to keep?”

“Yeah–well, the pictures, too.” Your bottom lip trembled. “It’s not even about the car, really. It’s that he’s making this as difficult as possible, and I just want it to be over.”

In the undertones of your words was a simple request that Sukuna had no problems with fulfilling, if it meant making you stop crying over a piece of shit like Hiro.

“Then let him keep the car, sweetheart.”

Your tear-filled eyes snapped to his. “What? No. What will I do then? I need one-”

“We’ll get you a new one.”

“Sukuna, don’t be ridiculous. My car is perfectly fine and I don’t need an extra monthly payment.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“I–no. That’s too much, too expensive-”

Dear god, can you stop being so stubborn?

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly strapped for cash anymore.” He motioned around his house–the one he bought on his own because he could afford it now. “I can handle a car payment.”

A certain emotion twisted up onto your face–curiosity, incredulity.

“You know, I was wondering, what happened to my old car?”

Shamelessly, he answered, “Sold it to Uraume’s dad.” 

“Uraume’s dad–you sent it to the chop shop!”

“I did. He needed parts for a few of his vehicles.”

“That’s illegal, Sukuna.”

He brushed you off. “Technically not, since you didn’t report the car as stolen. And you can’t be too mad at me because I put the cash he gave me into a savings account for Ryo. Not that the beater was worth much to begin with, but at least it’s a start.”

When a quiet moment fell over the room, Sukuna reached over to brush a stray tear from underneath your eye. 

“Let him have the car, sweetheart," he repeated.

You bit at your inner cheek. “You’re sure it’s okay?”

No, it wasn’t okay. Sukuna didn’t like the way Hiro was dragging out this process to keep you from him, but clearly, it was taking a toll on you, too, if you were getting so upset that you contemplated murder.

“It’s okay.”

“I… okay. I’ll tell him.” You nodded, more to yourself than Sukuna, but turned to him with a newfound lightness to ask, “Is your brother…”

With that reminder, Sukuna’s mood only dampened. “He’s still here. Needs to talk to me about something, and it must be important if he’s risking his life to come into my house.”

He could see the gears turning in your head, fitting together pieces in presumptuous moves, but ended up in the correct places anyway. 

“How many times have you talked to him since you found out he was wanted again?”

Perceptive as always, you were. 

“Twice,” he answered honestly and soaked up the disappointed glint in your eyes–it was an inevitable emotion, as was the guilt that was now pinching in his stomach. “I never had any intention of-”

“I know,” you interrupted, drawing into yourself while bringing the sleeping baby closer. “Did Ryo see?”

“See what? You acting like a psycho, or Jin on the floor?” Your lips pressed into a flat line, not interested in Sukuna's sense of humor. “She saw both, but she didn’t seem too shook up when I put her to bed.”

You let out a disappointed sigh, closing your eyes. “Bet she’s gonna have lots of questions. Bet she thinks I’m actually fucking crazy, too.”

“Well…” Sukuna trailed off, a teasing lilt that finally had you cracking a smile, though it was a tired one. “Trauma builds character.”

You exhaled a dry laugh. “Sure, and it’ll turn her into us.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

Sukuna felt a small smile forming on his own mouth. “If she ends up acting anything like you, I think I’ll be relieved.”

You rolled your eyes. “Mm, good fucking luck. She acts just like you right now, and I don’t see that going away any time soon.”

Sukuna shrugged. “Even better. It’ll keep the boys away.”

A simple silence fell over the room, both of you feeling a bit better.

“Well, you should probably go see what your brother wants before I drag him outside myself.” Sukuna doesn’t doubt for a second that you really would. “And you better have your ass back in this bed within the hour, or so help me god…”

With a small smile, he kissed your cheek before rolling off the bed to his feet. 

The rundown from you didn’t leave Sukuna feeling any better about the Jin situation. In fact, it only pissed him off even more, which was a difficult emotion to deal with while trying to comfort you, but he managed. 

He stepped back into the hallway, softly shutting the door behind him to venture toward the living room. His brother’s eyes widened when he saw him again, and immediately, he tried to voice his reasoning for being there. 

Truthfully, Sukuna wasn’t listening.

The bottom of his boot met Jin’s cheek, forcing him to shut his mouth as he bent down to pull the knife from the floorboards.

 “You’re a fucking dumbass, you know that?” He chuckled dryly, standing straight to apply just a bit more pressure to his brother’s skull before pulling it back. “Traumatizing your family wasn’t enough; you had to fuck with mine, too?”

“Sukuna, I swear on my life-”

“Swear on something else–your life means jack-shit to me.”

“I didn’t mean to scare anyone-!” A kick to his side had him wheezing and jerking away from his brother's foot. 

“And keep your voice down. You wake my kids, you can give your half-assed explanation to the police-”

“Fuck,” he coughed, folding into the pain. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

“I thought you lived alone. I didn’t know she was here. I tried to leave before she saw me, but then she attacked me.”

“You’re lucky that’s all she did.”

He gulped back the dryness and pushed himself up onto his elbows, still keeping as much distance between him and Sukuna’s boots as possible. 

“Look, I definitely deserved it. I know I fucked up your lives, and I really want to make it right. As right as it can be. I want to fix it– I want-”

Sukuna scoffed, “No one needs your help to fix anything-”

“I’m turning myself in tomorrow.”

His admission left Sukuna a little shocked, but a little skeptical, too. Jin just willingly handing himself over? Taking accountability for his fuck ups? Since when?

But there was nothing but sincerity in his eyes, clear from any drug-induced haze.

He was sober.

“Why not do it now while you’ve still got the balls?”

He shrugged, meekly replying, “I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Well, if you’re looking for me to talk you out of it, you’re dead fucking wrong-”

With a sigh, Jin interjected, “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Sukuna blinked, processing his brother’s words before chuckling to himself. “That’s it?” he questioned, a scornful cadence. “You break into my house to say goodbye?”

Looking sheepish, Jin stammered for a response, but Sukuna was quicker than him. 

“Where was your goodbye when I turned myself in for you the first time? Or the second time? What about all the other times you ran away? The times when you left me?” Sukuna cocked a brow, eyeing the way his brother’s face drained of any color. “I didn’t need your goodbyes then, and I sure as fuck don’t need them now. So, you can take them with you to prison to wipe your ass with. Now, get the fuck out of my house.”

He grabbed onto the front of Jin’s shirt and hauled him up onto his feet. He didn’t fight against his brother as Sukuna pushed him to the door, but at the very last second, before he could be thrown outside, Jin turned around and wrapped his arms around him. 

He hugged his brother for the first time in many, many years.

It was startling. To Sukuna, at least.

The last time he could recall, Jin hugged him after their mother’s funeral, which just so happened to be the year Jin ran away for the first time. Everything sort of went downhill after that. 

Not that Sukuna wanted or even needed his brother’s hugs at all–he wasn’t one for physical affection, except from you, of course. But he really, really didn’t fucking need it from his brother.

“Get off me-”

“I shouldn’t have blamed you. It wasn’t your fault–it’s never been your fault.” At Jin’s rushed words, Sukuna stopped trying to pry his brother away from him, but he didn’t reciprocate the hug either. “I… I didn’t want to just say goodbye. I also wanted to say I’m sorry. And I wanted to thank you. For everything.”

Sukuna couldn’t help his tone–he was cynical. 

“Is that right?”

He felt Jin nod against him before quickly adding, “You don’t have to forgive me, I’m not even asking for it. I don’t deserve it. I just wanted you to know.”

Despite knowing better, he felt himself caving into the apology. 

Maybe it was because he’d been wanting to hear it for so long, or maybe he needed the one who blamed him to revoke said blame. 

Fuck, it could also be the fact that Jin’s quick, rushed words sounded an awful lot like the youngest Itadori, who would apologize to Sukuna in the same way when he was younger. While the brotherly bond between Sukuna and Jin had faded significantly, Sukuna developed a soft spot for his nephew, but he’d never admit it. 

When his brother’s shoulder began shaking, Sukuna let out a groan. “Don’t fucking cry on me. You’re making yourself look more pathetic than you-”

“I’m sorry.”

He grunted. “So you’ve said.” Sukuna took the back of Jin’s shirt in his fist and pried him off his chest. “You’re being serious? You’re really going?”

The man nodded, ducking out of Sukuna’s grasp. “I am. I’ll even swear on your life instead of mine-”

Sukuna raised his hand, “Don’t do that shit either.”

A small smile quirked onto Jin’s mouth. “I really mean it. I wanna get this part over with so I can just… be there for everyone. I missed so much already, don’t wanna miss anything else.” 

A weight that Sukuna didn’t realize had been resting heavily on his shoulders was released.

“Besides, I need to get to know your family. And apologize to your… uhm… what is she to you now?”

That was a good question. What was the relationship between you and Sukuna now? He was smart enough to know that you weren’t exes anymore, despite what you’d say. But that’s the most progress you’ve both made during the recent chaos.

“Girlfriend, I guess.”

“Girlfriend?” Jin cocked a brow. “After everything-”

“And who are you to question anything about my relationship?” 

Upon Sukuna’s jab, Jin’s mouth closed, and he nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. Sorry.”

“Mm, well, I won’t make her accept your apology, and the chances of her forgiving you are slim to none. Not to mention, if she doesn’t want you around the kids, I’m not going to force her hand.”

Jin blew out a breath. “That’s fair.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

Sensing that the moment was coming to an end, Jin heaved in some air, forcing a smile as he backed up toward the door.

“Tell Yuji for me?”

“Why should I? You get one free call when you get there.” 

With a sheepish warmth taking over Jin’s cheeks, Sukuna rolled his eyes. 

“You don’t know his number, do you?”

“No.”

Sukuna groaned, “Fucking helpless. Hold on.” 

He went to the kitchen, pulling open the drawer of miscellaneous items to find a permanent marker. When he returned to his brother, he roughly grabbed his arm and pushed up his sleeves. Briefly, his eyes raked over the scars and track marks that were almost finished healing before he scribbled down his nephew’s phone number.

“Take your glasses off until you get settled in.”

“Huh?”

His jaw tensed in annoyance. “Take your glasses off until you get settled in,” Sukuna repeated and dropped his brother’s arm to cap the marker.

“Why?” 

“They make you look like a fucking nerd, and they’ll eat you alive in there. And mind your own business. Do not join a gang, either, no matter what. Don’t try to be friends with the guards–they’re all assholes, but be nice to the lunch ladies; they’ll give you extra food.”

“Are… are you giving me prison advice?”

A scowl tugged at the corners of Sukuna’s mouth. “Do you wanna fucking survive, or not?”

“Yes?”

“Then do what I’m telling you. Don’t borrow anything from anyone, not even if they offer it. Don’t gamble, don’t do bets, don’t play games–none of that. You look like a pushover, so you’ll be treated like one if you let them. Just keep your head down, and you should be fine.”

His brother gulped, but took the tips to heart. “S’that all?”

“Mm…” He mulled over it before adding, “Oh. Don’t drop the soap. And I mean that seriously–the bathroom floors are fucking disgusting. And make sure to wear shoes, too.”

“That’s… lovely.” As Jin came to terms with the helpful advice, Sukuna started to feel immensely better. “Anything else?”

“Don’t think so,” his brother gruffed.

“Okay.” Jin swallowed, seeming hesitant, but took a step back. “I suppose I should-”

And before he could stop himself, Sukuna actually pulled his brother into a hug, leaving them both rather startled, but Jin adapted to it quickly to reciprocate the gesture. 

Awkwardly, of course. Very fucking awkwardly.

“...this is… weird.” Jin cleared his throat. “Nice, but weird.”

“Yeah, well, soak it up because it’ll never happen again.” Sukuna offered his brother’s back a few rough pats before adding, “Just be good, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

* * * 

A week after Jin turned himself in, Wasuke finally kicked the bucket. Sukuna wasn’t too surprised to have received the call from Yuji, nor was he that beat up over it, but he did feel his heart clench over a missed opportunity to reconcile with his father. Not much, not enough to forgive him completely, but enough to rid themselves of the odd tension that always fell over them.

Over the crematorium table, Yuji and Sukuna picked out Wasuke’s bones from the pile of ashes. For a while, all that could be heard was the clinking sound of their chopsticks and the ring of each bone being dropped inside the urn. 

Then, out of the blue, Yuji spoke, almost startling Sukuna. 

“Sorry you have to do this part with me.”

Sukuna faltered as he pinched a bone between the two sticks, and when he dropped it into the urn, he asked, “Who else would have done it?”

“It should be Dad. He was his son.”

Despite his best efforts to hold it back, Sukuna chuckled. “Yuji, you were treated more like Wasuke’s son than either of us. And you were good at it, too. I know he’d rather have you here than me or your dad.”

Sukuna could see his nephew chew at his inner cheek before the boy asked, “Why don’t you sound angry about that?”

Yeah, Sukuna wondered the same thing sometimes.

“What’s there to be angry about? It’s nice to see he was a good father when someone really needed it.”

“Oo, you almost sounded scorned there for a second,” Yuji teased.

“Brat,” Sukuna huffed, sifting through the ashes. 

After a few more moments of silence, Yuji broke it again. “You know, he always talked about apologizing to you for something.”

“Yeah? How interesting. I didn’t know the man was capable of feeling remorseful.”

Brushing off the jab, his nephew asked, “What did he do?”

Yuji knew Sukuna went to jail for his father, but he didn’t know what made him crazy enough to agree to something like that. It wasn’t something Sukuna, Wasuke, or Jin liked to talk about. 

But Jin was locked up, and Wasuke was nothing but a pile of ashes between Sukuna and Yuji, so he didn’t feel so guilty about spilling the truth.

“He asked me to go to jail for your father the first time. Sorta implied that it was my fault for letting him shoot up and leaving him out on the streets. It wasn’t so much a punishment as it was a suggestion, but it felt like he was forcing me at the time. Kind of. Looking back, I think he was just trying to get shit sorted out.”

The sound of Yuji’s chopsticks went quiet as he stopped. “That makes no sense.”

Without context, Sukuna’s sure it’s confusing.

“He was diagnosed with cancer when your father and I were teenagers. Went through all the chemo bullshit. It worked, but left him sick and miserable most days; that’s not really surprising. He was a mean, miserable man, always has been. The chemo made it worse. Then your father brought you home, left you there for us to take care of. Wasuke stopped treatment after that.”

“Why?”

Sukuna shrugged. “For a while, I always thought it was that he couldn’t afford it anymore, or maybe there just wasn’t time for him to be sick afterward, since he was dealing with you. Then I noticed how he acted with you. He was happier, smiled more, less miserable–you get it. I think I realized then that he stopped treatment for you, so he could raise you properly, and not fuck up again. Third time's a charm, and all that.”

Still, Yuji looked confused. “So, how was that him getting stuff sorted?”

“Your dad came home after getting caught up in shit he couldn’t handle, strung out and scared–he’s a pussy, you know?”

Yuji chuckled, “You’ve mentioned it.”

“Wasuke was only getting sicker, and Jin was there promising to step up for you, but said that he couldn’t go to jail. Said he’d run away again if Dad called the cops. I think Wasuke saw it as an opportunity to hand you back over to your father, or maybe that you would be good for Jin–at least enough for him to get sober.” He picked up a bone, depositing it into the urn with a little extra force than was necessary. “Or maybe he was hoping to have someone to take care of you before he died, because he knew you’d be stuck with me if Jin wasn’t there.”

“You’d have taken me in?”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course, I would have.” Sukuna rolled his eyes. “I think the old man was just making plans for everyone else and not telling anyone about them.”

Yuji hummed in agreement. “Sounds like him. Still, they seem like really shitty plans if they all meant you had to go to jail for Dad. Even I would’ve been mad at Gramps for it.”

“I was. For a while. But focusing on him while I was in a cell only made time go by slower, and when I got out, I didn’t want to think about him at all, and eventually convinced myself that he just wanted everything to be… fixed. Took the ass-backwards way to get there, but…” Sukuna plucked the last bone from the pile of ashes and dropped it into the urn. “Besides, it doesn’t really matter now. The bastard is dead, and I have everything I wanted anyway.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

As Yuji sealed up the urn, he asked, “Does that mean you don’t wanna see what was left to you in the will?”

* * * 

The will, as Yuji called it, was a letter that Wasuke had left for him–the real will being filed away in a courthouse, waiting to be analyzed by a lawyer. They sat in the living room of Wasuke’s house as Yuji read over the letter, per the old man’s request that Yuji be the one to hand out the earnings, since no one else could be trusted. Apparently.

“By the time you’re reading this, I’m dead. Hopefully. Or maybe on life support, but if that’s the case, pull the damn plug already–Jesus…” Yuji trailed off, snickering. “I know you greedy bastards are only interested in one thing, so I’ll make this quick. Here it is. The house goes to Yuji–oh, woah. A whole house, and it’s mine?”

Sukuna looked around the place in a quick glance–he was glad not to be receiving the house, but he wouldn’t say anything to ruin Yuji’s excitement. “How lucky.”

“The car goes to Yuji, and the Hokkaido rental goes to Yuji–wait, he has a rental in Hokkaido?”

Sukuna shrugged. “Apparently so.”

“Man, he really left me a lot,” the boy hummed.

“Not surprising. You were his favorite.”

Yuji couldn’t keep the smile off his face even if he tried, but he got back to reading the letter.

“For Jin, my stamp collection.”

The two of them shared a laugh before Yuji read off the last line.

“And for Sukuna, my bank accounts. He’ll take my money, whether he thinks he’s too good for it or not. And make sure he takes that letter out of my nightstand.”

Yuji hummed and placed down the makeshift will, pushing up from the floor. “I’ll go get it. We had to rearrange everything to get him out of the house. Hang on.”

Sukuna grabbed the letter when his nephew was gone, skimming over to see if it really said Wasuke was handing over his bank accounts–as if Sukuna would fucking want those, knowing they had been drained dry after Wasuke figured out what QVC was.

The boy returned, handing off the envelope to his uncle before taking his place in front of him again, wide brown eyes watching him with excitement.

Sukuna brushed it off and ripped open the paper, taking out the thin stack of folded-up documents. As he pulled them open to read, two things fell from between the pages.

A smaller note.

And a Polaroid picture he hadn’t seen for years–the one he’d taken of you when you were both still teenagers. He took it between his two fingers, holding it at the edges as he looked over the cute little glare on your face–it hadn’t changed a single bit.

“What is it?” Yuji asked, prompting Sukuna to turn it around and show his nephew. “Oh…”

“He must’ve taken my old nightstand when I moved out.” At the time, you both had decided to use your bedroom furniture since it was in better shape than Sukuna’s. 

Sukuna’s theory was proved correct when he grabbed the smaller note to read over it.

‘Found the photo in the back of my nightstand while I was looking for the remote. Always just forgot to give it back to you, since you never came around.’ 

Sukuna exhaled a quiet laugh and went on to read the rest. 

‘Don’t blame you for it, though. What I did to you was really shitty. I would have stayed away, too. I knew it was a mistake the second you left. Always wanted to make up for it, but you were too stubborn to let me try, not even with free money.’

That was true. Sukuna never wanted to accept his father’s cash, but that was even before he went to prison the first time. He’d grown up poor, and he knew Wasuke had Yuji to watch after. Taking his money never really felt right. Though after he came home, and when you were pregnant with Ryo, Sukuna wouldn’t mind accepting the help when Wasuke would offer to take you both out to dinner, but that was it.

‘I know what you lost because of me, so you’ll take my money now. You give your family whatever they want, give them more than what I gave you and your brother. I know this is hardly an apology, but it’s the best you’ll get from me now. Forgive me or don’t, that’s up to you. I won’t blame you either way.’

There was an odd emotion that settled thickly on Sukuna’s shoulders–not sadness, not even happiness, but something akin to content. He never expected to fully make amends with his father; he didn’t want to, either, but… this was nice.

‘You were a good son. You’re a good brother. You’re a good father. And you’re a damn good man, someone to be proud of.’

Sukuna was second away from crumpling up the paper and tossing it away to save him from the twist of something in his chest. He didn’t like it. It was too much.

‘You just need to work on being a good husband, and that will start with you marrying that woman again, and taking her on a nice vacation.’

Thankfully, that saved him from feeling too much, making him snort as he passed it to Yuji’s eager fingers to let him read over it. While his nephew was busy with the letter, Sukuna moved on to the other papers in the envelope–the documents.

He unfolded them, eyes skimming over the many lines of numbers and words that he didn’t really understand. It wasn’t until he read the top that he realized they were bank statements. And when he read through the columns of accounts and how much was in each one, his breathing hitched, and his heart started to beat faster and faster.

“Why do you look like you’re about to pass out?” Yuji asked, pulling Sukuna’s attention to him. “What are you looking at?”

“Bank statements,” he answered, swallowing thickly.

“Is it all in the red? Wouldn’t be surprised after all the TV shopping he-” 

Sukuna shoved the papers into Yuji’s hands, letting him look over them to see if they were really looking at the same accounts, or if Sukuna’s brain was making stuff up. Yuji’s equally wide eyes told him that he’d been seeing the truth.

“Holy shit,” Yuji choked.

“…holy shit,” he repeated, taking the statements back to look at them again. As his eyes traced over the amount, he felt his bewilderment edge toward anger, then to confusion, then to bewilderment again. “Who the fuck was this guy?! He just has millions saved up and never told anyone?!”

“At least we know why he never went bankrupt. Cho and I were always curious. Seriously, QVC was his life.”

Sukuna wasn’t really listening, mind still reeling. “A-And he’s just leaving it all to me?! The fuck am I supposed to do with it?!”

Yuji smiled, picking up the letter to hand over to his uncle. “Well, first, you have to take Auntie on a really nice vacation.”

* * * * * 

Higuruma: We can always take this to a judge and let them sort it out.

You tossed your phone back down onto the counter and wiped the aggravated tears from under your eyes as you worked on finishing up dinner, hoping to have it done before Ryo woke up from her nap and Sukuna came home from the crematorium–you were really trying to keep your emotions in check because you knew he was going to need you after his shitty week. Jin getting locked up and Wasuke passing had to be taking a toll on him.

But how could you when you kept thinking over your day’s events?

“If you want the car so bad, Hiro, then take it,” you had told him a few hours ago in your third meeting with him. “Just give me back the photo albums and we can be done.”

“I’m keeping the photo albums, too.”

For what reason did Hiro need those photo albums? You weren’t sure there was any other reason except for Hiro wanting to drag the divorce process out for as long as possible, and making sure to leave you with absolutely nothing as a means to make you miserable. 

It was fucking working, by the way. Maybe even too well–you were miserable, and sad. Maybe depressed.

Your lawyer was right. You could take this issue to a judge and let them handle it, but not only would that take more time to set up a hearing, but it would cost money–and as much as Sukuna wanted to pay for everything, it felt… weird. 

This was your mistake; you wanted to fix it on your own.

You could also just say fuck it, and let Hiro keep the photos. But there were albums you’d put together during your marriage with him that had pictures from high school, Ryo’s first everything, and old moments from your childhood that you’d taken from your parents. 

You’d tried arguing that Hiro really had no reason to keep any of them because they had nothing to do with him at all, that the photos were taken from a time when you didn’t even know who Hiro was, but without a judge there to say they belonged to you, you two would continue to be in a standstill. 

Vaguely, in the back of your mind, you heard the front door opening and closing, but you didn’t realize someone had entered the home until he was tugging you away from the stove top. That contact pulled you from your mind, placing you in the present, where Sukuna was telling you you were burning something, and your dinner was… well, burning. 

“Damn,” you cursed, reaching forward to turn off the stove and save the poor chicken from charring any further. “Sorry, I just… wasn’t paying attention.”

“Clearly-” 

The smoke detector started beeping loudly, bringing you both to sigh. Seconds after that, Chibi started crying, and so did you. 

“Sorry. I’ll get him-”

When you turned to go get your son from his crib, you bumped right into Sukuna’s chest and tried to slide past him, only to be stopped with a firm hand latching onto your bicep.

“Are you okay?”

Sniffling, you tugged against his grip, but found it unwavering. “I’m fine, just let me go–he’s crying-”

“You’re crying, too,” Sukuna said with a tone of caution. After eyeing you for a moment, he let go of your arm to turn on his heel. “I’ll get him.”

On his way out, he reached up to pull the cover off the smoke detector and take out the batteries, plunging the kitchen into a silence that was only interrupted by the baby’s cries. They quieted down after a few minutes, and in that time, you worked on cleaning up your mess of burnt dinner. There wasn’t anything to salvage; it was ruined.

You heard Sukuna enter the kitchen then, but you didn’t turn to face him, too caught up in taking your frustrations out on the blackened film stuck to the bottom of the pan with a soapy sponge. The blackened film was winning–no match for the poor purple sponge.

“Crybaby one is taken care of, now for crybaby two-” Sukuna pulled you away from the sink just enough to turn you around and lean you against it. As he took the sponge from your hands, dropping it into the basin behind you, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Swallowing a sob, you answered, “Nothing different. Just Hiro being Hiro.”

“Of course.” He made a disgruntled sound. “He’s not happy you’re letting him keep the car?”

You shook your head, more tears welling in your eyes. “He wants the photo albums, too.”

“Is that so?” To his question, you nodded, lowering your face into his chest. “You know, I’m getting really fucking sick and tired of seeing you cry over him all the time. I had good news, and now he’s ruined it-”

“I’m sorry. I-” Sukuna pulled away from you then, even going as far as to pull your arms from around him. A tinge of panic seeped into your bloodstream. “Look, I know it’s aggravating, I know my mood has been terrible–what are you doing?” 

You followed after him as he retraced his steps to the front door, and when he stepped back into his boots, you asked, “Where are you going?”

“Out,” was his simple response as he knelt to lace them back up.

“Sukuna–I–you just got here.”

“And I’ll be back.” He folded his jeans down over the boots and stood up, grabbing his jacket from the hook.

“But where are you going? What are you doing?”

Without hesitating, he gave you his answer. “I'm going out to fix it.”

To fix it–to fix it the Sukuna way.

You fisted his shirt to stop him before he could get too far, already knowing that whatever he was about to do wasn’t going to be good. 

“Let’s just–let me take this to a judge.”

“And waste more time? Let him step all over you some more? Three meetings, sweetheart–this bullshit should have been settled in one.”

“But it’s the right way to do this.”

“If it were the right way, you wouldn’t be crying. If it were the right way, things would be over, and we could move on with our lives.”

Stubbornly, you wiped your tears away, as if that would hide that fact from him at all. “This isn’t a good idea. You’re upset because of your father, and you’re not thinking clearly-”

“Trust me, Wasuke has nothing to do with my feelings toward Hiro. I was ready to kill him before the old man passed away.” Sukuna grabbed your hand, prying it away from his clothes. “He’s so fucking lucky he’s had three chances to make this right, and he’s still choosing to be this way-”

“I’ll let him have the albums, it’s not a big deal. Not if it means you doing something stupid enough to get arrested again-”

“Sweetheart,” he began, tone quiet and low, “If you don’t let me do this for you, I’ll have to really kill him, and it will be entirely for me. Then you’ll have to call me selfish through the plastic divider, and we’ll be back at square one.”

Your hand grabbed for him again, which he caught in his own. “Sukuna-”

“Let me make this right.” At your hesitation, he brought your hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it quickly before dropping it and pulling open the door. “I’ll be back.”

“Promise me you won’t kill him.”

The asshole didn’t even turn back toward you as he strode to his truck, only calling back, “I promise,” on his way.

* * * * * 

Locating your husband wasn’t difficult. Tailing him after he stepped out of his work building wasn’t difficult. And cornering him in the liquor store parking lot wasn’t difficult, either. Actually, there was nothing difficult about the entire ordeal, and before long, Sukuna had the writhing man pinned on his stomach, underneath his boot in the dark alleyway.

“You are so going back to jail!” Hiro exclaimed, attempting to push up from the cracked asphalt. The camera shuttering sound caught his attention, bringing him to look over his shoulder and see Sukuna pointing his phone down at the man to take a picture.

With another shutter sound, Sukuna said, “Only if you call the police-”

“And I will!”

“Mm…” Pocketing his phone and giving the man a harsh, bone-cracking kick to his side, he flipped Hiro onto his back before pressing the bottom of his boot onto his mouth. “I’d like to see how you’ll manage it without a tongue.”

Unable to speak, besides muffled moans, Hiro clawed at Sukuna’s pant leg, though he didn’t mind it. Not even when the man dug deep enough to draw blood. He pressed harder and rolled Hiro’s head back and forth over the concrete, enjoying the way he winced.

“She wants the photo albums and the car.”

Not that you need the car–Sukuna planned on getting you whatever car you wanted, now that he’s promised the money from Wasuke’s bank accounts, which should be rolling into his own shortly, thanks to being named the beneficiary of said accounts. Still, he was curious where the money came from, but he wasn’t going to question it at all, and just accept Wasuke’s apology as it was. 

“You’ll let her keep both of them.”

He let Hiro’s face roll to the side, freeing his mouth enough to speak, though the boot firmly pressed to his cheek made his words sound slurred.  “Or what?”

“Or, I’ll break you,” Sukuna started, applying enough pressure to make the man below him groan in pain. “Here’s the thing, Hiro. She wants this to be over; it’s obvious you don’t. You’re drawing this shit out to fuck with her, to punish her. Naturally, that’s not sitting right with me.”

“...deserved,” he mumbled. 

Sukuna stilled, processing the word off Hiro’s tongue, and found himself growing a little confused. Bending just a bit to get closer, let up the pressure on Hiro’s face. “Pardon?”

“I said, it’s deserved.”

So, Sukuna did hear him correctly.

He whistled lowly, pressing down on him again. “The set of balls on you–you’ve got to be compensating for something, right? Such an aggressive little man–or maybe you’re just confident. Who gave you the impression that you could be so cocky with me?”

Too amused, Hiro replied, “She called you a gentle giant once. She even said you weren’t violent. Imagine how disappointed she’ll be when she sees you’re in prison again for assault.”

“If I’m going to prison for anything tonight, it’s murder.”

“Oh, that’s good. Leave her on her own again, I’m sure she’ll love that,” Hiro chuckled. “Maybe I can get her in my bed again–she was always a willing whore-”

“How are you going to get her in your bed when you’re a dead man?” Sukuna’s boot moved down to Hiro’s neck, pressing on it enough to make him choke. “I think you’re assuming that this is a joke. You think I won’t kill you because I don’t wanna go back to prison, or maybe that your death would weigh heavily on my mind. What’s that called again?–oh, you think I’m bluffing.”

Hiro only gasped, struggling for air.

“You can call my bluff all you want.” A little more pressure was pressed on his neck. “Assume that I won’t follow through with my threats. You being a fucking dumbass until your last breath doesn’t bother me at all. The end is the same–her being without you.”

Sukuna let up enough for the man to breathe and heave in giant gulps of air.

“You’ll let her keep the car and those photo albums. You’ll wrap up this bullshit divorce in the next meeting. And then you’ll stay the fuck away from her. There is no ultimatum; there is no other option for you. You will do this, or I’ll kill you.”

With a coughing laugh, he mumbled, “Aren’t you so considerate, making the decision for me.”

A wad of spit hit Hiro’s cheek. “There’s your consideration.”

With a few good, hard kicks to Hiro’s gut, Sukuna pulled back from the groaning man, enjoying the way Hiro was clutching his sides. 

A calloused hand through his hair, which had fallen into his face during the attack, and a cigarette now lit between his lips, made Sukuna feel a bit calmer. He watched him struggle as he took in heavy drags of the smoke, blowing it out into the air, making sure to tap the ashes off onto Hiro’s face.

“Why are you still here?” he groaned, shuffling away from Sukuna to nurse his bruised torso. “I’ll agree, she can have the stuff.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, but I’m not finished yet.”

“You’re not?”

“Not even close.”

With his free hand in his pocket, Sukuna’s fingers grazed over the metal casing of the switch blade. You didn’t know it, but he started carrying it around with him, always hoping he’d get the opportunity to use it.

* * * * * 

At the next meeting, you warily eyed Hiro, who was avoiding eye contact with you entirely–not that he could really see you through his swollen, black eyes, but he wasn’t even pointing his face in your direction. You noted a few more nicks and bruises on him than there were on the photo that Sukuna had shown you the night he came back, and you weren’t stupid enough to think they just needed time to develop.

“See?” Sukuna had said, turning his phone toward you. “Just kicked him around a bit until he decided to stop acting like a little bitch. Said he’d let you have the car and the pictures.”

You should have known it was more than that when he came inside with a grin he couldn’t suppress, even if he tried.

“You’re sure this is what you’d like to settle on?” Hiro’s lawyer asked, a hesitant tone, treating his client like he was made of glass. 

Truthfully, Hiro looked so fragile in that moment, and it wasn’t just the bruises that made him seem that way.

It was also the bandages on his face, the cast on his broken arm, and the… gauze wrapping around his missing… fingers. Three of them, to be exact. Sukuna left him only his thumb and pointer finger.

You swallowed thickly and averted your eyes from his injuries.

“This is fine,” Hiro muttered quietly. 

His lawyer and your own looked to you, waiting for your answer. You cleared your throat and nodded. “I’m good with this, too.”

You hightailed it out of that office as soon as possible, so quickly that, as you began rushing to the parking lot, you didn’t realize someone was leaning against the building, waiting for you. 

His hand latched onto your arm, turning you in the opposite direction to face him. Sukuna pulled the cigarette from his mouth while you tried your damndest to process all the new information, but, naturally, you were struggling. The look on your face must’ve been amusing because Sukuna was working on biting back his laughter.

“I take it everything worked out?”

The best and first thing you could manage was a whispered, “You’re a fucking psycho.”

And at that, he tried to play coy. “What do you mean?”

“You said you just kicked him a little.”

“I did.”

With your fist to his shirt, you dragged him in close to be as quiet as possible. “You can’t fucking cut off fingers to get people to agree to things. You’re not a mobster, you’re not a thug. That’s not right, that’s not okay. That’s… fucked up.”

He grinned around the cigarette he was holding between his lips, which angered you. Significantly. Reaching up, you snatched it from his mouth just in time for him to say, “I didn’t cut off his fingers to get him to agree to anything, sweetheart.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Sukuna,” you whispered, maybe a little too harsh and a little too loud. “That man was missing three of them. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No.” At his quip, you brought the cigarette to your own mouth, needing some sort of stress relief. You had maybe half an inhale before Sukuna was taking it back from you. He took one last drag on it, still too playful for your liking, and dropped it on the ground to crush it under his boot. “You’re slow. Or maybe you’ve just forgotten the bastard hit you. And if you thought I was ever going to let him live that down, you must not know me very well.”

“Sukuna, that’s… you can’t–what if-”

He clicked his tongue, rubbing his thumb over your cheek to coo, “You worry too much.”

“No! What if he calls the police? What if you go back to prison for mutilating him?”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“‘Cause he’d be an idiot to call my bluff again after the first time cost him some fingers. I told him next, I was taking his skin. He’s got no reason to think I’d fall through on my promises. I am a man of my word… most of the time.”

“You’re… holy shit, you’re actually crazy.”

“Is this a revelation for you?” he dryly questioned. “Don’t act like it’s that surprising. We’ve known each other for too long for you to be put off by me now, sweetheart.”

Not put off, in the slightest. You were turned on, actually.

Disgustingly so.

“Where are the kids?”

“Emi’s watching Chibi, and Yuji took Ryo to the movies.”

“Perfect. Let’s go.” You grabbed his wrist and led him toward the parking lot. 

“Let’s go? Go where? I had plans-”

“Can they wait until after you fuck me?”

He only contemplated it for a moment before acquiescing.

You only made it as far as just inside the house before hands were gripping and pulling at each other’s clothes, mouths hot and heavy against the other. Sukuna’s pants were unbuttoned just enough to free himself, and your slacks were still bunched around one of your legs when he grabbed you and pushed you up against the front door. 

He grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted your feet off the ground, but rather than letting you wrap your legs around his waist, he pushed them back, pinning them to the door to leave you splayed open in front of him.

With both of you moving in sync, it was sort of uncanny how easily you both guessed each other’s next movements. Without being told and without realizing it, while he grabbed his dick, you pulled your underwear to the side, and angled your hips just right for him to slide in. And with one deep thrust, he filled you entirely. 

“Fuck,” you sighed against his mouth, getting used to the stretch while also remembering why you’d had a long break of sex in the first place–you had been healing. From having a baby. “You forgot a condom.”

 “Didn’t have one anyway.”

And that was that; all thoughts of potential pregnancy went out the window as soon as he started pushing his cock into you.

That afternoon concluded in the shower, after a couple of rounds in bed. You thought it was over until he had you bent over, cheek to the tiled shower wall as he fucked inside of you.

On a particularly hard thrust, you reached back to sink your fingertips into his thigh, a warning to slow down that went unheeded, per usual. All the contact did was make him grab that hand and pin it behind your back. 

You stammered, words missing and broken, timed with his harsh thrusts. “F-Fuck. Are you–trying to–beat your record?”

“Did that back in the bedroom,” he answered, an amused chuckle following as he grappled with your ass. “Think this is round eight now.”

“Going for ten?”

It had been a sarcastic retort, but you should have known better than to joke about that when he was balls deep inside of you. 

“Did you want to?” he purred, hauling you back toward his body and forcing your back into a deep arch so he could see your face. His hand came up to wrap around your neck, not to choke you, just to hold you against him. “I could definitely make it, but you seem like you need a break-”

“You think?” you snapped. 

He was delighted when the next orgasm he pulled out of you was bordering on something painful, but pleasurable, nonetheless. However, he knew you needed that break now.

He worked toward his own orgasm, ignoring your aching whines, or enjoying them–you weren’t sure. Then he bottomed out and came inside you, finally, bringing the heat of the moment to settle while giving you the chance to remember yourself.

“You owe me a Plan B,” you panted, trying to gather your bearings. Behind you, cheek pressed between your shoulder blades, Sukuna wasn’t far off.

“Yeah. Remind me later.”

You nodded, though he couldn’t see it.

“Still have time for your plans?” you asked after a few moments. “Or are you too late?”

“Our plans, and yes, we are too late,” he chuckled, easing back from you to slip out of your pussy. The spray of the water carried away his cum, dripping down your inner thighs. “The restaurant definitely gave our table to someone else.”

“Wait.” A guilty feeling soaked into your stomach as you turned to face him. “You were gonna surprise me with lunch reservations? Like a date?”

“I suppose if you want to class it as a date, then sure.” He poked at your pout when it formed, then rolled his eyes when it didn’t go away. “It was just lunch-”

“You made reservations.”

“Because it’s a weekday and the lunch rush is brutal. Really, it wasn’t anything special-”

“You’re never one to make reservations, not even back then.”

“I didn’t back then because we couldn’t afford to eat at a place that you needed to make a reservation for. And I only did it today because you’re finally ridding yourself of Hiro, and that’s a special occasion. Thought I’d take you out to celebrate.”

“Still, I feel bad for missing it.”

“Don’t. This was better.” When he noticed your glare, he clicked his tongue playfully and grabbed at your waist. “Don’t be that way. I’ll take you on one soon. There’s something I want to talk to you about anyway.”

You cocked a brow and settled your hands on his chest. “Something that needs to be talked about over a date? What? You gonna ask me to be your girlfriend?”

He met your playful attitude as he said, “Mm, my fiancé actually.”

You went still in his arms, grin dropping. “What?”

He nodded. “I don’t want to be your boyfriend, and you want to take things slower this time, so we can compromise. Have an engagement for as long as you want–we didn’t do that the first time, you know?”

You swallowed back the rising lump in your throat, but felt a bout of happiness prickle over your skin. “You really wanna do the whole engagement thing?”

“If you want me to be honest, I’d rather just be married again, but I’ll take an engagement. We have to wait for the court to finish up your divorce first anyway. And maybe some extra time for the ink to dry on it, so it meets your newfound morals and need to do things the right way.”

Brushing off his jab, you said, “You’ll have to get me two rings, you know? That’s a lot of money. If only you hadn’t pawned the last rings-”

“You hated those rings, and you know it. Besides, I already have the engagement ring.”

Your eyes widened. “What?”

“Mhm. Bought it the day I took Ryo out to get breakfast. She helped me pick it out.”

“Woah, what–Ryo knows?”

“She’s known for a while, sweetheart.”

“What? Why? How?”

With a roll of his eyes, he answered, “She’s not stupid. She Chibi's eyes, figured it out for herself. I suppose I should have known when she asked me about it before the holidays. It would have saved me the very awkward conversation of trying to explain everything.”

“And she just… told you that she knew?”

Sukuna chuckled, “Not exactly. She presented me with the evidence she had and told me to explain myself. Made me confess like a criminal–she should be a detective when she’s older. She’d be good at it.”

Still, a certain part in your mind reared it’s ugly head. “Was it expensive?”

A frown creased between his brows. “What? The ring?”

“Obviously, I’m talking about the ring.”

His eyes softened as he reached forward, sliding his hands to the sides of your neck and angling your face up toward him. He kissed you then, once to your lips and another to your cheek, before his arms were around you to bring you in even closer than you already were, and a final kiss pressed to the top of your head.

“Money isn’t an issue anymore. Whatever you want is yours, you just need to ask.” 

You relaxed into his touch to joke, “And if I said I wanted a huge mansion?”

“I’d ask where you wanted it built.” 

You pulled back slowly, looking up at him in question. “Really?”

“Really. The amount of money Wasuke left me is absolutely disgusting, but at least he was good for something.”

“Do I even wanna know where the money came from?”

“Mm, probably not.”

Fair enough, you suppose. You eased your head back down onto his chest, fighting back a yawn as you said, “I don’t want a huge mansion.”

“No? What do you want?”

“Right now? A nap.” Sukuna snickered at your answer and leaned back to turn off the water. “We can figure out how to spend your Dad’s money later.”

master list || bonus chapter song references: Blurry- Puddle of Mudd

Author's Note: omg, it's weird to think it's over now. I mean, there's still the bonus chapter, but Blurry is basically finished. I really hope you all liked the ending. I hope you think I did it justice. I was kinda nervous about it, but I think it came out how I wanted it to. I know a couple of you wanted to see them married again, but I wanted to keep Blurry focused on them rekindling their relationship. There will definitely be some marriage fluff in the bonus chapter, which will be out next week :)

Also, in case anyone was curious about the bone-picking scene between Yuji and Sukuna, it's a Japanese funeral practice called kotsuage. In the first episode of Jujutsu Kaisen (maybe the second episode), Yuji is picking the bones out of the ashes after Wasuke dies. I was kinda trying to tie that in here.

And thank you all so much for reading. ilysm <3!!

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Instead, they sit in his office while the late-afternoon sun falls in expensive gold strips across the rug, Ward behind his desk and Rafe beside her on the leather sofa, one knee bouncing so subtly she only notices because his hand is resting over hers and the movement travels through both of them. 

She’s been nauseous since breakfast. The smell of Ward’s scotch isn’t helping. Neither is the way he keeps looking at her stomach despite the fact there’s nothing to see yet, only the soft fold of her dress when she sits and Rafe’s palm spread low against her thigh like he could physically keep the conversation from reaching her if he held on tightly enough.

“You’re both very young,” Ward says finally, voice arranged into something calm and reasonable. It’s the same tone he uses with contractors who have disappointed him and waiters he intends to have fired later. “You’ve only just finished school. Rafe’s barely started at the company.”

Rafe’s jaw moves. “I know how old I am.”

“I’m trying to be practical.”

“Then be practical.”

Ward’s eyes harden slightly. “There are options here. You don’t need to announce anything until you’ve had time to think clearly.”

Beside her, Rafe goes still. Still in the particular way he gets when anger has moved past heat and found somewhere colder to live, his thumb stopping against the side of her hand, his shoulders settling beneath the pale blue cotton of his shirt. 

She feels her own fingers curl inward before she can stop them, nails pressing into her palm, and Ward notices. His gaze flicks toward her face with something almost sympathetic in it, which is somehow worse.

Rafe sees that too. “Don’t look at her like that,” he says.

Ward blinks. “Like what?”

“Like she– she did something to me.”

“Rafe–”

“She didn’t.” His voice stays low, but she can feel the pulse beginning to beat hard in his wrist beneath her fingertips. “We came here to tell you we’re having a baby. Not ask what you think we should do about it.”

“I’m your father. I’m allowed to be concerned about your future.”

“My future’s sitting right here.”

The words leave him before he can seem to decide whether he wants them exposed. For half a second, something young and naked moves through his face, the boy who’s spent most of his life waiting for Ward to approve of the next version of him and finding each one slightly wrong. Then Ward leans back in his chair, mouth thinning, and it disappears beneath Rafe’s anger.

“You need to understand what this looks like,” Ward says. “People are going to assume she–”

Rafe stands so quickly the leather cushion lifts behind him. She catches his hand before he can do anything else. She doesn’t think he’ll hit Ward. She doesn’t really know what she thinks he will do, and that uncertainty is the problem. 

His fingers close around hers instantly, and when he looks down at her, the whole room seems to drop away from his attention.

“You feel sick?” he asks.

“A little,” she mumbles. 

“We’re leaving.”

Ward says his name sharply, but Rafe has already bent to collect her handbag. He puts his hand at the small of her back and guides her toward the door with none of the usual uncertainty he carries through this house. Ward calls after him once more. Rafe doesn’t turn around.

His hands shake when they reach the car. Only slightly. Enough that the key scrapes once against the ignition, then again, and she covers his wrist before he can try a third time.

Through the windshield, Tannyhill sits huge and white against the water, every window catching the sun. Rafe stares at it with his mouth pulled tight, breathing through his nose like he’s run here instead of walked.

“You didn’t have to fight with him,” she says softly.

“Yeah, I did.”

“He’s shocked.”

“So am I.” His head turns toward her, eyes bright and furious and scared in a way he would hate anyone else for noticing. “But I’m not making you sit there while he talks about you like you trapped me.”

“I know I didn’t.”

“I know.” Rafe’s grip loosens beneath her hand. His thumb turns, dragging once over the inside of her wrist. “I was there. Very involved, actually.”

A laugh catches unexpectedly in her throat.

His mouth twitches, but the anger doesn’t leave his eyes. “Enthusiastic participant.”

“Rafe.”

“What? It’s an important distinction.”

She looks down at their hands and feels the nausea settle somewhere lower, becoming something else. Still fear. Still the enormous, impossible shape of a life arriving before they’ve bought a dining table. But Rafe lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses the centre of her palm with a tenderness that doesn’t suit the hard line of his jaw, and the fear no longer feels like hers alone.

“We’re not going back in there tonight,” he says.

“Okay.”

“Maybe not tomorrow either.”

“Okay.”

“Could be a while.”

She smiles faintly. “Start the car, baby.”

Rafe looks once more at his father’s house. Then he turns the key, puts the car into reverse, and takes her home.

Marlowe begins causing problems before she’s developed fingerprints. At twenty-five weeks, she’s turned her mother’s ribs into a private climbing wall, made the smell of coffee unbearable, and inspired Banks to completely reject the concept of sisterhood. 

He’s two and a half, deeply suspicious of change, and has spent the past week responding to any mention of the baby by shouting no with the sombre conviction of a tiny, corrupt villain.

“No baby,” he says when they show him the painted nursery.

“No baby,” he says when Sarah brings over a bag of miniature dresses.

“No baby,” he says directly to her stomach one morning, then bursts into tears because Rafe tells him he cannot cover Mama’s belly with a couch cushion to make the problem go away.

That night, after Banks throws half his dinner onto the floor and kicks the bathroom door because she cannot physically fit beside him and the tub anymore, she leaves bedtime to Rafe. 

Her back aches. Her ankles have begun disappearing by late afternoon. She stands beneath the shower until the water goes lukewarm, then pulls one of Rafe’s old shirts over her head and walks down the hallway with moisturiser still cooling against her legs.

Banks’s bedroom door is open by three inches. Through the gap, she can see Rafe sitting on the rug beside the toddler bed with his work trousers still on and his tie pulled loose around his neck. 

He has one forearm resting across his raised knee, the other hand wrapped around Banks’s small bare foot where it sticks out from beneath the dinosaur quilt. Banks is lying on his stomach, cheeks swollen with the final remnants of a tantrum, glaring at his father with wet lashes and exhausted hostility.

“I don’t want her,” Banks mutters into the pillow.

Rafe rubs his thumb over the soft curve of his heel. “Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear, buddy.”

“Baby takes Mama.”

“No.” Rafe’s voice loses its dry edge. “Nobody takes Mama.”

Banks turns his face enough to look at him. “She’s mine.”

Rafe’s mouth moves like he has to bite back the first response that occurs to him, probably because it’s difficult to explain marriage-based territoriality to someone who still eats bath bubbles. “She’s everybody’s,” he says after a second. “But she was mine first.”

From the hallway, she closes her eyes.

Banks considers this grave injustice. “No.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

His little brows furrow. “No, Daddy.”

“Ask her. She’ll tell you.”

The mattress squeaks as Banks shifts, little fingers twisting into the quilt. “Mama likes me best.”

“Probably,” Rafe says, then lowers his voice to a whisper. “You’re shorter. People fall for that.”

But Banks doesn’t laugh. His mouth wobbles instead, and Rafe’s expression changes immediately. He leans closer, forearm sliding onto the edge of the mattress.

“Hey. Listen to me.” His voice is quieter now, shaped for the dark room and the boy inside it. “You’re allowed to be mad. New baby’s weird. She’s gonna cry, and she’s gonna take your stuff, and everybody’s gonna look at her all the time because babies can’t do anything for themselves.”

“I can do things,” Banks huffs.

“I know. You can put your own shoes on the wrong feet.”

Banks frowns, uncertain whether this is relevant. Rafe squeezes his foot once and continues before he can argue.

“But you don’t get to be mean to Mama because you’re mad. Mama’s making your sister right now. That’s hard work. Makes her tired. Makes her back hurt. Makes her cry when the grocery store doesn’t have the cereal she likes.”

“That was one time,” she whispers beneath her breath in the hallway.

“So we’re easy with her,” he says. “We help her. We don’t kick doors, and we don’t throw food, and we definitely don’t try to hide her stomach under couch pillows.”

Banks looks mildly ashamed. “Baby was gone.”

“Baby was still there.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Rafe brushes Banks’s hair away from his forehead, awkwardly gentle in the way he still is sometimes with softness, like he knows what he wants his hands to do but has to think through every movement first. “You know how Daddy looks after Aunt Sarah and Aunt Wheezie?”

Banks nods.

“Even when they’re annoying?”

Another nod, more enthusiastic.

“That’s you now. You’re the big brother.” Rafe taps two fingers lightly against his chest. “We look after our girls. You look after your Mama, and when your sister gets here, you look after her too.”

Banks is quiet for long enough that her throat begins to ache.

“What if she’s mean?”

“Then you come get me.”

“What if she takes my truck?”

“You take it back.”

“Rafe,” she murmurs from the hallway.

His eyes flick toward the door. “Politely,” he adds.

Banks pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Can I hold her?”

“Yeah.”

He tilts his head. “She little?”

“Very.”

“Smaller than me?”

Rafe’s eyebrows lift. “For a while.”

That seems to satisfy something in him. Banks lies down again, turning onto his side this time, his face pointed toward Rafe. “I look after her.”

“Good man.”

“And Mama.”

“Especially Mama.”

Banks’s eyes begin to close. Rafe stays where he is, hand resting around his son’s ankle, until the soft resistance goes out of the small body beneath the quilt. When he finally rises and steps into the hallway, she’s leaning against the opposite wall with both hands folded beneath the curve of her stomach.

He takes one look at her face and exhales. “Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re crying.”

She sniffles. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’ve been using that one a lot.”

She laughs wetly and catches the front of his loosened tie, drawing him closer. Rafe puts both hands around her waist, careful of the belly between them, and bends his head until his forehead rests against hers.

“‘We look after our girls’?” she whispers.

His eyes move over her face, suddenly wary beneath the humour. “Too much?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Sounded better than telling him I’ll throw him off the dock if he makes you cry again.”

“He’s two.”

“Mm. He’ll bounce.”

Her laugh presses them closer. Rafe kisses the damp corner of her eye, then crouches without warning and puts his mouth against the stretched cotton over her belly.

“Your brother’s being difficult,” he tells the baby. “Don’t take it personally.”

She places her hand on the back of his head. “She’s a Cameron. She’ll make it everyone’s problem.”

Rafe smiles against her stomach. “That’s my girl.”

By the third pregnancy, protection has become an administrative position. There are vitamins in her handbag, the kitchen, Rafe’s truck and both upstairs bathrooms because he’s decided folic acid should be available at emergency exits. 

There’s a standing grocery order every Tuesday, three numbers written beside the house phone even though everybody owns a mobile, and a family group chat called DO WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAYS that includes Sarah, Wheezie, ten-year-old Banks, six-year-old Marlowe, and, briefly, the plumber until Rafe notices and removes him without explanation.

The baby wasn’t planned. She had stood in their bathroom at thirty-one with the test in her hand and laughed once, sharply, because crying felt too obvious. Rafe had stared at the two pink lines, then at her, then back at the test as if one of them had committed accounting fraud. 

After nearly a full minute, he said, “I thought you said that app was accurate,” and she threw a hand towel at his head.

Now she’s seven months pregnant, Rafe is in Charleston twice a week overseeing a development project that appears to require his physical presence whenever the universe senses she has slept badly, and the children have developed a coordinated ability to need separate, urgent things at the exact moment her pelvis begins to feel as though it’s been assembled incorrectly.

He gets home after ten on a Thursday night and finds her halfway up the stairs carrying a laundry basket against the underside of her stomach while Marlowe trails behind in fairy wings, explaining that tomorrow isn’t technically costume day, but could be if her teacher was flexible. Banks is calling from the kitchen that the dishwasher is making a noise. One of Rafe’s socks is stuck to the side of the basket by static.

He leaves his suitcase in the foyer. “What are you doing?”

She looks down at him over the towels. He’s still dressed for work, sleeves rolled, collar open, travel sitting beneath his eyes in dark, tired shadows. “Laundry.”

“I can see that. Why are you carrying it?”

“Because towels remain tragically unable to climb stairs.”

Rafe comes up three steps at a time and takes the basket from her before she can object, his jaw already tightening. “Banks!”

From the kitchen, their son calls, “What?”

“Get over here.”

Banks appears at the bottom of the stairs with the wary expression of someone summoned by his father’s business voice. He has Rafe’s height beginning in him already, all knees and shoulders and hair that refuses to lie flat. “What happened?”

Rafe hands him the basket. “New rule. Your mother doesn’t carry laundry upstairs.”

Banks looks at the towels, then at her stomach. “Okay.”

“And fix the dishwasher.”

Banks frowns. “I don’t know how.”

Rafe sighs. “Neither do I. Press buttons until it stops.”

“That’s not how appliances work,” she says.

“It’s worked for me so far.”

Marlowe pushes between them, wings scraping along the wall. “What’s my job?”

Rafe looks down at her. “Keep your mother’s water full.”

Marlowe’s face lights up with the dangerous purpose of a child newly granted jurisdiction. “Always?”

“No,” she says quickly.

“Yes,” Rafe says at the same time.

Marlowe runs downstairs.

“Rafe,” she sighs. 

He puts a hand against her back and guides her up the remaining steps, slower now. “What?”

“I don’t need a household task force,” she grumbles.

“You were carrying a basket you couldn’t see over.”

“Also can’t see over my belly, why don’t you snatch that from me?”

“You nearly stepped on Marlowe.”

“She has wings. She should’ve flown.”

His mouth twitches, but the tension remains beneath it. In their bedroom, he sets his watch on the dresser and begins unbuttoning his cuffs with the short, irritated movements he uses when the anger isn’t really anger and both of them know it. She sits on the edge of the bed, pressing her fingers into the soft swelling above one ankle.

Rafe notices immediately. He drops into a crouch in front of her and takes her foot into his lap before she can pull it away. His thumbs press carefully along the arch, then circle the puffed skin beneath her ankle bone, his gaze fixed downward. 

The buzz cut has grown out slightly around the crown. There’s a faint crease through his shirt from the plane seat and a missed call glowing on the phone beside him.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“I am.”

“I know.” His thumb moves along her heel. “You’re always fine.”

Something in the way he says it makes her stop. Not sarcastic. Frustrated by the word and everything she manages to hide inside it.

Rafe looks up. “Banks said you fell asleep at the table Tuesday.”

She groans and rolls her eyes. “He’s a snitch.”

“He’s ten.”

“He’s your son.”

“Exactly. No loyalty.”

She tries to smile, but his hands have gone still around her foot.

“I can move Charleston,” he says.

Her brows draw together. “You can’t move a city.”

“The meetings.”

“Rafe–”

“I don’t need to be there twice a week,” he mutters.

“The project’s yours.”

“So is this.”

His eyes drop briefly to her stomach, then travel around the room as though this means the house too: the costume wings abandoned against the doorframe, the pile of school forms on her nightstand, the laundry moving down the hallway in Banks’s arms, the life waiting for Rafe every time his plane lands and continuing, somehow, on the days it doesn’t.

She brushes her fingers over the back of his neck. “I’m not asking you to stop working.”

“I know.” His jaw shifts. “That’s not the same as me pretending none of this is work because you don’t send an invoice.”

At twenty-two, he would have needed an enemy – Ward, the world, somebody standing close enough to push back against. At thirty-two, he sits on the bedroom floor with her swollen foot in his lap and understands, slowly and unwillingly, that sometimes the thing wearing her down has his name on the travel itinerary.

His phone lights again. Rafe picks it up, opens the email containing his flight confirmation for the following Thursday, and presses cancel.

She watches him. “You’re going to make everyone hate me.”

“They already hate me. You’re safe.”

A small set of footsteps comes charging down the hallway. Marlowe appears with a water bottle filled so completely it spills over her hands and onto the carpet. “Mama! Water duty.”

Rafe nods approvingly. “Good job.”

She takes the bottle before their daughter can flood the room. “Thank you, baby.”

“Drink it.”

Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

“Daddy said.”

Rafe looks down quickly, suddenly very interested in her ankle.

“Rafe.”

“What? She’s taking the position seriously.”

Marlowe stands over her until she drinks, then races away to report her success to Banks. Rafe’s shoulders begin to shake beneath her hand. She nudges his thigh with her foot, and he catches it before she can pull back, pressing his mouth to the inside of her ankle.

“You’re an idiot,” she says.

“Mhm.”

“And bossy.”

“Yeah.”

“And you cannot turn our children into your private surveillance network.”

He kisses her skin again, smiling now. “Already did.”

The baby moves beneath her ribs, a long, slow roll that makes her inhale and place one hand against the side of her stomach. Rafe’s palm leaves her foot and spreads over the movement, broad and warm, waiting until the small body shifts against him again.

“There she is,” he murmurs.

“She’s been there all day. On my bladder.”

“Missed me,” he grins.

“She doesn’t know you left.”

Rafe looks up at her. “Yeah, she does.”

She could argue. Usually would. Instead, she runs her fingers over the soft growth at the back of his head while his thumb moves absently over her stomach, his cancelled flight still open on the phone beside them and his suitcase untouched in the foyer downstairs.

Outside the bedroom, Banks tells Marlowe she’s giving Mama too much water. Marlowe tells him he’s not in charge of water duty. The dishwasher makes one final, miserable clunk and falls silent.

Rafe glances toward the hallway, then back at her. “See? Everything’s handled.”

“The dishwasher may be dead,” she sighs.

“I’ll buy another one.”

“You say that about everything.”

“Usually works.”

She smiles despite herself, and Rafe watches it happen with the same intent attention he has given her since they were teenagers, like every version of their life still begins with checking her face first.

Then he leans forward, rests his cheek against her stomach, and stays there while the house keeps moving around them.

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But this woman reminded you of your little sister, and you dreaded to imagine her leaving his room with the same dazed look and bitten neck. You knew that you were being biased, but you helped her anyway. You switched the roster, stole the key from a sleeping guard to unlock her cell, and sneaked her to the back door with a coat and a veil wrapped around her head. Luckily, the snow wasn’t too heavy, so she was able to slip outside without slipping or freezing too much. You hoped that she could conceal her identity well from now on, and nobody would find out about your involvement in her escape.

For a few days, everything remained normal, or as normal as it could get while working for a master who liked to drink women’s blood. You kept your head low and did your job, until the butler approached you and informed you that Noy needed assistance with something. There was a mysterious glint in his eyes, but you ignored it. The moment you entered Noy’s lavish bedroom, he was sitting at the dressing table with his long hair cascading down his back.

“Help me choose a ribbon.” he ordered without any greeting.

You should’ve known that there was something wrong with his command, especially because most of the time, the butler was the one who dressed him up. But as always, you obeyed. You combed his dark red hair, bunched it together, and chose a safe black ribbon to tie it. Once you finished, you asked if he needed anything else. Noy was silent for a moment, simply staring at his reflection in the mirror, before he opened his mouth.

“You know, you should be grateful that I didn’t target your family, especially your little sister.”

You froze.

“P-pardon?”

Noy’s red eyes flicked to yours through the mirror.

“You heard me. And now that one of my sacrifices gone, I want a replacement.”

How did he know? Did he see it? Was it the butler? The sleeping guard? But how did Noy know the culprit was you specifically? He didn’t even ask why you did it. He only stood up from the stool and advanced towards your frozen figure.

The moment his pale hands touched the buttons on your maid uniform, was the moment you snapped out of your shock and recoiled.

“M-my Lord, please. I–”

“Do you prefer me to target her instead? Because I can do it right now, and you can watch.”

You stiffened, standing fearfully in the center of the room. Noy slowly gripped your hands and pulled them away from your chest. With his eyes on you, he unbuttoned the buttons, opened the uniform, and leaned in to bite your neck. You winced and put your trembling hands on his chest, trying to push him away. But he persisted and guided you to lie down on his plush bed, his hands caressing and squeezing your upper body.

Was this normal? Did those women have to be undressed first before they were bitten? Did they also experience being touched and groped?

Noy swallowed your blood and groaned at the taste, heedless of your squirming and whimpers.

“I knew that bringing that woman in was a good idea. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here right now.” When you snapped your eyes open in shock, he chuckled deeply. “Why so surprised? You know that I’d never bring a maid to my bed without a reason.”

You kept staring at him wide-eyed even as he leaned down and kissed your lips with his crimson ones, making you taste your own blood. No wonder it was so easy to help her. Was she complicit, too? And why did he choose you, out of all the maids who worked here? You didn’t think you’d done anything out of the ordinary. Had he done this before?

Noy bit your bottom lip shallowly, forcing your attention back to him. You flinched slightly and focused on him.

“Why?” you whispered.

He smiled in amusement.

“Do feelings need to have a reason at all?”

You couldn’t help but scowl at his deflection. He chuckled at your irritation and caressed your face with his thumb with a sickening fondness.

“You’re so caring about your family that you willingly help anyone who looks like them and ignore the rest. I suppose that’s just a proof of human biases, and it made you adorably predictable.” Noy pressed his hips against you, letting you feel his excitement. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you. After all, I have all the time in the world. And I’m sure I can find something to make you equally everlasting.”

“No, I don’t want it!” you protested, pushing his chest away vainly.

Noy ignored it and merely pinned your arms above your head with one hand, his other one still stroking your face.

“You have to. For the sake of your family, remember?”

You breathed heavily, tears trickling down the corners of your eyes.

“My Lord, please. I’ll give you my blood, but please don’t make me live longer than my natural lifespan.”

“Why not? Very soon, I’ll be a part of your family too. Don’t you want to spend more time with your family?” he asked coyly, enjoying the dread in your tearful face. “And besides, I don’t take kindly of being left behind without my permission. So, if I have to live for a long time, you have to be there with me, either.”

You sobbed, “You’re a cruel man.”

Noy wiped the tears away tenderly.

milf!lara, who would be the neighbor aways having her daughter, who was maybe four or five, running around her front yard. lara would be introduced to you after you retrieved her daughter’s ball that she had kicked onto the street. the two of you became fast acquaintances, given her needing company after her recent divorce with her husband.

you would spend time over at her lavish four bedroom home, helping around the house, constructing furniture, watching a rowdy child, and of course, spend time with lara. she always thanked you for your time by providing you with treats from luxury brands. a perk of earning such a large settlement in the divorce.

your kisses were often regarded as “so much better than my bitch of an ex husband’s” every time you made out on the couch while her daughter was asleep.

when you did construct furniture for her, she would ogle at you, admiring your figure. she particularly enjoyed watching you work with your hands. furniture was not an uncommon reason as to why you were over. lara claimed she was unable to execute the task herself due to her constantly needing to watch her daughter.

when you did have moments of intimacy, you were the one on top, though lara was always the one in control. after all, you did say “yes, mommy,” “of course, mommy,” and “fuck mommy, i’d do anything for you.” you were completely devoted to her.

while on top of her, your two cunts would collie together while you thrusted your hips back and forth into her. you went faster when she said to, harder when she said to. all while your slicks mixed together.

she would always call you her good girl in a condescending way, though the effect it had on you was the same as if it was sincere. you couldn’t resist it, being a beautiful woman ten years your senior was praising you, saying things such as her good girl, her sweetness, and daring.

you let yourself do almost everything for her, whether she asked you to or not. you took pleasure in serving such a wonderful woman outside of the bedroom.

being eager to taste breastmilk, you found yourself tasting hers, completely infatuated with the taste. you sucked the liquid from her chest with fervor-ish suckles. a hand would always push your head deeper into her perfect tits.

when out in public, with her daughter, mostly, she would hold her child’s hand with her left hand and use her right to rest on the small of your back; a subtle claim to you.