#anxiety

The knocking comes again, harsh and insistent, and then someone kicks the door hard. A dull, terrifying thud that makes the walls shudder. If Sukuna were here… if you were still together… you wouldn’t be this scared. But he’s not. And you’re alone.

Anger, sharp and instant, cuts right through the exhaustion.

You get up. Bare feet slap against the cold floor. You walk to the door, press your temple against it, listening.

Another kick. And then you hear a man’s voice. Low, rough, drunk and messy, but so familiar it makes your skin crawl.

“Hey… open up… shit… did you fall asleep?”

And your name, yelled like he hates it and wants it at the same time. Something inside you goes ice-cold. Your first instinct is to scream through the door and tell Sukuna to go to hell.

Another kick. Then a muffled laugh.

“Open the fucking door…”

He’s drunk?

Your second thought is the neighbors. The old lady upstairs. Her calling the cops. You exhale hard, fingers tightening around the handle, and you yank the door open, ready to slam it shut again immediately.

Sukuna is standing there, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. He can barely stay upright, and his nearly two-meter height doesn’t look intimidating right now. It looks unstable. His peach-colored hair, usually spiked up in sharp strands, is a mess, sticking out everywhere, clumped and dirty like he’s dragged his hands through it a hundred times. He’s wearing a tight black t-shirt stretched over his chest, broad shoulders and torso, stained with dark, unclear spots. Dirt. Spilled beer. Maybe blood… if he smashed someone’s face in again.

You always hated his aggression.

Sukuna stares down at his scuffed boots for a couple seconds, then slowly, with effort, lifts his head when he realizes the door is open. His gaze is blurred, drowned in alcohol, drifting for a long moment before it finally focuses on you. And on his slightly parted lips, a wide, drunk, painfully familiar triumphant grin spreads.

Found you.

It scares you so badly your knees tremble.

Why is he here? To talk?

Sukuna never knew how to do that.

“Well, finally,” he rasps, and his breath, heavy and sweet-bitter with booze, makes you recoil.

You grimace, trying to shut the door, but he already collapses forward with all the weight of his heavy body and you, like an idiot, catch him. You’ve never seen him like this. This drunk. Alcohol rarely hit him like this. Sukuna always kept control, even when his eyes went glassy.

Now he’s disheveled, heavy, and stupid.

He stumbles into the hallway, and you instinctively brace your shoulder so he doesn’t crash onto the floor. You regret it immediately when your joints pop. His weight is muscular, solid, unexpectedly warm. And Sukuna instantly presses you against the wall, making you gasp from the force.

Something inside you turns cold from the sudden closeness, from the smell of sweat mixed with alcohol and that expensive cologne you once picked out and gave him for your anniversary. Something twists painfully inside your chest. And somewhere deep down, traitorous and quiet, something warm and familiar stirs…

“M… so tired,” he mumbles, burying his face into your neck. A hot, damp breath burns your skin. His lips drag along your jawline. “Came to my girl…”

You press your palms against his chest, trying to push him away, and your voice comes out strained.

“Sukuna, you… what are you doing here?”

You try to wriggle out from under him. Sukuna pulls back just slightly, staring down at you with a frown, because you always used to call him just “Kuna.” You cautiously lift your gaze to his face…

You don’t know what to expect from him. Not now. His height always overwhelmed you, but in a good way. You used to feel protected. Hidden. Safe.

Now it’s just a threatening physical difference. But Sukuna’s expression is pure, genuine confusion.

“I came home. Dumbass. To you.” He says it like it’s obvious, like there’s no argument to be had. His hand drops heavy on the back of your head, his thumb brushing along your jaw. That familiar possessive gesture.

You freeze. Did he… forget? Did his drunk haze erase the last two months? You’d be lying if you said you didn’t wish you could forget too. You swallow the lump in your throat. Anger and something aching, pathetic, like the butterflies that used to flutter in your stomach when he looked at you…

Sukuna was always like this.

“Leave,” you say, firmer than you feel. “Right now.”

But Sukuna doesn’t seem to hear you. Or maybe he decides you’re just mad because he came home late. His gaze slides lower, catching on your shorts, and that lazy, pleased look spreads across his face.

“Dressed up for me, huh?” he rasps, voice thick with drunken purring.

“Asshole,” flashes through your mind.

But your hands move on their own. You shove him toward the hallway, toward your bedroom. Toward his bedroom. Toward your bedroom. One thought only: get your dead drunk ex onto the bed, call Toji, make him come pick up this wasted idiot.

And Sukuna follows obediently, clumsy, leaning on you with his arm thrown over your shoulder. His fingers dig into your muscles, and just the thought of him grabbing your chest like he used to makes your stomach twist.

The room smells like you. Books and dust. His scent faded from here two weeks after the breakup. And maybe that’s why Sukuna’s lips twitch in confusion as he looks around, trying to figure out what’s wrong, what’s changed. He doesn’t remember he hasn’t been here in two months.

You guide him to the edge of the bed, and he drops down heavily onto the mattress, making the springs squeal. He flops onto his side, and your eyes slide along the line of his back beneath his damp shirt, the familiar shape of his shoulders you used to kiss.

You hate yourself for it.

You climb onto the bed with one knee and reach for your phone lying in the middle of the blanket. But Sukuna moves faster. Long fingers, veins standing out, black tattoo markings wrapping his wrists. He snatches your phone first, his grip crushing the black case like it might crack. Sukuna manages to pull you in by the shoulders with his other arm, and you feel his body tense instantly, like he’s about to fight…

“What…” he mutters, jabbing at the screen. His brows knit. “Why… where am I?.. No… where are we?..”

You try to grab the phone back, but he shoves you forward with drunk, misjudged strength. Not cruel, more impatient and annoyed, but it’s too much for you. You lose your balance and fall onto the bed. The mattress catches you with a dull thump. Air punches out of your lungs.

You gasp, pushing your hair off your forehead, lying there, and in your chest something familiar sparks, bright and furious. A mix of rage and old attraction you thought you’d buried. You remind yourself fast who Sukuna Ryomen is and why you’re not together anymore.

He was always stronger. Always able to pin you down, ignore your protests. And before, in that haze of passion, you liked it. You liked feeling conquered when he pushed you into the pillows, covering you completely, driving his cock into your pussy, thrusting and growling into your ear until the world narrowed down to his breath and your own voice breaking into moans. Now that memory sends chills across your skin, from shame and something else.

Sukuna was always stronger.

The memory makes your skin prickle. You shake your head, forcing yourself back into reality, and search for him with your eyes. Sukuna stands frozen at the foot of the bed, your phone still in his hand. The screen lights his face from below, carving harsh, dangerous shadows under his cheekbones, in the corners of his mouth, along his neck.

“You… why’d you change the wallpaper?” His voice is low, annoyed, almost whiny. He keeps tapping the screen with his thumb, trying to unlock it. “What the hell… You changed the password? Our password… the day we…”

He cuts off, unable to remember the date. And you’re lying there, not knowing what to say. How do you explain that it’s over?

Sukuna was always such a bastard.

“Why?”

Sukuna lifts his gaze to you, confused. In his blurred pupils, disbelief flickers. He’s waiting for an explanation. And you’re lying there in shock, not knowing what to tell him.

Sukuna was always a bastard.

Mean, sharp, jealous to the point of obsession, and rough in a way he called “honesty.” He could pick a fight with your friend just because the guy hugged you when you met. “You’re my girlfriend,” he’d growl later, pulling you into him so hard it left bruises, and you, stupid, used to think that was love. He never told you he loved you. And at the same time, he let other girls hang off him in clubs, not encouraging it, but not pushing them away either.

Because he didn’t care.

He always said: they did it themselves.

They were the ones leaving hickeys and lipstick on his neck.

They were the ones crawling into his pants...

His indifference always hurt more than active flirting. And that, that blind, egocentric irresponsibility, is why you broke up. And you thought you’d almost erased that bitter aftertaste from your memory, that itch at the roof of your mouth. The intoxicating shadow of his superiority.

Before you can gather yourself and scream the truth at him, Sukuna suddenly, irritated, throws your phone into the corner. The sound of plastic smacking against the wall cracks through the silence, dry and painful.

You tense up in fear, staring at it.

Is he mad? Like, actually mad?

You look back and freeze, watching Sukuna yank his black t-shirt over his head with force, fabric tearing with an angry rustle. His movements are clumsy, drunk. In the dim light, the ink-black patterns of his tattoos stand out on his skin: rings around his shoulders, stripes low on his stomach, the intricate design on his ribs you once could’ve traced with your lips with your eyes closed.

Your chest tightens so hard you can’t breathe. Treacherous heat pools low in your stomach. Your body still hasn’t forgotten him.

But the sound of his jeans zipper sliding down snaps you back into reality.

“Stop! Sukuna, don’t!” it tears out of you, almost like a plea.

You jerk backward, trying to crawl toward the headboard, but the sheet tangles around your legs. Sukuna laughs, low and hoarse.

“C’mere, my girl.”

The sound is deep and vibrating, sending chills down your spine. His voice used to drive you insane. Now it just scares you.

A swarm of butterflies in your stomach, hateful and unwanted.

Sukuna climbs onto the bed on one knee, deciding not to pull his jeans off yet, moves closer, and grabs your ankle. Easily, like it takes no effort at all, he drags you back toward him, back to the center of the bed, to his legs. You slide across the blanket, letting out a helpless squeak.

He always did this.

Always.

“Let go!” you panic, shoving his chest with your palm. Your fingers press into the familiar hardness of his shoulder. “What the fuck?! Get off me! Don’t touch me! Get out, I’m serious!”

Sukuna frowns harder, annoyed. His brows are pulled together, jaw tense, the muscle in his cheek twitching. He doesn’t let go of your leg. His thumb starts rubbing the bone of your ankle. An unconscious, familiar soothing gesture he used to do when you were stressed before exams.

“What the fuck is your problem? What happened?!” he snaps.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” you almost scream. Tears sting your eyes.

“…I came to my girlfriend,” Sukuna says, baffled, and keeps mumbling incoherently. “Missed fucking. Missed you, huh? Why you… why are you yelling at me? What’s wrong?.. Don’t get it…”

Sukuna leans closer, and his shadow covers you completely, and you can barely breathe.

“I’M NOT your girlfriend!” you scream. “We broke up! Two months ago! What, did you get hit in the head and forget?! We’re not together anymore!”

Sukuna stares at you, and it’s like your words only reach him minutes later. He blinks slowly, processing. And he ignores the point, latching onto something else, something he thinks must be the reason for your “hysterics.”

“I… didn’t fuck anyone today,” he mumbles. His tone sounds hurt. Defensive. He shifts higher, his knee pressing into the mattress between your legs, and you inhale sharply, fingers clenching the sheets. “Didn’t cheat on you, baby. Didn’t even look at them. Why you jealous, idiot…”

“I’m not jealous! You don’t get it, dumbass! You’re drunk and stupid! Get off me!”

“No one…”

Sukuna ignores your protests, dropping his gaze to his hands braced on the mattress on either side of your waist. He looks like he’s talking to himself, trying to piece his thoughts together. His voice grows quieter, more lost, and suddenly there’s insecurity in it, something you’ve never heard from him before.

“Haven’t fucked anyone for… for two months… since my… girlfriend… left me?”

The last part sounds like an unsure question, like he’s not even certain he understood it right. Your breath catches. He said he… hasn’t fucked anyone for two months? For Sukuna, the eternal “womanizer” he used to call himself, two months of complete abstinence is basically eternity. And you don’t believe it.

The first couple weeks after the breakup, you had nightmares about him fucking other girls. And this quiet, drunk confession that slips out against his will knocks the ground out from under you.

Why would he?..

Sukuna frowns harder, bares his teeth slightly, and now his gaze, still blurry but sharper, locks onto you. There’s real, almost childish confusion in it, and a kind of vulnerability he’d never show sober. His body hovering over you suddenly feels less threatening and more… scared?

“We’re not… together anymore?” he mutters.

His hand finally lets go of your ankle, but now Sukuna touches your thigh carefully, like he doesn’t fully believe it yet and doesn’t know if you’re about to shove him away.

And you nod slowly, hoping it finally sinks in where he is and who he’s with.

“No, Sukuna. We’re not together. And that’s why we can’t have sex. Do you understand?”

But Sukuna unexpectedly moves even closer instead of backing off. His face is inches from yours. You see tiny golden flecks in his irises, red veins in the whites of his eyes, and your own reflection in his pupils.

His breath mixes with yours.

“Why?” he sounds offended. Almost hurt. His brows lift, lips pressing together slightly. “Why can’t we fuck? If I want you. If you’re… here. You’re my girlfriend.”

“Mine,” said with drunken but unshakable certainty. That’s his selfishness. His inability to let go. His hand on your thigh squeezes a little tighter. And you’re lying beneath him, just as lost and unsure of what happens next, because this drunk, confused bastard, your ex, is looking at you like you just took the most precious thing away from him.

And he doesn’t understand why.

His question, “why can’t we fuck?” is absurd.

If he wants it, then you can.

You always belonged to him.

You always loved his cock.

So why not now?

His breath, still reeking of whiskey and mixed beer, hits your face. You watch his dilated pupils narrow on your features, trying to read the answer in your clenched lips. His thumb starts moving slowly along your leg, tracing a line from your knee upward, toward your inner thigh. His touch is rough from his healed knuckles, but endlessly familiar.

Sukuna shifts closer with his whole body.

“Why?” he repeats. “You’re mine.”

“I’m not ‘yours,’” you whisper, losing your edge.

He’s too close, and he still refuses to accept that you’re not together, like he’s just putting that reality off for later. Like he always did.

“Sukuna, you’re drunk.”

“I wanna sleep…” he mutters. “Don’t wanna be alone.”

Sukuna leans even lower, his forehead almost touching yours. His eyes are hazy, but sparks dance in them. He takes an uncertain breath, presses into your neck, and you shiver with goosebumps.

“I wanna sleep on my pillow…”

Your heart is pounding.

He’s talking about your pillow. You still sleep on your side of the bed, and his side stays empty, but you never changed the pillows. It’s stupid, something you never let yourself think about…

“That’s not your pillow,” you try to sound harsh, but the words come out quiet.

“It’s so comfy,” he ignores you.

He always does.

His hand leaves your thigh and rises to your face. You freeze, expecting something rough, but his fingers barely brush your temple, sweeping a strand of hair away.

Surprisingly gentle.

“You’re so pretty, like…”

He furrows his brow, trying to find the words, and he looks so unlike his usual arrogant, rough self that a sharp wave of pity hits you again. He doesn’t find the right words. And it pisses him off. His brows knit, and that familiar aggression flashes in his eyes, then fades again into the alcohol haze.

“Can’t fuck,” he mumbles, repeating your words. “But… can I hug you?”

You open your mouth to say no, but you don’t get the chance. Sukuna doesn’t wait for an answer, or maybe he’s just too tired to wait, because he slowly collapses onto you with a low groan, dumping his full weight on you. His head drops heavy against your chest and higher, his nose pressing into the curve of your neck. Peach hair tickles your chin.

His arms wrap tight around your waist.

Sukuna presses into you. Big, hot… shaking?

“Kuna…” you try to protest, but he only hums, burying his face into your shirt.

“Quiet. Just… lay here. Like before. I… I feel so fucking bad without you,” his whisper is muffled.

His heart is beating somewhere under your chest, fast and uneven. You feel how tense the muscles in his back are beneath your hands, hands you don’t even realize you placed on his shoulders. You stroke him slowly, over the familiar curve of his shoulder blades, down his spine. And he lets out a quiet sound, half-growl, half-satisfied purr.

“Like that…” Sukuna mumbles. “Better. Don’t leave me.”

“I already did,” you want to say, but… you can’t.

The smell of his cologne and shampoo, alcohol and tobacco, the sound of his voice, the warmth of his body… it all forms a dangerous, deceptive picture of “like before.” You close your eyes, bright spots blooming behind your eyelids. Sukuna starts babbling, mumbling incoherently into you, pressed against you, his hips against yours, clinging to you from every side as he rubs his head against your chest.

“…those dumb bitches keep crawling all over me… like flies… sick of it… told them to fuck off… I have…” he suddenly goes quiet. His fingers spasm around the fabric of your shirt at your waist, under your ribs, tugging. “But you’re not here. I called, but you… phone… won’t pick up. You changed your number, yeah? And your phone password…”

He shifts again, restless.

“Why’d you leave? I… I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have sex with anyone after you. I swear. I need… only you, baby…”

You open your eyes and stare at the ceiling. His words, those drunk, broken confessions… Sukuna doesn’t understand the point. To him, “didn’t do anything” means he didn’t flirt, didn’t kiss, didn’t sleep with anyone else. But his indifference, his disregard for your feelings, his blindness, don’t count to him. That’s not “something.” That just doesn’t exist in his world.

“You didn’t look. You didn’t see me,” you sound exhausted.

Sukuna lifts his head slightly, looking up at you. His eyes seem wide now with confusion. Reflections shimmer in them. And you.

“I saw you. You’re the prettiest… the prettiest. Everyone knows…”

It’s not it. Not even close. But in his drunk, sincere admiration, there’s a drop of the warmth you always starved for.

“Just sleep.”

“Why did you leave me, baby?” he asks vulnerably, tearing you apart.

You don’t answer. You just keep stroking his back slowly, over the familiar tattoos, feeling the tension under your fingers gradually start to melt away.

His breathing deepens, evens out. Your eyelids grow heavy. You bury your fingers into his peach hair, and tears gather in your eyes. You stare into the dark, feeling his body slowly go slack as he drifts into sleep.

Sukuna is here. Drunk, lost, not remembering, not accepting that you broke up. He’s sleeping on top of you and for some reason, you can’t push him off. Not now. Not when he’s… like this. Drunk, needy like you used to be, clinging to you like you’re something he still, in his drunken head, thinks belongs to him.

You close your eyes and realize your insomnia is finally starting to fade…

Part 2: here Part 3: here