⋆

Even Yu’s ever-present puppy grin coin flips into a faltering press of teeth, sucking in a breath and murmuring out a painful, “oooh…”

Nanami clears his throat, the first to speak.

“Let’s not make her go through the trouble,” He found himself saying hastily, finger hooking to adjust his shirt collar in a rigid series of movements. “You should both relax. Besides, Gojo already offered to buy everyone dinner, it’d be rude to turn it down.”

Nanami? Concerned with disrespecting Gojo?? Suguru’s brows pull together and he glances towards the window minutely to make sure grass is still green.

Haibara’s quick to jump on that train, head nodding exuberantly as he claps his hands together— almost a pleading gesture. “Yeah! Let’s just all go out, chillax, grab a bite n’ few drinks and—“

“—HER FOOD TASTES LIKE HOW RARERAREMON LOOKS.” Satoru gags over Haibara’s placation, an overdramatic shudder causing him to spasm some weird little wriggle.

He squeezes his eyes shut, tongue lolling. “Guhhh, I feel sick just thinkin’ about it. There’s probably some curse out there manifested by fear of her cooking, blegh!”

Shoko pinches him, eyeing him disapprovingly with a scoff. “That’s not—“ True? “—the way you should say it.”

She shakes her head when Gojo poutily mutters something along the lines of we were all thinking it as he rubs his side, folding her arms as her lazily lidded gaze shifted to Suguru.

“Geto, I mean this as nicely as I can put it, because I love your wife more than you do.” She leveled dryly. “Girl can’t cook. Like, at all. Let’s give her a break and go karaoke.”

Nobody argues.

It’s probably not the feedback any husband wants to hear from his closest friends regarding his wife, but it’s not like Geto didn’t entirely expect this reaction.

He knows that— by traditional standards— you’re no critically acclaimed chef.

But in truth, he’s no critic either.

Suguru can’t remember exactly at what point his sense of taste diminished, it’s not one of those things you can pinpoint to an exact memory. It had to have been somewhere in his teens, just one day realizing his miso didn’t taste like miso.

No, now that he recalls, the taste of food had become the least of his concerns at that point, eclipsed entirely by the acrid sapor that was necessary for him to consume.

He used to take a bite, shift it around from one side of his mouth to the other, waiting for it. The comfort of a warm meal, of his most favorite indulgences to ground him. To remind him that just like everyone else he could still be pleased by something so simple. Food looked good, it smelled good. It looked familiar and weighed on a utensil like it was supposed to, but when it met his mouth he felt nothing. It mashed between his molars, diluted with his saliva and clung to the back of his throat like a weak perfume over the stench that was humanity’s worst.

Curses don’t go down like anything natural. They linger, make his body recoil on itself like anything that shouldn’t be inside it would. They coat his tongue, nestle into the soft parts of his mouth, make home in the cleaves of his teeth right near the gum. Smug and permanent. Kissing his taste buds like sulfur.

It’s not something he could ever rinse with water, brush raw, or floss away. They sat stubborn and stagnant as bristles scraped futilely, even when he couldn’t recognize the metallic tang of his own blood until he was spitting it into the cavern of the sink, ruddied foams of white swirled mockingly with a minty blue he imagined was spicy and fresh.

He used to gorge right after.

Shovel in as much as he could to overwrite the residue curses left. Salty, sweet, sour, savory, spicy, umami, bitter. All faint and trapped beneath the flavor of something wrong, until his stomach protested. A fruitless effort, he learned eventually.

It didn’t disappear all at once, but it eroded. Sanded down slowly, until the memory of eating and feeling sated afterward was more akin to something he’d read in a book than something he actually experienced. Rice became a warm weight on his tongue, soup eventually just heat that stung any open wound in his mouth. Salt? Meat was a texture, sweetness existed as a concept that Satoru indulged in constantly, and sourness only if it was aggressive enough to bite through the numb.

And then eating became mechanical. Habit instilled by repetition over days, and weeks, and months, and years— since when he was small and new. But in those days it became action without reward, cruelly melding with his newest habit of taking in curse after curse. Over days. Weeks. Months. Years. Meal and mission were one blurred definition, joint disgust.

But he’ll still eat. If not for fuel, then for the questions to stop.

“Suguruuu, h’ve you lost weight?”

“Woahhhh duuude, you’re thinnin’ out! You look like Nanami—”

“—Hey.”

“You all good?”

“You hungry? Did you eat yet?”

“You okay?”

Ate earlier. Heat fatigue. He’ll eat later.

It all came from a good place, he’s sure. But it feels more like probing fingers than an extended palm.

In a restaurant it was a performance, pretending to savor what he couldn’t remember he was chewing as friends around him still found space for those small, menial disappointments that had become myth.

“This is waaayyy too salty.”

“How many calories do you think is in this?”

“Ughhh, I wanted something sweet!”

“What’d you wanna order again, Geto?”

At his name, Suguru’s head lifted from where he’d been blankly staring at the menu— pages of symbols and pictures all running together that might as well be the same word printed in a threat.

EAT.

But there was Haibara, grinning and staring expectantly for his choice. He smiled, a stretch of lips rehearsed for moments like these.

“Choose for me. Anything’s fine.” Everything was a varying shade of tolerable. After a moment’s thought, he added, “something sweet, maybe.” Satoru would probably end up picking off his plate.

All of it made him acutely aware of his own charade, how far away he was from the people he was sitting right next to. People who’ve never tasted a cursed spirit, who were still human enough to eat, and enjoy it. Praise or complain about what was on their plates.

No matter what was sitting before him, on smooth ceramic or in his hand, on a fork, pooled in a spoon, between his chopsticks. All of it was beginning to provoke the same reaction within him.

Just gaping his jaw with the intent of filling his mouth with something rancid disguising itself in different textures and colors and ‘flavors’ was starting to make his gut churn. Lazy, nauseous rolls beneath his ribs, sloshing, trying to prod and rise up his throat in a rush as if to punish him a second time.

He didn’t feel particularly nourished anymore. Food sat like a pile of stones when he could remember to eat it and managed to keep it down. Every swallow was a mistake, absorption or meal, it didn’t matter. He dreaded both with exhaustion, with the heavy clarity that nothing good waited for him at the end of either one.

So what was he doing this for?

For people, non-sorcerers that would never know the cost or the day to day toll. Who would keep committing horrible acts under his protection, at the cost of his struggle and the lives of sorcerers around him.

There was no longer really a question of what he would eat, just the why.

Why was he doing this? For who?

You, of course, were none the wiser to the depth of this turmoil.

A dull clunk! reverberates throughout the aisle.

You muttered some curse under your breath as you dropped a can of soda, shiny red aluminum rolling beneath the shelf you were stocking. The last month or so had been a blur of hazy summer days with a persistent sun and by night even harsher fluorescent lights buzzing overhead with the sharp scent of floral disinfectant biting at your nostrils.

You’d been working a lot of nights at this little 24-hour convenience store, donning the hideously patchwork-colored polo shirt because you needed a summer job to keep you busy and rack up some cash. But sometimes you debated whether or not the ¥1,075 wages were more worth than lounging around in your fuzzy socks binging movies and shows to your heart’s content.

You mourned such as you lowered yourself to your hands and knees, one elbow digging into the grout between the cool tiles as you stretched the other below the shelf and— yeesh, maybe you really should clean under here instead of skipping it every few nights.

A couple frustrated grumbles escape you as you peered under, cheek hovering dangerously over the un-mopped floor and fingers groping just the air before the can, when the little ring ring! of the storefront door’s bell chimed. Beyond this shelf and the next’s, you see a familiar pair of socks and sandals lay foot on the doormat.

With a final stretch you graze the side of the can into rolling towards you, snatching it before it can stray again.

“Gotchya,” you mutter to no one as push yourself back to your feet and set the thing back on the shelf, fleetingly considering how shaken up it was. Someone was sure in for a surprise when they opened that.

Only then do you swing your head around the shelf to glance at the customer that had ambled in.

You’ve seen him here several times before, always at varying times of night during your shift. Tall, broad-shouldered, with deep ebony hair sometimes loose, sometimes loosely tied back with stubborn strands slinking out and crowding his temples. Head hung slightly downcast like keeping it upright was becoming too much an effort, white shirt hollowed a bit around his collar bones, as if it was a size or two too big. He’s handsome, don’t get it twisted, but every visit he just looks more worn.

The man’s narrow eyes befall the hot case, drift to the drink coolers, and then briefly to you.

“Welcome in,” you chirped automatically upon eye contact, like you always did after staring at him a bit too long (which happens often.) He muttered some noncommittal thanks with a nod before wading into the store, towards the refrigerated section.

Your interactions always followed a sort of formula.

He comes in, you welcome him, he wanders around the store for a while, and turns up with some items at register. There you make a little small talk that’s become increasingly less awkward, and you bid him a good night.

Which, arguably, is about the normal routine for any store regular, but you guess you pay special attention to him.

When you first noticed his visits he used to approach the counter bearing tons of snacks, a slurry of different flavors. Just a splurge of low effort indulgences that were pre-prepared, things you could eat and enjoy without really thinking much of it. You’d make a bad joke about it being one of those days that you felt terrible for making him pretend to laugh at, and send him on his merry way with handfuls of plastic bags.

But that was quite some time ago. Now his visits were more spotty, and he never brought more than an onigiri or nikuman to the counter. Maybe it was rude, but you wondered, from the looks of him, if he ever ate more than what he bought from here. It was like he showed up now only when he either remembered or was reminded by his body that he needed to eat at least something, and chose this sucky konbini for his collations.

You’re staring again, you realize when he finally chooses something that he doesn’t seem like he’s particularly interested in and starts walking towards the register.

“How’s your night going?” You blurt conversationally as he approaches, finding yourself behind the counter before he could beat you there. To which he hums.

“How it usually goes,” like usual, smiling a pull of lips that’s practiced. He places a pork bun on the counter. “Just this, please.”

As you ring him up, you sift through a catalog of mundane conversation topics to fill the silence between clacks of the cash register and rustling of coins. The weather maybe? Or how his troublesome egomaniac friend’s doing that he’d brought up in a couple past talks— him or that peppy kōhai he seemed to be fond of and worry over.

Somehow you find the gull to ask, “do you like cooking?”

You bite down on your tongue the second the question stumbles out your mouth. Hopefully it doesn’t sound as probing as you actually mean it to be. You can’t help it, really. Watching him meander around the store like a half rotted corpse so many times has really started twisting some anxious little knot behind your ribs. You suppose it’s a bit better than blurting out “who died?” or “are you okay??” like you really wanted to.

His glazed eyes slid up from the greasy quartz to your face, regarding you with the curiosity of an unamused feline. Okay, so today definitely wasn’t a small talk day. But he humored you still.

“Not often,” he admitted, in a blink his eyes on the counter again. “I suppose I don’t find the time to.”

“Ah.” Without thinking, you respond. Mostly because you know if you don’t, the conversation will die here. “I do. I mean, I’m trying to learn.”

Your cadence is crooked somehow, sounding like you meant to add something then lost the nerve as you spoke. The air feels as stiff as your holding your shoulders— with painful, unnecessary awkwardness that you’ve brought upon yourself. You’ve really got a knack for talking your way into a proverbial corner.

“I’m bad at it,” you add quickly, falling back on self deprecation to hopefully smooth over this situation. “Like, bad bad. Like burn water bad.”

His lips twitch, not into what you might call a smile, but the tightness behind his expression definitely eases a tad. When he blinks, interest flickers in the inky hues of his eyes. He huffs a breath through his nose.

“Is that so?”

You nod, a bit too eagerly, a whole lot relieved that he didn’t just push the steamed bun back across the counter and walk out the door to escape the situation— which you totally wouldn’t have blamed him for.

“Yeah. But it’s pretty fun. I think if I keep trying at it I’ll, like, get the rhythm down, y’know?” You prattle, fingers tapping at the counter as the receipt prints. When it does, you tear it and secure it over the pork bun’s packaging— no bag, because you remember he’s politely declined it in some previous visit, and slide it towards him.

“Even when it turns out bad, though, at least I can say I tried,” you continue like you’re talking yourself into that affirmation. “Like, it’s slop, but it’s my slop…plus I kinda need to cut down my spending, and it’s cheaper than take-out, sooo…”

He hums again, not particularly dismissive or indulgent. “I’m sure.”

You’re just saying “Yeah.” another one too many times when the bell jingles, signaling another customer walking in, the moment stretching thin.

“Well,” you default back to script, self-consciousness cresting on you ten times stronger now with some stranger milling about. “You have a good night.”

He looks like he hesitates a second, like he might apologize for something or explain himself or— god forbid— force you to make more awkward attempts at small talk. But mercifully, he turns to leave.

“You too,” he replies automatically, and the bell tolls again with his exit.

Without him realizing, his visits start taking an incline into earlier hours of the night, while the sky is still bruised purple instead of ink black. Sometimes you’re there, and sometimes you’re not. Absurdly when you’re not, he feels cheated, somehow.

When you are there, though, you talk. And he means that in a very one-sided manner.

You tend to talk a lot when you get nervous, but he doesn’t mind that about you. Rather likes it, actually, it’s nice. It’s like putting a few yen into a guarantee-win pachinko and watching the little marbles spill out tumbling over one another. He’d only ever have to say a couple words at a time, sometimes surprise you with a full sentence or two. He listens more than he responds, and you babble more than enough to fill in the spaces between without expecting too much of him, or ever questioning his purchases despite it being so painfully obvious you wanted to ask.

You regale him with tales of annoyingly ardent customers with expired coupons, how you have to poke a hole in the buns before you microwave them, because last week you found out the hard way when one exploded in the microwave. And of your cooking exploits— which admittedly, sound less than lackluster. Or dare he say plain disastrous, but you aren’t ever without a new story somehow.

When he jokes about paying respects to your poor kitchen that takes the brunt of your chef’s journey, you groan in embarrassment and press your fingers over your eyelids and palms over your burning face as you sputter something about how if you keep trying you’re bound to get better, practice makes perfect and all that.

Like he said, it’s nice. It’s cute. It turns into something similar to routine.

Until one day you produce a small, carefully wrapped box from under the counter. Your palms look tacky, like they have to peel away from the packaging when you set it down.

Despite your stilted motions and intense expression about yourself, you seem…proud? Or maybe just more anxious than usual.

“I made these,” you say too fast. It’s almost too easy to watch you and tell where you’re derailing from lines you’ve rehearsed in your head. It lightens the threat the cutely wrapped package on the counter between you imposes on him. “For you. Or I guess— I tried to make them. This batch looked pretty edible. I think, so, yeah.”

He stares at the box, something vile twisting low in his gut. Not hunger, but trepidation.

He should refuse it, and he knows that. Accepting it means performing, pretending to enjoy something he knows he can’t, to revisit the familiar hollow disappointment he so often did. He’d like to smile, deflect, retreat back into indifference.

But he doesn’t need to look at your eyes to read your thoughts.

You’re watching him with wide eyes he can feel like spotlights, your braced patience already half way to disappointment regardless of the way you're trying not to make it completely obvious. Like you already anticipated his rejection, convinced yourself you misread something or overstepped somewhere.

Distantly, the questions that’ve been gnawing at him for months loom overhead.

What was he doing this for? Why was he doing this?

“They’re cookies. You don’t have to take them. They’re kinda okay?” You blurt in a rush, not allowing his contemplative silence to settle lest you cave in on yourself completely. “I think I used tablespoons on accident when I was measuring the baking soda. Or is it baking powder?— whatever the one is that’s supposed to be in cookies. I hope.”

His hand moves before he has the chance to finish the thought.

The pads of his fingers brush the soft fibers of the cloth wrap, tracing where it creased at the corners.

“…Thank you,” he murmured quietly, and the look on your face is worth the wave of nausea gaining traction in his stomach.

You’re grinning like you’ve just been handed a passing grade you weren’t expecting, relieved and crooked. Like he’s doing something for you rather than you for him. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

He doesn’t eat the cookies right away. And honestly, didn’t plan to eat them at all.

He’d just dump them out, pretend he did, and tell you they were good. It’s an easy lie he tells himself, he’s practiced at it.

He cements the actions in his mind despite the way he walks through the streets with the box gingerly tucked under an arm.

At home he sets the box on the table as he strolls by it, and lets himself forget about it.

He showers, rinses the day off his skin until the water runs lukewarm and the sensation between clean and numb blurs. He changes, tries to tend to some things. Plants he needed to water, a surface he hasn’t dusted in awhile, texts that feel so burdensome to respond to. The trash isn’t full enough to take out. Nor are there dishes to be done in the sink.

However when he circles back around to the kitchen, the cloth clad cookie box is still there. A pop of color in the dim space, patient and unassuming on the tabletop. And he just can’t seem to distract himself from it, not when the image of you standing there behind the counter wringing your fingers that were so obviously riddled with little burns from hastily grabbing a baking tray, claiming that you’d made them for him was so fresh in his mind after hours. For him.

When he opens the cloth wrap, it’s out of guilt rather than hunger.

And when he opens the box he finds…cookies?

Objectively, they’re bad. Just looking at them he can tell— lumpy little discs that are darkened a hideous brown at the edges and a gooey, sickening pale in the middles. Chocolate chips are measured by heart and distributed by an oligarchal system, some ‘cookies’ with more chips than dough and some with none at all.

Everything about them looks wrong, and muddled, and…frankly a bit pathetic.

He exhales from his nose. You really, really tried. At least these ugly cookies don’t look at him like they’ll pretend to taste good.

As he lifts one to take a bite, he can almost see it: you overmixing, using the wrong measuring cups. Apron smudged white and puffed cheeks flour dusted too, frowning as your head whipped between a bowl and instructions, muttering curses directed towards whoever made their recipe blog ridiculously impossible to navigate, refusing to quit when the first batch failed.

When he finishes the cookie, and then another, terribly unique, simultaneously crumbly and goopy texture dissolving away in his mouth, they don’t taste good. I mean, duh, just look at the things.

But the putridness of curses that always so eagerly latched onto whatever landed on his tongue is white noise. There and constant, but not overwhelming for once. Sickness doesn’t even curl beneath his ribs. They taste just like everything else he’s eaten in the past several months, but there’s sentiment in them that makes them bearable, dulling the worst of the taste.

He ends up wrapping the rest up, slow and more reverent than necessary, and sets them aside. They stay where they are on the table, a visible and intentional reminder.

“I liked them.” Suguru graces you with a smile on his next visit. His clothes still hang a bit awkwardly but at least the darkness beneath his eyes is not so harsh, though maybe that’s because of how immediate his grin reaches them. Unpolished and wide, a kind of smile that made him look boyish. “They were good, you did a wonderful job.”

He really expected you to fluster under the praise, but much to his surprise you angle your head and squint, giving him a sideways glance. “…you’re lying.”

He sputtered, his eyebrows hiking up his forehead as he blinks. “I’m not?”

“There’s just no way you actually ate those!” You accuse with folded arms, incredulity tugging your bottom lip forward. “I tried one and even I thought they were bad, you’re so lying.”

“I’m not!” Suguru repeats again, this time his words filtering through a chuckle as he leans forward against the counter, elbows planted on the surface and palms loosely clasped. “I’m not lying. Believe me, you’d know if I was lying.”

His eyes drift a bit as he makes that statement. That’s a lie in and of itself. He thinks himself a fairly good liar.

Your eyes narrow though, so maybe you did catch on to that scant hint of arrogance. Maybe you truly would know if he was lying.

“I did like them. Please,” He drapes himself a bit more over the counter, lips spelling your name for possibly the first time since you’ve met him, and it sounds so pleading, too. A shock darts through your system, at his cadence, sure, but also because you completely forgot he even knew your name. That he cared to remember it from your first introductions months ago. (Later you’ll realize you’re very clearly wearing your name tag.) “You’ll make me more, won’t you?”

“…I mean— I guess.” You murmur, your nail digging at some worn price sticker that’s been stuck to the oily counter since forever, eyes bouncing from one corner of his face to the gauge in his ear to his shoulder and back again. Anywhere but his eyes. “I guess we’ll see how long it takes for my food to kill you.”

He smiles softly at that, and it makes you feel unchecked warmth everywhere under your skin. “We will, won’t we?”

It’s not that you held some miracle cure— you didn’t make rice taste like good ol’ bland rice again. Didn’t bring sweetness back to mochi. Didn’t take away the mildewed tang of curses. But you gave him a reason to want to keep trying.

Instead of laying awake at night dreading, am I going to have to eat again? How soon? He could close his eyes musing, Oh god, what’s she going to try to make next? Burnt or undercooked? Both?? a smirk ghosting his lips.

Because if you’re going to put in the effort to try to make a meal for him, just for him, the least he could do was try to eat it. And he’d like to wager he’s maybe the best at eating your food. If nothing else.

You’re worth the effort.

That’s why when he pushes himself up from the table and turns fully to his friends all gathered in the break room, his eyes are upturned in tight little crescents. Mouth curved in a sharp sickle of a smile that just really radiates love for his wife.

Love for his wife, and sinister intent directed towards whoever dares to oppose him.

“You’re all invited to my birthday dinner,” Suguru reasserts calmly, the tranquil rumble of his voice seeming to leer like a warning. “You’ll eat it, and you’ll like it.”

“Scary,” seems to be the telepathical thought that links Shoko, Satoru, Kento, and Yu. Suguru could be that way when he wanted to be.

So they all turn up on the 3rd of February to the Geto household's doorstep, knocking at 6:00pm sharp.

Mimiko stands there to greet them, a doll stuffed in the hollow of one elbow and other hand on the door handle. Nanako’s next to her, head craned down to the tablet between her palms, tip-tapping away at the screen and barely sparing them more than a glance. The collar of her shirt is hooked up over the tip of her nose, a makeshift mask.

“Hey, Uncle Ken. Auntie Shoko, Uncle Yu. Gojo.” The tween says flatly.

What’s truly noteworthy however is the fog, billowing out the opening the door made, thick and stinking like something evil just died in this house.

“Dad let Mom into the kitchen. Again.” Mimiko monotonously supplies the explanation that’s really not needed, but it doesn’t fail in inducing a fresh wave of apprehensive terror anyway.

Though it deters them, it doesn’t stop the group from depositing their shoes near the door. They’ll still find seats around the table, try to smile and not cry when you dish out servings of what looks like the uncensored version of dubious food from some video game.

It truly is impressive how consistently borderline inedible your cooking is even after years. Endearing to some, dreaded by others.

“Sorry, it’s not the best.” You apologize preemptively before they even lift their utensils, but that’s not gonna make any of the ‘food’ go down easier.

Everyone still thanks you, Nanami and Ieiri maybe a bit better at feigning gratitude than Haibara and Gojo. Yu tries, honestly really tries to look appreciative, but he looks more like he’s just been issued a suicide mission and trying to put on a brave face about it.

Satoru meanwhile tosses his eyes dramatically, muttering “no kidding,” under his breath— right before hissing sharply. Under the table, Shoko and Kento have crushed all ten of his piggies.

The girls duck under the table when neither you or Suguru are watching to scrape their portions off their plates and into the gaping mouth of the worm curse wriggling around on the floor, weaving through table and chair legs.

And when you threaten everyone with cake wearing a gentle smile, Satoru starts praying. Not for grace to any god, but that maybe by some slim chance the aforementioned dessert might be store bought. (It’s not.)

But it doesn’t really matter that by the end of the dinner everyone is looking green around the gills or that Nanako is already plotting her and Mimiko’s secret take-out order later in the night.

Suguru’s happy. Sitting at the head of the table like he’s hosting a perfectly ordinary birthday dinner and not an active biohazard. The way he’s situated with lax shoulders and chin propped in a palm after polishing off a second serving of what everyone else could barely stand to stomach a first of, speaks of fondness. And a touch of smugness, somehow.

He seems perfectly content letting everyone else at this table battle their own digestive systems, like he doesn’t even notice it.

But when Satoru’s literally muttering his first prayers (since last year’s birthday dinner at least) under his breath, you can’t help but notice. You lean towards your husband slightly, grimacing a bit in concern as you whisper.

“It’s not that bad this time, is it?” You wince. “…too much salt?”

The warmth of his hand covers yours, and without hesitancy he affirms, “it’s perfect,” tone gentle and sure, infinitely appreciative. “Thank you.”

ᥲᥒ 𓏲ּ𝄢 geunyang pogihae eochapi— eat it up, eat it eat it uuuup! I super headcanon geto having dysgeusia or hypogeusia (or combo of the two?) so I hope u enjoyed and see my vision! happy late birfdai to the princess himself <3

late + not proofread + I’m sick if this sucked pls dont kill me im new gennnn ૮ ྀིྀ◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ა but do not shy from sharing your thoughts, im eating the feedback like Geto ate those rank & stank cookies

m.list

Earlier that evening he’d simply told you to get ready. He had hinted to wear the red set he likes with something lacy on top. 

When you stepped outside, there he was—already on his ruby red scooter. One thick leg swung over each side, thighs spreading wide to balance the machine, broad back and shoulders blocking most of the streetlight behind him. 

“Get on,” he said.

You slid behind him, arms wrapping around his waist. Your hands barely met around his middle. The scooter dipped slightly under the combined weight, then steadied as he kicked off.

When he finally parked outside the restaurant, he helped you off with a big hand around your waist.

“Happy Valentines, baby,” he said, wheeling his scooter up the accessibility ramp behind you.

Dinner started perfectly after that. You knew exactly what you wanted—a dish your friend had recommended when she got off of the waiting list last month. You’d been dreaming of the menu for months after all.

Sukuna on the other hand, seemed to be quite indecisive.

He leaned back in his scooter, his thick fingers wrapped around the handle to hold up his upper body. His eyes scanned the menu slowly. 

When the waiter came by, you politely ordered your appetizer, main course, and dessert, along with an espresso martini.

Sukuna needed more time. Every few seconds, he’d grunt low in his throat, flip a page, then grunt again. The waiter hovered politely, notepad in hand, but Sukuna just kept staring.

You raised an eyebrow. “Kuna, is everything okay?”

His eyes slowly peel up from the menu, his tattooed face meeting yours. But he doesn’t say anything. Not to you at least. 

He pulls himself back up from his strange scooter position? and closes the menu with a soft snap.

“Bring everything,” he says.

The waiter blinks. “Sir?”

“Everything on the menu,” he slides the menu back to the waiter with his fat knuckles, your eyes wide in horror. “Get her whatever she wants, and me everything on the menu.”

You stare at him, heat creeping up your neck. “Kuna, baby, I—”

He cuts you off with a lazy shrug. “Woman, I’m hungry and I want the WHOLE menu.”

The waiter recovers from his shock and eases the situation. “Yes, sir. We’ll start with appetizers and keep the dishes coming as they’re ready.”

“Don’t keep me waiting,” he barks out as the waiter rushes off.

"The whole menu?” you start, concerned. “That's... insane. There's like twenty dishes."

Sukuna's smirk deepened. “I didn’t get this big for nothing.”

He leans back in his scooter as his chubby hands come down to smack his belly. The rolls on his body recoil in response, vibrating and mimicking what was like several waves in the ocean.

The first plates arrived moments later. A double of your starting dish.

“Eat,” Sukuna said simply, scarfing down the appetizer in two bites.

Course after course appeared. As you nibbled on the food in front of you, you watched Sukuna disgustingly swallow down every dish.

You flinch, watching his throat bob with every swallow, his fat fingers coming up to wipe the mess from his mouth, his eyes widening with every coming dish just as you’ve been getting full off of your one meal.

“Are you finishing that?” he asks, motioning towards your half eaten main course.

He had managed to eat most of the dishes they brought him already.

“Sukuna,” you say, your manicured fingers coming up to massage your temple. “You cannot be serious. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“Shut up,” he says, grubby hands reaching out to grab your plate.

He grabs the fork, shoving the food down his throat before swallowing.

Then, he groans in pain. 

“Sukuna!” you exclaim in worry. 

You glance around at the staff, you know they’re staring. 

What is a girl like you doing with fatkuna on his ruby red scooter? If only they knew what he looked like in his prime.

Before you can say anything else, Sukuna rips his dress shirt off clean, revealing his tattooed torso, saggy man boobs, and endless stomach rolls.

“Sukuna, stop,” you hiss.

“Schuth up!” he commands with his mouth full, eating what is left on the plate.

“Sukuna, you always do this!”

The whole restaurant staff gasps.

“Stop complaining,” he says. “We… we… we havent’ had dessert yet.”

“Tonight was suppossed to be perfect, Kuna..”

You’re clearly disappointed. Your voice cracks just enough to make it obvious.

The waiter arrives on cue, balancing a tray of desserts. Fatkuna’s eyes light up despite the groan he lets out when he shifts.

He reaches for a molten chocolate cake first, and brings it to his mouth.

The moment he swallows, there is a distant, ominous crack.

The next thing you know, Sukuna is on the floor, lying on his side, chocolate cake smeared across his neck and chest.

The scooter gave way from under him.

His legs are flailing and the front wheel spins once, then stops.

The entire restaurant goes silent.

You stare at the wreckage, then at him—his roles spilling forward as he tries to sit up.

“Sukuna,” you say, sternly. “GET YOUR FAT ASS UP.”

He tries. He really does.

His big palms plant on the table, one plump leg trying to bend under him to hurl himself up, but his centre of gravity is all wrong. After a few futile rocks back and forth, he just… stills.

The staff are openly gaping now, their phones angled toward him discreetly.

“I can’t,” he says, defeated. “You’re going to have to roll me out of here.”

Whatthefuck.

You stand, chair shoved back. “Fine.”

You circle around, grab him under one arm—your manicured nails digging in just enough to make a point—and start pulling. He doesn’t budge at first, but you’re past patience. You plant your heels, lean your whole body weight, and heave.

Inch by inch, he slides out of the remains of his ruby red scooter. The tablecloth drags with him for a dramatic second before fluttering free.

Now he’s free on his other side, able to see the wreckage.

“NOOOOOOOO,” he yells out, his swollen arm reaching out as his hands do a grabbing motion. “MY RUBY RED SCOOTER.”

You kick his side. Even if it was hard, he wouldn’t have felt it through all his blubber. “Shut the fuck up.”

Before he can react, you hook your arms under his shoulders (as much as they’ll reach), plant your feet, and start dragging/rolling him toward the exit. The carpet bunches under him like a red carpet gone wrong. Every few feet he lets out a low “oof” or “easy, baby,” but you’re not listening.

The accessibility ramp outside is mercifully wide. You maneuver him onto it—gravity helps now—and give one final shove. He starts rolling slowly at first.

But, his body angles diagonally, getting him stuck between the two railing. 

You’ve had enough. You kick him again—harder—but to no avail.

You place the bottom of your heel onto his back, and with all your strength, kick him.

He picks up speed down the slope like a boulder.

He hits the bottom with a thud, momentum carrying him straight into the street.

A sedan rounds the corner at that exact moment—headlights flaring.

Crunch.

Not the sickening thud you brace for. Instead, there’s a metallic thunk, a crunch of fiberglass, and the car lurches to a stop. The hood crumples inward in a perfect Sukuna-shaped dent. The driver’s door flies open; a stunned man stumbles out, staring at the immovable mass in the road.

Sukuna doesn’t even flinch. He lies there, breathing heavily, one chubby arm flung out.

The car? Totaled front end. Sukuna? Not a scratch.

You storm down the ramp, furious, cheeks burning from secondhand embarrassment.

“Sukuna, you piece of shit.”

He cracks one eye open, smirks up at you from the pavement. “So, can I get head when we get home?”

Your rage boils over. 

You grab his wrist again—both hands this time—and start the long, undignified process of rolling him the rest of the way home.

Worst valentines day EVER.

thank you besties @motel6killer @whimsic @coralbae for helping fuel my fatkuna dreams

Even Yu’s ever-present puppy grin coin flips into a faltering press of teeth, sucking in a breath and murmuring out a painful, “oooh…”

Nanami clears his throat, the first to speak.

“Let’s not make her go through the trouble,” He found himself saying hastily, finger hooking to adjust his shirt collar in a rigid series of movements. “You should both relax. Besides, Gojo already offered to buy everyone dinner, it’d be rude to turn it down.”

Nanami? Concerned with disrespecting Gojo?? Suguru’s brows pull together and he glances towards the window minutely to make sure grass is still green.

Haibara’s quick to jump on that train, head nodding exuberantly as he claps his hands together— almost a pleading gesture. “Yeah! Let’s just all go out, chillax, grab a bite n’ few drinks and—“

“—HER FOOD TASTES LIKE HOW RARERAREMON LOOKS.” Satoru gags over Haibara’s placation, an overdramatic shudder causing him to spasm some weird little wriggle.

He squeezes his eyes shut, tongue lolling. “Guhhh, I feel sick just thinkin’ about it. There’s probably some curse out there manifested by fear of her cooking, blegh!”

Shoko pinches him, eyeing him disapprovingly with a scoff. “That’s not—“ True? “—the way you should say it.”

She shakes her head when Gojo poutily mutters something along the lines of we were all thinking it as he rubs his side, folding her arms as her lazily lidded gaze shifted to Suguru.

“Geto, I mean this as nicely as I can put it, because I love your wife more than you do.” She leveled dryly. “Girl can’t cook. Like, at all. Let’s give her a break and go karaoke.”

Nobody argues.

It’s probably not the feedback any husband wants to hear from his closest friends regarding his wife, but it’s not like Geto didn’t entirely expect this reaction.

He knows that— by traditional standards— you’re no critically acclaimed chef.

But in truth, he’s no critic either.

Suguru can’t remember exactly at what point his sense of taste diminished, it’s not one of those things you can pinpoint to an exact memory. It had to have been somewhere in his teens, just one day realizing his miso didn’t taste like miso.

No, now that he recalls, the taste of food had become the least of his concerns at that point, eclipsed entirely by the acrid sapor that was necessary for him to consume.

He used to take a bite, shift it around from one side of his mouth to the other, waiting for it. The comfort of a warm meal, of his most favorite indulgences to ground him. To remind him that just like everyone else he could still be pleased by something so simple. Food looked good, it smelled good. It looked familiar and weighed on a utensil like it was supposed to, but when it met his mouth he felt nothing. It mashed between his molars, diluted with his saliva and clung to the back of his throat like a weak perfume over the stench that was humanity’s worst.

Curses don’t go down like anything natural. They linger, make his body recoil on itself like anything that shouldn’t be inside it would. They coat his tongue, nestle into the soft parts of his mouth, make home in the cleaves of his teeth right near the gum. Smug and permanent. Kissing his taste buds like sulfur.

It’s not something he could ever rinse with water, brush raw, or floss away. They sat stubborn and stagnant as bristles scraped futilely, even when he couldn’t recognize the metallic tang of his own blood until he was spitting it into the cavern of the sink, ruddied foams of white swirled mockingly with a minty blue he imagined was spicy and fresh.

He used to gorge right after.

Shovel in as much as he could to overwrite the residue curses left. Salty, sweet, sour, savory, spicy, umami, bitter. All faint and trapped beneath the flavor of something wrong, until his stomach protested. A fruitless effort, he learned eventually.

It didn’t disappear all at once, but it eroded. Sanded down slowly, until the memory of eating and feeling sated afterward was more akin to something he’d read in a book than something he actually experienced. Rice became a warm weight on his tongue, soup eventually just heat that stung any open wound in his mouth. Salt? Meat was a texture, sweetness existed as a concept that Satoru indulged in constantly, and sourness only if it was aggressive enough to bite through the numb.

And then eating became mechanical. Habit instilled by repetition over days, and weeks, and months, and years— since when he was small and new. But in those days it became action without reward, cruelly melding with his newest habit of taking in curse after curse. Over days. Weeks. Months. Years. Meal and mission were one blurred definition, joint disgust.

But he’ll still eat. If not for fuel, then for the questions to stop.

“Suguruuu, h’ve you lost weight?”

“Woahhhh duuude, you’re thinnin’ out! You look like Nanami—”

“—Hey.”

“You all good?”

“You hungry? Did you eat yet?”

“You okay?”

Ate earlier. Heat fatigue. He’ll eat later.

It all came from a good place, he’s sure. But it feels more like probing fingers than an extended palm.

In a restaurant it was a performance, pretending to savor what he couldn’t remember he was chewing as friends around him still found space for those small, menial disappointments that had become myth.

“This is waaayyy too salty.”

“How many calories do you think is in this?”

“Ughhh, I wanted something sweet!”

“What’d you wanna order again, Geto?”

At his name, Suguru’s head lifted from where he’d been blankly staring at the menu— pages of symbols and pictures all running together that might as well be the same word printed in a threat.

EAT.

But there was Haibara, grinning and staring expectantly for his choice. He smiled, a stretch of lips rehearsed for moments like these.

“Choose for me. Anything’s fine.” Everything was a varying shade of tolerable. After a moment’s thought, he added, “something sweet, maybe.” Satoru would probably end up picking off his plate.

All of it made him acutely aware of his own charade, how far away he was from the people he was sitting right next to. People who’ve never tasted a cursed spirit, who were still human enough to eat, and enjoy it. Praise or complain about what was on their plates.

No matter what was sitting before him, on smooth ceramic or in his hand, on a fork, pooled in a spoon, between his chopsticks. All of it was beginning to provoke the same reaction within him.

Just gaping his jaw with the intent of filling his mouth with something rancid disguising itself in different textures and colors and ‘flavors’ was starting to make his gut churn. Lazy, nauseous rolls beneath his ribs, sloshing, trying to prod and rise up his throat in a rush as if to punish him a second time.

He didn’t feel particularly nourished anymore. Food sat like a pile of stones when he could remember to eat it and managed to keep it down. Every swallow was a mistake, absorption or meal, it didn’t matter. He dreaded both with exhaustion, with the heavy clarity that nothing good waited for him at the end of either one.

So what was he doing this for?

For people, non-sorcerers that would never know the cost or the day to day toll. Who would keep committing horrible acts under his protection, at the cost of his struggle and the lives of sorcerers around him.

There was no longer really a question of what he would eat, just the why.

Why was he doing this? For who?

You, of course, were none the wiser to the depth of this turmoil.

A dull clunk! reverberates throughout the aisle.

You muttered some curse under your breath as you dropped a can of soda, shiny red aluminum rolling beneath the shelf you were stocking. The last month or so had been a blur of hazy summer days with a persistent sun and by night even harsher fluorescent lights buzzing overhead with the sharp scent of floral disinfectant biting at your nostrils.

You’d been working a lot of nights at this little 24-hour convenience store, donning the hideously patchwork-colored polo shirt because you needed a summer job to keep you busy and rack up some cash. But sometimes you debated whether or not the ¥1,075 wages were more worth than lounging around in your fuzzy socks binging movies and shows to your heart’s content.

You mourned such as you lowered yourself to your hands and knees, one elbow digging into the grout between the cool tiles as you stretched the other below the shelf and— yeesh, maybe you really should clean under here instead of skipping it every few nights.

A couple frustrated grumbles escape you as you peered under, cheek hovering dangerously over the un-mopped floor and fingers groping just the air before the can, when the little ring ring! of the storefront door’s bell chimed. Beyond this shelf and the next’s, you see a familiar pair of socks and sandals lay foot on the doormat.

With a final stretch you graze the side of the can into rolling towards you, snatching it before it can stray again.

“Gotchya,” you mutter to no one as push yourself back to your feet and set the thing back on the shelf, fleetingly considering how shaken up it was. Someone was sure in for a surprise when they opened that.

Only then do you swing your head around the shelf to glance at the customer that had ambled in.

You’ve seen him here several times before, always at varying times of night during your shift. Tall, broad-shouldered, with deep ebony hair sometimes loose, sometimes loosely tied back with stubborn strands slinking out and crowding his temples. Head hung slightly downcast like keeping it upright was becoming too much an effort, white shirt hollowed a bit around his collar bones, as if it was a size or two too big. He’s handsome, don’t get it twisted, but every visit he just looks more worn.

The man’s narrow eyes befall the hot case, drift to the drink coolers, and then briefly to you.

“Welcome in,” you chirped automatically upon eye contact, like you always did after staring at him a bit too long (which happens often.) He muttered some noncommittal thanks with a nod before wading into the store, towards the refrigerated section.

Your interactions always followed a sort of formula.

He comes in, you welcome him, he wanders around the store for a while, and turns up with some items at register. There you make a little small talk that’s become increasingly less awkward, and you bid him a good night.

Which, arguably, is about the normal routine for any store regular, but you guess you pay special attention to him.

When you first noticed his visits he used to approach the counter bearing tons of snacks, a slurry of different flavors. Just a splurge of low effort indulgences that were pre-prepared, things you could eat and enjoy without really thinking much of it. You’d make a bad joke about it being one of those days that you felt terrible for making him pretend to laugh at, and send him on his merry way with handfuls of plastic bags.

But that was quite some time ago. Now his visits were more spotty, and he never brought more than an onigiri or nikuman to the counter. Maybe it was rude, but you wondered, from the looks of him, if he ever ate more than what he bought from here. It was like he showed up now only when he either remembered or was reminded by his body that he needed to eat at least something, and chose this sucky konbini for his collations.

You’re staring again, you realize when he finally chooses something that he doesn’t seem like he’s particularly interested in and starts walking towards the register.

“How’s your night going?” You blurt conversationally as he approaches, finding yourself behind the counter before he could be you there. To which he hums.

“How it usually goes,” like usual, smiling a pull of lips that’s practiced. He places a pork bun on the counter. “Just this, please.”

As you ring him up, you sift through a catalog of mundane conversation topics to fill the silence between clacks of the cash register and rustling of coins. The weather maybe? Or how his troublesome egomaniac friend’s doing that he’d brought up in a couple past talks— him or that peppy kōhai he seemed to be fond of and worry over.

Somehow you find the gull to ask, “do you like cooking?”

You bite down on your tongue the second the question stumbles out your mouth. Hopefully it doesn’t sound as probing as you actually mean it to be. You can’t help it, really. Watching him meander around the store like a half rotted corpse so many times has really started twisting some anxious little knot behind your ribs. You suppose it’s a bit better than blurting out “who died?” or “are you okay??” like you really wanted to.

His glazed eyes slid up from the greasy quartz to your face, regarding you with the curiosity of an unamused feline. Okay, so today definitely wasn’t a small talk day. But he humored you still.

“Not often,” he admitted, in a blink his eyes on the counter again. “I suppose I don’t find the time to.”

“Ah.” Without thinking, you respond. Mostly because you know if you don’t, the conversation will die here. “I do. I mean, I’m trying to learn.”

Your cadence is crooked somehow, sounding like you meant to add something then lost the nerve as you spoke. The air feels as stiff as your holding your shoulders— with painful, unnecessary awkwardness that you’ve brought upon yourself. You’ve really got a knack for talking your way into a proverbial corner.

“I’m bad at it,” you add quickly, falling back on self deprecation to hopefully smooth over this situation. “Like, bad bad. Like burn water bad.”

His lips twitch, not into what you might call a smile, but the tightness behind his expression definitely eases a tad. When he blinks, interest flickers in the inky hues of his eyes. He huffs a breath through his nose.

“Is that so?”

You nod, a bit too eagerly, a whole lot relieved that he didn’t just push the steamed bun back across the counter and walk out the door to escape the situation— which you totally wouldn’t have blamed him for.

“Yeah. But it’s pretty fun. I think if I keep trying at it I’ll, like, get the rhythm down, y’know?” You prattle, fingers tapping at the counter as the receipt prints. When it does, you tear it and secure it over the pork bun’s packaging— no bag, because you remember he’s politely declined it in some previous visit, and slide it towards him.

“Even when it turns out bad, though, at least I can say I tried,” you continue like you’re talking yourself into that affirmation. “Like, it’s slop, but it’s my slop…plus I kinda need to cut down my spending, and it’s cheaper than take-out, sooo…”

He hums again, not particularly dismissive or indulgent. “I’m sure.”

You’re just saying “Yeah.” another one too many times when the bell jingles, signaling another customer walking in, the moment stretching thin.

“Well,” you default back to script, self-consciousness cresting on you ten times stronger now with some stranger milling about. “You have a good night.”

He looks like he hesitates a second, like he might apologize for something or explain himself or— god forbid— force you to make more awkward attempts at small talk. But mercifully, he turns to leave.

“You too,” he replies automatically, and the bell tolls again with his exit.

Without him realizing, his visits start taking an incline into earlier hours of the night, while the sky is still bruised purple instead of ink black. Sometimes you’re there, and sometimes you’re not. Absurdly when you’re not, he feels cheated, somehow.

When you are there, though, you talk. And he means that in a very one-sided manner.

You tend to talk a lot when you get nervous, but he doesn’t mind that about you. Rather likes it, actually, it’s nice. It’s like putting a few yen into a guarantee-win pachinko and watching the little marbles spill out tumbling over one another. He’d only ever have to say a couple words at a time, sometimes surprise you with a full sentence or two. He listens more than he responds, and you babble more than enough to fill in the spaces between without expecting too much of him, or ever questioning his purchases despite it being so painfully obvious you wanted to ask.

You regale him with tales of annoyingly ardent customers with expired coupons, how you have to poke a hole in the buns before you microwave them, because last week you found out the hard way when one exploded in the microwave. And of your cooking exploits— which admittedly, sound less than lackluster. Or dare he say plain disastrous, but you aren’t ever without a new story somehow.

When he jokes about paying respects to your poor kitchen that takes the brunt of your chef’s journey, you groan in embarrassment and press your fingers over your eyelids and palms over your burning face as you sputter something about how if you keep trying you’re bound to get better, practice makes perfect and all that.

Like he said, it’s nice. It’s cute. It turns into something similar to routine.

Until one day you produce a small, carefully wrapped box from under the counter. Your palms look tacky, like they have to peel away from the packaging when you set it down.

Despite your stilted motions and intense expression about yourself, you seem…proud? Or maybe just more anxious than usual.

“I made these,” you say too fast. It’s almost too easy to watch you and tell where you’re derailing from lines you’ve rehearsed in your head. It lightens the threat the cutely wrapped package on the counter between you imposes on him. “For you. Or I guess— I tried to make them. This batch looked pretty edible. I think, so, yeah.”

He stares at the box, something vile twisting low in his gut. Not hunger, but trepidation.

He should refuse it, and he knows that. Accepting it means performing, pretending to enjoy something he knows he can’t, to revisit the familiar hollow disappointment he so often did. He’d like to smile, deflect, retreat back into indifference.

But he doesn’t need to look at your eyes to read your thoughts.

You’re watching him with wide eyes he can feel like spotlights, your braced patience that’s already half way to disappointment regardless of the way you're trying not to make it completely obvious. Like you already anticipated his rejection, convinced yourself you misread something or overstepped somewhere.

Distantly, the questions that’ve been gnawing at him for months loom overhead.

What was he doing this for? Why was he doing this?

“They’re cookies. You don’t have to take them. They’re kinda okay?” You blurt in a rush, not allowing his contemplative silence to settle lest you cave in on yourself completely. “I think I used tablespoons on accident when I was measuring the baking soda. Or is it baking powder?— whatever the one is that’s supposed to be in cookies. I hope.”

His hand moves before he has the chance to finish the thought.

The pads of his fingers brush the soft fibers of the cloth wrap, tracing where it creased at the corners.

“…Thank you,” he murmured quietly, and the look on your face is worth the wave of nausea gaining traction in his stomach.

You’re grinning like you’ve just been handed a passing grade you weren’t expecting, relieved and crooked. Like he’s doing something for you rather than you for him. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

He doesn’t eat the cookies right away. And honestly, didn’t plan to eat them at all.

He’d just dump them out, pretend he did, and tell you they were good. It’s an easy lie he tells himself, he’s practiced at it.

He cements the actions in his mind despite the way he walks through the streets with the box gingerly tucked under an arm.

At home he sets the box on the table as he strolls by it, and lets himself forget about it.

He showers, rinses the day off his skin until the water runs lukewarm and the sensation between clean and numb blurs. He changes, tries to tend to some things. Plants he needed to water, a surface he hasn’t dusted in awhile, texts that feel so burdensome to respond to. The trash isn’t full enough to take out. Nor are there dishes to be done in the sink.

However when he circles back around to the kitchen, the cloth clad cookie box is still there. A pop of color in the dim space, patient and unassuming on the tabletop. And he just can’t seem to distract himself from it, not when the image of you standing there behind the counter wringing your fingers that were so obviously riddled with little burns from hastily grabbing a baking tray, claiming that you’d made them for him was so fresh in his mind after hours. For him.

When he opens the cloth wrap, it’s out of guilt rather than hunger.

And when he opens the box he finds…cookies?

Objectively, they’re bad. Just looking at them he can tell— lumpy little discs that are darkened a hideous brown at the edges and a gooey, sickening pale in the middles. Chocolate chips are measured by heart and distributed by an oligarchal system, some ‘cookies’ with more chips than dough and some with none at all.

Everything about them looks wrong, and muddled, and…frankly a bit pathetic.

He exhales from his nose. You really, really tried. At least these ugly cookies don’t look at him like they’ll pretend to taste good.

As he lifts one to take a bite, he can almost see it: you overmixing, using the wrong measuring cups. Apron smudged white and puffed cheeks flour dusted too, frowning as your head whipped between a bowl and instructions, muttering curses directed towards whoever made their recipe blog ridiculously impossible to navigate, refusing to quit when the first batch failed.

When he finishes the cookie, and then another, terribly unique, simultaneously crumbly and goopy texture dissolving away in his mouth, they don’t taste good. I mean, duh, just look at the things.

But the putridness of curses that always so eagerly latched onto whatever landed on his tongue is white noise. There and constant, but not overwhelming for once. Sickness doesn’t even curl beneath his ribs. They taste just like everything else he’s eaten in the past several months, but there’s sentiment in them that makes them bearable, dulling the worst of the taste.

He ends up wrapping the rest up, slow and more reverent than necessary, and sets them aside. They stay where they are on the table, a visible and intentional reminder.

“I liked them.” Suguru graces you with a smile on his next visit. His clothes still hang a bit awkwardly but at least the darkness beneath his eyes is not so harsh, though maybe that’s because of how immediate his grin reaches them. Unpolished and wide, a kind of smile that made him look boyish. “They were good, you did a wonderful job.”

He really expected you to fluster under the praise, but much to his surprise you angle your head and squint, giving him a sideways glance. “…you’re lying.”

He sputtered, his eyebrows hiking up his forehead as he blinks. “I’m not?”

“There’s just no way you actually ate those!” You accuse with folded arms, incredulity tugging your bottom lip forward. “I tried one and even I thought they were bad, you’re so lying.”

“I’m not!” Suguru repeats again, this time his words filtering through a chuckle as he leans forward against the counter, elbows planted on surface and palms loosely clasped. “I’m not lying. Believe me, you’d know if I was lying.”

His eyes drift a bit as he makes that statement. That’s a lie in and of itself. He thinks himself a fairly good liar.

Your eyes narrow though, so maybe you did catch on to that scant hint of arrogance. Maybe you truly would know if he was lying.

“I did like them. Please,” He drapes himself a bit more over the counter, lips spelling your name for possibly the first time since you’ve met him, and it sounds so pleading, too. A shock darts through your system, at his cadence, sure, but also because you completely forgot he even knew your name. That he cared to remember it from your first introductions months ago. (Later you’ll realize you’re very clearly wearing your name tag.) “You’ll make me more, won’t you?”

“…I mean— I guess.” You murmur, your nail digging at some worn price sticker that’s been stuck to the oily counter since forever, eyes bouncing from one corner of his face to the gauge in his ear to his shoulder and back again. Anywhere but his eyes. “I guess we’ll see how long it takes for my food to kill you.”

He smiles softly at that, and it makes you feel unchecked warmth everywhere under your skin. “We will, won’t we?”

It’s not that you held some miracle cure— you didn’t make rice taste like good ol’ bland rice again. Didn’t bring sweetness back to mochi. Didn’t take away the mildewed tang of curses. But you gave him a reason to want to keep trying.

Instead of laying awake at night dreading, am I going to have to eat again? How soon? He could close his eyes musing, Oh god, what’s she going to try to make next? Burnt or undercooked? Both?? a smirk ghosting his lips.

Because if you’re going to put in the effort to try to make a meal for him, just for him, the least he could do was try to eat it. And he’d like to wager he’s maybe the best at eating your food. If nothing else.

You’re worth the effort.

That’s why when he pushes himself up from the table and turns fully to his friends all gathered in the break room, his eyes are upturned in tight little crescents. Mouth curved in a sharp sickle of a smile that just really radiates love for his wife.

Love for his wife, and sinister intent directed towards whoever dares to oppose him.

“You’re all invited to my birthday dinner,” Suguru reasserts calmly, the tranquil rumble of his voice seeming to leer like a warning. “You’ll eat it, and you’ll like it.”

“Scary,” seems to be the telepathical thought that links Shoko, Satoru, Kento, and Yu. Suguru could be that way when he wanted to be.

So they all turn up on the 3rd of February to the Geto household's doorstep, knocking at 6:00pm sharp.

Mimiko stands there to greet them, a doll stuffed in the hollow of one elbow and other hand on the door handle. Nanako’s next to her, head craned down to the tablet between her palms, tip-tapping away at the screen and barely sparing them more than a glance. The collar of her shirt is hooked up over the tip of her nose, a makeshift mask.

“Hey, Uncle Ken. Auntie Shoko, Uncle Yu. Gojo.” The tween says flatly.

What’s truly noteworthy however is the fog, billowing out the opening the door made, thick and stinking like something evil just died in this house.

“Dad let Mom into the kitchen. Again.” Mimiko monotonously supplies the explanation that’s really not needed, but it doesn’t fail in inducing a fresh wave of apprehensive terror anyway.

Though it deters them, it doesn’t stop the group from depositing their shoes near the door. They’ll still find seats around the table, try to smile and not cry when you dish out servings of what looks like the uncensored version of dubious food from some video game.

It truly is impressive how consistently borderline inedible your cooking is even after years. Endearing to some, dreaded by others.

“Sorry, it’s not the best.” You apologize preemptively before they even lift their utensils, but that’s not gonna make any of the ‘food’ go down easier.

Everyone still thanks you, Nanami and Ieiri maybe a bit better at feigning gratitude than Haibara and Gojo. Yu tries, honestly really tries to look appreciative, but he looks more like he’s just been issued a suicide mission and trying to put on a brave face about it.

Satoru meanwhile tosses his eyes dramatically, muttering “no kidding,” under his breath— right before hissing sharply. Under the table, Shoko and Kento have crushed all ten of his piggies.

The girls duck under the table when neither you or Suguru are watching to scrape their portions off their plates and into the gaping mouth of the worm curse wriggling around on the floor, weaving through table and chair legs.

And when you threaten everyone with cake wearing a gentle smile, Satoru starts praying. Not for grace to any god, but that maybe by some slim chance the aforementioned dessert might be store bought. (It’s not.)

But it doesn’t really matter that by the end of the dinner everyone is looking green around the gills or that Nanako is already plotting her and Mimiko’s secret take-out order later in the night.

Suguru’s happy. Sitting at the head of the table like he’s hosting a perfectly ordinary birthday dinner and not an active biohazard. The way he’s situated with lax shoulders and chin propped in a palm after polishing off a second serving of what everyone else could barely stand to stomach a first of, speaks of fondness. And a touch of smugness, somehow.

He seems perfectly content letting everyone else at this table battle their own digestive systems, like he doesn’t even notice it.

But when Satoru’s literally muttering his first prayers (since last year’s birthday dinner at least,) under his breath, you can’t help but notice. You lean towards your husband slightly, grimacing a bit in concern as you whisper.

“It’s not that bad this time, is it?” You wince. “…too much salt?”

The warmth of his hand covers yours, and without hesitancy he affirms, “it’s perfect,” tone gentle and sure, infinitely appreciative. “Thank you.”

ᥲᥒ 𓏲ּ𝄢 geunyang pogihae eochapi— eat it up, eat it eat it uuuup! I super headcanon geto having dysgeusia or hypogeusia (or combo of the two?) so I hope u enjoyed and see my vision! happy late birfdai to the princess himself <3

late + not proofread + I’m sick if this sucked pls dont kill me im new gennnn ૮ ྀིྀ◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ა but do not shy from sharing your thoughts, im eating the feedback like Geto ate those rank & stank cookies

m.list