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During a family dinner, Sukuna was thinking about Uraume. Choso came home for Christmas, even though they didn’t even celebrate it, but every excuse was good for him to ‘visit his little brothers’. After three boxes of pizza, they stayed around the table, playing Uno, and Sukuna was going through withdrawals.
One arm draped across the back of the chair, he scratched the skin around his thumb, hoping to scratch away the feeling. He was becoming codependent in a very literal sense, and it could not have been good.
“Hey, snot. Your turn.”
Sukuna snapped out of it, frowning at Choso. “I’m not a fucking snot.” He looked at the pile and the cards in his hands, confused. He had not been paying attention at all.
Choso turned to Yuji. “What’s wrong with him?”
Yuji shrugged, carefully eyeing his own cards, overgrown bangs getting into his eyes. “Uraume’s not here.
An instinctual reaction was to fight and insult, but one, Yuji was right, two, it kind of left Sukuna speechless.
Choso leaned it, looking at Sukuna’s cards, and dropped +4 onto the pile.
“Not fair, what the fuck?” Yuji whined, kicking up a fuss like a child. “Why am I suffering because of your insufferable crush?”
“Don’t call it a crush,” Sukuna mumbled. “It’s… something… else. Or it’s not. Who cares?”
“It’s called ‘ you can’t live one minute without Uraume ’ . ”
Sukuna adjusted his hairband. Unfortunately, it was extremely on point, but admitting it in his head and out loud were two different things.
“I wanna get tattoos,” he said, drawing their attention away from the topic of Sukuna’s overwhelming feelings. He waved a finger at his face. “Here.”
Choso glared at him long enough to know it was an information and not a question, then sighed. “At least let me get a tattooist so that your face doesn’t rot away.”
“It’s weird that no one is complaining.” Yuji chuckled, sliding lower on the chair, his words a memory of their old man. “Come on, Choso. You can’t give in so easily.”
Sukuna grinned. “The longer he’s away from home, the softer he gets.”
“Why face tattoos, though? Uraume likes it?”
Sukuna kicked Yuji under the table. “Because I want them. I want more, but all in due time.”
“You don’t have cash, do you?”
“Let’s say some more wouldn’t hurt.”
“Not that I ever wanted to be that brother,” Choso chimed in, forehead creased under strands of hair. “But face tattoos will tamper with your future.”
“I'm uninterested in a future without face tattoos,” Sukuna said simply. “Why would I adapt myself? I'm doing what I want. The rest has to adapt.”
Choso gazed tiredly across the room. “You're such a hassle, but at the same time, I'm proud of you.”
Sukuna cackled. “You know what you need, big bro? Serious relaxation. Nothing related to us and your school.”
“What do you think about a date?” Yuji asked, agreeing. “Meeting someone could do you good.”
Choso took a sip from his can of soda, then calmly said, “I am in a relationship.”
Sukuna and Yuji locked eyes, equally wide and shocked.
“How come we don't know shit about it?” Sukuna threw the cards to the table, game unimportant.
“Yuki and I-”
“Yuki?!” the twins yelled at the same time.
“You're seriously dating Yuki Tsukumo?” Yuji asked, eyebrows never going down. “Like… the real deal?”
Choso rolled his eyes. “Why the shock? Should I be dating someone else?”
“That's not the point,” Sukuna said. “How did you get her to go out with you ?”
Choso gave him a look that was equally tired and annoyed. “She asked me out.”
That basically started the armageddon that came afterwards. Yuki Tsukumo was once the hottest girl in the neighborhood. She still would be if she still lived here. Yuji knew his place from the start, Sukuna did not. At 11, Sukuna was trying to flirt with the sixteen year old Tsukumo, unsuccessfully, but gaining the respect of every other boy that crushed on her.
Sukuna moved on fairly fast, his popularity did not. Come to think of it, being known as a flirt at 11 might have affected becoming a fuckboy in high school.
Choso was never the popular type, the complete opposite of Yuki Tsukumo. Being the one she asked out was a badge of honor, and their brother receiving it was almost as much of their success.
“I mean, you wouldn't be where you are right now without us,” Yuji said.
“Right,” Choso answered. “I'd not have the eyebags that I permanently have, and Yuki seems to find them hot.”
Sukuna went to bed late that night, after a much-needed catch up with his brothers. He wouldn't admit it was much needed if he hadn't drunk four beers before coming up to his room.
He was having so much fun he almost forgot that being alone like that was making him feel bad, in all sorts of ways. Not that he hated his own company, not anymore, but he certainly hated the lack of Uraume.
Uraume, Uraume, every thought in his head had to be about Uraume. Sukuna was so tired of it being only thoughts that he found his phone somewhere in the sheets and opened recent calls. One with Choso, the rest with Uraume. Not as recent, because most of the time they spent together anyway, but whenever they were not together, they were on a call.
Wasn't that weird? Usually, Sukuna was in too much of a high to think about it, but sometimes, in lonely moments like that, he was starting to question himself. He'd never been like that. He'd made loneliness his unwilling companion. He was scared of the lack of someone so he made friends with it, just in case he had to experience it eventually.
The lack of Uraume was sickening.
Frozen over his phone, locked in the wave of weird thoughts, he almost gave up on calling, when his phone rang.
Sukuna let out a sigh, closed his eyes and picked up.
“How's the boning going?”
"It's bonding, not boning .” Sukuna groaned. “The incest jokes aren't funny.”
He said that, and yet he was smiling into the darkness of his room.
(Is it a safe space to talk about such things? About the excess of Sukuna's complex feelings? Because they were new, and strange, and sometimes they freaked Sukuna out.)
Anyways. It was the voice. Malicious, villainous, icy. Sukuna was smiling because of the voice.
“It went well,” he added.
“Listen, I know it's late, but I had an idea.”
“Never too late for your ideas,” Sukuna mumbled, laying his cheek on his folded arms. “Give it to me.”
“We're gonna sell nudes.”
“The words leaving your mouth today just keep getting worse somehow.”
“Okay, sorry, too vague. We're gonna sell pictures of feet we find online and we're gonna get rich.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I spent the day doing it and I made 800 bucks.”
His eyes shot open. “You what ?”
“I know it's questionable, but I need cash. Are you in?”
There was only one thing bugging Sukuna. “Why with me?”
“Uh, because it'll be more fun?” Uraume huffed. “Why would I do something stupid alone?”
“It is really stupid,” Sukuna agreed. “I'm in. I need cash for tattoos.”
“Facetime. I'm gonna show you what pics I found.”
Quickly and easily like that, things fell into place again.
~~
Even during a gap year, parties were their staple, with most of their friends and people they knew in college. Kugisaki took them to this one, in a frat house where someone lived - Sukuna forgot it before he even got here, but he had a beer in one hand and Uraume next to him, so not much mattered.
When he glanced down at Uraume, they were lighting up a cigarette. “Where’d you get that from?”
Uraume patted the pocket of his sweats, then gave back the lighter. Sukuna huffed a laugh.
Their recent endeavor - selling feet pics - was going well. Too well, maybe. So well they were now considered ‘self-employed’. One day when they were messing around, Sukuna decided it would be funny to monetize his own feet, and so pictures of them were now being used by one fetishist or another.
It proved to him one thing. Even if they were doing the stupidest things, he’d do anything with Uraume. Nothing was off limits.
“No way,” Sukuna said as they found their group, not yet whole. “Fushiguro at a party.”
Yuji and Fushiguro secured a spot on the couch pushed into the far corner of a common room. Kugisaki and Maki were with them.
“I need teenage experiences,” Fushiguro said, rolling his eyes.
“ We need it for the band,” Kugisaki said. “A.k.a. I forced him to come with Yuji because college parties are not high school parties.
That was a fact. College parties had pricey alcohol and weed of questionable quality and origin, and there was less drama in general.
Uraume grabbed his arm and pulled him down. In the past six months, Sukuna had jumped a few inches in height. They did hear each other just fine, but Sukuna didn't fight, didn't object. Happily, he bent sideways as Uraume spoke to him.
“Is it the good weed guy?”
Sukuna followed their pointing finger. “Might be.”
They looked at each other tellingly. Willing to try, they could never afford weed that wasn't rumored to be shit. But, money from the feet pics would easily buy good weed.
“I'll be back,” Uraume said, halfway through their special handshake. Yes. They had a handshake. A simple thing, three moves of their hands. But it was theirs and theirs alone.
Sukuna developed a weird new habit. Always looking where Uraume was, no matter who they were with or what they were doing. Nothing and no one else interested him enough.
Well, that was a part of the story.
Sukuna, in general, was a jealous guy. He knew that. Everyone knew that.
He used to be jealous about how everyone always preferred Yuji. Not that he was entirely free of those feelings, but ever since meeting Uraume, they lessened.
He used to be jealous that Megumi Fushiguro liked Yuji and didn't like him.
Jealousy had been a part of his life since seemingly the beginning, so it would be no surprise if he was always looking at where Uraume was because of some kind of jealousy, but was it really that?
And if it was jealousy (because Sukuna started suspecting it was), wasn't jealousy what lost him so many times before?
“Do. You. Want. Another. Beer?”
He snapped out of it, looking at a bottle Maki was handing him. “What?”
“Are you going to do something about your feelings or have we lost you entirely?”
“Yes, I want a beer, thanks.”
His eyes drifted across the room again. It was so weird. Why was he so dependent?
“You're obsessed,” Fushiguro said. “Like, seriously obsessed.”
“I'm not obsessed.”
“Try looking at me for a minute straight,” Kugisaki said.
Sukuna, oh so good at challenges, immediately locked eyes with Kugisaki. Someone started counting. His brain chanted to his eyes: to the left, to the left, to the left.
He glanced. Only glanced.
“Ha! It wasn't even half a minute.” Kugisaki grinned. “This is getting embarrassing for you.”
Thankfully, Uraume came back, plopping onto the free seat on the couch next to Fushiguro. They locked eyes with Sukuna, a smile stretching over their lips, showing thumbs up.
“Nice. Here or back at my place?” Sukuna asked, uninterested in Kugisaki's comments.
“Yours. It's too valuable to flaunt it.”
Sukuna grinned playfully. “You don't want people seeing you high.”
“Shut up.” Uraume glared at first, then grinned back.
“There's four of us and somehow we're all third wheeling,” Kugisaki said, glancing between Sukuna and Uraume. “What's your deal?”
“No deal,” Sukuna said.
He caught his twin giving him a suspicious glare.
Sukuna almost caved and told them to join, because it would have been kind of funny to see them all high, when Uraume looked behind him and said, “What is his deal, though?”
Sukuna turned just in time to see Todo - shirtless and wasted - winning a weird wrestling competition.
“No, seriously, what's his history?” Uraume asked. “Like.” They waved their arm around, drawing attention to Todo as a whole. “Why?
Silence. Sukuna turned to Yuji, the only one who could know something in the absence of Tsumiki.
“Well. It's… I mean, it's a good question. But I don't know how to answer. First day of high school, I barged in on the fight club meeting instead of volleyball. Todo forced me into a ‘duel', that's what he called it. He was strong, and fairly insane even then, but I had experience in fighting, thank you very much.” He pointed at Sukuna then. “So I won the fight. And I'm not sure if I damaged something or if it was there already, but right there he decided we'd been best friends since middle school and started calling me his brother. But don't ask me about the way his mind works. I don't know that.”
“I heard him say his IQ is in the 50 thousands,” Kugisaki said.
Sukuna snorted at how ridiculous it even sounded. He locked eyes with Uraume, laughing at their expression.
“You're judging the weirdo like you're not one,” Sukuna joked.
Uraume looked him in the eye, and it's not like they never did. Their eyes locked often, but not for so long, and never before did Sukuna experience this.
Was his heart fucking fluttering?
Uraume glanced at his feet. It yanked him off the rushing train of feelings, back into reality, fighting off a smile.
“I’m starting to feel like we should split,” Maki said.
Sukuna rolled his eyes. “Ugh, fine. What stupid games do college people play at parties?”
As if this sentence alone was enough to summon, someone threw an arm around Sukuna. “Itadori one and two, what are you doing here?”
Kokichi was no friend of Sukuna, but he would always throw the best high school parties Sukuna had been to. Oh, and they slept together once. Old times. Fun in general but nothing especially memorable. Kokichi got a girlfriend quickly after that anyway, and they were still together, so their thing was easily forgotten.
“Hey, we’re playing a game with a bunch of college people,” Kokichi said. “Join us.”
Sukuna wasn’t that interested in a game or meeting any new people, but somehow they all found each other in a circle in the middle of the common room, with someone explaining the rules. He knew most of these people, or at least recognized them from their faces. He slept with eight out of fifteen.
The game turned out to be spin the bottle + kissing. Seriously? That was that crazy college game?
Whatever. Sukuna could only hope the bottle wouldn’t fall on-
“Sukuna. You’re first,” Kokichi said. Great.
“What do I do?” he asked, the rules mostly lost on him.
He followed where Kokichi was pointing, to Sukuna’s left, and came face to face with a highly disappointed Fushiguro.
“Oh.” Sukuna scrunched his nose. “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Eight, no, ten pairs of eyes glared at him. It seemed that kissing someone shouldn’t be a problem for a guy that fucked his whole high school. Except that it was. For many reasons. One, Sukuna never kissed anyone he slept with. Two, the only person he’d ever kissed was Megumi Fushiguro. Three, neither of these things interested him anymore.
Kissing always seemed way too intimate to Sukuna. He overlooked it for the sake of Fushiguro because he was desperate to crack the guy open. But kissing someone he slept with once, and most likely would never talk to again, was always too much.
Kokichi put a shot of some expensive alcohol in front of him. “Not like it’s much for you.” He chuckled.
Right. Sukuna drank it like water.
The thought of kissing clung to him like the taste of the vodka clung to his tongue. Sukuna didn’t really need to kiss anyone. He wasn’t dying to kiss. And it scared him, partly. The intimacy that came with it. You had to love someone to share something as intimate as a kiss. (Megumi Fushiguro was an exception, and a mistake of the past in general).
For the new Sukuna (because, believe it or not, he was a different person now than he was a year ago) kissing meant feelings and intimacy. Whether he was going to experience it was another story.
The game went on, and Sukuna drank more shots than he was supposed to, and at some point he realized the bottle stopped at Uraume. Sukuna was well wasted, but still somewhat connected to reality.
It was a perfect mix to realize that the bottle landing on Uraume meant Uraume had to kiss him, and it sobered him up real quick. His brain nearly overheated. Question after question, they ran through his mind, leaving no answers. Would they do it? Should they do it? How would it feel? Would it mean something? Would it change something? How should he do it? What should he do?
Because nothing was off limits, Sukuna assumed neither was a kiss for a game, but Uraume was already downing a shot.
So maybe some things were off the limits.
“Aw, you don’t wanna kiss me?” He nudged Uraume, ignoring the weird, heavy weight settling on his body.
Uraume huffed. “Let’s not make things weirder than they are.”
It shut Sukuna up for good, as he went on drinking more and more shots that weren’t even for him.
Finally, they had to stop the game, because Sukuna emptied the bottles. He swung on his feet as soon as he got up, but it might as well have been the room, and the only reason he didn’t fall was someone catching him. Too big for Uraume. Sukuna pouted.
“Let’s get you to bed, grandpa.”
He didn’t fight as Yuji dragged him through the house and outside. He wanted to, but his arms didn’t cooperate when he tried to swing them. The next thing he knew, they were walking outside into the cold winter night. Then Sukuna was waking up on the staircase, freezing.
“You wanted me to die here or what?” he mumbled, much more sober and much more willing to throw up.
Yuji pulled his jacket off of Sukuna. “Tough thing to achieve. Did something happen in there?”
“What?”
“You got wasted in record time. Why?”
“I didn’t-” Sukuna cut himself off. What was the point of fighting your own twin? “Nothing happened. I just didn’t want to think.”
Sukuna was already up, ready to go back inside and find some water for his parched throat, but Yuji was not moving and it could only mean one thing.
Sukuna sighed. “What?”
“Even if you’re not the best with feelings, we can talk if something’s bothering you. I’ll probably make fun of you, sure, because we’re twins, but… well, we’re twins.” He chuckled. “I’ll listen.”
Sukuna sniffled, the cold sipping into his bones. “I’m fine. I’m going back inside. You do you.”
Maybe he could talk about it, but it hardly made sense in his head, so he kept it to himself. What he didn’t want to think about was kissing. And the sheer disappointment he felt when he heard it. Let’s not make things weirder than they are.
What the hell did that mean?
When he made his way into the kitchen, someone was there, and Sukuna recognized him from high school. A fellow soccer team member and a one night stand. One afternoon, actually. They fucked in the locker room’s bathroom at school and immediately forgot about it.
Nothing special. Name slipped Sukuna’s mind.
He nodded as a greeting and ignored him in favor of water. Loads and loads of water. Still, the no-name-not-stranger spoke to him when the bottle was off his lips.
“Hey, man. I was meaning to ask you something.”
Sukuna nodded as in ‘go on’.
“This girl you’re with-”
“Kugisaki’s taken,” he said, having heard that way too many times from soccer team members ever since they started hanging out in the last months of high school.
“No, no.” The guy chuckled. “White hair.”
Sukuna frowned, not only because of the guy but because of a headache and because the whole train of thoughts about kissing and Uraume came back.
“They’re not a girl, first of all,” Sukuna said. Just how many times was this going to be an issue. “And what about Uraume?”
The guy seemed genuinely baffled. “Not a girl?”
“I’m not going to be discussing someone else’s gender with you. Get to the point.” Now that they were not in one team, Sukuna didn’t have to be friendly. Not that he ever was. His presence in the team was accepted, because he was good, but his personality was never something they loved the most in him.
“You’re dating?”
Sukuna closed his eyes and tried to rub the headache out of his eyes. “Why do you care?”
“Everyone’s curious.” The guy chuckled, sipping on a beer. “You’re not the type to settle, are you? Ever since that guy that’s now with your brother-”
Sukuna took the bottle and left the kitchen. Why the hell was he supposed to entertain this? People prying into his life because they were curious ?
Fuck, Sukuna was curious too. He was curious what all these fucking thoughts and feelings meant.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Kugisaki: second room upstairs counting from the staircase
Sukuna wasn’t sure if he had the energy for his own friends and their inquisition, but it was certainly better than strangers trying to gossip with him about him.
He climbed the staircase. The room was so close, and yet the first one opened right in his face, a girl way too familiar bumping into him.
Oh, not. It wasn’t the girl. It was the shirt. It was his shirt. Memories flushed. The night of the prom. Telling Megumi Fushiguro about the money. Instant regret. Trying to drown the feeling in this exact girl, who then stole his favorite t-shirt.
Why she was still wearing it was a better question.
“Oh!” She grabbed his wrist, phone in another hand, texting effortlessly with one hand. “You’re from my high school,” she said, information more for the sake of Sukuna, like he was supposed to forget (he would have, the shirt saved it). “There’s something me and my friends are wondering about.”
“Which is?”
“Are you bisexual?”
“What?”
“You know, do you like boys and girls?”
“I know what-” He cut himself off. What was this conversation? “Why are you wondering about this ?”
“Well, because we knew that you slept with girls, but then someone said you used to sleep with Megumi Fushiguro, and I was shocked, but that’s beside the point. You’re dating that girl now and-”
Sukuna pulled his arm out of her grip. “First of all, Uraume’s not a girl. Second of all, who I put my dick in is none of your fucking concert. Last but not least, this is my shirt and I expect it back.”
For the first time, she lifted her wide eyes from the phone to him.
Sukuna walked past her and into the room Kugisaki called him into. How she’d give the shirt back was not his business. Whoever owned this room, only Maki, Kugisaki, Yuji, Fushiguro and Uraume were inside. Sukuna relaxed only a little.
“You surely took your time,” Kugisaki said.
“Unfortunately, everyone around here seems to know me,” Sukuna muttered, finding a spot on the window sill. A safe distance from everyone that would hopefully show them he did not want to talk about anything related to him. “Why are we here?”
The door swung open. Still shirtless and walking not in a straight line, Todo made his way in with a stack of pizza boxes. The smell reached him five seconds later and his stomach grumbled.
Sukuna let out a sigh of relief. No one was asking him unnecessary questions, so he could surely survive a very late night dinner.
~~
At 1am, Sukuna was back at home, mostly sober. Uraume was with him, somewhat sober. Yuji and Fushiguro were there, too, perfectly sober, minding their own business.
They parted ways, and Sukuna had never been happier to be in his own room, away from people. Only with Uraume, who emptied their pockets onto the bed as soon as Sukuna closed the door. Not only weed, but everything needed to use it.
“You know how to roll it at least or do I have to pull up YouTube?” Sukuna asked.
“I think I learned from the guy I bought it from,” Uraume said, getting comfortable at the desk.
“Do your thing, then,” he said, sighing a little.
Choosing between the bothersome thoughts and spending time with Uraume as usual was simple. He pushed the thoughts about kissing to the side.
Other things were still bothering him, like everyone concerning themselves with his fucking sexuality and his fucking relationships. Everyone wanted him to put labels on himself, on himself and Uraume, maybe even on Uraume, like it was his fucking job in the first place.
Sukuna never cared much about labels. Back when he fucked around, he was effortlessly inclusive. He fucked anyone and everyone who wanted him. Big, small, tall, short, fat, skinny, exchange students who didn't speak Japanese, girls, guys, in between and beyond. None of that mattered if he could fuck his thoughts away.
Suddenly, labels were everywhere. Everyone was one thing or another, and they expected everyone else to be able to describe themselves and their preferences with one word.
He was too tired for it tonight. Instead of the constant thinking, he pulled his shirt off, turned the big light off and switched it for the lamp on the desk. Uraume was rolling joints like it was not their first time.
“Is it your first time?” Sukuna asked, leaning against the chair behind Uraume.
“Rolling or smoking?”
“Both.”
“First time both,” they said. “I’m a quick learner, though.”
“I can tell.”
It took ten minutes for it to kick in. They sat on two sides of the bed, and soon enough Sukuna was relaxing without much effort. The feeling was new, funny, not quite like getting drunk.
Thinking was too troublesome, and Sukuna happily stopped, eyes on Uraume, as per usual recently.
They were lying down, arms under their head, legs crossed at the ankles. Tiny. Pretty. Making his lungs tighter.
This was nice. The party faded away. Whatever was to come faded away. Sukuna was in his room, watching Uraume chuckle at something, and everything was extremely nice.
“Maybe we should do that,” Uraume said.
“Do what?”
“Sell weed.”
Sukuna chuckled. “Feet, weed. What else?”
“We’ll see as we go.”
“Is that what we are? Business partners?” Sukuna asked, finding it funny for some reason.
“We can be anything.”
Okay, that was funnier. “Anything? Like, we can be pallbearers?”
“Why so grim? Why not ice cream sellers?”
“Would I wear an apron?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why not ice cream sellers.” He shuffled around so that they laid side by side. “I’m hungry.”
Uraume hummed. “Text Yuji. To bring us food.”
Sukuna did that. What he got in an answer was the door swung open. “I’m not your serv- what are you two doing?”
“Being hungry,” Sukuna said.
Uraume snorted. Sukuna laughed against himself.
Yuji huffed, amused. “Are you fucking high?”
“A little bit.” Sukuna waved him away, although in such a state he was able to admit – to himself, only and always – that he was always happy to see his brothers. “Just bring some food, please.”
“Pl- what ? Did I hear you right?”
“You’re older than me. Didn’t Choso teach you to take care of your little brother?”
“Will you stop being so fucking weird if I bring you food?”
“Maybe.”
Yuji disappeared and came back five minutes later with whatever cake they had leftover from the last time Choso stopped by. They stacked whatever was left in a plastic box and in the fridge, and Sukuna had never been happier to see cake.
Yuji left, muttering something under his breath. Thankfully, Sukuna was halfway through a piece of cheesecake. Otherwise, he would have said something weird, like thank you or I love you .
Oh. He loved his brothers. He loved them quite a lot.
“Are you crying?” Uraume asked, sitting on the other side of the box, eating a brownie.
Sukuna wiped his eyes dry. “I don’t know. I’m glad I have my brothers, you know. Don’t ever tell them that, though.”
“Ah. Have you ever cried before?”
It took Sukuna a long time to paddle through memories, not only because they were hazy in general, his mind was hazy now, too.
“Last time I remember, I cried when grandpa died and when Choso moved out.”
Why was he saying all of this? Granted, weed made him a little more open, but maybe if it was anyone else he smoked with, he wouldn’t find it so easy to talk.
“It’s just… suddenly we were all alone, and it was too much.”
“I was alone, too. My parents kicked me out,” Uraume said, a hint of sadness and leftover grudges in their voice.
“Why?”
They pulled their shirt up, only to show two scars. “They didn’t agree so I stole money from them, forged some signatures and got my tits cut off at 16. The combination of all is why.”
Sukuna didn’t say anything. By now he knew that Uraume hated pity. Still, he didn’t pity them. Uraume was better off without parents like that.
Besides, he was feeling overwhelmed. Uraume never took their shirt off around their friends, no matter how hot it got in the summer. They pulled it up around Sukuna with no hesitation. Kissing was nothing against how intimate this whole conversation and their presence together felt right now, and Sukuna was only handling it so well because he was high.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?”
Uraume ate through two brownies before answering. “People were watching.”
~~
The next month of Sukuna’s life was all about labels. Against his own will. People, mostly people he didn’t even remember the names of, were insanely curious what sexuality he actually was. More people wanted to know what his relationship with Uraume was.
The more they asked, the more Sukuna thought about it, falling victim to what Megumi Fushiguro always called ‘expectations of the society’.
Sukuna didn’t know what his sexuality was or what his relationship with Uraume was. Who was Sukuna ? He’d been and done so many things, changed so many times, and never did he even ask himself who he was. He didn’t feel the need to ask, or to name all the things that he was, but now labels were everything, and Sukuna was losing his mind.
A month had gone by since Sukuna tattooed his face, winter started to melt away and his face was externally healed. There was still healing happening under the surface, but at least he looked fine now. None of the itching and peeling shit he’d agonized through.
Every day, Uraume tired out the same joke - you’re not gonna get a job now - while they sold Sukuna’s feet pics legally and weed illegally. He'd already planned out the next tattoos over the course of the next six months.
He sold the weed but he never smoked it again. It made him spill over too easily, too eagerly. To Uraume only, but still.
Besides that, life didn't change all that much. They went to someone else's college parties, they hung out wherever they wanted to go, they tried more and less weird shit. Sukuna continued pondering the future that still didn't have any clear shape. Yuji was more freaked out over not knowing what to do, but they both talked about it just as often.
The parties got simultaneously better and worse. It was where they sold weed, and the parties got more fun the warmer the weather got. But since Sukuna was now a regular, and besides old people there were new people who'd heard rumors about him, people were dying to know.
Why, Sukuna didn't understand. Frankly, he just wanted them to stop. So, what way do you swing? What sexuality are you? Are you dating that girl? Uraume's not a girl. Ah, sorry, but are you dating them? Are you a couple? Are you fucking? Actually, what are you?
The worst of it all was Sukuna's attitude. Once, he would have ignored it and lived his life the way he wanted. But with so much demand for his labels, Sukuna grew restless without them. It bothered him not to understand who he was attracted to. Because he didn't. He fucked everyone because he needed a fucking distraction and not because he found his whole high school attractive.
It bothered him because he didn't understand what the limits were when it came to him and Uraume. Sukuna almost got used to being unable to function without Uraume. He liked how well they understood each other and that oftentimes they seemed to just have one brain shared in half.
But there were so many things about their unlabeled relationship that he just didn't understand. There were things they clearly avoided mentioning.
W hy didn't you kiss me?
People were watching.
Nothing like that had ever come up again. Not when they were sober.
Another party came around, and after Sukuna found himself alone, selling what he could to people that paid well, he wandered the frat house, searching for someone he knew.
Uraume was doing their share of selling, and as he saw them across the room, Sukuna almost moved. Almost, because Uraume was talking with one of the guys they were usually selling to, and Sukuna paused.
The burn of jealousy was so familiar to him by now. It made him do stupid things. It made him feel and think stupid things. Uraume was not his , or whatever. They could talk to everyone, not only Sukuna, and his jealousy was as stupid as it was intense.
To avoid dumb conflicts, Sukuna turned and left the frat house through the back door, into a lit up garden. He sat at a shitty plastic table, on a shitty plastic chair, and smoked one of the joints he had left.
It would make him open up too easily, but it would also make him stop thinking so much, and Sukuna wanted nothing else than to have some silence in his head.
Halfway through the joint, someone walked into the garden. Sukuna was already feeling the effects, uninterested in whoever, until Megumi Fushiguro sat on the shitty plastic chair next to him.
Sukuna chuckled. “That's kinda weird, isn't it?”
“Why?”
“Ah. Because we used to date. In a weird way.”
“I thought we're past that.”
“We are, we are. It's just that we don't often stay alone.” Sukuna took another drag then handed the joint away. “Want some?”
Fushiguro raised an eyebrow. “I've never smoked.”
“It's only my second time.”
“And yet you look like a pro,” Fushiguro said, taking a drag and frowning right away. “Weird.”
“Mhm, I know. Finish that one.” Sukuna took another, the last one.
They smoked in silence, and Sukuna found it especially nice. Megumi Fushiguro was cool in a way that no one was, and Sukuna knew a long time ago that he was nowhere near the league of this guy. So this was nice, smoking together, feeling like they were just two people.
“You good, though?” Fushiguro asked finally, voice without the usual edge of someone who is bothered by a lot of things. “Sitting here all alone, kinda not your style.”
Sukuna relaxed in the chair, body lighter. “Better than being asked for the hundredth time who I put my dick in, you know.”
Fushiguro hummed.
“You’re smart, aren’t you? What’s the deal with that?” Sukuna asked.
“Simple,” Fushiguro said, done with smoking, stretching his legs out. “You stopped meeting their expectations.”
“What?”
“In high school, everyone knew you fucked, everyone knew you fucked girls and guys, and everyone knew you didn’t settle. Suddenly you stopped fucking around, 99 percent of the time you’re with one person and on top of that, Uraume is too cool for people to handle. They had an idea of you and suddenly it’s different and they’re scrambling to figure it out.”
“But…” Sukuna sighed. “Why so many people?”
With a chuckle, Fushiguro said, “Price of popularity.”
Sukuna closed his eyes, throwing his head back. “What if I don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“Who I’m into. Or what to call what is between me and Uraume. I don’t fucking know.”
“Okay. Then don’t know. Who cares?”
“Everyone cares,” Sukuna said.
“Do you?”
“I started to care.”
Fushiguro hummed. “Not good.”
“Maybe it is,” Sukuna said, opening his eyes to the black, endless sky. “Back then, I didn’t care and didn’t know. And then I did a lot of shitty things.”
“Knowing yourself and knowing your labels are two different things.”
We can be anything.
“Okay, since we’re talking so nicely,” Sukuna said. “What about the fact that I get very jealous?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Some people like it.”
The door slipped open before Sukuna could understand what it meant. “There you are! Oh no.”
Sukuna locked eyes with Fushiguro and they both cackled.
“Hey, hey, nothing to worry about.” Sukuna waved his hand at his twin. “He’s handling it really well.”
“I only got leftovers,” Fushiguro said, reaching his hand out when Yuji got closer to them, dropping a jacket on Fushiguro's shoulders.
Sukuna wouldn’t admit it if he wasn’t high, but he was jealous of them way too often. They always seemed so free in their relationship, free to glance, to look, to touch.
Sukuna wouldn’t worry if he wasn’t so stuck on the part where he didn’t know what his relationship even was. What were the limits? What was okay and what wasn’t?
W hy didn't you kiss me?
People were watching.
We can be anything.
“What’s wrong with him?” Yuji asked.
“Identity crisis,” Fushiguro said.
Sukuna laughed.
“Just go inside and show off your jealous side ,” Fushiguro said, pushing Sukuna’s chair with his foot. “Come on. Nothing to lose.”
“Nothing?” Sukuna asked, knowing all too well that Fushiguro talked with Uraume probably most often among their friends.
“Just go.”
Oh it was really hard to drag his body, so relaxed now, through the frat house full of people. The good thing was that now when people stopped him to ask about his sexuality, all of it seemed really funny.
That talk with Megumi Fushiguro pretty much revived him. What was he worried about? About fucking labels ? Somewhere along the path, he'd taken a wrong turn, trying to name who and what he was before figuring it out.
Sukuna found Uraume outside the front of the frat house, sitting on a bench along the path with some guy he didn't know, lighting up a cigarette for Uraume.
Jealousy was one thing, but there was also the fact that he simply didn't like not being the one on Uraume's side. He fit there like nowhere else before, so what the fuck was this guy doing on his spot?
“Wait, boy, don't rush it.” He grabbed the lighter from the guy's hand, forcing his way onto the bench in between them. “Gimme something to light up.”
“A kick or a lung disease?” Uraume asked, reaching into the pocket of their hoodie.
“I have enough kick in me, thanks.” Settling for lung disease, Sukuna lit up a cigarette from Uraume and dropped the lighter into the guy's lap. “So? What are we talking about?”
“What are we talking about?” the guys asked, a frown on his face, at the same time as Uraume said, “About talking up strangers at a bar.”
Sukuna remembered their first meeting and laughed, the memory much funnier today.
“What's funny?” the guy asked, and Sukuna was starting to enjoy the reactions. Poor, innocent no-name, the victim of Sukuna not being able to stand Uraume's attention not being on him.
“What isn't?” Sukuna asked back. “Think about… this whole party. Everybody comes here for one reason or another, and they all end up in the same way, a drunk pile of vomit. Sometimes without the vomit.”
The guy frowned at him even more. “What's funny about it?”
“I find it rather hilarious,” Uraume said, a hint of a smile under the cigarette.
“Should we leave?” Sukuna asked.
“Yeah, I’ve had enough.”
They stood at the same time, heading down the path.
“Who was that?” Sukuna asked, cocking his head back.
Uraume shrugged. “Dunno. No one important.”
Sukuna smiled to himself.
The walk to wherever they were headed – Sukuna forgot – was getting longer and longer, and the longer it was getting, the more he enjoyed it. They walked in silence, and Sukuna quickly realized that he could be doing anything and he’d probably enjoy it, as long as they were doing it together.
Meow.
A bit less worried about naming it, he wondered now what else they could have. The point was not what their relationship was, but what it consisted of. What they could still do together. Oh, that’s what they were doing. They were simply doing things together.
Meow.
And he laughed at his twin for saying things like ‘ I want to spend my life with Megumi ’.
Sukuna wanted to spend– well, maybe saying ‘his whole life’ was a bit much for someone like him, but he wanted this feeling of having the perfect companion to last for as long as possible.
Meow.
They stopped walking at the same time and looked at each other.
“You hear that, too, right?”
Following the high-pitched sounds of undoubtedly a cat, they traced it back to the filled trash can, a tipped box next to it. Surely, there was a kitten inside, dirty and weak, and Sukuna’s not sure why they jumped into it so eagerly, but surely they did, and soon the kitten, a mix of black and white, was in his arms.
Uraume chuckled. “It likes you.”
“What the hell are we doing with it?”
“Taking it?”
They exchanged glances full of questions and immediate answers.
What felt like four hours but might have been ten minutes later, Sukuna, Uraume and the kitten were in Sukuna’s bathroom. Uraume holding up a phone with a video on how to wash a kitten, Sukuna following the steps with the kitten in the sink.
“Okay, I got it,” he said, only mildly irritated at having to be so careful and gentle with the task. He wouldn’t admit it if he hadn’t smoked one and a half joints tonight, but the kitten itself wasn’t horrible and neither was this whole experience. “Check other things.”
“First of all, I think it’s a girl,” Uraume said. “Around three weeks old maybe? Yeah, looks like that. I think it’s a miracle she’s alive. Eyes opened, starting to walk, you have to keep them warm-”
“Food? Water? Anything of actual importance?”
“Bottle feeding,” Uraume read, eyebrows creased. “That does not sound like something we can do.”
“So what now?”
“We should get her to the vet.”
Sukuna grimaced. “Look in the mirror.” They looked at the same time, eyes equally red.
Uraume clicked their tongue. “Okay, yeah. We shouldn’t, maybe.”
Wrapping the kitten in a towel, Sukuna paused. “Call my brother. He’s most likely sober enough to talk to the vet.”
On the phone with Yuji, Uraume kept dragging it away from their ear. Even Sukuna could hear the whining.
“They’ll meet us there,” Uraume said, ending the call halfway through another series of complaints. “Although reluctantly.”
“What exactly did we interrupt?”
“I don’t even wanna know.”
In front of the vet clinic, the only one that operated on emergency hours at this time, Yuji did not avoid another series of complaints as soon as he saw Sukuna and Uraume approaching. Fushiguro behind him found it funnier than Yuji. What shut his brother up was the reveal of the kitten, sleeping in a blanket wrap.
Yuji softened immediately. “Oh my.” He sighed, carefully picking up the kitten like he’d done it before. “What are you going to do after the vet?”
Sukuna and Uraume looked at each other until they found a satisfying answer without talking.
“We’re going to pick a name,” Uraume said. Sukuna confirmed with a nod.
The three red-eyed delinquents stayed outside, and Yuji, the kitten and Sukuna’s money went inside the clinic. Simply because he could classify that as ‘doing something with Uraume’, Sukuna found the course of things natural. He’d never had a cat, never taken care of a living thing, and he was more than ready to do so.
Dying of thirst and hunger, Sukuna suggested they go to the closest convenience store, and was met with the same enthusiasm. The walk there was silent, but in a comfortable way, just like the silence when they were picking out what to buy, sharing the cost of the shopping and walking back.
“I find it especially hard to believe that you two were a thing,” Uraume said when they sat on the low wall on the other side of the street, Uraume eating a popsicle, Sukuna on his second can of soda, Fushiguro on the third bottle of water.
“Me too,” Fushiguro said. "I mean, on a deeper level.”
“What about the surface level?” Sukuna asked.
“You looked like my current boyfriend. What’s so surprising about it?”
“Yeah, that’s comprehensible.” Uraume chuckled. “The deeper level is what confuses me.”
“That's on me, okay?” Sukuna raised his arms in surrender. “There was no deeper level. It was always supposed to be a surface level thing and then suddenly we were dating in the most toxic way you can imagine.”
“It's nice that you can admit that now,” Fushiguro said with a chuckle. “My dad still wants to strangle you sometimes.”
“And why do you think I avoid him as much as I can? I'm scared shitless of your dad, he'd crush my spine without much effort.”
“I kinda want to take him on,” Uraume muttered, focused on what must have been a scene in their head.
Sukuna scoffed, taking a sip. “Your skinny ass wouldn't last a second.”
“I'm much better at fighting than you think.”
“Then how about we have a go?”
So they had a go in front of the vet's clinic, laughing through the messy fight as the effects of the weed wore off and the aftermath hunger and tiredness kicked in.
“Loser.” Uraume grinned, still standing, as Sukuna sat on the pavement after a particularly painful hit to the stomach. “My size is exactly where I have an advantage. You don’t expect me to strike and that’s when I-”
“And that mouth of yours is your disadvantage,” Sukuna said, already tackling Uraume to the ground.
“Oh, come on, Sukuna, you can’t-”
“What?”
“What?”
Sukuna was pinning them down, and only one sound rang through his brain. His goddamn name. So many people screamed it, whined it, moaned it, whispered it and said it, in more or less inappropriate situations.
Never did it sound like that. Like something he liked hearing.
“Your cat is- what the hell is going on here?”
Sukuna shook it off, scrambling to his feet and helping Uraume up.
“What?” Sukuna urged, turning to his twin, ignoring the weird way his body reacted. “What’s up with the cat?”
“Miraculously healthy, three weeks old,” Yuji said, handing him the kitten, back to sleep in the blanket. “The vet said it must have been nursed by its mother before you found it. It’s healthy, nourished and asleep. You have to vaccinate it in three to five weeks. Here’s what you need to feed it.” He handed Uraume a plastic bag. “And also a list from the doc on how to take care of it. She took pity on you and wrote it down.”
“Are you seriously going to take it in?” Fushiguro asked, joining them with what looked like Sukuna’s abandoned Cola.
“If it’s not yet clear, this is my child,” Sukuna said. This was serious business to him, nothing else. He’d only admit it after four beers or two joints, but he loved that cat from the moment he washed it. “Anyway, let’s go.”
“You owe me,” Yuji said behind him, as Sukuna was already down the street. “And I’m sleeping at Megumi’s tonight!”
“Suit yourself!”
~~
The kitten became Fuku on the way home, after Sukuna came clean about his favoritism of Hello Kitty and after Uraume rejected the name Kuromi.
Fuku was six weeks old now, and she did not leave Sukuna's side. That is, when she was awake, because most of the time, she was not. His attention had to be split, because having Fuku didn't magically help Sukuna become less dependent on Uraume's presence. Actually, it got worse. Now Sukuna was the most content when both were in his sight, and when neither was, Sukuna was as good as dead.
Sukuna Itadori became a cat dad through and through, and everyone knew it by now, so there was not much hiding his obsession.
Honestly, he was never good at that.
Starting with Fuku, things started to miraculously fall into place.
Labels were of no importance to Sukuna, after all. Surprisingly, what Megumi Fushiguro had told him, knowing yourself and knowing your labels are two different things, became a mantra Sukuna quietly reminded himself every day. He had his labels, sure, like a cat dad , and he wore them proudly. Sometimes he even enjoyed figuring out who he was, when he made it a game and not a necessity.
Most of the time, he found himself without one concrete direction.
His sexuality was a nuance, but he saw no point in naming it, since for months now only one person existed to him.
Future was not only one thing, either. There was the secret feet pic business that was paying so well that it had to stop being a secret, but since Sukuna and Uraume were now the main source of cash in their friend group, no one ever said a bad word about it.
There was also the weed they sold at parties, but less often now that Sukuna and Uraume’s feet were so profitable.
Besides these two things, the more Sukuna found himself in the tattoo parlor, the more fascinating it seemed, so now he had plans to put his forgotten childhood drawing talent to use. Choso had enough tattooist friends who were willing to teach Sukuna.
He decided to only go to college if he’d find something interesting enough, and even then it would mostly be for the experience itself.
There was only one thing that Sukuna kept walking around, but it was entirely his fault. Only one thing needed to be done, a simple talk, and yet even high Sukuna couldn’t bring himself to ask Uraume what they were. If they were anything.
Not that he wouldn’t ask. Sooner or later, he’d find the guts, but he just wasn’t given enough time.
“Wait, what?” asked Fushiguro’s dad one time. “You are not together?”
This guy had no brakes ever, but Sukuna was still too scared of him to point out that maybe he should have them sometimes. Sukuna and Uraume were hanging out when Yuji called to pick him and Fushiguro up, and when asked to wait inside, Sukuna could only say ‘yeah, sure’. From one word to another, Fushiguro’s dad ended up saying that Sukuna and Uraume were basically ‘soulmates’ and that ‘it’s best to date someone like that’.
“But we’re not dating,” Sukuna said, feeling awkward all of a sudden. What he said made sense, soulmates, but it was a lot to take in without preparation.
“Wait, what? You are not together?”
They exchanged awkward glances, shaking heads. Fushiguro’s dad must have sensed he hit a weird spot, because he changed the topic immediately.
It was obvious Sukuna was awkward for the rest of the day, but he found it surprising that Uraume, although staying around, was acting just as weird.
And because the awkwardness bothered him the most, Sukuna decided it was time to stop fucking around with that topic.
The night had arrived, and Fuku was obviously asleep, and right now, after smoking their share for today, they’d probably be halfway through a video game or a conversation that was supposed to have a deeper meaning.
“So we’re not dating, huh?” Sukuna asked instead, leaning against the wall behind his bed, legs stretched out.
Uraume, next to him, crossed their legs, clearing their throat. “I suppose… we’ve never gotten to talk about… it.”
They never did, but it seemed like they both knew that the situation was not as clear as ‘we're not dating’. There was something that neither of them admitted to but both were aware of.
“Why?” Sukuna asked. “I mean, I didn’t say anything because… I think I worry that I haven’t really changed.”
“And I… well… I mean… it’s just…”
Sukuna chuckled. “I’ve never thought you had it in yourself to be so awkward.”
“Yeah, neither did I.” Uraume sighed. “Okay, fine. People are weirded out when they get too close to me.”
“What?”
“No one has ever really stuck around because they can’t stand me as a person. I guess we have bypassed that, only because you’re just as fucked up as I am. But then… if it’s not the way I am, it’s the way I look.”
“ What ?”
“I don’t look one way. It confuses people. I’m neither a girl, not a guy, it’s something in between, but then not really, and no one wants to be with someone like that-”
“I do.” Sukuna looked away as soon as he said it, not really familiar with such things as confessions. It was easy to talk about his feelings for person X to person Y, but not to person X.
“You do?”
Sukuna sighed, closing his eyes. There was no avoiding this confession now. “You don’t confuse me. You’re… Look, I can’t stand people, and yet I can’t stand a minute without you. I'm not even kidding. I wish you were around me 24/7, because you get me, and I get you, and I just like it when we're together, and I think you’re the coolest person in the world, and I’ve never felt better than ever since I met you. And the whole… thing about how you look. Come on. You look attractive, you sound attractive. You’re… I’m…” For a better measure, he threw his hand over his eyes. “I’m into you. I want you. Everything about you, your body, your attention, your time.”
The bed dipped and Uraume pulled his hand down, fingers on his chin forcing him to look. Sukuna gulped, his body coming apart under the look Uraume was giving him, kneeling next to him and still barely taller.
“You want me.”
“Isn't it pretty obvious by now?”
Even if it was, Sukuna was terrified but he'd not admit it out loud. He was not used to this, such intimacy.
At first, he couldn't understand what his twin meant whenever he said Sukuna's old habits messed up his ideas about intimacy and sex. He was understanding it now, in face of intimacy that was nothing like all those times he slept with someone.
Back then, it was all quick, meaningless, no connection, only distraction. A way to not be in the moment. Right now, he was more in the moment than ever before.
But it wasn't that only. All those times before, it was just him. He didn't care about people he slept with. This time, it was the two of them together, and Sukuna had to not only open up and show it all but also see everything he was being shown.
Sukuna could not recall who leaned in first, but it didn't matter when they were already kissing, his palm finding a spot on Uraume's hip, pulling them closer.
The kiss felt like everything and nothing he'd ever experienced. It made everyone he'd ever touched and felt amount to nothing, but maybe that was the thing that happened when you liked someone. The kiss was blowing his mind not because it was a kiss, but because it was Uraume, who Sukuna found maybe not so much by accident.
His back met the mattress and his arms were constricted by his head, and-
Okay, now, not the first time someone was sitting on Sukuna, but the first time he was out of control. He could easily free his wrists and flip the roles, but did he really want to?
Uraume, although looking confident, watched Sukuna carefully. “I trust you,” they said. “If you're weirded out or something-”
“If you weren't holding me this tight, I'd already be kissing you. Come on, Uraume.” Sukuna smiled, a little playfully, a little delirious, and Uraume's eyes widened. “The last thing I'm gonna be is weirded out.”
In fact, he was already getting hard from seeing them like this, and from being deprived of any physical control. His body was no longer his own, and he loved it. He'd gladly let Uraume do whatever they wanted to do to him.
“Let me go,” Sukuna said. “I wanna touch you.”
He could tell the moment Uraume let go of whatever worries they had as the corner of their lips slowly lifted. “Ask nicely.”
Sukuna huffed. Beg? He never begged. He was begged, but never, not once did he-
“Please.”
“Nicer.”
“Uraume, please.” He let out a sigh, fire spreading through his body. He'd never experienced desire this way.
As soon as his arms were free, he lifted himself up and kissed Uraume, hands fluttering under their shirt. Holding their hips, he pulled them closer, sighing into the kiss as their hips pressed together.
Clothes came off slowly, with Sukuna once underneath, once on top, until they were both only in underwear and Sukuna was starting to realize just how not fun all the sex in his life was before. The more he lied about how good it was, the less fun he was having, a chore to be done not to lose his mind.
When he found his way on top, he kissed Uraume once before pressing his lips against the skin of their neck, again and again, getting drugged with the sound of his own name muttered into his ear.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, one hand exploring the softest skin. “Everything.”
Instead of words, Uraume gripped Sukuna's hair, dragging his lips down to their chest. His mind was perfectly empty, except for the quiet gasps and curses whispered as he worked his lips and tongue.
“Have you done this before?” he asked suddenly, enjoying the way Uraume's body shuddered as he kissed and bit and licked his way down their stomach.
“Yeah. A few times. Why?”
“I just wanna be better than those few times.”
Uraume huffed a laugh. “I'll give you a grade when you're do- fuck. ”
Sukuna bit down on their center over the soaked material of the underwear, already kissing down their inner thigh. He was feeling more certain, more confident, enjoying every minute with no regard for what was or what would be.
“Do I need a condom?”
“Are you asking if I can get pregnant?”
“That, yeah.”
“Technically. Not that it would feel very… natural for me.”
Letting go of the milky skin of their thigh, Sukuna moved back up for one more kiss. “I hate to say it, but you're gonna have to wait here a minute. I'll be back.”
“Wait.” Uraume chuckled. “Your dicks are identical, too?”
“I'm very much hoping so.”
Sukuna barged into his twin's room very sure he and Fushiguro had left the house at some point, and yet here Sukuna was, almost naked, hot and bothered and hard in front of both of them.
Whatever. This was already a waste of precious time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Yuji asked as Sukuna pulled a drawer after a drawer open.
“Help your fucking brother in need, I need protection.”
“ You don't have any condoms?”
“Did I need them in the past year and a half?” Sukuna whined, another drawer empty. “No, fuck, and I need one now. ”
“Who are you- wait!”
“Yes, now help me.”
Megumi Fushiguro huffed a laugh, reaching into the bedside table drawer. “Should we leave the house?” he asked, throwing a condom across the room.
Sukuna let out a relieved sigh. “Yes,” he said, walking backwards. “Get the hell out of here unless you don't mind listening to me having the best sex of my life.” He finished off with a smile and left.
The last thing he heard was ‘why am I getting kicked out of my own house’.
When he got back to his room, he was yanked to the bed before he could say a word. Uraume straddled his lap, arms around his neck, locking their lips and swirling their tongues together.
Sukuna had half a mind to let go of the condom and put his hands on Uraume's waist, back, thighs, hips. He'd never have enough of watching, touching, feeling.
“This is really getting in a way,” he muttered between the kisses, pulling on the waist band of their underwear.
“Then take it off.”
“Stand up.”
Uraume hummed. “Don't wanna.”
Sukuna huffed, curling his fingers around the waistband. “Brat.” He pulled, easily breaking the seams and tearing the underwear into pieces. Uraume seemed entirely pleased.
“Don't worry. Your feet will pay for a new pair.”
“Can we not bring my feet into the actual sex?”
“Why? Ashamed?”
“Why would I? Are you specifically into my feet?”
“Alright, fine. No feet.”
Sukuna leaned in to suck on the skin under their collarbone. “I'm gonna touch you.”
“You don't have to warn me.”
“Just in case you don't actually want me to.” He brought his fingers between their legs, ghosting his fingertips along their wet folds. He smiled into their skin. “But I feel like you do.”
Uraume let out a choked groan, fingers tightening on Sukuna's shoulders, as he touched and caressed, sliding his fingers in just an inch before pulling out.
He dipped his head lower, the tip of his tongue on their nipples, keeping every touch feathery and barely-there.
“Fuck- just- why the torture?” Uraume mumbled, fingers moving from Sukuna's shoulders to his chest, his stomach, everywhere they could touch.
“Why not?”
“Quit teasing.” Uraume tangled their fingers in Sukuna's hair and gripped.
Frankly, he'd had enough of waiting too, but enjoying the foreplay a little too much. He pulled Uraume closer. “Then hold on tight.”
“What-”
Sukuna stood up with ease. Uraume's arms and legs tight around him, pressing their bodies together.
“I can't do anything with my underwear on, obviously,” he said, pushing it off with both hands. He held onto Uraume with one hand when he leaned back for the condom.
Uraume raised an eyebrow. “The strength display is supposed to be hot or something?”
Sukuna chuckled. Condom in one hand, he placed another on their butt. They were already close, but he leaned in even closer, eyes on the tip of Uraume's tongue darting out to lick their lips.
Sukuna'a breath shuddered, his voice stayed low. “Your cunt is pressed against my stomach and you're dripping on my cock. Don't try to act all cool now.”
Uraume rolled their eyes, a small smile playing on their lips.
From the moment he sat down, his hands never left Uraume. Whether he was lifting them up, whether they were sinking down on him, whether they moved together, chasing the pleasure that was slowly picking him apart, making them moan and curse, Sukuna never let go of the soft, scorching skin.
He wanted to be as close as possible. Needed it.
~~
They were insatiable. Perfectly compatible. Three more rounds in (Sukuna emptied his brother's supplies), hair disheveled, skin sticky, they took a break for a smoke.
Sukuna laid his head on Uraume's stomach, the second one to light up a cigarette, as Uraume played with his hair. They used the break to talk through everything they did - what they liked, what they didn't, what they still wanted to try.
“We don't have to name it, right?” Sukuna said, still not fond of the labels.
“We're us ,” Uraume said. “That's enough, isn't it?”
“Us.” Sukuna hummed. “Yeah. Makes sense.”
“But… like…” Uraume took a puff. “I think we should talk about things we want and things we do.”
“So, like, we do what we've been doing so far. Besides, kissing is okay. Sex is okay.”
“Kissing other people is not okay.”
“You're saying we're exclusive.”
“I'm saying I don't want anyone else.”
Sukuna would have to be fucking insane to even lay eyes on someone else. “Obviously. Neither do I.”
“Can we eat something now? I'm starving.”
“I'll get something.”
Sukuna was lucky to decide to wear underwear. The last thing he expected as he walked into the kitchen was Yuki Tsukumo.
She was sitting at the table, smiling at him both fondly and playfully.
“Tsukumo. Hi. Long time no see. Where's… Choso?” Sukuna asked, trying to hide some of his body and knowing it's entirely impossible.
“Well.” She raised her eyebrows amused. “We arrived here, because your brother wanted to surprise you. Then we heard… things. And Choso decided to go for a walk.”
“And you decided to stay.”
“I was quite fascinated. The last time I saw you, you thought ‘shit’ was the epitome of swearing.”
“Creep.”
Tsukumo laughed. “Kidding. I was outside. You have a nice backyard. I came in, like, three minutes ago to get some tea.”
Sukuna moved to the fridge. “And then you decided to scare the shit out of me, thanks.”
“So?” Tsukumo was enjoying it too much. “Who’s that lucky person up there?”
“You’re acting like my aunt or something. Eight years ago, I was flirting with you.”
“Unsuccessfully. And I’m more of a big sister. So tell me. Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
Because recently questions seemed to just answer themselves, Uraume walked into the kitchen. In Sukuna’s shirt that reached their knees, making Sukuna question his sanity once more. They paused, eyes wide.
Another thing came to his mind then. He sighed, pinching his nose bridge. “Please, tell me you’re wearing underwear.”
Tsukumo, that devil, had no intention of leaving now. “You could introduce an old friend, kid. I thought Choso taught you some manners.”
Sukuna rolled his eyes. “Yuki Tsukumo, magically Choso’s girlfriend. And this is Uraume.”
Tsukumo looked at him, urging to continue. Sukuna frowned, pretending he didn’t know Tsukumo wanted to know everything and anything, with excruciating detail.
“Friends? Lovers?” she urged.
“The jury is still out on that one,” Uraume said.
Sukuna knew them well enough to know this would become their thing for as long as possible, never telling people what they are, whether they knew it or not.