Chapter 2: The Party Aftermath
The key clicked in the lock, a sound too loud in the silent apartment. It scraped, metal on metal, and Megumi fumbled with it for what felt like minutes before the door finally swung inward. She stumbled over the threshold, catching herself on the wall. The hall was dark, but a thin strip of yellow light bled from under Sukuna’s bedroom door.
Her head swam. The world tipped on a gentle, nauseating axis. Champagne bubbles still seemed to pop behind her eyes, and the cloying, sweet smell of some guy’s cheap cologne clung to her dress, her hair, her skin. It was a stark, offensive contrast to the apartment’s familiar scents of old incense and stale air. She kicked off her heels, the clatter echoing like gunshots. She flinched at the sound.
Quietly, she moved down the hall, past the living room with its ghost of the stained couch. She just wanted water. She just wanted to peel this dress off and fall into her own bed. But her feet, heavy and uncoordinated, carried her past her own door. They stopped in front of his.
Her hand hovered over the knob. Her pulse, already elevated from alcohol, kicked up a notch. A thin, cold fear slithered down her spine, but it was quickly drowned out by a hotter, dumber urge. The need for acknowledgment. The need to prove she’d come home.
She pushed the door open.
The room was a cave, lit only by the erratic blue glow of a muted television playing an infomercial. The air was warmer here, thick with the smell of him—clean sweat, soap, and that underlying, masculine scent that was uniquely Sukuna. It was the first thing that cut through the champagne and cologne fog.
He was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, shirtless, his back to her. The tattoos across his shoulders and down his spine were a complex map of black lines in the low light. He didn’t turn around.
“Two-oh-seven,” he said. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual mocking lilt. It was worse.
Megumi leaned against the doorframe, the wood cool against her cheek. “The train was late.”
“Smell like a fucking airport bathroom.” He finally turned his head, just a fraction. One sharp red eye caught the TV’s glow. “And cheap dick.”
“I didn’t—” she started, the lie automatic and withered.
“Don’t.” He stood up in one fluid motion. He was so tall, his silhouette swallowing the light from the screen. He took two steps and was in front of her. He didn’t touch her. He just leaned down, his nose close to her neck, and inhaled deeply. A low, animal sound rumbled in his chest. “Champagne. Sweat. That shitty axe body spray garbage. And under it…” He leaned closer, his lips almost brushing her earlobe. “Fear. You reek of it.”
Before she could process it, his hand shot out. Not to hit her, but to fist the front of her little black dress. There was a violent, rending sound of fabric tearing. The delicate straps snapped, and the dress split down to her navel, falling open. The cool air hit her skin, raising goosebumps. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
She gasped, more in shock than protest, her hands coming up to cover herself instinctively.
He slapped them away. “Don’t.” His gaze raked over her, clinical and cold in the dim light. “Let me see what you offered.”
“I didn’t offer anything,” she slurred, the alcohol making her tongue thick.
“Your smell is an offering,” he hissed. He gripped her bare shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh, and propelled her backwards. She stumbled, her legs hitting the edge of the mattress, and fell onto the tangled sheets. The world spun. Before she could right herself, he was on her, his weight crushing, his knees prying her thighs apart. The rough denim of his jeans scraped her inner thighs, already tender.
“Sukuna, wait, I’m—”
“You’re what? Drunk? I know. You’re bleeding? I know that too.” He undid his fly with one hand, the other pinning her wrist above her head. “You came stumbling in here for a reason. So here it is.”
There was no preparation, no tenderness. He guided himself and pushed in, a hard, brutal invasion. Megumi cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the room. It hurt—a dry, tearing ache that cut through the alcohol haze—but almost immediately, her body betrayed her, adjusting, yielding, the pain blurring into a sharp, overwhelming fullness. The familiar metallic tang of her own blood mixed with the scent of sex.
He didn’t move at first, just held himself deep, his face inches from hers. His breathing was steady, controlled. Hers came in ragged, wet gulps. The infomercial light played over the sharp planes of his face, his eyes like pools of oil.
“Did he touch you?” Sukuna’s voice was a whisper, but it vibrated with a terrifying intensity.
“No.”
“Liar.” He withdrew slowly, almost completely, then slammed back into her. The bedframe hit the wall with a thud. “His hand on your waist. Guiding you. I can smell his fingerprints.”
“He just—he was just—”
Another punishing thrust. “His breath on your neck. I can smell that too.”
He set a ruthless rhythm, each movement jarring her whole body, pushing sounds out of her she didn’t recognize—grunts, choked sobs, sharp exhalations. The pain was still there, a bright core, but it was being wrapped in layers of heat, of sick, desperate pleasure. Her own wetness, mixed with the blood, made obscene, slick sounds that echoed his ragged breathing.
“You belong to this,” he grunted, his voice straining now. “To this filth. To this mess. Not to some clean, scared boy who thinks you’re a porcelain doll.” He shifted his angle, leaning over her more, and the new pressure was electric. A coil in her abdomen, neglected and tense all night, suddenly spasmed.
She screamed, her back arching off the bed. It wasn’t just an orgasm; it was a surrender, a violent evacuation of all the tension, the pretense, the cheap champagne cheer. Her body clenched around him, and a gush of warm fluid, more than just her typical release, soaked the sheets between them, mingling with the other fluids. Squirting. An involuntary, humiliating loss of control that left her shuddering.
Sukuna laughed, a harsh, breathless sound. “Disgusting.” He drove into her through her convulsions, his own control fraying. “See? This is what you are. This is what you need.”
His pace became erratic, frantic. He released her wrist to grab a handful of her hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat. He buried his face there, his teeth scraping her pulse point. “Mine,” he snarled, the word a hot puff against her skin. “Every dirty, fucking inch.”
His climax hit him with a rough, shuddering groan. He held himself deep, pulsing, his entire body tensing over hers. She felt the hot rush of him inside her, another layer to the mess. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their struggling lungs and the manic, silent enthusiasm of the TV screen.
Then, he pushed himself off her.
He stood beside the bed, looking down at the wreckage of her. She was spread on the torn dress, covered in a slick mixture of blood, sweat, her release, his release. The sheets were a dark, wet map beneath her. She couldn’t move. Her limbs were lead.
He seemed utterly unbothered. He walked, naked, to the vanity and grabbed a half-empty bottle of water. He drank deeply, his throat working. Then he turned and threw the bottle at her. It landed on the mattress beside her hip, water sloshing.
“Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice back to its casual, indifferent tone. “You’re pissing on my bed.”
Tears finally spilled over, hot and silent, cutting tracks through the mess on her face. She wasn’t pissing; it was the last of the squirt, the aftermath leaking out of her. But the humiliation was complete. She fumbled for the water bottle, her hands shaking too badly to open it.
He watched her struggle for a moment before snatching it back, twisting the cap off with a sharp crack, and handing it to her. She poured water onto her fingers, clumsily trying to wipe her thighs. It just smeared everything.
With a sigh that was more exasperation than pity, Sukuna left the room. She heard the bathroom tap run. He returned with a wet towel, warm this time. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, and roughly wiped his own stomach and thighs. Then he tossed the towel at her.
“Do it properly. Then sleep. You smell like a distillery.”
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and left the room, closing the door behind him with a soft, definitive click.
Megumi lay there in the dark, the wet towel in her hand. The sharp, animal urgency was gone, replaced by a hollow, aching exhaustion. Her body felt used, scraped raw. The mix of smells—sex, blood, champagne, him—was now embedded in the sheets, in her skin, in the very air.
She managed to clean herself a little, the warm towel a small mercy. She didn’t have the strength to leave, to face the walk to her own room. She pulled the least-damp corner of the comforter over herself, curling into a tight, fetal ball on the strip of mattress that wasn’t soaked.
She was drifting, the world going soft and distant, when the door opened again. She didn’t open her eyes. She heard him moving quietly. Heard the rustle of sheets. Then the light, shifting weight of the mattress as he climbed in behind her.
He didn’t touch her at first. Then his arm came over her, his hand splaying possessively on her bare stomach, pulling her back against the solid, relentless heat of his chest. His breath stirred her hair.
“If you ever,” he murmured into the nape of her neck, his voice thick with sleep, “come home smelling like that again, I’ll fuck you on the doorstep where everyone can see what you are.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. A lullaby.
And with that dark certainty wrapped around her tighter than his arms, Megumi finally slept, while behind her, Sukuna stared into the darkness, awake, listening to her breathe, his fingers absently tracing the outline of a tattoo on her hip that matched one of his own.