Chapter 1: Midnight Confession
The key turned in the lock with a scrape that echoed too loudly in the empty hallway. Sukuna shouldered his way inside, the stale air of his apartment hitting him like a wall. Cheap perfume and cigarette smoke clung to his leather jacket, a greasy residue from the bar and the woman whose name he’d already forgotten. He tossed his keys onto the side table, missing the bowl and sending them clattering onto the floor.
“Shit.”
The apartment was dark except for the sickly yellow glow of a single lamp slumped by the couch. Its light caught the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table, two glasses, one lipstick-stained. His. The other, clean. Beside them, a half-built LEGO Saturn V rocket lay scattered, a single white wing detached. Megumi’s project. His chest tightened, the usual mix of irritation and fondness bubbling up.
He toed off his boots, listening. No TV. No music. Just the low hum of the fridge and the distant, constant sigh of city traffic fourteen floors below.
“Megumi?” His voice was rough, used too much tonight laughing at jokes that weren’t funny. Silence. “You better not be asleep on the damn couch again.”
He padded through the living room, past the mountain of anime DVDs and the lone, discarded lace strap of something black and insubstantial he chose not to examine. Her room was at the end of the short hall, the door cracked open, a slit of brighter light cutting across the worn carpet.
He pushed it open without knocking, a habit born from a decade of being the only one who checked if she’d brushed her teeth or done her homework.
“Oi, you still up? It’s past two, you’ve got that… class…”
The words died, the air vacuumed clean from his lungs.
She was standing with her back to the door, facing her full-length mirror, but she turned at the sound of his voice. The movement was a slow, unsteady pivot, clumsy. Her eyes, wide and doe-like, found his, immediately glazing with that particular brand of flustered panic she specialized in.
Sukuna saw everything.
The outfit wasn’t lingerie. It was a confession. A reverse bunny girl suit, black and sleek, clung to every impossible curve of her. It was all straps and negative space, a heart-shaped patch of lace doing a pathetic, admirable job of covering each nipple. His gaze dragged downward, over the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips, and fastened on the thin, precarious string of a C-string thong riding high, disappearing between her thighs. No lateral straps. Just faith and physics.
His brain short-circuited. Raw, animal heat flooded his system, a straight shot to his groin that made his jeans feel three sizes too small. He was hard, instantly, painfully. A wave of possessiveness so violent it tasted like copper filled his mouth.
“What the fuck,” he breathed, the words barely a sound.
“Kuna-nii!” Megumi squeaked, her hands fluttering up, unsure whether to cover her chest or her hips, and ultimately just clutching at the air. “You’re… you’re home early.”
“Early?” he barked, the sound harsher than he intended. He couldn’t move. He was cemented in the doorway, a statue of conflicting impulses. “What the hell is this, Megumi? Going to a party? A fucking cosplay convention in our living room?”
“It’s… it’s not for a party,” she mumbled, looking down at her own body as if surprised to find it there. A blush spread from her cheeks down her neck, disappearing into the lace heart on her chest. “I just… I saw it online. I wanted to see what it looked like.”
“You wanted to see,” he repeated, his voice dangerously low. He took one step into the room, and the scent of her—vanilla lotion and her particular, innocent sweat—wreathed around him, obliterating the last traces of the bar’s perfume. “You buy this… this shit, and put it on, just to see.”
She nodded, her twin braids slipping over her shoulders. She looked like a child playing dress-up in a porn star’s closet. The dissonance was maddening.
“It was on sale,” she offered weakly, as if that explained the heart-shaped nipple covers.
He let out a sharp, ragged laugh. “You’re a mess. A complete goddamn mess.” The insult was automatic, a defense mechanism. His eyes were traitors, tracing the line where the lace met her skin, the soft, full curve of her breast threatening to spill over the top. He wanted to put his hands there. He wanted to wrap her in a blanket. He wanted to burn the outfit and the mirror and the whole fucking city down.
“I know,” she said, and her voice trembled. Her eyes grew shiny. “It doesn’t fit right, does it? It’s too tight here.” She gestured vaguely at her chest, and the movement made the lace hearts shift.
Sukuna saw red. A pure, unthinking static filled his head. “Take it off.”
She flinched. “What?”
“You heard me. Take it off. Now.” The command ripped from him. It wasn’t a demand of desire, but of sheer, overwhelming panic. He couldn’t look at her for one more second like this. He felt like he was disintegrating.
Tears welled in her big eyes, but she didn’t argue. She never argued with him. Her clumsy fingers went to the clasp at the back of her neck, fumbling. She couldn’t reach it. She turned, presenting her back to him—the delicate lattice of straps, the vulnerable knobs of her spine, the perfect, heartbreaking dip of her lower back above the rise of her ass.
“I can’t… the clasp is stuck. Can you…?”
He moved before he could think. In three strides he was behind her. His fingers, calloused and too large, brushed against the hot skin of her nape. She shuddered. He could feel the fine tremors running through her. The clasp was tiny, intricate. His world narrowed to the scent of her hair, the pulse jumping in her throat, the infinitesimal space between his knuckles and her skin.
It came undone with a quiet snick.
The front of the suit sagged forward. She caught it against her chest with a small, gasped, “Oh!”
“Finish it,” he growled, stepping back as if from a live wire. His own breath was coming too fast. He turned his back, staring rigidly at a poster on her wall—some bland anime boy with soft eyes. He heard the rustle of fabric, the delicate ping of a strap falling, the soft, breathy sounds of her struggle.
“Okay,” she whispered after a lifetime.
He turned. She was wrapped in a pale pink bathrobe, tied tightly at her waist, collared up to her chin. She looked small and young and ravaged. The outfit was a puddle of black lace and sin on her fuzzy white rug.
“You’re not wearing that ever again,” he said, his voice flat. “You throw that shit in the incinerator. You understand me, princess?”
She nodded, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
“And you don’t… buy things like that. Not to ‘see what they look like.’” He ran a hand through his spiked hair, tugging at the roots. The pressure in his jeans was a relentless, shameful ache. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and a single tear escaped, tracking down her cheek. “I just… felt like being someone else for a minute.”
The raw honesty of it sucker-punched him. He knew that feeling. He chased it every night in different bars with different women. The difference was, he knew exactly what he was doing. She had no idea. She was playing with a lit match in a room full of gasoline, and she didn’t even know what fire was.
He walked over, his steps heavy. He stopped in front of her, loomed over her. He cupped her cheek, his thumb rough as it wiped away the tear. His touch was the only gentle thing about him.
“You don’t need to be anyone else,” he muttered, the vulgarity gone, stripped away. “It’s a fucking waste of time.”
She leaned into his hand, her eyes closing. “You smell like perfume.”
“It’s cheap,” he said, dropping his hand. “Go to bed, Megumi.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He walked out, pulling her door shut behind him with a firm click. He went straight to the bathroom, locked the door, and turned the shower to cold. He stood under the freezing spray, jeans and jacket and all, head bowed, letting the water hammer against his skull until his teeth chattered and the painful, betraying heat in his body was forced into a shuddering, reluctant retreat. The image of her, heart-shaped and offered up, was branded onto the back of his eyelids.
Outside, in her room, Megumi stood for a long time, her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the black lace on the floor, feeling the ghost of his rough thumb on her cheek and the cold, empty space where he had been.