Chapter 2: Broken Lullabies
The water had been cold enough to hurt. Sukuna stood under the spray until his skin felt numb and raw, until the hammering beat against his skull had replaced the pounding of his own blood. It didn’t erase the image. It just froze it in place, a crystalline, perfect snapshot behind his eyes: heart-shaped lace, trembling hands, the terrified trust in her gaze.
He toweled off roughly, dragging the rough cotton over his arms and chest as if he could scour away the feeling of her skin under his fingertips. He didn’t bother with clothes, just knotted the towel low on his hips. His damp hair dripped onto his shoulders, leaving dark spots on the cheap bathroom tiles.
The apartment was quieter now, the hum of the city a distant lullaby. The lamp was still on, painting the chaos of the living room in monotone gold and deep shadow. He meant to go straight to his room. To shut the door. To try, for the millionth time, to sleep.
She was on the couch.
Not sprawled out asleep like she usually was, a mess of limbs and blankets. She was curled into a tight ball at one end, her pink robe wrapped securely around her, feet tucked under her. Her face was turned towards the back of the couch, but he saw the tense line of her shoulders. Awake. Waiting.
He stopped. The cold from his shower met the stifling heat of the room and created a feverish chill on his skin.
“You’re like a goddamn ghost,” he muttered, but there was no force behind it. He walked over, his bare feet silent on the carpet. The discarded LEGO wing was right where he’d seen it earlier. He bent, picked it up, and placed it carefully on the coffee table next to the stained whiskey glass. A pointless, orderly gesture.
He sat on the opposite end of the couch. The old springs groaned. The space between them felt vast and infinitesimal.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of a siren weaving its way through distant streets.
“Does it still smell like perfume out here?” he asked, staring straight ahead at the blank black eye of the television.
She shook her head against the couch cushions. Her voice, when it came, was muffled and small. “Just your shampoo. The cheap, piney one.”
“It gets the job done.”
Another silence, thicker than the last. He could feel the question forming in the air before she gave it sound. It vibrated in the space between them, a gathering storm.
“Kuna-nii?”
“What.”
She uncurled, slowly, and turned to look at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks blotchy. She’d been crying quietly. The sight sent a jagged crack through the numb ice in his chest.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
The words, whispered into the semi-darkness, landed not with a slap but with a deep, resonant thud in the pit of his stomach. All the air left the room. It was the most terrifying question he had ever been asked. More terrifying than any threat, any challenge. It was a landmine disguised as a daisy.
He turned his head, his crimson eyes meeting her wide, glistening ones. She was searching his face, desperate for an answer, completely unaware of the war her question had ignited inside him. The honest answer was a torrent of filth and worship that would send her running. The brotherly answer was a lie so flimsy it would dissolve on his tongue.
He leaned back against the couch, the movement casual, belying the tension coiling in every muscle. “Pretty is a shitty word. It’s for dolls and pictures of sunsets.”
Her face fell, just a little. She looked down at her hands, twisting in the robe’s fabric.
“You’re not pretty, Megumi.”
He saw her flinch. He kept going, his voice dropping, becoming something low and gravelly and entirely too serious for the neon-lit room. “Pretty is safe. Pretty is boring. You…” He let out a short, sharp breath. “You’re the most dangerous fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her head snapped up, confusion wiping away the sadness. “Dangerous? I’m clumsy. I can’t even open cereal boxes without tearing them.”
“That’s not the kind of danger I mean.” He held her gaze, letting her see a fraction of the truth, just enough to scare her, maybe just enough to make her understand. “The kind that makes people do stupid things. The kind that ruins cities.”
She blinked. He watched the metaphor sail over her head, harmless and uncomprehended. A small, bewildered smile touched her lips. “You always say weird stuff when you’re tired.”
The moment broke, or maybe it just bent, warping into something new and equally fragile. She shifted, uncurling her legs. The hem of her robe rode up, exposing a smooth, pale slice of her thigh. She didn’t notice. She leaned sideways, letting her head fall onto his shoulder with a soft, practiced weight.
The contact was electric. His bare skin met the soft terrycloth of her robe, and beneath it, the warmth of her. The vanilla and salt scent of her filled his lungs. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Her voice was a whisper against his collarbone. “I threw it away. The bunny thing. I put it in the dumpster chute.”
“Good.” The word was gritted out.
She was quiet for a moment. Then, “Did it look bad?”
A harsh laugh escaped him before he could stop it. “Jesus, Megumi.”
“I’m just asking!”
“It didn’t look bad.” He tilted his own head back, staring at the water stain on the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe. “That’s the whole fucking problem.”
She hummed, a non-committal sound of vague understanding. Her hand came to rest on his forearm, her fingers cool and slight. His own hand, which had been lying flat on the couch between them, moved. It wasn’t a decision. It was a gravitational pull. His fingertips brushed the exposed skin of her thigh, just above her knee.
She went very still.
He didn’t move his hand away. He let it rest there, a heavy, warm weight. The pad of his thumb traced a faint, idle path on her skin. He could feel the fine, downy hair, the subtle tension in her muscle. The air in the room changed. It became syrup, thick and hard to move through. Every sound was amplified: the rustle of her robe as she breathed, the drip of water from his hair onto the couch, the frantic drum of his own heart.
“Your hand is cold,” she whispered, but she didn’t pull away.
“Yeah.”
She shifted again, a tiny, subconscious movement that pressed her thigh more firmly into his touch. The knot in his gut pulled tighter. This was the line. This was the exact, invisible line he had spent years painting in bright red, and he was casually smudging it with his thumb.
He couldn’t do this. Not tonight. Not when the memory of the lace was so fresh and the smell of someone else was still a ghost on his skin.
In one fluid motion, he stood up. His hand left her thigh, the sudden absence of contact feeling like a wound. She made a small, lost sound.
“You need to sleep,” he said, his back to her. He gripped the edge of the coffee table, his knuckles white.
“Are you mad?”
“No. I’m tired.” It was the truth, but not the whole truth. He was exhausted from holding a mountain back with his bare hands.
He heard her stand, the soft shuffle of her feet. He turned. She was there, looking up at him, her expression a messy canvas of confusion and lingering hurt and something else he dared not name. The front of her robe had gapped slightly, revealing a shadowed hint of cleavage, the top of a breast that had been hidden by a heart-shaped patch just an hour ago.
He acted. Before he could think, he bent, slid one arm behind her knees and the other around her back, and lifted her. She was light, a bundle of soft robe and softer girl. She gave a little squeak, her arms automatically flying up to circle his neck.
“Kuna-nii! I can walk!”
“Your record for walking to your room without tripping is shit,” he grumbled, carrying her down the short hall. He shouldered her door open. Her room was still lit, the black lace gone from the floor. He placed her on her unmade bed, her pillows still indented from where she’d lain crying.
He straightened up, looking down at her. She stared back, her braids splayed out around her, her eyes huge in the dim light from the hall.
“Go to sleep,” he said, his voice final.
He turned and left, pulling her door closed until he heard the soft click of the latch catching. He stood in the dark hallway for a long time, staring at the thin strip of yellow light under his own bedroom door. The imprint of her weight was still in his arms. The feel of her skin was still on his hand.
Inside her room, Megumi lay still, staring at the ceiling, one hand resting on the exact spot on her thigh where his hand had been, feeling the phantom heat of it seep into her bones.