Chapter 1: Little Sister's Desperate Plea
The key rattled in the lock, a sharp, grating sound swallowed by the humid silence of the hallway. Sukuna shoved the door open, and the apartment breathed out at him—a stale sigh of old smoke, spilled beer, and something deeper, something sour.
“Fuckin’ shithole,” he grumbled to the empty dark, his voice gravel from whiskey and shouting.
He toed off his boots, the neon sign from the pawn shop across the street strobing through the grimy window. Red, then blue, then red again, cutting the room into jagged slices. It lit up the beer bottles like fallen soldiers, glinted off the glass of a framed fight poster hanging crooked on the wall. His knuckles ached, a dull, satisfying throb. Some kid from the west side had a jaw like concrete. The memory almost made him smile.
Then the light caught her.
For a second, his brain refused to parse it. Just a shape on the battered couch, a spill of dark blue against the dirty grey fabric. Then the neon cycled again.
Megumi.
She was curled on her side, but not asleep. Her body was trembling, a constant, fine shiver. That fucking black dress. He’d told her not to wear it. It was too short, too tight, clung to every curve like it was painted on. One strap had slipped down her shoulder. Her hand was between her legs, moving in frantic, jerky circles under the thin fabric. The other was clutching at her own breast, her fingers digging into the softness there.
But it was her face that stopped the air in his lungs.
Tears cut clean tracks through her mascara, glittering in the cheap light. Her eyes were wide open, huge and dark and miles away, seeing something he couldn’t. She was whispering, a broken, hiccuping stream.
“Kuna-nii… please… nii-chan…”
He was across the room in three strides, the stink of cheap perfume and someone else’s sweat falling off him like a cloak. He dropped to his knees in front of the couch, the old floorboards groaning. The smell hit him now—sharp, sweet. Vodka. And beneath it, the salt of fear.
“Megumi.” His voice came out lower than he meant it to. A command.
Her gaze swam, struggled to find his. The frantic motion of her hand didn’t stop. “They… they kept touching me. Their hands were everywhere. I couldn’t…” A sob wrenched out of her. “I feel so dirty. I can’t get it off. I can’t…”
A cold, familiar fury began to uncoil in his gut, sharp and metallic. Names. He needed names. He’d peel the skin from their—
“Make it go away,” she pleaded, her free hand flailing out, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. “You have to. Please. Only you. Be nice to me. Please, nii-chan, treat me nicely…”
He understood. The fractured logic of it, born from terror and cheap liquor. The world was full of animals. He was the biggest, the worst of them all. But to her, he was the only one whose violence was a shield. Her monster, for her protection.
“Stop,” he said, clamping his hand over hers, stilling its desperate circling. Her skin was fever-hot. “Just fuckin’ stop, princess. Look at me.”
She whimpered, but her eyes locked on his. Haunted. Pleading.
“Did they fuck you?” The words were brutal, blunt. He needed the truth.
A violent shake of her head sent hair sticking to her wet cheeks. “No. No, I ran. I got away. But I can still… feel them.”
The coil of rage loosened, just a fraction. Not that. That was something he couldn’t have fixed. He brushed the hair from her face, his thumb rough against her cheekbone. His hands, capable of splintering bone, felt clumsy.
“You’re home,” he said, the crudeness leaching from his tone, leaving something raw. “You’re safe. Those shitstains touch you again, I’ll feed them their own spines.”
She nodded, a childlike, trusting motion. But the shivering didn’t stop. The need in her eyes wasn’t just for comfort. It was a chemical demand, an adrenaline crash seeking a different peak. She was trying to rewrite the memory with sensation, and she’d chosen him as the pen.
“You can,” she whispered, pressing his hand against her chest. Her heart hammered against his palm. “I need you to. Be nice. Be gentle. Please.”
He looked at her—his little princess, fragile as a bird in his hands, yet asking for the wolf. The contradiction was a live wire in his chest. He hated the world for doing this to her. Hated himself for the part of him that stirred at the invitation, at the absolute trust that asked for this.
“You’re drunk,” he said, but it was a weak protest.
“I know what I’m asking,” she breathed, arching into his touch. “I only feel safe with you.”
He surrendered. With a low sound, he slid his arms under her, lifting her from the couch. She was light, all silken limbs and that damned dress. He carried her past the battlefield of the living room, down the short hall to her bedroom. It was neater, smelling of her—vanilla and clean linen.
He laid her on the bed. The neon from outside didn’t reach here; only the dim glow from the hallway painted her in soft monochrome. He stood over her for a moment, a dark silhouette.
“Gentle,” he repeated, the word foreign on his tongue.
He hooked a finger under the thin strap of her dress, sliding it down her arm. His movements were slow, deliberate. This wasn’t the frantic, taking rush he knew. This was something else. The dress peeled away like a dark sheath, revealing the pale expanse of her skin, the swell of her breasts. She watched him, her breath hitching, the ghost of fear finally leaving her eyes, replaced by a fixed, desperate focus.
He followed the path of her tears with his mouth, a trail of soft, dry kisses from her temple to her jaw. His hands, for all their size and ink and remembered violence, were careful. He cupped her breast, his thumb stroking over her nipple until it tightened into a peak. She made a small, broken sound and pushed into his touch.
“See?” he muttered against her skin, his voice a low rumble. “Nice.”
He took his time, mapping her with a patience he didn’t know he possessed. The frantic energy in her began to melt, turning liquid under his hands and mouth. Her whimpers changed, losing their edge of panic, gaining a deeper, needier pitch. When his fingers finally slid between her thighs, she was wet and waiting, her hips lifting off the bed.
“Kuna-nii…”
“Right here,” he murmured, settling his weight beside her, not on her. He kept his touches firm but unhurried, a steady, rhythmical pressure that built her up slowly, chasing away the ghosts of other, rougher hands. He watched her face the whole time, ensuring every flinch was pleasure, not fear.
When she came, it was with a choked cry, her body bowing tight as a wire before collapsing back into the mattress, boneless. A single, clean tear tracked from the corner of her eye into her hairline. This one was different.
He held her through the aftershocks, until her breathing evened out and her eyelids grew heavy. He pulled the quilt over her, tucking it around her shoulders.
She reached for him in the dark, her fingers finding the stark lines of the tattoos on his forearm. “Stay.”
He grunted, kicking off his jeans before sliding in beside her. He pulled her back against his chest, her body spooned neatly into his. The scent of someone else’s perfume was gone. Now it was just them, sweat, and the fading echo of her vanilla soap.
Her breathing deepened into sleep. He stared into the dark, one arm curled possessively around her waist. The fury was still there, cold and banked, waiting for daylight. Names. He would get names.
Outside, the fridge buzzed on. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, fading. In the imperfect stillness, he held his world together, one brutal, gentle heartbeat at a time.