Chapter 4: Blood on His Hands
The key turned in the lock with a sound like a gunshot in the silent apartment. Sukuna shouldered the door closed behind him, leaning against it for a moment. The hum of the refrigerator was the only greeting.
He could still smell the Blue Lagoon on his skin—copper, shattered glass, that lemony disinfectant now married to fear. He looked at his hands in the dim hallway light. The knuckles were split, the skin crusted with a stranger’s blood. Goro’s blood. He flexed them, feeling the satisfying, familiar ache.
The living room was dark, the television off. A single lamp was on in the kitchen, casting a jaundiced glow over the battlefield of their domesticity. He could see the stain on the floor where Megumi had spilled her coffee yesterday, a dark Rorschach blot on the linoleum.
He walked in, his boots heavy. He went to the sink, turned on the cold tap, and thrust his hands under the stream. The water swirled pink, then clear. He soaped them roughly, the suds stinging the fresh cuts. He didn’t wince.
A soft sound. A shuffle of bare feet.
He didn’t turn around. He watched the water run, his reflection warped in the chrome tap.
“Kuna-nii?”
Her voice was a thread, thin and worn. He shut off the water, reached for the towel hanging on the oven handle. He dried his hands methodically, between each finger.
“Who else would it be?” he said, his back still to her. “Some fuckin’ charity worker?”
He finally turned.
She was standing in the doorway, dwarfed by one of his old band t-shirts. It hung to her mid-thigh. Her blue hair was tangled, a mess from sleep or from crying. Her eyes, those huge, haunted eyes, were fixed on his hands.
“You’re… you’re back,” she whispered.
“No, I’m a hallucination from the cheap vodka. Of course I’m back.” He tossed the towel on the counter. “Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She was clutching the hem of the shirt, her knuckles white. The bruises on her arms—small, finger-shaped—were a livid purple in the low light.
He moved then, crossing the kitchen in three strides. He didn’t embrace her. He stopped right in front of her, a wall of heat and the scent of violence. He cupped her chin, lifting her face. His thumb brushed over the faint mark on her neck, the one he’d left the night before. A possessive brand.
“You saw the news?” he asked, his voice low.
She shook her head again, a tiny movement. “I didn’t turn anything on. I just… waited.”
“Good.” His thumb moved to trace the dark circle under her eye. “Guy had an accident. Slipped and fell. Repeatedly. Onto some broken furniture. Real tragic.”
Megumi’s breath hitched. Not in fear, but in something else. A dark, terrible relief. Her eyes searched his. “His… his friends?”
“They’ll get the memo.” He let go of her chin, his hand sliding down to grip her shoulder. “No one’s gonna look at you again, Megumi. Not without seeing me first.”
A single tear escaped, tracing a path through the faint freckles on her cheek. She leaned into his touch, her body swaying toward him. “I was so scared,” she repeated, the words from last night taking on a new weight now, in the aftermath.
“I know.” He pulled her into him then, one arm banding around her back, the other hand fisting in her hair at the nape of her neck. She buried her face in his chest, inhaling sharply. She could smell it all now—the bar, the fight, the raw power of it. She shuddered.
“You stink,” she mumbled into his shirt, but her arms wound tightly around his waist, holding on as if he were the only solid thing in a dissolving world.
He barked a laugh, rough and surprised. “Yeah, well, the antiseptic at that shithole was off-brand. What’s your excuse?” He kissed the top of her head. “You gonna make me coffee, or just stand there leaching my body heat?”
She didn’t let go. “Don’t wanna let go.”
He sighed, a long, exasperated sound that ended in a softer exhale. He bent, slid an arm under her knees, and lifted her. She was light, a bundle of bones and tension. He carried her to the battered couch in the living room and sat down, settling her in his lap. She curled into him immediately, her head on his shoulder, her legs tucked up.
He rested his cheek against her hair. They sat in the dark like that for a long time, the only sound their breathing, his gradually slowing from the heightened state of alert he lived in.
“He touched my arm,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear. “Just here. His fingers were… sticky.”
Sukuna’s arm tightened around her. “I know.”
“You fixed it.”
“I did.”
She was silent for another few minutes. Then her hand crept up, her fingers gently tracing the swollen skin on his knuckles. “Does it hurt?”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” Her voice firmed, just a little. “It’s for me.”
He didn’t have an answer for that. He just held her tighter.
Eventually, her breathing evened out, deepened. The exhaustion from her sleepless night and the emotional tidal wave finally pulling her under. He shifted carefully, adjusting them so they were lying down, her back to his chest, his arm a heavy, secure weight across her middle.
He stared at the water stain on the ceiling, listening to her sleep. The fire from the bar was embers now, banked. This was what it was for. This quiet. This safety. This possessiveness that was a living thing in his chest.
Just as his own eyes grew heavy, his phone buzzed in his back pocket. A sharp, insistent vibration. Once. Twice.
He carefully extracted his arm, sliding out from behind Megumi. She murmured in her sleep but didn’t wake. He stood, pulling the phone out.
A single text, from an unknown number. The preview glowed in the dark room.
Saw your handiwork at the Lagoon. Clean message. But the manager’s got cousins. Not the forgiving type. They’re asking around.
Sukuna’s jaw tightened. He typed a quick reply, his fingers brutal on the screen.
Let ‘em ask.
He put the phone on silent, staring down at Megumi’s sleeping form in the gloom. The peaceful rise and fall of her chest. The mark on her neck.
The embers in his chest flickered, feeling a new draft. It wasn’t over. It was never over. He knelt beside the couch, brushed the hair from her forehead, and pressed his lips there in a kiss that was a promise and a curse.
“Sweet dreams, princess,” he whispered, the words rough velvet in the dark. “Daddy’s got watch.”