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For most of his childhood and adolescence, Satoru has heard people call him stubborn and unaccommodating, which wasn’t…wrong, exactly. He had his ambitions and goals, his family's expectations stacked on top of them, and the only way to carry them was to look right ahead with his eyes fixed on the finish line. No barricades, distractions, or unplanned detours. At 28, with shelves and walls full of framed diplomas and accolades, and years of work already under his belt, it’s not like that really changed.
They called him immature, too, and that hasn’t changed either.
The one thing that has changed, though, when he decided to exchange his university professor position in Tokyo for a self-defense instructor one in Sendai, was that no one called him a genius anymore. Now, they simply call him insane.
In a span of six months, his new routine establishes itself smoothly.
Sendai is smaller than Tokyo. Less busy and not as loud. In the morning, Satoru has time to eat breakfast and go to the cafe at the corner of his street for a cup of glorious coffee sweetened to perfection. No more getting up at an ungodly hour of the morning just to stand in a line for 20 minutes, no more horrible traffic, and no more colleagues with sticks longer than the Great Wall of China lodged up their asses. Satoru works alone, opens the dojo that sits beneath his apartment at a leisurely pace while sipping his coffee, and spends his morning classes bantering and flirting with housewives who need something to spice up their lives in between folding laundry and figuring out what to do for lunch.
He usually eats out or gets takeout, as he’s not really much of a cook, and then in the afternoon, he gets to watch a bunch of teenagers throw each other around – or fail hilariously. There’s nothing like hormones and growth spurts to aid physical comedy.
Most of the kids come in straight from school, their uniform jackets heaped onto the hangers by the front door and sneakers haphazardly lined up in the genkan. Their backpacks chime with charms and badges as they hurry into locker rooms to change, and then they help him arrange the mats while they wait for everyone to arrive. It’s always the same three kids: Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara, who wear matching uniforms and bracelets braided with thick strings in green, red, and orange. Very autumnal, very cute.
Satoru tried to get Suguru and Shoko to make matching beaded bracelets for the three of them when they were in junior high, but they just ended up pelting beads at each other for the better part of the evening. Ieri kept finding them under her furniture for the rest of the year.
But anyway. Satoru’s gotten used to his little helpers, so when the clock strikes five past the time they usually get to dojo, he gets…not worried. But something. Somewhat expectant.
He checks his phone, doesn’t find any texts informing him about missing today’s class, and then goes to his office to dig a cherry-flavored lollipop from his desk drawer. When he gets back to the main room, he hears the front door open and Yuji’s voice call out, “Sensei! We didn’t eat lunch today! Can we eat inside?”
They pad onto the tatami mats in their socks, plastic bags hanging from their wrists.
“Yep,” Satoru tells them, teeth gnashing the hard candy in his mouth. He’s never had the patience to eat them the way he’s supposed to.
“Yay!” Yuji and Nobara cheer. The three of them settle cross-legged against the wall, and when they unwrap lumpy brown paper from their bags, the smell of cooked meat hits Satoru like a slap. The windows are all cracked open to let the fresh air in, and the breeze makes the smell dissipate almost in an instant, but it’s enough to make Satoru’s mouth water. The cherry flavour loses all appeal.
“Whatcha guys eating?” He asks them, walking closer.
Megumi shoots him a suspicious look, like he’s expecting Satoru to snatch the food directly from his mouth, but Yuji is just as enthusiastic as always, eyes bright as he says, “Hot dogs from my uncle’s place! He owns the butcher’s shop next door, you know.”
Satoru blinks. There is a butcher’s shop next to the dojo, but he’s never been inside it. He hasn’t really even peered in through the glass, figuring it’s a butcher’s shop like any other.
Apparently not, if they sell ready meals. He wonders if that’s even legal – not that he particularly cares.
“Huh,” he says. “Smells nice.”
“Uh-huh!” Yuji agrees, cheeks bulging.
Satoru leaves them to eat in peace before the kid chokes, and soon enough, they’re all dragging the mats across the floor. The class starts and ends just as always, and by the time Satoru is cleaning up and locking the door, he forgets all about the hot dogs and the butcher’s shop.
✻✻✻
A few days later, he gets a phone call from his mother that leaves him too annoyed for lunch. That annoyance settles into a low simmer by the time his afternoon class starts, and his stomach starts grumbling at him halfway through. He resigns himself to the instant ramen he’s got in his cupboard for early dinner, and then, as he’s locking up and turning the keys between his fingers, he hears a chime from behind him.
When he turns from the door leading up to his apartment, he finds a woman walking down the street in the opposite direction, a plastic bag swaying against her thigh. He remembers the hot dogs suddenly, the smell of spice and warm, fresh bread.
He pockets his keys and takes the six steps it takes him to pass the dojo door and step in front of the butcher shop’s entrance.
It’s Saturday, so he’s justifiably surprised to find the shop still open. The display window is clean, and through his faint reflection, Satoru can see the inside lit up with bright fluorescent light that would be hell for his eyes after an hour or so. There’s no one behind the counter, but the open sign is still hanging from the door, so Satoru gives in to his impulse and steps inside.
An old-fashioned bell signals his arrival. The air is cold, underlayed with that distinct smell of raw meat. The display freezer is smeared with fingertips on the outside, from customers pointing at cuts they want, and the counter is white and scrubbed clean, popping out from the rest of the decor that is all about dark wood and deep green tiles, distinctly traditional in details.
The shop is split in half on the other side of the counter, the vacant side equipped with a compact convection oven and a small open grill.
“Moment,” a voice calls from the back. It’s deep, male. Nice. A little raspy in a way that makes Satoru’s spine tingle.
He surveys the meat on display: some chicken, then darker cuts of pork or beef. He’s never been good at differentiating between the two or the various cuts of either.
The grey curtain separating the front of the shop from the back parts, and a man steps through. When Yuji mentioned his uncle, Satoru imagined a man closer to his parents’ age. Some gruff, mature type with heavy brows and a pot belly. What comes through that curtain…is not that.
The guy is probably not much older than Satoru. He’s tall, but not as tall as him, and his biceps and chest strain the fabric of a white T-shirt he’s wearing. His hair is pink, caught in that stupid hairnet, and his ears are pierced. His brown eyes are dark and serious as they meet Satoru’s own through his subscription sunglasses.
He is startlingly good-looking, and Satoru feels betrayal at the universe in general shoot through him like an arrow. For almost seven months, a hunk like this was sharing a wall with him, and he had no idea.
“Well, hello there,” he says once his tongue unsticks from the roof of his mouth.
The man blinks at him. He has face tattoos, which Satoru didn’t know until now was something that he was into. They are interesting, symmetrical, and almost delicate looking, accentuating the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones, framing his face almost better than the smudged eyeliner frames his eyes.
“You’re gonna buy something?” He asks once it becomes apparent that Satoru won’t speak again.
“Meat,” Satoru tells him. The double meaning of the word doesn’t escape him, but he manages to contain the mad giggle that bubbles up in his chest. “Actually, my students said you sell hot dogs here.”
“Only in the mornings,” the man responds, slowly. A bit more exasperated, he asks, “What kind of meat?”
Satoru points at a random red chunk and watches the man pull on a pair of PVC gloves, thick bands of black ink around his wrists.
“Want me to cut it for you?” He asks Satoru, fingers digging into the meat as he takes it from the freezer.
Satoru thinks about the way the muscles in his arms would bulge as he works a knife through the cut, and nods, swallowing spit. “Yeah, that’d be perfect,” he says, for once thankful for his light sensitivity.
He may look like a douchebag who wears sunglasses indoors, but at least he can unapologetically ogle Yuji’s uncle as he carves perfect slices of meat in his tight white shirt. It shows silhouettes of black tattoos through the material on his shoulders and chest, and Satoru feels downright naughty for having noticed. He moves languidly, all measured pulls and pushes and rhythmic rolls of joints in his wrist and shoulder. When he’s done cutting, he wraps the cuts in paper and weighs it, slapping a sticker with the price tag on top, every movement well-practiced and effortless.
“Anything else?” He asks as he rings Satoru up.
Satoru leans on that pristine white countertop, pushes his sunglasses down just enough to show his eyes through a fan of his pale eyelashes, and grins all easy and charming. “Just your number.”
The man pauses with Satoru’s credit card between his fingers. His eyes flicker from the cash register to Satoru’s face, and muted surprise gives way to light amusement. He leans closer, running a quick glance down the line of Satoru’s body, and then presses his card to the card reader.
“Nah,” he says over the beep of the transaction coming through. Then he grins, mean in a way that makes Satoru want to lick his teeth, and hands Satoru his card and his bag.
“But for now, you can get my name,” he adds, sultry. “It’s Sukuna.”
Satoru’s grin stretches into a wide smile. “I can work with that.”
✻✻✻
Satoru still hasn’t eaten all the meat when he returns to the shop on Monday. Sukuna meets his eyes with an arch to his brow, and then looks away dismissively to keep talking to the woman at the counter.
There’s a warm, mouth-watering scent of freshly baked bread in the air. It’s only 8am right now, but Satoru supposes that bread needs time to prepare. Making the dough and letting it rest or whatever. Satoru studied nuclear physics, not bread baking.
The other, not-Sukuna’s side of the behind-counter space is more open, with no curtains or walls keeping Satoru from seeing the rest of the room. One side is occupied with a grill and a convection oven, the other has a fridge and counterspace that connects with the last wall and cuts off at the door that presumably connects it to Sukuna’s side.
At the countertop, there’s a small person with a white bob carefully contained under a hairnet, working their hands through a fresh lump of dough.
“Next,” Sukuna intones, bored, and Satoru returns his focus to him. He’s leaning against the counter with his elbow, his eyes steady as they watch Satoru.
“Ran out of the meat already?” He asks sceptically. He’s got a charming, sly expression on his face, something in his dark eyes lit up like a match.
“Nope,” Satoru admits – because all healthy relationships are built on honesty and trust. His therapist said so. “Just came by to say good morning to my business neighbor.”
“Good morning,” Sukuna tells him. He doesn’t seem particularly charmed by Satoru’s thoughtfulness, but that’s okay. “Now, if you’re not gonna buy anything, get out.”
Satoru planned to spend his morning at the cafe, maybe gorging himself on something sweet and flaky, then going to change and get the dojo ready for his first class. He was going to ride the high of wooing Sukuna first thing in the morning for the rest of the day.
So, naturally, he skims his eyes over what’s displayed in the freezer, and points at a bony piece of meat resting in ice. “Can you debone that for me?”
Sukuna wrinkles his nose in disgust and, with no small amount of judgment, asks, “You want me to debone lamb chops?”
“No?” Satoru backtracks shamelessly. He leans in as close as he can without touching the display glass. “Anything that takes the longest for you to prepare, is what I meant.”
Sukuna snorts. “Are you that eager for my company?”
“Yep,” Satoru confirms.
Sukuna glances at him then, more serious and more engaged, paying closer attention. Looks like being direct is what works best on him – luckily, Satoru’s been told he can be as blunt as a hammer taken to fine china.
Wordlessly, Sukuna reaches into the freezer and his fingers curl around a large cut of…thigh. Or butt. Knee? It’s part of a leg, probably.
He takes it to his counterspace, and sets to carefully separate the hard, thick bits of skin and fat from the meat.
“You’ve got interesting tastes, Tokyo guy,” he tells Satoru as he works.
Satoru blinks. “I never told you I’m from Tokyo.”
Sukuna looks at him over his shoulder. “Yuji’s a yapper,” he offers as an explanation.
“Aw,” Satoru says. “My kids talk about me. But I’ll have to tell him not to overshare. I need something to brag about on our first date.”
Sukuna snorts at that, shoulders twitching. His voice is endlessly amused as he asks, “First date?”
Satoru hums.
“You’re awfully entitled, aren’t you?” The way Sukuna says it, it doesn’t sound entirely…bad. It’s like he finds it all funny.
Satoru likes that. Because he is entitled. He knows his worth – he’s still declining calls from universities and research facilities, scrolling through stray articles mentioning him that Shoko and Suguru keep sending him. It’s okay if Sukuna thinks it’s funny that Satoru is so sure that he’s got a shot with him, because Satoru knows it’s true.
His decision to move to Sandai is final, definitive. He can play the long game if that’s what Sukuna needs. It makes things exciting.
“Just optimistic,” he says with a smile.
“Is that what it’s called now?” Sukuna is separating meat from the bone with a big, gleaming knife, chopping off big chunks of pink meat.
Satoru shrugs.
“Why’d you want to take me on a date?” Sukuna asks.
“Well,” Satoru starts. It’s hard to explain sometimes why he does the things he does, even to himself. “You’re good-looking. I like built guys who are shorter than me.”
He can’t see his face clearly, but he gets the feeling Sukuna rolls his eyes at that.
“And I think we’d be a good match.”
Sukuna hums at that; neither a dismissal nor an agreement. “That’s something to think about,” he admits with surprising ease.
Satoru is used to people similar to Sukuna, something in the way they all hold themselves with pride and – admittedly earned – competence. It’s hard for them, usually, to give ground to something outside of their interest.
Sukuna obviously has his own pride, his own sense of worth that’s weightier than all the gold in the world, but he has no qualms about this.
And Satoru loves being considered like this, like a temptation, by people who wouldn’t bat an eye if there were diamonds strewn across the ground.
✻✻✻
Sukuna works every day from Monday to Saturday, early mornings and early afternoons through the week, then longer through the weekend. Satoru develops a Pavlovian response to the sound of the shop’s bell, waking him up too early when Sukuna arrives to open up. He had jerked off to that bell, thinking things indecent enough to make a whore blush, his libido and imagination teaming up with images of Sukuna in his stupid, simple work attire that makes Satoru harder than it has any right to.
His freezer is slowly filling up with meat that he has no time to cook or eat, but Satoru keeps coming to the butcher’s shop for more like a greedy dog.
“Ah! Do you have any pork?” A man calls from the doorway, frazzled and pleading. “It’s urgent.”
Sukuna looks at him, unperturbed as he is by most things. Warily, he asks, “How much? And what kind?”
“Ten kilos,” the man says miserably. “It’s for stew?”
Satoru runs it through his head and concludes it’s gonna be one hell of a big pot of stew.
One of Sukuna’s thin eyebrows lifts, and he drops a considering look at the freezer. He pulls out two cuts of pork sirloin (Satoru is learning!), and one shoulder, and then says, “Wait a moment.”
The man shuffles inside the shop with a relieved sigh.
Satoru chews his beef sandwich, leaning against the wall by the display freezer, where he decided to productively spend his lunch break today by talking to Sukuna and watching his muscles bulge as he works.
On the other side, the oven hums as it works, and the smell of baked bagels and mini breads beckons, strangely fitting in this space. Uraume, Sukuna’s single employee, is somewhere out of sight. They’re half Sukuna’s size, but they have a mean streak of a wild cat reserved for anyone who disrespects Sukuna, even though he’s usually worse in whatever causes that disrespect. They watch Satoru with clear disdain, but he still hasn’t dropped dead from anything they make for him, so he figures it’s okay.
Sukuna returns with another slab of pork shoulder and weighs and packs each piece before turning to the man to tell him, “9.7 kg enough?”
The man nods gratefully, paying and bolting out the door as soon as the meat is in his hands.
“Well,” Satoru says when he disappears out of view, “as I was saying, you’re too harsh on Yuji. Isn’t he your sweet baby nephew?”
Sukuna wrinkles his nose at him, looking up briefly as he disinfects his working station. “Someone has to be, have you met the kid?”
Satoru makes a noise in his throat as he chews.
“And besides – isn’t he your traitor?” Sukuna adds.
“You’re right,” Satoru says. “At least he tells you all the good things about me so I don’t have to brag too much.”
“Good for you,” Sukuna tells him dryly, wiping his hands. The muscles in his forearms shift, his biceps bulging. Satoru wonders if he could beat him in arm-wrestling if he tried. Probably not, Sukuna seems very sturdy, but it’s fun to imagine it. Sukuna’s hand in his own, tremors of strain making it shake.
“I know,” Satoru sighs. “Everything just works out for me because I’m the universe’s favorite.”
Sukuna snorts at that loudly. “Why’re you in Sendai, then?”
Satoru blinks. “Oh, by my own volition.”
Sukuna arches one eyebrow at him. “I thought you worked in some fancy university in Tokyo.”
Satoru points a finger at him. “How do you know these things? I never told the kids I was a professor.”
Sukuna grins at him meanly and points a finger right back at him. “I have regulars who go to your morning flirting classes.”
Ah, the housewives.
“Oops,” Satoru says, considering that Sukuna doesn’t actually seem particularly bothered. “My pot is leaking water on all sides, it seems.”
“Your clientele are teenagers and women who notoriously love spreading gossip,” Sukuna tells him. “You don’t have a pot, you have a sieve.”
Satoru chokes on a bit of lettuce. He’ll put Uraume’s intentions with him under reconsideration.
✻✻✻
A new, cozy routine sets itself into place.
Satoru wakes up, picks up a standing order of coffee to go at his favorite cafe, and then saunters into Sukuna’s shop every other day to enjoy his breakfast with a view. Uraume is sick of him, and Sukuna is just getting warmed up to his stupid lines and borderline obsession.
Then, one day, Sukuna shows up at the dojo’s genkan half an hour before his afternoon class is supposed to end.
Satoru sees him leaning against the doorway with an amused quirk to his lips, and leaves the Zen’in sisters to fulfil their Cain’s instinct by tossing each other to the mats with increasingly louder thuds.
“Aw, did you miss me?” He asks as a greeting.
Sukuna’s grin turns smug. “I’m here for the brat, not you.”
Satoru puts a hand over his chest in faux hurt. “That wounds me.”
“Sure it does. You look like you’re in so much pain,” Sukuna agrees easily.
“I am,” Satoru nods. Someone sqawks, and he turns to see Yuji standing shakily on his feet with Megumi wrapped around his head like an octopus, trying to choke him out. It’s not quite successful – Yuji seems more unsure of his footing due to lack of sight than lack of oxygen.
“Aren’t you supposed to supervise that?” Sukuna asks him.
“They’re fine,” Satoru waves him off. “Fushiguro, Itadori, disengage!”
They tumble to the mats in a tangle of limbs, and it’s only then that Yuji notices his uncle, arching both eyebrows in a clear, what are you doing here?
The look Sukuna gives him back is creepily similar. Bratty.
“But really,” Satoru starts. “The class is not out for the next…20 minutes. Is it a family emergency?”
Sukuna looks at him, matching his level of seriousness. “No,” he says simply. “I’m just done with work.”
He doesn’t elaborate, but Satoru takes to his honesty like a teething puppy to a pair of shoes. He leans in close, a grin on his face as he teases, “Ohhh, you really did miss me.”
Sukuna holds eye contact for a thrilling moment, and then looks away with an eyeroll and a tiny quirk at the corners of his mouth. Amazing.
✻✻✻
“I’m starting to think that you just want to pick a fight with me and don’t know how to ask,” Satoru goads.
Sukuna kept coming by earlier to wait for Yuji, and it has been productive in the sense that Satoru now has an extra 30 minutes every day to bicker with Sukuna and ogle him as discreetly as possible in a room full of hormonal teenagers who would, unfortunately, know exactly what’s going on in Satoru’s mind if they ever caught him. Sukuna’s casual clothes are not as tight as his work shirts and pants, but sometimes he wears tight tank tops and jeans that pull over his hips and ass just right. And Satoru is only human.
And it’s not like Sukuna is any better, his pupils dilating like a cat’s whenever Satoru comes close enough that he needs to look up to meet his eyes. How he watches Satoru’s legs every morning, his hands and fingers, like he’s starving.
It’s what pushes Satoru to put the question out into the world in the first place. You wanna spar?
That was last week, and Sukuna looked curious, considering, but ultimately shook his head in refusal. Yuji came in with some prior training, which he confessed came from his uncle, so Satoru knows that it’s not out of insecurity or embarrassment (both of which are actually something he doubts Sukuna can feel in any notable degree).
So, of course, Satoru decided to keep at it and get annoying.
Now, it’s the last 10 minutes of class, everyone is winding down, while Satoru is giving his best to wind Sukuna up.
He’s surprised, actually, when Sukuna pins him with his eyes, some kind of scale tipping over inside him, finally, and says, “Okay.”
He toes out of his boots and advances slowly. He’s wearing grey cargos and a baggy T-shirt that shows an obscene amount of his collarbones, not that Satoru is complaining.
The kids scurry to the sides, smelling entertainment.
“Don’t worry,” Satoru starts. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Sukuna grins at him with teeth. “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, well, then show me what you’ve got.”
Sukuna steps in close, still grinning widely–
And then Satoru is on his back, wheezing, forcing air into his lungs and proper sight back into his eyes. He stares up at the ceiling, the room spinning, or him, or just the supporting beams and the wooden panelling rearranging itself, and lets out an incredulous laugh.
One move.
Sukuna’s and Yuji’s faces swim into his rounded scope of vision, and the spinning stops.
“Did I break you?” Sukuna asks, staring down at him with one carefully unimpressed, arched eyebrow.
“Sensei!” Yuji says urgently and shoves his hand into Satoru’s face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Satoru takes him by the wrist, says, “Five,” and then rotates his hand palm-up. “This way, four.”
“Smartass,” Sukuna mutters and backs away.
Satoru chases the emptied space by sitting up and groans. “I think you reset my spine.”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Sukuna asks, setting up for a punchline. “I double as a chiropractor for unassuming assholes. What was that about going easy on me?”
Satoru nods. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Maybe you should double as our new instructor,” Nobara says from the sidelines, judgy and snippy the way she is. “Our current one sucks.”
“Spare me,” Satoru says. “I’m in enough pain as it is.” He gets back to his feet steadily, arching his back with his hands on his hips. As he straightens up, he lifts one arm, index finger pointed, and rolls his wrist at the ceiling. “Now wrap it up and go get changed, everyone.”
Slowly, the kids trickle into the changing rooms.
Sukuna stands in front of him, hip cocked and arms crossed over his chest, looking at him like he’s holding back a laugh.
“You understand I’m gonna need a rematch now?” Satoru asks him. “My dignity is on the line.”
Sukuna smiles. “I’m starting to think you just want me to beat you into dirt and don’t know how to ask,” he throws Satoru’s twisted words back at him.
“You won’t know until you try,” Satoru tells him.
“I’ll find out soon, then.”
✻✻✻
It’s raining buckets when Satoru opens the dojo’s front door after hours spent holed up in his office. The street is wet, puddled, and shining, with rain falling down like a water screen. The bleak, grey sky is like a balm for his eyes, but he’s not a fan of the cold that the downpour brought in. When he looks to the left, Sukuna’s got one foot out the door of his shop and a scowl on his face.
“Bitch of a weather,” he says, catches Satoru’s eyes, and eats up the distance between them in a couple of long strides.
“Did you have lunch yet?” He asks.
Satoru blinks. “It’s lunchtime?”
His university just posted some new research papers, and just because Satoru is no longer employed there doesn’t mean he won’t keep up with his former students’ progress. Or that he’s no longer curious and doesn’t want to involve himself anymore.
He might have lost some time reading them.
Sukuna does not seem impressed. He looks across the street, eyes tracking the ripples in puddles, and says, “Let’s go eat then.”
Forget the rain, it’s exploding sunshine and rainbows for Satoru after that statement.
“What?” He asks. “Oh, wait, are you taking me for a date?”
Sukuna snorts. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
The shoulders of his work T-shirt are wet, the material turning borderline transparent, and Satoru fixates on the black lines of ink disappearing into the collar from the back of his neck, the circular smears on the meat of his shoulder, and dark silhouettes traveling down his chest.
“Is it called getting ahead of yourself if you’re right?” Satoru asks, mostly to distract himself from thinking about tearing that shirt off thread by thread. With his teeth.
“Is it called having a big head if you think every invitation for socializing is a romantic advance?” Sukuna fires back.
Satoru fishes his apartment keys from the pocket of his jeans – he’s not in his gi outside of the classes, he gets cold easily, okay? – and turns to unlock the door with Sukuna at his side.
As the lock clicks, he gives Sukuna a scandalized expression. “How do you know my head is big? You haven’t even seen me naked yet.”
Sukuna’s expression turns pained. “And the more you talk, the less I want to.”
“Aw,” Satoru whines. He opens the door and motions for Sukuna to get in first.
He leans in to inspect the – perfectly lit – stairwell leading up to Satoru’s apartment, then asks, “Is this the part where I start fearing for my life?”
“Please,” Satoru tells him. “Every good serial murderer knows not to kill their victims in their own house.”
Sukuna makes a huffy little sound that’s neither a snort nor a laugh, and starts walking. His white pants cling to his ass perfectly, and yeah, okay, maybe Satoru could put some brighter lightbulbs in the stairwell. For safety and all that, of course.
“The door’s unlocked,” Satoru says when they reach the top, and then, just like in a dream he had three nights ago, Sukuna is in his apartment.
The building is old-ish. Satoru knew that when he bought the place. It’s still got tatami mats in place of a hardwood floor – though Satoru plans to change that, at least in the kitchen and the hallways. But he likes the feel of it, the lack of unnecessarily smart appliances and too-bright overhead lights, loves the warmth and coziness of random creaking noises, opposed to the clinical, industrial quiet of quality insulation and modern engineering.
They take off their shoes in the genkan, and then Satoru leads them to the kitchen. He doesn’t have anything defrosted in the fridge – he had, after all, planned to eat whatever Uraume decided to grace him with today – so when Sukuna opens the freezer, Satoru steadily avoids his judgmental gaze like a guilty dog after eating the couch cushions.
“This is fucking sad,” Sukuna grumbles, digging through the frozen lumps of meat that Satoru doesn’t have the time or the skill to cook. “You didn’t eat anything that I sold you.”
“That’s not true!” Satoru protests. “I cooked that…lamb part. It was fine. A little chewy.”
Sukuna stares at him. “I don’t even want to know what you did with it. Do you even have any food?”
“I have potatoes. And some vegetables,” Satoru says. After a moment, “And instant ramen.”
Sukuna closes the freezer with a disgusted scowl, says, “Wait here and start peeling those potatoes,” and stomps out of the apartment.
Satoru hurries to the living room window, halfway expecting to see Sukuna sauntering down the street regardless of the rain and leaving him to his own devices. He doesn’t, though he can’t see down their own street without opening the window, and he’d rather not let the rain in. As the seconds tick by, he rises and goes to peel the potatoes.
Less than ten minutes later, Sukuna is back. He’s got a transparent bag from the butcher’s shop in one hand, and Satoru watches him take out two paper-wrapped steaks, a chunk of butter, and an assortment of spices.
He makes a quip about being able to offer his own salt and pepper, and gets thrown out of his own kitchen. There’s a first time for everything, he supposes.
Sukuna is faster at peeling than he is. He cuts the potatoes into small cubes and puts them in a pot of water to cook, and then he marinates the steaks, methodical and efficient in every move, but there is an undercurrent of satisfaction and pleasure in his expression. He has the air of confidence that no one should have in a stranger’s kitchen. It’s horribly attractive.
“Is this gonna be one of those marry-me recipes?” Satoru asks from the table where he’s been banished. “You seem pretty practiced.”
“You implying I make a lot of marry-me meals?”
“Well,” Satoru starts, his cheek resting on his fist. “I was just giving you a compliment, but if the answer is yes, I might get a bit jealous.”
Sukuna doesn’t quite face him, but Satoru sees him roll his eyes. He checks the potatoes, puts a lid on them, and then leans back against the kitchen counter with some newfound determination in the line of his shoulders.
His eyes focus on Satoru like a sniper’s rifle, arms crossed. He seems startlingly serious in a way that Satoru didn’t expect today. He finds himself blindsided, even more so when Sukuna says, “This is fun, but I’m not interested in games.”
Satoru gapes. “Hah?”
Sukuna’s brows furrow. He looks away, to the mug of half-drank tea from last night that Satoru made for his video call with Suguru and Shoko and didn’t finish by the time they all bid each other goodnight. Satoru watches him swallow, then meets his eyes when he turns to look at him again.
“I don’t do hookups, and I won’t entertain sexual advances,” Sukuna says.
Satoru understands and recalls Sukuna’s words from earlier. “And romantic?”
Sukuna holds eye contact, and his arms fall to his sides just for one hand to reach for the countertop that Satoru has yet to replace, index finger drumming a slow rhythm against the surface, his expression almost blank. Something in his eyes is hopeful and desperate. The line of his mouth is resigned.
Satoru gets the sense that Sukuna wants that, romance and love, and has for a long while. He just never got it so far.
His mouth is dry, and, suddenly, he feels off-balance. This is not what he signed up for, but–
“I really fucking like you,” he says, too fast as Sukuna continues to stare at him. “I mean– You’re hot. And you’ve got bite. That’s hot too.”
“I’m an asshole,” Sukuna says.
“Yeah,” Satoru breathes out, delighted. “Me too.”
Sukuna’s expression unfolds, the tightness of his jaw slackening. Nothing major changes in his posture, but Satoru feels him melting against the counterspace, the sharp edges of his body disappearing.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Satoru tells him. “I want to sleep with you. But I want to take you on a date too.”
Sukuna hums.
“Can I?” Satoru asks, hopeful as all hell.
Sukuna turns to the stove and says, “Maybe.”
Satoru grins.
“Can I come back in the kitchen?”
“If you don’t breathe.”
Satoru inhales very loudly, and shuffles in close, their shoulders touching. He exhales when Sukuna elbows him with a huff, and when they finally sit down to eat, it’s with their feet touching beneath the table.
✻✻✻
Sukuna comes into the dojo as Satoru is locking up his office, the mats put away against the wall, and all of his students already gone.
“Ah, Yuji left already,” he calls over his shoulder, jamming his toes against the bottom of the door to make the lock click.
“I know, he texted that I don’t need to drive him home,” Sukuna responds, bending down to unlace his boots.
“Oh,” says Satoru, a little bit lost. He’s pretty sure he didn’t forget anything.
Sukuna catches the look on his face, snorts, and says, “I’m here for that rematch.”
“Now that there’s no audience?” Satoru whines, but goes for the mats anyway.
Sukuna arches a brow at him. “What, you want to embarrass yourself twice?”
“Who said I’m gonna embarrass myself?” Satoru asks, grateful that he was lazy enough to wear sweatpants today. His jeans are not made for sparring. “Today, I’ll take my revenge.”
Sukuna scoffs. “We’ll see about that.”
He helps Satoru with the mats, two side by side in the middle of the room.
They face each other, and drop down into their stances. Sukuna holds himself looser, knees bent, shoulders relaxed. Satoru holds himself the way he’s been taught, the way his instructor would nod at in approval.
He can’t tell which one of them moves first, but at once, Sukuna is right there in his face, deliciously too close, too fast. Satoru twists in the last moment to avoid a wrist grab that put him on his ass the last time, and swipes at Sukuna’s ankle while he’s still in motion. It doesn’t quite work, and Sukuna grins at him, coming in low. He keeps trying to close the distance between them, where others would try to stay away, wary of Satoru’s long arms and legs.
Sukuna strikes, Satoru blocks, deflects, retaliates, and both of them are laughing in a way that’s probably borderline deranged.
Satoru twists Sukuna’s arm at the elbow behind his back, but doesn’t have the chance to do anything more before Sukuna rears his head back and almost head-butts him.
They’ve exchanged a few teasing jabs to shoulders or ribs, but neither of them has landed a single solid hit by the time they start getting winded. Satoru registers fatigue when it’s already at his fingertips, the adrenaline glazed over it like powdered sugar.
It’s like that steak Sukuna cooked for him. Satoru didn’t notice the chili at first, salivating at the richness in flavour and juiciness before the spice hit him like a freight train.
He had to drink a glass of milk after eating it, his throat burning and eyes watering. It was still the best steak he had in his life.
“Hey,” he says, suddenly curious, and because he was too busy choking down air back then to ask. “Did you go to culinary school?”
“What?” Sukuna asks, his fist sliding against Satoru’s forearm. “No. I studied history.”
“You what?” Satoru asks right back.
Sukuna smiles at him slyly. “I’m a historian, technically.”
“Oh my god,” Satoru says. “You’re a history buff.”
“Physics twink,” Sukuna jeers.
“Excuse you, that’s a nuclear physics twunk to you, if anything,” Satoru responds, fighting down a grin.
He’s leaner than Sukuna, but he’s also taller. His hand, when it wraps around one of Sukuna’s fists, covers it almost completely. Sukuna pulls him in, hooks his foot around the back of Satoru’s calf, and shoves him down. Satoru grabs him by the forearm, one arm wrapped around his neck, twists them mid-air.
The smack of Sukuna’s back against the mat is satisfying, but the grunt that leaves him when Satoru flips him on his front and straddles his hips with one arm pinned tightly against his spine is even better. He’s hot everywhere they touch, and Satoru keeps himself from grinding his crotch against Sukuna’s ass by sheer force of will.
Sukuna’s fingers uncurl, then curl to press against his palm again, his tendons shifting beneath Satoru’s grip on his wrist.
They just breathe harshly in the silence for a moment, Sukuna sprawled on the blue mats, one arm reaching out, and Satoru sitting on top of him, his thighs against Sukuna's hips.
Boldly, Satoru reaches up to hook the tip of his index finger into the collar of Sukuna's shirt. The ink looks lovely against the flushed skin of his nape.
“You know, I'm very tempted to check how far down the ink goes,” he says conversationally. Casually. Just putting it out there for Sukuna to get hot and bothered thinking about it later.
Instead, he can hear Sukuna swallow, and the way his throat clicks before he says, “No one’s stopping you.”
“Oh?” Satoru bites his bottom lip, brushing his finger against the jut of Sukuna's vertebrae. “Don't mind if I do, then.”
He pulls at the collar, exposing black, rigid lines that frame his nape, and leans down. Sukuna's fingers clutch at the front of his shirt when his mouth comes into contact with Sukuna's skin, damp and vaguely salty from sweat. Satoru hears his sharp inhale, and feels him relax into the mats, boneless and shuddering when Satoru scrapes his teeth against his spine. It gives him a bit of a headrush, he admits. He knows what kind of coffee Sukuna likes (white, no sugar, a bit of cardamom that he stirs in himself because no one ever gets the measure right), and that he eats his steaks bloody, and now he knows what his skin tastes like, how his ribcage expands and contracts under quiet gasps as Satoru lays kisses on the exposed skin of his shoulders.
“You’re still checking the ink?” Sukuna asks, aiming for sassy, but it’s a bit too breathless to land.
“Uh-huh,” Satoru confirms into the crook of his neck. His mouth makes a wet smacking noise as it separates from the skin. “Call me insane, but I swear you have more tattoos…everywhere.”
Slowly, Sukuna turns his head – and frowns. “Take your stupid sunglasses off.”
“Ah,” Satoru says, and tosses them on the tatami mats safely out of reach. Everything is suddenly brighter, but Satoru keeps all the lights warm and yellow, and it’s not the lights that he’ll be looking at for a while anyway.
He rocks his hips against Sukuna’s ass, just a little, indulgently. Sukuna makes a noise in his throat, twitching, and tugs his arm out of Satoru’s hold. Satoru lets him – because while he likes the control and pushing around big, buff guys, he’s not into forcing people to do something they don’t want to.
But Sukuna doesn’t buck him off, simply shuffles to his knees and pulls his shirt over his head. Satoru is eager to follow his example, then go a step further and take the liberty to unbuckle and unzip Sukuna’s loose jeans. He’s already hard when Satoru gets his spit-wet hand around him – and Satoru can’t even tease him about it because he’s not any better – and jerks his hips into Satoru’s fist with a groan.
Satoru pushes him back down with his free hand, and smashes his face against Sukuna’s neck to kiss hickeys and pink love bites into his skin while jerking him off. Sukuna exposes his neck to him in offering, because he’s perfect, grunting out commands of “Fuck, tighter,” and, “Faster,” and Satoru throbs inside his sweatpants. He’s lightheaded under the rush of pleasure that having Sukuna like this gives him, all of his confidence and pride and trust thrumming against him like a pulse.
He stays bent over Sukuna until his body protests and Sukuna’s breathing picks up, and then takes his hand off like an asshole, straightening out to say, “Fuck, let’s change position.”
“Now?” Sukuna spits out, twisting to face him.
“I’m 2 meters tall and I have back issues, jackass,” Satoru tells him without any bite, and it’s enough to get Sukuna to accept his hand as they get to their feet. His jeans fall to his knees, and he shucks them the rest of the way off, then his underwear, and Satoru does the same before leading him to the rest of the mats stacked against the corner of the room.
He pushes Sukuna down, and feels his pupils expand at the stretches of tattooed skin there for him to feast on. There are thick black bands around his ankles and thighs, and Satoru digs his thumbs into the supple flesh of Sukuna’s inner thighs when he kneels between his spread legs.
“How’s this any fucking better?” Sukuna hisses at him.
“At least I get to see your pretty face,” Satoru coos, grinning as Sukuna snorts at him dismissively. He gets in close and snug, crotch to Sukuna’s ass, and shamelessly humps him like a dog for a few moments before the friction starts to burn.
“Fuck, uh, we need lube,” he says.
“You have it here?” Sukuna asks him with an arched brow, impressively expectant with the blush on his face.
“Upstairs,” Satoru says mournfully.
Sukuna hitches his legs around Satoru’s hips and digs his heels into Satoru’s ass. “Then fucking make do without it.”
“Ow,” Satoru says, then nods. “Okay, yeah.”
He spits on his hand and reaches down between Sukuna’s legs. Sukuna huffs when Satoru’s knuckles brush his balls, swollen and heavy, and then lies down against the mats, exhaling through his nose as Satoru smears his wet palm against his hole. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Satoru didn’t lie when he said he’s got a pretty face, or that he wants to look at it, and he keeps his eyes on it even as he pulls one of Sukuna’s legs over his shoulder, index and middle fingers petting around his rim, teasing him with light pressure. Satoru presses his mouth to the bend of his knee, and Sukuna grunts at him when he tries to close his teeth around the thin skin there. Their eyes meet, and Satoru finally sinks in to the first knuckle, watching Sukuna’s eyes tightening at the intrusion. He’s so fucking hot, inside and outside, all velvety, wet heat, and hard muscles. Eyes like liquid fire, a blade heated to the point of searing.
And he’s letting Satoru touch him like this, beautifully pliant but nowhere near submissive.
Satoru stretches him steadily, adding a finger whenever Sukuna demands it, leaking precome like a faucet when Sukuna pulls his hand up and spits in it, saying, “Get to it before I go soft.”
His dick is hard and flushed red, resting heavily against his belly, and Satoru asks, smugly, “Soft because you’re about to come, you mean?”
He doesn’t let Sukuna respond, pressing inside with no warning except a prolonged press of his tip against Sukuna’s hole and a tightened grip around his hip and thigh as Satoru’s hips roll forward.
They both groan, Satoru moaning as stars spark off behind his eyelids. His dick was as good as neglected since they started this, and the pressure and heat around him are both a relief and torture. He pulls back, slowly, making sure they both feel it; the drag, the tightness, the fullness – and then pushes back in harder and faster. Sukuna hums in approval, gripping the edge of the mats.
Satoru tries to set a steady rhythm, rocking his hips back and forth like a metronome, pulling Sukuna into him, thinking how his fingers will bruise into brands on Sukuna’s skin, tight around his hip and dug deep into his thigh. And then his rhythm falters, snowballs, picking up speed and force. He thrusts in harshly, hips smacking against Sukuna’s ass, and Sukuna gasps, arms flying up to brace against the wall as his body slides, sweat-slick, against the smooth surface of the mat.
He meets Satoru’s eyes and laughs, somewhat startled, eyes wide and pleased. “Fuck,” he swears through glee. “Yeah, like that. Just like that.” Through faint, breathy giggles as Satoru pounds into him, “You’re so fucking red.”
Satoru knows, he can feel his own face burning like the surface of the sun. He knows he’s all blotchy and flushed, but it doesn’t matter when Sukuna is just as red, all over from the tips of his ears and all the way down to his belly button. His eyes are bright with arousal, eyelashes dark and thick, and his lips are bitten red, wet and shiny with spit. Satoru gets caught up in the black lines on his chin, beneath his eyes, and says, panting, “Ah– You know, I’m not done with your tattoos.”
Sukuna makes a questioning noise and nothing else as Satoru bends down and slots their mouths together. They kiss softly, then harder, teeth catching on lips and tongues swiping against each other. Sukuna bites his bottom lip, Satoru licks his teeth, then his chin and cheek, and bends down to bite the bulging swell of his biceps where his arm still strains against the wall and Satoru’s punishing pace. His teeth sink in deep, clenching until Sukuna makes a grunt of protest and swears at him, and then he moves back up to press an apology against his lips.
He lets Sukuna’s leg drop from his shoulder, hitches him more firmly into his lap, and Sukuna keens into his mouth, reaching down to fist his cock in time to Satoru’s thrusts against his prostate.
He’s clenching around Satoru, delicious and perfect, and Satoru kisses his cheek, once, twice, then over and over as his orgasm crashes over him. He’d feel bad about coming first if Sukuna wasn’t right there with him, groaning loudly and crushing Satoru’s waist between his thighs.
Breathless, Satoru sprawls over him, his face tucked against Sukuna’s shoulder, eyes lazy and unfocused on splotches of red blooming over Sukuna’s neck like rose petals.
Sukuna thumps him on the back. “You’re heavy.”
“Yeah,” Satoru agrees. Whatever Sukuna says.
He gets another smack, harder, and another before he groans and rises up to his elbows and knees. His dick slips out, softening, and Sukuna makes an expression of disgust. Evidently, neither of them thought about the mess.
“You’re helping me clean the mats,” Satoru tells him, as the first order of business.
Sukuna scoffs, but he’s amicable as Satoru shows him to the showers in the boys locker room, where they get sidetracked and make out lazily until the water starts getting cold.
After, clean and dressed and sated, they’re each scrubbing down their respective mats with disinfectant solution, when Sukuna says, “You really like me.”
Satoru, on his hands and knees and wiping come and sweat off a gym mat, turns to him and says, “I thought that was pretty obvious, honestly.”
Sukuna hums, apparently satisfied, and continues scrubbing.
✻✻✻
Satoru clips his seatbelt on and waits for Sukuna to stop cursing out the traffic as he easing onto the road before saying, “So, yeah, you’re coming to Tokyo with me for the summer holidays?”
“I’m not in school anymore and neither are you,” Sukuna grumps at him. “We don’t have summer holidays.”
Satoru rolls his eyes. “Summer vacation, then.”
“No,” Sukuna says immediately. Then, “Why?”
“So Suguru and Shoko can finally meet you.”
“We met,” Sukuna says with a frown.
“Over a phone,” Satoru says. “Which, by the way, doesn’t count as meeting someone.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Can I just meet your brother over the phone, then?”
“Uhm,” Yuji starts, shuffling forward to shove his face between their seats. “I think sensei is right. And why is sensei coming home with us?”
Satoru’s been waiting for this.
He twists in his seat as much as his seatbelt allows him, and beams, aiming for Suguru’s beatific smile, and probably landing somewhere closer to unhinged grin. “Because– your uncle and I are dating.”
Yuji, predictably, stares at him in abject horror.
“No,” he says, with feeling.
Sukuna doesn’t stop cackling for the rest of the drive, and when Satoru puts his hand over Sukuna’s over the gear shift, Yuji seems to seriously start contemplating throwing himself into traffic. He runs into the house like his pants are on fire as soon as Sukuna stops in the driveway.
When the door slams closed, Sukuna crowds him against the car and kisses him soundly.