Chapter Text
When Yuuji was on the cusp of adolescence, his mother was executed in the town square for high treason.
He’d grown up watching similar executions, his mother always bringing him along and forcing him to watch them, her fingers digging into his shoulder painfully whenever he tried to look away from the sight. He hated looking at it, watching people be killed in such brutal ways, their shrieks of pain drowning out in the murmurs of the crowd. People who watched the execution with interest, as if watching a spectacle rather than something so incredibly disturbing.
Mainly, he hated watching those executions because they were constant reminders of his mother’s inevitable fate.
Whenever his mother touched him, whenever she struck his face for slacking or dug her fingers into his skin as a warning for his disobedience, he would see an image of her final moments. Executed the same way she always liked to witness, the star of the show rather than a witness. Part of him wonders till this day if she knew that this is the fate she would meet, had taken Yuuji to watch all those executions so he would be prepared for the day that would come to pass. So he could witness her death with his head held high rather than bent in shame and fear.
Even if that was her plan, it hadn’t worked, because nothing could prepare Yuuji for the night the guards came by their house and dragged his mother out in her sleeping garments. His mother hadn’t resisted or claimed innocence, only waving goodbye to Yuuji and his grandfather, resignation etched on her face. She did not for a moment believe that her status as a master sculptor and artisan in Athens would spare her the punishment for her actions, knew that her end would come soon, and it would not be a peaceful one.
Later, it was revealed that his mother was convicted with high treason for constructing a temple in the name of a depraved God who’d fallen from grace. They refused to name the God, didn’t want to give weight to his name. No, they focused on the weight of her crime, claiming that she was conspiring against the Gods and Athens itself. She would be executed in the town square, for everyone to witness, a warning to anyone who dare disrespect the Gods.
It wasn’t by bloodless crucifixion as per the usual, a penalty that was considered too painful for a woman to endure, while poison by hemlock seemed too merciful. Eventually, they settled on death by the guillotine.
Yuuji knew this, of course, this moment having played out in his head many times before over the course of his life. And yet, when the day came to pass, he didn’t know how to accept it. He hated himself for this wretched ability that could do nothing but foresee tragedies but had no ability to change them. He was wrought with guilt because he was bearing witness to the death of his own mother, but he could not bring himself to shed a single tear for her, having never known the warmth of her love throughout his entire life.
And as her head met with the wooden plank, everyone watching with bated breath and thinly-veiled excitement, she surveyed the entire crowd and her eyes lingered on Yuuji before a smile curled across her lips. It was the first flicker of emotion he’d ever seen on her face, and it wasn’t fear, but contentment. The pressure on his shoulder from his grandfather’s grip increased, enough to bruise.
“One day, the God, Ryomen Sukuna, will return from the ashes and he will raze this world to the ground,” his mother said, her eyes lighting up with a spark, “and it is my greatest pride that I played a part in his resurrection.”
Whispers erupted around Yuuji, but he paid them no mind, confusion welling in his chest. He didn’t understand the tug the name elicited in his chest, the heavy weight of discomfort that he felt. It had been the first time he heard the name being mentioned, yet he knew deep down that he knew it from elsewhere, that there was significance in his mother’s final words. Her statement, however, was punctuated with the heavy fall of the blade and her head rolling.
Yuuji hadn’t cried when his mother died, but he did lose consciousness, burying the memory for years to come.
Sometimes, Yuuji feels as if he’s losing his mind.
He exists in a plane where unwanted memories, prophecies and nightmares converge together to form one single entity that eclipses his reality. They overwhelm him, washing over him, confusing him. He gets lost in his own mind, he doesn’t know where he ends and where the moments stolen in time begin. Who is he? Does he exist as his own person or is he merely an extension of a past life, a vessel that serves as Sukuna’s medium, his partner?
These questions continue to haunt him, doesn’t ask Sukuna because he doesn’t want him to think he’s crazy. He is crazy — but Sukuna looks at him as if he hung the stars in the sky, as if he is his reason for existence —and Yuuji doesn’t want him to start looking at him any differently. Sukuna is ambivalent, moody. What happens when he decides that Yuuji isn’t the one that he wants?
Then there’s the matter of the nightmares.
Fragmented moments of his mother’s head rolling on the floor by his feet, telling him that she never loved him, that he was nothing more than a tool for her to use and discard. The boys from his village calling him a monster, sensing his otherness, shunning him for it because he will never be like them. His grandfather on his deathbed, leaving Yuuji all alone, to live and die all by himself, unloved and unwanted.
‘Nightmares turn into specters, very real and impossible to banish once they’ve taken form. Be cautious and beware, don’t fall victim to your subconscious.’
Other nights, the night of Mahito’s attack replays time and time again each time he shuts his eyes. He sees him, can feel his lecherous touch on his skin, the way he tried to force himself on him. He remembers the despair he felt when he stained Sukuna’s pristine statue red with his own blood, when the statue he poured his blood, sweat, and tears into crumbled before his eyes, Sukuna emerging from it like a monster in one of the myths.
‘Yuuji, stay with me, I refuse to lose you a second time. I came back just for you.’
He dreams of the Underworld, its misery without a speck of sunlight to be seen, dank and devoid of any hope, and he feels as if he’s dead again. Dead, left to roam those dark tortuous paths of the Underworld for an eternity, never to see Sukuna again.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Yuuji wakes up, drawing in a sharp breath, Sukuna’s hands framing his face like he’s prone to doing. His chest rises and falls, trying to catch his breath, batting away the tears that cling to his lashes. Sukuna holds him, and he wishes he wouldn’t, hates the images that eclipse his tired mind of things he doesn’t want to see.
And that’s the main problem, really. The way Sukuna insists upon touching Yuuji whenever he can, forcing him to remember things that he hadn’t even realized that he’d buried. Fragments of his childhood, his past life, of Sukuna’s long years of immortality keep cropping up with each touch. The nightmares must be because Sukuna insists on sharing a bed with him.
“It’s just a nightmare,” Sukuna says, carding his fingers through Yuuji’s hair, “I am here, Yuuji.”
Everything was easier when Sukuna was nothing more than a lifeless statue, an item he could project his whimsical fantasies onto without being subjected to the slew of memories and emotions he doesn’t want nor need. Regardless, Yuuji can’t bring himself to blame Sukuna or push him away, not even when another unwanted memory washes over him. This time, he is in a field of flowers, being approached by the War God. Imposing, frightening, his chiton coated with blood that doesn’t belong to him. And yet, he is not afraid.
‘Are you the War God, Ryomen Sukuna?’
‘Yes. You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it is not safe here. This is a warzone.’
‘I am strong. I can hold my own, but I thank you for your concern.’
‘And you are?’
‘Itadori Yuuji, the son of Jin, the Sun God.’
‘You know who I am, Itadori Yuuji, know of the destruction that follows me wherever I go, yet you are unafraid?’
‘I am unafraid because I know you shall not hurt me.’
‘Why so bold?’
‘Because I know that we are meant to be, Sukuna, and I have been waiting for you for a very long time.’
Yuuji’s eyes blink open — finds himself still in his bed, drenched with his own sweat and tears — with Sukuna’s hands still framing his face. His heart aches for a love that doesn’t belong to him, knowing how the story can only ever end with tragedy. He came back, yes, but what does it matter when he continues to be plagued by memories that don’t belong to him? Even worse, what will happen to him once he regains all the memories of his past life? Will the previous Yuuji take over, taking claim of his long lost lover, Sukuna replacing him in a heartbeat for the boy he loved so much? Will Yuuji simply disappear then?
Will Sukuna even care if Yuuji, as he is now, disappears when he has his lover to hold instead?
“I fear that I am losing my mind.” Yuuji cries, burying his face in Sukuna’s chest. He is losing his mind, but mainly, he is scared. Scared of what will happen when Sukuna realizes everything, when Yuuji loses the last shreds of himself.
“You are not,” Sukuna says, bringing him closer so he can listen to the steady beat of his immortal heart. “Your dreams are just that, they can’t hurt you.”
Except that’s not true. Yuuji’s dreams are real, incredibly so, and they all tell him one thing. That whatever cocoon of happiness he’s formed for himself by Sukuna’s side is not for someone broken like him to have, belonging to someone who no longer exists.
“I told you, Uraume, that I am not going anywhere,” Yuuji hears Sukuna say, his voice filtering in from the garden through the window. “I am not leaving his side until he has fully recovered.”
Yuuji shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but he’s curious. He hasn’t seen Uraume since the incident, the statue having crumbled, so he’d exhausted his usefulness. He knows that this isn’t the first time that Uraume has stopped by the house, insistent on taking their role of serving Sukuna as his right hand, but Sukuna continues to shut the door in their face time and time again.
“But, my lord, with all due respect, we are already on the cusp of war. Your return was the catalyst and it shan’t die down because you refuse to fight,” Uraume replies stubbornly. “We will need you on the front lines to lead us into victory, to show the true might of Athens against the Romans —”
A war is brewing, Yuuji thinks, because Sukuna has returned from his purgatory.
Now that he properly knows how his mother died, why she’d died, it forces him to put things into perspective.
What if everything had been preordained? What if his mother was grooming him all along to take on a certain role so he could bring Sukuna back? Was Uraume in on it, too? Didn’t they say that they had commissioned his mother to build Sukuna’s temple, the very temple that had her executed for high treason? What would have become of him if the authorities had found out of him sculpting Sukuna’s statue? Would he have met a similar fate to his mother or was he protected by forces he has no knowledge of? Is he nothing more than a pawn on a chess board?
There are so many questions that he has no idea how to answer.
“I have no care for the war you speak of,” Sukuna says, “the only reason I have not taken your head for your insolence, Uraume, is because of the role you have played in returning me back to Godhood. However, if you continue to test my benevolence, you shall sorely regret it. I shall play my part how and when I see fit. Leave now and do not return if you do not wish to face my wrath.”
“My lord, I apologize if I have offended you —”
The door slams before Uraume can continue whatever they were saying, Sukuna’s heavy footsteps falling against the floorboards until he finds Yuuji seated by the table. The anger that Sukuna carries sloughs off him as he takes Yuuji in, fondness taking its place as he cups Yuuji’s face with his large hands that frames his entire face. His hands are warm, an image of Sukuna’s lips meeting his own in a field of flowers eclipses his mind, feeling so real that his lips tingle as if it actually happened.
He swallows, reminding himself that it never happened. That Sukuna would never touch him that way, hasn’t done anything more than clasp his hands in his own or touch his face. Sukuna must favor the old version of him, the one he’d wager a war with the Gods and spend centuries suffering in endless purgatory over.
“You are all I need, Yuuji,” Sukuna says, pressing his forehead against Yuuji’s.
Yuuji doesn’t know how to respond to that, squirming in discomfort as the memories of his past life keep washing over him. He feels like a voyeur, like he’s watching something he shouldn’t, stealing something he should have no privilege of having.
“Is there a war happening?” Yuuji asks instead, deflecting.
“You overheard?” Sukuna muses.
“Yes. There’s been talk of it around the town, even before your… return.”
“Wherever I am, war and violence is an inevitability,” Sukuna says, letting his hands drop from Yuuji’s face, placing distance between them as he seats himself on the chair beside him. Yuuji hates being touched, but the loss of Sukuna’s touch renders him unmoored, cold as if he’d been doused by a bucket of ice cold water. “As a God of War, everything I touch turns to ash, everywhere I go, destruction will surely follow. But I have no wish to partake in it. I need only remain by your side.”
Sukuna doesn’t look sad as he says this, but pensive, a flicker of regret stealing across his face for only a moment. Yuuji considers him, his heart aching acutely in his chest.
“I do not wish to keep you chained by my side,” Yuuji whispers, refusing to be the one who holds Sukuna back from pursuing his own innate nature. “I can take care of myself, I always have.”
And it’s true. His mother rarely did much parenting, too busy raising a sculptor rather than a son. His grandfather was better, cared more than his mother, but he was rough around the edges. Kindness and affection didn’t come to him naturally. To a man like him, illness and injury was a sign of weakness, one that should be overcome through sheer force of will. If he saw Yuuji like this, wallowing in his bed for weeks on end because of a stab wound, he would have slapped him across the face for being lazy and spoiled.
To have a God like Sukuna care for him like this, changing his bandages and sharing a bed with him, borders on blasphemy.
“Nonsense,” Sukuna says, his eyes sharp. “I shall take care of you, and with all the power that I hold, I shall make sure that you never hurt again.”
Yuuji wonders how much of this is because of his promise to him, and how much of this is because Sukuna once lost him due to a war, if his fealty and fear are mixing together into one intangible mess. He doesn’t want to be a curse to Sukuna, to be the person who chains him down.
And yet, part of him is happy with the attention. Wants to hold onto it, cherish it, doesn’t know what will happen once Sukuna exits his life the same way everyone else always does.
“And what happens when I recover?” Yuuji asks, closing his eyes. “Will you leave?”
“No.” Sukuna shakes his head, dismissing all of his worries with one simple word, taking Yuuji’s hand in his. His hand engulfs his own, his warmth bleeding into the palm of his hand. “I will make you make mine.”
Color floods Yuuji’s cheeks, knots tying in the base of his stomach. He doesn’t know what that entails, but the idea of becoming totally Sukuna’s when he never had anything to offer anyone before but his artisan skills, makes his heart flutter with something foreign and light. His lips tilt upwards, forming a smile, fingers tightening around Sukuna’s.
“Then I shall look forward to that day.”
It’s only until much later does Yuuji realize that Sukuna held his hand, but for the first time, he didn’t see anything at all when touched. Rather, he’d only seen Sukuna himself, his whole world eclipsed by him.
Navigating his life around a live, breathing Sukuna is more difficult than Yuuji would have predicted.
The Sukuna he fell in love with is a statue, one that was inanimate, that’s the version of him who he knows. This Sukuna still feels like a stranger, someone he knows only through dreams and memories, yet he can’t bring himself to push him away. Not when Sukuna refuses to leave his space, a constant presence in the cramped space of his humble home, always hovering over Yuuji. So big, much bigger than any human that Yuuji knows, so he’s constantly bumping into walls and the ceiling of his small house, making it seem even smaller than it already is. Sukuna will always grumble, making Yuuji feel self-conscious because Sukuna is probably used to the grandeur of Mount Olympus, so his small, humble home is probably incredibly underwhelming to a God like him.
He also makes Yuuji feel nervous when he insists upon resting next to him on his bed, taking up the entire bed, pressing Yuuji against the wall with how big his body is. His body will be as hot as a furnace, swathing Yuuji with his heat, not giving any care to how so much physical touch affects Yuuji with memories of Sukuna being intimate with his past self washing over him. A reminder that Sukuna is no gentleman regardless of how chivalrous he’s been acting around him as of late. Every morning, Yuuji wakes up to a problem in his pants that he has to take care of, like he’s back to his adolescent years.
“Your face is flushed,” Sukuna tells him when he emerges one morning after he’d just taken care of his business, pressing the palm of his hand to his forehead. “Are you feeling feverish? Yuki warned me that mortals catch sickness easily after near death situations.”
The touch has Yuuji flinching, a visual of himself getting pinned down to a bed much nicer than his own as Sukuna’s much larger body takes him against it overwhelms him, shaking his head as he brushes Sukuna’s hand away from his skin. He doesn’t need that visual right now, the phantom warmth of Sukuna’s hands wrapping around his hips, his hole gnawing with emptiness at a lack of his large cock to fuck him full, will give him away in front of Sukuna. His stomach knots together, cloying with arousal he can’t even deny, part of him wishing that Sukuna could touch him more.
Oh no, he has to stop the train of thought before it’s too late.
“I am fine,” Yuuji lies, his voice uncharacteristically high. “I am on the mend now.”
“Hmm,” Sukuna says, his four eyes assessing Yuuji critically, as if he’s trying to read through him. “You are flustered.”
“I am not.” Yuuji shakes his head, panic swelling in his chest. “It’s simply a warm day of summer.”
Sukuna leans in, impossibly close as his hands wrap around Yuuji’s arms, burying his nose in the crook of his throat and taking in a deep inhale. Yuuji freezes, clamping his teeth down on his bottom lip lest he let out an embarrassing sound.
For as much as he hates touch, Yuuji would be lying if he said that Sukuna’s touch wasn’t maddeningly addictive. Starved for his touch, wishing he would touch him more and more, touch him everywhere.
“I can smell your arousal, Yuuji, ” Sukuna breathes the words against Yuuji’s throat, drawing out his name, rolling it over his tongue languidly. “And it smells so sweet.”
Yuuji freezes, mortification and desire swirling into one, watching as Sukuna pulls away from him slowly. His red eyes are hooded, watching Yuuji with interest as he brushes a finger underneath his chin. Yuuji, stupid boy that he is, leans into the touch.
“Part of me feared that your love for me was only pious in nature,” Sukuna admits, lips tilting upwards into a smirk. “I assumed that you could only ever love and crave the statue but not the God, but I can see that is not quite the case.”
The words hit Yuuji like a slap to the face, shame curling in his chest. He wants to protest, but there are no words that can be said, because they would all be lies.
Sukuna pats his cheek lightly. “Heal up quickly, Yuuji, because once you do, I will be sure to take you in so many ways that you will be bedridden for a whole week.”
The promise leaves Yuuji shivering, hard and craving, lamenting the hole in his gut for not healing fast enough.
Yuuji finally starts to feel well enough to leave his bed and revisit his garden. Sukuna has been the main one tending to his beloved garden because he’d been too unwell to do much more than leave his bed to use the bathroom or cook something, because Gods forbid Sukuna used his kitchen, everything he made bordered on diabolical.
His flowers are wilting, not quite as sharp as they tend to be under his care, but a touch of his fingers to the petals has them looking brighter. Rejuvenated, blooming underneath his fingertips and the sunlight shining overhead. Yuuji smiles, wondering how he hadn’t realized earlier that he had divine blood coursing through his veins.
Well, it’s not like he had anyone to tell him, he scoffs.
“I will come back soon,” Yuuji promises his flowers, watering them before he takes his leave. “And I’ll nurse you all back to health when I do.”
It might be his imagination that the flowers seem to preen at the promise, but he laughs all the same.
Yuuji casts a look towards the house, where Sukuna is still resting. Gods don’t sleep, but they do rest periodically, and Yuuji takes advantage of the moment to go for a walk into town. He knows that Sukuna will be livid to find him gone while he’s still recovering, but Yuuji misses the sunlight and the world outside his tiny little home.
For as much as Yuuji wants to reject his nature, to reject his father who conspired against him and Sukuna for his own selfish gains, he simply can’t bring himself to hate the sun. The sun is where he thrives, where the dark thoughts that have been creeping up on him for weeks are finally put to rest, the memories and nightmares that haunt him feeling so inconsequential under the sun’s gentle embrace.
Yuuji is the son of the Sun God, and while he detests the father who birthed him, he can’t hate the blessings he’s given him. The sun’s warmth, deflecting away everything bad. His penchant for art and sculpting. Even his green thumb for flowers. Above all, it is only thanks to his father that he was allowed a second chance at life, a second chance at love with Sukuna.
He has much to be thankful for, truly.
Perhaps, that is why Yuuji finds himself in front of Sukuna’s temple, habit carrying him down the winding roads to the place he spent so much time in. More than his own home at some point, having spent the past years doing nothing but sculpt and carve, day in and day out, to create the perfect statue.
A kind of devotion in and of itself.
Yuuji takes a deep breath, stepping inside. It is the same temple that he used to go to everyday, but it feels different now. It’s not the addition of the smeared blood on the floor, the stone and rubble scattered by the centerpiece to indicate a broken statue. The air itself feels empty, lacking the intensity that Yuuji came to expect whenever walking into this temple, an indicator of Sukuna’s Godly presence within the temple walls.
Now, however, the temple is vacant and a broken mirage of a place he once found so comforting.
Yuuji steps around the large stain of dried blood where Mahito died, finding the centerpiece, leaning down before the jagged ends of the broken statue he spent so long painstakingly putting together. It hurts to see his own blood on the fine marble, his own craftsmanship lying in pieces at his feet, picking up each stray piece of stone as if it’s a part of himself.
He bends over, picking up a piece of stone from Sukuna’s face, the carving of the eye familiar underneath his calloused fingertips. How many times had he caressed this stone with his fingers, a gentle caress the same way he would have held a lover? He’d been so attached to this statue, so afraid of what Uraume would do once he’d completed the statue, never once considering how he’d feel once it was taken from him.
Losing this statue had filled him with despair, as if he’d lost a part of himself. Rationally, he knows now that losing the statue offered him something much greater, but there is still that small piece of him that mourns. A loss that struck him deeper than even that of his own mother and grandfather.
“So this is where you were,” Yuuji hears, making him jolt in alarm, hands tightening around the slab of marble in his hands. “I assumed you would come here when I didn’t find you in the house or the garden outside.”
Yuuji turns around, facing Sukuna who is standing in the entryway of the temple, looking completely indifferent to the grandeur and splendor of the temple that had been built especially for him. He smiles, but it feels stiff and brittle on his face, like it could crack with the slightest amount of pressure.
He should have known there was no escaping a God’s watchful eye.
“There are not many places where the village’s pariah can freely go without being judged or mocked,” Yuuji says softly, “this is one of the only places where I could feel safe, accepted even.” That is, until Mahito came and violated the sanctity of this place, leaving his ugly presence behind long after he’d died.
“You don’t need the temple for safety and acceptance when you have me by your side.” Sukuna frowns, crossing his arms over his chest.
“That is true,” Yuuji says carefully, fingers brushing over the jagged edges of the marble stone in his lap. “May I speak plainly without raising your ire?”
Sukuna nods, walking forward to sit by Yuuji’s side, uncaring of the dried blood and rubble that surrounds them. He waits for Yuuji to put his thoughts together, doesn’t rush him, a distant look in his eyes as he contemplates the remains of the statue in front of him.
“The version of me that you love no longer exists, even if we share the same face and love for flowers, he exists only in memory,” Yuuji finally says, “he was beautiful, a warrior, and a poet. I am no warrior, nor am I a poet, I am nothing but a humble sculptor.
“I wish I could fill the void for you, that I could become the man you so desperately want me to be because you lost so much for his sake, but I don’t think I ever will,” Yuuji continues. “In that same vein, I built a statue in your likeness, and learned to love it like I loved no other, and the pain of losing it is so great that my heart continues to ache despite rationally knowing that you remain by my side.”
“Why are you saying all this now?” Sukuna prompts, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Because I’m better now,” Yuuji whispers, “and I don’t want you to make me yours if you’re only holding onto a mirage that doesn’t exist.”
Sukuna takes the slab of stone from Yuuji’s hands, putting it down on the floor between them, clasping Yuuji’s hands with his own. No memories eclipse his sight this time, can only see Sukuna and the intensity of his gaze, daring him to balk under its weight.
But Yuuji refuses to do so, tilting his head to meet Sukuna’s gaze despite the ache in his heart. He needs to be strong, ready for the inevitability of Sukuna leaving him.
“Do you truly think that my love for you is so shallow that I would attach myself to any image in the likeness of my past lover?” Sukuna asks, his voice low and dangerous.
Yuuji blinks, taken aback by the question, hands twitching in Sukuna’s.
“Did you think that the years spent where you sculpted my statue, molding it with your hands and speaking to me each day with the same tenderness you would a lover, were lost on me?”
“I just, I thought that you didn’t —”
“You insult me, Yuuji. You seem to have taken my kindness for foolishness. I heard everything,” Sukuna says, eyes flashing. “I saw everything, too. I know everything about you, Itadori Yuuji. I know about the loneliness you carry, deeper than an ocean. I know of your complex feelings towards sculpting, that you only grew to love it when sculpting my own statue. I know that your love towards me, or at least, towards the statue you built in my image, is so vast that you fear it.”
Sukuna snaps his fingers, an array of flower garlands that Yuuji weaved together appearing between them —almond flowers, red roses, and yarrows intricately knotted together and fresh as the day he plucked them. Every single garland that he’d ever woven for Sukuna is right here in front of him, immortalized by the touch of a God. A gasp falls from Yuuji’s lips, eyes stinging at the realization that his tributes hadn’t been stolen or taken by Mahito or anyone else, but they’d been accepted by Sukuna himself.
Sukuna takes the first garland that Yuuji had woven for him — the one made of red roses and almond flowers, a symbol of love that can’t be conquered by death —and places it atop his own head. He looks radiant, beautiful, and most of all, he is his.
How could he have been so stupid? So blind? So as to not realize that the one he loves has been in front of him this entire time?
“Don’t you see, Yuuji?” Sukuna says. “You are the only version that I love, and I will never let you go no matter how hard you attempt to push me away. You belong to me, and if you think I will let you walk away because of your platitudes about what I do and do not deserve, then you are sorely mistaken. You no longer have to cling to stone, because I am right here.”
Yuuji nods, crashing his lips against Sukuna’s, kissing him the same way he’s always wanted for so long now. It’s a bruising kiss, clumsy because Yuuji doesn’t know how to kiss, but he hopes it does the job of conveying how deep his feelings for Sukuna goes.
“I love you, Sukuna,” Yuuji whispers against his lips, “not the statue, but you, as you are. And if you are willing to still have a foolish mortal like me who has nothing to offer, then I shall be eternally grateful.”
“Stupid brat.” Sukuna pinches Yuuji’s ear painfully, unfazed by his words. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”
Warmth bursts in Yuuji’s chest with the force of a thousand splendid suns, leaning in to kiss Sukuna a second time. It took Yuuji a long while to understand, but perhaps, he is worthy of being the one to stand by Sukuna’s side.
Yuuji’s mind is blissfully void of any external intrusions when Sukuna pushes him down, his back pressed not against the stone and rubble of the ruined temple like he expected, but against a fine bed made of silk linens that are so soft and smooth to the touch that Yuuji lets out a gasp. It’s nicer than anything he’s ever laid down on, his eyes darting around to take in the sprawling splendor that surrounds him. A room that is larger than his entire house, the temple even, in accents of red, black, and gold. The walls are lined with taxidermied animal heads, spoils of a hunt, a roaring fireplace in the center that engulfs the room in warmth. Every item of furniture within the room gleams in the fire’s light, everything crafted from pure gold.
The room screams lavish extravagance and luxury, befitting only a God of Sukuna’s status, and Yuuji can’t help but marvel.
“Welcome to my domain, much better than that dump you call a home.” Sukuna grins, turning Yuuji’s face towards him. “You can look later, I’ve waited far too long for this.”
Yuuji nods eagerly, ignoring the painting to the side that catches his eye, could swear he saw his own face staring back at him. It’s hard to focus on a painting when Sukuna himself is crowding him against the bed, his body enveloping his own as he takes on his truly Godly form within his domain. Of course, Yuuji is familiar with this image, had sculpted it himself.
Still, Yuuji can’t help but watch in amazement as Sukuna’s back ripples to reveal two more arms. Tattoos decorate his skin, his nails sharpening to form talons, inky as night. He was already big, too, but now, he seems to hulk over Yuuji, making him feel impossibly small when pinned against the bed. This is Sukuna in his Godly form, intimidating yet so magnificent, making Yuuji’s blood burn molten with want. His four eyes open, all hyper-focused on nothing but Yuuji, ravenous and greedy.
Sukuna looks like he wants to consume Yuuji, and Yuuji, who has wanted this for so long, wants nothing more than to offer himself up to Sukuna. A sacrifice, a tribute, ripe for the picking.
“I want you to take me,” Yuuji whispers, letting Sukuna kiss him all over his face and his collarbones. “Take everything — heart, body, and soul — it’s all yours.”
Sukuna nods, pressing another kiss to Yuuji’s lips, carnal and desperate. If Yuuji has wanted this for years, then Sukuna must have wanted this for centuries. He’s nervous as Sukuna bites his lower lip, forcing his tongue inside, tasting him on his tongue. He doesn’t have the experience, the first time he’s allowed anyone to touch him like this, so he feels incredibly out of his depth.
But Sukuna takes the reins and leads him, kissing him and breathing him in, his hands roaming all over his body, wherever he can touch. Yuuji, in absence of any intruding thoughts or memories, allows himself to enjoy the touch. The feeling of another body pressing against his own, so deliciously hot and heavy, applying pressure in all the right places. Sukuna disrobes him, removing his chiton to reveal the expanse of his skin underneath him, groaning as he takes in Yuuji’s body. Ugly scar and all. He feels self-conscious, wants to cover up, but Sukuna has his hands pinned to the bed so he can drink in every crevice of his body.
“You are beautiful,” Sukuna marvels, his hand trailing down the length of his chest and stomach. “Perfect.” Sukuna’s fingers trace the jagged edges of his scar where Mahito dug his knife into his stomach, successfully killing him. “Mine.” His hand rests flush against Yuuji’s racing heart in his chest.
“Yours,” Yuuji echoes.
Yuuji groans as Sukuna’s lips trail a searing hot line down his body, from his throat down to his collarbones, to his nipples. His kisses are violent, too, his teeth sinking into his skin wherever he touches, breaking it and yielding blood underneath his lips. Sukuna maintains eye contact with Yuuji as he licks the bloody trail, humming as he savors it. His lips linger over his scar, almost completely healed, but underneath Sukuna’s lips, he can scarcely remember he’d been hurt there.
The coil of needy want in the base of Yuuji’s stomach tightens, his cock twitching with desire.
“Please,” Yuuji begs, mortified at how desperate he is for this. He’s never asked for anything before, not like this, but all his logic has left him behind, leaving only his basest desires to make the decisions for him. “Please don’t tease me.”
“Am I teasing you?” Sukuna muses, pinching Yuuji’s nipple, his back arching into the touch. “Say my name, Yuuji,” Sukuna says, his fingers ghosting over the tip of his cock, a phantom touch that has him arching into the touch desperately. “I know you’ve been avoiding saying it.”
Yuuji keens, teeth clamping down tightly on his bottom lip. He shakes his head, imploring Sukuna to please take mercy on him, and touch him properly.
“Say it or I won’t fuck you,” Sukuna says, breathing the words directly against Yuuji’s lips.
“I can’t.” Yuuji shakes his head. “I don’t want to call you ‘my lord’.”
“Then say my name,” Sukuna insists, “you were so confident about throwing it around when I was still made of stone.”
Yuuji flushes at the words, heat coloring his cheeks and the tips of his ears red, but he can’t deny the words. His mouth twists, Sukuna’s name wedged in the center of his throat, has been begging to be spoken aloud for weeks now.
He thought this was a privilege he wasn’t allowed to indulge in.
“Sukuna,” Yuuji tries, speaking the name again as if it’s the first time. In many ways, it is, his first time speaking his name to the God as he lives and draws breath. The name feels as if it belongs there, as if he’d been denying himself something important by refusing to speak it. “Please fuck me.”
Sukuna stares at him for a moment, lost in thought, blinking as he nods. “Much better. I always prefer it when mortals beg for what they want.”
His fingers move past his cock, breaching him as he spreads him open. The first finger hurts, Sukuna’s fingers thick and calloused, and Yuuji has to regulate his breathing to accustom to the feeling of something inside of him. The second one feels marginally better, his body relaxing to accommodate the intrusion, scissoring him open until he brushes against a spot inside of him that has Yuuji’s body spasming with sensitivity. He thinks it’s a fluke at first, but Sukuna presses against the same spot again and again, each time making Yuuji see stars erupt behind his eyelids.
Holy shit, what is that?
Yuuji covers his mouth, trying to stem the litany of moans that threaten to fall from his lips if he allowed them to fall free, chest falling and rising as he tries to gather breath. When Sukuna starts fucking him with three fingers, his eyes start to sting, his body melting underneath Sukuna’s wicked touch.
“So sensitive,” Sukuna mocks him, his fingers deftly pushing against that same spot again and again. He pries Yuuji’s hand away from his face, one of his hands that isn’t preoccupied with torturing him with pleasure pins his hands to the bed over his head. “Don’t cover your mouth, I want to hear the sounds you make.”
Yuuji hears what he actually means, that Sukuna wants to hear him beg for it. Yuuji nods, a guttural groan ripped straight from his chest when Sukuna pulls his fingers out. He feels so empty, his hole gaping around nothing.
“ Why? ”
“Because it’s time for the main event.”
Sukuna disrobes, his black chiton discarded carelessly, revealing not one, but two cocks. One atop the other, both hard and veiny, dripping from the tips. They are big, too, each one making Yuuji’s cock look like nothing more than a tiny needle. He balks at their size, wondering distantly if one of them could fit inside of him, if he’d break once breached.
It’s a challenge that he can’t wait to take on.
“I have waited for this moment for so long,” Sukuna says, lining his cocks with Yuuji’s hole. “And now my patience has run dry.”
Yuuji trembles in anticipation, pain and pleasure bleeding together as Sukuna breaches him, both of his cocks pushing inside of him and stretching him impossibly wide. Yuuji gasps, fingers taking purchase on Sukuna’s shoulders to anchor himself, but Sukuna pays him no mind as he slowly fucks him full. It hurts, a sting that no amount of preparation could have prepared him for, tears welling in his eyes. He bites down hard on his bottom lip, tasting his own blood on his tongue from how hard he does it, but Sukuna shushes him.
Licks the length of his bottom lip, lapping up the blood with a long stroke of his tongue.
“You’ll have to get used to taking me, Yuuji, we’re just now getting started.”
He places a hand over Yuuji’s abdomen, pressing down on it, eliciting a gasp from Yuuji. The pleasure starting to override the pain, festering throughout his body, each touch turning Yuuji’s body molten with desire.
“Holy shit.” Yuuji’s back arches, eyes rolling back. “What – what did you do?”
Sukuna grins, fucking Yuuji in earnest now, his body feeling so full, so complete in a way he’d never felt before. Yuuji can’t get enough of it, his legs wrapping around Sukuna’s middle to bring him closer, his chest flush against his own. His heart races with each thrust, ricocheting against his ribcage, so loud that he can hear it booming against his own ears. Sukuna must be able to hear it, too, but somehow, Yuuji isn’t embarrassed about it.
He wants this, wants Sukuna in every way, and there is no shame in it.
“I took away your pain temporarily,” Sukuna replies, peppering kisses over Yuuji’s face, fucking him harder, faster. “So now, all you can feel is how good I make you feel.”
Yuuji nods, feeling floaty. Sukuna takes him in his arms, fucking him with a scarily accurate precision on that spot that makes his toes curl and his body thrumming with want, paying no mind as Yuuji comes. He comes so hard, feels as if he’s coming forever, painting their abdomens with sticky white.
But Sukuna is relentless, fucks Yuuji through his orgasm and well into over-sensitivity, flipping him over as he continues to fuck him with abandon. The shift has Sukuna’s cocks reaching so deep inside that he feels as if he’s been reduced to a single node of pleasure, unable to focus on anything but how good Sukuna feels inside of him, the captivating weight of his body atop his own. Yuuji keens, face digging into the nice pillow underneath, his sweat and tears dampening the fine fabric.
“You know, Yuuji, one way that mortals can become Gods is if they bear the child of another God,” Sukuna whispers the words directly against Yuuji’s ear, licking the shell of his ear as he does. “How would you like it if I bred you right now, hmm? Made you carry my child, then took you to Mount Olympus. Mine for all eternity.”
Not for a moment does Yuuji fathom this to be impossible. After all, Sukuna is a God, and the Gods have bred in more improbable ways. No, the how is inconsequential, what matters is what happens after.
Yuuji shudders, imagining it. Sukuna fucking him, breeding him with his seed, and Yuuji carrying a piece of Sukuna in him. A child that belonged to them both. Living for eternity sounds scary, seeing as life has only ever been cruel to him, but he thinks an eternity by Sukuna’s side would be the closest thing to heaven that Yuuji has ever known.
He nods, feeling oddly desperate.
“Breed me, Sukuna,” Yuuji all but begs, “Come inside me. Please.”
“Oh, my sweet boy,” Sukuna hums, scraping his teeth against Yuuji’s nape, two of his four hands pinning him down forcibly to the bed. “You’re too good for this shitty world.”
Yuuji moans when Sukuna thrusts hard once, coming deep inside of him, so much come that he can feel it paint his insides and fill him up with it and drip down his hole. He’s already so much on edge that the mere action of Sukuna coming inside of him is enough for Yuuji to come again, so sensitive and exhausted that he collapses underneath Sukuna’s weight.
“Don’t tell me you’re tired,” Sukuna says, “we have to make up for all our time apart, Yuuji.”
Yuuji tries not to cry as Sukuna fucks him again, again, and again.
Sukuna made good on his ominous promise, fucked Yuuji until he couldn’t even get hard anymore, till he cried and was no longer sure if he wanted more or if he needed it to stop. He fucked him till he had his fill of Yuuji, worshipping his body as if Yuuji were the God and not vice versa. As a result, Yuuji is absolutely spent as he lies down in Sukuna’s bed, his heavy arms pinning him to the bed, too tired to even lift a finger let alone to push Sukuna’s suffocating weight from atop his body. It’s okay, though, he likes the way Sukuna’s body slots against his own.
Closing his eyes, Yuuji searches himself for any signs that he might be different now. Changed. A mortal, no, a demigod, touched by a God so intimately, so surely something has to have changed. What if Sukuna really did breed him? He shifts slightly, feeling his stomach, flat and toned as it always is, and doesn’t feel any different. Only a bit bloated because Sukuna continued to come inside of him time and time again.
Yuuji is thinking about this too much.
He’s so tired, and yet, he can’t sleep. The pain that Sukuna took away from him earlier while they were having sex has returned, with added interest, and his body is aching all over.
“What happens now?” Yuuji whispers, the words floating in the air between them. Sukuna is resting, yes, but he’s sure he heard him. “What happens to me, to us?”
“Nothing in particular,” Sukuna replies, all four of his eyes closed.
He looks so serene, tranquil even, no furrow in his brows or anger clinging to his frame. Like this, he doesn’t even look like a God of War, but just a man, could even pass as a mortal. Much more beautiful than a mortal, yes, but Yuuji would have never been able to tell the kind of calamities that Sukuna enticed and led himself.
But just as Yuuji is more than just a sculptor, Sukuna is more than a War God.
“What does that mean?” Yuuji’s brows furrow.
“It means that nothing has to change,” Sukuna elaborates, arm tightening around Yuuji’s torso. “Not immediately anyway.”
“What about – you said that you could make me a God?”
Sukuna laughs at that, but there’s a cruel edge to it, eyes opening to flash Yuuji with a pointed glare. Suddenly, Yuuji feels small, foolish.
“Your statue brought me back from purgatory, but the rest of my body that’s been scattered has left me weakened,” Sukuna replies, mouth twisting. “I am more powerful than a mortal, of course, divine blood runs through my veins. But I have not returned to full Godhood yet either.”
With the knowledge that Yuuji now has of Sukuna’s harsh punishment, the ‘atonement’ that his father and Kenjaku subjected him to, he can understand what Sukuna is saying. He also feels like he knows why Sukuna elected not to tell him earlier that he’s not truly a God, knows how proud Sukuna is, how this admission probably makes him feel weak and vulnerable.
Yuuji, however, could never love Sukuna any less, regardless of what form he takes.
“Does that mean you were merely teasing me when you spoke of breeding me?” Yuuji asks, lips twisting indignantly into a petulant pout.
“Of course I was,” Sukuna mocks him, pinching his nose. “It’s called dirty talk, brat; though I quite enjoyed how enthusiastic you were about it.”
Yuuji hates the tinge of disappointment that wells in his chest, because he really would have liked to bear Sukuna’s child. He pushes it away, forcing a smile on his face instead.
Sukuna, however, seems to read his thoughts and bundles Yuuji up in his arms in an embrace that has Yuuji melting against him.
“Someday, once I have restored my divinity, I promise to make your dreams into a reality,” Sukuna says, “I know that because you never had a proper family, the idea of having one now means a lot to you.”
Yuuji’s heart softens a little at how Sukuna can see right through him so easily, transparent like an open book. He nods once.
“I suppose you are confident in restoring your divinity?”
“Obviously.” Sukuna’s arms tighten around Yuuji’s body, his voice taking on a dangerous lilt. “I made them a vow that once I returned, I would raze the world to ashes, that I would make them regret what they did to me. Once I’ve returned to my full strength, I will carry through on my promise, and nothing will protect them from my wrath. The fact that your father will be destroyed by my hands is of little consequence to me.”
“He deserves it,” Yuuji says, lifting his head to meet Sukuna’s gaze properly. He finds that he means it, too, has no qualms about whatever ill fate awaits the man who sired him and discarded him at his own convenience. “He is no father to me, and he deserves to suffer for what he did to you.” He presses his lips to Sukuna’s, enjoying his bemused expression. “And I will help you in whatever way that I can so you can achieve your revenge.”
Sukuna pins Yuuji back down to the bed, his tongue ravaging his mouth, kissing him deeply, breathing him in. Against his lips, Sukuna whispers, “you truly are one of a kind, Itadori Yuuji.”
Yuuji smiles at him widely, his heart filled to the brim with emotions he can hardly contain.
“I know the kind of risks I will be taking on by taking your side, but I plan to spend the rest of my life with you,” Yuuji tells him, not a single ounce of hesitation in his words. “And whether that’s until tomorrow, or for the rest of eternity, I don’t care. As long as we’re together.”
Yuuji’s life may have been overwritten with tragedy, several lifetimes over, but he will be damned if he doesn’t make the best of this one.