It has been five years since you last saw the smile of the boy you love.
Five years since every human being on the planet morphed into the disfigured caricatures of empty-eyed humans.
Five years since you last touched anyone but the man who leers at you with the sneer of a seething predator and the eyes of a human blinded by hate.
He lives in the body of the boy you love. Loves you with that boy's same hands. Hits you with them. Whispers sweet nothings into your ears with his mouth. Calls you a slut, a whore and worthless scum within the same breaths of the boy you love.
You miss him. You miss everyone.
Every day you wake up to live in your past.
"Get up, (Y/N)," Sukuna orders in a low rumble. He lies next to you in bed. It reeks. "Time to check on our subjects."
Standard protocol.
You put a shirt on. Say nothing to him even as he throws out snide little comments on your disheveled appearance.
"You look like fucking shit. What happened, huh?" he sneers. "Come on. Smile a little for me, sweetheart."
Your skin prickles with goosebumps. You've grown so used to the treatment that his words no longer wash you over with revulsion and disgust. Five years is a long enough time to become accustomed to even the worst of things.
You wait for him to rise from the squalor of your shared bed. In the past you would hate to even look at him. Now it is all you can do.
He wears the skin of your first and last love with such ease. You watch him with vacant sadness. Glass in your throat as you swallow through a parched mouth.
Sukuna grabs your wrist. His fingers squeeze. You feel your hand go numb but do not protest.
He praises you with hollow words, "Good girl. You've finally stopped acting up against me."
You can only nod. Let him drag you along and out of the house. His queen only a little doll trapped in the body of a dead but breathing being.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Each curse bows as you step out the door.
With them, you still flinch away.
"Sukuna-sama," they all declare in pious approbation as the man standing next to you tilts his head in waiting.
"Good little slaves," he acclaims with arrogance, then inclines his head at you. He still holds your wrist in a vise. "Just like this one over here."
You blink at him with slow, sad eyes. There is nothing left inside you that can speak.
"Take us to Osaka, Uraume," he commands. The white-haired enigma of a curse bows their head.
"Hai, Sukuna-sama."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Sukuna kills the lecherous curse with deadly ease. It is of the kind that has always scared you, because you know how easy it would be for him to exert such ease on someone as desperate for death as you. But he would make yours a slow death.
"Did you let it touch you?"
You recoil at his words, shake your head. You stare at him with the only emotion inside you: fear.
You curl into yourself as something dark swallows you up. Sukuna raises a hand into the air. You flinch away. Expect pain. But his hand only comes down to stroke your cheek.
He remains unnaturally silent. You nearly hurl from the unease. The fear. The hand on your cheek slides over to fix your hair. He plays with a strand of your locks with dangerous fingers.
"(Y/N)..." He twines his fingers through the hair on the back of your head. They pale to a bone-white as he grabs your hair. Hard. "You're such a bad liar."
Your heart stops. Pricks of sharp pain pop along your scalp. His other hand flies up so quickly from his side you barely see it, only feel it when he grasps your chin. His thumb presses into your cheek. So do the other fingers. The curve arcing from his index finger to his thumb circles your chin. He comes in close, his words a malevolent whisper.
"Why has it always been so hard for you to listen to me, you empty-headed whore?" Everything inside you is fearful. "Do you so badly want to let other men get between your legs? Is that what you want?"
He swoops you up and off your feet. Pins you down. You begin to cry.
Even still, you cannot hate him.
A long time ago, you used to see Yuji in the eyes of the man who looks at you now. They would dim with void sorrow, look at you with the most fleeting flashes of love. Then they would return to the malignant gaze of the King of Curses.
Now Sukuna's ignoble eyes are the only ones you see.
"Stupid human." His hands wrap around your throat. You shut your eyes. "Now I'm going to have to teach you a lesson."
It has been five years since they disappeared. Five years since they died. Five years since you did.
