SKIN & BONES / RYOMEN SUKUNA

4

—————before --————

"I'm just 20" Sukuna retorted at my annoyed father, who's just steaming in the corner of our dinner quarters. Sukuna stands outside by the door entrance wiping his hands and feet from his training sessions before entering.

They use to yell at him about tracking mud in,

But it became an empty effort.

"I was married at 15 boy, you're getting old now, it's time to pick a wife" He scolds only for Sukuna to shrug his massive shoulders.

"You're being so traditional tonight" he snickers at my progressive father, whose ideologies kept forcing him to question the old policies of our time.

Sukuna steals a cup of soup from my hands as he walks past,

"Hey?! That's mine!" I barked

"What's yours is mine" he winks, taking a sip as my father just swats his head. "Ow! I just got out of training, that hurts!"

"Stop picking on your sister" He growled.

Sukuna hated that.

Being referred to as siblings,

My parents did it as a form of love, that he was not some random outsider.

That he was family.

But to him,

It was a taboo,

That I was off limits.

A reminder,

That from the very start,

He could never stand next to me.

"Get married," my father lectures again pointing at his son who just groans while taking a seat next to me.

He runs a hand through his dark fushica hair before folding his arms down onto the table.

And dropping his head over them.

As my father continued to lecture about things Sukuna slowly began to pick food off my plate,

And at the time when he would do little things like this,

Like sharing food,

Sitting direly close to me,

Offering to aid me in trivial things like braiding my hair, or washing my clothes and tending to all my needs,

To my parents, it was just a simple matter of sibling hood.

Until it wasn't.

I laid in the bath later that night while Sukuna offered to help the other servants clean the dining hall. Even if he was treated like one of us, he could never forget the kindness that even the waitstaff offered him.

My mother lets out yawn as she listens to my father continue to go on and on about Sukuna and his refusal to even fancy another.

"Do you think he partakes in other proclivities?" She sarcastically jokes which makes my father scoff.

"And that would be what?! You are claiming that he prefers the company of a man over that of a woman?!"

"Perhaps" she laughs

"Then he should have the fucking decency to tell us! So we could find him a suitable match! I swear, he makes it seem like we are the type of parents who would abhor such behavior." My father groans while laying back in bed.

My father would be the next king,

He spent years fighting the abrasive traditions,

He fought for those who couldn't speak,