CHAPTER 7: TOO YOUNG TO GROW WINGS
ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader
He needed to learn how to stop being so goddamn obsessive. He’d work on it later, maybe. He’d try not to speak curses into existence from the way he felt about you.
At the moment, he wants to make this good for you. Something like love.
ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , unprotected sex, drunk sex, face sitting, blowjobs, cum eating (lol) lots and LOTS of angst, gore, blood, graphic descriptions of injuries, bullying, satoru being......... himself
ੈ✩ wc: 8.8k
ੈ✩ a/n: i wasnt gonna post this but then i was like well. i start a new job on monday so who knows if i'll be able to keep up the weekly update thing. this is also prob my fav chapter so i couldn't hold back OOPS enjoy the yaoi btw <3 title from angel by omar apollo
playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist
April, 2009
Jujutsu Technical College looks lovely in the springtime—the golden light hits the room in a specific way that makes your body warm. You’re calm, nearly dozing off until three people barge into the classroom, taking up as much space as they can. When you open your eyes, you see Satoru, Suguru, and Shoko smiling at you as they take their seats.
The boys had convinced you to attend (with the help of Shoko) after informing you there was a generous stipend included with your education. Despite the scholarship you’d gotten from the college you’d meant to attend, they had easily persuaded you. You hadn’t had friends you were so close with before, after all.
“Suguru. Switch with her.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it. I want her to sit next to me.”
You lift your head, realizing that Satoru is talking about you. Suguru laughs nonchalantly and stands up to switch with you, and you move to replace him when you notice Satoru’s baby blues searing into your skin. He grins at you brightly as you roll your eyes.
It’s been like this for weeks – Satoru possessing you, claiming you, even though you never ask for it. Truthfully, it pools your stomach with ardor. You’ve never felt as wanted as you do when you were within a close radius of him.
It dwindles eventually when you realize that the boys’ strength is so far beyond yours. In combat, they’re flawless, beautiful in their movements as they spar. You’re happier to watch than join—Shoko thinks the same, often rolling her eyes every time the two of you are assigned to practice hauling cursed energy for the sake of fighting. It’s nice when you can get her alone, studying healing techniques and watching her reversed curse technique grow.
Sometimes, you don’t even know why you’re here. Shoko is talented and you aren’t. You’re useful enough for superficial wounds, but you can’t do a reversed cursed technique. You doubt you could even heal something of a higher caliber than what you’re used to. You fear the prospect of this revelation on a mission that you know Yaga will eventually send you on.
“Do they ever fight over you?” Shoko asks over a cigarette.
“Wh-what?”
“You know,” she drawls, smiling. “Satoru’s such a brat. Suguru is more open when you’re around. They’ve gotta be possessive, right?”
You shrug. You don’t know the extent of what she knows, but you can assume from the boys’ behavior that it was written all over their faces. Satoru’s hand on your waist, Suguru’s point to tower over you. Unspoken proximity wars between them with you in the middle.
“I don’t know about that. They’re overprotective for sure,” you admit, taking a slow drag of her cigarette when she offers.
“Twigs! Not you, too!” Satoru bellows. “Don’t give my girl your cancer sticks, Ieiri!”
Shoko laughs at that, grinning with the cigarette in between her teeth as you fold your hands into your lap.
My girl.
Satoru hovers over you and holds out his hands. Curiously, you take it, which you regret immediately when he pulls your body and hauls you over his shoulder. You thrash a bit as he laughs until you’re stumbling onto the grass. When Suguru throws a staff in your direction, you catch it reflexively.
“Ready?”
You roll your eyes. You’d gotten better at sparring, though you still choose to hang back and concern yourself with areas of Shoko’s expertise. She had become a mentor to you despite being a peer. Meanwhile, the boys had been trying to get you to practice combat, thinking you would do well with a cursed weapon.
You remember the first time you had tried to fight, watching Satoru and Suguru wrestle in the grass shortly after. Their raspy grunts, the skin of their waists underneath ridden-up shirts. The memory makes you flush.
“Yes,” you sigh.
You focus on Satoru’s eyes, saturated like a lightning strike. You were rather well-versed in the language of his body – you think that your intuition often matched Satoru’s rather equally. He was still much taller and larger than you, but you exceeded in your efforts to dodge. He didn’t often bother with hand-to-hand combat much anyway, much more focused on perfecting his inherent techniques.
You gasp when he decides to close the distance between you. The touch of his fingers on your skin is a jolt to the senses as his legs sweep you when you’re too occupied with dodging. You hit the ground with a thud, groaning.
“Sorry, babe,” he chuckles, leaning down to take your hand. When he does, you pull him backward so that he tumbles.
“Hey!”
“Payback,” you shrug. You maintain a fighting stance once again, staff in hand.
Suguru often took you more seriously, offering to teach you martial arts when Satoru was off on solo missions. You breathe heavily as Satoru takes his first swing, which you dodge by a hair.
Focused, you move with the grace of a ballet dancer, halting his movements with your staff the way Suguru had taught you. When you kick a leg high in the air, Satoru catches you by the ankle just for you to fall again. This time, you’re sure you’re bruised.
“There’s still time for you to give up,” he teases.
You groan in irritation, rising to your feet and walking closer to him. He smiles, enjoying seeing you pissed off and breathing so hard. He’s so wrapped up in looking at you that his senses are hit with whiplash – your fist gets through his Infinity easily and socks him square on the jaw.
“You little–”
“Why didn’t you have your Infinity on?” you exasperate, but he’s already pushing you to the ground and struggling with you the way you used to when you were children.
“I’m soooo gonna get you for that–”
You end up kicking him again, this time in the ribs as he groans. When you pin his wrists above his head, he merely stares at you with wild eyes and heaving breaths. His face is red and cherubic, and when he squirms, you squeeze his waist in between your thighs.
You lean down close to his face, your breath tickling his ear.
“I win,” you whisper. You flick him on the forehead and he flinches. You wonder again why he’s letting you touch him like this.
“Letting you pin me down isn’t me letting you win, sweetheart,” he rasps lowly, only for you to hear. He rolls his hips slightly and it makes your eyes widen, much to his satisfaction. You frown and crawl away from him just in time to hear Shoko beckoning you.
“Lab time!” she calls after you. Without a second look at Satoru, you follow her inside.
Satoru is lying on Suguru’s stomach, frowning because it isn’t as soft as yours.
He’s also without entertainment since Suguru has been hogging his DS for the better part of an hour, which Satoru had only let him do because he claimed he wanted to take a nap. But, as per usual, he can’t sleep. He’s still roused from sparring with you, slightly sweaty still from the warmth and the mustiness of the dorm room, and his cock is getting hard again just from thinking about you on top of him.
“Fuck,” Suguru swears under his breath, caught up in a game of Pokemon Emerald.
Satoru lifts his head to scoot his body higher, chin resting on Suguru’s forearm to peek at his progress.
“You’re doing terribly.”
“I know that, thanks,” Suguru groans. “I have like, two backup Pokemon left and they’re both level 30.”
“Do you use the same technique with your curses?” Satoru teases. Suguru makes another agitated noise again in response.
“You should’ve brought your Game Cube from home.”
Satoru shrugs, sighing as he sits up. He snatches his DS out of Suguru’s hands, interrupting the boy’s protest with a wet kiss to the mouth. Suguru kisses back immediately, tongue peeking into Satoru’s mouth before he pulls away.
“You haven’t kissed me in months,” he chuckles. Satoru shrugs.
“Maybe you haven’t kissed me in months.”
“I would’ve thought you’d count it as cheating.”
Satoru is quiet for a moment, rubbing Suguru’s jawline with his fingers gently. He’s been rather gluttonous lately, and he thinks Suguru is starting to catch on. He’s been clingier to the both of you, obnoxiously so, acting more of a nuisance to you specifically for the sake of attention. His heart is aflame whenever he sees you interact with Suguru in ways that are both good and bad, but he doesn’t prefer to dwell on it for very long before he nearly forces you to give him attention.
“Having withdrawals?”
“Huh?”
“She’ll be back soon,” Suguru laughs cruelly. “Whenever she’s gone for a bit, you act like you’re fucking dying.”
“No, I don’t,” Satoru frowns. But he knows he’s lying.
“Don’t mope. C’mere.”
Suguru sighs, seemingly out of pity. He grabs Satoru by the face and sticks his tongue in his mouth – a rough kiss out of spite, out of unbridled passion. He’d dreamt about Satoru and you for weeks, always sneaking glances.
He’d considered taking both of you months before when you and Satoru and Shoko threw him an impromptu surprise birthday party despite his refusal. He had seen you tipsy, squirming in Satoru’s lap while Utahime set up karaoke on the television, and decided he’d let you come to him when you wanted to. You were still a shy thing even after New Year’s, never asking again for his touch.
Satoru groans, palming his dick over his slacks as he leans back. He could feel his cock leaking in his boxers already just from the roughness of Suguru’s knuckles grazing his skin. There was a manic buzz in his head, thrilled by the slight power imbalance he was allowing.
Suguru hadn’t touched him since before he started seeing you, and even then, it was mostly rudimentary teenage lust. Jerking off to magazines together. Seeing how much they could take in their mouths before gagging like it was a competition.
“Fuck,” Satoru grunts, feeling Suguru’s tongue on his clavicle.
“You thinking about her?”
“Yeah,” he rasps.
Suguru chuckles darkly, biting harder at the bone. “She was so hot today. I taught her those moves, y’know.”
Satoru makes a mumbled nose, eyes fluttering shut as Suguru palms him. He unbuttons his slacks to reveal the snowy trail of hair above his pubic bone, Satoru’s cock flushed and weeping as Suguru holds it.
“Want me to fuck you?”
“Use your mouth,” Satoru pants. He knots a fist in Suguru’s dark hair. “Want it like this.”
He hisses when he feels Suguru’s mouth. His jaw slackens at the feeling, gasping for air when Suguru hollows his cheeks to suck tightly. Satoru shoves him down further.
His body feels tight when Suguru motions a finger towards his hole, pausing to spit on his fingers beforehand. With two fingers stretching him open, Satoru pants and gasps. His thighs twitch, hips rolling upward into Suguru’s mouth like it was a cunt.
Your face flashes in Satoru’s mind and it makes his insides careen. Brain like pulped fruit. He opens his eyes to see Suguru’s, narrowed and golden and taunting. It’s similar to the way you look at him, sometimes.
The fist in Suguru’s hair tightens now, knuckles white. Satoru grunts brutishly, overwhelmed by the stimulation in his hole in tandem with Suguru’s tongue pressing on the underside of his cock.
“Fuck, gonna cum–”
Suguru moans, jaw aching only slightly. Satoru could feel his dick inside Suguru’s mouth, heat building up until he spills onto the boy’s tongue. His head falls back. Breathing like he’d just run a marathon.
“You need a better appetite. Shit tastes like battery acid.”
“Doesn’t all cum taste like that?” Satoru frowns. His hand is still in Suguru’s hair.
“You tell me.” Suguru kisses him, licking the inside of Satoru’s molars. His lips move against Satoru’s mouth slowly, listless so he can take himself. When he pulls away, Satoru wipes the slick off his mouth, plump and bitten.
“You’re exaggerating.”
May, 2009
The sky is oddly grey this afternoon despite the pleasant morning. Yamanashi prefecture is as beautiful as ever with cherry blossoms blooming, but as you approach the cursed site, you continue to feel a chill down your spine.
It’s your first real mission. One that Yaga had at least approved you for after you had nailed your physical assessments, able to imbue enough cursed energy into a katana to swing around without slicing yourself. Still, you were meant to act as backup for Suguru, which Satoru hated.
“Why don’t we just both go with her?” he had wailed to Yaga days before, to which Yaga grunted in dismissal.
“You have a solo mission.”
“But–”
“That’ll be the end of it, Satoru.”
Admittedly, you do wish he was here. Suguru is a comforting presence, though, calmer in demeanor but much less talkative than what you’re used to. You walk with him through overgrown grass and lengthy vines.
“What kind of curse are we supposed to find?” you question out loud.
Suguru shrugs. “It’s difficult to tell exactly, but I’m assuming the cursed spirits roaming around here will be, er, women-shaped? Maybe. It should be Grade 2 at most."
“What do you mean, women? What happened here?”
“You don’t know? This place is super haunted.”
“So we’re ghost-hunting.”
“Ghost exorcising,” Suguru grins. “There used to be gold mines here in the 16th century owned by the Takeda Clan. They also ran brothels for the miners. After the Battle of Nagashino, the clan had to give up the land, but not before they killed all the prostitutes to keep them from spreading information about the gold mines.”
“H-how did they kill them?”
“The miners had the women dance at a farewell party, then they hacked the vines that kept up the bridge they were on. They fell into the waterfall.”
“That’s horrible,” you frown. Foreboding swells in your chest.
You can’t sense any cursed energy around you other than Suguru’s. You’re too busy ruminating to watch your step, accidentally tripping over a thick root. You fall forward into Suguru’s arms.
“You okay?” he croons. His face is inches from yours and you forget how to breathe.
“Y-yes. Sorry.” As you untangle yourself from him, your body jolts. You gasp when you hear the hint of a wretched, bloodcurdling scream in the far distance that makes your blood run cold. It isn’t very loud, but it almost sounds muffled, like someone was screaming from another room.
“What? What is it?”
“Did you not hear that?” you whisper.
Suguru frowns at you in confusion, his expression seemingly genuine. You blink, trying to shake off the horrible feeling in your body.
“I think I just heard something. It sounded like a scream.”
Suguru waits, prompting you to elaborate. The forest seems darker now despite it being midday, the curl of the trees billowing in a way that feels uncanny. A girl-shaped forest.
“Maybe we should split up.”
“Absolutely not,” Suguru protests, his mouth set in a firm line. You hold his hand in yours, stroking it gently with your thumb.
“Suguru, you can’t expect to protect me the entire time. I need to learn how to handle things on my own–”
An inhuman gurgle rumbles from behind you. The curse looks similar to a reptile, yet human-like with webbed hands and sharp incisors slick with algae. The stench of mud is apparent in the air now. It drools green sludge before it bows.
You stand in shock, unsure of what to do as you lock eyes with Suguru. Warily, you draw your sword, and the curse’s eyes roll back in agitation as it lets out another gurgle.
“Oh, shit–”
You dodge a projectile of slime, but it crawls towards you at a faster pace than you expect. A slice of your katana dismembers one of its arms, but it easily grows back. Within seconds, a giant curse rises from the ground and swallows it up, teeth mashing on gooey flesh in a way that makes you want to hurl. Suguru’s ringworm curse is dismissed once the riverbank is cleared.
“What was that about not needing me to protect you?” Suguru sneers.
“I still mean it,” you exasperate, heart hammering out of your chest. “You barely gave me time.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll let you have the next one, I swear.”
He smiles genuinely. Satoru must’ve gotten to him – he’s not nearly as neurotic as Satoru in that way, but he wouldn’t be able to stand it if you got hurt. It was less of a possessiveness thing and more of a selflessness thing. Suguru had always been the one to be reliable. He was also more perceptive than Satoru in the way that he could practically feel the tightness of the leash he held on you.
If you were going to be something in the Jujutsu world, you wouldn’t be held back. Suguru thought you could be something ever since he saw you.
You continue to walk with him, knuckles brushing as the air turns thick. Suguru thinks that maybe you’re sulking in his periphery, so he pokes your cheek.
“Yes?”
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“Just thinking,” you mutter.
The katana feels heavy on your back. You had never thought of yourself as a particularly strong person, growing up to be obedient. A maid’s daughter. Hands a little rough from housework and the dirt of the Earth when you were wild, once.
“Let me walk around in that little brain of yours,” Suguru murmurs, always charming.
You pause, swallowing. You realize you have never spoken your insecurities out loud. When you were on the brink of it, it would always be during petty arguments with Satoru, who had a way of shutting you down dismissively. He was always a bit of a control freak, even with you.
“Do you think I’m weak?” Your voice sounds almost frail.
“Of course not. I think you’re very talented, actually,” Suguru says. “Satoru and I– we just care a lot.”
“I’m not sure if talented would be the word. It’s not like he thinks so, either.”
“He does. He just doesn’t know how to express his feelings.”
There seems to be something lingering in his tone that gnaws at you. The way he sighs. You decide not to pry, attempting to steer the conversation away from Satoru altogether.
You hear a wail again. Something in the shape of a girlish scream but only the echo of it. Suguru gives you that confused look at him and you aren’t sure if he’s just messing with you at this point. He touches your hand again and the motion makes you wince.
“What’s wrong?” He looks genuinely worried now as he looks at you, holding a hand to your jaw. That alone is mildly unnerving for some reason, even though you think that in any other environment, you’d welcome it. You place your hand over his palm.
“Do you really not hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That woman screaming!” you hiss.
“Are you sure it isn’t some wild animal?”
You blink at him blankly.
“You don’t hear it.”
When he shakes his head, you hear it again. You begin to walk towards the source of it while Suguru stalks behind you, but you stop him.
“Maybe I should handle this.”
He grimaces, clearly unhappy. You raise your brows, challenging him. Suguru wants to hold you back but he knows he shouldn’t.
“Hey, another fucking– river monster could show up, and you’d be able to handle it. Maybe this is something that only I can see or hear. We’ll be too conspicuous with both of our cursed energy.”
He says your name with a hint of desperation and discipline, but you hold your gaze firmly.
“Okay,” Suguru sighs. “But if anything goes wrong, just yell for me, okay?”
You nod.
The tall grass tickles your legs as you move, which makes you thankful you decided to wear trousers instead of your usual skirt for the mission. Your hand grips the strap of your sword bag with anxiety. As you get closer, it’s as if the air is permeated with a smell that you can only describe as being in between sex and blood.
The scream you hear is louder now. You aren’t sure if it’s truly a hallucination, but it seems like the forest laughs back at you after. If you were a smarter person, perhaps you’d return to your partner. But you also assume that if you were to do that, you’d be a weaker person.
You walk over a wooden bridge that feels like it’s holding on by the barest thread. The creaking of the bridge beneath your weight adds to the unease that has settled in your gut. Every step forward feels like a gamble, a test of your bravery. The forest seems to close in around you, the trees whispering secrets you can't quite decipher.
A scream rips through the air and this time, against your better judgment, you follow it.
It’s punctuated with sobs and whimpers, getting louder and louder as you walk along the path. Cursed energy flickers in the shape of a girl. When you get closer, you see her.
A girl is sitting in a fetal position behind a tree, clutching her shoulder as she wails in agony. Her long black hair is matted and damp. She doesn’t seem to notice you yet, so you swiftly move to hide yourself between shrubbery to get a better look.
“P-p-please… help me…” she sobs. You choke up at the sight of her torn dress, hands and shoulder crimson with blood. She looks younger than you – no older than fifteen.
You grasp the strap of your sword bag tightly and cautiously as you walk towards her. Her eyes widen when she sees you. You aren’t sure if it’s a look of relief or fear.
“Hi there,” you say with a tremor in your voice. “What’s your name?”
“Akane,” the girl whimpers. Her face is pale with bruised lips.
“Akane. Are you lost? How did you get this injury?” You crouch down to meet her at eye level.
“Th-there was a man… I was trying to run away from him… but I’m in t-too much pain to keep going,” she breathes. “Please help me.”
You furrow your brows. You’re surprised that there was anyone in this forest besides those grotesque cursed spirits considering how abandoned and desolate the place was. The girl must’ve run far.
“Where are you from, Akane?”
“Tabayama.”
“That’s not too far from here,” you smile softly. “Let me heal you and my friend and I can get you back home, okay?”
You reach for her arm but she flinches and looks at you with unease.
“It’s okay,” you reassure her. “I’m a healer, see?”
Your cursed energy waxes and wanes within your palm like a luminous mist. You hover it over a superficial cut on your hand that you’d gotten from dealing with thorns earlier and the skin patches up like new. Akane watches in awe.
“I want to help you. Is it okay if I touch you?”
She nods her head apprehensively. You unwrap the saturated cloth from her shoulder, cringing at the sight of the gore and blood. You can’t quite envision the type of violence she’d just been through from the vagueness of her words, but you don’t want to make the poor girl explain in the midst of her trauma.
It’s more effort than what you’re used to – the wound is so deep that you fear that you’ll overexert yourself. You’d spent enough time in the lab with Shoko to improve your technique, but this time, it seems as if everything you’re doing isn’t enough. The skin on the girl’s shoulder is healing very slowly, and when you think that her condition is improving, another area of her body seems to bleed out.
“Maybe I should get my friend to help. He could take us to a hospital.”
“He?”
You look up to see Akane’s eyes grow cold. Almost lifeless, as if she’s looking through you. You hear the visceral sound of a limb breaking, the squelch of her organs. It seems as though her face is transforming right in front of your eyes, but it feels like an illusion – the way her skin looks decayed, the way her teeth grow sharper.
Akane – or what was Akane – cackles cruelly. Her cursed energy is overwhelming now, suffocating you. There’s a warbled cry that falls from her mouth.
“I’ll kill him.”
This is not a fucking Grade 2 curse.
You immediately get to your feet and swing your katana, but the curse blocks your attack easily. She’s also growing exponentially, no longer the size of a teenage girl and more like the river monster you’d seen earlier. She grabs you by the ankle, tripping you. A hack to the wrist with your katana makes the creature scream even more. You watch in horror as thick, black blood seeps out.
You yell Suguru’s name at the top of your lungs.
You see the Rainbow Dragon first, flying through the forest around you and the curse, but the nails on her other hand are strong enough to slice through the dragon’s hide. When you turn to lock eyes with Suguru, the curse lets out something in between a sob and a scream, shrill in your ears.
It seems as though she forgets you entirely, running head-first towards Suguru.
“I’ll… kill…. youuuuuuu!”
“No!” you screech, pulling her backward by the leg with all the strength you can muster. You slash the curse’s skin with your katana, making her wail, but she pins you down in retaliation with cuts to your arm from its sharp nails.
You hiss at the pain. You notice that her hair has transformed into its own entity, tentacle-like and razor-sharp as it slices through one of Suguru’s hound-like curses. She directs her attention back at him and aims for his neck, but you hold down a bloody hand onto her back as your hand pulls one of her sharp hairs back.
You cry out at the wound it makes in your hand, but your other stays pressed to the slimy flesh of her body. Your cursed energy ignites something unfamiliar in your body, something painful, but you imbue it into your touch with all you have.
She’s screaming. Or maybe you are. You can’t tell anymore – your head is dulling from expending more cursed energy than you ever have. It’s all dissonant to you. A horrific cacophony. You feel blood drip from your nose.
The curse’s flesh is rotting. As if the wounds she had when she appeared as a human were only rapidly progressing into decay, cells rupturing, body degenerating the harder you push.
It’s like she turns to mush. The corpse of the curse is barely recognizable anymore, just a puddle of chunky purplish-black blood.
You breathe heavily, looking up to see Suguru staring at you in shock. You try to give him a weak smile, but you don’t feel anything other than sick. Or maybe it’s numbness, at least for a few seconds as the forest is quiet again.
You double over and vomit. Your vision blacks out.
As a surprise to no one, Gojo Satoru is fucking livid.
He’s about to open his mouth but stops himself when Suguru gives him a look of disdain. There’s no one to yell at, except maybe Yaga, because why the fuck would he put you on a mission that could potentially involve a Special Grade?
“She’s fine,” Suguru affirms.
Satoru merely exhales through his nostrils, curling his hands into fists as he slumps down on the bench next to Suguru. He can’t help but envision your corpse, his brain reeling a horrific supercut of all the ways you could’ve been disfigured, maimed, bruised. Changed.
He realizes that the protectiveness over you he feels has turned into something ugly now that he knows you’re in the infirmary, something akin to fear, which is foreign to him.
It sinks into him like teeth down to the marrow, parasitic. He thinks of a faceless curse that he wants to tear apart with his bare hands. Satoru had tried to get over the desire to keep you in a cage, to keep you so unbearably close to him out of his own selfishness, but the feeling came back. He doesn’t know where to keep it other than lodged in his chest like a bullet.
“Did you absorb it, Suguru? Because I might need you to summon it later so I can get my fucking hands on it myself,” Satoru says, his voice low and seething through gritted teeth.
“No,” Suguru sighs.
Satord nods dumbly. Silence ensues.
“She killed it herself.”
You have dreams while you’re passed out. The curse you killed transforms its face from its teenage girl form and into others. You see Shoko, Suguru, Satoru. Everyone you’ve ever known. And when the skin of its face starts to rot the same way it did when you used your technique on it, you end up staring at yourself.
When you wake, it’s slow. The fluorescents in the infirmary don’t help. From outside of the room, you can hear hushed voices.
When you attempt to lift your body off the bed, you see Shoko sleeping in a chair next to you. Your bones ache, your skin stinging with the ghost of a wound. The cut on your palm from being slashed by the curse is a scar now.
You drop your head again, squeezing your eyes shut in an attempt to rest more. It’s too fucking bright in this room. Your breathing stills when you hear the door creak open.
“For fuck’s sake,” a voice bristles.
You hear another whispering Shoko’s name. Waking her, you assume.
“How is she doing?”
“She’s okay,” Shoko yawns. “Just sleeping. Her wounds were kind of deep, but I took care of it.”
A hand caresses your jaw gently, fingers stroking through your scalp. Your eyes blink open slowly to see Satoru grimacing above you. From the way the overhead light illuminates the back of his head, you think he almost looks like an angel. A makeshift halo shining on moonlit hair.
You notice the way he holds his fist tightly and the iciness of his gaze. It’s a fraction of rage, which makes you feel nauseous again. You’d seen that look on his face before, during the night of Shoko’s party. You wonder now, vaguely, what he looks like when he kills.
“Hey,” you mumble weakly.
“Hey,” he scoffs. “Wanna tell me what the fuck happened?”
“Satoru, let her be–”
“It’s okay,” you interrupt. You rise, wincing at the soreness of your muscles. “Um. I… killed the curse.”
“So I’ve been told,” Satoru deadpans. His jaw is tense, but his eyes soften. He looks up, flickering his gaze between Shoko and Suguru.
Shoko clears her throat. “She used her technique. The healing part of it is based on cell regeneration. Apparently, it can also be used… the opposite way. It must've been activated by adrenaline, and then it was too much. Passed out from exhaustion.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, our technique is like a muscle, right? And she didn’t use hers very rigorously until now, so…”
“Right,” Satoru sighs, his voice clipped.
“I need a smoke,” Shoko rasps. “Do you need anything, baby?”
You smile weakly, shaking your head.
You can’t help but feel guilt snaking its way into your body. Even though you had exorcised a curse, your first actual achievement in Jujutsu sorcery, the bloodshed you’d experienced feels fruitless. You don’t feel very powerful at all, only monstrous.
It’s difficult to gauge what Satoru is thinking. He’s clearly upset about the fact that you got hurt, but you wonder if there’s more. If he resents you pulling a stunt like that and nearly killing yourself in the process—because what would you be if not his? Are you still his with bloodstained hands? Would he like you better now that you could prove to be strong?
It didn’t matter. He would always be stronger.
You hate the tension in the air. You can’t bear it. Maybe they’ll disperse once you get on your feet. There wasn’t anything left to do with your treatment since Shoko had tired herself with your wounds.
When you swing a leg over the cot and attempt to sit up straight, an invisible wall stops you. You glare at Satoru holding his hand out, palm outstretched inches away from your chest.
“No,” he snaps.
“Don’t do that,” you grumble. “I’m fine.”
He laughs but there’s no amusement in his tone. His eyes are cold again. Pools of ice.
“Right. You’re in fucking pristine shape.”
“Satoru,” Suguru warns.
“I– I can walk–”
“No,” Satoru repeats. “You’re hurt. Stop it.”
You look between Satoru’s hard gaze and Suguru’s frown and roll your eyes. You’re so tired, and overwhelmed with pain that transcends the physical kind. You can’t even put a name to it, the amount of emotions spilling out of you as you look at the two of them with mild desperation. You want to sleep for another twelve hours.
Irritation flares behind your face. You aren’t sure if you want to scream or cry for catharsis, but you stay quiet, trembling.
“I want to be in my bed,” you mutter.
Satoru lets out a breath as if he’s been holding it for a while. Gently, he touches the nape of your neck, Infinity down. Laces his fingers in your hair in a sort of compromise. He moves his arm underneath your back with the other under your knees and lifts you, kicking off the blankets.
You curl into him, head on his chest. It made it hard for Satoru to breathe, for some reason, like something was stealing the air from his lungs. He nods to Suguru as a voiceless confirmation, watching his cursed energy flare. I’ll take it from here.
When he gets you into your room, Satoru releases you, placing you gingerly on the floor. Part of him wants to shake you by the shoulders, have you slap him across the face for reasons unknown to him. Something, anything other than the despondence of your limp figure. He can’t stand it.
“Satoru,” you whisper. “I’m sorr–”
“Don’t,” he strains. “Do you even know why you’re apologizing? Or is it just second nature to you?”
You say nothing.
He strips off your uniform, torn and battered. Still reeking of copper blood, the stench all too familiar, but not on you.
“I’m sorry for being mean. I was just worried,” he says. “I’m… proud of you.”
“Proud?” You look at him, dazed, as if this is the last thing you expect him to say.
He nods curtly, a sad smile on his face. “I always knew you had it in you.”
He picks you up again despite your futile protest, walking you to the attached bathroom. After turning on the faucet, he sits next to you, hand stroking your thigh gently in silence. He doesn’t look at you. He’s not sure if he can.
“C’mon. Up.” He taps your thigh once.
You’re still dizzy as you enter the bath, sighing at the warmth of the water. As you sink into the bath, a sense of relief washes over you, momentarily easing the tension in your body. A much-needed respite.
You feel Satoru trail his fingers around your collarbone, rising to feel your pulse. The rhythm seems to calm him as he soothes his palm over your shoulders and back. His touch is less urgent than it usually is.
He squeezes shampoo in your hair and threads his fingers through it, scratching your scalp gently, untangling the mess of you. He saturates a washcloth with soap, rubbing small circles over your limbs, lifting you like you’re a doll. It was funny—he had never had to take care of anyone other than himself before, but at the moment, he’s indulged in the small hums of pleasure you make, reveling in your comfort. Your trust.
He likes taking care of you. It makes him feel like he has a sense of control. He doesn’t want to indulge too far into it, knowing it’ll smolder a nasty part of him in some way. But the steam of the hot water makes his cheeks ruddy, and when you open your eyes at the feeling of his hand on your jaw, he can’t help but want to keep you.
Satoru turns your face toward him, cupping your chin as he leans in to kiss you. Your mouth opens like a flower blooming, ready for him like always. He tries not to be rough despite the moan you tease out of him. Your skin is soft after he bathes you. His hands know carnage, but they also know you.
You break apart, looking at each other for a few seconds before he kisses you again. He pecks your mouth, nose, and cheeks, leaving you to scrunch your nose by the end. Laughing, he rinses your hair.
“Feel better?” he asks lightly. You nod.
“C’mon, baby. You’re gonna get all pruney in there.”
You’re perfectly capable of drying yourself off and putting on clothes, but Satoru seems eager to do it for you, so you stay limp in his arms. He’s being oddly affectionate as he babies you, which he never does. It’s usually the other way around.
With his hands on your waist, a dangerous thought flits through Satoru’s mind, but it dissipates when he fixes your hair to see you fresh-faced. You look young, innocent. Untouched by violence like he had known you before.
He takes you to the bed, where, despite the size of it, he manages to slot his body next to yours so he can curl into you. Head on your chest to listen to the murmur of your heartbeat.
You stay like this for a while, listening to each others’ breaths. You’re on the brink of sleep when you think you feel tears on your chest. Dampness on your cotton shirt, but only a little. Satoru exhales heavily, squeezing the meat of your side. You’re feeling a little too warm from the proximity but don’t have the heart to untangle yourself. You close your eyes.
“I love you.”
You aren’t sure if it’s a whisper in your dreams or not.
June, 2002
You both had matching bruises. Green and yellowish like snot.
The summer was changing you and Satoru in a way that held gravity. Satoru’s body was growing more and more, handsome like the beautiful child he’d been when you first met him, and you were a purgatory. Something girlish. Something ghostly.
Your mother had reprimanded you last week for coming back with a bloody knee, scolding you for rough play. The expiration on your youth seemed to be ticking from the way she chastised you about your shared misbehavior with Satoru – you were meant to grow into something polite and womanly.
Satoru had scoffed at the notion when you told him. He liked that you weren’t obsequious to him like everyone else in his life who treated him like a little prince.
Unfortunately, you’d pave the road of your abjection all by yourself later on.
He still thought of you as the only person who understood him. He was your first friend, your only friend for a while, and you were his. You’d count stars with him. Catch fireflies and make wishes on them. Wear each other’s clothes before his growth spurt.
You’d clung to each other for years—it was difficult to tell which one of you was the parasite. Despite this, sometimes you think Satoru hates you. Sometimes he makes you cry, especially with how apathetic he can be. You blame his stoicism on his upbringing, but there are times that you feel like an afterthought, only exacerbated as he grows older and into something of worth.
At age twelve, it’s difficult for you to believe that you could be anything similar.
Your young ferocity gets minimized to meekness at school. There’s hair-pulling, harder than Satoru’s ever done to you. Stolen lunches. Spitballs to your back. Your face kissing pavement.
“What happened to you?” Satoru asks, narrowing his eyes at the sight of your split lip.
“I fell.”
He’s forceful when he drags you to him. He’s too tall for his age, towering over you with cold blue eyes staring down at you. You flinch when he touches your cheek with his hand.
“You’re lying,” he frowns.
“It’s fine,” you mumble.
He doesn’t pry after that, but he does force you to clean the cut with hydrogen peroxide, which is ironic considering how little he cares about his own cuts and bruises from his private training.
On the playground the next day, you’re targeted again, reaching desperately for your backpack that’s stolen straight from your hands. A kick to the shins has you scraping your palms when you try to ground yourself. Your hands sting as they bleed. You gasp when you feel another kick to the stomach, a cruel round of laughs taunting you.
But then, you hear them gasp. The sound of knuckles hitting bone.
“Touch her again and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Satoru lifts you up by the hand and holds you by the shoulders. He picks the debris out of your hair.
“C’mon, let’s go home,” he sighs. He ignores the tears on your cheeks. He’ll wipe them away later along with the dried blood in your palms.
You’ll shower in his bathroom, mind blank under the hot water. He’ll see your silhouette through the peek in the door, and his stomach will lurch in a new way. He won’t be able to look at you for a week after.
June, 2009
He comes to you at night a little drunk. You’re surprised Satoru didn’t warp this time – you’re used to seeing him in the blink of an eye right before you go to sleep just because he doesn’t want to sleep in his own room. Sleep is hardly a thing for him anyway – his insomnia has gotten a bit worse over the years, so he prefers to play on his Nintendo DS quietly as he strokes your hair.
“You actually knocked?”
He shrugs as he moves past you to flop his long body onto your twin bed. You look at him in question. He doesn’t answer, only gesturing for you.
“Come over here,” he slurs.
“Are you drunk?”
“Not–” he hiccups, “at all.”
“Satoru,” you berate.
“Okay, maybe I went a little crazy with the Dirty Shirleys. Needed a drink after the stupid fucking mission Yaga sent us on.”
“You shouldn’t be drinking this much. It’s a weekday.”
He mocks you and settles a hand over your waist. You notice the calluses on his hands, ironic considering he can never let anything touch him. But you can.
He sits you on his lap, rubbing your shoulders carefully. “How’s your night been?”
“Shoko made me watch Audition,” you frown.
“Oh. I love that one.”
“Of course you do,” you sigh, “Nothing scares you.”
You aren’t wrong. After assassination attempts and countless wretched curses thrown Satoru’s way, nothing could make him flinch anymore.
“You scare me,” he pouts, undressing himself. Always staking his claim on you in this way – he wouldn’t leave if you asked, and you know that you won’t.
“I highly doubt that.”
“You should yell at me more. It’s kind of a turn-on when you’re mad.”
You roll your eyes as you turn off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness if not for the light of the moon and the annoying brilliance of Satoru’s eyes. Even his hair seems to glow in the dark, head dipped in starlight.
As you lay on your side, you feel Satoru’s palm undulating your bare thigh, tickling you under the hem of your t-shirt. He breathes in the scent of your neck.
“You have goosebumps,” he mumbles against your hair. “Gonna get nightmares from the movie?”
“No.”
“I’ll protect you,” he giggles boyishly, body overheating with want.
He sucks on your neck, hand parting the plushness of your thighs. You keen at the feeling of his teeth and tongue, gasping at his large fingers sliding your panties to the side to prod your cunt.
“This is all I could think about today.”
“Yeah?” you whisper.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice rough. “Kept thinking about all those sounds you make. Kept thinking about your face.”
“You shouldn’t—ah—let yourself get so distracted on your missions.”
He laughs. “Whatever. Killed all those fuckers in less than ten minutes anyway.”
Satoru keeps you pressed to his chest, his other hand grasping your breast. You feel his dick hardening behind you as he plays with your cunt, fingers knuckle-deep inside you. It didn’t take him long to find your spot the way he had you memorized. Your eyes shut tightly as you moan. Stars knock around your head.
He turns your face toward his and licks at the seam of your lips, tongue roughly licking the inside of your mouth. Your body tingles at the sound of his groans. He holds you by the chin, hand slipping around your throat to hold you in place so he can take in every detail of your face.
You flush under his gaze, how his blown-out pupils outweighed the ocean blue. His pink mouth is parted and breathing out, zephyrs of maraschino cherry tickling your face.
You cry out when he pins you down, sinks his cock into your wetness. A wounded sound. It makes him shiver, makes him think about you on that dingy cot a month ago in the infirmary. Satoru was about ready to avenge you in any way he could, back then, even when you weren’t even half-dead. He’d reshape mountains. Drown the whole city of Tokyo with his bare hands.
In the way he holds you with bruising force, rutting into you like a devoted dog, he decides that he will be the only person to hurt you. The only one who should, knowing that even with his regrets and jagged ways of caring, no one else should lay a finger on you except him. He’d never hurt you in a violent way, unless his passion had counted. If devouring you counted, which it probably did, he would be content with his selfishness if it meant you were safe.
He needed to learn how to stop being so goddamn obsessive. He’d work on it later, maybe. He’d try not to speak curses into existence from the way he felt about you.
At the moment, he wants to make this good for you. Something like love.
“Made for me,” he whispers. “You were fucking made for me.”
“Yes,” you gasp.
He splits you open, spearing into your gut as he mumbles praises lowly into your ear. Your cunt pulses at the sound of his voice. He thrusts into you harshly, making blood rush to your head.
“You make me feel insane,” he grunts. “Used to think about you like this in high school. You were so fucking stubborn, refusing to give me attention.”
“You were a brat,” you flush. “Still are.”
“Your brat.”
“Mine,” you hum.
He groans at that. He’s so deep in you, drowning in syrupy velvet. He liked it when your body made him feel like this, like he was levitating. He wasn’t Gojo with you, always Satoru, always just a boy. He’d be content in this infinite spiral, swapping spit in between tongues and fucking into you until you cried. Your body is sacred. You made him forget himself when he needed to.
You like when he carves you out like this, your cunt a shrine for him at this point. You moan at the loss of him, watching through glassy eyes as he stumbles, fixing your body in between his knees.
“Wanna see my pretty girl’s face,” he groans. He’s annoyingly rough when he enters again, but you love it. He says your name like it’s a prayer.
Your head buzzes as he thrusts into you faster this time. His hair sticks to his face, tickling your cheek as he bites into your neck. Midnight vignettes blur your vision.
“Wish you’d let me have you earlier,” he pants.
“Fucking me for the past year wasn’t enough?”
He shakes his head. “Wish I lost it to you. I was thinking about you during it, too.”
“Satoru,” you whine.
He means it. He was already blunt as could be, but alcohol made him over-honest. He liked that his candor made you blush.
“Would you have let me fuck you?” he teases. “When we were fifteen?”
“No. You were even stupider then.”
“So mean to me,” he chuckles, rolling his hips more aggressively. He revels in watching you squirm. “I would’ve worshipped you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” you mumble, hiding your face in his chest. Nails cross-hatching the length of his back.
“I would’ve.” I will.
He kisses you open-mouthed like it’s a promise, pulling your hair in the process. The room was starting to get hot, that June humidity unforgiving, even at night. You’d have to open a window later. His body makes yours swelter, skin melting into skin like he’s trying to fuse the both of you into one thing. Like that Greek myth about two halves of a soul.
“Fuck, ‘m so close,” he whimpers. “You feel too good. Shit, I wanted to make you beg.”
“Sounds like you’re the one begging,” you exhale.
“Yeah,” he grunts. “Want you. You’re killing me. Fuck.”
He spills inside of you at the same time you cum, the heaviness of his low groans making your brain break. He’s still drunk, head swimming with every part of you. Above you, he sports that fallen angel look again, eyes gleaming with rapture. Prodigious as he was, he worships you instead, blessed with love bruises adorning his shoulder.
Satoru always liked to fuck you like it was the last day he’d ever have you. Tonight is no different.
He exhales at the juncture of your neck, soothed by your hands in his hair. He lifts his body up, kissing your collarbone before he descends to your belly. You tremble at the feeling of his hand cupping your cunt.
“Satoru, I can’t–”
“Please?” he pouts, his breath tickling your clit. “Wanna taste you. All mixed up with me.”
Heat rises to your face violently. “You’re disgusting.”
“You love it.”
“You made such a mess,” you grumble.
“I’ll clean it up,” he grins.
You let him. His sharp mouth never lets up, anyway.
“Wait! Sit on my face.”
“I can’t even feel my legs,” you pout.
He whines your name. “I had such a tough mission today, baby. You don’t think I deserve it?”
“Spoiled,” you mumble as you switch positions with him. Below you, he looks feral in the eyes, over-eager. Hungry like a wolf even after fucking you hard.
You gasp when he pulls you down, slotting your thighs on each side of his head while he starts to taste you. Licking up into your cunt, moaning at the taste of himself and the sweetness of you. He grips your ass, guiding your movements like the ebb and flow of a wave. You shake above him.
“Jesus.”
You feel him laugh, the vibrations tickling your clit.
“Annoying slut,” you call him. He seems to enjoy it, thinking of it as praise considering how loud he groans. It almost embarrasses you.
That familiar feeling twinges in your core again.
“Cum for me, baby,” he breathes. He latches his mouth on your clit and you think you might burst. Maybe crumble and fly away in the wind like a dandelion.
He continues to suck on you as you ride out your orgasm, your thighs trembling. When he gets up for air, his eyes are blown out wide, drunken smile on his face as if he’s peaking. Chemical reactions in his blood.
“So good for me,” he grins, kissing you on the mouth. Your heart flutters.
His gaze is still searing into you. Looking at him hurts, sometimes.
Satoru presses into you, curling into your neck again. His heartbeat reverberates throughout the room. Tenderness floods the both of you, bodies slotted together like he wants to make a nest out of you.
You’re exhausted with heavy lids. Satoru strokes your skin until you fall asleep, careful fingers soothing the places his mouth had been. Divine wounds. Like a devotional dog with teeth too sharp and love larger than his body, Satoru will be the only one to hurt you.
349 notes
·
View notes
✫𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒆, i can see you.
✫ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | fighting, swearing, tristan being an asshole, breaking things (not too graphic promise LOL)
✫ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 | hey yall, i'm back! i hope everyone enjoys! also i tagged everyone who seemed interested, i'm sorry for the VERY late update. i'm back, mwahhh. also planning a nate archibald series, who'd be interested? lmk!
✫ 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | @colbybrocks @weepingwitchofthewest @shady-writtingtalk @zulpix-blog @wheelerslover @dogmom600 @damnhati @remussbitch @yourmumstoyboy2-blog @1-800-starkindustrie
The front door opened suddenly and she whipped her head to make eye contact with... Tristan Dugray? Oh, so that's where she's heard that name!
Y/N couldn't control as her mouth flew open. She also couldn't control the words that came out of her mouth as she saw him. "Oh, you've gotta be shitting me."
After Y/N had locked eyes with Tristan she whipped her head to face her father. "You're engaged to Tristan's mother?!"
Her father and Kristan looked surprised — they both exchanged glances before they looked back at her. "Yeah, I guess I am?"
His answer sounded more like a question rather than a straight up reply. He didn't know why she was now seemingly opposed to the idea of him being engaged to Kristan simply because of Tristan.
Y/N looked shocked, her jaw practically on the floor. "You're engaged to Tristan's mother." Instead of a question, it sounds more like a statement.
Before any of them could reply, Tristan spoke. "Oh, hello step-sister." You could practically hear the smirk in his voice. He was enjoying see your shocked expression. Tristan's smug remark only fueled your growing frustration and utter disbelief. You shot him a glare that could freeze lava before turning back to her father and Kristan, your mind racing with a whirlwind of emotions.
"So, this is what you meant by wanting me to spend time with my old 'friends'?" Your tone was laced with sarcasm as she addressed her father. "You conveniently forgot to mention that my 'old friend' is now my soon-to-be stepbrother?"
Her father shifted uncomfortably under her accusing gaze, realizing he had failed to properly prepare Y/N for this bombshell. "I... I thought it would be best to tell you in person."
Your frustration mounted with each passing second. "Well you thought wrong, Dad."
Kristan interjected, her voice gentle yet firm. "I understand this is a lot to take in, Y/N. But we're all going to be a family now, and I hope we can find a way to make this work."
Y/N fought the urge to roll her eyes at Kristan's attempt to diffuse the tension as she gave her a sarcastic smile. "Right, a family. How convenient."
Tristan leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed with a smirk still playing on his lips. "Well, this should be fun. Welcome to the family, stepsis."
Y/N resisted the urge to launch herself at him as she shot daggers with her eyes. "Don't call me that."
Kristan shot a glare at her son as she turned to you once again. "We didn't realize it would be such a shock to you,. We should have handled this better."
You took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions swirling inside me. You knew you couldn't blame her father entirely, but the whole thing still felt like a betrayal. "I just need some time to process all of this," Y/N muttered, her voice tinged with resignation. "Excuse me."
"I thought that went great." Tristan mumbled as his mother shook his head, your father pulling her in closer.
You turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, leaving your father, Kristan, and Tristan as your retreated to her old bedroom, you couldn't shake the feeling that your carefully constructed world was crumbling around you, and you had no idea how to pick up the pieces.
You stepped out of the car, dramatically slamming the door as you took in the school: Chilton Prep School, where she would be going to school from now. She heard footsteps from behind her, she already knew who it was.
"Welcome home, Cromwell." Tristan's voice rang. You gritted her teeth at the sound of Tristan's voice behind you. You turned slowly, fixing him with a glare that could cut through steel.
"Save it, Dugray," you snapped, your tone dripping with disdain. "This is hardly my idea of home."
Tristan raised an eyebrow, his smirk never faltering. "Well, get used to it. Looks like we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other from now on."
Tristan raised an eyebrow, his smirk never faltering. "Feisty as ever, Cromwell. I'm just offering a friendly welcome to our new classmate, no need to get all... bitchy."
You narrowed your eyes at his remark, resisting the urge to roll them. "I'll take that as a compliment, Dugray. And I don't need your welcome. I know my way around just fine."
Tristan's smirk widened, clearly enjoying getting a rise out of you. "Oh, come on, Cromwell. Where's that famous New York charm? You're going to need it to survive in this stuffy place."
"I'll manage just fine without your help," you shot back, your voice dripping with determination. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than stand here and listen to your bullshit."
You turned away from Tristan, walking into Chilton. You already hated it, everyone looked so pretentious and elitist, just like Tristan. But you weren't going to let that intimidate you. You had faced down Manhattan's elite, and you could handle a bunch of snooty prep school kids. You had grown up with these kids, they couldn't be that hard.
As you made your way through the halls, you couldn't shake the feeling of being out of place. The students eyed you with curiosity, whispers following in your wake. But you held your head high, refusing to let them see any hint of insecurity.
Chilton was a far cry from the bustling streets of Manhattan, and you couldn't shake the feeling that you were in for a rough ride. But you were Y/N Cromwell, and you didn't back down from a challenge.
With a flick of your hair and a confident stride, you made your way to your first class, ready to show Chilton Prep that Y/N Cromwell was a force to be reckoned with.
"Where are you two going?" You popped a grape in your mouth as you watched Kristan grab her purse from the chair as your father tightened his tie.
"I told you earlier, we have a date."
You raised an eyebrow at your father's response, a hint of skepticism in your voice. "A date? You two are acting like lovesick teenagers."
Kristan chuckled, smoothing down her blouse as she shot you a warm smile. "Well, your father does know how to sweep a lady off her feet."
You rolled your eyes as Kristan and your father shared glances. You all knew what that meant, you had to be left alone with Tristan. You had barely managed to tolerate his presence since arriving at your father's house, and the thought of spending an evening alone with him was enough to make you want to crawl out of your skin.
"Well, have fun on your date," you forced out, the words tasting bitter on your tongue.
With a quick goodbye, your father and Kristan headed out the door, leaving you alone, turning around and seeing Tristan in the spacious living room. He caught your gaze and his lips curved up into a smile.
You felt a shiver run down your spine as Tristan's gaze met yours, his smirk sending a wave of irritation coursing through you. You knew exactly what he was thinking – that he had you right where he wanted you, trapped in his company for the evening.
Suppressing a sigh, you turned away from Tristan, refusing to let him see how much he was getting under your skin. Instead, you busied yourself with anything that would distract you from his presence – flipping through a magazine, checking your phone, anything to avoid acknowledging him.
But no matter how hard you tried to ignore him, Tristan was a persistent presence in the room. You could feel his eyes on you, his smug smirk burning into the back of your skull.
Finally unable to take it anymore, you turned to face him with a glare. "What do you want, Tristan?" you snapped, your patience wearing thin.
Tristan's smirk widened, his gaze flickering with amusement. "Just enjoying the view, Cromwell," he replied casually, as if your irritation was nothing more than entertainment to him.
You let out a bitter laugh as you shook your head. "Real classy, Tristan."
Tristan's smirk only widened at your remark, his amusement evident in every line of his face. "Oh, come on, Cromwell," he said, his tone teasing. "You can't tell me you're not used to being the center of attention. You were in New York for five years and you're telling me you didn't have the boys throwing themselves at you?"
You narrowed your eyes at Tristan, refusing to let his words rattle you. "I don't need validation from boys like you," you retorted, your voice dripping with annoyance. "Unlike some people, I have more important things to focus on than relationships."
Tristan's smirk faltered slightly at your cutting remark, but he quickly regained his composure. "Touché, Cromwell," he replied, his tone laced with amusement. "But don't act like you're immune to a little attention. I've seen the way you strut around like you own the place."
"And you don't? Please, I see the way every girl at Chilton looks at you. And I know you well enough to see how much that strokes your already, inflated ego." You paused, your voice laced with sarcasm as you leveled a pointed gaze at Tristan. "But hey, who am I to judge? If you want to bask in the adoration of your fan club, be my guest."
"Oh, I will, Y/N." Tristan let out a laugh as he watched you get all heated. He continued you watch you as you scoffed, turning your head back to the magazine.
You could feel his eyes on you, his amusement practically palpable. But you refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing you squirm. You weren't about to let him see how much he was getting to you. With a determined flick of your wrist, you closed the magazine and stood up from the sofa, shooting Tristan a glare.
"I have better things to do than sit here and listen to you," you declared, your voice laced with determination. With that, you turned on your heel and marched out of the room, leaving Tristan behind with his smug smirk and his insufferable ego.
You refused to let him drag you down to his level – you had bigger things to focus on than his petty games, like actually getting back to Manhattan where you belonged.
As you walked away, Tristan's amusement turned to frustration. He wasn't used to someone challenging him like this, especially not someone like you. With a determined stride, he followed after you, catching up just as you reached the hallway.
As you stormed out of the room, Tristan's smirk faded into a scowl. He watched you go, frustration bubbling up inside him. How dare she walk away from him like that? Without a second thought, Tristan followed after you, his footsteps echoing in the hallway as he caught up to you just as you reached the foyer.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Tristan called out, his voice sharp with annoyance.
You stopped in your tracks, turning to face him with a glare. "Away from you," you replied sharply, crossing your arms over your chest. "I can't stand being around you for another second."
Tristan's jaw clenched, his own temper flaring. "Oh, please," he scoffed, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Like you're any better. You're nothing but a spoiled brat who thinks she's better than everyone else."
The words hit you like a slap in the face, igniting a firestorm of rage within you. "At least I'm not a narcissistic asshole who gets off on belittling others," you spat, your voice rising with each word. "You think you're so much better but you're not."
Tristan squared his shoulders, meeting your gaze head-on. "I want to know what your problem is," he replied, his tone angry. "You've been acting like you a complete bitch when I'm all trying to do is be your friend."
You scoffed, shaking your head in disbelief. "Oh, spare me the act, Tristan," you shot back, your voice dripping with sarcasm. "We both know that's not what you're after. You just want to play your little games and stroke your own ego."
Tristan's jaw clenched, his frustration bubbling to the surface. "And what about you, huh?" he retorted, his voice rising in anger. "You act like you're too good for everyone, like you're above it all. Well, let me tell you something, Y/N – you're not as special as you think you are."
"You know what, Tristan. I don't care about you or your stupid games because all I'm trying to do is get back to New York. All this shit is just a rock in the road," you spat as you turned around, walking away.
"Oh really? What about your obvious drinking problem, that's why your mom sent you away, right?"
You stopped in your track as you took in Tristan's words. Fury was etched across your features as you spun around to face him, your fists clenched at your sides. "How dare you," you seethed, your voice trembling with rage. "You stupid asshole!"
You pushed him as hard as you could, causing him to trip and fall into a table. You heard a loud shattering and both of you just stared at each other before looking down to see glass everywhere.
"Shit, that's my mom's vase." Tristan's eyes widened in shock as he glanced at the shattered remains of the vase on the floor.
Your chest heaved with anger as you glared at Tristan, your fists still clenched at your sides. "You deserved it," you spat, your voice thick with venom. "You had no right to say that."
"Y/N, this vase is like two grand. It was my mom's favorite vase," Tristan scoffed as he stared down at the ground. "She's gonna be fucking pissed, idiot."
You stared back at him with anger but you knew that you needed to figure something out. Taking a deep breath to steady yourself, you clenched your jaw and met Tristan's gaze head-on. "I know I messed up," you admitted begrudgingly, your voice tight with frustration. "You shouldn't have been a bitch."
"Well you shouldn't have pushed me, like an psycho." Tristan's voice was sharp, but there was a hint of surrender beneath his irritation. He knew that pointing fingers wouldn't solve anything, but he couldn't help but feel defensive in the face of your accusation.
"Well I'm not apologizing-"
"Y/N, we need to figure out what to do before they come home."
And right on cue, the front door opened, revealing your father and Kristan, who froze in shock at the sight of the shattered vase and the two of you standing next to it.
Your father's expression hardened as he took in the scene, his disappointment evident in his eyes. "What in the world happened here?" he demanded, his voice a mix of frustration and disbelief.
masterlist !
series masterlist !
274 notes
·
View notes