Work Text:
cw: mention of domestic violence, minor violence description, it's all cool and dandy but he's kinda bad idk what you expect from this man atp
art: kalmia ♥
Sukuna keeps his studio small because he hates wasted space.
A big room invites clutter, invites comfort, invites the kind of softness that makes people lazy.
This one is a box with foam panels and sharp corners, a desk that holds a mic, an interface, a monitor, and a second screen reserved for the chat he pretends not to read.
There’s a cheap couch that never gets used, a mini fridge that never gets stocked with anything that can rot, and a single framed print on the wall — an anatomical sketch of a ribcage that looks like it belongs in a medical textbook.
It’s a joke that only he finds funny.
He rolls his shoulders once, slow, and watches the meters bounce while he tests his voice.
The compressor kisses the low end and makes him sound like sin dressed up as professionalism. It’s obscene how much people like it, how quickly strangers decide his voice is safe to put in their ears.
He’s not safe.
He never has been.
He’s just controlled.
Uraume stands behind him, tablet in hand, posture perfect, expression unreadable.
They’ve been with him long enough to know when to speak and when to exist quietly in the background like a stagehand.
“You have a new one.” they say.
It means he has a new message worth his attention, filtered out of the thousands that crawl into the inbox every week — fan letters, case suggestions, trauma dumps, people begging for him to cover their cousin’s disappearance, people trying to bait him into saying something incriminating.
He takes the tablet without looking back, his thumb scrolls through the inbox, bored until he isn’t.
Your email is tagged with a plain label — KEEP.
No emojis, no performative voice, no overly clever subject line.
It’s almost timid in how careful it is, which is exactly what makes it land.
The first paragraph praises him in a way that isn’t the common soft. He’s used to the e-mails telling him he’s “so comforting” or “so sweet.”
You don’t call him a genius like a teenager crushing on a celebrity, you point out the parts of his commentary most listeners don’t even notice — where he catches a mistake that isn’t flashy, where he explains motive without turning it into an excuse for the killer, where he talks about violence like it’s logistics instead of theater and flair.
You say you like how clinical he is. You say you like his voice. You say you like that he doesn’t pretend to be shocked at the gore and violence.
He huffs a laugh through his nose and murmurs a praise too low for anyone to hear.
Then he keeps reading.
The second paragraph changes tone, and it’s not subtle.
You’re trying to make it subtle, which is adorable in a way that irritates him.
People always think they can dress truth up as a hypothetical and keep their hands clean.
You do it too.
You ask for “instructions” on how to get away with murdering a horrible husband in a piece of fiction you are writing, but all the scenarios you come with seem too risky and unreal, so you wonder if he can help you with a few advices and instructions, because he seems very well versed.
Sure, that’s what this is about.
You say you live in an abusive marriage without needing to tell him that's your current reality. You keep writing this make-pretend scenario you insist in presenting him with, but all he gathers from that is that your husband controls your finances, that he didn’t allow you to work, that he feeds you when he wants to, that the house has rules and your body pays when you break them.
All that dressed up nicely in the pretense of fiction.
You don’t say you’re scared.
You don’t say you’re desperate.
You don’t say you’re at the edge of something you can’t climb back from.
Sukuna reads the email twice anyway, slow the second time, tasting the shape of it.
He’s not moved in the way decent people mean, there’s no swelling ache in his chest, he doesn’t get furious on your behalf.
He doesn’t even feel pity.
He feels interest.
Because you aren’t asking to be saved.
You’re kindly asking to be armed.
He’s heard that tone before — right before someone crosses a line and tells themselves it was inevitable.
He sets the tablet down for a second and glances at the clock.
Fifteen minutes until he goes live.
He could ignore you.
He ignores most people.
He could send the standard safe, boring reply, something about “resources” and “help,” wash his hands and go back to his show where he talks about other people’s blood like it’s entertainment.
He doesn’t.
His fingers move over the screen, and he types like he’s already decided you belong to his week now.
You’re not subtle.
He considers softening it, then doesn’t — Softness makes people sloppy.
I’m not giving you a neat little blueprint. Not because I’m moral. Because I’m not an idiot, and neither are you.
But I’ll read you.
I’ll listen.
And if you want to keep writing, don’t perform for me, don’t try to sound brave.
Tell the truth.
He signs it the way he signs everything.
— King of Corpses
Uraume watches him hit send.
“You’re replying.” they point out, flat.
Sukuna leans back in his chair and rolls his neck, as if he’s loosening up for work.
“I’m rewarding good taste.” he answers.
Uraume’s eyes flick to the ribcage print on the wall, then back.
“Or feeding an itch.”
Sukuna smiles without warmth.
“Same thing.”
When the red ON AIR light turns on, Sukuna becomes a voice before he becomes a man.
He slips into it like putting on a glove.
The intro music plays, low and grimy, and the chat fills instantly with skulls, hearts, filthy jokes that make Uraume sigh silently in the corner.
Sukuna leans into the microphone.
“Evening, corpses,” he says, velvety and obscene in how effortlessly it settles into the room. “Welcome back to Malevolent Morgue. I’m King of Corpses, and tonight we’re talking about the killers who thought they were geniuses and still got caught because they couldn’t shut the fuck up.”
The audience loves it.
He tells the story of a case that went wrong not because the killer was unlucky, but because he was arrogant.
Sukuna takes it apart slowly, pointing at the little fractures — the habits, the patterns, the ways people betray themselves because they get sloppy when they start enjoying the attention.
He never mentions his own work — he never feels the need to do so, he’s not after the validation of his listeners.
He talks like someone who understands the body as a problem to solve, not a sacred thing.
People mistake that for bravery, for edge, for a bit.
They don’t know it’s just honesty.
When the episode ends and the light goes dark, he doesn’t linger in the afterglow of applause. He pulls the headphones off, stands, stretches, and goes straight back to the inbox.
Your reply is already waiting.
It’s shorter than your first email, like you wrote it with shaking fingers.
You ask him not to mock you. You admit you aren’t strong enough to do it yourself. You say you’ve thought about leaving, but you have nowhere to go, no money, no job history, no family that will help. You say he made sure of that. You say he’s the kind of man who smiles at neighbors and keeps you quiet behind closed doors.
You say you listen to Sukuna’s podcast to relax because the gore feels honest compared to your life.
Sukuna reads it and feels his mouth curve.
He doesn’t find your suffering funny, he smirks solely because you’re giving him something he hasn’t had in a long time — a living person asking him to step into a story and change its trajectory.
He has dug up some things on you while the episode rolled — actually, Uraume has. They're good at this.
The name you use on your e-mail account is just an username, but you’re naive enough to put that username on a few of your social media profiles, so Uraume has your picture and your nickname by the end of the recording.
Sukuna ponders about using the nickname in the next reply already, just to see if you’ll get scared.
You probably look good when you're scared, based on the picture Uraume showed him. No wonder why your husband seems to want you constantly crying and fearing for your life.
Pretty, hopeless little thing.
He decides to use it, because he has no use to someone asking for a literal murdering tip and yet backing off the instant he shows he’s quick to investigate and dig into someone’s life.
He writes back immediately.
I’m going to mock you a little, Moth.
Not for wanting him gone. For thinking you’re weak because you don’t want to get your hands dirty.
Plenty of people want someone dead. Most of them just don’t have the spine to admit it.
You do.
Then, because he can’t resist twisting the knife into something intimate.
Tell me what he does.
You answer over the next few days in fragments.
Sometimes you write long paragraphs.
Sometimes it’s one sentence sent like a whisper.
You tell him about the money. The pantry. The way your husband decides when you eat like it’s a privilege you have to earn. You tell him about the cleaning, the inspections, the way he checks your phone and your tone and your face. You tell him about the nights you sleep light because your body has learned that footsteps mean consequences.
He realizes the parasocial relationship you may be creating. How you're probably already seeing in him a confidant, a priest for you to confess your sins and beg for absolution.
You ask again for instructions.
You ask how to make it look like an accident.
You ask how to not get caught.
Sukuna’s reply is sharp.
You want me to make you feel powerful by handing you a list.
That’s not power. That’s you trying to borrow my teeth to rip his throat off.
He watches the cursor blink, then adds,
If you want him gone, you have two options.
One: you live with what you do.
Two: you let someone else do it and you live with that instead.
He doesn’t write that he’s the someone else.
The implication sits between the lines like a hand on a throat.
Your next message comes an hour later.
Would you do it for me?
Sukuna goes still.
Uraume, sitting across the room, looks up from their laptop the way a person looks up when a temperature changes.
Sukuna doesn’t answer right away this time, he enjoys making people wait a little every now and then.
Anticipation sharpens the mind.
It makes the confession cleaner.
Then he types.
You want a priest?
You want to crawl into a booth and whisper your sin and have someone else carry it.
Fine.
Confess properly, Moth.
He knows you’ll understand.
He knows because you’ve already been confessing, you’ve just been pretending you aren’t.
You reply in the middle of the night.
You write like someone who is done trying to be palatable.
You tell him you fantasize about silence. You tell him you dream about waking up and not having to calculate your husband’s mood before you move. You tell him you feel sick imagining blood, but you feel calmer imagining the man who owns you simply… not there.
You don’t call it rape. You don’t call it beating.
You just describe the shape of the week.
You ask Sukuna if that makes you evil.
Sukuna snorts.
Evil is a word people use when they don’t want to say “I want.”
You want.
That’s all.
He leans back in his chair and lets the quiet of the studio settle around him. The foam panels swallow sound. The city outside keeps moving without caring.
He thinks about retirement the way other people think about sobriety — Like it’s a choice you made once and now you’re supposed to live like the hunger doesn’t exist.
He’s been good.
He’s been controlled.
He’s been bored.
And you — some desperate listener with good taste and a bruised life — just offered him an excuse that fits neatly in his palm.
He writes back.
You want him gone. It's manageable.
But you don’t get to romanticize me after.
You don’t get to call me a hero.
You don’t get to cry and then pretend you didn’t invite a monster in.
He watches the cursor blink again.
If you keep writing me, you keep writing the truth.
If you lie to me, I leave you to deal with your own mess.
Your reply comes fast.
I won’t lie.
Sukuna smiles, slow.
“Good,” he says aloud, though there’s no one he’s speaking to except the room.
Uraume’s voice cuts in, calm and disapproving.
“You’re stepping out of the booth?”
Sukuna’s eyes stay on the screen.
“I’m stretching my legs.”
Weeks pass, and the podcast becomes a routine everyone thinks they own.
Every Friday night, Malevolent Morgue goes live.
Sukuna covers failed cases. He dissects the psychology. He laughs at arrogance. He flirts with the audience in a way that keeps them hungry without ever letting them touch him. He calls them corpses like it’s affection.
In between episodes, he reads you.
Your emails change over time.
At first, you apologize constantly, like your body still believes you owe everyone softness.
Then you stop, slowly, because Sukuna never rewards it.
He doesn’t soothe you, nor does he praise you for surviving. He doesn’t wrap your fear in pretty words. He responds with interest, with cruelty, with a steady attention that makes you feel seen in a way that’s almost worse than being ignored.
He asks questions that aren’t gentle.
Not “are you okay,” but “what does he do when he’s calm,” “what does he do when he thinks no one is watching,” “what makes him predictable,” “what makes him careless.”
He isn’t building you a plan in tidy bullet points.
He’s building a picture.
A man who treats women like property is always careless in the same way — he believes ownership is permanent. He believes they can’t surprise him.
Sukuna enjoys that belief.
He enjoys it because breaking it is easy, and easy things are fun when you do them with style.
You start writing him details you don’t even realize are details.
The way your husband always locks the back door. The way he keeps a certain room off-limits. The way he gets lazy when he drinks. The way he smiles at neighbors like he’s the model citizen.
Sukuna listens like it’s a bedtime story.
Like it’s a confession.
Like it’s foreplay.
He gets off on how easily you decided to trust him. How little effort he had to put into dragging the information out of you under the hint of a promise that he would make things better for you at some point.
He never told you that he cares about your well being, or that he’s sorry this is happening to you, he only offers you the feeling that something ruthless is watching your husband from the dark.
It changes how you write.
You get sharper. Less scattered. More honest.
One night, you send him a line that makes his pulse jump in a way he hasn’t felt in years.
He hit me in the mouth for smiling at the cashier.
Sukuna reads it, slow.
Then he types with a calm that would terrify anyone who understands him.
He’s getting comfortable.
That’s when men like him make mistakes.
You reply quickly,
Would you really do it for me?
Sukuna stares at the screen.
He stares at the cursor for a long second, then types the sentence that makes something old and hungry sit up inside him.
Yes, I would.
Uraume makes a sound that could be a sigh, could be disgust.
“Sukuna,” they say, using his name like a warning.
He finally looks at them. His gaze is calm, almost bored.
“You think I’m going to get caught now,” he drawls “Because I have a podcast.”
Uraume doesn’t blink.
“Because you’re getting attached.”
Sukuna laughs softly.
“Attached?” he repeats, like it’s a joke.
Then his eyes slide back to the screen.
He writes,
You’re going to do exactly what I tell you, and you’re going to do it without getting romantic about it.
If you want a hero, unsubscribe.
He pauses, then adds the line that’s pure him — filthy, controlling, intimate in a way that makes shame and relief blur together.
You already put my voice in your head to calm down, didn’t you, Moth?
Good.
Now you’re going to put me in your life.
He doesn’t ask for your address in the email.
He’s not stupid.
He’s not sloppy.
He’s not a teenager playing gangster.
He gives you a way to speak to him that isn’t traceable in a neat, clean paragraph he doesn’t bother to explain to you, because you don’t need to understand his methods.
You just need to obey them.
And you do, obedient little moth you are.
Because you’re tired. Because you’re scared. Because you’ve been trained to follow instructions to survive.
Because some part of you likes the idea of a monster choosing you.
All the while, he thinks about his hands — the clean efficiency of endings.
He thinks about the way a human being can go from loud to quiet in seconds.
He thinks about how much he misses the moment right before.
Not the gore. The choice.
He types,
You’re going to let me in.
You don’t ask what he means.
You just answer,
Okay.
Uraume reads over his shoulder without moving closer, like they’re trying not to contaminate themselves with whatever this is.
“You’re enjoying this.” they say.
Sukuna doesn’t deny it.
“Of course I am.”
Three nights later, Sukuna stands across the street from your house.
He doesn’t park close, doesn’t loiter.
He watches.
The neighborhood is quiet in the way quiet neighborhoods always are, full of other people’s secrets, scrubbed clean on the surface. Porch lights. Curtains. A dog barking once and then stopping.
Your house looks like any other house.
That’s what makes it funny.
All the cages in the world are built to look normal from the outside. People like your husband don’t want witnesses. They want plausible deniability. They want neighbors who wave and never ask why you stopped smiling.
Sukuna sits in his car, hands loose on the wheel, eyes steady.
He feels almost fond.
Not of you.
Of the situation.
Of the way the world keeps offering him the same lesson — monsters don’t have to break in. People invite them when they’re desperate enough.
His phone buzzes once — your message, short, timed.
He’s home.
Sukuna’s mouth twitches.
He sends one line back.
Open the door when I tell you.
Then he gets out of the car and crosses the street like he belongs there.
He doesn’t wear a mask. He doesn’t hunch. He doesn’t play suspicious.
He’s just a man walking at night with purpose, and most people don’t question purpose.
They assume it’s legitimate. They assume it’s work. They assume it’s a boyfriend.
They assume it’s none of their business.
He reaches your porch.
He hears the television through the walls. The low murmur of a man’s voice inside — your husband, comfortable, unaware, owning the night like it owes him something.
Sukuna stands in the dark and waits.
He texts you.
Open.
The lock clicks.
It doesn’t feel like coming out of retirement.
It feels like returning to a hobby he always did better than everyone else.
The door opens a few inches.
You don’t step out, and you don't greet him.
You just move aside.
Sukuna slips in.
The air inside hits him with something sour and familiar — the stale smell of control.
Of someone’s anger baked into fabric.
Of rooms that have learned to keep quiet.
You stand in the hallway, half-hidden, eyes too wide.
The bruises on you are faint in the low light, but he sees them anyway. His gaze skims your throat, your wrists, the set of your shoulders.
You look like someone who has spent years making yourself small enough not to be noticed.
And now you’ve opened your front door for a man who is impossible to ignore.
Tall, broad, ink adoring his jaw, cheekbone and neck, eyes that look bright red under the dim light, a few scars cutting the right side of his face, and a lazy grin that means he’s exactly where he wants to be.
Sukuna leans down, close enough that you feel his breath fanning against your cheek.
“You’re trembling, Moth.” he murmurs.
You swallow the lump in your throat.
“I—”
He cuts you off with a soft sound, almost a laugh.
“Don’t talk,” he says. “You’ll start apologizing, and I’ll get annoyed.”
Your eyes flick to his mouth, then away.
Shame. Fear. Something else that makes your pulse jump.
He looks pleased by it, because he’s a bastard like that, he knows how he looks and that’s part of why being a damn murderer always felt easy, his victims were mostly drawn to him like moths to a flame.
He brushes past you toward the living room.
Your husband is on the couch, one hand in his pants, the other holding a beer. Television light paints him blue. He turns his head when Sukuna enters, irritation already on his face, the reflex of a man who thinks every unknown presence is a threat to his ownership.
“Who the fuck—”
Sukuna doesn’t rush him.
He doesn’t lunge.
He doesn’t perform.
He stands there for a beat and lets your husband see him — tall, calm, handsome in a way that makes people uneasy because it doesn’t come with softness.
“Evening,” Sukuna says, polite.
Your husband’s eyes flick past him, toward the hallway.
Toward you.
The suspicion tightens.
Sukuna watches the realization move across the man’s face like a slow stain.
“You…” your husband starts.
Sukuna tilts his head.
“You should’ve fed your wife better. Kept her safe and comfortable.” he says mildly. “That's not how you treat something you own. It shows.”
Your husband surges up from the couch, anger rising fast and stupid. Men like him love anger because it’s the only power they understand.
Sukuna lets him take two steps.
Then the room changes.
Not with a dramatic fight.
Not with a crash of furniture.
With calculated efficiency.
With the kind of practiced calm that never belonged to a man who retired.
Sukuna closes the distance, and for a moment you see his hands move up — controlled, economical, like he’s done this a hundred times and never once had to improvise.
Your husband makes a sound that isn’t a word.
It's a crack and it's a wet gargle and it's wrong.
Sukuna keeps his face almost bored.
It doesn’t take long.
It’s horrifying precisely because it isn’t theatrical.
When it’s done, your husband is on the floor and the television keeps talking like nothing happened.
Sukuna straightens, adjusts his sleeve as if he’s fixing a minor inconvenience, and looks toward the hallway.
“Come here.” he beckons you with two fingers, voice steady.
You step in like you’re sleepwalking.
Your gaze hits the body and locks there.
Your throat works like you’re trying to swallow something that won’t go down.
You don’t scream. You don’t collapse. You stand and stare like a person whose brain is trying to decide whether this is real.
Sukuna watches you carefully.
He doesn’t comfort you.
He doesn’t tell you it’ll be okay.
He steps close, and his voice drops into something intimate.
“What you wanted was a man who could turn the noise off.”
You flinch, but you don’t step back.
Your lips part, and the first thing that comes out is small and raw.
“Thank you.”
Sukuna’s eyes narrow.
“Don’t.” he says, sharp enough to make you freeze. “Don’t make me your savior.”
His gaze drags down your face, your mouth, the tension in your jaw.
“But you can be grateful,” he adds, voice lowering again, cruel with amusement. “Quietly.”
He turns away, walking through your house like it belongs to him now. He’s deciding what he leaves behind and what he doesn’t.
He stops at the kitchen sink. Washes his hands. Thorough. Patient.
You stand behind him, still shaking, still staring like the air has changed composition.
Uraume would call it attachment. Sukuna calls it something else, appetite.
He dries his hands and looks at you over his shoulder.
“You’re going to listen to me,” he says. “Not because I give a shit about your future. Because if you ruin this with panic, I’ll be disappointed.”
Your breath catches. You nod.
He steps close again, fingers lifting your chin — not gentle, but not harsh.
Possessive in a way that makes your stomach twist.
“Look at me.” he orders.
You do.
His eyes are bright.
Alive.
That old thrill in them, barely contained.
“You wanted to kill him,” he says softly. “You wanted to be the kind of person who could do it. You wanted to stop feeling so small.”
His thumb presses against your jaw, just enough to make you hold still.
“You’re still you,” he continues. “Still scared. Still shaking, a little pathetic, a little worth of being mocked. Still trying not to fall apart.”
A pause.
“And now you’re also the kind of person who let a murderer into your house.”
You inhale sharply.
Sukuna smiles, slow.
“That’s going to sit in your bones forever,” he says. “It’s going to change you. It should.”
He’s never been caught before, and that’s because hes throughout.
“And now you’re standing in the room where it happened,” he says. “So listen carefully.”
His hand slides from your jaw to your throat — slow, deliberate, possessive.
He doesn’t squeeze hard enough to take you anywhere you can’t come back from.
He doesn’t black you out. He isn’t sloppy, like that, however, he enjoys the thrill of willing submission.
He closes his fingers around your neck just enough to make it hard to swallow, just enough to make your pulse jump against his palm.
You don’t thrash.
You don’t fight him.
Your hands fly to his jacket, not to push him away, but to find purchase, to anchor yourself to something real. Your fingers clutch fabric like it’s the only thing keeping you upright.
Sukuna watches it, pleased in a way that should make you ashamed. It doesn’t, not right now.
Shame is too complicated when your body is flooded with relief and horror and devotion so raw it tastes metallic.
“That’s what you are,” he murmurs. “Obedient when it matters.”
He releases your throat and your breath rushes back in like you’ve been underwater. You blink hard. Your eyes sting.
Sukuna’s voice stays even.
“You’re going to want to confess,” he offers. “To a friend. A neighbor. A hotline. Someone who looks safe because they smile the right way.”
His mouth twists. Disdain, quiet and sharp.
“And you’ll do it because guilt makes people stupid,” he continues. “Because you’ll want someone to pat your head and tell you you did what you had to do.”
He leans in, close enough that his words feel like they’re being pressed directly into your skin.
“If you talk,” Sukuna states, “You die.”
Your lips part. A sound tries to crawl out.
Sukuna cuts it off with a look.
“You don’t get to ruin this,” he remarks. “Not after you begged for it.”
Your hands tighten on his jacket.
You don’t say yes.
You don’t say please.
You just stare at him like you’re waiting for the next order.
Sukuna exhales through his nose, satisfied.
“Good,” he says. “Then you’re coming with me.”
Your eyes flick, quick, toward the hallway, toward the walls you’ve been trapped inside for years. The idea of leaving them feels unreal. The idea of staying feels worse.
You whisper, small,
“I— I have nothing.”
Sukuna’s mouth curves.
“You have me,” he says, and it isn’t affectionate nor tender. It’s ownership. It’s threat dressed up as a gift. “That’s going to be enough.”
He turns away from you as if you’re already decided, as if your hesitation is just noise.
He grabs his phone, the burner one, from his pocket and type Uraume a message — instructions, a few items for them to buy before Sukuna is back with you.
He pockets it and moves through the room with quiet efficiency, dealing with what he came to deal with.
You don’t watch the details. You can’t. Your eyes keep trying to find places to rest that aren’t the floor, that aren’t the shape that used to be your husband.
Sukuna doesn’t ask you to help.
He doesn’t need your hands in it.
He’s meticulous, always has been.
He came prepared, and preparation is what separates a legend from an idiot.
When he’s done, the house looks… normal again.
Wrong, but normal. Like it’s holding its breath.
He returns to you.
Your legs are shaking.
Your face is pale.
You look like you might bolt, not because you want your husband back, but because your body doesn’t understand what to do with freedom that tastes like blood.
Sukuna steps close and tilts your chin again, forcing your gaze up.
“You’re not going to cry for him.” he says.
You swallow hard. Your eyes burn.
“No.” you whisper.
“Cry for yourself later if you need to. Quietly.”
He releases you and gestures toward the door.
“Shoes,” he says. “Jacket. Nothing that looks like you planned this. And you’re not taking your phone.”
You stiffen.
He looks at you like you’re disappointing.
“You want to keep that leash?” he asks, voice mild and cruel. “Or do you want to live?”
Your throat tightens.
You nod and leave it behind.
When you step outside, the night air hits you like a slap.
It smells like damp grass and someone’s barbecue down the street.
Normal. Ridiculous.
Sukuna walks you to his car with a hand at the small of your back, warm, steady, controlling.
You don’t pull away.
You can’t decide whether you’re terrified of him for how easily he moves you or if you’re fascinated by him for it.
He opens the passenger door.
You slide in.
He shuts it with care, like you’re fragile.
You’re not fragile. You’re pliable.
Sukuna starts the car.
As he drives, he speaks like he’s continuing a conversation you started weeks ago with your first email.
“You’re going to learn something,” he says, eyes on the road. “Freedom isn’t clean. It doesn’t come wrapped up pretty. It comes with consequences.”
Your fingers twist in your lap.
You whisper,
“I don’t want to go back.”
Sukuna’s laugh is low.
“You can’t,” he says. “Not after inviting me in.”
His place is not warm.
It’s functional. Quiet. Clean in a way that feels measured, not comforting.
The studio is connected to the living space like a second heart — sound panels, cables, a desk with two monitors, microphones lined up like tools, not toys.
There’s a large dog bed on the floor off to one side — comically plush in contrast with the sharp minimalism of everything else.
You stare at it like your brain wants to reject what it implies while Sukuna watches your face and smiles slightly, as if he enjoys the way you try to pretend you aren’t understanding him.
“You like listening to my voice,” he grins. “You like monsters. You like listening to violence and gore because it makes your life feel honest.”
He steps closer.
“So don’t act shocked now,” he murmurs. “You wrote me because you wanted a monster gone and couldn't do it yourself. That one is gone."
Your throat works. You try to speak.
Sukuna lifts a finger, not touching your lips, just hovering there as if the concept of your voice is something he can shut down with a gesture.
“You don’t talk unless I tell you,” he says. “Your voice is mine now. I’m being kind and allowing you to hold it. Misuse and I’ll remove the possibility.”
You freeze.
He crouches in front of you and opens a drawer in the desk. He pulls out a collar — simple, dark, with a small metal ring that catches the light.
He holds it up between two fingers like a question — Not an innocent question.
A trap disguised as the illusion of a choice.
“You want to be safe?” Sukuna asks softly. “You want to stop thinking? You want to stop making decisions that get you hurt?”
His eyes stay fixed on yours. A warm hand cups your cheek and you lean into it before you can stop yourself.
“Then you wear it,” he coaxes. “And you obey me."
The pad of his thumb drags softly on your cheekbone in a way that could be mistaken as a caress if monsters were capable of such gentle act.
"You will behave and lay down here. You will listen to your true crime live. With me. Where I can control the variables.”
Your breath shudders.
The collar doesn’t frighten you as much as it should.
It disgusts you, a little.
Not because it’s degrading — though it is — but because some part of you feels relief at the idea of being told what to do instead of guessing.
Sukuna waits.
Patient. Predatory.
You nod once.
He smiles like you just signed a contract.
“Good puppy.” He grins widely, giving you a glimpse of his canines.
He fastens it around your neck with careful fingers.
Almost tender, if he were capable of tenderness that wasn’t also ownership.
The click is quiet.
Final.
Sukuna rises and gestures toward the dog bed.
“Down.” he says.
You hesitate only long enough to hate yourself for hesitating.
Then you kneel and lower yourself onto it.
Sukuna watches you settle like you belong there, like you’ve been trained for it by years of living in someone else’s rules.
He turns back to his desk and clicks something on the interface.
A soft beep.
The monitors glow.
“From now on,” he says casually, as if he’s discussing show notes, “You bark if you need something. You don’t speak to strangers. You don’t speak to cops. You don’t speak to friends who want to ‘help.’”
He glances at you over his shoulder, eyes bright.
“And you don’t get to pretend you’re innocent,” he adds. “Because the moment you start feeling guilty, you’ll want someone to absolve you. I’m not absolving you.”
Your hands curl into the fabric of the dog bed.
“If you are good, I’ll consider giving you some of the attention you never got from your husband and crave so desperately.”
He sees something flashing behind your eyes.
Sukuna’s voice drops lower, intimate in the way it always is when he wants to make someone feel owned.
“You wanted a priest,” he murmurs. “You got a killer instead.”
He sits, slides the mic closer, checks his levels like nothing in the world has changed.
Then he looks at you again.
“Stay.” he says.
You stay.
Your devotion turns your stomach, but it’s there anyway, sick and stubborn.
You’ve traded one cage for another, and the part of you that should be screaming is too tired to do anything but cling to the man who ended one nightmare — even if he becomes the next.
Sukuna’s mouth curves as he turns toward the mic.
The red ON AIR light flicks on.
“Evening, corpses,” King of Corpses purrs, voice smooth as a threat. “Tonight, we’re talking about confession.”
He pauses just long enough for the audience to lean in.
“Some of you write me like I’m a priest,” he continues, amused. “You whisper your sins and hope I’ll tell you you’re still good.”
His gaze flicks toward you for a fraction of a second.
It’s not kind.
Ownership.
“You’re not good,” Sukuna says into the mic, warm and filthy in how he makes it sound like affection. “You’re just honest.”
“Sometimes,” he says, calm as a confession, “the only reason a monster looks civilized is because it hasn’t been invited yet.”
He lets the silence stretch long enough to feel it bite.
Then he chuckles, soft and filthy.
“Send me your letters,” Sukuna coaxes, velvet voice laced in danger, “I like learning what you’re willing to become.”
Your breath catches on the dog bed.
And in the studio, the monster you invited starts talking to the world like nothing happened — like he hasn’t just rewritten your life into something quieter, harsher, and entirely his.
🎙️ @antisociablewallflower