Chapter Text
To sum it up into one word, you are a pretty laid-back person. Not in the way that you avoided responsibilities, of course, but god damn it. This uni semester was taking forever to end. You can feel your back starting to curve in like a prawn from your posture as you type away at your desk like a maniac for nights over reports and journaling your progress for projects.
But thankfully, one more week, and your semester ends, and you can finally take a month off. God, you can almost watch the dates flow by your calendar, and your phone reminders emptying itself out.
You sighed as you leaned back on your chair, finger mindlessly tapping against the wooden table.
What were you gonna do for the holidays anyways?
Sure you could probably go hang with friends, but you fear your social battery isn’t gonna be that high. So awkward to cancel plans after you make ‘em. Nevermind.
You could game all month long maybe. Log into your steam account and play those 50 untouched games that you bought whenever steam notified you about summer sale carwash sale jesus day sale whatever day sale there was out there. You always caved despite having good sense of money control usually.
Maybe you’d go for some sports? Exercise? Lose some weight? Start a new subscription for pilates?
Club? Oh nah.
Boyfriend or girlfriend hunt?
You almost choke at the thought.
With how loser and awkward you are, you doubt you’re gonna get some soon.
It’s not that you’re like, totally a loser or totally socially awkward. It’s just....stressful to you. You’re friends with most people, but you wouldn’t consider yourself popular. You just KNEW people. You don’t pry much, nor do you go out of your way to know people. And with the way you always minded your business and not get in any sort of drama, you were pretty well liked by everyone. A chill girl basically. You had close friends though, Yuki and Shoko. Since high school, and still going strong, even though the three of you split to different unis and majored in different things.
That being said you used to have a crush on Shoko, but eh, best friends to lovers dont always work out that well. The incident passed pretty quickly.
Just as you continued to get lost in your plans for the holidays, three loud bangs smashed against your door.
Furrowing your brows, you got up, looked at your phone notifs and some messaging apps.
Shoko or Yuki shouldn’t be here at this hour. No delivery too.
Another loud knock makes you jolt, alerting you when a muffled voice comes from your apartment door.
“Hey! I know you’re in there!” A deep, grumpy voice of a man can be hear, and you step out of your room, tiptoeing towards your door, and peeks through your peephole.
However, you find the peephole pretty useless, as the man outside is either ridiculously tall, or ridiculously close to the door, as you can only see his black leather jacket collar and the faint white tee underneath.
“Who is it?!” You shout against the door, hoping the stranger outside the door can hear your question without it being too muffled by the constraint of the door separating you two.
“New neighbour.” The voice replied.
He must think i’m stupid. This is classic serial killer move.
You watched enough horror movies and enough games to know that opening your apartment door for a faceless stranger at 11pm is straight up stupidity. Plus, you lived alone, and with your stature, there was no way you were gonna face the guy outside like this.
Though, the possibility of the man being the new neighbour was possible, since the old guy from room 0513 moved a few weeks ago.
You unlocked one of your locks on your door, pulling your door open just a little wider, but still attached by a safety door lock chain. You’re glad you installed three locks on your door for moments like these, but you still felt abit stupid by ultimately deciding to open the door. You’re met with the collar leather black jacket again, then you crane your neck up.
Very tall. Large even. Probably two heads of your height.
A man around his late twenties? Early thirties? Stands at your door, rather....menacing. Faded pink hair, probably dyed it a while ago. Oh, eyebrows are pink too. Lowkey cool. Black undercut. Black leather jacket and surprisingly....not skinny denim jeans! Huh. Bonus mark.
Now, you zero in on his face, and you could tell this man had a temper. You’re not one to stereotype and judge a book by its cover, but man, the way his eyebrows are furrowed are so harsh, you think hes about to manually age himself. Then a black eyepatch on his left eye....oh wait, his right eye from his point of view. Your eyes travel abit lower, and you see the red patch crawling up his skin from below his shirt collar, ending at his adams apple.
A third degree burn scar and an eyepatch, not to mention the slightly sharp canine tooth lingering on the inside of his lips, but you could still see a little as his lips are slightly parted, almost like hes angry or in disdain.
Hes a good looking man, honestly. The “flaws” he had wasn’t really an issue.
“You done judging me?” His tone was rough as he looked down at you, turning his body towards the small gap of the door that was opened to him. He squints his right eye abit as he tries to get a good look at your face, half of it hidden from him, blocked by the door.
“I wasn’t judging you, i’m sorry. Just a little alarmed because you’re a stranger.” You replied flatly, hoping that your tone brings out some sincerity.
“Well then, good to know.”
The man proceeded to smirk, then shoves his hand into the gap of the door, making you lean away by reflex. His hand stays there as if waiting for a handshake.
“I’m your neighbour next door.” he repeats. He holds your gaze as his face is seemingly stuck in that cocky smirk, and you reluctantly shake his hand.
Jesus, his hand is huge, and very rough. Sculpted sandpaper.
His hand grips yours a little firmly, and he watches in slight amusement as his hand engulf yours, and clicks his tongue when you pull away with some force.
“You’ve said that twice, I heard you, you’re the neighbour at 0513, yeah.” You cant help but sound abit...irritated. The pink-haired man was just being odd and mysterious for no reason.
You watch as he blinks and chuckle lightly, but its almost like hes mocking you. You didn’t like that.
“Are you pretending to not know who i am?”
You frown.
Uh what?
Were you suppose to know him? You looked at him once over again , brows furrowed.
“Other than you declaring at being my neighbour, i don’t know who you are, i’m sorry. Am i meant to know you?” You didn’t mean for your reply to come out so sassily, but you regretted it when you saw the man raise his eyebrows in slight surprise.
“I’m Ryomen Sukuna.” He says as he crosses his arms, still squinting his right eye to look at you through the small gap of your door.
You sigh and let yourself be empathetic of his one-eye strain, unlocking your door chain lock and fully opens your door wider to let the stranger get a look at your face.
“Okay, i’m sorry, i still don’t know who you are. Name’s Faye though, nice to meet you.” You mirror his crossed arms, and looks up at him.
His eyebrows briefly raise, then he shrugs.
“Guess you’re not into rugby then?”
Odd question, very random.
“Um, no. I’m not well-versed in rugby.”
As if something clicked on your brain, you focus at his body this time. This man- Sukuna, wasn’t just big because hes tall. He’s big because of his muscles! Hes very muscular, judging also by how you can see his collarbone practically trying to fight against the fabric of his tee. You don’t know why you didn’t notice it til now. Judging by the flow of the conversation, the man’s most likely a rugby player.
As if on cue, he flexes one of his arms, the clear bulge of his muscle rippling under his leather jacket.
“You like?” His smirk widens.
Terrible first impression.
If he wasn’t hot it would have been harassment.
What’s the word again? Cocky. Yeah.
“Uh. I’m assuming you’re a rugby player since you brought it up.”
“Smart girl.”
What is with this man?
Sukuna catches your cringe and he chuckles. Not alot of women shows him disgust.
“Okay, enough of that rugby thing, going off track. Why did you knock at my door at this hour, neighbour?”
”Sukuna.” He repeats, firmly this time, as if commanding you.
“Right. Sukuna.” You relent. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
Sukuna leans on your door frame now, eyeing you down, and you can see his gaze landed on your chest, of course.
Men.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here for some...cookies.” He flatly says, looking down at you, now his gaze at your small feet.
“For.... cookies?” You’re so damn confused, even your tone turned incredulous, going a pitch higher.
“What? Ya don’t got welcoming new neighbour cookies? How cold.” He's surprised you didn't catch his double meaning of cookies, but he figured maybe it was too early to be dirty at the first meeting with his neighbour. It usually worked with other women though.
You fought the urge to scoff. You had alot of patience and laid-backness, but my god. It’s at its limit.
“Once again, i’m sorry, Sukuna. But we don’t do friendly neighbourhood spiderman here. We don’t have much of a community because this floor mostly are busy or old tenants. You want cookies, bake them yourself, have a good night.”
You're honestly shocked at how blunt and rude you were to the stranger, but he was seriously getting on your nerves.
Just wasted my time and said a bunch of nonsense.
You made a mental note to not befriend or interact with him.
With that, you shut the door, putting your locks back in again.
Outside your door stands an amused and surprised Sukuna, scratching around the itchy edges of his eyepatch.
He’s never had a woman so outright, irritated by his presence, like, pure irritation. No attraction or hidden lust. Pure irritation.
He continues to stare at your door, eyes tracing the “0512” on your door.
You’re small. Well, any woman was small to him, hes 7ft for fucks sake. But still, you were smaller than most, and guarded too. With the way you took so long to answer the door, and scrutinized every single thing about him. You weren’t even checking him out, didn’t even blush or get mad at him for showing off his muscles. Huh, maybe you swing the other way, he thought.
Or maybe he started off the wrong foot. Met one of those women who are very no-bullshit and uptight. But then again, you looked young. Maybe around 24 or 25. Younger than him definitely, since hes 30. To be uptight and mature at this age is rather a waste, he thinks. Yeah, maybe you swing the other way, he shrugs.
In truth, he was really only here to maybe snag some cookies or some snacks to chew on, since hes been running on empty since 2pm, moving his boxes into his apartment.
Sukuna never really “flirted” with women anyways, since his presence alone always became some sort of invite for them to throw looks at him. Part of him marvels that he gets chicks even with his eyepatch and burn scar on his body, not that hes ashamed of it. He’s initially surprised by how many women who were “into” his “mysterious and dangerous vibe”, but as he grows older, he realizes that he just looks good in general. Eyepatch and scars aren’t a problem.
Though he silently admits that he rarely took of his eyepatch. Groaning quietly as his memories recalls the looks he get from people with his eyepatch off. He’s not ashamed, really, but its hard to pick up women when they only keep flickering to his missing eye when he talks. Some are either weirded out or scared , or turned off, worst is the pity. He doesn’t like the look of pity most women had. They tend to start getting emotional rather than lustful when they look at him without the eyepatch.
Like what? Hes still very much DTF. It's not like hes some sick guy on a hospital bed for fucks sake.
He doesn’t wanna recall that one time when he was in bed with a hot chick, and took off his eyepatch by habit when he stripped. The promised hot night turned into the lady caressing his cheek and being empathetic and emotional about the loss of his eye on the edge of the bed. Fucking hell, he ended up just leaving her in the hotel room at 2am after she yapped til she fell asleep.
That’s why Sukuna doesn’t do relationships. Women are too emotional , too attentive, too caring. Ask too many questions, expect attachment.
Luckily for him, it seems like his new neighbour is absolutely uninterested in him. Got a nice face though.
Sukuna grins to himself.
For once, peace and quiet.
No more hooking up with his neighbours and being forced to move after several of them caught feelings and showed up at his door demanding for closure.
The 5th floor had barely any female tenants, and his neighbour is a 60 year old grandma and a young woman who can’t stand his presence.
For once, peace and quiet.
Doesn’t stop him from bringing women back to his place though.