Chapter Text
”Sukuna, stop messing with your daughter.”
”I'm not messing with her.”
Yuji gave him a disbelieving look but Sukuna was too busy poking his round belly to notice. The pup inside poked back and he had to fight the giddy grin tugging at his lips. His daughter was inside his beautiful mate and she was moving. It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen in his life, the tanned flesh of his omega’s stomach distending as she stretched her tiny limbs but it still made pride bloom in his chest. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to watch Shinji squirm and kick inside his dam and now he got to witness it a second time.
Yuji softened a little when he saw Sukuna’s stormy eyes calm at the feeling of their daughter. For such an aggressive alpha, he had never been anything but gentle with their pups. He had even been nervous- the great Ryomen Sukuna, biggest delinquent in their school, most feared alpha in Tokyo, had been nervous- to hold Shinji for the first time.
The omega gently pushed back the pale red hair that had fallen into his mate’s face, freed from it’s usual slicked back style, and traced the reddened, rough skin around his eye. Sukuna didn't like having his birthmark out, often covering it with an eye patch to avoid getting more stares than normal for his tattoos and piercings, so Yuji would take every chance he could get to touch it and kiss it. He knew his husband didn’t exactly feel shame about it, he wore every scar and mark on his skin like a sword might its chips and scratches, with the pride of a battle won, but the mark was different. It was an imperfection he was born with, not one he had written into his own skin through time and experience. He had been marked as odd since birth. Different. Strange. Dangerous. It hadn’t even occurred to Yuji, when they first met, that Sukuna might be ashamed of it.
…
It was a sweltering June day, the kind that made your shirt cling to the back of your neck and your palms too slippery to climb the bars in the playground. Yuji was balancing on his chair, rocking it back and forth as the teacher took attendance. He hadn’t noticed his classmates' looks, the hostility towards the odd omega hadn’t solidified yet, but it was brewing slowly.
The classroom door slid open just as the droning voice got to a new name, one Yuji didn't recognise.
“There you are, Sukuna-kun,” the teacher, a powdery smelling beta, smiled at the new arrival who stood in the doorway, surveying the class. He was small, with willowy thin limbs, but his cheekbones were sharp for an eight year old. Yuji couldn’t yet recognise the signs of not enough on the table, too used to the plump cheeks of the other pups and the chubby bellies of all his playmates, so the sight immediately marked the newcomer as strange and exciting.
Slowly, the new boy’s grey eyes swept the classroom. They were slightly narrowed, a small pinched frown between reddish eyebrows, and one was framed by a wine coloured mark. At first, Yuji wondered if it was a scar like those he’d seen in manga, but the skin was flat and smooth looking, just discoloured. He had the strangest urge to touch it. That and the dusty pinkish hair trying to fall into the boy’s eyes despite small hands pushing it away.
Yuji was broken from his thoughts when his eyes met with the newcomer’s and his chair legs clattered onto the floor, the jolt running through him and almost causing him to topple over. His hands went to the edges instinctively, holding on so he didn’t fall and his face burned a little when the clattering noise diverted a few of his classmate’s attentions onto him and they snickered. When he was brave enough to look, the newcomer had the tiniest hint of a smile playing around his lips. It made him beam, for no reason he could see, but he did it anyway, turning the full force of his smile of the new boy whose brows went back to furrowed.
The whole exchange lasted only seconds before Sukuna was ushered to a desk in the back row by the teacher. Yuji’s neck craned to follow him as he went.
He was distracted all of that lesson. Right up until the class was released for break and the other students darted out onto the playground. He got up to follow, excited to try hanging upside down from the climbing frame until all the blood rushed to his head again, when he noticed that Sukuna hadn’t gotten up from his desk yet.
Yuji debated for only a split second, warring between the desire to get the best spot on the monkey bars and the need to badger the new boy into spilling all of his secrets. In the end, he sidled up to Sukuna’s desk and leaned against it with as much casualness as he could manage. He looked down at Sukuna’s desk as he tried to figure out what to say and saw that the worksheet from class was fully completed, unlike Yuji’s half finished chicken scratch attempt. Not only that, but there were drawings in the margins. Each one was a flower, a cherry blossom, a lily, a rose and many more he couldn’t name.
“Is that a morning glory?” He asked excitedly, pointing to one of the doodles. When he looked up he found Sukuna’s eyebrows were furrowed again and his mouth was set in a frown.
“No. It’s a hydrangea.” He muttered sulkily.
Yuji laughed awkwardly. “Oops.” He smiled sheepishly. “I really like your drawings though.”
Sukuna perked up a little, the groove between his eyebrows disappeared and the corners of his mouth even twitched up a little.
Yuji took that as his chance and leapt for it. “Do you wanna come play with me?” It had been a while since he’d had a playmate, the alphas tended to look at him funny when he suggested a race and the other omegas down right scoffed or turned their noses up at the thought of it. The beta pups weren’t much better, uninterested in play wrestling or exploring the edges of the playground for bugs.
”… fine.” It was a reluctant agreement, but Yuji didn't care. He grabbed Sukuna’s hand, entwined their fingers and bolted out of the classroom so that the other boy had no choice but to keep up.
The playground was already thrumming with childish play, a crowd of pups running this way and that, little feet stamping stories into the ground. Yuji weaved through it with expert knowledge all the way to the climbing frame, where he let go of Sukuna’s hand and began to climb, already buzzing with excitement about getting to show off his abilities to the new boy. Sukuna, for his part, watched as Yuji climbed it until he found a good spot and hooked his legs over the bar to dangle upside down and laugh delightedly as gravity tugged at his hair and his head went fuzzy. He closed his eyes for a moment to savour it, and when he opened them again he saw that Sukuna was watching him from the bottom of the climbing frame, one hand on the first rung of the crimson ladder.
Yuji smiled, showing off the gaps from his lost teeth and the pink of his gums poking through them. Sukuna didn’t smile, but Yuji didn’t mind. His gramps very rarely smiled, but Yuji knew when he was happy when the space between his brows was smooth and the corners of his mouth twitched. Sukuna’s face was a little like that. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either, and that was good enough for the moment.
Stones rattled beneath small feet as a group of other pups approached, jostling and chattering in a playful way, although a few eyes were locked on the newcomer with a sharpness that spoke of something darker than curiosity.
“What’s with your face?” A shrill voice asked, a young girl Yuji thought might be in the year above. He craned his head to look between her and sukuna, although the movement jostled his shirt and it fell down onto his face, obscuring his vision.
”It looks like a stain. Did you spill something?” Another voice butted in, one that Yuji didn‘t recognise. He gave up trying to wrestle his shirt back into place and instead hooked his fingers onto the bar and slid his legs off so he could drop down. He stumbled and almost lost his footing, but once he did manage to regain it and his bearings he saw the group were snickering at his clumsy dismount. A wave of embarrassment crashed through him, but he knew better than to try and defend himself, instead he turned to look at Sukuna, brain already scrambling to find a way to make up for the cruel comments.
”I think it’s cool…”
But Sukuna had already walked away.
…
”I like the name Ajisai.” Yuji murmured. Sukuna’s ear was pressed to his belly, a small furrow between his brows as he tried to hear the movement of their pup within
”You’re a fucking sap.” His alpha rumbled, not even bothering to open his eyes, but there was a small upturn at the corners of his lips.