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You hadn’t exactly meant to end up in Yuji Itadori’s room. Everyone else had canceled, and you wound up just deciding to cozy up in his dorm for a quiet, impromptu afternoon study date.
It was supposed to be a study session with your friend-slash-classmate-slash-new boyfriend. A perfectly normal, academically motivated, totally non-hormonal study session. You had even brought your highlighters. The good ones. The ones that smelled like fruit and made your notes look like a mood board.
But when you knocked on his door and he answered in that hoodie he practically lived in - smiling like a dog that didn’t yet know it would be found out for chewing the couch - you let your guard down. Just a bit.
And then you walked in.
And then you saw her.
Pinned to the wall like a fucking shrine to sin. Towering, sun-kissed, and very clearly not struggling to memorize curse classifications.
Bikini-clad.
And smiling like she knew exactly what she was doing to your boyfriend’s adolescent brain.
You stopped in your tracks just beyond the threshold of his room.
Yuji kept walking, chatting like it was a normal Tuesday.
It was not a normal Tuesday.
Your eyes did not move from the poster. It felt like the two of you were in a standoff, neither you nor the inanimate sex symbol blinking or breathing.
“I got snacks, by the way!” He called from his desk, oblivious. “They’re kinda smushed though, I think I sat on one of - why are you so quiet?”
You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. You were currently locked in psychic combat with a woman made of paper and male fantasy.
Yuji turned around.
There was a brief moment in which every neuron in his brain caught up to the crisis currently unfolding.
“Oh.”
Oh, he said.
Not ‘that’s not mine.’
Not ‘I didn’t put it up.’
Not ‘I forgot that was there.’
Just Oh.
You turned to look at him, slowly and much like a haunted doll.
“Is this…” You began, voice flat, “Your inspirational study décor?”
Yuji made a noise that was more the verbal equivalent of his soul leaving his body than coherent words.
“I-it’s not like, I got it from - it's just a decoration, I swear, I don't even know her!” He stammered, backing toward his desk like he could escape judgment if he reached the snacks fast enough to end this conversation. “I don’t even - like - notice it anymore!”
You raised a brow.
“You don't even notice a pin-up poster hung beside your bed, which is glaringly the only décor in your room?’
“I got it for free at an event!” He said quickly.
“Oh, good.” You said dryly. “She's trashy and cheap.”
Yuji looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.
You pulled out your notes, plopped yourself onto his bed (directly under the blonde Amazon), and opened your book with unbothered (see: very bothered) passive aggression.
Yuji stood there silently for a few seconds, a man deciding whether to plead the fifth or start digging his own grave. A quietly seething, jealous girlfriend put Sukuna to shame, he realized.
You didn’t bother looking at him, though, even as a small smile tugged at your lips. You'd already devised how to defeat the busty goddess keeping your boyfriend company every night.
The increasingly cheerful expression on your face did very little to quell Yuji's growing desire to flee into the maw of a special grade curse.
It wasn’t exactly revenge. Not in the traditional sense, at least. No tears or cursing or tearing the stupid fucking poster to shreds.
No.
There was just you, a camera gallery of no fewer than 208 photos, and a very annoyed Nobara Kugisaki holding a mostly melted iced coffee in one hand and your phone in the other.
“Okay.” She snapped, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. “This is the last one. My arm is cramping, my caffeine’s watered down, and you’ve now made me reference your cleavage.”
You merely adjusted the strap of your brand new bikini top, one hand on your hip, one foot buried in the warm Kamakura sand, and gave her a sunny grin.
“Just one more. I swear.”
“That’s what you said seventeen poses ago.”
You pointed to the pose reference you’d drawn in your notebook. “But that was before we figured out it looks better if I do the thing with my hip and the one shoulder strap tugged down -”
“Just shut up and pout your lips before it gets dark.”
The whole thing had started that day in Yuji’s room, when you sat under that goddamn beach-blonde pin-up and realized something important: if your boyfriend wanted a bikini poster girl, he could have one. He just needed an upgrade.
A limited edition.
So you’d enlisted Nobara - begrudgingly bribed with coffee and the promise of a girls-only beach trip - to help you capture your best angles. And now, two hours and a mild sunburn later, you had enough sultry, smug, and objectively superior beach shots to make a certain pink-haired buffoon weep.
“Well?” You asked, trotting over to Nobara, who was aggressively selecting the least blurry photos while muttering about sand in her cup. “Which one’s the one?”
She handed you your phone immediately.
“This one. It’s almost annoying how good your face looks in it.”
“Oh.”
It was… whorish, really.
Perfect.
“This is it.” You whispered, marveling at Nobara's impeccable photography.
“Obviously.”
Yuji had no idea what hit him.
You showed up the next afternoon - backpack slung over one shoulder, rolled photo tube under the other, and a look in your eye that spelled trouble in every dialect known to man.
He opened the door in socks and a loose t-shirt, grinning wide like a Labrador retriever. “Hey, babe! Wanna -”
“Poster.” You said.
He blinked.
You pointed to The Blonde. She was still up, still smug, and still taunting you with her discount calendar energy.
Yuji paled. “I, uh, I meant to take that down…”
You tossed him the rolled tube which he gracelessly fumbled before barely catching.
“Ditch the poster,” You said sweetly, “or I’m giving this to someone who will appreciate it properly.”
Yuji blinked again, then unrolled the print.
Then stared.
Gaped, really.
“You - this is - you did -” He stammered up at you like you had just pulled the blazing sun out of the sky and handed it to him in a gift bag. “You posed? For this?”
You shrugged, casual, as if your pride hadn't taken a hit and your skin hadn't suffered blistering from the effort.
He sprinted to his desk drawer.
Thirty seconds and a lighter later, Blonde Beach Bombshell was nothing but ash in a forgotten, empty ramen cup on his cluttered desk. He saluted it like a fallen comrade, then reverently pinned your photo in its place. Centered, straight, and framed with only the finest painter’s tape.
“God, you’re so hot.” He muttered appreciatively.
You smirked, tossing your bag onto the bed. “Better than the free poster?”
He crossed the room in two steps, wrapped his arms around you, and dropped his face into your neck with a groan.
“Babe…” He mumbled. “If I die and reincarnate as that beach towel you're sitting on, I win.”
You snorted. “Yuji.”
“I’m serious. I’d die to be that towel.”
“You’re so dumb.”
He didn't deny it.
Yuji still hadn’t let go of you.
His arms were looped around your waist, forehead pressed to the side of your neck hoping to fuse there permanently. You didn’t mind, of course, because his hugs were warm, and a little too tight, and always either smelled like his citrus shampoo or sweat in equal measure because he was always training - and both were good scents, in your very correct opinion.
"You’re really not gonna let this go, are you?" You murmured, hands slipping up into his hair, soft and still slightly damp from his earlier shower.
“Nope!” He chirped, muffled.
You scratched lightly at his scalp and felt him melt like butter under your touch - the boy really was like a dog, you realized as he sighed happily with just the slightest affection.
You leaned back just enough to look at him, and his eyes were wide and stupid with adoration, a little dazed like you’d just kissed the thoughts out of his brain. So you decided to do it for real.
Just a small kiss, warm and a little smile-shaped. He still tasted like the watermelon gum he habitually chewed before training. You lingered there, forehead to forehead afterward, until he broke into the softest grin you’d ever seen on him.
And then -
“I hate it here.”
The voice came from the doorway.
Yuji turned so fast he nearly elbowed you in the jaw.
Megumi stood there, the door half-open, his expression pinched and dead-eyed because he'd just walked in on something both indecent and spiritually scarring. He looked at the poster. Then at the two of you.
Back to the poster.
And then he sighed.
Audibly. Loudly.
“No.” He muttered. “Nope. Absolutely not. I’m changing buildings.”
“Megumi, c’mon,” Yuji laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, still holding your hand because the thought of not maintaining physical contact at this point was downright sinful.
“Is that - her?” Megumi gestured vaguely to you, refusing eye contact lest he combust, then to the photo, to the shrine-like way Yuji had reverently taped it up right next to his bed.
Yuji nodded proudly. “Pretty cool, right?”
Megumi stared at him, trying to mentally dig a grave using only the force of his disappointment.
You gave him a cheerful wave.
“I liked the old poster better. I'm not helping you study tonight.” He deadpanned, and shut the door on his way out.
Yuji groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed, dragging you down with him, your laughter bubbling out as you landed sprawled across his chest.
You snorted, poking his cheek. “You’re never living this down, towel boy. That, or Megumi murders you over the décor.”
“I hope not!” He said, grinning and absolutely shameless. “But just in case, you should let me take a look at that bikini in the flesh. Death wish, and all."
You opened your mouth to protest, scandalized, about to insist you intended to burn that sparse bit of fabric like his old poster.
But when he kissed you again, you were already planning on hauling him back to yours to indulge him in an exclusive exhibition.