The hut was quiet when he arrived. It always was.

Sukuna stepped past the threshold with no announcement, his presence filling the room like smoke—suffocating and slow, as if the air itself recognized him before they did. He looked the same as ever: regal in a way that didn’t ask for acknowledgment, with eyes like old blood and a mouth that never gave anything away. Not even now.

Your son didn’t lift his gaze from the floor. He sat cross-legged by the hearth, still in his day clothes, hair unkempt, fists tight in his lap. He was just entering adolescence now—less yielding, quicker to bristle. Just like his father.

“You always leave,” he said, voice flat. “So why come at all?”

Sukuna said nothing. It was true, after all—he rarely came, and never stayed long. But like a ghost, he always returned.

His eyes drifted around the small room—modest, but clean. Hidden deep in the mountains where no one would think to search. No cursed spirits roamed this far; they knew better. Maybe that’s why you picked it. Maybe that’s why he left you here.