Enchanted.

Was that how Sukuna felt when he met you? No, he'll deny it. That foreign warm, fuzzy bubbles in his heart. The longing, yearning? He doesn't know what to make of it. It's like a deathly gripped attachment. As though you've wormed your way through him like a leech. Just from one meeting.

A worm, an insect. Someone insignificant like you. You're no princess. You might've pranced your way in the palace, wearing your pretty little blue ball gown—might've stolen lingering glances, a dance from him. But you could never fool him. He's seen your behavior. The people-pleasing attitude, blatant honorifics, your efforts to keep everything tidy...

And those hands. He thinks back to when he held you when he took you to dance. Not of an ordinary girl or a princess. Calloused as if beaten day by day, yet tender like a tranquil night. There's a faint scent of cinders. You must be a commoner. And yet—

Your hands were warm. Your soft voice and your kind, hopeful eyes. You're warm in a sense that wasn't like him—where he burns and seethes to destroy. Despite how your world doesn't do the same for you, your warmth... was the kind that nurtured.

A warmth that drew him in like a damn moth. Because now he ordered everyone across the country to search for your whereabouts after you abruptly left him and disappeared at the ball. Clicking your glass slippers, you were gone like magic. The audacity. No one can just get up and leave him. As a matter of fact, you deserve to be punished for that. Being his queen for the rest of your life might suffice.

Pathetic. An old woman, two sisters throw themselves over him. Before they can desperately slip their toes in your glass shoes, he cleaves. Screams follow, and he's found you. You're tattered, dressed like a beggar, and your face and hands are smeared with cinders. That won't do. There's an arrangement to be made. A crooked smile finds his lips, far more genuine and soft than he'd like.

"Did you really think I'd let you go, cinders?"

His heart beats. He's found his queen.