Chapter Text
Yuuji looked in the mirror in muted horror at the two extra eyelids resting just above his cheekbones, serving as a reminder that he did not, in fact, hallucinate that vision.
“Of course you didn’t, you fool.”
Oh god, okay, now Yuuji is insane. Okay great, you know what? Maybe he will take up on the hospital’s offer for therapy. Maybe his grandfather’s death did take more of a toll on him than he thought it did.
“No, you stupid brat. You aren’t insane.”
The right eye opened and a mouth appears, teeth curved and tongue blood red. Startled, Yuuji punched the mirror on instinct. As the realization set in, he slowly slid down the bathroom wall to sit on the floor before his legs decided to give out, mindful of the glass that had fallen to the ground.
The mouth sighed. “Do you remember what happened last night?”
Yuuji frowned, trying to remember the night before. “I went to a party because some kid invited me and I ate a brownie...? Then I was hanging out with some girls but I left ‘cause I felt sick… because— the brownie wasn’t— fuck, the brownie was laced with something else too! And then I came home and I ate something else? I think it was wax?”
“No, imbecile. You ate my finger.”
Yuuji stilled, his hands carefully setting the broken glass down, and clasped his hands together in front of his face as if to pray.
“Run that by me again?”
A foreign feeling of disgust, rage, and disbelief rose in his gut. What the fuck is wrong with him?
“You, child, came back here after eating your... brownie, and had the brilliant idea of chowing down on my finger, which brings me to the next question.”
Between one breath and the other, Yuuji’s surroundings changed. The fluorescent lights and white walls of his house’s bathroom gave way to what seemed to be a large cavern, with a seemingly general theme of weirdly colored water and bones, if the mountain of animal skulls, pillars of bones, and floor made out of some sort of liquid (Jesus Christ, Yuuji desperately hopes it isn’t blood), seemed to be anything to go by.
He would’ve poked at the water (again with a very large question mark forming in his mind), beneath his feet if not for the face mere inches from his own.
It was his face, only not. Decorated by stark black lines outlining the face, running down his jaw to the chin and coming to a stop just below the second pair of eyes, which had opened. He had a black stripe over his nose and a marking on his forehead. Yuuji’s doppelganger had a sneer on his face, hair slicked up and pushed back. He wore a white kimono and a black scarf, Yuuji spied two black lines surrounding the man’s (?) wrists.
...Yuuji really needed to ask for a name.
“How are you able to suppress me so thoroughly? I, Ryoumen Sukuna, King of Curses, so easily suppressed by a mere child?”
Well, that answered his own question, and talk about a superiority complex. Yuuji was vaguely aware that the person (curse?), Sukuna, was still talking (more like monologuing, in all honesty) but he was still a little caught up on the whole—
“You’re the King of Curses?”
Sukuna paused, turning to look at the boy still sitting on the ground with an expression of disgust. “I am.”
Yuuji frowned, pulling his legs under him to stare up at Sukuna. Yuuji hasn’t got a goddamn clue as to what exactly the whole ‘King of Curses’ meant, but it must be something equivalent to a war criminal or something. “Do you actually look like that?”
Sukuna snarled, moving away to sit on his throne. Yuuji twisted his body to keep him in his eyesight. “Originally I had four hands and two faces, before that—”
“Before?! You weren't born like that?” Yuuji really needs to practice his “staying quiet while other people are talking and giving information you will most likely need” skill. It seemed Sukuna had the same idea because the glare he received was terrifying, to say the least.
“No, I was not. My appearance changed when I became a curse, though my former appearance did strike an uncanny resemblance to you.” The man (?) said grudgingly, staring at Yuuji like he had all the answers, (spoiler alert: Yuuji did not.)
And that is not weird at all, nope, absolutely not weird at all. Yuuji is definitely not going to think about the possible familial connection he has with the weird possibly murderous curse person (?) thing inside him. That is above his pay grade at the moment.
“You still have yet to answer my question.”
What.
“What?”
Sukuna stared him down irritatingly, head resting on his palm. “How are you able to suppress me so easily? I am over a thousand years old, the most feared and renowned of the curses. It took years for sorcerers to be able to subdue me. Dominating you is something I should be able to do in my sleep. What makes a brat like you so special?”
Yuuji blinked. What the fuck is a sorcerer? What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—
“Well, first of all, my name is Itadori Yuuji, and just ‘cause I ate your finger or whatever doesn’t mean you can take over my body whenever you want to, and the very fact that you choose the word dominate is kinda weird. I’m seventeen, you know? Major age difference there.” He got up and started wandering around the cavern, idly wondering how the liquid didn’t seep into his socks and how blasé he was about this whole situation, maybe it was shock? He'd once read that it can cause numbness or something, maybe that was it. “And I don’t know how I’m able to stop you from taking over my body. But I must be doing something right.”
He turned back around and barely stopped himself from stumbling back in surprise at seeing Sukuna right behind him, hands tucked into his kimono sleeves and red eyes burning with narrow-eyed curiosity.
“Can you let me back out?”
Wordlessly Sukuna complied, and Yuuji was back in his bathroom sitting in the middle of the broken glass. He blinked, softly swearing as he looked at how much glass there was. He began the process of cleaning up the mess before calling in sick to school to finish up the funeral details for his grandfather. The sun had just risen, and Yuuji just knew he would not sleep until long after the sun set.
✻
For as long as Yuuji could remember, it’s always been just his grandfather and him. His grandpa told him his parents died before Yuuji had been able to walk, a car accident he said. They had left Yuuji with his grandfather for a rare night out turned late-work meeting and hadn’t returned. His grandfather said that at the time he wasn’t surprised.
“They were dedicated people, driven and steadfast in their work. Almost too driven, sometimes they would drop you off with me and head off to another meeting because they had gotten a call for potential business connections.” His grandfather said when Yuuji was about eight and curious as to why his classmates would get picked up by their parents and him by his grandpa. “So when they didn’t come back I had assumed they had gotten a work call. I didn’t think anything of it until I got a knock on the door that afternoon and got the news.”
“Did they love me?” Yuuji had asked, sitting on the counter of his grandfather’s bakery and café, idly spinning on the high chair. (Later, he would think about this interaction and realize that his grandfather never gave an actual answer.) "Did they feel sad whenever they had to leave me?"
“They were your parents.” He had said quietly, a strange look on his face. Then the expression cleared and he beckoned Yuuji over, “Come here, taste this pastry.”
Yuuji’s grandfather had looked so terribly sad when he spoke about them, so Yuuji decided then and there to never ask again if only to never see that grieving expression on his grandpa’s face.
Besides, he thought cheerfully, we have each other and the bakery to keep us company.
✻
The day his grandfather died started out like any other, Yuuji woke up before the sun to prepare his lunch and finish any homework he hadn’t done the night before. He went to school, messed around at the occult club, and argued with the track and field coach for the fifth time that week.
Some kid in his class invited him to a party during a break. Ito, the kid, had followed him to the vending machine and went on and on about how crazy it would be.
“Seriously, Itadori-kun!” He grinned, braces on full display. “You have to go! I invited all the hot girls in our year! Ushimaru-chan is gonna be there, and you know she has the biggest crush on you!”
Leaning against the wall, Yuuji willed himself to not outwardly grimace as he pretended to thoughtfully chew on his straw. Offering Ito an apologetic grin he declined. “Ah, sorry, Ito-kun! I promised my grandpa I would visit him. Maybe next time, yeah?”
Ito looked crestfallen, making Yuuji feel the tiniest bit sorry for him. Then Ito perked up and Yuuji mercilessly crushed what little pity he felt for him. “We should trade numbers then! Just in case you do change your mind, send me a text and I’ll send you the address!”
Realizing Ito wouldn’t budge unless he agreed, Yuuji tiredly exchanged numbers with him.
“Wow, Itadori-kun! You know a lot of people, huh?” Ito’s eyes shone with awe and just a hint of envy at Yuuji’s perceived popularity as he scrolled through Itadori's contact list.
Yuuji rubbed the back of his neck, unwilling to tell him that half of them were girls who had shoved their numbers on pieces of paper to him before running away with burning faces and half of the people on sports teams who were still attempting to recruit him into their teams and that the only reason he had actually entered them into his phone was pure courtesy.
“Yeah, I know a couple of people.”
“Ito!”
Taking shameless advantage of his classmate's distraction, Yuuji quietly slipped away in hopes of finishing his strawberry milk before the bell rang. Glancing down at the new contact in his phone, Yuuji snorted.
“It’s not like I’ll actually go,” Yuuji told himself, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
✻
“Yuuji,” his grandfather murmured, watching Yuuji arrange the flowers he had bought from the flower shop across the hospital. “Don’t die with regrets, okay? Surround yourself with people who love you. Make fond memories with those in your favor, child. And while you’re at it, bring back the restaurant to its former glory alright?”
His grandfather waited until Yuuji nodded, before nodding himself and reaching out to pat Yuuji’s hand. The sun's rays were slipping over the horizon, casting long shadows into his grandfather's hospital room. it was cold and quiet, the ever-present beeping of his grandfather's heart monitor steadily reporting his heartbeat, Yuuji listened to the rhythmic beep-beep-beep with a rising sense of desperation.
“You’re talking like you’re gonna die, gramps,” Yuuji whispered through the emerging lump in his throat, unwilling to break the quiet and somber mood that had settled in the room, fingers interlocking with his grandfather’s, childishly wishing that his grandfather could live forever and ever. Neither of them acknowledged the raspy breaths his grandfather took to speak again.
“I’ve arranged for you to take ownership of the bakery back in Tokyo,” Gramps went on like he didn’t hear Yuuji. Suddenly his hold tightened, reminding Yuuji that Itadori Wasuke was a powerful man in his own right back in his prime and far long after. “I love you, Yuuji, and I'm proud to have raised you into the boy you are today. Make fond memories with those in your favor, surround yourself with people who love you, and do not die with regrets. ”
Yuuji nodded again, swallowing back a sob that threatened to erupt from his chest. His grandfather nodded one last time, smiled at him, squeezed his hand one more time as if to reassure him, and closed his eyes. His heart monitor grew slower, stuttering like it had never before, then- His grandfather took one last breath, exhaled, and grew still.
The heart monitor did not beep again. It never would.
Yuuji’s hand trembled and shook, but didn’t dare let go until his grandfather’s grip turned slack. Yuuji held back his sobs until his grandfather’s previously warm and secure hold turned cold and unresponsive.
Itadori Wasuke was dead, and Yuuji was all alone in the world.
(His grandfather’s last words settled over him like shackles.
"Do not die with regrets.")
✻
Walking out of the hospital after signing the release forms for his grandfather’s body and taking even more forms to sign them back at his coldemptyalonetoobig house was not something Yuuji ever wanted to do again. The nurse looked at him with barely hidden pity in her eyes as she gathered up the papers to place in a manila-colored folder and sent him on his way.
The proclamation of the end of Itadori Wasuke's end is in a folder no bigger than his chest when his grandfather was always larger than life. It left a bad taste in Yuuji's mouth.
“I offer my condolences,” the nurse whispered.
Yuuji avoided her eyes while muttering something that could pass as acknowledgment. Shoving the folder into his school bag, he leaned on the outside wall of the hospital. He knew deep down that his grandfather wasn’t going to get better. Especially when he had insisted on moving back to Sendai instead of continuing treatment in an arguably better-equipped hospital. Yuuji should've begun to prepare himself for the worst when his grandfather arranged to close down the shop for an indefinite time.
But he had held out hope, kept an ember of hope flickering in his soul that his grandfather would rise from the hospital bed and return to his life like the whirlwind of grumpiness that he was. His grandfather was strong, and steady even when he would complain about growing pains in his body. It was half the reason why Yuuji began to help out more and more at his grandfather’s bakery and coffee shop.
That and the fact that he knew he would take over when he became of age.
Fuck, his grandfather’s bakery.
“Oh,” he said to himself, staring at his faintly trembling hands, “Or is it mine now? Fuck, whatever. What should I…?”
Go home? The cold large house that he cleaned near obsessively in hopes that his grandfather would be discharged and they could live out in the countryside? No, it was full of reminders of the man who raised him and the parents who died too soon.
Wait.
Ito had mentioned he had a party right? And knowing his reputation he probably bribed someone into buying alcohol and it’s blown out of proportion. Should he try..? Yeah, he should, anything to keep his mind off his grandfa—
Itadori: hey ito, send me your address, i’ll come by for a bit
The boy messaged back quicker than expected, Yuuji figured he was the type to keep his phone on hand at all times.
Ito: I knew you’d come around!
Ito: Just click the link I sent! It should send you to the maps app and take you to my house.
Itadori: cool thanks
Arriving at Ito’s house proved him right, there were some classmates sitting out on the porch nursing beer bottles. Yuuji squinted at them, trying to figure out if any of them knew that that particular brand of beer caused terrible diarrhea the morning after. Probably not, whatever, not his problem.
“Yuuji!”
Ito came from somewhere behind him and stumbled up to him, smiling crookedly at him. He smelled like bad booze. This time Yuuji didn’t bother hiding his grimace, already wanting to leave to sit in a ball in his grandfather’s hardly used room and grieve.
“Hi, Ito. You have any food around here?”
Instead of answering Ito grabbed his arm and dragged him over to a table full of snacks and baked goods. Shoving a brownie into his hands, the boy looked at him with a mischievous smile.
"Eat it," Ito urged, his eyes too bright and smile too wide.
Yuuji narrowed his eyes, “What’s wrong with it?”
Ito hemmed and hawed for a while, dancing around the question with surprising diligence. It only served to raise Itadori's hackles.
“It has weed in it.”
Startled, Yuuji turned to face the source of the voice. Ushimaru Chikayo flushed as she realized both Yuuji and Ito were staring at her.
“What?” She defended herself. “You weren’t gonna tell him anything and then he would green out and get hurt or something.”
Weed. Of course, Ito would hang around the shadier groups in school and Yuuji had seen him running around the school grounds finishing errands for them at their behest. Fuck, this was such a bad idea.
Whatever.
“It’s alright, Ushimaru-san. I won’t eat it all, thank you for telling me though.” Yuuji couldn’t quite muster a smile for her, but whatever appeared on his face seemed to appease her. She couldn’t turn her face fast enough to hide the blush that spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
“Uh, right, yeah. I’ll just— um, go. Bye, see you later!” Ushimaru turned on her heel and fled, quickly disappearing into the crowd. Yuuji stared after her, vaguely worried that he had offended her somehow.
Ito quickly vanished the thought by bumping shoulders with him. “See?” He said excitedly. “She’s totally crushing on you!”
“Oh, right.” What does someone say to that? “Cool.”
Ito laughed, clapping him on the shoulder and pointing to the brownie Yuuji still had in his hand. “Anyway, make sure to eat something before you eat that. And don’t eat all of it in one sitting! Like Ushimaru-chan said, you might green out. I gotta go but I’ll see you around, okay?”
Yuuji nodded absently, watching his classmate turn around and scamper away to a group of expensively dressed upperclassmen waving him down. Then, he unwrapped the cling film around the treat and ate it all. It tasted just like a normal brownie, barring the weird aftertaste. He guessed that was the weed.
Tonight was a night of bad decisions it seemed because immediately after finishing the brownie he was accosted by two girls who latched themselves onto his sides.
“Itadori-kun~! We’ve been waiting for you to come to one of Ito’s parties!” Said the one on his right.
She had short brown hair, her bangs swept to the left with a streak of pink in the very middle. Yuuji had no idea who she was. The girl on his left had long black hair tucked behind her ears, she had thin gold-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Yuuji also had no idea who she was.
“Emiko-chan! You’re going to scare him off!” The one on the left scolded her.
Emiko huffed, clutching at Yuuji’s arm and batting her eyelashes at him. “Chinami-chan and I have been wanting to hang out with you forever! You never come to Ito’s parties and we can never find you during school.”
She was pouting in what she must’ve thought was a cute way, Yuuji couldn’t help but compare her to the little snot-nosed kids that would try to eat the flowers he used to buy for his gra—
“Right. Sorry about that.”
They somehow didn’t notice his bad mood and began to drag him to the basement. Yuuji didn’t even know Ito’s house had one. The girls pushed him onto the couch and snuggled into his sides again. They began to ramble about their week, going on and on about a particular teacher that had sprung a pop quiz earlier that day.
Yuuji shifted, extremely uncomfortable with the amount of physical touch he was experiencing. While he was a naturally affectionate boy, and often very happy with physical touches, he did not know these two girls, Emiko and Chinami, very well (he didn’t know them at all). In fact, the only person he regularly had physical contact with had literally just died a couple of hours ago.
Yuuji was about to make his excuses and leave when he felt a hand clap on his shoulder. A spike of annoyance ran up his spine.
“Itadori! You sly bastard, you finally showed up!”
If Yuuji could he would slam his head into the floor right now. What was it with people expecting him to show up to stupid shitty parties all the time? Yuuji turned around to face the guy talking to him and the urge to slam his head onto the ground increased.
Of course, it was motherfucking Furutani Takehito. The same asshole who’s been trying to get him to join the baseball team by any means.
Internally screaming, Yuuji grinned at him. “Furutani! How are you?”
The baseball captain threw himself next to Emiko, ignoring her indignant screech as he stretched his legs out. “Pretty good. If the team wins the next couple of games we’ll qualify for playoffs. Speaking of which, when’re you gonna join, eh?”
Yuuji hoped that the gods above would strike him down where he sat. They did not, instead, they gathered around their pavilion and laughed at Itadori Yuuji.
“Furutani, are you bothering Itadori-kun again? You know he won’t join like that.”
Yuuji backtracked his cursing of the gods, mentally thanking them for creating Hamasaki Daisuke. The baseball vice-captain cuffed Furutani over the head, easily ignoring Furutani’s offended squawk.
Hamasaki turned to Yuuji and half-bowed in apology. “I am so sorry for him. I looked away for a second and he was just gone.”
Yuuji subtly shook off Chinami’s hold of his arm, sending the vice-captain a grateful look, sharing a fist bump with him. “It’s alright, he didn’t even get that far in trying to convince me. No harm done.”
Emiko twisted around to face Hamasaki. “Are you gonna sit down or let Furutani hog Itadori-kun’s attention? He never comes to Ito’s parties! We need to convince him to come to more parties so we aren't bored all the time.”
Hamasaki raised a brow. “You mean so you and Chinami can try and smother him with the perfume you stole from your mothers?”
Furutani laughed at that and Chinami jumped in to defend her friend, jabbing him in his chest and shouting expletives at him.
Seeing as Chinami had gotten up from her seat, Hamasaki sat down next to Yuuji and began to fill him in about the baseball team’s latest play that had won them the game. Normally Yuuji enjoyed listening to the boy talk about his sport; Hamasaki was a naturally charming boy who genuinely loved playing baseball and was always enthusiastic when he had a game day. He and Furutani often joined Yuuji during breaks to finish homework assignments that they would inevitably forget due to the long practices they would run.
But the group of people in front of Yuuji suddenly seemed to be moving slower, he frowned, leaning forward to study them. Hamasaki waved a hand in front of Yuuji’s face, frowning and saying something.
“What?” Yuuji said, his own voice echoing and sounding too loud, he frowned at Hamasaki, what was he saying? “What? What’s wrong?”
“—gave him a brownie—”
“—who the fuck would do tha—
“—greening out! What makes you thin—”
“—go get Ito—”
Yuuji’s head spun, he was confused, the world was spinning too hard and the ground felt like wet sand. He needed to go home and clean up the house, his grandfather was getting discharged tomorrow wasn’t he? Right, he had been filling out forms for that earlier, before coming to Ito’s party, and he still had the papers in his backpack.
Oh fuck, his backpack, where was it? He needed it.
“My backpack.” Hamasaki’s face came to view, brows creased in the middle and a look of concern marred his features. Why is he worried?
Whatever, Yuuji thought, I need to check my backpack. “Get my backpack, I brought it with me.”
Yuuji couldn't get the words to sound right, they sounded garbled and got stuck in his throat. He cleared his throat intending to try again, but Hamasaki seemed to understand right away because when he blinked, the vice-captain had his backpack in his hand.
“This one is yours right?” He asked, holding it out for Yuuji to take.
Talking was too exhausting to try again, so he just nodded his thanks and began to root around the bag. There, behind his red math notebook, the manilla folders stared up at him and distracted him with the lines following the length of the folders.
Huh, he thought to himself, why are they breathing?
It didn’t matter, Yuuji needed to go home, he left some dishes in the sink from earlier. He struggled to his feet, and instantly there were hands pushing him down and worried muffled noises reaching his ears. He looked at the hands pushing him down, tracing the hands to arms and then shoulders to a face. Or faces, Furutani and Hamasaki were holding him down by the shoulders, while Emiko and Chinami grabbed his hands.
Growing frustrated with everyone holding him, he shook them off easily. Maybe a little too roughly, but he didn’t let himself feel bad, still too confused and dizzy to really understand why they were holding him back. Picking up his backpack and stumbling up the stairs, he waved off whatever Ito was saying to him. When had he gotten there anyway?
“Itadori! Where the fuck are you going?” Hamasaki was yelling. He sounded worried. Why was everyone so worried? Yuuji wasn’t used to that kind of emotion from his peers, he didn’t know how to react to it.
Oh, he could hear again. It sounded like he was underwater but it was better than not hearing anything at all.
He should probably answer. “I’m going home, I didn’t like the party. Sorry.”
“We’ll walk you home then.”
We?
“Yeah, me and Furutani. You go the same way as us sometimes, right?”
Yuuji looked past Hamasaki, seeing Furutani walking towards them, putting a sweater on. He turned to Hamasaki, already intending to decline when Furutani threw a rough arm over his shoulder.
“Alrighty, let’s get this show on the road yeah?”
Yuuji sighed, wordlessly agreeing to let the two walk him home, trying to remember which street he was on. Tugging his sweater over his hands, he started off at a casual meandering pace. Only to yelp in surprise when Furutani began to sprint like the devil was after his soul.
“Slow down! Slow down! Why’re you going so fast?” Yuuji cried, digging his heels into the ground.
Furutani looked at him with an incredulous look on his face. “Itadori, I’m not going fast?”
“Yes! Yes, you are!” Yuuji turned to Hamasaki. “He was sprinting!”
Hamasaki sighed, patting his shoulder. “No, Itadori-kun, your perception of the world right now is off.”
“You two are acting real condescending to your senpai you know,” Yuuji huffed, brushing Hamasaki’s hand off his shoulder.
Furutani stiffened, “What do you mean?”
“Itadori-kun is a second-year.” Hamasaki turned to look at his friend curiously. “Didn’t you know?”
“I’m also taking some third-year classes, accelerated learning and all,” Yuuji said mildly, neck craned up to stare at the sky. The stars were twinkling in morse code, they were calling him a little bitch. He looked back at Furutani, suddenly mystified (and totally not because if he kept looking at the stars he would end up trying to fight them), “Hey, that reminds me, if you two are only first-years, how are you captain and vice-captain?”
“Oh well, we’re actually just in charge of the first-year group. So there’s the third-year real captain and then the second-year captain and then it's Furutani and me,” Hamasaki explained, ticking off the teams on his fingers.
Yuuji hummed, he didn’t understand why the baseball team chose to work that way and he doesn’t want to know why. Then, he nearly tripped over a suddenly kneeling Furutani.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He yelped, hands clutching his backpack straps in a vain hope to steady himself.
“Senpai,” Furutani starts, voice gravely and serious. “Forgive me for pestering you carelessly, it was rude of me to annoy you at every turn when you were clearly unwilling to join the team, I now see the error of my ways and am ready to receive any punishment you see fit.”
What the fuck.
Hamasaki slapped him over the head.
“Idiot!” He groused, “You mean to tell me that you bothered Itadori-kun for the better part of six months and never bothered to ask him what year he was in?”
Furutani did not move from his kneeling position, sullenly he explained that he had seen Yuuji studying with a couple of first years at the beginning of the school year, and he had assumed that Itadori was a first-year student as well.
Hamasaki sighed, hanging his head and turning to apologize to the second-year. Only to panic at the empty street.
“Oh my god!” He whispered, head in his hands. “We lost Itadori Yuuji.”
(Truth be told, Yuuji had merely wandered away while the pair were otherwise occupied, and when later asked, he would say nonchalantly. “Honestly, I can’t remember how I got home. I just blinked and I was in front of my door. I think I teleported, to be honest.”
He would laugh and wave away any other question about that night. Hands reaching to rub at two curious scars just above his cheekbones, Itadori Yuuji would flawlessly change the subject and the matter would disappear from everyone’s mind.)
✻
Yuuji struggled with his keys, dropping them twice and putting in the wrong key almost five times. The ridges seemed to liquefy and change shape every two seconds.
Click. Yuuji sighed in relief as the door finally opened. He swore he was getting judged by the alleycat that he would feed on occasion, he turned to make a face at it, just because he could. The cat meowed back.
Stumbling into the dark living room, Yuuji turned the lights on and immediately regretted all his life choices as the bright fluorescent lights seared his sensitive eyes. Groaning, he blindly felt his way to the couch and collapsed head first onto the soft pillows, but only after slamming his forehead onto the wooden armrest and shouting out several swears.
He stayed in that same position for a truly worrying amount, before abruptly sitting up and staring at the coffee table.
“I’m hungry.” He announced to the empty room. His stomach growled as if to prove it to the carpet and table.
Deciding to try his luck in the kitchen, he meandered over to the fridge and rooted around its contents. Coming up empty he turned to the pantry when something on the kitchen table caught his eye. Upon closer inspection Yuuji let out a quiet noise of surprise, it was the object Sasaki-san from the Occult Club had told him to pick up that morning.
The president had approached him that morning and asked him to retrieve it for her. He had agreed easily, very aware as an active member of the club that both Iguchi-san and she were frightened by any suspicious thing or behavior after the sun had set. This was ironic considering that the three of them often went on night-time “expeditions” to find any occult activities.
Yuuji sat down on the kitchen table, previously ravenous hunger forgotten in the face of the simple design of the box. Faded symbols were carved into the wood, archaic characters that were too small for Yuuji's woozy vision to discern, he traced the engravings with his fingers, briefly debating on what he should do with the box. Curiosity killed the cat, he thought with finality, he opened the box and stared at the contents, mystified. It looked vaguely like a finger if a finger was wrapped around yards of thin strips of paper with what seemed symbols inked into the paper.
Yuuji stared at the probably mummified finger before shrugging and beginning to unwind the paper.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” he murmured out loud, fingers making quick work of the near fabric-like quality of the paper. “But satisfaction brought it back, right? Right.”
Staring at the purple-clawed finger he now held in his two hands, Yuuji thought about all the decisions he had made in his life that led him to this very moment.
Eat it.
Why is his brain like this?
“What the fuck. I’m not going to eat it.” He said aloud. Inspecting the finger some more, Yuuji blinked at the finger. The finger did not respond. He shrugged. “Well, why not.”
Yuuij ate the finger. His face screwed up in disgust, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out.
✻
“Itadori! I was looking for you! Did you notice anything odd about the box I asked you to grab for me?”
Sasaki-san had found him in front of the vending machines mentally debating which snack to get after school let out. Yuuji had quit the club earlier that week, privately informing them of the death of his grandfather and his desire to focus on opening the bakery back up. They had expressed their sympathy and happily wished him the best.
Yuuji hummed, leaning against the machine and looking up at the sky. “The box wasn’t very heavy, now that I think about it. But I didn’t think about it too much. Why? Was something wrong with it?”
Sasaki-san puffed up her cheeks. “There was supposed to be some type of cursed object in the box, Iguchi-kun and I wanted to open it today with the new member to welcome them. But when I opened it to look at it, it was gone.”
Yuuji closed his eyes and shot Sasaki-san an apologetic smile, half-bowing with a hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Sasaki-san! I should’ve given it to you that morning!”
"Liar."
The girl smiled at him, open and trusting.
“It’s okay, Itadori!” She exclaimed, “Good luck with the bakery, and let us know when you’re open, okay? Me and Iguchi will be your first customers!”
Itadori kept smiling at her, tasting wax in the back of his throat and feeling fire lick along his veins, Sukuna chuckling in the back of his mind. “Of course.”
Sasaki-san patted his shoulder one last time before walking away. Yuuji watched her until she crossed a corner and turned back to the vending machine.
“Liar.”
“Yeah, I know.”