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You see, Itadori has by no means ever tried to pass as normal. His fairly vibrant pink hair has always set him apart from others. A physical outlier, if you will.
His mind is no better, in fact, some might even go as far as to say it’s much worse. He would disagree. He can’t hide his hair, dyes are only ever temporary and leave his appearance looking distinticly off.
But his mind?
No one will ever know it’s chaotic state with scattered skulls, red ocean, and a looming throne with a king looking down. So for all anyone ever knows, his hair and physical ability will be the only things distinguishing him from the crowd. And that’s the way he likes it, a secret.
After all, he can’t even begin to imagine what mental hospital he’d be rushed to by saying he’s had a voice telling him to kill and destroy since as long as he can remember. In plus, it’s not like he ever acts on these suggestions, because in the end, that’s all they are.
(That’s a lie. He’s killed many things. He just doesn’t think saying he kills creatures that people don’t normally see helps his case any.)
Regardless, the point is Itadori knows he’s strange. He just doesn’t realize how strange until his first year of high school.
.
The existance of jujutsu sorcerers is by no means something kept hidden from him. Rather they are proof of the world he glimpses with their auras shining brightly or tucked in too tight in a false sense of security. Their very presence tells him he isn’t crazy, and that maybe, just maybe other people also have someone else other than themselves in their mind.
(He knows it’s a lie. The voice tells him so. But a white lie can’t hurt anyone, right?)
So when he runs off the school baseball field and bumps into another boy, he knows immediately what he is. The energy is flowing loosely around his body, showing signs of training, but not controlled enough to be anything other than a student.
(He had spent many days afterschool observing these strange men and women who had energy actively swirling around them. Fitting in with these people might be easier than the kids in school who laughed at his hair and mocked his parents’ deaths.)
He continues running anyways. Sukuna may not have everyone’s best interest in mind, but he generally had Itadori’s. Mostly because they shared bodies, and really, after nine years, no thoughts stayed hidden between the two.
And currently, Sukuna was telling him to avoid the sorcerer.
“He’s probably here because the curses are still being attracted to the box here.”
The box? Oh right, the box that held Sukuna’s finger that he ate. He still wasn’t quite sure if he had done right thing by doing that. Time would only tell, he supposed.
Haven’t we dealt with most of them though? Surely all those late nights spent wandering the school halls in search for cursed spirits weren’t a waste. His sleep schedule had been destroyed for months. Admittedly, his sleep schedule had never great to begin with but still.
“Oh quit your whining, you enjoyed hunting them down.” Itadori didn’t need to be in his mindscape to know Sukuna was smirking.
Shut up, so what if I did? He huffed back.
Knowing he had won, that insufferable idiot, Sukuna went back to the original matter at hand. “The sorcerer will be gone by tomorrow, but they might have him check to see if my finger is still sealed. You might have to come clean then.”
Yeah... he’d rather not. Nothing said innocent like having swallowed two cursed fingers. One? Could be debated as a fluke or mistake. Two? Might as well already have him in handcuffs and executed on the spot.
Sukuna had not spared any niceties when explaining why he couldn’t just walk up to one of the nicer looking sorcerers and tell them he was sharing his body with the king of curses. Needless to say, younger Itadori had been very sad that day—also very scared. The concept of death, much less execution, was only known in terms of his parents, or lack there of.
And so onward he headed to the hospital to go see his last remaining connection to his family, leaving the sorcerer stranded in unfamiliar halls searching for creatures not of this world to hunt.
.
“Hey, you.”
Itadori looked up from the paperwork, eyes a puffy pink that matched his hair, and blinked in surprised. “Hello.”
It was the sorcerer from earlier.
“You have a weird scent, what are you?”
Well that was certainly blunt. Had it been any other day, he might have had a laugh before feigning confusion and sending the sorcerer on his merry way. This was not any other day however.
His grandpa—gone, dead, deceased, and whatever other words there were to describe death and the gaping hole in his heart left behind. Getting caught could only mean joining his grandpa, his only family really. Was that really so bad?
“So you want me to die now, huh brat?”
He startled. No! Of course not, you know that! Let me be sad for a minute before you ruin it!
“Focus on the baby sorcerer then and have a sad little pity party for yourself later.” Sukuna sneered.
Shit, right. The sorcerer.
“Uhh, you can smell me?” Let it not be said he was a literary genius. To be fair though, he had just been sobbing for the better part of the two hours left after school ended. His head was pounding and his eyesight was still blurry. Nothing conductive for fooling a sorcerer that was already suspicious.
Luck seemed to be on his side though, for once.
“I can, uh, detect scents better than most people,” the sorcerer seemed almost embarrassed. Definitely still in training then.
“That’s cool then, right?” This wasn’t quite like how he envisioned this conversation going. Nope, not at all.
“I guess so.” There was a small pause where Itadori struggled to find words and string them together to make sentences. The sorcerer took the moment to collect himself once more. “I’m Megumi Fushiguro.”
Ah well, guess there was no getting out of this one.
“Itadori Yuuji, nice to meet you.”
.
Settling into the booth and grabbing a menu, Itadori sneaked another look at Megumi. He looked deep in thought but no longer appeared to suspect Itadori of anything. Good, maybe he could finally relax a little. The walk over to the coffee shop had been a little too silent for his comfort, thankfully he had Sukuna to bother.
“So do you know what you’re going to get?” Itadori asked.
“Oh uh no, I haven’t been here before.” He replied, his eyes scanning the menu.
“Well, in that case, you should try the Mochi here. It’s pretty good here!” So he wanted to be friends with Megumi, sue him.
Megumi hummed, “okay, I’ll try it.”
Itadori grinned, it had been a long time since he had eaten a meal with someone. He had grown used to the quiet sound of his munching filling up the silence of his apartment. Sukuna was nice, sure, but he had really just become another extention of himself. They both knew each other a little too well, there was none of that fun unpredictability that came with real, live humans.
“Oh yeah, why’d you say I smelled weird earlier? I showered this morning, I’ll have you know!” He huffed, turning his face slightly towards the side with his nose pointed up.
“You smelled a little like death.”
Well that was just grim and rude.
“My grandpa did just died, could that have been it?” His smile fell as he was reminded of his grandpa’s passing.
“I’m sorry for your loss then,” Megumi politely said with a hint of understanding layered underneath. “But that wouldn’t have been it, it was like a rotting scent. It’s gone now though?”
“Hm... could an old box be it? I’m part of the occult club at school and they found this old box. It was supposed to have something scary hidden in it, I think.” Thank god he had gotten better at lying.
“Did it?”
“Huh? Did it what?”
“Have something scary in it?”
“No,” he feigned a sigh and leaned his chin on his hand. So the sorcerer had been here to check the status of the box, or more presicely, Sukuna’s finger.
“Well, the box would explain the smell.”
The bell attached to the front entrance dinged as two other custermers left still chatting.
“Hello, I can take your order now.” The waiter approached their table, and the conversation was lost.
.
The sun had long set, leaving only the moon and stars looking down at the ground. Itadori continued to stroll around the closing shops, watching as the bright neon signs slowly flickered out and people rushed to catch the last few remaining cabs. He shivered as the night chill started to settle and make itself at home in his bones, starting with his nose and ending with his hand stuck in his sweatshirt’s pockets.
He would’ve thought being a vessel for a King of curses would’ve at least come with some benefits.
“It does, like the power to kill.” Sukuna interrupted his thoughts. “You’ve refused it so far but no matter.”
Itadori sighed. He wasn’t killing anyone. Only curses.
(So what if he enjoyed hunting them down? They weren’t human anyways.)
He passed yet another dark alley, then paused, his head tilted to the left.
A faint scratching sound. An equally faint cursed energy trail had been left.
The corners of his mouth twisted upwards, eyes gleaming liquid gold like a cat finding its prey.
He had been needing a distraction from his grandpa’s death. Who was he to decline this rather generous invitation?
(If his and Sukuna’s smile matched, promising violence and a gruesome end, no one needed to know. No one ever would either.)
(What stayed in his mind, stayed, after all.)
.