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"Cheers!"
"Good work, everybody!"
"Enjoy~"
Yuuji's thick mug of beer clunked with everyone else . The golden liquid was foamy at the top, and condensation dribbled down the sides of his glass. The stein was almost too heavy in his clammy grip. He felt clumsy, embarrassed— he didn't know how to hold the glass in his underage hands.
It didn't help that Kugisaki was sending him a death glare every chance she got.
"Just drink it, dummy," she loudly complained, not caring about the students next to her cringing at her volume. "It's free beer. We earned it."
Yuuji made a face. "I don't know how to handle you when you're like this."
"Don't handle me," said his lovely friend, her face growing redder and redder with every sip she took. She tilted her head towards his drink— his reward. "Focus on that."
Yuuji studied her at her for a moment. She's normally never wrong, and he felt safe trusting her judgment. When he looked into his cup, he may have been staring down the barrel of a shotgun. When he looked around the restaurant, it was full of faces he knew. Gojo and Fushiguro were talking, with Fushiguro idly listening to whatever Gojo was enchanted by at the moment, Maki and Panda were grinning and leaning on each other, and even Yuta of all people was there, all pressed up against Maki in a way that made Yuuji's eyebrows raise and god everyone was here.
Outside was cold, with icy winds and the beginning to what looks to be a good snowfall. Everything here was warm, and cozy, and good.
What was the harm in one little drink, right?
Here goes nothing.
Yuuji never have guessed he was the touchy type of drunk.
An hour later since his first glass of beer, provided by the one and only Gojo Sensei, he since had two more glasses, and later, a shot of tequila that was propped up by Panda's suspiciously long and rather flexible ears.
It was when he was sandwiched between Yuta and Fushiguro that he heard Kugisaki very noisily get up from her spot on the floor. His gaze lazily followed her, and when she wobbly bent down to pick up her purse, his senses perked up. Putting Yuta's hand down (he had been playing with his hand, counting each individual joint and scar and callous), he managed to squeeze his way past his friends.
"Aw," Yuta complained, his big eyes glassy, his neck twisted around to look behind him. "Baby boy is leaving."
Yuuji giggled. "I said not to call me that." When he looked at Fushiguro, he was smiling fondly at him.
Baby boy, he mouthed, amused.
Yuuji winked, fully and totally smitten, but when Kugisaki was leaving the restaurant from the corner of his eye, he yelped. "Hey, wait up!"
"Be good, kid," Gojo yelled from the depths of the kitchen.
"Always," said Yuuji, before opening the door to leave. The little jingle on his way out made him smile, and that smile positively turned into a frown the moment he was in the cold.
"Yo," Yuuji shouted, as he covered his eyes with his forearm. "Kugisaki?"
How the storm worsened in the last few minutes was beyond poor Yuuji, who was cold and drunk and only wanted his friend near him. A flash of orange passed and— yes, that was her! "Kugisaki!"
When his eardrums seemingly burst with the sound of a horn, he believed it was the end times. Lord, he thought drunkenly, is it really my time already?
And maybe it would've been, if it weren't for Yuuji's guardian angel, who has been known to lurk.
"Enough of this, brat. Enchain."
And then, darkness.
Where there was darkness, came light.
And with light, a pounding headache.
Before he even woke up, Yuuji knew with grueling dread where he was. The smell of death, the feel of the ground of bones he lay on, and the annoyed clinking of fingernails tapping against a throne.
He was in Sukuna's domain. But why?
"Why, indeed." Came a floaty response. Yuuji cracked an eye open, confirming his suspicion.
When he saw those strange, unusual eyes, his heart jumped into his throat. It was never good when they met face to face. "Did— oh god, what did you do."
Sukuna was miles and miles away from Yuuji, but when he spoke, it was as if he was right behind him. "Do," his voice breathed easily, "you think something happened?"
Tears gathered in Yuuji's eyes, but he blinked them away harshly. Bits and pieces of the night came back to him— the warmth of bodies next to him, the sound of sweet laughter. "I don't—"
"You," the king of curses whispered, his breath hot against Yuuji's face, his unblinking eyes staring straight into Yuuji's, "owe me. With your life."
Yuuji stumbled back, almost tripping on the bones they stood on, before Sukuna's arm shot out and grabbed hold of Yuuji. "I never took you to be insolent, Itadori. It's not a good look on you."
"Hey," Yuuji cried. "What the hell did I do to make you need to see me."
Sukuna tilted his head. "I always see you."
"Aagh!" With that, he flung his arms up over his head. "If you're here just to piss me off, I'm over it."
In the domain, it was never truly quiet. Between Sukuna and his play on speech, the wailing of of the dead, or sounds of fighting, Sukuna's domain was never noiseless.
This moment, however, was the closest its ever been to silence. "You were inebriated, and you were almost crushed to death by a human vehicle."
Yuuji blinked. Did Sukuna just answer one of his questions?
Did— did he just say that he saved him?
"I must admit," stressed Sukuna, who now sounded mildly inconvenienced, "I do not understand how you even got into this position at all. Feasts are nothing unusual for kings, but where were those who cared for you? No, it was not one of your great allies who brought you back to life, it was me."
That tone— the thought of inconveniencing the king of demon himself was shocking. It was brilliant. Were he not already inebriated— he surly would've gotten drunk on this feeling alone. Maybe Sukuna felt that too, because the pointed look that was thrown at him was anything but pleasant.
"So… you saved me, and you don't even want anything in return?"
Way to bite the hand that feeds you, squirt, said a voice that sounded suspiciously like one Gojo Satoru.
One glance at Sukuna made Yuuji nauseous, but that didn't stop the older man's inhumanly fast pacing. "Stupid boy. You dying like a fool would have only interfered with my agenda."
Ouch
Sukuna continued. "Besides, I am the strongest— I most certainly do not need to prove my prowess to the populous at every point I get. It's redundant— they all ready know my strength, even if they should not know of my existence."
This sobering conversation was bordering on useless. If Sukuna brought him in his domain for, and Yuuji's stomach twisted at the thought, safety, then it was Yuuji himself who he would have to deal with, whether he liked it or not.
Sukuna stopped, thank god, and turned his full attention over to Yuuji. "It would've been the most mundane of deaths— the most mortal, reckless, stupidest ways to die."
Yuuji winced as he took a seat. "I didn't mean to be… irresponsible. I was just with my friends."
Sukuna shook his head. "You're friends are the reason you died, fool. When one goes chasing after love, after friendship, what does one expect. Blind loyalty? What about the trials and tribulations that you couldn't account for—
"Do you not yearn?" Yuuji interrupted, innocently. "Do you not wish for love— or forgiveness?"
He didn't expect a response. He really didn't. If it were he that was on the line to give a heart felt answer, Yuuji didn't know if he could answer something like that or not truthfully. Regardless. These kinds of questions were hypothetical, at best.
When it came to Yuuji Itadori's opinion on Sukuna, there was no room for anything other than hot, boiling anger, and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Those were the only things he could afford to feel.
"I care not, dear Yuuji, for these maddening games."
Yuuji sighed. Sukuna saved Yuuji from stumbling into incoming traffic for a reason. He knew very well that he was only a vessel to the king of demons, that Sukuna barged into Yuuji's life in a whirlwind just to get to his own corrupted goals, but surely not all is lost.
Surely there could be a breakthrough somewhere.
"That's all?" Yuuji questioned, feigning boredom. "The great Sukuna only carries hate in his heart?"
"Love," Sukuna spat, suddenly turning to face his mirror self, "is not something I concern myself with. I do not care for love. I never have."
Yuuji could only stare in wonder— in uncharted fascination. So he did understand such a thing as love. The devil made no comment about the aspect of forgiveness, and Yuuji knew far too much about Sukuna, about the kind of man he is, to push any further.
"Boy," came a low growl. A threat, a warning. A glance at Sukuna told him that the king was not here to play.
Yuuji disregarded it completely.
What was the worst that could happen to him in here? Death? What can crown death on its rotten, ugly head. What is the one think Yuuji was taught how to do, that he continues to do daily, and where the core of his pain, and identity, lay?
Life. Yuuji was born to live, and so he shall.
Sukuna did not look pleased.
"You," Sukuna rasped as he read the kid's thoughts, "were not born to live for anything other than your destiny. You were born for this time, and this place. You were born for me live. Together, we will be a phoenix of rebirth." Then he grinned something awful, something that he no doubt thought to have rattled the kid right to his bones— but it didn't. Sukuna may have been the king of curses, may even be a homeless man squatting in his very heart and soul, but he never came close to scaring Yuuji.
"Maybe," he agreed, shrugging. "But maybe I was born for something greater than you, too."
"Doubtful," came Sukuna's unexpectedly amused response.
"So… Am I good to leave now, or…"
Sukuna was quick, and light on his feet, too. At once he was pressed against Yuuji's entire frame, staring down at him. With one precise clawed finger to the boy's throat, the king of curses slashed through skin tissue and fat and vocal cords until the last thing Yuuji Itadori saw was the blank stare of four haunting eyes gazing down upon him.
"The only thing that gets to kill you is I, Sukuna. It would serve you well to never forget that."
The last words he heard from Sukuna struck fear in his heart, but strangely, and confusingly enough, an overlapping sense of gratitude made it's way over him, as well.