Chapter Text
Sukuna watches from the trees, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. He ignores the urge to scratch the scabbing wounds on his arms in favor of total silence. Mid-day, the androgynous stranger had said. The sun is high in the sky, just past its peak, and Sukuna is quickly growing impatient.
He couldn't get a read on the monk last night. On the one hand, monks tend to be theoretically pacifistic with other humans, so it makes sense that they'd send away an angry mob from someone unknown. On the other, they were told right from the start that Sukuna was a monster, and neither exorcists nor monks make a habit of protecting those. They'd been told that the subject of the chase was a murderer, as well, and yet the monk had sent the horde of angry villagers away. Why? Even more oddly, they had specified uncertainty over his humanity, and still offered aid. What kind of monk gives aid to a monster?
Furthermore, despite Sukuna's attacks, the monk had remained nonviolent. They'd frozen him to the forest floor, and after Sukuna had tried to bite their fingers off, instead of their clear initial instinct to crack their palm across his cheek, they had just prodded the more human half of his face, right beneath his right eyes. They'd looked curious. Intrigued, almost awestruck, not disgusted or afraid.
Then they'd freed him. And not only that, but they'd aided him in escaping from the returning mob.
Who did they work for? Who was their master? The monk was clearly an exorcist if their ice was anything to go off of, but instead of killing Sukuna (something they were obviously able of), they'd set him loose. They had to have been trying to minimize human casualties, right? They'd be coming back, likely with their master and troupe, to kill him. Sukuna knows better than to stay here, but the monk had offered aid even before they had the chance to fetch their people, so they probably did have supplies. Sukuna needs those. Hence, he waits.
Eventually, the strange and tiny monk does come back.
Interestingly, they're carrying far more than they should physically be able to. Over one shoulder, they hold a small boar maybe a third of their size. In their other arm, they hold two boxes against their chest, each bigger than their entire head. A woven basket half as big as their torso is worn on their back, full of something but covered at the top with a small blanket, and tied with twine atop that is a bundle of lumber.
“Apologies for the delay,” the monk says to what they have no way of knowing isn't an empty clearing. “I found myself caught up with some children, and carrying all this was harder than I previously thought it might.”
Sukuna narrows his eyes.
The monk drops the corpse of the boar and begins unpacking their things. Sukuna can't make out much from the boxes besides some glints of metal or glass. “Take your time,” they say to the clearing, before untying the bundle of firewood and starting the process of laying out a large, proper cooking structure. “I have all day.”
Teeth bared in a sneer, Sukuna drops from his tree, “You're just building another signal for them, you know,” he snips.
The monk doesn't look up. “The dead can't see smoke, boy.”
Sukuna nearly trips over his own feet. The one conclusion that the monk's words lead to hits like a slap. They're implying they killed his pursuers, which is ridiculous. He won't feign stupidity here at this stranger's implied murder on his behalf, but he won't show the depths of his confusion, either, so he hides his utter disbelief with a milder but still skeptical tone.“Protecting a demon and killing villagers? What kind of monk are you?”
“…An unusual one, I'll admit,” the monk hums, pulling out the same pair of sparkstones from last night and looking down at them fondly. “No danger to you, though.”
Sukuna frowns deeper, edging slightly closer as carefully as he can. “Why? Why help me? You have the sorcerer abilities of an exorcist, and all they do is try to kill me, which you've already proven that you can.” Are you an apprentice to one of the many who hunt me?
“I've been separated from my master, and until I hear news of him or until he comes to retrieve me, I may as well offer my aid. He probably hates exorcists more than you do.” The monk sets their sparkstones down beside their basket and unflinchingly meets all four of Sukuna's eyes. Their eyes are… pink? “You remind me of him.”
“You lie,” Sukuna grits out, scowling and baring his teeth. It might be pointless, as the monk still isn't looking at him with anything resembling fear (which is unwise), but he does it anyway because it frightens people and fear makes people honest, which means he has to try. If he can unsettle the odd little stranger enough, maybe they'll reveal something.
The monk seems entirely unbothered by the sight of Sukuna's canines. “I do not. I withhold a little, perhaps, but I spin no intentional falsehoods, either.”
A growl rises from Sukuna's chest, his disbelief obvious.
Still, the monk does nothing except smile with soft eyes. “Would you like me to cook first, or to tend to your wounds?” is all they say.
If the monk starts a fire, it could act as a signal for an ambush, but if the monk treats Sukuna before they cook, he could very easily slip away before they get the fire big enough to be noticed. They're offering him the choice, which, in theory, would make it easier for him to flee, which means it's possible they aren't laying a trap.
Still, Sukuna bares his teeth. “Give me the medicine and I can do it myself.”
“Forgive my rudeness,” the monk says, not sounding apologetic at all, “but I must admit my doubt. Those scraps of stolen sheet make for poor bandages and their messy application leads me to believe you're not exactly adept at caring for wounds.”
Sukuna resists the urge (to attempt) to rip the monk to pieces. It's hardly his damn fault he doesn't know what he's doing, considering every healer he's ever met that hadn't flinched at the sight of him had made offers to make him ‘normal’ by removing his ‘extra parts.’ He wasn't exactly keen on learning a trade from people like that.
“I want to help,” the monk says, frighteningly relaxed as they sit back on their heels. Never once in his seventeen years has Sukuna seen such an utter lack of guile on a person’s face. Certainly nothing even slightly close has been turned towards him. He doesn't understand. He can't bring himself to believe it. This particular liar has to just be better at it than most, right?
But then… They didn't harm him when he was bound in that odd ice. They've verbally offered aid numerous times, even after Sukuna tried to kill them, and if they wanted him dead, it's highly likely they could have done something to him by now. Poison would be a longer way to go about killing him, but people are usually more eager to kill him than dissect him, and even if this was an attempt at sedation for the sake of easier transport to someone who wants to cut him open, Sukuna is reasonably certain that the monk could have just knocked him unconscious. It would be far less effort to knock him out, wrap him in something to prevent frostbite, and then encase him in a block of ice from the neck down.
Tentatively, oh so slow, Sukuna sits down. “Which one will take longer?” he asks, eyeing the boar and the monk in front of it.
“That depends on you,” the monk shrugs.
Sukuna almost rolls his eyes. “Could you not just,” he waves vaguely at his wounds, unable to say the word ‘help’ with any reasonable belief, “do this while the meat cooks?”
The monk smiles, pleased despite Sukuna's obstinance. “Cooking of this sort requires active attention. This isn't stew, so one task must be done before the other, unfortunately.”
Hunger claws at Sukuna's stomach. He's barely eaten anything in the last three days besides a couple of hens and a mouthful of someone's day-old rice. The birds had been eaten raw, and while the unwanted markings of a thief now inked into his flesh are at risk of infection, the hunger is just as pressing. He's used to hurt. He's used to hunger, though, too, more so than pain, and his wounds hurt more today than they did last night with the adrenaline of fear and anger.
“You're the ‘expert,’” Sukuna mutters.
The monk considers him for a moment, and then nods. “…Wounds first, then.” They reach for a small clay jar from one of the open boxes. They wet a rag with the contents, and the scent of rice wine fills the air.
Shit. Sukuna tenses. Are they—
“The alcohol is to clean my hands,” the monk interrupts Sukuna's thoughts, “not splash on your wounds. There's no need for it to make direct contact with you unless infection has set in.”
Sukuna hates the relief their words bring him. “Hmh,” he grunts, tentatively stretching one leg out to rest his ankle near the monk's knee.
The monk smiles at him as they re-seal the jar and put it back in the box. Then, slowly, as if to avoid (ha) frightening him, they reach out and carefully unwrap Sukuna's haphazard ankle wrappings. It's sticky with blood and ink, tacky and half-scabbed into the wound itself. Sukuna clenches his lower pair of claws into the dirt as it painfully comes undone, but he otherwise stays still. The monk's touch is soft, like Sukuna imagines a caring relative's might be, and despite last night, he's still startled by the cold of their skin. It eases the burning skin around the damaged flesh, though, and he struggles against the urge to relax into it.
Once Sukuna's ankle is unwrapped, the monk lifts his foot by the heel and looks the angry wound over, before they sigh with what is almost believable relief. “Inflamed, but not infected yet,” they murmur, before letting go and reaching into the basket to pull out a large jug of water the size of their head.
How did they carry that all the way up here?
“You're lucky I found you so soon,” the monk muses absently. They uncork the water and douse a fresh rag with it, which they wring out over Sukuna's ankle. The unnatural cold of their hands quickly cools the water into something not as terrible as it could be, and Sukuna watches as they repeat the process several times until he stops twitching at the feel of it. Then, they douse the rag again, before very, very gently dabbing the rag itself over his inflamed skin. It hurts, but the slow, consistent application of cold water from before makes the direct contact significantly less painful than it would've been otherwise. “This would have gotten infected very quickly.”
Sukuna watches with abstract bewilderment as the rag darkens with ink and blood, watches small, gentle, unafraid hands clean his injury, and absently thinks, What is happening today?
The monk glances up at him when they set the rag down in favor of picking up a stick of salve from the same box as the jar of sake, which they warm against his shin until it softens into something more smearable. “You think very loudly.”
“You're not exactly easy to read,” Sukuna mutters.
The monk chuckles, like they're amused at his words, but it doesn't turn out to be a condescending precursor to violence like most laughter aimed at Sukuna usually winds up being. They just flash a small grin at him, and as they gently wipe the salve over his ankle, they say, “I do my master proud, then.”
Sukuna frowns, refusing to wince at the sting of the medicine, and asks, “You seem fond.”
“Incredibly.”
“Who is he?”
“No one you'd know of,” the monk answers, perhaps a little too blithely. Their smile looks strained.
Sukuna frowns harder and tugs his leg away. “You said he did the same for you as you do for me. What does that mean?”
The monk looks annoyed for the first time, either at his interruption or his contention, but Sukuna himself is too irritated to be afraid. The monk says, “He helped me when I needed it.”
“…I won't devote myself to you like you do to him,” Sukuna cautions. “I don't know you. I'm only even entertaining the idea that you're older than me because I'm larger than most. You look too young for an apprentice of your own, and I am not the kind to become one.”
His warning is met with a snort. “I wouldn't expect you to,” the monk answers, and then they're holding out their hand in a nonverbal request for the return of his ankle. “My master is the exception to most things.”
Sukuna reluctantly obeys. His wound still hurts, but in a different way, and the stranger's hands are still blessedly cold. “How so?”
“For one, I despise people,” the monk says plainly, picking up a roll of proper bandaging. “I find the human race worthless. They are all of them full of hatred and fear. No animals have poisonous cruelty quite like humans do, and yet, to me, he is kind.”
“He sounds pathetic,” Sukuna mutters.
The monk looks torn between laughter and offense as they begin wrapping Sukuna's ankle, and they give him a sharp, chastising glance. “He is stronger than I,” they say. “Watch your tone when you speak of him.”
“No way,” Sukuna protests, disbelieving, because obviously this is a falsehood. “Nobody with authority or power like that is capable of true kindness. He has to be some sort of monster like everyone else.”
“He's the exception,” the monk repeats with a shrug, eyes back on their task. “True, like everyone with power, my master will often amuse himself with cruelty and violence, but he is still right and good. He provided me with warmth and structure, with somewhere to be, someone to learn from and to trust.” Their voice sweetens, warm and quiet and adoring. “He is my master, but he is also my teacher, and my friend.”
Sukuna squints, suspicious, but the monk either doesn't notice or doesn't care. They simply finish with his ankle and then let him go, so he takes the chance to flex the muscles in his foot and roll his ankle around a little, testing the tightness of the wrappings. He finds himself surprised with how nicely the pressure sits in the middle ground, firm enough to help with the pain but evenly layered enough that his blood can still flow freely beneath his skin.
“Too tight?” the monk asks softly.
“No,” Sukuna manages quietly, looking away. He's not used to this. He's still waiting for an ambush from the trees. “Thank you.”
“May I help with the rest of your injuries as well?”
Sukuna risks a quick glance to the monk’s face with one lower eye. He still can't tell what this stranger wants from him, and their face is still that oddly serene calm. Nothing given comes for free, but he can't for the life of him get a read on them or figure out what they want him to do or give in exchange for their help. It's infuriating. He still sort of wants to claw out those wide, guileless pink eyes.
As if reading his mind, the monk repeats, “I need nothing in return. I'd simply like to help.”
The thing is, Sukuna's ankle hurts less. Yes, the monk obviously has something malicious planned that they aren't telling him — maybe their master sent them to pacify Sukuna before a group of soldiers arrive or something — but Sukuna would admittedly rather be in less pain than more before that happens. He doesn't answer verbally, or even nod, but he switches his legs, pulling his treated one up so he can hold it while he stretches the other one out to take its place.
The monk’s smile is like their voice: soft, warm, and pleased.