Work Text:
Fushiguro spun the pen between the fingers of his hand, resting his chin on the other as he grew tired of analyzing the same paragraph over and over. His elbow rested just below the corner of the fifth sheet of paperwork he decided to reread before dinner. And once again, he wondered why he decided to do it right before dinner. But work was work, his hunger could wait a little longer.
He was moving down to the next paragraph when he heard a knock on his door—barely perceptible, but there, anyway. Fushiguro looked up at the door, narrowing his eyes. The pen stopped in his hand and he placed it on the table.
Another knock.
Breathing in through his nose, Fushiguro hold it and let it out in a weary sigh, leaning back in his chair. He stretched his arms over his head and stood up, stretching his legs on the way to the door.
When he opened it, he found the silhouette of Itadori right in front of him. Itadori caught his eyes and practically vibrated with contained excitement in place, about to raise his hand to—
Fushiguro closed the door in his face.
“H-HEY!” Itadori raised his voice on the other side, letting out a groan followed by, “FUSHIGURO, THAT WAS RUDE!”
Fushiguro clicked his tongue and opened the door again, resigned.
“Don’t shout.” Fushiguro said, with all the calm in the world. “What do you want?”
Itadori rubbed his nose, a little sulky, “You should kick that habit of smashing people with your door. That makes two.”
Fushiguro exhaled through his nose in a short, sarcastic laugh. The only person who had been smashed by his door twice had been Itadori, of all people. Gojo always earned him a punch from Fushiguro for daring to enter through the sliding windows of his room, the idiot. Itadori at least had a hint of formality among them all.
“I doubt that’s what you want.” Fushiguro rolled his eyes, pulling his hand away from the door to cross his arms over his chest and take a few steps back inside. Still, he didn’t leave enough room for Itadori to get by and enter his room.
Then Itadori raised his hands slightly and Fushiguro noticed what he had been carrying in them—it was bentos. He uncrossed his arms and looked down at it curiously.
“What is that?” Fushiguro asked, looking up at the excitement prevailing on Itadori’s face.
“My dinner—”
“Don’t even think about eating in my room.” Fushiguro stepped forward, frowning.
“—and your dinner.” Itadori finished. He lifted the bentos and winked at him, giving him a huge smile.
Fushiguro blinked, puzzled for a few seconds. “Huh?”
Itadori laughed and, managing as he always did, made his way through a small space between Fushiguro’s body and the wall to his right, entering the room with the nonexistent invitation to do so. Fushiguro simply allowed him in, without the slightest bit of energy to kick him out. Besides, he wanted Itadori to explain himself.
“Come on, Fushiguro. It will be fun!” Itadori grinned even more in the middle of the room and raised the bentos above his head to make his point, closing his eyes. “Let’s have dinner, I’m dying here.”
Fushiguro sighed and closed the door behind him in response. Itadori seemed to give him an approval nod and handed him one of the bentos. Fushiguro walked over to him and took it, muttering a simple thank you before sitting down once more in his chair. He turned it so that it was parallel to his desk, not wanting to turn his back to Itadori.
Without saying a word, he watched Itadori sit gracefully on the floor and settle, his back rested against the side of his bed. Fushiguro settled as well, relaxing his body on the chair. Itadori’s lack of concern relaxed him enough.
Slowly filtering through the windows was the evening light, filling the large space of the room with the dim atmosphere of the night approaching—the golds, purples and blues mixed and blurred with the walls. All those lights illuminated half of Itadori’s sitting body as he pulled apart the chopsticks, and Fushiguro averted his gaze that had stayed the longest on his comrade just as Itadori looked up.
“Kugisaki has made us these bentos.” Itadori caught his attention from the floor, licking his lips.
Fushiguro looked at him out of the corner of his eye for that, pulling apart his own chopsticks, but reaching for the spoon instead. Kugisaki. She might have unique cooking skills that Fushiguro was previously unaware of, and the fact that she had bothered to make bentos for both of them was saying a lot. Maybe she was in a good mood today, he thought simply, slightly suspicious.
Itadori picked up a gyoza with his chopsticks and raised it to his mouth. His face melted in pure pleasure, and Fushiguro was about to smile. Almost.
“How did you know that I hadn’t eaten?” Fushiguro asked after a while, taking the miso soup.
“Fushiguro, I live next to you.” Itadori shrugged, licking his lips once more as he turned his head to look up at him. “I haven’t heard your door open since we got back from the mission in the morning.”
Fushiguro blinked slowly, humming under his breath. He never thought Itadori was equally attentive when it came to that sort of things. But anyway, it was Itadori.
“I’ve been busy.” Fushiguro said, casting a guilty look at the paperwork he still had to finish analyzing. Itadori hummed, flexing one leg against his chest.
“And here I thought you were taking a six hour nap.” Itadori laughed at his own foolishness.
Fushiguro rolled his eyes.
As he finished his soup, Fushiguro wondered if he should turn on the lights. He always had enough with the lamp that illuminated his desk, you could see well across the room; but the shadows were still shadows, despite everything. If Itadori asked him to turn on the light, he would, but he hadn’t asked him yet. Fushiguro took a quick look at him—Itadori seemed just as comfortable as him without light, there, finishing most of his bento.
“This is to die for.” Itadori spoke between bites, moving part of it to his cheek.
Fushiguro raised an eyebrow, “If Kugisaki made them you should be bothering in her room instead of mine.”
There was a beat of silence before Itadori met Fushiguro’s eyes across the room, incredulous and half paralyzed.
“But what are you saying? Kugisaki would kill me if I spend time in her room. With her mood swings and everything…” Itadori shuddered, clutching his bento tightly. “She would tear me apart!”
Fushiguro couldn’t help but smirk, “And I wouldn’t?”
“Dude, you smashed me with your door in my face. That’s a bit close to tear me apart for today, thank you very much.”
Fushiguro shook his head in a short laugh, putting the miso soup aside when he finished it. Itadori cleared his throat and set his finished bento on the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. He jumped up from the floor and stretched, walking over to the shelf next to the desk with a new gleam in his eyes. Fushiguro spun the chair around again, making sure Itadori didn’t make a mess wherever he went.
“You have so many books… Awesome!” Itadori exclaimed, squatting down to observe every book on the shelf below in interest. He pulled out a heavy book, reading the cover. Then he took out another and set the first one on the floor, taking a peek. Itadori smiled and looked up at Fushiguro’s piercing gaze. “In my room I only have like… six mangas and ten magazines. I didn’t know you were a book person.”
“If they are nonfiction, they are all worth to me.” Fushiguro commented naturally, even though he was feeling something like stabbings in his soul every time Itadori pulled out some other book and piled them on the floor. Was it so hard for him to put them back in their damn place? This idiot.
Itadori’s finger stopped on a different paper, thin and gray. Fushiguro already knew what it was before Itadori took it off the shelf. He didn’t miss the stare in his comrade’s eyes when he read the headline.
And then, “Whoa!”
Itadori spread his arms and held the newspaper directly in front of him. He shot a mischievous look at Fushiguro, who groaned and went back to his dinner.
“Mmhm, the school newspaper.” Itadori hummed, unfolding it. A black and white photograph was printed at the center of the first page, and Fushiguro glanced at the proud smile adorning Itadori’s lips. “This article was written by me months ago, along with Iguchi-senpai. I remember Sasaki-senpai told us to repeat it when she saw various faults. Aaand I think that’s not what interests you, right?”
Itadori raised his head and pouted, eyes narrowing. Fushiguro looked down at him as Itadori waved the newspaper in his face. Fushiguro almost got a tic in the eye.
“Oi.” Fushiguro warned.
Itadori ignored him and kept moving the newspaper. Fushiguro sighed wearily and read the article.
Hiramoto’s ghost continues to haunt Ueno Park.
[…] Itadori Yuuji, Iguchi.
The photo in the center of the newspaper was of the park, but next to the columns were school photographs of Itadori and Iguchi as informants on the story. Fushiguro looked at the photograph of Itadori, just taken a few months ago, but with no change in him; except for Sukuna’s new eyes below his, closed and waiting to be opened. He didn’t let that distract him.
Fushiguro smirk at the article. “Curses.”
“Yeah, curses.” Itadori sighed, moving the newspaper away. “And to think that all this time most of the incidents have been by curses.”
Itadori put the newspaper on the floor, unfortunately for Fushiguro, and stood up. His eyes danced across the desk and he smiled so widely that even Fushiguro was immediately suspicious.
Itadori pointed his index finger at some blank sheets, “This is important?”
Fushiguro shifted his gaze from the pages he had set aside just in case, and back to the innocent curiosity on Itadori’s face.
“No.” He answered. Anyway, it was just a few blank pages. He wondered what exactly Itadori meant by that question.
Itadori vibrated with excitement next to Fushiguro and grabbed a few sheets of paper, walking to the back of the room. Fushiguro shrugged to himself and went back to his task of analyzing. He had put it completely aside since the arrival of his annoying neighbor, and now he wouldn’t be willing to leave it any longer. With his stomach satisfied, Fushiguro got to work, picking up the pen and spinning it in his hand as he read paragraphs.
Sometimes, there were times when he heard the paper rustle behind him, along with Itadori’s footsteps across the room. Fushiguro put his hand to his chin so as not to be tempted to turn to see what Itadori was doing. Until—
—until a hand appeared within his field of vision, leaving a paperfolding form next to his lamp on the desk. Fushiguro stopped everything he was doing and stared at that form, frowning slightly. It was an origami of a white wolf-like.
The hand moved away from his sight and Fushiguro turned then, meeting Itadori’s dazzling happiness in all its forms.
“Could have made it bigger. Your hound is really cute.” Itadori mused, grinning at Fushiguro in a wink.
“What…?”
“Your shikigami. It’s cute.” Itadori shoved his hands into his pants pockets, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet.
Fushiguro’s heart skipped a beat and he closed his eyes, frustrated by Itadori’s ease of saying whatever he wanted out of nowhere, all of a sudden. Fushiguro let the air out in a resigned sigh and opened his eyes, realizing now that part of his room was decorated with origami of different forms.
Itadori had filled his room with fucking origamis.
Fushiguro shot an incredulous look at Itadori, who just smiled at him more, even though his smile fell slightly at the corners. He supposed Itadori knew what was coming.
Fushiguro got up from his desk and strode over to Itadori, raising his hand to his light pink hair. Itadori followed it with his gaze and gave a little jump when he grabbed his head, to which Fushiguro smirked and stared at him.
“You, you should be in your room by now.” Fushiguro drawled, but didn’t use too harsh a tone. “Get out.”
Itadori held his gaze, pressing his lips into a fine line.
“I don’t want to.” Itadori said suddenly, a little too fast, too firm. Too much him.
Fushiguro groaned under his breath and frowned by way of challenge. He pulled his hand away from Itadori’s head and placed both hands in position, quick and calculated.
“Alright, if you insist that much.” Fushiguro’s mouth allowed a satisfied smirk to slowly form on his lips.
Itadori’s skin bristled and, in an reflex act, he threw his hand toward Fushiguro’s hands, grabbing them between his own to stop the summoning. Fushiguro’s eyes widened almost instantly, not expecting the action—he froze at the touch, ceasing to feel the aura of his shikigami around him. Itadori’s other hand floated in the air, out of his pocket, not really sure whether or not to join it with the other hand, and silence settled around them like a taut, invisible veil.
Their eyes met and their gazes leveled, not leaving the other. Itadori’s light brown eyes glowed a little brighter and he squeezed his grip on the formation of Fushiguro’s hands, his fingers pressing around, bordering the smoothness of his hand’s back. Itadori’s cheeks tinged pink, blending into light red above his cheekbones. It matched his hair. And that… that was really cute. Fushiguro stared at him silently, his eyes swimming and searching on Itadori’s face for something. Something. This situation, this moment—
Itadori gave him an apologetic smile then, his posture shrugging slightly with his shoulders.
“I won’t bother you anymore, I promise.” Itadori spoke after the abrupt silence, his voice low yet confident. “But can I stay a little longer? Please?”
Fushiguro’s brow twitched, already putting aside his summoning for the little annoyance in front of him. This idiot always saying whatever he wants. Someday he was going to hit him for it.
Fushiguro ignored the growing tingling that wrapped his hands under Itadori’s, and stood silently pondering that neither of them had undone the touch in the first place. But as if Itadori had actually heard him in his thoughts, Itadori loosened his grip and pulled his hand away before Fushiguro did it first.
“Heh.” Itadori took a step back. “What do you say?”
Fushiguro relaxed his muscles, not realizing how tense they had been. “Just, don’t make a mess around my room, okay?”
Itadori’s face lit up through the dim light of the room, raising a fist in the air.
“I’ll go get one of my mangas, don’t close the door when I leave!”
Fushiguro didn’t, staring at the silhouette of Itadori rushing out of his room. Fushiguro ran a hand through his hair, releasing all the air in a sigh. The quiet of the night settled in his body, relaxing him.
Isn’t it better to be accompanied? Isn’t livelier better? It’d be good for you.
Gojo’s words echoed in his mind suddenly. Fushiguro wanted to deny it, although not really seriously at all. Itadori was annoying, like a pain in the ass, but something about him always made Fushiguro change his mind. Him and his crazy occurrences within his personality, him and his intense presence, leaving gaps when he disappeared. It was going to drive Fushiguro crazy.
When Itadori returned with one of his manga in hand, Fushiguro resumed his task at the desk, his origami wolf-like at his side.
Fushiguro would sometimes hear Itadori’s little reactions behind him when something interesting happened in the manga, but he kept going, reading paragraphs and paragraphs until time became excessively constant, calm and uneventful. Fushiguro slowly blinked his heavy eyes after a few more hours, and he knew his body was already asking for rest.
He leaned back in his chair and stretched out as far as he could, feeling his limbs go numb with tension and relaxation. Fushiguro turned his chair, rubbed his shoulder, and stared toward the back of his room. He stared at the sleeping outline of Itadori on his bed. Fushiguro blinked—Itadori… asleep… in his bed.
Fushiguro’s shoulders slumped, lowering his head. That was why everything had been so quiet. Itadori had fallen asleep with his half-finished manga on his chest. Fushiguro yawned and decided to get up, approaching his bed with a thousand ways in his mind to wake his comrade up.
As soon as he was close to the side of his bed, Fushiguro moved his gaze to Itadori’s placid face, no lines crinkling his skin, no smiles forming dimples, no eyes glowing. Fushiguro clenched his fists without realizing it, having that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Itadori looked more alive with his own light.
Fushiguro leaned down a bit and removed the manga from Itadori’s chest, leaving it on his nightstand.
“Idiot, energy always runs out.” Fushiguro muttered under his breath, sitting on the edge of his bed.
He felt Itadori move a little behind him, but Fushiguro didn’t turn to see him. His eyes were heavy, but he was still able to stay awake. Fushiguro glanced around his room, his lips curving into a genuine smile. There were books piled on the floor, still unplaced; the newspaper spread out on the shelf, various origami forms dispersed all over the furniture, animals and paper stars carefully crafted. Now his room seemed different, even more alive, messy as a victim of the hurricane hidden in Itadori’s personality.
He wanted to laugh.
Fushiguro turned to Itadori. His comrade’s breathing was slow, steady, and calm in its purest form. Fushiguro’s chest contracted, but it didn’t hurt—it was more of a warm and welcoming feeling. He leaned and rested his elbows on his knees. He wasn’t going to… he wasn’t going to sleep with Itadori, that was clear. Fushiguro rubbed his palms together and clenched them into fists, closing and opening his hands.
Itadori hadn’t hesitated to touch him so that he wouldn’t summon his shikigami, even if the touch had lasted longer than normal. Fushiguro didn’t hesitate either to touch him now.
Fushiguro turned and touched Itadori’s cheek with the back of his fingers—two short taps, and Itadori was already groaning out of his sleep, blinking lazily up at him. Itadori grabbed Fushiguro’s wrist before he could pull his hand away, his grip loose, soft, until little by little his fingers slowly slid over the skin of the inner part of Fushiguro’s wrist, Itadori’s hand finally landing on the bed.
Fushiguro felt that tingle again, his heart skipping a beat.
“You have fallen asleep.” He told Itadori when he finally opened his eyes.
Itadori stretched and yawned meanwhile. He lay for a few more seconds, with his arms above his head, stretched out and relaxed. Fushiguro suspected that he would fall asleep again, so he flicked Itadori’s forehead, bringing him back. Itadori pursed his lips, raising his hand to his forehead. He looked up at Fushiguro through the shadows of the night, through the dim light of the moon and the lamp, as if he didn’t really realize how much this was affecting Fushiguro.
Of everything that was making him feel in such a short time.
“Are you going to get up at once or do you want me to kick you out?”
“Rude.” Itadori grinned widely and ran his hands over his face. He sat on the bed. “Man, for a moment I thought it was my room. Sorry.”
You almost made it yours, it seems, Fushiguro thought.
Fushiguro and Itadori both stood up. Itadori took his manga and shot a genuine look at Fushiguro, all smiling, despite the small hints of sleep in his eyes.
“Some company has been nice, right?”
Fushiguro snorted without anger. He placed his hands on Itadori’s back to push him out of his room once and for all, approaching the door. Itadori allowed himself to be pushed without resistance, but looked over his shoulder at Fushiguro expectantly.
Fushiguro smirked, “The next time you come to my room and make it a really mess, slamming my door in your face won’t be the only thing I’ll do.”
Itadori’s face lit up once more. There was a next time, that time with an invitation to enter.
Itadori brought his hands up to fold his arms behind his head and chuckled, his laugh bubbly and soft. He closed his eyes in a grin.
“Looking forward to it.” Itadori said.
Isn’t it better to be accompanied? Isn’t livelier better? It’d be good for you.
The intense presence of company left gaps and gaps when disappeared. And even if Fushiguro tried to deny it, deep down he was also looking forward to that next time.