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Despite what he’d said after their conversation on the stairs, Yuuji hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor since they’d found a building that wasn’t crawling with curses. Choso had been relieved that he was allowed to follow him, he would have followed him regardless, but, there is joy in the fact that Yuuji allowed him to walk with him.
Chose made sure that there was a supermarket nearby because he knew humans need to eat before he settled with his knees drawn to his chest across Yuuji.
He has tried everything to get his little brother to move but he adamantly lies there, facing the ceiling with his lips pressed into a thin line. He also doesn’t sleep, he just moves in and out of consciousness. It is during one of the times when he’s passed out that Choso inspects his body.
Yuujis body is a canvas of purples, blues, and yellows and if he’d been normal he would probably be dead. His hands trace the scar inbetween his brothers eyebrows, the raised flesh is eerily jagged under his fingers. He fights the urge to kiss it the way he must have done when they were younger. Such things had to wait for when he is accepted.
Yuuji exhales, the warmth from it spreads from his fingers to his face.
He retracts his hands and resumes his position across him.
“You must drink this.” Choso says firmly on the third rise of the sun after their first arrival in the room. In his hands is a thing that holds water, it crinkles when he grasps it too tight so he settles for a light hold. Yuuji pointedly stares ahead, while his eyes glisten and a tear rolls from the corner of his eye down to his ear. He is a stubborn child, Choso notes. Does that match up to what he remembers of him? He doesn’t know. He seems to not know anything these days.
“Little brother, you cannot expect me to watch while you try to waste away. I am sorry for this,” he says as he wipes the tears from Yuujis face. He places his thumb on his lips and the rest of his fingers under his jaw and tries to pry his mouth open. Yuuji might be strong but he is weakened and soon a gap appears. Choso begins the painstaking process of pouring the water little by little so that his brother doesn’t choke until there is nothing left.
For the first time Yuuji takes his eyes off the ceiling and looks at him. His eyes are filled with so much rage it almost scares Choso. It's a rage he knows well, the kind that you turn on yourself when you think of how things could have been different if only you’d done this instead of that.
“Even if you try to starve yourself, the king of curses will not let you die, i will not let you die. If you wish to lash out against something, there are thousands of curses crawling over Shibuya. Let us fight together, brother.”
Yuuji looks away.
The next morning, Yuuji rises with the sun with a determined look in his eyes. They do not speak as they leave the building but he can feel the determination in Yuuji’s steps and the urge to exorcise curses. Still, he is human so Choso notices how his feet waver and the tight grimace that graces his face every few steps.
“You are hungry, little brother.” He knows Yuuji will deny this so he adds, “And so am I.”
“Dude, I’m not your brother and I know that curses don’t eat, Choso. You’re not fooling me. ” Yuuji says with venom in his voice. It is not his fault, Choso reminds himself. Yuuji does not have the same memories that he does and that is fine. So long as he is allowed to be beside him, it is enough.
“I am not just a curse, that is also something you know,” he says.
They find a supermarket filled with lower grade curses which they easily wipe out. There is something to be said in how Yuuji picks out things, there is a snack he chooses and then turns to show someone with a smile on his face. It quickly falls when his eyes fall on Choso. He wants to say that he can be whatever his little brother wants if only he'd let him. He wants to do right by Yuuji, wants to make him happy, if only for a minute.
Choso wants a lot of things.
"What do you have in your hands, little brother?" Choso asks, maybe today he can learn something, anything, about the brother who has been lost to him.
"Citrus flavored chocolate. My friends... they used to make fun of me anytime I bought it." He falls silent for a while after that and returns the chocolate to where he'd gotten it from. "I just really miss them. It's like a heartburn that refuses to leave," Yuuji finally says when he seems finished with the store.
Choso nods to show that he understands the kind of pain his brother is in. He does not know what it must be like to have a heart or have a heartburn but he does know the painful aching feeling that arises. "I understand what it is like to miss people and be in pain over it. Perhaps in our time here, we may heal together, little brother."
Yuuji gives a pained look and remains closed off for the rest of the day.
-
Yuuji draws out the curses and lets them swarm before he yells, "Whenever you're ready, Choso." That is his cue to activate which blood technique he thinks works best while Yuuji starts to beat up the ones close to him. This has been their routine for weeks, it almost never changes apart from days when they needed to move or obtain supplies. Yuuji still doesn't remember anything.
Choso finds that it’s okay if Yuuji never remembers the time before, when they were brothers. There are many events and conversations he’d had with Kechizu and Eso that when he had brought them up, the two would look at him like it was a fable. Younger brothers forget and it is his job as the older brother to remember and he’d almost failed that.
-
Sometimes the depth of his devotion almost scares him. It fills him to the brim and then some, it crackles like a caged beast waiting to be let out (which he cannot do, not until Yuuji accepts him as his brother). It's always there, just under his skin. He wonders if Yuuji can sense it and if it scares him.
Yuuji in his memories is like a butterfly or a half-finished illusion. Choso can see him amongst his other brothers, and can see him laugh with them. But he cannot remember sentences, when he tries to recall things he may have said, they come muffled as if he’s hearing them through water. He doesn’t dwell on it for too long, it may simply be an effect of his memories having been hidden from him for so long.
If Choso cannot trust his mind, how can he expect Yuuji to trust him?
He tries to picture how their first meeting might have gone if they’d remembered earlier and it aches to think of what could have been and what is.
-
Yuuji wears his grief like an elaborate yukata, the patterns are striking and clear to see, wrapped around him like a shroud. It shows when he moves to pick a brand of instant noodles and his face twists before he picks another one or when he almost calls Choso a different name while they exorcise curses, a name that belongs to people he has fought more battles with. Choso wants to know who these people are, these people that have left such deep marks on his brother.
There are the nights where Yuuji takes to his own skin, letting his blood run until he passes out. It pains Choso to see this and even more because there is nothing he can do except to be there.
Grief is a terrible thing to bear alone, Choso knows this more than he knows himself.
“C-choso, can you hug me?” Yuuji stutters out as his ears go red. It is such a simple request and yet Yuuji looks like he expects Choso to reject him, as if he ever could deny his brother something he wants. Wordlessly, he wraps his arms around Yuuji and lets him rest his head on his shoulder.
It starts with a small shake and a sniffle and soon his little brother is crying heavily. It is not the first time Yuuji has cried but it is the first time that he lets it get beyond silent tears. The way he’s crying makes Choso want to bundle him up tightly and take him far away from sorcerers, from curses, from everything, to a place where it’s just the two of them.
He cannot remove Sukuna from him, he cannot take away his grief, and he cannot say it will all be okay because it won’t . All he does is hold him tighter and hopes that he understands the message. Your big brother is here for you, I'll never leave you, never again.
Yuuji does not hug him back, his hands hang listlessly at the side of his body. Still, Choso feels like something has changed and he is glad for it.