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"Yuuji,"
"When the time comes, would you exorcise me, your own brother."
It was on the early signs of autumn when Chousou made his request.
Yuuji stopped licking the ramune flavored ice cream that he bought at the convenience store out of surprise to the sudden request. He moved his attention from the ice cream and brought it toward Chousou’s gaze located slightly above his own. Yuuji couldn’t stop his desire for wanting a stick of ice cream despite the cold chill of the weather. He probably got influenced too much by his homeroom teacher.
"What do you mean?"
Yuuji tilted his head a little and replied to the man who proclaimed himself as Yuuji’s brother out of the blue a few months ago. Yuuji was aware of his lack of interest in certain subjects like physics and chemistry (and how his score reflected on that quite accurately as well), but it never meant he was anything but stupid. Hence, he pretended not to understand his brother’s implication.
Chousou didn’t suspect a thing.
"I want to die by Yuuji's hands,” he said.
Chousou’s expression was soft and calm as opposed to his disturbing remarks. In fact, he didn’t look like someone who spouted about wanting to die by his brother’s two hands. If Yuuji dare to say it, the tone of Chousou’s voice was actually closer to when he requested for curry as dinner. It was none different than other daily conversations they had had in the past few months.
Yuuji stopped walking and answered with nonchalance, “Okay. If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
“I’ll exorcise you with my two hands, Chousou.”
Yuuji’s two eyes met with Chousou’s, silence taking over the two brothers.
“Hmph.”
Chousou was the first one to break the silence.
"Thank you, Yuuji. You really are a kind child.”
It appeared that Chousou took a liking on Yuuji’s straight forward answer as his expression turned even gentler with each word that passed through his mouth.
Yuuji felt a weight being added to the top of his head.
“My pride and joy. My precious younger brother.”
Yuuji observed the way the tension between Chousou’s forehead loosened, the way his smile was even gentler than before, and how hopeful was written all over his face as he patted Yuuji’s head with full affection.
At first, Yuuji couldn’t understand what Chousou was thinking, but now Yuuji could easily read Chousou the same way he read the name of his grandfather engraved on the tombstone.
"You’re exaggerating things, Chousou…”
It seemed that Chousou always mistook Yuuji’s reaction as being embarrassed and being unused to the straight forward way that Chousou display his affection; and Yuuji never tried to correct him either, and let Chousou believed it as it was.
What Yuuji felt was far from embarrassment; oh no, it was much much horrible, dark and cruel, and heart twisting that Chousou’s warm affection couldn’t rid the dark turmoil undermining Yuuji’s heart.
It would be impossible.
After all, Itadori Yuuji had digested nineteen of Ryoumen Sukuna’s fingers into his body, and the last finger was currently being collected by his classmates, Fushiguro Megumi and Kugisaki Nobara. Yuuji himself wasn’t privy of the specific information as the ‘higher ups’ fear of Yuuji escaping had been escalating ever since the Shibuya incident, to the point that he wouldn’t be able to left on his own devices. They banned him from going into mission, nor did they provide any kind of useful information pertaining about Yuuji’s own death penalty. It was only thanks to the last mercy from his homeroom teacher that Yuuji was still allowed to roam around the Jujutsu High perimeter as long as he had someone else to supervise him.
“I want you to enjoy your life as a student until the end, Yuuji. So spend your remaining time as freely as you like.”
Yuuji knew there were no trickeries or lies behind Gojo’s words, and he was grateful for it.
It saddened him that he couldn’t join Kugisaki and Fushiguro on missions anymore, but he was still grateful that he was given the chance to spend his remaining days in such a peaceful way. He didn’t have any dissatisfaction, and the thought of running away never surpassed his mind as well.
Dragged Ryoumen Sukuna to hell, and protect many humans from cursed spirits’ harm. That was Itadori Yuuji’s last and most important duty given in this life time.
As such, the dark emotions that gathered within Yuuji's heart didn’t come from the situation that he was placed at the moment.
No, it came from guilt.
Guilt toward Chousou’s own existence, and the future he would have to endure once Yuuji was gone.
A mixed entity made out between a cursed spirit and a human. The first experimental body of the Nine Cursed Womb. There was no place for Chousou to belong in this world. Because Yuuji stole ‘that place’ with his own fists.
Chousou told him numerous times that it was an accident, that Kechizu and Eso would have forgiven him.
Yuuji didn’t know them well, not with the same fondness that Chousou displayed whenever he spoke of their name. But, Yuuji knew if they were given a chance, a different path whereas all of their fates weren’t as warped, that he too would have come to be fond of them.
But such thought didn’t deciduate Yuuji’s own guilt conscience from his mind.
Rather, it made his heart heavier than it already was.
After Yuuji’s death penalty, Chousou would become alone for the rest of his long life. The last of his kind, with no place to call home nor a family to return.
And Chousou must have understood it better than anyone else. He was sharp; Yuuji knew it better than anyone else from the result of their battle and how it almost ended Yuuji’s short life.
That was probably also the reason to why he entrusted his life on Yuuji’s hands.
Because he didn’t want to be alone anymore. He didn’t want to continue on existing just for the sake of it, not when he knew his family was out of reach.
It was…
…It was the cruel truth lodging on Itadori Yuuji’s conscience.
The weight of Itadori Yuuji's Guilt(Life).
"Let’s go home Yuuji. The sun is about to fall.”
Chousou released his hand from Yuuji’s head and began to walk away. Yuuji kept his silence and followed Chousou behind his back, their shadows blending together, creating an undistinguishable shape on the asphalt.
As Yuuji stared at Chousou’s retreating back, a sudden desire to pray struck his mind.
‘Dear grandfather in heaven, please give me the strength to grant Chousou’s last wish. And…’
Yuuji bit his lips. As the main culprit who snatched Chousou’s family away, Yuuji felt that he didn’t deserve to say the last part of his prayer. Hence, he gulped them down and kept it within his heart.
Knowing, better than anyone else, that his prayer would never come true.