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Yuuji breathed warm air into his palms and rubbed them as he shivered from the cold all around him. A flurry of white fell over him, covering him in a cold blanket that ran for miles. The blanket only grew thicker the longer he walked in the darkness that surrounded him, only occasionally being showered in orange light from the towering posts he passed by.
“I want to sleep…” he mumbled while digging frozen hands into his pockets.
“Keep going, brat, we need to get out of the snow.”
“But it’s so cold, Suku…” Yuuji said. “M’tired… and hungry…”
A mouth opened up under his cheek and crimson eyes looked at him with a crossed look. “You should’ve killed that kid. No one would have wept that lesser being. Living under the luxury of his parent’s home, unaware of the dangers of the world. The circumstances of others. A weakling compared to us. The real us. It would’ve fed and strengthened us through the night.”
Yuuji shook his head. “I told you before, we are not hurting anyone.”
“A stupid decision, really,” Sukuna said. “You have felt my power. We’ve taken out curses for less and feasted on their corpses.”
Yuuji stuck his tongue out. “Curses taste horrible.” Yes, they’ve helped satisfy the churning of his stomach but that wasn’t food. Not really. It was… something to fill his stomach. What Yuuji wanted right now, was something he could enjoy while eating.
“Then listen to me, brat.” Sukuna snarled. “It’ll be quick. Just cut a human’s throat and bathe in their blood. I promise we won’t be hungry for a week.”
Yuuji held his grumbling stomach, tempted for a second before he shook it off. “Eating curses is one thing, but a person? I - I don’t think I can do it.”
“You can, with my help,” Sukuna said.
“I know, I know… Still, I don’t want to kill anyone. Even if they deserve it.”
Sukuna scoffed. “Why do you hold on to your humanity? None of them has shown you any compassion. You don’t need to protect them.”
“Because I promised.”
“Would you rather die then?”
Yuuji hugged himself and kept the answer to himself. Sukuna already knew the answer, he just wanted to hear him say it.
Yuuji might’ve thought about it once. Especially after his grandfather passed away, and life just simply didn’t go the way he thought it would. He had promised the old man he’d live a long happy life, surrounded by people he cherished and helping them along the way. But then, a foreclosure in their apartment rendered Yuuji homeless at ten. Child services tried to take him in but Yuuji didn’t want to be sent far away from Sendai, so he ran away.
He had money to spare. His old man made sure he was taken care of before he died, but Yuuj’s heart was taken advantage of. He helped, like his grandfather wanted and he lost everything. They tossed him in the forest, where no one would find him, battered and bruised while the snow fell on top of him. No one would look for an orphaned child after all.
Yuuji thought, at that time, maybe it would’ve been better to die. At least he’d see his grandfather and his parents. He didn’t need to struggle anymore. But, he also thought that maybe if his grandfather saw him join their side too early, he’d just kick him right back out to life. He promised to live long. So that’s what he’d do.
He picked himself up and wandered the clearing, gathering dried sticks and leaves to create a fire. He couldn’t start one though, they were too wet from the snow. He found a decrepit old house in the middle of the forest and sought shelter from the cold there instead. In its overgrown garden stood an old thermometer box that exuded an odd warmth to it.
Yuuji nestled at the foot of it, basking in the heat it offered. When he woke up, his stomach struck pins and needles through him. He needed to eat, but there was nothing but chipped wood and leaves all around him. Delirious, he searched the box for something, anything to quell his stomach with. Inside it was a large, rotting finger. Under normal circumstances, Yuuji would’ve left the finger alone but he was bruised, terrified, alone, and hurting all over, he didn’t care if the finger would satisfy him or kill him.
Swallowing the finger was not as painful as he thought it would be. The finger was rough in his mouth but it tasted like soap and went down his throat smoothly. An electric fire ran through his limbs, exploding in a burning flame in his stomach where the finger now rests. It was the most painful thing Yuuji has ever experienced. Even worse than when those men beat him up for his money.
When he came to, he no longer felt hungry or cold. He just felt… alive. A new sort of energy filled him from the inside and it made him want to move, so he did. Yuuji ran for hours to exhaust this newfound life in him until he tripped on a tree root and hit his head.
Sukuna then appeared to him in a dream. He wore a white kimono that looked regal in the way it fell from his confident shoulders and intimidating stance. Black marks resembling spears and sharpened fangs of a wild predator were drawn on his face and had two sets of crimson eyes. It reminded Yuuji of Shonen protagonists’ evil reflections. The kind of person that brought about destruction and death.
In another life, Yuuji would’ve run away if he saw him in the dark. But as Sukuna introduced himself, Yuuji could only focus on the warmth he exuded and the faint smell of flowers. His grandfather loved wisteria blossoms. They always hiked out into the mountains to spend a day under its shade every Sunday. That smell lingered in their home as Yuuji always brought back a stem from their trips. Sukuna smelled like wisteria. So while the cursed spirit berated him with insults about his constitution and age, Yuuji rushed forward and buried his nose into his kimono.
Sukuna felt and smelled like home.
“Let’s just find a place to stay for the night,” Yuuji said. “Maybe they’d have food there.”
Sukuna looked out into the distance and spotted a small house with all its lights turned off. Yuuji mindlessly walked to it, already hearing Sukuna’s thoughts, and jumped over the wall. He’d always been crazy athletic and Sukuna’s influence certainly turned it up to eleven.
The doors and windows were locked but Yuuji made quick work over it after Sukuna took over one of his hands. He still fumbled using Sukuna’s technique so the cursed spirit mostly did the intricate cuts for them, such as when breaking locks.
Yuuji took off his shoes and bowed as they entered. It just felt right to thank them for offering their home, even if it wasn’t intentional. The house was a small one-story building. The kitchen and living room were almost the same space that led to two corridors, one for the front door, and the other towards the room. The decorations were minimal but the small details like the portraits on the wall, or the figurines displayed on countertops made it feel lived in.
At the corner of the living room was a long table where photographs were placed. A family of four composed of a mother, a father, and two children, an older sister and a younger brother. They looked happy. With each passing picture, Yuuji thought about what his life could’ve been if fate wasn’t so cruel.
“Stop moping, brat,” Sukuna’s voice pulled him out of his head. “We don’t know when they’ll be back.”
Yuuji pulled his eyes away from the pictures and checked out the fridge and cupboards first. They had very little to offer their stomachs but it was better than decaying cursed spirits. Yuuji grabbed a bowl, some milk, and an open cereal box.
They sat in front of the television, with Sukuna skimming through the channels with his left hand while Yuuji shoved a spoonful of Fruit Loops in his mouth. Sukuna stuck his tongue out disgusted by the amount of sugar being fed through them. “You think this is food?”
“It’s a lot better than curses - or people.”
Sukuna scoffed and returned to switching the channels until he settled on a game show where people ran through a course, often at the expense of their physical well-being, in an attempt to win large amounts of money. Yuuji enjoyed that show way back until he found it repetitive. It was still fun to watch but he wasn’t actively watching it. Sukuna, however, was. He enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons and Yuuji didn’t have it in him to complain.
The fatigue started to settle once Sukuna changed the channel to a series of men fighting inside a caged ring, kicking and punching, or sometimes grappling each other with such force that it drew blood. It excited Sukuna so much that Yuuji felt his consciousness being overridden by the other's base desire. His eyes fell weak while Sukuna's own set of eyes which was wide open under his own, remained enamored at the violence on the screen. "M'gon go sleep..." he said as he flopped his head to the side, obstructing Sukuna's view.
"Oi! At least sit up so I can watch, or hand over your body."
"Mmmm... Don't do anything stupid," Yuuji grumbled through half-lidded eyes. "And don't destroy anything. We're only staying the night."
Sukuna scoffed as his marks appeared over Yuuji's skin, wrapping him in that fiery heat that saved him from freezing to death all those months ago. Sukuna ran his hands through their hair as Yuuji's consciousness faded. A comforting gesture that sent Yuuji right to sleep. “Good night, kid.”