Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

everything i couldn't save

buried down, still half alive

i got nothing left to lose

fire to the fuse

Suguru doesn't look up from his wallet as he speaks his first words of the day. 

"Have you heard?" 

"Hmm? Heard what?"

"If you'd been paying any attention, you'd know."

"If you'd been paying any attention to me the whole time we've known each other, you'd know the answer to that, too."

"Satoru," Shouko groans from the corner, a cigarette dangling between her fingers. "Stop being a little shit and answer the question."

Satoru cackles to himself. "Alright, alright. Because Shouko-chan asked so nicely." He stretches his legs out from where he's spread out on the bench, ignoring the look Suguru gives him in favour of rolling the empty can of soda back and forth under his feet. 

Didn't taste as sweet as he expected. 

"Enlighten me, dear Suguru-kun, what I missed, since I am physically incapable of paying attention to what any of the higher-ups or principles say."

"Or anyone, really," Shouko mutters, just loud enough for everyone to hear. 

Suguru withholds his sacred knowledge until the vending machine spits out his own drink, bright orange with an even uglier font. He sits down next to Satoru, deliberately bumping into him at least twice.

"We'll have a new teacher next week," Suguru says.

“In the middle of the year?” Shouko asks. 

“It's going to be Sukuna's vessel. He's back in Tokyo.” 

That makes Satoru pause. "Sukuna's vessel?" He asks, tilting his head in his best friend's direction. 

Suguru isn't even paying attention to him, his foot moving towards the can Satoru is protecting. Satoru manages to defend it for a few more seconds before Suguru outmaneuvers him and kicks it away to Shouko.  

"Apparently, Yaga vouched for him to become a teacher a few years after he graduated," Suguru says, pointedly ignoring Satoru's pout. "But the higher-ups were against it. After some back and forth, they agreed to send him on several missions abroad to test whether or not he was suitable for the position. Of course, that was just to buy time. Now they've run out of missions or excuses. Or both."

"Huh. Are they that afraid of Sukuna's vessel?" Satoru says. "He hasn't done shit in all these years. Then again, they're a bunch of old fools who'd wet their beds at the mere presence of a grade four curse."

He chuckles at the mental image, only slightly disappointed when his friends don't join in. Not his fault they don't share his superior sense of humour. He's gotten Shouko's attention at least, and repeatedly points from the can at her feet to himself, using every ounce of charm he has to wiggle his eyebrows.

"Could be fun. Could also be trouble," she says. "There's not much information about him, apart from all that Sukuna stuff."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see what kind of madman he is," Suguru says, finally taking a sip of his drink. His mask of indifference immediately turns into one of disgust. "Cheap stuff. I hate it."

Satoru would revel in his misery, but he has another pressing matter to attend to. 

"Shoukooo," he whines. "Give me back my can, you've held it hostage long enough."

She raises a single eyebrow. 

"Please?" He tries and gives her his best smile, the kind that's all pearly teeth and overflowing charisma. 

Shouko digs her heel into the tin and crushes it to a pulp.

Annoying, is the first thought that comes to his mind. Too bright, too happy. Naive. 

Ugh. Good thing he's wearing sunglasses. 

Then another thought—this ball of compressed energy is the vessel of Sukuna?

Whatever Itadori's babbling about goes straight over Satoru's head. Despite the prominent scars that mark different parts of his face, Itadori looks young and untroubled, his honey-coloured eyes making no effort to hide any emotion as they assess each of them. He wonders if his pink hair is natural, given the colour of his undercut. 

"What abilities do you have?" Satoru asks, unable to contain himself any longer. “Do you keep track of the curses you exorcised? If so, how many have you—ouch, Suguru-kun, what was that for?"

Judging by the look Suguru gives him, he probably interrupted Itadori mid-sentece. Right. Satoru crosses his arms and pouts. "Aren't I allowed to ask some standard questions?" 

"Satoru," Suguru admonishes quietly. "Behave yourself for once, will you?"

“But of course! He's gonna be our teacher for the rest of the year, so I ought to make sure he's useful! Otherwise I'll be bored. Bored, you hear me? Bored and disappointed. A terrible combination if you ask me."

Ah, it’s so much fun to say what's on everyone's mind and ticking them off because he doesn't bend to flimsy social etiquette the way they do. They're the strongest sorcerers around, and they get shit done, unlike so many other people. Why bother with pretence? Why bother with anything, really? 

He trusts Yaga, but even he is bound to make mistakes. If Itadori doesn't prove to be of any value, Satoru won't waste his time on him, Sukuna's vessel or not. 

If Itadori has the slightest suspicion of what's going through Satoru's mind, he doesn't show it. His face has remained more or less the same throughout Satoru's preparation to verbally steamroll him, the corner of his mouth still pulled up in a friendly smile. 

"Ah, I don't mind Gojou-san's questions at all. In fact, they're super valid!" He gives a thumbs up, then points at himself. "I'm pretty sure you already know me as Sukuna's vessel, but I'd like to introduce myself a little differently. Special Grade Healer, Itadori Yuuji, at your service!"

Special grade healer?

Of all the possibilities, this is one of the few that Satoru would have least expected. Pulling down his sunglasses, he gives Itadori another once-over—he's got a red hoodie built into his uniform, which is admittedly cool so Satoru gives him a few style points. Despite Itadori's laid-back appearance, Satoru gets the feeling he'd be able to defend himself quite well if Satoru were to attack him right now. 

Hm. Not a quality Satoru's used to seeing in healers—Shouko being Exhibit A.

What catches his attention the most is Itadori's cursed energy. It's quiet and strangely condensed, so tightly bound to Itadori that he can't quite make out how much cursed energy Itadori possesses. A binding vow? Heavenly Restriction? Certainly nothing he's seen before.

Shouko perks up a little. "You're a healer?"

Satoru pushes his hands into his pockets and raises his hand at the same moment Itadori opens his mouth to answer. 

"If you are a healer, what exactly are you here for?" 

Everyone knows the principles of the reverse cursed technique. Its application, however, is a matter so complex that it has never been successfully taught anywhere, and even Satoru has a hard time explaining how he uses what little of the reverse cursed technique he can do himself.

He doubts that Itadori will be any different. 

"What are you going to teach us? How to heal our fingers when they get cut off?” His voice drops to a creeping drawl. Itadori is only a little shorter than him, so he straightens from his slouch, tilting his head in a way he knows makes him look otherworldly, monstrous. "Perhaps a secret recipe to make them taste good?"

Despite Satoru's mocking cruelty, Itadori's expression remains kind. 

"Not quite. I'll teach you control," Itadori says, and beckons him closer. "Want me to demonstrate?"

Satoru's smile widens. There's no way that Itadori doesn't know about his abilities—regardless, he'll be happy to see what cloth Itadori is made of. 

Satoru steps close enough for the colour in Itadori's eyes to fade to something darker, less tangible. There's a distortion of space, frayed threads of reality unwinding into nothingness in the same instant they become visible, and then Itadori's hand passes through Infinity, the tip of his finger making contact with Satoru's nose. 

He—

Itadori booped him. 

Satoru inhales sharply. He remains frozen as he pushes his sunglasses up to look at Itadori with all his eyes, and yet Itadori remains where he is, completely unperturbed, as if he were waiting at the counter for Satoru to finally ring up his order of donuts and coffee to go. 

"How... are you doing this?" He asks, and it takes everything he has to keep his voice from cracking.

Itadori rubs his neck bashfully, suddenly looking flustered. "If it's any consolation, I don't think there's anyone else who could do this. Unless they have a nullifying technique or tool, of course."

Itadori steps back, and the amount of relief that washes over Satoru almost causes him to stumble. He tries not to let it show on his face, forcing his expression into something made of steel. He wears pride and arrogance like a tailored suit, and with a simple brush of his finger, Itadori stripped Satoru of it all, as brief as the moment was. 

Suguru approaches and tries to do the same as Itadori. Obviously, he fails, Satoru barely has to concentrate to avoid that one, Infinity preventing Suguru from getting any further than half an inch. 

Suguru looks from his motionless hand to Itadori. "So you're saying—what you did didn't nullify his technique?” He lowers his arm, a contemplative look crossing his face.

"Well, sort of? But not really. Let's see."

Itadori ponders for a few seconds, then points at Satoru's glasses. "To use Infinity against something or someone, you need to know their speed, mass, threat level and amount of cursed energy, right? Feel free to interrupt and correct me if I'm wrong."

Satoru nods slowly, wanting to see where Itadori is going with this. 

"What we are dealing with is basically a complex equation. On one side of this equation, there's your Limitless Technique: Infinity. On the other side of the equation is the target you're using Infinity against, which is made up of the different variables I mentioned earlier. As long as you know all these variables, you're able to adjust your own equation and solve everything, leading to your successful use of Infinity. Does that make sense so far?

"In my case, all I did before was to change one of the variables on my end—the cursed energy variable. The others won't be able to see it as clearly as Gojou-san, but here, concentrate on my arm," Itadori says, reaching out again. 

While the rest of Itadori is enveloped in the same blanket of calm that Satoru saw earlier, the cursed energy around his arm is restless, constantly shifting from one state to another as if it had a mind of its own.

"See what's happening? The cursed energy around my arm isn't stable—I consciously make it, uhh, fluctuate, I guess. Your Six Eyes help you assess everyone's data almost instantly, which makes it easy to run Infinity. But you're used to these variables being a fixed constant, not something interchangeable. So unless you can match me and adjust your own equation to mine in every single instance, the equation will not be solved. Your Infinity will not repel me—not that it actually repels me, you know what I mean—and I can touch you just like this."

Itadori boops his nose again. Before Satoru can process and use any of the information he's just been given, Itadori has already retreated, looking far too casual for someone who has bypassed what Satoru previously knew to be an impenetrable fortress.

Even Suguru and Shouko are too stunned to make fun of the fact that Satoru has been left completely speechless. It makes sense now that Itadori's cursed energy is so eerily calm, fluid and malleable, but it explains nothing. 

Itadori is quick to pick up on their silence. "Uhh, I hope that's understandable? So many fancy words..." He clears his throat, embarrassment colouring his cheeks a light pink. "There's a lot more to it, of course. I've practised explaining it a few times to get it right, but I might still be bad at it, so...?"

Shouko is the first to recover. "No, that was insightful, Sensei," she says in an uncharacteristically soft voice. "Just to make sure—what you're doing is changing your cursed energy output at every given moment so Satoru can't adapt? And Infinity doesn't work as a result?"

"Yup! Something like that. I wouldn't say he can't adapt, though. He's already doing that. It's more like, Gojou-san is not fast enough."

Not fast enough. 

Itadori doesn't look directly at him as he says this, but his tone remains neutral. He's just telling things as they are. Even Suguru has a small smile on his face, and that's because he enjoys watching Satoru eat his own words more than anyone else. 

Itadori beams at them.

"Great! So, what do you think? Ready for your first lesson? Oh, you don't have to call me Sensei, by the way, makes me feel kinda old..."

Contrary to everyone's expectations, they do nothing about cursed energy for the rest of the day. Instead, Itadori lets them all fight at the same time, watching from the sidelines to familiarise himself with their techniques and styles.

Eventually, Itadori steps in, sparing them one by one while the others take notes. 

During his own turn, Satoru makes sure to keep Infinity running at all times. Though it puts a slight dent in his overall performance, he is desperate to know if those earlier instances were the sheer luck of a thousand factors aligning just right for Itadori. Perhaps it was just a funny figment of his imagination, for his brain is like that, sometimes as capricious as his mood. But his suspicions are quickly dispelled, along with any other reservations he may have had about Itadori's abilities as a sorcerer. 

Itadori is fast enough that Satoru actually has to put in some effort, and he hits hard. Really hard. Itadori lands blow after blow and Satoru feels them rattle his bones, bypassing Infinity with an implicitness that makes Satoru heave. The back of his throat is completely dry by the time he's forced to yield after half an hour of struggling to match Itadori's pace. 

Afterwards, Itadori heals them all with a simple pat on the head. Their injuries are hardly worth mentioning as they didn't go all out, but the showcase still has Suguru's eyebrows raising and Shouko foaming at the mouth. 

All this goes unnoticed by Itadori—whether he's oblivious or playing dumb, Satoru can't tell.

"Not bad," Itadori says, dusting off his shirt.

His face is flushed, and that's about the only sign of exertion he shows.

"Gimme a few days and I'll have a nice training plan for all of you!"

Sleep rarely comes easily to Satoru. He’s so used to running a simpler reverse cursed technique on his brain that it’s hard not to be fully alert when his body is supposed to be resting—for even though Satoru has already transcended humanity on so many levels, he’s still shackled by trivial needs such as food or sleep. 

His mind drifts, when he doesn’t actively control it, to faded memories and faceless dreams and a thousand choices he didn’t make. It doesn’t quite burn like regret, though he knows it would taste ashen in his mouth if he indulged in it. 

Tonight his thoughts take the shape of bright hair and even brighter eyes. 

He knows his body is free of injury—Itadori made sure of that—yet the phantom sensations of fists slamming into his ribcage still flare up every time the rough material of his blanket drags across his skin. 

It was exhilarating, the pain. He's used to the burning, consuming quality of cursed energy chafing away at his core when he decides to get a little reckless, but this—the dull ache, the constant throbbing of a physically-inflicted wound—is unfamiliar. He can't remember the last time anyone touched him without his explicit permission since he mastered the concept of Infinity. 

He can't remember going to bed and feeling tired from anything other than the drain on his powers. 

Today, Itadori came closer than anyone had dared without any preamble and did just that. 

(Satoru hates it, hates it, hates it. He's supposed to be perfect, the strongest, and he knows that he can't run Infinity all the time, not yet, but he will, eventually, and today he was shown yet another flaw, one that is unacceptable, one that reminds him of what it's like to be vulnerable, to be weak, and he hates it with a burning desperation, hates it, despises it, finds it curious).

Fate is cruel. 

It sounds like such a silly concept for Itadori to be a healer. How can the vessel of Sukuna, the embodiment of chaos and destruction, be contained in a small body that has an affinity for healing? Sure, Itadori can fight, and he's surprisingly good at it, but hand-to-hand combat only goes so far against certain curses. Itadori doesn't strike him as the type to overestimate himself, so he must already know where his limits lie, when to step back and let the others take over. 

Neither Suguru nor Satoru were allowed to use most of their techniques during their spar, and it's the only aspect that makes Satoru's bruised pride a little less painful. 

Perhaps it is because of the massive amount of cursed energy that Itadori most likely has at his disposal. It's the main prerequisite for being able to use the reverse cursed technique in the first place, and the fact that Itadori is the bearer of the King of Curses certainly helps.

But that doesn't explain his ability to control it in such excessive detail. And why healing in particular, of all the powers Itadori could have developed? It adds a perverse twists to his whole situation.

Healers are of immeasurable value in the Jujutsu World—for Itadori to be one of the best, and at the same time be the vessel of Sukuna, makes the matter of his execution a massive, convoluted headache, completely blown out of all proportion. 

No wonder the higher-ups are so conflicted about how to deal with him. 

Satoru flops over on his stomach, groaning. He can already feel that he's going to be so damn cranky the next morning.

Suguru almost knocks him off balance with a nudge to the shoulder. 

"Just give him a chance," he says, still picking at the frayed edges of his uniform, where the curse had managed to get a hold of him. 

Satoru cranes his neck to glare at him. 

Unfortunately, glaring at Suguru also means that he has to give up his view of Itadori—their sensei is walking behind them from a distance, carrying two unconscious, recently orphaned children on his back because his heart bleeds like that. 

It's one of the first things Satoru learned since going on missions together—as long as something possesses a pulse and a will, it's eligible for Itadori's concern. 

He doesn't know whether to be irritated or very irritated. 

Satoru doesn't bother to pretend that he hasn't been doing anything but walking backwards for the last five minutes to watch his sensei. "Haaa? Why do you think I wouldn't? I've always been nice to our teachers."

"You have that look on your face. The look that says," Suguru's voice takes on a comically higher pitch, "I can't decide whether to eat him or leave him alone.”

Satoru throws an arm over Suguru's shoulder, pressing them close and enjoying the way his friend struggles half-heartedly. "You know me so well! What would I do without my best friend who knows me like the back of his hand?"

"Someone has to look after your irresponsible ass."

"And when did you practice my voice, hm? That was pretty good already. I hope you didn't think of anything naughty when—"

"Careful, Satoru. Better get off your high horse or I'll drag you down into the mud."

"Oh?" Satoru's smile turns razor-sharp. "Is that a challenge?"

"Yo, kids!" Itadori calls from behind. "I'm not going to patch up any injuries you might inflict on each other, so no fighting, got it?"

Satoru and Suguru share a quick look. "Yes, Sensei!" They chant. 

A temporary peace treaty, at least until they return home. 

"Calling me a kid, really?" Satoru quietly huffs. "I'm 16 already."

"Which, by all means, qualifies you as a kid."

"Tsk." Satoru leans close enough for Suguru to actually try and squirm away. "How old is Sensei anyway?"

"Get off my face, Satoru. Older than us for sure. Why don't you ask him, if you're so interested?"

"I'm only moderately interested. Not so interested that I really want to know."

"You're certainly interested enough to stare at Itadori-sensei for a concerning amount of time. It's a miracle he hasn't filed a complaint for harassment yet."

"It's called observing, Suguru-kun. I’m just keeping an eye on him!"

Suguru rolls his eyes. "You're in such denial, it's embarrassing to see."

"Shut up," Satoru says with his usual smile, but the warning undertone doesn’t go unnoticed. 

As expected, Suguru remains unfazed in the face of danger. "I will," he says, in a way that implies he’s doing Satoru a favour. "Just because it’s one of the few things you absolutely suck at."

Satoru is definitely not trying to feed Suguru to the next available curse. He definitely does not do it just to have Itadori come up to him and try to reprimand him personally.

Satoru simply puts an arm around him too—as best as he can with those two kids—and pulls him close. 

In the following minute, Satoru makes an interesting observation. Sensei's blushes starts at his ears, spreads to his neck, and only then does it eclipse his face, painting it the same colour as his hair.  

Maybe Satoru could play nice for a while.

The reveal is somewhat anticlimactic. Not that Satoru was hoping for anything great, really—he was powerful from the moment he was born, chosen and blessed by the gods, and all he had to do was harness and cultivate that potential. 

Still.

"Seriously?” Satoru makes a show out of flopping down on the table. “No hidden technique, no secret training method?"

"Nope," Itadori says, popping the p. "It's all about meditation, Gojou-kun."

The only consultation is that Itadori has just said his name, and that this is a one-on-one session. Itadori could have done this in a group, but he doesn't seem to like splitting his attention too much, preferring individual sessions where he can concentrate fully on one person. 

This suits Satoru just fine. He can analyse his sensei better without the prospect of embarrassing himself in front of his friends; he's done that enough times in a single week to last him a lifetime. 

Satoru just doesn't know why they have to be outside of the campus, in a tiny cafe full of normal people. It's loud and cramped and sticky and the girls keep throwing flirtatious looks at both of them, but Itadori is oblivious to it all and orders what sounds like a whole buffet for their table.

Well. If Itadori wants to pay for everything, Satoru won't complain too much. 

"I admit it's not as straightforward as other training methods," Itadori says. "Believe me, I felt the same way when I found out. But it's good at what it does."

Satoru crosses his long legs under the table and rests his chin on his hand to observe him better. "And what does it do, Sensei?"

"Look inside yourself, feel your cursed energy. It should feel like a torrent, right? Constantly hammering against your skull, begging to be let out."

You could destroy the whole country if you wanted to, couldn't you?

Satoru nods. Itadori rewards him with a cute crinkle of his eyes.

"Through meditation you will slowly tame that torrent of cursed energy into a lake. Think of your control as the dam that keeps the lake in check—with enough practice, you alone decide how much goes out and how much does not, and at what speed.”

"Don't I already do that?" Satoru cocks his head and purposefully lowers his glasses to bat his eyelashes at Itadori. 

It has the desired effect. Itadori's mouth opens, then closes as he continues to stare. Satoru smirks gleefully. Itadori may be the first person to effectively nullify Infinity through sheer skill, but not even he is immune to his looks. 

He breaks eye contact before the approaching waitress can ruin the moment herself, taking in the assortment of baked goods now decorating their table. Half expecting Itadori to stare again as soon as he’s claimed a few mochi, he's surprised to find Itadori just looking at him fondly. He pushes a plate of strawberry cake in Satoru's direction.

"You like it sweet, right? I made sure to pick a lot of them, just in case you don't like something."

Satoru doesn't quite know how to react to the sincerity in Itadori's eyes. In the end, he nods and picks up the topic from before. 

"If I didn't have my cursed energy under control, Limitless wouldn't even be activated.”

He leaves out the part where he can't really use his other techniques for the time being. Unnecessary details that neither of them need to concern themselves with.  

Yuuji hums in mild agreement. He reaches for the drink he ordered for himself—hot chocolate, Satoru almost coos with delight—and takes a few tiny sips.

"You're not completely wrong. But what you're doing is forceful. You are conquering instead of guiding, which is hardly surprising given the nature of your powers." Itadori shovels a piece of cake into his mouth and chews for a while before continuing. "To be honest, it's an impressive feat in itself to be able to control your cursed energy by sheer force of will. But do you know why it is bad?" 

With his cheeks stuffed full like a chipmunk, Itadori points his fork at Satoru. "It's terribly inefficient!"

Satoru has a perfectly intact strawberry cake sitting in front of him, but the chocolate one on Itadori’s plate suddenly looks much more appealing. He steals as much as he can with a single stab of his fork, and isn't surprised when Itadori nods at him encouragingly. 

Milk and chocolate melt on his tongue. Satoru groans inwardly. Itadori chose well in terms of quality, he had to give him that, but there are better cafes, less crowded than this one.

Next time, he could show him.

"Hm. Inefficient how?"

"Thanks to your eyes, your cursed energy output is close to zero, so I don't think you've noticed just how much unnecessary work you're doing.”

Over the course of the week, Satoru has gotten somewhat used to Itadori's easy intrusion into his space at every opportunity—Itadori calls it part of his training—so he neither flinches nor stops eating when Itadori bypasses Infinity once more to take off Satoru's sunglasses. 

Itadori turns them this way and that, his eyebrows knitted together as he inspects the slight specks of dirt on them. He tries to clean them with the sleeve of his hoodie before putting them on. 

"If you do it efficiently, your ability to control your cursed energy output will match your ability to reduce wasted energy to the minimum. Your power will go like—boom! Through the roof. More than it already is. And you'll finally be able to deflect me, too."

Itadori looks both goofy and oddly charming with his glasses. Satoru wants to take a picture, but that would mean putting down his fork, which would mean stopping eating Itadori's chocolate cake, which is a disastrous course of action. 

"And meditation will help me with..." Satoru gestures loosely. "Everything?"

"Meditation is the first step of many." Itadori laughs at the sour look on his pupil's face. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it and surpass me in no time!"

He takes off the sunglasses and motions for Satoru to lean forward.

Smiling from ear to ear, Satoru remains still as Itadori puts them back on. They're slightly off-kilter, one temple missing the spot behind his ear, but Satoru is too focused on the light scent of peaches and hot spices that tickles his nose. 

Control, huh?

“So, what’s your impression of Sensei?”

"He's quite fascinating," Suguru mumbles. 

"I saw him helping the first years just yesterday," Shouko says, shaking her head. "Nanami had a run-in with a special grade. His burns looked close to third degree. But Itadori... Itadori-sensei healed all of them effortlessly, within seconds. Not even a scar remained. I've never seen anyone heal like that before.” She recounts the events with a dreamy undertone in her tone, as though she's about to wax poetry. 

It's Shouko, so Satoru kinda wants to see that. He doesn't think he's ever heard her talk so much, not even on those nights when she's completely drunk on nicotine and alcohol. 

They've been at the bar for half an hour and she's hardly touched her drink, preferring to draw endless circles with her straw instead. Satoru wonders if she'll notice him plucking her straw from between her fingers, adding it to his own drink instead. 

"That's impressive," Suguru comments, more to himself than to her. 

"It's like he's an entire operating room and medical team all by himself. I would love to reach that level, one day."

"Not to mention that he's also excellent in close combat." Suguru grimaces. "I don't think I've ever had a muscle ache that lasted this long."

"That's because you rely too much on Cursed Spirit Manipulation."

"I do not! You know very well how often I practice close combat."

“What about you, Satoru?” 

They finally realised that all Satoru was doing was pushing around the cherry in his unfortunately non-alcoholic drink. Good for his system, bad for his mood. His head has been wrapped in pink cotton candy and sunshine all week long and he needs a break, even at the expense of his liver.

He's sure he'll go mad if he doesn't. At least more than he already is.

Satoru steals another look at Shouko's drink. Maybe he should just take the whole glass?

He tilts his head back and forth, pretending not to have heard the conversation until now. 

"What about lil’ old me?”

"How do you feel about Itadori-sensei, stupid," Suguru grumbles. "It's been a month. Still as doubtful as on the first day?"

"Hmmmm," Satoru says and leans back. He pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and frowns at the ceiling. 

He thinks about how easily Itadori gets past Infinity, whether it's with a kick in the stomach or a casual touch on the shoulder—careful to move slowly enough that Satoru could pull away, if he really wanted to. 

How he sits down after each training session and insists he'll take care of it, gently taking Satoru's bruised arm in his hands, the pleasant rush of his reverse cursed technique knitting everything back together.

Always so warm. 

How Itadori-sensei then tilts his head up to give a smile so gentle it hurts to look at.

Satoru sighs defeatedly and slumps into his seat. "Sensei is rather small, don't you think?"

He addresses no one in particular, but it confuses Shouko enough for him to steal her straw and put it in his glass. Better to keep a sober mind when dealing with Itadori related affairs. 

Suguru makes a low sound of recognition. "Now that you mention it, you're right. How old was he again?"

"28~"

"Oi," Shouko deadpans. "You're just freakishly tall. And what does your height have to do with your opinion of Itadori-sensei?"

"I don't know!" Satoru chirps. "But I really want to find out now, hehe."

"I have to agree with him for once."

Shouko looks down at her drink and frowns. Something is not quite right. 

"... I should probably warn Itadori-sensei," she mutters to herself.

Chapter Text

The floor is cold against Suguru's bare feet.

He hadn't really bothered to dress except for sweatpants and a black shirt, his hair spilling over his shoulders in long, messy strands. Not that there's anyone he could look presentable for at this ungodly hour. The time makes Jujutsu High even more desolate than it seems, the number of students having always been disproportionate to the sheer size of the place.

That's why the smell of something hearty doesn't quite register in his brain at first. It sinks in after a few more steps into the common room, and Suguru begins to track down the scent as he makes his way towards the open kitchen.

Looks like Itadori-sensei has been awake for quite a while now.

He stands in front of the stove barely anyone uses, dressed in loose loungewear with an apron tied snugly around his waist. Suguru doesn't think he's ever seen a more hideous colour than that particular shade of squeaky yellow. Itadori's lips are pursed in concentration as he carefully handles a large frying pan, expertly flipping it upwards with a flick of his wrist.

They both watch as a golden brown pancake flies high and lands perfectly.

"Sensei," Suguru says groggily, though with how raspy his voice is in the morning, his greeting resembles a low growl more than anything.

"Morning, Getou-kun!" Itadori offers him a quick smile—far too bright, Suguru thinks, recoiling slightly—and turns back to his frying pan. "I'm almost done with the pancakes. You can sit down if you want some!"

Running a hand through his hair, Suguru considers his options for a few seconds. He could politely decline the offer and just take the glass of water he came for in the first place. He could also take a glass of water and share a nice breakfast with his sensei before he has to go back to his cold, empty room.

Suguru huffs. If his mind is putting things this way, there's not much choice to be made, is there?

"You're up early," he says conversationally, sitting down at the table.

"I don't really sleep well. Given our line of work, that's probably no surprise."

Suguru hums. He's tempted to ask, just a little—if it was night terrors, nightmares, something else entirely. Sukuna.

Occasionally, the strongest of the curses Suguru ate would whisper to him, but their attempts are pitiful at best. Easy to ignore and make fun of with Satoru.

But how would the King of Curses himself manifest? In all the time he has known Itadori, there has never been a slip of control. His sensei walks around and acts like any other human being, and Suguru has been curious.

He's curious about many things.

Since his brain is still in the process of waking up from its deep slumber, he doesn't think he's really capable of processing any answer that's more complex than a sentence, anyway. Nor is it his place to know what keeps Itadori awake at night.

With his fingers tapping on the table, Suguru is content to watch his sensei fluttering around the kitchen. He embodies a similar energy as when he's training—movements fluid and easy, hardly a thought between two actions.

Itadori finishes the last pancake and prepares the table for them. He even puts down two glasses of milk—Suguru doesn't have the heart to say that he would have preferred water instead after Itadori went through all this trouble.

"They're a bit scuffed because I thought I'd only make them for myself," Itadori says, his face still flushed from the heat of the stove, "but I hope they're OK."

Suguru waves him off. "I'm not a picky eater."

He looks at the small mountain of pancakes between them. It's not like he announced his presence the day before, so would Itadori really have eaten them all by himself otherwise? He looks at Itadori, wondering where exactly he's storing all of the food in that small body of his.

At least the pancakes smell good. Suguru was only slightly parched when he woke up, the idea of getting a drink more of an excuse to move around for a while, but the towering stack of pancakes makes his saliva pool in his mouth embarrassingly fast.

And they are good, he finds out within a few bites. Fluffy, just the right amount of sweet, if a little dry. That's probably what the milk is for.

Suguru tells Itadori as he reaches for his glass, receiving a shy laugh in return.

"They'll be even better next time, I promise!"

They spend the next few minutes eating in comfortable silence, occasionally scrolling through their phones. As soon as all the pancakes are gone, Suguru makes a point of getting up to collect the dishes before Itadori can do so.

"Wait," Itadori says predictably, getting up as well. "Here, let me, I'll—"

Suguru quickly dodges the hand aiming for his plates. The training with Itadori still hurts, but it's not as much of a struggle as it used to be.

"You've done enough, Sensei. Let me clean up and do the rest."

"Ah, you really don't have to."

Suguru shakes his head. "I insist."

He really doesn't know how someone can look crestfallen about not being able to do the dishes, especially when someone else offers to do it for them.

Itadori somehow manages to do just that, his lips curling into a semblance of a frown. Spending all that time with Shouko and Satoru has made Suguru a special kind of stubborn, though, and eventually Itadori gives in and sits back down on the chair with a defeated sigh. He sits there, pulling out his phone again, while Suguru collects the rest of the dishes to toss them into the sink.

"Do you do this often?" Sugru asks, glancing over his shoulder as he turns on the water. "Making food this early in the morning, I mean."

"Oh, yeah. I usually wake up early. Depends whether I have a mission or not though." Itadori pauses, musing. There's the dull sound of thumbs gliding rapid-fast over a virtual keyboard, followed by a groan. "Ugh, Kichijoji? Not again. Can't they do anything by themselves?"

"Something happened?"

"Ehh, sort of. Not really. Just a mission I never should have taken in the first place coming back to bite me in the ass. Anyway—I'd make breakfast for you guys too, but everyone always sleeps in so late."

"You can wake us up," Suguru suggests, grimacing at the thought of having to deal with a sleep-deprived Satoru and Shouko. Not exactly high on his list of priorities.

"Nah. I'd feel bad if I did. Besides, if your body is capable of letting you sleep in, you should do so." Some more typing, then a flat sound telling Suguru that Itadori put his phone down.

He'd feel self-conscious about his lack of proper appearance if Itadori's gaze wasn't so different from others—harmlessly inquisitive rather than intrusive.

“Buuut, if you ever find yourself waking up a little earlier like today, you know where to find me now,” Itadori chirps. "I wouldn't mind the company."

His sensei's invitation is casual, light-hearted. A benign offer that changes little if refused, but holds the potential for more if accepted.

Clever.

"I'll think about it," says Suguru.

"Hm? Something wrong?”

"No. It's just..." Suguru trails off as he tries to put the vague concept of his thoughts together into something comprehensible. "It's a rare thing to see Satoru actually trying for once."

He gestures towards the middle of the lake, where Satoru is sitting with his legs crossed, a look of total and utter concentration on his face. Or maybe he's about to fall asleep and drown pathetically—it wouldn't be the first time.

It's the reason why Suguru’s opted to join their training session as an avid spectator.

His sensei, who may or may not have sent some hilarious pictures to the group chat, is lying on his side next to him, occupying a sunny spot all by himself. Itadori told him that it was the best way to dry his wet clothes, but Suguru thinks that right now, he resembles a big, lazy cat more than anything else, soaking up the sunlight with little to no care in the world.

“Oh, yeah, that. I can imagine." Itadori says, bemused. His voice is airy, tinged with sleep and the warmth of spring weather. "Gojou-kun is not really used to managing his cursed energy to the extreme that I want him to. Well, nobody is, but still. Why should he? He's never had to before."

There is an unspoken agreement between Suguru and Satoru that they are the strongest—an indisputable fact that has been proven time and again, not only in their missions, but also in their ranking amongst the Jujutsu sorcerers.

And even if it comes from someone as self-centred and arrogant as Satoru, he means it when he says that Suguru belongs at the very top of the ladder with him.

But there's still a difference between them. A distance that will only grow as the years go by, however small it may be now. There are obvious limits to Cursed Spirit Manipulation—whether they're due to the curses themselves, or self-inflicted by Suguru's humanity. Satoru, however, with the Six Eyes in his possession and the Gojou bloodline running through his body, could reach for the stars and beyond.

Limitless in every aspect.

That too is an undeniable fact, a bitter pill of truth and injustice that Suguru has been swallowing ever since he first saw Satoru wipe out a special grade curse with a flick of his finger. The reminder still stings every time he's confronted with a tangent of it, so he turns to Itadori with another question already on his lips, not wanting to dwell on his thoughts any longer than he has to.

"This... excessive control you have over your cursed energy. That's what makes you different from other healers, right?"

Itadori makes an affirmative sound and curls up further. Suguru almost feels guilty for pulling him into a conversation, but technically, he should be watching over Satoru, a task he leaves to Suguru so that he can roll around in the sun-soaked grass with his eyes closed.

Suguru finds that he doesn't really mind.

"How exactly does this benefit you? Shouko has already tried to explain it herself. But she's not very good at it, if I'm honest."

"Well. When you're using the reverse cursed technique, you can imagine the healer going like this: Oh no, big gaping wound! Gotta concentrate a bit and ooga-booga my reverse cursed energy into there and then hope it does its thing—right?”

Suguru's mouth curls upwards at his phrasing. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Itadori is their teacher: an easy-going attitude that belies his age, filled to the brim with infectious energy and so much kindness that it's hard to believe.

It's easy to forget that he's the vessel of the King of Curses. A cold, empty title that doesn't fit Itadori at all.

"Ooga-booga," Suguru muses, leaning back to stretch his legs. At times, he wishes they weren't as long. "I think that's a pretty good way to describe what Satoru is trying to do with his reverse cursed techniques."

Itadori chuckles.

"He'll get there, eventually. It's good that he can already heal very small stuff. And it's not like I do it much differently. I'm just... a lot more thorough, you could say."

Out of the corner of his eye, Suguru watches Itadori roll over on his stomach, a more serious expression on his face as he rubs his chin.

"I studied a lot about medicine when I was abroad. Anatomy, pathology, you name it. So that when someone's injured, I actually know what I'm dealing with in detail. And I know what you're wondering! Isn't it possible for any healer to become better just by becoming an official doctor?

"Yes and no. Ultimately, all the knowledge in the world won't matter if you can't apply it. In my case, it means getting my cursed energy into the tiniest cells of the human body and... kinda doing things manually. Which requires infinitely more precision than just pushing reverse cursed energy into a large area." Itadori smiles loftily. "It's an incredibly complex process, of course, which is why I don't know anyone who does the same thing I do, but the trade-off is more than worth it. Honestly, I always go a bit nuts when I see someone else's attempt at healing. Like—oh god no, what are you doing? You're not doing it wrong, but you're certainly not doing it right, either!"

Suguru already knows a little bit about it—Shouko has her own training, and whenever they meet up, she'll drop a few bits about her lessons and sensei's technique here and there. Mostly because she delights in seeing Satoru beg for those kinds of scraps.

To say that she speaks fondly of Itadori would be an understatement—but unlike Satoru, he doesn't have a penchant for saying that out loud to embarrass his friends at every opportunity, presented or not.

"You're a doctor?" Suguru asks.

Itadori immediately shakes his head. "Oh, absolutely not. Maybe I could qualify as one if I'd put my mind to it, but no. I'm not an official doctor. At least not in that sense."

"It's still impressive," Suguru says, and means it.

"I'm not really that smart, you know?" Itadori sighs. He knocks at his own head a few times. "All this comes from years of training and hammering things into my brain. I think Ieiri-chan will reach my level of knowledge within a few years—then she just needs lots of practice. I took like, a decade or something.”

Suguru has his doubts. Not because Shouko is incapable, but because Itadori always does this. Brushing off well-deserved compliments like it's no big deal.

He never outwardly denies them or actively fishes for them, as Satoru tends to do. Itadori often puts the praise he receives into a much more general context, which is hard to argue against because it essentially renders everything irrelevant.

It's frustrating, especially since it's not the first time this has happened—doesn't Itadori see how brilliant he is, even among Jujutsu sorcerers? Especially among Jujutsu sorcerers? There must be a limit to even his modesty, why not at least take credit for the powers he has worked so hard for to achieve?

"I think you're underselling yourself, Sensei," Suguru says, frowning down at him. "If what you were doing could simply be achieved with enough time, then we already would have more healers like you, no? Please do not dismiss the proof of your hard work like this."

"I'm not dismissing anything. Just saying how things are."

Suguru's eyebrows twitch with annoyance. There it is again. Before he can open his mouth to argue against him, Itadori rolls over to him.

"Enough about me." Itadori tilts his head up to look at Suguru expectantly, and he doesn't know if it's the angle or the proximity or the lighting or even his imagination, but there's a faint line of freckles on Itadori's cheeks that distantly reminds him of stardust. "How have you been? Meditation going well?"

Suguru tries and fails to hide a grimace as he thinks about the question and puts on what Shouko told him is his grandmother always pinches my cheeks and gives me an extra cookie face. "And here I was hoping to just sit here with you and watch Satoru's misery unfold together."

"Hah, nice try. Hold out your arm—good. Now try to squeeze the smallest amount of cursed energy into it. Keep the rest as it is."

It's hard to compress all that energy, to reduce the power he's so used to running through his whole body to a mere trickle. He manages a smaller amount, but it's still a little far from what either Itadori or he would like to see.

Itadori runs his fingers along his arm—rough, calloused tips providing warm friction through the cloth—and hums.

"Not bad. I think we can move on to the next training segment." Itadori stands with a slight groan, stretching his arms high above his head.

"Can you pick up Gojou-kun and meet me at the campus? I have something for both of you."

Suguru nods. Exhaling deeply through his nose, he watches his sensei's back slowly disappear into the forest.

It occurs to him that no matter how lax Itadori acts, the hidden line of his spine remains perfectly straight under the hoodie.

Always on guard, as if something could happen at any moment.

"What's that?" Satoru asks.

"I think it's fairly obvious what it is," Suguru says.

"I know. Let me ask my rhetorical question so I can hear Yuuji-sensei talk."

Yuuji-sensei. That's new. He looks up and down at Satoru out of the corner of his eye, observing how his friend seems to be completely absorbed in whatever Itadori has in store for them.

"This is a special kind of cursed doll," their sensei says. "You trained with one before, right?"

"Yep. Just pour some cursed energy into it to keep it happy."

"This one is similar, but there's a bit more to it." Itadori holds the doll up like a monkey presenting a baby lion. "As well as staying asleep by feeding on your cursed energy, this little guy can rotate its arms, flap its wings and wag its tail. All of these functions require varying amounts of cursed energy. Your goal is to get the doll to use all of its functions simultaneously for an extended period of time."

Itadori demonstrates briefly—the green stuffed dragon in his hand comes to life, its eyes fluttering close as it does exactly as Itadori has explained. With all its stocky limbs moving, it looks as if someone had crammed too many functions into a single puppet and didn't know what to do with it.

"Do you have another one?" Suguru asks, lowering his sunglasses to analyse the required output.

Itadori rubs his neck sheepishly. "Yes, but I honestly can't remember where I put it. I'll search for it later."

"Shouldn't be that hard," Satoru huffs and reaches for the doll. “Gimme.”

Itadori jams a finger into Satoru's chest before he can do so, eyes twinkling with mischief at the sour expression that briefly flashes across his student's face.

"Keep Infinity off for this," Itadori says, looking down at Satoru—metaphorically, of course. "Do you hear me, Gojou-kun? Take full responsibility if you fail, otherwise you won't learn anything at all."

Satoru rolls his eyes but obeys. "Yes, yes, Sensei."

Itadori gives him the doll. In Satoru's hand, the dragon remains asleep, limbs barely twitching. Then its arms start to rotate, slowly, and just as Satoru seems to have got the hang of it, the dragon grabs his face and headbutts him so hard that his glasses fly off.

Itadori's reflexes save them from a trip to Nirvana. Satoru grumbles under his breath as he takes them back, pretending his dignity is still intact and half of his face hasn't turned an angry shade of red.

Suguru barely manages to hide his laughter behind a cough. Satoru shoots him a dirty look—well, not that he was trying very hard to hide his amusement.

It's been ages since Satoru hasn't been the best at something, since someone challenged him in a way he isn't used to. Itadori doesn't do it in a mocking way either, he's just being honest and sincere—maybe a little playful—as he always is. It's terribly refreshing.

"Do you know why this happened?" Itadori asks, looking around.

Clearing his throat and schooling his expression into one of calm, he answers, “I suppose he didn't stabilise the flow enough before he tried to move on to other parts of the doll."

"That's right, Getou-kun," Itadori chirps. "Wanna try yourself?"

Suguru takes the doll from him and looks into its googly eyes.

He doesn't manage to activate more functions than Satoru, but the dragon stays asleep, both arms wiggling steadily. It almost looks cute like this, albeit in a somewhat pathetic, sad kind of way.

"That's a pretty good start," Itadori says, giving him a thumbs up. "Keep it up!"

Satoru pouts. "Why is he better at it than me?"

"Ah, I think it's because Getou-kun is already familiar with the concept of manipulation, thanks to his cursed technique."

"But I manipulate time and space!" Satoru whines, and Suguru can hear the underlying question of, isn't that much more impressive, Sensei?

Satoru is about as subtle as a special grade curse popping up in the middle of their school.

"That is true. But unlike curses, time and space are not made of cursed energy." Itadori ends the argument with a boop on Satoru's nose. "Make sure to work hard, Goujo-kun."

Suguru doesn't even have to try to put on a sickly sweet smile at the mention of his name, just to rub it in. It's a genuinely good feeling to get some sincere recognition for something that doesn't have anything to do with eating curses or summoning them. Seeing Satoru being thrown off his own game is a nice bonus.

"If you can make this doll work, you'll be one step closer to using Infinity against me. After that, all you need is speed and more training. Yes. I know, it'll be lots of fun. And if you can handle the doll," he says to Suguru, "it should generally help you with your Cursed Spirit Manipulation. We'll have to do some field tests and work out the details together later on since I'm not entirely sure how this will translate into your technique."

Suguru lowers his head humbly. "I look forward to it, Itadori-sensei."

Itadori claps both of them on the back and leaves to find the other doll. As soon as he's out of hearing range, Satoru steals the doll from him with inhuman speed.

"Hey," Satoru says, unaffected by the way some of Suguru's curses are trying to claw their way through his stupid Infinity. "How about we make it a competition?"

Never particularly moved by Satoru's antics, but always tempted by the prospect of making him lose, Suguru cocks his head. "Whoever makes this doll work first wins?"

"Yes. We all know who's going to lose, of course, but maaaaybe, just maybe, the gods will take pity on you."

Suguru resists the urge to roll his eyes. "And what does the winner get?"

"Something from Yuuji-sensei, of course." Satoru's smile is all teeth.

"Shouldn't you ask him before you make a decision like that?"

"I'll do that later. And knowing him, he would agree. All I have to do is bat my eyes a few times. Who can resist my dashing good looks anyway?" Satoru says, doing a fancy twirl and pointing at himself.

Suguru can think of at least three people at the top of his head but chooses to say nothing.

He didn't go to breakfast again.

It isn't that he doesn't want to—he'd been up early the day after he shared breakfast with Itadori, too, almost automatically heading for the kitchen, but the last thing he wanted to do was appear needy. Like this is something he wanted more than sleep, so he promptly turned around and ignored the twinge of mild disappointment.

Suguru waits for another two days before giving in to his festering desires.

Itadori is making kimbap this time. They work in silence, Itadori handing him some vegetables to chop while he prepares rice and seaweed.

"Can I ask you something, Sensei?"

Itadori laughs. "You've been asking me questions all week. Go ahead, no need to be shy now."

"Ah, my apologies."

Suguru can't hide his embarrassment as well as he would have liked, Itadori nudging his shoulders in an attempt to get him to loosen up again.

He's wearing a different apron today, a pale pink one that matches his hair, with silly cartoons printed all over it. It's ugly as hell, like the last one, and oddly endearing at the same time.

Leave it to his sensei to make something like that work.

"Don't worry, Getou-kun! I like it when people ask me questions that I can answer. It makes me feel like I'm not too shabby at this whole teacher thing."

There's something not quite right about that phrasing, but Suguru doesn't want to go too deep into that can of worms right now if he's about to dig up a whole bucket of it.

"Very well," Suguru says, picking up a different knife for the meat. "It's about Sukuna."

If not for how closely Suguru’s paying attention to Itadori, he would have missed the exact millisecond Itadori stiffened. He catches himself in nearly the same moment, continuing to arrange and cut seaweed with a methodical precision that comes from years of practice.

"I was wondering if he's the reason you've gained so much control over your cursed energy," Suguru follows with more context, looking back down. He might have cut the meat stripes a little too big to properly fit into the kimbap. "It's a rather peculiar trait among sorcerers. I have my theories, of course, but I wanted to ask you directly."

Itadori is no longer smiling, but he doesn't look offended or angry either. "Let's finish this and eat first, shall we? After breakfast, I can tell you a little bit about me."

Suguru nods.

Itadori suggests leaving some kimbap for the others, something he completely forgot to do the other time, but Suguru shakes his head and promises to bring them directly to Satoru and Shouko later.

Not that he actually plans to. The last thing he needs is for Satoru to ask him what kind of binding vow he was blackmailed into that would make him voluntarily bring food to his bed.

Suguru doesn't really want the others to join them for breakfast—they can sleep in and get a few extra hours of sleep for all he cares. He rather likes having Itadori-sensei to himself in the morning hours.

They leave the dishes in the sink and head outside for a walk. Itadori looks calm—the scarred tissue on his face glows faintly in the morning sun, and he wonders once more about their origin.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Suguru says, sensing Itadori's posture shift to something less open as they walk.

Itadori shakes his head weakly. "No, I don't mind. I'm just trying to figure out how to tell you all this without breaking into another big monologue. The last time I tried to tell someone about Sukuna, it took me about five hours, and even then I was only scratching the surface."

"I wouldn't mind."

Itadori huffs. "But I do—I can't take up all of my precious student's time." He pulls Suguru towards a bench between two trees, missing the smug smile on Suguru's face.

Itadori begins slowly, his elbows on his knees and his mouth set in an uncharacteristically thin line.

"When I swallowed the first finger, I could barely control Sukuna. On the outside I was fine, but on the inside it was a different story. So much fighting and struggling. I hardly slept. Which is why, you know." Itadori gestures vaguely. "I made a deal with some important people, got into Jujutsu Tech, managed to graduate with Yaga-sensei's help, worked as a sorceres for a few years, and went abroad. The higher-ups urged me to do so, of course, but in the end, it was my decision. Japan just felt... too small at the time. It's hard to describe.

"Each finger I consumed made dealing with Sukuna both easier and harder. Then, on my fifth mission somewhere in Germany, I encountered two special grades instead of one. I almost died. The only reason I didn't was because I lost control."

His teeth grind harshly as he says this. It reminds Suguru that he's not as young as they are, that his soft cheeks and smile are something temporary, hiding the sharp line of his jaw and tired eyes.

While Itadori collects himself, Suguru imagines this—Itadori looking at the frayed ends that make up his past, trying to find a way to weave them into a coherent strand that the others might be able to understand.

"It led to an... incident. Something I regret to this day. After that, I put all missions on hold and tried to find someone to help me control Sukuna. I did—please don't mind me being very vague here, I'd rather they remained anonymous so they can't be targeted—and I worked just on that for several years. I promised myself I'd never lose control like that again. To make up for the lives that were lost. And that's what I've been concentrating on ever since—control over my cursed energy, control over Sukuna. The reverse cursed technique was more or less a by-product."

What Itadori told was an incredibly watered down version. Many things omitted for the sake of privacy, while still giving enough information to put everything into a loose context.

He speaks of the events exactly as they are, as if they were stories set in stone.

But he does so with no small amount of regret. Itadori'sentire demeanour is practically dripping with barely suppressed emotions.

And... Suguru was the one who asked, so he expected something like this, but he still doesn't really know what to do with himself now that he's faced with it. He's not really good at this—showing empathy and offering comfort. Even on his better days, he struggles to come to terms with his own emotions, but it wouldn't be fair to Itadori to say nothing.

He can be honest, at least.

"I know there's a lot more you haven't told me," Suguru says slowly. "But still. I don't think you're to blame for what happened. Even if you were, you're trying hard to make amends." He pauses, taking in the palpable tension in Itadori's shoulders. There is an urge to reach out and smooth those hard lines with his hand.

He stops halfway, retracting his arm before Itadori can see it.

"I'm sorry if that was out of line, Itadori-sensei."

"Stop apologising. I wouldn't have answered if I didn't want to. And didn't I tell you to call me Yuuji?" Itadori mumbles, his hands rubbing his neck stiffly. "Urgh, you guys are all the same. Nobody respects me except Gojou-kun, I guess."

"I... Excuse me, Sensei, but somehow I find that hard to believe."

"I deserve many things, but I do not deserve this betrayal by my own pupil."

Suguru bites back a smile.

"Can I ask you something in return?" Itadori asks.

"Of course."

"How bad is it?"

"Pardon?"

"Ah, my bad. My mind jumps around a lot." Itadori straightens from his slump and gestures to his throat. He looks tired for once, more like his age. "The cursed energy you eat. How bad does it taste?"

"Oh." Suguru looks down at his lap.

He didn't really expect this. Of all the questions Suguru would have wanted to answer after what Itadori had revealed—his ambitions, his family, how he came to this school—Itadori chose this one.

He doesn't know whether to be disappointed or excited.

"It's... an acquired taste, I suppose."

Suguru has talked about it before, with the others, and it's easy to pass off their concern by twisting the truth. It's different under the scrutinising eyes of his sensei, and the answer feels lacklustre the moment it leaves his mouth.

"Getou-kun," Itadori sighs. "What did I tell you? No need to be shy. Sukuna's fingers taste absolutely awful, so I can only imagine what swallowing all these curses does to you."

Itadori shudders for the effect, his face twisting into one of disgust.

"I never said the acquired taste was good," Suguru admits quietly.

"What's the score—on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being hallelujah and 10 being the worst thing you've ever eaten?"

"... A solid 12, probably."

At once, all the colour drains from Itadori's face, and the sound that has been bullying its way from Suguru's chest to his mouth is out before he can reel it back in.

Suguru laughs. Loudly, heartily, in that chopped-off way Shouko always teases him about.

He likes how expressive Itadori is. His eyes are honest, but so is his body—just from the way he talks, Suguru can tell that he is a really bad liar.

In a world where everyone is shrouded in mystery and cold indifference to protect themselves, Itadori is a beacon. Some might see this as foolish—or a blatant weakness to be exploited—but he doesn't, not with sensei.

Sensei, who wears his heart on his sleeve, leaving himself vulnerable.

Sensei, who also has a bitter, ruthless side to him, which is systematically buried under layers and layers of kindness.

Sensei cares so much and so strongly that it should drain him, and yet his emotions are the source of his strength. He will pursue his goals until everyone is safe and cared for, and he won't stop until it's done.

Suguru hasn't known him that long, but he can already tell that Itadori is that kind of person—always has been, no matter what he says or may think of himself.

Itadori is as surprised by his laughter as Suguru is. He leans closer until their thighs almost touch, eyes narrowed in doubt.

Itadori's mouth curls into a soft smile after a heartbeat or two, his whole expression softening into something distinctively more gentle. "You should laugh more often," he says. "It's a nice sound."

Suguru doesn't quite know how to respond. Their whole conversation has been a back and forth between too many convoluted topics. He can feel his face heating up, though—there's little point in trying to hide it with Itadori so close, but he tries anyway, pressing the back of his hand against his burning cheeks.

He's not usually like... this. Whatever this is.

Itadori takes his silence as a cue to continue, completely unaware of the turmoil he's causing within Suguru.

"I've been experimenting with something. I can't promise that it will work, but if it does... if it does, it might help you a little. So hang in there for a little while longer, yeah?" Itadori stands up and ruffles his hair, undoing parts of his bun. "I have to prep for a mission now, Getou-kun, but thank you for listening to me. Oh, and for eating with me, of course. Let's do it again sometime."

Suguru remains seated. He stares and stares at the space next to him until the sun is already high, and a confused Haibara and Nanami walk past him.

He might be beginning to understand what's been going on with Satoru.

Chapter Text

The wound runs across Satoru's arm in a generous crisscross pattern. It's deep and blooming red against the paper white quality of his skin, oozing blood that has sunk into Satoru's clothes. It drips onto the desk in an uneven pattern—his desk, Yuuji absentmindedly notes, because of course Satoru chooses to sit on it despite all the other available seats.

Yuuji closes the distance between them with quick steps. He pushes himself between Satoru's legs to take his injured arm, eyebrows furrowed. 

"What happened?"

He doesn't think Satoru will answer at first. Admitting mistakes makes him less than a god, and he's proud like that; always writes his own adjectives in capital letters. But there's a flicker of ice-blue behind dark glasses and then Satoru shrugs in a show of nonchalance. 

"One of Suguru's curses got me. He's been doing a similar thing like you do." Satoru pauses reluctantly. "I can keep up with him, of course, buuut sometimes I get distracted."

Yuuji hums. 

It was a theory of his—how exactly his training methods would affect Suguru's cursed technique. He's already exceptional in the concept of manipulation, so it was no surprise that after less than a week, he came to Yuuji with the dragon doll perfectly doing everything at once. Yuuji ruffled Suguru's hair (as best he could, Suguru's choice of hairstyle always makes that a difficult task) and told him to keep it. 

The smile on Suguru's face was rare for its lack of mischief, and so wide his eyes made cute little crescents. 

(It looked like he wanted to say more, something on the tip of his tongue, but Suguru had swallowed it when Yuuji asked him. And Yuuji isn't one to pry, so he left his student alone and sent him on his way with the doll in hand. Satoru seemed both relieved and disappointed when Yuuji told him about it.)

Suguru can't force his curses into permanently different forms yet, but he has been able to shape-shift them, changing their mass and even their abilities to some extent. Whatever their original form, they are made up of pure cursed energy, which is Suguru's entire playing field. 

An ability frightening enough to keep Satoru on his toes. Yuuji feels a surge of pride; all of his students are making good progress.

Yuuji hardly has to concentrate for the next parts. Even the most complex progress becomes routine after years of practice—it's subconscious, on some level, the way his cursed energy sinks into Satoru's arm, then stretches out to knit broken cells back together and create new ones.

"I see," Yuuji says. "And Ieiri-chan wasn't able to take care of this?" 

He taps his fingers on Satoru's newly healed skin, feeling for anything he might have missed. It would be a shame—and a blow to his pride as a healer—if Satoru suffered any blemishes from such a small wound. 

"Of course she was," Satoru says flippantly. His voice is laced with molten chocolate as he tilts his head to one side, leaning marginally closer on his next exhale. "But I like it better when Yuuji-sensei does it."

Yuuji is glad that he has already finished the wound, otherwise he might have accidentally ruptured something. He lets go of Satoru, terribly aware of their proximity. 

"Yuuji-sensei's cursed energy always feels warm," Satoru continues shamelessly, "like a fluffy blanket or a sunny day outside. It feels much better than when Shouko-chan does it."

Yuuji can't help but perk up. "Y-you think so?" He says, and immediately wants to throw himself off a cliff because of his stuttering. 

Where did his 28 years of life experience go? To waste, apparently. He's supposed to be dealing with an early mid-life crisis, for God's sake, not the residue of neglected hormonal teenage years. 

Satoru's lips curve into a lazy smirk.

Yuuji retreats—or at least tries to, because Satoru crosses his stupidly long legs behind Yuuji and that's all it takes to trap him. Satoru looks down at him through feathery white lashes, complacency written all over his face as his fingers come up to play with Yuuji's hair. 

Satoru must be the most obnoxious and insolent person he's ever had the pleasure of meeting, but he's also so, so pretty to look at that it physically hurts. 

"I know, Yuuji-sensei," Satoru croons.

And this—

This is another thing he has to deal with.

See, Yuuji isn't stupid, even if Nobara would splurge on a plane ticket home just to prove the opposite.

He knows that Satoru's gaze towards him has shifted from one of hostility to one of excessive, candid interest. He is more than aware of Satoru's tendency to hover around him and how he always finds excuses to seek him out—and sometimes he doesn't even bother to make excuses and tells him things that cause Yuuji to die a painfully slow death, like in this particular instance. 

Every so often he's also reminded that Satoru is only 16 years old. A kid, really. Easily impressionable once someone manages to topple him from that high throne of his, and Yuuji has basically been doing nothing else for the past months now.

Of course Satoru would develop some sort of puppy crush on him. He simply didn't know any better. Yuuji really should have had more hindsight, so that he could have treated his student a bit differently and prevented this... fixation from taking root in the first place.

Not that Yuuji thinks he could have changed much—he treated Satoru like any other person. Anything else wouldn't feel right and Yuuji doesn't think it would help either. What Satoru desperately needs is more people who treat him normally, and not like something out of an ancient prophecy. 

And as someone who is embarrassingly dependent on physical affection, it's hard to keep the few people who actually want to be in his space at arm's length. Satoru's attention can be quite overwhelming, but it feels undeniably nice to be on the receiving end of it. 

Yuuji isn't actually surrounded by many people, and Sukuna is... a completely different case. But Yuuji also doesn't think he's ever had anyone interested in him like that before, except maybe one person, so it's really hard for him to wrap his head around the situation and come up with ways to deflect it. 

(He doesn't really know what they see in him either. He's an average dude when it comes to the look department, with a dangerous curse sealed inside him on top of that. Not exactly what he'd consider first-rate boyfriend material. Maybe it's the cooking? It has to be the cooking. But so far only Suguru knows about it...)

"Yuuji-sensei?"

Yuuji jerks back into the present. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Satoru pouts at him. "I was trying to tell you that your reverse cursed technique really does feel like that. But I can't blame you for being distracted in my presence, so I'm more than happy to repeat it as often as you want!~"

Yuuji chuckles. "I don't think that's necessary."

His hands clasp Satoru's ankles behind him. He pulls experimentally—Satoru exaggerates a yawn, clearly not bothered by Yuuji's attempts to free himself. 

"Gojou-kun," he says with a very friendly smile plastered on his face. "Could you let me go now that you're all healed up?"

"Mhhh. I could," Satoru says. He puts a finger to his chin and pretends to think hard for a few seconds. "But I don't want to. You're always so busy and I like having Yuuji-sensei around. Maybe if you say pretty please?"

"Gojou-kun."

"Ooo, Yuuji-sensei is getting scary now."

Let me out and I'll give him something to be afraid of. 

Yuuji sighs, fighting off Satoru's shit-eating grin and his approaching headache with nothing but unwavering irritation. "Pretty please let me go, Gojou-kun. I really don't want to explain to the higher-ups why I resorted to physical violence outside of training."

Satoru bursts out in loud, boisterous laughter. Yuuji can't even pretend to be upset when it's such a nice sound to listen to, easily filling the empty classroom around them.

 "Now you're just threatening me with a good time, Sensei."

Yuuji never actually wanted to be a teacher. 

"Having students will help you," Yaga told him right after a graduation he fought tooth and nail to get. "Teach them how to fly and they will keep you grounded."

Yaga's hand on his shoulder was both reassuring and heavy with all that remained unsaid. Yuuji just politely declined the offer.  

He hadn't elaborated, and Yaga knew better than to push any further. Still, that short conversation and other smaller instances were enough to plant the dangerous seed of what if in Yuuji's mind.  

It only continued to grow over the years.

Teachers are guidance. Enabling students to learn more than they would on their own, to discover and realise their potential, regardless of their circumstances. To be a teacher is to be someone who inspires—someone who's confident in the decision they make, right or wrong. 

(Teachers are strong.)

Yuuji is someone who spends most of his time struggling to stay afloat in his own mind, constantly swimming against the ever-rising tide of a potentially disastrous future. 

It is said that the imagination of a child goes beyond any defined concept of creativity. For all the wild stories and storylines Yuuji thought of as a child, he doesn't think he could have imagined the calamity he would unleash on the world when he swallowed Sukuna's first finger. 

He saw two things—a friend in danger and the chance to save her. Nothing else mattered. Not even the warnings that Nobara had thrown at his head with growing desperation as soon as she had realised his intentions. He would never regret saving Nobara, but he regretted that other people paid the price for what was ultimately his own decision. 

(Selfish.)

Sukuna was a greater responsibility than he was capable of, and it was proven one too many times. 

Perhaps that's why he's been granted healing powers that exceed Jujutsu standards. Every person saved is a pitiful step closer to finding redemption for all the sins he has committed and will commit. 

(Perhaps in all those moments when Grandpa stopped talking in the middle of a conversation to turn away from Yuuji in his bed, he caught glimpses of Yuuji's future self—has seen a world bathed in terror and blood, and cursed Yuuji to help everyone, hoping to reverse that path.)

There was no going back to the way things were before. Even after years of devoting his time to materialising his control over Sukuna, he feels restless and cautious—Yuuji has changed irreversibly, and it took him longer than he would have liked to come to terms with this bleak conclusion. 

What he shows on the outside is not dishonest. He just keeps what he doesn't need on the inside, carefully locked away for another time when he feels sane enough to chip away at his inner demons. 

It's... a work in progress.

So no, Yuuji didn't want to be a teacher. How can someone like him be entrusted with the responsibility of young sorcerers in the making, who have seen too many horrors, but not all of them? How can the students trust Yuuji with their decisions when he doesn't even trust himself on his better days?

(Weak.

Maybe that's why he agreed anyway. Nobara calls him selfless to an idiotic degree, but Yuuji knows it's the exact opposite. Always has been—Sukuna just reinforced it. )

Still. It's nice, Yuuji thinks. A bittersweet kind of feeling that stabilises as much as it makes the cracks more apparent. 

To be relied upon, to be sought out from every now and then—as misplaced as the trust may be, it gives Yuuji a sense of purpose beyond being Sukuna's vessel. 

On paper, the mission looked simple enough.

Suguru and Shouko have tracked down the curse to an abandoned church. Yuuji is lagging behind them to observe, and Satoru is busy setting up a veil and finishing the rest of the evacuation. He expressed his displeasure at being given what he called useless side-quests, but Yuuji just booped away his petty frown and told him to hurry up.

It would be good for Satoru not to be directly involved in the exorcism for a change. As strangely charming as Yuuji finds Satoru's confidence, he also needs to be humbled from time to time—he still stubs his toe on the door frame every other morning and vehemently denies it every time it's brought up. 

Yuuji is definitely not using the striking figure Satoru cuts to convince even the grumpiest of elderly couples to leave their trusty cottages. No, it's also a good opportunity to work on his teleportation skills. Satoru has been neglecting them in favour of catching up with Suguru's dragon doll.

(In the future, Satoru will probably never get anything less dangerous than special grade missions. Yuuji knows better than to shelter him from the inevitable, for Satoru has been carrying the weight of the world since before he opened his eyes, but he hopes to prolong what little he—they all—have left of their childhood. If that means not sending Satoru headfirst into every mission Yuuji's being given and pushing others back a day so Haibara can drag them all out for pizza, then that's what he'll do.)

The curse that Suguru and Shouko manage to corner is something between a first and a second grade, leaning towards the former. They'd need to wear it down a little before Suguru can absorb it, and yet there's something about its unimpressive, colourless form hovering above the altair that makes Yuuji's instincts scatter in all directions.

Suguru must sense some of Yuuji's unease as they exchange brief glances. He's cautious as he pulls out a curse of his own—a grotesque bird of sorts, something suitable for long-range combat and sniffing out the opponent's abilities. 

Yuuji's always liked this about Suguru. Behind his mask of feigned apathy, he's cunning and calculating, always thinking of his opponent's moves first in order to adjust his own.  

The prickles of uneasiness have yet to go away, but Yuuji chalks it up to paranoia. It wouldn't be the first time. Living for more than a decade with what is essentially a ticking, magnetic time bomb inside you will do that to a person, and his students have unfortunately had to deal with Yuuji being overly cautious on more occasions than he would have liked. 

You think too much, he tells himself. There's no need to interfere. Let the students handle it. They've done it before and you didn't train them for nothing.

So he retreats to the entrance of the church to give them more room to fight, and watches as Suguru crumbles like a doll cut from its strings. 

Eyes wide open, his body hits the ground with a muffled thud. 

The enemy curse rushes towards him. It transforms halfway, sickle-like appendages breaking through every inch of his skin, glinting ominous colours in the light of broken rose windows. 

Shouko is the first to react. She leaps in front of Suguru's motionless form, her body coated in a thick layer of cursed energy. She manages to deflect the first and second swipe of the curse at her face, but not the third.

A toe-curling scream splits the air as Shouko is torn open from stomach to chest, sent flying. 

Yuuj's vision drowns in red. 

In a split second, he's standing in front of the curse—hands clenched tight around what he assumes to be its main body, he sends a violent pulse of cursed energy through it.  

It has two forms, he realises as the curse reaches for him in the brief second it's still alive, animal desperation clawing for the invisible threads to his mind. 

A physically stronger one to rip its opponent to shreds, and a weaker one to guarantee a hit by paralysing them from within. 

The rage billowing within Yuuji isn't entirely his own, but he welcomes it, lets it sizzle from his body into the curse until everything explodes in a shower of black and red. 

Yuuji catches Shouko just before she too can collapse. 

He starts pouring his reverse cursed technique into her—silently watching as the gaping, red maw of her stomach slowly closes under his ministrations. The rapid heaving of her chest evens out as soon as the wound is closed; everything back in place where it should be. She's... sickeningly pale but out of danger. 

Yuuji slowly lowers her onto the nearest bench. If not for the blood staining the cracked marble floor around them, no one would think she was ever injured. 

Guilt hits him with the force of a truck. 

Never again, he swore. 

And yet here is Shouko, bleeding out on him because of his shortcomings. It's eerily similar to back then. 

"Sensei," comes a voice from beyond the heavy, muddy water Yuuji is sinking into. A hand settles on his shoulder when he doesn't react. "Yuuji-sensei." 

There's still so much blood. It clings to his hands and clothes and the inside of his lungs every time he takes a breath too deep. 

"She's dying," Yuuji gasps, bending over. "I have to heal her, I have to..."

"Yuuji. That's enough."

The hand on his shoulder is tugging at him ever so gently. Even though he feels like something is going to burst out of his skin at any moment, Yuuji lets himself be pulled away, too tired and weak to put up any physical resistance. 

Looking down, he can make out the shape of trembling hands. It takes him a second to realise they are his own—like looking through a blurred camera lens, the image on the other side is detached from his body.

Satoru's hand moves from his shoulder to his neck. Yuuji wasn't aware that he was still pouring his energy into Shouko all this time, healing what had already been healed over and over again until Satoru applied the slightest bit of pressure, redirecting his focus to somewhere else.

“She’s already as good as new. Almost better than before. See?" Another squeeze, tender this time. "There's nothing Sensei can't heal."

The warm words loosen something inside him. He lets out a shaky breath, and together with Satoru's tangible presence, it's enough to bring him back to reality, as fragile as it all feels. 

He's sitting on the cold floor. 

Hovering next to him, Satoru has an unreadable expression in his eyes. It's not really pity—Satoru respects Yuuji too much for that—but something vague like concern. Which is even more unsettling.

"Is Suguru all right?" Satoru asks. 

Yuuji manages something that could pass as a nod. 

Relieved, Satoru sighs. He looks from Suguru to Shouko to Yuuji. "I should have been here earlier," he mumbles quietly. 

The amount of barely contained self-reproach Yuuji feels through Satoru's words alone makes him stir. The words are heavy on his tongue, but he has to get them out—he can't let Satoru think that he bears any blame for this. 

"The... curse was able to attack you mentally. I don't think Infinity could handle that." He says tiredly.

"Tsk. I would have destroyed it before it had a chance to move."

"And take the whole church with you?"  

Under different circumstances, Yuuji would have cracked a smile at Satoru's indignant pout. 

"You're very strong, Gojou-kun, but you're not equipped to deal with mental attacks. None of you are."

He resists the urge to press his face into his hands. The only reason he wasn't affected was because he isn't the sole bearer of this body. Sukuna is... 

territorial, for lack of a better word. 

Satoru frowns. It's clear that he's trying to think of something clever to respond, but for once, he fails. Not even he has a defence that can repel non-physical matter, and Yuuji blames himself for not considering this kind of attack before. 

It was a lazy mistake. 

Curses come in all shapes and sizes. The moment a Jujutsu sorcerer feels a semblance of safety, a deadly future awaits.

“It's not your fault, you know?” Satoru says firmly, crouching down to be more at eye level.

His sunglasses are pushed up so that there's no barrier between them. The sight of those crystal blue eyes doesn't usually bother Yuuji, but right now he feels exposed more than anything else.

(It reminds him of a conversation he had with Suguru.

He uttered similar words—neither of them fully aware of the specifics that led to the circumstances Yuuji was talking about, Suguru even less so, and yet the way they said it was equally honest. As if they didn't need anything else to believe what they were telling Yuuji.)

"I shouldn't have insisted on her coming," Yuuji mumbles, slipping out of Satoru's grip. He tries not to miss the weight of his hand too much. "And even if I had, I should have been more careful."

He should have just moved when he first saw the curse transform. 

"So what? Are you going to ground her for the next few missions? If that idiot gets a little cut on his little finger," Satoru points at Suguru, "will you tell him to stay out of combat too?"

If Yuuji had a cloak of feathers, he's sure it would bristle with impertinence. "You know I wouldn't do that."

"Yes, yes, I know. You don't coddle us. It's not like you keep us from missions or anything. But you always have a lot of stupid thoughts when someone's hurt. Like you're the one who did it."

Yuuji grits his teeth. 

Satoru can't possibly compare broken ribs or burned skin to the fatal injury Shouko has just suffered. He's never had to step in himself, content to let Shouko heal her teammates and give her pointers—unless Satoru was specifically bugging Yuuji—and the first time he did, it's because of him. 

Shouko doesn't have the speed the others do, nor the fighting skills. She excels in other areas, just not in direct combat.

Shouko told him so when he talked about the details of the mission. She was more than happy to stay behind and let Yuuji be there to heal her friends in case things went south. But Yuuji insisted, not taking her word because who would be okay with being left behind? Staying in one place and watching other shadows grow longer than your own? These thoughts had been in the forefront when Yuuji tried putting together a training schedule that would make Shouko flourish. 

Under no circumstances did he want her to feel less than the others just because she couldn't pull off the flashy moves—he had seen first hand where that path led if neglected. 

He's not a bad teacher, but he's never deluded himself into thinking he's a good one either. Having it rubbed in his face like this makes him feel distinctly hollow. 

Satoru sighs and waves his hand as if he wants to dissolve the dark, murky cloud surrounding Yuuji.

"I know healing and protecting is your whole thing, Sensei, but people get hurt on missions all the time. That's just the reality of it. There will always be unknown variables when dealing with curses. It was still Shouko's decision to come along, because she's stubborn like that and could have stayed at home if she really wanted to. But she didn't. And because no one predicted that the curse would have that kind of ability, she got her ass kicked. If anything, it's her fault. Or Suguru's."

"It's not their fault," Yuuji presses. He's too worn out to say more.

Satoru fixes him with a stern look. "If it's not their fault or mine, then you can't blame yourself either." 

Yuuji counts the specks of dirt on Shouko's shoes because he has nothing to say to that. 

The distinct lack of playful or teasing remarks rubs him the wrong way. It's not that Satoru is always a carefree sunshine cracked up on too much sugar—people tend to forget that when they're exposed to his eccentric personality for more than a minute—but he's never serious like this. The long lines of his body tense with a matching expression, Satoru looks mature in a way he otherwise isn't.

Yuuji doesn't like that he's given Satoru a reason to be like this. It's like their roles are reversed, Satoru comforting him when it should be the other way round. 

Yuuji sighs. He crushes every bit of dread he can and grabs Satoru's face with two fingers on either side of his cheek. 

Then he starts to pull. 

"Ow—Sensei."

"This kind of talk doesn't suit you," Yuuji says flatly. "Who are you and what have you done with my Gojou-kun?"

His poor sense of humour has always proven effective in deflecting a situation he can't quite handle. 

Luckily or unluckily for him, Satoru is exactly the kind of guy who is receptive to it—even more so when it's inappropriate. Satoru huffs and grabs Yuuji's hand on the next pull, turning his face to the side.

His lips brush the sensitive skin of Yuuji's wrist. 

"My Goujo-kun?" Satoru purrs against him. "Yuuji-sensei, if I knew you were—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence because something large and white crashes into Satoru's side, sending him flying towards the entrance and almost out of it. 

Yuuji turns around just in time to see Suguru sitting up from where he fell. 

"Get your filthy hands off Sensei," Suguru half growls, half coughs. 

The metaphorical daggers he's sending Satoru are so sharp that Yuuji wouldn't be surprised if they actually poked holes in Infinity. 

"This isn't fair," Satoru whines from where he's pinned under the heavy weight of Suguru's dragon. He shrieks as its maw snaps shut a little too close to his neck. "Attacking me while I'm enjoying some quality time with Yuuji-sensei? Not cool, Suguru-kun. Not cool."

Suguru's eyes flicker between them all before settling back on Satoru. His answer is as dry as the dust he brushes from his clothes. "I should have expected that sexually harassing Sensei would count as quality time for you, harlot, but I'm still disappointed."

Satoru gasps, more for show than anything. "Nothing new. You're always disappointed in me. And hey, the only thing I did was..."

"Shut up, both of you," Yuuji says and rubs the bridge of his nose. 

This feels like elementary school all over again—he's way too old to be dealing with this. And underpaid. He takes one last look at Shouko and makes his way over to Suguru, plopping down next to him to check for any lasting damage. Suguru looks a bit out of it, but otherwise unharmed.

"How do you feel?"

"Just a bit dizzy." Suguru obediently lets Yuuji fuss over him."What happened?"

"You were too bloody slow, that's what happened," Satoru groans.

It stands in such direct contrast to the concern he shared with Yuuji earlier that it makes Yuuji crack up a little, his mouth twitching upwards. He doesn't need to see Satoru to know the little shit is smiling triumphantly at his blunder, like the cat who got the cream. 

"The curse attacked your mind and rendered you incapable of fighting. Shouko saved you from a few days in the infirmary," Yuuji explains. 

"Is she all right?"

"She is now," Yuuji says, not without bitterness, "although she still needs to be supervised."

Suguru nods. "I see."

The shadow that has fallen over his face gives way to a look of pure annoyance when Satoru's complaints increase in volume. 

"Hey, can you get your oversized lizard off me now? I would hate to destroy your favourite pet." A contemplative pause. "I mean, I'd love to, but you know what I mean—fuck, now it's fucking drooling all over me! Suguru!"

Suguru mutters something under his breath, but calls the dragon off with a flick of his wrist. The dragon gives Satoru one last judgmental look before recoiling and stalking towards its master. It curls around both Suguru and Yuuji, barely managing to fit its large body between the benches.

Suguru's hastily mumbled apology is routine at this point. For all the control he has over his curses, his dragon does what it wants when Yuuji is around. 

He doesn't mind. Finds the dragon's antics endearing, really. The flustered look on Suguru's face when the dragon lays its head on Yuuji's lap is a sweet bonus. 

He treats the dragon to a few pats, tracing smooth but sturdy scales with his fingers. The dragon responds by playfully nibbling at them. 

Unlike most curses, the dragon is warm against him like a furnace—the sensation seeps from his hand up his back and into the rest of his body, filling all the tiny cracks that have become painfully apparent in the last few minutes. 

If this is the fruit of Suguru's training, he'll have to cook him a full seven-course meal as a token of his appreciation. 

Satoru and Suguru start falling into their usual banter. With each ridiculous argument they throw at one another, Yuuji lets some of the rigid tension fall off his body.

Shouko is safe. Their mission report could probably wait a little longer. 

Yuuji is walking with Shouko across the campus when he spots Suguru in his periphery. 

"Wait. I need to talk to him real quick."

"Should I wait for you?"

"You don't have to," Yuuji says. "We can do your check-up after dinner."

Shouko groans. "I don't need another check up, Sensei. I'm fine, really."

"Sorry, it's protocol. And I insist. Would you really refuse your Sensei?" Yuuji tries to put on his best puppy dog eyes. 

Drunk on one too many cocktails, Nobara once told him it's one of his deadliest weapons. There must be some truth to it—Shouko looks away almost immediately, the softest shade of pink on her cheeks. 

"A-alright."

Yuuji smiles and waves her goodbye.

Their entire team has been given (read: Yuuji put his foot down and threatened to release Sukuna until the higher-ups caved in) a few days off to curate from their last mission. 

Yuuji made sure to stop by Shouko every morning and evening, explaining why he had acted the way he had. Telling her about Junpei. It made him feel a tiny bit better to see her wave off all of his apologies with that typical lazy smile of hers. 

"You're gonna make me blush if you continue worrying this much." 

Traces of guilt still remained, of course, but Shouko made good use of them by goading Yuuji into letting her out of bed earlier than she was technically allowed to. 

"I'm happy to sit around and do nothing, Sensei, but even I will die of boredom if I have to spend another day in bed when I'm perfectly healthy. Screw the paperwork," she'd said, and yes, Yuuji understood that a little too well.

Which was probably the point. 

Satoru has been busy pestering the first years, Nanami in particular, and it seems that Suguru has used his time (or at least this day) to go into the city, several bags in hand.

"Oi, Getou-kun!"

Suguru stops in his tracks, pleasant surprise washing over his face as he sees his sensei jogging towards him.

"Itadori-sensei."

Yuuji gives him a small smile. "Sorry to catch you out of the blue. Do you have some time to spare at the moment?" 

Suguru holds up an arm with two bags.

"Groceries. Let me put these away first."

Yuuji doesn't start explaining until they are just outside the barrier of Jujutsu High. 

"It's about that thing I mentioned a week ago. I think I finally figured it out."

"Figured out what exactly?"

"Do you trust me?" Yuuji asks in lieu of a proper answer. 

Suguru looks taken aback for a second before he nods. Yuuji bites back a wry smile. His question was unfair, considering Suguru couldn't really have said no, unless they wanted things to get awkward. Yuuji wouldn't have minded an honest conversation if Suguru had responded negatively. But it seems like Suguru trusts him enough to go along with what he's going to do next, and that's more than enough for Yuuji. 

"Thank you. Just to warn you, I'm going to touch your face a little and use my cursed energy—I won't do anything dangerous, so don't worry, yeah?"

Yuuji waits until Suguru gives him a curt nod. 

All ten of his fingers brush the underside of Suguru's chin. He closes his eyes for the next part—his breathing becomes very quiet as he mechanically goes over what he's hopefully perfected over the last few days, making last-second adjustments until he finds what he's looking for. 

After ten minutes of concentration, Yuuji takes his hands back. The steady flow of cursed energy abruptly fizzles out. 

"All right," he murmurs, opening his eyes. "That should do it."

Suguru regards him curiously. "And... what exactly did you do?" He asks, his own hand tracing the memory of Yuuji's touch on him, feeling for what has been changed.

"Is there a curse here that you can provoke?" Yuuji asks. "Doesn't matter which level."

A while later, a curse comes crawling out—it's an ugly, misshapen thing with too many teeth. Suguru absorbs it into his palm without any preamble. 

"Woah, that's so cool."

Yuuji leans over his shoulder to look at the cursed energy in Suguru's hand. It's pitch black and tightly condensed into a spherical shape, reminding him a little of his own cursed energy. 

(He hopes that if he's ever eaten like this, he won't taste half as bad as Suguru made it seem. Probably wishful thinking, considering how rotten Sukuna's fingers taste and that Yuuji has more than half of the whole package inside him.)

Brat. 

The mild irritation stirring at the edge of his mind causes Yuuji to smile.

"You say that every time," Suguru says, although going by the pleasant tone in his voice, he doesn't mind at all. 

"Because it is," Yuuji says. "Now try to eat it."

Suguru gives him one last doubtful look before he does as he is told. 

At first, Yuuji thinks it didn't work, that he miscalculated. Suguru's expression remains roughly the same, except for the way his mouth stretches a little thinner. It's about the only indication that he's tasting anything at all—Yuuji is as impressed as he is sad, and once again wonders how many curses it took for Suguru to appear largely unaffected.

But then Suguru's eyes widen.

"I—what? I can still taste it, but it's... it's like it's heavily muted."

It's funny how perplexed Suguru looks, his jaw hanging open. Completely out of his element like a fish on land, none of his usual calm and collected demeanour present.  

Yuuji pulls a piece of candy out of his pockets. Suguru pops it into his mouth with less hesitation this time around. 

"Did you get this from Satoru?" Suguru asks, his whole face pulling into a sour grimace. 

Yuuji raises his eyebrows in thinly veiled amusement. "You could tell?"

"Nobody eats candy as horridly sweet as him," Suguru mumbles, moving to spit out the candy when—"Wait."

The moment Suguru looks at him in bewilderment, realisation written all over his face, Yuuji can't keep the bright rush of success from spreading to every fibre of his being. 

It's something he's been working on ever since he saw Suguru swallow a curse for the first time.

Shouko didn't know the exact details of Suguru's cursed technique, but her own observations and speculations were enough for Yuuji to get a good picture of what Suguru was silently dealing with. 

All he had to do was confirm his suspicions and work on the specifics in order to find a solution. Yuuji never knew if he would actually succeed—there is only so much you can do with cursed energy, and while he is confident in his ability to micro-manage it, blocking certain transmitters for thousands of taste buds was something he never tried before. 

It led to weeks of trial and error, mostly using Shouko as a guinea pig. Yuuji shudders inwardly. He still owers her for when everything she ate tasted like overripe durian for a few hours.

"It seems I couldn't completely block out the taste, which is a bit disappointing," Yuuji says, rubbing his chin. "But that's to be expected. There's more to the taste than just, well, the taste itself."

Suguru still looks so out of it. Yuuji would feel bad if he wasn't so damn giddy about the whole situation. 

Maybe he should take a picture. Just to celebrate. 

"Sensei, that's—how did you do that?"

"You tried it yourself, didn't you?" Yuuji puts his phone away and smiles sadly at him. "Finding ways not to taste the cursed energy you eat. Shouko told me a bit about it."

Something flashes in Suguru's eyes. Crossing his arms, he nods slowly. "I did. But at some point it was easier to give up than to search for something that no one is looking into anyway." 

"Well. These balls—don't look at me like that, is Gojou-kun rubbing off on you?—are a product of your cursed technique. Even if they come from other courses, by absorbing them, they are converted into your cursed energy so that you can use them. And it's not like you can counter your cursed energy with, well, your own cursed energy. You need someone else's." 

Yuuji looks down thoughtfully, trying to come up with a simplified explanation of what he did. 

"There are several ways to do it, but I narrowed it down to two. What I did was the more tedious procedure, but also the safer one. Basically, I infused all the taste buds in your mouth and throat with my cursed energy. If any cursed energy other than my own comes into contact with them, it will be blocked and that particular taste signal won't be transmitted. As I mentioned, some of the flavour still gets through because of taste colouring and stuff, but not all of it."

"And the other method?"

Yuuji grimaces. "Would have involved your brain stem. Messing with your taste buds is one thing, but I will not touch your or anyone else's brain with a ten-foot pole. Nope. Absolutely not."

Suguru chuckles. "Fair enough." He stops to blink, visibly mulling over his next words as he continues to suck on the candy from time to time.

He hasn't spat it out yet, probably too dumbfounded by the whole situation, even though he took it all in relatively well.

"Sensei, I admit I don't really know what to say. Or how to thank you properly."

"No need for that. Think nothing of it."

"But I do. I want to think more of it. Yes, yes, I know—you are my teacher," Suguru says, rolling his eyes at the look of betrayal on Yuuji's face, "but this goes beyond your responsibility. You didn't have to do this. So why did you?"

It's Yuuji's turn to blink. Truth to be told, he didn't think much about this.

The intense look in Suguru's dark eyes is almost frightening—dignified and fierce, Suguru reminds him of one of those dark princes who had whole legions at his voluntary disposal and could send them to their deaths if he so wished. 

"Why shouldn't I? Like everyone else, you deserve good things, Getou-kun. If you want something less generic..." Yuuji hums thoughtfully. "You constantly risk your life to protect humanity by eating and using curses. That isn't very ordinary, either. The least I can do is make it a little easier for you." He nods, satisfied with his explanation. "Really, it would be a waste if I didn't use my abilities to try and help."

Suguru doesn't respond, just nods after a few moments of silence. They start walking back to the campus together. 

"Shouko was actually the one who came up with a way to not block all sense of taste with my cursed energy, you know?" Yuuji says. "Might not be able to do this kind of thing herself yet, but she's wicked smart. Oh, and if Satoru tried what I did, he'd probably nuke your taste buds forever. Don't tell him so he won't be tempted."

Suguru laughs. "Just when I thought I couldn't be more grateful to you."

"The only other problem is that it's not really a permanent effect? There's only so much I can store in something as small as taste buds. My cursed energy will run out depending on how many curses you eat—and how strong they are—so you'll probably have to visit me again after a week or so."

Yuuji bites the inside of his cheek, some of the initial euphoria fading. He kicks a small stone out of the way and watches as it skitters across the ground into the bushes. 

"Sorry, I know that's like, super inconvenient. I'm still working on a more permanent solution, but I promise..."

"I don't mind," Suguru interrupts. 

"Huh?"

"I don't mind coming back to you for that. This is..." He touches his throat with something like reverence, eyes locked with Yuuji's. "You're too kind, Sensei. This is much more than I ever hoped for."

Yuuji knows he's blushing when he grows warm. In his defence, he really is trying to fight off the heat, but Suguru looks so moved by what he considers a relatively small gesture that it's hard not to be moved as well.

"Glad I could help, Getou-kun."

Seems like all those nights of theorising and poring over dozen of books were worth it. 

The air tastes familiar; distinctly stale and putrid at the same time.

Yuuji wonders if things have changed over the years. If the second rib from the left row has always been more crooked than the others, if blood has always trickled from the endless veil of black around them like irregular rainfall. 

Pit, pat. 

The change must have been gradual, if it happened at all. Details stretched out and lost over more than a decade, so that anything out of the ordinary would not be noticed, potential questions silenced. 

Yuuji wonders if it was always this easy, looking down from a throne of skulls. The lack of a definitive answer unsettles him. 

His thoughts come creeping as they always do—tantalisingly slow, like spider silk across his skin. Slipping into the crevices of his being, stretching taut over flesh and bone until Yuuji tugs at the chain wrapped around his hand to gain some semblance of control. 

The cold heat of it licks at his skin. "Shut up," he says quietly. 

Sukuna's grin is predatory. 

Even collared and forced to kneel at someone's feet, the King of Curses makes an imposing sight. 

“I haven’t uttered a single word, brat."

Yuuji shifts in place. "You don't need to. I can hear you thinking."

And so can you, he adds.

Sukuna snorts and rests his chin on Yuuji's knee. The slight movement rattles the chain dangling between them, but not his collar—the lone proof of Yuuji's mastery. It sits snugly around Sukuna's throat, black and simple, matching the tattoos that dip beneath his white yukata.

For anyone else it would have been humiliating, demeaning. Not for Sukuna.  

He looks at Yuuji with an almost lazy expression, as if he knows how wet the inside of Yuuji's hands are. 

Sukuna's eyes sparkle like rubies polished with blood. It's thanks to years of diligent practice that Yuuji is able to suppress a physical shudder, always so blatantly exposed in the face of what Sukuna is and means. 

"Continue deluding yourself, brat. Pretend what little you allow yourself is all you desire," Sukuna murmurs against the inside of his thigh, one hand gripping his calf so that Yuuji can't pull away. "It's simply a matter of time before you fall apart. And when you do, I will be all that remains to pick up the pieces."

Chapter Text

It felt as if the heavens were tearing apart. 

For a brief second, all he knew was excruciating pain. His entire body was being turned inside out, left to burn at the mercy of thousands of unforgiving suns. 

Then; nothing. Coldness. He didn't need to look down to assess the damage, he felt it—or rather the lack of it. The cursed technique had wiped out everything from single cells to his ability to feel. 

It made him remember things he wanted to forget, things he tried to bury under the weight of passing years. 

He talked despite not wanting to. 

And finally, in his last moments, after the Gojou boy had left, a warmth, like a spring breeze, the cradle of liquid sunlight. 

Toji gave himself willingly. 

As soon as Toji's aware he's waking up, he starts counting. 

It takes a minute for his blurred vision to clear, another two until he can make out his surroundings. An unfamiliar, dark ceiling stares back at him. His eyes scan dim lamps and cluttered walls, and when he tries to sit up to inspect the bed he's lying on, an angry spark of pain shoots down every vertebra of his spine.

Toji hisses softly and falls back into his original position. It's not unusual for him to get carried away on the job, but the injuries don’t usually leave him this incapacitated.

A quick glance down confirms that he's naked save for his pants, though most of his torso and his entire left arm are covered in a generous amount of white bandages.

Much neater than Toji could ever do himself. 

Before he can think about what the hell happened to get him to this point, the door to his left clicks open and close. Toji braces himself, ready to strike and annihilate the possible threat, but all he finds is a set of drowsy eyes and the colour of bright pink. 

"Oh, you're awake."

Toji's eyes narrow.

He tries speaking, only to break into a coughing fit that rattles the inside of his skull. Fucking hell. 

Pinky leans against the wall, waiting patiently for it to be over.

"You should go back to sleep and save your energy. As for any questions you might have: we're in Tokyo, my apartment to be precise, you've been knocked our for three days straight, and no, you're not dead. At least not anymore."

Now that his mind and body have been shaken awake, it's impossible to ignore how much he's hurting—a constant pulsation of pain corroding the edges of his mind, threatening to spill over. All this just from a little bit of moving and breathing. 

Pinky's face betrays nothing as he approaches the bed.

He pulls up a chair and sits down, pushing up his sleeves to reveal strong, tanned forearms. He reaches for Toji—or tries to, as Toji's hand automatically wraps around Pinky's wrist to stop him. 

It feels small under his grip, like most things do. Frail. He could crush it easily if he had any strength left. 

There are no outward signs of hostility from Pinky, even now, but Toji knows better than to trust him. The oppressive amount of cursed energy emanating from him says more than any body language could. 

"…What do you think you're doing?" Toji growls slowly, low and dark. He's probably not the most intimidating sight, weakened as he is, but a cornered beast is still a beast.

Pinky isn't deterred. He doesn't even shake him off as he begins to pat down Toji where he hurts the most, stopping just below his heart. 

His answer doesn't come in the form of a reply, but in a faint surge of cursed energy. It flows from Pinky's fingers into and just beneath Toji's skin where it spreads like ink, deep into the tissue and far beyond his comprehension. 

The fog of pain Toji is wading through lifts, just a little. It makes his current situation easier to process, but no less confusing. 

"You're the one who healed him," he mumbles out loud, his fingers twitching around Pinky's wrist as he watches him work. "That's... why I had to fight him twice. The kid didn't actually use any reverse cursed technique."

"Oh, Gojou-kun did," Pinky argues, a hint of pride bleeding through his stolidity. "He probably unlocked its full potential during your fight. But he was..."

Pinky trails off, exhaling the rest of his sentence through his nose. Toji feels the crack in his composure more than he sees it—the foreign, cursed energy within him momentarily turns into something vicious, so strong in its intent that Toji can taste it in the back of his mouth like bile. 

It's over as quickly as it began, Pinky's shoulder sagging as he stops digging his nails into Toji's flesh.

"He was on the absolute brink of death. Every ounce of energy Gojou-kun had left was used to keep him alive," Pinky admits. "I've never seen anything like it. You... did quite a number on him."

Thing is—somewhere, in the back of his mind, Toji knows he died. He distinctly felt it, overcome by a sense of acceptance and finality so absolute that he didn't even think to struggle. And yet here he is, hurting as if all his old wounds had been ripped open at once.

The exact opposite of dead. 

Lying in some stranger's bedroom who, by the looks of it, saved him; whose students he more or less killed.

Pinky must be thinking something similar, because their eyes meet for the first time. They flicker through a myriad of emotions like pages in a book, too fast and unsteady for him to read, finally settling on warrines. 

The cursed energy cuts off and Pinky removes his hand. 

"I'll come back later. Get some rest if you can."

Toji doesn't ask, and Pinky offers no further explanation as he leaves. 

Pinky hasn't revealed his name yet. He doesn't need to, Toji knows who he is; he'd be dead long ago if he didn't keep up with basic news of the Jujutsu world. 

He had considered assassinating him early on—there is a bounty on Yuuji's head, a generous one at that—but Yuuji was abroad for the better part of a decade, and Toji doesn't like to travel outside of Japan. Not worth the effort. Besides that, he'd never given Yuuji more than a few, curious thoughts. 

Kong assured him several times that Sukuna's vessel was taken care of. Busy with a mission on the other side of Japan; there was no way Yuuji could have intervened in the assassination of the Star Plasma Vessel. So Toji had been told—and what a load of bullshit that was. Yuuji showed up anyway, even if he wasn't in time to save the girl. 

Perhaps Toji could have prepared better. He never trusts his employees beyond the money they offer; there's a reason why people like them come to him specifically for his services. 

But dealing with Yuuji wasn't part of his contract and Toji never does anything beyond what's required. 

Not that there's much point in dwelling on what happened. There's no turning back time, and at the moment he's got another sticky situation to deal with. 

Toji is stuck in bed—Yuuji's bed, which would explain the smell of peaches and spices clinging to it—for the time being. No cursed spirit, no weapons.

His entire body has been drained of energy, down to the last drop and then some. A side effect of dying, according to Yuuji, and it will take him some time to regain all his strength from something that was supposed to be permanent. 

It makes him physically dependent on Yuuji—for the food he brings or to go to the bathroom. Even changing his clothes into the spare ones Yuuji brings with him ("Much too small," Yuuji mumbled, "I'll have to go shopping...") turns out to be a whole bloody workout, with his limbs trying their best to do the exact opposite of what Toji wants them to do. 

It's something that would not have bothered him much in the past. He's good at accepting facts, at adapting to volatile circumstances. This—whatever this is—is no different, and he's been through considerably worse shit. Dignity discarded somewhere along the way, until all he had left was a busted lip and blood-soaked hands. 

He didn't need anything else. 

But it's as if dying ripped open a part of him that he can't forcibly close again. There's a kind of restlessness in him that Yuuji provokes just by being near him. Defeat is one thing—vulnerability, being so blatantly exposed without the safety of retreat, is another. 

He spends most of his time switching positions and dozing in and out of existence. On the few occasions he's awake, Yuuji is somehow always there (doesn't he have anything better to do?) to bring wet towels and do a few check-ups. 

Toji would rather be left alone with his thoughts, but Yuuji simply ignores all his attempts at intimidation. Which is the worst reaction to his threats, because it renders them ineffective.

Yuuji never reacts with more than a fleeting glance in his direction, as if he could care less despite his actions telling different stories, muttering to himself as his cursed energy flows through Toji's body.

It feels strangely light, like wading through a shallow river.

So deceptively warm where Toji is cold.

"Aren't you curious?"

"Hm?" Yuuji cocks his head. "Should I be? Do you want me to ask?"

Toji is about to make a snide remark until he sees the sincerity in Yuuji's eyes.

In the silence that follows, Yuuji's eyes crinkle slightly. His eyelashes are not the same colour as his hair; candy cotton pink. 

"Well, there's your answer," Yuuji hums, going back to his task. 

Toji spends his time watching Yuuji when they're in a room together, because they hardly ever talk except when it's necessary, and there's nothing else to look at.

The scar at the corner of Yuuji's mouth reminds him a little of his own. It is wider than his, digging further into his cheek, while another cuts an almost perfect diagonal line between the centres of his eyes. The two just below are of a different colour. 

They look different too, as if someone has carved them with loving precision. Too clean to have occurred in the heat of battle. Toji is sure that underneath all those big hoodies Yuuji insists on wearing, his body matches the rest of his rugged appearance. 

The question slips out before he can control it. Toji blames it on the medicine Yuuji has been pumping into his body, along with that strange healing energy of his. 

"Why did you save me?" 

Yuuji looks up from where he's changing his bandages. 

They're special—they don't actually treat anything directly on the surface of his skin. Layered with cursed energy, they instead fit around the parts of his body that Gojou has disintegrated down to the atoms. They're supposed to speed up the internal healing process and reduce the chance of a relapse, which is one of the many things Yuuji has told him he's afraid of.

Toji's too used for cursed energy to destroy to wrap his mind around the concept.

"I didn't necessarily want to save you," Yuuji says, idly tapping his chin. "But I couldn't let you die either." 

What a convoluted answer. Toji doesn't have the patience to dissect it.

"Despite knowing what I did?"

Yuuji waits until he has reapplied all the bandages before folding his hands in his lap. Toji flexes his arm experimentally; his muscles still don’t respond very well. 

"I just wish I was there earlier. Could have saved the girl, maybe. But then again, I can't actually reanimate a corpse."

Toji raises his eyebrows haughtily.

"Your situation was a bit different," Yuuji explains. "You died later than she did, so there was still a chance to save your body. Whether it actually wanted to be saved was a different question. But you're here, so there must have been something that kept you from crossing over completely."

Toji frowns. He doesn't like the implications of that. "I've accepted my death," he says, and for once his answer isn't riddled with sharp sarcasm. 

Yuuji smiles ruefully. "I don't doubt that. But did you want to?"

The rest of their session goes by quietly. Toji doesn't humour him with another answer and Yuuji doesn't push it.

"Don't misunderstand," Yuuji says, the last of his cursed energy trickling into his system. 

It tends to leave Toji with a strange, pleasant buzz in his head, like he's soaked in hot water for too long.

"I don't like that you killed Amanai. My students may not have known her that long, but it was enough for them to organise a funeral. Getou-kun didn't take her death well."

Toji clicks his tongue, annoyance surging through him. If Yuuji wants to get rid of him, if he hates him beneath all of that polite acting, he should start doing so already. It's not like he’s obliged to save a contract killer for the sake of upholding the lofty morals that come with being a healer. 

Toji glares at him. "Then why bother with all this?"

There's a tension in the air that is graspable, thick with steel and vitriol. Yuuji takes so long to answer that Toji thinks he either forgot or decided it wasn't worth explaining. 

Honestly, Toji could care less. If Yuuji doesn't plan on handing him over to the authorities in the next few days, he'll take advantage and leave as soon as he can stand on his own two feet. 

He begins drifting off to sleep when he hears it, so quietly that it's almost lost between them. 

"If I was given a second chance," Yuuji says, "then so should you." 

Toji doesn't outwardly acknowledge his response, just turns on his side to breathe in the familiar darkness. 

He does relapse, somewhere along the line of his recovery. 

Toji wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, every inch of his body on fire. Something is eating him from the inside out with searing knives for teeth, and he'd rather face that damned Gojou kid again than go through another second of this. 

He can't tell if he's making noises or suffering silently, but Yuuji comes in a few minutes later, wearing dishevelled pyjamas and an expression of unadulterated worry. 

The kid is relentless. He stays by his side, and only leaves to get food, water and a change of clothes when Toji has soaked through his current ones. 

His reverse cursed technique doesn't exactly cure the high fever he's suffering from. It’s not healing him, but Toji doesn’t know what it is doing instead either. He can’t be sure with the way he’s steadily plunging into a daydream-fever. Constantly slipping between two states of mind, all sensations dulled and strangely distant, but still there to be perceived.

Toji's pretty sure he tells Yuuji to fuck off multiple times. He's also pretty sure that Yuuji gives the same, clipped answer again and again—you're making it worse, stop, just let me help you.

Toji doesn't have the energy to argue about it or to think about how Yuuji almost clings to him more than Toji does.

They're both just wasting time.

Humanity is suffering, Toji remembers. People cling to life so desperately because they die.

But death isn't what everyone makes it out to be. 

It's not a state. It's not something you can achieve, it's not the end of everything, it's not rotting corpses or buried skulls. Death is absence. The aftermath, the poisonous effect it has on the survivors, whatever is left behind. 

Grief and happiness, pain and hope.

(A baby and a coward.)

If Toji died, nobody would give a single shit. His family would celebrate if the news ever reached them. Maybe some of his old contractors would frown, mourning the loss of someone capable of doing their crappy work.

He's like most people—he'll die an insignificant death and no one will care because he's not important enough to be remembered.

Replaceable. Invisible. 

Toji knows all this, had plenty of time to come to terms with it when the curses in the discipline room learned not to attack him. He didn't care, because it was his own choice not to care about anyone or anything. 

He should have been content to remain dead. 

He shouldn't let Yuuji fight the fever for him. 

It begins and ends, like all things do. 

Toji knows that his fever has broken because the first breath he takes after waking up doesn't scorch the inside of his lungs. His body is more than worn out, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did in the beginning—it just feels drained, like staring at a long road ahead. 

He can't tell how much time has passed since he was last fully conscious. 

A soft murmur attracts his attention. Toji stirs, almost laughing at the sight he is presented with. Even in his sleep, Yuuji tries not to inconvenience him, folding himself in so as not to take up any more space than necessary, but ultimately unable to escape the claws of exhaustion that pulled him half onto the bed.

Toji shouldn't be surprised. 

"Fucking hell," he rasps, his voice little more than a grating of syllables. He pinches the bridge of his nose to collect himself, remembers distraught eyes and soothing, urgent touches.

Eventually, he lowers his hand and stares down at a sleeping Yuuji.

Zero sense of self-preservation. Exhausting himself to the point of unconsciousness, baring his neck to his enemy so freely.

Toji could kill him, right now. It would take less than a second, and it would make his job easier in the future, if the sorcerers had one precious healer less to go to. 

"... For a special grade, you really are pathetic," he says, hoping Yuuji will hear him through that thick skull of his. 

Yuuji continues to drool on the blanket.

Toji sighs. How did Yuuji even survive this long when he's like... when he's like this? 

Why does he care so much?

What an absolute idiot. 

Despite all his growling and grumbling, Toji knows he's fighting a losing battle. The side that has been exposed to Yuuji's foolish, naive kindness and sheer stupidity is taking over, and he curses as he pulls the kid halfway into his side so he doesn't wake up with a dislocated spine. 

"I'm getting fucking soft or somethin'," he mutters, and pulls the blanket over them both.

Toji is awake the moment Yuuji regains consciousness in the middle of the night.

He's not surprised that they drew closer in their sleep. Misery loves company, after all. He weakens his hold on Yuuji to give him a chance to free himself from their locked state.

There are a few heartbeats of silence where Yuuji moves away and pauses, just now taking in their position. Toji can feel the heat of embarrassment radiating from him. Yuuji will probably remove himself quickly, leave the room and pretend it never happened, sparing them both an awkward conversation.

Toji would play along; that much he could do. 

Then his front is mostly warm again, a long exhale tentatively sweeping over his exposed collarbones. 

"I'm sorry," Yuuji murmurs against him.

Toji doesn't say anything, but he knows that Yuuji knows he's awake. He can't tell if Yuuji is encouraged or disheartened by his silence, because he continues regardless, with an unprecedented fragility in his voice. 

"I—the reason you got such a bad fever was because I overhealed you. I put more cursed energy into your body than you could handle and I couldn’t really heal that because it was my own. Sorry. I kinda keep forgetting that you're not really a sorcerer."

So honest and so goddamn susceptible. Toji wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, preferably with a personal space heater, but he gets the feeling that he has to give some kind of answer or else Yuuji will remove himself completely. 

"Don't care," Toji mumbles. "You did your thing."

"I'm sorry."

"You said that already."

"No, it's—" Yuuji fumbles for words until he almost trips over them. "I'm sorry for saving you." 

Once more, Toji sighs.  

He opens one eye to peer down at Yuuji. 

Given their position, he can only really see the fluff of his head, but he can picture Yuuji's current facial expression quite well. The smell of guilt and self-loathing is palpable, the unpleasant burn of cheap alcohol. 

Eerily familiar.

Yuuji continues to curl up into himself and away from Toji. 

"You didn't exactly ask for this, did you? You said so, but I was selfish. Even now." A hollow, self-deprecating chuckle. "It feels presumptuous to even apologise."

Pieces finally fall into place. Ah. So that's it.

His chest rumbles with disapproval. Toji wants to flip them over and pin Yuuji to the bed and shake him until he comes to his senses. He doesn’t. 

Shit, he's nowhere near awake enough to deal with this. Not that he would do much better fully awake—matters as delicate as feelings have never been his forte. 

"Stop that."

"Oh, sorry. You’re right, I’m just rambling at this point." Yuuji's voice is so small, it could slip out of his reach at any second. 

"No. Stop fucking apologising. 'N stop being a miserable thing, it doesn't suit you."

"What does suit me?" Yuuji asks quietly. 

Toji thinks about the different ways he could answer. He goes with, "One of those smiles that makes you look really stupid." 

A delayed, weak punch to his chest. "Hey. My smiles aren't stupid. I've been told they're one of my best features."

Toji doesn't bother suppressing a snort. "Doubt it," he lies. 

A few seconds pass. He presses a hand in between Yuuji's shoulder blades and waits. When Yuuji doesn't react, he pulls him closer and closer until he can feel pink hair tickle his throat. 

"You saved me. Stop thinking about it and just take responsibility.” Toji tightens his hold, to get his point across. "Now go back to sleep before I kick you out."

"...This is my bed, you know."

"Not anymore."

Yuuji's laugh is a small, precious thing, hurting because of its existence, but cradled firmly between the space of their bodies.

Toji closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

Chapter Text

The next time Toji blinks into consciousness, Yuuji is already gone. He doesn't need to lift his blanket to find out—it took Yuuji half a night to carve a place in his side, which is now lacking a distinctive weight and warmth.

Fuck. 

Toji should have killed him when he had the chance.

They don't talk about what happened, but it's clear that something did happen, because things start falling into place with the grace of a newborn lamb. 

Yuuji comes in with more food on his tray than usual. He pulls up his tiny chair instead of leaving him as he usually does, and cracks chopsticks for both of them. He responds to Toji's raised eyebrow with little more than a shrug.

"I can leave if you want."

Toji makes a sound that could be interpreted as anything, really, and takes the offered chopsticks. 

The strange silence stretching between them lasts for another two days. Yuuji breaks it on the third by inquiring about his favourite food.

"'M not picky," Toji grunts, his thoughts drifting to stale beer and cold ramen.

For some reason, that makes Yuuji laugh. 

Yuuji is a surprisingly decent conversationalist. He has a tendency to ramble once he gets comfortable, but his sincerity and way of approaching things make him easy to listen to. 

The food—Toji is slightly mortified to learn that Yuuji has been cooking everything by himself all this time instead of ordering takeout—certainly helps to thaw some of the darkness Toji has been drawn into. Most importantly, Yuuji doesn't seem to expect anything more from him than low grunts and hums, content to fill the silence on his own when he feels like it. 

Toji is rarely in the mood to react, choosing to approach the gradual change in their strange relationship with caution. But he listens. Takes note of every little detail Yuuji lets slip and tucks it neatly away in the corner of his mind reserved for a rather peculiar teacher at Jujutsu High. 

Itadori Yuuji, Special Grade Healer, Vessel of Sukuna. 

Yuuji prefers manga to books, likes to watch all kinds of movies in his spare time (apparently he sometimes goes to the cinema twice to see the same movie, which is a fucking waste of money), and for some inexplicable reason is a huge fan of Jennifer Lawrence. This would also explain the embarrassing amount of posters on one side of the wall the large cupboard doesn't quite manage to hide.

That particular piece of information was dropped so casually between light chatter that Toji nearly snorted miso soup all over the bed. 

"What?" Yuuji asks.  

He has the gall to look offended, as if Toji's the one with bad taste. 

Toji decides not to say anything, and continues eating diligently. He's still trying to figure out how the hell Yuuji is doing this—it should be illegal for something as simple as miso soup to taste this good. 

Yuuji already brought him back from the dead, would it be unreasonable to assume that his cursed energy also helps him cook?

"Oi, don't ignore me! I can see that stupid smirk you're trying to hide from a mile away."

"I'm not trying," Toji smirks. 

"Fushiguro-san!"

He can't remember when he even shared his name, but it doesn't sound too bad coming from Yuuji. 

Toji lifts an eyebrow as his eyes scan the colourful, exaggerated images scattered across the bed like offerings. He picks one up with his thumb and forefinger, turning it this way and that way. 

"I'm not into this kind of stuff," he says. 

He drops the manga unceremoniously.

Yuuji crosses his arms.

"Well, too bad. I don't really have any books or anything like that. Unless you're into very dry, medical stuff. Wouldn't recommend. Here, try this one," Yuuji says, leaning over Toji to grab one that's on the other side of the bed. "It's really popular right now because of the anime."

In his next breath, Toji freezes—a fragrance of strawberry and something flowery fills his lungs, the same that has long since disappeared from the room, only to return for a single night.

The urge to pull the source towards him is so sudden and violent that Toji has to bite the inside of his cheek bloody to keep himself from moving. He brutally crushes what's left of the impulse and relaxes his body before Yuuji could notice anything. 

Yuuji doesn't, none the wiser as he presses the fruits of his search into his hands. The manga looks good enough, Toji supposes, a pair of what he assumes to be siblings filling the cover in subdued colours. 

Toji doesn't end up liking that manga either, but he finds that he enjoys the incredulous look on Yuuji's face when he points out all the flaws in the plot a day after. 

He wants to hate Yuuji for forcing another chance upon him, for making everything complicated again when it could have been so simple.

But hating someone takes effort and energy, far more than Toji is willing to invest, and he's fucking tired. 

The alternatives Yuuji offers him might be worth a try.

Theoretically, Toji could have disappeared by the end of the month. Yuuji told him that he's past any threshold of danger, and all that's left is the arduous process of actively regaining his body's strength. 

It's terribly domestic.

As domestic as being stuck to a bed and recovering from a fatal injury can be, at least. He's been licking his own wounds for as long as he can remember—the underground healers are terribly inefficient and leave things more wrong than right after a visit. They’re certainly nothing like Yuuji, who heals as easily as he whips up meals worthy of a Michelin star. Having been exposed to such casual comfort for almost a month has desires rearing in his head he thought he got rid off a long time ago. 

He suspects that Yuuji may feel the same way, after living alone for so long. But he doesn't say anything, just continues cooking for them, helping with his new training routine and occasionally asking for Toji's opinion on mangas when he’s back from his Jujutsu work. Toji usually makes them up on the fly, just to lure Yuuji into a ranting monologue.

Dying once doesn't change the fact that Toji has always been a freeloader—a few more days wouldn't hurt, he thinks. 

Even if he’s convinced Yuuji's cooking will make him fat and round. 

Boredom sets in after he's scoured most of Yuuji's mangas, and since he can finally, finally walk on his own without needing assistance every step of the way, he compensates by exploring his new territory.

Yuuji's apartment, he learns, is absolutely tiny. He can barely fit through the doors, and on several occasions he briefly considers punching a hole through some of the walls when furniture squeezes him in. Despite its lack of size, it's full of little knick-knacks and trinkets, the product of years of casual collecting. The place is lived in, obviously well cared for; the complete opposite of his own personal hellhole somewhere in Tokyo's underbelly. 

Worst of all are the countless pictures that litter the walls. They're fond memories, most of them showing Yuuji with an old man and a woman with sharp, hazel eyes. Yuuji looks younger in them, less scarred by experience. Toji also recognises some of the brats he fought during his last contract, and resists the petty urge to punch those with Gojou in them as well.

He nods to himself—he's so well-behaved today. Maybe Yuuji will make him some extra food if he tells him. 

Yuuji catches him half an hour later with his head stuck in a wardrobe, Toji still trying to find something other than hoodies. How many does one person need, really? Yuuji immediately tries to drag him back to bed—claiming that it's still too early for him to be wandering around unsupervised, and not because he's hiding something, as Toji is sure of. 

He doesn't actually expect Yuuji to be able to move him from his spot, and lets out a surprised grunt when he does.

Kid's got some strength, alright. 

Nothing compared to Toji's, though. He's recovered enough to put up a little resistance, and he relishes the way Yuuji's eyes widen for a moment when Toji just stops in the middle of the corridor, like Gojou’s technique unfolded between them. 

Yuuji should be able to heal himself as well as he can heal others, no?  Toji's skin itches with the sudden urge to fight him.

"Huh," Yuuji says and pushes experimentally against Toji's chest. "I guess Gojou-kun didn't almost die for nothing."

Toji's smile is more teeth than anything else. 

"I'll be sure to give that boy a proper beheading the next time I see him."

To his surprise, Yuuji lets out a short laugh at his crude response. It's a... cute sound. Which is fucking weird because cute isn't part of his vocabulary.

Yuuji senses his momentary distraction and uses the opportunity to resume his task of getting Toji back into bed.

"Didn't you only work for money?" Yuuji teases.

"I'll make an exception for the person who blew up half my body."

"Fair enough. But I'd advise against killing Gojou-kun, by the way. For your own sake. He'd be unbearable as a curse and just haunt you until the end of time.”

Toji frowns. "He did have quite the mouth on him," he says after a few moments of thinking. 

Yuuji sighs wistfully. "Trust me. You haven't seen anything."

It's odd. How easy it is to sit in silence and watch Yuuji leafing through a book (for once) with a delicate pair of reading glasses on. Most of the moments in his life have been quiet—hours of useless brooding in his own head; a bottle of beer shared with the silence of his apartment. 

This feels different. Toji can't really put a name to it. Maybe it's because he's used to not lingering in one place for too long, always moving before things become too familiar. 

Even the time he spent with his wife was fleeting, and he doesn't like to think about it—memories tend to blur the more they are recalled. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" 

"Huh?"

Toji supposes the question does seem rather out of the blue, without any context. He makes a loose gesture towards the living room.

He followed Yuuji into the kitchen today, because if he spends another day staring at the ceiling, he'll go fucking insane. More so than he already is. 

Turns out that watching Yuuji perform magic in a silly pink apron doesn't really help him either for other reasons, but it's marginally better than the equivalent of watching paint dry. 

"I've been using your bed the whole time. Saw your sleeping stuff on the couch." 

"Oh," Yuuji says, as if their sleeping arrangements completely slipped his mind. "Well, you were in a horrible state after you died." He snickers to himself. "There's no way I would have let you sleep on the couch."

"Letting me sleep on the floor would be generous."

Yuuji hums. He continues stirring the frying pan, and when he thinks the contents are mixed well enough, he lowers the heat to a low simmer. 

Hands on his hips, he turns to face him. 

"Fushiguro-san..."

"Toji. Just Toji."

Yuuji huffs. "Okay, Toji-san. Here's the thing: I'm a healer first and foremost. And you are a very big man. Letting you sleep on my tiny couch would have ruined all the hard work I did to save your sorry ass."

Toji scoffs. 

It's not his fault that everybody is so goddamn tiny. Yuuji may not necessarily be included, but he’s still smaller than him so it counts.

"You've been sleeping on that shitty thing for over a month. No wonder you're always so tense."

"Uh-huh. I've been managing just fine, thank you."

"I wouldn't mind sharing, ya know?" Toji's voice drops an octave as he drawls, "Bed's big enough for two."

His reply was a force of habit, not entirely intentional. Years of chatting up rich-looking people at the bar has imbued his brain with automatic reply patterns when confronted with the right circumstances, which was... 

Huh. He's gotten more lax in Yuuji's presence than he wanted to admit. 

He fully expects Yuuji to flip him off, maybe even call him a few names—instead, Yuuji responds with a high-pitched noise that catches at the back of his throat at least twice. 

With a weak clearing of his throat, Yuuji regains some of his composure. 

"Don't say stuff like that so casually," he chides. "Also, that's a lie. You can barely fit in my bed. The only way I can fit in there as well is if we...  "

He trails off, clearly realising his mistake as his mind helpfully supplies the memory from a week ago. 

Grinning from ear to ear, Toji rests his chin on his hand and looks at Yuuji through half-lidded eyes. "Sounds good to me," he purrs. 

"Argh! No, it doesn't. I'm not sharing a bed with you."

An impulse; like a jerk of the knee, like wetting dry lips. 

"Princess, you already did."

"That was—wait, what did you just call me?"

"Princess," Toji stresses, watching Yuuji's face bloom a pretty shade of red. He almost feels bad for him. Almost. "We already shared a bed."

"... Why do you call me that?"

"Why not?"

"I have a name, you know."

"No shit, princess. Stop stalling, it's not working."

"I'm not stalling!" Yuuji pouts. "And I already told you—that was one time! An emergency!"

Toji rolls his eyes. An emergency; what a half-assed response. Yuuji might really explode if he teases him any further, though, so he acquiesces. 

"Fine. How about a massage for that poor back of yours?" He arches one eyebrow, slow and deliberate. "I've been told I'm pretty good with my hands."

Yuuji splutters. 

He starts waving his spatula angrily at Toji in a way that promises anything but a quick, merciless death, only turning back to the stove when Toji raises his hands in surrender. 

Yuuji continues to grumble under his breath at Toji's rumbling laughter, but he can see the tips of his ears burning red from a mile away. 

How cute. 

There's nothing inherently soft about Yuuji. Like him, he's all hard edges and lines, polished to battle perfection. For all the light his eyes hold, they conceal a depth Toji seldom sees, even among the seasoned sorcerers he killed. 

When conversation dies down and everything becomes quiet, it's clear as day that Yuuji is a child crammed into an adult's body, forced to grow up too quickly, and has only recently begun to settle in properly. 

He supposes that being Sukuna's vessel does that to you. 

And yet—

Yuuji exudes a kind of warmth that is hard to ignore. There's a gravitational pull to it, and it's reflected in his demeanour as well—his calloused hands carry enough strength to crush someone's skull, Toji learned, yet they're gentle when they're skimming for injuries or rinsing produce.

It's all so incredibly disarming. Yuuji is.

Toji wouldn't be surprised if there are others like him. Discarded, abandoned animals, all of whom Yuuji attracts like moths to the flame with his bright presence and brighter smile. 

Part of Toji hates it. The bigger part is entranced. 

Somewhere along the way, Yuuji made a different choice than Toji. He could have ended up like him—a bitter, contradictory existence, because survival in a world like this means letting go of your humanity. 

It doesn't matter if Yuuji grew up in fire and brimstone or only experienced it later on. For what was forced upon him, he has every right to douse the world in his wrath.

And yet he doesn't. Stitches it back together, carefully, reverently, one person at a time. 

He wonders what goes through his pink little head when he looks down on someone and decides between life and death. If he's aware that he tipped the balance of power just by existing. 

It's not something as lofty as nobility or a greater sense of altruism, considering how jaded Yuuji looks when the right angle of light doesn't cast away all his shadows. Even if he seems like the type to willingly carry the burdens of others. 

But thinking about it makes his brain fucking hurt. Toji's always favoured action over words, and this is no different. 

He resumes his sit-ups and pushes the matter of Yuuji as far away as he possibly can—which, admittedly, isn't very far. 

(It would be a few more weeks, long after Toji is gone before he’d finally found out the answer. Yuuji just cares. He cares endlessly, and he extends that care to everyone around him—his students, his stupid potted plants lining the windowsill, all named after his favourite anime characters, and even the contract killer he helped get on his feet.

He cares for everyone who will let him; he withholds judgement for the sake of understanding others, sometimes at his own expense.

Because he, too, wants to be understood and seen as more than he is.)

“How'd you get your scar?”

Toji watches Yuuji lazily out of the corner of his eye.

They're in the middle of a movie, probably something with Jennifer Lawrence in it, because Yuuji has been mostly silent the entire time. Until now, at least. 

"Most people have a bit of tact, you know?" Toji grunts, looking back at the TV, not really processing anything past jumbled dialogue and vibrant colours. "It's like asking a blind person why they're blind."

"Well, it's been a few weeks and I really wanna know."

Toji chuckles. "Tell me about yours first."

Yuuji complies all too eagerly. He pauses the movie—which means Toji will have to sit through the rest of it, fantastic—and moves closer to his side of the couch.

"These are Sukuna's," Yuuji says, running a finger demonstratively over the neat scars cupping the corners of his eyes. "His eyes used to pop up here. Crazy right? The rest are from my family." He is quick to shake his head at the look Toji sends him. "It's, uh, not as bad as it sounds. It was a misunderstanding. Sort of."

"Sort of," Toji repeats, scepticism lacing every letter. 

Yuuji shrugs. "It's complicated."

As all things are. 

For once, Toji doesn't hold himself back—Yuuji looks mildly caught off guard, but his eyes flutter shut when Toji touches the scarred tissue at the corner of his mouth. 

Cicatricial tissue, he remembers Yuuji telling him. 

Toji suppresses a snort. Always so trusting, so eager for the slightest hint of affection. Knows that he could snap his neck in an instant and trusts him not to. 

Toji recognises what it is only too well, though, and indulges them for a few more moments before pulling away. He doesn't miss the split second in which Yuuji chases after his hand and bites back a grin. 

"Funny. I got mine because of family issues as well." Toji taps at his lip. "But unlike yours, it wasn't a misunderstanding."

Yuuji frowns. "That's... all kind of messed up."

Toji snorts. "Story of my life."

Yuuji picks up the remote to continue the movie, but hesitates at the last second. 

"Did you kill them?" He asks. 

"My family?"

"Mhhh."

Toji grins.He’s always wanted to, but felt like it was too much work for something as insignificant as the Zen’in clan. Something like pride hooks into his chest.

"What makes you think so?"

"Dunno. You seem like that kind of guy." Yuuji looks him up and down demonstratively, his gaze full of exaggerated judgement, and Toji doesn't even bother pretending not to enjoy the attention. 

"Careful, sweetheart. Wouldn't wanna accidentally stroke my ego any further, would we?"

Yuuji half-heartedly swats his shoulder. "I knew you'd take that as a compliment."

"Because it is."

"Urgh. Your ego is as inflated as the rest of you."

Toji barks out a laugh. Yuuji is so blunt, so fearless. Completely devoid of any common sense, and still managing to go through life with unmatched fierceness. 

He likes it.

He likes it a lot.  

Yuuji has been at home for a few days now. If it weren't for his constant presence, it would be evident in the way his phone starts ringing at some point during their second movie night and doesn't fucking stop. 

Toji mentally clicks out for the first calls, sinking deeper into the couch and probably fucking up his back a little. Whatever, Yuuji can fix that.

Something about Nanami, who talks like he's got a whole pole shoved up his ass, and other annoying students he'd rather not clutter his memory with. 

On a Saturday morning, a particular voice sparks his interest. Toji is getting out of the shower when he hears it. A familiar voice, only now it's not drenched in the cockiness of someone trying to play God, and rather pitched high and exaggerated to garner sympathy.

"Yuuji-senseiiii! I miss you, when are you coming back?" 

"Gojou-kun, it's only been a few days."

"A few days too long! Listen, my days are significantly less bearable without you."

Toji leans against the closed door with his arms crossed. Yuuji never told him directly, but it's clear that his students don't know about Toji. 

If they did, he would probably have already had a rematch with Gojou in the middle of Yuuji's apartment. What about the higher-ups? Does anyone know? His own line of questions excites him—he doesn't mind being Yuuji's dirty little secret. 

"I'm sure you'll survive a few more days," Yuuji says in a tone meant to be soothing. 

"How can you be so sure?!"

"Well. You survived without me for, let me check, more than 16 years."

"That was before I met you! You changed me as a person," and shit, sometimes Toji doesn't like how good his hearing is, because he can picture the pout Gojou’s currently sporting to sickening detail. "How do you expect me to get back to—"

Some bickering in the background, followed by muffled noise and Yuuji's endeared chuckle. A different voice takes over. 

"Sorry, Sensei. Satoru just looked like he was about to eat his phone."

The other kid. 

"I wasn't," comes Satoru's pitiful voice from the background. 

Yuuji doesn't pause for a second, most likely used to their nonsense. "Geotu-kun! How are you? I hope he hasn't been too much trouble for you." 

"Would you believe me if I said he wasn't? You know how he gets without you."

Yuuji's smile cracks through.

"That sounds just like him. I'll make you dinner when I get back, okay? Just two more days. Probably."

"... Itadori-sensei."

"Come, Getou-kun. I really want to share my cooking with all of you and they're bound to find out some day!"

"Not if I can help it."

"Didn't know you were so popular," Toji says, entering the room with a new pair of sweatpants and nothing else. 

Yuuji is on the couch, looking both loving and annoyed as he types into his phone. He immediately puts it away upon hearing Toji's, eyebrows furrowing. 

"Sorry, did you hear all that? I didn't mean to wake you."

Toji shrugs. "Was already up."

"It's my paperwork week," Yuuji explains. "I'm taking time off to file reports I haven't done yet, write a report for this semester so far, blah blah blah. My students miss me, but they should be glad that I'm sending them on fun missions instead of asking them to help me."

Toji grunts. "You didn't answer my first question."

"Huh? Which one?"

"Whether you're popular or not, doll."

"Oh," Yuuji says, blinking at the new nickname. "I don't think so. But can anyone be considered popular in a school as small as this? My students just care a lot."

"Mhh. Sounded like a lot more than caring."

Yuuji moves back and forth on the couch. He’s adamantly avoiding eye contact now, which is the telltale sign that Yuuji is withholding information. 

That, or he’s finally noticed Toji’s running around shirtless.

"They're... going through a phase. It'll pass."

Toji smells blood. "Oh?"

"Let's not talk about this," Yuuji sighs. 

Well, unfortunately for him, that's where Toji gets his amusement from—other people's discomfort.

Before Yuuji can think of making a run for it, Toji plops down on the couch and lets his head fall into Yuuji's lap. His hair is still a little wet and Yuuji protests, but doesn't actually make a move to push him off.

Toji grins smugly. "Tell me about it," he demands, staring up at him with an intensity that has most people scrambling for their life. 

Yuuji holds out for a solid five seconds before he hides his face in his hands. "Urgh. You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"Be more specific. Everything I do has a purpose."

Yuuji looks at him through two fingers. 

"You lose money on purpose too?"

The corner of Toji's mouth twitches. 

"You know I can hear the TV running when I'm in another room, right? You always take the worst bets. And—horse racing? Really?"

Prodded, Toji clicks his tongue. "I'm investing in the future."

It'll all come back to him, one way or another. Eventually. 

"By making negative numbers?"

"... 's part of the strategy. Like you know anything about it."

"Sure, sure. Whatever helps you sleep better at night."

Toji smiles darkly, his bruised ego forgotten at the opportunity Yuuji so graciously offers him. He leans up on his elbows until he can see the glossy sheen of lip balm coating Yuuji's lips. 

"I know something we could do that would help me sleep be—" He doesn't get far, the rest of his sentence snuffed out by an aggressive pillow shoved into his face.

It's the moment Toji gets a little too impatient for Yuuji's return that he leaves. 

Because that's when he can start putting a name to the past two months, and things become infinitely more dangerous than they already were. 

His time with Yuuji must have already softened parts of him, though. He spends at least five minutes rummaging through Yuuji's entire apartment, looking for a pen that hasn't dried up.

Owns an entire library of manga and movies, but can't be bothered to have a single functional pen—typical Yuuji, and the thought makes his scar stretch with a smile, just a little. 

Yuuji isn't really surprised when he comes home to find Toji missing. It was a question of when, not if, and he's honestly surprised that Toji stayed so long, even if he's kind of a sleazy asshole who has no problem mooching off people's kindness. 

Yuuji supposes he's partly to blame, too, since he couldn’t help but feed into it. 

He finds a note tucked into a manga on the kitchen table.

thanks for the medical care, kitten. 
i'll keep your address a secret if you keep your door open.

— toji

Chapter Text

all alone

i'm moving like your shadow

walking in my dead zone

breathing slow

A knock on the open door makes Yuuji perk up. 

"Sensei, it's me. Sorry for the late intrusion."

He throws a dismissive hand gesture in Suguru's direction, not taking his eyes off his manga yet. The door softly clicks shut. 

"Don't sweat it. I'll be moving back here in a few days anyway. Just need to grab a few things from my place."

"I keep forgetting you have your own apartment," Suguru says, nearly inaudible footsteps signalling he's padding closer. "I got used to having breakfast here with you."

Yuuji smiles sheepishly, "I prefer the dorms. Much closer, you know? My apartment's just for special occasions."

His ability to lie hasn't exactly improved in the last ten years, so he doesn't bother to come up with anything complex.  

Suguru makes a sound of inquisitive acknowledgement—obviously knowing that special occasions do not only refer to paperwork—and Yuuji's eyes flicker upwards. 

He thinks of feathers falling on fresh snow. Suguru is dressed in his usual pyjamas, hands in his pockets, a towel draped loosely around his neck. It's doing its best to soak up all the water left in Suguru's hair, and Yuuji wonders if he even bothered drying it before coming here.

Allowing the image to sink in for a few more seconds, Yuuji teasingly comments, "You look like a drenched cat.”

Suguru raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "...because I just took a shower?"

Yuuji exaggerates a sigh. He puts his manga away for good and pats the empty space next to him. "Come here. I'll dry your hair for you."

"Ah, that's not necessary."

"Well, I insist," Yuuji says. "Air-drying your hair is fine, you know, but not when it's that wet." 

"I am capable of doing it myself, really," Suguru mumbles, but makes his way over anyway. 

They've done this often enough, Suguru visiting him every week or so to replenish the cursed energy for his taste buds. It's a procedure that hardly takes more than a few minutes, but Yuuji is prone to indulge his students—what's supposed to be just a few minutes easily stretches into an hour of chatter and shared stories. 

Today is different. Suguru appears calm, facial muscles lax, but there's a certain edge to the cursed energy dwelling within him, a crack of static in a white sea of noise. 

The bed dips under Suguru's weight as he sits cross-legged, back to Yuuji. Yuuji readjusts his position and grabs the towel from Suguru's shoulders, placing it gently on his head. 

"You doing alright?"

The room is quiet except for the sound of the towel rubbing against Suguru's hair. It's hard to see his expression from this angle, but it's even harder to miss how much he's struggling to answer with something, anything, nothing. 

"You can lie for the sake of the conversation," Yuuji offers, "or you can be honest. It's your choice, I'll go along either way."

"... You're weird, Sensei," Suguru huffs. 

Yuuji shrugs. "I get that a lot. Want to tell me what's bothering you or nah?"

"I appreciate you asking," Suguru says politely as always, "but I'll be fine. There's no need to worry."

"Getou-kun," Yuuji says, his frown directed at the back of Suguru's head. 

His hair is even longer like this, black strands spilling through the white of his towel like ink. He doesn't know why Suguru rarely wears his hair down—something to do with how it gets in the way of fighting, probably, but then that just means he has to get good enough to overcome that weakness.

Maybe he should ask Suguru if he could braid it sometime. Might be a good incentive to keep the hair tie away, or at least minimise its use.

He sacrifices one hand to press between Suguru's shoulder blades, coaxing the stiff line of his back into a slight slouch. Beneath his fingers, he can feel Suguru taking a deep, shaky breath, his torso expanding marginally with the movement.

Yuuji keeps his hand there for a moment to make sure that Suguru doesn't relapse immediately and goes back to drying his hair. 

A few more minutes of careful towelling and Yuuji nods to himself, satisfied with his work. He throws the damp towel somewhere on the bed and taps Suguru on the shoulder.

"Alright, done. Turn around for me?"

Yuuji politely avoids looking at all the parts of his shirt where the water has soaked in, and concentrates on his new task instead.  

He takes his time, the cursed energy he sends from his hand through Suguru's body a much more deliberate thing, slow and gentle in its intent. It doesn't take long for Suguru's shoulders to sag completely, the tense line of his body following the example of his spine and relaxing under the warm trickle of cursed energy. 

Suguru's eyelashes flutter to half-mast. He leans into his touch a little, sluggishly, as if sinking into murky waters, Yuuji being the one to guide him and keep him from drifting away.

With his throat bare, he seems almost vulnerable. Alone. 

"I've been thinking a lot," Suguru starts.

(Perhaps it's a bit unfair—using the effects of his cursed energy to lure Suguru away from the turmoil building up right beneath his skin, just enough to make talking easier. But Suguru is familiar enough with Yuuji's cursed energy to know what he's doing. If he really didn't want to share any of his thoughts, he would pull himself away or just continue floating in the lulling blanket of protection and not say anything at all.)

Yuuji hums, encouraging Suguru to continue. 

"I had goals when I came to Jujutsu High. But with everything that's happened... I suppose I've been questioning them as of late."

"Is this about Amanai-chan?" 

Suguru nods, confirming what Yuuji already suspected. 

He was informed about the Star Plasma Vessel beforehand, but there was little he could have done about it himself—busy with a mission he couldn't exactly postpone, as it came directly from the higher-ups themselves. 

(The timing was too sudden to be a coincidence. Yuuji gets away with a lot, but he knows that if he wants to continue to have that much leeway, he has to play the obedient lapdog every now and then, give the impression of being a risk that can be prevented).

He exorcised the curses as fast as he could, travelled as fast as he could—sacrificing a whole night's sleep to get on the next available flight—and it was just enough to prevent a full-scale tragedy from happening.

Yuuji has no desire to imagine what the outcome would have been if he hadn't been there at all.

What's left for him are the pieces. He's been trying his best to pick them up and put them back together, with Suguru in particular having become a growing concern. Suguru isn't necessarily avoiding anyone, he's still attending training and going on missions, but it's clear his mind has been wandering far past its usual bounds these days. 

Yuuji's been trying to catch him alone for a while now. 

"We have a tendency to question everything we know when things don't go as planned. But that's good," he says. "Having goals you don't question at least once will only get you so far in life."

"The possibility of discarding something that I've been mindlessly pursuing for years, it makes me..." Suguru trails off, lacking the right words to give simmering thoughts shape. 

"That just means those goals were never worth pursuing in the first place, no?"

"Perhaps."

"Do you think you wasted your time?" 

"Perhaps," Suguru repeats, laughing dryly. He runs a hand through his hair, a vain attempt at pushing back the bangs falling into his face. "But it's no use crying over spilled milk. I am just... uncertain. Of how or where to proceed."

He looks and sounds so detached from himself that it makes Yuuji's heart ache. 

Where Anamai's death caused Satoru to push forward, giving Satoru's arrogant attitude more definition—not so far from purpose anymore—it pulled the rug out from under Suguru's feet. He was forced to backtrack, to reconsider his previous convictions that make him such a good match for Satoru.  

(Yuuji does not want to imagine a world without them side by side.)

Gently, so as not to startle Suguru, he pulls away, taking the rest of his cursed energy with him. 

"I don't like making decisions," Suguru admits, gaze heavy. He changes position, his body moving away from Yuuji. Not enough to be considered rude, but enough to have built a physical space between them. "Especially if it's supposed to be the right one."

Yuuji cocks his head. "What do you think makes a decision right?"

Suguru blinks at him. He mulls over it for a few seconds before settling on, "Rationality, I suppose. A conscious decision that is not guided by emotion, but rather by logic or other defined parameters."

"So you're the rational type of guy."

"I would assume so, yes," Suguru says, smiling without humour, "but something tells me I'm about to be proven otherwise."

Yuuji nudges his shoulder, testing the waters. Suguru doesn't recoil at least. "You think too much. Wanna hear my take?" Yuuji leans forward and lowers his voice to something appropriate for a secret, "I think anything that has to do with logic is bullshit—especially when it comes to decision making."

Suguru raises an eyebrow, curious. 

Yuuji leans back on his hands to give Suguru and his next words more space, tilting his head upwards. The relatively bare ceiling reminds him of the glowing package of stickers he still has somewhere in his apartment.

Next time.  

"You know about the Animal Rationale, right?" Suguru nods, little more than a jerk of his head. "It's the line we've drawn that's supposed to separate us from animals. A lot of pretentious hot air, I tell you. Humans—that includes us sorcerers and non-sorcerers, by the way—are the furthest thing from rational. At our core, we are driven solely by what gives us the most pleasure. Whether that's self-realisation, the pursuit of power, or just getting the best snacks for the cheapest price, it's different for everyone. All decisions are made with that in mind. Consciously or subconsciously.

"We just look for fancy terms—like justice, morality, the right thing to do—to try to make it less obvious how self-centred we really are."

"You don't believe something like the greater good exists?" 

"Oh, sure. I do. But that greater good is by my own definition. Do you know what I'm getting at? There's no such thing as the right or logical decision. Someone will always support you. Someone will always fight you. At the end of the day, the most important thing is what you think. Whether you have confidence and commitment. It's you against the world and how you choose to deal with the things thrown at you. Nothing more, nothing less."

"And if... my method of dealing with things is different from others?"

Yuuji pauses, peers up at Suguru. It's a serious question. There is no teasing undertone, nothing that suggests just some theory; Suguru is asking him about the future. What Yuuji would do if he were to fully commit to his current line of thought. 

Some years down the line, the question Yuuji asked himself about Junpei was less about what he could have done differently, and more about whether there was anything that could have been done to change the trajectory of his life at all. 

It didn't necessarily help with the guilt, but it steered his thoughts in a different direction, away from a cycle of repetitive, guilt-ridden thoughts that he fights losing battles against. 

Would things really have been alright if he had succeeded in getting Junpei to Jujutsu High, or would that have just delayed the inevitable—provoked something worse, even? Fate has a way of sinking its claws into you and not letting go; Yuuji would know that. And Junpei always struck him as the kind of guy who would be the leading actor in a tragedy, no matter in which timeline.

The thing about Junpei—and here the shallow parallels to Suguru end—is that even before his last moments, he appeared to regret his actions. Genuinely, from the bottom of a heart he claimed no one had. That if he had a second chance, he would choose differently. 

(With how Suguru looks, drained, draped in shadows and devouring one answer after another like a starving beast, Yuuji isn't so sure if that's the case with him.)

He shakes his head. "You make it less obvious, but you're just as stubborn as Gojou-kun. Maybe even more so." Suguru scoffs mildly at the comparison. "You know I'm right," Yuuji says with a pointed finger. "So whether your method is different from everyone else's doesn't really bother you, does it? That's not the reason you're hesitating."

Surprise flickers across Suguru's face. Something like resignation bears down his shoulders, and he leans forward to give it leeway, elbow propped on his knees. 

(He looks like many things—none of them being a seventeen-year-old.)

"Am I that easy to read?" Suguru asks blearily. 

Yuuji's eyes crinkle. "No. But I have some practice in finding out what people avoid talking about."

He ponders the information he has just been given. It's the most he can get out of Suguru without overstepping boundaries, he knows. 

"Hey," Yuuji says, making sure he has Suguru's full attention before continuing. "You don't need my approval for this. Or anyone else's for that matter. You're aware of that, right?"

Suguru turns his head, still looking at him through a hood of feathery lashes. Except for when he let Yuuji dry his hair, he hasn't taken his eyes off Yuuji even once—they appear nearly black in the sparse light of just one night lamp. A brewing dark sea, unreadable except for the slight flicker of movement that disturbs the surface every so often. 

Yuuji maintains eye contact as he says, "I trust you."

Maybe Suguru needs concrete advice, or just someone to listen to him, or a strong rebuttal, a driving force—something a lot more distinctive than Yuuji can offer. He's always considered his honesty and simple talking to be one of his biggest strengths, even if Sukuna would beg to differ. And as much as he dreads the possibilities unfolding in his mind upon watching Suguru, he can't bring himself to lie. 

Not to his students.

Yuuji sighs. 

He stretches out his limbs, leans sideways until their shoulders brush, until he smells hints of black tea, until Suguru's eyes almost swallow him whole—

—and boops Suguru's nose.

Suguru recoils. 

"...Itadori-sensei," he says aridly, and rubs the brief point of contact. Yuuji can't help but laugh at the betrayal showing on his face. 

"Sorry, sorry," he wheezes. "It's just—I always wanted to do that."

Suguru frowns. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation here."

"And I'm not?" Yuuji counters promptly. "I already told you—you're thinking too much, too big. Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help me with the dishes."

"That's because you hate it when I ask to do them," Suguru replies dryly, groaning a second later, one hand running through his hair. "Fuck. I can't—do you always solve your problems like this?"

Yuuji flashes a coy grin. "It's working, right?"

Suguru shakes his head in disapproval, but Yuuji can see the corner of his mouth curling upwards.

When he bumps Suguru's shoulder, Suguru weakly bumps him back. 

Yuuji has an inkling about what's going on when he checks his phone after it kept vibrating throughout his entire battle with a curse.

His inbox contains approximately six missed calls and 23 unread private messages—one of which is from Suguru, apologising on Satoru's behalf. 

Suguwu: Sorry, Sensei. I tried telling him you were busy.  

Yuuji shakes the residual energy of the fight off, frowning at the splatter of unidentified goo on his pants. 

Sometimes he regrets sharing his phone number with his students. He'd agreed to be added to their group chat early on—not without warning that he checks his phone maybe once or twice a day, and that doesn't include his social media accounts dedicated solely to cute cat pictures—in hopes of building a more casual relationship outside of classes.   

It got him a little too close for comfort. He wouldn't have guessed that Shouko would be the one sending blue hyperlinks at odd hours of the night (all of them leading to memes too sophisticated for Yuuji to understand) and the knowledge that Satoru never misses an opportunity to show off his extensive sticker collection is something he could have lived without, too. Suguru seems to be the most normal of the bunch, if you ignore the fact that he texts like an old man. It's as if his students forget he can also read all their messages, even though he's pretty sure they have a separate group chat without him. 

All that really leaves him is an affectionate sigh as he scrolls through the onslaught of messages. He sends a single affirmative message to Satoru—yes, they can meet at the training ground later—before silencing and pocketing his phone.

Knowing Satoru, he'd receive another ten messages within the next minute. 

Satoru has been a little closed off since their mission, his playful, chaotic nature taking a backseat to something more reserved. Probably another reason why Suguru hasn't confided in his best friend, apart from wanting to deal with his problems on his own. 

He can't help the way his heart swells when he sees Satoru's eyes light up a brilliant shade of blue from across the training ground. 

It's clear that Satoru is already bouncing back, whatever he demanded from Yuuji to come to Jujutsu High as quickly as possible is probably part of it.  

A quiet Satoru simply wasn't Satoru. 

"Yuuji-senseiii," Satoru shouts. "Look!"

That's about all the preparation Yuuji gets before his entire field of vision is taken over by Satoru, air rippling with the sheer amount of cursed energy at his disposal. 

Maybe he's a bit tired from the mission. He just got back, after all, and it's always a drag to be pulled into a domain, completed or not, and having to figure out how it works—and maybe he's holding back a bit, content to let Satoru lead their dance and take the main stage. 

(He would make a much better protagonist, wouldn't he?)

It doesn't take away any fruits of Satoru's relentless training, especially after the failed mission—Yuuji's fist, wrapped in layers and layers of carefully applied cursed energy, stops just short of Satoru's face. 

And no matter how quickly Yuuji readjusts his output, he doesn't move an inch further. The leg he aims towards Satoru's side meets the same fate. Satoru's grin is a tangible thing between them, growing larger and larger as the situation sinks in for both of them. Yuuji can only laugh as he's thrown onto his stomach, Satoru quick to hold him down. 

It took a little more than three months, but today he suffered his first defeat at the hands of his students.

Yuuji rolls onto his back and lays there, basking in Satoru's victory. Satoru moves to block the sun for him, the picture of smug pride with his sunglasses tipped down and hands on his hips. 

"How's that, Sensei?"

(Yuuji has heard comparisons of himself to the sun, but Satoru is such a bright kid. Burning starfire one cannot close their hand around, lest their entire being be consumed. It's magnificent, it's breathtaking.) 

When Satoru offers a hand, Yuuji uses the momentum to pull Satoru down with him. 

"You did it," Yuuji murmurs, wrapping his arms around him. "You really did it, you absolute monster."

Satoru's reaction is delayed, arms awkwardly braced around Yuuji's head, eyes darting back and forth as if he doesn't know how to react. Yuuji snickers to himself—Satoru being shy and flustered after all his barking is so terribly on brand for him. He squeezes for good measure, just to hear him yelp. 

Feeling rather generous, he lets the sound go uncommented for the sake of Satoru's rapidly dwindling dignity. 

"Do you know what this means?" Yuuji asks, pulling his head back to look at a pink Satoru. 

"Uhh, that I'm even greater than before?" Satoru squeaks. 

Yuuji is too excited to continue his teasing. He shakes his head and Satoru's entire body next, barely able to contain the excitement threatening to overflow at any moment. "Now you have the framework to run Infinity permanently!" He whisper-shouts. "As in, running it all the time! 24/7!" He grabs Satoru's cheeks, squishing them. "Oh my gosh, Satoru, this is going to be absolutely amazing!"

Satoru is already ridiculously strong, stretching every concept and limit of a sorcerer Yuuji knows, but if he manages to keep his technique on all the time—even when he sleeps, even when he's unconscious—he will be an unstoppable force and an immovable object at once.

A power that could destroy the whole country, Yuuji muses, and also one whose brain shuts down when on the receiving end of physical affection.

How quaint. 

Just when Yuuji thinks he has really lost him for good, Satoru's whole face splits into the widest grin Yuuji has ever seen on him. He pulls Yuuji up and finally wraps his arms around him properly. Tight to the point of suffocation. 

"Satoru.”

Yuuji blinks into the collar of his jacket and makes a muffled, questioning sound. "Mh?"

"Satoru," Satoru repeats, breath warm against his ear. He's obviously delighted by Yuuji's growing confusion. "You called me by my first name, Yuuji-sensei."

"That's..." Yuuji breaks off, his nose scrunching as he tries to recall what he said earlier. "Ok, yes, I did—but that's what you're focusing on?"

"Of course!" Satoru says. Yuuji yelps as Satoru suddenly picks him up and spins him around in dizzying circles. "I'm so going to mark this date in my calendar later!"

"Why would you—put me down already! "

"Nope!" Satoru chirps. "You're so light and small, Sensei! How can I not pick you up?"

"I'm nooot!!" Yuuji squeaks in a very manly fashion, holding onto Satoru for dear life, and he really isn't. He's taller than the average Japanese and takes pride in his body, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the only thing Satoru's got going for him is his ridiculous height. He's the walking equivalent of a beanpole, probably still growing, and Yuuji really doesn't know where all his strength comes from if he isn't using his cursed energy. 

Satoru eventually puts him down, and a wave of relief and embarrassment washes over Yuuji as soon as he's back on his feet. He really wanted to avoid vomiting all over his pupil, even if he's sure that Satoru would have reactivated Infinity in time. The relief doesn't last too long, though, as Satoru is already latching on to him again, now completely drunk with confidence at Yuuji's accidental slip-up. 

"You're impossible," Yuuji mumbles, torn between wanting his personal space back or indulging them both.

Is it even appropriate to hug someone twice in a row, and for that long, too?

He should probably not encourage this behaviour, but it undeniably feels nice to hug someone like Satoru. So full of life and energy that people often don't know what to do with it. 

"Thank you," Satoru murmurs. 

It's so quiet and sincere that all thoughts of struggle leave Yuuji at once. He sighs and resigns himself to his fate, lowering his arms to Satoru's waist.

"You're welcome, Gojou-kun."

Suguru and Shouko are both wearing amused expressions. They've been hovering on the sidelines, having watched the whole spectacle from start to finish, and Yuuji hopes they haven't taken too many pictures of the entire ordeal.

He still has a Satoru clinging to his whole upper body, but that doesn't stop him from making his way over to them. He sends Suguru a quick smile and grabs Shouko's cigarette dangling between two fingers. 

"Ieiri-chan," Yuuji chastises. "Didn't I tell you to quit?"

He takes a tentative drag, grimacing as he feels the poison quite literally spreading. "I don't know what's so appealing about this."

"Your argument would be more convincing if you didn't just take a smoke yourself," Shouko grumbles. 

"You can't heal the damage you do to your own lungs just yet. I can." Yuuji would take another demonstrative drag, but one was enough to make him crave the strongest mouthwash available. 

He crushes the tiny stick with a flick of his cursed energy, scattering the remains into the air. "Did you know that one cigarette exposes your lungs to a year's worth of radiation?"

"That's just motivation for me to get better," Shouko says, reaching into her pocket.

Suguru snatches the whole pack out of her hands and throws it to Yuuji. He gives Suguru an appreciative thumbs up. 

 "It's about the principles," Yuuji explains. 

"Does that mean that Yuuji-sensei will check up on me if I start smoking?" Satoru asks, and Yuuji reaches somewhere behind him until he can feel the fluffy mess that is Satoru's head. He slaps the back of it lightly. 

"Ow."

Yuuji hits him again, unperturbed at his loud cries. "Don't you dare use this as an excuse to start smoking."

"I'm just saying."

"Wrong. You were already considering it," Yuuji corrects. 

"You know me so well," Satoru sighs dreamily and promptly buries his face in the back of Yuuji's neck. 

"As if you'd survive even a single cigarette," Suguru comments flippantly. "You can't even drink coffee without it being eighty percent milk and sugar."

Yuuji can't see it, but judging by Suguru's prominent eye roll, Satoru is probably sticking his tongue out at him. 

"That's because I value my taste buds, thank you very much," Satoru says, and Suguru's face does a funny twitch at that. 

"The taste buds you already destroyed with your sugar addiction?"

Wrapped around him, it's impossible to miss how Satoru's muscles tense, belligerent. Like he's about to jump off Yuuji and tackle Suguru to the ground if the other opens his mouth again. If there's one thing that can pull him away from his beloved Sensei, it's a gleeful Suguru intentionally egging him on, and Yuuji would rather not get involved in another fight. 

At least not today, anyway. He should let them spar again soon. 

Yuuji clears his throat before either of them can make the scenarios in his head come true. It's good to see them arguing again, both of their expressions more familiar as they stare each other down from their respective positions.

(This is how things should be.)

Smiling at them comes so naturally to Yuuji. Puffing out his chest, he asks loudly, "What do you say we celebrate Satoru's success a little?"

Chapter Text

The light chatter in the common room fizzles out upon Yuuji's arrival. 

"Yo!"

He takes his time messing up everyone's hair—Suguru's wearing it down, which means today's going to be a damn good day—then turns to the only people he hasn't greeted yet.

He doesn't know who spilled the beans. Suguru is tight-lipped, Shouko doesn't really care, and Satoru isn't prone to sharing, but someone did, because he can't recall taking two more students under his belt. 

"Hello, Itadori-sensei," Nanami says with a polite nod. "I hope you don't mind us joining you."

Yuuji grins. "Not like this is a private party or anything. Good to see you, Nanamin!" He claps Nanami on the shoulder, almost knocking the  kid over. Oops. "How is old man Yaga treating you?"

"Appropriately."

"I see, I see. I'm sure he does!"

Even now Nanami is wearing his school uniform, and Yuuji wonders how he isn't sweating buckets in that outfit. The brutal heat of summer has already passed with the shift to early autumn, but it's still warm enough for Yuuji to have forgone his usual choice of a hoodie in favour of a simple printed t-shirt and knee-length trousers.

He gives Nanami another once-over, this time openly sceptical. "Aren't you gonna be too hot in your clothes?" Yuuji idly rubs his chin. "We can take a later train if you wanna change."

Satoru throws a hand over Nanami's shoulder and plucks at his uniform. He's dressed in a Hawaiian shirt himself, Suguru in a matching one in blue. Cute. 

"Sensei's right, stop being such a stickler. Do you know how hot it is out there?" 

Nanami sighs, obviously bothered that Satoru is half hanging off him, but not enough to expend the energy to remove him. 

"There is nothing wrong with my clothes."

Satoru shakes his head. "You'll suffocate, man." 

"Let that be my concern."

Given Nanami's stoic expression, it's hard to tell whether he actually wants to be here or not, a question promptly answered by the next person to jump into Yuuji's field of vision. 

Yuuji is only in charge of the second years, which is more than enough work for him. He's talked to Nanami often enough to share the occasional phone call, but Haibara is someone he hasn't had the pleasure of meeting all that often despite sharing the same school grounds—the blurry picture of him in Yuuji's mind is mostly painted by the stories Satoru managed to squeeze out of Nanami. 

(And as much as he adores Satoru, his credibility doesn't have a good track record.)

"Itadori-sensei!" Haibara says with a deep bow. After straightening up, he takes Yuuji's hand in his and shakes it up and down. "Thank you for letting us join your trip! I've heard a lot about you, it's an honour, truly!"

Yuuji isn't sure how much of an honour it is to simply join a trip to Shibuya that's more or less open to everyone, but the kid nearly dislodges his arm with the force behind his grip, and Yuuji is nothing if not receptive to this particular brand of enthusiasm. Haibara seems to be an extraordinarily bright kid, blinding smile and all, and he wonders if Yaga felt the same way about him when Yuuji first came to the school. 

The energy is positively contagious. The wide Yuuji gives comes naturally. 

"Nice to properly meet ya, Haibara-kun!"

Arriving in Shibuya, Yuuji loses sight of half of his troupe almost immediately. It's not his fault, not really—Satoru was the first to take his place at one of Yuuji's sides, dragging him through the station before the doors of the train had fully opened. 

A quick glance over his shoulder is the best Yuuji can manage without forcing bullet train Satoru into a crashing full stop. Suguru is keeping up as expected, and the rest are lagging behind at some distance. Yuuji laughs when he spots Nanami in a similar situation—Haibara is already pushing him towards the first shop catching his attention, and he signals Shouko to keep an eye on them before a line of chattering tourists blocks his entire view. 

They're going to be fine without him, right? Shouko's a pretty responsible person, apart from her insistence on smoking, so surely it'll work out. 

Since Satoru is in charge, it means they stop at anything related to sweets before they even get in the vicinity of another shop. Dango, steamed buns, daifuku, mochi, more mochi. Dozens of variations of mochi that make Yuuji's head spin, even though he knows most of them. Suguru keeps rolling his eyes whenever they stop in front of pretty display cases, but Yuuji can't bring himself to pull Satoru away. 

(Suguru's mostly doing it for show anyway, as he always does—he sneaks in a bite every now and then for the sole purpose of inconveniencing Satoru and nothing more.)

Satoru looks so happy when Yuuji buys him new sweets to munch on, and Yuuji is a very simple person at the core—he's happiest when the people around him are happy too, and if he gets to contribute to that? Even better. 

Watching Satoru wolf down all those sweets is a spectacle in itself. If he's honest, he really doesn't know where any of it goes, but maybe that's where Satoru gets his height from—tons of sugar being the secret ingredient. Straight into the bone marrow or something. It's a theory that Yuuji discards the moment his eyes land on Suguru, who is almost as tall as Satoru, and Yuuji has only ever seen him eating dessert when he goes out of his way to make it. 

Or when he needs to steal it from Satoru. 

Yuuji's wallet is a little unhappy about Satoru's eating spree, though. He's forced to stop paying for Satoru after the third shop—Satoru's happiness can't pay his other bills, unfortunately—but if the wink Satoru sends him is anything to go by, it seems he's been waiting for the moment when his sensei stops paying for his student. 

"Finally!"

Satoru, cotton candy residue sticking to the corner of his mouth, makes a show of pulling a black credit card out of his wallet. He brandishes it like a weapon, pointing first at Yuuji, then at the nearby crepe shop. 

"Now it's my turn to spoil you!"

Suguru crosses his arms, even less impressed than Yuuji. 

"You really don't have to do that," Yuuji says, but has little choice to refuse the two crêpes pushed towards him, one for each hand. 

"Well, that's too bad," Satoru cheerfully says. "You should eat them, otherwise they'll go to waste—and we don't want that, do we?"

Yuuji wants to point out that if he doesn't eat them, Satoru definitely will in the next two minutes, but the answer gets stuck in his throat when Suguru leans over his shoulder to take a bite. 

"How is it?" Yuuji asks.

"Not bad," admits Suguru after a few rounds of chewing. "I think I like the chocolate one more."

Humming, Yuuji offers the other crêpe in his hand. Suguru shakes his head but leans forward to take a bite.

Yuuji opens his mouth, then closes it. He offers Suguru the crêpe at least two more times during its likely short lifespan, but Suguru refuses each time, only to steal bites every other minute anyway. Yuuji gives up and opts to just hold the crêpe in Suguru's way whenever he leans forward with intent. He's tried to get behind his student's antics on several occasions and isn't sure if the effort has brought any notable results apart from prolonged periods of confusion. 

Maybe Suguru is just too lazy to hold his own crêpe. Which, okay, Yuuji completely understands. 

They finally manage to lure Satoru away from the umpteenth food stall, convincing him that there's more to a city than just the sweets on its menu, and head for the underground shopping district. Yuuji buys exotic coffee beans to try out, while Satoru and Suguru rummage through nearby clothing stores. Yuuji laughs at the dress-up pictures they send him and reacts with appropriate gifs and tons of emojis. 

They reunite with Nanami, Haibara and Shouko in an eyeglasses shop around the corner—the latter is seen trying on several pairs of glasses that Haibara is pushing into his hands, each model being stranger than the last.  

Satoru storms off like an overeager puppy, never one to miss an opportunity to tease the first years. Suguru takes over his place at Yuuji's side and whistles softly. 

"You shouldn't have allowed him so many sweets," Suguru says. "Look at him. He's bouncing off the walls already."

Yuuji laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. He can hear Satoru's voice even from where they're standing outside the shop to avoid being crammed in, and sends a mental apology to the shopkeepers and anyone passing by. 

"Can you blame me? Today is his day, kind of." Yuuji thinks of the many puppy eyes he's been subjected to in the last two hours. His eyebrows furrow, suddenly self-reflective. "Hard to deny him anything."

"I think Satoru considers every day to be Satoru day," Suguru snorts.

Yuuji chuckles. "Fair point." He nudges Suguru's shoulder and smiles when Suguru nudges him back. "Why don't you join them?"

Suguru's eyes flicker back to the store. "I've already got a pair of sunglasses at home."

"And no need for another?"

"Not really."

Yuuji nods. "How many do you think Satoru has?"

"More than fifteen pairs, if I remember correctly," Suguru says, smiling at Yuuji's blank expression. "Half of them are the same model."

"Seriously?!"

"Yuuji-sensei!" Satoru shouts loudly, "What do you think?" He waves, points at his face, and strikes a frankly ridiculous pose that somehow still works to his advantage.

Satoru is wearing his sunglasses, the round ones with a curved bridge. Yuuji squints his eyes. It's the same pair Satoru usually wears, as far as he can tell. But Satoru asked, so something must be different, right? He looks to Suguru for help, who is busy scrolling through his phone, suddenly very invested in a conversation from three days ago. Haibara and Nanami are still in a heated discussion and even Shouko has magically disappeared.

Yuuji looks back at Satoru. And because he doesn't know what else to do, he sends the most enthusiastic thumbs up he can manage. Satoru beams back. More than satisfied with Yuuji's feedback, he clips the pair to the front of his shirt, pulls out and puts on his old pair that looks near identical, and skips towards Nanami.

Suguru leans towards him with a smug, "See?"

"You abandoned me," Yuuji pouts, tension slipping off him now that a crisis has been successfully averted. 

"Sorry, Sensei. You're fun to tease."

Yuuji would protest, but that would mean feeding into Suguru's evil amusement, so he resorts to stirring his pettiness in silence. A difficult thing to do when Suguru looks a little too smug for someone who has been magnanimously given a free victory. 

After they've scavenged the rest of the underground mall, Haibara drags them back to the surface to an arcade full of crane games. 

Yuuji and Shouko explore the plush selection first. He cheers her on when she manages to grab a pink jellyfish out of a sea of other cute animals, and scores a small boba plush of his own after spending way too much money on the game. A fact he'll conveniently ignore for the sake of his own conscience. They loop back to the entrance; Haibara is still there with Nanami, the latter scowling at the display full of cute animals. 

Nanami keeps reciting how this is a waste of money and that the machines are purposefully rigged—and keeps inserting coins into the machine anyway.

With Haibara's cheerful face right next to him, they make for a hilarious picture. 

Angry screams are heard from the other end of the arcade. 

It seems as if Satoru hasn't been able to win a single plush since entering the arcade—he looks like he's moments away from destroying his crane game on the spot, Six Eyes on full display.

Shouku is laughing so hard she can barely keep her phone straight as she takes pictures. 

He's not doing much better, but at least he tries not to be obvious about it. The murderous expression on Satoru's face as another plushie slips out of the crane's grasp makes the incredibly difficult task almost impossible, and Yuuji has to think of a few unpleasant scenarios to get his face back under something that at least resembles control. 

Satoru lets go of the machine, terrible, terrible intent written all over his face. 

It's times like these Yuuji is incredibly grateful that he's one of the few people Satoru reflexively keeps his Infinity off for, as it enables him to do things like shoving plushies straight into Satoru's face.

Satoru is trying to say something that sounds vaguely like I can't accept this. Yuuji keeps applying pressure until Satoru does, his entire face wiped clean of any anger as he pulls the tiny boba plush from his face. 

"You're welcome," Yuuji laughs.

By far the luckiest of them all is Suguru—he's gone for those crane games with a single giant plush inside, probably spurred on by Satoru at the start of their round. It's a cute tiger, strangely familiar with its pink fur and black stripes—Yuuji just can't quite place where he's seen it before, no matter how hard he tries. When the giant tiger plush suddenly drops from the ceiling of its large box, Suguru looks, for lack of a better word, absolutely flabbergasted. 

"Holy shit," Yuuji says, running over to him. "You got one of the big ones! I've never seen anyone win one before!"

Suguru carefully pulls it out.

"It's so cute!" Haibara says, poking at the tiger's larger-than-life button eyes. 

"You stole all my luck," Satoru grumbles, but it's without any real heat. He's still got the boba plush in a tight grip, stealing enthralled glances at it every now and then.  

"You must have saved a lot of animals in your past life," Shouko mumbles, but even she is impressed and leans forward to pat the tiger's ears. 

Suguru shrugs. "It's sheer luck," he says, but the growing smile on his face as he scruffs the tiger's by its neck speaks volumes. After giving the plush one of his curses, they head for one of the big shopping malls as their last stop, five out of six bodies hungry for something more substantial than pure sugar. 

They're on an escalator when Yuuji is struck by a moment of realisation. Time slows down, almost comes to a standstill, and he takes in the current situation with a sense of wonder: Shouko and Nanami wearing little smiles as they talk about the dinner they just had. Haibra occasionally commenting. Satoru and Suguru deep in discussion about watermelons. 

The blinding white interior of the mall, filtered air on his skin. Cold on the outside, a contrast to how warm his blood is running.

It's been a while since he's gone out like this. It's not that he doesn't enjoy shopping or going out once in a while, he just... never really gets the opportunity. There's always something to do, something more important coming first, and when responsibilities are taken care of, he likes to be in the comfort of his home at the end of the day. The only one who has pulled him away from his work, or dragged him out to do something with more meaning and fun, has been Nobara. 

(She's also pretty much the only person who could make a few hours shopping for a new wardrobe resemble a high-ranking mission).

He's missed this. His body is relaxed and he feels good, like, really good, despite the worrying amount of sugar in his body (courtesy of Satoru) and he makes a mental note to do this more often. Maybe he'll take one or more of his students with him, just like now—they all look happy, like kids meeting right after high school, and the thought brings a bittersweet tightening in his chest with it.

"That reminds me," Yuuji speaks up, shaking his head to get rid of spiralling thoughts. "Nobara's coming back."

"Who?" Satoru asks, not looking too interested. He's busy stuffing his mouth with the macaroons he theoretically bought for Yuuji a minute ago, two at a time. 

He looks like a chipmunk. Yuuji takes a quick picture and laughs at Satoru's wide-eyed expression staring back at him in high resolution. His phone was too expensive for his taste, but at least it takes good pictures. 

"Nobara," Yuuji repeats, wrinkling his nose. "Kugisaki. Hammer women. Wait, have I never told you about her?" 

"Nope," Satoru says, and dramatically clings to his arm as he whines, "Yuuji-sensei!!! Delete that!"

"What?"

"The picture!"

"Oh. Why?" 

"I look so weird!"

"Shush," Yuuji says. "You always look good. This one makes you more approachable and brings out your eyes—see?"

Yuuji tilts his phone to prove his point. Satoru abruptly stops complaining, even if Yuuji’s not sure if he really understood. 

Suguru mutters something under his breath, which Satoru elbows him hard for. Suguru gives him a nasty look, but decides to be the bigger person for once and not engage further. He circles around to Yuuji's free side when Yuuji pulls up a picture of Nobara on his phone next.

"You might have mentioned her once or twice," Suguru says over his shoulder, "but nothing substantial, I'm afraid."

Yuuji gulps. Nobara is going to kill him if she finds out he didn't tell his students a single thing about her. He makes a mental note to speed-educate his students later. 

"Let me think," Yuuji says, tipping his head back. "Nobara is my best friend. She graduated here with me and also went abroad, but much later." He grins. "It wasn't for a mission or anything in particular. She just wanted to travel. Hah—probably saw all the cool pictures I took and got jelly." 

"Is she like you? Will she become a teacher as well?" Shouko asks. 

Yuuji shrugs. "Nobara didn't say. But she'll definitely drop by Jujutsu High. I'll pick her up from the airport tomorrow."

"Can we come with?" Satoru asks immediately. 

Yuuji shakes his head. 

"Did you forget? You guys have an important mission tomorrow."

Suguru deflates a little and Satoru groans. "Urgh. Can't we skip it? Or let Nanami-chan do it?"

Yuuji flicks his forehead, "Nanamin is not your errand boy. And if you still want to graduate this year, I'm afraid the answer is no."

“Listen to Itadori-sensei,” Nanami sighs. 

"But I want to meet Yuuji-senpai's best friend," Satoru whines. "We don't really know much about what you did before you came here!"

Yuuji softens at Satoru's eager confession. 

"You'll still get to meet her, don't worry."

Yuuji's shoulders sag with relief as he winds up the stairs to his apartment.

He loves his students, really, and he needs a normal amount of social interactions to function, but after a day like this, he's glad to finally have some peace. No more bustling crowds, no more sugary treats, no more hands grabbing at his clothes. Just the comforting silence of his apartment.

(He really hadn't expected to be stuffed into what felt like ten different outfits—the whole ordeal was as fun as it was exhausting, and reminded him a lot of when Nobara once tried to put him into that one cat onesie. He refused, not because he didn't like it—she just had that look on her face that promised something utterly evil—and he has a sneaking suspicion that she bought it anyway for later use.) 

His sleepy trudge continues until he notices that the light in his apartment is on—not a concern just yet, he sometimes forgets simple things like that. God knows how many times he accidentally left the sink running. Still. Yuuji sobers up, just a little. He releases a warning pulse of cursed energy just to be on the safe side, and receives no echo in return. 

His carelessness, then. 

Yuuji exhales and lets the last bit of tension leave his body. He unlocks his door, drags himself inside and takes off his shoes, placing them next to his martial arts slippers.

He pauses for a moment; something stirs at the edge of his muddy mind as he glances down at his small collection of shoes. He can't recall buying a pair of martial arts slippers, but then again, he can't recall a whole lot right now. Maybe he bought them earlier—but he hasn't unpacked yet, his single bag still slung over his shoulder, and those shoes look suspiciously larger than his own—

"Miss me?" A deep voice croons into his ear. 

Yuuji's soul almost leaves his body. He whips around, arms raised—a very familiar, very pleased with himself person is casually leaning against the wall behind him.

"What the hell?"

An amused chuckle, "Can't tell if that's a yes or a no."

"Toji," Yuuji says, half laughing, half groaning. "What—what are you doing here?"

"Aww. And here I was hoping to scare you." Toji pouts, which Yuuji decides is a very ineffective facial expression on him.

Yuuji's heart is still beating like crazy, but at least he knows the source of light in his apartment is harmless now. For the most part, anyway. 

"You did scare me," he admits, turning around to rearrange all shoes into a neater display. "You're lucky I didn't blast you through half of Tokyo."

"Oh? Maybe I should try harder next time."

Yuuji rolls his eyes as he walks into his small living room. Toji leisurely strolls after him, having all the time in the world. 

"I dropped by yesterday."

"I'm usually at Jujutsu High," Yuuji explains. "I don't use my apartment very often."

He really doesn't, and he has no reason to go back anymore since Toji made a full recovery —today he's just beat and done, and his apartment was closer than the dorms. He also wanted to get the glowing sticker pack that's probably buried somewhere in the back corner of a drawer, but he's not going to say that out loud. 

Toji hums, a sound so deep it seems to resonate throughout the whole room. 

"Have you eaten yet?" Yuuji asks. 

"Nope," Toji says. "Not gonna ask me where I've been or what I've been up to?"

"Not really interested in that, if I'm being honest."

Toji barks out a short laugh at that. He plops down on the sofa in that self-assured, casual way of his that's become awfully familiar. 

He looks good, Yuuji admits to himself. Definitely healthy. Still sluggish, but deliberately this time around, not riddled with illness or bone-deep fatigue; a lazy panther who knows his prey. 

Noticing his stare, Toji flashes him a toothy grin. 

"See something you like?"

Yuuji turns away and laughs. Toji's been the cause of a lot of headaches, but if he's honest, he's also missed him. Toji is chaos with a not so healthy penchant for destruction, and just when Yuuji was getting used to the whirlwind he was, Toji took everything with him and disappeared from one night to the other. 

Not that Yuuji expected anything different. He may be an optimistic person, but he has learned when to be realistic, when to keep his expectations appropriately low. He's mildly surprised to find Toji back so soon; it's barely been a month since he left him a note. And Toji doesn't exactly strike him as the kind of guy who keeps people around, let alone visits them regularly. 

At least this encounter doesn't involve him dragging Toji back from the brink of death. Nevertheless, he checks Toji for any visible injuries and pulls his eyes away before Toji can make another teasing comment. 

Yuuji suppresses a wide yawn. "I'll order takeout then."

"And here I thought I was gonna get a homemade meal."

"Tomorrow." Yuuji groans. "It's, what, almost eleven? I've been out the whole day, kinda just wanna hit the bed."

Toji pats the space between his legs. "Hit the couch first, doll. Unless you plan on sharing your bed."

Yuuji's face heats up a little at the familiar nickname. "I thought it was yours?"

Toji perks up, "Is that a yes?"

Yuuji rolls his eyes. Instead of answering, he tosses the bags he's still carrying into a random corner and practically throws himself on Toji, squeezing all air out of his lungs. 

Toji, at the very least, does make for a decent pillow. 

It's around 10AM by the time Yuuji wakes up. Much later than he is used to, but he supposes it shows how much yesterday's trip really wore him out.

Sleeping without waking up is a rare occurrence for him. 

A quick wriggle of his body confirms that Toji is still there—of course he is, that man never gets up before Yuuji, no matter what time it is. Yuuji's strength is a saving grace when it comes to untangling himself from Toji's gorilla grip, and he carefully removes himself from the bed, shoving a substitute pillow into Toji's arms. 

He makes a quick breakfast for the two of them. Nothing fancy, just some fried rice, since he didn't have much in the kitchen to begin with. He might have to postpone grocery shopping though—he did promise Toji a proper meal yesterday, but he also forgot that he was picking up Nobara, and he doesn't want to try to explain Toji if he brings her around to his apartment. 

Yeah, he should bring her to the dorms first. 

(How is he supposed to explain something to other people that he himself doesn't really understand, anyway?)

Yuuji shovels some food into his mouth so his stomach won't be complaining, puts the rest on the table, and checks his phone at least two more times. He leaves a little note for Toji in the kitchen before grabbing his keys and wallet. 

"You headin’ out?" 

"Yup," Yuuji says in the middle of tying his shoes, and perhaps he should have waited before looking up, as he stumbles for no apparent reason when Toji comes into view.

Toji steadies him with a hand on his elbow, amused by Yuuji's early display of grace.

The contact leaves something warm behind as Toji retreats back to the doorway—he had enough mind to put on a shirt at least, something oversized Yuuji bought years ago that still stretches taught around chest and shoulders. 

"I'm picking up a friend from the airport," Yuuji explains, going back to tying his shoes. It takes him a few seconds to pick up where he left off. "I left you a note because I wasn't sure if you'd get up before I leave—I don't think I'll be coming back, for today at least, but you're welcome to stay here."

Toji crosses his arms as he leans against the door frame. "You trust me with your apartment?"

"I'm not usually here anyway," Yuuji says with a shrug. "And you're here already. Might as well use it. Just don't... wreck it?"

"How generous," Toji drawls. He says nothing for a while, his relaxed posture betraying the probing flicker of his eyes. "I have my own place."

Yuuji smiles cheekily. "Then why are you here? You're not injured, so is it beacuse you missed me?"

It was meant to be a joke, and he hopes it came out that way, too. He wouldn't allow himself the luxury of other options.

Toji looks at him as if he can't quite make out what species Yuuji is. Undeterred, Yuuji straightens up, dusting off his trousers and debating whether or not to bring a backpack. He'd have to go back inside his apartment for that, and he just put on his shoes. 

"Can I come with?" Toji has the uncanny ability of saying the same thing as his students, except that Toji's question is redundant since he's already squeezing himself into the hallway. 

The question was just a formal courtesy.

Yuuji squints at him, letting the idea run through his head a few times. "Is this a good idea, you at the airport?" It's a pretty public place, and he's not sure how safe it is for someone with Toji's profession. 

"Worried for me?" Toji wolfishly grins.

"Of course," Yuuji says, and that must surprise Toji even more than the offer of his apartment, because he doesn't immediately reply with something smart for once, his eyes widening from their constant half-lidded state.

Just as Yuuji's about to leave, Toji closes the distance between them with a couple of steps. Rough fingers curl under his chin, lifting it gently.  

Intrigued, Yuuji follows the movement. 

"Your concern is sweet, sunshine, but none of my jobs live to tell the tale," Toji says, his eyes methodically tracing Yuuji's face.  

"What about your contractors?"

"They value their own lives too much to try anything foolish." Toji's grip on him softens marginally. "There's no need to worry."

Yuuji huffs, not yet convinced. 

"That's easy for you to say. I worked my ass off to get you back on your feet and I'd rather not have to do that a second time."

"How cruel. Do you hate spending time with me that much?"

Even though Toji is obviously feigning hurt to get a reaction out of him, the part of Yuuji that's always searching, always longing, can't help but feel bad. "You know that's not what I mean."

"Come on," Toji says, walking Yuuji backwards against the wall near the door. "Have a little pity on me, sweetheart. Haven't seen you for so long and here you are, leaving me already."

"It's not even been a month," Yuuji deadpans, averting his eyes at the sight of Toji's smug little grin unfolding between them.  

Toji's presence is a mystical thing—completely void thanks to his lack of cursed energy, but absolutely impossible to ignore at other times. All depending on the man's whim. And right now he wants to be seen, wants to be acknowledged, his sheer presence more commanding than anything physical. It's overwhelming, crushing, almost, if Yuuji hadn't experienced the sheer intensity that was Sukuna. 

"That's a bit too long, don't you think?" Toji cocks his head. 

Yuuji resists the urge to hide his face in his hands. He knows he's burning up, not only from the outside. Normally, his composure isn't easily shaken, but Toji is a little different than the others and Yuuji really doesn't like how easily he gets under his skin. 

And how complacent he looks in the process. 

He raises his hands, ready to push Toji away—or squish both of his cheeks, whatever his body decides to do at the last millisecond—when the door suddenly flies open. 

Yuuji's and Toji's heads whip around at the same time.

"Oi, I'm back!" Nobara yells. "Where's my cute little fu...." She blinks, then breaks off. 

She squints her only visible eye at Yuuji and Toji, looking back and forth between them as if trying to solve a difficult equation using only the visual image provided. 

Yuuji breaks out into a large grin. 

"Oh my God, 'Bara!" He says. "You look great! I mean, of course you do, but you're right—that eyepatch really does suit you better in person!"

Nobara raises an eyebrow, letting go of her suitcase in favour of crossing her arms. 

Oh, right. 

Yuuji tries to push Toji away, who of course refuses to budge even one inch, too invested in the current development to give up his spot. "Uhhh, it’s great to see you Nobara, but what are you doing here already? You're supposed to land in two hours and I was supposed to pick you up—which isn't necessary now that you're… not at the airport?”

"Obviously I lied. I wanted to surprise you." Nobara's eyebrows rise to her hairline when Toji still doesn't move. "Am I... interrupting something?"

"Yes." Toji says the same moment Yuuji lets out a strained, "No!"

Yuuji groans. 

"Toji-san... could you please let me go?" He asks in the most polite tone he can muster at the moment.

Toji stares down at him, mirth dancing in his eyes. Muscles flex as he shifts weight to his other leg, but makes no attempt to move away. "I could, but I don't think I will."

Nobara's eyebrows climb up so high Yuuji thinks he could pluck them right off her.

"Nobara," Yuuji begins sweetly, "my best friend, the platonic love of my life." Nobara hums, pleased, and gestures him to continue. "I'll treat you to my best home-cooked dinner if you don't tell anyone about what's happening right now." 

He doesn't need to see Toji's face to know that he's grinning from ear to ear, far too pleased by the misery he's personally brought upon Yuuji. 

Nobara inspects her nails in a show of nonchalance. 

"Try a little harder, Yuuji-kun. I think whatever you have going on here is far more worth than just a single dinner. And I'm good at keeping secrets, but you know how I get after a couple of beer."

That's the exact opposite of being good at keeping secrets, Yuuji wants to cry out.

Instead, his shoulders slump in defeat. "How much do you want for your silence?"

"So I can bargain for your compliance?" Toji's scar brushes against his ear, and Yuuji tries his best not to punch him so hard that he breaks through the wall into an alternate universe where all the shirts he wears actually fit. 

Another time. Toji has expressed his interest in sparing him more than one occasion. If Toji continues being so difficult on purpose, Yuuji might actually take him up on the offer sooner than he expected.

"Dinner and dessert for a week," Nobara lilts sweetly. 

"Fuck," Yuuji says. "Fuck, okay, I'll do it. Please come in. Sorry, you must be tired and I just let you stand here the whole time—Toji, I swear to God, if you're gonna block the doorway next I'll send your ass flying. That's a threat. Stop looking so pleased about it!"

Chapter Text

"Wait, hold on a second. Let me put this together. Somehow."

Nobara debates whether or not to open her eye to take in the situation again, unsure if it'll just confuse her more now that she's got the whole story behind it. 

Burying her face in the nearest pillow seems like a better alternative. 

In the end, though, she takes a quick glance in their direction and immediately regrets it. Yuuji's latest acquisition isn't sitting on the couch with him—no, Fushiguro has opted to stand behind him, draped over the back of the couch (and thus half over Yuuji) as he stares her down with half-lidded eyes. 

The only thing that seems to be stopping him from resting his chin on Yuuji's head is his infuriating smirk, and that tells her all she needs to know about him. 

"This guy," Nobara points at him scathingly, "kills sorcerers for a living, tried to assassinate your students, partially succeeded, then you saved him because of course you did—why would you save the person who killed your students? That's a rhetorical question, idiot, of course I know why—and now he's living with you? And nobody knows about it?"

"We're not living together," Yuuji says, and loses another good chunk of her rapidly dwindling patience with that reply.

"That's the first thing you have to say in your defence?!"

Yuuji crosses his arms, on the verge of pouting. "What else was I supposed to say?"

Nobara politely does not point out how Fushiguro, despite his outward indifference, seems ready to strike her down the moment she even looks at Yuuji wrong. Acting like she's the threat when he's right fucking there. 

He looks very lived in, in Nobara's humble opinion. A guard dog who's gotten a little to big for his old home. 

Fushiguro opens his mouth only for Yuuji to raise his hand. "Don't. Offering you my apartment isn't the same as living together."

Fushiguro chuckles. "What else would you call it then?"

"An act of benevolence?"

The look Fushiguro gives the back of his pink head is nothing short of fond. 

Nobara sighs. She's been rubbing the bridge of her nose raw for the last five minutes or so—she'll get to the bone at some point if this continues. 

There are few options left to vent her frustration that don't involve someone's head and her hammer spending some quality time together. 

"I leave you alone for a few years and this is what happens," she laments to herself, tilting her head to stare at the ceiling. 

Nobara isn't sure what she expected when coming back—maybe Yuuji with his head stuck in a bowl of mango ice cream, wearing that favourite hoodie she bought him—or him passed out because her dazzling reappearance blinded him. Something goofy and very Yuuji.

It certainly wasn't this. 

Yuuji has the decency to at least look embarrassed about the whole ordeal, the gravity of the situation dawning on him now that he was forced to summarise it. "How was your trip?"

A very, very obvious change of subject, but Nobara has been dying to talk about herself.

"Wonderful," she says, sinking further into the armchair. The happy memories that bubble up at his prompt manage to quell some of her growing irritation. "Egypt was the best. And so many hot women, jeez. You have no idea." 

Yuuji smiles, genuinely happy for her. Nobara would pinch his cheek if he wasn't so far away and didn't have a certain someone nearby who would bite her finger off if she tried. 

And she isn't even talking about Sukuna this time. 

"That's good to hear. Wait," Yuuji stands up, almost knocking Fushiguro over in the process. "Let me make some tea before we talk any further. You two can get acquainted in the meantime."

And just like that, Yuuji loses all the points he's acquired in the last ten seconds by disappearing into the kitchen. 

His head pops back into the living room shortly afterwards, as if to make sure they didn't kill each other in the five seconds he left them alone—Nobara can be civil when she wants to be, thank you very much—before completely pissing off to brew his stupid tea, which he definitely couldn't brew at literally any other time. 

Nobara restrains herself from storming after him. 

So she stares, and gets stared at back. Like hell she is going to pretend to like being left alone with this guy. 

Not that she can look at Fushiguro for too long—not only because her desire to punch him increases proportionally with time, but also because it's headache inducing. 

She sees him, knows he's there, but the moment she takes her eyes off him, it's as if he's disappeared. The only proof of his presence is his physical existence, and it's still as though some of the visual information gets lost somewhere during the transmission. It's even more apparent without Yuuji's presence to distract her from it.

She's never encountered someone with a complete lack of cursed energy before. Despite that, this man feels more dangerous than most curses she's come across. It's deep in her gut, something primal at the back of her mind—instinct telling her to tread carefully. 

What an absolute pain in the ass. 

"So," Nobara says. 

"So,'" Fushiguro drawls, leaning forward. 

She does the same, elbows on her knees as she sizes him up. "If you even think about hurting him, I'll break every bone in your body."

Fushiguro raises an eyebrow. 

"I'm serious. And after that, I'll put nails through all your 200 or so joints. Capiche?"

If she didn't know better, she'd say he looks amused. That's cute and all, but right now Nobara needs him to feel a normal amount of very threatened. 

"I haven't done anything and I'm getting the shovel talk already?" 

"What makes you think it's shovel talk?" She quips back.

He shrugs half-heartedly. 

"Please," she says, rolling her eye. "As if you haven't been breathing down his neck the past five minutes. Quite literally, might I add."

Fushiguro regards her with a small grin. "He's cute when he's flustered."

Nobara can't disagree. 

"Besides," he adds, looking bored again, "he knows how to handle himself."

Remembering the scene she stumbled into, her mouth flattens into a thin line.

She doesn't trust Fushiguro one bit. He's got trouble written all over him in bold red letters. But she trusts Yuuji, and he apparently invited Fushiguro here, so she'll have to extend the bare minimum of trust to him, at least for a little while.

Yuuji has always been soft in that regard. He can level an entire building with his bare hands, but he's a healer at heart—not just on paper. He's the kind of guy who rescues kittens from trees and guides ducklings across the street, not realising that he's like a lost puppy himself. Always in need of company, someone to take his hand and give his busy mind a sense of direction. Over the course of their lives together, Nobara has met plenty of people who tried taking advantage of that. 

They're cautious when meeting Yuuji, because they notice his scars and broad shoulders first. But when their wariness fades and their attention is drawn to his smiles, and they realise those come from an honest place, that caution turns into a well of greed. 

Yuuji knows that, has gotten a lot better at recognising and dealing with it, but often he still gives people the benefit of the doubt, no matter the feeling in his gut. Gives a little too much of himself, waving it off when Nobara scolds him about it. 

They need it more than I do, he'd say. And I can afford to expend it, so why not?  

It's very frustrating, but that's the essence of him. 

Yuuji has always, always been a little too good for the world—more than anyone deserves, really, except maybe Nobara herself. If he stubbornly insists on giving away parts of himself, the least she can do is keep people and their stinky little fingers away from him. 

She's taken her role as his best friend very seriously from the moment she adapted it. 

It's part of the reason why she hesitated to let him go on his own when he first talked about having to go abroad. God knows how much happened out there that he didn't tell her about without Nobara present to do damage control. 

Shitty Exhibit A right in front of her proves to be a good example of that. 

"That idiot better does," she mumbles, just loud enough for Fushiguro to hear. 

Because if Yuuji doesn't take care of himself, she will. And her definition of kicking someone's ass is vastly different from Yuuji's.

Fushiguro laughs, a sound more akin to a short bark than anything else. 

Now that they've completed their superficial assessment of each other, he plops down properly on the couch. With his legs generously spread, he takes up so much space that Yuuji will have to squeeze himself into his former place, if he fits at all.

Which is probably the plan. 

And, alright. Nobara has to lose her other eye to not notice how physically attractive this guy is—he's hotter than he has any right to be, really, even if he obviously compensates for it with a terrible personality. Fushiguro exudes the arrogance of a seasoned warrior, and combined with his absolutely shameless behaviour, he does make for a pretty effective combo against Yuuji. 

Fushiguro props his chin on the back of his hand, vaguely amused as he says, "Tell me about the women in Egypt."

Well. Yuuji could have picked worse. Probably. 

She smiles in spite of herself. "Oh, gladly." 

Fuzzy socks shielding her from the cold tiles, Nobara taps into the kitchen. She's already seen the soft light pouring into the living room—Yuuji's still up at this godforsaken hour, which isn't much of a surprise. 

She doesn't have as many things keeping her awake as Yuuji, but some nights hit harder than others. It's a bitter sort of comfort to see that he's still awake, too.

He's nursing a glass of water in his hand, deep in thought, brows set into a firm line. The solemn expression on his face is softened by the pyjamas he's wearing—covered in a pattern of third-generation starter Pokémon. 

A flash of memories: the warmth of spring. The bumping of shoulders as he excitedly showed her his screen during a school break, asking about the strange colour of a Pokémon he had just caught. The literal sparkles in his eyes when she told him, and the pride that swelled her chest at his wonder. 

Nobara feels her mouth curve into a smile, despite her growing desire to faceplant into the floor if it meant passing out to get some rest. 

He hasn't noticed her yet, too caught up in whatever is keeping him awake at this hour. Now that the loud excitement of the day is over and night has settled around them, the passage of time becomes more apparent—the new scars littering his face, his slightly longer hair, the broad frame of his shoulders he finally grew into. 

The differences aren't big, but perhaps it would have been easier if they were. Big changes are drastic by nature, but they draw clear lines. The Yuuji hovering above the kitchen sink is similar to the one in her memories, yet just different enough to stop her in her tracks, struck by a rare moment of hesitation. 

It's been a long time since they've seen each other face to face, and the proof laid out before her aches. Just a little; distant pinpricks across her ribcage. 

It doesn't entirely stop Nobara from approaching him. She hugs him from behind, slowly, wrapping her sluggish arms around his waist. 

Yuuji stiffens for a split second. He tilts his head towards her, a light, easy smile playing on his lips as he finds her smaller form pressed against him. 

"Hi," Yuuji whispers. 

"Hi," Nobara whispers back.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Nobara makes a sound into his back, too tired to pretend otherwise. 

A little louder Yuuji asks, "Want some hot chocolate?"

Nobara groans in affirmation. She gives him a grateful squeeze. "I swear. You're the only man in this godforsaken world I'd marry."

Yuuji laughs. She's pretty sure that's what sunshine would sound like, if it was caught and bottled. 

Cupboards clink open. 

She follows his movements, staying glued to his back as he rummages around the kitchen. She's most likely a big inconvenience like this, but Yuuji doesn't complain, never does, just moves slowly so that she can follow him, heavy legs dragging along the floor.  

Because Nobara is still half delirious with sleep, she mumbles, "I missed you", and leans her head more comfortably against his back. He's warm and solid beneath her. He's also emitting subtle waves of cursed energy—she can't tell if he's doing it consciously or not, but they cradle her, putting her mind at ease. 

She sighs deeply, allowing this comfort to carry her away into a lighter headspace. 

"Mhhh. I missed you too."

"How are you?"

At first she thinks he didn't hear her, the way she's basically talking into his shirt. Nobara is drifting half to unconsciousness when Yuuji says, "I'm doing good, honestly."

"Good?" Nobara's instantly more awake. She lifts her head from his back, trying and failing to look over his shoulder. "You'd better not give me any bullshit. You've been isolating yourself for five years—you, Itadori Yuuji. Mr. I-need-a-head-pat-every-morning-or-I-slowly-perish."

"Oh, c'mon. You make it sound worse than it is."

It's easy to sneak a hand under his shirt to pinch his sides. Yuuji makes a funny sound in the back of his throat, hastily batting her hands away.

"Alright, alright. Maybe you do have a point," he says, "a very small one," and turns around to remove the rest of her limbs. 

Nobara's frowns, displeased that she has to let him go, but it's quickly soothed by the mug of hot chocolate pushed into her hands. 

It's perfect, like always, with a hint of cinnamon shining through—of course Yuuji hasn't forgotten. 

They sit down at the small table, Nobara sprawling herself across two seats.  

"I'm doing okay, really," Yuuji reiterates at Nobara's sceptical gaze, "I mean it. It's been tough, not gonna lie, but... I'm surviving. It's more than I expected."

He blinks. "Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound so depressing."

There's a truth to it that hits like a blade between two ribs. Nobara reaches across the table to give his hand a quick squeeze, hoping it conveys what she can't put into words. 

Yuuji squeezes back, eyes crinkling into little half-moons. "How about you?"

"Doing okay," Nobara says, not wanting to sound like a hypocrite. "It's good to be back, but I'll probably hit a bit of a low in the next few days. Coming back from abroad and all."

"I get that," Yuuji says, taking his hand back. "Good thing you have me as your personal chef to lift your spirits."

Nobara smiles into her cup. "Good thing indeed." 

"Any plans for tomorrow?" Yuuji asks. 

"Aside from sleeping in? No, not yet."

"Wanna come to Jujutsu High? I really want you to meet my students."

Yuuji has spoken plenty about his new job since he got it a few months ago, but not as much as she would have liked. Partially because Nobara couldn't be bothered to look at her phone too much while on vacation, partially because Yuuji has become a bit more reserved with his texting habits over the years.

Not a bad development per se, it just took some time getting used to.

They had video calls scheduled every two weeks, though. Nobara already has a fairly accurate picture of Gojou, Getou and Ieiri in her head. And because she is fluent in Yuuji and knows what really happened versus how he actually describes things, she has one or two suspicions. 

Nobara pretends to think about it for a while, just to have him squirm a little. "Fine by me. Did you tell them I was coming?"

"Of course!" Yuuji puffs out his chest, "They even wanted to pick you up at the airport with me, but they already had a mission lined up. Haunted house in Akihabara. Looking back, I'm kind of glad about that."

"You mean your students wouldn't appreciate the sight of their almost murderer pinning their beloved Sensei to the wall?"

Nobara's sure that if Yuuji took a sip of his water right now, he'd spit it all over the place. Without it, he's just choking a little on thin air. 

"Nobara," Yuuji sputters. He leans back in his seat once he survived the coughing attack, looking vaguely betrayed. "You're supposed to forget that, remember?"

Nobara raises a finger. "Nuh-uh. I was supposed to not talk about it with anyone, which is different from forgetting." 

"That anyone includes me, too."

"You didn't specify."

"I should have just made a binding vow," Yuuji sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I guess that's my fault."

"It totally is," Nobara agrees without blinking. "What about the big guy?"

"Big guy?"

She makes a rude gesture towards the bedroom. "Fushiguro."

"Oh," Yuuji says, as if he conveniently forgot that he's sharing the same fucking bed with him, leaving her to sleep on the couch. 

In Yuuji's defence, he did try to give her the bed, but Fushiguro blatantly refused to give up his own spot like the asshole he is. She's most certainly not going to sleep in the same room as him—she'll take a little back pain from Yuuji's shitty couch any day. 

Besides, he can fix her up easily. Maybe even give her a little massage while he's at it. Nobara is very good at walking the fine line between convincing and guilt tripping someone. 

"I don't know. He'll either stay or leave tomorrow. I'm moving back into the dorms, remember? Which reminds me—you still have some of your clothes here from last time. Don't worry, I already washed all of them." Yuuji blinks. He presses his glass to his cheek, cooling one side of his face. "That was years ago, though. I should probably do it again."

"The pile with the blue skirt?"

"Yup."

"Oi, what the hell. I've been looking for that for ages."

"Not my fault you left it here. I would have sent it after you, but that's a bit expensive."

"I would have paid. Did you try it on at least?"

Yuuji lifts his head in confusion. "What—why would I do that? They're your clothes."

"Ugh, forget it," Nobara sniffs. She drowns some of Yuuji's lack of awareness with hot chocolate down her throat. "Is it a good idea to let Fushiguro stay here?"

Yuuji nods, a jerky movement, but confident nonetheless. 

"I've always left Toji to his own devices, even when I took care of him. He... kinda reminds me of a cat, you know?"

"If the cat was fucking huge and feral, maybe."

Yuuji nods, not picking up on the sarcasm dripping from her comment. "I'd invite him to train with us, but that's obviously not a good idea. Even if Satoru and Suguru could learn a lot from him. Satoru's centre of balance is still off, though that's probably because he's still growing."

"Isn't he 18 already?"

"17," Yuuji corrects swiftly. "Yeah. But you'll know what I mean when you see him. Kid's a whole bamboo sprout, I tell you."

Nobara wrinkles her nose. "Whatever. I don't know what you see in Fushiguro—that guy is a damned freeloader if I've ever seen one."

"I like how you didn't even ask if he was paying me," Yuuji chuckles. 

He switches his glass to the other side of his face, eyelashes fluttering shut. Nobara would offer to tell him to get a cool pack, but then remembers that it's practically impossible for him to fall ill. 

"Please, have you seen that guy? The way he sits on your couch? The way he denied a fine lady her proper resting place after a gruelling ten-hour flight? He not only looks the part, he is the part," Nobara stresses. 

"I won't deny that," Yuuji says, the little smile on his face far too fond considering they've just mutually established that Fushiguro is an absolutely lazy bum. "But I just feel like having him here is better than having him somewhere else? If that makes sense?" Yuuji scratches the back of his head. "I guess I just got used to having him around."

Nobara narrows her eyes. They're closer than she thought, if Yuuji openly admits to feeling that way. Not that he's afraid of doing so—Yuuji makes friends easily, but she knows how much harder it has become for him to open up to someone beyond pleasantries. 

Even if said pleasantries go further than what most people would do for their friends. 

She was right to give Fushiguro the shovel talk. And she'll have to keep an even closer eye on Yuuji from now on, especially if Fushiguro plans on sticking around. 

If Yuuji picked up that guy, what else has he been up to? Yuuji is an eager little thing, loves to poke his nose into everyone's business, and people can't stay mad at him for long because his intentions are purer than most. 

"Do you ever plan to tell your students?" Nobara asks.

"Yes. I don't like lying, you know. I mostly avoid telling them anything as of now—but I will. Promise."

"I hope so. You know how it goes when you drag out the truth."

He salutes earnestly. "Yes, sir!"

Nobara cracks a smile. She leans forward to ruffle his hair, unable to resist the temptation any longer. "Good to see you retained your manners."

"I've always been a good boy," Yuuji grins, a charming flush on his cheeks. 

And despite his rougher appearance, it's the same boyish grin he gave her when Yaga first introduced them. 

Honest, compassionate, with just a tinge of genuine shyness.  

"The best," Nobara agrees easily. 

She gulps down the rest of her hot chocolate. Yuuji doesn't want to go to bed yet, feels a bit under the weather, he tells her—so she takes that as a cue to leave him alone.

"Nobara?" He asks when she's halfway through the door frame, "I just thought of something. Can I ask you for another favour?"

The observations Nobara makes are, in no particular order: There's no way Gojou's hair is natural, it's way too hot for August, what the hell is Getou hiding in those big-ass pants of his, she really needs a cigarette, and Yuuji is fucking hopeless. 

How he managed to get a bunch of fools falling head over heels for him while she's actively trying to find someone is beyond her comprehension. 

Worst of all, she can't even blame them. 

"I assume Yuuji has already told you plenty about me," Nobara says, clapping her hands. "But I don't care about that. What's your first impression of me?"

"Nobara," Yuuji says with a warning undertone. 

He looks tired, more tired than this morning, probably because he didn't appreciate her putting him in something that wasn't his comforting hoodies, but hey. Now that she's back, she won't allow him to slack off anymore. 

The fact that his students are trying hard not to ogle his bare arms tells him she did a fantastic job. Yuuji should consider himself lucky to have her, really. 

"Nono, let me do this. I need to get a good grasp on them."

"And we're supposed to do that by giving you our first impression?"

"Getou, was it?" Nobara says, and Getou nods. "You go first."

He takes a very long time thinking of something that will neither offend nor bore her. "Your approach is interesting," is all he ends up saying, and Nobara huffs.

"Boring. Next one!"

Gojou raises his hand. "Is the eyepatch necessary or purely aesthetic?"

"Both. Next one!" Nobara says before he can open his mouth again.

Ieiri regards her for a moment. "You seem cool enough."

Nobara smiles and pushes the other two away to get closer to her. She pulls her into a light side hug. "Shouko-chan, was it? Is it hard sharing the same classes with these two idiots?"

"Hey—"

"What's your opinion on boba milk tea and going shopping?"

Shouko blinks. "I love boba. Shopping is okay, I think."

Perfect. Nobara can absolutely work with that. "You're the best of everyone here, I can already tell."

"You say that because she was the only one to give you a compliment," Yuuji sighs, clearly not impressed with her method of evaluation. 

"So?" Nobara sticks her tongue out at him. "That's a perfectly valid way to size someone up."

Gojou mutters something under his breath, but Nobara catches it. She lets go of Shouko and slowly turns to him with a very friendly smile on her face. 

"Care to repeat that, Gojou?"

She's heard everything about him. If not from Yuuji, then from everyone else in the sorcerer world—the Gojou fucking S-class kid. Limitless technique and Six Eyes, both crammed into a scrawny, gangly teenager with a built-in superiority complex. 

"Sensei," Gojou cries out, disappearing behind Yuuji. "She's scary. What kind of friends do you have?"

Yuuji doesn't see it, but Gojou's face doesn't match his scared tone at all—in fact, he looks very happy clinging to Yuuji's (bare) shoulders. 

Sly little bastard. Nobara takes out her hammer. 

"Alright, alright," Yuuji says, raising his hands with the expression of someone who may or may not be regretting his life choices. "Nobara, please go easy on my students. And Gojou-kun, please don't provoke her unnecessarily. You really don't want to get on her bad side."

“He speaks from experience,” Nobara cheerfully adds. 

Gojou grumbles but gives in when Yuuji pats him on the shoulder, pushing him forward again. 

Nobara flashes him a triumphant smirk. "Now that that's out of the way—any more questions before we start?"

Shouko tilts her head. "Are you going to be a teacher too?"

Nobara grins, feeling the weight of her hammer in her hands. "Maybe. It depends on how much fun tormenting you is."

"I'll go over everything one last time. All you have to do is run and try to disarm me." 

Nobara raises her hammer demonstratively, making sure all eyes are either on her or her favourite weapon.

"We can't attack you?" Getou asks. 

"You're welcome to try, but you'll have other worries.

"The nails I throw resonate when in proximity of a target. The ensuing explosion disrupts the cursed energy flow of anyone hit, making it hard for them to use their cursed technique. Since you've been training under Yuuji, you probably won't have it as bad, but you'll still be disoriented. Better not risk anything, right?"

"And what's the point of all this?" 

Nobara grins. "To survive, of course."

An hour later, everyone is sprawled on the ground, minus Nobara and Yuuji. She leaves Shouko and Gojou to him, knowing they'll be in good hands, and makes her way to the other side of the training field. 

"You're not dead yet, are you?"

"Barely alive," Getou mumbles from where he faceplanted into the grass. 

"Here," Nobara throws him a water bottle, "can't have you passing out on me. Hydration is important, ya know?"

She's disappointed to see him sit up just in time to catch it mid-air. She would have liked to see it hit him square in the back of his head. 

"Thanks," he says, not sounding overly grateful. 

She plops down beside him, groaning at the subtle ache in her muscles. The kids are good—they still need some work, obviously, or they wouldn't be here, but she can see why they've got the whole we're the strongest thing going for them. Especially Gojou's cursed technique is downright broken if he didn't turn half of it off during training.

That being said, Nobara quite enjoyed trying to make a pincushion out of him.

When the day comes when he has to fight without his cursed technique, he'll remember today's lesson and thank her on his knees. 

Nobara is impressed by Getou for another reason—curse manipulation is a fascinating ability, and it's clear that not only did Yuuji teach him well, but Getou also listened. He didn't manage to get as close to her as Gojou did, but he was the only one who was relatively unaffected by her technique, able to dispel the effects by manipulating his own cursed energy in response.

Drinking from her own bottle, it only takes a moment before she can literally feel his eyes boring into the side of her head. Nobara gives him another minute before she speaks, her patience still stretched thin after yesterday's fiasco.

"Just ask already, kid."

"What's your relationship with Itadori-sensei?"

Straight to the point—not bad, not bad at all. 

"You're cute. And lucky that Yuuji is so oblivious."

Getou chuckles, a lackadaisical sound in comparison to the assured expression he wore before. "I think he's aware of how Satoru sees him."

"True. But Yuuji thinks it's something that'll pass with time. Is it something that will pass with time?" She asks, emphasising her question by turning towards him. 

Getou shrugs. "Haven't seen Satoru this worked up before. So for the near future at least, no."

"Is he aware of how you see him?"

Getou looks startled until he exhales through his nose. He pulls his knees up to rest his arms loosely on them, tilting his head upwards.

"Am I that obvious? Ah, please don't answer that question. I'm getting a sense of déjà vu." 

Nobara chuckles. "Kid, you don't know how many heart eyes Yuuji has gotten in the years we've known each other."

If not for her, Yuuji would probably have been kidnapped even before he entered Jujutsu High. Not that they'd known each other before that, apart from the whole Sukuna incident, but she likes to think that her presence has that much influence on someone. 

"I can imagine," Getou says.

She moves closer, mindful to still keep a respectable distance between them.

"Alright, listen. If you want to have any chance at all," she points at Gojou, who apparently wasn't as exhausted as he seemed and convinced Yuuji to wrestle with him, both of them rolling over the ground, "you gotta be a little more like your friend. Just less... "

"Desperate?" Getou offers and Nobara breaks out into a grin, wondering why she even bothered to find something less offensive. 

She taps the side of her head. "Yes. You have the brain, I know that much now, but not the… Hm. Let's call it conviction until I have a better word."

Getou snorts loudly, teeth flashing from behind his hand. 

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Getou says, still smiling as he raises and shakes his head. "Itadori-sensei said something similar to me a while ago. Maybe he was right."

Nobara scoffs. "Even if he wasn't right—I know I am. I am always right. Now give me your phone."

Yuuji told her to play nice, so she won't tease him about his home screen background just yet. She hands the phone back to him after punching in her contact number. 

"Text me if you need any input, yeah? You look like the type to overthink it, so don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. Yuuji's a simple guy at heart. Easy to please." She flashes him a wink. "I know a thing or two about him that you could use to your advantage."

"You really do, don't you?"

His casual posture hides it well, but Nobara notices the edge of sharpness he's unable to keep out of his words. She waves him off, "Don't worry about me, kid. I'm as gay as you can fucking get."

He studies her for a few seconds, then nods, seemingly satisfied. 

After a few more seconds, Nobara adds, "If I don't find someone in the next five years, I'm going to make him my house husband, though."

"—Excuse me?"

Chapter Text

"Yuuji," Nobara says, "you okay?"

Yuuji pauses to let the question sink in. Black lines spill together into an unrecognisable mess. He's read the same page about three times now without actually making sense of it, too distracted by the constant rumbling inside his skull.

He's pretty sure Nobara's been having a one-sided conversation with him for the past five minutes, which is why he's currently subject to her probing gaze.

Yuuji is obviously not okay—but that's so far out of the realm of possibility that admitting it feels surreal. 

He straightens from where he was hunched over his stack of mission reports, spine audibly cracking. He sends her a smile, hoping it doesn't split at the seams. Nobara graciously offered to help him with the paperwork that has piled up over the past week. She takes pity on him like that sometimes; she used to do it with his schoolwork too. He'd hate not to pull his own weight, even if he'd already promised her a dozen shopping trips. 

"Just the lack of sleep. Don't worry about it."

He's not exactly lying. 

She shoots him another sceptical look, but goes back to reading when Yuuji presses a few fingertips against his temple. 

Cursed energy paints his table in an eerie midnight glow.

Yuuji knew days beforehand something wasn't quite right.

Looking back, he shouldn't have ignored it, but he had written off the first symptoms as strange occurrences. The equivalent of little scratches on your skin that you can't remember getting. 

Annoying, but ultimately harmless. Hardly worth mentioning.

(It was nice to have a muscle ache for once—he never wakes up with those anymore, used to running a reverse cursed technique through his body. Once in the morning, once in the evening.

There were other signs. A higher body temperature, more restless nights than usual, a certain awareness creeping into the back of his mind he kept pushing away in favour of concentrating on the task at hand. 

It's an insidious disease, what's put him in his current state.

One of his own making.)

Right now, Yuuji feels more like a live wire than anything human. He's turned inside out, nerves raw and exposed. Every brush of clothes and blanket over bare skin leaves a thin trail of pain in its wake. His grasp on his cursed energy is faint at best, plumes of blue smoke escaping him at random intervals. 

It takes everything to uncurl from where he pulled all limbs into himself. Yuuji groans quietly at how much effort the movement alone takes and blindly reaches for his phone. 

He shudders when his fingertips meet the cold metal surface. 

Yuuji: sorry, gotta cancel our training session today

He doesn't expect an immediate reply from Shouko—it's barely 7 AM. Suguru is usually the only one awake at this time, and he's busy monitoring Haibara and Nanami for an overnight mission in Kyoto. A deity that should be handled by the Kyoto students there, but Yuuji was told they're all busy with something else. Typical of Gakuganji.

Choco: oh, sure

Choco: everything alright? 

Yuuji stares at the screen, the irony of the situation dawning on him. 

Yuuji: something came up, sorry :( raincheck for next time?

Choco: it's fine, i'll practise on my own

Choco: i'll hang out with nobara-sensei today then

Yuuji smiles at Shouko's answer. He was worried whether his students would be able to handle the force of nature that is Nobara—she comes off quite strong—but they've all taken to her well. It's heartwarming to see them getting along, if you exclude Nobara's and Satoru's constant bickering.

Yuuji: she's not an actual teacher you know

Choco: yet.

Choco: that's what she keeps telling me, too :)

It's at this point that his vision starts to blur again, so he ends the conversation on his side with a quick thumbs up emote.

Throwing his phone somewhere on the bed, he curls back into himself in an attempt to centre the pain. 

He hasn't been sick in years, and he can only remember one instance when he felt this miserable. Physically at least. He's already run a reverse cursed technique through his body with the few bits of his cursed energy that don't fluctuate like agitated bolts of lightning, but he does it again, meticulously going through every inch of his body.

Only to find the same result staring back at him with the same dead eyes. Outwardly, there is nothing wrong with him. He should be in top condition; he's looked into every nook and cranny of himself to find the source of his current predicament. 

Which means there's only one explanation—dread settles heavy in his stomach. 

(Bodies at the bottom of a lake.)

Yuuji closes his eyes, relaxes as best as he can. Leans back and lets the black space of his subconscious draw him in.

He falls, endlessly, until he doesn't, body firmly secured by hard surfaces materialising around him. 

"You're messing with my body," Yuuji says.

He opens his eyes to look down at Sukuna.

(It's been well over a year since their positions have been reversed, and the sight still puts him on edge. Yuuji thought it would settle over time, but the restlessness never quite left—a steady companion when dealing with Sukuna, courtesy of the curse's volatile, conceited nature. Always the eye of the storm.

Yuuji hates Sukuna for it. It's he who holds the reins of his fate, Sukuna cowering at the foot of his own throne, and yet Sukuna still manages to maintain an unmistakable impression of control.

What does it take to topple him once and for all?)

Sukuna leans back against the pedestal. 

"A bold accusation," he drawls, unblinking as he gazes into the infinite depths of his ribcage domain.

Yuuji clutches the chain in his hand. "I'm in no mood to play any of your games," he growls. 

He'd drag Sukuna onto his knees, if he didn't feel like collapsing the second he exerted any kind of force. 

Sukuna remains unfazed. He spares a single glance over his shoulder at Yuuji, amused by his internal struggles.  

"You're spending too much time with the other brats," he says offhandedly, turning away again as if he couldn't be bothered for more than a second. "You took in a stray, too. I hope these aren't feeble attempts to quell the guilt you still carry with." 

"That's none of your concern." 

"Oh, I'd argue it is."

Sukuna rises from his seated position. He cannot stand above Yuuji, but the way he turns to kneel before him is anything but obedient. 

A mocking display of deference. 

The answer to Yuuji's next question is laid out before them—a dark, ugly thing entwining their souls. Yuuji spits out a short laugh that rattles his chest. He leans forward, coughs until the sound is gone and the pain worse than before. 

"Look," Yuuji rasps, falling back against the throne. "I feel like shit. Fix whatever's wrong with me and I'll leave you alone."

"The special grade healer cannot do it himself?"

"Sukuna," Yuuji hisses. 

A grin splits Sukuna's face. Fingers speciously curl around Yuuji's knee. 

"That is my name," Sukuna hums, full of cruel delight. "You know what to do."

(An old dance. Yuuji couldn't always put himself together as easily as he does now, and he used to spend most of his time travelling and doing missions on his own. 

Paying the price felt like a betrayal of his own vows and the promise he had made—it never got any easier, only made bearable by the sheer notion that it had to be done. That there was no other way.

Sukuna would smile, sharp and knowing.)

Yuuji lets go of the chain around his hand. It falls with a series of heavy clangs, breaking when the last link hits the ground. Before him, Sukuna's silhouette grows to that of a looming monster. 

It's easy for him to lift Yuuji's chin from his new position, mirthful fire dancing in his eyes. 

"There you are," Sukuna croons. 

His smile is a thing of pure malice, void of any light. "Isn't this better? To relinquish control?"

"Is it relinquishing if you force me to?" Yuuji mumbles, his own eyes averted.

He can't bear looking at Sukuna like that—So full of himself. Victorious, crowing, the evident satisfaction of someone who spends most of his time waiting. 

"You're the one who did this to yourself," Sukuna calmly says. He lets go of Yuuji, but doesn't give him any space to breathe. "This control was never yours to begin with. Now, rise."

As soon as Sukuna has reclaimed his rightful position on the throne, Yuuji is pulled close enough for sharp teeth to graze his ear. 

"You made a choice," Sukuna murmurs, his claws lovingly dragging down Yuuji's cheek, " back then, and now. Do not try to misplace your blame."

When Sukuna gained access to Yuuji's memory, it was a bilateral process. But unlike his own, Sukuna's past was a slow and meticulous unravelling—occasionally, Yuuji would get glimpses of it; random, flashy visuals without context. Lightning in the distance. Shutters of a camera. Gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Yuuji dizzy and with a single puzzle piece to unravel the secrets of the whole world. 

Yuuji expected cruelty—but nothing he put together gave any indication of how Sukuna turned from ordinary human into King of Curses. It was not for lack of love—he had a doting family, an older sibling, too. No atrocities took place besides the general harshness of life; he never wanted for anything.

Except the abysmal hunger for power. 

The desire to claim, conquer, destroy. To lay waste to all who dare oppose you, for if you don't, someone else might. 

Perhaps it's for this reason that sorcerers fear Sukuna's name even to this day—because he's not motivated by anything else. Everything he does is out of his own lack of morals and lust for carnage; it's no greater than that. It comes from the darkness in his soul which he coveted, moulded and given form by a single-minded pursuit of devastation and all the forms it could possibly take. 

Sukuna simply learned, and wasn't afraid to push his limits further than anyone else. 

(Sacrifices were made and required.) 

Perhaps it lacks depth, but it mattered little during the time the whole world bowed to Sukuna's whims. 

Strength above all things. 

"This isn't the first time it happened," Yuuji mumbles tiredly, head lolling against Sukuna's chest.

He can't remember what other reverse cursed techniques feel like since becoming capable of taking care of himself, but he's pretty sure none of them felt this cold. Sukuna's cursed energy flowing through his system is reminiscent of a glacier. The slow trickle of melting ice, pushing forward one inch at a time.

(A vision of Sukuna in a sea of flames. Red claws reaching into the sky, trying to bring heaven closer to hell—nobody left but an echo of screams, embers and smoke. Bile at the back of Yuuji's throat as he sinks deeper into the shadows with no way out.

Hands reaching for him, only to push him deeper.)

Sukuna hums placidly. 

Yuuji peers upwards. Sukuna's lower pair of eyes stares back at him, always, even when his main pair is focused elsewhere. 

"Why... have you been healing me?"

Why stop now? 

Sukuna shrugs. He inspects the pieces of his broken collar still clinging to his throat, obsidian claws scraping against obsidian. It's a deliberate action, right before Yuuji's eyes. 

"It matters little whether I delay or summon the inevitable. You are mine, one way or another. Consider it a token of my generosity—that I allowed you some play time with your pets."

"They're my friends," Yuuji hisses.

Sukuna lets go of the chain and laughs darkly.

"Certainly they are."

His other hands resume the methodical carding through Yuuji's hair. Reverse cursed energy keeps pouring into Yuuji, slowly easing the pain, one layer at a time. A juxtaposition to the dark curve of Sukuna's mouth as he watches Yuuji become more and more pliant in his lap. 

"How does it feel, brat? Knowing all your hard work is for naught?" 

Yuuji glares at him.

"We are tethered by fate. It's foolish of you to deny me any longer. Your soul knows it, your body knows it." Sukuna lays a hand on top of Yuuji's legs. He doesn't need to exert violence for the gesture to be threatening, not anymore. "Look at the state you've reduced yourself to. A pitiful sight, my Vessel makes." 

"Shut up. Just do what you're supposed to do—my headache is still killing me."

"Ungrateful," Sukuna tuts, surprisingly without any bite. 

It's accompanied by an even colder breeze through Yuuji's body, cradling the fluttering cage of his heart. Yuuji suppresses a soft whimper—the relief is nearly instant, but he can't help the way he gradually becomes boneless in the false sense of security Sukuna lulls him into. 

Yuuji knows.

Sukuna's chuckle resonates through his chest and throughout his entire domain. The hand in Yuuji's hair moves lower, fingertips ghosting over fluttering eyelashes. A thumb brushes the scar on Yuuji's forehead, then the one on his mouth. 

The touch in itself is disarmingly warm. 

"This suits you best," Sukuna murmurs, and the tone of his voice could almost be mistaken for something tender, "The look of sorrow and grief. The realisation that you are powerless on your own, that no matter your efforts—no one will come to save you."

Yuuji blinks at him wearily. "Because no one tried saving you?"

The comment earns him a sharp grip on his jaw. 

"I do not need saving," Sukuna says. "Nor have I ever needed it. You will learn your place, with time."

Sukuna's claws dig into each side of his cheek, already breaking skin. His cold tone takes on a touch of glee as he watches red tears fall. 

"Or perhaps you won't. Which will break you first—this utterly useless restriction, or your grandfather's curse?"

Behind them, a ripple across red waves. 

Yuuji-sensei.

Sukuna tenses. He lets out a low growl, the cursed energy inside Yuuji surging into something violent. Pain spills out like blood and Yuuji claws at Sukuna's collar, overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of sensations crashing down on him.

Yuuji-sensei!

Sukuna roars, the terrifying howl of a beast, and with it, Yuuji's eyes shoot open. 

"Yuuji!" 

Like breaking through the surface of a raging ocean, Yuuji is startled back to reality. Sukuna's eyes are crystal blue instead of red. 

"Satoru," Yuuji mumbles, relief flooding through him.

Satoru doesn't even comment on his blunder as he rushes to Yuuji's side and pushes him back down. "Wait, don't get up—just lie down, yes, yes. Good. What the hell happened? You okay? Never thought I'd say this, but you look like shit, Yuuji-sensei—oh, I tried calling you, you know, but you didn't pick up at all, so I asked Shouko and she said you were busy, so I went—"

A familiar sensation splits open his cheek. 

"Hands off, Six Eyes."

Satoru stops his rambling, "Sukuna?" 

"Fuck," Yuuji murmurs, trying to suppress the curse with a hand to his face. He's dazed and disoriented—one moment he's in Sukuna's domain, bargaining for his life, and the next he's suddenly back in the dorms. 

Satoru pulled him out before Yuuji could prepare himself, leaving his control in shambles for Sukuna to pick up. 

Sukuna simply forms another mouth on the back of his hand. 

"I'll say it one last time, sorcerer. Lay your hands off my vessel or you'll wish the Zen'in stray had finished you off."

Satoru stiffens, but covers it well as he grabs Yuuji's wrist to challenge Sukuna directly. "Oh? So the only time you're able to take control like this is when Sensei is sick? Seriously?" Satoru grins wickedly, "What a pathetic little curse you are."

"Care to repeat that, mutt?"

Malevolent, cursed energy flares throughout the building. Satoru responds by removing his glasses, Cursed Technique Reversal: Red forming in his hand.

Yuuji pulls his wrist out of his student's grasp. 

"Stop, both of you!"

Taking a deep breath, Yuuji violently shoves Sukuna back into the depths of his subconscious. Sukuna didn't completely heal him—of course he didn't, just to give Yuuji another reason to come back—but the headache is gone and some energy has returned to his body. 

It's enough to function. Most importantly, he no longer feels like he's been left to rot in the sun for several weeks. 

"Yuuji-sensei, what..." Satoru cuts off at the grim look on Yuuji's face. "Are you alright?"

Yuuji can taste Sukuna's anger in the back of his throat and grimaces at its intensity. 

He'll deal with that later.

Yuuji's shoulder slumps as he rubs the space between his eyes. All he wants to do is roll over and bury all his problems in his pillow, but unfortunately some of them require his immediate attention. 

"Not now," he confesses honestly, "but I will be." He looks up at Satoru, only now noticing his slightly dishevelled state. "Why are you here?"

Satoru crosses his arms as though the answer is obvious. "Checking up on you, of course! I ran off to ask Yaga when Shouko said you were busy, but he got up on the wrong foot because he really didn't want to deal with me, more so than usual at least, which is crazy, right, who doesn't want to deal with me—”

"—Gojou-kun—"

"Anyway, so, he sent me off to Ichiji, right? Who then told me you didn't have any missions and cancelled training sesssion with Shouko-chan and lo and behold! Here I am!" Satoru concludes cheerfully.

It's almost scary how quickly he sobers up. He leans against the wall, pointedly staring down at Yuuji in a way that makes him feel like a small kid who messed up. "I thought you had control over that guy." 

Satoru didn't mean for it to be accusative, but Yuuji stiffens up anyway. 

"I do," he says, "which is the problem."

Satoru blinks, visibly confused. "Huh?" 

Yuuji sighs. "Notify the elders," he says, waving him off. "The alarm probably went off, and I don't want any more sorcerers barging into my room."

Satoru opens his mouth to protest.

"Please?" Yuuji adds, and he doesn't even need to try for his voice to come out as brittle. 

Satoru visibly fights with himself for a few seconds. His fists clench, and his body language screams that he wants nothing more than to simply remain by his side, but his desire to follow one of Yuuji's rare requests eventually wins out.

He groans out loud, runs a hand through his hair and mumbles something that Yuuji can't quite make out.

"What?"

"I said," Satoru stresses, "don't do anything stupid, okay? I'll be back before you know it."

Yuuji watches Satoru make his way towards the door. "Sure. Don't teleport into the wall again."

There's a visible stutter in Satoru's steps as he yelps, "That was one time!"

Yuuji buries a small smile and the rest of his body in his blankets. 

Alone, Sukuna's anger mellows out into something lukewarm. His satisfaction is palpable—a low purring in his ears, the echo of praise and mockery at the back of his mind.

Yuuji curls further into himself.

If what Sukuna said was true, he might have a little bit of a problem on his hands.