Work Text:
The haunted house would have been an excellent field trip if the reason for the visit had less to do with curses and more to do with fostering a healthy school environment among first and second year students. Nothing creates better fellowship bonds than panic attacks, physical violence, and a fifty-page contract where the owner states that he is not responsible if you die.
Instead, they were running around the attraction looking for (antiquated) seals and exorcising (deplorable) curses with the lights on with no chainsaw-wielding monsters lurking... bullshit.
"You guys did awesome!"
Well, maybe it wasn't all that bad if it meant they got Itadori-san to themselves for the rest of the day.
"It's a pain in the ass, but every few years the owner calls us to refurbish the seals" Fushiguro-sensei had explained earlier that morning. "While he can't see curses, the man has been in the haunted house business long enough to know when bad vibes have built up."
Itadori-san watched them through the rear-view mirror with huge golden eyes. He was the only special grade sorcerer who refused to wear polarized glasses. "You know. There's a new ice cream shop downtown that we could stop by if-
"No."
"But you deserve it Megumi!"
"Yes! We deserve it after that horrible mission!" complained Satoru. Suguro and Yu followed his lead.
The car stopped at a traffic light, Itadori-san took the opportunity to pop a lollipop into his mouth and offer another one to Fushiguro-sensei. "Don't be bitter, the kiddos accomplished the mission well and no one will be upset if we send them back an hour or two late... well, maybe Maki will be upset but I'm sure she'll have no problem turning a blind eye if we bring her ice cream."
Perhaps it was the hot afternoon, the thought of bothering Maki-sensei with extra paperwork or the puppy dog looks Satoru and Yu gave him through the rear-view mirror that convinced Fushiguro-sensei to finally agree.
"They better be the best ice cream in the world" he said, eating the lollipop.
The traffic light changed to green and Itadori-san smiled like the fucking angel he was "Gods they are, I saw the flavours on their instagram and they look amazing, there's this one with mascarpone with red fruits, there's another one with lavender liqueur with blueberries and Oh! They have one that's kumquat in honey syrup have you tried kumquats?" he looked at them through the mirror but quickly returned his gaze to the road. "They are a type of dwarf oranges that you can eat with peel. Megumi do you remember we ate them on that mission to Patagonia?"
Fushiguro-sensei was still looking at his phone when he answered "I think."
"Speaking of travel, Nobara and Maki-san finally set a date and place for their wedding."
"And that's a topic?"
"Hana-chan is invited"
"And that's bad?"
"No... but I guess I was surprised" He drummed his claws on the steering wheel before turning a corner. "Hana-chan and I talk a lot but at no point has she mentioned that she's still in contact with them."
"You're acting like a brat with her" Even if his tone of voice is monotone, there's a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Itadori-san doesn't answer right away, he remains silent long enough to make it seem like the conversation is over.
"She has no obligation to tell you everything. You're being a spoiled brat."
"And I don't have the right to be?" The corners of her eyes crinkle into a beautiful smile, but there is something raw and sad creeping into his words.
Shoko and Kento looked at each other again.
Itadori-san suddenly looked uncomfortable in his might skin. The few times they remembered seeing him like this it was because the conversation had strayed into topics that involved overly personal memories... as if he was conflicted with the emotions he was supposed to feel, as if he'd never had time to understand situations properly and, like a child being yelled at to stop crying, decided it was easier to divert everyone's attention and get them to focus on how cute he was. This time it was no different.
Let anyone who isn't a little in love with this man cast the first stone.
After a nearly half-hour tour filled with discussions among the students about which of the Star Wars movies is the worst, why Luke was a queer icon and how it would have improved the plot if he and Han Solo had kissed in the first movie, they arrived at the ice cream parlour.
"I still can't believe they've been married for five years," Satoru said as he ate his ice cream. "Will they still have sex?"
The five of them, each with a different ice cream, were perched on the empty playground equipment in front of the ice cream shop waiting for the two adults to leave the store.
"What's amazing to me is that with so few words you can make me lose a week's appetite" Suguro complained sticking his tongue out at him.
They remained silent, watching from a distance as the sales clerks blushed every time Itadori-san spoke to them.
"You know... I've been thinking about it for a while," Yu began after tasting Kento's ice cream. "But don't you think Itadori-san looks a bit like Sukuna?"
The question dropped like a stone in a pond. Disturbing. Everyone had at some point seen the recreation of the curse's supposed appearance in The Golden History of Jujutsu, Volume III book: four arms, two pairs of eyes, pink hair, golden irises, black claws, and tattoos traced all over his body.
Suguro sighed "It's good to find out I'm not the only one who thinks so."
Shoko scooped another scoop of ice cream into her mouth. "It's kind of scary if you think about it."
"We could try asking Fushiguro-sensei or Kugisaki-san if they know anything" Kento said giving in to Yu's insistence to switch ice creams. "I think they're the best option since Itadori-san would rather rip his heart out than tell us anything about himself."
"Sounds like a plan with a lot of flaws to me," Satoru said too seriously.
"Sounds like a plan with a lot of flaws to me" Satoru said too seriously.
Shoko gave her ice cream a sad look as she kicked Satoru "Tch... can you think of anything better?"
"I can think of something a thousand times better."
Before the discussion could take further shape both adults return. Itadori-san talks to Fushiguro-sensei, excited like a child with a new toy, about a soccer manga that has started to be published. At first glance it seemed like a one-way conversation, but if you pay attention, Fushiguro-sensei is completely interested in what his husband is saying, nods from time to time and answers questions with a barely perceptible smile. The two are too close and don't seem to have any intention of moving away.
"So well, what you thought of the ice cream?" asked Itadori-san. He was bringing a few bags full of products from the same store, among them Maki-sensei's ice cream.
Everyone agreed that they were the best they had ever tasted; even Saturo had the audacity to jump on him and tell him he was the best teacher in the world. Cheeky son of a bitch.
Itadori-san shook his head "Technically I don't practice as a teacher."
"Technically he's a sneak" corrected Fushiguro-sensei starting to walk towards the car.
"You're cruel" followed Fushiguro-sensei undeterred by Satoru's weight "come on guys."
The four remaining students looked at each other with the same idea crossing their minds: hit Satoru for daring to hug Yuuji-san.
There is a popular fable that consists of putting a frog into a pot of water that slowly heats up. It is usually used to exemplify how human beings can become indifferent to danger when it is presented to them gradually rather than abruptly; and perhaps that is why it took so long for everyone to think that something was not quite right with Itadori Yuuji.
Since the conversation outside the ice cream shop a month had passed. A month full of dead ends and cryptic answers at best and elusive at worst.
Fushiguro-sensei and Kugisaki-san had made their positions clear on the issue; any questions regarding Sukuna were to be asked directly to Itadori-san, which ironically confirmed the connection between the curse and the sorcerer.
"I still don't see what the problem is" Satoru is lying on the grass of the training ground trying to shape the clouds. Maki-sensei gave them fifteen minutes rest, it's been twenty and she's still not back.
"You're suggesting we sneak into the school archives" Suguro, sitting to Satoru's right plucks a few clumps of grass before tossing them to the wind. "If we get caught we'll be in trouble...the worst trouble."
"First of all, we're not going to get anywhere with such a pessimistic attitude, and secondly, you're suggesting that we're going to be discovered, which, we won't be."
"You said the same thing when we ran away in the middle of the night to last year's expo-manga" Shoko finally managed to get to the popsicle gum center, it was a foreign brand, Yuuji-san had given her an assorted box when he came back from Germany a few days ago. "If Inumaki-san hadn't lied to Fushiguro-sensei about needing a hand with some errant curses in Akihabara we'd still be grounded."
"Was the pun necessary?" scoffed Satoru with no real humour. Up in the sky, the clouds resembled a dog in a fancy hat. "It's not like we have any more options either."
"More options of what?"
The three sophomores quickly began to stretch, as if they really cared about continuing the melee training. Maki watched them unimpressed by the clownishness they make of themselves and the minimal effort they put into speaking softly, based on her conversation with Nobara she could more or less get an idea of what the trio of idiots plan.
"Even if you search the archives you won't find anything on Itadori. Almost all the documents were lost during the Shibuya incident and what managed to be salvaged has little or nothing to do with him" Maki waited for some reaction, some complaint, some pouting, but nothing. "You can blame the elders for that, they were years refusing to modernize the paperwork and in the end it ended up biting them in the ass" her attempt at humour seemed to work just enough and necessary to put a shit-eating grin on Satoru's face.
"But that Maki-sensei, only justifies the lack of documents of all kinds prior to Shibuya, and what you are telling us is that you have intentionally avoided recording official material surrounding the sorcerer who killed God."
The nickname manages to get on Maki's nerves, she knows how much Itadori hates it. "So what if it was like that?" The answer is childish but effective. She can't risk saying much without Itadori's permission and the best option she has is to send them to the source. "If you want answers why don't you go to him?"
There is a challenge implied in Maki-sensei's words, as if she is daring any of the three to question her.
Then Shoko accepts it "Maki-sensei, all this secrecy is it related to Yuuji-san looking like Sukuna?" she is blowing a bubble gum bubble.
"Maybe"
The bubble pops. The training ended early.
Later that evening the five of them are gathered in the common room getting ready for a movie night. It was the first time in almost a month that they had been able to organize one.
The first year duo had returned from Hokkaido three days ago from a technically successful mission looking miserable. If Shoko noticed that they were both a little more clingy and awkward than usual she didn't say anything.
The movie was about halfway through. The characters already realized that the danger is real, they are wary of each other and the least stable of the group has taken control of the situation with the help of a flamethrower forcing them all to go through a blood test in an attempt to find out who the imposter is.
"Did you know that Itadori-san has an older brother?" Yu's question is followed by a silence interrupted by screams coming from the television. Palmer could burn to an inert mass, but even that wouldn't get the attention of the sophomore trio back.
"Context?" demands Shoko.
From that point on, the movie took a back seat. Being parasitized by a thing from outer space wasn't so bad when compared to what Yu said next:
"It turns out that the curse we were assigned was misclassified, it was a special grade, and if it hadn't been for Yuuji-san hanging around and noticing the veil things would have gotten even uglier" Horrible would be a more appropriate word. The wound on his chest had been fully healed but the feeling of having his insides out of his body still remained. Itadori-san told him that this was normal and would eventually go away.
"He took care of the curse himself... you know" Kento added imitating the gesture he had seen Itadori-san make with one hand: Hachi. "After making sure we didn't have anything broken he invited us to eat whatever we wanted."
Yu nodded excitedly, eager to change the subject. "On the way to the restaurant he told us that the reason he was around was because he was going to join his brother" he hurriedly pulled out his phone and searched through the photo gallery.
He showed a selfie where he and Kento were in the foreground and in the background Itadori-san was hugging a pale, black-haired man with dark circles under dead eyes by the shoulders.
"They sure asked mom for explanations" Satoru scoffed.
Yu chuckled before switching pictures "Choso-san explained to us that despite having the same blood they don't share parents... well, sort of."
The new picture is less planned: Yuuji-san is laughing at something his brother has possibly said, several empty ramen bowls are piled on the side.
"It's weird that despite getting along so well Itadori-san never mentioned it before" Yu said putting his phone away.
"'Mentioned who?"
It's scary when Itadori-san does that: being silent.
Where two or more gather in my name, that's where I'll be.
He is always loud and at times it would seem he is physically incapable of silence, he never talks about particularly profound things but it is impossible to be bored around him. Brilliant, charming, funny. Okkotsu-senpai once mentioned, (words more, words less), that Yuuji-kun was to the world of jujutsu what the sun had been to early civilizations.
Itadori-san is sitting at the counter bar; he has a nearly empty liter-and-a-half bottle of Mr. Big to his right and a bag of cotton candy flavoured popcorn in his lap.
"I remember seeing that one during my training," he popped a handful of popcorn into his mouth and swallowed. "Then I forced Megumi to watch it and he got annoyed with me because of the open ending."
The six remained silent. In the background the camp burned in flames and two men shared a bottle of whiskey waiting for the inevitable to happen.
"Why didn't you tell us you had a brother?" complains Satoru with a pout.
"You never asked."
"It's never easy to get answers from you."
"Guilty" he popped another handful of popcorn into his mouth.
"Why are you here?"
"Megumi insisted, he told me you needed to ask me something."
"Fushiguro-sensei is a snitch."
Itadori-san crumpled the bag into a ball that suddenly burst into flames until it disappeared.
"It's about Sukuna isn't it?"
No one answers. It's not a question. Itadori-san smiles but there are no humour, her eyes slide from one to one until they're fixed on the TV.
Perhaps the reason Yuuji's life was so difficult had less to do with his cursed condition and more to do with the little things he never wanted to admit.
Homeless orphan.
Cursed womb.
Firstborn of Kenjaku.
Perfect vessel.
"I was created to be Sukuna's perfect vessel, but things didn't go as my mother planned" he searches his pockets and finds a sealed tube of m&m's. "She was human, a sorceress, at one point she almost died but her body was possessed by a curse and in the end I had to kill her. I never knew her."
None of the students say anything. The room would be completely silent if it weren't for the commercials.
"During my first few months as a jujutsu student I took to collecting Sukuna's fingers and eating them...I think that's a story for another time. What matters is that in the Shibuya incident I was forced to eat the remaining Sukuna fingers" he opened the tube and swallowed half of the chocolate pills in one gulp. "It was horrible. I lost control and everything went to shit" the words are sandpaper in his mouth. The air smells of burnt meat and industrial dust. "It was the worst weeks in the history of jujutsu, thousands of civilians and dozens of sorcerers dead not to mention the wounded. It all came to an end when I defeated Sukuna and killed Kenjaku... the curse that possessed my mother."
That night ten years ago he awoke in Sukuna's domain all alone. The throne was empty.
Long live the new king.
"What once belonged to Sukuna now belongs to me, with all that that entails. Choso-ni called it a complete assimilation" he swallowed the rest of the chocolates and put the empty tube away.
The next movie will start soon: Killer Clowns from Outer Space, that one he also got to watch for his training and also showed it to Megumi.
"I'm on the border. A curse clinging to her humanity" the cursed energy crackles through his skin, slimy and warm. "Information around me is limited for the same reason Tengen-sama was, at best, a secret: fear. That's how to avoid scandal... believe it or not, not many people are willing to accept my existence" Tattoos become clean, the second pair of eyes flicker to adjust to the dim lighting. "I have enough of the bullshit titles I won, I just didn't want you guys to have a real reason to be afraid of me" he smiles but without showing his teeth, in this form the size and sharpness of his fangs is grotesque.
Megumi says otherwise.
Since Shibuya, Yuuji has learned to recognize the peculiar aroma of adrenaline, like an exotic dessert or overly sweet liquor, it is something that scrapes notes of grapefruit and delicate saffron set to age in cedar barrels hidden deep in dark caves for at least a hundred thousand years.
Primordial curses were spawned in the Earth's womb at the same time the first human experienced fear.
There is nothing that arouses greater fear than the unknown... except perhaps the awareness of knowing yourself to be insignificant or unable to fight the monster.
He is the monster.
Naked as a corpse ready for autopsy, for the first time in nearly a decade Yuuji again experienced the terror of being deemed unworthy of being alive. Unworthy of being a partner, a friend, a brother, a lover, a human.
"Yuuji-san, in case you haven't noticed we really like you."
Shoko is a smart and brave girl who smells of fear. She stands up and walks to where Yuuji is sitting.
"I could kill you guys without you noticing" and is saying that is more of an acknowledgement than a warning.
"But you won't" there is no hesitation in her words. Behind Shoko the five boys nod determinedly. "This doesn't change anything, it's just an answer."
He wants to cry, but instead a genuine laugh bursts from his chest. "You're all adorable" he brings a clawed and tattooed hand up to Shoko's head and pats it "You're a good girl."
Then she hugs him. Out of respect he will pretend he didn't notice her blush.
"I want too!"
"And me!"
Does Megumi regret bringing Yuuji to the second-year guys' training? No, but his adult brain tries to make him feel responsible for the beating Satoru and Geto are taking. It doesn't work, instead, he doesn't even bother to scold Shoko for openly laughing at her friends.
He doesn't dislike the boys perse, they're good students most of the time and stupid young boys in general (which translates as headaches for Megumi). They still have spelling mistakes on their exams, almost never complete mission reports on time, get upset over idiocies most of the time, and are very poor at measuring the consequences of their actions, the latter of which is intrinsically intertwined with a ridiculous appreciation towards danger.
Gojo and Satoru collapse on the grass panting as if breathing hurts.
Only that pair of idiots would think of continuing to challenge Yuuji even though they know he's the fucking King of Curses. A beautiful cute king who smiles sympathetically at Megumi's worst headaches.
Everything about him was charming.
That's a totally objective statement and not at all influenced by the gold ring hanging around his neck, for proof of that, even one of the worst curses in Geto's arsenal squirms like a spoiled cat in Yuuji's arms as he caresses it under the horns.
The only girl in the group smiles as she takes several pictures with her phone, if a couple of them are exclusively of Yuuji, Megumi shakes his head in amusement letting it go. Sometimes he wonders how he was lucky enough to end up entangled with that man.
Megumi watched him approach past the two shattered students. With the same hand that caressed the curse he made a quick gesture (meant to be painless) and it fragmented into small cubes, ultimately exploding.
"That was childish and unnecessary."
" He can get a better one" he justified himself.
"But you're not going to get the complaints."
"That's why I do it."
Son of a bitch. Megumi wanted to kiss him so badly.
"Shoko-chan, why don't you go check to make sure your classmates aren't dead?"
As an objection to his words, Satoru-or maybe Suguro? grumbled.
The girl looked at him as if the request offended her. "They'll be fine."
Another grumble is heard.
"Come on Shoko" Yuuji asks "Take it as reverse ritual practice...unless you want to train your fighting technique?"
She pouted away.
"Admit it, you love them" Yuuji punched his shoulder feebly.
"Maybe so, but you definitely spoil them."
The sorcerer who killed God looked down trying to hide his blushing face; and that's so ridiculous that Megumi can only sigh. Perhaps there is an unwritten rule that those who enjoy such great power have the right to be a bit of a fool.
Nobara never thought that one of the chairs would be occupied by the strongest, a title too ostentatious for the idiot who plays at being a teacher without receiving a salary... it's not as if he needs it, after all, with the missions he has enough to buy the world three times over.
And despite knowing that sooner or later it will end in tears. Curses can exist forever, humans cannot. If he decides that's okay, well, she's no one to go against him.