Work Text:
At first, Sukuna was nothing more than a fly in Itadori’s ear. Itadori’s constant chatter more or less easily shut out Sukuna’s complaints about his vessel, ranging from the inadequacy of his body to his supposed stupidity — which Sukuna used much harsher words to describe. He even had choice words about Itadori’s sense of style as though a one-thousand-year-old deity had any comprehension of modern-day clothing.
It wasn’t bad, necessarily. They didn’t get along even a little bit, and Sukuna more often than not begged Itadori to kill himself in one manner or another, but Itadori knew it could be worse. His innate ability to suppress the King of Curses without any physical or mental repercussions nulled any insults thrown at him. Better yet, Sukuna was fully aware of that, too.
Maybe Itadori hadn’t fully grasped how strong the King of Curses was at that point. He was still new to the Jujutsu world and introduced to the strongest sorcerer immediately after dealing with his first curse, which had also been disproportionately strong from Sukuna’s finger’s influence. His perception of dangerous and weak might have been slightly skewed.
Then Sukuna ripped out his heart.
Itadori doesn’t remember anything changing between them. No contracts, no vows, and no tempered animosity aside from the demon’s usual bitterness. He can still suppress Sukuna without any added effort, and eating more fingers hasn’t seemed to strengthen him, either. The only difference is that now Yuuji is marginally more conscious of Sukuna’s power and visceral hatred for humanity.
Yuuji has never been a paranoid person. It’s not in his nature to be constantly afraid, which he hypothesizes is why he can contain Sukuna so well. He doesn’t cower at the danger sitting upon a hill of blood and broken skulls.
‘Something is waiting for you in there, child.’ Sukuna informs, his voice a gaunt echo in Itadori’s mind. ‘You won’t like it.’
His hand stops just before touching the doorknob in his dorm room. The King of Curses doesn’t say anything more, but his observing presence is a heavy snow in his stomach. The mental image of a curse lying in wait by his bed, its teething mouth curdling with bubbly blood, makes him hesitate. He stands dumbly in the hall and waits for the unfamiliar curl of fear to dissipate.
“Itadori?” Fushiguro calls, and Itadori nearly jumps out of his skin. His hand reflexively grips the doorknob he’d been staring at. His friend narrows his eyes at him with a frown playing at the edge of his lips. “Everything okay?”
They’ve just gotten out of their afternoon training session and dinner. While Itadori had left the table first since he was eager to shower, he knew Fushiguro wouldn’t be far behind. He’d only had a small amount left on his plate and rarely stayed for idle chatter. The fact that Itadori jumped at a familiar figure is telling in and of itself. He’d feel better if he told his friend what was wrong with him.
Before Itadori can open his mouth to respond, Sukuna cuts coldly into his thoughts. ‘He’ll think you’re weak. Useless. Why can’t you enter your room alone? Because you’re scared of something that isn’t there?’
It’s new, the way that Sukuna interacts with him.
“Nothing!” Itadori replies. “I was just lost in thought!” He twists the doorknob while his heart beats hummingbird fast, and Fushiguro looks entirely unconvinced. He’s never been a good liar — he doesn’t usually feel the need to lie, and he wouldn’t have a second earlier if it weren’t for the ache in his chest and frost in his gut.
“... Okay,” his friend drawls. He opens the door to his room and takes one step inside before looking back at Itadori with furrowed eyebrows. Whatever he was going to say, he quickly abandons and closes the door behind him.
‘Horrible performance.’
Itadori doesn’t dignify him with a response. He opens his door like nothing happened, like he hadn’t been paralyzed by something that isn’t there. Beside his bed is a blanket on the ground from where he kicked it off his bed, a pair of boots he hardly ever wears, and the end of his phone charger trailing like a snake.
By the time he’s taken off his shoes and turned on the shower, Sukuna has retreated far back into his domain.
—
Impossibly, it gets worse.
The original shift must have occurred sometime after reviving, when he would look into a dark corner of Gojo’s house and had the inkling of a monster lurking there. He simply wasn’t cognizant of it then; now, it feels like he’s on the verge of perceiving everything all at once while being blinded by hands that aren’t his own.
He stares at the ceiling of his room. The lights are off because he hit the light switch an hour or so ago. He triple-checked the lock on the door, and he examined the walls four times before safely climbing into bed. Logically, the odds of a cursed spirit, sorcerer, or a demonic flying insect waiting in ambush for him are highly unlikely.
‘It’s not zero,’ Sukuna comments helpfully, and God forbid that Itadori agrees with the King of Curses.
Sukuna blinks below Yuuji’s eyes, making his presence known but quiet at the same. Itadori sits up, unsure of what to do with his body since it won’t go to sleep. The phantom tickling of spiders crawling up his back has him shivering and scratching restlessly at his skin. He eyes the walls he can’t see in the darkness of the room with the window curtains drawn shut, and he nearly convinces himself he’s watching a curse-infused cockroach crawl up his Jennifer Lawrence poster.
The King of Curses is dispassionately silent as his vessel gets up from bed and turns on the lights.
Sleep and Itadori are best friends. If he were tired and the only napping place was the middle of a busy three-lane highway, he could do it soundlessly. It’s not like him to struggle to fall and stay asleep, nevertheless be caught up in a fit of nerves so intense that he can’t keep his lights off for more than an hour. Even Sukuna has been unable to disrupt his rest with nightmares and visions. He sleeps like a rock in the most literal sense.
Leaning against the wall, he presses the heel of his palms against his eyes. Static greets both his ears and vision, leaving him disoriented and mildly frustrated. He considers Fushiguro and Nobara in the dorm rooms beside him and wonders if they can hear the Itadori’s restless soul.
‘It’s embarrassing.’ Sukuna says as Itadori makes his way to the edge of his bed. If he kept the lights on, it might help. ‘It won’t.’
Nobody asked you.
Mercifully, Sukuna abandons him for whatever it is he does when he’s not bothering Itadori. The bed covers are warm against his cold body, and he stares at the ceiling in anticipation. For what, he’s not sure. His body’s wired for a fight, heart beating and muscles tightening and loosening rapidly.
He doesn’t get much sleep that night.
—
Apparently, Itadori is not as subtle as he thinks he is. But he’s also never dealt with something like this before — turning the corner to expect a knife in his chest, a curse waiting in the shadows to tear a hole through his stomach, or for a third-grade mission to actually be a special-grade mission that he can’t handle on his own.
It’s weird. Annoying. Cruel. Sukuna is fucking with him somehow, but deep down, he knows the paranoia isn’t unfounded. Dying and resurrecting and fighting curses every other week has to take a mental toll at some point. It’s a matter of breaking down, and he assumes that every other sorcerer has gone through the same process he’s in the midst of.
“What are you doing all night that has you awake?” Nobara demands before socking him in the jaw. “Jacking off?”
Itadori barely prevents himself from falling flat on the ground. Her punch doesn’t sting as hard as it could; they’re holding back for the sake of training, not injury. “What? No!”
“You’re light is always on, and if I’m awake for long enough I can hear you pacing.” She takes a hard step before swinging her leg in a kick that Itadori blocks.
“I’m—” Then it’s Sukuna’s voice crowding in his head, cooling his body and giving an opening for Itadori to land a knee into her gut. ‘What’s she going to do about it? Hold your hand like the little sniveling child you are?
Right. He’s — “It’s none of your business.”
Scared of the dark. Scared of nothing. Jumping at every sound and every movement he sees from the corner of his eye.
This time, he knocks her on her ass. It’s more difficult than it usually is. Not to diss Nobara but out of the three of them, her up-close fighting skills are the worst. Her skills are long-ranged, Fushiguro has spent more of his life training than all of the first-years combined, and Itadori’s cursed energy lies in his fists.
Picking herself off the ground, she gives him a scathing glare. “Okay, whatever, but if I hear you moaning that celebrity’s name I swear you will wish you’d never been born.”
Unfortunately, he knows she’s got a bite with that bark. Yuuji prepares a response, but all that he can muster is irritation that he knows will only derail the argument.
He’s been more vexed these days. It probably has something to do with the lack of sleep, and it’s even more frustrating that he can’t get a hang of his emotions.
Sukuna wraps over him as a winter storm, and it sets him over the edge. He throws a punch harder than he meant to, leaving Nobara falling back with curses on her lips.
“What is wrong with you! Goddammit, you could’ve broken my arm!”
It’s highly unlikely. She wrapped her cursed energy around the forearms she used to block so it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Instead of being worried, or apologizing at her glowering form, he huffs and straightens out his legs.
Nobara pauses in the cradling of her arm and gives him a once over. The scowl on her face deepens, but she doesn’t say anything like Yuuji thought she would. Instead, she calls over to their classmate stretching on the track. “Come train with this asshole. I’m done.”
She stomps off the field as if she didn’t pick the fight in the first place.
The King of Curses starts with, ‘You—’
I don’t want to hear it. Not from you.
‘Careful,’ Sukuna warns. His voice is an icicle piercing a rushing river.
Itadori refrains from rolling his eyes as Fushiguro takes a stance in front of him. Luckily, he’s less for words than Nobara is. The poorly concealed concern in his gaze is almost worse.
The Ten Shadows user doesn’t comment on Itadori’s mental status.
—
Itadori sits flat on his ass and leans against his door, fervently biting at his thumb. It’s time for breakfast. Or, it was time for breakfast. He’s missed it by now.
He should be out of his dorm room, but he had another fitful night he’s been undergoing for the past month and a half. It’s his normal routine at this point. Go into his room after training or lessons, attempt to sleep, jump at every creak of wood and whistle of wind, and let the lightbulb burn overhead.
Exhaustion has long abandoned him. What he feels now is nothing short of a constant ache of fight-or-flight with his imagination running loose. His hands reach for his mind, but he comes away with nothing but the trembling of his fingers and the pulse of cursed energy.
But this has nothing to do with that. He’s sitting in his room, hungry and unable to leave, because he knows someone is out there waiting for him.
The higher-ups have wanted him dead for ages. Gojo told him as much, as well as swearing his protection up until he consumed all twenty fingers.
‘Your teacher wants you dead.’
My teacher…. Itadori pauses. Sukuna soaks in the silence.
Nobody wants Sukuna alive to wreak havoc, including his vessel. He’s already killed Itadori once and begged for cursed spirits to take a plunge at his heart again. Living with Sukuna in his body has to be an eternal torment reserved for a crime Itadori committed long ago. What’s the crime? He doesn’t know.
What was he thinking about?
Yuuji bangs his head against the door, hearing it squeak and shudder under his force.
Gojo said he would protect him, but that was months ago. Months. He can only evade the higher-ups for so long, and he certainly wouldn’t expect them to do it in the dormitories.
‘I can keep us safe,’ Sukuna tries.
The last thing Itadori wants is for Sukuna to take over his body. He’d rather be killed than let that happen again.
‘Then what are you doing sitting here? Go on. Face their blades.’
I hate you.
‘The feeling is mutual.’
His sharp canine scrapes off a thin layer of skin, leaving a line of beading blood in its wake. He can’t go out there. They’re waiting for him in ambush. They might’ve even got Gojo in on it; with so many months of no pay-off, he must’ve gotten tired of waiting and protecting the King of Curses’ vessel.
Yuuji hears two pairs of footsteps echo down the hall, and he senses the cursed energy of his two friends. He drops the thumb from his mouth and wipes it on the red hoodie of his uniform.
“Itadori?” Fushiguro calls, then knocks on his door. The reverberations shake his soul. “You awake?”
His vocal cords clog at his attempt to reply. What if they’re in on it, too? What if the higher-ups set them up to bring Itadori out?
Sukuna keeps his body cold and shivering.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Fushiguro asks, louder this time with a knock that’s more similar to a punch.
Then he’s opening the door with his heart in his throat, thinking that he can just take a sneak peek out of his door to check for sorcerers. They should have cursed energy, and if they don’t, then Fushiguro and Nobara will be positioned awkwardly to block Itadori’s eyesight. They’d have to move out of the way for a gunman to take his shot, so he could make a dive for it if he needed to.
And he’s face-to-face with Fushiguro, his fist raised in preparation for another knock, and Nobara standing a little far behind him. From this angle, he can see down the hall both ways.
Nothing.
“I slept in,” Yuuji forces from his lips, gaze flitting between his classmates. “Sorry I missed breakfast.”
It takes Nobara exactly point two seconds to sus out that lie. “Oh come off of it. You were awake all night again. I can see it in those eye bags! What the hell?”
“I—”
“Something’s going on. Frankly, I wouldn’t care so much, but you’ve got everyone worried and on top of that, you’re becoming a real asshole,” she practically yells, pushing her way to stand next to Fushiguro. “Is it that bitch Sukuna?”
The voice in his head is less of a demon and more of a pure-blooded animal with the way he growled.
Itadori’s mouth goes dry staring at the imposing figures of his friends. His heart pounds in his chest, and he wonders if he can just tell them that he thought that—
‘They’ll know you’re insane.’
— that he’s insane. He’s gone off the deep end.
“No,” he grits out, and Fushiguro stares at him with that same concerned face: eyebrows furrowed, nose slightly scrunched, and frowning lips. “It’s all fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“You don’t really think we’d believe that,” Fushiguro says. In comparison to Kugisaki, his voice is low and intoxicating, and it makes Itadori want to worry at his thumb until all of the skin comes off.
Itadori repositions his hand on the door, ready to push and lock it before either of their reflexes can catch up with him. “I do because it’s the truth. I overslept. I’ll see you guys in class.”
He shuts the door on their faces and ignores the startled noises that they make.
—
His hands are shaking.
His mirror is broken and his hands are shaking and blood is pouring out of the cuts the glass shards made.
He’s bleeding everywhere and the glass shards reflecting his face keep showing him the tattoos lining his face, extra eyes creeping over his cheeks, and a malicious, teething grin.
His ears are ringing with the noise of cruel laughter and static and he scratches at the wounds on his hands. Blood is flowing into the sink and he steps back into a shard. Pain shoots up his bare foot, and he collapses forward to lean his elbows on the sink and catch his head with his palms.
I’m going to die.
The laughing and the static haven’t stopped. Itadori can’t remember a time when they weren’t there, when he wasn’t filled with overwhelming dread to step out of his bathroom and face whatever curse or sorcerer was waiting to retrieve the bounty on his head.
They’re going to kill me.
Cursed energy is hard to miss. Time and space warps and bends in the small space of the bathroom, and Itadori panics and sidesteps back onto the glass shard. Cursed energy ripples through the air like a fog of toxic radiation. Gojo Satoru appears between Itadori and the bathroom door. His only exit.
Itadori’s entire body tenses, and he knows. He knows that this is it — Gojo is done protecting him. Gojo is coming for his head.
There’s no beating the strongest sorcerer in Jujutsu society.
‘I can beat him. I can save us.’
“No!” Itadori screams. His teacher startles at that, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead. Itadori stumbles backward, away from his teacher, and trips on the curtain to the shower. His head hits the tile wall. He’s dizzy and on his deathbed and Gojo’s mouth is moving but all he can hear is overwhelming static.
And he can’t fight back as Gojo stalks towards him, arms held out inches in front of him with his palms splayed out. His teacher crouches and speaks. Itadori doesn’t hear him.
I’m dead.
Why won’t he fight back? Why is the only thing he can do is cower and bleed in the shower? What is wrong with him?
You’re insane. I always have been.
Gojo is all around him, one arm holding tightly to Itadori’s back while pressing Itadori’s face into his chest. Gojo’s other hand is in his hair, slowly patting down the curls and bloody, matted clumps. His teacher’s heart is beating fast.
He doesn’t have Infinity activated.
Kill and run.
“You’re okay, Yuuji,” Gojo murmurs, and it’s the most quiet and warm thing Itadori has ever felt in his entire life.
Take your chance. Infinity is down. If he wants to strike before Gojo takes his head —
“You’re okay.”
His cursed energy curls into his fists, and there’s no way Gojo doesn’t feel it because he always feels everything as a consequence of his eyes. But his teacher makes no indication of moving.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he admits, “but you are safe. No one is coming to hurt you. Sukuna can’t hurt you. I can’t hurt you.”
Itadori thinks the sink is running. He can hear the rush of water from somewhere in the room.
His voice is hoarse. “Don’t kill me.” It must be from the scream or the disuse for hours before this point.
Gojo sighs, his heart fluctuating in its pace. Itadori can feel it from where his ear presses against his teacher’s uniform. “Oh, kid. I would never do that.”
‘He would.’ Itadori hisses out loud at Sukuna’s voice, more clear than it has been in a while.
“I think,” Itadori starts and fails. Gojo’s hand pats his head at a steady pace. The sink is most definitely running. “I’m insane. I’m definitely insane.”
Gojo doesn’t falter, not even once, even though it takes him a second to respond. “There’s a demon in your body. It could make anyone lose their mind. You’ve been strong, Yuuji.” He pauses, and Itadori’s breath shutters. “Stronger than anyone I know.”
Itadori doesn’t know what to say to that. The world falls apart under his fingers as he lifts his arms to grab onto the back of his teacher’s uniform. His stomach is a frozen tundra and his breathing is irregular in the cold snaps of the wind.
“You’re not insane. Just tired.”
Itadori Yuuji is exhausted.
His teacher’s heart has slowed now. Infinity still hasn’t been reactivated. “Rest, Yuuji. It’s the last thing Sukuna wants you to do.”
And he shouldn’t feel safe in Gojo’s arms, because there’s a bounty on his head and Gojo is done protecting the King of Curses.
“You’re okay, Yuuji.”
If Gojo wanted him dead, he would be. Sukuna, the one nagging voice that has killed him and wants to kill him again, can’t say the same. He’s been awake for so many days, pacing his room and checking and rechecking the walls for spiders and curses and the red dot of a sniper rifle.
“You’re safe. You can rest. I’ll protect you,” Gojo promises, and Itadori passes out in his warm, summer arms.