Chapter Text
Yuuji feels dizzy. His vision swims like the effect Hollywood uses in its movies to show that it's terribly hot, and he has to close his eyes until the ripples disappear completely. It's only when he feels nauseous that he opens them again, staggers awkwardly out of bed and reaches the toilet in extremis, where he regurgitates the remains of last night's dinner. In his haste he slams his right flank against the desk but barely notices the pain between bile, saliva and food bowl.
Yuuji grips the cold edge of the toilet seat firmly until his stomach has nothing left to give, not even gastric juices, leaving his oesophagus burning and aching. He then flushes and sits down on the floor, exhausted. Is he sick? Yuuji doesn't get sick. With the exception of the chickenpox his grandfather forced him to catch by sending him to play with sick children on the pretext that "better now than later", Yuuji's strength extends to his immune system. Another reason why Ieiri wanted so bad to dissect him.
Is this what a cold feels like? Or the flu? It all feels too much, even with the bathroom light off. Yuuji sits for a long time, leaning against the toilet in the dark, watching the tap drip, clop clop clop, the cold tiles biting into his bare legs. The bathroom smells of... clean.
Not household products clean. More like emptiness clean. There's no familiar smell of sink cleaner or window cleaner or even face soap. True, there's no shower—communal showers are part of the student life experience, or so Gojo says—but Yuuji has always taken care to perfume the small room. Even the toothpaste smells almost of nothing, he notices after struggling to get up to get rid of the bitter taste of vomit in his mouth. And in a way this lack helps him pull himself together, enough to be able to drag himself to bed without bumping into the desk a second time.
A glance at the clock shows 4:32. Ugh. He still feels like shit, but at least his vision isn't playing tricks on him. He dives headfirst into his pillow— no, his pillows. How long has he had so many? Not counting the ones on the floor and the ones tangled up in his sheets. Yuuji closes his eyes, determined to make the most of the little sleep he has left, but no matter how much he tosses and turns, sleep just won't come. He ends up on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. There's this feeling of unease weighing on his chest like an anvil, preventing him from taking deep breaths no matter how much he puffs out his chest. Anxiety. He's anxious. Why is he anxious? Is it a symptom of the flu? The discomfort spreads to his stomach, which has already been through enough upheaval for one night, and it contracts— Yuuji sits up, panicked. What's wrong with him? What's missing?
As if magnetised, his eyes fix on the pillows on the floor. They're all of different sizes, some bigger than others, and unlike the bathroom they have a smell. Yuuji bends down to pick one up and impulsively buries his face in it. Deep breath. Then instantly pulls his face away. It smells like cake? What the hell? Yuuji takes another gulp of air for a second check and— yep, cake. Dumbfounded, he tries again and again until he can almost taste it on his tongue, the orange blossoms that Grandpa always used in his recipes, the lemon zest, the melted butter, less strong but still present, the brown sugar and even a hint of vanilla.
He's taking deep breaths and even rubbing his face against the pillow when—
"And they call me a narcissist," Sukuna sneers. The left cheek where he formed his mouth is smothered by the pillow, Yuuji becomes suddenly very aware of the sharp teeth dangerously close to the fabric. It wouldn't be the first time Sukuna damages his stuff for the sake of it. Which is why nothing, nothing, prepares him for the long lick that the curse applies to the pillow like one might do to an ice cream.
Yuuji yells, "Dude, what the hell!" He drops the pillow on the floor as if it burnt him and a sense of loss crashes into him like a tanker on a busy roadway. He looks around, disorientated, confused, what, just what, Sukuna laughing in his head doesn't help, and in a brief moment of lucidity dives for another pillow. Huh. Feels better. This one smells like cake too. They all do, Yuuji concludes after picking them all up except the one Sukuna licked because ew. Did he not change his clothes after baking something? It's quite possible. He's not known for often changing his sheets either.
Yuuji picks up and puts down pillows, places them one way and then the other, fluffs them up, rearranges them, only to end up not being satisfied and starting all over again. He's fussing. Which is weird because Yuuji is anything but strict or perfectionist. Among the first years he's the chill guy, the one who agrees with just about everything and doesn't get easily irritated.
But the more he applies himself to the task, the lighter the heaviness in his chest becomes until it completely disappears, leaving him serene before the mess his bed has become. A meticulously organised mess, that said. The pillow he's holding in his arms is the icing on the cake. Literally, as both pillows and sheets smell as if they've spent hours in the kitchens of a bakery alongside orange blossoms and vanilla pods.
He feels warm all over, as small as a chick under it's mother's feathers, content and calm and safe.
Sleep comes easily after all that but doesn't last long.
There's banging at his door. Yuuji curls up against the pillow in his arms, hoping to be forgotten and left to stew in his orange blossom soup in peace, to no avail. "Rise and shine, Yuuji-kun!" Gojo's voice is loud enough to cut through the wood of the door and echo around the room as if he were in it. "You're incredibly late!" Gojo continues while punctuating each word with a knock on the door. Yuuji is surprised not to see it in pieces already. "More than me by thirty minutes! Are you trying to steal my reputation?"
Yuuji tries to answer but it comes out as "aaggghhh", his throat excruciatingly dry from vomiting earlier in the night. He then resolves to wait for Gojo to make his entrance, either by teleportation as is often the case or when the door collapses because of his incessant knocking. And incessant they are: the minutes go by but the man doesn't seem ready to come in any time soon, just knocking and launching into a monologue as he so often does. Yuuji grunts. Wait a few more moments but no, Gojo has acquired respect for privacy between yesterday and today and has decided to apply it on the one day Yuuji is sick.
He reluctantly drags himself out of bed without letting go of the pillow in his arms. He's barely taken two steps when Sukuna shows up on his left cheek again, and Yuuji lets out a long sigh that rivals even Fushiguro's when he does something stupid.
"Cover yourself," Sukuna orders like the king he is.
Yuuji is but a confused subject. "What?"
Sukuna clicks his tongue, irritated and impatient, but when isn't he? "Don't make me repeat myself. You're not opening this door while naked as a worm. Though I suppose it is fitting for the likes of you."
The insult flies over Yuuji's head, but it takes him longer than usual to spot the essential information. He looks down at his bare legs and then his thighs; sleeping in boxers and old T-shirts is considered naked according to the thousand years old curse, huh. Well, he has a point, Yuuji can't appear in front of his teacher in such an outfit— even if said teacher has already seen him naked on a dissection table. But Yuuji is sick, so he simply wraps a sheet around his shoulders, the smell of cake bringing him instant comfort, and opens the door, ignoring Sukuna's silent protests about his method of covering up.
"Yuuji-kun!" Gojo exclaims, fist stopping mid-air, "you had sensei worried for you first thing in the morning!" Although he's wearing his usual blindfold Yuuji can see his eyelids, and therefore his gaze, dropping downwards for a brief moment before rising again and settling on Yuuji's forehead. Suddenly hyper-aware, he rubs his calves together. "Sensei, I'm sorry I missed class but I'm sick."
The fake smile that Gojo constantly wears falls away. He straightens up. "Sick?" he repeats. Yuuji nods and immediately regrets it when his vision shakes. "Yeah, threw up and all. I'm not feeling good overall."
Gojo tilts his head thoughtfully. "You don't seem in heat," he notes. He extends his arm towards Yuuji's face but stops just in front of it, as if to feel the warmth emanating from him with just his fingertips. Yuuji blinks. Heat? Oh. "I don't have a fever," he confirms, moving his face forward so that Gojo can touch his skin properly, no Infinity to stop him. His hand is big and cold and— is that cologne? He buries his cheek deeper into the man's palm and barely notices the way he stiffens, breath hitching like a poorly sealed air balloon.
The smell is wow. Like, it's known that Gojo is more than well off but Yuuji didn't know that money bought such quality products. It smells like Christmas. Not the hot chocolate ho ho ho Santa Claus part (he exists, Yuuji is sure of it) but more the down-to-earth side of Christmas. Yuuji inhales and suddenly it's snowing, there's a mint candy in his mouth and fir thorns stuck in the threads of his gloves. Mint, pine, snow, mud. The smell seems the strongest at Gojo's wrist, where people rub their perfume like he's seen Kugisaki do, and he stops himself from sniffing it like a dog.
So he settles for the palm that covers the whole of his cheek and more. "No fever," Yuuji repeats, returning his attention to Gojo's blindfold.
"No fever," his voice is tight, as is his jaw.
The fingers beneath Yuuji twitch momentarily. Then squeeze. Hard. Yuuji barely has time to react before the pressure is gone, as if it never happened.
Gojo's smile returns, although his teeth are showing a little too much. "Mmmh..." he turns Yuuji's head from left to right, to which he can do nothing but cling at the door's frame, thus dropping his pillow. The sheet slips from his shoulders. "It's not like Yuuji-kun to get sick. Also, I can't help but notice some cursed energy that is neither yours nor Sukuna's."
"Eh? Really?"
"Yep, let me just—" Two fingers rest on his forehead then poof. Yuuji blinks once, twice, as many times as it takes for his legs to respond. "Oh," he says. "Oh, I'm not sick anymore." The earth suddenly shakes, mighty and loud and deep, except it's not the earth but Gojo laughing out loud and Yuuji hearing everything with clear accuracy from where his ear is glued close to the man's chest after he caught him from his fall. Every jolt resonates through Yuuji like a shockwave. The snow and mint return, the fir trees tremble under his laughter, the pines bounce indefinitely until they land in the mud and stay there. Yuuji looks up, Gojo is already looking down. He's being observed from behind the fabric of that blindfold, Yuuji can tell, and suddenly regrets not obeying Sukuna's order to cover up.
With no illness, which was actually cursed energy, clouding his thoughts, Yuuji is very aware of the sheet lying at his feet. His bare feet. His bare calves. His bare knees, bare thighs, all the way up to his underwear. This is embarrassing, mortifying even because this isn't the morgue and he's not on a dissection table. He's standing at the threshold of his room, on tiptoe after Gojo fixed him, caught him, face pressed against a black uniform, a chest and there's—well, there are two arms around his waist, but there's more too. Yuuji knows his cheeks are reddening by the way Gojo's smile widens wickedly, teeth gleaming. Yuuji makes the mistake of lingering on them—they're long and sharp, since when—
There's a rumbling. Like a car engine. It resonates through Yuuji, just as his laughter did. He doesn't have time to process anything before a tremor seizes his chest. His throat scratches like never before, the sensation so unfamiliar that he almost lets a sound escape his lips. No, not a sound. Something else, a response to the earthquake taking place in Gojo's chest. Gojo, by the way, hasn't looked away, still fixed on him, and the arms around him tighten until a hand rests on his back and lowers—
"Than—" Yuuji tries, but whatever was building up in his chest tries to get out all at once, leaving him choking on his own spit. The big, cool hands on his back go to rest on his shoulders to steady him.
"Thank you," he tries again after a long cough. "Thanks for fixing me! Is, er, is class cancelled?" This is awkward, someone speed up his execution now.
Gojo remains silent for a moment before tapping Yuuji's nose. "Of course not! There's a test on cursed tools after all! Can't have you miss it."
His cheeks turn from bright red to white in a matter of seconds. "Is it today?" he asks doubtfully. Gojo just smiles. "Five bonus points if you're ready in ten minutes."
Yuuji scurries back to his room like a rabbit chased by a fox. "Aren't you forgetting something?" Gojo calls out from the corridor. For some reason, Yuuji blushes from head to toe at the sight of his teacher holding the pillow in one hand and the sheet in the other, and the amused expression does nothing to calm the wave of embarrassment-shy-shame that's about to sweep over him. "Right," he says as he retraces his steps. "Sorry about that."
Gojo chuckles, "All's good. However..." The cloth is draped over Yuuji's shoulders again. He can only blink at the man arranging the sheet so that it covers his entire body like a long cape. A draught passes and Gojo's nostrils twitch imperceptibly, the mint suddenly so much stronger that Yuuji runs his tongue over his molars to check if he doesn't have any pieces of candy stuck between his teeth. Gojo seems to notice the movement, six eyes and all working overtime it seems, but he doesn't comment on it except for a pressure on his shoulders.
"Don't open the door dressed so lightly. You don't know who you might run into." The pillow is then passed into his arms.
"What?" Yuuji looks back as Gojo pushes him into his room. "Not you too!"
Gojo tilts his head and the movement is so mechanical, like the tiny dolls Kugisaki trains with, it sends shivers of dread down his spine. "Now, what is that supposed to mean?" The snow swallows the mint whole, lowering the ambient temperature by several degrees.
Alarm bells rings loud and clear in Yuuji's mind. "Nothing!" he says hurriedly and shuts the door in Gojo's face. The corridor is silent for a few minutes, so Yuuji is sure the other has headed for the classroom where his classmates must have been waiting for them for quite a while but a humming proves him wrong. The sound is deliberately pensive, inoffensive, but the icy snow betrays this false facade. "Eh," Gojo trails off, "ten points off for every minute you're late."
Betrayed, Yuuji drops his pillow. "Sensei!" he protests from behind the door.
"No can do, Willy Wonka." Willy who? That old movie about sweets? "Think of Megumi and Nobara, they've been waiting for you for a while now."
"But you always keep us waiting!"
Humming once again. "Fair enough, but that's me!"
"Sensei!"
"About time," says Kugisaki as soon as he walks through the door nine minutes and forty-four seconds later. No shower, no breakfast, but at least he had time to put on his uniform and tie his shoes. "Sorry, sorry, some cursed energy messed me up," Yuuji hurries to sit down at his desk between Kugisaki and Fushiguro. He gives him a beaming good morning smile to which he simply nods.
Kugisaki narrows her eyes. "From yesterday's mission? I knew something was off, it was way too simple."
"You broke your hammer," Fushiguro helpfully reminds her.
"Whose fault was that, huh?" she growls. She growls? It was totally a growl. Yuuji furtively shifts his seat to the right to put some distance between them but she notices right away and grabs the red hood of his uniform. "And where do you think you're go— Huh? Where's your collar?"
Two pairs of eyes fix on him. "My collar?" Yuuji repeats confused. Kugisaki looks at him the way she looks at curses before crucifying them on a concrete wall, which makes Yuuji's neurons race to work out what he's got himself into again. Collar, collar... Wait, collar? The leather thing that was lying on his bedside table? Yuuji hadn't paid any attention to it in his haste to get dressed in time to collect the five bonus points promised by Gojo, but now that he's focusing, the thing looked well cared for and somewhat decorated with flowers engraved in the leather. Like a fashion accessory. Damn, Kugisaki must have given it to him (forced it on him) during one of the many shopping trips she takes him on to carry her bags. And he must have promised to wear it because she doesn't play around when it comes to where her money goes. And now he's forgot to wear it. Oh, he's so screwed.
He swallows loudly. "I forgot to wear it?" When all he gets in reply is an arched eyebrow Yuuji flounders to justify himself. "I woke up late, I just had time to put on my uniform before Gojo-sensei was already dragging me out!"
Fushiguro straightens from where he's been slumped over his desk. "He went in your room?" he asks, and though Yuuji can't see his face because of Kugisaki's iron grip on his hoodie, he can clearly hear the grimace in his irritated voice. He may be the quietest of the trio by far but there's always a hint of anger coloring his words whenever he speaks. Like an orca hiding under ice floes, its presence promises of rampage.
"No, he kept banging on the door until I opened it. Kinda weird if you ask me."
"As he should," Kugisaki finally releases him after a quick inspection of his neck. She takes with her the cloud of cinnamon and clove that had enveloped them both with her wrist so close to his nose. Huh, new perfume? She usually drown herself in vanilla mist.
"Try not to stink up the room, will you?"
Yuuji nearly falls off his chair. He may not have washed this morning but he did take a shower last night before going to sleep! Something inside him revolts at the mere insinuation that he doesn't smell good. "I don't stink!" he shouts in her direction but she's already ignoring him. Self-doubt crawling under his skin, Yuuji turns to Fushiguro. "Do I?"
His eyes widen at the question. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, like the carp in the pond near the training grounds, but no sound comes out. Yuuji frowns at his reaction before realization sinks in. "I do."
"No!" A blush creeps across his cheeks, their ghostly pallor working against him. Fushiguro clears his throat and lowers his gaze to the wood of his desk. "It's not... bad. Your scent." Then, as if to correct himself, "It's normal." Oh, Yuuji must stink like an expired carton of milk if Fushiguro can't even meet his eyes. Did he sweat a lot while sleeping? He was sick after all. Maybe the smell of vomit stuck on his skin or something, he is so taking a shower right after class.
Out of curiosity, Yuuji leans in close to Fushiguro, who still has his head down, to smell the air around him and compare it to his own scent— damn. Okay. Okay, no wonder he stinks according to him. He takes a second breath to be sure, deeper and longer, because he's almost certain Fushiguro has never smelled this good before. Is it the same brand as Gojo's cologne? Surely. Yuuji didn't really understand everything but what he has understood is that the man provides for both siblings. He just didn't know that extended to body odor.
Pear and cedar and thyme. Yuuji is firstly impressed by himself for discerning each note so easily and then by the cologne brand for concocting such a blend. Pears don't get enough praise; it's always apples who get all the fame. He'll have to ask Gojo the name of the brand to leave a positive review on their website.
Yuuji finally straightens up and meets Fushiguro's absolutely flabbergasted gaze. "Oops," he says, having been caught red-handed sniffing his classmate. "At least one of us smells good," he blurts out to lighten the mood, but it backfires because Fushiguro stiffens as if lightning struck him. His eyes widen comically, and Yuuji would have laughed his ass off if the red color flooding his face wasn't starting to worry him. "Man, you good?" he asks, hand outstretched, hesitant over what to do.
That's when Kugisaki decides to butt in. "What's this? I don't see you complimenting my scent." She jabs an accusing manicured finger into his cheek, which Yuuji struggles to brush away. "But you always smell good!" he protests, the finger becomes two, her nails stabbing his skin like dull knives. "And you know it."
"Obviously." She flicks her hair to the side with all the arrogance of a peacock, preening at the praise Yuuji knows she's fishing. The cinnamon thickens in the air so much so that he goes to ask her if she left her bottle open in her bag. He's cut off by Gojo arriving with a file under his arm. "Alright, we've wasted enough time! Everyone, back to your seats."
Kugisaki throws the small glass of ink she keeps on her desk for her fountain pen. It bounces off Infinity and lands effortlessly on the desk where Gojo is leaning, grinning. "We're already in our seats! And you were late too!"
"My, my, Nobara. Is it a good idea to throw ink at me when I'm carrying your tests? Also, what's wrong with Megumi?"
"Itadori broke him."
"I did not!"
It goes without saying that he fails the test even with the five bonus points.