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When Yuuji slurps down a rotten, festering finger—like an actual bona fide seagull snatching up a stale French fry, or a toddler popping a tide pod with the frightening speed only capable by barely sentient creatures launching themselves towards death, obliviously whittling down the sanity of any caretaker, or french fry eater, within the vicinity—Sukuna, begrudging older brother to a pink haired idiot whose only redeeming quality is his ability to not die when punched in the neck, screeches.
He even doesn’t like screeching, but here he fucking is because of that brat.
It's a painfully wordless howl of utter contempt, too, as what little, so begrudgingly small, practically nonexistent respect Sukuna may have had for Yuuji just dies in real time. Utterly obliterated. And horribly too, as if burnt alive in an explosion of raging disappointment, then drowned in the utter disrespect of making Sukuna second guess any decision he’s ever made, and then run over by the sheer audacity of the entire situation within itself, which, to him, automatically qualifies Yuji for the death penalty. Electric chair.
Let it be known Sukuna hates that little shit.
And if he dies stupidly, and outside of Sukuna’s hand, Sukuna is dragging him by the ankle from death and throwing him into the mortal coil, ensuring he snaps his knees in half on the way back.
That fucker made Sukuna waste precious air and crumbs of energy better spent on intimidating the local populace and outright robbing people in dark alleyways—buying good copies of poetry, artwork, and painting supplies cost money, after all—with tracking him down. And this brat’s at school? The annoying, noisy, location bursting with equally brain dead individuals who either scrap up enough self preservation to avoid Sukuna like the black plague come back for a sequel, or desperately appease him for social currency.
Luckily, most idiots realize surviving Sukuna’s general thirst for violence could be appeased by giving up money, which is a very fair trade where Sukuna provides protection from himself, all for some cold, hard cash. And food. Quality dishes and snacks. He’s very generous to the open mouth breathing peons around him, which, when they’re risking ungratefulness, or being stingy about funds, he’s happy to remind anyone he could probably rip out of their skull with a flick of his wrist and slurp whatever miserable pool of brain they’ve got like coconut water.
Point being, he does not want to be at his miserable, boring building at night. He could be reading right now. Painting even, or better yet, commanding Yuji to cook for him. And yet here he is, without a meal. Bookless. Deprived of the hobbies Grandpa insisted he try partaking, because apparently sneering at everything, fighting anyone, and plotting the demise of others doesn’t quite qualify.
It’s times like these that make him wonder what kind of idiot dared to be born, a shoddy copy and pasted job at that, and then refuse to fulfill his destiny at doing what Sukuna tells him to.
Utterly disrespectful.
Mind you, Sukuna only had blissful two years of existence before this child decided to take up Sukuna’s air with his disgusting mouth mind you. A very wonderful two years. He was the sole focus of the parents Sukuna barely remembered, nor cared to, but considering his own general demeanor, he can only assume he ruled his parents with a tiny yet chubby baby fist, and was catered to his every whim, as deserved. And those losers went and died. And pathetically, too, by a spontaneous car accident—just dodge, or simply glare at the driver as the vehicle dents like a wet paper ball by the sheer force of your audacity—but right before popping out the potential servant, Yuji.
The purpose of producing a shittier copy of himself is blatantly insulting, but Sukuna knew how to make do. And so, as one of two poor souls in the pitiful, approximately this brain dead pink poodle in human skin—with the fighting power of a panther on steroids—Yuji quickly and officially his to insult, or gleefully try maiming.
Grandpa can raise the brat, but Yuuji was put on this earth as a Sukuna'a stress toy. Obliviously. It’s his price to pay for being so disgustingly idiotic, and so openly cheerful.
So, Sukuna can gleefully elbows the brat’s throat on random whim, and the brat remains the only person to not cry, or sputter and writhe pathetically on the ground—writhing, whinging, and begging can only be so entertaining—but actually try snapping Sukuna’s fingers. The brat enjoyed it too, viciously dipping into some feral need to claw Sukuna’s eyes out as Sukuna tried tearing his skull open. It’s one of the few sparse moments of life that makes Sukuna hesitantly appreciative of Yuji’s existence. At least someone can actually fight. Or better, learn from Sukuna, like everyone should when he lets them live.
It’s the bare minimum payment, or earning, if they’re going to be related by blood.
So, Sukuna is not going to be related to some fucker who died by eating a chunk of a spooky corpse, especially having survived the very literal toddler years of a baby Yuuji determined to inhale every poison imaginable, with the evil force of being able to rip open cabinets while crawling.
That’s embarrassing.
His reputation will be impacted by their shared, yet unfortunate proximity, and if some snot nosed, weak legged, idiot among the mass pack of the student body boldly dared to offer their condolences, Sukuna’s breaking a Geneva convention.
He’s, also, not calling Grandpa to let him now this little shit died by inhaling some random cursed object like a dog snatching something off the fucking floor, except he’s sure a dog might have the one braincell to not eat a long since dead body like it’s porkbelly fresh off a plate.
Grandpa would then actually die from being told of such incredible stupidity, and he’s already got one foot in the grave. He’d literally leave this mortal plane to spare himself from witnessing this any further, and Sukuna would somewhat understand it.
Personally, he's only dying until he feels like earth ceased being somewhat interesting, but Sukuna can begrudgingly sympathize.
Point being, that thing screams it's wretchedly cursed. The very vibe alone screams it. Shrieks, even. It’s a bright neon sign of don’t eat this thing, blaring on speakers and being a general public nuisance.
How is he so fucking stupid? How can he be born with so little sense? They’re related. And that thing radiates pissed off energy like a wasp nests being hit by a bat, then set on fire with nothing but a lighter and gurgling alcohol, except multiplied by a thousand and then some. He has taught Yuji to trust what little gut instinct he had for the very literal monsters he has seen with his own fucking eyes. Sukuna has saved his undying ass repeatedly from them, too, which was more whim and convenience than anything approaching disgusting affection.
And yet, here he is, trying to snag this fucker to come home.
Mostly because, again, Sukuna refuses to cook tonight because such chores are below him, which also meant having to find this brat in the first place, an annoying ordeal of trying to spot a speedy pink haired idiot, which, again, led him back to school. The same one that brat stood in front of like an idiot before running inside. And Sukuna can’t even blink before he had watched that idiot vault through a window.
Which, what the fuck.
But, obliviously, Sukuna scaled up the roof when he heard some shit explode, only to see that idiot, oddly blood stained and uniform partially torn like he’d tried making out with a wood chopper, eat some wretched finger that Sukuna can feel as he climbs up towards the roof.
“Yuuji! No!” Sukuna snarls, “Out! Spit it out!”
And this fucker swallows it. Stares at Sukuna as he does, Sukuna finally leaping over some stupid fence before he hears it crunch between this idiot’s teeth in real time.
Sukuna’s eye twitches.
He lunges over to Yuuji, teeth bared. Whatever monster tried eating his brother is clearly deserved, this idiot—
“Out!”
Sukuna grabs him by the neck and tries to unhinge his jaw, getting horrible flashbacks to the ancient world of just yesterday, where Sukuna provided the some sadistic fusion of the hummock maneuver with potentially bone shattering suplex because Yuji dared to eat his food, so Sukuna promptly decided he’d rather it be vomited onto the floor than enjoyed by anyone else.
It’s only fair, which is to say it’s about the principle about everyone suffering if Sukuna is, because that’s about how interested Sukuna is about anything being fair. Not everyone can stick to the morality of a shonen protagonist, because Sukuna actually has taste beyond the random manga collection Yuji spends his merciful allowance on. After all, the brat is far less whiny about Sukuna’s adventures in terrorizing the monsters that swim around dead hospitals and fester in creepy ass spots in tunnels, and demanding payment from whoever tried asking for his help, when partially paid.
Or, when he’s dragged along with Sukuna as Sukuna harasses the student body into paying for an exemption to Sukuna’s violent tendencies.
Or, using Yuji’s general idiotic demeanor to reel in arrogant scum over casinos and betting pools, before cheating off the thrill of it and daring them to do anything about it.
It truly helps to drill in some common sense in the brat’s hollow skull, like don’t do shit for free. Like saving some pathetic worm from bullying and demanding payment—from the bully and bullied, both, because Sukuna believes in economic equality. Fair’s fair, and fair’s defined by whatever the fuck Sukuna wants, and whatever mentality or logical consistency Yuji, a consistent idiot, actually buys without badgering him further.
But Yuji, as equally spiteful as Sukuna despite his stupid looking demeanor, and fully committing to demonstrating the depth of his brainlessness with every scrap of common sense Sukuna had pried into his skull being flushed down the toilet, clenches his teeth and tries rolling out of his grip like an improv alligator.
Which, obliviously, triggers their mutually driven cain instinct. Or, the usual dance of bloodlust driven wrestling that could probably kill any other person, because most people are appallingly pathetic.
Still, at some point Sukuna decides kicking Yuji’s teeth in is a better than trying to unhinge his jaw, and Yuji, the fucker, decides elbowing Sukuna in the throat for shits and giggles. It's truly far too easy to just roll back into the motions of vicious Cain instinct, so he just does. Homicidal levels of violence has long since evolved past family tradition, after all, and currently operates on a mutual understanding that this is their own brand of brotherly bonding, as neither of them, potentially bruised, battered, or bitten, actually die.
But apparently some other kid was here the whole time, but he was so painfully forgettable, Sukuna tuned him out entirely. Sukuna really can’t find a bare scrap of brain cell to care when there’s a fight to win, so he tries choking Yuji, who ferally bites his fingers, because apparently he can’t get enough of them.
“Fucker!” Sukuna hisses, grabbing Yuji’s head and slamming into the ground, “You wanna eat the fucking floor, too?”
“I had to! Look, I just—I had to eat it, okay?”
“Huh?”
In what universe is resorting to corpse flavored cannibalism make sense? What logic could that have possibly followed except to try shortening his own lifespan and proving to the world he’s chronically deficient of braincells and would rather protect himself on pure, unfiltered impulse?
“It killed them,” he croaked.
Fucking emotional whiplash, sure, but squinting at Yuji, not quite pausing the brawl, he got reminded of the amount of blood just casually splattered on the idiot. Yuji was durable then most so, couldn’t be his. He also had the uncanny ability to try befriending anything within his vicinity, and would probably bite Sukuna’s hands off if Sukuna snapped someone’s neck like a pencil, so he knew whoever died. Ugh.
And okay that much puts some of this shit in slightly more context, but still not enough. Still, the brat’s grip lessens just enough that Sukuna can put him in chokehold, the closest thing they’ll ever get to brotherly embrace, as Yuji does that disgusting thing when his voice goes weepy and soft.
“Explain.”
“I thought I could handle it, y’know,” Yuji says, disgustingly emotional, “But that fish monster snatched them up. It ate them. It killed them. I couldn’t do anything, but that guy said that finger had some power up!”
Sukuna properly drops him, then grabs Yuuji by the hoodie like it’s a makeshift child leash, and stares at some guy he’s already forgotten the face of.
The kid looks emotionally constipated, and yet fully commits mockery of gang signs more akin to making shitty shadow puppets with the moon, which reeks of theatre kid foolishness. This brat got tricked by this fool? He looks like he practices looking nonchalant in the mirror for hours. Sukuna stops whatever the fuck this guy’s doing by slapping his hands, dragging Yuji by the hood.
“You some wannabe gangster?” He sneers. “What rancid finger thing did this idiot eat?”
He jostled Yuji around as he demanded it, and Yuji simply dealt with it, because he deserves to be put on a child leash made for overly enthusiastic five year olds who’d end up on the roof if you even blink away from their direction, apparently.
“He’s a vessel,” Random Guy says too fucking lowly, nearly shaking, staring the both of them like Sukuna curb stomped his grandparents for daring to breathe some of his air.
Considering Sukuna cannot possibly care this much about a guy his brain refuses to waste the energy remembering, as he does with most people, he doubts he did that much. Grandparents don’t have the kind of money to shake down for anyway, that’s what cheating at casinos are for. And threatening the student body.
“Speak up! What did you make this brat eat?”
“I didn’t make him eat anything!” The guy shouts back furiously. “He should be dead. Possessed! That thing was from the King of Curses!”
Sukuna blinks. “I don’t care what brain dead idiot wasted their life by winning the world’s stupidest record for spitting out as many curse words as possible, you freak, what specifically did this idiot eat and do I need his stomach pumped?” Then to Yuji, “You would get yourself hospitalized,” he sneered, “I’m telling the nurses to deprive you of anesthesia.”
“I told you! It was to be this big scary monster! Like the ones we fight sometimes, but a hundred times worse.” Yuji pipes up. “The other monster wanted it, y’know the crusty finger, tastes gross by the way, but when I ate it—bam! I could slice that guy up in seconds.”
Yuji then squeezes his fists tight, exhibiting a rare yet respectful moment of honest bloodlust.
“I had to, y’know? It took Iguchi. It ate Saski. I couldn’t—”
Sukuna frankly drops him to stop that tirade in its tracks, to which Yuji just pops back up, like always.
He rightfully shuts up, however, probably sensing the whittling sense of patience Sukuna has for any emotion even trying to orbit around crying, or his violent allergic reaction to pathetic guilty tirades, because criers can get their eyes plucked out.
“It worked.”
The brat insists anyway, like he doesn’t look fresh outta one of the horror movies he’ll bitch and whine about dragging Sukuna to, to which they’ll get kicked out the theater, because Sukuna can’t help laughing like it’s a comedy or ranting about shitty plots. But still, the brat looks as ragged and bloody as some pink haired Final Girl.
Sukuna squints at him.
“It did!”
But Sukuna has already invested time and effort into being upset about this, so he punches Yuji in the throat on the very principle. The fucker just grins a little, blocking the blow, falsely equating that for forgiveness.
“What worked?” A literal blindfolded stranger pipes up like the horrifying jumpscare of a flash mob, which—rude.
That kind of audacity should exclusively be attributed to Sukuna, and not grown ass strangers loitering at a public school after dark, while looking like a half assed cosplay for whatever manga Yuji reads and rambles about at Sukuna—who refuses to waste any of brain cells on that, and blatantly ignores him. It’s their evening routine.
“Whose this freak?” Sukuna says loudly and openly, eyeing him up and down.
“I should be asking you two, that!” He chirps back, inciting Sukuna’s homicidal urges, which trigger spontaneously, anyway.
The guy looks built like a toothpick, or a cotton swab wrapped in the leftover hair in a barber shop, and is therefore a spineless idiot with far too much audacity to go without being curb stomped. And yet, the fucker than ignores them entirely and nudges the emotionally constipated emo kid.
“What happened to your assignment? Find the finger? Hm?”
“He ate it?” Shadow Emo mutters, pointing vaguely in their direction, with the utterance of someone hoping whatever they just saw was a grand hallucination, coma produced unreality, rather than real life.
“Is that a question?”
“No?”
The grown ass man with a white paint brush for a scalp and a honest blind fold like he’s about to be tossed around, handed a bat, and go swinging for a pinata, merely hums merrily. He turns back to them, finally.
“So,” He says while stretching now, “Who's got Sukuna? Which of you is fighting him?”
Grown Freak points to his clearly brain cell deprived skull and taps it.
Sukuna squinted at this complete freak. “Got me? Who’d survive fighting me?”
Yuji raised his hand, to which Sukuna instinctively slapped it away.
Shadow Puppet Guy shook his head furiously, and pointed at Yuji, making Sukuna itch to slap his hands again for the audacity, or just squeeze until his fingers broke one by one, as hunger quickly whittled down any patience he had for this terrible, wretched, and long night. He’s hungry.
“No, he ate it!” Emo Guy screeches, sanity rapidly dwindling.
“The finger?” Yuji echoes, pointing at himself as if anyone could possibly forget such a boldly braindead idiot, or his newfound yet vaguely cannibalistic tendencies. “Oh, okay, yeah, I ate that, but I feel great? Sliced a fish monster! And look! We’re both alive, so it all works out, right? No stomach pumping?”
“Oh, you’re getting your stomach pumped,” Sukuna replies instantly. “I’m not letting you become a cannibal off some cursed bitch’s finger, you're not stranded on some remote island with nothing but a corpse. And,” Sukuna grins wildly, teeth bared, “I’m telling Grandpa.”
Yuji stared at him. “Then, I’m telling Grandpa you’re going to casinos again.”
This fucker—
“Okay, so you ate the finger? Rotten finger? Nasty looking?” Grown Freak interrupts.
“Yup!”
“Stop confessing anything willingly,” Sukuna sneers.
One would think after being harassed by the cowards dressed in police uniforms, he’d fucking learn this, but Yuji proceeds to show his uncanny ability to switch his brain on and off at all times, especially at Sukuna’s inconvenience. Sukuna swears if the brat actually developed a backbone built on malice and inciting a slow burn of psychological damage, he’d respect it, but instead it’s just pure idiocy.
“We both saw him eat it!” Emo Freak insists. “What’s there to confess?”
“It’s the principle.”
“The principle’s always important,” Yuji echoes, having the phrases bludgeoned into his skull by Sukuna, himself.
“And you don’t feel any different? No evil voice telling you to commit mass genocide?” Grown Freak says. “Like a little devil on your shoulder snatching your body? You’re not fighting to keep him suppressed?”
Yuji tilts his head like he’s a mutt. Sukuna instinctively socks him in the jaw, or tries, but Yuji seamlessly dodges while nearly biting his hand in retaliation.
“No? I mean, Sukuna talks about murder all the time, but that’s just when he’s pissed. Or bored.” Then, after a pause, he eyes Sukuna. “I don’t think Sukuna can be suppressed.”
“What the fuck,” Emo Freak breathed, like he needs a paper bag to push the air into his pathetic little lungs. “What is happening right now?”
“Don’t judge me, you theatre brat,” Sukuna hissed. “And that’s our question.”
Grown Freak just tilts his head in unison, squinting. “Hey, who do you think Sukuna is?”
Yuji, showing an amazing sense of lucidity and bare minimum common sense, points to Sukuna.
“My brother?”
“And if I say the King of Curses at the both of you, what rings a bell?”
“A game, maybe? A competition winner?”
“Some loser whose only accomplishment is breaking a world record that no one cares about.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Yuji nods.
Grown Freak hums. And Sukuna quickly realizes he’s hungry, he’s out of patience, and just willingly talks to some grown ass man with the most diabolical hair style, and actual blind fold that’d probably look more fitting on a hostage than this freak. He’s not getting shit answered, anyway. He yanks Yuji by the hood, it's a really good improv leash, and skirts around to where they could both jump to the ground floor of the school.
“We’re getting your stomach pumped,” He mutters and kicks Yuji off, to which he dramatically flips and lands on his feet. Sukuna launches himself off, and hits the floor with a roll, before stretching a little.
“Hey now, you can’t go!” Grown Freak shouts.
Sukuna would ignore that Grown Freak’s plea entirely, but then, as Sukuna starts walking away, this fucker just teleports in front of him. Sukuna, whose murderous impulses and general orientation towards violence, automatically tries punching the guy in the kidney for actually startling him, but the Grown Freak just dodges.
Immediately, Sukuna glances at Yuji, who confirms he witnessed someone actually, successfully dodge a painful swat to the kidneys, that should’ve left him whimpering on the floor and clumsily muttering a word short of hospital.
“Huh,” Yuji says.
Sukuna, staring ominously at Grown Fucker like that shit didn’t just happen, aims to kick in the Grown Freak’s knees, with the full speed Sukuna’s capable of, and he dodged away again.
In unison, Sukuna and Yuji whip their heads towards each other, and then back at Grown Freak. Yuji, instantly, steps back. Sukuna, and for the first time in a couple weeks, starts grinning so wide his face hurts from the underused muscle.
He’s going to beat this fucker up.
Or, at least they try.
See, this the fucking weird thing about it, Sukuna lunges and punches and kicks and honestly aims for full blown lethality as his patience dwindles into nothingness, but the giddy thrill of trying to beat someone who doesn’t just flail and whine like a toddler deprived of a McDonalds toy when Sukuna tries ripping their ear off, or screaming pathetically into the ground, doesn’t quite work.
Sukuna’s not landing hits.
The very concept should only exist in the hair brained skulls of conspiracy theorists foolishly wishing for Sukuna’s downfall, gritting their teeth in envy so hard they smash their molars into a fine powder, having to drink their meals until they die.
But the evidence exists spitefully.
Yuji, his only reliable witness considering he’s surrounded by two freaks, even senses the horrible shift in the universe like he does, because as much as Yuji seems deathly allergic to common sense, this is so horribly skewed that it violated whatever laws in the universe have been existing for as long as they lived.
“Can’t we just talk?” Grown Freak even laughs, gleefully dodging as his dramatic minion takes the pathetic route down by taking stairs.
Sukuna wants to rip this fucker’s head off.
“About what?” Yuji answers in Sukuna’s stead, who's too busy snarling and trying to bite this guy’s fingers into mushy play dough. “We’re just trying to go home. I don’t know who your Curse King is, and I’m pretty sure that finger’s, like, digested by now. I can’t vomit it back up. It’ll be mush.”
“King of Curses,” Emo Freak pipes up again. “He’s a monster from years ago, like I was telling you. Things that consume his finger, curses, get more powerful, and people either die or get possessed. You should be dead. You should be him right now.”
Yuji poked his stomach. “But I feel fine?” Then blinked. “Curses? Is that what you call those monster things? Are y’all hunters like us?”
Emo Freaks’s eyebrows fly up. “You call yourself hunters?”
“Well what do you call it?”
“Sorcerers?”
“That’s barely any better!” Yuji grumbles, as Sukuna is now using every cell and crumb of energy within his body to launch himself at the Grown Freak and choke him to death, agonizingly slowly, now succumbing to the pure bloodlust and malice.
His fingers twitch, and he settles for embracing his inner sadist as well, and starts throwing that wishy washy flames around his fists. He, usually, has better sense of sanity than using this miraculous ability that just makes him quicker, stronger, to all the mouth breathing idiots who probably collapse like a foldable lawn chair at a mere sneer, but this fucker deserves to have his knee subscription terminated.
“People can’t usually see curses. But your—,” Emo Freak pauses with just enough silence sitting in between them to instill the lack of respect and judgment capable of being shoved into a quiet pause, complete with eyeing the both of them with the kind of scrutiny typically not reserved for twiggy teenagers unless in a pack for hackling strangers, “—Brother, seems to have cursed energy. And now you do.”
“Well, yeah, he just do things like that?” Yuji shrugs. “Sukuna always could see ‘em and punch ‘em, and I could kinda see it and sometimes hurt ‘em, sort of, it’s kinda foggy and weird. I’m real good bait, though, so sometimes he'll just find one, and we go together and bam! Defeated,” Then the idiot brightens. “Do you have names for the cool power thing? The whole dice-slice upgrade I got? Or is that all that cursed energy ”
“A freakish fluke that distorts reality. The end of times.” He muttered. “You really should be dead by now. Or being homicidal.”
Yuji frowns, finally squinting back. “My brother took all my homicidal tendencies in the womb, I think. But, you guys are really obsessed with my dying. Sukuna!”
“Let me kill him first—,” Sukuna snarls, only to be interrupted by his resident idiot.
“I’m not cooking if we don’t visit Grandpa first. Visiting hours might close soon!”
Sukuna does not himself be pushed into appeasing the whims of idiotic younger brothers who have actively proven he’d probably lick a train pole coated with the bubonic plague, especially if left unsupervised for a millisecond, but he is hungry. While the prospects of being given a newfound reality distort the glitch of a chew toy, someone incapable of dying easily, like say by a mere slap to the skull, all without being idiot, denying himself life’s pleasures by demanding Yuji cook for him and ensuring Yuji doesn’t snitch off to Grandpa and give the old man heart palpitations is a higher priority.
He stops trying to smear Grown Freak into a fine paste, and launches himself beside Yuji, and abruptly shoves him forward.
“Uh, bye? Thanks for the finger!” Yuji beams, and then grows a bit quieter, “And for helping me, y’know, all that. I’m glad we both made it.”
Sukuna shoves him again for the audacity of being anything approaching weeping within a city wide radius of him.
“Freak,” He says to the Emo Kid, and squints at Grown Freak, “I’ll find you.”
Grown Freak merely hums considering.
“We’re just gonna—they can just go?!” Emo Kid sputters, “Didn’t he eat—”
Grown Freak shoves Emo Kid next to him in a clearly awkward one armed hug and mutters something. Then waves to Sukuna again, still loitering the premise of a highschool he’s sure both of these lunatics don’t actually attend.
“I’m sure we’ll meet soon!” Grown Freak grins.
Sukuna sneers and walks off without looking back, Yuji leading the way home.