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Being a dad is not easy. Especially when the kid is a nightmare. So Yuuji has no idea why he accepted to do this.
It happened exactly five years ago. And Yuuji knew it the moment he saw a baby with crimson eyes and pink hair. He knew Sukuna fucking reincarnated. And what did Yuuji do? He took the baby to raise him. He still has no idea why he did it, after all, he had already isolated himself from everyone since he doesn’t age at all and he can’t bear to keep assisting to funerals from the people he cared about, it doesn’t help that he still looks like a 15 year old teenager.
Maybe it was loneliness? Maybe it was because he always wanted a family but was never able to get married and have children of his own thanks to this not aging curse. Or maybe it was because some part of him wanted to avoid another King of Curses resurfacing again.
Either way, since 5 years ago Sukuna has been his.
And the kid is a nightmare. When he was a baby he would cry a lot whenever Yuuji stopped holding him, and he would glare at him with a tiny scowl that made Yuuji feel judged and made him wonder if he remembered his past life.
Unlikely so.
Yuuji named him Itadori Sukuna because… well. It felt dishonest not to. And maybe, selfishly, it reminded Yuuji that whatever this was, it was his responsibility now.
The little gremlin is five years old now, so tiny, and chubby (Sukuna hates being called chubby).
He talks with very bad pronunciation.
He demanded apple slices cut perfectly even.
And he is an energetic child who refuses to stay still. He is so prideful. Of course he is. But he is so clingy too, even if he never admitted it.
Even if he tries to hide it, he gets so scared during storms and he always ends up on Yuuji’s bed. Such a tiny body always occupying a lot of space. And Yuuji always ends up with a tiny foot on his face.
Sukuna was obsessed—obsessed—with Hello Kitty, to the point where Yuuji had an entire drawer dedicated to pink merchandise he never thought he’d own.
He even made a big tantrum last year when he was four years old for Yuuji to buy him a Hello Kitty plushie. He takes his plushie everywhere and always demands Yuuji to clean her when she gets dirty.
He really is a brat.
And what was Yuuji currently doing right now? Yuuji was sitting on the floor, next to the child’s bed, staring at two small socked feet sticking out from under the bed.
They were trembling.
Very dramatically.
“Sukuna” Yuuji said gently. “Brat. You’re going to get dust in your nose.”
A sniffle. Loud. Wet.
“…go ’way.”
Yuuji sighs.
They had been home for an hour.
An entire hour of this.
It all started many hours earlier. Because Sukuna needed vaccines. And Yuuji knew he wouldn’t be able to bring Sukuna to the clinic without resisting.
So…. He lied.
And told Sukuna, he was the one who needed to attend there.
Sukuna had laughed so hard he’d snorted.
“HAH. Yuuji cweaky. Need oil,” he said, swinging his legs in the waiting room chair. “Old man bones go cwack-cwack.”
Yuuji wished he was actually old and had creaky bones.
Yuuji hated the look Sukuna gave him when the nurse pulled out the syringe and realized they weren’t here for Yuuji.
Confusion first.
Then betrayal.
Then feral, unfiltered rage.
“NOOOOOOOO!” Sukuna had screamed, scrambling like a cat. “NO NEEDLES!!! NO NEEDLES!!!”
Yuuji had barely caught him before he tried to bite the nurse. He yelled “SUKUNA NO BITES! BRAT! STOP IT! IS FOR YOUR HEALTH!!!.
The nurse, bless her soul, had not even flinched.
“Aww” she’d calmly said. “A biter.”
Then she had wrapped Sukuna in a blanket with frightening efficiency, pinning his arms to his sides like a tightly packed burrito.
Yuuji blinks and said “Uh, is that really okay to—”
The nurse gave him a smile that made him shiver and said “Don’t worry, I do this all the time”.
The vaccine had taken less than three seconds.
Sukuna’s scream had reached levels Yuuji was fairly sure violated international law
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Yuuji still felt sick thinking about it. People in the waiting room had stared. Yuuji had wanted the floor to swallow him whole.
Now, back home, the consequences had arrived.
“Sukuna,” Yuuji tried again, soft. “I’m sorry.”
Silence.
Then, very quietly: “…you lied.”
“I did,” Yuuji admitted immediately. No excuses. “I shouldn’t have.”
Another sniffle. A hiccup.
Yuuji shifted so he could see a little more under the bed. The darkness hid most of Sukuna, but he could make out a flash of pink hair and the edge of a Hello Kitty sock.
Yuuji said “It wasn’t that bad”.
“It WAS,” Sukuna shot back, voice cracking. “It poke my soul.”
His tiny feet kicked once, hitting the bedframe with a dull thump. “You twicked me,” Sukuna said. “You said clinic fow you. You old. You lied.”
“Because you would have refused to go if I had told the truth.”
“That ’cause BAD THING,” Sukuna snapped.
Yuuji sighed again. “I didn’t do it to be mean. Vaccines keep you from getting really sick. They help your body fight stuff it can’t see.”
“I fight,” Sukuna muttered. “I stwong.”
“You can’t fight everything, brat”.
That earned him nothing but another sniffle. Minutes passed. The room was quiet except for Sukuna’s uneven breathing.
Yuuji could, very easily, grab those feet. And drag him out.
He doesn’t.
“I won’t lie to you again,” Yuuji said quietly. “Not about stuff like that at least."
Under the bed, the feet stilled.
“…pwomise?”
“I promise.”
A long pause.
Then.
“…buwwito lady evil.”
Yuuji huffed a weak laugh. “She kind of was.”
“I scweamed," Sukuna said, voice small now. “Evewyone look.”
“I know.”
“They think I baby.”
Yuuji says. “You’re a baby. A chubby one.”
“NOT CHUBBY!!!”.
Yuuji smirks. “Right, baby fat”.
Another silence.
Then, slowly, Sukuna crawled out of under the bed.
His crimson eyes were red and wet and furious.
“You still mean,” he accused.
“Yeah,” Yuuji said honestly. “Probably.”
Sukuna stared at him for a long moment. Then almost immediately threw himself face-first into Yuuji’s chest. More like a collision than a hug, but Yuuji wrapped his arms around him anyway.
Sukuna clutched his hoddie with tiny fists and sobbed, loud and ugly and exhausting.
“I hate needles,” he cried. “I hate clinics. I hate you. I hate buwwito.”
“I know,” Yuuji murmured, rocking gently. “I’m here.”
After a while, the crying slowed.
“…my awm feel funny.”
“That’s normal,” Yuuji said. “We can put a cool patch on it.”
“…Hello Kitty one?”
Yuuji smiled, tired and relieved at teh same time.
“Yeah,” he said. “The Hello Kitty one.”
Yuuji noticed the child dozing off. He remembers when he was a baby and how smaller he was. He is still tiny but he’ll grow up one day. And Yuuji selfishly finds himself wishing he doesn’t grow up anymore.
Suddenly as the child slept and Yuuji tucked him in bed, the five year old mumbles “Love Papa”.
Yuuji finds himself smiling again. He doesn’t know what the future awaits, but somehow he just knows both of them will be just fine.