Chapter Text
The air of Neo Tokyo City was muggy; fog hung low and soaked into the deep navy prep jacket Yuuji had shrugged on only halfway before grabbing a scalded piece of toast and ignoring the scolding from Sukuna for stealing his breakfast straight from his hands. It sat properly on his shoulders now, far into his early morning commute. It clung to him and, idly, he wondered if Sukuna would kill him for accidentally losing it on his way to school—abandoned in some puddle to never be retrieved again. If he didn’t have his uniform jacket, they’d eventually have to write him up so much they would expel him and he’d be allowed to go back to a normal school with normal people and normal damn classes.
He was grateful to his uncle for adjusting his life and taking him in—saving him from the headache of being moved from place to place or stuck to be forgotten in some orphanage somewhere—but for as long as Yuuji could remember, Wasuke was never well enough to help him in his morning routine and Sukuna was away on business enough that they were barely acquainted. Having him suddenly so involved felt strange at the best of times; suffocating at the worst.
Yuuji dodged a briefcase to the tender bits, shooting the glaring businessman an apologetic smile. He waited until the subway doors closed to furrow his brow and grumble, grip tight on the straps of his backpack.
How Sukuna managed to get him into some hoity-toity private school in the heart of Nihonbashi—one of the leading wards in biological technology development, and a place businesses were always scrambling to secure scaling skyscrapers within—he’d never be sure. He’d never had that kind of money to waste on all the fees, and he knew Wasuke’s life insurance couldn’t have been that good. Yuuji wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t “get a full ride to the most prestigious private school for the sciences” kind of smart either. The only option left made his stomach turn; he chose not to think too deeply about it.
A boy from Queens—sneakers falling apart with one good button-up to his name—sitting in the same classroom as peers who never wanted for anything in their life? That kind of thing would make anyone feel small. It certainly made Yuuji feel invisible.
Alone.
You’re a strong kid, so help people.
That damn old man. Who did he think he was running off, leaving his grandson behind, and forcing him to shoulder that kind of responsibility? Yuuji was just that—a kid. There was nothing extraordinary about him, he was barely scraping by in classes, and thus far, friends were not a luxury he had when it felt like the whole school was vying to be better than everyone else.
How was he supposed to help people like this?
His train ride was rather uneventful. He’d had to haul some asshole up by his perfectly pressed school uniform when he refused to get up so an older woman could sit in his seat, but at least the guy got off a stop before his, so he didn’t have to worry about having to avoid staining his nice white button-up with some jerk’s blood before he even got to school.
Or so he thought.
“Please, I don’t know—”
“He’s staring at my boobs! Hit him again!”
The shrill voice and its melodramatic whimpering barely blocked out the dull thump of a good, strong smack. Yuuji’s fingers curled around his bag, feeling the pain of that sound like he was the one getting beat on instead. There was a time that he’d had to learn to lose before he learned to win.
A chorus of laughter, covered up the sound of a few more good punches that he witnessed this time as he stepped closer. Not far from him, tucked into the shadow of the alleyway was a group of boys and a pair of girls; they had someone surrounded, but it was hard to see who it was through their barricade of bodies.
“Pervert,” someone from within the cage snarled. There was a small squeak that sounded like someone trying to argue, but it was cut off by another thump. “You’re so skinny. Not eatin’ at home? Maybe I should help you out.”
A big, meaty hand reached back and a lit cigar was placed in it carefully.
Yuuji must have blacked out. Either that or they somehow whapped him hard enough without him noticing that he suffered temporary memory loss, because the next thing he knew, he was catching the smoldering cigar on the strap of his bag, just barely missing his uniform jacket. Thank God.
“Who are yo—”
The question was cut off; he had no intention of hearing any of them out. Yuuji slung his bag off his shoulders and cracked the bully right across the face. He crumpled into a worthless pile on the ground.
“Who’s next?” Yuuji turned to face the group, making the two girls, who had been so bold only moments ago, scurry off—nearly tripping over each other.
It seemed that only served to piss the bullies off more. As soon as they were out of sight around the corner, the first punch was thrown. Yuuji dodged, the way Sukuna taught him ages ago, and landed the crony on the ground in a groaning pile when his knee caught him in the stomach. Two more bullies rushed him, each of them finding themselves missing their target and taking a blow to the jaw and, the other, one well-aimed kick to the balls. A dirty trick, sure, but so was ganging up on one person.
The last two guys were smarter, running off in the same direction as the girls, whimpering like children.
When he was sure they were gone, and no one else was getting up for seconds, he turned to offer a hand out to the cowering boy on the ground.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go get you washed up.”
The boy hesitated for several seconds before his hand was taken. Yuuji hauled him up and dragged him off down the alleyway. It was hard to find a public restroom this far into the city, so he dragged them toward some tiny park, finding a water fountain that—miracuoulsy—both worked and spouted relatively clean water.
After the scrapes on his hands and his knees were dealt with, and they cleaned up the tender areas where skin split or bruises were beginning to blossom, Yuuji riffled around in his bag, offering up the last of his bandaids. They didn’t speak, the other boy didn’t seem like he was much of the talking type, and his pride was probably a little wounded at having to be saved—not that it should have been. There weren’t many people their age who could take on a crowd like that and come out standing. Certainly not one full of such nasty pieces of shit.
“Thank you,” he finally said, barely audible over honking horns and city chatter. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t have to; I wanted to,” Yuuji replied, taking the empty box and trash from him. He’d find somewhere to throw them on his way to school. “I’m Itadori, by the way. Itadori Yuuji.”
“Yoshino Junpei.” He smiled, small and barely there, but a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Itadori-kun.”
“We’re friends now, there’s no need for that.” A hand waved between them as if dismissing the honorific from the air. “Can I call you Junpei?”
Junpei’s eyes widened, mouth gaping; almost as though he couldn’t believe that anyone would want to be his friend. It made Yuuji’s heart squeeze in his chest. He didn’t look like a bad kid, in fact, Yuuji couldn’t help but notice the charms on his bag and how many of them he recognized from movies he loved. He thought they’d get along pretty well, if he would just give him a chance.
He just nodded, seemingly too stunned to speak. Yuuji beamed at him, squeezing one of his shoulders and using it to start them back out toward their original path.
After a short bit of silence, and trying to bite his lip, he mentioned one of the keychains and was awarded the honor of watching Junpei light up next to him, breaking into a flurry of questions that he could barely keep up with. They talked animatedly about the movie series, and debated which were the best out of the four, building off each other's excitement until it felt as though they’d known each other for months, rather than minutes.
It wasn’t that Yuuji didn’t have friends, he did—he thought, at least—but they were still going to school in Queens and he was making the trip into the city for class now. It had been a long while since he’d seen Sasaki and Iguchi. Sometime before his grandpa died, at the very least.
Junpei and Yuuji went their separate ways after a while, and not even the fact that Yuuji had to run the rest of the way to his high school campus to avoid another tardy on his record could wipe the smile off his face. Well that was, of course, until about halfway through his journey someone called out to him and he turned to find himself being pursued by the original group of bullies and about six other guys, all armed with various heavy objects and looking incredibly pissed.
He spent most of that run worrying not about his tardiness, but more about his life if they caught him.
He barely let himself slow down even after he was safely through the doors of the school and they were nowhere in sight—pace quick and chest heaving as he walked through the halls.
Yuuji pressed his clammy forehead to the chill of bright blue metal, fingers going through the motions of his combination lock without looking. Even as the lock clicked open, Yuuji’s finger hesitated to lift up on the handle and pull away from where the metal was perspiring along with him now.
A tap on his shoulder made him jump, the sound that came with it was wholly undignified and made his cheeks tight with heat. Green eyes were wide, staring at Yuuji as if their owner was the one who’d been snuck up on. He felt the heat all the way in his ears when realization sank in, dropping his heart to his stomach like a ton of bricks.
Fushiguro Megumi. He’d just made a fool of himself in front of Fushiguro Megumi. The same Fushiguro Megumi who was top of their class, a model student and citizen, and had direct ties to Gojo Tech’s CEO Gojo Satoru himself. The exact Fushiguro Megumi who Itadori Yuuji was hopelessly, helplessly crushing on from afar. He was so out of his league it wasn’t even funny, but the little doodles in the margins of Yuuji’s notes didn’t need to know that. Crazy intelligent, super pretty, and mega-frowning at Yuuji right now.
Frowning?
“Uh,” Yuuji supplied helpfully. “Sorry, I…were you saying something?”
“Itadori,” Fushiguro huffed. Yuuji had to pinch his thigh to keep from grinning at the sound of his name on his lips. “I asked if you brought your permission slip. They’re due before the bell, and you’re the only one who hasn’t—”
“Oh, yeah, it’s right—”
“I don’t like being interrupted.” Fushiguro interrupted, holding out a hand, books cradled in his other arm.
“Right, sorry.” Yuuji riffled around in his bag, pulling out the slightly crumpled paper. At the look on Fushiguro’s face, he flushed again, trying to straighten out the wrinkles on his thigh. “I just…had to leave in a rush this morning. Queens is a long ride away, you know?”
Fushiguro took the paper, placing it on top of his stack of books; slender fingers smoothing over wrinkles in a way that made Yuuji feel tingly, and was probably highly inappropriate in class president and student body ethics.
For an indescribable moment, green eyes studied him. Yuuji felt as though he was too much and too little at the same time. His hair was too bright, his freckles too loud across his nose, his uniform jacket was too big over his too tight shirt, and his shoes weren’t nearly as nice or as shiny as the loafers on Fushiguro’s feet. His uniform fit perfectly, cropped and hemmed and altered in all the right places to look properly expensive. In comparison, Yuuji looked like he was wearing a costume—playing pretend.
Fushiguro nodded at him as he passed.
“I’ll see you on the bus, Itadori.”
“Right, see ya,” he called, watching his retreating figure. “Later. On the bus! See you…then…”
His forehead hit his locker hard enough that someone behind him startled.
That was the first conversation they’d ever had outside of a classroom and Yuuji absolutely bombed it.
—
On the bus, it turned out, meant that Fushiguro was his field trip buddy. After he was done with roll call, and ensured each pair was sitting next to each other, he handed the clipboard off to their homeroom teacher and took the long walk down the aisle to where Yuuji tucked himself into the back of the bus. Every step closer was another second Yuuji thought he might throw up, have a heart attack, or both.
Both were probably very likely.
Fushiguro sat down next to him. Yuuji pressed himself into the wall of the bus so that they wouldn’t touch.
He was given a strange look, but other than that, it seemed Fushiguro was more than happy to mind his own business. He peeled open a book that looked like it would bore Yuuji to sleep and left him be. Yuuji stuck both of his headphones in, closed his eyes, and prayed that he would crack his skull open on the window so he could get out of following Fushiguro around all day. Really, whoever paired them together was sick and twisted.
There was a horrible moment where he wondered if Fushiguro had a hand in the pairs. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to do something purposely malicious, but at his core he was just like the rest of them, wasn’t he? Rich kid coasting through the best education in the city on daddy’s money. He would, no doubt, have a job waiting for him at Gojo Tech and Yuuji would end up working for him or something. Fushiguro wouldn’t even remember him.
The bus hit a bump and Yuuji’s head hit the window with a thunk a moment later. He bit down on his lip to help swallow down a pained sound, eyes screwing shut tighter. Something hit the top of his head gently. When he looked up, a girl in front of them turned around in her seat—saying something he couldn’t hear clearly over his music—and shaking a bottle of painkillers enticingly.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, forcing a smile. He thought her name might have been Kugisaki, but with her well-known temper, he didn’t want to be wrong.
She scoffed as he rattled a few of the pills into his palm. “I asked you a question.”
Yuuji winced. “You did?”
“Forget it.”
“She asked if your brain was going to be okay,” Fushiguro said, not looking up from his book. He shuffled it to one hand, reaching into his bag to hand Yuuji a little bottle of water. “Here. For your brain.”
Yuuji gaped at him, taking the plastic bottle like it might explode in his hands. When he looked down at the label, Kugisaki started giggling above him and it didn’t take him long to join her. Fushiguro huffed a breath from his nose, biting the inside of his cheek as he kept up the charade of reading. Their fit of giggles only grew worse when Kugisaki was scolded about sitting incorrectly in her seat.
The rest of the bus ride was silent, but no longer uncomfortably so. Kugisaki’s bright copper hair peeked over the top of the seat as she slouched, and Fushiguro continued diligently reading the thick book in his lap. Yuuji shifted, their shoulders pressing together when the bus would hit a bump; head leaning back into the seat to save himself from turning his brain to mush.
Soothing himself to sleep was easy; the rocking of the bus and the soft sound of their dark uniform jackets brushing together was a strange kind of lullaby. He woke slowly, like surfacing from a pool of thick, viscous honey. The kind that still lay, cloying and warm, on his tongue from his toast this morning—his uncle’s toast. He did not surface nearly fast enough for his (field trip) partner, it seemed. A hand wrapped over his shoulder, careful to keep fabric between them; skin far enough away that they wouldn’t touch even if Yuuji shifted closer. Rather unfortunate. It would have been nice to know if his skin was as soft as it looked.
Which was a pretty creepy thing to think.
“Itadori,” he huffed, shaking again.
Finally, he blinked his eyes open, taking in the blurry sight of students filing off the bus and gathering, like a swarm of bees, around the edges of it. He pulled himself up, stretching and popping in a way that made Fushiguro frown gently at him.
They stepped off the bus last, taking up the rear of the flock of students heading toward a sprawling skyscraper.
It ached to make eye contact with it; all perfectly polished glass panels, windows, and shining steel linings. The sun lit it up and Yuuji felt like an ant under a magnifying glass—helpless to escape the cruel fate of his singeing eyes and being.
“Mui Company?” Yuuji muttered, reading off the big metal letters at the very top.
“Wuwei,” Fushiguro corrected his reading gently.
His book was replaced by a camera—taking pictures as they approached, one eye closed, the other pressed dutifully to the viewfinder; fingers working over dials and buttons in a pattern that meant nothing to Yuuji but held his rapt attention regardless. The gold button on his sleeve glittered and Yuuji sort of wished he had a camera of his own to capture the way he looked. Though, he thought it would be a shame to miss out on striking green eyes.
The camera was brought down to allow Fushiguro to admire his work as he continued. “It’s a Daoist concept,” he explained, eyes never leaving the pictures. “Literally translated to inaction or mui, like you said. It’s more a philosophical idea of moving effortlessly with the flow of the Dao—the source of all existence.”
“Wow, Fushiguro, you’re pretty smart!” Yuuji beamed, walking a few inches closer to his side now.
The camera was moved so smoothly to the eye closest to Yuuji that he almost missed the tinge of pink on a pale ear. There was no doubt it crawled high across his hidden cheek. He found himself wondering if it spanned across the bridge of his nose too.
Someone fell back to walk in pace with the two of them on Yuuji’s other side. He peeled his eyes, forcefully, away from Fushiguro, startling slightly when a bright flash of copper hair was the first thing he noticed.
“Is this guy that into Daoism?” Her hands were clasped behind her back. By his side, he could see now that her uniform jacket was folded up at the bottom, tucked or pinned in place to give it a move cropped look. How she was getting away with that, he wasn’t sure but he thought it might have been that everybody was too scared to scold her about it—adults included. “You’d think you would put a little more thought into calling your company ‘Inaction Co.’, don’t you think?”
Their honorable class president ignored that she was not with her assigned partner. “When you meet him, you’ll understand.”
Fushiguro laced his camera securely around his neck with a strap and that was that. Nothing more was said on the subject.
Yuuji had about a million questions; too many to begin to put them into words. Why would you name your illustrious Biotech company after a philosophical concept? One that looked like “Inaction” at that. How the hell did Fushiguro know all of that and how exactly did he know the CEO well enough to make preemptive snap judgements on Kugisaki and Yuuji’s behalf? Was he really that eccentric? Yuuji didn’t know a lot about Gojo Satoru or what the—real and now rumored—relationship dynamic was between him and Fushiguro, but he knew that if you looked up the word eccentric in the dictionary, it was highly likely a picture of Gojo Tech’s CEO would show up.
If someone so familiar with him was insinuating someone else was eccentric? Yuuji was suddenly a little worried.
Their class went through the security measures at the door, time crawling as Yuuji waited from his turn. When it finally came, he nearly got himself escorted back out of the building after only a step inside—too distracted by all the sights and sounds to listen properly to the directions they were snapping at him.
After a million apologies, and a few snickers from passing classmates, Yuuji was inside.
The ceiling in this part of the building seemed to span the entire height of the skyscraper, neck craned trying to spot the end of the vertical tunnel, and what was happening at all the different balconies and walls of windows that looked over it. He nearly bumped into Fushiguro, eyes focused back on his camera. He snapped pictures of all the different exhibits they passed on their way to the elevators. Kugisaki, in contrast, looked almost bored. For the first time since starting classes, he wondered if he wasn’t the only one simply coasting through to have an impressive name on his diploma at the end of it all.
The tour guide at the front of the group was saying something, but Yuuji was too busy marveling at what looked to be a fully functioning ant farm, full of little metallic bugs hard at work. He was grabbed by the collar of his jacket and dragged away from the terrarium by Fushiguro. They squeezed into the massive elevator last, barely an inch between them. Yuuji had never been so still in his life.
Rushing after Fushiguro when he took off, he nearly tripped over him, barely avoiding disaster, when the boy knelt down to snap a picture of what looked like a steel mouse. It scurried away to hide when it spotted its guests.
“Taking BioTech a little literally, isn’t he?” Yuuji whispered, under the droning of the tour guide.
“He focuses on the merging of longevity with mortality,” Fushiguro said, scrolling through his photos. He huffed and moved them closer when Yuuji was caught trying to peek. “He wrote his Master’s thesis on the idea of what would happen if we gave long-lasting machines the feelings of a short-life species. Pretty incredible work. Have you read any of it?”
“Oh, uh, no…” Yuuji winced. “No, I mostly read manga in my free time.”
“Right…”
The lull in conversation steadily turned into an inability to pick it back up. Yuuji chewed on the inside of his bottom lip, willing himself to say something—anything—but everything stuck stubbornly in his mind, refusing to make it out into the air between them. Fushiguro seemed plenty happy to focus on taking pictures of things that caught his eye anyway; technology, placards of information, a view here and a set of machinery behind glass walls there. Yuuji would have only bored him with his questions. Things like So you don’t read manga? or Are all you read big complicated articles and textbooks? or even What’s with all the pictures? Are you spying on Wuwei Company for Gojo Te—
“I’m not,” Fushiguro said, looking up at him from where he squatted to get a better angle of something. Yuuji’s whole face felt like it was blazing. “It’s a perceptive question, you don’t have to be embarrassed.”
There was quite literally no way on earth he wouldn’t be embarrassed by speaking inside thoughts out loud or accusing the guy he was supposed to be crushing on in silence of being some low-down, lying spy for a company he knew nothing about. Yuuji thought that was sort of a dig on Gojo Tech itself, too, which made matters worse considering Fushiguro would probably be in the running to take it over some day.
“I run a blog—update people on all the latest from companies I’ve gotten to intern for or I’m given tours of,” he continued, face lightly up subtly in a way that made Yuuji forget all about his mistake. “I like letting people make their own informed decisions about who they wish to support.”
“Like a journalist,” Yuuji supplied. “That’s cool.”
He was given a little nod, and though he couldn’t be sure because he was busy hiding behind his camera, he thought he might have been granted a small, barely there smile.
Fushiguro was insanely intelligent; always the first to be done with tests that had everyone else pulling out their hair—and Yuuji praying to whatever gods might listen—outshining everyone with the projects he presented or the ideas he discussed in class, and, most of all, he was already being scouted by colleges and big tech companies that wished to steal him right out from under Gojo’s nose. He was only fifteen. The only person that might have been able to give him a run for his money was the infamous Okkotsu Yuta, who the debate team talked about like he spent his time after school killing people. The kid was a prodigy, allegedly, and one of the only seniors that Fushiguro seemed to bother talking to like they had any sort of ranking over him.
Word on the street, not that Yuuji listened to gossip much, was that Gojo Satoru had his eyes on Yuta for more than just work. Yuuji thought arranged marriages only existed in those old movies he watched, but the upperclass of Neo Tokyo City was a whole different breed, he’d discovered. His stomach twisted anytime he saw them walking together in the hallway. Not because he was jealous, that would be ridiculous. Simply because he was upset, angry, in Fushiguro’s place. It must have sucked living your life knowing you’d be expected to marry for gain and not for love.
It was strange though, Fushiguro didn’t seem like the kind of person to be okay with having his life signed away. Not that he knew the guy very well, but from what he’d observed, rolling over and surrendering didn’t seem like something he would do.
Which left the most likely conclusion to be drawn: Fushiguro liked Yuta, he was on board with the idea of marrying him because he wanted to.
Yuuji tried to ignore the sour taste at the back of his throat.
Their class was led into a tall, circular room that spanned upwards what looked like at least two more floors; tall ceiling and glass walls—much like the entrance. In the middle, following the same shape of the room, were large glass cylinders on pedestals. Inside each one, something was crawling, spinning, or running around. Kugisaki shivered in front of them, rubbing at her arms as if trying to swat the feeling of spindly legs from her skin.
Spiders. At least two dozen of them, if not more. All caged and brightly colored or shining metallic.
Next to the circle, a man started his approach toward their group. He didn’t have to hear his introduction to know that this was who they’d been talking about. There was no one else it could be.
He was tall, younger looking than Yuuji expected, but his long hair—tied up in a neat bun—was completely gray. He had a horrid image that the smooth skin, covered in patchwork scars, might have been Frankensteined together. That was likely caused by too many cheap horror movies too late at night; someone in such a high place, with a spotlight on them constantly, surely never could have gotten away with something like that in the real world. His mind was brilliant, obviously, but Yuuji doubted there was a way to make something like that possible and keep your wits about you. Though, from what Fushiguro said, maybe his wits were gone.
“Welcome, students,” came the cheery greeting. For some reason, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “And a huge thank you to Hanami-san for bringing your beautiful young minds to me in one piece. As I’m sure you’re well aware, I am Dr. Yoshino Mahito, founder and CEO of Wuwei Company.”
Yoshino? Was this guy related to Junpei?
They didn’t look similar in any regard, but maybe Itadori’s grandpa’s side of the family just had very strong genes. Mahito’s hair was grey, but he didn’t appear old in any other regard—not old enough to be Junpei’s father, that was for sure. Brothers, maybe? Cousins or some other more distant relation was probably more likely than that. He almost couldn’t stop his hand from shooting up to ask if he knew Yuuji’s new friend, curiosity nearly getting the better of him.
“I would like to start off by welcoming you to headquarters. This is where the magic happens, on the very ground we first uttered our mission statement that we would bring about ‘Idle Transfiguration of the Future, here and now’,” Mahito’s voice rose with the kind of gravitas expected from someone completely engrossed in his own work. He wondered if all of these CEO types were like this. “You, my bright minds, are on sacred ground for us, so mind any sticky fingers as we continue deeper into the labs. I would hate to have any accidents on our hands. Certainly where these beauties are involved.”
With a big, sweeping gesture, he stepped aside once more and beckoned the group closer to the multitude of arachnids, encouraging the group to disperse around them—creating a big circle and meandering around to look at the different shapes, sizes and colors. Fushiguro snapped pictures of a few of them on his camera as their classmates pulled out phones to take bragging rights shots of their own. As they moved together, Yuuji halted in front of one of the cylinders; it was full of all the same necessities the others were for a thriving subject, but no matter how he looked, there was no spider to be found.
“Fushiguro,” he whispered, getting only a hum in response. “Do you think this one is invisible?”
He blinked at him, scoffing. “Don’t be dense.”
“What? Not even a smile? Come on, that was funny!”
Fushiguro didn’t dignify him with a response, moving on toward new and exciting things that were not Yuuji. He chased after him, kicking himself for bombing yet another interaction today. Fushiguro was more than likely raised to be proper and polite. Yuuji was beginning to worry that once they weren’t (field trip) partners any longer, he would never speak to him again—probably thought he was a hopeless idiot like most of their class.
Something turned hot and sour in his gut at that thought.
Mahito gathered their attention once more with a clearing of his throat.
“Though our lead lab tech on this case wished to be here today himself, he was feeling ill, so they have entrusted me to guide you through the juiciest of the details!” The older man clapped his hands together and Yuuji was half expecting the cages to fly open; spiders descending on them from all sides. “This is yet another exciting step forward in the transferring of DNA from one subject to another. All of these spiders you see before you are thriving under some sort of hybrid combination.”
Yuuji’s eyes instinctively scanned the terrariums once more, trying to see if he could remember specific quirks of the ones he’d observed that would help ascertain what the DNA types were. He came up with nothing useful.
“We’re aiming to prove that transferring conscious behaviors from organic lifeforms to machines is more than just code, by proving that two sets of species can exist within one host body,” he finished, then seemed to think better of leaving it there. “A combining of souls, if you’re a spiritual type.”
He wasn’t, but the thought that sounded rather poetic, if it weren’t for the fact his stomach twisted at the slow realization of how many spiders must have had to die before these successes lived to tell the tale.
It was cruel. The kind of life he’d never want to be a part of. He wondered, standing next to him attentively, what Fushiguro thought about all of this. Did he agree that sacrifices were necessary for the sake of science, or was he too feeling a bit disgusted that innocent lives were taken for a sliver of growth?
“This one right here—”
Mahito stopped, eyes widening for only a split second, but it was long enough for Yuuji to notice—long enough for panic to begin to bubble up in his chest. The enclosure he was referring to was the empty one, the one that Yuuji had been way too close to, and now was feeling both like he might throw up and as if there was something crawling slowly up his spine.
Smooth, like he meant to do so all along, Mahito moved to the left.
“Whoops, wrong one. Scared us all there for a moment, didn’t I?” A cheeky grin and a wink were sent in the direction of their group, but Yuuji still had to try very hard to suppress a shiver—aching to wrench his uniform off and demand that someone tell him if there was something skittering across his skin. “This beauty is a combination of Arachnid and Homo sapien DNA. We’ve already observed that she is beginning to exhibit traits that make us, as a species, unique; higher emotions and cognitive functions. We’ve hypothesized she might even be capable of understanding and producing speech if she had the organs and mechanics to do so.”
There was a murmur of awe that passed over the crowd.
“We really must get you moving on to the next stages of your visit, but if you would like to come say goodbye to her as you pass, you are more than welcome to do so,” Mahito said, placing a hand on top of the enclosure as though holding a shoulder. “I’m sure she would appreciate a proper send-off from so many new friends!”
It was as they all slowly filed out, waving or stopping to chat with the spider, that Yuuji watched Mahito pull someone aside and rush through instructions; he watched as that same individual gasped and took off to comply with as much composure as they could muster—trying not to rouse suspicion. Mahito looked back at the group and, for the first time since they got there, he looked right at Yuuji. Something momentarily chilled passed over his features before they were schooled into a friendly smile and a wave.
Yuuji returned the gesture, far less convincing.
Something was undeniably wrong, and he really didn’t want to stick around to figure out what it was.
—
Lunch was the last thing on the agenda before they’d load back on the buses and spend the rest of their day as normal. After trekking around for half the day Yuuji was nothing less than ravenous. It seemed Kugisaki, who joined them once more, was in the same boat. She’d barely sat down in the grass across from them before she was ripping into her bag and taking a sizable bite of an onigiri; it was shaped like some sort of cute cartoon character but he didn’t have time to try to guess who before half of it was missing.
Fushiguro, in contrast, ate slowly—chewed thoroughly and swallowed carefully as though every bite was important. Not that Yuuji was staring at him or anything. That would be ridiculous and creepy.
When they’d filled up enough to think about something other than hunger pangs, Kugisaki stretched out a bit more, eyes roving to glare gently at Fushiguro.
“You owe me one, by the way,” she huffed. “My dumbass partner has been so nosy and snobby all day. If you ever pair us up again I’ll break that pretty face.”
Yuuji blinked, sandwich halfway to his lips—frozen.
“Fushiguro didn’t—”
“Of course he did,” she interrupted, pointing at him as if he was the one to blame. “It was his job to help with the assignments today. It always is.”
Fushiguro looked very interested in a passing cloud, somewhere off in the distance, away from both of them. His ears were tinged with red, crawling slowly down his neck the longer Kugisaki spoke.
Why in the world Fushiguro would pick Yuuji as his partner of all people, when he could have spent his day with anyone else in their class, he wasn’t entirely sure. It's not like they spoke much—actually not at all if you didn’t count this morning, when it was necessary for class, or all of today. He was always just out of reach, always at a distance that Yuuji couldn’t bring himself to close because Fushiguro was meant for this kind of life and he most certainly was not.
He was meant for back-alley brawls and schools that gave out hand-me-down uniforms that fit too big or too tight but blended in because almost everyone had the same issue. Fushiguro was raised into this top of his class and heir to a whole lot of money world that Yuuji never even allowed himself to dream about. Yet, he thought he looked like he might know a thing or two about life on the outside of that all. It made Yuuji want to fit every piece of him together like a puzzle, figure him out and know him in a way that not many did.
Which was almost certainly creepier than observing his eating patterns or wondering how soft his hands were.
“I only looked it over and approved it,” he said finally, still not looking at either of them. “I thought it would be appropriate for me to partner with Itadori since he’s a newer student.”
“Lucky me,” Yuuji hummed.
He nearly choked on the bite of food he finally took when Fushiguro’s shocked gaze whipped around to land on him.
Kugisaki seemed none the wiser. “I would say! At least you weren’t having to hear about somebody’s daddy’s money every two minutes.”
“That reminds me,” Yuuji swallowed, before he continued. He tried very hard to ignore the feeling of eyes still boring into him. “Do either of you know if Dr. Mahito has family our age?”
“From what I’ve heard, he was unofficially adopted into a relatively normal family pretty late in life,” Fushiguro shrugged, more than happy to abandon the topic they’d been focused on. “Most of his earliest work is published only under his given name, which is why he’s kept it that way in how he prefers to be addressed professionally, I would assume.”
Kugisaki tapped away with one thumb at her phone, the other holding the drink she was sipping on. “Yoshino,” she mumbled. “Can’t find anything of interest besides him. They’re obviously not a household name. Why did you want to know?”
Yuuji shrugged. “I just know someone with the same family name, that’s all. I was wondering if it was just a coincidence.”
“Why don’t you just ask them?”
He blinked at Kugisaki for a long moment. She was back to scrolling on her phone, chasing after her straw without taking her eyes off the screen.
Fushiguro coughed, lightly, in a way that sounded a lot like he was trying not to laugh rather than clearing his throat of some sort of tickle.
“We’re not that close,” Yuuji mumbled.
“So you’re asking about his family because….?” She trailed off, arching a perfect eyebrow at him. “You’re not a crazy stalker are you?”
“Kugisaki,” Fushiguro scolded, face twisting gently as if fighting whatever expression threatened to show there. More than likely, he was trying to save Yuuji’s dignity by not smiling.
Her hands raised in faux surrender, shoulders shrugging before she began to collect her things.
It was close to when they would be expected to gather and head back to the bus, so she excused herself to go find her partner, which seemed to be an execution sentence with the way she dragged her feet. Yuuji watched the boy meet her halfway, eyes shining and motions animated until she snapped something at him and he deflated.
He stifled a laugh behind his hand, meeting Fushiguro’s eyes when he looked back, checking if Yuuji had seen the scene unfold. Green eyes sparkled, crinkling at the edges despite the fact no proof of his amusement reached his lips. Yuuji couldn’t have cared any less about what happened to the poor guy, far too busy trying to memorize how many wrinkles pinched into existence on Fushiguro’s face.
They finished lunch in silence, packing up in their own time. Fushiguro was momentarily distracted from their idle chatter when a couple of butterflies skipped by, standing to follow after them. His camera held steadily in his hands as he approached; some half-hearted excuse given to Yuuji about how his sister loved them. He thought it was charming that Fushiguro was thinking of her; he wondered what it would be like to have a sibling who cared for you enough to know you. A built-in best friend, he’d heard.
When Yuuji came to join him, the butterflies flapped away, dancing around each other as they made their escape. He was geared up to apologize as Fushiguro rose to his feet and turned to face him, but the words never got to form before a small panic took over.
There, dangling from Fushiguro’s camera—making its way slowly back toward his hand—was a rather sizable spider.
“Fushiguro, don’t move.”
He froze almost immediately, despite the displeased look on his face, watching as Yuuji reached forward, looking like he wanted to jerk away the closer his hands got to the camera. When he finally spotted the arachnid, it was too late, Yuuji’s hands closed around it gently, moving to attempt to set him down in the grass.
“Itadori,” Fushiguro rushed. “Wait, don’t—”
He never got to finish and Yuuji never made it to the grass—instinct kicked in when the sting of the bite registered and he flicked his hand, sending the poor thing flying to the ground. Even as he nursed at his throbbing wound, his stomach churned at the realization it was far too still where it lay on the ground. He pressed his hands together gently, bowing his head in apology. His guilt wasn’t allowed to linger for long.
Fushiguro rushed over, grabbing his wrist and pulling the bite close enough to his face that panted breath tickled across Yuuji’s sensitive skin. Suddenly, it didn’t sting so bad; all his brain power shifted to focus on the feeling of Fushiguro’s hand on him and the exhales across his skin.
“How stupid can you be?” He scolded, dropping the hand in his grip enough to glare at him without obstruction. “We practically just walked out of a room full of fucked up spiders and your first thought when you see one is to—”
“I didn’t want it to bite you,” Yuuji rushed out.
Fushiguro blinked. He blinked back.
Yuuji turned red. Fushiguro followed.
“Whatever,” he huffed, dropping his wrist entirely. “Make sure you watch that. Depending on the spider, it could get nasty.”
“It was just a little bite,” Yuuji laughed, starting off toward their things.
He took one step–two. Fushiguro called out his name, panicked footsteps pounding in his ears as he hit the ground. The last thing he saw before the world went black was the pretty emerald of Fushiguro’s eyes.