Chapter Text
Itadori Yuuji looked in the mirror in distant, but growing, horror at the little flaps of flesh that he did not have the night before, resting just above his cheekbones. He touched them tentatively, watching in disgusted fascination as the flesh trembled and flinched away from the stimuli. It was completely of his own flesh, too; he'd felt the probing touch and hissed when he tried to peel open the flesh. It was like pressing down on an open cut.
"I didn't have these the night before," he mumbled to himself, poking and prodding at the skin. Horrifically, he spied what seemed to be tiny eyelashes, and shuddered as he ran a finger through them. The feeling of rubbing his eyelashes, almost a phantom feeling over his currently open eyelashes. He looked closer at himself in the mirror. "I swear I never had these before."
“Of course you didn’t, you fool.”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, whispering behind his ears and right into what felt like his chest. Yuuji instinctively ducked down, covering his own neck and twisting his body as quickly as he could. There was no one behind him, just empty air and space, and the bathroom door behind him.
Oh, okay. Now Yuuji is insane. Okay, okay, great. That's just fine. Maybe he will take up on the hospital’s offer for therapy. Maybe his grandfather’s death did take more of a toll on him than he thought it did.
Then, the right eye opened, and a mouth appeared, teeth curved, and tongue blood red. “You are no more insane than you were the day before," said the bloody mouth and the awful eye.
Yuuji punched the mirror on instinct. Panic flared tight and choked his lungs. Absurdly, he suddenly wanted to scratch out those second eyes; he wanted to rip them out with his hands, with a knife, scissors, scoop them out with spoons, scratch them out until they pop out by themselves. He wanted them out, and he wanted them gone now.
With a half-swallowed grunt, he tried to do just that. The pain was quite literally blinding. His original, real eyes squeezed shut.
A scream tore out of his mouth before he could stop himself, but he couldn't deal with the burn of fingers pressing into tear ducts where there should be none. He pressed harder still, digging into eyeballs that seemed to spasm—
It burned.
Yuuji lost time.
There were no clocks in the bathroom. No ticking, steady sounds to pull Yuuji out of the choking, overwhelming panic that burned up and jumped under his skin. All he had, when he returned to himself, was glass on the floor and bloodied fingers. Worse even, the eyes were just as pristine and untouched as the first time Yuuji had seen them.
All that effort has been for naught.
Yuuji gave a choked-off noise, somewhere between a whimper and a hysterical scream. Both eyes were open now, and he could see them staring back at him through broken fragments still hanging on in the mirror. Yuuji dug his aching fingers into the meat of his cheeks, coincidentally peeling at the extra skin, groaning at the sensation of pulling and pulling and pulling, and his skin still giving.
"Enough."
Yuuji made an animal noise. His stomach swooped and crushed the air in his lungs.
Between one breath and the other, Yuuji’s surroundings changed. The fluorescent lights and white walls of his bathroom gave way to what seemed to be a large, dark cavern, with bloody water reaching up to his ankles in depth. His feet weren't wet, though, and Yuuji had just enough presence of mind to absently wonder about that. There was no smell. That was, in Yuuji's opinion, the only silver lining.
Or it would have been.
Yuuji was still in the midst of not processing his new pair of eyes when he saw another terror.
A man standing in front of him. A mimic, he thought hysterically. But no, mimics didn't evoke this type of soul-wrenching dread. A doppleganger of some sort, perhaps.
A demon, Yuuji concluded. There is a demon here.
It wore his face, only not. It was decorated by stark black lines outlining the face, running down his jaw to the chin, and coming to a stop just below the second pair of eyes, which had opened. He had a black stripe over his nose and a marking on his forehead. He wore a white kimono and looked like cruelty come alive.
He felt like what Yuuji imagined standing in front of a tsunami did. In that moment, Yuuji was pure terror and animal helplessness. He couldn't have moved even if he poured all his willpower into just twitching a muscle. He was stuck, simply rooted in place. Waiting.
He did not know what it was he was waiting for. Death, perhaps. Absolution, perhaps for the sin of being small and weak. Here was a creature that screamed danger. Here was a monster that would surely haunt his dreams.
The creature— no, the demon, watched him back. It was unnerving to see his face set in such a harsh angle.
"I am Ryoumen Sukuna," said the entity at last. It was as much an announcement as it was a title. "The Disgraced One, the King of Curses. I am a cataclysm come alive again. I have felled thousands of men by mine hands, challengers all to my name, and all have broken for it. I live for my own pleasure and whim."
Everything the entity said held the certainty of marble. Yuuji could not sense any lie, not that he was sure he could detect one; this creature made of dread and power.
"King of Curses?" Yuuji garbled. It felt like a lifeline, if the lifeline was thorny and slippery, catching onto his hands and slicing open his palms. He looked down instinctively; his palms were still pink and unmarred.
There was a silence again, and it was still. All was still; there was no movement in the not-water, there was no breeze, nothing moved. Yuuji could not even feel his heartbeat.
There was laughter, deep and mocking and overwhelming. It came from everywhere, in front of him, in the back, all around him. Yuuji hunched over, clamping his hands over his ears. It served no respite. He could still hear that awful noise.
"An unknowing cage?" The King's face was split into cruel delight. His maw cracked into two, amusement and violence hand in hand. "You hold no recollection of the night before?"
Vague flashes came in and out. The stars, a manila folder, a subpar snack. An awful, dizzying sensation, and the cool breeze of the night air hitting his face. A little box, a purple-black finger wrapped in—
Nausea and panic welled up in Yuuji's chest before he could stop himself. The Demon's face grew even more demented. In the blink of an eye, the entity was standing as close to Yuuji as possible. A hand clutched at his arm, thumb pressing harshly into the curve of his elbow. Yuuji gasped; it felt as if the hand were pressing into his spirit and bone.
Desperately, Yuuji tried to wrench his arm away, but this creature seemed to be tenfold stronger than Yuuji.
"Give in," The creature, the King of Curses, snarled suddenly. "You have done a commendable job in not dying to bring me back, though it was not your intention. Now you will serve your final purpose as my Vessel."
There was molten lava easing out from where the King's grip still lay, hot and twice as sickening. The pain brought Yuuji from halfway out of his body and mind. This, at least, was familiar.
"No," Yuuji forced out. He tugged still on his arm. There was no give, but the King's focus switched back to his face.
Redbloodybloody eyes snapped back up to his face. There was no amusement now; the snarl twisting those features had no lazy edge. Yuuji swallowed back his instinctive fear, reaching instead for that blank nothingness that always lurked just beneath his chest.
"No?" The entity repeated, as if mystified. As if no one had ever denied him. Perhaps they had no. "Who dares disobey the King?"
"I do," Yuuji spat outm anger blazing grand and bright in his chest.
He was only just able to free his arm from the unrelenting grip when a wave of pain so great it forced him to his knees washed over him. Yuuji gasped, body screaming and nerves sparking out painful, too-bright signals to his brain. Something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong, it cried out. The short burst of bravado died without so much as a whimper in his chest.
"You will pay for your insolence," the entity snarled. He reached out with clawed hands and tore into Yuuji's head, flesh splitting like too-wet dough and falling as easily.
Yuuji screamed, falling back, clutching at what he could. His hands found purpose in cloth, in too warm skin. He tore at what he could find, blunt fingernails scratching and tearing. Blind and in pain, Yuuji still tried to give as good as he got.
He burned all over; he hurt all over. There were fingers inside his skin, clawing and tearing at muscle and sinew; there was lava burning down his throat and spine. Still, he tried to claw at what he thought were eyes. He lashed out with his feet, throwing back his body weight, trying to get away from the horrific sensation of his bone cracking to make way for the digits still inside.
It was awful. It was never-ending, looping in on itself to exacerbate and scream all the way to Yuuji's very soul. There were scores of flames raking down his soul, trashing and snaking around his person.
The absence of it hurt almost as much after so much stimuli.
It was silent, again. Yuuji hadn't even realized that he was screaming until he wasn't. His breath was ragged, and he hunched over himself, clutching at his head. But his face was whole and hale. No blood, no gaping wounds. No bits and pieces of brain and flesh anywhere but where they should be.
He looked up at the being standing before him, an unreadable look in his eye.
"Leave me," the creature said.
Yuuji opened his eyes to his lonely, bloody bathroom and retched directly onto the glass-riddled floor.
The day his grandfather died started out like any other. Yuuji woke up before the sun to prepare his lunch and finish any homework he hadn’t done the night before. He went to school, messed around at the occult club, and argued with the track and field coach for the fifth time that week.
A kid in his class invited him to a party during a break, breaking his otherwise monotone day.
Ito, the kid, had followed him to the vending machine and went on and on about how crazy it would be.
“Seriously, Itadori-kun!” He grinned, braces on full display. “You have to go! I invited all the hot girls in our year! Ushimaru-chan is gonna be there, and you know she has the biggest crush on you!”
Leaning against the wall, Yuuji willed himself not outwardly grimace at the boy. He was trying his best, really. To that end, he offered his classmate a bright, if apologetic grin.
“Ah, sorry, Ito-kun! I promised my grandpa I would visit him. Maybe next time, yeah?”
Ito looked crestfallen, making Yuuji feel the tiniest bit sorry for him. Then Ito perked up, and Yuuji mercilessly crushed what little pity he felt for him. “We should trade numbers then! Just in case you do change your mind, send me a text, and I’ll send you the address!”
Realizing Ito wouldn’t budge unless he agreed, Yuuji agreed to exchange phone numbers with him.
“Wow, Itadori-kun! You know a lot of people, huh?” Ito’s eyes shone with awe and just a hint of envy at Yuuji’s perceived popularity as he scrolled through Itadori's contact list.
Yuuji rubbed the back of his neck, unwilling to tell him that half of them were girls who had shoved their numbers on pieces of paper to him before running away with burning faces and half of the people on sports teams who were still attempting to recruit him into their teams and that the only reason he had actually entered them into his phone was pure courtesy.
“Yeah, I know a couple of people.”
“Ito!”
Taking shameless advantage of his classmate's distraction, Yuuji quietly slipped away in hopes of finishing his strawberry milk before the bell rang. Glancing down at the new contact in his phone, Yuuji snorted.
“It’s not like I’ll actually go,” Yuuji told himself, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
✻
“Yuuji,” his grandfather murmured, watching Yuuji arrange the flowers he had bought from the flower shop across the hospital. “Don’t die with regrets as I will, you hear me? Surround yourself with people who ground you. Live well and eat good food.”
His grandfather waited until Yuuji nodded before nodding himself and reaching out to pat Yuuji’s hand. The sun's rays were slipping over the horizon, casting long shadows into his grandfather's hospital room. It was cold and quiet, the ever-present beeping of his grandfather's heart monitor steadily reporting his heartbeat. Yuuji listened to the rhythmic beep-beep-beep with a rising sense of desperation.
“You’re talking like you’re gonna die, gramps,” Yuuji whispered through the emerging lump in his throat, unwilling to break the quiet and somber mood that had settled in the room. His fingers interlocked with his grandfather’s, childishly wishing that his grandfather could live forever and ever.
“I’ve arranged for you to take ownership of the bakery back in Tokyo,” Gramps went on, as if he hadn't heard Yuuji. "Once I'm gone, everything will be in your name. You always told me you wanted it. It was always going to be, you know. I just thought you would be a little older."
(I thought we had a little more time)
With a start, Yuuji tried to flinch away from his grandfather. His hands, now captive in a stranglehold, held him in place, and for all Yuuji's strength, he didn't have it in him to tug away. His grandfather stared at him fiercely, and years of familiarity kept Yuuji locked in an eye contest with the old man when he got like this.
“Focus on the day ahead, Yuuji. Do not do as this old man did and live with ghosts.”
His grandfather was not a cruel man, but he was pragmatic. Yuuji's upbringing was a testament to that. The boy had been born to a family already dead and gone, swallowed up by greed and ambition and—
(Their clan was ancient; lasting through empires and dynasties and things before that not written down but whispered about in the dark, where even the moon could not reach. Where coin and gold shifted through hands like water and blood spilled just as often, where violence was refined and brutal, and words cut just as deeply as a blade did.)
(But an old clan did not promise personal success. An old clan was old because it adhered to the laws of the dead, and longer gone still.
An old clan would not prepare Wasuke's grandson for the struggles of living without the only person in the world who truly understood him.)
Yuuji was good. He tried. He was attentive to his classmates, and he joined a school club at Wasuke's insistence. He made sure to keep up with the newest baking trends, and constantly snuck in mini tarts, cookies, brownies, cakes, and little treats for his grandfather to critique. Yuuji was getting good at perfecting his delicacies.
"Gramps," Yuuji whispered.
Itadori Wasuke was a pragmatic man, not a cruel one. He continued: "I know I did not teach you any technical skills about running and owning a shop, so there will be lawyers and tutors you will have to meet first. There are specific instructions for how you will slowly take over and start again, essentially."
With each breath, Wasuke grew weaker, but his determination shone through. He would not leave without reassuring his grandson. Through it all, Yuuji stood still and watched with big, brown eyes, clutching at his grandfather's hands. Wasuke watched his grandson drink in his features, eyes floating and jumping from ridge to plane to curve with a desperation that said: there is a finite amount of time left for this moment.
Wasuke's words faltered. I want more time. I want more years, if only to see how you grow.
"Gramps, I lied. I don't want it, I don't want the shop," Yuuji said in the silence that followed, almost rushing his words out like they would stop anything.
He'd said the words, Yuuji remembered, he' begged for the baker, tugging incessantly on his grandfather's clothes. He'd always imagined his grandfather there with him, was the thing. Impossibly old, impossibly wrinkled, impossibly grumpy. Impossibly still there.
"We do not always get what we want," Wasuke said to his grandson, not unkindly, hand curling around a wrist that had outgrown his own years before. "We have the cards we have been dealt with, and we must continue."
"Gramps, please," Yuuji croaked. "Please stop."
Wasuke was a man possessed, though. "Listen to me, Itadori Yuuji. Listen well and heed my words. Eat well and live smart. Finish school, I want you to do that first and foremost. You have enough to live comfortably, for more than enough, but the bakery—"
He broke off here, coughing harshly. Yuuji watched with an awful lump around his throat.
"The bakery is for you to live," rasped Wasuke. "For you to learn to connect with humankind."
Yuuji nodded once, swallowing back a sob that threatened to erupt from his chest.
His grandfather nodded one last time. "Eat well, Yuuji," he said again. "Live how you want. Live to your liking. I only ask you to be smart about it."
It was as if Wasuke waited until his grandson nodded again to let go. His heart monitor grew slower, stuttering as it had never before, then-
His grandfather took one last breath, exhaled, and grew still.
Wasuke never intended to be a cruel man. But he could not help his ways.
Yuuji’s hand trembled and shook, but he didn’t dare let go until his grandfather’s grip turned slack. Yuuji held back his sobs until his grandfather’s previously warm and secure hold turned cold and unresponsive.
Itadori Wasuke was dead, and Yuuji was all alone in the world.
(live how you want)
✻
Walking out of the hospital after signing the release forms for his grandfather’s body and taking even more forms to sign them back at his coldemptyalonetoobig house was not something Yuuji ever wanted to do again. The nurse looked at him with barely hidden pity in her eyes as she gathered up the papers to place in a manila-colored folder and sent him on his way.
The proclamation of the end of Itadori Wasuke's long, dedicated life was in a folder no bigger than his chest when his grandfather was always larger than life. It left a bad taste in Yuuji's mouth.
“I offer my condolences,” the nurse whispered.
Yuuji avoided her eyes while muttering something that could pass as acknowledgment. Shoving the folder into his school bag, he leaned on the outside wall of the hospital. He knew deep down that his grandfather wasn’t going to get better. Especially when he had insisted on moving back to Sendai instead of continuing treatment in an arguably better-equipped hospital. Yuuji should've begun to prepare himself for the worst when his grandfather arranged to close down the shop for an indefinite time.
But he had held out hope, kept an ember of hope flickering in his soul that his grandfather would rise from the hospital bed and return to his life like the whirlwind of grumpiness that he was. His grandfather was strong, and steady even when he would complain about growing pains in his body. It was half the reason why Yuuji began to help out more and more at his grandfather’s bakery and coffee shop.
That and the fact that he knew he would take over when he became of age.
Fuck, his grandfather’s bakery.
“Oh,” he said to himself, staring at his faintly trembling hands, “Or is it mine now? Fuck, whatever. What should I…?”
Go home? The cold large house that he cleaned near obsessively in hopes that his grandfather would be discharged and they could live out in the countryside? No, it was full of reminders of the man who raised him and the parents who died too soon.
Wait.
Ito had mentioned he had a party right? And knowing his reputation, he probably bribed someone into buying alcohol and it’s blown out of proportion. Should he try..? Yeah, he should, anything to keep his mind off—
Itadori: hey ito, send me your address, i’ll come by for a bit
The boy messaged back quicker than expected, Yuuji figured he was the type to keep his phone on hand at all times.
Ito: I knew you’d come around!
Ito: link
Itadori: cool thanks
Arriving at Ito’s house proved him right, some classmates were sitting out on the porch nursing beer bottles. Yuuji squinted at them, trying to figure out if any of them knew that that particular brand of beer caused terrible diarrhea the morning after. Probably not, whatever, not his problem.
“Yuuji!”
Ito came from somewhere behind him and stumbled up to him, smiling crookedly at him. He smelled like bad booze. This time, Yuuji didn’t bother hiding his grimace, already wanting to leave to sit in a ball in his grandfather’s hardly used room and grieve.
“Hi, Ito. You have any food around here?”
Instead of answering, Ito grabbed his arm and dragged him over to a table full of snacks and baked goods. Shoving a brownie into his hands, the boy looked at him with a mischievous smile.
"Eat it," Ito urged, his eyes too bright and smile too wide.
Yuuji narrowed his eyes, “What’s wrong with it?”
Ito hemmed and hawed for a while, dancing around the question with surprising diligence. It only served to raise Itadori's hackles.
“It has weed in it.”
Startled, Yuuji turned to face the source of the voice. Ushimaru Chikayo flushed as she realized both Yuuji and Ito were staring at her.
“What?” She defended herself. “You weren’t gonna tell him anything, and then he would green out and get hurt or something.”
Weed. Of course, Ito would hang around the shadier groups in school, and Yuuji had seen him running around the school grounds finishing errands for them at their behest. Where had they even gotten this from?
Was it even actually weed?
Fuck, this was such a bad idea.
Whatever.
“It’s alright, Ushimaru-san. I won’t eat it all, thank you for telling me though.” Yuuji couldn’t quite muster a smile for her, but whatever appeared on his face seemed to appease her. She couldn’t turn her face fast enough to hide the blush that spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
“Uh, right, yeah. I’ll just— um, go. Bye, see you later!” Ushimaru turned on her heel and fled, quickly disappearing into the crowd. Yuuji stared after her, vaguely worried that he had offended her somehow.
Ito quickly vanished the thought by bumping shoulders with him. “See?” He said excitedly. “She’s totally crushing on you!”
“Oh, right.” What does someone say to that? “Cool.”
Ito laughed, clapping him on the shoulder and pointing to the brownie Yuuji still had in his hand. “Anyway, make sure to eat something before you eat that. And don’t eat all of it in one sitting! As Ushimaru-chan said, you might green out. I gotta go, but I’ll see you around, okay?”
Yuuji nodded absently, watching his classmate turn around and scamper away to a group of expensively dressed upperclassmen waving him down. Then, he unwrapped the cling film around the treat and ate it all.
It was lacklustre. The bread was crumbly, and he could tell whoever had baked it used entirely too much butter and not enough flour. Annoyed that he could identify the reasoning, he scraped his tongue over his teeth, catching on burnt bits that were only a little more tolerable than the almost unbaked middle.
Tonight was a night of bad decisions, it seemed, because immediately after finishing the brownie, he was accosted by two girls who latched themselves onto his sides.
“Itadori-kun~! We’ve been waiting for you to come to one of Ito’s parties!” Said the one on his right.
She had short brown hair, her bangs swept to the left with a streak of pink in the very middle. Yuuji had no idea who she was. The girl on his left had long black hair tucked behind her ears, and she had thin gold-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Yuuji also had no idea who she was.
“Emiko-chan! You’re going to scare him off!” The one on the left scolded her.
'Emiko' huffed, clutching at Yuuji’s arm and batting her eyelashes at him. “Chinami-chan and I have been wanting to hang out with you forever! You never come to Ito’s parties, and we can never find you during school.”
She was pouting in what she must’ve thought was a cute way, Yuuji couldn’t help but compare her to the little snot-nosed kids that would try to eat the flowers he used to buy for his gra—
“Right. Sorry about that.”
They somehow didn’t notice his bad mood and began to drag him to the basement. Yuuji didn’t even know Ito’s house had one. It must be a pain to keep clean and dry
The girls pushed him onto the couch and snuggled into his sides again. They began to ramble about their week, going on and on about a particular teacher that had sprung a pop quiz earlier that day.
Yuuji shifted, extremely uncomfortable with the amount of physical touch he was experiencing. While he was a naturally affectionate boy, and often very happy with physical touches, he did not know these two girls, Emiko and Chinami, very well (he didn’t know them at all). In fact, the only person he regularly had physical contact with had literally just died a couple of hours ago.
Yuuji was about to make his excuses and leave when he felt a hand clap on his shoulder. A spike of annoyance ran up his spine.
“Itadori! You sly bastard, you finally showed up!”
If Yuuji could, he would slam his head into the floor right now. What was it with people expecting him to show up to stupid, shitty parties all the time? Yuuji turned around to face the guy talking to him, and the urge to slam his head onto the ground increased.
Furutani Takehito. The same asshole who’s been trying to get him to join the baseball team by any means. Borderline stalking and harassment were rapidy becoming the boy's favorite methods of "convincing" Yuuji.
Internally screaming, Yuuji grinned at him. “Furutani! How are you?”
The baseball captain threw himself next to Emiko, ignoring her indignant screech as he stretched his legs out. “Pretty good. If the team wins the next couple of games we’ll qualify for the playoffs. Speaking of which, when’re you gonna join, eh?”
Yuuji hoped that the gods above would strike him down where he sat. They did not; instead, they gathered around their pavilion and laughed at Itadori Yuuji.
“Furutani, are you bothering Itadori-kun again? You know he won’t join like that.”
Yuuji backtracked his cursing of the gods, mentally thanking them for creating Hamasaki Daisuke. The baseball vice-captain cuffed Furutani over the head, easily ignoring Furutani’s offended squawk.
Hamasaki turned to Yuuji and half-bowed in apology. “I am so sorry for him. I looked away for a second, and he was just gone.”
Yuuji subtly shook off Chinami’s hold of his arm, sending the vice-captain a grateful look, sharing a fist bump with him. “It’s alright, he didn’t even get that far in trying to convince me. No harm done.”
Emiko twisted around to face Hamasaki. “Are you gonna sit down or let Furutani hog Itadori-kun’s attention? He never comes to Ito’s parties! We need to convince him to come to more parties, so we aren't bored all the time.”
Hamasaki raised a brow. “You mean so you and Chinami can try and smother him with the perfume you stole from your mother?”
Furutani laughed at that, and Chinami jumped in to defend her friend, jabbing him in his chest and shouting expletives at him.
Seeing as Chinami had gotten up from her seat, Hamasaki sat down next to Yuuji and began to fill him in about the baseball team’s latest play that had won them the game. Normally, Yuuji enjoyed listening to the boy talk about his sport. Hamasaki was a naturally charming boy who genuinely loved playing baseball and was always enthusiastic when he had a game day.
Furutani was alright as well, when he would forget to bother Yuuji about joining his sports team. The two boys were always quick to greet him when he would slack off by the baseball fields.
But the group of people in front of Yuuji suddenly seemed to be moving more slowly; he frowned, leaning forward to study them. Hamasaki waved a hand in front of Yuuji’s face, frowning and saying something.
“What?” Yuuji said, his own voice echoing and sounding too loud, he frowned at Hamasaki. What was he saying? “What? What’s wrong?”
“—gave him a brownie—”
“—who the fuck would do tha—
“—greening out! What makes you thin—”
“—go get Ito—”
Yuuji’s head spun. He was confused, his head spun one way, the world was spinning too hard the other way, and the ground felt like wet sand. He needed to go home and clean up the house; his grandfather was getting discharged tomorrow, wasn’t he? Right, he had been filling out forms for that earlier, before coming to Ito’s party, and he still had the papers in his backpack.
Oh fuck, his backpack, where was it? He needed it.
“My backpack.” Hamasaki’s face came to view, brows creased in the middle, and a look of concern marred his features. Why is he worried?
Whatever, Yuuji thought, I need to check my backpack. “Get my backpack, I brought it with me.”
Yuuji couldn't get the words to sound right; they sounded garbled and got stuck in his throat. He cleared his throat, intending to try again, but Hamasaki seemed to understand right away because when he blinked, the vice-captain had his backpack in his hand.
“This one is yours, right?” He asked, holding it out for Yuuji to take. It took three tries for Yuuji to close his fingers around one of the straps, a little longer to confirm to himself it wasn't sinking through his hand.
Talking was too exhausting to try again, so he just nodded his thanks and began to root around the bag. There, behind his red math notebook, the manilla folders stared up at him and distracted him with the lines following the length of the folders.
Huh, he thought to himself, why are they breathing?
It didn’t matter; Yuuji needed to go home, he left some dishes in the sink from earlier. He struggled to his feet, and instantly, there were hands pushing him down and worried, muffled noises reaching his ears. He looked at the hands pushing him down, tracing the hands to arms and then to shoulders to a face. Or faces, Furutani and Hamasaki were holding him down by the shoulders, while Emiko and Chinami grabbed his hands.
Growing frustrated with everyone holding him, he shook them off easily. Maybe a little too roughly, but he didn’t let himself feel bad, still too confused and dizzy to really understand why they were holding him back. Picking up his backpack and stumbling up the stairs, he waved off whatever Ito was saying to him. When had he gotten there anyway?
“Itadori! Where the fuck are you going?” Hamasaki was yelling. He sounded worried. Why was everyone so worried? Yuuji wasn’t used to that kind of emotion from people, he didn’t know how to react to it.
Oh, he could hear again. It sounded like he was underwater, but it was better than not hearing anything at all.
He should probably answer. “I’m going home. I didn’t like the party. Sorry.”
“We’ll walk you home then.”
We?
“Yeah, me and Furutani. You go the same way as us sometimes, right?”
Yuuji looked past Hamasaki, seeing Furutani walking towards them, putting on a sweater. He turned to Hamasaki, already intending to decline when Furutani threw a rough arm over his shoulder.
“Alrighty, let’s get this show on the road, yeah?”
Yuuji sighed, wordlessly agreeing to let the two walk him home, trying to remember which street he was on. Tugging his sweater over his hands, he started at a casual meandering pace. Only to yelp in surprise when Furutani began to sprint like the devil was after his soul.
“Slow down! Slow down! Why’re you going so fast?” Yuuji cried, digging his heels into the ground.
Furutani looked at him with an incredulous look on his face. “Itadori, I’m not going fast?”
“Yes! Yes, you are!” Yuuji turned to Hamasaki. “He was sprinting!”
Hamasaki sighed, patting his shoulder. “No, Itadori-kun, your perception of the world right now is off.”
“You two are acting real condescending to your senpai, you know,” Yuuji huffed, brushing Hamasaki’s hand off his shoulder.
Furutani stiffened, “What do you mean?”
“Itadori-kun is a second-year.” Hamasaki turned to look at his friend curiously. “Didn’t you know?”
“I’m also taking some third-year classes, accelerated learning and all,” Yuuji said mildly, neck craned up to stare at the sky. The stars were twinkling in Morse code; they were calling him a little bitch. He looked back at Furutani, suddenly mystified (and totally not because if he kept looking at the stars, he would end up trying to fight them), “Hey, that reminds me, if you two are only first-years, how are you captain and vice-captain?”
“Oh well, we’re actually just in charge of the first-year group. So there’s the third-year real captain and then the second-year captain, and then it's Furutani and me,” Hamasaki explained, ticking off the teams on his fingers.
Yuuji hummed. He didn’t understand at all. Why did the baseball team choose to work that way? That didn't make sense at all. Then, he nearly tripped over a suddenly kneeling Furutani.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He yelped, hands clutching his backpack straps in a vain hope to steady himself.
“Senpai,” Furutani starts, voice gravely and serious. “Forgive me for pestering you carelessly; it was rude of me to annoy you at every turn when you were clearly unwilling to join the team. I now see the error of my ways and am ready to receive any punishment you see fit.”
What the fuck.
Hamasaki slapped him over the head.
“Idiot!” He groused, “You mean to tell me that you bothered Itadori-kun for the better part of six months and never bothered to ask him what year he was in?”
Furutani did not move from his kneeling position. He explained that he had seen Yuuji studying with a couple of first years at the beginning of the school year, and he had assumed that Itadori was a first-year student as well.
Hamasaki sighed, hanging his head and turning to apologize to the second-year student. Only to panic at the empty street.
“Oh my god!” He whispered, head in his hands. “We lost Itadori Yuuji.”
(Truth be told, Yuuji had merely wandered away while the pair were otherwise occupied, and when later asked, he would say nonchalantly. “Honestly, I can’t remember how I got home. I just blinked, and I was in front of my door. I think I teleported, to be honest.”
He would laugh and wave away any other question about that night. Hands reaching to rub at two curious scars just above his cheekbones, Itadori Yuuji would flawlessly change the subject, and the matter would disappear from everyone’s mind.)
✻
Yuuji struggled with his keys, dropping them twice and putting in the wrong key almost five times. The ridges seemed to liquefy and change shape every two seconds.
Click. Yuuji sighed in relief as the door finally opened. He swore he was getting judged by a stray cat that liked to follow him home sometimes. Once he took a step inside, Yuuji turned to make a face at it, just because he could. The cat meowed back.
Stumbling into the dark living room, Yuuji turned the lights on and immediately regretted all his life choices as the bright fluorescent lights seared his sensitive eyes. Groaning, he blindly felt his way to the couch and collapsed headfirst onto the soft pillows, but only after slamming his forehead onto the wooden armrest and shouting out several swears.
He stayed in that same position for a long, long eternity before abruptly sitting up and staring at the coffee table.
“I’m hungry," he announced to the empty room. His stomach growled as if to prove it to the carpet and table.
Deciding to try his luck in the kitchen, he meandered over to the fridge and rooted around its contents. Coming up empty, he turned to the pantry when something on the kitchen table caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, Yuuji let out a quiet noise of surprise; it was the object Sasaki-san from the Occult Club had told him to pick up that morning.
The president had approached him that morning and asked him to retrieve it for her. He had agreed easily, very aware as an active member of the club that both Iguchi-san and she were frightened by any suspicious occurrence behavior after the sun had set. This was ironic considering that the three of them often went on nighttime “expeditions” to find any occult activities.
Yuuji sat down on the kitchen table, previously ravenous hunger forgotten in the face of the simple design of the box. Faded symbols were carved into the wood, archaic characters that were too small for Yuuji's woozy vision to discern. He traced the engravings with his fingers, briefly debating on what he should do with the box.
Curiosity killed the cat, he thought with finality. He opened the box and stared at the contents, mystified. It looked vaguely like a finger if a finger was wrapped around yards of thin strips of paper with what seemed to be symbols inked into the paper.
Yuuji stared at the probably mummified finger before shrugging and beginning to unwind the paper.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” he murmured out loud, fingers making quick work of the near fabric-like quality of the paper. “But satisfaction brought it back, right? Right.”
Staring at the purple-clawed finger he now held in his two hands, Yuuji thought about all the decisions he had made in his life that led him to this very moment.
Eat it.
Why is his brain like this?
“What the fuck. I’m not going to eat it," he said aloud. It did not look appetizing at all. All purple, ill-weathered corpse skin that promised several life-threatening illnesses, he was sure.
Inspecting the finger some more, Yuuji blinked at the finger. The finger did not respond. He shrugged. “Well, why not?”
Yuuij ate the finger; he couldn't chew it, so he just swallowed it in one go. His face screwed up in disgust, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out.
✻
“Itadori! I was looking for you! Did you notice anything odd about the box I asked you to grab for me?”
Sasaki-san had found him in front of the vending machines, mentally debating which snack to get after school let out. Yuuji had quit the club earlier that week, privately informing them of the death of his grandfather and his desire to focus on opening the bakery back up. They had expressed their sympathy and happily wished him the best.
Yuuji hummed, leaning against the machine and looking up at the sky. “The box wasn’t very heavy, now that I think about it. But I didn’t think about it too much. Why? Was something wrong with it?”
Sasaki-san puffed up her cheeks. “There was supposed to be some type of cursed object in the box, Iguchi-kun and I wanted to open it today with the new member to welcome them. But when I opened it to look at it, it was gone.”
Yuuji closed his eyes and shot Sasaki-san an apologetic smile, half-bowing with a hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Ah, sorry, Sasaki-san. Maybe the box itself is the cursed item?"
The girl smiled at him, open and trusting.
"No worries, Itadori!” She exclaimed, rubbing her chin with her finger. “Maybe you're right. We might still be able to do something with the box. Well, anyway, good luck with the bakery, and let us know when you’re open, okay? Iguchi and I will be your first customers!”
Itadori kept smiling at her, tasting wax in the back of his throat and feeling fire lick along his veins. There was a laughter echoing in his head that was not his own. “Of course.”
Sasaki-san patted his shoulder one last time before walking away. Yuuji watched her until she crossed a corner and turned back to the vending machine.
“Liar.”
“Yeah, I know.”