Chapter Text
He’s born like anyone else.
No, he’s not born in those latest and greatest giant test tube vats where fertilized eggs are planted and fed nutrients until ready to enter the world, watched over by emotionless droids. He’s definitely not created in some lab where they test and prove out strange genetics, tweaking and twisting reality, destroying the fetuses nine times out of ten with mutations and other strange oddities. Too risky, labs are. There’s no telling what you might get, the more you fight against nature and DNA. Squalid mutations are far too prevalent.
In fact, Yuuji is created and born the old-fashioned way, as one would say.
There’s nothing outwardly special about Itadori Yuuji, nothing to hint towards some extraordinary life. He has a mother and a father that coo over him in adoration when he bursts into the world kicking and screaming with a healthy set of lungs, and a grumpy grandfather that also loves him, in his own way.
Not that Yuuji remembers much of that time in his life.
What he does remember is what comes after.
When he is just a small boy of five, he loses his father. A brutal speeder accident, on the fortieth skyway level, high above their home in the mounting skyscrapers that sprawl across the city. Some tragic, freak accident they all said. He probably burned to death before the speeder even hit ground, so far below, a burning waste crashing to the ground amongst all the neon lights.
Yuuji is too young to notice the way his grandfather mourns, and how his mother does not. She is too preoccupied with him, her smile wide and pleased as she sits on the floor in his room, playing with Yuuji and his toys as his grandfather sits in the next room with a bottle of sake, glaring holes into the side of her head.
She’s traditionally pretty, one would say. With midnight hair and laughing black eyes. Yuuji loves her, loves the attention she pays him. The way she helps ease him through the loss of his father. The way she frets over him and any injury he gets playing outside, the way she gets excited over each and every accomplishment he makes.
He doesn’t understand the tension between his grandfather and her, but he doesn’t question it, what small child would, after all?
~
Death seems to revolve around Yuuji. At least, that’s what it feels like to him by the time he’s ten and his grandfather has become sicker year after year. He began to slow down soon after his son’s death, tired and fatigued, often retreating to his room to be ill in the toilet, the sounds of his vomiting loud and sickening to hear.
They can’t afford good doctors, they don’t have much money, and those that have been brought around to check in on his grandfather can’t seem to figure out what is wrong with him. They can barely afford to admit him to the hospital, where Yuuji doesn’t leave his side.
“Is…she…gone…?” His grandfather grits out, coughing terribly. He looks like a shriveled, shrunken figure. Half dead already. Yuuji hates to see him this way, and he’s too young to know that their society doesn’t spend much effort trying to save the old and sick from death. Often times, they are put down, because resources are not plentiful anymore.
“Who?” Yuuji comes closer, standing by the terrifying medical bed, with all the tubes and needles and heart monitors.
“That bitch,” his grandpa spits out hatefully. The words are so violently spoken that Yuuji takes a step back, because grandpa is acting very strange indeed, he couldn’t possibly be calling Yuuji’s mother that bad, nasty word-
“I have to warn you, boy. Come…come closer.” There’s a certain madness in his gaze, his cloudy eyes strangely focused on Yuuji with desperation.
“You’re scaring me,” Yuuji mutters, feeling uneasy. He looks over his shoulder, but his mother hasn’t come back yet. She’d fix this, she would make him feel safe again, she’d make grandpa stop talking this way with a single look-
A hand contorted by advanced arthritis takes hold of him, making him squeak in surprise. “It wasn’t an accident,” his grandfather barely manages to breathe out, his grip tight on the collar of Yuuji’s shirt. The hand trembles violently, as if his grandfather is using the last of his strength to relay this info to his grandson. He’s panting, wheezing for breath, as if breathing through a straw. “What happened to your father, it wasn’t-”
Heart in his throat, small hands trying to pry free of the grip holding him, Yuuji squeaks out, “What about pappa? What do you mean? Let go, please!”
“And me…she…p-poiso-nuhh…” the word is almost unintelligible to Yuuji’s young ears as his grandfather sinks back into his pillows, breathing no more, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. There one moment, gone the next.
The monitors in the room start beeping loudly, a flatlined sound.
Yuuji stares, eyes welling with tears, throat tight with the urge to scream. He doesn’t though, because this is the second time death has visited his door and it is paralyzing in its sheer unfairness.
Inside of him all feels dark and despairing. A dark hole of empty, quickly filling with ugly emotions of hopelessness and worthlessness. It crawls under his skin, like worms, whispering ugly things in his ear.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there next to his grandfather’s corpse, simply staring at it. He barely hears the door open behind him, doesn’t notice a thing until arms wrap around him from behind.
It’s his mother, hugging him, and this is what seems to break Yuuji out of his mute state. His heart cracks into pieces and the tears finally come, big and terrible, rolling down his face. “I wish I could have saved him!” Yuuji cries, angrily wiping at his eyes, pounding his small fists against the arms wrapped around him. “He didn’t deserve to die; he was a good man-”
His mother hugs him tighter for a few moments before she pats his head, pulling away to cover his grandfather’s face with a sheet. Her face seems to say she feels bad for Yuuji, but sometimes she can be so hard to read. “There’s nothing you could have done, love. Now, it’s just you and me.” She gives him a short little smile, almost forced.
“…he said such awful things at the end,” Yuuji sobs on, feeling disturbed and out of place. His world, spinning with confusion. “He scared me.”
A strange look crosses his mother’s pale face. “What do you mean, love? What things?”
Yuuji just cries and shakes his head, doesn’t want to talk about it, just wants to disappear, first daddy, now grandpa-
Quick like a snake, his mother’s demeanor suddenly changes and there’s a hand forcing his head to look her in the face. Wide, black eyes consume him, almost no difference between pupil and iris. Yuuji is shocked into silence, staring at her. She’s never treated him like this before and it makes him even more terrified.
“You will tell me what he said,” his mother says coldly, her hand firm on his chin, her eyes flashing dangerously in a way he’s never quite seen. “Yuuji. Speak.”
He’s almost afraid of her, his kind-natured mother who never yells at him.
With a quiver in his voice, he tells her about grandpa’s strange accusations, watching every expression flit across her face keenly, like a dog waiting for some sort of command. Any sign to say what he’s done is acceptable.
Displeasure flickers there, in her midnight gaze, but it vanishes with a soft smile that almost puts him at ease again. She is fine, his mother. She is not angry with him. Oh, how relieved he is, he’d do anything to keep her happy, she’s all he has left-
“The medications he was on,” she says soothingly, petting him again. Nice and normal once more. “They make people say crazy things. I wouldn’t dwell on his mad ravings, Yuuji. Don’t remember such awful moments with your grandfather.” Her dark eyes glitter brightly as she says, “He wouldn’t want you to remember those terrible words that he said.”
Yuuji believes her. Of course he does. She loves him and she would never lie to him.
~
Things change, after that. They move into a new apartment, close to ground level, near the science district of the city. Yuuji is in awe of the beauty of their new home, though he is too young to know that it is far more expensive than his previous one, way out of the price range of anything his mother should have been able to afford.
They are far from the old sewage plants that would make a terrible reek in the district in the south quadrant, and very far from the pollution of the robot factories they used to be so close to. Yuuji only knows his life appears slightly better than it did before.
When they go to the market, always bustling with strange characters wearing outlandish clothes and technogear, he vaguely sees that his mother’s ration card is different now. The color is black, and she’s able to get the best quality nutrients from the vendors that dispense what will go into their technofridge at home.
Their fridge takes in the strange bag of bionutrients and creates meals, but the quality is always different for people, depending on class. Their food was always subpar in their old home and left Yuuji feeling weak and tired when they still lived with Grandpa and Daddy. Now, the food tastes so much better and he always feels so energized, and he’s starting to gain healthy weight on his bones-
He’s afforded so many toys in his new big room. Anything he wants, his mother buys.
“You are very spoiled,” she tells him one day as she teaches him how to take care of their various plants, wasting water on them in a way they never would have in their old home. Their former life seems so far away now. Even the oxygen that is pumped into their home is cleaner.
“Is that bad?” Yuuji asks her, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“No.” She taps a single finger to the tip of his nose playfully. She grins when he wrinkles his nose at her. “You’re just a very special boy.”
There’s a small, hidden shunt in the back of her head that he’s noticed before, almost hidden by her hair. She’s cut it recently, very short, an attractive bob, so he points the strange blemish out. “What’s that?” He points at it, making sure she knows what he’s asking.
Absently, his mother runs her fingertips over the strange, scarred place that seems to allow someone to plug into her skull. Her face is thoughtful as she says, “It’s how we can interface with advanced technology, allowing us to plug into a compute system directly.”
“But…why?” Seems weird. Why do that when they can interface with Artificial Intelligence for most things?
“You can learn things quickly would be one example. Adults don’t have time for school, so if we need to learn something, we can plug in and dedicate ourselves to a new language or a new skill that our body is not accustomed to.” She hesitates, voice distracted. “There are…other uses. Never you mind, Yuuji. One day you will have one too. Soon.”
He’s still not certain why he would ever need one. He’s never seen anyone with a shunt installation…aside from his mother.
~
They’re eating their meal when the news starts blabbering in the background on their wall-sized technoscreen, talking through the moral ambiguity of vessels and the procurement of such bodies by elites, especially when the originating minds in the bodies are sane and sound.
“It’s one thing to remove the mind of someone in a vegetation state,” one newscaster is arguing. “But a perfectly healthy human being? Madness. Absolute sheer madness! It’s robbery.”
“How can you sit there and say it’s alright to take a body from someone in a vegetable state? Where do we draw the line?” The other reporter snaps back vehemently. “The activists are right; stealing a body is murder, flat out. It doesn’t matter if the person can’t agree to it, in fact, that’s even worse. Have you heard that now some people are going so far as to procure replacement bodies before they’re even born-”
With an irritated twist on her mouth, Yuuji’s mother flicks the screen off.
~
Another year has passed when Yuuji’s mother tells him that she is making a very big change. In fact, the change is completely jarring and vaguely hard to grasp. She tells him the doctors have found a hereditary issue in her that may start giving her trouble in the following year, so she’s opted to switch to a healthier vessel.
“Don’t you see?” The man in front of him says in that eerily familiar cadence of voice, cool and collected. “I had to do this for us. So, I can keep taking care of you. How could I do that if I became sickly and ill, like your grandfather?”
Yuuji doesn’t want to see logic. He can’t get beyond what’s in front of him as it is.
It’s strange, seeing his mother this way. In fact, it almost scares him. His mother left the house and left him in the care of their annoying babysitting droid, only to return a complete stranger! Yuuji scowls at her as he watches her move around their pristine pale kitchen. “It’s weird. I don’t like it. Change back. Right now!”
His mother who isn’t his mother who he can’t really call his father either laughs brightly, as if charmed. Always charmed by Yuuji. Somehow, every expression, every glance, all of it is the same. It is his mother, transported into this elegant male body. The eyes are still midnight, the hair the same ravens wing. Yuuji’s mind cannot accept it, it is too sudden, he wasn’t prepared-
“It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. This is me now.”
The eleven-year-old makes a disgusted face. Appalled. He doesn’t know anyone at school who even knows someone who has been able to purchase another body! No one knows anyone like that. It’s so beyond the average person. The cost is astronomical, an arm and a leg and one’s soul, or so Yuuji has heard other adults mention in public, in hushed whispers. “What am I supposed to even call you? MomDad? DadMom? Ugh.”
“I was always a man, before I became your mother. I’ve always gone by the name Kenjaku.” The stranger says, his voice sibilant and silky, unbothered. Always so calm and precise, the complete opposite of Yuuji’s nature. How did he come from her loins? Ack, oh hell, from him? Yuuji is all fire and flame and his mother has always been the opposite. Ice and calm. “We are lucky I was afforded the chance to assume this body. The other was not slated to have good health, as you know. I might have suffered terribly in a few years and where would that leave us, hmm?”
It doesn’t make sense. Yuuji knows enough to know that vessels never come cheap. Only the super powerful seem to get the chance to ‘live forever’. Vessels sure as hell don’t just fall out of the sky when you need one either. And, and, there’s the whole thing that he’s heard people whisper about, like it is frowned upon.
As if there is something bad about getting another body. But, how could that be? He must be missing some detail…
“How could you afford one when we couldn’t for Grandpa?” Yuuji asks, feeling sad again.
Cold hands cup Yuuji’s face and he flinches away. The hands feel different, rougher…they do not feel like his mother’s soft, nurturing hands anymore. Kenjaku sighs, a hint of hurt crossing his dark eyes. “I paid for this body many years ago, Yuuji. Before I even met your father. The deal was signed-”
“What deal?”
Sinking slowly into the chair beside Yuuji, Kenjaku replies. “It’s complicated.”
Yuuji doesn’t like talking to this person that doesn’t look like his mother. It’s simply someone that houses her consciousness. This body doesn’t even smell the same, doesn’t feel the same, the voice is deeper, and he misses her soft hands and the scent of her hair-
I was always a man, before I became your mother.
An odd thought crosses his mind, making him feel uneasy. “Have you done this before?”
Kenjaku tilts his head to the side, face neutral. Another familiar gesture that makes Yuuji’s heart ache. “So many questions from you this morning, my love. It’s complicated, I told you. We’ll discuss it another time. Eat your breakfast, you have a long day ahead of you. You must do good in your studies.”
Always the voice of reason.
“Whatever. I’m not changing bodies, ever. I’m definitely not going to be a chick! I’ll always be a man,” Yuuji grumbles, eating his celestial crunches with vengeance, unanswered questions swirling in his mind endlessly. He is so lost and puzzled. He doesn’t like change, but his life always seems to change so violently.
Kenjaku smiles again, nice and slow, resting his cheek on his hand, elbow on the table as he watches his son. “Yes. That you will always be. I can promise you that.”
The years come and go. He doesn’t have tons of friends, always a bit of an oddball and slightly delinquent, and Kenjaku doesn’t want him playing any serious sports-
“I saw you took my name off the roster for wrestling at the academy,” Yuuji grumps from beside his goddamn Momjaku as they sit in the backseat of their speeder, on their way to start their day. School for Yuuji, work for Kenjaku at the Science Facility of Enlightenment.
Bored of the same issue being brought up once again, Kenjaku’s voice is flat and monotone, swiping on his tablet, looking at different missives on DNA. “I can’t risk you getting hurt, dear thing. You know this.”
Yuuji rolls his eyes, ready to throw down a complete mutiny. He’s already started sneaking out at night to cause trouble with Nobara and Fushiguro, graffitiing on the bad side of town in open rebellion. Nobara even shared her vapor stick with him, once. And then she complained that she could taste his cooties on it after. “Blah blah blah-”
Kenjaku doesn’t frown, but he doesn’t smile either. “Repeated Concussions can have consequences. Remember your Sports Medicine lessons? Contact sports will damage your joints faster and we simply cannot have such early decay. I need you to stop pushing my patience on this matter. These physical sports, such as soccer, boxing…it cannot happen, Yuuji.”
“What am I supposed to do, become a fragrant herb? Jeez, you’re the worst-”
“Just keep running the track.” Kenjaku runs a hand through Yuuji’s hair. “You are so quick! A true, natural born talent. I’m so proud. Your stamina and speed have always been above the masses. Your teachers send me all sorts of reports.”
Yuuji slaps that seeking, petting, overly familiar hand away with his typical rebellious attitude. “If I’m such a natural you should stop coddling me. Buy some bubble wrap. Slap it on. Watch me go like a wind-up toy.”
Voice vaguely ominous, Kenjaku stares out the window, down at the city as it passes under them in their speeder. “I have my reasons for everything I do. You’ll understand some day.”
He’s thirteen when he falls off the roof of a building fooling around with his friends. Okay, so they weren't fooling around, they were committing crimes, but that isn't the point.
They’d shoplifted one of the fancy shops that carried the new cyberglasses and bolted into the darker side of town, trying to avoid the Guards of Order that were trying to apprehend them as they jumped from decayed building to decayed building, laughing over the lack of athleticism of their pursuers.
At least, that was until Yuuji slipped and bit the dust himself. He’s still got handcuffs on him, by the way, busted leg or not.
“Momjaku, chill, I’m not dead,” Yuuji says, embarrassed about the stink Kenjaku is putting up at the medical center he got taken to.
The moment he’d been alerted about Yuuji’s injuries, the twisted ankle and the deep wound in his thigh, Kenjaku had rushed to the medical center, his cold rage washing over all of the staff. A certain panic hovers in that dark gaze, something way beyond Yuuji just being injured, because, come on-
“He cannot have any scars, do you understand?” He sounds strange, cold and demanding in the other room. “Fix it. Fix it perfectly. Make sure the concussion is mild as well. This is unacceptable.”
They do fix him with their droids and their lasertech until there’s not a single mark. Not even a single fractured bone.
“It would have been cool to have a scar,” Yuuji complains later. “I would have been cool.” He could have shown it to Nobara. Maybe she’d like it.
“Don’t be silly,” Momjaku mutters, distracted, still all fired up for no good reason that Yuuji can identify. “You are to be a clean slate. A perfect canvas-”
“I’m not a fucking portrait,” grouses Yuuji, turning his back to him.
“Watch your language,” his mother hisses in response. “And no more jumping off buildings!”
Oddly enough, the shoplifting doesn’t seem to bother Kenjaku whatsoever.
The building the school academy resides in is in lockdown. Again.
Nobara has her face plastered against the window as she stares down at the streets below, watching the chaos unfold, her breath leaving marks on the glass. The sound of stun guns going off, the screams of outrage and agony reach up from below, the armed guards in their terrifying armored gear descending on the crowds gathered-
“What are they even protesting?” Yuuji asks curiously, coming to stand beside her. He’s almost the same height as her now, which is good because she can’t trounce him in recess as easily anymore.
“When is there not a protest happening?” Fushiguro drawls from somewhere behind them, buried in a book. “There’s always something new to rally against. Water inequality, food ration card inequality. District sanitation standards. Get with the program, Itadori.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “We should totally join in one day. Fight the injustice.”
The know-it-all. He’s Yuuji’s best friend. Totally. Absolutely. What a chode. Yuuji can’t live without him. He sticks his tongue out at Fushiguro, for good measure.
Nobara pinches his arm fondly, seeking his attention once more. She’s always picking on him and Momjaku tells him it’s because Nobara likes him. Sounds fishy. Nobara is too involved in herself to have a crush on anyone. “They’re protesting the use of vessels to keep the rich and powerful alive forever. Can you imagine that? Who lives forever! Just hopping from body to body like people are just clothes! They’re calling for an end to it and for it to be made illegal. That’s what my dad told me.” Nobara puffs herself up, trying to seem very intelligent and important.
“…why?” Yuuji asks, confused. He twists his hands uneasily. Kenjaku is in a vessel.
Giving him a hard stare, Nobara gestures with her hands and says fiercely, “Because, it’s immoral! Don’t you know what happens, when someone is used as a vessel?”
He’s never really…thought that deep into it before. He was always too hung up being bitter that grandpa couldn’t be given one so that he could live longer, the way Kenjaku got a second vessel.
“Itadori.” Nobara claps her hands in front of his face, trying to get his attention. “They cease to exist.” Her words are blunt and cold, sending a strange chill down Yuuji’s spine. “They die. They are tossed away, like garbage. Robbed of their body. A shell without a ghost. Replaced by whoever paid for it.”
He backs away from the windows, away from the chaos and the mayhem. Away from her words, feeling strange and out of place. As if something sickly has passed over him.
Kenjaku’s features flash into his mind and Yuuji shudders, suddenly feeling like he has no idea who he’s been living with his entire life.
~
“Did you kill someone to get that body?”
Kenjaku freezes at the stove, shoulders stiff. He looks over his shoulder at Yuuji, face empty of emotion. “My body?”
“It’s not though,” Yuuji says bitterly, that old temper of his rising under his breastbone. “Is it? You killed someone to get that body. Someone else used to live in it, someone who was born in it-”
His Momjaku blinks slowly, as if carefully selecting words. Always so clever, so politically correct. It worked on Yuuji so well when he was younger, but not today, hell to the no. “Who is putting these thoughts in your head?”
Crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest, Yuuji quips back, “Doesn’t matter, it’s true.”
Turning around completely, Kenjaku comes over to him with a homemade pie, freshly baked. Ugh, bribery! It’s not fair, this is Yuuji’s favorite…
Artfully, Kenjaku puts a warm plate down in front of Yuuji, paired with a scoop of ice cream, just how he likes it. A large hand shifts through Yuuji’s hair fondly. “Yuuji, you know me. Do you honestly think I could ever kill someone? Knowingly?” Kenjaku laughs cheerily. “It’s absurdity. You must know this.”
Kejaku seems so unfazed, so confident and unbothered that Yuuji suddenly feels foolish. He looks down at the dessert and feels even more stupid. How could he ever accuse Momjaku of something so heinous, so absolutely evil?
Yuuji allows himself to be swayed, because Kenjaku couldn’t kill someone, Yuuji would know if his parent was a psychopath, wouldn’t he? Of course he would know.
People know these things about their parents.
It’s his sixteenth birthday and Kenjaku just has to go and ruin it. No birthday party for Yuuji, no, he’s instead forced to go to some lame event ‘to see important business associates.’ More uppity smart people, no doubt, with money and nothing to do with it.
While they didn’t have much money when Yuuji was younger, they seem to have a lot now, as if Kenjaku mysteriously found access to a large bank account. Or always had one and pretended he didn’t. The vessel story, it just doesn’t add up still, how Kenjaku afforded one in the first place.
As Yuuji understands it, he’s part of some biopharma bioscience organization, known for ‘being on the edge’ of the future. Whatever the hell that means. Sounds like a lame buzzword that means just about nothing.
The party is in some fancy condo on the far side of the city, the fancy rich-ass side. The place is pale and sparkling, with fine art and sculptures so ancient that Yuuji is certain they might just crumble into dust where they reside if Yuuji even breathes on them. There are things here that are probably older than the planet itself. It’s a damn museum! Momjaku has, naturally, demanded he not touch anything. Yuuji doesn’t know his own strength, sometimes. He’s always had record stamina and strength, according to his gym physicals, something that always makes his Momjaku seem ridiculously pleased, always staring over Yuuji’s health & physical numbers each year.
People glance at Yuuji where he sits pouting, giving him space. It's disconcerting how some look at him, like they know some weird secret about him that even he isn't privy too. So annoying, all these stuffy pricks.
There are towers of champagne flutes filled with blue bubbly liquid, which Yuuji is also not allowed to partake in. No son of mine shall be a delinquent lush, as Momjaku so eloquently said. Annoying rules. So, Yuuji pouts on a plush chair, drowning into the stupid cushions like the gangly youth that he is, watching Momjaku flit about, greeting different people, joining different groups. He spends a large amount of time with a group of men that seem to be drawing the most attention.
Or rather, just one man in particular is garnering the crowd of fawning sycophants.
The center of attention -like a King holding court- is a sharply dressed man with augmented, dark crimson eyes and deep red hair, tattoos visible on his pale skin. A powerful frame and a sharp, arrogant smile that never quite seems to ring as genuine as he observes people toadying at his feet.
Yuuji doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like that Momjaku is spending all evening talking with him.
“Screw this.” Yuuji sneaks a whole bunch of drinks on a platter, as many as he can manage without being caught, and manages to get outside onto the high rise balcony, staring down at the busy nightlife below. Neon greens and pinks dance off his face as the sounds of the party fade behind him. Outside, the air is a mix of fresh air and faint metallic pollution, a strange aroma that he has been used to all his life. The sound of speeders passing by, the big technoscreens lighting up the dark on the side of skyscrapers and buildings. Wild techno music filters up from some club below.
There’s the madness of the ground level even further down, people selling absurd items or bartering for goods. Not everyone has access to good water ration cards or even good quality food cards. Yuuji’s own card is better than his friends, which he doesn’t understand, but that’s just another mystery in his collection of strange pieces that just don’t fit together.
Sometimes it feels like he’s drifting through his life and he’s not even in control of it. With each year that passes, the more suspicious he becomes of Kenjaku. This event is no different; why does Kenjaku even associate with people like these? And why do they associate with Kenjaku? It doesn’t make any sense.
He’s so bored that he amuses himself by tossing the contents of the fancy bubbly flutes down onto unsuspecting speeders zooming by below, watching it splash off their hard exteriors harmlessly. Stupid Momjaku, bringing him to stupid parties with stupid people in fancy costumes and crazy makeup.
Yuuji makes a face. He feels hateful, torn apart inside. Their relationship has become strained. Too many mysteries. Too many unanswered questions. Why couldn’t grandpa have gotten a new body, so he could stay with Yuuji? There was nothing wrong with his mother as far as he knew, nothing, except her mind, so why switch bodies-
Growling under his breathe, Yuuji grabs another glass and leans against the railing, looking down into the neon lights spanning below, ready to aim for the next speeder cruising by-
A strong hand grabs his wrist from behind and squeezes, easily taking the champagne flute away. “Why are you wasting my alcohol, you odious little brat?”
Shit! Yuuji turns, caught out. It’s the egotistical man he saw talking to Momjaku, surrounded by others on the far side of the room back in the party. Yuuji had seen how people groveled and smiled, as if trying to impress him. The dislike he feels is instantaneous, because he has a feeling the whole reason they are even at this party is because of this sneering bastard.
This asshole must be the host.
Pretending to be chill, Yuuji shrugs. He gives his typical rebellious teen response. “Whatever.”
The man finishes the stolen drink in hand, now holding a bright vapor-stick in the other. He pins Yuuji with a penetrating stare, as if he can see inside of him. The idea is distasteful. He looks at Yuuji as if he knows him, as if they’ve met before. It’s distinctly unsettling. His voice is low, tinged with derision and importance. “The party, in case you haven’t noticed, is inside.” He gestures with his vapor-stick towards the balcony door.
“Whatever.” Yuuji sulks harder, shoulders hunching up. He isn’t used to talking to such strangers. This man is one others look to, and his Momjaku clearly thinks he’s important, why is he out here talking to Yuuji-
Not liking that answer, the man says, “I’ll be blunt, since this seems difficult for you to grasp. I’m asking you what you’re doing out here. Aside from aiming to earn me a call from the Bureau of Safety & Order with your troublemaking.”
Yuuji makes a face at him. Watches the way the man draws his next breath from the vapor stick. Yuuji clenches his jaw, because he won’t say a thing, he won’t fawn over this man and fall over his feet like all the others here do-
Seeing the stubborn donkey expression on Yuujis face, the man scoffs with a certain air of disinterest. He blows smoke, looks down at Yuuji from under lazily lowered lids. “Indulge me, you wretched thing. Speak. Now.”
“Why.” Yuuji’s voice is flat and hard. “You don’t care.”
“You’re right, I don’t care.” He leans against the railing, head tilting back, exposing a pale throat briefly. “But I happen to be bored. Entertain me.”
Entertain me. As if Yuuji is a circus monkey. Ass.
Fine. Yuuji will let him have it. “This place is lame. Full of boring people. I don’t want to be here, I want to be with my friends, and I’ll toss all your silly drinks if it gets me outta here faster.”
The man chuckles under his breath, smoke curling out from his lungs as he straightens up again, looking off to stare out at the neon city. Says nothing in response, almost ignoring Yuuji’s presence entirely, as if forgetting him. A speeder passes by at their level, the breeze causing that shock of red hair to shift with the wind.
For an odd moment, Yuuji almost wants that attention back on him, but no matter how his mind scrambles, he can’t seem to find anything interesting to say, can’t imagine what would even sound cool to someone like this. He feels young and stupid, terribly out of his league for conversation.
A strange thought occurs to Yuuji; perhaps this man is trying to escape his minions the way Yuuji is trying to escape the party. He looks him over, trying to figure out something badass to say, because this man seems badass in a douchey way and Yuuji wants to be a bigger badass.
The man is dressed sharply in severe black and white, but there’s a symbol by his collar, and Yuuji has seen it before in the news. He’s pretty sure it’s the symbol of some private security or military group with a lot of money and influence, policing not just outside the city, but also inside.
And just like that, Yuuji knows what to say.
“So, do you like, kill people for money?” Yuuji asks bluntly. Actually, he blurts it out stupidly, but he doesn’t need to examine the method in which he relays his inquiry.
This time, when the man smiles, it’s wide. It actually reaches his unique crimson eyes this time, the way it never did inside the condo. “Are you always this nosey with your betters?”
“Betters?!” Yuuji squawks. “You’re an old man! Half in your grave.” He’s not, he looks like he’s in his late twenties, early thirties, but that’s janky old in Yuuji’s esteemed opinion.
One eye twitches at those words. “I see Kenjaku taught you no manners.”
“Oh, he did. I just don’t care about them,” Yuuji snipes back. “He’s got too many rules about how I should live my life. Like being at this boring place when I could be at better places.”
The man scoffs, his handsome features shifting with annoyance. “Follow, pest.” The man makes a lazy gesture with his tattooed hand as he strides back into the condo. “I can’t have anyone say my parties are boring. Except me, naturally.”
After a moment of staring, Yuuji traipses after him, ever the sullen teenager, following the host of this stupid party to whatever he intends to show Yuuji. Whatever, there is no convincing Yuuji that this place isn’t lame.
He follows the host down the hall, past all the drinking and laughing people stroking each other’s egos. The tall, powerfully built man pauses in front of some black double doors, not even turning his head to check if Yuuji followed.
No, he expects obedience, doesn’t he? Seems the type, what with all those people falling over themselves just to talk to him earlier.
Without saying a word, he opens the double doors into darkness. Yuuji stares. No, not darkness; crimson.
Gone are the pristine white floors, replaced with a menacing red epoxy that is so deep colored, it looks like black blood covering the floor. The room is dimly lit with candle sconces on the walls, ornate, as if from another century, flickering with atmospheric light.
Even the walls themselves are crimson, a violent color so different from the rest of the condo. Yuuji wonders if this is really the personality of the host, not the fancy bullshit outside of this very room.
The thing that truly catches Yuuji’s eye is what lines the walls.
Weapons. Of all sorts. Blades. Axes. Long swords. Morningstars. Things that look ancient, others that look brand new. Even some really fancy cyberblades are on display, leaving Yuuji feeling awestruck. There's even skulls! Freaking skulls, like, what even...
He spins, taking in the room, mouth hanging open, completely taken with the ominous, gory aesthetic and the fierceness of all the displays. “This is so badass,” Yuuji can’t help but utter. He is envious and impressed. Kenjaku would simply die seeing Yuuji near sharp things. Oh, the horror, oh the risk! “I can’t even. Dude.” Wait till Fushiguro hears about this.
The host of the party stands silently in the middle of the room like some sort of egotistical statue, arms crossed over his chest impassively. Truly, he looks like he could be carved out of stone. He looks like he belongs in this room, surrounded by deadly weapons from hundreds of different ages.
Glancing to see if it’s okay, Yuuji picks up one of the slighter swords, holding it aloft with excitement thrumming through him. It feels heavy and unfamiliar in his grasp. He takes a few swings haphazardly with no skill and nearly whacks another set of displays in the process.
Yuuji's host swiftly takes the weapon from his incompetent grasp and puts it back in its place. His tone of voice is still bored, even now. Low and unimpressed. “Ever compete with a blade, rude little societal menace?”
Has he competed? Oh, like those tournaments where people fight with cyberblades? It’s so daring, and totally dangerous. Yuuji would have loved to. “My…Kenjaku won’t let me.” Yuuji grimaces, feeling distinctly lame. He doesn’t want to call Kenjaku his mom to this man. “Says he can’t risk me getting hurt. Which is stupid, it isn’t like he doesn’t have healthcare access. I jumped off a building once.”
That arrogant brow twitches with something. “Did you? How…precocious.” His tone definitely ends in sarcasm.
Shit. Now the man thinks he’s touched in the brain. Yuuji is quick to say, “I was running from the law!” Oh, that’s probably worse.
That expressive brow shifts again, one eyebrow lifting up, the other sinking down, eyes narrowed. He stares at Yuuji as if looking at a perplexing bug that just started spewing absurdities at him.
Feeling like he’s exposed himself for being young and dumb again, Yuuji scuffs his shoes on the red epoxy, hearing a squeak that makes him wince. “I mean, I didn’t go to jail or anything. I’m not like, that bad.”
“Clearly,” the crimson-eyed bastard drawls, dragging out each syllable as if speaking is draining his energy.
A door opens behind them, sounds of the party drifting within.
“Sukuna-sama,” a musical voice calls, drawing his attention away. A pale individual stands in the doorway, head bowed reverently while speaking. “You have guests still eager to meet with you, Sir.”
The man -Sukuna- nods shortly to the newcomer, waving them away with a kingly gesture of dismissal. Yuuji feels a thread of dismay; he senses he will be asked to leave this awesome room soon. He totally wants to swing one of the blades around again-
They are alone once more. “Yes,” Sukuna says out of the blue, as if remembering something.
“Yes, what?” Yuuji reluctantly turns from admiring some ancient katana, salivating over the intricate hilt design.
“The answer to your question from before.” The man smirks, eye teeth sharper than they possibly should be, eyes dancing with a certain unkind amusement. “Is yes.”
Yuuji frowns, trying to remember what he asked.
Without elaborating, Sukuna walks out of the room and Yuuji follows, knowing he must. When he exits, Sukuna grabs a champagne flute off the nearest table and shoves it into Yuuji’s hand. “Here, pest. It’s your birthday,” the man intonates with a certain air of ennui. “Take this and entertain yourself without jumping off a building. I do grow weary of your nonsense.”
Without another word, Sukuna easily plugs himself into a circle of people who all part like the red sea to accommodate him.
Alone once more, Yuuji stands there feeling strangely abandoned, clutching his ill-gained alcohol. He’s shouldn’t drink it, but he does, it’s his birthday and it’s Kenjaku’s fault that he’s here. It’s then that Yuuji realizes he doesn’t know how Sukuna knew it was his birthday. Maybe Momjaku told him. Yuuji sure didn’t.
Whatever.
~
When they finally make to leave the party, Yuuji feels the prickly sensation of being watched. He turns as Momjaku guides him towards the massive double doors that serve as the entrance to the fancy highrise condo, trying to figure out-
Ah. There. The arrogant dude hosting this shoddy ass party.
Sukuna has a bored expression on his face as he speaks to the group of men surrounding him, but his attention is on Yuuji, drilling into him as if judging every last aspect of the teen, as if finding him lacking, a disappointing little nuisance in this tedious place.
Yuuji makes a face at him, because the guy is an asshole and it isn’t like Yuuji will ever see him again.
He will definitely miss that cool weapon room, though.
~
Yuuji feels just a bit of a buzz from that bubbly. At least he’s got that going for him. Plus, Fushiguro told him to sneak out once he got home, because he stole some hooch from his bareknuckle-fighting father to share. “Why did we even go to that stupid event?”
Kenjaku is cryptic, staring blankly through the front of the speeder as he drives them home. He doesn’t look at Yuuji. “To be seen.”
Yuuji stares at him in disbelief for a moment before rolling his eyes damn near out of his skull. He groans. By who? What a stupid answer, Momjaku!
~*~
The following week, Kenjaku takes Yuuji to get his cyber shunt installed, behind his head, just like Kenjaku’s. He assures Yuuji that soon, the pain from the surgery will go away.
“I didn’t want it,” Yuuji slurs, still enjoying his glorious pain meds post-surgery. The surgery that had been against his will. Yeah. That one. “I didn’t need it.”
Patting his cheek condescendingly, Kenjaku says, “Do hush, Yuuji. You don’t have any clue about what you need.”
The drugs give him strange dreams. His mind whirls with old, bad memories, of the strange things his grandfather said that Yuuji tried to forget. Of running through the dark, dirty lower-level streets with Fushiguro, running away from junkyard dogs. Nobara, pulling him into some club with a fake ID, dancing under the wild lights. Morphing into crimson and murders, news reporters arguing over a case of small disks found in a garbage dump, suspected to host the minds of people robbed of their bodies. Evidence thrown away. Swords, blood. Lies. Of the small cyber shunt nearly hidden by dark red hair, in the back of a handsomely sneering man’s head.
But these are just drugged dreams and Yuuji barely recalls it when the opioids fade from his veins.
~*~