Work Text:
Everything starts at the diner table. The comical amount of comments you can get out of the ‘greatest of all’ curses by simply eating is at least concerning.
Yuuji didn't even say anything. He just got here, snatched a bowl out of the sink, got rice from the rice cooker and dumped pickled vegetables on top.
And the King of Whatever just couldn’t shut his mouth. At first, it’s the way Yuuji talks, then the way he walks, how he dresses, how he sits, how he is a disgrace of a vessel, and for now how his fingers stink of vinegar.
It’s becoming a white noise by now, maybe more like tinnitus. Yuuji can’t believe that he can ignore these stupid remarks by now and is a little proud of himself.
He still kind of wants to throw vinegar into the curse's eyes, but it will probably hurt Yuuji more. After all, when the curse wasn’t annoying him on the outside, it could easily drag Yuuji into that bloody bony mindscape, that by now only brings a scowl on the boy’s face.
It’s been countless times the curse cut off Yuuji’s digits or limbs, seven times when he had sliced off his head, and only twice had he been cut in two proportional halves. Now Yuuji could say from his experience that he prefers a horizontal cut over a vertical since a vertical one fucking sucks.
Before the brain registers what has happened, the numbness goes all over the body and only then comes agonizing pain.
It probably has to do with how the mindscapes work, but since Yuuji’s body isn’t actually here, his brain isn’t able to stop functioning there as well. And the realization is the worst.
One thing is when you know that you won’t die, and absolutely another is when your brain registers all the signs, the pain, the damage and sends these agonizing electrical signals through your body, squeezing already sliced organs and muscles searching for the means to save the body only to make Yuuju suffer even more.
It’s just bullcrap.
And Sukuna loves that. Loves watching saturated blood roll out of the wounds in big chunks, spluttering all over, wetting the jeans and shirts Yuuji wears, painting them red.
Well, if the curtains used to be blue, they are scarlet by now.
It’s impossible to say which of the two of them is the prisoner.
Empathy always came to Yuuji from within, it was rare for him to experience bitterness because of something that happened to him. Or might have happened. Or might happen.
That’s why he gets called a self-sacrificing idiot so often.
Yuuji doesn’t mind and the sorcerers should only be thankful for that since it’s the only thing that keeps Sukuna at bay.
He still has things to destroy inside of his vessel, enough of playspace to keep Sukuna remotely quiet.
Yuuji is an amazing toy after all.
He doesn’t break at the first touch and still holds after a few months of usage.
Sukuna notices with joy the tiny cracks that got all over Yuuji because of him.
The brat wouldn’t even flinch anymore when his digits get cut off.
He puts his fingers inside a boiling pot, gulps steam-hot tea and refuses to feel any tiredness.
Tired means sleep, sleep means another few hours inside of Sukuna’s domain.
The ceiling of the morgue is familiar by now.
Even though the mindscape is physically harmless, it takes only a blink of lost control for Sukuna to stuck his dark-painted nails into Yuuji’s throat.
Since it was impossible for Yuuji to lose control, everything came with a deal. Sukuna has spent his sweet time negotiating, repeatedly and tiredly talking in Yuuji’s ears, in his head, for the boy to simply lose an ounce of control.
“Don’t you want peace so madly?” he whispers, a smile so noticeable in his words. Yuuji proceeds smooshing the cereal in his mouth, the texture way too sharp for his liking. Sure, it was made to be filled with milk, but whatever. He picked one between his lips and, well, scratchy.
His lips got the texture of sandpaper these days and it’s just annoying. Nobara repeatedly succeeds in putting lip balm on him, but the effect just isn’t good enough.
Fushiguro also got all fussy and almost talked Gojo-sensei from taking Yuuji on a mission.
Gojo looked at his snow-pale face and tsked, grasping the idea of what was happening. It’s a no-brainer, unfortunately, the solution is way harder to find.
“Don’t you want it madly?”
Sometimes Yuuji thinks that Gojo-sensei can hear all the words Sukuna whispers into his ears.
It would be quite nice.
“You do, don’t you?”
Yuuji watches the reflections on the cutlery, as he distractedly cuts into his cutlet. They decided on takeout tonight since everybody just wanted to lie down on the floor and rot there in peace.
Nobara proceeded to threaten the delivery guy to get upright to the dorms, which is, well, considering how the school is located.
The guy was shaking when he finally got here, which was the only thing Yuuji noticed since Sukuna right now had a field day.
At some point in their… situationship, the bastard had discovered the ability to distract the information from his memories and fucking broadcast it into Yuuji’s head.
Started with nightmares, proceeded with fucking mixtapes of human whimpering, screaming and begging, or all these ugly noises of bones cracking, lungs popping, muscles reaping along with the skin.
You know there are days when you are like…
‘Well, this might just happen.’
On the bright side of this stupid deal is that the bastard will finally shut up. Which would make Yuuji incredibly happy.
On the darker side, it definitely isn’t healthy. And… it’s just bad.
Well.
Is suicide considered murder?
Probably not.
Actually, maybe in this case it is, since it was Sukuna who told him to kill himself.
***
That dinner didn’t end up in the morgue, happily so. Yuuji still had enough brain cells to consider how traumatizing it would be for his classmates.
Unintentionally, he became hyperaware of all the metallic cutlery. The shine of it, his worn-out reflection and the staring of his tired eyes.
By now it was rare if his scleras weren’t tinted pink from all the sleepless nights or galloping tears rolling down his face after yet another vision of somebody's bodyparts being cruelly removed and eaten.
Sukuna was overjoyed by Yuuji’s reaction. The satisfied rumbling ran all over his skin and made him want to shudder.
Not a lot of things scared Yuuji, but Sukuna managed to make him feel a lot of very new emotions.
Yuuji never knew that it was possible to hate something so much.
The nausea is usual by now, but he still stuffs himself with whatever, listening to overly loud music in his set just to quieten the sounds of Sukuna munching on probably somebody’s heart. Heart sounds surprisingly popping, so Yuuji can recognize the sound by now.
Doesn’t make it any less nauseating.
That day he gets hit by Nobara because of the music. He wanted to explain at first, but when he opened his mouth no coherent words came out.
He actually choked on his own wail and a disturbing cold and wet feeling came all over him, since, with the music gone, he was once again surrounded by disgusting sounds of organic matters and panicked beginnings and plain screams and weeps.
Noticing the reaction, Nobara quickly grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him into the living room, with panic noticing her friend's condition.
He saw her mouth forming words, her eyes piercing all over him, but heard not a single word. He was sat on the couch, Nobara’s hands gripping his in a supposedly painful manner, but everything remained dull.
Yuuji could only feel the sounds coming from his parasite.
Sukuna is kind of like a brain tumour.
Everything happened very fast. He couldn’t sense the people coming, but soon he was surrounded by both of his classmates and his form teacher.
Sensei didn’t spare time and just scooped him into his arms and the next second he was in the infirmary.
Shoko-sensei was called in soon. Before she appeared, Nobara spawned before him, with Fushiguro following her, and in a very fast fashion put the headphones back on his head.
His pupils dilated when the melody proceeded to play on the cord he still remembered. Yuuji finally blinked, his face disgustingly wet. Shuddering, he further rolled into himself, gulping down the slimy contents of his throat.
Disgusting noises were now at the peripheries of his mind, a loud guitar solo thundering in his ears.
‘Isn’t it ironic to listen to a song about freedom right now?’ words formed inside of his still fuzzed mind and Yuuji felt the anger boiling up his tired system.
The red in front of his eyes fastly faded and Yuuji faced his friends and his teachers.
Shoko-sensei was talking to Nobara and Yuuji just noticed that Fushiguro was squeezing his shoulder the whole time. Hesitantly, in raspy movements, Yuuji reached and grasped Fushiguro’s hand, reassuringly, only to make the black-haired boy flinch.
His lips formed into the words, brows pinched, but Yuuji shook his head, pointing at the headphones.
“I can’t hear a thing,” he said, hopefully in a moderately quiet voice. From the rasped feeling in his throat, they probably came out harshly. “I’m good now.”
His talking brought others’ attention, everybody now looking at him. Nobara looked at him with great concern.
Gojo-sensei moved to the table and took a clipboard with a pen, giving it to Shoko-sensei. His teacher wasn’t directly looking at him, but Yuuji could feel the tingling on his skin from the six-eye technique.
The tracks changed and a more organized song began playing, scratching Yuuji’s scalp in the right place. For a moment he closed his eyes, feeling Fushiguro’s hand tensing.
Horrible screams now faded, only a poor mention of them left. Yuuji wiped his face with his clothed elbow and noticed a clipboard reaching for him.
He took it with his free hand and read a bit messed handwriting:
‘Nobara-kun said that the panic attack began when she removed your headphones, which I assume is true, the question is what caused it?’
Yuuji hesitated for a bit if he should speak or write, but soon reached out his hand towards the doctor and received a pen. He wrote down slowly:
‘Sukuna sometimes projects things from his experience and this time it was noises (bad ones)’
“You don't get an outburst from a noise,” murmured Fushiguro. From his position, he could hear music coming out of a headset. Yuuji noticed him talking and tilted his head in question.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Nobara snarled at him, her hands folded on her chest. She still could feel the cold sweat on her back. Yuuji managed to give her a really big scare.
“Knowing Sukuna it was probably torture,” whispered back Gojo, taking a clipboard and a pen from Yuuji and writing down ‘noises?’.
‘Screams, icky wet human stuff, people dying, etc.’ Yuuji wrote down in response, making Nobara’s and Fushiguro’s brows twitch. Even in this condition, Yuuji remained Yuuji.
Gojo looked at Shoko, who rubbed her forehead with a pinched expression. She took a clipboard this time.
‘You still hear it?’
‘Faded, headphones help.’
Shoko considered it for some time and with a sigh wrote down:
‘I can knock you off with drugs if you want.’
Yuujis's worn-out condition disappeared for a mere second, replaced by surprise. He munched on his sandpaper-like lower lip and shook his head slowly.
‘He easily gets to be thru dreams,’ he wrote down.
Gojo’s piercing veiled eyes sent a shudder down Yuuji’s shoulders and the teacher took a clipboard.
‘Since when?’
Yuuji bit his lip.
‘Mindspace almost from the beginning, talking later, not so long ago dreams and sounds.’
Yuuji hesitantly returned the board to his teacher, waiting for the reaction. He knew that he was in the wrong since he didn’t report the changes, but still…
Gojo-sensei was silent for some time and then wrote down in bigger words:
‘Are mindspaces like domains?’
Yuuji nodded.
A longer pause. Now Shoko was looking at her old classmate, her digits twitching a bit.
Yuuji sensed a threatening aura coming from Nobara and shuddered, looking away.
“Give him some sedatives to knock him off completely, so the vermin won’t be able to bother him,” Gojo stated after his pause, not looking at Shoko. “He won’t go to classes tomorrow, so don’t worry about it.”
***
“Ah, your teacher cares so much about you,” a Cheshire voice called from above him and Yuuji just rolled his eyes. It was all he could manage with the slumber that overcame his body. He could barely manage to keep his eyes open.
Taloned fingers caressed up his nape, sending a shudder down his spine.
“Aren’t they adorable?” Sukuna chuckled, still caressing the pale skin. “After all the struggle, you are here. Isn’t this the place where you belong?”
Yuuji struggled to keep his eyes open but registered the familiar smell of blood collected at the bottom of the mindspace. His head by now was resting on a big cool skull, the rest of the body lying on smaller bones. He was mildly surprised that he still had “the rest of his body” and wasn't beheaded by now.
“Just kill yourself when it gets bad next time,“ the saccharin voice stated, playing with longer pinkette locks. “Isn’t it easy?”
He managed to open his mouth, but no words came out. A cruel laugh came out of the King of Curses at this poor attempt.
At least it’s quiet now. And it might just happen.