Chapter Text
What does a human taste like? A question whose answer is seldom known in full. Everyone has tasted a part of themselves at some point—iron and salt from licking a wound, the nothingness of skin chewed off dry lips or nail grooves. Sometimes the taste of another is learned with lips upon lips, tongue against tongue, licking over the surface of skin, rarely using enough teeth to draw blood. But that too hardly qualifies as sampling.
Does one taste a cut of marbled steak by licking it? Suckling out the juices and maybe swallowing? The answer to these absurd questions is obviously no. Wagyu is best eaten barely cooked, bloody, and unseasoned. Bitten and torn with teeth, savored from the tip of the tongue to the back of the throat. Every tendril, every ligament and their texture branded around the gums. Salt and metal burned into the nostrils, reds and pinks burned into the eyes. Chewing, chomping, squelching.
This is the only way to justify the slaughter for pleasure—to fully know and love the flesh with every part and sense at one’s disposal. To know the taste of a human is to cut out flesh from bone. To sink teeth through fat and muscle until it’s stuck between them. To lick blood off lips and almost choke upon swallowing, all while thirsting for the next bite.
The meat of predators is sour and gamey from uric acids built up from the sin of killing to eat. Lean muscle is tough, chewy, as it lacks the fat to make it tender and flavorful. But these tendencies do not mean the flesh of a human cannot taste divine.
Sukuna delights in the taste of divinity as he takes a bite out of Gojo Satoru for the second time that day.
“OW ow ow ow Sukuna what the FUCK is wrong with you?!” The Strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer of the Modern Age cries as he cradles his right forearm. Or rather, what’s left of it.
Blood splatters and drips carelessly onto newly refurbished cypress floors only to be smeared by Gojo’s erratic tapdance of pain. Without their finish the panels would be stained a striking auburn. Perhaps he should sever more arteries to paint them over. White wood is far too boring.
Sukuna stares half at the floor and half at the man, somewhat amused by the tantrum before him. Entertainment always pairs well with good food. He ruminates over the flavor, how difficult it is to break apart the fibers on his molars. Each grind draws out new fluids, salty and pungent with a hint of sweet against his tongue.
“Hey! Are you listening? Don’t ignore me!” Gojo whines, his arm already restored to its previous state. He stands, agitated, on tips of his toes, stretching his arm out to poke at Sukuna’s left cheek. It’s dangerously close to the corners of his mouth which are just barely occupied by chewing.
Gojo yanks away his finger when Sukuna goes in for another bite. “HEY! You—mmmMMPH!” Sukuna covers the other’s mouth with his upper right hand and swallows. That’s enough noise for now.
“I’ve already told you, brat,” Sukuna scolds. He firmly holds the formerly Strongest in place by the jaw with his fingers. “If you won’t keep your skin covered I’m going to take it as an invitation.”
Gojo wears a plain black t-shirt whose modesty is lost by its tightness. It clings to his torso in contrast with his white tobizubon that leaves an impression of wide hips. It’s the exact same outfit Sukuna killed him in. And all it does is tempt him to repeat that; to bisect that auspicious waist and gorge on the entrails that fall from it.
An enticing thought that is interrupted by a sudden slimy wetness tickling the inside of his palm. A first for this 1,000 year old curse user, the unexpected tongue has him pull away reflexively. That same tongue, of course, starts running itself immediately without anything left to keep it in place. “Like hell I’m going to let an old man like you control how I dress!”
So irritating. Sukuna leers over the smaller sorcerer with all arms crossed. “Then I’m going to keep eating you.” He breathes onto the other to ensure the odor reaches him. His nose is sensitive, right?
Gojo’s nostrils twitch but his eyes hold firm in their glare as he stands on the tips of his toes once more to rise to the challenge. Glossy from saliva, the smaller sorcerer parts his lips to blow his own breath on the other. It reeks of sugar and grease. A scent combination that pairs poorly with the two blue gems that demand trouble.
Sukuna chuckles. “Careful with those eyes. Bring them too close and I’ll suck those pretty things right out their sockets.”
Gojo strains until their foreheads touch. Sukuna leans in until the other is flat on his heels. “You’ve got Six of them right? You can part with at least one.”
The other is uncharacteristically quiet as he holds those big blue eyes wide open, unblinking. There’s an unspoken assent in how he slides his face lower, as if offering a taste to Sukuna’s lips.
Human skin is salty, usually from sweat but sometimes tears. The Disgraced One knows that difference well. He wonders what could have made the Honored One cry as he curiously and cautiously licks the base of his cheek.
Sukuna’s tongue is on Gojo’s lower eyelid when The Brat bursts through the door. “GOJO-SENSEI! ARE YOU OK?”
By the time the wooden panel slams into the end of the slot with a loud crack, the boy is halfway across the lounge. He trips past a chair, knocking it over and damaging it in the process. That will cost this relic of a school a pretty penny. Sukuna truly cannot believe this insignificant klutz is responsible for his current predicament.
The King of Curses stands upright and huffs while Gojo turns away to give his precious pupil an ok sign and a toothy grin. “Yuji-kun!” The undulating pitch of his voice grates his ears. “Sorry about the yelling. We’re just messing around.” He takes long strides over to the boy’s side where he wraps a single oversized arm around his shoulders.
“…He bit you again, didn’t he?” The Brat sighs and directs a pointed glare at his dearest uncle. There’s a tone of disappointment Sukuna knows Gojo won’t let slide without yapping incessantly.
“Well it’s—” Sukuna’s hand is over his mouth again in an instant. Gojo has a knack for reaching impossible levels of aggravating when it comes to posturing for his whelps. It’s far worse than whatever tawdry drivel The Brat preaches about “morals” and “becoming a better person” even though he’ll “never forgive him for what he’s done”. At least that is real. Itadori Yuji is truly that boring from the very bottom of his heart.
Gojo Satoru is different. It’s pathetic how someone his age restrains himself and seeks approval from children since his peers barely tolerate him. Not that many of said children respect him to begin with. (Come to think of it, The Brat is of the few who hasn’t completely given up on him as a person.)
“My students are watching, so I’m going to show off for a bit.”
That ridiculous line was said to Sukuna twice. The pinnacle of arrogance born from his fragile, childish ego. He really should just break his jaw now.
“Listen kid,” Sukuna begins, trying to end this conversation as quickly as possible, “when I want to eat, I—.” Gojo’s tongue is on his palm again with even more slobber. Sukuna yanks his hand away and a string of spit trails behind that causes Itadori to cringe with him. For once he’s in perfect sync with his failed vessel.
“Stop that.” Sukuna growls while wiping the gunk off his palm onto that stupid black shirt.
“Putting your hand over my mouth is an invitation,” Gojo quips. He sticks out his tongue and pulls down the lower lid with his index finger. It’s the one Sukuna had just tried to lick. Akanbe, seriously? Isn’t he 29 years old now? Questions both he and Itadori share while the former contemplates jamming his fingers into the pink to skewer out that eyeball.
“Uh…” Itadori begins, clearly trying to be the adult in this situation, “I came here for something else too.”
Sukuna sighs and moves to sit on the floor. It’s best he just lets them finish this so they can get back to…whatever the hell this arrangement is. His binding vows with himself have never been a problem. His binding vow with The Brat was a joy to enforce. His binding vow with Yorozu certainly occurred. The one he currently has with Gojo Satoru is agonizing.
He wants nothing more than to crush the skull of The Brat that separated him from Fushiguro Megumi, but he cannot. Sukuna is forbidden from killing or physically harming humans no matter the circumstance. In exchange he was given the Honored One’s life and body. Gojo Satoru is to see that the Disgraced One is housed, clothed, and fed until death. The death of one results in the death of the other. An offer Sukuna could not refuse when they came to a stalemate in Shinjuku after the other’s revival. With the ‘elders’ gone and a sizable chunk of Japan in disarray, there wasn’t much opposition to this arrangement either.
“Suuukunaaa!” Gojo is whining yet again. “Earth to Sukunaaaa!” He’s like a fly. A whinging, droning fly with the giant gross bug eyes to match.
“What do you want from me.” Sukuna rubs his temple and imagines swatting the other into a puddle of goo and gore.
“Weren’t you listening just now?” Gojo snaps his fingers before leaning in close with those bulging freak eyes and Sukuna considers violence.
“Not really.” Sukuna turns his head away to suppress the growing urge to rake his teeth across the other’s skin until it peels. Would it slough off more like an orange peel or paper mache he wonders.
Buzzing fly that he is, Gojo shakes his attempts to reduce their closeness until their eyes are deadlocked. “Let’s make a deal.” Their nose tips nearly touch and the other springs back up to his full height with a wicked gleam.
“You help out with missions, errands, or whatever…” Gojo waves his hands to the ceiling before forming a fist to point at his chest with a thumb. “And I’ll let you eat whatever part of me you want!”
Silence ensues.
“Gojo-sensei?!” The Brat has that dumb confused look on his face that resembles a lost dog. Though it is understandable this time. Sukuna is probably making a similar face.
Gojo, of course, corrects for the wrong issue at hand. “Except for my brain. I kind of need that reverse cursed technique.” He taps the side of his clearly empty head with a finger.
More silence. More dumbfounded staring.
Gojo mispeaks again. “I’ll let you drink the cerebral fluid though!” He’s making it worse. What is wrong with him?
Itadori, who is typically the first and only person to be on the same wavelength as that thing, sighs a disillusioned “Gojo-sensei…” That’s not the problem here. Neither of them know how to begin communicating the scope of his error.
Gojo continues to solve a problem that does not exist. “Maybe.” He tilts his head to the side and holds a finger to chin, perhaps finally considering what offering 90% of your body to a widely documented killer and actively practicing cannibal entails.
“If you’re extra good.” Gojo offers a wink and a smile as if it’s not the most bizarre proposition Sukuna has received in his entire existence.
“I want your blessing.”
“I want your curse.”
“I want to kill you.”
“I want you to kill me.”
“I want you to kill for me.”
All typical demands of the weak. Do this, do that, as if they had the right to even open their drooling mouths in his presence. They only ever crawled to him if they wanted something for themselves. They feigned their reverence and offered pittances, daring to insolence when denied with unearned confidence amassed by scorning him behind his back.
“I want to cook for you.”
Uraume was the first and only to ever want for him without asking anything in return. For that Sukuna retained and cherished them. But still, a servant seeking a master to tend to is expected.
“I want…nothing.”
Jogo was the first and only to not want anything of him. Sukuna’s mere existence was satisfactory. For that he was rewarded. And yet this nothing was still for an indirect benefit.
“I want you to eat me.”
Gojo Satoru did not say this outright. It was woven between his words, the disinterest in his demands contrasted with the lengthy fervor for his reciprocations. The list of asks is a list of excuses, a social courtesy that masks his intent to those with lesser ears. What could he possibly stand to gain from this?
All living creatures are embedded with fear of being consumed before they are born. The fetus fears their twin will absorb them, the infant fears its mother will devour them, the child fears the animal will maul them, and the adult pretends it never happened. Everything at some point is prey so everything knows the fear of predation.
Gojo Satoru was reminded of this fear he pretended to never know as a self-proclaimed apex predator by covetous eyes and assassin’s blades. Sukuna made him experience it—that sickly awful thing they call vulnerability, when all that you are is gut and displayed against your will. Knife from perineum to throat and across the intertubercular line, intestines spilling like noodles. The core of each and every buried oppugnation exposed for defiling.
Why does Gojo Satoru want this? It’s a question that gnaws at the fabrics of his sanity. The thread and its potential ends dangle infinite blue webs. Gojo Satoru is many things. But boring is not one of them.
Sukuna cocks his head and smirks. “Sounds interesting. I’ll bite.”
The despair his answer inflicts on The Brat tells him he will not regret this.