Chapter Text
It’s been six years and the idea of seeing her oldest brother after all that time is surreal. Always too busy to come home for holidays, always too wrapped up in work. He’s the youngest CFO in his company’s history, but Misa thinks it should still be possible for him to get away a few days a year, even just Christmas might be nice.
She suspects the real reason is that he never forgave their mother for remarrying; he loathes Misa’s father and half-brother from the man’s late wife. It’s unfortunate, because Yuji is a sweet boy and her father is a kind man.
Misa was shocked when her mother gave her the news she’d be visiting Sukuna for spring break. She has no idea how her mother had convinced him of that, but she’s a mess of nerves and excitement at the thought of seeing him again.
Six years is a long time not to see a family member, especially one as close as a brother.
Misa was twelve and in the fullness of her awkward tweens. Yuji was still of an age where he enjoyed teasing her, often yanking at the drawstrings of too-large hoodies or commenting on the more awkward moments that happened all too frequently, like when she tripped over a shoe or her own words. They often found themselves bickering over silly things.
They were at Sukuna’s commencement ceremony. It was supposed to be a surprise, mom had said. He only knew she was coming, not the rest of them. When his keen red eyes flitted across them after the ceremony took place, they narrowed, and Misa felt her stomach turn at the look.
Her brother was not happy to see the family.
“Don’t you look so handsome,” their mother cooed, reaching up to brush back some of his neatly styled hair when he finally approached them. Sukuna was stony faced at her touch, not that the woman let it bother her; she knew her son by now. “This is a very nice suit. Did your sponsor get it for you?” Black, with a crisp white shirt. Misa could tell it was expensive even beneath his graduation robes.
While everyone in the family had some form of intelligence, none of them began touch on Sukuna’s. He was a veritable prodigy. He skipped grades throughout primary and secondary school and attracted the attention of a wealthy businessman with an OpEd he had written to the LA Times at fifteen years old. The man took him under his wing throughout Sukuna’s college years. Even without a slew of scholarships, he wouldn’t have had to worry about tuition.
He graduated with double Masters at the age when most attained a bachelors degree. Misa was almost surprised he hadn’t tossed in a PhD while he was at it.
“I thought we agreed the children and your husband would remain at home?” Sukuna said, ignoring the question with a pointed stare toward his siblings.
Yuji scratched the back of his head and Misa’s eyes burned, though she pushed back the thought of tears. She wasn’t some little kid to cry just because her brother was rude.
“You hardly come around on your breaks anymore. I thought it would be nice to come out and celebrate with you,” Kari Itadori argued.
“I’m going out to dinner with Mr. Geto and his associates tonight. He has been very generous, after all.”
Their mother swallowed past tears of her own. “Right, of course. It was still nice to see you get your degree— degrees. Hopefully we will see you at Christmas?”
Sukuna hummed noncommittally before turning away, his family already dismissed in his mind.
He hadn’t come at Christmas, nor any holidays since.
Now she’ll be alone with him for three whole weeks. Misa wonders how her mother managed to wheedle him into it, given how reluctant Sukuna has been to spend any time with the family over the years since his high school graduation. However she did it, Misa’s grateful. She looked up to Sukuna when she was little.
She knows it’s only because her parents don’t want their daughter home alone for two weeks despite the fact that she’s eighteen years old; they’re going on a second honeymoon to celebrate twenty years together. They deserve the time away, and Misa is happy to get to see her brother again.
She has memories of him from when she was younger, though he moved to college when she was six. He was dutiful toward her and would often stand between her and Yuji when her other brother picked on her, which was often. Not that Yuji was a bully; far from it, he just showed love by messing up her hair or calling her “short stack” or any number of little ways a brother might tease his sister.
To young Misa, Sukuna was a mighty statue of justice between her and that teasing (which she admittedly took too seriously at times).
Those memories are mostly laced with wonder and fondness; she wonders what color glasses he remembers her through.
She’ll find out soon enough.
Packing is difficult because two weeks is a long time. Misa also has no idea what Sukuna’s life is like or what he will expect from her, how often she’ll be with him, what kinds of things they might do. She should plan for anything, right?
In goes the requisite little black dress, a few days’ worth of loungewear, some normal daily wear that can be mixed and matched, the usual under layers and sleep clothes… it’s a good thing she doesn’t have to fly to see him or she’d be charged for overweight baggage.
“Are you almost ready, sweetheart?” Her mom peeks in as she’s finishing up and she nods.
“Just getting a small bag together for the trip,” she replies, shoving her stuffed lamb to the side before adding a notebook, pens, a few other ways to pass the two hour journey to Los Angeles, all into a backpack. Ordinarily, she’d bring the stuffed animal, but she doesn’t want to risk looking childish in front of Sukuna. “All set.” Misa smiles as she shoulders the small bag and rolls her luggage through the hallway. “I wonder if he’ll notice I got taller.”
“You’ve grown an inch, peanut. I doubt he’ll notice.” Jin Itadori takes over the luggage for her as she pouts at him.
“An inch and a half,” she counters, straightening her spine to its fullest. That’s not a small amount in her mind.
A headpat alerts her to the presence of her older brother. “Still not as tall as I am, short stack,” says Yuji between bites of a sandwich.
Misa clicks her tongue. “Don’t you have a job to get to?”
He shakes his head and grins. “Gojo said I had today free.”
“Your boss is too nice to you.” Misa’s honestly not surprised; Mr. Gojo tends to be somewhat of a slacker.
Her brother shrugs and grabs a fruit from the bowl on the table as he polishes off the sandwich. How does he eat so much? she wonders.
Misa blinks the thoughts from her head and hefts the shoulder bag. There’s a car outside, sent by Sukuna for the express purpose of navigating Misa from her home near Palm Springs to Los Angeles. It’s such a long journey, almost worth flying instead of driving, but he casually has a sleek town car waiting outside for her. Rich people.
She exchanges hugs with her family and steps into the yard, and the driver, in a suit and black cap, exits the car to open her door for her.
“Good morning, Miss Itadori,” he greets her, taking her bags in hand.
“Good morning,” she responds, cheeks flushing hotly, and slides into her seat. It’s an all-leather interior, cool in the heat of the early spring day, the glass tinted, a minifridge with a clear front showcasing sodas and water in front of her facing back.
In moments, the car is gliding forward and they are officially on their way.
Misa takes out her phone and starts sending snaps to Yuji and her closest friends, Andy and Melissa, of the posh interior of the car and the scenery as it passes. She can’t believe this was all sent for her and she’s reticent to take one of the drinks, though within the first half hour the AC dries her tongue to the top of her mouth. Surely, it’d be fine to have just one drink, right?
Maybe she should check.
Misa clears her throat. “Um, excuse me?”
“Yes, miss?” comes the neat, professional voice of the driver.
“The drinks back here, would it be alright if I…”
“Help yourself to any of the amenities,” he replies. “There are snacks in the center console and you can play music through the controls between the front and back seats, as well as control the temperature and the partition.”
Her eyes widen at the information and Misa dives forward to start exploring these new features. Within moments, her phone syncs to the Bluetooth and soothing tunes play softly around her. She pops open a can and sips soda, sighs, and leans back in the slightly warmer seat.
The corners of the driver’s eyes crinkle in the rearview mirror.
Misa always forgets just how sprawling Los Angeles is; it encroaches upon the outskirts of the foothills, flirts with the edges of the desert, and the glistening towers can almost see the dark, cold tides of the Pacific. The sun reflecting from the skyscrapers hurts her eyes, but she takes pictures anyway and adds them to her story for good measure.
It’s at an especially tall tower the town car stops. The driver, Kai, circles around to assist her out and a younger man appears as though from nowhere to take her bags before Misa thinks to grab them for herself.
“Right this way, Miss,” says the young man. Misa waves awkwardly at Kai, who tips his hat in response, and she follows the new guy through glass doors and into the tall building.
The floors are clean black marble and there are red, tooled carpets covering them that she nearly sinks into as plush as they are. She’s led to an elevator; the guy leading her pressed the top floor button, and they go up. And up. And up, all the way to the top, where he opens up the door that immediately faces them, and reveals a penthouse.
Misa knows her brother has a good job, that he has money, but this is something else. Far from the quaint, if nice suburban home where they grew up, this place is massive and screams wealth. It’s all high ceilings, glass, black iron, dark marble, and clean, modern furniture that would look far too large for any other setting.
She stands in the entrance and stares toward the black staircase gleaming darkly against a red wall, the vaguely disturbing abstract art on the walls. Is Misa allowed to sit on the furniture? It’s all so expensive looking and clean, like no one ever uses it.
Footsteps draw her attention toward a hallway and her head whips in the direction of the sound. “I’ll get back to you on that later.” It’s Sukuna, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a phone to his ear. His crimson eyes are on her and she shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other. The man who led her in steps around her and back out of the apartment, the door clicking shut with a strange finality. Sukuna closes his phone with one hand; it’s a fancy flip phone, the kind that can be a full-screen phone when open.
“H-hi.” Misa’s pulse is like a knotted cord running through her veins. She hasn’t been this nervous in years, pinned as she is by her oldest brother’s gaze. She doesn’t know why he intimidates her so much.
Despite their lack of blood connection, Sukuna and Yuji look surprisingly alike. They both have that spiky pink hair atop their heads and their features are so similar people might think they were twins if looking at pictures of them from the same age, though Sukuna’s jaw is more square. However, Sukuna’s eyes are red and Yuji’s are brown. Yuji has curved scars on his cheeks, whereas Sukuna went through a strange phase in college where he chose to tattoo his face. He’s also larger than her other brother both in terms of muscle mass and height. She wonders if he had the doors modified in his apartment to better suit his height, because everything looks bigger here.
Misa supposes that both boys look like their fathers and her mother has very specific taste. It’s one of those quirks of nature that sometimes happens.
“Was the journey comfortable?” Sukuna asks after a long pause.
She nods. “It was. Th-thanks for sending the car. It was nice.”
Sukuna nods then and gestures her further in the apartment. “Your room is through there. There’s an ensuite,” he says, gesturing toward a door to his right. Misa hadn’t even noticed it.
The door is cracked and she can just make out one of her bags. “Right, thanks,” she replies. “I should, uh, go check it out?”
Her heart is pounding when she heads into the room and shuts the door behind her, though she doesn’t know why. She can’t remember ever being so intimidated by Sukuna, but he’s not doing anything particularly scary, just existing as himself in his home. Perhaps it’s the austere, upper-class atmosphere, or the unrelieved black of his clothing. She doesn’t know, but she hopes she gets over this bout of nerves quickly so she can enjoy spending time with him.
Settled on doing just that, Misa gazes around the guest room where she’s found herself. It’s very white, reminiscent of upscale hotel rooms she’s seen in magazines and online. There’s a generic abstract water-type painting opposite the bed, a walk-in closet beside the bathroom, white walls and white bedding and sheets with a thread count easily four times hers at home. The high glass walls have thick white curtains she can draw to keep out the light and she does so to provide herself the illusion of privacy, though if Misa remembers correctly, no one outside the building would be able to see anything anyway, especially not this high up. There’s also a small balcony with two wicker chairs and a table between them.
Finished exploring the room, she sets her suitcase on the bed and opens it up to unpack for the weeks ahead. It’ll feel nice not living out of the luggage; she can tuck the bags away in the closet and let her nicer stuff unwrinkle by hanging.
That’s the work of ten minutes and then she’s left sitting on a cushiony chair, wondering what to do next. It’s not like she can sit in here all day, everyday. She can’t exactly avoid her brother, especially when the point is to spend time with him, get to know him again.
Misa steels herself and exits the room.
Sukuna lounges on a leather seat, chin on one fist as he scrolls through his phone. When she enters the living area, he glances up and sets the phone on the arm of the chair. “Settled, then?”
Misa nods, wringing her fingers. “It’s really nice, thanks.”
“Of course,” he says evenly, then pulls out his wallet and slides a card onto the shiny black coffee table. “This is for the building. It’ll allow you access to the penthouse and any other room you might need to access. The ground floor has a gym, pool, and sauna.”
“Oh, okay.” Misa addles to the couch and takes up the card, running her fingertips over the edges.
“My bedroom is atop the stairs, and my office is the last room down the hall. Those are off limits, especially in the evenings. I conduct a lot of business at night and I don’t need any distractions,” Sukuna continues. “Our mother says you’re a good girl, so that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
Her eyes widen and she nods. “No, yes. I mean— it won’t be a problem.”
“Good. I work most days, but I’ll schedule time to do something. Our mother made it clear I was to be attentive while you are here. As long as you’re not a brat, I don’t have a problem with that.”
“I’m not Yuji,” Misa says and he huffs a small laugh. He had always called her other brother that, but never her.
“If you were, you wouldn’t be here,” he replies, a smirk twitching across his mouth. “Now, there are a few rules while you’re here. Not many, just to keep things simple.” Misa nods to indicate she’s listening. “Other than staying out of my space, no visitors. I don’t need to entertain a gaggle of teenagers. After midnight, you should stay in your room; there’s no good reason someone your age should be up and about at that hour. Don’t open the door for anyone without my express permission. Is that understood?”
The curfew chafes a little, but she won’t to argue with Sukuna as a visitor in his own home, so she nods.
“Is there anything I need to know? Dietary restrictions, allergies, health issues?” he asks, picking up his phone once again.
“No,” she says brightly. “I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“Good.”
Her first few days are spent getting comfortable in Sukuna’s palatial penthouse. Misa heads down to the lobby floor and familiarizes herself with the amenities there, swimming in the pool and lounging in the sauna before she heads back up to shower under the rainfall ceiling in the ensuite. She eats small, simple meals whenever Sukuna is away, fare like sandwiches and cereal or toast, though with better bread than normal and fancy jams and cheeses. He usually orders dinner for her, even if he’s not home quite yet.
The third day, he knocks on the guest room door at around eight in the morning.
Misa groggily rolls out of bed, straightening her night shirt to cover more of her legs before answering.
“Would you like to come to the office today?” he asks, and her face brightens. “Be ready in half an hour.”
She showers, dresses, and primps in record time, seated neatly on the leather couch as he descends the stairs, fingering one cuff. He’s in a black suit with a red shirt today, looking handsome and severe. His crimson eyes dart over her in her black romper, legs covered, sleeves off the shoulder, and she wonders if she should have dressed differently. It’s not like she owns any business clothing; Misa has only ever worked the rare summer job or as a babysitter. This is the closest to appropriate workwear she has.
Sukuna says nothing so it must pass muster.
He gestures for her to follow him into the elevator and down, out of the building. Kai opens the car door for them both, Sukuna waiting for her to slide in before following.