This room was seriously nice.
you briefly wondered if the rest of the dorms here at Jujutsu Tech all look like yours, or if you might be receiving special treatment. You have your own private bathroom, and even a bookshelf built in to the wall by your bed. There's a desk, a dresser, a lamp...huh...It didn't take much to impress you, you realize. And you didn't have alot of possessions anymore.
You unpack and organize your clothes into the dresser. You look for a place to store your shoes, and turn the closet doorknob. It's locked.
That's weird. You crouch down to take a look through the antique keyhole. Expecting darkness, you are even more puzzled to see the soft orange glow of lamp light. It's not a closet. You realize it's another room.
"Sneaky, sneaky..." Ryomen whispers inside your head.
You smile, but say nothing. There was the small rush that came from watching someone without them knowing, then the grimace of shame knowing that you shouldn't. I should get up, you say to yourself. Besides the noise of you attempting to open the door might've already gotten their atten-
"Hello? Is someone there?" Shit! Someone had for sure heard you.
Trying to move as quietly and quickly as possible, you crawl away from the door in a hurry. You hold your breath waiting for any further sounds from your new neighbor. Silence.
Good.
You aren't ready for talking to people just yet. Not after last night.
"You should sleep," Ryomen presses gently.
You nod, "Yeah, I know...maybe a shower first though."
Without flipping on the lights you turn the faucet in your bathroom until the warm water flows from the showerhead. You sit under the stream. There is no more strength left in you to stand.
As you sit and steam in your thoughts, you are dimly aware of your hands working shampoo through your hair. Ryomen. He doesnt speak for a while, massaging your scalp thoroughly to scrub your roots. You wish he could scrub the memory of Lee's burning body from your brain. Or the memory of the lighter leaving your hand. You still weren't sure who had released it, you or Sukuna. Tears sting your eyes and your shoulders heave in soft sobs. The pent up grief you have been harboring pours out. You stifle your cries to be as quiet as possible.
Ryomen speaks gently in your mind.
"Remember when you asked me if I ever had a dog?" You think for a moment, then nod. You had asked that the second time you had met.
"I told you no, but that's not entirely true. I did feed some strays once.
"A millennia ago, I lived as a mortal human just like you. I was a farmer actually." He continued.
You tried picturing him as a human...no markings, maybe black hair instead of the soft pink.
You smile a little at the image. Farmer Ryo.
"In my village there were lots of wild dogs that had created their own packs for survival. They mostly lived off scraps we threw outside. Every now and then one of the dogs would get vicious, attacking its brothers for food, or sometimes no reason at all. They would cause trouble for the humans too, stealing livestock or children. Maybe they were sick or they just got tired of having to share everything they found. But those dogs would always be dealt with for the trouble they caused. The pack would turn on them and rip them to pieces. Or a human might finally catch up to one as it dragged their child away and find a new home for his axe. Then the dogs would go back to living in peace for a while."
You digest his words thoughtfully. You know what he's trying to hint at...
That is was better to end a destructive force, even with violence, if it meant that there could be peace from it.
But Sukuna had also been a vicious beast someone had ripped into pieces.
"What did you farm?" you ask.
There's silence from Ryomen now...Very telling silence.
"It's ok...It's still a good story," you whisper.
"You should try to sleep."
"I dont want to. I'll just have bad dreams."
He touches your hand to your shoulder now, squeezing to comfort you, "No, I'll make sure that you don't."
"Thank you, Ryomen..."
.
.
After your showered, you had dried off in the dark and climbed under the blankets of your new bed. It wasn't a bad mattress at all. The exhaustion from the last few days is caught up to you finally, and you sleep for hours. You don't even stir when Fushiguro knocks at your door to wake you for dinner. The only thing to eventually rouse you from your slumber was Ryomen.
"Food. We need to eat," he urged you.
"I'm starving!"
He snaps your eyes open.
It's pitch dark. Stretching you sit up and remember where you are. You check the time on your phone. Its 1 am.
"So much for dinner," you grumble with disappointment.
"I MUST eat," he insists.
"I've waited as long as I can."
You swing your legs out from the sheets and touch your feet on the floor.
"I think there's one more peach," you yawn and dig through your coat pocket. It's a small peach, and slightly bruised on one side. You offer it to Ryomen's hungry mouth at the side of your face. It's gone within seconds, pit and all.
"I need more!" He demands.
"Me too, sorry there's nothing else." You're genuinely sorry. You hadn't fed yourself all day. Your thoughts were too preoccupied.
Looking around again at your new room in the dark, something catches your eye. There is a small white square sliding out from the door you had mistaken for the closet earlier. It looks like someone is passing you a note.
Tiptoeing across the floor carefully, you peer to read what it says.
"Godzilla vs King Kong,
Who would win?"
You laugh a bit at the simplicity of the question. Fumbling through the desk drawer, you find a pen. You kneel and circle King Kong in blue ink, then slip it back under the door. Waiting patiently for a response, you hug your knees to your chest and rest your back against the wall.
The note slips back to your side of the door.
"My name is Itadori. What's yours?"
Hesitantly you write your name out, then pass it back. It returns shortly.
"Did I wake you?"
You reply, "No. Can't sleep. Too hungry."
Itadori passes the note back.
"Me too! Want to go raid the kitchen with me?"
You pause, clicking the pen nervously with your thumb... Then your stomach made a terribly loud growl.
"Foooooood." Ryomen reminds you.
You carefully write out your reply, "Sure" and send it back.
You take a few frantic seconds to realize you are still naked from your shower earlier, and dress yourself in a hurry. You slip on some shorts, socks and a t-shirt. Grabbing your hairbrush, you take a few seconds to assess your appearance in the mirror. Sukuna's eyes peer back at you and his mouth grins.
"If this person is a jujutsu sorcerer, they'll be able to see me," he reminds you.
This crumples your confidence a bit. He's right. You were hoping to make a good first impression, but chances are everyone here already knows you're possessed. There's a tentative knock on your door.
Your hand freezes on the knob, and you take a deep breath to steady your nerves before opening it. Your jaw drops when you see him.
"Hi! It's nice to meet you. I'm Yuji Itadori." He smiles at you broadly. But on the side of his face was a second mouth that scowled at you. He looks just like Ryomen! He didn't have markings on his face or hands, but his hair was the same pale pink. He was nearly the same height too. He also had Sukuna's second eyes beneath his own. And his mouth.
"So you're my second vessel? Not a bad choice. Nice legs, sweetheart." It spoke, licking its lips laciviously. Sukuna! Or, another part of him rather.
You now recall Gojo telling you that they had another student who lived as Sukuna's vessel...So this must be him.
Itadori claps a hand over Sukuna's mouth.
"S-sorry! That's all him, not me! I mean, you do have nice legs, but I wasn't going to say it to your face like that." He blushes even redder now.
You struggle for words. Ryomen on the other hand isn't so tongue tied, and steps in to defend you.
"Watch your mouth. You and I may be similar in body, but that does not make you my equal." He warns darkly.
"Heheh My we're so territorial. Can't we share our toys? I'd gladly pass this one to you for a taste of that-" Itadori's Sukuna gets another slap from his vessel.
"Shit, that's so terrible! Can we start again?" He bows.
"It's so nice to meet someone who knows what I'm going though at least. You also house Sukuna's spirit, right? So you must understand how frustrating it gets."
"Oh! Yes, frustrating. That's right," you sputter your response.
Ryomen speaks privately to you,
"Keep me your dirty secret for a while longer. Play along."
"Shall we find something to eat?" Itadori asks you.
Both Sukunas scream a resounding "YES!"
.
.
The kitchen was enormous. There were six separate stoves, fully stocked pantries, and fresh produce that they grew on campus.
"So this is sorta like a private commune," you comment as you look through one of the refrigerators for something simple to cook up.
"Pretty much," Itadori replies.
"They try to make everything available to us here so we don't have to travel to the nearest town any more than often. It's a long drive down the mountain. There's a ranch or something like that alot closer. All our meats and vegetables come from there."
There's a full carton of eggs that looks promising to you.
"Do we have mirin? And green onions?" You ask.
He holds up two green onion stalks like drumsticks. "What's mirin?"
"It's sweet rice wine. I want to make tamago."
"I love tamago!"
"I think I saw a square pan hanging with the pots. want to check?" You pull a mixing bowl from a cabinet and start cracking shells. You were ravenously hungry. You felt like you could easily eat six eggs.
"How many would you like?" You call over your shoulder.
"Umm...can you crack twelve for me?" Yuji asks in a small voice.
You stare at him in disbelief.
"Twelve? You sure?" Geez, did the guy have two stomachs? He did have two mouths, you remind yourself.
"Ha, yeah. I've been eating alot more ever since I fused with Sukuna. He keeps me up all night too. When he's not demanding for me to eat, he's giving my pretty terrifying nightmares. He never goes to sleep. The guy is a complete insomniac, huh?"
You nod quietly in agreement, not wanting to lie to him outloud. You crack eighteen eggs.
"I didnt find mirin, sorry. Here's sugar and soy sauce though." He brings the ingredients to your side. Your elbows brush slightly.
"They don't keep alcohol in the kitchen. It's somewhere else."
"That's too bad. I love cooking with wine," you offer.
"They use it for other things. Alcohol can be weaponized against cursed spirits. They love the stuff."
As Itadori speaks, he lights the stove, you watch the blue flames whoosh from the burner.
You stare intently at the flames.
Again you think of Lee and how much alcohol had been in his home. Then you see his face melting in the liquid flame of burning alcohol. You hear his screams echoing in your ears.
"Is everything alright?" Yuji leans in closer to you, cutting off your view of the stove burner.
"You zoned out a little."
Blinking back tears, you grab a set of chopsticks and scramble the eggs together in the bowl. You add soy sauce and a few pinches of sugar to substitute the mirin.
"Oil that pan, please?" Your voice cracks, but Itadori doesn't acknowledge it. He brushes the pan with oil silently. Even when your sniffles become more frequent, he says nothing. And when your eyes overflow with tears as you pour in the first layer of egg to the pan, he hands you a folded paper towel to wipe your eyes. Still saying nothing.
"I'm sorry," you hiccup.
"Don't be. It's okay. I bet you went through alot recently with this big change. But you're here now, and you're around people who want to make sure you stay safe." Alright?"
You nod, still crying a little, but beginning to feel slightly better. You roll the first layer of your omelette to the edge with your chopsticks, then pour in more eggs. The tedium of watching the layers cook and rolling them into a nice thick swirl was both satisfying and calming.
"You're really good at that," Itadori remarks.
"Didn't you forget the green onions though?"
You shake your head, "No, they go into the last layer so they dont wilt. It keeps their color brighter too. Wanna slice them?" You offer him a weak half smile.
"Use those kitchen scissors, that's the easiest way. You can put the bulbs in water when you're done and they'll regrow soon."
When it's done you plate it with a tiny squeeze of catsup. The two of you admire majesty that is the eighteen egg tamago before dividing it between two plates.
"It's so beautiful!" Itadori applauds you.
"Aw, thanks! I hope you like it."
As the two of you eat, Itadori asks,
"So King Kong over Godzilla, huh? What's your favorite Kong film?"
"Oh! Well I loved the Peter Jackson one with Adrien Brody and Jack Black. Even thou-"
"Even though it took forever to build up?" Itadori finishes.
"Yes!" That made the losses on the island more impactful than just seeing people we didn't know anything about die on the island."
"But the movie is about King Kong! How can they go a whole hour without showing him to the audience?" Itadori counters
"That's just to build the suspense, and you know it worked." You smirk as you take another bite.
"Did you see Kong: Skull Island?" You ask.
"Pfft! You mean Viet-Kong?" Itadori jokes.
You laugh long and hard at that.
"Yeah, that one was pretty silly. Why did they make it a war movie? That seemed like it was wedged in as an afterthought." You agree.
Ryomen isn't as amused by Itadori as you are however.
"This conversation is so unbearably tedious. Hey, brat, where did you say the libations were kept here?"
Itadori looks up from his omelette to Sukuna's mouth on your cheek. His expression is confused. "Libations?"
"He means alcohol." You clarify.
"He's got a taste for booze apparently."
"Oh! Yeah, he does. Never been much of a drinker myself. But there is something else that he likes. I indulge every now and then just to shut him up when he's really annoying."
"What else does he like?" You ask.
Then Itadori cracks a mischievous grin.
.
.
"We have to be quiet, Fushiguro's room is on the other side of mine. Hes not the heaviest sleeper and hes kind of a grump if you wake him up." Itadori was sitting cross legged on his floor, reaching under his dresser.
He pulls out an old, yellow cigar box and flips the lid. A smell reaches your nostrils.
"No way! You snuck weed into your room?" You're in absolute shock.
He holds a finger to his lips to shush you.
"Yeah, it's one of the few things that helps me get some sleep." He pulls a nug from a baggie and starts breaking it up between his fingers.
"Can you roll a joint?" You ask him. He grins sheepishly up at you.
"Not really. I have some papers if you can though." He hands you the pack for you to tear one out.
He passes the ground weed to you for you to roll.
"Can I ask you what made you decide to come here? To the school I mean," you inquire.
He rests his chin on his knee as he watches your fingers.
"When my grandpa passed away, that was pretty much the last family I had. And around that time, I ended up finding one of Sukuna's fingers. Some trouble came from that of course and someone ended up getting hurt really bad..." his eyes turn toward the window. He raises it to let a breeze blow in.
"I decided that I wanted to help people die a respectable death. Something less terrible than what some of these curses do to humans. It's pretty awful, the things they take pleasure in."
You purse your lips and say nothing in response to that. Your fingers fold the weed on itself and twist it into shape. When you raise it to your lips to seal it closed with your tongue, you catch Itadori staring at you. You blush and hand the finished product over to him.
"There. Sorry there's no filter, " you mutter.
"I guess I can handle that part," he smiles and folds up another paper, rolling it into the tip.
You watch as he lights one end and hits it, careful to blow his smoke out the window. He passes it to you, and you sidle up beside him by the window.
"What about you? Why did you come here?" he asks you.
There's a long pause while you take a drag. You exhale slowly and stare out into the night sky.
"I...hurt someone. I'm not so sure it was all Sukuna's influence. I wanted to do it. And he helped me." You pass the joint back to him.
"The person you hurt...did they deserve it?" Yuji asks you. He doesn't sound very surprised at your words. This relieves you.
"...Yeah. He did." You reply.
"But I still feel terrible about it. He'll never hurt another person again. And it only cost me my sanity." You crack a weak smile and accept the joint from Itadori again.
"I'm really sorry...That sounds really hard. I'm sorry I made you talk about it now." He sounds genuine. The weight that had been sitting so heavily on your chest for days now was finally easing.
"It's okay. I think I needed to talk about it," you admit.
You pass the joint in silence for a few minutes before he speaks next.
"I've...had to do things too." Itadori admits.
"This job is really unpredictable. There are times when we have to decide what lines to cross for the greater good of our missions. There's alot of gray area. It's harder to adapt if your life has only been black and white before. It sounds like you may have been somewhat prepared for this already. No one here will hold that against you."
You feel your tears pooling again, this time with relief. You had been worried that there was going to be a wall between yourself and the other students here. Gojo had predicted you'd get along well with Itadori. He was right about that.
"Thank you," you smile, watching him hitting the last bit of the joint before the filter.
"Thanks for taking the last hit too." You arch an eyebrow so he knows you aren't really mad.
He blinks, still holding in the smoke, seems to consider something a moment, then he closes the distance between the two of you. His lips barely touch yours and you inhale in surprise, catching his smoke in your mouth.
"Shotgun," he explains, pulling back with the smallest hint of blush on his face.
"Hope that's okay?"
You know your face must be bright red. He looks so cute, nervously tussling his own hair like that.
You exhale, and your smoke frames Itadori's face. This time, it's you who leans in. His eyes meet yours, then begin to close. When your nose brushes against his, Ryomen's voice resonates in your mind,
"Careful..."
Like snapping out of a trance, you leap to your feet.
"I- I should go! I need to get some sleep. I have to start enrollment in the morning, right?"
You're sputtering and tripping over his backpack, spilling the contents on the floor. Making your way clumsily to the door that connects your rooms, you tug at it. Still locked. Right.
"Here, let me get that for you!" Yuji offers. He scoops a tool up from the carpet. It looks like a skinny, bent screwdriver.
"I'm not as good as other lockpicks, but these are old and kinda simple."
"I could just go through the hall..." you start.
"Better to not risk letting the smell into the hallway," he gestures to the still open window with his chin, and kneels to start work on the lock. It springs open in under a minute. He was good.
"I hope you sleep well. And I'm really glad you came." He smiles again and holds the door for you.
"So am I," you agree, stepping in and awkwardly shutting the door behind you before he can do it for you.
Flopping onto your bed, you bring your hands to your face to stifle your sigh, and cover a smile. You expected Ryomen to start in on how foolishly you were acting. He was silent however. Other than his single warning earlier, he had been resolutely silent the entire night.