𐔌՞. .՞𐦯

“No, because you need to tell me if I’m losing my mind,” you plead, your hands shaking as you point toward the door. You're staying on your feet because sitting down would require your body to accept that the danger has passed, and the adrenaline’s currently screaming that it absolutely hasn’t. “He was in my office, like always, and we finished weaving, and then he stayed there for another hour like that was normal—which it apparently is now—and I was trying to work because he’d already interrupted my class and I had actual things to do—so I got up for one binder. One binder, Shoko. That’s all. I checked that his eyes were closed, I walked around the couch, I grabbed the binder, and when I turned around, he was just there. Right behind me.”

Shoko’s pen lowers slowly, but she doesn't say a word. Her silence only pulls more words out of you, faster and more frantic, as the panic swells, filling every bit of space it can find and crowding out any semblance of reason left in your head. You're pacing a tight circle now, with the binder wedged under your arm, while your free hand gestures wildly in the air, trying to map out height, proximity, the suffocating geometry of your office. Each sentence makes the whole thing sound more ridiculous than it felt in the moment.

“He trapped me against the shelf, and I asked him to move, which obviously did nothing. Why would Sukuna respond to a normal request like a normal person? Then he reached for his sweatshirt, and I thought he was doing some intimidation thing, or another stupid proximity power play, because he does that all the time, but then he started taking it off.” Your voice catches slightly, and you immediately hate yourself for the betraying sound that makes your face burn. Shoko’s eyebrow rises by the smallest amount, and you shoot her a glare before she can even open her mouth. “No. Don’t. I know how that sounds, but it isn’t the point. The point is that he took it off, and then he was looking at me, and I was looking at him for… for long enough to become a joke. And then he smirked, and for one horrible moment, I thought that maybe he was doing something else, which was stupid, because this is Sukuna.”

Shoko takes a slow sip of coffee, not even bothering to interrupt. Her expression barely changes, but she’s tucking that detail away for later, and humiliation crawls up your neck in response. With eyes squeezed shut, you breathe through your nose, trying to wrestle the conversation back toward the actual problem before it collapses under the weight of your own embarrassment.

“And then,” you continue, forcing your eyes open and pushing the words out before your nerve fails you completely, “he changed. One second he was standing there shirtless, being the worst person alive, and the next he was getting bigger. His shoulders broadened, his face changed, there were extra arms, and then there were four eyes. Four. Eyes. Shoko, I mean, I thought I saw them the first day, but I convinced myself I was just hallucinating from the panic, because people don't just have four fucking eyes, and here we are! I know this makes zero sense, but you have to believe me. He was huge. Like—he was almost touching the ceiling. And he just stood there mocking me because I was flustered, and then he broke the couch when he sat down—” For the first time, Shoko’s calm expression cracks and one of her brows lifts slightly in genuine surprise. “—got annoyed, turned back into himself, and just left. He literally just pulled a stupid party trick out of his ass to ruin my afternoon and then went home.”

Eventually, you run out of breath, cutting yourself off and staring at her with wide, pleading eyes. The panic has begun to ebb, but you’re still rattled, thrown off by the stupidity of the whole thing. You need her to say something that makes it make sense, to tell you whether that was a real threat or just another monstrous whim you’re supposed to ignore.

Shoko takes a long drag, letting the smoke curl lazily toward the open window before tapping the ash into a glass tray. For a moment, she just watches you over the rim of her mug. “The couch broke?” she asks finally.

You stare at her, genuinely frustrated. “No, Shoko, that’s really not the important part here!”

She doesn’t even blink, keeping her expression maddeningly placid. “Then why’d you bring it up?”

“Because it broke!”

"That does sound like a problem," she murmurs, more to herself than to you, as she taps more ash into the tray.

“Shoko, please. I’m having a crisis here.”

Her hands rise in a half-hearted surrender, but the corner of her mouth twitches as she reaches for her coffee again. That tiny movement's almost worse than outright laughter, almost like a silent admission that she knows exactly how absurd this conversation has become, and she’s perfectly happy to let you squirm through every second of it. The binder is still pressed uselessly to your chest, your cheeks burning hot with humiliation. Shoko watches you with the tired patience she usually saves for students faking injuries to skip training.

“Four eyes, four arms, bigger body,” she says after another sip, sounding so terrifyingly unbothered that the hair on your arms stands on end. “True form.”

“That’s… that’s a thing? Not just a hallucination?" You're hoping for a no, even though you know better.

Shoko peers at you over the rim of her mug. “You didn’t know?”

“No, Shoko! Somehow, nobody thought to mention that the man squatting in my office can turn into a mythological horror whenever he's bored!” Your voice cracks on the last word, and you hate how small it sounds.

She hums softly, the sound caught somewhere between sympathy and amusement, and sets the mug down, leaning back until her chair creaks. “That explains the way you walked in.”

You stare at her, waiting for a real explanation. When she doesn’t immediately offer one, frustration boils over, winning out over the lingering panic. “I don’t know what that means! Is it a technique? Is it some kind of trick he uses to be an asshole in a new and creative way?”

“No,” Shoko answers.

The simplicity of her answer is terrifying and leaves a bitter taste at the back of your throat. You hate it.

“No?”

“That’s his body.”

The infirmary falls strangely silent around you. Outside the windows, campus life drifts on in its usual, oblivious rhythm, suddenly feeling impossibly far away.

“That’s his… what?” you manage, barely a whisper. “His actual body?”

“Yeah,” she replies, resting her knuckles against the worn wood of her desk. “So technically, he didn’t turn back into himself. He turned into the restrained version. The human one is the restrained version.”

“The restrained version,” you repeat slowly.

You sink onto the nearest chair when your legs finally give out. Shoko’s eyes track the movement, a flicker of concern ghosts across her face, but she doesn't offer any empty comfort. Somehow that restraint is both grounding and deeply unsettling. She knows better than to pretend Sukuna is harmless. Everyone here does. The only real difference between you and Shoko is that she’s had more time to build up whatever internal wall lets her talk about this without sounding like she’s standing at the edge of a breakdown.

“More convenient,” she says, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Four arms are better for combat and technique efficiency, but they’re… terrible for hallways.”

"Terrible for hallways?" you echo, staring at her in disbelief. "That's what you're focused on right now?

"It matters more than you'd think when you're that big."

“Seriously, I’m begging you to stop being so practical about this.”

“Think about it, though,” Shoko says, gesturing with the glowing cherry of her cigarette, smoke trailing above her hand. “Buildings aren’t really designed for someone that tall or that wide or… with extra limbs. The human form causes less collateral damage, lets him fit through doorways and move without constant spatial awareness. It’s just less inconvenient. Plus, it keeps the higher-ups from bothering him every five minutes.”

Lifting her mug, she drains the last of her coffee, not the slightest hint of discomfort crossing her face as she describes all of this like it’s just another Tuesday.

“Look on the bright side,” she adds casually. “He’s actually significantly easier to deal with like this.”

The words hit hard, freezing you in place. Instantly, your mind loops back over the suffocating weaving sessions, the destroyed documents, the heavy, oily cursed energy, and the relentless, bone-deep exhaustion of managing his presence every single day. The Sukuna who sprawls across your couch, blocks your shelves, snaps your pens, leans in too close, and prowls through Jujutsu High like the halls were built for him alone… you thought that was the hard part. 

Pressing the heel of your hand into your eye socket, you drag in a slow breath, fighting the urge to laugh, knowing it would come out far too close to panic and turn into a sob. “Great. Wonderful. Very comforting.”

“I wasn’t trying to comfort you.”

“I noticed.”

Shoko lets out a short, breathy sound that might be a laugh, though there’s no humor in her eyes, just a flicker of weary understanding for the hell you've just gone through.

“Shoko?”

“Yeah?”

“What the actual fuck do you mean that's the easier version?”

She shrugs.

“Four arms means better combat efficiency and zero limitations with hand signs. He doesn't have to stop his technique to punch you. Significantly higher cursed energy output. If you're building the ideal sorcerer's body from scratch, that's pretty much what you'd end up with.”

You listen to her break down the anatomy of a living nightmare as if she's reading some boring report, suddenly wishing you’d never asked.

“If he actually cuts loose like that, most sorcerers wouldn’t survive five minutes. There's a reason most people on campus have only ever heard stories. Gojo's seen it, Yaga's seen it, I have. Maybe a handful of others.”

“Yuji?”

“Probably stood next to it more than all of us combined.”

The answer makes sense, but it doesn’t help one bit. You sit with that, staring down at the binder in your lap without really seeing it. The vinyl cover is still creased where your fingers dug in too hard. Your hands look normal against it, which suddenly feels absurd. They shouldn’t. After a month of touching Sukuna and his cursed energy, smoothing out residue inside a body that was never what you thought, after being pinned by four arms while he laughed at you—your hands should look different. If not them, then something should.

“He chooses to restrain himself,” you mutter, the realization settling heavily in your chest and making your voice sound oddly small. “He actively chooses to look human most of the time.”

She looks at you, a faint, dry tilt to the corner of her mouth. “When he uses that form publicly, it usually means he’s irritated enough to stop caring. And honestly? Sometimes he just finds it funny when people start forgetting what he actually is. So showing it to you like that? Completely deliberate.”

A hollow, deadpan exhaustion seeps into your bones as you glance at the sterile white cabinets. You feel like you've aged ten years in ten minutes.

“Deliberate? Sukuna? He would never.” The sarcasm slips out, sharper and more bitter than you intended, masking the tremor in your voice.

Shoko ignores the bite in your tone. “You know that he just wanted to see the look on your face.” Her tone is annoyingly knowing. “And judging by how fast you ran down here, he got exactly what he wanted.”

That, unfortunately, sounds like the most believable thing you've heard all day.

“Still not comforting, Shoko. I might actually hate you a little bit right now.

She stubs her cigarette out, the embers dying instantly. “Still not trying to.”

Despite everything, a weak, tired sound escapes you—half-laugh, half-sob. Shoko’s mouth softens just a touch, though she doesn’t quite smile. She just watches you through the fading light, waiting for the panic to fully drain away.

——————

Officially, the report says one Grade 2 curse has settled in an abandoned warehouse near the edge of the industrial district. Unofficially, Sukuna knew the second they stepped out of the car that the report was completely wrong. He can feel all six from the street.

All six signatures knot together somewhere inside, buried under rusted metal and the stale, heavy residue that lingers after years of human neglect. Not a single one is impressive on its own. Their cursed energy is coarse, dull, and irritatingly common to Sukuna, grating against his senses. It’s filth that only ever unsettles sorcerers too weak to crush it beneath their heel. He’s met curses like these a hundred times before, and it never gets less irritating.

Naturally, he keeps that to himself. There’s no reason to correct the report, and even less to warn the first-years. If he spelled everything out, it would ruin the only worthwhile part of dragging them out here in the first place.

The three students trail behind, already knowing better than to expect a normal mission from him. Yuji fills the air with chatter because the brat can’t seem to keep his mouth shut for more than a few minutes. Nobara answers him sharply, and every word is edged with irritation, making it clear she’d rather be anywhere else. Megumi walks half a step apart from both of them, silent and watchful, which Sukuna finds marginally less aggravating. The boy’s gaze sweeps the street, the chain-link fence, the boarded-up windows, and the shadows pooling inside the loading bay. 

At least one of them is paying attention. The other two will catch on once the curses start moving, which is later than ideal, but still sooner than most useless kids manage.

Ahead, the warehouse’s roofline sags where years of weather and neglect have gnawed at the supports. Old delivery bays line one wall, most sealed tight, but one loading door hangs crooked on its track, leaving an opening. Sukuna stops just past the fence, waiting for the students to catch up.

The talking dies almost instantly. Yuji’s head lifts, locking his attention onto the building as the pressure finally hits him, and Nobara’s mouth draws tight. Megumi’s eyes narrow and shoulders shift almost imperceptibly as he adjusts his balance. They’ve learned by now that when Sukuna goes quiet, it means the situation is already in motion, and they’re just late to understand it. That lesson took longer than it should have, but at least it stuck.

There’s no additional briefing from Sukuna—the one they received from Ijichi was wrong, though that’s hardly his concern. The warehouse is in front of them, curses are inside, and the kids have bodies, cursed energy, techniques, and the bare minimum of survival instinct to make the next few minutes interesting. Anything more would be coddling, and Sukuna’s never considered hand-holding a meaningful form of instruction. If they need someone to explain danger before they feel it, they deserve whatever comes next.

Megumi’s attention flickers to Sukuna just in time to catch his shoulder move as a hand snaps back and clamps onto the collar of Megumi’s uniform. His eyes go wide and his body tenses as if he’s already resigned to whatever’s coming. Nobara gets even less warning. Her protest barely makes it out of her throat before Sukuna’s other hand closes around the back of her jacket.

“What are you—”

He lifts both of them off the ground effortlessly and almost gets kicked by Nobara’s boot as her legs lash out in reflex. Megumi’s hand shoots up toward Sukuna’s wrist and freezes halfway—he knows better than to waste precious seconds and energy struggling when he could be bracing for impact. Sukuna almost respects that.

“Figure it out,” he says flatly.

Then he throws them through the opening in the entrance with enough force to send both first-years hurtling into the dim interior of the warehouse. The crash echoes beautifully, and Sukuna can’t help the smirk that tugs at his mouth as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

Metal shrieks as someone slams into a shelving unit. Dust billows out the open door in a pale, choking cloud. Something heavier crashes down a second later, followed by Nobara’s hacking cough and the frantic scuff of Megumi’s shoes as he scrambles to his feet. The curses notice instantly, and all six signatures converge on the chaos like insects drawn to a sudden flare of light.

Yuji stays at Sukuna’s side for three whole seconds after Megumi and Nobara disappear inside. That’s already three seconds longer than he should. His face cycles through alarm, anger, disbelief, and finally settles into that stubborn, indignant glare Sukuna’s learned to recognize as a warning sign that words are about to happen.

“What the fuck, Sukuna?” he snaps, stepping closer instead of farther away, which immediately makes the situation more irritating than it needs to be. “We’ve been through this! You can’t throw my friends like that!”

Sukuna doesn’t even bother to pull his hands from his pockets. His head tilts, eyes dragging down the tense, shaking line of Yuji’s shoulders with a look that radiates nothing but contempt. For a moment, he doesn’t dignify the outburst with a response—it barely registers as worth his attention. The complaint is so clumsy, so poorly put together, that it takes real effort to decide which part is more pathetic and deserves to be mocked first.

The whole objection is pointless anyway. He can throw them if he wants—he just did—and the racket echoing from inside is proof enough they survived the landing.

The rest is even more irritating. My friends, as if tossing that in somehow changes the mission. Like proximity, attachment, or whatever sentimental rot Yuji’s decided to drag into this should matter to Sukuna when there are curses inside and two students already doing exactly what they’re supposed to.

The real problem is that Yuji’s still standing right next to him. The other two are already tangled up with the curses, but Yuji, for reasons known only to whatever defective corner of his brain handles self-preservation, has decided to stay within arm’s reach and start an argument about how the mission started. It’s such a spectacularly stupid decision that Sukuna’s irritation almost tips over into genuine confusion.

“You’re still here?” he asks flatly.

Before the teenager has time to answer, something slams into a stack of crates inside so hard it splits old wood, while Nobara shouts something unintelligible and Megumi’s divine dogs snarl.

Yuji points toward the sound without looking away from Sukuna. “They’re fighting more than one curse in there!”

“Yes.”

“You said it was one.”

Sukuna’s mouth curves faintly, though there isn’t a shred of real amusement in it. The brat is still standing next to him, arguing while Megumi and Nobara are already adapting to reality without a second thought. That’s the difference between them, and maybe the reason Yuji manages to be so uniquely grating. Megumi lands in a bad situation and starts solving it. Nobara lands in a bad situation, insults everyone involved, and then starts solving it. Yuji sees the bad situation, whines that it exists, and wastes time expecting Sukuna to explain himself.

“When did I say anything?”

That actually shuts Yuji up. It’s infuriating how every argument with Sukuna ends with him getting tripped up by wording, and that’s all it takes for the man to dismiss anything Yuji says. Yuji glares at Sukuna, mutters something under his breath, and bolts for the warehouse.

Before he crosses the threshold, he looks back once more, still angry enough to make the gesture seem involuntary. “This conversation isn’t over!”

Sukuna’s stare flattens. “Tragic.”

Inside, Megumi rolls through the last of the impact, coming up on one knee with one hand already raised. The warehouse is even worse from within. Broken shelves tilt across the floor, half the old machinery has rusted, and long strips of plastic sheeting hang from the rafters, stirring in the draft that slips through shattered windows. Cursed energy clings to everything, crawling over the concrete and support columns like a living thing.

The curse slips out from behind a row of stacked pallets, its thin limbs bending at too many joints to count. Megumi lets out a slow breath, snapping his hands together to form the shadow puppet for Divine Dogs. One Grade 2 shouldn’t be a problem for the two of them. Annoying, maybe, depending on how it moves, but nothing they can’t handle.

“I hate him,” Nobara mumbles from under the knocked-over shelf.

Another shape drops from the ceiling. A third drags itself out from beneath a conveyor belt. By the time the fourth crawls into view near the loading bay and the fifth steps out from the shadow, Nobara’s pushing herself up with blood at the corner of her mouth and murder burning in her eyes. The sixth curse skitters across the far wall, clinging there with all six limbs splayed wide, making a wet, clicking sound that scrapes at their nerves.

Nobara stares at it for half a second before her expression goes flat with rage. “You've got to be kidding me! I really fucking hate him now.”

Megumi doesn’t bother agreeing, though the thought passes through his mind too. Of course Sukuna knew and threw them in anyway--it isn’t even surprising at this point. He despises Sukuna’s methods, but irritation won’t help, so he lets it burn out before it can take root. Survival instinct takes over, recognizing that hesitation means death, and he focuses on measuring distance, exits, and the narrow space they have to work without getting separated.

That lack of hesitation is exactly why Sukuna tolerates Megumi more than the others. The boy isn’t obedient, even if Sukuna thinks he should be, but he never wastes a second being surprised.

“I’m going to kill him,” Nobara snaps, reaching for her hammer and nails.

“Focus.”

“I’m perfectly capable of focusing and hating him at the same time, Fushiguro.”

The building itself works against them, with narrow paths winding between rows of abandoned shelving and broken equipment scattered everywhere. Every support column creates another blind spot, giving the curses plenty of chances to slip past with unsettling speed and spread out instead of attacking directly.

They lack intelligence or strategy but have just enough instinctive cooperation to be a nuisance. Individually, each would pose a serious challenge rather than an easy exorcism. Megumi could handle one, but not without effort, and Nobara would struggle much more than him. Together, they keep the pressure on, never letting Megumi settle into any kind of rhythm. Whenever he adapts to one threat, another comes from a different angle. Openings vanish almost as quickly as they appear. It isn’t dangerous yet, but it’s irritating as hell, demanding every scrap of his attention, forcing endless tiny adjustments and split-second decisions instead of allowing him to control the pace.

The first curse suddenly springs from the top of a rusty conveyor without warning. The old metal shrieks and then collapses as the creature leaps down. Megumi catches the blur of movement at the edge of his vision, just in time to twist aside, as a tangle of claws tears through the air where his head had been a split second before. The curse crashes into the concrete, cracking the floor and sending a cloud of dust swirling up. The reckless lunge should have left it wide open, but Megumi barely has time to take advantage of the opportunity before another curse barrels in from his left, forcing him to drop the thought and move.

Before Megumi can even think, the dogs run across the warehouse, slamming into the oncoming curse, sending it skidding through broken pallets and rusted metal that screeches against the concrete. The noise grates in his ears, distracting him for a second, and by the time his focus snaps back, the first curse has already shaken off its fall and is charging toward him again, all gnashing teeth and wild fury.

"Left, Kugisaki!" Megumi barks.

"I see it!" Nobara yells back, her chest heaving as she drops into a low crouch.

Somewhere behind him, a sharp whistle slices through the warehouse din. A nail whips past Megumi’s shoulder, and then a second follows, just as quick. Both hit their mark.

“Hairpin!”

Cursed energy surges through the nails, detonating deep inside the curse. It jerks, and its whole body convulses. The force tears one of its arms free, sending the limb spinning across the filthy floor while the creature reels, barely managing to stay upright.

“Move!” she shouts to her classmate.

Megumi quickly sidesteps as Nobara barrels past him. She snatches up the severed limb, slamming it onto the straw doll she’s just dropped, and drives a nail through, striking it with a hammer.

“Resonance.”

Black spikes burst from the curse’s chest, stopping it cold. It collapses mid-stride, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

She barely gets a breath before the third curse drops from the rusted pipes overhead, its pale, hairless torso swelling as it aims to crush her beneath its weight. Throwing herself sideways, she skids across a sheet of rusted metal and swings her hammer. The iron head slams into the side of the curse’s jaw, the impact ringing up her arm.

Black fluid splatters the rotted cardboard boxes behind her, but the thing refuses to go down. Too many legs, all of them wrong, and three gouge deep into the concrete, anchoring its bulk. Along its neck, a cluster of bulbous eyes twitch, every single one locked on her.

"Get off me," Nobara mutters through clenched teeth as she digs into her pouch and pulls three nails free, lining them up between her fingers. "Gross.”

Off to her right, shadows on the warehouse floor ripple and churn, pooling into a dense, ink-black circle. Out of the dark, one of the dogs lunges, its white fur stained grey with dust as its jaws snap shut around the throat of a third curse sneaking up behind Nobara’s blind spot. The creature lets out a shrill, wet shriek, clawing uselessly at the dog's snout while it thrashes.

"Kugisaki, don't back up!" Megumi shouts, eyes darting toward the high rafters where three more shapes are clicking their teeth, waiting for an opening. "The space behind you is a blind spot! Move toward the loading bay!"

"I’m moving!" Nobara shouts back, driving a nail straight into the center of the curse’s chest.

At the same time, Megumi summons Nue, grabbing its leg as the shikigami sweeps him up and carries him toward the curse pinned beneath the white dog. Nue lifts him high enough to clear a pile of rusted metal pipes before they dive straight at the struggling creature.

As they descend, he lets go and lands next to the curse. Nue lashes out with its electro-shock wings, sending a jolt through the creature and forcing its flailing limbs to seize up and every muscle to go rigid. With the monster paralyzed and the white dog’s jaws still locked around its throat, Megumi drives his knee into the back of its neck, and the dog tears back, ripping through the creature’s throat.

"That's two," Nobara mumbles, watching as Megumi finishes it off. "Four more of these stupid things to go."

When Yuji finally bursts through the warehouse entrance, Nobara’s getting slammed into a stack of wooden crates. The impact sends splinters scattering across the warehouse floor as she crashes through the debris. The sight alone is enough to make him curse under his breath.

”Fushiguro! Kugisaki!" Yuji shouts, launching himself at the nearest target.

His fist crashes into the curse with enough force to rattle the entire warehouse, the shock echoing through the steel framework and sending loose debris skittering across the floor.

The creature lifts clean off the ground when Yuji’s fist slams into its torso, its body folding around the impact. For a split second, the curse seems to hover in the air, before momentum carries it back across the warehouse. It smashes into a tall shelving unit, bending the metal supports and bringing the whole structure down. Metal screeches against metal as shelves twist and tear free, boxes and debris spilling everywhere, and the curse vanishes beneath the wreckage.

Nobara’s been waiting for this moment since the fight started. “About fucking time,” she snaps, her irritation sharp and obvious.

Yuji winces at the greeting, fully aware of how much trouble his late arrival has caused. “Sorry,” he manages, sincerely apologetic despite the chaos raging around them.

“Later,” Nobara fires back, gaze locked ahead. Under the heap of collapsed shelving and metal, something alive is forcing bent supports aside. The curse, half-buried and furious, claws its way back into the fight. “Much later.”

High above, where the roof sags under the weight of years of rain and rust, a sharp metallic clang slices through the chaos below. Not the sticky, wet clicking of a curse this time—just Sukuna, landing on the battered iron catwalk.

Perched on the rusted railing of a maintenance platform ten meters above the floor, Sukuna lets one leg dangle lazily over the edge, folding his arms across his chest. The instant Yuji burst into the building, he'd vaulted up there to observe the inevitable disaster without having to wade through the filth below, which he has no intention of touching. From there, he can see everything.

Of course, seeing everything means being forced to watch every mistake. A low, grating scoff scrapes down from the platform, cutting through the damp air.

"Pathetic." The word rumbles out of Sukuna, thickening the warehouse air until it feels twice as heavy as before.

Down below, the curse launches itself from a vertical support beam, aiming straight for Yuji’s head. He throws a heavy right punch, cursed energy flaring a heartbeat after the impact. The blow lands square in the creature’s torso, and the delayed surge of power tears through flesh, hurling it back into a stack of rotted shipping crates.

Sukuna lets out a loud, deeply irritated click of his tongue.

“Tck. Too slow, idiot,” he mocks, his voice bouncing off the corrugated tin walls with clear contempt. "Your timing is a joke. If that thing had any sense, it would have taken your hand off before your energy even left your knuckles."

Yuji drags the back of his sleeve across his forehead, frustration darkening his face as he moves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Megumi. "Shut up! I hit it, didn't I?"

Not even bothering to lean forward, Sukuna lets his gaze crawl down the line of students with a look of bored, unfiltered disgust. "You're wasting output on a target that should have been dismantled with a single movement."

Off to their left, a pale and twitching form skitters out from behind the forklift, making a beeline for Nobara’s blind spot. Megumi snaps a command to Nue, trying to yank her out of danger, but he’s a second too slow.

"Kugisaki, drop!" Megumi barks.

Nobara doesn't drop, but pivots sharply on her heel, flinging a nail at the curse and chasing it with a swing of her hammer. The strike misses by an inch, and the curse's pale, hairless torso swings around, catching the sleeve of her uniform in its long fingers and tearing the fabric off.

A sharp, mocking sneer drifts down from the catwalk, slicing through the noise below.

"Look at you," Sukuna taunts as he watches her stumble backward into the dust. "Wasting your stance on a swing you couldn't guarantee. You're letting your irritation dictate your movements, girl."

"Go fuck yourself,” Nobara mutters under her breath, swinging at the curse again with a force that’s all frustration. Then, without looking up at him, she calls out, “Why don’t you come down here and help us instead of sitting there?”

That question grates on him, scraping at the same flaw he finds in every student. They always expect help to be part of the lesson, as if warnings and corrections are owed before a mistake can bite. Survival, to them, is something a teacher should hand out, not something they have to earn. Sukuna’s never understood that kind of weakness. For him, a lesson ends the moment the outcome is obvious. If they survive, the method worked. If they die, it still worked, because it proved they never belonged here in the first place.

The only real failure is being so useless that he has to step in personally and clean up a mess they should have handled themselves. Getting saved isn’t a win. It’s proof they failed before the fight was even over.

“Help?” A short, raspy chuckle rattles out of Sukuna, vibrating through the iron catwalk and echoing above their heads. “If Grade 2s are enough to make you ask for help, then dying here would be the first useful thing you’ve done today.”

Her jaw clenches until it aches, but she refuses to answer. Every bit of focus she has gets poured into the curse looming in front of her, as if ignoring Sukuna might make him disappear.

The fight continues, and so does Sukuna's commentary as he watches everything with growing annoyance. He tracks every little thing they do, every wasted flicker of cursed energy, every stumble or hesitation that slips through their defenses. The longer it drags on, the more mistakes he notices accumulating throughout the fight. It’s not even that the students are weak—weakness can be fixed. What gets under his skin is how they keep falling into the same mistakes, again and again, despite having plenty of chances to learn.

Yuji hurls another curse backward with a punch enhanced with cursed energy, sending it crashing through the twisted remains of a shelving unit. Metal shrieks and buckles under the impact, the creature tumbling through the wreckage before scrambling back up.

The attack does what it's supposed to do—the curse loses ground, and the students get a little more breathing room. To anyone else, it would look like a pretty solid exchange. But Sukuna scoffs, unimpressed.

"There you go again."

His voice carries easily across the warehouse, making Yuji's shoulders tense the moment he hears it. The brief distraction is all the curse needs to claw its way back up before Yuji can finish the job.

Sukuna’s grin stretches wider, watching the scene play out exactly as he knew it would. There’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes, like Yuji’s just proven a point for him without realizing it.

The curse doesn’t waste a second, snapping forward, claws slicing through the dusty air as it lunges back into the fight. Yuji barely manages to react in time, raising his arms to block the blow head-on. The impact slams into him, shoving him backward across the concrete, shoes screeching against the floor as he fights to stay upright.

"One more second and it would've been dead,” he says, sounding almost pleased by the demonstration, and gestures lazily toward the curse, almost like this is nothing more than a mildly interesting show put on for his entertainment rather than a situation that could actually hurt someone. "Most people struggle to create openings. It's genuinely impressive how often you struggle to keep them."

Before Yuji can even catch his breath, the curse attacks again with its claws flashing toward his face. He ducks, slipping to the side just in time, and it misses him by inches. He counters, driving a punch straight into the creature’s torso, cursed energy crackling at his knuckles. The blow sends it reeling back, limbs flailing as it scrambles to stay upright.

Sukuna clicks his tongue sharply, the sound unmistakable even amid the chaos. His gaze stays locked on Yuji as the curse staggers back, battered but still breathing. From Sukuna's perspective, the opening had been right there, clear as day, just waiting to be taken. And somehow Yuji let it slip through his fingers again.

“Instead of finishing it, you keep fumbling it."

Yuji grinds his teeth until his jaw throbs. The criticism lands at the worst possible moment, when his muscles are already burning and his patience is frayed by the pressure of the fight. He knows he should have finished it and that he missed the opportunity. Hearing Sukuna point it out just twists the knife deeper.

"Because you distracted me!"

Every word comes out edged with irritation as he shoots a glare up at the catwalk. Between dodging attacks, coordinating with Megumi and Nobara, and trying not to get overwhelmed by multiple opponents at once, the last thing he needs is Sukuna’s running commentary.

Mocking laughter spills from Sukuna, filling the space with nothing but contempt. There’s not a shred of sympathy in his voice when he finally rasps, “That's your excuse? Pathetic.”

Yuji’s face darkens, the insult hitting a nerve Sukuna knows all too well. Watching the reaction, Sukuna’s satisfaction is unmistakable as he drinks it in, eyes glinting with mean delight.

"If me talking is enough to distract you, then you were already screwing up."

To Sukuna, distractions are meaningless. If a few words are enough to break your focus, then you never had any to begin with.

"Easy for you to say!" Yuji wipes dust from his face with the back of his hand, keeping his eyes on the curse circling in front of him. "You're not the one down here fighting!"

Sukuna throws his head back and lets out another bark of laughter. The answer only confirms exactly what he already thought. It’s so predictably reckless, stubborn, and so painfully straightforward it’s almost funny. That’s exactly the foolish confidence he has come to expect from him, and watching it play out never gets old.

Meanwhile, Megumi flicks his attention toward Nue, sending the shikigami diving at one of the last curses. The sudden swoop carves out a narrow opening, herding the creature right into the black dog that’s blocking the path. The white dog immediately runs from its hiding place on the side and instinctively gives chase, driving it toward Nobara. For a second, everything works exactly the way Megumi intended, giving them some breathing room instead of letting the curses overwhelm them.

Trying to keep track of every shikigami at once, Megumi barely catches the flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. He twists away just in time, but claws still rake across his shoulder. The cut isn't deep, but the fact that it lands at all is enough to make Sukuna’s disapproval practically radiate from above as he watches with visible disgust.

“Remarkable. You've managed to turn your own technique into a distraction,” he calls down.

Megumi doesn't even bother answering. By now, he's learned that responding to Sukuna only encourages more of his commentary. Though staying quiet doesn’t help much either.

"Maybe summon a few more. I'm sure that'll fix everything," Sukuna adds dryly.

The comment gets an involuntary snort out of Nobara, even though she's still busy dealing with another curse a few meters away. The sound barely leaves her lips before the curse lunges, claws snagging the edge of her jacket and nearly yanking her off balance. She jerks free at the last second, but Sukuna’s eyes still narrow in annoyance.

"Case in point," he remarks.

Nobara bounces back fast, slams two nails into its torso, and uses resonance. The curse lets out a sharp shriek as cursed energy rips through its body. Normally, that would count as a textbook recovery: she avoided serious injuries, landed a clean counter, and got the fight tipping back in her favor. Sukuna, of course, couldn't be less impressed.

“All of you keep celebrating successful recoveries," he says, his gaze drifting lazily between all three students as they continue fighting below. "The impressive part would've been not screwing up in the first place."

That earns nearly identical flat, irritated looks from Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara. All three of them are completely united in their opinion of him right now, which only makes Sukuna’s annoyance deepen.

After that, the fight drags on for almost another fifteen minutes, with the opponents refusing to drop, stubborn to the last. The students wear them down through a nonstop cycle of pressure, mistakes, quick adjustments, and increasingly frustrated teamwork.

Yuji keeps throwing himself at every problem the instant brute force looks like the answer when a smarter approach would have saved time and energy. Megumi still tries to do everything at once, splitting his attention across the entire warehouse while coordinating his shikigami and keeping track of enemy movements until exhaustion starts messing with his focus. Nobara keeps letting frustration and impatience affect her decisions, leaving openings that a sharper opponent could take advantage of, but she still manages to pick up the slack whenever she can while making sure everyone knows exactly how much she despises this mission.

Meanwhile, Sukuna never shuts up, criticizing every missed opening, dismissing every successful exchange as nothing more than the bare minimum expected of them, and calling out every mistake with enough contempt to make the curses seem almost friendly by comparison. By the time the sixth curse finally drops, the students are left panting, covered in dust, sweat, and minor injuries, while Sukuna somehow manages to look even more irritated than when the mission started.

He jumps down from the catwalk without any sense of urgency, landing lightly on the warehouse floor despite the height. The mission, as far as he’s concerned, ended the instant the last curse died. The students survived, the objective was met, and there’s nothing left worth talking about. With that, he turns for the exit, already halfway gone in his mind, the warehouse and everything in it fading into the background.

Unfortunately, Yuji opened his mouth again.

"You can't keep doing this."

Sukuna keeps walking without so much as slowing down. His footsteps ring out across the battered concrete, each one echoing through the wreckage as he threads his way past splintered beams and shattered glass.

"You threw them into a building without warning them!"

Still nothing. Sukuna doesn’t so much as flick an eyelash in Yuji’s direction, not a single sign he’s heard a word, though everyone present knows he has.

"You keep throwing people into dangerous situations and acting like it doesn't matter."

Finally, Sukuna turns, fixing Yuji with a stare that gives nothing away. Across the ruined floor, Yuji stands his ground, stubbornly clinging to the idea that if he just argues hard enough, if he can find the right words, maybe Sukuna will start to care about the same things he does. It’s almost painful to watch how he refuses to see what’s right in front of him.

The persistence might've been admirable if it wasn't so damn infuriating.

"They could've gotten seriously hurt!”

“And?” Sukuna asks flatly.

The utter indifference of it makes Yuji’s jaw tighten. “And you’re supposed to be teaching us! You don't get to treat people like they're expendable!”

Up to this point, Sukuna’s put up with the endless complaints, but now, as Yuji circles back to the same tired arguments yet again, that irritation in him calcifies into something colder. There is a growing sense of disbelief beneath it all, a real, honest confusion at why the kid keeps dragging out a conversation that should have died ages ago.

Sukuna doesn’t break eye contact as he starts forward, each step slow, but steadily erasing the space between them. With every pace, the warehouse grows quieter, the faint clatter of debris fading until all that’s left is the tension hanging in the air. Yuji stands his ground, oblivious to the warning implicit in Sukuna’s approach. That, more than anything else, is predictable. The brat has always possessed an extraordinary talent for failing to recognize danger until it’s right in front of him with its hand already around his throat.

"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"

The question isn’t sarcastic or mocking. If anything, it sounds genuinely puzzled. Sukuna’s face doesn’t change as he studies Yuji, like he’s staring at a puzzle that refuses to make sense no matter how many times he turns it over.

Yuji blinks in confusion. "What?"

“I’m asking why you're still speaking," he says, taking another step forward, and the distance between them shrinks further. "You have repeated the same complaint for nearly ten minutes. The curses are dead, the mission is over, and yet somehow you’re still trying to start an argument."

“Because what you did was reckless,” Yuji answers with a frown.

At that, Sukuna's patience runs out.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

The words rumble out as a low, irritated growl. Before Yuji can even blink, Sukuna’s hand shoots out, bunching the front of his uniform in a fist and yanking him forward so hard his toes barely scrape the ground.

"Listen carefully."

Sukuna’s voice stays calm, but it’s the kind of calm that comes right before a storm breaks. Crimson eyes lock onto Yuji’s face, unblinking, stripped of any sympathy. There is no anger in them now, no amusement, no irritation. Somehow that blank, chilling absence feels worse than any rage could.

"If your friends died in there, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep."

Yuji’s jaw snaps tight, hands curling into fists at his sides, knuckles going pale beneath the grime and sweat. For a moment, it looks like he might spit out another protest and try to argue again, but this time nothing comes.

"If you died in there, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep either."

A flicker of hurt or maybe anger flicks across Yuji’s face before he forces it away. Behind him, Nobara goes rigid, her spine straightening with tension, while Megumi drops his gaze, already knowing better than to get involved.

Sukuna's grip tightens, wrinkling the fabric beneath his fingers. Hairline cracks spiderweb through the concrete beneath his feet as cursed energy unconsciously leaks into the floor. His expression remains cold and utterly unmoved.

"I don’t care."

The words land with harsh, undeniable certainty. Sukuna yanks him closer as he says it, making sure Yuji can’t miss a single syllable. There’s no threat in his tone, no effort to intimidate, not even a flicker of guilt—just the plain, unvarnished truth as he sees it.

"I don’t care about your feelings. I don’t care about your opinions. I don’t care about your friends."

For once, Yuji’s mouth refuses to cooperate. The words he wants to spit back at Sukuna get stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat.

"And if you keep trying to explain morality to me, I'm going to throw you through another wall just so I don't have to listen anymore."

The threat hangs in the air between them. For a brief moment, neither of them moves. Yuji remains frozen in Sukuna's grip while the others watch from the side, eyes wide and hands shoved deep into their pockets, smart enough to keep their distance.

Then Sukuna decides he's finished talking. With a single motion, he hurls the boy. Yuji flies across the loading bay, crashing into a solid concrete support column with a heavy, dull thud. The impact rattles the dust loose from the ceiling above him, knocking the breath completely out of his lungs. He slides down the rough surface, coughing as his heels dig into the dirt and his fists clench while he scrambles to find his balance again.

From the base of the column, Yuji shoots him a glare, teeth bared and chest heaving as he fights the urge to push himself back up and throw a punch. The words he wants to spit out—another desperate argument about how wrong this all is—die before they reach his tongue. Sukuna’s presence presses down on him, pinning him in place just as much as the concrete at his back.

Sukuna lingers, eyes fixed on Yuji, as if daring him to try again. When Yuji stays silent, jaw clenched in a stubborn line of fury, Sukuna lets out a low, dismissive grunt and turns his back. He steps out through the rusty iron shutters and back beneath the curtain's manufactured night, utterly unbothered. The three students are left behind in the hollow quiet of the warehouse, nursing bruises and resentment in equal measure.

The drive back passes in blessed silence that feels unnatural after the chaos in the warehouse. Yuji, for once, has exhausted himself complaining. Megumi stares out the window, resting his temple against the glass as he watches the scenery blur past, while Nobara scrolls through her phone aggressively, still mentally insulting Sukuna between every swipe of her thumb.

Sukuna, however, pays none of them any attention. Their presence fades into irrelevance the moment the mission ends, their thoughts and grievances dismissed as easily as the task itself. By the time the car rolls to a stop within the school grounds, they are no longer his concern in any meaningful sense. The students gather their things and head toward the dormitories, their voices gradually fading into the distance as they disperse.

He goes in the opposite direction. His residence lies farther from the main buildings than most of the faculty housing, tucked away in a quieter corner of the campus where the usual bustle of students—and Gojo—rarely intrudes.

He changes out of his uniform without much thought, trading it for looser, more comfortable clothes suited to the remainder of the afternoon. For a while, he allows himself to do absolutely nothing, settling into the quiet of his space without distraction. The silence suits him.

Eventually, somewhere between one idle thought and the next, he decides he's hungry.  That hunger isn’t one that can be ignored or postponed, and it’s very, very specific. The memory of grilled skewers from a particular restaurant in the city comes to mind with irritating clarity—the taste, the texture, the precise way they had been prepared. 

Without hesitation, Sukuna reaches for his phone. The line barely has time to ring once before it is answered, a testament to the efficiency he has come to rely on.

"Daichi speaking."

"Busy?" he asks as if that mattered to him.

On the other end, Daichi’s gaze shifts briefly toward the report spread open across his desk. For the smallest fraction of a second, he hesitates, because he is, in fact, in the middle of something important. Still, he closes the folder without complaint, pushing it aside as he straightens in his chair.

"No, Sukuna.”

"Good. Drive me to that restaurant with the grilled skewers," Sukuna simply says, offering no further clarification, fully expecting Daichi to understand exactly which place he means without needing it spelled out.

There is a brief pause before Daichi responds, "The one you liked?"

"If I hadn't liked it, I wouldn't be calling," Sukuna replies, his voice carrying a faint edge of impatience, as the question itself was unnecessary.

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

The line disconnects immediately after, leaving no room for further conversation.

Exactly ten minutes later, a sleek black sedan pulls up in front of Sukuna’s residence, with its engine idling quietly as it comes to a stop. As the sorcerer slides into the backseat, Daichi doesn’t ask why he hadn’t simply asked Ijichi to stop by the restaurant earlier, when they had already been in the city following the mission. Experience has taught him that Sukuna doesn’t provide explanations unless he feels inclined to, and today is clearly not one of those times. Sukuna, for his part, offers none.

An hour later, Sukuna makes his way back across campus, but the sweltering heat of the late afternoon does nothing to slow his stride. In his left hand, he carries a takeout bag with containers of grilled skewers, while the faint scent of charred pork fat, scorched green onions, and sweet tare sauce lingers in the air around him. His right hand is wrapped around a chilled can of an energy drink, condensation forming along its surface.

Crossing the grounds toward the main building, he barely gets halfway before a voice slices through the air—airy, gratingly cheerful, and intrusive enough to make his jaw tighten.

“Heading to the office again?”

Sukuna glances sideways, his brows drawing together as his crimson eyes narrow slightly at the sight of Satoru rounding the corner of the low stone wall bordering the courtyard, a thick, messy stack of folders tucked beneath one arm. The sight of Gojo actually carrying paperwork is rare enough to make Sukuna falter for half a step. Somehow, with the two of them, the universe always finds a way to dump administrative hell on someone with considerably less authority to suffer through it.

“And?” Sukuna replies flatly.

Not bothering to slow, he steps over a crack in the pavement that undoubtedly split open from his own residue after a mission, but he couldn’t care less. Even though he’s still surprised, his posture stays loose and unbothered, shoulders squared beneath the drape of his clothes.

“Nothing,” Satoru says, a breezy, bright grin plastering itself across his face. “Just noticed.”

"Congratulations. Your eyesight still works."

A short chuckle escapes Gojo, and without so much as asking or an invitation, he easily falls into step beside Sukuna’s massive frame, matching his long strides effortlessly. Hands buried deep in his pockets, he lets the stack of folders shift precariously under his elbow, loose sheets fluttering as they move.

They continue walking side by side, the hush of the afternoon stretching out around them. Gojo’s gaze drifts, lingering on Sukuna’s hands and the paper bag swinging from his grip. The corners of his mouth twitch, that grin spreading wider as he takes in the sight, amusement flickering in his eyes.

"I just didn't know you liked paperwork so much," Satoru teases, flicking a glance toward the entrance of the main building ahead.

"I don't," Sukuna answers dismissively, one of his black nails tapping slowly against his energy drink can.

"Could've fooled me," Satoru shoots back, clearly entertained by the sheer absurdity of the sight.

Ryomen Sukuna, a thousand-year-old sorcerer who painted the Heian era red, has somehow developed the habit of making regular trips to that one particular office. Today, he's even carrying dinner.

A rough snort shakes through the King of Curses, shoulders shaking with the sound. For Satoru, it’s just another excuse to poke at him, to see if he can wring a reaction out of a calamity and see whether the pattern means anything at all. Modern sorcerers always seem convinced there's meaning hidden behind every decision he makes, as if every step he takes must point toward some grand plan. Truth is, he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and the opinions of everyone around him have never even registered.

“You know, you spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about me,” Sukuna rumbles, his eyes lazily sliding sideways to catch Gojo’s profile.

"Can you blame me?" Satoru responds. He stops walking for half a second, his grin sharpening as he tilts his head slightly toward Ryomen, his posture leaning into the space between them with almost dramatic flair. "You're exactly my type."

Sukuna rolls his eyes, exasperation edged with a kind of weary familiarity. He handles Gojo with the same slow, heavy tolerance he reserves for every modern annoyance, utterly unmoved by the implications.

"That explains a lot, actually," he replies smoothly, his voice dropping to a dry, deadpan register.

"See? This is why we work," Satoru adds, popping his tongue against his teeth with a loud, clicking sound. He starts walking again, his chin lifted, clearly pleased with himself, as if Sukuna's total lack of an argument has just proven him right.

That earns Satoru another flat, unimpressed glare from those crimson eyes, but Sukuna doesn’t waste a single breath on a reply. Thankfully, Gojo lets it drop, turning his attention back to the path ahead while the campus hums quietly around them, the two of them still moving in step.

Their footsteps echo softly over the stone path, weaving between the buildings. Up ahead, a group of assistant managers and a pair of junior auxiliary staff cross the courtyard, arms full of clipboards and plastic crates full of equipment. They’re tangled in a low, muttered argument about vehicle allocations, at least until the sound of approaching footsteps cuts through.

The chatter dies instantly the moment the two men approach. No one says a word or even looks up; the staff just press themselves against the hedges, clearing the center path long before Sukuna and Satoru get close. Sukuna doesn’t spare them a glance as he passes through the gap, treating their panicked retreat like nothing more than a shift in the air—utterly beneath his notice. He doesn’t look at Gojo either as they reach the main building’s threshold.

Sukuna adjusts his grip on the bag, turning his back to the white-haired sorcerer and stepping into the main corridor toward your office, pace never faltering.

“Have fun with your paperwork!” Satoru chirps behind him.

Sukuna stops, looking over his shoulder. “I'd tell you to find a better use for those eyes of yours,” Sukuna rumbles, “but I doubt you'd listen.”

Gojo lets out a loud, genuine laugh that echoes off the empty corridor. “You know me so well.”

A scoff rumbles out of Sukuna, his hand tightening around the cold can before he flicks the tab as he nears your door. "I wish I didn’t, believe me."

—

If there’s one thing Yuji and Sukuna share aside from the pink hair, it’s their complete disregard for knocking on your office door. True to form, the doors slide open without warning, and Yuji steps inside with his backpack slung carelessly from one shoulder, hair still damp from a shower and sticking up in wild, uneven tufts.

He probably doesn’t realize you notice the careful way he shifts his weight as the door clicks shut, or how a faint bruise disappears beneath his collar, or the fresh scrape stretched across one knuckle when he lifts a hand in greeting. That usual bright, warm spark is still there, but today it’s dulled by exhaustion, dragging at his steps as he crosses the room.

The backpack thuds to the floor beside the chair he’s claimed as his own three times a week. With a drawn-out, dramatic groan, he collapses into the seat across from you, letting his forehead fall flat against the smooth stack of paperwork on your desk.

“I am dead,” he mumbles into the grain of the desk, his voice muffled by the sleeves of his hoodie. “My spine’s completely shot. Pretty sure it’s still lying somewhere in that warehouse by the docks.”

“I take it the fieldwork didn’t go well,” you say softly.

Blinking through the spiky fringe of his hair, Yuji lifts his head. That wide, earnest grin you’ve come to expect cracks through the fatigue, startling even him for a second before relief settles in, his shoulders sinking even lower as he leans back into the chair.

Letting out a short, rough bark of laughter, he reaches out automatically toward the bottom shelf of your side cabinet, yanking a stack of blank scrap paper to himself. He knows exactly where you keep it, moving with a comfortable familiarity that’s settled into his muscles over the last weeks of these quiet afternoons.

“He kept clicking his tongue, like, a million times, called us all pathetic, and then literally just chucked me into a concrete wall. And it’s not even like I did anything! I just told him, hey, maybe don’t launch my friends into a freaking curse nest without warning. Seriously, what’s his problem?”

You watch him for another moment, waiting to see if he’ll say more, but the answer’s already written across his face. If Yuji wanted to talk about the mission, he’d be spilling every detail by now. Subtlety has never been his strong suit, but he’s always known how to decide where to stash whatever’s bothering him, and today, he pours it all into the empty space on the worksheet in front of him.

You let him have that choice, reaching for your own stack of papers instead. “Tea?”

“Yeah, please,” Yuji mutters. “My throat feels like I ate half the drywall from that stupid warehouse.”

Reaching past you, his hand drifts toward the small shelf behind your chair where the spare mugs wait in a neat row. He picks out the heavy, oversized ceramic one with the faded blue glaze he always chooses and sets it on the edge of the desk. His thumb moves in slow, absent circles over the rough surface while his gaze drops to the paper.

For Yuji, your office is a sanctuary in the simplest, most literal way: his uncle isn’t here. No looming shadow, no threat of a sudden blow hanging in the air—just quiet, the soft rustle of textbook pages, and the gentle hush that settles over everything. For you, though, the relief is a different animal, filtered through your technique. The air here doesn’t carry that suffocating weight Sukuna drags with him everywhere, none of that oily, ancient pressure that crawls under your skin and makes your teeth ache before he’s even near the door. Here, between the neat stacks of folders and the low, steady hum of the kettle as it starts to simmer, everything feels almost shockingly normal.

Leaning in to tug his battered math textbook from beneath his arm, your palm brushes his skin for just a second. Even so, your senses catch the faintest trace of his residue. It’s nothing like Sukuna’s—nowhere close, really—not that you’d expect anything else given the difference in their power.

Still, that brief contact is all your technique needs to map out the tiny fractures left behind by his mission, each one traced beneath your fingertips. Where Sukuna’s jagged residue grinds in endless, shifting layers, Yuji’s feels almost harmless—small, blunt, and so fleeting it’ll smooth itself out after a single night’s sleep. Even so, it’s proof enough he came straight from the bathhouse to your office, not even letting his muscles a chance to stop aching before showing up.

“All right,” you say, drawing your hand back and pressing the open textbook flat between you both, the pages crinkling softly under your palm. “We left off on polynomials.”

“Man,” he groans, dragging his fingers down his face until his lower eyelids tug down. He catches your eye, his mouth twisting into a weary, lopsided smile that’s completely free of any embarrassment. “Honestly, algebra is so much worse than fighting. With curses, you just hit them until they stop moving. But with this? If you mess up even one tiny negative sign, the whole page just turns into garbage. How is that fair?”

“Your intuition for the answers is sharp, Yuji,” you remind him, tapping the tip of your pencil against the desk to pull his attention back to the worksheet. “But your mind always leaps for the finish line before you’ve even set up the track.”

Fingers raking through the hair at the nape of his neck, he lets his face settle into that same genuine, sheepish look you remember from your first meeting—open, a little uncertain, but honest all the way through.

Sliding the textbook closer until it nudges his knuckles, you flip to a fresh page of untouched quadratic equations. “We’re not rushing. Take a look at the first one. What do we know about it before we even start changing the signs?"

Yuji blinks at the numbers, his thumb absently clicking the eraser of his pencil against his knuckle. “Uh. It’s got a squared variable? So... it's a curve?"

"Right. It's a parabola," you nod, leaning in just a little closer, the edge of your sleeve brushing the desk. “And if it's a parabola, what's the first step to finding the vertex?"

Yuji’s brow furrows, and he glances sideways, as if the answer might be hiding somewhere off the page. “We... move the constant?” He blurts it out before you’ve even finished the question, his mind racing ahead, hunting for shortcuts. His hand darts to scribble a number in the margin.

You lay your hand gently over the top of his page, halting the pencil before it can do any damage. “Why did you choose that step? Don't jump. Look at the brackets. What's inside them?”

He stops, staring at the line. His jaw clenches, and he pulls his lower lip between his teeth, struggling to suppress the old, impulsive reflex to act first, think later.

“Yuji,” you say, voice soft but insistent, before he writes anything.

His pencil hovers a millimeter above the paper. “I didn’t do anything yet.”

“I know.”

A sigh slips out, heavy with resignation. “Then how am I already in trouble?”

“You aren’t in trouble. I’m reminding you to write the steps down.”

His gaze drops to the worksheet, lingering for a moment before flicking back up, his brows drawn together in that careful, almost pleading way, like he’s measuring out a rule that’s tripped him up more times than he’d ever want to admit. “What if I know the answer?”

“Then writing the steps should be easy,” you reply, fingers curling around your mug. “The real issue isn't finding the answer. It’s that sometimes you know it, but not how you got there, and then the next question changes one detail and suddenly your method fails.”

The eraser end of his pencil digs into the worksheet, his expression so earnest it almost distracts from the way his mouth twitches, caught between protest and stubborn hope. “But sometimes my method works.”

“Sometimes guessing works too.”

“It’s not guessing,” he says, offended enough to sit up a little straighter. “You said so yourself. It’s more like… my brain gets there before I can explain it.”

“And that’s exactly what we are trying to fix.”

For a moment, Yuji just sits there, weighing your words, then collapses over the worksheet with a sigh so theatrical it could’ve won him a medal if you hadn’t already seen him walk away from things far nastier than polynomials. He writes the first line neatly, pauses, frowns, and then hesitates, frowns, and skips straight to a version of the expression that seems to have materialized out of thin air.

Whatever happened in the invisible space between those two lines, you're left to imagine. Letting him finish, you reach across the desk and tap the pencil gently against the offending step.

His eyes dart to where your pencil lands, and even before you say a word, realization crashes over him, shoulders sinking in quiet defeat.

“I skipped something,” he mutters. When you confirm, he glares at the page, as if sheer force of will or maybe embarrassment could make the missing work appear right in front of him. “I moved the number over.”

A faint smile tugs at your mouth. “You did.”

He rolls his eyes, making a show of it, but his hand still hovers uncertainly over the next step. “And then I divided.”

“Right.”

He ticks the steps off on his fingers, brow furrowed in concentration, as if the gestures themselves might coax the logic into place.

You lean in a little, keeping your tone gentle but pointed. “What happened to the sign?”

Yuji freezes, mid-gesture, fingers still half-raised, and his eyes dart from the equation to the answer and back again. For a heartbeat, you see a flicker of understanding, but then uncertainty wins out. He chews at the inside of his cheek, glancing at you, searching for a lifeline, before poking at the page with the pencil. “The sign came with it.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose, fighting the urge to give the answer away. “Did it?”

His expression shifts, a sheepish smile flashing before he tries to cover it with bravado. “...Maybe?”

You arch an eyebrow. “Yuji.”

A quiet laugh slips out of him, small but real, and the tension he carried into the room finally starts to unravel, if only a little. Turning the worksheet just enough to write beside his work without taking the page from him, you mark the missing operation in the margin, drawing a neat arrow back to the original equation. Correcting the answer immediately would be quicker, but with Yuji, speed is the enemy, so you set the pencil down and slide the worksheet back into his space.

“Start again from this line,” you say, pointing with the pencil for emphasis. “Slowly. Say each operation before you write it.”

Yuji draws back as if you'd asked him to perform on stage, giving the paper a wounded look.

“Out loud?” His voice is incredulous, but there’s the faintest trace of a smile tugging at his mouth, like he can’t decide if this is torture or a joke.

Yes.” You meet his gaze, your tone both reassuring and unwavering.

He hesitates, shifting in his seat, then leans forward again with exaggerated reluctance. “What if I sound stupid?”

You suppress a chuckle, shaking your head. “You won’t.”

He squints, playing up the drama. “But what if I do?”

“Then I’m the only one here to hear it,” you say, offering him a smile.

That answer seems to reassure him more than you’d expect. Leaning in, he props one elbow on the desk, the other hand gripping the pencil so tightly his knuckles pale. He starts again from the marked line, voice dropping to a near whisper—not out of embarrassment, but because saying each step aloud forces him to slow down and see each piece before moving it. He subtracts from both sides, hesitates when the sign changes, and for a second, you catch the flicker of old habits. This time, though, he catches himself, grimaces, and scribbles in the missing step before you can even lift your hand.

“Good,” you say.

Yuji’s head snaps up, eyes brightening with the speed betraying just how much he craves praise, even if he tries to play it off a second later.

“Really?”

“Yes. Keep going.”

You let him work through the rest without stepping in, and when he finishes, he nudges the worksheet your way with more caution than pride, as if the latter’s still a luxury he can’t quite afford. You scan the final answer, then trace your way back through each step, and for once, every operation is accounted for.

“Well?” he ventures, voice straining not to sound too hopeful.

You take the pencil and circle the final answer, then tap the first line where he restarted.

“That’s much better.”

Relief hits him instantly, impossible to hide. He sinks back in the chair, shoulders sagging as a long breath escapes. “Oh, thank god.”

He grabs one of the snacks from the plate you always set out before tutoring, eating it in two bites while his eyes fix on the next problem. Shuffling a few papers aside to clear more space for him, you stack your own reports in the corner and pull a fresh sheet from the pile.

He studies the equation for a few long seconds, eyes narrowing in concentration. The first line appears with deliberate care, but then his pencil picks up speed, the second line materializing almost out of nowhere, and by the third, he’s landed on an answer that looks neat, confident, and just a little too perfect to trust.

Your eyes flick to the page, then to Yuji, and for a moment, neither of you says a word. Before you can get a single syllable out, he slides the worksheet back toward himself, his gaze glued to his calculations. “I did it again.”

“You did.”

“I felt so sure.” A hand drags over his face, and he lets out a laugh that carries more frustration than amusement. “Why does it keep working in my head?”

Yuji’s brows knit so tightly that his eyes nearly disappear beneath his bangs, the eraser working so violently across the page that the paper crinkles and threatens to tear under the friction.

“...Wait.” His eyes go wide as he retraces his own steps back to line two and checks the signs, fingers flipping the page to the textbook example you worked through last week. He blinks once, twice, and then his spine snaps upright, posture suddenly rigid in the chair.

“Oh. Oh, wow. If I group them like that…” he mutters, trailing off as he quickly scribbles three short, consecutive lines down the center of the sheet. "...I think I get it," Yuji breathes out, his voice dropping into a quiet, sudden realization. Filling in the missing steps, he circles the parabola’s final coordinate pair before glancing up at you.

A broad, infectious grin spreads across his face, eyes narrowing into joyful slits and erasing every trace of exhaustion. He slides the paper across the desk toward you, tapping the circled answer with a triumphant little bounce. The pride on his face is unmistakable this time, and it isn’t just because he nailed the answer, but because he followed every step, refusing to skip a single one, proving to himself that his thinking process actually works.

"Look," he beams, his voice booming just a little in the small room as he shifts restlessly from foot to foot in his chair. "I figured it out!”

A massive spike of pressure slams into you, unmistakable and suffocating, the exact second Sukuna sets foot into the building. It lands in your body like an anchor dropped straight through the school’s foundation, dragging everything down with it. Even the air seeping under your office door turns thick and oily, clinging to your skin and setting your nerves jangling, just like always.

Your lungs cinch up, breath coming shorter and tighter before you even realize it, your body already bracing for the automatic survival routine it’s learned to run whenever he’s near. The freeze hits hard and fast, a raw, unfiltered jolt of memory snapping you straight back to the last time he had you pinned against the shelves, hands trembling for hours after he finally let you go.

A glance at the boy across from you, still blissfully oblivious, forces you to swallow the dry lump crawling up your throat. For Yuji, nothing in the air has changed, but you can feel that old, heavy pressure seeping into every corner of the building.

The wooden door slides open without so much as a knock, and Sukuna steps through the threshold, sleeves shoved up to his forearms, his gaze snapping to you. It’s an immediate, unthinking reflex, the first thing he does whenever he enters this room. Those crimson eyes lock onto yours, heavy and entirely unbothered, stripping away whatever professional composure you were trying to project.

Before your eyes can even adjust to the version of him standing in the doorway, the memory of his true form crashes back into your mind. It isn’t some distant blur, either—it’s sharp and insistent, overlaying itself on top of what you’re actually seeing. The contrast between that monstrous body and the human shape he’s wearing now is so stark it almost makes your stomach twist, a quiet, instinctive unease curling in your gut before you can even process it.

By the time your thoughts manage to catch up and remind you he isn’t standing there like that anymore, your body’s already moved on its own, every muscle tense and ready.

Without thinking, your hand nudges the mug farther across the desk, just enough to keep it out of the way if he decides to lean over your paperwork again. The habit is so ingrained it barely even registers as a choice anymore. By the time you notice, your attention’s already snapped back to him, pretending the adjustment never happened at all.

The human is the restrained one. That single sentence loops in your mind, echoing alongside everything Shoko described so matter-of-factly. Now that you’ve seen it for yourself, pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t even an option.

He catches the way your posture stiffens, fingers pinning your paperwork to the desk, your body shifting to the left to leave a wide, clear path between the doorway and the seating area. His gaze lingers, drinking in every bit of discomfort he’s managed to stir up before he’s even decided whether to be a menace today. The satisfaction is obvious, his mouth curling into the start of a smirk.

His eyes flick to the right, and the smirk dies on the spot. All that heavy, lazy amusement drains away, replaced by a cold, flat line of pure annoyance as his gaze lands squarely on Yuji. He stops dead in the center of the room, paper bag crinkling in his grip, chest rising and falling with an irritated breath as he takes in the sight of the boy slouched in the chair by your desk, cheap grey hoodie, messy pile of scrap paper, and yellow pencil clenched in his hand.

He hadn’t bothered to track the boy’s cursed energy on campus after the drive back from the city, assuming that the nuisance had scurried off to the dorms to lick his wounds. Finding the same brat who’d spent fifteen minutes whining about morality in a dusty warehouse now occupying his preferred lounge, where he'd intended to spend the rest of his afternoon, is enough to sour his mood completely.

“Why are you here?” Sukuna rasps. The question isn’t loud, but it drips with resentment, not a shred of patience left in it, only a flat demand for the universe to justify this inconvenience and explain why the nuisance is still in front of him.

Yuji’s grin falters, the triumphant spark in his eyes shattering in an instant. His back goes rigid as he turns, slow and reluctant, to face his uncle. Whatever comfort had settled into his shoulders over the last hour vanishes, replaced by a tension that pulls his spine taut, fingers clamping around his pencil until his knuckles go white beneath the fresh scrapes. He swallows, jaw locking tight with a stubborn mix of defiance and defensiveness.

“...I’m studying,” Yuji’s voice drops, just a notch lower than before, but he meets Sukuna’s stare head-on, his eyes hard and unyielding.

A sharp, irritated click of Sukuna’s tongue cuts through the room, slicing the air with pure dismissal. His eyes narrow, brow drawing together in contempt as his gaze drags from the open textbook to the scrap paper scattered with your neat, pencil-drawn arrows and margin notes. The very idea of that parasite attempting anything close to cognitive development isn’t just laughable to him—it’s a complete waste of time.

“Why?”

That single syllable drips with so much condescension that Yuji’s jaw tightens, but it leaves both of them unsatisfied. Yuji holds his gaze for a beat, almost as if he’s waiting for the real question, while Sukuna clearly couldn’t care less about whatever explanation the boy might try to muster.

Before either of them can get another word in, your eyes catch on the bag in the sorcerer’s hands. Instinct kicks in, and you reach for the stack of folders perched on the shelf beside your desk, sliding them into the drawer without a second thought. He always puts his food on that same spot, and the last thing you need is grease soaking into your paperwork from whatever takeout he’s dragged into your office this time.

Just as you expected, Sukuna walks past the desk without a word, drops the takeout bag right where you knew he would, and fishes out a plastic container. He sinks onto the half-collapsed couch, sprawling his long legs across the floorboards and taking up an absurd amount of space between your desk and the filing cabinets.

He sets his energy drink on the floor by his boot, then pulls a charred skewer from the container, eating his dinner like he’s the only one here, completely unbothered that you were in the middle of a tutoring session. Still, his crimson eyes stay locked on the back of Yuji’s head, radiating a silent glare that makes the air feel twice as heavy as it did five minutes ago. Only after half the skewer is gone does he finally drop his gaze to the container, attention shifting fully to his food.

Your eyes snag on him, and uninvited memories muscle their way to the surface all over again. The man sprawled across half your office hasn’t changed; that towering body draped over the cushions is just as dangerous as it was yesterday, but your mind refuses to separate the two forms of him at all.

Without really thinking about it, you straighten the pile of worksheets by your elbow and nudge your chair a little closer to the desk, putting just a bit more space between yourself and the path to the couch. Only then do you turn your attention back to Yuji.

Yuji’s gaze darts back to the worksheet, but any hope of focusing is already in shreds with Sukuna looming just two steps away. He scrawls out a variable, hesitates, then drags his pencil across the page to scratch it out, frustration simmering just beneath the surface.

You clear your throat, but the sound barely registers, coming out smaller and weaker than you mean, swallowed up by the heaviness in the room.

“Let’s try a different example, Yuji,” you offer, keeping your tone as gentle as possible while you flip to a more complicated parabola problem near the end of the chapter. Reading the polynomial aloud, you write it at the top of the page, letting the equation do the work of pulling his mind off the couch and back to the numbers.

Yuji stares at the numbers you just wrote, confusion shadowing his face as his mind tries to outrun the process again. “If the leading coefficient is negative... then the curve goes downward, right? So the vertex has to be... it has to be somewhere near the axis, but I don't know how to move the numbers inside the brackets without changing the sign again.”

He stops, throat bobbing as the thread of his thoughts slips away completely. His fingers fidget restlessly on the pencil until a short, dry rasp slices through the silence.

Sukuna doesn’t bother lifting his eyes from his food, his large hand idly turning a wooden skewer between his fingers. Just yesterday, he’d skimmed the notes he found on your desk, and that was all it took for his mind to map out the entire thing behind his eyelids in less than a heartbeat, just from hearing you read it aloud.

“Two and negative sixteen,” he says flatly with certainty that doesn’t even require him to check the page.

Yuji’s pencil freezes mid-stroke, his head whipping around so fast you half expect the eraser to go flying. He glares across the room at the sagging couch, cheeks burning with shock and frustration, mouth hanging open as he stares at his uncle’s profile like he’s just been slapped.

“How did you...” Yuji trails off, his teeth gritted.

Another slow sip from his can, and Sukuna’s crimson eyes finally slide up, meeting his nephew’s glare with a lazy, mean sort of delight.

"I don't get," Sukuna says slowly, "why people need all this just to explain something that obvious. You'd think natural selection would've handled this already. No wonder you’re all so fucking weak."

“It isn’t obvious,” Yuji mutters, clenching his fists on his thighs as the memory of his uncle mocking him from the warehouse catwalk hits him again.

Sukuna’s grin stretches slightly, his gaze holding the boy’s eyes with a chilling, total lack of sympathy.

“To you,” the King of Curses rasps.

It’s impossible not to stare at him, especially when you know, without a doubt, that his answer’s correct. The realization knots itself tight and uncomfortable in your stomach because he hasn’t even bothered to lean up from the couch, hasn’t so much as glanced at the worksheet, but somehow he’s already mapped out the entire problem in his head before Yuji even finished scribbling the first line. It’s unsettling to realize that someone who usually spends his time leveling city blocks and treating human life as an afterthought has a mind that works at a speed just as terrifying as his strength.

Slowly, he brings the wooden skewer back to his mouth, dragging another piece of meat from the stick with his teeth. The sweet, sticky tare sauce catches the light of your desk lamp, glinting on his lower lip, the scent so thick and heavy it drowns out the faint, grassy smell of the green tea cooling between your hands. He chews with deliberate laziness, utterly unmoved by the silent, burning fury radiating off the boy.

“Two and negative sixteen,” Yuji repeats with resentment, rolling his eyes before dropping his gaze back down to the worksheet, tracking the polynomial string you had written out for him. His fingers twitch against the pencil. “You didn't even look at the paper. You're just making things up to mess with me.”

A short, raspy chuckle rumbles out of Sukuna’s chest, the sound low and dry, vibrating through the sagging couch cushions beneath him. He tips his head back against the wall and lets his crimson eyes drag lazily down over his cheekbones, landing on Yuji with pure contempt.

“Mess with you?” Sukuna drawls the words, not hiding how little he cares about the kid’s outrage. The empty wooden skewer clatters into the takeout bag as his hand reaches down, fingers curling around the cold can of energy drink. “Don't flatter yourself. If I wanted to mess with you, you'd be bleeding through the floorboards right now. The numbers are right there. A curve only drops in one specific place, idiot. It doesn't take a genius to see where it bends.”

He takes a slow sip, the tiny click of his tongue against his teeth suddenly sounding impossibly loud in the thick silence.

"Look at you," Sukuna goes on, not even glancing at the boy. "You've been sitting there for five minutes, sweating over a piece of paper like it's about to attack you. It's pathetic." He clicks his tongue. "People spend years getting taught to recognize patterns they should've noticed immediately. Then everyone's shocked when they still can't think. And somehow this idiot is still behind.”

Your gaze drops away from the sofa, landing on the messy sprawl of notes across Yuji’s paper. Every instinct screams at you to stay perfectly still, to blend into the background and hope he forgets you’re even here, while your heart hammers out a frantic, shallow rhythm against your ribs just from the sheer weight of him sitting three meters away. You know your place here: support sorcerer, not referee, and you’re definitely not about to wedge yourself between him and his nephew over some high school worksheet. One wrong word, too much eye contact, and you’ll just hand him another excuse to make things worse. So you keep your posture small, slide your folders closer to your chest, and do your best to disappear.

Eventually, Sukuna’s gaze flicks toward the worksheet still clutched in your hand, his lip curling with open, unfiltered disdain.

“The point should be separating the competent from the useless."

“People aren't useless just because they need to be taught, Sukuna!” Yuji blurts in frustration, his chair scraping loudly against the floor as he pushes off the desk, his pencil nearly snapping in his grip.

His sudden outburst sends a sharp jolt straight to your temples, freezing your fingers against the textbook. He knows exactly what his uncle is capable of, but stubbornness keeps him from backing down, leaving you desperate to reach over and tap his shoulder—anything to get him to drop it and sit back down before things spiral. The weight of Sukuna’s presence shifts in the corner, and you already know that if this turns into a real fight, Yuji’s the one who’ll end up paying for it.

Sukuna doesn’t so much as blink. He tips the can back, draining the last of it with a slow swallow, his throat working lazily, like Yuji’s anger barely registers as background noise.

“Aren’t they? Then why are you still proving my point?"

Letting the files slip from your grip, you force your breath into something steady, desperate not to let Yuji see just how rattled you are by Sukuna’s presence. When you finally manage to speak, your voice comes out flat and quiet, stripped of any of Yuji’s frantic energy. All you want is to shut this down before someone snaps—before Sukuna decides to make an example out of Yuji. Eyes glued to the open textbook, you try to focus on the work, even as your heart hammers so hard it feels like it might crack your ribs.

“It isn't about deciding who's worth teaching,” you say calmly.

Sukuna’s gaze slides back to you, crimson eyes tracing the tense line of your jaw. There’s a flicker of curiosity at the edge of his mouth, amused by your attempt to keep things under control right in front of him.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Sukuna answers smoothly, his deep voice carrying a hint of amusement at you finally gathering the courage to speak up. He sets the empty can down on the floorboards, then leans back. “And you’re trying to fix something that’s already garbage. Look at him.”

He flicks his hand toward Yuji in a careless, dismissive wave, but his eyes stay locked on you.

“He’s sitting here, taking up air, and he still can't trace a basic line without you holding his hand through the process. You’re wasting your time on a brat who’s completely stuck on something an insect could figure out, woman. If he’s too stupid to remember a negative sign, he’s nothing but a total waste of space. I don't know why you even bother with him.”

“Not everybody just knows everything the second they look at it!” Yuji snarls, standing his ground against his uncle’s absolute disregard for him.

“Clearly.”

“He isn’t stupid, Sukuna. He just skips steps,” you add calmly.

Rolling his eyes, he lets out a lazy scoff, "Same difference," before turning his attention back to his food, taking the second container out of the bag.

"Pick up your pencil, Yuji. Next problem." You focus on him completely, tapping your finger against a new polynomial on his worksheet, deliberately not reading it aloud.

For a long, heavy minute, Yuji stays silent, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he forces himself back into the chair. The anger is still hot in his face, but it’s mostly just a habit at this point. After months of enduring every possible variation of 'useless' Sukuna could invent, today's insults barely even register, as none of it surprises him anymore. Watching Sukuna solve the problem instantly just feels inevitable after everything Yuji has seen during training and missions.

But beneath that anger, his face begins to change, with his brow furrowing as confusion takes over and settles in his expression. He doesn't say a word to either of you, just lets his gaze drift sideways, tracking the narrow gap between your desk and the crooked couch.

Months have gone by with Yuji trying to figure out how to exist around his uncle. His baseline for Sukuna is painfully simple: a walking disaster who couldn’t care less about rules, boundaries, or people—Yuji has watched him level a building just because the noise annoyed him. Most days, Yuji ends up on the receiving end of that temper, but just as often, he can’t seem to stop himself from pushing back, unable to turn away even when he knows he should.

Watching the two of you now, though, something feels off. Since Sukuna walked in, Yuji has caught you shifting your folders out of the way every time he passes, always leaving him just enough room. Sukuna, for his part, just takes the space you give him, never pushing for more. It’s strange, almost unsettling even, how mindful you both are of each other’s boundaries.

Glancing back at his uncle, Yuji finds him ignoring both of you, picking up another skewer and settling deeper into the battered couch, perfectly content to do his own thing. Sukuna’s energy is probably acting up, so he only came here because he needs you to weave, or whatever it is you actually do, but what really scrambles Yuji’s brain is that the man is actually waiting. No demands, no tantrums, just killing time with takeout while you finish the math lesson.

Sure, Sukuna’s still being a dick to Yuji, treating him like some annoying bug buzzing in his ear, but he isn’t tearing the room apart. He answered you without that bite he always saves for Yuji, hasn’t barked at you to shut up or threatened you, and he’s keeping himself neatly within the boundaries of that lopsided sofa. If anything, he almost looks comfortable with you here.

And just a minute ago, he even tolerated you correcting him about Yuji. It was barely two sentences, but he didn’t so much as twitch in annoyance. Yuji knows if he’d tried that, Sukuna would have cracked his skull against the floorboards without a second thought.

Looking back down at the problem you pointed to, Yuji swallows hard, drawing his own conclusions. His eyes stay glued to the page, but his mind keeps circling the same thought: Sukuna absolutely hates his guts. He can sit here and act like a halfway normal person around you, just because you’re the specialist he needs, but the second Yuji so much as opens his mouth, Sukuna’s ready to throw him through a wall.

Your pencil taps the page again, and this time Yuji gets the hint right away, dragging the crumpled worksheet back into his space. The office stays incredibly quiet, the only sound the scrape of his eraser as he rubs out a miscalculated step, grey rubber shavings piling up near his thumb.

When Yuji hesitates over a tricky distribution step, you keep silent, just pointing your pencil at the sign he missed inside the parentheses. He glares at the page, jaw set in a stubborn line, forcing his mind to slow down and untangle the formula piece by piece. Subtracting from both sides, he writes a clean variable, working through each step before sliding the finished sheet your way. You scan the rows of calculations, double-checking every sign and distribution line before finally letting out a slow, quiet breath.

“You did a good job today, Yuji,” you say softly, giving him a small, genuine smile.

The praise instantly erases every trace of exhaustion from his face, and a wide, infectious grin splits his features, eyes crinkling into bright, happy slits as he straightens up in his chair. When you close his textbook, letting him know the lesson is over, he drops his pencil into his backpack, yanks it over his shoulder, and his sneakers squeak against the floorboards as he stands, pointedly ignoring the man sprawled on the couch.

With a quick wave, he backs toward the doorway, his voice ringing out just a little too loud. “Thanks! I’ll see you on Thursday!” The wooden door slides open, and he slips out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him and leaving you alone completely with Sukuna.

For a few quiet seconds, neither of you says anything. You gather the last of the loose worksheets into a single stack, slipping them back into the folder they came from. Across the room, Sukuna finishes chewing the last bit of meat from his skewer, then lets the empty stick clatter into the plastic container with a careless flick.

"You know... he really does work hard," you murmur, nudging the folder into the far corner of your desk.

Sukuna snorts loudly, not even bothering to look up. "So do ants."

"That's hardly fair,” you say with a frown.

"No," he agrees without hesitation. "It's generous."

Pushing up from the couch, Sukuna moves like he’s about to leave, and for a second, you almost let yourself hope. Instead, his hand lands on the takeout bag perched beside you on the shelf, dragging it over to the desk. You barely glance at it, catching sight of two unopened plastic containers stacked beneath a mess of crumpled napkins. You wonder, not for the first time, if he’s overestimated his appetite again.

One of the containers lands squarely on your paperwork, the plastic lid snapping open under his fingers. He tips it over, and a severed, half-dried tongue slumps out, dropping to your once-neat stacks of reports.

Far larger than any human tongue, its deep violet flesh has dulled after hours in the open air, the cut end darkened and dry. Even so, it hasn’t stiffened, still holding its shape with a sickly, yielding softness. One side is rough, covered in tiny, hooked barbs—row after row of miniature teeth, each one catching the light in a way that makes your skin crawl.

Nausea slams into you sharply, forcing you to swallow hard just to keep it down. Both hands clamp around the edges of your chair, jaw clenched tight as you stare at the thing sprawled in front of you, with every muscle in your face fighting to stay neutral, because you know exactly what he’s waiting for.

A heavy hand settles on the back of your chair, and Sukuna leans in until his chest nearly brushes your shoulder, so close you can feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes stay fixed on your face, vicious amusement flickering in every line of his expression as he waits for you to snap.

“There,” he purrs, eyes drinking in the falter on your face, and you immediately know you failed. "I knew you'd appreciate this one."

“…Sukuna,” you mutter, barely above a whisper, uncertain whether you’re pleading for explanation or mercy.

His head tilts slightly, eyes never leaving your face. “Hmm?”

“Why do you do this?”

“You seemed to like the eye,” he answers, lips pulling into a mean smirk as he leans in a fraction closer, watching for another reaction.

Without a hint of hesitation, he reaches out and pinches the tongue between two fingers, lifting it up for you to see. The tip droops right away, gravity dragging it down so the muscle bends under its own weight, almost obscene in its elasticity.

“Feel this,” he rumbles, holding it in front of your face.

Breath catching in your throat, you spend a mortifying second actually considering whether refusing is even possible, only to decide it absolutely has to be. The real challenge is figuring out how to do it without sounding like you’re outright refusing him. Eyes stay locked on the tongue dangling between his fingers, while every instinct you have urges you to lean farther back in your chair than dignity would ever allow. Not that it would help, with him standing right behind you, close enough that escape isn’t even an option.

"...I..." You clear your throat, buying yourself a few more seconds, shifting in your seat, and glancing sideways, desperate for anything to focus on except the thing dangling before you. "I don't think that's necessary."

"Why not?"

The question comes without challenge or irritation. If anything, it carries the same curiosity he always shows whenever you try to tell him no. His brow rises, genuinely interested in whatever reasoning you might offer, almost inviting you to amuse him.

"I..." Your gaze flickers to his face on the side before dropping right back to the tongue. "I believe you, Sukuna.”

"You believe me,” he parrots, the smirk spreading wider, savoring your discomfort.

“Y—yes." Your voice is barely audible, and you can feel the flush crawling up your neck.

Rotating it between his fingers, he studies the hooked barbs along its surface with obvious interest, then angles it toward you again.

"But you don't know. The texture’s unusual,” he murmurs, leaning closer, his breath hot against the side of your neck, his mouth pulling into a wide, satisfied grin as he watches the color drain completely from your face. “It’s still soft. Go on. Touch it.”

With your stomach twisting, you notice the room feels unbearably hot, the air thick and heavy between the desk and the man looming over your shoulder.

"I'm sure it is." You force out the words, struggling to keep your voice steady, eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall rather than the object in front of you.

"You should confirm it." His tone is almost playful, but his gaze sharpens, watching you intently for the faintest sign of defiance.

Your fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the edges of your chair. "...I'd really rather not."

Silence stretches between you while those crimson eyes track every tiny reaction you can’t quite hide—the tension wound tight in your shoulders, how you’ve frozen yourself from leaning any farther away, the careful rhythm of your breathing, and the stubborn refusal of your gaze to linger on the thing in his hand for more than a heartbeat at a time.

"You find it revolting." His voice is low and certain, and the way he says it makes it clear it's not a question. One brow arches expectantly, daring you to deny it.

You hesitate for just long enough that answering becomes pointless, throat tightening as you struggle to form the word. Heat prickles at your cheeks, but you still force yourself to answer. "...Yes."

For a moment, Sukuna just looks at you, clearly satisfied with everything your face has already given away. Then he lets out a quiet, disbelieving scoff, shaking his head in exaggerated, mock disappointment.

“I bring you a gift…” he trails off, the corner of his mouth curling upward with wicked amusement. “You wound me, princess.”

Only then does he lower his hand, dropping the tongue back into the plastic container with a soft, heavy slap, then snapping the lid shut again as casually as packing away leftovers.

Sukuna straightens with a quiet grunt, reaching for the hem of his hoodie and tugging it over his head. For one ridiculous moment, your pulse jumps, the memory of four arms flickering through your mind, before you realize he’s just shrugging out of another layer, still in an oversized shirt. The heavy garment lands on the back of the couch without a second glance.

Grabbing the takeout bag with the last of the containers, he heads for the door, leaving the wooden slider hanging wide open behind him. Alone at the desk, you sit with your chest heaving, staring at the container with the purple tongue inside, sprawled across your ruined homework sheets.

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“No, because you need to tell me if I’m losing my mind,” you plead, your hands shaking as you point toward the door. You're staying on your feet because sitting down would require your body to accept that the danger has passed, and the adrenaline’s currently screaming that it absolutely hasn’t. “He was in my office, like always, and we finished weaving, and then he stayed there for another hour like that was normal—which it apparently is now—and I was trying to work because he’d already interrupted my class and I had actual things to do—so I got up for one binder. One binder, Shoko. That’s all. I checked that his eyes were closed, I walked around the couch, I grabbed the binder, and when I turned around, he was just there. Right behind me.”

Shoko’s pen lowers slowly, but she doesn't say a word. Her silence only pulls more words out of you, faster and more frantic, as the panic swells, filling every bit of space it can find and crowding out any semblance of reason left in your head. You're pacing a tight circle now, with the binder wedged under your arm, while your free hand gestures wildly in the air, trying to map out height, proximity, the suffocating geometry of your office. Each sentence makes the whole thing sound more ridiculous than it felt in the moment.

“He trapped me against the shelf, and I asked him to move, which obviously did nothing. Why would Sukuna respond to a normal request like a normal person? Then he reached for his sweatshirt, and I thought he was doing some intimidation thing, or another stupid proximity power play, because he does that all the time, but then he started taking it off.” Your voice catches slightly, and you immediately hate yourself for the betraying sound that makes your face burn. Shoko’s eyebrow rises by the smallest amount, and you shoot her a glare before she can even open her mouth. “No. Don’t. I know how that sounds, but it isn’t the point. The point is that he took it off, and then he was looking at me, and I was looking at him for… for long enough to become a joke. And then he smirked, and for one horrible moment, I thought that maybe he was doing something else, which was stupid, because this is Sukuna.”

Shoko takes a slow sip of coffee, not even bothering to interrupt. Her expression barely changes, but she’s tucking that detail away for later, and humiliation crawls up your neck in response. With eyes squeezed shut, you breathe through your nose, trying to wrestle the conversation back toward the actual problem before it collapses under the weight of your own embarrassment.

“And then,” you continue, forcing your eyes open and pushing the words out before your nerve fails you completely, “he changed. One second he was standing there shirtless, being the worst person alive, and the next he was getting bigger. His shoulders broadened, his face changed, there were extra arms, and then there were four eyes. Four. Eyes. Shoko, I mean, I thought I saw them the first day, but I convinced myself I was just hallucinating from the panic, because people don't just have four fucking eyes, and here we are! I know this makes zero sense, but you have to believe me. He was huge. Like—he was almost touching the ceiling. And he just stood there mocking me because I was flustered, and then he broke the couch when he sat down—” For the first time, Shoko’s calm expression cracks and one of her brows lifts slightly in genuine surprise. “—got annoyed, turned back into himself, and just left. He literally just pulled a stupid party trick out of his ass to ruin my afternoon and then went home.”

Eventually, you run out of breath, cutting yourself off and staring at her with wide, pleading eyes. The panic has begun to ebb, but you’re still rattled, thrown off by the stupidity of the whole thing. You need her to say something that makes it make sense, to tell you whether that was a real threat or just another monstrous whim you’re supposed to ignore.

Shoko takes a long drag, letting the smoke curl lazily toward the open window before tapping the ash into a glass tray. For a moment, she just watches you over the rim of her mug. “The couch broke?” she asks finally.

You stare at her, genuinely frustrated. “No, Shoko, that’s really not the important part here!”

She doesn’t even blink, keeping her expression maddeningly placid. “Then why’d you bring it up?”

“Because it broke!”

"That does sound like a problem," she murmurs, more to herself than to you, as she taps more ash into the tray.

“Shoko, please. I’m having a crisis here.”

Her hands rise in a half-hearted surrender, but the corner of her mouth twitches as she reaches for her coffee again. That tiny movement's almost worse than outright laughter, almost like a silent admission that she knows exactly how absurd this conversation has become, and she’s perfectly happy to let you squirm through every second of it. The binder is still pressed uselessly to your chest, your cheeks burning hot with humiliation. Shoko watches you with the tired patience she usually saves for students faking injuries to skip training.

“Four eyes, four arms, bigger body,” she says after another sip, sounding so terrifyingly unbothered that the hair on your arms stands on end. “True form.”

“That’s… that’s a thing? Not just a hallucination?" You're hoping for a no, even though you know better.

Shoko peers at you over the rim of her mug. “You didn’t know?”

“No, Shoko! Somehow, nobody thought to mention that the man squatting in my office can turn into a mythological horror whenever he's bored!” Your voice cracks on the last word, and you hate how small it sounds.

She hums softly, the sound caught somewhere between sympathy and amusement, and sets the mug down, leaning back until her chair creaks. “That explains the way you walked in.”

You stare at her, waiting for a real explanation. When she doesn’t immediately offer one, frustration boils over, winning out over the lingering panic. “I don’t know what that means! Is it a technique? Is it some kind of trick he uses to be an asshole in a new and creative way?”

“No,” Shoko answers.

The simplicity of her answer is terrifying and leaves a bitter taste at the back of your throat. You hate it.

“No?”

“That’s his body.”

The infirmary falls strangely silent around you. Outside the windows, campus life drifts on in its usual, oblivious rhythm, suddenly feeling impossibly far away.

“That’s his… what?” you manage, barely a whisper. “His actual body?”

“Yeah,” she replies, resting her knuckles against the worn wood of her desk. “So technically, he didn’t turn back into himself. He turned into the restrained version. The human one is the restrained version.”

“The restrained version,” you repeat slowly.

You sink onto the nearest chair when your legs finally give out. Shoko’s eyes track the movement, a flicker of concern ghosts across her face, but she doesn't offer any empty comfort. Somehow that restraint is both grounding and deeply unsettling. She knows better than to pretend Sukuna is harmless. Everyone here does. The only real difference between you and Shoko is that she’s had more time to build up whatever internal wall lets her talk about this without sounding like she’s standing at the edge of a breakdown.

“More convenient,” she says, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Four arms are better for combat and technique efficiency, but they’re… terrible for hallways.”

"Terrible for hallways?" you echo, staring at her in disbelief. "That's what you're focused on right now?

"It matters more than you'd think when you're that big."

“Seriously, I’m begging you to stop being so practical about this.”

“Think about it, though,” Shoko says, gesturing with the glowing cherry of her cigarette, smoke trailing above her hand. “Buildings aren’t really designed for someone that tall or that wide or… with extra limbs. The human form causes less collateral damage, lets him fit through doorways and move without constant spatial awareness. It’s just less inconvenient. Plus, it keeps the higher-ups from bothering him every five minutes.”

Lifting her mug, she drains the last of her coffee, not the slightest hint of discomfort crossing her face as she describes all of this like it’s just another Tuesday.

“Look on the bright side,” she adds casually. “He’s actually significantly easier to deal with like this.”

The words hit hard, freezing you in place. Instantly, your mind loops back over the suffocating weaving sessions, the destroyed documents, the heavy, oily cursed energy, and the relentless, bone-deep exhaustion of managing his presence every single day. The Sukuna who sprawls across your couch, blocks your shelves, snaps your pens, leans in too close, and prowls through Jujutsu High like the halls were built for him alone… you thought that was the hard part. 

Pressing the heel of your hand into your eye socket, you drag in a slow breath, fighting the urge to laugh, knowing it would come out far too close to panic and turn into a sob. “Great. Wonderful. Very comforting.”

“I wasn’t trying to comfort you.”

“I noticed.”

Shoko lets out a short, breathy sound that might be a laugh, though there’s no humor in her eyes, just a flicker of weary understanding for the hell you've just gone through.

“Shoko?”

“Yeah?”

“What the actual fuck do you mean that's the easier version?”

She shrugs.

“Four arms means better combat efficiency and zero limitations with hand signs. He doesn't have to stop his technique to punch you. Significantly higher cursed energy output. If you're building the ideal sorcerer's body from scratch, that's pretty much what you'd end up with.”

You listen to her break down the anatomy of a living nightmare as if she's reading some boring report, suddenly wishing you’d never asked.

“If he actually cuts loose like that, most sorcerers wouldn’t survive five minutes. There's a reason most people on campus have only ever heard stories. Gojo's seen it, Yaga's seen it, I have. Maybe a handful of others.”

“Yuji?”

“Probably stood next to it more than all of us combined.”

The answer makes sense, but it doesn’t help one bit. You sit with that, staring down at the binder in your lap without really seeing it. The vinyl cover is still creased where your fingers dug in too hard. Your hands look normal against it, which suddenly feels absurd. They shouldn’t. After a month of touching Sukuna and his cursed energy, smoothing out residue inside a body that was never what you thought, after being pinned by four arms while he laughed at you—your hands should look different. If not them, then something should.

“He chooses to restrain himself,” you mutter, the realization settling heavily in your chest and making your voice sound oddly small. “He actively chooses to look human most of the time.”

She looks at you, a faint, dry tilt to the corner of her mouth. “When he uses that form publicly, it usually means he’s irritated enough to stop caring. And honestly? Sometimes he just finds it funny when people start forgetting what he actually is. So showing it to you like that? Completely deliberate.”

A hollow, deadpan exhaustion seeps into your bones as you glance at the sterile white cabinets. You feel like you've aged ten years in ten minutes.

“Deliberate? Sukuna? He would never.” The sarcasm slips out, sharper and more bitter than you intended, masking the tremor in your voice.

Shoko ignores the bite in your tone. “You know that he just wanted to see the look on your face.” Her tone is annoyingly knowing. “And judging by how fast you ran down here, he got exactly what he wanted.”

That, unfortunately, sounds like the most believable thing you've heard all day.

“Still not comforting, Shoko. I might actually hate you a little bit right now.

She stubs her cigarette out, the embers dying instantly. “Still not trying to.”

Despite everything, a weak, tired sound escapes you—half-laugh, half-sob. Shoko’s mouth softens just a touch, though she doesn’t quite smile. She just watches you through the fading light, waiting for the panic to fully drain away.

——————

Officially, the report says one Grade 2 curse has settled in an abandoned warehouse near the edge of the industrial district. Unofficially, Sukuna knew the second they stepped out of the car that the report was completely wrong. He can feel all six from the street.

All six signatures knot together somewhere inside, buried under rusted metal and the stale, heavy residue that lingers after years of human neglect. Not a single one is impressive on its own. Their cursed energy is coarse, dull, and irritatingly common to Sukuna, grating against his senses. It’s filth that only ever unsettles sorcerers too weak to crush it beneath their heel. He’s met curses like these a hundred times before, and it never gets less irritating.

Naturally, he keeps that to himself. There’s no reason to correct the report, and even less to warn the first-years. If he spelled everything out, it would ruin the only worthwhile part of dragging them out here in the first place.

The three students trail behind, already knowing better than to expect a normal mission from him. Yuji fills the air with chatter because the brat can’t seem to keep his mouth shut for more than a few minutes. Nobara answers him sharply, and every word is edged with irritation, making it clear she’d rather be anywhere else. Megumi walks half a step apart from both of them, silent and watchful, which Sukuna finds marginally less aggravating. The boy’s gaze sweeps the street, the chain-link fence, the boarded-up windows, and the shadows pooling inside the loading bay. 

At least one of them is paying attention. The other two will catch on once the curses start moving, which is later than ideal, but still sooner than most useless kids manage.

Ahead, the warehouse’s roofline sags where years of weather and neglect have gnawed at the supports. Old delivery bays line one wall, most sealed tight, but one loading door hangs crooked on its track, leaving an opening. Sukuna stops just past the fence, waiting for the students to catch up.

The talking dies almost instantly. Yuji’s head lifts, locking his attention onto the building as the pressure finally hits him, and Nobara’s mouth draws tight. Megumi’s eyes narrow and shoulders shift almost imperceptibly as he adjusts his balance. They’ve learned by now that when Sukuna goes quiet, it means the situation is already in motion, and they’re just late to understand it. That lesson took longer than it should have, but at least it stuck.

There’s no additional briefing from Sukuna—the one they received from Ijichi was wrong, though that’s hardly his concern. The warehouse is in front of them, curses are inside, and the kids have bodies, cursed energy, techniques, and the bare minimum of survival instinct to make the next few minutes interesting. Anything more would be coddling, and Sukuna’s never considered hand-holding a meaningful form of instruction. If they need someone to explain danger before they feel it, they deserve whatever comes next.

Megumi’s attention flickers to Sukuna just in time to catch his shoulder move as a hand snaps back and clamps onto the collar of Megumi’s uniform. His eyes go wide and his body tenses as if he’s already resigned to whatever’s coming. Nobara gets even less warning. Her protest barely makes it out of her throat before Sukuna’s other hand closes around the back of her jacket.

“What are you—”

He lifts both of them off the ground effortlessly and almost gets kicked by Nobara’s boot as her legs lash out in reflex. Megumi’s hand shoots up toward Sukuna’s wrist and freezes halfway—he knows better than to waste precious seconds and energy struggling when he could be bracing for impact. Sukuna almost respects that.

“Figure it out,” he says flatly.

Then he throws them through the opening in the entrance with enough force to send both first-years hurtling into the dim interior of the warehouse. The crash echoes beautifully, and Sukuna can’t help the smirk that tugs at his mouth as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

Metal shrieks as someone slams into a shelving unit. Dust billows out the open door in a pale, choking cloud. Something heavier crashes down a second later, followed by Nobara’s hacking cough and the frantic scuff of Megumi’s shoes as he scrambles to his feet. The curses notice instantly, and all six signatures converge on the chaos like insects drawn to a sudden flare of light.

Yuji stays at Sukuna’s side for three whole seconds after Megumi and Nobara disappear inside. That’s already three seconds longer than he should. His face cycles through alarm, anger, disbelief, and finally settles into that stubborn, indignant glare Sukuna’s learned to recognize as a warning sign that words are about to happen.

“What the fuck, Sukuna?” he snaps, stepping closer instead of farther away, which immediately makes the situation more irritating than it needs to be. “We’ve been through this! You can’t throw my friends like that!”

Sukuna doesn’t even bother to pull his hands from his pockets. His head tilts, eyes dragging down the tense, shaking line of Yuji’s shoulders with a look that radiates nothing but contempt. For a moment, he doesn’t dignify the outburst with a response—it barely registers as worth his attention. The complaint is so clumsy, so poorly put together, that it takes real effort to decide which part is more pathetic and deserves to be mocked first.

The whole objection is pointless anyway. He can throw them if he wants—he just did—and the racket echoing from inside is proof enough they survived the landing.

The rest is even more irritating. My friends, as if tossing that in somehow changes the mission. Like proximity, attachment, or whatever sentimental rot Yuji’s decided to drag into this should matter to Sukuna when there are curses inside and two students already doing exactly what they’re supposed to.

The real problem is that Yuji’s still standing right next to him. The other two are already tangled up with the curses, but Yuji, for reasons known only to whatever defective corner of his brain handles self-preservation, has decided to stay within arm’s reach and start an argument about how the mission started. It’s such a spectacularly stupid decision that Sukuna’s irritation almost tips over into genuine confusion.

“You’re still here?” he asks flatly.

Before the teenager has time to answer, something slams into a stack of crates inside so hard it splits old wood, while Nobara shouts something unintelligible and Megumi’s divine dogs snarl.

Yuji points toward the sound without looking away from Sukuna. “They’re fighting more than one curse in there!”

“Yes.”

“You said it was one.”

Sukuna’s mouth curves faintly, though there isn’t a shred of real amusement in it. The brat is still standing next to him, arguing while Megumi and Nobara are already adapting to reality without a second thought. That’s the difference between them, and maybe the reason Yuji manages to be so uniquely grating. Megumi lands in a bad situation and starts solving it. Nobara lands in a bad situation, insults everyone involved, and then starts solving it. Yuji sees the bad situation, whines that it exists, and wastes time expecting Sukuna to explain himself.

“When did I say anything?”

That actually shuts Yuji up. It’s infuriating how every argument with Sukuna ends with him getting tripped up by wording, and that’s all it takes for the man to dismiss anything Yuji says. Yuji glares at Sukuna, mutters something under his breath, and bolts for the warehouse.

Before he crosses the threshold, he looks back once more, still angry enough to make the gesture seem involuntary. “This conversation isn’t over!”

Sukuna’s stare flattens. “Tragic.”

Inside, Megumi rolls through the last of the impact, coming up on one knee with one hand already raised. The warehouse is even worse from within. Broken shelves tilt across the floor, half the old machinery has rusted, and long strips of plastic sheeting hang from the rafters, stirring in the draft that slips through shattered windows. Cursed energy clings to everything, crawling over the concrete and support columns like a living thing.

The curse slips out from behind a row of stacked pallets, its thin limbs bending at too many joints to count. Megumi lets out a slow breath, snapping his hands together to form the shadow puppet for Divine Dogs. One Grade 2 shouldn’t be a problem for the two of them. Annoying, maybe, depending on how it moves, but nothing they can’t handle.

“I hate him,” Nobara mumbles from under the knocked-over shelf.

Another shape drops from the ceiling. A third drags itself out from beneath a conveyor belt. By the time the fourth crawls into view near the loading bay and the fifth steps out from the shadow, Nobara’s pushing herself up with blood at the corner of her mouth and murder burning in her eyes. The sixth curse skitters across the far wall, clinging there with all six limbs splayed wide, making a wet, clicking sound that scrapes at their nerves.

Nobara stares at it for half a second before her expression goes flat with rage. “You've got to be kidding me! I really fucking hate him now.”

Megumi doesn’t bother agreeing, though the thought passes through his mind too. Of course Sukuna knew and threw them in anyway--it isn’t even surprising at this point. He despises Sukuna’s methods, but irritation won’t help, so he lets it burn out before it can take root. Survival instinct takes over, recognizing that hesitation means death, and he focuses on measuring distance, exits, and the narrow space they have to work without getting separated.

That lack of hesitation is exactly why Sukuna tolerates Megumi more than the others. The boy isn’t obedient, even if Sukuna thinks he should be, but he never wastes a second being surprised.

“I’m going to kill him,” Nobara snaps, reaching for her hammer and nails.

“Focus.”

“I’m perfectly capable of focusing and hating him at the same time, Fushiguro.”

The building itself works against them, with narrow paths winding between rows of abandoned shelving and broken equipment scattered everywhere. Every support column creates another blind spot, giving the curses plenty of chances to slip past with unsettling speed and spread out instead of attacking directly.

They lack intelligence or strategy but have just enough instinctive cooperation to be a nuisance. Individually, each would pose a serious challenge rather than an easy exorcism. Megumi could handle one, but not without effort, and Nobara would struggle much more than him. Together, they keep the pressure on, never letting Megumi settle into any kind of rhythm. Whenever he adapts to one threat, another comes from a different angle. Openings vanish almost as quickly as they appear. It isn’t dangerous yet, but it’s irritating as hell, demanding every scrap of his attention, forcing endless tiny adjustments and split-second decisions instead of allowing him to control the pace.

The first curse suddenly springs from the top of a rusty conveyor without warning. The old metal shrieks and then collapses as the creature leaps down. Megumi catches the blur of movement at the edge of his vision, just in time to twist aside, as a tangle of claws tears through the air where his head had been a split second before. The curse crashes into the concrete, cracking the floor and sending a cloud of dust swirling up. The reckless lunge should have left it wide open, but Megumi barely has time to take advantage of the opportunity before another curse barrels in from his left, forcing him to drop the thought and move.

Before Megumi can even think, the dogs run across the warehouse, slamming into the oncoming curse, sending it skidding through broken pallets and rusted metal that screeches against the concrete. The noise grates in his ears, distracting him for a second, and by the time his focus snaps back, the first curse has already shaken off its fall and is charging toward him again, all gnashing teeth and wild fury.

"Left, Kugisaki!" Megumi barks.

"I see it!" Nobara yells back, her chest heaving as she drops into a low crouch.

Somewhere behind him, a sharp whistle slices through the warehouse din. A nail whips past Megumi’s shoulder, and then a second follows, just as quick. Both hit their mark.

“Hairpin!”

Cursed energy surges through the nails, detonating deep inside the curse. It jerks, and its whole body convulses. The force tears one of its arms free, sending the limb spinning across the filthy floor while the creature reels, barely managing to stay upright.

“Move!” she shouts to her classmate.

Megumi quickly sidesteps as Nobara barrels past him. She snatches up the severed limb, slamming it onto the straw doll she’s just dropped, and drives a nail through, striking it with a hammer.

“Resonance.”

Black spikes burst from the curse’s chest, stopping it cold. It collapses mid-stride, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

She barely gets a breath before the third curse drops from the rusted pipes overhead, its pale, hairless torso swelling as it aims to crush her beneath its weight. Throwing herself sideways, she skids across a sheet of rusted metal and swings her hammer. The iron head slams into the side of the curse’s jaw, the impact ringing up her arm.

Black fluid splatters the rotted cardboard boxes behind her, but the thing refuses to go down. Too many legs, all of them wrong, and three gouge deep into the concrete, anchoring its bulk. Along its neck, a cluster of bulbous eyes twitch, every single one locked on her.

"Get off me," Nobara mutters through clenched teeth as she digs into her pouch and pulls three nails free, lining them up between her fingers. "Gross.”

Off to her right, shadows on the warehouse floor ripple and churn, pooling into a dense, ink-black circle. Out of the dark, one of the dogs lunges, its white fur stained grey with dust as its jaws snap shut around the throat of a third curse sneaking up behind Nobara’s blind spot. The creature lets out a shrill, wet shriek, clawing uselessly at the dog's snout while it thrashes.

"Kugisaki, don't back up!" Megumi shouts, eyes darting toward the high rafters where three more shapes are clicking their teeth, waiting for an opening. "The space behind you is a blind spot! Move toward the loading bay!"

"I’m moving!" Nobara shouts back, driving a nail straight into the center of the curse’s chest.

At the same time, Megumi summons Nue, grabbing its leg as the shikigami sweeps him up and carries him toward the curse pinned beneath the white dog. Nue lifts him high enough to clear a pile of rusted metal pipes before they dive straight at the struggling creature.

As they descend, he lets go and lands next to the curse. Nue lashes out with its electro-shock wings, sending a jolt through the creature and forcing its flailing limbs to seize up and every muscle to go rigid. With the monster paralyzed and the white dog’s jaws still locked around its throat, Megumi drives his knee into the back of its neck, and the dog tears back, ripping through the creature’s throat.

"That's two," Nobara mumbles, watching as Megumi finishes it off. "Four more of these stupid things to go."

When Yuji finally bursts through the warehouse entrance, Nobara’s getting slammed into a stack of wooden crates. The impact sends splinters scattering across the warehouse floor as she crashes through the debris. The sight alone is enough to make him curse under his breath.

”Fushiguro! Kugisaki!" Yuji shouts, launching himself at the nearest target.

His fist crashes into the curse with enough force to rattle the entire warehouse, the shock echoing through the steel framework and sending loose debris skittering across the floor.

The creature lifts clean off the ground when Yuji’s fist slams into its torso, its body folding around the impact. For a split second, the curse seems to hover in the air, before momentum carries it back across the warehouse. It smashes into a tall shelving unit, bending the metal supports and bringing the whole structure down. Metal screeches against metal as shelves twist and tear free, boxes and debris spilling everywhere, and the curse vanishes beneath the wreckage.

Nobara’s been waiting for this moment since the fight started. “About fucking time,” she snaps, her irritation sharp and obvious.

Yuji winces at the greeting, fully aware of how much trouble his late arrival has caused. “Sorry,” he manages, sincerely apologetic despite the chaos raging around them.

“Later,” Nobara fires back, gaze locked ahead. Under the heap of collapsed shelving and metal, something alive is forcing bent supports aside. The curse, half-buried and furious, claws its way back into the fight. “Much later.”

High above, where the roof sags under the weight of years of rain and rust, a sharp metallic clang slices through the chaos below. Not the sticky, wet clicking of a curse this time—just Sukuna, landing on the battered iron catwalk.

Perched on the rusted railing of a maintenance platform ten meters above the floor, Sukuna lets one leg dangle lazily over the edge, folding his arms across his chest. The instant Yuji burst into the building, he'd vaulted up there to observe the inevitable disaster without having to wade through the filth below, which he has no intention of touching. From there, he can see everything.

Of course, seeing everything means being forced to watch every mistake. A low, grating scoff scrapes down from the platform, cutting through the damp air.

"Pathetic." The word rumbles out of Sukuna, thickening the warehouse air until it feels twice as heavy as before.

Down below, the curse launches itself from a vertical support beam, aiming straight for Yuji’s head. He throws a heavy right punch, cursed energy flaring a heartbeat after the impact. The blow lands square in the creature’s torso, and the delayed surge of power tears through flesh, hurling it back into a stack of rotted shipping crates.

Sukuna lets out a loud, deeply irritated click of his tongue.

“Tck. Too slow, idiot,” he mocks, his voice bouncing off the corrugated tin walls with clear contempt. "Your timing is a joke. If that thing had any sense, it would have taken your hand off before your energy even left your knuckles."

Yuji drags the back of his sleeve across his forehead, frustration darkening his face as he moves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Megumi. "Shut up! I hit it, didn't I?"

Not even bothering to lean forward, Sukuna lets his gaze crawl down the line of students with a look of bored, unfiltered disgust. "You're wasting output on a target that should have been dismantled with a single movement."

Off to their left, a pale and twitching form skitters out from behind the forklift, making a beeline for Nobara’s blind spot. Megumi snaps a command to Nue, trying to yank her out of danger, but he’s a second too slow.

"Kugisaki, drop!" Megumi barks.

Nobara doesn't drop, but pivots sharply on her heel, flinging a nail at the curse and chasing it with a swing of her hammer. The strike misses by an inch, and the curse's pale, hairless torso swings around, catching the sleeve of her uniform in its long fingers and tearing the fabric off.

A sharp, mocking sneer drifts down from the catwalk, slicing through the noise below.

"Look at you," Sukuna taunts as he watches her stumble backward into the dust. "Wasting your stance on a swing you couldn't guarantee. You're letting your irritation dictate your movements, girl."

"Go fuck yourself,” Nobara mutters under her breath, swinging at the curse again with a force that’s all frustration. Then, without looking up at him, she calls out, “Why don’t you come down here and help us instead of sitting there?”

That question grates on him, scraping at the same flaw he finds in every student. They always expect help to be part of the lesson, as if warnings and corrections are owed before a mistake can bite. Survival, to them, is something a teacher should hand out, not something they have to earn. Sukuna’s never understood that kind of weakness. For him, a lesson ends the moment the outcome is obvious. If they survive, the method worked. If they die, it still worked, because it proved they never belonged here in the first place.

The only real failure is being so useless that he has to step in personally and clean up a mess they should have handled themselves. Getting saved isn’t a win. It’s proof they failed before the fight was even over.

“Help?” A short, raspy chuckle rattles out of Sukuna, vibrating through the iron catwalk and echoing above their heads. “If Grade 2s are enough to make you ask for help, then dying here would be the first useful thing you’ve done today.”

Her jaw clenches until it aches, but she refuses to answer. Every bit of focus she has gets poured into the curse looming in front of her, as if ignoring Sukuna might make him disappear.

The fight continues, and so does Sukuna's commentary as he watches everything with growing annoyance. He tracks every little thing they do, every wasted flicker of cursed energy, every stumble or hesitation that slips through their defenses. The longer it drags on, the more mistakes he notices accumulating throughout the fight. It’s not even that the students are weak—weakness can be fixed. What gets under his skin is how they keep falling into the same mistakes, again and again, despite having plenty of chances to learn.

Yuji hurls another curse backward with a punch enhanced with cursed energy, sending it crashing through the twisted remains of a shelving unit. Metal shrieks and buckles under the impact, the creature tumbling through the wreckage before scrambling back up.

The attack does what it's supposed to do—the curse loses ground, and the students get a little more breathing room. To anyone else, it would look like a pretty solid exchange. But Sukuna scoffs, unimpressed.

"There you go again."

His voice carries easily across the warehouse, making Yuji's shoulders tense the moment he hears it. The brief distraction is all the curse needs to claw its way back up before Yuji can finish the job.

Sukuna’s grin stretches wider, watching the scene play out exactly as he knew it would. There’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes, like Yuji’s just proven a point for him without realizing it.

The curse doesn’t waste a second, snapping forward, claws slicing through the dusty air as it lunges back into the fight. Yuji barely manages to react in time, raising his arms to block the blow head-on. The impact slams into him, shoving him backward across the concrete, shoes screeching against the floor as he fights to stay upright.

"One more second and it would've been dead,” he says, sounding almost pleased by the demonstration, and gestures lazily toward the curse, almost like this is nothing more than a mildly interesting show put on for his entertainment rather than a situation that could actually hurt someone. "Most people struggle to create openings. It's genuinely impressive how often you struggle to keep them."

Before Yuji can even catch his breath, the curse attacks again with its claws flashing toward his face. He ducks, slipping to the side just in time, and it misses him by inches. He counters, driving a punch straight into the creature’s torso, cursed energy crackling at his knuckles. The blow sends it reeling back, limbs flailing as it scrambles to stay upright.

Sukuna clicks his tongue sharply, the sound unmistakable even amid the chaos. His gaze stays locked on Yuji as the curse staggers back, battered but still breathing. From Sukuna's perspective, the opening had been right there, clear as day, just waiting to be taken. And somehow Yuji let it slip through his fingers again.

“Instead of finishing it, you keep fumbling it."

Yuji grinds his teeth until his jaw throbs. The criticism lands at the worst possible moment, when his muscles are already burning and his patience is frayed by the pressure of the fight. He knows he should have finished it and that he missed the opportunity. Hearing Sukuna point it out just twists the knife deeper.

"Because you distracted me!"

Every word comes out edged with irritation as he shoots a glare up at the catwalk. Between dodging attacks, coordinating with Megumi and Nobara, and trying not to get overwhelmed by multiple opponents at once, the last thing he needs is Sukuna’s running commentary.

Mocking laughter spills from Sukuna, filling the space with nothing but contempt. There’s not a shred of sympathy in his voice when he finally rasps, “That's your excuse? Pathetic.”

Yuji’s face darkens, the insult hitting a nerve Sukuna knows all too well. Watching the reaction, Sukuna’s satisfaction is unmistakable as he drinks it in, eyes glinting with mean delight.

"If me talking is enough to distract you, then you were already screwing up."

To Sukuna, distractions are meaningless. If a few words are enough to break your focus, then you never had any to begin with.

"Easy for you to say!" Yuji wipes dust from his face with the back of his hand, keeping his eyes on the curse circling in front of him. "You're not the one down here fighting!"

Sukuna throws his head back and lets out another bark of laughter. The answer only confirms exactly what he already thought. It’s so predictably reckless, stubborn, and so painfully straightforward it’s almost funny. That’s exactly the foolish confidence he has come to expect from him, and watching it play out never gets old.

Meanwhile, Megumi flicks his attention toward Nue, sending the shikigami diving at one of the last curses. The sudden swoop carves out a narrow opening, herding the creature right into the black dog that’s blocking the path. The white dog immediately runs from its hiding place on the side and instinctively gives chase, driving it toward Nobara. For a second, everything works exactly the way Megumi intended, giving them some breathing room instead of letting the curses overwhelm them.

Trying to keep track of every shikigami at once, Megumi barely catches the flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. He twists away just in time, but claws still rake across his shoulder. The cut isn't deep, but the fact that it lands at all is enough to make Sukuna’s disapproval practically radiate from above as he watches with visible disgust.

“Remarkable. You've managed to turn your own technique into a distraction,” he calls down.

Megumi doesn't even bother answering. By now, he's learned that responding to Sukuna only encourages more of his commentary. Though staying quiet doesn’t help much either.

"Maybe summon a few more. I'm sure that'll fix everything," Sukuna adds dryly.

The comment gets an involuntary snort out of Nobara, even though she's still busy dealing with another curse a few meters away. The sound barely leaves her lips before the curse lunges, claws snagging the edge of her jacket and nearly yanking her off balance. She jerks free at the last second, but Sukuna’s eyes still narrow in annoyance.

"Case in point," he remarks.

Nobara bounces back fast, slams two nails into its torso, and uses resonance. The curse lets out a sharp shriek as cursed energy rips through its body. Normally, that would count as a textbook recovery: she avoided serious injuries, landed a clean counter, and got the fight tipping back in her favor. Sukuna, of course, couldn't be less impressed.

“All of you keep celebrating successful recoveries," he says, his gaze drifting lazily between all three students as they continue fighting below. "The impressive part would've been not screwing up in the first place."

That earns nearly identical flat, irritated looks from Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara. All three of them are completely united in their opinion of him right now, which only makes Sukuna’s annoyance deepen.

After that, the fight drags on for almost another fifteen minutes, with the opponents refusing to drop, stubborn to the last. The students wear them down through a nonstop cycle of pressure, mistakes, quick adjustments, and increasingly frustrated teamwork.

Yuji keeps throwing himself at every problem the instant brute force looks like the answer when a smarter approach would have saved time and energy. Megumi still tries to do everything at once, splitting his attention across the entire warehouse while coordinating his shikigami and keeping track of enemy movements until exhaustion starts messing with his focus. Nobara keeps letting frustration and impatience affect her decisions, leaving openings that a sharper opponent could take advantage of, but she still manages to pick up the slack whenever she can while making sure everyone knows exactly how much she despises this mission.

Meanwhile, Sukuna never shuts up, criticizing every missed opening, dismissing every successful exchange as nothing more than the bare minimum expected of them, and calling out every mistake with enough contempt to make the curses seem almost friendly by comparison. By the time the sixth curse finally drops, the students are left panting, covered in dust, sweat, and minor injuries, while Sukuna somehow manages to look even more irritated than when the mission started.

He jumps down from the catwalk without any sense of urgency, landing lightly on the warehouse floor despite the height. The mission, as far as he’s concerned, ended the instant the last curse died. The students survived, the objective was met, and there’s nothing left worth talking about. With that, he turns for the exit, already halfway gone in his mind, the warehouse and everything in it fading into the background.

Unfortunately, Yuji opened his mouth again.

"You can't keep doing this."

Sukuna keeps walking without so much as slowing down. His footsteps ring out across the battered concrete, each one echoing through the wreckage as he threads his way past splintered beams and shattered glass.

"You threw them into a building without warning them!"

Still nothing. Sukuna doesn’t so much as flick an eyelash in Yuji’s direction, not a single sign he’s heard a word, though everyone present knows he has.

"You keep throwing people into dangerous situations and acting like it doesn't matter."

Finally, Sukuna turns, fixing Yuji with a stare that gives nothing away. Across the ruined floor, Yuji stands his ground, stubbornly clinging to the idea that if he just argues hard enough, if he can find the right words, maybe Sukuna will start to care about the same things he does. It’s almost painful to watch how he refuses to see what’s right in front of him.

The persistence might've been admirable if it wasn't so damn infuriating.

"They could've gotten seriously hurt!”

“And?” Sukuna asks flatly.

The utter indifference of it makes Yuji’s jaw tighten. “And you’re supposed to be teaching us! You don't get to treat people like they're expendable!”

Up to this point, Sukuna’s put up with the endless complaints, but now, as Yuji circles back to the same tired arguments yet again, that irritation in him calcifies into something colder. There is a growing sense of disbelief beneath it all, a real, honest confusion at why the kid keeps dragging out a conversation that should have died ages ago.

Sukuna doesn’t break eye contact as he starts forward, each step slow, but steadily erasing the space between them. With every pace, the warehouse grows quieter, the faint clatter of debris fading until all that’s left is the tension hanging in the air. Yuji stands his ground, oblivious to the warning implicit in Sukuna’s approach. That, more than anything else, is predictable. The brat has always possessed an extraordinary talent for failing to recognize danger until it’s right in front of him with its hand already around his throat.

"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"

The question isn’t sarcastic or mocking. If anything, it sounds genuinely puzzled. Sukuna’s face doesn’t change as he studies Yuji, like he’s staring at a puzzle that refuses to make sense no matter how many times he turns it over.

Yuji blinks in confusion. "What?"

“I’m asking why you're still speaking," he says, taking another step forward, and the distance between them shrinks further. "You have repeated the same complaint for nearly ten minutes. The curses are dead, the mission is over, and yet somehow you’re still trying to start an argument."

“Because what you did was reckless,” Yuji answers with a frown.

At that, Sukuna's patience runs out.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

The words rumble out as a low, irritated growl. Before Yuji can even blink, Sukuna’s hand shoots out, bunching the front of his uniform in a fist and yanking him forward so hard his toes barely scrape the ground.

"Listen carefully."

Sukuna’s voice stays calm, but it’s the kind of calm that comes right before a storm breaks. Crimson eyes lock onto Yuji’s face, unblinking, stripped of any sympathy. There is no anger in them now, no amusement, no irritation. Somehow that blank, chilling absence feels worse than any rage could.

"If your friends died in there, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep."

Yuji’s jaw snaps tight, hands curling into fists at his sides, knuckles going pale beneath the grime and sweat. For a moment, it looks like he might spit out another protest and try to argue again, but this time nothing comes.

"If you died in there, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep either."

A flicker of hurt or maybe anger flicks across Yuji’s face before he forces it away. Behind him, Nobara goes rigid, her spine straightening with tension, while Megumi drops his gaze, already knowing better than to get involved.

Sukuna's grip tightens, wrinkling the fabric beneath his fingers. Hairline cracks spiderweb through the concrete beneath his feet as cursed energy unconsciously leaks into the floor. His expression remains cold and utterly unmoved.

"I don’t care."

The words land with harsh, undeniable certainty. Sukuna yanks him closer as he says it, making sure Yuji can’t miss a single syllable. There’s no threat in his tone, no effort to intimidate, not even a flicker of guilt—just the plain, unvarnished truth as he sees it.

"I don’t care about your feelings. I don’t care about your opinions. I don’t care about your friends."

For once, Yuji’s mouth refuses to cooperate. The words he wants to spit back at Sukuna get stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat.

"And if you keep trying to explain morality to me, I'm going to throw you through another wall just so I don't have to listen anymore."

The threat hangs in the air between them. For a brief moment, neither of them moves. Yuji remains frozen in Sukuna's grip while the others watch from the side, eyes wide and hands shoved deep into their pockets, smart enough to keep their distance.

Then Sukuna decides he's finished talking. With a single motion, he hurls the boy. Yuji flies across the loading bay, crashing into a solid concrete support column with a heavy, dull thud. The impact rattles the dust loose from the ceiling above him, knocking the breath completely out of his lungs. He slides down the rough surface, coughing as his heels dig into the dirt and his fists clench while he scrambles to find his balance again.

From the base of the column, Yuji shoots him a glare, teeth bared and chest heaving as he fights the urge to push himself back up and throw a punch. The words he wants to spit out—another desperate argument about how wrong this all is—die before they reach his tongue. Sukuna’s presence presses down on him, pinning him in place just as much as the concrete at his back.

Sukuna lingers, eyes fixed on Yuji, as if daring him to try again. When Yuji stays silent, jaw clenched in a stubborn line of fury, Sukuna lets out a low, dismissive grunt and turns his back. He steps out through the rusty iron shutters and back beneath the curtain's manufactured night, utterly unbothered. The three students are left behind in the hollow quiet of the warehouse, nursing bruises and resentment in equal measure.

The drive back passes in blessed silence that feels unnatural after the chaos in the warehouse. Yuji, for once, has exhausted himself complaining. Megumi stares out the window, resting his temple against the glass as he watches the scenery blur past, while Nobara scrolls through her phone aggressively, still mentally insulting Sukuna between every swipe of her thumb.

Sukuna, however, pays none of them any attention. Their presence fades into irrelevance the moment the mission ends, their thoughts and grievances dismissed as easily as the task itself. By the time the car rolls to a stop within the school grounds, they are no longer his concern in any meaningful sense. The students gather their things and head toward the dormitories, their voices gradually fading into the distance as they disperse.

He goes in the opposite direction. His residence lies farther from the main buildings than most of the faculty housing, tucked away in a quieter corner of the campus where the usual bustle of students—and Gojo—rarely intrudes.

He changes out of his uniform without much thought, trading it for looser, more comfortable clothes suited to the remainder of the afternoon. For a while, he allows himself to do absolutely nothing, settling into the quiet of his space without distraction. The silence suits him.

Eventually, somewhere between one idle thought and the next, he decides he's hungry.  That hunger isn’t one that can be ignored or postponed, and it’s very, very specific. The memory of grilled skewers from a particular restaurant in the city comes to mind with irritating clarity—the taste, the texture, the precise way they had been prepared. 

Without hesitation, Sukuna reaches for his phone. The line barely has time to ring once before it is answered, a testament to the efficiency he has come to rely on.

"Daichi speaking."

"Busy?" he asks as if that mattered to him.

On the other end, Daichi’s gaze shifts briefly toward the report spread open across his desk. For the smallest fraction of a second, he hesitates, because he is, in fact, in the middle of something important. Still, he closes the folder without complaint, pushing it aside as he straightens in his chair.

"No, Sukuna.”

"Good. Drive me to that restaurant with the grilled skewers," Sukuna simply says, offering no further clarification, fully expecting Daichi to understand exactly which place he means without needing it spelled out.

There is a brief pause before Daichi responds, "The one you liked?"

"If I hadn't liked it, I wouldn't be calling," Sukuna replies, his voice carrying a faint edge of impatience, as the question itself was unnecessary.

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

The line disconnects immediately after, leaving no room for further conversation.

Exactly ten minutes later, a sleek black sedan pulls up in front of Sukuna’s residence, with its engine idling quietly as it comes to a stop. As the sorcerer slides into the backseat, Daichi doesn’t ask why he hadn’t simply asked Ijichi to stop by the restaurant earlier, when they had already been in the city following the mission. Experience has taught him that Sukuna doesn’t provide explanations unless he feels inclined to, and today is clearly not one of those times. Sukuna, for his part, offers none.

An hour later, Sukuna makes his way back across campus, but the sweltering heat of the late afternoon does nothing to slow his stride. In his left hand, he carries a takeout bag with containers of grilled skewers, while the faint scent of charred pork fat, scorched green onions, and sweet tare sauce lingers in the air around him. His right hand is wrapped around a chilled can of an energy drink, condensation forming along its surface.

Crossing the grounds toward the main building, he barely gets halfway before a voice slices through the air—airy, gratingly cheerful, and intrusive enough to make his jaw tighten.

“Heading to the office again?”

Sukuna glances sideways, his brows drawing together as his crimson eyes narrow slightly at the sight of Satoru rounding the corner of the low stone wall bordering the courtyard, a thick, messy stack of folders tucked beneath one arm. The sight of Gojo actually carrying paperwork is rare enough to make Sukuna falter for half a step. Somehow, with the two of them, the universe always finds a way to dump administrative hell on someone with considerably less authority to suffer through it.

“And?” Sukuna replies flatly.

Not bothering to slow, he steps over a crack in the pavement that undoubtedly split open from his own residue after a mission, but he couldn’t care less. Even though he’s still surprised, his posture stays loose and unbothered, shoulders squared beneath the drape of his clothes.

“Nothing,” Satoru says, a breezy, bright grin plastering itself across his face. “Just noticed.”

"Congratulations. Your eyesight still works."

A short chuckle escapes Gojo, and without so much as asking or an invitation, he easily falls into step beside Sukuna’s massive frame, matching his long strides effortlessly. Hands buried deep in his pockets, he lets the stack of folders shift precariously under his elbow, loose sheets fluttering as they move.

They continue walking side by side, the hush of the afternoon stretching out around them. Gojo’s gaze drifts, lingering on Sukuna’s hands and the paper bag swinging from his grip. The corners of his mouth twitch, that grin spreading wider as he takes in the sight, amusement flickering in his eyes.

"I just didn't know you liked paperwork so much," Satoru teases, flicking a glance toward the entrance of the main building ahead.

"I don't," Sukuna answers dismissively, one of his black nails tapping slowly against his energy drink can.

"Could've fooled me," Satoru shoots back, clearly entertained by the sheer absurdity of the sight.

Ryomen Sukuna, a thousand-year-old sorcerer who painted the Heian era red, has somehow developed the habit of making regular trips to that one particular office. Today, he's even carrying dinner.

A rough snort shakes through the King of Curses, shoulders shaking with the sound. For Satoru, it’s just another excuse to poke at him, to see if he can wring a reaction out of a calamity and see whether the pattern means anything at all. Modern sorcerers always seem convinced there's meaning hidden behind every decision he makes, as if every step he takes must point toward some grand plan. Truth is, he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and the opinions of everyone around him have never even registered.

“You know, you spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about me,” Sukuna rumbles, his eyes lazily sliding sideways to catch Gojo’s profile.

"Can you blame me?" Satoru responds. He stops walking for half a second, his grin sharpening as he tilts his head slightly toward Ryomen, his posture leaning into the space between them with almost dramatic flair. "You're exactly my type."

Sukuna rolls his eyes, exasperation edged with a kind of weary familiarity. He handles Gojo with the same slow, heavy tolerance he reserves for every modern annoyance, utterly unmoved by the implications.

"That explains a lot, actually," he replies smoothly, his voice dropping to a dry, deadpan register.

"See? This is why we work," Satoru adds, popping his tongue against his teeth with a loud, clicking sound. He starts walking again, his chin lifted, clearly pleased with himself, as if Sukuna's total lack of an argument has just proven him right.

That earns Satoru another flat, unimpressed glare from those crimson eyes, but Sukuna doesn’t waste a single breath on a reply. Thankfully, Gojo lets it drop, turning his attention back to the path ahead while the campus hums quietly around them, the two of them still moving in step.

Their footsteps echo softly over the stone path, weaving between the buildings. Up ahead, a group of assistant managers and a pair of junior auxiliary staff cross the courtyard, arms full of clipboards and plastic crates full of equipment. They’re tangled in a low, muttered argument about vehicle allocations, at least until the sound of approaching footsteps cuts through.

The chatter dies instantly the moment the two men approach. No one says a word or even looks up; the staff just press themselves against the hedges, clearing the center path long before Sukuna and Satoru get close. Sukuna doesn’t spare them a glance as he passes through the gap, treating their panicked retreat like nothing more than a shift in the air—utterly beneath his notice. He doesn’t look at Gojo either as they reach the main building’s threshold.

Sukuna adjusts his grip on the bag, turning his back to the white-haired sorcerer and stepping into the main corridor toward your office, pace never faltering.

“Have fun with your paperwork!” Satoru chirps behind him.

Sukuna stops, looking over his shoulder. “I'd tell you to find a better use for those eyes of yours,” Sukuna rumbles, “but I doubt you'd listen.”

Gojo lets out a loud, genuine laugh that echoes off the empty corridor. “You know me so well.”

A scoff rumbles out of Sukuna, his hand tightening around the cold can before he flicks the tab as he nears your door. "I wish I didn’t, believe me."

—

If there’s one thing Yuji and Sukuna share aside from the pink hair, it’s their complete disregard for knocking on your office door. True to form, the doors slide open without warning, and Yuji steps inside with his backpack slung carelessly from one shoulder, hair still damp from a shower and sticking up in wild, uneven tufts.

He probably doesn’t realize you notice the careful way he shifts his weight as the door clicks shut, or how a faint bruise disappears beneath his collar, or the fresh scrape stretched across one knuckle when he lifts a hand in greeting. That usual bright, warm spark is still there, but today it’s dulled by exhaustion, dragging at his steps as he crosses the room.

The backpack thuds to the floor beside the chair he’s claimed as his own three times a week. With a drawn-out, dramatic groan, he collapses into the seat across from you, letting his forehead fall flat against the smooth stack of paperwork on your desk.

“I am dead,” he mumbles into the grain of the desk, his voice muffled by the sleeves of his hoodie. “My spine’s completely shot. Pretty sure it’s still lying somewhere in that warehouse by the docks.”

“I take it the fieldwork didn’t go well,” you say softly.

Blinking through the spiky fringe of his hair, Yuji lifts his head. That wide, earnest grin you’ve come to expect cracks through the fatigue, startling even him for a second before relief settles in, his shoulders sinking even lower as he leans back into the chair.

Letting out a short, rough bark of laughter, he reaches out automatically toward the bottom shelf of your side cabinet, yanking a stack of blank scrap paper to himself. He knows exactly where you keep it, moving with a comfortable familiarity that’s settled into his muscles over the last weeks of these quiet afternoons.

“He kept clicking his tongue, like, a million times, called us all pathetic, and then literally just chucked me into a concrete wall. And it’s not even like I did anything! I just told him, hey, maybe don’t launch my friends into a freaking curse nest without warning. Seriously, what’s his problem?”

You watch him for another moment, waiting to see if he’ll say more, but the answer’s already written across his face. If Yuji wanted to talk about the mission, he’d be spilling every detail by now. Subtlety has never been his strong suit, but he’s always known how to decide where to stash whatever’s bothering him, and today, he pours it all into the empty space on the worksheet in front of him.

You let him have that choice, reaching for your own stack of papers instead. “Tea?”

“Yeah, please,” Yuji mutters. “My throat feels like I ate half the drywall from that stupid warehouse.”

Reaching past you, his hand drifts toward the small shelf behind your chair where the spare mugs wait in a neat row. He picks out the heavy, oversized ceramic one with the faded blue glaze he always chooses and sets it on the edge of the desk. His thumb moves in slow, absent circles over the rough surface while his gaze drops to the paper.

For Yuji, your office is a sanctuary in the simplest, most literal way: his uncle isn’t here. No looming shadow, no threat of a sudden blow hanging in the air—just quiet, the soft rustle of textbook pages, and the gentle hush that settles over everything. For you, though, the relief is a different animal, filtered through your technique. The air here doesn’t carry that suffocating weight Sukuna drags with him everywhere, none of that oily, ancient pressure that crawls under your skin and makes your teeth ache before he’s even near the door. Here, between the neat stacks of folders and the low, steady hum of the kettle as it starts to simmer, everything feels almost shockingly normal.

Leaning in to tug his battered math textbook from beneath his arm, your palm brushes his skin for just a second. Even so, your senses catch the faintest trace of his residue. It’s nothing like Sukuna’s—nowhere close, really—not that you’d expect anything else given the difference in their power.

Still, that brief contact is all your technique needs to map out the tiny fractures left behind by his mission, each one traced beneath your fingertips. Where Sukuna’s jagged residue grinds in endless, shifting layers, Yuji’s feels almost harmless—small, blunt, and so fleeting it’ll smooth itself out after a single night’s sleep. Even so, it’s proof enough he came straight from the bathhouse to your office, not even letting his muscles a chance to stop aching before showing up.

“All right,” you say, drawing your hand back and pressing the open textbook flat between you both, the pages crinkling softly under your palm. “We left off on polynomials.”

“Man,” he groans, dragging his fingers down his face until his lower eyelids tug down. He catches your eye, his mouth twisting into a weary, lopsided smile that’s completely free of any embarrassment. “Honestly, algebra is so much worse than fighting. With curses, you just hit them until they stop moving. But with this? If you mess up even one tiny negative sign, the whole page just turns into garbage. How is that fair?”

“Your intuition for the answers is sharp, Yuji,” you remind him, tapping the tip of your pencil against the desk to pull his attention back to the worksheet. “But your mind always leaps for the finish line before you’ve even set up the track.”

Fingers raking through the hair at the nape of his neck, he lets his face settle into that same genuine, sheepish look you remember from your first meeting—open, a little uncertain, but honest all the way through.

Sliding the textbook closer until it nudges his knuckles, you flip to a fresh page of untouched quadratic equations. “We’re not rushing. Take a look at the first one. What do we know about it before we even start changing the signs?"

Yuji blinks at the numbers, his thumb absently clicking the eraser of his pencil against his knuckle. “Uh. It’s got a squared variable? So... it's a curve?"

"Right. It's a parabola," you nod, leaning in just a little closer, the edge of your sleeve brushing the desk. “And if it's a parabola, what's the first step to finding the vertex?"

Yuji’s brow furrows, and he glances sideways, as if the answer might be hiding somewhere off the page. “We... move the constant?” He blurts it out before you’ve even finished the question, his mind racing ahead, hunting for shortcuts. His hand darts to scribble a number in the margin.

You lay your hand gently over the top of his page, halting the pencil before it can do any damage. “Why did you choose that step? Don't jump. Look at the brackets. What's inside them?”

He stops, staring at the line. His jaw clenches, and he pulls his lower lip between his teeth, struggling to suppress the old, impulsive reflex to act first, think later.

“Yuji,” you say, voice soft but insistent, before he writes anything.

His pencil hovers a millimeter above the paper. “I didn’t do anything yet.”

“I know.”

A sigh slips out, heavy with resignation. “Then how am I already in trouble?”

“You aren’t in trouble. I’m reminding you to write the steps down.”

His gaze drops to the worksheet, lingering for a moment before flicking back up, his brows drawn together in that careful, almost pleading way, like he’s measuring out a rule that’s tripped him up more times than he’d ever want to admit. “What if I know the answer?”

“Then writing the steps should be easy,” you reply, fingers curling around your mug. “The real issue isn't finding the answer. It’s that sometimes you know it, but not how you got there, and then the next question changes one detail and suddenly your method fails.”

The eraser end of his pencil digs into the worksheet, his expression so earnest it almost distracts from the way his mouth twitches, caught between protest and stubborn hope. “But sometimes my method works.”

“Sometimes guessing works too.”

“It’s not guessing,” he says, offended enough to sit up a little straighter. “You said so yourself. It’s more like… my brain gets there before I can explain it.”

“And that’s exactly what we are trying to fix.”

For a moment, Yuji just sits there, weighing your words, then collapses over the worksheet with a sigh so theatrical it could’ve won him a medal if you hadn’t already seen him walk away from things far nastier than polynomials. He writes the first line neatly, pauses, frowns, and then hesitates, frowns, and skips straight to a version of the expression that seems to have materialized out of thin air.

Whatever happened in the invisible space between those two lines, you're left to imagine. Letting him finish, you reach across the desk and tap the pencil gently against the offending step.

His eyes dart to where your pencil lands, and even before you say a word, realization crashes over him, shoulders sinking in quiet defeat.

“I skipped something,” he mutters. When you confirm, he glares at the page, as if sheer force of will or maybe embarrassment could make the missing work appear right in front of him. “I moved the number over.”

A faint smile tugs at your mouth. “You did.”

He rolls his eyes, making a show of it, but his hand still hovers uncertainly over the next step. “And then I divided.”

“Right.”

He ticks the steps off on his fingers, brow furrowed in concentration, as if the gestures themselves might coax the logic into place.

You lean in a little, keeping your tone gentle but pointed. “What happened to the sign?”

Yuji freezes, mid-gesture, fingers still half-raised, and his eyes dart from the equation to the answer and back again. For a heartbeat, you see a flicker of understanding, but then uncertainty wins out. He chews at the inside of his cheek, glancing at you, searching for a lifeline, before poking at the page with the pencil. “The sign came with it.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose, fighting the urge to give the answer away. “Did it?”

His expression shifts, a sheepish smile flashing before he tries to cover it with bravado. “...Maybe?”

You arch an eyebrow. “Yuji.”

A quiet laugh slips out of him, small but real, and the tension he carried into the room finally starts to unravel, if only a little. Turning the worksheet just enough to write beside his work without taking the page from him, you mark the missing operation in the margin, drawing a neat arrow back to the original equation. Correcting the answer immediately would be quicker, but with Yuji, speed is the enemy, so you set the pencil down and slide the worksheet back into his space.

“Start again from this line,” you say, pointing with the pencil for emphasis. “Slowly. Say each operation before you write it.”

Yuji draws back as if you'd asked him to perform on stage, giving the paper a wounded look.

“Out loud?” His voice is incredulous, but there’s the faintest trace of a smile tugging at his mouth, like he can’t decide if this is torture or a joke.

Yes.” You meet his gaze, your tone both reassuring and unwavering.

He hesitates, shifting in his seat, then leans forward again with exaggerated reluctance. “What if I sound stupid?”

You suppress a chuckle, shaking your head. “You won’t.”

He squints, playing up the drama. “But what if I do?”

“Then I’m the only one here to hear it,” you say, offering him a smile.

That answer seems to reassure him more than you’d expect. Leaning in, he props one elbow on the desk, the other hand gripping the pencil so tightly his knuckles pale. He starts again from the marked line, voice dropping to a near whisper—not out of embarrassment, but because saying each step aloud forces him to slow down and see each piece before moving it. He subtracts from both sides, hesitates when the sign changes, and for a second, you catch the flicker of old habits. This time, though, he catches himself, grimaces, and scribbles in the missing step before you can even lift your hand.

“Good,” you say.

Yuji’s head snaps up, eyes brightening with the speed betraying just how much he craves praise, even if he tries to play it off a second later.

“Really?”

“Yes. Keep going.”

You let him work through the rest without stepping in, and when he finishes, he nudges the worksheet your way with more caution than pride, as if the latter’s still a luxury he can’t quite afford. You scan the final answer, then trace your way back through each step, and for once, every operation is accounted for.

“Well?” he ventures, voice straining not to sound too hopeful.

You take the pencil and circle the final answer, then tap the first line where he restarted.

“That’s much better.”

Relief hits him instantly, impossible to hide. He sinks back in the chair, shoulders sagging as a long breath escapes. “Oh, thank god.”

He grabs one of the snacks from the plate you always set out before tutoring, eating it in two bites while his eyes fix on the next problem. Shuffling a few papers aside to clear more space for him, you stack your own reports in the corner and pull a fresh sheet from the pile.

He studies the equation for a few long seconds, eyes narrowing in concentration. The first line appears with deliberate care, but then his pencil picks up speed, the second line materializing almost out of nowhere, and by the third, he’s landed on an answer that looks neat, confident, and just a little too perfect to trust.

Your eyes flick to the page, then to Yuji, and for a moment, neither of you says a word. Before you can get a single syllable out, he slides the worksheet back toward himself, his gaze glued to his calculations. “I did it again.”

“You did.”

“I felt so sure.” A hand drags over his face, and he lets out a laugh that carries more frustration than amusement. “Why does it keep working in my head?”

Yuji’s brows knit so tightly that his eyes nearly disappear beneath his bangs, the eraser working so violently across the page that the paper crinkles and threatens to tear under the friction.

“...Wait.” His eyes go wide as he retraces his own steps back to line two and checks the signs, fingers flipping the page to the textbook example you worked through last week. He blinks once, twice, and then his spine snaps upright, posture suddenly rigid in the chair.

“Oh. Oh, wow. If I group them like that…” he mutters, trailing off as he quickly scribbles three short, consecutive lines down the center of the sheet. "...I think I get it," Yuji breathes out, his voice dropping into a quiet, sudden realization. Filling in the missing steps, he circles the parabola’s final coordinate pair before glancing up at you.

A broad, infectious grin spreads across his face, eyes narrowing into joyful slits and erasing every trace of exhaustion. He slides the paper across the desk toward you, tapping the circled answer with a triumphant little bounce. The pride on his face is unmistakable this time, and it isn’t just because he nailed the answer, but because he followed every step, refusing to skip a single one, proving to himself that his thinking process actually works.

"Look," he beams, his voice booming just a little in the small room as he shifts restlessly from foot to foot in his chair. "I figured it out!”

A massive spike of pressure slams into you, unmistakable and suffocating, the exact second Sukuna sets foot into the building. It lands in your body like an anchor dropped straight through the school’s foundation, dragging everything down with it. Even the air seeping under your office door turns thick and oily, clinging to your skin and setting your nerves jangling, just like always.

Your lungs cinch up, breath coming shorter and tighter before you even realize it, your body already bracing for the automatic survival routine it’s learned to run whenever he’s near. The freeze hits hard and fast, a raw, unfiltered jolt of memory snapping you straight back to the last time he had you pinned against the shelves, hands trembling for hours after he finally let you go.

A glance at the boy across from you, still blissfully oblivious, forces you to swallow the dry lump crawling up your throat. For Yuji, nothing in the air has changed, but you can feel that old, heavy pressure seeping into every corner of the building.

The wooden door slides open without so much as a knock, and Sukuna steps through the threshold, sleeves shoved up to his forearms, his gaze snapping to you. It’s an immediate, unthinking reflex, the first thing he does whenever he enters this room. Those crimson eyes lock onto yours, heavy and entirely unbothered, stripping away whatever professional composure you were trying to project.

Before your eyes can even adjust to the version of him standing in the doorway, the memory of his true form crashes back into your mind. It isn’t some distant blur, either—it’s sharp and insistent, overlaying itself on top of what you’re actually seeing. The contrast between that monstrous body and the human shape he’s wearing now is so stark it almost makes your stomach twist, a quiet, instinctive unease curling in your gut before you can even process it.

By the time your thoughts manage to catch up and remind you he isn’t standing there like that anymore, your body’s already moved on its own, every muscle tense and ready.

Without thinking, your hand nudges the mug farther across the desk, just enough to keep it out of the way if he decides to lean over your paperwork again. The habit is so ingrained it barely even registers as a choice anymore. By the time you notice, your attention’s already snapped back to him, pretending the adjustment never happened at all.

The human is the restrained one. That single sentence loops in your mind, echoing alongside everything Shoko described so matter-of-factly. Now that you’ve seen it for yourself, pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t even an option.

He catches the way your posture stiffens, fingers pinning your paperwork to the desk, your body shifting to the left to leave a wide, clear path between the doorway and the seating area. His gaze lingers, drinking in every bit of discomfort he’s managed to stir up before he’s even decided whether to be a menace today. The satisfaction is obvious, his mouth curling into the start of a smirk.

His eyes flick to the right, and the smirk dies on the spot. All that heavy, lazy amusement drains away, replaced by a cold, flat line of pure annoyance as his gaze lands squarely on Yuji. He stops dead in the center of the room, paper bag crinkling in his grip, chest rising and falling with an irritated breath as he takes in the sight of the boy slouched in the chair by your desk, cheap grey hoodie, messy pile of scrap paper, and yellow pencil clenched in his hand.

He hadn’t bothered to track the boy’s cursed energy on campus after the drive back from the city, assuming that the nuisance had scurried off to the dorms to lick his wounds. Finding the same brat who’d spent fifteen minutes whining about morality in a dusty warehouse now occupying his preferred lounge, where he'd intended to spend the rest of his afternoon, is enough to sour his mood completely.

“Why are you here?” Sukuna rasps. The question isn’t loud, but it drips with resentment, not a shred of patience left in it, only a flat demand for the universe to justify this inconvenience and explain why the nuisance is still in front of him.

Yuji’s grin falters, the triumphant spark in his eyes shattering in an instant. His back goes rigid as he turns, slow and reluctant, to face his uncle. Whatever comfort had settled into his shoulders over the last hour vanishes, replaced by a tension that pulls his spine taut, fingers clamping around his pencil until his knuckles go white beneath the fresh scrapes. He swallows, jaw locking tight with a stubborn mix of defiance and defensiveness.

“...I’m studying,” Yuji’s voice drops, just a notch lower than before, but he meets Sukuna’s stare head-on, his eyes hard and unyielding.

A sharp, irritated click of Sukuna’s tongue cuts through the room, slicing the air with pure dismissal. His eyes narrow, brow drawing together in contempt as his gaze drags from the open textbook to the scrap paper scattered with your neat, pencil-drawn arrows and margin notes. The very idea of that parasite attempting anything close to cognitive development isn’t just laughable to him—it’s a complete waste of time.

“Why?”

That single syllable drips with so much condescension that Yuji’s jaw tightens, but it leaves both of them unsatisfied. Yuji holds his gaze for a beat, almost as if he’s waiting for the real question, while Sukuna clearly couldn’t care less about whatever explanation the boy might try to muster.

Before either of them can get another word in, your eyes catch on the bag in the sorcerer’s hands. Instinct kicks in, and you reach for the stack of folders perched on the shelf beside your desk, sliding them into the drawer without a second thought. He always puts his food on that same spot, and the last thing you need is grease soaking into your paperwork from whatever takeout he’s dragged into your office this time.

Just as you expected, Sukuna walks past the desk without a word, drops the takeout bag right where you knew he would, and fishes out a plastic container. He sinks onto the half-collapsed couch, sprawling his long legs across the floorboards and taking up an absurd amount of space between your desk and the filing cabinets.

He sets his energy drink on the floor by his boot, then pulls a charred skewer from the container, eating his dinner like he’s the only one here, completely unbothered that you were in the middle of a tutoring session. Still, his crimson eyes stay locked on the back of Yuji’s head, radiating a silent glare that makes the air feel twice as heavy as it did five minutes ago. Only after half the skewer is gone does he finally drop his gaze to the container, attention shifting fully to his food.

Your eyes snag on him, and uninvited memories muscle their way to the surface all over again. The man sprawled across half your office hasn’t changed; that towering body draped over the cushions is just as dangerous as it was yesterday, but your mind refuses to separate the two forms of him at all.

Without really thinking about it, you straighten the pile of worksheets by your elbow and nudge your chair a little closer to the desk, putting just a bit more space between yourself and the path to the couch. Only then do you turn your attention back to Yuji.

Yuji’s gaze darts back to the worksheet, but any hope of focusing is already in shreds with Sukuna looming just two steps away. He scrawls out a variable, hesitates, then drags his pencil across the page to scratch it out, frustration simmering just beneath the surface.

You clear your throat, but the sound barely registers, coming out smaller and weaker than you mean, swallowed up by the heaviness in the room.

“Let’s try a different example, Yuji,” you offer, keeping your tone as gentle as possible while you flip to a more complicated parabola problem near the end of the chapter. Reading the polynomial aloud, you write it at the top of the page, letting the equation do the work of pulling his mind off the couch and back to the numbers.

Yuji stares at the numbers you just wrote, confusion shadowing his face as his mind tries to outrun the process again. “If the leading coefficient is negative... then the curve goes downward, right? So the vertex has to be... it has to be somewhere near the axis, but I don't know how to move the numbers inside the brackets without changing the sign again.”

He stops, throat bobbing as the thread of his thoughts slips away completely. His fingers fidget restlessly on the pencil until a short, dry rasp slices through the silence.

Sukuna doesn’t bother lifting his eyes from his food, his large hand idly turning a wooden skewer between his fingers. Just yesterday, he’d skimmed the notes he found on your desk, and that was all it took for his mind to map out the entire thing behind his eyelids in less than a heartbeat, just from hearing you read it aloud.

“Two and negative sixteen,” he says flatly with certainty that doesn’t even require him to check the page.

Yuji’s pencil freezes mid-stroke, his head whipping around so fast you half expect the eraser to go flying. He glares across the room at the sagging couch, cheeks burning with shock and frustration, mouth hanging open as he stares at his uncle’s profile like he’s just been slapped.

“How did you...” Yuji trails off, his teeth gritted.

Another slow sip from his can, and Sukuna’s crimson eyes finally slide up, meeting his nephew’s glare with a lazy, mean sort of delight.

"I don't get," Sukuna says slowly, "why people need all this just to explain something that obvious. You'd think natural selection would've handled this already. No wonder you’re all so fucking weak."

“It isn’t obvious,” Yuji mutters, clenching his fists on his thighs as the memory of his uncle mocking him from the warehouse catwalk hits him again.

Sukuna’s grin stretches slightly, his gaze holding the boy’s eyes with a chilling, total lack of sympathy.

“To you,” the King of Curses rasps.

It’s impossible not to stare at him, especially when you know, without a doubt, that his answer’s correct. The realization knots itself tight and uncomfortable in your stomach because he hasn’t even bothered to lean up from the couch, hasn’t so much as glanced at the worksheet, but somehow he’s already mapped out the entire problem in his head before Yuji even finished scribbling the first line. It’s unsettling to realize that someone who usually spends his time leveling city blocks and treating human life as an afterthought has a mind that works at a speed just as terrifying as his strength.

Slowly, he brings the wooden skewer back to his mouth, dragging another piece of meat from the stick with his teeth. The sweet, sticky tare sauce catches the light of your desk lamp, glinting on his lower lip, the scent so thick and heavy it drowns out the faint, grassy smell of the green tea cooling between your hands. He chews with deliberate laziness, utterly unmoved by the silent, burning fury radiating off the boy.

“Two and negative sixteen,” Yuji repeats with resentment, rolling his eyes before dropping his gaze back down to the worksheet, tracking the polynomial string you had written out for him. His fingers twitch against the pencil. “You didn't even look at the paper. You're just making things up to mess with me.”

A short, raspy chuckle rumbles out of Sukuna’s chest, the sound low and dry, vibrating through the sagging couch cushions beneath him. He tips his head back against the wall and lets his crimson eyes drag lazily down over his cheekbones, landing on Yuji with pure contempt.

“Mess with you?” Sukuna drawls the words, not hiding how little he cares about the kid’s outrage. The empty wooden skewer clatters into the takeout bag as his hand reaches down, fingers curling around the cold can of energy drink. “Don't flatter yourself. If I wanted to mess with you, you'd be bleeding through the floorboards right now. The numbers are right there. A curve only drops in one specific place, idiot. It doesn't take a genius to see where it bends.”

He takes a slow sip, the tiny click of his tongue against his teeth suddenly sounding impossibly loud in the thick silence.

"Look at you," Sukuna goes on, not even glancing at the boy. "You've been sitting there for five minutes, sweating over a piece of paper like it's about to attack you. It's pathetic." He clicks his tongue. "People spend years getting taught to recognize patterns they should've noticed immediately. Then everyone's shocked when they still can't think. And somehow this idiot is still behind.”

Your gaze drops away from the sofa, landing on the messy sprawl of notes across Yuji’s paper. Every instinct screams at you to stay perfectly still, to blend into the background and hope he forgets you’re even here, while your heart hammers out a frantic, shallow rhythm against your ribs just from the sheer weight of him sitting three meters away. You know your place here: support sorcerer, not referee, and you’re definitely not about to wedge yourself between him and his nephew over some high school worksheet. One wrong word, too much eye contact, and you’ll just hand him another excuse to make things worse. So you keep your posture small, slide your folders closer to your chest, and do your best to disappear.

Eventually, Sukuna’s gaze flicks toward the worksheet still clutched in your hand, his lip curling with open, unfiltered disdain.

“The point should be separating the competent from the useless."

“People aren't useless just because they need to be taught, Sukuna!” Yuji blurts in frustration, his chair scraping loudly against the floor as he pushes off the desk, his pencil nearly snapping in his grip.

His sudden outburst sends a sharp jolt straight to your temples, freezing your fingers against the textbook. He knows exactly what his uncle is capable of, but stubbornness keeps him from backing down, leaving you desperate to reach over and tap his shoulder—anything to get him to drop it and sit back down before things spiral. The weight of Sukuna’s presence shifts in the corner, and you already know that if this turns into a real fight, Yuji’s the one who’ll end up paying for it.

Sukuna doesn’t so much as blink. He tips the can back, draining the last of it with a slow swallow, his throat working lazily, like Yuji’s anger barely registers as background noise.

“Aren’t they? Then why are you still proving my point?"

Letting the files slip from your grip, you force your breath into something steady, desperate not to let Yuji see just how rattled you are by Sukuna’s presence. When you finally manage to speak, your voice comes out flat and quiet, stripped of any of Yuji’s frantic energy. All you want is to shut this down before someone snaps—before Sukuna decides to make an example out of Yuji. Eyes glued to the open textbook, you try to focus on the work, even as your heart hammers so hard it feels like it might crack your ribs.

“It isn't about deciding who's worth teaching,” you say calmly.

Sukuna’s gaze slides back to you, crimson eyes tracing the tense line of your jaw. There’s a flicker of curiosity at the edge of his mouth, amused by your attempt to keep things under control right in front of him.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Sukuna answers smoothly, his deep voice carrying a hint of amusement at you finally gathering the courage to speak up. He sets the empty can down on the floorboards, then leans back. “And you’re trying to fix something that’s already garbage. Look at him.”

He flicks his hand toward Yuji in a careless, dismissive wave, but his eyes stay locked on you.

“He’s sitting here, taking up air, and he still can't trace a basic line without you holding his hand through the process. You’re wasting your time on a brat who’s completely stuck on something an insect could figure out, woman. If he’s too stupid to remember a negative sign, he’s nothing but a total waste of space. I don't know why you even bother with him.”

“Not everybody just knows everything the second they look at it!” Yuji snarls, standing his ground against his uncle’s absolute disregard for him.

“Clearly.”

“He isn’t stupid, Sukuna. He just skips steps,” you add calmly.

Rolling his eyes, he lets out a lazy scoff, "Same difference," before turning his attention back to his food, taking the second container out of the bag.

"Pick up your pencil, Yuji. Next problem." You focus on him completely, tapping your finger against a new polynomial on his worksheet, deliberately not reading it aloud.

For a long, heavy minute, Yuji stays silent, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he forces himself back into the chair. The anger is still hot in his face, but it’s mostly just a habit at this point. After months of enduring every possible variation of 'useless' Sukuna could invent, today's insults barely even register, as none of it surprises him anymore. Watching Sukuna solve the problem instantly just feels inevitable after everything Yuji has seen during training and missions.

But beneath that anger, his face begins to change, with his brow furrowing as confusion takes over and settles in his expression. He doesn't say a word to either of you, just lets his gaze drift sideways, tracking the narrow gap between your desk and the crooked couch.

Months have gone by with Yuji trying to figure out how to exist around his uncle. His baseline for Sukuna is painfully simple: a walking disaster who couldn’t care less about rules, boundaries, or people—Yuji has watched him level a building just because the noise annoyed him. Most days, Yuji ends up on the receiving end of that temper, but just as often, he can’t seem to stop himself from pushing back, unable to turn away even when he knows he should.

Watching the two of you now, though, something feels off. Since Sukuna walked in, Yuji has caught you shifting your folders out of the way every time he passes, always leaving him just enough room. Sukuna, for his part, just takes the space you give him, never pushing for more. It’s strange, almost unsettling even, how mindful you both are of each other’s boundaries.

Glancing back at his uncle, Yuji finds him ignoring both of you, picking up another skewer and settling deeper into the battered couch, perfectly content to do his own thing. Sukuna’s energy is probably acting up, so he only came here because he needs you to weave, or whatever it is you actually do, but what really scrambles Yuji’s brain is that the man is actually waiting. No demands, no tantrums, just killing time with takeout while you finish the math lesson.

Sure, Sukuna’s still being a dick to Yuji, treating him like some annoying bug buzzing in his ear, but he isn’t tearing the room apart. He answered you without that bite he always saves for Yuji, hasn’t barked at you to shut up or threatened you, and he’s keeping himself neatly within the boundaries of that lopsided sofa. If anything, he almost looks comfortable with you here.

And just a minute ago, he even tolerated you correcting him about Yuji. It was barely two sentences, but he didn’t so much as twitch in annoyance. Yuji knows if he’d tried that, Sukuna would have cracked his skull against the floorboards without a second thought.

Looking back down at the problem you pointed to, Yuji swallows hard, drawing his own conclusions. His eyes stay glued to the page, but his mind keeps circling the same thought: Sukuna absolutely hates his guts. He can sit here and act like a halfway normal person around you, just because you’re the specialist he needs, but the second Yuji so much as opens his mouth, Sukuna’s ready to throw him through a wall.

Your pencil taps the page again, and this time Yuji gets the hint right away, dragging the crumpled worksheet back into his space. The office stays incredibly quiet, the only sound the scrape of his eraser as he rubs out a miscalculated step, grey rubber shavings piling up near his thumb.

When Yuji hesitates over a tricky distribution step, you keep silent, just pointing your pencil at the sign he missed inside the parentheses. He glares at the page, jaw set in a stubborn line, forcing his mind to slow down and untangle the formula piece by piece. Subtracting from both sides, he writes a clean variable, working through each step before sliding the finished sheet your way. You scan the rows of calculations, double-checking every sign and distribution line before finally letting out a slow, quiet breath.

“You did a good job today, Yuji,” you say softly, giving him a small, genuine smile.

The praise instantly erases every trace of exhaustion from his face, and a wide, infectious grin splits his features, eyes crinkling into bright, happy slits as he straightens up in his chair. When you close his textbook, letting him know the lesson is over, he drops his pencil into his backpack, yanks it over his shoulder, and his sneakers squeak against the floorboards as he stands, pointedly ignoring the man sprawled on the couch.

With a quick wave, he backs toward the doorway, his voice ringing out just a little too loud. “Thanks! I’ll see you on Thursday!” The wooden door slides open, and he slips out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him and leaving you alone completely with Sukuna.

For a few quiet seconds, neither of you says anything. You gather the last of the loose worksheets into a single stack, slipping them back into the folder they came from. Across the room, Sukuna finishes chewing the last bit of meat from his skewer, then lets the empty stick clatter into the plastic container with a careless flick.

"You know... he really does work hard," you murmur, nudging the folder into the far corner of your desk.

Sukuna snorts loudly, not even bothering to look up. "So do ants."

"That's hardly fair,” you say with a frown.

"No," he agrees without hesitation. "It's generous."

Pushing up from the couch, Sukuna moves like he’s about to leave, and for a second, you almost let yourself hope. Instead, his hand lands on the takeout bag perched beside you on the shelf, dragging it over to the desk. You barely glance at it, catching sight of two unopened plastic containers stacked beneath a mess of crumpled napkins. You wonder, not for the first time, if he’s overestimated his appetite again.

One of the containers lands squarely on your paperwork, the plastic lid snapping open under his fingers. He tips it over, and a severed, half-dried tongue slumps out, dropping to your once-neat stacks of reports.

Far larger than any human tongue, its deep violet flesh has dulled after hours in the open air, the cut end darkened and dry. Even so, it hasn’t stiffened, still holding its shape with a sickly, yielding softness. One side is rough, covered in tiny, hooked barbs—row after row of miniature teeth, each one catching the light in a way that makes your skin crawl.

Nausea slams into you sharply, forcing you to swallow hard just to keep it down. Both hands clamp around the edges of your chair, jaw clenched tight as you stare at the thing sprawled in front of you, with every muscle in your face fighting to stay neutral, because you know exactly what he’s waiting for.

A heavy hand settles on the back of your chair, and Sukuna leans in until his chest nearly brushes your shoulder, so close you can feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes stay fixed on your face, vicious amusement flickering in every line of his expression as he waits for you to snap.

“There,” he purrs, eyes drinking in the falter on your face, and you immediately know you failed. "I knew you'd appreciate this one."

“…Sukuna,” you mutter, barely above a whisper, uncertain whether you’re pleading for explanation or mercy.

His head tilts slightly, eyes never leaving your face. “Hmm?”

“Why do you do this?”

“You seemed to like the eye,” he answers, lips pulling into a mean smirk as he leans in a fraction closer, watching for another reaction.

Without a hint of hesitation, he reaches out and pinches the tongue between two fingers, lifting it up for you to see. The tip droops right away, gravity dragging it down so the muscle bends under its own weight, almost obscene in its elasticity.

“Feel this,” he rumbles, holding it in front of your face.

Breath catching in your throat, you spend a mortifying second actually considering whether refusing is even possible, only to decide it absolutely has to be. The real challenge is figuring out how to do it without sounding like you’re outright refusing him. Eyes stay locked on the tongue dangling between his fingers, while every instinct you have urges you to lean farther back in your chair than dignity would ever allow. Not that it would help, with him standing right behind you, close enough that escape isn’t even an option.

"...I..." You clear your throat, buying yourself a few more seconds, shifting in your seat, and glancing sideways, desperate for anything to focus on except the thing dangling before you. "I don't think that's necessary."

"Why not?"

The question comes without challenge or irritation. If anything, it carries the same curiosity he always shows whenever you try to tell him no. His brow rises, genuinely interested in whatever reasoning you might offer, almost inviting you to amuse him.

"I..." Your gaze flickers to his face on the side before dropping right back to the tongue. "I believe you, Sukuna.”

"You believe me,” he parrots, the smirk spreading wider, savoring your discomfort.

“Y—yes." Your voice is barely audible, and you can feel the flush crawling up your neck.

Rotating it between his fingers, he studies the hooked barbs along its surface with obvious interest, then angles it toward you again.

"But you don't know. The texture’s unusual,” he murmurs, leaning closer, his breath hot against the side of your neck, his mouth pulling into a wide, satisfied grin as he watches the color drain completely from your face. “It’s still soft. Go on. Touch it.”

With your stomach twisting, you notice the room feels unbearably hot, the air thick and heavy between the desk and the man looming over your shoulder.

"I'm sure it is." You force out the words, struggling to keep your voice steady, eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall rather than the object in front of you.

"You should confirm it." His tone is almost playful, but his gaze sharpens, watching you intently for the faintest sign of defiance.

Your fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the edges of your chair. "...I'd really rather not."

Silence stretches between you while those crimson eyes track every tiny reaction you can’t quite hide—the tension wound tight in your shoulders, how you’ve frozen yourself from leaning any farther away, the careful rhythm of your breathing, and the stubborn refusal of your gaze to linger on the thing in his hand for more than a heartbeat at a time.

"You find it revolting." His voice is low and certain, and the way he says it makes it clear it's not a question. One brow arches expectantly, daring you to deny it.

You hesitate for just long enough that answering becomes pointless, throat tightening as you struggle to form the word. Heat prickles at your cheeks, but you still force yourself to answer. "...Yes."

For a moment, Sukuna just looks at you, clearly satisfied with everything your face has already given away. Then he lets out a quiet, disbelieving scoff, shaking his head in exaggerated, mock disappointment.

“I bring you a gift…” he trails off, the corner of his mouth curling upward with wicked amusement. “You wound me, princess.”

Only then does he lower his hand, dropping the tongue back into the plastic container with a soft, heavy slap, then snapping the lid shut again as casually as packing away leftovers.

Sukuna straightens with a quiet grunt, reaching for the hem of his hoodie and tugging it over his head. For one ridiculous moment, your pulse jumps, the memory of four arms flickering through your mind, before you realize he’s just shrugging out of another layer, still in an oversized shirt. The heavy garment lands on the back of the couch without a second glance.

Grabbing the takeout bag with the last of the containers, he heads for the door, leaving the wooden slider hanging wide open behind him. Alone at the desk, you sit with your chest heaving, staring at the container with the purple tongue inside, sprawled across your ruined homework sheets.

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