The Bling Monster

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Do you ever think about being one of the only remaining people in Yuta's life from before he joined Jujutsu Tech?

Imagine being a childhood friend, someone he had known for a few years.

Obviously you were never as close with him as Rika, but you had a good friendship with him regardless. You'd see each other in passing and greet one another, or play together as children do whenever Rika wasn't around for him to fixate on.

You're there for him when Rika passes. You felt slightly guilty, you'd admit, for not being as present as you could have been. But who would've judged you - after all, you were both children when it had happened, you weren't exactly well equipped to help someone overcome the loss of his closest friend.

Little did you know, he understood your intentions. He understood that you wanted to help him as much as you could, and he appreciated it. In fact, he appreciated it so much that you slowly started to invade his mind, becoming someone he thought of almost as much as Rika.

You're there for him when the bullying starts, his only friend in a crowd of people who seem to hate him. But by this time you would both be older, and time is a cruel being.

You slowly begin to drift apart. You're still friends, and you still treat him as kindly as humanly possible. You still defend him when some idiot bullies decide he deserves to be treated as less than.

But nothing can be done when you move away, gone to another school, another prefecture. You can only do so much to support him from that distance. No one would gave blamed you for slowly moving on.

Yuta definitely didn't. He held you close in his memory - his closest friend after Rika had died, someone who had cared for him in a time where no one saw his worth, no one thought he deserved to be treated kindly.

Years down the line, a nearly a year after he's joined Jujutsu Tech, he hears about a curse in Miyagi Prefecture. Nothing too worrisome, a lowly grade 2 curse, something Inumaki is sent to deal with.

Something about the area tugs at a memory in his head. That's when it hits him - you live in Miyagi Prefecture, at least that's the last place you lived before you lost contact with him.

He figures it can't hurt to tag along with Inumaki - worst case scenario is you aren't in the area and the trip will have been in vain.

Except when they arrive and dispatch of the curse, he spots you in a busy cafe, talking animatedly with a friend. And you look so happy, so different, yet exactly the same.

A part of him wants to approach you and talk to you, but he holds back, for reasons he doesn't know. Maybe he doesn't want to see exactly how different you've become. Or maybe it's because he wants to enjoy the idea of you he created in his mind, constructed from his memories of you.

Whatever the reason, he doesn't approach, but he sits and waits, watching from the shadows.

He watches as you finish your cake, crumbs sticking to the corner of your mouth. He watches as you bid your friend a goodbye, walking down the bustling pavement of the main street.

Then he follows you, walking far enough behind you that you won't notice him.

I'm just making sure she gets home safe. After all, anything could happen, it's not safe to be walking home alone, especially in the dark.

He convinces himself that it's okay, that he's only going to make sure you get home safely.

Only he doesn't leave once you reach your house. He waits until your light flickers on and he sees you enter your room, shrugging off your coat before shutting the curtains.

After waiting another ten minutes, he begins making his way back to the meeting point to head back to Jujutsu Tech with Inumaki.

This quickly becomes a regular practice.

Whenever he isn't swamped with missions and classes, he travels to Miyagi to see you, to watch you go about your daily routine.

I don't think he'd kidnap you unless something threatened your safety, like a curse, or a human being with malicious intentions.

He'd make following you a regular part of his routine. Maybe one day he'd scrape together the courage to talk to you, to see how much you've changed, to see if you still remember him at all.

But for the moment he's content in observing, in keeping together the perfect image of you that he's crafted in his mind as his closest friend, his perfect partner who cared more for him than anyone else.

You wouldn't notice him unless he wanted you to, and if he ever does decide to approach you, you'd better try your best to remember him.

You wouldn't want to find out what would happen if you weren't exactly as he imagined you to be, his perfect friend, his perfect partner.

Or worse, maybe you're exactly as he imagined. He might not be able to contain himself. Perhaps he'd steal you away - after all, only he should receive your kind words and soft smiles.