#lev.fic

“You know,” Shoko says, after they’ve sat together in silence for a good many minutes, “I was a little bit surprised when you didn’t go with him, at the very start.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know you were really angry, but I was so certain that if he asked you’d abandon everything too.”

(That he’d leave her behind too.)

“I feel like I should be hurt that you think so poorly of me.”

“I’m being serious. And it’s not anything like that, I just know how much he meant to you. You’d do pretty much anything if he said— you’d pretend to pitch a fit over it, but you’d do it, as long as he asked.”

“He didn’t.”

“Hmm?”

“He didn’t ask.” Satoru leans further forward, linking his hands in front of himself, “He went on about his plans, and how— how if I killed him it would have meaning, but he didn’t ask.”

Shoko rolls that over in her head, “Oh.”

“It’s not like I wanted to be invited to join his vendetta against, like, all of humanity, so.”

Suguru braces his hands on the edge of the sink and leans closer to the mirror. Light from a single bare bulb illuminates him unevenly, casting shadows across the planes of his face. He lifts a hand to run his fingers along the line of stitches in his forehead, neat parallel lines an inch below his hairline. It looks like it should hurt, but it doesn’t.

He lowers his hand and closes his eyes, bowing forward over the sink. His thoughts are intangible like smoke, impossible to follow for more than a second. He breathes slow and steady. The hum of the bathroom fan is loud in the silence.

The sound of a single drip into the porcelain sink.

His eyes open to a tiny splatter of red on white.

He looks up.

In the mirror he sees the line of stitches ooze another drop of blood. This one trails lazily down his face rather than beading off and falling into the sink. He can feel the wetness on his cheek.

More spots of red form along his forehead, spill over. Tiny red rivers path their way down his face. There is a feeling of wetness in his hair, too, down the back of his head, down the back of his neck.

His reflection blinks. A smile that he knows isn’t present on his own face spreads across the mirror.

“I’ll admit, I didn’t see this coming.” His own voice says, his reflection’s mouth moving with the words. He sees his head tilt, his eyes scrunch with amusement. Blood drips off his chin. Trails slip down his throat to pool along his collarbone, staining his shirt.

Suguru remains stock-still, unmoving.

“A setback, certainly, but not entirely without additional gain.” His reflection continues, “A soul lingering in a body after death… fascinating.”

He’s rooted to the spot. He can’t look away.

“You’re something else entirely, aren’t you, Geto Suguru?” His reflection says, “I don’t know if you’re that much different from the curses you eat anymore… are you?”

And then hands are reaching out, reaching the place where the barrier of the mirror meets reality and passing through. His own hands cradle his face, smearing blood across his cheekbones.

"Isn't it a little ironic that a holy book would become a cursed object?" Yuuji asks, looking down at the thing. A worn black cover stares back at him, it's edges crumpled, the gold embossing of a word on the front barely visible anymore.

"Holy objects and places are a common locus for curses and cursed energy." Nanami says from across the room, "Did you find it?"

"I know that," Yuuji says, "It still seems weird. Kinda funny, also."

He stoops to pick it up.

"Wait! Don't—"

Yuuji presses his face further into his pillow. Leave it to Nanami to take blame for Yuuji's mistake. Yuuji should know better than to just grab a cursed object without considering the effects it might have!

"Yuuji?" The call of his name is followed by a knock and then the door slowly opening. When Yuuji turns his head just enough to crack an eye open and look over he's greeted by the sight of Gojo poking his head into the room, "You alright?"

"Not really." Yuuji grumbles, turning his face back into the pillow.

Gojo laughs.

The bed dips when Gojo sits down next to him, and a finger starts repeatedly poking the back of his head.

"Yuuuuuuji~"

Yuuji props himself up on one elbow, swatting half-heartedly at the offending finger with the other, "Stop that!"

Gojo is grinning at him when he finally sits up all the way, "So you got cursed?"

"Yes." Yuuji maintains his frown, though it's hard to be upset when Gojo seems so unconcerned. Nanami didn't seem too worried about the curse either, which means it must not be that dangerous.Yuuji feels more embarrassed than anything. It's such a dumb mistake.

"Poor Yuuji." Gojo laments, "You've had quite the streak of bad luck."

"Sorry for causing more problems for you, Sensei." Yuuji says. This is just more complications on top of trying to keep him hidden from the higher ups. Sukuna is enough trouble on his own.

"Oh, don't worry about it! This is way more interesting than most of the things I usually have to deal with." Gojo waves off his apology, "I'm just glad it isn't anything worse— all things said, this curse is pretty harmless; no serious side effects aside from not being able to lie."

"That's a pretty big side effect, Sensei."

"You'll be fine!" Gojo taps his hand against something in his lap, and Yuuji notices he's holding the book, "This thing doesn't have enough power in it to really hurt you— physically, anyway."

"Should you be touching that?" Yuuji asks. He'd hate for Gojo to get cursed as well.

"Huh? Oh, Infinity protects me from stuff like this, I'm not really touching it at all."

"That sounds handy." Yuuji says, "I could have used something like that."

"A pair of gloves would have been enough." Gojo lilts, teasing, "It's really not a very strong curse."

He doesn't need to rub it in, "So you can break it?"

Gojo shakes his head, "Oh no, I can't do anything about it!"

"What?"

"You need to meet the conditions of the curse, and then it'll break on it's own."

"Aren't the conditions just that I can't lie?"

"And that if you're asked a direct question, you have to answer it." Gojo says, "But no, those are effects, the condition is that you have to reveal your biggest secret."

"My biggest secret?"

"Good news! I already know what Yuuji's biggest secret is!" Gojo holds his finger up between them, "It's that you're alive!"

That makes sense, Yuuji figures, given he doesn't really have any other big secrets that he's keeping. He's a bit of an open book. It does pose a problem though, and that's—

"But Sensei, I can't reveal that secret yet."

"Nope!"

"So I can't break the curse?"

"Not yet!"

"That… sucks." So what, he's just stuck with a curse making him tell the truth all the time until it's safe to reveal that he's still alive?"

"It's definitely not ideal," Gojo agrees, "But it's not so bad. What, does Yuuji have some secrets he'd rather not say?"

"Yeah!" Yuuji says, instead of the maybe he'd intended. Gojo looks interested, so he hastily adds, "Everyone has things they don't want to talk about, of course I have secrets."

Gojo hums, "This from the boy who will announce that he likes tall girls with big asses to strangers… what kind of secrets are you keeping, Yuuji?"

"I stole an adult magazine from the bookstore last time we went shopping." Is the first thing that pops into his head, "I keep it under my mattress." He can feel his face go hot.

Gojo pauses, like he's surprised Yuuji is telling him this, like he didn't trigger the curse on purpose. Then he laughs, delighted.

"Don't laugh!" Yuuji complains, turning to shove his face into his pillow again, "This is so embarrassing."

"Oh, don't be like that, it's normal for a teenager to do things like that!" His attempt to reassure Yuuji is hampered by the fact that he's still trying to suppress laughter, "I'll stop asking questions, okay? You can keep your secrets."

"Okay." Yuuji mutters, keeping his burning face buried in his pillow.

He hadn't even grabbed the magazine for indecent purposes, he'd just seen it while he was browsing and been caught off-guard by how much the man on the cover looked like Fushiguro. The pretty women posed with him barely registered to Yuuji, merely scantily-clad framing for a facsimile of his friend. Maybe the isolation was getting to him, and he was missing his classmates more than he thought, but Yuuji had grabbed it without a second thought and stuffed it inside his jacket.

He hasn't taken it out since he'd hastily shoved it under the mattress when they'd gotten back. In hindsight the man doesn't look that much like Fushiguro— his hair is too short and his eyelashes arent long enough.

"Hm, I guess since I didn't tell you that the curse activated on contact, this is partly my fault too. Whoops!" Gojo says cheerfully, "It'll be fine though."

"You're right." Yuuji realises.

"Of course! And at the Goodwill event, when we revea—"

"This is your fault!" Yuuji says, abruptly sitting up again, "All the cursed stuff I've seen so far was fine to hold! Even Sukuna's fingers don't do anything until I've eaten them! How was I supposed to know I shouldn't touch it if you didn't say anything!"

He's not really mad, but it is annoying for Gojo to have missed that important bit of information. He keeps forgetting to share things with Yuuji, and then being surprised when he doesn't know.

Gojo affects shock, holding his hands up in a placating motion, "Hey, hey, so Sensei forgot! It's not that big of a deal!"

"Sensei I got cursed!"

"And when we show everyone that you're still alive at the Goodwill event, the curse will break, and everything will go back to normal. Only a couple people even know you're still alive, and I'll tell them not to ask you any personal questions, so it's fine, right?"

"Right." Yuuji reluctantly agrees.

"You're not really mad, are you?"

"No." Yuuji sighs, "It's just embarassing." He has the niggling thought that this is the sort of thing that Sukuna would usually mock him for; he's been oddly quiet so far.

"Yuuji, it's a mistake anyone could make if they didn't have the right information," Gojo says, taking a more serious tone, "You really don't need to stress about it so much. I should have told you and Nanami should have kept a better eye on you."

"I'm not a kid that needs to be babysat…" Yuuji complains, "It's not Nanami's fault… or yours, it was just a mistake, like you said, right?"