Chapter Text
Sharing a body with the most horrific demon curse that granted her like an insane amount of curse energy and strength and struck fear in the would-be hearts of other curses wouldn’t have been such a terrible thing if not for the fact that he didn’t freaking know how to share a body with a woman.
When Nobara had been given the choice between death and possible death, she didn’t think twice, but she was beginning to have some regrets.
After a long grueling fight, a tightly packed car ride with her two classmates, and trudging back to her room at the school, all she wanted was to take a steaming hot shower, change into cozy pajamas, eat some snacks, and then pass out in her bed. That was it. Nothing fancy, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a hot shower to wash away all the grime, dirt, sweat, and blood. She was gross and smelly, and she was not about that life. Granted, growing up in her small country town hadn’t been glamorous, but she’d never been this disgusting.
Seeing as how she’d only been sharing a body with Sukuna for a few weeks, she still sometimes forgot that he was there. When he was energetic or interested in something, she couldn’t get the bastard to shut up and stop using random parts of her skin to grow a mouth so he could talk. However, when he was quiet, he was dead silent, probably biding his time and plotting how to take over her body completely. Whatever. That was never gonna happen, even if she was kind of slow at times. Not her fault. She was still learning.
Still, he’d been quiet for a while, even tonight. Thankfully, she hadn’t needed him to make an appearance to help her, Itadori, and Fushiguro, so they were able to take care of a couple of nasty curses on their own. It felt good to know she was getting stronger with each fight. She had her own curse energy to fight with and her own special skills, so there were moments when it simply slipped her mind that she had a powerful but somewhat uncontrollable and very much dangerous trump card lying under her skin.
Until she slipped off her uniform jacket and tiredly began to unbutton her shirt in front of the bathroom mirror, at which point a pair of sharp eyes grew on her cheekbones underneath her actual eyes and a mouth grew on the back of her hand and charmingly said, “Oh, are you finally going to give me a show?”
Now, Nobara liked to think she was an intelligent young woman with a strong logical sense about her, but that didn’t stop her from smacking herself in the face without abandon where the secondary curse eyes were located while furiously screeching, “Stop being such a perv, you weirdo!”
Somehow, she managed to smack his eyes back into submission, leaving only his mouth on the back of her hand. “You know that doesn’t actually hurt me, right?”
“Of course I know that,” Nobara snapped, “but it makes me feel better.”
“By beating yourself up?”
Nobara glared at the mouth, snarling at the sharp teeth that had pulled into a smirk. Maybe her face was all red now and a touch sore, but it had been worth it. Sure, hitting him like that might not hurt him, but it annoyed him enough to get him to go away. She would not have the sanctity of a hot shower ruined by his inability to handle being trapped in a woman’s body. He often bemoaned his fate, as if he was the one suffering the most. She didn’t know why he was complaining: he’d been brought back to the physical realm while she was stuck being hijacked.
“Whatever,” Nobara said dismissively. “Go away.”
“And you can just order me around like that?”
Nobara smiled just as sharply as him. “If you want to come out and play, then yes, I can.”
“You’re a very cruel girl,” Sukuna sighed. “It would’ve been much easier had I been able to possess that Itadori kid.”
“Yeah, because he’s a pineapple brain,” Nobara pointed out. “And you’re just mad because I won’t let you tear off my shirt whenever you take control and fight.”
“It’s restricting .”
Pointing at her reflection with the hand that didn’t have a mouth on it, Nobara shot back, “No, you just want to be gross. And I’m not letting Fushiguro, Itadori, Sensei or anyone see me like that! It’d be mortifying!”
Sukuna had the gall to chuckle. “I don’t see why. You appear to have an ample amount of–”
Nobara smacked her hand over Sukuna’s mouth, cutting him off before he dared to finish that sentence. “We are not going there. I’m not gonna let you humiliate me in front of the others any more than you already do.”
Just to be difficult, a new mouth grew on the back of her other hand. “I make your life easier . Admit it: without me, you and your little friends would be dead already.”
Perhaps. Maybe. Okay, he was probably right. There were quite a few times, especially their first mission, in which they would’ve all died painful deaths if not for Sukuna. She didn’t like to admit that, especially because he made it a point to be so difficult. He was uncomfortable in her skin. It was understandable. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with him being in her skin either. She liked being terrifying, but not to that point – and Sukuna was a nightmare.
Currently, he was just pissing her the hell off. She gave her reflection a flat, unimpressed look and said, “You can leave now.” With one hand still laying over the top of the other, she lifted both hands up to reveal her palm where a new eye had grown. “You aren’t ruining showers for me.”
“Such a prude,” Sukuna huffed before the eye and mouth disappeared.
Letting out a frustrated huff, Nobara gave her body a quick lookover, but couldn’t find any evidence that he was trying to sneak a peek. Sure, he was an evil curse, an arrogant bastard, mass murderer, and an all-around not-so-good being that repeatedly tried to steal her body permanently, but he usually respected her privacy. At the end of the day, if he wanted to take a look, there was nothing she could do to stop him, but aside from mocking her, he never pushed the subject. She knew human men with less decency.
“Ugh, he’s still trying to invade your body,” Nobara muttered to herself. “Asshole curse.”
Right as she began stripping again for her shower, a knock on the door startled her, and she yelped, clutching her shirt against her chest. “Uh, Kugisaki?” Oh, it was just Fushigu ro. How someone could be both intense and boring as hell was beyond her, but he managed it. She couldn’t understand Sukuna’s minor obsession with him, but it was just one of their many issues. “Is everything alright? I heard...yelling.”
Nobara pressed her lips into a thin line, trying to contain her frustration, before she shouted back, “I’m fine!”
There was a beat of silence and then Fushiguro pressed, “Are you–?”
“Are you my babysitter now?” Nobara cut in. “I said I’m fine! Go away!”
“If you insist,” Fushiguro said with a sigh, and then she heard him walking away.
Closing her eyes, Nobara’s shoulders sagged, and she let the tension bleed out of her body. She just knew Sukuna would show his ugly mouth if Fushiguro stuck around any longer. She knew he meant well, but she also couldn’t handle the way Sukuna behaved around him. It made her squirm. This was her body, and she wasn’t about to let him live out his weird fantasies with it. The last time she let him talk to Fushiguro, she almost threw herself at a curse to end her humiliation.
“Not tonight,” Nobara grumbled as she stepped into the shower. “Not ever.”
She’d thought she would have to stop him from murdering people – and okay, she did that too – but no one warned her that she’d have to contend with his interest in people and life too. It was so annoying. Being the vessel of a powerful curse did allow her to eat as much food as he wanted without gaining weight, so there was that at least. It might not be worth the trade-off, but she’d take it for now.