Work Text:
If someone asked itadori what he was worried the most about right now, he’d say his schoolwork,
he would say its the stress from his clubs,
stress from his family,
but he wouldnt tell anyone what he was really worried about,
he was worried he didnt have another year left in him.
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Itadori didnt see it coming when his apparent brother moved in, ‘Sukuna’ a brawny adult with dark tattoos covering his body, extra eyes etched into his face.
obviously itadori knew to be cautious at first, all the tv, church and school teaching him to look out for the deliquents,
but his tattoos were so eye- catching (no pun intended) that itadori couldnt help but stare and wonder if theres any meaning to the marks adorning him.
Over the first few weeks, Sukuna was gone all day and slept all night, sleeping while itadori got ready for school, gone by the time he got home, still out when he went to sleep. Itadori was beginning to expect that Sukuna just thought of this as a room to board, not that he exactly minded that, itadori guesses he just hoped for some brotherly bonding or something. It was stupid of his to hope.
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it was 2am, itadori had school tomorrow, and here he was lying on his bed , mind spinning.
flashbacks to screaming, fists hitting the wall, his dads crazed eyes as he rages over his mom,
he tells himself to breathe, 4 in, hold for 4, 4 out, hold for 4,
it doesn't help, his mind still giving him memories from all over his messed up life.
he doesn't think twice before popping open his phone case and pulling out the razor stashed inside, bad idea to keep it close to him all the time but he couldn't help the comfort it brought him just having the option.
itadori takes his arm, looks for a place untouched from his last few days and presses hard down, breathes in eases up slightly, before slowly dragging it across,
he wishes he had to nerve to drag quick and deep, instead of being so nervous about the pain, hitting some large vein and spurting blood, but he's a coward at heart and he knows it, so he continues with thin, long lines.
he watched them bead up, a few spill over, but he wipes the blood away to watch it fill up again.
his arms almost full now, he guesses he could go over some scabbed ones, before he thinks too hard about it he closes his eyes and slides the blade across,
keeping his eyes closed, he does one right under, and one under that, and one under that,
he's so into the slice he doesn't register pain, his body just gets pins and needles and his mind goes quiet,
eventually his arm starts throbbing and itadori cracks open his eyes, the light makes his head throb and he looks at his arm, red angry marks look up at him and a pit in his stomach opens up,
he’s never gone so hard before,
he decided he’s going to come up with some sick excuse to his grandpa to get out of school tomorrow, itadori just cant handle it, wouldn't be able to wake up fully he knows it.
he sits up and reaches to his desk, luckily he already got his bandages out yesterday and just left them there, not like anyone would care if they saw them,
his hand feels heavy as he reaches for it , he hits the box instead of grabbing it and just sighs, he lays back down and takes off his shirt, pressing it too his arm with as much pressure as he can manage.
after what he thinks is 5 minutes, he takes the fabric off and puts a dark hoodie on, he just cant be bothered.
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his stomach growls which just adds to his sickly feeling, itadori still has an appetite though, so he staggers up and slips into the kitchen, he stomps but its not like he can help it, been doing it his whole life, as much as he hates it.
much to his surprise, leaning against the sink is his ‘brother’ Sukuna, shirtless and showing off the black rings around his arms and torso, along with some patchy at home tattoos itadori cant make out without staring.
Sukuna just turns around and nods, grabbing a can off the counter and sipping, eyeing itadori while he does,
itadori scrambles to say anything,
“Uh hi, didn't think you'd be awake” he squeaks out, normally sukuna is still gone or dead asleep in the middle of the living room right now, but he guesses sukuna couldn't sleep either.
“Yeah, just got home.” Sukuna just blanks and stares again.
Itadori forgets what he was even gonna get, Sukuna's stare seems like its reading his mind, and he just wants to eat something then pass out, he didn't have the energy to try and play off anyone's antics.
“oh, nice.” itadori just grabs a granola bar and opens the fridge for a drink,
“since you're up anyways, i got this cd of that new movie in theaters, some horror flick, was gonna watch it if you'd want to join.”
itadori wants to have some bonding time right? He regrets coming out of his room, he cant so no though, Sukuna is like a wild animal, so itadori knows to take whatever form of brotherly love Sukuna can muster.
"uh sure" itadori tries not to be so nervous, he figures he can just make some popcorn and that way he cans share and get away with not eating much.
Sukuna leads him into the living room, they're both trying not to make too much noise but it doesn't really matter since gramps has always been a heavy sleeper. Sukuna goes to set up the movie and itadori looks at his seating choices.
There's a large couch facing the tv and a small chair on the side, he can't decide whether he should sit on the couch with sukuna, or in the chair to give sukuna his space since that's basically his bed too. But then what if Sukuna wants his own space in the chair? Eventually itadori decides to just stand there until Sukuna sits down, to afraid to break this 'nice sukuna' mode.
"My bad lemme move this stuff on the couch," Sukuna suddenly is right behind him moving his blankets and pillows out the way. Out the way for Itadori.
He feels out of place, like yes sukuna did ask if he wanted to join him, but what if he just asked because gramps asked him to or something.
itadori ignores the fact that Sukuna isn't the type to listen to some pity request of his grandpa's.
"uh thanks" he sits down and tries not to feel so out of place. Sukuna sits beside him and lays out on the rest of the couch, manspreading at its finest.
The movie turns out to be one itadori had been itching to see, Human Earthworm 4. He finds himself relaxing watching it, Sukuna is watching too, laughing out loud or arguing with the screen, cussing when the cd glitches and he has to rewind.
"so, itadori, don't you have any friends or anything?" Sukuna randomly asks him.
"i mean yeah, i hang out with Nobara and Fushiguro all the time?" itadori eyes sukuna suspiciously, its obvious Sukuna is trying to lead up to something but itadori doesn't know what.
"ok so that doesn't exactly count, by 'hanging out' I'm assuming you mean at school? maybe some afterschool time, no parties or shit?"
Sukuna gets this grin across his face and Itadori's silence,
"no huh? lame" Itadori chucks a piece of popcorn at him out of habit, Nobara being talented in the art of food catching. It hits Sukuna's forehead and he turns to itadori, who then decides to try and flee. Sukuna catches itadori's wrist.
Fuck, pain blooms in Itadori's arm and he rips it free from Sukuna's grasp, who's now staring at him with a weird look in his eyes.
FUCK! Itadori can't believe he forgot the fucking cuts! He never should have agreed to watch this movie, he never should have went out his room, he should have just stayed there, he should've just
he should've cut deeper,
he should've slit his fucking wrists.
"Yuji?"
Itadori forgot where he was, or more like he just forgot everything for a minute.
He lifts up his head where it was resting on his knees, he embarrassingly notices he's been curled up at the end of the couch, Sukuna is watching him, no longer sprawled out but sitting Infront of Itadori,
"you back now?"
itadori just nods. he's so embarrassed, sukuna must have figured out why he reacted that bad to something so simple. he just hopes his cuts stopped bleeding so maybe he can get away with it, but itadori knows he's screwed.
"are you gonna show me now or what?" Sukuna's harsh tone makes itadori flinch, Sukuna doesn't apologize.
"show you what?" Itadori tries to play dumb.
"your wrists yuji." Itadori looks down at that, it's out now, he can't pretend he doesn't know what Sukuna's talking about. he stays still, watching sukuna out the corner of his eye. Sukuna just sighs.
"You know how i got these tattoos?" itadori doesn't know what he's getting at,
"I was 14, just gotten a tattoo machine from some weird guy I knew, this one," Sukuna points to a sword dripping blood on his bicep, "was the first ink i ever got, very emo i know."
"After that i started doing more stupid tattoos, most of them are covered up by these rings I got a few years ago. Anyways, by 16 i had all these trashy tats already, and my life wasn't going very smooth then, I was really depressed, didn't think there was anything out there for me you know? I tried to kill myself, and i survived, so that's where this came from," Sukuna lifts his head up and points to his neck, to 5 tally marks. "at first it was just a line, but over the years I added the rest."
Itadori was speechless, he's sure he looked stupid staring at Sukuna with his jaw hanging but i mean come on, out of everything Itadori could've guessed what those tally's meant he would never have guessed suicide attempts. He had entertained the thought that they were the people he's killed, but he really just thought it was people Sukuna had lost.
Eventually Itadori figured he should say something, but he couldn't think of anything to say, so he looked down and held out his arms towards Sukuna, know that Itadori knew he understood, he wasn't that scared anymore, but he was more embarrassed. Sukuna had tried to kill himself, multiple times. Itadori had too, once, but he got caught, left alone in his room, and woke up the next morning and had to go to school. What if Sukuna thought he was a coward, what if he thought his cuts were small and just a pathetic attempt at attention. What if Sukuna got mad at him for making such a big deal out of nothing?
His thoughts were interrupted by his sleeves being pushed up by Sukuna, he spared a glance at his arms and cringed, a few were still bleeding while the others had blood clotted on them. Sukuna's face barely changed, but Itadori noticed how he furrowed his brows and frowned,
"that's... a lot" Sukuna got up and grabbed something from his bag, and sat back down with a bundle of bandages in his hands. Itadori didn't expect him to say that. He knew he went a little crazy, but he's been so stressed out recently.
"do you mind if i-" sukuna hold up the bandages,
"n-no go ahead." itadori wasn't as panicked now, sukuna started cleaning his arms, itadori knows it should sting but the pain feels fuzzy and far away, he can really only hear Sukuna humming, he tries to focus on that tune to bring him back to focus.
"All done, make sure you keep them on until the morning, I can change them then." Sukuna looks back at itadori, who's trying to focus on Sukuna's face, but having a tough time making anything out. Sukuna's voice is echoing in Itadori's head, he doesn't remember what he's talking about, or why Sukuna is here, or anything really.
"Yuji."
Sukuna must be mad at him, because he gets up all of a sudden and leaves, itadori doesn't care beyond that, Sukuna left him, just like everyone does. Itadori's mind gets fuzzier then, he can't breathe, at least he doesn't think he can, but who knows that might just be how breathing is, itadori isn't sure of anything right now.
All of a sudden all itadori knows is COLD, his first instinct is to fling his hands and rub them on his pants, he can breathe now but he's still kind of panting.
"hi"
Itadori flinches at looks up, right, Sukuna was here, impromptu movie night, itadori looks down and see two ice cubes on the couch,
"did you put ice cubes in my hands?!" Sukuna looks offended.
"I mean, it got you paying attention didn't it?"
"you couldn't like call my name or something? straight to ice cubes?"
"I did."
"oh." Itadori's embarrassed again, he hasn't done that in a long time, not since he was with his parents, and he can't remember that time, for obvious reasons. He figures it must be a reaction to his panic.
"do you go away like that a lot?" Sukuna's trying to be gentle, but itadori still flinches when he reaches his hand out, Sukuna moves his hand back immediately.
"uh not-.. no." itadori was just trying to get out of the conversation now, he just wants to go back to his room and cry himself to sleep, if he can even cry right now.
"are you going to tell gramps?" he can't help but ask, gramps would freak out, call him pathetic and probably kick him out the house, disappointed in him and regretting everything he ever gave itadori.
"No, not if you don't want me to, but gramps actually helped me more then anyone else, especially with the heavy stuff. Why do you think I suddenly moved in?"
itadori was shocked at that, first off, Sukuna would keep it secret for him, something he didn't expect. Secondly, gramps wouldn't be mad at him? But wait-
"Why did you move in?" he can't help but ask, he's been curious for awhile and hasn't gotten a straight answer from his grandpa.
"Well, I needed a fresh start, again. After our parents died, I moved to the Russia, wanted to be as far away from bad memories as I could, at first it was good. I went to college, studied to become a first responder, found some friends there. But my mind caught up to me, wasn't doing so well, got into some bad things and some bad people. I messed up, and one of my friends died. Nikolai, this right here is for them," Sukuna turned around and showed a dragons head on his shoulder blade, '1996-2015' written under it.
"It got rough after they died, eventually I called gramps and he convinced me to move back here, he told me about you, how he was worried about you, he thought I could help, thought it might help me to spend time with you. So I came back, got these rings to cover up the really bad tattoos, and got these eyes right after I got off the plane."
"Well, then what do the eyes mean?" Itadori couldn't help but be a little rude when he wanted to know something, but he had so many questions for Sukuna after that, why did he move away? Why didn't he come stay with us? Does he still want to be a first responder? What 'bad things' did he get messed up in? How did his friend die? Why the dragon to symbolize Nikolai?"
Sukuna started laughing,
"To be honest, it was very impulsive, but I got them as a 're-awakening.' Like finally opening my eyes to the world around me."
"wow, that's, I'm sorry for your loss." Itadori had so much to say, but he didn't feel like talking much anymore, he felt too many things that he didn't want to get into right now.
"thanks, but I should be apologizing to you. I wasn't there for you Yuji, I should have stayed here with you and gramps, not ran away from everything. I'm Sorry."
Itadori didn't know why he was crying, but he just felt so sad all the time and he's been waiting for his brother to come back, and then he was never home, and now all of a sudden Sukuna is here, apologizing and spilling his life out to him, and itadori is just overwhelmed.
"woah hey it's ok man, come here"
Sukuna holds his arms out but doesn't move, giving Itadori time to decide if he wants a hug or not, which obviously he does.
Itadori crashes into Sukuna and wails, he allows himself to let go for once, to feel safe in a hug instead of trapped.
He's really missed his brother.