Chapter Text
yuuji is drunk when he meets megumi and nobara for the first time.
even in his second year of college, he is still the same lonely, angry-at-the-world kid he was when his parents died. this means that he attends a lot of parties, drinks until he inevitably causes a scene, and subsequently gets kicked out of a lot of parties.
when he’s drunk, yuuji plays the role of the hot tempered musclehead jock easily. he plays beer pong, challenges fraternity members to arm wrestles, and gets angry when a boy roughly his age and a bit taller than him nudges past him on his way to the kitchen, a girl clinging to his arm and giggling. the boy doesn’t even glance back at yuuji, or the splatter of beer that spilled from his cup onto yuuji’s combat boots. “hey, brat,” yuuji stands up straight from where he had been leaning over the kitchen island, in position to beat todou at yet another arm wrestle. the boy keeps walking. yuuji watches, eye twitching, as he opens the fridge and grabs a water bottle, opens it, and then hands it off to the girl.
he can’t see her face from where he stands, but as the boy turns to hand her the water bottle, yuuji can see one side of his face clearly. there’s a large scar marring the pale skin of his cheekbone, and the rest of his face is obscured by the dim lighting of the kitchen and his jet black hair, mussed all over his head in what yuuji can only deduce as sex hair. he stares intensely at the girl as she drinks, reaching up to brush a hand through her long, auburn hair. yuuji feels like he’s intruding on something. the entire crowd in and just outside the kitchen is watching him, wondering what kind of show he’s going to put on tonight.
yuuji sighs and squares his shoulders. he has a role to play.
“i said hey,” yuuji calls, louder. loud enough that the boy is immediately able to feel his hostility. he freezes in place, eyes flickering up to yuuji’s.
yuuji freezes, then. the boy’s eyes are a tame green, his pupils dilated. his eyes seem hollow, in a way. his gaze is murderous, but so is yuuji’s. he turns to face the boy fully, a shark toothed grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. he pulls this face when he’s trying to emulate sukuna, and by extension make his opponent step back in fear. the black haired boy does no such thing. he turns to face yuuji completely, in fact, fully revealing his face. there’s another larger scar underneath his right eye, which is a different color than his left. this one is blue. his lips are pink and a bit swollen, like he’s been kissed.
fucking hell, he’s beautiful.
yuuji’s smile falters. the boy is staring at yuuji with a cocked head and dangerous gaze, and he’s so fucking pretty that yuuji immediately loses any desire he’d previously felt to fight this boy. he’d never forgive himself if he did something to ruin that face. someone in the doorway whistles, and yuuji raises the mask again. his grin comes back in full force, prompting the boy’s own lip to twitch. “you spilled beer on my shoes. very rude of you, y’know,” yuuji says disinterestedly, folding his arms across his chest if only to show off the way his biceps bulge against his tight shirt. “i love these shoes.” he hates these shoes. he throws in a condescending pout for good measure.
before the boy can say anything, the girl at his side speaks up. she’s drained the entire water bottle by now, finally turning to face yuuji, too. she does so with a casual yet dramatic flip of her hair, glancing at him over her shoulder. yuuji can’t really see her entire face, but he can see an eye patch.
“hah?” the girl scoffs, glaring at yuuji with such disdain that it makes his hackles raise. “ignore this dickhead, gumi, let’s get out of here.” she mutters, so painfully uninterested in yuuji. something in him splinters.
“the fuck do you just call me?” yuuji growls, stepping forward. the girl doesn’t even look at him, not even when the boy rushes forward to shove yuuji back with a strong forearm against his chest. he stares down at yuuji through mismatched eyes, top lip just slightly curled.
“down, boy,” he sneers.
yuuji thinks, maybe, that if he’d had less alcohol in his system he could have found a way to respond to that. as it is, his jaw slackens a little bit at the command, at the easy way this boy seems to overpower him.
yuuji steps back. he wills his face not to burn at the scattered laughs he hears from the few onlookers left. everybody else must have grown bored of him and the boy’s silent stand off, and he finds himself thankful for that. especially when the boy sends yuuji his own sharp grin, using the arm that was pressed against his chest to pat condescendingly at yuuji’s cheek. especially when he mockingly murmurs, “good boy.” before turning his back on yuuji and sliding an easy arm around the girl’s slim waist.
they slip silently out the back door of the kitchen, swinging it shut behind them. their exit is followed by a tense silence, in which yuuji tries his hardest to will away his hard on before he can embarrass himself any further.
“no way you just let them both bitch you like that, bro,” todou mutters after a moment. yuuji burns. he’d forgotten todou was right there.
“shut the fuck up, todou.”
-
this is how it goes;
it’s almost three in the morning when yuuji gets home. this is entirely intentional. on nights when yuuji hasn’t been kicked out, he overstays his welcome for as long as possible - typically surpassing a socially acceptable time to stay after a college party. todou drives him home, because todou is somehow both a massive partier and the usual designated driver. not that it really matters, anyway - yuuji is always sober by the time he starts climbing the steps to his and his older brother’s shared apartment.
yuuji unlocks the front door and steps inside, trying to wear the mask confidently. he is itadori “the monster” yuuji, (former) japanese boxing commission prospect, top of almost all of his classes. he’s not afraid of anything or anyone, with his fighting skills and quick thinking.
but they are skills his brother taught him, after all.
when sukuna flicks on the kitchen light, yuuji flinches just enough to catch his eye. “what’s this?” he laughs incredulously, folding his arms across his chest not unlike yuuji had done a few hours prior. “did i scare you, yuuji-kun?” it’s not a genuine question - his tone is mocking, his laughter barely concealed. yuuji keeps his eyes low, moving through the kitchen intending only to grab a bottle of water before heading to bed. when he wraps a hand around the handle of the refrigerator door, sukuna positions himself in front of it, preventing yuuji from opening it.
it’s a challenge - that much yuuji is sure of. he just doesn’t know why. it’s late, and yuuji is pretty sure sukuna has been standing in the dark for at least an hour waiting for him to get home. “sukuna, i’m tired. i just want some water—“
sukuna punches him once in the stomach, and yuuji immediately recognizes his mistake. he nearly lets himself fall to his knees as he tries, failing again and again to inhale. sukuna leans back against the refrigerator, watching his fumbling. yuuji wheezes, staring down at the tile floor of the kitchen. he was distracted. he left himself wide open.
“you’re distracted,” sukuna says flatly, “you left your center wide open. how many times do i have to lay you out before you learn to keep your fucking guard up?” he shoulder checks yuuji hard enough to nearly knock him to the ground when he leaves the kitchen.
yuuji waits until he hears his bedroom door shut to exhale. as soon as he does he looks behind him, afraid and expecting to see sukuna.
exhaling is letting his guard down - he sees that now.
-
the next day is a monday, so yuuji finds himself in the library, preparing a study guide for himself and todou to follow for the remainder of the week. todou has told him before and yuuji knows himself that it’s not necessary, but it makes him feel good to. he likes writing, likes reading and studying. it doesn’t exactly fit the character of the monster, the bad kid, the dog who bites. yuuji likes school, not just the parties. he wonders if he still likes the parties at all.
as he highlights a line of text in his notebook, a shadow casts over the table yuuji sits at. it’s the table closest to the fire exit, furthest away from the windows. it’s yuuji’s usual table, tucked away in a corner so he can hide in peace, so nobody can find him out of character. yuuji bites down on his lip, hesitates to raise his eyes and meet the eyes of whoever’s standing before his table and blocking the small amount of sunlight it gets.
when yuuji raises his head, his lips part in surprise.
the girl from the party last night stands with her hands on her hips, head cocked curiously to the side. the pretty boy is with her too, drops unceremoniously into the chair across from yuuji’s. yuuji glances at him, watches his pink mouth move around a question he doesn’t hear.
he pulls his headphones down, pulse hammering in his ears.
“i’m talking to you, pup.” pup. the girl huffs, shaking her head in what yuuji imagines to be disappointment. he doesn’t want her to be disappointed in him. he swallows, but it does nothing to help his dry throat. “uh. what?”
“i asked you what your name is.”
monster. bad dog. bastard.
“what?” yuuji doesn’t know why he’s so confused. she’s just asking him his name. he knows his name. but he doesn’t know how he should say it - is she waiting for him to introduce the bad kid from the party last night or the boy creating study guides? is there a difference between the two? yuuji knows what the difference is - the amount of bravado he says itadori yuuji with. he just isn’t sure he can conjure up that character right now. hes so tired, and he needs to get this study guide done and—
“do you not know your name?” it’s the boy who speaks this time. he’s been leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, watching yuuji calculatingly. yuuji feels like a cornered animal and he can’t figure out why.
the girl rolls her eyes - or, her eye - with a dramatic sigh. so much for her not being disappointed. when she looks back down at yuuji, she wears a crooked smile. it’s a smile that spells trouble, probably, but yuuji is suddenly much warmer. “my name is kugisaki nobara. this is fushiguro megumi,” she nods toward fushiguro, who continues to scowl. “what’s your name? there’s no hidden meaning here, i don’t do trick questions.”
the reassurance hits yuuji like a hand cupping his tense jaw. he blinks. “itadori yuuji.” he says, hopes that he sounds more sure than he is. he knows his name. he does.
“itadori,” kugisaki starts, pulling up another chair, sitting down, and resting her chin in her palm all in what seems like one motion. the way she moves is - compelling. yuuji is tempted to look at fushiguro to see what expression he wears, but he can’t look away from kugisaki. her hair is a pretty shade of brown, but her roots are dark. it’s pin straight, and yuuji wonders if she straightens it or if it just falls that way. she seems like nature bends to her will, so he would guess that it just falls this way.
fuck, he missed her question again.
“what?” yuuji says for a third time, feeling very stupid. fushiguro huffs, and kugisaki beams. her smile is so beautiful, yuuji thinks, then forces himself to focus when she begins to speak again, her pink lips moving slowly.
“do you still want to fight megumi-kun?”
yuuji sits up with a jolt, shaking his head. he glances over at fushiguro, who has pulled out his laptop and begun typing. “n-no!” he blurts, louder than he means to. the librarian assistant near the non fiction shelves sends him a look, and he swallows before lowering his voice. “no. i didn’t - i don’t want to—“
“good,” fushiguro mutters, brow furrowed as he works on something on his laptop. “because nobara here thinks you’re the cutest thing in the world and wants to be friends.” he shoots kugisaki a look, almost pouting. it shouldn’t be as cute as it is. yuuji’s head spins. “even though you tried to start a fight with us both. i’m assuming you were drunk, though - you seem completely different now.” fushiguro quirks an eyebrow in question, and kugisaki bats the long lashes of her eye at yuuji. he swallows again, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“i’m really sorry,” yuuji scoots his chair back enough to lower himself to a bow, and his ears burn when kugisaki snickers. “i truly wasn’t trying to—“ yuuji pauses, sitting upright and tilting his head at kugisaki. “you want to be my friend?” he asks, sounding more doubtful than he means to. kugisaki shrugs one shoulder.
“you’re cute, and i like cute things. is that a crime?” kugisaki smiles like she’s holding back a laugh, but also reaches out to pet yuuji’s pink hair so he doesn’t feel mocked in the slightest. fushiguro pinches the bridge of his nose.
“he’s not a thing, dummy.”
“you think i’m cute?”
yuuji and fushiguro speak at the same time, and kugisaki’s pretty smile only grows. she laughs, a twinkling little giggle that makes yuuji smile, too. she scoots her chair even closer to yuuji, and he doesn’t even get the chance to cringe at the scraping sound the legs make against the floor before kugisaki is cupping his cheeks in her soft, tiny hands.
“awww, gumi, can we keep him?” kugisaki squeals like yuuji is a puppy, turning to look at fushiguro and holding his head still when he tries to hide his face. fushiguro’s stare is unimpressed and flat, his scarred eye twitching. the ridiculousness of it all has yuuji bursting into laughter of his own, and he plays into kugisaki’s act by batting his lashes and looking at fushiguro with what he hopes are his best puppy dog eyes.
fushiguro’s eye twitches again, and his face seems to grow red in seconds. “you’re both idiots,” he hisses, shrinking down into his chair and effectively hiding behind his laptop.
yuuji isn’t sure yet if he’s lowering his mask a bit or if this version of itadori yuuji is a little closer to the truth.
˚✧₊⁎⁺˳
itadori sukuna is fourteen years older than yuuji.
when yuuji was seven years old and didn’t understand anything, the gap between his and his brother’s ages scared him. sukuna was always going to be fourteen years older than him, and he would never want to play ninjas with yuuji or want to sleep on the couch together when yuuji woke up from a nightmare about his father. in his memories as a child, nothing was permanent, least of all sukuna. he was in and out of the apartment often, such a quiet and fleeting presence that yuuji sometimes wondered if sukuna was dead like their parents. when yuuji got older, finishing middle school, he didn’t fear sukuna as much as he used to. once yuuji had turned 15 and was more or less accustomed to the silence and indifference from his brother, sukuna developed an interest in him. he would ask yuuji what he was working on at school, if he was making friends in high school.
15 was also the year sukuna began to fight yuuji.
yuuji remembers them as fights, because they often started with teasing and some light roughhousing. but the truth is that if it escalated, which it always did despite yuuji’s best efforts, sukuna would hurt yuuji. the first few times, yuuji figured that sukuna went too far by mistake. but it remained consistent, and yuuji learned to hurt sukuna back. he would headbutt sukuna in the nose, bite his arm, kick his shins - all to keep sukuna from hurting him again, to teach him a lesson. yuuji failed to do anything of the sort, because sukuna began to bring yuuji to the gym where he sometimes went to box.
from the ages of 16 to 19, yuuji was sukuna’s fighting dog. he doesn’t remember a lot of his high school years - he sustained a lot of concussions in the illegal fights sukuna would force him to participate in. that, and he taught himself to dissociate in those years. he woke up in a hospital bed one day - a real one, not the dirty cots in the clinic at sukuna’s gym, rusted with dried blood and falling apart. the doctor had questioned sukuna on how yuuji had sustained what seemed to be repeated head injuries in quick succession. yuuji watched, half dreaming and half floating, as sukuna broke down into tears and told a story of being a single parent and older brother at once, of how yuuji’s behavior could be self destructive and difficult to predict at times.
the doctor took pity on sukuna, and discharged yuuji back into his care with a warning and a phone number for social services if either of them ever needed it. sukuna tore the number to shreds the moment they got in the car, then backhanded yuuji so hard he spit up blood.
sometimes, yuuji thinks he’s had one long, never-ending concussion since he turned 15.
-
it’s not like no one has ever approached yuuji with the intent to be friends before. it’s happened plenty of times, in fact. only every time it’s happened in the past, it wasn’t yuuji they wanted to be friends with, but the character he plays around most people. he’s had people ask him to scare ex boyfriends, to intimidate bullies, once even to pretend to be a boyfriend. yuuji is aware that, to an extent, the fault lies with him for pretending to be someone he isn’t, for keeping the act up even amongst people he would consider his close friends.
he is also aware that his brother has him trained, in a way, to expect to be hurt, betrayed, beaten. he’s less aware of this than the fact that he’s at fault, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. the line between keeping his guard up and keeping himself hidden has all but disappeared by now.
it’s a saturday night, and instead of at a party, yuuji is sitting down cross legged on the floor of fushiguro megumi’s dorm. he’s on the floor, watching as megumi dusts sparkly blush across nobara’s cheekbones while they sit together on the bed. he thinks they’re supposed to be going to a party tonight - kamo noritoshi is hosting one at his fancy penthouse apartment paid for by his wealthy but absent parents. but the longer yuuji watches megumi do nobara’s makeup for her, the less he wants to do anything else. megumi holds nobara’s chin so delicately, brushes his calloused thumb along her glossy bottom lip. he whispers soft praises to her, when the makeup brush nears her right eye and she trembles. he loves her, in a way that yuuji can see with his own eyes. it’s breathtaking on the both of them.
“all done, see?” megumi whispers, cupping nobara’s right cheek and brushing his thumb carefully underneath her eyepatch. “you’re so good. you’re so pretty, nobara.” he holds her in place when she tries to dip her head, turning to glance at yuuji where he sits on the floor. “isn’t she so pretty, itadori-kun?”
yuuji’s breath shudders. nobara’s good eye flickers down to him, and megumi watches him carefully, too. as if his answer would be anything other than an enthusiastic yes. “so pretty,” he whispers, because he fears that speaking any louder would shatter the moment. after a week of hanging out with nobara and megumi, yuuji has noticed a few things. namely, that nobara is very shifty about compliments. she ranges from accusing them of being an outright lie to ducking her head shyly to hide her flushing cheeks behind her long hair. he has also noticed that megumi doesn’t usually allow her to do either - he holds eye contact and tells her that she’s beautiful, that she’s sweet, that he wants to kiss her until she can’t breathe. once or twice, nobara pushed him off of the bed and rushed out of megumi’s bedroom with a squealed excuse about suddenly needing to pee. yuuji was a bit alarmed the first time it happened, because when nobara came back less than a minute later, she climbed into megumi’s lap and kissed him for nearly ten minutes straight.
“why are you sitting on the floor like some sort of cuck?” nobara sniffles, her voice a bit nasally from the tears she’s very obviously holding back. yuuji blinks, jaw slackening in shock, and megumi laughs out loud. that’s another thing yuuji has noticed - megumi doesn’t laugh often. or maybe he doesn’t allow himself to laugh often, not more than a huff of air from his nostrils or a light scoff with a shake of the head. when he laughs like this, startled and unguarded, both yuuji and nobara just have to laugh with him. yuuji giggles, even though he’s certain nobara is teasing him. “uhm,” he chokes, still chuckling, “gumi wouldn’t want my outside clothes on his bed—”
“then take them off,” megumi mutters, suddenly completely serious. the shift in his demeanor is almost comical, but yuuji is too surprised to laugh.
“uh—“
“i have pajamas that would fit you,” megumi doesn’t look at yuuji when he speaks, instead leaning in to rub his nose against nobara’s jawline. she leans into the touch, still blinking her pretty eye at yuuji. “get changed and come up here, you look pitiful sitting alone on the floor like that.”
yuuji blinks a few more times. nobara has made her interest in yuuji very clear - she’s said outright a couple of times that she wants to fuck him, told him that she wants to kiss him even more. but yuuji took it in stride and assumed it was a joke, because megumi has expressed no such interest. they’re together, that much is obvious; they hold hands every time they’re out in public, and they make out with an intensity and passion that yuuji’s only seen before in amateur porn videos.
now that he thinks about it, they always make out when he’s in the room, and one of them is always reaching out to hold his hand when they’re in public. yuuji’s head spins.
“do you both want me?” yuuji asks, a bit belatedly. he feels only slightly pathetic; he’s almost certain their answer is yes. he’s not a virgin, far from it. turns out the monster is a very attractive character to people who are into that sort of thing. the problem is that yuuji isn’t into that sort of thing, and that’s not the kind of sex he wants to have with megumi and nobara.
“we both like you,” nobara says this time, her voice softened in a way yuuji’s only heard a couple times. once when megumi was approaching an anxiety attack on campus over his usual selection from the vending machine being gone, and once again right now. “like, we want you to be our boyfriend. but if it’s more comfortable for you, the wanting can come first. right, gumi?” she gives megumi a light nudge, moving him away from where he had hidden his face in her neck. yuuji’s pulse flutters when he sees the flush of megumi’s ears and cheeks.
“she’s right,” megumi mutters, scowling down at nothing in particular even as he continues to cup nobara’s face so sweetly. “she’s not the only one who wants to kiss you. or thinks you're cute. or - wants to fuck you. jesus, are you changing your clothes or not?” he hides his face again, and nobara makes a soft, soothing little coo that goes straight to yuuji’s dick.
“gumi’s just a little nervous,” nobara says softly, hands coming up to stroke slowly, sensually at megumi’s waist and tummy over his shirt. he whimpers quietly into her neck. “i’ll ask you again, yuuji-kun; be a good boy and be honest. do you want to come onto the bed?”
yuuji bites back a whimper. he doesn’t want to be the monster, the dog that bites. he would, however, love to be nobara and megumi’s good boy. “yeah,” he says softly, “wh-where can i change?”
megumi’s still hiding his flushed face in nobara’s neck when he raises his arm and points a shaking hand in the direction of the bathroom. yuuji hurries to his feet and out of the bedroom, determined to come back and kiss them both senseless as quickly as possible.