The Weight of Our World

Bittersweet Memories

It took several hours, lots of blood, and a few tears to chase off the special grade curse known as Mahito. Yuji knew he would eventually find tragedy coming his way and claimed to be ready for. He finally understood what Nanami meant when he continuously called him a child, even if the man did finally recognize Yuji as a sorcerer.

Not once did he acknowledge as an adult and that made him feel less guilty about his selfish, childish fit that came after. They couldn't even give Junpei a proper funeral because he wasn't human any longer. Junpei and his mother moved schools and disappeared without a trace according to his friends and family.

Then there had been a moment where he blacked out. Mahito had managed to figure out domain expansion and he should have won. He remembered breaking in and then fighting Sukuna's influence like he never had before. While the King of Curses didn't hurt Nanami and forced Mahito to retreat, Yuji would never be able to count it as a win because he still lost control.

"You shouldn't worry about the small things, brat,"Sukuna complained as they lay on a bed, skin full of holes,"Instead, you should worship me and thank me for all I do despite your attitude."

"I'd rather worship a rock,"Yuji said. He traced the crinkle in the sheets,"Did you really know this would happen?"

"I'll tell you when you find a rock more worthy of worship than me,"Sukuna said.

"I'll go grab a pebble from the side of the road later,"Yuji taunted.

Before the curse could retort the door opened. Fushiguro, looked half as dead as himself, looked twice as ready to kill him. He'd be intimidated if that weren't his usual worried expression. Instead, it was almost funny, bringing back a fleeting memory,"You get beat up trying to bring back a finger?"

"No,"he said, pulling a chair up and sitting down next to his friend. He had a bag and, upon opening it, Yuji recoiled in anticipation. Alcohol, cotton balls, bandages, and tweezers. One of the few things that seemed to hurt even his unnaturally tough body,"Kyoto has a psychopath on it's team and apparently I'm 'boring' and have 'bad taste' as if that matters in a fight."

"You sound pretty upset over it. It's pretty funny since you only get this mad with Gojo,"Yuji teased, regretting it as he jabbed one of the holes on his back with a cotton ball.

Fushiguro huffed,"What's your type, Itadori?"

He coughed and sputtered, not expecting the question nor for it to be delivered with such a straight face,"Type? Is that what you got beat up over? Did you accidentally insult someone they knew?"

"No. I told him that as long as they're compassionate, I don't mind. Then he just wailed on me. This had been a while ago, but he threw me through several buildings,"Fushiguro grumbled,"Complete psychopath."

"I can see what he means, though,"Yuji said, regretting phrasing it that way as, once again, he got jabbed,"I get it, compassion is a good thing, but it's so right, it's almost unnatural. People aren't as easy as one or the other. Even compassion can get twisted around, you know."

The atmosphere became heavy enough that you could cut through it with a knife. The insight, although for something incredibly ridiculous, resonated with the feelings he'd still been sifting through. Junpei was a prime example of compassion meaning very little when directed in the wrong way. Then, when he'd been forced to take out the transfigured humans after drawing out their miserable existence, he found that sometimes 'compassion' was an oversimplification of things like mercy, sacrifice, and necessity.

Fushiguro was careful while he let the gears in his head turn, carefully dabbing alcohol onto the outer edges of his wounds while carefully using cotton balls soaked in water to clean the deeper ones,"Are you okay?"