Salmon..? •Inumaki Toge x Reader•

Chapter 1

"Mom... what are those things over there? They're scary." You asked, pointing to the globs growing out of the street sewers. They had eyes and mouths, and they muttered sounds you couldn't quite understand yet.

"What are you talking about Y/N?" Your mother looked in the direction you pointed, but she didn't see anything. She never did see them. "Honey... don't you think it's about time to stop playing pretend?"

"But I'm not making anything up mom. They scare me at night. The one in my room sings about the dark, and daddy has one hanging on his shoulder. It gets bigger every time he doesn't come home for dinner. Then Grandma has a-"

"Y/N, that's enough." Your mother spoke calmly and slightly tugged at your little hand to keep you moving along. Even though she never saw or understood what you would blabber about, these monsters, she never once raised her voice to you or tried to shut you down. She was beginning to suspect that something deeper was going on under the surface and would simply divert the subject in hopes that one day you would grow out of these fears.

However, you merely just learned how to shut up.

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Fushiguro gripped his phone in annoyance. The cursed object you two were sent out to find wasn't where Gojo said it would be. "I'm going to punch you," he grumbled into the phone, his eyebrows knitted together,

You heard Gojo's gleeful voice emitting from Fushiguro's phone, which was typical instead of actually being helpful. You sighed and closed the door to the tiny shed where the cursed object should have been and waited for your partner to get off the phone with your teacher. You and Fushiguro were both first-years at Jujutsu High that have been sent out for, what should have been an easily done mission, but the fact that the object was missing only complicated your task.

Fushiguro hastily shoved his phone back in his pocket with a glummer than usual expression. "I swear, I'm going to hit him for real this time. I don't care if he's a teacher to be respected." He pushed back his black, spikey hair, letting out a frustrated sigh. If looks could kill...

"It's not Gojo's fault, Fushiguro," you said, stating the facts. Sure, your teacher hasn't been the most helpful when it comes to helping you guys stay calm and collected, but he wasn't the one to move the cursed object for you guys to place 'I Spy.' You decidedly set out to be the calm and collected one on this mission since your partner was already getting to his limit. "This just means that we have to look a little more, it shouldn't have gone too far."

"That's the thing, someone could have gotten their hands on it, or worse, a curse could have taken it to get stronger."

"The longer we stand around, the further it's going to get. we should start looking as soon as possible."

Fushiguro said nothing so you took that as a sign of him agreeing. He sighed once again and you began to wonder how rich you would be if you got a dollar for every time he did that. "Let's make this quick.. I'd rather not drag this out longer than needed."

You couldn't help but agree with him, but you had a sneaking suspicion that it won't be as easy as finding it and bringing the cursed item back. Someone or something deliberately took it out of its hiding place whether they know its significance to the jujutsu world or not. Either way, you two set off to go find what was missing, but after searching the parts that you could access, you decided to stop for the time being and return to search more when the students showed up for class. You and Megumi came to the silent conclusion that it was likely a student picked it out of curiosity.

(Some time later)

Fushiguro was staring intently at the photo on his phone, on edge. You felt it too. The presence of the cursed object was everywhere. To an extent, it felt hard to breathe due to its very strong presence. The wind carried the aura of the curse no matter where it blew from. Searching for this thing was becoming quite tiresome, your face showed it more than Fushiguro's, but you didn't want to give up and flake out on him, especially after helping him search for so long. Now it was your turn to sigh as you began to consider a possible solution for this issue, trying to drown out the chatter of enthusiastic students. They seemed to be excitedly watching something when you suddenly felt a breeze rush past you.

The air became more tense and your skin began to crawl. You and Fushiguro instinctively looked toward the person who rushed passed you with one thought in your heads. Cursed energy. A lot of it. Fushiguro wasted no time chasing after the running pink-haired schoolboy, but the thought of running left you breathless already. Either way, you finally found the energy to move your legs at a semi-fast speed. Being left behind was NOT on your agenda today, especially in an unfamiliar location.

You strained yourself to run after them, pushing yourself to run next to your partner for this mission. You could only imagine how this scene would look to current onlookers as you two chased the extremely fast high schooler. Just how fast was he? You took a quick glance over at Fushiguro. He didn't seem phased at all by this running. He wore the same stoic expression as usual, which was only natural considering the training he has undergone. you didn't have quite the same amount of training as he had just yet, so it was a struggle for you to keep up. Silently, you promised yourself you would take your training a bit more seriously.

"Pace yourself," Fushiguro glanced over at you and spoke up about your struggling form. "I got him, just follow our cursed energy."

"No no, I c-can-"

"You'll wear yourself out and end up hurting yourself. Don't push it." The raven-haired male gave you a final, determining glance before pushing ahead. You followed his heed and slowed down. He was right, if you kept pushing yourself as he said, you would have probably twisted your ankle or rolled your knee. Eventually, you slowed down to a stop and realized your knees were shaking from the distance and speed you ran. It was much more than you were used to.

"Dang, the moody man was actually looking out for me huh? Well, I guess I better go back him up." You spoke to yourself as you began to follow the trail of cursed energy left behind. You took a quick moment to stop by the vending machines to buy 3 bottles of water. Something told you that it was needed.