Unmatched | ᴍᴀʜɪᴛᴏ

Chapter 2

"Yuji-kun!"

I stumbled into his secret room. He looked up at me and paused his movie. I hopped next to him onto the couch and crossed my legs. I loved this. This was the first time I actually wanted to hang out with a person. He just made it so easy to talk to him, even though I didn't really tell him a lot about myself. Well, I did, but none of the important stuff. He had told me a little about his important stuff, though. For example, I knew that his late grandfather was the reason he became a sorcerer. And I finally knew about what that curse with the patchwork face had done to Junpei.

The exchange event was going to be in two days. I was only allowed to participate because Gojo and Nanami had been training me all day every day for the last two days and would more than likely continue in that speed so I could catch up with the others.

Itadori turned to face me and smiled widely. When I felt lonely or sad, I liked to come here just to look at his face. His bright smile always made me cheer up. It was late at night already, but my day had just ended, and I needed him to smile at me. He also always had so much to tell me because he had experienced so much since he had been here.

Today, I asked him to tell me a little more about what it felt like to have Sukuna inside of him. The King of Curses wasn't the only reason I was interested in Itadori, and I would kill anyone who dared to even so much as imply that. I have grown to really like Yuji just for being Yuji. I didn't like him in that way because I had not yet liked any boy in that way. It just hadn't happened for me. But I wanted boys to like me, though. Since I wasn't sure how Itadori felt about me, I just decided to ask while he was still telling me about the movie he had been watching before I came in.

"What do you mean 'like you'?" he asked.

I smiled softly. "You're not interested in me, are you?"

Realization dawned on him, and he blushed, leaning back a bit. "Oh, no, I-" he stammered, embarrassed. "I really like you, but... not like that."

With a smile, I nodded. This was actually the second time a boy had told me he didn't like me like that. The first time had been yesterday when Gojo introduced me to my fellow first years. Kugisaki had obviously already known me, but Fushiguro hadn't. He was the first boy ever to tell me he wasn't interested. But he hadn't actually said that he wasn't interested in me.

Instead, Megumi had said, "I have no interest in women."

In both cases, it was unusual to hear that, but I wasn't offended or wounded at all. Fushiguro apparently didn't like women in general, which I took as a great pity because he was a real treat. But with Itadori, I was glad. I think I just didn't want to lose the friendship I had with him.

"Do you like Kugisaki?" I asked with a smirk.

Itadori shook his head again and scratched the back of his head. "No."

I paused. "And you haven't met Maki-san yet, have you?"

I would have definitely understood if he liked them. They were both amazing. But he shook his head once again. I grinned. So it wasn't me, then. I didn't ask any more about girls. I wanted to know about Sukuna.

"Well, he's just there," he said a little thoughtfully. "He pops up sometimes, but I mostly keep him in control." He paused. "I used to feel him struggle inside of me because he was trying to gain power over me, but since I came back, I haven't felt any of that. It's like he's given up."

As if called, a little mouth and one eye opened up on Itadori's cheek. "I didn't give up, brat."

I jumped a little, but Itadori only held his hand in front of the mouth and forced Sukuna to be quiet. I leaned closer, curious about the curse. Yuji didn't move an inch, only let me come closer. We had already established that we didn't like each other like that, so I guessed he didn't feel the need to back away from me. Maybe he also understood that I needed to see the mouth from up close because he slowly took away his hand. The one eye blinked at me, and the mouth stretched into an evil grin.