Unmatched | ᴍᴀʜɪᴛᴏ (ꜱᴜᴋᴜɴᴀ)

Chapter 23

When I had gotten my first A, I had been so proud. I had thought that if I showed this to my parents, they would be proud of me too. Like normal parents were when their child brought home a good grade. My father had glanced at it for maybe one second and then gave me a look that I would never forget.

"Do you think this is something we should give you praise for?" he had asked.

When I had gotten a letter from my school saying that I was the best in PE and they wanted me to join the school soccer team, I had been so proud. I had thought that if I showed this to my parents, they would be proud of me too. My mother had crumpled up the letter and thrown it into the burning fireplace.

"Being good at sports should be a given, not something you should be praised for," she had said.

When the principal had talked to my parents to tell them that I was the best in my year and that he would award me and two other kids a certificate and a medal, I had been so proud. I had thought that if he said this to my parents, they would be proud of me too. My parents had told him that I didn't need a medal or a certificate and that they certainly weren't going to put it anywhere.

"We don't need any more proof that you exist. You should be intelligent for your own good, not for a medal. You won't be praised for that in this house," they had said.

All of this had happened in my first few years in junior high. After that, I kept everything to myself. I had joined the soccer team, but they didn't know. I had received medals every year, but I had kept them all in my locker at school. I had kept every A to myself. They never knew anything. I hadn't given them any more proof that I existed.

So when Mahito jumped up and down, laughing and clapping happily, I was so proud. And I knew that he was proud of me too. I was showing him what I could do, and his smile was growing minute by minute. After I destroyed a wall somewhere farther away from the room we had been in, he jumped toward me and lifted me into the air. I grinned down at him.

He put me back down and held my face in his hands. "I should give you a little praise for what you can do," he said with a smile. "You are far better than my last student."

I pressed my lips together. I hadn't expected him to mention Junpei to me. I had thought he would just pretend that it had never happened. But he must have been sure that there was no harm in telling me. I wasn't so sure about that myself. I couldn't help but remember Yuji's look when he had told me about it. That look of pure hate that I had never seen on him. He didn't want to kill anyone. Except for Mahito. Because of Junpei.

"I'm guessing you know what happened to him?" Mahito asked, interpreting my silence right.

I nodded. "You happened to him."

His grin came back, and he nodded. "I did. I used my technique on him. He wasn't my best work, but he did his job."

"How do you do it?" I asked. "Your technique? How does it work?"

Mahito laughed, taking his hands away from my face. "I reshape the souls of humans," he explained. "The body and the soul are linked. If I reshape the soul, I reshape the body."

"You do that just by touching someone?"

He nodded, a proud look on his face.

"So you could have done it to me anytime you touched me?"

He nodded again. Mahito lifted his hands once more, but I didn't move. He came closer, but I didn't move. My heart beat faster because it was aware of the danger that I was in, but I didn't move. I let him put his hands back to my face. He held me, looking into my eyes. He could have done it just like that. He could have reshaped my soul and body and turned me into a grotesque thing.

But he didn't. He only whispered again, "Special human," and suddenly bent down. That started me. My surprise made me stumble back, but I couldn't move because he was still holding me. And I didn't want to move when I realized what was happening. He was doing what Sukuna hadn't. He kissed me.

There was no way to describe it. There were no words to describe how it felt to be kissed by him. A curse. A man who had avenged me. A man who embraced my true identity. It was... indescribable. Unmatched. Like him.

His hands slowly moved from the sides of my face down to my neck, and he wrapped his fingers around it. He could have broken my neck if he wanted to. But he didn't. He only squeezed gently, making me moan against his lips. He licked my bottom lip with his long tongue, making my eyes roll back onto my head.

"Show me," I whispered against his lips.

Mahito pulled away, and his face was pure glee again. "Show you?"

"How you do it. Show me how you transfigure humans."

He laughed, and I could tell that it was coming from an utterly disturbed place deep within him. Mahito took my hand and hurried with me through the underground maze. I was sure that I would get lost down there without him. He took me into another room. A smaller one. It had people chained to the walls by their wrists and ankles. They were just hanging there as if they were already dead, but when Mahito opened the door to let us in, they raised their heads. Their eyes showed that they were terrified of him. That should have put me off. That should have made me want to run. But I didn't. I was here for a reason. I wanted to see him do it.

Mahito looked around at the four people as if he were grocery shopping and looking for the best fruit. He picked a man who was slightly taller than him and had his whole face smeared with blood. I never left his side. I stood right next to him as he put his hand to the head of that man. There was an insane grin on Mahito's face, and when the man transformed into a red curse, there was one on my face as well. I didn't know where it had come from, but it was there. Mahito looked down at me, and when he saw my face, his eyes were full of surprise.

The transfigured man was still chained to the wall, but he was groaning now, his voice sounding as weird as the one of the curse that had killed my family. The other three people were screaming. Mahito and I were looking at each other. The screaming was pleasant background noise. Mahito's eyes tuned everything else out.

"Kill them," he said to me.

I killed them. Silence filled the room. There were severed hands hanging in the chains, and fresh blood was on the walls. One person's head looked like a watermelon that had been thrown off a building. Mahito was still smiling at me. Blood was dripping off my hands. I was still smiling at him.

"So that's what you are," Mahito whispered  in awe.

And then he picked me up again. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he carried me out of the room. He craned his neck to kiss me. It was different from before. He was hungry now; I could feel it. He was faster and less careful. He bit my lip, I bit his. Mine was bleeding, his wasn't. He stuck his tongue into my mouth and explored every corner, making me moan.

We finally came back to the sofa, but it was occupied. Mahito wouldn't let that stop him. "Geto, you might want to leave for this," he suggested.

The other man looked up from whatever he was reading, and his face changed. He groaned and got up. "You're going to get yourself in trouble," he said.

Mahito laughed. "Which one of us?"

Geto didn't respond. He only walked past us and through a door. Mahito didn't waste a second. He walked over to the sofa and put me down. I looked up at him as he took his shirt off.

Yep. I was definitely in trouble. There was no need for him to be this hot. Shit.