Swan Song

CHAPTER ONE: Shoganai

Itadori Yuuji is a creature that cannot survive without loving. It is simply in his blood. He is in love with the world. He is more selective with who he gives his love, that is also true. But when he does, when he does shatter a fragment of his heart and give them to one specific person the person cannot not feel affection and warmth.

It's nearly fanatical the way he loves them, he reckons. It's a shame that he forgot.

The unthinkable happened, he became a curse himself and forgot how to...be human? Feel? Live?

His second life he was spent trying to satisfy the ache of hunger that lived on his stomach. He did not remember who he was before he became a curse, nor did he know there was a before and an after. His time on earth was spent wandering the ravaged land and eating what was left of humanity. 

Just. Not in the literal sense. He ate humanity, yes, just not the body; he ate their feelings. A favorite meal was love. He couldn't get enough of it, it was unlike any feeling, so rich and complex on his tongue. He normally likes simple things, like bitterness or rage. But love had a calling. It was risky in a time where sorcerers were all that was left.

Sorcerers loved different too. Desperate, clinging and deeply. 

Then a man with incredible green eyes that reeked sadness and love exorcized him. The man looked at him with love in his eyes, as directed to him. The nameless curse wondered why someone would hold so much love for him. The nameless curse perished happily, with a love on his heart that left him full.

Then, as if it were a fairytale, he woke up from the curse. He was once again a real boy in a world that was not as broken as before. And his name was once again Itadori Yuuji.

Yuuji woke up in the arms of his grandpa, he was crying and screaming, he would later realize. In that moment he remembered it all. He screamed his heart out.

After waking up a second time he realized what had happened and promptly burst into tears while thinking on lonely and desperate green eyes. Megumi. Fushiguro Megumi saved him from hurting even more people. He hurt him the most of them all. He hated it. 

He spent one month in a strange limbo of being conscient and not. He had his body back, a nice nine year old body that worked on autopilot. He remembered being this age as if it were yesterday, probably an echo of the consciousness of the past Yuuji. He could see how his life was until now. He should do something, he often thinks, but he doesn't. He slips back into the role of a grandson that had a bad fever and hallucinated something scary but not world changing.  There are moments where he is more nine years old than in his thirties, this is him not being conscient, blocking all of the memories that threaten to disrupt his carefully crafted normalcy. He thinks he is making a pretty good job at denying this probably false reality. That is until something does disrupt it. 

It's a curse. He sees a curse and he sees Gojo-senseiANDHEISAALIVEANDNOTLOCKEDDEAD exorcizing it. It's him, it's without a doubt the same mop of white hair and shades. Gojo-sensei is under the rain fighting a curse, not a drop of water has touched him and fights with langid ease. All that Yuuji can do is watch in a trance while holding a bag of groceries. It's a nasty curse for the countryside, he notes. 

Gojo-sensei finishes it and turns around, he looks directly at Yuuji and waves. The not-boy didn't even bother to hide, fully aware how difficult it would be not to be spotted. Whatever the elder man sees it…disturbs him? He walks towards the boy slowly, every stride with a purpose until he is in front of him towering over him with his ridiculous height. His stare intense even behind his shades.

"You don't feel like a curse" He finally says. "Nor look like it, yet, you reek of it"

Yuuji stares at his covered eyes unfazed and so tired of this already. He should have guessed that the man would be wherever the hell he is. "I'm not. A curse, I mean"

"You do know about them" The man muses

"I know the correct name now" He replies with a hoarse voice that sounds actually kind of funny in this high pitched voice. "You are weird"

"So are you, kid-kun." He crouches down to his height like the weirdo he is just beginning to realize he is. And continues to talk with ease as if he weren't a creepy looking guy talking to a fucking kid "Troublesome too. I came here because my people sensed you, which is annoying and worrisome that the old geezers are interested in something. I swear they have a shark sense for new blood"

Yuuji stares at him some more as mini Gojo-sensei is beaming at him with his most forced non-threatening smile, which was on a normal day pretty good, but he must be unsettled by the cursed energy that he emitted. Taking a deep breath the not-boy opened his mouth. "Ummm, sir? I really don't get what you are talking about. Also, sense? It's a weird mojo thing?"

"First of all, not a sir. Second, you ask too many questions for an overgrown toddler. Third, are you sure you're not a curse?"

"Rude" Is what he huffs. "Pretty sure I'm not whatever it's a curse"

"It would be more believable if you were more snot nosed. Add the fact that I know that kids your age would be asking my name or commenting about my hair or something dumb like that, I don't know, curious or something else than being sassy or plain apathetic" Of course he would analyze him like that and call him out of his bullshit of an act.

It is an act, though? When did he begin to think that maybe, just maybe, he was back in the past and not in some kind of afterlife?

He doesn't know. 

He hates to not know.

"Itadori Yuuji" He spits out. Except he doesn't. He says it with false reluctance that looks more petulant than anything, a mature kid but a kid in the end being caught. This Gojo doesn't notice that suddenly the air around Yuuji changes, how invisible tendrils float and sink into his skull, he should; not even in the other life Gojo noticed. 

Yuuji can't help but resent him even more. He feels the love he has consumed exudes like a cologne, pinkening his cheeks and making him look like a child instead of a small man.

Gojo lifts an eyebrow, visibly not noticing.  "I'm sorry, what?"

"My name, that is my name. And now you have to tell me yours, it's good manners" He knows what to do. 

"Gojo Satoru" The elder man shoots a winning smile, visibly more at ease. He kind of hates him for it. "It's nice to meet you, chibi-kun"

He knows how to be human enough to fool the strongest that this world has to offer. They called him a pretender, and he embraced it.

The man becomes somewhat a fixture in his life. Constantly dissecting him with his look as a noteworthy specimen. He is totally not talking in experience.

The boy-curse indulged him wondering how much time there was left until the other man made a move and let his intentions clear. The man seems to think that he was a baby sorcerer with an ability like his old pal, that would at least be a reasonable conclusion to draw with how weird his cursed energy was. For someone as loud as him he could be subtle.

Satoru, as he had taken to calling him to separate him from the one in his memories, was someone that he found made him feel younger. Dangerous thought to have, welcomed.