Archive of Our Own

27 Minutes Until the Mistake

It was so very, decidedly un-autumnal bright. Despite how many days had already passed since the incident (seventeen. seventeen days had passed. you’ve lived seventeen days longer than you should have. how long can you drag this out?), it was still strange for Yuji to see sunlight after that near-endless night. Back then, it had felt like it would never end. Perhaps it never did: he'd woken many times since, covered in blood, sweat, and tears, his heart pounding wildly, his memory obligingly filling in the missing scenery. His mind, overflowing with vile details, spun in place like a huge black vortex of ants.

Yuji had seen one as a child in the forest. He'd watched it for a long time, as if enchanted. "They just can't stop," his grandfather had answered when he told him what he saw. "They follow the pheromone trail, and if it loops back on itself, they start running in circles until they drop dead from exhaustion." Back then, he'd thought that perhaps he should have crushed all the ants out of mercy—they were already dead, they just didn't know it. He'd returned to that spot the next day, but found only their pathetic little black corpses and wept because he hadn't killed them sooner.

Yuji looked down. If there were people on the street now, they'd be no bigger than ants—but he didn't need to kill them. He'd already killed enough.

JUST DO IT.

That poster across from the bed where he'd thrashed in fever for a week, clawing at his face in delirium. The grainy running track in the sunset's rays, white sneakers on the runner's feet in close-up, and that motivational slogan: JUST DO IT. Quit the job you hate, find your calling. Call your mother, meet up with friends. Get up from the computer and go for a run. Find the courage to talk to the girl you like. Don't idly wonder how to make the world better, JUST DO IT. DO IT. YOU KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, SO JUST DO IT.

Climb to the roof and step into the void. It'll be better for everyone.

JUST DO IT.

Sukuna had been silent for the first time in many days, and Yuji couldn't care less why. He thought of Fushiguro—was he alive? where was he now? did he regret saving him back then, at the very beginning?—of Kugisaki—of the warm, wet darkness of her empty eye socket and how she fell, so far and so close at the same time—of Gojo—could his friends free him? he believed in them, they'd definitely manage, because otherwise he had no right to kill himself—of Nanami—of how the skin, distended by pressure, stretched taut as a drumhead before bursting, releasing the wet red meat inside—of Todo, of the other guys, of all those who died because he hadn't died himself, and–

JUST DO IT.

Long ago, an acquaintance told him how he used to drown unwanted kittens in the village. Carried them to the river in a trash bag with holes burned in it beforehand—said he wanted them to get a breath of air before they died. Yuji had thought about it back then, but now he was certain: getting a breath before death was impossible. The autumn sun warmed his face pleasantly, and that was good. The wind ruffled his hair, and that was good too. Almost nothing hurt, he'd barely managed to shove a protein bar down his throat three hours ago, and that was also–

JUST DO IT.

Yuji took a deep breath, and the air was almost nauseatingly sweet. He felt every muscle, every tendon, every cartilage in his body, so warm and full of blood, life, and the will to live. He wondered if there was anything on the other side at all, and closed his eyes. Probably nothing, just emptiness and darkness—not the kind he saw now, not the conceptual grey of the inside of his eyelids, tinted reddish by sunlight filtering through capillaries, but real, genuine darkness. That vantablack, formed by nanotubes where photons got lost and turned to heat, like children in a dense forest, broken down into components by bacteria and fungi.

He wondered, would he feel anything other than all-consuming terror during the free fall? Could he resist trying to protect himself with cursed energy, override the survival instinct? It wasn't new to him, but…

Yuji shook his head. Probably it was cowardice: turning these thoughts and questions over in his head for the hundredth time. He'd chewed on them for so long, staring at the white sneakers and JUST DO IT on the poster, that they'd grown soft like old clothes and frayed at the edges. The bottle shards that used to cut his hands were now worn down and dulled, turned into dusty green pebbles.

He opened his eyes and–

"Step back from the edge, please."

Fuck.

He'd made it back. He shouldn't have made it back—how long had he been standing here, trying to make up his mind?

Yuji felt a smile stretch across his face.

"I'm just enjoying the view," he said, and his own voice sounded foreign. The view really wasn't bad, if you ignored—
Enjoy the view, brat.
—the remnants of buildings sticking out of the shattered and melted asphalt like broken bones—and yet those people hadn't even left bones behind, they'd been shredded into bitter, fine dust, and–

JUST DO IT.

"Then step back, Yuji."

Choso. Poor, kind Choso. The bruises under his eyes were an even deeper purple than in the cold subway light of their first meeting, but Yuji no longer felt anything about it. What was the point in thinking about a torn cuticle on a severed hand? A slight cold against radiation poisoning—skin peeling off in layers like cling film, and bloody vomit—but it still added something infinitely small to the infinitely long list of regrets.

"No."

He didn't want Choso to see it. Maybe finding the wet stain he'd leave on the sidewalk would be a little easier than witnessing the phase transition itself. From a living body to a bloody puddle—for dust you are and to dust you shall return, or something like that. That particular load of sperm could have soaked a paper napkin or peacefully decomposed into components in a tied-off condom, but it had spawned him, and now it needed to be fixed.

"I'm sorry, but it's necessary."

He exhaled and stepped into the empt—just took a step into the empt—JUST DO IT—if only he could—only this can help, how can you not understand—only this can fix everything and—And what will that achieve, kid? Cutting along the veins is useless, idiot, you still won't die—just took a step into the void and–

Except his body stayed put. His body stayed put. His sleep paralysis demon sat on his chest, heavy and smiling, and it had his face, reflected and alien around a mocking grin.

Yuji ordered his body to step, but it remained. His muscles contracted painfully but ignored the command, as if he'd just run a marathon and lost control. A familiar, nasty cackle sounded from deep within, and nausea rose with the panic.

And then a strong hand grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back, and his thighs exploded with sharp, sudden pain—Yuji, as if through a dream, felt blood leaving the torn tissues, too hot and foreign, and he realized what had happened, but it was too late.

33 Days Until the Mistake

"How would you want to die?" Kugisaki asked, popping a bubble of gum.

A second of silence hung in the air. Yuji looked at Fushiguro, but he didn't seem surprised at all by the abrupt change of topic and just shrugged. They'd been discussing weekend plans, gone through all the leisure options, and still hadn't decided—and that made Kugisaki think about the meaninglessness and finitude of existence?

"As late as possible," Yuji answered cautiously, trying not to think too hard. The ice pop in his hand had almost melted, and sticky syrup dripped onto his pants.

Shit. Laundry again.

"Lame, not an answer," Kugisaki dismissed. "Everyone dies, and our line of work comes with a high risk of untimely demise. Death is inevitable—don't you have any preferences about how it should happen? We've been a hair's breadth from death so many times, and surely something like 'I can't die like this' has crossed your mind. So, we have a rough idea of how we want to die, even if defined by negation. You, Itadori, you've already died once—how was the experience?"

As if all the horror in the world poured into your body for a moment and drenched you in ice water from the inside. As if someone pulled the plug. As if…

"Zero out of ten," he replied with a strained smile. "Extremely unrecommended. Good thing it's usually a one-time thing."

Kugisaki snorted and switched her expectant gaze to Fushiguro, but he clearly had no intention of answering. Children screeched on a playground somewhere in the distance, a dog barked around the corner. The sun was setting, painting the building windows in a yellowish-orange hue.

Yuji stuffed the remains of the ice pop into his mouth and winced as the cold predictably made his teeth ache. He knew perfectly well how he wanted to die: it didn't matter, in his bed or in battle—the important thing was to die knowing he'd done everything he could. To have no regrets. To know his death wouldn't make anyone's life worse; that no one would die because he failed to do something or—
Thin legs in black shoes, thighs crisscrossed with scars. What was her name? What did she look like?
—or because he did do something.

Yeah, it'd be great to die like that. For some reason, he thought Kugisaki would laugh at him, so he didn't want to say it. It didn't even occur to him then to ask how she wanted to die.

"I want to go to an amusement park," Yuji said, looking at the sky. "I haven't been in ages."

They never made it to the amusement park. Missions came one after another almost back-to-back, and they kept postponing the trip to the next weekend, and then what happened happened, and he never learned how Kugisaki wanted to die.

16 Days Until the Mistake

They were on their way to the amusement park. Yuji didn't ask himself why, how, or from where—there was no backstory, they were simply going to the amusement park because it was such a wonderful day. Kugisaki was thrilled with the idea and wouldn't take no for an answer, so he and Fushiguro obediently followed her towards the subway station, squinting in the bright sun and chatting about something. The street was completely empty, but for some reason, it didn't seem strange—the sun glinted in Kugisaki's eyes when she turned to hurry them, and Yuji felt a smile spread across his face.

He was happy. He was inexplicably, very happy to see Kugisaki—so much so that his eyes were a little moist. Why was he so happy to see Nobara? Doesn't matter. She's alive, that's the main thing.

Why is that the main thing? Could she be not alive?

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

As they neared the station, Fushiguro said something funny, and Yuji laughed, loud and easy. It felt right, it truly did—no, not quite. Something was wrong.

"Where's Gojo-sensei?" he asked. "Wasn't he coming with us?"

Yuji didn't know how he knew this. They hadn't talked about it. Why were they going to the amusement park?

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

The dark maw of the subway station entrance gaped behind Kugisaki. She wasn't smiling anymore, just looked at him reproachfully, and a clammy chill crept down Yuji's spine.

Something was wrong.

"Did you forget?" Fushiguro said. "He's waiting for us in the subway."

Yuji shifted his gaze to the stairs. They descended deep underground, their end lost in absolute darkness. He didn't know what was down there, but he didn't want to go. Not just didn't want to, like not wanting breakfast in the morning—no, he was terribly afraid to go down there. They shouldn't go, something bad would happen there. Something bad had already happened there.

The rest is up to you.

He took a step back and—

No, lie. He didn't take a step back; he couldn't take a step back. He couldn't move at all. The darkness at the bottom of the stairs held him hypnotized, spreading further like something alive.

You can't go there. Something bad is there, we shouldn't go. No one should go there—

"You afraid of the dark?" Kugisaki snorted. "Come on, Gojo-sensei is already waiting."

—but Gojo-sensei is already there. He's already there.

Kugisaki reached out her hand, but Yuji couldn't take it. Couldn't move a finger. Even his eye muscles were paralyzed: he couldn't focus on her hand or her face because the darkness held his focus. Held it and crept closer, already nearing Kugisaki's feet, but she didn't see it. She stood, hand on hip, still looking at him reproachfully, and Yuji tried to scream at her to run, but couldn't. Strained with all his might to do something—at least focus his gaze, at least blink—but he simply couldn't, and–

A click sounded, and the darkness lunged at him like a wild animal, and everything around drowned in it, viscous and impenetrable. Yuji cowardly awaited pain, but there was none. Nothing. Only darkness and insane fear that froze his blood.

He was nauseous.

"Why did you close your eyes?"

Kugisaki's voice was barely audible, as if his ears were blocked. Yuji didn't want to open his eyes, but something stronger than him pried his eyelids open—and he saw a grey patch of pre-dawn glow on the ceiling. He was in a room he didn't recognize. He still couldn't move, as if embedded in the bed he lay on. A man stood over him, and Yuji didn't recognize his face.

Didn't recognize.

Didn't recognize, because he'd only seen it reflected: it was his own face. This man had his face, distorted by a grin Yuji had never seen in a mirror.

Sukuna.

"Still can't do anything, huh?"

This wasn't real. This was definitely a dream, because the room swam before his eyes, as if reality was flowing from one vessel into another, more suitable one. More familiar. This wasn't a dream, it was a memory—his memory unspooled before him like film; tightened around his neck like a noose, biting into his skin with sharp edges, and Yuji couldn't breathe.

He was no longer in bed. He was standing on a street, and there were many people around him.

He knew this shouldn't be happening. The last thing Yuji clearly remembered was bleeding out on the floor of a public restroom because he'd underestimated that guy with the black stripe across his face, who'd punctured his liver and torn several arteries.

He should have died then, but didn't. He didn't die, and that's why something monstrous was about to happen now.

A spasm in his diaphragm held his breath on its own, and suddenly there was nothing left inside him: no blood, no muscles, no internal organs—only pure, undiluted terror. A damp lump of a heart beat in tachycardia, ricocheting off his ribs, and nausea rose in his throat. He would have shaken if his body had obeyed—but it didn't. His body obeyed Sukuna, and he himself could only watch the city before him through Sukuna's eyes.

The city before him. Buildings, people before him. Now they—his face smiled, his hands formed a seal—would cease to be.

"Domain Expansion…"

No. No. Please, no.

"…Malevolent Shrine!"

He knew this feeling—the resistance of flesh being cut, forcing the hilt of the blade into his clenched fingers, trying to tear it from his grasp. It used to make him glad—it meant he'd managed to wound another curse; that it would soon bleed out and could no longer harm anyone.

Now Yuji felt nothing like it: Sukuna's technique sliced through concrete slabs and metal supports like soft butter. People's bodies weren't felt at all—hairs, severed mid-air. Shredded into dust, clogging lungs instead of air.

The final no still pulsed in his brain, and he—
Truly nothing. Nothing left. Not one stone upon another.
Enjoy the view, brat.
—tried to raise his hand and—

"Stop."

—saw a grey patch of pre-dawn glow on the ceiling. He was in a room he didn't recognize. He still couldn't move, as if embedded in the bed he lay on.

He'd already seen this, he'd already been here; except now it wasn't just his soul being torn to pieces, but his body too, because–

What should have been just a surprised exhale escaped him as a half-strangled moan, scraping his dry throat like sandpaper. His head was splitting and buzzing, hot and heavy like molten lead, and Yuji tried to move, instinctively wanting to roll onto his side and curl into a fetal position because his barely functioning brain thought it would help. He felt his muscles begin to tense, but then immediately relaxed again, and his body stubbornly remained on its back, a sack of aching bones. Only another wave of pain spread through his nerves, rippling across randomly twitching muscles.

Terror stole his breath.

Was this still a dream, or was he actually paralyzed? No, impossible: it couldn't hurt this much in a dream, and he felt too much for paralysis—though god, he wished he didn't, because the pain was simply unbearable, as if a red-hot needle had been driven into every millimeter of his body and was now twisted deeper every few seconds. He was hot and cold at the same time; a sticky film of sweat tightened his skin like drying glue, the back of his throat tasted like rust.

Did he have a fever?

Panic surged, making his heart beat even harder, slipping into tachycardia, and Yuji tried to jerk again—just a little, just to make sure he—

"Please stop."

His eye muscles obeyed him with difficulty, unable to focus on the face looming over him. A light patch of skin, a dark patch of hair above.

Fushi—

"You were delirious with fever and thrashing, so I had to immobilize you to keep your wounds from reopening. Please don't resist. I won't harm you."

Not Fushiguro. A different voice. Yuji didn't remember it; only now noticed the strong smell of blood, sweat, and pus hanging in the thick, stale air. That's how emergency rooms smelled at night when they brought in drunk homeless people with their wet gangrene and dirty bodies. Was he in a hospital? No, it was too dark for a hospital.

Where am I? Who are you? What happened?—Yuji moved his cracked, stinging lips, trying to guess the shapes of familiar words. A million questions swirled on his dry tongue, getting stuck in bitter, viscous saliva, but the next second a cold hand lifted his head by the nape, like an infant's, and Yuji felt with horror how his trembling lower jaw froze for a moment, then obediently dropped. The plastic neck of a bottle nudged against his teeth, and his mouth filled with something cold and wet.

"It's just water. Please swallow. You've lost a lot of fluids."

He obediently swallowed, but the water struggled past his still terror-constricted throat, more of it spilling down his chin and neck, and the icy droplets made Yuji shiver harder. Every swallow was an effort, and finally the water went down the wrong way, breaking into a choked cough that rang in his ears.

He didn't understand what was happening or why he felt so awful. It felt like he'd opened his eyes after a very long, stifling nightmare that had replaced reality in his head, and he still wasn't fully awake.

Where were Kugisaki and Fushiguro? They were walking together to the amusement park, and now they weren't. They wanted to go down to the subway to Gojo-sensei, and everything disappeared.

The man removed the bottle but still held his head with his icy hand. For a second, his gaze mercifully focused on his face, and Yuji saw that almost the entire lower half was covered in brownish stains. Saw a black stripe running across his nose and cheeks, and it seemed vaguely familiar. He tried to make his tongue move to—

"Everything really did happen. Gojo Satoru is sealed, many of your comrades are dead."

Yuji heard the words but didn't comprehend them. What was he talking about? They were just on their way to the amusement park, and Gojo-sensei was waiting in the subway. They never went down to him, because—

"You were injured and lost a lot of blood, plus some of your wounds are infected. I'm going to give you a painkiller now, and you'll sleep again."

—because Yuji had underestimated that guy with the black stripe across his face, who'd punctured his liver and torn several arteries, and was dying of blood loss on the floor of a public restroom. They never went down to the subway to Gojo-sensei because Yuji had died. Or had he? Or was he supposed to die but didn't, and then something very, very bad happened?

Thoughts churned in his brain, viscous and hot like molten rock, making his head hurt even more. What foolishness—how could he sleep if he wasn't sure he wasn't sleeping now? Foolishness. Foolishness.

His disobedient tongue finally pushed out a slurred "who are you?" and the man carefully lowered his head back onto the pillow, soaked through with sweat. The world around began to blur and change shape again, and darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, devouring the light patch of pre-dawn glow on the ceiling.

"I'm your older brother," answered the man with the black stripe across his face who had punctured his liver and torn several arteries, and Yuji realized this was a dream: in reality, he had no brothers or sisters.

That was good. He preferred the version where he, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki were on their way to the amusement park. He wished he could wake up in that one to Kugisaki's laughter, filming him drooling in his sleep, leaning against a bus handrail.
Itadori. Tell everyone it was—
He wished he could. He wished he could.
—not so bad after all.

It had been good. It had been wonderful. Could that really be how it all ended?

The patchwork curse cackled hysterically somewhere very close, but Yuji didn't hear it. Yuji was looking into the moist, reddish darkness of Kugisaki's empty eye socket, and the wet meat within looked back at him.

Yuji knew she hadn't survived, but he closed his eyes anyway. When he opened them again, they were on their way to the amusement park, and the sun glinted in Kugisaki's eyes as she turned to hurry them. Yuji felt a smile spread across his face, and then—
Still can't do anything, huh?
—his hands formed a seal, and Kugisaki's body fell at his feet, sliced in half.

61 Days Until the Mistake

He only saw the lower half. The cold, detached part of his mind wondered idly if his nightmares would be better or worse if he'd seen the upper half. If he'd known that girl's face.

Fushiguro often said he needed to fight more carefully, but Yuji just brushed it off. Collateral damage was paid for from someone else's pocket anyway, and getting distracted by caution in the heat of battle was dangerous. He'd accidentally sensed this curse while just passing by a house closed for endless renovation and decided to play hero. Asked loudly several times if anyone was inside, but no one answered—maybe she thought it was the police checking the place and hid.

He wondered what she was doing in there? Looking for thrills or hiding from something? Maybe she didn't want to go home. Maybe she felt really bad and sad, and her emotions had attracted the curse: her thighs under her hitched-up skirt were densely lined with old and not-so-old scars.

The curse was weak but large enough, and brought down one of the load-bearing walls trying to bury him under two floors' worth of debris that collapsed like a house of cards. Did that girl not have time to scream, or did he just not hear her? Did she die instantly or feel something? Get scared, think of loved ones? Think about how she didn't want to die?

When his final blow made the curse howl and stop twitching, and Yuji himself wiped sweat from his brow and started brushing dust off his clothes, Sukuna chuckled softly, very nastily.

"What's so funny?" Yuji asked aloud, though under other circumstances he'd have ignored him. Adrenaline still sang in his blood, he was glad to stretch his legs and test his strength, so even Sukuna didn't irritate him as much as usual.

What a good boy you are for not walking past, Sukuna almost purred, and Yuji shuddered as if a cold, slick finger had been run down his neck. A real hero. If you go around the debris, you'll even find your reward. You've earned it.

Probably, Yuji understood immediately what he'd find there. Nothing else could amuse Sukuna so much.

You're such a good boy, Sukuna whispered tenderly when he turned inside out before the girl's corpse, and a couple of bile drops landed on her dusty black shoes. Don't blame yourself: the curse was fattening on her emotions and would surely have gotten stronger soon, killed her and someone else. You rid the world of a depressed bitch who clearly didn't want to live anyway, and potentially saved another ten people—I think you deserve a medal for exceptional merit or at least a deep-throat blowjob.

Sirens wailed piercingly somewhere in the distance, breaking through the derealization ringing in his ears and Sukuna's laughter—concerned neighbors must have called the emergency services for the sudden collapse. Yuji wiped his face with his hand, took another look at the thin legs in black shoes, as if wanting to twist the knife in the wound, and fled.

Dry heaves of hysterical sobs wracked him only two hours later, when he was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. He'd spent half an hour under a scalding hot shower and now felt disgustingly, squeaky-clean clean. He looked at his hands and thought about how he could have finished the curse with a single, well-planned strike. It was so weak the fight hadn't seemed to require any mental effort—just the instinctive "hit hard, jump far" tactic.

Hope you don't agonize over her for too long. It's fascinating to watch right now, but I'll get bored soon.

"Shut up," Yuji whispered, digging his short nails into the pliant flesh of his palms but feeling almost nothing. "You knew she was there."

Of course. Didn't you hear her gasp? I was surprised: how heartless of you to ignore a damsel in distress like that. Maybe she wasn't crushed to death immediately? Maybe you could still have saved her?

He felt nauseous again, but his stomach was already completely empty.

Now you'll have to learn to live with this. Can't wait to see how you justify yourself… or won't you? You'll hate yourself, right? You never valued your own life much anyway, now you'll really spiral. Your poor little heart is so raw and tender—want me to rip it out again?

14 Days Until the Mistake

A riptide—that's what it was like. A narrow strip of water rapidly receding back to sea, pulling everything with it with relentless, primordial force—even if you swim with all your might, at best you stay in place, and then you tire and drown anyway. Useless to resist.

As useless as resisting these nightmares. As soon as he managed to wake from one, he'd immediately fall into another, and their boundaries gradually blurred, mixing into each other like watercolor spots on a wet sheet of paper. When Yuji touched it, the sheet fell apart into formless, wet pieces in his hands, just like Nanamin from the patchwork curse's touch, and—
The rest is up to you.
—and the world around clicked, like an autorefractor in an optometrist's office. The focus shifted to infinity again, blurring the whole picture into one bright spot.

This time, Yuji patiently waited for it to flow into the next horrific scene as usual, but for some reason, it didn't. He heard the familiar click and blinked, but the bright spot remained. A drop of sweat ran down his left temple; his head, right side under his ribs, and legs whined with pain like beaten, burned dogs. The sheet beneath him was damp and sticky, and his nose was filled with the smell of pus, discharge, and open wound.

Hurt. Cold. Hot. Wanted to drink, piss, and brush his teeth because his mouth was coated in a nauseating, rusty taste of blood and thick, bitter saliva.

Click.

This time it didn't come from inside his head, but from somewhere to the left.

Yuji turned his head to the side, and the bright spot moved to the right. That must have been the ceiling, because now he saw the far wall with plain green wallpaper and a curtained rectangle of a window. A poster with some writing hung next to the window; a large desk piled with papers and notebooks stood under it; and on the floor by the desk, back against the wall, knees drawn to chest, sat a man, looking at him.

No, not looking: his gaze was directed at Yuji but completely unfocused, as if he were sleeping with his eyes open. The black stripe across his face separated the light upper half from the lower, stained with something dark. His clothes, once white, seemed, were now grey with dirt and in many places covered in brownish stains.

The man's face seemed familiar to Yuji, but the details were blurred in the semi-darkness, and his thoughts were still tangled and sticky like wet cotton candy. Where had he seen him? Where was he? Why was he here?

Click.

Yuji only now noticed the automatic pen in the man's hand. Was it its clicks he'd been hearing all this time?

"Hey…" His vocal cords obeyed on the third try, creaking and groaning under the weight of his voice like loose floorboards. "Hey, are you real?"

The man jolted all over and scrambled to his feet, blinking blearily. Seems he really had been sleeping, and Yuji felt a little ashamed when he noticed the deep purple shadows under the stranger's eyes. He'd seen exactly such shadows under Nanamin's eyes—he'd even wondered back then if he slept at all, because Yuji himself never got them even after two sleepless nights, and—
The rest is up to you.
—and this harmless thought suddenly slit his throat from ear to ear and hung him upside down on a hook, and memories flooded his eyes with bloody afterglow.

Oh god.

His heart skipped a beat—one-two, one-two—then broke into a heavy gallop, rising to his throat. Blood drained from his face and limbs, and Yuji couldn't breathe, feeling his chest grow heavy and painful. He heard the patchwork curse's laughter again, saw the flying pieces of flesh again; felt his hands forming a seal to shred everything within a two-hundred-meter radius into dust.

This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a dream. They really were dead. Nanamin, Kugisaki, all those people in Shibuya—they were all really dead, and—

A cold palm settled on his forehead.

"Easy, you're safe now."

Yuji wanted to spit out something like "easy for you to fucking say," but the words stuck in his throat. Something happened: warmth spread from the touch on his forehead across his skin, and his heart beat slower and easier, steadying its rhythm. Panic released its dead grip on his trachea, and this for some reason threw his mind into even greater terror—but his body didn't react at all, and Yuji only had strength for a surprised exhale.

Where? Where was he? Where was everyone? Why couldn't he…

"It's blood manipulation," the man said quietly. "Your body barely coped with the fever, you're terribly weak right now and can't afford another nervous breakdown." Not letting Yuji open his mouth, he added, "I don't know what happened to your comrades, but they likely survived the fight with Kenjaku's curses. They aren't here now. When you're better, we'll look for them."

Yuji blinked dully.

Another one? He'd already had a nervous breakdown? He didn't remember. Maybe he was still sleeping? He remembered that Kugisaki had died. Nanamin had died. He hadn't seen the others' bodies, but that meant nothing.

Why did this guy know what he was about to ask?

"This is the fourth time you've woken up, but you don't remember. You were delirious and thrashing, and your wounds reopened, so I restricted your movements. You'd be in the afterlife by now if—"

Don't forget to apologize to my brothers when you get there.

A solid wall at his back, warm rust-taste of blood in his mouth; cold and pain throughout his body; not a single coherent thought in his head except Sukuna's contemptuous How could you lose to this trash? and this voice—he'd already felt and heard this, dying of blood loss on the floor of a public restroom because he'd underestimated that guy with—

Oh god.

"You…" Yuji rasped, trying to rise, to crawl away. "You're that blood guy who almost killed me!"

The man sighed heavily and moved his hand almost imperceptibly—and the next second, Yuji's muscles betrayed him, dropping him back onto the bed. A couple of blood droplets ran down the stranger's face and fell onto the sheet, and Yuji froze in fear. It wasn't that he couldn't move at all, just that it was hard and terribly painful.

And scary: his body was obeying someone else, and that feeling reeked too much of Sukuna. The thought of him brought nauseating memories up his esophagus along with corrosive bile, and Yuji grimaced.

Not now. Wait. Need to understand what's happening now.

"My name is Choso," the man said wearily, and Yuji wondered how many times he'd repeated this to his fever-melted brain. "I did almost kill you then, but please, hear me out. Our fight was a mistake, and after it, I switched to your side and fought alongside you. I'm not your enemy."

Dirty clothes, tangled hair, inflamed eyes—Choso looked terribly tired and not like a liar. If he really wanted to harm Yuji, he'd have done so without waiting for him to regain consciousness. It was a perfectly logical thought, and his words about switching sides echoed vague memories of something similar. But digging through memory now was as painful and dangerous as sticking a hand into a bag of broken glass, so Yuji just nodded, feeling the motion stir up a slurry of headache in his skull.

"If you're not my enemy," he said slowly, "then be so kind as to at least let me sit up, because…" In that same second, something clicked into place in Yuji's head, and his eyes widened in fright. "Wait! This is blood manipulation? What the hell, you can control my blood too?"

What a creepy ability—and why hadn't he used it during their fight in the subway?

"I can't," Choso replied quietly, and Yuji felt the pressure of the invisible hand pinning him to the mattress begin to fade. "I control my blood in your body. I wasn't sure I could, but I managed."

The words hung in the air, patiently waiting for Yuji to process them.

"What's your blood…" he asked cautiously, "doing in my body?"

Choso blinked slowly, as if the question seemed strange to him.

"I gave you a transfusion," he said simply. "Your wounds were terrible, and you would have died if I hadn't. I don't possess reverse technique, but blood manipulation allowed me to accelerate healing. Your wounds look better now."

Yuji glanced at his body, hidden under grimy bandages, and tried to assess how bad things were based on the dull, throbbing pain alone.

"Painkillers should still work for a couple more hours," Choso added, guessing his thoughts. "But I can inject more if you're in pain."

Yuji shook his head, trying to digest what he'd heard. Everything swam before his eyes.

"How much… How much blood did you give me?"

"The total came to about four liters."

Yuji shot him a surprised look, but Choso looked at him just as seriously as before. He wasn't joking?

"There's only about six liters in you, how did you even…"

"Death from blood loss isn't a threat to me," Choso interrupted. "I'm part curse, so please don't worry about me." After a slight pause, he added quietly, "I'd have given you all my blood if needed."

That last phrase made Yuji uncomfortable, because he couldn't really remember why Choso had switched sides. Why he'd given him so much of his blood, why he'd been guarding him here already… wait.

"How long was I out?"

He had no idea; his biological clock seemed turned off. It felt like an eternity had passed, but it could just as easily have been only a couple of hours.

"Almost three days."

Long.

"And you guarded me here? Alone? All this time?"

Choso looked at him strangely, as if not fully understanding the question's point.

"Of course," he replied. "We're still not far from Shibuya. It's full of curses, and you're completely defenseless."

Yuji winced at the unpleasant thought that his dreams had simply taken a new turn of surrealism.

"Let me clarify," he said cautiously. "You pumped four liters of your blood into me, then guarded me here for three days without sleep, simultaneously controlling my blood circulation?"

Choso simply nodded, and Yuji seemed to see for the first time how exhausted he was. He'd looked like he hadn't slept in ages even during their fight in the subway, but he hit hard and fast, so Yuji had chalked it up to the cold, dim subway light.

Choso looked even worse now.

"Don't get me wrong," Yuji said slowly. "I'm not complaining, but… why did you do this? Why save me?"

Choso looked at him for a couple of long seconds, then the sharp features of his pale face smoothed, and a slight smile stretched his lips.

"Because you're my younger brother. I can't let you die."

0 Minutes After the Mistake

A strong hand grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back, and his thighs exploded with sharp, unexpected pain—Yuji, as if through a dream, felt blood leaving the torn tissues, too hot and foreign, and he realized what had happened, but it was too late.

There were four liters of his blood in him. Of course. Naturally.

He thought he screamed.

"I won't let you die," Choso choked out near his ear. There seemed to be tears in his voice, but Yuji couldn't care less now: the throbbing pain in his torn thigh muscles and wild rage overshadowed everything. He tried to get up and break free, but his legs predictably refused to obey. Tried to blindly hit Choso, but he caught his fist, twisted his arm, held him in place, then shoved him onto the cold concrete, driving a knee between his shoulder blades.

How kind of him, Sukuna hissed unexpectedly. I'd have torn all the tendons in your arms and legs for this, you little shit.

"You just don't understand," Yuji rasped into the concrete, barely thinking from pain, resentment, and anger at himself. Really, fuck, had to drag it out so long? Should have turned off his brain and JUST DONE IT, but he couldn't even manage that. Admired the sun, listened to the birds—piece of shit, what made him think he had the right? "I have to die! Most of Sukuna's power dies with me, it's the only way to prevent—"

Choso said nothing, just twisted his arm harder, as if punishing him, and Yuji cut off. Turned his head to the side, looking at Choso's pale, frightened face from the corner of his eye.

"You should have finished me off in that bathroom," Yuji hissed. "It would have been better for everyone. I'm just finishing what you started."

Choso looked like he'd been hit hard on the back of the head. Blood spurted from the stripe on his face, then he slowly exhaled and shifted more weight onto the knee on his back. Got a better grip on his forearm and pressed harder—and a second later, Yuji's right shoulder joint clicked nauseatingly, and the head of the humerus popped out of the glenoid cavity, painfully digging into the rotator cuff muscles. Yuji gritted his teeth.

Choso released his now-useless right arm and flipped him onto his back with a jerk, immediately catching the left fist aimed at his face and pressing a knee to his chest.

"Never say that again," Choso said quietly. "Think you're the only one who hates himself? I left you on that bathroom floor, half-dead and bleeding out, because… because I remembered. I remembered everything, and it scared me. I left you to die and ran off to cry in some corner because I couldn't believe my own memory."

Tears ran down his face along with blood, and for a moment, Yuji hurt even more.

"I should have helped you, but instead I almost killed you and abandoned you. Came back to help, but was too weak, and you almost died again. I won't allow it anymore."

Choso tried to force a smile, and it looked horrible. His face was deathly grey even in the warm rays of the setting sun, his teeth slightly pinkish, as if something inside his mouth was bleeding too.

"I won't let you die," he repeated, clenching his fist.

And then a precise blow landed in Yuji's solar plexus, knocking all the air from his lungs, and darkness swallowed everything.

6 Days Until the Mistake

There were nights when he dreamed of nothing. When darkness simply swallowed whole hours, not spending them on nightmares, and allowed him to wake from sunlight hitting his eyes, not his own scream, and Yuji would feel strangely ashamed afterward. As if it were unfair—to sleep peacefully, not tormented by guilt like a spinal hernia; as if he didn't deserve it.

He only liked the first moments after waking—that stunned, confused state when the rebooted brain hadn't yet loaded all the necessary data into RAM and seemed to say: wait a bit, buddy; appreciate the beauty of the empty desktop wallpaper, I'll pull the shortcuts up in a sec. You learn to appreciate that only in contrast to the unbearable alternative, like you only truly start to appreciate the absence of pain when your insides have been torn apart.

Sukuna had torn him apart many times in dreams, unfurled his skin and muscles into gory, colorful ribbons, and Yuji had grown accustomed to it. Physical pain was much easier to get used to than mental pain.

The absence of physical pain even unnerved him. When all his wounds, spurred by accelerated regeneration, finally closed, Yuji missed them more intensely; he'd started missing them even while they were still healing. Asked them to stay longer, like guests about to leave; picked off scabs, sunk grown-out nails into tissues full of reddish serous fluid, scratched them till fresh blood appeared because they itched and tickled unbearably. He imagined tiny, nasty ants under his skin, taunting with their inaccessibility.

When Choso noticed and asked him the reason, Yuji brushed it off with a joke. During another outing, he pocketed a large shard of a broken window and stroked its sharp edges with his thumb for a long time, but then threw it away—these were all half-measures, stupid and cowardly. Lay awake all night, staring at JUST DO IT and the white sneakers on the poster and lazily picking at the hole in his cheek; desperately tried to cry, but couldn't.

54 Days Until the Mistake

When he could no longer cry, he crisscrossed his thighs very high and densely. Hid the blade shamefully in a desk drawer, as if strangling an inconvenient witness, and for a long time afterward pinched and spread the neat, pale lilac edges with his fingers, watched as blood blisters swelled and fell; how they gathered into little red puddles, sending tentative scarlet trickles.

Well, brat, how does it feel? Feel better? Could have asked me to slice you up again, you know. I am a master at it, after all, I wouldn't have refused if you'd asked nicely.

There was nothing new in the pain and burning—in terms of physical sensation, it was complete bullshit, especially compared to a severed arm or a ripped-out heart—but the awareness that he'd done this to himself allowed them to unfold from a new, previously unexplored angle. The activated survival mechanism forced his brain to briefly shift focus from the suffocating guilt, and Yuji closed his eyes, trying to derealize: you punished yourself; you deserved it, now everything is right.

So you do feel better… Guess the girl wasn't a fool, even if she died so stupidly. Probably imagined slitting her wrists in a bathtub, dramatically leaning back against the rim and closing her eyes like Ophelia. Who'd have thought she'd be turned into bloody mush by a piece of a building? Not very aesthetic if you ask me, and I know a thing or two about grotesque.

One of the cuts suddenly itched from the inside, as if something had crawled in, and Yuji spread its edges with his fingers. Sukuna's red eye looked at him from the warm darkness of his body, and Yuji felt nauseous.

What next? I remember asking already, but still. Gonna off yourself, brat? You liked dying that much? I could kill you every day if that's your kink. Want me to?

Yuji dug a nail into the eyeball in his thigh, and Sukuna's laughter echoed inside his skull.

7 Days Until the Mistake

Aren't you bored yet, kid? Have you even come up with a plan? Slit your throat? Chug bleach? Jump off a roof?

5 Days Until the Mistake

Are you really gonna kill yourself? What about your little friends saving the world without you? Gonna abandon them? How selfish of you.

3 Days Until the Mistake

If you've already decided to off yourself, isn't it time to act?

Sukuna dragged him inside for the first time since that night. Yuji felt like he was a bit nervous: something new seemed to lurk in the familiar, barking mockery of his suicidal thoughts. Two months ago, Sukuna hadn't held back.

Should have done something like this ages ago, Sukuna mused dreamily. I like you much better this way, brat.

Yuji gave him a tired look; Sukuna sat on his chest, cheek propped on his hand, looking at him with some perverted, unrecognizably mangled tenderness. It was the expression on his face that scared him most of all; Yuji had long grown used to everything else. To the unbearable metallic stench of thick blood saturating his hair and clothes; to the pain in his broken arms and ribs—he couldn't feel his legs because his spine was broken at the lumbar level. He didn't resist much this time: it was such a well-rehearsed dance that the foreplay could be skipped.

You have such a dead look it'd make a necrophiliac hard. It suits you.

A hot palm touched his cheek, a claw dug into the barely healed hole, reopening it. Yuji smiled; the awareness of the approaching end filled him with a vicious, desperate giddiness.

"Scared, Sukuna?"

Sukuna snorted and bared his teeth in a wide grin, and Yuji thought the universe definitely had a sense of humor. A couple of months ago, he hadn't fully understood just what kind of pure, undiluted evil he carried in his head. It seemed like a joke: yeah-yeah, Sukuna's really evil and loves breaking his bones, but he can't possibly…

A clawed palm plunged into his chest, shattering ribs, and the unbearable pain seemed almost toy-like to Yuji for a moment. On the exhale, blood filled his mouth, hot and sweet, and he managed to think that Sukuna must have looked at him and thought: yeah-yeah, the kid's really depressed and loves thinking about suicide, but he can't possibly…

Not afraid I'll tell on you to your dear brother?

Yuji couldn't have answered through the blood in his throat, but Sukuna didn't expect him to. Sukuna squeezed his heart in his fist, and it burst softly and wetly, and the familiar crimson-purple twilight dissolved into bright light.

5 Hours After the Mistake

The blood-filled hematomas on his thighs looked gruesome enough: dark purple, almost black, with crimson edges. They hurt at rest too, but not as much as the dislocated joints—more like a dull ache, like a forgotten, hungry child. While Yuji was out, Choso had dislocated his left kneecap and dragged him to another building where water still ran from the upper floors. The battery in the camping lantern they used as a light source at night was almost dead.

Choso made him wash, as if hoping it would help. Sitting in the bathtub, Yuji shivered under the cold water, indifferently staring at the hematomas and deformed, swollen knee joint. His head was deafeningly empty, only occasionally flashing detached thoughts like "Huh, he'll probably make me shit with the door open now," "Guess we'll sleep in the same bed now," and "Will he tie me to the radiator when he leaves, or dislocate my other kneecap?"

They didn't say a word to each other. What could Yuji say to him—"I'm sorry"? "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me"? "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me; it won't happen again"?

Lie, lie, another lie.

I'm sorry you stopped me. I've thought a lot about it and am absolutely convinced it's the only way. The moment you loosen control for a second, it'll definitely happen again. You should have cut my tendons, like Sukuna said, not dislocated my joints. You should have finished me off in the subway. You should have…

"We'll talk about this when you're ready," Choso said, drying his hair. "Until then, I only ask that you understand my actions."

Yuji tore his gaze from his inflamed knee and shifted it to Choso. In the cold light, his eyes were just as inflamed and red, and Yuji noted with indifferent interest that Choso's gaze steadfastly held his eyes, not dropping lower.

9 Days Until the Mistake

Choso often looked at his mouth. Not outright stared, as if he had a piece of jerky stuck in his teeth—no, during conversation, Choso looked him in the eyes, but periodically his gaze would slip lower for a moment, like a drunkard slipping, then immediately return.

Yuji paid no attention: his head was occupied with other things.

If he slit his throat ear to ear, how many minutes would it take to definitely bleed out? Would Sukuna seize control of his fading brain? Would Choso sense something wrong through his blood in his body, could he stop the bleeding from a distance? If he messed up the timing even slightly, Choso would definitely save him, transfusing even more of his blood, and then it'd be all over.

Swallow pills and wash them down with alcohol? Which pills to swallow? He'd never been interested in such things, and now he couldn't go online for answers. He could just ransack all the shelves in the nearest pharmacy looking for NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ALCOHOL written in bold on the instructions, but that took time, and the chance of success wasn't a hundred percent.

Letting himself get hit by a curse during an outing wasn't an option either: once Yuji hesitated, hoping the curse's strong, clawed paw would crush his skull, but ended up with just a light scare because Choso reacted too quickly and gave him concerned looks for a long time afterwards.

Only jumping from a sufficiently great height remained—quick and efficient. How great? Probably best from the maximum possible: who knows, maybe even twenty stories wouldn't be enough for his cursed body. Or maybe slit his throat after all? Or maybe…

These thoughts plowed through his brain, cold and practical like battleships gracefully sliding across the surface of a vast sea of self-hatred, drowning out everything else. So he didn't pay attention to how Choso behaved. How he looked at him, how he lingered a hand on his shoulder; how strangely he averted his gaze when Yuji smiled at him perfunctorily. How strangely frightened he looked when carefully removing stitches from his stomach, chest, and face—as if afraid of something more than just causing pain. How his palm on Yuji's chest, pinning him to the bed, trembled faintly when Yuji hissed quietly in pain; how he nervously bit his lip and tried to hide his flushed cheeks behind his loose hair.

Yuji wouldn't have noticed if not for Sukuna, who was utterly delighted with his own observation.

Wow. You know he wants you, brat? How fascinating. Stitched up your wounds, washed the shit and piss off you, changed your clothes while you were out, went on and on about brotherly bonds and all—and still wants to fuck you? Well, well… Don't get me wrong: you're definitely not bad-looking, especially with that dead look and fresh scars—honestly, I'd have been much nastier if I'd been stuck in some gross, flabby body, so you got lucky—but this is just an adorable turn of events.

Gonna do something about it? If you do kill yourself, you have a chance not to die a virgin—you like guys too, right? What if you like fucking so much you decide to stick around in this mortal world?

Yuji did nothing with this information. It was strange to think about such things under these circumstances; once he'd had to jerk off every day to function normally, but now all-consuming nausea had completely subdued his teenage libido. Even the inevitable morning wood, a purely physiological reaction to pelvic vein dilation during sleep, now only evoked vague disgust.

His stupid, weak, disgustingly tenacious body wanted to live on and reproduce, completely indifferent to his decisions, as if someone besides Sukuna sat in his head, and realizing this made Yuji hate himself even more.

3 Days After the Mistake

"Do you hate me now?"

Yuji blinked and shifted his gaze from the grey patch of ceiling to Choso's face. As he'd thought, they now slept in one bed; it was a double bed belonging to some happy couple from the corner apartment on the third floor. Happy faces of children and grandchildren looked at them from a dresser shelf, and Yuji really hoped they'd all survived that cursed Halloween. Judging by the books on the shelves he'd leafed through out of boredom, they were educated, pleasant people.

Yuji moved his left hand, trying to ease the pressure of the handcuff on his wrist—Choso cuffed him to the iron headboard every night. He probably didn't expect it to hold him: Yuji could easily break them with brute force, but the noise would surely give Choso enough time to wake up and subdue him; he likely wouldn't have time to reset his shoulder and knee and put up a decent fight. Before short outings for supplies, Choso injected him with painkillers, then dislocated his remaining joints, and Yuji felt like a living corpse, indifferently staring at the ceiling.

"No," he lied or didn't lie. What was the point in knowing for sure?

"This will pass," Choso said quietly and very sadly; he himself seemed not to fully believe it. "We'll find your friends. Things can still be fixed. Please."

He was crying, Yuji realized with some strange indifference. He cried a lot.

Yuji himself still hadn't managed to cry even once. If he had, if he'd burst into tears, begging for forgiveness and lamenting that he didn't know what came over him, would Choso have believed him? He'd only lived in the real world for four months, he could probably…

Through the window behind Choso, he could see the charred skeleton of a high-rise, only two and a half floors left. How many people lived there? How many died there? How many more would die if he let Sukuna break free again?

He mentally pulled a cool rectangle of a razor blade from its packaging and raised it above himself. Inhaled, exhaled, reminded himself again that this wasn't his body, that this wasn't happening to him—and plunged it in. The tissues obediently parted, as if they never wanted to be whole: epidermis, dermis, hypodermis, deep layers; the red darkness of Kugisaki's empty eye socket; the wet chunks of meat Nanamin burst into, like a New Year's fireworks display; the people in Shibuya, crushed, sliced, suffocated under debris; their cyanotic, crushed limbs, their reddish, blood-stained bones jutting from open fractures, their broken spines and burst organs; their hope, their pain, their terror.

Come on, come on, try. You can definitely do it, you almost managed. Imagine your grandfather's face if he'd lived to see this—you're strong, you were supposed to help others. What face would he make if he found out you couldn't prevent it, simply by dying. He wouldn't even yell, he'd just look at you with disappointed eyes, praying it was a stupid joke. Look at you and say it'd have been better to die back then, at the very beginning, instead of swallowing that damned finger, because then all this could have been avoided, and–

"Forgive me," Yuji forced out when the strained tears finally rolled down his cheeks, ticklish and hot. "Forgive me, I don't… I don't know what came over me. Forgive me. Forgive me."

Choso pulled him close, and Yuji grimaced from the pain in his dislocated shoulder, hiding his face. Remembered that sincere sobs also required shuddering, and exhaled long and ragged, forcing his muscles to contract. It was strange to force himself to cry when all his life before he'd tried to hold back unshed tears.

"It'll be alright," Choso muttered into his hair, stroking his head. "I'm with you, it'll be alright. It'll be alright."

Who was he trying to convince—him or himself? Doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore.

After a while, Choso released him and looked into his eyes, gently stroking his tear-wet cheek, and Yuji felt a bit nauseous with himself. Choso's face was very close, and the next thought was born in his brain as easily and quickly as the thought of the necessity of suicide.

"Thank you for not letting me jump," he said and licked his lips to check one last time, and Choso's gaze darted to his mouth again.

Wow. You know he wants you, kid?

Sukuna was right after all. Sukuna was right again.

It'd be stupid not to take advantage of that, right?

"Sorry I had to use force." Choso's eyes were huge, frightened, full of tears. "I didn't want to, I just panicked and… I didn't know what to do, I was sure you'd jump no matter what I said, and I… I just didn't know how else… Forgive me, I–"

He was so close it only took a simple neck movement, and Yuji leaned forward and kissed him, stifling the rest of the apologies.

36 Days Until the Mistake

This was far from the first time Sukuna kissed him. It was just another shade, another level of his game: break his arms and legs, puncture his liver and lung, pin him to his throne, then lean over him and twist his own face into some absolutely incredible expression, then grip his chin with clawed fingers, force his head back and–

Sometimes it started almost tenderly. Their first time definitely started almost tenderly: Yuji had exhaled fearfully into his mouth then, expecting pain, but there was none—well, there was, but it didn't increase, and it was almost pleasant, almost affectionate. He almost managed to think something like "Oh god, is this really what my first kiss will be like?" before Sukuna's hot mouth slid lower along his jaw and neck, and his wet lips were replaced by sharp teeth that sank into his sublingual muscle, then Sukuna jerked his head, tearing out his Adam's apple, and it was incredibly painful and incredibly predictable, and he would have screamed if his throat obeyed him, if he weren't choking on blood while Sukuna looked at him with the same mix of amusement and strange, unrecognizably mangled tenderness, stroking his shoulders trembling with convulsive attempts to breathe and licking his blood from his lips, and that was–

Yuji exhaled raggedly, leaning closer, opening his mouth wider because it was so good and bad, because he knew nothing else, because Sukuna's tongue counted his front teeth and slid deeper, so hot, wet, and wrong, because his fingers in his intercostal muscles sank their claws deeper, caressing the pliant sponge of his lungs, slowly filling with blood.

A cry full of horror and disgust trembled in his throat, but it choked on his own blood when Sukuna–

2 Days After the Mistake

I didn't think you had it in you, Sukuna murmured into his mouth, winding his glistening lilac intestines around his fist. I was sure you wouldn't dare. You surprised me again, brat. First with how long you lasted, now with how unexpectedly you broke. So much will and tenacity—and where is it all now? I never got tired of breaking your bones over all our dances, but now…

"Isn't it a wonderful feeling?" Yuji exhaled through his blood-filled mouth, looking at the crimson sky above with an unseeing gaze, almost not feeling his own split-open stomach. "After so many hundreds of years, still finding something that can surprise you? Huh, Sukuna?"

He couldn't care less what would happen next, and Sukuna surely knew it. Probably why he kissed him again instead of squeezing his heart in his fist; bit off the part of Yuji's tongue that dared to venture into his mouth, and greedily swallowed his blood and scream before driving his claws between his legs, and–

3 Days After the Mistake

With Choso, it was completely different. Choso was unbearably gentle and cautious, and Yuji realized with surprise that gentleness nauseated him even more than pain. When Yuji kissed him, Choso only exhaled, freezing immediately, and for a seeming eternity of a second, Yuji believed he'd made a mistake, but then Choso sobbed and wove his fingers into his hair, returning the kiss just as clumsily and fearfully, and Yuji waited for pain out of habit, but there was none. Well, there was, but not–

"Can you reset my shoulder?" Yuji breathed into his mouth, because he hadn't lost hope despite the nauseating knot of disgust and self-hatred twisting him, because he felt blood rushing to his pelvis, how his entire stupid, tenacious body responded to the wet touch of another's lips and the heat of another's body, how–

Instead of answering, Choso just pressed a heavy palm to his chest, holding him down, and gripped his right forearm with his other hand, pulling it aside. Yuji felt, almost saw, his tormented shoulder joint finally sliding back into place, cutting the Gordian knot of pain, and moaned, weaving the fingers of his now-obeying hand into Choso's hair, pulling him closer and pushing his tongue into his mouth. This desperation could easily pass for desire, he knew from experience with Sukuna; self-destruction could be just as beautiful and intoxicating as the pleasure he didn't deserve.

His left knee was still dislocated, so he pressed his right into Choso's crotch, perfectly knowing what he'd find there, but his breath still hitched a little. If he thought about it, he'd only ever touched his own cock before, since Sukuna had fully copied his body, and it wasn't like Sukuna often let him touch him, invariably biting into his subclavian vein or crushing his head, but still it was–

"Wait," Choso breathed into his mouth, almost fearfully, breathing heavily and squirming. "Wait, Yuji, I'm not–"

Yuji yanked his left hand, ripping it from the handcuffs with a clatter—barely needed cursed energy, did Choso rob a sex shop, not a police station?—and wrapped it around his back, pressing him closer. Can't let him relax, can't give him time to–

"It's okay," he murmured against Choso's lips, feeling his back muscles tremble under his hand. "It's okay, it's—"

25 Days Until the Mistake

"Are you okay?"

Yuji raised a bewildered gaze to Fushiguro, who looked at him with poorly concealed concern, and shook the remaining dust from his pants. The deep wound on his neck was still bleeding, dropping thick blood droplets onto the dry asphalt, and Yuji reluctantly straightened up, lazily pinching it with his fingers.

"It's fine," he forced a smile, while hot blood soaked his clothes. "It'll stop soon, you know my regeneration."

"You need to be more careful."

"I know. I know, it's just… I won't die anyway, right?"

14 Days Until the Mistake

You just have to die.

11 Days Until the Mistake

There are no other options. You just have to die.

8 Days Until the Mistake

Nothing can be fixed anymore. Your death won't fix anything either, but at least you'll know you won't make things worse by continuing to live.

4 Days Until the Mistake

Why are you delaying the inevitable? Still hoping for something? JUST DO IT, you fucking coward. You know what needs to be done.

1 Day Until the Mistake

"I don't know what I'd do next if not for you," Choso said almost inaudibly and looked away, as if embarrassed, while they boiled water for dinner over a gas burner. "I'm grateful to fate for meeting you."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I love you, Yuji. Want me to bring you something tasty tomorrow? What would you like?"

"I'd like… Hmm, let me think…"

3 Days After the Mistake

Yuji didn't let Choso come to his senses. Rolled him onto his back and pinned him down, almost hissing from the pain in his still-unreset knee, and kissed him deeper, feeling his frantic pulse with a hand on his neck. Choso was still trying to pull away and say something, but Yuji couldn't let him catch his breath.

"I love you," he whispered into his mouth, pressing his forehead to his and feverishly thinking. "I love you, I love you."

Now or not now? Will he have time? Enough strength? Need to hit with the left, because the right still doesn't obey well, need to–

"Yuji, I– God, please, I'm not–"

His words broke off into a loud exhale when Yuji braced himself on his shoulders and sat on his hips, when he moved his pelvis, pressing harder, feeling his toes curl and nausea rise from the purely physical pleasure.

Choso. Poor, kind Choso with flushed cheeks, frightened gaze, and a hard-on. What would he do when he came to his senses? Jump off a roof too?

Yuji doubted for exactly a second. Inhaled, exhaled, forced a smile, stroking Choso's chest and shoulders and almost not feeling the pain in his thighs and knee.

Maybe he could still do something? Help someone, save someone? Thwart Kenjaku's plans, save Gojo? See those who survived again, help them, feel less disgusting for even a moment?

JUST DO IT.

How selfish. To continue living, knowing his death could wipe most of Sukuna's power from the face of the earth. He wasn't that valuable, not that strong.

JUST DO IT.

"I love you," he said again for some reason.

"Forgive me, Choso," he added, because he felt ashamed, hurt, and scared, and only then realized it was a mistake.

Should have struck his bare white throat, but Yuji didn't want to crush his trachea, so he smiled nervously and drove his left fist into Choso's solar plexus. He expected a frightened inhale, a muscle spasm, a ruptured diaphragm—he hit with all his might, but…

It was strange to hear it again, to feel it: Red Scale made a quiet, almost glassy sound, stopping his fist, and Yuji blinked just as surprised as the first time, feeling hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat like bloody froth.

Not afraid I'll tell on you to your dear brother?

Told. Probably told. Carved his filthy mouth into him while he slept and surely told him everything, and now he–

Choso caught his forearm, gripping it tightly, and Yuji threw his head back and laughed. Tried to move his free hand, but Choso had already taken control of his blood flow; the riptide carried him away, filling his mouth with salt water, blocking his ears, dashing his head against sharp stones, and—
Still can't do anything, huh?
—and Sukuna's loud cackle in his head was the last thing he remembered before darkness swallowed everything.