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“Okay,” Itadori says, very calmly. “I know I said I didn’t want to negotiate –”
From his hand, Sukuna lets out an ugly laugh. What a dick.
“But,” Itadori continues, not quite as calmly. “I am willing to adjust my stance on that.”
Sukuna is still laughing. Itadori smacks his hand a few times against the wall, but that makes the – the thing in the corner move, so he immediately stops. He’ll think of something unpleasant for Sukuna later. Maybe he’ll go make out with Fushiguro. Sukuna always hates that.
Now isn’t the time. Itadori gives himself a quick shake, trying to get a grip.
“Kid,” Sukuna says. “This really what freaks you out? You’ve swallowed my mummified finger –”
Urgh, don’t remind him.
“– And kicked slime curses in the face without a second of hesitation, but you can’t handle a spider?”
“Shut up,” Itadori says with a scowl, holding out his left hand like a vacuum cleaner. “Please just eat it.”
“Go make your boyfriend do it,” Sukuna says. Any other time, Itadori would be pleased with how grumpy he sounds, but right now he isn’t having much fun.
“You saw him!” Itadori says, unable to keep the sting of betrayal from colouring his voice.
Not five minutes ago, Fushiguro had poked his head into Itadori’s room. Probably to remind him of a class he had missed. (He had been legally dead, give him a break). He had then born witness to Itadori scrambled high on his bedside table, squatting in terror as a spider as big as a dinner plate terrorised him from below.
Fushiguro had taken one look at the scene, stoically stared at Itadori as he had shrieked at Fushiguro to come help, and then very slowly closed the door.
On second thought, maybe he wouldn’t make out with Fushiguro later.
There were more important things to think about, though. Like how the spider was still here.
“I’ve seen you eat so much gross shit,” Itadori says. He’s verging on desperate. This has been going on for almost ten minutes. “So much gross shit. What’s one thing more?”
“I am not your personal bug collector,” Sukun says, and now he sounds more grumpy than amused. Great.
“You’re my personal something,” Itadori says. His thighs are starting to hurt. Gojo-sensei has really been upping his stamina training. Balancing precariously on a very narrow and slightly unstable wooden drawer was made all the more difficult after a full day of martial arts with a panda.
“You know,” Sukuna says. “If I eat the spider –”
“So you’d be willing?” Itadori says, straightening slightly as he is offered a spark of hope in a bleak and desolate world.
“What do you think would happen to it?”
Itadori squints down at his palm. “It would be…gone?”
Sukuna’s mouth smiles, all teeth. “Well, yes,” he says. “it would definitely be gone. But where would it go? If I swallowed it whole – didn’t chew or anything – would it still be wriggling around in your guts?”
Itadori blue-screens for a few seconds. Then he starts whacking Sukuna against the wall with renewed force, stomach-churning. Oh no. Oh no. Is that what has been happening to all the things that Sukuna has swallowed over the past few months? Does he have pieces of curse residue lodged in his tissue mass, strands of Fushiguro’s hair wrapped around his bones, teeth from –
From the other side of the wall, Fushiguro thumps back. Itadori feels himself unbalance as the bedside table gives an unpleasant lurch to the side. Flailing, he attempts to grab onto the bed frame, but his right knee gives out and he crashed into the floor.
With a groan, he shoves himself backwards and starts to get back up - only to stare directly into spider's soulless, black eyes. It twitches its legs forward like it's trying to say hello - or trying to eat him.
Itadori screams and shoves Sukuna’s face towards it.
“Kill it kill it kill it kill it –!”
…
…
“Well,” Gojo-sensei says, standing in front of the three of them. “What have we learned from this little…experience.”
“Not to send Itadori out against a spider curse,” Fushiguro says sourly. He’s leaning against their shared wall – well, what’s left of it, anyway. There is now a fairly large and slightly misshapen hole cutting right through the centre. In a panic, Itadori had attempted to hang a sheet over his side, but then he had found that the spider had a friend in his closet and. That hadn’t ended particularly well for the wall to the hallway, either.
Nobara hasn’t stopped laughing since she came to investigate the explosion. Itadori will never forgive either of them for this.
“That’s one lesson, yes,” Gojo-sensei says.
“To permanently kill your hoasts when you get the chance,” Sukuna says from Itadori’s cheekbone. Itadori slaps a hand over it, but Sukuna just transfers to his palm and bites his ear.
That gets Fushiguro to stop sulking. “What have I –”
Gojo-sensei pats Fushiguro on the head as he walks past to stare at Itadori through his blindfold. Fushigruo goes silent in a fit of sheer rage.
“My cute little student,” Gojo-sensei says. For a brief, horrible second, Itadori isn’t sure if he’s talking to Sukuna or him. “I know that puberty can be a trying time –”
Nobara abruptly stops laughing.
“– and the feelings that you are feeling right now can be very overwhelming, particularly with your first boyfriend –”
“Oh, no,” Fushiguro groans and starts trying to escape through the poorly-concealed hole in the wall. Gojo-sensei just grabs him up the scruff of his collar and pulls him back inside.
“But if you really need to get those urges out, you can just use the door like a normal person. I think Megumi would appreciate it a lot more.”
Nobara bolts. Gojo-sensei, Itadori notes with jealousy, lets her.
“Knocking down walls is not the answer to being horny,” Gojo-sensei says like he’s imparting them with age-old wisdom.
Fushiguro is punching the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to stave off an oncoming headache. “No,” he says, very slowly.
Gojo-sensei gives Fushiguro a very judgemental look. “Did you really think I would believe Itadori is scared of spiders?”
And Sukuna won’t stop fucking laughing.