Chapter Text
Yuuji Itadori paused mid sip of his juice on his walk home from sugiwara general hospital and peared into an alleyway he heard a scuffle from. He dropped his juice as his eyes widened.
He noticed three things as his juice box slowly sucumed to gravity.
Number one. A high school aged kid had his fist buried in the gut of a boy with dark hair and darker circles under dark eyes, who was being held up by two other high schoolers.
Number two. The boy with dark circles under his eyes looked horrified. But not of the older boys, more like the horror of a parent looking for their child and finding them staring down the barrel of a gun and fiddling with the trigger.
Number three. The boy was a contradiction. He probably had the most awful cursed energy Yuuji had ever felt. It was like mold and rotten fruits, like those videos of decades old lunchboxes being opened, where fog roils out and you can smell it through the screen. It makes his eyes water, and he almost retches from how much of it was coming off of the boy, much more than he had ever seen before from a single person.
For as long as he could remember, Itadori Yuuji has seen things no one else could. Not just the negative energy everyone but him released that later formed into spirits, but the thing that makes people themselves, that shapes them. He had decided that soul was the right word for that when his gramps had taken him to the beach when he was ten. All the people with their them-ness had snapped something into place within him, and ever since, they were souls to him.
This boy's soul was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Yuuji's mind filled with images of old, well-worn, and better loved childrens toys. Of play, and of unconditional love.
When his juice box hit the ground, Yuuji moved. He covered the 6 or so meters in less than a second, his right leg snapping out and hitting the attacker in the space between his ribs and his hips, sending him flying to the end of the alley where he slammed into a trashcan, the contents of which flew out, and the boy followed suit, expelling his lunch for a second viewing.
Yuuji calmly returned his foot to the ground and put his hands in his pockets as the two other perpetrators stared at their fallen leader. Despite being shorter than both of them, Yuuji still managed to look down on them.
The shorter one recovered first, dropping the boy in his arms, causing the taller to do the same, and he shouted "What the hell do you think you're doing!? You think you can just pull that shit and get away with it, kid?"
Yuuji watches as the short one grabs his collar with both hands and tries to shake him. It doesn't work.
"You can't just throw us around like that!" He spits. "Right, Inoue?" He says, looking back to his still standing comrade.
'Inoue,' as he had been named, was no longer where his once friend had expected to find him. He was, in fact, making good headway on his new personal goal of running a 500 meter dash in less than a minute. "Fuck that, man!" He shouted, voice carring back into the alley. "That's the damn Tiger of West Junior High!"
At this, the remaining high schooler took a step back and released Yuuji, a nervous smile crawling across his face. "Y-y-you're Itadori Yuuji?" He managed through his trembling.
Yuji looked at him coldly. After a second or two he responded, spreaing his hands wide, as if it was self evident. "That's me."
The high schooler continues backpedaling until he hits the brick wall of a convenience store behind him, causing him to flinch hard enough that an outside observer might think a gun went off right next to him.
"Ohh a-ah, this— this is all just a-a misunderstan—" he gulps "a misunderstanding. A mistake, it's a big mistake. I-I-I-I swear man! Hah heh ha! Yeah, it's— I didn't—"
Yuuji cuts him off before he can keep babling. "Leave. Take your friend with you" he gestures to the first boy, who seems to have fainted in a pile of trash and sickness.
The high schooler greatfully takes the opportunity to flee the metaphorical splash zone, pulling the other up to limp along beside him.
Once they were out of the alley, Yuuji relaxed. He squatted down to the boy crumpled into himself. "Hey. Hey are you okay?" He reaches to shake him by the shoulder "I scared those guys off, you're safe now... Seriously do I have to bring you to the hospital?"
Just before his hand reached the black haired kid, he felt that nauseating cursed energy surge and a sharp cut open on his cheek, then he heard the disturbingly modulated voice of a little girl.
"Don't touch him!!!"
Yuuta woke up slowly. He vaguely remembered getting his shit rocked, to use the technical term.
let's see he thought. I remember Shiroguma, Inoue, and Tanaka pulling me into that alley. I managed to keep Rika off of them, thank goodness. he sighed in relief. Then he paled as he recalled the pink haired boy who saved him, more specifically, that, as he was lossing consciousness, Rika had come out and attacked him.
"Rika!" He shouted in fear as he bolted upright in bed. wait, bed? Where am I? Did I get kidnapped?! he looked around to see that he appeared to be in someone's guest room. He got that far and no further before the door to said room slammed open, and the 'Tiger of West Junior High' entered the room with a bowl of salted cabbage with sesame oil, grinning happily.
"Ohayō!" He says brightly, so bright that Yuuta winced, though that was also the fault of the headache which had clearly bloomed while he was unconscious.
"Here!" He says, profering the bowl. Yuuta stared at it incredulously for five seconds before he realized how rude it is to make the pink haired boy keep holding it out for him, and he took it along with a tentative bite of its contents.
His eyes widened, it was amazing. "How did you know I like salted cabbage with sesame oil?" He asked. Then, suddenly frightened. "Have you been stalking me!?"
The pink haired boy just laughed, and for some reason, Yuuta wanted to hear that laugh again. "No no no," he started, as settled himself. "Rika-chan told me it was your favorite, and I happened to have the ingredients."
Yuuta's laboring brain finally shortcircuited at that. "Rika... told you." He says, bewilderedly.
"Yup!" The boy says it like it's the most obvious thing but one he's still happy to elaborate on, like a parent responding to "I love you."
Yuuta looks at the pink haired boy while subconscious taking another bite of his cabbage. Goodness him, it was absolutely delicious, he wanted more.
"You spoke... with Rika?" Yuuta asked, trying to wrap his head around the concept. No one else had ever seen Rika, much less held a conversation with her, much MUCH less asked her what Yuuta's favorite food was. "You can see her?" He finishes lamely
The pink boy gives two thumbs up in a "yes to both" gesture. "It's pretty cool." He says thoughtfully. "I've never met another person who can see curses, much less a spirit who can talk, and who has a human soul."
Yuuta was trying so hard to keep up, but he snagged hard on "soul."
"Her soul? What? Can you see souls?"
The pink haired boy looked slightly dejected. "Oh, so you can't see those, huh? But you can see cursed energy, right? Just not souls?"
"Cursed energy?" Yuuta feels like he's telling a child that Santa doesn't exist by asking the question.
"The negative energy people give off." The pink haired boy gesticulates "also the thing Rika-chan and other curses are made from."
"Oh, I didn't realize it had a name" Yuuta felt his cheeks color slightly with the admission. "Yes, I can see it."
"But not souls... Huh. I had assumed it was a sorcerer thing, but I guess that puts a nail into that theory." He mutters to himself
"Sorry, but, who are you?" Yuuta can't help the question any longer. "Sorry," Yuuta repeats. "but it feels rude to keep thinking of you as 'the pink haired boy'."
The boy's face makes a perfect ':o' shape, then he laughs again. "Sorry, sorry. I got a bit carried away there, huh?" He says, rubbing the back of his head. "My name is Itadori Yuuji, I like tall women with big asses!" He finishes with a grin, extending his hand towards Yuuta.
Yuuta blushes furiously as he reaches for Yuuji's hand "Hello," he squeaks. "My name is Okkotsu Yuuta, and I haven't really thought about that sort of thing!"