Sukuna's 'Family Love'

I should have been an ordinary person who took life seriously. I thought of myself as a child who didn't give anyone much cause to worry.

Before my parents could nag me, I would mechanically sit down at my desk and open a mind-numbingly boring study guide. With the barrel of my mechanical pencil damp from sweaty palms, I filled loose-leaf paper with equations. Then erased them.

My family seemed to like me that way. As long as I did that, they called me a "good boy" and bought me piles of utterly unnecessary things like workbooks.

Put another way, perhaps that was my only value. To those adults, I was nothing more than a future cash cow, or something to brag about to the neighbors.

So... I didn't want to work myself to death for other people anymore.

A second life, bestowed by a god I hated.

I gave up trying. Gave up working myself to the bone.

I knew that without those things, this person called "me" would be worthless, but I threw them in the trash without hesitation anyway.

And so, I should have become someone who couldn't get out of bed without help, couldn't feed himself properly, and even struggled to leave the house... nothing but a burden. Even I wondered what kind of trash-tier NEET I was.

But my family didn't abandon me.

Grandpa called me "lazybones," but when I was about to be late, he took me to school on his bicycle. He dragged me off the tatami and made me stand in the kitchen when I thought cooking was impossible, then ate my burnt omelet and said, "Delicious."

Yuji, the other twin, was always with me. Yuji woke me up in the morning, carried me to school, and woke me to eat when I preferred a nap to lunch. And whenever I occasionally did something myself, no matter how small, he praised me: "That's awesome! See? You can do it!"

To the me in this world, my family was essential to peace and laziness... no, even without those things, they were irreplaceable.

Because they were surely the only ones who gave me love without asking anything in return. All I needed to do was relax and enjoy it. That was the peaceful world I wanted.

The place they brought me to was apparently somewhere beneath Jujutsu High. I listened carefully to the White-Haired Blindfolded Man's explanation, trying not to miss anything.

Honestly, even with 8% released, I was terribly sleepy, and most of it was so fantastical that none of it sank in. Basically, he was using way too much Hindi.

"...That's about it. Did you understand any of that?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry."

When he saw that I hadn't understood even half of it, he hung his head with a drawn-out, "Seriously?"

"Well, whatever. Just remember that I'm your homeroom teacher."

He held out his hand.

"I'm Satoru Gojo, the handsome guy who'll be your first-year homeroom teacher at Jujutsu High! Nice to meet you."

My gaze traveled up from that large hand to his suspicious blindfold and white hair. I quietly hid both hands behind my back.

"Get me someone else."

"No, you don't get to swap out your homeroom teacher!"

"I think making a suspicious character our homeroom teacher violates youth protection laws."

I shook my head from side to side in refusal, but Satoru Gojo used the hand he'd held out to grab my head firmly instead.

"Is this the mouth that says rude things to your teacher?"

Then, creak, creak... he squeezed hard, and my skull screamed as though it were about to split open. Ow, ow. Why did this hurt more than Yuji's angry iron fist?

"This kind of behavior is called abuse of auth-ow, ow, ow, that hurts.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me, sir."

"Mm, very good."

The moment I apologized, his hand let go, and a smile touched only the corners of his mouth. Waving his hand casually, he said:

"Make sure you listen to me, okay?"

He made that very clear.

Thinking that he was definitely the type who wouldn't allow dozing off or sleeping in, and wanting to make things easier for myself right now,

I answered, "Okay." For now, obedient compliance was the best course of action.

Then he started ambling along again. As we walked at a leisurely pace, a powerful enemy gradually approached-sleepiness.

But I didn't need to stay so tense anymore. Surely a little nap wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't, right?

I took a soft breath, sending fresh air to my brain. My consciousness, taut as a bowstring, loosened.

Ah, just a little more and I could fall asleep...

My steps grew unsteady, and a thin veil seemed to settle over my vision. Even the mocking laughter seemed to drift away. Just then,

A faint electronic tone pulled me back from the brink of sleep.

"Oh, an email."

It was Gojo who took out his phone as he spoke.

Tilting my head and thinking, Email notifications never wake me up normally, I let my consciousness drift away again. I had absolutely no interest in someone else's email.

But beside me, I heard a sharp intake of breath.

Clearly sensing the turmoil in the person next to me, I lifted my face.

Then I leaned toward him as he stood frozen with his phone in hand and stole a quick glance at the screen.

Whenever I did that to Yuji, he got a little angry and said, "That's an invasion of privacy!" But if something caught my interest, I couldn't help being curious.

"Hey, wait, hey."

My teacher was startled too when I slipped through the gap by his arm. Taking that chance, I peeked at the email displayed on his screen, where impersonal text flickered.

"Yuji Itadori died during a mission."

"...Hah."

That was all. Just eleven characters reported my older brother's death.

It was too sudden, too unbelievable.

Only after reading that line over and over dozens of times in my head did I finally manage to breathe out.

"Hey, can I go see Yuji?"

For now, I wanted to check. I wanted to see with my own eyes.

This message sent to my teacher had to be some kind of cruel prank. Someone was trying to harass him.

My other half had to be smiling full of life today, too, knocking all sorts of things flying with his musclehead strength. With his all-embracing, good-natured kindness, he had to be saving someone somewhere in the world. Then he would surely come back to me, smile, say, "What am I going to do with you?" and spoil me again.

When I looked up, the email recipient's face was unusually stiff.

"That's okay, right? If I just see Yuji's face..." "I'm sorry."

An abrupt apology cut off my words.

An awkward voice, filled with genuine remorse. That tone alone told me what the reality was.

But I couldn't accept it. I couldn't give in here.

"We don't know for sure yet, right? Yuji's strong, so he's definitely fine. He'll just say something like, 'I got hit by a car, but I blocked it with my muscles!' again..."

I set my sluggish brain to work and began listing reasons Yuji had to be safe.

Humans were strange. Something as uncertain as words could disrupt our thoughts and make us more and more anxious.

My brain barely worked, yet unease churned around the edges of my chest. I didn't want to accept it, yet a part of me already had, and was afraid.

Then, to me in that state... the merciless messenger announced:

"Yuji was sent on a special grade cursed spirit mission, and to take Sukuna's place... to regain control of himself, he died.

Yuji killed himself."

His voice was extraordinarily cold.

But that chilled my brain, which had been about to boil over, and calmed me down.

*The person in front of me must be angry too. This wasn't his fault. It wasn't Yuji's fault either.

...If he had a reason to be frustrated, then it was probably...*

"Then Yuji was 'killed'?"

"!"

My words made the corner of his mouth twitch slightly. That alone... was enough.

"That's no good, sir. Silence means consent, as the saying goes."

I already knew the answer.

I didn't understand that Hindi, whatever ◯◯◯◯ was supposed to mean. But that definitely wasn't what had killed Yuji.

...Yuji had been killed by "complete strangers" I didn't know at all, people Yuji had surely never met either. Indirectly. Clearly, they were the old men he'd mentioned, and the people I'd threatened earlier.

Was there anything more hollow than that?

My only family had been taken from me, all because of the arbitrary assumptions and prejudices of old fossils who had never truly understood the person called "Yuji Itadori" and had lived barely fifty-odd years at most. Even the god who killed me in my previous life must have lived for a hundred or a thousand years.

I moved a little away from my teacher and planted both feet on the ground.

"Yuji was worth so much more than me."

A rush.

Something stirred inside my body. That was what it felt like. Suppressing it, I pushed out my words on a faint breath.

"Smiles, kindness, courage, and strength. He was the one who gave me all of them."

Inside, I was strangely cold.

I wasn't angry. I didn't feel hatred either... I didn't know the name of that emotion.

"...Without looking at a single one of those things, they decided to be afraid, decided to hate him, and erased it all. He was so kind, but they only treated him as a religious tool."

Really, they were exactly like the family who had watched me grow up in my previous life.

"That's why I hate adults like that most of all."

Those were, without a doubt, my true feelings.

Because I knew Grandpa's gentle hands, because I knew Yuji's selfless love, I hated adults who thought only of themselves.

A few steps away, the teacher who had been fooling around with me moments earlier wore a serious expression. I couldn't see his eyes behind his blindfold, but I knew he was looking straight at me.

"I don't hate you... but if you try to stop me here, things will get troublesome."

At those words, the corners of his mouth lifted.

"That won't do, Haruka. At a time like this, you're supposed to say, 'I'll hate you.'

...I'm the strongest, you know. I won't lose to you."

Facing my opponent as he deftly removed his blindfold, I erased every emotion too.

In this battle, whoever held on to their emotions would surely lose. It wasn't for anyone, or because of anyone.

It was only to conquer this moment.

"Grandpa, how do I become kind?"

There was no one to answer that question.

"Yuji, how do I become strong?"

That question... had no one to answer it either.

I could only stand alone. Could only shoulder my own feelings. Could only fight.

It was a hassle, exhausting, and I didn't want to make an effort at all.

Even so, my body rose... and I planted my own feet firmly on the ground. Letting that thing surging from the depths of my heart drive me, I looked straight ahead, where my enemy was smiling.

"What incredible cursed energy. What kind of curse did you place on your brother?"

A curse...?

No, that wasn't it.

"It's 'family love.'"