Chapter Text
It appears without warning overnight.
Ryoumen Sukuna.
An unfamiliar name that greets your half-lidded eyes when you wake up, turn away from the sunlight streaming through your windows, toward your left wrist. Where on the inside should be only one name.
Itadori Yuuji.
Your soulmate, whoever he is, wherever he is. The boy whose face you’ve imagined ever since his name appeared on your skin one day long ago, at first so light a gray you could barely read it. In the years since then, it’s darkened to a black, legible and a comforting reminder that there’s someone out there for you.
This has been your reality for as long as you can remember, Itadori’s name and all the wonderful things you hope will come when you find each other. He’s the reason why you could be in the middle of doing anything and still take a second to glance at your wrist. And sometimes there could be nothing at all, and your eyes would wander just to see it again, his name.
So when you see another below his, you don’t believe it. You think you’re imagining things, slow to clear the fog from your sleep-addled mind. You turn your wrist over and again, expecting the second name to disappear, but it doesn’t. Blink, and it still doesn’t. You reach for the name to rub it off with your thumb, as though it’s merely ink from a pen.
But you never write on yourself, and if you did, you wouldn’t write where your soulmate’s name is.
Ryoumen Sukuna remains. Unsmudged.
Throwing back your covers, you sit up and bring his name closer to your eyes. It’s as dark as Itadori’s, as any name of a soulmate would be on someone your age. But this means it skipped over all the stages you should’ve seen, from the early, barely visible gray to the late black of a name that has no other color to turn.
“I have … another soulmate?” you say in confusion, though there’s nothing to be confused about. The truth is quite simple.
You have two soulmates instead of one, two names instead of one.
They happen. Anomalies.
Soulmates who hate each other, soulmates who prefer solitude, even soulmates who never meet. In your case, you have more than one soulmate. You’ve read and watched news covering such cases, but never in your life did you think you’d be one of them.
Well, you can’t change things. Once a soulmate’s name appears, it can never be removed, only hidden. And your parents will find out sooner or later that you have not one anymore, but two names on your wrist now. What better way to share the good news with them than over breakfast?
You smile and get out of bed to stretch.
Shopping on Takeshita Street feels a lot like shopping on a weekend, people passing you by with bags on their arms everywhere you go. Even if you’re used to walking, your feet can’t carry you all day in warm June air without needing a moment’s rest, and you find a spot in a side street, out of the way of other shoppers, to sit with Keiko on a bench.
You could call her a bad influence of a friend for convincing you to play hooky with her today, but you’re just as at fault for suggesting you both go shopping in Harajuku.
“You’re staring,” she says.
You look up at her. “What?”
She nods toward your wrist. “Your soulmates’ names. You’re staring at them like they’re suddenly gonna talk to you.”
You’re a little embarrassed getting caught staring at their names again by one of your friends, but in your defense, it’s only been two days since you woke up to the biggest surprise of your life. It hasn’t fully settled in yet, and you don’t know when it will. At least a week, you think, before it starts to feel normal.
“Well,” you say, pulling down your jacket sleeve over your wrist. “If they do, I could just ask where they are so we could meet sooner.”
It’d certainly be a shortcut.
Keiko vehemently shakes her head. “No, no, no—that’s not how soulmates are supposed to meet!”
“How are we supposed to meet, then?”
“By chance. Ideally, a meet cute. In a way you’ll never forget.”
“I think most people would agree that just meeting a soulmate is unforgettable.”
“Unforgettable doesn’t mean good.”
You want to argue that it’s a good thing when soulmates meet for the first time, but this isn’t true for everyone. Frankly, it may not even be true for you. And thinking about how happiness isn’t a guarantee takes the wind out of your sails, enough that you change the subject.
“Weird, right? Ryoumen,” you say. “That’s more of a title than a name, and it sounds fake instead of real.”
Keiko seems unbothered talking about this. “I’ll admit Itadori Yuuji rolls off the tongue better, but you’re an anomaly, remember? Maybe that soulmate of yours is a weirdo in name only.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Hey, why don’t we—” Keiko’s phone sounds from her bag, and she fishes for it. “Oh, it’s just Masaru. Lemme see what he wants.” She picks up, hears what her little brother has to say, then: “Idiot! How many times have I told you to stop— Don’t be ridiculous, that isn’t the same thing.” A pause. “Fine, I’ll be there.” Another pause. “As long as it takes!”
Keiko hangs up, folds her phone with a snap, before asking you with a sigh, “How much did you hear?”
“Something about a fight in school,” you say, leaving out details you heard out of sympathy for your friend.
“Yep, the little delinquent has done it again. As if there’s nothing else to do in school.”
“But why did he call you? He knows you’ll just chew him out.”
“Because he’d rather tell me than our parents, and he thinks he can run away from all his problems. Literally,” Keiko adds, guilt crossing her face. “Sorry, and we were supposed to be playing hooky today, too.”
“Technically, we did, just not all day.” Your comment earns you a smile. “Don’t worry about me,” you assure her. “Go. You’re more needed there than here.”
Keiko gives you a quick hug. “Thanks, [Name]! I promise we’ll do this again another day without Masaru bothering us.”
“Good luck with him.”
“See you tomorrow!”
You return Keiko’s wave, watching her hurry out of the side street and onto Takeshita Street. Her abrupt departure leaves you alone to rise from the bench and gather the few bags of clothes you bought, feeling little interest in doing any more shopping.
With Keiko off to catch her brother, you consider going to school. You know you’ve missed half the day, and it’ll be a little awkward coming in late without a legitimate excuse. But it’ll be better than not coming at all as originally planned, and you’ll think of something on the way to school.
Decision made, you barely have time to feel satisfied with it before you veer into Takeshita Street—and into the hard body of a stranger.
“Oh, sorry!” you say, and there’s a clatter as a pair of red sunglasses spelling the word ROOK fall to the ground. You bend to pick them up and can’t help but comment on their design. “Wow, funky glasses.”
You look up at their owner, and all humor rushes out of you when the warm brown eyes of a boy with pink hair meet your own, and then, suddenly, the humor floods back in when he laughs, a sound that somehow fills your heart with yearning.
“Yeah, aren’t they?” he agrees.
“Here.” You hold his sunglasses out to him gingerly. There’s no need to because they feel sturdy enough and look undamaged as far as you can tell, but it matters to you that they fell and you were the cause. Strange.
“Thanks.” The boy reaches for his sunglasses but pauses just before his fingers can wrap around them. He’s staring, and you realize your left sleeve has fallen down slightly. “Your wrist…”
Only two words, but they have you clumsily pocketing the boy’s sunglasses, freeing your hands to push back your sleeve some more, the act slow and careful. You turn your wrist over to expose bare skin, and more meaningfully, a name you’ve read so many times you never bothered to keep count. Why would you when it’ll always be there?
“Itadori Yuuji,” you say, knowing then even before he speaks that the name belongs to him.
“You’re … her.” Itadori raises his hand and pushes back his own sleeve to show you his wrist, left like yours.
Your name and only yours is there.
“We’re soulmates!” he exclaims, his voice drawing curious and annoyed looks from those around, but neither of you pay them any mind.
It doesn’t even register that you’re standing on a crowded shopping street, where anyone can watch what you’ve been waiting your whole life for. Meeting your soulmate for the very first time.
You want to relish it, forget about everyone and everything else but Itadori, and for one blissful moment, you do. But your memory won’t allow another, dread washing over you as the grave truth dawns.
You can’t keep him in the dark any longer.
You did before, intentionally showing him only his name on your wrist, hiding the other under your sleeve.
Because, suddenly, you’re terrified.
Suddenly, it feels more real than ever that Itadori could walk away.
Suddenly, having two soulmates is worse than having one.
You wish you had more time to prepare for this day, but no amount of preparation would’ve been enough to drive away the fear, or its tight grip on your mind where what-ifs run rampant.
What if Itadori can’t accept that you have another soulmate? Will today turn into a tragic story you return home to tell your parents, your friends? There are a myriad of ways this could all go wrong, but in the end, it’s not terror or even obligation that loosens your lips.
You don’t want to be the kind of soulmate who lies from the very beginning.
“Itadori…” His name on your tongue should be easy, light, not feeble as you make it sound, and it’s all you can say because your wrist will say the rest.
If seeing is believing, then you hope Itadori will believe you weren’t trying to deceive him.
Wordlessly, you brace yourself for his reaction. Your hand goes back to your sleeve again to push it back farther, past Itadori’s name to the one below it.
Ryoumen Sukuna.
You lift your eyes to Itadori’s face and flinch at the emotions that have twisted his features. Anger and horror and something else you can’t discern, but the meaning of it all is clear: Itadori Yuuji cannot accept this truth.
“No—” His voice catches, and he shakes his head in disbelief, wide-eyed and looking between your face and your wrist, covered once again by your sleeve falling over it.
How tiny an offense bumping into him, knocking his sunglasses off seems now, when a far greater one stares up at you and Itadori from your skin. You stand there together in a daze, but a sudden hand on his shoulder jolts you both out of it.
“Yuuji.”
You realize at the same instant Itadori remembers that there are three others with him: a man, a girl, and another boy. The last two are wearing grim expressions, and a frown is all you have to go by with the man whose eyes are hidden behind a blindfold. The most unusual thing you’ve seen today.
“Gojo-sensei…” Itadori says hoarsely.
This Gojo-sensei brightens, turning from Itadori to you. “Not quite what you two imagined this day would be like, huh?”
“Not at all,” you manage, wondering why, apparently, a teacher and his three students are here and, cynically, what he means. Your half-day playing hooky? The day you finally met your soulmate (only one of them, if you want to get technical)? Or both?
You’re glad Keiko isn’t here with you anymore, and you’re keenly aware of the stares of the boy and girl standing beside Gojo and of whoever else is witnessing this disaster. But Itadori looks frozen in time, his mind on the second name on your wrist and nothing else.
“How about we move this somewhere more private?” Gojo suggests.
Perhaps it’s to spare you and Itadori further public humiliation, and of course you understand why. It’s only natural for a teacher to care about his student, and extending courtesy to you may very well be more for Itadori’s sake than your own.
Still, he is a stranger, and so are Itadori’s … classmates? Friends? Impossible to measure their closeness, or lack thereof. Despite one of them being your soulmate, you’re wary of going anywhere with people you just met, and you wonder if Gojo’s blindfold is really a red flag staring you in the face.
“It’s okay.”
Itadori is the last person of this group you’d expect to hear that from, and he’s a completely different picture than before. Calm, clear-headed now that the shock of a lifetime has worn off, but you don’t think it’s all gone. It’s certainly not for you, won’t be for a while.
“Sorry … for earlier. I shouldn’t have reacted like that,” Itadori says quietly. “But Gojo-sensei’s right. We shouldn’t stay here.”
You know they’re right, he and Gojo both. Enough of Takeshita Street has been audience to your meeting Itadori, and if you’re being given a way out, then you’ll take it. You could say you’re acting only for yourself, that Itadori’s not a factor in what you’ll do, but you’re unable to look away from his eyes, which say—
You can trust him.