SEVENTEEN DAYS

Miwa's song is a lullaby that is now a legend. And yet, you hold it tight, press it between your lips and scars, squeeze the syllables against your teeth and clear your throat to sing. Miwa's song is gone again, because so is she.

And I buried him where the flowers are

Dug him deeper to hide his scars

Wondered where it all went wrong

If only with me he could belong 

Most boys are boys until they decide to be a man. Some stay young forever. Others aged up too fast. The ones you know are stuck in between, careened like a garden. Their bodies are overgrown with vines, leaves holding together their sanity. They bloom but not for long, like a star that shot too high and is sent flying back down to earth. Calling them boys would be too soft; boys are the smell of freshly cut grass in summer, the singe of something hot burning beneath the sun. They are the sound of laughter that was hacked out from within with an axe, the gush of blood from little cuts and scars and bruises. But boys are too kind, too innocent, too young.

And men? Men are hungry all the time, ribs hurting from a growl so beastly that it shakes them up within. Men kill, since boys are too naive to understand that. They eat up entire civilisations for breakfast, force their way through with bloody canines akin to a wolf and a weapon in another. You've seen them paint over blood and watch pretense light up like a bonfire inside their eyes. Men think they are the world, because no one had ever told them otherwise.

The person in front of you, still, despite all that, is not a man, or at least you think so. Anger flushes across his face like a cold slap. Something human within him start to retreat. He wavers, as if fighting off some gnawing anxiety in the back of his mind — you don't know what he is even thinking — and then, he darkens his expression. 

It happens as quickly as it stops. A curse. A person in between a boy and a man. Shoji. And you.

There are others, of course. You are at the marketplace. But only you and Shoji can see the true extent of horror, the beast that battled man — curses were so unlike God so you were drawn to them. 

You see, it is the next day. A quiet morning had left you wondering if the worst had passed, and when Shoji dragged you out of your bedroom to buy some fresh fruit, it felt as though the pain was starting to ease. That did not mean it was gone, though. There is a gap in between the two of you, where a person could stand and be known, where the air would no longer tighten around your throats and release your imagination, as if to bring Miwa back again. 

Besides, the worst had clearly not passed. If anything, as you watch the man and the curse fight, it was only just beginning. This is the world that you live in, where Nagamichi is home to the underbelly of darkness, where people forfeit their souls because why care about one if God never cared about you?

It is sometimes better to die because it is the only time you'll ever feel alive.

"That's a jujutsu sorcerer," Shoji's lips move, ushering out a whisper. "Very few people can see curses."

You watch the muddled aura twist and turn in between the now-abandoned stalls, a bite of power unleashed at it's peak. "Hm," You reply, a little unenthusiastically, "Do you think we'll be getting more of them then? These sorcerers?"

Shojji shrugs — he doesn't have all the answers. "I guess so, this guy probably came over because of the rumours. You can't keep evil under a lid."

"Evil is restless," You remark, eyes resting on the twitching corpse of the curse. And you turn to eye the so-called sorcerer. He stares back, unchallenged but amused. You had almost mistaken him for Sukuna. 

Shaking your head, you find your fingers entwining with Shoji and you tug at him, "Come on. Let's go home. I don't want to watch anymore." Anymore and you'll go insane.

The outline of the sorcerer is etched into your head,  but they have been entirely replaced by someone else. It is strange how you dawdle at describing the colours of the setting sun as you head home, but your tongue is painted with all the memories of a stranger — Sukuna is easily not a forgettable person. He is interesting, which threatens you in a way. You feel that you're starting to drift into two, divulging from the vengeance that burns at the bottom of your dead heart and heading for the evil within. He is your enemy, yes? Because you make him out to be? Not a man, not a boy, not a curse. Do you watch the flower grow or do you cut off it's bud after it had bloomed?

Rattled, you shake off the image of the curse. As you hum Miwa's song on the way back home, you start to set a plan in motion. 

And I held him under the flowerbed

Let him fester, sick and dead

Everything that I ever knew

Died again because of you

AUTHOR'S NOTE

whats goin on its ya boi vik anyway i wrote this rn out of SPITE in like 30 mins im just so pissed rn on the bright side .. uh.. whats on the bright side... i am going clothes shopping again tmr  i think retail therapy is my answer to everything