Floating Like a Lilo ── Itadori Yuuji (✓)

25 BURDENED BY CHILDHOOD'S MASK

A/N: Don't worry guys you only have to put up with me one more time because i'll be publishing Chapter 26, the epilogue and my afterword all at once. Our suffering is almost over let's gooooo. Also heads up, this chapter has 5.8k words.

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN
I WANT TO BE WITH YOU

i want to be with you,
chloe moriondo

Itadori felt like he was washed up on the shore of a cold beach as he twisted and turned in his bed, the warmth of the blanket becoming a brew threatening to boil over. Normally, he indulges in a few fantasies before falling into some unattainable dream, which was what had happened, but they were too short, slipping through his fingers before he could catch them. The anxiety in him was swelling like a balloon, fizzling and sweltering, almost devouring him whole the more he tried to bury it, but he simply couldn't.

It was overwhelming sometimes. To be him. To be stuck like this. To have hopes and dreams but worries and fears. And then to have Sukuna constantly in his head like a song on the radio you can't turn off.

Humans always seem tethered to something, whether it was endearing or parasitical for them. The universe is vast and endless but there is an end, and no one wants to be alone when it comes. That feeling of drunk wisdom when one finds something so utterly connective that they can't let it go until it's been squeezed of all emotion from their hands. A maniacal need to be fuelled by something, something to keep you in check. To keep you alive.

See, humans are fickle beings, swayed by the current of the stream, mindlessly launching off buildings and chasing false gods and imaginary shadows. They're manipulative and manipulated, as you once said, something your Mother drilled into you. Their desires are only so much until the jilting of reality kicks in. You learnt this slowly, letting the pain wash away each day until one day it was staring you straight in the face as you swallowed the belly of the beast, the blood — it dawned on you that your world was non-existent, a dreamland suited to the needs of the worst. Itadori knew; he was watching you as you slowly destroyed yourself, bit by bit, letting your heart of gold be the one to stretch your endurance thin and ruin everything.

Because everything was going downhill. It wasn't obvious at first but all it took was observance.

He misses the day he met you since he could only live it once. How looking at your smile was like blindly stumbling into heaven. The world seemed to bow down at your feet — boys, girls, nature. Even back then, you were still setting yourself on fire to keep others warm. You gave away bits of yourself to him and he wonders when he'll ever fully know you. That was just how it was back then.

Sure he knows you, but did he really like the person beneath the skin and bones? Itadori has seen the void that befalls your eyes; God doesn't like you. You're drowning in a pool of blood, limp like a fish on land. Even if you could get a butterfly to flutter on your finger, it would kill you eventually, eating away at the gooey canvases of your soul like moths to a flame. He finds that whatever happiness you experience is short-lived and it hurts.

At least he finds some peace when you laugh at his jokes, or when your heart skips a beat because your hand brushed with his. Or when he looks into your eyes and look at the sun gleaming on them.

Your eyes were a quiet kind of brown, like puddles left behind from the field rain, small and forgettable. They were the same eyes as your mother; what can't be undone cannot be cherished, so you were left with a relic to haunt you forever.

"Thinking about her, eh?"

Sukuna seems more confident today. Itadori wonders why.

Irked, he pushes the demon king out of his thoughts, but it's useless. "I don't need you spying on my thoughts."