Jujutsu Kaisen x Reader Oneshots & Scenarios

K. Noritoshi - Vulnerability

(Warning: Ugh it's so jam packed with me ranting about mentality. Proceed if you give a shit, I guess.)

Noritoshi knows that there's something wrong with you, the signs strong enough for even him to be concerned about it. It wasn't the phony smiles you'd given Utahime when she'd talk to you about coursework, or the clenching of your hands when your spear would get knocked out of your grip by Miwa during training. No, those things were normal for you.

It was the distance in your eyes in conversations with other students, your stiff manner of speaking and infrequent words. As if your mind was floating barely out of your subconscious. As if you could barely keep hold of it at all.

Usually you held a grandiose dialect, joking and laughing along with your peers. Noritoshi knows that the gestures aren't always genuine, but they don't seem to bother you. You relish in the fact that you can pretend. That you can be the funny one. It had always come easily, and now it's not.

He hasn't spoken to you about it, keeping his hypotheses on your behavior close to the vest. It's not that he's too shy to mention them to you, he actually likes to pride himself on his blunt intellect, but he knows you better than to just jump into the nitty-gritty.

You're a deflector. A laugher. And Noritoshi can't decide what to do about it now that you seem to be struggling with the title.

However, a prime situation presents itself only a few days after your shift in behavior first started. It comes in the form of Mai, slapping a stack of books into his arms and saying something along the lines of: "I promised Y/N these after I was done with them. It's easier for you to deliver them for me."

She'd given him a small smirk, thinking she'd make him angry for forcing him to turn into her errand boy. But he had just turned on his heel and walked toward your dorm, not giving her another glance.

Now that he was actually confronted with the closed door of your room, he becomes unsure of how to proceed. The books are heavy in his arms as he stands, one of his hair tassles swinging in front of his face as he glances down at his feet, deep in thought.

Noritoshi straight up doesn't know how to breach this topic in a way that's placating enough to keep you receptive. Usually the trivial concept of talking is simple, say as he feels, but it's different with you. He doesn't know why, but it is. It's uncomfortable, but the extra effort seems necessary.

Finally, after his brain unhelpfully stays blank of any tips and tricks for a situation like this, he throws caution to the wind. He shuffles the books under one arm, knocking on the wooden frame with the other before he can think better of it.

There's some shuffling on the other side, a muffled "one sec" meeting his ears. Noritoshi looks awkwardly around the hallway, trying to find interest in the grains of paint stuck on the walls instead of listening to your rummaging from the other side.

The door swings in, and Noritoshi finally can see you face to face. Without needing to hide his sidelong glances that he adverts once you notice him. Without the pressure of your classmates. Without the world. Just you, and him, in the entryway toward your dorm.

The first thing he notices is your smile. A small thing, more amused and questioning than anything else. He's probably making his analysis too long, the look you're serving him most likely aroused by your amusement for his silence.

The second thing that he notices is that your eyes are entirely blank. No emotion from your lips travel up to meet your irises, shines suspiciously absent from the retinas. They're looking at him heavily, calculating, as if you're putting the pieces of his impromptu visit together. His ulterior motive.