Chapter Text
The police officers exchange uneasy looks before stepping out of the car. Their uniforms are slightly crumpled after a long shift, so vests are straightened as best as possible, and the shorter one takes a moment to scrape some particularly egregious mud from his shoe. Hearts heavy and backs straight against the weight of their responsibility, they walk in sync up the white gravel walkway to the wooden door of the two-story house.
Lights frame the open porch, emitting a halo against the darkness and illuminating the nameplate that confirms their destination: Itadori.
The men exchange glances as the shorter knocks firmly on the door, his other hand removing the cap from his head as his partner mirrors the move at his shoulder. The house remains quiet for a moment, with no sense of movement or idle sounds of a TV breaching the silence. There is only the merest whisper of frogs in the distance.
A soft thumping of slippers can barely be heard through the door as a shadow takes form behind the translucent curtains framing the windows. After a moment, the click of a deadbolt turns into the creak of a door opening slightly to reveal a woman in her thirties, face slightly tired and bare of adornment. In the light behind her, much of her face is cast into shadows unrelieved by the external illumination, but the faint scars across her forehead are prominent nonetheless.
“Itadori-san?” the shorter prompts after a moment of silence.
The woman takes both of them in, her dark eyes shadowed as concern begins to drag down the edges of her mouth. “Yes. How may I help you, officers?”
“Itadori-san,” the shorter repeats, “My name is Office Kazuki, and this is Officer Haruto. We are sorry to inform you there’s been an accident tonight regarding your husband, Jin Itadori, and your father-in-law, Wasuke Itadori.”
The woman, Mrs. Itadori, flinches at the words, drawing back briefly as her lips whiten and tremble with clearly repressed emotion. “I-I’m sorry?” her voice cracks.
Haruto clears his throat from behind Kazuki and continues, “At approximately 8:45, a truck driver drifted from his lane on the 223 and collided head-on with a passenger vehicle that was crushed in the impact.”
Another flinch from Mrs. Itadori causes the door to swing slightly wider as her grip loosens and knees buckle, slumping against the doorframe. Haruto remains staring straight ahead, unable to meet the woman’s expression. “The men in the passenger car died instantly. Paramedics on the scene identified them as Jin and Wasuke Itadori. I am very sorry for your loss.” At this, Haruto and Kazuki bowed deeply, eyes fixed toward the porch as a choked sound emerged from the doorway.
As the first wail of grief rends the air, Haruto bows his head further as his eyes squeeze shut, the sound wrenching his heart. As if in resonance, a secondary wail came from within, twisting Haruto’s fragile composure further.
Lifting his eyes to the doorway, Haruto sees a young child, no more than two, thump to the entrance, tears streaking his face as he clings to his mother’s leg. “Ma-mama,” the boy sniffles. “Mama! Scared. Mama sad. Yuuji scared.”
A strangled sound escapes Kazuki, and Haruto is painfully reminded the man is also a father. Around the lump in his throat, Haruto continues with a slightly choked tone, “If there is anything we can do at this time, please let us know.” He bows over a folder held out with both hands, containing his and Kazuki’s personal contact cards and pamphlets on grief and community resources. They aren’t much, and certainly not enough, but it is all he can offer.
Mrs. Itadori subsides into choked whimpers as she hugs her son close, burying the boy’s face in her skirt as she presses her lips to his head. Loss twists her expression, creasing her forehead and pinching her lips as her hands lightly tremble where they hold her son.
After several long moments, Kazuki straightens and takes the folder from Haruto before kneeling next to the widow. “There is nothing we can say to help you through this loss, but please remember there are people to support you when you are ready,” he murmurs, placing the folder slightly to the side of the pair curled around each other, before stepping back once more.
Bowing low again, Kazuki places a hand on his partner’s shoulder as he walks back to the car.
Haruto takes a moment to smooth his shattered expression before straightening and following, a lump in his throat. Silently, his partner pulls away from the house, the lights barely illuminating the figures still slumped in the doorway.
Only once the house is no longer in sight, and several minutes of silence loosen the stranglehold of second-hand grief, does Haruto speak, “Does it ever get easier?”
Kazuki’s face is the same careful blankness it has been since he had first arrived at the scene some hours before. It comes as no surprise that his words offer a similar cold comfort: “No.”
“Poor family,” Haruto whispers into the dark.
The folder is left abandoned by the closed door as Kaori Itadori picks up her son and carries him back into the bright warmth of the house. Her face smooths to a neutral expression even as Yuuji continues to cry. Lightly shushing him, she rocks him in her arms. “It’s okay,” she soothes, “Mama’s here. It’s okay, Yuuji. I’ll take care of you. No need to be afraid.”
Distressed noises continue to emanate from the bundled child, hiccups interrupting his sobs. He grips her blouse tightly in an attempt to pull her closer, and Kaori acquiesces, squeezing him with a firm hold. “It’s okay, Yuuji. Mama isn’t upset. See?”
His watering eyes gaze up at the smooth face of his mother, all signs of her distress wiped away. “B-but Mama s-sad? Mama sad, 'n Yuuji scared. Yuuji scared 'n sad.”
Shushing him again, Kaori looks her son in the eye, “No, my sweet boy, Mama isn’t sad. Everything is okay; no need to be sad or scared. Mama is okay, and Yuuji is okay. No need to cry.”
“B-but,” her son whimpers, sobs petering out as he looks at her. His brow is still scrunched and ready to return to grief, but there is no need.
“Mama isn’t sad,” Kaori repeats, a soft smile crossing her lips. “Everything is okay, baby.”
Yuuji clearly isn’t prepared to take her word based on the uncertainty written on his tiny features, but he clutches her less desperately. A yawn breaks through his lips, and his head falls heavy onto her shoulder.
“That’s it, baby,” Kaori croons, gently stroking his hair. “It’s late, and time for bed. Come sleep with Mama. We’ll forget all about the men at the door tonight.”
Yuuji’s little head nods on her shoulder as he tucks himself tighter against her. A thumb comes to rest at his bottom lip, barely there as a comfort while his mother folds both of them into her bed.
After a few minutes, his breaths even into the steady sleep and the grip on her blouse loosens.
Kaori watches her son for a moment before drawing back from the bed.
It is finally done. The external influences are now out of the equation. A glance at the experiment on the bed reveals no discernable changes despite the emotion that previously roiled through it.
The blouse, stained by snot and tears, is quickly discarded alongside the skirt and replaced by a loose kimono. The woman’s face remains serene as the curses in the shadows of the room creep closer, some so bold as to sniff at the experiment on the bed. A quick snap of her fingers exorcises the curse before it can breathe on it.
“No touching,” Kaori murmurs absently, welcoming the centipede curse curling up her arm. Its jaws still shine silvery with poison, crimson smears of blood the only inclination it had been used this evening.
The other curses recoil from the bed as the first dissipates into nothing, keeping a berth as they approach Kaori. “Such a good curse, aren’t you?” Kaori continues, trailing a loose hand over the chitinous creature, cursed energy lightly coiling around its limbs.
The woman moves into the hall, her curse parade following at an appropriate distance save the honored one. The lights above are unreflected in the black emptiness that constitutes the curses, rendering them almost two-dimensional next to her. The centipede curse, imbued with the tendrils of cursed energy flowing from Kaori, rattles its jaws in hunger, shivering as it grows larger in her grasp.
A pair of eyes sprout from its tail, flickering its view back and forth as the woman places it down on her porch, too large to hold comfortably. The energy flowing through the centipede curse continues to twist its form as the thin legs become sharp, threatening to pierce the wood beneath it with a mere step.
“Now, now,” Kaori croons, not dissimilar to the tone used on the experiment in her bed, “don’t damage the house. If you want to do that, you’ll have to go elsewhere.”
The centipede flows off the porch and into the night, chittering excitedly as some of the curses follow in its wake. The rest remain, restless but quiet behind Kaori.
She contemplates the sky, serene as she digs her fingers into the stitches across her forehead. A brief lift exposes the fanged brain to the night. “What a nice breeze,” she says idly, holding her scalp in her hands. The curses flow around her, close enough to taste the edges of her cursed energy, as the night continues in silence.
“Mama!” The cry splits the silence, and Kaori places her scalp once more atop her head.
“Silly things, humans are,” she murmurs to the curses around her. “Silly things, but oh so much fun. So much potential.” They shrink back from her as she once more goes inside to comfort the experiment.
It immediately attaches to her leg, having gotten down from the bed in its search.
“Oh,” Kaori croons, once more tugging Yuuji into her arms, “did you miss me, my sweet boy?”
It sniffles into her kimono, bunching the fabric as the subject nods into her chest.
“Don’t worry; Mama isn’t going anywhere.”