Chapter Text
People say that the original Japanese version is better than the English dub of the anime. That he would agree wholeheartedly except when the voice acting and script are great in their own unique way.
But that doesn’t account for the fact that Japanese is not his native language nor does he speak it in everyday life.
Sukuna blinks awake, standing at the balcony of a school building. Where is he?
“人の体で何をするんで？Kaeshite.”
“Hey! What are you doing with my body? Give it back.”
The body that he’s currently inhabiting starts to speak. It feels so weird when you’re not in control, but also at the same time. Wait- is that japanese?
Is he in Japan right now?
“A- What? Could you say that again?”
There’s a stagnant pause before his mouth- their mouth(?) speaks a little slower.
“Karada, kaeshite.”
Panic later, think first!
How do you reply to that? He doesn’t even understand what the kid is trying to say to him. Okay okay, be calm, ‘Karada’ that’s body and ‘give it back’.
Guh! Anime and unfinished Duolingo lessons please save him.
Is he currently taking over someone’s body right now? Oh god, how does he give it back? Can he even give it back?
“Ii darou. Ah- gomen. Chotto… nihongo ga… amari… wakarimasen.”
This is a trainwreck and he’s living it.
“Ah.”
He’s dying inside.
The other must’ve sensed the sheer frustration and embarrassment rolling off in waves because the tone suddenly became much softer than before, but still gibberish to him.
“Daijoubu!ちょっと横に寄ってくれたら、俺が運転するわ。まるで頭の中でハンドルを握ってるみたいだけど、知ってるでしょ？俺、法律的には運転できないから。”
“It's okay! Just scoot to the side and I’ll take over. It’s kinda like driving behind the mental wheel, but you know. I can’t actually legally drive.”
What?
“... nani.”
The next thing he knew, he was being pulled under both of their subconsciousness as Yuuji took over the body and landed himself in some kind of red water face first before sputtering awake and taking a huge gasp of air.
Why does this place feel awfully familiar?
He looks down at the water under him, rippling from the small movements he makes and he feels like his gut is being punched.
The person in the water is Ryomen Sukuna.
Wait, so he reincarnated as Sukuna in the anime, but can’t speak or understand Japanese fluently? What kind of irony is this?
Sukuna blinks. His four eyes blink back at him.
Ohhhhhhhh, nooooooooooooo.
“I’m so dead.”
As he sits in the water, trying to stitch together as many japanese words he can remember in his mind that the native speakers would recoil in horror at the frankenstein concoction of a sentence. He can’t help but wonder if there’s an easier way to look up the words.
“If only I had a phone or a dictionary! That would help a lot.”
Sukuna mumbles to himself as he tries to grasp the words for ‘not trying to hurt you’ and ‘anyone here speaks English?’ but nothing comes to mind.
“My mind just… blanks out.”
Then he feels a tug to take over the body and being unprepared as he is. Sukuna is pushed to take Yuuji’s place while blinking at the suddenness of it all. The gentle cold wind does nothing to calm the flair of nerves he’s quickly feeling at the thought that ‘he’s going to mess this up so badly and hopefully no one talks to him-’
“Kimi- Sukuna, 呪いの王 desu ne. やっとお会いできて嬉しいです！やっとお会いできて嬉しいです。”
“You're Sukuna, The King of Curses, right? What a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Gojo turns to look at him all laid back with a lazy grin on his face while Fushiguro has the expression of someone being way too tired to be dealing with his crazy teacher still holding the bag of sweets sensei brought as a souvenir.
Sukuna grins back, but it feels like a grimace more than anything.
Oh, oh that’s Gojo Satoru.
“Ano… yoroshiku.”
He sees the sorcerer eyebrow go up from behind the blindfold before amusingly clapping his hands together before continuing to speak.
“Wau! きみはとても礼儀正しくておとなしいですね。でもぼくと tatakawanai の？結局、外にいられるのはほんの数秒だけ~"
“Wow! You’re so polite and so tame. Don’t you want to fight me though? You only have a few seconds outside after all~”
Is Gojo saying something? He should… he should probably answer that. Uh, okay. ‘Tatakai’ and ‘Jū’ so ‘fight’, then there’s ten seconds. Oh! He remembers this at the start of the series.
“Tatakai not, no- no nante… shitakunai.”
“やりたくないの？え、ちょっとどもっちゃったよ。”
“You don’t want to? Huh, you stuttered a bit there.”
God, what is he saying now?
Sukuna squints to himself as he tries to decode the word like some password to a bank maximum security vault, which Fushiguro starts to become irk himself and stare at Sukuna over the blood running down his forehead.
“Um, uh… nani- fuck. ”
He ignores the identical surprised look on Gojo and Fushiguro’s face and instead counts the seconds in his head for this to be over with. Where is Yuuji right now?
What is he even supposed to say?
“Wakaranai. Kimi-” Sukuna makes a gesture with his whole hand in Gojo’s direction before running a hand through his hair.
Then he points to himself.
“... Nihongo o hanasanai.”
“Eh? Dou yukoto.”
“Gengo… nai…”
He butchered his words so badly. It’s probably better to say nothing after this and spare himself the misery of language barrier.
Sukuna feels a stirring underneath his skin and the pulling sensation from within and he couldn’t help but breathe out a sigh in relief, letting Yuuji take over the body once more as he enters the inner domain.
…
That is. If only he’s alone with no one to bother him. How did Yuuji even enter the domain this early?!
Granted, this happened after that sorcerer decided to kidnap them to who knows where (the jujutsu high school) but, this feels way too early. He’s going to push aside the fact that the pink haired teen decided to drop in unannounced on top of him from an indefinite amount of height and made him, Sukuna , as a seat for more than 20 seconds.
Mostly because he was using all that precious time looking around the domain in awe.
And also Sukuna doesn’t know how to say, ‘get off me’ in japanese.
“うわあ。ここ、お前の領域みたいなものか？”
“Woahh, Is this your territory or something?”
Sukuna stares blankly at Yuuji, not really understanding anything.
“趣味悪いな。”
“You have such a bad taste.”
“いや、ごめん。初対面だった。” The comment slips out before Yuuji can stop it and he winces a second later. He's still trying to find where Sukuna is. He can't see him.
“Ahh, sorry. It's our first time meeting, uh.”
Oh wait, Inumaki's cursed speech! Sukuna finally finds a clue. Okay, uh- what was it again? Uh, uhgo, ugo… then cut off the ‘nai’ from ‘don’t move’ to ‘move’ .
“... ugoku.”
“Ehh!” Yuuji immediately jumps up from his seat at the sound of someone talking while being squished and starts to profusely apologize to the curse he sat on for a minute straight.
“Gomen, gomen ne!”
Sukuna flops his head down in the water while trying to willed his soul away from this mortal plane of existence.
They stare at each other, sitting on the water as they lap at their respected clothing.
“ということは Nihongo が話せない、もしくは理解できないということですか？”
“So you can’t speak Japanese or can’t understand it?”
Yuuji stares at him unblinkingly while Sukuna slowly blinks back.
“Dochira… mo?”
“まずは自己紹介した方がいいかもしれませんね！”
“Maybe I should introduce myself first!”
He hits his fist into his open hand as the curse’s red eyes follow his every move, trying to discern whether or not it’s a good or a bad thing or a bad idea? What is Yuuji saying?
“Itadori Yuuji desu! Konomi no taipu wa Jenifaa Roorensu. Yoroshiku onashasu.”
Sukuna's eyes lit up as he could understand the words Yuuji was saying. They’re more so from his memory, but there’s also familiar ones such as the name of the person.
“Ah! Jennifer Lawrence.”
“Jenifaa Roorensu!”
Yuuji beamed. Finally they’re getting somewhere! (Wow, that pronunciation is on point though.)
“Dou? Itteiru kotoga wakaru?”
The curse nods his head slowly, trying to hide the fact that he had no idea what those words mean, but catching parts like ‘dou’ and 'wakaru' shorten from ‘wakarimasu’, so the other must mean ‘do you understand me?’ before pointing at the teen again.
“Itadori Yuuji.”
“Hai!”
He should probably introduce himself too then. Ah, he can do that.
“Namae wa Ryōmen Sukuna. Eto…”
Yuuji patiently waits for his reply as Sukuna tries to form a word, but nothing noteworthy comes to mind. He frowned slightly.
He could go with what he likes to do as his hobby. Drawing. Writing Poems. Maybe?
“ ... writing… ah- kaku koto ga suki desu.”
“Sou desu ka.”
There’s some shuffling from Yuuji as his face scrunches up a little. He seems to be thinking about something when he suddenly jumps up with a gasp.
“Igirisu! あなたはそれを話します！You talk igirisu!”
Sukuna’s shoulders drop in relief as it turns out that Yuuji also knows some English words. That’s- that’s good enough for him.
“Yes, I do.”
“So cool! Ano, eigo o sukoshi hanasemasu.” Yuuji cheerfully points to himself then flapping his arms around. Then he stops, pursing his lip as the words are coming in slower than the other would’ve liked.
“Speak… not that good… demo renshū suru!”
The curse slowly nods his head then unsurely gives him a thumbs up. ‘ renshū’ means ‘practice’. Practice, that’s good. Yuuji’s going to practice English then?
“ああ、うん…” Sukuna slowly says before nodding his head again. “れんしうする。”
Yuuji blinks at the odd way Sukuna talks in, but a grin spreads across his face anyway. Sukuna is talking to him on his own.
“練習。”
“れんしゅう。” He corrects gently and makes a small vague gesture with his hands subconsciously.
“れ・ん・しゅ・う。”
“れ・ん・しゅ・う。” Sukuna copies the way Yuuji speaks, blinking in confusion.
What. What's the difference?
“Chigai wa nani de?”
“今のいい質問！” Yuuji smiles and points excitedly at him. A question! Then he lowers down his finger when he sees the blank expression on Sukuna’s face.
“That is a good question!”
“えーと。ゆっくり。”
“Um, slowly.”
"『しゅ』と『しう』は違う。"
“英語で説明するの難しいな。”
“It's difficult to explain in English.”
"どっちでも分かるけど。日本人はすぐ分かる。"
“Both are understandable, but a native Japanese speaker will hear the difference right away.”
Sukuna stares silently nodding along like he’s getting everything. You know, like a liar.
“Okashii ne. お前さ、英語はペラペラなのに、日本なのに日本語は苦戦してるの面白すぎるだろ。”
“That's weird. It's hilarious how you're fluent in English, but struggle with Japanese even though you're Japanese.”
Yuuji sits down again as water splashes on him and at Sukuna also. The person in question looks at Yuuji with a deadpan expression.
“Yeah, I literally have no idea what you just said.”
The energetic teen gives Sukuna a thumbs up on his own before pointing at the curse sitting cross legged on the water, (looking ready to throw in the towel at the differences in languages) with a determined grin on his face.
“Ore, helpu with nihongo!”