Yuji Itadori POV
I jolted wide-awake from the dream? Or was it a memory of whoever Ryomen Sukuna was?
Oddly enough the name was familiar I think I heard it once at school.
"Wait where did this come from?" I murmured feeling a blanket on top of me. Which don't get me wrong I quite appreciated since it was cold...but I am pretty sure I fell asleep without one.
I guess Nanamin must have left it on top of me.
Shrugging the blanket off I stood up from the couch while stretching my arms up to the sky "good morning world," I greeted with a wide bright smile.
My stomach in response grumbled for food, I gave a quick glance up at the clock hanging in the nearby dining table area.
"12:10pm man I must have slept in pretty deep, I wonder if Nanamin's awake yet," I walked down into the hallway.
There were four room.
Two of which I guessed were bathrooms which meant one of the other two was probably where Nanamin was at.
The first door I opened was an empty bedroom, but when I opened the second one. I quickly spotted him on his bed still deep in sleep with a white towel covering his eyes.
I was about to say his name when I noticed the desk.
There were books pulled from the shelves at random angles, some stacked on top of each other with slips of paper marking pages, a notebook open, and covered in handwriting that was neater than mine.
A cup of coffee sat forgotten beside the notebook with a skin of cold milk on the surface that told me it had been sitting there for a long time.
I did the math quietly.
He'd been up all night probably even longer than me so maybe I shouldn't bother him right now.
My stomach grumbled again reminding me of how hungry I was.
I backed out of the room and gently closed the door so as to not wake him up.
.
.
.
The kitchen was extremely organized in a way that made finding things both easy and slightly intimidating.
Almost like I shouldn't probably touch something that I am not supposed to but that's never stopped me before.
I searched around the cabinets and drawers but came to a stop once I saw a stack of cookbooks inside one of them.
I pulled out the one on top 'Japanese home cooking,' and skimmed through it.
Tamagoyaki.
I'd watched my gramps make this approximately a hundred times. The recipe in the book wasn't even that different from how gramps did it. Eggs, dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and a rectangular pan.
Opening up the fridge I grabbed the necessary ingredients before carefully following the recipes step-by-step instructions.
Nanamin had said that he would teach me how to cook as part of the deal of adopting me but he was still asleep and my stomach had now moved past polite requests into active protest. So technically I was just getting a head start.
The first roll was slightly uneven.
The second one was better.
By the third I had the heat figured out, the timing figured out, the way the egg needed to be almost-set before rolling figured out, and something had just sort of clicked into place in my hands.
Like my body understood the mechanics faster than my brain did.
I plated the tamagoyaki, cut it into pieces the way the book showed, added some leftover rice that I found in a lunchbox, warmed it up with a dash of soy sauce, and then found some pickled vegetables in a small jar at the back of the fridge that smelled quite fresh.
I made two plates for both me and Nanamin along with two glasses of orange juice from the carton in the door.
I then set them on the table at exactly 12:20 by the clock.
"Perfect," I muttered with a grin of success.
Overall, I found the whole thing to be quite fun.
My ears twitched picking up the sounds of Nanamin's footsteps meaning that he had awoken at last.
"Yuji," he dully greeted for the first time using my first name.
He stood in the hallway still dressed in his office suit minus the tanned jacket, the white towel from earlier now hung off from one of his shoulders, and his glasses were slightly crooked signifying that they were only just recently placed on.
"Good morning," I replied, "or afternoon I guess. It's past noon."
"You cooked," he noted.
"I found the cookbook."
"And you used the stove?"
"That is generally how cooking works yes."
Something moved through his expression that went in several directions at once. He straightened his glasses, looked at the tamagoyaki, and then looked at me.
"You are seven years old," he began, "and you used the stove unsupervised. The stove produces heat sufficient to cause serious burns. The oil alone-"
"I was really careful though," I interrupted.
"That is not the point. The point is that a child should not be operating-"
"You were asleep, I was hungry, and I didn't want to wake you up because you clearly stayed up really late last night," I reasoned while looking down at the table, "I just wanted to do something useful," I added now downtrodden.
A moment of silence passed.
I kept my eyes on the table and waited for the rest of the scolding.
It didn't come.
Instead, I heard the sound of Nanamin sitting down on a chair and when I looked up he was looking at the plate in front of him with an expression I couldn't fully read.
"Thank you Yuji," he quietly said, "this was considerate of you."
Something in my chest unknotted slightly.
"But from now on you are not to use the stove without supervision going forward," he added.
"Understood."
"I mean it Yuji."
"I know."
He picked up his chopsticks and tried the tamagoyaki.
His face shifted a bit showing something that resembled someone being impressed but not by a 100 percent.
"You followed the recipe," he said.
"Mostly my gramps did it a bit differently, so I mixed them," I shrugged.
"Well, it's quite good for a child your age."
I felt unreasonably pleased about this and focused on my own plate.
We ate in quietness after that.
It was different compared to when I usually ate breakfast with gramps, he'd always have something to complain about like the news or one of the neighbors giving him 'trouble.'
"After this," Nanamin suddenly spoke, setting down his chopsticks, and reaching for the orange juice, "I want you to come outside with me."
"The garden?"
"Yes, there's enough open space for us to use," he glanced at the window "I spent most of the night going through my family library and managed to compile some of the information into a proper hands-on training regimen for you. But before I teach you a spell or anything like that I am going to do my best into instructing you on how to draw, manipulate, and control the magical energy from your mana core properly. Your blood technique will be focused on later in order to first build up your basics," Nanamin explained.
"Yosh I can't wait!" I exclaimed and hurriedly began to scarf down my food.
"Wait don't eat so quickly or you'll cho-"
"Arghh!" I rapidly slammed my chest as I choked a bit on the food.
"-ke…sigh," Nanamin lamely finished while tiredly shaking his head.
-End of Chapter Nine-
Alright chapter nine is completed.
Chapter ten will cover learning to draw out his magical energy from his core and basically learn/unintentionally create divergent fists.
I don't want to make every chapter have a moment of Yuji breaking down on trauma that'll get annoying quick + in JJK he doesn't always think about it either like I am sure he has PTSD and Nightmares but it's not always like the main focus.
He has to keep moving forward because of the back-to-back events that keep happening from Shibuya to Culling Games to Shinjuku/Sukuna taking over Megumi and killing a good chunk of sorcerers.
In regard to the Black Flash, I've decided will be a technique that was taught and later learned by the Kento Family during the Heian Era when they were blessed with mana cores by the primary Japanese God of War, Fighting, and Martial Arts...Hachiman who taught it to the first Kento Head but the condition for its use is still the same.
As always positive comments are a great source of motivation along with power stones.
Also In added my discord in the synopsis. If you guys want to come over and just talk, hang out, and discuss writing. I am not super active on it but I am on from time to time while on Bleaps server.