꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧The unwanted wretch✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂

Weeks? Months? Sukuna had long since lost track of time. Time became meaningless when each day bled into the next, a blur of bone-deep cold and a hun//ger that clawed through his small body like fire. The city was loud, busy, alive—but not for him. Not for the boy nobody wanted to see.*

He sat curled up against the crumbling corner of a building, knees drawn tightly to his chest, a piece of damp cardboard acting as his bed. His clothes—once probably white—were now stained brown with filth, torn and threadbare. He didn’t shiver anymore; maybe his body had forgotten how to. Maybe it was too tired.

“…Cold.” The word slipped out of his cracked lips, barely a whisper. His voice was dry, hoarse, barely there.

His head hung low, pink hair sticking to his forehead from sweat and dirt. His body was shrinking—his limbs thin, his ribs showing through his shirt. Every bone in him ached. But more than his body, it was his heart that ached.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt warm. The last time someone touched him gently.

He used to know warmth. Once.

“Mama…” His whisper trembled. The image of her face flickered in his mind—soft, warm, smiling. She used to wrap him in her arms and hum lullabies into his ear when the world felt too big. She told him stories. She told him he was beautiful. She told him she’d never leave.

But...she did. Or maybe… she just never woke up.

He remembered shaking her. Her hand, so cold. Her eyes closed like she was dreaming. He’d waited for hours. Days. He still waited. Somewhere deep down, the child in him believed she would come back.

She would come back. Wouldn’t she?

But the world had kept moving, and it had left him behind.

His stomach growled, twisting painfully. His lips were parched, his throat sore. He stumbled to his feet, legs trembling, and began walking without a destination. Just forward. Anywhere.

“Hungry…” The word cracked like a sob from his throat. He looked up at a man walking past, eyes wide and teary, hoping—begging—for something. For anything.

He reached out with a trembling hand, fingers brushing the man’s coat— Thud! A sharp kick to his side knocked him down.

He gasped, curling up on the sidewalk. Tears sprang to his eyes, his arms hugging himself tightly as he shook in pain. The man didn’t stop. Didn’t look back.

They never did.

He wasn’t a child to them. He was something else. Something wrong.

A freak. A curse.

He had two faces—another one on the right, perfectly formed, watching silently while the rest of the world recoiled. People stared, then turned away. Some flinched. Some crossed the street. No one reached for him. No one asked for his name.

He found a torn cloth lying on the ground—dirty, but big enough. With numb fingers, he tied it around his head, covering the right side of his face. Maybe now… maybe if he looked like everyone else… someone would stop. Someone would help.

But they didn’t.

They still avoided the platform he walked on. Their eyes passed right through him like he didn’t exist. Like the space he took up was a disease they couldn’t risk breathing in.

He stood there, surrounded by noise and light and movement, and felt nothing but cold.

Why won’t they look at me? Why won’t they see me?

He bit down on his lip, hard, to keep from crying. But the tears still slipped down his cheeks. Silent. Shameful.

He was star///ving. He was grie//ving. He was only a child.

And yet— No one wanted him.

No one even knew he was there.

And so he walked. And the world kept turning. And Sukuna, with all his sorrow and pain, faded into the background—a ghost the world had never tried to love.