Chapter Text
Gojo has a terrible time minding his business. Yuuta knows this — the first indicator being that the man made it his habit to take on students deemed as problems to society — and yet still finds himself surprised when Gojo tries to mind his.
“Rejection, huh?” Gojo says, waiting for their bags. He must have been holding on to this one. “You’re so cruel.”
Yuuta only just manages to meter his reaction from horribly mollified to a mere raise of his eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s worse."
Yuuta doesn’t know how to respond to that without absolutely incriminating himself, and he’s already in a bad mood as it is. So he doesn’t.
The airport sucked. The flight was delayed, and then the flight sucked too.
Ijichi could only manage so much at once, but his nervous chatter on the phone as Gojo told him the update sent Yuuta’s nerves halfway to sensory overload. Two hours worth of turbulence, in which Gojo happily told Yuuta that they’d be fine if turbulence finally decided to bring down a plane, had consumed the rest of his tolerance for the day.
Sleep deprivation was not a new friend, but a month of not seeing it had made it hit with a vengeance — and they still had work to do before the sun set.
Yuuta rubs at his eyes, not feeling patient enough to deal with Gojo’s meddling. He’s not feeling patient enough for anything, really, but the innocent people of Sapporo have done absolutely nothing to him— unlike one needling teacher.
For a long, harrowing ten minutes, it almost looks like his luck has decided to include the trip eating his baggage, but the inconspicuous black duffle shuffles through the carousel port long at last. Gojo watches him expectantly as he goes to grab it, waiting for him to crack, but Yuuta’s rare stubborn streak has come out to play.
“Wow, you didn’t even check.” Even Gojo’s long-legged stride, airy and confident, is bothering the shit out of him as they start their journey to the exit. “You sure it’s yours?”
“Positive.”
“How?”
Inumaki had attached a keychain onto the zipper without him noticing. It was the main character of their show; the one they had spent an abundance of lazy mornings or late nights catching up on in the time Yuuta spent at home. Apparently he had pulled it from a blind box, and had sent Yuuta on his way with it for a good luck charm. He didn’t discover it until the morning he was set to leave.
It bounces against the canvas of the bag, and the acrylic charm clinks with each hit.
Yuuta isn’t about to tell Gojo any of this. The ammunition is already enough. He adjusts his grip, looking straight ahead.
“I just know.”
It was good.
Better than good.
His hands had automatically slid beneath the thin cotton of Toge’s shirt, steadying him as Toge pressed down on him. His lips were soft; a steady weight against him, experimental and unsure, but there. He kissed as gently and beautifully as he said the few words he spoke.
Finally, Yuuta thought, eyes fluttering closed. It was all he ever wanted and more.
Yuuta’s experience could be clocked down to the time Rika held his hand with intent to cross the street. Neither of them, in their adolescence, had thought to do more than that.
Nothing wrong with that, as he was still all of gangly seventeen years and stupid with emotion, but he wants so badly to be good. He feels like he stole something, like a bandit with something he’s not allowed to have. He wants to make it worth both of their whiles.
This is new ground, unfamiliar territory, but Toge leads him into it and he follows with a bleed of enthusiasm. When Toge’s sealed tongue traces Yuuta’s lips, he opens his mouth and can’t stop the reedy whine that spills out as Toge licks into him.
It was shocking, electricity running like a riptide in his veins, hot and cold and exhilarating all the same. The feel of Toge’s fingers pressing divots into Yuuta’s face and neck, comfortable and desperate to hold him, to touch him — it was all so much. Beneath his palms was a steady, lithe set of muscles, chorded from Maki’s training.
Toge is strong when he wants to showcase it. Soft and gentle-hearted as he is, Yuuta has seen first-hand how intense he can get. In training or in missions, he gives the opposition everything he has. Not a single cruel streak runs through Toge, even though he would have the right to wield it; he fights to win, but he still cares.
Yuuta looked up to him from the moment he was only his silent and intimidating second-grade classmate, and he looks up to the semi-grade one sorcerer now, who can exorcise three second grade curses and still makes time to bring home sushi for Panda.
Toge is one of Yuuta’s biggest heroes, and he’s here, in his room, in his bed, kissing him for all he’s worth. Kissing him like they couldn’t bear to be apart. Kissing him with soft, pliant movement, growing quickly in intensity as they egged one another on.
The first hesitant rock of Toge’s hips against Yuuta made him aware of the constriction in his shorts, and that it felt really, really good to feel that friction.
The second, a little more confident, set off a voice in the back of his head as he chased the feeling: Not bad for a first kiss.
First kiss.
Yuuta turned his head away suddenly, pulling away from Toge’s lips with a strangled gasp and a hoarse, “— Stop.”
Toge froze.
The air suddenly stilled, nothing else save for the sound of their heavy breathing as Yuuta struggled to catch his breath and rein in his surge of terror.
He’s so stupid. He’s so fucking stupid.
Because he wants this so badly; probably has for a long time, longer than he’s ever realized. He wants to kiss Toge, slot their mouths together and hum into him, wants to slide against him and get off to the lithe body sitting on top of him, wants to be held and go to sleep to a boy tucked beneath his chin and wake up to a phone shoved in his face and do it all over again.
He wants their routine to mean something, for there to be a way forward that isn’t simple longing glances and the awkward no man’s land of friendship and something more that they’ve cast themselves into.
It’s here, right in front of him, handed to him on a platter ornately engraved with snake eyes and fangs, and he can’t.
He can’t. He’s leaving.
“Wait,” Yuuta amended, his regret thickening his words as he tried to soften the blow. Toge stared down at him, eyes wide in the soft illumination of the bedside lamp. Yuuta may as well have hit him.
“ I’m sorry,” Toge signed with trembling hands. He sat up on his knees, moving to get off of Yuuta in his newfound embarrassment, and instinctively Yuuta reached for his ribs to hold him in place. He can’t let it begin, but he couldn’t let it end like this, either.
“I— it’s not you,” Yuuta started, and then immediately winced, because ow, even to his ears it sounded like the worst trick in the book, “I swear, Toge, I’m not — I — I like you so much. ”
So much it scares him. So much it gives him horrifying nightmares. So much that Rika, who is only a mere ghost of the soul who haunted him for loving too much, has taken it upon herself to be jealous.
His love could kill Toge.
Worse, his love could keep him.
The higher-ups can’t control him or his power, but they can find what does control him. If he committed, it would be like condemning Toge to a marionette’s strings; forever attached, only existing to pull Yuuta’s bones into a mold.
The thought terrifies him.
“I like you,” Yuuta said again, just to drive it home. Toge still watched him with apprehension. “ I should be saying sorry. Not you. Never you.”
“But I’m leaving tomorrow, and I’ll leave again after that, because I always do, and—“
“That’s work,” Toge argued, brow pinching as he frowned. His lips were kiss-swollen, seals on full display. “I leave too. We all do.”
“It’s not the same.”
“ It is! ”
“It’s not, ” Yuuta pleaded, feeling the heat behind his eyes start to burn. “I — the heads of jujutsu society want me dead. They’re so afraid of me the only thing they can think to do is send me on missions like these and hope I die in the process.”
“ They could have just —“ Toge paused, wincing, balking at the word Yuuta knew was coming, but the momentum carried him through the motions of his hands eventually. “ They could have just executed you. ”
“Not if they wanted Gojo to stay on their side.”
“ But Gojo is on your side. ”
“ Toge ,” Yuuta breathed, exasperated and near tears, and he felt the sting as the boy in his lap flinched at the use of his first name. “I don’t want to drag you into the middle of it.”
“ Don’t make decisions for me. ” Toge’s hands moved so rapidly that Yuuta could barely read them. “ I don’t care what the higher-ups think. Just like I don’t care about what my family thinks.”
“And what about Rika?”
The silence cut like a knife, hilt to skin and blade to bone. Toge stared down at him, confusion hinted at in the tiniest scrunch of his nose. Yuuta hates that he knows what that scrunch means. He pulled his right hand off of Toge to fish the chain from underneath the collar of his shirt, and felt the cursed energy reservoir perk up as he pinched the ring beneath his fingers.
It’s the pinnacle of what his love — even if constructed of a promise made by a just-turned-ten-year-old — could do to a person. Toge knew all of it by then; the accident, the bullying, the destruction of Yuuta’s life.
“You think Rika is a special grade.” Yuuta managed to stifle the sob that threatened to hitch his chest, but he couldn’t stop the cracking of his voice. “What if I did that to you? ”
He didn’t ask for any of this. He was trying not to be difficult. Yuuta could have just kept kissing him, let them goad each other on until they were sweating, gasping messes, blinded by euphoria and lovesickness, and Yuuta would leave with a kiss goodbye instead of whatever the fuck he’s doing to them now.
Yuuta knows that Toge would still choose this. Toge wouldn’t fight Yuuta’s brain this hard if he didn’t think it was worth it.
But the idea of Toge coming to haunt his dreams, of Toge being the one he traps with a curse he can’t let go of — it would be the end of him.
Toge seemed to understand, then. The cloudy expression he wore softened, beautiful in its resignation. His weight settled heavier against Yuuta’s hip bones as the second sob threatened to strangle Yuuta.
“I don’t want to lose you,” He warbled, shutting his eyes as Toge placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “Toge, you mean so much to me. I can’t—“
“Yuuta,” Toge murmured.
“You’re so kind. The kindest person I’ve ever met in my life. I see it all the time. Even when I ramble, you never complain or get annoyed, and you love your flowers and put so much care into your garden, and you give Maki as good as she gives but still check on her when she’s upset from her clan.” He’s a mess, but it’s too late to stop now. “And you’re so smart, you never even have to pay attention in class. I never felt like I belonged until I went on a mission with you. Please, please don’t think I don’t want to still be your best friend—“
“ Yuuta. Okaka.” Toge’s voice was a little firmer, even if laced with an emotion Yuuta couldn’t identify. He felt Toge’s lips on his forehead, gentle and soft, and didn't shy away when it lingered. It shut him up.
God. He was rejecting Toge and yet somehow he was the one having the panic attack. Typical. Shame burned deep from his weepy eyes, down his neck and spread through his body. Toge was hurting, and yet he still looked out for Yuuta. It’s a kindness he didn’t deserve, but was too weak to turn away.
He may be a special grade sorcerer, but he’s no stronger a person than the weakest of curses.
Fingers tapped gently at Yuuta’s face, prompting him to open his eyes. Toge was so close for the briefest of moments before he reared back and signed with equally aggrieved emotion.
“I would never stop being your friend.” Toge bit his lower lip. “I don’t want you to think that. You mean a lot to me, too. Clearly.” He gestured from himself to Yuuta, their positions, which earned him a wet laugh from Yuuta.
“ I hang out with you because I like to spend my time that way. Not because I only wanted more. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“Stop being nice to me,” Yuuta whispered, miserable in spite of the increasingly bashful smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth. Toge shook his head.
“ You have a heart bigger than you know. You care so much and you put everyone before yourself without even thinking about it. You’re smart, too, even if you don’t think you are. You never complain even when people are being unfair to you. And you’re always unfair to yourself. ”
“Toge.”
The waterworks had stilted but then came back with a vengeance, bittersweet and painful. Toge was wrong, but Yuuta didn’t have the heart to tell him. His heart hurt instead, a bleeding mess that seeped into the mattress, staining it an invisible, fatal red as he turned away the one thing he so desperately wanted and can’t be brave enough to lose.
It would be easier if Toge was mad at him, he thought — but then immediately realized that no, no it wouldn’t.
“ I’m here for you no matter what. That’s what friends do. It’s unconditional.”
Yuuta didn’t deserve him.
Yuuta doesn’t deserve him.
Toge shifted off of him then, moving to fit himself against Yuuta’s side and stretch so that their bodies aligned. He slung an arm over Yuuta, and when Yuuta didn’t pull away, Toge squeezed his chest and rested his head against his shoulder. There was nothing more to say; they laid there for who knows how long until Yuuta stopped wiping at his eyes, frustrated and sniffling.
When Toge moved again, it was only to readjust his hold on Yuuta. He lifted his hand briefly to make an “OK?” sign with his hand in question, to which Yuuta laughed again.
“No,” He had answered, horribly honest, and Toge’s rumbling, sad chuckle vibrated against his shoulder.
“But thank you —um. For understanding. For not hating me.”
Toge lifted his head, his expression sharp with disagreement as he pinched Yuuta. “Oka ka, Yuuta. Ikura.”
“ Ow— I know, I know. I just.” Yuuta sighed, long and weary, and felt fatigue start to pull at him. His mind was far too restless for sleep now, buzzed by the whiplash of the evening. He didn’t even have anything lined up to continue the sentence.
Toge knew, though. Weeks of sleeping in the same room — same bed — had put him in tune with the modes of Yuuta’s brain and all the maladies that come with it. Sometimes Yuuta was dead tired and needed the gentlest push to send him over the line, other times he was a live wire, anxious for a reason unbeknownst to either of them, and needed the cursed command to shake him of his nerves.
It’s why Toge smoothed his palm over the spot he pinched, settling back down for comfort, and didn't even hesitate to follow the routine. It’s late. Yuuta is leaving in only a few hours at most.
They could have that, for now. The little moment in time, understanding that whatever came in the morning, it wouldn’t be togetherness. Yuuta had felt like a coward.
Toge’s voice had been gentler than any lullaby. “ Sleep. ”
Yuuta went asunder.
The first day was a wash. Utterly and completely.
Yuuta adjusts the katana wrapped securely on his back as they get back to the hotel, and tries not to instinctively snap, “ What? ” as his phone chimes three times in rapid fire succession.
It’s late. The room is dark as Yuuta hunts for the light switch, tired and sweaty and coated in a mild layer of city-grime from combing through the “seedy underbelly” of the mountainside city. Tokyo was warming up but Sapporo is still cold, wet from fresh rainfall, and they came up empty handed. Not even Gojo’s sixth eye provided some kind of use; tracking the residuals had them chasing their tails.
He hasn’t been in this ugly of a mood in a long time. Probably ever.
Get your shit together, Yuuta scolds himself, breathing through his nose as he peels away the disgusting outer layer of his white school uniform. Gojo, whether by empathetic response or just knowing better from the track record of the day, leaves him well alone.
“You can shower first,” He offers. “You did most of the dirty work today. Good job.”
Yuuta nods, grateful, and flees to the bathroom without fanfare.
The water is warm and does wonders for Yuuta’s fatigued muscles, washing the grit and dirt away, and he stands underneath the spray for probably an ungodly amount of time before willing himself to turn off the tap.
He woke up alone.
Inumaki had been nowhere in sight when the chime of Yuuta’s phone violently disrupted the quiet, and his door had been closed when Yuuta walked through the dorms.
It wasn’t abnormal for Yuuta to wake up alone, especially on Sundays when Toge had adopted breakfast duty for the group. Toge did what he wanted and went where he wanted, sometimes dragged out of bed by Maki’s insistence or struck by the realization that the forecast would call for him to protect his peonies. It never bothered Yuuta before; it shouldn’t bother him now.
But it did. It felt like a period in a sentence that was still being said, the closure of a book he didn’t know he was reading. Inumaki had been kind, graceful in his acceptance of Yuuta’s fears, but it was so early in the morning and they went to bed so late. His absence was deliberate. Yuuta knows he doesn’t have a right to be hurt, but still feels the snakebite anyways.
He changes quickly, feeling like a somewhat-new person, and Gojo mercifully does not chirp at him for taking too long when he emerges. When his phone chimes again, staunchly reminding him that he never checked the first triad of messages, he feels much more composed to see what it is.
New Message: Inumaki 🍙
9:22 P.M.
maki is bored without u
by bored i mean beating our asses in smash
long week ahead (jk)
And then, a more recent notification:
New Message: Maki ⚔️
10:04 P.M.
Hope your plane isn’t in a field somewhere bc toge is moping since you haven’t replied
I dont wanna deal w your boyfriend being sad
He’s not my boyfriend, Maki.
Precisely.
Just let him know you’re alive. I feel like I kicked a dog.
Yep
Yikes.
New Message: Inumaki 🍙
10:06 P.M.
Sorry, we just walked into the hotel and I needed a shower
How bad was it?
Inumaki 🍙
you don’t even wanna know. i’m embarrassed
disgraced
have to flee the country
Haha
Inumaki 🍙
how was the flight?
For a moment, Yuuta starts to type out the laundry list of issues he’s had from the first second he came back to consciousness — the drive, the flight, Gojo himself and their lackluster start to the investigation — but it’s too much to type. It would just irritate him all over again, and he’s still hovering around the threshold between just grumpy and extremely overwhelmed.
Inumaki must see the three dots appear and disappear from his end, because after a few minutes passes with no message from Yuuta, he sends another.
Inumaki 🍙
i know it’s late, but
[...]
Inumaki 🍙
you can call if you want
Yuuta chews his lower lip, contemplating. Gojo was in the shower, so his teacher overhearing him was unlikely, but he didn’t want to get caught off guard or invite more unwanted nosiness from his mentor. An idea strikes him.
Give me just a sec and i’ll call
He snags the complimentary room notepad and scrawls a quick note to Gojo, saying he’s out to wash his uniform and be back soon, and then grabs one of the hotel keys and stuffs his disgusting school attire in a bag. The door has barely shut behind him before Toge picks up the video call on the first ring.
“Konbu,” Toge says, and Yuuta feels the tension run out of him almost immediately. The reception sucks; it’s tinny and pixelated, and lags when Toge runs his fingers through his bangs, but it’s Toge all the same.
“Hey.” Yuuta smiles as he walks.
Yuuta gives him the rundown of the day as he heads outside and finds a laundromat in minutes, oddly devoid of people at this hour. He details everything — almost everything, from the cheery, passive aggressive demeanor Gojo held for Ijichi, to the flight being delayed, to the unlucky first leg of the investigation. As the story unfolds, Yuuta feels himself get lighter, happy to simply just see Toge on the other side nodding or giving one-off ingredient replies of acknowledgement. He even holds up his white uniform tunic to show off the disgusting, sad state it’s in, pinched between two fingers. When Toge’s nose wrinkles, he laughs.
The wash is short and the drying shouldn’t take long, considering the load, and Yuuta perches on the dryer as Toge signs out his day. It feels like old times. Miguel could walk in, chastising him for sitting on the machine, and Yuuta would feel like nothing changed at all. He’s always on the move, always onto the next big thing by force, but Toge’s calls are always the constant.
“ Did you find anything good to bring back to us?” Toge asks, only skipping a few frames from the stellar reception.
“Not yet. Knowing Gojo, though…” Yuuta shrugs. “I’ll probably bring something back whether I want to or not.”
“ Fair.”
Toge yawns, then, and it prompts Yuuta to yawn right along with him. He supposes it’s late — not late enough for Toge to be tired on a normal night, by far, but they had an emotional morning. Yuuta knows he’s to blame for that.
“Tired?” Yuuta asks gently. Toge shakes his head, but it’s interrupted by yet another yawn. “It’s okay if you are. Just go to bed.”
“Okaka,” Toge grumbles, stubbornly sitting upright even though he’s itching at his eyes.
It’s adorable. The pout, the scrunch of his face as he runs his hand across his forehead, the petty, wide blinking of his violet eyes as he sits straight to prove just how awake he actually is.
Yuuta’s heart turns over like a dead motor.
You did this to yourself, he says internally. You gave this up.
And really, beyond the events of the waking hours, the next biggest discussion would be the elephant in the room. The wound they’re politely ignoring bleeds sluggishly, but clearly, neither of them feel ready to stitch it for now.
Yuuta is trying to think of something to say, something to keep their momentum going, but right as he opens his mouth the buzzer sounds off for the dryer beneath him. He jumps at the noise.
Well. Now he doesn’t have an excuse to linger, to waffle for something else to talk about. It’s past 11 and he has to go back up to the room, lest Gojo has to go hunt for him. Toge must realize it, too. The look on his face is one of resignation.
“Let’s see.” Yuuta jumps off of the dryer and sets his phone up so Toge can watch him pull the white shirt out first and snap it a few times. It’s much better than it was before, stainless and fresh and warm, and he proudly displays it for Toge to see. “Oh, yeah. I’m an old pro at getting this clean.”
It’s a stupid thing to say, but Toge still humors him by snorting. They linger in silence as Yuuta folds the uniform up.
He loves it. It’s comfortable. He hates it. It’s terrible.
“Yuuta,” Toge says finally, soft into the quiet of the laundromat. When Yuuta lifts his head, suddenly apprehensive, Toge signs, “ Be safe tomorrow. Come home soon. ”
The smile hurts, but Yuuta does it anyway.
“Yeah. Always. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
The goodbye is short and simple, but Yuuta misses him when his light hair cuts to a dark screen. He misses Toge even more when he has to trudge back to the hotel with only the city ambiance to accompany him.
He keeps telling himself he’s being unfair, because he is. Only Toge — not a person like him, because there is no other in the world — would have the kindness to pick back up after being shoved face-first and still invite Yuuta to call. It’s selfish to accept that kindness, and still Yuuta did it anyway.
He sleeps like shit.
The second day is as uneventful and frustrating as the first, but Yuuta’s temperament is markedly improved from Toge’s phone call. Gojo doesn’t needle him unnecessarily for information; he sits back for most of the trip, content to offer advice should Yuuta ask for it, but otherwise on standby and no more a nuisance than he would be in class.
Yuuta still has to find something to do outside of the hotel room to call Toge. They talk for a bit, enough to discuss their days, and Yuuta is in a marginally better mood. It’s Toge’s turn to let him go when he starts yawning too badly, nevermind the fact that Yuuta won't be able to sleep and the both know it, but they’re better. More normal.
It still hurts, but Yuuta has put the first stitch in. Each day adds one more.
The curse sucks. Without a pinpointed location of its latest whereabouts, tracking has been a nightmare. Rika helps as best as she can, but the most recent trail backs up into the outer edges of Sapporo, where the outlying resort houses are still emptying out for the year.
Is it the worst time he’s had finding a curse? Absolutely not. Is it the worst time he’s having in his life? Maybe.
On the fourth day, Yuuta is ecstatic when the veil actually takes hold.
“Good,” Gojo says, smug behind his blindfold. “I can tell you all the ways you could have found it faster when we’re on the plane home.”
Yuuta had a sneaking suspicion that he knew all along, but he chalks it up to a learning experience. Gojo was a teacher first, after all — even if he was also a major nuisance.
“Sure.”
The young sorcerer lifts his hand to the air, marveling for a moment at the way the warped lighting of the veil glinted off of his ring. He can feel Rika’s restless energy, humming, ready to break from the gate and get to work.
“Rika, come on,” Yuuta says, calling forth her power.
She doesn’t manifest fully, but his cursed energy billows out gently as she peeks her head up from the ground. “ Yuuta ?” She asks, turning to look at him.
The curse residuals burn a deep red in the dirt, scattered and venomous. Yuuta watches them for a moment, seeing if he can pick up a sense of direction, before he crouches down and rests a light hand on her head. “See if you can flush it out.” He points down the alley ahead.
Rika sits unmoving for a moment and calculates her options. Finally, with a murmured, “ Okaaaay, ” she dips below the earth. Yuuta feels her pull like a lifeline away from him.
“We should get you a dog,” Gojo says, stretching. At Yuuta’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “Less special grade.”
“Please don’t imply that Rika is a pet, Sensei.”
“I would never. Hence the dog.”
Yuuta ignores him in favor of trudging forward after Rika.
He doesn’t see her as much as feels her pull him along. Occasionally, Yuuta can see her poke through an object, spindly teeth gleaming in the dying light of day as she swivels her head, but she otherwise stays on task. The residual gets thicker -- on the ground, the walls, the air. Yuuta coughs beneath his breath as he reaches for his katana, coming to a rest before a row of back roads intersects.
Any moment now, Rika will sound the alarm. She has to be closing in. The veil is enclosed; the energy is too strong to be anything less than at least a first grade. The sooner they finish, the sooner he can go home and sort out the mess that is his life. His blade’s steel glints off the brick of a privacy wall.
“Do you feel it?” Yuuta asks Gojo, glancing over his shoulder.
He’s met with silence.
Now. Yuuta considers himself a very patient person.
He’s not quick to anger, and even his temper when triggered is mild compared to the likes of Maki, or Todo. As he twists around, only to be met with an absent alley, he can feel the strain of his self control wearing him thin.
“Sensei,” He calls, mouth pressed into a thin line to keep the snarl out of his lip. “Just tell me if you’re going to sit back, don’t hide.”
Despite the way his voice rises into the empty space of the neighborhood, he is still met with nothing but the dull echo of his own voice.
The hair at the back of his neck stands up at the exact same moment he feels Rika’s cursed energy separate, suddenly pulled from him like a knife from his stomach.
Instinct is the only thing that saves him. Yuuta leaps into the air to narrowly avoid the snapping maw of a special grade curse as it slams through the side of a house.
It’s wiry, built long and narrow like a dragon, or a ferret. Yuuta pulls himself onto a neighboring rooftop and has to dodge in quick succession again as it follows him easily, hissing and spraying debris in its wake.
“ Rika! ” Yuuta shouts, slamming the butt of his sword square in between the curse’s eyes as he jumps.
He can’t feel her anymore. He can’t — why can’t he summon her? He tries again as he slashes a long arc up the side of the curse, opening its skin with a spray of black ichor, and again when his opponent clips him by the arm.
Where Rika should be thrumming alive with cursed energy, all too eager to manifest into full strength, there’s nothing. His excess of cursed energy is nowhere he can reach.
“Shit—“
The curse is fast but he is faster, barely, collecting himself enough to strike out and draw blood. The hits come graciously in spite of how discombobulated he feels, how terrible a feeling sits at the bottom of his stomach and blooms into the rest of him. Surely, Yuuta would know if this thing killed Rika. Certainly. He feels her absence like a missing limb, off-kilter and worrying.
There’s no time for that, however. The curse descends upon him, putting him on the defense, and Yuuta trades a rapid series of blows as it attempts to find the best angle of attack. He leaps straight in the air when it tries to grapple his feet with a huffed, “Nope,” and his katana impales it in a heavy, fatty little limb.
The curse shrieks in its outrage and lunges for him, but Yuuta is always playing three moves ahead. He lets go of the katana as the special grade’s head winds around, open-mouthed and angry, and lights it up with a solid hit of cursed energy pouring from his fist. The black flash cracks over the rooftop like a thunderclap, loud and heavy, and the curse crumples with a wounded keen as it nurses its jaw.
Yuuta can’t count even on a single hand the amount of times he has felt exhausted of energy. It’s never happened before.
But as his body sags forward, teeth bared and sweat clamming his skin already. It was as if a string had been unwound from a spool rapidly, too fast and incapable of being put back without becoming tangled.
He’s running out. He’s never run out.
What the fuck.
Focus. Yuuta resumes his stance, widens it, turning the situation over in his head as he restrategizes. His katana, dripping with onyx gore, feels heavy in his grip as he retrieves it from his feet. It’s not his worst fight. It won’t be his worst fight. If he can keep the fog in his head from getting worse and finish this fast, he can get home with only a few new scars to show for it.
The curse seems to be reassessing him, too.
It tilts its ugly head, eyes swiveling in different directions. Rika would have axed the opportunity — her enthusiasm for bloodlust wins over any tactical advantage he can bring, but at least it stops his opponent from having time to think. Yuuta can’t afford mistakes here.
“Come on, then,” He growls, lifting his katana.
It’s bad news. Strength drains rapidly from his limbs, pouring out like water from a funnel as he matches the curse step for step. Being light on his feet is a trait he has had to earn, fought tooth and nail by Maki’s advances. It’s the only thing that saves him from getting outright bodied when the curse tries to corner him on a rooftop.
But he’s tired.
Poison, Yuuta realizes, too sluggish for the alarming kind of clarity reserved for that epiphany. The curse had been trying to wait him out for who knows how long. It feasts on him now, eating away at his cursed energy as it makes its advances, and Yuuta finds himself barely parrying blows or blocking sharp teeth. His sneaker squeaks, sharp and piercing against slick tile, and the split second of surprise is all the curse needs to grab ahold of his shoulder and bite down.
Bone cracks beneath back molars, blinding and molten in its furious agony as Yuuta shouts through gritted teeth. The steel of his katana rattles harshly as it falls from his grip, suddenly pliant and useless, and he’s left trying to cling to the snarling maw of the curse as it does its best to shake him with all the same banter as a dog with a new doy.
Not here, Yuuta thinks, landing a feeble hit square in the eye of his opponent and groaning as it shakes him again, Not here. I can’t. I have to go home.
Inumaki’s smile will await him: the one hidden behind a mask, but still comes out in his eyes, because when they crinkle with glee it lights up a room. The plane ride will be as short and miserable as the first, and Yuuta will probably lose his luggage for real this time, and none of it will matter because he needs to give Toge a souvenir like he asked. Tell him how this week has been the most miserable week of his life. Feel the silver, silky smooth hair brush against his chin as he envelops his best friend in the longest hug of his life. Yuuta wants to never, ever let go again.
The curse adjusts its grip on him and red pulses down his chest through his clothes, up his neck and soaking his shirt.
Yuuta wants one more stolen glance, one more stolen kiss. One more evening with his friends, where he can glance over and see Toge’s comfortable laugh, seals on display.
The seals.
Wait.
The seals.
Yuuta’s eyes fly open, and his cheeks burn.
He scrabbles to angle his face down towards the curse, awkward and desperate as his tongue alights with the last remnants of his cursed energy. It swells, and buzzes, and crackles at his disposal far unlike what he has ever felt before. Panic takes away poeticism; before he realizes what he’s even doing, he grabs a fistful of curse and yells for all he’s worth.
“ DIE. ”
Time pauses. The single second it takes for the syllable to fall from his mouth stretches on for a minute, an hour, an eternity, and with it only the desperation of survival and the swell of cursed energy dripping from his lips. This is the last resort.
His throat shreds to ribbons.
The curse lets him go over the roof overhang, shrieking and wailing as its body implodes in on itself section by section. Terrible booms like cannonshot echo over the neighborhood, over Yuuta laying in the street, shaking the ground beneath him as he sucks air.
One, two, all the way to five shots ring out, and a blind wail of indignance is the last remainder of the curse’s existence. Black seeps over the roof, pouring over the gutter systems and into the street. The macabre scene unfolds as it pours in the street, blackening the back dirt walkways of the neighborhood.
It’s over. It’s done.
The veil begins to lift as he stares half-lidded up at the sky, face pinched with the feeling of his obliterated throat tugging at every breath. The dark tint gave way to a pretty, early dusk, cloud cover dusted in hues of pinks and oranges over Yuuta’s head. It’s so peaceful. He almost doesn’t want to move.
But he has to.
His sword, he thinks. He needs his sword.
Yuuta wills himself to move — first with the drag of his foot up, urging his expended hamstrings to carry him as he half-rolls into sitting upright. His right arm hangs uselessly, mauled and separated, but by some miraculous feat he manages the effort to stand.
He takes a step.
Then another.
Yuuta can see the gleaning metal down the street, dirtied with blood and dust. It’s a long walk. He hurts all over. It’s a triumphant feeling. It’s agonizing.
The sooner he gets his sword, the sooner he gets back home.
The sooner he gets back to Toge .
Someone calls his name, but Yuuta takes another step. The ringing in his ears, once a soft sound, grows sharp to the tune of his own spiking pulse. It roars, begging him to stop, but yet Yuuta trudges forward once more.
He needs his sword.
His knees hit the ground instead.
“You with me?”
Silence.
“Hm. He looked like he was waking u— oh, there he is. C’mon, Okkotsu. Open your eyes for me.”
Yuuta’s eyelids flutter heavily, unwilling to cooperate. Gojo’s shockingly vivid eyes are the first thing he sees, glittering and cerulean as his teacher leans in too closely for comfort. He’s talking to someone on the phone.
“ Geesh. You’ve looked better.”
The shock of white bangs blurs in Yuuta’s vision as Gojo leans back to resume his phone call. “Give me five, and I’ll — yep. I’ll send him. I figured dropping him out of the blue like this would be difficult. Aren’t I thoughtful?”
Everything hurts. Not in the dull way pain feels after a long rest; everything hurts, actively, acutely, from his nose and his throat all the way down to his toes. Especially his right side. Each breath, slow and shallow, feels like the drag of a grater behind his tongue.
Gojo always carries himself with an air of nonchalance with everything he does. Yuuta gets the vague sense that it’s performative; for all his bravado and intentional inattentiveness, his teacher knows how to wield his rare seriousness like a chess piece.
There is no board to play on, however, and Yuuta’s arm is too shredded to make a move. Gojo’s concern is real, unfiltered, but oddly calm. A mentor and his student, too far and secluded for the clawing fingers of the executives to reach.
“Yes, alright, we can talk about that later.” Gojo says, smiling thinly. He says, once more, “He’ll see you in five!” and hangs up quickly to tend to his student.
“Do you remember what happened?”
No. Yuuta doesn’t know what happened five seconds ago.
When he doesn’t make an effort to move, Gojo starts talking away, about hallucinogenic residuals and venom that stole cursed energy. Something about multiple doses, from teeth and claws, unimportant now -- “Good thing I was here,” Gojo says, somewhere in the middle -- and it all blurs together beyond anything Yuuta can stand to comprehend. He hurts. He just hurts.
Wait. Rika .
That gets Yuuta to move. His hand flexes against his stomach where it sits in his lap, and the silver band sits flush and cool against his hand. A familiar, gentle wave of cursed energy hits him, no more different than a cat headbutting his shins. Relief floods through him.
Gojo notices. “Bet it was the hallucinations,” He says unhelpfully. Then, more cautiously, Gojo tilts his head.
“Though it looks like you didn’t need her technique in the end. Did you?”
A gentle hand takes Yuuta’s jaw, twisting it side to side in examination as Yuuta sputters and coughs up copper. Gojo rescinds his hand when the fresh blood starts flowing again, shaking it slightly, and heaves a big sigh. Yuuta watches him through heavy eyes, energy waning, as Gojo retreats to draw a circle in the dirt of the alley.
“Yuuta. I’m going to give you a bit of life advice. Straight from your dear teacher.” Gojo scuffs one sigil away, and redraws it. “Don’t get so wrapped up in what those old geezers want that you forget how to live your life. You’re seventeen.”
Yuuta blinks.
“Make dumb mistakes.” Gojo draws the rest of the various symbols in quick, practiced succession. “Try new things. Leave the worrying to the adults, because before you know it you’ll be my age wishing you hadn’t wasted your childhood either. Be selfish.”
Those were….shockingly mature words, coming from Gojo Satoru, and a rare display of sudden vulnerability. The special grade sorcerer, one of a kind and utterly unparalleled, spoke with a sort of frankness that Yuuta didn’t know he had in his arsenal. Perhaps he believed that Yuuta was already unconscious, or at least too concussed to remember.
He may not be wrong yet, but the words still burn in Yuuta’s ears the same way his breath scalds his throat.
“I think you’ll regret not living for yourself before you have to live for others.”
Finished, Gojo steps back, and the moment is gone. He lifts his hand, pausing before his fingers cross.
“Tell Shoko I send my regards.”