Chapter Text
“I know you want to get out of training, but there’s no reason for all of you to go with him,” Gojo says with his hands on his hips and exasperation in the downward tilt of his mouth.
“Sujiko,” Toge disagrees.
“The way I see it,” Panda says, “I get to go because I’m carrying Yuta there. Maki has to go because she’s the one who knocked him out.” He rubs his chin contemplatively, imagining a smirking Maki flying in to give Yuta a drop kick to the side that leaves him out cold.
To the side, Maki scowls with her arms crossed. “Not what happened.”
“And Toge might as well come because everyone else will be gone anyways.”
“Shake,” Toge huffs.
“Everyone else?” says Gojo. “Rude. I’d still be here, you know.”
Toge plants himself at Panda’s side, casting a shadow over Yuta’s line of sight.
“Okaka.”
“You guys know you’re supposed to respect me? I’m your teacher. It’s Gojo sen-sei,” Gojo admonishes, emphasizing each syllable in sensei. “Well fine. Tiebreaker, what does Yuta think?”
All the eyes turn to him. Yuta can feel it, even if he’s still laying in the grass and doesn’t trust himself not to get nauseous if he tries to sit up. The leaves above sway back and forth, scattering sunlight over him, dizzying and kaleidoscopic. The sweat on his back has long grown cold, sticking to his neck and pulling dirt to his skin. It’s so bright. His head swims. He hasn’t moved an inch since Panda settled him against his stomach, but suddenly his heart is throbbing, discomfort creeping up his throat.
“I don’t care,” Yuta’s whispers, the best voice he can work up weak and thready. He hopes that everyone else will pick up on the desperation he feels, will understand that he really means just get me out of here.
“That settles it!” Panda’s words are thunderous enough for Yuta to flinch, cringing deeper into his fur. “Everybody move out!”
“Okaka,” Toge whispers sharply. Yuta isn’t trying to see what’s going on, but eventually Panda murmurs something in a softer, slightly guilty tone.
“Oh, I see. My bad.”
Yuta steels himself as the world jostles. Summer heat floods his senses as Panda shifts, cloying and sticky, and everything tilts as Panda drags him up by the armpits. Fighting down a whimper, Yuta swallows, eyes screwed as tight as they can possibly get. He begs his stomach not to humiliate him further by revolting.
“Up we go. Maki, can you help me?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles, moving in to support Yuta’s weight as Panda rolls out from under him. “Don’t you dare throw up on me,” she says under her breath. It’s typical crude Maki, but Yuta isn’t in the state to take a hit like that right now. It only adds to his nerves, makes him feel the sinking weight of burden that is his own weakness.
Trying my best over here.
Panda maneuvers himself underneath Yuta’s chest, encouraging Yuta to clasp his hands around the thick fur on his neck.
“How’s that, Yuta?” Panda starts to lumber up the hillside, fur tickling the sides of Yuta’s face. Between the lightheadedness, the seesawing chills, and his brimming anxiety, all Yuta really wants to do is focus on not feeling sicker, not freaking out.
“Mhm,” is all he can manage.
“You let me know if you need anything,” Panda says, and Yuta clutches his fur harder to at least let Panda know he’s heard, certain that he won’t as their three shadows breach the top of the hill, elongate and disappear from the training grounds.
-
I’ll be back soon! - Shoko
“Hmmm...” The rumble of Panda’s growling ripples through Yuta’s body, a living stereo shuddering right beneath him. Panda rubs his chin, dutifully inspecting a posted sign with a cartoonish self portrait. “Looks like she’s out.”
“Of course she is.”
“Okaka.”
To Yuta, everything is dark. At some point during their walk to the infirmary, he’d nuzzled his face into Panda’s back as deep as it could go, clinging to the way it blotted out the daylight and the offhanded conversation like a lifeline. The world heaved with each step Panda took, and each change brought Yuta fresh unease, new waves of vertigo he had to fight to adapt to.
He dreads being moved again.
“Yuta,” Panda coos, a little smarmy. “Hey, Yuta. Wakey wakey. Rise and shine.”
Underneath him, Panda starts to shimmy like he’s a coat to be shed, an insect, maybe. An indication that this is the end of the line.
Yuta groans, clutching Panda harder so that he doesn’t end up slithering down, weightless as he feels.
“Stop.” It comes out thin and keening, like he’s pleading. Maki’s hand lands on his shoulder as Panda stills.
“Go easy on him. He still looks a little gray.”
She supports Yuta as he climbs down, shouldering the brunt of his weight as Panda eases him off. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he starts listing to the side, darkness encroaching the edges of his vision, swallowing up the barebones decor.
He presses a clammy hand to his face and closes his eyes, hunching into his palm so that no one can see his timid expression. Whatever is happening to him, it feels awful, shameful, even. If this is the consequence of trying to use his cursed energy, if there’s some limit he’s tried and failed to surpass, then he doesn’t want anyone else to see how much it terrifies him. He’s already years behind in training, so much weaker than everyone else on campus. His body wasn’t built for this, it’s a race, a marathon he never signed up for and started hours late.
Maki steps forward in front of him cautiously, one arm hovering stiff and ready.
“I’m fine,” Yuta pants. His voice feels thin, his heartbeat is in his ears. He swallows as the room shimmers. “I just need to… to sit down.”
Toge tries to help him into one of the chairs, but Yuta shakes his head and drops straight onto the tile, clumsily knocking the chairs out of alignment as he does. He bites down on the inside of his cheek at the sound, flushing as Toge rights the room set up behind him. Drawing his knees to his chest, Yuta lowers his head, takes in the grimy coating on the wall trim, the dark brown stains on the tile by the examination rooms. The filth makes him queasy.
Maki sighs.
“So now what? We all just wait here until Shoko gets back?”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
“I’d rather get back to training. That blindfolded idiot had a point for once. We don’t all need to be here.”
“Yeah, but don’t you think it’s the right thing to do? You can’t just deliver a fatal blow and then leave a man out to dry. We have honor. Dignity.”
Behind him, one of the chairs groans under someone’s weight.
“Ugh. I don’t want to hear it. You and I both know that Yuta and I aren’t an even match. And don’t sit on that, you’re going to break it.”
“Wha?” Panda gasps, starting to rock back and forth. The chair he’s in must have already been unbalanced to begin with, because the legs start to click against the tile in a grating rhythm. “What are you saying? That I need to eat less bamboo?”
“No one said that.”
“You’re not being very nice today, Maki.”
“Okaka.”
“Don’t take his side!” Maki hisses, making Yuta’s skin crawl.
Somehow, being inside is worse. There’s no breeze to ground him, no open space to hide in, nowhere else for all these voices to go in this cramped little room. He wishes they’d all just stop talking, gift him some silence instead of arguing with each other. It pulls his focus left and right, makes him feel like he’s losing his shaky grasp on something already tenuous.
“Yeah, that’s right.” The chair Panda is sitting on continues to shift, click click clicking as he giggles. He must have done something else, gotten in her space or pushed too hard, because Yuta hears the rough smack of a staff across Panda’s stiff form.
“Hey!”
“Asshole.”
“Can you guys please stop?” He tries, but it seems like everyone is too occupied to hear him. The room suddenly feels too warm, enveloping him in a roiling nausea that coats everything from the inside out. Exhaling shakily through his mouth, Yuta grabs his shoulders so hard that his knuckles blanch.
He hates this.
“I can’t be an asshole, I’m just a Panda.” Click, click, click.
He hates this.
“You’re insufferable, you know that?” A rough shove and a half hearted roar.
“Stop,” Yuta tries again, sinking deeper into his knees, into himself.
“You’re just acting out because you have a big, giant, cr-“
“Enough.”
“STOP IT!”
All of the movement in the room ceases. Yuta looks up to find Maki holding Panda by the scruff of his neck, Toge leaning against the wall, eyes all wide with shock from his sudden outburst. The bottom of the chair Panda is sitting in collapses.
The silence is thick, the spotlight now on Yuta, still curled in on himself on the floor. He feels like he should say more, defend his emotions that are dangerously close to bubbling out. Heat pools behind his eyes, a chasm splitting open in his chest. Something inside him frays and snaps, disintegrates into nothing.
“Everyone just stop talking,” he says miserably, holding his breath as his nose starts to run, trying to disguise the unbearable pressure concentrating in his sinuses. He lowers his head back down, inhales and exhales as thinly as he possibly can until he can’t anymore and his breath starts to come out choked and wet.
He doesn’t want his classmates to see him like this, but he’s never been the best at holding in his emotions and it’s all so overwhelming.
“Now look. You made him cry.” Panda whispers. This time when Maki scoffs, it’s lacking in its usual venom. He waits for some kind of remark to validate his worst thoughts, to poke at his frightened nature and confirm that his insecurities are deserved, but it doesn’t come.
“Ikura!” Toge cuts in. Yuta hears him walking away, rummaging around, the click of him exiting, then re-entering the room. He can feel Toge approaching, tensing up just before the gentle tapping starts on his shoulder.
Very slightly, he lifts his head, finds Toge squatting down beside him extending a fresh box of tissues. He can see himself reflected in the violet of Toge’s irises, dark locks of hair ruffled with sweat, his own sallow looking face looking back at him until it all starts to blur together.
“Tsuna,” Toge says, setting the box beside Yuta. He pats Yuta’s shoulder again, letting his touch linger as Yuta starts to mop at his eyes, flinching back when Yuta’s breath catches and it turns into a dry gag.
If it were just the two of them, Yuta would ask if Toge was trying to tell him that everything was alright. He wants to tell himself that this gesture means it’s fine, you’re trying, but that feels too vulnerable to chase while Maki and Panda are watching. Warmth seems like weakness in this cruel new world, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it, doesn’t crave something gentle when it hurts.
A giant paw lands on his head, startling him. He doesn’t say anything. Then the paw starts to move, scraping its way from the top of his head down his back, tugging the hair on his scalp by the root each time it cycles back around. It’s rough and uncomfortable, but Yuta resigns himself to the motion.
He grabs a handful of tissues and holds them to his face, letting them sop up tears that seem to reform every time he blinks until they cease and all that’s left is an angry pressure in his head and dulled traces of nausea that never left.
They’re quite the sight when the door clicks open and Shoko walks in, carrying an iced coffee in one hand and smelling faintly like cigarette smoke.