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The evening before Gojo’s funeral, the windchime hanging in Jujutsu High’s garden snapped off its string and fell to a clattering heap on the frozen surface of the pond below it. The chime resounded as a disjointed ‘ping’, like a bird whose song has been cut short, wings clipped midair, forcing it to fall back to Earth. In the distance, past the evergreen trees and rooftop of the training dojo, the sound of the fallen windchime traveled through the open window of Maki Zenin’s dorm room. She sat on her bed, laboriously pouring over a photo album containing the memories of the past two years.
She flipped to a picture of her and Toge and Panda on the track field, taken two summers ago by Gojo. Toge and Panda had their hands poised behind Maki’s head, giving her double rabbit ears, much to her annoyance. On the opposite page was a picture of her and Yuta Okkotsu at a Christmas party, not only oblivious to the photo of them being taken, but also to the fact that they were standing under mistletoe. In the photo their arms were crossed and they were looking away from each other. It looked like Maki was talking when the photo had been taken mid-sentence. She wondered what they had been talking about, but she couldn’t remember.
Her head rose when she heard the clang of the fallen windchime clatter against the garden pond. At hearing the ominous sound, she turned her head to the window and held her breath. The grey winter sky darkened, leaving a somber shade of dark blue past the black silhouettes of forest trees. Maki leaned halfway out the window, the sharp cold nipping at her face. She narrowed her eyes and searched the horizon but could see nothing out of the ordinary. The school grounds had been particularly quiet, as if the very air was saturated with the silent approach of the funeral.
Maki drew back and closed the window shut. With a shiver she rose from the bed and took the oversized olive-green sweater draped over her desk chair. She pulled it over her head and shook out the sleeves, opening the door to her room, in the hopes that maybe she would stumble across another student or faculty member. She roamed the school hallways, pausing at Toge’s closed bedroom door before continuing on her way. From the second floor she looked down to see the first-years meandering in the courtyard, bundled up in their heaviest winter coats and scarves. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but she caught the tail-end of Nobara declaring they should eat dinner in the city tonight. The trio’s dark forms moved like shadows around the building, and then they were gone.
Maki wandered into the kitchen to find Akari Nitta heating a kettle on the stove. She offered tea, but Maki declined, saying she wasn’t hungry. It was a lie— she had secretly hoped someone would make dinner that night and she could join by happenstance— but for the time being the school grounds were nearly deserted. Time itself seemed disjointed at the end of the year, wonky and unreal, and Maki assumed she wasn’t the only one who had been feeling out of sorts since the battle on Christmas Eve.
She said goodbye to Nitta and went down the hall. The kitchen storeroom’s door was cracked open, so Maki slipped inside, pulling the string to the overhead lightbulb above her. That single light shone nakedly onto the room, casting deep shadows, exposing the smell of rice stored in wood containers, the kanji for good fortune burnt into the wood: 福
Maki ran her hand through her short hair, her other hand poised on her hip. Her eyes drifted throughout the storeroom in search of something to snack on when she took notice of a bottle of liquor on the bottom shelf. Stooping down, she picked it up and turned it over. A fifth of Vodka, imported from the Motherland itself.
Maki smirked, peeking a glance over her shoulder. This bottle definitely wasn’t supposed to be in here— it was possible that Miss Utahime left it here by mistake, or perhaps Kusakabe hoarded it here in the hopes of drinking in the upcoming New Year’s.
New Year’s. Maki scratched her brow with her thumbnail and sighed through her nose. There was plenty to celebrate, but every win had its loss. The New Year’s after Yuta Okkotsu joined their class, Gojo had set off illegal fireworks on school grounds, out on the track field, while Jujutsu High’s students stood at the top of the stairs and watched in amazement.
Maki remembered standing next to Okkotsu, heads craned towards the sky as explosions bloomed above them like flowers. Ribbons of light tumbled down, and Okkotsu said, ‘Won’t Gojo-sensei get in trouble for this?’
To which Maki answered, ‘Are you kidding? That bastard can get away with anything. He’s like the higher-ups golden child, except they hate him.’
‘Hate him? Why?’ Yuta had asked.
‘Because,’ Maki said with a wicked smile, ‘they’re afraid of him.’
Lately she had the overwhelming feeling that nothing could be normal again, not for her or her classmates or anyone for that matter, regardless if they were sorcerer or non-sorcerer. The current state of Jujutsu High was a testament to that strange, in-between time of vague ambiguity. Kusakabe had given her recent news about an upcoming mission, and while she was grateful, she hadn’t given her decision about the matter yet. Something held her back but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Maki drummed her nails over the vodka bottle, inciting the glass to clink in a staccato rhythm. Without wasting another minute she tugged the lightbulb’s string and turned out of the dark room. She slipped the vodka bottle under her oversized sweater, keeping it secure with her crossed arms. She ran into the first-years, who explained their evening plans and invited her to join them. Maki declined, told them to have a good time, then carried on her way. Before she walked down the steps leading into the courtyard, she turned, and said, “Do you know where Okkotsu is?”
———————————
Yuta Okkotsu was about to do something he had never done before: commit a crime. He was sure destruction of public property counted as a crime, but he had only done that to stop cursed spirits. Those were victimless crimes. And this too was a victimless crime, but it didn’t stop him from feeling bad about it.
The crime in question? The day before his death, Satoru Gojo had made a strange and private request specifically to Okkotsu: go to Jujutsu High’s library, find the ancient scroll detailing information about the Gojo clan’s Six Eyes, and destroy it. Simply put, vandalism. It also meant destruction of a historical artifact, which also meant possibly pissing off the Gojo clan if they were to request for the scroll to be returned to them.
What Gojo failed to mention was that the scroll had no identifying features, and therefore no way to find it among the many scrolls in the library. Yuta did not realize how big a task this was going to be until he stepped into the school’s private library, located underground in what used to be a cave before being converted into a library during the school’s founding many years ago.
When Yuta entered the library and saw what he was dealing with, his stomach dropped and every ounce of optimism he had about Gojo’s request went flying out the proverbial window. Thousands of scrolls laid piled together in honeycomb-shaped shelves ten feet high, floor to ceiling, expanding throughout the library’s entire perimeter and spiraling to the center like a whirlpool of ancient knowledge. At seeing how insane and impossible this task was going to be, Yuta’s mouth dropped open and his shoulders fell slack. Incredibly, it was as if Gojo was playing a practical joke on him from the afterlife.
Needless to say, Yuta had been at it for hours, sorting through scroll after scroll, climbing up and down a ladder to reach the ones at the top shelf. Rika was all too delighted to ‘help’, if grabbing all the scrolls at once and dumping them into a pile on the floor counted as ‘helping.’ Eventually Yuta told her to take a rest— he’d have a better chance at finding the Six Eyes scroll if he was alone and could concentrate.
There was no clock in the library, let alone electric light. Oil lamps lined the shelves every few feet, emitting a warm, dim glow. The cave walls reverberated every sound like an echo. After a while Yuta found a secret delight in searching for the scroll. It was like unveiling ancient mysteries from the past. Absorbed with Gojo’s posthumous request, Yuta began pausing every few minutes to read the various scrolls he unraveled. Some gave details about various Jujutsu techniques (including techniques that had become ‘extinct’). Others were historical accounts about clan history. Yuta found himself less bored the more he paused to read through the scrolls. He sat crosslegged on the ground, leaning his head into his hand, and read the folktale about the wailing woman at the waterfall, a cursed spirit who lured travelers in with her cries, only to ensnare them with vines, pulling them into the waterfall where they were drowned.
He looked up, a thoughtful smile on his face.
“Wow,” he remarked aloud. “Cursed spirits can get pretty creative with how they kill, huh?”
From the shadowy ceiling Rika slowly floated down, her hands propped under her chin, as if she were a schoolgirl lying on a bed, kicking her legs back and forth, thinking about her crush.
Yuta smiled, eyes following her as she descended to the floor, coming to rest at his feet. She sighed dramatically, indicating that she was throughly bored with the search.
“Sorry,” Yuta said. He craned his head back, taking in the many shelves that he hadn’t yet searched. “This is going to be an all-nighter.” He lifted his hand and extended one finger. “Besides, I feel obligated to do this last thing for Gojo, especially since he—” He stopped short, glancing to the side. The diagonal scar on his forehead, although significantly faded, pinched whenever he frowned a certain way, or thought too hard, which, unfortunately for Yuta, tended to be something he did often.
“Well, anyways, I want to do this. Just hang in there Rika.”
Rika sighed again, then lifted her own hand. She pointed a single clawed finger, and with its sharp tip touched the end of Yuta’s extended finger. With that she slipped into darkness, leaving the teenager alone to his task.
At a certain point Yuta forced himself to stop reading through every single scroll. There were just too many of them and if he was going to make any headway then he would have to narrow his attention strictly to the search for the Six Eyes scroll. Scroll after scroll he examined, but to no avail. Despite there being no windows, the subterranean library being closed off as it was from the world, a feeling inside Yuta told him it was getting late. He hadn’t ate dinner but the hunger pains were like a motivation, convincing him to look at ‘one more scroll’ before calling it a night. Eventually, Yuta knelt on one of the circular straw mats scattered throughout the library’s spiral hall. He pulled one of the writing desks close to him and opened each scroll deliberately, laying it flat on the desk’s surface, eyes scanning the parchment before moving on to the next one.
His thoughts wandered— memories of life before and after Jujutsu High, memories of Gojo-sensei, fleeting images of Toge and Panda goofing around on the track field, the summer leaves shifting in the breeze, scattering patterns of shadow and light on the grassy ground. He thought of autumn colors, and the wild tangle of plants on the outskirts of the forest, how their leaves shriveled and decayed into shades of brown and white mold. He thought of the time he had walked home alone from middle school, so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not realize until the sun was setting that he had walked into the woods outside his neighborhood as though in a trance. And he remembered standing in the woods, listening to the cold wind rattle through the trees, and looking down to see the skeleton of a dead animal at his feet. Half-buried in the dirt, its bones bleached white, the empty eye socket in its skull staring up at the grey sky. That was around the time when he stopped sleeping at night. When given the opportunity, he would sneak out of gym class and hide in the boys’ locker room, dozing off in one of the showers with his arms wrapped around his knees. Thinking back on it, Yuta wasn’t exactly sure how he survived those days.
Then he remembered another feeling— was it a thought or a memory or a dream?— of a scarred hand brushing over his own. A warm touch in the cold, an arm draped over his shoulder. He thought of the turn of her neck, her short, dark hair shining like a polished stone, like the wings of a starling. He waited to hear what she would say next. Yuta’s heart fluttered and a warmth spread through his chest.
A loud bang hit the writing desk where he was seated. Yuta startled awake (so it was a dream he realized) and sucked in a sharp breath. He flung himself backwards to sit up straight, inevitably knocking the back of his head against the bookshelf behind him.
“Ow ow ow,” he muttered, rubbing at the back of his head. He looked up, one eye closed. In front of him stood Maki Zenin, her hands on her hips and an incredulous look on her face.
“Rise and shine princess,” she said. At seeing the tiredness in Yuta’s eyes, she added, “You okay?”
“Fine,” Yuta answered. He dropped his hands in his lap, offering a tired smile. “You actually woke me up.”
“Oh,” Maki replied. “Sorry.”
“No, no,” Yuta said, waving his hands. “I’m glad you woke me up. There’s still—” he paused, yawning, “—there’s still alot of scrolls I need to look through.”
He looked down and realized a full bottle of liquor laid on the desk before him. He blinked, his face frozen in a confused grimace.
“I stole this from the kitchen storeroom,” Maki explained. “I was thinking…” She cut herself off, studying Yuta with narrowed eyes, whether out of curiosity or scrutiny. “What are you doing in the library?”
“Before he died, Gojo-sensei made a request that I search the school library for a specific scroll and destroy it. It has something to do with the Six Eyes, but—” He waved his hand at the multitude of scrolls spread out before him on the desk, “— I haven’t had any luck.”
Maki arched her brow.
“He wanted it destroyed? Why? What’s so special about it?” she asked.
Yuta shrugged, answering, “I don’t know. It could be something pretty serious but, knowing Gojo…”
“It could also be totally insignificant,” Maki added. “Yeah. Gojo had a knack for leaving out vital information. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he was totally clueless or if he did it on purpose. Who knows.” She folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, recalling past shenanigans the pair had dealt with over the years. They glanced at each other and laughed under their breaths. Maki stepped back, looking the bookshelves up and down.
“Wow,” she remarked. “This place was usually off-limits to students unless you had special permission from the higher-ups.”
“Really?” Yuta asked. He pressed his hands to the floor and leaned back. “So you’ve never been in here?”
Maki shook her head. She pulled a scroll from a shelf and unraveled it slightly, reading the first line about a historical battle fought during the Sengoku era. Cursed energy was rampant during that time. Feuds between clans caused blood to soak the land— and cursed spirits sprung forth like weeds. Maki ran her tongue over her teeth, catching the family name ‘Zenin’ on the scroll, written in black ink. She rolled the scroll closed and placed it back on the shelf.
“So, what are you doing tonight?” Yuta asked. His question pulled Maki out of her thoughts.
“Getting drunk,” she answered bluntly. She approached the desk and picked up the vodka bottle by its neck.
“Alone?” Yuta asked, casting her a sympathetic smile.
Maki tossed the bottle. It flipped and she caught it midair, pointing its end at Yuta like a challenge to a sword fight.
“Of course not. Why do you think I was looking for you?”
———————————
As it turned out, this was not the first time Yuta Okkotsu had ever drank. One time, while roaming the streets of Ethiopia late at night, a group of young men had corralled Yuta into their shop, asking questions about the katana strapped to his back. Yuta didn’t speak a word of Amharic or Oromo, let alone any of the other local dialects, and the men did not understand when he tried explaining, in Japanese, that he would not unsheathe his sword because his ‘friend’ (Rika) might misunderstand the situation as a call for help instead of friendly bantering. Naturally, to breach the language barrier, the men brought out cans of beer— Heineken, if Yuta recalled correctly— and made a toast. At first Yuta objected, repeating, “I’m underage,” with nervous chuckles. The men noticed the ring on his left hand and assured him they would not tell his wife. Not wanting to disrespect their hospitality, Yuta conceded, taking the beer they offered and popping open the tab. Beer bubbled out, spilling onto his hand, and Yuta cringed. He tossed back his head and chugged before pulling the can from his lips and wiping the foam from his mouth. The men cheered. Yuta coughed and spluttered at the taste. He tried telling the men that it tasted like dirty water but they turned on a radio and brought out more beer. A full on party broke out, complete with music, cards, and dancing. Yuta had no idea what the hell was going on, but he finished the whole can before continuing on his way. He recalled thinking the moon seemed bigger when he was drunk.
Yuta told this story to Maki as they meandered the empty halls of Jujutsu High. Between them they passed the vodka bottle back and forth. The initial taste was awful— Maki was tougher than nails but even she couldn’t stand it. She’d always had a bit of a sweet tooth, so when they passed by the kitchen she poured out half of the vodka into the sink and replaced it with a can of grape soda she found in the back of the fridge. Now the vodka, in its clear glass bottle, shimmered a dark purple color, and the taste was bearable, even though it stained their lips purple.
“What about you?” Yuta asked, handing the bottle over to Maki. “Have you ever drank before?”
Maki scoffed, quickly answering, “Of course I have.” She took the bottle and downed a sip, smacking her lips. She kept her head turned from him. Their footfall creaked against the wood floors, and no light came from outside the dark windows.
“Oh,” Yuta said. He turned his hands over, cupping one on top the other, and stared, as if something would magically appear in the palm of his hand. Maki eyed him. It was a habit she noticed him do before, back when they were first-years.
“I’m glad you didn’t change that much,” she said. “You’re taller, and you’re better at using your cursed technique, but at least you didn’t come back a total asshole.”
Yuta smiled before laughing.
“Thanks,” he said. “I guess.” He rubbed his hand over his shoulder as they walked in awkward silence.
Finally he blurted, “I’m glad you’re the same too Maki.”
Maki’s jaw tightened. Heat rose to her face. Before she could tell him he was wrong, that no, she had changed, and maybe it wasn’t for the better, Yuta backtracked, hands raised, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, you’ve changed, but I can still tell…” He paused, fumbling through his words.
Taking a deep breath he said, “But I can tell you’ve been through alot. All of that…” He turned his head to look out the dark window they passed, “doesn’t just go away.”
Maki stared at him, taken aback by his statement. She handed him the vodka bottle and said, “Please, do not say anything about how ‘time heals all wounds.’ Anything corny like that and I’ll throw up, and I’m not even drunk yet.”
“Okay.” Yuta took the vodka bottle from her, his fingers brushing over her hand. “But I have a confession.”
Maki’s head whipped towards him, her heart wildly skipping a beat. She realized Yuta’s face was flushed red, and there was a tired, puppy-dog look in his eyes.
“I’m already kind of drunk,” he admitted.
———————————
The night was quiet. So quiet, that Maki felt like they had intruded upon a temple, a sacred place of worship, even though all they were doing was walking along the gravel pathway outside the main auxiliary building. Her breath left little clouds in the air. When they passed under one of the lighted lanterns, she turned to Yuta and said, “Wait. Where are we going?”
Yuta’s arms were inside his shirt, like a turtle who’s retreated its limbs into its shell. Shivering, eyes watering from the cold, he said, “I thought you said we were going to your room?”
Maki unscrewed the cap of the vodka bottle.
“Huh?” she said. She swished the bottle in a circle. “I thought we were going back to your room?”
She tossed back a swig. The bottle was almost empty.
“Then why are we outside?” Yuta said back. He stared at his feet and sniffed. His nose was red from the cold but his insides were warm, no doubt an effect of the alcohol.
“Wait,” Maki said. She clutched Yuta’s sleeve, even though he had made no move to leave her side. “I want to look at something.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned on him. The pair stumbled for a moment before regaining their footing. Maki led the way down towards the garden. Yuta slipped, inciting Maki to wrap her arm around his waist and keep him upright.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and together they stepped down the path, stride matching clumsy stride.
“We look like…” Maki hiccuped, “like elementary school kids.”
“Huh?” Yuta asked with a laugh.
Maki explained, “You make me feel like a kid again. But better, because being a kid sucked.”
“Maki?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you drunk?”
In a flash Maki slipped out of Yuta’s hold, stepped behind him, and wrenched his arm behind his back. He yelped, and Maki said, “If I was drunk, could I do this?”
“Actually, yes,” he said, craning his head to look behind him. His eyes widened, realizing they were nearly nose to nose. Yuta’s eyes flashed to Maki’s lips before quickly looking away. She would have ignored it, if it weren’t for the alcohol pushing her further. Maki placed the vodka bottle on the ground, then pressed against his back until her chin rested on his shoulder.
“Please tell me your martial arts skills got better while you were in Africa,” she said.
“They did,” Yuta said, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smile. He lowered his head, but was afraid to turn towards her, lest his mouth should brush against hers.
“Show me.”
Yuta seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, much to Maki’s relief, he spun on his heel, breaking out of her grip, and turned around. He held her by her wrists, hands raised above their heads.
The gleam in her eyes only said one thing and Yuta knew exactly what it was. He retracted, blurting out, “Maki, wait—!”
She broke free, grabbed him by the wrist, and turned. With one fell swoop she hurled him over her shoulder where he landed on the ground, flat on his back.
She stood over him and said, “I lied. I’m pretty drunk.”
“Maki…” Yuta wheezed. He coughed, rolling onto his side to lift himself up.
“Round two?” Maki beamed.
Yuta flashed her a wide-eyed look, as if to say, ‘are you crazy?’ He stooped down to retrieve the vodka bottle. Unscrewing the cap, he brought the bottle to his mouth and took a drink.
“Come on,” Maki said. She danced on her toes, shifting back and forth. She shook out her hands and huffed, “This is the most action I’ve had in days.”
Yuta couldn’t help but smile, even if there was a part of him that was wary. In that one move alone he could tell she was not only physically stronger, she was faster too. Maki had always been ridiculously strong, but now it was rather daunting. She wasn’t kidding when she said she now understood her Heavenly Restriction, that during her time in the Sakurajima colony she had awakened a part long dormant in her.
“Come on,” Maki pressed. “At least wrestle me.” She lowered her voice, adding, “I promise I’ll hold back.”
The words caught Yuta off-guard. In his dizzied, uninhibited state it was almost as if— no, he refused to think that, but dammit, why did she have say it like that! He swallowed, trying to calm his pounding heartbeat.
“Okay,” he breathed, and without a hint of hesitation lunged for her. Their hands clashed, interlocking for a moment before Maki dipped her hand under Yuta’s thigh and lifted him from the ground. She tried slamming him down, but Yuta wrapped his arm around her neck to keep himself upright. Maki stumbled forward, causing Yuta to wrap his legs around her waist to bring her down with him.
“Yuta!” she yelled. She collapsed to the ground, landing on top of her classmate. Too much ran through her mind to really process the situation: first, she realized the alcohol really did affect her like anyone else, Heavenly Restriction or not. Second, Yuta smelled like lavender soap. How the hell had she not noticed that before? Their bodies were flushed tightly together, with Yuta’s legs wrapped around Maki’s waist like a lock. Her face was buried in his neck, but she pushed away enough to grab the front of his shirt. Using her weight she flipped him over, their legs tangling before the force of gravity took hold. They rolled downhill, wrestling and writhing all the while.
They crashed through tall reeds that snapped under their weight. A piercing cold came over them and the ground hardened beneath them. They rolled once more before Maki got the upper hand. Straddling Yuta from above, she pinned his hands above his head and kept him restrained. The two did not move, save for the rise and fall of their labored breath, the clouds leaving their mouths evaporating in the freezing cold air.
“You’ve gotten better,” Maki panted, as if she were a teacher assessing her student’s skills. “I’m surprised you would play dirty like that though. That earlier move was ridiculous.” She looked around and blinked in confusion. “Where are we?”
“We’re on top of the pond,” Yuta answered. One eye closed, he nudged his chin in the direction of their surroundings. The lanterns hanging throughout the garden shone a soft yellow light, eliciting a strange warm reflection over the pond’s frozen surface.
Maki’s breath slowed, her knees growing numb from the icy surface.
“Maki?” Yuta asked.
“Yeah?”
“Can you let go of my wrists?”
Maki jerked her head at him. She realized the position they were in— her thighs on either side of his waist, her hands keeping him subdued beneath her— and without another word she let go, getting off him to sit cross-legged on top of the pond. She thanked the night for hiding her face. Not because it was red— she knew that could easily be blamed on the alcohol— but because she was sure her face could be read like an open book. She didn’t mind touching others in combat. It was skin-to-skin contact in the sense of intimacy that troubled her. To be that way with another person?
She huffed, wiping her nose against her shoulder and looking away.
She didn’t think she was capable of that.
Yuta lifted himself up, then brought his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. Like Maki, he thanked the night for hiding his face. Actually, not necessarily his face. He was just glad she hadn’t noticed his crotch during that skirmish, or now for that matter. The last thing he needed was Maki Zenin demanding to know why he was turned on from a wrestling match. That, and the fact he still wanted her on top of him, was mortifying enough. He could still feel her warm grip on his wrists, and the pull in his stomach when her weight pressed against him.
Maki stood, steadying herself on the pond’s frozen surface.
“It’s frozen solid,” she commented, noticing her warped reflection in the ice below her feet. In this reflection it looked as though her scars were neither here nor there, as if they had left her completely while lingering in the air as a fine mist. Maki’s footing slipped, but she caught herself. Yuta stood, his own arms outstretched as he balanced himself.
“Have you ever ice skated before?” he asked.
“No,” Maki said. “You?”
He shook his head.
“I almost did, when I was a kid,” he explained. “But I backed out at the last moment. Rika was pretty upset that day. She never liked the cold.”
Maki pushed off with one foot, sliding over the ice a short distance before coming to an awkward halt. Her arms flailed as she tipped forward, but Yuta reached out, linking his arms with hers to steady her.
“We could skate now,” Maki said. Her mouth trembled in a smile, eyes lowered. The pair stepped backwards, but there was no grace, no fluid motion like it would be if they were on skates. Maki laughed sarcastically and said, “This is sooo cool.”
Yuta tilted to the left, his hands sliding down Maki’s arms until he held her hands in his own.
“Hold on,” he said. He turned until they were spinning, slowly, slowly across the ice.
“Look,” Maki said. “There’s the moon.”
“Where?”
“The sky. Where else?”
Yuta craned his head back, dizzy eyes searching the black sky for the moon. It appeared to him like a fish jumping out of a lake, here and gone in a turning splash. With a gasp he slipped and nearly fell backwards, but Maki pulled him upright, not losing any momentum as they continued their ellipse across the pond.
The yellow light dappled across their faces, revealing eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ear, neck, round and round, emerging in and out of darkness. Yuta closed his eyes and let his head roll slack. That time in Ethiopia when he drank, he felt a buzz, but nothing like this. Every tense muscle, every stress that had built itself around him, melted away. He had drank too much. It was both awful and wonderful. His stomach lurched and he opened his eyes a fraction.
“H-Hang on…” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Wait. Spinning around…”
Maki slowed to a halt by the pond’s edge.
“Are you gonna hurl?” she asked.
Yuta looked up and considered the question.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Maki made to let go of his hands, but her foot knocked into something laid on the pond’s surface. She lost her footing and took Yuta down with her. Together they fell onto the embankment, landing on soft mossy ground, cold like the underside of a pillow. Maki’s head spun. The yellow lantern lights swayed back and forth and she imagined herself on a faraway ship, rocking on the waves of a black ocean. She rolled on her side and wrapped her arms around her waist. Tucking her knees to her chest, she tilted her face to meet Yuta’s eyes, and felt relief that he was still there.
After a moment Yuta said, “Hi.”
“Hey,” Maki replied. “I have a confession. Since we’re doing that tonight.”
“We are?”
“You fessed up to being a lightweight. Now it’s my turn.”
She gave a half-hearted shrug.
“I’ve never drank before. I said I have, but that—” She poked Yuta in the chest, “—was a lie. Surprise.”
Yuta gave her an odd look, halfway between a smile and perplexed confusion. He turned onto his side, propping his elbow to rest his head in his hand.
“Why tonight?” he asked. “I mean, drinking, tonight. Why?”
Maki chewed her bottom lip. Rolling onto her back she laid her hands on her stomach and looked up at the dark sky. Faint stars blinked, indistinct, distant. Her vision swam and she lost sight of those faraway lights.
“It feels weird,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Gojo?” Yuta asked.
“Yeah. Gojo. But…”
Maki turned on her side, mirroring Yuta by propping her head into her hand.
“Kusakabe asked me if I’d be willing to leave Japan, to carry out missions in East Asia.”
Yuta’s brow raised.
“Really? Where?”
“Eastern Russia. China. Cambodia. Parts of South Korea. The cursed energy in Japan is spreading. And I’m more than ready to do solo missions.”
“Maki, that’s great!” Yuta remarked. He got to his knees, his face brightening. “You used to talk all the time about traveling outside the country… do you know when you’ll leave? If you need help getting a passport I could…”
His voice trailed to silence. Maki kept her eyes to the mossy ground, a hard expression in her knitted brows.
“You… don’t want to go?” Yuta said.
Maki glanced up at him. She pushed herself off the ground and sat cross-legged facing him.
“I want to get Gojo’s funeral over with, then see how… Yeah. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to make a decision, but something…”
She ran her hand over the soft moss, lost in contemplation. Scratching the top of her head, she shook out her hair, then laughed.
“Me and Mai used to have this game. We’d make up our own parents, give them names and personalities, come up with pretend memories about them. We could do that for hours.”
Maki turned her head, her eyes staring into the dark, beyond the trees where the forest was deepest.
“She said our ‘real’ parents would come back for us someday. Part of the game was that our ‘real’ parents had left us with the Zenins by mistake, but they’d come back. They’d save us. And our ‘real’ parents would love us and take care of us.”
She smiled, shaking her head.
“I should have asked her about that, after the Goodwill Event. If she remembered that stupid game.”
Maki brought her knees to her chest and hooked her arms around herself. She shivered from the cold. After a minute’s silence, Yuta asked, “Did your make-believe parents have names?”
“George and Yue,” Maki answered.
Yuta scrunched his brow in confusion.
“George…?”
“I don’t know,” Maki laughed.
“George?” Yuta continued. “But why an American name?”
“I don’t know. I guess we thought it was cool.”
“Was George cool?”
“Definitely.”
Maki snickered under her breath, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. Yuta watched her, his gaze softening.
“I guess,” Maki sniffed, “thinking about leaving Japan, going on missions… it makes me think of Mai. Our history together. I want to travel, but leaving our country… I don’t know. It feels like I’d be leaving her behind.”
She turned her head to Yuta, adding, “I know that’s not true. She’s with me, in a way I can’t explain.” Maki looked at her hand, turning it over, examining the scars that stretched and pulled.
“Lately I’ve been thinking…” Her smile darkened. “…maybe it’s better for me to be alone.”
She narrowed her eyes and tapped her fingers against her knee, looking in the distance where maybe the answer would reveal itself to her. Her eyes fell to the object on the pond’s surface that had tripped her earlier. It was a windchime, one she had seen numerous times while walking through the garden during the summertime. It seemed more fragile now in the winter.
She reached for it, unaware that Yuta’s hand hovered over her hand, intent on comforting her, to tell her that she wasn’t alone, that she still had him. As Maki reached for the windchime, Yuta withdrew his hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
As she leaned over, reaching for it, Yuta said, “If it’s any help, you would definitely be better at traveling than I was. One time I took the wrong train in Mauritania. I got involved with a gang, they gave me money because they thought I was an assassin-for-hire, I accidentally got put in jail and— what’s that?”
Maki lifted the broken windchime from the ice. She held it in front of her, and the pair ogled at it, how its curved ornament shined in the lantern light. The metal bell, green with oxidation and age, was cracked. Maki shook the windchime, but the sound it made was muffled.
“This is what I heard earlier,” Maki said. She handed the windchime to Yuta, who turned it over in his hands. “I was sitting in my dorm, going through my photo album, when I heard this… sad sound come from outside. It was this.”
“A sad sound?” Yuta asked.
Maki nodded. She traced her finger over the bell’s engraved design, like swirls of drifting clouds.
“The sound of it snapping from its string.” She tilted her head back to face the stars once more.
“Let’s go,” she said. She stood, wobbling unsteady for a moment. Yuta meant to leave the broken windchime on the mossy ground, but on second thought he picked it up and carried it with him. He tied its string to the maple tree’s bare branch overlooking the pond. Maki watched as he tapped the bell. It swayed back and forth, but made no sound.
“I guess it’s not the same,” Yuta said, studying it intently.
“No,” Maki answered. She looked to the school, where the yellow lights glowed faintly in the nighttime. For as long as she had been here, she had never noticed the bell’s sweet chime, how it once ushered in the summer evenings and danced in the winter chill. Now that it was gone she felt an absence as loud as it was silent.
Together they skirted around the pond and walked up the hill. Maki jabbed her elbow into Yuta’s side.
“Tomorrow. Rematch,” she declared.
Yuta grinned uneasily, then turned his head, squeezing his eyes shut. An internal voice inside him screamed silently. It was getting harder to think of Maki as nothing more than a sparring partner. Sure, she was his friend and ally, and he had learned alot about jujutsu sorcery and how to fight from her.
But when she was pressed close to him, he couldn’t help but notice her warmth, the curve of her waist, and her lips. How it would feel, to turn his face to hers and press a kiss upon her lips.
He brushed it off with a tired smile. Wasn’t it enough to share a night with an old friend? It was good, he decided, to be home again. Even if some things changed, at least there was still a familiar soul to walk beside.
He did not notice how Maki purposefully bumped shoulders with him as they continued up the hill back to the dormitories. She wanted to feel him close, to say everything and nothing at all. The winter air suddenly didn’t seem so cold. As they passed by the place of their initial skirmish, Maki bent down and picked up the vodka bottle. She drank to their health, to their victory, to their lost teacher, to the upcoming New Year’s. She drank to their friendship. The bottle was shared between them, their voices a whisper, the silence made known by the wind passing through, searching for the bell that no longer rang in the garden.
———————————
If the drunkenness had worn off before, it now returned, sloppily and delirious. They had finished the bottle and now Maki was laughing, leaning on Yuta as they went upstairs to the second floor. She clutched at his arm and explained. There was nowhere to go but up. Couldn’t he see that?
Yuta was stupefied. He’d drank enough to turn his legs to jelly. Even though Maki was leaning on him, he could barely stand on his own. Halfway up the stairs he knocked into the wall, Maki following suit.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, smacking him on the shoulder. “Get up. Get a hold of yourself Okkotsu.”
“I’m trying to be quiet,” he said. He pressed a finger to his lips, then pressed that same finger to Maki’s lips. She swatted his hand, stumbled, and nearly fell on top of him, right there on the top step.
“We are never doing this again,” she said. “This is awful.” She broke down laughing, bowing her forehead to Yuta’s shoulder.
“Which way?” Yuta said. At this point he was nearly dragging Maki, whose feet kept stumbling over his own. They steadied each other, wrapping their arms around each other’s waist.
“Uh, this way,” Maki said. She led him down the hall, then put her hand on a doorknob.
“This is my room!” Yuta declared, gaping in disbelief.
“I know! I’m taking you back to your room idiot!” Maki said back. She flung the door open where it knocked against the wall. Yuta’s hand fumbled for the lightswitch but he couldn’t find it. Everything spun as if he were on the verge of tipping over. He heel-toed out of his sneakers but veered sideways in the process. Maki caught him before he fell to the ground. With a heave she bent down, wrapped her arms around his legs, and picked him up, hefting him onto her shoulder. Yuta hiccuped and said, “I can walk.”
“Yeah, right. Quit whining you big baby.”
She pulled off her own shoes and and tossed them aside. With one backwards kick she shut the door with her foot. Stepping across the dark room, she felt her foot land on something soft— a shirt? laundry perhaps?— before she bumped into the bed. She stooped over and dumped Yuta onto the mattress. To her surprise, Yuta wrapped his arms around her neck and wouldn’t let go. Maki hovered over him, her hands pressed into the mattress. The heart in her chest, of which she was sure had been numbed permanently ever since Mai’s death, skipped a beat. She turned her head a fraction of an inch and looked into Yuta’s face, illuminated by the moon’s light coming through the window.
That familiar face. Those familiar sad eyes. Without thinking, Maki leaned down and placed a kiss on Yuta’s lips. She did not rush but she did not linger either. His chapped lips stuck to hers for a moment before she pulled away.
Maki settled on top of him, her arms braced on either side of Yuta’s waist, her cold hands wedged beneath his shoulder blades. He wasn’t as skinny as she remembered. The contour of muscle shaped into her hand and Yuta squirmed, his arms still wrapped around her neck.
“I’m glad I got to see you again,” he whispered. The endearing smile on his face reminded Maki of the old Yuta, how earnest he would be in trying to express his true feelings.
Maki peered to the side with a smile.
“I’m surprised you recognized me,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She removed her hand out from under him and gestured at her face.
“No,” Yuta insisted, shaking his head. “I knew it was you, even with the scars.”
Maki glanced at him. She idly stroked the edge of her finger against his cheekbone, lost in thought. Suddenly Yuta’s eyes shot wide open and he said, “Did we just kiss??”
Maki wrinkled her nose and said, “Uh, yeah? And I’ll do it again.”
She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth again.
A red blush crept over Yuta’s face. Maki pulled away from the kiss. They stared at each other, a trembling anticipation saturating the space between them.
“Are we doing this?” Yuta said. “I wasn’t planning on—”
“Yuta, shut up and kiss me back.”
Yuta hesitated. He leaned closer, his eyes flashing to Maki’s mouth, before looking into her eyes one more time, as though to ask if this was really okay. Maki broke the remaining distance between them and kissed Yuta fully on the mouth. It happened so quickly that Yuta’s eyes went wide, his arms fell from around Maki’s neck and hovered in the air.
Maki broke apart, but dove in again, pressing their mouths together harder this time. She tilted her head and cupped her hands on either side of his face and breathed into his mouth. Bringing her legs forward, Maki straddled Yuta from above. There was a flurry of movement, of arms bound around the other, of hands grasping and gasps each time they broke apart for air. The longer they kissed the more they understood the language they were speaking— a language not in words but touch.
If this was weird, Maki thought, then she didn’t care. She wasn’t one to be easily embarrassed, nor did she particularly hold other people’s opinions in high regard— but Yuta Okkotsu held a different position in her life. She cared what he thought and at first this pissed her off, but after the past year, after what they’d both been through, she realized it was good to trust someone, to value their judgement. It had been a leap of faith on both their parts. When they were first-years, Maki didn’t want to give away her trust, and Yuta was afraid for anyone to have trust in him.
Maki pulled apart for a moment and said, “You’re better at kissing than fighting.”
Yuta, breathing hard, stared at her in a daze. His hands had found their way to Maki’s waist. Clutching her tightly, he said, “Oh. Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” Maki asked.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Yuta answered.
Maki brushed Yuta’s hair from his forehead. She asked, “Want to stop?”
Yuta craned his head back and swallowed, his throat bobbing.
“No,” he said, and at hearing this, Maki leaned down, planting a kiss on the side of his neck. Yuta’s eyes closed, his body going lax. Maki’s kisses trailed down his neck before she puckered her lips and sucked hard, forming a bright red ‘O’ on the side of his neck. Yuta gasped, his eyes squeezing shut. His hands moved down to clutch at her thighs, his chest rising and falling faster.
He blurted, “Should we really be doing this?” His voice was strained, desperate even. Maki pulled away and laughed.
“Who’s telling you we can’t?” she refuted.
Yuta trembled— not from fear of judgement, but because he was trying to keep himself under control. Maki bit the inside of her cheek and stroked her thumb down his face. So he was like this too, in private. Holding back, unsure of himself. He’d changed since returning from Africa, but some parts were so deeply ingrained that they were sure to rise to the surface, given the occasion. Yuta turned his head and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Maki grinned, that same sardonic grin she had when she was about to kick someone’s ass. Needless to say she was not here to kick Yuta’s ass, but she pressed her hands into the mattress, pushing her hips harder into Yuta’s crotch.
“You know,” she said, giving him a haughty look, “you’re saying one thing, but your body is saying something else. Yuta? Just kiss me back.”
Yuta’s breath hitched, feeling Maki’s weight push harder against his growing arousal. He dug his heels into the mattress, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her down to kiss him.
It was different this time, Maki felt this when Yuta’s tongue grazed over her own. She grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists and pulled him closer, only for their teeth to clash for a painful moment. Maki and Yuta pulled away, a string of spit connecting their mouths for a moment, and laughed quietly under their breaths. It was as if they could not stop their hands from roaming. With one arm wrapped around her waist, Yuta pushed off the mattress and rolled her over until he was on top. Maki drew a sharp breath, her eyes widening for a moment. Yuta’s hips fell between her open legs and she could feel his desire press against her.
It was all science, she used to tell herself, whenever she imagined what being intimate with another person would be like. Especially with guys. One kiss and they’re pretty much ready to go.
She had always thought that was comical, how apparently easy it was for men to get turned on. But feeling Yuta grind into her, right at her most sensitive spot, made her realize that there was nothing mechanical or comical about this. She wanted this thoroughly, she wanted—
“Put your hand down my pants,” she whispered. Yuta’s mouth planted kisses on her cheek before meeting her lips once more. To Maki’s surprise he didn’t hesitate. Yuta moved his hand under her shirt, grazing over her skin like flowing water, and slipped his hand into her jeans. There was a moment’s pause— Maki unbuttoned her jeans, then decided that wasn’t enough. Squirming and wriggling about, she got her legs free and tossed the jeans onto the floor.
Yuta knelt in front of her, his knees sinking into the mattress. The earlier rush he’d been in, the frantic heat, subsided for a moment. His hands lingered on Maki’s thighs and slowly traveled down to her calves. Every indent, every rippling bump of her scars, passed over his fingertips.
Maki realized he was admiring her bare legs, taking his time to feel every part of her. A past memory rose to the surface: Yuta Okkotsu sitting at his desk during free period, totally zoning out as he stared out the window. He was a daydreamer, sure, but watching him now, under the blue light of a nearly full moon, Maki understood that he wanted to take things slow, to let moments linger. He cupped the heel of her foot into his hand and leaned down, kissing her knee, the inside of her thigh, the bump of her hipbone.
Maki stretched her arms above her head, her toes as far as she could go, then wrapped her legs around Yuta. She pulled him close, but before he could kiss her, she flipped him over onto his back. Straddling him from above, Maki dove down and kissed him deeply, her hands tracing down his stomach to stop at his belt. She fumbled with the shoestring belt for longer than she would’ve liked.
Pulling away from their interlocked mouths, Maki smacked her tongue and grumbled, “This is the stupidest belt, Okkotsu. No, don’t help me.” She swatted away his hands.
Yuta watched her try to untie his belt. The longer he watched the more his mouth trembled until he couldn’t contain it any longer. He burst out a laugh and draped his arm over his eyes.
“Don’t laugh at me idiot!” Maki barked. She pried Yuta’s arm from his face only to see tears formed at the corner of his eyes.
“Stop laughing,” Maki reprimanded, but she couldn’t help her own amusement. She inched closer to his face and planted a peck on his lips. Yuta settled down enough that Maki placed another kiss on his lips, followed by another, until the kisses dissolved into their previous intensity. Maki drew back, licked her lips, then widened her jaw, sliding her tongue over Yuta’s. The groan that escaped his throat caught her off-guard; she opened her eyes enough to see him roll his eyes back.
It was more than enough for Maki to simply snap his belt apart and pull it free, dropping it to the floor where it fell in a ribbony heap. Maki grabbed Yuta’s shoulders, pinning him down, and rolled her hips against him. The earlier hesitation he felt dissolved. Yuta grabbed her hips and pushed her down harder against his crotch. If anything, this was strangely similar to all those training sequences they had done— sword combat, hand to hand combat, wrestling on the floor for the advantage— except the desire to win had been replaced by the desire to succumb, to yield to the other’s desire. Yuta pulled Maki’s sweater up just as she unbuttoned the front of his jeans. There was a moment of confusion before Maki helped him pull off her sweater. She wore the same black sports bra that he’d seen her in a dozen times before, in the weight room bench pressing, doing push-ups and ab crunches, acknowledging him with a glance before returning her focus to her workout. It would be a lie if he said he hadn’t glanced at her chest at least once.
But only once. There was the real and sincere danger that if Maki caught him looking she would beat him to a pulp. Besides, here on the bed, laying there with Maki on top of him, Yuta realized this was the closest he had been to her bare body in a context other than combat training. A soft smile came over his face, his eyes glazed with drunkenness. He turned his wrist full circle, petting the bare skin of Maki’s stomach with his hand.
Maki leaned down, kissed him on the mouth, then scooted back. She gripped the waistband of his pants and pulled them down, exposing the protrusions of his hipbones, pale and sharp under the blue moonlight. Before she could pull his pants down any further, something cold and wet plopped on her shoulder. Maki froze.
Pure instinct told her not to move, but regardless, Yuta held onto her wrists, keeping her still.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” he said.
Maki inhaled slowly and swallowed. An ice cold breath passed over the nape of her neck. Every hair on her body stood on end.
Yuta slowly lifted himself up until he sat up, his legs bent at the knees. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, then collected himself.
Looking past Maki’s shoulder he said, “Rika.”
A low territorial growl emanated from the ceiling, where the moonlight did not reach.
Yuta continued, “Rika, that’s not nice. Give us some time alone, okay?”
“Yu…ta…” The dark grisly voice seethed, “H-Her?”
“Yes. We like Maki, remember?”
Yuta and Maki made eye contact, then Yuta said, “Remember what I said about me needing time alone? Now’s that time, okay Rika?”
Silence cold as death filled the room. Every nerve-ending in Maki’s body was on edge, wired up, ready to deflect an attack should it come.
But to her amazement, and Yuta’s relief, the Queen of Curses sniffled, crawled across the ceiling, and disappeared under the door in a black vapor. Her sobs could be heard from the other side of the door, but the sound faded as she fled down the hall.
Maki released the breath she’d been holding. She clutched at her chest and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“Shit,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry.” Yuta ran his hands down her bare arms, but the embarrassment was too much, even if they were both still drunk. He plopped back down on the mattress and hid his face in his hands with a groan.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Maki said. She ruffled her hair and sighed. “That definitely sobered me up.”
She turned and laid down next to him. Pressed shoulder to shoulder, they stared at the ceiling, still reeling from what was possibly the scariest thing to happen to them since the battle with Sukuna.
“I’m sorry,” Yuta repeated. “I’ve told Rika that sometimes I need to be alone, but…”
He groaned in frustration, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“I’m such an idiot,” he grumbled.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Maki said. She glanced at him, her line of sight falling on his lips. She quickly looked away and added, “You want to hear something crazy?”
“What?”
“Seeing you like that was pretty hot.”
“Thanks, I guess…?”
Maki clicked her tongue, shoving his shoulder.
“It’s a compliment Yuta,” she berated. “It means…” She fidgeted, then drummed her fingers over her bare stomach. “Maybe… I want to see you like that again…”
Yuta turned over on his side. Like a magnet, his body pulled close to Maki, his arm draping over her stomach.
“Also,” Maki continued, “I don’t know why I’m half-naked and you still have your clothes on.”
She turned on her side to face him. They laid there in the newfound silence, the peace a welcome relief. Neither of them said so, but they both thought about what had just transpired, the intensity of it still rushing over them in waves. Yuta traced his finger down Maki’s arm.
“Are you cold?” he asked, feeling the goosebumps dotting her skin.
“I’m fine,” Maki said. Her eyes drifted to the side. A smile crept over her face. “I need to cool down anyways.” She plucked her bare toes at Yuta’s feet, warm beneath his socks. He played back, their feet tangling into each other before Yuta raised himself up on his elbow.
“I just remembered,” he declared. “I have a gift for you.”
He lumbered over Maki, nearly falling on top of her as he reached over the edge of the bed. He turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with its light. Maki squinted, her eyes adjusting to the sudden light. Yuta searched through a backpack on the floor, tossing various items— a notebook, his passport, an iPod, a pair of tangled headphones, a book of postal stamps— onto the floor as he dug to the bottom of the backpack. At last he pulled the gift free. Returning to Maki’s side, he held it out to her and halfheartedly beamed, “Surprise…?”
Maki took it into her hand, examining it. It was a small, raw gemstone, about five inches tall, two inches wide, of an undistinguished shape, but rather like a crude pointed pentagon.
“Whoa,” Maki said. She held the gemstone up to the light. It was a beautiful stone, nearly translucent. The gradient yellow-orange-red colors changed from the gem’s clustered base to its sharp tip. Amber-brown specks inside the gem appeared like freckles, and with each turn the light inside fractured, revealing lines of near-invisible quartz.
“A local village in Tanzania gave it to me as payment for a mission. Although ‘payment’ wasn’t exactly the word they used. A translator said it was more like ‘a token of thanks,’ I think.” Yuta wriggled closer to Maki, resting his chin on her shoulder. He traced his finger over the gem in her hands.
“The word the locals used roughly translates to ‘firestone,’ but I don’t know what its true name is.”
“It’s beautiful,” Maki said. She turned her head, their faces mere inches apart. “You’re giving this to me?”
“It was supposed to be your birthday gift,” Yuta admitted. “But I couldn’t wait. After everything that’s happened, I… I wanted you to know…”
He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close. Maki set the firestone on the bedside table. She wrapped her arms around him in return, enveloping him completely. Yuta’s face was buried in the crook of her neck, his leg hooked around Maki’s leg.
Maki fought a grin. Of course Yuta Okkotsu would cling like this, if given the chance. He could be cold and prickly, same as Maki, but deep down (and Maki knew this), Yuta wanted to be held. He was a softie at heart and always would be, much to her amusement and relief.
And she had worried— no, she still wondered— if she was capable of reciprocating such softness, after the atrocities she had committed. Her path was stained with blood, no matter how justified. Maki lowered her head, pressing her nose to the top of Yuta’s head. She breathed in deeply, that scent of lavender and something specifically his, clean and tired, a smell like coming home on a winter night to find someone waiting for you. Fire in the hearth. A meal on the stove. A candle lit in the darkness.
Maki’s grin softened into a tender smile. She pulled him closer, her hand sliding up his shirt to lay her palm against the bumps of his spine. Her finger moved over a dip in his skin, a scar that healed inward rather than outward. Moving her hand up she felt another scar, then another. Her eyes opened, and she veered back to lift Yuta’s shirt up.
“Huh…?” Yuta mumbled, but Maki immediately saw what she suspected. Scars like paint splatters littered over his body. Some pink, some white. The slash of a deep burgundy scar wrapped around his entire torso, the vestige from the battle against Sukuna. At least she knew the story behind that scar, but these others? Whenever her and Yuta wrote letters or made long-distance collect calls, he never mentioned getting injured. It was only, ‘Africa is so different from Japan…’ or ‘I’ve learned so much here,’ or ‘I never knew there were so many stars at night. You can see the Milky Way here.’
Maki’s expression hardened the more she studied the scars.
“You never talked about getting hurt,” she said. “And I’ve never seen you without a shirt on, so I wouldn’t know…”
Her impatience got the better of her. She pulled Yuta’s shirt up and over his head, discarding it to the space behind him. Free from his shirt, in the lamplight, Maki could see his body clearly. He wasn’t as skinny as he was when they were first-years, even though his collarbones were still visible. The scar-flecked skin near his ribcage expanded and contracted as he breathed. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, and a sheepish smile crossed his face as he peered to the side.
Maki pushed him onto his back and sat on top of him, as she had before Rika’s interruption. A spark reignited in her gut, but she pushed it down. Curiosity made her look at Yuta like she was seeing him for the first time— and perhaps she was, here in the hazy lamplight glow.
Pressing her finger to a scar on his bicep, she asked, “How’d you get this?”
Yuta glanced at the scar, then explained, “In Africa, outside the city limits of Cairo. There was a cursed spirit destroying crops out there… I’d never seen anything like it at the time. That was early on, when I first arrived. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“What about this one?” Maki asked. She traced her finger over a scar on Yuta’s lower abdomen, on his right side. It ran parallel to his hipbone, and while the scar itself was unremarkable, it caught Maki’s attention because it was lower on his body than the others.
“Oh, that’s not from fighting cursed spirits,” Yuta said. He touched two fingers to it. “That’s when I had my appendix removed when I was five.” He laughed, and Maki quirked her brow at him.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
Yuta shook his head and answered, “It’s nothing. That was around the time me and Rika first became friends, in kindergarten. She got mad at me because I missed two weeks of school. When she found out it was because I had my appendix removed, she demanded to see the scar but I was too embarrassed to show her.”
From where Maki sat on top of him, she observed the rest of his body, eyes drifting down his arms where her attention lingered on a white scar on his left wrist. It was a faint, vertical scar, about two inches long.
“And this one?” Maki asked. She lifted his arm and studied the scar.
Yuta blinked, then turned his head to the side. Maki could feel the shift in his mood.
“Tell me,” she said.
Yuta was quiet for a moment. Although his earlier drunkenness had waned, his tongue was still loose, and he confessed something he would never admit to anyone but Maki.
“That was from when I tried to kill myself.”
He swallowed, the tips of his ears reddening at his admission.
“A long time ago,” he continued. “Before I entered Jujutsu High. Rika wouldn’t let it happen though. And all that blood… I chickened out.” He shrugged and smiled sadly. “It’s weird how things have changed. And it’s hard to believe that at one time, all I wanted was to die.”
When he saw the look on Maki’s face, he sat up and clutched at her arms.
“Hey, Maki? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I didn’t say all that to make you upset—”
“You idiot,” Maki said. Despite her words, her voice was low and gentle. “This whole time I keep thinking to myself, ‘How did we survive the battle against Sukuna?’, but I never thought—”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, then swiftly pulled Yuta into a hug. She wrapped her legs around his waist, the pair of them sitting upright, the warmth of their bare skin pressed between them.
Yuta hooked his arms around her and breathed into her neck.
“I swear I didn’t say that to upset you,” he repeated.
“I know.”
Maki squeezed him harder, planting a kiss on his shoulder.
“And it didn’t upset me. It just made me realize how lucky we are.”
She snuck her hand down and jabbed him in the side. Yuta yelped and squirmed.
“Thanks for staying alive so that I could meet you,” she said. Yuta looked up. Their eyes met for a few moments before Yuta dropped his forehead to Maki’s shoulder. He hooked his arms tighter around her and exhaled deeply.
The effects of the alcohol wore off, and after Maki put her clothes back on, after some compromise and wrangling with the bedcovers, the pair turned off the light and held each other close, side by side in the bed. Maki lifted her eyes to the window, past Yuta’s head, and saw the moon low in the sky. Sunrise would be in a few hours, but right now in the present was the promise of sleep. Her eyes drifted closed, her breath slowing to the rhythm of Yuta’s breathing next to her.
“Come with me,” she whispered in the dark. “When I leave Japan to do missions… travel with me. I won’t say please. But you should know…” Her voice drifted. “We’d make a good team. You know I’m right.”
“Okay,” Yuta said. “Let’s do it.”
“If you have any bad habits, you better tell me now,” Maki said.
“Sometimes I forget to do laundry.”
“I already knew that,” Maki replied. “Your floor looks like your suitcase threw up everywhere.”
“It’s not usually this bad,” Yuta said. He yawned and stretched his legs, pressing the side of his face closer to Maki’s chest. “Alot’s happened. Couldn’t do the laundry.”
Maki stroked circles into his arm.
“Sometimes,” she said quietly, “I’ll need to be alone. Okay?”
Yuta nodded.
“Okay.”
She went quiet, convinced that they’d figure it out when the time came. It was remarkable, how easy being around Yuta was, not at all like the men in her family who had tormented her and tried to control her when she was a child.
“I can’t wait,” Yuta mumbled, half-asleep.
They fell into dreamless sleep, only to be awakened at six in the morning, their mouths dry, bodies dehydrated, their circadian rhythm out of sorts from the night’s renegade drinking. A dull ache pounded through Maki’s skull as she returned to consciousness. Yuta must have sensed this, because he woke too. The sky outside his bedroom window was a deep navy blue, and a loamy light blue color painted the eastern horizon where the sun would inevitably bring the light of day.
Maki craned her neck behind her, having to break the entanglement of her and Yuta’s limbs. She saw the time on the digital clock on the bedside table and said, “We have to get up in an hour for the funeral.”
She nestled back under the covers, rubbing her face into Yuta’s neck. He shifted in the bed, the mattress creaking under their shared weight.
“Maki?” he breathed. She planted kiss after kiss on his neck, inching her way down to his collarbone.
“What?”
“Can we make out again?”
Maki sighed in a rush, rolled over, and cupped the back of Yuta’s head into her hand.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said before pulling him into a kiss.
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Postscript
The collar of Yuta’s suit did little to hide the hickies on his neck. When Maki and Yuta rolled up to the funeral with bags under their eyes and an aura of exhaustion surrounding their presence, everyone assumed that they had stayed up late last night, perhaps in mourning. Their assumptions fell apart when they saw the evidence on Yuta Okkotsu’s neck but no one was brave enough to say anything. Toge took one look at Yuta’s neck, waited for him to turn around, then patted Panda on the head.
“What? What?” Panda demanded. Toge pointed at his own neck, then at Yuta.
Panda squinted. At realizing that his fellow classmate had been given the love bite, his mouth fell open and he drew a deep breath to yell Yuta’s name.
One look from Maki, however, quickly shut him up.
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Post-Postscript
The brilliant firestone, gifted by Yuta, laid on Maki’s desk in her dorm room. The morning light glimmered against its sharp edge, casting red and orange prisms across her desk. It would serve nicely as a reminder for the journey that lay ahead.
Neither Maki or Yuta knew that this one gem was worth 3,796,254 yen, or approximately 25,000 U.S. Dollars.
For now it was a reminder of their shared night, of a confessional marked by the ring of a phantom windchime.