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Maki clutches the report in her hands. She's read the words but she still doesn't quite believe it.
Her own recollection of the Shibuya Station Incident is patchy and full of holes at best. Maki remembers chasing the octopus-like special grade cursed spirit down to the underground station with Nanami-san. She remembers killing it. And she also remembers the second special grade cursed spirit, the volcano-head, materializing behind her and then…
Fire.
Searing heat, all over her body. Her skin bubbling and bursting, the scent of her own cooking flesh filling her nostrils.
Then…black nothingness.
She still doesn't know how long she was left there, melting into the broken tiled floor. Helpless. But she recalls the cool wave that sapped all her pain and left her in a numb, weightless paradise. And a voice in her ear. Distorted and panicked and strangely familiar, just like the soothing chill on her broiled skin.
Now, in her drug-induced state of lucidity, she's able to identify the sensation as positive curse energy flowing into her body. Repairing her burnt, split skin and broken bones. Besides Ieri-sensei, there's only one person she knows who is capable of using reverse curse techniques on others. And he's sitting in the plastic chair at her bedside.
“Maki?” Yuuta leans forward. “Did you finish reading it?”
“Yeah.”
Nanami-san is dead. Gojo is sealed. Yaga-sensei is to be executed. Toge is missing his left arm. Todo, from Kyoto Tech, lost his hand. Kugisaki is in critical condition and not expected to survive the week. And Itadori…massacred over two thousand civilians while Sukuna possessed his body.
Tokyo is ravaged by curses, with numbers estimated to be no less than ten million.
Maki lays the packet on her lap. She so badly wants to crumple it, but her bandaged hands can't even flip through the pages. She's stuck wearing mittens made of cloth gauze. The rest of her body, from the waist up, isn’t much better. The only parts of her not covered in salve and wraps are her hair, left eye, and mouth.
If Panda were here, he would tell her she looks like a mummy.
She hasn't looked in the mirror yet to see if it's true. She's not sure she wants to.
Chasing away the thought, Maki glances back at Yuuta. He’s been sitting by her side ever since she first woke up an hour ago. He even had the report ready, as if he knew she would ask for it.
The bags under his eyes are deep set and purple. Under her stare, he swallows a yawn.
“How long have you been here?” she asks.
Yuuta blinks, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he pretends to count. “Two days, I think,” he says. “I was flying back from Kenya the day of the incident in Shibuya. Landed in the middle of it and headed straight over.”
“No, I mean, how long have you been here. At the hospital,” Maki clarifies.
“Oh.” Yuuta shifts in his seat, stifling another yawn. “Just a few hours.”
Maki wants to squint, but her face feels tight. Like any movement will cause her skin to split right open. So she settles for staring again.
He’s always been a terrible liar.
She doesn’t have the energy to call him out on it. So she sighs and leans back into the stack of pillows pressed up against her back. The report sits in her lap, a glaring reminder of her failure in Shibuya.
“Yuuta?”
“Hmm?” He leans forward in his chair.
“You can have the report back,” Maki mumbles. “And…thank you.”
Yuuta hesitates for a mere second before he reaches across the bed and takes the report, flipping to the first page and laying it on her bedside table. “For what?”
“I know it was you,” Maki says, biting back her scoff. “I’m familiar with what your reverse curse technique feels like.”
“Oh.” Yuuta blinks those big grey eyes at her, like he’s actually surprised she figured it out. Then he grins meekly. “It was luck that I got to you so fast. You don’t need to thank me. I just helped until they could get you to Ieri-sensei.”
Was it luck, though? Maki isn’t too sure.
Any other day, she would argue it. But right now, she can barely string her sentences together. Her single eyelid feels heavy and her body aches despite the constant influx of medicine plugged into her arm through the IV.
Maki hums in the back of her throat. “I’m tired,” she says, hoping he gets the hint.
He does.
Yuuta nods, edging out of his chair. He stretches his arms with a wince. “Go ahead and get some rest, then. I’ll visit you again later.”
True to his word, Yuuta visits her again.
He didn’t say when, but she isn’t surprised when he knocks on her door the next day. She knows it's him by the careful shuffle of his feet and the ooze of his overflowing cursed energy – a little creepy, a little dark, even when smothered and under control.
“Come in.”
“Hi, Maki,” he says a little bit too brightly.
“Hey.”
Yuuta pulls back the chair and slides into it. “I just saw the nurse leaving your room. What did she say?”
“I’ll be here for at least two weeks,” Maki grumbles, already miserable. “Burns are complex. They’ll change my bandages every day and probably make me wear compression gear. It could be worse, I guess.”
She could be Toge, who is apparently in a medically induced coma while his left arm heals.
“How are the others?”
Yuuta smiles, but it's a gloomy expression. “Exhausted. Worried. Restless.”
Jujutsu sorcerers who aren’t incapacitated like herself and Toge have been working through the night to whittle down the number of curses destroying Tokyo. Yuuta is one of them, cutting curses down like a machine, and only taking short breaks to visit her and Toge. Civilians have been evacuated and relocated to safer areas, but that isn’t stopping the number of casualties from increasing. And on such a large scale, there is almost no way for Jujutsu society to cover this up. The incident is a political nightmare that could very well change the balance of the world.
Maki sighs in frustration. “Feels like we're just sitting around, waiting.”
“We pretty much are.”
“It sucks.”
“Yeah,” Yuuta agrees, chuckling.
There's a knock at the door. The nurse from earlier pokes her head in and smiles, a silver tray balanced in her hands.
“Maki-chan, I brought the scissors you asked for.” Her eyes drift to Yuuta and she halts. “Do you want to wait until after your friend leaves?”
“You can leave them here,” Maki decides after a moment, ignoring Yuuta's puzzled look. “I’ll call later.”
The nurse, whose name Maki cannot remember, nods and smiles again. She carries the tray past Yuuta and deposits it on the bedside table before wordlessly making her exit.
Yuuta observes the items on the tray, a handheld mirror and a pair of metal shears, before turning to Maki. She can read the question on his face and sighs.
“My hair,” she explains. “It's matted in the back and half melted. I have to cut it.”
Yuuta makes a noise of understanding. His grey eyes flash back to the scissors and then, “I can help, if you want.”
“Huh?”
“Cutting your hair,” Yuuta clarifies, like she didn't understand him the first time. He gestures to her wrapped hands with a nod of his head. “You can't do it yourself with your hands like that.”
“You don't have to do that,” Maki insists. Her skin feels strangely hot all of the sudden, and she wonders if her painkillers are wearing off.
“I don't mind.” He smiles at her and Maki’s resistance crumbles.
She can't say no when he looks at her like that, practically glowing. It's stupid, really.
“...Okay, then.” Maki clears her throat. “I guess you can go ahead.”
Yuuta stills, the smile on his face slipping for just a moment before it falls right back into place. Like he's surprised she gave in.
He isn't the only one.
“Well, uh, we probably shouldn't do it in the bed,” he says. “The bathroom would be better. Do you need help walking there?”
Maki whips her head to him and feels the glare tug on her healing skin. She no doubt looks ridiculous with just her left eye and mouth visible.
Yuuta throws up his hands. “Just figured I’d offer.”
“I'm only injured from the waist up,” she mutters, “my legs still work just fine.”
“Got it.”
For emphasis, Maki swings her legs to the edge of the bed. She slides forward until her feet touch the floor and uses her bandaged hands to nudge herself up to stand.
Her knees buckle immediately.
Yuuta’s hands shoot out and catch her around the waist, preventing her from collapsing into a heap of awkward limbs. He’s gentle, but even the slightest pressure of his touch feels like hot iron on her skin and Maki hisses. Pain explodes throughout her waist and stomach, traveling all the way up her torso and through her arms. It's severe enough to turn her stomach.
The painkillers are definitely wearing off.
“Sorry,” Yuuta murmurs, gingerly guiding her back up to stand. He releases her as soon as she's stable.
“It's fine,” Maki says through gritted teeth.
But it's not really fine. Even though it's only the top half of her body that's wrapped and slathered in ointment, the muscles in her legs feel like they have atrophied. Her legs are unstable, like soft noodles. It's completely foreign and unwelcome.
She takes a moment, inhaling deeply. The nausea eventually fades.
Maki takes an experimental step forward. It's wobbly and she leans down to brace herself on the bed. That, too, causes all sorts of pain to ricochet through her body and she can't contain her irritated huff. A foot slides next to hers and Maki turns her head to see Yuuta standing next to her with that same, easy “I'm being too nice to hit” smile.
He offers his arm silently.
“Tell anyone and I’ll hit you so hard you'll see stars,” she promises.
He just nods.
Exhaling, Maki lays her arm atop his and leans into his weight. Using him as a human crutch, she slowly and painfully shuffles to the bathroom. Every step on her noodle-legs is torture and her hairline feels damp with sweat by the time the trip is over.
What should have taken her two seconds ends up taking her near two minutes.
Maki stiffens when she looks up and into the mirror above the sink. She really does look like a mummy, with white gauze wrapped tightly around her crown and face. Her shoulders, arms, and the hint of her chest peeking out from underneath the stupid gown the hospital forced her to wear look the same. The little bits of skin that are showing are either lobster red or shit brown, from dirt. And her hair…it's worse than she imagined. She knew the back was matted, but the entire right half is singed with the shortest strands stretching maybe an inch. She looks like a toddler’s Barbie doll after a visit from Edward Scissorhands.
How humiliating.
Yuuta very carefully doesn't say anything. He allows her to gain her balance again against the sink before he stalks back into the main room, returning with the chair he was sitting in earlier.
Maki all but collapses into it. Her eye closes.
Yuuta’s footsteps fade again before returning. Something metal rattles and when Maki opens her eye, she looks into the mirror again to see Yuuta standing behind her shoulder with the scissors in his hand, staring at them.
“Have you done this before?” she asks.
Yuuta meets her gaze in the mirror, a sheepish look on his face. “No.”
Maki hums, closing her eye again. “Well, it can't look worse than it already does. So don't worry about it.”
His tiny, familiar laugh reaches her ears.
It's the sound he makes when he's nervous and trying to pretend otherwise. It's also the sound he normally makes right before she used to bop him on the forehead for missing a step or succumbing to defeat during sparring practice.
It feels like ages ago.
“I'm going to start,” Yuuta warns, voice soft.
Cold steel brushes against her left temple and Maki concentrates on not stiffening. This is Yuuta, she reminds herself. He's not going to bury the scissors in her jugular, despite what her instincts scream. She trusts Yuuta.
She feels the first little snip, a sprinkle of something on her cheek that itches, and inhales deeply.
Relax, she commands her body.
Schick…schick…schick…
Each cut is precise and careful, despite her earlier dismissal. Yuuta’s fingers sift through the strands of her hair with painstaking gentleness as he maneuvers the barriers presented by the bandages. When he accidentally tugs a little too hard, and Maki’s shoulders tense, the apology spills from his tongue like it has been perched there from the very beginning.
Maki’s good eye slits open. In the mirror, she watches Yuuta while he works. His brow is smooth, face soft, grey eyes focused.
When he gets to the back of her head, Yuuta hesitates. He peeks over her shoulder to meet her stare in the mirror. “It's gonna be pretty short,” he says.
“Figured as much,” Maki sighs. “Better for fighting, anyway.”
“True.”
Maki’s eye flicks down to her lap. She keeps it there for the rest of the time, staring at her bandaged hands. She can’t even twiddle her thumbs or distract herself while she waits – all there is to do is focus on the feeling of Yuuta’s fingers threading through her hair.
After a long while, the sensation doesn’t feel so alarming. Maki finds herself relaxing into it and unbothered by the incessant tickling along her nape and cheeks.
There’s no telling how much time passes until Yuuta’s fingers and the scissors pause. “I think I’m done,” he says.
Maki blinks, glancing around the floor. Shreds of her ruined hair litter the tile and dust Yuuta’s shoes. She brushes some off her own neck as she looks back into the mirror and studies her appearance.
It’s definitely much shorter. Choppy and a little uneven in sections, it almost reminds her of Yuuta’s own hair a few years ago. She looks startlingly more masculine this way.
Her family would hate it.
“It’s the best I could do with your bandages in the way,” Yuuta hurries to explain after her long, pensive silence. “We can touch it up when they come off.”
“It’s better,” Maki says. Another long moment passes before she can mutter, “Thank you.”
Yuuta just smiles and reaches out to brush the hair off her shoulders.
“What is this?”
Maki glares down at the bento box in her lap, equal parts confused and annoyed.
“Um, it’s lunch,” Yuuta answers.
When she looks back up at him, he’s scratching the back of his head. A nervous gesture. He shifts in his chair.
“Why are you bringing me lunch? The hospital has food.”
“Hospital food gets old after a little while. I remember Panda saying you like yakitori, and I was passing by this place…” Yuuta lifts a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, clutching his own to-go bento box. “But, uh, if you don’t want it that’s okay.”
“I didn’t say that,” Maki snorts, stopping his hand short as he reaches for her box. “But I don’t need pity meals.”
Yuuta almost chokes. “That’s not – I just thought you could use some cheering up.”
“Cheering up?” Maki wants to laugh.
While she’s sitting here, stuck recovering, everyone else is rapidly recalculating and trying to figure out what to do next. Fighting hundreds upon thousands of curses, trying to keep innocent people safe. Trying to prepare, unsure of what the enemy’s next ploy will be. That’s what she should be doing, where she should be, too.
Instead, she’s been confined to this hospital bed for a week. It’s infuriating.
Maki forces herself to take a deep breath. None of this is Yuuta’s fault. He’s just trying to make her shitty situation slightly more bearable so she shouldn’t be so snappy with him.
In fact, she should be thanking him. He’s right. The hospital food is dreadful.
“Sorry,” she grits. “I hate hospitals.”
The corner of Yuuta’s lip tugs up in a bittersweet smile. “Yeah, me too.”
At least the bandages on her hands came off yesterday, Maki thinks to herself. Where before, she was stuck with those baby mittens that left her unable to use her hands for anything, she now has to suffer the wrath of individually-wrapped fingers and palms. But at least this way she can feed herself.
Being spoon fed by the nurses made Maki want to flip a table.
With a ridiculous amount of care, she nudges open the bento box in her lap and reaches for the chopsticks Yuuta laid out for her. Inside her bento are two skewers of chicken yakitori drizzled in a savory sauce over a bed of hot rice.
The scent alone makes her mouth water and her stomach growl. A noise she hopes Yuuta doesn’t hear.
Panda is right – she loves yakitori. The Zen’in compound, in accordance with its ridiculously strict and archaic nature, enforces a rigid diet for the entire clan. Traditional Buddhist food only. Vegetables, bland fruits, nuts. No junk food, sweets, or modern cuisine of any kind. Smuggling banned foods results in corporal punishment and humiliation, as she and Mai learned early on.
When Maki first left the compound, on her way to Jujutsu Tech, she stopped by a food stall out of pure spite. She will never forget when that old man handed her a skewer and the flavors of the chicken and marinade burst, like heaven, on her tongue.
It’s not the same as that day, but it’s close. She has to hold the wooden skewer ever so carefully and be extra mindful of her chewing. The rice is much harder to eat with the chopsticks. It takes her a while to find a comfortable rhythm, and even longer to perfect using the chopsticks with her clumsy fingers.
Yuuta doesn’t offer any assistance, or even look at her, which she is grateful for.
Together, they eat their lunches in silence.
Yuuta finishes long before she does, practically inhaling his own food. He grins at her when she’s finally done. Then he leans in to take her empty bento box, and stops a few inches from her face.
Maki reels back, fighting the urge to squirm. “What?” she grumbles.
Yuuta blinks. “You have rice on your lips.”
She reaches up with bandaged fingers and wipes the grain away, feeling silly. The healing skin on her cheeks and neck starts to burn.
Clearing his throat, Yuuta glances away. He eases himself back into his chair and sets aside their now-empty to-go bento boxes and used chopsticks. A pensive look crosses his face, like he’s debating something, and then he looks back up at Maki with a certain amount of hesitance.
“The higher-ups are making a move,” he murmurs, and the mood in the room shifts.
“The higher-ups?” Maki’s eye narrows.
That could mean nothing good. Doesn’t surprise her that they are wasting no time in trying to find an errand boy now that Gojo is sealed. It also wouldn’t surprise her if they try Yuuta first – he’s now one of only three special grade jujutsu sorcerers, and he’s still just a teenager. He’s undoubtedly loyal to Gojo, but they also think he’s young, impressionable, and able to be manipulated.
A short-sighted miscalculation on their end.
“What do they want?” she asks.
Yuuta’s face darkens, slate grey eyes hollow. “They want to kill that first year. Itadori.”
Maki only grimaces. Pain, hot and cold at the same time, flashes across her face in protest and she has to smooth her expression.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she admits. “They wanted him dead the second he became Sukuna’s vessel. The only reason they postponed his execution was because of Gojo. Now he’s gone and they can do what they want.”
“The same thing happened to me,” he says. “They said I was too dangerous. Gojo-sensei stepped in and bet his life on mine.”
And therein lay the conflict, Maki realizes.
There is no doubt to anyone that Itadori is dangerous. He is the living, breathing, evolving vessel of the strongest curse ever known to roam the earth. He killed more than two thousand people last week while possessed by Sukuna. His mere presence is both a direct and indirect threat to those around him. And, to make it personal, he’s the reason Toge no longer has a left arm.
By all accounts, Yuuta should want to kill Itadori.
But Gojo vouched for him. Just as Gojo vouched for Yuuta.
“Gojo-sensei visited me a few months ago.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “He asked me to look after the first years, specifically Itadori. I wonder if he knew this was coming…”
“Don’t give him too much credit,” Maki says.
The war is plain on his face, emphasized by the deep purple bruises under his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping since he's been out killing as many curses as he can in the city. Every spare moment he has, he is here with her or visiting Toge. If he sleeps, it's a short catnap in that chair.
He has to be exhausted.
“What’s Itadori like?” Yuuta eventually murmurs. “Everything I know about him is stuff I’ve read on paper. Or heard from the higher-ups.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Huh?” Yuuta blinks.
“He’s literally one of the dumbest people I think I’ve ever met,” Maki elaborates. “He and Todo are best friends and that should tell you enough. But, he’s strong. Loyal. He really cares about people, especially his friends. And, now that I think about it,” she muses, fighting a smile, “he kind of reminds me of you.”
“You think I’m one of the dumbest people you’ve ever met?”
“Keep saying dumb shit and you just might be.” Maki swears she feels her temple throb.
Yuuta laughs. It’s a light sound that fills her otherwise dank hospital room. It doesn’t last long, however, and his face quickly falls back into that solemn state.
“He sounds like a good guy…”
A thick layer of silence settles between them, and where Maki would normally feel no such thing, she cannot deny the inclination to ask, “What are you going to do?”
“I have to be his executioner,” he says after a while. “If I don’t, they’re just going to send someone else after him.”
Yuuta is right. The higher-ups at Headquarters will throw just about anyone at Itadori in hopes of killing him – to them, everyone is expendable. That disregard for anything other than their personal gain will result in unnecessary bloodshed during a time where they cannot afford it.
“I assumed that.” Maki nods. “I meant, how are you going to pull it off?”
“I don’t know yet,” he admits, sighing. “I keep asking myself, what would Gojo-sensei do?”
“He would threaten the higher-ups and then walk away laughing,” she deadpans.
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s going to work for me.” Yuuta rubs the back of his head again. “I’ll have to prove myself to them, earn their trust. And then…I’m going to need to figure out a way to get them off Itadori’s back.”
“You could kill him, then use your reverse curse technique to heal him.” She shrugs. “He’s had his heart ripped out before and lived. I bet he'd survive a nuclear apocalypse, like a cockroach.”
Yuuta sits up straighter, blinking.
“I was joking,” Maki says tightly.
“It could work, though.”
If she could, she would pinch the bridge of her nose. Instead, she tells him, “If you're actually considering it, you're more sleep deprived than I thought. Take a nap.”
Yuuta’s eyes, sunken and round, shine with humor. He chuckles under his breath as he stretches out his legs and leans back in his chair, arms crossed, head tipping back. His chest expands as he inhales and tries to get himself comfortable.
“Yeah, guess so.”
He's out like a light within seconds.
Maki takes the rare opportunity to study him while he sleeps. He’s changed a lot since she first met him. His frame used to show his anxiety and stress, a stiff breeze could have knocked him over. Now…
His shoulders are broader, stronger. He’s taller, too, she thinks. The muscles along his arms and chest have filled out a bit so he's not quite as lanky. He holds his katana with confidence. Just the way he walks is more secure. And his eyes, which used to project his insecurity and shy nature, have grown bolder.
Yuuta snores softly, adjusting himself before relaxing again.
Something settles deep in her gut, and after a few minutes Maki identifies the feeling as a mixture of surprise and happiness. She's truly impressed by him. Though she would rather eat rice porridge for a week than ever admit that to his face.
At some point, the door slides open. The nurse, whose name Maki discovered is Yume, scurries in to collect the trash from their lunches on the side table.
Yuuta’s knee twitches when she walks by him.
She glances down at his sleeping face and turns back to Maki with a stifled giggle. “He visits you every day,” she whispers. “I can tell your boyfriend really cares about you, Maki-chan.”
Maki feels every part of her body stiffen. Her skin is suddenly hot again. “He's not my boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Yume flushes, surely embarrassed to have misread things. Her eyes drift toward Yuuta again and she smiles. “Well, he still must care about you a lot. It's not comfortable sleeping in these chairs, you know.”
Maki just nods and waits for the nurse to leave again.
She knows.
Regardless of the hours he spends slaughtering curses, or the random errands Headquarters sends him on to prove his loyalty to them, Yuuta makes sure to see her. And the first few days, Maki found it kind of annoying. He’s a walking reminder of what she should be doing. But now, a week and a half into her recuperation, she’s given up on feeling annoyed.
His presence is just something she's come to expect.
He no longer knocks on her door. Instead, he pauses outside so she can sense his curse energy, then enters and sinks down into his chair beside her bed.
Today, it’s close to evening when he arrives. The light from the window is golden, painting everything in her room in yellow tones. Yuuta trudges in looking all too weary, eyes deep set and alarmingly apathetic. His expression matches the feel of his cursed energy that he can never seem to fully contain – dark and unnerving.
Maki is aware that it’s all an act, but it still catches her by surprise.
As soon as those grey eyes land on her, he melts into the Yuuta she knows. “They took off your bandages,” he observes.
“Yeah, but now I have to wear compression gear.”
Her arms, from wrist to shoulder, are encased in thick, elastic, cream-colored sleeves. A skin-tight shirt made of the same material covers her torso. Maki wishes she could say it’s better than wearing the bandages but it's not. She feels like someone has their giant first wrapped around her and is squeezing her like a tube of toothpaste. It's uncomfortable at best, painful at worst.
But the pressure is good for her still-healing burns that are now stable enough to tolerate the shearing that occurs from fabric against skin.
The only place free of compression is her face, because somehow, the burns aren’t as severe. Bandages still cover her right eye, though it’s about time to change them for the day.
“How’s Toge?” Maki asks.
Yuuta’s smile wilts into something a little sadder. “He’s awake. His arm is healing pretty well but the doctors say he needs to rest for a few more weeks before he can go back into the field.”
Ieri-sensei must be visiting him frequently, even more so than Maki, if that’s the case. A severed arm would take months to heal normally. But they don’t have months to wait for everyone to recover. Curses are still swarming Tokyo. More than a week has passed since the incident in Shibuya, and over five million curses are still wreaking havoc on the city.
If it were up to her, Maki would already be down there. But she has three more days left in her hospital confinement.
“He’s already training himself to use his right arm,” Yuuta continues. A tiny chuckle builds in his throat. “You should see him try to use chopsticks.”
Maki sighs, cracking a tiny smirk.
Toge will adjust. They all do – it's part of being a jujutsu sorcerer.
“It’s been decided,” Yuuta says suddenly. Although it's a sharp segway, Maki immediately understands what he is talking about just from reading his face. “I’ve been appointed as Itadori’s executioner. I leave tomorrow.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s been in Shibuya this whole time, cleaning up curses,” Yuuta says with no small amount of appreciation.
Of course he is, Maki thinks. He’s probably overwhelmed with guilt and trying to make up for it. And probably trying to avoid his friend, Fushiguro.
“I won’t be here when you get discharged. Sorry, Maki,” Yuuta apologizes, palming the back of his neck.
“Good. You’ve been bothering me every day since I got here,” she snorts. “I’ll finally get a day off.”
Yuuta just laughs.
By now, he’s used to her abrasive words and understands them for what they really are.
He settles himself, those grey eyes studying her once more. Almost a little too large for his face, something shines in their depths while they roam over her. Something Maki can’t quite place. He’s looked at her this way more than once and while she has a feeling it’s not the way one looks at a friend, she’s never called him on it.
She isn’t sure she wants to. Because then he might stop.
“Before I go, I can help you with that.” He gestures to her right eye and the bandages wrapped tightly around her skull. “It’s about time for you to change those, isn’t it?”
Maki almost scoffs at him. She can do that herself, especially now that she has the dexterity back in her fingers. But something stops her from saying so. Her tongue feels thick in her mouth and she swallows past the feeling.
“I can still clobber you with my pole staff, you know,” she mumbles.
Yuuta all but beams at her.
Why that makes him so happy, she doesn’t understand. Because she’s serious. Really.
Yuuta abandons his chair to lean onto her bed. “Turn around,” he instructs, voice tender.
Maki complies, facing the wide window and giving him her back. The hospital gown is open, held together by a flimsy knot at her nape, but the compression gear hides all of her skin so she doesn’t care what he sees. Familiar fingers sift through her hair, freshly washed from her shampooing at the sink this morning, and find the edge of her bandages.
A gentle tug and they begin to unravel.
Inch by inch, a white pile collects in her lap until her face is left bare. Yuuta’s hands hover over her shoulders, unsure of what to do next.
She hasn’t let him see her “new” face yet because she doesn’t want to see that look in his eyes – pity. She sees it in the face of every person who treats her, including Ieri-sensei. That is the sole reason she has always changed her bandages after he leaves. But today, for some reason…she feels compelled to let him see. It’s suddenly very important to her, as if his opinion matters.
It doesn’t, she immediately assures herself. But she wants to know, all the same.
Squaring her shoulders, Maki turns back around to face him. And finds her nose mere inches from his own. Apparently, he never backed away after taking her bandages off. Maki has to bite her tongue as she stares up into his eyes, reading them.
She searches for it – the pity – but finds nothing but familiar warmth. Yuuta looks at her like nothing has changed.
But things have, and she knows it.
Maki breaks first, leaning back an inch. “Naoya is going to love this.” She gestures to the pink welts that have taken over her face and the mess that is her right eye.
When the nurse first saw it, her initial reaction was to flinch.
It’s open, but milky and scarred. If she closes her left eye, all Maki can see are vague shapes in various shades of light and shadows. In time, Ieri-sensei has told her it will become completely blind. She’s more irritated by that than anything else because now she has to learn and account for a new blind spot while fighting.
But Yuuta… He doesn’t flinch away or grimace. If anything, he watches her face as if to study it and learn the new contours and ridges of her skin.
It’s strange.
And it makes Maki’s chest go tight for some reason.
“He always said my only good quality was my face. Now I don’t even have that.” She rolls her eyes.
“That’s not true,” Yuuta protests.
Maki blinks, taken aback by the heat in his voice. Then she chuckles. “Don’t worry. He’s an ass. I stopped giving a shit about what he thinks years ago.”
“Good.”
Yuuta is a friendly person by nature. He makes nice with just about anyone. So the sour look on his face is enough to give Maki pause. Even though they might not ever meet, Yuuta’s opinion of Naoya is loud and clear. What Maki wouldn't give to see Naoya suck up to him, only to be snubbed in that overly polite way Yuuta is so good at.
It would drive Naoya insane.
“You're smiling,” Yuuta says, and Maki freezes.
Sure enough, she feels the corners of her mouth have turned all the way up. The smile stretches the raw skin of her face. It hurts a little but if there is one thing Maki is used to, it's pain.
“That's the first time you've smiled.”
“Is it?” Maki ponders.
Yuuta nods and his shoulders slump in what looks like relief.
A sudden realization strikes Maki there in the dim light of her hospital room as she stares at Yuuta. This whole time…is that what he has been worried about? The world is crumbling all around them and he's concerned about whether or not she's smiling. It's completely ridiculous. But also very like him.
Terrifyingly powerful, unmatched on almost every level, and still soft-hearted underneath it all. His time in Kenya hasn't changed that, at least.
“You dumbass,” she mutters, oddly irritated.
“Huh?”
“Dumbass,” Maki repeats.
Yuuta gawks at her, obviously lost by the turn in her mood. He blinks a few times before settling back in his chair with a confused line between his brows.
Maki’s irritation melts at the look. “But thanks.”
The line deepens. He's even more confused.
Inhaling, she decides to change the subject. “After I'm discharged, we’ll meet up. It's been a long time since we’ve sparred and I need to make sure you didn't get rusty during your vacation in Kenya.”
That, he understands. And his grin makes his whole face glow.
“Sounds good to me.”
True to his word, when she's finally discharged, Yuuta is nowhere to be found.
“Okkotsu isn’t here?” Ieri-sensei observes, sounding puzzled.
Maki shrugs on her cape, a new adjustment to her uniform, and settles her glasses on the bridge of her nose.
It's the first time she's worn them in two weeks and they feel strangely out of place. Though that might also be because her right eye is still wrapped – she figures keeping it covered is for the best right now. The rest of her scars will draw enough attention as it is.
The call from Fushiguro came yesterday. He filled her in on the newest threat – this thing they are calling the culling game. Their enemy, a vile jujutsu sorcerer who they hypothesize is Noritoshi Kamo, has made his move. Her and Yuuta’s sparring session will have to wait, it seems.
“Odd,” Ieri-sensei continues. She hands Maki a clipboard.
Maki signs the discharge papers without even reading them. “He’s busy running an errand for the higher-ups.”
“Oh?” Ieri-sensei’s brown eyes spark in understanding. She takes the clipboard back after a moment and then sighs, a frustrated sound. “Well, whatever’s going on, I better not see either of you in my morgue. You understand? I’ve had more than enough of that this year.”
It’s strange that she automatically assumes Maki will be wherever Yuuta is. Then again, it isn’t that far-fetched of an assumption. Maki and Yuuta always end up gravitating toward each other.
“We’ll do our best,” she promises Ieri-sensei.
The older woman snorts, not at all persuaded.
Maki leaves the hospital that morning without looking back. Two weeks, she’s been sitting on her hands. She would be lying if she said she isn’t a little stir-crazy by now. Her fingers itch to feel the solid weight of a pole staff or katana. And though she no longer needs to wear the compression gear, her skin feels a little too tight, a little too new.
But she will adjust, because that’s what they do.
If anyone is proof of that, it’s Yuuta, she thinks with a smile. That smile quickly vanishes when she recalls his “mission” from Headquarters.
He better not actually try that ridiculous plan.