Chapter Text
Yuuji doesn’t know what it is, but there’s a palpable difference in how he feels before and after their meeting with Tengen. As their crew makes for the secret door across campus, following Choso’s lead, there’s a sense of purpose that keeps Yuuji awake and light on his feet. Fushiguro is by his side, walking noticeably slower so that he matches his stride.
They’ve just reunited with Maki again. And, the guy who killed and resurrected Yuuji looks even more unrecognizable now. Yuuji thought he’d felt the extent of his whiplash back then, when he went from seeing the not-so-pearly gates to staring wide-eyed at that big goofy smile.
These past few days Okkotsu had been little more than a strange, drooping, mildly terrifying wallflower. All that aside, he smiled occasionally and seemed nice enough--even friendly--but something about him still felt dark and unnerving. Now, he bounds in his step around Maki like some clumsy puppy. He’s upright and tall, waving his hands with emotion as he explains something. For a second Yuuij really forgets that this guy stabbed him through the chest, playing double agent and carrying out the will of the elders because Sukuna had wiped out entire city blocks in seconds.
Maki cracks a smile and flicks Okkotsu upside the nose, and Yuuji feels a question bubble up in his throat that he just can’t keep to himself.
“Hey--hey Fushiguro,” he says, stopping as the rest of the group waits for Choso to choose which side of a forked path to take. His voice lowers to a whisper. “Did...do uh, Okkotsu-senpai and Maki have some kind of--you know...thing?”
Before Shibuya, Fushiguro wouldn’t have flinched at the question. Now he closes his eyes, raising his eyebrows and taking in a deep and exasperated breath. Yuuji smiles, feeling proud. Like he hit the nail on the head. In reality, he struck out hard and just doesn’t know it yet.
“Why don’t you ask her then?” Fushiguro says, actually thinking about how it has only been a week and yet he’s desperately missed Itadori’s stupid questions. He opens one eye. “Jealous?”
Yuuji leans into him, standing up on his toes so he can wrap a strong arm around Fushiguro’s shoulders.
“You know I can’t do that!” For a second it almost feels like the taller boy is pushing back into his half-embrace, reciprocating the gesture. Yuuji figures he’s imagining it. It still feels really good, though.
“Lamentable. Your brother picked a new route, let’s go.”
After he was resurrected some days ago, Yuuji had put in every effort to touch Fushiguro in small ways. A pat on the back, a fistbump to his bicep. Fushiguro didn’t seem to mind and hadn’t swatted him away even once. Yuujii was glad. Maybe this not hating himself for what Sukuna did-thing was going to work out for once. He hoped that maybe Fushiguro would hate himself a little less in the process, too.
---
Not long after their meeting with the Omniscient One, Yuuji finds himself wandering the grounds of Jujutsu Tech. This Death Migration thing is no joke, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it for the rest of the day. Some plans were discussed. There was talk of starting bright and early in the morning, so everybody should get some rest or something. Before he knew it, Yuuji was alone outside. He hasn’t been alone in a week at least, with some exceptions.
What a fucking week.
Part of him wants to reminisce, take this time to soak in Jujutsu Tech. Ruminate over the good times and how maybe he took them for granted. Beat himself up for a little bit before slipping down a crazy slope into some killer revelation about himself. Protagonist stuff.
Instead, Yuuji feels like he’s floating in some humid, thick bath. The evening air is comfortable, but because it’s comfortable he feels nothing. After meandering aimlessly for a while he looks down at one of his hands and notices that it feels far away. That is his hand, right?
He sighs, bumping his back up against a wall before closing his eyes. The pressure against his spine feels nice even if the wood framing is a little rough. He finds some comfort from digging his toes into the front of his shoes and rocking back on his heels, pushing them hard into the ground.
Just as he feels himself returning to earth from whatever dissociative orbit that was, his heart leaps at someone calling him and a firm shoulder bumping against his. Despite her choice of words, Maki’s voice comforts Yuuji in a way he can’t really explain.
“You look like shit. Christ.”
Yuuji smiles half-heartedly, rolling his head just enough to look at her with minimal effort. He still feels so heavy all over, but his chest fills with fondness.
Not everybody looks so badass after coming back from the dead!
He doesn’t expect Maki--the one covered in third-degree burn scars--to ask him, “Well, do you feel as bad as you look?”
His eyes narrow and shoot to the ground and he furrows his brows because, yeah, he does. Yuuji hasn’t had more than a handful of complete thoughts in the last hour. But he feels like a cold and wet sack of potatoes that are starting to sprout. Stale and clumsy and not quite all there.
“You look like--I don’t know. Like you need a hug or something.” Maki says, so quietly that Yuuji wouldn’t have noticed had she not simultaneously elbowed him.
“Is it that obvious?” Yuuji mumbles, crossing his arms and rubbing the sole of his shoe against a knot in the wood planking beneath him.
Of course this whole thing messed her up too. And she’s comforting me? Bet she feels as bad as she looks, too. Fuck.
It takes a couple seconds to register that Maki is just there, standing in front of him, arms wide open like awkward brackets. But then she’s fast, and Yuuji chokes on whatever words try to clamber out of his mouth when she crushes him against her chest.
He can’t help but return an equally formidable squeeze, burying his cheek against the stiff cape draped over her shoulders.
It’s hard to breathe, but this hug is fantastic. It feels like the perfect handshake meets a cold shower. The kind that snaps you back into focus. Yuuji thinks that this must be what it feels like to step up out on the field at the World Series, crowds cheering as you knock your bat against the plate. Soon he feels Maki’s chuckle rumble through him. She slaps him on the back before stepping away.
A glint in her eye and a sly smirk tells him that she needed that, too.
“Better?”
Yuuji smiles ear-to-ear, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. “A little, yeah…Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides, I don’t do it all that often.” Maki shrugs and motions in one direction, like she plans on going somewhere and is silently coaxing Yuuji to join her. “Can’t stack up to Yuuta on the hug-front though.”
Yuuji follows and can’t contain his surprise. “Okkotsu-senpai gives good hugs?”
“Only second to Panda, yeah! He has to really care about you for it to be worth it though.” Maki laughs, crossing her arms as they make their way down a familiar path. Yuuji remembers that this way leads to Shoko’s infirmary but immediately buries the thought. Isn’t this his chance to ask Maki that burning question after all? Yuuji thinks that dying by Maki's hand after asking her a dumb question would at the very least be funny.
“This is gonna sound weird and--” Yuuji throws his hands up immediately in defense, “--and I promise I’m not hitting on you, OK? So--”
Maki halts and raises a singed eyebrow. Yuuji nearly trips over himself and stammers, pushing his question out as fast as he can. He has no idea why he even cares about this, but he’s in too deep now.
“OK see--don’t give me that look! So, like, Okkotsu-senpai kind of did kill me before bringing me back to life. And he still confuses me because he really isn’t too bad...but I was just wondering if...He seems really extra around you and so are you...you know...like that?”
Yuuji stands up straighter and pushes a fist into his other palm, all of a sudden putting on a serious face. People tell Yuuji that he’s strong. He is strong--one of the strongest people on the planet! And right now he feels like he’s about to hit that big homerun. Really knock it out of the park. Connect some silly dots with his friends. Feel like there is some light in this world that feels so tense, distorted, and dark.
He doubts everything he’s ever been told now as he nearly squeaks, “I don’t know him--but I’ll kick his ass if he treats you badly.”
He can nearly hear himself whiff the bat through the air as Maki doubles over, tears quickly filling the corners of her eyes as she laughs herself hoarse, voice echoing through the silent void of the campus.
“Y-Yuuta? Oh--Oh god, Yuuji!” She leans up against another wall for support as Yuuji’s mouth gapes open and closed.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love Yuuta. He’s a great guy.” Maki pushes her glasses up with one hand while wiping the tears from her uncovered eye with her coat. “But we’ve got separate gigs. Oh--you got me there, you really did. I haven’t really laughed all week and I just--pfffft.”
Feeling dumb and fed up, Yuuji rolls his eyes and grabs Maki’s arm, pulling her along in the direction he assumes she wants to go. “I get it, I get it. And you’re welcome, I guess.”
He can’t stay mad for long as she shoves him off, laughter slowly trickling away. “Where are we going, anyway?”
Remembering that she did have a destination in mind, Maki says nothing for a few moments so she can recollect herself and straighten out her attire. She rights her belt and collar before cracking her neck from side to side.
“I was gonna go see Nobara.” Her voice quiets again, as though she doesn’t want anyone to hear. “You just got here. So I bet you haven’t been in there yet?”
It’s not that Yuuji had forgotten. Everything just happened so fast, and then he was alone. Then he felt like he wasn’t anywhere. Now he’s here again, and he’s alive and Nobara might not be for long.
Before he can stop himself, he says “I haven’t. Can we change the subject?”
Still intuitively making their way to the infirmary, Maki nods and says nothing.
After some time, Yuuji realizes that Maki isn’t going to give him another point of conversation at all, so he asks, “Then who gives the worst hugs? Fushiguro?”
His face is genuinely soft and curious, but Maki’s whole body stiffens and shivers with a sort of disgust as she clenches her teeth together. For a second Yuuji thinks she’s going to drop dead.
Oh god--is it me? Did I just kill Maki with--
“Toge gives the worst hugs. The worst!” Turning the last corner before the infirmary, Maki throws her arms up in the air and groans. “Twerp-ass-snake always has something up his sleeve. Look away from a second and he’ll get his arms around you and next thing you know--”
All of the blood drains from Maki’s face.
Take that back-- now she looks like she’s going to drop dead.
“You don’t know...”
She stares at Yuuji before covering her mouth with a hand. He tips his head to the side, confused. Were Inumaki’s hugs really that bad?
Maki turns and grips the handle to the infirmary, her face regaining a harsh seriousness.
She says “Just don’t make a face when you see. Keep your cool, alright?” before swinging the door open. She steps in so fast that Yuuji has to jog behind her to keep up.
---
“Ha, thought we’d find you here!”
Maki addresses someone to the side, her tone like night and day from two seconds before, but her voice sounds like it’s leagues away underwater. Yuuji is busy darting his eyes around the room looking for Nobara’s bed. Would there be tubes all over? Should he be careful not to trip over anything? Should he have brought something? Nothing is really registering as his heart pounds hard in his chest. He’s floating again, pulled back and forth by a slow, invisible tide.
Every time someone’s been injured on their missions Shoko has managed to get them out of the infirmary before a visit was necessary. They could walk to their room to finish recovering. Yuuji hasn’t ever personally been in here for that long. His body had lain in a morgue some distance away all those months ago. The last time he was in a hospital was when his grandpa died. Before that? Maybe when his dad died. How old was he when that happened? Was he actually there to witness it? This all--
“Oh for the love of--Yuuji!” Maki drags him back down to this plane again. He feels her tug him by the arm to the far right side of the space. The infirmary is nondescript aside from the handful of curtains and beds that cut it into sections.
Yuuji is surprised that Nobara’s bed is actually pretty tidy and clear of machines. After seeing her face blown to bits he expected her to be fitted to some kind of mech. Instead her vitals are monitored just with the basics, and IV bends out and away from her arm. An oxygen mask covers her mouth. Unlike Maki, who wears a bandage across her face because there’s presumably something under there that might function if it heals properly, what is left of Nobara’s left eye-socket is exposed but heavily scarred over. Shoko’s handiwork was helpful after all.
“Will she be OK?” the words leave Yuuji’s mouth before he thinks them. He hovers a hand over Nobara, anxious that one touch could do something irreparable somehow. Her face is gaunt and her lips are dry from the oxygen.
“Shoko says that Nobara’s gotta do it all on her own now. She's not sure how bad the brain damage really is.” Maki slides her arm across Yuuji to grab Nobara’s hand, showing that it won’t hurt her as she runs a thumb over it. It doesn’t really prove much, since Yuuji doesn’t think he’s ever seen her be so gentle.
“It's even more complicated with cursed energy users apparently. She’s stable, but that could change.” Maki sidesteps Yuuji now to whisper into Nobara’s ear, tightening the limp hand in her grip.
“Hey there, small fry. I don’t know how long I can babysit these two. Wake up soon so I can take off, hm?”
“I love Yuuta...but we’ve got separate gigs.”
Those words from earlier grow in Yuuji’s mind. Something blossoms in his heart and he feels his face tingle as the realization floods over him. Seeing Maki pull back, her one olive eye glossing over as she buries her smile so that nobody can see--it makes Yuuji blush and smile with a special kind of joy.
Maki looks at him with a “What’s that face for?” before rolling her eyes and walking off with a huff. As though he just imagined that whole thing. He figures it’s OK to enjoy this expression for a little while longer. He notices how clammy his hand is as he rests it over Nobara’s, hoping it warms up before she notices and scolds him for how gross it feels.
Kugisaki...you know I want you to be OK. Rest up. Get better. But maybe wake up when Maki-senpai is here by your side. I couldn’t forgive myself if she was off dying somewhere right when you legit get to live again. Coming back from the dead probably sucks if you wake up alone.
Yuuji makes his way to the exit entranced and without another thought. Luckily though, today everyone’s taking it upon themselves to yank him out of his episodes and reveries before he can really crash and drown.
This time the line that hooks him is the metallic scrape of a curtain rattling open and a shrill “Pssst ...Psst. Tsuna. Tsuna mayo!” Followed by a hushed and surprised “Toge--he’s probably got somewhere to be or--oh, hello Itadori-kun!”
Yuuji doesn’t know where to look. The short speech user sits in another bed. Even sitting down, Okkotsu’s imposing and sharp form blocks most of Yuuji’s sightline. Inumaki’s bright purple eyes just barely peek over Okkotsu’s shoulder as he frantically waves his right hand over his head, obviously trying to catch Yuuji’s attention before he’s out of range.
“Tsuna!”
Of course Yuuji’s smile widens as he completely forgets about Okkotsu, appearing at the opposite side of the bed in only a few leaps.
“Inumaki-senpai, hey--”
“Just don’t make a face when you see. Keep your cool, alright?”
A whistle rings in some lofty space between Yuuji’s ears. Sukuna leaves him well enough alone most of the time because he saves his cruelest remarks for the most opportune moments.
“Wonder how that happened, huh? Consider me speechless. I wouldn’t be so spunky after losing an arm. Helps to have three spares, you know! Ha!”
With the exception of maybe once while eating, Yuuji doesn’t think he’s ever seen Inumaki’s actual, real, toothy smile. His eyes are all that are usually visible. Something about seeing him sporting a cheeky grin is too much when there are yards of eerie cursed text wrapping around his shoulder and down the stump of his left arm.
The strength drains from Yuuji’s legs and he plops down in a circular rolling chair on that side of the bed. There’s really only a thin, clear string pinning him to reality. And if he’s not careful he thinks he’ll pass out and wake up to a sight of the clouds. A balloon sitting helplessly in the atmosphere until it deflates and disappears, its shriveled corpse falling into the ocean somewhere. Location unknown to anyone. Nothing to recover.
The melting of his expression from giddy to apathetic doesn’t escape Inumaki or Okkotsu and Yuuji does the only thing he can do so as not to burst into tears out of surprise and fatigue. He skips five conversational steps that fly by in his head, not bothering to explain:
“The power that you bear is not your own. You aren’t to blame.”
“Don’t act like everything is normal! Like nothing happened!”
“I killed people! Because of me, lots of people died!”
“It’s our fault. Don’t be selfish and give up all alone.”
Not a thought, but a feeling. It feels like everything, and then nothing. A sparkler that spits twice, three times, and then burns out.
“Do you want me to apologize, Inumaki-senpai?”