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Okkotsu Yuta is delicate, crooked into position with blunt hands as he sits, every appendage folded to shield his core. Even as he speaks, he keeps his gaze fixed downward, brow set against the knobby temple of his knees, sheltered in his arms. The world itself turned adversary, enmity on the wind, even the wind of his own breath, curdling the words of the brain and the wants of the heart. Everything a wound.
Still, he shudders, breath hitching when Gojou dangles the--not an olive branch, but the handle of the blade, a way through the pain by, not peace, but the workman’s carving of brimstone. He wants to be good. It reminds him of someone.
“Eh, you’re not close to your family, are you, Okkotsu?” The boy is startled, seemingly thrown off kilter by the non-sequitur.
“Um, Rika doesn’t let…” he staggers with furrowed brow, propping his chin on the cross of his arms. The tilt of his head indicates he’s going to search Gojou’s expression for approval, but the quick turn of his head, the heat settled high on the ridges of his cheeks make Gojou’s teeth flash in a grin. Generously, he reaches past his nape, begins unwinding the bandages, and besides--
“Yo,” Suguru dips in, batting away seals with his head cocked.
“Su~guru,” Gojou croons, turning to flash Getou his partially uncovered eye, a well of affection tearing his ribs as he watches the other stiffen in place, shoulders jumping and hands spasming in place with the feeling Gojou knows all too well, a desire to touch. He can’t help it, teleporting to his side on the next breath and clasping his hand to slide it into his pocket, bandages still hanging about his temples and drooping lamely over his cheeks.
Yuta’s expression freezes into a grimace, the furrow of his brow advanced into a full contortion of the face. Mostly confused, just a few degrees disgusted. Just like someone--or, two someones--he knows. Gojou wants to laugh again, leaning into Suguru’s space.
“Good timing”--his breath hitches, when Suguru moves to press a kiss to the juncture of his shoulder before taking one end of his wrappings in his teeth, pulling them loose with a vicious yank of the head and the aid of the hand not confined by Satoru’s own--”I-I was just about to ask if Okkotsu here wanted to go out with us tonight.”
Yuta’s expression goes frantic, fingers tightening in his shirtsleeves. This time, Getou laughs.
“I didn’t realize we had anything planned,” Suguru says, wrapping Gojou’s bandages about his fingers to spool them compact, a practiced roll of the wrist that makes Satoru’s heart dip.
“I just wanted ice cream,” Gojou pouts, squeezing Suguru’s palm from his pocket. “Would you mind getting the girls?” he grins when Suguru squeezes back, thumb mapping the ridges of his knuckles with an enduring warmth.
“Leaving the Fushiguro kids out tonight?” Suguru teases, and Gojou licks his lips, tilts his head toward Yuta in silent communication. Don’t want to overwhelm him. Suguru’s eyebrows lift, and he tucks the wad of wrapping in his pocket as he steps forward, Yuta watching the two’s step fall in sync, a single four-legged beast.
“Nice to meet you, Okkotsu,” Suguru says, offering the boy a hand, which he tentatively takes. Getou takes note of the quiver travelling his ulna, making his fingers twitch like fly’s legs. “I’m Getou Suguru, you’ll be seeing me around some. Welcome to the world of jujutsu.” His smile is warm, and his manner formal, yet without stiffness, and, again, Yuta is thrown off-kilter. He seems so different from the other man before him, and yet they stride in tandem, keep their hands linked, the white-haired one nestling his face against the line of Getou’s shoulder. Rika is restless, festering at the small of his back, nothing more than nervous energy clawing ice up his spine, suppressed by the force of the seals lining the walls, but he can hear her frantic whispers.
“Please don’t let this one get to you,” the smile again, smooth and glossy as obsidian. Rika’s voice like a knife in his ears. Gojou snickers, pinching at Suguru’s wrist in reprimand.
“I think some sugar might be good for him,” Gojou muses, watches from a distance as the boy acquaints himself with his quarters; he has few belongings, kept from sentimentality by Rika’s vicious possessiveness. Still, he is tidy.
It’s not the sugar he’s talking about. Suguru can tell, especially after so long, after such persistence and care in the tending of their bond. Gojou’s words are almost easier to decipher than his own.
Getou leans against the hall door with folded arms, kicks gently at Gojou’s ankles, “And some anti-depressants.” Gojou huffs a laugh, and Suguru rolls his shoulders, “Don’t think I didn’t notice the knife.”
“Ah, yeah, maybe,” Satoru says, words still kissed with laughter, throat warmed by Suguru’s presence. “Don’t you think the melancholy ones are cute, though?” Satoru turns his laughter on Suguru, catches the exasperated roll of his eyes and returns his teasing kick from earlier.
Suguru doesn’t humor him this time, rather uncrosses his arms, reaches across to cup Gojou’s face in a broad, warm palm, gaze steady.
“You’re playing dirty,” Satoru breathes, captured in the other’s stare, words smothered into a thrilled whine when their lips slot together.
“I’ll pick you two up after today’s lesson, okay? That’ll give the girls enough time to get ready.” He presses another kiss to Satoru’s temple, leaving his heart hammering as he slips away. Gojou closes his eyes, indulges the feeling with a happy sigh and the slow wringing of his hands--
Yuta stands at the other end of the kitchenette, uniform freshly donned and face flushed in full. Gojou freezes.
“All ready? Let’s go introduce you to your classmates, then! Whee!” He rambles, takes Yuta’s hand, full, brisk pace having his new student stumbling over his own ankles as he follows his teacher.
Yuta barely notices as Getou rounds the corner, his stride is short and controlled, but fast enough that his loafers squeak on the turn, nearly colliding with the bench as he makes down the hospital hall.
“I heard you were here,” he says, “Good to see you’re alright.” The tension at his shoulders, the terse set to his face dissipates as he meets Gojou’s eyes, the other man crossing and uncrossing his ankles in anticipation, a grin splitting his face. He moves to stand.
“Not you, I’m talking to Okkotsu.” Getou says, with a shake of the head, settling before them. Yuta can feel the cold imprint of the ring heavy on his finger, but Rika is quiet, perhaps mellowed by the day’s activities. Still, something of Getou unsettles her.
Yuta opens his mouth to reply, but Gojou, ever self-centered, gasps and brings a hand to his chest, mock-offense, “I didn’t realize you cared so deeply for my students, Suguru! Does that mean you already went to visit Maki?” Getou stiffens at that, fingers stilling at his sides.
Before the exchange can go any further, a buzzing can be heard, Getou digging through the pocket of his slacks.
“Hey, guys! Just a minute!” He tucks the handheld against his shoulder, softness in his tone, warmth in the edges of his words. “Yeah, of course… Uh-huh, I love you both, see you soon.” He lingers fondly on the dimming screen before pocketing his cellular.
“I hope you two are still up for sweets.” Getou says, looking up and lending a hand, to Yuta to help him from the bench. Yuta hesitates for a second--somewhat awkwardly, he accepts with his left so as to keep the ring from contacting Getou’s skin.
Gojou whines, reaching forward to set his forehead against Getou’s stomach as Yuta steadies himself, sliding his head petulantly along his abdomen as he rises himself. The motion causes Getou’s button-up to ride up, and Satoru flutters fingers along the bared skin of his lower back as he re-tucks it, making Suguru scoff and reach to kiss the other’s knuckles.
Getou turns back to Yuta, “Ah, I keep ignoring you. Sorry.” He says, scratching at the back of his head as he releases Satoru, receiving a push on the shoulder from the other. There is still unease stirring in Yuta--there is promise in those words, a glint of something greater, a for now --but the day has exhausted him too deeply to keep him from doing much contemplation, to keep him from doing much more than following the pair out to one of the technical school’s sedans.
“Um, there’s--” Yuta starts, looking up at Getou as he stands, holding the back passenger-side door open for Yuta’s convenience.
“Hi!” The first girl chirps, pale curls extending from the edges of her fringe to frame her face, smile sly.
“Oh, he really is cursed.” the other one says, bangs slanting as she tilts her head to give Yuta a hard look.
“Yeah, super cursed for sure,” the first says, sliding inwards to offer Yuta a seat. Rika’s murmurings start up, girls, somewhere deep in his cranium and bleeding out his ears, gooey-wet and white-hot in a way that he’s sure he’s oozing malice, already feeling her extreme displeasure. He looks to Getou for guidance--only his own reflection in that serene, volcanic glass smile. He sits.
Nanako and Mimiko bracket him in the fading light, watching as the shadows of the men standing paces away--Nanako had demanded their distance, watching them sharing a cone too “gross” for her--stretch long enough to brush their toes.
“You guys aren’t…?” he mutters, words frail and wisping in the ambiance, two hands cupped around his cone. The silence stretching between them has let Rika’s drone into his head again, grounding him to an unfortunate reality, in which his enjoyment--his life, even--is unconditionally at the expense of others.
“Scared?” Mimiko supplies, repositioning her hands about the doll in her lap so as to keep her cup of sherbert from leeching condensation onto the cloth of the poppet.
“No way,” Nanako flips her pony-tail on her shoulder, angling to take a bite at her cone that makes Yuta’s teeth sting in phantom pain. Something of it is painfully mundane, Rika’s haunting somehow made a footnote against the crisp wind of the evening, the idle chatter and the eager hands and shared smiles as Yuta gets caught in the current of the outing. He hasn’t hurt anyone here.
“Shishou is the strongest,” they say, in tandem, the light of Nanako’s phone dissipating as the sun dips just right along the skyline, world lighting in glossy, citrus tones, blurring the evening with its dreamlike sheen. Nanako mutters a delighted ooh as she snakes a hand across Yuta’s back to find Mimiko’s, and Mimiko lifts the spoon to her mouth with a soft smile.
“Ah, that’s what sensei says about himself, too.” Yuta says, listening intently to their replying giggles.
Still, they’re not afraid. He lifts his gaze to his sensei, watching him curl around the other man. There is no hesitation in any of them, here, living with body, mind, heart, soul in step. He misses his own little sister. Even now, everything a wound. Even with his resolve, to free Rika, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, does nothing but shift his gaze again to watch the ice cream drip over the lines of his knuckles, slide uncomfortably down his palms. Still, he hopes.
“Oh, no,” Mimiko says, “They’re kissing now.”
(Yuta’s life is still his own, of course, and Rika’s gnarled arm reaches from somewhere in the interstices of reality, twisted and cruel. Before he can stutter his way through a warning, the air around them whips, Rika’s arm caught in the jaws of some hulking beast, writhing with thousandfold scales shimmering in a pattern that dizzies Yuta even more than his sudden displacement--he is yards away, with the girls another yard or two beyond, tight to Satoru’s chest and their respective treats hovering in the air.
“Suguru, don’t waste the food! I paid for those!” He barks, reaching out to grab Yuta’s drifting cone and give it a bite--ah, that’s where Nanako’s habit seems to stem from.
“I got excited, sorry!” Suguru trills, grin delighted and not the least bit repentant, stepping forward to press his fingers against Rika’s claw, sliding around to find the joint of wrist and testing the flex of muscle. “Wow…” he mutters to himself, rubbing the viscous substance that drips from her nails between thumb and forefinger. Yuta can feel Rika’s shrieking as she dematerializes.
He understands just a little bit better now, the ember of hope settling in his chest burning a few shades brighter.)