Chapter Text
It had been too long.
He was taller now, Toge first noticed. His hair had grown too, framing all the sculpted sharp edges of his face. Even his posture wasn’t anything Toge remembered. Okkotsu Yuuta now bore the confidence of a war hero standing victor through millennia of ceaseless bloodshed and death. Lifeless, yet brimming with the animalistic hunger for violence.
Toge almost shivered in fear.
But he knew Yuuta. Yuuta would never hurt him. Not in this lifetime. Not even in the next and the others that would follow, he was certain.
He watched as Yuuta took tentative but undeniably eager steps towards him, eyes glinting under the moonlight streaming past the blinds. He could hear the words Yuuta couldn’t say, see how he grappled with a hundred emotions all at once at the sight of Toge terribly incapacitated, bandaged up with ancient seals as old as the malevolent curse that had done him in. There was blinding anger, searing so hot Toge could almost feel it burning away at his skin.
Yuuta kneeled in front of him, still wordless. There was a storm brewing in his eyes, brutal and destructive, yet the fingers that touched his arm were nothing but a whisper of a butterfly’s wings. Warmth spread through him like a lenient wildfire—the golden sunrise after decades of sullen clouds.
Toge couldn’t help the shaky huff of air that escaped him. It was so, so Yuuta. Terrifying and endearing all the same.
He was here. He was home.
It had been too long.
He was reminded of all the cold, restless nights of longing in silence—how he wished Yuuta was there to caress the nightmares away, to breathe reverent promises on his skin as they lay awake under the foliage of mellow stars. He remembered the ever growing hollowness in his chest each time the call had to end, each time Yuuta had hurriedly muttered I gotta go, but never without I miss you, I miss you so much.
Toge grew up believing words were nothing but a ruthless impetus for peril, a deadly poison without cure. Yet the nights in which he sat alone listening to Yuuta’s sweet, sweet ones, he desperately held onto them like a lifeline—had them tucked away in his heart to keep himself afloat when the ache flooded his lungs.
But Yuuta was here to ground him at last, and Toge felt as though could finally breathe again.
Except he couldn’t. Not when Yuuta had spoken the last words Toge had expected him to say, and suddenly, like nothing had changed at all, Toge was back underwater with nothing to anchor him.
“I will kill him,” Yuuta said, voice as barren as the cracked earth of a wasteland, and he ought to seek out the glimmering oasis in the distance—Itadori Yuuji’s blood on his hands.
It was nothing short of a fact that Toge was a man of few words, but this time, this time, he was entirely rendered speechless with no amount of safe words to convey any of the things he meant to say.
He reached out to the hand that touched him, gripped hard enough to hurt. God, he hoped it would. Anything to wake Yuuta up from whatever this madness was. Anything to bring him back to his senses. Anything. Anything. Anything.
There was none he could do against the flaring resolve coming off of Yuuta in deadly waves.
With his blood wildly rushing in his ears, Toge almost missed the quiet apology whispered into the space between them that seemed galaxies apart. But Yuuta said it again. And again. And again.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have been there. I failed to protect all of you. I’m so sorry, Inumaki.
Yuuta’s forehead rested at the top of Toge’s thighs, shoulders minutely shaking as his barely held sobs echoed around the darkness of the room.
He swallowed through the thick of tears threatening to burst forth.
It wasn’t your fault. Please don’t cry.
Toge’s mouth moved but it was devoid of any word, of any sound. What would he even say? He doubted his meager onigiri semantics could offer the slightest touch of comfort to the crumbling boy in front of him. Toge felt pathetic, never felt so useless in his life, but his lone hand seemed to think otherwise. It was all purely on instinct, on muscle memory born out of countless moments where he had to let his body speak for himself, the only way he knew how.
In the way his hand reached out to card his fingers through Yuuta’s ebony locks. Soothing, he hoped. Grounding, he prayed. He felt the boy melt under his touch—the stone cold façade thawing out until he was stripped down to his core, open and vulnerable.
Yuuta’s arms circled around his waist, warm like the hearth, like home, and Toge all but ached to melt with him.
Dark, cold eyes looked up at him then.
Toge had always thought Yuuta held the entire cosmos in his eyes, with the way they glimmered so beautifully when golden sunbeams fell on deep, deep blues. When quiet, silver rays illuminated them on sleepless nights. Even when they used to quiver and glisten in fear in the face of a curse, Toge found them fascinating still. But this time, there were no galaxies, no iridescent cosmic dust, no painted constellations on the azure canvas.
It was the picture of a dying star thousands and thousands of miles away, and Toge wanted so badly to get close to it, hold it dearly, even if it destroyed him. But he was merely a human observing it through the eyes of the lens, and he could only watch as the star exploded, angry and bitter, in the vast empty space that he could never reach.
He tried, nonetheless, his hand slowly finding its way down to hold Yuuta’s face. It was as soft as he remembered it, an unsettling contrast to the roughness of the body he had grown into. Nothing compared to the harsh, jagged premises of his cruelty.
Please don’t do it, he silently pleaded, hoping Yuuta could grasp the desperation in his eyes, the frantic shake of his head. After all, Yuuta had never once failed in unravelling even the tightest knots wounded around his heart, and Toge doubted he would start now.
The corners of Yuuta’s mouth twitched, unkind and cynical, and Toge knew he had lost the fight way before it had even begun.
“I don’t care who he is, Inumaki. He will pay with his life.”
Toge’s hand fell, disappointment and hopelessness uncoiling awfully in his gut. Not even the hurt in Yuuta’s eyes at his sudden retreat could tame it, because this—
This wasn’t Yuuta.
Whoever this man was in front of him wasn’t the same boy he had met a year ago. The boy he knew had much more life to him, vibrant and glowing amidst the darkness that surrounded him when he first arrived. Toge had seen through it, seen Yuuta for who he really was. The Yuuta who laughed, all crinkled eyes and wide mouth, at the dumbest of antics Panda and Toge had pulled. The Yuuta who carried all the tenderness in the world as Toge showed him the blood red carnations blooming in the small garden, speaking to them in whispers as though he was afraid he would scare them off into wilting. The Yuuta who was warm and safe when he held Toge in his arms as they waited for the haunting of past ghosts to pass in the cold of the night.
As Toge went back a year in his head, he thought: Did he really change though? Was this all new to Yuuta? This sick, newfound violence that seemed to control him more than he controlled it, had it always been there?
A distant memory flashed in his mind, of blood on concrete, of broken skin and broken bones, of desperation sitting heavy on his tongue as he called out Yuuta’s name, channeling the remaining cursed energy buzzing faintly in his veins to tell Yuuta to run for his life.
Toge understood then, as the anguish in Yuuta’s voice echoed vividly against the walls of his mind, heard it just as clear as if he were there again bleeding on the school grounds, clutching onto the last strings of his consciousness.
(I’ll fucking kill you!)
Yuuta was who he had always been.
Only he was misdirected by the same blinding rage, obstructing every sense of rationality, leading him to his own twisted version of justice. Yuuji didn’t have a hand in all this—the boy was just as much of a collateral damage as him, and Toge would stop at nothing to make Yuuta understand, even if it meant breaking his own vow of never subjecting Yuuta to the unforgiving curse of his serpent tongue.
To save Yuuji’s life. To save Yuuta from himself.
He had to. He had to—
“Yuuta,” he said at last, the name pleasantly weighing thick and saccharine in his mouth. The stutter in Yuuta’s breath was deafening in the suffocating stillness of the room, and Toge could see, even in the darkness, the long buried yearning seeping through the cracks of his frigid mask. Toge wanted to tell him that he knew.
I know how it feels like. I know, I know.
It had felt all kinds of wonderful to say his name—like the first light of spring, the gentle stream of crisp water after the glaciers had melted, the sweet unfurling of flushed petals in a sea of green—yet his heart stayed leaden at the pressing awareness that it was no different from the first time he had said it.
It carried the same desperation, the same intent, the same paralyzing dread.
If only things had turned out differently, Toge thought a little helplessly, if only he had been more careful, if only he had been wise enough to measure the extent of danger the king of curses was capable of. He knew none of them could have predicted it, but Toge remained deeming himself a fool.
Unsure what to say next, he merely watched as Yuuta took his hand again and held it to his face, breathing in deeply and closing his eyes as though he was struggling to not fall apart and have Toge pick up the pieces for him.
Because that was Yuuta. Dumb, stupid, selfless Yuuta, who would never think twice to offer himself in someone’s stead, to carry their burden for them and hurt for them, to die for them. If Toge hated one thing about him—and he didn’t think it was possible to hate something about his perfect, wonderful Yuuta—it was how he had so little regard for himself.
How could a person be so selfish and selfless all at once?
“Does he matter to you that much?” Yuuta was looking at him now, and the bitterness in his eyes was a sledgehammer against the brittle glass that was Toge’s heart. “To have you speak my name again like that. What’s so special about him, Inumaki?”
A hundred answers he knew weren’t adequate to quench Yuuta’s bloodthirst ran through his head.
He’s just like you. Remember? Remember? You should know what it’s like.
He wasn’t in control of the curse. You should know what it’s like.
They want him gone, and you’re helping them—the very same people who wanted you dead.
You should know. You should know, Yuuta.
But words had never failed him so spectacularly in his life.
“Yuuta,” he all but tried again, repressing the slightest trickle of curse behind his teeth, but Yuuta wasn’t done just yet.
“You know I can’t just let him get away with—with this, right? I can’t do that. I can’t just sit here when you’re—"
Yuuta cut himself off. There was dampness under Toge’s fingertips again where it nestled warmly on Yuuta’s cheek, and right there, in the dead quiet of November, Toge let himself break.
He fell forward and let himself crumble against the curve of Yuuta’s neck, let himself be smothered in the familiar warmth of Yuuta’s embrace.
When Toge had imagined himself back in Yuuta’s arms again, this was a far cry from what he had pictured. He had thought of tears—that much was given—but it was of swelling happiness and relief, not of sickening despair that seemed to eat away at his insides until he was nothing but a carcass of everything he had ever hoped for. He had thought of smiles—sweet, secret smiles that they had reserved only for each other—not of empty stares and jaded twists of their lips.
There was no way around it now—no one could talk Yuuta out of it, not even the strongest spellcaster could stop him from the unnecessary bloodshed that would fall on his hands.
Yet, Toge willed himself to speak again. Maybe if he begged enough, Yuuta would listen. Maybe. Maybe.
“Please, Yuuta,” he whispered into the boy’s skin, and the arms that cradled him only held him close, closer, closer, until all Toge could feel was Yuuta. Yuuta’s skin on his skin. Yuuta’s lips on his hair. Yuuta’s tears on his neck.
Yuuta. Yuuta. Yuuta.
Who knew we would hurt each other like this?
“No,” Yuuta said quietly, but the resolve lacing the word was thunderous in his ears. “No, I care about you too much to let this go. I don’t care if they’re only using me. I don’t fucking care, Inumaki.”
Toge knew this, of course he did, and the claws that seized his heart only tightened, sinking so deep he could no longer feel anything.
This will be your downfall, he thought, letting his quiet sobs fill the silence that followed. I won’t let that happen, Yuuta. Not to you. Never you.
Yuuta was the first to pull away, taking Toge’s face in his hands. Glistening, amethyst eyes fluttered shut as Toge allowed himself this moment of respite, basking in the solace of being so achingly close after a year apart, committing every gentle pattern drawn by Yuuta’s fingertips on his skin to memory.
Suddenly, there were warm, warm lips on his lashes—light, intimate, him—and they trailed down, down to his cheek where his seal sat salient, leaving blazing kisses in its wake that dried his tears.
Oh, and how he hated that mark on his skin. The mark that signified the grave misfortune of the Inumaki clan. The mark that outcast him from his bloodline. The mark that brought upon more harm than good.
A curse indeed, he thought bitterly, but Yuuta—Yuuta never saw it the way he did.
Yuuta had never gone a night without adoring the seal with his lips, and Toge had slowly learned to accept it—truly, fully accept it as a part of himself.
It’s a part of who you are, Yuuta had said, tracing the seal with his thumb, his eyes holding such firm conviction Toge had no choice but to believe him. And I love it all the same because it’s you.
Toge was badly trembling by the time Yuuta had left the last kiss on his lips—a promise, an oath of death sealed with their longing mouths, a binding vow.
“I have to go,” Yuuta murmured against his lips, and Toge’s hand reflexively clung tighter to Yuuta’s arm because you can’t—you can’t go. Why do you always have to? Will it always be like this?
But Yuuta only took his hand and whispered a kiss upon it one last time before standing up, and Toge could only watch in horror as Yuuta turned his back, heading straight to the door.
In a moment of sheer, mind-numbing panic that Toge himself rarely fell victim to, he swiftly got on his feet and felt cursed energy surge in his veins, thrumming in his blood, in his throat, in his mouth.
The words were out before he could think.
“Don’t move.”
Yuuta stopped dead in his tracks, his hand hovering just above the handle, and Toge’s regret had instantly reared its hideous head, mocking him, taunting him. His tongue felt like sandpaper, scratching every surface of his mouth. There was a faint taste of copper, and he wondered if those were wounds from the shards of his heart that violently shattered in his chest.
He had done it.
The serpent tongue striking the person he loved the most.
Or at least, it was what he let himself believe, because in the split second where he thought it had worked, Yuuta was already moving and facing him again, utter disbelief and hurt setting his eyes ablaze.
“You know that doesn’t work on me,” he simply said, like the betrayal pressing in on them wasn’t so palpable, so stifling that Toge had to clutch at his chest—approached him so easily like a fissure hadn’t broken out in the space where trust had bounded them.
Yuuta stopped just a mere inch away, towering over him—all renewed confidence and power. He would have looked terrifyingly lethal in somebody else’s eyes, but to Toge, all he saw was the boy who had been torn apart countless times by his own steadfast loyalty, his own unwavering devotion to the people he cherished.
Toge almost laughed at the foolishness of it all, felt it bubbling at the back of his throat—hollow and acrid—because god fucking dammit how could he forget?
Yuuta, who had only screamed his throat raw summoning Rika, had ignored Toge when he’d specifically told him to run, like he hadn’t heard anything at all. How could he forget how the command fell on deaf ears in the blaring cry of Yuuta’s rage?
It was all so stupid. Never had he let his feelings get the best of him, but why—why is it so damn impossible with Yuuta?
“To think you’d go so far as using that against me,” Yuuta chuckled mirthlessly. Toge’s regret amplified tenfold. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
Stunned into silence, he feebly watched as Yuuta leaned down until his breath ghosted over his ear, and recognized a second too late the swirl of familiar, heavy cursed energy around him. His hand shot out blindly, spurred by the debilitating urgency to stop the inevitable, but Yuuta’s voice, low and biting, had already invaded his consciousness.
“Sleep.”
Everything felt light. He felt light, like floating, weightless in the stream of the rapidly fading reality. His face had landed on something firm, but warm. So, so warm. It smelled of pinecone trees, of cheap cold brewed coffee from the school’s vending machine, of cozy threadbare linens in Yuuta’s room.
Yuuta.
Yuuta.
Toge supposed, quite distantly, that he might have spoken the name again out loud. It was hard to tell, however, with the swarming static in his head, and the ringing in his ears—piercing at first, but slowly dwindling into a tickling hum. In the haze of the curse, the broken, hushed I’m sorry was painfully crystalline, but before he had yielded to the darkness that welcomed him, Toge faintly thought: There’s nothing to forgive.